A Woman Unknown

by Frances Brody

  Marcus tapped his pencil on the blotter. ‘You’ve done well, to say you are not on the case.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  I had not yet heard from Aunt Berta regarding a solicitor in Leeds who may have made the arrangement for Deirdre to be with Joseph Barnard and, possibly, Everett Runcie.

  ‘Nothing else just now. Will that be all, Marcus?’

  ‘Not quite. I had a man out to interview Mr Runcie’s long-term companion yesterday afternoon’

  ‘His mistress?’

  Marcus nodded. ‘I understand you have already spoken to her. Twice.’

  ‘Marcus, someone had to tell her that Runcie was dead. I knew she would be discreet. She had a right to know.’

  ‘Then you should have informed me.’

  ‘I tried, if you remember. You did not return my call. I’m not blaming you. You were busy, naturally. But I have to make my own judgements.’

  There was a brief and heavy pause. We both knew now that the intimacy there had been between us was a thing of the past, gone but not forgotten.

  Marcus said, gently, ‘I know. And you’re right. Miss Windham said nothing to the Fotheringhams. Lord Fotheringham was as shocked by the piece in The Times as anyone else. But you saw her again yesterday.’

  I took the cartridge from the inside pocket of my satchel. ‘This was removed from her arm on the first day of grouse shooting. Her lucky bullet.’

  He took it from me and slipped it into a bag. ‘Lord Fotheringham has a good idea who fired the shot. The man is so inept that he was unaware of causing an injury.’

  ‘Will that be all, Marcus?’

  ‘Do you have something planned? You said you were coming into town.’

  The cheek of the man. He wanted to know would I step on his toes.

  ‘You know me and my hobbies. I always have something planned.’

  We were interrupted by Sergeant Wilson, and I took the opportunity to bid Marcus goodbye and be on my way.

  I hurried to the offices of the Herald, where I had parked the motor. With a little luck, I would catch Len Diamond before he set off for his assignments and ensure he remembered his promise to show me his photographs of the shoot, and of Deirdre.

  George was on the desk, taking possession of an advertisement from an anxious-looking gentleman who wished to announce soothing pills for sale at a shilling a box. I hung back, waiting patiently.

  When the man had gone, George said, ‘Sorry, Mrs Shackleton. No sight nor light of Mr Diamond this morning.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’

  ‘But Mr Duffield asked if you would go up.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I took the lift up to Mr Duffield’s domain, his library with its high windows and gentle light. Mr Duffield nodded a greeting. ‘You’ll have heard that Mr Diamond hasn’t come to work.’

  ‘Yes. Is he often late?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, especially recently.’

  That was a relief, because I had wondered whether Len Diamond had been and gone, having come in early so as to avoid me.

  Mr Duffield offered me a seat.

  ‘I expect he’ll roll in shortly.’

  I did not sit down. ‘He said he would let me have copies of some of his photographs.’

  ‘I have some on file, if that would help. Do you want to take a look?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘They’re not top secret. I don’t see why not.’

  Mr Duffield led me to a corner of the room shielded from view by tall stacks of shelving. From a drawer, he took a cardboard document case, tied with red tape, set it on the desk and began to untie it carefully. The case was labelled, “August, 1923, L Diamond.”

  Len had been busy. I sifted through the photographs until I came to two of Leeds Bridge, and of Joseph Barnard on the bridge. There were no photographs of Deirdre.

  Mr Duffield was explaining how, within a day or two, the month’s pictures would be filed according to subject. He watched as I picked out the photographs of the first day of grouse shooting. There was the picture that had appeared in the paper: a surprised Caroline Windham, clutching her arm, Everett Runcie beside her.

  There were photographs of Philippa with Lord Fotheringham, and Lady Fotheringham, sitting at an outdoor luncheon table between two men I did not recognise.

  ‘You’re looking for something in particular, aren’t you?’ Mr Duffield asked.

  I picked up the photographs of the bridge, and of the singer. ‘I thought there may be another figure on the bridge.’

  Mr Duffield looked at the clock. ‘I left a message for Mr Diamond to kindly call up here. Let me go see whether anyone has sighted him. Between you and me, he had better buck his ideas up. He is a good photographer but he puts people’s backs up. A little too intrusive, and not reliable.’

  I looked at another photograph of the shooting party, half a dozen guns striding out. Len had caught a sense of purpose and anticipation. The picture was clear and clean.

  It was a good ten minutes before Mr Duffield returned, frowning.

  ‘No sign of him. We have a mole in the cellar who develops the photographs. He does remember one of a couple on the bridge recently.’

  So Diamond had chosen what to put on file in the library, and what to retain. Nothing unusual in that, but I wondered what lay behind his selection process.

  Mr Duffield sat down. Together we began to gather up the photographs, which had been of no help whatsoever.

  Mr Duffield said, ‘I would hate to see Diamond sacked. The editor has brought in a young chap as an assistant. Anyone else would see the writing on the wall.’

  ‘Do you think Mr Diamond may be ill?’

  ‘No. I think he may have been drinking. He had several assignments yesterday, one featuring the lord mayor. He did not turn up for any of them.’

  ‘Has someone telephoned his house?’

  ‘We do not have a telephone number for him. He lives alone in lodgings, in Harehills. I know because I once walked that way with him on a foggy night and saw him to his door.’ He looked at the clock high on the wall, and then scratched his neck beneath the stiff collar.

  ‘I have my motor outside, Mr Duffield. Shall we go to Harehills?’

  Following Mr Duffield’s directions, I took the route of the tram along Roundhay Road. We made for Bank Side Street and came to a halt by a group of three-storey houses. Mr Duffield walked through a ginnel between the houses. Halfway, he paused, and knocked on a door within the ginnel.

  ‘I know he lives in the basement because he told me. There’s this entrance and one down the steps at the back.’

  We walked to the rear of the house and down the steps. Once again, Mr Duffield knocked. As he pushed the door, it opened. We stepped inside and he called. ‘Len!’

  It was so unlike Mr Duffield, with his formal manners, to call a first name that he took me by surprise. ‘Len! Leonard!’

  The room was in a state of disarray, a chair overturned, crockery smashed. Expensive cameras had been damaged, broken and flung about the room. Most overpowering was the stench of photographic chemicals.

  On the far side of the room was a door that fitted its frame exceedingly well. Across the top had been pinned a strip of black sheeting. His dark room.

  Stepping carefully, and keeping on my gloves, I crossed the room. The door to the dark room opened when I touched it with my toe.

  The slight stir of air caused the hanging figure to sway gently, the toe caps of his boots coming within inches of my chest. I put a hand to my mouth and nose, and forced myself to look up at the distorted face of Leonard Diamond. Chemicals had been spilled across the floor. Under their stink came another smell. I was glad of the dimness of the light but even as I averted my gaze in the half light, I could see that this room, like the other, had been ransacked.

  ‘My God.’ Mr Duffield was behind me, his hands on my shoulders. ‘What has he done?’

  I did not know whether Mr Duffield was trying to move me out of the way
for my own sake, or to get to the body.

  I turned to him. ‘It’s too late. Don’t touch him. Don’t touch anything. We must fetch the police.’

  As my eyes grew more accustomed to the gloom, I saw that someone had more than touched this room. Someone had been searching. Photographic plates were scattered across the floor. Drawers had been pulled out. Yet an expensive camera hung on a hook in the doorway, next to a tripod. It had been opened but was undamaged. Whoever rampaged through Mr Diamond’s makeshift studio had not been intent on a random act of robbery. They had been looking for something.

  I took one more glance at the scene before we stepped outside. Mr Duffield was pale and trembling. I persuaded him to sit on the low back garden wall, and keep guard.

  The nearest police station was Stanley Road, and that was where I headed, and reported what we had found.

  ‘What was your business there, madam?’ The sergeant asked as he took my name and address.

  Good question.

  Mr Duffield and I had given our statements to a constable. Still shaken, we detoured to the Cemetery Tavern on Beckett Street. It is aptly named, being close to the cemetery, and opposite the old workhouse.

  I was glad of the smoky atmosphere of the lounge bar, but it did not dispel the stench of chemicals, and death. We chose a seat in the corner. The brass edging on the table felt smooth and reassuring to the touch. The waiter quickly brought our brandy.

  ‘What on earth made him smash up his own rooms?’ Mr Duffield gazed into his brandy balloon.

  ‘Do you think that’s what happened?’

  ‘It has to be. If someone was bent on robbery, they would have taken his cameras.’

  The explanation did not sit well with me. Poor Diamond. The balance of his mind must have been deeply disturbed for him to destroy his own photographs, leave them scattered across the floor. He had seemed so calm, so himself, when I saw him yesterday morning in Schofields café. I could not imagine that, whatever his state of mind, Diamond would destroy his own work.

  ‘It’s a shock,’ Mr Duffield said, ‘a terrible shock to be so close to death. We none of us know when our turn will come.’

  We ordered a second brandy.

  ‘It must have been the drink,’ Mr Duffield said, staring into his glass. ‘He must have drunk himself into a state of hopelessness.’

  ‘I didn’t know he drank to excess.’

  ‘Oh yes, and gambled.’

  I asked, ‘Does Mr Diamond have relatives that you know of?’

  Mr Duffield shook his head. ‘He never mentioned anyone, only a sister he lost touch with years ago. She migrated to Canada with her husband before the war. I must get back to work and tell the editor about this.’ He looked at me steadily. ‘What was it that you hoped to find among Mr Diamond’s photographs?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Possibly a photograph of the singer Giuseppe Barnardini, and a lady not his wife; photographs of the shoot, showing who in particular Everett Runcie may have hobnobbed with that day.’

  I kept my theory about Caroline Windham’s injury at the grouse shoot to myself.

  Mr Duffield took another sip of brandy. ‘Are you interested in Mr Diamond because you suspect he may have been blackmailing someone, to get money for his drink and gambling? He always had his nose in other people’s business.’

  Up to now, that thought had not occurred to me. But it made sense. If I were right, and someone had ransacked the room, then I was not the only person interested in Len Diamond’s photographs. What did he have that may have cost him his life?

  Mr Duffield stared ahead, unseeing, to the bottles arranged so artistically behind the bar. ‘He was in trouble, financially, more than usual. He had a winning streak in the spring, and was patting himself on the back over a clever investment. He tried to interest me, but I’m not a betting man and I don’t trust stocks and shares.’ Mr Duffield stood up. ‘Circumstances call for another brandy, and then I must be back to the office.’ He caught the attention of the waiter. When he sat down again, he said, ‘Do you know, I believe we are being watched. Perhaps the gentleman in the tap room is envying me my charming company. Don’t look now.’

  I waited until we had finished our drinks and were leaving. Only then did I look across the bar, into the tap room, and glance at the familiar figure staring glumly into his beer. It was Eddie Flanagan, the unemployed ex-boxer, Deirdre’s faithful friend.

  ‘I won’t be a moment, Mr Duffield.’

  I went into the tap room and stood over him. ‘Hello, Mr Flanagan. Are you following me?’

  Eddie looked at me sullenly, as if he wanted to argue over the word hello. The poor man had a permanently puzzled face, as if the world presented itself to him through a fog. He said, ‘Deirdre slept in a glasshouse last night.’

  ‘A glasshouse?’

  ‘I went looking at sunrise. I could tell she’d been there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘That place, the place she took her mam. I know Deirdre, heart and soul. She went to the park, I know. Roundhay Park. I looked. But now she’s gone. I could tell she’d been in the glasshouse.’

  It struck me that he was probably right, because the man loved her, and he had no hopes for himself where she was concerned. There was something touching about him, like a faithful dog.

  ‘How do you know she was there?’

  I expected him to say that he sensed her presence, a lingering trace of her scent.

  He put his hand in his pocket and produced a small white handkerchief which he spread on the table, smoothing it carefully. He pointed to a letter D, embroidered on the corner. ‘It’s hers.’

  ‘Thanks, Eddie. I’ll do my best, believe me. It might not look like it, but I’m searching for her now and I’ll go on searching.’

  He looked at me steadily, as if deciding whether to believe me. I passed the test. ‘What did they say your name was?’

  ‘Mrs Shackleton.’

  He repeated my name softly, as though committing it to memory.

  ‘What brought you here?’

  The Cemetery Tavern was a long way from home for him.

  ‘Searching. I thought she mighta been hurt and taken to the Workhouse Infirmary over there.’

  ‘Have you been to ask?’

  He nodded. ‘She’s not there. Not anywhere.’

  When I dropped off Mr Duffield at the newspaper offices, I had to ask him a question, even though he was late, and flustered, and upset at the thought of having to break the news to the editor.

  ‘There’s no tactful way of saying this, Mr Duffield, but I want to know if one of the compositors was in work last night, Cyril Fitzpatrick.’

  He stared at me, and blinked. ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t say, but please trust me. It is important that I know.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll look at the clocking-in cards for the print works.’

  Why was it important that I know? I had no idea, except that Diamond had given a hint to Fitzpatrick that he had photographed his wife on Leeds Bridge, and now that photograph had disappeared, and Diamond lay dead among the debris of his craft.

  Moments later, Mr Duffield emerged. He leaned into the motor and whispered, ‘He was in last night, and the night before. He is on the night shift all this week.’

  ‘What time does the shift end?’

  ‘Seven a.m.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He nodded. ‘And now I have to tell the editor that Len Diamond has committed suicide.’

  ‘No, Mr Duffield. We don’t know that, and I don’t believe it. Len would not have destroyed his work, his cameras. Someone else has had a hand in this.’

  Mr Duffield said sadly, ‘The outcome is the same. We’ll not see such a good photographer on this newspaper again.’

  He turned, and I watched him walk away.

  Perhaps Diamond’s death had no connection whatsoever with the demise of Mr Runcie, but I decided to tell Marcus anyway, and drove the short distance to the Hotel Metropole.


  After that, I would visit Philippa. Even though I had little to report, talking to her might give me some new lead.

  Word of my arrival was sent up to Philippa while I waited in the drawing room at Kirkley Hall. I hoped she would not expect me to have worked miracles, and to be here bearing vital news.

  I took a seat by the window and looked onto the garden, so green and tranquil. It seemed incongruous that in one morning I could have witnessed a scene of death and destruction in Len Diamond’s lodgings, and now looked out on this manicured yet somehow timeless view.

  The footsteps in the hall were not Philippa’s. I looked up to see a smiling Gideon King.

  ‘Mrs Shackleton, good morning.’

  ‘Good morning, Mr King.’

  ‘Philippa sends her apologies. She is a little unwell this morning.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘But she is glad to hear of your visit. If you have any news, I should be happy to pass it on.’ He walked across to join me. ‘I have sent for coffee.’

  ‘Coffee would be good.’ It might neutralise the brandy I had drunk after finding Len Diamond’s body.

  Did King know that Philippa had engaged me, I wondered. It seemed likely, given that he was her trusted secretary, but I did not want to assume. After all, Caroline Windham had first accused Philippa and King, and had then said, on learning that Runcie had been strangled, that it must have been King.

  I noticed how still and contained he was; no gestures or unnecessary movements. He had a powerful build, and strangler’s hands. He talked to me about having had a very pleasant walk that morning.

  ‘Last time we spoke, you said you had not had time to consider whether to return to Boston. It sounds from your love of the walks roundabout that you will miss this place.’

  He smiled. ‘I shall. But I won’t be sorry to leave. And Philippa wants to go home.’

  I had seen for myself how protective he was of Philippa. Protective enough to kill for her?

  We made polite conversation until King looked up at a noise from the doorway. ‘Ah over here, Simpson.’

  The elderly butler brought a tray of coffee and set it down between us. I was pleased that Simpson took on the task of pouring. It had been the kind of morning to leave me clumsy and uncoordinated. I would end up spilling coffee over King, and ruining my attempt to get the measure of this odd, self-contained man.