by Mike Ripley
‘Adrian is a person of interest, as we say, because he hangs around with a couple of reprobates from Cudworth – two cousins called Frederick and Colin Booth. Now we suspect it was the Booth boys who attacked the two lads from Ash Grange – and I’m pretty sure Arthur thinks so too.’
Ramsden paused and his torch beam wavered slightly towards Exley.
‘Trouble is,’ he continued, ‘Arthur wouldn’t ever say so in court, them being miners and part of the union.’
‘You can’t ask a man to betray his comrades,’ Exley said sullenly.
‘Not even when they hurt someone important to you?’ suggested Campion.
‘That’d be my business, not yours.’
‘Well, now it’s police business,’ Ramsden intervened, ‘though to be honest we’re not that interested in the Booth Boys as street brawlers. There’s no harm in Mr Campion knowing – that is, according to a very senior policeman at Scotland Yard – but the Booths are among our prime suspects in the theft of small quantities of explosives from the pits round the corner here. Fred works at Caphouse and Colin at Shuttle Eye.’
‘Have you caught ’em at it?’ asked Exley.
‘No, we haven’t, but they’re well-known to our blokes in Cudworth, and the gossip there is that they have both applied for passports. I checked with the passport office in Liverpool and it’s true, they have.’
‘Is that unusual – or incriminating?’ Campion said meekly.
‘The Booth boys don’t stray far from home,’ said Exley. ‘They went to Manchester once but didn’t take their coats off ’cos they weren’t stopping. I reckon that’s the only time they’ve been outside Yorkshire. Can’t think why they need passports unless they’re doing a runner to somewhere abroad.’
‘Which takes cash money,’ said Ramsden.
‘Cash money which might be from the proceeds of your spate of payroll thefts?’
‘Charlie Luke said you cottoned on quick, Mr Campion.’
‘Hang on,’ said Exley, ‘you don’t think the Booths have the brains to do the robberies what have been in the papers, do you? They’re a pair of proper loons, them two; good for brawn but well short on brains.’
‘I can’t argue with that, Arthur. That’s why we’re keeping an eye on them, but it seems they were keeping an eye on somebody themselves.’ Ramsden flicked the torch beam over his shoulder to where Constable Lumley was removing iron stakes and winding up the rope that had cordoned off the crime scene that had been Ivy Neal’s caravan. ‘The landlord of the Green Dragon tells me that Fred and Colin had started coming in of an evening and sitting where they could see out across the Common. They’d never been regulars until a fortnight ago and they always had something to say about the beer and the prices. They used the pay phone a few times but otherwise kept themselves to themselves. Only person they spoke to was Adrian Elliff who popped in once or twice, had a word then popped off.’
‘And you said the fish shop also had a good view of Ivy’s caravan,’ said Campion.
‘Correct. That’s why I want you both to have a look inside the van. Our fingerprint chaps have finished and the council will probably need to shift it next week. Between you, you might spot something I’ve missed.’
‘So we really are helping the police with their enquiries. How exciting!’ exclaimed Campion, and then almost immediately his face fell and he was glad the darkness hid his blushes. ‘Oh, I do apologise, gentlemen, that must have sounded terribly heartless, which it was. I should have asked about the poor victim. Has Ivy …?’
‘She’s been taken away to await a post-mortem, but cause of death was fairly obvious – strangulation. We’re trying to trace relatives for a positive identification but that could take some time. Her background is a bit hazy to say the least.’ Ramsden paused and sighed loudly. ‘There’s not many in Denby Ash that seem to know much about her, which is sad considering she’s been a fixture for many a year.’
‘Bloody amazing,’ growled Exley, ‘considering what a nosey bunch of buggers they are round here.’
‘You can say that, Arthur; I can’t. Now, can I ask both of you to come and have a look around the crime scene, please? Two pairs of fresh eyes can’t hurt, because as far as I can tell there was nothing taken, not that Ivy had much to take.’
‘So the motive was personal,’ said Campion. ‘She was murdered – why? To keep her quiet for some reason, or out of revenge or some long-held grudge?’
‘Don’t know yet, Mr Campion. In my experience as a policeman, the motive usually surfaces later when we’ve got a suspect more or less bang to rights. Nine times out of ten murders are spur-of-the-moment jobs and it’s usually a member of the family, though in this case that seems to be ruled out as Ivy didn’t have any family that we know of.’
Constable Lumley had cleared the way for them, removing the cordon ropes and the police seal on the caravan door – even venturing inside to light the gas lights.
‘When I was a kid,’ said Ramsden as the three men crowded into the kitchen area, ‘the hiss of a gas mantle in a caravan was one of my favourite sounds. It meant we were on holiday and it was the last sound I heard before going to sleep, and that never took long after a long day on the beach at Bridlington. Now, though, it’s a bit scary.’
‘That’s because you know what happened here,’ said Campion. ‘Violence always leaves a trace in the air, like a whiff of sulphur after the Devil has come to call.’
The three men stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the cramped space, so close together they could feel each other breathing as they surveyed the damage which had been visited on the caravan’s interior. It seemed as if only the gas mantles and their shades had been left untouched. The folding Formica table had been ripped from its hinges, the mattress cushions had been slit open and disembowelled to reveal white fluffy stuffing material, and the contents of the storage drawers beneath them, mixed with large shards of glass and ripped curtains, covered every square inch of floor space.
‘The windows aren’t smashed in, so where did all this glass come from?’ Exley asked.
‘That would be Pepper’s Ghost,’ said Campion, a remark greeted with total silence.
‘Any chance you could explain that, Mr Campion?’ said Ramsden patiently.
‘It’s a trick – the trick she played on Roderick Braithwaite and your son, Andrew – and, I suspect, on any other unexpected or unwanted visitors. It’s an old fairground favourite, though it was first used in theatres and said to have been invented by a chap called Henry Dirks, when it was known as the Dirksian Phantasmagoria, but it was improved by John Pepper in the nineteenth century and became known as Pepper’s Ghost.
‘Piece those bits together and you’ll find a large sheet of unsilvered glass. By playing with the lighting levels and using the reflection you can create the illusion of a ghost suddenly appearing; alternatively, a figure suddenly disappearing. What Roderick and Andrew were looking at and talking to was not Ivy Neal, sitting on the right-hand bench seat, but a reflection of her sitting behind a curtain or something on the left-hand bench. She would have had some mechanism for suddenly dousing the light where she was and her reflection would then disappear like a puff of ghostly smoke. If the boys had taken just a few steps forward they could have reached out and touched her, but like any normal person after seeing something impossible, they got out of it as fast as they could.’
‘Sergeant Pepper and his ghost didn’t help get rid of her last visitor,’ Ramsden said grimly.
‘Unfortunately not,’ said Campion, ‘and whatever he was after, I don’t think it was a piece of music hall magic or one of Ivy’s dubious herbal remedies. Did you find any fingerprints?’
‘Only yours; he must have been wearing gloves.’ The chief inspector turned his head. ‘You see anything odd, Arthur?’
‘Well, none of it is normal, is it? I can’t see anything here that would cause Fred and Colin Booth to be interested in the old witch,’ said Exley. ‘Can we go? This place gives me the creeps.’
&nbs
p; ‘What if the Booth boys weren’t watching Ivy per se,’ said Campion slowly, ‘but if they were watching out for who visited Ivy?’
Ramsden considered the idea. ‘It would make sense if they were in cahoots with Adrian Elliff. He could keep an eye on her from his dad’s chip shop during the day – he works nights, doesn’t he, Arthur?’
‘That gormless so-and-so doesn’t work very hard any time,’ snorted Exley, ‘but he’s supposed to be a watchman at Grange Ash – does split shifts with old Tom Townsend. But why would they be interested in who visited the old crone? She never had any visitors as far as I know.’
At that moment there was a gentle knock on the door of the van and the face of Constable Lumley appeared. ‘Excuse me, sir, but you’ve got a visitor.’
Ramsden squeezed out of the caravan and turned on his torch, training its beam in line with that of his constable’s. Campion and Exley followed and saw illuminated the rather shapeless figure of a woman wearing large Wellington boots, a plastic raincoat and a headscarf knotted under the chin. She clutched a shopping bag to her chest with both hands and was shivering violently.
‘Doreen?’ said Ramsden gently. ‘What are you doing here?’
Exley leaned into Campion’s shoulder and whispered in his ear. ‘Doreen Bagley. She lives up the road. Her husband Walter’s on disability.’
Mr Campion consumed this information in silence.
‘It’s all right, Doreen,’ coaxed Ramsden, ‘you can talk in front of these two as I doubt you’ve done owt wrong. You know Arthur, anyway, and the elderly gentleman is called Campion. He’s with me.’
‘I think I might have done summat wrong, Mr Ramsden,’ the woman said nervously. ‘That’s why I came down here across the allotments, so as not to be seen.’
‘Now, lass, don’t say owt you’d regret,’ said Exley, moving forward as though to protect her. ‘Does Walter know you’re here?’
Mrs Bagley held up her shopping bag as if to ward off Exley. ‘No, he doesn’t, and I don’t want it getting back to him, Arthur Exley. Walter’s gone across to the club and I’d better be back to have a bit of supper waiting for him when he gets in. So let me say what I’ve got to say.’
‘Go on then, Doreen, get it off your chest. Whatever it is, it’s probably not as bad as you think,’ urged Ramsden.
‘My Walter wouldn’t say that if he found out,’ said the woman. ‘That’s why I thought you’d better have them. By rights they belong to Ivy anyway.’
‘What do?’
‘These.’
The woman plunged a hand into her shopping bag and produced a small brown paper parcel which she offered to the chief inspector. Campion stepped up to his side and offered to hold Ramsden’s torch as he accepted the package.
It was a brown paper bag, the sort a greengrocer would use for fruit or vegetables, folded over and around its contents. As he took hold of it, Ramsden rubbed his fingers together and held them under the torch. The tips of his fingers were smeared black as if he had just fingerprinted himself.
‘Sorry if they’re a bit mucky,’ said Doreen Bagley. ‘I have to hide them in the coalhouse in case Walter finds them.’
Ramsden unfolded the bag and from it took a wedge of small, formal, buff-coloured envelopes covered in spidery writing about an inch thick and held together by a rubber band. Even in the watery light of the torch, both Campion and Ramsden knew exactly what they were, for they had seen the like before.
‘Letters from prison,’ said Campion.
‘They’re addressed to you, Doreen,’ said Ramsden, ‘so I’m guessing they’re from Haydon.’
‘They’re from him but they’re not to me, they’re to his mother,’ said Mrs Bagley.
The chief inspector placed the bundle of letters back in the bag and tucked them inside his raincoat. ‘I can’t read these here and now, Doreen, but they’ll have to be read. You’ll get a receipt for them.’
‘I don’t want one. They’re not mine. I told you, they’re addressed to me but they were always for Ivy.’
‘Hold on a minute, Doreen …’ Exley spoke as if he had just woken up from a bad dream. ‘Are you telling us that your Haydon was really …?’
‘The son of Ivy Neal,’ said Campion, ‘and she visited him several times in Wakefield Prison, passing herself off as Mrs Bagley, which would be easy enough to do if she was able to use the real Mrs Bagley’s address.’
‘We might not have broadcast it, but we never made any secret of the fact that Haydon was adopted,’ protested the woman. ‘Not that it was anybody’s business but our own. It was during the war, nobody asked too many questions and the hospital was very happy to have a good home already lined up for an unwanted baby.’
‘Did you meet Ivy at the annual Feast?’ asked Mr Campion, and Doreen Bagley gave him a long, steady look before answering.
‘Yes, as it happens. Right here on the Common, that last summer before the war. She had a tent and called herself Madame Francesca and was telling my fortune, reading my palm, that sort of nonsense. Said I would make a good mother and I said chance would be a fine thing as me and Walter had been trying for two years without result. Walter was sure there was nowt wrong with him, so it must be me. Ivy said she could fix me up with a baby as long as I never let on who the mother was. There wouldn’t be a problem with the father as Ivy didn’t know who that was. They were a bit loose when it came to morals, them fairground folk.’
‘What did Walter say to all this?’ interrupted Exley, as if a defence counsel was needed for his fellow miner.
‘He didn’t know about Ivy. Still doesn’t. All he knew was we were adopting and he was pleased enough to leave it all to me. He had his work down the pit – reserved occupation during the war – and the brass band and the club. The baby made me happy and Walter was happy to let me get on with it.’
‘When did you tell Haydon?’ asked Ramsden.
‘The last time I saw him before your lot took him off to jail. I thought he ought to know and I wouldn’t see him again. After what he’d done, stealing from all those charities, I knew Walter would never allow it. Least I could do was give the lad a chance to contact his real mother.’
‘And Ivy was happy with that?’ said Campion.
‘Oh aye, she always had a soft spot for Haydon. Called him “My little Orlando” – said it was her gypsy name for him – and I’m sure that’s why she parked her caravan here in Denby after she’d finished touring with the Feast, so she could keep an eye on him. She didn’t see him going bad the way he did – that really upset her – but in his letters he said he would make it all up to her.’
‘Ivy let you read the letters?’ pressed Ramsden.
‘Once she had, yes. With Walter on the sick, he never gets out of bed until I take him his morning tea, so I’m up first to light the fire and …’
‘Head-off the postman,’ Campion finished for her.
She pointed a finger at Ramsden but looked at Campion when she said: ‘He ought to be doing your job, Mr Ramsden.’
‘You won’t be the first to say that, Doreen, and I’m sure Mr Campion is dying to know how come you’ve got these letters now.’
‘I never opened them, I passed ’em on to Ivy and then she’d give ’em back when she’d read them. Said I could keep them to remind me of the son that we shared, which was right Christian of her.’
‘Can I be rude and ask what the letters contained, Mrs Bagley?’ said Campion.
‘Nowt you wouldn’t expect from a son to a mother, even to one he didn’t know he had. Memories of school days – he went to Ash Grange, you know. They were very kind to him there. And times he’d been to the Feast and seen the Madame Francesca sign for fortune telling. All nice, loving stuff, and sorry for the trouble he’s caused, but he would see her right in the end. Oh, and how much he appreciated Ivy going to visit him in Wakefield.’
‘Did he ever mention his cell mate in Wakefield?’
Now Chief Inspector Ramsden seemed to be more interested in
Mr Campion than in Mrs Bagley.
‘Malcolm?’ said the woman, unconcerned. ‘Yes, he mentioned Malcolm. Ivy must have met him during visiting times ’cos Haydon always said things like “Malcolm sends his love” or “Malcolm hopes you’re looking after yourself” – that sort of thing.’
‘Are those all Haydon’s letters?’
‘All except the last one that came about a week before he was due to be released. I passed it on as always, but Ivy never let me see that one, said she wanted to keep it until …’ Her voice faltered and faded away.
‘Until Haydon came home to Denby Ash?’ said Ramsden. ‘Except that he didn’t, did he? At least that’s what you told me.’
‘I’ve not seen him and that’s the truth.’ The woman tightened her grip on her shopping bag, twisting it out of shape, and her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. ‘You don’t think Haydon had anything to do with Ivy dying, do you?’
‘I’m sure the police think nothing of the sort,’ Campion said quickly. ‘Now why don’t we ask Constable Lumley to escort you back home?’
‘Don’t be so bloody daft,’ Mrs Bagley said with scorn, clearly revising her opinion of Mr Campion. ‘What would the neighbours think if they saw me frog-marched home by some clod-hopping bobby? I’ll go back up the allotments, thank you very much.’
‘You’ll let me know if Haydon does get in touch, won’t you, Doreen?’ said Ramsden as the woman turned on her heels and shuffled off through the wet grass.
‘I’m not expecting to see Haydon,’ she said without turning around, and then added mournfully, ‘ever.’
When Mrs Bagley had disappeared into the darkness, Ramsden turned on Campion.
‘You seem very sure of what the police thinking is on this case, Mr Campion.’
‘I do apologise for my presumption, Chief Inspector, but surely you don’t suspect Haydon Bagley, do you? A man who could have easily refused to see Ivy when she visited him in prison …’
‘You were going to mention that at some point, were you?’
‘Ah, yes, perhaps that was remiss of me. Do forgive me. However, if Bagley was happy to have his secret mother visit him and to write to her with love and contrition, or so we’re told, why would he wait two weeks after he got out to suddenly decide to kill her?’