No Name Lane (Howard Linskey)

by Howard Linskey

  ‘Sorry?’ Helen asked uncomprehendingly.

  The farmer tapped the side of his head with a finger. ‘He was simple, not all there, born like that he was,’ he said, as if this was Stephen’s own fault somehow.

  ‘What happened to him?’ asked Helen.

  ‘Carted off to Springton years ago.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘It’s the loony bin, pet,’ explained the farmer. ‘He was caught peeping and that was the last straw.’

  ‘Peeping?’

  ‘Looking in through windows,’ Sam told her, ‘watching lasses getting undressed for bed or in the bath. One day he got caught, got a good hiding from the girl’s father and admitted he’d been doing it for years then they took him away.’

  ‘When was this?’ asked Tom.

  ‘A few years after the war.’

  ‘So he was still living with his family in 1936?’ the farmer nodded. ‘They closed that old place down a while back,’ said Tom, ‘I wonder if he’s still alive.’

  ‘Doubt it,’ said the farmer, ‘he’d be …’ he did the sums in his head, ‘… about eighty. It’s possible I suppose but not likely.’

  ‘And Henry Collier let them take him?’ asked Helen.

  ‘Of course; he was a teacher who wanted to be head and Stephen was an embarrassment. You can’t have the headmaster’s brother peering in at lasses when they’re in the nuddy, can you?’ he spoke as if Stephen being institutionalised was the only sensible outcome.

  ‘Did he ever hurt anybody?’ she asked.

  ‘Not seriously,’ it was a reluctant admission, ‘but he’d throw tantrums like a bairn and couldn’t remember anything about them afterwards.’

  ‘What exactly was wrong with him then?’ asked Helen, hoping for a more specific diagnosis.

  ‘I told you,’ snapped the old man, ‘he wasn’t right in the head. He was harmless enough I suppose, apart from the peeping. I doubt he killed Sean Donnellan, if that’s what you’re asking. His older brother Jack was the dangerous one. There was a man you didn’t mess with,’ the farmer folded his arms, ‘hardest bloke in the village.’

  Tom’s eyes narrowed, ‘bet he had to prove that a few times.’

  The farmer nodded. ‘In a place full of miners? Oh yes, Jack Collier cracked a few heads before he proved himself cock of the north. There was nearly always a fight somewhere on a Saturday night and Jack was involved in more than a few. He was a soldier, see, trained and battle-hardened in the Great War, as hard as bloody nails. If you’re wondering about someone who’s capable of killing a man then look no further than Jack. He’d done it before.’

  ‘He’d killed someone?’ asked Helen in surprise.

  ‘In the war,’ Sam explained.

  ‘So Jack Collier was hard as nails but every village has someone like that. Why would he have killed Sean Donnellan? He doesn’t sound like the kind of bloke who would fight his brother’s battles for him. Wouldn’t he have told Henry to be a man and fight the Irishman himself?’

  The farmer chuckled, ‘He probably would have if Henry Collier had been a fighter but, I told you, he was a scholar. He and his older brother were as different as could be. There was more than fifteen years between them, for starters. I don’t think anyone was more surprised by Henry than old Ma Collier. She’d already lost two babies then had Stephen, who came out all wrong, so God knows where Henry got his brains from but no,’ he said, ‘Henry Collier couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag.’

  ‘But why would a battle-hardened war veteran give a damn about a young girl like Mary ditching his brother,’ asked Tom, ‘family pride?’

  The farmer gave a sly smile. ‘Maybe, but perhaps Henry Collier wasn’t the only one who’d pinned all of his hopes on Mary.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Jack Collier might have been a hard man but there was one thing that did frighten him.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘The mine; they used to say that’s why he joined the army. He’d been a soldier in a war but he wasn’t keen on being a miner. He was from a mining village though and left with two brothers to support when his mother and father died.’

  ‘What did he do then?’

  ‘Learned the blacksmith’s trade. Hard to imagine it now that everybody’s got a car, but every village had one once.’

  ‘Could he make a living out of being a blacksmith?’

  The old farmer nodded. ‘At first, yes, there was all sorts needed doing. Pit ponies needed shoes,’ he said by way of example, ‘but as the years went by there wasn’t as much demand for anything coming out of a forge. Jack wasn’t daft. He could see it wasn’t going to last but he was too young to give it up and too old to learn anything else.’ He looked at Tom then. ‘Do you see?’

  ‘Do I see what?’

  The old man sighed. ‘If his brother does well, he does well. If Henry becomes the school teacher and marries the vicar’s daughter, Jack gets a toe-hold in the village.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Helen.

  ‘Work could be found, schools need repairs, maybe even a caretaker. A vicar had influence back then, he could have a word in someone’s ear, make sure his son-in-law’s brother didn’t want for work.’ He smiled. ‘Have you ever heard of a vicar or a school teacher starving or being evicted?’ he asked.

  ‘So if his brother doesn’t marry Mary,’ said Helen, ‘that all gets derailed?’

  ‘It was worse than that,’ explained old Sam, ‘when Mary told Henry it was over he gave up.’

  ‘Gave up what?’ she asked.

  ‘Everything,’ he observed, ‘it was like nothing mattered any more. I saw him once, out walking over the fields. He looked like someone who’d had a bereavement and I asked him, “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching?” He just mumbled something and walked off like he barely knew me. This was my best friend,’ he recalled, his face betraying how shocked he had been at the time, ‘but I thought he was going to lose his mind with jealousy. Of course everyone reckoned the Irishman was tupping her by then.’

  ‘So you really think Jack Collier killed Sean Donnellan because his brother losing the plot was ruining some master plan he had for their future?’ asked Tom.

  ‘You’re a bright lad, a reporter; a miner’s son so Roddy tells me, who bettered himself so he doesn’t have to get his hands dirty like a working man. Good for you, I’m not knocking you for it but you’ve really got no idea how hard it was back then for a working-class lad like Henry Collier to drag himself up by his boot straps. It was a different world, man,’ and his tone changed then as he began to recite, ‘ “The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate.” ’ He glanced at Tom meaningfully. ‘Know where that’s from?’

  ‘ “All things bright and beautiful”,’ answered Tom.

  ‘That’s right. They even told you in your bloody hymns that you were where you were because God intended it. You weren’t supposed to change that but Henry Collier was bright enough and polite enough to do it without them even noticing or caring who he was when he started out. Even with two brothers like Jack and Stephen Collier he was accepted, because of that scholarship,’ he told them, ‘then Mary turned him over for a Mick and everything came crashing down.’

  ‘Yet he ended up married to Mary in the end,’ said Helen.

  ‘He did,’ acknowledged Sam, ‘no bugger else would have her after Donnellan left her in the lurch.’ And then he frowned, as if remembering that Sean Donnellan hadn’t actually left anyone in the lurch because he was murdered. ‘At least that’s what everyone thought.’

  ‘People thought Sean had done a moonlight flit and left Mary behind?’ asked Tom.

  Sam nodded. ‘That’s exactly what they thought.’

  ‘Did they also think he’d stolen her father’s money?’

  ‘You two catch on quick, don’t you? How did you hear about that then?’ he must have noticed Helen straighten at this. ‘That was you, was
it pet? I should have known. You know what they say: if you want to get a secret out in the open; telephone, telegraph or tell a woman,’ and Sam laughed until he started to cough and had to stifle his choking with another sip of whisky.

  ‘He disappeared one day, along with her da’s money. They reckon the vicar didn’t trust banks, not so many did back then, if they went under you lost everything, so he had a box of gold coins instead. Police searched high and low for the Irishman but couldn’t find him. They reckoned he robbed the vicarage then slipped on board a ship and got clean away. He convinced Mary Collier he was going to take her too but he was just after her father’s money. Went to America, or so they said. He used to talk about going there.’

  ‘Except he never left the village,’ Helen reminded him.

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ admitted the old man, ‘he was murdered.’

  ‘By Jack or Henry Collier,’ said Tom, ‘or so you reckon?’

  ‘Who else would have done it?’ asked the farmer, ‘and since they are both long dead, we are never going to know, are we?’

  ‘Probably not,’ agreed Tom. ‘When did Jack Collier die?’

  ‘In the second war. He re-enlisted but never came back.’ There was silence for a while then the old farmer said, ‘I don’t think there’s much more I can tell you.’

  There was a finality in that statement and Tom said, ‘We’ll leave you to it then.’

  Sam went with them to the door and let them out. As they were about to leave, Tom turned back and asked, ‘Was Jack Collier known for carrying a knife?’

  ‘A knife?’

  ‘Sean Donnellan was stabbed in the back.’

  ‘He may have done,’ said the farmer, ‘he was a blacksmith, probably carried all sorts on him, I don’t know.’

  ‘He was more likely to carry a lock knife than Henry,’ Helen reasoned, ‘a teacher wouldn’t need one.’ Tom noticed a change in Sam’s face that was almost imperceptible.

  ‘No, he wouldn’t,’ agreed Tom, ‘but a fisherman might carry a lock knife, eh, Sam, and you told us Henry used to go fishing with you?’ The farmer said nothing but the old man’s eyes seemed to narrow just a little then.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  ‘Who do you think did it then?’ asked Helen. She clung on to Tom’s arm again, to avoid sliding down the hill. ‘The soldier or the school teacher?’

  ‘My money is on the soldier,’ he said. ‘Old Sam said it himself, Henry Collier wasn’t a fighter.’

  ‘It wasn’t a fight. Sean was stabbed in the back.’

  ‘I was only a bairn when our old headmaster died,’ he said, ‘but I seem to remember Henry Collier was a gentle sort of bloke.’

  ‘Who was driven half mad with jealousy when he was a young man,’ said Helen, ‘and giving up on life because nothing mattered any more, according to his best friend. Does that not sound like a man capable of murder to you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tom admitted, ‘but you seem pretty sure.’

  ‘It’s just …’ and she sounded annoyed then, ‘… if Sam’s right … even if it was his older brother and not him, Sean Donnellan died because of Henry Collier and his stupid jealousy.’

  ‘True. The way Sam tells it, whichever brother stuck the knife in, he died for the same reason,’ then he added, ‘and they are both dead too now anyway.’

  ‘Which means they got away with it.’

  ‘You’re taking this very personally,’ he told her as they reached the car.

  ‘Well, I’m angry. Aren’t you? It might have been a very long time ago but Sean Donnellan was just a young man at the time and he was brutally murdered. He missed out on the life the Collier brothers enjoyed and all because a woman chose him over another man. That sort of thing happens all the time. It doesn’t normally lead to murder.’

  ‘Jack Collier didn’t have that long to go and Henry Collier was in his fifties when he croaked.’ He was doing up his seat belt and silently praying the car would start.

  ‘Henry got thirty more years than Sean Donnellan,’ she said indignantly, ‘and Sean’s only crime was to be popular with women.’

  ‘It sounds to me as if he still is,’ he told her but she didn’t rise to it. To his relief the engine fired first time.

  ‘I thought we were a team,’ Bradshaw reminded him. Vincent Addison was literally on his knees but he looked up at his fellow detective constable and blinked at him. ‘You and me, we were working well together, getting under the skin of that Denny.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Vincent, ‘we are,’ but he immediately turned his attention back to the vending machine. Bradshaw watched as he put his hand under the flap at the foot of the machine then slid his arm through and bent it upwards in an attempt to retrieve the chocolate bar he’d paid for, which had somehow lodged itself between the metal coil that previously restrained it and the glass front of the machine.

  ‘I’ve not seen you around for a couple of days.’

  The chocolate bar they were both surveying seemed to hover now, against all laws of gravity, and Vincent tried to stretch his bulky arm up to reach it but Bradshaw could already tell it was beyond his clutches.

  ‘You’re not still sulking because I had a dig at you for not speaking up for us?’ asked Bradshaw, ‘because if you are …’ He was about to defend his previous comment but before he could, Vincent shook his head.

  ‘I’m not sulking,’ he said quietly, ‘I don’t sulk.’ Vincent stretched further and splayed his fingertips but it was no use.

  ‘Well, what then?’

  Vincent sighed deeply and withdrew his arm. He still wasn’t looking at Bradshaw. Instead he forlornly regarded his lost chocolate bar, ‘I’m just going through a bit of a tough time at the moment, that’s all,’ and Bradshaw could tell by Vincent’s demeanour that he was a fellow sufferer. He should have spotted it sooner. It was partly the way he withdrew from conversations or seemed to retreat into a shell for protection when the top brass were tearing strips off him but it was also the way he carried himself, like he was a man of no consequence. Vincent often walked with his head down and looked at his shoes when he spoke to people, avoiding their eyes. You could tell he felt worthless most of the time.

  ‘Keeping a low profile lately?’ Bradshaw asked, ‘is that it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I like to do that too sometimes,’ he assured the older man, ‘but I could use your help, you know, when you’re feeling better.’

  ‘Sure,’ Vincent looked up until he had eye contact, ‘will do.’

  ‘So we’re okay?’

  Vincent nodded, ‘I’ve got to be getting home now though.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Bradshaw, ‘I’ve got get off now too. There’s someone I need to have a word with,’ and a deep frown of concentration crossed Bradshaw’s brow then.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Vincent.

  Without any warning, Bradshaw took a step closer and kicked out with great force. Vincent flinched as the younger man’s boot shot past him then it connected hard with the metal plate where the money was fed into the vending machine. The machine absorbed the blow but it rocked alarmingly backwards until it hit the wall behind then almost immediately righted itself. As soon as it did so, the maverick chocolate bar was dislodged from the grip of the metal coil and slid serenely into the dispensing tray at the foot of the machine.

  ‘You see,’ Bradshaw smiled at Vincent, ‘teamwork.’

  As Tom emerged from the gents in the Red Lion, still zipping up his fly, Ian Bradshaw was waiting for him. He took a step towards Tom, seized the journalist by the throat and slammed him back against the wall.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he protested, the words distorted by the policeman’s grip. He grabbed Bradshaw’s wrist but the bigger man held firm.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you!’ snarled Bradshaw. ‘I read that bloody piece in the Mirror!’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ Tom croaked and at the flicker of doubt in Bradshaw’s eyes, he saw his chance to pull the detective’s arm away
. ‘It’s not my fault,’ he said, rubbing his neck, ‘they rewrote the bloody thing, to make it sound bad.’

  ‘You’re telling me they did,’ Bradshaw was wild-eyed. ‘My lot are after someone’s guts for this.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.’

  ‘How?’ demanded Bradshaw.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ said Tom, ‘but I will. I owe you one Ian, all right?’

  And Bradshaw gave him a look that said it most definitely wasn’t all right.

  ‘Everything okay, Tom?’ asked Helen. Neither of them had heard her come up behind them, but now both men turned to find her watching them uncertainly.

  ‘Everything’s fine. This is DC Ian Bradshaw,’ he told her, ‘an old friend from school,’ and he made a point of straightening his jacket, which had become creased when the police officer grabbed him. ‘This is Helen Norton,’ he told Bradshaw, ‘the Messenger’s finest.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Helen,’ Bradshaw mumbled sheepishly. ‘I’ve got to be off now though.’

  When he had gone, Helen said, ‘I could hear the shouting from the bar. What was that all about?’

  ‘I upset him,’ said Tom, ‘inadvertently,’ and he shook his head like it was of no importance. ‘Come on, let’s get a drink.’

  DC Skelton and DS O’Brien watched the front door of the Red Lion with interest. They’d just seen Ian Bradshaw leave the place but their real target was still in there.

  ‘He could be hours,’ observed Skelton.

  ‘Stop moaning,’ O’Brien told him.

  ‘He’ll be chatting up that bit of skirt from the Messenger,’ sighed Skelton. ‘All I’m saying is, it would be a lot warmer on the inside.’

  ‘We’re not going to carry out surveillance from the bloody bar,’ O’Brien told him.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Skelton. ‘He doesn’t know what we look like.’

  ‘He was on the Messenger for years. How many times have you testified in court with journalists in the gallery?’ Skelton groaned at this, which O’Brien took as an admission that Tom was likely to recognise them from his court reporting days. ‘Look, Kane needs a name and we ain’t going to get Bradshaw to cop for it, so we have to go at it from another angle.’