The Iron Water

by Chris Nickson

  ‘But?’

  ‘I want to be certain, that’s all. She deserves that.’

  Good, he thought. Compassion, too. He’d go a long way.

  ‘Give it one more night. Tell me what you think tomorrow.’

  ‘I’d like to try and find this young man she was supposed to have been seeing.’

  Another man with red hair, the inspector remembered. Another mystery.

  ‘One more evening. Maybe you’ll get lucky.’

  Reed was already at home when Elizabeth returned. For once he’d managed to leave right at the end of his shift, catching the omnibus then walking in the sun along the dusty back streets. It had been a quiet day, no fires, a chance to catch up on all the paperwork and reports on his desk.

  He loved his job. Where others saw destruction he’d learned to spot reason. Working out how a fire began, the way it spread. It taxed his skills, made him think and used all his experience. Every day he learned something new.

  She bustled in, a ledger clutched against her chest, and let out a long sigh.

  ‘Busy?’ he asked as he kissed her. The tea had mashed and he poured her a cup.

  ‘I’ve been run off my feet. If I’ve gone between all the shops once today I’ve done it three times.’

  He eyed the volume she’d put on the table. ‘Not done yet?’

  ‘I want to keep the books up to date. It’ll only take a few minutes.’ She stroked his face. ‘You’re home early.’

  ‘I was lucky.’ He paused. ‘Are you still glad you decided to buy the bakeries?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Her eyes were smiling, and there was no hesitation in her voice. ‘It’s going to be wonderful, Billy. A lot of work, but it’ll be worth it.’

  ‘Happy?’ he asked.

  After a moment she nodded. ‘Still scared, but yes. Whoever thought I’d do something like this?’

  ‘I’m proud of you,’ he said.

  She sat, hands around the mug and shook her head in wonder. ‘It’s all changed since we met, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Reed thought of the way he’d been then. The way he’d relished a pub at the end of the day, the drinks to fill the evening. How his dream had been to work as a copper in Whitby. He hadn’t thought of that in a long time. Now he had more than he’d ever imagined.

  ‘Did you believe this Keeble woman?’ Kendall asked.

  ‘At the time,’ Harper answered. ‘No reason not to. She wouldn’t want to put her nephew at risk. Now I know one of the kidnappers might have known Bob Hill …’ It was impossible to be certain.

  ‘Are we anywhere close to finding an answer?’ the superintendent asked. ‘Tell me the truth.’

  ‘No, we’re not.’ It pained him to admit it.

  ‘The Chief Constable sent me a note this morning.’ Kendall’s voice was sombre as he tapped an envelope on his desk. ‘The Home Secretary has written to him. Unless we resolve this business by the end of the week he’s going to bring in Scotland Yard.’

  ‘But—’ he began.

  The superintendent held up a hand. ‘I know, Tom.’ Exhaustion filled his voice. ‘I thought exactly the same thing when I read it.’

  ‘They won’t know how things work here, who’s who—’

  ‘Do you think I like it?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘We’re not being given a choice. The first big crime since Leeds became a city and the Yard has to come in … it’s not going to look good for us.’

  ‘Then we need to make sure it doesn’t come to that, sir.’

  ‘Good,’ Kendall agreed. ‘But how are we going to do it?’

  ‘We need to push the people again.’

  ‘Go and do it, then. I’ll talk to everyone I know once more.’ He sighed. ‘One last thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pray for a bit of luck, Tom. It looks like we’re going to need it.’

  Harper raged out of the station. He needed answers that made some bloody sense. The last thing he wanted was some London detective coming up here, thinking he was better than the provincials. Someone with no clue about Leeds, the people, the way things happened here. He wasn’t going to be beaten by some flash bastard from the Yard. He wasn’t going to look like a fool who couldn’t even tie his own shoelaces.

  Wharton had tried to catch him on the way out but he’d brushed by. He needed to think, not to be distracted by other things. Time was running out.

  ‘Sir!’ He turned and saw Ash lumbering towards him.

  ‘What?’ He was on edge. Spiky. The only company he wanted was his own.

  ‘There’s a message for you. Sergeant Tollman tried to tell you.’ He hesitated for a fraction of a second. ‘Maybe you didn’t hear him.’ He held out a large hand with a scrap of paper.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Come home. Maggie Dawson’s remembered something that might help.

  He read the note again, then crumpled it into a ball.

  ‘Take Wharton. I want you to start throwing the fear of God into any of Gilmore’s or Archer’s men you see. We need this man with the copper hair and we need him now.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Noon, back at the station.’

  She was in the bakery at the back of the yard behind the Victoria. A boy with a handcart was loading the last of the baked bread to deliver while some of the women sat with a cup of tea before starting on the cakes and fancies.

  Maggie Dawson looked exhausted. There were smears of flour across her face and gown, her bony fingers red and raw, hair caught in a scarf.

  He nodded at the other women – Jane, Alma, Catherine, Leonora – and tilted his head for Maggie to follow him outside. She rested her back against the brick.

  ‘Hot work,’ she said as she breathed deeply.

  He didn’t have the time for pleasantries.

  ‘Annabelle sent me a message. She said you have some information. Is it about Declan?’

  She nodded her head and tried to wipe the flour from her arms. ‘The last time he came to Bread Street he kept looking out of the window. I asked him what was wrong. At first he said he’d belt me if I didn’t shut up, then he told me he thought someone was following him.’ Maggie stared up at him. ‘That was always his way. Threaten first.’

  ‘Did he tell you who was after him?’

  ‘I’m not even sure he knew.’

  ‘What else did he say, Maggie?’

  ‘I think it was more a feeling than anything. He said he’d caught a glimpse of someone once or twice. Someone with red hair.’

  Harper felt his heart beating faster. Something useful at last. ‘Was there anything else? Please, try to remember, it’s important.’

  ‘He seemed different. Not so much scared, but on edge.’ She tried to find the words. ‘He was like a cat on hot bricks the whole time he was there. Up and down, looking out of the window.’

  Declan Gilmore had always been a fighter, never afraid of a scrap. It wasn’t like him to be worried. ‘I need to know anything you can recall.’

  ‘That’s the lot,’ she answered as she looked at him with pleading eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I know I should have said something earlier, what with all you and Mrs Harper have done for me. I was frightened.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll let you get back to work.’

  ‘Does it help at all?’ Maggie asked. ‘It’s not too late, is it?’

  ‘No,’ he assured her. ‘It’s not too late.’

  Annabelle was sitting at the table writing in a book, with Mary perched on her lap. He could see her legs moving up and down, bouncing the girl lightly as she worked. On the other side of the table a young woman with dark, curly hair glanced up from a ledger and smiled; she stood up, hand out ready to shake.

  ‘How do you do? I’m Bertha Quinn. You must be Inspector Harper.’

  ‘A pleasure,’ he answered. She seemed young, about twenty, cheeks shiny, eyes clear behind a thick pair of spectacles. ‘My wife says you’re a great help.’

  Miss Quinn blushed, her whole face turning
red. ‘I just try to do what I can.’ She glanced from one of them to the other. ‘Why don’t I make some tea?’

  ‘Did you see Maggie?’ Annabelle asked once they were alone.

  ‘Yes.’ Her hair was gathered on top of her head and he kissed the back of her neck. Mary giggled; he leaned further and brushed his lips against her forehead. The little girl smelled of milk and powder and innocence.

  ‘Was she helpful?’

  ‘She was.’ But even that couldn’t take away the frown.

  She put down the pen and stared at him. ‘Come on, something’s wrong. It’s right there on your face.’

  He told her.

  ‘The Met?’ Her eyes widened. ‘From London?’

  ‘The Home Secretary’s orders. If we don’t wrap this up by the end of the week they’ll send someone up to take over.’

  Her eyes flashed angrily. ‘What the hell can he do that you can’t?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Harper said. ‘Absolutely bugger all.’

  ‘But you have until the end of the week?’

  He nodded. ‘Until the end of Sunday. Maybe not even that long.’

  She stood, hoisting Mary in her arms, her expression set. ‘We’d better get to work, then.’

  ‘We?’ At first he thought his ears had fooled him again. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If you think I’m going to let you do it on your own, you’ve got another think coming.’

  ‘This is police business.’

  ‘That’s fine. You attend to that.’ Her voice brooked no argument. Annabelle started gathering things: a parasol, a bag. ‘Who do you think sees and hears everything that goes on in the city, Tom?’ Before he could answer, she continued, ‘The women, that’s who. I’m going to talk to them.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No.’ He could see the determination on her face. ‘I’m not having some toff from London come and tell us how to do things. And I’m certainly not going to have someone who probably couldn’t detect his way out of a paper bag come and try to make an idiot of my husband.’

  ‘What about your work?’

  ‘Blow that,’ she told him. ‘It’ll still be here tomorrow.’

  For a moment he didn’t know what to say. This was his work. He was good at it. He didn’t need her help.

  But it was time to admit that he’d got nowhere on this case. He was groping around in the dark. The only way to solve it before the man from the Yard arrived was to take every scrap of help he was offered.

  Annabelle believed in him. She loved him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he told her.

  ‘Now you get going. If I find something I’ll send you a note.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t you worry, we’ll make sure they don’t have the chance to gloat down in London.’

  He left feeling confident. She’d just given him the thing he’d been missing in all this: hope. Harper jumped on the tram and climbed upstairs, feeling the sun on his face. Glancing down, he saw the door to the Victoria open. Annabelle came out, pushing the baby carriage and disappearing into the back streets of Sheepscar.

  NINETEEN

  ‘Red hair,’ Harper said. ‘And don’t lie to me, Harold.’

  ‘I already told you, I don’t know anyone like that,’ Harold Chamberlain told him. ‘The only ones with red hair I know are the Gilmores, and Declan’s dead.’

  Harold Chamberlain had a room in Waterloo Court, behind the Yorkshire Pride public house off Kirkgate. Even on the warmest day the building never saw the sun. The man coughed and spat into a tin bucket by the bed. A small, old terrier, half its fur worried away, stirred in its sleep on the floorboards.

  ‘That’s know. I’m talking about seeing. Come on, you get around.’

  Chamberlain owned a handcart, a rickety thing held together with wire. He made his money delivering items around town. Over the years he’d sold to the police a few tiny snippets of information. Never anything big. But right now the inspector was willing to look in every corner.

  ‘There were one thing.’ Chamberlain scratched at his thinning hair and picked something off his scalp, rubbed it on one of his remaining teeth then threw it on the floor. ‘Probably nowt.’

  ‘Come on …’

  ‘I saw Bob Hill the day he was killed.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the Bull and Mouth on Briggate.’ He spat again and ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth.

  ‘Was he alone? Bloody hell, Harold,’ the inspector said, ‘don’t make me drag it out of you?’

  ‘No, he were with someone I didn’t know. A bloke with red hair.’ Chamberlain glanced up. ‘But dark red, you know, like copper. Not a carrot top.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Suddenly he could hardly breathe. A connection.

  ‘Course I am,’ Chamberlain said with contempt. ‘I en’t blind, am I?’

  ‘I want to know everything you remember.’

  He shrugged. ‘I only popped in for a quick one. They were sitting there when I arrived and still sitting there when I left, that’s all I can tell you.’

  ‘Did they look friendly?’

  ‘Mebbe. They had their heads down, talking to each other. You know, quiet like, so no one else could hear. But they didn’t look too happy.’ He reached down and stroked the dog. It moved its leg but didn’t wake.

  ‘Could you make any of it out?’

  Chamberlain shook his head. Harper bit down on his lip. He needed to think fast, to learn all he could.

  ‘This man with red hair, what did he look like?’

  Chamberlain fell silent, as if he was trying to conjure the face into his mind.

  ‘He had a little scar.’ Harold raised a hand to his right temple and traced a small line. ‘Right there. I remember that.’

  ‘Was he big? Small?’ He could hear the insistence in his voice.

  ‘He weren’t as big as Bob.’

  Hill had been a tall man, heavily muscled.

  ‘What else?’ Harper asked urgently. ‘Come on, Harold. How was he dressed?’

  ‘A suit and tie. Modern, you know, like you. None of them wing collars and that.’

  ‘Beard? Moustache? Sideboards?’

  ‘Sideboards,’ Chamberlain replied with certainty. ‘Not great big ones, just down in front of his ears.’

  ‘Good,’ Harper told him approvingly. ‘How old was he?’

  The man looked doubtful. ‘I’m no good with that. He wan’t a young ’un, but he wan’t that old, neither. I don’t know, thirties, forty maybe? I’ll tell you summat for nowt, he didn’t look scared of Bob and there’s not many as can say that.’

  That was true. Hill used his fists and size to intimidate and make sure George Archer got everything he wanted.

  ‘What else? What about a name?’

  ‘No. Never heard one.’ He spat for a third time, the phlegm landing neatly in the bucket. ‘He wan’t anyone I know, though.’

  Harper tossed a florin on the dirty bed. The information was worth every penny.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell Archer all this?’

  ‘He din’t come and ask me,’ Chamberlain said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  ‘Find me next time you’re up before the magistrate for moving stolen goods,’ the inspector said. ‘I’ll have a word.’

  Finally he had something solid. The red-headed man had been seen with Bob Hill. That was valuable.

  The others listened as he recounted everything Chamberlain had told him.

  ‘I’ll go down to the Bull and Mouth,’ Kendall said. ‘I know the landlord.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Harper turned to Ash. ‘What have you found?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. If Gilmore hasn’t been there first, George Archer has.’

  Harper had been lucky with Harold Chamberlain; he knew that. But after scrabbling for days he was due something.

  ‘Go around the pubs. Anything at all. Even if it doesn’t seem relevant, I want to know.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the sergeant nodded.

  ‘Tom,’ Kend
all said as they prepared to leave. ‘A word with you.’

  He sat down again, waiting until the door had closed and they were alone.

  ‘This came from the Yard.’ He opened the top drawer of his desk, took out the telegram and slid it across the wood.

  SENDING ROBERTSON ON MONDAY STOP HAVE ALL PAPERS READY FOR HIM STOP HAVE YOUR OFFICERS READY TO ASSIST STOP

  ‘Do you know what I’d like to do with this?’ Harper asked.

  ‘The same thing I would, I expect.’ The superintendent sighed. ‘Robertson. They’re sending the artillery.’

  ‘We’d better not give them the chance. We have a few days yet.’

  ‘Then we’d better make them count. I met Robertson once.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘He thinks he’s cock o’ the walk because he solved some case with a duke or an earl or something. He’d last about five minutes up here.’ Kendall stared. ‘I don’t want him in my station.’

  Elizabeth bustled through the door, dropping her packages and unpinning her hat. Her face was flushed from the heat of the day, cheeks bright pink, a sheen of sweat on her forehead. Reed looked up from his newspaper. It was his day off, a time to sleep late, to catch up on little jobs around the house – fresh putty around a loose pane of glass, stopping the drip in the tap.

  She leaned over and kissed him. He felt the warmth coming off her skin.

  ‘I saw Annabelle down in Meanwood today. You won’t believe what she told me, Billy.’

  ‘What?’ He was curious. It had to be important. He’d expected her to be full of the business, what a day it had been in the shops, another plan for the future.

  ‘Scotland Yard’s sending up a detective to take over Tom’s case.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’ He couldn’t believe his ears. ‘They can’t.’

  ‘That’s what she said.’ She bustled around, taking a loaf of bread and some cakes from her basket then pulling out the ledger. ‘She’s furious.’

  ‘I don’t wonder.’ The close friendship he and Harper once enjoyed might have withered, but he still felt sorry for the man. Something like that … it was humiliating. ‘What about Tom?’

  ‘Going round with a face like thunder and doing everything he can to solve it. If it’s not done by the end of the week, some detective from London will be here to take over.’