The Murder Book Page 20

  Henry nodded. He might not have quite put it that way but he understood what Mickey meant and agreed with him.

  News of George Fields’ rampage had spread across the town and reached Edmund Fry’s wife. She told him all about it when he came home to lunch.

  ‘Celia says that’s the man that was up at Hubbard’s Hills yesterday. That he was watching us. His wife worked for your grandmother, didn’t she? Before we were married? That’s what Celia says.’

  ‘She did, for a while. My grandmother could not always be trusted with good judgement. Anyway, it’s nothing for you to be concerned about. The man has been locked up and won’t bother you again.’

  ‘He didn’t bother me in the first place,’ she said. ‘I only mention it because there was a connection in the past and because the police are investigating and so it would be natural if they came to talk to us.’

  ‘I’ve already spoken to them,’ her husband said. ‘That inspector came to the office on Saturday morning.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘And why would I tell you? It was of no consequence. They merely wanted to know the circumstances.’

  ‘What circumstances?’

  ‘What I knew about the woman,’ he said impatiently. ‘Which was little enough. Certainly nothing to bother you with and certainly nothing Celia should be gossiping about.’

  ‘She wasn’t gossiping. She just told me, that was all. Apparently everyone thought the man must be drunk or mad. Both perhaps. She said—’

  Edmund cut her off with a wave of his hand. ‘I don’t want to hear any more. It’s a sordid business and not the kind of thing we should be discussing over lunch.’

  She looked at him in some surprise but when he changed the subject she followed his lead. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ she said later as he was about to return to work.

  ‘You didn’t upset me. I just don’t wish to discuss that kind of woman in our house. Or that kind of man. Those people have no place in our lives so I’d be really grateful if—’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, but he could see the puzzlement in her eyes and had no doubt that as soon as he had gone she would be on the telephone to Celia.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Sergeant Hitchens and Inspector Johnstone had both attended the post-mortem with Dr Fielding. It was the first time that Mickey had seen the body and Henry stood back so that he should get a better view as Dr Fielding pointed out the main injuries.

  ‘If you help me roll the body so that you can see the back of the head … Yes, that’s right; look, my thought is this was the first injury, beyond some superficial lacerations to the face, of course. The witness says that Ethan Samuels seized the crop and set about the rider with it and that he then fell to the ground.’

  ‘Looks like he hit his head on something,’ Mickey observed. ‘A rock, maybe, though if he fell hard, just hitting the ground with his head would have rendered him helpless.’

  ‘And might have killed him but most likely it didn’t. You can see where the toe of the boot made contact with the temple, and we’re assuming this was the last of the injuries as there was still some bleeding around the wound. Of course, none of this is a certainty. It is possible that all but the wounds from the boots were made before he fell from the horse, that he then hit his head and this was the cause of death. That he was kicked as he was dying.’

  ‘Whatever the order,’ Mickey said, ‘I would suggest there was intent to kill or at least intent to wound heavily. There was no restraint that I can see.’ He indicated the wounds of Robert Hanson’s face and neck. ‘This speaks to me of blind fury.’

  ‘And fits with what Frank Church told us.’

  ‘I doubt any jury would be content with anything less than a murder conviction,’ Dr Fielding commented. ‘Especially any local jury. The Hansons carry a tide of influence in this county and have friends that do well beyond it. Whatever the circumstances, it’s likely they’d be lining up to tie the noose.’

  Henry Johnstone nodded and they resumed their examination. There were bruises consistent with the fall down the young man’s back, most of which had developed since his death and had now become visible. He had fallen very hard.

  ‘See here,’ Henry Johnstone said. ‘Where the body had been lying on the table in the Hanson house there is no post-mortem staining on the shoulder blades or the bones of the spine where it’s been touching the hard surface, but there is bruising. For the rest it’s hard to distinguish, visually, between the two. The redness bleeds into the purple and it would require a section putting under the microscope to tell the difference. But I’m satisfied that he hit the ground hard, falling flat on his head and back and made no attempt to break his own fall.’

  ‘There are marks from the riding crop on his face and neck and one stripe on his right hand, but he seems to have made little attempt to defend himself.’

  ‘From what we’ve all heard he was blind drunk,’ Henry Johnstone said. ‘In no position to do anything. If Ethan Samuels had merely grabbed the horse and held it hard and Robert Hanson merely fallen, even if he had then hit his head, the three of us would not be called into this mess.’

  ‘And it is a mess.’ Dr Fielding nodded sadly. ‘This is going to have repercussions across the community and not just in that little village.’

  ‘More than the death of Mary Fields and the others?’ Mickey Hitchens asked.

  ‘Long term, yes. The town is in shock but there is also a frisson of excitement. Brutal murder, detectives brought up from London, gossip about who her clients might have been and which men took their pleasure with her. There will be a fair few in this town looking over their shoulders for a while but ultimately the shock will die down and only the frisson will remain. The murder of Mary Fields and Ruby and Walter is too big for people to comprehend and at the same time too small. They lived on the outskirts of our society; Robert Hanson was at its heart. His father continues to be at its centre. And his murder is at once shocking and terribly banal. No excitement or frisson there, just cold fact.’

  ‘I think you are as cynical as Mickey,’ Henry Johnstone observed. ‘But there may be a complication.’

  Briefly, Henry told Dr Fielding about the possible connection between Ethan Samuels and the death of Mary Fields.

  ‘Oh, my dear Lord,’ Fielding said. ‘Are you serious about this?’

  ‘I’m looking at it as one possibility.’

  Fielding shook his head. ‘I feel so sorry for the Samuels,’ he said. ‘They are good people and this … this is not something that can be easily healed.’

  The post-mortem had told them little they could not already guess. Robert Hanson’s brain had been dislodged and badly bruised, and had he survived then his liver would no doubt have finished him off well before his time. As they walked away from High Holme Mickey was unusually quiet and it was Henry who finally broke the silence.

  ‘Nothing yet from the dockyard police,’ he said. He sounded disappointed.

  ‘It could be that you’ve misjudged this – that he headed elsewhere.’

  ‘And I plan to go back and speak to the family again. The Samuels and the Lees stay put but many of their kinsfolk still travel and it’s quite possible they would help a fugitive escape if it was one of their own. Probable, even. We must spread the net wider and away from the coast, I think.’

  ‘And his family are right, what Dar Samuels said – you’ve no notion of how far a young man could travel in a couple of days with the devil at his heels.’

  ‘Meantime, we focus on what must be done here,’ Henry Johnstone said.

  FORTY-NINE

  It was a little after eight o’clock in the evening when word came to Henry Johnstone that someone wished to speak to him but did not want to come into the hotel. Collecting Mickey, he went down the stairs and into the reception area. The young man at reception pointed him towards the front door. ‘A young woman, sir. Didn’t want to come in on her own.’

  Henry and Mickey went outside
and the girl stepped out of the shadows. ‘Are you the detectives?’

  Henry made the introductions and invited her to come inside but she shook her head. ‘No offence, but I don’t want to be seen with you. Apart from it wouldn’t be proper, it would be awkward, see, if anyone seen me talking to you.’

  ‘Perhaps we should walk down to the churchyard,’ Henry suggested. ‘It will be quiet this time of night and the church may still be open. If you want to go a little ahead and wait for us?’

  They waited for the woman to walk off and then followed a few minutes later.

  ‘She’ll probably be gone,’ Mickey said.

  ‘I don’t think so. I think she’s made her decision – she just doesn’t want to be seen making it.’

  She was sitting in the church porch when they got there and Henry and Mickey took a seat opposite. ‘You know our names,’ Mickey said. ‘Am I allowed to know yours?’

  She looked embarrassed and then said, ‘Mabel Atkins. I work at … one of the hotels where that man came today, shouting for Mr Williams to come out and show himself.’

  ‘I’d like to know which hotel,’ Henry told her. ‘He disturbed the peace at several today.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it would be all right, I suppose you’ll find out anyway. It’s the Belmont. I work there as a chambermaid but I was passing through to the back room where we store all the cleaning stuff when he arrived and started shouting.’

  ‘And so …’

  ‘And so I know the Mr Williams he was talking about. But he’s gone now – left a while ago, three, four months. Something like that. He were asked to leave, you see.’

  ‘And do you know why he was asked to leave?’ Henry asked.

  Even in the dark he could see that the girl’s cheeks flushed scarlet. ‘He had a bit of a reputation, if you know what I mean. He was undermanager and the girls all kept out of his way if we could. Or at least, most of us did. One of them, young Martha, fell for his, well, you know, his charms. Believed he really wanted to take her away with him.’

  ‘And was Martha dismissed as well?’

  She nodded. ‘Well, she couldn’t hide it, could she? Even behind her apron you could see. And the manager’s wife saw and she said that Martha couldn’t carry on working looking like that. And they said she had to tell who it was that had, you know. And she thought that Mr Williams was going to marry her, silly little thing. So she told.’

  ‘And do you know where this Mr Williams went to?’

  She shrugged and shook her head. ‘No, but I know where Martha ended up, poor little scrap. She tried to go home but her mum and dad wouldn’t have her and in the end I hear she got pulled out of the river. Her and the baby.’

  ‘And so I can imagine Mr Williams is not your favourite person,’ Henry suggested.

  She bristled at that suggestion. ‘I ain’t lying.’

  ‘I never said you were.’

  ‘And where might he have gone?’ Mickey asked. ‘Are there friends still here that would know?’

  She shook her head. ‘No one liked him. And we all warned her. But she wouldn’t have it. But there’s another thing.’

  ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘It’s about that woman, that Mary. I never knew her, see, but someone said as she used to work in the hotels round here. I mean, maid work, not the other. And one of the older women who used to work with us, but now she’s married and moved off – they reckon she used to take care of little Ruby. That she sometimes used to have her overnight when Mary was away. I seen her with Ruby a couple of times – Phyllis, she were called. Little thing she was, Ruby. Such a nice, polite little girl. Phyllis said she were no bother.’

  ‘And does this Phyllis have a second name and an address?’ Henry asked.

  ‘She does, and I spoke to her. She will talk to you but only somewhere private and not if you come to her house. If the police come to her house … She’s a married woman and the neighbours might think, well, you know. Policeman going to her house … So you see she’s willing to do her bit but you got to be discreet.’

  Henry took a decision. There was no chance to consult with Dr Fielding but he was the one person in town whose home might serve as neutral ground and who could be trusted not to gossip. And Dr Fielding had a housekeeper who could be called upon to chaperone if the need arose.

  He gave Mabel the address and told her that she should bring or send Phyllis to their house at ten in the morning. Did she think that would be a suitable solution?

  Mabel Atkins nodded. It would do.

  She left before they did and they watched her walk back through the churchyard and disappear from sight before they left the porch.

  ‘It’s been suggested before that Mary sometimes saw men outside her home, that she sometimes left Ruby with other people.’

  ‘Well, we shall see where it leads. It won’t mean that this Phyllis knows who she was seeing. It could lead to another dead end. So where now – warn Doctor Fielding that he will have a visitor in the morning?’

  Henry nodded. ‘That would seem like a sensible idea.’

  Helen could not seem to settle anywhere. In the end she’d gone walking even though her body ached from another day of hard work. Her mother seemed intent on keeping her busy and in some ways Helen was grateful though the repetitive tasks still gave her too much time to think.

  Where was he? Was he safe? Was he thinking about her, was he regretting ever having come home?

  She walked past the cottages of Red Row. There was a light on in the Samuels’ window and she caught a glimpse of Dar sitting at the table. There was a newspaper spread out in front of him but he was not reading it – he was staring into the distance. His heart is broken too, Helen thought, but she couldn’t go to speak to him. That would have been unthinkable. She wondered if in some way he blamed her even though she’d been nowhere near Ethan and Robert Hanson that day. Somehow everything felt intertwined and tangled, and Helen could not help but think that if she and Ethan had walked away from each other that first night, not danced together, not talked, not fallen in love, that the world would be a different place.

  She wandered up into the churchyard, not a place she usually frequented, her family being chapel. Both she and the Samuels had ancestors buried here. Old Mother Cook’s grave was still fresh and covered in flowers. Helen knelt beside it. ‘If you’d still been here you’d have been able to sort this out, wouldn’t you?’ But even as she knelt there Helen knew that that was a stupid thing to say. Even Mother Jo would have been defeated by this problem.

  FIFTY

  At ten a.m. the following morning Henry and Mickey were waiting in the front parlour of Dr Fielding’s house for the mysterious Phyllis to arrive. Dr Fielding’s house was in a quiet street where any stranger would have been very evident and Henry was hoping that Phyllis was not going to be put off by this.

  At 10.05 a.m. the door opened and Dr Fielding’s housekeeper came in, attended by a younger woman. Henry commented that he’d not heard the doorbell ring.

  ‘No,’ the housekeeper said, ‘I kept an eye open for her coming round the corner and then went out and suggested she come in through the back garden. There is a little path that runs at the rear of the houses, so that seemed like a good idea. I’ll bring your tea now.’

  She left the door ajar and the younger woman stood uncertainly on the threshold until Henry invited her to sit down. She was neatly turned out in a blue print dress that made a nod to the drop waists of the latest fashion but was longer at the knee than his sister Cynthia would have worn and her stockings were thicker. At first Phyllis was reluctant to give her second name but eventually she told them that it was Miles and that she no longer worked in the hotels because she was a married lady now and her husband had a job that did well for both of them. And besides, she now had a child.

  ‘You used to know Mary Fields and sometimes look after her daughter?’

  Phyllis pursed her lips and looked a little uncomfortable. ‘I feel she lied to me
,’ she said. ‘She told me sometimes she had to go away because she was offered a bit of work. She led me to believe it was cleaning work or serving work. She was trained as a silver service waitress, you see, and then she did chambermaid work. Or in the silver pantry, like she did when she first moved away from home. It’s usually young girls that work in the silver pantry. It lets the housekeeper keep an eye on them while they settle in, you see. So I used to look after Ruby, let her get a few hours work here and there. If there was a big party on at one of the big houses they always wanted extra staff.’

  ‘And some of the hotels – do they do external catering?’

  ‘Not so much. But sometimes they would hire staff on behalf of those that needed it. Staff they had already got the references for, you see, and they’d go off to one of the big houses hereabouts, help out for the evening then get brought back. A lot of the big places, they used to employ twenty or thirty or more all the time but these days no one can afford the staff – not like they used to. And people don’t want to be in service no more. Not when they can earn more in a factory and not be told what to do all the time.’

  ‘How often did you look after Ruby?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe a dozen times in all. Then I began to realize that she wasn’t doing what she said she was doing, Mary. She let slip one time that it was a different kind of work altogether. I didn’t take no notice. I didn’t want to take no notice. But then the rumours started. People said she was doing things with men while her husband was away and in the end I talked about it with my mother and she said I should be keeping clear of women like that and I should tell her that I couldn’t look after Ruby any more, especially not with me being married to a good man with a good job.’

  ‘And when was this – when did you tell her?’

  For the first time Phyllis looked really uncomfortable.

  ‘I’m right in thinking that you didn’t take your mother’s advice straight away?’ Henry asked.