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- Herausgeber: Next Chapter
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
1950’s Yorkshire. When former Battle of Britain pilot, D.I. Yarrow of West Garside CID, finds himself faced with three seemingly unconnected murders, he has his work cut out.
The cases include a long-dead body found on the rugged moors, possibly connected to a case that led a man to the gallows, as well as a wife and mother beaten to death and a body found on a local golf course - a death which raises disturbing issues amongst the community.
As he struggles with the baffling cases, a meeting with a troubled young woman results in tragic and unexpected consequences for everyone concerned.
The second book in the Inspector Yarrow series by Giles Ekins, ‘Gallows End,’ is a thrilling novel set in 1950’s Yorkshire, sure to please anyone who enjoys a great crime story.
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GALLOWS END
INSPECTOR YARROW
BOOK TWO
GILES EKINS
CONTENTS
Author’s note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright (C) 2022 Giles Ekins
Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter
Published 2022 by Next Chapter
Edited by Elizabeth N. Love
Cover art by CoverMint
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.
For Patricia with my love, as always.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
One of the characters in this book uses highly offensive and objectionable racist language.
Such language does not in any way reflect the views of the author. Racism, in any form, is abhorrent, totally unacceptable, and must be rooted out wherever it occurs.
PROLOGUE
‘DON’T YOU FUCKING START, WOMAN,’
WEST GARSIDE. YORKSHIRE – CIRCA 1955
Jack Palmer was in a furious rage as he walked home from the Dog and Duck. He had been convinced that ‘Angel Destiny’ would win the 3.30 at Newmarket after Mickey Spiller, a runner for gang-affiliated illegal off-course bookies, had given him the tip.
‘It can’t lose, Jack, take my word for it,’ he told Jack. ‘Lots of good money going on that horse, money as knows what’s going on. If you know what I mean. A cert, dead cert, and you’d be daft not to put your cash down on it. Good odds an’ all.’
Apart from some beer money, Jack had given the rest of his wages to Mickey to place the bet for him.
And the fucking nag had come in fourth. Fourth! What the fucking use is fourth?
As he opened the back door of his house and walked into the kitchen, one of his children, 5-year-old Mary, got in his way and he gave her a vicious back-handed slap that sent her flying across the room, screaming and crying in pain.
‘Jack!’ his wife Ethel remonstrated.
‘Don’t you fucking start, woman,’ he shouted and the ever-latent rage burst through his veins and he threw himself at Ethel, punching wildly with his hard stonemason’s fists and kicking her to the floor with his hob-nailed boots.
Only when she was still and quiet, lying on the floor, blood all over her face, blood that now crept across the lino, did he stop and the red mists subside.
Jack, panting heavily, stared at the blood on his fists.
‘What’ve you done to my Mam?’ screamed Mary.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ he yelled at her and then stomped out of the house.
‘Mam? Mam?’ cried the little girl, shaking Ethel by the shoulder. ‘Mam!’
CHAPTERONE
‘THIS IS PALMER, JACK PALMER’S DOING IS THIS…’
Detective Inspector Christopher Yarrow lookeddownat the battered bloody body of Ethel Palmer with growing anger. He knew, or rather had known, Ethel, the mother of 7-year-old Rosie Palmer, tragically killed when robbers fled the scene of an attempted bank robbery, a failed wages snatch in which a wages clerk had also been shot dead. As the robbers raced through the streets of West Garside in a stolen Humber Snipe, Rosie was at the shops on an errand for her mother when the violently swerving getaway car had smashed into her, throwing her across the road and under the wheels of an oncoming car. She had died instantly.
Yarrow, together with Detective Sergeant Marcus Harding, had been the ones to deliver the heart-rending news of Rosie’s death to Ethel and her husband Jack. Even then, at a time of receiving such devastating news, Yarrow had sensed the barely suppressed rage within Jack Palmer.
Jack had displayed little grief for his daughter’s death, and far from comforting his distressed wife, he had berated her, blaming her for Rosie’s death before belligerently accusing the police of stealing the change left over from the shopping.
Yarrow had seen how terrified Ethel had been of her husband, had noticed the fading bruise on her jaw, the bruises on her arms where Jack had gripped her in a vice-like grip and how frightened she had been when hesitantly asking if her mother could visit to comfort her. Even more disturbing were the bruises and welts from fist and belt he had witnessed on Rosie’s undernourished body when attending her autopsy.
Yarrow clenched his fists as he tried to control his anger, never doubting that Palmer was a craven bully, given to drink and quick to use his fists and belt on his wife and children. He berated himself, I should have seen this coming, he told himself, knowing that Palmer’s violent temper was on a hair-spring, ready to erupt at any given moment.
I’ve failed Ethel, he thought bitterly, even though he’d tried unofficially to protect Ethel by getting his friend, Desk Sergeant Dave Armitage, to arrange for Palmer to be given a beating and a warning not to assault Ethel or his other children again. But it had all been to no avail. Even though he had successfully tracked down Frankie Starling, the gunman who shot the wages clerk and been instrumental in Rosie’s death, his failure to save Ethel left a rancid taste of ashes in his mouth.
His nostrils flared in impotent anger again as he looked around the squalid kitchen, the bucket of dirty nappies in a corner, the grime-smeared lino flooring now streaked with blood, peeling wallpaper, second-hand rickety furniture, and the rank smell of squalor. Jack Palmer made good money as a stonemason, but it was apparent that little of his earnings were spent on his home or on his wife and children. It staggered him that a man could treat his wife and children with such appalling neglect, and now this, the brutal battering to death of Ethel Palmer.
DS Marcus Harding could sense the anger and frustration within Yarrow, anger and frustration that he felt himself; he too had seen the squalor of the home and the fear on Ethel’s face when she looked at Palmer.
‘This is Palmer, Jack Palmer’s doing is this, isn’t it, sir?’
‘I would guess so, but we don’t operate on the basis of guesswork, do we?’ Yarrow chided lightly.
‘No, sir, of course not,’ Marcus responded, not in the least offended.
Yarrow took a last look around. ‘OK,’ he said at last, ‘let’s see what the neighbour…?’
‘Mildred Nicholson, sir, she’s lives next door at No 15 and has taken the Palmer kids in with her until Ethel’s mother can get here.’
CHAPTERTWO
NOTHING MORE THAN A COUPLE OF BRUISES AND A CUT LIP
‘Been in a fight, have you, Jack, a bit of a dust-up?’ Freddie Jackson, the barman at the West Garside Working Man’s Institute said, nodding at Jack’s bloody hands.
‘What?’ Jack responded. He had been deep in thought: why did she always make him do it, all the fucking time getting on his case over nothing? OK, she gets a bit of a slap now and again, but so fucking what? But he knew deep down that this time it had been more than a slap, much more than a slap, but whatever he’d done, it was her own fault. It’s always her own fault whenever she gets a slap or two, never giving a working man a bit of peace, whittering on about clothes for the brats or more money this, more money for that. She gets enough, what the fuck does she do with it all?
She’ll be all right, he told himself as a hard pit of unease grew in his stomach, nothing more than a couple of bruises and a cut lip, stupid fucking cow going on at me like that and the fucking brats always getting under my feet, fuck knows why she didn’t get herself off to Mrs Campion after the first 2 or 3 and have it taken care of, but no, she said, can’t get aborted, it’s a mortal fucking sin, I’ll give her mortal fucking sin, all right.
‘I said, you been in a fight, Jack? Look, your knuckles are bloody and there’s blood all down your shirt, look as though you’ve gone 15 rounds with Rocky Marciano.’
‘Nay, a bit of some’at and nowt, that’s all. Give us another pint.’
‘You got the money to pay for it, Jack? You’ve had five pints and not paid for the last two of ‘em?’
After losing heavily on ‘Angel Delight,’ Jack Palmer had tried to recoup his losses by putting most of the rest of his money on ‘Come Sunday.’ But that beast hadn’t placed either, probably still be running come Sunday, it was so fucking slow.
‘Put it on the slate, for fucks sake, you know I’m good for it.’
‘Can’t do that, Jack, the boss won’t allow it no more. You’ve already got a big slate running up, and until you clear it, I can’t give you any more tick, shouldn’t have served you them last two pints, truth be known, and if Arthur finds out I’ve put another a couple of pints on the slate, he’ll have my guts.’
‘What the fuck you talking about? I’ve put enough money behind this fucking bar to buy the place ten times over, so stop fucking about and pull me another pint,’ Jack shouted angrily, and Freddie backed away, reaching for a beer bottle in case Jack got violent.
‘You’d best be off home, Jack; I can’t serve you no more.’
‘Well, fuck you!’ Palmer shouted as he stormed out of the bar, sweeping an ashtray and some empty glasses from a table as he passed.
‘Charming,’ Freddie said to Jack’s departing back.
CHAPTERTHREE
AS GENTLE A SOUL AS EVER WALKED THIS EARTH
‘Mildred, can you tell me what you saw and heard,’ Yarrow asked Ethel’s neighbour, a plump woman wearing a faded summer dress, a pinafore and her hair tied back under a flowery scarf as a sobbing Mary Palmer clung to her skirts. Four more Palmer children were being comforted by other neighbours and the street outside was packed with a gawping crowd, mostly women, who had gathered in a nosey, noisy crowd of onlookers as two uniformed police tried, vainly, to keep them back.
‘Well, I can’t say that I saw owt at all, I don’t know what went on in the house, didn’t see none of that, I mean, how could I?’
‘That’s all right, Mildred, just tell us what you can, doesn’t matter if you think it unimportant, everything, however small, will help us.’
‘Well, I saw Jack come from the pub, he had face on him like thunder, and I thought, aye-aye, there’ll be trouble now.’
‘Why did you think that?’
‘Because there’s always trouble when that man comes back from the pub and poor Ethel and the kids are the ones as suffer,’ Mildred said bitterly. ‘He’s an animal and I pray that he’ll be hanged for what he’s done.’
‘We don’t know for certain that it was Jack Palmer, do we?’ Yarrow said gently. He had no doubts himself that Jack Palmer had beaten Ethel to death, but by saying he had doubts, he hoped to encourage Mildred to say more, to use her anger and indignation to extract as much information as he could from her.
‘Well, who else could it have been but that bastard, excuse my language, that man Jack Palmer? He comes back from the pub with a face on, soon as he’s in that house there’s screaming and shouting and less than three minutes later he stamps out the house with blood on his hands.’
‘He had blood on his hands, you saw blood on his hands, you’re certain about that?’ Marcus Harding asked, the first time he had spoken during the interview.
‘As certain as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow morning.’
‘And you’ll testify to that in court?’ Yarrow asked.
‘You just try and stop me,’
‘Good, and then what?’
‘I saw Jack leaving the house and then I heard poor Mary here crying and sobbing, saying Mam, Mam, Mam, so I went round, saw poor Ethel lying on the floor and this poor mite sobbing and crying,’ giving the child a brief hug as she spoke,’ so I ran to Vera’s house, Vera McDonald at number 16, telling her to run down to the phone box on the corner and call the police. Then I went back and brought poor Mary and the other kids in here, wee kiddies should not have to see their Mam like that, it’ll scar them for life.’
‘Thank you, Mildred, you’ve been most helpful.’
‘Just catch the brute, that’s all I ask. Catch the brute and get him hung for what he done to poor Ethel, as gentle a soul as ever walked this earth,’
CHAPTERFOUR
WE WAS NEVER HERE
The two men walked up to the bar. One was tall, close-cropped hair and bulked-up muscles, the other was shorter, squatter, like a dumbbell, but there was no doubting his strength and viciousness. Freddie Jackson, barman at the West Garside Working Man’s Institute, did not know who they were but knew well enough what they were, strong arm enforcers for local gang boss Benny Blades or the Caunt Brothers from Sheffield, 16 miles away.
‘Jack Palmer been in here?’ the dumbbell asked.
‘Yeah, ‘bout an hour or so ago.’
‘Where is he now?’ the other heavy asked menacingly.
‘I don’t know, mate, I had to chuck him out, he was getting het up ‘cos I wouldn’t serve him no more.’
‘Where else does he drink, you know?’
‘If it’s not in here, I don’t care.’
‘I said, where else does he drink?’ Dumbbell said with a hard menace in his voice.
‘Yeah, OK. I’ve heard he drinks at the Dog and Duck on Leopold Street, don’t whether he’s there, though.’
‘Where else?’ asked the taller heavy.
‘Dunno, I only know about the ‘Dog’. What’s he done anyhow; he was in a right state?’
‘Only beaten his wife to a pulp.’
‘His wife, she in a bad way, I saw he had blood on him?’
‘She’s dead and now he’s got to pay.’
‘Ethel? Dead? Oh shit.’
‘OK pal, we’re off, but if the cops come round, when they come round, we was never here. you got that?’ Dumbbell said, giving Freddie the hard stare.
‘Yeah sure, got it, you was never here.’
‘Just make sure you remember that else we’ll be back and help improve your memory.’
CHAPTERFIVE
HAS BEEN FOUND DEAD IN HER HOME
The Garside Gazette
MURDERED! MOTHER OF TRAGIC ROSIE PALMER FOUND DEAD
35-year-old Ethel Palmer found dead in her home. The Police are treating the case as murder.
The Gazette can exclusively confirm that Ethel Palmer, mother of 7-year-old Rosie, callously knocked down and killed by fleeing bandits last year, has been found dead in her home in mysterious circumstances. West Garside CID are treating the case as murder, and DI Yarrow, leading the investigation, has confirmed that they wish to interview Ethel’s husband John (Jack) Palmer in connection with the incident and have appealed to the public for information as to his whereabouts.
Regular Gazette readers will recall the attempted snatch of wages from the West Yorkshire Bank in which 24-year-old wages clerk Peter Cushman was mercilessly gunned down in cold blood by the ruthless killers. In attempting to escape the scene, the fleeing robbers, without care or thought except for their own preservation, knocked down and killed poor Rosie
Subsequently, gunman Frankie Starling was apprehended by DI Yarrow and paid for his heinous crimes on the gallows of Armley Jail…
CHAPTERSIX
PHYSICALLY ABUSIVE TO HIS CHILDREN
DI Yarrow walked briskly into the CID briefing room. Already seated were DS Harding, DC Harry Rawlings, WPC Suzanne Fillmore, and PCs Balderstone and Edgeley.
Yarrow’s anger at the killing of Ethel Palmer had not receded overnight. It was the senselessness of it that so infuriated him, a flash of anger from Jack Palmer and a blameless woman lay dead and 6 children were left motherless. And should Jack Palmer hang for his crime, those children would be orphaned and have to live for the rest of their lives with the knowledge that their father had murdered their mother and had paid the ultimate price. How a child could cope with that awfulness, he could not begin to comprehend.
Harry Rawlings was another who seethed in anger, not towards Jack Palmer but towards Yarrow and Marcus Harding. Even though it was several months ago, he still could not accept the fact that Harding had been promoted to Detective Sergeant instead of him. Harry was older, had more years in the job, and knew far more about local villains than Marcus, whom he called Mucus behind his back, would ever know. His resentment ran deep and was constantly reinforced by a sense of injustice and pique.
Suzanne Fillmore also harboured resentments, not against Yarrow or Marcus, but against the misogyny and ingrained prejudice against female officers and the sense that they were good for filing and making the tea but not for real police work. She had played a vital part in the capture of Frankie Starling and had expected to be involved in other investigations but had been put back on desk duty, traffic duty and escorting schoolchildren across the road.
And she knew that Harry Rawlings, seated next to her, was one of those who considered that a woman’s place was either in the kitchen or bedroom, but she recognised that Yarrow had a more enlightened view and was grateful whenever he was able to include her on his team.
Pinned to a notice board were a mortuary photograph of Ethel Palmer, a picture which made Suzanne shudder in horror at the extent of her injuries, and the only available photograph of Jack Palmer, a photograph of him in Army uniform found on the mantlepiece in his house. He had fought without particular distinction with the West Yorkshire Regiment during the Burma campaigns.
‘Good morning, everybody,’ Yarrow said, nodding to his assembled team, to be answered by chorus of ‘morning, sir.’
‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the tragic circumstances surrounding the death of Rosie Palmer and that this second death, the murder of her mother, only highlights the impact of continued tragedy for this family.’
Yarrow stopped to light another cigarette; he was a heavy smoker, even though he was well aware of the dangers. ‘Late yesterday evening, Ethel Palmer was battered to death in the kitchen of her home. Her husband, Jack Palmer, is the prime suspect. He was seen hurriedly leaving the house and a witness reports she noticed blood on his hands. He has not been seen since, or rather, nobody has yet reported seeing him. Our priority, obviously, is to locate Palmer and bring him for questioning. A word of warning, although everything points to Palmer as the killer, we cannot just assume that it is so, we need the evidence to prove his guilt and convict him.’
He pointed to the mortuary photograph. ‘This was a brutal attack. Palmer is a stonemason with strong arms and hands; the injuries inflicted on his wife are horrific, as can be seen. He was also physically abusive to his children; I saw the bruises and welts on poor Rosie’s body. Jack Palmer is simply a thug and a bully. Find him. Find him quickly.
‘I need to speak to the pathologist regarding Ethel’s injuries, Harding with me, and then once they open, we will visit those pubs and clubs he is known to haunt, find out whether he visited any of them after his assault on Ethel. Harry Rawlings, please check with records for any other family Palmer might have: parents, brothers, uncles etc., and if so, check with local police to see if he has made his way there.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You two,’ Yarrow said to Balderstone and Edgeley, ‘house to house enquiries along Albert Street and the adjacent area for any sightings of Palmer. Fillmore, you go with them, some of the women might talk more easily to you rather than hulking great coppers.’
CHAPTERSEVEN
SEVEN SHADES OF SHIT KNOCKED OUT OF HIM
Yarrow held a great deal of respect for the abilities of WPC Suzanne Fillmore and strongly believed that female officers, despite the deep-rooted chauvinism of his friend, station commander Superintendent Trevor Bullock, had much to offer and always tried to include her on his team.
‘All right, let’s get to it, we’ll reconvene at…’ Yarrow checked his watch, a Yeager-Couture given him by his beloved wife Marie-Hélène, now dead from cancer these three years past and whom he thought of and missed every single day, ‘at 6.30, see what we’ve got.’
At that, Suzanne grimaced; she was planning go dancing at the Mecca Ballroom with PC Percy Copper that evening. It was Saturday night and they always went dancing on Saturday, their shifts permitting, and a briefing at 6.30 would not give her much time to get ready to meet him at 8.00. Bugger, she inwardly swore. Percy Copper, although only a probationer at the time, had been instrumental in foiling the wages snatch in which Peter Cushman was gunned down and Rose Palmer tragically run over.
Suzanne rather liked Percy and knew the feelings were reciprocated, so missing their regular dance date was an annoyance, but she knew such disappointments were a part of a police officer’s life. What was that song from the The Pirates of Penzance, the Gilbert and Sullivan opera she once seen performed by the West Garside Players? Oh yes, that was it, ‘A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.’ She smiled to herself as she joined Balderstone and Edgeley as they made their way out of the briefing room. Percy would wait for her; she was sure of that.
Yarrow made his way back to his office. He would clear his desk of non-unimportant paperwork, giving precedence to Ethel’s murder and the hunt for Jack Palmer as non-pressing cases were passed on to other officers.
He had only been working for 20 minutes when the phone rang. It was Sgt Dave Armitage on the front desk.
‘Chris,’ he said, ‘I’ve just had a call from an Albert Higginbottom, he works an allotment off Tadcaster Road, he says there’s a badly injured man lying all over his cabbages, says he doesn’t know what to do, the dozy sod. I’ve called an ambulance, but from the description he gave, it could be our man Jack Palmer. He’s in a bad way, badly beaten by the sound of it.’
‘Beaten?’
‘Aye, had seven shades of shit knocked out of him according to Higginbottom. Reckon you’d best get over there sharpish.’
A sudden chill ran down Yarrow’s back. He knew without a doubt that Palmer’s beating was a consequence of his well-meaning but ill-judged attempt to give some protection to Ethel by having Jack Palmer warned off.
He knew Dave Armitage had called in some favours and did not know whom Armitage had contacted to deliver the warning, but the reality remained. He had instigated the chain of events that led to what sounds like a very severe beating. However, whatever the outcome, he knew that he and Armitage would never talk about what had previously transpired, not even to each other.
‘Thanks, Dave, Tadcaster Road allotments you said?’
‘Aye.’
Putting down the phone, Yarrow picked his coat and hat and without putting them on ran out of his office, calling for DS Harding to join him.
CHAPTEREIGHT
REALLY DONE A JOB ON HIM, HAVEN’T THEY
The unconscious Jack Palmer lay sprawled on his back across Albert Higginbottom’s cabbages. It was obvious that his beating had been very severe. His face was just a bloody mask, one eye closed, the eye socket crushed, and Yarrow suspected that if Palmer recovered, he would likely be blind in that eye. It was an injury with which Yarrow could sympathise, having been blinded in his left eye as a fighter pilot during the Battle of Britain. Subconsciously he rubbed at the web of scars around the eye.
‘Somebody’s really done a job on him, haven’t they, sir?’ Marcus Harding said with little sympathy for the man who had beaten his wife to death, ‘deserved all he got if you ask me, and I wouldn’t want to be too anxious to find out who did it to him unless it was to give him a medal.’
‘Whatever Palmer did, Marcus, this is still a crime, a serious crime, attempted murder. Or if he does not recover, murder,’ Yarrow answered, unable to shake off the guilt he felt for instigating the attempted protection of Ethel Palmer which had led inexorably to this.
‘Yes, sir,’ Marcus responded with little enthusiasm. If left to him he would likely have left Palmer where he lay and let the rats get at him.
The ambulance crew arrived, and after receiving Yarrow’s permission, loaded Jack Palmer onto a stretcher and carried him away to the waiting ambulance, which set off at speed towards the West Garside General Hospital, blue lights flashing and bells clanging.
‘OK,’ Yarrow said once the ambulance was out of sight, ‘get uniform down here, get a finger-tip search going. As I said, this is a major crime scene.’
CHAPTERNINE
‘FREDDIE, HAVE YOU BEEN THREATENED?’
‘Aye, he was here yesterday and in a foul mood with it. Looked as though he been in a fight, his knuckles were that cut and bloody,’ Freddie Jackson, the barman at the Working Man’s Institute, said. ‘Then I heard his missus had been killed, but he’d left by then.’
‘Did anybody come looking for him?’ Yarrow asked, fairly certain that Palmer’s attackers would have looked for him in his usual drinking habitats.
‘No, no, nobody,’ Jackson answered but could not look Yarrow or Harding in the eye. He’s lying, Harding though, and scared with it.
‘Are you certain?’ Yarrow asked, sharing Harding’s suspicions.
‘Aye, well, look, I know what I know and I know what I don’t know and there are things I don’t want to know on account it’s bad for my health, you know what I mean,’ Jackson replied cryptically.
‘Freddie, have you been threatened? Somebody came looking for Jack Palmer and then told you to say nothing, is that it?’ Yarrow asked sympathetically.
Freddie Jackson fiddled with a beer mat, ‘Aye, that’s about the size of it. I told them…’
‘Them?’ Harding pressed. ‘How many?’
‘Two, two of ‘em,’ Freddie replied reluctantly.
‘Do you know who they were?’
‘No, never seen them before, honest.’
‘Describe them to me,’ Yarrow asked quietly. ‘I know you’ve been warned, but they’ll not find out you’ve been talking to me. You have my word.’
‘Is that supposed to reassure me, ‘cos it don’t. Not in any way.’
‘I don’t want to have to arrest you for obstructing a police investigation, Freddie, but I will if I have to. I don’t need to tell you that cop shops can be very leaky places.’ The threat was made quietly, without a hint of menace in Yarrow’s voice, and not for the first time, Harding admired his boss’s softly, softly, but very effective way of working.
With a sign of resignation, Freddie described the two heavies and then told Yarrow that, after leaving the institute, the men were likely to look for Palmer in the Dog and Duck on Leopold Street.
CHAPTERTEN
LIKE A DOG SHAKING OFF WATER
‘Jack Palmer? Yes, he was here, kicking up a fuss about getting a drink on the slate, but he’s been a good, well, let’s say regular customer here,’ Billy Weddall, the landlord of the Dog and Duck, his copious belly straining the fabric of his waistband, replied when asked by Yarrow. ‘He’s not my favourite customer, mind, don’t like the man, but he puts money in the till, and rather than have him create trouble, I let him have two or three pints on the slate, and to be fair to the man, he generally settles up when asked. Shit, let’s face it, there hardly a man in this pub who doesn’t find himself a bit short towards the end of the week, and I’d rather they owed the money here than they go elsewhere.’
‘What time was this?’ Harding asked.
‘Hard to say,’ Weddall answered, rigorously scratching his belly, ‘it was busy, being pay day, and so it was a bit surprising that Jack asked for credit, but I reckon he must have dropped a packet on the horses, and not for the first time, neither. You ask me, he knew about as much about racehorses as I do about giraffes, which is to say nowt at all. Yeah, Jack Palmer liked a bet, all right, and I reckon he was one to throw good money after bad trying to recoup his losses.’
‘Did anybody come looking for him?’ Yarrow asked nonchalantly, as if the answer was of no consequence to him.
‘Can’t rightly say, as I said, I were right busy, but I can ask Mary the wife, she was out and about, collecting empties and that she might have noticed, but nobody came up to me asking about him.’ Weddall scratched his belly again before shouting, ‘Mary, get on over here, love, the coppers want to ask you summat.’
‘No, nobody asked for Jack,’ Mary Weddall answered when asked. She was a thin as her husband was fat and Harding was reminded of the old nursery rhyme, Jack Sprat would eat no fat and his wife would eat no lean and so between the two of them, they licked the platter clean,’ except that in this case, the opposite was the case. ‘But,’ Mary continued, ‘I did notice a couple of men peering through the door without coming in, and now that you mention it, they did seem to be staring at Jack.’
‘Can you describe them?’
Mary shook her head like a dog shaking off water. ‘No, no can’t say. Just a couple of blokes, that’s all.’
‘Thank you, Mary, any idea of the time when you noticed them?’’
‘Eight o’clock, thereabouts, maybe, can’t say closer than that.’
‘Did you see Jack leave?’ Harding asked.
‘No, no,’ Mary responded shaking her head as her husband scratched his stomach again. ‘What’s he supposed to have done?’ she asked before the reason struck her like a slap across the face. ‘My God, he’s done killed his wife, ain’t he, I saw it in the Gazette this morning.’
‘He’s just a suspect, that’s all.’
‘Yeah, and I’m the King of Sweden,’ Billy Weddall said derisively. ‘Everybody knows that Jack Palmer had a vile temper and was way too ready with his fists.’
‘Be that as it may, he is innocent until proved guilty. Now, I need a list of everybody who was here last night.’
Yarrow and Harding questioned the couple for a few more minutes until the list was ready and then Yarrow bade them goodbye, deciding it was time to head for the hospital to check on Palmer’s condition.
CHAPTERELEVEN
A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH
‘All I can say is that Mr Palmer has undergone emergency surgery to relieve bleeding on the brain and that his situation remains critical, very critical,’ Dr Edward Armstrong, the doctor on duty, advised.
‘Is he likely to recover?’ Yarrow asked.
‘He has suffered a Catastrophic Brain Trauma, which effectively means the permanent loss of all brain function above the brain stem. He may well live but never recover consciousness. He could likely be in a permanent vegetative state for the rest of his life, which could be for years, 40, 50 years, nobody knows. He will be kept alive but that is all. However, I am not a specialist, and Mr Barrow, the consultant neurologist from the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, might well give a different prognosis when Mr Palmer is transferred there, but in my opinion, Inspector, Mr Palmer will never recover. Now, if you will excuse me, I must get on.’
‘Thank you, doctor. Thank you.’
Deeply frustrated by the news of Palmer’s condition, Yarrow made his way back to the station. It was an unsatisfactory situation; Palmer was the only viable suspect for the murder of his wife, but if he were to remain in an indefinite coma, there was no way he could ever be arrested or charged. Jack Palmer cannot be charged in his present vegetative state, and unless he recovers sufficiently to plead, give and receive legal instruction, he can never ever be prosecuted.
Ethel Palmer’s family and children would never receive the justice they needed and the case would remain on the files as unresolved even though everybody knew who the killer was.
Palmer would be alive but never to recover, never to regain consciousness; it was Yarrow thought, a fate worse than death.
He called the team together for a short briefing, advising them about Palmer’s condition.
‘Serves the bastard right,’ Rawlings muttered to nods of agreement.
‘That may well be,’ answered Yarrow, ‘but we still have a crime to solve, whoever it was who beat Jack Palmer into a coma, it is attempted murder, or at the very least Grievous Bodily Harm,’ but nobody in the briefing showed the slightest bit of enthusiasm for that task.
‘Nobody will give them up, there’s not a soul in this town who doesn’t think he got all he deserved,’ Rawlings observed, and Yarrow had to concede that he was probably right.
‘Yes, sir, sounds like justice to me,’ added Marcus Harding as Balderstone and Edgeley nodded in agreement.
But was Harding right, was it justice or simply, what did they call it in the Wild West? That was it, frontier justice when suspected killers could be dragged out from jail by enraged citizens and summarily lynched. No, it was not right, he concluded, the near-fatal beating of Jack Palmer was not justice but revenge and he would have no part of it. Regardless of the feelings of his team, the crime must, must be investigated.
Realising that he would get little in the way of assistance to solve the crime, and sensing the team’s reluctance to even discuss the matter, he closed the briefing. The team could not get out of the CID room quick enough.
Suzanne Fillmore would make her dance date with PC Percy Copper after all.
CHAPTERTWELVE
YOU ARE A MEAN-MINDED COW
‘Slow, slow, quick-quick, slow,’ Peggy Stanley instructed as she lightly slapped her hands to the music, a scratchy foxtrot record that had seen – or heard – better days. ‘Ladies, step back with the right foot; gentlemen, step forward with the left; ladies, step back with the left and touch the right foot next to the left; gentlemen, step forward with the right and touch the left. Gentlemen, step to the left; ladies, to the right and bring the right foot to the left; gentlemen, ladies, bring the left foot to the right, and don’t forget, the slow beat is two beats of the music and the quick step is one beat. Very good, let’s do that again, slow, slow, quick-quick, slow, keep it smooth and flowing, smooth and flowing.’
Peggy Stanley’s West Garside Dance Academy was located on the first floor over a tailor’s shop on West Street, lessons every Wednesday and Saturday for beginners. The more advanced class and the Peggy Stanley Ballroom Dance Team met on Mondays and Thursdays. If the ballroom dance team were competing in a ballroom competition, the classes were run by Peggy’s daughter Gloria.
It was Percy and Suzanne’s seventh lesson. Much to her surprise, Suzanne found that she not only enjoyed dancing but was surprisingly graceful and fluid, much more so than Percy, despite the lessons he had already had before he screwed up his courage to ask her out.
The first time she had gone to meet Percy, her mother had been scathingly scornful when Suzanne told her she was going on a date, going dancing. ‘Dancing lessons? You’d sooner teach a hippo to dance.’
‘Leave the girl alone, why can’t you,’ snapped her dad. ‘Whatever it is, you always have to take the joy out of it for her.’
‘Thanks, Dad.’
‘That’s right, take her side as usual. I just hope her ’young man’ takes his guide dog along with him, ‘cos he must be blind if he thinks our Suzanne’s ever going to waltz.’
‘God, you are a mean-minded cow and no mistake,’ responded her dad. Suzanne left the house before her parents got into one of their all-too-frequent full-blown arguments.
