The Iron Water

by Chris Nickson

  ‘After we left the Cobourg and saw one of Archer’s men heading there. Wharton had heard Annabelle tell me about Lamb being there. Why?’

  ‘I just wondered.’

  ‘He admitted it.’

  ‘I daresay. Pity. He had the makings of a good ’un.’

  A small house with a shed nearby stood close to the canal. With green all around, trees and bushes, birds loud in the branches, it was hard to believe they were so close to the city. Only the dirt in the air gave it away.

  ‘Shed, sir,’ Ash whispered. ‘That’s what someone thought.’ He drew his truncheon.

  The small building was solid stone, with no windows and a roof of corrugated iron. They arranged themselves on either side of a flimsy wooden door. Harper nodded, drew back his foot and kicked.

  The door flew back and they dashed in. Empty. But someone had been here. Sacking had been piled to make a bed in the corner. An oil lantern hung from a nail.

  ‘Hard to tell if anyone’s coming back, sir.’

  ‘Yes.’ There was nothing personal in the room. But what did Morley have besides the clothes on his back? ‘Who lives in the house?’

  ‘It’s storage these days, sir.’

  How did Ash know all this, he wondered briefly? But there were padlocks on both of the heavy doors, and the windows were covered with wood that hadn’t been peeled away. No one could have sneaked inside.

  Harper stood, gazing around. It was impossible to tell if it had been Morley out here. It could have been one of a thousand homeless men.

  ‘We might as well go back,’ he said after a little while and exhaled slowly. ‘Maybe someone’s found him.’

  It seemed impossible that a man as imposing as Morley could simply disappear. But he had. No one had seen him, no one had harboured him. Maybe he’d left Leeds. His boxing career was over, that was certain.

  A constable was watching the man’s lodgings, but it was probably a fool’s errand. The inspector spent most of the day going round his narks, searching for any scrap of information. It felt as if he’d done too much of this lately: all chasing and hunting, reacting rather than thinking.

  It wasn’t the type of policeman he wanted to be. Not the kind he was.

  At three he returned to Millgarth. Still no news on Morley. Superintendent Kendall was in his office. The strain of the last week had vanished from his face, but his mouth and eyes seemed filled with a deep sorrow. He pushed a piece of paper across the desk.

  ‘This was waiting when I got back from a meeting.’

  A report from C Division. So spare it was nothing more than bones.

  Constable 676 responded to a call from a householder this morning. In the privy at the back of the property he found the body of former police officer James Wharton hanging from a beam. There is no reason to suspect foul play.

  Sad. A waste. But he’d brought it on himself. He’d taken Archer’s money. No one had forced him to do that.

  ‘It’s terrible,’ Harper said. ‘But this isn’t our fault.’

  ‘I know,’ the superintendent agreed with a sigh. ‘Just …’ He waved a hand over the paper. ‘I received an acknowledgement from the Yard today. Congratulated us on solving the case without their assistance. I burned it.’ He nodded at the charred curls of paper in the ashtray. ‘Morley? I want this wrapped up.’

  ‘He’s vanished.’

  ‘Then keep looking, Tom.’

  But where was there left to search? He needed to talk to both Gilmore and Archer. Charlie wouldn’t be in a mood to talk after putting his brother in the ground yesterday. It would have to be George.

  The man wasn’t in his usual haunts. No one had spotted him since dinnertime.

  ‘I saw him get in that carriage of his and head out towards North Street,’ the barman at the Crown said with a shrug. He’d probably gone home to Roundhay. Another journey ahead.

  Stepping off the omnibus at Sheepscar he was tempted to leave it until morning. The Victoria was just across the street, his wife and daughter so close. Duty won out, and he walked up Roundhay Road to wait for the electric tram to the park.

  He heard the spark of rod against cable as it bumped slowly along the rails and up the street. Out and out, where the houses grew sparser and brick faded to trees and grass.

  A few couples were picnicking on the field at the entrance to the park. A pair of nannies gossiped, half an eye on their charges who ran and kicked a ball around. The sun was mild on his back as he walked and the air felt clean as he breathed. Glancing over his shoulder he saw the chimneys rising like needles over the city.

  Roger Harrison answered the door, grunting when he saw the inspector, saying nothing as he stood aside to let him enter.

  It was five minutes before he heard the sharp tap of boots crossing the floor. Archer appeared, formally dressed in a tail coat and striped trousers, with a wing collar and black tie. The bodyguard was there, too, in the doorway but ready.

  ‘You look like you’re set for a court appearance, George.’

  ‘Formal dinner tonight.’ He eyed himself in a mirror and nodded with satisfaction. ‘What do you want, anyway? I heard that copper-haired bloke you wanted died in the hospital.’

  ‘I’m after the same thing I always want: some truth.’

  ‘What truth?’ he asked sharply. ‘I told you everything I know.’

  ‘If you did, you were the only one. How well did you know Bob Hill?’

  ‘We talked about this. I’ll warn you again: don’t you bloody dare say a word against him.’ Archer’s face reddened. He balled his hand into a fist. Harper could feel the tension in the air. They seemed to be standing on the thin edge between talk and violence. ‘I told you,’ Archer insisted. ‘I knew him all my life.’

  ‘Is that what you really think? That you knew him?’

  ‘I know I did. Is this your new game? Come here and smear the dead?’ He took a step closer.

  ‘I don’t need to do anything.’ He pulled the letter to Lamb from his jacket and held out his hand. ‘Go on, read it.’ Archer didn’t move. ‘Read it.’

  Warily, as if it was a trick, the man unfolded the note. Harper watched his eyes moving over the words. Once, then again. Finally, without a word, he gave it back.

  ‘Plenty of men called Bob around.’ The inspector said nothing. ‘Doesn’t prove anything.’

  ‘You don’t believe that. I can see it in your eyes.’

  Archer shook his head. ‘It’s not Bob Hill.’

  ‘If that’s true, why was he seen drinking with Lamb on the day he died? Why did he end up dead in a house by Dufton Court?’

  No answer. Instead, Archer glanced back and dismissed Harrison before striding off into a room at the back of the house.

  ‘Well?’ he asked as he glanced over his shoulder. ‘Are you coming?’

  The furniture was dark, old, heavy. There wasn’t much. A battered chair that had seen better days. A scratched table, most of the varnish worn away. Cracked plates on a shabby dresser. Quite different from the showy wealth on display in the rest of the mansion.

  ‘This belonged to my mother. All she had to pass on.’

  It wasn’t a shrine. Instead it seemed like a reminder of where he’d begun and how far he’d come.

  ‘Why in here?’ Harper asked.

  ‘Because we can be private. Because …’ He shook his head, unable to find the words for his thoughts. The window looked down the hill to the iron water of Waterloo Lake.

  ‘It was Bob Hill,’ Harper told him softly.

  ‘It can’t be.’ But all the defiance had vanished from his voice.

  ‘You know it is.’

  ‘All I know is that he’s stood beside me since we were nippers.’

  ‘Things change. Maybe he’d had enough of being in your shadow. He wanted his own place in the sun.’

  Archer grunted. ‘I treated him well.’

  ‘Perhaps he thought you were growing soft. Didn’t have what it took any more, too intent on being respectable.�
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  Archer shook his head. ‘I don’t buy it.’

  ‘He and the others wanted you and Charlie Gilmore at each other’s throats. Then they were going to step in and take it all.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’ He snorted.

  ‘I’m certain of it. I think they had someone from the Boys of Erin with them, too.’

  ‘Who?’ Archer turned his head sharply.

  ‘Declan.’

  Archer gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘If I were you I wouldn’t tell Charlie that. He loved his brother.’

  ‘I’m not going to say a word.’

  ‘You know, if Bob had said something he could have had it all.’ Archer was staring into the distance. ‘I meant what I said the other day. It’s time for me to give it up. I’m making more money from honest business these days, and it’s less trouble. Even got an invitation to a shooting party if I can find the bloody shotgun I had made last year. Bob could have taken it all over with my blessing.’

  ‘Too late now.’

  ‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘Stupid bastard.’ He started to bring his hand down hard on the table. In the end it became no more than a light slap. ‘What about that bloke in the lake and that one in the fire? How do they come into it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Harper admitted. ‘Practice, perhaps?’ He still didn’t understand the reason; maybe he never would.

  ‘I’m going to believe Bob Hill was a good man. That letter doesn’t mean a thing.’

  ‘You can if you like. Fool yourself if you want. I wanted you to see what happened.’

  Archer waved it away. ‘That’s coppers for you. Disbelief’s like a religion for you lot.’

  Maybe he was right, Harper thought. Maybe it had to be. It was time to change the subject.

  ‘One of your informers on the force has died, George. Maybe you heard.’

  ‘Someone else is dead?’ He didn’t even raise his eyes.

  ‘Wharton. I told you he was dismissed this week for selling you information.’

  ‘His choice to take the risk. He was paid for it.’ He turned, holding out his hands, wrists together. ‘You going to take me in for that?’

  ‘Not today.’ Kendall would have done it with pleasure. Put the cuffs on and marched him away with satisfaction. But Archer’s empire was already crumbling anyway. Gilmore’s, too.

  ‘You had your chance.’

  ‘Watch your back, George. That’s a warning.’

  ‘Bob … Declan … the other ones.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘It’s over.’

  ‘No,’ Harper told him. ‘It’s not. Not by a long chalk.’

  He could smell the city as the tram trundled back down Roundhay Road. Acrid, thick. Soot in his nostrils and on his tongue. Out by the park everything seemed clean and fresh, new-painted and shining. Down here it all wore a coat of grime.

  But it was his. He alighted at the terminus and looked up at the Victoria with its large portrait of the Queen on the gable. Home. And certainly where his heart was.

  Annabelle was on her hands and knees, putting blocks one on top of another with Mary. She glanced up at him, smiling, content. ‘You were off with the lark this morning.’

  ‘Too many things troubling me.’ He tickled his daughter, laughing as she started to shriek and squirm away from him.

  ‘I don’t think you’re done yet, either. There’s a message on the sideboard. A constable brought it an hour ago.’

  He ripped open the envelope.

  Morley dead. Body with King.

  Kendall

  ‘I need to go out again.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Late in the afternoon. On a weekday, workers would be streaming away from the city. All the clerks, businessmen and shop girls would be packed on to trams or omnibuses or walking along the pavement. But this was Sunday, and the streets in town were almost empty as he strode along Vicar Lane, cutting past the Corn Exchange and through to Crown Point Bridge. The shriek from the wheels from a horse tram accompanied him down the steps to the cellar at Hunslet Police Station.

  The smell of carbolic scraped his throat. King was in his kingdom, bent over a body on the slab, humming a piece of music as he worked. Over the man’s shoulder he could make out Morley’s face and body, naked and invaded.

  ‘I expected you a while ago, Inspector.’ The man hadn’t even turned his head. How did he know who’d entered? ‘You have a very specific way of walking. Easy to identify. Is this one of yours?’

  ‘He was. Where did they find him?’

  King gestured at a folder on the desk. ‘That’s what they brought with the corpse. I don’t like to work on the Sabbath, it’s not natural. But the chief constable insisted this one was urgent.’

  It was no more than a few words. Discovered in a culvert on Water Lane in Holbeck, down at the bottom with the rubbish. Already dead when he was brought out. Pockets empty. One of the constables had recognized his face.

  ‘What killed him?’

  ‘Simple,’ King answered. ‘A knife to his stomach. See.’ The doctor moved and pointed. ‘Two blows. He must have lived for an hour afterwards.’

  ‘How long ago did it happen?’

  ‘Last night. Don’t ask me to be more exact. Not after he’d been in some water.’ He raised one of the arms and examined the knuckles. ‘He’d been fighting very recently.’

  ‘He was a boxer,’ the inspector reminded him.

  ‘I know that,’ King said testily. ‘I’ve seen him fight. He had talent, if you enjoy watching people beat seven bells out of each other. But this was without gloves. He gave someone a beating.’

  ‘What else can you tell me?’

  ‘Very little that you can’t guess. He was well-nourished, strongly muscled. You’d expect that in a boxer. Plenty of scars, especially on his face and hands. Again, perfectly natural for what he does.’

  ‘Why would he let someone get close enough to knife him?’ Harper wondered.

  ‘That’s your business, Inspector. They only come to me when they’re dead.’

  ‘He probably killed someone with those fists.’

  King shrugged. ‘I know. The body’s on my list for tomorrow. Whatever you have going on, it’s bringing me trade.’ He stopped, stood and turned. ‘And I’d rather it wasn’t happening.’

  Six dead now. He couldn’t remember another case with so many murdered. And now? There was still one man out there. Morley’s killer. The last man standing.

  And he didn’t know who that might be.

  Millgarth was empty. The day shift had left, the night constables were out on their beats. Ash and Kendall had gone for the evening.

  He sat for an hour, scribbling notes on a piece of paper. By the time he’d finished, all he’d managed was a few questions. Tomorrow, he decided. They’d wait until then.

  Mary was still wet, wrapped in a towel as Annabelle tried to dry her. The girl was squirming and giggling, making a game of it all. Water dripped on to the floor as she shook her head.

  ‘You love this, don’t you?’ She was smiling and laughing as much as her daughter.

  He stood in the doorway of the kitchen and watched. For a few minutes he could let all the cares of work slide away. Pretend he had a job that didn’t burrow into all the corners of his mind.

  ‘Enjoying it, are you?’ Annabelle scooped up a little water and tried to throw it at him. Mary’s giggles grew louder.

  ‘Do you want me to take over?’

  ‘You might as well earn your keep.’ She stood up, showing the wet patches on her dress. ‘I’m soaked, I need to change.’

  By the time she reappeared he’d combed the girl’s hair. She was dry, powdered, already in her nightgown, a fresh nappy pinned around her.

  ‘If the coppering doesn’t work out I’ll give you a reference as a nanny.’

  ‘The way things are going, you might have to,’ he said with a sigh as he carried Mary to bed, kissing her forehead gently.

  ‘Bad?’

  ‘I’ll tell you
about it in a little while.’ He wanted this oasis, a few minutes of innocence. He read the child a story, not looking up until her eyes fluttered closed and her breathing turned to the soft rhythm of sleep.

  Annabelle had made tea, a cup waiting on the table. Even better than beer, Harper thought as he drank gratefully. She listened as he laid out the facts.

  ‘So whoever killed this boxer is behind it all?’

  ‘He has to be. And it must have been someone Morley trusted enough to let him come close.’

  ‘You’ll find him.’

  ‘Maybe I should get you to read that in the tea leaves for me.’ He didn’t want to think about it any more; it just made his head spin. ‘What about this pamphlet writing they want you to do? Have they said any more about that?’

  ‘The writing part is Mr Marles’s job,’ she reminded him gratefully. ‘You couldn’t pay me enough to persuade me to put pen to paper. But I’ve done a little reading and I’ve talked to a few people.’ She let out a long, slow breath. ‘Do you know how many beershops there are in Leeds?’

  ‘No idea.’ Plenty of them, he knew that much. Sometimes it seemed like there was one on every street.

  ‘Nine hundred,’ she told him in amazement. ‘I knew they were everywhere, but nothing like that. God only knows how they counted them all. And that’s not including the pubs and the gin palaces.’

  It didn’t surprise him. Without even really thinking he could picture over a hundred of them; dark, solemn rooms that offered nothing beyond the escape of drunkenness.

  ‘You’re not thinking of getting rid of this place, are you?’ he asked warily.

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ She tapped him playfully on the arm. ‘This is home. The only way they’ll get me out of here is to carry me feet first. It’s something to leave Mary, too. I never want her to depend on a man.’

  ‘As long as she looks after her parents when they’re old and helpless …’

  ‘That had better be a long time off,’ Annabelle said. ‘I’m not ready for my bath chair yet.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll always be there to wheel you around,’ Harper told her with a grin. ‘If you’re lucky.’