‘Mr Flanagan.’
‘I’ve summat to tell you.’
Mary Jane did not wake, but she might.
Something in Eddie Flanagan’s look told me that his words were for my ears only. ‘We’ll go inside, Mr Flanagan.’
If this was some new concern about the errant Deirdre, he could bark up another tree.
We went through the back door into the kitchen. ‘Please sit down.’
He sat down, and put his cap on the table, but made no effort to speak. I would have to start the conversation.
‘We didn’t get the chance to speak at Mr Fitzpatrick’s funeral.’
‘I’m not here over that.’
‘Oh?’
He took something from his pocket, holding it in his fist. Opening his hand, he revealed a scrap of brown paper. He set it on the table in front of him and unfolded the paper to reveal a small circular piece of glass, its surface dull and scratched. ‘I brought you this.’ He pushed it towards me.
We both stared at it.
‘What is it?’
‘I think it’s from his camera.’
‘Whose camera?’
‘The medical officer’s camera. Mr Shackleton’s camera.’
Something tightened in my chest. ‘His camera? Gerald’s camera?’
‘Aye. I found it. I saw it glinting in the sun, after the explosions, and I thought, I know what that is. I don’t know why I picked it up, I just did.’
‘When?’
‘On that day, the day of the big explosion on the road.’
I pulled the piece of glass towards me and held it between fingers and thumb. It could be a camera lens. It was the right shape and thickness.
Eddie sat very still, hardly breathing, waiting.
All this time I had searched for news of Gerald, among officers and men, written letters and made visits. Now here was this man whose wits had been punched around his skull so many times that you would not want to send him on an errand that required him to read the number on a tramcar.
‘Tell me, tell me about it, Mr Flanagan. Please. Take your time.’
‘I can’t remember the day, but I know it was April, because Deirdre sent me a bar of chocolate for Easter, and she drew a picture of a little yellow chicken and it had come a little bit late, after Easter Sunday had passed. I was in the quarry because I’d had to be bandaged and a lot of them was killed when the shell came, but not the medical officer and not me. We took what we could carry and set off, walking. Only I was a bit behind. I stopped for summat. And up in front of me on the road, it all went off, all sudden like, and smoke and sparks and all the rest. After it, there was not so many of us walking along. He was the one I looked for because you need an MO. I thought, even he won’t be taking photographs of this mess. And then this bit of glass glinted. It caught my eye. I picked it up.’
I held the lens in my palm, and then clutched it tight. And I believed him. So this was it. This was the end of my search, a small circular piece of glass, scratched and dull.
Gerald would never come home.
There would be no burial, and no goodbye.
I would cherish this memento.
And I imagined a time to come, when I would be gone. Someone would clear my things. They would pick up this piece of glass. Why did she keep this?
And it would be thrown away.
I had taken my niece and nephew, their grandmother and the dog to the seaside. On the way to Robin Hood’s Bay, we called at Scarborough for fish and chips in the Golden Haddock.
As we sat at a table in the window, the dog making itself small in exchange for dropped chips, I watched the world walk by, and the world included Deirdre Fitzpatrick, on the arm of Joseph Barnard, who was playing Scarborough this week.
I would not have minded a break by the sea myself, but I deposited the family at the Robin Hood’s Bay cottage, planning to stay just one day, having promised Aunt Berta that I would travel back to London with her and my real mother, the one who adopted me, Ginny Hood.
A person must be hardy indeed to swim in the North Sea in the middle of September. The cold turns your eyes to ice cubes and a snowman would be white hot by comparison with us three, leaping into the waves, screeching with laughter and jumping deeper.
Mrs Whitaker sat in her big coat and felt hat, drying the wet shaggy dog. She had bravely insisted the steep hill to the bay was no impediment for her, but that the dog found it rather trying.
It was the first time the children, and the dog, had seen the sea so there was something quite magical about it. We explored the rock pools with fishing nets and found fossils. Austin insisted they must all be taken home, for the garden of the new house in Helmsley.
The three were happily ensconced in the cottage. Deciding against driving across the moors in darkness, I drove to Whitby and spent a solitary night in a room with a sea view, remembering happier days. This was the place Gerald and I had first met. This was where I said goodbye to him, looking out to sea.
Aunt Berta’s house in London seemed a world away. I stayed with her for three weeks. Towards the end of my visit, Mother was upstairs. I was sitting at breakfast with Aunt Berta, looking over the menu for the evening’s dinner party. She had invited the mourning Baron Kirkley, Harold Runcie, Everett’s elder brother. Once again the baron had taken over ownership of Kirkley Hall, due to Philippa having made good her escape.
Aunt Berta confided in me. ‘I asked Harold because he needs taking out of himself after his ordeal. I know it’s a little late for him, but he must find a wife, or there’ll be no heir for the Kirkley title.’
Alarm bells rang. For a long time, Aunt Berta had tried to match-make on my behalf.
She laughed when she read my look. ‘Oh don’t worry, Kate dear, not you! I know you’ve let that policeman go, but you and Harold are not a match. He needs to find a woman with a great deal of money, if he’s to keep Kirkley Hall.’ She sighed. ‘Though it would be nice to have you titled and in London a great deal.’
The guest list included a commander from Scotland Yard, a widower and old school chum of my uncle. The commander had specially wangled an invitation in order to thank me for my help in solving Everett Runcie’s murder.
All in all I was looking forward to the dinner party. It had been a tricky few weeks as everyone wanted to ask me about the investigation, and I would not speak of it. The Everett Runcie and Leonard Diamond cases had certainly made me well known among the kind of people who might bring an interesting puzzle to a private investigator.
And truth to tell, I was glad to be away from the north when Rupert Cromer went to the scaffold for the murders of Everett Runcie and Leonard Diamond.
I hoped that the Scotland Yard commander would be indiscreet about Marcus Charles. The American Ambassador had praised Marcus for his vigilant observation of Anthony Hartigan, and his firm assurance that the man was allowed to do nothing worse, while visiting England, than see his family, pay respects to his dying mother, and arrange her funeral.
The cooperation between Washington and London was highly valued. As a result, Marcus had been invited to Washington to have high-level meetings regarding future cooperation.
I had to laugh, feeling sure that Marcus’s reports had included nothing about the importation into the USA of spirits; gin from London, whisky from the Highlands.
Marcus’s letter had arrived that morning. Aunt Berta was perusing a letter of her own, and so I read mine.
Dear Kate
Here I am in New York, after a most eventful voyage. I am pleased to say I have good sea legs and found the passage much to my liking. It is a strange experience being between worlds, and yet bringing the past along.
No, I am not becoming poetical or philosophical. That is not in my nature as you know. I am a practical man. It happened that Mrs Runcie was on the same voyage, and we acknowledged each other, politely but distantly. I respected her wishes not to be reminded of all that has just passed. Her private secretary did not travel with her.
She told me he has gone to Paris where he intends to deal in art.
I put down the letter. Did Philippa know that King had gone with Caroline Windham? Perhaps she would not mind where her former secretary went, now that she was starting her life anew. I began to read again.
There is something else which I hesitate to mention in case I am being premature, but I do so because you and I have a great respect for each other and have always been honest. (Sometimes you were more honest than my vanity would have wished!) I met a young lady on board and I know that ship’s romances are common and do not always last, but I have some hopes that I may have found someone who will want to share my terrible policeman’s life. If this turns out to be true, you will be the first to know, dear Kate.
I paused in my reading. Well thank God for that.
The rest of his letter was filled with the sights of New York, the strangeness of the streets, how differently things were done there, and that the next morning he would take a train to Washington DC.
He said nothing more about the woman he had met on board. I wished him well, and hoped she was not an undercover agent for the Mafia who would trip him up before he began.
My mother swept in for breakfast. ‘Both of you with letters. Anything interesting?’
Aunt Berta shook her head. ‘Another friend trying to wangle an invitation to meet the famous Kate.’
Mother laughed. ‘How about your letter, Katie? I might as well be nosey.’
‘It’s from Marcus. He seems very happy to be in America.’
Mother smiled brightly. ‘Good.’ She turned to her sister. ‘Your guest list for this evening, Berta. I think you said one of the men is very keen to meet Kate.’
Thanks to Ann Hazan, good friend and seasoned racegoer, for her winning tips. My uncle, Peter Brannan, would have been pleased at his resurrection in his old occupation as bookmaker’s clerk for Willie Price.
Tom Howley, formerly Father of the Chapel at Yorkshire Post Newspapers, generously shared his knowledge.
Thanks to retired police officer Ralph Lindley and his wife Mary, who kindly discussed the case with me.
Noel Stokoe, editor of the Jowetteer, and author of several books on the Jowett (a motor that contained “all the best bits of Yorkshire except the pudding”) advised on Kate’s change of vehicle.
Stuart Walker helpfully drew on his knowledge of country pursuits to answer my questions regarding grouse shooting.
It is always a pleasure to hear from readers. Eddie Kelly wondered when Sykes would visit his local, the Chemic, for a pint. Cheers, Eddie.
As lapsed and unlapsed Catholics will know, the Sisters of the Sacred Candle of St Genevieve should have existed but never did. The long-demolished area of Leeds called the Bank was real enough; life there would have been desperate without the dedicated work of the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Shady prodigal, Anthony Hartigan, was inspired by Owney Madden who went from the Bank to New York, via Wigan, and became well known to the FBI. In his highly readable and authoritative The English Godfather, Graham Nown gives Madden’s place of birth as Somerset Street. A surviving relative places him on Cotton Street, and says that Madden’s famous Harlem Cotton Club was named after the street on the Bank. Fact or legend? – no contest.
Very special thanks to my agent, Judith Murdoch, to editor, Lucy Icke, and all at Piatkus.
A Woman Unknown Page 29