Death at Dawn

by Noreen Wainwright

  When the telephone bell rang out, she jumped even though her ears had strained for that very sound for several hours.

  It was Henry.

  “I’ve been waiting to hear from you, Edith. Has she not been in touch?”

  “No and I’m really worried. She was adamant that she was coming to Harrogate, that she’d be there later today and that she absolutely must see me.”

  Henry tried to reassure her.

  “Goodness, Edith. There’s no time lost yet. There could be a problem with the train or she may even have changed her mind.”

  Edith’s spirits lifted for just a second.

  He could be right. But then her gut feeling reasserted itself. There hadn’t been a problem with the train and Daphne Sheridan hadn’t changed her mind. Something else had happened to prevent her getting in touch.

  Chapter 26

  He awoke with panic in his chest as if something was sitting there; the weight almost prevented him from sitting up.

  Was this what a heart attack felt like?

  His breathing sounded loud, wrong to his ears.

  He’d been taught a few tricks to keep calm and tried to remember them, but his thoughts slipped out of his grasp, like a piece of soap out of a wet hand.

  Just slow down your breathing, he told himself. And it worked. He kept his eyes closed and remembered the river, from long ago, the flowing clear water and the splashes as they skimmed stones. Salmon, or trout occasionally rose to the surface, flipped over and disappeared again. Every so often in the periphery of his vision the colour red and sounds of distress intruded, but he fought them and fought them and then he began to feel normal again.

  The feeling in his chest had eased. He began to get out of bed, slowly attached his prosthetic leg. It had improved with the use of that gunk the doctor had given him. It would happen again, of course, but he could deal with it. No one had to tell him that it could have been so much worse. He could have been Jack Peters.

  As the name intruded into his thoughts, He became agitated, his fingers awkward as he fastened laces and buttons. He looked into the shaving mirror and in his eyes he saw what he must do. The steel again, in the backbone. They had put steel in his leg in an attempt to stop him losing the second one.

  It had worked, his leg had been saved; though the damp caused a throbbing ache that gnawed away at him until he snapped at anyone close enough to try to reach him. He must do the deed. Rid the world of Giles Etherington. He owed it. He owed Jack. A hot feeling spread from his chest out through his body. He recognised it as rage. It had lay lain dormant for years, but it had surfaced again recently with a vengeance.

  He must get his gun and prime it and steel himself. This rage didn’t come naturally to him, wasn’t essentially a part of his nature, but until he killed Etherington it would torment him. This torment was too much to live with.

  He would do it today.

  Then, he grew hot and his head felt cloudy. Facts slipped out of his grasp again. Had he already killed Etherington? His prosthetic leg stretched awkwardly out in front of him, he sat back down on bed; his shoulders slumped and his cupped hands held his bent head.

  Chapter 27

  Edith woke early, a niggle of worry gnawing at the back of her mind. It took her a minute to remember that Daphne Sheridan hadn’t telephoned. As she got up, she tried to recall Henry’s words of reassurance. The woman was unreliable, probably quite unstable. Why should she not change her mind? What was bringing her to Yorkshire anyway? Arguably, it was the very last place she’d want to be.

  She decided that she wasn’t going to hang around the house waiting for the telephone to ring. She would speak to Henry; maybe go and see Julia. The funeral was tomorrow and the thought of Daphne turning up for it, which was a nightmarish one, was becoming increasingly possible.

  Like it or not, she was going to have to tell Julia about this most recent contact with Daphne Sheridan.

  At least Archie seemed in a better humour and surprisingly suggested an outing with Aunt Alicia. After the disaster of her last proper companion, her future in her isolated house had been uncertain. So far, so good but every so often Edith felt an intense anxiety about what they should be really doing or what might happen as her aunt became more aged and more infirm. It was one reason why she hadn’t left the area after her breakdown. She didn’t doubt that Archie was fond of their aunt and wouldn’t exactly abandon her, but his contact would be sporadic. What Aunt Alicia really needed was a contemporary of her own, someone from her childhood, perhaps, in the same boat as she was. For Edith’s own part, she made as much effort as she could to call on Aunt Alicia at least a couple of times a week and in fact it, wasn’t so much of an effort because she rarely left her aunt’s house without a smile on her face.

  “So, I thought, if we took her out for dinner and maybe to a play in the Royal Hall.”

  Edith frowned; she had the feeling that Aunt Alicia didn’t enjoy going out in the evenings quite so much anymore and wondered whether a day-time outing might not be better. She stopped herself just in time. Dr. Uxbridge had pointed this out to her on more than one occasion–this need to make everything work out for everybody else.

  Archie and Aunt Alicia could sort this one out without her help.

  “Anyway, there goes the telephone. Shall I answer it?”

  Archie pushed his chair back and made as if to go into the hall.

  “No, it’s all right, Archie. I think it might be Henry for me.”

  Archie gave her a look and it seemed to her that he was going to comment, but all he said was, “Well, I’ll see you later. It’s time I was out in the surgery.”

  It wasn’t Henry’s voice. Instead, the operator told her she had a call from London and as she was thinking that Daphne must have changed her mind after all, a man’s voice came on the line.

  “Am I speaking to a Miss Edith Horton, or is it Mrs. Horton?”

  The voice was confident and the man was well-spoken. In fact, it was a notably pleasant voice.

  Edith gripped the receiver tightly, though, nameless dread making her stomach clench.

  “It’s Miss Horton, yes. Can I help you?”

  “You don’t know me, but I’m under the impression that you know my wife, Mrs. Daphne Sheridan. Has she been in touch with you?”

  Edith went cold. What should she say? She had no idea what he knew or what she was dealing with here.

  How could she fob him off?

  “I’m wondering whether you’ve heard from her in the past few days.”

  Edith swallowed.

  “Yes, she telephoned me yesterday.”

  She would tell the truth as far as she could, but she mustn’t say anything that would incriminate Daphne. Goodness knows why I should feel the need to protect the woman she thought, but she did.

  “Well, I’m extremely worried about her as she’s disappeared from home without telling me where she was going, or leaving a note or message. What she did leave though was your telephone number in a prominent place.”

  There was a pause. Edith scrabbled about in her mind for something to say - but there was nothing, her mind had emptied of thought as feelings, mainly of dread, had taken over.

  Then, he said it.

  “The thing is, Miss Horton, I was wondering how you knew my wife.”

  Even if she felt like explaining, Edith had no idea exactly what she should say.

  “I don’t feel very comfortable talking about it on the telephone, Mr. Sheridan. I’m sorry.”

  She counted, in her mind…one…two…three.

  His tone was decisive.

  “I take your point. I suppose you don’t know me from Adam…and knowing some of my wife’s, well, tendencies…I don’t know what she might have told you about me so I can understand your caution. However, my primary concern at the moment, is to find her…so…”

  Edith said, “Have you thought about going to the police?”

  This time, she was sure she heard a note of irritation a
s he shot back. “If you really knew Daphne, Miss Horton you’d know that things are not that simple. Look, I can come to Harrogate today. I see by your telephone number that you’re in North Yorkshire. Would it be possible for you to meet with me?”

  Edith’s thoughts were a jumble, but one thing stood out. She would take someone with her; if Henry couldn’t manage it then she would ask Archie, despite the explanations that would involve.

  “Will you be driving up?” she asked, thinking of the hours that would take him, in some respects the longer it took, the better she would like it. There was no easy explanation, for how or why, she knew Daphne Sheridan. She wasn’t going to twist herself into knots trying to think of one.

  “No, I thought I’d get the train, hopefully work on some papers along the way. Worried as I am Miss Horton, life must go on. I have clients depending, on me. I will get the train to Harrogate, arriving about 3 this afternoon. Is there a tea room or hotel adjacent to the train station?”

  Edith thought, quickly.

  There was a cafe near the station but that wouldn’t do; a rough and ready place likely to be noisy–not the place you could talk in any privacy.

  “I’ll meet you at Betty’s tea-rooms,” she said.

  “It’s not too far from the train station and if you don’t mind, I might bring someone with me.”

  He gave a sound between a laugh and an exclamation and she hurried on.

  “Look, Mr. Sheridan, this is a bit of an odd situation. I don’t…I don’t know your wife very well at all and I would feel better if I had a friend with me.

  “Yes, yes, I take your point.”

  He sounded more conciliatory. “It’s probably best if you telephone me when you get to the station.”

  He agreed and with an awkward pause followed by. “Well, I shall see you later…and…thank you, Miss Horton,” they finished the call.

  Edith had imagined him as she and Henry motored into Harrogate.

  She saw him as handsome, which was probably a cliché and authoritative as some of the doctors and senior officers she had encountered in the war. She’d always found men like that intimidating. Indeed, some of the women, the senior nursing sisters and officers she’d encountered in France and later, in London had been, if anything, even worse. As a VAD, she’d felt, quite often, one step down from the lowliest orderly. Once, she’d even caught a glimpse of the famous Miss Maud McCarthy, matron-in- chief of the British Expeditionary Force though of course, she hadn’t exchanged a syllable with such a powerful and formidable figure.

  Henry had agreed to come with her and that made her feel both more confident and prepared for the meeting with this husband who Daphne claimed to be so frightened of.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust my own judgement,” she told Henry as they walked past the exclusive dress shop on Parliament Street. “I do, usually, but Daphne is such a strange person that I find myself believing one thing when I’m with her and something completely different when I’m not.”

  I wish I’d suggested somewhere other than a tea-shop was Edith’s foremost thought after they had exchanged an awkward couple of minutes talking about train connections and Harrogate as a shopping town.

  “I suppose we’d better get to the point,” John Sheridan said.

  His suit looked as though every fold and seam had been faultlessly finished and he wore a subtle tie that Edith supposed indicated some club or school or other.

  “Thank you both for coming to meet me, for agreeing to meet me.”

  “I’m just not sure how much help, I can be,” Edith said.

  John Sheridan flashed her a quick smile and his face changed from being pleasant to very handsome.

  His voice was easy to listen to and his absolute confidence is his articulacy and place in the world was supreme.

  Edith looked at him and felt completely sure that what Daphne said about being frightened of him was a lie.

  But, she chided herself; wasn’t that the very thing? The stuff of nightmares, when the aggressor presented such a safe and calm face to the world and the victim came across as hysterical?

  She shook herself as if ridding herself of these conflicting thoughts and tuned back into the sound of John Sheridan’s voice.

  “How did you come to meet my wife? Miss Horton.”

  There it was, inevitable, of course; the question she’d been dreading.

  Heat flowed into her face. She was desperate for a drink of the lovely comforting tea, but was unable to trust her hand not to shake.

  He was an intuitive man, of course he was; look at what he did for a living.

  “I know she had had a relationship with Etherington. Don’t worry about betraying any confidences, I know; I’ve known right from the start.”

  Henry spoke as relief replaced tension in Edith’s heart.

  Something had slotted into place; well, she thought that perhaps something had slotted into place.

  “I think, maybe that puts a different complexion on things.” Henry said.

  “Edith didn’t want to betray anyone’s confidence.”

  She was thankful for Henry’s intervention in a very awkward moment, but she was all right now. She could speak for herself.

  “I don’t know your wife at all well, Mr. Sheridan. We’ve only met a couple of times.”

  He frowned and then raised his eyes and looked straight at her.

  For a few seconds Edith imagined what it must be like being questioned by him in court.

  “She made you feel as if you had a special connection as if she really needed your help and support.”

  Edith swallowed at the uncomfortable truth in what he was saying.

  She’d been a fool drawn into the blasted woman’s web; been duped.

  “You’re not the first one.” This was uncomfortable; being a good communicator was one thing; mind-reading was something else.

  Henry shifted, his dragging chair making a noise.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Look, I haven’t come here to speak ill of my wife. I am genuinely worried about her and I care about her well-being. But, sadly I have no illusions about her state of mind.”

  Edith was uncomfortable. This was too close to home. Again he could read, it seemed, how uneasy his companions were.

  “It is difficult to understand; God knows it took me a long time. But, Miss Horton, Reverend Wilkes, a meeting with Daphne’s family, particularly her mother explains a lot. I’m not a great devotee of all this Freudian psychology, but I have to accept that my wife, somewhat disproves me.”

  There was a silence and self-assured as John Sheridan undoubtedly was, he was struggling here.

  “I returned from the war determined to live as full a life as possible. I then met Daphne.”

  He paused and looked at each of them in turn, seemed uncharacteristically uncertain for a moment.

  “I fell for her I suppose, in the common parlance. She was, indeed is, when it suits her, charm personified. Anyway, she had decided that she wanted me and that was it, I never stood a chance. In a way, I feel for old Etherington. When my wife decides she wants something, not a lot stands in her way,”

  Edith struggled to process this information in her brain. She had puzzled with the character of this woman, what motivated her, how truthful she was. What John Sheridan said did make a sort of sense–it did. She’d struck Edith as single-minded.

  She glanced at Henry, really longing to have him on her own so she could hear his views on this man and the situation. He had good judgement of his fellow humans; hardly surprising, considering his job.

  “I wanted to know what she’s said to you and of course, most of all, whether you might have any idea of her present whereabouts?”

  Edith decided she was going to go with her gut feeling here. She was going to trust this man and take her chances. His wife was an airy-fairy, insubstantial figure who did somehow cast a spell while you were in her company. She prayed that she wasn’t misjudging the situation and endangeri
ng the woman. But wasn’t it fantastical, apart from anything else that a man in his position would jeopardise his career- everything- to threaten a woman? Truth to tell too, a woman that he didn’t seem to love; when he spoke about her now, Edith recognised that it was without any blinkers. If he’d been under her spell once, that day had gone. So, why would he lie?

  He was talking again and Edith forced her own thoughts away and concentrated.

  “To understand my wife, as I say, you have to meet her mother. She totally controlled her and spoilt her at the same time. But, you’ll be horrified, no doubt, at such a character assassination. I must sound both uncaring and disloyal.”

  He put both hands out as if offering them something of his inner self.

  “I’m at a loss as to where to go from here. I know that Daphne has threatened to come to Giles Etherington’s funeral. I would have done my best to stop that, though I’m not sure exactly how. I was not going to lock her in. That may well be why she has left home, I sincerely hope not.”

  Henry spoke. “Are you worried about her safety, Mr. Sheridan?”

  His answer came after a tense few seconds. “I’m not sure; she has an instability in her character that might just lead her to harm herself. But, on the other hand, I believe her survival instinct is also strong.”

  A question had hovered at the back of Edith’s mind, was forcing itself to the fore.

  “Do you think she might have had a hand in Giles’s death…I mean was she capable of it? Would she have known how to shoot a revolver?”

  John Sheridan shrugged.

  “She does knows how to shoot and she is capable of feelings strong enough to do something so drastic. I’m not sure of her ability to plan and carry out such a deed though; it probably requires a stronger head than my wife possesses.”