Percy Crow

by Daniel Kemp

  We had been in the room for no more than a minute when Serena appeared at the open doorway. She had never before shown an interest in my personal affairs, be they playing around with chemical analysis or just the simple experiments I did in my adjacent laboratory, being totally engrossed and passionate about the fashion industry, something that was completely foreign to me. I was taken aback for a moment!

  “So, this is your holy sanctum, Harry. I expected more grandeur! One of walls lined with television screens connected to world centres and striking matching clocks announcing the time in Tokyo and New York. I'm a bit disappointed, to say the least. The estate office is of far more interest. So much more happening in there! Very sedate this one, too quiet for my liking. Why am here? Oh yes, I remember. We have just emailed the sketches of those coats I mentioned, to Franco in Milan, along with photos of me in this new hair colouring. He was so impressed with the colour that he wants it in this September's fashion show along with my entire summer and autumn collection. This September, can you believe it, Harry, this one! Paris, New York and London are no problem, they're next year! But Milan; in just over eleven weeks! It's virtually impossible unless I have them machined in the next few days. I'll need more machinists, and then more! Then there's the models to hire! Where will I get the stylists? Oh Lord, I need help and desperately soon. Plus, I simply must get shoes. I really, really must!”

  I was pleased that the doorframe to which she clung was sturdy and solid, not likely to fall apart as she seemed on the verge of doing. I looked at Joseph just as he averted his eyes away from Serena towards the ceiling. The situation needed a spot of light-hearted inspiration.

  “I really don't know how I can help, my dear. I'm no slouch with a needle and thread in an emergency, but I'm no seamstress. Not so sure about Joseph though! Saw him darning a great big hole in some socks once. How about it, you up for a bit of overcoat sewing, Joseph?” He laughed as did I, however, the joke passed without a Serena laugh.

  “Don't be a silly imbecile, Harry. I have experts to make up all my designs. Plenty enough! No, the help I want from you is simple. You just have to let me go for a week or more and live without me. I need time at my workshop in Lisbon. I'll be leaving first thing in the morning. September, can you credit it!” At that she was gone, to be replaced by the widest of grins on Joseph's ugly face.

  “When I marry the girl I will have to seriously think about retiring you, Joseph.” If it were possible, I'm sure his smirk got wider as he left whistling a tune I didn't know. He knew me too well.

  It took me almost one week to the day before I had managed my affairs and left Harrogate for London, during which time I spent many hours telephoning friends and acquaintances, trying to discover more of Katherine's surprise.

  * * *

  My family connection to George was complex. He was Katherine's much older stepbrother, sharing the same father, Paulo, but that was not the only similarity: neither had known much about their respective mothers. Katherine had known her mother for a short eight years before she was killed in a bomb attack whilst Paulo was assigned in his Russian ways to Beirut. George, on the other hand, had only known his mother for just under two years. But for fifty-two years she had kept Paulo's secret, misleading George to believe she was his aunt! The complication I had was that my great-grandfather, Maudlin, was their grandfather. I only found all this out a short while after I had a brief affair with Katherine.

  When Elliot, my father, and then my brother Edward were murdered, I settled the family's London town house in George's name, he was after all Elliot's butler-cum-secretary, and everything else for that matter. Loti, his mother, whose name had been changed by Maudlin on her defection in London, moved in at the same time and for the short period they had together they lived a happy, contented life. It took George a considerable time after I buried my own father and brother, to finally accept that he would never know more of his own father than what he had managed to glean at our only meeting with Paulo in Switzerland. The fact that he'd had Loti in his life in lots of ways eased the loss, but I was never entirely sure just how affected he was. For my part, that settlement was not just done for some altruistic reason, nor through a sense of benevolence towards the two of them. I hated the smell, the taste and the clamour of London, but most of all I hated its classist society. It had never been my desire, at any time throughout my life, to live there.

  Big cities are not my scene at all, with London being in my opinion especially full of people who judge others on their outward appearance and social position in life, more than what they are. My family is one of the oldest in England. Able to trace its roots as far back as the fourteenth century and King Edward III's daughter Elizabeth, more particularly to her husband and a lover, but I do not fit the model of the rich landed gentleman farmer type, and have no wish to do so. I treat everyone on merit and expect the same in return. George had been my friend and companion at Harrogate Hall from my birth, until his departure to London. His true identity had been hidden from all of us by Maudlin, and would have remained a secret had I not uncovered the truth.

  The Eton Square home had housed all the youngest sons born into the Paterson family, whose role was to manage the private bank in Queen Ann's Gate, affectionately known as Annie's, since its inauguration. This was where Maudlin served time and began his vast photographic collection. Edward's collection had been moved there too, from the rented apartment where his dead body had been found, just around the corner in Cadogan Gardens. Annie's had been removed from the Paterson's control on the death of Elliot and although no family member actually served there anymore, my name was amongst its list of directors. As far as London, Eton Square or the bank were concerned, if I never saw any of those places ever again in my life I would not shed a single tear, but it was to London I had to go. The only connection I had to go on between Maudlin and Percy Crow was photography. I wanted some information before meeting Katherine, something yet to be arranged.

  * * *

  I arrived at London, King's Cross at two that Friday afternoon and was on the doorstep at Eton Square thirty-five minutes later. My first time there since Loti's funeral, ten months previously. As I stood, waiting to push the imposing brass doorbell, the few good memories I had of my father in this house were overshadowed by the despondency of all the members here when Elliot had been found shot in the head. My own insecurity was salvaged when Mrs Squires, the cook, and now the only occupant other than George along with a footmen and a maid, greeted me with the same warm, overflowing enthusiasm that I received when I was a child on a town visit. I had known the two of them all my life, with only fourteen years separating George and me, but both looked tired beyond their years. George looked closer to seventy-eight than the fifty-eight years he really was, with Mrs Squires looking frail and aged. The thought of a genealogist pinpointing the exact nature of George and my relationship was complete anathema to me.

  After the usual questions regarding health, that I didn't want to delve too far into considering their appearance, I moved the conversation onto the reason for my visit, laying the copy of the local newspaper cutting detailing Percy Crow's death, with a full facial photograph, part of Jimmy Mercer's yellow file, in front of them both, on the vast table in same sitting room as my father had been found. Not a single emotion, centred on his demise, passed through me as I entered the room. The framed photos of Maudlin and other Patersons remained unmoved, as did the painted portraits on the wall. I wondered if it was through a sense of devotion to the Paterson family or one of indifference to change in general.

  “Do you know this chap at all, George, or have either of you seen him before?” I asked, noting that his once immaculately close trimmed goatee beard had somewhat grown amok and was fast becoming one of those increasingly fashionable unshaven looks favoured by soccer players. I was tempted to ask if his sanity was in decline but I refrained, fearing his reply!

  Chapter Four: Pingo

  “I heard the name once, Harry, but I
can't remember exactly who said it.” George was sitting opposite Mrs Squires on one of the sofas that flanked the coffee table, Phillip, my grandfather, had brought back to London from his travels abroad. The only chair that was left vacant was the grey leather one that I remember Elliot using when I'd come to tell him of my mother's imminent death. I felt embarrassed as I sat in it. Mrs Squires smiled at me as I was awkwardly fidgeting as George continued.

  “Both Maudlin and Phillip were in the drawing room entertaining some theatrical people when I overheard it. Looking back I think it was just before Phillip took over at Queen Anne's Gate, or rather Maudlin allowed him to think he was in control there. Normally the two hardly spoke, having only Annie's and the love of women in common. They never actually got on at all, Harry. I always thought that Phillip was a lonely man, overshadowed completely by your great-grandfather. I mirrored your grandfather Phillip in several ways. If I'm right, then I had been here about a month, dreadfully missed being around you and all the things at Harrogate. You were like my brother even though there were many years between us. It was a huge shock changing from the familiarity of the estate to the regimentation of London. I hated it here in the beginning, lacking confidence in a big way as a young man. The isolation of being away from the Hall didn't help me at all.”

  He had a sad, resentful expression as he entered into one of those long pictorial speeches which he was so fond of, never one to use a single word where several would fit, especially when it involved himself. I wondered how many stories Loti had heard whilst she was still alive here with her son, around a roaring log fire in the depths of a London winter with a man who she knew so little of. Countless, I hoped, as many and more as the years that they had been separated from each other. Mrs Squires had shaken her head when I showed her Percy Crow's picture in the Islington Gazette. She sat back the functional, but unimaginative sofa so loved by previous family inhabitants, relaxed by George's narrative.

  “No one pointed him out that night. I would have remembered if they had. I don't even know if he was here, or exactly why his name was mentioned, but I can remember what was said very clearly indeed, Harry.”

  “After so many years, George? Why so?”

  “Because it scared the proverbial out of me.” He glanced at Mrs Squires before fixing his widen eyes on me, imperceptibly nodding his head as he spoke those words.

  “Go on then, George. Deliver the punchline. The both of us are all ears.”

  That Percy Crow is like his namesake the bird. Evil creatures! They'd tear your skin off if you were to fall asleep for too long.

  “For more months than I care to remember, I had nightmares of birds eating me alive! That's why those chilling words have stayed with me all my life.”

  I had gone full circle from that Sunday morning back at Harrogate two years ago, when I was cleaning my guns and was told of my father's death. Only that time it was me chasing crows. I had been out shooting them before they picked the eyes from lambs on one of the tenanted farms. Some coincidence!

  “If it helps, Harry, I know it was not long after the Americans had shot down two Libyan fighter jets, and the Middle East in general was causing concern. The Israelis had bombed Beirut not long after the president of that country had resigned.”

  “Thanks for that, George, I'm sure that will help. Another thing that might help would be a list of the guests at that gathering. Wouldn't happen to have one lying around somewhere, would you?”

  “If he doesn't then I will, my Lord.” It was Mrs Squires who volunteered the information.

  “I kept all the old housekeeper's diaries from those days, my Lord. Mrs Hodges gave me them when she retired to Bournemouth. George was under a Mrs Thompson's guidance for a few more years before he fully took over the role of secretary. It's a good many years back, but there will be a record; somewhere, even if it was just a list of the food I served. Lord Maudlin was very particular in not inviting the same guests often, let alone serving the same meal. He said they would be 'more than usually boring if seen regularly and tantamount to insufferable if they feasted on identical dinners', I'll take a look in those files.”

  I could picture great-grandfather Maudlin in a fit of pique saying just that. He was never the gregarious type, preferring company of his own choice rather than those thought of as a social necessity. The same reasoning lay behind his hobby of photography. It was a private matter away from the commercialism and the philandering of his busy life. His photographs covered a vast spectrum of subjects, from women he had met to places he had visited, both either in a professional capacity or one of privacy. It also numbered many thousands, or so I recalled. After an hour or so of searching through a few hundred of them for something with Percy's image in, I gave up and suggested to George a trip across town to Ludgate Hill and Percy's once upon a time studio, for the following day. That evening we spent reminiscing about Loti, previous members of staff who worked here, of dinner parties thrown by either Phillip or Maudlin, or anything that George or Mrs Squires wanted to speak of, as we reacquainted ourselves with those halcyon days of youth.

  * * *

  Number 12 Pilgrim Street, EC4 was no more. Where once was Percy's photographic studios, presumably along with other commercial establishments, now there was the rear and side walls to a red bricked railway station. The whole street was sliced in two by it, with steps leading to the busy thoroughfare running from Ludgate Circus to Blackfriars Bridge in the south. Nothing that either of us could see looked anything other than modern. We tried the nearest pub. I have never been a lover of lunchtime drinking and so was thankful that there were only two in the immediate vicinity and none in an easterly direction towards St Paul's; however, the scarcity was not so in and around Fleet Street where there were numerous.

  I had downed five half pints of cold insipid lager by the time we arrived at The Flag, in Old Mitre Court, near The Temple, and I was feeling the strain. The place smelled strongly of disinfectant which maybe all pubs had done before smoking was banned, in this regard none we had so far visited differed. My choice of beverage had.

  Ordering two coffees from the sullen middle-aged woman behind the bar who was more interested in a male customer opposite, we occupied two rickety barstools, watching her pour the coffees from a purpose-made pristine chrome machine.

  “We're looking for anyone who may have known a photographer who worked in these parts from maybe the 1960s through to the eighties. Went by the name of Percy Crow. Had a shop the other side of Ludgate Circus, toward St Paul's. He may have drunk in this place back in those days. You're obviously too young to remember him in person, but I thought you might of heard something. Anything would help.” I asked, guessing at the beginning date, thinking it reasonable given what I had.

  The barmaid was in her late forties and not unattractive, brown hair with brown eyes and a figure that belied her years. As it was a Saturday I believed she only worked here at weekends for the extra cash so I had no delusions about the distinct probability of her lack of knowledge along with the; Never heard of him. Sorry, mate, we had heard everywhere else up until now. I was wrong.

  “I knew him. My parents used to own this place from 1976, until my mother, God rest her soul, died four years later. That's when Dad packed up and moved out of the trade. I was twelve when we left here. A very creepy type, was that Percy Crow. Tall man with thick grey hair and a bit deaf. I accidentally came across him once and remember how he smelled strange. Then, when I found out he was a photographer, I thought it must have been all the chemical stuff they used in developing. I was coming through the bar one day with Mum. We'd been shopping up west and she'd forgotten the key to the back door, so we came in through the bar. That's when that man Crow spoke to me. Dad became very agitated, quickly taking me straight upstairs and giving Mum a look I can still remember to this day.

  When we were going upstairs to the flat, he said that he was an evil man and I must never speak to him if I was alone. Never dwelt on it, nor elaborated, but that'
s why I remember the name. Put the fear of God into me, that did! We moved to Clerkenwell, but I've always kept in and around this area in one capacity or another. Worked on the papers for a time, then did pub work. Strange now I come to think of it, that I never saw the man again around here. There's a barber shop just round the corner where the old boy who runs it was here in the seventies. He might know more about that Percy Crow than I do. He goes by the name of Malcolm, but that's not his real name. Dad used to call him Frank. Frank the beaver.”

  “Funny name that, the beaver.” George had been all ears, reminding me of Jimmy Mercer in the way that he stirred his coffee.

  “Dad said it was because he beavered away into the lives of everyone he came across until he knew all there was to know about them,” our informative barmaid added, as she departed back towards the chap she was speaking to on our arrival.

  The streets were quiet and the air almost breathable without the usual weekday buses and cabs that polluted it so badly, as I consigned George to a jeweller's shop that we had passed with the task of buying a present for Mrs Squires. He wasn't pleased, as it was with his own money I suggested the gift be bought. He had not given her anything in the way of a bonus since his permanent establishment, which I found odd. I had never had a reason to enquire into his generosity, assuming that he would have been doting on her since the inheritance from his father, but that wasn't the case. If anything he was mean, having already discussed the need of diminishing her hours, along with her pay, now there was only him to look after. I argued against this, stressing her importance to the family and to his overall wellbeing. He countered with her age, and how the work was beginning to become too much for her. This I found impossible to dispute, leaving me to ponder on how best to overcome the problem.