‘And he didn’t tell you where he was going?’

‘No, he didn’t.’

She was very happy to answer their questions until they asked if they could see Wylie’s room. Suddenly, she became defensive, wondering what had really brought them there and why they were so keen to speak to her tenant. Keedy took over and invented a plausible story concerning an accident at the factory that Wylie had witnessed and about which he’d promised to deliver a written report. The combination of Keedy’s charm and Marmion’s rank persuaded her that she should let them have their way. Once inside the room, they began a thorough search.

‘Thanks, Joe,’ said Marmion, opening a wardrobe. ‘You saved us the trouble of getting a search warrant.’

Keedy sniffed. ‘Would you want to live in room like this? It stinks.’

‘I think that Wylie came to the same conclusion.’ He indicated the empty wardrobe. ‘The cupboard is bare. What’s in those drawers?’

The sergeant opened them one by one. ‘Nothing — he’s made a run for it.’

Wylie had taken almost all of his clothing and personal items. All that he’d left behind were a few books and a grubby shirt hung on the back of the door. They could find nothing that indicated where he’d gone. Marmion was disappointed that they’d found no evidence to connect Wylie to the explosion at the pub. The man had either been careful to remove all trace of it or had not been implicated in the first place. They were about to leave when Marmion caught sight of the little shed in the garden. If Wylie looked after the lawn and the flowerbeds, he’d have free access to the shed. The landlady was puzzled by their request to go into the garden but she raised no objection. Keedy led the way and lifted the hook on the door of the shed. There was barely room for the two detectives to step inside. It was filled with garden implements. Marmion managed to trip over a watering can and Keedy’s shoulder dislodged a flowerpot from a shelf.

But the visit yielded a clue that made the pair of them grin broadly.

‘Do you see what I see, Joe?’ asked Marmion.

‘I do, indeed,’ replied Keedy.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The news that her son was at last coming home on leave had filled Ellen Marmion with a delight that never faded. As she did her housework that morning, she was almost radiant. Her only complaint was that she’d not yet had time to discuss with her husband or daughter the welcome they should prepare for their returning hero. Paul’s letter had talked about his need for a long rest but there would be other members of the family eager to meet him, so there had to be a big celebration. Plans for a party began to form in her mind. Taking wartime food shortages into account, Ellen even went through the meal that would be served. It was when she got to her son’s bedroom that she felt real exhilaration. Though he’d been away for a long time, she’d cleaned the room regularly and dusted all of his trophies. Paul had been a talented sportsman. He’d won cups for his prowess at athletics and tennis, but the award he valued most was the shield his football team had acquired when winning the league title in their last full season. A photograph of the eleven players stood on the mantelpiece and Ellen could see her son smiling proudly in the back row.

Her stomach lurched slightly as she glanced at some of the other young men. Heartened by the fact that they could all be in the same regiment if they joined up together, the whole team had rushed off to the recruiting office. Some of the players had already been killed and others had been sent home with missing limbs and disturbing memories. While luxuriating in her own pleasure, Ellen spared a passing thought for families less fortunate than her own. When she picked up the photo to examine it more closely, she was struck by something that Marmion had told her about the investigation. Some of the victims were members of a ladies football team. Such a thing had never existed in her youth and Ellen was not sure that it ought to exist now. While she saw the necessity for change, she was fearful of the way that the boundaries between the two sexes were being blurred and, in some cases, eradicated altogether. Women now played football, drove buses, ran canteens and refugee centres, filled shells in munition factories, joined the police service and did almost everything else that had once been the exclusive territory of their male counterparts. Some, like Ellen herself, sewed and knitted with varying degrees of skill in order to send gloves, socks and other items to soldiers at the front.

It was unsettling for a woman with the values of her generation. Particularly worrying for Ellen was the rise of the suffragettes. Having suspended their campaign at the outbreak of hostilities, they’d devoted themselves to unflagging war work as a means of attesting their patriotism and of proving that they could match what men did and should therefore be given an equal right to vote. That was going too far, in Ellen’s view, and she was unnerved by the support that Alice gave to the notion of female emancipation, hoping that her daughter’s marriage to Joe Keedy would return her to a more traditional role. Dusting the photo before replacing it, she wondered what her son would make of the way that Alice had changed since the outbreak of war. As children, they’d been very close but they’d slowly drifted apart. Ellen had watched with disquiet as her daughter had gone from being a teacher to wearing a police uniform. An army uniform might have wrought even more profound changes in her son. He would certainly not be the person they’d waved off after his last leave. All of a sudden, her elation began to dim slightly.

‘What’s the fellow’s name?’

‘Herbert Wylie.’

‘Where did he work?’

‘In the Cartridge Section at the munitions factory.’

‘When did he last turn up there?’

‘On the day of the explosion,’ replied Marmion.

‘What did you find at his digs?’

‘We saw evidence of bomb-making ingredients, sir.’

‘Anything else?’ asked the superintendent.

‘It looks as if he’s flown the coop.’

After their visit to Wylie’s house, the detectives had returned to the police station. In view of what he felt was a significant discovery, Marmion had rung Claude Chatfield to tell him what had been found in the garden shed. He praised Keedy for drawing the information out of Maureen Quinn that one of her friends had been stalked by a man at the factory who was frighteningly obsessive.

‘What do we know about him?’ enquired Chatfield.

‘We know very little, I’m afraid,’ said Marmion. ‘Mr Kennett only knew him by sight and Wylie’s landlady gave us an idealised portrait of him. She seems to treat him like the son she never had. If he can win her over so completely, he must have some redeeming features.’

‘Did you tell her that he’s now a suspect in a murder inquiry?’

‘No, sir — it seemed too cruel to shatter her illusions. Besides, we don’t know that he was the bomber. We’ve had strong evidence in the past that turned out to be annoyingly misleading.’

‘My instinct tells me we’ve picked up the scent of the man we want,’ said Chatfield, emphatically. ‘I’ll release his name to the press and say that we’re anxious to trace him. He’s gone to ground somewhere and we need to flush him out.’

‘I agree, Superintendent.’

‘What will you and the sergeant do in the meantime?’

‘Sergeant Keedy has gone back to the factory to talk to people who knew Herbert Wylie rather better than the works manager. With luck, there might even be a photograph of employees that includes the man. I know that there are group photos of female workers because I saw one on the wall in Mr Kennett’s office. Hopefully, they pointed the camera at the men as well.’

‘You haven’t told me what you’ll be up to, Inspector.’