Westmorland Alone

by Ian Sansom

  ‘Well,’ said Morley triumphantly, as if we had just discovered the secret of the universe itself. ‘You will be delighted to hear, Sefton, that it is brown-coloured dirt!’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Yes! Marvellous, isn’t it?’

  It may have been marvellous. I could not tell, though I could see that it was Morley’s sort of thing: ejecta, rejecta, dejecta; dirt. Right up his proverbial street. (‘Every drop of water, every speck of dirt, every grain of sand, is as full of stories as a Dickens novel,’ he claims, in Morley’s Answers to Questions of Natural History (1935), part of his popular Morley’s Answers to Questions of … series, books that often raised as many questions as they answered.)

  ‘And they definitely taste the same, do you think, both piles?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. Tasteless brown dirt.

  He dipped his own finger in one pile, tasted the dirt, savoured it, and then tasted the other.

  ‘Mmm,’ he said, chewing. ‘They really do, don’t they? That’s excellent, Sefton. Excellent.’

  I was struggling to see exactly what was excellent.

  ‘Would you describe it as a sort of …’ He rubbed his fingers together. ‘A sort of salty, churchyardy sort of taste, would you say, with a hint of bone, perhaps?’

  ‘I’m not a great connoisseur of dirt flavours, Mr Morley.’

  ‘Obviously not, Sefton,’ he said. ‘Obviously not. Me neither. And we’d need to get these into a laboratory to test them properly – it’s just a shame I haven’t brought my microscope with me – but our senses certainly give us something to go on, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed.

  I thought it was probably time to tell him the reason I was there, since it seemed rather more significant than his eccentric dirt-tasting experiment, whatever it might tell us about the smell and the taste of brown powders.

  ‘You know that Jenkins has been released without charge?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know.’

  ‘And the chief inspector wants us out.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Morley. He wasn’t listening.

  ‘He’s absolutely adamant.’

  ‘Yes, he is, isn’t he? Anyway, as I was saying, Sefton, we’d need to get these samples tested properly, but I think we might be onto something here.’

  ‘Onto what, exactly, Mr Morley?’

  ‘The sample on the left here is from Maisie Taylor’s shoe, when we found her in the souterrain, do you remember?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. How could I forget?

  ‘And the sample on the right here is from outside the signal box at Appleby.’

  ‘Right. That’s why you were pocketing handfuls of dirt when were at the station?’

  ‘Exactly. And both samples seem to be red sandstone; laboratory tests to confirm, obviously, but they certainly look the same, smell the same and taste the same, isn’t that right? We’re agreed?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. Though I probably would have agreed if he’d suggested the opposite.

  ‘The soil around Shap, however, is largely carboniferous limestone.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So it seems likely that Maisie wasn’t killed there, at the dig, and furthermore that she might have been killed somewhere in the vicinity of the railway station! The train crash in fact could have merely been a distraction created by the murderer!’

  ‘A distraction? A train crash?’

  For all his reputation as a man of reason, Morley often made these ludicrous leaps in logic. His peculiar range of knowledge meant that he was always making strange connections and drawing ridiculous conclusions.

  ‘It is indeed unlikely, Sefton, and I haven’t quite worked out the details yet, but I think you’ll agree that unless Noname can be proved to have been around Appleby Station on the day of the crash then it may be unlikely that he’s guilty of Maisie’s murder!’

  ‘I’m not sure that that’s absolutely conclusive, Mr Morley.’

  ‘Perhaps, perhaps not,’ said Morley. ‘But it’s a start, eh?’

  ‘And didn’t the signalman say that there were gypsy children on the line? Which is what caused the crash, which surely makes it more than possible that Noname was indeed in the vicinity of the railway station?’

  ‘What, just because he’s a gypsy?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I said.

  ‘And what if there were a murder or a crime involving a white middle-class Englishman, Sefton, a member of the Communist Party and a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, would that necessarily mean that you were a suspect?’

  ‘No, of course not, not … necessarily.’

  Morley didn’t notice my nervous cough.

  ‘Anyway, as I say. I haven’t quite worked out the details yet. I think I might skip supper, if that’s all right with you, Sefton? There’s clearly more work to be done here.’

  ‘Indeed,’ I said.

  And he happily returned to contemplating his little world of dirt.

  I dined alone that evening – Miriam did not appear at dinner either – and eventually retired early to my room.

  I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes, pressing my fingertips hard against my weary lids. I needed to sleep but instead I lay and smoked cigarette after cigarette, staring at the ceiling, going through all the events of the past few days, following each train of thought with every long slow exhalation. The room filled with smoke and in this cloud of my own making, raised above myself, I was able to view everything that had happened, going backward and forward, all the way back to the start and back again: to my night out in Soho, to the card game at Delaney’s, to Marlborough Street, to Euston, to King’s Cross, and on the train with Lucy and her mother, taking photographs all the way up to Appleby – or almost up to Appleby.

  I leapt off the bed. It was an Archimedes moment. (Morley, though easily the most intuitive and instinctive thinker I have ever known, always claimed to distrust accounts of sudden inspiration and insight: for him, the Archimedes moment made sense only in the context of an Archimedean lifetime.) There was no point involving Morley: he was clearly obsessed with his little piles of dirt and with clearing Noname. I was left with little alternative. I had no other ally. I quietly crept out of my room and knocked on Miriam’s door. It was around midnight: dim lights in the corridor, and horrible smells from the day’s cooking.

  At first there was no answer, so I continued knocking and then started softly calling her name.

  ‘Miriam? Miriam?’

  ‘Sefton?’ she answered immediately, from the other side. Clearly she hadn’t been asleep. ‘Is it you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank goodness,’ she whispered.

  She opened her door. She was wearing a light blue silk embroidered dressing gown which featured desperate-looking bees suckling flowers across the chest and butterflies flying high upon the shoulders. It was an exquisite item, the sort of thing one sees in the window of Selfridges, and on the fashion plates of ladies’ magazines. It would have cost more than I was earning in a month. Beneath it Miriam wore a dark blue camisole – deep indigo – that covered very little but would doubtless have cost me even more.

  ‘You didn’t bring me any supper, by any chance?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Why? Are you unwell?’

  ‘I think I picked up a chill from being out in the rain earlier, but I’m fine, just a bit of a fever. The real trouble is that woman …’ She lowered her voice and glanced nervously up and down the corridor.

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘Nancy, she keeps pestering me. I was going to go down for supper but I simply couldn’t face her. And then she came and knocked on my door! Honestly! I had to pretend I was asleep! I’ve been holed up here all night by myself. I think she thinks I’m …’

  ‘What?’

  She lowered her voice again. ‘Interested.’

  ‘Interested in what?’

  ‘Her.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘You don’t think I am?’

  �
�No. But …’

  ‘What?’ said Miriam.

  ‘Well, perhaps you’re sending out the wrong signals,’ I suggested.

  ‘The wrong signals, Sefton? What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘You went to the dance with her last night.’

  ‘It was just a dance, for goodness sake! What’s wrong with you people!’

  At that moment Nancy appeared at the end of the corridor. She must have been waiting, out of sight – sitting at the top of the stairs? With the dim lights, and in her dark suit, she resembled Garbo slinking onto the set of some film noir.

  ‘Miriam!’ she said. ‘I was waiting for you downstairs.’

  Miriam stared horrorstruck, first at Nancy and then at me and then – in a blatant attempt to send out a different sort of signal – she pulled me close to her and cried, ‘Come here, darling! Kiss me!’

  Her skin was hot to the touch and her mouth burning. I responded as any man might, and before she tugged me into her room I saw Nancy out of the corner of my eye: she looked disgusted as she turned and walked away. The whole thing was over in seconds.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ said Miriam, slamming her door behind us. ‘That should do the trick, shouldn’t it?’

  I stepped back into the room and stared at her.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t play with me, Miriam.’

  ‘I’m not playing with you, Sefton.’ She reached up and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘You’d know it if I was playing with you. That was just … necessary, that’s all. That beastly woman.’

  I couldn’t make up my mind what to say or do. There she was. There was the door. And behind me was the bed. The room was the opposite of Morley’s but again entirely typical: where Morley had made his room into an outpost of order, Miriam’s was in total disarray. There were clothes and scarves and books and make-up and newspapers and magazines scattered everywhere.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Miriam, walking over to her bedside table and tugging her dressing gown protectively around her.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘I helped you get out of a spot. So now I need you to help me.’

  ‘Really? Is that what you wanted? Is that why you were knocking?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She lit a cigarette and inhaled, taking a long deep breath before exhaling slowly, allowing the smoke to swirl around her.

  ‘You know you’re so predictable, Sefton.’

  I ignored her and continued. ‘I found my camera earlier.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘And I’ve been going back over in my mind everything that happened on the day of the crash.’

  ‘Really?’ She sat down on the edge of the bed and crossed her legs, the silk robe falling away to reveal her legs.

  ‘And I remembered we were taking photographs—’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Lucy and I. The little girl.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Of the railway line and the station at Appleby as we were approaching. And Lucy was … leaning out of the train.’ It wasn’t easy to concentrate, but I pressed on. ‘So I just wondered if I was able to examine the photographs, they might be able to tell us something about the moments before the …’

  Miriam breathed smoke through her nostrils, stroked her lips with her thumb and smiled.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said.

  ‘It’s just, I don’t know where we’d be able to develop the photographs. We need a darkroom and chemicals and—’

  ‘Well, maybe I can help. But first …’

  She stood up, undid her robe at the waist and allowed it to fall to the floor, revealing her naked shoulders and arms, and much else beneath the camisole.

  ‘I said don’t play games with me, Miriam.’

  ‘And I said I wasn’t playing games with you, Sefton.’

  ‘Then what are you doing?’

  ‘What does it look like? I’m getting dressed.’

  ‘Dressed? Or undressed?’

  ‘One usually precedes the other, Sefton, unless one sleeps naked? Do you sleep naked?’

  There was no answer to that.

  ‘Give me five minutes to get ready. And go and get your camera.’

  CHAPTER 18

  SOME PHOTOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES

  IT WAS GONE MIDNIGHT by the time we arrived at Taylor’s Pharmacy in Kirkby Stephen. The town lay in complete darkness; even the usual faint light from the stars and moon was entirely muffled and obscured by cloud. It was steely cold and the streets were tarnished with wet. I was reminded of Spain: it felt like a night for the settling of scores. We parked the Lagonda some distance away from the pharmacy and made our way on foot around the back.

  ‘I’m not sure about this,’ I said.

  ‘Oh come on, Sefton,’ whispered Miriam. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘What if someone’s there?’

  ‘Didn’t Gerald’s sister say he was going to stay with her? It’ll be fine. There’s no one here.’

  ‘But what if there is?’

  ‘If there is,’ said Miriam, her voice hoarse with the cold, ‘we’ll deal with them.’ She could say things like that: she had no idea of what it might mean. I knew from experience that it paid to be cautious and to avoid any kind of harm. ‘Anyway, we’ll be in and out in no time.’

  The back door – of course – was locked.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ whispered Miriam.

  I didn’t have a plan. Thinking about the photographs was as far ahead – and as far back – as I had gone.

  ‘We could smash the window,’ I said.

  ‘And wake everybody up?’

  ‘We could try and do it quietly.’

  ‘Are you mad, Sefton?’

  ‘Well, we’re never going to be able to pick the lock,’ I said. ‘Morley couldn’t do it.’

  ‘No, but Father didn’t have this, did he?’

  Miriam removed the long elaborate orange scarf from around her neck – in later years she became a fanatical collector of Hermès, at considerable cost and inconvenience – and from it took a brooch. She showed me the brooch – or, rather, its long thin bent pin.

  ‘You’re going to pick the lock?’ I said.

  ‘No, actually. I’m going to rake the lock.’

  ‘Rake it?’

  ‘Rake it, Sefton, yes. Rake it. Quite different.’ She inserted the brooch pin into the lock. ‘Father makes everything so complicated, you see. Sometimes you just have to’ – she forced the pin in and rattled it around – ‘be a little resourceful and a little … rough, with it.’ And just as quickly as she had inserted the pin she pulled it back. ‘Though it takes a woman, Sefton, to know exactly how much force is necessary.’

  She pulled the door open.

  ‘Where on earth did you learn to do that?’

  ‘One picks these things up as one goes along, doesn’t one? And don’t forget, Father taught me at home for years – all sorts of useful skills.’ She was whispering with her mouth up to my ear, her body pressing close.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘I can also fix pocket-watches, sharpen razors, restore paintings, raise hothouse fruits and vegetables, and I offer very competitive rates on fine carpentry and marquetry work, if you’re interested.’ She held the door open. ‘I can turn my hand to most things, in fact, Sefton. If I care to.’ She pulled away. ‘After you,’ she said.

  At the back of the pharmacy was where all the chemicals were kept – all the good stuff. There were wooden shelves with bottles and tubs containing every imaginable chemical and compound. It was a mirror image of the front of the shop: smelling salt bottles; boxes of cosmetics; and lipsticks; and rouge; and important-looking jars with important-looking labels. In the middle of the room was a large wooden table set with areas of marble and zinc for preparing medicines. By the back door was a sink. Another set of shelves contained rows of empty cough mixture bottles, and beneath them gallon-drum containers of rosehip oil, dried concentrated orange juice, butterscotch flavou
r malt, and cod liver oil emulsion.

  ‘Wow,’ said Miriam. We were both impressed. ‘Look at all this, Sefton. I could do with a dose of something myself.’

  ‘Quite,’ I agreed.

  She smiled at me sarcastically. ‘Shame we’re not shopping. Anyway, I got you in, but now it’s up to you. Where do we start?’

  ‘Give me your scarf,’ I said.

  ‘Why do you want my scarf? Whatever are you thinking of, Sefton?’ She looked at me coquettishly and handed the scarf to me. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, climbing onto the table and reaching up on tiptoes to wrap the scarf around the central light as best I could. I then jumped down and switched it on. Thank goodness Gerald had installed electricity. The room became lit with a soft electric amber glow.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Miriam. ‘Very classy. Rather like a tart’s boudoir.’

  ‘Now, I need to make three baths.’

  ‘Three baths?’

  ‘The developer … the stop bath … and a fixer – though we could probably do without the fixer.’

  ‘No idea what you’re talking about,’ said Miriam. ‘Modern technology. Layman’s language, please, Sefton.’

  ‘Just a tray will do,’ I said, looking around. There was fortunately a tray on a shelf, filled with prescription pads and pens and pencils, which I emptied out onto the table. There was also a bucket serving as a bin by the back door, and then there was the sink. So we had all the necessary receptacles.

  ‘Measuring jug?’ I said.

  ‘Here,’ said Miriam, fetching an enamel jug from a shelf.

  ‘Great. Now, what else do we need?’ I was talking to myself, trying to remember.

  ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Sefton?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I’ve read about it. Your father’s keen to set up a darkroom at St George’s and I’ve been doing some research, though after Devon …’ But the less said about Devon the better.

  I clicked my fingers, trying to recall. ‘We could just look at the negative, but we’re going to need a print for evidence. So. We will probably need some … rubbing alcohol, or vinegar. Lemon juice?’

  ‘Are we making cocktails?’