Skin Like Silver

by Chris Nickson

  ‘Listen,’ he said, reaching for her hand, but she snatched it away and pointed at the desk.

  ‘You know what I’ve done all day? I’ve been trying to write. Then I crossed it all out. Over and over. I’ve got ten words. Ten.’ Her face seemed to wither. ‘I can’t get up there and speak to them.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ he told her. ‘Listen,’ he said again, but it was enough to make her stare accusingly. ‘Listen to me. Why do you think Isabella Ford asked you in the first place?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wish she hadn’t.’

  ‘You run businesses. You’ve made them successful.’

  ‘A pub and some back-street bakeries.’

  ‘Yes, a pub and three bakeries,’ he corrected her. ‘How many people have done that? Forget those women who’ve had money all their lives.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Her voice wavered. ‘They’re the ones who’ll be listening. They’ll be judging me.’

  ‘Then let them.’ He exhaled slowly, took her hand and led her to the settee. ‘I mean it. What have they ever had to do? Really do. Not a day’s work in their lives.’ She opened her mouth to object. In the end nothing came out. ‘I know they’re fighting for something good,’ Harper told her. ‘But look at yourself. You’re the one who’s the example for women, not them.’

  ‘I—’ she began, but he cut her off.

  ‘How many women do you know who don’t have to think about where the next penny’s coming from?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘And how many who are always wondering how to stretch the wages until the next payday?’ He looked at her.

  ‘Most of them,’ she admitted.

  ‘And don’t they need the vote even more?’

  ‘We all do,’ she told him angrily, pushing herself up and striding around the room again. ‘Every one of us. And there are plenty who’d say it better than I can.’

  ‘But they won’t be up there. You will.’

  Her dress rustled loudly as she moved. ‘I’m petrified, Tom. I’m bloody terrified.’

  ‘Then tell them that once you get up there. They’ll understand.’

  ‘It’s at the Mechanics’ Institute. In the Albert Hall.’ The round lecture theatre. Room for a big audience; that was what she meant. All of them looking at her, listening to her.

  ‘You don’t have to be like them,’ Harper said. ‘Just be yourself.’

  ‘They’ll laugh at me.’

  ‘No,’ he insisted softly, ‘they won’t. Just tell them about yourself. Tell them why you support women having the vote. Ordinary women. That’s all you have to do.’

  ‘Do you really think that?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘Honestly? You’re not kidding me?’

  ‘Honestly.’ He glanced at the paper and the pen. ‘Don’t worry about all that. Don’t even write it down. Just get up there and speak. Tell them what you feel. You’ll be fine.’

  ‘Ten seconds and they’ll be rushing out screaming.’

  Harper smiled. ‘You’ll be fine. I promise.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘You will. Trust me, I’m a policeman.’

  She chuckled and her mood brightened. ‘Is that what you tell all the girls, Tom Harper?’

  ‘It used to work.’

  ‘Maybe when you were young.’ She winked, then she looked at his hands. ‘Those bandages are filthy. Let’s get them off.’

  She brought out a pair of scissors and cut them away. The skin on his palms was pale and wrinkled, but the blisters he’d received at the railway station fire were healing.

  ‘Leave them like this,’ he said. ‘Let them breathe. I can always wear gloves.’

  Annabelle nodded. ‘There’s something else, Tom. That hearing of yours. It’s getting worse, isn’t it?’

  ‘A little,’ he admitted reluctantly.

  ‘I know it is,’ she told him. ‘Maybe we should go and see that doctor again?’

  ‘Why?’ he asked bitterly. ‘Why spend a guinea to hear him say I’ll be stone deaf in my right ear soon and there’s nothing anyone can do about it?’

  ‘Do you know where Sugden is yet?’ the inspector asked. They were sitting in the office, the fire burning bright, and outside the window the sound of carts groaning past with their morning deliveries.

  ‘No,’ Reed said. ‘I know where he was before the funeral, though.’ He explained what he’d discovered. ‘He said he’s here for revenge.’

  ‘Then find him before he has the chance,’ Superintendent Kendall ordered. He was standing close to the hearth, listening intently as he puffed on his pipe.

  ‘I have two men looking, sir,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘If he’s been in Hunslet, let’s have a sweep. I’ll get on to the station there.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘How are you getting on with the Carr murder?’ Kendall asked Harper.

  ‘No further. Suspects but no proof.’

  ‘And that rape in the Arches? Is it tied in?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. We’ve had plenty of tips from that article.’

  ‘I have one that looks good, sir,’ Ash broke in. ‘A chap called Peter Grady.’

  ‘Go on,’ the superintendent told him.

  ‘He fits the description the lass gave. Gravedigger out at Beckett Street cemetery.’

  ‘Have you been out to see him?’ Harper asked.

  ‘I tried, sir. He’s not been seen there for a couple of days. Didn’t show up to work.’

  ‘Did you try his house?’

  ‘He lives on the Bank, sir.’

  They all knew what that meant. It was where the Irish first settled when they came to Leeds in the ’40s. Many of them still lived there, generations of families living cheek by jowl on cramped, dirty streets. Loyalties ran as thick as blood and the police were hated.

  ‘We’ll go today,’ the inspector said.

  THIRTEEN

  The houses on Spinner Street looked battered and beaten. Slates missing here and there on the roofs. A few broken windows covered by cardboard. Number seven was no better or worse than the rest.

  The landlady eyed them with suspicion. Reluctantly she told them that Grady hadn’t been there for a few days.

  ‘Just as well, if he’s been drinking,’ she said. ‘He gets a right temper on him.’

  Harper felt a prickle at the back of his neck. Grady. It grew stronger when they persuaded the woman to let them search his room, as bare as a monk’s cell. A cast iron bedstead, rotting mattress, a thick blanket, and a crucifix nailed to the wall.

  ‘What about his other clothes?’ All the man had was a change of underwear and socks.

  ‘He has another suit, but it spends more time down the pawnbroker than it does here.’

  ‘It’s him,’ Harper said as they walked back down the street.

  ‘I think so, too, sir,’ Ash agreed. ‘Happen we’d better try the public houses, see if they’ll tell us anything.’

  The first couple of places gave them short shrift, a creeping sense of violence from the men sitting and drinking. Finally they found a landlord who was willing to talk to them in the back room. Grady had last been in on the night of the rape.

  ‘He were in early. He’d had a skinful by then. I kicked him out when he tried to start a fight. I run a decent house here.’

  Peter Grady. Straight to the top of the list, the inspector decided.

  They all met back at Millgarth before dinner.

  ‘Have they found anything in Hunslet?’ Harper asked.

  ‘Not yet. I was over there this morning,’ Reed answered. ‘Not a sniff of Sugden. I’m going back later.’

  ‘Keep on it.’

  Before the sergeant could say more, the door opened. Tollman, the desk sergeant, put his head around, his face grave.

  ‘Just had a message from Burmantofts, sir. There’s been some trouble at a bakery there. I thought you’d want to know.’

  Harper looked at Reed. ‘We’ll get a hackney,’ he said.

  The front window had be
en smashed. Already a glazier was measuring it up, his assistant sweeping up the shards of glass on the pavement.

  The sergeant jumped out of the cab and dashed into the shop. Harper lingered outside, surveying the damage. The policeman in him saw it as something minor, easily mended. But as a husband his anger boiled.

  Reed was tending to Elizabeth. She had cuts on her arms and face, and her eyes still brimmed with tears. Her wounds had been washed and cleaned but she still looked shaken.

  Annabelle stood talking to the beat bobby. PC Waterhouse. Conscientious enough. Five years in this manor, the inspector remembered; he knew it very well.

  Harper laid a gentle hand on his wife’s shoulder and she turned, relief flooding her face.

  ‘Tom …’

  ‘What happened?’ he asked her.

  ‘That woman we sacked the other day. Her son came and hefted a brick through the window. Elizabeth was looking out when he did it. It’s only scratches, thank God. It all happened just before I got here.’

  ‘Do you know where they live?’ he asked Waterhouse.

  ‘Not two minutes away, sir,’ the constable replied. He had a thin neck, Adam’s apple bouncing as he spoke. ‘I’ll go round there and bring him in.’

  ‘No,’ Annabelle said firmly. ‘Please. Not unless Elizabeth wants to press charges.’ They all looked at her, wrapped in Reed’s arms. ‘Locking him up won’t do a bit of good.’

  ‘Billy and I can go and have a word,’ Harper suggested. ‘We’ll put the fear of God in him.’ Waterhouse opened his mouth to object, but the inspector continued, ‘I know. This is your patch. Come along with us.’

  ‘He can work off the cost,’ Annabelle suggested. ‘Clean up and do things here.’ She paused. ‘As long as Elizabeth agrees. She’s the manager.’

  ‘I want him here at five tomorrow morning,’ Elizabeth said. She tried to sound firm but her voice quavered. ‘On the dot. And you can tell him he’ll pay for that window with his sweat. If he doesn’t show up, you can go and arrest him.’

  Lorraine Chapman stood in the corner of the room, arms folded, trying to hide her fear. She was young, too thin, streaks of grey already showing in her hair. The only window in the cellar was high in the wall, the glass smeared with dirt. A bed of straw and two ratty blankets. The whole place smelled of mould and damp.

  The boy was called Jemmy. He was seven, so skinny he could have been made of twigs. He stood at attention, fists clenched to try and hide the trembling.

  ‘Do you understand what I’m telling you?’ Harper asked. The boy nodded, turning from face to face and finally to his mother. ‘Well?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ His voice was soft, on the verge of crying.

  ‘If there’s a single day you don’t go in to work, Constable Waterhouse will come down here and take you to the station,’ Reed said. His face was set, eyes dark; it was Elizabeth who’d been hurt.

  ‘I’ll be there, sir. Every day.’

  ‘He will,’ Lorraine Chapman promised. ‘I’ll make sure he is. Thank you.’ She stared at the inspector. ‘Please tell your wife I’m very sorry, sir. So’s he.’ She put out a bony hand and placed it on her son’s head. ‘He doesn’t know how lucky he is.’

  ‘I’ll be checking every day,’ Waterhouse told the boy. ‘Mind you do what you’re told.’

  ‘When he’s paid for the cost of the window, it’s over and done,’ Harper said as the others left. ‘Nothing on his record.’ He reached into his pocket, picked out a shilling, and left it on the rickety wooden table.

  They walked back into town. The rain had stopped, but the skies still threatened off towards the hills.

  ‘At least Elizabeth wasn’t badly hurt,’ the inspector said gently.

  ‘She could have been.’ The anger was still there in Reed’s voice. ‘What if she’d been standing closer to the window?’

  ‘We did the right thing.’ He needed to calm the man down. ‘You know that as well as I do, Billy. Slinging the lad in jail wouldn’t have helped anyone. I’ll bet you a tanner he spends half of tomorrow apologizing.’

  ‘What if it had been serious?’

  ‘Then we’d have dealt with it differently.’ He sighed. ‘It’s done, just leave it be. We have crimes to solve.’ He sighed. ‘A pity they’re not all as easy as this one.’

  They parted on York Street, close to the gasworks. Harper walked out past St Saviour’s, to Cross Green. He found Constable Williams on Spring Close Street, leaning against a wall and talking to a woman who was smiling broadly. The policeman came to attention as the inspector approached. He whispered something and the woman disappeared with a saucy glance over her shoulder.

  ‘Afternoon, sir.’

  ‘Keeping good relations with the locals?’ he asked with a grin.

  Williams had the decency to blush. ‘Lovely woman, sir. Tells me what’s happening. Things I don’t see.’

  ‘Something about the Waites?’

  ‘Nothing yet, sir. Talked to some old neighbours, but they haven’t seen them. If they’re around, they’re keeping quiet.’ He looked along the street. ‘That’s hard to do here.’

  Another day of nothing. Sugden had gone to ground, Reed thought grimly. No sign of him in Hunslet. Flushing him out would be nigh on impossible.

  He hadn’t been able to keep his mind on the job during the afternoon; he’d been too worried about Elizabeth. But when he arrived home she just waved away his concern.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she told him. ‘Just a few scratches.’

  He could see them on her face and arms where the glass had sliced her skin. Nothing serious. A few days and they’d be forgotten.

  ‘I just …’ he began, then couldn’t find the words.

  ‘I know, luv.’ She smiled and put her arms around him. ‘How do you think I feel when you go off to work as a fireman? I love you, you daft beggar.’

  ‘Jemmy, the lad, he’ll be there first thing in the morning. Don’t go soft on him.’

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ she told him. ‘He’ll work off every penny of that window.’

  ‘Good.’ He let himself relax against her body. Her warmth was comforting after a day out in the cold.

  ‘I got some good tripe at the butcher. Kept it warm for your supper. And I can send John down to the pub if you want beer.’

  ‘Just tea is fine.’

  ‘Are you sure, Billy?’

  He was certain. The times he really wanted a drink had grown further apart. What he did need was her and everything she gave him. Something certain in his life. Something worthwhile. Elizabeth and the children. If something happened to her …

  Reed spent part of next morning at Hunslet police station, looking through the results of another sweep through the area. Still nothing. The only thing anyone had found was a relative of Stanley Sugden.

  It wasn’t far to Grape Street, but it was like walking into hell, surrounded by the glowing fires and the constant metal pounding of the foundry of the engine works. The air tasted of iron and the blast of the furnaces seemed to lick out on to the roads. Was it like this all night too, he wondered? How could anyone live in a place like this? The devil himself would have a hard time here.

  The house was like all the others on the street: tired, worn, the glass covered by a film of powdered iron. The woman who came to the door had thick, wiry white hair and clear blue eyes, standing straight.

  ‘It was my cousin Margaret who married James Sugden,’ she explained as they sat in the kitchen. ‘I remember the little ones clear as day. Sweet, they were. The Lord only knows what happened to Stanley to do what he did. In prison … The last I heard of the lass … must be years and years ago now … she went off into service. George died when Stanley was just a bairn. And the typhus took Jane when it came around again.’

  The woman didn’t have much more to tell. She’d never been close to the family, had only ever seen them at weddings and funerals.

  ‘Not even much of that these days,’ she said. ‘The young ones now, they do
n’t know what family’s like.’

  ‘Is there anyone else who might know about him?’

  ‘Nay, luv, I don’t know. I’m sorry.’

  Dead ends. It was like that all day, bouncing from one address to another and finding nothing of any use. By evening all he felt was frustration, as if he’d lost all the hours of daylight. Sugden was still out there with his plans for revenge and Reed didn’t have a clue as to where to find him.

  ‘You might as well go home,’ the inspector told Ash. They’d spent the day chasing Peter Grady and looking for anything else to help track down Catherine Carr’s killer. The image of her had been in his head when he woke, the shining silver that had replaced her skin.

  He hadn’t been able to shake it from his mind as he trailed around town. But it wasn’t the only thing. Annabelle’s speech was tonight. She’d woken when he rose, bustling around, making tea. She hadn’t said anything, but she didn’t need to; everything was on her face. The worry, the fear. He kept his arms around her for a long time before he left.

  ‘Happen we’ll have better luck tomorrow,’ the constable said.

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Grady was hiding somewhere on the Bank. He was certain of that. It was the perfect place to run, around friends and family. Finding him, and arresting him; that would be the tricky part. He remembered having to go in there once when he was in uniform. Six of them sent to arrest a burglar. They’d almost had to fight their way out while the prisoner laughed and kicked at them all.

  ‘Something has to turn up soon, sir. Goodnight.’

  Maybe something would. But he’d always believed in making something happen. He walked wearily up George Street. At least his hands were starting to return to normal. And the hearing was no worse; he’d only needed to ask people to repeat things four times during the day.

  He didn’t have many informers on the Bank. They were too tight-lipped. He met the ones who had information to sell in town, where no one was likely to recognize them. Harper had tried them all once about Peter Grady. It was time for a second round.

  ‘Not hide nor hair of the man,’ Seamus Reilly told him. He’d lived in Leeds all his life but there was still the melody of Ireland in his voice. ‘Not that he’d be too anxious to be seen.’