‘No,’ Whitelock answered with a slow shake of his head. ‘No one I can pick out, anyway. Some regulars, some strangers. The usual mix.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Harper.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Nothing ventured …
What else?
Henry White would have needed to buy a few things for the house. There had been some tea and sugar. His sister might have left them for him. But he might have purchased them in a shop.
It wasn’t that far up to the Bank, climbing Richmond Hill, in the shadow of Mount St Mary’s church. Between White and Maguire, he couldn’t escape the area at the moment.
Two small shops, each one on a corner, goods displayed on dusty shelves in the windows. The first was neat enough inside, plenty of tinned goods, cheese under a bright glass dome, a marble board for cutting. The owner stood behind the counter, a genial smile on his face, side whiskers growing like a forest.
‘Can I help you, sir?’
An honest man, Harper decided. He’d have sniffed out a policeman quick enough otherwise.
‘Do you know Henry White? Lives on Copper Street.’
The shopkeeper’s face dropped. ‘I do. But if you’re looking for him, he’s dead.’
‘I know,’ the inspector said. ‘I’m with the Leeds police. I’m looking into his murder.’ He saw the man’s mouth form an O. ‘Was he in here on Friday?’
A brisk nod. ‘In the morning. He bought a quarter of tea …’ He thought. ‘Sugar, some salt.’
‘Did you talk to him?’
‘Of course I did, he’s a customer.’ The smile returned. ‘We all knew he’d been in prison. You can’t keep that a secret round here.’
‘Did he have much to say for himself?’
‘Not a lot.’ The man wiped his hands on his long apron. ‘Surly, you might say.’
‘Anything at all?’
‘Just what he wanted, then counting out the money.’
‘Was he on his own?’
‘Yes.’ But there was a flicker of hesitation in the voice.
‘What?’
‘There was someone outside, waiting for him.’
‘A man?’ He waited for the shopkeeper to nod, then asked, ‘What did he look like? Was he with Henry when they arrived?’
‘I don’t know.’ The man was starting to look a little worried. He gestured over his shoulder, at a curtain to another room. ‘I was in the back when the bell went.’
‘Did they walk off together?’
‘Yes.’ The smile returned. ‘I saw that. It took me by surprise to see Henry again. He looked so pale.’
‘Did you happen to see what the other man looked like?’ He tried to make the question sound like a throwaway, as if it didn’t matter. That often helped, he’d found. It seemed to spur the memory. No such luck this time.
‘Not really. I just glanced at his face, that’s all. Dark hair, and he had a cap on. He was taller than Henry, two or three inches.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s all I can remember.’
Still, it was something, and much more than he’d had when he entered.
‘Thank you.’
Harper drifted along the street and past White’s house. He could feel eyes watching him, the air of distrust all around. He’d had more battles on the Bank than anywhere else in town. It was as if the people here felt that the rule of law should stop at the bottom of the hill. That wasn’t going to happen, though. Leeds was a modern city. A place for empire and industry. And real justice.
He had one solid piece of information now. On its own it was worthless. That description didn’t narrow things down. He needed more. Someone else who’d seen Henry and the other man together. And on the Bank it wouldn’t be easy to find anyone who’d admit to that.
From Copper Street he cut through to Leather Street. Where Annabelle had grown up, and where Maguire’s mother still lived. The black crepe of mourning in the window. Inside, the body would be on display for anyone who came to pay their respects.
He spotted two familiar figures in the distance and began to run. The woman turned as he grew close, then smiled, saying something to the child. She looked, then began to dash towards her father, tiny legs pumping hard.
Harper picked Mary up and swung her round until she began to giggle, then carried her towards his wife.
‘Visiting?’ he asked as he bounced the girl in his arms.
‘I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help.’
‘Was there?’
She shook her head. ‘The old women are taking care of it all. Honestly, I think they relish someone dying, it makes them feel useful.’
‘And what about you?’
A long moment passed before she answered, looking down at the ground as she spoke.
‘A bit lost, I suppose, if you want to know the truth. It just seemed like he’d always be there to look after the politics.’
‘And his age?’ He was younger than her.
‘That too,’ she agreed. ‘It’s like when Harry died. Not as bad, but I feel at sixes and sevens. Seems like the world’s gone upside down a bit.’ Annabelle had been a widow for three years when Harper met her. Her first husband, Harry Atkinson, who owned the Victoria, had been much older than her. His death had been sudden, unexpected.
‘I heard things weren’t too good between the Labour Party and Maguire.’
‘They’d have worked it out. They needed him, he was popular.’ She spoke with the certainty of a believer; he wasn’t going to try and change that. And certainly not here, and not now.
At the bottom of Steander he lowered Mary to the ground, feeling the ache in his back; she was growing so fast. A quick kiss to the girl’s forehead, another to Annabelle’s cheek, and he was gone. Too many things to do.
Ash was waiting in the office, writing in his notebook.
‘Did you see Mrs Thorp again?’
‘For what it was worth, sir,’ he replied with a sigh. ‘From the way she talks, getting anything from Henry must have been like blood from a stone. Either that or she’s just not saying, and I’m not sure which it is.’
The inspector recounted what the shopkeeper had told him, but Ash simply shook his head.
‘It’s nothing, sir, is it? I’ll get back up there, see if anyone else saw him with this man and might give me a description.’
‘Depends if they like Henry more than they hate us.’
‘I wouldn’t put any money on that, if I were you,’ Ash said as he settled the battered bowler hat on his head.
At the infirmary, Billy Reed waited to see Arthur Crabtree. The boy’s face was swathed in bandages, only the nose and mouth uncovered. The poor lad would never look at his reflection again, but maybe that was a blessing. He’d caught a glimpse when they were changing the dressings. Whatever he’d looked like before, now his face would scare people away.
How could anyone do that?
Finally the nurse told him he could go in. Arthur was lying in bed, face wrapped, along with his right hand and wrist. It reminded him of the pictures he’d seen of the mummies they found in Egypt. He pulled out a chair.
‘Hello, Arthur, I’m Inspector Reed.’
The boy struggled, turning his head towards the sound.
‘Hello.’ It was a child’s voice, one that hadn’t broken yet, tentative and afraid of the world.
‘Are the nurses looking after you?’
‘Yes, sir.’ A subdued, formal answer. That wasn’t what he needed from the lad. He had to know exactly what he remembered. Arthur must have played it out, over and over. No choice, the very last things he’d seen. Reed wanted every tiny detail.
It took the best part of an hour but he put the boy at ease. He told tales of the army. His time in Gibraltar and Afghanistan. None of the true horror, but little things that had made him laugh back then.
Finally, Arthur seemed more cheerful. Reed drew in his breath.
‘When it happened,’ he began, ‘what do you remember about the man who threw the acid?’
/> ‘I didn’t know him,’ Crabtree replied. ‘I’d never seen him before.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘I’m positive, sir.’
Slowly, he teased out a description. Older, fair hair under a cap, hate in his eyes. A thin, pained face. Tall, skinny, a long coat and trousers. The kind of description that fitted thousands of men in Leeds. Like Dan Leno, the way Annie thought? It didn’t seem that way.
Why would someone throw acid at a boy who’d never seen him before? Arthur was telling the truth. He had no reason to lie. It was mindless. It was tragic.
Was there a madman out there? Someone who’d do this again? Without cause, without reason? It was every policeman’s nightmare.
‘Never seen him before at all?’
‘That’s what he said. I believe him.’
Harper sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. It couldn’t be. No one was as insane as that. But he knew it was possible. Anything could happen, he’d learned that much. And it terrified him.
‘What do you think, Billy?’
‘Honestly,’ Reed said, ‘I don’t know. There’s absolutely no reason for the attack that I’ve been able to find.’
‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ Ash interrupted. ‘But are you sure everyone’s told you the truth?’
‘As far as I can be.’
Harper saw Reed straighten his shoulders and frown a little. ‘If it’s a madman he’s going to be almost impossible to find,’ he told him.
‘That’s why I came to tell you,’ Reed said. ‘You need to know.’
‘Thank you.’ But all he could do was pray it wasn’t true. ‘I’ll send bobbies around the chemists.’
They’d find some names of people who’d purchased acid. There were plenty of other places to buy it, though, and giving a false name was the easiest thing in the world. Anyone could lie.
Yet what else could they do?
‘What do you think, sir?’ Ash asked after Reed had left.
‘I hope Billy’s wrong.’
‘I think he must be,’ the sergeant said thoughtfully. ‘I can’t imagine anyone walking around with a bottle of acid then picking out a lad at random, can you?’
‘No.’ Put that way, it seemed unlikely. But in the mind of someone who wasn’t sane, maybe there was some odd logic to it.
Even worse if there was a cause and they missed it. He trusted Billy, but the man was rusty as a detective. His instincts were blunt. If it happened again, and the newspapers discovered a fireman had been investigating the crimes instead of the police … Dammit, he thought, he was thinking like a politician, not a copper. Still, the fact remained.
‘I want you to work with Inspector Reed,’ he told Ash. ‘Go over everything again, the pair of you. Talk to all the people.’
‘Yes, sir. What about Henry White?’
‘Leave that to me for now.’ After all, if he hadn’t been so arrogant, giving White a day to sweat before questioning, the man might still be alive. His fault, his guilt.
He had one lead, the brief description from the shopkeeper. More would have been better, but it was a start. The first layer.
Harper stood on the corner, outside the shop, imagining the way White would have taken to his house. Along Mill Street, Richmond Road, then down Copper Street, with the door key heavy in his hand. Did the stranger go all the way there with him?
With a sigh, he started to knock on doors. Asking the same questions over and over to all the suspicious women who answered: had they seen two men walking along last Friday, one shabby and pale, the other with dark hair?
Everyone claimed not to remember. He believed most of them; the words didn’t spark a light in their eyes. He’d almost finished with the houses on Mill Street when four men appeared in front of him, blocking the pavement. Big men with vicious faces and cold, dark eyes. One had an old scar down the length of his cheek.
‘You’re asking questions,’ he said.
‘That’s right,’ Harper told him. It had taken them longer than he expected. ‘I’m going to keep on asking them, too.’
‘Not up here, you’re not.’ The man sounded adamant.
‘I’ll ask them where I want. I’m Detective Inspector Harper with Leeds Police. I’m looking into the murder on Copper Street. That gives me the right. I don’t care if you like it or not.’
He stood, not giving an inch. A copper didn’t turn tail and run from threats. And these men knew what would happen. They might win a fight, but then the police would return in force, truncheons drawn, breaking heads to make sure of their revenge. It had happened up here often enough before.
The moments passed. He counted them slowly, one, two, three, all the way to eight. Then the man warned, ‘We’ll be watching you.’ He turned on his heel and strode away, the other three following. No backward glances, no threats. Harper waited until they turned the corner before he exhaled slowly. So close to a fight and he’d have been the certain loser. He kept his fists clenched and pushed them deeper into his pockets, standing for a minute before he carried on.
FIVE
A minute to compose himself and Harper was knocking on doors once again, turning on to Copper Street. The bobbies had done their house-to-house along here but it never hurt to ask again. People remembered things. And they treated a man in a suit differently from a man in a uniform.
He found the truth of that at number five. The woman must have been about fifty, hair in a severe bun. She had her sleeves rolled up, traces of bread dough clinging to her fleshy forearms, an apron covering a black cotton dress, scuffed clogs showing under the hem. Her eyes flashed with suspicion.
‘Rozzer,’ she snorted. He smiled and introduced himself. ‘About Henry White, is it?’
‘That’s right.’ Not that difficult to guess.
‘Feckless as they come, that one. Allus was.’
‘Did you see him on Friday?’
‘Only day I could see him, wasn’t it?’ She put her hands on her hips and stared at him. ‘Dead the next morning, wasn’t he?’
She knew something. He could see it on her face. And she was challenging him to worm it out of her.
‘What do you know about his death?’
She cocked her head, assessing him. ‘Same as everyone else around here.’
He shook his head. ‘No, you don’t. There’s something more than that. Did you see Henry with a man on Friday?’
His question took her by surprise. Her mouth puckered, then she raised an eyebrow and he knew he’d struck gold.
‘Go on, then, how did you know that?’ she asked after a moment. ‘Do you read the tea leaves or summat?’
He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Coppers often know more than you think. The man he was with, what did he look like?’
‘Nowt special,’ she answered without hesitation. ‘You’d not give him a second look, would you?’
‘You didn’t know him?’
She shook her head. ‘Not seen him before. But Henry had been gone a while.’ Her eye was sharp on him. ‘You should know that. Your lot put him away.’ She continued to stare, chewing on her bottom lip. ‘Harper. Is it your missus who grew up round here?’
‘On Leather Street.’
‘That’s right. I remember now. Nice lass when she were little. Always a smile.’ Her face brightened. It was as if he’d passed some test. ‘That man with Henry, I didn’t like the look of him. He were greasy.’
‘Greasy?’ he asked.
‘Oil all in his hair. What I could see of it was all shiny.’ She made a disgusted face. ‘He was chattering away nineteen to the dozen, and Henry was trudging along with a face as long as a fiddle, just like always.’
‘Could you hear them?’
‘Didn’t have much more of a glimpse as they went past, did I? Oh,’ she remembered, ‘and he had front teeth that stuck out a bit. You know, like a rabbit.’
That was something he could use.
‘What was he wearing?’
‘Cap. Jac
ket. Same as all of them round here. Nothing good, that’s certain. I’d have noticed that.’
She’d given him what she had. And would the woman have done it if Annabelle hadn’t been born a few streets away? Not as much, he felt sure of that. Harper tipped his hat to her and carried on.
It was the only luck he had. Still, one more piece to add to the puzzle.
He had a copy of the key to White’s house and let himself in. There was a thin layer of dust on the mantelpiece and a smell of disinterest in the place. It felt musty. But Henry hadn’t been back long enough to air it out. He glanced in the kitchen then went up the stairs.
Ash’s search had been careful but neat, everything left tidy. The inspector wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Hoping there might be some small item to catch his eye, to offer a hint. Nudge him in one direction or another.
But a few minutes going through the place didn’t bring any new ideas. Nothing more than an underlying sorrow at the sparseness of Henry’s life. There didn’t seem to be anything in the house that might give him pleasure. Not a book, an old magazine, no games, not even a pack of cards or a set of dice.
It had been empty for six months, but even so … He thought of Maguire. No food, no coal, but he had his books and would never burn them for warmth. He’d stayed surrounded by a life of the mind until the end.
As he was leaving, just turning the key in the lock, a voice called out. Mrs Thorp, White’s sister, gathered her skirts around her as she bustled down the street.
‘Someone told me they’d seen a man going into the house.’ No greeting, no asking if the police had found her brother’s killer yet. She stopped, her shrew face looking him up and down. ‘Did you take anything?’
‘No.’
‘Just make sure you don’t. Not without telling me.’ She glanced up at the house with hungry eyes. ‘Soon as the will goes through, this is mine.’
‘Henry left a will?’ That was astonishing.
‘Course he did,’ she said with a satisfied smirk. ‘Me da drummed it into the pair of us. Make it legal and nobody can take it away from the family.’
‘What else did he have to leave?’ Harper asked.
On Copper Street Page 5
