Dying in the Wool (14 page)

‘His wife thinks yes. Tabitha says no. Stoddard won’t admit to Braithwaite’s having attempted suicide. He says he was not a man to give up easily. Stoddard won’t say outright that Braithwaite is dead, though I’m sure he believes that.’

Sykes stabbed at Evelyn on the wedding photograph. ‘Why hasn’t she had Braithwaite declared dead?’

‘She believes he’s dead but as far as I can gather wants to wait the full seven years. Perhaps it’s for Tabitha’s sake. Evelyn’s main concern just now is to see the wedding go smoothly. Hector, Tabitha’s fiancé, is ten years her junior. He resents the investigation. I’m hoping to get more out of him but he’s reluctant to talk in case I tell Tabitha and it reminds her of how young he is – as if she didn’t know.’

‘Can’t you give him assurance that what he says won’t go any further?’

There was a hint of criticism in his voice which made my reply sharper than I’d intended. ‘It’s her investigation. She’ll be coughing up. My obligation is to Tabitha Braithwaite, and the truth.’

He shrugged and wiped his mouth with the serviette as if attempting to button his lip.

‘I play it straight. That’s why Tabitha asked me and not some tuppence ha’penny private detective, or an ex-policeman.’ I polished off the cider, wondering had I made a big mistake taking on this clever Dick.

‘Touché!’ He smiled. ‘But my point is, it’s the result she’s after, not every bit of tittle-tattle on the way to it.’

For a moment we were silent, picking up each of the other photographs from the table, like playing snap without hope of a match. I told him about each person in turn. Evelyn, not sorry to see the back of her husband, claiming there was a note but not remembering its contents; Tabitha, who blamed herself for not being there; Edmund, much mourned young soldier whose death may have prompted Joshua Braithwaite’s suicide attempt; Hector, the former boy scout who knew more than he admitted; Stoddard, cousin and friend of Braithwaite’s youth who had held the fort at the mill; Mrs Kellett, on the upturned barrel outside her door. I explained her special insights into who had reached where and who did what in the afterlife and her certainty that Braithwaite had shuffled off this mortal coil. Lastly I showed him the photograph of the dyeworkers, including Kellett, whom I had not yet spoken to except concerning the workings of the dyehouse.

‘Kellett interests me.’ Sykes picked up the photograph. ‘That’s him?’

‘How do you know?’

‘By his description. The dyeworkers go for a pint after work. I stood them a round last night in the Gaping Goose. Only Kellett’s the one who jumps in to get the
overtime, so he wasn’t there. Just as well because they may not have been as forthcoming about him if he had been. Must be a bit of a comedown for him, to be back in the dyeworks. He had his moment of glory.’

‘Do you mean the injury? He’s missing his left hand. He has a sort of claw. It’s tucked up his sleeve in this photograph.’

‘He joined up in 1914, after a row with the missus and an argument over a pay increase that wasn’t forthcoming. He came out in 1915, due to his Blighty wound.’

‘Are you saying it was a self-inflicted injury?’

Sykes shrugged. ‘Don’t know. But I do know that some men made their own wounds worse, to keep from going back to the front. And a hand or foot injury – that’s always the easy one to self-inflict. It’s his left hand, and he’s right handed.’

I knew well enough about war injuries. I’d once been asked by a doctor in France to bandage the arms and legs of men to stop them from scratching their wounds worse so that they would not be sent back to the front. We all knew what they were up to but said nothing. It would have been a court martial offence. If Kellett had shot his own hand off, he must have been desperate.

‘The moment of glory I was thinking about was when he came back.’ Sykes selected the photograph of Braithwaite with his business colleagues and set it alongside the photograph of Kellett and the dye workers. ‘Did anyone mention a German connection?’

‘Tabitha said there was talk about a friendship between their family and the von Hofmanns and that because of it there was some local suspicion of Braithwaite.’

‘Did she say why?’

‘Just that they were thought to be too close. She mentioned Little Germany, an area of Bradford where the merchants worked.’

‘There was a bit more to it than friendship and fine
buildings. I picked up on a little gossip at the Wool Exchange that confirmed what the dyeworkers said. Before von Hofmann left the country, he and Joshua Braithwaite came to an arrangement. See, our textile industry was hugely dependent on German chemistry, and German dyes. With that source cut off after the outbreak of war, there was real difficulty. Anyone who could get their hands on the German dyes that were in storage here stood to make a fortune.’

‘And Joshua Braithwaite was that man?’

‘Indeed. Of course he did it at arm’s length. Kellett came out of military hospital in 1915, with his honourable discharge and his demob suit …’

‘And he knew all about dyes.’

‘Exactly. Oh Braithwaite made the right gestures, for appearances’ sake. He sold the picric acid to the Bradford Dyers’ Association at a proper price. They had a subsidiary – the Low Moor Munitions Company, formerly Low Moor Chemical Company. The picric acid was used to manufacture high explosives. Low Moor Works got the picric acid, but there were a lot of other dyewares Braithwaite had come by. The shortage was so drastic that the Braithwaites of this world could name their price.’

‘Braithwaites would have needed the dye for themselves surely?’

‘Some of it. But if you compare Braithwaites with mills the size of Salts and Listers, they’re small fry. They’d get away with far less. They were weaving khaki, you said?’

‘Yes, according to Stoddard.’

‘Khaki was produced from two olives, white, light-blue and purple. But some dyers threw in all sorts of stuff. It wasn’t unknown for the khaki to turn pink or blue once it’d had a day’s outing in fair or foul weather.’

‘So Braithwaite was making a lot of money out of these dyes. I wonder how much.’

‘According to my informants, Kellett was on the road
selling dyes between 1915 and 1916.’ Sykes pulled out his notebook. ‘I made a few notes as soon as I was out of the Goose and out of sight of my dyer friends.’ He flicked the page. ‘To give you an example – Chicago Blue 6B, eleven pence a pound, was sold in Bradford for ninety shillings a pound – diluted. And Braithwaite had access to the von Hofmann warehouse. He got in before war was declared. Don’t know where he shifted the stuff but shift it he did.’

It made me feel indignant. ‘That’s just greedy. He was already a millionaire.’ Footsteps trod the corridor. I returned the photographs to my satchel.

Sykes fingered a bathing suit. ‘Profiteering. A lot of it went on.’

The footsteps passed. ‘No wonder Stoddard goes about saying Braithwaite’s decamped to warmer climes. He could afford to.’

Sykes gave me a quizzical look. ‘It would have to be warmer climes like Cornwall or Devon. I can’t see Braithwaite making his way to the South of France at the height of the Great War.’

‘So do you think Kellett may have had a grudge? If he did the selling and Braithwaite picked up the profits?’

‘Not as simple as that. They say Kellett has a fair whack stashed away, and that he’ll surprise them all one day and go off to Bradford-on-Sea – to some grand bungalow on the cliff tops.’

‘Bradford-on-Sea?’

‘It’s their nickname for Morecambe. They say Kellett keeps on working because he’s adding to his pile.’

‘He’s turned into a miser?’

‘Don’t know. I hope I’ll get the chance to talk to him. What did Mrs Kellett have to say?’

‘I got the impression she’s happy to rake in as much money as she can herself. Nice little sideline in fortune telling. She did have a postal order stub on the mantelpiece. Perhaps that was a payment towards the dream bungalow.’

‘Could be.’ Sykes consulted his notebook. ‘Have you come across one Arthur Wilson yet?’

‘No.’

‘He’s related by marriage to Miss Braithwaite’s fiancé, Mr Gawthorpe. So he’ll be more closely connected with the Braithwaite family soon. Wilson works in the mill as weaving manager.’

‘Stoddard did have a conversation with a man in the weaving room as he showed me round, but I didn’t get a name.’

Sykes leaned back from the table, relaxing his shoulders. ‘Apparently this Wilson chap invented a new type of loom picker and Braithwaites patented it. These loom pickers are being manufactured in Sowerby Bridge and sold across the world. Wilson received an outright payment of twenty-five guineas, according to my informant at the Wool Exchange.’

Not for the first time, I began to feel a little out of my depth. ‘What is a loom picker when it’s at home?’

‘It’s part of the mechanism that drives the shuttle across the loom. A picker needs to be strong enough to do its job but not so tough that it snags the weave.’

Sykes picked up his pencil and turned to a fresh Page in his notebook. He sketched out a slim vertical column that he labelled “picking arm”, with a horizontal extension from the top. ‘So you have the long picking arm, and across the top you have the picking stick, with a strap wound around. The strap drops and to that strap you attach the picker.’ He sketched a small shape on the end of a strap. ‘All sorts of materials have been tried, buffalo hide, rawhide, asbestos coated with rubber, canvas. Leather pickers last longer but cost more than canvas. If the leather’s too thick it won’t cling round the picking stick. So through the years, you get lots of experiments, and it’s not until they’re put into action that you know whether you’ve got a winner or a dud.’

‘And is Wilson’s loom picker a winner?’

‘It’s selling. So having accepted an outright payment in 1915, Wilson has simmered ever since. And it was with Mr Braithwaite that he settled on the outright payment.’

‘A motive then?’

Sykes looked thoughtful. ‘Yes if it was in anger. But it wouldn’t be logical to murder the man you might still negotiate with.’

There was a tap on the door and the handle turned. In an instant, Sykes pulled an order pad towards him. ‘You’ve made a good choice, madam. The striped attire is on track to be our best seller this year …’

The waiter approached us. ‘Everything all right, sir?’

Sykes confirmed that everything was satisfactory. I handled the bathing suit as the waiter cleared the table and Sykes filled out the order form. ‘And the two-tone? The two-tone is popular with the stouter-figured lady.’

‘I shall take a dozen of each.’

When the waiter had gone, Sykes gave a sigh of relief. ‘There’s only so much you can say about bathing suits.’

He produced an Ordnance Survey map and unfolded it on the table. He had marked the beck, the mill and the Braithwaites’ house.

‘I like to have a map to see where I’m going, and more importantly where the villains might come and go.’

‘We don’t know that there are villains, Mr Sykes. Just the missing man and the people who miss him.’

‘Or say they do. And there’s sure to be villains. If it’s all the same to you, Mrs Shackleton, I’d like to be the one that puts the handcuffs on the villain. I miss that part of the job. Now where’s that hospital, Milton House? Is this it?’

I scanned the map. ‘See just there – Laithstone Hill. Somewhere there.’

Sykes held his magnifying glass over the map. He leaned forward with the air of a general planning a military campaign. ‘So he went from home, to the beck, to the
police house, to the hospital and then we know not where.’

‘And we don’t know how he came to be in such a state at the beck. I’m hoping Hector can help, though there’s a possibility some angry husband got to him.’

‘No one at the Wool Exchange hinted at business problems, and apparently 1916 was a good year,’ Sykes said.

‘Yes. All the same, I’d like to take a look at the minute books in the mill office, so I’ll need to get in after hours. I suppose you have skeleton keys and all that sort of thing.’

Sykes’ face lit up as though I’d suggested a thrilling safari. ‘I’m sure we’ll manage it. What makes you think there’ll be something useful in the minute books?’

‘I don’t know that there will be. But when someone says I can’t take a look …’

‘Someone like Stoddard?’

‘Exactly. Then I know the one thing I have to do is take a look.’

Sykes nodded. ‘The no-stone-unturned approach. Sometimes you can turn over an awful lot of stones and find only a few woodlice and beetles, but if you don’t turn the stones you’ll never know.’

As he began to pack up the bathing suits, I thought of summer and sand under my toes. I reached out for the striped suit. ‘I’ll take that one.’

‘Done!’ He wrapped the bathing suit in tissue paper.

‘How much?’

‘Not a penny. I wouldn’t dream of profiteering at the expense of my boss. I sold five of these in the hour before you came and I’m quids in.’

Perhaps there was a good reason why Sykes’ face didn’t fit in the police force. I had a sudden picture of him in Leeds market on a Friday evening, flogging truncheons and handcuffs to passers-by.

I smiled to myself as I walked back to my car. It was one
of those lovely sunny evenings when the light is so sharp, the best part of a dull day. I breathed in the aroma of the shops along the street, fresh bread at the bakery, the earthy smell of potatoes outside the greengrocers, the sweet and powerful confusion of tobacco scents as someone opened the door to the tobacconist’s.