Striking Murder

by AJ Wright

  Then, as quickly as it descended, the gloom lifted once more as the door to the morning room burst open and the two children ran into the room, bringing with them the freshness, the chill and the exhilaration of outside. Snow clung to their outdoor coats and their faces were ruddy and glowing.

  ‘Now, you young scamps!’ Cox roared, the benign father once more. ‘Can’t you see I’m entertaining a guest?’

  ‘Are you singing a song?’ asked the girl.

  ‘Or playing the piano?’ asked the boy, whereupon they both giggled.

  Cox beamed. ‘Sometimes having a governess for their education is a bad idea, Sergeant. Gives ’em a way with words, eh?’

  Brennan smiled back. The twins bowed exaggeratedly to their father’s guest and scurried from the room, pleading starvation as an excuse to seek out the kitchen and the hot biscuits they had smelt earlier.

  During summer and autumn, the girls had grown accustomed to leaving through the mill gate, taking a right turn and strolling, arm in arm, towards the entrance to Mesnes Park, where they would sit on the grass, uncork their billy cans of cold tea, and eat the buttered bread that constituted their lunch.

  The early onset of winter had curtailed that. Today, for instance, the weather was so bad, the snow falling so heavily, that a stroll anywhere would render their clogged feet soaking wet and offer them nowhere to sit and talk. Instead, they sat in the covered entrance to the mill, or in the cloakrooms, or in the long draughty corridors that led to weaving rooms, card rooms, drawing rooms and mule rooms, anywhere, in fact, that offered any sort of shelter, if not warmth, from the snow. They were even prepared to endure the tiny motes of dust and cloth that swirled around the entire mill like some sort of internally produced snow, accepting the occasional crunch when they ate as dust settled unseen on their buttered bread.

  In the chill of the corridor, May Calderbank sat beside Molly and watched her pick at the thick crust she had obviously no intention of eating.

  ‘What’s Beaky’s wife like, Moll?’

  Molly said nothing.

  ‘I reckon she’s big and fat and gives him hellfire, that’s what I reckon.’ Her eyes glistened.

  Molly gave a small laugh. ‘Why?’

  ‘’Cos he hates us girls. Hates us ’cos his wife hates him. It’s like gettin’ his own back.’

  ‘You’re fourteen, May. Those are grown-up thoughts.’

  ‘I’ve got eyes. And I think he’s picked on at home. And for his wife to pick on him she’d have to be bigger than him, see? Else he’d be able to leather her.’

  Molly looked at the young girl and blinked slowly. Five years separated them. But it was hard for Molly these days to remember if she had ever been fourteen.

  ‘And I know summat’s upset you an’ all,’ the girl went on, buoyed by her logic. ‘Your eyes are red. That’s not the snow.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So is it Big Frank?’ May shuffled closer to her. Her large brown eyes narrowed, and a frown creased her forehead in an effort to bestow a confidential gravitas on her next words. ‘Y’know, I’ve heard some of the lasses talkin’ about ’im. They reckon you were daft throwin’ him over. They say he’s got a golden tongue on ’im. They reckon when he speaks at them public meetings he …’

  ‘It’s nowt to do with Frank Latchford.’

  ‘He didn’t take it well, did he?’ May went on, unable as yet to distinguish between truth and deception. ‘When you ended it?’

  ‘That was months ago.’

  ‘My mam reckons men have long memories. Says they never forget. Says they have the memory of an elephant and the brain of a cockroach. Or is it t’other way round?’

  Molly handed her the buttered crust. ‘Here. This’ll keep you quiet.’

  May took the food but wasn’t ready to let the subject drop just yet. ‘And the appetites of pigs. My mam says the one word men don’t understand is “no”.’ She giggled, suddenly a little girl again. ‘You can hear everything, can’t you? Through the walls I mean. Don’t know about men being pigs, you should hear me mam grunt and snort when she gets goin’!’

  At last she took off a chunk of bread and began to chew, a look of pride and maturity on her face.

  Donald Monroe, MB and CM (Edin.) had been house surgeon at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary for over fifteen years. He had seen great changes in medical practice in his time, not least of which was the development of anaesthetic and antiseptic treatment. But the concomitant rise in diseases such as tuberculosis and rickets often made him feel there was a malign presence manufacturing new diseases whenever a medical breakthrough was announced. Such thoughts stamped his sombre persona, tempered with a genuine sadness whenever he treated any poor child whose lungs were failing, or whose limbs were twisted and malformed.

  His standing within the community was such that those who recognised him found it hard to stop themselves from bowing whenever he passed them in the street. Perhaps, he told his amused dinner guests on more than one occasion, unlike priests and vicars, he had the unique, ectoplasmic aura of both saving lives and exploring the secrets of death. ‘A heady cocktail,’ he would add with a sly wink.

  At the moment he held Arthur Morris’s heart in his gloved hands. Detective Sergeant Brennan, who was standing on the other side of the stone slab, was reminded of the painting that had hung above his mother’s bed ever since he could remember – the Sacred Heart of Jesus, exposed beneath a glowing open chest with the Lord’s right hand extended higher than the left as if in a gesture of protest and supplication.

  ‘You can see the damage it caused. Right here.’

  Dr Monroe held it towards him, as if it were a particularly weighty trout he’d just caught.

  Brennan gazed down at the fatty object that glistened sickeningly beneath the bright glare of the star gaslight, and noted its intricate network of veins and arteries punctured at its base by a stab wound.

  ‘Quite fortunate, in a way,’ Monroe said cheerily.

  ‘Fortunate?’

  ‘If the wound had penetrated the apex of the heart, well then, death can take painfully longer. With each beat, you see, a little blood seeps out until it fills the chest and suffocates the victim. No, this fellow was fortunate on that score. You, on the other hand, are unfortunate. Perhaps if he had survived until the priest discovered him, he might have given a description of his assailant – even a name.’

  He placed the organ gently into a bowl, and Brennan watched it settle into position, as if it still held some trace of life. He cast a quick glance to the doorway, beyond which Constable Jaggery was seated on the long wooden bench normally used by exhausted theatre staff. He had flatly refused to join his sergeant, arguing that he had no desire to see his breakfast again.

  ‘Long-bladed knife. Narrow, tapering point. I don’t suppose you have retrieved the murder weapon?’

  Brennan shook his head. He held out no real hope of ever finding it.

  ‘He’s been stabbed just the once, but that was sufficient.’

  ‘Was it a frenzied attack?’

  ‘Not necessarily. There are no defence wounds on the victim’s arms, see?’ he held up two white, limp arms, ‘Which suggests the attack was sudden and completely unexpected. One thrust – but a deadly one.’

  ‘More than one attacker?’

  ‘Impossible to say for sure. One would expect some bruising around the arms or neck where the victim might have been restrained while the blow was struck, but there are no such indications.’ Dr Monroe shook his head. ‘The more I see of death, Sergeant, the more I despair of life …’

  He let his cheerless philosophy hang in the air.

  Brennan gave a silent nod. He recognised and felt an affinity with the sentiment. ‘What about the time of death?’

  Monroe took hold of a length of pipe to which a section of India rubber hose had been attached. He then proceeded to wash away the waste matter that had gathered in the hollow groove that ran the length of the stone slab.

  ‘Som
etime between ten and twelve, I should say, but given the very low temperature and the rapid onset of cadaveric rigidity …’ His words were drowned out by the thick gurgling from the grating at the lower end of the groove that led to the waste pipe.

  Once outside, Brennan gave his constable the gist of the preliminary findings of the post-mortem.

  ‘So meladdo finds himself in an alleyway up Scholes,’ Jaggery began after some period of thought. ‘An’ I know it’s a bugger him bein’ in Scholes in the first place, Sergeant, but it’s one thing bein’ there, an’ another thing altogether bein’ in an alleyway up there. Why, it’s like hidin’ in a bonfire just waitin’ for the match an’ then crawlin’ right into the middle.’

  Indeed it was, Brennan reflected. Why Scholes? And why in God’s name an alleyway in Scholes?

  They both pulled the collars of their greatcoats around their faces to ward off the bitter cold. The snow was coming down so thickly now it was difficult to see any great distance. Once on the main road, they steeled themselves for the trudge down Wigan Lane into town and the relative warmth of the police station.

  Very few carriages were around, the conditions rendering any sort of vehicular travel a serious risk. Even the trams were now few and far between. The sky was heavy and leaden, and lamps were already lit inside every shop they passed, even though it was early afternoon.

  Outside the entrance to the Griffin public house they saw a long queue of men, women and children, the children dressed in nothing much better than rags. Many of them wore their mothers’ scarves and shawls around them to ward off the cold, while the mothers themselves stood as close to the pub wall as they could. Their menfolk were beside them, heads held high and defiant despite the snow sticking to their threadbare coats. One child reached down to mould a snowball and was about to hurl it at another child a few yards ahead in the queue, but a snapped command from a distinctly unamused father, quickly followed by a clip around the ear, brought about a surly quiescence.

  ‘Poor sods,’ Constable Jaggery mumbled as they passed the long queue.

  ‘Be the only food some of them will have all day,’ Brennan added.

  There were several similar scenes being replayed throughout the borough: soup kitchens in pubs, church halls, temperance bars and Mission Halls. He thought of his own son, and how fortunate they were that he was employed, and earning. To imagine little Barry wracked with hunger and clutching his gut in the middle of the night …

  Through a window, he caught a glimpse of the landlord standing behind the bar in the vault, ladling hot steaming soup into the row upon row of proffered bowls, and the sparkle of gratitude in the children’s eyes as they pushed themselves from the serving area to enjoy their meal. It was now common knowledge throughout the borough that the publicans of the region had, by and large, provided basic food for a large proportion of the populace, and the Miners’ Federation had promised their unstinting support would not be forgotten.

  ‘Damn this bloody strike,’ he said to himself, realising as he said it that it was the strike itself doing the damning.

  Ambrose Morris MP sat in the first-class carriage of the LNWR Railway, and stared out of the window at the fields covered in snow. He was an imposing man, tall, broad-shouldered and bewhiskered, with a pair of steel-blue eyes that served him well in committee. Many who knew him only slightly or by reputation saw the elegantly dressed exterior and judged him a dandy, and it was true that he took great pains with his appearance. He liked the sharp cut of a well-made bespoke suit, the elegance of a dark waistcoat offsetting a fine silk shirt, and the sober formality of a frock coat. Indeed, he looked down at the coat he was now wearing and nodded his approval – it wouldn’t do to arrive at the station like some holidaymaker, with his brother having suffered such a grievous end.

  To think, only a few short months ago Arthur had been filled with a transatlantic optimism when he returned from the Chicago World Fair laden with gifts for himself, Andrew and Prudence. He gazed down at the black hessian boots his brother had bought him in Chicago.

  ‘Hyer Boots from Kansas, Ambrose!’ Arthur had boasted proudly when he unwrapped them. ‘Show them to your fine friends in the House!’

  He smiled wanly at the memory, recalling the expression on Lord Salisbury’s face when he was informed of their provenance, giving Ambrose the soubriquet of Buffalo Bill, despite Ambrose’s objection on the grounds that they were unembellished with fanciful swirls of any description and were damned comfortable, thank you very much. Still, everyone thought it was a great jape.

  Thoughts of the Party Leader reminded him of the excitement, the frustration, of Westminster. In recent months he had been encouraged by the depositions of several of his constituents who hailed from the Emerald Isle and were filled with the fervour of hope that Mr Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill would at last be able to breathe above the waters of denial and procrastination, and that the Lords would for once forego its drowning. He had made what he considered to be intelligent and constructive speeches during the debates, even defying his own party on the issue and relishing the fight. But once again the Bill had been defeated and Gladstone had failed in his mission to ‘pacify Ireland’.

  Suddenly, as the wintry countryside rattled by, clouded occasionally by billows of steam from the engine ahead, he felt a wave of guilt fill him almost with despair. To think of politics at a time like this …

  His eyes, that had flashed defiance and challenge across the floor of the House and even, at heated moments, turned on declaimers seated alongside him in his own party, now looked distant, uncommunicative, an impression reinforced by the redness around the rims and the heavy lids that hung mournfully below the curved arch of his brows.

  In summer, this was a pleasant journey. The gently undulating countryside, the higgledy-piggledy hedgerows and winding country lanes would fill him with a joie de vivre that was difficult, if not impossible, to put into words. It was, he supposed, something akin to identity. It was the land.

  Something his great friend Sir James Acland, himself professor of the Royal College of Surgeons, once said, came back to him now. They had been cycling around the new velodrome at Herne, both founding members of the Westminster Cycling Club, and the conversation had moved along metaphysical lines. ‘You coal owners are explorers, Ambrose, just like us,’ Acland once reasoned. ‘Like surgeons, you know the land with an intimacy far from the remit of those farming the land or quarrying rock. Farmers caress the flesh and crop it like barbers, and the quarrymen, well let’s say they perform minor surgery – but you, my friend, cut deep. To bring to the surface a mineral that has never seen the light of day … why, it is surely reasonable to compare the entire process with the miracle of birth itself?’

  Thus, in the reverie inspired by steam locomotion, and a tedious journey from the capital, Ambrose Morris would normally spend his hours travelling north.

  Today, he thought about the brother he had lost, the brother who had been his youthful companion so long ago, in the days when they lay spreadeagled beneath their father’s billiard table and played endless games of Nine Men’s Morris.

  Why is childhood such a fascinating and yet melancholy place to visit? he wondered. A dark cave of craggy outcrops of rock, occasionally illuminated by some phosphorescence, a sudden memory that glows and is gone.

  What were your final moments like, Arthur? What thoughts flashed through your mind when the fatal blow was struck?

  He bit his lower lip and tried to banish morbid speculation from his mind, but it would not leave.

  Perhaps, in those last seconds of life, you left the brutality of that dreadful place and returned to childhood, to the nursery we shared, the tiny wooden figures we carved for our Noah’s Ark and the songs we learnt for spellings:

  ‘A was an apple that grew on a tree, B was a new boat that will hold you and me, C was the cat that caught all the mice, and D was a doll all dressed up so nice.’

  He glanced up and realised he had been singing the old ver
se softly, the man opposite pretending not to notice.

  Now, the snow streaked the window, flakes dissolving on impact, like the past, and he felt the beginnings of a severe headache. There was too much whiteness out there. He reached up and pulled down the blind.

  ‘And still only November,’ said the only other occupant of the first-class carriage, a huge ruddy-complexioned man who had introduced himself as the owner of a print works in Preston. He had spent a profitable few days in London examining new lithographic printing methods and it had taken half an hour of evangelising after pulling out of Euston before he realised his new-found companion, whose elegance of dress betokened a possible investor, was poor material for either conversation or conversion.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Ambrose Morris sat back and rested his head. Perhaps if he closed his eyes the incipient pain would subside.

  ‘Snow, sir. In November. It makes one wonder what the rest of the winter will be like.’

  ‘The winter will be cold and bitter,’ returned Ambrose, before finally closing his eyes and allowing the rattle and sway of the carriage to give him some respite, for a while at least.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘I am to meet with the family this afternoon to present my condolences and you tell me there have been no arrests?’

  Captain Bell stood gazing out of the window. He had his hands clasped firmly behind his back, the tips of his fingers white with the pressure.

  Beyond the frosted glass, he was watching the slow, laboured progress of a tram bearing the legend ‘Minorca Grill Rooms’ as it made its way through the mounds of snow along King Street. In front of the Theatre Royal, a small knot of men were huddled together, tiny steam clouds billowing from their mouths as they spoke animatedly, one man fisting the air to make a point the others evidently disagreed with. He could be a radical stirring up even more trouble, or he could simply be complaining to friends about his wife.