Where I grew up, my school and the church were almost next door. My parents didn’t believe in God, but the vicar used to talk to me often, asking why we weren’t there on Sundays. Then he would talk about Sunday School, and say I could go there by myself. ‘Your parents can’t stop you coming along.’ But of course they could.
My parents hated the Church with a vengeance. Sundays were leisure time, mostly for fun, mostly with each other, and I was often left bored and alone. I survived my parents and the vicar, but I never went to Sunday School and can’t say I’m sorry. Now, I think of all churches with dread. It didn’t stop there.
Now, I live next door to a church. The abbey of course, with its rising spires and overarching splendour, but more significant, Curdizan Church, long since gone but not forgotten. People walk all over the gravestones, sit on the benches and smell the flowers. Pigeons walk in amongst the weeds, not that there are that many weeds. And Mary-Ann Parks, the vicar’s dead daughter lives in my cellar.
Or lived, anyway.
When I killed the boy, Daniel, I remember seeing a church in the distance, just before the accident happened. Nothing special, just a spire, but it made me think of my childhood troubles and it stuck in my mind, was easily remembered, unlike the impact. People were quick to call me a murderer, a troubled man who was better off dead, unlike the victim, and although that hurt, it only affirmed what I already knew.
The police were compassionate, as was the man who saw it happen, but my neighbours weren’t always and neither was Gerry. I lived the accident every day and, if by chance, I somehow forgot, there was always a ‘friend’ who’d help me remember, who’d assume I’d been blind or drunk or distracted. Perhaps I was. Distracted by toast.
So to learn that a woman had been murdered in my cellar seemed rather like justice, with me being a murderer myself, of a sort, and for her to be the vicar’s daughter, and the church to have been next door to my house, seemed almost as if it was meant to be. Not that I liked it. I’ve always lived in the shadow of churches.
Part of me hoped that I was wrong, and Ginny was right and she hadn’t been murdered in that passage, that her body had only been moved there afterwards. I trawled the rest of the month’s papers, the ones of the time, and then the month after, hoping to find a little bit more about where she’d been killed, but I found nothing. I guess they didn’t know where. I did learn where they’d buried her body, after removing it from the passage – Curdizan churchyard, no surprise there. So off I went to see her gravestone.
I went to see Daniel’s grave, once. I was given an address, a c/o address and the parent’s names, so I wrote a short letter saying I was sorry. I know it was inadequate, I couldn’t find the words and even if I’d had some, none of those words would have been enough, to make up for what happened. But I owed them the letter, even though it scared me. No-one ever answered.
I decided not to go the funeral, it didn’t feel like the right thing to do, not for the family, so a few days later I went to the churchyard and laid down some flowers. I don’t know what I expected to see, my name and the words Child Killer on the grave, but I do remember thinking the grave seemed small.
When I stood in front of Mary-Ann’s grave, I wondered what kind of woman she was. And why her lover had chosen to kill her, even before they’d got to a church. Assuming they planned a church wedding. I’d have taken some flowers, I felt like I should, but although there were graves, they were flat on the ground, and set in the paving, since the improvements. Tourism ruled. Mary-Ann’s grave made me feel quite angry, more than I’d ever felt about Daniel, I only felt grief and despair about him. And of course, the eternal guilt.
I wasn’t in charge of my life anymore.
I thought of the cards I received every year on Daniel’s death day, each in a black-edged envelope. I told Cressida, Gerry had sent them, but I knew it was a lie, the cards were too subtle, and Gerry was never, ever subtle. I thought they came from Daniel’s parents. I’d only ever opened one.
Inside was a card, a rich cream colour, with a small black flower embossed on the right. Printed carefully was the word MURDERER. The word shocked me. The card reinforced what I thought I knew, but when I read it, it became real.
The line below had four long dashes, rather like the Hangman game, where you get to guess the correct letters but in this ‘game’ the dashes were words. The first word in the row was HE. I hadn’t read the other cards, they were in the shoe box, waiting to be opened.
There were only four dashes, and the accident happened four years ago so I’m guessing the sentence is all played out. You can’t imagine the hours I’ve spent, probably days, thinking and wondering what the words say.
HE WAS MUCH LOVED
HE IS NOW LOST
HE WON’T FORGIVE YOU
Sometimes, frequently, when I’ve been drinking, which I try to avoid, I almost forget I know the first word, and the possible statements expand even further, all of them awful, because let’s face it, it’s going to be awful. Whatever they’ve sent me, it won’t be forgiveness.
WE HATE YOU ALWAYS
WE WON’T FORGIVE YOU
YOU WILL DIE SOON
YOU HAVE NO FUTURE
So it goes on.
If my supervisor, Terence Lyle, was here with me now, if I’d even told him, which of course I haven’t, as I can’t bear anyone else to see them, he’d tell me to open the envelopes now. I know he’s right.
I should just open all three of them quickly, read the three words and deal with the sentence. Whatever the final sentence says, it can’t be worse than I can imagine, day after day, in this waking nightmare.
Can it?
Chapter 50
Then – Miranda
Miranda opened the shop door slowly, and as she did the bell tinkled. Percy Thomas looked up from the counter where he was showing some shoes to a woman. Miranda watched as he charmed her adeptly, wrapped up the shoes, and took her payment, far too much in her opinion. The satisfied customer left the shop. Miranda went over.
‘I’ve come to tell you about some stock. It’s stock that belonged to Matt McCarthy and it should be in here, now that he’s dead.’ She watched him carefully for a reaction.
‘Right,’ said the boy, but that was all, his face was giving nothing away.
‘Thomas Islip, I believe you know him?’ Percy nodded.
‘Aye, I do. He’s a mate, is Tom.’
‘Well, Tom will be bringing this stock to you, a batch at a time. There’s quite a lot, it’s all brand new, ladies and gents, in various sizes. Mr McCarthy would have wanted it sold, like the rest, if he’d been here.’ She looked around, checking that they were still on their own. ‘Does that make sense?’
Something made sense, she could see the intelligence there in his eyes. As well as a feeling that looked like pity. She gritted her teeth.
‘The shoes were found in McCarthy’s home, after his funeral, when it was cleared. As you know, he kept orders there, special deliveries he’d requested.’ None of it like the stock in the trunks. But what could she do?
‘I think your boss must have been confused, it’s not the sort he normally stores, or so I’ve been told. I’d hate it to look like he wasn’t quite there, now that he’s dead, if you see what I mean.’ Percy nodded. Miranda paused.
‘I hear you’re good at keeping secrets?’
Percy nodded, looking sombre. Miranda turned towards the door.
‘I can trust you then, to keep it to yourself? Talk to Tom, if you need to, he’ll tell me and I’ll come and see you. I guess you can smooth the accounting over?’
Percy nodded a second time and Miranda breathed a sigh of relief. Getting the records to match the stock was vital, essential, no-one must know where the shoes had come from.
And if she had tarnished McCarthy’s name, just a little, in saving her mother, well, so be it.
‘Say hello to Hannah from me. She’s always kind, whenever I see her.’ Percy spoke and Miranda nodded. Now
I mean to return the favour, that’s what he meant.
She smiled, satisfied and left quickly.
Miranda was still feeling vaguely unsettled by the time she arrived at Curdizan churchyard. She weaved her way through the graves, quickly, heading for the vicarage, a modest-sized house at the back of the church. She came to a halt when she saw Mary-Ann.
‘I was looking for you,’ she said to her friend, who was still wearing the blue necklace. Mary-Ann smiled and waited, patiently.
‘I hear you’re engaged?’ Miranda went on and Mary-Ann nodded, her hands playing with the beads on the necklace. She couldn’t hold back a smile as she did so.
‘And is it true you’re marrying Eisen?’
‘Wetherby, yes, he asked me last month. I’m so happy, you can’t imagine. But you don’t look pleased, aren’t you happy for me?’
‘Not when you’re marrying Wetherby Eisen. You know there are children going missing from the schoolhouse?’
‘I didn’t, no. But what has that to do with me?’
‘Some folk are saying that Eisen’s behind it.’
‘That’s spite and you know it, those people are jealous and all because he’s a self-made man. Wetherby is a friend of my father’s and my father wouldn’t be involved in that. He is the vicar.’
‘Maybe he doesn’t know what’s happening.’
‘Maybe the stories are only rumours. A lot of those children are brought up rough. Their parents force them to go on errands, begging or stealing, you know how it is. Maybe they’ve got into something bad or maybe they were fed up and ran away. Wetherby isn’t involved in this.’
‘But he works at the school, he could be involved. And as for the kids at the school being rough, Curdizan Low where I live is rough, and you’re not that far from the gutters yourself. Getting to be such a lady, are you? Too high and mighty to mix with us. Despite being only yards from the tenements.’
‘How dare you accuse me of being stuck up. You know that’s not true!’
‘Thomas, a boy who helps in our pub, he goes to the school, but he’s not like that, he’s decent, hard-working and a credit to himself. You shouldn’t believe all your father tells you, or Wetherby Eisen, for that matter.’ Miranda pointed at Mary-Ann’s throat. ‘That necklace you’re wearing, where did you get it?’
‘I’ve told you before, the necklace was a present.’
‘Did Wetherby Eisen give you that piece?’
‘No, yes. It was meant as a keepsake, a tiny token, just something for the moment.’
‘So why didn’t you say that when I asked you before?’
‘Because it was just a little trinket, nothing special, not like a ring.’ Mary-Ann blushed.
‘Can I look at it?’
‘No, you can’t! What’s this interest in my necklace?’ She placed her hands around her neck, as if to hide the necklace from Miranda.
‘It’s not like the stuff you normally wear. Those beads look cheap.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Eisen’s fobbed you off with that necklace. I bet he took it from somebody else. And maybe you know he stole it, too.’ Somebody shouted for Mary-Ann, who looked around.
‘That’ll be my mother, we’re meant to be visiting the sick today. About the necklace, that’s not what happened, I’ll tell you what happened, just not right now.’ She turned away. ‘I have to be go.’
‘How very convenient, Mary-Ann. I’ll expect your call and your explanation, whenever you’ve got the time to see me, just make it soon.’
‘You want me to call at the pub to see you?’
‘Well yes, why not?’
‘My father’s the vicar of Curdizan Church. I can’t be seen in a pub in the Low, unless I’m delivering alms or something.’ She drew herself up to her fullest height.
‘And yet you’d marry Wetherby Eisen, a man with rumours circling around him. And maybe you’d sell your soul as well, rather than act in a way that’s right.’ Mary-Ann looked pale and bit her lip. Miranda went on.
‘That, my friend, is a great deal worse than going in a pub. Even if it seems like a brothel to you.’
Miranda stalked off, leaving her friend silent behind her. She knew she’d won a token victory, the sort that made her want to cry. Her friend was not the person she knew, she’d changed because she’d become engaged.
Miranda sighed and hurried home. Some kids had vanished from a nearby school, and her friend was engaged to a dodgy man, who might be a thief but could be much worse. She longed for comfort, someone to tell, but who could she trust, apart from Tom and he was a boy.
And then she thought of Ben Tencell.
Chapter 51
Now – Aleph
Next, I went to Cloud House Properties. Marianne Parks was in a meeting.
‘Is it anything I can help you with?’ Gemma said, smiling and looking inviting.
‘No thanks, Gemma, I’ll wait for Ms Parks.’ The younger assistant looked at me oddly, nodding agreement and leaving me all alone and guilty. I remembered the day I’d first met her, right by my house; how we’d laughed, how the sun had been shining, how I’d had hopes, been innocence itself. Like before the accident happened. The sun went in.
After a while, Marianne Parks turned up. ‘You wanted to see me, Mr Jones?’ She looked tired, no, she looked old, her hair was dark, it was dyed almost black and her face was lined and covered in powder. She’d clearly suffered, well, so had I.
‘Is there anywhere we can talk, please, Ms Parks? Preferably in private?’ Her eyes narrowed.
‘I hope this isn’t a complaint,’ she said.
If only it was, I thought, sourly. If only the problem was faulty plumbing or central heating that didn’t work. Some practical thing that was easily sorted. ‘Not in the way you mean,’ I said. We went to a tiny, windowless room. I put the transcript down on the table.
‘Guinevere James came to see me. She gave me a recording of a child crying and told me you had found a body, when you were five. This is the transcript from the recording.’ I pushed the paper across towards her. ‘Go on, read, it. It doesn’t help, but you wanted to know what the crying meant. Here it is.’
Marianne Parks looked vaguely troubled. Her eyes flickered to the door, briefly, wondering, maybe, if she could escape. I could almost see the cogs in her mind, trying to decide what she should tell me. The truth, I thought, just give me the truth. Ms Parks looked cagey.
‘Guinevere – James is a journalist. She sometimes writes pieces for us in her paper. About trends in the market and the rental sector. She’s obviously told you about the body, and I wish she hadn’t involved you at all. But I don’t understand about the recording.’
‘It was you who mentioned the ghosts, Ms Parks, you asked if they were laughing or crying. Don’t you remember?’
‘Of course, Mr Jones, but I also remember saying it was a rumour.’
I leant across the desk towards her. ‘But the body you found wasn’t just a rumour, was it, Ms Parks? And the crying I’ve heard is more than a rumour. This is a transcript of a child crying. Why did you ask her to give me the file and tell me the crying was the School Lane ghosts?’
‘I didn’t, Mr Jones, I would never do such a foolhardy thing, and certainly not to one of our tenants. It’s more than my reputation’s worth. I value my job at Cloud House Properties. I think dear Ginny has been stringing you along, which wouldn’t surprise me one little bit. What you heard on the recording wouldn’t have been ghosts, but a real, live child.’
After our meeting, I went back to the library, this time trying a different tack. I decided to research the School Lane ghosts. The member of staff I’d seen had vanished but his older colleague was just as helpful.
‘All of the locals and most of the tourists know about the ghosts, they love that story. Some children went missing from a local school, a long time ago, and according to rumour, they never reappeared. Alive or dead. As to what happened, there are plenty of theories, some say the kids were sold i
nto slavery.’
‘Really?’ I said, sounding scornful.
‘It’s not as stupid as it sounds, believe me. These were kids from the poorest families, their parents would send them begging for money or scavenging for goods which they sold on for cash, or even more likely, to get booze or fags, these people were desperate. The kids who were luckier got to go to school, but were easily tempted back to the streets or dragged away by troubled parents.’
‘Sounds pretty grim,’ I said, thinking of Tom.
‘It wasn’t all bad,’ the man insisted. ‘The brighter kids had jobs as well to make ends meet, rather than going out begging on the streets. But one of the rumours is about a bloke who worked at the school and according to folklore he sent the kids out to earn some cash, which he then pocketed, so neither they nor their parents saw it.’
‘That doesn’t explain why they vanished.’ The man shrugged, shaking his head.
‘Maybe they died of cold or hunger. Or maybe their family wouldn’t let them go back, because they’d been giving their spoils to the bloke. Or maybe, and remember, this is only a rumour, they died of ill treatment and overwork, and the man from the schoolhouse hid them in the cellar.’ He grinned, lazily.
‘And what cellar would this be, exactly?’ I didn’t know why I bothered asking. I already knew what the answer would be.
‘The cellar in the Old Schoolhouse, of course.’
‘The one where the vicar’s daughter was found?’ The archivist laughed.
‘I know, you’re right, it doesn’t sound likely, I did say the story was only a rumour. But you have to remember these kids disappeared, if indeed they did vanish, decades before that body was found.’
But according to the rumours, they all disappeared, both the kids and woman, around the same time. That’s what matters.’
The archivist gave me a searching look. ‘That’s certainly true. But I thought this stuff was all new to you, that you didn’t know anything about the ghosts?’
‘No,’ I told him, wondering if I was telling a lie. ‘That’s right, I don’t.’
Shadows of the Lost Child Page 15