Writing a Series: Mark Ellis
I write a series about a World War 2 Scotland Yard detective called Frank Merlin. Five Merlin books have been published and they will be joined in May by a sixth, Death Of An Officer. This book is set in the late spring of 1943. In a bomb-devasted London Merlin is charged with the investigation of two baffling murders. A respected doctor is found brutally murdered in his Kensington flat and the battered corpse of an unidentified young man is discovered under the rubble of a Limehouse bomb site. Merlin and his team follow trails to a deserted Hackney mansion, to an exclusive St James gentlemen’s club and to a shadowy group of foreign businessmen. Others caught in Merlin’s crosshairs as his enquiries progress include London ganglords, missing rent boys, MI5 operatives, Maltese vice kings and some very high-ranking British and American military officers.
One reader of an advance copy of the book, bestselling mystery writer Tom Mead, said of it ‘Tightly plotted, meticulously researched, and written with wonderful panache. Death Of An Officer is an excellent entry in a truly remarkable historical mystery series’.
Here is the opening of the book:
‘Wednesday May 19th 1943
London
Detective Chief Inspector Frank Merlin took the call at just after nine in the morning. Murder calls were never welcome, but this one had a small silver lining attached. It was going to get Merlin out of a sticky predicament. Assistant Commissioner Gatehouse, his boss, had been insisting that the chief inspector accompany him to a service of thanksgiving being held later that morning at St Paul’s Cathedral. The occasion was to celebrate the Eighth Army’s recent victory. On May 13th, General Montgomery had received the surrender of Rommel’s Afrika Korps at Tunis, and North Africa was now under Allied control. Merlin was naturally happy there was something to give thanks for, but detested grand formal occasions like this. He had done his best to wriggle out of going but the AC had refused to listen. ‘It’ll be wonderful, Frank. At last we’ve got something to celebrate. The King and Queen and the little princesses will be there. Winston’s away, of course, but the rest of the Cabinet will attend. Nearly all the great and the good, in fact.’ Merlin had protested that he had no wish to mix with the great and the good, but to no avail. ‘I’ve got you a ticket, Frank, a good one close to the front, and you’re coming. That’s that.’ Now a murderer was going to give him a last-minute reprieve. On his way out he asked DC Robinson to convey his deepest apologies to the AC. ‘Tell him that sadly duty calls.’ He just managed not to smile.
There was little traffic and Merlin and Sergeant Bridges made quick time to South Kensington. Onslow Mansions was an Edwardian mansion block on the borders of South Kensington and Chelsea. In the lobby was a porter’s desk, but it was unmanned. Merlin looked around and saw that a uniformed constable was waiting for them at the lift. The officer took the men from the Yard up to the fourth floor, then along a corridor. The familiar face of Inspector Jay, the senior officer at Gerald Road station, greeted them at the door of number 15. A couple of other uniformed officers hovered behind.
‘Come on in, Chief Inspector, Sergeant. The forensics team have been here for a while, but I asked them not to start until you’d had a look at the scene. Thus there is need for care…’ Jay displayed his gloved hands.
‘Don’t worry. We are provided for.’ Sergeant Bridges took out two pairs of protective gloves from his pocket and handed one to Merlin.
The officers followed Jay into the living room.
‘Indian gentleman, I understand.’
Merlin’s question was superfluous. The room was filled with Indian tapestries, sculptures and objets d’art. On a wall to his right, he saw a portrait of an eminent-looking man dressed in exotic finery.
‘The dead man?’
‘No. His father I’ve been told.’
‘Told by whom?’
‘By the cleaning lady. A Mrs Patel. Comes five days a week. It was she who found the victim.’
‘And where is she?’
‘In the spare bedroom with one of my constables. Understandably she’s in a bit of a state, but she has been able to provide some basic information. The victim is a medical man. A surgeon. Name of Dev Sinha. Worked out of a practice in Wimpole Street. A women’s doctor, she called him.’
‘A gynaecologist?’
‘I assume that’s what she meant.’
‘I see. Let’s have a look at the body, then.’
Metlin and Bridges followed Jay out into a corridor and past the waiting forensic officers. Through the doorway of the first bedroom they came to, Merlin saw a plump middle-aged Indian woman being comforted by a young female officer. The policewoman looked up as the officers passed, and Jay said, ‘Be with you shortly, Gregson.’
The victim’s room was at the end of the corridor. The room was dominated by a large curtained four-poster bed. The curtains were closed. The room showed clear signs of disruption. Two chairs had been overturned by the window and a vase lay broken on the floor nearby. The furnishings and ornaments had a decidedly more English look than those in the living room. One exception to this was the small statue of an elephant-like creature on a table on the near side of the bed. Somewhere or other Merlin had learned that the elephant-headed god of the Hindu religion was called Ganesh.
A thick white rope hung from the top canopy of the bed. Jay pulled it, and the curtains opened to reveal the victim. He was lying on his back in blood-soaked green silk pyjamas with two large gashes disfiguring his face, one across his forehead and the other along his jaw.
‘Hmm. Nasty. Do we have a murder weapon?’
Jay pointed at the elephant. The foot-high statue was bloodstained.
‘May I?’
‘Be my guest, sir.’
Merlin lifted the statue carefully off the table, then set it back down. ‘Pretty heavy for such a small thing. Jade, is it?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Was it on the table when you got here?’
‘Yes, but the cleaner said she found it there.’ He pointed to a bloody mark on the carpet about halfway along the side of the bed. ‘She picked it up and put it back in what she said was it’s normal position.’
‘No one else has touched it since she found the body?’
‘Not until you just now.’
‘So we should find the cleaner’s prints, and possibly those of the victim and the murderer?’
‘Yes.’
Merlin looked back at the body. The man’s eyes were open and stared blankly up at the blue and white decorative patterns of the canopy interior. His mouth had settled into an odd lopsided smile. Merlin turned away and noticed that the bedroom windows were wide open.
‘Were the windows open all night?’
‘Not like this. Mrs Patel said she opened them fully on account of the smell.’
‘Blood and dead men never smell nice, do they?’ said Bridges.
‘No, they don’t, Sergeant. Right, let’s see Mrs Patel now.’’
Death Of An Officer will be published by Headline on May 29th.
Crime Cymru 