Murder in the Afternoon: A Kate Shackleton Mystery

by Frances Brody

  ‘Did your dad speak to you, or make any sound?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you speak to him, or touch his hand?’

  ‘Yes I did. He didn’t answer. His hand was cold. But the stone is cold. So he would be cold.’

  I went into the hut. She did not follow.

  There was a rusty brazier and a blackened kettle. On the shelf to my left were tools and tin mugs.

  Harriet followed my gaze. ‘They’re not Dad’s tools. But that’s Dad’s mug and spoon. And them’s Raymond’s mallets and chisels.’ She pointed to the bench that ran along the back. ‘Mam and me made them cushions for Dad and Raymond.’

  ‘Raymond was your Dad’s apprentice?’

  She looked pleased that I wasn’t entirely ignorant. ‘Dad’s apprentice, until he came out of his time. Raymond’s a mason in his own right now.’

  ‘Was Raymond working with your dad on Saturday?’

  ‘Only Dad worked on the sundial. Only Dad worked Saturday afternoon. Raymond is courting. He’s to wed next Saturday. He and Polly will live with Raymond’s mam and dad or Polly’s mam and dad. Raymond’s mam is nice but his dad is a nasty piece of work. Polly’s mam and dad are nice but they have no room.’

  Thanks to my persistence, the poor child was so busy trying to tell me everything that she did not know what to choose and what leave out.

  She stared intently at the interior of the shed, as though still seeing someone there. She pointed to the place where she would not step. ‘Here. He was lying here, with his head turned away from me. His cap had come off. Look – there it is!’

  She pounced, forgetting her reluctance to step into the shed. From under the bench, she reached for an old tweed flat cap that once upon a time had boasted a check pattern.

  She clutched the cap. ‘I know Mam hopes I’m mistaken and I wish I was, because I don’t want Dad to be dead. Sergeant Sharp believes I’m a little liar. I’m not.’

  We left the hut. I picked up a large piece of slate with a smooth edge. Looking at the slate gave me something to do while thoughts raced through my brain. The way Harriet told her story, it had to be true.

  A delicate straight line had been etched into the piece of slate. A wavy design decorated the edge.

  ‘It wasn’t smashed when we came.’ She stood as still as the stone that surrounded us on the quarry slopes.

  What anger and hatred lay behind the smashing of the sundial, I wondered, and had that same anger and hatred been directed at Ethan? His craftsmanship was impeccable. I could see that from the fragment of blue slate with its smoothed edge. Why would he disappear? If we were to believe the worst, and imagine him to be dead when the children found him, what had happened to his body?

  She followed me round the back of the hut. There were footprints there, and why should there not be? But one of the footsteps was no bigger than my own. Treading lightly, I measured the footstep against mine. I took out my camera. The light behind the hut was not very good, but I adjusted the setting and got as close as I could without distorting the footprint.

  Now I regretted the child being here. Should I pretend I wanted a guided tour, just to give me an excuse to search? And what would I find? Any footprints, any clues, would be covered in dust, trampled by Saturday’s search party, washed by last night’s rain.

  All the same, I took a look around. The place gave me goose bumps. This might be what the other side of the moon looks like. In the distance was a grey mountain of rubble, as if there had been a landslide.

  What was I searching for? A scrap of cloth caught on a stone, a stain that might be blood, a clutch of hair? Most of our lives we do not look down, nor up either, but straight ahead. I stared at the ground. Sandy, stony, and giving away nothing.

  Harriet stood ramrod straight, watching me. I should take her home. She had been through enough.

  Her eyes met mine. ‘I want you to look at summat.’

  ‘What?’

  She held out her hand. Led by her, I walked across the quarry, up and down the hilly ground, along a straight patch, by the crane, all the way to the other side where the hill sloped and a stubborn ash tree, white with dust, clung to the rock face.

  The ground became soft. A jolt like an electric shock went through me as I saw what looked like a heel mark, and smoothness on the ground, as though it had been scraped flat. And again, another heel mark. It would not be enough to simply photograph these marks on the ground. I must measure the heel mark. It was too small to belong to a quarryman, unless there was a young boy here. Of course there could be some entirely rational explanation.

  ‘Just a minute, Harriet. I want to take a photograph, to remind me of what the quarry looks like.’

  I sat on a boulder to prepare the camera. This boulder would be my landmark. I would take a picture of my find, and the boulder, and of the straight line that led from here.

  If I were right, and I wanted so much to be wrong, someone had dragged a body in this direction. That would explain why, by the time the man from the farm came back with Harriet, the body was gone.

  Harriet watched as I took a photograph of this patch of ground, feeling uncertain even as I did so that this really did mark the spot where a body had been dragged. More likely it marked a spot where my sense of foreboding gathered in dry dust.

  When I had taken the photograph, Harriet grasped my hand, tugging me to come with her. We continued our walk across the uneven ground.

  At almost the furthest point, near the far slope, she stopped. The large, dark pool of still water formed an almost perfect menacing circle.

  ‘What if he fell in there?’ she asked. Her grip tightened on my hand.

  Before I had time to answer, a piercing whistle shot through the quiet morning. We both jumped at the same time. I turned to see where the sound came from. A figure stood at the other side of the quarry. He lifted his hands to his mouth to form an angry trumpet.

  The words weren’t exactly clear, but his meaning was obvious enough. We stood our ground.

  ‘It’s Raymond’s dad,’ Harriet said quietly.

  ‘The nasty piece of work?’

  ‘Yes. He’s foreman.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Josiah Turnbull.’

  ‘He charges like a bull.’ The man was bearing down on us so fast that I willed him to trip and fall flat on his face. ‘Don’t let’s give him an audience, Harriet.’

  I pointed my camera at the pool of still, dark water, and took a shot.

  He was behind us, letting out some furious yell that turned into the words, ‘What the blue blazes you playing at? We don’t abide skirts here.’

  I turned to face him. He wore cap, old corduroy trousers and ancient tweed jacket. The red muffler tied at his throat matched the colour of his bursting cheeks. His huge twin-peak nose had been broken at least once. An old scar started above his eyebrow and crossed his cheek in wayward fashion. He stank of stale beer and tobacco. With a shovel of a hand that was missing its little and ring fingers, he tried to grab my camera.

  I was too quick for him. ‘Please calm down, Mr Turnbull.’

  ‘Don’t you order me in my own quarry. I bark orders here. Gerron home and give yer husband his breakfast.’ He turned to Harriet. ‘You tellin’ yer mad tales again?’ As he looked at Harriet, he saw the cap she clutched. He moved his shovel hand, as if he would take the cap. Harriet plunged the cap inside her coat.

  While, he was momentarily silenced by the sight of Ethan’s cap, I said, ‘I asked Harriet to show me the quarry. I’m Mrs Shackleton, here to investigate on behalf of Mrs Armstrong.’

  He stared at me, and then at Harriet. The pause was brief.

  ‘Well you can ’vestigate somewhere else.’ He stepped even closer. Another inch and his bulk would topple me. Turnbull and I eyed each other, which hurt my neck. Harriet gulped, but did not budge.

  ‘Were you among the men who searched the quarry on Saturday night, Mr Turnbull?’

  I sounded more confide
nt than I felt. He was a man unused to being challenged and just for a moment, he faltered.

  ‘What if I was?’ He glared at Harriet. ‘Yer dad’s slung his hook. He took the hump because he’ll get no support for a strike here. Satan had a silver tongue an’ all and you know what happened to him.’

  ‘Last I heard, Mr Turnbull, Satan was alive and making grand progress. Do you mind telling me when you last saw Mr Armstrong?’

  His toecap touched my shoes. ‘Aye I do mind. And you’re trespassing.’

  His bad breath formed fiery clouds that scorched my scalp and travelled.

  This was more than a nasty piece of work. This was a violent bully. ‘I dislike threatening behaviour, Mr Turnbull. I hope when you consider you’ll talk to me in a more courteous manner.’ Some hopes. Hell would freeze over. The quarry would sprout blue roses. ‘Come, Harriet.’

  She threw back her head, gave him one more stare and we stepped round him, towards the quarry exit.

  ‘Posh bitch!’ he yelled.

  The words hit me between the shoulder blades.

  Harriet began to cry, but not until we were well away from Turnbull. ‘He wouldn’t be so rude and nasty if my dad was here.’

  I searched for a hanky. ‘I know. You stood up to him very well. I’m proud of you.’ I didn’t add that it would stand her in good stead for all the other big bullies she would meet throughout her life.

  I felt shaken by the incident, not least because of having exposed Harriet to such an encounter.

  We retraced our steps to the mouth of the quarry. ‘Which way did you go on Saturday, Harriet?’

  ‘We turned left here.’ She pointed to the path we had just walked along. ‘Only I went across the bridge to the farm.’ She paused, as if waiting to be asked another question, then continued. ‘I went to the farm because it was nearest and I thought Uncle Bob would come back with me and fetch Dad home. Do you want to go to the farm now?’

  ‘No. You must go home and have your breakfast. But I would like you to show me the village. I’m going to call in to see the policeman.’

  She nodded. ‘It’s this way then.’

  We set off down the hill that led to Great Applewick. In future, I must make sure I go to the local police first. If it had turned difficult in the quarry with the nasty piece of work, I could have found myself on the wrong side of the local bobby, and I need all the support I can get.

  Someone was walking uphill, a working man carrying a canvas bag.

  ‘It’s Raymond,’ Harriet said as the young man surefooted his way towards us, swinging his arms like a soldier.

  ‘Raymond your dad’s apprentice?’

  ‘He’s a mason now, like Dad. But will never be as good.’

  I would have liked to talk to him alone, in case he was as abusive as his father. Now that we drew close, Raymond slowed his pace, eyeing me cautiously. Thin and pale, like a long streak of whitewash, he wore baggy brown trousers and jerkin.

  ‘You been in the quarry, Harriet?’ he asked gently. ‘You know it’s dangerous.’

  ‘It ’int dangerous to me,’ Harriet said, still on the defensive after our encounter with Raymond’s father.

  ‘I asked Harriet to bring me. How do you do? I’m Mrs Shackleton, a friend of the family.’

  We shook hands. The coldness of his touch matched his cautious aloofness. I held onto his hand, determined to melt him a little.

  ‘You’re Raymond Turnbull,’ I told him, as if he needed to know. ‘We just met up with your father.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, and coloured with embarrassment as he glanced at Harriet, guessing our treatment at the hands of his father. ‘I suppose he …’

  ‘It’s all right. I knew I wouldn’t be welcome and intended to look round before you all started for the day.’

  ‘Dad’s always early.’ Raymond turned to Harriet. ‘I’ve just come for my tools.’ Lightly, he touched her shoulder. ‘I’m off up to the Hall to start another sundial to be ready in time for Mrs Ledger’s birthday. It’ll only be in sandstone mind, not that lovely blue slate.’

  Harriet said nothing.

  He was ready to walk away, but hesitated, and looked once more at Harriet, as if he wanted to say something kind, but could not find the words.

  His fondness for Harriet would give me an advantage, and encourage him to talk.

  She held out the cap. ‘Dad’s cap was under the bench.’

  ‘We didn’t see that Saturday night,’ Raymond raised his eyebrows. ‘Course it was getting dark.’

  I disguised my question as a sympathetic comment. ‘It must have taken you ages to search the whole quarry.’

  He nodded. ‘Sergeant Sharp dragged us out of the pub.’ He looked at Harriet quickly. ‘Not that we needed dragging. We wanted to help.’

  ‘Did you …’ Harriet began. She stopped.

  ‘Did us what?’

  ‘The pool …’

  He reached out, but stopped short of touching her. ‘No, don’t think that, Harriet. That little lagoon, it’s just run off groundwater. Once we get a spot of sunshine it’ll be gone.’

  Harriet stared. ‘But I thought it was right deep. I thought all pools in the quarry was deep.’

  He shook his head. ‘This one ’int. We say that to keep kids out, because some of them lagoons are deep, in the old quarries where they’ve turned to lakes. Don’t let on, Harriet. You’re sensible, but there’ll be daft kids coming in and getting themselves in bother, wanting to paddle.’

  ‘Oh.’ Harriet bit her lip.

  ‘Raymond, what time did you last see Mr Armstrong on Saturday?’

  ‘I worked till one o’clock and then went off for dinner, like everyone else. Ethan was still working on the sundial.’

  ‘Did everyone leave the quarry at one o’clock?’

  ‘Dad stayed a while. He always leaves last, being foreman. But he was in the pub by twenty past,’ he added quickly, taking a sudden interest in the canvas bag he carried, not looking at us.

  Raymond’s precision disturbed me. It sounded uncannily like an alibi. Foreman Josiah Turnbull had been last to leave. Mary Jane had said that Ethan and Turnbull were at loggerheads over the vote for a strike, only days before, with Ethan urging action, but Turnbull coming out on top. I could easily imagine Turnbull goading Ethan. But I must stick to the facts. As casually as I could, I asked, ‘How much longer do you think it would have taken Ethan to finish the sundial?’

  Raymond frowned. He struck me as the kind of young man who would teaspoon out information without feeling the need to expand. To do any more would smack to him of stating the ruddy obvious.

  Harriet came to the rescue. ‘I wish Dad had finished it and come home.’

  ‘So do I, Harriet. It would have been finished too, if your dad hadn’t decided to add some little flourishes. He sent word up to Colonel Ledger to come and see it.’

  ‘Colonel Ledger?’ I asked.

  ‘He owns the quarry. No one else would dare send for him to come, even though he’s a man you can talk to. But that’s your dad, Harriet. He stands on ceremony to no man. The sundial was for Mrs Ledger’s birthday, see, and the colonel had drawn out the pattern. Ethan is used to working to finely drawn specifications. We don’t just hew stone.’

  He puffed with pride as he let me know his level of skill.

  ‘I’m sure you don’t. I’ve great respect for the mason’s craft. Tell me, did the colonel come?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Raymond shrugged. His mouth turned down as he looked at Ethan’s cap, as though it dawned on him for the first time that something bad may have happened to Ethan.

  ‘Did you see Ethan again between one o’clock on Saturday and today?’

  ‘No. I haven’t seen him since.’ He glanced at Harriet, as if more than anything he wanted to come up with some explanation. ‘He might have tramped in search of another job.’ He gulped, and looked away, as though what he regretted most in the world was being put on the spot. ‘Anyhow, his tools is gone.’

/>   Harriet raised her head and looked from Raymond to me. ‘If Dad’s taken his tools and gone somewhere, that’d mean I was mistaken about seeing him like that, in that way.’

  We both looked at Raymond for confirmation of Harriet’s hope. Her father may be safe, well, and chipping away with his mason’s chisel somewhere.

  ‘You could be right, Harriet,’ Raymond said at last. ‘Your dad could get a job anywhere. For two pins he would have gone to work on York Minster last year. He was offered it.’

  I pushed Raymond a little further. ‘Work like that would be very enticing for a skilled man. Why didn’t he take the job?’

  Raymond nodded at Harriet. ‘Mary Jane didn’t want to move, kids changing schools and all that.’

  This puzzled me. After all, Mary Jane had been at pains to tell me how much she disliked the cottage, with its well in the garden. They might have moved somewhere that had indoor plumbing.

  The three of us stood in an awkward and silent circle. Harriet tossed her head. She looked at me reproachfully. She wanted me to find her dad, and here I was, asking useless questions. ‘I’ll let you catch me up.’

  She began to walk slowly down the hill.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Raymond asked. ‘Where is Ethan?’

  ‘That’s what I hope to find out. You mentioned York, and work at the Minster. Do you really think he may have gone off in search of some other job, without saying anything?’

  I had to explore the possibility, in spite of still holding to Harriet’s belief that she saw a body.

  Raymond coloured up. ‘You mean because I wouldn’t be sorry to see him go?’

  ‘No I didn’t mean that. But is it true?’

  ‘Ethan lives in Mason’s Cottage. That house always goes to a quarry worker. I’m getting wed on Saturday. If Ethan doesn’t come back, we’ll have somewhere of our own to live.’

  And your nasty father wouldn’t have to keep you and your wife under his roof.

  ‘Thanks, Raymond.’

  For a moment we stood, neither of us wanting to move off first in case there was more to be said.

  Raymond sighed. ‘I hope you find him.’

  ‘So do I.’

  I caught up with Harriet who was walking slowly. I wanted to know about her visit to the farm, but that would wait. She had been grilled enough and needed her breakfast and her sup of tea.