‘Yes, sir.’
They left the office, and Harper picked up the telephone on his desk. He’d finally become used to the instrument, though he still didn’t care for it. But it saved time, he had to admit that.
‘Carlton Barracks, please,’ he told the operator. He was transferred through a series of clerks, to an NCO, all the way to the adjutant. Then, after five dull minutes of waiting: ‘Colonel Mackenzie-Smith. I’m the CO here.’
The voice was crisp, every word carefully enunciated.
‘It’s Superintendent Harper, A Division, Leeds City Police. Have you read about last night’s bomb?’
It had happened early enough to be the headline in the Sunday papers. By now everyone should know.
‘I have.’ The soldier’s voice was loud; even with his hearing, he had no trouble making out each word. ‘What can we do for you?’
‘Do you have any men trained to find and defuse explosives?’
Inspector Reed spent the morning strolling around Whitby. He was constantly discovering new places, delighted to notice a sign saying Arguments Yard above a tiny passage that ran down some stone steps to a small court of run-down cottages above the water, or the grand beauty of the ruined abbey as he approached from the road and saw it rise on the headland.
It would be a year or more before he had a real grip on the place. For the moment he relied on his sergeant and the constable for knowledge. Their families went back generations in the town. It seemed as if they were related to half the population, from fishermen to gentry.
He made his way back from West Pier after the balm of watching the waves crash against the shore. It always calmed him to look at nature, to see the birds ride high, then dive with their sure eyes before rising up with a fish.
Boats bobbed against the jetties and men sat on crates, making repairs to their nets. The air was raucous with the squawk of gulls. He felt at peace with the world. Up on the hill, church bells rang for the Sunday service.
A group of men had gathered on one of the quays, five of them talking rapidly to each other. Most were local, their faces vaguely familiar. Fishermen by the look of them, weathered and rough, with their tall heavy boots, thick jumpers and beards. Men who made their living out on the water every day. But one was wearing a dark suit and a bowler hat, side whiskers neatly curling along the line of his jaw. He knew that man’s face, and it wasn’t from Whitby.
Back at the station on Spring Hill, Reed asked Sergeant Brown. His face curled into a slow smile.
‘You must mean John Millgate, sir.’
John Millgate. The name opened the floodgates. Terrier John, they’d called him when Billy Reed worked in Leeds CID, because his sharp nose and sleek, pomaded hair made him look like a Jack Russell. He’d been in jail five or six times, and probably lucky to get away without a sentence every bit as often.
‘How long has he lived here?’
Brown pursed his lips. ‘Must be a bit over three years now. Turned up in the spring and I doubt he’s spent two nights away from Whitby since then. He has a bob or two, mind. He bought hissen a house on John Street.’
‘What does he do?’
‘Nothing,’ the sergeant answered. ‘Least, not as far as I can tell. A gentleman of leisure, if you like, sir. Very interested in the fishing, though. You’ll often find him down on the quay or having a drink with the men from the boats. He’s good pals with Cud Colley and a couple of the others there.’
Terrier John with plenty of money in his pocket? That didn’t square with the man he remembered. Back then he’d always been scuffling for a florin. He tried to recall any big, unsolved crimes from three years ago in Leeds. Reed had been in the fire brigade then, but anything large enough to set a man up for life should have stuck in his mind.
Nothing.
He’d keep an eye on the Terrier. Something was strange there.
‘That’s all I can tell you, sir,’ Binns said.
They’d finished their examination of the ground. The fire inspector had pointed out the details. No doubt at all that it was a bomb; they’d even found a few fragments of the tin that held it. But still no fuse.
‘If you had to guess, what would you say?’ Harper asked. ‘A warning, or to go off during the meeting?’
Binns rubbed his chin. ‘Put me on the spot, sir, and I’ll go with a warning. But that’s only because I can’t imagine anyone wanting to blow up people. I don’t know what that sort of man would be like, and I’m not sure I want to.’
With a crisp salute, he returned to the debris.
Still no answers, the superintendent thought as he gazed at the scene. All this destruction, a death, because a man was afraid of women in politics. This wasn’t Westminster. It wasn’t even the council. Women could only run for the School Board and to be Poor Law Guardians. Why would that frighten someone enough to do this?
‘Thank you for coming.’ Harper shook the man’s hand.
‘Glad to help, sir.’ The man stood straight, uncomfortable in his scratchy dress uniform, thick moustache bristling on his upper lip. He was around thirty, with sandy hair and fine lines around a pair of very clear blue eyes. ‘I’m Sergeant Buckley, Royal Engineers. Here like you requested.’
The men with him remained at attention, as if they were still on parade. In their pipeclay and polished brass, they seemed an awkward group, none of them much past twenty-one. They carried full haversacks on their backs, eyes moving around the detectives’ office at Millgarth with curiosity. And wariness on a couple of faces, he thought.
‘I’m sure you read about what happened last night.’
‘Indeed, sir. Terrible business.’
‘There are meetings tonight at several halls. About an hour before they start, I’d like your men to check each one for bombs.’
Buckley nodded as if it was a request he heard every day. ‘Easily done, sir. If we come across one, we’ll defuse it.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Right, lads?’
‘Yes, sir,’ they shouted as one.
The superintendent nodded at Ash and Fowler. ‘My men will take care of the details with you.’
‘Glad to be of assistance, sir.’ Buckley grinned. ‘And this lot would prefer a little action to an evening dubbing their boots again.’
A few hours later he and Buckley were standing outside the brick building off Lovell Road. It was neatly kept, the Sunday school for the Baptist chapel next door.
‘Ready?’
‘And keen as mustard.’ The sergeant saluted.
He liked the man. He’d taken him back to the Victoria and fed him a hearty meal while Buckley told them stories from all the parts of the Empire he’d seen. Mary had been entranced by the magic tricks the man could do, pestering him until he showed her how to make a coin vanish and reappear in someone’s ear. Harper knew he’d have to put up with her doing it endlessly now, but it was a tiny price to pay for safety.
It took half an hour before the sergeant emerged, beaming and brushing the dust from his uniform.
‘Nothing dangerous in there. I’d wager a month’s pay on it.’
‘Thank you,’ Harper told him, surprised at the flood of relief through his body. ‘And your men will be available to keep checking the halls for the next few weeks?’
‘Glad to. Good practice for them, sir.’
He slipped two florins from his pocket and passed them to Buckley.
‘Make sure your lads know I appreciate it.’
‘I’m certain they’ll keep drinking your health all evening, sir.’
FOUR
Annabelle stood nervously outside the hall, hands fidgeting with her reticule.
‘Are you sure it’s safe?’
‘Sergeant Buckley’s gone over it from top to bottom.’ Harper gave her a reassuring smile. ‘All you have to do is persuade them to vote for you.’
‘Leaving me the easy job, eh?’
‘They’ll love you.’ He squeezed her arm gently.
‘How many are in there?’
‘About fifty.’ The hall wasn’t even half full. Not too surprising, really, between the Sabbath today and what happened the night before. People would be wary. They’d be scared. But they’d forget soon enough; folk had short memories.
The superintendent had watched them arrive in dribs and drabs. The older ones, the churchgoers, the earnest and the curious. Not a troublemaker among them. But he still stationed himself just inside the door, not far from the uniform assigned here, ready for anything.
No other speakers tonight. Not even anyone to introduce her. Just a leaflet on each seat and a painted banner behind her: Vote Annabelle Harper for Poor Law Guardian.
The soft hum of speech halted as she climbed the three steps to the stage. The heels of her button boots clicked sharply on the wood. She faced them and smiled.
‘Thank you for coming.’ She paused and took a breath. ‘I’m here to ask for you to vote me on to the Board of Poor Law Guardians. You know, the ones who decide how much relief someone should get or if they have to go to the workhouse. Now, I’m sure you’ve all heard what happened last night. A man died because of a meeting. A meeting! He didn’t even have anything to do with it. And all because someone was so scared of a woman talking to people and standing for something that he believed he had to plant a bomb to try and stop her.’ She pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘I saw it go off. I was no more than two hundred yards away, and it was awful.’ She paused long enough to stare around all the faces in the audience. ‘I’ll tell you this. I’m not going to stop. The bomber isn’t going to win. Last night I kept thinking: this isn’t Leeds. This isn’t the place I know.’ Annabelle took a deep breath. ‘Pound to a penny it’s not the Leeds you know, either. We might not always like what people say, but we give them a chance to speak.
‘And we look after our poor. You know plenty of them. So do I. It’s not hard to find poverty round Sheepscar: you just have to stick your head out the door.’ A few chuckles of recognition came from the crowd. ‘I’m sick of the well-to-do saying that folk have a choice about being poor and telling them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Well, there are plenty whose boots don’t have straps. More who don’t even have boots.’ He heard the passion rising in her words. The traces of fear and hesitation had left her face. ‘Do you really believe anyone wants to go into the workhouse or get relief? I’ve lived round here all my life and I know they’d rather have a wage. There are those who can’t work. Of course there are, and it’s not their fault. I want to make sure we treat them with some dignity. For God’s sake, they’re human beings, the same as you and me. The same as them with big houses up in Roundhay who think they can look down on the world. We’re supposed to be the richest country in the world. That’s what they’ve been telling us all year while we’ve been celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Surely we can afford a little to look after our poor, instead of it vanishing into some London coffer.’ Annabelle stopped, as if she’d just heard the fury in her voice. She started again, on a quieter note. ‘You might have heard that there are seven women running to be Poor Law Guardians in this election. We think a woman’s touch would be a good thing. We know families, we know what it costs to live every day, right down to the last farthing.’ She spotted a woman nodding and smiled. ‘You know exactly what I mean, don’t you? And we know how close poverty walks behind us all. We can look up the hill to Burmantofts and see the shadow of the workhouse. It’s always there.’ Another small reflection. ‘You know what I really want to do? I want to help the poor, not vilify them. They’re not outcasts. They haven’t sinned. They’re us. And that’s why I’d appreciate your vote, so I can do that. Thank you.’
They applauded and roared, and Harper joined them. She’d done superbly up there. It wasn’t the speech she’d rehearsed. This was better. It came from deep inside her, and they seemed to sense that.
There were questions, mostly sympathetic, but some from people with little love for the poor. He watched her answer every one of them with respect. She’d walk out of here certain of quite a few votes.
Once it was all over, with another round of clapping and Annabelle beaming with pleasure, he helped some of the men put away the chairs while she talked with three of the women. Recruiting volunteers for the campaign, most likely.
‘You went down a treat,’ he said as they walked to the Victoria.
‘It’s a start. Once I found my stride I felt fine.’
‘They believed you.’
She gave him a sidelong glance. ‘Course they did. Every one of them knows someone who’s had relief or gone into the workhouse. They dread it because they could be next. It’s not words, Tom. It’s real to them.’
Better to change tack away from the earnest, he decided.
‘Did you find some campaign help?’
‘Two of them offered to come and deliver leaflets tomorrow.’ She skipped a couple of steps, then put her arm through his. ‘We’re on the way, aren’t we? Come on, if we hurry we can see Mary before her bedtime.’
He’d been dreading the knock on the door, news of some disaster at one of the meetings. But he had a clear eight hours’ sleep, woken by the smell of eggs and sausages from the kitchen. Then the dash of feet rushing across the floor and a small body landing next to him on the bed.
‘Are you awake, Da?’ Mary bellowed into his ear. ‘Me mam says breakfast is almost ready.’
For a moment he lay still, then suddenly rolled over, grabbing her and tickling until she screamed with pleasure and wriggled away. In the doorway she turned. ‘Mam says if you’re late she’s going to give your food to the tinker.’
Where had she learned that? He hadn’t heard it since he was a boy. Of course. School. She was picking up all sorts there. And learning as if knowledge was a meal she couldn’t devour quickly enough, always hungry for more. A prodigy, her teacher called her with a mix of pride and horror. Ready to march off to Roundhay Road Primary every morning and wanting all the things the day could bring her.
The food was on the table, a cup of tea already poured. Annabelle took off her pinafore and sat, picking up her knife and fork.
‘Comfortable shoes today,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be on my feet delivering leaflets.’
‘Winifred Brady says Mam could get elected without doing a thing,’ Mary said.
‘Don’t you believe everything Winifred Brady tells you.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘There’s plenty of work involved. And time.’
Harper hid his grin behind a piece of fried bread. Families. He was a lucky man.
Monday morning and he’d barely had time to hang up his coat and see the pile of papers waiting for him when the telephone started with its insistent ringing. Harper picked up the receiver, careful to hold it against his good ear. A few clicks, then someone was speaking to him.
‘Inspector Binns here, sir. The arson investigator.’ Flat and metallic, the voice could have been almost anyone.
‘Yes, Inspector. Did you manage to find that fuse?’
‘No, sir, and I doubt we will. But one of my men did come across something. I’m not sure what it means, though.’
‘What is it?’
‘A piece of paper. Heavily scorched at one edge, so it wasn’t too far from the blast. But it had been placed to preserve it. Deliberately, I’d say.’
Harper recalled all the fragments tumbling like dandruff.
‘There was plenty of paper.’
‘Hymn books and the like, sir. I checked. This has writing on it. I asked the vicar. He didn’t recognize it.’
‘What sort of writing?’ He felt the prickle along his spine, the sense of something changing.
‘It’ll probably be easier if I have one of my lads bring it over to you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I hope it helps, sir.’
Harper looked at it again. Larger than he’d imagined, perhaps five inches by three, like a page torn from a notebook, heavily blackened along the rough edge. But it was the writing that interested h
im. Ink, on one side of the page, smudged but faintly legible.
He took the anonymous letters from his desk and laid them on the blotter, this fragment alongside. The same hand. Blurred and blotched as it was, he could tell. It was there in the loop under the ‘g’ and the flourish that completed an ‘e’.
They were after one man.
He called for Ash and the inspector came in, Fowler right behind him.
‘What do you make of that?’
‘Exactly the same, isn’t it?’ Ash said slowly after he’d examined them. ‘Where did this come from, sir?’
‘The bombing. Can you make out what he’s written?’
The pair passed it between them, trying to puzzle out words from the faint blobs of blue ink.
‘I can’t be certain,’ Fowler said hesitantly, ‘but it looks like a song. I think that’s “die” right there, and “morrow” below it. Looks like that second line could be “she died on the morrow”. Nobody says “morrow”.’
Harper had made some of the words out, too. But he’d never considered they might be part of a lyric.
‘If this really is a song, you should probably go and talk to Frank Kidson,’ Ash suggested. ‘He’d probably know it. Might even know the writing.’
Kidson … Kidson. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.
‘He writes a column in the Mercury, sir,’ Fowler prompted. ‘About folk songs and the like. Supposed to be an expert.’
That was the one. Harper had never read his pieces. Who cared about old songs? But for once, the knowledge could be useful.
‘Good thinking,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll find him later. Did either of you hear of any problems last night?’
Everything had been quiet, no more than a pair of drunks arrested for fighting after one of the speakers had finished.
‘We have plenty of meetings between now and the election. The army’s going to check every location each time. There’ll be a bobby on hand. But I’d like the two of you to keep attending them as well. Go here and there. See if a few faces tend to crop up regularly or if anyone we know makes a habit of politics. In the meantime, keep digging for information.’
The Tin God Page 3