The Eloquence of the Dead (36 page)

Swallow raised a hand to silence him.

‘You're acknowledging that you were involved in his death? That you were at the pawn shop when he was killed?'

‘Do you need me to admit that?'

Swallow wondered if Grace Clinton sensed some uncertainty behind their questioning.

‘No, I don't in fact. I have evidence that you were there and that you used a measuring weight to strike Ambrose Pollock. It's scientific evidence.'

She looked puzzled.

‘Scientific, you say? What do you mean by that?'

‘It's a science called fingerprinting. By using certain chemicals and with the aid of photography it's possible to know when someone has touched a particular object.'

‘What object?'

‘In this case, we have evidence of your finger-marks on the weight that was used in the killing of Ambrose Pollock.'

‘I just … seized it … picked it up. I hit him with it,' she said after a moment.

‘What happened?'

‘Mr Vizzard said it was self-defence. So it was. Won't a court believe that, Mr Swallow? Won't they allow me to go home to look after my children?'

‘I can't speak for a court, Mrs Clinton. And you understand that I can't offer you any inducement. But if that is to be your evidence, and if the court accepts it, I think it possible that you might be spared the worst extremities of the law's punishment.'

‘You have a very formal way with words, Mr Swallow. “The worst extremities of the law's punishment.” You mean that they mightn't hang me.'

‘Yes,' he said flatly.

‘I told you at my mother's house about my husband's gambling. I was sometimes reduced to taking things, things that he had brought into the house, to sell them in order simply to pay for household necessities.'

‘Yes, Ma'am,' Vizzard nodded. ‘You told us that.'

‘One day, while he was at work, I found a small cardboard box at the bottom of my husband's wardrobe. When I opened it, I found these coins. They seemed to be silver and gold. They had heads and writing on them that I couldn't understand. I presumed they had to be valuable.'

Mossop wrote steadily.

‘I had no money to pay the house maid. I had barely enough to put supper on the table for the children. So I took them. Then I realised that there was a note, a scrap of paper really, underneath the box. There was writing on it, not in my husband's hand. It said, “Pollock, pawnbroker, jeweller,” or something such and it gave an address at Lamb Alley, off Cornmarket.'

She drank the last of her tea.

‘I told myself that this had to be where Arthur was going to bring the coins. They were obviously people who dealt in such things. So I decided that instead of Arthur selling the coins and putting the money into his gambling, I would sell them to meet the household costs.'

She seemed to hesitate.

‘Go on,' Swallow said.

‘I found the pawnbrokers shop – Pollock's – and went in there one afternoon just as they were closing. There was a woman at the counter who looked at the coins. She said she would give me £10 for each of them. I had twenty of them, I think. I was absolutely delighted. But then, this … man appeared from behind the counter. He was very angry. He told the woman to get back to her work and he called me into this back office.'

She halted. ‘This is very difficult.'

‘I'm sure it is, Mrs Clinton, but you have to tell us what happened.'

‘I showed him the coins. He seemed very interested and he offered me £2 each for them. I said “But the woman outside offered me £10 each.” He got more angry and told me I wasn't to pay any attention to her. Then his mood changed. He began to smile and came forward. He started to stroke my hand and tell me how attractive he found me. If I would be “nice” to him, he said, he'd consider raising the price a little.'

She hesitated.

‘Then he said he knew who I was, that he did business with Arthur. And he said he was sure that Arthur wouldn't want to know that I had come to sell these coins to him. But he would tell him if I didn't do as he wanted.'

She shuddered. ‘He … put his hands … on me. I pushed him away and then … he sprang on me, pushing me back on the table. I felt this iron weight in my hand – I didn't even know what it was – and I brought it down on him as hard as I could. I think I heard his head crack.'

She put her hands to her face and covered her eyes as if she were afraid to see.

‘He … sort of … staggered. He was bleeding. But he came at me again. He was shouting and cursing … foul language. I hit him a second time … and I think maybe a third. He collapsed back into his chair and he … he was there. He wasn't dead though. He was bleeding a lot but he was breathing.'

‘So what did you do then?' Swallow asked.

‘I … I'm not sure what happened next. I was afraid that he would attack me again, that he would get up from the chair. There was a piece of rope on a shelf nearby. I took it and wrapped it around his arms and tied it behind the chair so that he couldn't move. You see, he had the coins. I needed to get them back.'

‘Did you not think to get help, Mrs Clinton?' Johnny Vizzard asked.

‘I was in a panic … I didn't know what to do. I was going to call for help. Then the door opened, and the woman came in. She saw what had happened.'

‘The woman, you mean Pollock's sister, Phoebe?' Swallow asked.

‘I didn't know she was his sister. I thought she just worked in the shop. She saw what had happened, and I thought she would attack me too … or run for the police. But she didn't. She just looked at him and then back at me and she asked what happened. So I told her. She said to me, “Go home and don't tell anyone.” I don't really remember leaving or anything else. The next thing I knew, I was at home. I had blood on my coat and on my dress, so I burned them in the fire.'

‘You took the coins with you?' Swallow said.

‘I realised when I got home that, yes, I had taken them.'

‘You had sufficient presence of mind to do that.'

‘I didn't know what I had or didn't have. But yes, I took them home.'

‘Did you not feel it necessary to inquire, perhaps the following day, what had happened to the man?' Vizzard asked.

‘Well, there wasn't anything in the newspapers. And I went down to Cornmarket two days later to see what had happened. All I could see was that the pawnbrokers was open and doing business. I assumed that the man was all right, even though I knew he was injured. I thought he was afraid of saying or doing anything about what had happened because it had been his … attack … on me that caused him to be injured.'

‘You went back to the scene?' Vizzard prompted her again.

‘Yes. But I didn't go into the place. I couldn't. I knew there was a jeweller's on Capel Street. Greenberg's. And then I went to the shop on Capel Street and I sold the coins to the woman there.'

‘When did you know that Ambrose Pollock was dead?'

‘I only understood what was happening when I read that his body had been discovered a week later. Then my husband found that the coins were missing. He was so angry that I had to tell him what had happened.'

‘Did he not suggest that you should go to the police at that stage?' Swallow asked.

‘He became hysterical. He said that if the police got involved they'd find out about everything and that he would be a dead man. He said I would be in danger too, and the children.'

‘What do mean when you say the police would find out about everything?' Swallow asked.

‘Arthur … told me what had been going on. He said he and the others had been making false claims for land to be purchased for the government. But he had been greedy. He had been making his own profits on the side by taking valuables from the houses and the estates that were being redistributed. He was taking silver, coins, good paintings, furniture, and he was selling it to Ambrose Pollock. Mr Pollock had an exporting business to London, it seems.'

‘False claims for land?' Swallow asked.

She shook her head.

‘I didn't ask. I didn't want to know.'

‘I can understand that your husband wouldn't want the police involved,' Johnny Vizzard said. ‘But if you felt yourself and family to be in such danger, would it not have been better to tell them?'

‘I thought about it. I said it to Arthur. He said the police couldn't protect us. That what he was involved in went higher than the police. He persuaded me that our only hope was to disappear. So we went to my mother's, down in Meath.'

‘Who are the people who were involved with your husband in this … enterprise?' Swallow asked.

‘I … really don't know … I think he said there were quite a few people involved in the paperwork. I suppose that's how things are done officially. Arthur said he wasn't the only one doing it.'

‘Do you know any names?'

‘No. He never told me,' she said wearily.

Mossop's notes by now ran to many pages. Swallow saw that Grace Clinton was exhausted. She had probably told them what she could.

He stood.

‘Mrs Clinton, I'm going to charge you in connection with the death of Ambrose Pollock. I'll arrange for you to be transferred to Kilmainham Jail. The conditions for women there are safe and reasonably comfortable. Is there anything that you would like us to do for you?'

‘You could have someone notify my mother of what's happened.'

‘Of course. Would you like me to arrange for your children to visit you?'

‘No, not at the present. They're safe with my mother for the moment.'

Swallow nodded to Vizzard to send for the car to transfer her to Kilmainham. At the same moment, Mick Feore put his head around the door.

‘We've finished up at the bank, Skipper. And we have the information you need, whenever you're ready.'

Swallow's watch was showing past midnight. Ordinarily, with something as significant as a murder confession, he would go straight away to brief John Mallon at his house. But it was more urgent to know what had been learned at the bank.

He would prepare a report for Mallon and leave it for his clerk in the morning.

It was going to be a long night.

 

SIXTY-FOUR

Swallow sensed something different in Harriet's demeanour immediately they sat to breakfast in Heytesbury Street. She seemed hesitant and cautious, a contrast to the enthusiasm with which she usually met the new day.

‘I have no school this morning,' she told him. ‘There's an inspection of school stock, so classes are cancelled.'

‘Any plans for the day?'

‘Yes, in fact I have. Plans that may involve you.'

He was instantly suspicious.

‘You're not in some sort of trouble again, I hope. Out to turn society upside down?'

She placed a hand on his arm.

‘I'm very worried about you. You seem so tired and so worried about these cases.'

He knew he looked drawn. He had seen it in the mirror as he shaved himself earlier. It was hardly surprising. It had been close to 4 a.m. when he reached his bed.

‘Fair enough. I won't deny it. Bear in mind that I've had to go over and back to London with a prisoner. I've seen two men dead, a woman widowed and a family orphaned.'

He thought about telling her of Jenkinson's job offer, but he thought better of it. The last thing he needed was a lecture about being lured into the heart of the Imperial machine.

‘I think I can help,' she said. ‘Or at least some of my friends can help.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You remember at Maria's that Willie Yeats spoke about the gift of vision and you asked him if he could trace a missing woman?'

So now, Swallow noted, the young Mr Yeats had become ‘Willie.'

‘Of course.'

‘Well, he asked me the other evening at a meeting of the society if you had located her yet. I said I didn't think so. But he said if we were to ask some of the members to try to vision her, they might have some information that could help you.'

‘Vision her?'

‘Yes, try to locate her using psychic powers.'

He tried not to sound impatient.

‘Interesting. So what are you going to do?'

‘I'm meeting two of them this morning, and we're going down to Lamb Alley to where the woman lived. We're going to try to vision where she is, whether she's still in this world or gone to the spirit world.'

He chuckled cynically in spite of himself.

‘It's a total waste of time, Harriet, though I appreciate your concern.'

‘You're completely ignorant,' she said hotly, ‘but I've seen things happen that have surprised me. Now, it would be especially helpful if you could arrange it so that we can get access to the house. It would make it much easier to pick up some sense of the woman.'

‘It's out of the question. It's private property … and it's a crime scene.'

‘You could come with us. Make sure we don't interfere with anything. Or you could send someone else if you can't go yourself.'

Only brotherly tolerance prevented him from standing from the breakfast table and ending the conversation.

‘I can't go. And all my men are busy.'

‘Give us just one hour. Surely you can spare somebody. What harm can it do? You're not making any progress on this case.'

Extraordinarily, he heard himself agree.

‘Right. Just one hour. I'll arrange for Pat Mossop to meet you there. What time?'

She smiled clapped her hands.

‘That's wonderful. We planned to meet there at 11 o'clock. Oh, I know you think this is all poppycock. But you just might be glad of it.'

He finished his breakfast, carefully avoiding the dried figs, and set out for Exchange Court.

 

SIXTY-FIVE