Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  “What evidence?”

  Me half-dried clothes was beginning to stink. Me head to burn like that charcoal fire. All lies and me the easy target. The fox in the trap, and diseased or not, I weren’t going to make things easy for no-one. In fact, the fight hadn’t even begun.

  55. SARAH.

  Tuesday 14th December 1920. 3.30 p.m.

  I’ll never forget Mollie’s accusing stare. As if I’d been her very own butterfly on a pin struggling to free itself until Buck and myself had walked out of Wombwell Farm’s gate and into Longstanton Road.

  I called her ‘my daughter,’ but with each passing day, she’d become less so.

  She was ill. Albeit in just one finger yet, like the rest of us, needing urgent treatment. But she and the man I married have decided they’re immortal, ignoring my wifely and motherly instincts for their survival.

  Minx.

  And should I ever face Stanley Bulling again, I swear on my lost crucifix, I’ll kill him. We’ve become like used, worn coats. Our threads barely hanging together. The holes bigger every hour. The word ‘shrouds’ comes to mind, but not my husband’s name, as if he inhabits another country. His conscience burned away. And I swear that as I opened the gate to Myrtle Villa, I felt my sin’s child kick against my corset.

  *

  Buck’s cold little hand tightened in mine while we waited for Doctor Lovell under his porch trying not to draw attention to ourselves. Enough people were out and about whom I’d no wish to see, but who, under normal circumstances, might have become friends. Their children with ours. However, five months at Wombwell Farm’s bleak heart had sucked us in and suffocated us. A place not of safety, but risk.

  “Who’s that?” Buck suddenly pointed left, further down the road.

  “Where?”

  “By the smithy. I’ve seen him before.” He wheezed, stamping his feet to keep them warm. “It’s that same man hanging around Priest’s Field when Dad was digging the pit. But now his clothes are different. Dark blue. Look.”

  I turned to see a plume of smoke billowing from the roof of windowless building and smothering it. The smell of singed bone reminded me of our beloved Silver, for whom we’d received such a trifling sum. Who’d ended up as hound meat.

  “I can’t see anything.”

  “You will.”

  He was right, for when this smoke dispersed, my heart turned over. Matthew Crane, wearing some kind of uniform, was walking away. Each long stride seemed to have a devilish purpose until he’d finally disappeared round the bend.

  Where had he been for the past four months? I asked myself, my heartbeat in my ears. And why dressed like that?

  “Wonder where he’s going?” Buck stared after him through his poor, red eyes. “Should we tell Dad?”

  Never…

  “And the terrible news about Mrs. Myers isn’t for us to spread around. Alright?

  Buck nodded, but I knew he’d been thinking about what Peter Holden, the huntsman had told us.

  *

  “Mrs. Parminter?”

  Hearing my name so suddenly made me start.

  “Yes?”

  “Have you been waiting long?”

  Buck nodded, and I gave him a look.

  “It’s now the middle of December.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s been impossible to…”

  “Better late than never, I suppose,” interrupted Dr. Lovell, lowering his voice. “And I’ve been so busy trying to find all this protective clothing, I didn’t hear the bell. Do come in.”

  He was kitted out in a green, rubber overall with a matching face mask hanging around his neck and seemed to have shrunk. The skin on his unnaturally flushed face was pulled tight over his bones. His lips dry. His eyes behind his spectacles slightly bloodshot. “Let’s attend to you now,” he added. “I’ve a separate room we can use at the rear of the house.”

  “Separate? Why?” said Buck, and this time I squeezed his arm.

  “Follow me, please.” The doctor then half-turned to me as we processed up the narrow side path amongst clusters of rose bushes, all dead and, judging by their brown stalks, unlikely to bud again. “I presume the rest of your family are on their way?”

  Despite the dense cold, my neck began to burn.

  “Not this time,” I said. “But…”

  “I have to remind you, Mrs. Parminter, this is a very serious situation.” He unlocked the door to a small add-on that had a newly-tiled roof. In fact, the more I looked, it all seemed very new and, once inside, it smelt new, but was as cold as a tomb. “In fact, urgent is a better word. Leprosy can be likened to a runaway train unless treatments can be applied where there’s no risk to others. Sterile places. In isolation. And in case you weren’t aware, we have one such facility just a mile away.”

  “Vesper House?” I shivered.

  He nodded before switching on a large electric fire that had obviously been brought in from somewhere else. He then straightened, looking even more concerned. “But it’s under threat. The Church is tightening its belt, and because this disease is relatively rare, they say it’s not economical any more. But what I want to do, is to be able to plead with the Reverend Henry Beecham how vital it is that you go there. How, with the correct care, you could all be returned to good health by the end of next year.”

  “That’s a long time,” rasped Buck. “I’ll be nearly twelve.”

  “Better than being…”

  “Please don’t say it,” I interrupted the doctor.

  “Dead!” Buck clapped his hands for added drama. “I can say it. Dead, dead, dead…”

  “Enough.” Dr. Lovell pulled up the mask to cover his mouth and nose, yet he too was a victim. He’d told me so himself. So, this was a clever pretence. But how could I blame him? He was putting us first, trying to secure us a future, and my heart hurt to breaking point that Will and Mollie had shown nothing but callous rejection. And not just of the doctor. What would happen, I wondered, should the Bullings learn of their infection? I couldn’t envisage either keeping him on once his symptoms began to show. Or hers. And if they became enfeebled, what then? The work contract had been extended to May.

  *

  “Now, young man,” Dr. Lovell indicated a plain, narrow bed in the corner of the room. The kind I’d lain on twice to push two children into the world. “Let’s make a start.”

  “It won’t take long,” I stroked Buck’s hair that I’d already tried to comb. “We must do what Dr. Lovell says.”

  “I don’t want to go to hospital,” he said. Each little breath an effort. “And why not Dad and Mollie? Will it just be me and you?”

  The doctor switched on another bar of the fire and rolled up the right-hand sleeve of Buck’s coat.

  “No.” He then attached what resembled a long black snake to his bare right arm and stepped up and down on a pump to tighten it. “I’ll call round to Wombwell Farm once I’ve examined you both. I also need to check Walter and Ann Bulling, although when I last saw them, they seemed normal enough.”

  “They’ll all fight,” I said.

  “So will I.”

  With that, he removed Buck’s coat and pullover, and asked him to take off his trousers.

  “Your hands are too cold,” my boy complained.

  “Buck!” I said sternly. “That’s no way to speak to Dr. Lovell when he’s trying to help us.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s these gloves. Now, please turn over.” He then glanced up at me. “This rash between his shoulder blades…”

  “Bigger even since yesterday,” I said. “And hard for him to scratch.”

  “Please understand I’m no expert, but because this rash with its nodules and lesions, presents as the tuberculoid form, it shouldn’t spread much more. However, can you feel this?” He tapped the reddest part.

  “No,” said Buck, trying to get up.

  “That’s bad. And your low blood pressure.” The doctor looked at me again. “He needs to eat more. Especially dairy produce and beef.”

>   “Tell Mollie, then,” Buck murmured. “She makes me keep food back for her.”

  “And it’s all pork,” I added, feeling another blow to my heart. “Pork and bread. Bread and pork. We eat what we’re given.”

  Doctor Lovell told Buck to get dressed then came over to me. “With God’s grace, treatment can begin tomorrow. Meanwhile,” he went over to a wall cupboard and pulled out a small, brown jar with no label. “Apply this to Buck’s back tonight. Although it’s new and unproven, his lesions will at least begin to dry. And no,” he said, seeing me produce my purse from my coat pocket. “I don’t want money. I just want you to get better. All of you.”

  “You’re most kind,” I said, helping Buck get dressed. Aware of a black fluttering of crows beyond the window. “But what about his poor eyes? Is there anything I can do for them?”

  “I need to look at you now,” he avoided my question, exchanging his gloves for a new pair. “Especially given your other condition.”

  Buck immediately turned to me from his seat by the window. “What other condition?”

  “My feet,” I lied. “They’ve been sore a while now.”

  “Young man,” Doctor Lovell said to him. “If you go around the back of the house, you’ll find an old apple tree with a swing. Give it a try, why not?”

  And when he’d gone, the mistakes of my life buried deep since I’d first slept with

  Matthew Crane on that winter’s afternoon, seemed to rise up and spill out in a blur of tears.

  *

  “I must tell you privately, there’s a fresh warrant out for Stanley Bulling,” Doctor Lovell said, once he’d given me a drink of water, and I’d recovered my composure. “He’s not only wanted for the murder of Angelid Menelos, but Susan Deakins and now the wonderful Mrs. Myers of Wombwell House.” His gaze met mine, but I turned away. Since my father’s final illness, I’d never been able to watch a man’s eyes fill with tears.

  “Mrs. Myers took us in when we first arrived here last July,” I managed to say. “She was so kind and generous to us all. Nothing too much trouble.”

  “There is no God.”

  I blinked.

  “You still need to examine me,” I reminded him, still startled by that sudden vehemence. Also, afraid Buck might soon tire of the swing.

  “Of course, I’m sorry. But as you said, the rash is confined to your chest, this chair will do. Are you warm enough?”

  “Yes, thank you.” And with that I removed my coat and long-sleeved blouse, crossing my arms over my brassière. “Who was Susan Deakins?”

  He paused. A shadow seemed to pass over his eyes.

  “A schoolgirl who used to walk my dog when I was too busy. As for her mother… her mother…”

  “Please go on.”

  “She’s not slept since her daughter vanished. She only wants justice. We all do. And that reminds me. Rather than call in personally, I must make use of the Bullings’ new telephone and urge them in the strongest terms that they and the rest of your family come over.”

  He began to study the red, raised circles and strange ‘S’ shapes that began just below my collar bone and ended just above the top edge of my corset. I noticed him glance at it before resuming his examination. Those cold, rubber fingertips easing some of the irritation. “Relax,” he said, focussing on the biggest red circle near my right armpit, already weeping pus. “These are more difficult to check if you’re tense.”

  After a minute or so, he turned to me, lowering his spectacles. “Although you have a less advanced tuberculoid leprosy than your son, it could still spread like wildfire. Even to your unborn child.”

  “No.”

  “No, what?”

  “We can’t have the Bullings finding about us. We’ve nowhere else to go.”

  Dr. Lovell stepped back. An unfamiliar look of panic behind his spectacles.

  “Sarah, may I call you that? Understand this. I could be prosecuted for not doing my utmost to contain this disease. Moreover, as I’ve already intimated, if the elderly Bullings succumb, their farm will be finished. I’ve already let that mudering son of theirs go…”

  “Leave them to me, “I said. “That’s the best.” Although I didn’t know how.

  Buck was coming back. His head bobbing past the window. Eyes redder than ever. My little boy. And there’d been no mention of Christmas at the farm. Perhaps the old couple secretly knew of our condition. Wanted us out.

  And then I wondered if I’d given Matthew Crane the disease? If so, Dr. Lovell had been wrong. There was a God after all.

  *

  The examination over, he shed his rubber skin and switched off the fire. Both its elements crackled as they turned grey, releasing a strange smell. I shivered again and pushed my hands deep into my coat pockets, while the doctor quickly tidied up. The fingers of my left hand closed over that small, mother of pearl button which, for some inexplicable reason, I’d kept.

  “This Susan Deakins,” I began. “How old was she?”

  “Not now, please. We have to be away.” He picked up his case. Hesitated. “Thirteen. Still a school girl and never been found.”

  “This was in Stanley Bulling’s bedroom. In a drawer. It struck me as odd. I’m sure it’s from a liberty bodice. Mollie has the same…”

  Without saying another word, he took it, peering down at the pretty, little button and the single strand of white cotton thread still trapped in both tiny holes.

  “Thank you.”

  He wrapped it in his handkerchief just as Buck came in, bringing the chill of that darkening December afternoon in with him. His cheeks the colour of a Cox’s apple.

  “Anything wrong?” he asked breathlessly.

  “There’s a glass of water for you,” said Dr. Lovell, pointing to a small table near the fading fire. “You must be thirsty.”

  “I am.” And while Buck was pre-occupied, he added, “as for that shell. I’ve had it looked at by a linguistics expert. Those few words are in a form of Mauritian, influenced by Creole.”

  I thought immediately of the tragic and all-too real Bertha Mason in my favourite novel.

  “Deliver us from evil?” I ventured, and he gave me the strangest glance.

  “Precisely.”

  *

  “Time’s not on our side.” The doctor stowed away his watch inside his waistcoat. “We could be getting snow.”

  “Hoorah!” said Buck leaping into the back of his car and putting both hands together in a mock prayer. “Please God, for Mollie and me, make it as thick as it can be.”

  But I held the doctor back. Lowered my voice.

  “You know I’m pregnant?”

  “Naturally.”

  “It’s not my husband’s child that I’m carrying. I can’t have it.”

  Buck was banging on the car window. Impatient for the next hour of his life.

  “I was raped. Nof far from here, last July.”

  Was that the first flake of snow landing on my cheek? The sky was black enough.

  “I’m sorry. Do you know who it was?”

  I nodded. “Is it too late? You know, for…?”

  He took my arm, and with it seemed, an extra sense of purpose, walked me to where Buck had already opened a door.

  “Sarah, if you’d kindly wait a short while, I need to make two telephone calls. The first about that button. I won’t be long.”

  While he was gone, I scribbled just five lines in my diary, then hid it with that vet Joseph Cottrell’s details deep in my skirt pocket.

  56. JOHN

  Tuesday 15th November 1988. 10.10 p.m.

  “It’s not Piotr after all.” A whey-faced Catherine crossed herself then turned away from the corpse in the morgue and collided with me. “Apart from no birthmark on the neck, that one ear’s much bigger than his.” She looked at me. “Is there some God up there I should thank or what?”

  “Up to you.”

  Yet it was fear not relief tightening her tear-stained face, while all I could think of was the once
-living, energetic Archive Technician who only yesterday had left Stephen’s office yesterday in some agitation.

  “Poor Greg,” She sniffed, then fixed her pale, shining eyes on me. “Why him?”

  The question came too soon. I was still busy taking in the grim scene in front of me. More specifically, the sheet over his broken body that had formed into unrecognisable peaks and gulleys of an alien landscape. Not much face and no feet, I’d noticed, trying to quell my late morning sausage roll from creeping up my gullet. The formaldehyde smell was bad enough. Incense gone wrong…

  “Personal stuff, perhaps,” I said. “Or he stepped out of line. Found something he shouldn’t have. Whatever, he paid a big enough price.” As I spoke, I pressed the black box file even tighter against my damp trench coat, “When did he arrive at the university of West Norfolk?”

  Catherine bristled. Turned away to where Avril Lockley, giving us some space, was leaning her considerable bulk against the morgue’s door, checking her watch.

  “What a weird question to ask here, with all this going on. No, I don’t know precisely.”

  “Before 1985?”

  “Not quite sure.”

  “And where before that?”

  “I need to lock up,” interrupted Lockley. “But before I do, and for one last time, are you both convinced the deceased here is Gregory David Lake?”

  “Yes,” came in unison, yet something was gnawing at my mind and the words ‘smoke and mirrors’ whispered to me in that terrible place. Time was running out, so I added, “there seems to be some artificially blond hair. From a bottle. Or am I losing it?”

  “No.”

  “DS Morris said he was wearing black leathers.”

  “That’s correct, too.”

  Catherine sucked in her breath.

  “So, Greg was meant to look like someone else?”

  Lockley nodded before shaking Catherine’s hand, then mine. “Thank you both. We can move off square one now. Find out who’d also sedated Gregory Lake.”

  Shit.

  “His blood’s still being analysed. Could take a few days.”