Westmorland Alone

by Ian Sansom

  ‘Thank you for coming, Mr Morley,’ said Dora, sniffing and wiping her eyes. ‘I appreciate you coming but I probably have to get on here. This is my livelihood, and if George is going to …’

  Morley stood and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘You’re being very brave, Dora. Thank you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Morley,’ she said. ‘You’re a good man.’

  CHAPTER 21

  THE END OF THE STORY?

  WE WALKED BACK DOWN the terraced street and towards the Lagonda. Miriam climbed in and ostentatiously slammed the door behind her. She was of course incapable of unostentatiously slamming a door, but there is ostentation and there is fabulous ostentation, and Miriam was a fabulously ostentatious door-slammer. Net curtains shivered all the way along the railway workers’ terrace. I imagined the trembling of marmalade as far away as Milburn and the quivering of sausages in Swindale.

  Morley tapped on the window. ‘Miriam?’ he said. ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘No, it is not, Father!’

  Clearly.

  ‘Why, what’s wrong?’

  Miriam wound down the window. ‘What’s wrong? Really? You embarrass me sometimes. Flirting with that … woman!’

  ‘Flirting?’ said Morley, taken aback. ‘I wasn’t flirting, was I? I’m not aware of ever having flirted with anyone in my whole life.’

  ‘Oh really! “You don’t deserve any of this, Dora”? “You poor thing”? “Female intuition”? Do you really think it’s appropriate behaviour?’

  ‘Appropriate?’

  ‘I mean what would Mummy think? Hmm? She’s only been …’ Miriam coughed. I rather feared that she was going to burst into tears.

  ‘Well,’ said Morley, who was also now clearly upset and embarrassed. ‘She would … I don’t think it’s …’

  Morley and I were standing awkwardly at the side of the road. Men and women were beginning to emerge from their houses, either on their way to work, to clean their doorsteps or – more likely – simply to get a better look at what was happening. We were rather conspicuous.

  ‘Your mother was – is – irreplaceable, Miriam. She—’

  ‘Oh, just get in the car!’ said Miriam. ‘You stupid fool.’

  We both climbed in. Miriam threw the gift from Nancy onto the back seat towards us.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Morley.

  ‘Don’t ask!’ she said. ‘Some silly gift. Right. Now where?’

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to open it?’ asked Morley.

  ‘Just put it away, Father. It’s nothing.’

  ‘I wonder what it is?’ asked Morley. He shook it: it rattled.

  ‘Open it if you want,’ said Miriam. ‘I don’t care. Let’s just get out of here. I hate it here! I hate it!’ She stamped her feet on the floor and opened the window to address the women who stood on their doorsteps, watching us. ‘Yes, ladies, I said I hate it here! Now run along!’

  Morley, oblivious to this little tantrum but inquisitive as always, opened the parcel. It was a candle in a jam-jar holder, with a little metal handle soldered around the top.

  ‘It’s rather pretty actually,’ said Morley. ‘Quite ingenious. Who gave it to you?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that exactly like the one that was next to Maisie’s body, in the souterrain?’

  Morley held up the jam jar. ‘Do you know, I think you’re right, Sefton. Who gave it to you, Miriam?’

  ‘Nancy,’ said Miriam bitterly. ‘And before you speak, Sefton’ – she held up a forbidding finger – ‘I do hope you’re not going to suggest again that Nancy was the person who killed Maisie. Because it’s quite ridiculous. The poor girl’s clearly confused, but she’s not a murderess.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t going to suggest that she was a murderess, actually.’

  ‘Clearly not,’ said Morley. ‘But I think I know who is.’

  ‘Yes, we already know who is,’ said Miriam. ‘George.’ She nodded towards his house. ‘We’ve been through all that, Father.’

  ‘Do you know, I fear we have been barking up the wrong tree,’ said Morley. ‘And I think perhaps you’re right, Miriam. I may have been rather a fool as far as your mother is concerned. I—’

  Miriam held up a hand. ‘We’re not talking about it now, Father. I’m sorry. I just get upset sometimes when I think about her.’

  ‘I know,’ said Morley. ‘And I think my judgement may have been clouded by the very same thoughts. You may have saved things in the nick of time, Miriam!’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, yes! I think you’ve given me a wake-up call!’

  ‘I have?’

  ‘You have indeed! Fire her up, my dear! Come on. As fast as she’ll go!’

  Miriam revved the engine like she was starting in the Gordon Bennett Cup.

  ‘Goody!’ she said. ‘Where to?’

  ‘I think we need a last word with the gypsies.’

  We sped out of the terrace, Miriam tooting the horn in farewell to our onlookers, and out of Appleby and made it to Kirkby Stephen in record time.

  Naughty ran up to meet us as we approached the gypsy encampment down by the river.

  ‘Mr Morley! Mr Morley!’ she cried. ‘Can you read to me, Mr Morley?’

  ‘In a moment, my dear,’ said Morley. ‘In a moment. I just want a quick word with your daddy first.’

  The vardos were packed and ready to go. There was nothing left at the site, no evidence that the gypsies had ever been there but for the dying embers of a fire.

  ‘Mr Morley,’ said Noname, as we approached. He stood by the fire with Job, a hand-rolled cigarette clutched tightly in his fingers. Job made it perfectly clear we were not welcome. He ignored us and went to harness his horse. Noname was hardly more welcoming.

  ‘You’re moving on then?’ asked Morley.

  Noname looked around him, surveying the scene, which was a perfect idyll, the sort of thing a Constable might paint on a Lakeland holiday.

  ‘This is a terrible ole place to bide in,’ he said.

  ‘I thought it was quite beautiful,’ said Morley.

  ‘Not if you’re us,’ said Noname.

  ‘And where are you planning on going?’

  ‘Devon, Somerset. Before the snow. People say there’s places down there no one know about that you can bide till you’m grey-headed. Not like here. And plenty of winter work. Hedge-laying, cutting logs.’

  ‘The police released you without charge?’ said Morley.

  ‘They charged me with handling stolen goods is all,’ said Noname. He pinched out the remains of his cigarette and pocketed it. ‘The girl’s bicycle.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Morley. ‘I wanted to ask you about that.’

  Emerald emerged out of the vardo. She did not look in the mood to be trifled with.

  ‘Ah, Emerald my dear, good morning,’ said Morley.

  ‘He didn’t have anything to do with the murder of that young woman,’ she said.

  ‘No. I know he didn’t.’

  ‘So what do you want?’ asked Emerald, hands on hips. ‘As you can see – if you’ve eyes in your head – we’ve things to do.’

  ‘I just wanted to ask Noname a few questions,’ said Morley.

  ‘Oh no. No more questions,’ said Emerald. ‘He’s answered all the questions he’ll be answering, to you or anybody else.’

  ‘That’s quite understandable,’ said Morley.

  ‘On your way then,’ said Emerald.

  Morley turned to Noname. ‘You enjoyed my stories when you were a boy, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did, Mr Morley. And I do so still today.’

  ‘Well, rather than asking you any questions perhaps you’d allow me to tell you a story and you can tell me what you think of it?’

  Noname looked towards Emerald. She shook her head.

  ‘I can’t see as it can do any harm,’ he said.

  ‘Good!’ said Morley. ‘It concerns your father.’

  ‘My father?’

  ‘Emerald
told us about him the last time we saw her.’

  ‘You said we could trust him,’ said Emerald to Noname.

  ‘And you can,’ said Morley. ‘You can. I was very sad to hear about the troubles that you went through because of your father. His being banished from his own people because he pursued a relationship with a gorgio. You must have felt the pain of that terribly.’

  ‘I did, Mr Morley. Yes, I did.’

  ‘And every year when you came back to Appleby to the fair it must have been worse. Did you see him?’

  Noname’s mother now appeared beside Emerald at the door of the vardo. She was holding the baby in her arms and looked even less in the mood to be trifled with than Emerald. She glared suspiciously at Morley, but even more suspiciously at Noname.

  ‘Did you?’ asked Morley.

  ‘Once or twice, yes,’ said Noname. ‘But no more than that.’

  ‘Dordi, dordi,’ said the old woman. ‘Dordi, dordi, dordi.’ And then she went back inside the caravan.

  ‘He was my father,’ said Noname. ‘I did nothing wrong, seeing him.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Morley. ‘But it wasn’t only him you saw, was it?’

  Noname looked at him a moment in astonishment and then shook his head.

  ‘Your father had a child with his new wife, didn’t he? A daughter. Your half-sister. And you saw her too, didn’t you? You loved her as your own kin, even though she was a gorgio.’

  ‘She has Rom blood in her veins, the same as me,’ said Noname.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Emerald. ‘Noname?’

  ‘Brother and sister,’ said Morley. ‘And right from those early summers when you were children playing together did you swear never to desert one another?’

  ‘What is this? Is it true?’ said Emerald.

  ‘So when she came and asked you for help you could not refuse her, could you?’

  Naughty came charging over, chasing the dog.

  ‘Can you read to us now, Mr Morley?’

  ‘In a moment,’ said Morley. ‘We’re nearly done here.’

  Noname stroked Naughty’s head and kissed her on the forehead and spoke softly to her in Romani and told her to go and play – which she did.

  ‘I didn’t kill Maisie Taylor, Mr Morley.’

  ‘I know you didn’t,’ said Morley. ‘But you took her body, didn’t you? You put it in your wagon and buried it near the dig. You did it for your sister.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I didn’t. Not until less than half an hour ago. It took me a long time to work it out. You covered Maisie’s face – a gypsy burial rite – and then you placed a candle beside her in one of these.’ He produced the jam-jar candle-holder given to Miriam by Nancy. ‘To light her way in the next world.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Miriam. She and I had stood by silently during the previous exchange. It hadn’t been clear to me initially why we were there. But it was pretty clear now. ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Because it seemed like the right thing to do,’ said Morley. ‘Didn’t it, Noname? Maisie Taylor had done no wrong to you. You wanted to afford her a safe passage.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘That is right. And it is morally right, spiritually right. But under the law … I’m afraid it makes you an accessory to murder.’

  ‘What?’ said Emerald.

  ‘Which I’m afraid is a serious crime.’

  ‘Get away from us!’ shouted Emerald, who had realised the implications of what Morley was saying. ‘Do you hear me? Get away! You’ve brought us nothing but trouble, even though you said you’d help us!’

  Naughty came running over. Noname’s mother appeared again at the door of the caravan with the baby.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Noname.

  Job came sauntering over too.

  ‘What are you going to do now, Mr Morley?’ asked Noname.

  We were faced with six pairs of eyes fixed upon us.

  ‘Do now? I’m not going to do anything. It’s up to you and your conscience, Noname. It’s not up to me. I didn’t come here to judge. I just came to tell you a story. It’s up to you to work out the moral of the story. Do you remember what I wrote on the last page of Morley’s Book for Boys?’

  ‘I’m not sure I do, Mr Morley, no.’

  Morley spoke to Naughty. ‘Could you fetch your father’s book now? I’d like him to read from it with you.’

  Naughty climbed up into the caravan to fetch the book while we all waited in silence and then she came and sat on Noname’s lap.

  ‘Are you going to read with me, Daddy?’

  ‘Yes I am,’ said Noname.

  ‘Just the very last words,’ said Morley. ‘On the last page.’

  Noname opened the book and started to read, Naughty perched happily in his lap.

  ‘“Boys,”’ he read, ‘“as you grow older you will face ever greater challenges and …” I can’t … I don’t know that word.’

  ‘Preoccupations,’ prompted Morley.

  ‘… “preoccupations. I hope that the lessons you have learned from this book might stand you in good stead for those challenges to come, and that one day, if you are lucky enough to have sons and daughters of your own, that you might share these simple life lessons with them so that others might benefit from the knowledge that takes us beyond ourselves to understand and appreciate others.”’

  ‘It’s boring, Daddy!’ said Naughty. ‘Can we read one of the proper stories? Is that the end of the story?’

  ‘That’s the end of all the stories,’ said Morley.

  ‘Let’s start again,’ said Naughty. ‘Daddy, let’s start again!’

  All that was left for us was to see to the murderer.

  CHAPTER 22

  OPEN TO CLOSED

  WE PARKED AT THE STATION, next to the big Excelsior motorbike and the Steib sidecar with its proud purple and gold lettering announcing DORA’S STATION CAFE AND OUTSIDE CATERING – CATERING FOR ALL TASTES.

  Inside the café, Dora was bustling about. She spotted us immediately.

  ‘Mr Morley! Back again! What a nice surprise! Do take a seat. I’ll be with you in two minutes. I just need to sort these people out.’

  An elderly gentleman slowly counted out pennies to pay for his tea at the counter, and then another elderly gentleman put in an order for one of Dora’s Herdwick lamb and juniper pies – he had his son and his family visiting at the weekend. He and Dora swapped local news and gossip. He lingered, and lingered, but finally he left and we were then the only customers. Dora came over to the table, grinning, and Morley solemnly nodded to me. I knew what to do. I went over to the door, turned the key in the lock and flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED.

  ‘No, no need!’ said Dora brightly. ‘It’s fine. I’m fine now. We’ll not need it closed. Don’t you worry, Mr Morley.’ She laughed. ‘I’m not going to get upset again.’ She was wrong.

  ‘Take a seat, Dora,’ said Morley.

  ‘Why, what’s all this about then?’ asked Dora. ‘Have you not given me enough to worry about today, Mr Morley?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Morley.

  ‘You’re all right,’ said Dora. ‘I was upset earlier, that was all. You can understand that.’

  ‘I can, yes,’ said Morley.

  ‘What is this about then? Someone’s not been complaining about the food, I hope?’

  ‘No, Dora. We just saw your brother,’ said Morley.

  Dora didn’t skip a beat. ‘But I haven’t got a brother, Mr Morley.’

  Morley looked at me and Miriam, disappointed.

  ‘Noname,’ he said. ‘Dora, we’ve just come from talking to Noname.’

  I had no idea how she’d react.

  She stared at him, pursed her lips and let out a long low sigh, as if having been holding her breath for a very long time.

  ‘How did you know?’

  This was a question I often asked myself. I have often tried to reconstruct the ways in which Morley solv
ed a crime or a puzzle. In a way it’s become my job. But it’s not always easy. It often feels like reaching the end of one of his beloved Ellery Queen thrillers, to find all the evidence set out before one, and yet still being incapable of solving the mystery. On this occasion, however, Morley was kind enough to explain everything to Dora. It went something like this.

  He explained first that when he had met her at the dig at Shap he had been immediately impressed by the ingenuity of her sidecar hotbox – a great work of homespun art and engineering, the kind of thing that could only have been created by a blacksmith. And then of course the sidecar was painted that distinctive purple and gold – the very colours of a handsome Tom Tongs vardo. And then he had noticed her silver locket – a silver locket in the shape of a horseshoe.

  ‘Your family emblem?’ he asked.

  Dora nodded.

  And there was more – much more. The solving of a puzzle requires so many pieces. (For Morley’s thoughts on solving actual puzzles see his perennially popular compendium of games, Morley’s Big Book of Puzzles (1933), and its even more popular companion volume, Morley’s Puzzle-Solver (1934), a book I have open before me now, and which begins, rather grandiloquently for a book of crossword tips and handy hints on domino stacking, jigsaws and word games: ‘All true progress of mind begins with the arrangement and resolution of complex objects and ideas into their component parts.’)

  ‘I was very taken with you when I first met you, Dora,’ he explained. ‘My daughter here subsequently pointed it out to me and I must admit I felt a little ashamed; but then I realised that it wasn’t you I was attracted to.’

  ‘It wasn’t?’ said Miriam.

  ‘No,’ said Morley. ‘It was the smell.’

  ‘The smell?’ said Dora.

  ‘Arpège by Lanvin. Your perfume?’

  Dora’s eyes widened.

  ‘My wife’s perfume also, you see,’ said Morley. ‘I must have smelled it on you when we first met and then I smelled a hint of it again in George’s signal box. Top notes of polish and oil but base notes of Arpège by Lanvin. You’d been in the signal box?’

  ‘Of course I’d been in the signal box! I’m his wife. He forgets his lunch all the time. Men!’ She appealed rather pathetically, I thought, to Miriam, who did not respond or smile.