On Copper Street

by Chris Nickson

  Bush peered, then fumbled a pair of spectacles from the dressing gown he wore over the shirt and tie.

  ‘Harker,’ he said, but a flicker of doubt crossed his face. ‘No, that’s not it.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Harper! Harper! Sergeant, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s Detective Superintendent now, Mr Bush. You’re not up to date. Do you mind if I come in?’

  Tea in the scullery. He noticed that the old man’s hands shook as he moved the teapot to the kettle. A few minutes of small, polite conversation before Harper moved to the nub of the matter.

  ‘What do you know about Willie Calder?’

  Bush turned his head abruptly. ‘I know he’s dead, young man. I’m not addled. I read the newspapers. Why?’

  ‘Did you ever do business with him?’

  ‘I might have.’ Bush’s mouth curled into a smile. ‘He was a funny one, was Willie, even when he was starting out.’

  ‘Funny how?’

  ‘Very …’ He groped for the right word. ‘Exact. He’d only buy silver, and it had to be good silver. No rubbish. Not like most fences.’

  ‘Did he work with anyone back in the beginning?’ Harper asked. ‘Do the initials J.D. mean anything?’

  ‘No,’ the man answered after a minute. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell. My memory’s cloudy but I don’t remember any J.D.’

  ‘What about anyone who worked with Willie Calder?’ He was beginning to feel desperate. Their thin, slow progress kept grinding to a halt. Coming to see Barty Bush showed how low he’d sunk. The man looked as though he hadn’t committed a crime in years. But nonetheless, Harper was here and hoping the man might offer him a glimmer of hope.

  ‘There was someone,’ Bush said softly. He seemed to be looking back through the years, straining to pick out the face. ‘Like I say, he was always an odd one, was Willie. Kept his job.’ He chuckled. ‘Claimed he wanted to be secure if he ever decided to go straight.’ He began to cough, pulling out a handkerchief. Finally the bout stopped; he was red-faced and gasping for breath. The superintendent poured him a mug of water from the jug.

  ‘Do you need something?’ Harper asked, looking around the room.

  ‘Just my youth back.’ He smiled, and very slowly he calmed. ‘Willie Calder. He knew his silver, right enough.’ He ran a tongue over his lips. ‘It must have been a good twenty years ago. Back when I was still busy. Out most nights and making sure I avoided you lot.’ A quick, wicked grin and Harper saw a flash of a younger man. ‘There was talk then that Willie had a partner.’

  ‘Not his wife?’

  ‘A man,’ he insisted. ‘I don’t think I ever paid it much mind. I sold him bits and bobs, but that was all. I never did much with silver.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. That’s all I can tell you.’

  ‘Is there anyone who might know the name?’

  Bush shook his head and smiled. ‘You’d need someone as crocked as me. Someone who’s been around a while.’

  ‘Thank you, anyway.’

  He was at the door when Bush called out, ‘Mickey Dyer.’

  ‘Who?’ Harper didn’t know the name.

  ‘That’s who you should to talk to. He knew Willie quite well in the old days. I hear that he’s still alive.’

  ‘Where?’ He almost shouted the word.

  ‘You ask. Someone will know him, mark my words.’

  Sergeant Tollman smiled when he heard the name.

  ‘Old Mickey. I can’t remember the last time I saw him. We used to have him in here four and five times a year, passing through on his way to appear in the dock. Before your time, sir,’ he added. ‘That’s why you won’t know him.’

  ‘Where would I find him?’

  ‘He used to have a room on Marsh Lane. There’s a good chance he still does.’ The sergeant shook his head. ‘Mickey Dyer. Well, well, well. He never had much luck.’

  He understood when he found the man. Still on Marsh Lane, right enough, in a room that was no more than seven feet by six. Just enough space for a bed, a table and chair, with a basin for washing. The plaster on the walls bulged soft and brown with damp.

  Dyer perched on the chair. He had piercing eyes, alert and wary, a full head of wild grey hair, and a face that looked younger than his years. His right leg was missing below the knee, and when he moved, he hobbled around quickly with the help of a crutch.

  ‘Will Calder?’ the words came out as a rasping bark. ‘Isn’t he dead?’

  ‘He is.’ Harper tossed two pennies on to the coarse blanket. ‘I heard you used to know him.’

  The man snorted. ‘Knew all sorts once upon a time.’ He tapped his stump. ‘Man trap as I was trying to get into a place in Bramhope,’ he explained simply. ‘Went bad and they had to take the leg off. That was me done as a thief.’ A wan smile. ‘Don’t let anyone tell you that you’ll get rich begging. All you end up with is a place like this.’

  The superintendent added another penny to the pile. Dyer never glanced at it, but he knew it was there.

  ‘Who used to work with Calder?’

  ‘He had a partner called Toby …’ The man frowned as he searched his memory. ‘No, don’t remember his surname. Willie would take in the silver and this Toby, he knew the best places to sell it.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Toby? He’s been in his grave for donkeys’ years now.’

  Suddenly the superintendent was very attentive. ‘How did he die?’

  ‘Been so long I don’t recall.’ Harper threw down another coin but Dyer simply frowned. ‘That won’t help me remember. I think it was natural. But I’ve seen so many; after a while you lose track.’ His hand snaked out and scooped up the money.

  ‘Do you remember how long ago it was?’

  ‘No,’ Dyer admitted with a chuckle. ‘The years all blend together, don’t they?’

  ‘Toby,’ Tollman said, stroking his chin. ‘Toby …’ His face brightened. ‘You just wait here a second, sir.’

  It was closer to ten minutes when he returned, brushing dust from the dark blue of his uniform.

  ‘Took me a little while. Tobias Joshua Emsley,’ he announced. ‘Fencing stolen property. Last arrested him in 1876, sir. No wonder you didn’t know him.’

  It was before Harper had even been old enough to join the force. He’d still been rolling barrels around Brunswick Brewery and wondering what to do with his life.

  ‘Anything in the record about him dying?’

  ‘Not here, but I can send someone to the Town Hall to look for a death certificate.’

  ‘Do that.’ It wasn’t really a lead. It had all the substance of gauze. But it was what he had. He turned away and walked to his office as the telephone began to ring.

  ‘Sir,’ Tollman shouted. But it sounded like the ghost of a voice, no strength to it.

  ‘What?’

  The sergeant’s face was white.

  ‘That was D Division, sir. Someone’s shot Sergeant Conway in Armley. He’s dead.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  It was bedlam. Uniformed police and detectives everywhere. The hackney couldn’t even get close. Harper paid off the cabbie and walked along Town Street, feeling the shadow of Armley Jail looming over his shoulder.

  God only knew how Ash had heard, but he was already there, trying to force some sense on to things. He had a grim expression, barking out orders. As Harper approached, a young copper took hold of his arm and tried to stop him.

  ‘I’m Superintendent bloody Harper,’ he snarled and pushed forward. The body lay on the pavement. Someone had found a sheet to cover him.

  He elbowed his way through the police line.

  ‘Tell me what you know,’ he said. Ash turned, his eyes filled with shock and disbelief.

  ‘From what I’ve been able to find out, sir, Sergeant Conway was coming along the pavement here.’ He indicated with his hand. ‘According to two of the witnesses, a man came out over there—’ he pointed to a ginnel between two rows of houses, ‘—fell in behind Mark, raised a gun and shot him in
the back of the head. Then he ran off before anyone could stop him.’

  So calculated. So deliberate. So brutal.

  ‘Do we have a description?’

  ‘Nothing that’s going to help. Dark hair, cap. The ones who saw it can hardly believe it happened. Not in Leeds.’

  He knew what they meant. There had never been anything like this here. A copper gunned down in the middle of the day. It wasn’t murder, it was assassination. He looked at all the uniforms milling around, confused, doing nothing. A cap, dark hair – like the man seen with Henry White before he died.

  ‘Get this lot busy,’ he said. ‘I want men talking to everyone in the area. And I mean everyone. I want any possible sighting of the killer investigated.’

  ‘Yes, sir. We got quite a few of the lads from D Division here. After all, they worked with Mark before he transferred to us.’

  ‘Thank them. Use them.’

  They were going to need every scrap of help. He’d have men working around the clock on this, and they’d be happy to do it. Conway was one of their own. They all knew that any man on the force could be under that sheet. They’d find that murderer.

  ‘Inspector?’

  ‘Sir?’ Ash turned.

  ‘I’m sorry. I know you were friends.’

  ‘Thank you. I need to go and see his wife.’

  He remembered Conway saying that they were expecting another child.

  ‘Tell her we’ll make sure they’re looked after.’

  Ash nodded. ‘I’ll get everything organized here first.’

  Harper felt a hand on his shoulder. Superintendent Leeman, the commander of D Division.

  ‘Christ, Tom.’ His voice was empty. ‘I thought it couldn’t be true.’

  ‘Shot him in cold blood.’

  Leeman had been a policeman for almost thirty years. He’d seen almost every bad thing happen. But not a single one of them could have imagined this. It crossed the line.

  ‘We’ll work together,’ Harper said.

  ‘Yes.’ The man gave a curt nod, his eyes still on the corpse. ‘Anything you need, just let me know.’ After a moment, he added, ‘Conway was a good copper. Very good. I was sorry when he wanted to transfer. But it was a promotion, who could blame him?’

  They both turned. Down the road voices were yelling at each other. Two bobbies were dragging a man who was shouting the odds.

  ‘Bowman! Temple!’ Leeman called. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘A drunk, sir.’ One of the coppers tried to salute. ‘He was telling everyone that all coppers should be shot.’

  ‘Take him to the station. I’ll talk to him later.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And Bowman,’ Leeman told him, ‘don’t be gentle with the bugger.’

  Leeman’s men knew the area. They started the canvassing, going from door to door. The coroner’s wagon arrived and took away Conway’s body. It had barely gone before a pair of women appeared from the houses with buckets and brushes to scrub the blood off the pavement.

  ‘You find whoever did that, you let me at them for five minutes,’ one of them said. All Harper could do was nod. Every way he turned, he was surrounded by policemen. Those who’d finished their shift had arrived to help. They wanted the murderer.

  Nobody killed a copper and got away with it.

  An hour and bits and pieces of information kept trickling in. There was more from people who’d seen the killer, so they had a clearer picture. Thick jacket, boots, muffler knotted around his neck, cap pulled down over his forehead. Broad, with dark hair.

  It was a start. But it was still too general. Was it the man with Henry? Who knew?

  People had fled, shouting and screaming, as the shooter ran from the killing with the revolver in his hand. A pair of detectives were trying to follow his trail.

  Harper raised his head as the sound of a carriage drew close. The chief constable stepped out, head bowed, hat in his hand.

  ‘What do we have, Superintendent Harper?’

  ‘It’s every bit as bad as you think, sir.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Just get stuck in, sir. We need all the help we can get.’ The chief had been a working copper in his day; he knew the drill. It would hearten the men to have him working with them. It would show he cared.

  The man did it, too, knocking on doors alongside a pair of uniforms, asking questions and noting down the answers.

  Harper summoned Ash. ‘I want some of them going over what Conway was doing up here. He must have been on to something.’

  ‘I already have a detective sergeant following that thread, sir.’

  ‘Very good. You’re in charge here for now. I’m going down to see Dr King. I don’t imagine he’ll have much for us but I need to know.’

  ‘Right enough, sir. I hear there are more heading over here from C Division, too.’

  ‘The only problem is that the murderer’s long gone by now.’ He stared out over the valley, at the chimneys and the city, the air filled with the haze of smoke. ‘Down there somewhere.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, sir. We’ll find him,’ Ash promised.

  King was already working on the body, everything else set aside. He was thorough, talking as he cut, removed, and weighed. But all he could do in the end was confirm what they already knew: Conway had been killed by a shot to the back of his head, fired at close range. He’d never stood a chance.

  ‘For what it’s worth,’ the doctor said quietly, ‘it would have been instant. Conway wouldn’t even have known.’

  That was no solace for a life lost. And that consolation wouldn’t help his widow.

  On to Millgarth. The men who were there clamoured around for news. Half of them had volunteered to go up to Armley and help.

  But what could they do? The area was already brimming with coppers.

  ‘Go home,’ he told them. ‘Get some rest. We’ll be needing more of you tomorrow.’

  He scribbled a note and passed it to Sergeant Tollman for someone to deliver to Annabelle. He had no idea when he’d be home again.

  A hackney back to Armley.

  Some housewives had set up a table on the pavement. A shopkeeper had donated meat and bread and two of the women were making sandwiches.

  He took one, washing it down with the tea someone poured for him.

  Ash seemed to have aged ten years in the last few hours. His face looked haggard and torn, as if duty was the only thing keeping him going.

  ‘News?’

  ‘We’re still trying to find out who Conway came to see up here.’ He took a slow breath. ‘He didn’t put it in his notebook. The word’s out so I’m hoping someone will come forward.’

  ‘What about the killer? How far have we got following him?’

  ‘Sightings down past the mill to the canal, but that’s as far as it goes.’

  ‘Nothing down there?’ Harper asked in disbelief.

  ‘The boats that were passing have all gone, sir. And there aren’t many these days, anyway.’

  They were getting nowhere. It was a mess. One look at Ash’s eyes showed he knew it, too. Harper patted him on the shoulder. ‘You’re doing everything you can.’

  ‘Not enough, though, is it, sir?’

  ‘We can’t turn the clock back and stop Conway coming up here,’ Harper told him. ‘And we’ll get whoever did it, I don’t care how long it takes. Is the chief still here?’

  ‘Left a few minutes ago. But he did his bit.’

  They both knew they needed to examine every possibility. Why had someone shot the sergeant?

  ‘Could this have been an old grudge, do you think? Conway used to work up here.’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I’ve been looking. So far there’s nothing to say either way.’

  If it wasn’t, then it all went back to Willie Calder, then to Henry White, and whoever had scared him enough to serve six months rather than give up names. That was where it all began.

  ‘Sir,’ Ash said, dragging him out of his thoughts. Harp
er turned his head and saw a constable with a downy brown moustache. The man had approached on his deaf side; he’d never heard him.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘This gentleman would like a word, Superintendent.’ He pointed at a fellow standing a few yards away.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Tolliver.’ The man strode towards them, a salesman’s bright smile on his face, hand out, ready to shake. Forty, perhaps, the hair of his thick side whiskers turning grey, bowler hat tapped down firm on his head. Not rich, but not poor, either. His suit had seen better days, but it had been cared for. Polished shoes with scuffed toes, cracked leather and worn heels. As long as he had something to offer. They didn’t have time for visitors.

  ‘Do you know something about the murder, Mr Tolliver?’

  ‘I know where your sergeant was going.’

  For a second, all he could do was stare stupidly at the man. Then: ‘Well, where?’

  ‘He was on his way to see Gravedigger John.’ Tolliver looked around proudly. Harper glanced at Ash. A quick shrug of the shoulders; neither of them had ever heard the name.

  ‘Who?’ the superintendent asked.

  ‘Gravedigger John.’ He repeated, then paused for a moment. ‘He hides stuff for people. Stuff they’ve stolen. Buries it in the churchyards. That’s how he got his name.’

  Ash was already moving away, dispatching someone.

  ‘How do you know Sergeant Conway was looking for him?’

  ‘He stopped at my shop to ask where he might be, of course.’ He said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and nodded towards a place farther along the other side of the road and Harper saw the sign: Tolliver & Sons, Second Hand Furniture. We Buy And Sell.

  ‘Did you know Mr Conway?’

  The man hesitated before he replied. ‘I’d tell him things sometimes.’

  Good, the man was an informer. That helped.

  ‘I think you’d better talk to me about it, Mr Tolliver. I want everything you know.’

  The man rambled, flattered to be the centre of attention and milking it for all he could. But at heart he didn’t have much to say. Conway hadn’t told him where he’d been or why he was looking for Gravedigger John. Still, it all helped, and the man didn’t refuse the shilling Harper offered when he was done.