Rosemary Aitken (17 page)

The answer surprised him. ‘I’m looking for the police station, Constable. Can you direct me? I’m a stranger here.’

‘As it happens, I’m returning there myself – so if you would like to follow me?’

‘That would be most kind,’ the man replied, trotting after Alex with alacrity. When they reached the door the stranger paused. ‘There’s a man called Jenkins that I’m looking for. He sent me a letter, I have got it here.’

‘I’ll see if I can find him,’ Alex said. ‘If you would be kind enough to wait?’

‘The name is Broadbent,’ said the stranger, handing him a card. ‘I wrote some time ago. I think your colleague will remember me.’

Alex nodded. ‘I’ll tell him you are here.’ He put his head around the inner door where Jenkins was tapping at the typewriting machine. ‘There’s someone here to see you.’ He handed him the card.

Jenkins glanced at it. ‘You’d better show him in.’ But it was obvious that he did not recognize the name, because as Alex ushered in the visitor, Jenkins said to him, ‘Constable Dawes informs me that you’ve asked for me by name.’

Broadbent turned to Alex with a smile. ‘You’re Dawes?’ he murmured. ‘Now that is fortunate. I can give you this directly.’ He produced from his pocket a dog-eared envelope and handed it to Alex with a bow. ‘I have not had the opportunity to write your name on it, but it’s from Miss Pengelly. I promised her I would deliver it. She says she is not wanting a reply.’

Alex took it from him and beat a swift retreat under the mocking eyes of Jenkins – who was certain to rag him later on. He tore it open. It was written in indelible pencil on a piece of lined paper, torn from the notebook he had given her himself.

‘Dear Alex, I don’t know if you were expecting us to meet this week in any case, as I understand from Lettie that you usually dine at Major Knight’s on Thursdays nowadays, but this is a note to say that I can’t be there. There has been a nasty—’ – there was a fragment missing where she’d torn out the page – ‘’cident’ (did that mean ‘incident’ perhaps?) ‘at home, so I had to take an extra day last week, and now I have to work this week to make up the time. Even if I was free, I’d want to go back home, the way things are at present, as I’m sure you’ll understand. Hoping that this finds you well as it leaves me.’ There was no signature.

For a moment he just stared at it. From ‘Miss Pengelly’, the bowler-hatted man had said. And she wanted no reply. It seemed that Effie had turned the tables on him, properly. There had clearly been some sort of incident at home – probably her uncle nagging her again – and she had decided that she would not meet him any more.

And one could hardly blame her. He had forgotten that the Lettie girl would have been telling tales, and would know that he had been out riding with the Knight girl several times and dining with her nearly every week. Of course it was not serious – or so he told himself – but how could Effie be expected to know that?

No wonder he had seen her with that young fellow in the cart! The sort of chap her family would approve of, too. Alex jammed his helmet on again and went out on to the street. He was entitled to half an hour for lunch, but he didn’t take it; he went straight back on patrol. He couldn’t bear to face Jenkins and his teasing after this – and fortunately he was working up Trevarnon way, which kept him as far as possible from Mrs Thatchell’s house.

Jenkins did catch up with him in the end, of course. He came in while Alex was lying on the bed that night, pretending to be engrossed in studying the police manual again by the light of the flickering candle on the bedside chest. Jenkins put his own nightlight down and gave his roommate a knowing leer.

‘You’ll wear that Black Book out entirely, if you don’t look out,’ he said, taking off his jacket and stripping to his vest. He went over to the wash-stand and poured out some cold water from the jug. ‘If you don’t know the rules of giving evidence by now, then there’s no help for you.’ He slipped his braces down around his waist and plunged his face and whiskers into the washing bowl. He came up sputtering and groped for the towel, saying as he rubbed his glowing skin, ‘What became of you this morning, anyway? You got that letter and then you disappeared. What happened? Your Miss Pengelly write to summon you?’

Alex slammed the Black Book firmly shut – he hadn’t succeeded in looking at it anyway. ‘No, of course she didn’t. Quite the opposite! As it happens we’ve decided not to meet – for the present, anyway. As if it were any business of yours.’

Jenkins gave a little whistle of astonishment – amazing how sardonic he contrived to make it sound! ‘Well there is a turn-up for the book and no mistake. Given you your marching orders, has she, after all? Well, you’ll have no qualms about riding and dining with your heiress now.’

‘As it happens I am dining with Miss Caroline this week.’ He had written after getting Effie’s note, to confirm the fact. ‘Though that has nothing at all to do with it.’

Jenkins grinned. ‘So you won’t be interested to know that the “unidentified” we had last year – the one who was asking for your Effie in the town – may have been in line for an inheritance himself, according to that Broadbent fellow who called in today. Pity he brought that letter when he did. You might be sorry that you’ve broken off with her.’

Alex sat up sharply. He could not help himself. ‘What do you mean by that?’

Jenkins poured the dirty water into the waiting pail and took down a pair of scissors from the hook. ‘It’s rather a long story,’ he began. It
was
a long story, made longer by Jenkins trimming his whiskers between sentences and pulling strange faces in the shaving-glass. When he had finished he examined the effect – with apparent satisfaction – and swept the hairs into a paper bag, before he turned to Alex. ‘So there you are, old man. You can see what this might mean for Effie!’

Alex had been listening to the tale with interest, of course, but he found himself saying, quite impatiently, ‘No I damned well can’t. What’s it to do with her?’

Jenkins was pulling on his nightshirt by this time and there was a pause until his head emerged from it. He grinned at Alex, looking, in the long white robe, like some comic spirit in a pantomime. ‘Why, Dawes! Of course, you always were an innocent, but surely it must have occurred to you by now that she’s probably the natural daughter of this Royston chap? So if it turns out that he really was the corpse, she might have a claim on this inheritance.’

Alex shook his head, determinedly. ‘I have seen her father, and she’s the living spit of him.’

Jenkins refused to be deflected from his theory by this inconvenient fact. ‘But think about it. What else could it be – the girl is exactly of an age to have been Royston’s child and Broadbent says that he was famed among his friends for his conquests among the fairer sex. “A weakness for fillies – with two legs or four – that’s what ruined him” – according to one acquaintance, it said in the report. What could be more natural than for him to have a fling with some attractive woman that he came across down here?’

‘What would Royston have been doing in these parts? And how would he “come across” poor Pengelly’s wife, who lived out at Penvarris all her days? It would be a wonder if she ever came to town, except on market days.’ Alex was unaccountably annoyed. ‘Hardly going to meet this dashing Royston for a fling, when she’s been tramping miles along the lanes and she’s got a basketful of eggs and butter on her arm. Anyway, is there any evidence that he’d been here before – even supposing that the corpse was his?’

‘We’re still not positive it was,’ Jenkins said, carefully answering only the last enquiry. He had taken his nether garments off by now and was padding in his stockinged feet across the floor to put his trousers underneath his mattress where he ‘pressed’ them overnight. ‘Broadbent thought it might be, but he’s changed his mind and now he thinks it was most likely one of Royston’s friends – but even so, he might have been asking for your Effie around town because he’d heard she was in line for this inheritance. Hoped to beg or borrow some of it, perhaps, or lure the girl into a liaison of some sort.’

Alex stared at him in disbelief. ‘Broadbent told you that?’

‘Not exactly,’ Jenkins said, sitting on his bed to brush his boots. ‘He pretends to think that the enquirer simply latched upon her name because he heard it mentioned in the town – but I don’t believe that for a moment. No,’ he breathed on the leather and buffed it with his sleeve. ‘This money is at the back of this affair – you take my word for it.’

Alex stood up and he too began to strip. ‘Well, I don’t believe your theory about Effie’s parentage. I can’t see that Royston would pick a country girl – with no city manners and no doubt married young – even if he had the opportunity.’

Jenkins had got into bed and blew his candle out, pulling the bedclothes up around his neck. ‘Why not? I expect she was pretty, like her daughter is!’

Alex pulled his shirt off. ‘Well, where would he meet her, even if she were? A girl like that would likely have started down the mine as soon as she was eight or nine years old. And how would he ever have learned that she’d borne his child? I doubt if she could write, except perhaps her name! I don’t suppose she ever went to school – it wasn’t free in those days and times were very hard.’ He splashed fresh water from the jug and rinsed his face and neck.

‘Only a penny.’ Jenkins was in a stubborn mood tonight. ‘Hardly a fortune for her parents, even then.’

‘That just shows how little you understand! It was a lot of money for a miner, then – and it’s most unlikely they’d have scraped it up, especially for a girl.’ If Jenkins could be dogged, Alex could be, too. ‘And she’d be brought up strictly Methodist – just like Effie is. What would a handsome roué see in somebody like that?’ He rubbed his teeth with a dentifrice and rinsed his mouth.

‘He might have done it out of devilment.’ Jenkins still refused to let the matter drop. ‘According to Broadbent he was notorious – his friends say he could charm the witches from the waves.’

‘Well, he would have to cast a spell or two himself, to be Effie’s father!’ Alex was quite vexed. He climbed into his night-shirt. ‘I told you, she’s a Pengelly through and through, the very image of her father and her aunt. Well, of course she is. What else would you expect? You’re inventing mysteries where there are none. Anyway, I don’t know what it’s got to do with you. It isn’t even much to do with me, now that we’ve decided not to meet again. So will you let it rest?’

He blew out his nightlight and got into bed, turning his face towards the wall, although it was a long time before he got to sleep. Perversely, when he did, he dreamt of Caroline.

Walter was sick and tired of lying uselessly in bed. It had seemed like a week of Christmases at first, staying lazy, tucked up in the warm, while the house and street were full of other people going to work. But that had quickly palled. Now when he heard the footsteps and the daily grumblings – ‘Mornin’ Arry – damty cold and wet today!’ – instead of revelling in the chance to rest, he found he was wishing he was out there with them, in the rain, with a mine to go to and a job to do.

He stared at the embroidered text hung on the wall. ‘Count your blessings.’ Well perhaps he should – if you knew exactly what your blessings were. How many times had he complained, across the years, of having not a minute where he could sit and think – and now he was cursed with quite the opposite! He’d become a useless thing, a stick of furniture: that was the worst of it. Even small children had their chores to do, and the white-haired old men who hobbled round on sticks, too old and sick to work, at least had company – they met up every day, either in the Miner’s Arms or on the bench outside – and he could hear their high-pitched cackles as they shared their memories.

He could not even read. There were no books in Madge’s house, not even a text on mining like he had at home; only a huge Bible – far too big to read in bed. He had counted the different patches on the patchwork quilt, read that damty text until he was in danger of wearing out his eyes, and set himself a hundred sums to do (mostly concerning rocks and dynamite) but it was no good at all. He was chafing to be up and doing and he told his sister so.

‘If I ’ad some crutches I could come downstairs a bit. Sole the shoes or something – like you said before.’

‘Don’t be so silly, Walter. The doctor said that it would be another week at least. Count yourself lucky and try to get some rest.’ She picked up his cup and saucer and looked down at him. ‘Though if you’re really fretting, I could find some chores for you.’

And she had done her best: bringing him onions to thread onto a string, a heap of washing to fold and damp for ironing and today – more humiliating still – standing a wooden chair beside his bed, and showing him how to loop a skein of wool across the back to keep it taut while he wound it inexpertly into a ball. ‘And when you’ve finished that one, you’ll find a dozen more inside that paper bag. Save me no end of time when I am knitting socks.’

He nodded. It was mind-numbingly tedious and he wasn’t sure it saved her anything – it took so long to bring things up and show him what to do – but at least it was better than staring at the wall. But it was woman’s work, and he was not sorry, a little later on, to hear her calling cheerfully upstairs. ‘Walter, can you hear me? You’ve got a visitor. Fellow from the mine. I’ve got the soup on boiling and I can’t leave the stove. Is it all right if I send him up?’

Dear Heaven! That would be Captain Maddern, calling round again, as he had done several times this week. He couldn’t let a fellow-miner find him winding wool, like a great girl. ‘Half a minute!’ Walter took the current wool-skein off the chair and stuffed it in the basket out of sight. He would likely cause a tangle, he realized that of course, but that could not be helped. He dropped the basket down beside him on the floor and leaned back on his pillows in a manly pose, before he called back down. ‘All right, Cap’n, I’m ready for you now.’

But it wasn’t Jack Maddern who came up the stairs: it was Artie Kellow’s boy. He had obviously just come from the mine, although he was dressed in ‘walking-home’ clothes now and he’d clearly taken pains when washing and changing at the ‘dry’ – even his boots were dusted as he stood there at
the door, turning his grey cap nervously between his big scrubbed hands, his broad, good-natured face the colour of his newly slicked red hair.