The secretary appeared beside an officer in the uniform of the Royal West Kents. He looked like most of the army officers, whom she had ever encountered before—of similar age to her, grey hair, military moustache, florid face and no sign of a personality. She stood up and offered him her hand. ‘Mrs McDougall,’ she introduced herself, trying to ignore his damp, limp handshake. ‘I wrote to you last week.’
One of Captain Cohen’s springy eyebrows arched up, reminding Harriet of an excited caterpillar, which she had once found demolishing her brassicas in the vegetable patch at the rear of Linton House. A brown something-or-other moth. She couldn’t recall the exact name just then, though Malcolm had told her it at the time, including its full Latin appellation.
‘Madam, this is most irregular,’ Captain Cohen reproved, receiving a firm nod of agreement from the secretary.
‘Yes, it is rather,’ Harriet agreed.
‘There are other organisations, designed specifically for this task—have you tried the Red Cross?’ he demanded.
‘Yes,’ Harriet lied, making a mental note to pursue this line of enquiry later. ‘They directed me to you.’
‘Did they, now? Well, they shouldn’t have done. Most irregular.’
‘It is also most irregular for seven hundred thousand British men to be slaughtered in the ludicrous assertion that war can end war. It is also most irregular, Captain Cohen, that a boy, whom I brought into this world and nurtured, cared for and loved beyond measure, is lying dead in a grave in a foreign land.’ She added a thin smile to her diatribe and waited.
Captain Cohen drew in a lengthy breath and looked at the secretary. ‘Perhaps if an appointment can be made for a week or so’s time, we—’
‘No,’ Harriet interjected. ‘That simply won’t do. I shall be leaving here today with answers.’
‘I’m afraid that simply will not be possible. Miss Tyler, please escort Mrs Dougall to reception to schedule an appointment. If she fails to leave, then for heaven’s sake, telephone the police.’ Captain Cohen huffed and scurried into his office.
‘It’s Mrs McDougall, actually,’ Harriet corrected, uncertain of what to do now, hearing what sounded like a bolt being driven across Captain Cohen’s office door. ‘Fine,’ she conceded.
‘This way,’ Miss Tyler said, heading up the corridor with her head held high.
Back in the reception area, Miss Tyler took a seat at one of the desks and opened a large burgundy ledger. ‘Now, let’s see.’
‘Anytime next week is fine,’ Harriet said.
‘No,’ Miss Tyler said, shaking her head and dragging out the word to triple its actual length. ‘The week after, and the one after that, are looking pretty busy, too. And then Captain Cohen will be on leave for ten days.’ She continued to flick pages of the diary, shaking her head. ‘Then he will be in Scotland for three weeks… I can probably squeeze you in on the 29th September?’
‘That long away?’
Miss Tyler nodded and smiled sweetly. ‘This is a very busy office, Mrs McDougall.’
‘Then I don’t think I will make an appointment, thank you,’ Harriet said, equally sweetly.
Miss Tyler nodded and closed the ledger. ‘Probably for the best.’
Harriet turned and began walking towards the door. She reached out for the handle and then turned on her heals to face Miss Tyler. ‘Oh, could you just pass a super-quick message to the Captain?’
‘What is it now?’
‘Just to say that, should any suitable occasion arise to see me today, I shall be just around the corner, taking tea with Gladys at number six, Church Lane. Thank you so much.’ Harriet opened the door to the sound of Miss Tyler’s chair grating against the wooden floor.
‘Wait!’ Miss Tyler instructed. She glowered at Harriet, then hurried down the corridor towards Captain Cohen’s office.
Harriet stood by the door, poised with one hand on her hip.
Seconds later, Captain Cohen marched towards her, looking one step away from exploding with anger. ‘Come to my office now, Mrs McDougall.’
Inside his office, he closed the door behind them. It was a surprisingly large room, with bay windows facing out over a small rose garden. His enormous desk, covered in a scattering of paperwork, dominated the space. On the walls were hung various paintings of grey-moustached men in army uniform, and around the room were dotted an assortment of bookshelves, sagging under the weight of heavy military tomes.
‘Sit,’ he instructed, indicating a plain wooden chair in front of his desk, while he himself sat opposite her in a much grander leather affair. He laced his fingers together and leant over the desk. ‘What is it you wish to know? Your son, was it?’
‘His name was Malcolm McDougall and he served in your battalion.’
Captain Cohen’s lower lip turned down and he shook his head. ‘Don’t remember him.’
‘He was in the Special Brigade and died on the 4th July 1917. He was buried at Essex Farm Cemetery, and I would just like to know what happened to him at the end—how he died. So, if you could start by telling me the movements of the 4th Battalion, say from the beginning of 1917 through to July, that would be most helpful. Perhaps the brigade diary might help?’
‘Mrs McDougall, what do you think this is? Even if I were so minded to, I could not possibly divulge strategic military movements, not yet even twelve months since the Armistice. Indeed, one would be hard-pushed to locate such information in the public domain on the African Wars twenty years ago. Good heavens!’
‘Oh, don’t be so preposterous. Malcolm was sending postcards home from some of the places he visited, for goodness’ sake. I’m not in need of strategic military movements, just the names of the places he was serving in prior to his death.’
Captain Cohen emitted another giant exhalation, appearing to consider his options. ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll have Miss Tyler type up the names of the places where the unit was based in the month leading up to your son’s death. And that, Mrs McDougall, is all.’
‘Thank you,’ Harriet said, watching, as he stood and made his way over to a filing cabinet behind his desk. ‘Oh, and if you could tell me the names and addresses of any of the surviving soldiers, who served with Malcolm, that would be most wonderful, too.’
‘Absolutely not. Confidential,’ he barked, without turning around.
‘Oh.’
‘One tick,’ he said, bustling past her with a thick bundle of papers out into the corridor.
Quickly, Harriet jumped up and rushed over to the filing cabinet, from which Captain Cohen had just pulled the papers, and opened the drawer. She hurriedly flicked through the dividers until she reached one headed 4th Battalion Personnel. It was a worryingly thin file, arranged in alphabetical order, and when Harriet examined a random entry, she found that it gave just the barest of details about each man: personal information, rather than the military movements that she had been hoping to find. Nevertheless, Harriet thumbed quickly through to surnames beginning with M and found Malcolm’s file. It was a single sheet and every entry—name, address, age, next of kin—was already known to her.
Disappointed, she pushed the drawer closed and began to head back to her chair. Then she stopped, remembering the name of one of Malcolm’s friends from his postcards home and hurried back to the filing cabinet. Timothy Mogridge. She found his entry easily, slid it out and looked at his address: ‘Gulls Nest, West Parade, Bexhill on Sea, Sussex’. Harriet repeated the information aloud to commit it to memory, refiled the paper and closed the drawer.
The sudden returning heavy clomp of footsteps in the corridor told her that Captain Cohen’s arrival would happen before she could possibly regain her seat.
‘Mrs McDougall, what are you doing?’ he growled, as he entered the office.
Harriet slowly lowered her gaze from one of the portraits behind his desk, as if being roused from a daydream: ‘Hmm?’ She returned her gaze to the portrait. ‘General Sir Charles James Napier. Funny looking chap, wouldn’t you say?’
‘No. I would not say, actually. One of our great leaders during the Peninsular Wars,’ Captain Cohen stated, pushing past her to reach his desk. ‘Mrs McDougall, I really must insist that this meeting is over. I have nothing more I can offer to assist you in finding out what happened to your son. I’m sorry, but that is the fact of the matter. If you would kindly return to the reception area, Miss Tyler will have prepared the document for you by the time you get there.’ He extended his damp hand towards her. ‘Good day, Madam.’
Harriet shook his hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said, marching towards the door.
‘And, Mrs McDougall…’ he called after her. ‘I do not know how you came by my address, or my wife’s name, but the next time you threaten a member of His Majesty’s Army like that, I shall have you arrested.’
‘Very well and I am sorry to have done that,’ Harriet said. ‘It’s just… I really did need to speak with you. And, well, there aren’t many men, military or otherwise, who like to risk upsetting their wives. I gambled that you would imagine that she would side with me on the affairs of a mother’s heart.’ Having achieved her aim, she left the disgruntled army captain, headed smartly out of his office and back to reception.
‘Here,’ Miss Tyler said flatly, handing over a piece of paper, blank but for four typed place names in Northern France and Belgium. No dates or times, but it was a start.
‘Much obliged to you,’ Harriet said, taking the proffered paper and flouncing from the building.
She sighed, as she pushed the door closed and stepped out into the late-morning sunshine. She paused for a moment to catch her breath, then looked over the list of places. Arras. Croisilles. Bullecourt. The last name on the list, where Malcolm was said to have lost his life, sent a shudder through her: Ypres.
A light breeze wafted through the open kitchen door of Linton House, providing Harriet with a welcome waft of respite against the interminable heat of the day.
‘There,’ she said, sealing the envelope on a letter to Timothy Mogridge. Beside her on the table was another letter, addressed to the British Red Cross in London.
Harriet undid the top four buttons of her black blouse, fanned her collar for a few precious moments, then rebuttoned it to the neck. She carried the two letters through the house to the parlour, where she found Fraser poring over a map of northern Europe. Four red pencil loops denoted the places where Malcolm had been before he died.
‘Have you found anything more?’ Harriet asked him.
‘Nothing of substance, no.’
‘Hopefully something will come of these,’ Harriet said, holding up the two letters, then making for the front door. ‘Shan’t be long! I’m just going to the Post Office, then calling to see Mrs Morris to ask if she might like to accompany me to London to see a medium.’
‘What?’ Harriet heard Fraser call after her, as she closed the front door.
Chapter Four
12th August 1919, Bermondsey, London
A deep uncertainty, which worried Harriet tremendously, coiled and twisted the insides of her stomach, as she stood on the doorstep to the tall house in front of her. A particular flat in this tenement belonged to one Mrs Leonard, a medium with whom she had made an anonymous appointment. The brick house was in a line of ten or so others, each as run-down as the next. Children with dirty faces and ragged clothes stopped their game of leaping over a pile of horse excrement in the middle of the street to stare at her.
She looked away, down at her trembling hands, wondering if she was doing the right thing. If Fraser, Mrs Morris and the Reverend Percival were to be paid heed, then no, most definitely she was not doing the right thing. The most critical opinion of the latter had been imposed upon her after she had told Fraser of her plans to seek out the help of a medium. He had immediately dashed out of the house, returning some time later with the reproachful vicar.
‘That death is the end has never been a Christian doctrine, Mrs McDougall…’ he had preached to her, the moment that she had allowed him inside Linton House, ‘…but this kind of interest in a premature reunion with the departed is, well, unhealthy, ungodly and leaves one susceptible to all kinds of opportunism. It pains me to cast aspersions but these people are nothing more than charlatans, preying on the weak and desperate.’
‘Weak, Reverend Percival? Weak?’ Harriet had replied, slightly astounded. ‘Desperate, yes. Weak, no.’
‘I think you understand my meaning, Mrs McDougall.’
‘Perhaps, Reverend, you might feel differently, were you in my position,’ she had retorted, before politely requesting that he should leave.
And now, standing here in this unsavoury neighbourhood, his words of warning prevented her from knocking on the door. And yet…
She couldn’t shake the possibility of getting some answers. Her favourite author, Arthur Conan Doyle had publicly proclaimed an ability to communicate through a medium with his son, Kingsley, who had died of pneumonia following the Battle of the Somme; an ability as had also been reported by a good many other normal, respectable people.
What, she questioned herself, was the worst that could happen? That she would learn nothing more than that which she now already knew? Fraser, of course, suspected all kinds of fraud and trickery, and it was because of this that she had booked her appointment under a different name, giving no other personal information whatsoever.
She had to try.
Harriet knocked on the door, glanced again at the inquisitive children on the street, then stood staring at her black shoes until she heard the creak of the door opening before her.
‘Mrs Catt?’
Harriet looked up and nodded. The lady in front of her was a good deal older than was she, with a hunched back. Her hair was so thin that Harriet could see large patches of her blotched scalp through the grey clumps that persisted. Her face was haggard, tired.
‘I’m Mrs Leonard. You’d best come in,’ she said, shuffling awkwardly around and moving inside the house.
Harriet followed, instantly but covertly turning her nose up at some foul-smelling odours emanating from the bowels of the house. The hallway was painted—a long time hence—in a dull brown, and the boards were bare, lending an oppressive feeling to the place, all of which only served to heighten Harriet’s anxiety.
Mrs Leonard paused at the backroom and indicated that Harriet should enter first.
The room was small and lit by a single candle on a table in the centre. Shards of sunlight pierced through torn slits in a tatty blanket, hung in a clumsy attempt to cover the window.
‘Sit down, Mrs Catt,’ Mrs Leonard said pleasantly.
‘Which chair?’ Harriet asked, glancing between the two on either side of the table.
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter to me…or to the spirit world,’ Mrs Leonard laughed. ‘You just make yourself comfortable.’
Harriet sat at the nearest chair, not comfortable in the slightest.
‘Now, Mrs Catt,’ Mrs Leonard said, quietly reaching over and touching Harriet’s left hand. ‘I ain’t givin’ no assurances about who’s out there for ya: might be someone, might be no-one. I have what’s called a control, that be a person what’s already on the other side and who talks through me. Her name is Kaifa. You can’t speak directly to her; she will talk if she can. Did you bring something of your loved-one’s, what I can use to make a connection through Kaifa?’
Harriet nodded, not entirely sure of what she had just been told, and produced Malcolm’s blood-stained tunic from her bag, which Mrs Leonard placed on the table in front of her, having no obvious reaction to the blood stains.
‘Are you ready to proceed?’
‘Yes,’ Harriet muttered.
‘Very well,’ Mrs Leonard said, placing her hands down onto the tunic.
Harriet watched, as Mrs Leonard leant back and closed her eyes. Her mouth fell open, as if she had just dropped off to sleep and her hands, resting with palms open on the table, began to twitch. At that moment, Harriet recalled Fraser’s warnings about th
e trickery and illusion employed by some mediums and she again questioned the validity of coming all this way to see this charade.
‘I’ve got a young man with me,’ Mrs Leonard suddenly ejaculated, in a high-pitched, squeaky voice. ‘Rather above the medium height. He holds himself well.’
‘Malcolm?’ Harriet blurted out, instantly wishing that she hadn’t just given herself away like that.
Mrs Leonard seemed not to react to the name. ‘He has greyish eyes…or perhaps brown. Dark hair... Handsome…very handsome, I should say. A nice oval face…’
Even though she could have used his support right now, Harriet was glad that Fraser wasn’t there; she could hear him, mocking Mrs Leonard’s shrill voice and the description of a soldier, which could easily be applied to half the British Army.
‘He’s laughing at you!’ she suddenly shrieked. ‘He’s struggling to speak for the laughter. He can’t believe you of all people is ’ere!’
‘Why, what’s so funny about that?’ Harriet demanded.
‘He says you being here don’t sit well with your beliefs. He’s laughing at something else, too: your name. He says it ain’t yours, it’s someone else’s…somebody close to you’s.’
Harriet gasped. Mrs Harriet Catt had been the name of her grandmother.
Mrs Leonard went quiet for a few seconds, having the look of someone being told something complicated to remember, then she asked, ‘He says find the poppy and the red star; it will help you with it all.’
‘Help me with what all?’ Harriet asked, wondering what on earth that could mean.
‘He says, he’s happy here and he’s got lots of friends with him. He’s losing his form now. He says he’s got work to do—something with a laboratory—but if you look around for him, you’ll see him… He’s gone.’ Mrs Leonard sat bolt upright, as though stung by electricity, and opened her eyes. In the voice with which she had first greeted Harriet at the door, she said, ‘It was him, wasn’t it—your son, Malcolm?’
Ghost Swifts, Blue Poppies and the Red Star Page 4
