by Rebecca King
Ronan eased open a door to what appeared to be a storage room. It was a little larger than most of the small, square chambers he had searched. The storage room was dark, and at first glance appeared to be unoccupied. Ronan was about to turn away when something moved in the farthest, darkest corner of the room. Without a light to be able to see what it was, Ronan had to venture inside. With his gun drawn, he edged sideways rather than forwards. All he could see was rows upon rows of sheets which blocked him from seeing who he was following. At first, all he saw were darting glimpses of a small figure; a faint streak of white which vanished as swiftly as it appeared. Eventually, he stopped at the end of a row of shelving and waited.
Slowly, the vision of a small boy dressed in white appeared at the opposite end of the room, closest to the door. Ronan looked at him and opened his mouth to say something only for the young lad to dart toward the door. He got no further than the entrance to the room when Roger grabbed him by the scruff of the bedraggled white nightshirt he wore and yanked him to a stop.
Ronan quickly searched the rest of the room before joining them in the hallway. ‘He was all alone in there.’
Roger knelt before the young boy who was clearly terrified by the sight of Ronan emerging out of the gloom.
‘What’s your name, lad?’ Roger asked quietly.
The boy shook his head. When he tried to reach behind him to get Roger to release him, they all saw the blue bruises on the young lad’s wrists.
‘Where is your chamber?’ Daniel asked, well aware from his own childhood in the workhouse that the young lad was breaking workhouse rules by being out of his bed at night.
‘I-I don’t have one.’
‘Everyone has a chamber here, boy.’ Daniel growled. He pointed to the room the boy had just fled from. ‘Is that where you sleep now?’
The boy nodded.
‘Do you help with the laundry?’
Again, the boy nodded.
‘So, you do the laundry and then have to sleep with it?’ Roger growled in disgust.
The boy simply stared up at him. Roger wanted to release him but knew that the boy might flee.
‘Do you know how many guards are on patrol?’ Ronan asked quietly.
‘They will be here soon. They come back every now and then,’ the young lad whispered.
‘Has one been past recently?’
The boy nodded.
‘Do you know what any of them are called?’ Roger asked.
The boy shook his head.
‘What do we call you?’ Daniel asked quietly. ‘We cannot keep calling you ‘boy’.’
‘Trevor,’ the young boy whispered.
‘Can you do something for me, Trevor?’ Roger waited for the young boy to nod. ‘Go and find somewhere else to hide, preferably in the kitchen. We have just searched that area. It is free of guards who shouldn’t return. Make sure that you stay out of sight and wait for us to come and find you. It doesn’t matter if you hide in the pantry, or a cupboard. Just make sure that you don’t come out again until you see one of us. Can you do that?’
Trevor nodded. ‘Who are you?’
‘We are Star Elite,’ Daniel warned the boy, unsure if the lad understood what that meant. If he had been raised in the workhouse all his life, Trevor wasn’t likely to have any knowledge of what went on outside of the institution. He was too young for the Master to allow him out and if he was sleeping with the laundry rather than in a bed chamber with older people, he was unlikely to have relatives in the workhouse who might tell him about what was going on in the world.
‘Do you have relatives?’ Roger asked.
The young boy hesitated.
‘They aren’t in trouble,’ Daniel assured him. ‘Are they here with you, or have they gone?’
‘G-gone,’ Trevor whispered, tears gathering on his lashes.
‘Did they die?’ Ronan asked.
The boy shrugged.
‘Can you go and hide now?’ Ronan asked.
Trevor nodded again. When Roger released him, Trevor turned on his heel and raced for the kitchen. The men knew that if the young boy ventured outside, Harrison’s men would stop him from leaving the workhouse grounds.
‘Let’s keep going,’ Daniel sighed.
Half an hour later, the men appeared in a different hallway which was lined with doors. As they walked down it, all three of the Star Elite men saw numerous faces peering at them through the small square holes at the top of each door. Nobody spoke to them or asked the men who they were. Instead, the workhouse’s occupants stood in stoic silence and watched the new arrivals with a wary nervousness that was disturbing. It was haunting to see the paleness of their faces staring so blindly at them, and unnerving that nobody dared challenge them.
‘Where are the guards?’ Roger asked of the men in the first room they found.
‘They are doing their rounds.’
‘When was the last time they came this way?’
‘About ten minutes ago.’
‘When are they due again?’
The man shrugged. ‘Anytime now.’
‘Did you hear the blast?’ Daniel asked.
‘Yes.’
Daniel sighed. ‘We are here to arrest the guards. If they wanted to hide, where do you think they might go?’
‘They wouldn’t be hidden by any of us willingly, sir,’ the man replied. ‘We won’t help them, and that is a fact.’
‘No workhouse should have guards, for God’s sake. This isn’t a sodding prison,’ Daniel growled.
‘No, sir, but that is what it is like in here now. We don’t have any more freedom than convicts, sir,’ another man said from deeper within the room.
‘We know,’ Roger replied. ‘That is why we are here.’
‘Who are you? Are you the magistrate’s men?’ Strangely, the man who asked that question seemed terrified by the possibility that he had just been discussing the guards with men who might work with Wardle.
‘No,’ Ronan replied sharply, eager to dispel any misunderstanding. ‘You should know that Wardle is dead.’
‘Really?’ The man’s entire demeanour brightened considerably.
‘Look, we need your help,’ Roger warned. ‘Do you think you and your men in there can help us, and get others to help us too?’
‘Aye, of course,’ the man readily agreed and was eagerly echoed by others in the bed chamber. Several faces appeared out of the gloom, their eyes alive with interest.
‘Good, then this is what I want you to do,’ Roger began.
Stepping closer he asked the men to go to each bed chamber and get everyone out of bed, dressed, and in a group. ‘Make sure that you block each corridor so that the guards can’t hide in any of the chambers.
‘Who are you, if you don’t mind me asking, sir?’ One of the men from a bed chamber further down the corridor asked as he craned his neck to see Roger. With all the bed chamber doors locked from the outside it was damned difficult to see each other properly but everyone was able to hear their discussion.
‘We are Star Elite,’ Ronan replied.
The men locked in the bed chambers all started to cheer until Roger shushed them and urged them all to calm down. ‘We are here to make sure that the bastards who have taken over control of this place are brought to justice, but we have to flush them out. To do that we need to get you to block their access to places they might hide. Just stay in the bed chambers if you can. Mr Harrison’s men are here. If you don’t know, Harrison is the magistrate for Nottingham. Now that Wardle is dead, Harrison is your new, local magistrate. He and his men are working to get the people who have treated you like prisoners out of this place, but all of us are armed so you must stay in the corridors and block off the guards. Just don’t get in the way of gunfire.’
‘We understand,’ one of the men in a different bed chamber called. ‘Can you get the doors open?’
‘We are going to have to shoot the locks,’ Ronan warned.
‘Stand back,’ Roger ordered.
One by one, Roger and his men worked their way down each of the bed chamber doors and shot at the locks until the doors or the locks shattered. The men inside the rooms then forced the doors open until the occupants of the bed chambers could spill out into the corridors.
‘Which way do the guards go when they patrol here?’ Ronan asked one of the men.
‘They go that way and go past every half hour or so. There are three guards up here and I suppose three downstairs. The woman’s floor is upstairs, sir. I don’t doubt the guards patrol up there as well.’
‘Stay down here. Keep the doors to the chambers closed, and make sure nobody enters the corridors. The guards are armed and will be incredibly dangerous now that they know they are being routed out, so don’t challenge them,’ Roger said.
‘Are you going to kill them, sir?’ one of the men asked, his eyes wide as he studied the weaponry on Ronan.
Ronan grinned at him. ‘I think it is more apt that they spend time behind bars, don’t you? I mean, they think it is a good enough way for people to live their lives. It is only fair that they should too, eh?’
The man grinned and wholeheartedly concurred.
‘We will whistle you when we have cleared this floor. When we have made sure that there aren’t any guards here, block the stairs. Use beds, chairs, anything, to block them from being able to get up here. When I return, I will whistle to tell you that it is all right to remove the barriers,’ Roger informed them.
‘What about the women, sir?’ one of the men asked.
‘They are going to have to do the same. For now, just secure this floor. Leave the women to us,’ Roger replied sharply. ‘Like I have said, we cannot have you running around the building because the men we are flushing out are armed, and we don’t want you to get caught in any gun battle. Stay here where you are safe. The women will have to do the same.’
With that, Ronan, Daniel, and Roger, left the men to secure the floor and moved on to search a cluster of rooms at the far corner of the building.
‘They must be upstairs with the women,’ Ronan said when they found them empty.
‘Let’s go and search the women’s floor first. That will leave the two upper floors secure. We can then move down a floor and will hopefully flush them out,’ Roger said.
With each floor they searched, Ronan and his colleagues released the workhouse’s captive occupants, who all readily helped them search and secure each floor, even the women. Eventually, the men from the Star Elite met up with Harrison and his men who had done a very credible job flushing out the guards from the ground floor of the building. Some of the guards had been caught trying to flee the workhouse grounds once they knew they were facing the magistrate’s men.
‘We have found Lynchgate,’ Hamish warned, his face grim.
Ronan lifted his brows and followed his colleague when Hamish turned around and walked through the building to the Master’s office, located in the left side of the building next to the main entrance hall. Without saying a word, Hamish pointed into a rather plush office adjacent to the Master’s and stood back to allow everyone to see Lynchgate’s body lying slumped upon his desk.
‘How long has he been dead?’ Roger asked, quietly tipping his head to read the ledger Lynchgate was lying upon.
‘He is still warm, so he must have either been murdered when we arrived or killed himself as soon as he realised that he couldn’t keep us out any longer.’ Hamish nodded to the gun at the tip of Lynchgate’s fingers. ‘It only had one shot in it.’
Ronan pursed his lips. ‘That doesn’t mean that Gorman didn’t kill him.’
‘Where is Gorman?’ Roger asked.
‘I don’t know yet,’ Hamish sighed. He nodded to a miserable looking man slouched on the floor directly outside of the office. ‘He says that Gorman hasn’t been here for a few weeks. Lynchgate has been away as well, and only turned up tonight to have a word with Gorman. He seemed angry that Gorman wasn’t here.’
‘So why are the guards turning up for work if the Master isn’t here to give them orders?’ Ronan asked.
When the ex-guard outside didn’t answer, Ronan stepped out of the office. ‘Who has been paying you?’
‘Gorman,’ the man muttered.
‘When did you last get paid?’ Ronan asked, well aware that thugs only worked for money, or if they benefitted in some way.
The man shrugged.
Ronan squinted at him. He bent down until the liar had no choice but to look at him. ‘You, sir, are lying to the Star Elite. If you ever expect to see daylight again, you should tell me the truth. We fight fools like you every day of our lives. I know how men like you think. You wouldn’t play at being a guard here unless there was something in it for you. You aren’t the kind of bastard who would work for free, you know you wouldn’t, not if you can thieve what you want from some drunk in a tavern.’
Ronan stood up and looked at Harrison’s man who was keeping a close eye on the convict. ‘What’s his name?’
‘He said it was Walter Iggerson, sir,’ the man replied.
Ronan nodded. When Iggerson looked up at him, Ronan had no doubt that he was a brute. ‘You are the one who tried to murder your wife,’ Ronan mused as he looked into the man’s cold eyes. ‘Now, why would you want to guard over a floor of women, eh? Fair game, are they?’
Iggerson looked sullenly at his feet and didn’t speak.
Ronan grabbed the man by his lank hair and yanked his head back until Iggerson was forced to look up at him. ‘Now, tell me, when did you last get paid? Gorman is still out there. He will tell us even if you don’t, but if you won’t tell me you will have to serve extra time behind bars for withholding information relating to a Star Elite investigation. Don’t think about lying to me or I will have it added to your sentence; your already considerable sentence.’
‘I don’t know anything,’ Iggerson mumbled.
Ronan snorted dismissively. ‘You are lying to the Star Elite, you damned fool. I suggest you think very carefully before you speak again. Each time you lie, you will have another year behind bars.’
Iggerson glared at him but his attention was drawn to Roger, Ronan, Hamish, and even Harrison’s man beside him. Walter Iggerson seemed to realise then that he was going to gaol.
‘I got paid last week,’ Iggerson murmured.
‘By who?’ Ronan pressed.
‘Gorman.’ Iggerson muttered after what felt like a lifetime.
‘So, you have seen Gorman then,’ Ronan argued.
Iggerson nodded.
‘Where?’
‘In the tavern in the village.’
‘Gorman hasn’t been here?’ Roger asked.
Iggerson shook his head. ‘He has fallen out with Lynchgate. Because Lynchgate wasn’t here much, Gorman said that he wasn’t going to take responsibility for what’s going wrong here and left as well. He said that Lynchgate was responsible because he is the governor.’
‘What is going wrong here?’ Ronan asked.
Iggerson shrugged.
‘Do you think it is wrong that the occupants are being treated as prisoners?’ Roger asked, wondering if the man enjoyed his job or the money that he earnt from it.
Iggerson looked uncomfortable. His gaze slid to the door, to Roger, to the floor, to Ronan, and then back to the floor as he tried to find a way out of having to answer. But the deathly, expectant silence of the heavily armed men pressed him for answers.
‘Gorman killed them.’
‘With your help,’ Ronan replied with certainty. ‘You are a bastard who beat your wife and nearly killed her. Now, you have taken a job in an institution that houses women. If I go upstairs and question them, I will expect them to tell me that none of you have beat them or harmed them in any way. If I find you have lied to me, Iggerson, I will make sure that more than one year is added to your sentence. You are going to face justice for every woman you have hurt, in any way, do I make myself clear?’
Iggerson nodded.
‘It is clear to
me that you are not going to be decent enough to tell the truth about what you have been up to so we will question the occupants of this workhouse. So far, you are going to be re-tried for the other crimes you have committed which Sminter failed to pass a proper sentence on. You will be charged with confining people in a workhouse against their will, physical assault, threatening behaviour, theft, and anything else we can throw at you.’
‘We were rightly employed here,’ Iggerson protested. ‘That’s not a crime.’
‘It is when you abuse people while doing your job. Unfortunately for you, Lynchgate and Gorman are criminals, like you. They are criminals themselves and have never had authority to employ known criminals like you,’ Ronan argued. ‘Moreover, you are not in any position to restrain or restrict the freedom of people in a workhouse. That is illegal, Iggerson. The people here are not prisoners and shouldn’t be held like captives.’
‘Take him to Harrison,’ Daniel urged Harrison’s man. ‘He is in the delivery yard. The gaoler’s carriage has arrived now.’
Iggerson was yanked to his feet only for Roger to stop him. ‘Tell me, Iggerson, does Gorman have somewhere in the village he can stay?’
Iggerson frowned at him. ‘Aye,’ he bit out eventually, sliding a look at Ronan that made Ronan start to worry.
‘Where?’ Ronan prompted when Iggerson didn’t immediately tell them.
Iggerson was wary about saying too much because he suspected that he was going to be sharing a cell with Gorman for a very long time. However, he also knew that Gorman wasn’t the kind of thug to give up without a fight. Unfortunately for Gorman, he would be taking on the might of the Star Elite if he chose to fight, and that was likely to get him killed.
‘He is staying with his sister in the village,’ Iggerson muttered.
‘Oh? And who is that?’ Roger pressed impatiently.
‘Ursula. Ursula Gorman,’ Iggerson replied.
‘There isn’t an Ursula Gorman in the village,’ Hamish snapped. ‘That’s bull and you know it.’
Iggerson glared at him. ‘Well, she is married now, isn’t she? She is – was – Ursula Gorman. She married that man, Nigel Unwin.’
