by James Andrew
THE SUITCASE MURDERER
A cruel killing shocks a small Yorkshire seaside town
JAMES ANDREW
Published by
THE BOOK FOLKS
London, 2020
© James Andrew
Polite note to the reader
This book is written in British English except where fidelity to other languages or accents is appropriate.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
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CHAPTER ONE
Birtleby was Inspector Stephen Blades’ patch. Like any policeman, he knew what went wrong in it, and what went right; and it pleased him when things were quiet, as they had been lately. Like most towns in Britain, it was finding recovery from the Great War a slow process, but it was working on it. The men had returned and found their different ways to adjust to peace, though not all managed well. Women were adapting too. Some had lost men, and some had lost their chances of finding men; some had returned from wartime employment to domestic chores, and others were trying desperately to cling onto the greater independence that the war had offered them. Birtleby itself had found anew its pre-war cycle of rampant tourism in the summer, as the railway brought visitors to the town in what felt like hordes, followed by winters that were quiet, rainy, and windswept. Its small industries, too, were adjusting to peacetime needs. The button factory had returned to making buttons instead of military uniforms, and the boatyard was making fishing boats again.
There had been the usual cluster of drunken fights in the summer, petty vandalism, thefts, even an outbreak of a series of arson attacks in outbuildings – and the culprits had been found for most of these crimes. Blades knew that winter would be a less busy time. There would be domestics, from which they seldom achieved a result, as wives might make complaints but rarely stuck to them long enough for anything to reach court. Police constables and sergeants handed out well-meaning advice to them but with little hope. Drunken fights still occurred though there were less than in the summer, and there was the occasional theft if not as many; and the odd housebreaking.
The limits of what the police could achieve did at times depress Blades. Take the arsons. They didn’t find out who started the fires, though local awareness had been built up to such a level that the culprit, whoever it was, had eventually taken fright and stopped. Blades pondered the purpose of the crimes. Had they been done by an adolescent with a misplaced grudge? Someone was giving expression to frustration, but serious harm did not seem to have been intended. In no case had there been danger to life, though things could have turned out otherwise, if any of the fires had gone out of control.
Blades often wondered at the emotions that lay under the bland expressions people presented as they went about their everyday business. As he walked down a street and glanced at them, he speculated about what those faces were hiding; he was aware everyone had secrets. He always noticed the instinctive nervousness people showed at meeting with policemen. Was it because of guilt at something they had done at some time, or at something they might be tempted to do, hopefully minor, though, as he knew, not always? At times, it felt as if he were walking amongst a series of unexploded mines. Who knew which detonator might be primed and ready? Yet, he reminded himself, these were ordinary people going about lives that would be for the most part reputable. It was his policeman’s mind that saw the capacity for lawlessness wherever he looked, and he knew that, with most people, it would never come to pass. When it did, it often felt random, like those arson fires, but he knew there was a path that led to crime. He had heard it explained by countless criminals when they were finally brought to justice. Along the way, they had made choices, which might have appeared harmless but had culminated in a final decision that wasn’t. They talked of the circumstances that had led to their misdemeanours, blamed their upbringings as often as not, and sometimes Blades could feel a measure of pity, though he knew these were excuses. Something had changed in them on their journeys. What had that been?
Blades tutted at himself, dismissed his musings, and returned to the task in hand. He was at his desk in the police station, studying a police constable’s report. There was a gas lamp above his head, giving its patch of light. A conversion to electricity was scheduled but had not arrived. The report concerned a series of bicycle thefts. Constable Flockhart had caught the culprit in the act one night, and he had confessed to the others once he was under arrest in the police station. When Blades read the report, it initially read like an open-and-shut case, but he knew that depended on the presentation of evidence. Were the constable’s reports accurately and properly done? Had the confession been taken under correct formal procedures? Blades shuffled the papers on his desk as he gave thought to this. Flockhart was off duty, but Blades would see him in the morning, with questions prepared.
It was quiet in the office. Blades was, for once, by himself. Sergeant Peacock had been at court that day, giving evidence in another case, and had not returned yet, though he would soon. The gas fire guttered. Wind blew rain against the window. As Blades glanced out, he became more aware of the darkness of the night, and the relative pleasantness of the office. Looking at the weather, it felt as if he was in an oasis of light and warmth.
Then the door opened, and Peacock was there, bringing in the brisk, late October air as he took off his heavy coat and his tweed cap.
‘Did it go well?’ Blades asked.
‘We got the conviction,’ Peacock replied. ‘Not that we know the sentence yet.’
‘It’ll be a good one,’ Blades said. ‘Peabody’s hard on burglary. How was defence counsel?’
‘Leadbetter? As grim as usual. He tried to trip me up about the time of the incidents, but I was ready for him.’
‘Good.’
‘Any tea on the go? I could do with warming up a bit.’ Peacock walked over to the stove and held both hands close to it.
The office door opened again, and this time it was the uniform of Sergeant Ryan that Blades was faced with as he stepped in with a report in his hand, and Blades wondered what it could be.
‘What’s the problem, Ryan?’ he said.
‘It’s like this, sir.’
Sergeant Ryan was a large man with a firmly featured face that normally gave a reassuring impression of strength, so that when the lines of his forehead were creased into anxiety as now, it was disconcerting. Blades wondered whose psychological fuse had been lit.
CHAPTER TWO
Blades now found himself in the living-room-cum-kitchen of a worker’s cottage opposite a worried-looking mother and father, and with Peacock beside him – still with no cup of tea but looking no less alert for that. The room was bare and simply furnished and Blades did not even give it a glance as he concentrated on the couple opposite him.
‘You reported your daughter missing,’ Blades was saying to Mrs Harkwright. ‘Missing Person reports don’t always involve me, but Sergeant Ryan expressed concern. So, when was the last time you heard from your daughter?’
‘About a week ago,’ Minnie Harkwright replied.
Minnie Harkwright was a middle-aged, broad-faced woman who looked a bit uncared-for, with untidy hair and a rumpled dress, as if more important things than her appearance concerned her. She had a kindly set to her face, Blades thought, but her most prominent feature was her anxious eyes.
‘And you reported this when?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Why so long in reporting it?’
‘We don’t see her every day. She’s independent. She has her own place. It wasn’t unusual to hear nothing from her.’
‘You didn’t worry at first?’
‘No, but a week was longer than usual not to hear anything, and she is my daughter. I went over to where she’s staying and got no reply. The whole place is locked up. Neighbours say the draper’s shop hasn’t been open in all that time and I’ve never heard of that before.’
‘Has Emma worked with the Roots for long?’
‘About a year. As an assistant. They give her a room above the shop too, staying with them, and she helps out in the house now and again. The Roots seemed alright to me. Perfectly respectable. You ask anyone.’
‘I’m sure you look out for her.’
Blades agreed with her that Emma’s disappearance sounded worrying. What made it of even more concern was that not only had Emma Simpson been reported missing, but, on inquiry, he’d discovered the Roots had disappeared too. ‘Emma Simpson’s your daughter’s name?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you’re Mrs Minnie Harkwright?’
‘She married and then her husband died in the Great War, but she kept his name. I married again, too, if it comes to that. Andy died in the influenza epidemic at the end of the war. I was a Maitland then. But I found John, and we married and we’re both happy Harkwrights now.’ A fleeting smile found its way onto her face.
‘I see.’ Blades glanced across at her husband. John Harkwright was a short but burly man with large rough hands hewn in some working man’s trade. He was bald with a thick moustache and sideburns, with a somewhat ill-favoured face, but strongly masculine, and Blades could see that some women would be drawn to him. He looked about ten years younger than Minnie.
‘Do you think you’ll be able to find her?’ John asked, and Blades noticed a wheedling tone in his speech; John was at least giving the impression he wanted Emma found.
‘We’ll try, sir.’ Blades allowed himself to study John Harkwright further. ‘Were you here when Emma last visited?’
‘Yes, he was,’ Minnie replied quickly. ‘And he’s as anxious as I am.’
‘I’m sure,’ Blades replied.
Peacock lifted his eyes from his notebook at that point. ‘Did you and Emma get on?’ he asked.
‘They did.’
As it was Minnie who replied instead of John, Peacock gave her a questioning look. ‘Can’t Mr Harkwright answer for himself?’ he said.
Minnie didn’t reply to that. John did this time, but he did not look towards Peacock but towards Blades. ‘I’ve never been married before,’ he said. ‘Never had anything to do with children. I was ever so pleased Minnie said yes to me. And I wouldn’t do anything to Emma.’
Blades registered the tone of indignation in John’s voice as he spoke the last sentence.
‘Did you find it difficult to adjust to becoming a stepfather?’ Blades asked.
‘I wouldn’t say I was that,’ John replied. ‘Emma came along with Minnie, that’s all, and she was fully grown, not to mention a widow herself.’
‘She did come back to stay at first after her husband died,’ Minnie said, ‘but she’s so independent. She was off like a shot when that situation at the draper’s turned up. She was a draper’s assistant before she married, so it was a place that suited her. But she’d have been welcome here. I know I had a new man about the house, but it wouldn’t have worried me if she’d stayed till she found herself someone, though, mind you, how many men are there left to find after the war?’
Blades had watched Minnie carefully. Minnie meant what she said but Blades did wonder how convenient it would have been for them had Emma continued living with her and John; and he could see why Emma might not have wanted to be in the way and spoil her mother’s chance of happiness. Or, were there other reasons why she wanted to be away from John Harkwright? Blades studied him again.
‘What did you say you worked at, Mr Harkwright?’
‘I didn’t, but I work as a builder’s labourer with Johnstone’s, the local firm.’
‘Have you been there long, sir?’
‘Since I came back after the war. Mind you, I worked with them before I went out too, for about five years. It’s a steady job. I’m lucky.’
‘Quite. A lot of people struggled to get work again after the war. So, where did you serve?’
‘I was out in Africa.’
‘I expect it was difficult out there too, was it?’
‘I’m glad I wasn’t in the trenches. But yes, it was.’
Now Minnie entered the conversation again, an impatient look on her face. ‘She was cheerful enough when she was last here – as ever. How could she disappear like this?’
‘We’ll do our best to find out,’ Blades replied. ‘What did Emma talk about the last time you saw her?’
‘The usual things. What was it she was going on about then? Work. Customers who came in. The last row between the Roots.’
Peacock interjected again. ‘The Roots don’t get on with each other?’ he asked.
‘Emma says they do as long as Amelia does what she’s told. And who can do that all the time?’
‘I see,’ Peacock said.
‘Emma didn’t mention she was seeing a boyfriend?’ Blades asked.
‘She doesn’t have one at the moment.’
‘There was one?’
‘There was Alfred Duggan, but she finished with him.’
‘Can you tell me more about him?’
‘It was me that told her to end it with him.’
That sounded familiar, Blades thought. He came across that in his line of work, mothers warning daughters away from unsuitable men, and they could turn out to be worse than even the mothers thought.
‘Which was why?’
‘He was no good. He was a bigamist, and he did time for that.’
‘Ah,’ Blades said. Yes. Any mother would warn her daughter away from a man like that. He gave Mr Duggan some thought, then remembered he’d heard of him, when he’d come out of prison about a year before.
‘When we found out about that, we told her all about him, and that was the end of that. Emma had enough sense to steer clear of the likes of him once she knew all about him.’
‘Had she been keen on him?’
‘Oh, he’s a good-looking fellow and he’s all charm. Women do fall for him. That’s how he ended up in jail.’
‘So, when did Emma split up with him?’
‘Not that long ago, only a couple of weeks. But she had done with him.’
Blades gave that thought as well. When did parents know everything their children did or didn’t do? No doubt Emma had
said she would finish with her man to please her mother, but had she? ‘Do you know how I might get in touch with this Alfred Duggan?’ he asked.
‘He works for Harrison’s,’ Minnie said. ‘Though why they have any truck with him, I couldn’t say. When he’s in Birtleby, he stays in the Commercial.’
‘We’ll put some effort into investigating this,’ Blades said. ‘We will try to find Emma for you.’
‘Thank you.’
And they had better check out the Roots’ premises first, Blades thought. He stood up ready to go, and that seemed to be that, till Blades turned to face Harkwright. ‘Incidentally, you still haven’t answered Sergeant Peacock’s question.’ Blades hadn’t liked the way Harkwright had skirted round the query. Harkwright looked shocked at attention being turned on him again.
‘I’m sure I did. Didn’t I? What was the question again?’
‘How well did you get on with Emma, sir?’ Peacock asked.
John looked flustered but answered quickly enough. ‘I liked Emma. I always got on fine with her. Why do you ask me about that?’
Blades turned his glance to Minnie, who was looking indignant as well.
‘John and Emma got on well. Just find Emma, will you.’
As he turned to go again, Blades simply nodded.
CHAPTER THREE
Blades and Peacock stood outside Roots the drapers with two constables beside them. It was a large Victorian building with spired roofing and weathered, dark stone, and there was something forbidding about it, perhaps the smallness of the stone-lintelled windows in the upper storeys, suggesting a lack of light inside.
On the ground floor, the shop itself had a large glass frontage with gold lettering in the sign above the window – Roots: Draper and Milliner – all calculated to draw the eye. But there was an eeriness about the window display of jackets and dresses, arranged as if for wear, but empty of the people they were made for. Blades wondered what they would find inside the building. He pulled the doorbell, which made a clanging sound deep inside the house, enough to waken the dead, Blades thought, then wished that hadn’t occurred to him.
