Smoke and Mirrors (18 page)

‘Well, let’s hope they find this little girl,’ said Max.

He hadn’t heard the director approaching. Roger Dunkley was looking even more distracted than usual.

‘What’s everyone doing?’ he said. ‘Overture and beginners in ten minutes.’

‘We were talking about the girl that’s gone missing,’ said Nigel. ‘They’re saying it’s Annie’s sister.’

Roger seemed not to have heard him. ‘The show must go on,’ he said, shepherding his cast along the corridor. Somehow he made it sound more like a threat than a promise.

*

‘Go home and that’s an order.’

‘I’m not tired. I can carry on.’

Frank Hodges sighed. Edgar wondered if he was going to threaten, once again, to bring someone in above his head. But instead, the super just looked at him steadily. If it had been anyone else, Edgar would have thought that he was trying to be kind.

‘DI Stephens,’ said Hodges. ‘You’ve been up all night. You’re going to fall asleep on your feet in a minute and that won’t help anyone. Go home, get a few hours’ sleep and you can come back here in the evening.’

‘But I need to coordinate the search . . .’

‘I will personally take charge of operations while you’re away. Does that satisfy you?’

God help the team, thought Edgar. But he could hardly argue. He didn’t feel tired but he had started to enter that dreamy fugue state where nothing seemed quite real. He had sent Bob and Emma home but he knew that they’d be back later. Maybe he should go back. He could do with a hot bath too. He hadn’t been dressed for snow last night and his shoes were still drenched. His left foot, which was missing a toe after frostbite in Norway, was completely numb. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back by six.’

The walk home was hard going. The snow didn’t seem quite as heavy as last time but his feet were frozen and his face stiff with cold. He’d wear his Russian hat tonight. Halfway up Albion Hill he could see the teams working on Freshfield Road, tiny black figures against the white. Frank Hodges could at least be trusted to keep the search running smoothly. If there was any news, though, Edgar must be the one to break it to the Francis family. For a second he allowed himself to imagine the sensation of sharing good news. ‘She was here all along . . . Yes, staying with a friend . . . She ran to her grandparents’ house . . . Just wanted to get away for a while.’ Sadly, none of these scenarios were likely to come true. Officers had visited the grandparents last night and again this morning. Neither set had seen Betty. They had visited all her known friends, everyone in her class at school and everyone involved in the play. They had searched Brian Baxter’s house and found nothing. Baxter himself seemed on the verge of nervous collapse. Now they were back to trawling the streets.

Thank God the hot water was working. Edgar made himself a sandwich while the bath was running. He wasn’t hungry but he supposed he had to eat. The sensation of lowering himself into the steamy water was amazing. When he had heard that Betty was missing, he had, for one brief but heartfelt minute, wished that he were dead. But he supposed that he was thankful to be alive, able to feel hot and cold, grief and happiness. He lay there until the water cooled, then he got out, dried himself, dressed in his warmest clothes and lay down on the bed. He wouldn’t sleep, just rest for an hour and get back to the station.

He was woken from a deep, dark sleep by a pounding on the door. Who the hell could that be? He would bet on one thing: it wouldn’t be good news.

A smartly dressed woman stood on the doorstep accompanied by two boys in duffle coats and woolly hats.

‘What a journey!’ she said. ‘But at least we’re here now. Say hallo to Uncle Edgar, boys.’

‘What the matter, Ed? Weren’t you expecting us?’

Edgar shut his eyes. Perhaps when he opened them, they wouldn’t be there.

‘Why have you got your eyes shut? Do you need glasses? Wipe your feet, boys.’

This last as his nephews powered past him into the flat. Edgar shut his eyes again.

‘Well, you don’t seem very happy to see us,’ said Lucy.

‘I am,’ said Edgar, standing aside to let her come in. ‘It’s just . . . it’s a bad time. Another child has gone missing.’

‘Another child?’ Lucy was peeling off her gloves. There was snow on her boots but not on her hat. Thank God; that must mean that it hadn’t started again. ‘What do you mean?’

‘A girl has gone missing,’ said Edgar. ‘The sister of one of the children who was murdered.’

‘Oh my God.’ Lucy looked genuinely shocked but was almost immediately distracted by George and Edward, who had started a game of jumping off the sofa.

‘Boys! Stop it. Don’t mess up Uncle Edgar’s house.’

‘It’s not a house,’ said George, ‘it’s a flat.’

For some reason this word seemed to strike both boys as incredibly funny. Shouting ‘Flat! Flat! Flat!’, they began charging round the sitting room, knocking over a small table and a pile of books.

‘We’re still searching for her,’ Edgar went on. ‘I just came home to catch a few hours’ sleep. I was up all night. I should be getting back to the station now.’

‘So you’re not coming to the pantomime with us?’

‘No. Sorry.’

Edward, the six-year-old, suddenly transformed himself, with the magical ease of a young child, into a lovable moppet.

‘Please come with us, Uncle Edgar.’ A small hand crept into his.

Edgar remembered his resolution to be a fun uncle. He certainly wasn’t making a very good start. ‘I’m sorry.’ He crouched down to his nephew’s level. ‘I’d love to come but I’ve got some important work to do. I’ll walk to the pier with you.’

‘Mum says you know Abanazar.’ This was George, less cute. ‘She said we could go backstage afterwards.’

Edgar looked at Lucy, who shrugged apologetically.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Edgar. ‘And I’ll give you some money to buy ice creams.’

‘I’ve had ice cream before,’ said Edward with a world-weary sigh. ‘I was sick.’

*

Emma got back to the station at four. She hadn’t wanted to go home at all but the DI had insisted. ‘You’ll be no use to me if you’re dead on your feet.’ So she’d walked to Roedean – the buses didn’t seem to be running – to face the aggressive concern of her mother, father and the trusty Ada.

‘You’re not going back there,’ said her father. ‘You were out all night. It’s not right.’

‘I am going back.’ Emma set her jaw. She would fight him if necessary. Perhaps her father realised this because he subsided into angry muttering. It was left to Ada to run her a bath and search for her Fair Isle jumper and warmest slacks. ‘You might as well be warm while you’re about it.’

Lying in the scented water, Emma thought about Jim Francis trudging out in the snow to his outdoor privy. The Francis house was clean and home-like but it still represented a level of poverty that Emma hadn’t encountered before. The tiny kitchen, the overcrowded bedroom. What were they doing now, the shell-shocked family? She was sure that Jim would still be out there somewhere, searching. What about Richard, the little boy who had cuddled up to her in the night? It must be a terrible thing, to lose your twin. She thought of the bedroom with the double and the single bed. Would Richard soon be sleeping there alone? She shut her eyes, trying to rid herself of the image.

She must have fallen asleep because she was woken by her mother calling from the landing.

‘Are you all right in there, Em? Ada’s made you some hot soup.’

The soup was an olive branch, she knew. She ate in her dressing gown, watched by her mother, from across the table, and Ada, from the doorway.

‘You should get some sleep now,’ said her mother.

‘Just two hours,’ said Emma. ‘Promise you’ll wake me at four.’

But, in the end, she hadn’t slept well. Voices echoed in her head. The DI, in answer to her question about Betty being abducted:
Yes, I do.
Richard:
I didn’t like it in the room without Betty.
Daphne:
Children’s imaginations are dark, Sergeant Holmes. That’s why they like fairy stories. Parents killing their children. The stone falling on the bad mother and crushing her. The parents who want a baby and get a hedgehog instead. Life, death, birth, pain, happiness. It’s all there.

She woke with a start, thinking that she was still in the Francises’ house. It was half past three. No point trying to get back to sleep. She dressed in the Fair Isle jumper and slacks. By the front door she found hiking boots and her mother’s fur coat, plus a Thermos flask. She put on the coat. It was slightly too big but wonderfully warm. She dreaded to think what Bob would say when he saw it.

Her mother appeared as she was lacing up the boots. ‘You will be careful, won’t you, darling?’

‘I won’t be doing anything dangerous,’ said Emma. ‘I’ll just be at the station, using my brain.’

It was an old joke, the Holmes brain. Her mother laughed, ‘Now that really is dangerous, darling. I do hope you find her.’

Emma gave her mother a quick kiss. ‘So do I, Mum.’

It was quiet at the station. Bob and the DI weren’t back yet and everyone else was out with the search teams. Emma could hear Superintendent Hodges in his office yelling at someone about getting reinforcements from other forces. ‘We can’t cope any more. Don’t you understand?’

Emma sat down with the case files. That was what the DI always said: ‘Go back through the paperwork. The answer’s probably there all along.’ Bob and the others hated paperwork but Emma secretly rather liked it. She prided herself on her comprehensive notes and careful cross-referencing. She looked at the timeline stuck on the front of the file.

Monday 26th November: Annie Francis and Mark Webster reported missing.

Thursday 29th November: Annie and Mark’s bodies found on open ground on Devil’s Dyke.

She wrote, ‘Friday 14th December: Betty Francis reported missing.’

She read through the witness reports from the 26th and 27th, she read the interviews with Patricia Paxton, Martin Hammond, Duncan Pettigrew and Daphne Young. Also in the file were the exercise books containing Annie’s story, ‘The Wicked Stepdaughter’, and her unfinished play,
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel
. Emma opened the play, supposedly written with Daphne Young. The teacher had been right, it was extraordinarily good for one so young. But Emma had been right too; it was extremely disturbing. Gretel hates her brother because he’s slow and stupid. She plans to murder him and blame ‘the wicked witch’. Gretel doesn’t believe in the witch but she plays on Hansel’s fears, telling him that the witch will ‘kill him in his dreams’. Hansel vows to stay awake for ever and there was a rather funny scene where he keeps falling asleep at school. Eventually Gretel persuades him into the forest (shades of the Dark Wood in
The Stolen Children
), where she proceeds to abandon him so that he’ll be eaten by wolves. The play ends there. What had Annie planned for the denouement? Would the witch appear like a deus ex machina and restore justice? Or would the children join hands and sing, ‘Friends together, friends for ever’? Emma doubted it somehow.

She was so absorbed in the story that she didn’t, at first, notice the phone ringing.

‘Call for you, Sergeant Holmes.’

‘Hallo, Emma. I thought you’d still be there.’

It was Rosalind Macateer, a WPC in Hastings. They had trained together and Emma had asked Ros, as a favour, to look into the records for the 1912 pantomime murder.

‘I heard about the other girl going missing,’ said Ros. ‘Tough luck.’

Tough luck. Ros was from a similar background to Emma, which was why they had become friends, but it didn’t make the stiff upper lip any more lovable at times like this.

‘You asked me about Ezra Nightingale,’ said Ros. ‘Are you still interested?’

‘Yes,’ said Emma although, in truth, those suspicions seemed very far away now. She couldn’t think beyond Betty and her walk down the hill towards the forest and the witch’s cottage.

‘Well, his son was called Gunther,’ said Ros. ‘Poor little sod. You can tell it was before the war. Gunther Adolf, if you can believe it. His wife was Elizabeth, maiden name Dunkley. They lived at . . .’

‘Wait,’ said Emma. ‘What was the wife’s maiden name?’

‘Elizabeth Dunkley.’

Roger Dunkley was forty-eight, according to their records. He had changed his name, probably glad to swap those Germanic forenames for the quintessentially English Roger, but had reverted to his mother’s maiden name. And Roger Dunkley had known both children, had visited their schools.

Emma thanked Ros. As she said goodbye, Bob came in wearing his fisherman’s coat

‘Bob,’ said Emma. ‘What was Roger Dunkley’s alibi for the children’s murder?’

‘Who?’ Bob was starting to take off the coat.

‘Roger Dunkley. The director of
Aladdin
.’

‘Oh, him. He was having dinner at the Grand with some bigwig. What are you doing?’

Emma was feverishly going through the telephone directory. Bob watched suspiciously as she picked up the phone and asked to be put through to the Grand. After a brief exchange and a long wait, during which Bob removed his boots, she was put through to the maître d’hôtel.

After a few minutes’ conversation, some of it (to Bob’s disgust) in French, she put the receiver down, eyes bright with excitement.

‘Put your coat back on, Bob. We’re going out.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The maître d’hôtel said that Bert Billington, the theatre impresario, stayed at the hotel on the twenty-sixth of November. He had a guest for dinner and the table was booked for eight.’

‘So?’

‘So Dunkley would have had plenty of time to kill Annie and Mark and make it back to the hotel for dinner. Come on, we’ve got to tell the DI.’

George and Edward enjoyed the slip, slide and stagger down the hill to the pier. At first Lucy shouted at them not to throw snowballs or slide on the patches of grey ice, but after a while she gave up, more concerned with not falling over herself. She clung onto Edgar’s arm, insecure in her high-heeled boots, and this, together with the dark and the snow, gave them an unaccustomed feeling of intimacy. Edgar couldn’t remember the last time his sister had taken his arm. The Palace Pier Theatre looked magical, lights sparkling on the dark sea. The pier itself, with its domes, archways and pavilions, was snow-covered but someone had sprinkled salt over the gangplanks and a muddy path led to the theatre at the end, past the shuttered booths and the What the Butler Saw machines. Lucy stopped at a poster showing Max at his most Mephistophelean.

‘Look, boys! That’s Uncle Edgar’s friend.’

But the boys, thrilled by the night and the snow and the prospect of a treat, had run on ahead.

A crowd was gathering in the foyer. Edgar pushed his way through and bought a programme. In the crush he was surprised to see Roger Dunkley, looking rather scruffy next to the theatre manager in his dinner jacket and bow tie.

‘Mr Dunkley!’

Roger started and looked to see where the call was coming from.

‘Edgar Stephens.’ He didn’t want to give his rank and lowered his voice when he added, ‘From the police.’ Even so, Dunkley looked rather shocked. ‘It’s nothing official,’ said Edgar. ‘It’s just my sister and her sons are here to see the show tonight. I can’t stay and I’d promised them that they could go backstage and see Max . . .’

‘Of course.’ Dunkley seemed to pull himself together with an effort. ‘I’ll take them through myself. Anything to keep the police happy, eh?’ He laughed, rather loudly. Edgar could see Lucy looking over. He beckoned.

‘Lucy, this is Mr Dunkley, the director. He’s going to take you backstage afterwards to see Max.’

‘Really?’ Lucy’s eyes lit up and the boys cheered. For a moment, Edgar really was the uncle of the year. Not counting Uncle Abanazar, of course.

‘My pleasure.’ Dunkley gave a bow, the most stagey gesture Edgar had ever seen him make. ‘Meet me at the pass door afterwards. I’ll show you where it is.’

‘Have a great evening,’ Edgar told his nephews. ‘Here, Edward. Here’s some money for ice creams in the interval.’

‘You don’t need to do that,’ said Lucy.

‘A promise is a promise,’ said Edgar.

‘Don’t worry, Detective Inspector Stephens,’ said Roger Dunkley. ‘I’ll look after them.’

*

Max heard the opening number as he played patience in his dressing room.

It wasn’t exactly Irving Berlin but it had a habit of worming its way into your head. Max often found himself humming it when he was shaving. He wasn’t on until the third scene, where Widow Twankey is doing her washing and is surprised by the mysterious stranger claiming to be her brother-in-law and wanting to meet her son. Max always enjoyed this time before his first appearance, listening to the pantomime relayed through the loudspeakers, knowing that he was going to take the stage very soon. That mixture of nerves and anticipation, played out to the tune of terrible songs, was – in his mind – the very essence of the theatre. So he was mildly irritated when a knock on the door interrupted the ritual.

‘Come in.’ He had to stop himself singing it.

It was Roger Dunkley. This was odd in itself. The director usually spent the entire performance in the wings, making frantic winding-up gestures if he felt the actors were going too slowly.

‘Roger. This is a surprise.’

‘I’ve just seen your friend, the policeman, front of house.’

‘Edgar?’ Max was amazed. He would have thought that Edgar would be working flat out tonight. ‘Is he coming to the show?’

‘No. He couldn’t stay, he said. His sister’s here with her boys. Your friend wanted me to bring them to meet you backstage after the show.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Edgar had mentioned something about his sister on Wednesday. Max had never met any of Edgar’s family. He was mildly intrigued.

‘What’s she like?’

‘Quite attractive. Not your type though.’

Max would be interested to know what Roger thought his type was.

‘I’ll look forward to seeing her later,’ he said.

Roger stood there for a while as if he wanted to say more but in the end he took himself off, humming ‘Boys and Girls of Peking’.

*

Emma and Bob quarrelled all the way up the stairs.

‘I still say we should tell the super.’

‘We need to tell the DI first.’

‘Why are you always running to the DI?’

They had reached the lobby now and Emma’s angry retort was cut off by the desk sergeant saying, ‘Sergeant Holmes, Sergeant Willis. There’s a lady here to see DI Stephens.’

For one crazy moment Emma thought it would be Betty, even though she would hardly be described as ‘a lady’. The woman waiting by the desk was not very old, probably slightly younger than Emma, but she was most definitely grown-up. She was also extremely pretty. Emma sensed Bob standing up straighter and puffing out his chest.

‘How can I help?’ asked Emma with a bland, professional smile.

‘I’m sorry.’ The woman’s smile was warmer. She was beautifully dressed in a black coat with a fur collar. She was also wearing slightly more make-up than Emma’s mother would think appropriate. ‘I was just wondering if Detective Inspector Stephens was here.’

‘He’s out but he’s due back very soon. Can I ask what it’s about?’

That charming smile again, a dimple appearing and a flutter of eyelashes. ‘It’s not important. It’s not to do with work or anything. Sounds silly but I found myself with the evening off unexpectedly. I wondered if he’d like to come to the pantomime with me.’

‘Detective Inspector Stephens is in the middle of a murder enquiry,’ said Emma. ‘I hardly think he’ll have time to go to the pantomime.’

‘Of course not.’ The woman looked duly chastened. Then Bob spoke up, like a fool. ‘Can we give him a message? I’m sure he’ll be sorry to have missed you.’

‘Can you tell him that Ruby called?’

‘Ruby.’ Bob repeated it like it was the most wonderful name in the world.

‘If you’ll excuse us,’ said Emma, ‘we’ve got work to do.’

‘Of course. Thank you. You’ve been very kind.’ She made her way to the door and the desk sergeant sprang up to open it for her, like a commissionaire. With a half-wave, she disappeared into the night, leaving Bob staring after her like the village idiot.

*

Edgar, taking a short cut through the Lanes, met them at the corner by the Bath Arms, incidentally very near the spot where a fourteenth-century nun was meant to be bricked up. They both looked agitated and excited. Emma was wearing a fur coat, slightly too long for her, that made her look like a child dressing up.

‘Bob, Emma. What are you doing here?’

‘Looking for you,’ said Bob.

‘Sir.’ Emma looked as if she wanted to grab his arm. ‘We’ve found out something about Roger Dunkley.’

‘Roger Dunkley? What?’

‘He’s Ezra Nightingale’s son.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Not entirely, but Ezra’s wife’s maiden name was Dunkley and he’s the right age. And I’ve checked his alibi and it doesn’t hold up. He had dinner with Bert Billington at eight. He could easily have killed the children before that. And he knew them, he went into their schools.’

Edgar thought of the director saying that the theatre was ‘in his blood’. He thought of Roger Dunkley’s photographs, so carefully saved in their envelope. Every picture had been of the boys’ grammar school.
I’m a bit of a devil with a Box Brownie.
He thought of Roger, every inch the theatrical, ushering Edgar’s nephews into the theatre.
Don’t worry, Detective Inspector Stephens. I’ll look after them.

‘We’d better go and talk to him,’ he said.

He meant to send Bob back to the station but somehow the three of them were running through the narrow streets towards the Palace Pier. The night was darker now and the light from the theatre seemed to blaze. Could it really be Roger Dunkley? thought Edgar. Being the son of a murderer didn’t make him a murderer, of course, but he had undoubtedly been nervous when Edgar had interviewed him. Betsy, Betty. Even the names were very similar. And if it was Dunkley, might he still have Betty hidden away somewhere? Might they actually be in time to save her?

They thundered through the archway welcoming them to the Palace Pier, galloping along the wooden gangplanks, slipping in the gritty snow. When they crashed through the doors into the foyer, Edgar was so out of breath that he could hardly speak. It was left to Emma to say, briskly, ‘We’re from Brighton CID. We’d like to speak to Roger Dunkley.’

The theatre manager gaped at them. ‘Mr Dunkley will be backstage. The performance has started.’

Edgar waved his warrant card and panted, ‘Unless you want me to stop the performance, you’ll take me to Mr Dunkley as quickly as possible.’

The man paled and, with no further argument, led them towards an unobtrusive door by the sign saying ‘Stalls’. Edgar remembered Roger pointing out the same door earlier.

‘This way.’

They were in a long tunnel. It must have run alongside the auditorium because they could hear roars of laughter from the audience and, when they got closer, they could hear the performers themselves, as clearly as if they were standing beside them.

‘Honestly, boys and girls, I despair of Wishy Washy.’ That was Denton McGrew as Widow Twankey. ‘You’d never believe that he’s Aladdin’s brother. Well, between you and me . . .’ – anticipatory giggles – ‘I did have a bit of hanky-panky with a handyman from Tonypandy. Ah yes, Handy Andy from Tonypandy. He’s Wishy’s father all right. Neither of them any good with tools . . .’

They reached another door. The manager opened it slowly and, to Edgar’s surprise, he saw that they were actually in the wings. They could see the stage, Widow Twankey in her monstrous striped dress pushing Wishy Washy, in limp yellow satin, into a large washing machine. From across the stage he thought he could even see a glimmer of green where Max waited to make his entrance.

Roger Dunkley was standing watching the performers. He started when he saw the door open. The manager beckoned and Roger came out into the corridor, looking furious.

‘What’s going on, Tom?’

‘These people’ – Tom, the manager, jerked his thumb accusingly – ‘want to talk to you urgently.’

‘You again.’ Roger glared at Edgar. ‘This had better be good.’

‘Is there somewhere we can talk in private?’ said Edgar.

‘My office. This way.’

The three police officers followed Roger Dunkley up a short staircase and into a room marked ‘Director. Please knock’. There Bob shut the door on Tom. Roger faced them across his desk, still looking angry rather than afraid.

‘Mr Dunkley,’ said Edgar. ‘Was your father called Ezra Nightingale?’

He didn’t know what he expected. Tears, collapse, angry denial. Instead, Roger smiled thinly. ‘I thought you’d find out eventually. So that’s your case, is it? I’m the son of a murderer so I must be a murderer myself. Congratulations. You must be getting desperate.’

‘You had dinner with Bert Billington at eight o’clock on the twenty-sixth of November,’ said Emma. ‘What were you doing between five and eight?’

Roger’s face changed but Edgar couldn’t tell exactly what the new expression signified. There was still anger and scorn there but they seemed to be overlaid with something like relief.

‘I was with my lover,’ he said.

‘What’s her name?’ Emma wasn’t about to give up so easily.

‘His name,’ said Roger, very slowly and clearly, ‘is Martin Hammond.’

‘Martin Hammond,’ said Emma. ‘Dr Hammond?’

‘Yes,’ said Roger, ‘Dr Hammond the headmaster, which is why it’s so important to keep our relationship secret. It’s against the law for one thing. No one cares about actors like Denton but there are people around – probably people like you – who would think a homosexual man shouldn’t be in charge of a school.’

That explained a lot of things, thought Edgar. It explained why Roger had kept the photographs, not because the children were in them but because Martin Hammond was. It probably explained why he had visited the school in the first place and why he had come to the funeral. Dr Hammond had been there too, he remembered.

Emma was momentarily speechless so Edgar said, ‘I’d like to contact Dr Hammond to see if he corroborates your story.’

‘Be my guest,’ Roger scribbled a number on a piece of paper. ‘But, please, be discreet.’

‘I will,’ said Edgar.

‘Mind you,’ said Roger bitterly, ‘once Denton gets to hear about it, it’ll be round the whole town. I sometimes think my father killed the wrong child all those years ago.’

*

It was a black joke, thought Edgar, if it was a joke. But maybe Roger Dunkley was entitled to his bad taste. For him it was, quite literally, gallows humour. Did Denton McGrew know that Ezra Nightingale was Dunkley’s father? Edgar thought that he didn’t but once the secret was out, that too would be known by the whole of Brighton. Yet Dunkley had deliberately entered his father’s world; he employed two actors – Denton and Diablo – who had been involved in the 1912 production. He must have known that his secret couldn’t stay buried for ever.

They walked in silence back down the tunnel. From the auditorium came the sound of Max, in full Abanazar mode. ‘You’re not my real uncle.’ ‘Of course I’m your uncle. Just look how alike we are . . .’

Edgar stopped. He remembered the exchange between Window Twankey and Wishy Washy earlier. ‘I despair of Wishy Washy. You’d never believe that he’s Aladdin’s brother.’ Abanazar wasn’t Aladdin’s real uncle, Wishy Washy wasn’t his full brother. A woman had longed for a child and given birth to a hedgehog. A woman had killed her stepson and laid the blame on her daughter. Mary and Martha had wept at the death of their brother Lazarus.