Edward Marston - Blood on the line

For his part, Peebles gazed at the sergeant with a respect that bordered on veneration. It was the uncritical look of a son for a father. His buck-toothed grin broadened.

Tallis waved a hand. ‘Allow me to introduce Constable Peebles.’

‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ said Leeming, struggling to smile.

‘It will be a privilege to work with you, Sergeant,’ said Peebles with a light Scots accent. ‘You and Inspector Colbeck have been my exemplars for much more than a wee while.’

Leeming’s heart sank. At a time when they needed expert help, they were being saddled with an immature and wholly inexperienced detective. Blinded by hero worship, Peebles was far more likely to hinder the investigation than provide any useful assistance. They would have to teach him his trade as they went along and that would be fatal. It was like trying to build a locomotive while it was actually speeding along the track. Because of Peebles’ army background, Tallis might favour him, but Leeming could see no advantage coming from his addition to the team. Catching someone as elusive as Jeremy Oxley was a huge challenge for even the best detectives. Leeming now felt that he and Colbeck would be doing it with their hands tied behind their backs. The only beneficiary of the arrival of the new detective was the man they were actually pursuing.

Peebles was a walking guarantee of Oxley’s continued freedom.

Manchester was a vast, sprawling, densely populated city forever shrouded in an industrial haze. Its factory chimneys belched out smoke and its mills poured effluent into rivers and canals. The stink of manufacture was everywhere. Colbeck had visited the city before and knew that its criminal underworld was every bit as vibrant and dangerous as that in London. One advantage that Manchester had over Wolverhampton was that it could offer a cordial welcome to a senior detective from Scotland Yard.

‘Robert!’ exclaimed Zachary Boone, pumping his hand. ‘How good it is to see you again! What brings you to this den of iniquity?’

‘What else but the pleasure of seeing you again?’

Boone laughed. ‘You always did have a smooth tongue.’

‘It comes in useful when dealing with superior officers who try to blame me for everything.’

‘I’ve got people like that on my back as well.’

‘Soothe them with words. Talk them into a better mood.’

‘You might be able to do that but I can’t and I’m not mad enough to try. I’m a rough-and-ready man. It’s the only way to survive in this police force.’

Colbeck was pleased to see Inspector Zachary Boone again. They had first met when Boone had been an enterprising young sergeant in pursuit of a man who’d murdered his wife and children in a drunken rage. The killer had fled to London and — with Colbeck’s help — Boone had caught and arrested him. He’d been a detective then but, at his own request, Boone had gone back into uniform and risen to the rank of inspector. He was a stout man in his forties with a florid face half-hidden beneath a greying beard. There was a merry twinkle in his eye that even a close acquaintance with the dregs of Manchester society had failed to remove.

They were in Boone’s office, a small, stuffy, cluttered room that made Colbeck grateful for the amount of space he enjoyed at Scotland Yard. While the Railway Detective’s office was scrupulously tidy, his friend’s was in a state of mild chaos, the desk and shelves piled high with multifarious papers and documents. Boone indicated a seat.

‘Take a pew, Robert,’ he invited, sitting down, ‘and before you ask, yes, I do know where everything is. It may look disorganised in here but I know exactly where to put my hand on what I want.’

‘I’d expect no less of you, Zachary,’ said Colbeck, settling into a creaky chair. ‘But it’s not your paperwork I’ve come to inspect. I need some help from that famous brain of yours.’

Boone guffawed. ‘I didn’t know I had one.’

‘You’ve got an encyclopaedic memory for criminals on your patch. I noticed it the first time we had a discussion together. You had instant recall of all the people you’d arrested.’

‘Not to mention the ones I failed to arrest — I remember those as well. They slipped through my fingers. It’s very easy to do in a city like Manchester. Villains commit a crime then vanish into the rookeries. It’s like trying to catch a single fish in a shoal of thousands. There’s simply no way that we can search all the lodging houses here, and the sight of a police uniform in some districts is like a red rag to a bull, especially among the Irish.’

‘I thought that several of your constables were Irish.’

‘They are, Robert, but they tend to be Protestants and that only inflames the Roman Catholic communities. Religion causes us so many problems here. Talking of which,’ he continued with barely concealed derision, ‘do you know what the city’s Watch Committee decided last year? In its supposed wisdom, it brought in a rule that all constables should attend church or chapel regularly.’

‘How can they do that when they work most Sundays?’

‘That was my argument. Police are police, not saints-in-waiting. Some of my best men have never seen the inside of a church. It doesn’t make them less effective at their job. Anyway,’ said Boone, raising an apologetic palm, ‘you didn’t come here to listen to my complaints. It was the escape of Jeremy Oxley that brought you, wasn’t it?’

Colbeck was surprised. ‘You know about that?’

‘We do get the London papers here. Besides, the story was picked up in the Manchester Guardian. I read that less often because it’s always attacking us for one thing or another. Read The Guardian and you’d think that Manchester was awash with prostitutes, thugs and thieves. It’s a city without any law enforcement, apparently.’ He became serious. ‘I always take a close interest in any case where policemen are killed, Robert. I saw that you’d been put in charge of the investigation. Have you picked up Oxley’s scent yet?’

‘Actually, it’s his accomplice who interests me at the moment.’

Colbeck explained that the woman might well have links to Manchester and he told his friend about his earlier encounter with Jeremy Oxley and how there was unfinished business between them. After listening to him with care, Boone went through a number of names in his head. He needed clarification.

‘You say that this young woman is beautiful.’

‘At the very least, she’s appealing,’ said Colbeck. ‘Oxley has high standards where his female accomplices are concerned. And he has sufficient money to be able to maintain those standards.’

‘Then I think we’re looking at one of three possible suspects,’ said Boone, scratching his beard. ‘Annie Pardoe is the first who comes to mind. Any man would find her appealing on sight, though less so when she gives him a mouthful of abuse. Annie was brought in here once. She might look like a lady but she had the foul tongue of a fishwife. Then again, it could be Nell Underwood. She comes from a good family but it didn’t stop her from getting drawn into the wrong company. Even a spell in prison hasn’t had any effect on her. We’re still looking for Nell in connection with the theft of some items from a haberdasher’s shop. She’s very light-fingered.’

‘Do either of these women have a local accent?’

‘Nell does but Annie Pardoe tries to hide hers. She’s fond of putting on airs and graces — until she’s behind bars, that is. Then she snarls like a caged tiger.’

‘You said that there were three possible suspects.’

‘Yes, Robert, but the third one has never been in custody so we’ve never actually seen her. Her name is Irene Adnam. All that we have to go on are the descriptions of her victims. She’s not a high-class prostitute like Annie or a common criminal like Nell. This lady has some style about her. She wins people’s confidence, robs them blind then vanishes for long periods. Reports of her crimes in the city are six months or more apart. But she’s a Manchester girl,’ said Boone, ‘and I’m told she has more than a trace of a local accent.’