Page 5

chapter five

James watched the police car he’d had come by to pick up Gabriella disappear around the corner. He would not hear of her going back to headquarters under her own steam.

“She seemed all right,” Hartridge said.

James glanced at him. “How are you? You were thrown to the ground as well.”

Hartridge shrugged. “I felt like I was going to throw up at first, but it passed quickly. The tingles in my arm took a bit longer to fade, but I’m honestly right as rain now.”

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.”

Hartridge had been watching the exchange from halfway up the rubble pile, and suddenly some of the bricks gave way and he slid down a little.

“Cheers,” the boy said, turned and ran into the alleyway between two of the buildings opposite.

“You think you can trust that?” Hartridge asked. “He might just be trying to keep up with the boys who found the body.”

“Maybe,” James agreed, but he didn’t think so. “Even if he is, it’s an interesting thing to invent, isn’t it? He didn’t say he saw the body, or the murder, just a man pushing a wheelbarrow through a pea souper.”

Hartridge gave a grunt, widening his stance a little to keep his balance. “Good point.”

“Let’s go look over the other side. See if there is anything the pathologist missed.” James carefully climbed the rubble pile again, and stepped over the top.

There was plenty of rubbish caught amongst the debris and smashed bricks. The wind would have blown plenty here over the years since the site had been tidied up by a bulldozer, pushing all the rubble up into a pile in the center of the lot to keep it out of the way.

The sun had managed to struggle out from behind the heavy clouds about ten minutes ago, and a glint caught his eye. He bent closer, and hunkered down, trying to extract whatever it was from between the bricks.

“What is it?” Hartridge, who was looking around to his right, asked.

“Not sure.” James carefully lifted smashed rubble and stone to one side, and eventually got his fingers around it. He drew it out carefully. “A change purse,” he said.

It was cheap—the metal clasp mostly rubbed bare of its original gold plating, but the fabric that formed the pouch of the purse was colorful and pretty. He hefted it. There was change inside it.

He felt the wind ruffle his hair, and decided not to open it here. He rose and slid it into an inner pocket.

“Let’s get out of the wind and start looking into missing persons reports lodged since the pea souper,” James said.

Hartridge nodded, and they made their way carefully back to the road.

When they came back out onto the Kings Road, James was just in time to see the Land Rover roaring off, turning left at the end of the street.

He’d had to park relatively far down the street, and there was no way he could get to his car and follow the Land Rover. It would be long gone by the time they reached the Wolseley.

“Do you think he knew he was in trouble?” Hartridge asked. “He was going pretty fast.”

“Maybe.” James scanned the buildings on both sides of the street. “Evans said he sees the vehicle parked around here a couple of times a week. So he’s probably visiting someone nearby.”

There were mainly shops and a few nice townhouses in this part of the Kings Road. He thought he caught the twitch of a curtain above a homewares boutique, but that didn’t signify anything.

Still, it was worth making a note of it.

“What are you going to do about it?” Hartridge asked.

“First I need to find out what we can charge him with,” James said. What he’d done should be a crime, but when it came to personal property, James knew things got sticky.

“You think he didn’t break the law?” Hartridge sounded amazed.

“I hope he has,” James said. He really did. But he had a sinking feeling it wasn’t going to be that easy.