Striking Murder

by AJ Wright

  It had been Father Brady who found the body in the dark alleyway. He’d spent the next few days telling all and sundry what he’d found in gruesome detail.

  The ould gossip.

  She wondered if God knew her deepest thoughts, if Saint Patrick’s spirit had somehow read her thoughts and whispered them in His ear, the thought that, in some macabre way, she and Father Brady shared a common bond. A bond of blood.

  Quickly, she shook her head, turned away from the open confessional and walked past the startled old woman who was about to kneel and begin her first Hail Mary. She pushed open the heavy wooden door at the back of the church and emerged into the starry night, unshriven.

  Arthur Morris had been washed and cleaned. Now, in the parlour, he had been laid out in his open coffin, the expression on his face a testament more to the undertaker’s sublime skill than to any sign of peace in death. His eyes were closed, and his lips gently pressed together. There was an uncharacteristic smoothness that swept down from his cheeks and traced the contours of his cheekbones with the coldness and detachment of a statue. Nevertheless, the immediate impression was one of contentment and reconciliation, the ideal that all undertakers aspire to.

  His widow, Prudence Morris, forced her eyes away from his face and gazed instead at the two tall candles, one at either side of the coffin where the small, makeshift altar had been thoughtfully and tastefully erected by the undertaker.

  ‘We must make a point of thanking Mr Pendlebury,’ she said slowly, as if her words were adopting a prematurely funereal pace.

  ‘We will.’

  Ambrose Morris stood beside her, lost in his own thoughts.

  ‘This is very good. Very good. Arthur would have been content.’

  They remained there paying their respects for a long time. Nothing more was said. Each, in their own way, was reliving past scenes.

  Ambrose saw a young boy climbing a tree, yelling down to him that he could see hundreds and hundreds of chestnuts and he was going to reach out and eat as many as he could before Ambrose could taste even one. Ambrose at first ignored his older brother, for he was too preoccupied with the splendid gift from their father, a tricycle that he wheeled round and round the garden until he was forced to pause to catch his breath.

  ‘No!’ he shouted upwards into the foliage. ‘Don’t eat any.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because they’re horse chestnuts, you ninny fool. They’ll rot your gut.’

  ‘You’re lying! Just because I’ve got them and you haven’t! You look silly on that thing. You’re not a horse, you know.’

  ‘And you look silly up that tree. You’re not a bird, you know. It’s sweet chestnuts we ate last week, Artie. They’re not the bloody same. Now get down here at once or I’ll tell Father.’

  Ambrose closed his eyes, trying to keep the memory fresh. Such a simple memory from so long ago, but the insidious thought slithered into his mind, the sort of gruesome but casual logic that the presence of death seems to bring with it: what would have happened that day if I’d let him eat the damned things? Would he have died then and there? Should we therefore regard the intervening years as a kind of bonus?

  He shook his head and, without a word to his sister-in-law, he left the room. Prudence Morris remained where she was, gazing down at her late husband’s hands, clasped lightly together in peace.

  She saw a much older, more worldly-wise Arthur of only two years ago, standing on the stage in the public hall in King Street and speaking to the audience of the marvels they were about to see. The place was packed with miners – most of them from his own pits – sitting proudly, their chests thrust forward as if they were the star attraction – with their wives and their children beside them, an excited air of curiosity and amusement filling their expressions as they waited for the show to begin.

  ‘These lantern slides,’ Arthur had begun, ‘are the very first in the world to show what life is like for your husbands and your sons and your brothers and your fathers. Our colliers are the finest working men on this land – and beneath it!’ He had paused while the audience clapped his humour. He had seemed the beneficent owner, benign and caring, the antithesis of the Beelzebub he had since become. He had even invited the families left devastated by the explosion of a few years previously, given them a special meal in the committee room at the back of the hall, making sure that he gave each and every one of the bereaved his special attention.

  The door opened and Andrew came in. Neither of them acknowledged the other as he came to stand facing his mother, the coffin between them. He looked down at his late father, at the closed lips, and he too heard echoes from the past.

  Had those words, those terrible words, come out of those lips? Surely, at moments like this, you were supposed to recall the good times between you. He shook his head, and was surprised to find a tear falling down, landing on the velvet edging that ran around the coffin. Prudence looked at him and closed her eyes for a few seconds to show both understanding and consolation. But her son was far away, deafened by the roar of his father’s voice …

  ‘Don’t think for one moment that I won’t! Do you hear me? There’s Lydia Merkham, for instance. Look at the wealth she’d bring with her!’

  ‘Lydia Merkham? With the buck teeth and the squint? I’ve met her once! That was enough. I don’t feel anything for her at all. Nothing!’

  ‘Keep the other, by all means keep her! But as a side dish, not the main bloody course!’

  ‘I love her!’

  ‘Love! Don’t be bloody ridiculous! You sound like something out of a damned romance. Besides, this paragon of beauty, this bitch from Hades, might not be around for much longer.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘You won’t do anything to …?’

  ‘End this silliness, Andrew. Now.’

  ‘I refuse.’

  ‘You will marry that slattern over my dead body! Do you hear? Over my dead body!’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The funeral of Arthur Morris, colliery owner and president of both the South Lancashire Coal Owners’ Association and the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, was a suitably grand affair. The family had listened to advice from those who argued that a display of sombre pageantry might be unsuitable in the present climate; many of the people were badly affected by the strike; children were looking pale and emaciated despite the many soup kitchens in the borough; and some of the more hot-headed of the strikers might take the opportunity to voice some sort of protest not only at the way Arthur Morris conducted himself in life but at the ostentatious way he was leaving it.

  But others had argued differently.

  Arthur had done much to enrich the town; his collieries were the most profitable in the whole of Lancashire and the cannel coal they produced was internationally acknowledged as the best coal in the world. He had personally granted a local vicar and amateur photographer unlimited access to his mines in order to capture his men at work despite fears that the indiscriminate use of flash powder underground would cause explosions, thus ensuring that the back-breaking labours in the bowels of the earth were preserved for future generations. Furthermore, the floral tribute from the Miners’ Federation – a magnanimous gesture, given the circumstances – had touched them greatly.

  Besides, he was a father and a husband and deserved the splendid journey to the family tomb.

  At Captain Bell’s instigation, however, police constables were strategically placed along the route, two men outside every public house where the trouble, if it came, would doubtless originate. A detachment of soldiers from the East Lancashire Regiment had been put on alert and given a temporary billet in the drill hall on Powell Street, where they sat around playing cards and waiting for the series of whistles that would signify serious disorder and ensure their immediate response.

  Yet the whistles would remain silent that day.

  And so the procession set off from Standish, the snow thick and stubbor
n beneath skies grey and heavy with the threat of yet more snow. The hearse was a magnificent carriage with glass walls and tasteful purple fittings drawn by four horses decked in black ostrich feather plumes and preceded by an attendant attired in black silk. The lead-lined coffin could be clearly seen beyond the black silk curtains that lay open, its elm veneer glistening dully in the half-light that caught also the silver trim of the handles and the nameplate. Behind came the family in the mourning coach, velvet drapes drawn closed with the merest slip of a gap to indicate the presence of those inside.

  Many people lined the route down Wigan Lane, past the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary and the gates to Haigh Hall, which were suitably decked in black cloth on the personal orders of Lord Crawford himself, who travelled with the cortege behind the family, along with the countless other dignitaries. Here, outside the gates to the magnificent ancestral home, the cortege paused for a while. The air was filled with the whispered asides of the crowd and the impatient snorting of the horses which sent small billows of cloud into the bitterly cold air. The labouring classes thought the pause was merely a mark of respect to the living as well as the dead – Lord Crawford, after all, was a very important figure in the town – yet those closer to the family knew the real reason the procession stopped in this place: Arthur Morris had become, for a brief exhilarating moment, the man who made the Prince of Wales laugh. It was one of his fondest memories, and it had been at the express suggestion of Lord Crawford himself that the deceased should be allowed to savour his moment of royal triumph one last time. The family had readily and gratefully agreed.

  As the sombre procession moved slowly down past Mab’s Cross – that sad little monument to a woman’s unknowing betrayal in the early fourteenth century – Michael Brennan stood and watched the proceedings. Ellen and Barry were with him, listening to the creak and groan of the carriage wheels and the crunching sound they made whenever they reached unbroken snow.

  Funerals were a part of life, and if his son were to grow into the sort of man he wanted him to be then it was necessary to show him how to conduct himself in the common decencies of life. Ellen had agreed, reluctantly, although she would much rather have the boy safe and warm in front of the fire on a day like this, and she held Barry’s hand while her husband held the other.

  Brennan looked at the people, thousands of them stretching back towards Standish and forwards into the centre of town, the incline that took Standishgate towards Market Place and Wallgate beyond that. Every shop window, every vantage point along the way was filled with the curious and the respectful. It seemed, too, that every shop had been sombrely dressed in mourning, swathes of black crape tastefully twined around display windows, and those shops with blinds had brought them halfway down.

  And not one murmur of dissent, of abuse.

  The people bowed their heads and removed their caps and their bowlers and many of them made the sign of the cross as the late Arthur Morris passed them by. Brennan was suddenly struck by an emotion he found hard to put into words. There was a lump in his throat – these people around him, how badly they had suffered, and were still suffering, and indeed many of them blamed the man in the coffin a few yards from where they stood. Yet they showed him respect and made sure that his family could perform their sombre duties unhindered by any external indignities. Sometimes, when his job showed him the worst that people can do to each other, it was a comfort to catch a glimpse of the best they can do as well.

  The cortege had passed them by now and was beginning the laborious climb towards Standishgate, when he saw Constable Jaggery making his way through the crowds as people began to disperse.

  ‘What is it, Constable?’ he asked, catching the glint in his eye.

  Jaggery registered the young boy still clasping his father’s hand, touched his helmet to acknowledge the presence of Mrs Brennan, then whispered breathlessly into his sergeant’s ear.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Brennan, unsure if he had heard correctly.

  ‘I said “cocks”, Sergeant,’ he said, this time rather more loudly than he had intended.

  Constable Jaggery was aided in the recovery of his breath by a pint of porter in the Royal Oak. They had been fortunate to find a table; the place was filled with men who had been watching the funeral procession with their womenfolk, the latter having subsequently been despatched home with the children while the men ‘had a livener’. Many were reliant upon the budgetary generosity of the landlord, a man of business and foresight who allowed them a slate of credit each.

  ‘Now then,’ said Brennan. ‘What’s this about cocks?’

  ‘Last night, Billy Platt got word there was going to be a cockfight.’

  Brennan knew Constable Platt, a bright, alert young lad who was handy both with his fists and his brain, an unusual combination among the lower ranks.

  ‘Down in Taylor Pit Woods. So he took a few of the lads and went skulking in the trees waiting for the game to start. They even kept out of the way of the pipers.’

  It was common practice among the cockfighting brethren to stage lookouts around the widened perimeter of the fight in case the police showed an interest. Pipers – a local distortion of peepers – were well paid for their alertness. A huge amount of betting took place at such occasions, and during the present difficult times such gambling had increased markedly.

  Brennan took a sip of his ale, an impatient expression on his face.

  ‘Any road,’ Jaggery went on quickly, ‘it was only a two-cocker but there was big money on the fight. Billy reckoned there were over a hundred stood round waiting for the action.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, he’s not daft is Billy. There he was in the trees with five other constables and there were the speckies down in the hollow: hundred of them, five of us.’

  ‘So what did he do?’

  ‘Waited. No point in rushing down swinging their clubs when all they’d meet would be a gang of pitmen ready for a scrap. So he let the cocks fight – said you should’ve seen the spurs on one of ’em, all silver and long and thin as your mam’s needle. That little bugger won, wagers were paid out and the men went off in all directions. Then he sent three of the lads after the loser and two of ’em sought out the winner. Guess who it was?’

  The glare he gave told its own tale.

  ‘Eddie Cowap.’

  Brennan smiled. Eddie was a notorious gamer, involved in everything from cockfights to dog-scraps.

  ‘And that’s not the good news either,’ said Constable Jaggery, taking another annoying sip of porter before delivering his ‘good news’. ‘Eddie asked to see the one dealing with the murder. That’s you, Sergeant.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Says he has summat to say.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Well,’ said Jaggery, a little crestfallen. ‘I don’t know.’

  Brennan looked at him for a while until Jaggery could stand the glare no longer.

  ‘Well, Sergeant, he wouldn’t tell me, now would he? I asked him an’ he just laughed. Said he would only speak to the one in charge, the one he could do a deal with.’

  ‘A deal?’

  ‘Reckons what he has to say is worth us turning a blind eye. Seemed to think that was funny, but I couldn’t see the humour in it meself.’

  While the two policemen were deep in conversation, Bridie Haggerty walked along the path that led to the railway track. It dropped steeply, only a few footholds showing through the snow to the coarse grass that ran alongside the metal track. She could hear a bird warbling high above her head, and, as she looked up beyond the brickwork of the tunnel some fifty yards away, she thought she could see a small flock of starlings flittering around the inner curve of the tunnel. As she stumbled her way to the foot of the embankment, she made her way towards the gaping mouth of the tunnel, where the darkness seemed so inviting.

  Had it come to this? A matter of twenty minutes ago she’d been standing outside the Royal Hotel with hundreds of others and watching
in silence as his hearse trundled by.

  But she wasn’t like the hundreds of others, was she?

  Every time the carriage swayed and lurched as it negotiated the steep incline towards Market Place, Bridie felt the pain deep inside. Every loose cobblestone, every rut in the uneven surface of the road, was a fresh thorn piercing her flesh. She had felt feverish, the splendid array of mourning seeming to swim before her eyes, black merging into black, and all the while in a firm, harsh focus, the cold light glinted on the glass of the hearse. The distorted images of buildings, stretched impossibly tall, were reflected back as if even in death Arthur Morris had the power to change, to warp. She had had to lean a hand against the pillared entrance to the hotel, wave away the concerns of people she didn’t know.

  Suddenly, before she could reach the entrance to the tunnel, she saw one of the birds swoop low to land on a raised wooden ledge beside the track. It stared at her, its eyes blinking and unafraid, a single piece of straw in its beak. Bridie saw its breast. What at first she’d thought was black was really dark green. She stood absolutely still, for some reason unwilling to disturb the moment, reluctant to see the bird flap its wings and fly away.

  Then, as if in a dream, she heard the low, heavy whistle from the deep innards of the tunnel. A train was coming. She felt the damp grass around her feet, looked down at her skirts, scuffed and smeared with dirt. She stepped onto the track, turned to the black void of the tunnel, and thought of her da, and her mammy, and Father Higgins and Seamus and the kiss at a holy shrine. She thought of another kiss and how through the brute force of it she couldn’t breathe until the muffled scream burst forth and she fled from the laundry room, and she thought of the screams of childbirth, the tenderness of her babies at the breast. And then she heard, as the train rattled its way closer and closer, the sing-song voice of a wee girl and the simple words of the poem she had so loved as a child: