Keedy also learnt that Price was known to the police. He’d been arrested during an affray the previous year but had not been charged. The fractious Welshman had also been involved in two other incidents, one of which — refusing to pay for some groceries — had resulted in a fine. Price detested authority. Each time he’d been brought to the station, it transpired, he’d been awkward under questioning. It helped to explain why he’d been so prickly during his session with Keedy. The carpenter, Fred Hambridge, had been far more amenable and — according to Marmion — so had Gordon Leach. It would be interesting to learn how Price fitted into the quartet that included Cyril Ablatt. Since the latter was the undisputed leader, to what extent had the Welshman accepted to the authority vested in his friend?

Time was rolling on and there were decisions to be made. It would take Keedy far too long to go all the way to and from his digs so he resigned himself to remaining in Shoreditch. He first walked to the recommended house and made the acquaintance of Rose and Martha Haveron, two anxious ladies in their late sixties who confused their recent burglary with an attempt of their long-preserved virginity. Reassured by his status and by his easy charm, they were at the same time appalled to hear about the murder. They had nothing but good to say about Ablatt and his father and had been friendly with his mother until she died some years earlier. Even though it would be the first time that a man had spent a night under their roof, the sisters willingly offered up their front room as an observation post, ready to break with tradition if it would help the police. Indeed, they both revealed a hitherto hidden maternal instinct, offering Keedy food, providing him with blankets and generally trying to make his stay there as comfortable as it could be. He had difficulty escaping their urgent hospitality in order to go shopping.

As he left his two temporary landladies, he looked up at the side of the house on the corner. Nobody was left in any doubt as to who lived there. Amongst other things, Cyril Ablatt was described as a coward, a rat, a rotten conchie and a traitor to his country. The lettering was large but hastily done. Keedy decided that it must have taken the artist a number of visits to complete the work. His sympathy for the dead man welled up. Much kinder words would be etched on Ablatt’s gravestone. While the exterior of the house had been defaced, the real damage had been caused inside it. Keedy wondered how the family was coping with it.

‘Shall I make some more tea?’ asked Gerald Ablatt, getting to his feet.

He’d done little else from the time that his sister and brother-in-law had arrived. They come to offer him comfort but it was Nancy Dalley who most needed it. Between bouts of tears, she kept dredging up fond memories of her nephew and asking her brother to endorse their accuracy. Ablatt readily agreed with everything that she said, trying to ease her pain as a means of relieving his own. Dalley was forced into the position of an onlooker, watching them suffer and listening to the endless repetition of the same empty phrases.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said, reaching for the tea pot.

Ablatt came out of his reverie. ‘You don’t know where the tea is, Jack.’

‘I’ll find it.’

‘There are biscuits in the larder.’

‘I couldn’t touch food,’ said Nancy. ‘Even a biscuit would make me sick.’

‘You haven’t eaten anything since we got here, love,’ said her husband, solicitously. ‘There’s no need to starve.’

‘All I want is some tea.’

‘But we’ve been here for hours.’

‘Tea, Jack — nothing else.’

‘I’ll get it.’

As soon as Dalley left the room, Ablatt sat beside his sister and they embraced impulsively, letting the tears gush yet again. The murder had completely disoriented them. They’d lost all sense of time, place and purpose. All that they could do was to sit there and offer each other a degree of succour. When the blacksmith returned from the kitchen with the teapot and biscuits, he found them still locked together.

‘I’ll have to go soon,’ he warned. ‘It’s unfair to leave Perce on his own all day. He’ll wonder what’s happened.’

‘Go when you want to, Jack,’ said Ablatt.

‘Will you stay here, Nance?’

‘Yes,’ she murmured.

‘I’ll come back when I shut up the forge.’

‘I’ll still be here.’

Dalley put the teapot on the table and opened the biscuit barrel. He helped himself to a digestive them offered the selection to Ablatt who shook his head. His sister had started crying again and he was afraid to leave go of her. The blacksmith munched his biscuit and tempered his sorrow with a light-hearted remark.

‘One thing, anyway,’ he said. ‘Cyril won’t ever have to join the army now.’

The moment the words came out of his mouth, he realised how crass and hurtful they could be. However, he was spared any reproach from the others. Neither Ablatt nor Nancy heard what he said. They were miles away, trapped irretrievably in their private misery.

Notwithstanding his shortcomings, Claude Chatfield was an industrious man. By the time Marmion got back to Scotland Yard, the superintendent had immersed himself in the details of the murder, acquired a map of London and its inner suburbs, and set up a press conference. He’d also informed the commissioner about the progress of the investigation. Knowing how finicky Chatfield was about detail, Marmion had taken pains to rehearse what he was about to say. Accordingly, his report was full and lucid. He described his meeting with Eric Fussell and did his best to hide his aversion to the librarian. He went on to talk about Keedy’s questioning of Horrie Waldron. It led to the sergeant’s subsequent visit to a woman the gravedigger had claimed could supply him with an alibi for the time when he was away from the Weavers Arms the previous evening. Chatfield listened intently.

‘Who is this woman?’

‘Her name is Maud Crowther.’

‘Is that Miss or Mrs?’

‘It’s Mrs Crowther, sir.’

‘So this egregious gravedigger is dallying with a married woman.’

‘The lady is a widow, sir,’ said Marmion. ‘To gain her cooperation, Sergeant Keedy had to promise her that her name would be kept out of any newspaper reports. I think that we should honour that promise.’

‘What if she’s simply inventing an alibi for Waldron?’

‘The sergeant was convinced that Mrs Crowther was honest and reliable, sir. When it comes to women,’ he added with a smile, ‘I accept his judgements without question. He has an insight into the opposite sex that I lack.’

‘This is no time to discuss Keedy’s amours, Inspector,’ said Chatfield with a note of reprimand. ‘I know that they are the stuff of canteen gossip but they have no bearing on this case.’

‘I disagree, sir.’

‘As to this woman, we’ll hold her name back for the time being. If, however, she turns out to be an accomplice of sorts, both you and the sergeant will bear the weight of my displeasure.’

‘Neither of us wishes to incur that, Superintendent.’

‘I don’t blame you.’ He studied Marmion for a moment. ‘Is that all?’

‘I believe so.’

‘I’d hate to think that you’ve missed anything out.’

‘You’ve heard everything, sir.’

Marmion’s expression gave nothing away. Once again, he’d taken care to make no mention of the woman with whom Cyril Ablatt had enjoyed a secret romance. In addition to everything else, it would have unleashed a torrent of denunciation from the superintendent. Chatfield was a devout Roman Catholic who viewed extra-marital adventures of any kind with revulsion. Caroline Skene’s name would have prompted a fiery sermon from him. But that was not the only reason why Marmion kept back details of his meeting with her. He felt sorry for her in her bereavement and was not at all sure that she could endure it. To add public exposure of her friendship with Ablatt would be a crippling blow, leading to dire repercussions with her husband. While Chatfield would think that such punishment was well-deserved, Marmion wanted to protect her.