A Woman Unknown (42 page)

I was glad we were sitting side by side and she could not see my face. Her arithmetic was a little at fault. It would not be six months since her husband’s death, it would be five. It amazed me that she could put the past behind her so quickly. What kind of idiot am I, that I stick in this muddy might-have-been world of never quite acknowledging that Gerald is not coming back?

I have turned down Marcus Charles, and am probably destined to live alone forever. But it could be worse. I could have married Marcus.

‘Do you all want to move in here?’

‘Oh no, just me and Roland. The kids can stay with Mam in Wakefield.’

‘What about school?’

‘There’s no point in them enrolling in a new school until we get to Helmsley. Mam will put them through their paces. She’s good at times tables.’

I could have said no, but it seemed mean to deny them hospitality after all they had been through. If they were
staying here, I would lock my filing cabinet, hand the key to Sykes for the duration and de-camp. Aunt Berta was still at Kirkley Hall and had asked me to go back to London with her early next week.

I looked at the children, happily climbing trees, and thought of the cramped situation at the house in White Swan Yard.

‘Mary Jane, there’s a house I sometimes rent in Robin Hood’s Bay.’

‘Oh we don’t want to marry in Robin Hood’s Bay. Where is it anyway?’

‘It’s near Whitby.’

‘We don’t want to go near Whitby, all fish and wind and Dracula.’

‘I was thinking of the children and their grandmother. I have to go to London, but before I go, I could drive them to Robin Hood’s Bay, for a holiday by the sea.’

Their grandmother, my birth mother, the woman I call Mrs Whitaker. Now would be our opportunity for us to get to know each other a little, with the buffer of my niece and nephew to smooth out any awkwardness.

Mary Jane waved to Austin who was sitting on the low branch of a tree. ‘I think that’s a wonderful idea.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. It’ll take a bit of organising at such short notice, but it’ll be a good run for my new motor. The luggage could be sent on by train.’

‘And I have a favour to ask.’

‘Oh yes?’ I said lightly, keeping the dread from my voice. What could it be now?

‘Will you be my maid of honour, or I suppose it will be witness in a registry office?’

‘What about Barbara May?’

Barbara May was her elder and closest sister, and Mary Jane’s maid of honour when she married Ethan.

I had said the wrong thing. Her face crumpled into a copy of Disappointment from the Five Boys chocolate advertisement.

‘We’ve fallen out over it. She’s telling me it’s too soon for me to marry again. Do you think it’s too soon?’ She did not wait for me to answer. ‘It’s either marriage, or living over the brush. And I’m thinking of the children, starting again at a new school. I don’t want gossip. It’ll be bad enough that we’re different names, but Harriet is adamant that she won’t change her name, little madam.’

‘It’s not too soon if you don’t think it’s too soon.’

Mary Jane, who is normally the most self-possessed of women, suddenly burst into tears. ‘It will be too soon, and it will be too late. I should have married Roland years ago. And if I marry him now, it will be like turning back the clock and rubbing Ethan out of existence. Ethan swept me off my feet, but it was always Roland who was there, always Roland who was my soul mate.’

‘Then marry him. Look forward, not back.’

She nodded miserably.

Polishing off a couple of jam tarts cheered her up.

Mary Jane seemed so relieved and relaxed to have steamrollered me into agreeing that she and Roland could move in that she fell into a sound slumber, snoring gently.

All that remained was for me to break the news to my housekeeper. Mrs Sugden would probably get on well with Mary Jane, and if she did not, then at least she has her own quarters.

I watched the children playing, hiding among the
trees. My little wood would have looked quite different with a fine piece of Cromer sculpture at its heart.

Cromer’s trial was imminent. I hoped not to be called. He would plead guilty, Marcus had told me, because he had already confessed, and because he could not bear to have Caroline Windham take the stand against him and point her fine finger at his broken and dastardly heart.

‘Mrs Shackleton!’

The man’s voice came from behind. I turned, and just for a second could not place him because his appearance was so unexpected. He was smartly turned out, cleanly shaven and had his unruly hair plastered to his head. It was Eddie, the punch-drunk boxer, Deirdre Fitzpatrick’s faithful swain.

‘Mr Flanagan.’

‘I’ve summat to tell you.’

Mary Jane did not wake, but she might.

Something in Eddie Flanagan’s look told me that his words were for my ears only. ‘We’ll go inside, Mr Flanagan.’

If this was some new concern about the errant Deirdre, he could bark up another tree.

We went through the back door into the kitchen. ‘Please sit down.’

He sat down, and put his cap on the table, but made no effort to speak. I would have to start the conversation.

‘We didn’t get the chance to speak at Mr Fitzpatrick’s funeral.’

‘I’m not here over that.’

‘Oh?’

He took something from his pocket, holding it in his fist. Opening his hand, he revealed a scrap of brown
paper. He set it on the table in front of him and unfolded the paper to reveal a small circular piece of glass, its surface dull and scratched. ‘I brought you this.’ He pushed it towards me.

We both stared at it.

‘What is it?’

‘I think it’s from his camera.’

‘Whose camera?’

‘The medical officer’s camera. Mr Shackleton’s camera.’

Something tightened in my chest. ‘His camera? Gerald’s camera?’

‘Aye. I found it. I saw it glinting in the sun, after the explosions, and I thought, I know what that is. I don’t know why I picked it up, I just did.’

‘When?’

‘On that day, the day of the big explosion on the road.’

I pulled the piece of glass towards me and held it between fingers and thumb. It could be a camera lens. It was the right shape and thickness.

Eddie sat very still, hardly breathing, waiting.

All this time I had searched for news of Gerald, among officers and men, written letters and made visits. Now here was this man whose wits had been punched around his skull so many times that you would not want to send him on an errand that required him to read the number on a tramcar.

‘Tell me, tell me about it, Mr Flanagan. Please. Take your time.’

‘I can’t remember the day, but I know it was April, because Deirdre sent me a bar of chocolate for Easter, and she drew a picture of a little yellow chicken and it
had come a little bit late, after Easter Sunday had passed. I was in the quarry because I’d had to be bandaged and a lot of them was killed when the shell came, but not the medical officer and not me. We took what we could carry and set off, walking. Only I was a bit behind. I stopped for summat. And up in front of me on the road, it all went off, all sudden like, and smoke and sparks and all the rest. After it, there was not so many of us walking along. He was the one I looked for because you need an MO. I thought, even he won’t be taking photographs of this mess. And then this bit of glass glinted. It caught my eye. I picked it up.’

I held the lens in my palm, and then clutched it tight. And I believed him. So this was it. This was the end of my search, a small circular piece of glass, scratched and dull.

Gerald would never come home.

There would be no burial, and no goodbye.

I would cherish this memento.

And I imagined a time to come, when I would be gone. Someone would clear my things. They would pick up this piece of glass. Why did she keep this?

And it would be thrown away.

I had taken my niece and nephew, their grandmother and the dog to the seaside. On the way to Robin Hood’s Bay, we called at Scarborough for fish and chips in the Golden Haddock.

As we sat at a table in the window, the dog making itself small in exchange for dropped chips, I watched the world walk by, and the world included Deirdre Fitzpatrick, on the arm of Joseph Barnard, who was playing Scarborough this week.

I would not have minded a break by the sea myself, but I deposited the family at the Robin Hood’s Bay cottage, planning to stay just one day, having promised Aunt Berta that I would travel back to London with her and my real mother, the one who adopted me, Ginny Hood.

A person must be hardy indeed to swim in the North Sea in the middle of September. The cold turns your eyes to ice cubes and a snowman would be white hot by comparison with us three, leaping into the waves, screeching with laughter and jumping deeper.

Mrs Whitaker sat in her big coat and felt hat, drying the wet shaggy dog. She had bravely insisted the steep
hill to the bay was no impediment for her, but that the dog found it rather trying.

It was the first time the children, and the dog, had seen the sea so there was something quite magical about it. We explored the rock pools with fishing nets and found fossils. Austin insisted they must all be taken home, for the garden of the new house in Helmsley.

The three were happily ensconced in the cottage. Deciding against driving across the moors in darkness, I drove to Whitby and spent a solitary night in a room with a sea view, remembering happier days. This was the place Gerald and I had first met. This was where I said goodbye to him, looking out to sea.

Aunt Berta’s house in London seemed a world away. I stayed with her for three weeks. Towards the end of my visit, Mother was upstairs. I was sitting at breakfast with Aunt Berta, looking over the menu for the evening’s dinner party. She had invited the mourning Baron Kirkley, Harold Runcie, Everett’s elder brother. Once again the baron had taken over ownership of Kirkley Hall, due to Philippa having made good her escape.

Aunt Berta confided in me. ‘I asked Harold because he needs taking out of himself after his ordeal. I know it’s a little late for him, but he must find a wife, or there’ll be no heir for the Kirkley title.’

Alarm bells rang. For a long time, Aunt Berta had tried to match-make on my behalf.

She laughed when she read my look. ‘Oh don’t worry, Kate dear, not you! I know you’ve let that policeman go, but you and Harold are not a match. He needs to find a woman with a great deal of money, if he’s to keep
Kirkley Hall.’ She sighed. ‘Though it would be nice to have you titled and in London a great deal.’

The guest list included a commander from Scotland Yard, a widower and old school chum of my uncle. The commander had specially wangled an invitation in order to thank me for my help in solving Everett Runcie’s murder.

All in all I was looking forward to the dinner party. It had been a tricky few weeks as everyone wanted to ask me about the investigation, and I would not speak of it. The Everett Runcie and Leonard Diamond cases had certainly made me well known among the kind of people who might bring an interesting puzzle to a private investigator.

And truth to tell, I was glad to be away from the north when Rupert Cromer went to the scaffold for the murders of Everett Runcie and Leonard Diamond.

I hoped that the Scotland Yard commander would be indiscreet about Marcus Charles. The American Ambassador had praised Marcus for his vigilant observation of Anthony Hartigan, and his firm assurance that the man was allowed to do nothing worse, while visiting England, than see his family, pay respects to his dying mother, and arrange her funeral.

The cooperation between Washington and London was highly valued. As a result, Marcus had been invited to Washington to have high-level meetings regarding future cooperation.

I had to laugh, feeling sure that Marcus’s reports had included nothing about the importation into the USA of spirits; gin from London, whisky from the Highlands.

Marcus’s letter had arrived that morning. Aunt Berta was perusing a letter of her own, and so I read mine.