Posie’s office was full of flowers and congratulatory cards from well-wishers. She found Prudence already hard at work fending off phone calls from journalists: Alaric alone sold papers, but news of an engagement was top-drawer news. Prudence had started to keep a scrap-book full of press clippings about the happy couple.
‘But when will the wedding be?’ asked Prudence, beside herself with excitement.
‘I have no idea. Honestly,’ said Posie, almost bored of the fuss already, and stroking Mr Minks a few hundred times over. For once he seemed genuinely pleased to see her. ‘There’s a good deal to sort out.’
Posie waded through the piles of cards which had heaped up and had found one, in red handwriting, unobtrusively requesting Posie’s presence at a New Year’s Eve choral concert in Cambridge. She decided she would definitely attend.
‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ said Prudence, busily taking down Christmas cards and tinsel and throwing everything into a box, ‘I took a call earlier from Chief Inspector Lovelace. He sends his congratulations to you, of course, but he wanted to thank you for the card and presents you sent to little Phyllis in the hospital. He was very touched. Wanted to tell you they’ve had a ropey old Christmas but she’s turned a corner now and is definitely on the mend. She’s back home again with them now, too.’
‘What a relief. Poor little mite. Brrr. It’s cold in here. Can’t you light the bally fire? Hang the expense, for goodness’ sake.’
The weather in London had turned bright and frightfully cold. It was frosty too but too cold for snow; proper Christmas weather, albeit late.
Just as Posie was getting ready to leave the office and bundling herself up in her many layers in the waiting room, there was a knock at the office door.
‘Come in,’ called out Prudence, without paying much attention. She was pinning bills together at her desk, a favourite activity.
Posie looked up to check her reflection in the big mirror which hung above the fireplace, and as she did so she looked backwards and caught sight of a woman entering the room through the glass door. She looked away again as she didn’t recognise the woman and busied herself fixing her lipstick. Honolulu Bay today.
She almost dropped the golden lipstick cylinder when she heard the voice, which was familiar.
‘I have something for Miss Parker. Can you see she gets it please?’
Posie swung around, lowering her big shawl and the thick tweed hat which had been obscuring her face.
‘Felicity?’
Felicity Fyne looked over at Posie and smiled in a surprised fashion, a black and yellow hat-box raised mid-air. ‘Oh, hullo Posie. I didn’t see you there under all that… all that…all that…’
‘Wool?’
‘Quite. You look quite the hobo. Are you in hiding from the press?’
Felicity smiled archly.
‘I’ve never been here before, you know. It took me a little while to find your office, up this dingy dark alley; I kept thinking I was in the wrong place. Anyway, I brought you something to say thank you for your help, and congratulations. I read about your engagement in the paper. You are a dark horse! Alaric Boynton-Dale, no less! This gift is a mere trifle. But perhaps it will suit you better than your, er, current ensemble does.’
Posie gulped, half-embarrassed, half-cross. But mainly she was shocked.
She was shocked at the woman herself.
The widow’s weeds were gone. The rosary beads were absent. Felicity Fyne was wearing head-to-toe canary yellow, and her silver blonde hair had been shingled off into the very shortest of bobs. A slash of fuchsia lipstick completed the look. The overall effect was of some sort of tropical bird perched on a twig. Felicity Fyne had obviously decided to live again. Even if she wasn’t looking for a marriage.
‘Happy New Year Felicity,’ Posie managed to say without looking like anything was amiss.
‘I hope it will be a good one for you.’
****
The concert in Cambridge was, as before, spectacular. It was New Year’s Eve, a Sunday afternoon.
Dressed in her very best fur coat, and with a neat blue velvet hat perched on top of her head which almost exactly matched the colour of her eyes, courtesy of ‘Very Fyne Hats’, Posie felt she looked her very best for meeting her new nephew again.
And this time Posie managed to have a quick snatched tea with Harry, too, which was wonderful. Leaving him and Evangeline was hard; particularly as there was no way of knowing when they would be able to meet again.
After the tea and as the light was falling Posie walked down the road to Trinity College, where she had stayed so recently, but which felt like a lifetime ago.
She stood at the main gate and snatched a quick look at the beautiful old Great Court, rain-drenched and empty of students and visitors but now bathed in a beautiful orange evening light.
Who knew how long it would be before she came back here, or what would have happened by then? Perhaps she would meet Harry Eden Greenwood again, either here or in London, but nothing in life was certain, and it was too much for Evangeline to promise anything right now; she couldn’t risk it, for Harold was suspicious of everything.
Posie understood, but it made her sad.
Suddenly she froze, all the hairs standing up on the back of her shingled neck:
‘Nosy! Nosy Parker!’
She turned quickly. She thought she had heard someone call out that old, old nickname across the huge, echoing courtyard. Her brother’s nickname for her. She caught sight of a figure standing by Richard’s old stairway in the near distance, watching her, silhouetted against the setting orange sun.
Her heart lurched in her throat, for the man’s silhouette was achingly familiar. Tall, but slightly stooped, as if to take up less room that he actually did, the man was wearing a scholar’s gown and holding a wedge of untidy papers under his arm, and shielding his eyes with his right hand to get a better view of Posie, as if staring into a very bright light.
Richard.
It was Richard!
Posie was on the verge of shouting out her brother’s name when she realised her mistake. Looking again she saw that there was no one there; just a mass of wet, shadowy, flame-coloured reflections against the stonework. It had just been a trick of the light. A hope.
A couple of newly-arrived students for the upcoming term were shouting at each other across the courtyard, their voices echoing strangely off the stones, and it had been their voices she had heard, warped and unclear.
Shaken more than she liked to admit, Posie picked up her bag and scurried along the glistening stone walkways in the shadows of the walls of the old quad, chastising herself for her momentary lapse of reason: there were no such thing as ghosts, and she had proved that firmly once and for all with this strange little case involving Dr Winter. If it had proved anything, the case had proved that a rational explanation lay behind almost everything.
Posie reached the Porter’s Lodge and was about to pass through onto the street outside unobserved, quietly on her way back to catch the London train, when she remembered that she had received an important steer in the case from the friendly Porter, Simpkins. And he had led her to Harry, too, whether or not he had known the truth about Richard’s son or not. She ought to thank him, and at the very least wish him a happy New Year.
Posie rapped on the glass divide in the Porter’s Lodge, but she could see that the cosy little room inside was empty, and that people had been busy taking down the festive decorations, all of which had carefully been placed in an old tin box which was now sitting on the desk by the pigeonholes, ready to be stored away again for the next twelve months. When she looked again she saw a familiar-looking box of chocolates from All Saints Passage sitting on the desk, too.
Posie tapped again, harder this time, and at last an elderly-looking Porter came out from the back room with a cup of tea in his hands, apologising profusely.
‘Absolutely no problem.’ Posie smiled. ‘I’m after Simpkins, actually. I wanted to express m
y thanks to him. He helped me with something rather difficult, actually. I wouldn’t have got far without him. But he’s not on duty today?’
The Porter was looking at Posie strangely. As if she might not be quite right in the head.
‘Knew him, did you, Miss?’
‘No. I just said: he helped me out with a problem I had. That’s all…’
‘Was this recently, Miss?’
‘Oh yes. Just before Christmas. Not two weeks ago. Can you pass on a message, then?’
The Porter shook his head slowly, guardedly. ‘No, that I can’t do, Miss. I’m very sorry to have to tell you that the Porter you are referring to, Stan Simpkins, has died.’
Posie was stunned. ‘Oh! I’m so very sorry. Was it very sudden? How terrible. And he was no age at all! Thirty! If a day! What a shock for his family!’
She picked her bag up, genuinely sad, and turned to go, but the elderly Porter had come through the small doorway and was standing by Posie’s side, as if trying to make up his mind about something. He pointed quickly, as if embarrassed, to a small wooden plaque set carefully and unobtrusively into the wooden panels of the surrounds. Surprised, Posie scanned the short list of five gold-stencilled names in the wood and she gasped aloud.
The plaque was a small memorial to the Porters of Trinity College Cambridge who had died in the First World War, and the first two names were those of Stan Simpkins and Frank Bevans, who had both died on the same day, in 1916.
Posie stared uncomprehendingly, her heart ricocheting in her chest, and then she looked at the elderly Porter, as if for an explanation. Again, she had the unpleasant feeling of hairs standing up on her neck. The Porter shrugged and took a sip of his tea, as if for reassurance.
‘It’s happened before,’ he said in a slightly puzzled tone. ‘But we just thought the person reporting meeting Stan was a bit barmy.’
Posie swallowed hard. ‘What was he like, Stan Simpkins?’
‘To look at? Nothing special, poor lad. Dark. Big ears. I’ve a photograph here…’
The Porter passed a photo through the divide to Posie and she shivered as she realised she had seen it before. It was the cricket photo from 1913, featuring her brother Richard, and now that she looked hard, she recognised Stan Simpkins too, sitting happily on the bottom row. He had been grinning from ear to ear and was wearing a hand-knitted white tank-top which looked way too large for him.
‘He loved his job, Stan did,’ the Porter continued. ‘Lived for it! He loved helping out. He liked getting to the bottom of problems. Couldn’t do enough for people. He got on with everyone: visitors, students, the academic staff. We were all gutted when we heard about his death. Some who work here think Stan’s still here, haunting the place; almost as if he still wants to carry on like he did before. Some think his pal, Frank Bevans, haunts the place too. But that’s less likely. They never found his body, I’m told: so how could he appear as a ghost? But I don’t believe in ghosts anyway. Load of nonsense. Stuff and nonsense.’
Posie stared at the man, utterly speechless, knowing she should be horrified and scared stiff but all she felt was a strange sort of calm, an inevitability. When she spoke, the words which came were almost unbelievably trivial:
‘Just a minor point, but the open box of chocolates on the desk there…who do they belong to?’
The Porter flushed a dark red. ‘Not yours, were they, Miss? Sorry if that’s the case… But we found them, our team, the week before Christmas. No note or explanation was with them, they were just sitting on our desk. We assumed they were a Christmas present from a grateful Professor or someone who didn’t want to draw attention to themselves. And such a large box, too. They must have cost the earth…we’ve still got a couple left over. Want one, do you?’
Posie shook her head and as she came out onto Trinity Street, she exhaled deeply. She tried to shake off the shivery cold feeling her last encounter had left her with, but she didn’t succeed. Instead she shrugged her chin down further into her fur coat and took a brisk step out into the darkness in the direction of the train station and London.
Posie hurried along, desperate to leave. She gave herself a tough talking-to. She didn’t believe in ghosts. Couldn’t. She didn’t have the time or energy or inclination for them. Besides, tomorrow was 1923, and all the rough edges left by the war would have no place there. They would have to stay firmly in the past.
Also, on a more cheerful note, Alaric would be waiting in London at the Criterion for her, and she would banish thoughts of this strange afternoon by dancing to a new kind of music she had heard would be on the programme; something incomprehensible but exciting called jazz.
But she needed to eat something first.
She remembered the chocolate shop in All Saints Passage and decided to take a quick detour past it. Hopefully she’d find it open, catering for the tourist trade. A large box of chocolates would be perfect for the train-ride home; a veritable supper in fact.
And this time, sure as bread was bread, she wouldn’t be giving them away. Not to anyone.
Alive or dead.
****
Thanks for joining Posie Parker.
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Historical Note
The characters in this novel are all fictional. However, the historical timings, weather, dates, general background and detail described are accurate to the best of my knowledge, save for the following exceptions:
1. The chocolate shop in All Saints Passage, Cambridge, is fictional. There was no chocolate shop there (to the best of my knowledge) in 1922. However, it is based on a wonderful and unique chocolate shop, Bellina, which was located in All Saints Passage for many years, until its relocation in 2007 to another nearby street. See: http://www.chocolatehouse.co.uk
2. Fitzbillies on Trumpington Street, Cambridge, did open in 1922, but closed in 2014. It was famous for its Chelsea buns. I have made it into a tea room in this story, whereas in real life it was rather a shop which sold cakes over the counter.
3. I have played with dates with regard to Merlin, Benny’s police dog in the ambulance unit: although German Shepherd dogs were introduced in England at the end of the nineteenth century, they were used in the Second World War on the front line of battle, rather than in the First (or Great) War.
4. The Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) I describe is entirely fictional. However, CCS Number 8 was active in real life between 5 March 1917 and 15 April 1918. Rather than being located exactly at Arras itself (as in this story) it was at Agnez-les-Duisans, near Arras. CCS Number 8 was unusual in existing where it did for a relatively long time (see the short note below) making it a semi-permanent medical outpost. Please note that the characters working at this CCS as described in this story are entirely fictional, as is the bombing of the place.
A Short Note on Casualty Clearing Stations (CCSs)
These were always near the front line in the Great War of 1914–18. A CCS was not a ‘real’ hospital, but represented a stopping-off-point between the actual warzone and a fully-equipped f
ield hospital. Stacks of men were brought through a CCS to be patched up, operated on, or simply to be given the all-clear. Sometimes men died there in vast numbers.
CCSs were normally made up of canvas tents and a few huts, but were sometimes located in more permanent buildings. Each CCS had a medical team or unit of doctors, surgeons, nurses, orderlies and Red Cross volunteers.
CCSs often moved according to where the fighting was, and were therefore temporary by nature. They were also very susceptible to dangerous attacks by shelling, gunfire and gas and had to be able to move at a moment’s notice.
Today the position of many CCSs can be located in France and Belgium on the former front lines of battle due to the cemeteries which inevitably grew up there. A useful list of the CCSs can be found here: http://www.vlib.us/medical/CCS/ccs.htm#Top
5. The Lion d’Or in Arras is fictional.
6. The SS Victoria and its sinking by a U-boat in the English Channel on Christmas Eve 1917 is fictional.
7. The famous and chilling murder case (involving Edith Thompson and Freddie Bywaters) which gripped the nation in 1922 and which the Porter is reading about at Trinity College was indeed real, but the suspects had already been found guilty by 18th December 1922 (the verdict was given on the 11th December).
8. Eaden Lilley’s and Robert Sayle’s (where Posie buys Christmas presents) were two established Department Stores in Cambridge in 1922. Both have now gone.
9. The Department of Botany at the University of Cambridge is now the Department of Plant Sciences, but geographically it remains in the same place as its 1920s incarnation.
10. The Imperial War Graves Commission as mentioned is now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The Vanishing of Dr Winter: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series Book 4) Page 18
