Hardcastle's Traitors Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Recent Titles by Graham Ison from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Glossary

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Recent Titles by Graham Ison from Severn House

  The Hardcastle Series

  HARDCASTLE’S SPY

  HARDCASTLE’S ARMISTICE

  HARDCASTLE’S CONSPIRACY

  HARDCASTLE’S AIRMEN

  HARDCASTLE’S ACTRESS

  HARDCASTLE’S BURGLAR

  HARDCASTLE’S MANDARIN

  HARDCASTLE’S SOLDIERS

  HARDCASTLE’S OBSESSION

  HARDCASTLE’S FRUSTRATION

  HARDCASTLE’S TRAITORS

  Contemporary Police Procedurals

  ALL QUIET ON ARRIVAL

  BREACH OF PRIVILEGE

  DIVISION

  DRUMFIRE

  GUNRUNNER

  JACK IN THE BOX

  KICKING THE AIR

  LIGHT FANTASTIC

  LOST OR FOUND

  MAKE THEM PAY

  WHIPLASH

  WHISPERING GRASS

  WORKING GIRL

  HARDCASTLE’S TRAITORS

  Graham Ison

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2013 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2013 by Graham Ison.

  The right of Graham Ison to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Ison, Graham.

  Hardcastle’s traitors. – (A Hardcastle and Marriott historical mystery; 11)

  1. Hardcastle, Ernest (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

  2. Police–England–London–Fiction. 3. Great Britain–

  History–George V, 1910-1936–Fiction. 4. Detective and mystery stories.

  I. Title II. Series

  823.9'14-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8312-4 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-448-5 (epub)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This eBook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  Glossary

  ALBERT: a watch chain of the type worn by Albert, Prince Consort (1819–61).

  APM: assistant provost marshal (a lieutenant colonel of the military police).

  BAILEY, the: Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, London.

  BARNEY: an argument.

  BEAK: a magistrate.

  BEF: British Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders.

  BENT: crooked or stolen.

  BLIGHTY: the United Kingdom.

  BLIMP: an airship.

  BOB: a shilling (now 5p).

  BOOZER: a public house.

  BULL AND COW: a row (rhyming slang).

  CARPET: three months’ imprisonment. (The length of time it took to weave a carpet in prison workshops.)

  CHOKEY: a prison (ex Hindi).

  CID: Criminal Investigation Department.

  COMMISSIONER’S OFFICE: official title of New Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police.

  COPPER: a policeman.

  DARTMOOR: a remote prison on Dartmoor in Devon.

  DDI: Divisional Detective Inspector.

  DOG’S DINNER, a: a mess.

  DPP: Director of Public Prosecutions.

  DRUM: a dwelling house, or room therein. Any place of abode.

  FENCE, to: to dispose of stolen property.

  FENCE: a receiver of stolen property.

  FIDDLE-FADDLE: Trifling talk or behaviour.

  FIVE-STRETCH: five years' imprisonment.

  FLEET STREET: former centre of the newspaper industry, and still used as a generic term for the Press.

  FLIM or FLIMSY: a five-pound note. From the thin paper on which it was originally printed.

  FLOG, to: to sell.

  FOURPENNY CANNON, a: a steak and kidney pie.

  FRONT, The: theatre of WW1 operations in France and Flanders.

  GAMAGES: a London department store.

  GANDER, to cop a: to take a look.

  GLIM: a look (a foreshortening of ‘glimpse’).

  GRASS: an informer.

  GREAT SCOTLAND YARD: location of an army recruiting office and a military police detachment. Not to be confused with New Scotland Yard, half a mile away in Whitehall.

  GUNNERS, The: a generic term to encompass the Royal Horse Artillery, the Royal Garrison Artillery and the Royal Field Artillery. In the singular, a member of one of those regiments.

  GUV or GUV’NOR: informal alternative to ‘sir’.

  HALF A CROWN or HALF A DOLLAR: two shillings and sixpence (12½p).

  HANDFUL: five years’ imprisonment.

  JIG-A-JIG: sexual intercourse.

  JILDI: quickly (ex Hindi).

  MADAM: a brothel keeper.

  MANOR: a police area.

  MC: Military Cross.

  MI5: counter-espionage service of the United Kingdom.

  MOCKERS, to put on the: to frustrate one’s plans.

  MONS, to make a: to make a mess of things, as in the disastrous Battle of Mons in 1914.

  NCO: non-commissioned officer.

  NICK: a police station or prison or to arrest or to steal.

  NICKED: arrested or stolen.

  OICK: a cad.

  OLD BAILEY: Central Criminal Court, in Old Bailey, London.

  ON THE GAME: leading a life of prostitution.

  PEACH, to: to inform to the police.

  PROVOST, the: military police.

  QUEER STREET, in: in serious difficulty or short of money.

  RAGTIME GIRL: a sweetheart; a girl with whom one has a joyous time; a harlot.

  RECEIVER, The: the senior Scotland Yard official responsible for the finances of the Metropolitan Police.

  ROYAL A: informal name for the A or Whitehall Division of the Metropolitan Police.

  ROZZER: a policeman.

  SAM BROWNE: a military officer’s belt with shoulder strap.

  SAUSAGE AND MASH: cash (rhyming slang).

  SCREWING: engaging in sexual intercourse or committing burglary.

  SCRIMSHANKER: one who evades duty or w
ork.

  SELFRIDGES: a London department store.

  SHILLING: now 5p.

  SIXPENCE: equivalent of 2½ p.

  SKIP or SKIPPER: an informal police alternative to station-sergeant, clerk-sergeant and sergeant.

  SNOUT: a police informant.

  SOMERSET HOUSE: formerly the records office of births, deaths and marriages for England & Wales.

  STRIPE, to: to maliciously wound, usually with a razor.

  TEA-LEAF: a thief (rhyming slang). (Plural: TEALEAVES.)

  TOBY: a police area.

  TOM: a prostitute or jewellery (see TOMFOOLERY).

  TOMFOOLERY: jewellery (rhyming slang).

  TOPPED: murdered or hanged.

  TOPPING: a murder or hanging.

  TUMBLE, a: sexual intercourse.

  UNDERGROUND, The: the London Underground railway system.

  YOUNG SHAVER: a youth or young man.

  ONE

  The maroons had been detonated at the nearby Renfrew Road fire station at twenty minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve 1915, signalling the onset of yet another air raid by the dreaded Zeppelins. In common with most Londoners, Ernest Hardcastle knew that the alert was invariably sounded when the raiders were crossing the coast. It would take some time, at least an hour, for the giant airships, lumbering along at seventy miles an hour, to reach the capital.

  The Hardcastle family was gathered in the parlour of their house in Kennington Road, London. It was the home that Ernest and Alice Hardcastle had moved into immediately after their marriage twenty-three years ago, and was only a few doors away from where Charlie Chaplin, much-loved slapstick star of the silent films, had once lived.

  In a corner of the comfortable sitting room stood a decorated Christmas tree. But it bore none of the miniature candles favoured by many families; Hardcastle was only too aware of the fire risk that that would present. Painstakingly made paper chains had been strung from each corner of the room to the electric light fitting in the centre of the whitewashed ceiling.

  Hardcastle busied himself spending a few minutes dispensing drinks from a cabinet in the corner.

  ‘A Happy New Year everyone and may it see an end to this wretched war.’ On the stroke of midnight, Ernest Hardcastle, his back to a glowing coal fire, raised his glass and took a sip of whisky.

  ‘Amen to that,’ said Alice, raising her glass of Amontillado and joining in the toast together with the Hardcastles’ two daughters and their son. Kitty and Maud, at nineteen and seventeen respectively, were now old enough for a glass of sherry. But Walter, the Hardcastles’ son, whose sixteenth birthday would not occur until the twenty-fourth of January 1916, was only permitted a glass of brown ale, and that as a special treat.

  Hardcastle kissed his wife and his daughters and shook hands with Walter.

  The war to which Hardcastle alluded had been in progress for the sixteen months since the fourth of August 1914. Despite his pious hope for a swift end to the bloody conflict, there had been nothing but depressing news since the war had started. Nor were there any signs of victory in the foreseeable future; the losses were mounting day after day.

  In August 1914, young men had flocked enthusiastically to the Colours fearful that the widely held belief that it would all be over by Christmas would mean missing the ‘fun’ as they had termed it. But it was a premise that had proved to be well short of the reality. Now, just over a year later, the two opposing armies were firmly entrenched from the North Sea to the Swiss border; and thousands of British, Colonial and German troops lay dead with little but a few yards of blood-sodden ground to show for their sacrifice.

  The sight of wounded soldiers and sailors in the streets had become commonplace, and hospitals were overflowing with the seriously injured.

  The war no longer seemed like ‘fun’. And now that the earlier flood of keen volunteers had started to ebb, Parliament would shortly begin debating the imposition of compulsory conscription to fill the yawning gaps in the ranks of the decimated British Army.

  At five minutes past midnight, Hardcastle took his hunter from his waistcoat pocket and flicked open the cover.

  ‘It’s time we took shelter, just to be on the safe side,’ he said, and conducted his family into the cupboard beneath the stairs, having first instructed Walter to check the blackout curtains and, as an added precaution, to turn out all the lights.

  Very soon the menacing heavy throb of Maybach engines and the spasmodic bark of anti-aircraft guns announced the arrival of the enemy overhead. And occasionally the distinctive sound of British fighters could be heard zooming around the sky in a vain attempt to destroy one of the giant airships. But for the most part they were unable to match the Zeppelins’ superior altitude.

  Even in the cupboard under the stairs, the Hardcastles were able to hear, somewhere in the distance, the noise of cascading bricks; indication that yet another building had fallen victim to the raiders’ bombs.

  It was not until one o’clock in the morning that the Hardcastles heard the voice of a cycling policeman shouting ‘All Clear’, and the family was able to emerge from its makeshift shelter.

  ‘I could do with a cup of tea,’ said Alice, stretching her limbs after an hour’s confinement in the cramped staircase cupboard.

  ‘Not for me,’ said Kitty, ‘I’m off to bed. I’m early shift in the morning.’ For some months now, Kitty had been working as a conductorette with the London General Omnibus Company. She had taken the job against her father’s wishes, but Kitty had always been a headstrong girl. Even so, her excuse that she was releasing a man for the Front had little impact on her father who did not see working on the buses as women’s work, whatever the circumstances.

  ‘I’m for bed too,’ said Maud, who also worked long hours. For the past few months she had been nursing at one of the big houses in Mayfair that had been converted to hospital accommodation for wounded officers.

  Refusing his wife’s offer of a cup of tea, Hardcastle was about to pour himself another whisky when there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Surely it’s not a neighbour come to wish us a Happy New Year at this hour of the morning,’ he muttered, as he pulled open the front door. But it was a jocular comment; he had already anticipated who would be on the doorstep. As the divisional detective inspector of the A or Whitehall Division of the Metropolitan Police he had his headquarters at Cannon Row police station in the shadow of New Scotland Yard. Being the division’s senior detective, he was expected to be on call at all hours.

  ‘Mr Hardcastle, sir?’ A sergeant from Kennington Road police station was standing on the doorstep.

  ‘What is it, Skipper?’ There was a resigned note in Hardcastle’s question.

  ‘There’s been a burglary at a jeweller’s shop in Vauxhall Bridge Road, sir.’ The sergeant proffered a message form.

  ‘Why the hell do I need to know that at this hour?’ demanded Hardcastle, seizing the form.

  ‘There’s been a murder there as well, sir,’ said the sergeant, before Hardcastle had finished reading the message.

  ‘God dammit! Best see if you can find me a cab, Skipper. And when you get back to the nick telephone Cannon Row and tell them I want DS Marriott and a couple of detectives at the scene tout de suite.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ The sergeant flicked back his cape and taking his pocketbook from a tunic pocket, made a note. That done, he paused and grinned. ‘And a very Happy New Year to you and your family, sir.’

  ‘Some hopes of that,’ muttered Hardcastle, donning his Chesterfield overcoat and seizing his bowler hat and umbrella. He took a few paces back into the hallway. ‘I’ve got to go out, love,’ he shouted. ‘Expect me when you see me,’ he added. It was something he always said when called out to deal with a crime.

  ‘You take care of yourself, Ernie,’ responded his wife from the kitchen. Having been married to a policeman for twenty-three years, Alice had grown accustomed to her husband being sent for at any hour of the day or night, especially now that he was a se
nior detective.

  The sign over the shop simply read: REUBEN GOSLING. At one end of the fascia a projecting wrought-iron arm bore the three golden balls that were the traditional sign of a pawnbroker.

  When Hardcastle arrived, Detective Sergeant Charles Marriott was already there. As a first-class sergeant, he was the officer Hardcastle always chose as his assistant. Marriott lived with his wife Lorna and their two children in police quarters in Regency Street, within walking distance of Vauxhall Bridge Road. Neither Marriott nor his wife was pleased at his being called out so early in the New Year.

  Detective Constables Henry Catto and Cecil Watkins were also there, their umbrellas raised. The two DCs, being single men, lived in the police section house at Ambrosden Avenue, and were the ones that Marriott called out in preference to married officers, particularly during festive celebrations such as the New Year.

  It was an unseasonably warm night, temperatures having on occasion reached fifty degrees Fahrenheit in late December. But it was raining quite hard.

  ‘What do we know so far, Marriott?’ asked Hardcastle, struggling to raise his umbrella as he alighted from his cab.

  ‘Forced entry was made through the shop door, sir.’ Marriott indicated a hole in the glass panel. ‘A professional job by the look of it: brown paper, treacle and a glass cutter. There was only a Yale rim latch, despite the owner having been advised on several occasions to improve the security. Either the thieves knew that or they struck lucky.’

  ‘More than the victim did,’ muttered Hardcastle. ‘Where’s the body, Marriott?’

  ‘In the front of the shop, sir, near the cash register.’

  ‘Who found it?’

  ‘PC 313A Dodds, sir. He was on this beat and a member of the public called him. Something to do with a car making off at high speed. It was then that Dodds found the broken glass in the door.’

  ‘Where is this PC, Marriott?’

  ‘Here, sir,’ said a caped figure. He approached Hardcastle and saluted. ‘All correct, sir.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so, lad.’ Hardcastle always addressed constables as ‘lad’ even though they were often his age or even older. ‘Sergeant Marriott’s given me the brief details, but how exactly did you come across this break-in?’