A Medal For Murder: A Kate Shackleton Mystery

by Frances Brody

  ‘Of course not. Stay with Alison. You’ve both been through far too much.’

  At that moment, Mrs Hart toddled from her front door. ‘Mrs Shackleton! I do hope you’ve come to join us for Sunday dinner.’

  I leapt to my feet, ready for the off. ‘No, this is just a flying visit, Mrs Hart. Was your church fete a success?’

  ‘It was indeed. The fallen women have a lot to be grateful for.’ Her hand flew to her mouth, as she realised her faux pas in mentioning fallen women in the presence of a gentleman. She drew me aside, to the shade of the pergola. Unable to resist, she dead-headed a faded white rose. ‘Poor Rodney. I insisted that Alison telephone and ask him over for Sunday dinner. You’re very welcome to stay yourself, Mrs Shackleton. A roast will always offer another slice.’

  ‘Thank you but my mother will be coming over and meeting me at the hotel, otherwise I would have loved to.’

  ‘Some other time?’

  Over her mother’s shoulder, Alison made great eyes at me, demanding silence. That irritated me.

  ‘Rodney, dear, would you be kind enough to take my chair into the shade of the pergola? This sun is rather too much.’

  Mrs Hart was a woman in need of a son-in-law. The alacrity with which Rodney complied showed that she had found one.

  Before he obliged her, he returned my notebook. I made my goodbyes. Alison walked me to the gate.

  ‘When Dylan comes out of the infirmary, I think he’ll be in need of his friends,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget him, will you?’

  Alison smiled. ‘Of course not. I think those of us who were in Anna of the Five Towns will always have something a little special between us.’

  You certainly will, I thought. Murder, blackmail, pregnancy, an engagement, extortion.

  ‘And just in case I don’t find Lucy in the tower, is there anyone else she might have confided in?’

  ‘Can’t think of anyone.’ Alison pouted. ‘She didn’t confide in me about her ransom plan. I should have told her not to be so silly.’

  Alison closed the gate. As I walked toward my car, she called, ‘Of course there is Dan Root. He walked her home most nights. But I don’t see her confiding in him. He’s a funny chap.’

  I took a couple of steps back towards her.

  ‘Funny in what way?’

  ‘Oh, for instance today, he’ll be at some church or chapel and nobody will know which. He’s tried them all, from All Saints on Harlow Hill to the Railway Gospel Mission Hall. That’s why he was so good at playing the preacher if you ask me. He’s listened to them by the cartload.’

  As I followed Rodney’s perfect map and found my way to Stonehook Road, I thought about Dan Root. No Church of England congregation would suit him, draped with its union flags and banners. Wesleyan hymns would not be to the taste of a Boer boy, a young man, loose in the world with his watchmaker’s case and his family bible. Again I asked myself the question, how and why did he find his way to Harrogate?

  Rodney’s map gave no idea of distance. The landmarks were an abandoned cottage, the brow of a hill, and a clump of trees. I was to look out for a round tower.

  Hoping the small copse that came into view was the clump of trees Rodney had mentioned, I slowed down. Soon I had to gather power for a hill. He had not mentioned how the road twisted and turned. Small wonder poor Dylan had been thrown off his bike. More trees then, sure enough, the tower came into view. I pulled in at the roadside.

  Someone had walked across the meadow flattening grass and flowers in a straight line between hedgerow and tower. The scent of grass and clover made thoughts of ransoms seem madly melodramatic. The tower gave off such a forbidding silence that surely no one could be in there.

  The heavy door creaked open. It smelled damp and stale. The stink of rats’ urine and rotting vegetation rose in a dizzying perfume from the deep drop below broken floorboards. The place was dangerous. It should be razed to the ground or boarded up and padlocked. Only someone young and romantic would see enchantment here.

  I wanted to call Lucy’s name but something about the atmosphere silenced me.

  Foot on the first shaky step, I began to climb, as quietly as I could. If I surprised her, she would have no time to gather her thoughts and come up with some cock-and-bull story.

  It took a little while to become accustomed to the gloom. Straight stairs, with one tread missing, led to a first floor. An old blanket lay in a crumpled heap in the centre of the circular room.

  At the foot of the spiral staircase that must lead to the top of the tower, I paused. A voice broke the silence, a man’s voice. One or two more steps and I could begin to make out the words. Was he talking to himself? No. He must be talking to Lucy, but she was not responding. A feeling of panic tightened my heart. Another step. I could hear his words clearly now. But surely he must hear my breath, and the pounding in my heart, the throbbing in my temples that sounded as loud as a train? I took a few deep breaths. Don’t panic.

  Of everyone that might have been an ally of Lucy in her little game, Dan Root had not been near the top of the list. He had at first seemed aloof and self-contained, above the petty concerns of other mortals, until I realised that he listened in to what went on in the Wolfendales’ flat.

  Being in the dark about so much made me feel like a mole crawling through an earth tunnel. But when I raised my eyes, the light from the top of the tower urged me on.

  First, I listened.

  Dan said, ‘I decided to kill him because of what he did.’ His voice was entirely at odds with the words. He spoke with reassurance, a hot water bottle of kindness in his tone.

  Silence from Lucy. Was he talking to a corpse? A confession of murder could not safely be made to a living, breathing human being.

  Dan said simply, ‘I hated him.’

  Still no answering word.

  I could tiptoe away. I could hurry back the way I had come and fetch help. But why should I be afraid of a man who had sat on the wall and talked to me in such an ordinary everyday kind of way, who had let me try his eyeglass and who mended clocks and watches with such skill and care, love even?

  It occurred to me that I was doing to Dan Root what he had done to the captain, listening with rapt attention. Had he listened because he was obsessed with Lucy? After the performance of Anna of the Five Towns he had walked Miss Fell home. A perfect alibi. Then he had gone back and murdered Milner for pestering his true love, for wanting her. And now what?

  There was the smallest sound. It could have been the words ‘Help me’.

  Sykes, where are you now, I asked. What is the point of having an assistant if when you need him most he is twenty-odd miles away tending an allotment. Nothing for it but to press on.

  ‘Hello!’ I called as I climbed the last few stairs to the parapet. ‘Is anyone there?’ I asked, hoping to allay the suspicion that I had heard a confession of murder.

  ‘I hope the view will be worth it,’ I said, trying for a light-hearted tone as I came onto the parapet.

  The first sight of Lucy startled me into freezing on the spot. She was seated, facing me, her back to the wall, legs outstretched. She looked exhausted and dishevelled. Her ankle was swollen to tree-trunk size. Her face was hot and red from the sun, yet she had a blanket draped round her shoulders.

  Dan Root sat in a similar position. He was to my left which was why I did not see him straight away. The sun played on his broad handsome face and lit his mop of fair hair.

  ‘Come and join us, Mrs Shackleton.’ He waved me in. ‘Will you sit by Lucy, or near me?’

  ‘Lucy, what happened? You look terrible.’

  She glared at me. ‘Who asked you here? Can’t a person have a little privacy?’

  ‘Charming.’ I turned to Dan. ‘What’s going on? I heard the two of you talking just now.’ I kept my voice light and even, not wanting to give away that Dan’s words had shaken me. That it had sounded like an admission of murder.

  Dan shrugged. ‘You tell her Lucy.’

  Lucy made
no attempt to speak.

  I stood over her. In my schoolteacher’s voice, I said, ‘You owe me an explanation. I was the one who carried the lying message to your grandfather on Friday night.’

  ‘And she does know all about your ransom notes,’ Dan said. ‘Your grandfather asked her to find you.’

  Lucy glared at me. ‘Why did you have to stick your nose in?’

  I sat down beside Lucy. ‘That is what I do. I find people who have gone missing.’

  ‘I’m not missing.’ She turned her attention to Dan. ‘And how do you know about my notes, and where to find me? I didn’t tell you what I planned to do.’

  ‘I guessed,’ Dan said, not very convincingly.

  Neither of them moved from their positions.

  ‘Tell her how you really found out, Dan. I expect you listened in while she and Dylan were upstairs from you, plotting this grand adventure.’

  Dan shrugged, obviously not willing to admit to Lucy that he had eavesdropped. I wondered how I could ever have thought him attractive. He looked sulky, like some boy caught with his fingers in the sugar. He was not going to own up to his sneaky ways. I turned to Lucy.

  ‘Inspector Charles of Scotland Yard wants to talk to you, Lucy . . .’

  Lucy groaned. ‘Why is everything going wrong?’

  ‘And the inspector knows I’m here,’ I added for good measure, and self-protection.

  Dan glared at me. ‘If that is supposed to be a threat, then I am quaking in my boots.’

  ‘It means you better not try anything silly.’

  ‘I hate that word,’ Dan said. ‘Silly. It is overused by schoolteachers and people who like to make you feel small. Tell Mrs Shackleton what I was saying, Lucy. I don’t mind.’

  ‘Oh shut up for heaven’s sake,’ Lucy said. She looked like someone suffering from shipwreck. ‘I think I’ve broken my ankle.’ She licked her lips. ‘I probably won’t hold out till Monday. That’s when I told him I’d collect the money, give him time to go to the bank or round with the begging bowl somewhere or other.’ She sighed. ‘Do you have any sweets on you, Mrs Shackleton?’

  ‘You’re throwing in the towel pretty quickly,’ Dan said. ‘You won’t earn any medals.’ He stood up.

  I did not like the way Dan Root edged to the door. It looked as if he intended to stop any attempts to leave. If he had confessed to murder, perhaps Lucy would not get a new life, or any life at all. Neither would I.

  In my most confident manner, I said, ‘You have a choice, Lucy. Come home now and get tidied up. Let’s bandage that ankle.’

  ‘What is the other choice?’

  ‘The alternative is to wait for the police to come and find you.’

  ‘Everything’s gone wrong,’ Lucy wailed. ‘And it was such a good plan.’

  ‘My plan isn’t going very well either.’ I seized the moment. ‘Time to go.’ I stood up, and held out my hands. ‘Take the weight on your good ankle. Put an arm around my shoulder.’

  Dan watched us for a moment as Lucy struggled to her feet. Then he stepped across, picked her up as though she were an infant and carried her down the stairs.

  I hurried after them with a sudden fear of being left behind, locked in the tower.

  A strange trio, we trod across the meadow to the hedge. ‘There’s a gap somewhere,’ Lucy said. ‘It will save you lifting me over the gate.’

  ‘I know,’ Dan said. He found the gap and made straight for my car. ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Slide Lucy in first. You can get in the back, Dan.’

  But Dan turned away. By the time I started the motor, he had climbed on his bike and sped off down the hill towards Harrogate.

  Had he murdered Milner? I glanced at Lucy, as she grimaced in pain. She looked a mess, and she was still beautiful.

  There was a mark on the bodice of her dress. It looked like blood. ‘Lucy, what was Dan saying to you before I arrived?’

  My sense of direction had deserted me. I found myself on the far side of The Stray, behind a chauffeur-driven family who had instructed their driver to go at two miles an hour.

  If at a disadvantage, pretend that you know what you are doing. ‘I’m driving you to the infirmary, Lucy. They can take a look at your ankle.’

  ‘No! I just want to go home! Look at the state of me. I’d be embarrassed to go in the infirmary.’

  She had refused to say what Dan had been talking about earlier. All that I could get out of her was that he was just trying to make her feel better about things. When I asked what things, she simply said, ‘Oh Mr Milner and everything, and me wanting to get away.’

  I would take her home, and let her and Dan Root explain themselves to Inspector Charles.

  She waved her arm. ‘It was left, Mrs Shackleton! You should have turned left there.’

  ‘All right. Don’t yell. I’ll turn left at the next corner.’

  She glared at the meandering visitors. ‘Look at them gawping at everything and everyone.’

  ‘That’s what people do on a Sunday.’

  ‘Stupid idiots. I used to like to give visitors the wrong directions, if one of them asked me the way.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘It amused me. That’s why people come here, to shop and to be amused. Well, some of them can amuse me.’

  ‘I thought visitors came here for their health.’

  ‘That’s the old ones who always want everything to be “like before”.’

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’ She put on a shaky voice, full of regret, imitating some old person. ‘If we still had King Edward and we hadn’t had that war, everything would have been all right.’ In her own voice, she said, ‘Now it’s left. Now!’

  Dan had made quick progress on his bike. I did not overtake him until we reached Leeds Road. I sounded the horn and waved, acting as if I had not heard him confessing to murder in the tower. What had he been telling Lucy that she was so cagey about? Why had he stayed at the top of the tower with her, instead of helping her down straight away?

  ‘Good,’ Lucy said. ‘We’ll be there before him. I don’t want to be shown up by him thinking he has to carry me in, having the neighbours staring.’

  ‘Seeing how much trouble you’ve caused, you are just a little too full of yourself, Lucy Wolfendale.’

  She let out an angry growl. ‘I’m fed up to the back teeth. Everything’s gone wrong.’

  I refrained from saying that the weekend had not gone according to plan for Lawrence Milner either. We drove back to St Clement’s Road in silence.

  I stopped the car outside number 29.

  Captain Wolfendale stood in the window, next to the suit of armour. A second later, he was gone. The front door flew open. He hurried down the steps.

  ‘Lucy!’ The captain helped her from the car. ‘What’s happened to you?’

  He thanked me over and over, while trying to support Lucy up the front steps.

  ‘I’m all right. Don’t make such a fuss, Granddad. Just let me lean on your arm.’

  The captain shook his head despairingly as he helped Lucy into the house. ‘You look as if you slept in a hedge. Where have you been?’ He led her into the flat.

  Slowly, she crossed the room, holding onto furniture and her grandfather. She dropped heavily into the velvet chair.

  He found a footstool for her. ‘Better raise that leg.’

  She smiled sweetly. ‘Thank you, Granddad. I’ve had a terrible time. And I’m so hungry.’

  The captain jumped to it. He disappeared into the kitchen.

  I perched on the arm of the leather chair. As soon as he returned, I would go. A few moments later, he reappeared, with a glass of water and a hunk of bread spread with dripping. His initial relief at seeing Lucy safe and sound had evaporated. He was frowning, and short of breath.

  ‘Thanks.’ Lucy bit into the bread. With her mouth full, she said, ‘Mrs Shackleton, you were a nurse.’

  ‘Yes.’ This was not a moment for disclaimers or provisos.

 
‘I know I’ve been a bit rude to you, but do you think you could tell me, have I broken my ankle?’

  ‘It looks like a sprain.’ I turned to the captain. ‘Do you have a crepe bandage?’

  The pleasure and relief at seeing Lucy safely home now turned to anger. ‘Ankle? Crepe bandage?’ He did something approaching a mad Morris man dance. ‘Two ransom notes. Written by you, sending me half mad. What’s your explanation?’

  Lucy spoke to me. ‘First aid box is on the shelf in the hall.’

  The old man had aged since I saw him first on Friday night. He had helped Lucy into the house with a small burst of energy. Now, his breathing was heavy and he could not keep still. ‘Have you nothing to say, Lucy?’

  Lucy stared at him. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever done anything wrong in your life. I don’t suppose you ever needed to get money to do something you desperately wanted to do.’

  The captain stared at her, his mouth open. Suddenly he seemed to shrink from her, as from a monster.

  ‘You told me, you always told me I’d have a legacy.’

  They no longer noticed me.

  When I came back with the bandage, dripping from the bread had dribbled onto Lucy’s chin. She wiped at it but only succeeded in smearing it across her face. ‘I asked you nicely, Granddad. I asked you for my inheritance, but no. You wouldn’t give me a penny. You forced me into this.’

  For two pins I would have left them to claw at each other but the nurse in me could not leave the ankle untended.

  The captain watched as I applied the bandage. He said gruffly, ‘The police want to talk to you, Lucy. There was a nasty incident after the theatre on Friday night, concerning Mr Milner.’

  Lucy gulped. ‘I’ve nothing to say to them. I don’t care that Mr Milner’s dead. But I didn’t stab him.’

  The captain stared at me. I refused to catch his eye. In a low voice, he said, ‘How do you know he is dead?’

  Her eyes darted from the captain to me, and back to him. ‘Dan told me he was murdered, and I’m not sorry about it. He disgusted me.’

  For a moment no one spoke. If the souls of the dead hover to watch the effect of their departure on the living, Milner would be in torment. His son, his housekeeper, the girl he dreamed of possessing, none mourned his passing.