Murder in the Afternoon (32 page)

He lowered his voice, not that anyone could hear, except the minion with the briefcase. ‘Of course you know the police, especially where Scotland Yard is
involved. I shall probably have to bargain a little. Have her released into the care of a responsible person.’

‘Well, if I can …’

‘And of course people don’t come more responsible than Colonel Ledger. He has expressed a willingness for her to be in his care until we can clear up this … misunderstanding. I believe the children are being well cared for in the meantime.’

He raised his hat. ‘My card, madam. Please don’t hesitate and all that.’

He was gone.

The minion produced a card and thrust it at me.

Colonel and Mrs Ledger were taking no chances. Mary Jane would be incarcerated with them, until they could be sure she would be silent.

Sykes waited by the mill gates, notebook at the ready. In his attaché case were thirty-seven pairs of stockings, individually wrapped in tissue paper. He had a list of names and a pocketful of pennies to give correct change. He felt in two minds about this caper. It was a useful cover, and a nice way to earn a little extra cash but, as he braced himself for the surge of females, indignity prickled. He felt a serious longing to be in uniform and on point duty.

The mill doors opened and the workforce poured out. Sykes wondered where they would all fit. Great Applewick was no more than a mile across and a mile wide. Some of them must be dashing to catch a tram.

‘There he is!’ It was the red-haired beauty who had asked him to the pictures.

‘Changed your mind have you?’ she asked. ‘Tekin me out tonight?’

‘Sorry, love. I’m spoken for.’

‘Shame.’

He laughed. ‘Catch the bouquet at tomorrow’s wedding, let some chap glimpse your stockings and he’ll ask you out for the rest of your days.’

‘I might just do that.’

So tomorrow’s wedding was still on. Mrs Shackleton was right. The bridegroom at least had not been kept in custody. She had asked him to find out what he could about Bob Conroy, but he couldn’t see how he would do that. You could only go to a farmhouse once to sell stockings.

Pockets heavy with coins, he headed for the Fleece to think over strategy while supping a pint of bitter. The only occupants of the pub were a couple of old men in the tap room, their boneyard of dominoes spread out on the table.

One wore a Rip Van Winkle beard that must have saved him a lot of time over the years. He had nothing to say for himself but nodded a lot, a nervous palsy. The other sported a wispy moustache, eye patch, and a growth of pirate stubble.

Sykes hated dominoes, an old man’s game. There’d be time enough for that if and when he reached his dotage. But when Pirate Stubble asked him to join the game for a halfpenny, he did, as a way to pass an hour and ingratiate himself.

They were all related to each other round here. Pirate Stubble, who picked up double six to start, was father to Turnbull, quarry foreman, grandfather to young Raymond, the pair who had dug out Ethan’s body. This had earned Pirate Stubble an extra pint or two and he was still playing on the glory. Sykes treated Rip Van Winkle and Pirate Stubble and when they asked what line he was in, Sykes owned up to buying and selling. He’d be a figure of ridicule here if he mentioned ladies’ stockings.

Sykes turned talk to the quarry.

‘Do you reckon it was accidental?’ Sykes asked. ‘A landslip, a rock fall?’

Pirate Stubble chuckled mirthlessly with the glee of the man left standing. ‘Can ’appen. Who’s to say?’

‘Not foul play then, as some are saying?’ Sykes prompted.

‘For foul play thah’d need a foul player, and ahm pointing no fingers.’ The old domino player suddenly swallowed the pickled egg he had been saving, popping it into his mouth. Sykes watched his throat to see if it would bulge like a cobra’s.

Sykes followed his opponent’s five-two with a two-three. This could be a long night. When he looked through the hatch into the tap room and spotted the man Mrs Shackleton had described, Sykes planned his escape. That’s Bob Conroy, Sykes said to himself as he looked at the gaunt, weatherbeaten man with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. Mrs Shackleton had described him well. Conroy was already drunk.

Sykes bided his time a little longer. He did not flee the old men’s company until the side of a mountain filled the doorway of the snug. The man wore a red neckerchief knotted at his throat, corduroy breeches, and a jacket that had once been tweed, all deeply ingrained with quarry dust. ‘Nah then, son,’ said the old man.

Sykes made room for the man he guessed to be Josiah Turnbull, quarry foreman, and escaped in the direction of the tap room.

He walked slowly enough to hear the old man’s opening gambit to his son. ‘Where’s young un on his last night as a free man?’

‘Drinking hisself silly with his pals. They’re tekin him to every pub in Guiseley.’

Ethan might have been with him had he lived, Sykes thought. He would have treated his former apprentice to a drink on his last night as a bachelor.

As Sykes walked into the tap room, there was a lull in the talk.
Bloody hell, they think I’m a plain-clothes copper. I’ll get no joy here
.

But Conroy was oblivious. He ordered a pint and a chaser. The landlord said, ‘Sit down, Bob. I’ll send it across.’ He nodded to the old waiter.

‘No, I’ll stand where I allus stand.’ Conroy fumbled for his brass and spilled coins onto the counter. The landlord counted the coins and shrugged, in no mood to tell the unsteady Conroy that he had underpaid.

Forgetting that he intended to stand where he always stood, Conroy turned and blindly made for the corner by the fire where people shoved along to make space. Men on either side spoke to him, but he said nothing, as though not hearing or seeing anyone or anything bar the flames chasing up the chimney back.

Sykes watched through the mirror that covered the wall behind the bar.

Space was made on the table for the waiter to place Conroy’s pint and chaser. Conroy picked up the pint and gulped, smacking his lips.

Through the mirror, Sykes watched Conroy down his chaser.

Flush with the price of thirty-nine pairs of stockings, Sykes bought two whiskeys, one for himself and one he pushed to Conroy when he next approached the bar. ‘You look as if you need it.’

Conroy stared at him, with something like recognition.
He thinks I’m plain-clothes, too
.
He thinks I’m keeping an eye on him, but he’s not taking that ill. Mrs Shackleton was right. He’s the man that shopped Ethan to his bosses. Reported on Ethan to Special Branch. He’s a patriot. But now he wonders did he do the right thing
.

The landlord said, ‘Are you all right for getting home, Bob?’

‘I’m … I’m all right.’ Conroy downed his whiskey.

Sykes drank with Conroy till the landlord called time. He was feeling none too steady himself, and remembered he had not eaten. And this dratted attaché case, making him stick out like a sore thumb.

By chucking-out time, Bob and Sykes had struck up a bit of camaraderie. Sykes was good at banter. In the cool night air, they fell into step. Bob Conroy zig-zagged through the village street. He passed the Methodist chapel and turned into Over Lane. You’re going the wrong way, Sykes thought. You’re taking a long road home. Only when Bob turned into Nether End did Sykes realise that he was going to Mary Jane’s cottage.

The cottage was in darkness. Conroy went to the door. He spread his arms akimbo and brought his head forward so that his forehead knock-knocked against the door. Over and over, he banged his head against the door.

Sykes went to him, raised him up. ‘Come on, Bob. Come on, lad. She’s not here. Let’s get you home, eh?’

‘What have I done?’ Conroy wailed. ‘What have I done?’

That’s exactly what I’d like to know, Sykes thought, but if I put it that directly I’ll never find out.

‘Come on, lad. Your missis’ll be looking out for you. Let’s have you, eh?’

With encouraging words, putting an arm around the man, Sykes drew him away from the door, but he realised he was not sure how to get to the farm without going back into the village and starting again. There was a back way, he knew that. Mrs Shackleton described going to the quarry with the little lass. Conroy was stumbling in that direction, crisscrossing the back garden and along some path.

Sykes took the risk of hiding his attaché case under a bush in the Armstrongs’ back garden. He had brought his torch, in his inside pocket, but for now the moon shed enough light to give the hawthorn hedge its shape.

‘We might see him,’ Conroy said. ‘What if Ethan’s ghost comes walking along, as he always did?’

Sykes said. ‘One foot then the next, that’s the way.’

‘I don’t know your name.’

‘Jim.’

‘If we keep going, Jim, we’ll go to Hawksworth Moor, that’s the place on a night like this. We’d walk on Hawksworth Moor and set the world to rights.’

‘Another time, eh? We’ve both taken a drop too much.’

Nearby, an owl screeched. A tree sighed.

Conroy said, ‘You stride out, like he did. Purposeful like, a man with an appointment to keep, a job to do. The best. Ethan put a steeple on the church. That’s why Mary Jane had to have insurance. A mason, he might fall.’

‘Did someone help him fall?’ Sykes asked.

But Conroy had stopped talking. He slid from Sykes’s arm. On his knees on the rough path, he lowered his head and was sick into the grass, the moonlight catching the whiteness of his ear as his cap fell off.

He turned and looked at Sykes. ‘I know who you are. I know who sent you.’

He thinks I’m Special Branch. Well, there’ll be no sense got from this man tonight, only drunk’s talk, moon talk and madness
.

Sykes left Bob at the farm gate. He watched as the man zig-zagged across the farmyard.

The thumping on the door woke Harriet from a dream. She shot up, thinking, it’s Dad. He’s home. And then she remembered. She shifted her foot to touch Austin with her toe. They lay top to tail and he slept, but was hot, giving off waves of heat. She kept her foot by him to make sure of being awake, to make sure this was no dream. Then she remembered, she was at the Conroys’ and didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be at home with Mam and Dad.

She’d liked Auntie Kate, but now she didn’t like her because she had brought them here and dumped them.

The banging got louder.

She went to the window. There was Uncle Bob, braying on his own door. ‘Georgie, Georgina! I’m locked out.’

He stepped back and looked up, moving unsteadily. Drunk. Uncle Bob never got drunk.

A window was flung open. ‘Aye, you’re locked out. I can’t abide drunkenness. You can stop out there till you sober up.’

‘Let me in.’

‘Go and sleep in the cowshed!’

Harriet felt sorry for him. He looked as if he might fall
down. Auntie Georgie should let him in. He’s drunk because Dad is dead, she thought. He’s drunk because his heart is broken. Should I be drunk? Should I be outside in the middle of the night, ready to fall down? Instead, here I am, as though nothing has changed.

Uncle Bob let out a cry like a dog howling at the moon.

He wouldn’t stop howling.

Auntie Georgie shut the window. Harriet heard her treading softly down the stairs. She would let him in. The bolt on the door slid back.

Uncle Bob moaned, saying her mam and dad’s names, Ethan, Mary Jane, Mary Jane, Ethan, as Auntie Georgie opened the door.

Auntie Georgie’s voice came out hard and mean. ‘If you can’t stomach ale you shouldn’t sup.’

‘Have a heart, woman.’ He slipped and let out a curse and lay for too long on the ground before struggling to his feet.

‘What time do you call this? Where’ve you been?’

‘I wanted to see Mary Jane. They’ve taken her. I tried to explain …’

What did he mean? Who had taken her? No one should take her. Without Mam, she’d be a full orphan for sure. Bad things happened to orphans.

Harriet watched. Instead of letting Uncle Bob in, Auntie Goergina pushed him away. He staggered back. She was angry. ‘Shut up your mouth. I’ve the man’s bairns sleeping up there. Show some respect.’

‘Mary Jane … and Ethan, poor Ethan.’

‘What about your wife? What about me? Mary Jane was planning to leave Ethan. He told me. She was going to leave the lot of them.’

‘No, never, never in this wide world.’

Uncle Bob staggered. Auntie Georgie got behind him, to bring him in, Harriet thought, but no. ‘You’re sleeping in the cowshed, my man, till you know how to respect a respectable wife and two fatherless children.’

He made a kind of sobbing sound, as if about to cry.

Uncle Bob is crying, Harriet thought. Men don’t cry.

They had moved away into the shadows. Harriet could hear their voices but not the words. This would be like her mam sending dad into the coal shed. Something that would never happen. It wasn’t right. And it wasn’t true what Auntie Georgina said. She would tell her. She would say, Mam isn’t going to leave us. It’s not true.