‘I’m not well, Irene. My chest is worse than ever.’
‘What about your foot?’
‘I can’t stand on it for long,’ he said, collapsing onto a stool by way of demonstration. ‘When I play my pipe in the streets, I have to beg a chair from someone.’ He looked up pleadingly. ‘I live in the hope that you’ll take me away from here one day.’
‘That’s not possible at the moment.’
‘Don’t you want to be with your old father?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she lied, ‘but I have a position with a family in London. I can’t leave that. They’re kind to me.’
‘Couldn’t they find something for me to do?’ he asked. ‘I’m not proud. It doesn’t matter how menial it is.’ He sat up and put out his chest. ‘I used to have an important job in a mill, you know. People looked up to me. That should count for something, shouldn’t it?’
‘It should,’ she agreed.
‘I was born for better things.’
Irene felt desperately sorry for him but her sympathies were tempered by some harsher childhood memories. While her father had worked at the mill, he’d neglected his wife badly and treated her with something akin to contempt. It was only when she died of smallpox that he discovered he’d loved her all along. Without her to support him at home and to look after Irene, he was helpless. His anguish was genuine but, in his daughter’s mind, it didn’t wash away the years of misery to which he’d subjected his wife. In one sense, she was horrified at the way his life had decayed around him. In another, Irene felt that it was a due reward. She would help him with money from time to time but she would never try to rescue him. Her life was elsewhere now. There was no room in it for an inebriated father.
‘How long can you stay?’ he wondered.
‘Not for long,’ she replied. ‘I have to catch a train to London.’
He was nostalgic. ‘I haven’t been on a train for years. I used to travel to work by rail every morning in the old days. Do you remember that, Irene?’
‘Yes, Father.’
She also remembered the number of times she and her mother had sat up late, waiting for him to come home. Disregarding his wife, Adnam at least had enough interest in his daughter to pay for her education. It was the one thing she had to thank him for, though he would be scandalised if he realised to what use she’d later put that education. Irene looked around. The place was dirtier and more disordered than ever. Empty flagons of beer stood near the bed. The heel of a loaf was the only food in sight. She was glad that she had not brought Oxley with her and let him view the pitiful condition into which her father had fallen.
Adnam made a pathetic gesture towards hospitality.
‘Can I get you something to drink, Irene?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘What time is your train?’
‘It’s just after two o’clock.’
‘I can walk to the station with you.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ she said, sharply.
‘But I can look after you. Deansgate is a jungle. You need a father to protect you.’
Irene was about to reply that the time she needed protection was when she was much younger and when he had gone into decline. But she saw no point in dredging up the horrors of the past. Her father was a sick man. He might not survive another bad winter. She would not have long to wait. Once he’d died, she would be free to pursue her new life without any vestigial family ties. Meanwhile, she still had sufficient family loyalty to keep an occasional eye on her father. Her gift had been generous but it would not last long. It would soon be wasted on drink and a few sordid nights with some of the whores who infested the area. Irene was disgusted at the thought, yet it did not stop her giving him the money in the first place. She’d salved her conscience and that was why she came.
‘Why don’t you write to me anymore?’ he asked.
‘I never have the time, Father.’
‘Well, I have plenty of time. Let me have your address and I can write to you instead.’
‘I’m not allowed to have letters.’
He was indignant. ‘Not even from your father? What sort of hard-hearted employers do you work for, Irene? They’ve no right to stop you having letters.’
‘I have to go,’ she said, planting a token kiss on his cheek. ‘I don’t want to miss my train.’
‘But you’ve only been here a few minutes,’ he complained.
‘I’ll stay longer next time.’
And before he could stop her, she let herself out and hurried off down the street. Crime had helped her to escape from Manchester and to give her a surface respectability. Yet a visit to her father plunged her back into the city’s most notorious area of vice, lawlessness and grinding poverty. Irene did not belong there. She was destined for a better life with the man she loved. While she was still disturbed by the thought of shooting someone, she was quick to see its benefit. It had earned her Oxley’s respect and love. In pulling the trigger, she had passed a kind of test. They were kindred spirits now.
The quality that most irritated Leeming about their new recruit was his willingness. Ian Peebles was like a dog, eager to do anything that might please his owner. Had the sergeant thrown a stick, he was sure that the Scotsman would fetch it for him.
‘What can I do, Sergeant Leeming?’ asked Peebles.
‘For the moment, you can just watch and wait.’
‘The superintendent explained the background to the case and I read the reports in this morning’s newspapers. According to one of them, Jeremy Oxley is a will-o’-the-wisp.’
‘Don’t believe everything you read in the press, Constable. They are often unjustly critical of us. Above all else, don’t talk to any journalists. They’ll twist your words to their own advantage.’
‘Och, man, I found that out when I was in uniform.’
‘Where were you based?’
‘In K Division at first,’ said Peebles. ‘That’s in Barking. It’s a very rough district. I was later moved to A Division.’
Leeming was impressed. ‘That’s Hyde Park Police Station,’ he noted. ‘We’d all like to have worked there. It was a kind of promotion for you. What did you do to earn it?’
‘I made one or two significant arrests,’ said Peebles, modestly. ‘I enjoyed my time in A Division, then I was recommended for the Detective Department.’
‘You were lucky,’ said Leeming. ‘My days in uniform were spent in the worst parts of London, the kinds of places where police are very unpopular.’
Peebles stood to attention. ‘I didn’t join the police in search of popularity,’ he declared as if taking an oath. ‘All that matters to me is that we sweep the streets clean of villainy. London is the greatest city in the world. It deserves to be purged of crime.’
‘You’ve been listening to Superintendent Tallis.’
‘I think he’s an inspiration – don’t you?’
‘In some ways,’ said Leeming, hiding his true feelings.
‘But then the same could be said of you and Inspector Colbeck.’
‘We do our job to the best of our ability, no more, no less.’
‘The superintendent told me that you’re his best men.’
‘Really?’
It was a surprise to Leeming, who got a continuous string of complaints from Tallis, often couched in unflattering language. It was the same for Colbeck. There was an underlying tension between the superintendent and him that prevented Tallis from giving anything but the most reluctant praise to the Railway Detective. Yet behind their backs, it transpired, the superintendent was lauding them. Leeming was annoyed that he was prepared to confide in a detective who was effectively on probation while saying nothing to the two people about whom he was talking. In Leeming’s view, Tallis was a different breed of dog. If Peebles was a tail-wagging retriever, the
