At Home by the Sea

by Pam Weaver

  ‘Your mother and Mrs Sayers were best friends,’ Ada said cautiously.

  Izzie frowned. ‘You say they were best friends; why did they fall out?’

  ‘Because Brenda always blamed your father for Gary’s death.’

  ‘Dad?’ Izzie said, puzzled. ‘But why?’

  ‘Because …’ said Ada. As Izzie raised her eyebrows, she added quickly, ‘No, your mother never wanted you girls to know. I made a promise and I’m going to keep it. You’d be wise to let sleeping dogs lie.’

  ‘Gran …’ Izzie began again.

  ‘No,’ her grandmother said firmly. ‘I’ve already said far too much. I want you to forget all about this. It’s all in the past. What’s done is done and the price has been paid.’

  It was frustrating but Izzie knew her grandmother well enough to know that she wouldn’t say any more. On the bus back home she read the cutting again. Suspicion has fallen on a batch of sausage rolls which came from a local butcher … Had her father once owned a butcher’s shop? Izzie frowned to herself. She couldn’t imagine him working as a butcher but come to think of it, the night she ran away, her mother had said something about a butcher; now what was it? ‘How can I live with what that butcher did?’ Clearly something awful had happened and as a result a little boy had died. And what did her grandmother mean when she said ‘the price has been paid?’ Was that why her father had to go to jail? It was all very puzzling and Izzie knew she couldn’t complete the story until she had all the pieces.

  *

  Izzie’s new employer, Sid Pierson, had run the sweet shop and tobacconist near Worthing station for more than thirty years. It looked as if the shop itself hadn’t changed since Edwardian times, when Sid’s father opened it way back in 1907. As far as Izzie could see, the décor badly needed updating and everything needed a good clean, but her new employer lacked interest. Certainly his smoker’s cough meant that she was left in the shop on her own for a good part of the day but Izzie didn’t mind. She enjoyed making the place look more presentable. When it was quiet, Izzie first cleaned then filled the shelves, remembering to put the old stock right at the front and the new at the back. Sweets were back on ration. The government tried lifting rationing of confectionery in 1949 but the demand was so overwhelming that the whole country looked as if it were sliding towards anarchy so they’d had to reinstate it. Tobacco had never been rationed and because most people smoked, the shop did a brisk trade in cigarettes and pipe tobacco. By the middle of the week, Izzie felt settled and happy and she’d already made quite a few friends among Mr Pierson’s customers.

  *

  By the time Izzie had been at the sweet shop for two weeks, the shop looked cleaner and brighter than it had done in quite a while and Sid Pierson let her have a relatively free hand.

  It was during a very busy period that the police came into the shop. Izzie was serving a man who wanted twenty Craven A and a quarter of toffee crunch. Mr Pierson was serving another customer who wanted a measure of tobacco for his pipe. Sid was weighing it on the scales. The policemen, one a sergeant and the other a constable, walked up to Izzie.

  ‘Miss Isobelle Baxter?’ the sergeant asked.

  Surprised that he knew her full name, Izzie said, ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  ‘I’m afraid that will have to wait, Miss,’ the sergeant said in booming tones.

  Izzie looked surprised.

  ‘Isobelle Baxter,’ he continued, ‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of theft. You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be put into writing and given in evidence.’

  Izzie stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘Come along with me now please, Miss.’

  She turned towards Sid who stood with his mouth open. ‘There must be some mistake,’ he said.

  ‘There’s no mistake, Sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘The young lady is to come along with us.’

  As they came out of the shop, the constable bumped right into a young man and a much older woman. The woman cried out in shocked surprise and the lad, who was carrying a suitcase, said gruffly, ‘’ere, watch out!’

  Izzie was horrified to see that the woman was Mrs Sayers. What sort of sod’s law was it that the woman should be outside in the street the moment Izzie had been arrested? Her face burned with shame.

  ‘Excuse me, Madam,’ said the constable, saluting her with his forefinger on his helmet.

  ‘You wanna watch where you’re going,’ the young man called after them. ‘My aunt ain’t so young as she used to be.’

  Izzie turned to glance back at the pair. Mrs Sayers was clearly annoyed by the reference to her age because Izzie saw her hit the young man’s arm crossly. ‘You mind your manners, Raymond.’

  Izzie tried to say something but the two officers, one either side of her, simply marched her towards Union Place and the police station.

  Seventeen

  ‘’ere Bill, your Izzie has been arrested!’

  Bill Baxter, who was sitting in the office of his shop, leapt to his feet in shocked surprise. ‘What? How do you know?’

  The bearer of the bad news was his lorry driver, Mick Osborne.

  The two of them were having a fairly quiet day. They’d collected a large consignment of furniture as part of a house clearance the day before and were spending today sorting out the rubbish from the good. As was always the case with a house clearance when somebody had died, they were asked to take everything down to the butter in the butter dish. The occupier of this particular house had been elderly so most of the bedding, curtains and clothing was so old they would only be good for rags, but Bill was lucky enough to find the odd promising item. The garden tools were in good nick, as was the silver cutlery set that he’d found in the attic. The cutlery box itself looked pretty dilapidated and was hidden behind an old trunk full of books, which led him to suppose that that was the reason why the relatives had missed it.

  Sorting through everything for hours on end was a bit tedious, which was why Mick had popped out to buy a pie from the station café and get some fags from the corner shop where Izzie worked.

  ‘I just seen her being marched off to the local nick.’

  ‘What’s she done?’ Bill gasped.

  Mick shrugged. ‘Nicked summat, I suppose.’ He laughed, revealing brown and uneven teeth. He had a twinkle in his eye as he added, ‘The apple don’t fall far from the tree, do it?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ Bill said defensively.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Mick. ‘Tell them that when they’re giving your place the once over.’

  Bill’s face paled. ‘I just have to nip out for a minute,’ he said, grabbing his coat. The sound of Mick’s raucous laughter followed him into the street.

  *

  It was some time later when Izzie was taken into an interview room. It was cold and bare, with four tubular steel chairs with canvas seats, two on either side of a scrubbed wooden table. The same sergeant came into the room but this time he was with another man, a policeman in plain clothes. They introduced themselves as Sergeant Parker and Detective Inspector Norris.

  ‘You understand why you are here?’ asked the inspector.

  Izzie shook her head. ‘I don’t. You said it was theft but I’ve never taken anything that didn’t belong to me. What is it I’m supposed to have done?’

  The two men said nothing but the inspector shuffled some papers in a buff coloured folder.

  Until she’d come into this room, Izzie had waited in a cell. That was cold as well and it smelled of urine. The walls were tiled in white with a line of dark green raised tiles about waist high all around. There was a window but it was high up and very small so she couldn’t see out. All she’d had to sit on was a bed with a very hard mattress covered with an army surplus blanket. The door had a slide over peep-hole in the centre through which someone used to look in on her every now and then, which was a bit disconcerting. Izzie had stared at the blank wall opposite. Too bewildered to cry, she spent he
r time going over everything she could think of to see if she could work out why she’d been brought here. Had someone spilled the beans about Linda? Had Linda, in turn, accused her of stealing that skirt? It was a possibility but Izzie had the feeling it was much more serious than that.

  ‘Until two and a half weeks ago, you worked for a Mrs Shilling?’ the inspector said.

  ‘Yes, but she died.’

  ‘And you were asked by her daughter-in-law to tidy her office room.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Izzie. ‘I used to act as her secretary. I’m not trained, of course, but old Mrs Shilling didn’t mind that. I typed up her manuscripts and saw to her post. When she passed away, I was asked to pack up all of her books and bring the correspondence up to date.’

  ‘Mrs Shilling senior had some valuable pieces of jewellery, didn’t she?’

  Izzie began to tremble. Was this what all this was about? They were accusing her of stealing the old lady’s jewellery? ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where did she keep that jewellery?’

  ‘In her bedroom. She had a white leather case on her dressing table.’ Izzie leaned forward and said earnestly, ‘but I never touched it.’

  The policemen glanced at each other. ‘Last autumn, you went away with Mrs Shilling, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes, I may have touched it then,’ Izzie conceded. ‘She asked me to put it in her suitcase.’

  The inspector leaned back in his chair and flared his nostrils. His expression gave Izzie an awful sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘We went to Bournemouth,’ she ploughed on. ‘She had just finished writing her book and was in need of a rest. We stayed at the Royal Bath Hotel.’

  Her mind was working overtime. If someone had pinched some of Mrs Shilling’s jewellery, could it have happened at the hotel?

  The questioning went on for some time. Izzie had to tell them when she was alone in the garden room, how often and how many times she’d been left alone in the bedroom while Mrs Shilling was ill. They particularly wanted to know about her movements since she’d been sacked, how she felt about Muriel Shilling, her relationship with other members of the household. Izzie answered truthfully and did her best to stay calm.

  Eventually she was taken back to the cells and for the first time since this terrible thing started, she gave way to tears.

  *

  Bill Baxter and his youngest daughter sat at the kitchen table, each wearing an expression on their faces as if butter wouldn’t melt. For the past hour, two policemen had been snooping around the house, looking into drawers and cupboards. Bill was uneasy. All this reminded him of another time and another place when the outcome was far from good.

  For her part, Linda hoped she could trust an unsuspecting Ruth not to look in the bag she had asked her to put in the church hall.

  ‘I’ve brought a few things my sister wants to give to the church jumble sale next Saturday,’ she’d said when Ruth opened the door to the vicarage.

  Ruth had thanked her and invited her in for a cup of tea but Linda explained that she couldn’t stop. She might be tempted to stay for tea when she went back after the police had gone. She would apologise profusely and tell Ruth she’d made a dreadful mistake. She’d brought the wrong bag earlier that day, and could she have it back please?

  ‘Have you ever seen your sister with anything out of the ordinary?’ one bobby asked her. He was quite young for a copper and good looking too.

  Linda opened her eyes wide. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she simpered.

  ‘Any jewellery, or any money?’

  ‘Well she did come home with five pounds a couple of weeks back,’ Linda said innocently. She glanced at her father. ‘Isn’t that right, Dad?’

  Bill nodded. ‘She said the old boy gave it to her.’

  ‘Old boy? Which old boy?’

  ‘Mr Shilling,’ Linda said batting her eyelids. ‘But I’m sure she didn’t do anything she shouldn’t have, Officer.’

  The young bobby looked away quickly.

  Bill took in a breath and rolled his eyes. Why couldn’t Linda just keep her big trap shut? If she didn’t belt up they’d be thinking Izzie had hidden money in the house and the last thing he wanted was the coppers turning the whole place upside down. He had too much to lose. Upstairs under the floorboards by his bed, he still had that ruddy Edwardian snuff box he’d got off that posh bloke down on his luck. It was too distinct to get rid of just yet and if the coppers found it, he could be facing a hefty prison sentence for receiving stolen goods. That wasn’t the only hot stuff he’d got. He didn’t know why he’d done it but he’d squirrelled away a couple of brooches, a gold bracelet and a pair of pearl earrings. Right now they were in a bag he’d chucked into next-door’s coal hole. He knew his elderly neighbour, Mrs Knowle, was in hospital having her varicose veins seen to so it had been easy enough to open the door and shove the bag inside for the time being.

  ‘We’ve found a Post Office Savings book hidden in her room,’ said the other policeman. ‘She deposited five pounds in there.’ He opened it to show his colleague and pointed to an entry.

  The good looking copper nodded and looked up at Bill. ‘We’ll be taking this back to the station for a while.’

  They left soon after. ‘Did you know she had money in the Post Office?’ Bill asked Linda.

  Linda shook her head and arched her eyebrow. ‘I bet it was the money she accused me of pinching.’

  Bill sighed. ‘I suppose I’d better go down to the station and see what’s going on,’ he said, reaching for his coat.

  ‘And I have to see a friend about a bag,’ said Linda, following him to the door.

  *

  ‘So where did you get this money?’

  The inspector had called Izzie back into the interview room. She felt drained and terribly afraid. What if they didn’t believe her? What if they sent her to prison for something she didn’t do? She’d heard of such stories and always dismissed them, but what if it were true? What if it happened to her? Her Post Office Savings book was open on the table between them.

  ‘I saved it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Out of my wages, of course.’

  ‘Your sister said you came home recently with five pounds.’

  ‘Mr Shilling thanked me for looking after his mother and he gave it to me when I left.’

  The inspector pointed to an entry in the book. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘No,’ said Izzie. ‘Old Mrs Shilling gave me that five pounds after we got back from Bournemouth. It was a gift.’

  ‘They were very generous.’ The inspector gave her a sceptical look. ‘You see, I’m wondering if you didn’t steal that jewellery and sell it on for five pounds.’

  ‘Look at the date when I deposited it,’ Izzie said tetchily as she drummed the entry in the book with her finger. ‘I had that five pounds ages ago.’

  The inspector shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘So what about the five pounds Mr Shilling gave you? What did you do with that?’

  ‘My father took it off me,’ said Izzie. She was conscious that her voice was becoming more shrill but it was hard not to show her anger. This was an absolute nightmare. ‘Look,’ she continued, ‘would you just tell me what jewellery I’m supposed to have stolen?’

  The inspector opened the buff cover and looked at a piece of paper. ‘A gemstone bracelet, a pair of gold earrings, a small statue …’

  Izzie let out a cry. ‘Mrs Shilling took them with us to Bournemouth. I didn’t steal them. She gave them to the Russell-Cotes Museum!’

  The inspector frowned.

  ‘You don’t believe me but it’s true I tell you,’ Izzie wailed. ‘They were part of her treasure trove and she gave them to the museum. I took her there in the wheelchair myself. Ring them up and ask them.’

  The inspector glanced up at the clock on the wall. ‘It’s too late to ring them now.’

  Izzie leaned back and closed her eyes with relief. ‘So can I go now?’

  ‘The
constable will take you back to your cell,’ said the inspector, ‘and you can be sure that first thing in the morning I shall be on the phone to them.’

  *

  In Brenda Sayers’ sitting room on the other side of town, her nephew Raymond Perryman looked around and sighed. He was already bored out of his skull and he’d only just arrived in Worthing. Ever since he’d come here, Auntie Bren had been harping on and on about his cousin Gary and what a lovely boy he’d been.

  It was seeing that chick being arrested by the rossers that triggered it all. He wondered vaguely what she’d done. As for his cousin being so lovely, Ray had heard it all before and he didn’t believe a word of it. Back then, when Gary was alive, he’d been the one who’d got them into trouble. Of course Ray was upset when Gary died. Young as he was, he knew he could so easily have gone the same way. Auntie Bren seemed to forget that he’d been pretty ill himself.

  At nine, he made his excuses and went upstairs to bed. By nine-thirty he’d switched off the light and ten minutes later he was shinning down the drainpipe and legging it away from the house. He caught a bus to town and after wandering around a bit, he found a basement club called The Cave. It was a bit tame compared to what he was used to in London but the skiffle band was quite good and he’d made a couple of friends already; a lad called John Middleton, who worked on the railway, and Paul Dawkins, who was an apprentice motor mechanic. With a few illicit drinks inside him, Ray got into a punch up with some other lads and somebody called the cops. He ended up having to hide down some dark alleyway between the shops, which the locals called a twitten, until the coppers had gone. After that he felt much more at home.

  *

  Izzie woke with a back ache. She’d had a terrible night. It seemed as if the hours of darkness would never end. The lights were only dimmed at ten o’clock and the police cells were far from quiet. She heard drunks singing at the tops of their voices and someone banged on a door for what seemed like hours, begging to be let out. Policemen stopped by to tell someone to ‘shut-up’, and there was a constant sound of jangling keys and banging doors. Someone came in at stupid o’clock to take her to the toilet and she was allowed to have a quick wash, but she had nothing with which to brush her hair or her teeth. Breakfast was a slice of toast with margarine and a mug of very strong tea.