Murder is in the Air Page 3

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘I’m thinking about it.’

  ‘Go to Richard’s or go next door.’

  ‘And give the old man another reason to thump Joe Finch?’

  Ruth guessed there were other reasons why the old man hated Joe Finch, but she was not able to fathom them. ‘Night, night, George. Sleep tight, don’t let the bugs bite.’

  ‘You should go too.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. The old man knows I’m the goose that will lay the golden egg.’

  Ruth went to the window. George turned to wave, and then made a writing motion with his raised hand.

  She watched her brother cycle into darkness. George believed he was going somewhere. Ruth knew that he would sleep at his schoolfriend Richard’s house tonight, and perhaps the night after. He would be back at work on Monday, and home on Monday evening.

  Chapter Five

  The café on Ripon Marketplace is renowned for its delicious curd tart and homemade ice cream. Eleanor had suggested that she and I meet for afternoon tea on the Saturday after the trussing. She was already seated at a table when I arrived. She waved and I went to join her.

  Eleanor was wearing a voluminous silk dress in purple and orange, leaving me feeling quite tame in my aquamarine dress and jacket.

  ‘Kate, you look so elegant,’ she said. ‘Now I feel like a circus elephant.’

  I sat down. ‘Nonsense! You are the bird of paradise that rides on the elephant’s back.’

  She smiled. ‘I’ve been to buy paints. There are colours that I love but for this country will never need, not unless someone asks me to paint a portrait of their Clarice Cliff tea service.’

  The waitress had already brought the menu. I expected we would order afternoon tea but when Eleanor said she wanted egg and chips, I decided to join her. I did order curd tart and ice cream, just in case they ran out. When our order came, Eleanor asked for vinegar. She lathered her chips in salt and vinegar. ‘It’s a bit of a craving just now.’ She pulled a face. ‘I’ll take the risk of having us barred from this bastion of gentility.’

  ‘Your chips and salt and vinegar craving would be entirely normal if you’d order fish instead of egg.’

  ‘It has to be egg.’

  I had already noticed a bump in her dress. ‘Is this your way of telling me good news?’

  She smiled. ‘I suppose it is.’

  ‘Then congratulations!’

  ‘Thank you.’

  It was not until the last spoonful of ice cream that Eleanor said, ‘I do hope my William and your Mr Sykes hit it off and that William will confide in him. I know things are going wrong at the brewery, but the poor dear doesn’t want to talk about it, or face up to it.’

  She was in need of reassurance. ‘Jim Sykes and William got on very well at the trussing. I’m sure whatever is wrong, Sykes will find a way to make it right.’

  ‘The troubles have all blown up recently, Kate. It’s as if I came on the scene and turned into the brewery jinx.’

  ‘It isn’t you, Eleanor. Whatever is wrong is to do with the business. Jim Sykes will get to the bottom of it.’

  Chapter Six

  When he had come to Masham with Mrs Shackleton for the trussing at Barleycorn Brewery, there had been no time for Jim Sykes to explore the town. On Monday morning, arriving deliberately early for his 10 a.m. starting time, Sykes left his suitcase at the Falcon, and took a walkabout.

  Truth to tell, he felt a little self-conscious. He had not felt so self-conscious since his mother sent him to his first day at work wearing short trousers.

  It was all his wife’s fault that he was kitted out in a new suit. Rosie had gone back to working in tailoring, at Montague Burtons. She said that if Jim did not invest in a new suit, she would make one for him. It would not be black, she said. He needed brightening up.

  Sykes had no intention of wearing a suit made by his wife. He went to his old tailor, who in-between times had spent a year in America and come back with ideas. The result was very smart, the tailor assured him, beige with chalk stripes, high-waisted trousers, five-button waistcoat and a long wide shouldered jacket nipped in at the waist.

  Now Sykes had the uneasy feeling that he had swapped his plainclothes policeman look for the American gangster look. He must brave it out.

  Mrs Shackleton had described Masham town square as Georgian and well laid out. To Sykes’s eyes, this was a quiet place, that may or may not come to life on market days. He found the war memorial, read the names, and felt that surge of sorrow and helpless rage at the loss of so many lives.

  He located the police station and the church. Looking twice at the Town Hall, he supposed it would do well enough for a town this size, but it was a poor specimen compared with the grand town halls of the West Riding.

  Sykes had spoken to the assessor at North Riding Assurance, to glean some background information on the brewery. The assessor told him that the brewery accounts people used ancient adding machines that would not look out of place in a railway signal box. Having an entrepreneurial streak, Sykes had brought with him half a dozen shiny brown Bakelite adding machines, on sale or return from a salesman friend. Spotting Masham’s stationery shop on Park Square, he made a mental note to call on them, in case he did not make a sale at the brewery.

  When investigating, there could be an advantage in paying a courtesy call on the local constabulary, but Sykes and Sergeant Moon were already on good terms from their joint chucking out of troublemakers at the Falcon on the night of the trussing. Sykes stepped in to say hello. As luck would have it, the sergeant was on duty. He was pinning a poster on the information board, giving the names of Urban District Council members and dates of their meetings. Sykes gave a little smile. Men on the force always liked to refer complainants to the right person and save themselves the paperwork.

  ‘Good morning, Sergeant.’

  ‘You’re an early bird, Mr Sykes.’

  ‘Looking for the best place to have breakfast.’

  ‘Café, across and on your left.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Oh and good luck at the brewery. Let me know if you have any bother.’

  They laughed. The sergeant knew full well that Sykes could handle his own bother.

  Sykes finished his breakfast, checked his watch and made his way to the brewery, keeping its high tower in view. Drawing closer, he savoured the aroma of malt and hops. Not a bad way for workers to start a day.

  He and Mrs Shackleton had entered the brewery from the Falcon, through the connecting door. Now he entered from the other side of the building, through a pair of large iron gates into the cobbled yard. He saw that the building, which might have been adapted from some other use, had a T-shape layout. A four-storey tower with hoist stood at the junction of the T, with buildings on either side. The structure had been added to over the years. There were yards and a straggle of buildings, some more like sheds. One was stacked with timber. Another contained old barrels in a kind of iron cradle. He could smell hay and horses.

  The man who called a greeting and came towards Sykes with a bounce in his step, was Joe Finch, whose collar Sykes had grabbed after the trussing, when he and Sergeant Moon stopped the fight between Finch and Slater Parnaby.

  Finch wore an open-neck shirt, bib and braces and long wellington boots.

  ‘Mr Sykes?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Joe Finch, at your service. Mr Lofthouse’s secretary asked me to look out for you, and to show you round. Mr Lofthouse invites you to the tasting.’ He glanced at the clock above the door. ‘We’re early, so would you like a look round?’

  Sykes agreed that he would. A tour of the brewery would give him a feeling for the place.

  ‘Follow me!’

  On the right, steps led down from the reception area. His guide led Sykes to the left, through a door into a room high as some cathedrals, with iron and brass balustrading around galleries, and decorative spiral staircases. Someone was hosing down t
he floor.

  ‘It’s ninety percent heaving, shifting, cleaning, and delivering, and ten percent brewing,’ Finch told him. In the next room, Finch pointed out a row of half a dozen casks of different sizes. ‘We don’t know what our new brew will be called, or when it will be on sale. You’ll be tasting this at ten o’clock.’

  ‘You’re very open about all this, Mr Finch. I might be a competitor, here to learn your secrets.’

  Finch laughed this off. ‘Even if someone else reproduced it exactly, it wouldn’t be the same. Different water, see. We have our own bore hole. And no one would buy just the same barley, because ours comes from local farmers.’

  Whatever shenanigans might be going on in the offices—and Sykes felt sure he would not otherwise have been called in—the work of the brewery seemed to him to be carried on with a serious efficiency.

  Finch led him past iron staircases, making way for a fellow carrying a sack, and finally came out through a door on the left into another cobbled yard. ‘We’ll start at the stables.’

  ‘What’s your job then, Mr Finch?’

  Finch began to talk in the way of someone who lives alone, whose mouth bursts with words that demand to be said and repeated. ‘I’m a drayman, but if you ask why I’m not dressed accordingly, I’ll tell you it’s because we deliver twice a week. My pal is out today. On Friday I’ll be delivering at every watering hole between here and Ripon.’

  Finch obliged Sykes by naming every hamlet and pub. ‘The rest of the time, we muck in.’

  The smell of horses and hay overtook the scent of hops and malt. The row of stalls was empty, save for two great shire horses with white fetlocks and white nose markings. Turn by turn, Finch patted their necks and stroked them. ‘Cleopatra and Caesar. We work through the alphabet for the naming of the pairs. I’ll be taking these beauties out to the field. They won’t be needed until Friday.’ He pointed out a ‘hospital’ stall where a sick horse could be isolated and treated, and a wide gallery over the stalls for storing forage.

  From the stall next to the shire horses, a brown and white Shetland pony trotted out. Sykes smiled. ‘He doesn’t look up to pulling a dray.’

  ‘Billy’s mine. Billy Boy. He was in a poor way when I bought him off a horse dealer. He was matted, needed shoeing, been left in the cold and wet to fend for hisself, lost his sight in one eye. Look at him now!’

  Sykes obliged. ‘He’s a bonny fellow, beautifully groomed.’

  ‘He’s come along a treat. Nobody bothers if I fetch him across and he has a share of fodder. The dealer I bought him from is back in the area, not far from here. He’ll be after reclaiming Billy if he sees what I’ve turned him into. I’m not taking that chance.’

  Sykes thought the bobbies round here must like their posting. An upsurge in crime would occur only if a horse dealer stole back a pony.

  ‘You love your horses, Joe.’

  ‘I was brought up to it. Hoss boy in the East Riding, till us and us horses was interrupted by the war. We’re lucky to have these shires.’

  Finch remembered that he was meant to be showing Sykes the brewery. They went back inside.

  Sykes’s new shoes played a tune on the iron staircase

  Finch continued his monologue. ‘It all works on gravity.’ They passed men shovelling barley into a kiln, a mash tun where two men stirred milled and malted barley into liquor, and a shining giant copper that Finch warned him was too hot to touch.

  ‘Old mate of mine, Jack Tickler, a bit of a nutter, he’d taken a drop too much to drink, took it into his head to climb up and walk round the ledge. Fell in. All we found when everything cooled down was the bits of metal from his bib and braces.’

  Sykes changed his mind about practised efficiency. ‘Anything else I should be careful of?’

  ‘Only one man goes in the mill room. Dust from malted barley is inflammable. If he smokes, he might ignite the dust and set fire to hisself. I’ve seen it happen.’

  ‘Right.’

  He led Sykes back down the stairs to the reception area. ‘Oh, and don’t go down them steps.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘It’s the fermentation room. Five minutes in there and your worldly worries will be over.’

  ‘But you’ll keep it locked?’

  ‘No need for that. Everybody knows.’

  Sykes felt glad that he would be confined to the offices, which Finch pointed out in a diffident way, as if offices were of no account. He then led Sykes to the brewers’ room.

  William Lofthouse and three other men stood around a table. Today, Mr Lofthouse looked sprightly, and as cheerful as a boy expecting birthday gifts. He greeted Sykes and introduced him to the head brewer and the assistant brewer, both wearing white coats. ‘And Slater Parnaby you met on Friday.’ Friday night’s fight was forgotten. Today, Parnaby was introduced as ‘the best nose in the business’.

  The men at the table shifted to make room for Sykes.

  ‘Well, gentlemen. Let us begin.’ Lofthouse turned to Sykes. ‘This will be our finest brew.’

  The assistant brewer produced five V-shaped champagne glasses.

  The head brewer drew the first glass. He placed a glass under the barrel tap and drew the beer. He examined the dull liquid, holding it to the light. He frowned, sniffed and shook his head. Reluctantly, he took a sip and spat into a bowl. A long silence held. With automatic movements, as if he knew not what else to do, the brewer half-filled four more glasses.

  Sykes wondered if this might be some practical joke being played on him, the stranger. The look on Lofthouse’s face told him this was not so.

  Lofthouse lifted his glass, looked carefully, sniffed, tasted and spat, before seeming to explode. ‘What the hell has gone wrong?’

  Lofthouse looked to the head brewer.

  ‘I don’t know.’ The man looked shocked. ‘It’s been on track since the green beer tasting.

  Parnaby sniffed but did not taste. ‘Someone’s been at it. It’s sabotage, that’s what it is.’

  The firkin, and remaining casks of new beer, were taken into the yard and drained. It was Parnaby who identified the reason for the spoilage. Rotten wood and bits of debris had been inserted into each cask. Parnaby had no doubt about the perpetrator. ‘It’s Finch. He’s a cheating, thieving, jumped-up East Riding hoss boy.’

  ‘Why would he do such a thing?’ Lofthouse asked.

  ‘To get at me. To put the blame on my cooperage.’

  Sykes was glad when the head brewer stepped forward and spoke quietly and reassuringly to Lofthouse. ‘It’s a setback, but we’ve seen worse. Let’s see where we go from here.’

  Lofthouse nodded and then turned to Sykes. ‘And what do you say, Mr Sykes?’

  ‘I say we report this to the police.’ Sykes knew that the chances of finding the saboteur would be slim, but to have Sergeant Moon’s constables undertake the thankless task of fingerprinting casks and giving a general warning might scare off whoever did this from repeating their mischief.

  Slater Parnaby’s response was less measured. ‘I wish we’d saved the poison instead of pouring it away. We should’ve teemed it into a butt and drowned Joe Finch.’

  Parnaby turned his back on them. Muttering under his breath, he made his way back towards the cooperage.

  Lofthouse sighed. ‘Sykes, old chap, sorry for this bad start. I’ll leave it to you to go to the police station, and then find your way to my office, on the top floor. Miss Crawford will look after you. She’ll see you have everything you need.’

  Chapter Seven

  Mr Lofthouse’s office was in the part of the top floor that extended across the brewery building to the adjoining Falcon, where Sykes was staying. The office windows overlooked the town square.

  Miss Crawford, a middle-aged woman with tightly waved hair, endeared herself to Sykes by providing him with a cup of tea and sandwiches.

  ‘I thought it was near enough lunch time, Mr Sykes. Oh and your evening meal at the Falcon is booked. I’m told they do a
good steak and kidney pie.’

  Sykes thanked her. He was curious as to whether Mr Lofthouse was still in the building or had gone home after the shock of the spoiled brew.

  Miss Crawford did not offer any information about her boss’s whereabouts. She struck Sykes as being one of those secretaries, crisp as a starched blouse and discreet as a clam. He had come across many like her during the course of his work. Often, such women worked for men who did not have half as sharp a brain as the secretaries they dictated to.

  Miss Crawford left Sykes in Lofthouse’s spacious office and disappeared into her adjoining office, just long enough for him to polish off the sandwiches and tea.

  She returned with a diagram of the brewery’s structure, a list of departments and employees, and a list of keyholders. ‘I have set aside the documents that Mr Lofthouse wished you to look at. They are in a locked office at the other end of the building. I will take you to it. Is there anything else you need to know before you begin?’

  ‘I’m interested in security, especially since what’s happened with the new brew.’

  She nodded. ‘It’s shocking. One spoiled cask might be explained, but not the full batch.’

  Sykes agreed. ‘This list of keyholders, Miss Crawford, is it complete?’

  ‘As far as I know, but locks have not been changed in the thirty years I have worked here.’

  ‘Is there a night watchman?’

  She hesitated. ‘There is a night watchman.’ She manged to convey that he was not the most watchful of watchmen. ‘He has a hut beyond the stables.’

  ‘His name?’

  ‘John Tickler.’

  ‘Ah.’ Sykes remembered the name. ‘Any relation to the Jack Tickler who fell into the mash tun?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. He is Jack Tickler’s father. Mr Lofthouse set him on shortly after the son’s funeral.’

  ‘I see.’ Sykes did see. Mr Tickler senior would feel no great sense of obligation to the brewery where his son lost his life, even if that son had behaved idiotically.