No Name Lane (Howard Linskey) (41 page)

Only when she was drenched to the skin, bone cold and the sky had finally begun to lighten was Mary forced to give in to the inevitable. She picked up her suitcase in a freezing hand and trudged slowly home before early risers witnessed her folly.

She had hoped to at least slip in the back door unnoticed but Mrs Harris was up already and waiting in the kitchen. She looked as if she had not even been to bed. The older woman’s face cracked in something like relief at the sight of Mary standing there, dripping water onto the floor.

‘You came back Mary.’ It was not said unkindly. ‘You didn’t go with him,’ and Mrs Harris rose to meet her.

‘He didn’t come,’ she answered flatly. ‘Sean didn’t come, so now you can tell me there’s never been a more foolish girl.’

‘Oh
Mary, never mind about all that. You’re soaked to the skin. You’ll catch your death if we don’t get you out of those wet clothes. Come here,’ and she part-embraced and part-steered her towards the fire, removing her sopping shawl. ‘I’ll get dry things and some towels,’ she told the frozen girl and she picked up Mary’s suitcase and took it out of the kitchen, as if she was removing evidence from the scene of a crime.

Mrs Harris brought Mary a clean dress and helped her change into it. Neither woman spoke for a long time, as the housekeeper dutifully dabbed at her soaking hair with a fresh towel until eventually it was fit for brushing. Mary stared off into space while Mrs Harris took the silver brush and very slowly began to run it through Mary’s long, damp hair. After a time she started to hum an old tune, which Mary only faintly recognised. As she sent the brush through Mary’s hair, the humming took on the quality of a comforting lullaby that might have been sung to soothe a child.

When Mrs Harris finished brushing her hair they both turned at the same time and abruptly realised Mary’s father was standing in the doorway, staring uncomprehendingly at them both. Neither of them had heard the Reverend Riley return. Mrs Harris got quickly to her feet and started an excitable explanation. ‘My, you’re back so soon,’ she announced with a mock cheerfulness, ‘we never expected you. Mary’s been out already, in the pouring rain, silly thing, I made her change her clothes and dry her hair …’ but she stopped as soon as she realised Reverend Riley was not listening to a word she said. He looked as if
there was something he was unable to understand but instinct told Mrs Harris that the something had nothing to do with her or even Mary’s dishevelled state. Her eyes went to the little wooden box he was holding loosely in his hand. It was empty.

‘I’m ruined,’ he said.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

When Mary had concluded her story nobody spoke for a while. Helen realised for the first time that this poor woman had spent her whole life feeling like a bride that’s been jilted at the altar. She tried to imagine what it must have been like to arrive at that spot on No Name Lane with hope in your heart then see it gradually eaten away, as you waited for a man who never came, not knowing that he was most likely dead already and buried just a few hundred yards from that same spot.

‘There’s only one question left to ask you, Mary,’ and when she did not understand, Tom asked, ‘Did you tell anybody else you were leaving?’

‘No,’ she replied.

‘What about Sean? Would he have told someone?’ Tom pressed,

She shook her head, ‘Sean never trusted anyone from the village,’ she said, ‘with good reason.’

‘So you only told Mrs Harris?’

‘Yes,’ answered Mary quietly, as if only now appreciating the gravity of that decision.

‘Then she betrayed you,’ he told her. ‘Think about it. You never saw Sean again, so he must have been killed that night, you just didn’t realise it at the time.’

‘I think you’re right,’ she admitted.

‘Who would she have told?’

‘Who
do you think?’ answered Mary.

‘Not your father, if he was away at the Dean’s,’ he said. ‘I’m assuming she went straight to Henry or Jack Collier, perhaps both of them.’

‘It couldn’t have been anyone else,’ she admitted, ‘and I thought she forgave me when I returned. I remember thanking God for her kindness to me and to think she went to her grave years later still pretending to be my friend.’

‘But how could they have known where you were meeting Sean and when? Did you tell Mrs Harris that?’ asked Helen.

‘No,’ she said simply.

‘She didn’t need to,’ explained Tom. ‘All they had to do was wait for Sean to leave his lodgings and follow him. If you were meeting him in No Name Lane it would have been easy to confront him there or before he reached it.’

‘I was a few minutes late,’ she said in a dead voice, ‘only a few,’ and they realised she was wondering if those few minutes might have cost Sean his life and changed her future forever.

‘A man like Jack Collier could have easily followed Sean and warned him off,’ he said. ‘If Sean stood up to him there’d have been a fight. If it got out of hand, maybe Jack used the knife to finish it. He’d killed men before in the war.’

‘Perhaps,’ answered Mary but Tom noticed the closer they were getting to the truth, the more weary Mary looked.

It was Helen who was brave enough to ask Mary the question, ‘Could Henry have killed Sean?’

To
Helen’s surprise the old woman said, ‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t. It’s the question I have been asking myself since they found Sean.’

‘He wasn’t a fighter,’ Tom reminded them. ‘Maybe this was the only way to stop Sean from taking you away from him.’

‘A knife in the back,’ Helen observed, almost to herself.

‘And you honestly don’t know?’ asked Tom, more in desperation than anything.

‘How could I?’ she asked him, ‘I went to meet Sean. He never came. I waited for hours, long after I knew he wasn’t coming, because I was too ashamed to go home.’

‘But eventually you had to. And that’s when you realised the gold sovereigns were gone,’ said Helen.

‘Yes,’ Mary replied, ‘all of them. As soon as Father walked into the house, he knew someone had been in his office and taken them.’

‘And he blamed Sean?’

‘Everybody did,’ she confirmed. ‘I couldn’t explain why I was sitting there, dripping wet and Mrs Harris urged me to tell the truth, because she assumed Sean had duped me and, by then, so did I. I had to tell my father what happened.’

‘That must have been awful for you,’ said Helen.

‘It was,’ the old lady said quickly, as if she had no desire to relive the moment, even now. ‘The police were called. They were sure they’d catch up with Sean eventually but they never did. He used to talk about America so everybody assumed he’d gone there with Father’s money. He was never seen again. No one realised he was already dead.’

‘No
one except the person who put the knife in him,’ said Tom. ‘I don’t see how Sean could have stolen the sovereigns while you were in the house. Whoever killed him must have done it afterwards while you were waiting for Sean and Mrs Harris was asleep. They wanted to make it look as if Sean had run off with the money. That part was genius,’ he observed and Helen shot him a look to remind him they were dealing with an old woman’s feelings, ‘who was it, Mary? You said you’d only told Henry about the sovereigns.’

She nodded. ‘And he in turn could have told his brother.’

‘I think we now know most of what happened,’ said Helen, ‘but we have to accept we may never know who actually killed Sean.’

‘But it seems certain it was Jack or Henry,’ Tom said, ‘either alone or working together. Jack was certainly capable of following Sean and overpowering him. He could have broken into your home in the night while you were waiting for Sean and stolen those sovereigns.’

‘He did not have to break in,’ Mary told him, ‘we never locked our doors. I know it’s hard to imagine now. All he had to do was prise open the drawer and take the box.’

‘How did Henry act towards you afterwards, at first I mean?’ asked Helen.

‘He was …’ and she searched for the right words, ‘… kind,’ she settled on, ‘… and understanding. He knew that half the village regarded me as a slut and the other half a fool but he didn’t care about that. He still wanted to take me on.’

‘I’ll bet he did,’ said Tom, ‘so you married him.’

‘A
few months later,’ she confirmed, ‘we had a quiet wedding.’

Tom got to his feet then and walked over to the bay window. Helen watched him as he gazed down onto Cappers Field.

‘Did Jack attend the wedding?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said, ‘he re-enlisted in the army a week before.’

‘Leaving you with Stephen to look after?’

‘Yes,’ she said defiantly, ‘which we did for many years.’

‘Until you had him locked away in a mental home.’ offered Tom.

‘That wasn’t our suggestion,’ she told him.

‘But you didn’t fight it.’

‘The man was peering through people’s windows. He didn’t understand what he was doing half the time. He used to frighten me.’ Then her tone became defiant. ‘We looked after him in our home for nearly fifteen years. You have no idea what that was like. Afterwards, I didn’t want anything to do with him.’

Without turning back to them, Tom abruptly changed the subject. ‘Did Henry own a lock knife, Mary?’

The old lady frowned but Helen couldn’t tell if she was trying to remember or busy composing a lie.

‘He did, yes,’ she admitted finally, ‘for fishing and other outdoor pursuits.’

Tom was still looking out of the window. ‘They found one in Sean’s back.’

Again there was silence while Mary thought. ‘I remember …’ she began but faltered and Tom turned to her then.

‘What do you remember?’

‘The
knife,’ she said, as if suddenly recalling something important, ‘Jack took it off him.’

‘What?’ asked Helen, as this seemed far too convenient.

‘Jack Collier stopped me in the street and told me I was to blame for driving his brother to despair. He said he had to take the knife from him in case he did anything stupid, told me Henry was stabbing it into a work bench over and over again for no purpose at all, so he took it off him.’

‘Did you believe him?’ asked Helen.

‘Why would I not believe him?’ and her face turned sour then, ‘I believed most of what I was told in those days, more fool me.’

Helen and Tom exchanged a look. They were done here.

Before they left, Tom said, ‘We brought something for you,’ and this was the cue for Helen to reach into her bag and take out a large, rolled sheet of sturdy paper. ‘Roddy Moncur thought you might like this.’

Mary unfurled it and was shocked to find herself looking down on Sean Donnellan’s drawing of her younger self. ‘Oh my,’ she said and one of her hands went instinctively to her face.

‘Roddy said it was a good likeness,’ Tom told her.

They trudged back to Helen’s car. It was still parked a few yards from the scene of Frankie Turner’s vicious beating at Tom’s hands and he half expected to see the man still lying there.

‘I think we’ve got all we are ever going to get,’ Tom reluctantly admitted.

‘But
is it enough for a story? I don’t think Malcolm will think so. He’ll be too worried to print any of it.’

‘You could try,’ he said half-heartedly, before reminding her, ‘you can’t libel the dead,’ but then he thought for a moment. ‘No, you’re right, Malcolm won’t want the
Messenger
to run a story implicating a former headmaster and his Dunkirk, war-hero brother in a murder when there’s absolutely no proof. All we have is guesswork, based on the testimony of Betty, Sam and Mary, none of whom actually witnessed Sean’s murder. Malcolm will say the man could have been stabbed by anyone and it might not even be Sean.’ He sounded discouraged, ‘Can’t say I blame him really.’

‘What?’ she was surprised, ‘You’ve changed your tune.’

‘Malcolm hasn’t written a controversial word in his entire career and he’s been editor at that place for years. Look at me, I stuck my head above the parapet once and I’m finished already.’

‘Don’t think like that,’ she urged him, ‘you’re ten times better than anybody at the
Messenger
. Please don’t give up. Things could improve.’

‘The last time you told me that I got my head kicked in,’ and she gave him a helpless look. ‘All right, admittedly it’s not entirely doom and gloom at the moment. I did get a story this morning,’ and he told her all about his meeting with DI Kane.

‘You see,’ she said, ‘that’s great,’ before adding quickly, ‘I mean, from a news point of view. It obviously doesn’t help poor Michelle Summers or anyone else the Kiddy-Catcher has targeted.’

‘Yeah,’
he said, ‘we should talk some more about that.’

‘I can’t now,’ she said quickly, ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Tomorrow, then?’

‘Don’t think I can tomorrow.’

‘Why, what’s the big story?’

She grimaced, ‘the W. I. baking contest. I’m supposed to spend the whole morning in the village hall looking at cakes and scones then interviewing the winners. They even asked me to be a judge but I told them I needed to stay neutral if I am going to report objectively on it,’ she added dryly.

‘At least it’ll fill your district page,’ he said. ‘I should come too. My Nan used to bake a mean vanilla sponge and I know my way around a maid of honour.’