On Copper Street

by Chris Nickson

  ‘Stab wounds.’

  ‘Two of them in the chest,’ King said. ‘One slipped between his ribs and pierced the heart. No signs of resistance that I found. Attacked in his sleep, perhaps?’

  ‘He was in bed.’

  The doctor nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. What else? He was malnourished, looked as if he’d spent a great deal of time indoors.’ He reached across and picked up a piece of paper covered in the scratch that was his writing and sucked on his lower lip. ‘If I had to guess, I’d say he was a prisoner.’

  ‘He came out of Armley the morning he was killed.’

  The doctor gave a brief smile of satisfaction. ‘Good, I haven’t lost my faculties yet. But that’s all I can tell you, Inspector. It’s as straightforward as anything you’ve sent me.’

  If only that were true, Harper thought. Henry White’s death was anything but plain and obvious.

  ‘Nothing else at all?’

  ‘What do you want? I can’t make up facts. All I can say is what I’ve observed and examined. For what it’s worth, the knife blade that killed him was probably six inches long and an inch across at its broadest point. A vicious weapon. Doubled edged.’ He raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘A deadly weapon, in every way.’

  It wasn’t much, but each tiny scrap helped.

  ‘Thank you.’ He glanced around. ‘Where’s the body?’

  ‘You’re too late,’ King told him. ‘A relative took him yesterday.’ He peered through his spectacles, checking the notes again. ‘His sister. Mrs Thorp, I think?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He remembered the woman he’d met in White’s kitchen.

  ‘I daresay he’ll be in the ground tomorrow. But don’t worry, Inspector, there was nothing more he had to give us, anyway.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He was at the door when King spoke again. ‘I see that your friend has passed on. My condolences. I never met Mr Maguire but he seems to have been a very successful advocate for the working man.’

  ‘Yes,’ Harper replied. ‘He was.’

  The dead and the dying. For now, his world seemed to be filled with them. In a curious way, that made the acid attack even worse. There was no end for them: Arthur Crabtree and Annie Johnson would have to spend years living with what happened. It would be there every time they looked in the mirror, touched their faces, saw someone staring at them. Just the same suffering, day after day after day.

  Kendall wasn’t in his office. Ash had gone out. The old file on Terence White, Henry’s father, lay on his desk. Harper opened it and began to read.

  In and out of jail for carrying bets. He hadn’t been a lucky man. Nor a clever one. There’d been that single piece of good fortune, the two big winners at the races. Each one gave him enough to buy a house on the Bank. One on Brass Street for himself and his family and the other close by, Copper Street, rented out to bring him an income. It looked like the only intelligent decision the man ever made.

  Harper glanced through the list of offences. One caught his eye, from 1875: handling stolen property. Not silver, but a pair of enamelled snuff boxes taken in a robbery. He’d been stopped by the bobby on the beat who searched him for betting slips. What he found was even more valuable, reported stolen a month earlier.

  No one suspected Terry White; he didn’t have the nous for that. All he ever admitted was buying the boxes from a man he met at the Pack Horse inn. Three shillings for the pair and he thought they’d make a pretty gift for his wife. Instead, they brought him three months in jail with hard labour.

  He saw the name of the arresting officer: PC Kendall. An old tale, back when the boss was still in uniform.

  Did any of it mean anything? Probably not. And he couldn’t spot anything else worthwhile in the file.

  The door opened. Sergeant Tollman.

  ‘I’ve just had Inspector Reed on the telephone. He’s at the infirmary and wants you to meet him there.’ Harper felt his stomach lurch. ‘He says it’s to do with the acid attack, sir.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  He strode quickly along the Headrow, almost the only person around. No swell of voices on the pavements or carts jamming the road. A tram passed, just two passengers inside.

  Harper cut through Oxford Place, next to the Town Hall, and along Great George Street until he reached the hospital. Reed was standing outside, a cigarette cupped in his hand. The old soldier’s trick to keep it hidden from view. It made Harper smile, the way some actions became so natural. Long before he’d been a copper or a fireman, Reed had served with the West Yorkshires, fighting in Afghanistan.

  ‘Billy,’ he said. ‘You wanted to see me.’

  ‘I came in to talk to Annie. She remembered something.’ He led the way back into the building, up a flight of stairs and along a corridor with the overpowering smell of disinfectant.

  The ward had high windows that let in the bright light. It allowed him to see the girl’s face all too clearly. The left cheek and jaw were livid and puckered, contorted. Part of her hair had been burned away by the acid and there was an awkward twist to her mouth. As he stared, Harper struggled to keep all expression from his face.

  ‘This is Inspector Harper,’ Reed told the girl. His voice was gentle, patient, with warmth in his eyes. ‘I told you about him; he’s a good policeman. Will you tell him what you told me, Annie?’

  She squirmed away in the bed, turning her head to try and hide the damage before she spoke. Her eyes glistened, on the edge of tears. How many nights in the future would she cry herself to sleep, he wondered? In one moment her whole world had changed. He couldn’t do anything for her looks. But he could try to bring her some justice.

  ‘It were only a second.’ Her voice was tentative, small and fragile. ‘Just while he opened the door. Then he was throwing something and it were burning so bad.’ She brought her knees up under the blanket, huddling in on herself.

  ‘It’s all right, love,’ Reed said. ‘You can tell him.’

  ‘All I remember is he had a cap on his head. He looked just like Dan Leno, you know, from the music hall. I seen a picture of him on posters. I wondered what someone like that was doing, coming into our bakery.’

  ‘Is there anything else?’ Harper asked. He didn’t want to press the girl too hard and scare her. She shook her head. ‘How old do you think he was?’

  ‘Old, mebbe. Forty. More.’

  ‘Was he tall? Short?’

  ‘Normal,’ Annie replied after a moment. He needed more than that.

  ‘Fat? Thin?’

  ‘He were wearing a coat. A long coat. He weren’t fat,’ she said, then added, ‘Not really.’ She began to blink, to try and hold back the tears. Reed inclined his head; enough.

  ‘Thank you,’ Harper told her.

  ‘Elizabeth will come down to see you later,’ Reed promised the girl. ‘You try to get some rest.’

  They paced along the corridor, then out into the light without speaking. Cold air, alive, fresh.

  ‘Dan Leno,’ Harper said slowly.

  ‘I thought you’d want to hear it.’

  ‘Do you know anyone like that? He must be someone local to Burmantofts.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ Reed lit a Capstan, pulling a strand of tobacco off his tongue. A carriage passed on the road, curtains closed, drawn by a sleek brown horse, the driver with his back straight, wearing a dark suit and bowler hat. ‘I’ll start asking around.’ He sighed. ‘Poor thing. She was a bonny lass before this, too.’

  ‘You see what you can find. Let me know if you need anything.’ A quick handshake and he walked away.

  Reed stood, smoking. Dan Leno, he thought. Ever since the girl first told him he’d been going through every face in his mind. No one seemed to come close. But he knew all too well that her idea of Leno might be very far from his; they’d see two different things in the same man.

  Still, it was a place to start. And Elizabeth might have a few ideas. He raised an arm to wave down a hackney carriage.

  ‘Go home,’ Harpe
r told Ash as the hands on the clock turned to four. ‘We’re not going to solve this today.’

  The last two hours had been filled with frustration. Names pulled from the files and the past, every one with some connection with Henry White. Some were in jail. A few had left Leeds. One or two had died. Their list had dwindled to twigs.

  ‘We only have two left, sir. We could get to them easily enough.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said. He felt weary, drained. White, the girl, Maguire. And the Superintendent. Cancer, Kendall had confided, and not too long for this world. How could he have failed to see all the changes? They’d happened right in front of his face. Maybe that was the reason. When you saw someone every day, it all became so gradual. Natural. Still, he should have noticed. He should have known.

  And maybe he should have realized what was happening to Maguire, too. The man had been under the weather for so long that it was impossible to know what was normal. A summer cold, a touch of this or that, but he’d always insisted he was fine. He’d become quieter and thinner, slowly disappearing right in front of their eyes.

  ‘It’ll wait. You go and spend some time with your Nancy. She doesn’t see enough of you.’

  ‘I’m not sure she’d agree, sir.’ But Ash’s grin was broad under his moustache. ‘Especially when she says I’m getting under her feet.’ He gathered up his battered bowler hat and said goodnight.

  The inspector sat, lost in his thoughts for a few minutes. Then he shrugged on his coat and left.

  The house stood off Chapeltown Road, the last building in a terrace of impressive villas, three tall storeys. A small garden at the front, a much longer one behind. The kitchen and quarters for the cook-servant in the cellar.

  He knocked on the door and heard a scamper of footsteps, then a girl in a black and white uniform turned the handle, her face red from running up the stairs. At the entrance to the parlour she announced him, then he was ushered into a room where the fire blazed hot in the grate.

  Kendall sat in a heavy leather chair near the fireplace, a newspaper open on his lap. His wife was at the table, spectacles on her nose as she leafed through a heavy book.

  ‘Tom.’ The superintendent didn’t stand, just looked at him in surprise. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘No,’ he answered. That was certainly the truth. ‘Nothing at all. We’re getting nowhere. I wanted to come and talk for a few minutes, that’s all.’

  Kendall glanced at his wife. She didn’t seem to notice, but still she gathered her things and stood, beaming at Harper as if there wasn’t a thing wrong in the world.

  ‘I’ll leave you two to business. I’ll have Sarah bring you some tea.’

  ‘Sit down, Tom. You’re making me worried, standing there.’ He took out his pipe and lit it, smoke billowing into the air. ‘They told me I should stop, you know. I said I’d keep my pleasures.’

  ‘I should have seen what was happening …’

  ‘You didn’t, and I didn’t say a word.’ He shrugged. ‘What was the point? It couldn’t change anything.’

  Kendall had taught him how to be a detective. As the superintendent at Millgarth he’d reined in the worst of Harper’s excesses and turned a blind eye to others. He owed the man more than he could ever repay.

  ‘Even so …’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He waved it away. ‘I’ve put in my recommendation for the job.’

  ‘They won’t want me. You know I don’t make a secret of my politics. Annabelle’s a suffragist …’ That was just the tip of the list.

  ‘And you’re a damn good policeman.’ The doorknob turned: the maid with a tray of tea and biscuits. They waited until she left. ‘If I didn’t believe you could do the job, I wouldn’t have asked you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t worry too much about the other things. The chief constable isn’t a fool. I know you don’t care too much for him, but he’s capable of seeing beneath the surface. And he wants what’s best for the force.’

  That was it. From there they moved to idle chatter about the station, tales of a few of the characters. It was only later, walking home in the growing chill, that Harper realized the man had been giving small pointers and hints.

  FOUR

  Slowly, the heat of the fire seeped through to his bones. He sat in the chair with Mary on his lap, tired after the long day spent in the cold.

  ‘And then we went to church,’ his daughter said.

  ‘Church?’ He sat a little straighter, not sure he’d heard her properly. She nodded her head.

  ‘Maguire’s mother asked when I saw her yesterday,’ Annabelle explained as she set out the knives and forks. ‘I couldn’t really say no, could I? The service was for him.’

  ‘Where was it?’ Harper asked, although there was only one place it could have been held.

  ‘Mount St Mary’s,’ she answered. ‘Where else? Walking in that place made me feel like I was five again.’ Other than weddings and funerals, she hadn’t set foot in a church since he’d known her.

  ‘What did you think of it?’ he asked Mary.

  ‘The smell made me sneeze,’ she answered very seriously, and he smiled.

  ‘It’s the incense,’ Annabelle said. ‘It gets in your throat.’ She smiled at him. ‘Don’t you worry, I’m not going back any more than I have to. The funeral next week and that’s the lot.’ She looked at Mary. ‘For both of us.’

  ‘You should have told me,’ she said to him later. Evening noise came up from the bar, a low carpet of sound.

  ‘Told you what?’

  ‘What happened at the bakery.’ He could hear the disapproval. Stupid of him. Of course she’d want to know, those places had once been hers.

  ‘I’m sorry. There’s just too much on my mind. And you were thinking about …’ About Tom Maguire.

  ‘Someone mentioned it, they assumed I knew.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘We popped over to see Elizabeth after church. She’s beside herself with worry. Thinks it’s all her fault.’

  ‘But that’s—’

  ‘I know. Doesn’t stop her thinking, though.’ She smiled. ‘I gave her a talking-to.’

  ‘Was Billy there?’

  She shook her head. ‘Out looking for whoever did it, she said.’

  ‘He’s on the sick list, and I need the help. He knows the area.’ He took her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I should have said.’ He sighed. ‘Things just seem to be piling up, one, then another, then another.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘We deal with it and carry on.’

  She was right. That was life. Keep on moving.

  He stood by the door of the superintendent’s office, Ash sitting on the chair. Kendall had listened, nodding here and there and smoking his pipe. Finally he sat back, watching the others.

  ‘I’d forgotten I ever arrested Terry White. He was one of those people you could never take seriously.’

  ‘Henry was the same,’ Harper said. ‘He must have had some steel in him, though. He never gave up the names of the people who made him carry the stolen silver.’

  ‘Steel or fear, sir?’ Ash wondered.

  The inspector considered the question. ‘Fear, more likely.’

  ‘Was there anyone else outside the jail when you met Henry, sir?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He stopped, trying to frame the picture in his memory. ‘I didn’t look. I was thinking about him, what I’d say.’

  Ash stroked his chin. ‘It seems to me that someone must have known you were going to see him the next morning, sir.’

  ‘Go and talk to his sister again. Maybe he mentioned something to her.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  As he closed the office door, the inspector kept wondering if Kendall would call him back. But what else was there to say? Five more days of work. All the men at Millgarth would go out on Friday evening and toast the man, wishing him a long retirement and good health. And he wouldn’t have the time to enjoy either.

  Harper drifted through the
open market: only a handful of traders today, none of the storytellers or entertainers. No Indian chiefs, no feast of snakes to delight. He stopped at the café for a cup of tea, half-expecting Maguire to slide in and stop for a short conversation. Maybe a tip on where to look for Henry White’s killer.

  But all those strands that connected him to the past were being snipped away. He sat and drank and found no inspiration in the steamy room.

  What about the voice he’d heard in Whitelock’s? The more he worried at the words, the more he doubted himself. Misheard, perhaps, or a reference to someone else. It had to be. He hadn’t managed to find a meaning for it.

  He pulled out his pocket watch to look at the time, then marched along Kirkgate. The window of the Labourers’ Union office wore a surround of black crepe. A notice in beautiful copperplate read: We mourn the loss of our brother, Thomas Maguire. Whom the Gods love die young.

  A wonderful sentiment, Harper decided as he dodged between a handcart and a tram on Briggate and through the small, hidden opening into Turk’s Head Yard.

  Polished wood, glittering brass, not a single smudge on the mirrors. The tiles on the floor still shone from the mop. Behind the bar a man with his shirtsleeves rolled up was laboriously writing out the menu.

  ‘Anything good today?’

  ‘Good every day.’ There was an edge to his voice, but it turned to a laugh when he raised his head. ‘Mr Harper. How’s that wife of yours? We haven’t seen her at the Licensed Victuallers’ lately.’

  ‘She’s as busy as ever. I was in here on Saturday. You’re doing good business.’

  John Lupton Whitelock shrugged. He worked hard. He tried new things, and he was astute; most of them paid dividends.

  ‘I’ve only just started. I’m looking at putting in electricity as soon as I can. Then we’ll have some real light in here.’ He cocked his head, frowning at the hissing gas mantles. ‘You’re not here for my plans unless you’re spying for Annabelle, and you’re definitely not one for an early tipple.’

  ‘I’m after some information.’ He recounted what he’d heard two days before. ‘Any unusual characters in here on Saturday? Somewhere around noon.’