Striking Murder

by AJ Wright

  ‘I thought it were a letter?’

  At the Oddfellows Arms, the door swung open and the contents of a large brass spittoon were emptied over their boots, which glistened with a thick, heavy mucus. Brennan, alerted by the guttural roar from Constable Jaggery, grabbed his arm and guided him ever onwards and townwards.

  ‘So let’s say the letter contained something that gave Morris a good idea where to go in Scholes. And the only way it could have done that was if he recognised who had sent it.’

  ‘So where does that leave us?’

  Brennan saw the meagre light burning in The Shamrock. It was a place he himself had occasionally visited with his father many years ago, a happy time when those pale, hollowed cheeks would expand in delight as soon as the old songs rang out through the singing room and he would stand at the piano and belt forth:

  Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see,

  Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me.

  He could still see the tears sparkle their way down his sunken cheeks as he recalled an Ireland he’d left years earlier, fleeing the Great Famine for a better life in Wigan.

  The windows of The Shamrock were misted, and he could hear the slow, melancholy strains of ‘My Lodging is on the Cold Ground’ and he wondered whether the pianist was drunk or merely expressing the mood of the place. They passed by, and he caught sight of a man’s face watching them. He registered the pale, almost skeletal cheeks, and urged Jaggery to walk faster.

  ‘It leaves us the envelope, Constable.’

  ‘What about it?’

  He brought his coat collars closer to ward off the snow. Ahead, he saw the dim lights of the street lamps fighting a losing battle against the thickening snow. ‘The maid, Grace, told me it was a white envelope. A clean white envelope.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, when it was found on Morris’s body, it was in a filthy state.’

  Jaggery pondered this for a while. By the time they’d reached the Weavers Arms he had a solution. ‘Morris must’ve took it out and looked at it. Remember it was snowin’, Sergeant.’

  ‘Possibly. And that might account for the letter itself being in a filthy state, which doesn’t seem to be the case when he received it. Still, it’s a curious thing.’

  Jaggery, noticing the door to the public house opening slowly, said simply, ‘It is indeed, Sergeant. It is …’

  Suddenly he launched himself forward and grabbed the empty bottle of brown ale that had appeared miraculously to raise itself in the air, twisting the neck of the bottle so that it fell with a smash on the icy stone steps of the entrance and dragging their would-be assailant from the doorway, hurling him face down into the snow. Brennan, acting with admirable speed, grabbed the handle of the door and held on tightly in case an accomplice from inside should seek retribution. When he turned round, Constable Jaggery had the man pinned to the pavement with a heavy knee pressing hard against his back.

  ‘Tha breakin’ me fuckin’ back!’ yelled the man, a thick-set individual whose words were muffled somewhat by the amount of snow filling his mouth.

  Brennan looked up and saw several faces at the side window. There was an amused curiosity, rather than a lust for vengeance, on their faces. Perhaps they were considering the desirability of allowing their faces to be recognised and filed away for future reference if they made any attempt at rescue.

  Slowly, Jaggery eased the pressure on the man’s back, and there came a sudden gasp of relief as his victim slumped forward, spreading his arms by his side as if that were the most comfortable position he could find.

  ‘Count to fifty, if you can, then get up. But if I see you lift so much as a soddin’ eyebrow before fifty I’ll bloody well come back an’ snap you like a twig. Understand?’

  The man muttered a resentful ‘Aye’ and began to count.

  By the time they got to the Free Trade Inn, Jaggery turned and watched the man stand up, helped by a clutch of new-found allies who were busy brushing the melted snow from his damp coat.

  ‘Something else about that envelope,’ Brennan went on as though they had been interrupted by nothing more irritating than a wasp. ‘It said “A. Morris” on the front.’

  ‘Arthur Morris,’ Jaggery said with patience.

  ‘But it could equally have been “Andrew” or “Ambrose”.’

  ‘I s’pose. His house, though. Perhaps he presumed …’

  Brennan shook his head. ‘No. I think he recognised the handwriting immediately. And if he did, then he would know exactly where to go in Scholes, whatever the message said.’ Brennan stopped and let his gaze drift down the steep incline towards town. Suddenly he said, ‘There is another explanation, though.’

  ‘What?’

  But Brennan merely bit his lower lip and said, ‘But that would mean … Never mind, Constable.’

  Jaggery, who was by now accustomed to the sergeant’s frustrating habit of dropping heavy hints then catching them before they could smash open, merely grunted.

  They walked on for a while, then Jaggery said, ‘Summat I don’t get, Sergeant.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘If somebody from round ’ere sent it, wantin’ Morris to come an’ see ’em, well then, who delivered it? I mean, they’d hardly deliver it themselves an’ then rush back to Scholes. It’s hell of a way, ain’t it?’

  Brennan looked at his constable with a renewed respect. ‘A shaft of illumination, Constable. Well done!’

  It took until they reached the Douglas Tavern on Millgate before the smile left Constable Jaggery’s face.

  Bridie Haggerty had closed her eyes and was back on Achill Island.

  Her mother had relatives there, an ageing cousin whose husband worked away for most of the year and whose tiny, beehive-shaped hut was home to herself and five daughters of varying and indeterminate age. She was twelve again, one minute sitting before the blazing turf fire and watching the smoke curl its way through the hole in the roof, and, as is the way with dreams, the next minute standing on the sandy beach catching the spray from the huge breakers that washed over the craggy rocks and made herself and her cousins screech with laughter. Then, she was leading the family donkey over the mountain paths, listening to its wheezing complaints at the burden of turf strapped to its back in creels, all of her cousins rushing away from the hazardous route to clamber to the summit of some small mound and declaim to the entire island the name of the boy they were madly in love with.

  Back once more to turf fire, and her ma’s cousin singing the praises of turf over coal: ‘Sure the turf doesn’t spit at ye the way coal does. Give me a turf fire any day. D’ye ever see hot cinders crash to your floor wi’ a turf fire? Sure ye don’t! An’ at least ye don’t go violatin’ the land for it. Turf’s all ready an’ waitin’, so it is. Like a woman willin’ to be told she’s ready an’ needin’ only the tug of a hard hand!’

  The wrinkled smile and the wink of a mischievous eye, and her own ma giving her that scolding glance that wasn’t a scolding glance at all.

  And then someone knocked on the door of the hut and all the girls screamed as the smoke billowed inwards, and Bridie could no longer see her ma, or the ageing cousin. What she could see, dimly through the thick white smoke, was a figure moving towards her, a figure that stood a few inches away and leant down, grabbing her shoulder and squeezing it tightly with one hand.

  She opened her eyes and looked dully at the dead ashes in the grate. Achill Island was gone. Instead, Molly stood there, gently touching her shoulder.

  ‘Mam? You awake?’

  ‘I am now,’ she said with a residual sense of resentment.

  ‘Can I tell you summat?’

  Bridie sat upright in the armchair and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. By the expression on her daughter’s face she could tell that this was important to her, and although she guessed what was ailing her, she said nothing until the tale was done.

  She had known for a while, in the way that mothers always seem to know, that Moll
y was harbouring a secret. She had sensed from the beginning that her relationship with Frank Latchford was doomed, not through any serious defect in the young man’s character, more a feeling that he was a man with a burning sense of injustice and ambition, a powerful combination that suggests he would never be happy coming home night after night to a house and a wife and a collection of troublesome children. Frank was a thinker, a powerful thinker, and she imagined he would sit brooding for hours, and that would soon transmute itself into a smouldering indignation towards the woman who kept him trapped in a domestic prison when he could be roaming the land righting wrongs and urging the workers to rise up.

  When they broke off the courtship, Bridie was relieved, but it was to last just a few weeks. The problem with the secret new man in Molly’s life was the fact that Molly denied any such person existed. And such a denial told Bridie one thing: there was something shameful about it. At first she thought he might be married, and her daughter guilty of the grossest of transgressions. But when she came tripping home one day and had such a smile on her face, Bridie had come straight out and asked her who the new fellow was.

  ‘Well,’ she had said. ‘He’s not from round here.’

  ‘Where’s he from then?’

  ‘Outside town.’

  Bridie had taken a deep breath before asking her next question. ‘Ye’re not doin’ anythin’ foolish, child?’

  ‘Foolish?’

  ‘Is he married?’

  Molly had thrown her head back and laughed. ‘Oh Mam, you’re a funny beggar! No. I swear on all the saints he’s not married.’

  ‘So who is he?’

  ‘That’s my secret for the time bein’, Mam. But I’ll tell you, soon enough.’

  And she had promised Molly there and then she would ask no further questions. Let the girl have her mystery, she had thought. Sure I’ve enough of my own.

  But it was only a week later that the one-eyed messenger came, asking her to meet someone interested in her welfare, and when she met that someone in Mesnes Park, she found out exactly who Molly was seeing. Things were made very clear to her that sunny day by the pond. And she had kept silent ever since.

  ‘Mam?’

  Bridie blinked away the memories. ‘What is it, child?’

  Molly came and knelt at her mother’s feet, gazing up at her with eyes that were beginning to fill with tears. ‘The man I’ve been seeing. It’s Andrew Morris.’

  She waited for her mother’s response, but when it came it wasn’t what she expected.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You know?’

  ‘Sure, I’ve known for a while.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Ah, now that would be tellin’.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you say anything?’

  ‘Would it have made a difference?’

  ‘I don’t suppose. I wouldn’t have given him up, if that’s what you’d have tried for.’

  ‘So why bring him up now?’

  ‘Because I’m frightened.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I saw Frank Latchford tonight. He followed me from Ryland’s.’

  At the mention of Latchford’s name, a cloud passed across Bridie’s face.

  ‘Pesterin’ you?’

  ‘No, Mam. Not that. But he said some things that … scared me.’

  ‘What things?’

  Molly gripped her mother’s hands. ‘He told me about the police askin’ him questions. But he said summat else as well.’

  Before her daughter could say anything more, Bridie’s hand flew to her mouth and an expression of shock filled her eyes. She muttered something incomprehensible in Gaelic and made the sign of the cross.

  Molly reached forward and held her mother’s hand. It felt cold, and clammy.

  ‘Mam? What on earth’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothin’, child. Nothin’.’

  Molly was afraid. Whatever she had said had somehow brought such a look of terror to her mother’s eyes that she thought she might faint at any moment. But what had she said? It had only been about her meeting earlier with Frank. Perhaps she thought he had molested her in some way?

  Quickly, she went on. ‘He said he wanted me to arrange a meetin’ between him and Andrew.’

  Bridie let out a long sigh of relief. Whatever she had feared had passed over, like the Angel of Death, and she attempted a weak, curious smile. ‘An’ why would he want to do that?’

  ‘That’s just it, Mam. He wouldn’t tell me. But he said if I didn’t make the arrangements, he’d see to it that everyone in Scholes would find out just who I’d been seein’. What would that do to us, eh, Mam? To you and little Tommy, eh? What should I do, Mam?’

  ‘You do what Frank Latchford says, child. He’s a man you can trust.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Josiah Sweet’s father had once run a thriving business, transporting all manner of goods along the canal waterways of south-west Lancashire on his narrow boat drawn by their horse Pegasus, Josiah’s particular favourite. In those halcyon days – or so they seemed to the infant Josiah – they had lived in a small cottage built not a stone’s throw from the Top Lock near Aspull, and it was always a treat to leave the boat, Wellington, moored nearby and run into the cottage to smell the bread baking in the oven by the hearth and see the look of playful disgust on his mother’s face as she scolded him for the mess he had made of his shirt.

  But then the railways spread like smallpox, and as the years went by, Josiah saw the change in his father, the way the lines on his forehead became deeper, more permanent with every trading order that was withdrawn. A late attempt to offer summertime passenger trips down the length of the canal had failed to halt the slide, and when they had to leave the cottage to live permanently on the boat – the three of them in such a cramped space – it was as if something died in both his parents: his mother had lost her home, the place she saw as her domain, a spick and span refuge she kept for her menfolk at the end of a burdensome day, and his father had lost his calling. And when a man loses his calling, he becomes a husk, hollow and useless. The makeshift cabin he had built was sturdy enough, but then the canal boat inspector had taken him to task for the way the boat was beginning to smell. Bilge water had been building up beneath the cabin floor, causing a loathsome stench.

  The inspector had ordered it to be pumped out but his father, stubborn as the day is long, had refused. It was against the law, he’d pointed out, to pump bilge water into the canal. When the by now furious inspector had told him it was also against the law to let the bilge water gather like that, the summons was issued and his father taken to court.

  The magistrates, flummoxed by the apparent legal stalemate of the situation, dismissed the case and his father was victorious. But the case took its toll, and he lived precious few weeks after that to savour the moment.

  When he was fourteen, Josiah reached down into the canal with a long boat hook and fished out his father’s lifeless body. He could still, in darker moments, smell the foul dampness of the cord trousers, see the dull sheen of the brass buckles below his knees, and hear the gurgling of the filthy water as it drained from his bloated mouth. Within a year, his mother had been admitted into the idiot ward at the Wigan Infirmary, and it was there she died of consumption brought on by a ‘morbid listlessness’, or so the official report said.

  Josiah, whom everyone regarded as simple-minded, lived on in the boat, and in time he transported goods once more, only these were now illicit goods, stolen from one civic borough to be resold in another. He risked the wrath of the canal boat inspector, but he had little idea of any other kind of life and he became adept at concealing any contraband he was transporting. Josiah’s only crime – if indeed it were a crime – was to provide transport, at a price. He himself was no thief, but he reckoned somebody somewhere owed him something.

  Which is how he came to meet Bragg.

  Months ago, Josiah had been carrying the results of a housebreaking. One of the large houses at the top end
of Wigan Lane, where doctors and lawyers lived in semi-rural splendour, had been emptied of its treasure trove of contents while the owners were away in France and the spoils transported to his boat by covered wagon. The brains behind the operation – a local ne’er-do-well – had assured Josiah he had merely to negotiate the locks between Wigan and Blackburn, where he could unload free from the prying eyes of the law.

  But he hadn’t reckoned on the prying eye of Bragg, a private inquiry agent who had been following the nefarious activities of the gang for weeks. He boarded the barge one night and almost caused Josiah’s heart to stop when he leant over his bunk and stared at him with dark eyes that seemed to glow in the glimmer of moonlight reflected on the water.

  Bragg, it appeared, wanted not only the reward for the stolen goods, but also had designs on a couple of the gilt-edged paintings that, as he put it, ‘would simply be seen as unfortunate victims lost in the theft.’ He arranged for Josiah to find a suitable hiding place for the paintings while the rest of the goods were placed on the waiting wagons, and all that was left was for Bragg, along with several hired hands, to waylay the wagons before they could reach the Prince of Wales yard on King William Street in Blackburn.

  It went as planned, and Josiah was suitably rewarded.

  He’d thought that was the last he’d see of Mr Bragg. But he came back, and now Josiah would rather their acquaintance were brought to an end.

  For one thing, Bragg had been staying on the Wellington for well over a fortnight and company was something Josiah had never got used to. He was far happier when the boat was sailing leisurely down the canal and the route he followed was assured.

  For another thing, the last week had seen the waters of the canal freeze, leaving his boat stuck in a solid mass of ice. To someone who thrived on motion, stillness was a sort of hell on earth.

  And worst of all, Bragg had a disconcerting habit of vanishing for hours on end and reappearing at the ungodliest of times without saying a word about where he’d been.