Hardcastle's Quartet 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

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  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

  HARDCASTLE’S QUARTET

  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

  RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT

  WHIPLASH

  WHISPERING GRASS

  WORKING GIRL

  HARDCASTLE’S QUARTET

  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.

  This first world edition published 2014 in Great Britain and the USA by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of 19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  Trade paperback edition published in Great Britain and the USA 2015 by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  eBook edition first published in 2014 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2014 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.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Ison, Graham author.

  Hardcastle’s quartet.

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

  2. Police–England–London–Fiction. 3. Murder–

  Investigation–Fiction. 4. Great Britain–History–

  George V, 1910-1936–Fiction. 5. Detective and mystery

  stories.

  I. Title

  823.9’14-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8420-6 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-530-8 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-572-7 (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

  ACK EMMA: signallers’ code for a.m. (cf PIP EMMA)

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

  BAG CARRIER: an officer, usually a sergeant, deputed to assist the senior investigating officer in a murder or other serious enquiry

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

  BAILIWICK: area of responsibility

  BEAK: a magistrate

  BEF: British Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders

  BRIEF, a: a warrant or a police warrant card or a lawyer or a barrister’s case papers

  BUCK HOUSE: Buckingham Palace

  CARNEY: cunning, sly

  CHESTNUTS OUT OF THE FIRE, to pull your: to solve your problem

  CHINWAG: a talk

  CID: Criminal Investigation Department

  CLYDE (as in D’YOU THINK I CAME UP THE CLYDE ON A BICYCLE?): to suggest that the speaker thinks one is a fool

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

  CULL(E)Y: alternative to calling a man ‘mate’

  DAPM: deputy assistant provost marshal

  DARTMOOR: a remote prison on Dartmoor in Devon

  DDI: Divisional Detective Inspector

  DSC: Distinguished Service Cross

  FLUFF, a bit of: a girl; an attractive young woman

  FOURPENNY CANNON, a: a steak and kidney pie

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

  GANDER, to cop a: to take a look

  GPO: General Post Office

  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

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

  HACK: the driver of a Hackney carriage or a taxi or the vehicle itself or a newspaper reporter

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

  JIG-A-JIG: sexual intercourse

  JILDI: quickly (ex Hindi)

  KC: King’s Counsel: a senior barrister

  MANOR: a police area

  MATELOT: a sailor, usually of the Royal Navy

  MC: Military Cross

  MONIKER: a name or nickname

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

  MUFTI: army officers’ term for plain clothes (ex Arabic)

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

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

  PICCADILLY WINDOW: a monocle

  PIP EMMA: signallers’ code for p.m. (cf ACK EMMA)

  PLANTING, a: a burial

  PROVOST, the: military 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

  SAPPERS: the Corps of Royal Engineers (in the singular a member of that corps)

  SCREWING: engaging in sexual intercourse or committing burglary

  SHIFT, to do a: to run away, or escape

  SILK, a: a King’s Counsel (a senior barrister), named after the silk gowns they wear

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

  SMOKE, The: London

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

  SOV or SOVEREIGN: one pound sterling

  STUFF GOWN: a barrister who has not been elevated to King’s Counsel status

  TOBY: a police area

  TOD (SLOAN), on one’s: on one’s own (rhyming slang)

  TOPPED: murdered or hanged

  TO
PPING: a murder or hanging

  WAR HOUSE: army officers’ slang for the War Office

  WAR OFFICE: Department of State overseeing the army (now a part of the Ministry of Defence)

  WHITE-FEATHER JOHNNY: man avoiding military service

  YOUNG SHAVER: a youth or young man

  ONE

  It had started to rain. Not very much, but enough to prompt Police Constable Harold Barnes to curse before removing his glazed waterproof cape from its belt hook and fastening it around his shoulders. As the rain increased, he sought some shelter and, making his way to the doorway of 29 Whilber Street, he stopped under the portico. The section sergeant had visited Barnes ten minutes ago outside the Royal Mews and he would not be round again for at least an hour. Barnes decided, therefore, that it was safe to have a smoke and took out his pipe.

  It was just as he was filling it with his favourite Country Life smoking mixture that he happened to glance down into the basement area. It was then that he saw the body of a woman.

  Shoving his unlit pipe back into his pocket, Barnes pushed open the cast-iron gate and descended the few steps into the basement. The body was face down, head to one side. On closer examination, he saw that it was the body of a young woman with long black hair attired in a bust-bodice corset, black art silk stockings and one black glacé court shoe. And nothing else. Barnes knelt down and felt for a pulse, but the woman was dead.

  Returning to pavement level, he withdrew his whistle from beneath his cape and blew three short, sharp blasts.

  Minutes later PC Ben Holroyd, who was on the neighbouring beat, rounded the corner at a run. Breathless, he skidded to a halt.

  ‘What’s up, Harry?’

  ‘Got a stiff, Ben,’ said Barnes, pointing down into the basement area. ‘Looks like a suicide.’

  ‘Ain’t you the lucky one?’ Holroyd laughed. Both he and Barnes knew that it would involve Barnes in a considerable amount of report writing. ‘I’ll leg it back to the nick and call out the cavalry.’

  Barnes returned to the portico and took out his pocketbook. Licking his pencil, he began to write his report. On Wednesday 12th June 1918 at 6.32 a.m. at 29 Whilber Street, London, S.W., I discovered the body of a woman in the basement area. Descending to the location, I ascertained that she was dead.

  Barnes spent the next twenty minutes recording such details that he knew would be asked for by the CID officers deputed to investigate the matter. He noted the position of the body, the fact that one shoe appeared to be missing, and that the body had been almost dry when he found it. He paused thoughtfully and licked his pencil again before adding the time that the rain had started to fall.

  The weather in that June of 1918 was cooler than was to be expected. Although at one point reaching 77 degrees Fahrenheit, the north-east wind kept temperatures generally lower than usual and over an inch of rain fell. Of greater concern than the weather, however, was the fact that 25 million people had died worldwide as a result of the Spanish influenza pandemic, more than the combined losses of the war that was grinding slowly to its bloody close on the Western Front.

  But on that Wednesday the twelfth of June it was matters closer to home that were troubling Divisional Detective Inspector Ernest Hardcastle of the A or Whitehall Division of the Metropolitan Police. And he was in a foul mood.

  The onset of this ill temper had occurred at breakfast when he mildly enquired why there was no marmalade, a query that had caused his wife to launch into a lecture about the shortage of jam in general and marmalade in particular.

  ‘According to the Daily Mail,’ explained Alice, ‘there’s a shortage of oranges to make the marmalade with. I would’ve made plum jam instead, but the heavy rains destroyed a lot of this season’s crops. And plums have shot up from sixpence a pound to half a crown, so there’s no plum jam either. Disgraceful, I call it.’

  ‘It’s the war.’ Hardcastle wished he had not asked about the marmalade, and returned his attention to the morning newspaper.

  But matters only got worse when Hardcastle reached the tram stop. Apart from the rain, the tram that usually took him from Kennington Road to Westminster was stationary and showed no signs of moving. The conductorette was standing on the step of the tram. As her small audience of disgruntled passengers increased, she explained that the tram ahead had been in collision with an army lorry and that the soldier driver had been slightly injured; it was an accident that Hardcastle condemned as ‘damned carelessness’ on the part of the military. Bringing his policeman’s mind to bear, he decided that as the tram was on fixed tracks and the lorry was not, the fault must rest with the army driver.

  Hardcastle stepped into the road. The first cab to come along was a hansom, numbers of which had increased of late due to petrol shortages and the fact that many motor drivers were at the Front. But Hardcastle had no intention of going to work in a horse-drawn conveyance. He waited for a motor cab.

  ‘Whitehall, cabbie, and don’t take all day about it.’

  ‘What’s up with you, mister? Get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning?’ growled the driver as he yanked down the taximeter flag.

  On the brighter side, that morning’s newspaper carried reports of the fighting on the Western Front. Allied troops – British, Empire, French and American – were now largely out of their trenches and fierce battles were swinging back and forth between Compiègne and Montdidier.

  Finally arriving at Cannon Row police station, Hardcastle swept into the front office. The police station was immediately opposite the forbidding structure of New Scotland Yard, constructed to Norman Shaw’s plans from Dartmoor granite hewn, fittingly, by convicts from the nearby prison that took its name from its bleak Devon surroundings.

  The station officer stood up. ‘All correct, sir.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ snapped Hardcastle, irritated by the formal report that officers were obliged by the regulations to make, whether all was correct or not. ‘Anything I should know about?’

  ‘Yes, sir. PC 107 has found the dead body of a woman in a basement in Whilber Street. Sergeant Marriott is on the scene already, sir.’

  ‘What are the details?’

  ‘According to 107, sir, it looks as though the deceased fell from a first-floor window.’

  ‘It’ll be either accident or suicide, I suppose,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Where’s Mr Rhodes?’ Rhodes was the detective inspector in charge of the CID for the Cannon Row subdivision. ‘Is he up there?’

  ‘No, sir, he’s dealing with a break-in at a jeweller’s shop in Artillery Row, sir.’

  ‘Dammit!’ exclaimed Hardcastle. ‘I’d better go up to Whilber Street and take a look, I suppose. And to cap it all, Skipper, I’ve come out without my tobacco pouch.’

  The DDI walked out to Parliament Street and called in at the tobacconist to buy an ounce of St Bruno tobacco before hailing a cab.

  When Hardcastle arrived in Whilber Street, he was greeted by Inspector Joplin, the patrolling officer. Standing nearby were Detective Constables Henry Catto and Basil Keeler, and PC Barnes. PC Holroyd was also there, having returned to Whilber Street with Inspector Joplin.

  ‘All correct, sir,’ said Joplin, saluting.

  ‘Who found this here body, Mr Joplin?’ asked Hardcastle as he raised his umbrella.

  ‘PC 107 Barnes, sir,’ said the inspector. ‘He’s a good officer.’

  ‘Pleased to hear it,’ muttered Hardcastle in response to this gratuitous piece of information. He did not think that one had to be a ‘good officer’ to come across a dead body. Glancing at Catto and Keeler, he frowned. ‘What are you two supposed to be doing?’

  ‘Waiting for orders, sir,’ said Catto nervously. Although he was a competent detective, Catto was always apprehensive in the DDI’s presence.

  ‘Start knocking on doors, then,’ snapped Hardcastle. ‘Find out if anyone knows anything. You shouldn’t have to be told what to do.’ And with that inadequate instruction, he walked across to join Marriott.

  ‘
Good morning, sir.’ Charles Marriott raised his bowler hat. As a detective sergeant (first class) he was the officer Hardcastle always selected to assist him in murder enquiries. Not that there was any evidence of murder in this case. At least, not yet.

  ‘Tell me the tale, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle, declining, as always, to return the sergeant’s greeting.

  Marriott briefly described the circumstances under which PC Barnes had found the body. ‘I noticed that a first-floor window was wide open, sir, and called at the house. There’s a young maid there by the name of Hannah Clarke. She told me that she works for a Mrs Georgina Cheney, but that Mrs Cheney was not at home, even though she should’ve been. It looks as though our body is likely to be that of Mrs Cheney. The maid told me that Mrs Cheney’s husband is a Commander Robert Cheney, Royal Navy.’

  ‘Is he there?’

  ‘No, sir. Miss Clarke thinks he’s at sea.’

  ‘Has she identified the body as being this here Mrs Cheney?’

  ‘No, sir. She was so upset at the thought that it might be her mistress that I deemed it unwise to involve her.’

  ‘Very wise, Marriott. Don’t want her crying her bloody eyes out all over our evidence. I’ll have a word with her later on. Have you sent for the divisional surgeon?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He’s down in the basement now, having a look at the body.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Doctor Thomas, sir.’

  ‘Well, he’s no bloody good. Send for Spilsbury.’

  ‘Already done, sir.’ Marriott knew that the DDI would want Dr Bernard Spilsbury to attend this latest suspicious death. ‘But can we be sure that it’s not an accidental death? Or even suicide?’

  ‘It’s murder, Marriott, until someone tells me it ain’t,’ said Hardcastle, and descended to view the body for himself.

  ‘A nasty one, Inspector,’ said Dr Thomas, glancing up as Hardcastle joined him.

  ‘And your opinion, Doctor?’ Hardcastle spoke in a detached way, paying more attention to studying the dead woman’s face than listening to a medical practitioner in whose findings he placed little faith.