by Kate Ellis
Michele knew she’d done well: she’d been trying so hard to impress; to show she was willing to work hard for a step on the ladder of fame. But now she was afraid and her mind started to ponder the question of how she could make her escape.
She looked at Alice, wondering whether to say something to her, to try and strike up some sort of relationship like she had with her own grandmother who had died five years back. But Alice stared ahead, her eyes as blank as those of the dolls lined up on the shelves.
Vacant but with a hint of fear.
At ten o’clock Joe Plantagenet made for home, taking the route past the cathedral. And as he walked down Gallowgate he stopped at the entrance to Singmass Close again. The place was beginning to assert a magnetic attraction, something he didn’t feel inclined to resist as yet. The answer to his puzzle lay in that close, he was certain of it. And so did Polly Myers.
He stood in the archway, staring at the little enclave of houses. There were lights in some of the windows: the residents had to continue their lives at the murder scene as best they could … just as their predecessors had had to do over fifty years before.
He looked across at number six – the home of Polly Myers – suppressing an impulse to knock on her door. It was far too late. Besides, she’d said she’d seen nothing on the night of Natalie’s murder.
He turned away. It wouldn’t do. Even though the resemblance was uncanny, she wasn’t Kaitlin and he mustn’t carry on like this.
Suddenly he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye but when he turned his head he saw it was only that sheet of blue plastic flapping against the scaffolding surrounding the old Ragged School again. Nothing to worry about.
He left the close and once he’d passed under Canons Bar, he could see his flat ahead, nestling against the grey city walls.
The flat he called home was in a small modern block, built low and unobtrusive to blend with its historic surroundings. Inside the flat was plain and soulless but he liked the view of the city walls from the living room window because they reminded him of his insignificant place in history … and he sometimes found that comforting. It brought his troubles into perspective.
When he unlocked the door he was struck by the brooding silence and he suddenly longed to see Maddy emerging from the living room to greet him, telling him about her day at the Archaeology Centre. About the awkward school parties and the tourists’ foibles.
He stood there for a few moments in the heavy quiet, feeling an emptiness almost akin to physical pain. Then he saw the red light was flashing on the answer phone so he listened to the message. It was Maddy. Could he call her?
But first he bent down and picked up the post lying on the door mat. Two bills and an interesting-looking packet, a brown padded envelope addressed to DI Plantagenet with no sender’s address on the reverse. Curious, he chucked the bills onto the hall table and tore the package open.
He had guessed it was a book of some kind but the title surprised him. The Children of Singmass Close. There was no accompanying note so he picked up the ripped envelope and examined it, finding no clue to the sender’s identity. He carried the book and the telephone handset through to the living room and slumped down on the sofa.
He called Maddy’s mobile number and she answered after three rings.
‘Hi, how are you?’ She sounded glad to hear from him.
‘OK. Busy with this case.’
‘It’s been on the news down here. Weird.’
There was a pause. ‘Heard any more about the interview?’ Joe asked, trying to sound casual.
‘Yes. They rang me. I’ve been called for a second interview tomorrow. More of a chat, they said. Sounds promising.’
‘Great,’ said Joe. He closed his eyes. He needed a drink.
‘Miss you,’ she said, a note of desperation in her voice.
‘You too.’ Another pause.
‘I’d better go,’ she said.
‘Speak to you tomorrow.’ He heard the dialling tone and felt a sudden pang of desolate loneliness. Then he picked up the book. He needed a distraction.
It was a thin glossy volume with a picture of modern Singmass Close on the front cover. The transparent figure of a little girl in Victorian dress was playing with a hoop on the flagstones. A ghost. Intrigued, Joe began to flick through the pages.
The first chapter contained a potted history of Singmass Close and the surrounding streets. How it had started out as the site of the College of the cathedral’s Vicars Choral in medieval times. After the Reformation the buildings were used to accommodate the old and infirm. Then, when most of these medieval buildings had crumbled, small houses were built in their place along with a Ragged School erected by public subscription to house and educate orphans.
Joe fetched himself a bottle of Black Sheep from the kitchen before picking the book up again. Maybe a long soak in the bath later would ease the aching muscles in his shoulder, he thought. In the meantime, he returned to The Children of Singmass Close and scanned it quickly, picking up the salient points.
The houses had disintegrated into disreputable slums while the Ragged School descended into a sort of junior workhouse with a cruel and avaricious master called Beamish who sent his unfortunate charges out to work as skivvies or chimney sweeps, keeping the money they earned for himself. When a child died he avoided paying for the burial by putting it about that they’d gone away to work. But in reality, he hid the bodies under floorboards and in cupboards; when the Ragged School was closed and converted into light industrial units at the end of the nineteenth century, a number of little skeletons and mummified bodies were discovered and given a Christian burial.
Joe read on. Beamish had finally gone mad, claiming that children were after revenge … that they followed him, hungry and unstoppable, with their pale, dirty faces and their long, ragged, filthy fingernails that would claw at his eyes. He’d ended up in Eborby Asylum, blind and screaming with terror after scratching his own eyes out. The ghostly children, it was said, still played and whispered in the shadows of Singmass Close. Over the years they had been heard there – and occasionally seen. And Singmass Close was a place that dogs refused to enter at night.
He finished his beer and sat staring at the page.
Who would have gone to the trouble of sending him the book? The author maybe – a Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms P. H. Derby. For some reason someone had felt that he should know about the crime scene’s dark past. And as he opened another bottle of Black Sheep, he wondered what that reason was.
CHAPTER 8
Dolls. As a child Jamilla Dal had a vast collection of them. But over the intervening years, she hadn’t really given them much thought, and she was rather surprised to find that the antique dealers she was visiting that Tuesday morning regarded them as such desirable collectors’ items.
She traipsed from antique shop to antique shop in the company of Sunny Porter, carrying a plastic evidence bag containing the mutilated doll found by Natalie Parkes’s body.
All the shops they visited came up with the same negative answer but several identified it as a French model manufactured in the late nineteenth century and commented on its fairly good condition – failing to notice the mutilated foot through the thick film of plastic. However, nobody would admit to selling it … or to ever having seen it before.
After the ninth shop, Jamilla could tell that Sunny was growing impatient. He kept taking a cigarette packet from his jacket pocket, examining the contents, then putting it back.
‘Trying to give up?’ Jamilla said hopefully. Whenever she went near Sunny, the stench of tobacco smoke that clung to his clothes, caught in her throat and made her want to cough.
Sunny’s reply was an ungracious grunt as he consulted the list in his hand. ‘Next stop’s a place called “Bridget’s Bygones”.’
‘I take it you want me to do the talking?’
‘You better had.’ Sunny didn’t exactly feel at home amongst the doll-collecting community.
They
walked down Boargate and branched off onto a narrow street lined with Georgian buildings. Some had been converted into offices, but the majority were small shops. An exclusive shoe shop, a tiny shop that sold herbal toiletries, a sandwich shop of the superior variety and, at the end of the street, Bridget’s Bygones.
The window of Bridget’s Bygones was full of dolls. Dolls in all shapes and sizes, some gigantic, almost toddler-sized, others tiny enough to inhabit a dolls’ house.
‘In you go, then,’ Sunny said impatiently. He wanted to get this over with and get back to the incident room for a decent cup of tea.
The mousy girl behind the counter looked up eagerly as they entered, as though she’d been bored and was glad of a bit of human contact. There were more dolls inside the shop, sitting on shelves staring down at Jamilla and Sunny as they showed their warrant cards.
‘Are you the owner?’ Jamilla asked, careful to keep the plastic bag containing the murder doll concealed behind her back.
The girl had lost her keen expression and now she looked nervous. ‘No, Bridget’s not here. I’m Simone. I just help out.’
It was time to produce the doll. Jamilla placed it on top of an overturned dolly tub with a flourish. ‘Do you recognise this doll? We’re trying to find out where it came from. Was it bought from this shop?’
Simone picked up the bag and examined it closely. ‘No, it’s damaged. Look at the foot. Bridget only sells perfect stuff.’
‘You have sales records, I take it,’ said Sunny. ‘We want to be sure.’
The girl looked up at him as if he’d just threatened her with violence.
‘It would be very helpful if we could see them,’ said Jamilla gently, trying to retrieve the situation.
‘Like I said, I just help out.’
‘Where can we find Bridget?’ Jamilla tried hard not to sound impatient.
The girl suddenly looked uneasy. ‘I don’t know. When I got here yesterday I just found a note saying she’d be away for a while. It’s a good job I’ve got a key.’
Jamilla saw a panic in the girl’s eyes that set an alarm ringing in her head. All was not as it should be. ‘Any idea where she is?’ she asked gently.
The answer was a shake of the head. ‘I tried to ring her home number but … Can you tell me what all this is about?’
‘It concerns the murder of a young woman in Singmass Close. You’ll have heard about it on the news, I take it?’
The girl’s eyes widened with horror and she nodded.
‘What about those sales records, love? Why don’t you have a look for them. It’ll save us a lot of time,’ Sunny said with a smile that was in danger of becoming a threatening leer.
Simone gave him a nervous look before disappearing into the back of the shop. Sunny and Jamilla waited, looking around, avoiding the glazed stare of the dolls watching them from their vantage points around the walls.
‘The sales book’s not here,’ Simone announced in a whisper when she returned. ‘Bridget must have got it with her. Perhaps she was doing the accounts or something, I don’t know.’
Sunny and Jamilla looked at each other. ‘We’ll need Bridget’s address,’ said Jamilla.
As the girl recited the address, Sunny wrote it down in his notebook.
‘Can I keep the shop open? I don’t want to let Bridget down. She’s been very good to me and …’
‘I see no reason why not,’ Jamilla said with a reassuring smile.
‘We might want another word, love,’ was Sunny’s ominous parting shot.
Jamilla glanced back at the girl. If they wanted to get at the truth, they needed to talk to Bridget. Wherever she was.
It was almost lunchtime and Joe decided to grab himself some fresh air and a change of scene. The Stranges’ car had been taken to the police garage for a thorough examination but he knew he’d have to be patient. These things were never done quickly. In the meantime he needed to discover who had sent him the book. It was doubtful whether he’d be given P. H. Derby’s address over the phone so a personal visit to the offices of Eborby House Publications was probably his only option. He could have sent an underling, of course, but they were all busy pursuing enquiries. Besides, the book had been sent to him so it could almost be categorised as personal.
Eborby House Publications published books about local history, from archaeology to the supernatural, but it occupied surprisingly modern premises on the first floor of a small office building off Eborby’s main shopping street where the national chain stores congregated together like a gang of bullies. Once Joe had introduced himself, saying that he wanted to contact the author of The Children of Singmass Close, a secretary of terrifying efficiency provided him with a name and address. Philip Derby, she told him, lived above an antiquarian bookshop near the cathedral. You couldn’t miss it.
Joe started to walk back through the city, wondering why Derby had posted the book to his home address instead of handing it in at the police station. But, as he was one of the few Plantagenets in the phone book, his address wouldn’t be hard to find. He’d tried to make his number ex-directory on a few occasions but he’d been defeated by the Byzantine workings of the telephone company. Perhaps he’d try again – a little harder next time.
The dark grey skies overhead threatened rain, but it held off as he pushed his way through the streets, weaving between the sightseers who roamed slowly like curious cattle, and just before he reached the cathedral square, he came across the tall medieval building which housed Eborby Old Books.
As he stepped inside the dimly lit shop with its uneven floors and mysterious crooked staircases leading upwards to more delights, he felt a thrill of anticipation – the thrill of the hunt. And when he asked the bespectacled lady behind the counter whether Mr Derby was at home she directed him outside where he saw a grubby, half hidden doorbell he hadn’t noticed on the way in. He pressed it and waited. Then when nothing happened, he pressed it again.
He was about to give up when he heard a voice from above. But this was no angelic summons. ‘Piss off,’ the voice drawled by way of discouragement.
Joe took a step back and looked up. A hostile face was looking down at him from a small leaded window in the overhanging upper storey that had been flung open.
Joe took out his warrant card and held it up. ‘Mr Derby? DI Plantagenet. If I could have a word …’ He looked round to find he’d attracted a little audience of Japanese sightseers who clearly thought this was a quaint local custom, like morris dancing.
The man’s manner suddenly changed. ‘Come on up, dear boy,’ he called as his head disappeared from sight.
Joe had to climb a succession of steep staircases to reach the top of the building, each narrower than the last and some lined with books of varying vintages. When he got to the top he found the door open. A good sign. At least he was welcome.
Philip Derby was younger than he’d expected. He couldn’t have been more than forty but he had the dishevelled look of an actor playing an eccentric academic in an amateur dramatic production. The baggy corduroy trousers and tweed tie didn’t seem quite right and his thinning fair hair, flecked with grey, was rather too well cut. Joe noticed a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows hanging up in the narrow hallway which could have been selected by a wardrobe mistress fond of clichés.
Derby led the way into the flat and Joe noticed the eclectic variety of objects that cluttered every surface. A large, dusty ammonite lay in the empty hearth and the walls were crammed with old prints and watercolours, many verging on the erotic. It was the study of a Victorian eccentric bachelor. A cabinet of curiosities. As Joe sat, a cloud of dust ascended from the old horsehair sofa.
‘I’ve come to thank you for the book.’ Joe began. ‘It was you who sent it?’
‘Yes. Look, sorry about … I’ve had trouble with … financial troubles, you understand. Some people won’t take no for an answer … they keep calling and …’
This explained the hostile reception. Joe didn’t know whethe
r to be insulted or amused at being mistaken for a debt collector. ‘What made you send me the book?’ he asked, noticing a slight uncertainty in Derby’s eyes as he considered his reply.
‘Thought it might come in useful.’
‘Why?’
‘Singmass Close. The dead girl was found there, wasn’t she? A man I know walks his dog past there every night. The animal barks every time it reaches the bloody place and there’s no way he can get it to go in. He tried to take a short cut down there one night because he wanted to be home early. Bloody creature wouldn’t budge. And people have felt that they’re being watched. Unquiet spirits, Inspector. And then they built new houses there: any form of disturbance on a site like that brings them out … like turning over a stone in the garden. And they’ve started renovating that old Ragged School … making it into offices. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s got them going again.’
Joe sat in silence for a few moments. ‘When you were writing the book, did you check out the facts? Did these things really happen? Beamish and the children?’
Derby nodded vigorously. ‘The records are in the city archives. Beamish was admitted to Eborby Asylum in eighteen fifty-five. Died there three years later, raving about the children coming to get him. Said they were clawing at his eyes. He scratched his own eyes out … ended up blind and insane.’
Joe shifted in his seat. With the murder investigation he knew he really didn’t have time for all this. But on the other hand he was intrigued.
‘Have you caught your murderer yet?’ Derby asked the question casually, like someone making polite conversation.
‘The inquiry’s still ongoing.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘What made you think knowing about the children of Singmass Close might help us?’
Derby gave a theatrical shrug. ‘I heard a doll was left at the scene. Dolls. Children. That particular place. It seemed to make perfect sense at the time.’ He scratched his head. ‘Not sure it does now. I’ve always suffered from an overactive imagination, Inspector. Perhaps that’s why I chose to be a writer.’