Elementary Murder

by AJ Wright

  He smiled to himself. Soon, he’d be safely hidden. Soon he’d be out of Wigan and free of the hangman’s noose.

  Soon, he’d be really on his own. He shivered as the implications hit home.

  Home.

  Fifty yards further back, the Salvation Army soldier began to increase his pace.

  At that moment, Jane Rodley had other worries to contend with. She had been late leaving school – the caretaker Prendergast had spotted her as she walked out of the main entrance and had immediately made his way towards her. He was pointing at the school building.

  ‘Lucky it’s still standin’, eh?’

  She blinked, unaware of his meaning.

  ‘The school,’ he went on, leaning on his brush as if their conversation were quite a natural, everyday occurrence.

  ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘Ah, his lordship’s not told you then?’

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘That brat you’ve allus taken a shine to.’

  ‘Which brat?’

  Her tone implied there were plenty brats to choose from.

  ‘Kelly.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘The boy’s gone missing, Prendergast.’

  ‘Oh aye. He would. After tryin’ to burn the place down.’

  He spent the next few minutes embellishing the tale of the copybook, which she already knew, its finding and its condition, along with its significance. She stood there, lips pursed, unwilling to share in the caretaker’s condemnation of Billy Kelly.

  The foolish child!

  ‘That’s what comes of you offerin’ the lad a helpin’ hand,’ he went on. ‘Gets bitten clean off.’

  Another voice behind them said, ‘What gets bitten clean off?’

  They both turned round as Emily Mason approached. She looked quite startled by the caretaker’s comment.

  Prendergast gave a superior sniff and began to sweep the flooring of the entrance. He was muttering something about someone being ‘only a bit of a child herself.’

  As he disappeared inside the building, Emily turned to Jane Rodley, her face ashen. ‘He’s referrin’ to me, miss, ain’t he?’

  ‘Well,’ said Jane with a frown on her forehead, ‘firstly, remember what I told you? I’m Jane, not miss. Not any longer.’

  Emily flushed a deep scarlet. ‘I know. I know. It’s just hard sometimes. You havin’ taught me a few years ago an’ all.’

  ‘And secondly,’ Jane went on, placing a hand upon the pupil-teacher’s arm, ‘you must never say ain’t. Remember it isn’t a word. It’s a colloquialism. I’m sure the headmaster has explained that to you in your mentoring meetings. But,’ she added quickly when she saw the girl’s head drop, ‘you’re doing very well indeed with your aitches. You hardly drop any now. That’s very good.’

  ‘Thank you, miss. I mean, Jane.’ She said her goodbyes and walked through the playground to the railings beyond, her head still fixed on the ground.

  Jane too started to leave. At the school gate, she stopped and looked back at the building. Soon she would leave this place for the last time, and a new world would open for her. She often thought about what that would mean. Now she only had children to deal with; in a short while it would be the worries and tribulations of all Charles’s parishioners. The children would fade into the background. That would be hard to accept, she knew, for she had such a desire to save them all.

  Suddenly she heard whistling and saw Nathaniel Edgar emerging from the building.

  ‘Nathaniel?’ She saw the expression on his face. It held just a glimmer of suppressed excitement. ‘Are you feeling all right?’

  ‘I’ve never felt better!’ he declared. He gave a nod backwards. ‘We should do it each and every day. What a better world it would be, eh, Miss Rodley?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He swept past her with an ironic touch of the forelock.

  ‘Clear the air, my dear. Clear the air.’

  The eight wheels of the LNWR coal engine were still rotating at a fair speed as they approached Wigan Wallgate in the distance. Along the side of every coal wagon two white diamond shapes were painted above the initials LNWR that were written along the solebar beneath. Once upon a time, Billy and the others would race alongside the rattling wagons, seeking out the safest way to get on board. Once they’d managed to clamber onto the slowing wagon by grabbing the long metal levers that operated the side doors, they’d heave themselves over the rim of the wagon and into the body of the wagon itself. Sitting on top of a mound of coal, seeing how deep they could force their legs to sink into the pile and waving to bemused onlookers, gave them all a bloody great laugh. But the best time came when the wagons were empty of coal, for that brought different challenges to Billy Kelly and his pals. There, they’d struggle to slide the lower lever that operated the wooden planks of the flooring that lay beneath the solebar and raise a cheer when their efforts were rewarded and the door beneath their feet dropped open.

  Only problem was the state of their clothes when they’d dropped through the floor and onto the railway tracks once the train had stopped. If the wagons were empty, often the engine didn’t slow down and stop at the station, which meant they’d have to risk jumping from the moving train onto the grassy embankment just beyond the station. That was risky, but they’d tumble around for ages living off the experience and clearing themselves of coal dust in the process.

  Now, though, as he stood on the embankment watching the coal engine getting nearer, his heart sank a little. The trail of wagons behind the engine were all piled high with coal. That meant he’d have nowhere to hide and would be forced to risk being spotted as the wagons rattled through the station.

  What should he do?

  He could wait for another goods train, he supposed. Passenger trains were no good; he’d run a far greater chance of being caught by some stuck-up inspector even if he managed to scramble into a carriage. And there’d be the problem of other passengers creating merry hell if he suddenly pulled the door open and pulled himself into the compartment.

  No, he told himself. He’d have to be patient and wait for the right goods train to come along. He’d even jump a cattle wagon and put up with the cow shit.

  He looked down at his hand where the rat had bitten him, and was shocked to see how red and swollen it had become.

  No wonder the bastard’s throbbin’, he thought. His vision blurred once more, and he saw the two puncture marks, where the rat’s teeth had sunk into his flesh, suddenly become four. He felt his head grow light and dizzy; his mouth felt hot and dry, and he closed his eyes for a second to steady himself.

  When he opened them again he saw the train getting closer now. He watched the steam belch from the chimney, drifting a few feet above the engine and billowing around the trailing wagons. Just before the loaded goods train drew near to where he was standing, he heard the crunch of footsteps close behind him.

  He whirled round.

  One of the Salvation Army soldiers was a mere yard away, his arms outstretched as if ready to snatch him and take him back to St Thomas Street.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the man said. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

  ‘Fuck off!’ said Billy and turned to flee.

  The man behind him screamed as Billy stepped onto the railway track, his legs appearing to buckle beneath him as he fell into the path of the approaching train.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Brennan sat in his office, deep in thought.

  He’d dealt with quite a few murders in his time. Last year, for instance, during the miners’ strike, he’d been faced with quite a complex murder case until he finally fixed the pieces of the puzzle together. But there was something about the two murders that bothered him. The first victim – Dorothea Gadsworth – was poisoned. Very often, poisoners were found to be women, the crime being almost without the confrontational violence that occurred, say, in a stabbing or a vicious assault. The poisoner could be miles away when the effects of the deadly substance were felt and
the task completed.

  Yet the second murder – Henry Tollet – was very different. This involved no subtle and furtive dissolving of poison. No, this crime was of a violent kind, stamping hard on the poor man’s hands as they tried to claw their way back onto the canal bank. More of a man’s crime?

  With two murders of such different characteristics, he might well consider the possibility of two separate killers. One male, one female.

  And that would suggest a collaboration.

  He went through the list of possible suspects, the ones who had been present at the school when Miss Gadsworth came for her interview.

  Richard Weston. Nathaniel Edgar. Reverend Charles Pearl. Jane Rodley. Emily Mason. Alice Walsh. Esther Ryan. Florence Hardman.

  One of them? Two of them?

  Or none? Was he completely on the wrong track?

  The last two weren’t in the staffroom when she fainted, although recognition could have been delayed. Yet those two were somewhat older than Julia Reece would now be.

  He was convinced of one thing, though: the missing boy, Billy Kelly, had been at the school last Friday night. What had he seen? It was highly likely he’d tried to set the school ablaze – from what he’d discovered about the boy, he was continually in trouble and endured several beatings recently. If he were receiving the same treatment at home from that harridan of a mother …

  What a life the child had.

  But now he was missing. Had he run away? Or was he even now lying at the bottom of the canal or in some shallow-dug grave somewhere in the woods? The thought made him shudder.

  There was a knock on the door. Constable Jaggery entered.

  ‘Sergeant.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Messenger from the Victoria Hotel.’

  Brennan grew irritated. ‘Get to the point.’

  ‘He’s brought a message from the Gadsworths.’

  ‘What message, Constable?’

  ‘They want to see you. Said they’d remembered summat.’

  As they turned into King Street, they could hear some shouting from a distance behind them, from Darlington Street.

  ‘What the bloody ’ell’s all that?’ said Jaggery, turning round and noticing a small crowd gathering and pointing upwards towards the railway embankment.

  Brennan kept on walking. ‘We have more pressing matters to deal with, Constable. If it’s a clog-fight there’s plenty constables in the station can deal with it. Now keep up.’

  ‘I boil the fruit for an age, you see, Miss Rodley. An age. Nothing to cover it. Then it’s best to skim it. No sugar at that point, oh deary me, no. You see, the scum from the fruit rises. Then you add the sugar.’

  As if to demonstrate her point, Mrs Flanagan, the vicar’s housekeeper, emptied a bag of sugar into the preserving pan.

  ‘See? Three quarters of a pound. Pound of fruit, three quarters of a pound of sugar. It’s gettin’ them proportions just so, Miss Rodley.’

  The kitchen was small, with a single oven enclosed in a small range. Mrs Flanagan stood back and offered the wooden ladle to Jane Rodley. ‘’Ere, miss. You give it a stir.’

  With a deep breath, she took the ladle and sunk it into the glutinous mess that would miraculously transform itself into strawberry jam. Inwardly, she cursed the housekeeper. When Jane called at the vicarage, she was told by Mrs Flanagan that the good reverend had been unexpectedly called out to an ailing child, and that she was to come in and wait for him as he didn’t expect to be too long, and wouldn’t it be a good idea for his housekeeper to take the time to show his wife-to-be some of the secrets of the kitchen?

  ‘A little bit more bant, miss,’ said Mrs Flanagan in a gently disapproving tone.

  ‘A little more what?’

  ‘Bant, miss. Sorry. I forgot you weren’t from round ’ere.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bit more effort then, miss. Preserves is a sticky thingumajig.’

  ‘Indeed,’ she agreed. Then she immediately breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the front door open and close and Charles’s familiar footsteps echo along the small corridor. She quickly handed the ladle back and said, ‘An enjoyable lesson. It makes a change to be on the receiving end of education, Mrs Flanagan.’

  Before the housekeeper could respond, she swept out of the room. Mrs Flanagan tutted as a small globule of preserve dripped from the ladle to the kitchen floor.

  As soon as Jane saw her fiancé’s face, she knew something was wrong.

  ‘What is it, Charles?’ she asked when they had sat down in the living room and he had removed his outer clothing.

  He looked at her for a while then said, ‘I’ve just watched a young girl die.’

  ‘How horrible.’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘What was the cause?’

  ‘Measles.’

  Jane remained silent for a minute, while the dying light of early evening settled upon the room. Finally she said, ‘Do you wish to be left alone?’

  He gave her a look of infinite pain.

  She spoke in a low, hushed tone. ‘You feel the helplessness of death too much, my dearest. What’s done is done. Far better to look to the future and let the past be at rest.’

  He held her hand tightly. ‘You are my strength, Jane,’ he whispered.

  Since they last spoke, Brennan noticed a marked deterioration in Mrs Gadsworth’s complexion. Inside their hotel room, without the social necessity of a mourning veil, her face was even paler than before. Her eyes, too, although red-rimmed from crying, were dried and cracked. He wondered if she’d cried so much that she had nothing left, and the sockets were now sore reminders of a time when grief had given her some slight relief from the knowledge of what had happened to her daughter. Gadsworth himself stood beside his wife, who was seated on one of the two chairs the room possessed, with a protective hand on her shoulder. Brennan noticed the man’s hand was shaking.

  Constable Jaggery stood by the window which overlooked Wallgate itself, although the curtains were closed as a mark of respect for the dead.

  ‘You asked us to let you know if we remembered anything,’ Gadsworth said.

  ‘Anything at all,’ agreed Brennan, anxious to find out if the information was of case-shattering importance or merely recollected trivia from a time gone by.

  Mrs Gadsworth gave a small cough and covered her mouth with a handkerchief. When she removed it, she examined the cloth for a second and looked up at her husband, giving him an almost imperceptible shake of the head. He seemed heartened by it.

  ‘We were talking last night – the usual things people talk about in circumstances such as ours, I suppose. Memories of a far happier time, of the countless instances of mischief and antics Dorothea got up to.’

  ‘And the things she used to say,’ added his wife. ‘Don’t all parents treasure up those little bits of childish nonsense? Save them to be brought out and shared, like a box of photographs?’

  ‘Indeed we do,’ said Brennan gently, with a fleeting memory of his son Barry asking why the priest kept saying ‘Dominoes for biscuits’ during the mass. It was far easier to shrug and pat him on the head than to explain why Father Clooney was speaking Latin and that Dominus vobiscum had nothing to do with biscuits.

  ‘Well,’ Gadsworth went on, ‘we remembered what she said that summer, when poor Tilly was drowned. One day, not long after the accident, she suddenly told us that she thought Julia Reece must have been a witch.’

  Brennan frowned. He glanced over to where Constable Jaggery was furtively peering through a narrow gap in the curtains. He caught his sergeant’s gaze and turned back into the room.

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘She told us that she and Tilly had one day sat in the graveyard while David was clearing the graves for the vicar. Julia Reece was there, and the two of them were talking about religion, and good and evil. Julia told David that she had once saved a witch from being burnt at the stake, and of course David laughed. But Dorothea and Tilly didn’t laug
h. After all, talking about witches in a graveyard …’ He allowed his voice to taper off, perhaps to imply the evil that even then lurked inside the girl.

  Mrs Gadsworth continued. ‘Later, when my sister came over to Leeds to stay with us for a while – she needed to spend some time away from Hawkshead and the tragic memories it held – we told her what Dorothea had said. About Julia claiming to have saved a witch. And to our surprise she said that, in essence at any rate, the claim was true. Apparently, a few years before the accident, Julia had befriended an old woman, a curmudgeonly old thing, who often asked Julia to run errands. Then some of the dogs and cats in the village took ill and died. A disease, like as not. But when the old woman’s cat survived, the more superstitious of them claimed it was witchcraft. They took to threatening her, even stoning her house. Then Julia organised a group of the children and they took to standing defiantly outside the woman’s home, holding hands and singing hymns. Silly sort of stuff, but it did the trick. Later the veterinary surgeon from Windermere discovered that the rotting carcass of a dead pig had caused the disease which killed many of the animals. So I suppose the Reece girl played some part in saving the woman, certainly from persecution. Although I think the threat of burning her at the stake was the girl’s invention.’

  ‘Probably means nothing at all,’ said her husband.

  ‘I disagree,’ Brennan replied. ‘Anything that helps to give us a clearer picture of the girl is of immense value. Thank you both.’