Katie Mulholland

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘The man who was paying well, did they say who he was? Where he was from?’

  ‘No; only that he was a gent an’ lived out in the country. That’s all I know. Honest, honest, Captain. Them two, they had it all planned. They said they had been over the wall afore; they…they had us here last week an’ the week afore.’ The head drooped again. ‘You got off in the light.’

  ‘Dirty bastards!’ The donkeyman was making yet another move forward, when again Andrée checked him; then, turning to the mate, he said, ‘Lock him up until the morning, Mr Naylor; he may remember something more by then.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  From the foot of the ladder Andrée paused and, looking back along the steel-bedecked engine room, said, ‘I’ll be sleeping aboard.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  He could not now risk going home because Katie would link this attack to his supposed fall down the hold, and she would immediately put a name to the instigator of them, and the name would be the correct one.

  He had some thinking to do, and he must know what course he was going to take.

  By the following morning Andrée had discarded the idea of going to the police; he had no proof against Rosier. His only witness was the man, who could give him no more information other than he had given him last night; and it would take a very good solicitor to connect the gent in the country with Bernard Rosier.

  No, the best way, he thought, was to confront this devil, maimed as he was, and warn him what would happen if he attempted any such thing again. He might, he knew, find it difficult to keep his hands off the man, but this he must endeavour to do because, whereas he had no evidence to incriminate Rosier, were he to manhandle him, Rosier, he was sure, would use such an action as an excuse to strike back at Katie, for he now saw the previous attacks on himself as Rosier’s means of retaliation. He also knew that if he was to meet him it must be before he saw Katie again.

  The effects of the attack seemed worse this morning. His face felt sore, his eye was swollen and discoloured, his groin was stiff and painful, as was his shin, and altogether he was in such a condition that he would rather have lain in his bunk for another couple of hours; but this thing had to be done, and at once.

  In ordinary circumstances, he would have walked the four miles to the house, arriving there within an hour, but this morning he was in no fit state for walking, so he made his way to a side street and a ramshackle building that sported the name of livery stables, and there he hired a cab.

  It was a clear spring day, promising warmth later on, and as the cab left the outskirts of Jarrow and headed for the country he recalled the last time he had taken this drive, and the outcome of it. In a way he saw his journey now as an extended result of that visit.

  The driver took a different road today and they passed a derelict village, all the windows of the cottages gaping wide and the doors hanging off their hinges. It looked so dead it could have belonged to another century; but this, he recognised, was Katie’s village, the place where she had been born. The village had died when the pit was closed. All such villages died when the black arteries were cut.

  The drive this morning seemed endless, but eventually the cab turned into the dark tree-lined drive and came to a stop before the steps of the Manor.

  Andrée, getting out, looked up at the driver and said, ‘Wait for me.’ Then, mounting the steps, he pulled the long handle that rang the house bell.

  It was some minutes before the door opened, and when Kennard saw who the early visitor was he seemed to lose his imperturbable composure.

  ‘I would like to see your master,’ said Andrée.

  ‘I…I am afraid he is out, sir.’ Kennard’s eyes were fixed on Andrée’s bruised face.

  ‘Tell your master that Captain Fraenkel would like to see him.’ Andrée’s voice was low, the words clipped, his foreign accent very defined.

  ‘He is out, sir. It is the truth; he is out riding.’

  There was a pause before Andrée asked, ‘How long is he likely to be?’

  ‘I don’t really know, sir.’

  ‘You must have some idea.’

  ‘Not this morning.’

  ‘Well, I’ll wait; I’m in no hurry.’

  As Kennard made to speak again Andrée turned and went down the steps, and, paying the cab driver, he told him not to wait.

  As the driver turned the horses round Andrée ascended the steps once more and confronted Kennard, who was standing in the doorway. The butler made no move to allow him to pass, but now, joining his hands together and rubbing them as if they were cold, and his voice holding a persuasive note, he said, ‘If you’d allow me to say so, sir, I think it would be wiser if you didn’t wait.’

  Andrée inclined his head towards Kennard before saying, ‘Wise or not, I mean to wait, either inside or out.’

  Kennard now took a step forward, pulling the door behind him and, his voice low, he said, ‘The master is in a very bad way this morning, sir. He’s…he’s been up all night. And I think it only wise to tell you he’s already had one…one upset this morning.’ He didn’t say fight, but the word indicated such. ‘He’s in a very nasty mood, sir.’

  ‘Thank you for warning me. That makes two of us. I also am in a very bad mood.’ He lifted his finger and touched the cut on his brow, then brought it down to his cheekbone.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ and Kennard sounded sorry, but he went on. ‘And I’m sorry I cannot invite you in because the mistress is quite unwell this morning. The doctor says she must be kept quiet and it’s very difficult, sir. I trust you understand, sir.’

  Andrée breathed deeply, then asked, ‘Which road did your master take?’

  ‘I think he went in that direction.’ Kennard pointed a little to the right of him. ‘By the track that branches off the road over the fells to the quarry and the mine; but I warn you, sir…’ Now Kennard put his hand out towards Andrée as if to touch him, then withdrew it before saying, ‘He’s on a horse and he has a whip, and he’s very good at handling both—even now.’

  Andrée, looking deep into the eyes of this old man, said quietly, ‘Thank you, I’ll remember.’ With that he turned about and went down the steps and along the drive to the main road, and after walking up it for a short distance he saw the lane leading off, and it bore evidence of a horse having recently passed that way.

  He now walked up the lane, which was long and bordered on each side by a high hedge. When eventually it came to an end he found himself on the open moor, and he stood gazing about him, but nowhere could he see any movement except that of the larks shooting up from the ground. In the distance the land rose slightly and he made for this point, and when he reached it he again paused and looked around. And now he did see something. Not far off a man was walking in a peculiar fashion. He had his back to him and his face to a hedge, and he was going along this crabwise. If it hadn’t been for the furtiveness of the figure, he would have taken the man for a ditcher. The man had now moved to where the ground rose into a bank, and he watched him pulling himself cautiously up and peering over, then lying flat against the slope.

  To the left of him Andrée’s eyes were now caught by a gleam of water, and it decided the direction he should take. As he neared it he saw it was the quarry that the butler had mentioned and that Katie had spoken of at times. The water came to within a foot of the top of the rough-edged stone. The expanse looked like a moderate-sized lake. The water was still and clear, and he could see juts of rock sticking out some distance below the surface. Three parts of the place, he saw, was surrounded by rough scrub and stunted bush.

  His attention was brought abruptly from the water by the sound of a horse neighing, and after glancing hastily about him he made his way to where he saw a trampled gap in the shrub that indicated a pathway.

  He was at the entrance to the gap when he heard the neighing for a second time. Moving into the shelter of the shrub, his face held tight against his shoulder, he glanced up the road. He wanted to see Rosi
er before Rosier saw him. As the butler had suggested, a man on a horse with a whip had already a big advantage, and put a man of Rosier’s calibre in that position and anything could happen. Although Andrée did not now look towards the quarry, it was in his mind that he was too near it for comfort, but if he wanted to confront this man there was nothing for it but to make his stand here.

  He could hear the horse’s hooves now, and when he moved his head forward just the slightest he saw the horse and its rider coming towards him at a walking pace. He saw Rosier’s head and shoulders clearly outlined above the bank that hemmed in the lane farther back. The face looked distorted, even terrible. He could not see the ear, or the place where it had been, but he saw the dark patch that was made up of twisted scars covering one side of his face. But what he did see clearly was the thin strip of flesh that was all that remained of his left hand, and as his eyes picked out the solitary finger and thumb curved round the rein there passed through him a fleeting feeling of admiration for this man who could handle the great beast he was riding with practically one hand. Then the feeling was gone, replaced by one of amazement, when from the top of the bank he saw another figure, and his mind registered that this was the man he had seen going furtively down the back of the hedge; and now this man, with a cry that wasn’t unlike the roar of a wild animal, jumped from the top of the bank on to the rider, and the next moment the horse, rearing madly, toppled the two figures to the ground and pranced in a terrified fashion before galloping back up the lane.

  What was this? What was this? Andrée was searching for an explanation. A tramp…or someone not unlike himself with a score to settle. He had the urge to rush forward and separate the combatants, but he remained where he was against the hedge, until the two panting figures rolled towards him, then he pressed himself back through the tangle of bush and for a moment they were lost to his sight. He was now almost in the same spot where he had first seen the man, and cautiously he moved up by the shrub wall until, through a small opening in the branches, he found himself looking down on the two gasping and struggling figures, and as the faces turned and twisted away from him, first one uppermost then the other, he realised that there was a similarity between them, for both their faces were scarred. The attacker had a dark blue weal cutting straight across one eye, the lid of which was closed, and another, more fresh-looking, weal across his great loose lips.

  He watched the man now deliver a blow into Bernard Rosier’s face that seemed to stun him; then, getting to his feet, he swayed a moment before lifting his heavy boot and aiming it at Rosier’s middle. But it never reached its target, for Rosier, with the agility of a cat, grabbed the thrust-out leg and in a flash the man was on his back, and he lay still, where he had fallen, his body looking as if he was going into a dance, one knee pulled up and one arm raised in a curved position above his head.

  What followed now happened so quickly that Andrée could not have prevented it even if he had sprung instantly down into the road. He had watched Bernard Rosier pull himself to his feet and go and stand over the man, then drunkenly stoop to the ground. The next minute he had heaved up a boulder and dropped it with all the force he could muster on to the man’s head. The impact caused Andrée to screw up his eyes and dig his nails deep into the palms of his hands. It didn’t need a second glance to know that the man was now beyond help, and his main instinct was to spring on this devil and batter him with his fists. Yet he didn’t move.

  As he watched Rosier tugging the man by his legs towards the quarry he knew exactly what he was going to do with his victim. He also knew what he himself was going to do. This was one time when Rosier would not escape justice.

  The plop came sooner than he expected. He could not, from where he stood, see Rosier pushing the body into the quarry, but he saw him a minute later when he staggered into view again, and if ever a devil had a representative on earth Andrée saw it in this man. He watched him now lean for support against a stunted tree, then put his hand to his mouth and call. After he had called a second time the horse, stepping gingerly, came down the lane and stopped near him.

  Andrée watched Rosier making an effort to mount. He had to try a number of times before he succeeded; then, his body drooping forward in the saddle, he muttered something, and the horse turned about and walked slowly up the lane.

  Andrée now stood gazing into space; then he took off his hat and wiped the moisture from his forehead with his hand, and when it ran down into his eyes he brought out a handkerchief and dabbed all round his face and beard. Turning slowly, he walked down by the hedge to the quarry and, moving a little way along its edge, he saw the track made by the passage of the body.

  The water in the quarry, having been disturbed, was not so clear at this point, but still clear enough to see, low down, a dark bulk lying against the light brown of the stone. It didn’t look like a man; anyone looking down at the shape would not take it for a man. It could be a shadow, or an old sack, or some black earth that had settled on the stone; but it was none of these, it was a man who had just some minutes before been murdered.

  His own step was unsteady as he walked up the lane, following in the tracks of the horse, and at one point he knew the need to rest and think, but as yet his thoughts were not clear. The dead man would be missed. They would start searching for him. Or would they? Men walked away from homes every day and never returned. But this particular man had known Bernard Rosier; he had known his movements. Perhaps he was of his household. But whether he was or not he had suffered at Rosier’s hands. Of that Andrée was sure. The man had been out to wreak personal vengeance on Rosier as he himself had wanted to do.

  He must now, he knew, go to the police; but first he must get home and prepare Katie. Although he wasn’t personally involved in this matter he was the only one who had witnessed it, and he would be called into court. So she must be told all the circumstances…

  But things did not work out as Andrée planned, and all because when he stepped from the lane into the rough main road he saw running towards him a lady—to be more exact, a climber. The woman was dressed in a ridiculously short skirt that only reached her calves. This was part of the costume that these mad women adopted when they went climbing the fells. She came panting up to Andrée, saying, ‘Oh, sir, I need your help. We…my friend and I have just come across a gentleman who has fallen from his horse; he must have been attacked and is unconscious. Come. Come quickly.’

  Andrée looked down into the thin, pert face and said, ‘You are running in the wrong direction, madam; his house lies the other way.’

  ‘But…but’—the lady’s eyes widened—‘you know him?’ Now her hand went to her mouth as she stared at the discoloured eye, then gasped, ‘It is you! You…you have attacked this gentleman. It is you!’ She stepped back as if in fear, and he said, ‘I have not attacked this gentleman, madam; I simply know to whom you refer, and I tell you to go in the opposite direction. Good day to you.’ He turned now abruptly on his heel and left her staring after him. It was some seconds later when he heard her running along the road again.

  That encounter was very unfortunate, he considered, but then in the final issue it would make no difference.

  ‘Kaa-tee’—Andrée closed his eyes—‘I have told you the truth, every word.’ When he opened them again and looked into her face he said, ‘I swear by God all I have told you is exactly as it happened. This’—he tapped his eye, then his shin, and his groin—‘this happened last night, not this morning. I did not fight with Rosier; I got these from his thugs.’

  ‘Oh, Andy!’ Her lips were quivering, her whole body was quivering. This is what she had gone in fear of for years, him and Bernard Rosier meeting. And he had come in like this, his face black and blue, his shin ripped, and a swelling in his groin so painful that he was limping, and he expected her to believe a tale about being set upon by four men…

  ‘You don’t believe me even yet. What about the man I saw murdered?’

  Yes, what about the man he saw mu
rdered? There was no need for him to make that up. She put her hand out to him and said, ‘Where is it going to end, Andy? Where?’

  ‘At this point, and finally.’ He nodded briskly at her. ‘He’s made a rope for his own neck this time. I’m going to the police right now. I would have gone on my way down, but I wanted to prepare you first and not have them come here frightening you.’

  Frightening her? She was so full of fear now that she could have vomited where she stood. Theresa’s great effort had been in vain; she had not saved Andy after all, and Rosier, the maimed Rosier, appeared even more terrible than he had before, more powerful, more vicious.

  At this point Betty opened the door, and without even knocking. She looked at the two faces turned towards her. Then, keeping her eyes on the captain, she said, ‘There’s…there’s two men to see you, Captain.’

  ‘Who are they?’ Katie had stepped forward, but now Betty closed the door and stood with her back towards it and she repeated, ‘They want to see the captain. It’s all right, they just want to see the captain.’

  As Andrée went towards the door he turned his head to Katie and said firmly, ‘Stay where you are’; then, looking at Betty, he added, ‘You, too.’ And she nodded at him as if he had said, ‘See that she doesn’t come out of the room.’

  Andrée’s step halted outside the door immediately after he had closed it, because there, in the centre of the hall, stood two policemen. When Betty had said men he’d had the idea that he would see the man he had released this morning and his pal, who, having got cold feet, had made up their minds to tell him the name of their employer. He walked towards the two officers, one of whom he knew: the sergeant who had sat in Theresa’s room until she died. It was this officer who now spoke. Hesitantly, he said, ‘I’m…I’m sorry, Captain, about this.’