The Shadow of the Sycamores (51 page)

2.    What do you know about the tragedy that happened just before that?

3.    Can you think of anybody who might know exactly what took place?

Other questions might occur to him as he was speaking.

The first door was answered by a young woman, who said, ‘That’s funny. You’re the second person that’s asked me that.’

‘That would have been my daughter,’ Henry smiled, ‘and she spoke to the woman next door as well, I believe?’

‘Well, Aggie was in seeing me but, aye, they spoke. We couldna tell her onything though.’

Undaunted, Henry asked his other two questions and then moved to the next house. After he explained that his daughter had already spoken to her, Aggie asked if she had got anything from the person she sent her to. She could give him nothing further on what he wanted so he thanked her and moved on.

After calling at the next four houses without finding out anything useful, his feet were getting sore, he was feeling quite hungry and his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth but he was determined not to give in.

Luckily, the next person he spoke to was around his own age and asked him to come in and have a seat. ‘You’ll have a cuppie now you’re here?’

‘That would be very acceptable,’ he replied.

It was more than acceptable. It saved his life. Along with the tea, the petite little lady produced a plate of girdle scones, a dish of butter and a pot of rhubarb and ginger jam. ‘Everything’s home made,’ she told him, proudly.

After he’d scoffed three (at her urging) of the delicious triangles, she insisted on filling his cup again and only when he patted his stomach and told her he couldn’t eat another crumb though her scones were the best he had ever tasted did she say, ‘Now, what did you want to ask me?’

He put his first question not really expecting a positive answer and his insides gave a lurch when she said, ‘Oh, I mind on the Millers, right enough. They was a nice couple, though their last week or so here wasna so good for them.’

‘Were you here then?’

‘I was that. Joe, my man, had nae lang finished serving his time in Aberdeen as a joiner and he bought this house afore we were wedded. He was the only joiner for miles – but I’m going ahead o’ mysel’.’

Scarcely able to form the words, Henry said, ‘You remember what happened? You can give me details?’

‘I mind what folk thocht happened but we never heard ony details for it was kept awfu’ secret. Of coorse, the rumours began to fly.’

Sick with disappointment, he decided to keep pressing her. She might come up with something she didn’t realise was a clue. ‘What rumours?’

‘Well, it was real queer. You see nothing really come out till after the Millers were left and it was all past. Jerry Rae …’

‘He was my son.’

‘Ah, now I see why you want to ken. Well, he was away to the army and, like I said, the Millers was away and all, afore the first whisper started. I’ve nae idea who started it but it was about the lassie, Jerry’s wife, going missing. There was search parties oot looking for her …’

‘She’d been killed?’

‘Now, now, dinna jump the gun. No, she was still alive when she was found but in a terrible state. Then this other whisper got going. One o’ the men patients was found lying in the burn.
He
was dead.’

‘The girl had killed him.’ Henry couldn’t help himself.

‘That’s what it looked like. They say he’d been trying to kill
her
.’

His brow furrowed in puzzlement. ‘So … had he been chasing the girl?’

‘Naebody kens for sure.’ The woman gave a secretive smile. ‘Then there was word that the lassie’s bairn was dead and all and that made us scratch our heads.’

‘I can understand that. And is that all you knew about it, Mrs … um …’

‘I’m just Becky and, no, I ken a bit mair than that.’

‘Oh, please, Becky, tell me the rest. I’ve got to know the truth. I heard that some people think my Jerry had killed them all.’

‘Na, na! Jerry never killed naebody. Mrs Miller found the lassie and they took her back to the house and, when my Joe was there measuring for two coffins, the infant’s and the man’s, he heard Anna telling Mrs Miller that Charles – that was the man’s name – he had killed her baby.’

Henry was thankful that he was seated. Becky had taken away his last hope and it was as if his whole body had turned to jelly. ‘The baby was definitely dead? It wasn’t just a rumour?’

‘It wasna a rumour. I tell’t you, my Joe made its coffin but we didna ken what had really happened. There was word that this Charles had killed the bairnie to get back at Anna for marrying somebody else and then he’d tried to kill her, to get back at Jerry for taking her away from him. He was one o’ the dafties, mind.’

‘But what about Anna. Is she still alive? Did she move away?’

‘No, no. Joe had to make a coffin for her later on an’ all. He wasna tell’t how she died, though, so …’ She shrugged her shoulders then drew in a sharp breath. ‘You’ve gone awful pale. I’ve been going on and on without thinking. You’ll have got an awful shock but at least it’s proved your laddie was innocent. He’d nothing to do wi’ any o’ it. Would you like some brandy to settle you? I usually have a droppie at nicht if I’m tired.’

Henry nodded and the spirits did help to settle him but he
had one last question to ask. ‘Becky, do you know why the Millers hushed everything up? Why didn’t they report the deaths to the police? If the baby was murdered …’

‘I believe they didna want the bother it would cause. Whatever way things happened, The Sycamores would have got a bad name and that would’ve been them oot o’ their jobs.’ Becky gave a little snort at this point. ‘Mind you, it didna last long after that, in any case. The army commandeered it for the rest of the war and the Millers just left withoot telling a soul where they were going.’

Henry was still puzzled. ‘I can’t understand how none of the men knew at least something of what had gone on at that time. Your husband surely hadn’t told any of them what he knew.’

‘Only me.’

‘I’ve just thought – would the workers have been paid to keep their mouths shut?’

Becky’s sly grin was accompanied by a wink. ‘Aye, well, maybe a puckle palms
was
greased.’

Knowing that this was as much as she would admit, Henry got slowly and cautiously to his feet and was relieved that he could actually stand without falling over. ‘I had better be going, Becky. My wife’ll be wondering where I am.’

‘Have you far to go?’

‘Ardbirtle.’

‘How did you get here? Have you a car?’

‘No, I walked a bit then I got a lift in a van.’

‘How are you going to get hame, then?’

‘I’ll walk it.’ Henry felt ill at the thought of the long trek ahead of him.

‘You’ll do no such thing! By the look o’ you, you wouldna get half a mile afore you collapsed in a heap. I’ll ask Jackie, that’s my son-in-law to gi’e you a lift. He’s oot at the back wi’ his new motorbike and he’s dying to try it oot.’

Fay was on the verge of going to the police when she heard a motorcycle stop at the door and, by the time she looked out of the window, Henry was being helped off the vehicle, looking
somewhat under the weather. Her first thought, naturally, was that he was drunk, although she had never known him to be drunk in all the time she had known him. She went out angrily to help him inside but the young man gestured to her to let him finish his job.

‘My ma-in-law said he’s had a bit o’ a shock so go easy on him.’

‘Thank you for bringing him home,’ she remembered to say before he jumped on his steed and roared off.

Looking at her husband, now seated in his chair by the fire, she saw that his face was ashen and he was obviously in such a state of shock that she asked no questions. When he was ready, he would tell her where he’d been and what had happened to him.

The more Henry mulled over the information Becky had imparted, the more desolate he felt. Jerry’s child had definitely died back there in 1916, naturally or not, so there was no grandson and, therefore, no great-grandson. Despite little Laurie – a sturdy six-year-old now – being the very image of Jerry at that age, he was no relation whatsoever.

That was hard enough for Henry to accept and, all credit to him, it made no difference to his attitude towards the boy but something worse than that was eating away at his innermost fibre. He had sought proof that Jerry was innocent of any crime but he still wasn’t sure. Becky’s assurance that his son couldn’t have killed anybody had to be set against the fact that the Millers had swiftly covered up the whole diabolically sordid affair and had even bribed the joiner and probably several others to keep quiet. They wouldn’t have done that if the male patient had been responsible for the two deaths, nor if the killer had been the girl who was Jerry’s wife. She had been the last one to go and Jerry was the only one left alive … and, therefore, the only suspect.

If the police had been involved, they would have found out whether or not the girl’s death was suicide and, if was, they’d have written off the case as nothing further to investigate. She had killed the other two and then killed herself.

But the police had not been informed – that was what he couldn’t get over. There had been no investigation. What reason could there have been for that? Surely, even if the guilty party was one of the patients, the good name of The Sycamores would not be sullied. The Superintendent – Miller – could not be held responsible as the insane could not be monitored
twenty-four hours a day. On the other hand, Jerry was a paid employee, trusted to behave with propriety, and he must have interfered with the young nurse, made her pregnant and been forced by the Millers to marry her. It was probably this side of things that they successfully hid, afraid that it would be a black mark against them if it was made public – a very black mark.

Unable to sleep with the burden of not knowing weighing heavily on his mind, Henry turned to his other side. It struck him suddenly that there could be another explanation. Jerry had been a personable young man, handsome, quiet and willing to do what he was told when he was told. Could it be possible that Mrs Miller had taken a fancy to him? Her age at the time was unknown to him but he hazarded a guess at between forty and fifty – an age when some women tried to regain their lost youth by having an affair with a much younger man. If that were the case, she would have done her best to shield him.

But that didn’t make sense either. The easiest way to take suspicion off Jerry would have been to lay it at the girl’s door … or the man’s. They were both dead and couldn’t deny any accusations. But what was he thinking about? He was as good as saying that Jerry
was
guilty. Sighing raggedly, he turned over again.

‘What’s wrong, Henry?’ Fay asked, sleepily. ‘You’ve been tossing around all night. What’s bothering you?’

‘Oh, my Fairy,’ he groaned, ‘everything’s bothering me. We can’t be sure that Jerry was innocent. Maybe he enlisted to run away from what he’d done.’

She groped for his hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. ‘No, my dearest Tchouki, don’t get lost down that road. He enlisted because both his wife and his child were … dead … however it happened. Certainly not by his hands.’

‘That’s what’s bothering me, though. His child – if it was his child – never got past infancy so we have no grandson and no great-grandson. Our Laurie’s not ours at all.’

‘But we always knew that. We’re only his guardians until his mother thinks it’s safe for him to be with her in London.
That’s why, God forgive me, I often hope the war goes on forever and she doesn’t come to take him away.’

He put his free arm around her now. ‘I feel awful sad when I think I’ve nothing to show for my life.’

‘We’ve got Mara.’

‘She’s the finest daughter a man could ever have … but she’ll never give us a grandson now. Even if she ever does get married again, she’s too old to make a son. I’m the last in the line, Fay.’

The catch in his husky voice made her kiss him. ‘Last is always best,’ she assured him. ‘Besides, I love you, my darling Tchouki, as much now as when I was bandaging your poor hand all those years ago.’

‘I should stop moaning, for I’m a lucky man. I’ll love you, my Fairy Fay, till the day I die – and pray God I go first for I’d be lost without you.’

James Ferguson had been feeling down for a few weeks. The war reports had made him recall the son he had lost because of the last conflict with Germany. And he wondered, as he had so often done over the years, if it would have been better for Leo to have been killed outright instead of lingering on for so long, only part of a man. It was good that he’d had someone like Samara Rae to look after him for most of the time. She was an absolute gem who deserved better than having to care for an aggressive, twisted man with a grudge against the world.

His own wife couldn’t hold a candle to Samara. Maddy was a self-centred moaner, who was pleased with nothing unless it benefited her, and it was always he who had to toe the line. Tonight was different. He had stood at a graveside this afternoon, as her body was lowered into the ground, and all he had felt was an immense joy. He had put up with her for almost thirty years but at last he was completely free.

The funeral was attended only by some of her friends and they all wore the same look of boredom on their faces as she had. Once it was over, he had taken the bus into the centre of the city with no idea of what he meant to do but there was
always plenty to see in Princes Street. It was just after five yet it was already beginning to get dark and the large stores, whose windows used to blaze with light to attract customers, had the blackouts up, as was demanded of all buildings in this time of strife. It hadn’t stopped the crowds, though. Offices were emptying, feet were scurrying here, there and everywhere and the headlights on all the vehicles were shaded with cardboard to conform to the blackout. The bus conductresses were shouting, in their usual quaint patois, ‘Come oan, get aff!’ as the people waiting to get on board were held back by those trying to get off.

Ferguson sauntered along, drinking in the normality of it and praying that his beloved city would not be flattened by bombs like parts of London had been. He took his time, savouring each step, and, having walked the whole length of Princes Street, he crossed over to go back along the world-famous gardens. It was well past six o’clock now and the shop and office workers had made their various ways home but there were still people on the move.