Murder in the Afternoon (4 page)

A cart appeared suddenly from a lane on the left. The unblinkered horse tossed its head. A whip cracked. I slowed down and pressed the brake.

‘I never forgot you,’ she said suddenly, dipping her chin into her chest, then turning and looking at me. ‘You were just a little baby. I said to Mam not to let the man take you. I thought he would drop you. He sort of crooked his right arm and balanced you on it. I remember saying that he would drop you. But no one listened. I cried when you’d gone.’

She had given me something to go on. I could test her claim. Ask Dad, did you go alone to fetch me? Did you carry me in the crook of your arm?

I drew into the kerb and brought the car to a halt. Not looking at her, staring at my hands on the wheel, I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me when you stepped in the door? You should have told me straightaway.’

‘I was going to tell you later.’

I turned to look at her. ‘And what else are you going to tell me later?’

She looked back at me. ‘You try it. You try saying something like that and see how you feel.’

She hadn’t answered my question. If this was all some idiotic lie to get my help, she’d be sorry. But no one would invent such a story, would they? And there was
something about her manner that made me feel at ease under my uneasiness, if that makes sense.

The way to Mary Jane’s village took us out of Leeds, passing the village of Horsforth, and following the tramway. At a higher point in the road, we crossed the River Aire. It always surprises me how much life goes on around a corner, along a street you may not look at twice.

My new-found sister’s directions were not of the highest quality. She called out things like, ‘Go there,’ meaning turn left, and ‘You’ve missed it.’

Mary Jane was slow in telling me to turn for Great Applewick. I looked out for the next turning and entered Back Lane, a street of modest stone dwellings whose front doors opened directly onto the street. For a place whose name hinted at apple orchards, there was not a tree in sight. We turned again, passing Great Applewick Chemical works, a printing works and a sign pointing to “Golf Course”.

Along Town Street, a mix of shops and houses, we passed school, church and Methodist chapel. Along Over Terrace, houses thinned out. Then came a rural lane, and two thatched sandstone cottages. Behind these dwellings spread narrow strips of fields and meadows into the open countryside. A little way on, Mary Jane pointed to a third house. ‘That’s us.’

I stopped the car opposite a two-storey sandstone dwelling, a couple of hundred years old. It was set a little way back from the road. The most cheerful thing about it was a blossoming apple tree to the left of the door.

The blinds were drawn down at its upper and lower windows. The stone roof looked much newer than the rest of the house. It was altogether more substantial than
Mary Jane had led me to believe. At first glance, almost the idyllic country cottage.

‘It’s lovely,’ I said. ‘But not thatched, like the other two cottages.’

She snorted her dislike of the cottage. ‘I nagged Ethan into seeing to that. Have you ever tried living under a damp old roof where rats make their nests and birds think it’s a free for all? And we’ve no running water like you. We’ve to fetch it from the well in the back garden.’

I was close up against a drystone wall and so we clambered out of my side, me first, curling my cold toes to bring them back to life.

‘Ethan’s not here,’ she said flatly.

‘How do you know?’

‘He would have lit a fire. There’d be smoke from the chimney.’

We walked to the door stepping on pink blossoms blown from the tree.

She pulled a string through the letter box.

‘Little monkey’s taken the key off the string. She must have been scared someone would come.’ Mary Jane knocked loudly, and waited. She knocked again. ‘I’ll have to thrown stones at the window.’

She bent down and began to scrabble about, picking pebbles from the verge. She took aim at the upstairs window and scored a hit that made barely a sound. The next pebble missed.

‘If the children are still sleeping, what about you show me the quarry? Can we drive to it from here?’

She threw another pebble. ‘I can’t. I know I’m being a coward, but I can’t go back there.’

‘Then tell me where it is. I’ll go.’

She looked relieved that I would be willing to go to the
quarry without her. ‘There’s two ways from here. Out of our garden at the back and follow the footpath, or back to the village and take the road by the side of the chapel. You can’t miss the quarry.’

When someone tells you
You can’t miss it
, that usually means
I
can’t miss it because I know where it is, but you’ll be lucky to find it.

Just then a noise came from the other side of the door. A bolt drew back. A key turned in the lock.

The small girl in the long white nightgown looked from her mother to me, and then beyond us, to the road and the motor, looking hopefully for someone else. Not seeing him, her shoulders drooped. She stepped back without looking at us again. Her long hair, tied with a ribbon, reached almost to her waist. A shiver ran through me. It was like looking in the mirror of the old wardrobe I had as a child. The girl’s eyes were too big for her face, her hair parted severely above a pale high forehead. If I had doubted Mary Jane was my sister, those doubts fled when I looked at this little apparition of myself when young.

I followed Mary Jane across the threshold.

‘Have you been all right?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’ The girl’s voice was sulky with sleep.

‘This is Harriet. Harriet, say hello nicely to Mrs Shackleton who gave me a ride back from where I went to look for Dad. That was kind of her wasn’t it?’

‘Where did you look for him?’ Harriet asked.

‘Mrs Shackleton will look for him, in her motor car.’

So that’s what I would do. The child had the sense to look a little sceptical at this idea. I wished Jim Sykes were here. He has children of his own and knows how to talk to them. Even my name sounded wrong in this house.

The girl did not look at me, but stood, watching, as her mother took off the motoring coat. I kept mine on.

‘Why did you take the key off the string?’ Mary Jane asked.

Harriet took the key from the lock and once more fastened it to the string. ‘I didn’t know who might be passing by and stick their big mitt through the letter box.’

She spoke calmly as if explaining to a child, and for the briefest of moments I thought she must be the mother and Mary Jane the daughter. Time played a trick so that Mary Jane became an old woman, and Harriet the calm and thoughtful adult. Beside her solemn daughter, Mary Jane seemed flibbertigibbet.

I glanced about the room. If one did not have to live here, one might describe it as picturesque, with its oil lamp on the dresser and candle holders on the mantelpiece. A well scrubbed deal table by the window held an enamel basin and jug. A pail and a bucket stood under the table. Another table stood against the wall, with chairs and buffets. A third, smaller table fronted by a spindly chair, held a Little Worker Lockstitch sewing machine. On either side of the range were fitted cupboards and drawers. On the far side of the room loomed a dresser. A blanket chest stood under the slope of the staircase. It was a crowded room. I pictured the family forever sidestepping, so as not to bump into the furniture.

Mary Jane raked at the ashes in the grate. ‘We’ll soon have a fire going. You go back to bed, Harriet. It’s too early for school.’

The child sat on a buffet by the table, watching her mother.

Mary Jane picked up a newspaper and began to make a twist of it. Harriet leaped from the stool, snatched the
newspaper back from her mother and smoothed it. ‘Dad hasn’t read that
Herald
yet.’

Mary Jane sighed. She reached for some shreds of bracken and placed a few chips of wood in the grate. ‘You haven’t fetched coal in.’

‘I was going to do it.’

‘Go on then!’

The sleepy-eyed child slipped from the buffet and picked up a scuttle from the hearth.

‘Harriet! Put your shoes on.’

‘Here, give that to me.’ I took the coal scuttle from her. ‘Where do you keep the coal?’

‘Nay, Catherine. You mustn’t do that.’

I ignored Mary Jane and followed as Harriet led me to a back door. It was bolted top and bottom. I shot back the bolts and the door swung open onto a long back garden with a couple of outhouses.

‘That’s coal ’ole.’ Harriet pointed to the first shed.

Slipping on a pair of galoshes that were too big, she shuffled along beside me.

In the coal hole, I picked up the shovel. It grated on the floor as I slid it under the heap of coal, filled it, and tipped the coal into the scuttle. Coals tumbled from the top of the pile.

‘You’ve to fill it to the top.’

I scraped the shovel along the floor once more.

‘Do you know Dad, Mrs Shack …’

‘Mrs Shackleton’s a bit of a mouthful. You can call me Auntie Kate.’ I hadn’t meant to say it, but it came out.

She frowned, and I realised I had made a mistake. She watched me tip the next shovelful of coal into the scuttle. When she spoke, she did not call me Auntie Kate.

‘Do you know Dad? Have you met him?’

She looked at me steadily, waiting for a reply. She would make a good interviewer. A felon staring into those wide eyes would be enticed into telling the truth.

‘No, Harriet. I don’t know your dad. But if you’ll be kind enough and you don’t need urgently to go back to bed, you could take me to the quarry and show me where he worked.’

It was hard, and perhaps even cruel, but I needed to talk to the child alone. After all, she claimed to have seen her father lying dead, and she did not look as if her eyesight failed her.

Harriet gulped. Her fists tightened. She no more wanted to go to the quarry than her mother did. But she was braver. ‘I’ll get dressed.’

We walked in silence along the footpath. It was early enough for the wild flowers not to have opened for business. The quietness of the morning and the mildness of the scene lulled us into a gentle stroll, as though we had no particular destination. I hated to break the spell.

How do you start a conversation with a child when the question is,
Where did you see your father’s body?

‘Your little brother came with you on Saturday.’

She kicked at a pebble. ‘Austin, yes.’

‘Do you know what time it was when you brought the supper for your dad?’

‘The church clock was striking five. He’d been gone since morning.’

‘Your mam said you put up the food yourself?’

‘I am ten years old.’ There was a hint of rebuke in her voice and perhaps a little doubt about my intelligence.

Grilling would lead me into troubled waters with this child.

The path turned muddy. I followed Harriet’s footsteps as she skirted onto the damp grass. The river came into view, at the bottom of the steep bank. It flowed swiftly,
giving off a soothing sound, and a terrible whiff of chemicals.

‘I’m sorry to ask, Harriet. But would you tell me all about that day, as much as you can remember about Saturday.’

‘What everything, from getting up?’

‘Yes,’ I said firmly.

Her gaze was incredulous. It said,
you’ve got a cheek
. Then she coloured up and said quietly, ‘You don’t tell people
all
your business.’

Mistake. I had asked too much and brought that deep-grained, early-learned Yorkshire caution into play. See all, hear all, say nowt. Eat all, sup all, pay nowt.

‘Please, Harriet. It might help. Your mam has told me of course but everyone notices different things.’

She sighed, but did not answer.

I pressed on. ‘Had your dad received any letters or messages? Did he say anything about visiting someone, or going off somewhere?’

I felt mean, introducing the possibility that Ethan may have gone visiting, but it did the trick.

‘I don’t know about any messages or letters. He was supposed to be going to Hawksworth Moor on Sunday, and he said he would take me and Austin.’

This was the trade union meeting Mary Jane had mentioned. Ethan must have intended to introduce his children to politics at an early age.

‘Harriet, I want to find out as much as I can about what might have happened. Anything you can tell me might help, even if it seems a small thing. Tell me about Saturday.’

She had been dragging her feet. Now she made up her mind to help me. She held herself erect. Her steps became
purposeful. I did not look at her. The energy in her voice made me kick myself for raising hopes that would not be met.

‘Dad starts work later on a Saturday – eight o’clock instead of seven. We were still in bed when he left, me and Austin. He didn’t call up that he was going, but when I went downstairs, he’d left me some tea in his pint pot. He allus does that. He likes it strong, with sugar, and he leaves some for me. I don’t mind that it’s cold. I like tea. I’m greedy for tea. Him and me both are. I’d heard him talking to Mam. He asked where was his snack. She said he mun come home at dinnertime. He said she knew fine well he was working the sundial. He’d finish it and come home when it was done and not before. She said what was the point of fighting for Saturday half day and then working it? And hadn’t he promised to do the heavy work in the garden. He said he’d do it Sunday, and she said oh was he foregoing Hawksworth Moor and his socialist chums then, and he said he’d forgotten that. Then he left.