‘I can tell you a little over the phone if you want, and then I could send a photocopy along to you.’
‘Marvellous. So what’s it tell us?’
‘When he completed his training, his CO recorded his conduct as exemplary. He got good marks for all aspects of his training — close combat, bayonet work, drill, trench warfare, and he qualified as a marksman with the rifle.’
‘So he was no softie?’
‘Not according to this. One report says he was always polite to his NCOs, far more so than many of his colleagues, and they recommended he consider something other than the infantry. Having no profession, you see, he wasn’t placed in one of the so-called expert brigades — engineers or whatever. Farm work wasn’t regarded as a profession or skill. James had expressed an interest in horses, so it says, and it was suggested he transfer to the Hussars and become a Horsemaster. The 15th/19th (The Kings) Hussars were looking out for men with experience in horse management.’
‘He never got that far?’
‘No, he was due to sail to France from Folkestone via Boulogne, en route to the Somme, on 13th September — oddly enough, the Hussars were sailing at the same time on the same ship and he’d expressed delight that he would be among horses for the crossing.’
‘But he came home on leave? Wasn’t that rather odd?’
‘It was compassionate leave, for just one night at home. There was a telegram from Wolversdale, it’s mentioned in the account, and it asked if Private Hartley could be granted one day’s compassionate leave due to his mother’s sickness. His unit received this on 10th September and the only available date for leave was the 11th. He had to travel down to Folkestone by train on the 12th to join his ship. There’s a note here to say he would be allowed to leave training, one day early, which was a rest day anyway, travel to York and then go home.’
‘This is good stuff. Any more?’
‘Yes, he was due to return to York station the following day to catch his train to Folkestone. The rest of his companions would be aboard that train. But he never made it.’
‘He got killed in the meantime,’ said Mark. ‘Yes, I really would like to have a copy of that account. Before I ring off, though, who signed the telegram? Is it mentioned?’
‘Somebody called Luke. It says, “Urgent, come home, mother very ill. Luke.” The wording is reproduced.’
‘And did he reply by telegram? Do we know that?’
‘It doesn’t say so here, but I guess he would have done, to answer and to say what time he would be arriving. Our history included this account because it was so unusual to have a soldier murdered like that; there was talk of a spy being responsible, but army intelligence rejected that. They said it was a civil murder, but no killer was ever brought to justice.’
‘Mrs Preston, that is a most useful piece of information. I’m most grateful to you.’
‘I’ll put a photocopy in the first-class post today; if I miss today’s collection, there is one on Sunday. You should have it by Monday morning.’
Mark told her where to send it, using the Thirklewood Hall address, and thanked her again, then recalled Lorraine and acquainted her with the details. He asked her to check the letters for any reference to James’s sick mother, then went in to speak to Duncan Young.
‘Duncan,’ he said, ‘while you’ve been programming this stuff into HOLMES, have you come across any reference to either a telegram, or to James’s mother being ill?’
‘There was a statement by a telegraph boy, sir, it’s tucked away somewhere in the file, but I can’t remember anything about Mrs Hartley being ill. Hang on, I’ll access HOLMES about the telegram.’
Mark saw that the relevant file had been cross-referenced with both telegram and telegraph, the practice then being to deliver urgent messages by telegram. These came to the village post office and were put into a yellow envelope for delivery by a telegraph boy. Sometimes these ‘boys’ were disabled pensioners — very old boys indeed!
But HOLMES produced a statement by a young lad called John Bennison. He said he had been delivering a telegram in Rosenthorpe at about eleven thirty on the morning of Monday 11th September 1916 when he’d noticed Mr Hartley walking from the station, along the road towards Wolversdale. He was not carrying anything. Later, a pony and trap came and picked him up.
‘We haven’t paid much credence to this statement, sir, and neither did the original investigating officers.’
‘And why not?’
‘Well, this child, sir, the telegraph boy, he’s only twelve and he’s obviously made a mistake. Hartley didn’t get off the train until the middle of the afternoon, 3.35pm, before he started to walk towards Wolversdale.’
‘Duncan, never underestimate children. They will tell the truth as they see it. Now, I’ve just sent DI Larkin off to York to find the rail timetables for that day. You know why?’
‘Something to do with a Mr Thomas Hartley…’ And his voice trailed away.
‘Yes. We want to know if a Mr Thomas Hartley arrived at Rosenthorpe that day and here we have the answer! A telegraph boy saw a Mr Hartley but didn’t say which one! And the police probably assumed the kid was making a mistake about the time…’
‘No, sir, perhaps not. They did ask Hull police to enquire about Thomas’s movements at the material time, and it was their report that cleared Thomas. Not Dawson’s.’
‘Full marks to Dawson. I wonder why he did not take this statement further? Surely, if a Hartley had been seen in the village earlier…’
‘It was long before the time of death, sir, long before James got off the train.’
‘But long enough for a killer to hire a pony and trap and hide in waiting for his victim, Duncan. So we need to check this one pretty carefully — I think it says that Thomas Hartley was in the village, or at the farm, at the time of James’s murder.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, I assumed the boy was mistaken…’
‘It could happen to anyone. Now, this throws a whole new light on things. I want to find out just who was at that farm on that day — but in the meantime, what about the telegraph boy? Did he deliver a dreaded yellow envelope to Pike Hill Farm?’
‘No, sir, it was to a Mrs Hayes in Rosenthorpe, to say her sister was coming to stay on Thursday.’
‘So there was no telegram for Pike Hill Farm?’
DC Young actioned HOLMES again to search for other references to telegrams, but there was none. Dawson had clearly concentrated upon events on the actual day of the murder and not before, probably thinking that a telegram sent on the 10th was of no consequence to his enquiries.
‘Sir,’ said Duncan Young, ‘if James had sent a telegram home, it might not have come via Rosenthorpe. After all, the postal address of the farm is Wolversdale. If the Hartleys wanted to send telegrams or receive telegrams, they’d surely use their local post office at Wolversdale? There is no railway station at Wolversdale, which is why they used Rosenthorpe station.’
‘You’re right, of course. So Dawson never checked to see who had sent the sickness telegram from, say, Wolversdale post office?’
‘I’ve found no record of that in the file, none.’
‘In which case, he would never have known that someone had sent a telegram saying that Mrs Hartley was ill, which in turn meant he would never have checked the truth of that. And if my memory serves me correctly, she was far from ill! She was working on the farm that day, preparing tons of food for the harvest workers…’
‘So the telegram was fake, sir? The one that persuaded James to come home?’
‘The message was false, but I’m sure Luke sent it; after all, he would have been well known hereabouts and wouldn’t have been able to give a false name to the telegraph office. But because the murder enquiries were concentrated on the scene of the death at Rosenthorpe, that gem slipped through the net. Clever Luke, I think, a very clever Luke…’
‘Are you saying he lured his brother home especially to kill him, sir?’
‘That’s how it se
ems to me, Duncan — and I’m beginning to wonder how many other members of the family were involved.’
‘But he must have made his plans very carefully, mustn’t he? In a small community like these villages, every move he made must have been noticed. Yet he got away with it — or they got away with it.’
‘I’m not sure that he did, Duncan. I think he knew the police were getting close, which is why he went to Canada. But I don’t know yet whether he made his preparations to go to Canada before he planned the crime or after he’d done it.’
‘Can we find that out, sir?’
‘Possibly. We need to discover the precise date he booked his passage and the precise date he left England.’
‘Where can you find that, sir?’
‘From the Maritime Museum at Liverpool, I should think, or from ships’ manifests of the time — or from that information that Lorraine obtained from Mr Dunnock. We’ll try Mr Dunnock’s sources first; we don’t have the time to go over to Liverpool to search records.’
‘Right, sir.’
‘And I want to see if those American papers contain Luke’s signature — so we can compare it against the one upon his statement in our murder file.’
Then the intercom buzzed.
‘Sir,’ said DC Napier, who was manning the reception desk, ‘the Chief Constable is here. He wants to see you. Shall I send him through?’
Chapter Eighteen
Even before Mark Pemberton could make his desk tidy, the Chief Constable strode into his office. He moved with a briskness that Mark had come to recognise and was smartly dressed in a dark lounge suit, looking as immaculate as ever with not a black hair out of place. Mark leapt to attention.
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘Good morning, Mark. All correct?’
‘Yes, sir. Er, can I get you a coffee?’
‘Yes, why not?’
Mark buzzed Barbara on the intercom. ‘Two coffees, please, Barbara. Black, without sugar. Mr Moore has arrived.’ Mark found a chair for his Chief who settled down and placed his briefcase on the floor.
‘I’ve got a meeting at Rainesbury police station later this morning,’ Moore said, ‘It’s a bit of a chore on a Saturday but I thought I’d drop in to see if things were progressing well with Operation Roots.’
‘Very smoothly, sir. Would you like to look around? I can show you what we’ve arranged.’
‘Yes, after my coffee. You get on well with the Americans? Scotland Yard? Special Branch? No conflicts?’
As they drank their coffee, Mark outlined the security arrangements for Thirklewood Hall, highlighting some of the more important aspects and providing the names of key personnel in the American and Scotland Yard teams. He also referred to the on-going redecoration of the suite to be used by the Vice-President, and the additional security arrangements which had been necessary. Moore listened with his usual intensity, asking the occasional pointed question, and then, having drained his coffee, asked for a quiet unannounced guided tour. Mark accompanied him; he saw the ground-floor security arrangements, the upper floor, the loft, the outbuildings and the private suites which would be occupied by the Vice-President and his key personnel. They now looked much more welcoming than they had only a few days ago. Moore asked about checks for bombs, snipers, bugging devices and long-range telescopic sights on cameras and night-sight binoculars. He talked to John T Dunnock and Superintendent Birchall and finally, after some fifty minutes, expressed satisfaction with what he saw. Mark took him back to his office.
‘Thanks, Mark. I had to come and see for myself, but everything seems to be well under control. I hope you are taking the opportunity to relax a little!’
‘It’s a welcome change from routine, sir,’ said Pemberton.
‘And the Muriel Brown murder? Have your teams produced anything worthwhile?’
It was only then that Mark realised he had not informed Moore of his enquiries into Hartley’s death. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach and he knew he must confess to this breach of protocol. He got up from his seat and went over to the office door, closing it firmly.
‘Sir,’ he said upon regaining his seat, ‘I’ve just realised I’ve made a ghastly mistake!’
Moore looked at him with his dark, intense eyes. Mark could have withered under such a gaze, but he knew that Moore had no time for weaklings and no time for those who did not get to the point.
‘We started to reinvestigate the Muriel Brown death, sir, but something else cropped up.’
‘Go on, Superintendent,’ was the cool response.
‘I felt it would be advisable to know something of Vice-President Hartley’s background myself, for security purposes — the background of his alleged family in this country, for example. So, as a prelude, I went to the family graveyard in Wolversdale to look at the tombstones.’
‘And?’
‘I found what I thought was a hero, sir, a James Reuben Hartley who had been killed in the First World War. I went to the local newspaper office to get details. I thought it would please the Vice-President to learn there was a hero in the family…’
‘You’re not going to tell me that James was one of those First World War soldiers who were shot for cowardice, are you?’
‘No, sir. He was murdered. He was coming home on compassionate leave in 1916 when he was shot.’
‘Shot? How?’
‘By a murderer, sir. The killer was never caught.’
‘Oh, bloody hell! You mean you’ve come here to undertake a simple security task and you’ve uncovered an unsolved crime, a murder? And the victim’s a possible ancestor of the Vice-President?’
‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry… But if the Vice-President had pursued the death of James, he’d have uncovered that murder himself, without any trouble — the local papers contain the story. I felt if we could get to the bottom of that murder, we could be well prepared for any questions or problems that might arise.’
‘Who knows about this?’
‘No one outside our team, sir — except George Hartley, the senior member of the family. Not even the Scotland Yard officers or the Vice-President’s minders have been told. We have more enquiries to make, you see…’
‘More enquiries? What kind of enquiries, for God’s sake?’
‘I think the killer was Luke Hartley, sir. He fled to Canada.’
‘And who’s Luke Hartley?’
‘The Vice-President’s grandfather, sir.’
‘Oh my God, Mark, this gets worse! You have been stirring the mud. Bloody hell… I don’t know what to say. How far has this enquiry got?’
‘I should have some final answers today, sir. I’ve found a revolver which may have been the murder weapon, and we still have the fatal bullet; I’m having ballistic comparisons made. Then there’s a mystery child, sir. I have an officer looking into his background right now…’
‘I don’t think I want to hear any more of this!’
Mark then provided a more detailed account of what he had learned and offered the Chief Constable his own theories about the death of James. He expressed one theory that Thomas and even some other family members had conspired in James’s death, referring to the telegram about their mother’s supposed illness.
‘It’s a very complicated story, sir, and I think we should pursue the enquiries; if I was able to find out so much in so little time, then surely the Vice-President would be able to do so. If he made the discovery, through his agents, he’d think we, the British that is, were covering up his past. If we present him with the information, very discreetly, it might not get known to the wider world — we’d be doing him a service, sir, a spot of diplomacy, some good public relations or Anglo-American relations.’
‘Just one thing, Mark. How sure are we that the Hartleys of Wolversdale are in fact related to the Vice-President?’
‘As positive as anyone can be, sir. I’m ninety-nine per cent certain that the Luke who left here is the Vice-President’s grandfather.’
‘
I’m not sure whether that’s good news or not, after what you’ve just told me.’
‘Well, sir, if you saw George Hartley and stood him beside a photo of the Vice-President, you’d think they were brothers. The likeness is astonishing. But we can provide better proof…something I was going to do this morning,’ and Pemberton pressed his intercom.
‘Barbara, find DC Cashmore, will you, and ask her to bring our copy of the American’s Hartley file to me? Straight away please.’
‘What’s all this, Mark?’ asked Moore.
‘DC Cashmore has got photocopies of the research done by the Vice-President himself — she charmed one of his aides, sir! It contains the ship’s manifest with Luke’s embarkation details, as well as other material. I’m hoping there is something containing Luke’s signature.’
‘How will that help?’
‘I have the actual murder file, sir, from 1916. It contains a signed statement by Luke. If the two signatures match, I reckon it confirms the link beyond all doubt. It’s something I haven’t tested yet — so you’ll be the first to know the answer!’
As they awaited the arrival of Lorraine, Mark produced the thick murder file from his locked drawer and showed it to Moore.
This was the original; his team were working from photocopies. He checked the index before turning to a statement made by Luke Caleb Hartley.
‘This is our Luke, sir, who used to live at Pike Hill Farm, the supposed ancestral home of the Vice-President. He went to Canada with his family in 1916, before moving down to America. There’s his signature.’
Lorraine arrived looking flustered; word had circulated that the Chief Constable was with Pemberton and she wondered if she had done something wrong. She carried the precious American file.
‘DC Cashmore is going through some letters, sir, that passed between the murder victim and his mother. We’re trying to establish a motive for his death.’
‘Morning, Miss Cashmore. Any luck?’
‘Not yet, sir.’ She blushed. ‘But I’ve found no references to James’s mother being ill.’ She addressed that remark to Pemberton. ‘And he seems to have enjoyed his training, contrary to what his mother said in her statement.’
Family Ties (The Mark Pemberton Cases Book 1) Page 18
