On Copper Street

by Chris Nickson

  It had been a gamble. He’d lost. Maybe Walker had the information he needed; maybe not. But threats were all he had to pry it out of him. And they hadn’t been enough.

  He strode down the corridor to wait at the locked gate. The voice made him turn, echoing loud off the tiled walls. One of the guards, shouting for him to return. Slowly, he walked back to the room. Walker was still seated, a defiant expression on his face.

  ‘What do you want, Tosh?’ If he was going to gamble, he might as well stake everything. ‘I hope it’s worth my while.’

  The man took a slow breath. ‘If I help you, do you promise you won’t go after them?’

  ‘Them?’

  ‘My wife. My brother.’

  ‘I already said.’ He stared at the prisoner and for the first time began to believe he held the upper hand. ‘It depends on what you tell me.’

  ‘J.D.’ Walker said and looked up. ‘Does that mean anything?’

  He could feel the skin prickling on his arms. ‘Who is he?’

  A shrug. ‘That’s all I know.’

  ‘Not enough,’ Harper told him. ‘Nowhere near enough.’ He nodded. ‘Take him back to his cell.’

  No more words, no more yelling. This time he left with no one calling him back. No deals made and only a fragment of information.

  J.D., he thought. Bloody J.D.

  Ash had gone; no one knew where. There was nothing fresh, everyone working. This was the boring, everyday part of being a copper. Following every lead, keeping track of each detail. If they didn’t find the culprit in two days it always came to this, solid, plodding police work. Sometimes there was a stroke of luck, but he’d given up on that. The only way to end this would be with a hard, back-breaking slog.

  Liver and onions at the café in the market. He needed the food to keep him going. But something was missing. He ate, he read the newspaper. Yet without Maguire here to come over to his table and talk for a minute or two, everything seemed adrift, upside down.

  This was where they’d meet. It needed Maguire’s voice, his good humour, to seem complete. Even before he’d finished the meal he gave up and left.

  He was still young. These ghosts shouldn’t be haunting him yet.

  Over and over he scribbled the initials on the blotter. J.D. Who was he? Why couldn’t they even get a smell of him? Over and over until he’d scratched his way right through the paper.

  ‘How can anyone stay that well hidden?’ Annabelle asked.

  ‘I’ve been asking myself that.’ They were snuggling close in the bed. His arm was around her shoulders, her head against his chest. ‘I still haven’t found an answer.’

  She shifted position a little, her hand across his stomach. He stroked the sleeve of her cotton nightgown.

  ‘How did things go today?’ He needed a change of topic, something to divert his mind for a few minutes. ‘Looking hopeful for that Labour candidate?’

  ‘Not really,’ she replied, and he could hear her frustration. ‘It doesn’t help that the man who’s standing is worse than useless. He doesn’t have a clue.’

  ‘Don’t do anything for him, then.’

  ‘I’ve got to. Party loyalty.’

  He knew Annabelle would have been the perfect candidate; round here no one could have beaten her. But she’d never have that chance. Women couldn’t vote and they couldn’t hold office. The school board was as far as their opportunity extended.

  Instead, she did what she could. Supporting the Independent Labour Party, working to help women get the vote: she threw herself into the causes. Just not always happily.

  ‘You can change a few minds round here,’ Harper told her. ‘They know you. They trust you.’

  ‘Happen they do,’ she said. ‘But it’s not me they’ll be voting for, is it?’ A long sigh. ‘Strange about that thing Kendall left you, isn’t it?’

  He’d opened the box as he ate. Inside there was a small piece of pottery. It was old, that was obvious, with crude red and black decorations. Harper examined it, holding his breath and feeling that even a firm touch could break it. Then he passed it to her and unfolded the note in the box. It was Kendall’s writing, but not the firm strokes he remembered. They trailed off here and there, the words half-formed.

  Tom,

  We’re each of us just here for a short time. Sounds silly, doesn’t it, but I’ve come to learn just how short. But man’s been here longer than we know. Maybe we’ll never understand how long. Nathan Bodington who runs Yorkshire College loves curiosities and mysteries. He gave me this. The British Museum sent it to him, they’d dug it up on Cyprus. Evidently it was made around seven hundred years before Our Lord was born. I hope you’ll think about that, it’s more than two thousand five hundred years old. That’s a wonder, isn’t it? Remember it when you hold the piece. It’s as fragile as life, but strong enough to last, long after we’re all dust and forgotten. There’s a lesson in this. Be yourself, be a good, strong man.

  Kendall.

  Almost quarter to four. Annabelle was shaking him awake.

  ‘Someone’s hammering at the door, Tom.’

  Groggy, he threw on a dressing gown, stumbled down the stairs and through the bar. A red-faced young copper was waiting, still trying to catch his breath. The lad must have run all the way from Millgarth.

  ‘Inspector Ash needs you out at Armley, sir.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘Sorry sir,’ he gasped, ‘I don’t know. They just told me to come and tell you. The night sergeant’s whistling up a hackney. It should be here soon.’

  ‘Good work, Constable. Thank you.’

  Just time to wash and dress and worry about what was so important. Another body? Please God, no. But Ash wouldn’t send for him unless it was urgent. Why was the inspector there in the middle of the night, anyway?

  Questions tumbled one after the other as he stood on the corner, hearing the clop of hooves and rolling iron wheels as the cab approached.

  Even at this hour there was traffic on the roads. The early carts, overloaded and moving slowly. There was already a hard tang in the air, and the day shifts at the factories hadn’t even begun yet. He wiped a smudge of soot off his shirt cuff.

  Harper ran up the stairs and into the room.

  ‘Where’s the inspector?’

  Two more minutes on foot, a constable guiding him along the streets.

  The house stood at the end of a terrace, a copper guarding the open front door. A small group of neighbours had gathered a few yards away, talking and gossiping and inspecting him as he arrived.

  A lodging house. It had the right, sour smell and the warren of doors. A woman with a hatchet face stood, arms folded. Harper could hear movement upstairs and followed the noise. Ash stood by the bed, staring down.

  It looked as if the man had fallen asleep on the floor, nightshirt ridden up to his knees, one arm under his head like a pillow. Absolutely peaceful in death. No one he recognized. It couldn’t be J.D. Not this man.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Cecil Lester, sir.’

  The acid thrower. With everything else going on, the man had slipped out of his mind. And here he was, dead, gone. A story ended.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Seems he’s been lodging here for a few days,’ Ash began. ‘The landlady downstairs heard a noise about midnight and came up to look. Knocked on the door and got no answer, so she used her key. Found him like this and went running for a bobby.’

  Harper was staring at the body. No sign of injury. No weapons in the room unless there was something hidden under the corpse.

  ‘The lad on the beat must be a bright one,’ the inspector continued. ‘Lester had been calling himself Cecil Saville. The copper took a gander through his belongings, found something with the name Cecil Lester and put two and two together. He came and told me.’

  ‘Natural causes?’ He squatted, feeling around on the floor. Nothing.

  ‘Looks that way, sir. But I thought you’d want to see hi
m, sir.’

  ‘I’m glad you called me.’ This was one case done, at least. No chase, no arrest, but final nonetheless. As final as it could be. Harper stood and stretched. ‘His poor bloody family, eh?’ This was finished but there was still a murderer out there. ‘What else have we found?’

  ‘So Tosh Walker doesn’t know either, sir?’

  ‘No,’ Harper said. ‘For once I think he was telling me the truth.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Ash swallowed the dregs of tea from his cup. ‘You never know with him, do you?’

  ‘No.’ Walker always had something, a twist, an angle.

  ‘What about the agreement you made with him, sir? Are you going to honour that?’

  Harper smiled. ‘Not a bloody chance. I’m going to destroy him.’

  ‘Just let me know how I can help, sir.’ Martha, the girl Ash and his wife adopted, had been abused by Walker and his friends. ‘After we’ve cleared up this business, of course.’

  The superintendent left the men to it. They were all busy with their tasks; he was simply excess baggage, the senior officer peering over their shoulders and making them feel uncomfortable.

  It was still early. As he walked down the hill a morning chorus of horns echoed down the valley from the factories to start the early shift. Smoke was already beginning to pour from the chimneys. But it was quiet by the canal. The towpath was empty, the water still. A quarter of a mile away a train passed on its way out to Bradford, the deep, rhythmic chug like a call across the landscape.

  Another one dead. He couldn’t feel any sympathy for Lester, only for the ones he’d abandoned. The man had thought running was better than justice. But justice of a kind had caught him in the end.

  There was a haze over the city, a pall, trapping the spring warmth close to the ground. People on the pavement were sweaty and short-tempered. The constables would earn their pay today, he thought, breaking up fights and stopping women from killing their menfolk.

  At Millgarth he opened the window in the office, but there was no real breeze to stir the air. In his shirtsleeves he started going through the waiting pile of papers. After an hour he put down the nib, stood up and looked out. The parade square behind the station, the stables for the police horses. A few yards to the south, the open market. Men crying their wares, all the displays and attractions. His mind was wandering.

  Yesterday he hadn’t had time to look for Willie Calder’s wife in Holbeck. Today he’d find her. Maybe she’d be able to tell him something about this mysterious haul of unknown silver with its rare Leeds hallmark. She was the only one left who might know.

  He had to talk to three different beat men before he found the information he needed. A widow woman, just moved into the area? A sentence of directions and he was standing outside the front door, hearing the shouting and the roaring from inside. Harper raised his hand to knock, then lowered it again, straining his good ear to listen.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The voices came from upstairs, going at it hammer and tongs. He recognized Mrs Calder’s voice, screeching, yelling like a banshee, but he could only make out a few of the words. A man was shouting, too. He seemed almost familiar, but Harper couldn’t place him.

  Finally, they quietened into an uneasy truce and he brought his fist down on the wood. A sudden silence, then a scramble and a few seconds later the woman opened the door. It looked as if she’d dressed hastily, her clothes askew, her hair uneven and falling out of its comb. Her face was flushed, cheeks bright pink, the fire still burning in her eyes.

  ‘It’s a bad time,’ she said as her greeting. She held the door almost closed, and she kept glancing over her shoulder.

  ‘Then I’m sorry to disturb you.’ He tipped his hat. ‘I have a few more questions.’

  ‘You need to come back in an hour or two.’ She pushed the door to and he heard the key turn.

  Harper had noticed the man’s shadow, coming down the stairs and tiptoeing through to the scullery. He strode to the end of the block, turned and waited. A minute later a man scuttled by. Now he knew him.

  Detective Sergeant John Calder.

  How long had that been going on, he wondered?

  At Millgarth he took Tollman aside.

  ‘Can you get me the file on Sergeant Calder over in Hunslet?’

  ‘I suppose so, sir.’ He hesitated. ‘They might want to know why, though.’

  ‘Tell them you don’t know, your superintendent requested it.’

  ‘All right, sir.’ He still sounded unsure.

  By ten the folder was on his desk. Calder had been given three commendations during his career, one of them for bravery. He was a model copper. A widower with three children.

  And carrying on with his late brother’s wife. Both of them were widowed now, so there was nothing wrong with that, except that Calder was on duty according to the roster at the front of the file.

  He went back to the beginning and began to read again. Then he saw it, jumping off the page at him and it all made sense.

  Harper scribbled a note and handed it to a young lad wearing a uniform too big for his scrawny body, with orders to deliver it.

  The woman was prepared for him now. She’d changed clothes, putting on a sweeping burgundy skirt with a short, matching jacket with leg-of-mutton sleeves, a little ruff of lace at the neck of her blouse.

  He tipped his hat as she opened the door. ‘My apologies if I called too early before.’

  ‘I didn’t have my wits about me.’ Emmeline Calder gave him a smile. ‘I was hardly out of bed.’

  In its own way that was true, but he didn’t pursue it. She led him through to the scullery, apologizing for the small size of the house, the fact that she’d hardly unpacked and there was no servant to help.

  ‘Now,’ she said brightly once they were seated, ‘you said you had a few more questions. How can I help you, Superintendent?’

  He looked around the room before he spoke. Everything was in order. He’d glanced into the parlour, with so many objects on display that there was barely room to move.

  ‘I was wondering if you’d discovered anything else your husband might have left.’

  ‘No,’ she replied simply. Harper watched her. No widow’s weeds for her, no grief on her face. She wasn’t a woman in mourning.

  ‘We’ve come across some valuable silver. It’s an odd thing, no one knows where it’s come from. Very old.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mrs Calder told him firmly. ‘I don’t know. Will kept so much to himself.’

  ‘Always worth asking. Has anyone been in contact with you about him?’

  ‘Just with their condolences.’ She paused, frowning. ‘What exactly is it you want, Superintendent?’

  The knock on the door came at the perfect moment.

  ‘Some truth,’ Harper said with a gentle smile. ‘Nothing more than that.’

  She eyed him curiously before she left. Urgent whispers at the door, too low for him to make out. Then she returned, Sergeant Calder trailing after her with his hat in his hands.

  ‘You wanted me to meet you here, sir.’

  ‘I did. Thank you. You found this house for your sister-in-law, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Calder glanced at the woman with a hint of worry. ‘I’ve stopped by a couple of times to make sure she’s settling in. After all, she’s family.’

  ‘Of course,’ Harper agreed. ‘I’m sure you’re eager to see to her welfare.’

  The sergeant reddened. ‘Are you trying to imply something, sir?’ His hair shone with pomade and his front teeth protruded slightly. Like the description they’d been given of the man walking with Henry White before he died. He’d never made the connection. Stupid, stupid.

  ‘I don’t need to, do I? I heard the pair of you earlier and I saw you try to leave without being spotted.’

  ‘I know that was on police time, sir, but—’

  ‘We’ll talk about that later.’ Harper turned to the woman. ‘When did it all begin?’

  ‘Afte
r I came out of Armley.’ She was flustered, her face red. ‘That’s the truth. Nothing when Willie was alive.’

  She sounded too earnest, too raw, for it to be a lie.

  ‘Tell me, Mrs Calder, what sort of questions did the sergeant ask about your husband?’

  She didn’t understand. ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘Sergeant Calder,’ Harper asked, ‘what are your Christian names?’

  The man blinked. ‘John, sir.’

  ‘John what?’

  Calder took a deep breath. ‘John David, sir.’

  ‘J.D.’ For a moment there was stunned silence, then he turned to the woman. ‘Meet your lover,’ he told her. ‘The man who arranged your husband’s murder.’

  It happened too fast. He couldn’t stop it. In a blur Mrs Calder turned and pulled a knife from the sink. She threw herself at the man, snarling, spitting, sinking the blade deep in his belly.

  Harper vaulted the table and grabbed her hair. She screamed as he dragged her back. His fingers tightened around her wrist and shook the blade out of her hand, hearing it clatter on the floor. She struggled, kicking, shouting, screaming as he pushed her to the ground, face down. He forced the cuffs on to her wrists. For a second Harper glanced at Calder. The pool of blood was growing underneath him. No time.

  He pulled the woman away and knelt by Calder. His hands were pressed tight over his bloody stomach, eyes closed. But he was still breathing. Harper put a fingertip on his neck; the pulse was strong.

  ‘Don’t you die, you bastard,’ he hissed. ‘Don’t you bloody dare. I’m not letting you get away that easily.’

  A last glance. Out in the street, Harper took his police whistle from his pocket and kept blowing until help came.

  ‘I don’t understand, sir,’ Ash asked. They sat in the detectives’ room, the door and windows open wide to let the warm air through. In the hallway the new plaster was already grubby, and the wood around the door looked darker, worn. Everything returning to the way it should be. ‘How did you work out that Sergeant Calder was J.D.?’