Page 10 of Return Ticket

Gabriella had lost consciousness for a few seconds, which worried James. But she had also assured him she was fine. “What kind of idiot electrifies their car?” he wondered.

“She said he had a go at her yesterday, ranting about his ticket. He obviously knew he was parking illegally today, and she would likely come along.” Hartridge shook his head. “He knew he would hurt her.”

James felt a cold, hard anger spark inside him. “We’re going to track down his address,” he said. He didn’t say any more, but he knew he would not let it go.

“And what if a child had touched the car?” Hartridge wondered. “If it threw Gabriella back, a child would have been seriously hurt.”

There had to be a law against it, although James knew the car was theoretically the owner’s to do with as he liked. But it was reckless endangerment of some kind.

“Sir?” A thin, reedy voice asked from behind him. “You the police?”

James turned. A boy, about eight or nine, stood in shorts and a jumper, his legs mottled red with the cold, his knees filthy. He hopped a little from side to side to keep warm in the bitter wind.

“You one of the boys who found the body yesterday?” James asked.

The boy shook his head. “No, they’re older’n me, and they don’t let me play with ’em, but I saw something, sir.”

James nodded, walking carefully down the rubble to stand beside him on the pavement. “What did you see?”

“How come you don’t wear a uniform?” the boy asked.

“We’re detectives, and sometimes we have to look like normal people, so we don’t wear uniforms,” James said.

The boy eyed him for a moment, as if looking for any sign of deception. “To fool the crooks, like?”

“Yes,” James agreed.

The boy jerked his head in a nod. “I saw a man with a wheelbarrow,” he said.

That would be one way to get the victim here without a vehicle, James guessed. But a wheelbarrow wouldn’t easily go up the rubble pile, so he probably still had to carry her up.

“When was this?”

“That night there was all that fog,” the boy said. “The pea souper, me gran calls it.”

James had been away, although he’d heard there had been a serious fog for a few nights in London. That would explain the murderer’s brazen behavior. The fog would have kept most people off the streets, and given him perfect cover as he went about his business.

He would need to find out from the pathologist if the time of death matched up to the fog. He would bet that it did.

“What did the man look like?” James wondered what this child had been doing wandering around on a foggy night by himself.

“I never saw his face,” the boy admitted. “I live up there.” He pointed to one of the windows overlooking the street. “He had a hat on and a coat. But he had something bundled in the wheelbarrow.”

“Did you see where he went?” James asked.

The boy shook his head. “Me mam found me out o’ bed and I had to get back in.”

At least he hadn’t been wandering the streets, James thought with relief. The man who had killed two women would not hesitate to kill a child to keep his secrets.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Archer,” James said, holding out his hand. “What’s your name, then?”

“Percy,” the boy tentatively extended his own hand, as if he had never shaken a hand before. “Percy Bellows.”

“Well, Percy, here’s my number. If you ever see a man with a wheelbarrow in the night again, please ask your mother to call me at Scotland Yard.” He pulled a card from his inner jacket pocket and handed it over.

Percy took it reverently, then shoved it in his back pocket. “I helped?”

“You did, thank you.”