Act of Murder (5 page)

Betty Cowburn had been duped by a silver tongue and the promise of plenty by one of the soldiers brought in to prevent any trouble from the strikers. The soldier had deserted, and they were both
now on the run.

As he flung open his front door, his blackened face gave him an appearance more demonic than human. The coal dust that was almost ingrained into his face rendered his eye sockets an unearthly
white, flecked with tiny specks of black. Narrow rims of redness ran along his lower lids. He walked through to the kitchen and laid his bag on the table, just suppressing his nightly call to his
wife.

‘Still can’t get used,’ he said to himself. ‘I hope the bitch is lyin’ face down. Some bloody farmer’s field.’ In his mind he coloured in the fantasy.
‘Lyin’ in some stinkin’ bloody cowshit. An’ some bloody bull’s caved her skull in. Her an’ that bastard.’

He savoured the image for a few seconds. Then he heard a noise from upstairs. For a moment he thought it might be
her
, come back to beg for mercy, or more likely come to collect the rest
of her clothes, which he had shredded into rags. But then he realised it would only be his daughter. And that was when he felt things weren’t quite right.

Shouldn’t she be downstairs getting his tea ready? He glanced over to the fire and the oven range beside it. He could smell nothing – no broth, or stew, or potatoes bubbling in a
pan.

Bloody hell and damnation!

It was freezing outside – dark and foggy and freezing, and she’d let the fire die down. Just look at those ashes! He worked in that shithole all day and he had to come home to a
bloody cold kitchen because she couldn’t be bothered to stick a shovelful of coal on the sodding fire? Nothing cooking at all? What the blazes did his daughter think she was playing at?

He slammed both fists down hard on the table. With muttered curses he stood up and stormed to the foot of the stairs.

‘Where’s my soddin’ bloody tea then, lady?’

Silence.

‘Tha’d better get down ’ere an’ explain thi bloody self, or I’ll tan thi arse so bad tha’ll be shittin’ through thi mouth for a week! Dost hear me,
Violet?’

But Violet, upstairs, had other worries. Her visitor had insisted on another gallop, in spite of frequent warnings of her father’s imminent arrival.

‘Don’t worry,’ he had said. ‘I’ll pay the extra if we go round the paddock just one more time. Fast trot, eh?’

They had pushed their luck too far this time, and the sound of the front door flying open had dampened Richard Throstle’s ardour far more effectively than her warnings had achieved. So
now, as he was moving with a sort of terrified speed to climb back into his trousers, she too hastened to make herself more respectable, frantically looking around her tiny bedroom for any means of
either concealment or flight. It was hopeless. And then they both froze as they heard the heavy thud of Billy’s clogs on the bare wood of the stairs, thuds that were getting closer and
closer, accompanied by the most blasphemous of oaths and the direst of threats.

*

‘Good Lord, Richard! Whatever is the matter?’

Georgina Throstle ran from the window where she had been standing and helped her husband to the bed. He was pale, his eyes were wide and wild, and he was panting with an exertion that denoted
something akin to panic. She saw that his clothing was in disarray, his necktie missing and the shirt collarless.

‘Allow me a few . . . minutes!’ His voice was the hoarsest of whispers, as if his tonsils had been scraped with sandpaper.

He sat on the bed and closed his eyes. She noticed his hands were shaking. What on earth had caused him to tremble so much?

She went to the small dressing-table and brought forth a half-bottle of brandy, from which she poured a sizeable measure. ‘Here,’ she said, placing the glass in his still-shaking
hand. ‘Drink this.’

Like an obedient child, he placed the glass to his lips and drank it down in one gulp.

‘Better?’

He nodded.

‘Shall I call for a constable?’

This time he shook his head.

‘Have you been attacked, Richard? Some footpad? This town is notorious for such things. The people are barely human.’

‘I . . . have merely had a shock.’

She recognised, in the timbre of his voice, the early signs of falsehood and deception. Even in distress, he was saving his skin. Like a man drowning. ‘There must have been a
cause?’

He lay back with his head on the pillow. Small beads of perspiration ran down his pale forehead. ‘I’m afraid I have been rather foolish, my dearest.’

She blinked. If this was to be a confession of guilt, it would indeed be breaking new ground. ‘In what way?’ The concern in her voice was now diluted by reproach.

He sighed. When sufficiently recovered, he said, ‘I went into a local hostelry. Just to give you some peace and to allow the compound to work.’

‘I am most grateful.’ She couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm from her tone.

‘And I fell in with what I thought was an innocent game of cards.’ His voice became gradually calmer. ‘At first I thought it was a game of Pope Joan, but then I couldn’t
see a board. So I thought, rummy then. They invited me to join them, and they seemed personable enough chaps, but imagine my surprise and consternation when I discovered the game in question was
brag!’

‘I can indeed imagine!’

‘And you know my dear, they were rogues!’

‘No!’

‘Indeed they were! They managed to lighten my pocket by a couple of guineas until I refused to have any more to do with them. And I foolishly accused them of cheating, upon which the
villains threatened to thrash me.’

‘They stole your collar and necktie as compensation?’

‘They were vile beasts! Manhandled me into an alleyway where I had the damnedest time.’

‘What happened?’

‘I gave a good account of myself, rest assured.’

‘Until you fled?’

‘Let’s just say I withdrew quickly,’ he corrected her with a smile.

*

It was the Cowburns’ neighbour who sent her son to find a policeman. She had been busy stirring their tea – oxtail stew and boiled potatoes, her Nat’s
favourite – when she heard the shouting from next door. It wasn’t anything unusual: Billy and their Violet often exchanged words at some time during the evening, either because of her
frequent tendency to turn a piece of steak into shoe leather, or her failure to produce a well-starched collar when it was turning-out time. The rows over the last months had grown more and more
bitter.

Ethel Grundy had some sympathy with Billy, whose wife had brought disgrace on the whole street by running off with yon soldier, but she didn’t much care for that young lass of his. All
uppity now, she was. Somewhere along the way she must have come into a bob or two, to be able to afford some of those clothes she’d been swanking around in, unless Billy Cowburn had suddenly
become a lot more generous. And that, she told those who would listen in Rosbottom’s shop at the end of the street, was about as likely as a pig winning the Derby. No, there was something
about the way Violet sauntered down the street that said to Ethel: ‘That lass is headin’ for a bloody big fall. See if I’m wrong!’ Nevertheless, she hadn’t expected
her dire prediction to come true so literally. The shouting had been followed by the heavy clomping of clogs and the bellowed imprecation that made even Ethel feel faint. Then she heard the front
door fling open and saw a blurred shape move so quickly past her window that she couldn’t tell if it were man, woman or beast. Then she heard Violet scream out, ‘No you won’t! You
leave him be, you big bastard!’, swiftly followed by Billy’s snarling growl of ‘Thee let go or I’ll brekk thi filthy little neck!’

Evidently she hadn’t obeyed, for immediately after the warning came the sound of crashing and screaming and the splintering of wood and a series of dull, heavy thuds. Then, as Ethel
managed to sidle up beside the curtain to take a peek, she saw Billy Cowburn come hurtling out of the house with a heavy poker in his hand.

Once he had disappeared, she judged it safe to go outside. From next door she could hear a low whimpering, and a weak voice cry out, ‘Help me . . . help.’

By this time others in the street had ventured forth. Several women, flanked by their children, now stood on their doorsteps, casting furtive glances in the direction of Billy’s vanished
form. Ethel saw her son, Zander, appear from the alleyway across the street where doubtless he had been playing pitch and toss.

‘What’s goin’ on, mam?’ he asked. He had both hands in his pockets and she could hear the rattle of loose change.

Ethel gave him a frown but said nothing. Instead, she leaned into the doorway of the Cowburn house and pushed the half-open door with her hand.

Then she stood back with a gasp. There, lying at the bottom of the stairs, lay poor Violet Cowburn, her body twisted out of shape, with one arm splayed out at an impossible angle and her legs
stretched obscenely apart and resting on the lower steps. Her face was half-turned towards the doorway and blood was pouring from a head wound. People gathered round, not daring to venture beyond
the lintel. Yet despite the fading light, they could all make out the smear of blood that ran in a wavy line all the way down the wall beside the stairs.

‘Bloody swine’s pushed her downstairs!’ said one of them.

‘Always did have a temper on him,’ said another.

‘Not fair, though, takin’ it out on the lass.’

‘Should’ve been that wife of his.’

A murmur of assent rippled through the group.

Ethel stepped carefully over the threshold and leaned over the poor girl, stroking her bruised head gently. ‘I’ll send for the doctor, lass.’

It wasn’t clear if she’d heard. Violet’s eyes were flickering, occasionally showing only a sickly pale white as her consciousness began to fade.

Ethel stood up and went quickly over to her son. ‘Alexander!’

The boy, who was almost twelve, flinched at her public use of his given name.

‘I want you to go to Dr Hallard’s. Tell him Violet Cowburn’s fell downstairs.’

He turned and set off on his errand, but he had only gone a few yards when she called him back, glancing around at the other women for their tacit compliance. ‘And then go find a
bobby.’

‘Aw mam!’

‘You can tell
him
summat different.’

‘What?’

‘You can tell the bobby Violet Cowburn was
pushed
downstairs.’

They all nodded in agreement. Some things couldn’t be swept under the carpet. Zander Grundy ran down the street, bumping past a small group of miners who were on their way home after their
nightly livener. They exchanged curious glances at the unusual sight of their womenfolk standing in a cluster at the very time they should be laying out their steaming hot plates, and their
quickened pace implied a desire for an explanation.

*

The longer he spent applying the make-up, the calmer he became. A small, gilt-framed portrait of David Garrick took pride of place on his dressing-table, positioned
strategically so that, as he prepared himself before the looking-glass, he could catch the reflected half-smile from the father of the theatre and a glimmer in the eyes that would signify approval,
support, and – he liked to think on occasion – admiration. The portrait went everywhere with Benjamin: it gave him a sense of continuity, of his place in the scheme of things.

There was, as always, a professional tidiness about his dressing-room: to his right, within easy reach, lay the scissors and nail parers; to his left a compact side cabinet with three drawers,
the top one of which was open to reveal a small row of diminutive gallipots filled with the colours he would be applying; beside that stood a squat tin containing crêpe hair for the various
moustaches he would be sporting throughout the tour, and a tall wooden box that held the powder he always applied to his boots to indicate that he had travelled along dusty roads.

He looked at himself in the mirror and gave a wan smile. He had a sudden longing for London, for the familiar sights and sounds of Cheyne Walk. And that longing quickly became tinged with a
sharp stab of loneliness. For it was true that, even in the capital, he had very few people he could call his true friends, his closest companions. Certainly the theatre was his world, his
raison d’être
, and his circle of acquaintances had the stage as its nucleus. But it was a terrible thought that, if this world of splendid fakery were ever forbidden him, why, he
would be nothing more than a soul in Limbo. Jonathan of course was his oldest and dearest friend, but even that lacked the frisson that he desired. Perhaps Herbert, dear Herbert . . .

He smiled wanly once more, shook the thoughts away and resumed his preparations in the knowledge that others of the company, occupying the row of dressing-rooms down from his, were even now
contemplating the approaching performance in different, highly personal ways.

Jonathan Keele, for instance, whom he had given the part of Jaikes and who was in the next room to his, had recently begun suffering the most agonising stomach cramps before every performance
even though he had been treading the boards for over fifty years, while Susan Coupe, who had been allocated a room across the corridor, made every effort to conceal her highly-strung disposition by
lying down on a small chaise-longue with a cold flannel pressed to her forehead prior to make-up. Belle Greave, who was sharing lodgings with Miss Coupe, would be taking her nightly glass of brandy
to ‘steady the ship’. James Shorton, next door to Jonathan, would stand before the looking-glass and recite the Tennyson poem ‘Sir Galahad’, extending the full range of his
voice from whisper to thunderous indignation. Benjamin could hear the modulated tones of his nightly ritual shifting from tenderness to chivalrous defiance:

And of course there would be Herbert, dear, confident Herbert, full of the swagger of youth and beauty, who despite his sang-froid in all matters temporal, habitually had an attack of the shakes
that only completely vanished once he had spoken his opening lines.