PRAISE FOR THE CROOKED SPIRE BY CHRIS NICKSON
‘The author powerfully evokes a sense of time and place with all the detailed and meticulous research he has carried out for this very suspenseful and well plotted story of corruption and murder.’
Eurocrime
‘[A] convincing depiction of late-medieval England makes this a satisfying comfort read.’
Publishers Weekly
‘[Nickson] makes us feels as though we are living what seems like a fourteenth-century version of dystopia, giving this remarkable novel a powerful immediacy.’
Booklist (starred review)
To Leeds Book Club, the little book club that could. With gratitude.
CONTENTS
Praise for the Crooked Spire by Chris Nickson
Title
Dedication
Prologue
Part One Blues In The Night
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Part Two Someone To Watch Over Me
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part Three Round About Midnight
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
About the Author
Copyright
Prologue
PRELUDE TO A KISS
Leeds, 1954
In the September evening light, Dan Markham paused at the corner of Byron Street, his key in the door of the Ford Anglia.
Over the road, on Regent Street, an ambulance stood outside Hart Ford, lights flashing in the sunlight, the back doors open wide, three black police cars beside it. He stood for a moment, watching the scene until one of the policemen glanced up, a familiar face staring at him.
Markham started the engine and drove away.
***
The next morning he’d only been in the office for five minutes when the door opened and Detective Sergeant Baker walked in, wheezing from the stairs and flopping into a chair. The man looked as if he’d been up all night, unshaven and worn, eyes like flint. He smelt of stale tobacco, a ring of grime around his shirt collar. A faded tea stain coloured the front of his mackintosh. He took off his hat, straightened the brim and placed it on his lap.
‘I saw you down by Hart Ford yesterday evening. Do you know what happened there?’
‘No.’ A burglary, he’d thought, or someone injured. He hadn’t heard the news on the Home Service or seen a newspaper.
‘Someone killed Freddie Hart,’ Baker told him. ‘You know who that is, don’t you?’
‘Freddie Hart?’ No, Markham thought. That wasn’t possible. That just wasn’t possible.
‘Of course you do, since his wife hired you.’ The sergeant stared at him. ‘Want to tell me what you were doing there, lad?’
‘I was working.’ He could feel his heart thudding, palms slick.
Baker ran his hands down his face and sighed.
‘Do I look like I came in on the milk train? I know you were bloody working. I want to know what you were doing, where you’d been and why you were parked there.’
Markham lit a cigarette. It gave him a few seconds to compose his thoughts. The truth was innocent enough.
‘I’d followed one of Hart’s employees home.’
‘Who?’ Baker asked.
‘A girl called Annie Willis. She’s the secretary, lives in Meanwood. I’d been on the bus. I was walking back to my car.’
‘That’s better.’ The man’s mouth smiled but his eyes showed nothing. ‘Now, why were you after her?’
‘I needed to find out who she was. Hart had taken her out after work on Saturday.’
‘Oh aye? And what business is that of yours? Or were you just being a nosy parker?’
‘Mrs Hart thought her husband was having a fling with someone. I’m an enquiry agent, that’s what I do. You know that.’
‘Divorce jobbie, was it?’ Baker asked with contempt.
‘She wanted me to find out what’s going on.’ The sergeant raised a thick eyebrow disbelievingly. ‘After that it’s her problem.’
‘She also said you happened to be in the Harewood Arms in Follifoot on Sunday when she and Mr Hart arrived. Bit of a coincidence isn’t it? Off your patch, lad. You’ve never struck me as the country pub type.’
‘Hart had taken the secretary there the night before. I wanted to hear if anyone was talking about him.’
‘Too bloody clever by half in the end, weren’t you?’ Baker sat forward and placed his palms on the desk. ‘A little while after the business closed last night, someone came to see Mr. Hart and shot him.’ He paused. ‘Now, you’re working for the wife, who thinks he’s got a bit on the side. Maybe she just decided she was better off rid of him and paid you to do it.’ His voice grew colder as he spoke. ‘I know what you lot are like in this line of work. Bastards, all of you. I daresay you’d be willing to pull the trigger if the price was right.’ Markham shook his head. He felt a bead of sweat run down his back. ‘No one’s straight in your game, lad, not if they want to make a bob. Everybody lies.’
‘Look, I’m sorry about Freddie Hart,’ Markham said. ‘But it wasn’t anything to do with me.’
‘Have you ever seen someone who’s been shot?’
‘No.’
‘Of course you haven’t, you were too young for the war. I did.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘There are prettier sights in the world. I saw the bullet hole. Pound to a penny it was a .38 calibre. Close range.’
‘There are still plenty of guns floating around from the war,’ Markham said. ‘Every officer had a sidearm.’
‘Aye, and they were easy enough to buy and smuggle.’ Baker ran a hand across his chin. ‘You bring one back from National Service, did you?’
‘No. I wasn’t an officer.’
‘Don’t avoid the bloody question.’
‘I don’t have a gun.’
‘But they taught you to shoot, didn’t they?’
‘Of course,’ he answered. It was part of basic training. ‘Me and most of the men in the country.’
‘Be careful,’ the detective warned. ‘I’ve been up since yesterday morning and my temper’s fraying.’
‘I didn’t kill Freddie Hart,’ Markham repeated. ‘Is that plain enough for you? I followed the girl on a bus to Meanwood. She lives at 15 Bentley Grove. Then I bought cigarettes at the shop at the end of the street. The woman will remember me. I had to wait a quarter of an hour for the bus back.’
Baker nodded. ‘Don’t you worry, I’ll be checking all that. And to see if that lass you were trailing had a jealous boyfriend of her own.’ He placed the hat back on his head and pushed himself upright. ‘I don’t like what you do. It’s a grubby trade. Enquiry agent.’ He almost spat the words. ‘Someone has to suffer for you to make money. I don’t like that at all.’
Markham sat behind the desk after he’d gone, smoking a cigarette until it burned hot in his mouth. He ground it out in the ashtray and lit another, waiting until he was convinced that Baker wouldn’t return. Finally he pulled the bottom drawer open. It was where he kept the Webley, the one he’d brought back from his time in Germany.
The drawer was empty.
Frantic, he scrambled around, feeling t
he panic rise as he ransacked the rest of the desk. It had been there on Saturday: he’d seen it.
He looked again. The filing cabinets, the cupboard in the corner.
No gun. Nothing else was missing.
Penny to a pound the bullet had been a .38, Baker said. The same ammunition as the Webley. And his fingerprints were on that revolver.
Someone was setting him up.
Someone had been in his office and taken the gun.
Why? Who?
He needed answers. He needed to talk to Joanna Hart.
Part One
BLUES IN THE NIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
She’d arrived the Friday before, in the middle of a balmy afternoon. Markham had the windows open in the office to draw in a little breeze. The third of September, a date everyone remembered, the day Britain went to war with Nazi Germany, fifteen years before. When he went out for his dinner he’d seen all the memories and loss on the faces.
She was waiting outside the office on Albion Place when he returned, dressed in a royal blue skirt, a white blouse and a hip-length jacket, the bag dangling from her hand. Her blonde hair set in short, neat waves.
‘Can I help you?’ Markham asked, bringing the keys from his pocket.
‘I’m looking for Mr Markham.’ It was a cultured voice. Expensively educated. Good breeding, his mother would have called it.
‘I’m Dan Markham. What can I do for you?’ He unlocked the door and she stood at the entrance, assessing the room with its worn lino floor and view of the old grey roof tiles before pursing her lips in disapproval. ‘Please, sit down, Mrs …?’
‘Jones,’ she answered and he immediately knew what the job would be. Divorce. They always used the same names – Smith, Jones, Brown – as if they offered protection.
The woman perched on the chair and removed her gloves. About thirty, he guessed, with a porcelain complexion, her lips a deep, emphatic red. The clothes looked ordinary enough, but they hadn’t come off the rack at Marshall’s; some seamstress in a little shop had worked long and hard to make them. She had style. And money.
‘Well, Mrs Jones …’
‘Forgive me.’ She lowered her eyes for a moment. ‘I’ve never met an enquiry agent before.’
He gave a gentle, reassuring smile. ‘Nothing like an American private detective from the films, I’m afraid.’ His office was an unprepossessing room that had probably looked exactly the same before the war.
She hesitated. ‘It’s just that you’re rather young.’
How long until they stopped saying that, he wondered?
‘I’ve spent time in military intelligence and I’ve been doing this for four years now,’ he told her with a smile. ‘I’m a professional. And I’m good at what I do, Mrs Jones.’
This was the crux, the moment. Either she’d leave now or she’d tell him everything. She didn’t move. After a moment she took a breath.
‘I’m sure my husband’s having an affair.’ The women always blurted out the words. With men he had to work, to coax it out of them piece by piece, as if the admission cost them all their pride.
‘Why do you think that?’ He took out the pack of cigarettes and offered her one. She moved to take it, leaning forward into the match flame.
‘He’s out almost every night. I’ve smelt perfume on him. He doesn’t seem to want to spend time with me any more.’
‘Have you talked to him about it?’
‘God no. Of course not.’ She seemed horrified at the suggestion. ‘How could I?’
‘How long have you been married, Mrs Jones?’
‘Five years.’ She raised her head to look at him. ‘Six in January.’
‘And when did your husband’s behaviour change?’
‘About two months ago,’ she answered after some thought. ‘Just after that hot weekend we had during Wimbledon.’
The end of June. He made a note on the pad.
‘Did anything unusual happen during that time?’
‘Not that I can think of.’ Now she’d begun, her gaze was squarely on his face.
‘What does your husband do?’
‘He owns an agency that sells motor cars.’
That explained the money. Cars were big business these days.
‘And you’d like me to see if he’s having an affair.’
‘I’m certain he’s having one, Mr Markham.’ Her eyes blazed. ‘I want to know who with.’
‘I have to tell you, Mrs Jones, divorce is a messy business.’
‘Oh, I don’t want to divorce him.’ Her voice turned cold. ‘I want a hold over him.’
***
It took two more cigarettes to draw all the details from her. Her real name first – Joanna Hart. No children. A house out in Alwoodley. A golden life.
Reluctantly, like slowly drawing back a curtain, she’d revealed the rest of the picture. Freddie Hart was eleven years older than his wife, from a well-to-do family. His father had put up the money for a Ford dealership two years before. Now he was there all hours. Off first thing in the morning, then meetings and dinners until late. All business, that was what he told her. But the scent on his skin and the lipstick traces on his handkerchief told a different story.
‘What do you think, Mr Markham?’ Her voice was cool, no trace of emotion.
‘I’ll look into it, if that’s what you want.’
She brought a five-pound note from her handbag and placed it on the desk.
‘Is this enough to retain your services?’
‘More than enough.’ It was a full week’s wages. ‘How do you want my reports?’
‘I come into town every Tuesday and Friday,’ she said. ‘I usually take luncheon at Betty’s. You can meet me in the cafe there at noon.’ She replaced the gloves on her hands. All the nervous gestures had disappeared and she moved with easy assurance. ‘Good day, Mr Markham.’
He heard the click of her heels on the stairs, gave her ten seconds and followed.
She never looked back, swinging her hips as she moved down the street then turned up Briggate. He kept his distance, holding back as she stopped at the entrance to Thornton’s Arcade.
She stayed for two minutes, checking her watch impatiently, until a man hurried up. They embraced and her face softened as he kissed her on the cheek and they walked away together.
***
He turned the car down Eastgate. At the roundabout, beneath the long grey face of Quarry Hill flats, he turned along Regent Street. The motor car dealers had gathered here, a cluster of them with their shiny new buildings of chrome and glass. Every one of them promised the future and the freedom of the road. They did a good trade; there were more vehicles on the road every month.
He didn’t want a new car. He couldn’t afford one; anyway, he knew a mechanic who kept his Anglia running sweeter than it had when it rolled off the production line. He passed Hart Ford, a place of yellow stone and large, gleaming windows that stood out brightly. The building spoke of solidity, of trust and modernity. The other half of the block was Victorian, decaying. The Reginald Building was carved over a boarded-up entrance. The past and the future, side by side.
Tomorrow he’d go and take a look. For now, though, he was content to go home. There was nothing more to keep him working today.
***
He ran a hot bath and soaked until the water began to cool. In the living room he selected The Amazing Bud Powell from the stack of records in the corner and put it on the gramophone, letting the strange sound of ‘Un Poco Loco’ fill the room, Powell’s piano on its strange, mad journey.
Markham found eggs in a bowl on the shelf, along with half an onion, some cloves of garlic and a pair of mushrooms he’d bought at the market for a fancy Continental meal that never happened. It only took a few minutes to turn the ingredients into an omelette.
The LP finished and he swapped it for some Sarah Vaughan. Outside, beyond the window, the world was carrying on. Men were on their way home from work, wives were cooking tea. In here, thoug
h, caught in the music, he could close his eyes and try to imagine himself in a New York jazz club.
It was dark when he stirred in the chair. The record was still turning, the click of the needle in the groove sounding like a hushed birdsong. With a smile he remembered the way his father so often fell asleep after eating.
His parents had been dead for five years now. The summer of 1949. He’d only been back from National Service for two months when it happened, and still deciding what to do with his life. His parents went away on the holiday they’d booked to Scotland. He went down to the station to see them off and received a postcard from his mother three days later. The next he knew was the copper knocking on the door to say they’d died of injuries after a train crash in a place he’d never heard of – Ardler Junction. Somewhere and nowhere.
The house had been rented. After the funeral and the sad gathering of distant relatives, all that remained was to divide the possessions with his sister. The photographs, the furniture, the small keepsakes and the surprisingly large bank account.
His share had been enough to buy a second-hand car and still keep plenty in the bank. He found the flat and took a position as a clerk in an insurance company. The day he turned twenty-one, legally an adult, he handed in his notice at the job, took the lease on an office and set up in business as an enquiry agent.
He got by on divorces. God knew there was no shortage of them. People who’d married right after the peace and now regretted it. The wartime marriages that had sunk to nothing once the fighting stopped. They were his bread and butter. Those and the frauds that employers wanted discovered and kept away from the ears of the Inland Revenue. It was enough to pay his bills.
CHAPTER TWO
He was ready by nine the next morning, dressed in his best suit, brogues shined and the tie just so in a Windsor knot. Town would be busy; it was the same every Saturday. Consume, consume; it was beginning to feel like a national fever.
On Regent Street he pulled into Hart Ford, parking at the side of the building. Already there were couples, young and old alike, walking around the shiny new vehicles whilst earnest salesmen tried to convince them that Ford was the motor car that would improve their lives.
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