“Archibald Patterstone, 21st of June, 1984,” she said, scribbling. “Here, Jude, read these out to me, will you?”
Jude clicked through the pictures and read off the names and dates ending with Henrietta Bell who had died only weeks before Todd himself. “But Todd didn’t die in the nursing home, did he?”
“And the rest did?” said Eddy.
“Presumably,” Jude said. “And we can surely find out. I mean, there must be relatives of them all still around. Some of them anyway.”
“I can go round and ask Billy,” Eddy said. “It’ll be easy to get him talking about family at a time like this. I’ll go tomorrow.”
“And I’ll ask Maureen from the Cancer!” said Jude. “Maureen Bell. If I slip round and see her when someone’s collapsed, I’m sure I could get the conversation onto going suddenly or lingering. Who she knew that popped their clogs different ways.”
“You’ll be a right wee ray of sunshine,” Eddy said. “But you’ll have to hoof it, cos it’s nearly five now.”
Twenty-Two
Those purple clouds had arrived and the wind dropped as soon as they reached Wigtown, leaving the clouds there driving cold spikes of rain straight down at the ground, battering flat the last of the flowers in Lowell’s garden, making Jude hunch over under her hood as she hurried through the empty streets.
She fell into the charity shop, gasping and shaking herself. Maureen was counting up the change, with a bundle of notes already sorted and bound with a rubber band.
“Ocht!” she said. “Whatever you’re after, you can take it and owe me till tomorrow.”
Jude pushed her hood back and used the edges of her hands like windscreen wipers to sweep the worst of the weather from her face. “Lowell’s got the car in town with him,” she said. “He could give you a lift home, if I shout over.”
Maureen narrowed her eyes. “I live upstairs,” she said. “I thought you knew that. So, how can I help you?”
“Eddy said there was a jigsaw puzzle,” said Jude, spying a row of them on a high shelf behind the counter and thinking it was a safe bet. “Oh, what did she say it was of? I’ll remember if I take a look.”
“Lowell’s daughter Eddy?” said Maureen. “She’s never been over the door. Try again, you’re on your last go.”
Jude felt her colour change and didn’t even try to hide it. “Caught me,” she said. “Okay. Did you hear about Jackie?”
Maureen’s face grew pained and she shook her head. “Poor soul. I’ve been praying all day.”
“She always seemed so well,” said Jude.
“She takes a lot of heart pills,” Maureen said. “But she’s years younger than Billy and his lungs are away.” She scraped the change into a cotton sack with a bank logo on its side and gave Jude an expectant look. “Is that all you’re after then? Telling me about Jackie? I never had you down as a gossip.”
“I met your cousin at Jackie’s house,” Jude said. “She was on an emergency call to see to Billy. She’s got me down as God knows what.”
“You were at the house?” said Maureen and now she looked very searchingly at Jude, who couldn’t blame her. It was impossible to explain. It was just as impossible to start up a casual conversation with someone who was itching to get home after a long day’s work, when your first two attempts had been seen through.
“I upset Jackie yesterday,” Jude said at last. “But I don’t know how. I came round to ask if you could help me work out what it was I said because I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Maureen put her head on one side, with a small smile. “Well, why didn’t you just say that? It’ll not have been anything.” She put the cloth bag down and leaned her elbows on the counter. Jude moved away from the door and took a couple of steps towards her.
“We were talking about her Auntie Lorna, because I found one of her old books in the shop.”
“O-ho!” said Maureen. “Still trying to move the mountain, are you?”
“And I asked about another couple of names I’d come across and she didn’t seem to want to remember them.”
“Oh?”
“One of them was Henrietta Bell. I wondered if she was a relation of yours.”
“Distant,” said Maureen. “Some kind of cousin. What about her?”
“Well, this is going to sound mad but, before she died, was she in a nursing home or old people’s home or anything, or was she still in her—Maureen? What is it?”
“Oh no!” Maureen said. She wasn’t leaning on the counter now. She had stood up as straight as a tin soldier and was glaring at Jude. “No way. Not this. Where’d this come from?”
“Maureen, I don’t know what you mean. I just wanted to ask about Archie and Etta and—”
“Aye, aye, Norma Oughton and Elsie Day. Now, listen to me, that was a terrible time and it’s behind us. So leave it there.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Jude. “I’m just asking a simple—”
“Out!” Maureen said. “Go on. Get out. Why are you stirring this up again? Who are you really? A journalist? A muckraker? If I Google you, what will I find, eh? And what’s your whole name anyway? You’ve come slinking in here, getting round us all, and what do we really know about you?”
Jude had her hand on the door to leave before half of this was said. Her heart was thrumming and she knew she was pale, but still she stopped with the door half open. “Maureen, I’m sorry,” she said. “And I’m worried. I don’t understand what’s going on, but I’m worried for all of you.”
“Are you threatening me?” Maureen said.
“No!” said Jude. “But I’ll tell you this: someone threatened me last night. Someone put an anonymous note through my door.”
“And you’re accusing me?”
“No! For God’s sake. I’m trying to warn you.”
“Out!” said Maureen, louder. “Get back to London where you belong.”
Jude stumbled outside and started to run back to Jamaica House, her hood down and her jacket unzipped, feeling the cold rain sting her eyes and the hot tears prick at them. She was streaming with water, her hair plastered in cold hanks to the sides of her face when she got there, bursting in at the kitchen door, not noticing Lowell until she had started talking.
“It’s real!” she began and then stopped.
“No shit, it’s real,” said Eddy. “Look, don’t go nuts, okay? I told you what I’m like. Rip off the plaster and worry about it later. I did tell you, didn’t I?”
“What do you mean?” said Jude.
“I thought of something.” Eddy nodded at Lowell. “So I just out and asked him.”
Jude blinked the rain out of her eyes and stared at Lowell, expecting to see anger or perhaps a wry amusement there, but his face was more solemn than she had ever seen it.
“It’s about the photographs,” Eddy said. “You know how I said they were creepy but harmless? Well, I thought of a way they could be creepy and anything but harmless. So I asked him. I asked if any of his rare Victorian ‘figure studies’ were . . . old people that he worked with.”
“Oh God,” said Jude. “They’re not, are they?”
“Tell Jude what you told me, Lowell,” said Eddy. “He just said this the minute before you walked in.”
“I didn’t mean to be so mysterious that I worried you,” he said. “It’s just that some people find my pictures … upsetting.”
“Tell Jude what you just told me,” said Eddy grimly.
“My dear child, don’t distress yourself,” Lowell said. He turned to Jude. “I told young Eddy here that some of the photographs are of the elderly, some children, some adults, and some are a mixture.”
Jude sat down, dropped like a coal sack into a chair, and stared at him. “A mixture?” she said. “The elderly?” She turned to Eddy, who had tears in her eyes.
“See?�
� said Eddy. “It’s a motive. His dad knew and the relatives knew and everyone covered it up. Well, you would, wouldn’t you?”
“My dears,” said Lowell. “What are you talking about? I assure you I’ve been most discreet about my collection.”
“But you’re not just a collector, are you?” said Jude. “You’re a photographer. You took pictures in the care home, when you worked there. You took pictures of Mrs. Jolly, and Todd knew.”
“What?” said Lowell. “Of course, I didn’t. Why would I? No, my dears, that particular custom had fallen quite out of favour long before my time.”
“Custom?” said Jude, her voice rising. “Custom?”
“Tradition, fashion,” said Lowell. “Call it what you will. It was in its heyday when photography was still very young.” He smiled at them both. “Itinerant photographers had their rounds like publishers’ reps today. I know a little about all that. Once upon a time, LG Books was going to be much more than the glue factory for old nags it turned into. Well, and so if dear old Grandma or little Lizzie or poor baby George popped off before the chap came with his Box Brownie … I mean to say, needs must. ‘In Memoriam’ photography, it’s called.”
“Wh—Wha—?” Jude asked, then took an extra breath. “You’re saying you collect pictures of dead people in their coffins?”
“Not necessarily in coffins,” said Lowell. “They posed them, rather ingeniously. Sometimes in family groups.”
“Dead families?” said Jude. “Whole families?”
“Not dead families,” Lowell said. “Just families with one of them appearing for the last time.”
“Oh. My. God,” Eddy said.
“And because the families didn’t make a point of recording the harsh fact—made a point, rather, of trying to hide the fact—for a long time the photographs passed as normal portraits, you see. And the poor child standing there covered in powder and paint would just be thought of as not particularly photogenic.”
“Fuck-a-duck!” said Eddy.
“Or so one might have expected,” said Lowell darkly. “But it’s usually the reverse. The first one among my collection, that is to say, the first one among my photographic collection that I successfully identified as ‘In Memoriam’ was a group portrait that had always troubled me. It was a couple with a teenaged child, and the couple—merchant-class, lots of whiskers and ruffles—looked like ghosts. Rather indistinct and not quite there.”
“The poor kid!” said Eddy. “No way that was her idea!”
“She, on the other hand, was crystal-clear and sharp-edged, staring straight out of the picture.”
“She must have been freaked! No bloody wonder she was staring!” Eddy said, but Jude had taken a few steps ahead of her.
“Oh no,” she said.
“What?” said Eddy.
“Indeed,” said Lowell, nodding. “Exposure times were lengthy and during this one, the parents had moved. Perhaps they were shaking with emotion. The child, on the other hand, was perfectly still and therefore in focus.”
“Oh, shit!” said Eddy. “That’s wrong!”
“Exactly my point, my dear child,” Lowell said. “It’s an inversion of nature. The dead should be gone and the living remain.”
“You said that to me once before,” Jude said. “But I didn’t know why.”
“And so I collect them and take them out of circulation, away from prying eyes and the digital Sodom and Gomorrah, where they would be clicked on and sniggered at. But I’m sorry I kept it a secret from you two.”
Eddy and Jude exchanged a glance.
“S’all right,” Eddy said.
“I’m glad now everything is out in the open,” Lowell said. “It’s my vocation and it’s come to seem like my duty, but I don’t speak of it for fear of shocking people, as I see from your faces that I have shocked you. I am truly sorry.”
“Dad,” Eddy said, “we thought you’d abused five old people in the nursing home and killed them to cover it up. So, you know, we kind of forgive you.”
Twenty-Three
“I’ve never so much as shot a pop gun at a sparrow!” Lowell said. He shook his head and muttered at them for a while and then roused himself. “Jude, my dearest, you need to change and have a hot drink. I’ll make cocoa while you go and get into a dressing gown, and then let’s talk this over, shall we?”
Jude shot a look at Eddy.
“She is quite safe, my dear,” Lowell said. “I admit I’m surprised to be accused of several brutal murders, but she is a teenager, and I believe teenagers have regularly charged their fathers with as much and more. Still.” He gave them both a stern look over the tops of his spectacles then turned away.
“I worked in the nursing home,” he began, a few minutes later when Jude was back in a tartan dressing gown and woolen socks, scratchy but warm on her numb feet. She had a towel wound round her head and had wiped her make-up off roughly, leaving her face tingling.
“My father wanted to punish me for the snub of my neglecting medicine. But, one! That was when I was a boy. When I was at school. Dear me, how could he compel me to take a job at a nursing home when I was a grown man with my mother’s money and my bookshop to run? It makes no sense. What were you thinking?”
“I said we needed a timeline,” Eddy said, sulkily.
“And, two! I worked in the kitchens, chopping carrots and scrubbing out pots. I didn’t have anything to do with the old people. Good heavens, I’ve no aptitude for anything of that nature. And Lord knows I could never pass any of the certificates.”
“We met Billy McLennan’s care assistant and she’s worse than you,” Eddy said.
“And, finally, three! The five people Eddy named all died at home.”
Eddy drew a breath to quibble again and then said, “Oh.”
“Why aren’t you angrier?” Jude said.
He gave her a smile that crinkled up his eyes. “I find you impossible to be cross with when you’re wearing my dressing gown,” he said. “And also, dear me, it’s our old friend the grain of truth again.” He brought a perilously full mug of cocoa over to her and set it down gently. “There was a bit of a scandal, you see. Dear me, yes. I mean, it was averted—”
“Hushed up, more like,” Eddy said.
“But there was talk. Of course, this was long before Harold Shipman.”
“Who?” said Eddy.
Lowell tutted and nodded at her phone lying on the kitchen table. Eddy tutted back at him, but she grabbed it and her thumbs started flying over the keys.
“My father was a terrible father but a wonderful doctor,” Lowell said. “He was ready to retire, but there were a few old patients he didn’t want to see swept up into the new wave of appointments and care teams. He hung on until they were gone. And of course it was a single-handed practice, and he signed the death certificates.” Lowell gave them a significant look. “You would have seen what else they all have in common, wouldn’t you?”
Jude shook her head.
“Well, my dear, of course, they were buried. No cremations. So one signature was all that was needed.”
“What are you saying?” Jude asked him.
She had barely started her cocoa, but Lowell drained his and went to the dresser for the bottle of malt whisky and two glasses.
“Jesus Christ!” said Eddy, still staring at her phone. “Is this for real? This guy was a doctor and he murdered like hundreds of people!”
“And of course the other thing they all had in common is that they were widows or widowers or single. They lived alone with no one who’d want them to linger.”
“So your dad offed a pile of oldsters and covered it up,” Eddy said. “Like that Shipman did too.”
“No,” Lowell said. “But he was accused of it. He was accused by the family of Lorna McLennan.”
“But Lorna McLennan was in the nursing hom
e,” said Jude. “It caused a family feud.”
“Indeed it did,” said Lowell. “The faction who wanted her left in her little flat blamed the care home staff.”
“That would be Jackie,” Jude said. “She told me.”
Lowell nodded. “And the faction who had pushed for her to be in the home blamed my father. Both sides wanted a post-mortem to shut the other side up. They knocked off before it got quite that far, but by then the talk had started and there was no stopping it. Lorna’s family, unable to blame the home or to accept responsibility themselves, needed a whipping boy.”
“Shower of shitbags turned round and bit him,” said Eddy, like a glossary.
“He was horrified,” Lowell said. “He threatened to recant every death certificate he had signed for a burial in the whole of the time he practised here. It was too bad if the bodies had been cremated, of course, but he threatened to rescind every other one and have all the dearly departed exhumed and autopsied. It was a dreadful time. Such a stain on … Well, I daresay that’s terribly old-fashioned.”
“How many did they dig up?” asked Eddy. “You’d have been right in there, snapping away.”
“I am interested in the history of grief and its changing—”
“Oh blah blah blah,” said Eddy. “How many?”
“None,” Lowell said. “He changed his mind. Instead he retired, moved away, never visited the town again, and could barely speak its name.”
“Holy shite!” said Eddy. “He called their bluff, didn’t he?”
“That is what I concluded,” said Lowell, sounding weary. “I think one of the sets of relatives knew that a post-mortem would raise, dear me, yes, awkward questions for them, and begged my father not to go ahead with his threat.”
“And whoever it was,” Eddy said, “Jackie phoned them last night and then they went round to Jude’s and put the note in her door?”
“Note?” said Lowell, springing upright in his seat like a stepped-on rake. “What note? Show me.”
Jude groaned, catching hold at last of what had been tickling her. “I was right!” she said. “I should have brought all the books. I left it behind.”
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