Dying in the Wool (25 page)

Once again, I passed the offices that had been such a hub
of activity during the day. Purchasing, Sales, Wages.

‘I think it’s this one – the secretary’s office where I saw the minute books on the shelf.’

As we entered the airless office that reeked of cigarette smoke and tedious routine, I felt annoyed with Stoddard that his ridiculous secrecy had led to this middle of the night cloak and dagger stuff.

The feeling must have showed.

‘It could be a daft waste of time, that’s true, but you never can tell. Always best to follow your instincts.’ Sykes reached to the shelf for the large bound volume, whose spine announced Company Minutes. He placed it on the desk. Then he pulled down an accounts book. I opened the minute book at August, 1916, intending to work backwards. Neatly typed pages have a way of looking entirely innocuous. If there was some skeleton in a cupboard, there would hardly be a diagram to tell me which cupboard. But I’d come this far.

Nothing seemed more certain than that reading these minutes would send me back to the land of nod. Intricate titbits of information gave me an insight into the difficult business of running a mill. But something significant did begin to emerge.

What seemed to me surprising was that prior to the spring of 1916 Braithwaite dominated every discussion. Yet months before his son’s death, he had begun to abnegate responsibility.

On topics related to the renewal of fire insurance, the introduction of a new machine, replacing a loom, Braithwaite made no comments. Discussions, while Edmund was still able to attend, took place entirely between Stoddard, Evelyn, Tabitha and Edmund.

‘Mr Braithwaite had no comment’ became a frequent entry.

Why?

In previous meetings, 1914, 1915, he had led discussions
at every turn. No matter was too small for his personal attention. He had opinions about everything. Early in 1914, before Edmund and Tabitha were brought onto the board, he berated Stoddard for refusing to have electricity in the mill house when it had been installed in the mill. Stoddard, endearingly I thought, said he preferred gas light – it was gentler, and really that was not a matter for discussion in the board meetings as far as he was concerned.

One other topic caught my eye. In early 1916, it was proposed by Mr Stoddard to wind down activity at the dyehouse, due to shortage of labour. He proposed that piece dyeing should be contracted out.

I looked up from the minutes. ‘Mr Sykes, you know you said about Kellett being out on the road, on his profiteering rounds with the German dyes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Take a look at this.’

Sykes read the paragraph I pointed out to him. ‘Interesting.’

‘Yes. I wonder at what point Kellett came back into the dyehouse. We know he went to work at the hospital for a short time. I wonder was it something of a comedown for him, to be back in the dyehouse doing dirty manual work, however skilled.’

‘And well paid?’ Sykes queried. ‘Better than being an orderly I should think. Sounds as if his coming back got the mill out of a hole.’

‘Anything interesting in the accounts?’

‘Only by omission.’ Sykes closed the accounts ledger. ‘Whatever Braithwaite was earning from the sales of the von Hofmann dyes, it was going in his back pocket or under his mattress. It didn’t come into the firm.’

‘So why was he squirrelling away his ill-gotten gains? What was it for?’

Sykes replaced the accounts ledger on the shelf. ‘People
who are used to raking in money don’t need a why or a what for. They see the accumulation of wealth as part of God’s plan.’

We both heard the sound at the same moment.

Footsteps echoing through the building. Footsteps on the stairs.

I recognised the step as it got nearer, a man walking steadily, as if he had a long way to go and must pace himself.

‘Stoddard,’ I whispered.

‘What the blue blazes is he doing here at this time?’

Quickly I returned the minute book to the shelf.

Tabitha told me her Uncle Neville started work early. I checked my wristwatch. He started at four o’clock in the morning?

He had reached the corridor.

‘Let me face him, Mr Sykes. I don’t want him to know we’re working together.’

Sykes thought for a moment, then nodded.

I stepped into the corridor. ‘Good morning, Mr Stoddard. I thought if I got here early enough, you may agree to let me read those company minutes.’

He stopped. ‘You! How did you get in?’

‘I learned all sorts during my brief time volunteering with the Women’s Police Service before I joined the VAD.’

Lie. I wished I did know how to pick a lock. Must get Sykes to teach me.

Stoddard paused. Don’t go in there, I willed him. If he did, I felt sure Sykes would be behind the door and it would be up to me to keep Stoddard’s attention while he flitted along the corridor.

Stoddard stood rooted to the spot, bursting with quiet fury. ‘How long have you been in here?’

‘Long enough.’

‘Long enough to find what you wanted?’

‘I could hardly do that when I didn’t know what I was looking for.’

He flung open the door. The office, illuminated by the light from the corridor, looked undisturbed.

‘Please don’t worry about confidentiality, Mr Stoddard. I’ve abandoned my plans to set up a rival textile establishment a little further along the canal.’

His face was like thunder, but at least I had turned his attention from the office. For a moment Stoddard simply stared at me. I could sense Sykes, behind the door, holding his breath.

‘What the blazes … What do you expect to find, woman? A minute saying, “Resolved by Neville Stoddard to oust and
disappear
Joshua Braithwaite so that he can take over the mill, step into Joshua’s shoes …” and what?’

Marry his wife, I wondered.

‘You said it, not I.’

‘That’s preposterous. Get out. Get out of my mill before I do something I regret.’

‘Very well.’ I turned and walked silently back along the corridor, holding myself erect and defiant but inwardly shaking. To my relief and consternation, Stoddard marched behind me, his boots drumming on the stone floor. At least Sykes would be able to find a hiding place.

I expected Stoddard to walk me to the door. He bounded beside me across the yard.

At the gate he looked round.

‘Which way did you come?’

‘The short cut across the fields.’

‘On foot?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we’ll go back that way.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘Oh I think there is.’

He tried to take my arm. I shook him off.

He fell into step with me as we turned to the path. His
breath made small clouds in the cold air.

Where the path narrowed, I led, he walked behind me.

The moon cast an eerie glow over the landscape, the dark shape of hedges and trees pinning us fast into time, time that seemed to stop. A white cloud floated across the moon.

The silence was unbearable, but neither of us would break it.

As we neared the house, I turned towards the back door.

‘Servants’ entrance?’ he said mockingly. ‘You must at least give me a demonstration of your lock-picking skills.’

‘No need. I left the back door unlocked.’

‘Then the front?’

‘There’s a bolt on the inside of the front door.’

I couldn’t remember whether there was or not.

At the back door, he blocked my way.

‘I’ll wish you goodnight, Mrs Shackleton, or rather good morning.’

‘Goodnight.’

‘What? No apology for trespassing?’

‘I was following my enquiries. I’m sorry for the way I did it but you left me no choice.’

‘I’m disappointed. I thought you were intelligent, objective, principled. Really you’re just silly, a silly girl.’

‘A silly girl?’ I heard my voice rise. Mistake. He was trying to bait me, and succeeded. ‘Silly to want to find the truth for Tabitha? Silly because I’m logical, and follow my instincts?’

‘Being logical is rather a male prerogative. And instincts are for animals, Mrs Shackleton. Instincts can get you into a lot of trouble. For instance, if I’d followed my instinct in the mill back there, I’d have knocked you flat for what you did. And if I followed my instincts now, you’d have a lot to raise your voice about. But I’ve made a fool of myself this week already. I’m not about to do it a second time.’

He stepped aside.

I pushed open the door.

‘Go on!’ he called. ‘Let me see you safely inside.’

I had left my flashlight in the mill. When I closed the kitchen door behind me, and turned the key in the lock, it was utterly dark. The tears poured down my cheeks, tears of humiliation, tears of rage.

How dare he call me a silly girl, as if I hadn’t a hope of success, as if there would be nothing else for me to do with my life than blunder about making a fool of myself.

Worse than that, I felt hurt and disappointed. I groped my way towards the back stairs, touching the wall as there was no banister. Something else struck me in the darkness with an unwelcome force. Stoddard and I had liked each other when we first met. He was kind, and intrigued by me, and I was impressed by him. Now, everything was shattered, and for what? I had found out that Joshua Braithwaite lost interest in his business. So what was new about that? I could have guessed as much. I flung myself onto the bed and stared through the drawn-back curtains at the moon.

Braithwaite had mentally moved away from involvement in the business, though he still attended the meetings. And he had certainly not lost his interest in making money. So what else was he thinking about during that period when he sent Kellett ‘on the road’ selling the illicit dyes? Kellett may have known, but he was dead. Mrs Kellett – might she hold a clue?

I thought back to how angry Evelyn was with her husband. What was it she had said, that she was sure there had been other women, but none that he cared enough about?

Perhaps that’s where she was wrong, and Braithwaite had fallen in love. I preferred that idea to imagining him at the bottom of a mineshaft.

*

After just two and a half hours’ sleep, I met with Sykes to consider our next move. We were both somewhat subdued as we sat in the Jowett on a side street in Bingley. This had been our agreed rendezvous point, in case anything went wrong at the mill, but it proved a bad choice. Children on their way to school made a whooping beeline for the car. Women suddenly found a reason to come into the street, a rug to beat, a dog to call.

Sykes was berating himself for not staying outside the mill, on look-out.

‘What would you have done if you’d stayed outside?’ Reluctantly, I set off driving to find a less exposed spot, slowing down beyond the railway station to avoid an argument with a muck cart. ‘Those mill walls are too thick for warning whistles or owl hoots to penetrate. We were just unlucky that Stoddard turned up at four o’clock in the morning.’

‘The man either has a guilty conscience or insomnia. But you carried it off like a trouper.’

‘Trouper? I felt an almighty fool.’

‘At least he escorted you home.’ Sykes smiled. ‘I think he’s secretly taken a shine to you and your derring-do.’

I groaned. ‘And was it worth it? All we did was confirm what we already know – that Braithwaite was detaching himself, from his business, from the family. But why? And for whom or what?’

The road wound us out of town. I pulled up by a stretch of land that could not decide between calling itself a meadow or a hill. A squirrel scampered up the tree beside us and leaped to a neighbouring branch.

‘There was one other item in the accounts,’ Sykes said. ‘A payment of twenty-five guineas to Arthur Wilson for his drawings and sample of a loom picker.’

‘Yes. That was mentioned in the minutes, too.’

‘Didn’t you say Wilson’s wife brought up the loom picker as a reason why Wilson might be a killer?’

‘She was far gone in her cups at the time.’

‘From what I gathered at the Wool Exchange, Wilson might have had good cause to hold a grudge, thinking himself under-rewarded. And he was the assistant scoutmaster. That gives us two scoutmasters who might have had a reason for getting Braithwaite out of cold water into hot.’

‘But Wilson works for Braithwaites. Would he risk his job, and Braithwaite’s goodwill, by crying suicide?’

‘He’d say “Wasn’t me, guv. Was the other fellow”.’

From overhead branches came the steady drip drip of rain onto the top of the car.

‘Will you see what you can glean from Wilson? He doesn’t like women.’

‘I could try. Where does he drink?’

‘He doesn’t.’

Sykes made that little clucking sound out of the corner of his mouth, indicating extreme difficulty. ‘It’s never easy talking to teetotallers. You can’t just drop in at the local.’

‘He’s a stalwart of the chapel. Perhaps it’s time for your conversion.’