The Clockmaker

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Then you had better come through. We will continue with this later,’ he told the girl. ‘Tidy this away.’

  Abraham could see that his brother was on edge and he wondered if Benjamin suspected what he might be about to say.

  ‘Sit. How are you? Can I offer you anything?’

  ‘You care how I am? I don’t think you can. You didn’t care how your son died, so what hope do I have?’

  ‘Abraham, I have no idea what you mean. I lost my son. You know what that feels like.’

  ‘You exploited your son. He died because you wanted him to do things that were illegal and immoral.’

  Ben looked confused. ‘How can you say things like that?’

  ‘You told me that your son shamed you.’

  ‘Yes, by betraying a young woman he had promised to marry and by falling for some … strumpet. Some little whore. Of course I’m ashamed of that, but if Joseph had come to me and told me, I would have forgiven him. We would, between us, have found a way of putting things right.’

  Abraham reached into his pocket and withdrew an envelope. He tipped the contents on to the desk. A foreign passport, identity papers, a brooch and a ring.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Where did you get this, Abraham?’

  Abraham looked at his brother’s face and began to wonder if his suspicions really were correct. Benjamin looked shocked, genuinely shocked.

  Abraham sighed, rubbing his face with his hands. The truth was he didn’t really know what to think about anything anymore. Seeing the change in his brother’s demeanour, Benjamin sat down and examined the contents of the envelope closely. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I thought you could tell me. But I think you’re in the dark as much as I am. Last night Clem Atkins came to my house with this. He came alone, like a thief, knocked on my back door. He claims he took it from the Elephant boy who was beaten so badly, cut up by his thugs. You heard about that?’

  ‘I did, yes. But why would that boy have this?’

  ‘Look at the envelope. Benjamin. The address has been changed. Changed in a hurry, simply crossed out and the new one put there. The second address is one I do not know, but the first is one we have used before. Look at the writing, Benjamin. Look at the handwriting.’

  Benjamin turned the envelope over and looked more carefully. He froze. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No more do I, but that handwriting is Joseph’s. He changed the address; he sent this letter elsewhere – I do not know why. But there would have been money in the envelope; you know that.’

  For a moment this hung in the air between them and Benjamin stared at his brother, unable to comprehend the implication. ‘If this is not the only time, if he sent our other letters astray … But how could he get hold of them? The Goldmanns were always so careful.’

  ‘And we were so careful to keep Joseph in the dark, but the Goldmanns treated him like a son. He was part of their family. It could be that they said too much, or that Rebecca told.’

  ‘Of course Rebecca knows. She visits the boarding house, checking on the administration of the place at least once every week. And she was proud of what we were doing. Of course she would tell her future husband; and would probably be shocked that he didn’t know already.’

  Neither brother wanted to broach what was obvious, but eventually Abraham did, as gently as he could. ‘I can think of no other explanation,’ he said slowly, ‘but that Joseph might have taken … might have borrowed, perhaps – no doubt intending to give back. He could have suggested he posts these letters for the Goldmanns and obtained them that way. We know he wanted to be with this young woman, this Adelaide.’ He almost spat the word.

  ‘You are saying my son stole so he could run away with this girl,’ Benjamin said flatly. ‘No, I cannot believe that.’

  ‘What other explanation is there? I’m not saying he intended to keep the money. I examined the ring and the brooch; both are just costume jewellery, of no value, but it’s likely those who sent these things did not know that. I remember how it was when you first became involved in these schemes. Everyone contributes what they can; sometimes mistakes are made.’

  ‘And you are saying my son made a mistake?’

  ‘I am saying that because you loved him, you did not tell him the truth because you wanted no trouble to come to his door. I am saying that because she loved him, Rebecca did tell him what was going on, and that because he loved this other woman, he took advantage where he could. An act of desperation, Benjamin.’

  His brother looked as though Abraham had slapped him in the face hard enough to stun. Benjamin shook his head, not wanting to believe, but not knowing how to counter Abraham’s logic.

  ‘And because of love, he’s dead,’ Benjamin said at last.

  ‘It seems so,’ Abraham agreed sadly.

  Addie had initially been silent once more. Henry had asked her again what had happened on the day Joseph had died, but she seemed intent on ignoring him, disinterested and remote.

  Henry laid Joseph’s watch on the table between them. ‘You took the watch to a pawnbroker,’ he said. ‘He gave you thirty shillings. The same wage as a sweatshop worker might earn in a week, I suppose. You might have got more if you’d offered him the chain.’ He paused.

  ‘You’ve not asked how we caught up with you,’ he continued. ‘We made enquiries about two men and a woman using distraction in order to rob. We then matched those names with fingerprints.’

  ‘I’ve never been arrested,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe not, but Dickson has. Gus Dickson has a record and we have his prints. He touched Joseph’s watch and left a print. We put out a call to all of the pawnbrokers in this area asking for report of a watch with a particular engraving. A message that Joseph’s uncle had engraved upon his watch.’

  He opened the watch and pointed at the traces of fingerprint powder adhering to the inside. ‘A print from Gus Dickson’s index finger, as it happens. And he has to report to the local police, does he not? Which is how we got his address, and which is how we found you all.’

  ‘And why should I care?’

  ‘You should care because we now have you here, with enough evidence to charge you with murder. Not Gus Dickson, not Fred Welton – though both played their part – but you, Adelaide. You were the one who hit Joseph over the head with a brick. You laid open his skull and you killed him.’

  Addie held his gaze and then nodded slowly. ‘All right, maybe I did, but he deserved it, di’n’t he?’

  ‘Deserved it? How?’

  Addie seemed to draw into herself as though gathering her thoughts. At last, she said, ‘He had no right to make promises he couldn’t keep. He were just like the rest of them, all sweet talk and promises until he got what he wanted and then … then when it came to it, he let me down.’

  She lifted her head and leaned forward across the table, almost spat the words. ‘You have any idea what it’s like to have nothin’ and then have someone give you just a little glimmer of hope? You don’t dare to believe it, but then you do and then you find out that person’s just as much of a bloody liar as the last one! You know how that feels?’

  ‘Hurt feelings don’t give you the right to take a life,’ Henry said coldly.

  ‘No? Tell that to all the men what kill women just because they say no, or because supper isn’t on the table when they come back from the pub, or because the babbie happens to cry in the night and wake them up. You tell them about what’s right.’

  ‘And is that what happened in your family, Adelaide? The more reason, I’d have thought, for you not to emulate such behaviour.’

  She looked suddenly confused as though his words made no sense to her. ‘How can the likes of you ever understand the likes of me?’ she asked.

  The matron glanced across at Henry and suggested softly that they should take a break. Henry ignored her. ‘And so you killed him.’

  Addie shrugged. The fight had gone now. She
spoke tonelessly. ‘Gus had a knife at his chest, just intending to scare him. Joseph kept saying that he didn’t have what we wanted, that we’d have to wait until he got back to London and then there’d be enough money for all of us. He said he’d come straight back or we could go with him – but it was too far. Gus had to report and we’d not have made it back in time, not all the way to London and then back again for nine in the morning. Anyway, we didn’t have the cash and neither did he – not to pay for us all. So how did he expect me to believe in him anymore? I knew he’d lied, that he was just out for what he could get and was no better than any of ’em. So I picked up the brick and I pulled back my arm and I hit him. Hard as I could. He sort of stumbled forward and fell on to the knife. Gus never meant to stick him. It was just for show, to put the frighteners on.’

  ‘And what happened then?’

  She seemed to have detached herself from the reality of it – to be, Henry thought, not entirely in her right mind.

  ‘Gus yelped and pulled back and stood there with the knife in his fist, and Joseph fell down on the floor. Gus sent me to get Fred, and I ran and got him and they said they’d deal with everything. They pitched him over a bit of a wall so he was out of sight in the yard, and then Gus cleaned up. There was blood on the ground but he scuffed mud over it. Everywhere was sodden wet. Then he walked me to the pub and told me to buy a drink and to stop where I was, and so I did. When he came back, he said that he and Fred had sorted it.’

  ‘And then he put you on a train?’ Henry glanced over to the young constable who was making the record, checking that he was managing to get this down. ‘And you came back here?’

  ‘I don’t remember doing, but I must’ve done. Next morning, I woke up and Gus was there and Fred, and I didn’t quite believe what had happened.’

  As though a dam had suddenly broken, she burst into tears. ‘I never meant to. I never meant to do it.’

  ‘I think you did,’ Henry said coldly. ‘You were angry at what you saw as his deceit. Never mind that you’d arranged with your associates to ambush him. You conned him, Miss Hay, and you believed he’d be carrying money or something of value back to London, so you—’

  ‘He saw me!’ Addie yelled. ‘Gus saw me with him and he beat it out of me. I wanted to go away with him, but Gus …’

  ‘You were aggrieved,’ Henry said. ‘So you killed your lover.’

  He charged her with the murder of Joseph Levy and left her, wailing and weeping, for the matron and recording constable to deal with.

  THIRTY

  ‘When did you figure it was the girl?’ Mickey asked as they settled on the London train.

  ‘When I saw Fred Welton. He seemed too poor a specimen to deliver that kind of blow. Or to feel that level of anger.’ Henry sighed. ‘So we know why and how the boy was killed. We are still none the wiser as to where the money Joseph promised was going to come from.’

  ‘Which, to be fair, was not in our brief,’ Mickey said comfortably. He folded his hands over his ample belly and closed his eyes. His pretence at indifference lasted five minutes, no more. He opened his eyes again and sat up.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll bite.’

  ‘What can you carry that’s of value but has no substance?’ Henry said.

  A slow smile spread across Mickey’s face. ‘Something you can keep beneath your hat. Beneath your hat and in your brain. Information.’

  ‘My thought exactly. So what did he know? Who gave him that knowledge and what did he plan to do with it that would bring in the cash he required.’

  ‘Blackmail?’ Mickey suggested.

  ‘It’s possible, but did he have the nerve for that? Or the bravura? He seems to have been the quiet type.’

  ‘Until he met a redhead,’ Mickey suggested. ‘Love can do things to a man. Cloud his judgement, but also give him as much Dutch courage as a bottle can.’

  ‘And we can assume that he had no access to this information before reaching Lincoln; otherwise, surely he would have acted differently, have blackmailed or sold or traded. He could not cash what he knew until after he had returned to London.’

  ‘So who did he have dealings with in Lincoln? His future in-laws and any visitors they might have had in their house. And back in London?’

  ‘Who can say? His own family. Abraham Levy. Abraham Levy subsists in the midst of Clem Atkins’ territory – is it possible the boy was drawn into something because of that?’

  Mickey considered for a moment. ‘I once joked with Atkins that the Goldmanns moved because of him, and Atkins replied that it was probably so.’

  ‘So where does that take us?’

  ‘Closer to home, I hope,’ Mickey said with feeling. ‘The bed at the Angel was as lumpy as hell. I’m sure it was filled with damp flock. I’m eager for my own bed tonight, so if you’ve a mind to be heading back up to Lincoln, you’ll be doing it alone.’

  Henry looked faintly shocked and then realized that Mickey was joking. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We are heading for home, but we need to pursue this, Mickey.’

  ‘And we will. Did you show her the watch?’

  ‘I did and I elucidated the chain of events that led us to her and the men. I think she had no choice but to confess, but it was a relief when she did. I believe we had enough evidence without that for a jury to convict, but it is always easier when a confession is made.’

  ‘And what thought just struck you a blow?’

  ‘That the engraving on the watch is very fine,’ Henry said. ‘That our clockmaker has skills that might be put to use in ways other than mending clocks and engraving salutations.’

  ‘That’s a hell of a leap, Henry.’

  ‘Is it? Maybe it is.’

  Mickey folded his hands again and closed his eyes. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I will leave that with you. Wake me up when we are safely south again.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  She dreamed of him lying beside her in the hotel bed. His flesh soft and warm and his breathing as regular and soothing as that of a child sleeping in its crib.

  She had wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe that they could run away together and start again, but she had heard him speaking of his family, of his home, of his father’s shops and his sisters’ children, and she knew in her heart of hearts that he’d never be able to withdraw from that life and that she could never even dream of becoming a part of it.

  Addie herself had little to lose. There was Gus … scant loss. It had been fun at first. Exciting. And she’d been fed and clothed more reliably than at any time in her life. She had a warm bed to sleep in most nights and could put up with Gus’s occasional bouts of anger.

  Until they became less than occasional.

  Until she had fancied that Joseph really could offer more.

  Until she had fancied that maybe she could love him and he love her.

  They would hang her for what she’d done; Addie had no doubt of that. She remembered the cold, grey eyes of the policeman as he’d charged her. He didn’t even hate her for what she’d done. He’d pursued her not because he cared but because that was just what he did. Chase his prey and bring it down, strangle the life out of it.

  His uncle would help them, Joseph had told her once. If everyone else in the world turned them away, then his uncle would still help them out. But Addie would never know now.

  ‘Why did you say you had money?’ she whispered. ‘If you’d told me you were broke, I’d have believed you and none of this would have happened.’

  That was the trouble, wasn’t it? He’d given her hope of something better and then taken it away. At least Gus had been honest enough never to promise her anything.

  ‘But I did want to love you,’ Addie whispered. ‘That’s why I did it. I did want to love you and then you let me down.’

  It was late when they reported back to central office, but a message was waiting from Abraham Levy asking Henry to see him at the Workers’ Circle, should he return in time.

  ‘Apparently the food is
cheap there,’ Mickey said.

  ‘If you like herring.’

  ‘I like herring well enough. Bread, tea, herring – I can be satisfied with that.’

  Henry sighed. It was already past eight and he wasn’t sure he had the patience.

  ‘You’ve had no more thoughts about what information Joseph might have had?’

  ‘None that make sense,’ Henry confessed. ‘But at least we can tell Abraham that the case has been resolved. We know who killed Joseph.’

  Abraham was sitting in the same seat as before, but he wasn’t playing chess this time. His tea had grown cold and he was staring into space. Henry took the chair opposite and Mickey purloined another from a nearby table. Abraham seemed slightly startled to see them, as though he’d forgotten that he’d requested their presence. His eyes were red-rimmed and he looked as though he’d been weeping.

  ‘We know what happened, we have a confession,’ Henry told him. ‘It seems that the girl, Adelaide Hay, believed that your nephew was preparing to take her away with him and had the money to do so. But then she got off the train at Bardney and he followed and it seems that she betrayed him. She told her associates that he would have money on him, and they intended to rob him – possibly not to kill him – but it seems the woman became enraged when it became obvious that Joseph had empty pockets.’

  Abraham was staring at him as if the words meant nothing and he could not quite take them in.

  ‘His lover – this Adelaide Hay – she killed him.’ Mickey said it as gently as he could, but the shock registered on Abraham’s face and his body began to tremble as though he was suddenly very cold. Henry got up and fetched more tea; Mickey placed the cup in Abraham’s hands.

  ‘Drink,’ he said. ‘Sweet tea will help with the shock.’

  Henry wondered if that was even true. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘The young woman confessed and is being held in Nottingham gaol and her associates are in Lincoln.’

  Abraham stared at the cup in his hands and then at Henry and Mickey. ‘And so it ends badly for other young people,’ he said. ‘No good will come out of this, Inspector. No good at all.’ He drank some of his tea and then set the cup down.