Murder in the Bookshop: The start of a totally addictive WW1 cozy murder mystery from Anita Davison

1

CHISWICK MALL, WEST LONDON, 9 SEPTEMBER 1915

Hannah woke to the sound of raised voices in a mildly combative tone. She glanced at her bedside clock and groaned in protest at the early hour. The journey from her parents’ home in Surrey the previous evening had been exhausting, fraught with delays and cancellations due to troop trains on their way to the coast being given precedence. It was fully dark by the time she crept up the stairs, avoiding the loose floorboard so as not to wake her Aunt Violet.

Sliding from the warm cocoon of covers, her toes curling on the cold floorboards, she groped for her dressing gown, jammed an arm awkwardly into a sleeve and unhooked the window latch with the other. Her maid, Ivy, a rail-thin woman in her early twenties with frizzy mouse-coloured hair and unremarkable features stood at the wrought iron front gate, the post boy straddling his bicycle on the other side.

A cool, wet summer had swelled the Thames thirty feet away, and grey-green algae-filled water lapped the grass verge between the path and the low wall enclosing the front garden. A sudden cool breeze ruffled the surface of the water and lifted long strands of unbound hair across Hannah’s face.

‘How do you know? Unless you’ve got pigeons in your muvver’s loft.’ Ivy chuckled at her own joke, which seemed to anger the post boy.

‘It’s true, I tell yer! Me uncle arrived this half hour since to tell us.’

Hannah pulled the edges of her dressing gown tight around her neck and leaned her forearms on the windowsill.

‘Ivy!’ she called, levelling her voice to a low, but fierce whisper. ‘You’ll wake my Aunt Violet. Why on earth are you arguing with the post boy?’

‘That ain’t likely, miss. She’s dead to the world most mornings.’ Ivy gripped the gate with one hand and twisted at the waist to call back at Hannah. ‘And this here scamp’s tellin’ porkies.’

‘I ain’t, miss.’ The post boy, a lad of fourteen, shoved his soft cap further back on his head and looked up at Hannah. ‘The Germans went and bombed London last night. That’s what.’

‘Last night?’ Hannah’s stomach dropped, banishing the remnants of her early morning indolence. ‘Do you know where?’

‘Aldersgate area, near Smithfield Market got done. And a ruddy great bomb took out a whole row of ’ouses in Bartholemew Close.’

‘And ’ow can you know then?’ Ivy propped her hands on her hips, her head tilted at Hannah in a ‘can you believe him?’ look.

‘I told yer.’ The youth’s face twisted in anguish. ‘Me uncle was on ’is way to Smithfield to stock up his shop and said the streets are covered in rubble and broken glass. The fire wardens wouldn’t let him through so he ’ad to come home. Not a window in one piece for miles, ’e said. The firemen have been fighting the fires all night.’

Aldersgate was a little over a mile from her aunt’s bookshop in Covent Garden, and Charing Cross Station where hospital trains brought in the wounded from the battlefields of France to the military hospital in the Strand.

‘How bad was it?’ Hannah asked, dreading his answer. ‘Were many people killed?’

‘Dunno, do I?’ He threw a disdainful look at Ivy before adding, ‘Though Uncle Bert said Mr Fenge from the Admiral Carter pub was killed.’ His gaze shifted to the line of houses that curved away along the riverbank, apparently eager to spread what he knew at the next house. ‘I’d better be off, then.’ Kicking the pedal into its vertical position, he pushed off with the other foot, his bicycle wobbling precariously on the dirt path as he headed towards Hammersmith.

Hannah squeezed her eyes shut, her thoughts on flesh and blood, people crushed or blown up as they went about their daily lives. One minute they were asleep in their beds and then…

‘Don’t you go listening to that lad, miss.’ Ivy wiped her hands on her apron as she wandered back down the path. ‘Always got a story, that one. Last week, it was all—’ Her next words were lost as Hannah banged the window shut and hurried to the bathroom.

Once dressed in a light wool navy blue jacket and matching skirt over a crisp white blouse, Hannah descended the stairs just as Ivy emerged from the kitchen.

‘You don’t need to be up this early, miss, not when you’ve just got back from your ’oliday. And what about yer morning tea? I always brings one first thing.’

‘I’ve been waited on for days at my parents’, which was pleasant, but quite wearing in its own way.’ Hannah caught her reflection in the hall mirror, paused and tweaked a stray hair into place. ‘I’m going into town to make sure my aunt’s bookshop hasn’t been damaged by the bombing.’

‘Don’t know as I’d take the boy’s word fer it. If there was anything ’o that sort goin’ on, you’ll find out from the newspapers tomorrer.’

‘I can’t wait that long, Ivy. I feel responsible for the bookshop and would hate anything to have happened to it.’

‘Ah, well, you knows best,’ Ivy tutted, her tone implying she thought nothing of the sort, and cocked her chin at the ceiling. ‘Do yer plan on tellin’ ‘er ladyship?’

Hannah hesitated. She was probably panicking over nothing. If there was an air raid on Holborn, the chances a stray bomb had hit the shop were slim.

‘No, I won’t disturb her, Ivy. Aunt Violet was out late last night. Let her sleep.’ Hannah suppressed a smile, recalling the front door slamming at three that morning, followed by a heavy thump and a smothered curse.

‘Humph. S’all right fer some,’ Ivy muttered under her breath as she sauntered back to the scullery.

Hannah held her tongue on a reprimand, reminded that with so many young men enlisting and with better wages to be had in munitions factories, domestic staff were scarce.

After a makeshift breakfast, Hannah made the short walk to Stamford Brook Station where she joined the shopgirls, matrons, housemaids and middle-aged men in dark suits on the platform. Young men in workmen’s overalls eyed soldiers in khaki with a mixture of envy and unease. Low voices speculated the distant fires during the night were anything from a gas explosion to a fire. Others claimed to be better informed and confirmed the post boy’s story.

Fears grew in nervous whispers about relatives not heard from, while others expressed confidence the battery guns on the Embankment would have shot down any encroaching zeppelins. Only the noisy arrival of the District Line train silenced the urgent chatter as the crowd surged forward to secure seats.

Elbowing her way through the press of bodies, Hannah headed for the last carriage, where she claimed a rare corner seat; her triumph was short-lived when a corpulent man in a black suit with shiny elbows plumped down beside her. He caught her ankle painfully with his walking stick; his impatient grunt implying she was at fault for being in the way. The train lights flickered as it left the sprawl of the West London suburbs and plunged into a tunnel with a rush of warm air; the odours of stale tobacco, human sweat and hair oil combining to increase her claustrophobia.

The red bar and circle symbol of Charing Cross Embankment Station slid past the grimy carriage window as the train juddered to a halt. Hannah’s attempt to rise was thwarted as a fold of her skirt was trapped beneath her companion’s expansive behind. Oblivious, the man stared at his newspaper, until, with a final hard tug, she broke free. Muttering sarcastic thanks which he failed to acknowledge, she shouldered through a wall of tightly packed bodies, her repeated requests ignored as they stoically refused to move.

She stepped onto the platform with seconds to spare before the doors slammed shut and the engines roared to life. With a rush of soot-filled wind and a screech of metal wheels, the train sped off down the tracks into the blackness of the gaping tunnel.

Blinking in the sharp daylight after the gloomy train, Hannah stepped into a wall of sound from horse-drawn carts, hackneys, motor cars and buses; the air thick with exhaust fumes, flower stalls, manure and soot smuts from the factories and residential coal fires south of the river. Posters of a moustachioed and pointing Lord Kitchener stared down at her from every hoarding, but apart from a fire engine speeding past, she saw no sign of damage to nearby buildings.

Her nerves settled as it became clear the attack, although real, was far enough away not to have affected the immediate area.

‘More on Lusitania sinking!’ A newspaper seller’s shout erupted beside her ear on the corner of Villiers Street. ‘Ship believed to be carrying munitions.’

Her sympathy rose for the twelve hundred souls killed by a German torpedo the previous May; an act of savagery still being talked about in shops, churches and around dinner tables.

‘The Americans won’t let an outrage like that go with so many of their countrymen aboard,’ Hannah’s father had snorted into his whisky at a family dinner. ‘They’ll enter this war now. Mark my words.’

Hannah joined the steady flow of pedestrians who walked four deep on the Strand, with its increase in the numbers of soldiers and nurses in short crimson cloaks and white caps, either in pairs or pushing wheeled bath chairs carrying patients with heads or limbs swathed in bandages.

She tried not to stare at their grey, haggard faces while anger burned in her. The war was supposed to have been a fast, brutal skirmish, easily won, yet a year had passed, and the fighting was not only worse, but the Kaiser’s army had gained the upper hand.

A line of canvas-sided motor ambulances queued beneath the arch of Charing Cross Hospital; a fluttering white banner stretched across the entire road bearing the words, Quiet for the Wounded. Recruitment posters graced every hoarding, exhorting wives and mothers to persuade their menfolk to enlist, while garish announcements of current and future theatre productions swept by in a blur of colour.

A few harassed road sweepers attempted to clear up after the horses, the sharp tang of manure witness to their losing battle as steaming piles built up faster than could be removed.

Shifting from foot to foot on the pavement, Hannah searched for a gap in the heavy traffic. Spotting her opportunity, she darted into the road. Narrowly avoiding a boy on a bicycle and skirting behind a hackney, she reached the far side without mishap. She hurried down the side of the Strand Theatre into Catherine Street, her stride increasing to a run, her skirt wrapped around her legs threatening to trip her. Forced to slow down, her heart pounded as she turned the corner, a sense of hope growing as the row of shops seemed unscathed.

Despite the normalcy of the surrounding streets, a wave of relief washed over her at the reassuring sight of the untouched bookshop. The old-fashioned, multi-paned Georgian frontage of the Covent Garden Bookshop with its randomly placed bull-nosed panes winked back at her in the morning light. Exhaling a slow, relieved breath, her steps lightened as she shouldered her way inside, setting off the energetic jangle of the bell above the door.

2

‘Miss Merrill!’ A fresh-faced youth of medium height with a mop of unruly dark hair appeared from between a row of floor-to-ceiling oak bookcases.

‘We… um… weren’t expecting you back today. Did you have a pleasant time in Surrey?’ He slapped dust from trousers an inch too short and tugged down his waistcoat.

‘Morning, Archie. And my holiday was… uneventful, so I decided to cut it short.’ She hung her jacket and bag on a hook beside the internal door leading to the upstairs flat. ‘Is Mr Carstairs here?’

The sturdy oak shelves filled half the floor space, crammed together with barely room for a person to move between. Play sheets, scripts, posters, and theatre programs old and new occupied a wooden display; a tribute to the previous owner’s enduring passion for the stage.

‘Er… he’s not arrived yet, miss.’ Archie’s broad smile faded, and he shot a fearful glance past Hannah’s shoulder to the still quiet street. ‘He probably had an errand to run.’

The surface of the desk was barely visible beneath a layer of leaflets, invoices, and what appeared to be the remains of a cheese sandwich on a piece of crumpled greaseproof paper.

‘When did Mr Carstairs last put in an appearance?’

‘Um… I’m not sure.’ Archie removed a small pile of books from the corner of the desk and stared about as if in search of somewhere to put them before tucking them awkwardly beneath one arm.

‘Archie?’ she dragged his name out in a warning.

‘Monday, miss.’ His demeanour altered from sheepish to enthused. ‘But he stayed the entire day.’

Today is Thursday. Hannah sighed, swept the stale sandwich crusts into an overflowing wicker waste bin, then arranged the scattered letters into an untidy pile.

‘Do you know about the bombing?’ Archie asked, eager to discuss the more exciting news of the day.

‘A few rumours circulated on the train this morning, but no one had any details other than it happened somewhere in Smithfield? Do you know anything more?’ Her interest waned slightly knowing her shop was safe, but that bombs had been dropped anywhere was still disturbing.

‘A ruddy great bomb took out an entire row of houses on Farringdon Road.’ His youthful face showed a mixture of horror and awe. ‘I ain’t seen nothing like it. St Bart’s church has an enormous hole in the front now and The Dolphin pub has gone and the landlord copped it. There was rubble and broken glass all over the streets with fire engines and ambulances going all night.’

Hannah’s hand stilled on the pile of envelopes she was sifting through. ‘St Bartholomew’s? That’s in Holborn. I thought you lived with your mother in Somerstown?’

The youngest of a large family, Archie could relate stories about his relatives for a year and never repeat a name.

‘Aye, but I stayed at our Ellie’s last night. It was late when the whistle sounded, so we got the nippers out of bed and down to the tube station still in their jim-jams.’ Archie chattered as he collected scattered books and arranged them in piles. ‘It was so crowded, some brave souls stretched out between the lines. You won’t catch me doing that. I’d not sleep a wink in case a train came. Me sister’s goin’ down there again tonight in case it comes back.’

‘It?’ Hannah said. ‘One airship did all that damage?’ Her thoughts went to the poor people who had huddled in dank, gloomy tunnels all night, only to emerge to find their homes destroyed.

He nodded. ‘They say another one took off up north, but I didn’t see it.’

‘Speaking of destroyed…’ she eyed the stained parquet and half-empty bookshelves where volumes leaned at all angles, the spines facing the wrong way and gaps in between like missing teeth.

‘I’ve tried to keep on top of things, but…’ He hunched his shoulders as if braced for a reprimand.

‘I’m not blaming you.’ She ran a finger across a brass light fitting, grimacing when it came away black. ‘What happened to the cleaner my aunt employed?’

‘Ah.’ Archie scratched at his left ear. ‘She and Mr Carstairs had a falling out. I dunno what was said, but there was lots of shouting and door slamming. She ain’t been back since.’

Growing more despondent by the minute, Hannah strode to three full-height bookcases arranged in a ‘u’ shape around a high-backed wing chair upholstered in rich burgundy velvet. A low mahogany table and a brace of matching but smaller chairs completed a haven for mothers to read with their children, and nursemaids to keep their charges occupied.

‘Mr Carstairs likes to sit there in the afternoons with his newspaper and a cup of tea.’ Archie clutched a book protectively to his chest. ‘I don’t think he likes children much, miss. He caught two boys rifling through the books the other day and threw them out.’

Hannah surveyed the desecration with dismay. The wingback chair was sprinkled with a layer of cigarette ash. A deep imprint of hundreds of backsides had dented the faded velvet squab. Newspapers littered the floor like felled birds with their wings splayed and crumpled; a half-empty packet of garibaldi biscuits and a full ashtray on the mahogany table badly marked with water rings. The semi-circular drawer beneath had been jammed roughly closed, leaving it lop-sided.

Hannah gave it a frustration-fuelled tug, which had no effect. She pulled harder. The drawer was freed with a screech, revealing old invoices, receipts and an assortment of odds and ends, string labels, brown paper and crumpled leaflets. Inside, she found what looked like a deck of cards, tied together with a length of string. She pulled them free, noting they seemed larger than a standard pack and made of thick pasteboard.

‘It looks as if Mr Carstairs spent his time less than productively.’

‘Er… no miss, I—’ Archie reached to take them, causing a brief tussle between himself and Hannah for possession. The string unravelled, sending the cards onto the floor.

Hannah bent to pick them up, but halted. At her feet lay a dozen or more photographs of naked women in a variety of shapes and sizes; from slender girls not yet out of their teens to buxom older ladies in seductive poses, lounged on a chaise or draped over armchairs with fans or feather boas positioned to emphasise their womanly charms.

‘I assume these don’t belong to you, Archie?’ She resisted an urge to laugh at his mortified expression.

‘Oh no, miss. I never—’ He swallowed, his already flushed complexion turning a deep red. ‘Mr Carstairs sells them. He told me not to tell anyone. I mean – you. But since it was you who found them, he can’t blame me, can he?’

‘Does he indeed? I don’t suppose Aunt Violet, I mean Miss Edwards, knows about it?’

‘She hasn’t been in all week. In fact, we ain’t seen ’er for a long while.’

Aunt Violet, a dedicated suffragette whose militant activities had been curbed for the duration of the war, now channelled her boundless energy into the British Red Cross. She took little interest in the bookshop, which always made Hannah wonder how she came to possess it, but no explanation had been forthcoming. Hannah, however, loved the cosy shop with its polished oak shelves crammed with love stories, fictional adventures, and daring feats of endurance.

‘Are there any other inappropriate publications on the premises?’ Her gaze probed the shelves, as if the offending items might jump out at her.

‘I dunno what those are, miss.’ Archie scratched his head, ruffling his already wayward hair. ‘Only them postcards.’

‘I’ll deal with these.’ Hannah gathered the offending items together with a glow of satisfaction and stowed them in her handbag, which she placed beneath the desk with a sense of quiet triumph. At last, she had a credible reason to persuade her aunt to sack Monty Carstairs, who had single-handedly allowed the bookshop income to decline and, with a misogynistic fervour which infuriated her, refused all Hannah’s attempts to improve sales and regulate the inventory.

‘Archie?’ An idea Hannah had been toying with for some time prompted her to ask. ‘How do you feel about working for a woman?’

‘What sort of woman?’ Archie looked as if she had suggested he swim the channel.

‘My sort. I intend to run the shop myself. With your help, naturally.’ It wasn’t as if she had anything else to do apart from scouring The Times casualty lists, hoping not to see the names of anyone she knew.

‘You, miss? Does Mr Carstairs know?’

‘Not yet. But he will.’ The shop doorbell set off into its harsh jangle, bringing Archie hurrying to the front of the shop as the rhythmic click of a cane on floorboards announced the arrival of Monty Carstairs.

3

‘What ho, young Archie!’ Monty’s cut-glass voice drew Hannah to a gap in the shelves from where she observed the bookshop manager.

In his thirties and of average height, his fedora sat at a jaunty angle on his heavily pomaded hair. A patrician nose and deep, wide-set eyes defined him as handsome; his good looks spoiled by a perpetual sneer below a pencil moustache that disguised a weak upper lip.

‘Colossal cheek of those Huns to bomb us last night, what?’ Tossing a folded newspaper onto the desk without looking where it fell, he followed it with his cane, which rolled off and clattered to the floor. ‘A poor show we can’t make bullets and bombs fast enough. I’ll wager that’s why we made such a damned mess of Aubers Ridge, not to mention that Neuve Chappelle fiasco.’ He pointed a finger at Archie which he transferred to the cane in silent instruction.

Retrieving the cane, Archie cleared his throat noisily and flicked a glance at Hannah as she emerged from behind the bookcase.

‘What’s wrong, boy?’ Monty nudged him playfully in the ribs as he placed the cane squarely on the desk. ‘Lost half a crown and found sixpence, eh?’

He followed Archie’s look and froze as he spotted Hannah , her shoulder against the sturdy upright.

‘Hannah!’ He flashed Archie an undeserved glare of accusation, grabbed the cane and limped towards her. ‘How are Hector and the ever-lovely Madeleine?’

Monty's use of her parents' given names rankled with Hannah. As the son of her father's chief clerk at his merchant bank,