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.That the police were pursuing Ruby despite, as far as I could tell, no evidence to show she’d killed Shlomo Kaplan, seemed like another example of this.But perhaps they knew something that I didn’t.In fact, almost certainly they knew something that I didn’t.‘This woman they’re looking for,’ Fred continued, ‘her mother killed her fella.’‘What?’‘Some geezer she was involved with, she killed him,’ Fred said.I felt my skin go very cold.‘How? What did she do?’‘Stabbed him through the heart.’ Fred said, and then added darkly, ‘With a dirty great hatpin, so they say.Apparently the body was soaked with blood.’‘Fred,’ I said, as I put one fag out, then instantly lit another, ‘I think we should go and see Albert Cox now.’The policeman, obviously confused, frowned.‘Why’s that, Mr H?’I told him of what my suspicions had been right from the start on the way down to Canning Town.This time, instead of going on about what Dr Cockburn had and had not said, Fred listened.When we arrived at Cox’s shop, Albert told us that Pearl Dooley had left after viewing her husband’s body about half an hour before.She’d come not only to see him but to find out when his funeral was going to take place.It was scheduled for the next day, so I knew we’d have to act fast if we were to have Kevin’s body examined again before the ceremony.Fred called his sergeant who, after what we were told was a lot of persuasive talking, eventually managed to get Marcus Cockburn out to Cox’s shop that night.As bombs fell all around us Dr Cockburn, reeking of whisky and cigars, nevertheless came to a rather different cause of death for Kevin Dooley than the one he had originally given.Why I’d treated Kevin as I had – like a nutter, the same way people treat me – on the night he died, I didn’t know.But the guilt was terrible then.The world was descending into madness again and, just as I’d done in the first lot, I was simply letting it happen.Which, after all, is more unforgivable? To kill a man on the orders of a so-called superior or to let a man obviously not well or in his right mind run off to meet his own destruction? My mates hadn’t let me desert: they’d taken care of this nutter and saved my life.I should have tried to save poor Kevin’s.Chapter SevenThe Dooleys were a huge family.As well as the old mother and all of Kevin’s kids there were at least five adults who looked similar to the deceased.Brothers and sisters, I guessed, many with husbands, wives and kids in tow.Although none had come out in yellow, there wasn’t a lot of mourning wear to be seen.But it isn’t cheap as I’d be the first to admit.What doesn’t cost, however, is dignity and although the mother was obviously upset, there was precious little grief beyond that.Dodgy blokes wearing trilbies smoking fags, sometimes laughing, sometimes swearing angrily, blokes young enough I would have imagined to be in the services.No, the only real sorrow I could see was shown by Kevin Dooley’s wife.She came alone, still in her ratty old coat but with a hat she’d got from somewhere on her head.It had a bit of a veil, which she’d pulled down over her face that, with the trees she was standing among, concealed her from all but the most keen observer.That was me.I watched her cry for some time before I went over.I knew I wasn’t going to like what I had to do next.But no one had known where she was so it had seemed the best, if not the right, thing to do to all involved.‘Mr Cox and his boys have done your husband proud,’ I said, as I watched Albert walk towards the graveside ahead of the coffin.It was one of those dank afternoons where the half-bare trees look like ragged skeletons against the battleship grey of the sky.As soon as she saw me, Pearl Dooley’s tears stopped and something that looked like fear came into her eyes.‘I loved him, you know,’ she said, ‘my Kevin.’‘But he hit you,’ I said.‘You had nipper after nipper for him and he still.’‘I loved him!’ she said.‘He gave me my life, he did.I know it can’t make much sense to anyone else, but he took me in and he protected me.He was a hard man, yes, but.Anyway, what’s it to do with you?’In contrast to how humble she’d been with me when she and Velma had first turned up at the shop she was now openly hostile.As far as I could tell, Spitalfields, and what had been discovered there, had changed her.‘Did your mother love her bloke?’ I said.‘The one she finished with her hatpin?’ I turned to look down at her and found a face bursting with both grief and anger.‘You know I saw your husband on the night that he died, Mrs Dooley,’ I said.‘He told me he’d been stabbed.’She shook her head.‘He died from the blast.The coppers’ doctor said so.’‘There was a little hole, just under his breastbone,’ I said.‘It could’ve been where a long pin stabbed into him, maybe from a lady’s hat.Where were you and Velma the night that Kevin died, Pearl?’Her mouth opened and her eyes, even through the veil I could see, filled with tears.‘No, it’s not possible!’ she hissed rather than shouted.Father Burton, at the head of the grave, cleared his throat prior to beginning his committal.‘You think I killed him? Just because my mum—’‘You know, some of the Shoreditch coppers reckon that your Ruby could’ve killed old Mr Kaplan,’ I said.‘Bessie Stern didn’t see him alive before that raid.Ruby was the last person to see him, as you know.Some people believe murder’s in the blood.’I didn’t add that I had doubts about that.Although the way Kevin had met his end was uncomfortably like the way Pearl’s mother had killed her fellow, it was more Pearl’s whereabouts on the night that Dooley had died that bothered both me and the police, who wanted to speak to her and the rest of Kevin’s family.This was now, after all, a murder, which meant that everyone connected in any way to it would be questioned.‘So you think that I.’ Fearing, I imagined, that someone might hear her, Pearl moved in closer to me and dropped her voice.‘I never killed Kevin and I can prove it!’ she said.‘Can you? You weren’t too clear when I asked you.’‘Yes, I can!’ she said.‘Ask your girlfriend’s landlady if you don’t believe me.’‘What?’‘I never killed Kevin.I wouldn’t.Why don’t you believe me?’‘It’s not that I don’t believe you,’ I said, ‘but your story about where you were that night, with friends, just doesn’t ring true.You told me yourself you don’t have any friends.’‘If you’re thinking of calling the coppers.’‘No.’She stared at me.‘Why not?’‘Because we’re already here, love,’ a deep voice said behind her.Fred Bryant’s guv’nor, Sergeant Hill, gave the order for the funeral to be stopped.Albert Cox duly went over to Father Burton and had a word in his ear.The Dooleys started hollering and swearing almost immediately.I looked at the chaos around me with fear.The police were taking a destitute, weeping woman away with them – something I’d had a hand in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]