No time for subtlety, either.
Hit the stairs running – bang, bang, bang!
If the only way that she could make her getaway was by hurting a civilian, she thought … bang … then she would give herself up … bang … otherwise … bang … she would do whatever she had to do.
She dashed up the hallway and opened the front door.
Down the street – at number 33 – there were three parked patrol cars, their rotating lights cutting orange swathes through the dark night air, and the family who lived at number 13 – mother, father and two children – were standing by the front gate, mesmerized by the display.
Meadows cut across the tiny garden behind the watching family, and jumped the low wall.
‘There he is!’ she heard someone – probably a policeman – shout from down the street.
The family turned towards her.
‘What … who …?’ the man asked.
But she was already gone, dashing down the street.
She was fast, but she couldn’t outrun a police car, and she knew it. She could cut down the nearest ginnel, which was too narrow for the cars to follow, but that would only be postponing her inevitable capture.
She turned down the ginnel anyway.
‘I lost it in that press conference,’ Paniatowski said, after taking a generous slurp of her vodka. ‘I completely bloody lost it. How could I be so stupid, Colin?’
‘There’s no real harm done,’ Beresford reassured her, ‘and what you said in the press conference is true enough – when Traynor realises he was wrong about the stiff not being Melissa Evans, he’s going to look a right pratt.’
‘And he must know that, and yet he seemed so confident that he was right. But he can’t be, can he?’
‘No,’ Beresford agreed, ‘he can’t be.’
Paniatowski turned to Crane.
‘Right then, enough of my self-pity,’ she said, ‘why don’t you tell us about your day?’
‘There was only one really big story in all the local papers for most of 1924 – and that’s the murder of Wilfred Hardcastle and the subsequent trial of John Entwistle,’ Crane said.
‘Then let’s hear about it,’ Paniatowski suggested.
‘Wilfred Hardcastle owned a mill, in partnership with his younger brother, Oswald. It was, by all accounts, one of the biggest and most successful mills in Whitebridge.’
‘I’ve lived in this town all my life, and I’ve never heard of Hardcastle’s Mill,’ Beresford said.
‘No, you wouldn’t have, sir, because it went out of business long before you were born, but nevertheless, it was a thriving concern before Wilfred Hardcastle was murdered.’
‘And how, exactly, was he murdered?’
‘He was found in his office, with his head bashed in. He’d been known to be on bad terms with John Entwistle, one of his tacklers, and there was a witness who saw Entwistle leave the office just after the murder. Entwistle was arrested, tried at Preston Assizes, and found not guilty. There’s a lot more I could tell you – that’s just the bare bones.’
‘You can’t be sure it was the murder that Mary … that Melissa Evans … was interested in, can you?’ Beresford asked.
‘Actually, I think I can,’ Crane said. ‘As well as the microfiche, there were a number of photograph albums in the stacks. Janet says they’re part of a “Bring History Alive” project that the library ran a couple of years ago.’
‘Who’s Janet?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘She’s … erm … Miss Dobson, one of the librarians,’ Crane replied, slightly uncomfortably.
Paniatowski smiled. ‘Go on,’ she said.
‘The idea was that instead of leaving old family photographs rotting away in the attic, people should bring them into the library, and, when their other duties allowed them the time to do it, the librarians would mount them in albums. That way, everyone in Whitebridge could share them. Anyway, I flicked through one of the albums and found a caption which said “The Hardcastle Mill’s Day Excursion to Blackpool, 1924.” But the photograph it referred to wasn’t there!’
‘Are you sure it was ever there?’ Beresford asked. ‘Maybe the librarian wrote the caption but never got round to mounting the photograph.’
‘It was there, all right,’ Crane said. ‘Janet – Miss Dobson – remembers mounting it herself, and she swears that none of the library staff has removed it, so who did? It has to have been Melissa Evans.’
‘Maybe it was, but now we know who she was, the “why” she was here suddenly doesn’t seem very important anymore,’ Paniatowski said regretfully. ‘In all probability, she was researching a book – a different kind of book to the one’s she’s famous for, but a book nevertheless. I really can’t see how we can tie that in with her murder.’
‘With respect, boss, I think we can,’ Crane said. ‘I think the two murders are connected, and that if there’d never been the first, there wouldn’t have been the second.’
The ginnel led to the broader alley which ran behind the houses. Meadows could see another patrol car parked by the back gate of George Clegg’s house, but she was banking – she had to bank – on the bobbies who’d arrived in it now being on the main street.
She stripped off her gloves, overalls and ski mask, and dropped them in the nearest bin. That done, she sprinted fifty yards down the alley, came to an abrupt stop, punched herself hard in the face, and fell to the ground.
She’d only just made it in time. A patrol car appeared at the end of the alley, and there was the sound of heavy footfalls emerging from the ginnel.
It was one of the officers on foot who reached her first.
‘There’s somebody here – it’s a woman!’ he shouted. He bent down over her. ‘Can you hear me, love?’
‘Of course I can hear – how could I not, when you’re screaming in my ear?’ Meadows said. ‘Help me to my feet, will you?’
The constable straightened up, and offered her his hand.
‘I know you,’ he said, shining his torch in her face.
‘I’m DS Meadows,’ she said.
‘Did you see which way he went, sarge?’
‘He went that way,’ Meadows said, pointing to a ginnel on the other side of the alley.
‘The bugger’s heading for Paradise Street,’ the constable shouted to the other officers. He turned his attention back on Meadows. ‘Are you going to be all right, sarge?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Meadows said. ‘To be honest with you, I’m a bit shaken up right at this moment, and tomorrow I’ll have a bruise the size of a goat’s bollock on my cheek, but that’s about it.’
‘What were you doing here, anyway?’ the constable wondered.
‘I heard what was going down here on the radio, and since I happened to be nearby, I thought I’d come down to see if I could help. I knew you’d have Hope Terrace well covered, so I parked on Paradise Street. I thought the burglar might come this way. And guess what – he did.’
‘And he hit you, did he?’ the constable asked.
‘No,’ Meadows said, ‘I hit myself.’
The constable grinned. ‘Sorry, sarge, that was a pretty stupid question. Do you have any idea what he looked like?’
‘I didn’t really see his face, but I’d say he was about four inches taller than me, with a medium to heavy frame.’
‘He didn’t look that big when we saw him running down the street,’ the constable said dubiously.
‘Then maybe you’re right and I’m wrong – after all, you did get a closer look at him than I did.’
‘Fair point, sarge,’ the constable said. ‘Medium to heavy frame it is.’
‘Will you do me a favour?’ Meadows asked.
‘What?’
‘I wouldn’t ask this if we were dealing with a major incident here, but this is little more than petty thieving, and you’ll probably never catch the feller who committed it anyway, so when you write up your report, can you leave me out of it?’
‘Why?’
&nbs
p; ‘Partly because, if you don’t, I’ll have to write a report myself, and I’m up to my neck in a murder at the moment.’
‘Yes, I can see that might be an annoyance.’
‘But mostly,’ Meadows grinned, ‘it’s because if my team find out I’ve let a toe-rag of a burglar knock me down, they won’t stop taking the piss out of me till Christmas.’
‘And you wouldn’t want that,’ the constable said.
‘No,’ Meadows agreed, ‘I wouldn’t. Hadn’t you better join your mates now, constable?’
‘If you’re sure you’re all right …?’
‘I am.’
‘So what will you do?’
I’ll retrieve the gloves, overalls and ski mask and take them somewhere I can burn them, Meadows thought.
‘I’ll just go and sit in my car until I feel confident about driving home,’ she said aloud.
‘You’re attempting to link two murders that are fifty-four years apart,’ Beresford pointed out to Crane. ‘Surely, everyone who was involved in that first case will be dead by now.’
‘No, not everyone,’ Crane said. ‘The detective sergeant who worked on the case was called Stan Addison, and he’s still very much alive. In fact, I was talking to him on the phone, not half an hour ago. And there may be others – but I haven’t had time to look into that yet.’
‘If the killer from the first murder was still alive, he’d be in at least his late seventies. You’re not saying that a man like that could have killed Melissa Evans?’
‘No.’
‘So what’s the link?’
‘I don’t know,’ Crane confessed, ‘but it’s there. I can feel it in my gut.’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘I know that sounds stupid …’
‘Your gut instinct may be wrong, but it’s never stupid,’ Paniatowski said. ‘It’s something every really good detective needs to have. Yet sometimes you just have to accept that there’s absolutely nothing to support what your gut’s telling you, and call it a day as far as going off in that particular direction is concerned.’
‘But there is something to support it,’ Crane said.
‘What?’
‘This morning, George Clegg rang up and told us that he knew who the killer was – and you’re prepared to accept that he does know, aren’t you, boss?’
‘I didn’t quite say that,’ Paniatowski replied. ‘What I did say was I believe that he believes he knows who the killer is.’
‘But you’re taking him seriously enough to have to give him a round-the-clock babysitter, in case he wakes up and says something useful.’
‘True.’
‘So on the one hand we’ve got George Clegg, who thinks he knows who killed Melissa Evans, and on the other we’ve got Tom Clegg, who was the only witness for the prosecution at John Entwistle’s trial.’
‘Clegg is a common enough name around here,’ Colin Beresford said dismissively.
‘Tom Clegg was George Clegg’s uncle,’ Crane countered, ‘and I think George knew about Melissa’s death because of what he’d been told about Wilfred Hardcastle’s death.’
‘It really is a very tenuous connection,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Give me one more day on it, boss,’ Crane pleaded.
Paniatowski thought it over. She could spare Crane, certainly, and he had done a good job of finding out what Melissa Evans was doing in Whitebridge, so he was certainly entitled to some leeway. Besides, an important part of training was recognising when your gut was telling you something important, and when it was just having a laugh.
‘You can have one day,’ she said, ‘but no more.’
‘Thanks, boss.’
For quite a while – though he had no idea of how long it actually was – George Clegg had seriously thought that he was dead. There was good reason for this. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t see, and he couldn’t speak.
He didn’t even know that he could hear, until a woman’s voice said, ‘It’s time to change your drip.’
That was when he had realised that he must be in hospital, and that the woman who had spoken was a nurse.
Now there were two voices in the room.
One of them said, ‘Will he be able to hear me if I talk to him?’
And the other replied, ‘It’s possible. Some patients do wake up from a coma and say they’ve known what’s been going on all the time, but others know nothing about the time they were unconscious.’
‘But it won’t do him any harm, will it?’
‘It can do no harm at all, as long as you don’t say anything that might upset him.’
‘I would never do that.’
There was the sound of footsteps leaving the room, then the first woman who’d spoken said, ‘Hello, Mr Clegg, my name’s Detective Sergeant Katherine Meadows, but you can call me Kate.’
Hello Kate, he thought.
‘And would you mind if I called you George?’
I wouldn’t mind at all, Kate.
‘You’re an exceptionally brave man, George,’ Meadows said. ‘Did you know that?’
No, he thought, I didn’t.
‘Shall I tell you why I said that?’
Yes, please.
‘You’re a very brave man because you put your own life at risk to help catch Melissa Evans’ killer.’
You’ve got it wrong, he thought. Her name’s not Melissa Evans – it isn’t that at all.
‘I’ve been to your house,’ Meadows said. ‘It’s all very neat and tidy. It’s a real credit to you.’
I always was tidy, he thought. Ellie used to say that all her mates were jealous of her having such a tidy husband. ‘You respect our home just like you respect me, Georgie,’ she’d say, ‘and don’t think I don’t appreciate it, because I do.’ I miss her – I miss her so much.
‘But there’s a gap on the shelf in the kitchen sideboard,’ Meadows continued. ‘It’s a very neat gap, and that’s because, until recently, there was something there. I think it was a box, George. Am I right?’
Yes, yes, you’re right.
‘And I think that the box has something to do with the case I’m working on. Am I right about that, too?’
Yes.
‘I have to go now,’ Meadows said, ‘but I can come back again some other time, if you’d like me to.’
Oh, please come back, he thought. Please, please, come back.
‘Right, that’s settled,’ Meadows said, as if she actually could hear him. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
He listened to her retreating footsteps. If he’d had control over his own body, then perhaps a single tear would have trickled down his cheek. But he had no such control.
JOURNAL
I have just spent a day in Preston Crown Court. From the moment I arrived, it was like I had blundered into the pages of a history book. The attorneys (barristers, they call them over here) wear wigs made of horsehair, with curls at the sides and two little tails hanging down behind (I swear I am not inventing this!) and the judge wears an even longer (and maybe even stupider) wig.
What else?
Oh yeah, the prisoner does not sit at his attorney’s table, but stands in a square box (the dock or bar) behind him, with a police officer on each side to make sure he behaves.
It may not have been exactly like this when John Entwistle stood trial for the murder of Wilfred Hardcastle, but since nothing much seems to have changed in hundreds of years, I’d put money on it being pretty damned close.
When I left the court, it was with a real prize under my arm – a copy of the transcript of Rex v. John Entwistle. I intend to study it carefully. This will not be a case of collecting rumour and innuendo and fashioning it into some kind of narrative. This will be real research, and even if nothing ever comes of it, I am proud of myself for undertaking it.
Transcript.
Sir Reginald Bower KC (Prosecution): Where do you work, Clegg?
Tom Clegg: At the mill, sir.
Bower: And which mill might that be?
Clegg: Hardcastl
e’s Mill, sir.
B: So why didn’t you say so in the first place, instead of wasting the court’s time?
C: Sorry, sir.
B: What do you do at the mill?
C: Mr Hardcastle calls me the odd job wallah.
B: And what does that entail?
C: Beg pardon, sir.
B: For what?
C: I don’t know … I don’t understand what enter … entre …
B: Entails?
C: Yes, that. I don’t know what it means.
B: Oh, for God’s sake! What kind of work do you do?
C: All sorts. Sweep up, run messages, make the tea …
To be honest, I’m shocked by the way Bower talks to Tom Clegg. I was trying to think what it reminds me of, and now I know – it’s the way the prosecuting attorney talks to Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird.
But at least in the book, Robinson was the one on trial. Tom Clegg is Bower’s witness, the cornerstone of his case, and yet he treats him with contempt. And why? I think it is because he’s from the lower orders, and must be kept down and reminded of his place even when he’s doing exactly what you want him to do. Bower makes no attempt to get into Tom’s head – never tries to see things from Tom’s perspective – because it’s not worth the effort.
In so many ways, I hate Tom Clegg, and yet, reading this, I feel nothing but pity for him.
Transcript.
Bower: Were you at the mill at seven o’clock on the evening of the fifteenth of May?
C: Yes, sir.
B: Who else was there?
C: Mr Wilfred—
B: That would be Mr Wilfred Hardcastle.
C: Yes, sir.
B: Who else?
C: Me and John Entwistle.
John Entwistle (from the dock): That’s a lie. I’d gone fishing in the canal.
Judge: One more interruption like that, and I’ll have you taken down, Entwistle.
JE: Sorry, m’lud.
Judge: You may proceed, Sir Reginald.
B: Apart from yourself, Entwistle and Mr Hardcastle, was there anyone else, Clegg?
C: No, sir.
B: But what about the weavers? I thought they worked all the hours that God sends. That’s certainly what they claim, every time they demand more money.
C: There’s a bit of a slump on at the moment. We don’t weave cotton unless we’ve got firm orders on the books.
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