Between the grime and the calluses there was little to see.
‘I told you, I don’t know.’ O’Shea grinned in triumph.
‘Tim.’ He kept staring until O’Shea was forced to lower his gaze. ‘Two dead and so far yours the only name I have. That’s something to think about when they put the noose around your neck for murder.’
‘Prove it.’ The man stared at him.
‘I have someone who saw you at the park. Someone who put a name to your face. Be very careful, Tim. That noose is getting tighter every minute.’
‘It weren’t me.’ But the defiance had vanished from his voice. The words sounded hollow, as if he didn’t even believe them himself.
‘Come on, we both know it was. I think it’s time to stop playing games. What did you use to kill them, Tim? Was it a metal bar?’
‘I didn’t kill no one,’ he answered, his voice a mix of desperation and hopelessness.
‘No jury’s going to believe that. Especially since you were there and you put the body in the water.’ He sat back. ‘Or do you want to tell me a better story?’
At times like this, silence was a friend. It could rise and press down on O’Shea as he considered how short his time might be.
Harper glanced across at Ash, standing at attention by the door. He was staring at O’Shea with an expression the inspector hadn’t seen before – pure hatred. Hardly surprising, he thought, given what the man had done to Tench. But maybe he could use that.
The room was hot; summer sunlight streamed in through closed windows. He could see the sheen of sweat on O’Shea’s face, could almost read everything going through his mind.
‘I helped move the body but I didn’t kill him.’
ELEVEN
‘Is that really the best you can do?’ Harper asked, shaking his head.
‘It’s the truth.’ The tic had grown worse. O’Shea’s voice was frantic. ‘I helped load him on the cart and sank him in the lake, but that’s all.’
‘Perhaps it’s time you told me a story, Tim.’ Harper waved a hand and sat back in his chair. ‘Go ahead. We have all the time in the world.’
It came out haltingly, bits and pieces that fitted together awkwardly. O’Shea had received a message: be at the waste ground near Beckett Street cemetery at one in the morning. Two other men were already there, the cart standing close by, and Leonard Tench was lying dead in the dirt. They’d loaded the body, driven out to Roundhay Park, over the grass and halfway round the big lake, far out of sight.
O’Shea had done as he was ordered, stripped the corpse and brought one of the boats while the carter knotted a rope around the dead man’s waist. Between them they hauled Tench on board, along with a heavy iron weight. Over the deep water the rope had been fastened to the weight and everything tipped overboard.
‘That was all,’ he said, as if it was no more than an ordinary day’s work.
Harper chewed the inside of his lip. He’d let the man tell his tale. For the most part he was willing to believe it. But there were a few things he wasn’t ready to buy just yet.
‘Tell me, do you always answer messages ordering you to be somewhere in the middle of the night?’
‘I were promised a guinea.’
Very likely true, the inspector thought. A lot of money to a man like him.
‘That was very generous of Charlie Gilmore.’
‘What? Charlie?’ O’Shea looked at him, confused. ‘It weren’t Charlie.’
Harper chuckled. ‘You’re his man, Tim. He snaps his fingers and you come running.’
O’Shea was leaning forward, almost pleading. ‘This weren’t Charlie.’ He blinked and shook his head, greasy hair flying around. ‘He dun’t work like that. Never has.’
The inspector sat back, not satisfied. ‘If it wasn’t Charlie, why was Declan Gilmore with you?’
‘Declan?’ There was genuine confusion on O’Shea’s face. ‘Declan weren’t there. I en’t seen him in weeks.’
Harper said nothing. He believed the man, no shadow of a doubt about that. Tim O’Shea couldn’t lie his way out of a paper bag and this was the truth. Not Declan, not Charlie. Then who was behind it?
‘Who sent you the message, Tim?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looked up, almost in tears. ‘Honest, I don’t. I was in the Bull and Mouth and a man came up to me.’
‘What man?’
O’Shea shook his head. ‘I’d never seen him before.’
‘Tim,’ Harper said softly, ‘you know every crook in Leeds.’
‘Not this one.’ His look was haunted, beseeching. He was telling the truth. ‘He told me where to be, said I’d get a guinea. That’s all, Mr Harper. You know Charlie, he wouldn’t have to do that.’
‘It wasn’t Charlie, but you still went? At one in the morning.’
O’Shea dipped his head. ‘I needed the money.’
‘Tell me about the other two men waiting for you.’
‘I didn’t know them. But the other man called the carter Jeb.’
The sweat glowed brightly on O’Shea’s face and he wiped his forehead with the back of a dirty hand.
‘How did you know the dead man was Tench?’
‘They said his name.’
‘And did they say why he’d been killed?’
Tim swallowed hard before answering. ‘I didn’t ask.’
He was willing to believe that. In O’Shea’s world people didn’t ask questions; not knowing could keep you alive.
‘You didn’t even wonder?’ Harper asked. He kept up the hail of questions, too fast for O’Shea to think and try to lie.
‘Wan’t my business. I just wanted me guinea.’ The man shrugged.
‘Why did you go all the way out to Waterloo Lake?’
‘I don’t know. I was just there.’ He looked down at the ground.
‘What you don’t know could fill a book, Tim.’
‘They were paying me.’
‘Ted Bradley.’ He changed the subject, seeing a startled frown cross O’Shea’s face. ‘Tell me about him.’
Another midnight message, another corpse to move. Breaking into the warehouse then setting the blaze.
‘Who was with you that time?’
‘The same two men.’
‘And you still didn’t know who they were.’ Harper shook his head in disbelief. ‘You should have been good pals by then.’
‘The carter was called Jeb, I told you that.’ His hands were moving, fingers lacing together nervously.
‘What did they look like?’
‘The carter was skinny,’ O’Shea answered slowly. ‘Dark hair. He had a twist to his mouth.’
‘What about the other man? The one in charge.’
‘Ah, he was tall. Reddish hair. That dark red, like copper. Short.’ He traced the shape with a finger. ‘I don’t know who he were. I really dun’t. But God’s truth, it weren’t Declan.’
‘No?’
‘It was me and this Jeb and that other one—’
Harper watched O’Shea run his tongue around his lips to wet them. Now was the time to make sure of the truth.
‘You want to know about those men, Tim?’ he began. ‘You see Sergeant Ash over there?’ The inspector gestured with his thumb. ‘He grew up with Len Tench and the two of them used to work with Ted Bradley.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ He turned to look at the sergeant. ‘I’m sorry, I truly am.’
‘I have to do a few things before we send you down to the cells. I need to send people out looking for carter Jeb, for a start. Mr Ash will stay with you. Tim will be safe, won’t he?’
‘As houses, sir.’ He made the words sound ominous.
The inspector passed the word to Sergeant Tollman about Jeb, the carter with a twisted mouth. The beat bobbies would have it soon enough; one of them might know the man. The errand only took two minutes, but he lingered in the office, letting time pass.
Finally he pulled the watch from his waistcoat pocket. A quarter of an hour. Perfect.<
br />
O’Shea was still in his seat, not a mark on him. Ash stood by the door, looking as if he’d never moved. As soon as he opened the door, Harper could sense a shift in the atmosphere.
‘Have you thought of something else, Tim?’
‘Why don’t you tell the inspector what you told me?’ Ash said. His voice was quiet and calm, somehow all the more worrying for its even tone.
‘It was the one with the red hair who killed them.’ He was eager to talk now, the words rushing out of his mouth. ‘When I arrived at the second one he still had the metal bar in his hand.’
Harper waited. ‘Is that it?’
‘He looked like he’d enjoyed it. He was smiling. His eyes …’ O’Shea’s voice tailed away.
‘Put him in the cells,’ the inspector ordered.
Ash took the man by the arm and guided him to the door. Outside, a constable would be waiting to escort him down. O’Shea halted by the door.
‘It weren’t Charlie. Really, it weren’t.’
Then he was gone, just Harper and the sergeant in the room.
‘What did you do to him while I was gone?’
‘Just a quiet word, sir.’
The inspector raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
‘Sometimes that’s more effective than a fist, sir. I learned that a long time ago.’
‘This carter, Jeb,’ Kendall said. ‘Find him.’
‘I’ve put the word out.’
‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ Ash said, ‘but we need to look down on the wharves again.’
‘You checked down there once,’ Harper reminded him.
‘But now we know who we’re looking for, sir. It was a sailor’s knot on the rope around Len’s body, we know that. And O’Shea said it was the carter who tied it.’ His face was grim.
‘Go and find him.’ Dammit. He should have connected the two things himself.
‘Charlie Gilmore,’ Kendall said after the door closed. He filled his pipe and lit it, puffing thoughtfully.
‘Tim swore up and down that Charlie Gilmore wasn’t involved and that the red-haired man wasn’t Declan.’ He sighed. ‘He was telling the truth.’
‘Maybe he’s just a better liar these days.’
‘He isn’t,’ Harper said with certainty.
The superintendent stayed quiet for a long time, breathing slowly as he weighed everything. He shook his head.
‘First I was certain Archer was behind it all and I was wrong. Then it looked like Gilmore had to be involved and I was wrong again. Am I getting old, Tom?’ Kendall asked. ‘But if it wasn’t either of them, who’s behind this?’
‘I don’t know.’ Everyone had their obsessions, he thought. God knew he’d had enough of his own, the ghosts that wouldn’t leave. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, sir. Whoever’s doing this must be laughing his bloody head off now. He’s leading us round by the nose, first one direction, then another.’
‘Then who is it? Who could handle something like this? And why, for God’s sake?’
‘I don’t know,’ Harper admitted in frustration. ‘I haven’t a clue.’
‘It has to be someone who knows the city,’ Kendall pointed out. ‘About the lake, the warehouse, the gangs.’
The inspector nodded. That made perfect sense. ‘He’s clever, he’s organized.’ He picked up the line of thought. ‘Probably has some money to pay people.’
‘And yet we have no idea who he is. Do you know what all that sounds like to me?’
‘Like someone wants to take over the crime in Leeds.’
‘Exactly,’ Kendall agreed bleakly. ‘But if there’s a man with plans like that, why haven’t we heard anything about it?’
‘It’s not just us, sir. I don’t think Archer or Gilmore have either.’
‘Red hair,’ the superintendent mused. ‘Does that mean anything to you? Anyone you can think of?’
‘Not beyond the Gilmores.’ He’d been poking at that question in his mind. ‘Maybe this Jeb can tell us.’
‘You need to find him first.’
‘We will.’ He sat back. ‘Do you know what’s so strange in all this, sir? Killing Tench and Bradley. They were nothing. No one had even heard of them.’
‘Morley could have been lying.’
Harper grimaced. ‘No. He’s odd, but he was telling the truth. I went to see the shopkeepers who’d had family taken. They wouldn’t talk. They were petrified. He didn’t lie.’
‘Someone’s making us look like fools. And it’s only a matter of time before the press finds out. We can’t afford that, Tom.’
Not when Leeds had just become a city. The police had to show they were capable, that the place was worthy of its new status.
‘I know.’
They turned at a sharp tap on the door. Sergeant Tollman entered, his face pale.
‘You’d better come, sir. There’s a body. They say it’s Declan Gilmore.’
TWELVE
‘Where?’ the inspector asked as he dashed out of the office.
‘Bread Street,’ Tollman told him. Up on the Bank. Boys of Erin turf. ‘The word from the constable is that Charlie Gilmore’s already there.’
‘I need as many bobbies as you can send.’
‘Yes, sir,’ They didn’t even need to discuss the danger. Charlie would want his revenge. He wasn’t going to worry about how he found his brother’s killer, and he’d take pleasure in what happened once he had him.
Harper ran. Through the cramped courts and yards, the hobnails on his boots sending sparks off the cobbles. Out along the street, dodging between carts and omnibuses, breathing hard. By the time he reached York Road his lungs were burning as if a fire raged through them. He forced himself to keep going, gasping, legs like lead as the hill rose. At the corner of Bread Street he stopped to catch his breath, one hand resting against the dirty bricks.
A crowd had gathered, a thick circle of the curious and the angry. Harper forced his way through them. In the middle, everyone keeping their distance from him, stood Charlie Gilmore, staring down at the body on the cobbles. Declan was dead. No doubt about that.
The inspector moved closer, kneeling to examine the corpse.
‘Leave him be,’ Gilmore ordered quietly.
Harper rounded on him. ‘You don’t tell me how to do my job.’ He spotted a nervous constable in a doorway and motioned to him.
‘And you don’t give me orders. Not here,’ Gilmore told him. ‘Not when my brother’s lying there.’
The inspector stood slowly, coming close enough to smell the man’s sour breath and see the fury deep in his eyes. ‘We’re going to get this straight right now.’ His voice was firm but even. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, but I’m the police, and we take care of the law, not you. Even round here. I don’t care who the hell you think you are. Do you understand that?’
Gilmore kept his gaze steady. ‘I’ve got six men here who could kill you just like that.’
He knew he should be scared, but all Harper felt was anger.
‘You didn’t say that,’ he said quietly. ‘Not unless you want me to march you off to jail.’
‘You wouldn’t dare. People would tear you apart.’
‘Do you want to put money on that? How much do you really want to bet?’ Gilmore didn’t answer, hatred glittering in his eyes. ‘You’ve got your gang, you’ve got everyone round here cowed. I’ve got the whole bloody city behind me. Do you still like those odds?’
They were inches apart. He could see the sweat on Gilmore’s face and the first streaks of grey on the red whiskers. Then the man turned away suddenly.
‘Come on,’ he said loudly as he walked away, ‘we’ll find the fucking murderer ourselves.’ Half a dozen men followed him, brushing through the throng.
Harper watched them leave, jamming his hands into his trouser pockets to stop them shaking.
‘That was brave, sir.’ The constable had finally found enough courage to come forward. Already the crowd was starting to thin. The show was over.
The inspector shook his head. ‘No, that was the law.’ He took a few deep breaths. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Constable Thompson, sir.’ He was in his forties, with a thick face and the bright veins of a drinker.
‘You’d better tell me what happened.’ He looked at Gilmore’s body. It was face down, turned away from York Road. The arms were splayed, and three knife wounds pierced the back of his jacket. Blood had leaked on to the cobbles, flies already feeding in the pools.
‘I was two streets away when I heard people shouting, sir. I came as fast as I could. He was like that, already dead. About five minutes later Charlie and his lads showed up.’
‘Why would Declan be here?’
Thompson gave a small cough. ‘He has someone at number twenty-seven, sir. In a manner of speaking, anyway. A woman named Maggie Dawson. She’s the mother of his child. Sean, the lad’s called. He’s five.’
‘Go on.’ The sooner he knew, the sooner he could get to work.
‘They’re not together any more but he wouldn’t let her leave the area. He wanted to keep the boy close.’
Thompson turned his head. Harper listened but couldn’t hear anything; then six coppers came marching round the corner.
‘Two of you look after the corpse,’ the inspector told them as they approached. ‘The rest of you house-to-house along the street and back on York Road. I want to know everything people saw.’ He pointed at the youngest of the uniforms. ‘You— find something to cover Gilmore and arrange for the van to take him to Dr King.’ He turned back to Thompson. ‘The child. Who knew about it?’
‘Everyone, sir.’ The man smiled. ‘It’s not a secret. He comes here twice a week, every Tuesday and Thursday.’
‘This boy Sean, does he go to school?’
‘No, sir. Declan wouldn’t allow it.’
There was no point even asking who’d want Declan dead; the list would never end.
‘Who should I talk to?’ This was Thompson’s beat; he’d know.
The constable scratched his chin. ‘Maggie Dawson’s landlady.’ He pointed toward the house. ‘And Maggie herself. Though I daresay all she’ll feel is happiness, poor lass.’
‘You look after things here,’ the inspector told him. ‘Once the body’s gone, start talking to people. I need witnesses.’
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