A Medal For Murder: A Kate Shackleton Mystery

by Frances Brody

  ‘Surely not. You’re very highly regarded here.’ I did not know whether this was true so gave my words great emphasis. ‘And where does Dylan come into this? Why is he so important?’

  ‘Dylan and Loy leave the theatre together. Loy is with Dylan until midnight. I must see Dylan.’

  ‘They won’t let you see him. He’s unconscious.’

  She threw up her arms in a gesture of despair. ‘Tell them. Tell them my man is innocent.’

  ‘Madam Geerts, I have no connection with the murder investigation.’

  I did not tell her that my own statement had led to suspicion falling on her husband. It was cold-hearted, but my main concern was to go on looking for Lucy.

  Here is my situation, Lucy told herself. It is Saturday afternoon. My watch has stopped. Granddad has received two notes – how much to pay, and where to leave the money, if he wants to see me again alive. Dylan has turned yellow belly and abandoned me. My ankle throbs, sprained or broken. I feel poorly. Perhaps I will die. Then they will be sorry – Granddad that he did not give me my inheritance, Dylan that he did not stand by me.

  This magical tower from which she would emerge triumphant was no longer magical. Those were bats hanging in the corner. She had not noticed them before because of the nests and cobwebs.

  ‘I am locked in, with no key,’ she thought. How ridiculous.

  She could move best by sitting on her bottom and shuffling. She had made painfully slow, inch-by-inch progress back up to the floor below the battlements where she had her ground sheet and blankets. Sitting with her back to the wall, she kept her painful leg extended, hoping that this was just a bruise and the throbbing would stop.

  Not yet would she give in to the humiliation of clambering up to the battlements and waving a white petticoat flag of surrender. She had come this far and could not bear the bitter taste of defeat. Dylan would come back.

  If she hadn’t dropped the key, she could have got to the stream and plunged her ankle in icy water. She could have had a cool drink. Damn, damn, damn. When would Dylan come back? If he was working all day, she may not see him until this evening. Perhaps he would turn sulky and leave her alone altogether. She would never rely on anyone ever again. How long would an ankle take to heal? She did not want to hobble into RADA in October. As an actress, she must turn this injury, this setback, to her advantage.

  Suffering. Pain. Fury. Frustration. What was the difference between a powerful emotion and an ordinary, everyday feeling? Without a mirror, she had to imagine her own pale face, drawn with pain, her pretty mouth turned down at the corners. This is how I should look if I ever play a part when my character has suffered an enormous setback, she thought. A character abandoned by the world would feel as I do now.

  Her ankle gave a sudden throb. What if sometime she were cast as a character who suffered constant pain? There were such people. At the dancing classes she had heard Madam Geerts whisper with girls’ mothers about prolapsed wombs and ulcerous legs. Miss Fell, a martyr to rheumatics, never a day without a twinge. Grandfather and his old war wound that kept him awake at night.

  She would need to be able to convey emotion through her movements, too. Facial expressions were all well and good for the other actors and the front rows of the stalls. An artist must play to the gallery.

  If she ever got out of this damned tower alive, her acting would improve no end.

  Surely Dylan would come back, saying sorry, bringing water, bread, a Cox’s pippin. Don’t think of food, she told herself. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. He had lied when he said he had nothing with him – no bread, no cold tea. She could bet a shilling that he had something on his bike. He had lied so that she would give up, be starved out.

  Once she had watched a horse licking a stone to cool its tongue. She gulped, trying for saliva, knowing how the horse felt. She began to count how many stones there were between floor and ceiling. This tower was older than people thought. Here and there were the marks of the builders. She had learned about that at school when they visited an old tithe barn. The illiterate builders had made their mark, to show how much work they had done in a day, and what wages they had earned.

  Lucy shivered. She pulled her blanket closer. If Dylan had really fallen out with her, it could be Monday before she escaped from here. Surely by Monday, if she did not collect the ransom, there would be a hue and cry.

  What if she died here? Mr Milner had died. Perhaps this was her turn. What if Mr Milner was waiting for her in eternity, a foul grin as he reached out for her saying, “Come, Lucy, take my hand.”

  He was here! There was a noise at the door, someone trying to get in. Oh God, what if it was the ghost of Mr Milner? She would have to stay here another night, and there were cracks and places for a ghost to enter. Forgetting to breathe, she listened.

  Someone was outside. Someone was at the door. Someone was trying a key in the lock. Having longed for Dylan’s appearance, now she felt angry that he had taken so long about it.

  Then, silence. She wondered had she imagined the sound.

  Sykes and I monopolised a bench at the edge of the Valley Gardens, our backs to the Grand Hotel.

  When I told him that Dylan Ashton was unconscious in the infirmary and unable to help us locate Lucy Wolfendale, he thumped the bench so hard he grazed his knuckles.

  ‘Damn his eyes. Excuse my language. What’s he doing coming off his bike? If he’d led you to Lucy we could be recovering stolen goods by now.’

  Sykes nursed his sore knuckles in the palm of his left hand.

  The evening was turning chilly. I put on my costume jacket. ‘I don’t suppose he came off the bike on purpose. And I’m wondering whether someone knocked him down deliberately.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ Sykes grunted. ‘And where do you think Dylan was going when he took the tumble?’

  ‘According to the police, his bike was in the ditch, on the way back into town, along Stonehook Road. My guess is that he had been to warn Lucy, tell her that we know about her ransom caper.’

  Sykes let out a sigh and stared at his knees. ‘It’s frustrating. I’d love it if we recovered Mr Moony’s goods where the Leeds police failed.’

  Of course he would. Sykes had been a policeman whose face did not fit, and who fell foul of his bosses. My own father, a superintendent, admired him but he would never be part of the police force again.

  Sykes seemed so sure that Lucy and Dylan were in on the robbery together, because Dylan’s thumbprint was on the ransom note. To me that did not ring true. I could not quite make a connection between the robbery and the ransom, but it was difficult to justify that feeling to Sykes. The way he saw it, Lucy took the pawn ticket, and now Miss Fell was once again wearing her ring. There had to be a link.

  He put the case for the prosecution. ‘She had the pawn ticket. What other conclusion can there be?’

  I put the case for the defence. ‘If Lucy has a stash of jewellery tucked away, why is she trying to fleece her grandfather?’

  ‘If you are right about the old man’s past, and he is the sergeant who did for the real captain, then who’s to say he is her grandfather? Maybe she found that out for herself. Wants to cash in, and cut the ties.’

  So at least he did not dismiss my interpretation of the photographs I had seen, and the oddity of the captain keeping two sets of army discharge papers, Sergeant Lampton’s death certificate, and two uniforms.

  ‘Did you pick up any gossip about the captain, or Milner?’

  I felt Sykes bristle. He disliked the word gossip, and preferred to think of himself as a gatherer of useful information.

  ‘I talked to an old soldier in the hotel bar. He reckoned Wolfendale and Milner were strange birds. Nobody likes Milner. He’s successful, rich, lacks social graces, but he’s influential. A man who gets his own way – or did do up to last night. As Milner rose, the captain fell. Like a set of scales. The captain is a recluse. No close friends or associates.’

  It all fitted. The more I thought
about it, the more I felt sure: Milner had blackmailed the captain. But Sykes was still focusing on the robbery. Quite right, since this was our case.

  ‘If Dylan and Lucy are in cahoots, which they obviously are, then he could be the person who robbed the pawnbroker.’

  ‘He is not the type.’

  ‘What type is that?’ He gave me his annoying stare of forbearance.

  ‘Don’t look at me as if I expect someone to wear a black mask and carry a bag marked swag, but he seems so . . . I don’t know, innocent. And the robbery took place on a Monday morning. When I parted company with Mr Croker, he could not understand why Dylan had been on Stonehook Road. He said it was entirely out of character for Dylan to be somewhere where he shouldn’t be. He has not missed an hour’s work since he started there – including all of last week, when he was in the play. That rules out his disappearing on Monday.’

  Sykes gave a disappointed groan. ‘We could take a drive up Stonehook Road, try to locate where Lucy is hiding.’

  ‘Yes, and we could search a haystack for a needle. I would prefer to have something to go on.’

  A sudden yelp from behind us made me jump. I half expected Madam Geerts to have returned from the Prince of Wales Hotel, having discovered that my statement had led to her husband’s arrest for murder.

  Hands covered my eyes. ‘Guess who?!’

  ‘Meriel!’

  ‘Spoilsport!’ She hopped, skipped and beamed round to the front of the bench, eyes shining with delight. ‘Kate darling, what news what news!’ She grabbed me, kissing both cheeks.

  Sykes stood up, and put a little distance between himself and Meriel.

  ‘This is Mr Sykes, Jim Sykes. Meriel Jamieson.’

  She grabbed Sykes’s hand as though she were heaving him from a lake half drowned and she held the life jacket. ‘Congratulate me, darlings. You’re looking at an assistant producer. My dear sweet badger boy has offered me a job in his theatre. I’ll be leaving Harrogate on Monday.’

  ‘That’s great news, Meriel. I’m so pleased for you.’

  ‘I wish I had a magnum of champagne on ice. I would invite you back into the Grand . . .’

  ‘Well, I do have a room there, but my bag is still at your place. In fact, I was thinking that would be my next move, to go collect it.’

  ‘Then I shall book in at the Grand too. I won’t spend one more night at number 29.’

  Sykes took another step back, keeping his distance. ‘I’ll fetch the car, shall I?’ He spoke to me, but she answered, grinning, cupping her hands over his ears and gently rolling his head from side to side. ‘Glee is required, Mr Sykes. Can you do glee?’

  ‘Not as a rule,’ Sykes said. ‘But I can laugh in French.’

  ‘Then please do so.’

  He made an exaggerated O of his mouth and gave a deep belly roll that resulted in a Santa Claus ho-ho-ho.

  Passers-by were beginning to stare at us.

  ‘Excellent,’ Meriel smiled. ‘I like a man who can produce a sound from his belly. Were you ever on stage?’

  ‘If I were I wouldn’t put it forward in evidence.’ Sykes turned and walked towards the hotel.

  Meriel whispered to me. ‘What a dark horse you are, Kate. He’s adorable.’

  ‘Mr Sykes is an ex-policeman and works with me.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, arching her eyebrows.

  During the short ride back to St Clement’s Road, Meriel regaled us with theatre stories, and how she and Mr Wheatley had talked about which Ibsen play she might choose to direct.

  Stepping from the car, I glanced up at the captain’s bay window. He was not looking out. Sykes stayed close behind me as I followed Meriel round the path and down the steps to her door. No sign of Dan Root at his workbench either.

  ‘Isn’t it glorious?’ Meriel said, unlocking her door. ‘At last my life is taking a turn for the better.’

  ‘You deserve it, Meriel,’ I said, ‘after all your hard work.’

  She was already rooting behind a curtain that covered the space under the sink. ‘I’m sure I have a drop of cooking sherry here somewhere.’

  ‘Before we’re into celebration mode, there’s a couple of things I should tell you, Meriel, and something to ask.’

  ‘Oh?’ She straightened up. ‘Better take a pew then, both of you. Don’t tell me you intend to get hitched and you’re asking me to be maid of honour?’

  ‘Mr Sykes is already hitched.’

  ‘Ah.’ She sighed. ‘Life can be so difficult can it not?’

  ‘It’s not good news, Meriel. Poor Dylan was knocked off his bike and is in a bad way in the infirmary.’

  Meriel’s expression turned to pained shock and she let out a cry as though she herself had been mortally wounded. ‘The poor boy. I must go to see him. Take him flowers.’ She looked with a brief glimpse of satisfaction at the stolen Belladonna lilies, perhaps mentally congratulating herself on her foresight, but then shook her head. ‘They won’t do. Hospitals call for lilac – that’s past isn’t it? Are we too early for chrysanthemums?’

  ‘And there’s more bad news. Monsieur Geerts has been arrested for the murder of Lawrence Milner.’

  I wanted her to protest his innocence, to come up with some miraculous little comment that would shed a new light on the situation.

  ‘How awful! I hope people won’t think there’s a jinx on taking out advertisements in theatre programmes. Poor Mr Milner took a full-page advertisement. It paid for the set. And the Geerts advertisement, well, that was a very useful contribution. And Croker & Company also took a half page, and there’s poor Dylan lying in hospital. Do you think the Harrogate papers will make something of it, Kate?’

  Sykes looked from her to me. He does not usually betray his feelings, but I could see he regarded Meriel with the same kind of astonishment a child might view a performing seal.

  I said, ‘I don’t know what the papers will make of it. It’s not exactly the best kind of publicity for the Spa.’

  She sighed. ‘Ah well, never mind. Perhaps it’s just as well that I shall be crossing the Pennines.’

  I would not let her get away with pretending to be entirely flippant. ‘It was kind of you to call and see Rodney earlier.’

  In her most sincere voice, she said, ‘Well of course I had to offer condolences to the poor boy. Though what can one say? It’s not my place to speculate whether poor old Geerts tipped over the edge and did for Milner. Everyone knew Mr Milner and Olivia Geerts were . . . close. It may have been that Monsieur Geerts could tolerate adultery but that the public humiliation of Olivia pouncing on Milner in the bar was quite another matter, from a male point of view. Isn’t that so, Mr Sykes?’

  Sykes looked for a way to escape her question, but she fixed him with a stare. ‘I wouldn’t like to speculate, Miss Jamieson.’

  ‘Besides,’ she added, ‘Mr Milner had kindly offered me a loan and Rodney was a real gent and came good for me on it. I said he shouldn’t, what with his raw grief and the shock, poor lamb, but he insisted on opening the safe and giving me twenty guineas.’

  More fool him, I thought.

  My bag was already packed from this morning. I placed it by the door. Meriel successfully laid her hands on the cooking sherry and found two glasses and an egg cup.

  ‘Not for me thanks,’ Sykes said. ‘I’m not a sherry drinker.’

  She poured the sherry.

  We clinked glasses. ‘To your new job, Meriel. I hope it will be a great success.’

  ‘I shall make sure it’s a success.’ She took a sip. ‘Vile isn’t it?’

  ‘Not too bad,’ I lied, valiantly. ‘Now there’s something else I have to ask you. About Lucy.’

  ‘What about her?’ Meriel asked.

  ‘She didn’t stay with Alison last night and we don’t know where she is. Do you have any ideas? It’s very important that I find her.’

  ‘Good for her,’ Meriel said. ‘I told her she should strike out on her own. But I’d be sorry to lose touch with her.’
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  ‘If she’s safe, that’s all well and good. But I still need to speak to her, just to make sure.’

  ‘Doesn’t Alison know where she is?’

  ‘No. Meriel, you’ve worked with Lucy for weeks and weeks. You’re in the same house. You know all the cast, her friends, her comings and goings. You must have some idea where she may have gone, even an inkling. Anything.’

  Meriel scratched her head with both hands. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Where did they rehearse, I mean when they went out and about?’

  ‘Oh that! I couldn’t say. You see, I have this technique. I set the cast the task of being in the role of their characters, in different settings. I might say to Lucy and Alison, meet up as Anna and Beatrice. You have agreed to make – I don’t know – lace for an antimacassar, or a Berlin woolwork creation for the chapel sale of work. Do it in character. Choose where and when. Leave Lucy and Alison behind and become your new selves. That kind of thing. I had them all at it. I know they went on a picnic – supposedly the chapel picnic. They were full of that. But I said “I don’t want to know where you were and what you did. I only want to see the results in rehearsal”. It’s a brilliant technique. I picked it up from a Hungarian Jew in Switzerland.’ She paused, as if expecting admiration.

  ‘Meriel, you know where Lucy is, don’t you?’

  ‘I really and truly don’t know. Swear on my mother’s grave, wherever that may be.’

  ‘If she doesn’t know . . .’ Sykes began, watching Meriel as she smiled and sipped at her sherry. Meriel fascinated him, and for some reason that irritated me enormously.

  When I didn’t speak, she said, ‘Oh dear, poor Kate. You really do want to find Lucy and I’m no help.Well, I shall think about starting to pack.’ She stretched out her leg and kicked the tea chest. ‘And in my next digs I shall have a chest of drawers. Now what’s this about a champers in our room at the Grand Hotel? My badger boy has gone back to Manchester so I’m free as a bird and open to all invitations. You and I should visit the Turkish baths, Kate. Bit of a splash, eh?’

  ‘We have to go. Meet you in the hotel later, Meriel.’ I glanced at Sykes. ‘We’ve got one or two things to attend to.’