Murder in the Afternoon: A Kate Shackleton Mystery

by Frances Brody

  I retreated to my darkroom. A black cat in a dark wood.

  We had converted a pantry into a darkroom shortly after moving into the house. It had the advantage of being light-proof and the disadvantage of incurable stuffiness.

  I had used a six-exposure spooled film to take photographs in the quarry. Carefully, I unwound the film into the tank. I poured in the developer, and waited. My green “safe” light was more agreeable to work by than the red.

  Minutes ticked by. I poured off the developer, and added fixer solution. My green thought in a green shade became the wish that life could be fixed as easily as the image on a photograph.

  I had done something sneaky. As well as my photographs in the quarry, I had taken two on the farm. One ostensibly of the lamb but including Mrs Conroy, and another of Arthur with his hand in the ewe. I always have an eye to submitting my photographs for competitions.

  My prints of the broken sundial, the vista of the quarry, the worktable, turned out reasonably well.

  My surreptitious portraits of farmer’s wife and labourer would not win any prizes.

  Now it was time to attend to the photographic plate I had used to capture the image of what appeared to me the imprint on the ground of a man’s heel, and what could have been the mark of a body being dragged. I had taken this photograph by the edge of the quarry pool where the ground was damp and the impression clear.

  When I took it, I had thought the pool deep enough to hide a body. That was before Raymond enlightened me. A person in boots could step into that deceptive pool without wetting his or her ankles.

  All the same, I wanted the picture.

  I have a little book that I like to read – The Gentle Art of Photography. The anonymous writer says that every photograph ought to be an exact reproduction, in monochrome, of the scene at which the camera was pointed.

  The scene at which I had pointed my camera, using my trusty Actinometer to judge the exact exposure required, might or might not turn out to look like the marking of a heel and the drag of a body. Who would drag a body to a pool only a few inches deep?

  When I allowed myself a peep, the picture had begun to emerge, showing the faintest contour in the ground, and the shape of a boulder.

  It is a fine line between developing and over-developing, just as between telling the truth and a little bit more, or less, than the truth. What would this image say, except that I was on the wrong track, had allowed my imagination, and Harriet’s childish fears, to run away with me?

  I poured the developer back into the measure glass, set the dish on end and tilted the plate out of it, gripping the edges with my fingertips. The detail looked foggy but the dark rock was clearly visible and made me believe the negative was sufficiently developed.

  Each time I take a sheet of self-toning printing out paper from its wrapper, there is a sense of wonder, and delight. Photographic material is treated so carefully by the manufacturers, so reverently packaged that it is a joy to handle. If only life took such good care of humanity! I placed the glossy side against my negative, fixed the back of the frame in position, and carried it through the kitchen, to place in the light.

  By then I was ready for my bed. The bedroom door stood slightly ajar. I pushed it open, and only then heard the faintest of meows.

  Sookie blinked when I switched on the light. She lay in the bottom drawer of my dresser, which I had left open when taking out a cardigan. I knelt down to take a closer look. She stared at me reproachfully. Don’t just gawp, fetch me some food. Blind kittens squirmed, piling themselves on top of each other as they groped for her nipples. A black one, two black and white, two tabby, and then a strange looking little hybrid, ginger and tabby and white. Six kittens.

  I sighed and went downstairs for milk and victuals.

  A lamb bleated in my bedroom drawer. A child tugged my hand. Mrs Sugden, who was not Mrs Sugden said, ‘Six children’. Sookie and her kittens came into focus in the developing tray. I could not find my way out of the dark wood and it was not Batswing Wood. The path led somewhere else, to a shallow lagoon, where a body lay.

  When I woke my own voice had spoken in the dream, crying, ‘It’s not deep!’

  The person who dragged the body to the lagoon was like me. He, or she, thought the water would be deep and that a man with stones in his pockets would sink without a trace. Ethan’s body had been dragged to the lagoon, and then moved. But where?

  TUESDAY

  You can allus tell a Yorkshireman – but you can’t tell him much.

  Traditional

  One

  Jim Sykes woke on Tuesday morning knowing for sure that something about this Mary Jane and the missing husband chimed wrong. He intended to pick out the false note.

  Sykes stood at the kitchen sink, bobbing down to see himself in the mottled mirror propped against the window. He slicked his hair. Looking through the mirror, he saw his son, Thomas, seated at the table, spooning porridge into his gob.

  ‘I’m borrowing your bike, Thomas.’

  The lad’s jaw dropped. Not a pretty sight, with a mouthful of porridge. ‘Aw, Dad!’

  ‘Shut your mouth, there’s a tram coming up Woodhouse Lane.’

  ‘How’m I gonna get to work?’

  ‘Run.’

  ‘Aw, Dad!’

  Sykes put his hand in his pocket and fished out a tanner. ‘You’re best off on the tram till you find where you can safely park your bike.’

  ‘I know where to safely park it.’ Thomas picked up the coin, weighing up the inconvenience against the bribe. ‘What’ll I say to people? They know I come on a bike.’

  ‘Well, today you’ve come by tram.’

  After he had pedalled half a mile up Otley Road, Sykes wished he’d let Thomas have his way and take the bike. It was too long since he’d been in the saddle and it took a greater amount of puff than he’d ever remembered.

  Poor Thomas. Once you were old and out in the world a long time, you forgot what it was like to be the lad among a posse of men, not knowing what to say about this or that, not having the words for the simplest of things. Thomas had set himself up as the apprentice who came on the bike. Now here he was, a day into the job, being the lad who caught the tram. It was enough to confuse a young fellow.

  Sykes felt the sweat rolling down his back. Why didn’t he think of it before? He turned into North Lane. He’d catch the train, himself and his bike on the train from Headingley Station. At the thought of it, he pedalled with new vigour, holding on with one hand, loosening his tie. The breeze tickled his cheeks and cooled his throat.

  The station master held the watering can steady above the potted floral display. ‘Nay lad, you’ll not get to Great Applewick from here. You need to go into Leeds and change trains.’

  Sykes sighed. He took out a large hanky and mopped his brow. Some travelling salesman he would turn out to be. On the rear of his bike he had strapped a brown attaché case, full of neatly folded ladies’ stockings and men’s socks. Sykes’s cover, as he carried out his investigations into the disappearance of Ethan Armstrong, was to be a traveller in hosiery. Last night, he had visited his market trader friend who owed him a favour or two from the old days. If Sykes needed to do any observing, he would take out his bicycle repair kit and mend a puncture. Slowly.

  By the time he’d got lost – wouldn’t let on to Mrs Shackleton about that – and then found his way along Great Applewick High Street, it was nearly noon.

  Holding a mental picture of the place as described by Mrs Shackleton, he followed the High Street, turned right along a row of terraced houses, and left onto a track.

  Now he wished he’d stayed in the town, found a hostelry and refreshed himself. Just as he considered turning around and retracing his wheel marks, he noticed that the grass by the side of the track turned a greyish white. He must be close to the quarry. No point in attempting to “observe” there. In his brown suit on his boy’s bike, he would be a figure of fun within a minute of arrival. He would bear right, which should
take him on to Nether End.

  He slowed down as he drew near to what he took to be Mary Jane’s cottage.

  If he were still on the force, there would have been some well thought out cover for him, though he could not think what. No nearby hedge stood in need of trimming. The dry-stone wall deserved a little attention, but if he busied himself with that he would make a pig’s ear of the venture, not to mention being wrongly dressed. No. The only thing for it was to keep a good distance between himself and the cottage, and observe.

  The dilapidated stone wall gave him the advantage of being able to clamber over it, haul his bike after him and crouch unobserved. If spotted, he could claim to be mending his puncture off the road, so as not to be knocked down by non-existent traffic.

  After almost an hour watching the cottage, Sykes’s right leg with its pins and needles had him near screaming point. For all he knew, Mary Jane was out to market. Only the knowledge that women did their housework in the mornings kept him as close to his spot as lichen clung to the wall.

  The cottage door opened. He peered over the wall cautiously. Kate had said that Mary Jane may go somewhere, and to watch her.

  A girl came out first, followed by a boy. They turned to wave, and then hurried along the lane, as if they would be late back to school. They had been home for their dinner. Mary Jane stood in the doorway and waved until they reached the bend in the lane. From behind, Sykes could not get much of a look at her, only her piled-up hair, the grey dress and the ties from her white apron.

  Sykes’s stomach rumbled. His head throbbed. His calves ached like billy-o. The woman wasn’t going anywhere. He was wasting his time. He rubbed his hands to try and bring some feeling back into the fingers. Do a few squats. Remember that physical training instructor from his early days in the force. Back straight, knees bend, up down, up down. If anyone walked by this wall they’d think he’d escaped from a loony bin. He looked at his watch. Only half past one. Go somewhere, woman, if you’re going. Sykes risked standing, pushing himself to his feet like an old man. Leg swing, leg swing, holding the wall. That felt better. Arm swing, left right, left right. Don’t push your luck. Down behind the wall. Crouch and observe. Who owned this field? Would some irate farmer turn up, bull in tow? It’s your own fault if you’re gored, man.

  At ten minutes to two o’clock, the door opened.

  Mary Jane stepped out. She locked the door, and pushed the key through the letterbox. She wore a grey, calf-length coat and brimmed hat, black stockings and black ankle boots. She did not carry a bag. Sykes watched her, noted her height, about five feet four, the jut of her slender shoulders, the way she walked, head erect, very straight. She held herself like Mrs Shackleton, something contained and untouchable about her. The difference was that where Mrs Shackleton walked quickly, like a person with an appointment to keep, her sister Mrs Armstrong moved slowly, as though she had a long way to go before nightfall and must pace herself.

  This way of walking would make it difficult for Sykes to follow her on the bike, especially downhill. But he dared not risk leaving the bike by the side of the wall. Losing it would be too high a price.

  He lifted the bike across the wall and placed it down gently. Still stiff from the long watch, he climbed over the wall, knocking a stone loose. Too bad.

  Sykes mounted his bike. He thought he looked every inch the commercial traveller, though he wished that instead of hosiery the brown attaché case contained a morsel of bread and cheese.

  Riding was agony now, torture. He tried peddling while raising himself from the saddle. You can have your bike back, Thomas. Never again.

  Mary Jane looked neither right nor left as she walked past the mill. Sykes listened to the clanging music of the looms, admired the cathedral arches of the mill windows, and thanked God that he didn’t work in such a place.

  She turned up a narrow lane, crossed a bridge. Someone coming the other way across the bridge acknowledged her but they did not stop to speak. If this were Rosie, she would be stopping on every corner to pass the time of day and would be a devil to follow. Mary Jane was easy. No one caught her in conversation.

  Ah, so that’s where you’re going. She entered the railway station. Sykes leaped onto the bike, forgot his aches and pains and pedalled as fast his legs would allow. He wanted to be in the queue behind her, and listen when she asked for a ticket.

  She had already gone through the barrier when he arrived. He spotted her, on platform one.

  ‘Is number one the platform for the Leeds train?’ Sykes asked at the ticket desk. He guessed she may be going there to connect with another train.

  ‘Aye. Train in three minutes.’

  Sykes bought a ticket. He wheeled his bike through. Now there would be the complication of putting his bike in the luggage van and having to lose sight of her. Couldn’t be helped. He admired Mary Jane’s timing.

  The train steamed in. An elderly man opened a carriage door for her. She nodded an acknowledgement and stepped elegantly into the train, with a smooth unhurried movement.

  The muscles in Sykes’s arms ached as he manoeuvred the bike into the luggage van.

  It was a relief to stand upright.

  The guard blew his whistle. The train slowly left the station. Its sound and movement lulled Sykes into a reverie. But when it stopped, he peered out – just in case.

  She wasn’t going to Leeds. This was Horsforth. She was getting off. Confound the woman. Sykes leaped into action, bumping into the conductor as he grabbed his bicycle, apologising, saying this was an emergency, thrusting the ticket under the conductor’s nose, pushing his way out of the carriage and onto the platform.

  He need not have worried. Mary Jane strolled leisurely from the station. Sykes followed, wheeling his bike through the barrier, feeling foolish. He could have taken the train to Horsforth this morning. It would have shortened his ride considerably. The train did not go from Great Applewick to Headingley, but it did go to and from Horsforth.

  Mary Jane left the station, like an actress making an entrance. She strode in a stately fashion, as though a brass band marched behind her.

  By the kerb outside the station, Sykes paused, as if resting a moment, and checked his pockets.

  Mary Jane stood still and looked about her. From further down the road, a man climbed out of a Wolseley. He wore a good, dark suit. A cashmere coat was draped over his shoulders. He walked with an easy, confident stride. She went to meet him. All he did was touch her hand but there was something in the touch, in the way they fell into step and turned together. They would not notice him even if their backs were not turned to him, so absorbed were they in each other. The man helped her into the car, in a slow and deliberate manner.

  The motor pulled away from the kerb.

  Sykes forgot his saddle soreness and began to pedal, and pedal, and pedal. He freewheeled downhill, keeping the motor in sight, until it drew up outside an inn. He would kick himself if this turned out to be some wild goose chase and the woman was not Mary Jane Armstrong. What if he had watched the wrong cottage? No. Dismiss that thought. It was her all right.

  The man stepped out of the car. He opened the door and offered his hand to the woman. Head erect, as if she stepped from fancy motors every day of the week, she glided onto the pavement. Together, they entered the inn, going not in the front door, but round the side.

  Sykes cycled closer, wheeled his bike to the back of the inn and padlocked it to a railing. No assignment was worth the loss of Thomas’s bicycle. He unfastened his traveller’s attaché case from the carrier. Then he remembered to remove his bicycle clips.

  The polished oak door swung open into a vestibule with inner doors on either side, half glass panelled. To his left, picked out in dark green leaded lights, were the words TAP ROOM,and to the right, SNUG. He decided on the snug with the guess that from there he would have a view across the bar into the LOUNGE.

  A waiter in long white apron stood behind the counter, polishing a glass with great concentration. He wor
e his hair in the style of Rudolph Valentino, darkened with pomade and slicked back. His small moustache was equally well pomaded. He turned to face Sykes, with a cheery, ‘What can I get you, gov?’

  ‘Do you have food on?’

  ‘We do. Pie and peas.’

  ‘Then I’ll have plate of pie and peas and a pint of your house bitter.’

  ‘Good choice, sir.’

  The waiter disappeared. Sykes guessed he had gone to the kitchen to place the pie and peas order. While he was gone, Sykes looked across the bar into the lounge. No sign of the car driver and the lady.

  Sykes found his way through the lounge, out to the back where a pair of lavatories sported newly painted doors that neither reached the lintel of the doorway nor the ground. Sykes went inside. Neatly cut squares of newspaper hung on a nail. He availed himself of the facilities, then returned to the snug. His pint sat on the table, along with a knife and fork.

  Through the window, he saw the motor, gleaming in the afternoon sun. There would be some other dining room, a function room upstairs, perhaps a private room. This couple did not wish to be seen together in public.

  Sykes took a long drink of the foaming pint, and then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

  ‘Here you are, sir.’ The waiter balanced the plate on the palm of his hand. The sharply folded starched white teacloth over the waiter’s arm came perilously close to Sykes’s left eye.

  What will they rush me for this, Sykes asked himself. You were always charged well for clean aprons and snowy white cloths.

  ‘Thank you.’ Steam and a succulent odour of gravy rose from the pie. ‘Looks good.’

  Well, hang it. Whatever the cost, he deserved this after his morning’s exertions, for effort if not for results.