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Stick, Chapter 3 |
| Written by Philip Neale | |
| Monday, 21 July 2008 | |
 Solomon Goldblum's apprehension at the prospect of the deal he had just agreed disappeared with his sense of vegeance which was now so close that he could almost taste it ...........
Jane Morrison was forty-four years of age, married with one child, a son of twenty-four. She had been out for an evening with the girls and as the hen night was coming to a close, became aware of the admiring glances from the young man across the bar. He couldn't have been that much older than her own Paul and the thought of being fancied by someone of her son's age had never really crossed her mind until now. She headed for the ladies, secretly praying that he would still be there when she came back out. Freshening up what small amount of makeup was needed for these nights out, she pursed her lips and looked critically at the reflection in the mirror. It was true that, for someone on the wrong side of forty, she had held up pretty well this last ten years. Her husband was a jealous man and would have taken a set of knuckle dusters to anyone making eyes in her direction. However, he was not here and this wonderful looking specimen was, just waiting (she hoped) back in the bar. Straightening the hip-hugging skirt, Jane turned her head to one side and then the other for one last crucial check in the mirror and then stepped back into the room. He was standing exactly where she had seen him, and staring intently in her direction. The smile on his face revealed nothing except intense interest in her appearance. As she walked back over to the table now being vacated by her friends, his eyes followed her like a pair of searchlights in the darkness. Jane made her excuses for opting out of the rest of the evening, and one or two of her crowd had noticed the glances between her and the man at the bar. Ribald comments were exchanged amidst a sudden outburst of raucous laughter and they left. She gathered up her jacket and waved an empty glass at the barman; he nodded and went over to the row of optics. As she approached the bar, a cigarette lighter appeared and flickered into life. Jane hadn't even decided at that point to take the pack out of her bag, and yet this man, this stranger seemed to know instinctively that she was about to. He smiled and lit up the room; yes the entire room seemed suddenly so much brighter. "Light?" The voice was like velvet and melted away what remained of her inhibitions. She had already decided that she wanted him, and it was now only a question of when and where. "Cheers darling." She replied in that typically cockney tone made famous by countless actresses down the years. As the drinks were brought over, there was a banknote already on the bar in payment, and he picked up both glasses and walked away to table in the corner leaving her to follow. ‘Cocky bleeder' she thought, but could not resist trotting after him. Three glasses and an hour later, they were at the door and heading out of the public house. The barman was the last person to see her alive as she walked away arm in arm with the young man.
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Marks stood looking down at the remains of Jane Morrison with the taste of bile rising in his throat. He hadn't felt this nauseous since his days as a raw uniformed PC, when he had been called out to a house on a council estate. Neighbours had reported an unpleasant smell, and the sight of the woman hanging from the stairwell by a piece of curtain wire had turned his stomach inside out. That memory had come flooding back now like a bad curry. The body (if that it what it could be called) carried no form of identification, but an early morning pedestrian out with his dog told police that she was Jane Morrison and also indicated where she lived. Although not from the immediate area, the woman had acquired enough of a reputation for her name to be known around the borough. Like Michael Grainger, she had apparently been the victim of a particularly savage beating before being impaled on the same railings outside the Bevis Marks synagogue, and the irony in the name was not lost on the detective sergeant. With the similarities in the two killings, a link between them could not be discounted, but once again, house to house enquiries turned up nothing. Neither was Marks terribly surprised when George Groves reported the same sanitised state of the street area as before. "Dennis, we've got a real weirdo on the loose here. Nobody but nobody leaves a crime scene this clean." Marks surveyed the area with a grim demeanour. He shook his head slowly from side to side as he watched the forensics team pack away their equipment. The place had remained sealed off to the public since the discovery of the first body and a round the clock guard had been posted. The two coppers responsible for the night shift were now back at the station undergoing the mother of all interrogations. They had both insisted that they had been awake and on alert for the whole duration of the shift, but the fact remained that someone had taken the time and care to place, yes place a body on to the railings whilst they stood and watched. "Damn!" Marks cursed and punched the wooden fence at the side of the pavement, causing the uniformed crew at his side to jump. "Temper, temper." The voice of George Groves, calm as always, sailed through his personal storm and poured oil on the troubled waters. "That'll just get you an early ulcer." Marks smiled through gritted teeth and looked down at his now splintered hand. Putting it in his mouth in an effort to ease the pain of the blow and its resultant slivers of wood, he glanced down the street. His brow furrowed as he focussed in on the old figure reclined on the same bench where he had spoken to Solomon Goldblum only a day or so ago. Two killings in such a short space of time and the same ‘observer' turns up in the same place. The detective walked deliberately over to the bench where the old man was sitting. There was an odd smile on Goldblum's face as Marks drew near. "Good morning sergeant, another nasty piece of work? So soon after the other one too." "Yes......tell me Mr..............." "Goldblum, Solomon Goldblum. We met, when was it now? Oh yes, the other day." He stretched out a hand in greeting. Marks decline the offer, choosing instead to feign attention on his injured fingers. The punch to the fence had not gone unnoticed by the old Jew, and his smile was not entirely benevolent. "Well Mr Goldblum, how did you know about the killing? I mean, it's early and you're sitting here as if it's the middle of the day. I'm told that the woman died in the early hours of this morning. Where were you at around one-thirty?" "Oh, word gets around very quickly detective sergeant; you only have to keep your ears open. Oddly enough, I was with the Rabbi at around that time. You can check if you wish. There were some matters of a personal nature which I had to discuss with him." "I will, and should I need to speak to you again, where will I find you?" Goldblum wrote his address in Marks' notebook, and the detective walked back to find Groves' team leaving for the lab. The two of them travelled back to CID headquarters where a meeting was quickly arranged with DI Harris, Marks' boss. The briefing lasted only half an hour, but Marks voiced several concerns at the lack of evidence at each of the crime scenes. "There's something about these murders which I just can't put my finger on. This old guy, Goldblum, has turned up at each of the locations within a short time of the killings and he's not like any of the normal ghouls we get. It's like he knows something we don't. I'm going to dig around in the archives for anything that links him to either of our two bodies. I'm sure that he's somehow involved." Marks worked late into the night down in the gloomy depths of the divisional archives. He never knew there was such a wealth of old case files, and many of them had never been committed to microfiche. He was just praying that the stuff he was looking for wasn't amongst those. Just as he was resigning himself to a protracted foray into the mountain of dusty files, his attention homed in on the aftermath of the Battle of Cable Street. Official reports indicated that there had been no fatalities following on from the violent clashes between the UBF and the army of protesters but there, in a corner of the front page of the Daily Telegraph some two days after the event, was the account of the discovery of a body in an alleyway a short distance from Hyde Park. Abel Goldblum had been identified by his widow, and despite a number of reports of a violent confrontation between him and a group of UBF black shirts, no-one had been arrested for his murder. There had been five of Moseley's followers involved in a scuffle and one name leapt from the page and rang alarm bells in Marks' brain. Michael Grainger was in his twenties at the time of the march, and now here was a link to the present day and Solomon Goldblum. Removing his pocket book, the DS made a series of shorthand notes before filing a request for hard copies of the relevant pages. Switching off the dim light given out by the sixty watt bulb, he retraced his steps back to the squad room and the office of DI Harris. Harris had been in the division for over fifteen years and had a nose for information. He had a near radar-like sense for anything happening on his patch and would almost certainly be aware of any enquiries regarding Grainger during that period. He was still in his office when Marks returned; two divorces stood testimony to the man's dedication to his work. "Dennis, still here? Not after my job yet are you? Take a seat." Out of the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet the customary single malt along with two glasses made its appearance as a prelude to departure. "What's on your mind?" "Solomon Goldblum sir." "Goldblum, Goldblum...........that name rings a bell." "Hoped it might. I'm sure he's tied up in some way with these last two killings opposite the synagogue. What do you know about him?" "Let me think. I started here in eighty-one, and he was already a regular down at the desk. That's it, now I remember. He's been a persistent complainer about a lack of progress on his father's murder in 1936. You'd have thought that he'd have let it go by now. Why, what's the connection?" "Found him lingering at the scene of both killings. And I'm certain that he knows more than he's letting on." "Got any ID on the bodies?" "The first was an old guy named Michael Grainger, and the second was a woman in her mid forties." Marks flipped the pages of his notebook. "Jane Morrison, local woman apparently." "There's your link then." Harris downed the remainder of his glass and replaced the malt in the cabinet. "Sir?" "Morrison, she's or rather she was Grainger's daughter. That enough for you?" "More than enough. Grainger was one of a number questioned over the death of Abel Goldblum. He was never charged because the UBF provided an alibi. The case is still open."
Copyright 2008 Philip Neale |
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