Brass Lives by Chris Nickson

Author:Chris Nickson [Chris Nickson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2021-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

He was in Ash’s office, talking to the superintendent, when Galt tapped on the door. His face almost glowed with anticipation.

‘You’ll want to come and hear this, sir. We have a woman who claims she saw the Fess murder.’

‘Who is she?’ Harper asked, but he was already hurrying to catch the others.

She was young and nervous, fingers kneading the handle of her reticule and peering anxiously around the room. Harper stepped back, leaving Galt to ask the questions. He had a gentle, reassuring manner, trying to put her at ease.

‘Thank you for coming in. You said your name’s Miss Milner?’

She didn’t reply, just gave a tiny nod.

‘You told the sergeant at the desk you saw what happened in the Dark Arches.’

‘Yes.’ She was hesitant, slow to answer, too nervous to meet his eyes. ‘That’s right. Will I be in any trouble? You know, for being down there.’

For being a prostitute, she meant. She’d taken a risk in coming here. Some coppers might put her in court.

‘No.’ Galt smiled. ‘We’ll make sure of that.’

‘Only I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,’ she continued. ‘It wakes me up in the night. It’s given me nightmares.’ She turned her head to look at Harper. ‘Do you know what I mean?’

‘I do,’ he replied. ‘Telling us might help, miss.’

‘Yes. I was …’ She didn’t need to explain. They knew.

‘What did you see?’ Galt gently prodded her along.

‘There … there were a man walking in from Neville Street.’ She paused, trying to find the courage to continue. ‘The light was behind him, so I could only see his … what do you call it?’

‘Silhouette?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s it, silhouette.’ Another gap as she hunted for words. ‘I weren’t far from the entrance, but he … he walked right by me. Didn’t even notice I were there.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I remember … he didn’t seem like he were, you know, looking for a girl.’

‘What happened after that?’ Galt kept his voice low and soothing.

‘I didn’t pay him no more mind. He wun’t business.’ Her fingers tightened around the handle of her bag. ‘Then I saw something … it were out of the corner of me eye. Somebody moving. I couldn’t see much, mind, the man who came in was further along and there wasn’t too much light from the street reaching down there.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But this other shape stepped out behind him. Next thing I knew there were this big boom that seemed to fill my ears, then the second man was running towards the street.’

‘Did you manage to see his face?’

‘Not anything proper.’ She hesitated. ‘He went by so quick and it were hard to see in there. But he were quite tall.’ Her gaze settled on Harper. ‘About your height, maybe. But in his twenties, you know, still young.’

‘Could you make out anything at all? His hair colour?’ Galt asked.

‘Dark,’ she said, then stopped and began again, more slowly. ‘Leastways, I think it was dark. But there was one thing.

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