The Murder Book

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Then I plan to wake him up, Evans. I have business to discuss.’

  Evans nodded, stood aside and directed Edmund to the study.

  Charles May lay sprawled on the day bed in the study. A glass sat on the floor beside it and he looked as though he must either have slept in his clothes or forgotten how to dress himself.

  ‘Charles.’ Edmund Fry shook his friend. Eventually Charles opened his eyes.

  ‘God, man. You stink of booze. What are you doing to yourself?’ He took Charles by the arm and hauled him into a sitting position. ‘Evans, bring some coffee. Make it good and strong. Charles, what’s got into you? Look at me, Charles. What are you doing to yourself?’

  Charles May looked at his friend with something close to despair in his eyes. And then they hardened. ‘I’ve nothing to say to you,’ he said. ‘Want nothing to do with you.’

  ‘I’m your friend, Charles. Talk to me.’

  Slowly, May shook his head. ‘Nothing you can do, old man,’ he said. ‘Not a bloody thing anyone can do.’

  ‘I feel like a traitor, Inspector. I truly do.’

  Edmund Fry looked pale and anxious. He wrapped both hands around the plain white cup containing over-strong, sweet tea. ‘But I’m very much afraid that he may … may have had something to do with the deaths.’

  Henry listened carefully as Edmund Fry explained, telling him what he feared and what his wife had found out. What had happened when he had gone to confront his friend.

  ‘He was so drunk. So utterly … I’ve not seen him like that before. He’s not himself, Inspector, and I’m very much afraid of what that might mean.’

  Henry Johnstone nodded. I’d like you to tell Chief Inspector Carrington everything you’ve just told me,’ he said.

  ‘Of … of course.’ Fry looked puzzled but nodded his head emphatically.

  Henry summoned Carrington and then beckoned Sergeant Hitchens to follow him. ‘We bring him in now,’ he said. ‘I think our stirring has finally caused the scum to rise to the surface.’

  Charles May looked rough and smelt worse, and Henry wondered just how much he’d had to drink in the past twenty or so hours.

  He was charged and asked if he wanted legal counsel.

  Charles May looked at Inspector Johnstone as if he didn’t quite understand the words.

  ‘Take him to the cells,’ Carrington urged. ‘Let him sober up overnight. ‘You’ll get nothing from him yet.’

  For the first time since they had met, Henry found himself agreeing with the man. He nodded at Constable Parkin. ‘Ensure a watch is kept,’ he said. ‘Checks on the quarter hour. Ensure his tie and laces and belt are taken.’

  Carrington stood at Henry’s side and watched as Charles May was taken down. ‘You’re certain of this?’ He sounded shaken.

  ‘I’m sure,’ Henry Johnstone said. ‘He’ll confess. Just give him time. He has no choice left to him.’

  ‘And now?’ Carrington asked.

  ‘We search his home,’ Henry said.

  SIXTY-THREE

  Ethan’s hands had been calloused since boyhood and the skin grew harder daily as he hauled the ropes and swabbed the decks, his bare skin lashed by wind and the cold, driving rain. Rounding Biscay, the weather had turned on them and he felt he had not been warm or dry in days.

  But he was still alive and he was moving steadily and surely away from the threat.

  He was also moving further and further away from Helen Lee and that grieved him more than hard work or pain or rough weather ever could. He saw her face every time he closed his eyes, remembered the softness of her skin and the smell of her, warm and womanly and perfumed with lavender.

  He grieved for her. Sore of body and heartbroken, Ethan felt that nothing could hurt him further or more deeply than life already had.

  The one thought he held tight to was his love for Helen Lee. The one he tried hardest to put aside was the guilt mixed with anger he felt when Robert Hanson came to mind.

  He blamed Robert as much as he blamed himself. Robert Hanson had died that day but Ethan felt that he was the one that had been buried.

  ‘I love my wife, do you know that? And I love my boys. She threatened that. All of it.

  ‘I helped that woman, you see, and then she … she inveigled her way into my life.’

  ‘And into your bed?’ Henry asked.

  ‘You are a crude, uncouth man.’ May lashed out but then seemed to regain a measure of control. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘I was stupid and weak and allowed myself to be led. She took advantage of me. Of my good nature. She blackmailed me. She—’

  ‘And so you killed her,’ Henry said flatly. ‘What happened that night, Mr May? Did the child interrupt you? Did Walter Fields try to stop you? What did you hit them with, Mr May? What did you do with the murder weapon?’

  ‘You can’t prove anything.’

  Henry slipped a hand into his pocket and withdrew a key. He laid it on the table in front of Charles May. ‘This was found in your home,’ he said. ‘It’s the key to the house where Mary Fields lived.’

  For a moment, May scowled at him and then began to bluster. ‘She gave me the key,’ he said.

  ‘Then why were you seen knocking on the window, waiting to be let in? There’s enough evidence to bring this to court. You need to convince a jury of what you did or didn’t do, not me.’

  Charles May stared at Henry then dropped his head into his hands. ‘She had the boy take photographs,’ he said. ‘She threatened everything I had – everything. Pushed me into a corner. Pushed me too far. What else was I to do?’

  ‘And so you killed her. Killed them.’

  ‘What does it matter any more?’ Charles May said. ‘What does any of it matter now?’

  An hour later and Henry had a written statement, confessing to the crime. May hadn’t expected the child to come into the room. Mary had told him that she was spending the night with friends. And he had no idea that Walter had a key to the front door.

  ‘Where did you find the key?’ Carrington asked him.

  ‘In the pocket of the jacket he’d been wearing. I think he just forgot that it was there.’

  ‘I’d never have believed it,’ Carrington said. ‘Not Charles May.’

  As Henry and Mickey walked back to the hotel Mickey fished in his pocket and produced another front door key. ‘I’d better get this back to the landlord,’ he said.

  ‘Insurance policy, Mickey?’

  ‘Didn’t need it in the end, did we? The man was stupid enough to hang on to the one he’d taken from Walter. Reckon we can go home now, boss?’

  Henry nodded. ‘I think I’d welcome that,’ he said.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  ‘Well, one out of two isn’t a complete disaster,’ Mickey said cheerfully as they boarded the train and began their journey back to London.

  ‘Ethan Samuels is long gone,’ Henry agreed. ‘Mickey, none of this has turned out well. Broken families and communities that are torn apart. This will resonate for a long time to come.’

  ‘Murder always does,’ Mickey said. ‘At least George Fields will have his justice.’

  ‘His wife and child are still dead.’

  Mickey looked speculatively at his boss. ‘You’re in a fine mood,’ he said. ‘Me, I’m just glad to be heading home. We can’t change the world, Henry. All we can do is fix what we can.’

  Extract from The Murder Book:

  I heard the news this morning that Mr Charles May has been found dead in his cell. He had evidently decided not to wait for the executioner and hanged himself with his bedsheet.

  It occurs to me that most deaths are banal, ordinary, and murders often the more so. Death by violence often has such small and ridiculous beginnings. The need or desire for money, for status, for sex – often not even for love. I can comprehend these needs, especially if, as is so often the case, the perpetrator has little to begin with; is lacking for all of those things and so just seeks to take what he or she can. Human impulse leads to us s
eeking comfort in whatever form is appropriate. To be recognized, to be comfortable, to be valued.

  Most death by violence grows from the actions of a single instance. A man who feels his wife has nagged him once too often or a woman who lashed out against a man who is hurting her or a parent who strikes out at a child or a man who sees a horse beaten and takes the crop against the owner. Charles May had none of these excuses. Perhaps a man who is so used to buying his way through life simply finds it incomprehensible when he realizes that can’t always be the solution. Perhaps he realized, or assumed, that Mary Fields would never cease to blackmail him, though I suspect, strongly, that he could simply have paid her off. She cared for her child. Her husband thought that most of Mary’s misadventures stemmed from that root and about that I’m not so certain. I suspect that Mary simply liked the adventure of it all and thought little about the true consequences.

  I wonder if Charles May’s wife will miss him.

  Doctor Fielding sent word that he’d had reason to go out to Thoresway and that Frank Church and Helen Lee are married now and he’s heard rumours that she’s in the family way. Whose child? I wonder. Frank’s or Ethan’s? The old folk will be counting the days, no doubt, but I have the feeling that no one will count them too loudly.

  He tells me that Frank has been raised to the position of stockman at the Hanson place so I suppose the Samuels must have left or be leaving soon.

  I wonder if Helen Lee will continue to miss Ethan Samuels. He’s as good as dead to her now and, though it goes against the grain, there is a small part of me that is glad he escaped the hangman.

  Henry reread what he had written and allowed himself the ghost of a smile. Then he crossed through the last lines.

  A foolish sentiment, Henry Johnstone thought.