by AJ Wright
He flipped open the curtain and looked outside. The brickwork of the canal banks was invisible, thanks to the still-falling snow and the ice clinging to it. Beyond the right-hand bank, a small towpath led off towards the small tunnel that lay in the distance, and across the bridge overhead he caught sight of the dim lights of a tram as it shuttled across, capturing the thick flakes in each window before grunting its way back into Wigan. He looked down at the silver pocket watch that had been his father’s proudest possession and read the time: 9:15.
It was an hour later when he heard the heavy clang of boots on the narrow deck. The door flew open and Bragg stood there, his dark hat pulled low over his face to deter inquisitive passers-by. He said nothing until he had divested himself of his outer clothing and sat on the low bench before the small paraffin heater.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said.
Josiah sat opposite him and waited for more. Eventually it came.
‘Tomorrow night. Five o’clock.’
‘What about it, Mr Bragg?’
‘You won’t be here.’
The look of surprise on Josiah’s face made Bragg smile.
‘But I won’t be nowhere else. This bloody ice, see, Mr Bragg? Boat can’t move backerds or forrards.’
‘I’m not talking about the boat, you imbecile.’
This was a great puzzle to Josiah, who saw the Wellington as an extension of himself.
‘I don’t get you.’
‘Tomorrow night at five o’clock, you’ll be in town having a drink.’
‘Oh no, Mr Bragg, I’d rather not.’
‘Well in that case go for a walk through the woods at Hindley.’
‘That’d be daft, that would. In this weather? Folk’d call me mad.’
He tried to smile in order to convey the ludicrousness of such a suggestion.
‘Fine. Take a stroll on the moon then.’
‘What?’ Josiah stared upwards at the ceiling of the boat.
Bragg gave a long, impatient sigh. ‘Tomorrow night at five o’clock. I need to be alone here, Josiah.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I shall be entertaining a guest and it will be a very confidential meeting.’
At the word ‘guest’ Josiah flinched. Even in his befuddled brain he knew that guests could only be invited by himself. And he’d invited no bugger.
‘Can’t be doin’ with havin’ guests on my boat, Mr Bragg. Why, he might be …’
Before Josiah could say any more, Bragg flung himself at his throat. Slowly, with his green eyes wide and fierce, he began to squeeze his thick fingers round the slender throat until his victim’s eyelids started to flicker, oblivion a matter of seconds away. Only then did he let go.
‘Tomorrow night at five o’clock,’ he rasped, some of his spittle dribbling onto the terrified face. ‘Imbecile.’
‘All … right,’ came the hoarse reply.
It was almost as if a bridge had been crossed.
For the first time, Bridie spoke to Molly not as her daughter but as an equal, another woman for whom feelings weren’t confined to vague reflections on life and love but to the hard, sometimes painful realities that mark a woman’s entrance into the world. Bridie spoke of Molly’s father now, not as a saint or a hero to be lionised in her daughter’s eyes, but as a man of flesh and blood, and the normal fallibilities all men are guilty of. She even spoke of their first kiss, the way Seamus and herself had decided that they had a future and that no matter how dire the threats were from her father they were filled with a romantic determination to face the future together. She spoke also, and with careful frankness, of the troubles they’d encountered once they crossed the Irish Sea.
Yet even in this new spirit of openness, she couldn’t tell Molly of the few months she spent as a maid working for the Morrises, nor of the attack she’d been forced to endure in the laundry room. Why upset the girl? She hadn’t told a living soul about the way that man treated her like some rag doll. Better, far better, to let the truth lie stinking in its grave.
Then Molly, having listened with the solemnity of someone realising the significance of the moment, told Bridie of Andrew, of the way she felt whenever she so much as saw him from a distance, of their first encounter by the canal and the way she giggled at his striped flannel jacket. She spoke of the dark times, too, when he had explained to her that in order to keep seeing each other they needed to become very careful, secretive, for his father had plans for him marrying, in due course, the very eligible daughter of a wealthy landowner, a girl Andrew once described as having the teeth of a horse and eyes that looked both ways.
Bridie had smiled, recognising in Molly’s urge to speak now that some valve had been tapped, as if she finally wanted to share him after all this time. Then there had come a silence between them. Molly had spoken of their deep, abiding passion for each other and how she knew him the way she had known no other man and that she could see no parting of the ways. Not ever. Especially since the main obstacle to their love had been removed.
At that, Bridie had coughed to clear her throat and said carefully, ‘You need to speak with him, child. If Frank Latchford wants to speak to him then you should give Andrew Morris the chance to decide. He’s a great thinker, is Frank. He’ll have something very clever up his sleeve, just you see.’
‘I dunno. He worries me. What if they fight?’
Bridie smiled. ‘D’ye think Frankie boy’ll do such a thing? Sure he’d never work at a colliery again, attackin’ the new owner!’ She lowered her voice. ‘Besides, whatever Frank’s up to, I’m sure it’ll be for the good of all. You’ll see.’
Molly looked confused but remained silent. It seemed that her mother had revised her opinion of Frank Latchford, for it hadn’t been too long ago that she could barely utter his name without an accompanying sneer.
What had happened to change her mind?
‘Damn this snow!’
James Cox stood in the billiard room of the Wigan Conservative and Unionist Club and glared out of the imposing bay windows that overlooked the bowling green. Green, of course, was a misnomer, as the overnight fall of snow had submerged even its outer boundaries beneath a thick covering of white. A solitary robin landed on the railing below the window and surveyed the wintry scene with far more equanimity than its human counterpart.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Ambrose Morris remarked. He was sitting on the other side of the billiard table reading a newspaper.
‘What do you mean?’ Cox asked, whirling round with little grace.
‘Well, the foul weather is regrettable, of course, but it tends to crystallise one’s situation, does it not?’
Cox frowned. He wasn’t in the mood this morning for cryptic observations. The only reason he had come to the damned club this bitterly cold morning was to bid farewell to Ambrose Morris, who was returning to the capital and his parliamentary duties at Westminster later that day; it was a gesture compounded not so much out of a genuine fondness for the man – though he did feel that – but rather out of a burning eagerness to urge his friend to do everything he could to bring the stoppage in the coalfields to an end. If the rumours were true, and there was an atmosphere of conciliation in the air now that Arthur Morris, the chief obstacle to concession in any form, had been removed from the picture, then he needed to do all he could to ensure everything was done to expedite matters. He had a contract with the Blackpool Tower Company that was fast in danger of becoming a historical curio.
‘How so?’ he asked, picking up a cue from the rack by the wall.
‘There’s precious little coal left. The poor souls are forced to scrabble on slag heaps or work the outcrops in the dark.’
‘You should get the law on them. It’s stealing is that,’ Cox fumed.
‘What good would that do? The last thing we want is to be held responsible for sending half-starved miners to Strangeways and leaving their wives and children helpless.’
‘You’re too bloody soft. Horsewhipping’s too good for the b
astards.’
‘What I mean is, the bitter cold of the last few weeks has shown all of us the edge of the precipice. We can’t go over that edge. That’s why I’m convinced a more sensible, rational approach will now prevail.’
‘Bloody better do, Ambrose. I stand to lose everything.’
Ambrose carefully folded his newspaper and watched as Cox took aim at the spotted white, pushed the cue forward forcefully so that the white ball slammed the red into the far pocket, a collision that slowed it down and sent it rolling smoothly towards his opponent’s white and just kissing it.
Perhaps billiards can teach us a thing or two, thought Cox, but he kept the thought to himself.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Prudence Morris had no intention of seeing her brother-in-law catch the London train. She was in mourning, after all, and besides, the journey by carriage down to the Wigan North Western Station would have caused her untold agonies in her painful condition. So she allowed him to kiss her on the cheek, but Andrew, standing on the steps and shivering in the falling snow, saw, as always, that any such casual intimacies between them were perfunctory at best.
He had heard his father mutter once that she felt Ambrose guilty of hubris, with overweening political ambitions that she was convinced would lead to the inevitable fall from grace. Then the family name becomes besmirched, she had said within Andrew’s hearing. Yet to her credit she maintained a civility between them, mainly, Andrew reflected, for his father’s peace of mind. Still, there had been the faintest glimmerings of a thaw between them over the past few days, and he prayed it would continue.
As the two of them journeyed towards Wigan, Ambrose spoke of the challenges facing the country and his desire to serve in government should Gladstone decide to resign and call an election.
‘He’s looking older, more careworn, every day, Andrew. Spent all last Christmas in Biarritz for all the good it did him.’
‘You say he may intervene in the strike?’
Ambrose slowly shook his head. ‘Oh, I think he will, right enough. But he’s a crushed man. The defeat of the Home Rule Bill in the Lords was a bitter blow to him. I saw him the day after they threw it out – he was in a dreadful state.’
‘This can’t go on, Uncle Ambrose.’
He looked at his nephew, saw the growing signs of anguish in his face. ‘Oh, it won’t. Never underestimate the power of public opinion, Andrew. Many of the London newspapers are firmly on the side of the miners. I know of one editor, Fletcher of the Daily Chronicle, whose paper is in receipt not only of large sums of money for the strikers, but also bundles and bundles of clothing. Men’s, women’s, children’s. You would be amazed at the strength of support the miners have from Londoners. They filled Hyde Park last month. When the tide turns, it makes sense to set your sail accordingly.’
‘Let’s hope it’s a fair wind.’
There was silence for a while.
Outside, the stark beauty of the fields swept smooth with a uniform whiteness soon gave way to the houses of the wealthy on Wigan Lane, their gardens fringed, almost guarded by tall bushes. Soon, these buildings gave way to meaner, less imposing structures the closer they got to the brow of Standishgate and the steep decline into the town centre.
Andrew, sensing the desire in his uncle to remain silent for a while, cast his mind back to a time when he had sat beside him in rather grander surroundings.
The journey from Euston Station to his uncle’s residence near Regent Street had taken in Leicester Square, and the undergraduate Andrew, even then filled with the artistic fervour of youth, had been fascinated when Uncle Ambrose set him down outside number 47, and told him that this was where Sir Joshua Reynolds had lived, and these were the very steps where Sir Joshua found the child whom he would later immortalise in his painting, Puck.
He recalled, too, the earnest way Ambrose had told him, on those visits, of the history of the capital, its places of interest and the sights he should see; how they stood beneath a small gas lamp in the middle of Charing Cross and watched the sea upon sea of faces and carriages and all manner of dress, and how he felt the hand on his shoulder and the voice in his ear telling him that this was the place from which all distances in London are measured.
Ambrose’s voice broke into his reverie. He spoke in low, confidential tones.
‘This detective. Brennan. He will be speaking with you.’
‘I expect so.’
‘Be careful, Andrew.’
‘Careful?’
‘I’m no mean judge of character. Westminster is a place filled to the rafters with every sort of vice, virtue, weakness and strength. I meet with them every day, and I’ve learnt to gauge what they’re capable of. Sergeant Brennan is no fool.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because he will be asking you about last Saturday night.’
Andrew shifted his position, looking out of the carriage window at the falling snow, and the white fields beyond. ‘Why should that disturb me?’
There was a moment of doubt on his uncle’s face, a small creasing of the forehead, that soon vanished. ‘No reason.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘I hope the damned train is on time. I have a party meeting at seven tonight.’
Later, after the train – mercifully on time – had steamed its way from the icy platform of the station and Andrew had returned to the waiting carriage, Ambrose Morris sat in his first-class compartment and watched the Lancashire countryside flash by.
He tried, with little success, to turn his mind to lighter things. His first victory, for instance, those heady days in the capital when he could put the initials MP at the end of his name. He remembered standing on Victoria Embankment watching a steamer sail by, its large central funnel belching smoke skywards, and many of the women at the stern half-hidden beneath their parasols yet flirtatiously giving him a wave. He smiled as he recalled his first visit to the Bank of England where he was shocked to learn of salaries in excess of a thousand pounds. ‘For counting money?’ he had declared open-mouthed, to the amusement of his hosts, who had countered by asking him if he, like another Morris, had elaborate ‘designs’ with ‘socialist leanings’. It was only later that he learnt what they had been referring to.
But these were glimpses of a happier time, attempts by the brain to divert his thoughts from the melancholy of the present. A sort of mournful ritual in reverse.
His mind kept returning to Andrew, and the veil of secrecy that had shrouded his face when he mentioned the night of Arthur’s murder. Whatever he had been doing – and he didn’t suspect for one second that the boy could have had anything to do with Arthur’s death – he hoped he had enough steel in him to ward off the redoubtable Sergeant Brennan.
He felt the train slow down. As he looked through the window, he saw the familiar approach to Warrington Bank Quay Station. With a long sigh, he realised that he still had a very long way to go.
Andrew had been home barely five minutes when Isaacs told him Sergeant Brennan was in the hallway and wished to speak with him.
‘Show him into the drawing room,’ he said and watched the butler back out of the room, closing the doors behind him. Suddenly, the bravado he had shown to Uncle Ambrose quite deserted him, and he spent a full five minutes composing himself before making his way to the drawing room.
‘I really do apologise for this intrusion, sir,’ said Brennan, accepting the offer to sit down. ‘But you will appreciate any information you can give me may help in building a fuller picture of what happened on Saturday night.’
‘Of course.’
Brennan produced a notebook and consulted its pages before continuing. ‘You say you left the dinner at around eight-thirty?’
‘That is correct.’
‘And you left the house to – what was it? “Get some air”.’
‘Also correct.’
‘And yet the weather would hardly be conducive to fresh air, would it, sir?’
‘You may be unaware, Sergeant, that I am an
artist.’
‘I’ve seen the landscapes. Impressive scenes.’
‘Well then. I wanted to see how the snow affected the fields and the houses down in the town. You can see them from here. Something almost mystical about the long rows of houses, and the gloom of the gaslight through curtained windows. The slightest hint of misery within. The faintest of shadows. But from a distance there’s a beauty to them. A deceptive beauty, though.’
‘You stood outside looking down the valley?’
‘Not quite. I took one of the carriages and rode for a while. I like solitude. It helps me reflect.’
‘I see. But there must have been a destination.’
‘Does there have to be one, Sergeant? Sometimes I feel the world revolves around journeys and destinations. Not enough time for the stops in between.’
Brennan saw the look in his eyes. It was contemplative, but there was something else. An anxiety, perhaps even a sense of fear. He decided there was only one way he could get through to this young man. ‘You didn’t, for instance, see Molly Haggerty last Saturday night?’
It was as if he had been struck a blow across the face.
‘What did you say?’
‘Did you see Molly Haggerty last Saturday night?’
There was a moment when he looked like denying any knowledge of such a person, but it soon passed.
‘My uncle said you were not to be trifled with.’
‘Quite so.’
Andrew walked over to the window and gazed out. ‘I presume you have already spoken with Molly?’
‘I have.’
‘And she told you?’
Brennan gave a gentle cough to conceal the deceit in his voice. ‘She told me.’
‘Then why ask me?’
‘Simply to confirm that what she says is true. It helps to place people.’
‘I see.’
Brennan saw his shoulders sag.
‘Well, I did take the carriage to Wigan. Not to Scholes, you understand.’
