The Spider- Chapter 24-25

The dead woman in the attic.

Chapter 1-4| Chapters 5-6| Chapters 7-8|Chapters 9-11| Chapter 12|Chapter 13|Chapter 14-15|Chapter 16-17|Chapter 18-19 | Chapter 20|Chapter 21 |Chaper 22-23

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24

As instructed, none of the occupants of number five had left the premises that morning. A patrolling constable had been stationed to wait outside the house until the investigation was over. He seemed relieved when he saw Muldoon and Constable Lacey approaching the front gate, but his shoulders sank again as soon as Muldoon made it clear to him that he was still on watch.

Mrs Mckinnon let them in and brought them to the parlour room, where Beatrice Larkin was waiting for them. The curtains were still drawn, and Beatrice looked like she hadn’t slept in days. “Inspector,” she said, standing up. “I have the addresses that you asked for.” She held out an envelope addressed to Muldoon. He took it gratefully and slipped it into his inside pocket.

“Constable Lacey,” he said quietly. “Would you mind giving us a moment?”

The constable nodded and slid out of the room.

“Thank you, Mrs Larkin,” he said, moving over to the window and gently opening the curtains. “I have some other questions, if you don’t mind.”

Beatrice eyed him in puzzlement and sat back down on the sofa. He looked down at a small porcelain figurine on the window ledge, and moved it away from its precarious position at the edge of the sill.

“Mrs Larkin, do you have the razor?” he asked, looking over to her.

She looked up at him in alarm, feeling her palms sweat. “I did… but I don’t any more.”

He approached the mantelpiece, gazed into the face of the small clock and compared the time with the time on his pocket watch. The clock hadn’t been wound for the week yet. He frowned, realising that Maggie was sloppy as well as sly. “Do you know where it is?”

“No. I put it in the chest at the foot of my bed in case you’d need to see it. When Chief Inspector Gill asked me to hand it over this morning, it was gone.”

“Do you know who might have taken it?”

“No. Who would do that?” she asked, horrified. “How bizarre!”

“Lacey,” Muldoon called through the open doorway. The young constable walked in and stood to attention, waiting for his next order. “Search the house. Start downstairs. The door’s just beside the staircase.”

Lacey promptly left the room and could be heard opening the basement door. “Beatrice, do you think there’s anyone else involved in this murder besides your son-in-law?” Muldoon asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t think… I don’t know…” Her bottom lip began to tremble. Muldoon held his breath as he witnessed her begin to break down into choking, gasping sobs. She reached for her handkerchief and collapsed into her hands. “How will I tell her?” he heard her ask. “It’ll break her heart.”

Muldoon reached out and laid a hand on her arm. “I will tell her, if you’d like. But she has to come off whatever poison she is in the grip of.”

Beatrice stopped wailing and looked at him wild-eyed, taking short, laboured breaths to try and steady herself. “What?”

“Your daughter’s not possessed, Mrs Larkin, nor do I believe her to be ill. I believe that she has become addicted to opium through the administrations of that quack, Dr Swinson. Please don’t let him back in here until we have spoken to her properly.” The bell rang just as he’d finished his last sentence. “Hopefully, that’ll be the second opinion,” he said, rising from the sofa, leaving Beatrice to reflect on the news. He answered the door to a short young man dressed in black with a doctor’s bag and a top hat.

“Good afternoon,” he said with the manner of a well-bred gentleman beyond his years. “I’m Dr Ablewhite. The Chief Inspector sent for me.”

“You look about twelve,” Muldoon remarked. Ablewhite laughed and adjusted his steel-framed spectacles.

“Such is my lot in life.”

“The patient is upstairs,” Muldoon said. “Follow me.”

He led the young doctor up to the first floor where Frances was lying in her bed. On the chaise longue, Mrs Mckinnon was knitting some socks. She quickly put them away when the two gentlemen entered, and left the room quietly. “She’s addicted to opium. I don’t know how to get her off it without killing her,” said Muldoon, watching the doctor place his bag down on the chaise longue. Frances looked no different to the opium addicts he had seen rolling around in the slum gutters: she was thin, shivering and dead to the world.

Ablewhite removed his outer clothes and washed his hands at the basin with the pitcher on the sideboard. He approached the bed with his sleeves rolled up and leaned in. “Hello, Mrs Bryant,” he said quietly. “I’m Dr Ablewhite. I’m here to help you.” He put two fingers on her neck, feeling for her pulse. “Sorry, Mrs Bryant, my hands are rather cold.” He gently parted her eyelids with his delicate white fingers and looked at her pupils. “Constricted,” he said to himself, and inspected her face closely.

She didn’t stir from her stupor. Muldoon put his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know how much she takes, doctor, but it’s been a few weeks of this, according to her mother.”

“Could I see the pills?” he asked. Muldoon opened the drawer of the side table. Inside were several brown bottles of tablets rolling around. Muldoon grabbed them and handed them over the bed to the doctor, who studied the labels intently. “Laudanum, opium… they shouldn’t be available in this dose.” Young Ablewhite looked up at Muldoon, and swallowed. “Someone’s poisoning her.”

Every hair on Muldoon’s body stiffened. “Can we help her?”

Ablewhite cast a doubtful look on his patient’s sallow face. “I can reduce her dose of opium and hope that she can be weaned off. I can’t simply take it all away. Patients often experience symptoms far worse than those you get from taking these pills regularly.” He untied the restraints from Frances’ bruised wrists and gently lowered her hands back down by her side. “I bet that feels better,” he said, smiling. The doctor’s impressive bedside manner threw into stark relief how uncaring and unprofessional Swinson had been. Angered, Muldoon marched over to the bedroom window, threw the sash up and shouted down to the policeman outside. “Constable. I want Dr Swinson of number seven Percy Street arrested, now! If he’s not at home, he has a surgery on Duke Street. Find him.”

“Righto,” the constable said with a nod. He flew out of the front garden in pursuit, truncheon in hand.

Muldoon returned to the doctor at the bedside. “Doctor, how soon can we have her talking?”

He looked to Frances and then back at the inspector. “Two days, at the earliest? She’s going to be very ill, Inspector.”

“Stay with her. Charge whatever you have to. Get a nurse to help you, if you need one. Spare no expense on this woman! I’ll be back later.”

As he approached the final step of the staircase, Lacey emerged from the basement with a bundle of cloth in his hands. “Sir,” he said, offering up the discovery. Muldoon unfolded the cloth to find a razor in Lacey’s hands.

“Where?” he asked.

“Under the bed.” Lacey said. “The room on the left.”

Muldoon’s heart felt heavy. “I see,” was all he could say. “Excellent. Get it down to the station along with the housekeeper. I’ll be right with you.”

Lacey wrapped it back up and having asked Mrs Mckinnon to get her shawl, left the house with the old woman. “I didn’t put that there, Inspector,” she said sternly. Her kind eyes penetrated, telling him he was wrong, and like the eyes of a displeased mother, implied that he ought to know better.

“We’ll discuss it at the bridewell, Mrs Mckinnon,” he said, reserving emotion.

Lacey held her arm and escorted her out of the hallway. “There’s no need for that, young man,” she said curtly, shrugging him off. “I’m hardly going to outrun you!”

He promptly let go and they walked together civilly until they were out of sight.

Muldoon returned to the parlour room. Beatrice hadn’t left the sofa. “It’s all my fault,” she said, blubbing.

“Mrs Larkin, Frances is very ill, but she needs you by her side. The doctor upstairs is going to help her. She needs to be weaned off.” He knelt down to meet her eye level. “Is there anywhere that you could go with your family for a holiday and some fresh air, to aid her recovery?”

“Where?”

“Somewhere not too far away, in case we have any questions, but not the city. This house is the scene of a murder investigation now. It would be best if none of you were here.”

“I understand. We can’t go home… what would people think?” She looked at him searchingly, and held her hand to her mouth. Muldoon watched her think of something. She raised her finger. “I can write to my sister in New Brighton? Perhaps we could stay with her. It’s just across the river. Is that…?”

“New Brighton is perfect.”

“Understandably,” she said with a sniff, “Sarah and Elsie cannot go back up there, or be expected to sleep in the nursery any longer. I’ll give them my room and I’ll…” She started to cry again. “I’ll go in with Frances.”

Muldoon, finding himself trapped with a wailing woman again, stood at the mantelpiece awkwardly, until Beatrice lifted her head. “Inspector?” she asked, dabbing her eyes again. “What happens now?”

“Well, Frances will get better, hopefully, and we can collect a—”

“No,” Beatrice interrupted. “I don’t mean that. I mean the girl in the trunk. What happens to her now?”

Muldoon thought of the discoloured, decayed body in the trunk, staring at him with hollow eye sockets and a contorted mouth. “We have to try and find out who she was and what her connection was with John Bryant, Mrs Larkin. Hopefully there are some loved ones out there who are looking for her, but as soon as his ship lands, we’ll be speaking to him.”

He left the room and waited for a moment in the hallway. There was one more face he needed to see before returning to the bridewell.

🕷

Sarah was reading a story to Elsie on the sofa of the drawing room in front of a crackling fire when Muldoon entered, closing the door gently behind him. He quietly sat down on one of the chairs at the back of the room. Elsie looked up for a second and cast her eyes back down at the book. He caught the last of the story.

“And for her selfless act, the little mermaid did not return to the sea as foam. She instead became a spirit, spending three hundred years doing good deeds for others, until she could earn her place in His Eternal Kingdom, forever.”

Elsie scrunched her face up. “That’s not a happy ending.”

“Not all endings are happy, my love,” Sarah said, kissing her on the head. Sarah hadn’t seen the body, but she had seen the constables carry the trunk down the stairs and, realising that the body of a murdered woman had been above her head as she slept, threw up in the nearest basin. “Sometimes, the endings teach us a lesson. What do you think the lesson was in this one?”

“That she shouldn’t have run away from home.”

“Why do you think that?”

“She had a daddy and sisters. The witch was bad and she wasn’t very happy when she got legs because she couldn’t talk. The prince didn’t want to marry her. She shouldn’t have run away.”

“But she has God’s love, in the end. Is that not worth all of the suffering?”

Elsie shrugged, losing interest. “Can we go out today?”

“I’m afraid we can't, darling. The policemen have to do a lot of work today in the house.”

“Why?”

Sarah looked nervously over to Muldoon, who cleared his throat. “There were rats in the attic, Elsie. They were eating through all of the house.”

The child shook her head slowly in shock. “Not my dolls?”

Muldoon laughed despite himself and shook his head. “No, they didn’t eat your dolls.”

“Can I see them?”

Muldoon and Sarah looked at one another. “We can’t go up there at the moment, Elsie,” Sarah said. “But perhaps later...”

“I could go and fetch some, if you’d like?” Muldoon offered. Elsie’s little face brightened, illuminated by hope. Knowing that saying ‘yes’ to a child was always heard as I’ll do it right now, Sarah gave him an encouraging nod. He left the room.

She quickly followed him out, caught him on the other side of the door and whispered. “There is something you should know.”

“What’s that then?”

Sarah’s eyes shifted around the hallway uneasily. “Someone has been in my dresser, Inspector.”

“How do you mean?” he asked, baffled. “I had to look for anything that would be useful for the investigation,” he remembered the drawing and shook his head, “but I didn’t take anything from the dresser.”

She cast her eyes down, demonstrating long brown eyelashes. “Someone has been stealing my underwear.”

Muldoon’s skin turned from his usual peachy colour to a deep red. “Oh.”

“And I wondered if it was—well I don’t know—but, this morning, when you told me to dress… I looked everywhere and…” The pink of her cheeks deepened. “I couldn’t find my underwear.”

He suppressed his emerging thoughts, desperately trying to remain professional. “The maid, perhaps?” he offered.

“No." She shook her head, embarrassed. “I’ve checked.”

He puffed his cheeks out and blew the air from his mouth. “This doesn’t really have anything to do with the murder, Miss Jones.”

Her face reddened. “No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

He smiled apologetically. “I can’t go around asking which constable has been pilfering through your knicker drawer, Miss Jones.”

“No, you’re quite right. Let’s forget about it then. Please.” She was gone in a flash, back into the drawing room. The door closed firmly within an inch of his face.

---

25

It was early evening by the time Muldoon had returned to the bridewell. He was surprised to see Gill waiting for him in the main entrance. “What time do you call this then? I’m waiting to interview Mrs Mckinnon, you know.”

“Why do I have to do all these interviews, Gov? What the hell do you need me for?”

Gill straightened. “Well, because you’re on the team?”

“You just wanted me to sort the ghost out, didn’t you?”

“Well, no…” He raised his hands.

Inspector Muldoon was exhausted. “We found the body.” Visibly irritated, he shook his empty cigarette tin. “I’m going out for more cigarettes.”

“Please,” Gill placed a hand on the wall to bar his exit. “I’ve no one else.” Gill was very tall, but Muldoon could meet his eye level. “There are a lot of questions to ask and—”

“There are at least twenty other bobbies in here, not to mention you’ve already got detectives—”

“All right!” Gill snapped. “You're my best detective.”

Muldoon stared ahead for a moment, hollowed his cheeks in annoyance. “This isn’t my chessboard, sir. I don’t even work here.”

“It’s not, but would it be if I told you the head of police wants to throw wages at you that are similar to mine?” He eyed Muldoon for a moment, trying to see what was going on in the mysterious dark head of the Irishman. “He needs more detectives. Good detectives. You wouldn’t need to dance round any more bags of gold under rainbows, my friend, and none of the twats downstairs are up to it yet. They’d rather watch the horse racing or raid boats and call it a day’s work. Not you though. You sneak up on them, disappearing and reappearing like a fucking highwayman. I couldn’t ask any of them to sort out a poltergeist or a wolf-bite, could I? Imagine that in the logbook.”

Muldoon scoffed. “You’re not funny, Gill.” His thoughts flashed to his basement office and his cold, dark lodgings under the brothel. “I’m just a consultant. I was happy to help you and all… but… I don’t know.”

“He wants you Mulders. Special crimes. Think about it.”

Muldoon relented. “All right. I promise to think about it, and no more.”

Gill’s face softened. “Statements then? I’ve got the housekeeper in there,” he said, pointing to his office. “Come on, help me out.”

Agreeing that a seven-by-seven foot cell didn’t feel like an appropriate place to interview such a sweet old lady as Violet Mckinnon the housekeeper, Gill had kindly offered up his office and made her a cup of tea. She took it gratefully, and remained impressively calm considering the harsh environment. Next to the high, severe walls, Violet Mckinnon looked tiny and out of place. She dropped a cube of sugar in her cup and gave it a stir, finally ending the ritual with a tiny tinkle of the spoon on the rim of the cup.

“Did you put the razor under your bed, Mrs Mckinnon?” Muldoon asked calmly. Gill scribbled the notes down in the logbook.

“With God as my witness, I did not. Mrs Larkin put it in her room, and that was where it stayed. I laid eyes on it once, and that was when Mrs Larkin had confiscated it. I had never seen it before then. I was informed that Mrs Bryant had found the razor from somewhere and hidden it underneath her pillow.” She sipped some tea demurely and continued with, “we worried that Mrs Bryant intended to hurt herself, as can be the way when one is so very ill.” She stared down her glasses at the two men.

“Who do you think might have moved it then, Mrs Mckinnon?” Muldoon asked.

“I’ve no idea.”

“Very well.” Muldoon leaned back with his arms folded. “Who do you think is responsible for the body in the attic?”

Mrs Mckinnon looked across the desk in genuine surprise, with a hint of a frown above her eyes. “I haven’t a clue, Inspector. I’ve only been with the family since August of this year.”

“Is there anybody who could verify that?” Muldoon asked.

“Mrs Bryant, of course,” she said, putting her hand to her mouth in thought. “And of course… the directory where the vacancy at Percy Street was advertised.” She looked at them, triumphant, with a smile they’d both seen before: the winner of a poker game.

Checkmate, Muldoon thought, smirking. “Did Mr Bryant hire you?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head vehemently. “I was hired by Mr Ellman in May. He owned the house at the time.”

“Mr Thomas Ellman?”

“Yes, Inspector.”

“Ellman as in, Ellman and company?”

“I believe so, Inspector,” she said politely.

Muldoon and Gill looked at each other. “Thank you for your time, Mrs Mckinnon,” Gill said with the kind of charming smile he’d reserve for his mother. “Please finish your cup of tea while we talk outside for a moment.” He closed the door and turned to Muldoon.

“That’s interesting,” he said.

“What do we do with her then?”

“Let her go.”

“Hang on—she says Ellman owned the house. We’ve got deeds downstairs that say Bryant has owned it since 1882.”

Gill stewed on the information for a moment, pursing his lips in thought. “Someone’s lying,” he grumbled.

Muldoon, thinking of his next move, asked, “has Swinson been brought in yet?”

Gill shook his head. “Phillips has been looking for him. His wife says he’s been missing since yesterday. His secretary says the same. Slippery bastard is on the run, I bet. If he doesn’t come home by tomorrow, I’m sending a flying squad to find him.”

Muldoon grunted with approval.

“I’d be on the run too if I’d been poisoning a woman to death in front of her family," Gill said. "He must know something we don’t.” He folded his arms. “It’s one thing we know Bryant didn’t do… but… would he have a doctor do that while he was out of the country?”

“No idea. Maybe he had his eye on another woman.”

Gill nodded in agreement. “Toffs again. Divorce is a scandal, but no one bats an eyelid when a spouse dies of ‘consumption’ weeks before another wife comes along, even if the second one is richer.”

As both men turned to walk down the corridor, they heard the swing and slam of a door in the distance and looked up. It was Lacey. “Sir,” he said, removing his helmet. “Bryant’s ship has been spotted in the bay of Biscay.”

Gill rubbed his palms together. “Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey. Let’s pray he was even on it.” He narrowed his eyes at Muldoon. “If only someone had let me send out a fucking warrant for his arrest.”

“And what?” Muldoon snapped. “Have every paper out there slap his face on the front page and let him know that he’s a wanted man?”

“It’s my investigation!”

“Then what do you need me for?” Muldoon said through gritted teeth.

Lacey looked on uncomfortably as the air in the corridor grew thicker with tension, as it always did when Gill and Muldoon locked horns. Gill glowered at Muldoon, and snapping out of it, jovially pinched his cheek. “Because I’ve a temper, Mulders. This is why I need you here… Lacey, please take Mrs Mckinnon home and tomorrow, go back and bring that maid in. I want to know what she knows, but tonight, I think I need to get some sleep.”

🕷

Muldoon licked his lips, thinking of what he was going to say to Mr John Bryant. Gill, with an expression of thunder across his brow, seemed ready to charge in and provide the noose himself. “We don’t know if he did it, remember,” Muldoon said, unable to tell if he was about to witness a police interview or a bare-knuckle boxing match.

“What?” Gill growled. “We’ve got the murder weapon, we’ve got the body, we’ve got the bastard. What do you mean we don’t know if he did it?”

“He’ll be able to seek counsel, Gov. It’s not just some beggar or drunk you pulled in off the street, remember. This man can afford counsel.”

Gill rubbed his temples. If he had mutton chops, Muldoon was certain that he would have torn them off by now. “You’re right,” he sighed. “A profound lack of sleep is clouding my judgement, Mulders. You must forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive, Gov. I am much the same.”

Muldoon hadn’t slept for days. Unfortunately for Gill, the bridewell seemed to have experienced an unnatural surge of activity, courtesy of the city’s drunkards, smugglers, scrappers, thieves and beggars, all in time for the final week of John Bryant’s absence. Gill had hardly been home.

In Muldoon’s case, he had been forced awake every night by a recurring visitor: the ghost of Mary. When she was not standing in the corner of his room, she would hover over him as he lay in bed, gripping his throat in her hands and screaming until he woke, gasping for air. Paulie, still lodging with Muldoon, had seemed unaffected by the paranormal activity, much to Muldoon’s chagrin. At times, he even found himself resenting the drunkards sleeping the night away in the cells. What she wanted, he couldn’t tell, and he learned to live with her presence hovering over him, watching every step he took.

Gill slid the hatch to the left to make sure they had the right one. He made an approving guttural sound and turned to Muldoon. “Handsome bastard, isn’t he?”

“Wait, Gov,” Muldoon said, feeling the rush of adrenaline in his core. He pulled out his notebook and presented Gill with Sarah Jones’ drawing. Muldoon looked from drawing to detainee and frowned. “It… it can't be,” Muldoon said under his breath. The man in the drawing was almost identical, save for a few minor differences across the nose and hairline. Bryant did not have a moustache like the subject of the sketch.

The two inspectors entered the cell, causing an already nervous John Bryant to back further into the corner. “Evening, Bryant,” Gill said.

John Bryant looked up at them with wild, frightened eyes. “What’s this all about? Where is my family?”

Muldoon took his chance to get a look at his eyes. They were grey. Noticeably grey, and the same eyes he’d seen on Elsie Bryant.

“You’re in here for the murder of a woman at number five, Percy street," Gill said.

Muldoon watched the man’s face turn ghostly pale despite a fresh band of sunburn across his nose. “No,” was all John Bryant could say. “No, it can’t be.”

Muldoon sensed the chief relish in the discomfort he was thrusting upon the detainee, and gave him a discouraging glare. Gill registered it and said, “No, not Frances Bryant.”

“Thank God,” Bryant said, dropping his head into his hands.

“Have you not heard from your wife recently, Mr Bryant?” Gill asked, leaning against the wall.

Bryant shook his head. “No. I feared the worst.”

Gill pondered for a moment, and lit his pipe. “Why would you fear the worst, Mr Bryant? Everything all right at home?”

John Bryant, his mouth agape, shook his head again.

“You mean everything isn’t all right at home?” Gill prodded. “Which is it, Bryant?” He pulled his pipe from his mouth and growled, “Bryant! Answer me.”

“I… I didn’t know the address of where I was going. Ellman said he’d write to my wife with the address. Then, when I didn’t receive anything, I decided to write to her and… I didn’t get a response.” He ran his fingers through his uncombed hair. “I knew it would take a while for anything to get to me and the journey back was so long that… I thought perhaps she felt she’d just wait it out. She wasn’t particularly pleased when I informed her of the trip and, well you know how women can hold their grudges. I’d hoped it was just Frances giving me the silent treatment. I only started to worry when there were police waiting for me on the jetty.”

“Is there…” Muldoon thought back to the man Frances described in her letters. “Is there any chance, Mr Bryant, that your wife’s affections could have gone elsewhere?”

“What?” Bryant asked, frowning. “Why would you… why would you say that?”

Muldoon, distracted, looked around the cell. Unlike absolutely everywhere else he had travelled that week, the ghost of Mary hadn’t appeared. She met him at coffee houses, in taverns, on the street when he was about to cross, or in his nightmares. She was nowhere to be seen on this occasion, and he wondered why. He had grown used to the harassment, and her absence made him anxious.

“Everything all right there, Inspector?” Gill asked, wondering what the hell he was doing. “Is the brickwork to your standards?”

“Sorry, Gov,” Muldoon said, checking behind him. John Bryant remained seated; he was looking at them expectantly, waiting for someone to talk.

Gill spoke first. “John Arthur Bryant. Do you know who is responsible for the dead woman who’s been in your attic for years?”

“No,” Bryant said, dumbfounded.

Gill sucked the air through his teeth as though Bryant’s answer caused him physical pain. “Mr Bryant, it is incredibly likely that you will be hanged for the murder of this woman whether you tell us her name or not, so if you have even a modicum of decency, you’ll tell us what we want to know: who is she and what was she doing stuffed in a trunk in your attic?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, looking between each of them. “I’ve only owned that house since May of this year… But I should like to speak with a solicitor before I continue.”

“Fine,” Gill said, turning to the door. “As is your right.”

Muldoon hung back for a moment and crouched down to Bryant’s level. “In her letters that she wrote to you, Mr Bryant… she described being able to see you through the keyhole? If it wasn’t you… I just thought…” Bryant looked down at the floor, devastated. “But your wife is seriously ill, Bryant,” Muldoon added. “And it could well have been a fever dream.”

Bryant lifted his face up to meet Muldoon’s. "Can I see her?"

Muldoon regretfully shook his head. "Not yet."

Bryant, realising that Frances may not have even wanted to see him considering the circumstances, nodded in reluctant acceptance. “Please may I see these letters?” he asked.

“Of course, Mr Bryant. I’ll have them brought to you, but they’re evidence, so you must read them under supervision and hand them back.”

Bryant nodded. “Thank you,” he said quietly. Muldoon rose and left the cell where Gill was waiting to close the door with a ceremonious, thunderous bang. A warden approached with the ring of keys and locked it.

“He’s confused about the body, Gov,” Muldoon said quietly. “He hasn’t a clue what we’re talking about.”

Gill stared at him in disbelief. “Piss off. He’s doing the confused husband act, that’s all. Don’t fall for it.”

🕷

Muldoon returned to Percy street where, just a couple of days before, he had said a silent farewell to the Bryant household. Concealing himself in the shadows of the shedding trees he stood beneath in the churchyard, he observed their departure from afar. Beatrice, Frances, Sarah and Elsie piled into a cab without issue; he watched the wheels roll along Percy Street as the cab headed down the hill on the road that would lead them to the ferry terminal. Silently, he wished them well. When he turned to look at number five again, he saw Mary standing on the front path. From the other side of the road, he couldn’t see her eyes clearly, but he felt the weight of them. She was angry. With him, or with something else, he didn’t know. “Enough,” he said under his breath, and walked instead to number seven.

A maid brought him into Mrs Swinson’s parlour room where she was sitting with her half-finished embroidery piece: some silk bouquet arrangement. “Inspector, thank goodness. Have you found my husband?” she asked, placing it down into a basket beside her chair.

Muldoon felt his stomach sink and realised he hadn’t thought of how Mrs Swinson would feel. His focus had always been on the doctor. “I am sorry, Mrs Swinson,” he said earnestly with his hat in his hands. “We have been unable to find your husband.”

Wonderful, another blubbering woman, he thought as he watched her crumple into a sobbing mess, covering her doughy face in her hands.

“I do need to ask you a few questions about his habits and relationships, if that’s possible.”

The older, silver-haired lady blew her nose hard into a handkerchief, making him flinch. Calmly, he presented Swinson’s small diary from his inside pocket and placed it on the coffee table. She looked up at him and then down at the diary. “What is that?”

“It’s your husband’s diary,” he said.

“Where did you get that?”

“He’d left it at his office,” he lied.

Mrs Swinson shook her head in disbelief. “It wasn’t there when I looked. Where did you find it?”

“I didn’t, Mrs Swinson. One of my constables did. It must have slipped down the side of something, or been too well-hidden in a drawer.” She seemed unconvinced, but composed herself anyway. “I would like to know,” Muldoon began, “if there is anything in this that would suggest where he may have disappeared to.”

Mrs Swinson picked it up and flicked through the pages. “Try looking at the last seven days,” Muldoon suggested, “and tell me if there’s anything interesting here.” He watched the lines in her forehead deepen as she mouthed words and letters she read. She scanned the pages and seemed puzzled. “This isn’t his diary.”

“Is it not?”

“I mean,” she nodded, “it is his handwriting, but it’s not the one he uses for appointments. I don’t know what this one is for.”

“Do any of the initials mean anything to you?”

She shook her head again. “No. I’m sorry, Inspector. It might as well be written in Swahili. I’m sorry.”

Muldoon’s eyes widened as he caught sight of something on the page as it rested in her hands. “May I?” he asked. She gave it back to him and he turned the book upside down.

Muldoon looked closer. It was an address. Christ, how did I miss that?

🕷

Muldoon stepped off the train at Gateacre station and, unsure of where exactly to go, made his way up the hill and stopped at The Black Bull public house immediately. It rested in the centre of the hilltop village like a beacon, glowing white in the autumn sunshine with its mock-Tudor stucco and black beams.

Sitting in a warm corner of the pub beside its blazing hearth, he opened his notebook and reviewed his notes. He copied the upside-down address into his own notebook and tore the sheet of paper out. When the young barmaid brought him his lunch, he asked her if she knew where he could find the house on the piece of paper. She informed him that the house of interest was almost opposite, in one of the cottages further up the hill. He thought of his next move over some mashed potatoes and a pint of brown ale.

The village of Gateacre was lively, with cart horses dominating the main road. A herd of sheep passed down the hill as he dined, accompanied by a farmer and a slinking, swift collie that reminded him of Paulie McCrae. The farmer raised his cap to the pub landlord who was opening the hatch for the new load of barrels, courtesy of the brewery opposite. As well as its rustic charm, the village was as lush as Allerton had been. Crisp, decaying leaves sailed down to the ground like confetti on the shining cobbles.

A stomach full of hot food and a drink had made Muldoon feel drowsy. He braced himself for returning to the bright yet cold autumn air outside.

With a deep breath, Muldoon crossed the road passing a couple of shops, a chapel and another inn. Finding the sandstone cottage he was looking for, he knocked on the door and stood back. To his surprise, the door was not opened by a maid, but by Dr Swinson himself.

The two men stared at each other for a moment. Swinson, fully dressed in his black suit, blinked a few times before greeting Muldoon.

“Night duty with a patient, doctor?” Muldoon asked.

Before Swinson could speak, they both heard a child calling from the hallway. “Who is it, Daddy?”

Having kindly been afforded the guise of going to a business meeting for the sake of his secret family, Swinson accompanied Muldoon back to The Black Bull, where they sat down in a quiet corner, shadowed by unlit lamps. The barmaid, recognising Muldoon again, flashed him a coquettish smile from behind the bar as she dried a glass. He approached and ordered coffee to be brought to his table. She appeared within minutes, taking longer than was necessary to place the coffee on the table, and reappeared a minute later asking if they needed any sugar. Muldoon declined, leaving it to Swinson to deal with her. He didn’t want sugar either. Having no reason to stay, she disappeared from view back to her work.

Swinson sat across from him, representing a shadow of the man he had seen at Percy Street. He spoke quietly, fixing his fearful eye on the Inspector. His body slumped against the back of the huge chair, making the large man seem pathetically small. “He would have told my wife if I didn’t do as he said,” Swinson said, holding his coffee cup with a trembling, fat hand.

“You were poisoning Mrs Bryant, Swinson.”

Swinson fought against the urge to give way to his emotions and pushed his lips together for a moment. When he had taken a breath, he said, “I didn’t intend for this to happen. What must you think of me?”

Muldoon raised an eyebrow, wondering what that had to do with the crime he was concerned with, but allowed him to continue nonetheless. “You can’t help who you fall in love with, and I couldn’t bring myself to divorce Sally… You know, we lost eight children? All eight of them.” Swinson’s bottom lip finally overpowered him as he spoke with a waver in his voice. “It destroyed her. I couldn’t divorce her. She had nothing.”

“So what, you shacked up with your secretary?”

“I was grieving,” he snapped like a wounded animal, then immediately softened, looking into the distance with a mournful voice. “Our youngest, Paul. He was the only one to live beyond infancy and… he was at University in Liverpool. We followed him over here eventually, a few years ago. Then consumption took him soon after. I didn’t mean to do what I did, but I worked long hours and when Elizabeth told me she was with child—my child, I wanted to be with her. It felt like a miracle, with her being forty and surviving the pregnancy. I couldn’t just… I couldn’t just ignore that. I have a son. God gave me a son.”

Muldoon sipped his coffee pensively.

“And Ellman knew about your second family, then?”

Swinson nodded. “He said he would tell the papers if I didn’t help him. I’d lose everything.”

“Why did he want you to hurt Mrs Bryant?”

Swinson looked at him desperately. “I don’t know.”

“Who called you to come to the house?”

“The maid.”

“Maggie?”

“I don’t know her name. The little, peaky-looking one in the lace cap. She said she had instructions from her employer. Look—please—he’ll destroy me. That’ll be my wife, my mistress and my son on the street.”

Muldoon, finding sympathy he didn’t know was there, asked, “can you prove that you were blackmailed, doctor?”

Swinson nodded gravely. “I kept the letters, but I didn’t know what I could do with them. The man’s power seems to have no limit, but I kept them, just in case.”

Muldoon stood, and said, “write to your wife, doctor.” He spoke quietly, not wanting his words to land on the other ears in the room. “She’s worried sick. Don’t put an address on the letter, because there are eyes everywhere looking for you.” He leant down and spoke in the doctor's ear. “You’re wanted for attempted murder.”

The doctor gawped at the inspector, who stood up straight again, adjusted his suit and followed up with, “I may be able to sort this out, but I need your cooperation. Bring the letters to the Main Bridewell by tomorrow morning, or you’ll be tried for the attempted murder of Frances Bryant. Hurry, doctor. We don’t have much time.”

“Understood,” the doctor whispered. “Thank you, Inspector—wait, Mrs Bryant—Will she be all right?”

“She’s with another doctor now. Whether she recovers or not is in God’s hands, no thanks to you.” Muldoon secured his hat on his head and said, “but if she dies, doctor… the charge is murder.”

He left the doctor alone to drink his lukewarm coffee in silence.