Meet Me at the Pier Head

by Ruth Hamilton

  An awkward silence ensued. ‘Mrs Melia will be arrested,’ whispered the detective in the terrible brown suit. ‘Is she still in Kent?’

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘The coroner may decide that it was murder or manslaughter, ma’am.’

  ‘He may, indeed. Oh, I shall give you all the correspondence. If you need help with Mrs Melia’s scribble, I’ll make myself available.’

  Brown Suit shook his head sadly. ‘Kent police will have to arrest her. Is she still at the same address?’

  Izzy shook her head. ‘She moved.’

  ‘Do you have her new address?’

  She nodded. ‘Chaddington Green Cemetery, otherwise known as St Faith’s churchyard. She’s the one under a newly planted lilac tree, as she spent most of her life at Lilac Cottage. Daphne Melia was one of the most wonderful people I ever met. Maggie Stone was another such. Tell the Kent police to take a spade if they want to talk to Daphne Melia. Follow me to get the flagon.’

  She left the room with Blue Suit and Brown Suit in her wake. It was clear that neither knew what to do or say. Maggie, you would have enjoyed that, though I think I may have been cruel to these poor creatures. Say hello to Daphne for me. The coroner may decide on misadventure or open verdict, and the underlying cause will inevitably be leukaemia. Whatever, you’ll have your navy suit, white blouse, the necklace Rosie bought you and the scarf from America. Sleep well, my friend.

  The detectives drove away with the huge bottle of blood tonic, notes sent from Kent to Liverpool and the letter from Dr Simon Heilberg.

  I must warn Chaddington Green, because someone local may have furnished Daphne Melia with a touch of that lethal element, a substance not easy to come by. Oh, life is such a complicated business, and I was expected ten minutes ago at the rehearsal rooms in Hope Street.

  She dashed across to tell Portia and Theo about the meeting before heading off in a taxi towards central Liverpool. There was going to be a read-through of Theo’s – well, Tom Quirke’s – An Eye for an Eye. Isadora’s wealthy son-in-law was going to be even richer. She chuckled. He’d been talking about buying a pig farm in Derbyshire, and Portia had battered him with a cushion. They were so happy . . .

  In death, Margaret Stone was finally famous. National presses had picked up the story, and there were film as well as still cameras lining the route to the church. She had proved the medical profession wrong by outliving doctors’ estimated span, and the method she had used was unusual. The primitive form of chemotherapy she had employed had been brewed by a working class countrywoman who could scarcely read.

  The church was packed, mostly by people from the Lady Streets. One of the coffin bearers was a tall young man of eighteen, his hair calmer and darker these days. Colin Duckworth, preparing to read law at Oxford, was proud to carry a woman who had fought the good fight for Rosie Stone, who had helped look after Mickle, whose granddaughter was the best-looking girl in Liverpool.

  Maggie’s hymns were sung, and the congregation was glad of the interruption, because the vicar had the sort of voice that might have been better employed by a hypnotist. Isadora read John Donne, before Rosie stood and walked to her nana’s coffin when the last line of Donne’s defiant and uplifting piece had been delivered.

  Dressed in red and navy, Rosie read her tribute to Maggie. ‘Nana taught me to read, write and count; she said I should always carry a handkerchief and she made sure that my shoes were polished. “That way,” she said, “you’ll always shine at one end if not at the other.” Not a single day passed when she didn’t make me laugh, and she convinced me to believe in myself.

  ‘After my foster-parents had left for their second honeymoon in America and Europe, my grandmother spent hours with me, explaining that her treatment was no longer effective. With her usual love and kindness, she began to lead me along the route to this special day. Warning me that the provider of her blood tonic might be criticized to the point of damnation, Nana asked me to be her voice and to say the following.’

  Rosie cleared her throat of emotion. ‘Nana said, “Tia, Theo, Isadora, Joan, Jack, Nancy and Tom, Harry and Martha, thank you for your friendship and hospitality. You nourished my Rosie, and I know you will keep her safe now that I have gone.

  ‘“I grow weaker every day, yet life still makes me smile. I am smiling now, because Rosie is changing my words and making me seem posh when she reads this back to me. Every colour is brighter these days, every sound clearer, every scent more beautiful. The little food I manage to eat is more tasty, and I feel that all my faculties (Rosie’s word) are enhanced (there she goes again with her fancy talk) as I near my end. My sheets are so smooth, and Rosie’s skin feels like velvet, while her hair is silk.

  ‘“Don’t grieve too long for me, but heed my advice. Make your own decisions in this life, but seek information first. Don’t be a piece in a game of chess, because hands that move those pieces often make mistakes. Choose the people who will help you. Don’t let a national institution of lawyers or doctors decide your fate. Trust in your friends and in yourself. The educated may be of use to you, and if that is the case, trust in them, too. Remember, choice is yours – it’s your right.

  ‘”The woman who extended the length of my life is now dead and beyond the reach of those who would punish her. Leave her to rest, and carry me now to my last little patch of England. God bless you all. With love, Margaret Rose Stone.”’

  Rosie folded the sheet of paper and smiled through unshed tears at a very colourful congregation. After a few seconds of silent hesitation, the people stood and clapped. While such behaviour was unusual at a funeral, it seemed right. Maggie Stone had wanted a party rather than a wake, and her audience applauded her. All that remained now was the task of placing her in the ground from which mankind had risen.

  As chief mourner, Rosie led the people out behind the coffin. Outside, the streets were wet from a sudden shower, and the sun was shining fiercely to dry the earth. A huge arc of colour stretched over Liverpool, all seven colours clear and bright. ‘That’s Nana,’ Rosie said to her foster-mother. ‘She always had to have the last word.’

  Eighteen

  In the middle of September, Isadora moved into Flat One, the ground-floor apartment that had been Theo’s home before becoming shelter for Maggie and Rosie Stone. Rosie had removed the memorabilia she wanted to keep, though the suicide letters had already been incinerated as soon as the funeral was over. After opening the envelope addressed to herself, Izzy had decided to dispose of all these unnecessary messages. Powders labelled Gentul Piosin (Daphne Melia’s version of gentle poison) had been removed, too, so no one needed to know that Maggie had been in pain great enough to merit the planning of self-harm.

  Izzy remembered her cook/housekeeper fondly. As her position dictated, she had been addressed as Mrs Melia, though she had never married. How had she read cookery books? Perhaps she hadn’t needed to; perhaps she’d been a natural cook, or one who had learned skills at her mother’s side. ‘Unlike me,’ Izzy grumbled aloud. ‘I’m hopeless. Cordon Bleu? Cordon Failed would be nearer the mark.’

  The upper storey of the villa was now the private residence of Mr and Mrs Peake, though Tyger continued to visit both flats in order to plead starvation and gain extra food. Even with a feline intruder, Joan and Jack now had the privacy they needed and deserved, while Isadora had gained the freedom to work whenever she pleased without disturbing others.

  In the room that had once been Theo’s body parts sanctuary, Izzy found an envelope containing some photographs that must have belonged to Maggie; Rosie seemed to have overlooked them in her search a few days after the funeral. Isadora discovered Maggie captured as a beautiful young bride linking arms with a handsome, moustachioed husband. She then picked up Sadie, a very pretty girl with dark, curly hair and a mischievous smile that displayed wonderful teeth. Oh, here was baby Rosie, so cuddly, so happy, with no idea of the grim future she would be forced to share with Sadie and company.

  Izzy dropped into
Theo’s old writing chair. She felt rather like a Peeping Tom, an intruder. She now knew that one of the items had been hidden rather than stored. It had been separated from the rest and placed nearer to the bottom of Theo’s stack of blank paper. ‘If I hadn’t moved that decaying pile, I would never have found these. Oh, Maggie.’ She now knew why Maggie had attempted to hide the last of the photographs. She held up the picture that had been concealed and wrapped separately in greaseproof paper; it showed an image of a young fellow with a grinning Sadie by his side. There was something familiar about the man’s face . . .

  She turned the item over. On it was written in pencil and in Maggie’s hand, Frank Turner, Rosie’s dad? ‘Oh, my God.’ Breathe, Isadora, breathe. Take your time, think about this and discuss it with Portia and Theo before reacting. Rosie’s had enough shocks in her life without discovering a father who might be dead or in prison or . . . Stop this now. You’ll make yourself ill, and nothing good will come of that. Think, think.

  Turner is not an uncommon name. There could be thousands in Liverpool, hundreds in the telephone directory. Might a private detective find this man? Rosie is fifteen, so her father should be in his mid to late thirties, early forties at the oldest. Sadie would be thirty-five or six now, had she lived. But look at his forehead, his cheekbones, his chin. Maggie always said she had no idea about Rosie’s father, yet the photo proves that she nursed her suspicions. This is Rosie’s father; I’d bet my last farthing on it. I believe she even has his eyes. Oh, Lord help us.

  Some people watched birds in the wild, while others waited for trains and scribbled numbers in little books. The Flying Scotsman had attracted thousands of devoted men, but Theodore Quinn’s favourite pastime was watching his wife at work, and he wasn’t one in a huge crowd looking at a steam engine. Would he ever tire of this wonderful woman? She was an amazing teacher.

  Her rules were few, but clear. A chart on the wall was filled in daily; when a child had three ticks on the chart, he or she could choose a play activity in a previously disused area leading off the classroom. Once a place where coats were hung, it was now devoid of hooks and shoe shelves, and Tia had filled it with games, a small water trough, a sand pit, a Wendy house, a ‘shop’, dressing-up clothes and a painting corner. In order to achieve the freedom offered by the play area, pupils worked hard to get the three ticks that would release them.

  The playroom was where they began to learn how to tell the time. There was a large clock on a wall and, as they were allowed thirty minutes only, they stayed until the long hand was in a position opposite to the original. When the half hour was up, it was a quick wash, a removal of dads’ shirts, which were adapted and worn back-to-front as aprons, then back to quiet reading or story time in the classroom.

  Tia had positioned her desk so that she might oversee both rooms, though her charges were so well behaved and keen to please her that very few needed admonishment. Theo grinned. Sometimes in the afternoon, if reading, writing and so forth were out of the way, Tia got herself made up by little girls in the Wendy house. She often arrived home with huge circles of red on her cheeks, very strange lips, massive eyebrows and hair that needed logarithms to work out the tangles. She was theirs, and they matured greatly after that year of carefully planned fun mixed with education. ‘I’m a bridge,’ she had been heard to opine. ‘I’m the span between parents and academia.’

  There was a second chart. Each of Tia’s charges was listed under days of the week. Theo had been seated at the back of the classroom when his then new wife had explained the first copy of the list ten years earlier. ‘Children, sit down, please.’ When all were quiet and seated, she had explained, her face deadpan except for a wink in her husband’s direction, ‘The truth is, this room is too small for us. We must take turns to laugh, because the noise is terrible sometimes. You are each in a group that has a laughing day. When it’s your turn, you may laugh; when it isn’t your turn, don’t even giggle. This way, we may get some actual work done at last.’

  Ten years later, Theo sat at the back and watched her again. He called in at all classrooms, always unexpectedly, thus keeping teachers on their toes by offering comment and suggestion regarding principles and practice of education, also teaching methods. His wife had never needed help except when wheedling extras out of him when it came to yearly requisitions, because she was born for this. She was also a natural wheedler, almost a blackmailer . . .

  The ridiculous laughter chart guaranteed that each child would laugh every day. Her other subtle methods involved double takes, where she would look at a child, look away, then glance back very quickly, thereby making the room a comedy show; furthermore, she would occasionally yell ‘Stop!’ apropos of nothing at all, before declaring that she felt a song or a poem coming on. The kids adored her, as did he. She had even set up a home book system so that she and parents might communicate regarding the welfare and progress of a pupil.

  She was reading to them. ‘Worzel,’ she whined, her accent stationed somewhere in a Somerset orchard. Earthy Mangold was calling Worzel, but Worzel had forgotten to don his thinking head, and all he wanted was a cup of tea and a slice of cake. Tia brought to life everything she read, and her class hung on each word she delivered. This was Portia Bellamy, who might have become a household name, and she had become just that, but only in a small part of Liverpool.

  Theo crept out and returned to his office, reluctant to sound the end-of-day bell. Portia’s children would be left hanging and wondering where the scarecrow had left his thinking head. ‘I know I’m biased,’ he said aloud, ‘but she is darned brilliant.’ Although the Worzel Gummidge books were aimed at older children, Mrs Quinn believed in talking up as opposed to talking down to children when it came to literature. He sat at his desk and waited for her, because he had some disturbing news to impart.

  She followed her man when school had been dismissed for the day. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘I can see something in your expression, so out with it. You’re up to no good, Teddy Quinn.’

  I can’t hide anything at all from her; she’s looking inside my head. Again. I must go through my thoughts later to check whether anything’s missing. ‘Ma phoned me. She found a photograph in the body parts room.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘On the reverse, Maggie had labelled it Frank Turner, Rosie’s dad, followed by a question mark.’

  Tia dropped into a chair. ‘But . . . but she always insisted that she had no idea about Rosie’s father.’

  Theo nodded. ‘Exactly. Whoever or whatever the man is, Maggie wanted better for Rosie. And Portia, Ma said she can see the likeness.’

  She sighed heavily and stayed silent for a few seconds. ‘Had Rosie’s father been decent and findable, Maggie would have gone out of her way to contact him.’

  He drummed fingers on his desk. ‘Then why didn’t she destroy the photograph, Tia?’

  ‘I have absolutely no bloody idea.’ A few beats of time passed. ‘But what if . . .’ She stopped while processing her thoughts. ‘What if he knew about Rosie? What if he murdered Tunstall?’

  Theo absorbed the words his wife had just delivered. The man would have been forced to lie low if he’d killed the dragon to save the princess, but where had he been for the first five years of Rosie’s life? ‘Where was Sadie educated?’ he asked finally.

  ‘Here and Ivy Lane, Maggie told me.’ Tia pursed her lips and concentrated. ‘You think she may have known him at school?’

  ‘I can look in the annals, or I can get Mrs Moyles to do it.’ Mrs Moyles was a school secretary who shared her time between Myrtle Street and Ivy Lane schools. ‘Meanwhile, we say nothing. Rosie’s had enough to cope with, and she’s never known her father. She’s settling well in our attic, working hard for her exams next year.’

  ‘And if he simply turns up at our door?’

  ‘We cope.’

  ‘And poor Rosie?’

  ‘Look, nothing’s changed, Portia. That photograph has existed for years. Let it ride for now, bab
y.’

  She shrugged. ‘We need to have a meeting with Ma. And yes, get Mrs Moyles to look for a Frank Turner – say he has an old friend trying to contact him, and the friend thinks that Frank may have been in school with Sadie Stone. We can calculate the years she would have been at Ivy Lane or here.’

  Theo grinned and aimed for a less weighty subject. ‘Just one question, my dear.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Does Worzel find his thinking head?’

  She stood up. ‘Yes, and you’d better find yours,’ she snapped before leaving the room.

  In spite of the potential seriousness of the situation, Theo chuckled. Tia was the same girl he’d met just over a decade ago. There had been no discernible improvement whatsoever, and he was delighted.

  That same evening, they invited Isadora for a meal. David was at football practice, Michael had a music lesson, while Rosie was visiting a school friend.

  Theo glanced at the clock. ‘We don’t have long. Let’s see this chap, Ma.’

  The Quinns studied the monochrome picture. ‘Rosie has her mother’s hair,’ Tia said. ‘But yes, there is a resemblance.’

  Her husband agreed. ‘So why didn’t Maggie tell us, then?’

  Isadora thought about that. ‘She did become slightly confused towards the end, Theo. It’s possible that she may have had several hiding places for this. Perhaps she moved it from time to time and couldn’t remember where she’d left it. The question remains; what must we do?’

  ‘Eat and think,’ Theo suggested.

  They ate and thought.

  ‘Rosie still takes most meals with you, doesn’t she?’ Izzy asked.