Murder in the Afternoon: A Kate Shackleton Mystery

by Frances Brody

  I pulled up a chair beside Mary Jane and took her hand, peeled the apron back, to see her face.

  She seemed not to take in the information. ‘So … do you mean he’s not to be brought home to me, not to be laid out?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Marcus said. ‘Not straightaway. But as I say, I can take you now …’

  She wailed, that is the only way to describe it, a heartfelt wail of pain, and then, ‘Ethan, my poor boy. Is he very disfigured?’

  Although I had watched his body lifted free, I suddenly could not remember whether his limbs hung useless from broken bones, whether the mark on his face was a bruise, or dirt.

  She turned to me.

  I said, ‘He looked to me as though he were sleeping.’

  She shook her head as she rocked back and forth. ‘I’ll go to him. I have to see him.’

  ‘Shall I come with you?’

  Marcus went to the door. He spoke to the constable.

  She was pale, and looked at me from red-rimmed eyes. ‘How am I going to tell Harriet and Austin? She was right. Harriet was right, and I knew it. I said so.’

  ‘You don’t have to think about that straightaway. They’re in school, until we collect them.’

  ‘And what must they be thinking?’

  Marcus said, ‘Mrs Sharp arranged for them to stay in the head teacher’s office by the fire. Their teacher is giving them tea. Don’t worry about the children, Mrs Armstrong. The children will be all right. But I wonder if you would be kind enough to help clear up something that puzzles me?’

  He did not look at me. The axe was about to fall.

  Mary Jane looked white and shaken. She stared at Marcus, reading behind the mask of his grim look. She did not answer.

  ‘I’m sorry to ask you questions at a time like this, Mrs Armstrong, but I’m sure you understand we must find out everything we can.’

  ‘Does it have to be now?’ I asked. ‘Can’t this wait?’

  ‘Best not,’ Marcus said.

  The door opened. Sergeant Sharp stepped inside. This was like some weird dance where all the participants knew their routine in advance, and only Mary Jane and I were out of step.

  Sharp held out his truncheon. On it hung a canvas bag, covered in coal dust.

  Marcus looked at Mary Jane. ‘Do you recognise this bag, Mrs Armstrong?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘It looks like Ethan’s tool bag.’

  ‘Did you put it in the shed, under the coal?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Bring it across here please, sergeant.’

  Sergeant Sharp was about to deposit the dusty bag on the table. I whipped a newspaper from behind the coal scuttle and set it down.

  Slowly, the sergeant lowered the bag.

  ‘Open it,’ Marcus ordered.

  The sergeant opened the bag gingerly, trying in vain not to blacken his fingers.

  ‘Withdraw the tools with care.’

  Sergeant Sharp first lifted out a chisel, and then a mallet, setting each one carefully on the newspaper.

  ‘Please inspect the tools,’ the inspector said to Mary Jane.

  She stared. In a whisper she said, ‘Yes. They are Ethan’s tools. There’s a carving on the handle of the mallet, a star and his initials.’

  ‘How do you think they came to be in your coal shed?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Look carefully at the mallet, Mrs Armstrong.’

  She did so.

  ‘What do you see?’

  ‘A mallet. Ethan’s mallet.’ She looked at me, as if I could prompt her in what her reply ought to be.

  ‘And the head of the mallet?’ the inspector asked. ‘There is something on the head of the mallet.’

  ‘I can’t see anything.’

  ‘I think our scientific people will find traces of blood and hair there.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  I put my arm around her. ‘You don’t have to say anything.’ I glared at Marcus. ‘Is this really necessary?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what his tools are doing there. I don’t know.’

  ‘Very well. Thank you, Mrs Armstrong.’ Marcus nodded at Sergeant Sharp. The sergeant returned the tools to the coal-blackened bag, and the whole lot into a large evidence bag. Then he went out.

  Mary Jane held onto the arms of the chair, her knuckles were white. She looked at me. ‘They think I killed him. Catherine, tell them I didn’t.’

  ‘Nobody in their right mind thinks that.’ I glared at Marcus, who said nothing. I put my hand on Mary Jane’s. ‘I brought in coal on Monday. I would have seen that bag. It wasn’t there.’

  Marcus said, ‘Shall we go, Mrs Armstrong? I’ll take you to identify your husband. Mrs Shackleton may wish to accompany you.’

  ‘Yes!’ I said quickly.

  Mary Jane said, ‘Go and fetch the children, Kate. Take them to the farm. They’ve stayed there before sometimes.’

  ‘But you won’t be gone long. I’ll mind them here. You’ll want to see them, and they you.’

  ‘Not just yet. I can’t tell them. I can’t … Tell them … Say … I don’t know. But I don’t want them here. I don’t want them to see me like this.’

  Her breath came in short bursts. Sergeant Sharp reappeared. ‘Come along, Mrs Armstrong. I’ll sit with you.’ He picked up her cape from the back of the door. ‘This yours is it?’

  It was the plaid cape Miss Trimble claimed to have seen Mary Jane wearing by the quarry at four o’clock on Saturday afternoon.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  I moved towards her. ‘I’d better come with you.’

  ‘No. The children, see to Harriet and Austin.’

  She was gone. Marcus stood by the door. ‘Kate, I’m sorry. You do understand I have a job to do.’

  ‘I told you. I filled a bucket of coal out there, it all came tumbling down. There was nothing. Why would she hide incriminating tools in her own back yard? It doesn’t make sense. And I thought you were simply taking her to do an identification. If you’re going to interrogate her …’

  ‘I’m not. But obviously there are questions. A woman answering her description was seen by the quarry that afternoon, when Mrs Armstrong claimed to be here alone …’

  ‘Miss Trimble said she saw a woman in a plaid cape. Do you think mills produce just enough material for one cape? There must be dozens of cloaks and capes similar to Mary Jane’s.’

  ‘She and her husband had quarrelled. She has a large insurance policy on his life.’

  ‘He’s a mason, a man in a dangerous trade, why wouldn’t he be insured? There’s a policy on her life too. And that bag of tools wasn’t there! Someone has put it there.’

  Marcus frowned. ‘You must understand. We’re the professionals. We know how to carry out a thorough search, and we know how difficult that can be for people who are not fully trained.’ He gave a gracious and patronising nod of the head. ‘But we will look at every possibility. Once we have the post mortem report, I shall have a better idea how to proceed. Now if you’ll excuse me.’

  His hand was on the door knob.

  ‘What about Miss Trimble’s death? Isn’t that suspicious, and Mary Jane was nowhere near the vicarage. I can vouch for that. I was. Why don’t you arrest me?’

  ‘Miss Trimble’s death isn’t unexplained. She had asthma and a weak heart. She died of respiratory failure.’

  Sergeant Sharp was at the door. ‘Mrs Armstrong is comfortably seated, sir.’

  I felt utterly helpless. ‘Will you be bringing her back?’

  Marcus bristled. I half expected him to tell me he did not operate a taxi cab service.

  Sergeant Sharp looked human for once and said, ‘I shall escort Mrs Armstrong home if that’s required, sir.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Marcus sounded weary, probably regretting my involvement, or perhaps my existence.

  Tactfully, the sergeant disappeared.

  ‘Bye, Kate.’


  ‘Bye, Marcus.’

  He came close to me, leaned forward and kissed my cheek. ‘Sorry. This must be very hard for you.’

  ‘You’re talking as if she’s guilty.’

  ‘I hope she’s not, for her sake, and for yours.’

  I didn’t answer but followed him outside.

  Mary Jane was looking at me through the car window. Perhaps the full weight of her plight dawned on her. Her lips formed the words, ‘Help me.’

  I nodded and raised my hand.

  She said something else I couldn’t catch.

  The car drew away. I went back inside.

  Now I had to face the children. Mary Jane should be telling them. Their grandmother would have been good at this. She knew Ethan, liked him.

  It had to be done. If I did not tell them, they would find out. There would be some classmate, even now, earwigging as grown-ups talked about Ethan’s body being dug out from under rocks.

  The children would need their nightwear. Toothbrushes stood in a cracked cup on the window bottom. I found a bone-handled bag on the back of the door and began to gather stuff together.

  Four

  Rather than take the Jowett, I walked the lane slowly and turned into the village, snailing my way towards the school. There is something about an empty school that makes me imagine generations of children, reluctant, keen, smart, dim; playgrounds that might be heaven or hell. The yard sloped upwards. I entered the door marked Boys.

  Only my footsteps on the wood floor broke the palpable silence. On a cupboard in the hall stood a big bell. I resisted the urge to pick it up and toll the death of Ethan Armstrong.

  Passing empty classrooms and turning into another corridor, smelling of chalk and feet, I had no idea where to look. Upstairs. Trying the door of a broom cupboard. A sudden panic seized me – that I would never find my way out.

  And then, at the end of a long corridor, a door stood slightly ajar. I headed for that door.

  Someone heard my footsteps. The door opened and a gaunt woman, hair done in salt and pepper ear pleats, strode to meet me. She was entirely dressed in ghostlike grey.

  We introduced ourselves. Miss Patterson, Harriet’s form teacher. She frowned at the prospect of handing the children into the care of someone she did not know, and I liked her for that.

  I heard Harriet’s voice before seeing her. She was reading aloud.

  In the snug study, Harriet and Austin sat on small chairs by the fire. Harriet stopped reading. They both looked at me, and at Miss Patterson.

  Miss Patterson said, ‘Your Aunt Kate has some sad news for you.’

  For God’s sake, how did you do this? Sykes would know. He has children. My mother would know.

  ‘It’s Dad,’ Harriet said. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Your dad is dead.’

  Everything about Harriet slackened, her head dipped, her arms seemed to lengthen. I reached out, lifting her from the chair and held her to me. She began to cry.

  When I tried to hold Austin, he wriggled and pushed me away. ‘What’s the matter?’ He fixed himself to the little chair, like a snowman in hard frost.

  ‘I was right,’ Harriet said. ‘We won’t see Dad again, Austin. He’s died and gone to heaven.’

  Austin looked at her, and at me, as though we were mad. ‘How can he? He has to come back and go to work. He didn’t polish my boots for school. Where is he?’

  ‘In heaven.’

  ‘I don’t want him to be in heaven.’

  Miss Patterson said, ‘Let us pray for him, children.’

  She knelt and we all copied her, not knowing what else to do. She recited the Twenty-third Psalm, and it occurred to me that if you are a school teacher you had better have something on the tip of your tongue for every occasion. When she finished, Harriet and I said, Amen. Austin repeated the Amen, then looked about expectantly as though believing we had chanted a spell and some sea change would occur in the room.

  He wet his lips quickly with a pointy little tongue and listened for footsteps in the hall.

  The three of us left the school, walking down the sloping yard.

  As we reached the lane, Harriet asked,‘When will Mam be back?’

  ‘Probably not tonight.’

  ‘Soon?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘I want to stop at home,’ Austin said. ‘I don’t want to go to the farm.’

  ‘I’m taking you in the motor car.’

  That quietened him until we reached the cottage. I helped him into the motor.

  Harriet said, ‘I’ve forgotten something.’ She ran to the cottage door, and then beckoned me.

  She unlocked the door and we went inside. ‘At playtime, I saw policemen in the High Street outside school. I saw a man with a bloodhound. Did that dog find Dad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where was he?’

  ‘In the quarry.’

  ‘He’s been there all this while, on his own?’

  ‘He’s not alone any more.’

  ‘Is Mam with him?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was a white lie, with a syllable of truth. ‘They’ve taken him to Otley, to the hospital and your mam …’

  ‘The hospital?’ Her eyes flashed with hope. The hospital was where people were made better.

  ‘To a special part of the hospital where they take people who have died. And your mam has gone there.’

  Harriet turned away from me. She picked up a teacloth and took the lid off a bin, lifting out half a loaf.

  ‘It’s hard to take in, Harriet. I’m so sorry. Such terrible news.’

  She placed the bread on the cloth, tied all four corners. ‘Austin doesn’t understand. He’s too young.’

  ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘I think so. It means I’m half an orphan.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She nodded gravely. ‘When will Mam come back?’

  A new determination grew in me. ‘As soon as I can fetch her back, which will be very soon, believe me, Harriet.’

  Austin had moved into the driver’s seat and was playing with the steering wheel. That’s all I needed, a runaway car and a squashed six-year-old. He looked cheerful. ‘This motor can go anywhere,’ he said. ‘You told me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Take us to heaven. I want to see my dad.’

  I started the motor. ‘We’ll go to the farm now.’

  ‘No! Heaven. Go to heaven.’

  ‘Motors can’t go to heaven.’

  ‘But you said …’

  Harriet looked at him, and then beyond him across the fallow field as though gazing somewhere far off in time and space. ‘We won’t see Dad again, Austin. Dead means like the two little ones in the grave who’ll never grow old. Dad will go to be with them. It’s their turn to have him.’

  Five

  Sykes stood at the gates of Great Applewick Mill as women and girls poured out; an opportunity not to be missed by any hosiery salesman worth his garters. A pair of stockings over his arm, notebook at the ready, he grinned in what he hoped was an endearing, cheeky manner at the first young woman to come through the gates. ‘Taking orders – delivered on payday.’ Mouselike, she scurried off. He tried a wink at a red-haired beauty.

  She returned his wink. ‘Can’t afford it, love, unless a pretty face makes you feel generous.’ She lingered long enough to be persuaded.

  That did the trick. Not only did he take orders for thirty-seven pairs of stockings, but invitations to a dance in the village hall, the picture palace in Yeadon and a wedding on Saturday. If these women came up trumps with cash on Friday, selling stockings would earn him more than Mrs Shackleton paid for a fortnight’s work. Small consolation for finding himself no further forward in his investigations.

  He had watched police arrive in force in the village, the West Riding men providing backup for Mrs Shackleton’s friend from Scotland Yard. Bobbies went door to door in the village, asking questions. Sykes followed with his attaché case, only to discover how little the inhabitants of
Great Applewick had to say. All the police questions concerned Ethan Armstrong. If there had been a post mortem on Miss Trimble, no one was telling.

  Sykes headed for the farm, wanting to talk to Bob Conroy, Ethan’s friend from boyhood. But the closer Sykes came to his destination, the less he believed he might interest Bob Conroy in hosiery.

  Not far off, smoke from the farmhouse chimney mingled with soft white clouds. Closer, and he caught the whiff of manure, pigs and earth.

  A police sergeant wearing the West Riding Constabulary uniform walked towards him from the direction of the farm. Sykes wished he was not carrying his attaché case. His years in the force made him realise how his assumed itinerant salesman character might arouse suspicion.

  ‘Nah then, lad,’ the sergeant said in a bluff, affable voice. Meaning, who are you, where are you going, what’s your business here?

  At being called lad, Sykes’s grip on the case handle tightened. ‘Afternoon, officer. Am I on the right road for the farm?’

  ‘Aye. Though whatever you’re after this won’t be a good time.’

  ‘I’m selling. I find the wives in the outlying farms appreciate a look at a bit of haberdashery and hosiery.’

  The sergeant gave him a penetrating look. ‘Yon won’t be a good stopping off point today.’

  ‘Oh? Why’s that?’

  ‘I’ve just delivered some news that’ll not put the lady of the house in the mood for purchasing.’

  Sykes was being warned off, but if the Conroys had received bad news about Ethan Armstrong, now was exactly the time to call. He would either be sent packing, or learn something about the friendship between the two men. If Ethan had confided in anyone, it would be his friend Bob Conroy.

  Sykes played the interested outsider. ‘I heard there was a bit of activity round the quarry, and that quarrymen had been sent home.’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘I took some orders by the mill gates,’ Sykes said. ‘I’ll be back to make my deliveries Friday,’ he added quickly, so that the sergeant would feel confident of knowing where to find this travelling salesman if the need arose.

  The sergeant adjusted his helmet. You recognise me, Sykes thought. You don’t know me personally, but you recognise another bobby when you see one and you think you must be mistaken and so you are uneasy.