Act of Murder Read online

  ‘Are you waiting for someone?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Then why are you here?’ The vulnerability in her eyes gave him the confidence to ask such a direct question.

  The girl dropped her head and mumbled something about her father.

  ‘You’re waiting for your father?’ Richard felt strangely irked. The girl’s face – what he could see of it through the snow and the embrace of the shawl – was quite fetching. She had the most amazingly wide brown eyes that would have appeared trusting if it weren’t for the frown that accompanied them, and her lips were full and rich with sensuous promise.

  ‘No, sir. Me dad’s back home.’

  ‘But you said something about him. What was it?’

  ‘I said me dad’d kill me.’

  ‘Kill you?’ He gave a laugh that was meant to show he took her words as mere hyperbole.

  ‘I . . . I’d best be off.’

  ‘Wait.’ He placed a hand on her arm. This was intriguing. The wretchedly pretty little thing had piqued his curiosity. What exactly was bothering the wench? ‘Perhaps I can help?’

  She shook her head and turned her face away from him, as if in shame. ‘I’ll get belted if I’m not back. Shouldn’t have come in t’first place. Please let me go, sir.’

  He pulled her gently up the steps. ‘Well at least we can be dry. And then we can talk. What do you say? I’m a very good listener.’

  After seating her in a secluded niche far away from inquisitive eyes, he listened to her sorry tale. Her name was Violet and she came from nearby Wigan, a town suffering more than most from the current coal strike that had apparently no end in sight. Her father was one of the striking miners, and she couldn’t recall the last time they’d had a decent hot meal.

  ‘What about your mother?’ he had asked, feigning concern and interest, seeing that she had been conspicuous by her absence from the narrative.

  ‘Dead,’ came the flat reply. Then the curious addendum, ‘to us, any road.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  She looked him full in the face. God, she was fetching!

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be talkin’ like this. To a stranger.’

  A cue. To place his hand on hers, and offer the tenderest of squeezes. ‘A friend.’

  Could he detect the beginnings of a smile?

  ‘Why have you come to Bolton?’ he asked, although he now knew the answer. She wasn’t known in Bolton.

  She licked her lips, a simple gesture that did more to rouse his loins than any glimpse of flesh. He knew, at that moment, that he had to possess this girl. The negotiations would have to be handled with tact and a show of philanthropy, for it was clear that this young chick had never been plucked. And afterwards, well, who knows? Perhaps she would consent to pose privately, with another willing partner, and allow him to preserve her alluring beauty for all time? He smiled inwardly at the prospect. Then he spoke.

  ‘Let me buy you a hot drink before we talk about how I can help you. You look starved in this bitter chill.’

  She considered his offer for many seconds, glancing past the thick stone columns before her at the busy scene in the central sweep of the hall. Men were hurrying to and fro, some with sheafs of papers beneath their arms, and others with grave expressions on their faces. This was clearly not a place for her kind. She stood up, and gave him a warm and friendly smile as he stood beside her. Then she held out her hand to thank him. ‘It’s very good of you, sir. But I reckon as I’ve made me mind up. It were daft, comin’ here, thinkin’ I could . . . well, don’t matter none. No harm done, eh? I’ll make me way home now. And thanks for listenin’. You’re a nice chap.’ With that, she left him and walked quickly back through the stone columns and onto the snow-swept steps.

  Richard smiled. The chase, as they say, was on.

  He followed her to the station at a discreet distance, the heavy blizzard helping to conceal his presence. When she reached the station forecourt, she did indeed resemble a lost and forlorn figure. The snow had soaked through her inadequate clothing, her hair was matted close to her scalp, and her face was flushed with the unhealthiest of rosy hues. It was a simple matter to produce his ‘I can’t believe we’ve met again – it must be fate!’ speech and take her by the arm (this time she came willingly) into the small tea bar across the way, where he displayed his most solicitous and paternal charms, listening to her woeful tale with benevolent concern.

  Within an hour, the chick had been plucked.

  *

  The full dress rehearsal had done nothing to calm Benjamin’s nerves. Susan Coupe, his leading actress and one on whom he had pinned the greatest hopes, was lethargic and lacked the melancholy spark that fired the selfless devotion so necessary in the role of Nelly Denver. She had moved around the stage like, as he put it, ‘an elephant with child’, and his words had brought forth not just a display of histrionics from Miss Coupe, but an outraged demonstration of chivalry from Mr James Shorton, who momentarily stopped being a drunken Will Denver – Nelly’s husband – and strode to the edge of the apron, demanding an instant apology.

  Ever since they had arrived in Wigan, she had been out of sorts. Why, the very first thing she did as they walked from the railway station was throw a faint, collapsing in a heap and only barely rescued from the hooves of a passing horse by Shorton’s quick thinking.

  That she was delicate in some ways, Benjamin had no doubt. But one of the reasons he had asked her to tour with them was the amazing transformation that usually took place once she stepped onto the stage. Gone was the vulnerable frailty of a young woman hesitant and nervous in the company of others, to be replaced by a consummate artiste capable of the most powerful and evocative tragic roles (her Desdemona had brought warm praise from Ellen Terry herself) and the lightest of romantic heroines. Yet her performances in rehearsals, including this most crucial one, had been frankly disappointing. He only hoped that, with the spur of an audience and an opening night in a new venture, the soaring spirit would once more take over and she would do justice to the role of the lovelorn Nelly.

  ‘I feel I am to blame,’ Benjamin lamented later, in the seclusion of his dressing-room. Herbert was standing behind him, massaging the very tense muscles in his neck. It felt so good. The boy had such a firm, tender touch.

  Herbert gazed at his reflection through the looking-glass. ‘How so?’

  ‘The whole cast has been out of sorts. Perhaps I ought to have arranged some special dinner last night. A social gathering. As we did in Manchester. What do you think?’

  Herbert slowly shook his head. ‘They would have got drunk again. And then all the petty resentments, all their little huffs, would have come pouring out.’

  Benjamin closed his eyes. ‘You’re right. What a depressing scene that would have made!’ He gave a sigh and reached up, holding the boy’s hand and caressing its smooth contours. ‘You have a wisdom beyond your years, Bertie.’

  ‘Then it’s as well I’m here, Benjie.’

  Suddenly the actor-manager’s eyes widened with alarm. ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘What?’

  Quickly, brushing away the hands around his neck, he rose from his chair and crossed the room. He unlocked the door and flung it open with a display of bravado.

  The small, narrow corridor was empty.

  He sensed Herbert standing behind him. Slowly he closed the door.

  ‘Benjie,’ said the boy, with an expression of concern on his face and in his voice, ‘this is verging on madness, you understand? Every little noise. Besides, the door was locked.’

  Benjamin nodded. But he had so much to lose if they were ever compromised.

  ‘You are imagining these things.’

  ‘I thought I heard someone breathing beyond this door.’

  ‘The wind, perhaps?’

  He gave a resigned sigh. A rational explanation, to be sure. But the longer this tour had gone on – and they were now int
o their ninth week away from London – the more he had become smitten with the young man. Of course, he felt sure none of the others knew of his true feelings – feelings which were not unheard of in their profession – but it would be disastrous for the success of the tour, and his subsequent reputation on returning to the capital, if he were to become the object of scandalous speculation. Hitherto, he and Herbert had skated on the outer fringes, so to speak. But gradually they were moving closer, with lingering touches of the hands and glances that lasted just that little too long, so that, soon – very soon, he hoped – they would venture more closely together towards the thinner, more dangerous ice in the centre. Wigan was the first venue where he had arranged lodgings for both himself and Herbert – traditionally, everyone on tour took responsibility for their own accommodation, but he had suggested casually one evening that he would make the arrangements if the young actor were amenable. The wry smile in response, and the tantalising uplift of the eyebrows, had gratified him beyond measure.

  Nevertheless, they had to take the greatest care. It would be unbearable if something happened at this point to thwart his and Herbert’s plans, albeit unspoken. He thought of the time when they would be fully and deliciously together as a moment of ecstasy, and when they finally returned to London perhaps Herbert would become a regular visitor to his home on Cheyne Walk. How blissful that would be!

  But he would bitterly resent anyone doing anything to destroy the moment by turning it into the filthy slush of scandal. He could not allow that to happen. He would not.

  *

  Along the corridor, in the tiniest of dressing-rooms, Susan Coupe pulled herself away from a particularly extravagant embrace and tried to catch her breath.

  ‘What is it?’ her companion asked with a knowing smile.

  The young actress swallowed nervously, and leaned back against a small dressing-table replete with all the paraphernalia of her trade: a range of small, round boxes containing her favourite pale peach theatrical powder; an array of greasepaint bases; several slender containers of various liner colours; and a faceless head draped with the wig she would be wearing for tonight’s performance.

  ‘I thought I heard Benjamin. We must be careful,’ she whispered, with a furtive glance at the closed door.

  ‘It’s locked.’

  ‘It’s not that. You know what I mean.’

  ‘No one suspects a thing, my dearest,’ James Shorton whispered with a smile.

  ‘But what if . . . Perhaps . . . perhaps this is as far as we can go.’

  ‘Susan. Please look at me.’

  He held her face in his hands. Those startling blue eyes of hers became watery, looking far younger than her twenty-one years. ‘I have made you a solemn promise. I will not desert you now. I love you. And that means I will do what I have promised to do.’

  Susan had the grace to blush. She hadn’t intended her words to sound so self-indulgent. And yet, she herself had a great deal to lose. She had already trodden the boards at some of the greatest theatres in the world, most recently the Haymarket, and had accepted a tentative offer from Henry Irving at the Lyceum.

  She had strong hopes, too, of sailing across the Atlantic with the great Irving on his next American venture, where she knew, given the chance, she would stun a Broadway audience, said to be the most critical but appreciative audience in the world. Many a night she curled herself around the comforting vision of an entire theatre standing in rapt applause as she stood on a stage bedecked with the most colourful of floral tributes, her fellow actors leading the tributes with smiles and envious glances.

  It was a scene that grew darker on occasion. Gradually, as she drifted off to sleep and began to lose control of the gloriously satisfying coup de theâtre, the script would change. The cheering and acclaims of ‘Bravo!’ would be interspersed, infrequently at first, with yells of ‘Dollymop!’ and ‘Judy!’ from the darkness beyond the stage, until the catcalls gained momentum, row upon row of the audience now taking up the defamatory chant. Her nightmare self would turn to her fellow actors on stage only to see their eyes narrow with angry exultation.

  She reached up and cupped his face with both hands. ‘Why do you love me?’

  He frowned. ‘What a strange question!’

  Slowly he placed his hands on hers and brought them down to her side. When he spoke, his voice was low and in deadly earnest. ‘You are the most precious thing in my life. Whenever I close my eyes, your face – every delightful contour and feature – is before me. There are times when I feel such pain . . . there is a very fine dividing line between love and torment, and it hurts me so much to be apart from you.’ He brought her lips close to his. ‘I love you so very much.’

  She felt the warmth of his breath, and the ardour it bore. She edged towards him, and as they kissed she felt herself almost floating with abandon that took her far beyond the dingy confines of this cramped room and away from the misgivings that would nevertheless be awaiting her when she returned.

  *

  When Georgina Throstle awoke, she felt a tremor of disorientation. For a second she thought she was back in Leeds, lying in a comfortable bed in their spacious home, where all was right and the sky forever blue. But the harsh call from a fish-hawker in the street below, urging passers-by to ‘put some gradely jackbit on yer owd chap’s plate!’ in a sing-song lilt repeated over and over again, made her open her eyes with a heavy sigh. The pain from earlier had subsided into something more tolerable, a dull ache that was like the final rumblings of a distant storm, and the darkness outside the window told her that she had indeed slept for some considerable time.

  She sat up, slowly and with exaggerated care in case the pain should come flooding back, and glanced over to the chair beside the wall opposite, where Richard would sometimes sit and read by the oil lamp on the table. But the chair was unoccupied. She had a sudden presentiment. Evidently he had gone out. But where? The Public Hall, to supervise tonight’s presentation? Or to speak with the gentleman who accosted him earlier, the one he had lied to her about? Or simply to take an early-evening constitutional before his dramatic exertions for the Phantasmagoria?

  There was, she knew with a heavy heart, a fourth possibility, one that swirled beneath her composure like sewage, and one which she had hitherto preferred to keep well hidden in case the stench should make her nauseous.

  Such morbid thoughts! She scolded herself and walked over to light the lamp. The room was now merely in half-shadows, and she pulled her dressing-gown around her shoulders to ward off the chill before moving over to the window.

  The fog had lifted a little, drifting around the flare of the gas lamps which illuminated the row of shops opposite and cast a dull, jaundiced yellow on their wares. She glanced to left and right, up and down the street, scouring the darkened features of each person, but seeing none that remotely resembled her husband. This was intolerable! He had effectively abandoned her to her own devices – why, she could have been murdered in her sleep!

  Suddenly, she felt a cold breeze stroke the back of her neck, and saw the curtains before her sway in response. She heard something click, like the closing of a door she had never heard open, and then, before she dared turn around to investigate, there was a strange and brutish sound behind her, like the heavy panting of a wild animal, and she realised there was indeed someone – or something – in her room. She turned around quickly, saw the wild and frenzied look in the eyes, and the scream froze in her throat.

  2

  Billy Cowburn had flatly refused to go to the Pagefield for a drink after work. He could tell, in the resigned shrugs of the others, that they were not only getting used to his desire for solitude, they were also growing more than a little fed up. The time would soon come when they would stop asking. Sympathy went only so far. He wasn’t the only miner who had suffered unexpectedly as a result of the recent dispute – some poor souls had given up the ghost altogether and hurled themselves into the Leeds-Liverpool Canal or the River Douglas – nor was h
e the only chap whose wife had made a fool of him and taken herself off with another.

  Betty Cowburn had been duped by a silver tongue and the promise of plenty by one of the soldiers brought in to prevent any trouble from the strikers. The soldier had deserted, and they were both now on the run.

  As he flung open his front door, his blackened face gave him an appearance more demonic than human. The coal dust that was almost ingrained into his face rendered his eye sockets an unearthly white, flecked with tiny specks of black. Narrow rims of redness ran along his lower lids. He walked through to the kitchen and laid his bag on the table, just suppressing his nightly call to his wife.

  ‘Still can’t get used,’ he said to himself. ‘I hope the bitch is lyin’ face down. Some bloody farmer’s field.’ In his mind he coloured in the fantasy. ‘Lyin’ in some stinkin’ bloody cowshit. An’ some bloody bull’s caved her skull in. Her an’ that bastard.’

  He savoured the image for a few seconds. Then he heard a noise from upstairs. For a moment he thought it might be her, come back to beg for mercy, or more likely come to collect the rest of her clothes, which he had shredded into rags. But then he realised it would only be his daughter. And that was when he felt things weren’t quite right.

  Shouldn’t she be downstairs getting his tea ready? He glanced over to the fire and the oven range beside it. He could smell nothing – no broth, or stew, or potatoes bubbling in a pan.

  Bloody hell and damnation!

  It was freezing outside – dark and foggy and freezing, and she’d let the fire die down. Just look at those ashes! He worked in that shithole all day and he had to come home to a bloody cold kitchen because she couldn’t be bothered to stick a shovelful of coal on the sodding fire? Nothing cooking at all? What the blazes did his daughter think she was playing at?