Sure and Certain Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

looked over at me and bit her lip.
    ‘Frank . . .’ Nan began.
    ‘Nancy, sit down and let me tell you about it,’ I said.
    ‘Frank, I want to see Dolly, I . . .’
    ‘Nan . . .’
    ‘Frank . . .’ As she pushed against the Duchess, Nan began to cry. My mother put one of her arms around her. She’s the only person who can do anything so intimate with my older sister. ‘Frank, I want to see . . .’
    ‘Nan, you need to sit down,’ I said. Then, looking over her head at my mother, I added, ‘We all need to sit down for a moment.’
    ‘I’d better turn the gas off,’ Aggie said as she walked over to the range and put out the flame that had been heating our eggs.
    Nan looked at me with such fear in her eyes I began to feel sick just at the thought of telling her what had happened to Dolly O’Dowd. But once she, Aggie and my mother were settled at the table, I did it anyway. I didn’t have any choice. When I’d finished I said, ‘So you can’t see Dolly, I’m afraid, Nan. She’s just in . . . in too much of a . . . mess, if you know what . . .’
    ‘Do they know who . . .’ Nan began. ‘The coppers, do they know who, who done . . .’
    ‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘No more than they know who killed Nellie Martin or Violet Dickens.’
    ‘Coppers think it’s the same person, do they?’ Aggie asked.
    ‘They think it’s possible,’ I said. ‘Although of course only Dolly and Nellie died in Plaistow. Violet is down to Canning Town.’
    ‘Jack the Ripper!’ Nan said, and then she began to cry once again.
    I looked at the Duchess, who shrugged and then said to Nancy, ‘But dear, Jack the Ripper is long dead.’
    ‘’Course,’ Aggie agreed. ‘But Mum, someone’s cutting women up like the old Ripper used to do. Someone’s copying him.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Anyway, even if somehow it is the old Ripper, as long as he’s caught that’s all that matters,’ Aggie said. ‘Frank, you say the coppers brought the body in last night?’
    ‘They’re looking into it,’ I replied.
    ‘Yes, well, they’ve been looking into the other two women’s deaths as well,’ Aggie said darkly. ‘Don’t mean nothing’s been done. You know what they’re like, Frank.’
    I did, but I didn’t say anything to either confirm or deny Aggie’s low opinion of the police. In truth of course they are overworked and there aren’t enough of them. All the A1 young blokes have gone off to fight or work in the mines, leaving our few sad old coppers here to deal with a hell of a lot of misbehaviour. To be fair, most people have pulled together with their friends and neighbours for the war effort, but a lot haven’t. Even with this lull or whatever it is in the bombing the looting still goes on. There’s murder too, old and not so old scores settled in the blackout, away from the beats of our very few coppers. Ordinary folk do their best and their bit. I’ve done my share in the past. In fact I have been quite successful, something that my sister Aggie alluded to now.
    ‘You should look into it, Frank,’ she said. ‘You’ve a better head on your shoulders than any copper I’ve ever come across.’
    ‘Ag—’
    ‘Agnes, your brother has a job!’ the Duchess said firmly, her eyes blazing in anger at Aggie. ‘It is a job he does well. He doesn’t need to do any more. Let the police do their job and allow your brother to do his!’
    ‘Yes, but Mum,’ Aggie said, ‘he’s helped the police out before! Blimey, it was our Frank who found out who killed that gypsy girl up in Epping Forest last year!’
    It was true. I had indeed helped to bring the murderer of the gypsy girl Lily Lee to justice the previous autumn. And that wasn’t all I’d done.
    ‘Then there was that bother with them sisters from over the West End,’ Aggie said. ‘Our Frank found out who was killing them . . .’
    ‘That is enough!’ My mother held up a small, brown silencing hand and stared very hard into