As Time Goes By

by Anne Bennett

  ‘Deal,’ Len and Archie agreed happily, and both shook Angela’s hand warmly, and nodded in acknowledgement to Stan.

  Len and Archie felt very nervous when they got to the door of the police station. Stan said, ‘You’ve nothing to worry about. Just tell them the total truth of what happened.’

  Archie nodded and forced his feet to move forward, and then he was in front of the duty sergeant and telling him what it was all about. He was led into an interview room, where the sergeant told Archie and Len to sit on one side of a polished wooden desk, while he sat on the other side. Archie sat facing the sergeant, his limbs trembling. When the sergeant had established the facts of the case, he said he wanted to speak to Archie alone, but told Len he might also want to speak to him later.

  After Len had left the room, the sergeant said, ‘You have information. Tell me what happened,’ and Archie, remembering Stan’s words, recounted the whole tale he had told Len in the hospital, and the policeman believed him. He even understood his reticence to say anything at the time, as Eddie McIntyre then lived a privileged life under the patronage of his uncle, Sam Winters. Even across the Atlantic Ocean, he knew who they both were, influential and powerful men. The sergeant agreed that it was very unlikely that the American police officers would have believed the word of a young sailor against such a rich and powerful man.

  But before him now was a polite and courteous young man who had served his country in the Great War and had been commended and given a medal for his bravery. This man, Archie Gilmore, was a man to be reckoned with, while Eddie McIntyre, like so many other greedy Americans, had lost almost all his money, and therefore influence, in the Wall Street Crash. But the sergeant, who considered himself a good judge of character, believed Archie Gilmore had told him the whole truth.

  He had a word with Len, and then both were allowed to go home, and then he asked to speak to Stan and Angela. ‘It’s just routine,’ he said. ‘Not really to verify Archie Gilmore’s story, for I’m certain it’s a very truthful account, and he assures me you knew nothing about any of this, and were only made aware of this a few days ago yourselves.’

  ‘That’s true, Sir,’ Stan said. ‘As soon as we knew, we advised him to come and tell you.’

  ‘So,’ asked Angela, ‘can you find out where McIntyre is now?’

  ‘The only thing we are sure of is that he did arrive in this country, because we checked the passenger lists,’ the sergeant said. ‘But we have checked the hotels and lodging houses he used last time he was here, pubs he frequented. We’ve talked to friends and acquaintances and followed up dozens of leads, all to no avail. He has not travelled back, unless he’s done so under a false name. But we have had a watch put on all ferry ports, so it’s unlikely he could have left this country without us being aware of it. Even his mother and uncle don’t know where he is, for though he writes very occasionally, he never gives an address that they can write back to.’

  ‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd, Sergeant?’

  The sergeant nodded his head. ‘Very odd, I don’t mind telling you. It suggests to me that he knows we are tracking him down. He’s a wily character, by all accounts, and if he knows we have something on him, I imagine he will be harder to find than ever.’

  ‘I suppose you don’t like to leave any stone unturned in a case like this,’ Angela said.

  ‘No, no, of course not. What are you getting at?’

  ‘Well, seems to me that you have a suspect’s name but no body, and a body pulled out of the canal that has no name.’

  Stan was exasperated. ‘Angela, I have told you, it’s highly unlikely one has anything to do with the other.’ He raised his eyes to the sergeant’s and said, ‘Sorry, she has a bee in her bonnet about this man in the canal.’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ Angela retorted. ‘And don’t talk as if I’m not here. I just think it must be awful to be buried in a plot with no name. All I’m saying is, if this body turns out to be Eddie McIntyre, not many people would recognise him now, but I probably could.’

  ‘Mrs McClusky, it’s not a pretty sight,’ the sergeant said. ‘Most of the flesh has rotted away. There is no way of recognising him.’

  ‘Are most of the bones intact?’

  ‘I believe so, at the moment,’ the sergeant said, puzzled.

  ‘Then I will recognise him,’ Angela said. ‘For Eddie McIntyre had six toes instead of five on his left foot.’

  Angela’s words caused a deep silence to descend on the room. The policemen in the room were in shock. Angela, on the other hand, seemed completely calm, but in fact she felt as if her nerve endings were exposed, and her mouth was unaccountably dry. However, she knew it was imperative she viewed the body, and to have the opportunity to do that, she had to give the impression that she was in control. So when the sergeant rapped out sharply, ‘Are you sure?’ she held his eyes as she answered confidently and without the merest hint of a tremor:

  ‘Eddie McIntyre had six toes instead of five on his left foot, as I told you before. If the dead man you pulled out of the canal is similarly afflicted, then he is in all probability Eddie McIntyre.’

  The sergeant looked into Angela’s eyes and saw that she spoke the absolute truth. Not given to snap decisions, usually wanting all the information beforehand, he arranged for Mrs McClusky to visit the mortuary without delay.

  A younger policeman took the sergeant’s place at the other side of the desk and said, ‘How did you know that about the toes?’

  ‘He told me himself,’ Angela said. ‘I met him the last time he was in England. I worked at the pub then because my husband died in the Great War, so I had to work, as I had a daughter to provide for. Eddie was from New York, where two of my foster brothers lived, so at first, I was anxious to know all about it. He was very embarrassed by this extra toe and I could hardly believe him when he told me, so in the end he showed me.’

  It was one of the hardest things Angela had ever done, to walk into that room and see the mound on the marble slab covered with a white sheet. Stan had insisted on coming with her, and they both travelled to the mortuary in the sergeant’s car, but Angela knew she had to go into the room alone.

  The sergeant had warned her it wasn’t a pretty sight, and it certainly wasn’t. ‘They’ve tried to clean him up a bit,’ he’d said in the car, and she’d wondered how much cleaning up they could do to a skeleton, for that was what she was looking at. She gave a gasp of shock and said to the attendant, ‘I thought the police explained it to you. It’s his feet I need to look at.’

  The attendant looked at her notes and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mrs McClusky. It’s an unusual request and I didn’t check.’

  She drew the cover over Eddie’s face and Angela sighed in relief, glad that the sight of Eddie’s skull – deep caverns where his eyes had once been – was hidden from her, as another attendant began uncovering his feet. And there on the left foot was the extra bone with some skin attached to it, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that the skeleton was Eddie McIntyre’s. Her overriding emotion was not sadness, but relief that he could not hurt her or her loved ones ever again. She felt quite guilty that she felt so relieved that McIntyre was dead.

  She wondered out loud what would happen now that she had formally identified McIntyre. ‘He is still a murderer,’ the sergeant said, as he drove Angela and Stan back to the police station.

  ‘Yes, but a dead murderer,’ Angela pointed out. ‘That can’t be a usual circumstance, so it must make a difference.’

  ‘And what if someone put him in the canal?’ the sergeant asked.

  ‘Is that a possibility?’

  ‘Well, it isn’t certain,’ the sergeant admitted. ‘The body was too decomposed to see if there was evidence of a struggle. Cuts and bruises and the like could have been caused by his falling into the canal when he’d imbibed too freely. His friends said he was a heavy drinker, or maybe he had been in some sort of skirmish and stumbled into the canal that way. Either way, his death would probably ha
ve been considered accidental.’

  ‘Well then, unlike Tom Goldsmith, there is no true indication that anyone had anything to do with McIntyre’s death,’ said Angela.

  ‘Well, no. I suppose not,’ the sergeant had to admit.

  ‘So why not inform his family in New York, and see if they want to arrange some sort of burial, and file this case under “No further action”?’ Angela said.

  The sergeant was definitely nonplussed but eventually said, ‘I will have to inform my superiors, take their advice.’

  ‘Of course,’ Angela said, ‘I would say that’s your first course of action, wouldn’t you?’

  It was a little later, as they were walking home, that Angela realised Stan was chuckling to himself. ‘What’s up with you?’

  ‘You,’ Stan said, ‘and the way you dealt with that sergeant. I have a feeling that if he ever sees you go in there again, he will hide under the table.’

  Angela smiled. ‘Good job I don’t frequent police stations on a more regular basis, then.’

  ‘I’m sure they’re glad about that,’ Stan said. ‘But talking of police stations, would you mind if we call at the Gillespies’, for that’s where Len and Archie were making for. We need to tell them about McIntyre’s left foot.’

  ‘If you like,’ Angela said. ‘Archie needs to know. Might ease his mind a bit. Although the police didn’t say so, I think it’s better to keep a bit quiet and not share that information with all and sundry.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘And let’s not be all day at the Gillespies’,’ Angela said. ‘Connie will be very interested in what happened to McIntyre as well. And after she has digested that news, we can move on from all this unpleasantness. After all, we have a wedding to plan!’

  EIGHTEEN

  So before going home they called at the Gillespies’ house to let Len and Archie know what had transpired since they’d left the police station. They weren’t the only ones to be relieved, either, for Mrs Gillespie (who insisted Angela call her Grainne) was equally relieved. She confessed to Angela, ‘It’s a load off my mind, right enough. But I can’t help thinking it seems wrong to be glad when you hear of a person’s death, even if that person is not known to you, and likely deserved everything he had coming his way. Do you feel that?’

  ‘I did,’ Angela confessed. ‘Like you, I have never felt that way about anyone dying before, but I did know Eddie McIntyre, or at least, I got to know him last time he was in England, because I was serving at The Swan at the time, and McIntyre was a frequent visitor.’

  ‘Stan told Len your husband was killed in the war.’

  Angela nodded, ‘Yes he was,’ she said. ‘I needed a job and the Larkins, who ran The Swan back then, offered me a job there, and it was handy being so local. We had my Barry’s widowed mother living with us at the time, so she was able to mind my Connie.’

  ‘My dear, us women had to do what we had to do back in those awful days, in order to survive,’ Grainne said. ‘So you got to know McIntyre well?’

  ‘That’s it,’ Angela said. ‘I thought I knew him, because he was familiar, coming in so often, but really I didn’t know the man at all. Initially he appeared courteous and charming, and he was popular, confident and beguiling, especially with the ladies, for he was a proper ladies’ man.’ Angela was glad Connie wasn’t there when she admitted to Grainne, ‘Even I was brought under his spell for a time. But then I found his real character was totally different to the one he had displayed to begin with.’

  ‘That is often the way.’

  ‘Yes,’ Angela said. ‘Then I found McIntyre to be cruel and manipulative – a real bully. He killed Tom Goldsmith because he had no intention of helping the girl he’d made pregnant. I imagine Tom wanted McIntyre to take some responsibility for the child, but Tom would have been well advised not to waste his time. McIntyre was the sort of man who had his fun and then moved on to the next victim, when the first one proved difficult in one way or another.’

  ‘Archie said this McIntyre seemed to blame it all on the girl,’ Grainne said.

  ‘Oh, that was his stock-in-trade,’ Angela said. ‘Another was, once a girl submitted to him, whether she was forced to or not, he would threaten to tell everyone what a slut she was, whisper in the right people’s ears, destroying that girl’s standing and character, and that of her family. So the terrified girl had to give in to whatever McIntyre wanted. Eventually the inevitable would happen. That scene between McIntyre and Goldsmith could be played out by fathers with daughters all over Birmingham, for men like McIntyre are insatiable, and they think women and girls are good for just one thing. Grainne, I have to be straight with you: McIntyre was a thoroughly bad lot.’

  ‘Hmm, I’ve met fellows like him before,’ Grainne said grimly. ‘All told, I think he did the world a favour. I suppose he did do himself in?’

  ‘The police haven’t much of an idea how he came to be in the canal in the first place,’ Angela said, ‘and a fast-decomposing body isn’t great at revealing clues. It might well have to remain a mystery.’

  ‘So, we probably will never know if someone pushed him in, or if he jumped.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have jumped,’ Angela said. ‘I know him well enough to say he was altogether too cocky to do such a thing. But it could easily have been accidental, because he was a very heavy drinker. He could have just missed his footing and fallen in. Either way, the police are taking no action. And no matter, for however he died, the end result is the same.’

  ‘Yes, and that lovely lad Archie won’t have to go to court and explain himself,’ Grainne said with some satisfaction. ‘And however guilty I feel, I truly believe a world without McIntyre in it is going to be a safer world for a lot of people, and it’s just a pity it came too late for poor Tom Goldsmith.’

  ‘And his daughter too,’ Angela said, ‘who had to bear and raise an illegitimate child.’

  ‘It must have been a hard road she had to follow, right enough,’ Grainne said. ‘But hopefully, she had the love and support of her family around her. As for McIntyre’s soul, I hope it’s firmly turned away from the pearly gates, and when he arrives in hell, I hope old Nick is around to give him a good, hard poke.’

  Angela chuckled at the picture Grainne’s words conjured up. Angela was anxious to get home and give Connie the good news, so they left the Gillespies’ soon after handing an invitation to Connie’s wedding to Grainne and her two sons, plus Archie.

  As Angela told Connie the story, she listened to every word and didn’t interrupt once. When Angela had finished, Connie said, ‘Are you absolutely sure that the man that drowned in the canal was Eddie McIntyre?’

  ‘Absolutely certain, Connie. Honestly, you have nothing to worry about now, as far as McIntyre is concerned.’

  Connie sighed in relief and then said, ‘It’s just that you never said anything before about McIntyre’s extra toe.’

  ‘Connie, it was years ago I found out about it, the last time he was in England – so long ago, I had almost forgotten all about it myself. At that time, I recall you were not at all interested in knowing anything about McIntyre.’

  ‘Mammy, that’s because …’

  Angela held up her hand. ‘I know you had reason to dislike the man, but because you felt that way, you wouldn’t have been the slightest bit interested if I had said one day, “Oh, by the way, did you know Eddie McIntyre has got an extra toe on his left foot?”’

  Connie grinned as she said, ‘You’re right, I wouldn’t have cared a bit.’

  ‘Added to that,’ Angela said, ‘I would hardly want it known to everyone I had that information, as surely people would’ve wondered how I knew it. I let myself forget about it. It was only when that man was pulled out of the canal and the police had no idea who he was, that I thought about that extra toe again, so I offered to check whether it was him or not. You know Stan fought with him on the night of the party?’

  ‘I thought he would have when I saw Stan following McIntyre,’ Connie said
. ‘Did you think he had something to do with McIntyre’s death?’

  ‘I did wonder,’ Angela admitted. ‘You once said to me that I had to trust the man I intended to marry, and I do trust Stan, for I have never known him tell me a lie. He is always as straight as a die. He told me he fought with McIntyre using only his fists, and he knocked McIntyre out and pulled him into an entry and left him there.’

  ‘If Stan said that’s what happened, then that’s what happened,’ Connie declared and added, ‘though I wouldn’t have minded if he had dumped McIntyre in the canal. But I feel awful, really, because I’ve never before been glad about someone dying.’

  ‘Yes, I feel the same, and it’s an odd feeling. Thinking about Stan, while I know he was telling me the truth about the fight, if the police knew about it, they might try and make a case against Stan, despite the fact that they are treating McIntyre’s death as accidental at the moment.’

  ‘We’d better not tell them then,’ Connie said. ‘Just think – we can now go ahead with plans for our wedding, confident in the knowledge that McIntyre won’t be making an appearance. Oh, Mammy, you don’t know how happy that thought makes me!’

  ‘I have a good idea how it feels,’ Angela said, ‘for I feel the same. And McIntyre might not have lived much longer anyway, if he hadn’t drowned in the canal. The police were waiting to arrest him on a charge of murdering Tom Goldsmith in New York, before he fled to England the first time. Archie was willing to be a witness, as he saw the whole thing. So McIntyre would almost certainly have been found guilty, and murder carries the death penalty.’

  NINETEEN

  Connie reminded her mother about her plan to have a double wedding, and Angela now felt Connie was just being kind and might regret her decision later.

  ‘Why would I?’ Connie asked.

  ‘Well, many brides wouldn’t like to share their special day with another,’ Angela said.

  Connie laughed. ‘It’s not another, though, is it?’ she said. ‘I want a double wedding with my mother who I love so very much, and with whom I have already shared so much, both good and not so good. That’s extra special for me.’