by Alys Clare
Jessie nods. ‘Dorcas Williamson and Zubaida Maloof mainly got punished because they were the chief storytellers. Zubaida’s from Cairo – that’s in Egypt,’ she adds helpfully, ‘and she put in all sorts of bits about dead mummies rising from their tombs and walking abroad, not that it seemed very likely in the middle of the Fens, but it made a good tale. Anyway, the two of them had detentions and no puddings for a week and I think they both got their hands caned although nobody actually said, and the rest of Alice dorm just got lines and extra prep.’
‘So how did Nurse Evans come into it?’ Lily asks.
Jessie leans close again. ‘We think she must have gone to Miss Dickie and said she thought the girls in Alice weren’t making it up, well not all of it, but obviously the bit about the mummy they were, because she’d seen or heard things too. Then Miss Dickie must have told Miss Carmichael, and Myfanwy – Myfanwy Price, she’s in my dormy – just happened to be in the corridor outside Miss Carmichael’s room and she heard Miss Carmichael yelling, and honestly she never yells, she never even raises her voice – and then Nurse Evans came out and she was weeping and her nose was running and her eyes were all red, and after that she just hid away up here and hardly anybody saw her unless they came to the San specially to look for her.’
Lily is thinking so intently that at first she doesn’t realize Jessie has stopped talking. When she does, she looks up to see the child’s anxious eyes on her.
‘And now Cora Naughton-Smythe has gone missing and the storytelling has started again?’ she suggests gently.
‘It never really stopped,’ Jessie whispers. ‘We’ve all just got better at not being caught.’
Lily studies her, observing the courage in the child that is making her fight to overcome her fear.
‘It is distressing to have seen your school-fellows go missing,’ she says after a moment. ‘Perhaps it is even more upsetting when the adults tell you everything is all right when you sense that it is not.’
Jessie mutters something that sounds horribly like, We all know something’s going on.
Lily puts her arm round the girl’s shoulders and gives her a brief, bracing hug. ‘Go back to your lesson now,’ she says. ‘It must be almost time for the bell.’
Jessie jumps down. As she opens the door to leave she turns back to look at Lily. ‘You’re going to help, aren’t you?’ she says very softly.
And equally softly, putting her finger to her lips in the age-old gesture that says don’t tell, Lily replies, ‘Yes.’
EIGHT
‘Oh, I never seem to tire of Mister Magically Magical and his tricks!’ Violetta gasps, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. ‘The things he gets away with! I thought I’d die laughing when he extracted the egg from that woman’s backside!’
At the Peeping Tom it is the interval, Felix and Violetta are two glasses apiece into the champagne and Violetta is mellow; so mellow, in fact, that she is sitting sideways in her chair and leaning comfortably against Felix as if they have been familiar with each other’s bodies for years. Not that he minds – far from it, for he feels just the same and there is something about Violetta that reminds him fondly of Solange – but he hopes the alcohol and the merriment haven’t yet obliterated whatever it was she planned to tell him tonight.
He is just wondering how to phrase a gentle reminder when, as if she reads his mind, she sits up a little straighter and, lowering her voice, says, ‘Now, much as I’m enjoying your vulgar laughter and your delightfully muscular body, young Felix, these delights are not what we’re here for!’ She smacks him lightly, right at the top of his leg, and he feels a definite twinge of arousal. Another twinge of arousal, in fact, for she has been having quite a powerful effect on him all evening.
‘If that’s for my benefit,’ he murmurs, right in her ear, ‘then a little higher, please.’
She emits a smutty guffaw. ‘Now, now!’ she says reprovingly. ‘You were asking about the MacKilliver twins’ – all at once she is businesslike – ‘and I said I’d see what I could find out.’
‘Yes,’ he agrees.
‘Well, I had a word with my old friend Freddie Fanshawe-Turnbull – you know, Old Turnip-Head, who we were talking about last time?’
‘Yes,’ he repeats, trying not to add, of course I do!
‘It was after my evening’s performance and we were all in the Café Royal, and he was even more deeply in his cups than usual, so I took my chance and made sure I sat next to him, flattered him a little and stroked his whiskers – like I told you, I’m far too old for his tastes but he was on his own and any port in a storm – and I said very casually that I hadn’t seen much of the twins of late and how were they? He’s always been easily led, has Freddie – that’s half his trouble, really – and it didn’t take much to have him reminiscing and repeating tasty bits of gossip, and I prompted him here and there, and before long we were almost back as far as the nursery and how poor old Cameron’s obsession with cosseting, cuddling and comforting his dollies made his father apoplectic and was the reason for far too many beatings with the hairbrush bare-bummed over Nanny’s knee, which no doubt added spice to the whole thing and sent him rushing straight back to his dolls to earn himself some more.’
‘Good grief,’ Felix mutters. When he has managed to get the image out of his head, he says, ‘Was it just the two of them, Cameron and Mortimer, or were there other siblings?’
‘I asked Freddie that, and he said there were at least two and probably three more children born subsequently, but Mama MacKilliver was rather delicate after giving birth to the twins and none of the infants survived, although one, a little girl, lived for a few months.’ Perhaps sensing Felix’s reaction, she adds, ‘It happens, Felix. Procreation is a perilous business, fraught with drama, pain and danger.’
‘I know,’ he replies. He wonders if the boy Cameron’s fascination with caring so tenderly for his dolls was because he had been an unwilling witness to his mother’s travails in the marital bedroom as she struggled fruitlessly to provide further children. To her grief, perhaps, when her babies died. But what do I know? he asks himself.
‘Anyway,’ Violetta resumes after a few moments, ‘it appears Cameron’s been absent from London for quite some time now.’
‘Up in Scotland, presumably, hidden away at the ancient pile on the Moray Firth,’ Felix comments.
‘Findhorn Hall, yes,’ Violetta agrees. ‘Only – listen, this is interesting – Freddie says he and Mortimer went up for a spot of fishing back in the autumn, and Mortimer was fully expecting to find Cameron pottering about in his velvet slippers and his Turkish cap like he usually does, but he wasn’t there.’
Felix is struggling to see why this is interesting. ‘He’s an adult, wealthy, independent,’ he says shortly.
Violetta shoots him a look. ‘So you’d think,’ she agrees enigmatically.
‘But?’ he prompts.
‘Well, you see, the thing about poor old Cameron is that he needs a bit of watching,’ she says. ‘He’s usually at Findhorn Hall with the resident staff, or down in London with Mortimer keeping an eye, or having one of his periodic spells being treated by doctors who understand men like him, or he’s off staying with some old childhood friend he’s still close to. That’s what Freddie says, anyway, and I reckon he ought to know.’ She falls silent, absently gulping another half-glass of champagne.
Felix is still at a loss to understand why she’s telling him this; why she deemed it sufficiently important to have suggested this meeting at the Tom, why even now she is leaning into him again and automatically he has put his arm round her, drawing her closer, feeling her welcoming warm flesh and smelling her delicious gardenia perfume …
And as they turn their faces towards each other and begin, inevitably, to kiss, he thinks he probably has his answer.
He wakes on Thursday morning with a thick head and a smile of happy reminiscence on his face. Violetta’s ever-obliging coachman had been waiting for them outside the Peeping Tom when
they staggered out, entwined in each other, and he took them on a meandering drive while they fell upon each other in the cosy darkness within, removed just enough garments to get at each other and consummated their fierce mutual attraction in approximately five very satisfactory minutes. (‘Gorgeous, my poppet,’ Violetta had panted as they fell apart, ‘only next time, let’s make it last a little longer, eh?’)
Now, turning on to his back and wincing slightly as a pain stabs through his temples, Felix reflects with deep contentment on the promise of next time. Violetta, he is well aware, has a man in her life – the steadfast, powerful and hopefully tolerant Billy – and his own relationship with her is unlikely to amount to more than a repeat or two (or maybe more) of what happened last night, and that is absolutely fine by him.
He has closed his eyes and is reliving the moment when one of Violeta’s gorgeous breasts spilled out of her corset and into his waiting hand when his door is opened, Marm’s face appears and he says softly, ‘I come bearing a cup of tea, which I trust will ease your alcohol-induced headache. May I enter?’
Hastily bunching up the bedclothes over his groin, Felix replies, ‘Yes, please do.’
Marm perches on the end of the bed, hands Felix a cup and saucer and, after an arched glance towards the middle of the bed, takes a sip of his own tea. ‘Did you find my note?’ he asks.
‘Your note … Yes!’ Memory floods back, pushing eroticism aside. ‘You said you might have something interesting for me.’
‘Indeed,’ Marm agrees, ‘and now, with the passage of a further twenty-four hours – in which my endeavours on your behalf have not been my sole preoccupation, you understand – might have has become something a little more definite.’ He looks at Felix, his clever blue eyes bright in his dissipated face. He wears an odd expression; he looks … reluctant, is the best Felix can come up with. ‘Want to hear it?’ Marm asks quietly.
Felix nods.
‘Esme Sullivan, runaway schoolgirl, turned up in Brighton,’ Marm begins, taking a notebook out of his pocket and thumbing through to the right page. ‘You were off on her trail, and—’
‘I found it, or at least I discovered where it led,’ Felix interrupts. ‘She managed to extract her fare back to Shardlowes from the landlady of the Brighton boarding house, but she didn’t return to the school.’
Now Marm is looking very grave. ‘Where did she go?’
‘Portsmouth.’
Marm mutters something that sounds like, Oh, no. ‘You’re quite sure?’ he says aloud. All the usual levity has gone from his voice.
‘Yes, reasonably sure. Why?’
‘It’s probably not the girl – after all there’s no name, no identity …’ Marm mutters. Then he says, the words coming out like bullets, ‘What did Esme look like?’
Felix brings to mind Kitty Kingston’s description. ‘Sixteen, seventeen years old, very pretty, fine figure with a good bosom and a small waist, wavy fair hair, deep blue eyes.’
There is silence in the room. Felix has an idea that he knows what it forebodes. ‘Tell me?’ he asks quietly.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ Marm shakes his head. ‘Not fair to keep you in suspense.’ He takes a deep breath, then reaches in his pocket again and takes out a newspaper cutting. ‘I made contact with a chap I know in Chichester, and I have nobody in the area who is anywhere near as good as Douglas Blackmore. He checked the local newspapers to see if your missing girl had come to the attention of any of his fellow journalists. He sent me this.’ He hands over the cutting. ‘It’s probably not her!’ he adds, repeating himself, his voice distressed.
Felix unfolds the piece of paper and begins to read.
WHO IS THE GIRL IN THE WATER? yells the headline, and underneath the sub-heading continues: Body of the Solent Siren still unidentified after more than two weeks and police baffled.
The by-line informs him that the piece was written by someone called Michael Nicholls, reporter on a Portsmouth newspaper, and it was filed in the middle of December.
He reads on.
She was washed up on Southsea beach, coming to rest beneath the new pier. She was young, she was surely beautiful once, her long fair hair glossy, her unsullied flesh white and smooth and her eyes brilliant before the sea altered her. Somebody must be missing her, but with no clue on her naked, splayed, sea-battered body to indicate who she was or where she came from, this poor grieving soul must wonder in vain what has become of her, aware that the worst may have happened but hoping and praying that their beloved daughter, sister or wife has merely run away and will return in her own good time. But she will not, our mystery Solent mermaid, for the sea has taken her and the sea does not give back.
‘Oh, God,’ Felix murmurs.
Silence falls once more.
‘There’s no certainty that this poor girl is your missing Esme,’ Marm says presently. ‘Michael Nicholls’s emotive prose contains not a few inaccuracies – the mermaids of legend can swim and breathe under water, so to call a victim of drowning a mermaid is absurd. And the sea did give back in her case; she was washed up under Southsea Pier in Portsmouth.’
Felix isn’t really listening. He is wondering how he can verify the dead girl’s identity; whether the police are still working on the case.
Marm – a man of rare sensitivity, Felix reflects – must have been aware of the direction his friend’s thoughts would take. ‘We cannot know just how hard the police tried before they decided they were baffled and gave up,’ he says gently. ‘There are probably corpses washing up on the Solent all the time, and I’m sure the police in a bustling place like Portsmouth, with more than its share of randy sailors, unscrupulous merchants and all manner of other troublemakers, have better things to do with their time.’
‘Do you think it’s worth a visit?’ Felix asks.
For the first time Marm smiles. It is only a faint smile. ‘What I think doesn’t matter,’ he replies, ‘since I’m quite sure you’ll go anyway.’
By mid-morning Felix is on a train from Waterloo to Portsmouth.
Before he left Kinver Street he wrote a swift letter to Lily, which he posted on the way to the station. Writing in what he hoped looked like a feminine hand to Nurse L. Henry, Shardlowes School, he tried to couch what he had to tell Lily in terms that would be informative yet not arouse suspicion if the letter were to fall into the hands of the curious. He pondered over a readily comprehensible substitute for Marm and came up with Mariella.
My dearest Leonora,
I trust the air of the Fens is not proving a trial, and that your new post is suiting you. I write in haste, dear sister-in-law, to let you know that I shall be away from home for a few days although dear Mariella has undertaken to forward my mail as soon as I provide an address. I am in need of some sea air, my dear, and therefore to the coast I am bound, with a brand-new mystery novel in my luggage, the enclosed puzzle within which I plan to solve before my return. I have read as far as the heroine’s flight to Portsmouth, and thence I shall follow her, there being nothing, in my experience, quite like being in the very place where a story is set for enhancing one’s enjoyment!
With fondest regards from your loving sister-in-law Felicia
Now, sitting in the half-empty compartment, he wonders how soon the letter will land in Lily’s hands. There is a great deal more he would say to her were she present beside him, although since so much is speculation, perhaps it is just as well he has been confined to that brief, stilted message.
With an effort, he turns his thoughts away from Lily and, taking his notebook from his pocket, goes through his pages of notes on Esme Sullivan. He finds himself silently praying, Please don’t let the corpse be hers, recognizing even as he does so that if it’s not hers it will be that of some other unfortunate young woman.
It is, he reflects as he has done so many times before, a cruel world.
Marm has provided the address of the newspaper for which Michael Nicholls writes. The office is in Southsea, and as Felix walks he finds his pace incre
asing, both because Portsmouth is even colder than London and also because he is distressed at what he may be about to find out.
He is also angry. With whoever put a girl’s body in the water, with the wickedness of people, with Michael Nicholls for that lurid piece of writing. And when he bursts into the newspaper’s office and is pointed in the direction of the journalist in question, it is the young man’s misfortune to be the only object of Felix’s fury who happens to be standing right in front of him.
Felix has Marm’s cutting ready in his hand. ‘I want to talk to you about this,’ he says loudly, brandishing it in Michael Nicholls’s face. He is a pallid, pasty young man with receding hair and round shoulders, several inches shorter than the tall Felix and not a few pounds lighter.
‘Er …’ he hedges, fumbling for his glasses and putting them on before peering at the cutting – damn, thinks Felix, I can’t hit him if he’s wearing glasses – then as the small print leaps into focus, says with a grin, ‘Ah, yes, the Solent Siren! Good one, eh? Came up with it myself.’
Felix doesn’t answer straight away, instead nudging Michael Nicholls back into his little box of an office, closing the door and leaning against it.
‘You also called her a mermaid, which is inaccurate for a victim of drowning.’
‘Who says she drowned?’ Nicholls says with a touch of belligerence. ‘I do not believe I did,’ he adds pedantically.
‘How did she die, then?’ Felix flashes back, and he makes an involuntary move in Nicholls’s direction.
He flinches and mutters anxiously, ‘Steady on! You a relative, then?’
‘Since the young woman’s body has not been identified, or hadn’t when you wrote your … piece’ – he spits out the innocuous word, investing it with heavy scorn – ‘how can I possibly say?’
Nicholls studies him, eyes narrowed behind the thick lenses of his spectacles. ‘But you’ve got someone gone missing. Stands to reason,’ he adds, ‘else why are you here?’
Felix breathes in and out once or twice, still struggling with the urge to do violence. Then he says, and to his satisfaction he sounds quite calm, ‘I am looking for a missing young woman, yes.’ Deliberately he stops, waiting for Nicholls to fill the silence.
