Dark Briggate Blues

by Chris Nickson

  After a long time, he picked up the phone and dialled the Infirmary.

  The patient was out of surgery and in a stable condition, a dispassionate voice told him. Markham gave a slow sigh of relief. Baker would survive. He lit a Craven A, watching smoke curl up to the ceiling. Now they just had to find Carter.

  At six o’clock it was the first item on the Home Service news. He listened, trying to relate the words to what he’d experienced. The sharp ring of two shots, the echo round the big room. Baker’s stillness. The faint hint of the pulse in the man’s wrist.

  Maybe it had been like that in the war.

  ***

  By eleven, he knew that he wouldn’t sleep. Everything was churning in his mind. He grabbed his overcoat and drove into town, parking outside Studio 20. The streets were empty, just a few souls wandering lost and lonely.

  The musicians were already building the heat. The pianist usually worked at City Varieties, but he had jazz leaping in his soul. Head down in fierce concentration, he was creating magic around ‘I Got Rhythm’. All the bass and drums could do was follow, and the alto player was sitting out, listening and nodding his head to the beat, smiling as the lines took another flight of fancy. It lasted a full ten minutes before the melody returned and the man glanced up, nodding an ending to the others, back to the theme and wrap it up.

  It was one of those times that made Markham understand why he loved jazz so much. It existed in the moment. Any performance could be explosive if the mood was right. There was no score to follow, no conductor in charge, nothing exact. Each time it was as good as the imagination of the people playing it.

  A trombone joined the line-up, a man from the pit orchestra at the Grand, and they felt their way through a couple of Basie and Ellington tunes. Competent enough, but the real spark had already passed. He closed his eyes, not sleeping but not quite there, roused when someone tapped his shoulder. Bob Barclay was holding out an envelope.

  ‘Someone pushed this through the letter box for you the other day,’ he whispered. ‘You haven’t been in since.’

  Markham nodded his thanks and left the room. On the stairs he ripped open the envelope. Inside, there was a single piece of paper with two words written on them in black ink: DEAD MAN.

  What was it supposed to do, he wondered. Terrify him? That morning he’d been shot at and seen the man next to him almost die from a bullet. He’d seen the terror on the face of a woman who’d been kidnapped. He’d discovered an old friend, dead. Words didn’t have any power after those things. He crumpled the note and dropped it on the floor.

  He’d seen the best of the music for the night. The truth was that he couldn’t settle. His mind wouldn’t slow down. The music followed him out on to the street until the door swung shut.

  ***

  The International Club was quiet. A few men sat talking. He scanned the room, looking for a particular face. Finally he spotted Brian Harding in a quiet corner, staring at the empty glass in front of him.

  Markham ordered a whisky and carried it over, placing it on the table. Harding looked up with a start, his eyes glazed.

  ‘Hello, Brian.’

  ‘Dan Markham. You’re a sight for sore eyes.’ His voice was steady as his hand snaked out for the drink.

  ‘How are you, Brian?’

  ‘So-so. You know.’ He shrugged. ‘You were asking about Jo Hart a while ago, weren’t you?’ He frowned as he tried to remember. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘They’re all saying she’s disappeared. Did you know?’

  ‘Who’s saying it?’

  ‘People. You know.’ He thought. ‘You know,’ he repeated.

  ‘She’s gone away for a few days. Mourning,’ he lied.

  ‘Ah.’ Harding downed the whisky then looked wistfully at the glass.

  ‘Want another?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say no, old man.’

  Markham brought a double and Harding smiled.

  ‘I’m looking for someone else who’s vanished.’

  ‘Oh? Who’s that?’

  ‘David Carter.’

  Harding shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know him. Should I?’

  ‘Probably not. He’s dangerous.’

  ‘Can’t be more dangerous than some I met in the war.’ He opened his mouth to say more then closed it again.

  ‘If you hear anything about him I’d like to know.’

  ‘Of course, old man.’ He sipped the whisky and smiled. ‘David, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If the name comes up I’ll be on the blower.’

  Markham knew it was a lie. Another five minutes and Brian would probably have forgotten the conversation. Tomorrow morning, none of this would ever have happened in his mind. But it was impossible not to like him.

  ‘Thank you.’

  He stood. Outside, he paused on the small porch, eyes moving around for movement or silhouettes. Nothing, but he kept his hand on the gun, out of sight in his pocket as he walked to the car.

  ***

  It was sheer habit that took Markham to the office the next morning. Maybe someone would come in needing a divorce, pictures of a spouse caught with someone else. He could use the money.

  He’d been sitting there for fifteen minutes, reading the Yorkshire Post, when the telephone rang. As he answered he heard the rattle of coins in the slot of a phone box.

  ‘Dan?’ Carla’s voice sounded half a world away.

  ‘Hello.’ He sat upright and she flooded back into him. Her scent, the feel of her, the texture of her hair as he stroked it. ‘How are you?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘Fine,’ she answered. ‘I’ve been wanting to call for days …’ He understood. She’d been hurt to her core, everything she’d created destroyed because of him. She was hiding.

  ‘I’ve missed you.’

  ‘Have they caught him yet?’ It was the question she needed to ask.

  ‘No. Not yet.’ She didn’t need the details, only the answer. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I came to stay with a friend in Whitby.’

  ‘Have you been painting?’

  There was a pause as she pushed in more coins.

  ‘Yes.’ He waited. ‘I want to come back to Leeds, Dan.’

  ‘I know.’ Her life was here. But she wouldn’t return until Carter was caught. That was understood. ‘Soon,’ he promised. Soon, he hoped.

  She stayed quiet. This was how it had to be for now, a conversation full of silences and hesitations. Things half-said, where the spaces spoke louder than the words.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked finally.

  ‘Fair to middling.’ He tried to smile.

  ‘Safe?’

  He thought about the gun in his coat pocket. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t have any more change. I’ll ring soon, all right?’

  ‘I have a telephone at home now,’ he began, but the pips had sounded and she was gone. He sat holding the receiver for a while then dialled Millgarth station.

  ‘Crowther,’ the man answered eventually. Markham didn’t expect the inspector to tell him much.

  ‘It’s Dan Markham.’

  ‘Mr Markham.’ There was no friendliness in his voice.

  ‘I wondered if you’d heard more about Sergeant Baker.’

  ‘He’s going to be fine,’ Crowther said grudgingly. ‘It’ll be a while before he’s back to work, though.’

  ‘But he will be back?’

  ‘In time.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘The doctor said he’d have died if he’d lost much more blood.’

  ‘What about Carter?’

  ‘I can’t tell you, Mr Markham. You know that. It’s a police investigation.’

  ‘And I told you that he’s after me.’

  Crowther gave a long, patient sigh. ‘I’ve got a copper who was shot and a dead body, sir. Do you really believe I’m going to allow anything else to happen?’ He didn’t mention Ged’s de
ath, Markham noted dully, as if that belonged to another place.

  ‘I don’t think you can stop him.’

  ‘We’ll catch him.’ The man slammed down the phone.

  Markham knew what it meant; they had no idea where Carter was. They’d keep searching. They’d look everywhere and quiz all their snouts because he’d shot one of their own. But Carter was smarter than them. He knew all the tricks, all the places to keep out of sight.

  The morning passed with desperate slowness. He smoked too much, filling the ashtray by eleven, a pall of smoke hanging below the ceiling. Finally, as the walls seemed to close in on him, he put on the overcoat and walked out into Albion Place. There was no one standing suspiciously still, not a soul who moved off to follow him.

  It was still early, well before people crowded the Kardomah with their luncheon vouchers. Markham took a table by the window, exchanging pleasantries with Joyce the waitress as he ordered. He gazed down on Briggate as he ate, trying not to think, to stop his mind whirring. He’d barely managed three hours’ sleep the night before, waking and moving in the bed until the sheet and blankets were twisted all around him.

  After the phone call with Carla he’d replayed every word of it in his head. She was still scared. But at least she missed him enough to ring.

  By the time he finished his tea he still couldn’t find meaning in any of it. He paid, walked to the car and drove out to see Joanna Hart.

  Mrs Cornwall let him in quickly, careful fingers on the locks behind him.

  ‘I’m so glad you came, Mr Markham. I tried ringing you a little while ago.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Mrs Hart keeps saying she wants to leave. It just started about eleven; she’d been fine until then. I asked her to wait until I’d talked to you.’

  He sighed and glanced at his watch. One o’clock.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In the front room. She’s got a right mood on her.’

  Joanna Hart was sitting in an armchair, handbag clutch tight on her lap. A cup of cold coffee, still full, was on the table next to her.

  ‘I hear you want to leave.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve had enough of it here. Did you bring that gin you’d promised?’

  Markham looked at her. He’d forgotten. But her life was in danger and that was all she could think about? He shook his head.

  ‘Do you remember what happened to you? What Carter did to you?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ There was ice in her voice, but he could see the memory made her blanch.

  ‘He’s still out there. He shot that policeman.’ She didn’t say anything. ‘Sergeant Baker will live, but you’re safer here where Carter can’t get you. Do you understand?’

  ‘And how long will I be here?’ she asked.

  ‘Just until he’s arrested.’

  ‘And what if you don’t find him? What am I supposed to do, stay here forever?’

  ‘The police are looking. They’ll find him.’ The same words Crowther had used, and they didn’t sound any more believable when he repeated them.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘For God’s sake, look at me. I’ve been wearing the same clothes for days.’

  ‘I’ll go and fetch you more,’ he offered.

  She stood, shaking her head and looking determined.

  ‘Take me home,’ she said, and he caught a glimpse of the wilful girl she’d been a few years before. ‘Now. Please.’

  He couldn’t keep her in the house if she didn’t want to be there. She could walk out whenever she demanded. At least if he was with her, there might be some small safety.

  ‘All right,’ he agreed after a while.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he told Mrs Cornwall as she unlocked the door. ‘And thank you.’

  Joanna Hart didn’t look back or even say goodbye.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  As soon as they entered the Hart house she marched into the living room and poured herself a large gin and tonic.

  ‘Switch on the immersion, would you?’

  In the kitchen, plates sat on the draining board, old, dried food stuck to them. Dirty pans littered the stove. He filled the kettle and heard her footsteps on the stairs. The garden looked unkempt, the grass starting to grow wild. A thought struck him.

  ‘Don’t you have someone who comes in and cleans?’ he shouted up to her.

  ‘Once a week.’

  ‘Does she wash the pots?’

  ‘Of course.’ Mrs Hart sounded bored. ‘Why?’

  ‘When was she here last?’

  ‘It should have been two days ago,’ she answered after thinking. ‘Why?’

  Hurriedly, he began to search. The bed in the spare room had been slept in, covers roughly thrown back. An empty glass sitting in the kitchen. He sniffed it. Whisky. Carter was clever, he had to give the man that. He knew they’d taken Joanna Hart somewhere safe, so her house would be empty. It was perfect, the last place anyone would think to look.

  ‘What is it?’ She came and found him in the kitchen, turning off the gas under the whistling kettle. ‘What?’

  ‘Carter’s been here. He slept here.’

  He saw her fingers tighten on the glass and she took a quick drink.

  ‘Christ.’ He saw the panic rise in her face. ‘Is he going to come back?’

  Would he? The sensible thing was to keep moving. That was what they taught, he remembered that; a moving target was always harder to hit.

  ‘I don’t know. He might try.’

  ‘I have a gun.’ He looked at her sharply. ‘Freddie brought it back from the war. And Daddy taught me to use a shotgun.’

  ‘Where is it?’ When she didn’t answer immediately, he asked again. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘He used to keep it at the back of the top shelf in the larder.’

  Markham pushed the tins and packets aside, his hand scrambling along the wood. Finally his fingers closed around the cold metal and he sighed with relief. He pulled out the weapon. A Webley, just like the one he’d owned.

  ‘Do you know how to use this?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Freddie showed me. We’d go out in the country and shoot at things. I was better than him.’

  ‘I want to take you back to the safe house.’

  ‘Not until I have a bath and pack some more clothes,’ she told him, finishing the drink and pouring another. ‘I’m not spending another bloody day wearing these.’ She vanished up the stairs.

  He paced, checking every door and window to be certain they were all locked. His hand remained on the gun in his pocket. The Webley sat on a ledge at the top of the stairs. She took her time, half an hour passing, then an hour, before he heard her emerge.

  Markham couldn’t settle, couldn’t relax. The spare bedroom gave a view of the empty street whilst a box room looked out over the garden. There was nothing, but that didn’t stop the growing sense of fear. Fear was good, he told himself. It kept you alert. It kept you alive.

  He heard a car engine and dashed to the window, but it was just a husband returning from work, parking down the street and vanishing into a house. The start of the suburban evening ritual.

  Finally Joanna Hart came downstairs. He hadn’t seen the dress before. It was black and blood red, the skirt flaring below her hips. She’d caught her hair up somehow to show off a long neck. Her makeup was so subtle that it looked completely natural, and there was the faint drift of perfume as she passed him and poured more from the bottle of gin before adding a small dose of tonic.

  ‘I feel better for that.’

  ‘Have you packed?’

  ‘Not yet,’ she said casually. ‘Do you have a cigarette?’

  He gave her a Craven A and lit it.

  ‘We need to get you back to the safe house.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ she agreed. ‘But we’re all right for a little while yet, aren’t we?’ She took a long sip of the drink. Her eyes were starting to shine. ‘It’s so boring there. Nothing to do except listen to the
bloody wireless or read. That woman’s always off doing something and she doesn’t have anything to say when she’s around. I want to do something before I go back to that jail.’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ She was tipsy, her skin glowing a little.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. A meal out. Something like that.’ She turned to look at him. ‘What do you do, Mr Markham? You must do something for fun.’

  ‘I go and listen to jazz.’

  ‘Jazz?’ She stretched the word out as if it was a foreign idea. ‘Isn’t that all noise?’

  ‘Sometimes it’s beautiful.’

  ‘Is there a place in town that has it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right. We’ll go to the Red Lion to eat. I adore it there. Then you can take me to this jazz place. Then I’ll go back to that house.’ She kept her gaze on him. ‘God knows I need to have some fun first.’

  He had to be careful. If he insisted, she’d baulk. What he needed was to make her believe that returning to the house was her idea.

  ‘He’s out there.’

  ‘I know. But how’s he going to find us?’ she asked defiantly. ‘How many people live in Leeds, Mr Markham? Do you know?’ Hundreds of thousands? He had no idea. She smiled when he didn’t respond. ‘We’ll be lost among all of them if we go into town.’

  He wasn’t going to dissuade her. She might be terrified inside, but she wasn’t going to budge. The little girl inside her was petulant enough to demand fun and even fear wasn’t going to deny her. With luck, there’d be nothing good at Studio 20 and she’d want to leave quickly.

  The long evening was gliding by as he drove into town, watching in the mirror for any cars that seemed to be following them. They knew her at the restaurant, offering their sympathies on her husband’s death, and guiding her to a good table. He simply followed in her wake, watching faces.

  She was effusive with the waiter, too loud and bright, ordering a gin and tonic and making a face when Markham asked for orange squash.

  ‘How can you drink that stuff?’

  ‘It’s fine.’ He didn’t want to explain himself.

  She ate hungrily, relishing each mouthful. Soup, a steak with chips then pudding, finishing with coffee and another gin. He had little appetite, picking at a chop and leaving most of it. His gaze flickered constantly around the room. Joanna Hart was eager to make small talk but all he managed were brief, inconsequential replies.