The Tin God

by Chris Nickson

  ‘Why don’t you stop walking and tell me?’ he said.

  ‘I’m scared they’re going to do me, and it’s your fault.’

  ‘Mine?’ Reed raised an eyebrow. He knew what was coming, but he wanted to hear the man say it.

  ‘People have seen me with you. On the pier, then yesterday.’ Any pretence of a grand manner had vanished. Now there was just panic. ‘I’m scared they’re going to do me like Tom Barker.’

  ‘Who will?’

  ‘The people who run the smuggling.’ He pulled the watch from his waistcoat. ‘We’ve only got a quarter of an hour before they come back to work.’

  ‘Then you’d better get a move on, hadn’t you?’

  He let John Millgate sweat a little before he made his deal. Terrier wanted the usual: protection in return for Queen’s evidence, and no jail. But Reed was going to exact Harry Pepper’s terms. The Excise man would accept nothing less.

  ‘All of them. Not just the Shaws.’ Terrier’s head jerked up in fear at the name. ‘Everyone inland, too.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Mr Reed.’ His voice was plaintive, his eyes sorrowful.

  ‘It’s that or nothing.’ The inspector shrugged. ‘It’s up to you. I’ll remind you of this: give them all up and they won’t be around to hurt you.’

  The room stayed silent for a long time, so quiet that Reed could hear the soft lapping of the water against the pilings under the noise of the gulls.

  ‘All right,’ Terrier agreed finally. It came out like a submission. ‘All right.’

  He gave it in quick spurts. Contraband arrived all along the coast, from Redcar down to Filey, but most of it from Robin Hood’s Bay to Sandsend. The cutters stood offshore, and men would row out in their cobles and take the goods to the beach.

  A fair piece of the money to finance it all came from Leeds.

  ‘That’s why I’m out here,’ Terrier said. ‘John Rutherford wanted someone he could trust to keep an eye on things. Watch his investment and work with them here. He’d had someone, but he upped and died. Natural causes,’ he added quickly. ‘Me and John, we’ve known each other since we were nippers. He trusts me. He asked if I fancied the job.’

  ‘So you ended up living the high life out here.’

  ‘Until you come along and recognized me. Now them down in the Bay, they’re not too happy. You and the Excise people arrested those people down near Sandsend.’

  ‘We arrested you, too. Not even a week ago.’

  ‘Mr Rutherford wanted what we could salvage from when the Excise caught those men. He told me to send someone to get it. I’ve used Dennison before.’

  ‘We were watching. The way you were pacing up and down the pier waiting for them to come back, you might as well have worn a sandwich board and written “Guilty” on it.’

  ‘Down in the Bay, they’re wondering about us talking.’

  ‘What do I get if I help you?’

  Millgate swallowed hard. He knew it was going to cost. How much he was willing to pay depended on how much he wanted to stay alive.

  ‘I’ll go in court and testify against the smugglers,’ he said after a moment.

  ‘That’ll be good for the Excise people. They’ll like that. But what do I get from it?’

  ‘I’ll give evidence against John Rutherford, too. He has a big operation. Been doing it for years, and no one has the faintest notion. The Excise in Leeds is a joke, he says.’

  ‘But it isn’t here, and you know that. Harry Pepper will be interested in what you have to say.’

  ‘But can he keep me alive, Mr Reed? Can he do that?’

  ‘We’re working our way through these tips, sir,’ Ash said. ‘It takes time, though. You know that.’

  He did. Time, and plenty of frustration.

  ‘Nothing remotely worthwhile?’

  ‘They’re all worthwhile until they answer the door, sir,’ Ash said with a grin. ‘Same as ever. None of them could be our man. But we have more left. Those bobbies in Hyde Park finally have one or two addresses for us. Walsh is out looking at them.’

  Harper nodded; it made sense to send him. He’d been the one who spotted the man at the meeting in Hunslet and followed him back there; he’d recognize him.

  ‘I feel like the net’s closing in.’

  ‘I don’t want to put a damper on things, but we’ve all felt like that before on cases, sir.’

  ‘Yes. Too bloody often.’ Harper snorted. ‘This time, though …’

  ‘Let’s hope you’re right, sir.’

  If he was still an inspector, he’d have been out there himself, looking people in the eye, asking his questions and listening for lies. As a superintendent, he was stuck there. In charge of everything, but at a distance. At least he had men, good men doing the work.

  The papers to be read and signed lay in front of him, but after a few sentences his mind kept slipping away. He was grateful when the telephone gave its shrill jangle. Maybe it was news.

  ‘Superintendent Harper.’

  ‘Tom? It’s Billy Reed. Can you hear me?’

  The line crackled and buzzed, but the words came through. Billy? Had something happened to Elizabeth?

  ‘Yes, yes. What is it?’

  ‘Terrier John. He’s given everything to the Excise man here. Do you know John Rutherford?’

  Someone had mentioned the name lately, but Harper couldn’t recall any criminal with that name. Then it came back. Terrier John’s old friend. A distributor of spirits.

  ‘He’s the one,’ Reed told him. ‘Seems that he’s behind all this. Harry Pepper – he’s in charge of the Excise people here – is planning a big raid tomorrow. He’s bringing in men from all over. The Excise in Leeds are going after Rutherford then, too. He has a special place where he hides all the contraband.’ Even on a poor line where he missed too many words, he could sense Billy’s excitement. ‘Could you go along? Pepper thinks the revenue men in Leeds are useless. If you’re there, they’ll have to do their jobs properly.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he agreed. ‘But we have something going on ourselves …’

  ‘This is big, Tom. If Harry nets everyone, it will shut down smuggling all along the Yorkshire coast. But everything has to be co-ordinated. We need to go in everywhere at the same time.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ he promised, his heart sinking a little. This couldn’t have come at a worse moment.

  ‘They’ll have the details in Leeds later. Can you talk to them and arrange everything?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I’d have sent you a telegram.’ Reed sounded apologetic. ‘But it’s faster to do it this way, and I can say more.’ He hesitated. ‘Elizabeth has booked those hotel rooms for you. She’s looking forward to seeing Annabelle again.’ The line crackled again, then, ‘I need to go. If you can keep the Excise people there on the mark, I’d be grateful. We all would.’

  ‘I will. Thank Elizabeth for arranging the hotel, will you? Good luck for tomorrow.’

  At least someone was achieving results, the superintendent thought as he replaced the receiver and rubbed his good ear. Terrier John involved in something large. Who would ever have thought that?

  Billy was pulling off a coup in his first few months in Whitby, too. That would bring plenty of praise. Harper knew that he ought to feel pleased for him. They’d been through so much together. But that time had passed, they’d gone different ways. The only taste in his mouth, though, was sourness. Envy. He needed his own victory like that. He needed his killer in custody.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Time stretched. Whenever he glanced up at the clock, thinking an hour must have passed, it was no more than five minutes. Still no word from any of the men.

  Harper took the slips of paper, all the words from the songs, out of the drawer and set them on his desk. However much he looked, though, they didn’t take him any deeper into the killer’s mind. Calling cards, Ash and Walsh had said; a signature. A curious one, perhaps, but no mistaking it for anyone else.

&nb
sp; Finally, as the hour turned to five and he was about to give up for the day, Tollman came running through to his office.

  ‘Detective Constable Walsh just ’phoned from the Woodhouse Moor station, sir. He knows who your man is. Could you meet him outside the Hyde Park Hotel?’

  The jolt was physical. Suddenly Harper was alert. Everything else vanished.

  ‘Call me a hackney,’ he said, already reaching for his coat and hat. ‘Find Ash and Fowler. Tell them I’ll want them, too.’

  At the door he turned back and took the truncheon from his desk, smiling as he slid it into his pocket.

  ‘Who is it?’ he asked as he saw Walsh pacing up and down the pavement. The hackney driver had made good speed, cracking his whip over the horse to keep it moving fast.

  ‘I was going through the addresses the bobbies had given us, sir. This was next to the last. Nobody at home. As soon as the neighbour saw that sketch they said it had to be him—’

  ‘Don’t go all round the houses,’ Harper snapped. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘That’s it, sir. As soon as she told me, I remembered him from the Leeds Club list.’

  ‘Who?’ He shouted the word.

  ‘Gerald Hotchkiss, sir. The journalist who’s written those articles saying everyone should vote for the male candidates.’

  For a moment Harper stood, stunned. It all made sense now. Hotchkiss was educated, articulate. He didn’t like women in politics. He should have thought of it himself.

  ‘How long ago were you at his house?’

  Walsh looked at his pocket watch. ‘About three-quarters of an hour, sir. The woman next door said he usually comes home from work about half past five.’

  A cab pulled up, the horse snorting and frothing with effort; Ash and Fowler climbed out.

  ‘It’s Hotchkiss from the Post,’ the superintendent told them. ‘Walsh has done a good job. I want one of you to go to his office. Search his desk. Ask who his friends are, where he goes. The other to the Leeds Club, in case he’s there. If you find him, don’t be gentle.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ash replied. Fowler smiled with relish. They were back in the hackney before it could pull away.

  ‘Now,’ Harper said to the detective constable, ‘let’s see where he lives.’

  Nobody answered his knock at the door. It was a neat terraced villa, three storeys, anonymous among all the other houses on a quiet street off Victoria Road. A ginnel at the back. Harper opened the gate. A tiny back garden, a brick privy standing in the corner, two small flower beds dug over for autumn, everything ordered and tidy.

  Harper kicked the back door open. It wasn’t legal, but he was past caring. This was their man. He wanted to know him, to sense him, to smell him in this place.

  ‘You search upstairs,’ he told Walsh. ‘I’ll look around down here.’

  The roll-top bureau stood in the front room. He forced the lock with his pocket knife. Some letters, one half-finished. He recognized the handwriting. Exactly the same as the notes the man had left; that put it beyond a shade of a doubt.

  Shelves filled with books. His eyes moved over the titles until he spotted Kidson’s Traditional Tunes. Next to it, newspaper clippings tied together with string. He pulled them out: a collection of Frank Kidson’s folk song columns from the Leeds Mercury.

  He went through every nook and cranny, hurriedly glancing at things before tossing them on to the floor. Nothing to indicate what Hotchkiss was planning or where he might be. If the neighbour was right, he should have been home by now.

  Where was he?

  Harper unlocked the front door. Not a soul on the street.

  Walsh was still going through the bedroom, thorough and methodical.

  ‘Found anything?’

  ‘He likes to use bay rum on his face after he shaves. That’s about it. Some books about politics by his bed. Nothing useful.’

  ‘When you’ve finished up here, look downstairs again. He has to come home sometime. I want you on hand to arrest him.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, sir. This one will be a pleasure.’

  ‘I need to get back to Millgarth and see if the others have him yet.’

  ‘He doesn’t often go to the Leeds Club.’ Fowler peered down through his spectacles at his notebook and blinked. ‘The last visit was a fortnight ago. He usually signs in as a guest of someone called Winchester, but the staff say he’s in London.’

  ‘We can rule that place out, then,’ Harper replied.

  ‘The people at the paper were helpful,’ Ash said. ‘Bent over backwards once I told them what their writer has been doing. He had another of his columns written for tomorrow’s edition. I saw it; the same vote for men tripe. They’ve pulled it. I came away with a few names of friends. The bobbies have gone visiting to see if he’s with any of them. Evidently he sometimes likes a drink at Whitelock’s after work. I stopped in there, but no sign of him.’

  He told them what he’d found at the house.

  ‘Pass the word to the coppers guarding the candidates.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘Now we hunt him, gentlemen. He’s around somewhere. Let’s find him.’

  First, though, a swift trip out to Sheepscar. Annabelle deserved to know.

  ‘Gerald Hotchkiss?’ she asked in disbelief. ‘That journalist?’

  ‘Him.’

  ‘I never …’ she said slowly. ‘I suppose it’s obvious once you think about it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ One name and all the pieces tumbled into place. He should have come up with it earlier, he should have investigated after he read the man’s articles. But Hotchkiss was a writer. They used words, not weapons. He’d never made the connection. ‘I’ve told Martinson. He’ll make sure the night man knows. You’ll be safe.’

  ‘You’re going to catch him, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he told her, and this time he was certain. ‘He can’t get away now. So I need to be back at the station.’

  She nodded. Before he left, he pulled her close.

  Tonight he had to be out there himself, moving around the streets of Leeds. Harper couldn’t wait at Millgarth and hope for news. He slipped from one public house to another, up and down Briggate, along the Headrow, standing just inside the doorway, studying all the faces. His mouth was filled with the metallic taste of anticipation.

  He looked at the people passing on the street. Heads down, gazing at the pavement in front of them. Men, most of them. A young woman at the entrance to Rockley Court, staring boldly.

  Harper rubbed his face. His fingers came away dark, discoloured by the soot in the air. No escaping it here.

  By eleven he still had nothing. Wearily, he trudged back along George Street. His feet hurt, he was tired. But at least he’d been doing something. And maybe the men had found Hotchkiss.

  As soon as he saw them, the superintendent knew their luck had been as poor as his.

  ‘Nothing,’ Ash said flatly. Fowler polished his glasses with a handkerchief, holding them up towards the light from the gas mantle before rubbing them again. ‘Walsh is spending the night out in Hyde Park, just in case. My guess is that Hotchkiss knows we’re on to him somehow. He’s hiding.’

  ‘Are you ready?’ Harry Pepper asked.

  Reed was wearing his old suit, prepared for anything the morning might bring. The old hum of excitement flowed through him: action ahead, when the senses sharpened, and every moment seemed important.

  ‘Ready and willing.’

  ‘Have you used a rifle before?’

  ‘I was in Kabul for the Afghanistan War,’ he replied. ‘Served with the West Yorkshires.’

  Pepper nodded his approval. ‘You know what you’re doing, then.’ He unlocked a cupboard and took out a weapon. ‘One of those new Lee Enfields.’

  Reed weighed it in his hands and checked the ammunition before sighting along the barrel.

  ‘Do you think they’ll fire at us?’

  ‘I’ll be astonished if they don’t.’ The Excise men checked his pocket watch. ‘Let’s go. I�
�ve had people in position since before first light.’

  It was a fast, bumpy ride down to Robin Hood’s Bay; they left the wagon out of sight at the top of the hill. One of Pepper’s men was waiting for them.

  ‘We’re just waiting for the signal, sir,’ he said. Reed could see the look in his eyes, the glow of eagerness for the operation to begin.

  ‘I’ll blow the whistle twice to start things. Your man Millgate gave us the locations of the caves where they hide things. The Coast Guard will go in and secure those. We arrest the men.’ Pepper stared at the policeman. ‘Stay alert,’ he warned. ‘And be ready to fire.’

  The streets, barely wide enough for two people, veered sharply off the twisting hill. It had always seemed put together with no rhyme or reason, Reed thought, a maze. But the Excise man knew exactly where he was going.

  By one of the cottages he stopped, took a breath, then two sharp blasts from his whistle cut through the sound of the seagulls and the waves on the shore. Pepper brought a pistol from his coat and kicked at the door, bringing his foot down three times until the lock gave. Billy Reed followed into the darkness.

  Somewhere in the distance four shots sounded.

  ‘You might as well give up, Solomon Shaw,’ the Excise man shouted. ‘I’m shutting it all down.’

  There was hardly time to notice the detail of the room. The rocking chair, a bright rag rug, the fire prepared and unlit in the grate. A single dried flower in a vase on the mantelpiece. Then he was through to the kitchen, rifle at the ready. His heart was beating fast, thumping in his chest.

  A movement caught the corner of his eye. Without thinking, Reed ducked as his old training kicked in. The shot from the musket went over his head and he fired. Once, twice. The clatter of metal and the sound of a body slumping to the ground.

  ‘He’ll live,’ Pepper said. ‘But it’s a good job you were quick. He’d have killed you.’

  They stood and watched the eight men and three women being escorted to the wagon in irons. Reed smoked cigarettes, one after another, as the thrill of the action started to drain out of his body.