by Kate Ellis
Peter’s grip on Gwen’s hand tightened as they neared the cemetery lodge, as though he wanted to make sure she wouldn’t escape.
‘This way, Miss.’
When they reached the house Gwen wondered how she’d explain herself to Mrs Rudyard if she emerged from the front door to see her son leading his teacher by the hand. Peter’s mother was a large woman with a round, pasty face and a snub nose and Gwen had always found her rather fearsome. Her husband was a stocky, taciturn man with a reputation for being handy with his fists after taking too much drink. Word had it that he’d suffered some unspecified injury during the war which had left him morose and short-tempered. Whatever the truth, it didn’t prevent him digging graves for the people of the village, rich and poor alike, an occupation he combined with working as a gardener at one of the big houses. On leaving school his eldest son, Jack, had joined him in his work, whereas Ernie, his second son, still in her class for one more year, had ambitions to work in the garage that had once served as the local smithy. The Cottontots had now, without exception, exchanged their grand carriages for the latest motor cars; shiny, noisy things that chugged down the High Street terrifying dogs and children.
‘She’s over here, Miss.’
Peter led the way down the central path towards the back of the cemetery and came to a sudden halt near the boundary wall.
‘She’s still here, Miss. I told you, didn’t I?’
Gwen could see a newly dug grave, yawning to receive its occupant, and she stepped forward to peer into the shadowy hole, trying not to think of death. A spade lay on the heap of soil beside the grave and she hesitated before picking it up and kneeling at the edge. Then she lay flat on her stomach, no longer caring about the state of her clothes, because she’d seen a hand protruding from the earth, pointing at the air accusingly, and a partially uncovered face veiled with soil. She began work, leaning over to scrape the earth away with the spade, and eventually her efforts revealed a woman in a black dress with what would once have been a crisp white collar. Gwen could see she was wearing lisle stockings but she couldn’t make out the colour of the hair beneath the small black hat still pinned in place on her head. A shoe lay at the side of the grave but the other had tumbled in with her, probably lost while she’d been struggling for her life.
Gwen hauled herself to her knees and brushed the soil from her dress.
‘Do you know who she is, Miss?’
She saw the excited anticipation on Peter’s face, as though the horror of a woman being buried alive was a great adventure he might read about in a comic.
Gwen knew the boy should be home with his parents and yet she was reluctant to let him go because that would mean being alone with the body. But this was selfish because a child shouldn’t have to stay within sight of something so horrible, and, when she was growing up, selfishness had been considered the deadliest of sins.
Before she could stop him Peter rushed to the edge of the gaping grave and stared into its depths, studying the body as though he was examining an interesting item on the class nature table. ‘I saw him last night. I wonder if he killed her.’
‘Who are you talking about, Peter?’
‘The Shadow Man, Miss.’
‘Who’s the Shadow Man?’
‘I don’t know. He doesn’t have a face.’
Gwen placed her hands on his shoulders and steered him firmly away from the grave.
‘Run to the police station and fetch the sergeant please, Peter,’ she said, trying to sound as though she was in control. She knew it was no use calling Dr Michaels because the woman was well and truly dead and, as corpses don’t bury themselves, somebody in Mabley Ridge had killed her.
Chapter 4
Mallory Ghent took his gold watch from his waistcoat pocket and examined it as the train chugged into Mabley Ridge station under a cloud of sooty steam. The watch had been his father’s, acquired when the mill was in its heyday, and the weight of the gold felt reassuring in his fingers.
Ghent recognised many of his fellow passengers and doled out businesslike nods as they alighted on to the platform. He felt grimy after a day in Manchester where the air itself was grey but at least it hadn’t rained that day, which was a rare blessing.
He no longer had a chauffeur to meet him – after the war the last occupant of the position had chosen to open his own garage selling motor cars in nearby Wilmslow – so Mallory walked the length of the High Street, self-consciously swinging his cane and politely raising his hat to a lady who was emerging from the milliner’s; the wife of a cotton trader he was hoping to do further business with. After turning the corner by the post office his pace slowed as the road became steeper until at last he reached the grand wrought-iron gates of Gramercy House. As he marched up the drive he was surprised to see his wife standing at the open front door, as though she was waiting to greet him, though when he drew closer he could tell by her expression that something was wrong.
Jane Ghent was standing quite still, a thin figure in grey, her fair hair gathered in a bun at the back of her head. Not for her the bobbed haircut of the fashionable; her skirt was longer than was now in vogue and the collar of her frilly blouse sat high on her neck as though she was anxious to avoid any unnecessary display of flesh. Ghent’s heart sank. It was only since the war ended that she’d become so dowdy; since the telegram had arrived to tell them their son, Monty, had been killed in France a few weeks before peace was declared. Until she’d received that terrible news Jane had taken pride in her appearance and she’d enjoyed parties more than her husband had. Yet even before the telegram arrived the couple hadn’t been close and they hadn’t shared a bedroom since the birth of their daughter. When Mallory had married Jane for her father’s factory he had expected other benefits to follow but these had never materialised as he had hoped.
‘Patience is missing,’ she said anxiously as soon as he was within earshot.
Ghent saw that she was fidgeting with her cuff. Since her paid companion Patience Bailey had come into their lives four months ago Jane had become dependent on her. Too dependent perhaps.
‘What do you mean, missing?’
‘She went out last night and she hasn’t come back.’ The words came out in a whine, like a child who’d been deprived of its favourite toy.
Ghent, who’d spent the previous night at his club – or so he told his wife – did his best to look sympathetic. ‘What about the child?’
‘He’s gone too. How could she leave me like this?’
‘Some people are just ungrateful, my dear. You’d think after all we’ve done for her – taking her and her child in because we considered it our duty to help a war widow … ’
Ghent had never liked Patience Bailey, let alone had any idea what was going on in her mind, but he could see his wife was on the verge of tears.
‘Have you looked in her room? Has she taken her things?’
Jane Ghent looked affronted. ‘It wouldn’t be right to pry.’
‘But if something’s wrong … She might have had an accident.’
Jane hesitated. ‘She takes the little one out walking a lot … sometimes in the evening to get him off to sleep. If she went up to the Ridge she might have … ’
‘Why on earth would she go there?’
‘She said she sometimes walks up that way and I told her to be careful. But perhaps you’re right. Maybe we should find out whether anything’s missing.’
Jane turned away from her husband and headed for the stairs while he hovered in the doorway, unsure how to react. When he saw the maid emerge from the kitchen at the back he called out to her.
‘Daisy, have you seen Mrs Bailey?’
Daisy straightened her cap and smoothed her hair in a swift, automatic movement before walking towards him. ‘No, sir. Not since yesterday.’
‘She didn’t say anything to you? Or to Cook?’
‘No, sir. Nothing.’ She looked at her employer through lowered lashes. ‘The mistress asked me earlier and I told her t
he same.’
A secretive smile appeared on Daisy’s lips, as though she was gratified that the lady’s companion had put a foot wrong. Before the war, servants had known their place but recently things had changed – and Daisy knew it.
‘Is Miss Esme at home?’ he said, his eyes meeting Daisy’s in a brief moment of intimacy.
‘No, sir. She went out this morning.’
Ghent glanced up at his wife who’d just reached the top of the stairs. Neither of them liked the set their daughter was mixing with. Fast motor cars, jazz and champagne … and, he suspected, other things besides.
Slowly Mallory Ghent followed his wife upstairs. His knees ached and he suddenly felt old; too old, perhaps, for the life he was leading. As soon as he reached the landing he saw Jane making for the narrow corridor leading to what had been the nursery wing in days gone by; the wing of smaller, humbler rooms where the children of the house, along with their nannies, had been banished until they were old enough and sufficiently civilised to join the adult world. His heart often ached for those simpler days when Monty and Esme had occupied those rooms; the days before war had destroyed everything.
He watched as Jane entered Patience Bailey’s room and as he waited his gaze was drawn to the side window that overlooked the stable yard. From there he could see the door leading to the place that was his and his alone. He’d seen Patience Bailey trying that door once, but he’d soon put a stop to that.
After a few seconds his wife called out, her voice quivering with panic.
He’d always feared that Patience Bailey and her brat would bring trouble.
Chapter 5
Grace Rudyard ignored the crying baby and stared out of the window. She could see Peter standing with his teacher near the grave her husband had dug the previous day for old Mrs Potts who’d passed away at the age of ninety-three. The teacher was young – not much more than a girl – and she seemed to believe every word that came from her son’s lying mouth. Grace cursed her naivety. Paying heed to his nonsense like that would only encourage him and bring no end of trouble.
There were times she feared for Peter and times when his words frightened her. He’d been one of twins but his brother, Jimmy, was dead, although Peter often spoke as though he was still there. He claimed that he still talked to Jimmy, having no notion of the pain this caused her, and no amount of good hidings from his father would make the nightmare stop.
When Peter had come rushing into the house, breathless and excited, he’d told her he’d been to fetch Sergeant Stark and as Grace watched him run outside again she began to doubt her assumptions. Perhaps this time he’d been telling the truth.
A while later the sergeant had arrived on his bicycle and the sight of him revived memories so vivid that Grace felt the breath being knocked out of her. It had been Sergeant Stark who’d found Jimmy on the Ridge and carried him back home to those who loved him. When the man from London – the Inspector Lincoln she remembered so well – had arrived to investigate Jimmy’s murder, he’d scolded Stark for moving Jimmy’s body; destroying evidence he’d called it. But Grace had understood that Stark had done it because he hadn’t wanted to leave the child alone out there in that desolate place. The sergeant was a good man who gave young scallywags a solemn talking-to rather than a blow. And now he was here again at her door.
Stark was a big man with black hair and a face that looked as though it had been chiselled from rock, and as he stood on the doorstep towering over her, she saw the concern in his eyes.
He cleared his throat as though he was about to make a long and challenging speech. ‘Your lad says he’s found a body. A lady, he said.’
Grace nodded.
‘It’s not one of his … stories?’
Grace didn’t answer.
‘How are you, Grace?’ The question brought back memories of that dreadful day. Her husband had always done his best to ignore the tragedy of her son’s death as though it had never happened; as though Jimmy had never been born. ‘Least said, soonest mended’ someone had once said to her. She’d felt like screaming at the stupid woman and grabbing her by the hair until she said she was sorry.
‘You have to get on with it, don’t you? The little ’uns keep me busy.’ As if on cue, the baby began to cry and Grace gave Stark a thin-lipped smile before shutting the door on him.
But instead of attending to the infant she climbed the stairs and made for the back bedroom, to the window with the best view over the cemetery. From there she watched Peter and his teacher standing a few yards from the open grave, waiting as Stark walked towards them with a lack of urgency that suggested Peter’s story hadn’t been believed.
But a few moments after the sergeant reached them Grace saw him drop to his knees and bow his head – just as she supposed he must have done when he found the body of her Jimmy all those years ago.
Chapter 6
It was raining and the rain blended with the soot from several thousand London chimneys so that the once-pure water that fell from the sky had turned grey with grime by the time it reached the pavements.
Detective Inspector Albert Lincoln raised the collar of his coat against the damp as he trudged through the Bermondsey streets between the tram stop and his home, the respectable red-brick terraced house in the tree-lined street that had once echoed with a child’s laughter.
He was home earlier than usual. These days he tried to spend as much time as possible at work in Scotland Yard because the home that had once given him such joy had become a source of pain and misery. He knew it must be harder for his wife, Mary, because she’d lost Freddy too and she didn’t even have the consolation of work to distract her. All she had these days was her widowed mother Vera who lived nearby and called in each day, encouraging her daughter’s quest to find little Frederick’s lost soul somewhere out there on the astral plane.
Mary was spending a fortune on spiritualists, all, in Albert’s opinion, charlatans. She’d joined a spurious church – the League of Departed Spirits – run by an unctuous man who called himself the Reverend Gillit. Gillit, according to Mary, brought comfort to his little flock, made up of women – and more rarely men – who’d lost loved ones in the war. At their meetings contact was invariably made with the ‘other side’ and on each occasion Mary returned home elated and bursting with news. Freddy was so happy with the angels, she said, her eyes shining as though she’d been granted a divine vision. He was playing with other children; hide-and-seek in the most beautiful wood you could imagine, carpeted with bluebells and dappled with eternal sunshine.
Albert knew Gillit was a fraud, although he feared there was little he could do about it. Attempting to persuade Mary that the comfort she found at her meetings was an illusion seemed pointless at best and cruel at worst so he said nothing. Since Frederick’s death all communication between them had been superficial and functional, but that wasn’t the only thing that broke Albert’s heart.
He was still haunted by the events of the previous year. He’d travelled up North to investigate a series of strange murders in a Derbyshire village and the scars left by that investigation had caused him more pain than the wounds he’d sustained in the war, although it was damage nobody could see. In Wenfield he’d met a woman, a doctor’s daughter who’d worked as a volunteer nurse during the war, and she’d seemed to him like the angel of mercy he’d been longing for ever since his life had been shattered by the loss of Frederick.
With the exception of his trusted second in command, Sergeant Sam Poltimore, he’d never revealed the truth about his relationship with Flora Winsmore to his London colleagues. As far as they were concerned he’d wrapped up the case in the village of Wenfield successfully and brought the perpetrator to justice. How were they to know that there had been far more to the story than those stark, unemotional facts?
In spite of his maimed leg, a souvenir from the trenches that had left him with a limp, he managed to dodge out of the path of a horse-drawn delivery van as he crossed the street. In contrast to
the hustle and bustle of crowded London, Wenfield had been a haven of rural peace – but the village had held horrors he had never encountered in the capital.
His footsteps slowed as he turned into his street. Once upon a time his spirits used to lift when he crossed his threshold at the end of the working day. But since Frederick’s death the only greeting he received from his wife, if he received one at all, was cold indifference. She no longer cared about her appearance, wearing the same faded overall for days on end and pinning her mousy hair back in an untidy bun. The cuffs of her coat were fraying and although he’d given her money to buy a new one she’d never bothered. He knew the money was still in the battered tea caddy on the mantelpiece, no doubt destined for the pocket of the Reverend Gillit.
Before taking his key from his coat pocket he hesitated, wondering how much longer he could bear the situation. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw Flora’s face smiling that innocent, caring smile of hers. But he had to carry on because he had no choice.
When he called out a greeting there was no reply, but he could detect a faint odour of cooking cabbage which he hoped at least meant there’d be something to eat. When she went to one of the Reverend Gillit’s meetings he usually had to shift for himself.
He found Mary standing by the range, stirring a pan containing some grey and unappetising-looking meat. Albert could almost taste the gristle as he forced himself to smile.
‘What have you been doing today?’ he asked, shedding his hat and coat and placing them near the range. As they began to steam the scent of warm wool battled for supremacy with the stench of cabbage being boiled to a pulp.
When Mary didn’t acknowledge his question he knew the answer. She’d spent the day brooding again.
‘What’s for supper?’ He tried to inject some enthusiasm into the words.
‘Stew. And cabbage.’
