The Unlikely Spy(93)
It was a disaster. Without the caissons acting as a breakwater, the entire Mulberry project was unworkable. They needed someone to go to the construction sites first thing in the morning to make a realistic assessment of whether the Phoenixes could be completed on time, someone who had overseen large projects and knew how to make design modifications in the field once construction was under way.
They chose the former chief engineer of the Northeast Bridge Company, Commander Peter Jordan.
35
LONDON
The Hyde Park shooting made the first editions of the London evening papers. All the papers printed quotes from the bogus police statement. Investigators were treating the murder as a robbery that went wrong; police were searching for two men thought to be Eastern European in origin--very probably Polish--seen near the site of the murder shortly before it occurred. Harry even had invented two rather vague descriptions of the suspects. The newspapers all bemoaned the shocking rise in violent street crime in the West End that had come with the war. The stories contained accounts of men and women who had been beaten and robbed in recent months by bands of roving refugees, drunken soldiers, and deserters.
Vicary felt a tinge of guilt as he leafed through the newspapers at his desk early that afternoon. He believed in the sanctity of the written word and felt bad about misleading the press and the public. His guilt was easily assuaged. It was impossible to tell the truth--that Rose Morely might very well have been murdered by a German spy.
By midafternoon Harry Dalton and a team of officers from the Metropolitan Police had pieced together the final hours of Rose Morely's life. Harry was in Vicary's office, his long legs propped up on the desk, so that Vicary was treated to a view of his worn soles.
"We interviewed the maid at the home of Commander Higgins," Harry said. "She said Rose had gone out to do her shopping. She went most afternoons before the children arrived home from school. The receipt we found in her bag was from a shop in Oxford Street near Tottenham Court Road. We interviewed the shopkeeper. He remembered her. In fact he remembered almost every item she purchased. He said she bumped into another woman that she knew, a domestic like herself. They took tea together at a cafe across the street. We spoke to the waitress there. She confirmed it."
Vicary was listening intently, studying his hands.
"The waitress says Rose crossed Oxford Street and queued for a westbound bus. I put a man on as many buses as I could. About a half hour ago we found the ticket collector who was on Rose's bus. He remembered her very well. Said she had a brief conversation with a very tall, very attractive woman who jumped off the bus in quite a hurry. Said that when the bus arrived at Marble Arch, the same very tall, very attractive woman was waiting there. He said he would have called us on his own, but the papers said the police already had their suspects and neither one was a very tall, very attractive woman."
A typist poked her head in the door and said, "Sorry to interrupt but you have a call, Harry. A Detective-Sergeant Colin Meadows. Says it's urgent."
Harry took the call at his desk.
"You the same Harry Dalton that cracked the Spencer Thomas case?"
"I'm the man," Harry said. "What can I do for you?"
"It's concerning the Hyde Park shooting. I think I have something for you."
"Spill it, Detective-Sergeant. We're under a bit of time pressure over here."
"I hear the real suspect is a woman," Meadows said. "Tall, attractive, thirty to thirty-five years old."
"Could be. What do you know?"
"I've been working the Pope murder."
"I read about it," Harry said. "I can't believe someone had the balls to slit the throats of Vernon Pope and his girl."
"Actually, Pope was stabbed in the eye."
"Really!"
"Yeah," Meadows said. "And his girlfriend got it in the heart. One stab wound--surgical, almost."
Harry remembered what the Home Office pathologist had said about the body of Beatrice Pymm. The last rib on her left side had been nicked. Possible stab wound to the chest.
Harry said, "But the papers--"
"You can't trust what you read in the papers, can you, Harry? We changed the descriptions of the wounds to weed out the crazies. You'd be surprised how many people want to take credit for killing Vernon Pope."
"Not really. He was a right bastard. Keep going."
"A woman matching your girl's description was seen entering the Popes' warehouse the night Pope was killed. I have two witnesses."
"Jesus Christ!"
"It gets better. Immediately after the murder, Robert Pope and one of his muscle boys broke into a boardinghouse in Islington looking for a woman. It seems they had the wrong address. Took off like a pair of jackrabbits. But not before they roughed up the landlady."
"Why am I hearing this only now?" Harry snapped. "Pope was killed nearly two weeks ago!"
"Because my super thinks I'm on a wild-goose chase. He's convinced Pope was killed by a rival. He doesn't want us to waste time pursuing alternative theories, as he puts it."
"Who's the super?"
"Kidlington."
"Oh, Christ! Saint Andrew?"
"One and the same. There's one other thing. I questioned Robert Pope once last week. I want to question him again but he's gone to ground. We haven't been able to locate him."