Local Secrets

by Jan Jones

  Leo took a deep breath. He’d stay here and do some work. Work was always the answer. There was also the undoubted truth that an article in the bag now was one less to make time for while his son was here. He patted his pocket for his notebook and crossed the road to the Seagull Brewery.

  It was quiet in the small history-of-the-brewery room, even though he could hear noise and conversation going on in the rest of the building. Leo moved between the exhibits, noting facts as automatically as he breathed, looking for the diary Caitlin had mentioned. It had been kept by the great-great-uncle who had signed up in a fit of patriotism for the Great War and never returned. There it was, a tiny thing. It was open at a list of the workers who had joined up together and who had all died together on their first day on the Somme. Ten men from this one family business.

  Ten of them.

  Dear God.

  As accustomed as he was to the random violence in everyday news stories, Leo still felt appalled shock run through him that anyone could ever have thought the Pals Battalions of WW1 a good idea. ‘Work together, fight together!’ Had that been the slogan? The Army recruitment boys hadn’t added the inevitable corollary. Die together.

  Such a waste. Such a gap in a town. He made a careful note of the names in the diary. There were bound to be more men from Salthaven. How many? He looked at his watch. Still too soon for Daniel to be arriving. He’d check out the war memorial.

  The stone war memorial in the market square was plain and solid. The reality of the fallen was worse than he’d expected. So many Salthaven names inscribed around the sides, including those from the brewery. A testament to a different age, when men thought principle was enough reason to lay down their lives. Leo moved around it, grieving silently at the plurality of family members. How many households in this one small town had been torn apart?

  Then he frowned, pulled out of his sadness. He double-checked his notebook. One of the Seagull men was missing. Frederick Burrows. Why would that be? His name wasn’t anywhere on the memorial, but it had been clearly stated in the brewery museum that all the Seagull volunteers had died. The omission struck Leo as very odd indeed. Salthaven wasn’t the kind of town to forget its sons.

  He was halfway to the Messenger office to check the archives when his phone beeped. A text from Daniel on his granny’s phone, so excited that the words all ran together. They were nearly here! Leo pounded back to the boat, oblivious to everything except anticipating the pleasure of his son’s company.

  When Penny opened the door, she almost didn’t recognise the look of blazing contentment on Leo’s face. She’d seen his concentrated intelligence when tracking down a story, she’d seen the mischief when he was thinking up a new ploy, and she’d seen his satisfaction when solving a puzzle. But this was different. This was pure joy. And holding him firmly by the hand was the reason for that joy.

  She grinned to let him know how happy she was for him. “Don’t tell me, I forgot to give you the key to the bungalow?”

  “As if. My parents are already unpacking, thank you. But they’d like to know how the heating and hot water works, so Daniel and I came down to find you.”

  “And we’ve got a present for you,” said the thin, eager, image-of-Leo by his father’s side. “And I like all the Thomases on my bed.”

  Penny laughed. “It was my son’s old duvet cover. Noel was a real train fan when he was your age and he loved the duvet so much I couldn’t bear to throw it away when he grew up. I thought you’d probably like it.”

  She walked up the road with them, Daniel skipping happily next to Leo just as if he hadn’t been in the car for six hours and at an adventure playground party the day before. Like father, like son, it seemed.

  Leo’s phone beeped. He scanned the text and wrinkled his brow. “I’ve got to go to the sixth form college first thing tomorrow about this prize,” he said. “Can you run me over, Penny? Please? It won’t take long.”

  Penny guessed that despite the meetings and deadlines Leo had mentioned, he wasn’t going to let anything keep him away from Daniel for any length of time. “You know I will,” she said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Leo was ready and waiting for her next morning. As they passed the graffiti on the school bus shelter she commented that according to Noel there hadn’t been any more at the brewery, despite him having repainted the yard gates. She parked in a visitor space at the school and looked around uneasily. There were a surprising number of cars here, considering that it was half term.

  “There’s our Mr Durham bang on time,” said Leo. “Who is the smirking young man with him?”

  “That’s Shane, his son. I’m getting a bad feeling about this, Leo. What did the text message actually say?”

  “That it was about the Salthaven Prize and to be here by 9.30. Why?”

  “Because I think it’s today. I think today is when the students are writing the essay for the prize. I seem to remember it took place at half term when Noel did it.”

  “What?” Leo swung to face her in alarm. “Am I supposed to invigilate the thing? I agreed to judge, that’s all. I haven’t got time to hang around all morning.”

  Penny was already ringing her son’s mobile. “Noel, when you won the Salthaven Prize, what was the format?”

  Noel’s voice suggested that he had long since ceased to be surprised by anything his mother asked him. “We all sat in those exam desks in the hall. Some guy from the council opened the envelope and read out the question, then he pushed off and old Dawlish sat there doing a crossword while we wrote the essay.”

  “Thanks, love.” She relayed the information to Leo.

  Leo looked relieved. “So I don’t have to stay? Thank goodness for that. I promised Daniel the coast while the rain still holds off.”

  They followed a harassed secretary to the head’s office. The route took them out of the school and on to a strip of the playing field where a small enclave of Portakabins had been assembled. “The head has his office in a Portakabin?” queried Leo. “This isn’t a school, it’s a building site.”

  Penny shushed him. “They are refurbishing the old 1950s wing,” she said in a low voice. “Mr Dawlish and the admin staff have moved into temporary buildings until it’s done. We had a newsletter about it.”

  Mr Dawlish would be ‘back in a moment’, it seemed. The secretary hurried off. Penny and Leo stepped through the flimsy Portakabin door to wait. “Not very secure, for a school,” observed Leo.

  Penny stopped dead just inside the doorway, flabbergasted by the incongruous sight of a no-frills box of a room crammed with furniture built for a grander era.

  Leo burst out laughing. “This is unreal,” he said, echoing her thoughts. “I’ve never seen an Edwardian desk in a Portakabin before. And look at the size of that cupboard. They don’t make them like that any more.”

  “Just as well,” said Penny. “You’d never fit anything else in. I can’t believe they got it through the door. They must have built this office around it.”

  Grand the furniture might be, but evidently there was no cleaning done over half term. Mr Dawlish’s desk contained two empty coffee mugs, the waste bin was full and the carpet hadn’t been vacuumed. Penny squinted at what appeared to be woodshavings on the carpet. “Pencil sharpenings?” she asked, nudging them with her foot. “Now I know I’m in a teacher’s room.”

  Leo crouched down, then looked intently at the massive cupboard. “Or woodworm.”

  They were interrupted by the sound of footsteps outside. Leo stood up. Penny turned towards the door. As she did so, she thought she saw Leo abstract a blank piece of paper from the desk. Now what was he up to? He was impossible.

  “Sorry I wasn’t here to meet you.” Mr Dawlish bustled in. “Good morning. Mr Williams, yes? It’s nice to meet you. Many thanks for stepping in to judge the prize. Such a shock for all of us, Dr Hunter having a heart attack at his age. It just goes to show, doesn’t it? Now then, I have the essay question safe and sound right here.”

&nb
sp; He brandished a key and unlocked the cupboard door.

  “No filing cabinets?” said Leo innocently. Penny noticed he wasn’t holding any piece of paper now.

  Mr Dawlish shot him a glance. “The school records are in my secretary’s room. He patted the massive frame. They don’t make cupboards like this any more, you know.” He took an envelope from the middle shelf and handed it to Leo.

  “Thank you,” said Leo. Penny saw his gaze dart around every part of the interior of the cupboard before the door was relocked and the key returned to Mr Dawlish’s pocket.

  Penny followed the two men across to the main building. The students who had elected to try for the prize were waiting at individual desks in the hall. Penny thought of Frances, still asleep in bed. Like many of her classmates, she evidently hadn’t thought the loss of a precious morning of half-term was compensated for by a pop at the £500 prize. She hadn’t even bothered to mention that it was taking place.

  Leo raised his hands for attention, greeted everyone, explained he was a journalist, then slit open the envelope with a theatrical flourish quite alien to him and drew out a folded sheet of paper from inside. There was a noticeable hesitation before he looked at the waiting sixth-formers. “This year’s question,” he said. “How is internet technology both good and bad for today’s student and how might it change education in the future?”

  It so happened that Penny was watching Shane Durham while Leo spoke, tracing Terry’s features on his face and wondering if he looked that smug all the time. As the essay subject resounded around the hall, the change in the boy was ludicrous. His jaw really did drop open. He looked wildly at the door, then back at Leo. Eventually he picked up his pen as if he’d never seen one before and stared at the paper in front of him.

  In the spirit of the prize, a blackboard had been wheeled in. Leo chalked the question on it and prepared to leave.

  Mr Dawlish shook him by the hand. “Nice touch of theatricals, there,” he said jovially. “Will you come by this afternoon for the essays? My secretary will have them packed up for you.”

  “I…”

  “I’ll collect them,” said Penny. “Mr Williams has another assignment today. The essays will be quite secure: my daughter isn’t entering for the prize this year, so I won’t be tempted to peek at any of them.”

  Leo dropped his voice. “There is one thing.” He passed Mr Dawlish the sheet of paper he had taken from the envelope. “This was blank. Presumably the wrong page got put in by mistake. I thought it was best to make up a question on the spot.”

  “Oh my goodness. However did that happen?” Mr Dawlish was shaken. “I must tell the council. That’s very poor on their part. Well done indeed for salvaging the situation. Interesting subject, I thought.”

  They left sedately. Penny shot a glance at Leo’s untroubled countenance. “And just how long have you been able to do party tricks?” she asked once they were walking down the corridor out of earshot.

  Leo grinned. “I’m a journalist. It’s practically in the job description.”

  “Are you going to explain why you switched the paper?”

  “When we get to the car.” Even in a hurry, he was looking with interest at the shields and scrolls on the walls as they headed towards the door. “Hey, there’s a roll of honour here of all the previous winners of the Salthaven Prize. Your Noel’s name is on it.”

  “I know.” Penny looked proudly at the gold lettering on the handsome wooden display board. Her son, fixed in place for posterity amongst all those other keen minds of Salthaven. “Have you got time to take a photo of it for me? He’s got the certificate at home somewhere, but a picture of this board would be nice for me to have on the computer.”

  “Sure. No problem. I’ll email it to you.” Leo clicked a couple of shots, then moved along to the earlier entries. He whistled softly and took more photos. “Uncle Charles is here too. And… well, well, who’d have thought it? My friend Frederick Burrows won the Salthaven Prize in 1912.”

  Penny blinked. “Who on earth is Frederick Burrows? I’ve never heard of him. Should I have?”

  Speculation played over Leo’s face as he turned to Penny. The speculation of an investigative reporter who has scented a story. “Frederick Burrows was one of the Seagull soldiers Caitlin told us about. He died on the Somme with the rest of the brewery men. But apparently - unlike them - he wasn’t just a lowly brew-hand after all, but a youngster of some intelligence and fame. So why, alone of his comrades, would he have been left off the war memorial?”

  Penny found herself chuckling in amusement. For the last thirty minutes, Leo had been fidgeting to get back to his son and their day out - yet now, free to do exactly that but faced with a puzzle that might have a story behind it, he was standing in the school corridor oblivious to the world while he thought it through.

  “Leo,” she said. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  Leo’s eyes focused. “Sorry. Something I discovered at the Seagull yesterday when I looked at that diary Caitlin mentioned. Frederick Burrows, this lad here,” he tapped the handsome wooden board displaying the Salthaven Prize roll of honour, “was one of the brewery men who died on the Somme, but he isn’t commemorated on the war memorial. There has to be a reason.” He glanced at his watch, obviously torn between getting home and delving head first into the newspaper archives.

  Penny put a hand on his arm. “The Battle of the Somme was a hundred years ago. One more week while you enjoy yourself with Daniel isn’t going to make a jot of difference to the story.”

  Leo gave a rueful laugh and started walking again. “You’re right. That’s what comes of letting journalistic impulses take over. Thanks for offering to pick up the essays.”

  “As long as it doesn’t become a habit.” They were outside now, heading towards her car. “Why did you swap the question over?”

  “Can’t you guess? The cupboard in Mr Dawlish’s office had been tampered with.”

  She looked at him in astonishment. “How could you tell?”

  “There was that sawdust on the floor that you spotted. There were also indentations on the carpet when I knelt down to look. I reckon the back had been taken off and the envelope abstracted. Somebody wanted to know what was in it.”

  “Oh Leo, that’s impossible.”

  “Easy as anything,” said Leo, sounding far too knowledgeable for comfort. “It’s one of the beauties of wooden furniture. It’s made to be taken apart.”

  For her own peace of mind Penny decided not to question him any further in case he told her. Instead she said, “Apropos of nothing at all, Shane Durham looked stunned when you announced the subject of the essay. I assumed he’d got the proper title from his father and you’d thrown him by inventing one of your own.”

  “Dear me, how could you even think such a shocking thing of the Durham clan? Terry went to enormous pains to let me know he’d purposely left the council chamber while they discussed what the question should be this year, and that the minutes of the meeting wouldn’t be distributed until after the essays were written.” Leo grinned at her mischievously. “That’s what made me suspicious and on the lookout for dodgy dealing in the first place.”

  Noel and Caitlin were finishing an extensive breakfast in preparation for an all-day bike ride when Penny got back. She never failed to be thrown by just how much devastation could result from the preparation of a simple meal in the hands of her son. The talent must have come from his father’s side of the family, and as she couldn’t recall seeing Julian so much as open a cupboard door in the kitchen in all the twenty-two years they were married, she had no reason to doubt the theory.

  “Caitlin,” she said. “Would it be possible for me to look at your great-great-uncle’s diary properly some time? I’d like to see if he mentions Frederick Burrows in any other entries. He isn’t on the war memorial and Leo wants to know why.”

  “Sure,” said Caitlin. “The key to the cabinet is in my desk. Pop in next time you’re down there.
”

  They departed in high spirits, leaving the washing up behind them. Penny surveyed her poor, abused saucepans and made a mental note to humanely dispose of Noel’s student kitchen equipment as soon as he graduated.

  Retuning later to collect the essays, Penny waited in the car until everyone had left before going in. She particularly wanted to avoid Terry Durham, but she needn’t have worried. He marched past her bonnet without even seeing her, arguing furiously with his son who sounded just as angry and aggrieved as his father.

  The harassed secretary from earlier was a lot less stressed now. “I don’t mind the kids during term time,” she confided, “but having them in during the holidays is unsettling. I’ve got so much to sort out and catch up on, what with the builders being here and nothing being in its proper place.”

  “The renovations needed doing, though,” said Penny diplomatically. It was the popular view, but she had mixed feelings about the work herself. This school had been Salthaven Grammar in her day, guiding generations of bright local kids through the growing-up years from eleven to eighteen. In her mind it would smell perpetually of chalk and wet coats and ozone-laden draughts and burgeoning hormones. Now the town’s secondary education was housed in a new concrete and glass edifice further down the road and this was the sixth form college for the whole region. She supposed it deserved to be poshed up a bit and returned to its grand beginnings.

  “I was wondering about the history of the Salthaven Prize,” she went on. “Do you have records at all?”

  “Do we ever.” The woman waved a despairing hand at a filing cabinet. “It’s all in there taking up space. I only wish I could find somewhere else to store it.”