by A J Wright
Batsford turned round. ‘That’s quite right, Sergeant.’
‘I see.’ Brennan paused before continuing. ‘When you left your wife, was she in bed?’
‘Yes. With that infernal book in her hands, despite the pain it must surely have brought her.’
‘Forgive the next question, Mr Crosby. You might find it a bit indelicate, but, well, was she wearing her night dress?’
Crosby’s eyes widened. ‘What sort of question…’
Brennan held up his hands. ‘I apologise, but I do need to know.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she was fully dressed when you found her.’
Crosby frowned then seemed at a loss. Finally he said, ‘I didn’t notice… in all the… I didn’t notice.’
Brennan went on. ‘Did she give any indication that she might be expecting someone?’
Now, Crosby’s eyes flared in anger. ‘What the blazes do you mean by that?’
Batsford stared at the detective, his expression one of distaste.
‘It appears that a young woman called earlier tonight.’ He placed undue emphasis on the words young woman in order to remove the sting of any suggestion of impropriety in his question.
Batsford stepped forward. ‘What young woman?’
‘She said her name was Woodruff. She told the attendant downstairs that she had an appointment to see Mrs Crosby.’
‘Nonsense!’ Crosby snapped. ‘My wife had no appointment. She had a headache!’
Brennan gave Batsford an enquiring look, but the journalist signalled his perplexity.
He now turned to the journalist. ‘Did you speak with Mrs Crosby earlier tonight, Mr Batsford?’
‘The last time we spoke was earlier in the day.’
‘Ah, I remember. You took Mrs Crosby to Mesnes Park.’
For a moment, Batsford’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘She needed some fresh air. Simeon here needed some time on his own. To prepare his talk.’
Crosby looked at the journalist then at Brennan. He gave a short nod to confirm what he had just been told.
‘You didn’t see her at all tonight?’
Batsford glanced at Crosby. ‘I was about to knock on their door to walk down with them, but when I got there, Simeon here was already leaving.’
‘You didn’t see or hear his wife?’
The journalist appeared to give this some thought. ‘No. I heard Simeon bid farewell to Violet. He said something about putting down the volume she was reading and to try to get some sleep. He seemed most concerned for her welfare.’
‘I see.’ Brennan waited a few moments before asking his next question. ‘The trouble we witnessed tonight. At the Public Hall. It seems tempers were quite high. Has anyone made threats against you, Mr Crosby? Personal threats, I mean.’
Crosby gave a close-lipped smile. ‘You think the riot tonight was an expression of support? Your chief constable himself told me about letters that had been sent to your local newspaper. But for every vociferous objector, there are hundreds of silent supporters. The death penalty can be the final arbiter of justice.’
He fell quiet, and Brennan wondered if he were even now thinking about the punishment that would be meted out to the one who murdered his wife, perhaps regretting the fact that it wouldn’t be his hand that pulled the lever.
‘It was hardly a riot, Mr Crosby,’ Brennan replied. He’d seen riots during the miners’ strike last year. The skirmish outside the Public Hall was a mere picnic by comparison. ‘But I meant something more individual, threats directed at you face to face perhaps, that we haven’t been made aware of.’
Batsford cleared his throat. ‘You could do worse than speak to the fellow who organised tonight’s march and its consequences, Sergeant. I happened to attend a meeting he conducted last night at that pub across the way.’ He gave a nod in the direction of the Legs of Man Public House in Market Place. ‘He was most anxious that Simeon here be silenced. One bright spark even suggested tarring and feathering him.’
Brennan took out his notebook and pencil. ‘I’ve seen the posters. Evelyne, isn’t it?’
‘That’s the one. Unpleasant chap. Righteousness oozing out of every pore.’
‘Right then.’ Brennan closed his notebook, a signal that the interview was at an end. ‘That should be all for now.’ He turned to Gilbert Crosby, who had been sitting in a small upright chair all the while, head down and hands clasped, uttering not one word. ‘And now, Mr Gilbert, perhaps we could have a little chat in your room. Just to change the scenery, eh?’
*
It won’t do, Maria Woodruff told herself. It simply won’t do.
She had to be sure!
She looked down at her hands – delicate, slender, milk white – and they were trembling.
And yet, what damage they could do!
The room she had taken at the Victoria Hotel was spacious enough, although it was situated at the side of the building that overlooked the ramshackle Wigan Railway Station, and there were times when the noise of trains arriving and departing, the hiss and belch of steam, the clank of the locomotives coupled with the slamming of doors and the shouts of platform guards, made her close her eyes and think longingly of the forest near her childhood home, the gentle susurration of the brook, the shrill whistlesong of invisible birds high in the branches, the soothing breeze and the fluttering leaves and the cool, welcoming soil as she lay hypnotised by the occasional flashes of sunlight…
She had been so happy as a child!
Strange, she thought, gazing down at the notebook that lay on the small table before her. Things never turn out the way you wish them to.
In a perfect world, where everything happens that you want to happen, tonight would have gone so differently. But as she had walked along with the others from the Market Square, as she had spoken to that strange creature with his abominable photograph and tried to make enquiries about his purpose for being in the march, she had realised that, despite the deep desire she had to make a success of what she was undertaking, why, things occurred that forced you into another pathway altogether.
Like the time she had ventured into the forest with her closest friend back then, Beatie. And the mist, that had been clinging to the fields, had slowly grown in strength to fill the entire forest with a thick, impenetrable fog, and familiar paths, that they had always rushed along with giggles and a dizzying sense of abandon, suddenly became mysterious and stealthy and treacherous. Trees, whose shapes were ordinarily so familiar, assumed the twisted features of ghoulish ogres, slowly swaying and spreading their skeletal arms towards them in a hellish embrace…
The man who had chased them was nothing more than a vagrant, but his sudden appearance behind a fog-shrouded bush had terrified them.
Since that day and those terrors, she had always regarded the forest as a place of deception, a place of secrets, and there were times when it was best left alone.
Left alone.
The phrase had an unwanted resonance and she shivered.
I shouldn’t have come to this place.
But even as the thought took shape in her head she discounted it. For that would be the same view he would express. And she would never give him the satisfaction of proving him right. She hated him.
She gave a long sigh and picked up her pen. She opened the notebook, flicked through several pages until she came to the one she wanted to examine – for the umpteenth time.
There was no mistake. Either it was a coincidence of epic proportions or…
She began to underline what she had written some time ago. She would need to delve further into this. It wouldn’t do at all to regard the day as any sort of failure. She had plenty to write about. Of course she did.
But she had to be sure of her facts. A good reporter must rely on her facts. And a likeness behind a glass frame was hardly proof.
Five minutes later, she stared in frustration at the number of underlined words in her notebook and placed her pen, very carefully, on the table. S
he looked around the room and was suddenly filled with an enormous sense of worthlessness. She remembered the painting in her father’s study – a vivid copy of Titian’s Sisyphus – where the Corinthian king, who had tricked the gods on several occasions, was condemned to forever carry a rock to the top of a mountain, only to see it roll back down, and he was forced to start all over again.
Life is hard, my dear, if you thwart the gods, her father had warned her in that stern way of his.
She’d had no idea what thwarting the gods meant, and she had no intention of doing anything to upset any god, mythical or Christian. Not back then, at any rate. No, she would have to seek another opportunity to speak with the man, ask him about the face that lay behind the glass frame.
Suddenly, she heard a commotion below her window. Raised voices, a gaggle of women, by the sound of it. At first, she thought they were arguing, but as she raised the window slightly, to allow the sounds to become clearer, she heard one woman say, ‘Well don’t just take my word for it…’
One of her companions said, ‘Aye. I heerd it an’ all. Nelly Clegg got told off her old man. He were in t’bar.’
‘Bloody place is goin’ to the dogs.’
‘Aye. An’ all Ding Dong Bell can do is prosecute hard-workin’ landlords for afters.’
‘You sure that woman were murdered? I mean, in t’Royal, of all places?’
‘Aye. Throat cut from ear to ear. Blood all over t’place. Swimmin’ in it, she were.’
‘Couldn’t be bloody swimmin’ in it if she were dead, you daft sod.’
‘You know what I mean. Anyroad, I got told ’er ’ead were just hangin’ on wi’ a bit o’ skin.’
‘Bugger off!’
Laughter then, and the sound of clogs fading away.
Maria quietly closed the window and moved to the door, where her coat was hanging from a peg. She could feel her heart beating faster as she opened the door and stepped onto the small landing, wondering if she should really be doing what she was about to do.
Thwarting the gods, Maria?
*
Throughout the interview, Gilbert Crosby stood with his back to the window, hands clasped firmly behind his back and his chest thrust so far out that he appeared to be peering over it whenever he responded to Brennan’s questions. Brennan had seen the attitude before – the stance was a physical attempt to dominate proceedings, along with a supposedly hidden intention to avoid any awkward questions by bluster and, if need be, outright lies.
‘I don’t see that it’s of any concern of yours, Sergeant. What I choose to do with my own time is my own business.’
‘I agree,’ Brennan replied. He’d sat in the upright chair by the door, one arm across its back, a leisurely pose, deliberately at odds with his companion’s. ‘And under normal circumstances I would accept your refusal to answer.’ He paused. ‘But, of course, you’ll agree these are not normal circumstances. Your sister-in-law has been found murdered.’
‘And I’m devastated. As is my brother. But I don’t see how my whereabouts have any bearing on what took place. You should be out there—’ Here, he swept his arm dramatically backwards to indicate the Sodom and Gomorrah beyond the window, ‘hunting the beast down.’
‘And I will. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t make full enquiries of everyone close to the victim. You’re her brother-in-law. You travelled here with her. And yet you absent yourself from the hotel for an entire day, not sleeping in the room you’ve paid for. At the same time, you fail to support your brother at his public meeting when I presume he would have appreciated your presence. It’s curious behaviour at the best of times. And this is the worst of times, is it not? So. I’ll ask you once more. Where have you been for the last twenty-four hours?’
Gilbert seemed about to give an angry retort, but by some supreme effort of will, he controlled himself. ‘I was occupied. With a woman.’
‘A prostitute?’
Gilbert blinked. ‘You’re very direct.’
‘I don’t have time for subtlety, Mr Crosby. You were with the woman all last night? All today?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s her name?’
Gilbert snorted.
‘I need her name.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s your alibi.’
The man’s eyes widened. ‘You’re suggesting… what? That I killed my own sister-in-law?’
Brennan shook his head. ‘I’m suggesting you tell me the name of the woman you slept with.’
Crosby took a deep breath and gripped his hands tighter behind his back. Brennan noticed the scar that ran along the right side of his face seemed to throb and become inflamed, a sign, perhaps, of the immense effort of will to control his anger? He saw how this man could become very violent very quickly.
‘We didn’t get as far as names,’ he replied, imbuing his words with a lewdness he appeared to be relishing.
Brennan sighed. ‘Address then.’
Gilbert smirked. ‘It was dark. Both when I arrived at the doxy’s house and when I left. Haven’t got round to installing gas lighting where she lives.’
‘Where did you meet her?’
‘At choir practice.’ When he saw the policeman bristle he added, ‘Where do you think? I met her on the street.’
‘You offered someone ten pounds last night.’
This seemed to throw Gilbert, for he blinked rapidly and set his lips firmly together. ‘How the blazes did you…?’ He gave a heavy sigh, conscious of having inadvertently admitted to something. ‘You’re well informed, Sergeant. Yes, I did offer some ruffian money.’
‘Why?’
‘Isn’t that obvious?’
‘You needed a prostitute.’
‘A reliable prostitute, if that isn’t a contradiction in terms.’ He paused, as if considering whether he should elaborate. ‘I was assured there was such a creature. But I would have to go to her. She didn’t deign to roam the streets.’
Brennan thought back to what he had been told by Seddon, the landlord of the Old Dog. He overheard Gilbert Crosby offer this unnamed ruffian ten pounds, only for him to refuse. No man in this town – ruffian or not – would refuse an offer of ten pounds just for pointing a stranger in the direction of a prostitute. Whatever he offered him the money for, it wasn’t a woman. After the spurned offer, they’d whispered something Seddon couldn’t hear. Maybe that was the real reason for the expense.
Which meant the hangman’s brother was lying.
‘Who is this chap you spoke to?’ Brennan asked.
‘I don’t know. I met him in some flea-bitten establishment that grandiosely refers to itself as a music hall. We got to talking, as one does in places like that.’
Brennan realised he wasn’t going to get much out of this man, not at the moment at any rate. He changed tack. ‘How did you get on with Mrs Crosby?’
‘Violet? We got on well enough.’
‘And how would you describe their marriage?’
The question seemed to confuse him. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Did they get along?’
‘Of course they did. My brother was devoted to her. And she to him.’
‘Can you think of anyone who might wish to harm her?’
He shook his head. ‘She was an angel, Sergeant. A veritable angel.’ The feeble smile that accompanied his words suggested the relief he felt that the questions had veered away from the awkward.
At this point, Brennan stood up and placed his hand on the door handle. ‘Just a few final questions, Mr Crosby. This ruffian you met last night. The one who directed you to your temporary sweetheart. Did he accompany you?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘He gave you directions?’
Gilbert Crosby hesitated, sensing the trap the sergeant had set for him. ‘No, he gave me no directions.’
‘Then how did you know where to go, to call on this woman?’
‘I said he gave me no directions, Sergeant. He did, however, tell t
he cabbie I hired where to go. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite catch the address.’
Brennan gave a curt nod, realising that he wouldn’t get more out of the man at the moment. ‘It goes without saying that you and your brother, along with Mr Batsford, must remain here in Wigan for the next few days.’
‘My brother has a speaking engagement tomorrow night. In Manchester.’
‘I hardly think he would wish to fulfil that engagement now, under the circumstances.’ Brennan was amazed at the man’s insensitivity. He shook his head and left the room.
Smarmy, cold-hearted bastard, he thought, stepping into the corridor. And a lying one, at that.
Then his heart sank.
Captain Bell’s head appeared on the stairs, quickly followed by the rest of his ascending body.
13.
A group of men were standing at the bar, their occasional laughter followed by low-voiced conversations and furtive glances. They could be pitmen plotting the next strike, Evelyne reflected as he sat by the window, enjoying his fourth pint and feeling more relaxed now. Or possibly anarchists, he thought, conspiring where to commit their next atrocity. But then he smiled at the thought of anarchists meeting here in a lowly hotel in Wigan. Didn’t they meet in smoky dens in London and bear Italian or French names? Besides, wouldn’t the very name of the hotel – The Queen’s – render the place anathema to those with staunchly anarchist views?
My thoughts are rambling. This beer must be quite a potent brew!
At that moment, the door swung open, a cold blast of air swept through the small bar and Evelyne’s spirits fell: it was the one he’d seen a few minutes ago, the simpleton who’d caused the affray in King Street. There was something rather strange about the fellow, he thought. For one thing, he stood in the doorway, one foot propping the door open, and for another, he was blinking rapidly, as if he had something affecting his vision and was desperately trying to remove it. He had both hands shoved deep into his pockets.
Then one of the men at the bar shouted, ‘Hey, shut that bloody door! Bloody freezin’ wi’ that thing open.’
The others – miners or anarchists – concurred, but the newcomer simply stood there, blinking and giving every appearance of being totally bemused by his surroundings, until Evelyne saw one of the men detach himself from the others and mutter, ‘Some bugger needs a good hidin’!’ before heading for the door.