by AJ Wright
‘They’re theer agen,’ said the second man. ‘That swine Brennan and the fat bastard.’
Latchford pressed his lips together. What the hell were they doing back there?
The third man, more thick-set than the others and whose broken nose and scarred face were legacies of the clog-fighting he was most proficient in, spoke in a gruff voice. ‘We should’ve finished the swine off when we had the chance.’
Latchford shook his head. ‘That would have got us nowhere. Apart from the gallows. No, he got a warning and that’s the end of it.’
‘We can make sure this time,’ the first man snarled.
‘No!’ said Latchford sharply. ‘That would be a disaster.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I’ll go to see Bridie Haggerty when they’ve gone. See what they wanted.’
‘They’re nowt but bloody spies!’ the clog-fighter growled, but when Latchford glared at him he became silent, like a slavering but obedient dog.
Brennan sat slumped in the armchair, ignoring the pain from the toy wooden boat he’d just sat on. A far greater pain concerned him just then, and he winced in agony as he watched Constable Jaggery wrestle the poker from Bridie Haggerty’s grasp.
She had swung the weapon with admirable speed. It caught him completely unawares, and the shaft of the poker slammed him full on the shoulder before he could blink an eye. It took his breath and, as he fell backwards onto the armchair, he saw her raise it again in what appeared to be a heavy downward swing. That was when Jaggery, with an urgency not often seen in the big man, launched himself forward and grabbed the raised arm, forcing the poker, and her right hand, backwards with such strength that she could either drop the offending object or listen to her wrist bone snap.
‘You bloody mad cow!’ Jaggery grunted when her outrage had finally subsided and she sat on her knees before the still dormant dough. ‘You all right, Sergeant?’
Brennan nodded and had gained his breath sufficiently to reach beneath him and remove the tormenting toy. ‘That’s quite a temper you have there, Bridie,’ he said, somewhat hoarsely.
‘An’ that was quite an insult,’ she snapped back, rubbing her wrist as Jaggery stood over her like a poker-wielding Colossus.
‘I’d still like you to answer my question though.’
Her shoulders seemed to sag, as though suddenly all the fight had left her.
‘Then the answer is no, Sergeant. James Cox attacked me. I never said he got what he wanted.’
‘He wasn’t intimate with you?’
She gave a sad smile. ‘Oh the devil tried, right enough. He touched me, if you know what I mean. But I just went limp till he got close. Then I kicked him in the balls.’
‘You did what?’
‘Man can’t work without his tools, now, can he?’
‘So Molly isn’t the result of the attack?’
‘Well if she is I’d like to know how.’
Brennan reached up and touched his shoulder, which was throbbing violently. Perhaps some of the pain came from the fact that, if Bridie was telling the truth – and he suspected she was – then he had made an erroneous assumption earlier in the carriage, and that did his self-esteem no favours at all.
‘Can I get up?’ Bridie asked.
Brennan nodded to Jaggery, who, reluctantly and without offering her his hand, allowed her to rise.
‘Now it’s my turn,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’ Brennan watched her warily as she moved to the side of the fireplace. Was she about to sally forth once more? He gave Jaggery a quick glance, but he was already holding the poker aloft, ready for a sideswipe at his command.
‘You’re not the first to suggest that,’ she said. ‘And it’s somethin’ that’s been eatin’ away at me conscience ever since. I suppose now’s as good a time as any to get it off me chest. Ye see, Sergeant, a few weeks ago I had a visitor. A messenger from someone who needed to speak to me urgent like. The messenger had a patch over one eye.’
‘So you did know him.’
‘Aye, I did. He worked for Morris, right enough. I was to meet Arthur Morris in Mesnes Park, where he had a proposition for me.’
Brennan’s eyes grew wide. ‘You met Arthur Morris?’
‘Aye. He told me he wanted to talk about Molly. And his son Andrew. He’d found out an’ wanted to put a stop to it.’
‘What exactly did he say to you?’
‘Oh, he said he could make life very hard for us. The strike was biting hard and it would be no trouble for him to have us evicted.’
‘He wouldn’t have done that. Not then anyway. It would have made him even more of a demon than he already was to some people.’
‘Oh I know that. I told him I didn’t approve of them bein’ together any more than he did, but I’d be damned if he was goin’ to dictate to me an’ mine who we should or shouldn’t be seen with. Then he grabbed me.’
‘Grabbed you? There in full view of everyone?’
‘He’s a violent swine, Sergeant Brennan. An’ he’s got a strong grip. I saw him once do the same to his wife when I worked up yonder, an’ I know a lot of the women round ’ere get a leatherin’ at times, but you don’t expect to see it from the moneyed lot, do ye? Anyways, he was squeezin’ the life out of me arm an’ grinnin’ all at the same time. I couldn’t believe it. So I let rip at ’im. An’ it was then, when I flared up an’ yelled at him there an’ then in the middle of the park, that he sat back, eyes bulgin’. “I know you, don’t I?” he said. An’ it was only then he recognised who I was. All the time we’d been sittin’ there he had no idea I was that maid he dismissed so long ago. An’ then he gives a big smile, as if somethin’ had just occurred to him.’
‘What was it?’
‘Oh, he was quick, I’ll give the devil that. He said he had the means to make sure we left the area. I said, “What are you talkin’ about?” an’ he said, “If people knew who Molly’s real father was, wouldn’t that get the tongues blabbin’”. “What do you mean, real father?” I says. “She had a real father an’ he died in one o’ your dangerous pits.” He just laughed an’ said it was amazin’ what people would say if he paid ’em enough. He said he knew a great deal about that swine Cox an’ he was sure he could make folk swallow a tale like that.’
‘But that’s ridiculous. James Cox has two young children. He would never allow Arthur Morris to suggest such a thing. It would ruin his reputation.’
Bridie sighed. ‘I know, an’ I told him just that, almost spat it in his face. Then he smiled an’ said there’d be more than one person willin’ to put the story round about Mr James Cox bein’ Molly’s father, an’ if he wished to sully the reputation of a swine who’d been plottin’ against him anyway, then that was his business.’
‘What did he mean, “plotting against him”?’
‘Sure I haven’t the foggiest. But I got the impression he didn’t give a flyin’ hoot about Mr James Cox’s reputation. An’ them such close devils an’ all. An’ at the time he was so convincin’. I believed him. But I didn’t know what to do.’ She paused and glanced down. ‘So I prayed.’
‘You prayed?’
‘I know it’s an evil thing to do, but as sure as I’m standin’ here today, I prayed every night and at every Mass for God to strike him down and take him from this world. I was brought up to believe absolutely in the power of prayer, Sergeant. An’ then God answered me prayers. Or I thought he had, anyways. An’ when they found his dead body not far from me own back yard, well … I nearly did somethin’ terrible. A mortal sin. The guilt of prayin’ a man dead …’
Her voice trailed off as the coals began to show some flicker of flame.
Despite repeated attempts to persuade the woman to explain what she meant, she remained silent. Brennan knew he would get nothing more of value out of her.
‘So Arthur Morris would do anything to prevent his son and Molly from being together, including the ruination of James Cox’s character,’ Brennan said, half to himself.
‘He was
a selfish man, Sergeant.’
‘And a violent one.’
You’re no sheep, Bridie Haggerty, he said to himself as he stood up, gingerly holding his shoulder. Arthur Morris had met his match with you. But would you have the strength of will to kill a man in cold blood?
‘How do we get ’er down to the station, Sergeant?’ said Jaggery, still keeping a wary eye on the mad Irishwoman.
‘What?’
‘It’ll be a bugger draggin’ ’er down Scholes in all this snow.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
Exasperated, Jaggery held up exhibit number one. ‘Assaultin’ a police officer in the pursuance of his duties.’
Brennan smiled. ‘Oh, accidents will happen, Constable Jaggery. You put it down before you do yourself an injury.’
The poker made a clanging sound as it was thrust, somewhat peevishly, back into the coal bucket.
Instead of seeing them to the door, Bridie moved over to the bowl resting before the fire. As they were leaving, Brennan looked back at the hearth. He saw, with some satisfaction, that the dough was already beginning to rise beneath the cloth.
Ten minutes after her visitors had left, there was another knock on the door. When she opened it, Frank Latchford was standing there.
‘Frank!’ she said, and there was genuine fear in her voice.
‘Can I come in, Mrs Haggerty? I gather you’ve had company?’
Bridie stepped to one side and ushered him in.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The following day, Donald Monroe presented Brennan with a copy of the post-mortem report into Bragg’s death at Wigan Infirmary.
‘You will see that the main thrust of the report centres around the ecchymoses at the base of the neck.’
‘Ecchymoses?’ Brennan had never got used to the good doctor’s fondness for medical terminology. It had its place in a report, of course, but a verbal digest should be uncluttered, as it were, by such embellishments.
‘Bruises. From blood vessels that are ruptured and spread into subcutaneous tissue. That’s beneath the skin, Sergeant.’
‘Thank you.’
‘He was struck most forcibly from behind. No attempt to protect himself is apparent, and death would have been quite rapid. When I detached the skull cap from the subjacent membranes – not an easy matter, let me tell you, especially with those used to hard knocks – I made an opening in the dura mater and …’
‘What are you getting at?’ Brennan asked impatiently.
‘The brain, Sergeant Brennan. That’s what I was getting at. There was a great deal of haemorrhaging. I’d say the one who wielded the murder weapon intended his victim to die – this was no struggle that went wrong. A blow of such force could only have one result.’
‘I see.’
‘There was also some redness around the right eye, or rather, the surrounding socket.’
‘Redness?’
‘Had no bearing on his death, but it appears to be some sort of rash. An irrelevance, but I thought I’d mention it.’
Brennan thought quickly. ‘The eyepatch.’
Monroe looked at him curiously and scratched his chin.
‘Well, Sergeant, if that is all, I have a ward full of patients. Living ones, at least for the time being.’
‘Of course.’ He gingerly rubbed his shoulder as a prelude to standing.
‘How are the bruises?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Dr Monroe sat back and pretended to glower. ‘Now don’t tell me they have healed up already. A brutal attack like that will take time to heal.’
It dawned on Brennan that he was referring to the injuries sustained in the attack he suffered a week or so ago in the alley near his home, not the more recent assault with a poker. He hadn’t forgotten the brutality, nor the words of his unseen assailant as he lay there bleeding.
‘Oh, the bruises will fade in time, I’m sure.’
‘Might I suggest friction with soap liniment? That should remove any residual swelling. Outward application of arnica, too, should help, though there’s a new remedy from America, Hazeline, prepared from wych hazel, they say will soon supersede arnica.’
Brennan thought of Prudence Morris. ‘I’ve smelt arnica on Prudence Morris, doctor. It’s not the most pleasant of aromas.’
‘Mrs Morris? Has she suffered an injury?’
Brennan smiled. ‘No, she uses it for her rheumatic condition.’
Monroe frowned. ‘Oh, that won’t do at all. Tell her she would be far better advised to apply a hot bran poultice regularly. Or perhaps a liniment of camphor oil with soap and opium. And there are a whole gamut of electric or galvanic appliances. No, Sergeant, arnica won’t do. It won’t do at all.’
With this further demonstration of his vast medical knowledge hanging in the air like a disinfectant, he stood up and escorted his visitor to the door.
Once outside, Brennan stood in the cold corridor that led to the wards and watched Monroe breeze his way down towards his patients, while he turned in the opposite direction and headed for the porticoed entrance. He had a lot to think about. Especially concerning a picture that was beginning to emerge of Arthur Morris.
What was it Mrs Venner, the cook, had hinted at? That he was like a Jekyll and Hyde character, pleasant one minute ‘and a brute the next’. And he had played rough with Bridie when he met her in the park. What’s more, many years ago, she had seen him grab his wife roughly once while she was working there. If she saw it once, then how many more times might such a thing have happened? Could that be why she applied arnica? Not for rheumatism, which was a convenient way of disguising the pain associated with bruising, but for the bruising itself?
He stood in the entrance to the infirmary, on the very spot where he had stood with Andrew Morris over a week ago when he had come to identify his father’s body. He had quoted Shakespeare then. What was it he had said? ‘Fear no more the heat of the sun, nor the winter’s furious rages’. Had he been referring, not to the suggestion that death brings with it almost a liberation from the vagaries of life, but to the dichotomy within his father’s personality – the warmth and the rage struggling within him?
Arthur Morris, Brennan mused. The more I find out about you, the less I like.
He thought also of the rash on Bragg’s right eye socket. Why wear a patch when he had two perfectly good eyes? But then he answered his own query almost at once – it’s a perfect disguise. If he was out and about in Scholes and Wigan, asking questions that would inevitably arouse interest, what better way to draw attention away from the face? For those with a morbid disposition, a black eyepatch, with its suggestion of something gruesome lurking beneath, provides a compelling focus of curiosity, not to mention the hint of something sinister and devilish. You’re more likely to remember the patch than the face.
The sky, he noted, was grey, but there were a few glimpses of blue in the distance. Perhaps the elements, too, were fighting a battle.
‘Any joy with the post-mortem, Sergeant?’ Constable Jaggery asked once he got back to the station. The man was fidgeting quite badly, moving his balance from one foot to the other, as if he had St Vitus’s Dance.
‘A post-mortem hardly brings joy, Constable,’ Brennan responded harshly.
‘Aye, well, there’s summat you should know. It’s like good and bad.’
‘What?’
But before he could get an answer, he saw Captain Bell bearing down on him hard, a satisfied smirk on his face.
‘Sergeant Brennan!’ he said as Jaggery, never comfortable in the presence of greatness and also aware of what was coming, slouched away. ‘I hear the butler Isaacs confirmed what I suspected?’
‘It was Mrs Venner, the cook, actually, sir.’
‘Notwithstanding. The Haggerty woman was the selfsame maid who was dismissed?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Capital!’
‘But I have spoken to her and it appears …’
‘Forget appear
ances! While you were at the infirmary with Doctor Monroe, I took the opportunity to have Constable Jaggery supply me with what I required.’
‘Sir?’
‘He is a bovine fellow, isn’t he? Still, like the buffaloes of Agra, he gets there in the end.’
Brennan caught sight of Jaggery’s back disappearing into the canteen. ‘He supplied you with what, sir?’
‘Oh, he told me all about your little adventure yesterday in Scholes, at the home of that Irishwoman.’
‘He did?’
‘He told me what she said to you. It was a plodding recital, but nevertheless …’
‘I could have given you a full report just as soon as I …’
‘No matter, Sergeant!’ He slapped Brennan on the shoulder, causing him to wince in pain. ‘Ah, that will be the assaulted area. Terrible business, and a good job Constable Jaggery was there to prevent further injury.’
Brennan made a mental note to strangle Jaggery.
‘Still, it only confirms what I suspected.’
‘And what’s that, sir?’
The chief constable raised a finger, as if to forestall any further questions, and indicated that his sergeant should follow him. They passed along the corridor to the door at the end that led down to the cells. As Captain Bell unlocked the heavy wooden door, he turned to Brennan and said, ‘After Constable Jaggery’s report, I felt it incumbent upon me to keep you from further injury, and it was made apparent that you were in an invidious position yesterday, being injured and no doubt your judgement somewhat impaired.’
What was the idiot talking about?
They both descended the dark stairway, a single gas lamp at the top of the stairs the only illumination.
‘So I sent a few constables up to the mad woman’s house and had her arrested and brought here. She is in the cells awaiting our pleasure. Assaulting a police officer, as Constable Jaggery so loyally pointed out, is a serious business. Besides, the woman has motive – more than one, too, I gather, what with her dismissal from the Morris residence …’
‘Nineteen years ago.’
