No Name Lane (Howard Linskey) (51 page)

Then Tom interrupted, ‘Or was it you, Stephen?’ And the old man took his gaze from Helen and turned it on Tom. ‘Is that why you won’t tell us?’ Tom noticed that Stephen was wringing his hands now, becoming agitated as the questioning continued. ‘Of course, it could have been an accident,’ offered Tom, ‘maybe nobody meant to stab Sean but somebody slipped during the fight. Perhaps he fell on the knife or he was pushed against someone who was holding it. It would explain why you had to bury the body. You were probably worried nobody would believe you. Is that what happened? You can tell us. It’s okay.’

‘I can’t remember,’ said Stephen, finally.

‘You
can’t remember?’ repeated Tom. ‘Now that I don’t believe, Stephen. I’ve forgotten a lot of things in my time but I know I’d never forget the day I saw a knife go into the back of someone. That kind of thing stays with you.’

‘Please tell us, Stephen,’ urged Helen. ‘If it was Jack or Henry, then what harm could come of it? They are both gone now. We just want to hear the truth.’

‘No,’ he told her firmly, shaking his head, ‘mustn’t tell!’

‘And if it was you,’ she offered, ‘then it must have been an accident. Everybody would understand.’ Silence from Stephen. ‘And if it wasn’t an accident? If you killed Sean because he was in a fight with your brother and he was hurting Jack, well, people would understand that too. I know they would.’ Then she tried a new approach. ‘It must be terrible, living with a secret like that, all of these years.’

‘It is,’ he told her quickly, as if he couldn’t help himself.

‘There you go then,’ Helen smiled at him once more and he gazed back at her. ‘You’ll feel so much better when you tell us. I promise.’

Stephen Collier opened his mouth to say something. Helen and Tom waited to learn the truth. ‘No,’ and he shook his head violently, ‘you can’t make me.’

Helen pleaded, ‘Please, Stephen,’ but he remained unmoved.

‘It’s no use, Helen,’ Tom told her, ‘we’d better just go. We’ll never get the truth like this,’ and he took a step towards the door. Confused, Helen stayed where she was then Tom said, ‘It’s quite clear to me now. I am sure I know what happened. Stephen here killed Sean. It’s obvious.’

‘No,’ protested the old man and he turned to face Tom.

‘He
stabbed him with that knife, murdered the poor man in cold blood,’ continued Tom, ‘that’s why he won’t tell us the truth.’

‘I didn’t,’ Stephen shook his head again, the gesture making him appear childlike, ‘I never.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Tom told him, ‘you won’t tell us what happened, so we’ll just have to tell the authorities you won’t cooperate with us and you know what that means.’

‘What?’ asked the confused old man.

‘Well they are not going to want you here now, are they?’ Tom told him firmly. ‘They can’t leave a murderer in an old folk’s home.’ He shook his head, ‘No, they are going to want you out of here straight away.’

‘No,’ Stephen looked terrified, ‘they can’t.’

‘Tom,’ cautioned Helen.

‘They can and they will,’ Tom took a step towards the man and went down low so he could speak more softly. ‘They’ll kick you out on the streets if you don’t tell us what happened that night.’

‘Tom!’ called Helen but he wasn’t listening to her, just staring at the terrified old man.

‘You’ve been in trouble with the police before, haven’t you?’ Tom told him. ‘You’d better tell me now, before it’s too late.’

Stephen Collier looked as if he might be about to crack when the young carer walked suddenly back into the room. She had obviously heard a little of what Tom had said from the corridor. ‘I want you to leave,’ she told him.

‘No,’ replied Tom firmly and the girl looked stunned by his defiance.

‘You
have to leave,’ she told them both, ‘you’re not family. He hasn’t got any family. They just told me. I never would have …’

‘We’ll go in a minute.’ Tom turned to her. ‘Stephen has something very important he wants to tell us first, don’t you, Stephen?’

‘You have to leave now,’ she snapped, ‘or I’m calling the police.’

‘Do what you want but I’m not leaving,’ he told her, ‘not until I’ve heard what he has to say.’

‘Right,’ huffed the girl and she left the room and marched down the corridor.

Tom turned back to the old man. ‘Last chance, Stephen. You heard her, she’s calling the police.’ The old man looked like he was about to drop dead from the shock of that. ‘They’ll take you away if you don’t tell the truth, so tell me now, quickly, before they get here.’

‘Jack never meant it to happen,’ Stephen blurted suddenly.

‘Go on,’ urged Tom.

‘He took the knife off Henry, in case he did something daft with it. It was in his pocket but when he went to see the Irish he still had it on him.’

‘Tell us what happened, Stephen.’ Helen and Tom could hear animated voices at the end of the corridor now.

Stephen managed to confirm what they already knew or had guessed: that Mrs Harris had come to their house and warned them Mary was going to leave with Sean Donnellan,

‘Jack went down there to have it out with the Irish. He
told Henry and me to stay at home but after a while Henry went after him.’

‘What did you do, Stephen? Come on?’ The voices were getting louder.

‘I went after him too,’ confirmed Stephen. ‘We followed Jack and we hid and watched him. We saw the Irish coming out of the house and Jack followed. We followed Jack but we stayed back a way, because we knew he’d go mad if he saw us. The Irish went down No Name Lane and Jack went after him. When we got there the two of them were already fighting. They’d taken their coats off and they were punching and kicking and braying each other. It was awful.’

‘Was Sean winning?’ asked Tom, assuming it would not have been so awful for Stephen if Jack had been in control of the fight.

‘Only ’cos he was a dirty fighter,’ protested Stephen, looking hurt by the accusation, ‘or Jack would have had him. He can fight anybody,’ he told Tom proudly, holding up a fist, as if his older brother was still alive and not dead for more than half a century, ‘but the Irish fights dirty, butting and gouging, and he was telling Jack that he was going to kill him if he tried to stop him.’

Helen could hear the voices drawing nearer now, animated conversation between women who sounded as if they were in positions of authority. Tom closed the door then he kicked the other armchair until it slid towards it and blocked it, the back wedged under the door handle so it couldn’t be turned from the outside.

‘Who stabbed Sean, Stephen? Was it Jack, Henry, or you?’

Stephen
was shaking his head, tears streaming down his lined face now. ‘Our Jack was on the floor and the Irish was kicking him in the head,’ explained Stephen. ‘I didn’t think he was going to stop.’

‘So you picked up Jack’s coat to get at the knife?’ Tom prompted him.

‘No.’

At that moment the handle of the door turned slightly but wedged against the chair. Someone tried to push it open and Helen watched as it rattled a little but the weight of the chair held it firm.

‘Open this door!’ a woman shouted.

‘Who did it, Stephen? Was it you?’

‘The police have been called,’ the same woman shouted through to them and another shrill voice added, ‘They’re on their way, they’re coming!’

‘You heard her!’ called Tom and he pointed to the door. ‘The police are coming for you, so you’d better tell us now or we won’t be able to help you. Who did it, Stephen?’ Tom demanded and he put both hands on the old man’s shoulders and shouted, ‘Who?’

Stephen Collier gasped and sobbed then it was like a dam had burst and a great torrent of words followed. ‘He thought Irish was going to kill Jack. I didn’t even see him get the knife. I didn’t even see him pick up the coat. One minute the Irish was standing there over our Jack, about to kick him again. Next thing he’s opened his mouth like he’s going to say something and all this blood came out. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know what had happened. Then he just dropped. He fell to his knees like he was praying in church and when he fell I saw him.’

‘Who
did you see?’ urged Helen.

Stephen’s face took on a look of wonder, as if he was seeing the whole thing again in his mind’s eye but for the first time, like he’d blotted out the entire memory so that it was just as shocking to him this time around.

‘Henry,’ he said. He was standing behind the Irish. The Irish man fell forwards and the knife was sticking out of his back.’

Helen heard the sound of a police siren.

‘Henry killed him?’ asked Tom and the old man dipped his head and nodded sadly. Helen and Tom looked at one another. They had finally discovered the truth.

‘What did Jack do?’ Tom asked.

‘He went mad,’ said Stephen, ‘he took one look at what Henry had done and he hit him. He kept saying, “What have you done? What have you done,” and “all for a stupid little girl.” It took him ages to calm down.’

The police siren was getting louder and louder. The women from the home had stopped pushing at the door.

‘But he did calm down,’ Tom prompted him, ‘and he got rid of the body.’

‘We all did. Jack made me and Henry carry the Irish into the marshland, because the reeds were high and no one could see us, while he ran back home to hide Sean’s bag and fetch the shovel. Then he dug a hole in a dry spot on Cappers Field, dropped Irish in it and covered him over.’

‘Why didn’t he get rid of the knife?’

‘It was still stuck in him,’ explained Stephen, ‘we left it in him to stop blood going on the grass when we carried him but we forgot about it when we stuck him in the hole.
When Henry remembered, Jack said it’s too late now but it doesn’t matter. Nobody is ever going to go digging here. He told Henry to buy a new knife and say he’d lost it.’

The siren was close by and its volume wasn’t changing. Helen realised the police car was in the car park.

‘And the money?’ Tom asked. ‘Who took the money from the vicarage?’

‘Jack did. We watched in case anyone came.’

‘He stole the money so you could blame it on Sean Donnellan?’

‘He said it was the only way to make Mary believe Sean had left without her. He was right. It’s what everybody believed.’

‘What happened to the money?’

‘Jack threw it at Henry.’

‘Jack didn’t want it?’ asked Tom.

‘No,’ the old man said, ‘Jack didn’t want any of it.’

Helen started as loud banging came from the door, ‘Police! Open up! Open this door now!’

Tom stood straight then went towards the chair and dragged it away from the door, opening it. Two huge, uniformed police officers were standing there. ‘I’m sorry, officer, there seems to have been a bit of a misunderstanding …’ said Tom, hoping to defuse their anger.

At the sight of the police officers, Stephen screamed then went into a wild panic. ‘Don’t take me away!’ wailed the old man, ‘Please! Don’t take me away!’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said one of the officers, ‘what have you done to the poor bastard?’

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

They
spent more than four hours in the cells before they were released. ‘We’re not charging you with anything,’ the desk sergeant looked at Tom like he was the worst kind of parasite, ‘but if it was down to me, I’d have thrown away the key.’

‘Good job it’s not down to you then, eh?’

‘Scaring a helpless old man like that, you’re bloody vermin,’ and he raised his voice as Tom went through the front door of the station, ‘and if you didn’t have friends in high places, you’d still be in here!’

‘Friends in high places?’ asked Helen as they walked to the car.

‘I used my phone call to get through to Ian Bradshaw,’ explained Tom, ‘asked him if he couldn’t get someone to have a word with his Geordie counterparts, see if he could clear this mess up.’

‘And he did?’

‘Seemingly.’

‘And it
was
a mess,’ she told him, ‘I’ve never even been arrested before, much less spent time in a cell.’

‘Worth it though,’ he said, ‘to finally get to the truth.’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied, ‘was it?’

‘’Course it was,’ he assured her. ‘You’re out now, aren’t you?’

‘I meant Stephen.’

‘Oh,
him.’

‘Yes him; you scared an old man witless,’ and when he said nothing, she added, ‘you don’t seem to care.’

‘I didn’t scare an old man witless,’ Tom explained, ‘I interrogated someone who got away with murder years ago, or at least helped his brother to get away with it. All his life, Stephen escaped punishment for what he and his brothers did, never having to account for any of it. None of them did. Henry Collier should have gone to the gallows for that. Instead he got on with his life as if nothing happened.’

‘You can’t know that.’

‘He killed his rival then married the girl,’ said Tom, ‘got the wife he wanted, carried on teaching, even became headmaster and all the while Sean Donnellan’s body was rotting in that field on the edge of the village. Christ, Helen, does none of that make you the least bit angry?’

‘Yes it does. I already told you it did but his simple-minded brother wasn’t to blame.’

‘He helped to bury the poor bastard, didn’t he? Then he kept quiet about it all these years.’