Friendship's Bond

by Meg Hutchinson

  ‘What are you reading?’

  Ann felt colour rise to her cheeks at Alec’s quiet question. How could she tell him she was looking for what he had not shared with herself and Leah the night before?

  ‘Edward . . . Mr Langley . . .’ She hesitated awkwardly. ‘Leah forgot to buy her newspaper last night so he brought across his copy.’ Then glancing across his shoulder towards the scullery she asked, ‘Where is Leah?’

  ‘She decided to spend a little time with Mrs Carter, the death of the woman’s son is still of much grievance to her. Grandmother Leah thought sharing that grief might in some way relieve it.’

  As she and I might have helped relieve yours had we been given the chance! Ann pulled herself up shortly. This was happening too often; it was not for her to chastise, even mentally, when she could not face up to her own shortcomings such as failing to recognise the friendship offered by Edward Langley.

  ‘No doubt you have seen the report rumoured to have come from Russia.’

  ‘Rumoured?’

  ‘Of course, what is reported there is not the truth.’

  It was stated with quiet conviction yet Ann recognised it was said out of a need to believe.

  ‘That council,’ Alec went on, ‘those people do not have the right, they will not, they cannot put the royal family on trial. The people will never allow that to happen. The Tsar is the Little Father of all the Russians, he is loved by all and would never willingly cause harm to any one of his subjects.’

  Yet some in that country held him to blame; why otherwise would the family have been taken away and imprisoned? And the retainers mentioned, were they also blamed, held responsible for the misery and hunger of the common people? Was Alec’s worry to do with this? Ann stared at the newspaper. She had never directly questioned Alec about his parents, their reasons for sending him away. Should she do so now? Ann turned to look at him directly, asking firmly, ‘Alec, are your parents in the employ of the royal household?’

  ‘No.’

  The answer had been quick, with no trace of hesitation. The clear eyes fastening on her own were wide with the candour they always held. Ann’s tension eased. Alec’s parents were not employed in that household therefore they could not be among the people imprisoned at Yekaterinburg. So what exactly was Alec’s worry? As she was about to put the very question which would with luck produce an answer to cast light on the fear she knew haunted the boy—

  ‘Eh wench, what a to do!’

  ‘Leah came bustling in from the scullery, and her breathless exclamation drove all else from Ann’s mind.

  ‘Eh, I can’t believe of it . . . whatever be the world a comin’ to!’

  ‘Leah, what is it, what’s wrong?’ Ann was at the woman’s side.

  ‘A cup o’ tea wench,’ Leah panted, ‘a cup o’ tea afore I can bring meself to put tongue to it. Don’t need to look so scared lad, be naught amiss wi’ me.’ She looked at Alec, who had also moved quickly to her side. ‘But there will be with old Molly lessen her be took from the cart; be so good as to give her a feed then let her loose in the field for to stretch her legs.’

  Leah took several swallows of tea before saying with a shake of the head, ‘No, I ain’t never knowed the like, not once in all the days the good Lord has allowed I live ’ave I ever knowed the like; I tells you, wench, Gabriel’s Hounds was runnin’ free in Wednesbury t’other night.’

  Gabriel’s Hounds. Despite the anxiety of the moment Ann’s mind slipped back over the years to when she was a small girl, her nightdress barely reaching small bare feet, her eyes wide with wonder as she listened to her grandmother’s tale of the warning of Gabriel’s Hounds.

  ‘Were barely on five of the mornin’ it ’appened. Your grandfather were on his way to the pit. He had reached the Black Bridge atop of which the aqueduct carries coal barges when he seen a little wench. No bigger than you, her seemed to be lost. Her made no answer to any question and when your grandfather made to pick her up and bring her to this house to be cared for until her folk be found, that little wench turned from him and walked straight through them dark black bricks leavin’ not a sign behind. Grandfather knowed he’d been given the warnin’ of Gabriel’s Hounds and he come rightways home not goin’ to his work at the mine. It were later that same day a collapse of coal underground trapped and killed some thirty miners.’

  Superstition! Ann smiled at the memory. Old wives’ tales! But Leah had not been given to such talk and as for pit disasters, she had lost her husband to one so what previously ‘unknown’ occurrence had her so disturbed?

  ‘I’d just left of Mary Carter . . .’ Leah held out her cup for a refill, continuing as she stirred the hot milky liquid. ‘I was halfway along of Meeting Street when Jinny Jinks comes a wavin’ of her arms and a callin’ my name. I stops the milk cart thinkin’ her be wantin’ of extra milk or p’raps another wedge o’ cheese, but all her asked was had I ’eard, had Ezekial Turley mentioned of it? I told ’er I’d seen neither hide nor hair o’ the man but her up and asked the same thing, had I ’ear of it? I admits I were a mite sharp wi’ Jinny but sometimes you needs be if any sense is to be got from ’er, but eh wench, the shock were mine on listenin’ to what it were had ’er flappin’ like a sheet in the wind.’ Pausing to swallow more of the hot refreshing liquid Leah glanced towards the scullery then, assured Alec had not returned, continued in a low voice. ‘Young Sarah Clews . . . Jinny said young Sarah Clews had been found dead.’

  ‘Dead!’

  ‘Ar wench,’ Leah nodded, ‘strangled, but not afore some man had teken of his pleasure, and that weren’t come by easy.’ Leah finished the last of her tea. ‘Tom Bissell and Charlie Tonks – it was them found the body – they reckons the clothes was torn near altogether off the wench which tells what ’appened had no consent of the poor little soul.’

  Rape! Ann shuddered at the thought. The girl had been raped and killed. ‘But who . . . where?’

  ‘Tom and Charlie found ’er on the ’eath up along of St Peter’s Church.’ Leah answered. ‘And as for who done it, they says the police be huntin’ forra gypsy.’

  Ann frowned. ‘Why would they think the killer was a gypsy?’

  ‘Cos the thing Sarah were strangled with was one of these.’ Leah touched the trinket about her neck. ‘What could speak more plain.’

  ‘Sarah cleaned at Chapel House but I very rarely saw her; my hours of work did not coincide with the time the girl was there.’

  ‘You understands, Mr Thorpe, we have to speak to everybody who might have had contact, there might just be summat’ll help with enquiries.’

  ‘Of course.’ Thomas Thorpe nodded.

  ‘The girl were fetched to that house each time by a member of her own family and teken home by the same once her work were done.’

  ‘To the best of my knowledge, yes,’ Thorpe answered glibly. ‘On the odd occasion I arrived as they were leaving it was a younger brother collected Sarah but I cannot vouch it was always that one member of the family who came to escort her home.’

  ‘No, no, as you say, your work did not permit.’ The uniformed policeman wrote laboriously in his notebook then, his glance still running over the page, asked, ‘Apart from ser-vice in the chapel, did you see Sarah Clews at any time in the last week?’

  Take your time, make it look like you’re digging deep. Not that you need have any concern.

  A suitable moment having elapsed he nodded again. ‘Yes.’ It came uncertainly, another pause seeming to indicate a mental check. ‘Yes, yes I did.’ He met the policeman’s eye. ‘It was the evening before that, I was on my way to visit Jonas Beardsley along of Monway Sidings . . . he is too plagued with the rheumatism to get himself to the chapel so I try to go pray with him and his wife at least once a week. It was that evening I saw Sarah. I admit I did wonder as to the reason she was out on the heath alone and feeling in some way responsible for her safety I offered to turn back and see her home.’

  ‘Did her tek you up on that offer?’ The policema
n licked his pencil.

  Thorpe made a display of fighting self-condemnation. ‘No.’ The word seemed to force itself through barriers of reproach. ‘If only I had insisted.’

  ‘Don’t go blamin’ yourself Mr Thorpe sir, you wasn’t to know.’

  ‘That . . . that doesn’t make it any better.’

  ‘I appreciates your feelings, what with you bein’ the minister an’ all . . .’

  Minister! Thorpe’s insides glowed like a gas lamp.

  ‘It must ’ave you feeling sort of protective of folk.’ The policeman was writing again. ‘Did her give any reason for not going home along of you?’

  ‘I . . . I really shouldn’t . . . she spoke in confidence.’

  Glancing up from the notebook the constable looked Thorpe straight in the eye. ‘I be speakin’ in confidence when I says it be best you answer all y’can. This be a murder, Mr Thorpe, an’ minister or no minister you could be teken in for questionin’ along of the station.’

  ‘Yes . . . yes of course.’ Thorpe drew a long, suitably aggrieved breath. ‘It’s difficult to come to terms with breaking a trust . . . but then if it will help find whoever did this terrible thing . . .’

  It wouldn’t! Of that he was supremely confident.

  ‘Sarah,’ he went on slowly, every word weighted with pseudo regret, ‘she begged me not to say . . . not to divulge her secret to her parents but . . . Oh Lord,’ he lifted both hands, cradling his face, ‘oh Lord, I wish now I had.’

  The constable allowed a few seconds before saying quietly, ‘This secret, I ’ave to ask what it were?’

  ‘A . . . a young man.’

  Did that appear reluctant enough? Thorpe smirked silently.

  ‘Sarah said she was going away with a young man, she knew her parents would not agree to a courtship between them so they were running away. She begged me not to tell.’

  The constable wrote a further note, then asked, ‘This young man, did you see him?’

  ‘No. I offered to stay with Sarah until he arrived but she would have none of it, I had a member of the congregation to visit and must not keep them waiting, she said. If only I had ignored her, insisted she return home with me, she would still be alive.’

  ‘We all learns with hindsight.’ The pencil was licked again. ‘So you didn’t see any young man?’

  Let the reply wait a little. Unwillingness to answer would lend plausibility to the illusion of regret on betraying a confidence.

  ‘Not,’ he paused, letting his glance drop away from the other man, ‘not directly.’

  ‘Then indirectly!’

  The constable was becoming a little impatient. Thorpe let the reaction pass. Allow the man his moment, it was all he would get.

  ‘I was some distance on towards the houses at Monway Sidings but still averse to leaving Sarah standing alone. I looked back determined to return to wait with her, but I saw someone had joined her so I went on my way.’

  ‘I see, and was the someone you seen with her a man?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could you see who it was? Did you recognise him, was it someone you know?’

  Who would know him better! ‘You must understand, I was a distance away, it was dusk . . . I can’t be sure.’

  ‘But you ’ave some idea, you’ve seen the man afore.’

  Not a question this time. Thorpe gloated at the way he had led the interview to this point, exactly where he wanted it.

  ‘. . . should I fail to get what is owed by one then I simply take it from the other, male or female, woman or boy, either is acceptable.’

  His threat made to Ann Spencer sang in his brain, in addition to a joyous chorus in his soul.

  ‘. . . but taking from both at the same time is infinitely more acceptable.’

  This was the way heaven wanted it; Thomas Thorpe was merely the Lord’s instrument.

  ‘I . . .’ He swallowed his satisfaction, replacing it with marked disinclination. ‘This can’t be taken as positive identification but . . . but it looked to be the young man living in the house of Leah Marshall.’

  Chapter 34

  ‘You ’ave to be mekin’ of a mistake!’ Leah frowned at the two men in her tiny living room.

  One of the men answered, polite but firm. ‘Possibly, Mrs Marshall, but we have to follow up all information.’

  ‘Information!’ Leah snapped. ‘An’ who be it give that information?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The man shook his head briefly. ‘I am not at liberty to say.’

  ‘But y’be at liberty to question folk, to accuse a young lad.’

  The woman was angry, the constable had warned of the likelihood. Detective Inspector John Allingham brushed a finger over the bowler hat held in his hands. ‘Nobody is being accused, Mrs Marshall, we simply wish to speak with the young man. Is he here?’

  ‘He be in the stable.’ Leah’s reply rattled like stones against a roof.

  ‘I’ll fetch him,’ Ann answered from the other side of the room.

  With a brief nod at the uniformed man accompanying him the inspector glanced at Ann. ‘Thank you Miss Spencer, the constable here’ll go along with you.’

  ‘Her ain’t like to tell him to run off!’

  A policeman at the door was not the most welcome sight at any time and now with a local murder it had to be more disagreeable.

  ‘I didn’t expect she would,’ the inspector said patiently, ‘but rules are rules, Mrs Marshall, and it is the constable who must request that the lad come for questioning.’

  ‘He’ll be like to tell you the same as y’ve ’eard already from the wench and me.’ Leah wasn’t going to be overridden easily. ‘Don’t know what else you expects, that lad wouldn’t harm so much as a fly, but I won’t go sayin’ the same for meself should I find who the one be a tryin’ to blacken of his name.’

  This woman had lost her own three children. She had taken the young woman and the younger lad into her home after they could no longer pay the rental of chapel property; two young people unrelated by blood. The boy also was not British. Waiting in silence the inspector made a mental review of his research.

  ‘You wish to speak with me.’

  The faintest trace of an accent, finely chiselled features, fair almost blond hair, blue-grey eyes: all fitted with the description he had been given; but he had not bargained for the open honesty in that face, the genuineness of the smile. The inspector accepted the chair along with the tea brusquely offered by Leah, smiling to himself as he laid aside his bowler hat. There was many a wealthy home he’d had cause to visit could learn a lesson or two in hospitality from these people; worried as they were at a police visit, it did not permit the teapot to rest on the hob.

  ‘Your name is Alec Romney, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘It is all right to call you Alec?’

  Smiling at the ready ‘of course, sir’, the inspector stirred milk into the hot liquid, sipping from time to time while listening quietly to Alec’s account of leaving Russia to arrive eventually in Wednesbury. It accorded perfectly with the account heard earlier from the girl.

  ‘The night before last,’ he asked as Alec finished speaking, ‘can you tell me where you were let us say between the hours of six and nine in the evening?’

  ‘Yes sir.’ Alec’s grin was rueful. ‘I was at Hill Rise. I stayed later than I should . . . it worried Grandmother Leah.’

  ‘Hill Rise be Edward Langley’s farm over towards King’s Hill.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Allingham acknowledged the constable, then to Alec, ‘What time did you leave?’

  ‘Mr Langley’s clock showed a few minutes past six.’

  ‘Did Mr Langley accompany you back to this house?’

  ‘No sir, I . . . I rushed off without saying goodnight, it was rude of me.’

  ‘Was time your only reason for leaving so suddenly?’

  Alec answered after a brief pause. ‘No sir. Not entirely, it . . . it was something I read in Mr Langley’s newsp
aper.’

  ‘A newspaper report?’ The inspector echoed.

  ‘Be ’ere . . .’ Leah passed a folded newspaper, her finger tapping the relevant section.

  ‘ ‘‘The Russian Tsar and his family to be put on trial.’’ ’ The inspector looked up from reading. ‘Why would that have you leave the Langley place without a word?’

  ‘The lad be worried,’ Leah came in quickly. ‘His folks be back there, with all that be goin’ on in that country he be feared there’ll be neither folk nor home left for him to go back to. Ain’t you never took y’self off when it seemed worry were all too much, d’ain’t you never fear when you was a lad!’

  ‘War is a bad time when it’s nation against nation but civil strife, friend fighting friend, would I imagine be even more dreadful, and news such as what be reported there be bound to set folk at one another’s throat. So I understand you being worried for your family. I hope you hear soon that they are safe.’

  Leah took back the newspaper, her eyes flashing anger the policeman’s words had not appeased. ‘Be that all – be you done wi’ your questionin’?’

  ‘Not quite.’ Inspector Allingham glanced again at the boy. ‘Alec, you said you left Hill Rise a few minutes after six, is that correct?’ At Alec’s nod he went on, ‘And you arrived here at this house at what time?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know. I didn’t think to look at the clock.’

  Evasion? The inspector wondered.

  ‘It were goin’ on twenty past eight, least that were the time showed on that there clock and it don’t never be more’n a minute or two out. But y’can ask of Edward Langley, the chimes of St Bartholomew’s clock can be ’eard clean across the town, and with his bein’ out on the heath he couldn’t help but hear the quarter-hour soundin’.’

  Collusion? They could have worked all of this out between them. When the constable finished writing Allingham said, ‘Hill Rise Farm, Constable, how long do you estimate it would take me to walk from there to this house?’

  ‘Hmm!’ The constable pondered a minute. ‘Depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Well sir, I means whether y’be walkin’ by way of the town or else across the ’eath. Comin’ along of the town I would say a man should do it in ’alf an hour, bit longer for a woman her not p’raps ’avin’ the stride of y’self.’