Handsome Brute: The True Story of a Ladykiller Read Online Free Page B

1946
It was the policeman’s nose, I suppose, but it just didn’t tie up. The little bell was ringing.
George Suter, Bournemouth Echo , 5 November 1980
    S ometime after 5.30 p.m., it was still bright and sunny and the temperature still in the low seventies when Brook arrived at Bournemouth Police Station, a 1930s brick-built building, fronted by a low stone wall.
    At the reception desk he introduced himself to Detective Constable Suter. 1 At the age of forty, Suter was tall, bald, square-jawed and broadly built. As a police officer, he had been in a reserved occupation during the war, but had volunteered for the Rifle Brigade in the winter of 1943–4. In February 1945 he had been at the crossing of the Rhine and was amongst the first troops to liberate Belsen. Though he never discussed his experiences with his family, they were aware that he had witnessed scenes of great horror during his time in the army. After the German surrender, his unit was based on the Danish border until he was demobbed in early 1946, at which point he went back to his pre-war occupation with Bournemouth police. 2 He had been back behind his desk at Madeira Road for a matter of weeks, mostly preoccupied with a spate of hotel burglaries that had taken place over the summer, before he became involved in the enquiry into the disappearance of Doreen Marshall. 3
    When Brook arrived, Suter showed him into the enquiry office on the ground floor of the station. Suter was puzzled from the start of the interview with Group Captain Brook. Brook wasn’t wearing a tie, but had his shirt buttoned to the top, hardly in keeping with the dress of an RAF officer. Suter would have thought he’d wear a tie or at least a cravat. ‘His dress did not tally with his station in life,’ 4 he later stated. Also, granted the weather was still bakingly hot outside, but it did seem odd that throughout their conversation, Brook continued to wear his RAF-issue sunglasses. 5
    ‘I’m Brook from the Tollard Royal Hotel. Are you Suter?’
    ‘Yes, sir. Now, I have been making enquiries about a young lady who was at dinner at the Tollard Royal Hotel on Wednesday evening.’
    ‘Yes, I had a young lady to dinner with me on Wednesday evening.’
    ‘Probably this was the same person about whom I’ve been making enquiries. Could you take a look at this photograph?’
    Suter showed Brook a photograph of Doreen Marshall.
    ‘That’s her,’ Brook said. ‘Beyond a shadow of a doubt. She has a lock of grey hair here.’ Brook indicated his own right temple. ‘You can just see it in the photo.’
    At that moment, there was some interruption in the office, so Suter invited Brook upstairs into the sergeants’ office where it was quieter. Suter asked Brook to carry on with his story.
    ‘Will you tell me all about it from the beginning?’
    ‘Yes. I met her on the beach on the Wednesday afternoon. 6 She was then with another girl named Peggy and I had previously met Peggy at the Pavilion. I gained the impression that it was a fresh acquaintanceship between the two girls. I asked Doreen to dinner at the Tollard Royal Hotel on Wednesday evening and she accepted. At about midnight – or just before – she said she was going home and she said she would walk. We sat on the front for a bit, then walked to the sea side of the gardens – near the Pavilion. Doreen said she would be busy for a few days but would ring me on Sunday and would be going back to London on Monday. She didn’t want to go any further and she walked back to her hotel. That would be about 1 a.m. She did say she would be going back to London earlier and that she had been ill and felt a bit browned off. She told me about an American friend, that she went to Poole with him and for a ride to the country in a car and that he wanted her to go to Exeter with him but she did not want to go.’
    ‘What was she wearing?’
    ‘A yellow swagger coat, either black or dark blue frock. Carrying a handbag and wearing a string of