On Copper Street
Page 24
‘Luck,’ the superintendent answered. The one thing they’d needed, and the one thing that had been in such short supply all the way through the case. ‘Sheer luck. I stopped by to see his sister-in-law this morning and I heard two people arguing upstairs. I waited and saw Calder leave and I wondered how long the pair of them had been at it. When I took a look at his file and saw his full name was John David it all clicked into place.’ He gave a helpless shrug. ‘I hadn’t banked on her attacking him, though.’
As soon as he saw the same, John David, J.D., he understood. Detective Sergeant John Calder was in the perfect position to arrange everything, to be the quiet mastermind. He could frighten Henry White into keeping quiet, be his brother’s silent partner, and know exactly what was going on in the investigation. And he was someone who could kill in cold, cold blood.
‘He’s going to live. We’ll have him in the dock.’
‘That’s something,’ he agreed. With four murders to his credit, one of them a copper, Calder would hang. No doubt about it. It was done, they had him.
After all the work, to solve it this way seemed like a let-down. It was too simple. Not detection, not police work, but luck.
Worst of all, the killer was one of their own.
The papers were already full of it, gloating. The chief constable had made his embarrassed statements. But the damage was done.
‘Why do you think Calder did it, sir?’ Ash asked.
So far the man had refused to answer any questions. The best Harper could do was guess.
‘Greedy, maybe?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not sure we’ll ever know.’
When they’d searched the sergeant’s house, they’d found three chests carefully hidden behind a false wall in the cellar. Good silver in two of them – part of the loot from old robberies – and money in the third, enough for anyone to pass the rest of his life in comfort.
Calder had used Henry White. He’d used his own damned brother. And what about Talbot, the guard at Armley? Probably he’d paid him then killed him. He wondered if they’d ever learn the full truth.
Then there was Conway. No one could forgive that. Nobody would try to explain it away. That had been an execution. Deliberate, cold, calculated. No lawyer would dare plead for mercy after that.
Moments came when he believed he understood why Calder had done it all. More often any sense behind it shredded like mist. Unless the man told them they’d never be certain.
So far he wasn’t even showing any remorse.
The woman was back in Armley, remanded there until her trial started. Harper would be a witness for the defence, arguing for her release. She’d suffered enough.
There would be an enquiry into it all and he wouldn’t come out of it well. Someone had to carry the blame and he was the new man, inexperienced at command. One of the councilmen on the watch committee had already taken him aside and suggested he should resign. But he wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction. They’d promoted him, they’d wanted him in the job. If he was going to be their scapegoat, they could bloody well find the guts to sack him.
Harper had gone over it all, time and time again. Every moment of it, from waiting for Henry White outside Armley Jail to the knife in Calder’s belly. No one could have solved it all sooner; he was absolutely, honestly convinced of it.
‘What now, sir?’
‘We’re done on this. And Lester’s dead, so the acid case is finished. Did Dr King ever give a cause of death for him?’
‘It’s what we thought, sir. Heart attack.’
The superintendent nodded. ‘Why don’t you go home? You’ve earned a rest.’
Ash snorted. ‘See if Nancy remembers who I am. She might have moved her fancy man in by now.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll have other things to keep us busy in the morning.’
But that was tomorrow; he still had more to do today. Papers waited on his desk. Since he’d sent Calder off in the ambulance he’d spent most of his time here in the office. The hours and the days had passed slowly. Steadily. It came with the job.
TWENTY-SEVEN
He had the top hat and frock coat out again for Kendall’s memorial service. The chief constable and some of the older members of the force read the lessons. Harper sat three rows from the front, in among the other division commanders. Olivia Kendall sat with her back straight and her head bowed, wearing a black velvet hat with a heavy veil.
Everyone who could be spared was there, men from the fire brigade, too. He’d spotted Billy Reed in his best uniform, buttons and brass all polished.
The hymns, the sermon, they seemed to drone on for hours. When the final amen was spoken and he walked outside, it felt like sweet release. He’d said his farewell at the funeral.
‘What did you think, sir?’ Ash said.
‘I think … it probably made the force happy,’ he answered after a moment. ‘A proper do.’
Two days earlier they’d worn the same formal clothes, going to a small church in Armley for Conway’s funeral, with full police honours. He just hoped this was an end to it.
‘I hear Sergeant Calder’s in court tomorrow.’
‘Yes,’ Harper replied. He’d been transferred to the hospital wing of the jail. Able to stand and walk. And still refusing to answer any questions. The superintendent had been to see him twice. The man hadn’t even acknowledged he was there. Simply stared off into space. The police had been building their case. It wasn’t perfect, but more than enough to convict and put the noose round Calder’s neck. For most people, the details of it all didn’t matter. But he wanted to know the truth. ‘As soon as we’re done with that, we start dismantling Tosh Walker’s little empire.’
‘I’m looking forward to that,’ Ash said with a broad grin. He put his top hat on his head. Together they walked down the path and through the lych gate to the road.
‘So am I,’ Harper told him. ‘So am I.’
Leeds, May 1895
‘Are you ready yet?’
‘Almost.’ Tom Harper slid the cutthroat razor down his cheek, one final stroke. He wiped the blade clean and splashed water from the basin over his face. A final adjustment to his tie and he was presentable.
‘You scrub up halfway decent,’ Annabelle said approvingly as she inspected him. She was dressed to the nines, a skirt and jacket in rich blue velvet, kid gloves, and a black hat with a silk band the colour of blood, set off by a single partridge feather. Mary’s face and hands were freshly washed and she was wearing her new sailor suit dress, the cap set at a jaunty angle, a necklace of bright coral around her throat to keep her safe and healthy.
His eyes moved from one of them to the other, filled with pride and love. Sometimes it seemed as if he must have dreamed them both and all the happiness they brought him.
Annabelle refused to tell him where they were going. She pushed him out of the Victoria and up Roundhay Road, one arm linked through his, holding on to Mary with her other hand. Through the back streets, with hellos and how do you dos for everyone they met. The long spring was turning into an early summer, the weather already close, a Sunday sun peering through the haze.
From the direction he guessed they were heading towards Burmantofts, but he had no idea why. A surprise, she said, and he’d been content with that. Now, though, curiosity took over.
‘Are you going to tell me where we’re going?’
‘No, I’m not,’ she answered with a smile. ‘You can hold your horses, Tom Harper. You’ll see soon enough.’
‘Where are we going, Mam?’ Mary echoed, and he smirked.
‘Like I told your da, you’ll see.’ She glanced down at the girl and sighed. ‘How did you get that smudge on your dress? You haven’t even done anything.’ They halted while she brought a handkerchief from her sleeve, wet it with spit and cleaned the material. ‘Honestly, you’re a muck magnet, you are.’
Were they off to visit Billy Reed and Elizabeth? He hadn’t seen the man since Kendall’s memorial; there’d been no reason fo
r their paths to cross. But Annabelle wouldn’t make something like that into a secret, and they certainly wouldn’t dress up for it. He was baffled.
At Beckett Street they crossed the road, and finally he understood. They were just one family among many visiting the cemetery on a Sunday afternoon. A flower-seller stood outside the gate. Annabelle looked at the selection, then up at him.
‘The red roses,’ she said and he nodded. ‘A dozen of them, please.’
‘Yes, missus,’ the woman said, then took a daisy and handed it to Mary. ‘A pretty flower for a pretty girl.’
‘What do you say?’ Annabelle asked her daughter.
‘Thank you, miss.’ Mary bobbed a small curtsey and he smiled.
Past the gates, Annabelle drew the notebook from her pocket. ‘They told me where it was, but I thought I’d better write it down.’ She gave a quick, embarrassed smile and laughed it off. ‘I always seem to be at sixes and sevens these days. It’s getting worse. I’d probably forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on.’
A look and she was on her way, the pair of them in her wake. After a few yards she stopped and turned.
‘There it is,’ she said with pride. ‘The subscription raised enough.’
A gravestone. Tom Maguire’s gravestone. She’d put in the first money to make it happen, organized everything, and now it was here. Still new, shiny, the marks of the engraver’s chisel clear and sharp.
Tom Maguire
Socialist
Born Dec 29 1865, Died March 9 1895
Bold, Cautious, True, And A
Loving Comrade.
He’d be remembered in Leeds; this would make sure of it. She’d needed to do it for the memory of all those years she’d known him.
‘What do you think?’ Annabelle asked.
‘It’s wonderful,’ he told her and squeezed her hand.
‘What do the words say, Mam?’ Mary asked.
‘You remember my friend Mr Maguire, the one who died?’ The girl nodded her head. ‘They’re about him. That’s where he’s buried.’
Annabelle moved forward and placed the roses at the bottom of the gravestone. She stood with her head bowed then turned away, dabbing at her eyes.
‘Right,’ she said after a minute, trying to control her voice, ‘Why don’t we walk down to Harehills then catch the tram up to Roundhay Park? Make the day a treat, eh?’
He looked into her face. Sorrow, loss, maybe even joy. 1895 hadn’t been a kind year. He leaned close to her.
‘I love you, Mrs Harper,’ he whispered, and saw her light up.
Maguire, Kendall, White, Calder, Talbot, Conway. The names seemed to give a rhythm to his footsteps as he strode through the Bank. Early still, the first day of the working week and men were moving grimly through the streets on the way to their jobs. No one even gave him a glance.
John David Calder had been found guilty of three murders. Set to hang next week, and still refusing to say a word about why he did it all. Too many mysteries would go to the grave with him. Too many questions without answers. At least Emmeline Calder had been released, back to live a small life in Holbeck, notorious now in her neighbourhood.
The story had filled the newspapers for a few days, the biggest scandal anyone could recall in Leeds. Then it had vanished, to be replaced by some newer outrage.
Harper turned on to Copper Street and stopped outside Henry White’s old house. Where it had all begun. Maybe, if he hadn’t been so cocky, some of those deaths might never have happened. But maybe and what if meant little as life unfolded.
He took a single red rose from his jacket pocket and placed it on the front doorstep. The people who lived here would wonder about it, discuss it for a day or two. And then it would all be forgotten. Like everything, it would pass.
AFTERWORD
Tom Maguire did die in 1895. Not even thirty years old, and pretty much in the circumstances described here – no heat, no food, no money. According to some, he’d been pushed away from the centre of politics in Leeds. His collection of poetry, Machine-Room Chants, was actually published posthumously. He was a vital figure in early socialism and working-class politics, and sadly far too few people know his name and achievements these days. He is buried at Beckett Street Cemetery, and hundreds did line the street for his funeral procession.
The moving pictures in a converted shop of Briggate were real, and Issott’s Kinetoscope Parlour did remarkable business for a while, before it was replaced by something better, and better, until the full-length film became a reality. For anyone who knows Leeds, where it stood is now part of Marks and Spencer’s.
The British Museum did send a collection of Cypriot artefacts to Nathan Bodington, head of Yorkshire College, now Leeds University. They ended up hidden away for decades in a basement. Thanks to Anna Reeve for the education on that.
My thanks, as always, to everyone at Severn House for believing in Tom and Annabelle, and for bringing this into your hands. To Lynne Patrick, the best editor a writer could want. And above all to you for reading it.