HELLO! I've realised it has been little over a month since I posted the end of Part 1. My hiatus was much needed and thanks to dear Apollo, I've returned in full force and will be updating when I can.
So now dear readers, I present to you...Part 2 of A Walk Among The Speakeasies.
Enjoy!
P. x
3 months after Atticus Aldridge was found and then returned to his grateful fiancée and family; 3 months after the 6 men of the CPD buried Richard Carlisle in a shallow grave in the middle of the night and 3 months since Matthew Crawley took a leap and made contact with his daughter.
Cambridge Police Department, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Late January 1935
Lieutenant Henry Talbot always believed that he would never see Violet Crawley, widow of the head of The Crawley Crime Family, sat in a Cambridge Police Department Interrogation room. It was impossible. The day would never come. The past few months had taught him not to believe everything that he once believed. Because somehow the impossible was happening. It was happening at half 4 in the morning.
Alfred turned on the disk recorder and motioned for the interview to begin.
Henry cleared his throat. "Atticus. I'd like you to recount to me the events of 27th September of last year, please? As much as you can."
Atticus took a glance at Violet, who nodded for him to start. The man being questioned exhaled. "You've probably read from Rose's statement that I was abducted in broad daylight, by two men and taken back to that newspaper man's apartment."
"And the two men were who?" Henry asked, wanting to confirm what he already knew.
"Jimmy Kent and Nicholas Green"
Henry nodded. "What happened to you when you were in that basement for those 5 days?"
Both the Sergeant and Lieutenant noticed that the colour from the young man's face drained almost completely, that his hands began to visibly shake.
"Atticus?" Henry asked again.
Atticus shook his head, his hands still shaking.
Alfred looked to his boss and whispered in his ear. "A five minute break, Sir?"
Henry nodded and put the recorder on pause before standing up with Alfred and leaving the room.
Home of Matthew Crawley, Boston, Massachusetts. 7.30am
Matthew sat at his desk, re-reading the little handwritten note from Clara for the fourth time that morning. It was the most recent one of the 5 notes he'd received from his daughter in the 3 months since he first made contact.
'Dear Papa,' it read. Matthew couldn't quite believe it. This was one of the two notes where Clara had started calling him Papa and it warmed his heart in the same way that it terrified him.
'I hope you are well. I have been very ill these last few days, but Miss Crawley says I should be better by tomorrow.'
Tears formed in the back of his eyes. Thank God for Mary, he thought.
'Maybe one day we can see one another and we can be happy.'
Tears started rolling down his cheeks. Such an innocent little girl, she was, never having caused a moment's sorrow. - If only she had been born in different circumstances.
"Oh Clara" He wept quietly.
'I will write again soon. I love you, Papa.'
Matthew wept harder, his stroked his fingers over the handwriting- so clever for one so young.
Clara.
Matthew wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, placed the note to one side, pulled out a blank sheet of paper and pulled out his fountain pen.
Darling Clara,
Cambridge Police Department, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 4.45am
Henry cleared his throat, as Alfred turned the recorder on again.
"Now, Atticus, take as much time as you need," Henry said, reassuringly. "What happened from the 27th of September until the night we found you?"
Atticus took a quick glance at Violet, before taking a deep breath. "They blindfolded me and took me down to the basement where you found me. They didn't do a thing to me that night, they gave me food and water, but that was about it. It wasn't until the 28th and 29th that they started with the beatings- shouting at me, attempting to get answers out of me-"
"What were the questions?" Henry asked, intrigued.
Atticus looked straight at him. "About Matthew. If I knew of his whereabouts, if I knew anything incriminating about him. About a woman-"
"A woman?" Henry interrupted quickly, "What woman?"
"A woman called Madeline. That apparently Matthew had an affair with her, that she was Blake's wife. I didn't know what they were on about so I didn't answer," Atticus chuckled bitterly, "But of course that earned me another blow to the stomach. At night I would overhear them talking about ways of to bring down Matthew and that abducting me was one of them, because I was part of his social circle."
Henry and Alfred shared a look. "Where does Richard Carlisle fit in to all of this?"
"Carlisle? He became Blake's lawyer after losing his newspaper fortune, shortly after the Wall Street Crash. He appeared every so often, well I was in his basement after all. On the night you found me, Carlisle was taunting me about my religion and kept punching me in different places; telling me that he could render me infertile, that I would never be able to have children."
Alfred's eyes widened. "And the gun? Where did you get the gun, Atticus?"
Atticus looked a little startled, being questioned by the silent Sergeant, but nevertheless answered. "It was either Kent's or Green's, you could never be too sure with those two. One minute they carried a weapon, the next they didn't. But on that night, one of them left their gun behind"
"What made you shoot him?" Henry asked, plainly.
"He was laughing manically, kept going on over and over about how he could bring down Matthew with the amount of information he had on him. He kept saying the name Madeline, but he wasn't clear on what the name meant to Matthew, and how it would bring him down." He took a shaky breath to calm himself. "Then he went on about how Charles Blake was a fool to mess with a man as dangerous as Matthew, and how Richard would outlive Charles and then he would be the one to bring down Matthew"
But Henry and Alfred were stumped. "A man as dangerous as Matthew? What does that mean?" Henry asked, scratching his forehead.
"Well, there is a rumour that he was in business with not just The New York Firm," Atticus said.
Henry's eyebrows raised in confusion.
Atticus continued. "Rumour is he's also working for the Chicago Outfit. Handing out threats and seeing them through, seems to be the word that's going round"
Henry met Violet's eye across the table, shut his eyes and sighed. Shit, Matthew. You're fucked.