by Tessa Dale
“And on your mother’s,” the Chief Constable snarled.
Chapter Seventeen
Ginnie was tired, and confused. During her school days, she had been known as being a little bit slow, and had been consigned to what her few friends called ‘the backward class’. By the time she had reached her fourteenth birthday she could sign her own name, and read only the simplest of sentences.
Backbreaking work in one of the town’s mills would have been her only option, except for a happy twist of fate. She had grown up to be a pretty young woman, and people were happy to overlook her lack of mental awareness in favour of her more obvious physical attractions. It was those same good looks, coupled with her naivety, that had brought about her downfall.
The holiday by the seaside, when the nice boy suggested it, had seemed like a good idea at first, but it had not helped to clear the pain and confusion in her head at all. The polite young man had meant well, she decided, but it was time to get things settled, once and for all. After all, her clouded mind told her, murder was not very nice. Not very nice at all.
Now, here was her golden opportunity to set things right, with both society and herself. The police would know what needed to be done. She wondered if there would always be a nice, comfortable room, hot tea, and good things to eat wherever they sent her. Being fed and keeping warm had occupied much of the last twenty odd years of her life, and it was time to lay aside her almost unbearable burden of guilt.
“Hello, Virginia. My name is Richard Clever,” the DCI told the trembling woman. “I’m a police officer, and I would like to talk to you about things that happened a long time ago. Is that alright with you?”
The Pram Lady nodded. It was, as she had guessed, time to get things off her chest. The nice policeman stood up then, and opened the door to the interview room. Another young man came in, carrying a tray of fresh made teas, and a small plate of assorted biscuits. He put them down in front of her on the table, then sat himself down in one of the free remaining chairs.
“Shall I take notes, sir?” DC Stanton asked. Richard Clever shook his head and the constable closed his notebook. The DCI had a good idea where his little chat was going to head, and would rather leave the official recording of things until the cold, hungry suspect felt better.
“Tell me about when you worked at the big house, Virginia,” Clever asked, in as kindly a voice as he could muster.
Ginnie took a chocolate coated biscuit, dunked it in her mug of tea, and crammed it into her mouth. She understood enough to know that the policeman wanted to hear about the bad thing, and wanted to delay answering him for as long as she could. After the second biscuit had been consumed, she cleared her throat and started to speak.
“I was born here,” she said. “My mum never knew my dad, and things was proper hard for us. Then I found work at the big house. That would be when now? Yes, I remember… it was when I was coming up to being nineteen. I had to build the fires every morning, and help out in the kitchens. There were about thirty or so of us back then, all looking after the Earl and his young wife. The Master kept a grand place. They held wonderful balls and dinners for all the local rich folk, and we was kept busy as bees from dawn to dusk.”
“Then you were promoted?” Clever prompted.
“Yes. They made me up to being a proper ladies maid. The Master said I was pretty enough, and that the Mistress would prefer a nice looking maid when she was up from London. He was wrong though. She was horrible to me. Her Ladyship didn’t like being outshone.”
“And you outshone her?”
“That’s what the Young Master told me.”
“You mean Peter Fornell?”
“Peter… yes. He was such a beautiful man,” Virginia Thrower confirmed.
“Why call him the Young Master?” Clver asked. “I thought he and his father never spoke.”
“That wasn’t so,” Ginnie told him. “Peter and the old man were too much alike to fall out for good. Old Charlie and his son had the same tastes in everything. I should know. They both wanted to warm my bed.”
“I see… and Peter won?”
“He said he loved me. When I found out about the baby, he spoke with the Earl, and had me moved to another position. One where Her Ladyship wouldn’t see me and get angry.”
“Peter helped you to hide your pregnancy?”
“That’s right. Then, afterwards, he made sure my job was safe. The Earl understood these things. Lots of the estate’s girls played it free and easy. I thought I’d got away with it.”
“With what, Virginia?” DCI Clever urged.
“With getting rid of my son,” she answered. “I went to see a cousin of my mother. I took my baby to him, in my pram. Where is my pram?”
“It’s safe,” Clever assured her. “What did your mother’s cousin do for you?”
“He got rid of the child’s body, of course,” Virginia Thrower told him. “Peter didn’t want the baby, so I strangled it.”
Stan Stanton felt a wave of horror wash over him as he realised what she was confessing to. He glanced at DCI Clever, but his guv’nor’s face betrayed no hint of emotion. He simply nodded, and continued with his questions.
“Then your mother’s cousin took the child’s body, and disposed of it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What about Peter Kerr?”
“Who?”
“Peter Kerr, Virginia. He was asking you about the big house a few days ago. Do you remember him?”
“Oh, him?” The Pram Lady smiled and tapped a finger to the side of her nose, knowingly. “He asked me all sorts of things, and said he’d marry me if what I said was right. I didn’t believe him though. Not really. My Peter was like him.”
“You mean unreliable?” said Clever.
“No. I mean he looked exactly like him,” she replied. “It fair gave me a fright, it did. Can I have another biscuit, please?”
“Yes, you can,” DCI Clever said. Infanticide was a horrific crime, but one, in this case, committed by a woman distraught to the point of madness. Deserted by her lover and facing complete ruin, Virginia Thrower had resorted to the most desperate of solutions; a solution that had deranged her beyond repair. “Just one last question for the moment, if you don't mind, Ginnie. Your mother’s cousin who helped dispose of your son's body… what was his name?”
“His name?” the Pram Lady pondered for a moment, thinking back almost a quarter of a century. She recalled his anger at her coming to him, and the brutal way he had thrown her out after doing what she asked of him.
“Yes, I want his name, Ginnie.”
“Morant.” She almost sang the name, pleased at remembering from so long ago. “That was it. He wasn’t a nice man at all… and his name was … Archie Morant.”
Richard Clever had Ginnie returned to the cell that, to the Pram Lady, seemed like luxury, then briefed Dan Jones on what had come out of the first interview. The detective sergeant, despite his years of dealing with the worst types of crime, felt as sick as Stanton when he heard about the infanticide.
“Things are beginning to get a little clearer,” Clever told him. “Peter Fornell was a womaniser of the worst sort. It’s likely that, with callous disregard for the consequences, he pressed Virginia Thrower into getting rid of his own child. He might have only meant for her to put it up for adoption, but she followed another course.”
“The woman must have been mad,” Jones snapped.
“Don’t judge her too harshly, Dan,” the DCI replied. “She has the mental age of a ten year old child. I don’t condone what she did, but I do understand. The real bad people in all of this are Peter Fornell and Archie Morant. Fornell was the catalyst, and Archie Morant helped conceal a wicked crime.”
“What about this ‘young man’ who paid her to get out of town?” DC Stanton put in. “Could it have been Peter Kerr, before he was killed… or…”
“Go on,” Clever urged. He had already reached the conclusion that his young constable was labouring
towards.
“Or was it Vincent Morant?” said Stanton.
“Almost certainly,” the DCI replied, pleased with the new man’s deductive reasoning. “Have you any idea how he knew about her, or why he tried to buy her off?” The Dcs eyes lowered. “I’ll take your silence to mean ‘No’, shall I?”
“I’m not sure, Guv,” Stanton said, losing his nerve at being the centre of attention.
“Well, Dan?” Clever turned to his sergeant. “Let’s hear what you think about it.”
“I think Vinnie knew about the old story and wanted to protect his reputation. I mean to say, how could anyone dispose of a murdered infant and retain even an ounce of morality?”
“I agree, as far as it goes,” the DCI said. “Although I doubt Vinnie sent her away to protect his uncle’s reputation. I think he did it to silence her about something much more interesting. I think Virginia Thrower has something, either in her head, or in her possession, that alludes to our present investigation. She is too confused to be of much use at the moment, so I suggest we consider what she has.”
“You mean the pram, Guv?” DC Stan Stanton knew that he should have checked out the treasured perambulator during his first meeting with Ginnie, and he felt a little foolish at his omission. “It’s sitting in our ‘evidence’ room. I had a quick look when they brought her in.”
“Did you now?” Richard Clever smiled. In his estimation, a ‘quick look’ meant a superficial glance that usually missed even the most obvious of clues. “Anything interesting?”
“Not that I could see,” Stanton replied.
“And what could you see, Constable Stanton?” his DCI responded. “Did you take an inventory of the contents?”
“Not down on paper, Guv,” the young DC said, beginning to sense his error. “It wasn’t worth it. There was a small blanket, some old newspapers she must use to keep warm in cold weather, a child’s rattle, and a tin with a few shillings in change inside. Oh, and there was a thin mattress. I turned it over, but there was nothing underneath it.”
“Very thorough, Detective Constable,” Richard Clever said. “Was the pram the original one she had when the baby was born?”
“I couldn’t say, Guv, but it was an old model. At least twenty years old, judging from the state of it.” Stanton felt on safer ground now. He had not fallen into the trap of assuming something to be a fact. The pram was certainly old enough to be the original, but that, his DCI would say, was not proof. Clever nodded his agreement with his constable’s conclusion.
“These old newspapers you saw in the pram,” he asked. “What do you mean by old? Were they folded neatly, or crumpled up into balls? How many times do you think a tramp uses a newspaper as a blanket before it is useless?”
Detective Constable Stanton swore then. His Guv’nor’s steady prodding had turned on a small light in his brain. Why had he not seen it earlier?
“I’m a bloody idiot,” he growled, angry at his further slowness of mind. “You scavenge old newspapers, but they are only old in the sense of being a few days out of date. Ginnie’s papers were folded neatly, and looked to be years old.”
“Precisely,” said Richard Clever. “Why does anyone keep ancient newspapers… unless they contain an item of particular interest to you. Come on, let’s see what was so interesting to her, that it compelled Virginia Thrower to spend twenty odd years pushing them around in her dead child’s pram.”
Chapter Eighteen
The pile of old newspapers proved to be less easy to peruse than any of the three detectives expected. Over the years they had been unfolded and refolded, pages turned and replaced in the wrong order. In addition, they had been subject to the vicissitudes of the harsh northern weather. The top sheets had been almost scoured of print, and the whole heap was damp throughout.
Richard Clever, retired to have a coffee and a think, whilst his sergeant and constable set about recovering whatever they could from the antiquated, almost antediluvian, pile of news print. Several yards of clothes line was hastily procured from the local hardware shop, together with six dozen wooden pegs. The drier, less damaged pages, were spread out across four desks, and the remainder were pegged up on washing lines stretched from office wall to office wall. After a couple of hours of hard work, Dan Jones was able to invite his DCI in, to look at the carefully salvaged pages.
“We managed to save most of the pages, Guv,” Jones reported, “but we couldn’t do anything with the first few sheets, as the rain had smudged all the print.”
“Not to worry,” Clever replied. “We can always pay a call on the relevant newspaper head offices, give them the right dates, and ask to see their back issues. This way is quicker though. Well done, Detective Sergeant. Shall we begin?”
“Yes, Guv, but what are we looking for?” DS Jones did not mind in the least looking for a needle in a haystack, but an idea of what the needle looked like would help.
“Ginnie Thrower suffered several traumatic events as a young woman,” Clever replied. “I’m hoping that some of those events were recorded in the papers, and she kept them as a kind of memento. Look for anything that relates to Peter Fornell, his father’s death, the trial, or her time working at the house. Anything, no matter how insignificant, might help break this case.”
“You make it sound as if each investigation is an integral part of the other, Guv,” DC Stanton said. “Couldn’t it simply be that Fornell was guilty, and Peter Kerr was killed for another, totally different reason?”
“Virginia Thrower said that Peter Kerr looked exactly like Peter Fornell,” Clever responded. “I think that he was Kerr’s father, and that Kerr found out. He came up north to investigate his father’s hanging, and found something out that, in turn, led to his own violent death.”
“That means that Peter Kerr believed his father to be innocent of murder,” Dan Jones concluded. “Which means he found some sort of proof.”
“Correct,” Richard Clever said. “That proof was either of his father’s innocence, or of someone else’s complicity. It could be that Fornell did the crime, believing his confederate was going to give him a foolproof alibi.”
“Then we are back to Archie Morant again,” DC Stanton said. “Why did he doom his friend?”
“The answer is, I’m convinced, contained within these pages,” the DCI said. “Read every word, including the adverts. I want you to start, Stanton. Then, as you finish a page, Sergeant Jones will re-read it. I will follow on and give each page a third reading. That way we are sure to spot what we are looking for.”
They started in daylight, and continued under the glare of several light bulbs. Each article was read thrice over, studied, discussed, and finally, discarded. After three hours they broke off, rang down for tea, coffee and sandwiches and took a ten minute break. It was Dan Jones who voiced the first negative comment.
“We are over half way through now, Guv, and not a single mention of anything to do with our current investigation,” he complained. “I’m sick to death of reading about flower shows, and lonely hearts in the personal ads.”
“It’s the obituaries that get me,” DC Stanton said. “One more ‘dearly departed, sleeping with the angels’, and I’ll explode!”
“Once you chaps are refreshed, we’ll start again,” Clever told them. “It’s in there somewhere. We need to look even harder. It might well be an obituary that Ginnie kept, or…”
“Guv?” Dan Jones cast a worried eye over his superior officer, who had stopped speaking in mid sentence, and was staring at a piece of flaking plaster on the office wall. “Are you alright?”
“I’ve just had a thought,” Clever said, snapping his focus back to his companions. “Why keep a series of papers?”
“I don’t follow,” Stanton said.
“Why save a couple of dozen newspapers if all you wanted was one obituary?” Richard Clever could almost touch the thought that was trying to force its way to the front of his mind, but it receded, leaving him with half an idea. “I’m not s
ure, but I think she was either watching for a story, and not sure of the issue it would run in, or following a set of stories, or a series.”
“I get it,” Dan Jones replied. “What are common denominators in newspapers? There’s always an editorial in every issue.”
“No. Each one is about a totally different topic,” Clever said.
“Lonely Hearts?” Stanton put in, mindful of the fact that he was supposed to be meeting Sam Hurst, and had stood her up.
“Possibly,” Richard Clever was on unfamiliar ground. His knowledge of such things was academic, and he looked to his sergeant for advice. “Perhaps Peter Fornell placed ads, Dan?”
“That could be the case, Guv, most of these papers predate his execution, but no one ever gives a real name. Besides, from what I have gleaned, he was a serial seducer of women. Why advertise when women were throwing themselves at him on a regular basis?”
“True.” Richard Clever sipped his coffee and was about to resume the scouring of his old newspapers when the door opened and Sam Hurst stuck her head into the room.
“Am I interrupting?” She stepped inside and looked around at all the hanging paper. “Gosh, I hope you are not going to paper the walls with these old rags.”
“These old rags hold a vital clue, Miss Hurst,” DCI Clever said. He might have turned her out then, but she had been of great help over the Jacko Ball business, and could be relied on to be discreet.
“Like a secret code?” she asked, taking more interest.
“I doubt it. The newspapers were collected some twenty odd years ago. We believe that there is an article within that might help our case.”
“Who collected them?”
“Really, Sam! This is police business,” DC Stanton said, trying to avert his new girlfriend from his Guv’nor’s path.
“No, that’s fine,” Clever said. “Miss Hurst has an astute mind… for a young lady. That is to say, your mind is as fine as any man’s when it comes down to it.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Sam replied. “So, who did put all this together?”