Striking Murder

by AJ Wright

  Molly returned to her work, her mind in as much turmoil as the flurries outside.

  There was Andrew, of course. The funeral had been a very hard time for him and something she was only too familiar with: seeing your own father laid to rest is the darkest of days, and she remembered the long, drawn-out process the three of them had had to go through – the explosion, the agonising wait, the discovery, the inquest – before they could finally lay Father in his grave. Now there was a plaque at the Morris colliery with his name on. His and the others. It was as if he hadn’t left the pit after all.

  She knew there had to be a time of separation. How bad would it be if she ran after Andrew like some foolish young thing? And yet she felt a pain in her gut. A real, physical pain of longing. Selfish. Of course. She should be – what was the word? – patient. But there was a part of her, hidden beneath all her thoughts, that gnawed away with the fear that he would never return to her.

  Had last Saturday night been for nothing, then?

  But when she turned away from such miseries she found her mind blown dizzily to the thought of her mother, and the strangeness that had recently wrapped itself around her like a black cloak.

  She was fretting about something. It could be the worry of all mothers in the town: the spectre of starvation haunted every household, and poor wee Tommy was looking thinner by the day – but somehow she felt that wasn’t the cause. She herself was still earning a wage, and her mother’s cousin in Liverpool always seemed to make some contribution to the family purse whenever Bridie went over there to see her.

  They were luckier than some. Luckier than most.

  Yet ever since the murder in Scholes not fifty yards from their back door, her mother had been different.

  Still, she told herself with a sad shake of the head, the same could be said of her: Saturday night with Andrew had changed everything.

  Which naturally took her thoughts swirling back to him.

  It was with some relief that she heard the whistle that signalled the end of the shift. At least on the chilly walk back up to Scholes she would be able to link arms with the other girls and laugh at nothing in particular.

  As she got through the iron gates, her head covered in a thick scarf and her hands stuck deep in her coat pockets, she fell into step with May and a couple of others and began the walk into Wigan town centre, quite unaware that a dark figure had detached itself from the doorway of a shop across the street and was following the same route back into town.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘Not like his lordship to get his bloody hands dirty,’ said Constable Jaggery as he walked alongside Sergeant Brennan.

  True, he wasn’t in the best of moods, and it had seemed to him that the chief constable accompanying Micky Brennan on a murder investigation was an insult both to himself and to the sergeant. Besides, his search for the one-eyed man had so far proved fruitless, and he had been forced to endure the worst of responses from uppish reception clerks and pugnacious landlords:

  Eye, eye, Captain!

  You can rely on me, pal – I’ll keep an eye out for ’im!

  Never turn a blind eye to the truth, Constable. That’s my motto.

  What compounded his surliness was the unwelcome invitation to resume his working relationship with Brennan by making the long trek back up to Scholes when he had half an hour before his shift ended, and already the late afternoon gloom was bringing with it a sharp lowering of temperature. It would be a bloody cold night. Ding-Dong Bloody Bell hadn’t insisted on accompanying his sergeant this time, had he? The bastard.

  ‘Captain Bell is a conscientious officer and I will hear no more mutinous observations on his desire to seek out the truth. Is that clear, Constable?’

  But Brennan tempered his admonition with a mischievous wink.

  At last they stood outside number 7, Scholefield Lane. The home of the Haggerty family. The curtains were drawn, but they could see shadows moving beyond the flimsy fabric. A few seconds after Brennan’s imperious knock, the front door opened and a young boy of around ten years old swung the door fully open, then just as swiftly moved to close it again as his eyes registered the uniform of Constable Jaggery. It was the latter’s boot that prevented the door from closing.

  ‘Mam!’ the boy yelled. ‘Mam!’

  Bridie Haggerty appeared at the doorway, took one glimpse at the uniform and reversed her son’s attempts at exclusion by slowly opening the door. ‘Stand there much longer,’ she said with a throw of her head in the general direction of the street, ‘an’ they’ll have enough to natter about for a week. In with youse.’

  Brennan saw the signs all around the room: beside the front door, a tiny bowl hanging from the wall by a nail containing holy water; the small statue of the Blessed Virgin on the mantelpiece, and a crucifix at the foot of the stairs. Even the mahogany longcase clock standing in the far corner of the room had a set of rosary beads hanging from the small round door handle. He noticed the way the clock’s polished surface gleamed far brighter than anything else in the room, and its glass panels had a sparkle that was missing on other, far cheaper ornaments. On a small table beside the clock, a red votive light was flickering. A feeble fire was burning in the grate – lumps of coal supplemented by jagged slivers of wood that occasionally gave off sparks and a belch of smoke that filled the room.

  The woman, he guessed, was Molly Haggerty’s mother, and her brown eyes, the gentle sweep of her brow, the boneline of her jaw, were all indicative of a once beautiful young girl. The thin wisps of grey already flecking her hair, the pinch in her narrowing cheeks and the creased lines around her eyes told a sadder tale.

  The young boy now stood beside his mother, keeping a wary eye on their visitors. Both his small fists were tightly clenched and ready to spring into action at any moment to defend his mother’s honour.

  ‘Well?’ She stood with hands on hips, challenging, but with more than a hint of apprehension in her voice.

  ‘We’re looking for Molly Haggerty. I presume you’re her mother?’

  ‘I am. Bridie Haggerty’s the name.’

  ‘Is Molly at home?’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘Where out?’

  ‘At work.’

  ‘And where is that?’

  ‘Ryland’s.’

  Bridie sat down in a small armchair by the fire. Her son remained standing, now with an arm resting protectively on her shoulder.

  ‘And when will she be back? The mills turned out a while ago now.’

  She looked up at the longcase clock in the corner.

  ‘She’s a bit late. I’m sure she won’t be long.’

  ‘I see. That’s a splendid clock, Mrs Haggerty.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Is that real mahogany?’

  ‘It is. My late husband bought it a year after we were married. Took him that long to save the money but he managed it.’ She lifted her chest, showing some irritation at having let slip something so personal. ‘Why do you want to speak with my Molly?’

  ‘Just a few questions. They concern the events of last Saturday night.’

  Both men noticed the change in complexion, the rapid whitening of her face. She said nothing but looked at the grate, and the ashes, some of them still glowing, in the pan beneath.

  Brennan went on. ‘That was the night they found the body of Mister Arthur Morris. Just round the corner from here, as it happens. He’d been stabbed.’

  A puzzled expression now creased her forehead. ‘An’ what in the name of all the saints has that got to do with my Molly?’

  Brennan saw the boy staring wide-eyed at him now. He cursed himself. There had been no need to mention the stabbing. ‘I’d rather ask your daughter, Mrs Haggerty.’

  Slowly, deliberately, she stood up and went over to the clock. She reached out and detached the rosary beads from the handle. Then, again with a slowness that seemed almost ethereal, she sat back down and held the first bead between finger and thumb, and her lips began to move as if s
he were starting to pray, her gaze never leaving the glow of the ashes.

  Brennan, who was standing beside her right shoulder, looked across at Jaggery, who stood at the other side. ‘Mrs Haggerty. Can you tell us where your daughter was last Saturday night?’

  ‘“… the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners …”’

  Jaggery shifted his weight from foot to foot. The look he gave his sergeant was distinctly uncomfortable. This was intrusive, standing here like this. While the woman was praying.

  But Brennan ignored the glance. He leant down and placed a hand on hers. Gently, he took the beads from her grasp and placed them on the arm of her chair. ‘It’s just a question, Mrs Haggerty. Where was she?’

  ‘Here. In bed. With her little brother.’

  ‘Yes, I mean earlier. Say, around eleven, twelve o’clock.’

  ‘Here. In bed. With her little brother.’

  He breathed in. ‘She go to bed early?’

  ‘Saves on coal. An’ Tommy couldn’t sleep. On account of the pigeon shoot the next mornin’. Promised me faithful he’d bring me a panful of pigeons,’ she reached up and placed a hand beneath her son’s chin. ‘Loves pigeon pie, my Tommy.’

  ‘Can you tell me if you’ve ever seen a stranger, a one-eyed man, hanging about the area?’

  At that, the boy shifted his stance and moved ever closer to his mother. He had a nervous pallor about his face now.

  Bridie brought her son close to her bosom, shielding his head with her hands. ‘Is it your intention to scare my son witless, Sergeant? Don’t you think he’s had enough nightmares to fill a lifetime after his poor da died?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Was it recent?’

  She shook her head. ‘Blast down the pit. Five years ago.’

  Brennan remembered the disaster as if it were yesterday. It had been twenty-three years since Rory and Ciaran had been killed, but time made no difference: pit blasts would always be with them. He saw the pain in her eyes and felt a dark fellowship. ‘The Morris Pit Disaster?’

  ‘Aye.’

  He watched her stroke the back of the boy’s head. ‘If you could tell me one way or another – about the gentleman I described.’

  ‘Sure I’d remember a devil like that, now, wouldn’t I?’

  He stared at her for a second or two then decided not to pursue the matter. She hadn’t actually said she hadn’t seen the fellow, but maybe it was her circuitous way of answering a policeman’s question, or perhaps she didn’t want to tell a lie in front of her son.

  He was about to suggest to Constable Jaggery that they should wait outside at the end of the street to waylay young Molly Haggerty when the front door opened and Molly entered quickly. When she saw the two visitors she slammed the door shut and removed her outer coat and headscarf with a hostile sniff.

  ‘Molly, love, these men …’ her mother began, but Molly cut her off.

  ‘I know who they are and why they’re here.’

  ‘Miss Haggerty,’ Brennan said with an air of authority. ‘If we could have a few moments of your time?’ He inclined his head towards the small kitchen beyond the front room, but immediately Bridie placed both hands on the arms of the chair in a defiant gesture.

  ‘Anythin’ you’ve got to say to me daughter ye can say in front of meself. There’s no secrets in this house.’

  Molly, however, nodded to Brennan and raised a hand to invite him through to the kitchen. Then, just as her mother was about to protest, she pointed to little Tommy, whose head was still hidden from view, and said, ‘I won’t be long, Mam. No point upsetting everyone now, is there?’

  Bridie looked up at her daughter and then gave a feeble nod. Brennan knew that whatever passed between himself and Molly would later be revealed to her mother, and he got a strong impression of closeness between the two women. Still, for the moment he was glad to be able to speak to the girl without hindrance.

  She leant back against the white slopstone below the back window. The tiny yard was now bathed in darkness, though Brennan could see once more the swirls of snowflakes that were gaining in strength. They were in for another heavy fall of snow, he mused, and wondered if Ellen had built up a roaring fire, with Barry sitting before it, one side of his face a bright red from the heat of the coal as he played, undisturbed, with his soldiers. He thought of the young boy in the next room.

  ‘Well?’ said Molly, breaking into his thoughts. ‘I’ve just done a day’s work and I’m fair beat, so can we get this over with?’

  Brennan coughed. Jaggery gave him an amused smirk.

  ‘We’ve had information that you are seeing Andrew Morris. The son of …’

  ‘Yes, I know full well who he is. And I know full well who gave you this information.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Frank Latchford needs to mind his own business.’ Her voice contained an element of scorn.

  ‘But you have been seeing Andrew Morris?’

  ‘Yes.’ A defiant lift of the chin.

  ‘And how did his father respond to the news that his son was seeing a mill girl?’ Brennan knew there was no need to handle this one with kid gloves.

  Molly shrugged. ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Had Andrew told his father about you?’

  A faint smile creased her lips. ‘You mun ask him yourself.’

  ‘I will. But for the moment I’m asking you.’

  She pushed herself away from the stone sink and turned her back on the two policemen.

  Over her shoulder, Brennan could just make out the reflection of her features in the window. She was biting her lip and gazing downwards. An attempt to control her emotions?

  Finally, she said, ‘Whatever passed between ’em, he didn’t share it with me. Only that … he said his dad was like a sea wall. Said it needs a constant pounding before …’

  She whirled round, conscious of how her words could be misconstrued. ‘I mean …’

  Brennan nodded quickly by way of reassurance. ‘I think I understand the symbol, Molly.’

  She seemed to relax a little, and licked her lips.

  ‘We’ve also been informed that someone has been asking questions. About you and your family. A man with only one eye.’

  Was there a flicker of recognition on her face?

  ‘Not easy to forget,’ he added.

  ‘No.’ She paused before saying, ‘but you might like to know I was followed after work tonight, Sergeant, only this one had two eyes.’

  He frowned at the unexpected statement. ‘Followed by who?’

  ‘Your informant. Frank Latchford.’

  ‘And why on earth would he follow you?’

  ‘Oh, he soon caught up with me. Said he needed to warn me. About you comin’ to see me. He told me what he’d told you.’

  ‘About the one-eyed man?’

  ‘Yes. An’ I told him the same as I’m telling you now. I’ve never met the man. And, as you say, he wouldn’t be easy to forget. So as to why he’s been askin’ questions about me and my family, I’m as much in the dark as you. Now if that’s all, Sergeant?’

  ‘Just one more question, Molly. Then you can get your feet up.’

  She gave a heavy sigh. ‘Go on.’

  ‘What were you doing last Saturday night?’

  There was another flicker now on her face, but it was one generated by fear.

  ‘I was here.’

  ‘All night?’

  ‘Yes. Ask me mam. It was a bad night, as I recall.’

  ‘Oh it was certainly that, Molly. You didn’t step out at any time?’

  ‘Aye, I had a game of hopscotch about midnight.’

  Jaggery, whose sense of irony was still in its embryo stage, looked astounded at this new piece of evidence. It was only later that Brennan told him they could take that part of her statement with a pinch of salt.

  The walk from Scholes back to the police station in King Street takes ten minutes. But as the two
of them made their way down the steep hill, flanked on either side by a huddled collection of shops and public houses, Brennan was put in mind of a story he had once read as a child, where the cowboy hero was forced to run the gauntlet through a double line of savage, tomahawk-wielding Apaches. Constable Jaggery’s uniform, a reminder of the numerous arrests recently carried out under Captain Bell’s orders, seemed to inspire the slouchers in every public house doorway to spit out some vile obscenity, daring them to respond. But they both knew that any response would be met with casual brutality, so Brennan advised extreme caution, a course of action alien to his seething companion. Luckily for them, the bitterly cold weather and the heavier fall of snow kept most of them inside, where they would nurse a half pint for an hour in memory of happier drinking times.

  To take Jaggery’s mind away from the insults – Come round t’back wi’ me, ye fat bastard, an’ I’ll shove that truncheon up thi arse! being by far the mildest of the threats – Brennan urged him to ponder the problems they were faced with in hunting down the murderer of Arthur Morris.

  ‘It all stems from the letter that he received,’ he said, ignoring the louring brute outside the Rose and Crown.

  ‘It’s a puzzler, is that.’ Jaggery, gritting his teeth, shook his head. ‘I mean, it’s one thing workin’ out it come from this bloody place. What with them letters spellin’ it out an’ all, but it doesn’t give us any idea who sent the bloody thing, does it?’

  ‘There was no name, certainly.’

  Two children, sitting on the steps of the Harp Inn, picked up some loose stones and hurled them at the two policemen, one narrowly missing Brennan’s right ear.

  ‘Unless Arthur Morris recognised the writing.’

  ‘Bloody unlikely, that, Sergeant.’ Jaggery consigned the faces of their two young assailants to memory. They’d be feeling his fist soon enough.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s the nature of the letter that troubles me. How many people here in Scholes would have the education to write an acrostic?’