Cruel Tide

by Ruth Sutton

  The two men drank in silence for a while.

  ‘Let’s say Hayward was telling the truth and the lad didn’t drown,’ said Harry. ‘We know Harries had a history of fiddling with little boys.’

  ‘Rumours,’ said Sam.

  ‘No smoke and all that,’ Harry went on. ‘With Harries dead we’ll never know whether the kid died by accident, or Harries might have killed him deliberately to shut him up. Harries takes the kid, however he died, and dumps him somewhere out on the sands. He probably knew the kid was threatening to run away. The body could be washed up miles away, but instead it’s sucked into that mudhole nearby.’

  ‘Didn’t take much to pick the lad up,’ said Sam, remembering the small coffin being lifted from the hearse.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Harry. ‘Harries was pretty puny by all accounts, but even he could manage that. Then afterwards he’s so overcome with remorse, or guilt, or fear, whatever these pervy bastards feel, that he writes a note, sticks it in his pocket, takes a rope and something to stand on down to the wood and tops himself. Case closed. Monty House rebuilds its reputation and takes more care about who it employs. End of story.’

  Sam put his glass down. ‘But that’s all speculation isn’t it, and there’s no medical evidence to back it up. All we’ve got is a PM report which is contradicted by something Hayward may or may not have said, and now denies.’

  ‘And no body,’ added Harry.

  ‘And no body,’ Sam repeated, remembering the curtains closing over the little coffin and the smoke that drifted over the crematorium.

  ‘No wonder someone thinks we’re useless,’ said Sam. He told Harry the details of the appearance of the tape.

  ‘So who sent it?’ Harry asked.

  ‘I reckon it must be the dead kid’s older brother. He could have guessed what Harries was up to, threatened him, and wants to tell us that he got the result.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Harry.

  ‘God knows. Ego, wants the credit for dealing with Harries. Wants to make us look useless. But why the tape, not a note or something? Where would he get a tape recorder from?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Nelly,’ said Harry. ‘Give over trying to prove how clever you are. You’re as bad as he is. Leave it alone. And it’s your round.’

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  When Sergeant Morrison appeared in the CID room the following morning, Sam wished he hadn’t had that extra pint.

  ‘This is getting out of hand,’ Morrison began. ‘We started off with a dead kid, and now we’ve got a suicide and a nutter sending anonymous messages to the press. Making us look like fools, Nelly, and I want it sorted. High-ups want it sorted, too. They lean on me and I lean on you, that’s the way it works round here. So tell me what’s going on, so at least I know who to blame. Come on, haven’t got all day.’

  Sam recounted the state of play as concisely as he could and for once Morrison seemed to be listening and asking reasonable questions, although Sam didn’t have many of the answers. He ended up with a list of things to do: check for next of kin in Gateshead, find the older brother and get him to admit sending the tape, stop making life so complicated, and keep any information as far away from Bill Skelly and that bloody Pharaoh woman as possible.

  ‘Grayson reckons it’s pretty obvious what happened,’ said Sam.

  ‘Of course it’s bloody obvious,’ said Morrison. ‘Open and shut. We wait till all the reports are finished off, then we can close the kid’s case and get on with something else. Is this elder brother a problem?’

  ‘Sound as if he had something to do with Harries’s death,’ said Sam.

  ‘Of course he did,’ said Morrison. ‘He threatened Harries and Harries topped himself. And Harries wrote a note. I checked the writing I got from Edwards, and it matches, so no mystery there. You’re not saying this Lennon bloke actually strung him up, are you?’

  ‘Well –’ Sam began.

  ‘Well, nothing. Harries topped himself. That’s it. Finished. Just tie up the loose ends, constable,’ said Morrison finally. He slapped both hands on his knees, and pulled himself out of the chair. He hovered briefly by his desk, skimmed through a pile of messages, dumped most of them in the bin, shoved others in his jacket pocket and slammed his office door on his way out.

  Sam sighed. First Harry, now Morrison, and he could guess what the Furness News mob would be hinting at, even if they couldn’t say it outright. Maybe they were all right. He picked up the phone to find the CID in Gateshead.

  CHAPTER 14

  ‘Judith?’ said Pat O’Toole..

  ‘Yes, I wondered if you would call me.’

  ‘I saw the piece in last’s night’s Star, up here,’ he said. ‘No name, just that a body had been found in the woods, near Attercliff. Is it Harries?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s him.’

  ‘What I told you about him was just gossip. You understood that, didn’t you?’

  Judith heard the reproach in his voice. ‘I told no one about it, until afterwards, when it looked as if someone had been threatening Harries, about the boy who died on the sands.’

  ‘What have you said?’ he asked.

  She didn’t want to lie to him. ‘I told my boss that there’d been rumours before, that’s all. They wanted to print stuff about Harries’s history but I told them there were no real facts, just speculation. They agreed with me in the end.’

  Pat was silent for a while. ‘What happened to you, Judith?’ he said. ‘Jessie always told me what a lovely girl you were, and she was very fond of you. Is it the job? They are vultures, these people you work with, finding bodies and picking over them.’

  ‘Only if the bodies smell,’ said Judith, regretting it as soon as she’d said it.

  ‘I asked you to be kind,’ he said. ‘Is that so hard?’

  ‘In this job, yes it is.’

  ‘Well, get out then, before it’s too late. Leave it to the vultures. Don’t become one of them yourself.’

  ‘It’s not as easy as that, Pat,’ she replied. ‘And I’m not like them. I made them re-consider, I did, truly. You might have been proud of me. It’s not easy standing up to your boss.’

  Pat sighed. ‘So poor Harries took his own life?’

  ‘That’s what it looks like. Maybe he was afraid of rumours catching up with him again.’

  ‘His poor mother,’ said Pat. ‘She must be heartbroken.’

  ‘Where is his mother?’ said Judith. ‘The police are trying to find the next of kin. Do you know where she is?’

  ‘I don’t know much about him at all, but everyone has a mother don’t they. Alive or dead, I can feel sorry for the poor woman.’

  Judith hesitated. ‘Do you ever see people from when you were a priest, Pat, when you knew about Harries?’

  ‘Occasionally,’ he said. ‘At funerals mainly, these days.’

  ‘Could you do something for me? Could you ask around, see who knew him, ask about his family? He can’t just disappear as if he never existed. The police will be looking I know, but you don’t want to be bothered with them. Most of the police round here are either lazy or pompous, or both.’

  She remembered something else she wanted to tell him. ‘I’m going to check about what happened to the boys who were sent away,’ she said.

  ‘What boys?’

  ‘The Barnardo’s boys,’ she said, ‘who were sent overseas. I think the older brother of the boy who died may have been one of them.’

  ‘And he came back?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Not sure, I’m still trying to find out more.’

  ‘Haven’t you got enough on your plate already? There can’t be much of a story in that, can there?’

  Judith didn’t want to mention the tape, or her suspicions about who had sent it.

  ‘I have to prove myself somehow,’ she told him. ‘I want a story with my name on it. Something that no one else has written about. This could be it.’

  ‘Find another job, my dear,’ he said. ‘You’re beginning to talk like
they do. Don’t let them suck you into their world.’

  Judith thought about the old man on the other end of the line, and suddenly she was angry with him.

  ‘I’m a grown woman now, Pat,’ she said, ‘not the little girl my grandmother talked about. Jessie made her own decisions about how to make her way in the world, and that’s what I’m doing. You might not be proud of me but I think she would be. I’ll try to keep it like that, so don’t worry about me. ’Bye, Pat.’

  She put the phone down and sat back, wondering what to do next. She had to do something.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  The woman who looked after the Furness News archives worked on the next floor down from the newsroom, at a tiny desk surrounded by piles of shelves and cupboards.

  ‘Do you have a filing system?’ Judith asked, daunted by the amount of paper that confronted her.

  Miss Hobson looked at her witheringly. ‘It’s an archive, dear,’ she said, ‘not just a random collection of papers. Of course I have a system. What do you want to find? Or are you the errand girl for one of the grumpy old chaps up there?’

  Judith smiled. ‘They’re not all grumpy and old,’ she said. ‘Mr Thornhill’s quite young and he’s been very helpful to me just recently. Or at least his wife has.’

  ‘Irene Thornhill,’ said Miss Hobson. ‘Quite a case, isn’t she? Still wearing those high shoes and Chanel?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Judith. ‘And she’s trying to get me to do the same. Bit of an uphill battle there.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad they’re looking after you,’ said Miss Hobson. ‘I was very pleased to get out into my little dusty heaven down here where no one bothers me. That’s why I’ve got a good system, because no one wants me to use it!’

  Judith explained that that she was looking for was anything about Barnardo’s boys being sent overseas, after the war. ‘Most likely to Canada,’ she added, ‘but possibly Australia, or New Zealand.’

  ‘Can I ask why?’ said Miss Hobson.

  ‘Just a story,’ Judith replied. ‘A feature, not news.’ It was a lie, but Miss Hobson didn’t need to know any more.

  ‘Fine,’ said Miss Hobson. ‘I’ll look into it and get back to you, as soon as I find anything.’

  Judith had only just got back from lunch at Bruciani’s with something by the Hollies running in her head when the internal phone rang.

  ‘Found a few pictures,’ said Miss Hobson. ‘Do you want to come down or shall I send them up?’

  Within a few minutes Judith was looking through images of the bright young faces and bare knees of boys, who stood stiffly or waved at the camera. Underneath, the captions told of excited young migrants heading for a new life working on farms in far-flung corners of the old Empire. The language was corny and contrived, like old newsreel commentary. How things have changed, thought Judith. She borrowed a magnifying glass and squinted at the blurred faces of the boys, but nothing seemed familiar about any of them. She was hoping that the older brother, Anthony, might have looked like Steven when he was the same age, but the image of Steven Stringer that Judith carried in her head was that of a corpse, with eyes closed and face streaked with mud, lying on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance.

  She closed her own eyes to block out the boy’s face. Maybe Pat was right. It was the death of that abandoned child that had started this whole business off and he seemed to have been forgotten, swept aside. Desmond Harries had been caught up in it and he was dead. too. Two victims, and the mood in the newsroom was almost gleeful. And she was part of it, no matter how she tried to excuse herself. Doing this job was a choice, and staying in it until it corrupted her was a choice, too. Maybe writing about boys in care and what happens to them was just about making the job seem worthwhile, about redeeming herself.

  In one of the photographs she noticed a woman standing at the end of a row, wearing a smart coat with a belt and a cap on her head, like a uniform of some kind. The caption said that this was a Mrs Nora Amblethorpe from Barrow Children’s Department who would accompany the boys on the trip to Montreal in 1954. Fifteen years before. Worth a shot. Judith finished her notes, thanked Miss Hobson and headed back to use the phone.

  When she got back to the newsroom Hattie called across to her. ‘There was a phone call for you a minute ago, a young woman. She was trying to reverse the charges. I told her not to be so cheeky and she rang off. Said her name was Donna. What a nerve.’

  Judith flicked back through her notebook to find the number she wanted and dialled it, fumbling the numbers in haste and having to start again. A man’s voice answered. Judith introduced herself. ‘Was Donna trying to reach me a minute ago?’ she asked. ‘Is she still there?’ A moment later, a quiet voice said, ‘Is that you miss?’

  ‘Donna,’ said Judith, ‘thanks for calling me. I forgot to tell my office about reversing the charges. Are you all right?’

  ‘He’d kill me if he knew I were talking to you, miss,’ said Donna. ‘But I don’t want to lose Anthony like I lost Stevie. They’re family.’

  ‘Do you know where Anthony is now, Donna? The police think he may be over this side of the bay, in Barrow, trying to find out what happened to Stevie.’

  ‘What will ’appen to ’im, miss?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m sure,’ Judith lied. ‘They just need to ask him some questions.’

  ‘He won’t want that, miss. Never ’ad a good word for the police, got that from ’is dad.’

  ‘Do you know where he was for all those years when you didn’t see him?’

  Silence. ‘Honest, miss, I thought he were inside, prison. He’d be all right in care, like, but then ’e‘d ’ave to come out, and then, well, I thought ’e’d end up in the nick.’

  ‘I think he may have been overseas somewhere, in Canada or Australia. He might have done OK for himself and come back to see you all. Then he found out about Stevie and he wanted to know what happened, like any family would.’

  ‘Really? Our Anthony, overseas?’

  ‘On a farm or something, yes,’ said Judith. ‘And if that’s true, it would make a wonderful story for my paper. I’d love to talk to him about it.’

  ‘In the paper! None of our lot’s ever been in the paper, except for being in trouble, court stuff.’

  ‘This wouldn’t be like that, Donna, I swear. Your Anthony could tell his story, show what he’s made of his life. But I need to talk to him. Do you know where he is?’

  Donna hesitated. ‘He did try and find me, like you did, to see I was all right. I was off ill. He told them he’d try again, but he ’asn’t done, not yet.’

  ‘When he does,’ said Judith, ‘could you tell him about the story I want to write? See what he says. There’d be something in it for him, too. Might even make the big papers, the nationals. Pictures, everything.’

  ‘I’ll tell ’im, miss,’ said Donna. ‘Gotta go.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Judith, but it was too late. The phone buzzed. ‘Hattie,’ Judith called across the room. ‘If that young woman ever rings again and reverses the charge, take the call and her number, will you?’

  ‘You mean we pay?’ said Hattie. ‘Mr Thornhill won’t like that.’

  ‘He doesn’t haven’t to know, does he?’

  There was no response.

  One more phone call, before Judith would feel perfectly justified in leaving early and doing some shopping on the way home. She’d been warned off going to Montgomery House, and anyway the boys there had been told not to talk to her. Sam Sherlock had cut her out of anything interesting. If she could keep the Barnardo’s project going it could get her all the points she needed with Thornhill.

  Barrow Children’s Department had no one called Mrs Nora Amblethorpe, but after being passed from one person to the next Judith eventually found someone who knew where she was living in her retirement. It didn’t take Judith more than twenty minutes on the scooter to cross the bridge onto Walney and follow the road across to Biggar Bank on the far side, looking out over the Irish Sea. Mrs Amblethorpe and h
er husband, both retired, seemed delighted to have some interruption to their afternoon. Nora remembered the story in the paper and found her own cutting of it in the bureau with only a few minutes’ search.

  ‘That was a wonderful trip for me,’ she said. ‘First time on a big ship like that. No one from Barnardo’s could go, so they asked for one of us. Bill went to his mother’s, didn’t you dear?

  Bill Amblethorpe rolled his eyes. ‘She did that deliberately so I’d appreciate her cooking more after a week or two with my mam,’ he said.

  ‘And it worked,’ said his wife. ‘And the boys were so excited. So young, some of them. One of them told me his mam had said she didn’t want him back so he said he would go. “What’s to lose?” he said to me. Just a child really, but it was a fresh start for him and the others.’

  ‘Who picked them up?’

  ‘Someone like me, a social worker,’ she said. ‘Nice enough man, said he had homes for all of them, mostly on farms out west. He was going to take them on the train.’

  ‘What if it didn’t work out, Nora?’ asked Judith.

  Nora shrugged. ‘No idea,’ she said. ‘It was up to the lads to make it work, wasn’t it? It was their last chance.’

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  Judith rode back the long way round, watching the wading birds dabbling in the shallows on the shoreward side of Walney Island. The shipyard workers were coming out, so she parked her scooter and did some shopping while the busy roads quietened down a little. Since she’d been trying to keep the flat tidy and take more care of it, she’d been happy to get home of an evening instead of heading to the pub or Bruciani’s. She hadn’t seen Elspeth for a while, but Sam’s presence there made it more difficult for all of them. Maybe if she and Elspeth planned a visit ahead of time, Sam could make sure he was out and spare them both all the embarrassment of bumping into him there.

  By the time she parked the scooter in the back yard of her digs and walked back down the alley to the front door it was getting dark. She glanced down the road while she was looking for her key and saw a light flicker as someone standing further down lit a cigarette. She put down her bag and stepped slowly out onto the street to get a better view. The smoking man turned towards her. She couldn’t see his face but the long coat and the hat made her step back to the pavement and then run towards him. But it was too far. By the time she’d reached the end of the street and turned the corner there was no sign of him.