The Sculthorpe Murder

by Karen Charlton

  Chapter Eighteen

  Woods enjoyed a hearty supper of rabbit stew and freshly baked bread, washed down with his customary tankard of ale, at The Bell Inn. While he ate, he pulled out the list Lavender had left him and prodded it thoughtfully with a blunt pencil. It would be three days before Lavender returned from London but Woods had plenty to do in his absence. Lavender wanted him to question the owners of the outlying farms and homes around Middleton. They needed to know if anyone had seen or heard Sculthorpe’s attackers leave or arrive in Middleton. He also had to track down the owners of the initials in Sculthorpe’s account books but Lavender had been adamant Woods wasn’t to confront anyone about their relationship with the dead man until he returned. For the moment, a little discreet probing was required.

  Woods decided to return to Middleton the next morning but then he remembered it would be Sunday: most of the population would be at church. Fair enough, he would join them. He shrugged his shoulders and his pencil hovered over the final item on Lavender’s list: Alby Kilby. They needed to find out if he had an alibi for the night of the murder.

  He pushed aside the paper, soaked up the last of the gravy with his bread and wiped his chin with the cuff of his coat. He would make a brief call at The Angel Inn before he retired to bed. One more ale wouldn’t hurt and he might find out what he needed to know about Kilby.

  The taproom of The Angel was as colourful and cheerful as he remembered, although a thick fog of tobacco smoke hung heavily in the air and dulled the gleam of the brass ornaments and the sheen of the painted water jugs that lined the shelves. Several groups of grimy and hard-featured working men sat around the low tables with their pipes and packs of cards. But there were no polite nods of recognition for him this time. When they glanced in his direction, several of them frowned and stopped what they were doing. An awkward silence descended on the room, broken only by the gentle crackle of the fire in the grate. Woods shrugged and walked over to the bar.

  There was no sign of the giant white-haired landlord. Kilby’s tall, stooped wife appeared to be alone in the tavern tonight. She glanced at him anxiously through the curtain of lank hair hanging around her sallow and unsmiling face. Doctor Wallace had told him Mrs Kilby had been ill and he felt a stab of sympathy for the woman. Whatever ailed her must be serious for Kilby to call in help from a doctor.

  ‘Evenin’, Mistress Kilby,’ Woods said pleasantly. His voice rebounded across the quiet room.

  ‘Evenin’, officer.’ She swallowed nervously.

  Officer. So their secret was out, was it? Well, there is no sense in denying it, he decided.

  ‘Would you care for a tankard of ale, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘That would be most welcome, madam.’ He climbed up onto a tall wooden stool, conscious of the eyes boring into his back like daggers. ‘I’ve worked up a real thirst ridin’ back from Middleton today – and remembered the good quality of your ale from the other night.’

  She blushed at the compliment and busied herself pouring out his drink. Her hair fell forward again and hid her eyes.

  Woods raised his voice to make sure the silent men in the tavern heard him. ‘We’re investigatin’ the terrible murder that took place in Middleton. The fearful attack on an old man and his son?’

  She nodded and handed him his drink. ‘Aye, ’twere a dreadful thing to do to such a frail, old man.’

  ‘Quite,’ Woods said. ‘It were the night of the great storm. Do you remember it?’

  She nodded again. The weather was a safe subject to discuss. ‘I do,’ she replied. ‘The tiles rattled on the roof all night and kept me awake. When we woke the next day one of the stables were flooded.’ Woods noted the ‘we’ with interest.

  ‘When were that?’ asked a voice behind him. Woods turned on his stool. A swarthy man in a collarless shirt and dirty jacket stared back at him. The back of the man’s huge hands were covered in tattoos. ‘When were the storm?’

  ‘’Twere about a fortnight ago,’ volunteered another fellow from a nearby table. ‘The rain got through my sheetin’ and soaked the timber. I thought the damned boat would sink with the extra weight!’

  The man with the tattooed hands nodded sympathetically. ‘I were down Coventry way two weeks ago with a cargo of coal. I’m glad I missed it.’

  ‘Did you have much business here at the inn that night?’ Woods asked the landlady.

  She shook her head. ‘No, Alby closed up early. Everyone had gone back to their homes. There weren’t much point in stayin’ open.’

  This was a new development. ‘What time did you shut?’ Woods asked. His mind raced as he tried to work out how long it might have taken a man to ride to Middleton in that atrocious weather.

  She shook her head again and moved away from the bar with a jug of ale to top up the tankards of the other men. They had resumed their card games now and relit their pipes, satisfied the London police officer had no interest in them and their affairs. A low hum of conversation filled the smoky taproom. Woods’ opportunity to question Rosie Kilby and the other men in the tavern had finished.

  Weariness suddenly swamped over him and he yawned. The ale had made him sleepy. He had slept badly ever since his arrival in Market Harborough. It’s an early night for you, my lad, he decided. Downing the remains of his ale in one last gulp, he climbed off his stool. He and Lavender would interview Kilby about his whereabouts on the night of the murder when Lavender returned.

  Woods left the inn to take the short walk back to his lodgings. The cloudless night sky was ablaze with stars and the full moon flooded the marketplace with silvery light. But the temperature had dropped from the earlier warmth of the day. Woods buttoned up his coat, pushed his hands deep into his pockets and set off down the chilly and deserted street. Wisps of straw and litter rustled across the cobbles.

  Suddenly, he heard the sound of footsteps behind him. An icy chill ran up the back of his neck. He spun round, pulling his clenched fists out of his pockets.

  There was no one behind him but he thought he glimpsed a shadowy figure dart down one of the many alleyways leading off the marketplace. His eyes and ears strained against the darkness and silence of the unfamiliar street. The town stocks and the whipping post made ominous shapes in the gloom. Above his head, a shop sign creaked mournfully in the breeze. He couldn’t see anyone. But that didn’t mean no one watched him. Who’d have thought there were so many shades of black in the world?

  Woods expelled a loud breath of frustration, chided himself for his foolishness and continued his journey. He heard no more footsteps but he still had the sensation of eyes boring into his back as he walked. The tension in the tavern had unnerved him, he told himself firmly.

  Sighing with relief, he entered the brightly lit taproom of The Bell Inn and made his way up to his bedchamber. He sank wearily into his bed, determined to get a good night’s sleep.

  His mind, however, had other plans and it refused to shut down. Over and over again, it relived his interview with Billy Sculthorpe which culminated in the terrified man’s undignified scuttle beneath the bed. Woods tossed and turned on his pillow as Billy’s sobs and screams echoed around his mind. Finally, he fell asleep.

  A tiny old woman with a gentle, lined face sat sewing in her rocking chair by the kitchen fireplace in his childhood home. It was his mother. Woods’ heart surged with joy. Tilda’s white head of hair was bent low over the material, which fell in soft folds onto her lap. Her eyesight was failing, he knew this. He needed to get her some spectacles – and more candles. The silver needle glinted in the firelight as she held it poised above her work in her long, arthritic fingers.

  ‘Ma.’ His voice cracked with emotion.

  ‘Neddy.’ She lifted up her head and smiled up at him. ‘My little Neddy.’

  ‘Not so little now, Ma.’ Joy flooded through him in a great wave of relief. She wasn’t dead after all.

  Suddenly, her smile disappeared and disappointment and pain stretched across her face. ‘Why did you kill him,
Neddy?’ she asked.

  ‘Who?’ He gasped with confusion. She nodded her white head towards the prostrate body lying at his feet. He stepped back in alarm. His heart leapt in his chest. It was the dead man from the docks . . . or was it the dead man in another dream? The bloody, grey brains still oozed out from the gash on the corpse’s head. This time they slithered down over the striped rag rug on his mother’s kitchen floor.

  ‘I’m disappointed in you, Neddy,’ she whispered.

  Heartbroken, he opened his mouth to scream out his denial – and jerked awake. The dream disappeared in a flash but its vividness left his heart racing and the blood pounding in his ears.

  Cursing, he swung his feet over the side onto the cold floor. His fingers trembled as he lit the bedside candle. Then he cradled his head in his hands and tried to pull back the image of his mother’s smile before it melted away back into the sleepy recesses of his mind. But all he saw was her heart-wrenching disappointment. He swallowed down his sadness, and the action hurt his throat.

  For a few moments he remained still, trying to make sense of this latest nightmare. ‘Neddy’ was his mother’s pet name for him. Billy Sculthorpe had called him ‘Neddy’ the previous day. Perhaps it had triggered some reaction in his old noddle? ‘Damn you, Billy Sculthorpe,’ he groaned. ‘I’ll call you bloody Neddy.’

  But who was the dead man with his pate caved in? And why did he haunt Woods’ dreams?

  Woods steeled himself and tried to remember the faces of the corpses he had come across in his work over the last few years. The last one had been the dead actress whose mysterious death he and Lavender had investigated just before they travelled to Northamptonshire. At the same time they had dragged the bloated body of the pimp out of the Thames. Before that, there had been the soot-blackened body of a child he tenderly carried out of the ruins of a smouldering building. He winced at the memory. He remembered a man gored to death by an escaped bull from Smithfield market. Rows of felons dancing at the end of their ropes on the gibbet at Tyburn, a dead prostitute lying in the gutter of Covent Garden and a man who’d bled to death after being stabbed in a fight. But none of them shared the same head injury as the man in his dreams.

  He gave up this gruesome trawl through his memory and shook himself to clear away his melancholy thoughts. It is no good worrying about it, he decided as he blew out the candle. He had no memory of the corpse in his nightmare and he was too old to be spooked by his dreams. Sighing, he lay back down, pulled up the blankets and tried to get back to sleep.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sunday 4th March, 1810

  Market Harborough, Leicestershire

  The first light of dawn crept through the gap in the drapes at the window when Woods roused himself, washed, shaved and dressed.

  A hot bowl of porridge vanquished his nightmare and soon made him feel more like his old self again. He had just laid down his spoon when he remembered he was about to return to the miserable fare dished up by Susie Dicken in The Woolpack in Middleton. He promptly ordered a second bowl of porridge and a plate of eggs and ham from the landlord as well.

  It was still too early to attend church so Woods decided to stretch his legs and take a walk up to the newly built canal basin. It was another beautiful morning full of birdsong and the fresh smell of spring. The grass glistened with dew and the low sun behind the boughs of the trees cast long shadows across his path as he followed the Leicester Road up to the top of the town.

  Market Harborough canal basin was far smaller and much quieter than the filthy, crowded docks he had grown up with beside the Thames. It had an unfinished air about it too. There was a single rectangular basin and a solitary, hastily erected wooden warehouse. But it was still a hive of activity. In front of the warehouse, a crane hauled tea chests out of the hull of a barge. Sweating men heaved on the chains and the ropes, their shoulder muscles taut beneath their filthy jackets. Beside them, the wharfinger yelled at them to be careful with their precious cargo.

  On the far side of the basin, a group of men shovelled coal into barrows from the hull of another barge and the basin echoed with their shouts and the dull thud and scrape of their shovels. They wheeled the squeaking barrows along a narrow plank off the boat and added the coal to the mountainous piles of glistening fuel on the wharf. As each barrowful shimmered down the side of the coal heap it released a choking cloud of black dust.

  Meanwhile, a gang of grubby children raced in and out between the piles of coal. The irritated wharfinger glanced across the water, cursed and yelled out a threat to the youngsters. Woods smiled as he remembered the numerous times when he and his childhood friends had been chased away from the Thames waterfront by furious stevedores.

  He walked past several high stacks of timber and headed for the towing path. He had no idea if the path was open to the public or not but he doubted if anyone would try to stop him now most of the town knew he was a police officer. Four lecherous mallards chased an exhausted female duck between two empty and deserted barges moored side by side. Moving gently with the breeze, their mooring lines slowly tightened and then sagged once again.

  At the entrance to the basin, another boat waited patiently to unload its cargo of coal. A gaunt, windburnt lad was unshackling the tired horse, ready to lead it to the stable. The lad’s silver earring flashed in the sunlight as his deft fingers detached the towing rope from the harness. An older man with a lined and wind-leathered face held the barge steady beside the bank with another rope. He glanced up curiously as Woods walked past, muttering, ‘Ar do.’

  Woods nodded politely to the fellow but he had no desire to stop and talk.

  Weighed down by its cargo, the still boat was low in the water. A fine layer of coal dust covered everything and was etched into the lines on the faces of the men, ground into the palms of their filthy hands. Even the name of the boat on the bow was indecipherable beneath the peeling paintwork. Not that it mattered. Woods knew most of the men and boys who worked the canals couldn’t read.

  Picking his way carefully between the heaps of horse dung littering the towing path, Woods headed away from the town. The canal meandered like a scar across the rural landscape as it followed the contours of the ridge above Market Harborough. It was more peaceful here. A solitary swan glided seamlessly across the still water with barely a ripple. Beneath the surface he saw the bottom of the canal, where a shoal of tiny fish darted between the swaying strands of weed.

  The navvies had cut back the vegetation during the recent construction but already the foliage had crept back towards the edge of the canal, especially on the bank opposite. There, without the trampling hooves of the horses and the scything action of taut tow ropes, the willow weed had grown tall. It now fringed the far bank.

  There were other signs that life had washed down this man-made waterway from the pound above. The broad leaves of water lilies bobbed amongst the reeds. Somewhere a bullfrog croaked and a territorial heron eyed him suspiciously from the opposite bank. Woods stopped in his tracks. Herons meant fish. He peered into the water looking for the telltale flash of silver or concentric ripples forming on the surface and for a moment he wished he had his rod and line with him and a few hooks and feathers. It would be a peaceful place to sit awhile and fish.

  Suddenly the hairs stood up on the back of his neck and, despite the warm sunshine, he shivered. It was the same uneasy sensation he had felt last night in the deserted town square. Someone was watching him. But when he spun round there was no one there. His ears strained against the gentle lapping of the water on the bank and the birdsong but he heard nothing. He shook his head over his foolishness and continued his walk. Maybe he had been working too hard recently.

  Woods rounded a bend and came to an arched brick bridge. The towing path led straight over it and promptly changed to the other side of the canal. He paused on the hump of the bridge, leant on the stone parapet and enjoyed the view of the valley below the ridge. This was the kind of countryside Woods liked best: an open vista wi
th gently rolling hills. He sighed when he thought of Betsy and his children back home in the noisy, overcrowded capital and he wished he was sharing this with them. His little nippers had never seen the countryside. Not real countryside like this. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time Betsy had left the hard, cramped streets of Southwark and walked with grass and soft earth beneath her feet.

  He imagined Eddie and Dan careering round the hayfields and little Rachel making daisy chains of wild flowers while dangling her bare toes in the clear water of the canal. Perhaps he should take them out of the city for a day trip when he returned? Although how his diminutive wife would react to such an unusual fancy he had no idea. No doubt Betsy would have an opinion. She usually did. He smiled at the thought.

  For the first time today, his mind drifted back to the case and he scowled. Senseless murder, vicious assault, blackmail, poisonous mushrooms and secretive Catholics skulking around the local villages spoiled the image of the rural idyll he had enjoyed only a few moments before. Besides which, it rattled his old noddle when he tried to make sense of it all. Thankfully, he knew he didn’t have to – this was Lavender’s job. Lavender would eventually solve the mystery. He always did. But for the life of him, Woods couldn’t see where this case was heading. Lavender had quickly dismissed the notion that the Panther Gang was responsible for the crime and as far as Woods knew, they still didn’t have any credible suspects for the murder.

  Now that would have been a feather in their caps, he decided – to have caught those notorious Panthers. They might even have got a mention in the news-sheets – and there would have been a good monetary reward. There always was for villains like them. But no. Lavender had decided Sculthorpe’s murder was the handiwork of a local gang. And if there was one thing Woods knew after working with Lavender for twelve years, the detective was rarely wrong.