Cruel Tide

by Ruth Sutton

  By the end of the afternoon it was almost dark, but Judith had no desire to go out. She had a comfortable clean room, some interesting food, and a Saturday night play to listen to on the radio. Early to bed, an early start, the Sunday papers and a walk at Earnse Bay completed the weekend, one of the happiest she’d spent since moving to Barrow, and she was proud of herself for making it so.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  The new sense of satisfaction propelled Judith to work early on Monday morning, to do a similar clean-up at her desk and she was astonished to hear herself having a conversation with Hattie about the merits of different types of paperclips. Yet again, undemanding activity made the hours slip away. When Bill Skelly approached her newly cleared desk late in the afternoon, Judith hoped he would bring news of Steven Stringer’s post-mortem, but instead he muttered something about nest-building before he crammed his hat onto his head and went home. It wouldn’t be the first time that Skelly had kept something to himself just to prove who was boss. She would have to ask him directly about it, and probably more than once. Before she left the newsrooom she called Montgomery House. This time the secretary, Mrs Clough, answered and obviously knew who Judith was.

  ‘All I can tell you, Miss Pharaoh,’ said Mrs Clough in her best telephone voice, ‘is that the poor boy’s family have now been informed about his death. That’s all, goodbye.’

  It wasn’t much, but enough for her to catch Alan Thornhill at his desk the following morning and persuade him to let her track down the mother for herself and add some flesh to the story before it went cold. Using the details supplied unwittingly by Mikey it didn’t take long to find a school called St Joseph’s in Morecambe, and that was definitely a place to start. They might not tell her anything, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t find an address if she stretched the rules a bit. And with an address would come the mother and her story. It was worth the trip, especially as Thornhill had given her expenses money for the train. Things were beginning to look up: a day out on a proper job and no more stolen bicycle stories for a while at least.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  The school was a walk from Morecambe station, in miserable fine rain that blew off the sea and blotted out the view across the bay to the north. The view of Morecambe from the other side of the bay was very familiar to her but she’d never actually seen it close up, and wouldn’t see much of it today either, unless the visibility improved. When she found the main entrance of St Joseph’s School there was no one in the little office and Judith stood for a minute, listening to the sounds of children running in the hall and wondering whether to walk straight in and brazen it out. Before she could decide, a small child peered round a door to the right.

  ‘Who are you?’ said the child.

  ‘I want to talk to the Head,’ said Judith, bending her knees. ‘Do you know where he is?’

  The child disappeared without a word, and again Judith waited, wondering who else was watching her.

  The door was pulled open and a small white-haired woman said, ‘Can I help you?’ She was wearing a startling red blouse with a little scarf, a long dark skirt and sensible shoes.

  ‘I’m looking for the headmaster,’ said Judith.

  ‘Headmistress. I am she,’ replied the woman. ‘Mildred Bennett,’ she extended a dry hand, which Judith shook. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Judith. Why did she have to fumble for her ID every time when she could have it ready in her hand? Made her look foolish. ‘Judith Pharaoh. I’m from the Furness News in Barrow.’

  Mildred Bennett held the card at arm’s length and squinted at it. ‘You’re a long way off your patch, Miss Pharaoh. What brings you to St Joseph’s?’

  ‘Can we talk somewhere else perhaps?’ said Judith. ‘It could be a bit tricky.’

  Miss Bennett exhaled in irritation. ‘Well, it’ll have to be quick. I promised Form 1 I’d hear them read. You could have rung ahead, couldn’t you?’ She led the way into the office and shut the door, but didn’t sit down. ‘Well?’

  ‘I believe you have, or had, a pupil here called Steven Clifford Stringer.’

  ‘And if we did?’

  ‘A child by that name was found on the sands, on the other side of the bay, last week.’

  What do you mean, found? Is he coming back to us?’

  ‘No, Miss Bennett, I’m afraid he’s dead. He was identified by the director of the children’s home where he’s been living.’

  ‘Oh dear, goodness me,’ said Marjorie Bennett, sitting down suddenly. ‘What a dreadful thing. How did it happen?’

  ‘We don’t know. The family have been informed, but I’m anxious to talk to his mother myself, and wonder if you could let me have an address.’

  Miss Bennett took a paper handkerchief from the box on the desk and blew her nose. ‘I don’t think we would be able to do that. We have a duty of confidentiality you understand.’ She looked up at Judith who was still standing.

  ‘Does anyone know what happened to him?’

  Judith shook her head. ‘The police are investigating.’

  Marjorie Bennett dabbed at her eyes with the edge of the handkerchief. ‘His poor mother. Will you excuse me a moment? I need to check…’ She stood up, squeezed past Judith and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Judith looked around the small office. Two large filing cabinets loomed against the far wall. On the front of a top drawer, written in a neat dark script, was the label, Pupil contact details, 1969-70. She hesitated. Would that include Steven Stringer if he had left the school earlier? Maybe not, but if there were siblings… She waited again, listening for the sound of returning footsteps but there was nothing. ‘Do it,’ she told herself. The filing cabinet drawer was unlocked and slid noiselessly open. Thank God for alphabetical filing. She looked at the S section and there it was, Gloria Stringer, probably a sibling or even a cousin, it didn’t matter. She read the address and memorised it – no time to write it down. She had just closed the drawer and stepped back when the quick footsteps made her cough to cover the sound, reach into her bag and throw something from it into the floor. When the door opened Judith was bending down, picking up paperclips that had scattered everywhere.

  ‘So sorry,’ she said. ‘I was looking for my card to leave with you and the box broke.’

  By the time they had found all the clips on the floor they both stood up rather pink in the face, which served to mask Judith’s embarrassment.

  ‘Well, Miss Pharaoh,’ Miss Bennett said, adjusting the paisley scarf at her neck, ‘I have confirmed that we cannot offer you any information about the family. If you were the police, perhaps, but you’re not, are you?’

  ‘Have they been here?’

  ‘The police? No, thank heaven. That would have caused far too much excitement if the children had spotted them. But I can’t help you, I’m afraid. And now I need to get back to the class. May I escort you to the door?’

  Judith was as gracious as someone who’d just got what she wanted despite being told it was impossible. She wrote down the address from memory quickly, before she forgot. It took a few minutes and questions to passers-by before she found the street where the Stringer family lived. The number she wanted was at the far end of a long row of red brick terraced houses, which began with quite attractive bow windows and tiny yards at the front but ended with neither, where the houses looked in need of repair and some were boarded up. She checked the number, and her spirits sank when one of the boarded-up houses was the one she was looking for. The hardboard nailed over the small front window looked fresh, unstained by time and rain. They may have gone after the police were here, she thought. But where?

  A window curtain in the next house twitched and seconds later an elderly woman appeared on the doorstep. ‘You from the Social?’ she asked. ‘Cos they’ve gone.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Judith. ‘Do you know where?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘Her boyfriend bought a van round, last night early on and they loaded up some stuff and buggered off. Coro
was on, I ’ad to turn the sound up. I was going to say summat but then I saw who it was, so I just let them go. Why bother? They were a noisy lot. Good riddance to ’em.’

  ‘That’s Mrs Stringer and her family, you mean?’ Judith said, involuntarily smartening up her voice to sound more like someone from the Social.

  ‘Yes, ’er, though she calls herself Bell these days. Yvonne Bell’

  ‘Are there any other family members around I could speak to?’ asked Judith, in precise tones, trying to act the part.

  ‘There was an older lad, but he went off years ago. Don’t know where. Anyway, he disappeared. And that Donna, she left home too. She’s at the station.’

  ‘Catching a train?’

  The woman laughed. ‘No, she works there, in the café. Been there since she left school. She must be twenty-something now.’

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  The rain had blown through and Judith could see the grey outline of the north shore of the bay as she walked back to the station she’d left less than an hour before. The building spoke of better days and the café was dreary and unsurprisingly empty. A young woman with black hair hidden under a white hat was wiping tables with a grey cloth. Judith walked across.

  ‘Are you Donna?’ she said quietly.

  The young woman looked up sharply and then across at the counter. ‘What do you want?’ she said. ‘I’m working.’

  ‘I’d like a word with you, if possible. It’s personal, perhaps we could go somewhere else?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m from the Furness News, it’s about Stevie.’

  ‘Stevie? What’s ’e done now?’

  Judith hesitated. This woman was Stevie’s elder sister and she didn’t know he was dead. ‘When you get off for lunch, maybe,’ said Judith. ‘I would like to talk to you.’

  Donna nodded towards the bar next door. ‘Wait in there,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell them I want a break. Not like we’re busy or anything.’

  And so it was that Donna Stringer learned of the death of her youngest brother, and cried. ‘Poor little bugger,’ she said, wiping her nose on a napkin from one of the tables in the empty bar. ‘He never really had a life, did ’e? People coming and going all the time, pushed from one place to another. That’s no good for a kid. She’s been a useless mam to him, and the rest of us. Used to be think I ’ad to be loyal to ’er, stick together, us against the world and all that – but not no more. She knew ’e was dead and she didn’t even tell me. You can put that in the paper if you want, I don’t care.’ She sniffed. ‘What about the funeral?’

  ‘Steven’s body – he’s still being examined by the police surgeon.’

  ‘Not cutting him up, are they?’

  Judith shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that, Donna, but you can’t have a funeral until they release the – until he can be taken to the undertaker. Procedure, you know.’

  A man with slicked down hair, a red face and an apron stood in the doorway.

  ‘You all right, Donna?’ he said. ‘Is this woman bothering you?’

  ‘It’s OK, Fred,’ said Donna. She walked unsteadily to the door and spoke quietly into the man’s ear. He put an arm round her shoulders and she cried again. He looked across at Judith. ‘Can you take her home? She’s in no fit state and I can deal with things here.’ He bent down and spoke to Donna. ‘Go home, have a cuppa and get your feet up,’ he said. ‘Come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about getting to the funeral when it happens, OK?’

  Donna sniffed and smiled.

  ‘I’ll walk home with you,’ said Judith.

  The two women, not far apart in age, walked together through the bleak streets to another terraced house where Donna opened the front door and they stepped inside. In the tiny cluttered kitchen, Donna made tea. Judith loathed the unmistakable flavour of sterilised milk but she drank the tea anyway.

  ‘E’s out at work,’ Donna said, without explanation. ‘If ’e comes back, don’t say anything to ’im. You’ll have to go pretty sharp, ’e doesn’t like me ’aving anyone in.’

  Judith wondered what went on in the house, behind the closed front door.

  ‘Where do you think your mother may have gone?’ Judith asked.

  Donna shrugged. ‘Could be anywhere. If the police’ve been to the ’ouse, they’d get as far away as possible, I reckon. Don’t like people knowing where they are. That’s why it were a shock when our Anthony turned up.’

  ‘Who’s Anthony?’ asked Judith.

  ‘My big brother,’ said Donna. ‘E went away years ago, when ’e was not much older than Stevie, and then ’e turned up again, out of the blue.’

  ‘When was this?’ Judith said. She needed her notebook but knew that could stop Donna talking, so she listened intently to hold the details in her mind.

  ‘Two weeks ago, mebbe,’ said Donna. ‘Hardly recognised ’im. Much bigger, you know, and quite tanned, like ’e’d been to Majorca or summat, and a funny voice. Looked like a stranger, but it was ’im all right. God knows how he found me, or Mam, but ’e did. And then the police.’ She smiled. ‘Bet they were shitting themselves.’

  ‘What about your mother’s friend?’

  ‘Friend! Him? Not really, not like any friend I’d want. E’s been around a while. They’re not married or anything. She just calls herself whatever suits ’er at the time. E ’its her, but then they all do, don’t they?’

  ‘Do you want me to tell you about the funeral, when it’s arranged? That nice man at the café, I’m sure he’d let you have the time.’

  ‘Oh ’e would, like, but I might not get paid, and then there’s getting over there. I know someone who wouldn’t be ’appy about that. Every penny counts, ’e says, tight git.’

  They heard a key turn in the front door, and Donna looked up. Judith saw the panic in her eyes. ‘Don’t say anything. Let me –’

  The kitchen door opened. ‘Donna?’ said the man. He looked quite young, an overgrown boy trying to prove his manhood. ‘Who’s this? No one in the house, I told you.’

  ‘She’s going, Ian. From the Social, looking for our Stevie. Told ’er to mind ’er own business and she’s going.’

  ‘Get out,’ said the man, putting down his bag and pushing up the sleeves of his jacket. ‘Private property. Bugger off.’

  Judith looked at Donna, saw the expression in her eyes, and left without a word, hurrying away down the street before the man decided to come after her.

  On the train back to Barrow she wrote up her notes, pulling the details from her memory. Both addresses, Donna’s place of work and the address of the house. Mother calls herself Yvonne Bell, so that’s probably the latest boyfriend’s name. Older brother Anthony, but she had no confirmed second name for him either. Could be Anthony Stringer. Age? Must be in his late twenties if he disappeared some years ago, and older than Donna who must be in her early twenties. Maybe Anthony’s arrival was what made Stevie want to go home. She made a list of questions to ask Mikey when they met, or the captain or Mrs Robinson at Montgomery House. Then she went over her notes again, making sense of the information she’d accumulated. Steven Clifford Stringer had left the home, probably at night on the previous Thursday or early in the morning of Friday. Without or without someone else, he’d ventured onto the sands and got stuck almost immediately, or had been caught by the incoming tide and forced back to shore, where he disappeared into a quicksand and drowned. Or else he died from some other cause before ending up in the mud. The thought of those final few minutes of the boy’s life haunted her. She stared out of the window and tried not to care as the train rattled over the Furness viaducts. She had to keep this story, and make something of it. No good getting sentimental about it.

  By the time she got back to Barrow it was too late to go back to the newsroom. Instead she bought herself a coffee in Bruciani’s and wrote the start of a piece about Stevie and his brief life, not knowing whether she would ever have the chance to publish it. She wondered whether the policeman who was now revealed as El
speth’s half-brother would have gathered the same information she had. Surely Donna or Miss Bennett would have mentioned a visit from a detective? So was she obliged to share what she knew?

  Judith stopped writing and sat back to sort out what she’d been told. Elspeth had said that her brother Sam was three years older, which would make him about the same age as Judith, despite his boyish looks. So he must have been in the police force for seven or eight years, long enough to make it through to CID and keep that status when he changed jobs. Joining a new force must be hard, she thought. Maybe that’s why he seemed so officious. She would have to talk to him. If there was someone with Stevie when he left Attercliff the police needed to know. Judith remembered the mud and mess by the shore after the men had finished digging him out. Impossible to tell how many people would have been down there originally, and if the boy had left the shore with someone else and been driven back by the tide, there wouldn’t be anything to find anyway.

  She remembered the post-mortem report, which had to be ready by now. Would Skelly share it with her? He would have to eventually if Thornhill insisted, but he might deliberately slow everything down, just to spite her. Maybe she could go direct to the source. She checked the time. Just after six. She knew where Doc Hayward might be found after work, so she stuffed her notebook into her bag and set off to find him.

  He was where she expected him to be, in the usual pub, at the usual table, with the usual drink in front of him. It looked as if he’d been there for some time. He glanced up and smiled when he saw her.

  ‘Judith! Thank God for a cheerful young face before the end of the day,’ he said. ‘Looking at dead bodies all day long drags you down after a while. And the smell. Everyone said I’d get used to it but I never have. And how are you, my dear? Let me get you a drink.’ He began to get unsteadily to his feet and the small table wobbled, empty glasses tinkling against each other.