The Possession of November Jones

by Pat Herbert

  Ted grinned. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “How could a chap like me afford a place like that, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I ...”

  “Well, I can’t. I just do some odd jobs and a bit of gardening. I’ve always had green fingers, me. They’ve given me a room in exchange. Grotty little hole it is, though. Not like the grand rooms that the well-to-do types get. But beggars can’t be choosers, can they?”

  “I think you’re very lucky to have a room there at all,” said Bernard sternly. “You should be grateful.”

  “Oh, I am. Don’t worry. Life’s kicked me in the teeth a few times, so this place is a doddle for me.”

  Bernard sighed. So, if the man had a job and a place to live, what was he doing here? And, more to the point, why didn’t he wash more often? He must have access to baths at the Winter Park home, surely?

  “So, Ted,” he said, leaning towards him, then leaning back quickly as he caught a particularly strong whiff of stale sweat and dirty clothes. “What is it you think I can do for you, exactly?”

  “I’m not sure you can do anything. I’m here because I found out that my parents came from these parts originally.”

  “Oh, I see, you want me to check the parish records?”

  The old man shrugged. “It’s a starting point, that’s all. I don’t really hold out much hope. Actually, it’s you, in your official capacity, I wanted to talk to.”

  Bernard sensed a confession coming on. He was always nervous of hearing his parishioners telling him about their misdemeanours in case someone said they’d committed a murder. He had, so far, not been challenged with such a situation, but he knew that, if he was, he’d have to think very hard about what to do. He wasn’t a Catholic priest, where the dogma was clear: the confession was between the confessor and the priest and no one else. Bernard dreaded being put in a position where he had to betray a trust, but if it was a really horrendous crime, could he, in all conscience, keep it to himself?

  He looked at Ted now, sizing him up. If ever someone looked like he’d committed a murder, this man did.

  “So, Ted,” he said, clearing his throat. “What is it you think I can do for you?”

  “I was brought up in Primrose Hill by a nice couple, the Holmans. I grew up believing I was their natural son, but I since found out I wasn’t.”

  “So, how did you find out, Ted?”

  “After my dad died, or the man I believed was my dad, my mother, or who I thought was my mother, told me. And, here’s the thing. She told me she’d never liked me much but had looked after me because my real mother had asked her to.”

  “I see,” said Bernard, “that would have been a shock. But you said they were a nice couple, so I suppose they’d looked after you well?”

  “I suppose so. They were both a bit distant with me, always wrapped up in each other. If ever a couple were in love, they were.” He sniffed. “I was just there as a kind of trophy. They never had any children of their own but at least they had me to stop people wondering. I served a purpose.” He paused.

  “That was hard for you. I suppose you want to find your real mother now?”

  “Not so much that. She’s probably dead and buried by now, anyway. What I’m really here for is to unburden myself. You see, I’ve got a confession to make.”

  Here it comes, thought Bernard with trepidation. “Are you sure you want to tell me? I may have to inform the police.”

  “Please yourself. Just hear me out first.”

  “Go on,” said Bernard.

  Once he’d heard his confession, would he then take out a gun or knife and kill him? His imagination was running riot now. He’d read too many crime novels, he supposed. Things like that didn’t happen in real life. He hoped.

  “Just to fill you in before I tell you. I’ve had a good life, really, and I’m not making excuses for what I did. I had a good wife, Mary, and I earned a good living as a stockbroker. Then Augustus, our only son, came along. We were a happy family.

  “But Mary didn’t ingratiate herself with my parents. Don’t know why they took against her and, even when Augustus was born, they didn’t want to know. I began to hate the people who brought me up then, even though at that time I didn’t know they weren’t my real parents.

  “Still, I was proud of Gus. He turned out well, handsome, popular with the girls. It was just before the outbreak of the Second World War when he met Ethel while he was on holiday in Blackpool. When he and Ethel set up home together without getting married first, my wife was shocked and wanted nothing more to do with either of them. When Ethel got pregnant that, as far as Mary was concerned, was definitely that. I had no say in the matter.

  “So, I gave in. Mary said if I made any attempt to communicate with my son or Ethel, she’d leave me. What was I to do? We were living in London and Gus and Ethel were in Blackpool. So I’ve never met my grandchild. I don’t even know if it was a boy or girl. Mary knew because she opened the letter telling us. She burned it before I could read it.”

  Bernard interrupted at this point. “But, surely, you could have gone to see your son without your wife knowing?”

  “Don’t you believe it,” Ted replied. “She watched me like a hawk, night and day. I’d never have got away with it.”

  “So, what is it you want to confess?”

  Bernard looked at the clock. It would soon be time for Evensong, and Ted seemed to be settled in for the night.

  “I’m coming to it. Give me a chance. I loved Mary, by the way. That was the trouble. If I hadn’t, I would have left her and gone to my son. When she died, I went to see him to tell him the news and to meet my grandchild. Let me see, he or she would have been about twenty or so. But they weren’t at the address I had. They’d moved, but the neighbours couldn’t tell me where.

  “When I got back home, I felt desolate. I was on my own. My Mary had gone. My dad was gone. My son and daughter-in-law, if they ever got hitched, I don’t suppose I’ll ever even know that, they’d gone, as far as I was concerned. All I had left was mum.”

  “Who wasn’t your real mum,” broke in Bernard unnecessarily.

  “Exactly. Then she told me everything. That she wasn’t my mother, and my father had never been my father. All that would have been okay, but then she told me something that I’ve tried hard to forgive her for.”

  “What was that?”

  “Before Gus went off to Blackpool with his mates for a holiday, she’d told him the truth she never told me. She told him out of spite, I think. I don’t know.”

  “And what was it she told him?” Bernard was intrigued, despite himself.

  “She told him that his father – that’s me – was adopted by her husband and that she wasn’t his mother. Therefore, they were only Gus’s grandparents by adoption. She told him that his father – me, again – was originally registered on the birth certificate as Moreland-Jones. I’m really Edward Moreland-Jones. I don’t look double-barrelled, do I?”

  “Er, no, well, I suppose …”

  “Anyway, what I’m saying is my son knew all this long before I did. That was why he decided to ditch the family, I think. Why he never came back from Blackpool and took up with Ethel without marrying her. To defy me and Mary. He must have blamed us, somehow. He must have thought we knew all along.”

  “That was hard.”

  “You can say that, again. So, even if I tried to find Gus Holman up in Blackpool, he was probably calling himself Moreland-Jones or something else. Like looking for a needle in a bleeding haystack.”

  “Look, Ted, I’m sorry to hurry you, but I have to get ready for Evensong.”

  “Okay, okay. Well, I was gutted when I heard from the woman’s own lips that I wasn’t her son, and that she’d told my son before she bothered to tell me. I hated her at that moment.

  “I went to pieces. The company I worked for went bust and all I had to live on was my state pension. I couldn’t afford the lifestyle I’d been used to, but at least, by then, Mary had passed on
. I was grateful she didn’t see the degradation I came to. Living in one room with damp running down the walls and only cockroaches for company. I was about to chuck it all in, but then I had an idea.

  “It was simple. It was a dark night with no moon to speak of. The road was deserted, nothing stirring, not even an owl or scurrying rat. I crept up to the bitch’s house, the rag in my pocket, the petrol can in my hand. She’d be sleeping peacefully in the front bedroom, but I didn’t care. I wanted shot of her and the house.”

  “I thought it would solve all my problems. It was the stillest night I’d ever known. It was the work of a moment to shove the screwed up rag, dowsed in petrol and set it alight with a single match, through the letterbox.

  “With the house gone and my so-called mother gone, I’d cop the insurance, and I’d be able to live in comfort for the rest of my natural. But, as you can see, things didn’t work out that way.”

  Bernard couldn’t believe what he had just heard. The man had deliberately set fire to the house knowing he was going to kill the woman who had brought him up. The police would have to know. He couldn’t keep this quiet.

  “How could you do such a thing?”

  “Hold your horses, Vicar. I found out that the bitch wasn’t there that night. Not sure where she was, but she never got burnt alive even though I wanted it at the time. I don’t anymore. I’ve had time to take stock.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it. And, I’m also relieved to know you didn’t profit by what you did.”

  “Of course, I didn’t. I should have known insurance companies don’t pay up when it’s arson.”

  Bernard stood up and Ted, reluctantly, followed suit.

  “So, Ted, now that you’ve ‘confessed’, as you put it, to this awful crime, what do you expect from me?”

  The old man shrugged. “Just wanted to know if God will forgive me.”

  “God forgives everyone who repents – genuinely repents.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, all right. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “All right, if you are genuinely sorry for what you did, then you should pray for forgiveness – in church.”

  “I’ve never been to church in my life, Vicar.”

  “Then maybe you should start now.”

  Bernard stood in front of the meagre congregation that evening, trying to concentrate on the service. It wasn’t easy as Ted was there in the front pew grinning at him.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The December cold was seeping through Minty’s bones as she and Lydia made their way to the hostel for the night. Even though they had spent less than a week together, they had grown very close. Their closeness, which would have happened anyway, being two lonely old people, had been cemented by Lydia’s revelation.

  When she had seen the chocolate box which Minty carried with her, the years had fallen away. It was the same one, the one Rose Jones had entrusted to her, then thought better of it. How had it come into Minty’s possession? Lydia hadn’t needed to think very hard to find the answer. There could be no doubt, no doubt at all. She hadn’t just met an old woman called Araminta; she had met Lily Martin’s daughter, Mary Josephine.

  Minty’s father had been Charles Moreland all along. Having only just discovered she had been sold as a baby to the couple who had brought her up, and thus adjusting to the fact that they hadn’t been related to her in any way, she now had to readjust to the fact that her ‘fake’ father was her real one. The name she had so recently rejected, she found she was entitled to after all.

  It would have been good news to know this, if it wasn’t for the fact the man she had looked up to all her life hadn’t been the saint she had always thought him. True, he was her real father, and that was good, but he had coupled with a prostitute to bring her about. It was a shock, a bigger one even than discovering she had been a monetary bargain between two brothers.

  Minty was grateful to Lydia for providing her with the truth which had lain hidden for all those years, but her gratitude was tempered with it not being quite what she had wanted or hoped for. But, after turning it all over in her mind, she had decided that, on balance, it was best to know the truth, no matter how unpalatable. Daphne Moreland hadn’t been her real mother, that had been made clear to her, and she was pleased about that. She had never been a ‘hands-on’ parent, Minty owing more for her upbringing to her faithful young nurse, Miranda.

  She stored all this away to think about more clearly at a later stage. She had more pressing concerns at present, chief among them Lydia’s declining health. Luckily, they had been able to secure a bed each night in the hostel, but during the day, they had to walk about in the cold and damp, trying to find warm places to while away the hours. They still didn’t know just what was wrong, as they hadn’t received the verdict from Robbie. Minty was more nervous than her friend about what that would be. Lydia, herself, was philosophical.

  “I’ve had my life, Mint,” she said. “If it’s curtains, then I’m prepared.”

  “Well, I’m not!” Minty had asserted.

  For the first time, she regretted parting with her fortune. Now that she knew she was legally entitled to it, she wished with all her heart she could turn back the clock. If she had kept it, she would be able to afford to buy her friend a place in the Winter Park Eventide Home, as well as a place for herself. Then a thought struck her. What if the money hadn’t been transferred yet? She had given instructions to give half to a cancer research charity and the other half to the Battersea Dogs Home. But maybe there was still a chance she could get some of the money back, to help Lydia at least.

  So, the morning that Lydia was due to see Robbie again, Minty was standing at the reception of her solicitors, Markham, Cookham & Eatham, her heart in her mouth, and her fingers very firmly crossed. The blonde receptionist eyed her with suspicion.

  “I wish to see Mr Geoffrey Eatham,” said Minty. “I don’t have an appointment, but I’m sure he will see me.”

  The receptionist gave her an even more baleful look. “You’ve no appointment?” she asked, blinking at her through deftly made-up almond eyes.

  “No,” said Minty, “but, as I just said, Mr Eatham will see me. I’m an old client. We’ve known each other for ages.”

  “Okay,” said the receptionist, still eyeing her with distrust. “What name shall I say?”

  Minty realised what she must look like to the immaculately turned out young girl behind the desk. Her shabby clothes and scruffy, unpermed hair probably seemed like cardinal sins to her, with her shiny manicured nails and well-cut two-piece adorned with an amethyst brooch. However, she was not to be put off by such evident disapproval.

  “Araminta –” She paused. Yes, why not? “Moreland.” She announced her surname louder than she intended, causing several people waiting in the reception area to look up from their magazines and newspapers.

  “Right.” The receptionist continued to stare at her, obviously humouring her now. She pressed the intercom in front of her.

  Minty smiled to herself. This ditsy blonde didn’t recognise her at all, but then it was hardly surprising, as the last time she’d consulted Eatham she had been a smartly dressed old lady smelling of lavender.

  “He’s on his way down, madam,” said the girl, politely enough, as she returned her attention to her manicure, which Minty had so inconsiderately interrupted.

  “Thank you, miss.”

  Minty sat herself down on one of the plush banquettes that were dotted around the reception area, not catching anyone else’s eyes, and flicked through a glossy magazine. How to win the man of your dreams, its front cover proudly boasted. Minty sniffed. What was the world coming to? In her young day, all the magazines then just told you how to bake an apple pie or knit a pullover.

  Geoffrey Eatham suddenly appeared in front of her, smiling broadly. He was a man in his middle years with scant dark hair and the vaguest suggestion of a moustache. He sported a red carnation in his buttonhole, something Minty always remembered he wore without
fail. She approved of this attention to detail.

  “Miss Moreland!” he greeted her warmly. “It’s so good to see you again. How are you?”

  She could see the shock in his eyes as he looked her up and down. The loss of her fortune had had a deleterious effect on her appearance, but she supposed she had been unaware of just how much she had changed. Until now. For the first time, she felt ashamed of herself.

  “Bunty,” he said, turning to his receptionist. “You remember Miss Moreland, don’t you?”

  “Miss Moreland?” She glanced up from her magazine in astonishment. Then a look of recognition appeared in her eyes. “Oh, I – I’m sorry, yes, of course. How stupid of me.”

  Minty laughed. “Never mind, dear. I’m afraid I’m a little the worse for wear these days.”

  “Sorry, Miss Moreland,” said Bunty, getting up at once to pour her a cup of coffee.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Minty said.

  “Do come this way,” said Geoffrey Eatham, ushering her to his office, carrying her cup of coffee.

  Eatham’s office overlooked a small City square. The brightness of the December sun filled all corners of the room, and its rays danced on the polished surface of the large mahogany desk at which they sat. Minty remembered how much she had loved coming here, as she sipped the delicious coffee.

  After the formalities had been attended to, Minty came straight to the point. “Has all my money been transferred to the charities I named?” she asked.

  Geoffrey Eatham, who had been leaning back in his leather swivel chair, sat bolt upright at hearing this. “Well, er, why do you ask, dear?”

  “It’s just that I’ve got this friend who’s not very well and quite old, and she’s homeless. I wanted to see if I could get her a place in the Winter Park Eventide home. I know it’s not cheap to go there, so I just wondered if there was any of my money left...”

  Mr Eatham smiled broadly at her. “Well, Miss Moreland, you’re in luck. I haven’t done anything with your money yet. I held it back in case you changed your mind.”