Sure and Certain Death Read Online Free PDF

was working the streets and houses of West Ham. I shuddered at that thought. My bedroom may always be cold but I’m a tough old soldier and so I don’t generally notice the chill too badly. But that thought, of more than one killer being amongst us, did what no London winter could and made my whole body shake and freeze right down to its bones.
    Nan was mixing up powdered egg for everybody’s breakfast when I walked into the kitchen the next morning. The Duchess was still dressing in her bedroom and Aggie was sitting at the table reading a copy of Picturegoer and smoking a fag. I was going to try and discreetly get her to leave so that I could speak to Nan on my own, but Aggie had questions she wanted answered and which she came straight out with.
    ‘There was a lot of noise downstairs last night, Frank,’ she said. ‘What was it all about?’
    ‘Oh . . . uh . . .’ I’m not very quick off the mark with either Nan or Aggie. I developed a stutter back in the Great War which gets very bad during bombing raids, and sometimes during conversations with my sisters.
    Nan turned away from the saucepan on the range and said, ‘I heard some sort of kerfuffle too.’
    ‘And there’s a coffin down in the back room sitting on one of the stands,’ Aggie said. ‘That wasn’t there yesterday.’
    ‘Haven’t had quite so many of the dear departed with us since the bombing stopped,’ Nancy said.
    ‘Yes, but people are still bombed out,’ Aggie said as she flicked the ash from her fag into an old tobacco tin.
    ‘That’s true,’ Nan said. ‘Not everyone’s still got a parlour to rest the one who has passed over in. I mean, we’re very lucky in a lot of ways . . .’
    ‘It’s, it’s D-Dolly O’Dowd!’ I blurted. I didn’t mean to. I hadn’t intended to be so blunt about it. But that said, I knew that my sisters weren’t going to shut up and let me speak unless I made them do so. Nancy and Aggie may not get on for much of the time, but what they both have in common is a huge ability to bloody rabbit.
    There was probably half a minute of silence. As both my sisters looked at me with disbelief on their faces it felt like a bleeding lifetime.
    Nan took the saucepan of powdered egg off the range and put it on the table. ‘But . . .’
    ‘You do mean Dolly O’Dowd from Green Street, don’t you, Frank?’ Aggie asked. And then tipping her head towards Nan she said, ‘Her churchy mate?’
    ‘Y-yes.’
    Nancy sat down, staring at the saucepan as the sticky yellow goo in it began to congeal. Aggie flashed me a concerned look and so I sat down next to Nan and put one of my hands over hers. Any more contact than that would have upset her. My older sister doesn’t like to be touched.
    ‘Nan, love,’ I said, ‘I know that Dolly was your friend . . .’
    ‘She was my best friend.’ Nan looked across at me, her face long and taut with the strain of holding in a lot of tears. She said, ‘I never heard Dolly had passed away. Why ain’t she at her Rita’s? Why’s she here?’
    I didn’t know where to start. Of course, in spite of the best efforts of the coppers, some people already knew about Dolly O’Dowd and very soon the whole manor would be buzzing with the news. I had to tell her.
    ‘I want to see her,’ Nan said as she jumped up from the table and began to walk towards the kitchen door.
    ‘Nan!’ I stood and made to follow her just as the Duchess came in for her breakfast. She caught the wild look in Nan’s eyes immediately and looked at Aggie and me.
    ‘Francis?’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’
    ‘Duchess, it’s . . .’
    ‘Dolly’s dead,’ Nan said matter-of-factly. ‘Downstairs. Frank’s just going to show me her now.’
    ‘Dolly O’Dowd?’ my mother asked. ‘My goodness! How . . .’
    ‘Frank’s just going to show me her now,’ Nan repeated as she began to shove against the Duchess in order to get past.
    Aggie, alarmed at Nan’s fierce, insistent behaviour,