Dying in the Wool (40 page)

‘Here, Charlie.’

The water ran freezing cold as I rinsed my hands under the tap. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why did Mr Braithwaite go to Low Moor?’

‘You might refresh Charlie’s bowl while you’re at it,’ Marjorie suggested.

I tipped hairy, greasy water from an earthenware bowl down the sink and refilled it.

Tasks completed, I sat down again, and waited for an answer.

‘That lass who’d had his bairn, she worked there. Don’t ask me what a weaver was doing getting herself a job in munitions. Money I expect. She was a proud lass. Told Lizzie she wouldn’t be a kept woman. We never thought, me and Lizzie, never thought he’d leave his wife and family and the mill, turn his back on it all for her.’

I rubbed my hands to get some warmth back into my fingers, and to give me time to think. So I was right about Low Moor, and right about the young woman on the bridge, and the baby.

Marjorie was looking at Charlie with admiration as he attacked his bone with new vigour.

I had one more print of the young woman on the bridge. I took it from my bag and passed it to Marjorie. ‘Do you recognise her?’

‘That’s her,’ Marjorie said. ‘Daft ’aporth. Agnes. Bonny lass. Foolish, but then who am I to talk?’

‘Who else knew about Braithwaite and Agnes, and the baby?’

‘The only ones that knew for sure about Agnes and the bairn were the Kelletts. Lizzie told me. It got Arthur’s goat, guessing we knew summat he didn’t.’

‘Yet Arthur was in on it somehow. You said Kellett came here that Sunday night. You heard them talking.’

‘Oh aye, Paul came here. He wanted Arthur’s keys for the mill, so he could fetch summat for Mr Braithwaite.’

‘Do you know what it was?’

‘Aye. The key to his safe deposit box. I wasn’t supposed to know but I worked it out. Arthur got money for that bit of slyness, handing over the keys, though not as much as he felt hisself entitled to. And it rankled with him that Lizzie went on doing well.’

‘In what way did Mrs Kellett go on doing well? And how did Arthur know?’

Marjorie picked pork pie crumbs from her apron and popped them into her mouth. She looked at me puzzled, and for a moment I thought she would reach for a bottle of her favourite tipple and that I would learn no more today.

‘What did you ask me?’

I repeated my question. ‘You said Mrs Kellett went on doing well. And that Arthur knew, and resented that.’

‘Oh aye, that’s it. Every Friday Mr Stoddard give out the wage packets to the managers. Arthur, being weaving manager, said that Lizzie Kellett’s envelope was allus that bit heavier. He said that Stoddard paid her more than was written on’t packet, week in, week out. It drove him wild to know why.’

‘Why did
you
think the pay packet was heavier, Marjorie? Did Mrs Kellett ever say?’

‘She sent money for the upkeep of Agnes’ child. Braithwaite never contacted Agnes again, no more than he contacted his wife and daughter. He left Agnes and the little lad to fend for themselves.’

Charlie dropped his bone and came across, nuzzling at Marjorie, licking her hand.

‘So you never put an end to your husband’s curiosity and told him why Mrs Kellett got more money?’

‘I did not. Nowt to do with me. Arthur said it was so she would keep her gob shut.’

‘He thought that Mrs Kellett was blackmailing Stoddard?’

‘Daft bat. Lizzie wouldn’t have blackmailed no one.’
She stroked Charlie’s head. ‘Rich int it? Ten bob a week for the child of a millionaire.’

And eleven shillings for Mrs Kellett, I thought. The extra guinea in her last wage packet was not to cover the costs of Kellett’s funeral, as Stoddard had told Constable Mitchell, but to pay for the upbringing of Frederick Horrocks, and to keep Mrs Kellett’s silence about Frederick’s paternity.

The upright Stoddard had lied to the police.

Did Stoddard truly believe the whole guinea went to Agnes Horrocks? Or had he, for years, paid Mrs Kellet in order to protect his cousin Joshua Braithwaite’s reputation?

But all that took second place in my thoughts as I stood on the humpback bridge trying to make sense of what I knew. Agnes worked on munitions at Low Moor. Braithwaite had heard about the explosion and set off running to find her, not waiting for Kellett and the motorbike, and the key to the safe deposit box at Thackreys’ Bank.

And according to the editor of the
Cleckheaton and Spenborough Guardian
, who had attended the inquest on the Low Moor explosion, the death toll was thirty-eight, including “a male person unknown”.

But the explosion occurred at 2.30 p.m. and Joshua Braithwaite was seen running across the moors at 4 p.m. So it couldn’t be him, could it?

The coroner had allowed Paul and Lizzie Kellett’s bodies to be released for burial.

The morning of the funeral broke blustery enough to frighten off rain. I crossed my fingers as I drew on my black coat. Nothing worse than a wet muddy funeral.

Sykes was watching out for me as I drew up outside his house. As he closed the door behind him, I noticed curious faces looking down from a bedroom window, a woman and two children. I waved as I got out of the car to let Sykes in.

‘Do you want to try driving, Mr Sykes?’

‘Oh no. Won’t risk that so close to home, and on the day of a funeral.’

One excuse would have been enough.

‘Just let me know when you are ready to screw your courage to the steering wheel.’

On a quiet stretch of road beyond Saltaire, he took a deep breath and said, ‘Right. I’ll have a go.’

At least an ex-policeman starts off with a little knowledge – hand signals. I gritted my teeth and praised him for the whole hundred yards that he was willing to drive.

When we arrived at Bridgestead, I dropped Sykes off on the main street, so that he could go to the police house to pester Constable Mitchell. I would scrounge breakfast at the Braithwaites’.

Tabitha looked up from buttering toast and ordered me to sit down.

‘Have you had breakfast?’

Evelyn looked pale and drawn. Compared with the confident figure I had met on my first visit, she looked like a woman who was unravelling before my eyes. For a moment I felt a pang of pity. If my guess was correct, she and Gregory Grainger had been lovers for almost seven years. That was a longer time than Gerald and I had together. First Edmund killed in action, Joshua unfaithful, Gregory at the other end of the country. Now two of her workers killed and another accused of their murder.

I helped myself to a rasher of bacon and a sausage from the dishes set out on the sideboard.

Tabitha asked me about my visit to London. I told her the blue dress was a huge success.

She smiled. ‘Comes to something when my dress gets out more than I do. Still, we’ve plumped on Paris for the honeymoon, and it’s my resolution that Hector and I shall have a spectacular time.’ As she rose from the table, the sleeves of her red satin dressing gown with its fiery dragons turned into wings. ‘I’d better get changed. Mustn’t be late for the funeral.’

She left the table.

‘Close the door!’ Evelyn called after her. ‘You weren’t born in a field.’

Evelyn was studying a pot of marmalade carefully, as if it presented a deep puzzle. She looked at me with barely disguised fury.

‘It must have been lovely for you, to get away to London.’

The simplest and expected answer was to agree that it was.

‘Did you see anyone we know?’ she asked pointedly, her fury seeping away.

Should I tell her? No point in lying. ‘Dr Grainger came to my aunt’s birthday dinner. The professor he works with attended and so he brought him along.’

She lowered her head. Her hands clung to each other. ‘I won’t go to the chapel. I’ll come to the cemetery.’

‘Evelyn!’ I wanted to offer some comfort, but did not know how. ‘It was none of my doing that Dr Grainger came.’

With a sigh she pushed herself up from the table. ‘It’s all right. It’s over between us. I thought we might go to London together, but that was nonsense on my part. It’s better this way.’

Stoddard seemed to me a far more suitable person for Evelyn than Dr Grainger. Stupidly, I started to say that, and then hoped she did not realise that I had overheard him propose to her at the Gawthorpes’ party.

‘Neville?’ She looked at me in astonishment. ‘Some things are just not possible.’

Tabitha took my arm as we walked along the drive on our way to the chapel. ‘About what you asked me, regarding Dad’s neuralgia. He
was
taking something for that.’

‘Do you know what he was taking?’

‘Something from Aunt Catherine. She was our treasure trove of medicines, poor woman. Is it important?’

‘It might explain his confused state of mind that day.’

‘And have you found out anything else? I know you haven’t had a lot of time.’

I took a deep breath. ‘I’d better tell you this, in case it comes out some other way. Your father had been seeing a young woman.’

If it had not been for the existence of a half-brother, I might have kept that information to myself. To my surprise the news did not seem to worry Tabitha, but rather to raise her hopes.

‘You think he went away with her?’

‘It did strike me as possible, but I now know that didn’t happen.’

We walked against the wind towards Bridgestead and
the chapel. Mill workers made their way in twos and threes towards the chapel. Older women wore shawls around their shoulders or on their heads. The younger women wore coats and hats or headscarves.

‘On the day your father went missing, there was a series of explosions at Low Moor.’

For the briefest time, Tabitha’s hand tightened on my arm.

‘What does that have to do with Dad?’

‘I think that’s where this young woman worked, on munitions.’

The sky had turned white. Once the wind dropped, we could be in for snow.

Now I had to say it, just to prepare Tabitha, in case.

‘Thirty-eight people died as a result of that explosion. Among the bodies …’

She stopped suddenly. ‘Dad’s fancy woman?’

‘No. The women got out.’ The article in the
Cleckheaton and Spenborough Guardian
had not included all the details of the tragedy, but the editor had attended the coroner’s inquest into the deaths and had been willing to tell Sykes and me what he heard. ‘There was one unidentified man.’

Tabitha’s voice came out breathless, as though my words winded her. ‘You’re not suggesting … that just doesn’t … just because she, this woman …’ Tabitha rubbed at her forehead with her fist. With her other hand she steadied herself against a low wall.

‘It’s unlikely to be your father, but best to rule out the possibility.’

‘Then don’t say … I want something definite. When you asked me about his painting stuff and I told you it had gone you made me think …’

I felt furious with myself for not waiting, for my need to keep her in the picture. My blow-by-blow account had turned out to be just that – heavy blows. I reached out to her. ‘I’m still working on that.’

I did not say that I was also waiting to hear whether
there was a pathologist’s report on the unidentified man. For once, I had used my influence, getting Dad to ask for any such information to be sent to Keighley, Constable Mitchell’s headquarters.

We were on the flat now, nearing the chapel. Tabitha had recovered a little from her shock at the directions my enquiries had taken. Hector stood by the chapel door, top hat in hand, waiting patiently for Tabitha. He had watched our progress and looked concerned as he took her arm. ‘Uncle Neville’s inside already.’

Hector greeted me briefly, expecting me to walk in with them, but I let them go first and found a seat near theback. The whole of Braithwaites’ Mill must have been granted time off to attend. Women in shawls, headscarves and turbans were seated in the rows in front of me. Men occupied the other side of the chapel, caps lying on the kneeling board.

Sykes slid in beside me.

The minister read the service.

I wondered whether Mrs Kellett would have preferred a different kind of funeral where her spiritualist beliefs would have been acknowledged. What a small world this was, that Mrs Kellett had lived here all her life. She must have thought she would go on and on, living into old age as her own mother had. A few sobs came from her workmates, hankies pulled out, noses blown.

I heard Stoddard’s deep bass voice before seeing him, near the front ahead of his workforce, leading the singing. He then took to the lectern. No one coughed or blew their nose as he spoke into the hushed chapel of the deep shock the village felt at the death of two such good neighbours and good workers in so untimely and violent a fashion. He begged for mercy for their souls, and prayed that justice would prevail.

‘He’s keeping it short so they can all bugger off back to work,’ Sykes whispered. I hit him sharply him in the ribs
with my elbow. He grunted in pain as the final hymn began.