Spectral Shadows

by Robert Westall

  They all came bundling towards the door where I stood, like a routed army, stumbling, groping. I got aside quickly, to let them past. Rory was half-­carrying Lenny, who was making a weird keening noise in his throat.

  Hermione came out last. She said, faintly, ‘You’d better ring the police.’

  For some reason I said stupidly, ‘An abortion?’ Perhaps I thought that if it was an abortion it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

  ‘No.’ Her words came out slowly, one by one, as if she was inventing them. ‘Somebody . . . cared. It’s . . . wrapped . . . in some kind of shawl. There’s a little crucifix on its . . . chest.’

  I got them all into my kitchen, and put a kettle on before I rang the police.

  ‘Whisky, Morgan, for Christ’s sake. Bloody tea won’t do any good.’ It was not really her voice. ‘I’ll stand on guard at the shed door. Before anybody else blunders in and sees it.’

  I must say the police were quick. Two uniformed constables leaping out of the panda. Perhaps they were not well informed; they came out of my workshop a damned sight quicker than they went in. I offered them a tot of whisky as well, and for once they didn’t refuse. One said weakly, ‘Jeez, I thought I’d seen everything in this game, but . . .’

  None of us seemed able to move from the kitchen, till they came and took it away.

  After supper, I felt a bit better; I took a stroll up to the Pond. I don’t know what drew me. There was nothing to see; no kids, no students on guard. Nobody at all, really, except one elderly man walking his elderly fox-­terrier, and bullying it into hurrying up to do its business. It was a grey cloudy dusk; it was as if a pall lay over the whole Pond; as if that smell, from my workshop, had driven everyone out of Wheatstone, like an outbreak of plague.

  Chapter 6

  We held a meeting, the next morning, in the workshop. Hermione said we’d better hold it there; get them in there again quickly, before they got spooked with the place. There were fifteen of us, I recall. Ten students, Hermione, James, Sam my other furniture restorer, me and Sergeant Crittenden. Of Lenny, there was no sign. And the rest of us looked weary and wretched. I kept on sniffing, surreptitiously, to see if I could still smell that smell. So did everybody else.

  I must say, Crittenden was very good. He sort of got us on a war-­footing. I didn’t reckon he’d ever rise higher than sergeant, but he was a good sergeant. Immaculately turned out; none of this tie-­halfway-­down-­his-­chest, like most of the CID. His dark hair brylcreemed like a shining black cap. He was not so young as I’d thought at first; quite wrinkled in his pale way, but oddly handsome in a stark fashion.

  ‘First a bit of good news,’ he said. ‘That revolver you found – it has been of some help to us. It was used in a murder – of an old occult book-­dealer called Solomon Hertz. Down the Charing Cross Road. The bullets match two taken from the body. So that’s cleared up. The murder was never solved . . .’

  Suddenly everyone was intensely interested. Everyone likes to be part of a hunt.

  Then he gave a wry smile. ‘But since the murder took place in 1921 – before most of your parents were born – it doesn’t get us much further. However, you will be relieved to know that since sixty-­six years have passed, we think it unlikely the murderer will strike again . . .’

  It was just the right touch; wry, bitter, Met black humour. It stiffened us; gave us a little of their professionalism.

  ‘I’ve had a little talk about you with my boss. He sends his sympathetic regards. And a few bits of advice.’ He counted them off on his stubby fingers.

  ‘One. Anything ambiguous – anything that you can’t make out what it is – call us in straight away. Don’t think you’re being a nuisance – we’d rather be safe than sorry. You were a bit silly yesterday – that box could’ve contained anything. Even semtex explosive. The IRA are not above dumping stuff quickly if they get into a jam. And even if it’s been under water, a bomb can still go off under certain circumstances . . . I’m only glad we’re not here this morning picking little bits of you off the telephone-wires . . .’

  That got the start of a snort of grim laughter. It is quite nice to think you might have been blown to bits, and instead still have two arms and two legs. It makes you feel ahead of the game.

  ‘Two. You can expect to find almost anything. That Pond is a dumping ground for guilty secrets – half of London’s guilty secrets, for all we know. It wouldn’t surprise me if you found more infant bodies – there were a lot dumped in the old days, when we didn’t have these NHS abortion clinics, and it still happens sometimes, even now. Use your noses, and you’ll save yourselves a lot of grief.’

  There it was. Out in the open. Talked about in a matter-­of-fact way. A normal, if grim, part of life. Something the Met had to handle every day, and if they could handle it, so could we . . .

  ‘On the other hand, I’m expecting you to find some rifles too. Not an IRA cache.’ (He actually smiled.) ‘No, a lot of poor buggers in the First World War, who were home on leave, and didn’t want to go back to the front, got into the habit of dumping their gear in the nearest standing water. Their kitbags usually floated, but the rifles went straight to the bottom. We sometimes get them turned in by people doing your kind of job when the Thames is at low water . . . mudlarks, we call them.’

  Again a grim rumble of humour from the group. And also a prick of interest.

  ‘If you find a rifle, for God’s sake don’t fiddle with the trigger – a round up the spout can still go off after seventy years, and if the barrel’s blocked with mud, it turns into a bomb that can make quite a mess.’

  They were really laughing now.

  ‘Likewise bombs and shells from the Second World War. I suppose you all know what a bomb looks like . . . ? Got fins on the end of it.’

  Having got them in a good mood, he finished by saying, ‘You’re doing a public service. This pond has got to be drained, and once it’s drained, it’s got to be searched. We don’t want bombs or shells exploding under the new tennis-­courts. And, frankly, the police have not got time to do the search themselves. You’re freeing us for our proper job, which is catching criminals. Thank you. Any questions?’

  Rory looked up and asked, ‘How long before the Pond’s fully dry, sergeant?’

  ‘A long time yet. The fire brigade are on to a deeper bit at the south end. Even they don’t know how deep that is. But that’s quite useful, because the water from the rest of the mud is slowly draining into it. It should make your job a bit easier. Anything else?’

  Everyone shook their heads sagely, and then they made a move for the door, sounding moderately cheerful. Only Hermione lingered behind.

  ‘What about . . . that baby . . . ?’

  Crittenden stared at the floor. ‘Murdered,’ he said. ‘The breastbone was smashed in – they think by a blow with a sharp implement.’

  Hermione went as white as a sheet. ‘When?’

  ‘They think . . . within the last ten years. That’s working from the type of plywood used to make the box. The strangest thing is . . . you know it was wrapped in something? Well, it was a piece torn from a linen bed-­sheet. And there was a laundry-­mark on that sheet and . . . it was the same laundry-mark as we found on that shirt wrapped around the revolver. Sixty years apart, and the same laundry-­mark.’

  ‘Have they traced the laundry?’ I don’t know how Hermione got the words out.

  ‘They think it was a laundry that was bombed in the War, and never reopened. The trail’s quite cold there, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I never heard of anything so crazy . . .’ I said.

  He looked at me. ‘No, it doesn’t make sense, any kind of sense. Except that people keep sheets a very long time, locked up in linen-­cupboards . . . I hear you people are still selling the public Victorian night-­dresses at a good profit?’

  ‘Not me,’ I said. ‘But some.’

  ‘Stuff lasts a long time.’ He flicked me an odd lopsided grin. ‘But who am I to tell that to an antique deal
er?’ He turned to Hermione. ‘What I have just told you is in confidence, madam. We want to keep quiet about this baby business at the moment, and I’m sure you don’t want your work at the Pond held up by crowds of ghouls. In any case, I’ve asked the local panda to keep in close touch with you. Good day.’

  And he went, leaving us staring at each other, speechless.

  The next two days were fairly peaceful. The warm spell was developing into something of a heat wave, and the students, as brown as berries, worked in very short shorts and wellies. The huge saucer-­shaped depression of the Pond now broke up into three areas. Close to shore, the drying mud was cracking into irregular plates a foot across, which the trampling feet crushed to a foul-­smelling dust that hung in the hot air. Further out, the deep mud still glistened and popped, talking with a low chuckling noise that we no longer really heard. And at the south end, the fire appliance still pumped away at a figure-­of-eight of black water.

  The students could move on the dried-­out part without ladders now, though some cracked patches were still treacherous, and one or two of them ended knee-­deep in blackness. Sven even lost one of his wellies. A lot of smaller mounds were poking up, as drying-­out continued, and there was a rush to investigate them before the thieving kids got to them. The kids were still lurking quite openly round the path, especially at lunch-­time or after school, making occasional dashes to try to steal something. But Hermione had brought in ten more students, and they were strung out round the Pond fifty yards apart, and could usually head off any sudden invasion.

  They found three rifles, just as Sergeant Crittenden had predicted, which made him some kind of god in their eyes. We took them straight to my shed and washed them off, and stacked them in one corner for the police to collect. Nobody tried to fire one, thank God. I handled the first one, a Lee Enfield .303, an ugly beast that no one would ever want to buy to hang on their wall. Then I lost interest. I’m not a weapons man, myself. James was inclined to muck about with them, wanting to clean and oil them, for old times’ sake, and I had to speak sharply to him. We still had a living to make, and he had a job to do. It was odd, that. The way the stuff from the lake had a way of fascinating people, carrying them off into their dreams or their past. James talked a lot about his time in the Army in Italy.

  Of Lenny there was still not a sign. Or word. I hoped he wasn’t really ill. I felt I should go round to his house to find out; but what with the Pond and the shop, there was just too much to do. And I was trying to concentrate on the shop. I was dancing attendance on a well-­dressed middle-­aged woman who could not decide whether to buy a cast-­iron doorstop in the form of a shepherd playing his pipe to his dog, or one in the shape of Punch, or both. I rather hoped she would buy Punch, for Punch was a good modern fake, but the shepherd was genuine, and I was rather fond of him.

  At this point Sven burst in.

  ‘Hermione want you! Now!’

  I’m afraid I snarled at him; we’d all gone a bit jumpy since we found the plywood box, and the heat in my shop didn’t help.

  ‘Can’t it wait? I was up there only an hour ago.’

  ‘Is good news, I think.’

  ‘Right, Sven. Will you wait here, until this lady has made her mind up, and take her cheque and write the number of her cheque card on the back of it and bring the cheque up to me. And lock the shop door behind you, and put the sign to “Back in fifteen minutes”. Think you can remember all that?’

  My outburst should have driven the poor little woman clean out of my shop empty-­handed. But instead it flustered her into saying she would take both doorstops. The public’s funny that way. She was so flustered she didn’t even ask if she could have something off the price, which most of them never forget to do. So I drove up to the Pond in a mood of grim satisfaction.

  Hermione met me, smiling. I could almost have imagined she was fond of me, and not just using me for her own ends.

  ‘It’s your big lucky day, Jeff!’

  ‘The Crown Jewels have turned up, then? Wrapped up in a Buck House laundry-­bag?’

  Her mysterious smile widened, maddeningly. ‘Noooooh. But you remember that story you told me – about one Guy Fawkes’ Night and a man with a big model destroyer that sank? I think we’ve found it for you.’ She led the way to the dump, and pulled a lump of sacking off something. Even under all the mud, I was pretty sure she was right. Two funnels, and the mast blown off and trailing beside it, on the end of the tangle of rigging.

  ‘And it’s all yours,’ she said.

  I gaped at her.

  ‘Well, we can hardly classify it as a children’s toy, can we? We have to draw the line somewhere. It’s an adult’s hand-built scale model. Quite outside our remit. The museum wouldn’t give it house-­room. Though if you restored it nicely, it would look quite well in our preliminary exhibition . . .’

  I knew there had to be a snag somewhere. That model would cost a bit to restore to glory . . . But I wasn’t looking a gift-­horse in the mouth.

  Of course, once I got it back to the workshop, I couldn’t resist fiddling with it. While my shop remained closed-­for-fifteen-­minutes, James gave me resentful looks because I was playing with my boat when I hadn’t let him play with his rifle. He twice tried to interrupt me about some bloody woman and a set of stair-­rods I’d promised her. But I just gave him the shop keys and got on with the boat.

  The name on the bow was Viperous. One of the old ‘V’ class. Vindictive and all that lot. And the damage the fireworks had wreaked was fairly frightful. Not only was the mast blown off, but the metal plates of the hull had sprung apart in three places, which is why she’d sunk. The radio-­control and even the electric motor were write-­offs, and the damage the acid leaking from the batteries had done . . . it would take a real pro to restore her; even James couldn’t cope. She was going to cost me a thousand quid. Dear old Hermione!

  On the other hand, the detailing was so perfect . . . even little brass breech-­blocks on the guns in the open turrets . . . it would be worth it. I’d have a ship worth two thousand at least. I began wondering who I could get to do it . . .

  And then I thought: suppose I did get it repaired? And put it up for auction? What about providing a provenance? And it really belonged to that ginger-­haired idiot who’d sailed her on Guy Fawkes’ Night, so long ago. He’d only been a young bloke . . . almost certain he was still alive . . . and still interested in model boats. Suppose he turned up and claimed her? I’d get a name as a real crook, and lose a thousand quid into the bargain. Probably end up in the magistrates’ court . . . that would help my business, I must say. I paced up and down in a rare taking, stopping every two minutes to look at the boat again. I spent a very ratty afternoon, before I had an idea. I would consult Mossy Hughes. He was usually in the Duke of Portland in the early evening. Come to that, he was in the Duke of Portland most of the time. I put on my linen jacket and went for a pint.

  The Duke of Portland is the nearest thing Wheatstone has to a local. A huge, florid building in moulded and glazed brown brick, a mass of ill-­executed classical detail, pediments, pilasters and cartouches. A hideosity that would last for ever, or a bloody good architectural joke, depending how you were feeling. The frosted-­glass windows and the mahogany in the public bar are genuine, though.

  Mossy was in the public bar, leaning on the counter in the usual place, where his elbow has worn a hole in the shiny varnish. Mossy was a mystery to us all. He certainly never did a day’s work. No visible means of support. If you asked he just said he was ‘retired’, though I suppose he couldn’t be much over fifty. And he would never say what he had retired from. But, for a retired bloke, he had an amazing amount to spend buying drinks for other people. He saw me the moment I walked through the door, leapt athletically through the early evening crowd in his jeans and trainers, clasped me firmly by the elbow and said, ‘What’re you drinking, Mr Morgan?’

  ‘Half of Guinness Bitter, Mossy, thanks!’

  ‘A pint, a pint. Wh
at good’s a half to a working man?’ I watched him go, little athletic figure, fit as a flea. Some people thought he had private means. Personally, I thought he was a burglar. Working nights. A quiet, discreet and caring burglar, who spent his day doing good, lending a sympathetic ear to all and sundry, even lending hard-­up acquaintances the odd fiver here and there, though he never lent a second note unless the first had been repaid.

  Now he came back with two brimming pints, put them precisely into the centres of a pair of beer-­mats, sat down, and cocked his head of grey hair, stiff and upright as a hairbrush, in a manner indicating he had all the time in the world to listen to my problems. It was as if he had no problems of his own, and felt the lack.

  ‘What’s bothering you, squire?’

  ‘One Guy Fawkes’ Night, about 1980 it would be. Crowd round the Pond watching the fireworks over the Heath.’

  ‘I go every year, every year. Won’t be the same without the Pond, will it? Though that smell . . .’

  ‘Bloke . . . a nutter . . . tried to sail a model boat. They blew it to bits with fireworks. You don’t know who he was, do you?’

  He put a hand to his brow, which had resolved into the most perfect set of horizontal wrinkles I had ever seen on any man. I counted them again. There were seven, one above the other. I could have sworn there’d been only six, the last time I counted. Mossy was still developing, evolving . . .

  Finally, Mossy said, ‘Tanner, his name was. Tony Tanner. Had had a lot of trouble with his missis, and walked out in the end. He was living in a bed-­sitter, when I last talked to him. Up Belvoir Road. But that must have been six, seven year ago. Never seen him since. Must have gone off soon after that Guy Fawkes’ Night. He was in a bad way, Mr Morgan. Drinking hard. Drinking to knock himself silly. Every night. Then he suddenly wasn’t here any more. You know what bed-­sitter land’s like. What you want him for?’

  ‘The boat that sank’s turned up. Bit of a wreck. I wanted to make him an offer for it.’