The Murder Book Page 12

  The irony of it all was that Mary had told Edmund Fry that she didn’t do that sort of thing any more. Not even for a member of her employer’s family.

  George almost wished that she’d given in to him. Given him what he wanted so they’d have been left alone. But he knew, in his heart of hearts, that this would just have given Fry ammunition to use against them. He’d have ruined their lives no matter what.

  Sergeant Hitchens appeared to have reached his destination. A private house this time. George didn’t know who might be living there but it looked solid and prosperous and moneyed. He found a place from where he could watch and settled down to wait.

  Edmund Fry stood by the window of his office and watched Sergeant Hitchens walk away past the church and turn the corner out of sight. He was interested to see the figure of George Fields suddenly appear and follow.

  A knock on his door announced the presence of his partner, Charles May. He’d lied about waiting for another client to arrive.

  ‘Police gone, old boy?’

  ‘The sergeant. The chief inspector has been recalled to London.’

  ‘What, for good? They lost interest damned quickly.’

  ‘No, he’ll be back in a day or two. Got to give evidence or something. The sergeant wants some manners. Nasty little man.’

  His partner came over and stood beside him at the window. ‘They’ll be gone soon enough,’ he said. ‘Don’t you fret, old man. The police will soon give it up as a bad job. Carrington reckons they’ll make a lot of noise and then head back for the city.’

  ‘And he’d know, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, he is one of them, isn’t he? A bona fide chief inspector. A man with ambitions to boot.’

  ‘An acting chief inspector,’ Fry reminded him.

  ‘Not for long though, don’t cha know? A quiet word here, a few strings pulled there. He’s a decent enough fellow, don’t cha think?’

  ‘I hardly know the man. I leave the politicking to you.’

  ‘And very wise to do so.’ May slapped Fry on the back and left.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  In contrast to Edmund Fry, Mr Charles South admitted very quickly that he had known Mary Fields: ‘In the, er, biblical sense …’

  Mickey frowned at his attempt at humour and Charles South sunk further into his chair.

  ‘And you were a regular customer?’

  South, a man with red cheeks and a balding head, nodded uncomfortably, not looking at Mickey. ‘Twice a month for the past year,’ he said. ‘Excepting those weeks when her husband was home. I must tell you, those were hard weeks. So very hard. She was a lovely woman. A very kind, gentle woman.’

  Mickey raised an inquisitional eyebrow but Charles South was finding the pattern on the Persian rug far more interesting and didn’t look up.

  ‘Can you tell me how … how you found me?’

  ‘You were recognized,’ Mickey told him. ‘Quite a while ago apparently. No one said anything until now and they only told me on account of me being a policeman and your kind, gentle woman being very dead.’

  Charles South shuddered and Mickey realized that the man was weeping.

  ‘So how did you meet her?’

  ‘At first, it was at the house of a family friend. I live with my sisters, you see. We none of us ever married. We used to visit a Mrs Celia Fry. Mary was working for her together with her husband and little Ruby. Sweet little Ruby. How could anyone … anyone …’

  ‘And did your … relationship begin then?’

  South shook his head vehemently. ‘No, oh no. She was a respectable woman. Driven to all this, she was. Driven to it by the cruelty of others. By that grandson of Celia’s. Now there’s a bad apple. A real rotter.’

  How old was Charles South? Mickey wondered. He guessed at sixty or even older. A soft, marshmallow of a man from the look of him and he’d certainly had a soft spot for the dead woman. ‘And so you began to …’

  ‘I began our relationship.’ South seized on the word Mickey had used. ‘And that’s what it was. We’d talk before and again after. I said things to Mary that I’d never, ever said to anyone.’ He paused. ‘I don’t want my sisters to know. They’d be shocked and embarrassed. We’d have to leave here and they do so love this house.’

  Mickey was not going to make any promises. ‘Did you know of anyone else who …’

  ‘I didn’t want to. You have to understand that. Look, I’m sure this sounds foolish to a man like you but for two evenings a month I could pretend. I could make believe that I loved and was loved. That I had someone who … who made me feel as though I mattered. She wasn’t like a common whore. Mary never walked the streets, she never … sold herself like that. She did me a favour. She made me happy and if I could make her life a little easier by offering a little money then, then …’

  ‘And when did you last see her?’

  ‘Ten days ago. I saw her ten days ago. I arrived just after eight o’clock in the evening and left just before midnight. My sisters were asleep by the time I returned. They thought I’d been visiting a friend. That’s what I told them. That’s what I always told them.’

  No, he had no idea who would want to hurt her or who else she was seeing.

  The clock struck the hour and South looked up nervously. ‘My sisters will be back, Sergeant. Please.’

  Mickey took his leave. The earlier euphoria had evaporated. He’d enjoyed goading Fry but there had been no pleasure in questioning Charles South.

  One more to go, Mickey thought. And this one was a councillor. Mickey didn’t expect that it would be an easy interview.

  Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of movement and as he turned the corner he looked back and saw George Fields standing on the opposite side of the road from Charles South’s house.

  Mickey retraced his steps.

  ‘Mr Fields.’

  ‘Sergeant.’

  ‘Stay away, Mr Fields. One thing I can tell you is that he’s not your man. Not unless I’ve become a complete ass when it comes to judging people. He knew her, that’s all. He liked her, thought she was a good sort.’

  ‘And did Fry think she was a good sort?’ George asked harshly.

  ‘You don’t need me to answer that,’ Mickey told him. ‘Now come away and stay away, from here and from Fry. You’ll only do more harm.’

  George Fields stared at him. ‘Or what?’ he said.

  ‘Or I’ll have you arrested for breach of the peace.’

  ‘I’ve breached no peace.’

  ‘No, but you will, so let’s say I just pre-empt that?’

  George Fields looked as though he might take a swing for Mickey. ‘Don’t even think of it,’ Mickey said.

  George turned on his heel and strode away.

  Mickey’s final appointment was even less useful than he’d expected it to be. The man would tell him nothing except that he’d not seen Mary Fields in months, that it had been a one-off incident and that he’d been miles away on the night she died anyway, staying with a relative in Lincoln.

  On requesting the name and address of this relative, Mickey was instead given the name of his solicitor and told to leave.

  Mickey left.

  He checked the street but there was no sign of George Fields.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Ethan had been in fear all day and all through that night. What if they had been seen? What if Helen had been away too long and her mother guessed that she had not gone straight to her aunt’s?

  Ethan had been convinced that the guilt he felt was written large upon his forehead for all to see. One look at his face, Ethan thought, and anyone, from the smallest child in the village to the most venerable elder, would see what they had done.

  That night, walking home with Dar, he was aware of his father looking at him, scrutinizing him in a way that gave Ethan considerable unease and seemed to confirm the worst of his fears. He must look so guilt-ridden, so blemished, that his father must surely challenge him.

  It was only la
ter, much, much later, that Ethan was to realize what had really given him away. His father had read in his eyes that look of exultation, of excitement and joy that Ethan could not, with the best of wills, manage to suppress. Dar knew that look and that joy. Dar could well remember the time, now long passed, when he’d been Ethan’s age and when love and desire had eaten into him with that same acid intensity. Had eaten its way inside of him and beamed out through his love-struck gaze.

  Dar said nothing. In fact, he spoke little to his son that evening but Ethan was too preoccupied to notice and too wrapped up in his own thoughts to be any more than relieved that his father had not challenged him. He retired early to his bed and dreamed of Helen Lee.

  The next morning he rose to find his father already gone, called to another farm to tend to the birth of a foal. He walked alone to Hanson’s farm, watching all the way, half expecting to see her in wait for him and uncertain what he’d do should that be so.

  TWENTY-SIX

  It wasn’t easy for Frank and Ethan to avoid one another but they managed it well enough. It was avoidance characterized not by lack of contact but by a lack of meaningful exchange even if they were both in the same room. At breakfast in the farmhouse kitchen they sat apart from one another, chatted amiably enough with others and, should the collective conversation call for a direct response, would deliver it politely but swiftly.

  They valued their jobs too highly to let their differences impinge upon the work, and when Hanson had need of them to cooperate, they did so. A neutral observer would merely have thought them two quiet, industrious men who each knew their task well enough for words to be superfluous.

  Ethan had experience enough to know how to play the game. Control enough to know that, though he had won, nothing would be gained from rubbing his opponent’s nose in that victory. Helen, on the other hand, though she had not one malicious bone in her body had, Ethan came to realize, few wise or restraining ones either. Helen was passionate. There was no other word he could use. It seemed to Ethan she would lie in wait for him at every opportunity and turn and, though he was flattered by the attention and blessed each encounter as golden, he wished she would learn to be more circumspect in her outward display.

  ‘I’m to marry you, Ethan Samuels, and I’m happy in that. I don’t care if the whole world knows. Isn’t it a good thing I want to be with you any minute I can?’

  ‘A good thing, yes. But a possible thing? Not when I’m working, Helen, and not when Frank’s about.’ Or anyone that might see and comment on it, he thought, though he was learning that with Helen some things were best left unsaid.

  But it seemed to Ethan that even recognizing her faults made her more precious to him. Helen knew no restraint. She laughed and teased and kissed him so eagerly that it was all he could do to keep control. She asked him questions about his travels, never tiring of his stories of the big wide world; Helen who had gone no more than ten miles in any direction from their valley. Helen demanded knowledge even as she demanded love. She listened with wonder to the tales he told and the knowledge he had gathered. She wished herself ‘out there’ and even when he reminded her that he was back here because ‘out there’ could also be a bitterly cold place, she just shook her head in bafflement.

  ‘I’d be with you,’ she told him. ‘The two of us, Ethan. We could go anywhere, do anything. I know it.’

  And a part of Ethan knew it too. Or wanted to.

  ‘You’d miss your family,’ he argued. ‘You’d miss this place. Helen, you’d want to come back home.’

  ‘Home is where you are, Ethan,’ she told him. ‘You are my home.’

  And she meant it too. Ethan knew it even as he told himself it was unreasonable. She loved him with a passion unqualified by reason or thought and Ethan almost cursed the self-knowledge that prevented him from doing the same. What was reason? What was restraint? What was knowledge when tallied against such unconditional love?

  Then she came to him in the barn that day and brought disaster so close Ethan could feel it breathing in his ear.

  ‘Helen? Are you mad? Go away, girl. I’ve work to do and if Hanson catches you here there’ll be hell to pay.’

  ‘I’m here on an errand for Mrs Hanson,’ she told him grandly. ‘I’ve a reason to be here, Ethan.’

  ‘In the house mebbe but not in the barn. Even the missus doesn’t come in here when the men are working. Get off home, Helen. Go now.’

  ‘You ordering me about, Ethan Samuels?’ She pouted and then giggled, brown eyes shining with mischief. Sometimes, Ethan thought, she seemed more like a child of seventeen than a woman of the same years. ‘Helen, please. If anyone sees I’ll lose my job and get Dar into deep trouble too. Please, Helen.’

  She sighed but nodded. ‘I’ll go then. I’m sorry,’ she apologized. ‘I know you’re right but I so wanted to see you.’

  ‘And you will. Tonight. But not here. Not now.’

  To his relief she turned to go, peering round the door to make sure no one would see her leave. Then, to his alarm, she swung around and grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him off balance so that Ethan almost fell against her. He grabbed her tightly, as much in surprise as in desire, and then pulled back in fear at the sound behind her.

  Frank stood in the doorway. Staring hard.

  ‘She was just leaving.’ Ethan straightened up and let go of Helen. Her top button had come undone and her hair had collected a wisp or two of straw where she’d brushed against the stacked hay. Inwardly, Ethan groaned. The look on Frank’s face betrayed all too clearly what he must be thinking.

  ‘Give you pleasure, does it?’ Frank demanded. ‘Coming here, acting like a little whore?’

  ‘Like a what?’

  Wrong thing to say, Ethan thought.

  Helen went for Frank, her nails raking across his face. ‘Don’t you dare call me that, Frank Church.’

  Ethan grabbed her and dragged her away. ‘That wasn’t called for, Frank. We’ve done nothing.’

  ‘That’s not how it looks.’

  ‘Well, how it looks is not the way it is. She were just about to leave.’

  ‘She should never have come.’

  ‘No, she shouldn’t ha’, but I can’t do nowt about that now.’

  Helen shook free of him. ‘You two stop talking about me like I wasn’t here,’ she said.

  Frank ignored her. ‘I’d just about come to terms,’ he spat vehemently, ‘just about forced me head around the fact that she’s gone so far as I’m concerned. Not mine nor ever going to be. But no, you have to rub me bloody nose in it, don’t you? Have to behave like a bloody furriner, and her! I never thought her would lower herself so far as this.’

  ‘You what, Frank Church? You talk about me like I’m …’ Helen, incandescent with fresh rage, flew at him again. Then she fell back, the colour draining from her face.

  Ethan groaned. Elijah Hanson, flanked by his two sons, had appeared at Frank’s shoulder.

  Hanson jerked his chin towards Helen. ‘Out,’ he said. ‘Get home.’

  Helen, all fight gone, ducked through the door and ran.

  Ethan squared his shoulders and prepared for the worst. Ted was watching proceedings with a look of grave concern upon his honest face. Robert, in contrast, was smirking at Frank and Ethan’s discomfort.

  ‘I don’t employ you to entertain your women in my barn,’ Elijah Hanson told Ethan. ‘Neither do I pay you to pick your fights on my time. I’ve played fair with you both, chosen not to listen to the gossip and looked the other way until now and, to give credit where it’s due, you’ve neither of you let me down by allowing such foolishness to have a place in your work time. But now!’

  ‘It weren’t Frank’s fault,’ Ethan began. ‘He walked in and …’

  ‘Give you leave to speak, did I?’ Hanson growled.

  Robert’s smirk expanded into a grin. Ethan would have given anything to wipe it from his face. He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘No, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Get shut of
the pair of them,’ Robert said then yelped as his dad backhanded him, catching his knuckles across Robert’s nose so that blood oozed slowly from one nostril.

  ‘I didn’t ask you neither,’ Hanson said. He took a step closer to Ethan and peered hard into his face. Ethan met his gaze squarely, but not for long. The enormity of what was happening had been reinforced by Robert’s words. If he lost his position it would be bad enough but Frank needed this job. Frank could not just go back to sea as Ethan could. Frank knew nothing else and Frank, Ethan was honest enough to admit, was the innocent in this. He dropped his gaze and stared hard at his booted feet.

  ‘My fault,’ he mumbled softly. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Hanson, sir.’

  ‘You thank your stars, my boy, that I hold your feyther in high regard and that I need all the hands I can get for the harvest. But mark this, boy. You put one step wrong and I’ll have you ran tanned out of the valley and that fool of a lass with you. You hearing me?’

  ‘I’m hearing you,’ Ethan told him. ‘It won’t happen again. I swear.’

  ‘Damned right it won’t.’

  Hanson senior turned on his heel and strode away, calling his sons to heel after him. Ted paused to clap Frank on the shoulder; his gaze, though, strayed to Ethan and the small nod of sympathy cut Ethan to the quick. Robert, smirk back on his face, despite his oozing nose, paused to jeer at the pair of them. ‘Bloody gypos,’ he said. ‘If I had my way he’d be shot of the lot of you. Plenty of men want jobs, you just remember that.’

  Ethan closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. He felt drained of everything. Energy, patience, hope. He felt rather than heard Frank slip quietly away, his thoughts turning to Helen. He knew Hanson senior would go calling on her kin later and that her mam was quick with both her tongue and her hand. Grown up as she was, Helen still lived under her parents’ roof so she wasn’t too big she could avoid a beating. Ethan allowed a moment of sympathy to sit alongside his annoyance and fear.