Missing Person

by Mary Jane Staples

  About the Book

  The house in Caulfield Place, off Browning Street in Walworth, was haunted, or at least that’s what the street kids said. So when two men, a woman, and a parrot moved in, everyone was very interested, especially fourteen-year-old Cassie Ford, who was particularly fascinated by the parrot.

  And it was just about this time that Mr Finch, Chinese Lady’s husband, and Boots’s stepfather, began to get mysterious telephone calls. Mr Finch had never told the rest of the Adams family – except for Boots – the secrets of his past, or what kind of work he did for the government, and he decided not to tell them about the slightly sinister telephone calls either.

  It was when he took Chinese Lady on a summer’s day jaunt in his Morris motorcar that things began to happen. For, in the Hog’s Back Hotel, Chinese Lady went to the cloakroom, and when she came back Mr Finch had vanished. It took all of Boots’s ingenuity to finally discover what had happened, and Cassie’s knowledge of the Caulfield Place parrot was to prove a vital clue in unravelling the mystery.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  About the Author

  Also by Mary Jane Staples

  Copyright

  MISSING PERSON

  Mary Jane Staples

  To Doris, George and Les.

  Chapter One

  IT WAS HAUNTED, a certain house in Caulfield Place off Browning Street, Walworth.

  Well, that was what the street kids said.

  True, a gruesome murder had taken place there in 1914, but that was sixteen years ago. So mums and dads told their kids not to go around making up stories about it after all this time.

  It’s still haunted, said the kids to each other.

  ‘Well, it looks ’aunted, don’t it?’

  ‘All them empty winders starin’ at yer.’

  ‘Like the ghost is waitin’ to grab yer. It was a witch that got done in, yer know, and witches always come back to ’aunt yer.’

  The house had been empty for four years. The last occupants, a family called Cook, had moved out in a hurry in 1926 on account of disturbances. Now, suddenly, on the third Saturday in May, 1930, new occupants were arriving. The landlord had had furniture moved into the house two days ago, and a woman had come along to hang new curtains that did away with the blank stare of the windows.

  Street kids watched as this same woman and two men in their thirties arrived outside the house in a taxi. The two men alighted and began to unload the luggage stacked beside the cabbie. Out stepped the woman, wearing a costume and a flowery hat. She looked at the house.

  ‘Well, this is it, Wally,’ she said to one of the men.

  ‘Good,’ said Wally. Both men were in caps and workmen’s clothes. The hovering kids glued their eyes to the scene.

  ‘’Ere, Alfie,’ whispered one to another, ‘ain’t yer goin’ to tell ’em it’s ’aunted?’

  ‘No, you tell ’em.’

  ‘No, you’re oldest.’

  ‘Well, it don’t look so ’aunted now it’s got curtains up, so nobody need tell ’em.’

  The men, carrying two suitcases each, advanced to the front door. One man, placing a case on the step, opened the door with a key, and in they went. The woman, who looked in her late twenties, reached into the taxi and pulled out a covered birdcage, set it down on the pavement, and then lifted out a laden shopping bag. At this moment a girl came walking down the Place from Browning Street. Long raven-black hair hung down her back, resting on the sailor’s collar of her blue and white frock. Seeing the taxi, she quickened her steps. Up she came.

  ‘’Ello,’ she said to the woman, whose good looks were slightly florid, as if she was on friendly terms with gin.

  ‘’Ello, ducks,’ said the woman, who was now settling with the cabbie. Out came the bloke called Wally. He heaved out one more suitcase, the last.

  ‘’Ello,’ said the girl again. He smiled at her. ‘’Ave you come to visit, only we don’t get many people in taxis.’

  ‘No, me and me ’ubby and brother-in-law ’ave come to live ’ere,’ said the woman, as Wally carried the case and shopping bag into the house.

  ‘Oh, you’re welcome, of course,’ said Cassie Ford. Cassie was fourteen and a half, with dreamy brown eyes, a vivid imagination, the deceptive smile of an angel and a natural feminine aptitude for getting her own way. She had left St John’s Church School at Easter, and was now waiting for a promised job as an apprentice in a florist’s shop at Peckham. ‘Me dad used to drive a royal taxi once,’ she said informatively, at which point the cabbie, having pocketed fare and tip, drove off. Cassie then noticed the covered birdcage standing on the pavement. ‘Excuse me, what’s that?’ she asked, liking to know about everything.

  ‘That’s Percy me parrot,’ said the woman, who seemed willing to be neighbourly.

  ‘Crikey, can I ’ave a look at ’im?’ asked Cassie.

  ‘I don’t see why not, I’ve got a minute or so to spare,’ said the woman. ‘I’m Mrs Harper.’

  ‘Oh, how’d you do, Mrs ’Arper, I’m Cassie Ford, I’m friends with Freddy Brown who lives down here.’

  ‘There y’ar, then, Cassie, that’s Percy,’ said Mrs Harper, taking the hood off the cage, and revealing a bird of brilliant colours.

  ‘What’s up, Fred, what’s up?’ it asked.

  ‘Crikey, it’s a talkin’ parrot,’ said Cassie, and the street kids edged up to take a look. Cassie stooped to gaze into the bird’s cocked eye.

  ‘Hello, saucy,’ said Percy.

  ‘Oh, ain’t he lovely?’ said Cassie. ‘I’ve got a cat, yer know, but he don’t talk. Well, not out loud. D’you like cats, Mrs ’Arper? Only if you do, I wouldn’t mind changin’ Tabby for Percy, if you like.’

  ‘Sorry, love, but I don’t like, and I’d better take ’im in now. There, listen to that, me ’ubby’s callin’ me.’ Mrs Harper picked up the cage and carried it to the gate.

  Cassie, not as backward as the kids in coming forward with information, said, ‘Oh, did yer know it’s ’aunted?’

  ‘What, me birdcage?’ Mrs Harper laughed.

  ‘No, yer house,’ said Cassie.

  ‘Lor’ lovaduck,’ said Mrs Harper, ‘then I’ll ’ave to hide me head under the sheets at night, won’t I?’ She laughed. ‘Toodle-oo, love.’ Into the house she went, and the door closed.

  Cassie skipped along to the Brown family’s house, the skirt of her short frock swinging around her stockinged knees. She let herself in by pulling on the latchcord, and her voice travelled gaily through the passage and danced lightly into the kitchen.

  ‘Coo-ee, Freddy, it’s me.’

  ‘That’s done it,’ said Freddy Brown, in his sixteenth year, ‘’ere comes me Saturday afternoon fate. Tell ’er I’m in hospital somewhere, Mum.’

  Too late. Cassie was in. Freddy had made her his best mate four years ago, since when she’d become one of the family, good as. She’d also turned Freddy into a sounding-board for her imaginative flights of fantasy, whi
le acquiring a girlish affection for him. She insisted last Christmas that he kiss her under the mistletoe. Freddy said mates don’t kiss, they shake hands. Besides, you’re only fourteen, he said. I’ll ask my dad to wallop you if you don’t kiss me, said Cassie. So he kissed her on her Cupid’s bow, Cassie with her eyes shut tight. She was probably thinking of herself as the Sleeping Beauty. Then she asked him if he’d liked it. You tasted of oranges, said Freddy. Yes, I just ate the orange that was in me Christmas stocking, said Cassie, and asked if he liked chocolate. Well, I won’t say I don’t, because I do, said Freddy. All right, I’ll eat a bit of me Christmas chocolate bar, said Cassie, then you can kiss me again. Me dad says I’m nice when I taste of chocolate. All right, said Freddy, let’s have a taste of chocolate, then.

  Dancing into the kitchen on the wings of new-found ambition, Cassie said, ‘Oh, hello, Mrs Brown, how’d you do, Mr Brown.’

  ‘We’ve missed yer lately, Cassie,’ said Jim Brown with a grin, ‘not havin’ seen anything of yer since one o’clock.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you remember, I ’ad to go home and have me dinner,’ said Cassie.

  ‘My, so you did, but that was an hour and a half ago, love,’ said Mrs Brown, the most amiable mum in the neighbourhood. ‘That’s a long time not seein’ anything of you.’

  ‘We nearly died of all the quiet,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Oh, did I ever tell you me Aunt Lettice nearly died once, when she was nearly run over by the Queen’s six white ’orses that were out gallopin’ in Windsor Park?’ said Cassie. ‘A lord saved ’er just in time, and Aunt Lettice would’ve lived happy ever after with him, only ’is lady wife wouldn’t let ’er. Are you goin’ out, Mrs Brown?’

  ‘Yes, love, that’s why I’ve got me hat on,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘Mr Brown’s takin’ me round the shops.’

  ‘Oh, and me and Freddy’s goin’ down the market,’ said Cassie.

  ‘First I’ve heard of it,’ said Freddy, who had a job at a scrap metal yard owned by Sammy Adams and managed by his dad.

  ‘By the way,’ said Cassie, ‘there’s people movin’ into that empty house two doors away, the one that’s ’aunted.’

  ‘Cassie, it’s not ’aunted,’ said Freddy, ‘it’s only what the kids say.’

  ‘Well, I’m only sayin’ what they say,’ said Cassie.

  ‘I heard from the rent collector that some people from Hoxton were goin’ to move in,’ said Mrs Brown.

  ‘’Oxton’s East End,’ said Mr Brown, ‘which ain’t Walworth.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure they’ll fit in all right,’ said Mrs Brown in her usual placid way. ‘Not ev’ryone in the East End is a tea leaf, I’m sure.’

  ‘It’s a lady and her ’usband and ’er brother-in-law,’ said Cassie, ‘and she’s got a talkin’ parrot.’

  ‘Well, don’t look at me,’ said Freddy, ‘it’s not my fault.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was,’ said Cassie.

  ‘Well, you two talk about it, Freddy, while I leg it up the Walworth Road with yer mum,’ said Mr Brown, and off he went with his plump and equable better half.

  ‘Cassie, what d’you want to go down the market for?’ asked Freddy.

  ‘Well, me dad just give me sixpence for bein’ an angel,’ said Cassie, ‘and as I already had tuppence-ha’penny, that makes I’ve got eightpence-ha’penny. How much money d’you ’ave?’

  ‘Wait a tick,’ said Freddy suspiciously, ‘what d’you want to know for?’

  ‘Well, could yer lend me fourpence, so’s I’ll ’ave a bob?’ asked Cassie. ‘Then we can go down the market and see if we can buy a parrot for that.’

  ‘D’you mind if I say I ain’t goin’?’

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Cassie.

  ‘I don’t want a parrot,’ said Freddy, ‘specially not a talkin’ one. Me dad’ll tell yer his sister, our Aunt Milly, ’ad one once and it talked them all out of ’ouse and ’ome.’

  ‘Freddy, I’ll keep ours for us,’ said Cassie.

  ‘Listen, Cassie,’ said Freddy, ‘you can only get pets down the market on Sunday mornings, and anyway, I don’t know you could buy a parrot for just a bob. An ordin’ry canary costs one-and-six at least.’

  ‘We can try,’ said Cassie, ‘there might be a sale on, and I’ll pay you back what you lend me on me birthday, when some relatives usually send me postal orders.’

  ‘I ain’t lending yer, Cassie, not for any parrot.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ said Cassie.

  ‘No, I ain’t, and me mind’s made up,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Well, you can soon unmake it,’ said Cassie, practised in the art of helping him to do just that, ‘specially as I’ve just remembered there’s a pet shop at Camberwell Green.’

  ‘Blow that for a lark,’ said Freddy, who wondered if his life was his own whenever Cassie was about.

  ‘We can ride there on your bike,’ she said.

  ‘I wasn’t actually thinkin’ of goin’ to Camberwell Green, not this afternoon I wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, we can still go,’ said Cassie, ‘it’s nice and sunny. Get one of your mum’s cushions for me to ride on.’ She always rode astride Freddy’s carrier with a cushion under her bottom on the grounds that if she didn’t it left her bottom with a pattern all over it. Freddy, of course, asked how could she know that, because she couldn’t see it. I’ve never seen me own bottom in all me life, he said. Never mind that, said Cassie, I just know when me bottom’s got a pattern on it. ‘Come on, Freddy, let’s go straight away.’

  ‘I ain’t goin’ to any pet shop at Camberwell Green,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ said Cassie.

  ‘Not to buy a parrot, I’m not,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘No, I ain’t, and me mind’s made up definite,’ said Freddy.

  He should have saved his breath, because five minutes later he was cycling along the Walworth Road towards Camberwell Green, with Cassie perched on the cushioned carrier.

  Chapter Two

  CAMBERWELL GREEN ON this skittish May afternoon was a moving picture of people and shoppers, a mixture of lively cockneys from the immediate area and lower-middle-class families from the upper reaches of Denmark Hill. The mixture was good-natured and as breezy as the weather. Saturday afternoons always represented a cheerful beginning to the weekends, when most people had some money in their purses or pockets and a visit to the pawnbrokers on a Monday morning was happily distant as far as hard-up cockneys were concerned.

  There was a family in the pet shop, where birds chirruped in their cages, white rabbits nibbled in their hutches, and hamsters sniffed in search of goodies. Robert Adams, known to his family and friends as Boots, had his wife, son and daughter with him. Thirty-three, an ex-sergeant of the Royal West Kents, he had an excellent war record and distinguished looks. Tall and long-legged, he was in a grey suit. He invariably wore grey, either of a medium or charcoal shade, and very little about his appearance suggested he had been born a cockney and known years of hardship during the time he had lived with his mother, sister and brothers in the heart of Walworth. As for his speech, all its cockney elements had been drummed out of him while he was receiving a grammar school education. Those were the years when the street kids called him Lord Muck. Now he was the general manager of the thriving family firm, Adams Enterprises Ltd, founded by his brother Sammy, a businessman of drive and initiative.

  His wife Emily, formerly the girl next door, was a thin woman of thirty-one her peaky looks offset by her wealth of dark auburn hair and her brilliant green eyes. Their son Tim was a lively eight-year-old, and their adopted daughter Rosie was a sparkling fifteen. With hair the colour of ripe corn, deep blue eyes, and extraordinarily enchanting looks, Rosie was a young girl who already had the air of a young lady. Life was a delight to her. She loved Emily, her adoptive mother, and she loved Tim. But it was Boots, her adoptive father, who meant most to her. Boots she adored. However, she had never made the mistake of being sugary, clinging or possessive. She had
always been a girl of fun to him, a talkative and teasing daughter.

  They were in the shop to buy a hamster for Tim, who had declared, in so many words, that his life wouldn’t be worth living without one. I don’t like the sound of that, said Boots. Nor me, said Emily. It’s doleful, said Rosie. We’d better buy you one, said Boots. Crikey, I’ll live for ever if you will, Dad, said Tim. All right, lovey, said Emily, let’s go and make sure you live for ever.

  They were inspecting several of the smooth-haired little rodents all sniffing around in a wooden hutch.

  ‘They’re doing a lot of twitchin’,’ said Tim, who had his dad’s dark brown hair and grey eyes.

  ‘That they are,’ said the proprietor. ‘If they weren’t all of a twitch, they’d be goners. The more they twitch, the healthier they are. It’s their noses, y’know, young ’un. They’ve all got well-bred noses, that lot. They come of well-bred parents. That’s mum there, and that’s her old man. And that’s Toots, that’s Tilly, that’s Totty and that’s Tipsy. Likes his drink, that one.’

  ‘Would you like one that goes to a pub, Tim, or one that stays at home?’ asked Boots.

  ‘Eh?’ said Tim.

  ‘What a question,’ smiled Emily. ‘Typical of your dad, Timmy.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Mummy,’ said Rosie, fetching in a spring coat of royal blue and a round white hat. ‘I mean, if Tim fancies the one called Tipsy, he’ll want to know if he has to take it to a pub or not.’

  ‘You and your dad, what a pair,’ said Emily. ‘Is your mind made up yet, Tim lovey?’ Emily was still a recognizable cockney. ‘I think you’ve got your eyes on Tipsy, ’aven’t you?’

  ‘I’d have to teach him not to drink beer,’ said Tim.

  ‘No beer,’ smiled the proprietor, ‘just strong water.’

  ‘What’s strong water, Dad?’ asked Tim, enjoying the pleasure of lingering over his choice.

  ‘The kind that comes out of a tap and stands up in a glass,’ said Boots.

  ‘Yes, that’s the stuff,’ said the proprietor.

  ‘There you are, Tim,’ said Rosie, ‘it’s the kind that comes out of our own tap.’