Elementary Murder Page 26

  ‘Did Emily know you were her father? Her real one?’

  Weston shook his head. ‘Not at first, no. But then, in what might be seen as another dreadful blow of retribution, Julia became ill.’

  Again he paused, and Brennan could see how painful this was for the man.

  ‘She became ill because of that swine.’

  ‘Mason?’

  ‘His – shall we say? – fondness for female company. He passed on to Julia what he had contracted himself. Syphilis. “The consequence of impure connexion”. Ironic, isn’t it, that he failed to kill her while he lived and succeeded once he’d died. He murdered her from the grave. Her end was slow and painful and utterly humiliating. I was with her when she died, when she begged me to care for her darling child – our darling child. It was then, with almost her last words, she told Emily the truth.’

  There was silence between them, as both men seemed to realise the enormity of what Weston had just admitted.

  ‘You know what this means?’ said Brennan.

  Weston stood up and his shoulders drooped. ‘Miss Gadsworth recognised me. I had no idea who she was. Fifteen years is a long time to recall a small girl who tagged along with Julia. But then when she fainted and was cared for by Henry Tollet, I overheard her mention my name, and what I’d done in Hawkshead. I simply couldn’t allow her to spread that information any further.’

  ‘So you had to silence both of them?’

  ‘There was no other way.’

  ‘How did you lure her back to school?’

  Weston gave a sad smile. ‘I think I’ve told you enough, Sergeant. One mustn’t make things too easy for you.’

  ‘And Nathaniel Edgar? Did he know of Hawkshead and Esthwaite Water?’

  At first, Weston looked nonplussed. Then he said, ‘What Miss Gadsworth and the school inspector knew would have destroyed my reputation. If Nathaniel told Reverend Pearl about Emily being my daughter, as he threatened to do on more than one occasion … why, the result would have been the same. Scandal. Humiliation. So he too had to die.’

  ‘But he isn’t going to die,’ said Brennan. He allowed the silence between them to stretch before adding, ‘In that case we had better find you a comfortable cell for the night.’ He led Weston over to where a hackney carriage was waiting.

  As they stepped aboard, Weston said, ‘Do you still have those addresses? For my staff?’

  ‘I do indeed.’

  ‘Then would it be possible to get a message to Miss Ryan? She’s my deputy and she will be taking over in my absence. I should just like her to be given forewarning of my detention so she can be prepared.’

  ‘I’ll see to it, Mr Weston.’

  As they made their way down Wigan Lane back towards town, Weston leant his head back against the rest and closed his eyes. It was clear that the pressures of the last week or so had brought him immense distress. Brennan gazed out at the passing scene: people taking an early evening stroll along the lane, a customary practice that transcended the classes. These were people who laughed and chatted and shared frivolous tales of the day they’d had, unaware of the agony that was passing them in a hackney carriage.

  ‘Just one thing more, Mr Weston.’

  The headmaster opened his eyes wearily, as if disturbed from a troublesome slumber. ‘Yes?’

  ‘The boy. Kelly. Exactly what did you hope to gain?’

  Weston gave a nervous gulp. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you couldn’t have kept him incarcerated for ever, now, could you?’

  Weston was about to say something but thought better of it. He set his lips firmly shut and uttered not one word until they reached King Street. Even then he offered only a subdued ‘Thank you’ as he was escorted into the building by Sergeant Brennan, who asked the cabbie to wait for him.

  Once the man was charged and led down to the cells for the night – he had no intention of conducting any sort of formal interview at this time of night – Brennan didn’t repair to his office but asked Sergeant Prescott to advise Miss Ryan of the situation and then left the station in some haste.

  It was usual, at around this time of night, for him to pay the Crofter’s a short visit before heading home, but he would forego that pleasure for tonight.

  He did not believe in coincidences, and this case had been riddled with them. But the one he refused to believe above all others was the coincidence swirling around motive like a pestilential fog.

  According to Weston, he had been prompted by not one but two motives to kill.

  Dorothea Gadsworth and Henry Tollet had to die because they could destroy the reputation he had painstakingly built up over the years – that of highly respected disciplinarian, headmaster and pillar of the community – in his eyes, at least.

  Then along comes quite a different motive: Nathaniel Edgar threatening to expose his illegitimate link with his pupil-teacher. So he too had to die.

  Two motives? Quite a coincidence was that. What an unlucky chap he was.

  But it didn’t fit. And when he had asked him how he’d lured Miss Gadsworth back to the school the night she was poisoned he refused to answer.

  Why? Because he couldn’t. He had no idea.

  And when he’d mentioned Billy Kelly in the carriage he’d reacted strangely. As though he hadn’t a clue what Brennan was talking about.

  No. If you get rid of the idea of two motives and leave yourself with one only – namely the exposure and subsequent disgrace of Richard David Weston – then you were left with one clear suspect.

  But he still needed Billy Kelly to confirm whom he saw that night with Dorothea Gadsworth. The one who kept him prisoner to prevent him from revealing what he’d seen the night he tried to burn the school down. The boy’s testimony would be a powerful weapon in the hands of the prosecution.

  He climbed back into the cab and gave the driver the address he’d been to once already that day. As they pulled away from the station, a brief image flickered across his mind like a magic lantern slide: a beautiful butterfly in a glass case, fluttering its wings in a panic as he reached inside to grab it.

  When he reached the house he’d visited earlier that day, he was surprised to see the neighbour, Mrs Houghton, standing on her doorstep with a small cluster of women. In the midst of them, Emily Mason’s grandmother was sobbing, several of them offering words of comfort.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Brennan asked as he leapt from the cab.

  It was Mrs Houghton who stepped forward. ‘It’s the young lass, Emily. She’s gone missin’.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Peggy yonder says she went to t’library for some books an’ she’s not come back. An’ what with all that bother at that school where she works, well. It makes you wonder, don’t it?’ She moved very close to him, placed an advisory hand on his arm and gripped it a little too tightly. Then she leant into his ear and whispered, ‘Happen she’s been done away with, eh? Just like them others. Somebody as ’as a grudge against teachers. Canal’s up yonder an’ all.’

  He asked her to take the woman back inside, assuring her that he would do all he could to find the girl. But even as she closed the door and he heard the neighbour speak words of comfort to a sobbing grandmother, he felt a heaviness weigh him down. Emily Mason was missing. He had a good idea where she could be found, and it didn’t involve the Leeds–Liverpool Canal.

  First thing in the morning, he would catch the train to take him to Seaforth, and the Waifs and Strays Home on Seaforth Road, where Billy Kelly was lying in a sick bed.

  He hoped to God he wasn’t too late.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  There was a thick fog shrouding the platform at Wigan Wallgate railway station. Brennan stood waiting for the seven-thirty Lancashire and Yorkshire train that would take him on the first leg of his journey to Seaforth, to Southport. From there he would catch the 10:10 L&YR train to Seaforth, following the contours of the coastline until he reached his destination.

  ‘Will you see the sea?’ Barry
had asked, his eyes sparkling with the possibility of an invitation to join his dad.

  ‘I should think so,’ he’d said, rubbing his son’s hair, a practice the little lad hated.

  ‘And will you see the tower?’

  Brennan had laughed. ‘No, lad. The tower’s in Blackpool.’

  ‘But it’s near the sea!’

  ‘I know, but the sea’s a big place. I’m going first to Southport then to Liverpool.’

  ‘I bet if you look hard you’ll see it. The tower. An’ they might ’ave built a tower at Southport by now. And at Liverpool.’

  ‘I’ll tell you if they have. How’s that?’

  Barry had beamed a huge smile that had kept Brennan warm since he walked from his house to the station through the fog. Now, as he stood on the platform peering into the grey gloom to his left for any sign of a lamp heralding the train’s approach, he felt a growing despondency wrap itself around him like the fog itself.

  There were several what ifs.

  What if the boy Kelly had given up the fight for life and was even now lying on a slab in the mortuary?

  What if the Seaforth police had failed in their duty to watch over him?

  What if Emily Mason had made it all the way to Merseyside to silence him before he had the chance to speak with the child?

  And what if, after all his efforts, Billy Kelly refused to tell him the name of the one who’d kept him hidden away for days out of some misguided sense of loyalty?

  Suddenly, a yellow light penetrated the swirling heaviness around him, and he stepped back as the seven-thirty chugged and steamed its way into the station, doors swinging open and passengers disgorging themselves from its innards like minnows from the leviathan.

  When he clambered aboard, Brennan was disappointed to find the carriage was already occupied by a well-dressed man who gave him a flinty smile of acknowledgement, as if he too resented the intrusion to his privacy. That was fair enough, thought Brennan. He didn’t feel like making any kind of polite and meaningless conversation anyway, preferring to gaze through the grey mass of nothingness outside and let his thoughts meander over the intricacies of the case.

  A blasphemous and immoral act in the church belfry at St Michael and All Angels had set in motion a wave of consequences that even now was still in frantic sway, like a violent sea-storm.

  Dorothea Gadsworth had fainted when Weston, Henry Tollet and Reverend Pearl entered the staffroom. She had said, ‘Of course, Esthwaite’, a reference to Esthwaite Water, where the young girl Tilly Pollard had died. But it had been the phrase, ‘Of course’, which meant, he now realised, that she had finally confirmed who Richard Weston was – or who he had been. It must have been playing on her mind since she met him that morning. It cost not only her life but the life of the school inspector, Henry Tollet.

  Emily Mason must have overheard Miss Gadsworth tell the school inspector what she knew.

  And that meant her father – her real father, who had rescued her from ignominy – was in grave danger of losing everything he had built up.

  So both of them had to die before Tollet could bring his information to the proper authorities.

  He saw odd shapes through the still-heavy fog, trees on a nearby embankment, stretching branches now growing devoid of leaves, resembling skeletal figures pleading with the heavens for some kind of mercy. As they rattled and swayed past a colliery, he could just make out the pithead winding gear, the wheels seemingly disembodied and still, no sign of life anywhere in the grey mass that eddied around it.

  The world of nature. The world of man.

  Had Emily’s life been damaged beyond measure? Scarred by what she had seen whenever Sidney Mason rolled in drunk, and violent, and without mercy?

  Brennan shook such thoughts from his head.

  When they got to Gathurst Station, another man climbed into the carriage, carrying a strangely elongated travel bag. He wore a check suit, a bowler hat, and beamed at the two occupants. The other man merely nodded and held up a newspaper which he had been reading since they left Wigan, which meant that the new arrival would direct his bonhomie at Brennan.

  His opening gambit told Brennan at once what the man’s profession was.

  ‘You look a man of taste, sir.’

  Brennan smiled but then returned his gaze to the window, where the fog seemed to be finally clearing. He needed to continue his reflections on the case.

  But the newcomer had different ideas. He immediately lifted his bag onto the vacant seat beside him and opened it with a flourish. ‘Here, sir, are the finest walking sticks you will ever set your eyes on. I can see that you’re a discerning sort of chap. You look like a silver knob to me!’

  Brennan’s eyes widened as the man slid out from a slender sheath an elegant walking stick topped with a silver globe. When he saw Brennan’s unenthusiastic reaction, he quickly replaced it and took out another of his exhibits.

  ‘You’re quite right. This is more you, my friend.’

  He held a cane in his hands as if it were the crown jewels. At its summit was an eagle’s head, carved elegantly in brass, and the highly polished wood of the cane gleamed even in the dull light of the carriage lamps. ‘Thirty-five inches of elegance, sir. With the eagle’s head in your hands, what power, what grace, as you stroll down Lord Street on a Sunday afternoon.’

  ‘Why would I be strolling down Lord Street, Sunday or any other time?’ said Brennan growing bored with the man’s excess of enthusiasm.

  ‘Southport, my dear sir. Southport!’

  ‘But I live in Wigan, friend. Not much call for silver knobs in Wigan.’

  The man looked crestfallen. But not beaten.

  He took another sample from his bag. ‘Now this is truly unique. The only one of its kind in the world. Or at least, Lancashire!’

  He held it out for Brennan to examine. It had at its summit a white billiard ball, the cane embedded in its base.

  ‘Hmm,’ Brennan said at last, ‘it might prove useful at that. How many skulls would I crack with one swing, do you reckon?’

  ‘Skulls?’ said the salesman, his voice weakening as it dawned on him that he might be offering a violent weapon to a madman.

  ‘Only in the case of a refusal to be arrested, of course.’

  The man hurriedly replaced the canes and fastened his bag. As they approached Newburgh Station, he saw the newspaper-reader offer him a conspiratorial smirk.

  For the rest of the journey, Brennan was left mainly in peace. Stops at Bescar Lane, Blowick and St Luke’s Road ensured that the carriage was filled to its capacity, and that, ironically enough, rendered conversation difficult. People are reluctant to converse, Brennan mused, when their comments have a large audience.

  At Southport, he was cheered to see the fog had lifted completely, and the morning was one of glorious sunshine. There was a smell of sea in the air too, which he inhaled deeply, a salty contrast to the heavier, dustier atmosphere of his home town. He had a little time to spare before catching the 10:10 to Seaforth, so he took the opportunity to take a stroll along the magnificent boulevard of Lord Street, minus the perambulatory advantage of a walking stick, with its wonderful array of shops that had so enraptured – and frustrated – Ellen the last time they came, bringing Barry with them for the first time.

  It was strange, he reflected after gazing idly at a number of shop displays, how the street was already crowded with people rushing to work – shop hands and clerks and office workers – or those better dressed members of the leisured class simply beginning the day with a stroll around the shops and perhaps around the marina later.

  He felt lonely without Ellen and Barry – Ellen marvelling at the latest unattainable fashions, and Barry moaning that he couldn’t see a tower anywhere. It made him realise, not for the first time, how important his family was to him, and that thought led inevitably to the circumstances of the case that was so pressing on his mind. How many lives had been affected by that monstrous act of neglect by Julia Reece, lustfully
supported by Richard David Weston?

  How many families blighted?

  Perhaps he was wrong to think Emily Mason was headed for Seaforth. What would she gain now by silencing the boy?

  But her crimes had shown what a dark and troubled mind she had. She might be thinking even now that she could still be free if only the boy were silenced. Yet when she had had the chance to kill him, she hadn’t.

  As he returned to the station, his mood was rather sombre now. He looked up at the skies, but all he could see was a clear fresh blue, no cloud to share his feelings.

  The journey from Southport to Seaforth was uneventful. At Formby, the carriage emptied and Brennan had the place to himself for the rest of the time. He looked at his watch several times and grew impatient for his business to conclude. He needed the boy’s testimony to help build the case against Emily. He needed him to regain his strength so that he could give evidence to that effect in court.

  He needed him alive.

  As he stepped into the bright sunshine once more at Seaforth Station, he hailed a hackney cab and gave his instructions.

  They moved sedately along the vast stretch of Seaforth Road until, in the distance, he saw a commotion ahead, with people running across the road from what appeared to be a long driveway to his right. It swept in a curve towards a building set back amid a cluster of trees.

  ‘Somethin’ goin’ on down there!’ the cabbie called out.

  Indeed there was. Standing across the road from the entrance, a huddle of young boys seemed nonplussed by what was taking place, several masters holding out their arms and shepherding them away from the immediate vicinity. A uniformed constable was emerging from the driveway carrying a small boy still in his nightgown, and a woman, wearing the garb of a nurse, was by his side and speaking gently to the child. A huddle of onlookers stood there, arms folded and watching the proceedings with a prurient interest. But what captured Brennan’s interest far more than any of this were the fire hose wagon with ‘Waterloo and Seaforth Fire Brigade’ emblazoned across the base of the wagon, its horses standing patiently in the driveway, and the thick plumes of smoke that were emanating from Elm Lodge Home for Boys.