Stephen Collier turned his uncomprehending face very slowly towards them and Tom expected him to ask who the hell they were but he seemed calm enough. The carer concentrated her efforts on levering him out of his chair. ‘Let’s get you into your room, shall we, where it’s nice and private.’
It took a long time for Stephen to shuffle along the corridor in his slippers and they were both filled with nervous excitement. They knew that at any moment someone in authority could come along and demand to know who they were before kicking them out, ending their last opportunity to get to the truth. Finally they reached a sparsely furnished ground-floor room and the carer sat Stephen in a shabby armchair. There was one other chair by the door but Helen perched on the end of Stephen’s bed so she could face him and Tom stayed on his feet.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ offered the girl, then she turned back to Stephen. ‘I’m sure I can sort one out for you and your visitors,’ she told the silent old man.
‘We’re fine, really,’ Tom told her.
‘Okeydokey, I’ll leave you to it then.’
Tom waited until the girl was halfway down the corridor before he spoke. Stephen was staring through his bedroom window, as if they weren’t really there.
‘Hello, Stephen. This is Helen and I’m Tom.’
There was no response from the old man and Tom began to fear that years in an institution had robbed him of all of his remaining faculties. ‘We came to visit you today because we would like to ask you a few questions.’ The old man continued to stare blankly ahead of him. ‘Would that be all right?’ and when there was still no reply, Helen added, ‘It won’t take long.’ She gave him a big, beaming smile. ‘Wouldn’t want you to miss your dinner, would we?’
Tom watched Stephen Collier. There was the merest flicker from the old man at the sound of the pretty girl’s voice then he turned his head slightly towards Helen, took in her presence at the foot of his bed but said nothing.
‘Can you hear me okay, Stephen?’ asked Tom. ‘Do you understand why we are here? We just want to ask you a few questions.’
Helen opened her mouth to add something but Tom gestured to her and she stopped. Tom felt that if they both carried on talking at the old man he would never take the trouble to reply. Eventually the silence stretched out so far in front of them it became clear Stephen was not going to say anything. Tom sighed, ‘I think we could be wasting our …’
Before he could complete the sentence, Stephen Collier finally spoke but his voice was a low whisper and neither of them made out the words. ‘What did you say?’ Helen prompted him and Stephen started to cough. Once more Tom found he was holding his breath, hardly daring to breathe. He wanted so badly to get through to this old man.
‘I’m not daft,’ said Stephen suddenly and once again Helen and Tom exchanged glances. ‘I can hear you.’
Tom nodded at her, prompting Helen to address him.
‘Nobody thinks you are daft, Stephen.’
‘They do,’ his voice was a rasp but they could clearly make out the words now. ‘They all do in here.’
‘Well, we don’t,’ answered Helen, ‘you’re clearly not daft.’
‘No,’ he continued. ‘I can’t do adds and takeaways, that’s all,’ and he tilted his head so he could look at Helen directly, ‘and if I try to count to a hundred I get confused and have to stop,’ he told her earnestly, ‘but that doesn’t make me daft.’
‘Of course it doesn’t,’ she assured him.
Tom noticed the way the old man suddenly seemed to lock on to Helen. He was looking at her smiling face as if she’d been sent from heaven to greet him.
‘Helen here will be asking the questions today,’ Tom said, hoping she would understand.
Stephen frowned then. ‘Who are you?’
Tom cut in before Helen could answer: ‘We’re the people who are asking the questions, Stephen. That’s all right, isn’t it?’
‘Questions?’ he asked suspiciously, ‘what about?’
‘Something that happened a very long time ago,’ Helen explained. ‘We want to ask you what you remember about a night many years ago when you were a young man.’ Did Stephen look a little nervous then?
‘What night?’
Helen glanced at Tom but he just jerked his head in a gesture that meant ‘Go on.’ She was nervous herself now, fearful of messing things up if she upset the old man.
‘We need to hear what happened that night, Stephen,’ she forced her voice to sound calm, ‘when the Irishman had an argument with your brothers, Jack and Henry. You remember, don’t you?’ No reply from Stephen. ‘Sean Donnellan quarrelled with your brother in No Name Lane, perhaps both of them, because he was going to run off with young Mary, Henry’s fiancé.’
The old man lowered his head, his face a picture of confusion, or was it fear. ‘You don’t have to worry about any of it. We just want to clear it all up, that’s all,’ said Tom.
Nobody will get into trouble,’ added Helen, ‘it was all such a very long time ago and everybody is gone now, so there can’t be any harm in telling us the truth, can there?’
‘I don’t want to talk about that,’ said the old man firmly.
‘Please, Stephen,’ Helen urged him, ‘we know almost all of it anyway. You wouldn’t know about it, living all the way out here, but they found Sean Donnellan,’ Stephen Collier seemed to flinch slightly then, ‘his body I mean. We know there was a big quarrel about Mary. Henry was very upset and Jack wanted to help him by making the Irish man go away. We understand all that.’ No response from Stephen. ‘We also know there was a fight and, during that fight, Sean got stabbed with Henry’s knife.’ She watched Stephen closely for signs of recognition but his face betrayed nothing. ‘All we need to know is how it happened, that’s all,’ and Helen waited for an answer. When none was forthcoming, she asked, ‘Was it Jack,’ to no response. ‘Was it Henry?’ Again, no reply.
Then Tom interrupted, ‘Or was it you, Stephen?’ And the old man took his gaze from Helen and turned it on Tom. ‘Is that why you won’t tell us?’ Tom noticed that Stephen was wringing his hands now, becoming agitated as the questioning continued. ‘Of course, it could have been an accident,’ offered Tom, ‘maybe nobody meant to stab Sean but somebody slipped during the fight. Perhaps he fell on the knife or he was pushed against someone who was holding it. It would explain why you had to bury the body. You were probably worried nobody would believe you. Is that what happened? You can tell us. It’s okay.’
‘I can’t remember,’ said Stephen, finally.
‘You can’t remember?’ repeated Tom. ‘Now that I don’t believe, Stephen. I’ve forgotten a lot of things in my time but I know I’d never forget the day I saw a knife go into the back of someone. That kind of thing stays with you.’
‘Please tell us, Stephen,’ urged Helen. ‘If it was Jack or Henry, then what harm could come of it? They are both gone now. We just want to hear the truth.’
‘No,’ he told her firmly, shaking his head, ‘mustn’t tell!’
‘And if it was you,’ she offered, ‘then it must have been an accident. Everybody would understand.’ Silence from Stephen. ‘And if it wasn’t an accident? If you killed Sean because he was in a fight with your brother and he was hurting Jack, well, people would understand that too. I know they would.’ Then she tried a new approach. ‘It must be terrible, living with a secret like that, all of these years.’
‘It is,’ he told her quickly, as if he couldn’t help himself.
‘There you go then,’ Helen smiled at him once more and he gazed back at her. ‘You’ll feel so much better when you tell us. I promise.’
Stephen Collier opened his mouth to say something. Helen and Tom waited to learn the truth. ‘No,’ and he shook his head violently, ‘you can’t make me.’
Helen pleaded, ‘Please, Stephen,’ but he remained unmoved.
‘It’s no use, Helen,’ Tom told her, ‘we’d better just go. We’ll never get the truth like this,’ and he took a
step towards the door. Confused, Helen stayed where she was then Tom said, ‘It’s quite clear to me now. I am sure I know what happened. Stephen here killed Sean. It’s obvious.’
‘No,’ protested the old man and he turned to face Tom.
‘He stabbed him with that knife, murdered the poor man in cold blood,’ continued Tom, ‘that’s why he won’t tell us the truth.’
‘I didn’t,’ Stephen shook his head again, the gesture making him appear childlike, ‘I never.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Tom told him, ‘you won’t tell us what happened, so we’ll just have to tell the authorities you won’t cooperate with us and you know what that means.’
‘What?’ asked the confused old man.
‘Well they are not going to want you here now, are they?’ Tom told him firmly. ‘They can’t leave a murderer in an old folk’s home.’ He shook his head, ‘No, they are going to want you out of here straight away.’
‘No,’ Stephen looked terrified, ‘they can’t.’
‘Tom,’ cautioned Helen.
‘They can and they will,’ Tom took a step towards the man and went down low so he could speak more softly. ‘They’ll kick you out on the streets if you don’t tell us what happened that night.’
‘Tom!’ called Helen but he wasn’t listening to her, just staring at the terrified old man.
‘You’ve been in trouble with the police before, haven’t you?’ Tom told him. ‘You’d better tell me now, before it’s too late.’
Stephen Collier looked as if he might be about to crack when the young carer walked suddenly back into the room. She had obviously heard a little of what Tom had said from the corridor. ‘I want you to leave,’ she told him.
‘No,’ replied Tom firmly and the girl looked stunned by his defiance.
‘You have to leave,’ she told them both, ‘you’re not family. He hasn’t got any family. They just told me. I never would have …’
‘We’ll go in a minute.’ Tom turned to her. ‘Stephen has something very important he wants to tell us first, don’t you, Stephen?’
‘You have to leave now,’ she snapped, ‘or I’m calling the police.’
‘Do what you want but I’m not leaving,’ he told her, ‘not until I’ve heard what he has to say.’
‘Right,’ huffed the girl and she left the room and marched down the corridor.
Tom turned back to the old man. ‘Last chance, Stephen. You heard her, she’s calling the police.’ The old man looked like he was about to drop dead from the shock of that. ‘They’ll take you away if you don’t tell the truth, so tell me now, quickly, before they get here.’
‘Jack never meant it to happen,’ Stephen blurted suddenly.
‘Go on,’ urged Tom.
‘He took the knife off Henry, in case he did something daft with it. It was in his pocket but when he went to see the Irish he still had it on him.’
‘Tell us what happened, Stephen.’ Helen and Tom could hear animated voices at the end of the corridor now.
Stephen managed to confirm what they already knew or had guessed: that Mrs Harris had come to their house and warned them Mary was going to leave with Sean Donnellan,
‘Jack went down there to have it out with the Irish. He told Henry and me to stay at home but after a while Henry went after him.’
‘What did you do, Stephen? Come on?’ The voices were getting louder.
‘I went after him too,’ confirmed Stephen. ‘We followed Jack and we hid and watched him. We saw the Irish coming out of the house and Jack followed. We followed Jack but we stayed back a way, because we knew he’d go mad if he saw us. The Irish went down No Name Lane and Jack went after him. When we got there the two of them were already fighting. They’d taken their coats off and they were punching and kicking and braying each other. It was awful.’
‘Was Sean winning?’ asked Tom, assuming it would not have been so awful for Stephen if Jack had been in control of the fight.
‘Only ’cos he was a dirty fighter,’ protested Stephen, looking hurt by the accusation, ‘or Jack would have had him. He can fight anybody,’ he told Tom proudly, holding up a fist, as if his older brother was still alive and not dead for more than half a century, ‘but the Irish fights dirty, butting and gouging, and he was telling Jack that he was going to kill him if he tried to stop him.’
Helen could hear the voices drawing nearer now, animated conversation between women who sounded as if they were in positions of authority. Tom closed the door then he kicked the other armchair until it slid towards it and blocked it, the back wedged under the door handle so it couldn’t be turned from the outside.
‘Who stabbed Sean, Stephen? Was it Jack, Henry, or you?’
Stephen was shaking his head, tears streaming down his lined face now. ‘Our Jack was on the floor and the Irish was kicking him in the head,’ explained Stephen. ‘I didn’t think he was going to stop.’
‘So you picked up Jack’s coat to get at the knife?’ Tom prompted him.
‘No.’
At that moment the handle of the door turned slightly but wedged against the chair. Someone tried to push it open and Helen watched as it rattled a little but the weight of the chair held it firm.
‘Open this door!’ a woman shouted.
‘Who did it, Stephen? Was it you?’
‘The police have been called,’ the same woman shouted through to them and another shrill voice added, ‘They’re on their way, they’re coming!’
‘You heard her!’ called Tom and he pointed to the door. ‘The police are coming for you, so you’d better tell us now or we won’t be able to help you. Who did it, Stephen?’ Tom demanded and he put both hands on the old man’s shoulders and shouted, ‘Who?’
Stephen Collier gasped and sobbed then it was like a dam had burst and a great torrent of words followed. ‘He thought Irish was going to kill Jack. I didn’t even see him get the knife. I didn’t even see him pick up the coat. One minute the Irish was standing there over our Jack, about to kick him again. Next thing he’s opened his mouth like he’s going to say something and all this blood came out. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know what had happened. Then he just dropped. He fell to his knees like he was praying in church and when he fell I saw him.’
‘Who did you see?’ urged Helen.
Stephen’s face took on a look of wonder, as if he was seeing the whole thing again in his mind’s eye but for the first time, like he’d blotted out the entire memory so that it was just as shocking to him this time around.
‘Henry,’ he said. He was standing behind the Irish. The Irish man fell forwards and the knife was sticking out of his back.’
Helen heard the sound of a police siren.
‘Henry killed him?’ asked Tom and the old man dipped his head and nodded sadly. Helen and Tom looked at one another. They had finally discovered the truth.
‘What did Jack do?’ Tom asked.
‘He went mad,’ said Stephen, ‘he took one look at what Henry had done and he hit him. He kept saying, “What have you done? What have you done,” and “all for a stupid little girl.” It took him ages to calm down.’
The police siren was getting louder and louder. The women from the home had stopped pushing at the door.
‘But he did calm down,’ Tom prompted him, ‘and he got rid of the body.’
‘We all did. Jack made me and Henry carry the Irish into the marshland, because the reeds were high and no one could see us, while he ran back home to hide Sean’s bag and fetch the shovel. Then he dug a hole in a dry spot on Cappers Field, dropped Irish in it and covered him over.’
‘Why didn’t he get rid of the knife?’
‘It was still stuck in him,’ explained Stephen, ‘we left it in him to stop blood going on the grass when we carried him but we forgot about it when we stuck him in the hole. When Henry remembered, Jack said it’s too late now but it doesn’t matter. Nobody is ever going to go digging here. He told Henry to buy a new knife and say he’d lost it.’
The siren was close by and its volume wasn’t changing. Helen realised the police car was in the car park.
‘And the money?’ Tom asked. ‘Who took the money from the vicarage?’
‘Jack did. We watched in case anyone came.’
‘He stole the money so you could blame it on Sean Donnellan?’
‘He said it was the only way to make Mary believe Sean had left without her. He was right. It’s what everybody believed.’
‘What happened to the money?’
‘Jack threw it at Henry.’
‘Jack didn’t want it?’ asked Tom.
‘No,’ the old man said, ‘Jack didn’t want any of it.’
Helen started as loud banging came from the door, ‘Police! Open up! Open this door now!’
Tom stood straight then went towards the chair and dragged it away from the door, opening it. Two huge, uniformed police officers were standing there. ‘I’m sorry, officer, there seems to have been a bit of a misunderstanding …’ said Tom, hoping to defuse their anger.
At the sight of the police officers, Stephen screamed then went into a wild panic. ‘Don’t take me away!’ wailed the old man, ‘Please! Don’t take me away!’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said one of the officers, ‘what have you done to the poor bastard?’
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
They spent more than four hours in the cells before they were released. ‘We’re not charging you with anything,’ the desk sergeant looked at Tom like he was the worst kind of parasite, ‘but if it was down to me, I’d have thrown away the key.’
‘Good job it’s not down to you then, eh?’
No Name Lane (Howard Linskey) Page 37
