Rags, Bones and Donkey Stones (Sequel)

by B A Lightfoot

  ‘His father's sword he hath girded on,’ the lusty voice continued. ‘And his wild harp slung behind him.’ Seamus, grinning gleefully, had replaced the fiddle under his chin and was accompanying the unseen concertina in this impromptu rendition of the Irish patriotic song.

  General Fforbes-Fosdyke had suggested the strategy as being the only reasonable solution considering the weighty connections that Meredith had. Chopper was the emissary of the General and was carrying a letter that had been drawn up by the General’s lawyers. By signing it, Meredith would agree to the transfer of his shares in the business to the General in exchange for the modest cheque that was attached. Meredith would renounce all connections with the businesses and would effectively disappear from the Manchester area.

  ‘But his harp belongs to the brave and free, And shall never sound in slavery.’

  Seamus finished the chorus with a flourish and then jumped in the air as he spotted the red hair, florid face and bristling, sandy beard of the approaching singer. ‘Hey McGinty,’ he shouted. ‘Over here. Céad míle fáilte. It’s good to see you, mate.’

  ‘Seamus, you young culchie,’ the big man roared. ‘And doesn’t it send the blood tingling through my veins to hear the fiddling of a master.’

  ‘Go on, you smooth talking auld Fenian. And what would you be doing over here? Is it choosing a few books that has taken your fancy?’

  ‘Maybe later, maybe later. I was just enjoying the craic in the Mitre with a few of the boys when I heard that there might be a bit of a party in the Turk’s Head. And wouldn’t I come over just to give a hand when it is one of my kinsmen involved? O’Flaherty here, he thought he’d come for the walk and give us a bit of a tune.’

  Standing open-mouthed at the side of Sidney, Liam watched the two embracing before McGinty crossed the road and approached him. ‘McGinty, I can’t believe my bloody eyes,’ Liam exclaimed, astonished and dismayed to see the rebel Irishman. ‘The last I heard of you, you were over here keeping your head down but look at you now. Parading in front of a policeman as though you are clean as a whistle. I am grateful for your interest but we’ve got enough problems here without you turning up.’

  ‘Aye, well, it’s nice to get a warm greeting from a cousin that you haven’t clapped eyes on in a long time. But clean as a whistle is what I am, well, almost. Didn’t I finish up joining the Jackeens and serving in the Dublin regiment?’

  ‘How did you manage that? You hate them all.’

  ‘Well, you know, things change over time. Michael has done a good job in fighting the cause and it suited me to be getting away from the dirty auld town. I might be getting myself back there one day, up O’Connell Street with a few of the boys. But, for now, there’s no harm to be taken from enjoying the comfort of your family over here.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to meet up some time for a craic but now is a bit difficult,’ Liam said. ‘We’ve got a bit of business on and things might prove a bit tricky. If you are going to hang around, then just don’t do anything off your own bat.’

  ‘Argh. Have you no faith? You can put your trust in McGinty. And why are we all standing out here like gossiping women? Sure, we can discuss things more freely with a drink in our hands. Isn’t my throat already feeling parched after the singing?’

  Liam smiled and took McGinty’s elbow, leading him away from O’Flaherty. The concertina player, prompted by a group of market women to ‘give us a tune, darling,’ had begun to play the infectious Irish song, A Wild Rover. McGinty, roaring his encouragement, was already straining to join in. Liam briefly explained to McGinty the purpose of his mission and told him that they were waiting for the signal from Billy that Meredith had finished collecting his fees from the porters so that they could discuss matters with a little more privacy.

  McGinty laid a big hand on Liam’s shoulder. ‘Don’t you be worrying yourself about that, my friend. Am I not just ready to wet my throat a little? O’Flaherty and myself will be taking ourselves across there and having a look at what is happening.’

  Realising that there was some merit in the idea of his affable cousin going into the pub to assess the situation, Liam reluctantly agreed. ‘Just don’t be saying anything about us while you are in there. I want all this to be done quietly if possible, especially with that suspicious bobby keeping an eye on us. You are not exactly known for your discretion and I don’t want this to fall apart at the last minute.’

  ‘Would you believe that coming from a man of my own blood? Am I not a reformed character without a stain on my soul?’ he laughed, chucking Liam under the chin. ‘And it's no, nay, never, No nay never no more,’ he sang as he crossed the road, ‘Will I play the wild rover, No never no more.’

  Liam stared at the burly figure as he disappeared through the door. McGinty was certainly a man you would want on your side if it came to a rough house, but he had rehearsed this meeting over and over again in his mind as being one of quiet but firm negotiation. Any resort to violence would almost certainly swing the balance, in the long run, in favour of Meredith. He couldn’t afford a failure at this stage and the arrival of his wayward cousin seemed like another bad omen.

  ‘Bloody McGinty turning up like that. Something will go wrong with him involved. Are you sure that you’ve got that letter with you?’ he asked Chopper.

  ‘You have asked me that about ten times already. I haven’t not brought it since last time.’

  ‘I am just wanting to be sure, that’s all. What’s going on in there? Why is it taking them so long to deal with the porters? The next one that comes out I’m going to grab and find out what is happening.’

  ‘Look mate, calm down. Either your Billy or your Irish friend will be out in a minute and they will explain it.’

  It was ten anguished minutes before McGinty reappeared, waving cheerily across the road as he stood, swaying slightly, on the steps of the Turk’s Head. He waited for a moment, his arm resting round the shoulder of O’Flaherty, whilst a carter passed carrying a load of wooden crates. In the middle of the road, they stopped and McGinty fumbled in his pockets looking for his cigarettes. He turned quickly and headed back to the pub, narrowly avoiding a collision with a black Austin 7 whose horn loudly parped a warning signal. McGinty shook his fist at the rear of the car, describing the driver as a ‘Fekkin’ eejit’ as it disappeared down Withy Grove. The policeman, his hand now hovering nervously over his whistle, barely acknowledged McGinty’s beaming smile and cheerful ‘Afternoon, officer,’ as the big Irishman completed his return journey across the road and back into the pub.

  It was another agonising five minutes before Liam, wincing, watched his cousin as he came unsteadily across the road, seemingly oblivious to the other road users. ‘Where the sodding hell have you been?’ he almost screamed at the irritatingly cheerful McGinty. ‘All you had to do was to go in, see what was happening and come back out again.’

  ‘Don’t be fretting yourself so much, my friend. There was nothing happening. They are all just standing about like spare parts. Yer man, Meredith, is not there. He got called away. I got talking to one of his boys – a fella called Mulligan. Knew him at home. We were both working for the cause.’

  ‘Well, you could have sent O’Flaherty out to tell us what was going on. What has happened to our Billy?’

  ‘Acch, your Billy is fine. They are all standing round because gobshite’s men won’t take the money. Mulligan tells me that there is a crowd of coppers in the back bar. He says that they had been tipped off that there might be a bit of trouble in there today. Yer man’s boys, though, are now frightened that they might get their collars felt if they start making their collections.’

  ‘Tipped off? Bloody wars, who tipped them off? How would anybody have known that we were coming here today? I’m sure that the lads from the allotments wouldn’t have said a thing to anyone. They want to get this Meredith off the scene as much as anybody.’

  ‘Now that I don’t know, but Mulligan said that there was a fair crew of the police outside
as well, dotted all round the market. And I saw quite a few down near the Mitre. It looks as though it might have been in the planning for a while.’

  Seamus had now wandered across and joined them. ‘Alright, McGinty? Would it be a party that you found for yourself over there when we’re all dry as a plasterer’s throat?’

  Liam and McGinty explained to him what the situation was in the Turk’s Head bar and how their operation seemed to have now been frustrated by the presence of the police and the disappearance of Meredith.

  ‘Would that be the big, ugly fella with the moustache and the watery eyes?’ Seamus asked.

  ‘Aye, that sounds like him,’ Liam replied. ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘Well, I have to admit that I was a bit early arriving and it being such a thirsty day, what with the sun shining and the dust thrown up by the motor cars. So I thought that I might as well wait indoors for a while and have a bit of lunch.’

  ‘They don’t serve food in there apart from the odd pork pies, and they are all gone by eleven,’ Liam said.

  ‘No, no,’ Seamus said thoughtfully. ‘But don’t you know that a drop of the Liffy water is as nutritious as a pork pie on a dry day?’

  ‘Aye, well, maybe so. But where did you see Meredith?’

  ‘He came in earlier with his boys. Swaggering about like a bully-boy sergeant major. Obviously knew that there was going to be a bit of a party. Smiling all over his fat face and buying people drinks.’

  ‘He clearly thought that he had something to smile about if he believed that he was going to get us all arrested. It’s a good job for us that he did get called away. If we had confronted him he would have made sure that it turned nasty and the police would have moved in on us. They would have thrown the book at me. God, Brig would have killed me. Who called him away?’

  ‘Well, I can’t say that I knew exactly,’ Seamus said. ‘It was just a wee young culchie with pouchy cheeks; smelt of horses. He handed the big fella a note. It soon wiped the smile off his face. He was up and gone in a few minutes.’

  Something in the description struck a chord of familiarity in Liam’s mind. A small young country boy with pouchy cheeks, smelt of horses - it had to be Billy’s friend, Hamster. Had he been the one who tipped off Meredith? Surely he wouldn’t betray his friend like that. On the other hand, by calling Meredith away, he had saved both Billy and himself from some very serious trouble. ‘Seamus, will you take Sidney through the market stalls? Hold his elbow because he is supposed to be a blind beggar. God knows why he couldn’t have just chosen to be a street sweeper or something. Tell him to send all the lads home. I’ll catch up with them later. I’m going to get Billy out of there. McGinty, will you and O’Flaherty go and cause a distraction over near that policeman while Sidney spirits the lads away? The less he sees of what’s happening, the better.’

  It was three days later that a grim faced Chopper came to Liam’s house on Goodiers Lane with a copy of the Manchester Evening News. Liam could barely get past the headline. ‘Vegetable King Found Dead,’ it read. It went on to say that the proprietor of the major vegetable wholesale company, Clarence Meredith, had been found hanging in a vacant unit under the railway arches near Victoria Station. Liam’s head ached with the welter of implications that this news carried. The police knew that there had been the possibility of a confrontation with Meredith and his men. Had the informant also told them that he was the other party? A few enquiries would soon lead them to conclude that there had been a high level of intimidation by Meredith’s organisation against his own, much humbler, operation. Liam clearly had a grievance and, in the police eyes, that would establish a motive.

  He sat down, holding his head. ‘Bloody wars, Chopper. This is all we need. All the fingers are pointing at me. If he has topped himself, he could have been a bit more considerate with his timing. It’s not going to take them long to put two and two together and make five. They’ll be round here like a dose of salts. “H’excuse me, sir, would you like to accompany us to our comfortable police cells. Wiv a bit of luck, and a few mitigating circumstances, you might get away wiv only fifty years in Strangeways.” Sodding Meredith. I bet he’s laughing his sweaty socks off at this.’

  ‘Hang on, mate,’ Chopper soothed. ‘Don’t forget that Meredith had a lot of enemies and any of them might have been carrying a big enough grudge to do this.’

  ‘But none of them had a private army standing by ready to do battle with him in the Turk’s Head.’

  ‘That was just for a one-to-one discussion to persuade him to do what was right. We had no intention of making any trouble.’

  ‘But the police don’t bloody know that, do they?’ Liam, increasingly desperate, almost shouted. ‘Do they care whether we were just going for a chat or for an open war? We had thirty fellas spread about the market ready for whatever was needed. Wasn’t exactly a friendly gesture, was it? It wasn’t saying that we are just here for an amicable business meeting was it? No! It was saying that if we don’t get what we want we are going to rip your head off, Mr Clarence Bloody Meredith. That’s what the police will see and that is why it is me that will be taking the drop for this. A clear motive. You and your boys have hunted this defenceless man down and strung him up from the rafters. All because you couldn’t compete fairly against him. Bloody wars! Bloody wars!’

  ‘Sweetheart, what’s all the shouting about?’ Bridget said, undoing her bonnet and shrugging off her jacket as she came through the door. She nodded to Chopper, who smiled back weakly, and she kissed Liam on the cheek. ‘Don’t get so excited, dear. You are going to give yourself a heart attack. Shall I put the kettle on while you tell me what you are getting so worked up about?’

  ‘It’s that sodding Meredith, sorry Brig, that evil man, Meredith. He has only gone and hung himself and who will the police be accusing? Me. His number one enemy.’

  ‘Oh, really? I wonder if that is what Billy and that funny little friend of his are talking about?’

  ‘What funny little friend are you talking about?’ Liam asked.

  ‘Some young man who has just turned up at the yard on a cart pulled by a donkey. I heard Billy saying something about he can’t be dead. I am sure that he will be home soon so he can explain it. He was just washing one of the trucks down.’

  ‘Was it a thin young fella with chubby cheeks and hair like a worn out straw bonnet?’

  ‘Yes, that sounds like him,’ she answered brightly from the kitchen. ‘Do you know him?’

  Liam heard the boiling water hiss and gurgle as it was poured into the pot and the spoon tapping the ceramic wall of the teapot as the water was stirred to release the flavours from the leaves. ‘It must be Hamster, his mate from the stables. They’ll all be glad to see the back of him.’ He heard the three cups being placed on the saucers then the spoons positioned alongside. He wasn’t getting his mug this time, not with Chopper being here.

  Bridget carried the tray in and placed it carefully on the table. ‘We’ll just let it brew for a minute while I read this,’ she said, picking up the paper. ‘That’s interesting. It says that the police have been interviewing a witness but it doesn’t say who it is. And it says that the police have only just released information about Meredith’s unfortunate death because of the sensitive nature of their enquiries.’

  ‘He led a very complicated life, that’s for sure,’ Chopper said. ‘There will be a lot of people out there who are a bit nervous about what will come out when the police start turning a few stones over.’

  ‘That doesn’t make me feel any better,’ Liam complained. ‘I’ll still be the number one suspect. Who is the witness? I didn’t get that far down the article. Does it say anything else?’

  ‘No, not really,’ Bridget said, shaking her head. ‘It says that his widow is being comforted by her three children and the police are continuing with their enquiries. We’ll just have this drink and then I’ll get the tea on. If Billy comes home soon, he can go and pick Gracie up from Laura’s.’

  ‘I ca
n’t cope with this,’ Liam complained. ‘The police might come down any time now and haul me off and that could be the last that you see of me. And do we care? All we are talking about is getting the tea on and picking the kids up.’

  ‘Sweetheart, stop worrying,’ Bridget soothed. ‘All that you were there for was to have a civilised business discussion with him. You knew that he had a reputation for using violence when conducting his affairs so your friends were there just as an insurance policy. What is the problem?’

  ‘The problem is that the police might not be so sympathetic. They won’t be interested in the detail. They will establish the motive and that is it. Job done. Me gone.’

  ‘Liam,’ Bridget said firmly, ‘stop worrying so much. All you have to do is tell them to go and have a word with the General and he will confirm everything that you are saying.’

  ‘Hhmm. That might not be so easy, Mrs Murphy,’ Chopper said, shifting his stance uneasily and clattering his cup down on the saucer. ‘The General likes to keep a low profile in matters such as this. That’s why he delegates other people to do things whilst he stays in the background. Wouldn’t be happy to be having his name brought into it.’

  ‘And apart from that, for all he knows I might have done it. He just gave me a letter authorising the transfer of Meredith’s stock and a cheque to compensate him. I was his agent in the negotiation but that doesn’t make him responsible for my actions. He has no idea what I might have been up to. When we took the letter back to him the next morning, he just said that it was disappointing and we should try again another day. It was not particularly important for him to be rid of Meredith, although he was not happy when we told him about all the other shenanigans.’

  ‘I think that he feels that it reflects badly on his judgement,’ Chopper said. ‘You know, him having supported Meredith as an ex-soldier who was down on his luck and then him turning into an absolute toerag like that. Oh, pardon Mrs Murphy, not sure if that’s a bit out of order, like. But that’s a kind description of him as far as I am concerned.’