Striking Murder

by AJ Wright

  At eleven-fifteen the next morning, Andrew Morris stood on the steps of the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, watched the swirling snow beyond the covered entrance and inhaled the cold air deeply. He felt it catch against his throat, and imagined its cleansing properties frosting over the sad and impersonal horror of what he had just seen. The sight of his father laid out like that, so quiet, so unimportant …

  Immediately he regretted the thought. Unimportant.

  Twenty years ago, as a small child, he’d stood a few yards away from where he was now and stared in wide-eyed wonder at the Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra as they declared the new infirmary open. He couldn’t hear all of what His Royal Highness was saying, but he did catch the words ‘splendid new building’ uttered in rich rounded vowels. He’d been standing beside his mother that day, holding onto her gloved hand and marvelling at the colourful array of royal blue feathers streaming from her hat. Like a wild and beautiful bird, he thought at the time. My mother, the peacock.

  Standing on the steps just behind their Royal Highnesses, his father and Uncle Ambrose looked splendid in their morning dress, bowing their heads and smiling every time the prince uttered some whispered aside.

  Splendid. And important.

  He hadn’t been old enough to feel pride in seeing his uncle, as the town’s recently elected Member of Parliament, deliver the welcoming address to their Royal Highnesses, nor to appreciate the great honour bestowed upon his younger self by the Prince of Wales himself who, upon being presented with ‘this young nephew of mine, sir’ responded by leaning down and giving Andrew’s chin a rub and declaring, ‘What a capital little fellow!’ But he had been young enough to enjoy the many festivities that followed. After the ‘Grand Opening Ceremony’ he’d spent much of the time watching cycle races, wrestlers, military bands and, his secret favourite, the fairy grotto where he’d even played chase with some of the children from the labouring classes: grubby, foul-mouthed and utterly fascinating urchins who had sneaked in unseen by the large police guard.

  For years afterwards, he’d listened to the story of the Royal Banquet at Haigh Hall, where the royal couple had stayed. Of the Prince’s amazement at the gift of a plaque to their majesties carved out of black cannel coal.

  ‘Remarkable piece of work!’ the prince had declared.

  ‘We mined it for you, your Royal Highness, now you must mind it for us!’ his father announced to the amusement of all.

  The Prince of Wales had held his stomach, so heartily did he laugh at the drolleries. And soon the entire banqueting hall was roaring with laughter.

  ‘Not everybody can say they’ve made the heir to the throne laugh at a piece of coal!’ was to be his father’s climactic comment as he told and retold the historic moment.

  Now, Andrew gazed out at the snow-filled courtyard, the fresh ruts of carriage wheels and the people who tried to keep their footing as they passed by with their shoulders hunched, smothered by their own private concerns. He blinked away the memories.

  ‘Is there anything I can do, sir?’

  Andrew started a little as the words broke into his thoughts. ‘Sergeant Brennan. I thought you were still …’

  He gave a curt nod behind the policeman in the direction of the infirmary’s interior, and the small, claustrophobic room they had left.

  ‘Few formalities, a signature,’ Brennan replied. ‘I apologise again for having to put you through that. It’s never a pleasant duty, even when circumstances are more …’

  ‘Natural?’

  Brennan nodded.

  ‘It’s strange,’ said Andrew, allowing his gaze to drift beyond the main gates of the infirmary, across Wigan Lane to the entrance of Haigh Hall, the ancestral home to the 26th Earl of Crawford and one of his late father’s friends and business rivals. ‘How peaceful he looked.’ With a long, slow sigh, he said quietly, ‘“Fear no more the heat of the sun, nor the winter’s furious rages.”’ Then he put a hand to his forehead, pressing his fingers against the temples. ‘There are numerous arrangements I have to make. The undertaker, the funeral, mourning cards, and a hundred and one things I’m sure have slipped my mind. Shakespeare’s words focus on the dead, and not the consequences for the living.’

  Brennan looked at the bereaved son closely. It was a curious thing to say.

  ‘It will certainly be interesting,’ Andrew said with a wry smile.

  ‘What will, Mr Morris?’

  ‘The funeral.’

  ‘Interesting?’

  ‘He wasn’t the most popular figure in town, was he? My father was by far the most vocal of advocates supporting the wage reduction. I realise they are suffering great privations. And with winter now upon us …’ He turned and faced the detective. ‘I wonder if the townsfolk will – you know – express their disapproval in some way.’

  ‘I doubt it, sir. Whatever people feel, they have a deep sense of decency.’

  ‘Yes. Of course. Everything bows to death, doesn’t it? I just had a nightmare vision – crowds hissing, missiles flying, horses bolting – you can imagine.’

  Brennan pursed his lips. It was time for pragmatism. ‘You’ll appreciate that it’s my duty to find out who committed this heinous crime.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And I’ll therefore need to visit you, and speak not only to yourself but also your mother, your uncle – when he returns from London – and, of course, your staff.’

  Andrew flinched at the prospect of his mother facing what would inevitably be questions of the most distressing nature. But he merely nodded. ‘We sent word to my uncle yesterday, Sergeant. When he returns, as I’m sure he will as soon as is practicable, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘That would be kind, Mr Morris. I have already made arrangements to speak with Mr James Cox at his residence.’

  ‘It seems rather excessive, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What does?’

  Andrew cleared his throat. ‘It’s just, well, the fact that the Coxes dined with us two nights ago can surely have no bearing on what happened to my father after he left. Can it?’

  Brennan gave him a cold smile. ‘One of the things my chief constable finds annoying is what he calls my overzealousness. I would have thought that to be an admirable quality in a detective, wouldn’t you say so?’

  Andrew gazed into his eyes for a few seconds, then lifted his head to look up at the entrance to the infirmary. ‘He made the Prince of Wales laugh, you know.’ Without offering any sort of explanation for such a curious statement, he bade Brennan farewell, turned and walked away, his shoulders stooped into the bitter chill of the morning.

  The snow fell heavily. Through the half-moon windows high above the machinery, the girls cast the occasional furtive glance at the thick flakes caught up in the angry wind, seeming to dance like frenzied souls leering at them before swirling their way from the leaden sky to earth.

  The noise in Weaving Room Number Two at Ryland’s Mill was deafening, and yet a stranger visiting the room would be amazed to see the girls working the machinery, talking to each other with apparent ease and understanding. This mythical stranger would not, of course, realise how the girls had developed their unique way of conversing that transcended the roar of the shuttles and the constant whirr of belts and overhead pulleys. Lip-reading, and responding in exaggerated mime – or mee-mawing as it was known locally – was second nature to the girls, and it even came in useful beyond the factory gates, where they could communicate across a crowded pub and swap the latest gossip without leaving the side of their undiscerning escorts.

  Today, with ten minutes to go before their break, they took great delight in ruining the character of Mr Alfred Birch as he walked along the row upon row of weaving machines, keeping a careful and admonitory eye on every single one of the girls for what he always referred to in his monthly reports to Mr Ryland as their ‘congenital idleness’. His narrow moustache did nothing to hide the sharp overhang of his nose, which led inevitably to the soubriquet ‘Beaky’.
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  One of the girls, however, took no part in the ribaldry, keeping her head bowed low and giving her machine her fullest attention. As the overlooker walked past clasping his thin hands behind his back, a clump of soiled calico flew across and struck the girl in the chest. She looked up at the one who had thrown it, a pert, flighty little girl of fourteen who mouthed the words ‘What’s up?’

  Molly shook her head and bent to pick up the calico. She placed it in the waste box beside her.

  ‘You been skrikin’ Moll?’ the girl’s lips asked.

  ‘Mind your own business.’

  ‘Big Frank been botherin’ you again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, why have you been skrikin’ then?’

  ‘I’ve not.’

  ‘Tell Beaky you’re ill.’

  ‘May, just leave me alone, eh?’

  Molly sighed and looked at the overlooker’s straight back, his head perched aloft like a falcon sniffing warm flesh. ‘I’m all right,’ she said finally, and let her gaze drift upwards at the thickening storm.

  CHAPTER THREE

  James Cox was the sole proprietor of the Cox Iron and Steel Company. His sprawling acreage south of Wigan was one of the most highly productive works in the country, producing not only equipment for the mining industry but also locomotives, wagons, canal boats, textile machinery, and, six months previously, had been awarded the hugely remunerative contract to provide supplementary materials for the final stages of the new Blackpool Tower which was due to open in the summer of 1894.

  As Brennan stood in the small morning room waiting for Cox to arrive, he gazed out of the large window that overlooked a long, sweeping garden at the end of which two children – a girl and a boy of around the same age of six or seven – were busy constructing a snowman. They were wrapped in thick coats and mufflers and seemed to be enjoying the falling snow.

  Along the small overmantel surrounding the empty grate he saw several framed photographs of these same children in studied poses, their gilt frames resting on a dull purple fabric embroidered with tiny floral swirls that ran the length of the mantel.

  ‘To scold or not to scold, eh?’

  Brennan swung round to see James Cox standing with one hand on the open door. He was tall, heading inexorably towards corpulent middle age, and sported a well-trimmed beard beneath fleshy jowls. Although Brennan had seen Cox on several occasions, this was the first time he had actually spoken with him, and he was immediately struck by the bluff friendliness of the man, who now strolled over to stand beside him at the window. There was a faint smell of toilet soap on his skin.

  Cox smiled, understanding Brennan’s confusion, and nodded to the innocent scene beyond the window.

  ‘The twins. At this time of the year it’s always bloody difficult being a father, eh? Tell me, Detective Sergeant … what did Hastings say your name was?’

  ‘Brennan, sir.’

  ‘Aye. That’s it. Now tell me, should I let ’em stay outside and get sodden to the skin in all that bloody snow, or should I wield my heavy hand and get ’em in out of harm’s way, eh?’

  Brennan shrugged. ‘Fresh air does them good. And I can see they’re well wrapped up.’

  ‘Bloody good advice an’ all. In my opinion there’s far too much mollycoddlin’ goes on. It’s what makes children weak and sluggish, don’t you think?’

  Without waiting for an answer, he went back and closed the door gently, then walked over to one of the two armchairs in the room. With a lazy wave of the hand he invited his visitor to occupy the other, with only a small table between them. ‘My wife conducts all her business in here, so we’d best not muck it up, eh?’

  The man seemed pleasant enough, Brennan thought, but the lightness in his voice was belied by the shrewd way he looked at him, rather as if he were weighing him up and considering which way to continue with the meeting – with bluffness and bonhomie, or sharpness and condescension? Of course, reflected Brennan, this was a man who had built up a powerful business with an international reputation. Such men had a strength they sometimes liked to conceal.

  ‘Now that we’re both settled, so to speak, perhaps you can get on with business, Sergeant Brennan.’

  ‘Yes, sir. It concerns the incident in Scholes on Saturday night.’

  Cox lowered his voice, glancing quickly towards the window. ‘The murder of Arthur Morris.’

  A plain speaker, then.

  Brennan cast aside the kid gloves, but dropped his own voice to barely more than a whisper, just the same.

  ‘He was found stabbed to death in an alleyway. Not long after he broke up the dinner party you were attending.’

  Cox gave a wan smile. ‘“Dinner party” makes it sound grander than it was. Just old friends sharing old tales. Ambrose was going back to London on an early train. We like to meet up now and again; keep up with all the rumours from that bloody cesspit in Westminster.’

  ‘You’ve known both Arthur and his brother for a long time?’

  ‘Thirty odd years.’

  ‘This must then be difficult for you, I know, but …’

  ‘Not half as difficult as it must be for Prudence.’

  ‘Mrs Morris?’

  ‘Aye. It’ll hit her hard, will this. She’s not in the best of health, as you’ve no doubt seen for yourself.’

  ‘I have indeed. Now, if you could tell me anything at all about that night …’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Arthur Morris. What sort of mood was he in?’

  Cox laughed mirthlessly. ‘Same bloody mood he was always in. Cantankerous. Unyielding. Treats advice the way a blast furnace treats coke.’

  ‘There was a difference of opinion?’

  ‘That suggests a discussion, Sergeant. There was no bloody discussion with Arthur, not when it came to this godawful strike. His way or no bloody way. That was Arthur Morris’s negotiating stance and the devil take the hindmost.’

  ‘You didn’t agree with him?’

  Cox flickered an angry glance at him before redirecting his gaze to the garden, where the squeals of his children could clearly be heard. He blinked a few times before replying. ‘Neither of us did. Ambrose informed us that the president of the Board of Trade is furious with Arthur and the rest of the owners after the catastrophe of Westminster Palace Hotel.’

  Brennan had read about the unproductive meeting in London between the owners and the miners’ representatives, and the ‘generous’ offer from the owners to reduce the miners’ wages not by the original figure of twenty-five per cent that they had insisted upon, but by the renewed figure of fifteen per cent, an offer they considered the height of generosity and which was rejected summarily by the miners.

  ‘So the talk around the table was of the progress of the strike?’

  ‘Progress! That’s a bloody good one! Ambrose told his brother in no uncertain terms that things are coming to a head in Parliament. He’s heard a whisper, only a whisper, mind, that Gladstone himself intends to take charge. Imagine that, Sergeant – an industrial dispute being grabbed by the scruff of the neck by our very own prime minister. What next, eh? Holidays for the undeserving poor?’

  Brennan allowed the revolutionary concept to settle between them like dust before responding. ‘Were you there when Mr Morris received the letter?’

  Cox’s eyes narrowed. ‘That awful banging, you mean?’

  ‘Banging?’

  ‘Young Andrew had made his excuses – I think he was either embarrassed by the forthrightness of the discussion or angry at his father for his stubbornness, I don’t know, but he’d got up, made his excuses and gone. About ten minutes later – give or take – we retired to the smoking room while the ladies stayed behind. Ambrose went to bring a couple of particularly fine Cubans from his room while Arthur and I settled ourselves ready for a good smoke. No arguing in that room, wouldn’t be proper, y’see? Time and a place and all that. Ambrose was halfway down the stairs clutching his box of cigars when the most awful banging was heard fr
om the front door. Arthur and I both rushed out into the hallway just as one of the maids ran to the door and swung it open, but there was no bugger out there. Bloody ghost, eh?’

  ‘Could whoever had been knocking there have simply run off?’

  ‘Must have done. Ambrose says he thought he caught sight of someone skulking through the bushes at the side of the driveway, but he couldn’t be sure from where he was standing on the stairs. Neither could the maid.’

  ‘I see. What happened then?’

  ‘The maid pointed to the letter box. They’ve got a sort of cage-like contraption for catching the letters. There was a letter lying there. She swore it hadn’t been there before.’

  ‘Did Arthur Morris open it?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing much. Muttered something about having to go out and would I mind? I said of course not and asked him what was the matter.’

  ‘What did he say to that?’

  ‘Told me to mind my own bloody business while I still had one.’

  Cox had spoken that last sentence with bitterness.

  ‘What exactly did he mean by that?’

  Cox shrugged. ‘Some peevish reference to Blackpool, I expect.’

  ‘Blackpool?’

  A long, heavy sigh. He stood up and went to the window, at first watching the twins at play, then rattling on the glass with his knuckles. ‘In!’ he shouted with a backward jerk of his right hand. ‘Now!’ He spoke, almost to himself. ‘I won’t have that sort of behaviour, not to be tolerated.’

  Brennan was perplexed but stood up quickly. ‘Blackpool, Mr Cox?’

  He shook his head and stroked his beard. Then he turned round and faced Brennan. ‘If this strike continues, my foundries will be permanently damped down. I’ll lose the contract for the new tower. A large part of the discussion that night was about exactly that – me, minding my own business.’

  A dark gloom had settled upon his features. A sign perhaps of the tremendous financial pressure he must be under, Brennan reflected. There were gradations of suffering wrought by this dispute.