‘Aye, that’s right.’ Will Hardaker took a swig of his beer. He had a young man’s face, no lines, eyes clear and playful. Big, too, easily six feet one and broad-shouldered. He wore an old, dusty jacket over a shirt and waistcoat, a pair of dirty trousers and heavy boots, with a cap jammed down on wild brown curls. Dirt was ingrained in his fingers. A labourer, a union man. ‘Someone has to.’
‘You know why I’m asking?’
‘Mrs Carr.’ He nodded his head. ‘Can’t say I knew her, but I must have seen her. You think one of that lot outside the hall did it?’
‘I don’t know,’ the inspector told him. ‘That’s why I wanted to talk to you.’
‘Might never be a problem if your coppers did their job,’ Hardaker said, staring at him.
‘I hadn’t known about that. It’s been taken care of now. I don’t know if Mr Maguire told you, but my wife’s one of those suffragists.’
‘Tom mentioned it, aye.’ With a long swallow he finished his beer and Harper signalled for more.
‘Tell me about the men.’
‘Hopeless, most of them,’ Hardaker answered after a little thought. ‘They just watch as the women go in and come out.’
‘Young? Old?’
He shrugged. ‘A mix. Middle-aged, mostly. You can see the anger on their faces, but they’re too scared to do anything about it.’
Too scared in public, the inspector thought. That might not stop them committing murder if they had the chance.
‘What about the others? The ones who cause trouble?’
‘You have to keep your eye on them.’ He brought a packet of Woodbines from his pocket and lit one, blowing out the smoke in a long draught. ‘There’s not many, but they shout a lot and throw things. Rotten fruit, stones sometimes.’
‘Has anyone been hurt?’ Harper asked sharply.
‘No. We take care of that. There’s me and a few other lads. We keep our eyes peeled and sort it all out.’ He gave a smile. ‘Teach ’em right from wrong.’
‘How many of them?’
‘Never more than five or six. And not often. They’ve always had a few drinks first, you know, for courage. You can tell.’
He understood. A group of drunks, pushing each other on.
‘Has there been any real violence?’
Hardaker shook his head. ‘Come close a few times. We make the ladies stand back, then me and the others form a line.’ He curled his hand into a first. ‘We’re all big lads.’ He smiled. ‘Of course, it’d be easier if your coppers were there.’
‘They will be in future,’ Harper promised. ‘Is it usually the same men outside?’
‘Generally. I feel sorry for them. Nothing better to do than that.’
‘You’ve seen them. Do you think any of them could attack someone if they had the opportunity?’
Hardaker took a long time to answer. ‘I don’t know. I suppose so.’
‘Anyone in particular?’ He was fishing, but it was worth a try. A face, a name might come up.
The man just shook his head. It was a useful conversation, but it wasn’t going to put him on anyone’s trail. He’d need to see for himself.
‘When’s the next meeting?’
‘The day after tomorrow. Are you going to be there?’
‘Yes,’ Harper said, and sat back, curious. ‘What makes you do this?’
Hardaker took a breath. His thoughts seemed to turn inward.
‘My sister was married to a bloke who beat her. Finally he did it so bad that she began bleeding inside, and she died. The coroner called it death by misadventure.’ He snorted and raised sad eyes. ‘I reckon if women could vote then things like that might not happen.’
They would, Harper thought. There were some men you could never change. But he gave a nod of understanding.
Time to go home, he decided. It had been a long day. He’d spent the afternoon following more leads on the dead baby in the post. Barbara Waite still seemed like a good bet, but no one knew where she’d gone. He’d visited three more houses. In the first, everything was fine. Another, the child had been stillborn, already in a pauper’s grave at Beckett Street Cemetery. And in the last, the father had shown him the baby, so small, barely clinging to life, the mother dead after bringing her son into the world.
Not much bloody joy.
The West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum stood away from the village. They alighted from the train, watching it steam away up Wharfedale. The air smelt clear and clean, so different from Leeds. Harper took a deep breath.
‘Good, isn’t it?’
Ash chuckled. ‘Not sure it’s right without all the soot, sir. Too healthy.’
It was easy to spot the place, the only large building along the road, with the tall clock tower standing out like a beacon. A high wall surrounded it, heavy iron gates at the end of the long driveway. The inspector showed his identification and their boots crunched along the gravel.
‘Quite a place, isn’t it, sir?’ Ash said, then gave a small cough. ‘Why are we out here, if you don’t mind me asking? If he’s a patient, he couldn’t have killed her.’
‘I’m hoping Sugden can tell us something about his sister. I’ve seen that diary, it’s like trying to get hold of a ghost. I need to find out who she was.’
Men and women were working quietly in the garden, moving haltingly as they dug and hoed. From somewhere inside the building he could just pick out cries and shouts. Harper glanced at Ash. The constable raised an eyebrow.
‘It’s an asylum, after all, sir.’
At the entrance to the main building they were met by a short, wide woman in a heavily starched nurse’s uniform. Under the cap, she had a formidable face, the same jowly stare as Queen Victoria, eyeing them coldly as they approached.
‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ Her voice had authority. The matron, he decided. Someone used to being obeyed. He smiled and produced his identification again.
‘Detective Inspector Harper, Leeds Police. I need to speak to one of your inmates.’
‘Who might that be?’ She stood at the top of the steps, looking down at him.
‘Stanley Sugden.’
‘What do you want with him, Inspector?’ she asked. ‘He’s been here for over a year now. He’s never tried to escape.’
‘His sister’s dead. I need to ask him about her.’
She turned on her heel and strode away down a long corridor. All they could do was follow, their footsteps echoing off the walls. The floor was laid with a mosaic, the white rose of Yorkshire and a trail of black daisies. The woman stopped at a heavy metal door, selected a key from a large ring, and turned it in the lock.
Suddenly there was noise. Yelling, soft moaning, the babble of nonsense. Inside, the matron began talking quietly to a nurse who pointed to a man standing alone by the window. He was stooped, a soft, defeated air about him, a book balanced in his hands. The hair on his head was thin and pale brown, but a full chestnut beard grew long on to his chest.
‘You want to talk to Stanley?’ the nurse asked in surprise. She was as tall as Harper, with a forthright, intelligent gaze.
‘I do. I need to tell him that his sister’s dead.’
‘Dead?’ She eyed him coolly. ‘What’s that to do with the police?’
The inspector hesitated a moment.
‘It’s not easy to say, miss. She was murdered.’
The nurse remained silent for a second, glancing worriedly over her shoulder at Sugden.
‘You need to understand a few things about Stanley,’ she began. ‘He was sent here because of his rages. They couldn’t control him at Armley. Most of the time he’s very quiet, but anything can set him off.’ She paused. ‘The slightest thing.’
Harper looked across at the man. He was still staring out of the window, one hand fretting with his long beard.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘Let me tell him,’ she said. ‘He knows me by now. He doesn’t do well with strangers, sir.’
‘Of course. Tell me, did his sister ever visit him here?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Never a letter either, more the pity. He loves to read. Newspapers, magazines, books when he can. Anything he can get hold of.’ She looked around the room. ‘He’s like most of them in here, locked inside his own head. We don’t know why.’
‘How many of these men are dangerous, miss?’ Ash asked.
‘Not so many.’ She smiled shyly at him. ‘We give them bromide and sleeping draughts. It keeps them quiet.’
‘Mr Sugden,’ the inspector said, and the nurse was attentive again. ‘I’d like to know about his sister. About her past.’
‘I can ask him,’ she told him, ‘but I doubt he’ll say much. Not right away, anyway. He might suddenly come out with something tomorrow or the day after.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Wait a moment, please.’ She walked away with a swish of starched cotton.
Harper watched as she spoke to Sugden. He didn’t even turn to look at her, didn’t acknowledge her. There was something eerie about the ward, he thought, the chafing mix of pained noise and silence. So this was what madness was like.
The nurse returned, shaking her head.
‘I’m sorry. His mind’s off somewhere else,’ she explained. ‘It often is. He can stand like that for hours.’
‘Thank you, anyway.’
One more avenue closed. Before he left he took another look at the man, still as a statue, close to the window. In the grand corridor, he heard the key turn in the lock behind them.
‘Quite an education, sir,’ Ash said once they were out of doors and in the fresh, free air.
‘Yes,’ he agreed with a sigh, glancing back at the clock tower. ‘Isn’t it?’
Constable Richards, the bobby who walked the Arches every night, had been covering the area for the best part of twenty years.
‘You know what it’s like, sir,’ he said wearily. ‘Every which way you look, it’s prostitutes down there. Dark as the grave, too, unless somebody strikes a match.’
‘The same faces?’ Harper asked.
‘Some, them as I can see, any road. Mostly it’s mill girls just needing a little extra to survive.’
‘And always men around?’
‘Oh aye. They vanish quick enough when they see me,’ Richards answered with a grin. ‘But as soon as I’ve gone, they’re back again. Like bloody flies, if you’ll forgive the language.’
The night of the fire had been like every other, he said. Before the blaze he’d seen nothing unusual, and he couldn’t have picked out Catherine Carr, if she’d been there. Just one of too many.
‘How quickly did the fire take hold?’ the inspector asked.
‘Went up fast, sir. I didn’t have to move them on. First lick of flame and they were out of there, screaming and yelling. There was nothing anyone could have done, not with all that stuff in Soapy Joe’s warehouse.’
‘And you didn’t see anyone left there?’
The constable sighed. ‘I don’t think so, but I can’t say for certain, sir. It was bedlam, and too many dark corners.’
He was sitting in the chair, eyes shut and close to sleep, when he heard the footsteps on the stairs. Not just Annabelle; someone was with her.
Harper took out his watch. Almost seven o’clock. He stood and stretched, wondering who she’d brought home. He’d walked back from Millgarth along Regent Street. Time to think, to try to sort out the fragments he’d learned, and see if he could piece them together. By the time he reached the Victoria they still made no sense.
She’d been gone when he arrived home, a note to say she’d gone to visit old Mrs Morgan.
She entered, followed by another woman, smaller, older, with a pinched face and iron hair gathered into a bun.
‘Good, I’m glad you’re home,’ Annabelle said, kissing him on the cheek. ‘I was out and I ran into Tilly. I thought you might want to talk to her. She knew Katie from the meetings.’ She looked at the woman. ‘I’ll go downstairs and bring us a couple of stouts.’
‘I’m Detective Inspector Harper,’ he introduced himself.
‘I’m Tilly Freeman,’ the woman said as she looked admiringly around the room. The piano, heavy furniture, the fire in the grate. ‘I never expected Annabelle would have anywhere as grand as this.’
‘It wasn’t always like this. She started out as a servant. Just like Catherine.’
‘Yes.’ Her face fell. In the soft light from the gas mantle he could see that her clothes were shabby, cheap cotton that had been washed too much, and her knuckles were gnarled and swollen. ‘Poor bloody Katie.’ Her voice had a hoarse rasp.
They didn’t say anything more until Annabelle returned and setting a glass on the table, the beer inside almost black.
‘Drink it up. It’ll put hairs on your chest,’ she said with a wink. ‘There’s more if you want it. Perk of the job.’
‘Better than where I work,’ Tilly told her. ‘No perks in a mill.’
‘Drink up while it’s free, then,’ Annabelle told her, watching as the woman took a long, satisfied sip.
‘How well did you know Catherine?’ Harper asked.
‘As well as anyone, I suppose,’ she said. ‘She only lived two streets from me. We often used to walk home together from meetings.’ Tilly stared at him. ‘I expect you think I should be crying for her.’
‘I wasn’t thinking that at all.’
‘I shed all my tears when Miss Ford told us what had happened.’ But there was no hardness in her eyes, and her mouth gave away her sorrow. ‘I’ve lost a husband and five children in my time and Katie’s the first one I’ve cried for since them.’
‘Did my wife tell you I’m investigating her murder?’
‘She did, luv.’ Tilly nodded as she took another drink. ‘And I’ll tell you what I know, if it helps you catch him. Work and meetings, and she was happy enough with that. Do you know about her husband, Mr Harper?’
‘That he beat her? Yes.’
‘And all the ways he made her feel small. After that, slaving in that bloody milliner’s shop seemed like freedom to her. She could be a funny lass that way.’
‘Did she ever talk about her past?’
‘Not really. She was just looking for something better when she accepted his proposal, I suppose.’ Tilly paused for a moment. ‘The same as the rest of us, searching for a pot of gold. Or happiness. Thought she’d found it, too, until he showed his true colours.’
And there’d been no one she could turn to. Who’d believe her word against a respectable businessman? She’d been lucky enough to marry up. No one would want to listen, not even the police.
‘Did she ever say where she’d worked before?’
The woman shook her head. ‘I never asked. It was her business.’
‘What else did you talk about?’
‘This and that. Getting the vote. Work. She was in that shop, I’m down at Marshall’s mill.’ She shrugged.
He paused, framing the next question carefully.
‘Did she seem scared at all?’
‘Scared?’ Tilly considered the word. ‘No. Maybe she looked over her shoulder a bit more in the last few weeks, but that’s nothing unusual. If you’re a woman out at night, you learn to do that.’
‘And she didn’t seem at all different recently?’
‘No. She was never the outgoing type. Half the time it was like pulling teeth to get her to talk.’
‘Quiet?’ he asked.
‘She could natter on, if the mood took her. She was passionate about votes, she could talk about that. She’d read a lot, she knew it all.’
‘Did she say anything about a man following her in the last few weeks?’
‘Katie?’ she asked in surprise. ‘No. Why, was there?’
‘Possibly,’ he answered.
‘She never said.’ Tilly sat and thought for a little while then shook her head again. ‘No, there was nowt. Katie wasn’t acting strange. She was just her.’ The woman finished her drink. ‘Thank
you for that, luv. Hit the spot after all that talking.’ Tilly turned to Harper. ‘I’m sorry I can’t help you more. I really am.’
‘You already have,’ he assured her.
‘Tom’ll make sure you get home, won’t you?’ Annabelle said.
‘Of course.’
It wasn’t far, just up Chapeltown Road, no more than two minutes from Tramway Street.
‘Did she ever talk about her family?’ the inspector asked as they walked.
‘No. I reckoned she was like me, they were all gone.’
‘And you never visited her in her lodgings?’
‘Never invited me,’ Tilly said. ‘I don’t think she wanted anyone to see it. She was a very private person, Mr Harper. It was like she had a wall, and no one could get past that.’
‘No one?’
‘Not as I ever saw.’
He took his time walking home in the darkness, thinking about what he’d been told. It was a piece or two more, but he still didn’t have a picture of Catherine Carr. There were too many blank spaces. Maybe all the things she kept hidden were going to remain that way.
Harper climbed the stairs and opened the door, surprised to see Annabelle talking to a uniformed constable. The man looked awkward, embarrassed to be talking to the wife of a superior officer, while she chattered away nineteen to the dozen.
‘Tom,’ she said, ‘this young man needs to see you.’
Stone, he remembered. That was the lad’s name, not too long on the force. If they sent someone out at night, it was never good news.
‘What can I do for you, Constable Stone?’
‘The sergeant said to come and tell you, sir.’ He glanced nervously at Annabelle before he spoke. ‘There’s been something else at the Arches.’
‘What?’ he asked. ‘A body?’
‘No, sir. It’s a woman, that’s all I know. They want you there.’
‘Tell them I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
EIGHT
‘I need to go,’ he told her.
‘Did Tilly tell you anything more?’
‘I’m not even sure there is anything more.’
She laid her head on his shoulder, close to his good ear.
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