The Leaden Heart

by Chris Nickson

  ‘That relief officer and I are going to have words,’ she told him as she tried to pace away her anger.

  ‘Bad decisions?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he’ll insist they were completely justified.’ Her jaw was set, eyes flashing. ‘But I’m going to overrule him. I’ve met him. He’s one of this new breed, reckons everything comes down to pounds, shillings and pence. He cuts relief to families for the smallest thing, or he denies it to them altogether.’

  ‘You’ve had enough?’

  She held a hand to her neck. ‘Up to here. I was elected as a Guardian to help the poor in Sheepscar. I’m blowed if I’ll see them punished for things they don’t even understand. I’ve sent him a note telling him to report to me at the workhouse Tuesday morning.’ She exhaled slowly. ‘Let’s go to bed. If I think about it any longer, I’ll have steam coming out of my ears.’

  ‘We’re meeting that bobby in Holbeck tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten.’ She brightened a little. ‘When I was walking home I had a few thoughts that might stop anything like the Redshaw girls happening again.’

  Something had happened. He could feel it as soon as he walked into Millgarth. The air seemed to buzz. Men moved around with purpose. Ash, Fowler, and Walsh had their heads together in the detectives’ room.

  ‘What is it?’ Harper asked.

  ‘We’ve just had word about a body, sir,’ Walsh replied. ‘Five minutes ago. At one of those little quarries close to Roundhay Park. Discovered when the men arrived for work this morning.’ A small hesitation as he swallowed. ‘It’s Jeb Pearce.’

  ‘What?’ The word exploded from his mouth. ‘You were supposed to be following him.’

  ‘I saw him all the way home to Bramley. About nine last night, sir.’

  ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I wish I did.’

  Harper believed him; Walsh wasn’t one to shirk on his duty. But how …?

  ‘You’re coming to Roundhay with me. Fowler, I want you in Bramley, see what you can find out. Jeb didn’t fly across Leeds to die.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Ash, I want everything about Cameron on my desk later.’

  It was all connected; he didn’t know how yet, but it had to be.

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Out past the Victoria and up Roundhay Road. Beyond the grocer’s shop with its gold and green sign on Harehills Parade, already open for business, a striped canvas awning for shade.

  ‘How much detail do we have?’

  ‘Just the name,’ Walsh told him. ‘He had a letter in his pocket.’

  The quarry was set back from the road, no more than a hundred yards from the entrance to the park, out of sight, tucked into the hillside. A uniformed policeman stood by the entrance. Behind him, Harper saw a wooden hut and ton upon ton of stone. Large blocks with rough edges, more half-worked, some ready to be hauled away. Five workmen stood around with doleful expressions, smoking and drinking tea from tin mugs. And there, in the hole, the body. It was definitely Jeb, impossible to mistake that round body and hopeless face.

  He wasn’t quite at the bottom, though, Harper thought as he scrambled his way down the slope. Pebbles and chippings slid away under his feet as he tried to keep his balance. It looked as though Jeb had tried to climb out. On the other side of the dip, a cliff rose twenty feet in the air, a sheer expanse where blocks of stone had been quarried.

  A rippling sound, a shower of pebbles, and suddenly someone was beside him. A man in a dusty suit, bowler hat perched on his head.

  ‘I’m Saul Waters. The foreman here. Found him when I opened up today. Came down to see if he was still alive. I looked in his pockets and found the letter. Put it back after,’ he added.

  ‘Is all this locked at night?’

  The man shook his head. ‘No need. A few kids play here, but that’s it. Never had a problem before.’

  That seemed like a miracle in itself, Harper thought.

  ‘What do you think happened?’ He turned his good ear towards Waters.

  ‘My guess?’ He nodded at the cliff. ‘He probably went off the top, was hurt and tried to crawl out.’ He brought a pipe from his pocket and lit it with a match.

  ‘Why would he be walking around up there in the dark?’ Harper asked. ‘He lives in Bramley.’

  Waters shrugged. ‘Couldn’t tell you. You’re the copper.’

  He was, and he had a few guesses of his own.

  ‘Who owns this place?’

  ‘Chap called Nicholson. Had it for a year now.’

  It was an unlikely place for a killing. Most people wouldn’t know it existed, not even visitors to the park.

  ‘I’m going to need a list of all the people who’ve worked here over the last five years.’

  Waters sucked on his teeth, then nodded. ‘Might take a little while.’

  ‘This morning,’ Harper told him. ‘Or do you think this man decided to jump of his own free will?’

  ‘I’ll see you have it.’ He moved away, climbing easily over the scree.

  The superintendent squatted to examine Pearce’s body. Cuts all over his hands and face, blood dried around them. Dr King would be able to tell him more when he examined the corpse. Stone dust covered the clothes, trouser knees torn from crawling. He felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow. Poor bloody Jeb. He’d tried to live, done his best to crawl out of here. But once again, his best hadn’t been good enough. Now it never would be.

  Harper followed the dirt path to the top of the cliff. Nothing to show a struggle, but it had been dry for so long that the earth was hard and packed; impossible to tell anything.

  He looked down. It wasn’t that high, but sharp, jagged lumps of rock waited at the bottom. Enough to break a body. He sighed and stared, eyes tracing the path Pearce must have taken on his hands and knees. How long had it taken him? He’d died with the rim of the quarry just three yards away. So close, but it might as well have been the other side of the moon.

  ‘Well?’ he asked Walsh. The constable had been talking to the workmen. ‘Do any of them know him?’

  ‘No, sir. I asked them about the Smiths, described them, but that didn’t ring any bells, either.’

  ‘They brought him here. They threw him down.’ And once again, not one shred of proof. But he knew. Had they stood up here and laughed as Jeb tried to save himself?

  ‘Makes you wonder what condition Pearce was in when they arrived, doesn’t it, sir?’

  ‘We’ll see what the surgeon says.’ He heard the anger in his voice, felt it like iron in his body. ‘I want you after them.’

  Charlie Reed’s suicide had opened the lid on something far bigger than he could have imagined. Two murders so far. And if Billy hadn’t come for his brother’s funeral, the police might never have known.

  In the cab back to Millgarth he was silent, lost in his own thoughts. Where did they go from here? And how was he going to find out who owned the North Leeds Company?

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘What?’ The superintendent glanced out of the window. The hackney was trotting along Regent Street. ‘Sorry, I missed what you said.’

  ‘I can’t believe the Smiths are the brains behind this,’ Walsh said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It looks like they’re muscle. Bright enough and good with words, yes. But all this, it’s … too convoluted.’

  Completely true. Add in the knowledge about planning applications, and the money to buy the houses; five thousand pounds was a fortune. The North Leeds Company was pulling the strings. Someone with connections. Someone who knew what was going on in the city.

  Another hour or two and Pearce would be in King’s Kingdom. But the post-mortem couldn’t give him the answers he really needed. Why murder Jeb? What had he done?

  Dr Lumb had performed the post-mortem, with King peering over his shoulder. The body still lay on the slab, chest cut open, all the blood drained away, the organs weighed and bagged somewhere.


  ‘Your victim had been badly beaten before he fell in the quarry,’ Lumb said.

  ‘How badly?’

  ‘He definitely wouldn’t have been in any condition to walk by himself.’

  ‘He was still alive when he landed,’ Harper said.

  ‘Only just, as far as I can judge. How far did he crawl?’

  ‘Ten yards or so.’

  ‘Then he did that with a broken pelvis, four ribs smashed, a hairline fracture on his thigh and three broken fingers. Plus plenty of internal bleeding.’

  Sweet God. ‘Was there any chance he could have lived?’

  ‘None at all,’ King snapped. ‘All it did was make him suffer more. That was what you wanted to know, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then just come out and ask it.’ His voice was hard, echoing off the tiled walls. ‘The Lord only knows what kind of pain he was in. And he didn’t crawl that distance. He couldn’t. He dragged himself along the ground. His hands are in ribbons, all sorts of stone and dust under his skin and fingernails.’ He glared and stalked away.

  ‘Most of those injuries happened before he landed on the ground,’ Lumb continued after a moment, a raw sorrow in his voice. ‘I saw brutal things out in Egypt, Superintendent, but believe me, nothing as … deliberate or as thorough as this. The beating must have lasted half an hour.’

  ‘Christ.’ Tossing him down into the quarry was the final touch. Throwing him away in a last humiliation.

  Jeb had been a crook most of his life, a con-man, a pickpocket, trying anything illegal that brought in a few shillings. Not a good man, but never one of the worst. He didn’t deserve a death like that.

  ‘Could one man have moved him?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ the doctor replied after a little thought. ‘Difficult, though, he’d need to be strong. Much easier with two.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Thank you.’

  The constable was standing near the Cross Keys pub, rocking back and forth on his heels. He snapped to attention and saluted as soon as he noticed Harper and Annabelle.

  ‘Afternoon, sir. Missus.’

  ‘At ease, Cartwright.’

  The bobby was good at his job; that was what Brian Patterson had said. Conscientious, well-liked by the locals, he knew the area like the back of his hand. Seventeen years on the same beat, and not the slightest ambition for anything more.

  ‘This is my wife. She’s on the Leeds Board of Guardians. She’s been asked to look into the deaths of the Redshaw girls.’

  ‘Ah.’ His face clouded. ‘They were lovely little lasses, those two. ’Bout broke my heart when it happened, that did.’

  ‘Mine, too,’ Annabelle told him, then reached out and put her hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry, you must have known them since they were born.’

  That was all it took. A small gesture and a few sympathetic words and she’d won a new friend. He could see it in Cartwright’s expression.

  ‘I did, missus. A pair of little bobby dazzlers, them two. Smiles that could charm the birds out of the trees.’ He looked away for a moment and quickly wiped a hand across his eyes. ‘Sorry, sir. Ma’am.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Harper told him. He took out his pocket watch and looked at Annabelle. ‘Do you need me here? With …’

  ‘I’m sure this gentleman will be able to help me,’ she told him. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate.’

  He glanced over his shoulder as he strode away. The two of them were already talking as if they’d known each other for years.

  Six o’clock in the evening. The sun was hidden somewhere behind the haze that covered Leeds. Noise blared through the windows as people made their way home in the lingering heat. People, trams, carts, carriages. The ugly honk of a horn, then the distant mechanical blur of a motor car.

  Harper ignored it, sitting with the others in his office. All Fowler had found in Bramley was a grieving aunt. Someone had come for Jeb a little after nine the night before, she’d said. He’d answered the door himself, then told her he had to go on the water for a while. That was the last she saw of him. Neighbours had reported him going off with two men in a horse and gig.

  ‘Was there a driver as well?’

  ‘No one remembers, sir. They weren’t really paying attention.’

  ‘The next we see of Jeb is this morning, dead,’ Harper said. ‘Is there any connection at all between the Smiths and the quarry? Why would they choose that place? It’s out of the way, on the other side of town. There must have been somewhere quiet much closer to Bramley, surely.’

  ‘The foreman sent a list of employees,’ Walsh said.

  ‘Check every one of them,’ Harper ordered. ‘The owner’s called Nicholson. I want to know about him. Put the fear of God into all your snouts. For God’s sake, these brothers aren’t invisible. Let’s drag them down here.’ He turned to Ash. ‘Cameron. I hope it’s something good.’

  ‘He started out as a grocer’s boy in Harrogate. Then he went to prison for three months.’

  Harper raised an eyebrow. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Stealing from his employer.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Yet he ends up a grocer himself. Strange world, isn’t it, sir?’

  ‘You’ve got that look in your eye.’

  ‘Our Mr Cameron seems to have had an interesting little life, sir.’

  Billy Reed climbed the steps up to Whitby Abbey. One hundred and ninety-nine of them, that’s what they claimed; he’d never bothered to count. One thing about living in a place with so many hills; he was fitter than he’d been in years. Not a single pause on the way up and he was hardly winded by the time he reached the top.

  A small group was waiting. The bishop, in brilliant white surplice, colourful stole and mitre. The mayor and two councillors. Reed was wearing full fig, the cutaway coat, wing collar, and the top hat he brought out for special occasions. All to re-dedicate an ancient block of stone that a drunk had tried to steal. He’d managed to drag it all of six feet by the time he collapsed and the constable arrested him. Bound over to keep the peace for twelve months. And now this ridiculous ceremony to make it holy again.

  He didn’t listen to the words, letting his mind drift and his gaze wander out to sea. Calm today. Only a few fishing boats still out; most had long since unloaded their catch for the morning. The tide was coming in, slowly forcing the holidaymakers off the beach.

  How many were buried up here? he wondered. Centuries of monks under the ground, piles of old bones, the way Charlie and Hester would be when the worms were done. He sent up a silent prayer for his brother and his wife. His mind turned to Tom’s investigation. Not done yet; he’d have sent word.

  Then it was over, a few handshakes and he strolled back down the hill while the others stayed to talk. Reed always felt uncomfortable around people like that, out of place among the great and the good. No matter, he was on his way to some better company. Dinner at the Black Horse with Harry Pepper, the man in charge of Whitby’s customs office.

  A last look towards the water before he turned on to Church Street, and the lingering, hopeless wish he could have done more for Charlie.

  TWELVE

  No cooler the next morning, the night had held the stifling heat. Now the sun shimmered somewhere off to the east as Harper walked into town, wondering when the weather would finally break. All night, the image of Jeb’s body had kept falling through his dreams, jerking him awake.

  Why kill him? That was what he couldn’t understand. Pearce hadn’t given the police any information. He hadn’t done anything at all. Yet the killers had relished every moment of beating and murdering him.

  He stopped at the post box, dropping in the letter he’d written to Billy. He deserved to know what was happening.

  Not that he had much to tell. Just the hope that the brothers would make some mistake, and so far they’d shown no sign of that. Even if they did, the police had little evidence. Nothing that would stand up to a lawyer’s questions. No one had seen them with Jeb. Hester
Reed wasn’t alive to testify against them. Not a thing.

  He couldn’t let men like that roam free around Leeds. People who’d kill that way deserved to hang. And who was behind it all? Someone was giving the orders and keeping his hands clean. And he wasn’t even leaving a shadow at the moment.

  Fowler and Walsh were in the office, still wearing yesterday’s clothes as they sifted through statements.

  ‘Well?’ Harper asked.

  ‘We haven’t managed to come up with a clue, sir,’ the sergeant answered. ‘Nobody saw or heard a thing, and there are no houses close to the quarry.’

  A very good reason to choose the place.

  ‘We’ve been going through the list the foreman made,’ Walsh said. He looked weary, hair standing on end where he’d run his hands through it. ‘So far, they all look straight enough.’

  ‘The Smiths?’

  Fowler simply shook his head.

  Ash arrived, hanging his old bowler hat on the hook. He sighed, running his hands down his cheeks.

  ‘Nicholson,’ he said. ‘The quarry owner.’

  ‘Go on,’ the superintendent told him.

  ‘I spent a very frustrating few hours yesterday going through records at the Town Hall, sir.’

  ‘Do you have an address for him?’

  ‘I do, sir.’

  ‘Then we’ll start by paying him a visit. Walsh, get some uniforms to go through the rest of the quarry employees. I want you out and talking to people. Find out everything Jeb was up to in the week before his death. And keep hammering every informant about the Smiths.’

  ‘What about me, sir?’ Fowler asked.

  ‘You’re going to Harehills to talk to Cameron the grocer.’ Ash had told them all about the grocer’s shadowy past the evening before. After that first prison sentence for stealing from his employer, there had been two more, both for forging cheques, all before he turned twenty-three. After that, a long, quiet period until he suddenly appeared with his own grocer’s shop on Harehills Parade, with no hint of where he’d found the capital for the business. Was Cameron tied in with all this? Harper’s instincts said yes. But how? Fowler was the right choice to go there. He didn’t look like a copper, didn’t have the manner of one; he was more like a young professor from the college, with his thinning hair and distracted air. ‘Tell him you want your post sent there. Make up some company name. Get him talking.’