The House of the Hanged Woman (Albert Lincoln)

by Ellis, Kate

  ‘We’d better continue this conversation inside,’ said Albert.

  Reluctantly the couple opened the door and showed the two policemen into a low-ceilinged parlour. The room was shabby and sparsely furnished and Albert noticed several wooden packing cases piled in the corner. The maid hurried in, relieved when Mrs Ogden told her she could take the rest of the day off.

  As soon as she’d gone, Albert took a seat on a dining chair and left a long silence before asking his next question. ‘Have you ever been to Liverpool?’

  ‘I’ve visited the city, yes.’

  ‘Are you familiar with Fulwood Park in Aigburth?’

  Mrs Ogden’s eyes widened in panic. ‘I don’t think I …’ Albert recited the address. ‘There’s somebody there who remembers you, Mrs Ogden. Mavis still lives there. She will be able to identify you, I’m sure.’

  ‘We don’t know Fulwood Park and we certainly don’t know any servant called Mavis. We’ve told you the truth. We changed our name because of our creditors,’ the woman said.

  ‘I never said Mavis was a servant,’ said Albert.

  ‘I just assumed …’

  ‘According to Mavis, the late Mr Jenkins was heir to quite a fortune. His father had a successful shipping business and he rented a large house for his son, even though he couldn’t stand the woman he’d married. Where did the money go?’

  It was the man who answered. ‘We told you we don’t know any Mr Jenkins. And as for where any money went, I’d take a guess at bad investments. The war.’

  ‘Mr Jenkins’ life was insured with the Mersey Life Insurance Company.’

  ‘What’s that to me?’ the woman said.

  ‘A man called Bert Pretting worked for that company. He called at the Jenkins’ address; dealt with the couple’s insurance matters.’

  Mrs Ogden suddenly looked wary. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Bert Pretting was also a blackmailer. He was murdered.’

  Albert let the words hang in the air as he watched the expressionless faces of the couple in front of him.

  ‘Mavis told me that a gentleman started to visit you, Mrs Jenkins, after your husband was reported missing, believed dead. Was that gentleman you, Mr Ogden? Before you reply, remember that Mavis will be able to identify you.’

  The man pressed his lips tightly together and said nothing, as though he was trying to think of a way out and failed.

  ‘You were acquainted with the late vicar, the Reverend Bell.’

  The woman gave a nervous nod.

  ‘Did he visit you on the evening of his death?’

  ‘Does anybody say he did?’ The man’s question was sharp.

  ‘Your maid had gone to bed, but the sound of the doorbell woke her up and she came out on the landing to see who was calling. She knew the reverend’s voice at once because she’d heard it every Sunday in church.’

  ‘The man was collecting for the church roof or some such,’ Mrs Jenkins said quickly. ‘We felt obliged to make a contribution.’

  ‘At that time of night? I think he came to see you on a far more delicate matter. Somebody had written to him enclosing a photograph. Now who would that be?’

  ‘I’ve really no idea.’

  Smith cleared his throat, but Albert ignored him.

  ‘Somebody was looking for you, Mrs Ogden. Somebody who’d seen your photograph by chance in a newspaper. Somebody who recognised you from your past life in Liverpool.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Copies of your wedding photograph were sent to all the clergy in the area, but of course nobody recognised you – apart from the Reverend Bell. I have a copy of that picture. The man it belonged to had lost his memory but he knew it was his wife.’ He took the photograph of the woman as a bride that Smith had obtained from the local vicar out of his pocket and handed it to her. ‘That is you, isn’t it?’

  ‘This man could have found it anywhere. You said he’d lost his memory,’ she added with a hint of triumph.

  Smith bent towards Albert and whispered in his ear. ‘Perhaps we should take them back to Wenfield, sir. Question them properly.’

  Albert had spotted a telephone in the hallway and he told Smith to call Sergeant Mitchell and ask for back-up, somebody to help him take the couple in for questioning. When Smith looked at him enquiringly he made the excuse that he wanted to search for evidence in the cottage. He asked Smith to pick him up later.

  Once Smith and a young constable from Mabley Ridge station had left with the suspects, Albert made a perfunctory search of the cottage and found a couple of box files containing various documents. He left them in the hall by the telephone, intending to take them back to Wenfield to examine them properly, when one of the boxes fell off the edge of the table, spilling its contents out onto the floor.

  He’d begun to replace the papers when he spotted the corner of a photograph peeping out from behind a cardboard file. When he teased it out with his thumb and forefinger he saw that it was the photograph of a man, carefully posed in a photographer’s studio. He was sitting on a grand chair against a painted backdrop depicting the library of a stately home, a pile of learned books beside him on a table. His suit looked expensive and he looked every inch the respected pillar of society. Albert turned the photograph over and saw that it had been taken in a studio in Bold Street – the same studio Henry Billinge had used. He studied the man’s image again, wondering if this could be the man found naked and mutilated at the Devil’s Dancers. He was the right build with similar hair and Albert was as sure as he could be that this was the man who Peggy Derwent had seen being picked up in Alastair Ogden’s motor car. But he needed proof – and he’d get it, even if he had to bring Mavis to Wenfield to identify her previous employer, and Alastair Ogden, the man Albert was sure had started visiting Mrs Jenkins after her husband had been reported dead.

  He took his watch from his pocket. He had to know for sure whether his son by Flora was alive or dead and he had enough time before Smith’s return. He’d committed Charlotte Day’s address to memory. It had been too important to forget.

  The sun had just emerged from behind the clouds and it was shining down weakly as Albert walked in the direction of the village. His last visit had made him familiar with the various large houses that lined the road to the Ridge, so he knew the whereabouts of Poldean House. It lay down a small cul-de-sac not far from the house where, the previous September, a lady’s companion had fallen victim to a terrible murder.

  Now as Albert walked down the street it struck him that maybe his lost son had been there when he was last in Mabley Ridge, a hundred yards away from him without him knowing.

  He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he got there. Would he knock on the door and ask to see Mrs Day? Would he pretend to be undertaking an enquiry so he could gain access to the house and maybe catch a glimpse of the child who might be his and Flora’s son. Or would it be a house in mourning for another child lost to influenza? His thoughts were in turmoil, veering between excitement and dread as he walked up the drive, his shoes crunching on the gravel, announcing his arrival. As soon as he reached the front door, shaking with nerves, his courage failed him and he turned to go. Then suddenly he heard a young child’s gurgling laughter. A joyful sound that dispelled all thoughts of death and war.

  Albert stationed himself behind a hedge watching as a uniformed nursemaid placed a child in a shiny pram, solid as a motor car, and strapped him in for safety. If there had been any doubt in his mind it vanished now. The resemblance to Frederick was uncanny as the child gazed at his nursemaid with eyes so like Flora’s that it made him feel like weeping.

  The scene blurred as the tears welled up and he stood there, hidden from sight and unable to move from the spot.

  Chapter 73

  Rose

  The judge looks at me as though I’m a nasty insect he’s discovered in his soup, and the jury, all men dressed in grey and black, glare disapprovingly too. At least I have my darling Ronald beside me in the doc
k, although he does not look at me. He stands up straight, staring ahead, and from time to time he passes a note to his barrister, who flaps about in front of the jury like an oily crow. My barrister speaks quietly in a high-pitched voice. I don’t think the jury will be swayed by him.

  The barrister for the Crown also looks like a carrion bird; a fat, malevolent one who feeds on dead lambs in the spring. He calls me terrible names and I can say nothing in my defence. I am supposed to leave that to my shabby man who stays silent most of the time.

  This morning a doctor described how Bert died. All the times I’d imagined him dying, I never thought of the reality of what would be done to his body. They say my Ronald did it. They say he has no alibi for the time because his housekeeper had gone to bed and had taken something to help her sleep; something prescribed by him they say – which they claim is proof that he wanted her out of the way. They say I couldn’t have stabbed Bert because his killer was much taller, so I must have had an accomplice. And they think that accomplice was Ronald.

  I’d hoped the inspector from Scotland Yard would be here, but I haven’t seen him. Sergeant Teague said he was only in Wenfield to find that missing Member of Parliament and now he’s turned up safe and well he’ll probably go back to London.

  I’ve asked again for some books to read and they say that once I’m in the condemned cell I can have anything I want.

  Chapter 74

  Albert was hardly aware of what he was doing when he followed the nursemaid out of the grounds and watched her turn the pram in the direction of the Ridge.

  He kept some distance behind, driven by an urge to be near the child – his and Flora’s flesh and blood. At that moment he didn’t have any sort of plan – just the need to see his son.

  To his surprise, the nursemaid carried on towards the gate that led to the Ridge itself. With his knowledge of what had happened there only months before, he felt it was no place to take an infant. But at least he was there to protect the boy if anything should happen.

  He carried on walking, unaware of soft footsteps behind him. The stealthy footsteps of a predator tracking his prey. Suddenly he lost sight of nursemaid and pram. He’d been reluctant to follow too closely so he assumed that she’d slipped out of sight down one of the paths running between the trees towards the other gate that led back to the road and the tea room that was so popular with the visitors from Manchester who came there to walk in the fine weather. Albert had wandered too far into the woodland and he was suddenly alone in the landscape that still featured in his nightmares. His heart pounding, he speeded up, desperate to find them again.

  Somehow he took a wrong turning and found himself at Oak Tree Edge, where he came to a halt, awed by the view; the smoke from Manchester’s distant chimneys hanging over the town like a thick mist. There was no sign of nurse-maid and baby now. But a figure was emerging from the trees behind him.

  It was a big man with a long, straggling beard wearing a tattered army greatcoat. Albert had seen many men like him on the streets of London, begging or selling matches, and he always tried to give them a kind word and some loose change. There but for the grace of God went anyone who’d returned from France with wounds, visible and invisible, and had no family willing or able to care for them.

  Albert turned to face the man, assuming he’d come to Mabley Ridge to try his luck at the back doors of the big houses where some cook or housemaid might take pity on him and provide him with food. Likewise, a lot of farms in the area would allow him to sleep warm and safe in a barn in exchange for a day’s labour.

  ‘Hello, my friend,’ said Albert. He might not be in a position to help the man, but at least he could treat him as he’d wish to be treated himself.

  But the man didn’t answer. As he walked slowly forward, staring ahead with cold eyes, there was a malevolence about him that sent a thrill of fear through Albert’s body. And something else; something familiar. As the man came closer, Albert suddenly realised he’d seen him in that very place the previous September.

  ‘I never thought you’d be stupid enough to come back to Mabley Ridge.’ Albert was trying his best to keep his voice calm and even. ‘Aren’t you afraid you’ll be recognised?’

  ‘Did you recognise me?’ the man asked with a smirk. ‘Thought not. I’m a new man now. Changed my name to Aloysius Spring. But I haven’t forgotten the man responsible for my Ethel’s death. Hanging’s not a pretty way to go.’

  The vicious hatred in the man’s eyes made Albert shrink back as though he’d been struck. He was between the murderer he’d once known as Abraham Stark and the long drop to the rocks below. He moved slowly away from the edge. He needed to keep the man talking.

  ‘Lots of people will remember you around here. You were a prominent man in Mabley Ridge. Everyone knew you. The station sergeant everyone trusted.’

  ‘Memories fade. And admit it, even you didn’t know me when I gave you a good hiding in London.’

  ‘That was you?’

  The man smiled but didn’t answer.

  ‘What do you want?’

  Stark ignored the question. ‘Once I’ve dealt with my unfinished business I’m going back to London. Or Manchester. Anywhere big and anonymous. Maybe I’ll make something of myself. I put all that on hold in the hope that one day I’d be able to avenge Ethel. I would have finished the job in London if we hadn’t been so rudely interrupted, but you won’t get away so easily this time. And once I’ve dealt with you, I’ll be a free man.’

  ‘How did you escape? I saw you fall,’ Albert asked, playing for time.

  ‘Some might say I had the luck of the devil. I was winded but I’d landed on a ledge, so I escaped with little more than a twisted ankle. Hid up in Farmer Brace’s barn until the fuss died down, then I caught the train to London.’ His lips formed an unpleasant sneer. ‘Not much of a detective, are you, Lincoln? I’ve been keeping an eye on you down there and you never even realised. Tracked you up to Derbyshire as well. With that limp of yours, you’re an easy man to follow.’

  Albert was aware of his adversary edging closer. In spite of living rough for so long, he still looked powerful.

  ‘Ethel deserved all she got. She was a killer.’

  ‘She disposed of inconvenient people. People who didn’t matter.’

  ‘She killed an innocent child.’

  Albert could see the fury burning in Stark’s eyes. Albert had been the one who’d brought his lover to justice so, in his mind, he was the guilty one. No argument could prevail against that kind of twisted obsession. He needed to get away from there. Fast.

  Stark was coming for him now, his greatcoat flapping out like the wings of a bird of prey. Closer and closer, determined to knock Albert over the edge into oblivion. Nobody knew he was there, and he suddenly felt alone and more vulnerable than he’d ever felt before. Even in the trenches at least he’d had his comrades.

  With a primal roar, Stark descended on him, arms outstretched, hands like grasping claws. Albert braced himself for the impact and when it came he felt himself being thrust backwards towards the long drop to the rocks below. He doubted whether he’d have Stark’s luck and land on a ledge halfway down. He’d die, probably slowly, of his injuries.

  The wounds sustained in battle had weakened his body. As a younger man, he would have wrestled his adversary with an even chance of coming off best. But now his hand throbbed and his leg felt useless as Stark tightened his grip on his right arm, steering him towards certain death. Albert shut his eyes and let his body go limp, preparing for the inevitable while praying for a miracle as he had so often on the battlefield. Then suddenly he felt the man release his hold as he stumbled and uttered an oath. Albert seized his chance and threw his weight to one side. He opened his eyes to see that the momentum had made his adversary topple forward and vanish from sight. Gone.

  Albert crawled to the edge, hardly aware of the vast vista of green Cheshire fields with the smoking chimneys of Manchester in the distance. He lay on his stomach to look
down into the abyss. This time Stark’s devil’s luck had abandoned him. His body was lying spread-eagled a hundred feet below. Perfectly still with a slick of fresh blood spreading around his head like the halo of a wicked saint.

  Chapter 75

  Albert limped back to the road then down the hill into the village, ending up at the police station where he’d arranged to wait for Smith to arrive with the motor car to take him back to Wenfield. A constable he didn’t recognise was stationed behind the front desk and he wondered whether to report what had happened; to tell him that the body of the sergeant who’d once presided over that very station – the man who’d been presumed dead ever since he’d been unmasked as a murderer – was lying at the foot of Oak Tree Edge.

  He knew where his duty should lie. On the other hand, as far as the police were concerned, Stark had died the previous September. Besides, he really couldn’t face reliving his ordeal, so when the constable asked him what he’d been doing to get himself into such a state he lied and said he’d fallen. All he wanted was to get back to Wenfield to question his suspects and he also needed to clear the names of an innocent man and woman before the judge placed the black cap on his head and pronounced the sentence of death.

  He was relieved when Smith and Mitchell returned, having deposited the Ogdens in the cells at Wenfield police station. The two young police officers seemed to have established a friendship and they shook hands heartily before parting. Albert watched them, glad that they’d both been too young to experience the horrors of war; confident that nothing like that would ever blight young lives again.

  On the drive back he found himself thinking of his son, seeing the boy’s face each time he closed his eyes. He managed to field Smith’s enquiries about the state of his clothes, telling the same lie as he’d told the constable at Mabley Ridge. The body of Abraham Stark would be found soon enough, he supposed, and his death would, no doubt, be treated as a mystery – although it was one puzzle Albert had no desire to help them solve.