Chapter 1
657 Words
‘THIS IS PALMER, JACK PALMER’S DOING IS THIS…’Detective Inspector Christopher Yarrow looked down at the battered bloody body of Ethel Palmer with growing anger. He knew, or rather had known, Ethel, the mother of 7-year-old Rosie Palmer, tragically killed when robbers fled the scene of an attempted bank robbery, a failed wages snatch in which a wages clerk had also been shot dead. As the robbers raced through the streets of West Garside in a stolen Humber Snipe, Rosie was at the shops on an errand for her mother when the violently swerving getaway car had smashed into her, throwing her across the road and under the wheels of an oncoming car. She had died instantly.
Yarrow, together with Detective Sergeant Marcus Harding, had been the ones to deliver the heart-rending news of Rosie’s death to Ethel and her husband Jack. Even then, at a time of receiving such devastating news, Yarrow had sensed the barely suppressed rage within Jack Palmer.
Jack had displayed little grief for his daughter’s death, and far from comforting his distressed wife, he had berated her, blaming her for Rosie’s death before belligerently accusing the police of stealing the change left over from the shopping.
Yarrow had seen how terrified Ethel had been of her husband, had noticed the fading bruise on her jaw, the bruises on her arms where Jack had gripped her in a vice-like grip and how frightened she had been when hesitantly asking if her mother could visit to comfort her. Even more disturbing were the bruises and welts from fist and belt he had witnessed on Rosie’s undernourished body when attending her autopsy.
Yarrow clenched his fists as he tried to control his anger, never doubting that Palmer was a craven bully, given to drink and quick to use his fists and belt on his wife and children. He berated himself, I should have seen this coming, he told himself, knowing that Palmer’s violent temper was on a hair-spring, ready to erupt at any given moment.
I should have seen this comingI’ve failed Ethel, he thought bitterly, even though he’d tried unofficially to protect Ethel by getting his friend, Desk Sergeant Dave Armitage, to arrange for Palmer to be given a beating and a warning not to assault Ethel or his other children again. But it had all been to no avail. Even though he had successfully tracked down Frankie Starling, the gunman who shot the wages clerk and been instrumental in Rosie’s death, his failure to save Ethel left a rancid taste of ashes in his mouth.
I’ve failed Ethel,His nostrils flared in impotent anger again as he looked around the squalid kitchen, the bucket of dirty nappies in a corner, the grime-smeared lino flooring now streaked with blood, peeling wallpaper, second-hand rickety furniture, and the rank smell of squalor. Jack Palmer made good money as a stonemason, but it was apparent that little of his earnings were spent on his home or on his wife and children. It staggered him that a man could treat his wife and children with such appalling neglect, and now this, the brutal battering to death of Ethel Palmer.
DS Marcus Harding could sense the anger and frustration within Yarrow, anger and frustration that he felt himself; he too had seen the squalor of the home and the fear on Ethel’s face when she looked at Palmer.
‘This is Palmer, Jack Palmer’s doing is this, isn’t it, sir?’
‘I would guess so, but we don’t operate on the basis of guesswork, do we?’ Yarrow chided lightly.
‘No, sir, of course not,’ Marcus responded, not in the least offended.
Yarrow took a last look around. ‘OK,’ he said at last, ‘let’s see what the neighbour…?’
‘Mildred Nicholson, sir, she’s lives next door at No 15 and has taken the Palmer kids in with her until Ethel’s mother can get here.’
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