The policemen sat in the armchairs, while Henry sat cross-legged on the floor.
‘Please stay,’ begged Mrs Jeffries as Mrs Beaumont made to leave.
She sat down, giving Mrs Jeffries and Henry’s mother a reassuring look. It was then that Detective Constable Blakely spoke.
‘It might be wise if the boys left the room.’
‘I want to know what’s going on,’ Henry protested.
‘I think Henry’s had enough secrets kept from him,’ said Uncle Bill. ‘I’d like him to stay. Maureen?’
She nodded.
‘And I’d like Roger to stay too,’ said Mrs Jeffries.
The policemen looked at one another uneasily. DC Blakely cleared his throat.
‘What we have to tell you will come as a great shock. We’ll start with the photographs.’
‘Photographs?’ interrupted Henry’s mother. ‘But we only showed you one. The gravestone.’
‘We’re talking about the ones taken in the warehouse with the suitcases of petrol coupons stored in it.’
Henry’s mother gasped.
‘How do you know about them?’
‘Yes. And how did you get hold of them?’ said Mrs Beaumont.
‘You know about them, Mrs Beaumont?’ asked DC Blakely slowly.
‘Yes. And I have the negatives.’
‘A concerned member of the public brought them to our attention. He managed to enlarge certain areas for us to help with identification . . . ’
‘Mr Finch!’ blurted out Henry. ‘That’s why the darkroom still felt warm when I returned for the negatives. He must have looked at my prints after I’d gone and spent all night making new ones. He was the one who touched the enlarger. Not me!’
‘We are not at liberty to say who this member of the public might be. I would also like to point out, madam, that withholding evidence from the police is a very serious matter.’
‘I intended to show them to you at a later date,’ said Mrs Beaumont, ‘which is why I took details of the address of the warehouse from the man who took the photographs.’
DC Blakely was immediately alert.
‘You mean Henry didn’t take the photographs?’
‘No. A friend of my younger son did, a professional photographer called Jim MacTavish. What Henry did was to have a young man called Charlie tail his father up to London, where Mr MacTavish was waiting for him at Waterloo Station. After being given the nod by Charlie as to which man he needed to follow, he did so, hid in a warehouse and took the photographs. He then hared back to Waterloo, took the milk train down to Hatton Station and delivered the rucksack with the camera in it to me. The rest you know.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Mrs Jeffries.
‘We didn’t tell you everything,’ said Henry’s mother, turning to Mrs Jeffries.
‘We thought the less people knew about it, the better,’ added Uncle Bill.
‘You see, my husband not only refused to divorce me but said that if I didn’t let Henry go to London, he would move back in with me and have Molly and the baby adopted.’
‘Oh, Maureen!’ cried Mrs Jeffries. ‘That’s awful!’
‘I suspected he wanted Henry to get involved in something criminal,’ said Uncle Bill, ‘where his face wouldn’t be recognised.’
‘On that we agree,’ said DC Adams, ‘which is why this member of the public contacted us. He too was concerned that your son was mixing with some very shady characters. And for what Mr Dodge had planned, he did need an unknown face. And quickly. It’s the end of petrol rationing this May. No one will need to break the law and buy extra coupons after then.’
‘Of course!’ exclaimed Mrs Beaumont.
‘We suspect that a gang, led by our Mr Dodge, needed Henry to be the front man, selling the coupons, though in this case, forged coupons. It’s a lucrative business. These people can get as much as forty guineas for a thousand of them.’
‘But why do you want to speak to me?’ Mrs Jeffries interrupted. And then her face fell. ‘Oh, my goodness! You don’t think my son is caught up in this too, do you?’
‘No.’
‘Then why?’
‘We’ll be coming to that, Mrs Jeffries,’ he answered gently. He looked back at Henry’s mother. ‘As soon as we saw these photographs we sent them to the Metropolitan Police. Not long afterwards, you visited the police station with the photograph of your husband’s gravestone. When we spotted the name Dodge, we were immediately alerted because we were led to believe that the other photographs which were brought to us . . . ’
‘By Mr Finch,’ added Henry.
‘Had been taken by a Master Henry Dodge.’
‘That’s why you were talking to me. Because you wanted information from me.’
‘That is correct.’
‘And we grew more suspicious when you didn’t mention the other photographs,’ said DC Adams, ‘which is why we had you followed.’
‘You’re the man who called out my name the night my dad tried to take me to London!’ Henry exclaimed, suddenly remembering where he had seen him.
‘We thought you might lead us to the gang.’ He turned back to Henry’s mother. ‘Do you remember we asked you to bring in your first marriage certificate?’
‘Yes.’
‘There was a very good reason for that.’ He paused. ‘This is going to be difficult for you, Mrs Carpenter. You see, like us, when the police officers at the Met saw the three photographs, they recognised the machine in the background as one used for forging petrol coupons. But what really got them interested was the man Mr Dodge was seen talking to. In fact the Met have been keeping an eye on him for some time because they know he’s involved in money forging with a criminal set in the Netherlands. And they would love to know where that warehouse is,’ he added, glancing at Mrs Beaumont. ‘But his brother is also well known to the police. He specialises in forgeries of a different nature – that of legal documents, which is why we sent your marriage certificate to London for their experts to examine.’
‘Oh, no!’ she cried.
‘And it is a forgery, Mrs Carpenter. You were never at any time married to a Mr Alfred Dodge. We suspect this wasn’t the first time, and that he was married to someone else already. Can you tell me where this ceremony took place? I doubt it was at a Town Hall.’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It was an office.’
‘I’m so sorry but . . . ’
By now Henry’s ears had begun to fill up and he felt sick. He didn’t hear what else the detective said but it didn’t matter because he could guess.
‘You mean,’ he heard his mother say, ‘you mean I was an unmarried mother!’
‘Until you married Mr Carpenter, yes.’
She turned to his stepfather.
‘Oh, Bill, how can I ever look you in the face again?’
But he was smiling.
‘Don’t you see, Maureen? You’re not a bigamist. And you’ll never have to be a divorcee. We’re legally married. That’s right, isn’t it, Detective Constable?’
‘That is correct.’
Henry sat with his head bowed while the room began to swim around him. But I’m illegitimate.
Something in the manner of DC Adam’s voice pulled him up short. He had turned his attention to Mrs Jeffries.
‘I’m afraid I have some more distressing news which concerns you,’ he was saying.
Mrs Jeffries looked shocked. She sprang to her feet. ‘It’s about my husband, isn’t it? Has he been seen?’
The detective fell silent.
Mrs Beaumont beckoned her over to sit next to her.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mrs Jeffries, looking flustered, ‘I interrupted you. Please go on.’
‘We obtained permission to exhume the body of this Walter Briggs, the man who was buried as Mr Dodge,’ he said.
‘But what has that to do with me?’ she asked, bewildered.
The atmosphere in the room had become chilled. Henry couldn’t take his eyes off the detective.
‘Because there have been so many sightings of your husband,’ he began.
‘All lies,’ she said.
‘Yes. We know that now.’
She stared at him.
‘What do you mean?’
‘As I said, because of these sightings, the Army kept his dental records.’
No one moved.
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs Jeffries, but we can now confirm, from the dental examination carried out on the man we exhumed, that the deceased was not Walter Briggs but your husband, Private Jeffries.’
‘No!’ shrieked Mrs Jeffries. ‘No! No! No!’
‘We knew he wasn’t a deserter,’ yelled Jeffries. ‘We knew! I want all those people who threw us out into the streets to know that now!’
‘He’s not coming back!’ cried his mother. ‘He’s not coming back! I was at his funeral and I didn’t know it! I didn’t know!’
Mrs Beaumont threw her arms around her.
‘I’m afraid there’s more,’ the detective said gravely. He turned back to Henry’s mother, who was staring, eyes glazed, at Mrs Jeffries. ‘Mr Alfred Dodge never reported back to his unit once his memory came back. And never at any time did he meet any medical staff.’
‘He’s a deserter,’ Henry said quietly. ‘I’m the son of a deserter.’
No one would want to live under the same roof as him now. No one would go anywhere near him except to call him names. No one would give him a job. Living with his mother would only remind her that he was illegitimate, and Molly and Larry would spend the rest of their lives being jeered at or being given the cold shoulder. He leapt up and fled from the room. His mother called out to him. Ignoring her, he flung open the two front doors and stepped out into the driving rain.
As soon as his feet hit the flooded pavement he began to run. He had to get away from all of them. He never wanted to see Mrs Beaumont again. He never wanted to hear her go on about looking for the diamond in the dungheap. It was all right for her. For some people there weren’t any diamonds. Sometimes it was all dung. It was almost as if he was being punished for all the years he had avoided Pip and Jeffries. He wanted to be free of all this pain. He wanted to be dead.
He took the side streets in case he was followed, headed for the road where Jeffries and his mother used to live, and stumbled across the bombed houses, past the council garden built on ruins in Disraeli Road and towards the common. He didn’t care about the rain. He just wanted peace and he knew there was only one place he would find it. He pushed himself on and on, ignoring the pain in his chest. Beyond him was the fairground, but the front was deserted. The rain had swept all of Sternsea’s inhabitants and visitors inside. He drove himself towards the cracked pavement and on to the beach. Gasping for breath, he stared out at the sea.
The sound of pebbles moving behind him startled him and he swung round. Standing there, as soaked as Henry, was Uncle Bill.
‘Go away!’ Henry shouted. ‘Leave me alone!’
‘I’ve come to take you home,’ yelled his stepfather, the wind and rain half drowning his voice.
‘We don’t have one. My father burnt it down. Remember?’
‘It’s where your family is. That’s home.’
‘I don’t have a family. Molly and Larry won’t want a brother who’s a bastard. It’s better if I’m dead! If I live with them they’ll be tarred with the same brush.’
‘Those are your gran’s words, not mine.’
‘I’m rubbish. That’s what I am. Like father, like son.’
‘That’s not true!’
‘Mr Jenkins threw me out because I was friends with Jeffries. If he’d known what I was, he would never have given me a job in the first place.’
‘That’s his loss.’
‘Words! Words! Words!’ yelled Henry. ‘They won’t change anything.’
‘All right then, let’s look at like father, like son. What fathering have you had from your dad? Precious little when he was around, except when he was drunk, and that was the sort of fathering you didn’t need. From the moment I met your mum I wanted to marry her and be a dad to you. I wanted to adopt you. Remember? I didn’t just love her. If anyone’s fathered you, it’s been me. I’m your father. Forget all about the blood business.’
‘But Mum won’t want to know me now she knows I’m born on the wrong side of the blanket,’ Henry spat out.
‘Your mother’s changed. A year ago, the very thought of being a divorcee would have finished her. Now she has a friend who was an unmarried mother and one she thought was the wife of a deserter. And do you think those friends won’t want to have anything more to do with you now? Do you?’
‘I’m not listening to this!’ And he pressed his hands to his ears.
‘And she loves you.’
Henry turned his back on him and walked away. His stepfather grabbed his shoulder and swung him round.
‘She was terrified of your dad. She couldn’t have stood up to him before. But she has now. And she did it with your help. She fought back. And he’s a man who fights dirty.’
‘But don’t you see, that makes me dirty too.’
‘You’re not just his son. You’re your mother’s son too. You have her brain for a start, and I’m proud of you. I’m sticking by you, no matter what. And I still want to adopt you.’
‘Can’t you see? It’s better for everyone if I’m not around any more. It’s better if I’m dead.’
By now the wind was growing stronger so that the force of the rain was like a whiplash across his face.
‘How do you think your mother would feel?’ said his stepfather, gripping him by the arms. ‘How do you think Molly would feel if the brother she worships left her for ever? And what about me, Henry? How do you think I’d feel? I want to watch you grow up. I want to be able to walk into a cinema one day and see your name on the credits.’
‘Molly and Larry are your children. I’m not,’ Henry snapped and he struck out determinedly for the sea.
The next thing he knew, Uncle Bill gripped him from behind and hurled him back on to the shingle. Henry leapt to his feet and swung wildly at him, but he caught Henry by the wrist and placed his other hand on Henry’s forehead, standing calmly like a rock while Henry thrashed around waving his arms and fists, unable to reach him.
When Henry tried to break away and dash towards the sea, Uncle Bill threw him back on to the beach, and as fast as Henry struggled to his feet and started running, he felt his hands dragging him back again and again and again.
After a while he began to stumble with fatigue. Reeling with exhaustion, he glared angrily at his stepfather, who stared back at him, an immovable mountain. And then it hit him. This man he had called Uncle Bill for five years was fighting for his life. Suddenly he began to sob, like he had done after seeing The Bicycle Thieves, only this time he was crying because he realised that for years he had had the chance of having a father and he had lost out because of his grandmother’s jealousy.
‘It’s too late!’ he cried out.
‘No, it’s not,’ yelled his stepfather, ‘we’ve got years.’ And he heard the catch in his throat. ‘I’ll be your dad till the day I die.’
Henry had no idea who stepped forward first. In his stupor all he was aware of was the two of them hugging each other fiercely, and of the rain drumming mercilessly on their sodden clothes and the crashing of the sea.
3. Shedding an old skin
A POLICE CAR WAS WAITING FOR THEM BY A DESERTED candyfloss stall. DC Blakely opened the back door and Uncle Bill gently pushed Henry in. The hammering from the rain on the car roof was deafening. Henry leaned back, staring vacantly out of the window while his body shook with the cold and his face burned.
When they reached Mrs Beaumont’s house, Henry dragged himself up the steps. He listened out for voices in the hall but there was only silence. His mother was waiting for them in the kitchen, pyjamas draped in front of the range. She put her arms round him and held him.
‘Don�
��t you ever go scaring me like that again,’ she said softly.
Shivering violently he somehow managed to get undressed and into bed upstairs where he lay clinging to a hot-water bottle.
Hours later he woke up sweating, his pyjamas and sheets sticking to his skin. He was vaguely aware of a cup being held to his lips and his temperature being taken by Mrs Beaumont.
‘Your mother’s feeding the baby,’ she whispered.
The next morning when he opened his eyes there was a white-haired man talking to his mother in the doorway and he heard the word influenza and his mother crying, and then he fell asleep again.
The days drifted one into the other. People came and went with towels, stripping the bed of the wet sheets and replacing them with dry ones, and his bouts of shivering followed by periods of sweating continued. He heard talk of freak weather from outside which seemed to mirror his state, one moment spring-like, the next a return to winter. One day he was lying on top of the bedclothes gazing at snow billowing into the room through the open windows while he lay streaming with perspiration. And then there were the aches, which penetrated every bone in his body. Those he didn’t mind. It was the intense sick feeling which was unbearable. Sometimes he woke to find Uncle Bill sitting beside him reading a book, and at other times he would be thrown into a half dream where he was back at school trying to develop photographs over and over again till he felt exhausted. One morning Mr Hart and Mrs Beaumont carried a large dark brown wireless into the room, the kind which plugged into a socket in the wall, and Henry was glad of the company as he lay and listened to the voices from it, drifting in and out of sleep.
One afternoon, Mr Finch visited him.
‘I know everything,’ he announced.
Immediately, Henry felt again that his life was over.
‘And being the illegitimate son of a deserter doesn’t make a jot of difference to the photographs you’ve taken,’ he stated. ‘So don’t be so dramatic, lad,’ and he spread the photos out on the eiderdown and began to chat about what ones to put together for a display in the school hall. As he left he casually chucked a large colourful comic called The Eagle at Henry. ‘It’s just come out. The school was sent some free copies. There’s a real-life story in there. School for Spies, it’s called. Tell me what you think.’
Just Henry Page 40