by Ruth Sutton
‘Did the dead bloke smoke?’
‘Not according to the kid I spoke to last night. Kid’s no reason to lie and we can always check further.’
‘So if someone was smoking down here last night, and we should be able to find that out, then someone else was right here either before, during, or after Harries topped himself.’
‘We don’t even know he did it to himself,’ said Sam. ‘He could have been drugged, or hit over the head and strung up to make it look like suicide.’
‘That should all show up in the PM,’ said Brewster.
‘Footprints?’ Sam asked, knowing the answer.
Sergeant Brewster shrugged. ‘Look at this mess,’ he said. ‘People who found the body, you two and that PC from last night. Now the rain. All we can say for sure was that several pairs of boots have been plodding around. Not much chance of finding out how many, or whose bootprints fit where.’
The three men stood in silence, looking around them.
‘Not sure who’ll do the PM,’ said Sam. ‘Our police doc’s in hospital and I reckon he’s gone a bit doolally. Made a right cockup of the kid’s PM.’
‘What do we know about Harries?’
Sam looked at his notes. ‘Looks like he was a priest up on the west coast somewhere, and then joined up as a padre. Not sure if he served here or overseas. Then he turned up here for a job last year, 1968. Desmond Jerome Harries, born March,1925, in Rochdale. Edwards said Harries wasn’t married, and he thought both parents were dead, but obviously not if the note’s genuine. I need to check that with Mrs Robinson. She looks like the type who someone might talk to. I have a nasty feeling that reporter might know more but she’s keeping it to herself.’ He shut his notebook and put it away.
Harry said, ‘If we’re going to claim suicide and save ourselves a shitload of effort we need something to back it up. We’ll have proper look at Harries’s room for a start. I’ll dig out the medical records, and you have a word with Pharaoh’s editor if you have to about withholding information. And tell Brewster what the kid told you, about Harries having a visitor.’
Sam re-told the details of Leonard’s story. ‘The kid said he looked “hard” and threatening. Could have been enough to tip Harries over the edge.’
‘Or the bloke might have marched Harries down into the wood with the orange box and strung him up,’ Harry added.
‘Or,’ said Brewster, ‘the hard man just bumped him off somehow down here and strung him up to put us off. The note and the orange box were just to cover his tracks.’
The three men looked at each other. ‘We need that post-mortem, fast,’ said Sam. ‘And a proper look in Harries’s room. Come on.’
In the full light of day, the clinically tidy room on the top floor of Montgomery House looked as implausible as it had the previous night. Harry and Sam pulled on their gloves and started with the desk drawers, looking for anything in the dead man’s handwriting. Nothing. No letters, no notes, no photos. Nothing in the pockets of any of the clothes hanging on the rail. Nothing in the empty rubbish bin under the desk. The cleaners had been in the previous day, after the time when Harries had last been seen at the house; they would have tidied up, but not removed all signs that the dead man had ever inhabited this soulless space.
‘Waste of time,’ said Harry eventually.
Sam agreed. ‘Why don’t you go back to check what they’ve found on Harries’s body?’ he suggested as they returned downstairs. ‘I know the people here, so I’ll take statements from Edwards and the matron, and get what I can about the handwriting and the next of kin.’
❖ ❖ ❖
Captain Edwards was clearly still shaken about the tragedies that had overtaken them. He sat straight in the chair behind his desk but Sam could see the anxiety in his face. ‘I need to know whatever you can tell me about this awful business, as soon as you can,’ he said to Sam as soon as their conversation began. ‘The trustees have called an emergency meeting for next week. They’re as appalled by all this as I am, of course.’
‘What about Mr Harries’s next of kin?’ asked Sam. ‘We have a duty to inform them, and there’s been mention of his mother, but we don’t where she is. We’ll need to find her.’
‘Did you find anything at all in his room?’ asked Edwards. ‘Mr Harries was always a very tidy person, and the cleaners did their usual work before we … before we knew.’
Sam persisted. ‘You need to check your files, sir, to help us find the mother.’
Edwards got up and opened the middle drawer of a large filing cabinet that stood in the corner of the office. He took out a thin folder, brought it back to his desk, opened it and leafed through the various papers.
‘His application form said that he wasn’t married. Nothing about parents in the file, but I seem to remember some mention of the north-east. Maybe Newcastle?’
‘Would Mrs Robinson know?’ asked Sam.
‘I haven’t seen Iris this morning,’ said Edwards. ‘She was so upset last night, the doctor gave her something to help her sleep.’
‘Is that the local doctor?’ Sam asked, taking his notebook from his pocket.
‘Dr Graham comes from Broughton,’ said Edwards. ‘He’s one of our trustees. A wonderful supporter of our work here since I began here.’
‘And that was?’ asked Sam.
‘Ten years ago,’ said the captain. ‘Montgomery House was opened after the war, and I took over as director when I came out of the army.’ He tapped his leg. ‘Invalided out, you see,’ he said. ‘Being in Malaya made me want to do something worthwhile when I came out. Things were pretty dreadful out there for children, displaced, separated from families and so on. Some of them were forced to fight for the guerillas, the Communists.’
‘And Mrs Robinson?’ said Sam.
‘Iris has been here from the start,’ said Edwards. ‘She’s been immensely loyal to Montgomery House, and to me. Do you need to speak to her?’
‘Poor woman,’ thought Sam when Iris Robinson came into the office a short while later. Her eyes were swollen and red, the usually immaculate hair tousled. Abandoning any pretence of being in control of herself, she slumped in the chair that the captain pulled out for her. He patted her hand. ‘Have you had tea, Iris?’ he asked gently. ‘Shall I get you some?’ Sam nodded, and Edwards left the two of them alone.
‘I’m very sorry about what’s happened,’ said Sam. ‘There are just a couple of things I need to ask you, Mrs Robinson, if you can manage that?’ She nodded. ‘We’ve looked in Mr Harries’s room upstairs, but we haven’t found any information about his next of kin. Can you help us with that?’
Iris raised her eyes, which filled with tears. ‘He was a very private man,’ she said. ‘And lonely too, I think.’ She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. ‘He told me once that his father had died, and he was concerned about his mother left alone, but that was last year when he joined us, and I don’t recall anything recently.’
‘Was he married?’ Sam asked.
She shook her head. ‘Not as far as I know. He’d been a Catholic priest, I believe, then a padre. He wouldn’t have been married, would he?’
‘No,’ said Sam, ‘unless he’d left the church for some reason.’
‘But why would he?’ she said. ‘He still had his faith, that was obvious to me. Such a gentle, quiet man. I can’t believe…’ Her voice tailed away, and she wiped her eyes again.
‘Did he ever write to you,’ asked Sam, ‘a letter perhaps, or a note? In his own writing?’
She looked at him, questioning, but saying nothing. ‘The captain would have that kind of thing, wouldn’t he?’
‘Of course,’ said Sam. ‘Captain Edwards mentioned something about family in Newcastle. Does that ring any bells?’
Iris thought for a moment and remembered. ‘Last New Year,’ she said, ‘he said something about “first footing”, you know, on New Year’s Eve, and how he was often asked to do it when he was young man in Gateshead. But that would have been a long time
ago.’
Sam scribbled in his notebook. ‘That’s very helpful, thank you. We’ll see what we can do.’
‘His funeral,’ said Iris. ‘He was Catholic, and if he…’ she left the sentence unfinished.
‘We’ll do our best to find his family,’ said Sam. ‘They’ll look after all that, I’m sure.’
‘The poor man,’ she said. ‘To die like that all alone. He was very upset about poor Steven, you know, but I never thought – none of us did. The captain is terribly upset, you know. We’re like a family here. And the trustees, they’ll want to know what happened.’ She sniffed. ‘The captain is a wonderful man, constable,’ she said. ‘So dedicated to these boys. He was away fighting you know, and I think that’s what drives him, to make up for what he saw over there.’
Sam smiled and nodded, wondering. They both looked up as the door opened and Betty from the kitchen brought in a tray of tea and toast. Sam wanted to get away, but he stayed a while in the vain hope that more information would be forthcoming. It was hard to accept that Desmond Harries had disappeared leaving no trace of his existence behind him.
❖ ❖ ❖
In the newsroom of the Furness News Bill Skelly outlined to his editor his theory of the case with unassailable confidence. ‘Looks like this Harries guy was a Catholic priest who was shifted out of the parish for fiddling with little boys, buggered off to the army or somewhere out of reach for a while and then turned up wanting to work in a boys’ home. Surprise, surprise. Harries fools with a kid who runs away and dies, Harries feels guilty, can’t live with himself any more, finds a tree and a rope and Bob’s your uncle.’
Judith winced: so much for Pat’s advice to be kind and not jump to conclusions. Thornhill sucked his bottom lip. ‘How much of this is speculation?’ he asked.
‘Too much of it,’ said Judith quickly. ‘I heard about it from another ex-priest who said the stuff about the little boys was just gossip.’
‘No smoke,’ retorted Bill triumphantly. ‘He’s just a pervy priest. God knows there’s enough of ’em around.’
‘It’s not enough, Bill,’ said Thornhill. ‘You know that. We’ll have the bishop and all his angels on us in a flash if we print something like that.’
‘I could find out more,’ said Judith. ‘The diocese would have information about where he went, even if they’re keeping quiet about why. And wouldn’t the army or whatever it is have records about when someone left? Why did he turn up at Monty House last year, looking for a job?’
‘Edwards would never employ someone really dodgy,’ said Thornhill. ‘We never hear a bad word about the man. He must be mortified.’ He was staring at the papers on his desk: Judith wondered why he wasn’t more enthusiastic about the story.
‘Couldn’t get near him last night, with the police warning me off,’ said Judith, ‘but I could go back now, see what he says, if he’ll see me at all.’
‘Probably rather see you than me,’ said Bill, ‘but who wouldn’t, eh?’
Judith stared at him and he looked away.
An hour later, she was getting ready to go back to Montgomery House when the phone rang. It was Tognarelli.
‘Just in case you were thinking of snooping around after last night, Miss Pharaoh, I’ve been asked by Sergeant Morrison to make sure you get the message to leave this alone. Montgomery House could be part of a crime scene and you and your colleagues should not be there until we say so.’
‘My editor’s just asked me to keep on with my enquiries, and that’s my job.’
‘That’s why I’m about to call your editor and meet with him as soon as maybe,’ said Sam. ‘That will include you, and I expect to be down there forthwith. Goodbye, Miss Pharaoh.’ The phone went dead.
‘Forthwith?’ Judith repeated into the silence. ‘Straight out of the pompous policeman’s almanac.’
She heard the phone ring in Thornhill’s office and a few moments later Thornhill appeared at the door.
‘I know,’ called Judith from her desk. ‘He called me, too.’
‘Who did?’
‘That new DC, Tognarelli.’
‘Well it was his boss who called me. Detective Sergeant Morrison and DC whatever his name is will be here in ten minutes, so you’d better bring a couple of chairs in here in case we have to let them sit down.’
It was not a comfortable meeting. Judith remembered that Thornhill and Morrison knew each other, and it was obvious, despite their efforts to maintain some professional distance. Morrison let Sam do most of the talking about the case, and all three men looked at Judith when he said quite clearly that he believed that Judith had information that would be useful to the investigation. Secretly Judith was pleased that Thornhill would see how hard she’d been working, but she looked gravely down at her shoes and gave nothing away.
‘What do you need to know?’ said Thornhill.
‘We think that the deaths of Steven Stringer and Desmond Harries are probably connected.’
‘One’s an accident and the other a suicide,’ said Thornhill.
‘Maybe and maybe,’ said Sam. ‘Not enough evidence yet to confirm or deny that.’
‘But there will be soon,’ said Morrison.
‘That’s reassuring,’ said Thornhill.
Morrison glared at him. ‘We expect all your people to cooperate with us in sharing information,’ he said.
‘As we always do,’ countered Thornhill. ‘Now is that all? We have a paper to put to bed.’ He moved just a short distance across the crowded space to make his point. ‘Miss Pharaoh here will do whatever’s necessary to bring our DC up to speed, and you and I will make sure they join all the dots.’
Ten minutes later, Judith and Sam sat in the corner of the newsroom with their respective notebooks in their hands. There didn’t seem to be many dots to join.
‘My contact in Maryport who told me the gossip about Harries is Pat O’Toole,’ said Judith, giving Sam the address and phone number. ‘He was Father O’Toole, but he left the priesthood some years ago.’
Sam looked up and raised his eyebrows. ‘No,’ said Judith firmly. ‘This has nothing to do with him. Not a chance, so forget it. What about the PM report?’ she added, determined to get some information before she offered any more.
Sam shook his head. ‘The report confirms that the boy drowned, and would lead to an assumption of accidental death.’
‘But–’ said Judith.
‘But nothing,’ he interrupted. ‘Whatever Doc Hayward said to you, off the record, there’s no doubt about the report.’
‘Have you asked him about it?’
‘Not since I saw him in the hospital, and you know what he said then.’
Judith knew he was right, and changed tack. ‘There’s the Barnardo’s connection and the older brother,’ she said. ‘Anthony Lennon could have been sent overseas by Barnardo’s, probably Canada or Australia. Somehow the brother gets back to England and finds out the younger brother is in care as well. Wants to protect him, tracks him down, says he’ll come and fetch him, kid sets off, gets lost, ends up in the mudhole,’ she said.
Sam listened. He’d already worked out that possibility but Judith didn’t know what he’d discovered from social services. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘And what about Harries?’
Judith thought for a moment. ‘Anthony might guess that someone had been messing with Steven, takes it out on Harries who is terrified of more accusations like last time and kills himself to avoid it.’
Sam nodded again. ‘We may, repeat may, have Anthony meeting with Harries outside Monty House just hours before Harries died,’ he said.
‘Well, then,’ said Judith. ‘Looks pretty cut and dried to me.’
Sam sat back and shook his head. ‘But I’m a trained police detective and you’re not are you, Miss Pharaoh? You can help though. We need more information from Steven’s sister about the elder brother, and there’s no chance of her talking to me. And I need to talk to your friend in Maryport and pick up Harries’s history from there.
If it was a suicide we need to convince the coroner and at present it’s all guesswork. You’d better call O’Toole and let him know about Harries and that I will want to see him. Can you do that?’
Judith nodded. It wasn’t something she wanted to do, but she had little room for manoeuvre.
‘And the sister,’ Sam went on. ‘You have to get her to tell us more about the elder brother. That man’s in this picture somewhere, and currently he’s just a ghost.’
Judith said suddenly, ‘The man you saw at the crematorium. What did he look like?’
‘Hardly saw him at all, just a glance before he disappeared into the bushes,’ said Sam. ‘One of the boys may have seen him too, at Monty House last night.’
‘And?’ asked Judith.
‘It could be the same person. Taller than me, wearing a long coat and hat, big enough to pull down over his face. The lad at Monty House said he looked hard.’
‘And he probably smokes,’ said Judith.
‘Why?’ asked Sam.
‘It was a few days ago now,’ said Judith. ‘I was walking from the station to my flat just off Abbey Road and I wondered if someone was watching me. He was wearing a long coat and a big hat, too, and smoking. He was standing at the end of the street but when I stopped to look, he walked round the corner. I’d actually forgotten about it.’
Sam got to his feet. ‘If it happens again, tell us,’ he said. ‘Probably nothing, but until we pin this man down he could be anywhere. Keep good notes when you talk to the sister and get in touch as soon as you’ve seen her. PM results for Harries shouldn’t be long and those will help. Probably just confirm the most likely course of events, the one we’ve all guessed at already.’
‘Is it OK for me to visit Elspeth again without you going off in a huff?’ asked Judith.
Sam didn’t smile. ‘We’re co-operating on a case not because we want to but it’s the most efficient way to proceed,’ he said. ‘I still feel that press and police should keep their distance from each other. You and Elspeth are friends, but don’t include me in that. I’m not being nasty, that’s just the way it needs to be.’