The Murder Book Read online

  He’d found little in Walter’s room beyond another postcard from the mysterious Kathleen – also of York – and a small collection of letters, some from George Fields and some from Walter’s family. They had been tucked into the pocket of a heavy overcoat along with a small amount of cash.

  Stashing his finds into his own pocket, Mickey left. He had ten minutes to get to his first appointment with Mrs Fry’s son. The first of the ‘respectable men’ on his boss’s list.

  Henry Johnstone sat on the train and began to read through the letters George Fields had loaned to him. About half were from Mary and Ruby and the rest from Walter. These looked longer and more detailed so Henry put them aside. He’d been fortunate enough to find an empty carriage though he expected that would change after the change of train at Boston for Lincoln. He felt irritated by the need to go back to London for what was likely to be a brief appearance at court to give evidence in a case of armed robbery that had ended in a death. The gunman’s associates were now witnesses for the prosecution. Henry doubted this would reduce their prison terms but Haydn Symmonds was still insistent that he was an innocent party and would not change his plea. They’d even brought in his mother and sisters to try and persuade the recalcitrant nineteen-year-old, his mother hoping that an admission of guilt might save him from the gallows.

  ‘It was manslaughter,’ she had insisted. ‘Not murder. He didn’t intend to kill anyone. He just wanted to put the frighteners on the man.’

  Henry doubted her son would see his twentieth birthday.

  He settled back in his seat and opened the first of George’s precious letters. The envelope was addressed to a seamen’s mission at Whitby and Ruby had included a picture, drawn on a scrap of notepaper. It depicted a little girl standing in a garden of many petalled flowers. Dear daddy, I love you. Come home soon, she had written across the back in a surprisingly neat hand.

  The letter was from Mary but written by Ruby and it covered a little over a sheet of cheap paper.

  Dear George,

  We are both in good health and keeping happy. Ruby is doing well at school and has been able to borrow some more books from the library shelf. Her teacher, Miss Edwards, says that her reading is coming on really well, she tries hard with her numbers and her copy book is kept neat.

  We had a postcard from your auntie Kathleen from York where she has gone visiting her Lillian and she plans to stop there for about another week depending on when Lillian drops. They are hoping for another little boy, I think.

  The conductor opened the carriage door at that moment and Henry produced his ticket to be clipped.

  The man smiled at the sight of the child’s drawing. ‘From your little one, is it, sir?’

  He departed without waiting for a reply and Henry waited for him to slide the carriage door closed before he continued to read.

  She went on to write about their neighbours and the price of meat and bread and random thoughts about buying new ribbons to trim her hat seeing as she was unlikely to be able to afford a new one.

  We walked up into Hubbard’s Hills Sunday last and saw the Richardsons that we used to live near once upon a time.

  Take care of yourself, keep warm, my dear, and know that Ruby and I do really love you.

  Your ever loving wife and

  Here an attempt at writing daughter had been made but Ruby’s spelling had clearly not been equal to the task. The word had been crossed through and little girl had been substituted.

  Mary had written her name in uncertain letters and Ruby had printed hers beneath, finishing the letter with kisses.

  Henry replaced the letter in the envelope and opened the next. He could understand why these missals were so precious to George Fields.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Edmund Fry had kept Sergeant Hitchens waiting after their appointed time – a move not designed to endear him to Mickey.

  The solicitor’s office was just off the marketplace and through the window of the reception area Mickey could see the clock on St James’s Church. This was an expensive office in an expensive location, Mickey thought, but he wondered if there could possibly be enough trade for such an obviously costly legal service in a small market town such as this. He’d noticed another solicitor’s offices close beside Mountains, the estate agency, as he’d walked here. It looked to be a more modest operation that he assumed must deal with property matters and the wills of ordinary citizens. Fry and May, in whose reception he was now seated, looked like a much more financially serious concern.

  ‘Do you know how much longer Mr Fry will be?’ Mickey asked the stern woman who guarded the reception as the church clock struck the quarter hour.

  ‘Mr Fry is in a meeting with a client,’ she told him firmly, eyeing Mickey with disfavour, her gaze taking in his slightly unkempt hair – a few weeks late for the barbers – and his well-worn pinstriped suit. Mickey withdrew his watch from the pocket of his dark blue waistcoat and studied it ostentatiously. The woman just tutted as though disapproving of a silver pocket watch when the rest of the world had moved on and attached their timepieces to their wrists.

  Mickey closed the hunter and smoothed the case between his fingers before replacing it. The watch had been his father’s. It was plain, unadorned and satin smooth from all the years of wear and love and he didn’t take kindly to those who sought to belittle it.

  At last the door to Fry’s office opened and a woman emerged, accompanied by the solicitor.

  She wore a dark blue coat that Mickey recognized as the latest fashion in the cocoon shape. It matched her cloche hat. It looked, to Mickey’s eye, like slub silk and covered a grey dress with a pleated skirt. Her shoes were crocodile leather, elaborately buckled and matched the envelope bag she carried. She glanced in puzzlement at Sergeant Hitchens; evidently he was not the usual type of figure to be observed in Fry and May’s reception room. She held up her wrist and peered at the tiny watch on its slender leather strap. A silver watch, Mickey noted, but the material was the only thing it might have had in common with his own. Hers was new, gleaming with jewelled shoulders, and she wore a wedding ring together with an impressive engagement ring that bulged beneath her glove as she drew it on.

  Mickey stood politely. He would have tipped his hat had it not already been removed. He waited for Fry to see his client to the door and then said coldly, ‘I believe we had an appointment on the hour.’

  ‘And I believe I had a client to attend to.’ Fry smiled as though utterly unaware of Mickey’s tone. ‘Please, come on through. I expected the Chief Inspector?’

  ‘He had to return to London to attend on a court case. You’ll have to make do with me.’

  Fry nodded as though accepting that Mickey was a poor substitute.

  The office was panelled in old and carefully polished wood. Fry sat behind an old and equally carefully polished desk. He indicated the visitor’s chair, flat seated and straight backed, that had been set on the other side of the desk.

  ‘Sit down, Sergeant, and tell me what you want. I have another appointment in,’ he paused and looked at the clock on the opposite wall, behind Mickey’s head, ‘ten minutes.’

  ‘You’d have had a full half hour if you’d kept to your time,’ Mickey growled at it.

  ‘Sergeant Hitchens, I don’t have to speak to you at all. Consider yourself lucky.’

  Sharp words rose in Mickey’s throat and sat on the tip of his tongue but he bit them back. ‘I’ve come about Mrs Mary Fields,’ he said. ‘A lady known to you, I believe. She worked for your mother.’

  He looked anew at Fry and wondered now if that could be true. The solicitor didn’t look much more than perhaps thirty-five.

  ‘My grandmother,’ Fry corrected him, confirming Mickey’s doubts, ‘who was unwise enough to employ the woman as a maid companion. Mary Fields inveigled herself into the old woman’s favour and then sought to benefit from her will when she died. It was a ridiculous state of affairs.’

  ‘Not so unusual, surely, for an employe
r to want to reward a faithful servant? Especially these days when less women want to go into service.’

  ‘Mary Fields and her brat had lived at my grandmother’s house for a scant two years. No one would say that she had any claim of any sort on an old woman who put a roof over their heads and paid far above the established rate. And then employed the husband – a loutish layabout with no skills to recommend him and with no capacity for morality. A family that should never have been allowed to live close to never mind in the same house as such a respectable gentlewoman. If I’d known earlier I would have acted – you can be certain of that.’

  ‘And why didn’t you know?’

  ‘Because I was away. Working in Manchester. I rarely came back.’

  ‘And no one bothered to tell you? Or was no one else concerned?’

  Edmund Fry steepled his fingers together and stared at Mickey Hitchens over their tips. ‘Mary Fields was a whore. For all I know her husband acted as her panderer. It would have been only a matter of time before the child followed where the mother led.’

  ‘Ruby Fields was only seven when she died. A bit young for you to be predicting her future, don’t you think? And by all accounts, when Mary was working for your grandmother she behaved herself. She valued her position and didn’t want anything upsetting the apple cart.’ This last was an assumption on Mickey’s part but from the look of distaste on Fry’s face he either disagreed or simply couldn’t comprehend that being true.

  ‘Women like that never change, Sergeant. You must see them all the time in your work.’

  ‘Prostitutes? Oh, yes, I meet a lot of those. Enough that I’ve learnt that there’s rarely a simple story. But for you to be making that kind of judgement, Mr Fry, do I assume that you’ve a lot of experience that way?’

  Fry was on his feet. ‘I’d like you to leave now, Sergeant.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe I still have a couple of minutes of your time left.’

  ‘I’ll have you thrown out.’

  ‘Who by? Your secretary has a good glare but I doubt she’s the strength to pick me up and chuck me out the door. And I doubt you’ll be up for the task. So sit down, Mr Fry, answer my questions and I’ll be gone and you can get back to earning money.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to make a complaint.’

  ‘Then you’ll need to send it to Mr Wensley at the Yard,’ Mickey told him. ‘Now, tell me, Mr Fry, did you ever meet Mrs Fields away from your grandmother’s house? Did you partake of her particular services? Or maybe you know the names of some of the men that did, seeing as how you know so much about what kind of woman she was?’

  Mickey left shortly afterwards. He’d received no answer to his questions, beyond more of Fry’s indignant threats and posturing, but Mickey was unworried. He was pretty certain that Fry had either been a customer of Mary Fields or he had a pretty good idea of someone who had. Or he’d been one whose custom she had rejected.

  Whatever the answer, Mickey felt he’d set a fire under the man and that fire would spread.

  He walked jauntily on to meet his next appointment – a man the neighbours had named as definitely being one of Mary Fields’ late-night visitors.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Ethan had been sent with the wagon to pick up supplies of seed cake from Market Rasen some eight miles away. Most of the day he’d be gone and, to be truthful, Ethan was glad of the break. He’d felt trapped, hemmed in by the sense of disapproval that closed about him in the village and, it had to be admitted, the mundanity of the tasks on the farm. He’d never been bothered before as he was now that one day was much the same as the next, the work hard and the tasks a cycle of fetching and carrying and reaping and sowing and caring for the beasts. That part alone Ethan rejoiced in. He had his dad’s talent with animals and they came to him readily and eagerly, looked for his hands on them and settled at the sound of his voice. Only the day before he’d heard Elijah say to Dar that Ethan was made in his father’s mould and Hanson was glad of it – that he knew Dar’s work would continue even after he had gone. Such praise would have been like a song in his ears if they’d not been so filled with the sound of Helen’s voice.

  He’d not set eyes on her apart from a glimpse on the Sunday when he’d seen her with her family on the way to chapel.

  Ethan, his own family set to attend the church, could not even have the satisfaction of gazing upon her during the sermon.

  After the fight with Frank they’d both been made to promise to their families that they would keep apart from one another. A week, Dar had said. Just give themselves and others time to settle into the new order of things. Hard as it had been, Ethan could see the sense in that. Tempers had to cool and he knew that his father and Helen’s mother hoped that passions might cool too so, even knowing that would never happen, he had kept his word and not sought her out. Neither had Helen looked to come to him. Ethan was both disappointed and relieved. The close confines of village life made it impossible to keep it secret even if they’d run across one another by merest chance, and he’d not dishonour his kin by breaking his word.

  Ethan just counted the days until the week was up.

  Helen … Helen had other ideas.

  He’d walked beside the horses on the steep rise from the village and not mounted to his seat in the cart until they’d reached the relative flat of the Walesby road. He always took care to spare the animals an added burden. The day was still cool, the sun not fully up and the mist still rising from the dew-damp ground. He walked slowly, enjoying the freshness of a morning that promised to turn into a baking hot day. And then, as he led the wagon round the first bend, she was there, sitting on a gate and swinging her legs like a child.

  ‘Helen? Helen, what the devil are you doing here?’ He looked around, expecting Frank’s mother or his own to push through the nearest hedgerow and confront them.

  ‘Is that a way to greet your girl?’ She jumped down and waited for him to draw level.

  ‘You’ll be missed. They’ll know.’

  ‘Oh, and how will they know? I’ve been sent on an errand, taking a remedy up to my auntie’s place.’

  ‘And that, as I recall, is way over in the other direction from here.’

  ‘I saw the wagon, saw you with it. I thought maybe if I take the long way around we might snatch an hour.’

  ‘Helen.’ Oh, God, Ethan thought. She was standing so close now, so close he could feel the warmth coming off her body and smell the sprigs of lavender she’d woven into the faded lace collar of her dress. His arm circled her waist and he drew her still closer, only realizing when his lips were on hers just what his body seemed to have done without his bidding. He should let her go. Now, back away, tell her it was only a couple more days and then they could go back to the way it had been before. No, better than before. They would be able to meet without comment. Would be able to … ‘Helen, we mustn’t do …’

  ‘Do what, Ethan?’ Her lips were parted and he could feel the thumping of her heart, too fast, too eager. Or was that his own heart he could feel?

  ‘Ethan?’ Her question hung upon the still, warm air and Ethan knew what was coming, what she was asking him without the words, what …

  ‘Oh, God, Helen, I want you so damned much.’

  There was a glimmer of fright in her eyes as she looked at him and in the way she passed the very tip of her tongue across her lips. The faintest glimmer of fear in the way she caught her breath and her heart beat even faster – it seemed to Ethan that between them they now had only the one.

  Not saying a word, Ethan took her hand and led her through the field gate. It occurred to him that the horses might wander, that someone might see the cart, but that was only the reasoning, sensible fragment of his mind chattering unheeded in the background. The rest … the rest was filled with the look and the scent and the feel of Helen Lee and would give attention to nothing else.

  He led her by the hand, laid her down on the sun-warmed grass close by the hedge and, with a hand more practised than Helen’s, he u
nfastened her dress and slipped it down while she still fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. She’d come prepared, he realized, and she was naked beneath.

  Helen paused, noting the odd button on Ethan’s shirt. He tensed. ‘I lost one,’ he said. Mam had found the closest she had.

  Helen smiled at him, undid the button then moved on to the next. Ethan caught her hand and kissed the fingertips. ‘Are you certain? Sweetheart, I’m not prepared, you know …’

  ‘I’m sure,’ she said, and Ethan moved his hands across her naked skin, taking her breasts in his hands and stroking the hardening nipples, and there, in an open field on a late June day, he made love to Helen Lee.

  TWENTY-THREE

  George had watched as Sergeant Hitchens left May and Fry, the solicitors and he followed at a distance as he walked back towards the marketplace. Mickey Hitchens was walking fast and had the look of a man who had just scored points and was well satisfied with the outcome.

  George wondered what he had discovered and the anger in him rose up to choke him once more.

  If it hadn’t been for Fry they’d have been settled, able to make a proper life for themselves and get good references from the old lady. She’d promised them. Said, once she knew her time was running out, that she’d lodge the references with her solicitor so that Mary could get a good job elsewhere just like old Mrs Fry’s cook had done.

  True, their situation was a little different from that of Gabrielle, her cook, a woman who’d served her for so many years they had almost grown old together, but there were many modest households these days that would want a maid of all work and a handyman and would tolerate a child. Mrs Fry had already made enquiries.

  On the day of the funeral, after they had paid their respects at the church, Gabrielle had left with her new employer, an old friend of Mrs Fry who had promised that she would have work and a home with them. Dammit, George thought, Mrs Fry had practically left Gabrielle to them in her will. She’d promised to do something to help him and Mary and she probably had, but that bastard grandson of hers just had to stick his nose in and spread stories about Mary.