Gallows End

By Giles Ekins

1950’s Yorkshire. When former Battle of Britain pilot, D.I. Yarrow of West Garside CID, finds himself faced with three seemingly unconnected murders, he has his work cut out.

The cases include a long-dead body found on the rugged moors, possibly connected to a case that led a man to the gallows, as well as a wife and mother beaten to death and a body found on a local golf course - a death which raises disturbing issues amongst the community.

As he struggles with the baffling cases, a meeting with a troubled young woman results in tragic and unexpected consequences for everyone concerned.

The second book in the Inspector Yarrow series by Giles Ekins, ‘Gallows End,’ is a thrilling novel set in 1950’s Yorkshire, sure to please anyone who enjoys a great crime story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Nov 10, 2022

Book preview

PROLOGUE

‘DON’T YOU FUCKING START, WOMAN,’

WEST GARSIDE. YORKSHIRE – CIRCA 1955

Jack Palmer was in a furious rage as he walked home from the Dog and Duck. He had been convinced that ‘Angel Destiny’ would win the 3.30 at Newmarket after Mickey Spiller, a runner for gang-affiliated illegal off-course bookies, had given him the tip.

‘It can’t lose, Jack, take my word for it,’ he told Jack. ‘Lots of good money going on that horse, money as knows what’s going on. If you know what I mean. A cert, dead cert, and you’d be daft not to put your cash down on it. Good odds an’ all.’

Apart from some beer money, Jack had given the rest of his wages to Mickey to place the bet for him.

And the fucking nag had come in fourth. Fourth! What the fucking use is fourth?

As he opened the back door of his house and walked into the kitchen, one of his children, 5-year-old Mary, got in his way and he gave her a vicious back-handed slap that sent her flying across the room, screaming and crying in pain.

‘Jack!’ his wife Ethel remonstrated.

‘Don’t you fucking start, woman,’ he shouted and the ever-latent rage burst through his veins and he threw himself at Ethel, punching wildly with his hard stonemason’s fists and kicking her to the floor with his hob-nailed boots.

Only when she was still and quiet, lying on the floor, blood all over her face, blood that now crept across the lino, did he stop and the red mists subside.

Jack, panting heavily, stared at the blood on his fists.

‘What’ve you done to my Mam?’ screamed Mary.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ he yelled at her and then stomped out of the house.

‘Mam? Mam?’ cried the little girl, shaking Ethel by the shoulder. ‘Mam!’

CHAPTER ONE

‘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’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.

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.’

CHAPTER TWO

NOTHING MORE THAN A COUPLE OF BRUISES AND A CUT LIP

‘B een in a fight, have you, Jack, a bit of a dust-up?’ Freddie Jackson, the barman at the West Garside Working Man’s Institute said, nodding at Jack’s bloody hands.

‘What?’ Jack responded. He had been deep in thought: why did she always make him do it, all the fucking time getting on his case over nothing? OK, she gets a bit of a slap now and again, but so fucking what? But he knew deep down that this time it had been more than a slap, much more than a slap, but whatever he’d done, it was her own fault. It’s always her own fault whenever she gets a slap or two, never giving a working man a bit of peace, whittering on about clothes for the brats or more money this, more money for that. She gets enough, what the fuck does she do with it all?

She’ll be all right, he told himself as a hard pit of unease grew in his stomach, nothing more than a couple of bruises and a cut lip, stupid fucking cow going on at me like that and the fucking brats always getting under my feet, fuck knows why she didn’t get herself off to Mrs Campion after the first 2 or 3 and have it taken care of, but no, she said, can’t get aborted, it’s a mortal fucking sin, I’ll give her mortal fucking sin, all right.

‘I said, you been in a fight, Jack? Look, your knuckles are bloody and there’s blood all down your shirt, look as though you’ve gone 15 rounds with Rocky Marciano.’

‘Nay, a bit of some’at and nowt, that’s all. Give us another pint.’

‘You got the money to pay for it, Jack? You’ve had five pints and not paid for the last two of ‘em?’

After losing heavily on ‘Angel Delight,’ Jack Palmer had tried to recoup his losses by putting most of the rest of his money on ‘Come Sunday.’ But that beast hadn’t placed either, probably still be running come Sunday, it was so fucking slow.

‘Put it on the slate, for fucks sake, you know I’m good for it.’

‘Can’t do that, Jack, the boss won’t allow it no more. You’ve already got a big slate running up, and until you clear it, I can’t give you any more tick, shouldn’t have served you them last two pints, truth be known, and if Arthur finds out I’ve put another a couple of pints on the slate, he’ll have my guts.’

‘What the fuck you talking about? I’ve put enough money behind this fucking bar to buy the place ten times over, so stop fucking about and pull me another pint,’ Jack shouted angrily, and Freddie backed away, reaching for a beer bottle in case Jack got violent.

‘You’d best be off home, Jack; I can’t serve you no more.’

‘Well, fuck you!’ Palmer shouted as he stormed out of the bar, sweeping an ashtray and some empty glasses from a table as he passed.

‘Charming,’ Freddie said to Jack’s departing back.

CHAPTER THREE

AS GENTLE A SOUL AS EVER WALKED THIS EARTH

‘M ildred, can you tell me what you saw and heard,’ Yarrow asked Ethel’s neighbour, a plump woman wearing a faded summer dress, a pinafore and her hair tied back under a flowery scarf as a sobbing Mary Palmer clung to her skirts. Four more Palmer children were being comforted by other neighbours and the street outside was packed with a gawping crowd, mostly women, who had gathered in a nosey, noisy crowd of onlookers as two uniformed police tried, vainly, to keep them back.

‘Well, I can’t say that I saw owt at all, I don’t know what went on in the house, didn’t see none of that, I mean, how could I?’

‘That’s all right, Mildred, just tell us what you can, doesn’t matter if you think it unimportant, everything, however small, will help us.’

‘Well, I saw Jack come from the pub, he had face on him like thunder, and I thought, aye-aye, there’ll be trouble now.’

‘Why did you think that?’

‘Because there’s always trouble when that man comes back from the pub and poor Ethel and the kids are the ones as suffer,’ Mildred said bitterly. ‘He’s an animal and I pray that he’ll be hanged for what he’s done.’

‘We don’t know for certain that it was Jack Palmer, do we?’ Yarrow said gently. He had no doubts himself that Jack Palmer had beaten Ethel to death, but by saying he had doubts, he hoped to encourage Mildred to say more, to use her anger and indignation to extract as much information as he could from her.

‘Well, who else could it have been but that bastard, excuse my language, that man Jack Palmer? He comes back from the pub with a face on, soon as he’s in that house there’s screaming and shouting and less than three minutes later he stamps out the house with blood on his hands.’

‘He had blood on his hands, you saw blood on his hands, you’re certain about that?’ Marcus Harding asked, the first time he had spoken during the interview.

‘As certain as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow morning.’

‘And you’ll testify to that in court?’ Yarrow asked.

‘You just try and stop me,’

‘Good, and then what?’

‘I saw Jack leaving the house and then I heard poor Mary here crying and sobbing, saying Mam, Mam, Mam, so I went round, saw poor Ethel lying on the floor and this poor mite sobbing and crying,’ giving the child a brief hug as she spoke,’ so I ran to Vera’s house, Vera McDonald at number 16, telling her to run down to the phone box on the corner and call the police. Then I went back and brought poor Mary and the other kids in here, wee kiddies should not have to see their Mam like that, it’ll scar them for life.’

‘Thank you, Mildred, you’ve been most helpful.’

‘Just catch the brute, that’s all I ask. Catch the brute and get him hung for what he done to poor Ethel, as gentle a soul as ever walked this earth,’

CHAPTER FOUR

WE WAS NEVER HERE

The two men walked up to the bar. One was tall, close-cropped hair and bulked-up muscles, the other was shorter, squatter, like a dumbbell, but there was no doubting his strength and viciousness. Freddie Jackson, barman at the West Garside Working Man’s Institute, did not know who they were but knew well enough what they were, strong arm enforcers for local gang boss Benny Blades or the Caunt Brothers from Sheffield, 16 miles away.

‘Jack Palmer been in here?’ the dumbbell asked.

‘Yeah, ‘bout an hour or so ago.’

‘Where is he now?’ the other heavy asked menacingly.

‘I don’t know, mate, I had to chuck him out, he was getting het up ‘cos I wouldn’t serve him no more.’

‘Where else does he drink, you know?’

‘If it’s not in here, I don’t care.’

‘I said, where else does he drink?’ Dumbbell said with a hard menace in his voice.

‘Yeah, OK. I’ve heard he drinks at the Dog and Duck on Leopold Street, don’t whether he’s there, though.’

‘Where else?’ asked the taller heavy.

‘Dunno, I only know about the ‘Dog’. What’s he done anyhow; he was in a right state?’

‘Only beaten his wife to a pulp.’

‘His wife, she in a bad way, I saw he had blood on him?’

‘She’s dead and now he’s got to pay.’

‘Ethel? Dead? Oh shit.’

‘OK pal, we’re off, but if the cops come round, when they come round, we was never here. you got that?’ Dumbbell said, giving Freddie the hard stare.

‘Yeah sure, got it, you was never here.’

‘Just make sure you remember that else we’ll be back and help improve your memory.’

CHAPTER FIVE

HAS BEEN FOUND DEAD IN HER HOME

The Garside Gazette

MURDERED! MOTHER OF TRAGIC ROSIE PALMER FOUND DEAD

35-year-old Ethel Palmer found dead in her home. The Police are treating the case as murder.

The Gazette can exclusively confirm that Ethel Palmer, mother of 7-year-old Rosie, callously knocked down and killed by fleeing bandits last year, has been found dead in her home in mysterious circumstances. West Garside CID are treating the case as murder, and DI Yarrow, leading the investigation, has confirmed that they wish to interview Ethel’s husband John (Jack) Palmer in connection with the incident and have appealed to the public for information as to his whereabouts.

Regular Gazette readers will recall the attempted snatch of wages from the West Yorkshire Bank in which 24-year-old wages clerk Peter Cushman was mercilessly gunned down in cold blood by the ruthless killers. In attempting to escape the scene, the fleeing robbers, without care or thought except for their own preservation, knocked down and killed poor Rosie

Subsequently, gunman Frankie Starling was apprehended by DI Yarrow and paid for his heinous crimes on the gallows of Armley Jail…

CHAPTER SIX

PHYSICALLY ABUSIVE TO HIS CHILDREN

DI Yarrow walked briskly into the CID briefing room. Already seated were DS Harding, DC Harry Rawlings, WPC Suzanne Fillmore, and PCs Balderstone and Edgeley.

Yarrow’s anger at the killing of Ethel Palmer had not receded overnight. It was the senselessness of it that so infuriated him, a flash of anger from Jack Palmer and a blameless woman lay dead and 6 children were left motherless. And should Jack Palmer hang for his crime, those children would be orphaned and have to live for the rest of their lives with the knowledge that their father had murdered their mother and had paid the ultimate price. How a child could cope with that awfulness, he could not begin to comprehend.

Harry Rawlings was another who seethed in anger, not towards Jack Palmer but towards Yarrow and Marcus Harding. Even though it was several months ago, he still could not accept the fact that Harding had been promoted to Detective Sergeant instead of him. Harry was older, had more years in the job, and knew far more about local villains than Marcus, whom he called Mucus behind his back, would ever know. His resentment ran deep and was constantly reinforced by a sense of injustice and pique.

Suzanne Fillmore also harboured resentments, not against Yarrow or Marcus, but against the misogyny and ingrained prejudice against female officers and the sense that they were good for filing and making the tea but not for real police work. She had played a vital part in the capture of Frankie Starling and had expected to be involved in other investigations but had been put back on desk duty, traffic duty and escorting schoolchildren across the road.

And she knew that Harry Rawlings, seated next to her, was one of those who considered that a woman’s place was either in the kitchen or bedroom, but she recognised that Yarrow had a more enlightened view and was grateful whenever he was able to include her on his team.

Pinned to a notice board were a mortuary photograph of Ethel Palmer, a picture which made Suzanne shudder in horror at the extent of her injuries, and the only available photograph of Jack Palmer, a photograph of him in Army uniform found on the mantlepiece in his house. He had fought without particular distinction with the West Yorkshire Regiment during the Burma campaigns.

‘Good morning, everybody,’ Yarrow said, nodding to his assembled team, to be answered by chorus of ‘morning, sir.’

‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the tragic circumstances surrounding the death of Rosie Palmer and that this second death, the murder of her mother, only highlights the impact of continued tragedy for this family.’

Yarrow stopped to light another cigarette; he was a heavy smoker, even though he was well aware of the dangers. ‘Late yesterday evening, Ethel Palmer was battered to death in the kitchen of her home. Her husband, Jack Palmer, is the prime suspect. He was seen hurriedly leaving the house and a witness reports she noticed blood on his hands. He has not been seen since, or rather, nobody has yet reported seeing him. Our priority, obviously, is to locate Palmer and bring him for questioning. A word of warning, although everything points to Palmer as the killer, we cannot just assume that it is so, we need the evidence to prove his guilt and convict him.’

He pointed to the mortuary photograph. ‘This was a brutal attack. Palmer is a stonemason with strong arms and hands; the injuries inflicted on his wife are horrific, as can be seen. He was also physically abusive to his children; I saw the bruises and welts on poor Rosie’s body. Jack Palmer is simply a thug and a bully. Find him. Find him quickly.

‘I need to speak to the pathologist regarding Ethel’s injuries, Harding with me, and then once they open, we will visit those pubs and clubs he is known to haunt, find out whether he visited any of them after his assault on Ethel. Harry Rawlings, please check with records for any other family Palmer might have: parents, brothers, uncles etc., and if so, check with local police to see if he has made his way there.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You two,’ Yarrow said to Balderstone and Edgeley, ‘house to house enquiries along Albert Street and the adjacent area for any sightings of Palmer. Fillmore, you go with them, some of the women might talk more easily to you rather than hulking great coppers.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

SEVEN SHADES OF SHIT KNOCKED OUT OF HIM

Yarrow held a great deal of respect for the abilities of WPC Suzanne Fillmore and strongly believed that female officers, despite the deep-rooted chauvinism of his friend, station commander Superintendent Trevor Bullock, had much to offer and always tried to include her on his team.

‘All right, let’s get to it, we’ll reconvene at…’ Yarrow checked his watch, a Yeager-Couture given him by his beloved wife Marie-Hélène, now dead from cancer these three years past and whom he thought of and missed every single day, ‘at 6.30, see what we’ve got.’

At that, Suzanne grimaced; she was planning go dancing at the Mecca Ballroom with PC Percy Copper that evening. It was Saturday night and they always went dancing on Saturday, their shifts permitting, and a briefing at 6.30 would not give her much time to get ready to meet him at 8.00. Bugger, she inwardly swore. Percy Copper, although only a probationer at the time, had been instrumental in foiling the wages snatch in which Peter Cushman was gunned down and Rose Palmer tragically run over.

Suzanne rather liked Percy and knew the feelings were reciprocated, so missing their regular dance date was an annoyance, but she knew such disappointments were a part of a police officer’s life. What was that song from the The Pirates of Penzance, the Gilbert and Sullivan opera she once seen performed by the West Garside Players? Oh yes, that was it, ‘A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.’ She smiled to herself as she joined Balderstone and Edgeley as they made their way out of the briefing room. Percy would wait for her; she was sure of that.

Yarrow made his way back to his office. He would clear his desk of non-unimportant paperwork, giving precedence to Ethel’s murder and the hunt for Jack Palmer as non-pressing cases were passed on to other officers.

He had only been working for 20 minutes when the phone rang. It was Sgt Dave Armitage on the front desk.

‘Chris,’ he said, ‘I’ve just had a call from an Albert Higginbottom, he works an allotment off Tadcaster Road, he says there’s a badly injured man lying all over his cabbages, says he doesn’t know what to do, the dozy sod. I’ve called an ambulance, but from the description he gave, it could be our man Jack Palmer. He’s in a bad way, badly beaten by the sound of it.’

‘Beaten?’

‘Aye, had seven shades of shit knocked out of him according to Higginbottom. Reckon you’d best get over there sharpish.’

A sudden chill ran down Yarrow’s back. He knew without a doubt that Palmer’s beating was a consequence of his well-meaning but ill-judged attempt to give some protection to Ethel by having Jack Palmer warned off.

He knew Dave Armitage had called in some favours and did not know whom Armitage had contacted to deliver the warning, but the reality remained. He had instigated the chain of events that led to what sounds like a very severe beating. However, whatever the outcome, he knew that he and Armitage would never talk about what had previously transpired, not even to each other.

‘Thanks, Dave, Tadcaster Road allotments you said?’

‘Aye.’

Putting down the phone, Yarrow picked his coat and hat and without putting them on ran out of his office, calling for DS Harding to join him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

REALLY DONE A JOB ON HIM, HAVEN’T THEY

The unconscious Jack Palmer lay sprawled on his back across Albert Higginbottom’s cabbages. It was obvious that his beating had been very severe. His face was just a bloody mask, one eye closed, the eye socket crushed, and Yarrow suspected that if Palmer recovered, he would likely be blind in that eye. It was an injury with which Yarrow could sympathise, having been blinded in his left eye as a fighter pilot during the Battle of Britain. Subconsciously he rubbed at the web of scars around the eye.

‘Somebody’s really done a job on him, haven’t they, sir?’ Marcus Harding said with little sympathy for the man who had beaten his wife to death, ‘deserved all he got if you ask me, and I wouldn’t want to be too anxious to find out who did it to him unless it was to give him a medal.’

‘Whatever Palmer did, Marcus, this is still a crime, a serious crime, attempted murder. Or if he does not recover, murder,’ Yarrow answered, unable to shake off the guilt he felt for instigating the attempted protection of Ethel Palmer which had led inexorably to this.

‘Yes, sir,’ Marcus responded with little enthusiasm. If left to him he would likely have left Palmer where he lay and let the rats get at him.

The ambulance crew arrived, and after receiving Yarrow’s permission, loaded Jack Palmer onto a stretcher and carried him away to the waiting ambulance, which set off at speed towards the West Garside General Hospital, blue lights flashing and bells clanging.

‘OK,’ Yarrow said once the ambulance was out of sight, ‘get uniform down here, get a finger-tip search going. As I said, this is a major crime scene.’

CHAPTER NINE

‘FREDDIE, HAVE YOU BEEN THREATENED?’

‘A ye, he was here yesterday and in a foul mood with it. Looked as though he been in a fight, his knuckles were that cut and bloody,’ Freddie Jackson, the barman at the Working Man’s Institute, said. ‘Then I heard his missus had been killed, but he’d left by then.’

‘Did anybody come looking for him?’ Yarrow asked, fairly