Striking Murder

by AJ Wright

  ‘Ambrose! This is madness, is it not?’

  Prudence Morris’s hands went to her forehead, and for a moment Brennan thought she was about to faint as she did the first time he saw her. Andrew, as if he read Brennan’s thoughts, dashed over and placed an arm around his mother’s shoulder, leading her back to the armchair she had previously occupied. Once she had settled back down, Brennan resumed his relentless narrative.

  ‘But then perhaps Bragg got greedy. Perhaps, having killed Arthur Morris and swapped the letters for one which was designed merely to confuse the police, he felt he should be better rewarded for the enormity of what he had done. I’m not sure whether the note he left with the acronym of Scholes was his idea or yours, Mr Morris. No matter; what isn’t in any doubt is that Mr Bragg wrote it. The horror of the gallows casts a very long and dark shadow, does it not? So then you decided to kill Bragg and eliminate all of the links connecting you with your brother’s death. Or it may be that the killing of Bragg was your intention all along once Arthur had been taken care of.’

  He paused and allowed a softness to colour his next words.

  ‘You had your brother killed because you could no longer stand by and watch his systematic brutality destroy the woman you have loved for a very long time.’

  Ambrose Morris whispered the single word, ‘Speculation,’ but it contained none of the forceful denial of earlier.

  It was Prudence who spoke next, a new note of desperate optimism in her voice. ‘But that cannot be! Ambrose could not possibly have killed this man Bragg!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he was in London, wasn’t he, when the vile man was killed? He was found on the ice near a canal boat on the very night Ambrose had travelled to London earlier in the day. You had a committee meeting that night, Ambrose, remember? The reason you had to return to the capital?’

  Ambrose nodded, a look of gratitude on his face. It was soon wiped away.

  Brennan said quietly, ‘I’m sure the committee meeting would have been recorded, and an agenda, together with a record of all those present, distributed?’

  ‘There!’ Prudence exclaimed, as if she had pulled Ambrose from a torrential flood.

  One look at his face told her all she needed to know.

  ‘But I saw him on to the train!’ said Andrew. ‘I watched the train leave the station. He definitely travelled to London. Again, how could he be in two places at once?’

  His voice had the tone of a child, not only eager to believe in the whimsy of a faery world, but also filled with despair as fantasy was fast becoming delusion.

  Brennan nodded. ‘It took me a while to work it out, and it was indeed something you yourself said to me that put me in mind of how it was done.’

  ‘Something I said?’ Andrew’s eyes were wide and rimmed with tears now.

  ‘You said to me, “Sometimes I feel the world revolves around journeys and destinations. Not enough time for the stops in between.” Do you recall?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t see how …’

  ‘Once I became convinced your uncle was guilty, I knew there was some way, some elusive stratagem, that would enable him to return to Wigan having left you on the station watching him depart for London. The London train stops at Warrington Bank Quay. It’s entirely possible to leave the train at that station, having previously purchased not only a ticket to London but a single ticket to Warrington – or, if this were planned weeks in advance, even arranging for Bragg himself to buy the ticket so suspicion wouldn’t fall on him, possibly with the promise of a final lucrative payment – then travel by carriage to Culcheth, near Warrington.’

  ‘Why Culcheth?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘If your uncle were to travel back from Warrington Bank Quay to Wigan North Western – the station he had just left – on the next train back, then there would be a very tangible risk of being spotted. Station porters are very adept at noticing passengers, especially the first-class ones who might grant them a sizeable tip. No, he had to return to Wigan quickly – but by a different train and a different station. Wigan Central Station is on the MS&LR line – the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railways. Culcheth is a stop down the line. The other benefit of travelling back to Wigan Central is that, as you are well aware, despite its name it is far from central – it lies down Station Road and is off the beaten track as far as the town centre is concerned. Less risk of being seen and recognised.

  ‘He probably left his case at the left luggage office at Warrington so he could make the journey to the canal boat unencumbered by anything other than the single-minded determination to be rid of the one person who could ruin him. The thickly falling snow would have helped, of course. No one spends long looking at you when everyone is hunched and eager to find some warm, homely place whether it be home itself, a public house, or a canal boat stuck on the frozen ice. He found Bragg alone on the boat – as he had instructed, probably with the promise of bringing payment – and, possibly when he turned round to offer him a drink, he struck him with the implement he had doubtless picked up on arrival – the windlass.’

  Brennan allowed the full horror of his words to settle on the room. He looked at Prudence Morris, whose head had slowly drooped like a flower wilting in a hard frost. She reached up and touched her son’s hand, which was resting gently on her shoulder.

  ‘My guess is you dragged the body outside with the intention of hurling him into the depths of the canal. But the ice proved too thick, so you left him there and made your way back into town. You returned to Central Station, caught the next train back to Culcheth, whereupon you travelled back to Warrington Bank Quay and, after collecting your luggage, resumed your journey to London.’

  He stopped and looked at Ambrose, who was now staring back at him with obvious agitation.

  ‘Had you arranged to meet Mr Bragg on the pretext of paying him some more money? Or had he himself made the first move in demanding, shall we say, a bonus for such a murder? He may well have heard of the progress of our investigations.’

  But Ambrose said nothing, merely stared at him, his mouth set and rigid. The coals, burning in the grate, were reflected in his eyes, tiny flames flickering above hotly glowing embers.

  ‘You see, Mr Morris, I sent my constable here down to Central Station and he showed the ticket collector there your photograph. I obtained it from the posters you used to proclaim your candidacy in the last election. The man recognised the face, even if he hadn’t known you at the time. He’s what you might call a witness, sir. A witness to your otherwise inexplicable return to your constituency when you were officially supposed to be at a committee meeting in London later in the day.’

  Ambrose seemed to sag, a look of defiance still in his eyes, but something else there, too – a sense of impending doom.

  Prudence began to sob. ‘All these years,’ she said, ‘all the words we exchanged whenever he was away. All the glances, the shared intimacies … All for nothing, Ambrose. Why? Why?’

  As if he had come to a decision, Ambrose Morris rose to his full height and thrust out his chest. Immediately, Brennan was struck by the force of the man’s personality, and could see him dominating some Commons debate, imposing his will on others with his eloquence and his physical presence.

  ‘The evidence you have, Sergeant Brennan, while sufficient I suppose to damage irrevocably my political career, is hardly sufficient to bring me to a court of law and effect a conviction. Even you must see that the arguments counsel would use are specious and speculative and open to the most fierce denunciation by the expensive barrister I would, of course, employ. You do see that, don’t you? To miss a committee meeting is hardly proof of anything. And so what if I was seen at Wigan Central by a ticket collector or even the stationmaster himself? You have no sightings of me anywhere near a – what was it? A canal boat?’

  The expression, not only in Brennan’s eyes but also in the chief constable’s, told its own story. Both of them knew that without an outright admission of guilt, A
mbrose Morris would remain a free man.

  ‘So if you expected me to fall upon my sword, metaphorically speaking, you are quite wrong.’

  ‘Ambrose …’ Prudence began, but when he turned to look at her she reverted to a silence that was rendered voluble by the glistening tears in her eyes. She, at least, was in no doubt as to his guilt.

  ‘But there are categories of incarceration, are there not, Alexander?’ he said, addressing his remarks to Captain Bell but looking with infinite sadness at the woman he had loved for so long. He took a long, deep breath, then exhaled slowly. ‘I shall apply for the office of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds and resign my seat as soon as the process can be established.’

  Jaggery was about to make some protest about allowing this murderer to resign from one job and apply for another. Only a signal from Brennan, and a promise to explain things later, prevented an outburst.

  ‘This strike will soon be at an end. When I left the House, the rumour was strong on the side of reconciliation. I gather the prime minister is putting in place a strategy of intervention the like of which has never been seen before now. Things change, do they not? I will absent myself from the collieries and perhaps leave the country. India, Alexander! What do you say to that, eh, old friend?’

  But Captain Bell was inwardly seething. The thought of this man, of whom he had grown so fond despite his innate reluctance to get close to anyone, getting away with fratricide and murder was more than he could bear. He grunted an apology to Prudence Morris and was about to storm past Brennan, when the latter placed a restraining hand on his chest.

  ‘Sergeant Brennan?’

  ‘Sorry, sir, but it won’t do.’

  ‘What won’t do?’

  ‘Mr Morris can’t get away, literally, with murder, and since he won’t confess, then we will have to see that our evidence is, shall we say, cast in stone?’

  Captain Bell looked nonplussed.

  ‘Or rather,’ Brennan went on, ‘cast in plaster.’ He turned to Ambrose Morris and looked down at his shoes. ‘I see your shoes are well trimmed and highly polished, sir?’

  Ambrose gave a sigh of exasperation.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll allow my constable here to look in your room for some footwear more suited to the elements?’

  Before Ambrose could object, Brennan barked out an order and Jaggery quickly left the room. They heard some mutterings and raised voices as Jaggery threw the full weight of his authority at Isaacs, who eventually and reluctantly led him to Ambrose’s room. No one spoke for the several minutes it took for Jaggery to return, giving his sergeant a confirmatory nod. He was holding up a pair of black boots in one hand and a large photograph in the other.

  Brennan took the objects from Jaggery and held them up to scrutinise them closely.

  ‘Unless I am completely in error, the soles of these boots, with their rather unusual tread, provide a perfect match with footprints found at the scene of the murder. In short, Mr Morris, this is proof positive that you were there after all.’

  It was Prudence Morris who spoke next. ‘Ambrose?’

  When he turned to her, the expression on his face was that of a man ravaged by grief and horror.

  ‘Do you recognise those boots?’

  He nodded slowly, resignedly. Then he said, ‘They are Hyer boots, from America, Sergeant. They were a gift from Arthur.’

  No one uttered the thought they all shared – that the gift of a dead man had helped ensnare the one who had him killed – but Ambrose Morris gave a shrill laugh that contained a bitter eloquence of its own.

  Captain Bell moved back and clasped a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Might I say something?’ Ambrose said quietly.

  His old friend nodded, and released his hand from his shoulder.

  ‘Andrew, I know that there’s been much, far too much, for you to take in tonight. I’m not proud of what I did to my own brother. But I have watched him abuse your mother for years. She was growing weaker and weaker. Surely you have seen that for yourself? I decided that this could go on no longer, so I did what has been revealed here tonight. I admit it. And it so nearly worked, did it not? Knowing him as I did, a letter – supposedly from Mrs Haggerty, informing him her daughter was with child and there was a very large price to pay for her silence – produced the desired effect. And once I got him there in Scholes, with Bragg lurking in the shadows … why, no one would be blamed because everyone could be blamed!’

  His voice began to crack at that point, and he stared at Andrew for a long time before emitting a long, low sigh.

  As he turned to go, Andrew spoke up. ‘What were you going to say? Earlier, before the police came?’

  Ambrose Morris, his back now to his nephew, straightened and turned to face him. ‘It doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters now.’ He paused, then added, ‘My boy.’

  With the last phrase his voice cracked, and the reflections of tiny flames in his eyes were broken up by the tears welling there. He gave Prudence a smile, and then the Member of Parliament for Wigan, with the chief constable at his side, was escorted quietly from the room.

  Andrew Morris gave a husky cough and stared at the closed door for a long time. At last, he sighed.

  ‘You must leave my mother and me to assemble our broken pieces and either attempt to glue them together or hurl them into the blazing fire, Sergeant. There’s nothing more you can do here, is there?’

  As Brennan signalled to Jaggery to leave, he made his way to the door and stopped, turning to Prudence Morris who was sitting in her armchair with her head bowed low. He could find nothing to say, and saw her son standing with one arm on her shoulder.

  What would happen now? he wondered. The humiliation of a public trial would be almost too ghastly for them to bear, coming so soon after the murder of Arthur Morris, the still-unresolved anguish of the lockout, and the similarly unresolved issue between Andrew and Molly Haggerty. Perhaps that particular liaison would wither and die with a sad inevitability, and Frank Latchford would once more be seen around the streets of Scholes with the young mill girl on his arm.

  A part of him did feel sorry for Ambrose Morris, too. He had arranged for his brother’s death to prevent any further suffering on Prudence’s part. An act of love? Using the bitterness of a miners’ strike to conceal the real motive for his murder. Getting Arthur to go to Scholes that night was, in one sense, a master stroke – no shortage of suspects in that district, and conversely no chance of convicting anyone with no evidence to hold against them.

  It would have been perfect. And after a suitable period of mourning, Ambrose and Prudence would finally have been able to show their true feelings after all these years.

  As he stepped outside into the blizzard once more, he saw the chief constable sitting upright in the carriage, with Ambrose Morris seated beside him, staring fixedly ahead. Jaggery had already climbed onto the seat beside the cabbie, and Brennan pulled his collars close to him. He glanced back at the house and saw Andrew Morris and his mother through the drawing-room window. They were talking animatedly, and then, after his mother had spoken, Andrew suddenly raised his head and walked over to the window, pressing both hands flat against the glass. He stared out, seeking his uncle half-concealed in the carriage with Captain Bell beside him. Brennan saw a look of absolute horror on the young man’s face.

  Whatever she had told him, it had affected him very badly indeed.

  Still, it was none of his business now, he told himself as he climbed up and sat alongside Constable Jaggery. The cabbie cracked a whip and slowly the wheels crunched forward into the howling wind.

  Soon, he would be warm again. He would be home with Ellen, and Barry would be asleep upstairs, confident that his dad would slaughter any dragon that dared show its face that night.

  AFTERWORD

  The 1893 miners’ strike – or lockout, as the miners insisted on calling it – was caused by the owners demanding that the miners accept a twenty-five per cent reduction in their w
ages, something the Miners’ Federation flatly refused to contemplate. The dispute lasted from the end of July to the middle of November, and saw the establishment of soup kitchens throughout the affected areas of the strike. It was, indeed, a time of great hardship, and one can only wonder at the resilience and determination of all those caught up in such a desperate struggle, where survival was a close-run thing.

  The dispute is of historical significance. It marked the first occasion that the British government intervened in an industrial dispute, with the Prime Minister, William E. Gladstone, arranging a meeting between the two sides under the chairmanship of the Foreign Secretary Lord Rosebery, KG.

  Eventually, on the 17th November at the Foreign Office, it was agreed that the miners could return to work under the old wages. Yet the victory, though celebrated, was far from sweet after all the suffering it had engendered. The Reverend William Wickham, who was vicar at St Andrew’s Church in Springfield, Wigan, and who himself provided soup kitchens for the needy, recorded his own views of the suffering he had witnessed:

  Where, then, is the men’s victory? Their losses are evident, and they have been terrible. It will take many a long month to get over even some of these losses; some never can be got over … Bad blood has been stirred, hard words have been spoken, and, sometimes, hard blows hit (though the behaviour of the men generally has been excellent).

  Notwithstanding, the settlement of the dispute was met with great rejoicing: there was singing and dancing in the streets, and in some districts the occasion was marked by the celebratory ringing of church bells.

  It would be nice to imagine them celebrating that Christmas of 1893 in good spirits, now that the lockout was over and the men had returned to work. But somehow I doubt there was much cheer that winter.