He stood up, frowning, trying to recall any report in recent years of an unexplained disappearance from the area. As a local historian he’d remember, but nothing came to mind. Of course . . . He smiled faintly. There was Hettie Daynes, but that was way back in 1885. Surely . . .
He squatted again, inserted a hand and drew out a short, thin bone. Like Stan Fox, Steve was a curious man. Questions were forming in his mind, one after another. How long has this skeleton been here? Is it female? Could it possibly be that of Hettie Daynes? Was Hettie even a real person and if so, could I unearth any facts about her? If I give this bone to my friend at the university, will she be able to date the remains for me?
And most importantly, ought I even to be thinking about making a project out of this, instead of reporting the skeleton to the police?
Without noticing, he’d started to put the chunks of stone back where he found them. Like the children, he was keen to investigate the matter himself. Like them, he knew that once the authorities were told, he’d find himself shoved to one side.
Of course, he reminded himself, the kids might decide to report it – they found it after all. He shrugged, stood up and began picking his way towards dry land, the bone in a pocket of his waxed jacket.
Hope I can persuade Avril to do the science.
FIFTY-FIVE
FOX HANDED THE camera back to Alison. ‘So, what do you kids intend to do about this?’
Rob looked at him. ‘We’re going to investigate.’
‘How?’
Rob shrugged. ‘Dig about in the mud, see what turns up.’
The reporter smiled. ‘Such as?’
‘Well . . . something that’ll tell us who she was. Like . . . I dunno, a ring or a bracelet or something.’
‘She?’ queried Fox. ‘Why d’you think it’s a woman?’
‘ ’S obvious,’ said Bethan. ‘It’s the ghost, isn’t it?’
Fox chuckled. ‘If you know that, why d’you need clues?’
‘We want to prove she’s Hettie Daynes.’
Fox looked puzzled. ‘What – as in daft as Hettie Daynes, you mean?’
Bethan nodded. ‘Yes.’
The reporter shook his head. ‘But she’s not real, Bethan. It’s just an expression people use – daft as Hettie Daynes. It’s like daft as a brush, or daft as a box of frogs.’
‘No it isn’t,’ snapped Harry. ‘Hettie Daynes was real. She was our mum’s great, great auntie. She vanished.’
Fox frowned at the boy. ‘Are you winding me up, lad?’
Harry shook his head. ‘No, I’m not.’
‘He isn’t,’ put in Alison. ‘His mum asked me not to go as Hettie Daynes to the Hallowe’en Hop. That’s why I went as the ghost.’
‘But . . .?’ The reporter looked bewildered. ‘You think they’re the same person – isn’t that what you’re saying?’
Alison nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘So, isn’t going as the ghost the same as going as Hettie Daynes? I don’t understand.’
‘No.’ Bethan shook her head. ‘It’s not the same, Mr Fox. See – Aly was going to go in torn clothes, dirty and crying, ’cause that’s what Hettie was like before she disappeared. She wouldn’t be wet. The ghost’s wet because she comes up out of the water – well, you’ve seen the snapshot.’
‘Budge up a bit, Rob,’ growled Fox. Rob shuffled along the bench and the reporter sat down, leaning forward to see Bethan. ‘But your mum didn’t mind Alison going as the ghost?’
‘No, ’cause she says the ghost isn’t her great, great auntie. In fact she doesn’t believe there is any ghost. She says it’s just a local legend.’
‘Ah.’ Fox nodded. ‘So she hasn’t seen your snapshot?’
‘ ’Course not. I told you – she’d kill me if she knew I was even at the res that night.’
‘Right.’ Fox sat quietly for a bit, frowning at the concrete floor. Then he roused himself and said, ‘Yes, all right. We ought to tell the police about the bones and it might come to that in the end, but we’ll leave it for the moment. Let me know if you find anything interesting.’ He stood up, looked down at them. ‘Investigate, but please follow these three rules. One: stick together. Nobody is to be at the reservoir by herself or himself at any time. Two: keep away from the water at all times. It’s very deep, and very cold. And three: don’t disturb the bones. Dig round them if you must, but leave them as they lie – it might be important later on.’
They watched him walk away, then pulled on their wellies and left the shelter.
FIFTY-SIX
FOX DROVE BACK to the Echo building in Rawton. He got a coffee from the dispenser in the newsroom, carried it to his cubicle and shut the door. He sat, sipping and staring at the wall.
Hettie Daynes. Alison gives Bill that name at the school. Says she thinks it’s the ghost’s name. Bill jots it down, Reginald Hopwood overhears and tells him not to put it in the paper. Threatens him.
And before that, a couple of Saturdays ago, Reginald has his knickers in a twist about sightseers at Wilton Water. Wants security stepped up. A piece in the paper wouldn’t do any harm, he says.
Now it turns out there’s a human skeleton at the reservoir, and a bunch of inquisitive kids have found it. A guy with a suspicious mind might almost think Hopwood knew something was there.
The reporter drained the styrofoam cup, crunched it in his fist and lobbed it into the wastepaper basket. Ridiculous of course – how could Hopwood know any such thing? How could anyone? The skeleton had been under six feet of water, probably for donkey’s years. Nobody could’ve known it was there.
Hettie Daynes, though. Fox scribbled the name on a pad, gazed at it. Wrote daft as in front of it. A local expression that turns out to refer to an actual person who vanished. A great, great auntie. So, a long time ago then. He frowned.
Suppose the kids’re right, and the skeleton belongs to this vanished girl, Hettie Daynes. Why would Councillor Hopwood not want her name printed in the Echo? Is it possible he knows something about her – something he’d rather keep hidden? Bit far-fetched, but hard to account for his peculiar behaviour otherwise.
Some people would put it down to sheer coincidence, but I’m not some people.
I’m Curiosity Fox.
FIFTY-SEVEN
CARL STUDIED HIS reflection in his parents’ bedroom mirror. The swelling had gone down, but his ear and cheek were still tinged with blue.
‘Pig.’ He glowered at the image of his father in the wedding photo. He wasn’t supposed to be in this room, but the councillor was out. And so, for once, was his wife. There was a civic reception for some overseas visitors at Rawton Town Hall, and the partners of councillors were expected to attend.
Carl picked up the photo and held it close to his face. ‘Fat, puffed-up, red-faced bullying pig,’ he snarled. ‘Why don’t you stand on top of the London Eye and lose your balance?’ In fact, his father was neither fat nor red-faced in the picture. Years of soft living had thickened the racing-snake figure, broken tiny blood vessels in the face and shortened the temper, to produce the Reginald his son and heir despised.
He put the photo down and left the room. There was one place in the house even more off limits to him – the councillor’s office. It was an attic room under the slope of the roof. Reginald had his computer there, and a steel filing cabinet which was always locked. It was also the room where the Hopwood family archive was stored.
It was his father’s pride and joy, this archive. It consisted of trunkful after trunkful of letters, photographs, certificates, invitations, bills of fare, copies of speeches, illuminated addresses, medals, trophies, and badges, hats and jackets from the uniforms of forgotten orders and disbanded regiments. They were symbols of the distinguished lives of Hopwood ancestors, stretching all the way back to the eighteenth century and the birth of Josiah Hopwood, builder of Hopwood Mill and founder of the family fortune.
Reginald was rightly proud of his ancestors, and treasured these mouldering testimonials to t
heir glory. He intended going through all this stuff eventually, getting it into some sort of logical order, but hadn’t got round to it yet.
Which is a pity, because the archive contained an item which would blow his world apart.
FIFTY-EIGHT
‘HI, AVRIL – THANKS for coming at such short notice.’ The historian stood aside to let his friend enter, then closed the door. ‘Coffee or tea? Kettle’s on.’
It was seven o’clock Saturday evening. The woman smiled, nodded. ‘Coffee’ll be fine, thanks.’ She sat down in an armchair. Steve went through to the kitchen. ‘So,’ said Avril, when they were settled with coffee. ‘What’s all the excitement about, Steve?’
‘Bones.’
‘Bones?’ The pathologist looked at him through the steam from her cup. Steve nodded. ‘Human bones, exposed by the draining of Wilton Water and found today by a bunch of kids from the village.’
‘Wow!’ exclaimed Avril. ‘You sure they’re human?’
Steve nodded. ‘Absolutely. Complete skeleton, virtually.’
‘You’ve told the police, of course.’
‘Uh – no.’ He smiled at her expression. ‘They’re old bones, Avril. I don’t know how old, of course, which is where you come in.’
‘Oh it is, is it?’ The woman blew on her coffee, took a sip. ‘I’m not sure I ought to get involved.’ She frowned. ‘It’s got to be an offence surely, keeping something like this to yourself?’
The historian shrugged. ‘I dunno. Anyway . . .’ He grinned. ‘When did you start worrying about what’s an offence and what isn’t? Last I heard, you were still the same old maverick.’ He produced the bone he’d removed from the site. ‘Here. Lighten up and tell me what you think.’
The woman examined the bone, turning it this way and that under the electric light. Steve watched her over the rim of his cup till she looked up. ‘Well, it’s a clavicle. Old, as you said, but I can’t tell how old by just looking. I’d have to do tests.’
‘Will you do ’em for me, Avril?’
She pulled a face. ‘I suppose so.’ She looked at him. ‘It’d help if I could see the rest of it, Steve.’
He nodded. ‘No prob. Were you doing anything special tomorrow?’
FIFTY-NINE
EIGHT O’CLOCK ON Monday morning. The Hopwoods at breakfast. A silent, awkward meal. Felicity avoids talking to her husband, who tends to be savage in the mornings at the best of times. As for Carl, he’s got a secret he can’t share with either of them. He found it Saturday night, rooting in the archive. The ink’s faded and the writing’s hard to read, but he suspects it’s seriously weird. It’s in the backpack he takes to school. He stares at his soggy cornflakes, imagining what would happen if his father suddenly took it into his head to look through his son’s stuff.
Nightmare.
The councillor’s mobi chimes. He swears, slams down the butter knife, stabs the talk button. ‘Hopwood.’
‘Ah . . . morning, Councillor. You won’t know me, but I voted for you last—’
‘Hang on.’ He shoves back his chair, gets up and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.
Mother and son exchange looks. Neither speaks, but they’re thinking the same thought. Councillor Hopwood, busy man. Can’t even eat breakfast in peace, he’s so indispensable – and oh, how he loves it.
He’s in full flow, they can hear him faintly through the door. After ten minutes he comes back.
‘Who was that?’ asks Felicity as her husband resumes his seat. She ought to know better.
‘None of your damn business.’ He sweeps the toast rack off the table with the back of his hand. ‘Cold, as usual.’ The slices skitter across the carpet. ‘That’s your business, Felicity, if only you’d attend to it.’
Carl’s hands curl into fists on the tablecloth. You wait, he thinks. You think you’re so great, nobody can touch you, but you’re wrong. Just you wait.
SIXTY
IN A CELLAR under the Echo building lay the newspaper’s own library. It had no books, but there were copies of every edition of the Echo going back to the very first, printed in the spring of 1865. The papers were bound up between hard covers, each volume holding one year’s editions.
There was a broad, battered table and an old swivel chair. On the chair slumped Steve Wood, looking like a sack of spuds. He’d been here more than three hours, and had leafed through two hundred and twenty copies of the paper. On the table, open, lay the volume for 1887. The historian’s right hand rested on an inside page of an edition printed in November of that year. The library was poorly lit and hopelessly old-fashioned. Anywhere else, everything would be on disk or microfiche and he’d probably have found what he’d been looking for in minutes. Nevertheless he was feeling pretty pleased with himself as he read this:
A NEW SIMILE
The attention of your correspondent has been drawn to a rare phenomenon: namely, the rise of an apparently new simile, whose place and approximate year of birth are actually known. The simile, overheard in more than one conversation among factory hands at Wilton, runs thus: As daft as Hettie Daynes. It is applied to any person perceived to have committed a particularly foolish or imprudent act, and arises out of events in the village a few years ago, when it seems an apparently demented young woman was observed by many, weeping and rending her garments.
The origins of many similes in common use are lost in the mists of time, and it is interesting to speculate as to whether this one will spread beyond the boundaries of Wilton, and of the present century, to issue from the mouths of persons totally ignorant of the circumstance out of which it arose.
Steve Wood scribbled a note, closed the volume and replaced it on its shelf. Events in the village a few years ago. He sighed. I wonder why they didn’t make the local paper, these events?
SIXTY-ONE
THE FEATHERS, THURSDAY lunch time. Councillor Reginald Hopwood and journalist Stan Fox at their usual table. Fox lifted his tankard. ‘Cheers, Councillor.’
‘Cheers, Stan.’ Hopwood sipped his ale, feeling nervous. Would his companion mention the reservoir, his threat to the photographer, Hettie Daynes? Was he going to ask awkward questions, or had he not noticed anything unusual?
Curiosity Fox noticed everything, including the councillor’s unease. He had questions, but didn’t know quite how to put them.
‘So, anything new?’ he began. It was the one question he always asked.
‘Don’t think so, Stan.’ Hopwood kept his tone and expression neutral. ‘Quiet, I’d call it.’ He smiled. ‘Too quiet for you, probably – I know how you guys like a bit of sensation.’
‘We do, Councillor.’ Fox gazed into his tankard. ‘Especially me.’ He looked up. ‘I make no bones about it.’
Was it his imagination, or did his companion pale slightly at those last words?
As Fox and Hopwood fenced at The Feathers, Steve Wood ploughed through old census rolls at Rawton town hall till he found this:
Prince’s Street. No. 8.
Ebor Daynes, textile operative.
Alexis Daynes (wife) spinner.
Children: Albert, 17 yrs. Carter’s mate.
Hettie, 16 yrs. Textile operative.
Henry, 11 yrs.
Margaret, 10yrs.
Mary, 8yrs.
Harold, 6 yrs.
Dorothy, 7 months.
The historian smiled and nodded, jotting in his notebook:
Hettie, 16 yrs. Textile operative.
SIXTY-TWO
FRIDAY MORNING, STEVE’S phone played a bar from the 1812 Overture. He thumbed the green stud. ‘Hi, Avril.’
‘Morning, Steve.’
‘How’re you?’
‘I’m OK. I pinched some lab time last night, ran the tests.’
‘Great. And . . .?’
‘The bones’re a century old, give or take twenty years or so. And the skeleton’s female.’
‘Tremendous! That plonks it right where I hoped it’d be. Thanks, Avril, I mean it.’
&nb
sp; ‘There’s something else, Steve.’
‘What?’
‘Well – one of the bits we picked up Sunday . . . it’s not part of her, whoever she was.’
‘Not part of her . . . what d’you mean?’
‘It belongs to an infant. A very young infant.’
‘You mean two people drowned?’
‘Sort of. I can’t remember exactly where this particular bone was in relation to the skeleton, but I think the child was in the womb.’
‘Ah.’
‘I could probably confirm this by taking another look on site.’
‘OK, Avril. Tomorrow or Sunday, whichever’s best for you.’
Rawton Secondary School. Afternoon break. To avoid going outside in the drizzle, Carl Hopwood hid in the boys’ lavatories.
Carl liked to read on the lavatory. A lot of guys do. He fished from his pack the diary he’d found in the archive at home, and settled on the seat.
The diary had a lock, which Carl had forced. Its jacket was of scuffed leather, red once, now faded to a brownish pink. The year 1885 was embossed on it in tarnished gilt. On the first page in a fine copperplate hand, were these words:
The Journal of Stanton Farley Hopwood.
Stanton Hopwood had been Carl’s great grandfather. He had died in 1939.
A musty smell rose as Carl turned the thin, foxed leaves, looking for October 6th. He’d read the entry a couple of times before. It was the one that had got his attention in the first place:
Accosted by H. this afternoon while crossing the yard. Strident. Told her be quiet, I was making plans and would speak to her soon. Plans! I have no plans. Would that I had.
Boring stuff followed, until this on the thirteenth:
Waylaid again, this time perilously close to Father’s office. H. threatening to tell her mother unless I name the day. Silly little fool surely can’t imagine Father’s plans for me include marriage to one of his hands?
The Shade of Hettie Daynes Page 8
