The Murder Book Page 16

  ‘And we are already engaged in a murder enquiry here,’ Henry Johnstone reminded him.

  ‘One on which you seem to be making very little headway. And besides—’

  ‘And besides she was only a prostitute, her child a prostitute’s child, the young man the cousin of a prostitute’s cuckolded husband,’ Henry said coldly.

  Ted looked from one to the other and then stood impatiently. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t hold with any death being seen as unimportant, but my brother was killed this afternoon and we know who did it. We have witnesses to that and now he’s run. Ethan ran and he needs catching. So I’d be obliged if you’d come now. Please.’

  Henry turned to look at the young man and nodded. ‘I’ll come back with you. Sergeant Hitchens will stay here and continue with our investigations. I understand you have a car. If you take me by the King’s Head I can gather my things. Sergeant Hitchens, I will need the bag, and would you be so kind as to inform Doctor Fielding that I could use his services and send him over in the morning.’

  Mickey Hitchens nodded and they all left without another word to Carrington.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Ethan woke when the moon was high and cursed himself for sleeping so long. Stiff and sore, he struggled from his hiding place and then paused to take stock, stretching his back and limbs.

  He had to his name the clothes he stood up in, an old pocket knife that had belonged to his dad, a hunk of bread his mam had packed for his lunch and a bottle of cold tea. And his father’s precious book. Ethan had carried it with him since his father had placed it in his hands.

  He paused long enough to drink from the bottle and then, munching the bread as he went, he headed towards where he had spotted the field gate earlier in the day. It was, he figured, probably safe enough to go by road now. No one travelled much after dark and concealment was easy should he by chance see someone on the way.

  He had decided now, woken with the knowledge. He’d head for the coast, get aboard ship, either as crew or as un-paying passenger and make his escape that way. They’d look for him there, Ethan thought, but he didn’t think he had much other choice.

  Reaching the road, he was faced with a choice of right or left and, seeing as he’d spent the afternoon racing across fields, he wasn’t entirely sure which way would take him to the coast. Looking up, he scanned the sky. A great fat moon had risen, silvering the hedges and the fields and turning the road into an enchanted river. Searching, he found the pole star and made a guess from that which way was east.

  Left it is then, Ethan thought. ‘Forgive me, Helen,’ he said out loud, his voice seeming overloud in the still darkness. ‘I’ll send for you. I promise I will. I’ll send for you and we’ll be together again in no time.’

  Then Ethan put her from his mind and began to walk, closing his mind to what had been and focusing entirely on what lay ahead. Think of her, he knew, and he’d lose his nerve and will to go on. Think he might never see her again and he’d destroy even the will to live, be turning himself over to the hangman’s noose just on the off chance he might get to spend a few minutes in her company before he died.

  Don’t think, just walk. One step at a time. One step at a time.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Inspector Johnstone was a slender man with a head of unruly curls; one small element of unrestraint that sat at odds with the rest of him, Helen thought. His eyes were grey and stern and hard as river pebbles, and the set of his mouth, half hidden beneath the fox-brown moustache, was straight and tight and uncompromising.

  Helen’s heart sank. This was not a man who would allow Ethan any quarter. This was a man of the law; a man, she thought, who would have taken Hanson’s side even if matters had been reversed and it was Ethan lying cold.

  Even though he was not a physically heavy man, Johnstone dominated her parents’ small front parlour, his assurance and authority somehow making him seem broader and taller than he really was. Despite the warmth of the evening, he wore a black coat, long and plain and tight across his back.

  Her mother fussed about, making tea and her father stood, back to the empty grate, as though he felt the need of illusory warmth even on so close and humid an evening. His hands fiddled with an equally empty pipe and Helen knew he wanted to smoke but wasn’t sure of the etiquette involved when being interviewed by the police. Through the window she could see uniformed officers, summoned by the constable, waiting for their lord and master, there being no room for them to squeeze inside, even had he wished them to do so. Helen had the impression he had not but that he had wanted to conduct this interview, as he had called it, in private and beyond other ears.

  It was an impression that added to her unease.

  ‘So, the last time you saw him was in the evening. Yesterday. That would be Friday. Late.’

  Helen nodded. She had already told him this. ‘We work late round here come harvest. I snatched a quick word as he passed. His parents live just down the road.’

  ‘And what time would that have been?’

  Helen sighed and glanced at her father for confirmation though this fact, too, had already been repeated twice.

  ‘Well past ten,’ her father said. ‘As the lass says, we worked late.’

  The inspector turned briefly towards her father, long enough to stare him into reluctant silence. ‘And that would have been what time, Miss Lee?’

  ‘Like my dad says, well after ten,’ Helen said. She scowled at the big man, angry that he should belittle her father. ‘That was the last time I spoke to him or laid eyes on him. I told you that a dozen times already.’

  ‘No, Miss Lee,’ Inspector Johnstone said. ‘You have told me that exactly three times.’

  Helen stared.

  ‘Miss Lee, your intended has been accused of brutal murder. Of beating and kicking a wounded man unable to defend himself.’

  ‘He would not.’ Helen was outraged. ‘He would never do that. He might best a man in a fight but he would never—’

  ‘Miss Lee.’ The soft voice rose and the authority in it silenced her as did the look.

  Not river pebbles, she thought. His eyes were granite, tombstone hard.

  ‘According to the witness, Frank Church, Ethan Samuels took exception to the way the deceased mistreated his horse. Frank Church states that Mr Robert Hanson …’ he paused and consulted his notes, ‘… tried to put the horse to a fence too high for it and to jump it uphill and across. A jump Frank Church cites as impossible. He also suggests that Mr Robert Hanson had been drinking.’

  Helen nodded, not knowing what to say but feeling some response was required.

  ‘Sounds about right,’ her father muttered. ‘No care for any of the beasts nor any men neither.’

  Inspector Johnstone ignored him but Helen knew he had taken note.

  ‘He was cruel,’ she said quietly. ‘And he was often mazzled. Too much to drink,’ she interpreted.

  ‘I know what it means. Frank Church further states that Ethan Samuels snatched the crop from Mr Hanson’s grip and set about his master, beating him about the face and body.’

  ‘Frank Church has no right to say …’

  ‘Frank Church has confirmed only what the evidence of my own eyes has told me. There are welts all over Robert Hanson’s face and neck.’

  Helen looked away. Her throat felt far too tight. She tried to swallow but could not.

  ‘He then states that Ethan Samuels dragged the decedent from his horse, tumbling him on to the ground where he lay, apparently too drunk … too mazzled,’ he leant upon the word as though for emphasis, ‘… to move or to rise. Too dazed, probably, from the fall and the beating he had already received to hope to defend himself.’

  Helen glanced at him then tore her gaze away. Her mother, standing in the kitchen doorway with her hand tight to her mouth, was listening with horror written bright in her tearful eyes and her father would not meet her gaze, still fondling his pipe.

  ‘Ethan has a temper,’ she said quietly. ‘He can�
�t abide cruelty. He was raised to be a stockman, like his Dar – raised to respect the animals he cares for. You don’t get the best out of a horse by beating it black and blue.’

  ‘And a man? Do you get the best from a man doing that?’

  ‘A man should know better,’ Helen spat. Her anger rose and she could no longer keep her rage in check. ‘Robert Hanson weren’t worth nothing. He were cruel and spoiled and concerned with no one but himself. Oh, they’ll all say the words, all weep at his funeral but there’s not one round here who will really grieve that he’s dead. Not a one.’

  ‘Helen!’ Her mother was horrified. ‘Helen, how could you say …?’

  ‘Say the truth, Ma? He’d been a bully all his life. He deserved a beating.’

  ‘And did he deserve to be kicked in the head until he died?’ Inspector Johnstone’s voice, soft but very clear, fell into their midst and silenced them.

  Helen stared at him. She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Ethan would not do that. Not kick a man already down. Maybe the horse …’

  ‘Does the horse wear hobnailed boots, Miss Lee?’ He leaned in close, bending over the chair in which she sat. She could feel his breath upon her cheek and his voice, intimate now, whispered softly in her ear. ‘Three separate times, so far as I can see. Three prints he left on the face of that young man. One kick might have been aimed in anger, be down to sheer rage or loss of temper but tell me, Miss Lee, to do it twice, three times – perhaps more – speaks to me of cold intent. That speaks to me of murder.’

  THIRTY-NINE

  Morning dawned bright and clear and Helen realized that she must have slept. That she had done so seemed like a betrayal; the tears she had taken to bed should have sustained her through the night. It diminished her that she had given in to exhaustion and escaped her troubles when she doubted Ethan could have enjoyed such peace.

  Inspector Johnstone had remained until well after midnight before returning to the Hanson home. He was to stay there, it seemed, until Ethan was caught and the local constables would be billeted in the village. Helen could well imagine the mixed feelings with which the local families would take them in. Resentment that they had been dragged into such a sordid affair would merge with grateful acceptance that the Hansons had promised food and financial assistance to those who cooperated.

  Much as she was angered by the prospect of those who wanted to hang Ethan – and there was no other option in Johnstone’s mind, she was certain of that – living alongside her friends and neighbours, Helen could not, in her heart of hearts, begrudge them this windfall. Families had come close to starving these last years. Families had been forced into the workhouse at Caistor; children forcibly taken from their parents and fostered out; men kept separate from their wives. Honest, hard-working men and women accused of profligacy and blamed for coming to such a state when any reasonable person knew it was the state of the world and the lack of work that had brought them to such a pass.

  Extra food put on the table was a welcome bounty, however it happened to have got there, but it riled Helen to think that Elijah Hanson could afford to offer such assistance now, when it suited his purpose, when he’d previously seen workers laid off from his own farms, thrown on to what passed for parish care and not raised a finger in their defence.

  ‘I’m leaving this place when this is all over,’ Helen whispered as she looked from her bedroom window and saw the local constable and his new colleagues already striding down the narrow street. ‘Leaving it all and I ain’t coming back. I’ll find you, Ethan, and I’ll get a job and—’

  She broke off and bit her lip hard to stop the tears from coming.

  If only it could be as simple as that.

  Back in Louth, Mickey had been brought news. Children playing on waste ground near the canal had found the candlestick and Constable Parkin had brought it to the King’s Head.

  Parkin had put it in a large paper bag and he now set it down on the chest of drawers in Mickey’s hotel room.

  ‘I asked around,’ Parkin told him. ‘Asked people to keep a lookout for the candlestick. I thought the killer must have dumped it somewhere close by. I mean, you’d notice someone walking through the streets carrying a candlestick, wouldn’t you?’

  Mickey, looking at the size of the thing, was inclined to agree.

  The stick itself was pewter, set on a square base that had been filled with lead. It was tall and heavy and he could well imagine the impact of it swung at an unprotected head. Damn it, he didn’t have to imagine it; he’d seen the effect on the bodies.

  Mickey crouched down so that his eyes were level with the base. ‘Blood and hairs,’ he said. ‘And a bit of mud. You say children found it?’

  ‘Kids playing by the canal, yes. It was down in the reeds. I figure the killer tried to chuck it in the canal and missed his aim. They took it back home and the father recognized it from the description I’d given.’

  He sounded very pleased with himself, Mickey thought. He allowed himself a smile and, standing up, clapped the young man on the shoulder.

  ‘You think it will help?’

  ‘It might. Trouble is it’s been handled by who knows how many people since so I doubt we’ll get meaningful prints. Still,’ he went on, seeing the look of disappointment on Parkin’s face, ‘I will try. It’s worth seeing if there’s anything that matches the prints we found in the house. You’ve done a good job, lad.’

  Parkin went away happy.

  Mickey looked again at the shape of the stick. The lead in the base had preserved the shape well but, pewter being a soft material, the stick itself was bent out of shape, dented and scratched.

  ‘You swung it hard, didn’t you?’ Mickey said quietly to himself. ‘Hard as you could against a young man and a little girl.’

  Henry had taken the murder bag with him but Mickey, ever prepared, kept a small secondary kit of his own. Gently, he eased the hairs away from the mud and blood on the base and laid them out on a sheet of hotel paper. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘let’s see what else you might have left behind.’

  Inspector Johnstone had been up and about since dawn. He rarely slept more than a few hours even in his own bed and in a strange house, the atmosphere of which was redolent with grief and anger, rest was slow to come.

  Despite his lack of sleep, he felt alert and eager for the day to begin. He had gone out early to survey the scene of crime, only to find that the grass was sodden with morning dew and, instead of needlessly soaking his shoes, he merely stood beside the gate and looked out across the field.

  The land sloped downward, away from the farm, and Johnstone could visualize the difficulty of setting even a well-trained horse against such an unwieldy jump. Johnstone himself rode well; he made a point of doing everything well, but he would not have attempted it and could only imagine it was the young man’s drunken state that led him to think he might succeed.

  The field had been left fallow and not been grazed since spring, so Elijah Hanson had told him. The grass had grown long and Johnstone could see clearly where it had been trampled by the frightened horse, the heavy boots of the men and bruised by the impact of the rider when he fell from the saddle.

  He could see, also, that there was blood on the ground.

  Elijah Hanson came out from the house and stood beside him, a solid, silent presence that demanded answers.

  Johnstone resented his company, the emotional implication of which broke into his analytical reverie. He did not speak but, instead, continued with his observation.

  ‘You think he’ll be found today?’ Hanson said at last when the silence had grown too heavy for him to bear.

  ‘I have sent word and description to the docks and the train stations and the dogs will be here mid-morning. After that we’ll have a clearer picture of where he went.’

  Hanson snorted. ‘Almost a full day will have passed by then. He’s long gone. You’re town born, man – you don’t know how far a country lad could have taken himself in such a time.’

&
nbsp; ‘My colleagues on the docks have a description of him now,’ Johnstone said steadily. ‘He will be found.’

  Hanson snorted angrily. ‘I can’t believe the lad did it,’ he then said softly. ‘I knew he had a temper on him but I’ve never seen it fire off like it must have done yesterday. Can’t believe it all turned out this way. If Robert had fallen from his horse or been killed because of drink, well, truth is I’d almost prepared meself for that. He were a bad sort right from being a boy.’

  Johnstone looked curiously at this man who had just lost his son and it seemed to him that he regretted the loss of Ethan Samuels far more. He rated the young man more highly than his kin.

  As though Hanson read his thoughts, or it had suddenly come to him how his words must have sounded, he shook his head angrily. ‘Robert were still my boy,’ he said, ‘for all his faults. I’ll not have his death unpunished, no matter how or no matter who.’

  Johnstone inclined his head in acknowledgement of that. ‘Whether you’d have punishment or not is of little matter,’ he said quietly. ‘The law demands it, life for a life, and as the representative of that law it is my duty to see that justice is done. Personal feelings are of little consequence.’

  Hanson stared hard at this man whom fate had dictated should be his guest and therefore, under all the rules of hospitality, should be above disapprobation. For a moment, dislike and manners fought it out in Elijah Hanson’s brain and dislike won.

  ‘Were you born a sanctimonious fool?’ he asked. ‘Or did it take learning?’

  Johnstone did not favour the comment with a response and Hanson took himself off back to the farmhouse. Death or not, grieving or not, there was work to be done, stock to feed and harvest to bring home, and Elijah was suddenly grateful of that. He could bury his pain and his grief in the routine and the needs of those in his care. Glancing sideways, he was unsurprised to see Dar Samuels striding through the gate, head high but shoulders down as though the weight of the world was laid upon them. He too had work to do and thoughts to bury.