by AJ Wright
What if she’d seen the last of him? There were men like that, she knew. Get what they want and then the thrill of the chase dies like a damp ember.
Was he capable of such falseness as that?
Suddenly she felt a hand rest itself on her shoulder, and warm breath on her neck. Her heart danced. Eagerly, she turned round.
But it wasn’t him.
CHAPTER TWO
Brennan sat in the Crofter’s Arms and stared gloomily at his frothing pint.
A few early customers were scattered around the long, narrow parlour room, but the atmosphere seemed muted, almost broody, as if the chill from outside had crept in through every crevice and settled itself on the room like a deadening frost. He knew why, of course. Normally, at this time, the place would be crowded with men, most of them miners and foundry men, who would see Sunday night as the last opportunity for a big drink before the monotony of work began again on the morrow. There would be yells, sudden bursts of chesty laughter, the occasional scuffle as a difference of opinion turned into something more physical, and he would even join in the banter himself, savouring their earthy, often lewd, humour.
Yet now the men who stood at the bar nursed half-pints and grievances, and spoke in low, conspiratorial tones, their heads bowed and ears turned to take in the whispered confidences. They cast their eyes around the room, surveying him with a frigid courtesy. The dispute had rendered him an outsider, a representative of the forces of law, order, and capital. A row of pewter tankards hung unused on a polished wooden rack above the landlord’s head, a sad reminder of their owners’ absence. Empty spittoons stood at each end of the curved bar.
He thought of the sad place he had just left.
The maid had been dispatched to the kitchen for smelling salts. Young Morris had fussed around his mother, the sad news about his father being momentarily superseded by a greater concern for the living.
‘Please, Mother,’ he had said while stroking her head gently, ‘please.’
Once the smelling salts had been successfully applied, the maid stood at a discreet distance and Mrs Morris finally opened her eyes.
‘Andrew? Did he say …?’ she stopped, giving her visitor a look of contempt for being the bearer of such awful news.
Brennan, who had been kneeling beside the prostrate woman in an almost reverential attitude and had felt the cold clamminess of her hands, stood up and took a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid I must be the bearer of tragic news, ma’am. Your husband was found last night.’
‘Found?’ In spite of the frailty in her voice, her tone implied rebuke, anger and even a scintilla of hope at his unfortunate and ironic choice of word.
‘The victim of an attack, ma’am. I’m afraid he is dead.’
She gave a short gasp, and held her hand to her throat.
‘Where was this, Sergeant?’ Andrew Morris glanced up.
‘Scholes, sir.’
‘Scholes?’ Mrs Morris stretched the syllable to emphasise her disbelief. ‘What on earth was he doing there …?’
Her son took hold of her hand, patting it gently to restore her circulation.
Brennan slowly shook his head. ‘At the moment we have no idea. I thought perhaps you or your son …’ He looked from one to the other, but registered only the mixture of grief and incomprehension on their faces.
‘My mother is obviously in great distress, Sergeant.’
He turned to the maid, whose pallid hue betrayed both concern for her mistress and horror at the mention of death.
‘Grace, stay with her. I won’t be long.’ Andrew Morris stood up. ‘Sergeant?’ He nodded to the door leading to the hallway.
‘Of course,’ Brennan said and turned to take his leave. ‘My condolences, ma’am.’
But Mrs Morris had once more closed her eyes as Grace held her hands.
Out in the hallway, Andrew Morris gently closed the door and turned to face his visitor. ‘You said an attack, Sergeant. Can you be more specific?’
Brennan held his gaze for a while before answering. ‘He was stabbed, sir.’
His eyes widened in horror and disbelief. ‘But … Scholes?’
‘Yes, sir. It does appear to be curious. Did he know anyone there?’
‘Hardly. As far as I know he’s never been to the place. It’s hardly … well, you know. We own several houses there, of course, pit houses, but my father wasn’t in the habit of playing rent collector.’
Brennan nodded. ‘Of course.’
He knew that many of the houses in Wigan, not only in Scholes but scattered around the entire borough, were either the property of the colliery owners or the mill owners. He’d always regarded it as a particularly convenient arrangement on their part. He paused before continuing.
‘When did you last see your father, Mr Morris?’
Andrew Morris blinked, as if he realised the sad innuendo in the word ‘last’. ‘Yesterday evening. Before I went out. He was dining with us – that is, with myself, my mother and my uncle. Ambrose Morris. I presume you know of him.’
Brennan nodded once more. Ambrose Morris was the town’s Member of Parliament.
‘He returned to London this morning. He left early, not knowing my father hadn’t returned.’ He broke off. ‘My God. He’ll have to be informed.’
‘Anyone else here last night?’
‘The Coxes. James and Agnes. They were guests at dinner.’
‘James Cox? The iron and steelworks owner?’
‘Yes.’
Arthur Morris. Ambrose Morris. James Cox. A powerful triumvirate indeed, Brennan reflected.
‘I don’t suppose you have any idea who might have done such a thing?’
‘It’s very early in the investigation, sir.’
‘You’ll have no shortage of suspects. Not in Scholes. At a time like this.’
‘No, sir.’
‘So what happens now?’
‘We’ll need someone to identify the body, I’m afraid.’
The young man visibly shook. ‘I see.’
‘Shall we say eleven tomorrow morning? At the infirmary?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course. It will be me, you understand, Sergeant? I couldn’t possibly expect …’
He let his voice trail off, turning slightly to the closed door behind him. Both men could now hear the slow regular pulse of sobbing, the early stages of grief that would soon lead to angrier, more universal proclamations when grief turns to grievance.
‘Well then, I shall intrude no longer.’
As he turned to go, Brennan paused. ‘Oh, just one thing, Mr Morris. Might as well ask now.’
‘Yes, Sergeant?’
‘You say you all dined together last night. I gather your father received an unexpected letter.’
‘So I’m told.’
‘You weren’t present when the letter arrived?’
Morris cast his eyes downwards. ‘I had left before then.’
‘Before your father?’
‘I felt in need of some air. This wretched strike has set all our nerves on edge. At times the conversation around the table reached Olympian heights, and I had had rather enough ambrosia and nectar for one night.’
‘Olympian heights?’
Andrew Morris blinked, as if he were suddenly conscious of a breach of etiquette. ‘I simply wasn’t in the mood for politics and business and the conflict they produce. So I left.’
‘I see. What time was this?’
Morris narrowed his eyes. ‘Is it important?’
‘Just trying to work out a sequence of events, sir.’
‘It must have been around eight-thirty.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘I’ve already told you, Sergeant. I went out.’
Brennan looked at him levelly for a few seconds, then told himself that now was not the time. ‘What time did you return?’
‘I really can’t say. Before midnight I expect. The servants had gone to bed and I let myself in. I went straight to my room. It was this morning when I h
eard the commotion downstairs and my mother’s raised voice that I realised something was wrong.’ He swallowed hard before adding, ‘Do you need to know what was served for breakfast?’
Now, as he sat alone in the Crofter’s Arms and watched the frothy head of the beer break up, Michael Brennan frowned, struck by a sudden thought. Why would someone leave a nice warm dinner to get some air, when it’s snowing and freezing cold outside?
‘Waitin’ for somebody, Moll?’
She gave a non-committal shrug and tried to hold his gaze. The glare from the gas lamp above them caused a tiny blue flame to flicker in his eyes, like the dance of a frenzied devil. The same intensity of passion was there, the same hunger in his eyes that was always kept at bay by some mastery of will, suffusing his features with a melancholy blend of loss and bitterness.
She had loved Frank Latchford, once upon a time.
‘I am. I mean, I was.’
‘Who?’
One of the qualities she had admired in him was his directness. Two years ago, before the strike and Frank’s part in it, the future had seemed as structured and as linear as the Leeds–Liverpool Canal, a course leading inexorably to marriage, children and a comfortable home. ‘It’s what I want,’ he had said with the same firmness and conviction of tone, the same underlying sense of passion, that he used when making his fiery speeches to thousands.
It had also been what Molly Haggerty had wanted, once.
She gave a furtive glance behind her, just in case even now he was rushing past the beggars to take her in his arms with a kiss and a panted apology.
A romantic nonsense, she knew, for that was the one thing he wouldn’t or couldn’t do. The beggars shuffled down the street with their hunched shoulders, but there was no biblical parting of the waves as he came rushing through their midst. She smiled, but it was a self-mocking gesture, and turned her gaze back to Frank, holding his large, rough-hewn face in focus. He had stubble below his thick, dark moustache, and his heavy-lidded eyes were rendered even darker by the rim of his cap. There was no coal dust now flecking his features. He hadn’t seen coal dust in months.
‘Just a friend,’ she said, hugging herself to show that she wouldn’t be waiting much longer and it wasn’t of any great consequence anyway.
He was on the verge of saying something, but licked his lips instead, choosing silence over interrogation.
‘How’ve you been keepin’?’ She tried to keep her tone neutral, just in case he misinterpreted her question.
‘Badly. But not as bad as some. Fished another poor sod out last week.’
No further explanation was needed. The canal or the River Douglas – both of them had cold, welcoming depths.
‘Your friend,’ he said, looking over her head and scanning the darkening figures behind her, ‘she’s late. You’ll catch your bloody death out ’ere.’
Involuntarily she smiled at his presumption that her friend was a lass – perhaps an error calculated to elicit a correction. Instead, she said, ‘Aye. I’d best be off.’
‘I’ll walk you.’
Quickly, before she could protest, he had slipped an arm through hers and she allowed herself to be escorted at least part of the way. Besides, if the one she had been waiting for were to come tearing along right now and see them both arm in arm from across the street, why, it would serve him bloody well right, wouldn’t it?
‘You ill, Mam?’
Tommy Haggerty’s voice quivered. He had been five when his dad had died twice. The first time – the night he failed to come back from the pit – had been something that had transformed itself into the stuff of nightmares, and he often imagined, in the black quiet of the night, that he himself were down there in the dust-filled mine, although wherever he looked as he scrambled through the dust, no matter how many grinning corpses he turned over and lit with his lamp, he could never find where his dad was lying. He always had the feeling that he was just round the next corner, but when he scratched and dug his way round, more often than not the only thing he came across was the twisted body of a pit pony, its broad teeth bared wildly in a dreadful grimace of death. In the worst of the nightmares he could even hear its plaintive, pain-wracked whinnying and see the red gums clamping on black air, and blood, speckled with coal dust, slithering down its teeth.
He could still hear the whispers outside the front door on the night of the explosion, whispers that grew into voices – raised voices, angry voices and crying, sobbing voices. Then the sound of clogs, hundreds and hundreds of clogs rattling down the street with the screams of women and the cries of girls and the terrified yells from children seeing their mothers rushing out of houses with tears down their cheeks and the doors slamming and the curses and the prayers and the fear and the panic gouged onto every face as the tide of bodies poured its way out of Scholes to the gates of the Morris pit.
What was more frightening though, even than the screams of the women, was the silence as they all stood there at the pit gates, waiting, listening to the sounds of digging, digging, followed by billows of dust and the rescue men staggering through the clouds coughing and retching and cursing. A hollow shout in the dark, echoed by another. Then the whispered news, passed with agonising slowness along the lines of dark, hunched figures, the lift of the head and the wringing of hands and the constant sound of women sniffling and old men coughing, and then back the men would go, hauling their picks and their shovels once more into the rattling cage. Then the silence again, and the vigil, and the pale coming of the dawn.
Tommy remembered, too, the slow walk back, the crunch of his clogs on the cobbles, no screaming now, just small clusters of friends who muttered and urged and consoled, their voices sounding dull and heavy in the mist that swirled around their feet. Then the three of them dozing before the flames and jumping with every slam of a front door, every distant scream along the street, until he was curling up at his mam’s feet the following night. Molly, his elder sister, with her arms wrapped tightly round him, her tears making his cheeks damp and cold, and whispering into his ear that everything would be all right and Dad would be with them soon.
She’d lied. They all seemed to lie back then.
He’ll be back before you know it, Tommy Tin Can. Just as soon as the rescue team can dig him out.
Only they didn’t.
Not then.
Later that same night, as he’d crept downstairs, he saw his mam drop to her knees in front of the statue of the Holy Virgin on the mantelpiece and lift her hands to the ceiling, mouthing silent words to heaven. For a second, as he looked up, he was sure he saw the statue darken as a shadow flitted past, and he thought it was Dad’s soul flying upwards, flapping black wings against a bright full moon, just as Father Brady told them at school.
It had been a week later when they got the knock on the door to tell them his dad’s body had been found and was now lying wrapped on a coal-hut table waiting for them. That was when his dad had died a second time, and the three of them started grieving all over again. They’d said it was something called firedamp that caused the blast and killed his dad and all the others. But what Tommy had never been able to understand was how fire – damp fire – could even burn properly, let alone cause a huge blast. Fire was hot, and damp was wet. Even he knew that.
He had wanted so much to wash his dad as he saw his broken, blackened remains lying there on the table, the way he always did when he came home from the pit and his mam took the tin bath from the peg behind the door. Then the solemn ceremony as his dad took off all of his clothes and Tommy was given the great task of scrubbing his back spotless, rubbing so hard to get rid of those tiny black grains that seemed to be lodged stubbornly beneath his white skin. And every time, his dad had splashed his face with the blackened water telling him it’d be his turn soon enough, and then there’d be that huge great laugh as he wiped the soap from his eyes.
Now, after she’d taken the pigeon pie out of the oven beside the fire, after she’d served up three steaming hot plates and
put one back in the stove for when Molly got back from her friend’s, his mam simply sat there and gazed into the dancing flames. People who didn’t eat died. That’s what she’d always told him. He didn’t want his mam to die as well. So he repeated the question. ‘Mam. You ill?’
Bridie blinked and looked at her son. ‘What?’
‘I said are you ill?’ He pointed at her plate with a knife coated with slivers of white flesh. ‘You normally werry that.’
‘No. I’m just … feelin’ a bit off. Heartburn, I reckon.’
Tommy’s eyes widened. Heartburn. He threw a quick glance at the fire, tried not to imagine his mam’s heart sizzling on the coals.
Just then, the front door flew open and Molly entered. A cold blast followed her, carrying tiny flakes of snow that melted on the banister rail. Tommy felt relieved. His sister would soon make Mam’s heart stop burning.
Molly scraped the untouched pigeon onto her little brother’s plate and watched as he began eating. Her mother was busy at the sink, her head bowed so low that in the flickering of the coal flames she looked headless.
‘You all right, Mam?’ she asked. ‘Only you seem a bit quiet.’
She moved over to join her mother at the sink, lowering her voice to keep their conversation from little Tommy.
‘Oh I’m fine, child. You heard about the poor chap they found this morning.’
Molly looked quickly back at her brother. ‘I saw the police in the backs.’
Bridie wiped her hands on a cloth, then walked past her daughter and picked up the poker in the hearth, ramming it into the dying coals, hot misshapen pebbles clanging in the ash pan beneath. From the chimney breast, they could hear a howling from the bitter wind outside. Black spots that had once been snow now stained the hearth.
‘They say it was Arthur Morris, child.’
Molly gave a short gasp and put her hand to her mouth.
She watched as her brother thrust the knife into the remaining piece of meat, the thickest one, saving the best until last. As he cut through, his knife caught on a shard of bone, and he sawed and sawed until the blade caused the bone to snap. Then he sucked on thick flesh.