Murder at the Manchester Museum

by Jim Eldridge

  ‘He didn’t prevent Bickerstaff’s article appearing,’ observed Daniel. ‘Even though he must have realised it would be inflammatory.’ Then he added, ‘Unless Mr Bickerstaff told his editor it had been approved by you.’

  Steggles nodded, and again a look of anger crossed his face. ‘Yes. I think I’ll write to Mr Scott, the editor of the Guardian, expressing my feeling of betrayal over this matter. I thank you for coming to see me, and assure you that we do not hold you responsible for this … this outrage! I look forward to receiving more information from you as you discover it.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Steggles.’

  It was with a feeling of relief that they left Steggles’s office and walked down the stairs that led to the reading room.

  ‘We shouldn’t have trusted Bickerstaff,’ she muttered.

  ‘We needed to get the story out to the public in the hope that it would produce results, more information, and so we took the risk,’ countered Daniel.

  ‘We were still too trusting,’ retorted Abigail.

  ‘Which is why I want to double-check something with Mr Hawkins,’ said Daniel.

  Jonty Hawkins’s face lit up when he saw them. ‘Miss Fenton, Mr Wilson. It is a pleasure to see you again!’ Then his face clouded as he added, ‘Although this story by William Bickerstaff in today’s Guardian …’

  ‘Yes, I know. We’ve just been to see Mr Steggles to apologise and explain that we had no part in it.’

  ‘I’m sure he never thought you did,’ said Hawkins. ‘How can I help you today?’

  ‘We’re just wondering about Mr Bickerstaff’s movements on the day that Kathleen was killed. Nothing suspicious, but as it relates to his reporting, he told us he came here to try and find out what had happened because he’d heard a rumour of a stabbing.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hawkins. ‘He often pops in to check on something for a story he’s writing.’

  ‘And what time was that?’ asked Daniel.

  Hawkins frowned thoughtfully, then he said, ‘Actually, he was here twice that day.’

  ‘Twice?’

  ‘Yes. I noticed because it was the second day in succession he’d called, so he was obviously preparing something.’

  ‘He called here on the Wednesday as well?’

  Hawkins nodded. ‘But he didn’t stay long that time. On the Thursday, the first time he came in was shortly after we opened. About half past nine. He said he wanted to check on something.’

  ‘Did he say what?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How long was he here?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ admitted Hawkins. ‘I got very busy. I do know he’d gone by the time the unfortunate young woman was found.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. It was about eleven o’clock when a man came to me and told me he thought something was wrong. I recall that there was no sign of Mr Bickerstaff, so he must have gone. He came back in the afternoon, after the police had been.’

  ‘Did he come back because you’d sent him a message about what had happened?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘No,’ said Hawkins, looking shocked at the suggestion. ‘Mr Steggles is very clear on that. The staff are not to contact the press about anything that happens here. That is his decision to make.’

  ‘Was the young woman in the museum when Mr Bickerstaff came in the day before, the Wednesday morning?’

  ‘No. She didn’t come in until mid-morning that day.’ He looked enquiringly at them. ‘Was any of what I’ve told you helpful?’

  ‘Very,’ said Daniel. ‘Although in what context, I’m not sure yet. But it helps to build a picture of what happened.’

  As they left the desk, Daniel whispered, ‘That’s very interesting. So Bickerstaff was here before the young woman was stabbed.’

  ‘He’s already proved himself untrustworthy, a liar, and quite likely a man who preys on women,’ Abigail muttered quietly. ‘Is he also capable of murder?’

  Daniel and Abigail made their way to the O’Donnells’ house in Ancoats, expecting to find at least one person home, but the place appeared empty, with no reply to their knocking. Daniel knocked again, louder this time. The door of the neighbouring house opened and a woman looked out at them.

  ‘They’ve all gone to the funerals,’ she told them.

  ‘Of course. Kathleen and Mrs O’Donnell,’ said Abigail. ‘With everything that’s happened, I’d quite forgotten.’

  ‘We have to leave it for today,’ said Daniel. ‘We can’t break into their grieving at their mother’s funeral.’

  He started to turn back the way they’d come, but Abigail stopped him.

  ‘No, we must,’ she said. ‘Say Bickerstaff is our man? If he is, we need to act fast.’

  ‘But the family …’ repeated Daniel.

  ‘I saw Breda’s face yesterday,’ said Abigail. ‘Heard her voice. She’s angry, very angry. She wants the person who killed her mother caught. And quickly. I know she’d want to work with us to catch him, even today.’

  Daniel studied her face, looking into her eyes, then nodded.

  ‘If that’s what you feel,’ he said.

  ‘I do,’ Abigail replied firmly.

  Daniel walked to the neighbour’s house and knocked on the door. When the same woman opened it and looked out, he asked, ‘Where are they being buried?’

  ‘Potter’s Field,’ she said. ‘They used to be at Granby Row, St Augustine’s burial ground, but that got full, so it’s Potter’s Field now.’

  She gave them directions, and after half an hour of walking they came to a brick wall around a large field with a sign announcing Catholic burial ground. They could see the O’Donnell family on the other side of the field, gathered around an open grave, with the small figure of Father O’Brien. As they walked towards the group, Abigail commented, puzzled, ‘No headstones.’

  Instead of the usual headstones and statues found in cemeteries, the field was dotted with wooden posts stuck into the ground. Each post had a list of numbers painted on them.

  ‘Pauper’s funerals,’ explained Daniel. ‘For people whose families are too poor to bury them. The local corporation have to foot the bill, and they do it as cheaply as they legally can. Every slum, every poor area has a place like this. Wooden posts banged into the ground marking where perhaps as many as twenty coffins have been laid, one on top of the other, in pits twenty feet deep. If the O’Donnells are lucky, this will be a recently dug grave, so the smell won’t be bad. When it’s a funeral where they’re the last to go in, the corpses at the bottom have started to ooze out of the coffins and the smell can be overpowering.’

  ‘You have such a charming way with descriptions,’ said Abigail cuttingly. ‘Have you ever thought of taking up poetry?’

  ‘I would think even our sweetest-tongued poets would have difficulty with a pauper’s funeral,’ said Daniel.

  As they arrived, Father O’Brien was just giving the oration over the grave, his final words the signal for the family to leave the graveside and shake the small priest’s hand. Daniel and Abigail noticed that Patrick seemed to be held up by his two eldest sons, who guided him away on his unsteady legs, the other children following.

  Father O’Brien came up to Abigail and Daniel, a quizzical look on his face.

  ‘A sad occasion,’ he said. ‘I’d hoped more of the neighbours might come, but going to work and getting money in their pockets is a priority. I didn’t expect either of you to be here.’

  ‘Actually, Father, there’s an ulterior motive in our presence,’ said Abigail. ‘Some information has turned up, and we hoped that Breda might be able to come with us to check on something.’

  ‘What sort of information?’ asked O’Brien.

  ‘When I saw Breda she told me that a man called William Bickerstaff had called at their house looking for Kathleen. He denies it and claims it must have been someone else impersonating him.’

  ‘And you’d like her to take a look at this man,’ said the priest.

  ‘If it’s appropriate,
’ said Daniel. ‘But in view of the fact they’ve just buried their mother …’

  ‘To be frank, I think Breda would be glad of the chance to take a break from it,’ said O’Brien. ‘She’s been doing everything for days now, working, looking after the family. She could do with a rest for a brief while.’

  ‘Perhaps, after she’s taken a look at this man, we could take her to tea at our hotel,’ suggested Abigail.

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ said O’Brien. ‘She doesn’t get many treats, or chances to go to nice places. Tell her she has my blessing.’

  They turned and saw that Breda, her baby brother in her arms, was still standing in the burial ground along with her younger sisters, watching them, as if she suspected they’d come for a purpose that might involve her. Meanwhile, Patrick O’Donnell was making his unsteady way out of the ground, still supported by his sons. Father O’Brien gestured for Breda to join him and Daniel and Abigail.

  ‘Breda, these people would like you to go with them to check on something,’ he said. ‘They’re decent people and I’ve told them you have my blessing to go with them this afternoon. I shall take charge of the others and get them back to your house.’ He turned to eleven-year-old Molly and said, ‘Molly, can you be a big girl and look after Sean while Breda goes with them?’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ said Molly, and she took the baby from her eldest sister.

  ‘Thank you.’ Abigail smiled. ‘I promise you, Breda, there’ll be no trouble for you. We just want you to look at someone from a distance and tell us if you know them.’

  ‘Is it the man who killed Ma?’ she asked.

  ‘We don’t yet know,’ said Abigail. ‘We want to know if he’s the man who called asking for Kathleen.’

  ‘William Bickerstaff,’ said Breda grimly. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Abigail. She leant forward and whispered, ‘And afterwards, there’ll be tea and cake. And we’ll pay you for your time, just like wages.’

  ‘How much?’ asked Breda.

  ‘A shilling,’ said Daniel.

  Breda nodded. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To the offices of the Manchester Guardian,’ said Abigail.

  Daniel stood in the reception area of the Guardian’s offices, waiting. He had been waiting for twenty minutes, ever since the receptionist sent a message to William Bickerstaff that Daniel Wilson was here and would like to see him. Abigail and Breda were standing patiently, half hidden behind a pillar near the entrance.

  Daniel approached the desk, smiled politely at the receptionist and said, ‘Excuse me for bothering you, but you sent a message through to Mr Bickerstaff about twenty minutes ago telling him that I was here and wishing to see him. My name’s—’

  ‘Daniel Wilson.’ The receptionist smiled back. ‘Yes, I remember.’ She looked apologetic. ‘I can only assume he’s got held up on something. I know he’s in today.’

  ‘Would you mind very much sending him another message?’ asked Daniel. ‘Perhaps, with everyone being so busy, he might have forgotten.’

  The receptionist stood up. ‘Better than that, I’ll go and remind him myself,’ she said.

  Daniel thanked her, and as he watched her disappear through the door into the main office where the journalists worked, he reflected again on the old adage that a friendly and polite word often worked where bluster failed. He knew that had been the way it was for him when he was at Scotland Yard. Usually, when someone had called and insisted on seeing him, adding, ‘Tell him I’m a very important person indeed and there’ll be serious repercussions if he doesn’t attend to me at once’, the result had been that Daniel had left the ‘very important person’ to kick their heels in the reception area for an annoyingly long time. And if that was how Daniel felt about being treated that way, then he reasoned others would usually feel exactly the same.

  He wondered if Bickerstaff was deliberately avoiding him because of the article. If that was the case and the man refused to appear, Daniel had decided he would march into the inner offices and confront Bickerstaff that way, and drag him into the reception area in order for Breda to get a look at him.

  As it turned out, that course of action wasn’t necessary. The receptionist reappeared, and behind her came Bickerstaff. But Daniel could see at once that Bickerstaff appeared very defensive; it was clear from the expression on his face and the posture of his body.

  ‘Ah, Mr Wilson,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for the delay.’ He forced an awkward smile. ‘Have you seen the article?’

  ‘I have,’ Daniel answered politely. ‘Which is why I’m here. You sent me to Mr Steggles at the museum with one article, and then completely rewrote it with an altogether different tone.’

  ‘I decided that the first version was too bland.’

  ‘Then you should have let Mr Steggles see the version you intended to publish.’

  ‘There was no time. We were going to press.’

  Daniel shook his head. ‘I don’t believe that, I’m afraid. I have journalist friends in London who write for papers like The Times and The Telegraph, and who’ve worked with me on cases, so I do have some understanding of how newspapers operate.’

  ‘That’s London!’ burst out Bickerstaff defensively. ‘Things are different here in Manchester.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ said Daniel. ‘But, whatever the reason, the outcome is that you have betrayed the word you gave to Mr Steggles, and to us. So I will need a letter from you to Mr Steggles explaining that the decision to change the text that had been agreed was yours and yours alone, and that Miss Fenton and I were not a party to it. As the situation stands at the moment, Mr Steggles, as our employer, would be entitled to think that we were part of your deception.’

  ‘It was not a deception!’ Bickerstaff snapped.

  ‘I believe it was,’ said Daniel, remaining calm. ‘And so might he. Please deliver your letter to our hotel and I will pass it on to Mr Steggles personally.’

  ‘There’s no need for your involvement in this,’ said Bickerstaff curtly. ‘I am perfectly capable of sending a letter direct to Mr Steggles at the museum.’

  ‘Based on what happened with the article, I would prefer to check the letter myself to verify that it says what you say it says,’ said Daniel.

  ‘And if I refuse?’ demanded Bickerstaff.

  Daniel fixed him with a hard look. ‘Then I would have to come to look for you again to repeat my request,’ he said, his tone letting just enough of his anger show. ‘And that would not please me. I look forward to receiving your letter by tomorrow lunchtime. Otherwise, as I say, I shall return.’

  Bickerstaff glared at him, then turned on his heel and disappeared back into the offices. Abigail and Breda joined him.

  ‘Well?’ asked Daniel.

  Breda shook her head. ‘That wasn’t the toff who called. That wasn’t the bloke who said he was William Bickerstaff.’

  Daniel and Abigail exchanged concerned looks. If that was the case, who had been the mysterious caller? And why the deception?

  Daniel, Abigail and Breda were about to mount the steps of their hotel, when a small, wiry man approached them.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Would you be Mr Daniel Wilson?’ he asked politely.

  ‘Yes,’ said Daniel.

  ‘I wonder if I could have a brief word,’ asked the man genially.

  Daniel turned to Abigail and Breda.

  ‘I’ll join you in just a moment,’ he said. ‘You can order tea and cakes.’

  As the two disappeared into the hotel, Daniel turned back to the man. ‘Yes?’ he asked.

  The sudden punch the man threw struck Daniel in the side of his face, sending him staggering backwards. Before he could recover, two other men had appeared, one on either side of him, each grabbing him by an arm, while at the same time planting one booted foot on Daniel’s feet, preventing him from defending himself.

  ‘Stop asking questions about Peterloo,’ said the small, wiry man. ‘And stay away from the barracks.’

  With th
at, he sank a fist hard into Daniel’s stomach. The other men let go of Daniel’s arms and he sank to the pavement, winded, his head throbbing.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Daniel pushed himself to his feet, politely refusing the offers of help from passers-by who’d witnessed the attack.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he assured them.

  ‘Do you want us to call the police?’ asked one man.

  ‘No, thank you. Everything will be fine. A case of mistaken identity, I believe.’

  With that he walked into the hotel and made his way to the lounge, where Abigail and Breda were sitting waiting. Pots of tea and plates of cakes were already on their table. Abigail rose from her chair as he approached, shocked at the sight of the vibrant red and black bruise around his left eye.

  ‘My God!’ she exclaimed. ‘What happened?’

  ‘A trio of military types just attacked me.’

  ‘Military?’

  ‘I’m judging by the very efficient way they worked, quite unlike traditional street thugs.’

  ‘That man who stopped you?’

  ‘And two of his friends.’ He settled into the waiting chair, aware that Breda was looking at him with a mixture of concern, but also suspicion. ‘I’m afraid this sort of thing happens now and then,’ he said to her apologetically. ‘It’s one of the occupational hazards of asking difficult questions. But I can assure you I’m fine. My pride is hurt more than my head.’

  ‘Did they say why they did it?’ asked Abigail.

  ‘They told me to stop asking questions about Peterloo, and to stay away from the barracks. With that they gave me a last blow to the body, that winded me badly enough for me to fall to the pavement, and they left.’

  ‘You’re sure they were military?’

  ‘It wasn’t just their warning about not asking questions about Peterloo; I could tell by their stance and the way they worked together. Also, if they’d just been thugs for hire they’d have kicked me when I was lying on the ground. As it was, they simply disappeared. I almost expected them to salute me before they vanished.’