Elementary Murder

by AJ Wright

  ‘I hope not, sir. At least his body hasn’t turned up.’

  ‘Thank the Lord for that.’

  Brennan paused then said, ‘There are a couple of things that bother me, though.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, sir, the note found by the body, for one thing. It contained the single word “FAILED”. It wasn’t written by the victim, according to her parents. And it wasn’t a suicide note anyway because we know it wasn’t suicide. But whoever put it there did so to make us think it was suicide.’

  Captain Bell frowned. ‘A puzzle, certainly. You said a couple of things?’

  ‘The murderer placed a bottle of Scotch by the body to make it appear that Miss Gadsworth had taken drink either with the arsenic in it or as some sort of aid to courage. But Doctor Monroe found no trace of the whisky in her stomach. So why was the bottle put there?’

  ‘Again, to make us think it was suicide.’

  ‘Correct. But once more, like the clumsy suicide note, it was a stupid thing to do. Any murderer worth his or her salt would know these pieces of evidence would be discounted as soon as we investigated them. So why place these things for us to find them?’

  ‘I see what you mean.’

  ‘Either the murderer is very stupid indeed, sir, or playing a very clever game, the object of which at the moment is beyond me.’

  At first their uniforms struck terror into Billy. When he allowed his blurred gaze to drift slowly upwards, he saw the navy blue trousers with their sharp creases, and a scarlet jumper stretched taut over a stiff-necked shirt, far cleaner than any shirt he’d ever seen. The woman to whom the shoes belonged wore a long navy blue skirt and a high-necked tunic topped with white lace collars. The man had a thick black beard, and for a second Billy thought of pirates and walking the plank. It was only when he saw what the man was wearing on his head – a smart cap with a red band – and the woman – a navy blue bonnet – that his terror subsided, to be replaced with distaste.

  ‘Now young fellow,’ said the man as he bent down and held out a hand towards Billy, ‘I’m sure there are easier ways of leaving a building.’

  Billy declined his offer of help and stood up of his own accord. The dust was still stinging his eyes and he couldn’t clearly make out the man’s features, registering only the fact that his eyes seemed narrowed, suspicious.

  When the woman spoke, her voice was gentler, containing a note of friendliness and amusement. ‘And there are doors now that open at the merest turn of the handle.’

  He wiped his eyes and tried to focus on her face: she had a small mouth, turned up at the corners with the suggestion of a smile.

  ‘That bloody place doesn’t,’ he said with a backward jerk of the head.

  The man tutted. ‘There’s no need for that.’

  Billy, who hadn’t a clue what he’d done to offend the man, started to move past them. As he did so, he caught sight of several people staring down into the basement well from railings above. All of them wore the same uniform he’d heard his dad mocking whenever they marched past blowing their trombones and clashing their cymbals: ‘Imagine that lot on a battlefield, eh, lad? Some bloody good that army’d be.’

  Before either of them could stop him, he ran up the steps and made an attempt to rush out onto the street, where a group of onlookers were now gathering on the other side of the street. But one of the Salvation Army soldiers reacted quickly to block his path, placing one arm on the gated opening at the top of the steps, his other hand clutching his euphonium.

  ‘There’s no need to run, child,’ he said. ‘We aren’t going to bite.’

  He would rue those words. Once the idea was planted in his head, Billy leant forward on the topmost step and launched himself towards the man’s right hand, sinking his teeth into the pink flesh and tasting the metallic warmth of blood.

  The man howled in pain, emitted a curse that would have shocked William Booth himself to his very core, and clutched his right hand with his left, dropping the euphonium in the process.

  Billy scurried past him, leaping over the fallen instrument, ignoring the raucous cheers from the onlookers across the way and hurtled headlong down the street as a small band of Salvation Army soldiers relinquished their instruments in more careful fashion and began to chase after him. There was such a pain in his head now, and his hand was throbbing where the rat had bitten him. He felt hot and clammy, but he knew he had to put all the pain to the back of his mind. He had to focus on one thing at this moment, and that was escape.

  He didn’t know this part of Wigan very well. He’d been told only that it was far enough away from where he lived – and near enough to the railway station – that it would be safe for him to be seen on the streets once the plan to get him out of town was under way. But as he tore along St Thomas Street and into Chapel Street all he could think of was why he’d not been brought out of that stinking cellar before now?

  He heard the clatter of boots on the cobbles behind him and the shouts of ‘Stop him! Stop that boy!’ He was growing breathless; his mouth started to become dry and hot, and it was difficult to swallow, but he daren’t stop. He didn’t even take the time to turn round to see where they were as he swept past a small group of beshawled women standing outside a butcher’s shop with their arms folded and looped through dangling baskets.

  ‘What’s the matter with yon mon?’ said the butcher himself who had come to the shop doorway to see what all the shouting and clattering of feet was in aid of.

  ‘Bet the little bugger’s pinched summat,’ said one of his erstwhile customers.

  The butcher pointed at one of the pursuing Salvation Army soldiers who was himself growing red-faced with the effort of the chase. ‘Looks like that mon needs a drink,’ he said.

  ‘Aye. A pint o’ stout!’ came the reply from another of the women, a comment that seemed to amuse them a great deal for they all started to chortle and urge the young boy to run faster.

  Once he reached the end of Chapel Street, Billy stopped for a second to catch his breath and assess his options. As he leant back against the wall of the house on the corner, he felt a wave of sickness wash through him. He leant forward, placing both hands on his knees, and vomited into the gutter.

  ‘Dirty little bastard!’ came a hard voice from behind. He turned his head and fully expected to see one of his pursuers standing there. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was a man standing at his front door, staring with disgust at the pool of vomit at Billy’s feet.

  Billy ignored him, wiping his mouth and spitting out the rancid taste. The road facing him – Queen Street – swept to right and left for quite a distance, flanked on either side by a row of houses and shops. He chose right and had managed barely twenty yards when the ones chasing him turned the corner.

  ‘They’ll drag me to the rozzers and then I’ll be jailed for bitin’ an’ all,’ lamented Billy. He could feel his legs grow weary now, and his breath was coming in short, frantic bursts. He started to sob and felt the tears slide down his face.

  ‘You’ll hang for sure, Billy. Unless you let me help you.’ That’s what he’d been told.

  Ahead, he could see a rag-and-bone man, a bowler hat planted askew on his head, his cart built high with a vast array of clothing of every description, clothing only slightly more soiled than the ones he himself was wearing. He was bent over his horse, patting his head as he devoured the contents of his feed bag. The man, a rough-looking individual, glanced up as Billy rushed down the street towards him. He took in the three men chasing him, whispered something to his horse, who studiously ignored him, and stepped away from the cart and directly into Billy’s path, clenching his fist as he did so.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Richard Weston had so many things weighing him down now that he felt breaking point was growing closer by the hour. He waited until the end of the school day and the last of the pupils had left the building to summon up the courage for what was going to be a most difficult meeting. Still, this was so
mething he couldn’t ignore any longer: Nathaniel Edgar’s drinking was growing worse, and it was only a matter of time now before he did something that reflected badly on the school.

  When the knock came on the door, swiftly followed by Edgar’s breezy entrance, he sat behind his desk looking composed and amenable. The last thing he wanted was a stand-up row.

  ‘You know, Nathaniel, that this last week has been hellish.’

  Edgar sat down and said, ‘It would have broken a lesser man, Headmaster.’

  ‘God knows the place has a less than satisfactory reputation as it is, and now, with the supposed murders of two people, that reputation is being dragged further and further into the mud.’

  ‘I hardly think that’s fair,’ said Edgar in the school’s defence. ‘What annoys me is the unfairness of it all. Both of the victims were only tangentially connected to the school, weren’t they? Neither of them had ever been to the place before Friday. All this nonsense about a child drowning fifteen years ago. No. They can’t tar us with that particular brush, can they now?’

  Weston sighed. This wasn’t going exactly as he’d planned.

  ‘Look, Nathaniel, it’s the school’s reputation we need to focus on.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘And while I’m the last person to throw wild accusations around …’

  Edgar sat forward. From the expression on his face it was fairly obvious he had an idea where the conversation was leading. Weston leant forward and picked up a ruler, tapping it once on the desk.

  ‘It’s the drinking, Nathaniel.’

  ‘The drinking?’

  ‘I know why you were late today. Why you only arrived at two this afternoon. Most unprofessional.’

  ‘And why was I late?’ Edgar’s voice had taken a harder, more defensive tone.

  ‘I mean, this thing about your neighbour …’

  ‘Being ill, you mean?’

  Weston slowly shook his head. ‘It isn’t so long ago you told me the man was unpleasant to you. Sneering at the fact you’re a teacher.’

  ‘The man is unpleasant, and he does sneer.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘His wife doesn’t.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘She knocked on my door and asked me to send for the doctor. She had a fever, or so she thought.’

  There was a heaviness now in the pit of Weston’s stomach. He knew absolutely that Edgar was lying.

  ‘You told me a few weeks ago that the man was a widower.’

  The room was filled with an uneasy silence that hung in the air. Sounds drifted in through the open window: snatches of conversation from passers-by, the caretaker whistling in the playground.

  Finally, Edgar said, ‘It seems I’ve been caught out.’

  Weston gave another sigh.

  ‘So what do you propose to do, Richard? Give me the cane?’

  Weston stood up and walked over to the window, his hands clasped behind his back. The caretaker Prendergast, who was sweeping leaves from the gated entrance, had the audacity to pause mid-sweep and give him a wave. Was the entire structure of order and respect crumbling? He whirled round.

  ‘Even if I were to give you one final chance, who’s to say we won’t be in this position in, say, two months’ time? By which point you might have done something to bring the school’s reputation plummeting down.’

  ‘Even further, you mean?’

  Weston ignored him. ‘I cannot make the decision on my own, of course. Reverend Pearl must be …’

  Before he could finish, Edgar too had stood up, the expression on his face now very dark and menacing. So much so that Weston’s words dried in his throat.

  ‘Well, Headmaster,’ said Edgar with a grim smile slowly spreading on his lips. ‘I’m sure you won’t need to involve the good reverend.’

  ‘And why not? As school manager he would …’

  ‘As school manager, he would need to be informed. Of course he would. But what if the matter of a teacher occasionally having a little too much to drink were to pale in comparison with what another, more highly regarded member of the school had been up to? Wouldn’t that have the same impact as the blowing of the trumpets outside the walls of Jericho?’

  One of the lessons Reverend Charles Pearl learnt early in his life was the power of language. ‘It goes beyond saying,’ he was told early in his ministry, ‘that we in the Church are educated to a far higher degree than the ones who will sit in their Sunday morning pews waiting for the weekly sermon. A sermon only has power if it is accessible. Talk about grandeur and omnipotence and the parishioner will start scratching for fleas. No, Charles, far better to use the language and the images they can relate to. The challenge, then, of course, is to render an everyday image in such a way as to reflect the glory of the message. The warm glow of the sun is cooled and made dull, is it not, by the opaqueness of a stained-glass window? You must show them Heaven’s beauty in a lump of coal.’

  However, he was struggling, at the moment, to find the words to fit any image or to urge a contemplation of Heaven’s beauty or the infinite mercy of God.

  The little girl was lying in bed, the room dark and curtained to keep out the rays of late afternoon sunlight, and her mother and father were sitting either side, each clasping a hand with uncharacteristic gentleness, as if any pressure they exerted would squeeze the last drops of life from her emaciated body. On her face and the upper part of her chest, dark, purple eruptions were clearly visible, rendered all the more sinister by the redness around the base of each swelling, the inflammation evidently taking its putrid hold and refusing to relax its grip. Occasionally, the child’s tongue protruded, and the vicar was repulsed by its thick, dry blackness.

  ‘Doctor told us to give her beef broth,’ the mother whispered, her voice weak and hopeless. ‘But the poor little mite couldn’t keep owt down.’

  Reverend Pearl gave a small cough. These people – two of his loyal parishioners who sat in the same pews each Sunday and gave every appearance of heeding his admonitions on sin and the evils of intemperance – had sent for him not out of any desire for spiritual comfort but as a sign of their helplessness. The doctor had been and gone, and now it was his turn.

  ‘She reminds me of a child I once knew,’ he began, slowly and in hushed, sepulchral tones. ‘She, too, suffered a great deal and was taken early from the comforting arms of her family. And I remember the pain they felt when she finally left this wicked world. But their pain, their grief, was nothing compared to the look of sheer elation – I mean, of sheer delight – that suddenly spread itself across the child’s face when the moment came. It was as if suddenly the storm clouds had opened and revealed the brightest of heavenly skies, all filled with little angels with arms open just waiting to welcome another one into their presence. It was a beautiful sight, like emerging from the pit to a beautiful summer’s day.’

  They blinked and flashed a look at each other across the damp and crumpled bed. This wasn’t what the good vicar normally talked about in his sermons, the look said. There, he gave them a weekly vision of the other place, a lowly place all ablaze with the fires of Hell, with the leering grasping menace of unspeakable demons all ready and willing to snatch you from the world after your evil sinning.

  ‘Happen we should give the lass a bit of a wash, like,’ said the father, a stoker on the railways with broad and muscular arms.

  ‘Why?’ his wife asked.

  The man gave Reverend Pearl an embarrassed glance. ‘Just in case, that’s all.’

  ‘In case what?’

  ‘In case them angels come. Poor little wench wants to be spotless for them.’

  Before his wife could respond – whether to mock his gullibility or accede to his request it was impossible for Charles Pearl to know – the little girl opened her eyes. They were black, and deep, and sightless.

  ‘Water,’ she said in a hoarse whisper.

  ‘Please, allow me,’ said the vicar and stood up before either of the parents could p
revent him. ‘I’ll get the child some water from downstairs. You’ll both need to be by her side.’

  With that, he left the room with what appeared to be indelicate haste. As he closed the door behind him, he placed his head against the jamb and closed his eyes tightly.

  He wished Jane were here at this moment.

  It had been an easy matter to escape the clutches of the Salvation Army once the rag-and-bone man hit the first of them with his huge fist. The sight of the uniformed soldier falling flat on his backside had a varied impact on those watching: the ones across the street, including the butcher and his customers, were secretly pleased that the man had ended up in such an undignified position, for none of them espoused the evangelical temperance that the Salvation Army made such a fuss about. The other soldiers, following closely behind their colleague, stopped abruptly and stared in wonder at the most undignified way he had removed his cap and was rubbing his jaw.

  One of them said, ‘I’ll go on. That boy needs help.’

  The others shrugged, conscious that their view of salvation lacked their colleague’s ardour.

  ‘Get gooin’, yer little bugger!’ the rag-and-bone man had yelled, and Billy hadn’t needed telling twice.

  He fled down Queen Street, unaware of the single figure now following him, and at last entered a road he was familiar with. Turning left into Chapel Lane he began to slow down. He looked round. No sign now of the ones chasing him. He walked quickly, blending into the number of people making their way mainly in the one direction, towards the spot where Darlington Street and King Street blended into one.

  He knew full well that he couldn’t venture anywhere near King Street. That was where the police station was, and for all he knew they were already building the gallows where they’d hang him till his neck stretched.

  No, he’d make his way along Chapel Lane, past the cattle pens where sometimes he and his pals had goaded the cattle till they stomped and snorted and mooed, then sneak up the long alleyway that ran the length of the goods sheds beneath the railway bridge. That would bring him to the sloping embankment. The plan was to scramble to the top of the embankment and, when the right moment came along, stretch up and clamber aboard one of the many goods trains that rattled along. He’d done it before, just for a short time, for they all knew the trains were slowing down by this time: Wigan Wallgate and Wigan North Western were only some two hundred yards away. He’d climb into one of the wagons and hide himself beneath the canopy. Hadn’t they done that too before now?