The Boy Who Lived with the Dead (Albert Lincoln Book 2)

by Kate Ellis

  Daisy showed Albert into an elegant drawing room, announcing him like a butler in a play, and the two people sitting facing each other on the twin sofas at right angles to the fireplace turned their heads as one to look at him. He had the vague impression that the tableau was contrived but he wasn’t sure why.

  The man stood while the woman remained seated. He paused for a moment as though he wasn’t quite sure of the etiquette when a detective from Scotland Yard came to call. Then he thrust out his hand. Albert took it, suppressing a wince at the strength of Ghent’s grip. Perhaps the man was used to using a handshake as a demonstration of power to underlings and business rivals; almost as a weapon.

  Ghent wasn’t particularly tall but he gave the impression of bulk and his waistcoat stretched tightly over his prosperous stomach. His well-cut suit was in the very best fabric, tailored in Savile Row, Albert guessed, and well beyond a policeman’s pocket. Albert felt shabby in comparison, although perhaps this was the intention. Ghent sported a small dark beard and his dark hair had turned grey at the temples. His eyes too were grey, piercing and intelligent and Albert suspected that not much would get past him.

  In contrast Mrs Ghent was thin and colourless, although her fawn dress was silk and her shoes expensive. The grand piano in the large bay window was home to a hoard of silver-framed photographs, mainly of a fair-haired boy at various stages of childhood. There were very few of the daughter Albert had heard mentioned.

  ‘We’ve already spoken to Sergeant Stark,’ said Ghent as though he considered Albert’s visit an impertinent intrusion. ‘I was even obliged to identify Mrs Bailey’s body and that wasn’t pleasant, I can tell you. But I knew it was my public duty,’ he added self-righteously.

  ‘I’m sure it was a great help, sir.’

  Ghent made a point of examining the gold watch hanging on a thick chain tucked into his waistcoat. ‘I really don’t see the point of your visit, Inspector, and I’ll say as much to the chief constable when I see him. I’m a busy man; I hope you realise that.’ Albert noticed the man’s accent was local, Manchester probably. Somehow he’d expected something more refined.

  ‘Of course, sir, but you and your wife employed Mrs Bailey and were, presumably, the people who knew her best around here so I really do need a word.’ He looked at Mrs Ghent and gave her a hopeful smile which she didn’t return. The woman looked terrified and Albert wondered why.

  He took his notebook from his pocket. Ghent’s attitude had made him all the more determined to ask this couple some searching questions.

  ‘Can you tell me how you came to employ Mrs Bailey?’ ‘My husband placed an advertisement in the Lady and I received a letter from Mrs Bailey,’ said Mrs Ghent with a nervous glance at her husband. ‘From her letter she sounded most suitable so we interviewed her.’

  ‘Both of you?’

  Mrs Ghent nodded. ‘I haven’t been well since … ’

  ‘I’ll say it, my dear. Since our son was killed in action. Monty was the apple of our eye, Inspector. He worked with me at the mill but he would insist on signing up. Doing his bit.’

  It was an all-too-familiar story and for the first time Albert found himself feeling sympathy for the Ghents. They’d suffered badly for their loss as had many others.

  ‘How long had Mrs Bailey worked for you?’

  ‘Just four months. The baby, little Lancelot – Lance she called him – was only tiny when she came.’

  ‘I’m surprised you employed a woman with such a young child.’

  ‘She was a war widow so it was a way of doing our bit.’ There was a note of defiance in Mrs Ghent’s voice.

  ‘The woman was no trouble. Neither was the kiddie,’ said Ghent. ‘Her room was in the nursery wing so the baby didn’t disturb us. This is a big house,’ he added proudly.

  ‘What do you know about Mrs Bailey’s background? Where was she before she came to you?’

  It was Mrs Ghent who spoke. ‘She lived in Didsbury near Manchester with her husband until he was … ’ She paused, as though she was reluctant to utter the words. Albert knew that, having lost her own son, the very thought of another soldier’s death caused her pain. ‘After his death she was left in straitened circumstances so she became a companion to an elderly lady in Didsbury who was sympathetic to her … plight. However, since the house was too small to accommodate her and the baby Mrs Bailey thought it best to apply for another post, somewhere with more space for the child. She came with an excellent reference from her former employer and she was a pleasant woman who went about her duties with quiet diligence. I really can’t think who would want to kill her in that dreadful way.’ She looked at Albert, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. ‘Is it true? Was she … buried alive?’

  Albert gave a reluctant nod. ‘You don’t know what she was doing in the cemetery that night?’

  ‘Of course I don’t.’

  ‘She took the baby with her.’

  ‘Sometimes she took him walking in the evenings – she said it was to get him off to sleep. But even so, the cemetery’s hardly a suitable place for a woman on her own with … Lancelot’s such a sweet baby.’ There was a sob in her voice. ‘Is there any sign of him? I’d be happy to offer him a home if no relatives can be found.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs Ghent.’ Albert noticed that her husband was frowning in disapproval as though he didn’t share his wife’s generous instincts. Or perhaps he saw her offer as a gesture of desperation; a yearning for someone to love; perhaps a child to replace the boy taken from her by the war. ‘Do you know whether Mrs Bailey had any relatives? We really would like to speak to them.’

  ‘I understand she had a brother in Manchester with a family of his own but as far as I know she never saw him while she was here and I don’t think they corresponded.’

  Albert knew he’d have to get used to the mention of Manchester. For a long time he’d flinched at the very name because Manchester was where Flora had been incarcerated following her trial. He’d tried his best to banish all thoughts of the place from his mind but now it was something he couldn’t avoid. ‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Whenever I enquired about her family she changed the subject so I presumed they weren’t close.’ She gave her husband a sideways look. ‘Some families aren’t.’

  ‘My next question is rather delicate,’ said Albert quietly, trying to gauge the couple’s mood. ‘If Mrs Bailey’s husband died in the war, it means that he can’t have been Lancelot’s father.’

  He waited for a reaction but none came. The Ghents didn’t even look at each other.

  ‘I didn’t feel it was my place to pry,’ said Mrs Ghent eventually. ‘As you say, Inspector, the subject was delicate. It was easier to ignore the obvious discrepancy in the dates and accept the child was her late husband’s as she said. She told me he’d died a hero defending his comrades so to enquire too deeply would have seemed like a slur on his memory.’

  ‘Of course.’ Albert suspected he wouldn’t discover any more about Patience Bailey from her employers; but there was somebody in the household who might be more forthcoming. ‘May I speak to Daisy? And anyone else in your household who knew Mrs Bailey?’

  Mallory Ghent strode to the fireplace and pressed the bell push. Albert imagined a bell jangling in some distant scullery and the maid scurrying out, straightening her apron.

  ‘It might be best if I speak to her alone,’ Albert said and he saw the Ghents exchange an uneasy look. However, Mallory could hardly refuse his request and when Daisy arrived he assumed an avuncular manner. ‘The inspector would like a word with you, Daisy. Don’t be nervous. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  Albert caught a note of warning behind his bland words. Don’t say anything about the family. Don’t give away our secrets or there might be consequences.

  Mallory allowed them to use the breakfast room at the back of the house and Daisy followed Albert, her head bowed meekly like a frightened schoolgirl, although there w
as something about her, an alertness as though she was on her guard, which made Albert suspect she wasn’t the timid creature she wanted him to think she was.

  ‘Please, Daisy, sit down. I promise you I don’t bite.’ He smiled but he saw that his small joke had made no difference. Something was worrying her and he was sure it wasn’t himself. ‘What can you tell me about Patience Bailey? Did you talk to her much?’

  ‘No, sir. She was companion to Mrs Ghent so we didn’t have much to do with each other.’

  Albert understood the hierarchy but he’d harboured a hope that the two women, isolated in the same house, had made some connection, possibly through the baby.

  ‘Did she ever talk about her husband?’

  ‘She said he was a corporal. Died near the end of the war.’

  ‘In France?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘What did she do in the war?’

  ‘She told me she worked in a hospital – giving out medicines and that. But she never spoke about it much.’

  ‘Did she ever mention that she’d found herself another sweetheart after her husband died?’

  A knowing look passed across Daisy’s face. ‘You’re thinking the sums don’t add up. If the little one was only seven months old then … ’

  ‘Did you see her with any men while she was here?’ ‘No. But she used to go out alone on her days off and I sometimes minded the baby for her. When I asked her where she was going she told me she was catching the train to see a friend … someone she knew from when she worked at the hospital.’

  ‘Did you believe her?’ He’d seen the sceptical look on Daisy’s face.

  ‘Can’t rightly say I did. She might have been telling the truth though. Who’s to say?’ Her eyes suddenly lit up. ‘I’ve heard she was buried alive. Is it true?’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Cook. She heard it in the village. One of the Rudyard lads told someone and word gets round fast in a place like this. Is it true?’ she repeated anxiously.

  Albert knew she was bright enough to see through any lies so he told her the truth.

  ‘Who’d do a thing like that?’ she said with a shudder of horrified delight.

  ‘That’s why I need your help, Daisy.’

  ‘I’ve told you everything I know. Honest. Do you think you’ll find the little one? Do you think someone’s got him safe?’

  ‘I hope so, Daisy. I really do.’

  As soon as Daisy returned to her duties he had a brief word with the cook, who came in from the village each day. Cook claimed to have had a happy working relationship with the mistress’s paid companion even though she wasn’t on gossiping terms with the woman. Mrs Bailey seemed a nice woman but she kept herself to herself, Cook said, adding that she thought she might have been a little shy.

  After he’d finished with the servants, Albert returned to the drawing room and asked the Ghents for the name and address of Patience Bailey’s former employer in Didsbury. It was a Mrs Esther Schuman of Belfield Road, and she was suddenly top of Albert’s list of people he needed to speak to.

  When he asked to speak to the Ghents’ daughter, Mallory Ghent made a great show of climbing the stairs to knock on her bedroom door while his wife watched nervously from the drawing-room doorway. But there was no answer and the jazz music could no longer be heard.

  ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, she must have gone out without telling us while you were speaking to Daisy. She’s young. Comes and goes as she pleases.’ He gave a shrug, his palms facing upwards, as though he wanted to convince the detective he wasn’t lying.

  Albert left the house wondering whether his arrival was the reason for the daughter’s absence. And, if so, why had she wanted to avoid him?

  Chapter 14

  Esme Ghent had made her escape through the servants’ entrance while the inspector from London was talking to Daisy in the breakfast room. The door had been left slightly ajar so she’d stood outside the room for a few moments straining to hear what they were saying, listening for her own name … or Sydney’s. Even though Daisy was a sly girl and a lot sharper than she appeared she didn’t know the truth about her and Sydney. How could she? Besides, Esme didn’t care what the silly girl thought as long as everyone left her and Sydney alone. There were far too many ready to disapprove of people like Sydney in Mabley Ridge; far too many who didn’t realise how the world outside had changed since the end of the war.

  Sydney had introduced her to a new world of jazz, champagne and the white powder he’d persuaded her to sniff that made her feel invincible. He drove his motor car too fast; he climbed up the rocks on the Ridge without fear in spite of his wounded foot. He said it was ‘just a scratch’ and that others had fared a lot worse which meant he was a hero as well as being the most exciting man she’d ever met.

  Her friend Betty had advised caution. ‘Just be careful,’ she’d said with an intense look that put years on her.

  ‘The war’s proved you have to live for the day and squeeze every drop of pleasure from life,’ Esme had replied defensively, echoing something Sydney had told her. ‘I’ll keep on seeing Sydney for as long as I want and I don’t care about the consequences. I’m having fun for the first time in my bloody life.’

  Betty had always been a bore and a killjoy and she’d shaken her head sadly like a headmistress telling parents that regrettably their child, having committed a major misdemeanour, had let the school and themselves down. Esme hadn’t seen Betty since that day even though they’d known each other since early childhood.

  The edges of the drive were thick with overhanging rhododendrons, their glossy dark-green foliage making the approach to the front door gloomier than necessary in Esme’s opinion. If she had her way she’d dig the whole lot up, which would make the whole place look brighter and more up to date. But her parents didn’t seem to care about things like that – not since Monty died.

  Sydney had promised to wait for her at the gate but when she reached the meeting place there was no sign of him. However, Esme was undeterred because his house wasn’t that far away so she could walk. Sydney had been adamant that she shouldn’t tell her parents about their relationship but there were times when she longed to blurt it out, if only to enjoy their reaction – because she knew they’d disapprove.

  She began to walk up the road, wishing her fashionable shoes were more comfortable, but when she reached Ridgeside Lodge there was no sign of his car so she assumed they’d somehow missed each other. Even so, she knocked at his door, just in case; when there was no reply she began to retrace her steps with a heavy heart, kicking at the gravel in the drive and creating a white cloud of dust that landed on the soft leather of her shoes, making them instantly shabby. It didn’t matter – Daisy would clean them.

  Then, just as she reached the road, Sydney’s Alvis swung into the drive, missing her by inches.

  As he opened the car door she pouted like a disappointed child. ‘We arranged to meet by my gate. Where were you?’

  ‘Sorry, darling. Had things to see to.’ He hesitated and then his thin lips turned upwards in a smile that didn’t spread to his eyes. ‘Er … I saw that detective from London leaving your house. What did he want?’

  Esme was surprised by the urgency behind his question, although she was careful not to show it.

  ‘He came about the Bailey woman but I got away before he could collar me. I didn’t want to have to suffer hours of questions. Too boring. He spoke to Ma and Pa and the maid and the cook but if he wanted me he was in for a disappointment. I couldn’t tell him anything anyway. I hardly had anything to do with Ma’s dreary companion and her brat.’

  ‘The kid’s not been found?’

  Esme shook her head.

  ‘Maybe we should look for it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’ll be like a treasure hunt … up on the Ridge. There’s a few more hours of daylight left and it’s a nice evening for it. I’ll bring some champers. What do you say?’

  Esme sighed. A wal
k on the Ridge wasn’t how she’d planned to spend the evening but it might have its compensations.

  Chapter 15

  Mallory Ghent’s spirits lifted as he stood at the drawing-room window and watched the inspector walk off down the drive. He’d noticed Albert Lincoln’s limp and when they’d been speaking he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off the man’s maimed left hand and the scarring on his face. He’d clearly suffered in the recent conflict and Ghent guessed from the look in his eyes that he was suffering still. He’d seen that same look on the men at the mill who’d made it back alive.

  Before the inspector’s arrival he’d told Jane to advertise for another companion but she’d looked at him as though he’d made an obscene suggestion. It was far too soon to think of replacing Patience, she said. It would seem disrespectful. Mallory couldn’t see her logic. In his opinion there was no room for sentimentality in business or anywhere else but women, he thought, were like that, or at any rate some of them were.

  The one he’d arranged to meet was quite different – so different that he felt a thrill of desire whenever he thought of her. From the first time he’d seen Dora Devereaux performing on stage in Manchester he’d been enchanted. Blonde and beautiful, she had the face and voice of an angel and he hadn’t been able to resist accepting the invitation of his business acquaintance, Leonard Parms, to go with him to the stage door to meet her. Leonard owned a hat factory in Stockport and he’d boasted that he’d set Dora up in a little cottage at the other end of Mabley Ridge, handy for clandestine trysts away from his wife’s watchful gaze. He’d introduced Mallory to his beautiful mistress because he’d wanted to show her off like a prized possession – a new house or a motor car.

  It was a few days after this first encounter that a chance meeting in the village had sparked a change in the situation. Mallory had been driving to the station in the rain that morning when he’d spotted Dora walking down the street, her dainty umbrella held aloft. He’d pulled over and she’d accepted his offer of a lift with a flirtatious smile. They’d travelled to the station together and although they’d sat in separate carriages on the train they’d met up again on the station platform at the end of the journey and walked together in the direction of the theatre, sharing the shelter of his large black umbrella. The detour had taken Mallory out of his way but he hadn’t cared because by the time they’d parted they’d arranged to meet for a meal after she’d finished her rehearsal. Mallory had arrived late at the mill that morning, feeling twenty years younger and irresistible. He’d never felt like that with Jane, not even in the first days of their courtship, which had been a plodding affair.