Rag and Bone: A Billy Boyle World War II Mystery by James R. Benn

Author:James R. Benn [Benn, James R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781569479964
Google: QWgongEACAAJ
Amazon: B00ANYF878
Publisher: Soho Crime
Published: 2011-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“WHERE TO, BILLY?” Big Mike said as I got into the jeep.

“Camberwell, across the river. Take the Vauxhall Bridge.”

“That where Kaz is?” Big Mike said as he turned left in front of Victoria Station.

“No. It’s where Eddie Miller lived. He was the snitch for Sidorov.”

“Past tense?”

“Yeah. Somebody put a Polish bayonet through his heart early this morning. It belonged to Valerian Radecki, one of the Polish officers Kaz worked with. Major Horak saw Kaz handling it yesterday.”

“Fingerprints,” Big Mike said, nodding his head as he drove, visualizing the frame with his inner cop’s eye. “Who showed it to him, Radecki?”

“Yes, it was one of his souvenirs.”

“Then it’s going to have his prints, Kaz’s, and the killer’s. Or none.”

“Right,” I said, agreeing silently that Kaz was not the murderer.

“We trying to beat Scotland Yard to Eddie’s house?”

“We might not have to try too hard,” I said as we crossed the bridge, Big Ben visible downriver, its sharp spire silhouetted against white clouds drifting over the city. “Scutt says he’s shorthanded. He had to send men out to hunt for Krauts.”

“Harding said the docks took some scattered hits, but we shot down a dozen bombers, between flak and the night fighters,” Big Mike said. “Not that you’d know from the newspapers. The Brits play their cards close in, know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do,” I said as I pointed out our next turn, onto Brixton Road. Big Mike had a point, and I wondered what connections I might be missing entirely. Connections between Major Cosgrove, MI5, and who else? The Poles, the Russians, the Chapman gang, or the local Communist Party?

Penford Street was one of several short side streets about a block from the railroad. A tall brick wall screened the view but not the noise as a freight train lumbered by. The street was neat and well kept, three-story row houses in uniform brown brick, white-painted trim, and the typical London door, lacquered in different colors. Eddie’s was deep blue, and as we walked up the steps, it opened, and out came Sheila Carlson.

“Oh,” she said, startled by the near collision. She seemed to be in a hurry, her eyes darting out to the street, in a rush to leave Eddie’s house behind her. Her eyes took a second to settle down and focus on my face, and then they widened as she recognized me from the hotel.

“Oh no, please don’t. Oh no, no,” she muttered, as she took in my presence there and the towering form of Big Mike behind me. She thought she was looking at death itself. She put her hands on the door frame to steady herself, her face gone white, her mouth a gaping circle, little puffs of air escaping with each oh, oh, and none going in, like a gasping fish on dry land. I went to take her arm, which was a mistake.

“No!” she shouted, her voice finding anger as she swung her pocketbook, slamming me in the side of my face. I

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