Four

He woke more tired than he had felt before retiring for bed. The mattress had sagged alarmingly and the springs had creaked so loudly that every time he turned over he was jerked from sleep. He was amazed he hadn't roused the occupants of the entire hotel. Although, judging by the registration book last night, there were only two other guests besides him and Eva.

After a quick shave and wash in the nippy bathroom down the hall, he returned to his bedroom and dressed rapidly. Clearing the condensation from inside the window, he stopped briefly to stare down into the street. The rain had ceased in the early hours and the temperature had dropped a few Fahrenheit. It was still dark but in the glow of the streetlight a cat wandered aimlessly across the road not even bothering to scuttle out of the way of a lorry, which stopped to let it pass. He smiled.

Eva was already in the dining room when he entered. Dressed in her usual garb of trousers – this time teamed with a polo-neck jumper – she was eating toast and marmite. He was glad to hear that her bed hadn't proved as uncomfortable as his, but then she said she had been sleeping rough for so long that any bed was better than none.

They had the small dining room to themselves. Ryga ordered tea, toast and scrambled egg from the waitress who eyed him with suspicion. After she had left to get his order, he said, 'Does she know I'm a police officer?' He hadn't given his occupation in the register – he'd left that column blank.

'Not unless you told her. I haven't. She's probably wondering why you took a seat at my table when every other table is empty. Her name is Ivy and I told her I was a photographer here to take pictures of the harbour and town. She couldn't see why because the place was as dull as dish water and nothing ever happened here – oh, unless you count that police constable who killed himself by falling in the harbour. From there it was easy to get her talking. I suspect it will be the same with others. She said the two boys who found the policeman's body are Tom Gileson and Colin Pleasant who live on Denton Island. I'll go over there this morning. It being Saturday the boys will be out playing. I'll see what I can pick up from them and anyone else.'

Ivy returned with a pot of tea and another containing hot water, along with a small jug of milk. Ryga smiled his thanks but got a toss of her dark head in return.

Eva laughed. 'She probably thinks you're a travelling salesman trying to pick me up and that you have a wife and four children in Barrow-in-Furnace. Are you going to make it public knowledge who you are and why you're here?'

'Not until I've spoken to Inspector Holden. Some local police officers get a bit defensive when Scotland Yard appear on the scene. And I don't want to get his back up and start off on the wrong foot by making him think I've come charging in and that the whole town know I'm here before he does, although he is expecting me.'

'Exceedingly diplomatic of you. I'll say nothing about you, of course. What will be your first move?'

But Ryga was prevented from answering by the return of Ivy with his toast and scrambled egg.

'Is there anything else, miss?' she said pointedly to Eva.

'No, thank you, Ivy. I'm just leaving.'

Ivy looked as though she would like to wait until Eva had left and ensure he didn't follow her. But a couple of men entered the dining room and she had to attend to them.

Ryga said that after speaking to Inspector Holden he'd visit Myra's house.

Rising, Eva said, 'Well, if you need any photographs you know where to find me.'

'Somewhere around the harbour. I'll leave you to enjoy your scrambled egg.'

He didn't. It was lukewarm and soggy. He was convinced it had been made from powdered egg.

He collected his murder case from his bedroom – he didn't like to leave it lying about for any nosy chambermaid to peer into – and walked the short distance to the police station, wondering what kind of reception he would get from Holden. They were of the same rank but Scotland Yard took precedence when on an investigation, which sometimes induced antipathy. He was, after all, trespassing on another police forces' territory and as such questioning the ability of its officers. He wondered how Holden would feel about this.

Cool and suspicious was the answer but not openly hostile. After shaking hands Holden waved Ryga into a seat across his untidy paper-strewn desk in a stuffy, cramped office at the back of the station overlooking a brick wall. He was a well-built man of about fifty with grizzled reddish hair, a pale, lined face and soft grey-blue eyes which studied Ryga warily. Ryga had expected someone younger.

'I'm not sure there is anything I can tell you, or add to what the coroner found at the inquest,' Holden announced a little defensively as Ryga placed his hat on his lap and his murder case on the floor beside him. He was hot in his raincoat with the gas fire hissing and seemingly on full blast, but he didn't like to remove his coat without being invited to.

Ryga said, 'It's worrying that Mrs Swinley is missing.'

'Only since Thursday evening,' Holden replied, intimating that Scotland Yard were overreacting. 'She could have decided to visit relatives or friends.'

'Leaving her tea things on the table?' Always assuming, Ryga added to himself, they were from tea and not breakfast as Eva had suggested.

'Perhaps Mrs Swinley acted on impulse. She is obviously deeply upset over her husband's death and not thinking straight. She could be unwell, mentally.'

'Which means there is even greater urgency to locate her. I'd like a constable to accompany me to her house.'

'PC Jenkins is on the station. He was the constable who entered Mrs Swinley's house yesterday and I asked him to wait as I anticipated you would want to question him.'

'Thank you. You have the key?'

'There might be an address book, or details of relatives in the house, who we can contact and ask if they have spoken to Mrs Swinley.' But if she had gone to one of them that didn't explain why she hadn't telephoned Street to tell him where he could contact her. Ryga shifted and resisted the temptation to remove a handkerchief and mop his brow. Holden seemed oblivious to the heat, which for a big man Ryga thought unusual.

'Did you, or any of your officers, attend PC Swinley's funeral?' he asked. 'I wondered if you met any relatives of the Swinleys or perhaps PC Swinley spoke of relatives to his work colleagues.'

'He didn't to me, but he might have done to some of the constables. As to the funeral, Superintendent Waltham at headquarters attended it along with myself. There were quite a few people there because PC Swinley was well known on his beat, and in the town generally, but we didn't go back to the house.'

Ryga thought the neighbours might know of relatives or close friends. 'What was PC Swinley like?' he asked.

'Thorough, methodical, reliable,' came the quick reply. 'A competent officer.'

'And as a man?' probed Ryga, wanting to get under the skin of the dead man and not just see him as a husband and officer.

Holden looked as though he wanted to say I don't know what good this will do but he held his tongue on that score and, after a moment, said, 'He was pleasant and friendly but not overly chummy. Kept himself to himself, didn't mix socially, but he wasn't standoffish.'

It was more or less how Myra had described her husband. 'I'd like a list of the contents found in his pockets.'

'I suppose Mrs Swinley has told you his notebook and pencil were missing.'

'She did. And that neither had been found.'

'On account of them being at the bottom of the harbour.'

'You don't know that for certain.'

'No one's handed them in.'

'Maybe they wouldn't if something in those notes was worth pushing PC Swinley into the water for. Was he involved in investigating any crimes before he died?'

'Nothing that would warrant such violent action, only the usual petty thefts, some vandalism.'

Ryga nodded as if to say I understand. 'Where exactly was his body found?'

'Lodged up against the gridiron at Railway Quay. It's the other side of the harbour, which wasn't part of his beat but then the tide and currents could have taken the body from anywhere in the harbour, as you probably know from your experience of the Thames.'

Ryga said he did. Holden didn't know he also had a nautical background and he didn't enlighten him. Maybe he would in due course, if it was relevant.

Holden said, 'The boys who made the gruesome discovery, Tom Gileson and Colin Pleasant, reported it to an officer of the British Transport Commission Police who fetched Sergeant Keaton. He's the officer-in-charge. His office is close to the harbour railway station and the Customs House but you won't find him there today – it being Saturday he'll be off duty.'

'I'd like copies of the boys' statements, the coroner's report and the post-mortem report. If you could have them, and that list of the pocket contents, ready for me when I return, I'd be grateful,' Ryga said, rising. Even if by some chance Myra was at home and answered the door to him, it wouldn't hurt to read through the reports.

'I'll make sure they're left with Sergeant Williams. He'll be on duty at two p.m. It's not his regular shift but my station sergeant has gone down with this influenza, so Sergeant Williams will be taking over for now. Will you be wanting a desk?'

'Please, and I'll also need the use of a telephone.'

Ryga wondered where Holden would put him; by his look and manner it could be in a cupboard as far away from him as possible.

Leaving his murder case in Holden's office, Ryga accompanied the inspector back to the front desk where a tall, lanky constable in his mid-twenties – whom Holden introduced as PC Jenkins – fished out a street map for Ryga on his request. Ryga was no slouch at six foot but Jenkins towered above him by at least six inches. He seemed an amiable young man and Ryga hoped he was intelligent, observant and articulate. As they set off towards Fort Road, Ryga asked how long Jenkins had worked with George Swinley.

'Just over a year, sir. Since I joined the police. He was very decent to me.'

'He was patient when I made mistakes and gave me advice when I didn't know what to do. He wasn't one to talk down to you. Treated people with respect. Bit of a stickler for the rules, though, and for writing things down, but then that's not a bad thing.'

'No, it isn't, and police officers have to make sure they record things accurately.'

'Did you go out with him on his beat?'

'No. But I took it over after he went missing.'

'And has anyone said anything to you about how PC Swinley ended up in the harbour?'

'Nothing, sir, except what a tragic accident it was.'

They stepped around a small group of children playing with marbles and a little girl of about four wearing her mother's high heels. Their eyes followed them with curiosity. Jenkins smiled at them but their expressions didn't alter.

'They're good kids,' he said as they walked on. He nodded at a man and a woman talking in a doorway, who returned the gesture while studying Ryga inquisitively. At the end of the street they turned left and then almost immediately right, heading down towards the fort which the road was named after, built in the nineteenth century on the cliffs overlooking Seaford Bay to defend the harbour from the French and utilized again for defence against the Germans during the war. The army were still present but in the form of a Ukrainian Battle Area Clearance Unit, tasked with the removal of mines and unexploded ordnance from the beaches and the surrounding areas.

To Ryga's left was the railway track, running adjacent to the harbour, with a variety of craft moored alongside, including fishing boats and attracting, as usual, the shrieking seagulls swooping and diving overhead. The smell of fish and the mud of low tide mingled with the gritty metallic scent of the working town. Across the narrow stretch of harbour he could see, and hear, the whirr of the cranes as they towered and swayed over the cargo ships.

'That's Railway Quay where PC Swinley was found,' Jenkins said, noting Ryga's glance. 'Mrs Swinley lives just down here, sir, opposite the allotments,' which they were now passing.

A couple of men were tending their patches; another sat on a wooden crate before a smouldering furnace, smoking a pipe looking contented and reflective. Jenkins halted before a well-cared-for terraced house on their right. 'This is it,' he announced.

The small front garden boasted some bedraggled-looking winter pansies but the patterned tiled path to the varnished front door was weed-free. There were crisp white lace curtains in the downstairs front window between which, in the middle of the bay window, was a healthy-looking aspidistra. The upstairs curtains were pulled back in both of the windows. The milk bottle on the doorstep told Ryga that Myra hadn't returned, yet he knocked just in case. There was no answer.

Extracting the key Inspector Holden had given him, he addressed PC Jenkins. 'Give that bottle of milk to one of the neighbours and talk to both sides, ask them when they last saw Mrs Swinley and if they know of any relatives.' That should keep Jenkins occupied. Ryga wanted to see inside the house alone and soak up its atmosphere.

The immediate thing that struck him as he entered was the cold. He shuddered involuntarily. It was as though he sensed evil, which was ridiculous. He was a police officer who dealt in facts. He was letting his imagination get the better of him. But as he gazed around the pristine hall, he felt a sadness, or perhaps it was an emptiness. He was curious to know what Eva might feel on viewing the place.

Trying to shake off the feeling and not quite managing it, he took in the surroundings: the gleaming brass stair rods and shining mahogany bannister; the spotless green and brown patterned carpet with pale green linoleum between the edge of the carpet and the cream-painted skirting boards. The smell of beeswax and wood. The sound of a solemnly ticking clock, which suddenly struck the half hour, making him start. It was ten thirty.

He turned his attention to the coat stand on his left. It was so highly polished that he felt he might actually see his reflection in the wood rather than in the small central mirror. There was a man's trilby hat on the left-hand peg and under it a tweed overcoat, while on the right was a woman's raincoat. He assumed the overcoat, like the hat, had belonged to George Swinley.

He lifted off the trilby hat and tested it against his own for size. George Swinley had boasted a much larger head than him. Ryga placed it on the small shelf below the mirror and took down the coat. Both pockets were empty, as was the inner breast pocket. Holding the coat up against him, he saw that the owner had been bulkier but about the same height. There was no name sewn in it. The collar was a little worn, but all the buttons present. He wondered if the former constable's other clothes were still in the house or whether Myra had dispensed with them either by giving them to someone or putting them in the jumble sale. Somehow he couldn't see her taking them to a pawn shop. He'd get to the bedrooms in due course.

Lifting Myra's raincoat, he found a handkerchief in the right-hand pocket, nothing more. The coat held the faint smell of perfume. It wasn't the same coat she'd worn to London. That wasn't here, neither was her hat, gloves or handbag, but they could be in her bedroom. He hadn't noticed if Myra had been wearing any perfume in Street's office but then the smell of the gas fire, and Street's pipe tobacco smoke, could have disguised it. The umbrella, which Myra had been carrying, was in its allotted slot, so unless someone had taken it from her and placed it there, or she had two identical ones, she had returned home.

A telephone was on a small, gleaming oak table to the right of a door which was the understairs cupboard. He made a mental note to ask the exchange about the last call made and received from the number. The notepad beside the telephone had nothing written in it and from what he could see no indentation on the top page from any writing which might have been on a sheet of paper torn out. Surprisingly there was no address or telephone book in the tiny drawer. In fact, the drawer was empty. Myra must have kept a note of the numbers elsewhere, perhaps in a small book in her handbag.

He opened the understairs cupboard, thinking this must have been where Myra – and her husband when home on leave from the army – had taken refuge from the German bombs during the war, unless there was an Anderson shelter in the garden. The cupboard was fairly deep; it contained two empty shopping bags, a Bissell carpet sweeper, a wooden ironing board and a few other household bits and pieces. Nothing of interest.

Ryga made for the front parlour and found what he fully expected – a gleaming ice-cold room. The ticking clock was sharing place on the sturdy mantelpiece with a couple of ornaments and shining brass candlesticks, while there was a photograph of Myra and George on their wedding day on the sideboard. Also one of George in police uniform. Ryga compared the younger Myra with the one he had met. There was the same angular face, slightly slanting eyes and broad mouth. Her dark hair had that same wild, untamed appearance. The uniformed PC Swinley was exactly how he had imagined him – solid, upright, well-built, with a hint of a smile on his round face. In his wedding pictures he was dark haired but Ryga couldn't see the colour of his hair, or how much of it he had, in the police picture because of the helmet. The helmet. What had happened to that? Had it still been on the body when found? Myra hadn't mentioned it and neither had Inspector Holden. Maybe they had both assumed it had become dislodged when he fell in the harbour, but Ryga frowned at that thought as he continued his study of the room.

There was one further picture, that of a man who needed no introduction because he was wearing the uniform of a master in the merchant navy. This was Myra's father. He cut a commanding figure: square, solid, dark-haired and dark-eyed. And in another photograph Ryga could see him with, he assumed, his wife, Myra's mother – a petite, fair woman with solemn eyes that held a hint of fear, or was he seeing something that wasn't there? Perhaps she was mistrustful of the camera.

In the sideboard he found a box of cutlery, a floral-patterned tea set, a few crystal glasses and a bottle of brandy and sherry, which looked to have been there for some years. There was also a folder covered with wallpaper sporting tiny blue flowers and tied together with blue ribbon. In it, Ryga found the deeds to the house, the house insurance policy, the Swinleys' birth certificates along with those of Myra's parents and the latter's death certificates, George and Myra's marriage certificate and, sadly, George's death certificate. There were a few more photographs of the Swinleys' wedding and a couple of Myra as a child but no life insurance policy and no will. He put them back.

Against the wall to the right of the door was an upright piano. It was unlocked. Ryga tinkled a few keys and smiled at the sound. It was well tuned. He'd learned to play in the prison camp, which, surprisingly, had acquired the instrument, brought in, he had subsequently learned, by one of the more kindly German officers, for which they were grateful. They had nearly had to resort to burning it for fuel towards the end of their imprisonment but miraculously hadn't. Ryga wondered what had happened to it.

He'd discovered he had a gift for playing and a musical ear. He couldn't read music but he could quickly pick up a tune. He'd even ventured into classical music, which he found both soothing and stimulating. He attended a few lunchtime concerts in London when his workload permitted but hadn't touched a piano since returning home. There wasn't any room for one in his tiny flat.

The middle parlour was more homely and was obviously where the Swinleys lived. The fire had been made up but had long gone out. The brass fire instruments in their brass container – tongs, brush and poker – were so shiny that they looked as though they had never been used but lifting the tongs and poker the blackened ends told him they had been. The mantelshelf in this room boasted two ornamental jugs of an oriental colour and style. There was nothing in them. Either side of the ornaments were more brass candlesticks with white candles, only slightly used, put there in case of emergency because the house had electricity. In front of the fire were two easy armchairs, not of such a sturdy a nature as those in the front room. These were made of fabric instead of leather as in the front parlour, and were clean with crisp cream antimacassars on the arms and the head rests.

Beside one of the chairs was a pair of slippers – Myra's – and beside the other chair, straddling the hearth, was a capacious tapestry knitting bag with wooden handles, inside of which he could see a skein of grey wool, a ball of navy-blue wool and some knitting needles. The scarlet patterned rug between the chairs was old and worn but was clean and of excellent quality. Unless he was mistaken it was Persian, perhaps another family heirloom of the late master's.

Finally he turned his attention to the table, the contents of which were of great interest to him and which he had saved studying until last, wanting to form a general impression of Myra first before doing so. There was a ruby-red cloth and on it was a floral-patterned tea pot, milk jug and sugar bowl with only a small amount of sugar in it. There was a tea plate with a knife beside it with the remains of some congealed butter on it, and a small dab of the same on the plate along with some breadcrumbs. Half a small loaf of bread sat on a round orange and yellow flower-patterned bread plate with the breadknife beside it. Ryga opened the tea pot. It was half full of black cold liquid. There were some sludgy dregs of tea in the bottom of the cup.

He committed the scene to memory and continued his tour of the rest of the house, which reinforced the fact that Myra was exceptionally house-proud. All was neat and tidy and in its place. It also revealed that she hadn't removed, and put away in her bedroom, her hat and coat because he couldn't find them, or the little black handbag with the suede trim anywhere. From the bedroom window he could see the allotments, the railway track and landing stages. Also the boats lined up along them both this side of the harbour and across it to the cranes and large ships of Railway Quay and further to the south, East Quay.

There was only one place left to check, in case Myra's body was inside it – the garden shed. Here he found only gardening tools, a work bench with tools, some wood, paint and a bicycle. There was no Anderson shelter and nowhere else in the small neatly tended back garden with its vegetable patch where her body could have been concealed.

As he returned to the pristine kitchen there was a knock on the front door. Before going to open it, Ryga diverted to the front parlour and picked up the photograph of Swinley in police uniform. From the window he could see the lanky PC Jenkins gazing around. Ryga opened the door and, without inviting him in, said, 'Is this a good likeness of PC Swinley?'

'Why yes, sir,' Jenkins replied.

Ryga removed the photograph from the frame, put the picture in the inside pocket of his Macintosh and returned the frame to the parlour. From what he had seen it didn't bode well for Myra Swinley. There were some things that had struck him during his tour of the house but he'd consider them later.

He listened to Jenkins' report as they made their way back up Fort Road.

'Mrs Farrah, the neighbour on the right, saw Mrs Swinley go out on Wednesday and Mrs Duncan on the other side saw her on Tuesday,' Jenkins relayed. 'Neither saw or heard her leave on Thursday or come home that evening. Both neighbours attended the funeral and the wake along with some of Mrs Swinley's friends from the church, St Margaret's in South Road.'

'None of PC Swinley's friends or colleagues attended?'

'No. It was a small gathering, although there was a crowd at the funeral – plenty of us went to that. I couldn't, I was on duty. The neighbours say that Mrs Swinley is a nice party, not overly friendly like, but always pleasant and well-respected, especially for her fundraising and war work.'

'The Women's Royal Voluntary Service, which she still continues with, and charitable work through the church.'

'None that either women know of and they've never heard her speak of any.'

'Myra said that her husband had a small boat at Sleeper's Hole. Where exactly is that?'

'We call it Mud Hole – it's over there, sir.' He halted and turned back. 'It's further down Fort Road, opposite the recreation ground. You can't miss it or the smell when the tide's out.'

Ryga withdrew the street map Jenkins had given him and right enough saw it marked as 'Sleeper's Hole' with the word 'Mud' underneath it. It was a wide U-shaped indentation in the harbour.

'Do you know the name of Swinley's boat?'

'Can't say I do off-hand. He probably told me but I can't recall it.'

'It doesn't matter. I'll find someone to ask. I'd like to take a look at it.' Not that it would tell him anything about the constable's death or what had happened to Myra, but it might help him to get a deeper picture of George Swinley. 'It's all right, I shan't need you, Constable, you can carry on with your duties. And if you see the milkman on your travels cancel Mrs Swinley's milk for now.'