Emma: There's No Turning Back

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘Not to Emma, no. Mrs Drew has arrived so I considered it safe to leave her. But something has transpired,’ the doctor said. ‘I take it there’s been no luck finding your daughter?’

  ‘Not yet, no. Olly’s doing another search of the churchyard in daylight. I was just going down to the police station to speak to the sergeant to see if there have been any breakthroughs.’

  ‘I’m glad I’ve stopped you, then,’ Dr Shaw said. ‘This could be delicate.’

  ‘What could?’

  ‘Emma has remembered who hit her – or says she has. Margaret Phipps.’

  ‘I might have known that a Phipps had had a hand in this.’

  Seth told Dr Shaw that while he’d had a gentleman’s agreement with Charles Maunder that he would not evict any of the sitting tenants inside a year after purchasing the fishing fleet and all Seth’s properties, it seemed Charles Maunder had broken that agreement and evicted Mrs Phipps.

  ‘Come on,’ Seth said. He turned to go to his own car. ‘We’re wasting time. If Margaret Phipps has got Fleur.’

  The doctor laid a restraining hand on Seth’s wrist. Gripped it hard. ‘Listen to what I have to say first.’

  ‘Make if fast then, Doctor, for God’s sake.’ If Fleur was with the Phipps family, then God only knew what state she’d be in. Filthy. Unfed. Unloved. Dead even in some act of revenge, although Seth prayed that even the Phipps family wouldn’t sink that low.

  ‘Listen, man!’ the doctor yelled. ‘Calm down. You being agitated won’t help.’

  Seth relaxed. He had no choice. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’m breaking the Hippocratic oath here telling you this,’ Dr Shaw said. He looked about him to check there was no one around, no one to eavesdrop. ‘So you see why the situation is delicate. But I have no choice if we’re to find your daughter. Margaret Phipps had a child a short while ago. A girl. A neighbour delivered the child. Cleanliness was not paramount. The child was a little premature. When she was but ten days old, the child died. Margaret Phipps hasn’t been right in the head since, if you get my meaning.’

  ‘I think so. She has no rationale?’

  ‘Exactly. She wouldn’t think of the consequences of taking someone else’s child. Or beating up the mother to do so,’ Dr Shaw said.

  A picture of Emma, her body black and blue from the beating, deep cuts congealing with blood, came into his head.

  ‘So, what do we do now?’

  ‘We go to the Phipps’s household. Together. This will need delicate handling. For Margaret Phipps, as well as your daughter – if she’s there.’

  ‘If she’s there?’ Seth said, impatient now to get this whole nightmare over and done with and get Fleur back. ‘From what you are telling me, I’m sure she must be.’

  ‘I like to think so, too, but we can’t be sure. But we aren’t going to tell the sergeant what we know or what we’re going to do. The police turning up could goad Margaret Phipps into worse deeds than she’s already done. But first, I must get back and tell my receptionist to cancel my morning surgery. I’ll meet you back here in, say, twenty minutes.’

  Twenty minutes? Seth knew it was going to be the longest twenty minutes of his life so far.

  ‘Ruby! What are you doing here?’ Emma said, as Beattie Drew showed a rather worried-looking Ruby into the drawing room. ‘You should be at work.’

  ‘Oh, should I, then?’ Ruby said, rallying a smile. ‘Come to see you, ain’t I? What else? And that’s the greetin’ I get.’ She shrugged off her coat and draped it over the back of the couch.

  ‘’Ere, miss,’ Beattie Drew said. ‘There’s an ’ook for that in the ’all.’

  ‘An’ I’ll use the thing in a minute to ’ang this old rag up, but I’m goin’ to ’ave to sit down first. I’m not sure if I’m really seeing you, Emma, or if I’m dreamin’. There’s rumours goin’ around that you’re dead. Tom heard ’em in the Burton Arms. But seein’ as you’re as bossy as ever, I can see you’re not and they’s only rumours.’

  Ruby flopped down on the couch. Her cheeks were red as though she’d run all the way from Nase Head House.

  ‘Beattie,’ Emma said, ‘could you get my friend a cup of tea, please?’

  ‘I will,’ Beattie said, ‘seein’ as I’m pleased you’re still ’ere to ’ave a friend.’ She hurried off to do as she’d been asked.

  Emma knew Beattie wouldn’t want to miss much – if any – of what she and Ruby were talking about and would barely let the kettle boil before she’d be back with the tea.

  ‘What other rumours have you heard?’ Emma asked.

  ‘That you were beaten up bad, which I can see, plain as day, you ’ave been. And that … gawd Emma, I don’t want to say this … but the rumour is that Seth beat you. What in God’s name did you do to make ’im do a thing like that? He’s …’

  ‘Don’t! I don’t want to hear what you were going to say! How could you begin to believe a rumour like that and think it was true, and that Seth would do this to me?’ Emma ran a finger over the gash in her forehead that was beginning to get very crusty with what was going to be the start of a scar she would probably have for life.

  ‘My pa used to ’it seven bells out of my ma. I thought it was normal. I thought that was what ’appened in marriages, because the neighbours were forever scrapping, too. But then, my ma was loose with ’er drawers.’

  ‘If that’s all you came here to say, you can go again! Before Mr Smythe realises you’re missing and comes looking, or has your cards ready for you for when you get back.’

  ‘’E probably will, and all. I ’ad my coat on and was runnin’ across the foyer – and you know ’ow the likes of me aren’t supposed to be there when there are guests around – and ’e asked where I was goin’. And I told ’im. Said, I ’ad to see fer myself if you was alive or not. ’E said ’e’d telephone, but I said I didn’t trust those things. I needed to see for myself. Then ’e asked me who was goin’ to look after Isabelle and I said, wasn’t it time that fiancée of ’is got used to the idea she was goin’ to be a stepmother soon? And then I legged it. And I’m sorry for being coarse – my tongue got dipped in somethin’ it oughtn’t to this mornin’.’

  Ruby sighed. She seemed to have exhausted herself with her long speech, which on top of running all the way to see Emma, was all too much. She leaned back against the couch as tears streamed down her face.

  ‘Oh, Ruby. You are a dear, kind friend. I’d come and give you a hug if I could, but I haven’t got the strength to get out of this chair.’

  Ruby had risked her job to come and see her. How could Emma ever have doubted her.

  ‘I’ll come to you, then,’ Ruby said. She got up from the couch and went to kneel on the floor beside Emma. She put her arms around the back of Emma’s neck so carefully it felt like butterfly wings against Emma’s skin.

  ‘Who did it to you?’ Ruby whispered, and Emma felt the dampness of Ruby’s tears against her cheek.

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘Miles Jago? Because you’ve got a share of what ’e thinks should be ’is with this ’ouse?’

  ‘No! Not him. He was on the Titanic. Oh, my God,’ Emma gasped. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘No! With that Jezebel, Caroline Prentiss?’

  ‘We can’t be sure of that,’ Emma told her. ‘And you’re to instantly forget what I’ve just said, and anything else I’m going to say. Do you understand?’ She knew she shouldn’t have said what she’d just said, but the words were out and she couldn’t take them back, could she?

  ‘What? What?’ Ruby said, cupping a hand to her ear, feigning deafness. ‘Go on.’

  ‘And we don’t know if he survived or drowned because his name isn’t on any lists. And neither is her’s. But it was definitely him going up the gangplank because he was seen by a reliable witness.’

  ‘Whose name you ain’t goin’ to tell me?’ Ruby rocked back on her heels, stood up as Beattie Drew came in with the tea.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ Emma
said. ‘But you can tell me what other rumours you’ve heard about my beating.’

  There was often more than a grain of truth in a rumour, Emma knew. Any clue she could get about where Fleur might be would be more precious than diamonds.

  ‘When I’ve ’ad this tea.’ Ruby took the cup of tea that Beattie Drew was holding out towards her. ‘Ta.’

  Emma and Beattie Drew watched, their faces grim, as Ruby drained the cup. Beattie nodded towards Fleur’s rag doll, which Emma had been nursing because it made her feel close to the child, however far away she was, and raised her eyebrows questioningly. Emma shook her head. No, Ruby doesn’t know the truth about Fleur, the gesture said.

  ‘That was grand, thanks. Better than the muck the staff gets up at Nase Head House that’s fer sure.’

  ‘Another cup?’ Beattie said. ‘With a biscuit?’

  ‘Please,’ Ruby said, and Mrs Drew scurried off to fetch both. ‘Oh, Em, it feels like a celebration now I know you’re not dead. Nor Fleur, fished out of the ’arbour by someone with a bar’ook, like someone said she was.’ Ruby reached for the rag doll on Emma’s lap.

  ‘You’ve heard Fleur’s dead?’ Emma said.

  ‘But ’er isn’t, is ’er? You’re all in one piece and what sort of ma would be ’ere drinking tea with her daughter dead? Not you, Emma Jago. I’d eat my moth-eaten winter ’at you wouldn’t. So where is ’er, then? Any chance of a cuddle before I go back to face the music? Oh, and this came yesterday. Same writin’. Same stamp. Different sort of envelope, like it might be a card. Is it your birthday or summat?’

  Emma nodded. ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘You never said. I could ’ave changed me day off and come to see you.’

  ‘And then none of this would have happened,’ Emma said. ‘Not that I’m blaming you. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you spending money you can’t really afford to spend.’

  ‘’Ere, you jus’ let me spend my money any way I want! Understand? And before ’er gets back with the tea and biscuit, d’you want this letter or not?’

  Matthew’s letter.

  In silence, Emma took the proffered letter and slipped it under the blanket that Beattie had placed around her shoulders.

  ‘I’m not sure this is the right thing to be doing, Doctor,’ Seth said as he and Dr Shaw got out of the doctor’s car. Seth’s had been left in the lane beside the church, where Olly had insisted on staying and doing another search.

  ‘Trust me, Seth – as you trust me with your body – that I know how people’s minds work, too. Not all of it, of course, but basic nature. I’ll go in first. You duck down behind the hedge and, when I call you, you come running.’

  Seth ducked. He heard the doctor rap on the door of the cottage. He realised now how crowded it must be in there with only two bedrooms and Mrs Phipps, her daughter Mary with her husband and two toddlers, and Margaret Phipps to all bed down somewhere. Damn and blast Charles Maunder for reneging on their agreement. None of this would have happened, he was sure of it, had that agreement been kept.

  Seth strained to hear who it was who had answered the door. He’d heard a woman’s voice say, ‘Doctor?’ in a surprised voice. Dr Shaw then asked, over-loudly Seth thought, if Margaret was at home, but Seth realised it would have been for his benefit out there in the lane behind the hedge. He heard someone answer ‘yes’, and then nothing but mumbles. He strained to hear the click of a door being shut, but gulls were screeching on the roof, drowning out all other sound for the time being.

  Dare he risk a peek to see if the doctor had gone inside? And if he had, how was Seth going to hear if he was called? His heart was hammering in his chest. Almost as hard as it had done when he’d found Emma lying injured and thought, for a heart-stopping moment, that she was dead. He got into a sprint position, ready to run.

  But no call came. He was going to look foolish if someone were to walk past and ask what he thought he was doing. Thank goodness this cottage was at the end of the row and in a cul-de-sac, although there was a narrow walkway through to the row of cottages further down the hill.

  The seconds ticked by. The minutes seemed to crawl. Seth made a conscious effort not to look at his pocket watch, although he had his hand over it in the top pocket of his jacket. He had no idea how long he’d been here now, but it must have been a good quarter of an hour.

  Dr Shaw had explained that Margaret Phipps would need very careful handling. He had gone in on the pretext that he was doing a follow-up check on Margaret, as she’d been to see him a few times after her baby had died, blaming herself for the death.

  Seth put his hands into the hedge and attempted to push the leaves aside so that he could make a gap, through which he could see the door of the cottage. The door was closed, but he thought that he saw Dr Shaw walk past an upstairs window.

  And now he could definitely hear shouting coming from inside.

  All his instincts told him to run and knock on the door, then let himself in if necessary, in case the doctor was at risk. If Margaret Phipps by herself had caused such terrible injuries to Emma, there was no telling what a houseful of women could do to the doctor, or to Fleur.

  Seth decided to count to twenty and, if the shouting hadn’t stopped, he’d barge in.

  Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen … and then the door opened and Dr Shaw came running out. He didn’t call for Seth, so Seth stayed where he was. The doctor came through the gate, slamming it behind him. He pulled Seth from his crouching position.

  ‘Fleur’s not there, is she?’ Seth said. Someone would swing for it if Fleur was dead.

  ‘No,’ Dr Shaw said, ‘but I now know where she is.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘I don’t know why you won’t tell me who did this to you, Em,’ Ruby said.

  ‘I can’t. Not yet.’

  ‘Well, it don’t take a genius to work out that whoever did ’as probably got Fleur, does it? Even me, who can barely string three written words together, can work that out. Gawd, but I’d swing for killin’ whoever’s got ’er if they ’arm ’er.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Emma said. ‘But that won’t help. I’ll just have to wait until Seth gets back. Or the doctor.’

  ‘We’ll ’ave to wait!’ Ruby said. ‘You don’t think I’d leave you alone, do you?’

  ‘I’m not alone. Beattie’s helping Edward with the pastry for an order I’ve got, seeing as I can’t. If I need help and shout Edward will hear me, even if Beattie won’t. There’s a charity fund-raising afternoon tea today. Mr Clarke at the Esplanade Hotel is raising funds for survivors of the Titanic.’

  ‘Well, let’s ’ope that woman don’t get none of it. If ’er survived, which I ’ope ’er ’asn’t.’ Ruby crossed herself. ‘And God prevent me from being struck down fer sayin’ it, but it’d be as well if ’er and Miles Jago is bein’ nibbled to bits by the fishes at this moment.’

  Emma couldn’t help but agree, yet she wasn’t going to waste her breath saying so. But there were plenty who would need financial help, so Emma had agreed readily enough to be part of it.

  ‘I should have gone into the bakery with them.’

  ‘No you bleddy shouldn’t! And forgive my French. Only that’s a daft thin’ to say an’ all, you being half-French and knowin’ “bleddy” ain’t in the French dictionary.’

  ‘I should. It’s my business. Customers don’t want to know about personal problems.’

  ‘Personal problems? This is a town problem if we’ve got a killer on our ’ands!’

  ‘Don’t say that! Fleur’s going to be found alive. Isn’t she?’ Emma looked deeply into Ruby’s eyes, but saw only a reflection of her own fear and doubt in them.

  ‘You know I can’t answer that with the words you want, Emma. And I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know that I can’t.’

  ‘No!’ Seth said, gripping the doctor by the elbow. ‘We’ll knock on the front door first. I told Maunder the place would need a good clean and some paint when I sold him the cottage, but there might be a new tena
nt already. I don’t know Maunder’s business arrangements, but we can’t just barge in.’

  ‘Then you’re a fool. Too soft by half, Seth Jago. You can’t be eating humble pie forever over your father and your brothers. Around the back first. Your daughter’s more important than you forever appeasing a conscience that’s already clear in my book.’

  The doctor shrugged Seth off and, for a man of his years, was more than nimble running along the pavement and into the back alley that led to the rear of the house the Phipps family had been evicted from.

  On legs that were less than steady, Seth followed him. If Fleur was dead, which he prayed she wasn’t – even though praying was something he rarely did, and then always for his own ends, like many people in all probability – then the doctor would be the best person to see her first. He was used to death.

  Seth gritted his teeth, angry at himself for thinking so negatively.

  The garden gate swung back on its hinges after the doctor had rushed through it, smacking Seth in the shins. He swore, something else he rarely did, but these were hardly normal times.

  The compost of all places. Margaret Phipps had confessed to Dr Shaw about putting Fleur in a cardboard box on the compost heap in the corner of the garden of her old home. She said she’d given Fleur a drink of water from a watering can she’d found, and then left her. Seth had shuddered at the thought of how many germs might have been in that water. Margaret Phipps had also confessed to beating Emma. She said that she’d taken Fleur because she didn’t think it fair that Emma had a lovely house and a husband and a baby when she didn’t have any of those things. At first she’d told her mother that she was looking after the baby for a friend. And her mother had given Fleur a glass of milk and some toast to chew on. And then – when it had got to past midnight – she’d said, how in God’s name did Margaret think they were going to be able to find place for another child to sleep, never mind the money to feed it. And she’d ordered Margaret to take the baby back regardless of the hour.

  Margaret Phipps had told the doctor that she’d walked around and around the town in the darkness, not wanting to let another baby leave her life. She said she thought she heard the church clock strike three before she’d eventually found an empty cardboard box at the back of the Co-op to put Fleur in, and a place to put the box down. She’d said she reckoned that compost was always warm, so the baby would be all right. It had been Margaret’s intention to return for the baby when she could.