[Edith Horton 05] - Murder in Retreat

by Noreen Wainwright

  “Thank you,” Hannah spoke and edged herself back, sitting on the edge of a kitchen chair. Just as well as she looked as though she was about to drop.

  “I can’t take it in, any of it. Does this really mean that we have no way of finding John now? I shouldn’t have let him go. I should have gone against him and rung you, straight away, Inspector Greene. This is my fault for being a coward for letting him convince me black was white, run rings around me yet again.

  I’m nowt but a fool.”

  “Mam, will you stop that. I mean it. This is just giving in to your own stupid guilt and it’s getting us precisely nowhere. And what’s more, it’s rubbish anyway. You had no more chance of stopping him than flying. What were you going to do? Stand in front of his motor car?”

  Edith looked at Cathy. Talk about giving it straight; she had a point as well. Hannah blaming herself was stupid and maybe, yes, indulgent. A bit harsh though.

  Hannah made no reply but looked away from her daughter and up at Inspector Greene. “What happens now about finding John?”

  “We follow whatever leads we can get. Someone will know where the boy is. Your husband will have work colleagues, friends. We’ll find him for you, Mrs Braithwaite.” Edith glanced across at Sergeant Brown. For some unknown reason. He looked…bleak, and almost as though he was panicking. Then the look disappeared.

  “I’ll make tea,” she said.

  John

  Another day passed. The man didn’t come back and John didn’t run off. John tried telling himself that he was waiting until the things settled, until he had a plan. He didn’t know where he was or where the nearest town, train station or bus stop was. There was something else. His shoes had disappeared. The second morning he got up and couldn’t find them.

  “I can’t find my shoes.” The old man was alone in the kitchen when he went downstairs.”

  “Don’t mither about shoes. Eat that porridge.”

  He nearly said but no…where are they, they must be somewhere…I’ve looked…but his eyes met those of the old man and they both knew and there was no point in saying anything more. John couldn’t work out why this felt such a dark moment. In the scheme of things, his shoes disappearing—been taken more like—wasn’t major.

  It was, though. It meant they knew he was thinking about running off and they were going to go to lengths to stop him. Who knew how far they would go, if he still tried it. He’d seen a rifle, within open view in the small porch leading into the house.

  Through upset and fear he’d felt exhaustion, the first two nights. Sleep had been a blessing and he hadn’t had to try. It had overcome him. It was different tonight. They said you could adapt to almost anything and maybe, crazy as it sounded, he was getting a bit used to it. The tension that had made him ache all over had eased a bit and he kept thinking of ways to get through to the old pair. Maybe if he offered to help them with chores.

  Maybe if he started talking about his mother, his sister, his school.

  Anything was worth trying. It wasn’t going to make things worse He wasn’t afraid of them, not really. Now, he knew he was frightened of the son though. Badly frightened. The way he’d changed when they were in the Bedford van…more than that though.

  The way he’d been with the old couple.

  It took a bad man to treat his parents like that. For all that his mother annoyed him sometimes, John couldn’t possibly imagine talking to her like that. Not that she’d put up with it.

  He lay in the narrow bed, flannel sheets, too warm for summer, occasional noise of a dog barking which was comforting, and made plans. Mr Grieves, at school, was always on about learning from your mistakes. Well, he’d made the mistake of his life coming away with someone who wasn’t his dad. In fact, even if it had been his father, it still would have been a massively stupid thing to do.

  The thing now was to make his next move the right one. Regretting what he’d done would get him nowhere. All it did was bring on a horrible feeling deep in is chest—a hard ball of tears and hurt.

  It made him think of all the other things that could go wrong too. Then he’d feel like he’d been turned to stone. Frozen rigid and unable to move.

  It took him a minute to register the new sound. Then it was obvious. The sound of a car engine or he was pretty sure, the sound of the Bedford and that paralysed feeling came over him again, Wherever the man had gone, he was back; he’d come back in the middle of the night.

  John lay, rigid, in the bed, his ears straining to hear what was going on downstairs. Footsteps had passed his room. The room he was sleeping in—never his room, heavy enough to make him sure that it had been the father. Voices but he could only just hear the sound, no idea what was being said.

  The bed was warm and after a few minutes, the heat and tiredness overcame John and he found himself dreaming, just for a few minutes, probably. Then, he was awake again, his heart pounding in his chest because the voices were louder, clearer and just outside his room.

  “No, Denis, there’s no point in this now, disrupting the house.

  Your mother is at her wit’s end. Let it be, for now, for the rest of the night at least. Don’t be waking him now.”

  “What do you know about anything, you old fool. Get out of my way.”

  There was a scuffle and John sat up straight in the bed.

  “Leave it for now, Denis. Sleep on the problem. There’s nothing you can do at this time of the night. Nothing sensible.”

  “I’m not bothered about bloody sensible. I’ve got myself a whole load of trouble now and I need it dealt with.”

  John was either going to pass out from the tension of it in a minute or just make a run for it. If he was fast, he could barge through the two men, be down the stairs and out the door.

  “Something’s gone wrong. He’s a double-crossing swine and I’ll do him one way or another. His neck or his lad. It’s all the same to me.”

  “Come downstairs with me, now Denis. Have a drink. I have whiskey in the cupboard. Your mother will make you food.”

  “Balls to your food. I’m bloody done with it. I tell you.”

  There was silence.

  John’s neck hurt from holding his neck tense and he had a terror that he’d sneeze or something and draw the man into the room to do whatever it was he intended to do to him. He prayed. Frantic bits of prayers that he remembered from school and from kneeling by his bed while his mam waited to tuck him in.

  He’d wait until they had gone to bed when the place would be quiet then he’d take his chances and go. Now that Denis was back, he was in danger and there was no way he was going to wait and let him do what he liked with him. He’d rather make a run for it.

  Brown knocked on the door of Honeysuckle Cottage. He’d hardly had any sleep and maybe this was a very bad idea. It almost definitely was a bad idea. But, the situation with the missing boy had taken a wrong turn and his gut told him that they needed a faster stronger lead than trawling around the country, tracing the contacts of Josh Braithwaite. It was too slow, too tenuous.

  His eyes burned and how the hell was he going to stay awake all day as they drove around the countryside on a wild goose chase?

  John was in extreme danger. Maybe nobody else recognised that.

  The inspector was concerned—presumably. But he didn’t seem to have the same sense of urgency. But, the accident and Josh Braithwaite’s death had changed everything. Someone, somewhere was using the boy as a weapon to either hurt the father or to extract something from him. Money, probably. Josh knew that and was making his way to wherever his nemesis was, maybe where John was, too.

  When they had questioned Freddie Earnshaw previously, he saw now that they had been too distracted by what was going on with the lad’s family, in Honeysuckle Cottage. They had given up too easily when the boy claimed not to know why or where John had gone. Brown was as sure as he could be, that Freddie, or one of John’s other friends knew more about what had happened than they were letting on. It might be against the
rule-book and Greene would be furious with him but Brown knew he wouldn’t rest easy until he tried one more time.

  If anyone was ever going to answer the door that was. He looked at his watch. Half six, coming light. There had been the slightest drawing in of the mornings now they were at the end of July and the dawn chorus was no longer so vociferous.

  There was a slow drawing back of a bolt and the door opened.

  “What do you want at this hour of the morning? What is it now?”

  The woman looked as if she’d had a bad night. Worse, more tired even, than she had looked on the other occasions he’d seen her.

  She held a pink candlewick dressing gown tightly under her chin.

  “I know its early and I’m sorry, Mrs Earnshaw but the Inspector and myself have to go out of the county today, and this is my

  only opportunity to speak to Freddie. There has been a development but I can’t talk about it, not yet anyway. Can I come in, please?”

  She said nothing but did stand to one side.

  That fusty smell again. If she would only open the windows and doors, wave a duster around, mop the kitchen floor and tidy up.

  Pity for her situation was eluding him this morning. Instead he felt a real impatience and irritation with her and with Freddie.

  You had to help yourself sometimes and this woman was just laying down on the dirty floor and asking life to walk all over her. He should be ashamed of these thoughts, probably but when you looked at someone like Mrs Braithwaite, what she’d been through and her house was still clean and tidy. His own mother for that matter.

  Left a widow, young and with him to bring up.

  There was a loud wail from upstairs. Joy had been woken up then, by his early morning call and that wasn’t going to help his cause.

  Freddie rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. You could see straightaway that he wasn’t a morning sort of person. Half-asleep and grumpy with it.

  Maybe he should stick the kettle over the hob and make the lad a brew. He wasn’t going to get much out of him like this.

  There was no sign of Mrs Earnshaw but the crying had stopped so she must be seeing to the child, at least.

  “I don’t know nowt, Serge, I told you, I don’t know where John is.

  Maybe it was the grumpiness of the little tyke or the “Serge” but Brown’s temper rose. He had had enough of this brat.

  “Right, Freddie. You see, I don’t quite believe you. You wouldn’t have run off from school the next day if you were as innocent as you let on. You spent most of your days and if that wasn’t enough, some of your evenings, with John Braithwaite. You must have talked. He must have given you a clue about where he was going.”

  “I keep telling you, I don’t know where he’s gone.” The boy looked somewhere in between anger and upset and Brown had a twinge of doubt. Maybe he was on the wrong tack here?

  “Did he talk about his father?”

  “What were there to say? His father packed up and left. My old man did much the same thing so what was there to talk about?”

  He was deflecting. Brown was as sure as he could be. When you were that age it was all about keeping secrets too; all about misplaced loyalty and pacts and all that stupid nonsense. It came back to Brown quite suddenly. That feeling about your mates.

  “Let me spell it out to you, Freddie. The thing is, we don’t think John did go off with his father but he did believe he was going to be taken to him. He wasn’t. Then his father had an accident, while he was going to get John, we think. He’s dead, before you ask. So now we’re in a quandary. I needn’t tell you that this is not the time to keep anything to yourself.” Freddie swallowed hard His face was pale in the washed out early morning light. Skin getting bad, hair becoming greasy and sticking up. He couldn’t afford pity for the lad though. He’d stood here before in this house allowing himself to be distracted by the state of the house and the baby and all the rest of it. But that wasn’t why he was here.

  “I’ll give you one more chance, here, Freddie. If it comes out that you kept anything back or if any harm should come to John, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. “

  “I don’t know what you want to make me say and I don’t know what you’re even round here on your own for at this hour of the morning. You woke my mother and the baby and I don’t know what you expect me to say. It isn’t my fault that John took himself off.”

  He was exasperating. On the defensive and holding back at the same time He was sure the lad was holding back.

  “What happened with your father?” God knows why he asked that.

  Maybe it was because getting angry with the lad wasn’t getting him anywhere and he could feel the anger rise inside him. He should have more understanding, not get riled like that.

  “What are you wanting to know that for?”

  “I’m just asking. That’s all. I’m concerned.”

  “You’ll have people round here, soon as look at us. Hospital almoners, that kind of person.”

  “I have no intention of doing anything of the sort. I’m trying to help.”

  “No-one wants to help.”

  “Freddie, why must you think the worst of people? Why do you think everyone is out to get you all the time? I can be concerned about the situation here without wanting to break up your family.

  I can want to find out what you know about John without wanting to get you in trouble.”

  “Ha! Two minutes ago you were threatening to get me in trouble.”

  “All right I take your point. I’m concerned about your family and I don’t want to get your mother in any trouble. I’m concerned about John without wanting to get you in trouble.”

  How had he got into this? The boy’s mother would be downstairs in a minute. Before he knew where he was, they would be reporting him because he had no authority at all to be here. Just a feeling that the answer to John’s whereabouts was closer to home; that haring around the country wasn’t the best way to find him.

  “My father was like John’s father. Couldn’t be bothered with his family when it came down to it. When the going was tough and my mam wasn’t so well after Joy was born, he got fed up and bailed out because none of us mattered to him. Selfish.”

  “Same as John’s father, then.”

  “Yeah. The difference is that John never saw it like that. John made excuses for his father, got angry when I tried to say that he was just the same as my old man.”

  “He talked about his father?” Freddie shrugged, looked uneasy. “A bit. He talked about him a bit about how he wrote to him sometimes. About how his father had this job on an estate somewhere. Impressed by that he was.”

  For some reason, Freddie had decided to give a bit more away, even if it was just to get the policeman off his back. The thing now was to let him talk and not put any pressure on him. It was difficult though.

  “Look, can I go now. It’s seven o’ clock. I want my breakfast and there’s jobs to be done outside. We have a few cattle to be fed and hens to feed and let out.”

  Not quite a smallholding but eggs and milk. Goodness knew what the family survived on if the absconding father wasn’t supporting them.

  “So, what did he say about going working with his father? We’re not playing about here, Freddie. The search for John has become a lot more serious than when we believed he might be with his father.”

  “Well, maybe you were barking up the wrong tree, there, anyway, Sergeant. You’re looking in one direction. John were restless, like. He talked about lots of things. Adventure. Signing up on a ship. Maybe you should check Liverpool docks out. Maybe John was just fed-up with the dales and living with his mother and school and all of it. I don’t blame him, though in my book, he didn’t have it that bad.”

  He looked forlorn and trapped and the sound of his mother coming down the stairs carrying Joy, put a curious look on Freddie’s

  face. A look that haunted Brown as he headed back to Ellbeck. The boy looked guilty.

  His visit
to Honeysuckle Cottage had got him no further forward.

  He was more uncertain of everything than he had been. The last thing Freddie Earnshaw said, about John running away to sea. Had it been just thrown in there because Freddie had wanted to divert him and get rid of him, maybe just to cause mischief or was it nearer to the truth? He’d misjudged the lad and his own ability to understand and get through to him. So much for being able to step into the lad’s shoes, to understand him. Inspector Greene was waiting for him and they were heading off to speak to Josh Braithwaite’s sister. It seemed a long-winded and time-wasting way to go about things.

  Chapter Twelve

  Staffordshire

  Everybody was watching everyone else. Since David Fallon’s body had been found, all pretence of normality at St Chad’s was gone.

  They were all stuck here. The conference had been cancelled and Inspector Jardine and his colleagues, two of them now were all over the place it seemed. The ambulance had followed the police surgeon and Fallon’s body had been taken away.

  The two people who concerned Henry most were Fiona Elliott and young Weston. The tough, brittle Mrs Elliott had disappeared.

  Maybe he should have recognised that it had been a front, a defence.

  “I’ve got to get out of this place.” Henry had come across her in the garden. A wooden archway covered in clematis and jasmine had been built behind the house, before you got to the glasshouses.

  Armstrong might be taciturn but, if the state of the garden was as a result of his design and endeavours, he must have a soul.

  “I understand. But we can’t go anywhere. Not until they find out who killed Fallon.

  People had taken to walking in the garden a lot. The chapel and the garden. Residents and staff crossed each other’s paths, murmured a few embarrassed word of greeting and passed by, sometimes daring a quick glance over the shoulder. Is it you?

  What do you know? The walks were interspersed with interviews with Inspector Jardine.

  Fiona Elliott looked at him. Her eyes narrowed. “What I said to you. About my relationship with David. It could be misconstrued.