The Iron Water

by Chris Nickson

  Harper sat in the cocoa house across from the Town Hall with Kendall and Ash. They’d all been called, all said their pieces. But in the last month they’d had to go over it all so many times. Writing their reports, answering endless questions.

  ‘Looks like it’s all over at last, sir,’ the sergeant said with relief.

  Harper shook his head. ‘The bit with the law’s done. But the public still has to decide if we’re heroes or bloody useless.’ He grimaced. ‘God knows we cocked it up enough.’

  The superintendent sucked on his pipe. ‘It’s already taken care of, Tom,’ he said. ‘The chief constable had a meeting with the editors. We’re all going to come out of this smelling of roses. It’s for the civic good.’

  Leeds was still too new as a city to have a scandal like this, the inspector thought. A few words, some sleight of hand and they became saviours.

  ‘Tom?’ The voice jerked him back from his thoughts. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘The chief wants to give you a commendation for facing down Mrs Keeble that way.’

  He wanted to say no. Not when she’d turned the gun on herself. He could still hear the boom of the weapon. It woke him at night, and after it came the piercing chill he’d felt from the water in the lake. The first few times it happened he’d paced the parlour until it slipped away and he could sleep again. Now it was easier, fading slowly. Soon it might be nothing but one more bloody memory.

  ‘Please thank him.’ There was no other reply he could make.

  A few minutes later he walked down Park Row, through the open doors of the fire station. The engine glistened, the brass shining, the hoses tightly wound on their reels. At Inspector Reed’s door he tapped lightly on the glass. ‘Billy. Do you have a minute?’

  ‘Sit yourself down, Tom.’ He took a cigarette from the packet on the desk and lit it. ‘I need a break, anyway.’

  ‘I wanted to ask you about that fire out in Roundhay back in July.’

  ‘The big house by the park?’

  ‘That’s the one.’ He could see Billy searching his memory, picking out the images in his mind.

  ‘It started upstairs – it was Ash who said that, wasn’t it? By the time we could get an engine out to the place it was too late to save it.’ He shrugged. ‘No one dead from the blaze. I looked through it myself. There’s a widow and a son, isn’t there? They’ll receive the insurance money. They won’t be going short.’

  ‘I only have one question, really.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘If we’d tried to put the fire out ourselves when we were there, would it have made a difference?’ It had nagged at him since he’d gone back out to view the ruins of the building.

  Reed sighed. ‘I can’t answer that, Tom. It depends how much of a hold it already had. You’re not trained.’ He considered for a moment. ‘If you really need to know, it probably wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference. The house would still have burned down.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Harper stood, extending a hand. They shook briefly.

  ‘The inquests were this morning, weren’t they?’

  ‘Unlawful killing on the men, suicide on her.’

  ‘I don’t think many people are going to miss George Archer,’ Reed said.

  ‘Probably not,’ he agreed. ‘No one’s seen Charlie Gilmore since his brother’s funeral either. They’re saying he’s gone to Ireland for a while.’

  ‘Both gone, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  On the way back to Millgarth his eye picked out the bulging dome of the York Street gasometer. He’d gone there a few weeks before, the day after Susan Keeble had killed herself, asking for Mr Brooker. Charlotte Brooker’s father.

  He was a small, diffident man with the look of someone who’d been buffeted and let down by life. And Harper wasn’t about to give him good news.

  ‘We’ve finished our investigation into your daughter’s death,’ Harper told him.

  The man swallowed and gave a small nod. ‘Well?’ he asked in a quiet voice.

  ‘It looks as if it was an accident, sir. She must have slipped into the water and drowned. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘I see,’ the man said eventually. His shoulders had slumped. ‘Thank you, anyway.’

  Before he could sit down, Kendall waved him into the office. He held up a letter.

  ‘Do you know anything about a commission? More of an inquiry, from the look of it.’

  Harper frowned. ‘No.’

  ‘I got this from the chief. Seems that Miss Ford has been on to him, you know, the Quaker woman, the suffragist. She’s working on a study of poverty and crime in Leeds.’

  Harper remembered her saying she’d contact the chief constable. He never believed she’d actually do it. More fool him.

  ‘She’s requested someone from the police to advise,’ Kendall continued. ‘He’s suggested you.’

  Suggestion? This was the force; it was an order.

  ‘You know what to do. Take them round, tell them the way things really are.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Easy duty. But it’ll look good in the press, too, what with you getting the commendation. You deserve it.’ He gave a weary sigh. ‘We were lucky, weren’t we, Tom?’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘More than we deserve.’

  With a grunt Elizabeth hefted the bag on to the kitchen table, then took out the ledger and the shopping.

  ‘I saw Annabelle today. Gave her this week’s money. She’s working on some inquiry or study or whatever it is. All about the poor.’

  ‘Sounds fancy.’ Reed put down the paper. His uniform jacket hung over the back of the chair, and his braces were looped around his shoulders.

  ‘She’s moving up in the world is that lass. Mind you, we are too. A little more money each week.’ She glanced around the room. ‘Maybe we’ll be able to afford something a bit better than this next year. I told you the bakeries were a goldmine.’

  He smiled at her. ‘You were right,’ he agreed. ‘Speaking of Annabelle, Tom came in to Park Row this morning.’

  ‘He’s all over the evening paper. Hero copper.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know it to look at him. More like someone with a lot on his mind.’

  ‘Still glad you transferred to the fire brigade?’

  ‘Very.’ He put a hand over hers. ‘Glad about everything.’

  Harper spent the evening trying to teach Mary to say ‘dada’. She’d managed something like ‘mama’ as she sat on her mother’s lap, being fed the peas Annabelle had mushed together. Fair was fair.

  Now she was in bed, eyes closing as sleep overcame her. He put the story book down and closed the door softly behind him. The day had fallen away, the first hints of dusk outside the window. Another week or two and the nights would start drawing in. Another year was passing by.

  ‘You’re a daft thing, you are.’ Annabelle was laughing. ‘You know she never said a proper word. Not yet.’

  ‘Well, it sounded that way to me,’ he protested.

  ‘It’ll happen soon enough. She’s growing so quickly.’ Annabelle sighed and stretched out her legs, and took a sip of tea. ‘I heard from Miss Ford today. We’re going to start doing interviews for the study a week on Monday.’

  ‘I know.’

  She raised her head to look at him. ‘How?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘She asked the chief for a copper to work with the group.’

  ‘You?’ She sat up quickly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you walked through the door?’

  ‘I was busy trying to teach Mary some important words.’

  ‘Honestly, Tom Harper. What am I going to do with you?’

  He stared at her, his mouth curling into a smile.

  ‘I’m sure you can think of something.’

  AFTERWORD

  It seems that in 1893 there was a trial of a torpedo on Waterloo Lake in Roundhay Park, using the missile to blow up a wooden boat. However, references to the eve
nt are quite sketchy, with no real details. Confusingly, the term used for nautical mines in those days was torpedoes; I’ve stuck to the modern meaning to avoid confusion.

  The case of Charlotte Brooker is based on the death of Mary Ann Brook (or Brooke, or Brookes) in 1885. Her leg was brought up by a dredger in the River Aire, and the rest of the body recovered several days later in the canal. At the inquest the jury delivered an open verdict.

  The pamphlet that Annabelle will be working on was published in 1894 under the mysterious title of Hypnotic Leeds; ‘hypnotic’ meaning ‘blind-sided’ or the unseen part of the city. It appeared in part through the help of the new Independent Labour Party and covered many areas of life that affected the poor, but it doesn’t seem to have had much effect.

  I’m grateful to everyone at Severn House for their belief in the Tom Harper series, to the librarians who order it, all the booksellers who stock it, to those who spend their hard-earned money on these books, and to everyone who takes the time to read one of them. You’re all hugely appreciated. But part of the credit should also go to my editor, Lynne Patrick, who always improves my work, and my agent, Tina Betts, as well as all those who give their support and love, especially Penny. You know exactly who you are, and how much I appreciate everything.