‘Oh? Why’s that, Mr Boynton-Dale?’ asked Prudence, all agog for his answer.
Posie had lurched towards the telephone and was already placing a call with the Operator, but she listened intently to Alaric’s reply.
‘Oh, well, the story is memorable in its own way. The enduring memory you’re left with is of one of the main characters who’s supposedly died, but actually it turns out they’ve been alive all along, just in hiding. Hiding under everyone’s noses. They just did a good job of vanishing. That’s all.’
Posie was staring at Alaric in absolute disbelief. It fitted! It all fitted! He mouthed a quick ‘goodbye’ at her and then headed off.
She clasped the collar of her navy woollen jumper nervously. A deep crackling voice could be heard coming on the line.
‘Constable Smallpenny? Posie Parker here again. I’m so glad I caught you. Just one last name to check, if that’s okay? Yes. Yes, I’ll wait. It’s a bit unusual, I’ll grant you that.’
A couple of seconds later there was more crackling. A pen had been found.
‘Florizel. Check that out. Are any new Schoolmasters called Florizel? Yes, of course. I’ll spell it out. F-L-O-R-I-Z-E-L. Yes. I’ll wait for your call back.’
****
As she waited, Posie studied her nails carefully, so as not to think about the rising tides of butterflies which were fluttering around in her stomach.
Posie Parker was a marketing man’s dream: a sucker for anything which spoke of hot climes and exotic escapes, she consequently had an enviable nail varnish collection of garish shades with names such as ‘Riviera’ or ‘Tropical Beach’. Today she had on ‘Watermelon’, a hot pink shade by Maybelline which had looked rather wonderful in the window of the Army & Navy Store on Victoria Street back in the summer but now in the December gloom of the office made Posie’s hands look an unfortunate shade of green. She chewed a nail and felt a bit of the Watermelon colour flaking off.
The desk clock struck ten and Len slunk out from his office, cup in hand. Prudence collected the mugs and stood to make the tea; she had taken it on as her sole responsibility when she started at the Grape Street Bureau and now couldn’t be swayed from the idea of this being one of her key duties, despite the very weak ‘filth’ which she managed to brew, and the not infrequent complaints she received.
‘I’ll have a proper cuppa today, Pru,’ said Len cheekily, his spirits much restored by finding Alaric gone. ‘None of this “kiss of tea” lark. I want a nice sugary brown cuppa which I can stand my spoon up in. Builder’s tea. Otherwise, I’ll make it myself.’
Prudence left the room muttering darkly to herself and Posie continued to eye the telephone, willing it to ring.
‘I’ll have my cuppa and be off,’ said Len conversationally. ‘I’ve got a case on in the West End today. I’m supposed to be catching a famous actress taking more than a curtain call with her leading man; her husband’s not best pleased, as you can imagine, and wants to press for a divorce. So yours truly is after some top-notch photographs to help him on his way.’
Posie grimaced. A lot of Len’s ‘shadowing’ work left her cold; it was often murky stuff but it paid a good deal of their bills at the Grape Street Bureau, so it wasn’t her place to come over all sensitive about it.
‘You off out anywhere yourself, Po?’ Len shifted his weight from foot to foot in the doorway.
‘As it happens, I am. I’m off to Rupert Street again. To your nurses’ hostel, actually. Do you remember where it was, exactly?’
But just then the telephone rang and Prudence appeared simultaneously with the tea tray and a packet of Peek Frean’s Golden Puffs. What Len was saying by way of reply was swallowed up in the excitement of the news from the Home Office:
‘You were spot on, Miss Parker! We’ve got him!’ Constable Smallpenny made it sound as if they had just located a seasoned arch criminal who had been on the run forever, rather than a distinguished surgeon who had gone into hiding for what might turn out to be the very best of reasons, but Posie was too excited to care.
‘Your Mr Florizel started to work at the Wickham Academy for Boys at Bishop’s Stortford in the summer of 1918. Almost the real date of birth was given, too. Just a couple of days out, it was.’
‘Thank you. Thank you so much. Golly! That’s ace.’
‘You were wrong through, Miss, about one thing. He’s not teaching any science subject. It’s English Literature he’s teaching. Does that fit at all?’
****
Posie came off the phone in a state of high excitement. Len had gone already so it was only Prudence left, much deflated by finding herself alone with just Posie for company.
‘I have him! I have him!’ Posie announced gleefully to no one in particular.
Posie suddenly remembered her meeting the next day with Mrs Greenwood outside King’s College in Cambridge.
‘Bishop’s Stortford? That’s near Cambridge, isn’t it, Prudence? I need to get there, tomorrow if possible.’
‘Yes,’ said Prudence, nodding, getting out a copy of The ABC Railway Guide from her top drawer. She thumbed through it until she found the right page.
‘You’re due at two o’clock tomorrow in Cambridge, aren’t you? I looked in your desk diary. You could easily do both things in one day. Those two places are on the same train route.’
Posie nodded, marvelling as usual at how efficient, or how nosy, her secretary really was.
‘You could take a train to Bishop’s Stortford in the morning, say for eleven. Then pick up a connecting train to Cambridge at one o’clock when you’ve finished. You’ll get to Cambridge in plenty of time for your appointment. Then, later, when you’ve finished in Cambridge, you can get a direct train back to London and be home in time for tea.’
Posie found herself nodding along dumbly. She asked Prudence to arrange the tickets, and then to call Wickham Academy to arrange a meeting with the Headmaster and also with Mr Florizel. She told Prudence to pretend that she, Posie, was a parent; anxious to visit the school to see if it might be a prospective place for her son.
‘It’s already the Christmas holidays for schools. So I need a legitimate excuse to turn up tomorrow, spying. Pretend to be my personal assistant. Tell them that I’m a rich mother whose son has a particular interest in English Literature and I wish to speak to a Schoolmaster who specialises in it, to see if it might be a suitable place.’
Prudence flushed. She wasn’t entirely in her comfort zone, lying. It didn’t come naturally to her.
‘What name shall I give for your son?’ she asked, a little stiffly. ‘They’re bound to ask.’
Posie used the first name which came into her mind. For some reason she thought again of Evangeline Greenwood and the strange business with the unanswered letter last year, and now the strange invite to goodness-only-knew-what in Cambridge tomorrow.
‘Tell them the boy is called Harry Eden,’ she said without much hesitation.
‘That name is etched on my brain for some reason already. At least I know I won’t forget it. Now I’ve got to dash. I’m off to visit one of Len’s old haunts. Wish me luck.’
****
Ten
Posie walked up and down Rupert Street several times in the pouring rain, but couldn’t find a hostel of any kind anywhere. The rain seemed to have set in for the day and was lashing down in stinging sheets. Dozens of black umbrellas thronged the pavements, obscuring the identities of the people they covered, making going along difficult.
Eventually she gave up and sought shelter in the same Post Office she had visited just the day before with Inspector Lovelace. Standing shivering by a display of writing papers, she watched the rain continue to fall.
Just then a petite, elfin girl entered the building, clutching at a grey waterproof cape which seemed much too large for her tiny frame. When she shook out the hood, Posie saw that the girl was wearing the familiar white hood and cap of a professional nurse underneath.
‘I say,’ Posie said, darting over a
nd coming straight to the point. ‘I’m frightfully sorry but can you help me? I’m lost. Is there a nurses’ hostel in this street at all? It’s just that I’m supposed to be meeting a friend there for coffee, and I thought it would be easy to find, but I can’t find it at all!’
The girl laughed merrily:
‘Don’t worry. Lots of people have difficulties finding it! I live there, I should know. It’s number 53B, on the same side of the road as this, about halfway down. The reason you can’t find it is because the original hostel was bombed in the Great War; all that’s left is a great crater in the ground. They’ve built a new hostel on the site next door to the original, but there’s no plaque or name up yet, even though it’s been standing almost four years now. The builders are taking a positive age finishing it off: there are still wooden hoardings all around it and it looks scruffy from the outside. Inside it’s not yet finished either, but beggars can’t be choosers. Still, most nurses would give their eye-teeth for a room in the Rupert Street hostel.’
Posie nodded. She remembered Dulcie had loved living there before the war. It was about as central as you could get.
‘How do you go about getting a room then?’
‘Priority was given to those who had had a room in the previous hostel, before the bombing. After that there was a waiting list as long as your arm for the other rooms.’ The elfin girl beamed at Posie, happy with her lot in life.
‘Still, it was worth the wait; I love living here. I hope you meet your friend.’
Somehow, if Posie’s crazy theory was correct, it would seem that Dulcie might have been one of those lucky few from the old hostel who had managed to keep the right to a room in the new one.
No wonder Len hadn’t found his girl, Posie thought to herself uncharitably. If the place had been bombed to oblivion who knew what chaos and uncertainties had followed? It was the same old story of people losing contact, losing touch. Posie felt a slight twinge of guilt: she had been so cross hearing about Len’s nurse-girlfriend that she hadn’t bothered to listen to the end of Len’s story about his search for the woman at all. In fact, she didn’t think she’s let him even explain that there had been a bomb dropped on the place, which might have saved her some time.
Posie found the hostel, and was glad she had asked someone in the know. Number 53B was obscured by damp chipboard hoardings, and bill posters had been pasted up everywhere, now going soggy in the rain. Next door was a huge hole in the ground, as large as an ocean liner, with rubble splayed everywhere. Edging her way through a rough wooden door cut into the hoardings, Posie found herself at the foot of some brick steps, in front of a new red-brick building in the current art deco style. She was apprehensive: what if she saw Dulcie Deane right away? Would she just confront her openly and have done with it?
Inside, there was a small reception area with a sideboard for magazines and a jug of water and lemon, and a small warden’s office. The place smelt of a curious mix of antiseptic and sawdust, and a small fake Christmas tree had been placed just inside the front door on a pristine linoleum floor. Packets of Christmas cards were on sale at the warden’s counter.
‘You don’t belong here, do you, Missy?’ A booming voice came from the warden’s office.
‘Can I help you?’
Its tones suggested the owner of the voice would rather do anything but help Posie. The owner turned out to be a very fat woman in her late fifties, large and ponderous in a black oilcloth overall, who sat beside a wall-eyed man who was busy reading a newspaper. They were obviously a married couple and each bore a strange familiar resemblance to the other, as is often the case when people have been married a very long time.
Posie tried her most enchanting smile.
‘Actually, you might be able to help me, thank you for asking. I’m looking for a friend of mine. We worked together during the Great War, in Arras. She told me to look her up here and that’s just what I’m doing.’
The fat woman curled her lip, unimpressed:
‘The war finished a good while ago now, Missy. Or didn’t anyone tell you? You’ve left it a bit late to get pally now, haven’t you?’
Posie saw the woman’s point and smiled again. A small white lie seemed like it might be necessary and she explained as convincingly as possible that she had been abroad for some years, in India, and was only just back. That she was only just now picking up where she had left off.
The warden stared back, unconvinced. Then at last she took out a register with a pen fixed to it with a piece of dirty string.
‘Name of the nurse you wish to visit?’
‘Dorothy Deane,’ said Posie quickly before she lost her nerve, the butterflies rising uncontrollably in her stomach. ‘But she was known to us all in the medical unit as Dulcie.’
Was she crazy standing here asking after a dead girl?
An ugly smile split the fat woman’s face. ‘Ah, why didn’t you say so sooner, dearie? Dulcie is top-drawer; one of the old crew, from before. Smashing girl. A real lady, she is.’
She had been right! She had been right!
Posie felt like dancing a jig right there and then on the new linoleum floor.
For the first time the silent, wall-eyed man in the warden’s office looked up. He was guzzling down something from a small box. Whatever it was he was eating smelt familiar to Posie; it had a strong sweet scent which carried across the counter. It smelt like something comforting from the nursery; something her nanny would have made, perhaps. He smiled. ‘Aye. Dulcie is a real lady. Treats us all like Kings, she does. Works her fingers to the bone, too.’
The man’s voice was surprisingly lyrical for such an ugly man.
‘Oh?’ said Posie, trying to remember if Dulcie had always been that hard working, or that courteous, but in truth she couldn’t remember. It was too long ago, and she hadn’t been that memorable. ‘Yes, well. I wonder, is she in just now?’
The woman looked in another book which seemed to be a signing-in and signing-out book for nurses. She shook her head mournfully.
‘I’m sorry but she’s out just now,’ the warden said knowingly. ‘Works all hours of the day and night, she does. Do you want to leave a note?’
‘Where is it she works just now?’ asked Posie, avoiding the question. She absolutely didn’t want to leave a note.
‘Oh, all over London, dearie,’ said the woman. ‘She works for an agency, temping: takes whatever she can get, does our Dulcie. Old people’s homes, or shelters, or the town hospitals when they’ve got a spare shift going. She’s even Matron at a school nearby when the Matron-in-residence goes off sick.’
So Dulcie didn’t have one main job. Strange. Why was that? It sounded like she was seriously hard up to be working so much. But did money and the need for it alone turn someone into a blackmailer?
‘Shall I take a message for you, pet?’ asked the woman, kindness itself. ‘What was your name again?’
Posie hadn’t given her name on purpose and she ignored the question now.
‘Oh golly, please don’t worry about it. I’ll drop by again soon,’ said Posie. She made a show of tidying her damp hair and rain-smudged make-up in her small silver compact mirror before leaving.
‘And I’ll send Dulcie a Christmas card with my details on it. Good day. And Merry Christmas to you both, too.’
Posie had her proof now. That Dulcie was still here. Now all she needed was to go away and think about how best to proceed.
As she swung out of the lobby and almost collided with a few nurses coming in on their lunch breaks, she realised that she had seen the Christmas cards at the counter before: cheap and gaudy with just a smudge of green glitter, they had been the exact same ones that had been sent with the blackmailing messages to Felicity Fyne, three years running.
Posie shook her head as she stepped into the rain. So much still didn’t make sense.
But she had the rest of the day to play with, and no appointments now until her jaunt to Cambridge tomorrow.
There was not
hing more to do for Felicity Fyne other than think and hope that the puzzle pieces would come together somehow. In any case, the weather looked like it would stay foul, and nearby was Regent Street and the alluring delights of the Burlington Arcade.
But first, lunch was in order. And the Florence Restaurant was so temptingly close.
****
PART THREE
Friday 22nd December, 1922
Eleven
The Headmaster’s study at Wickham Academy was cosy to the point of being suffocating. It was boiling hot, too. Posie peeled her gloves off slightly nervously.
As she sat waiting in a burnished leather armchair facing the huge old desk, she cast her eye around the room. She was used to traditional institutions, but this place took things one step further.
The blazing fire was surrounded by dark oak panelling, and the walls around were covered wall-to-ceiling with green tooled-leather books, so immaculate that Posie doubted very much that a single copy had ever been lifted from the shelves. Christmas cards dangled from a thin line of string around the wainscoting, and wherever there was a space on the walls, a black-and-white photograph of a cricket team from days long gone had been hung. The place felt claustrophobic. An old dog slumbered fitfully on an oriental red carpet. It niffed a bit, too; like a soggy woollen pullover.
Outside, although it was already eleven o’clock, the morning hadn’t bothered to get light, and sheets of unforgiving grey rain slapped hard against the mullioned window pane.
‘I’m sorry to keep you, Mrs Eden,’ said the Headmaster apologetically, crossing the room with his hands full of papers. The Headmaster, whose name was Doge, shuffled around his desk in his big black academic gown and sat down opposite Posie. He put his paperwork down in front of him and moved a huge glass paperweight which was filled with some unfortunate and long-dead creature which may or may not have been a shrimp. Mr Doge was a small man with a worried expression and his gown swamped him completely.
The Vanishing of Dr Winter: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series Book 4) Page 11
