by Penny Grubb
‘Where? Who is she? I’ll kill her.’
‘That won’t help Joshua.’
‘Tell me who she is.’
‘For one, I’m not on the case any more. And two, I won’t tell you anything until I’m sure. Like I said, I need another few days. But if you don’t want me to carry on, fine. We’ll call it quits right now.’
‘You’re bluffing. You haven’t found her.’
‘Oh, I have. Like I say, another few days.’
Brittany hesitated. Annie watched her for a while, then said, ‘When you see him tomorrow, tell Joshua I know what was in the box. And tell him I’m going to get it and give it to you to pass on to him. That is, unless you decide between you to call a halt.’
Again that outraged glare. Brittany didn’t know how to deal with being bettered. And yet, thought Annie, she must have had a lot of it to deal with. She was nowhere near as clever as she fancied herself to be.
‘It’ll be down to Joshua,’ Brittany said. ‘I’ll do whatever he wants.’
Remembering Yates’s apparent vehemence against Brittany for calling in a private detective in the first place, Annie wasn’t too hopeful the case would still be hers after tomorrow. But maybe he’d stop Brittany going anywhere else. Or he might take her bait and agree to see her.
On her own after Brittany had left, Annie paced the floor. Maybe by tomorrow she would know what had been in the box. She had to hope Eliza Ellis would not take against her and have her thrown out. A place like that wouldn’t hesitate to call in the authorities. Again, the spectre of Kate loomed large.
She reached for the phone and called the Longs.
You have reached the voicemail of…
She opened her mouth to speak, but then stopped. The words she bit back were that she had finished work on their case, and was ready to report back. Suddenly, she wanted extra time to think this through, so clicked off the phone before the recorded message had finished.
Chapter 23
The residential home sat in the curve of a main road on the outskirts of the city. A substantial Victorian mansion, probably built by a successful merchant. Its front aspect was functional, windows with blinds not curtains; easier to keep clean, the outside space tarmacked to provide a small car-park. A path down the side led on to a lawned area, pleasant enough, maybe where the residents sat on sunny days.
A heavy front door with impenetrable frosted glass barred her way. She rang the bell. After a minute, the door swung open to reveal a large woman in a pale blue uniform that strained at the seams.
‘I’m here to see Eliza Ellis. I rang yesterday.’
The woman opened the door wider to let her in. ‘You been before?’
‘No, this is my first visit.’ Annie held on to her smile, though it made no dent on the uniformed woman who appeared neither welcoming nor hostile, just uninterested. She stepped inside, bracing herself for the smell of age or the clinical aroma of a hospital ward, but it was a spacious hallway that smelt of nothing much and looked clean and bright. Apart from the woman’s uniform and the outsize proportions of the dwelling, it could have been an ordinary house.
‘Sign in.’
Annie turned to a big book resting on the hall table. It was all handwritten, the pages divided out into columns. Date – Name – Visiting – Time in – Time out. Annie filled it in, making Eliza’s name just legible and her own not quite. She took the time from the clock on the wall. 10.15 a.m.
As the woman led her to the back of the house, they passed a closed door with the sounds of a television quiz show seeping through, then an open door where a tiny, wrinkled man lay back on a bed, his eyes open but unseeing, the only sign of life an incessant twitch of his clawed hand that lay outside the sheets. Further on, they passed an office where desks high with paper framed a wallmounted box that held small lights labelled with numbers. Round a corner in the corridor, Annie breathed in a hint of well-boiled vegetables and caught a glimpse of stainless steel cooking pots.
Then the woman said, ‘Visitor for you, Eliza,’ as she knocked at a door and opened it in one move. Annie was struck by the change in her tone. Less robotic, warmer, as though liking the residents was part of the job, but interacting with visitors would be unpaid overtime.
Annie entered the room expecting Eliza to be frail and comatose like the old man in the bed. In contrast, she found a woman fully alert, dressed in a smart brick-red suit, and sitting in a high-backed chair. The only obvious concession to her age, apart from her being a resident here, was a magnifying glass on the book at her side. And when Eliza turned to Annie, her eyes looked dull, as though obscured by frosted lenses.
‘Who are you? Did May have a grandchild after all?’
‘Uh … no.’ Annie paused and turned to the uniformed woman. ‘Thanks.’ She gave the woman a nod and a smile, hoping she would take the hint and leave.
‘You OK, Eliza pet?’
‘Yes, yes. Don’t fuss.’ Eliza flapped her hand dismissively.
The woman looked from one to the other of them, seemed satisfied, and left the room without another word.
‘I never knew May,’ Annie said. ‘Her daughter told me where I could find you. I was asked to look through some of her things, to find out more … um … about her life.’
‘An imposter or a busybody, then. I thought as much. Still, you’re here now. I don’t get many visitors. But if it’s May you want to know about, Susan would know more than me. I didn’t see much of May over the years.’
‘Susan told me you were at May’s eightieth birthday party.’
‘That’s right, I was.’ Eliza’s gaze wandered away from Annie and she smiled. ‘It was a surprise to have Susan call round. I was in my own home back then, of course. May and I lost touch years ago.’
‘She must have been pleased to see you.’
‘Yes, I think she was.’
‘You’ll have had a lot to talk about.’
‘Hmm, yes, we talked, of course. It was all very jolly. You know the thing. All false. Young people bouncing about, wondering how soon they’ll be burying the old girl. I remember the smell of the flowers. A bit overpowering to tell the truth. Susan didn’t expect her mother to last the year out, I could see that. That’s why she made the effort. But May was tough. She always was.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘Old times, you know. What else was there? Sunday-school. When we worked together.’
‘Reliving the good times?’
Eliza laughed. ‘There weren’t many of those for such as us. Not in those days. School. I loved school. May didn’t. She was glad to leave. I wanted to stay on. The teacher went to see my parents, but it did no good. There was war talk in the air. They wanted my wage coming in. I had to leave when I was thirteen.’
‘Did May leave at the same time?’
‘The same age, not the same time. There’s a decade between us. May left when she was thirteen, too. Ten years before I did. May wasn’t sorry to leave school, but she wanted to enrol at the hospital. Only her mother didn’t think it was quite the thing for a young girl. And when the church offered her a position, her mother made her take it. It was the only thing she ever stood firm on, and May never forgave her, to her dying day.’
Annie ran through a quick mental calculation. ‘Then you can’t have been at school together at all.’
‘Of course not.’
‘I thought you said you’d talked about school … old times.’
‘Sunday-school. All ages went together. Our parents made us go, of course. May was one of the eldest. She was a helper.’
‘So she enjoyed that more than regular school?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say so.’ Eliza’s gaze strayed to the window, although Annie wasn’t sure how much she could see.
‘You say you worked with May, too?’
‘Yes, May drove ambulances in the war. She used to let us come along. We weren’t supposed to. We were just there to skivvy at the hospital, but we wanted to go out. You’
d have shaded headlamps, you know, not to show from the sky. We had our noses glued to the windscreen, peering out, telling May, this way and that. No streetlights, of course. And you couldn’t go by memory even. They weren’t the same streets two nights in a row what with all the bombs.’
‘But you enjoyed working with her?’ Annie asked the question at random, not sure yet how to bring the conversation round to where she needed it, but wanting Eliza to keep talking.
‘You didn’t enjoy things in those days. You just got on with it. May did, anyway. I’ll give her that. She didn’t fuss. It was dreadful sweeping out the back of the ambulance some nights. Sweeping the blood out, you know. And the smell was dreadful. Some of the women were silly little cats. Ooh, I can’t do this … I can’t do that. Like that, you know.’ Eliza puckered her nose disdainfully. ‘Silly fools!’ Her decades-old irritation burned bright.
‘Not everyone can cope with those things,’ Annie murmured.
‘Cope? Of course they can cope. You have to cope. What do you do when you’ve a dead baby in the van? All that silliness and superstition. What harm can a dead baby do you? Poor little mite. It was May and I had to climb in there and wrap its little body.’
Annie’s notebook lay empty in her lap. This wasn’t what she was here for, but she felt it a necessary lead-in. The story would unwind gradually and bring her to Eliza’s last meeting with May, when the locked box had been brought out. Eliza talked on, clearly starved of visitors and happy to have an audience for her memories. There were few books in the room and all large print despite the magnifier. Bulky tomes that looked too heavy for Eliza’s skinny arms.
She understood May letting the friendship lapse. Eliza had probably felt the same. If these were the memories they had to share, then best leave them to fade. During a pause where Eliza looked as though she might drop off, Annie said, ‘May had an old box, didn’t she? She called it her locked box.’
Eliza’s eyes snapped open and the milky whiteness of the lenses turned to Annie. ‘What of it?’
Definitely touched a nerve of some sort, but Annie knew she must tread carefully. She had no real right to be here at all.
‘I would have expected her to leave it to her daughter, that’s all. With her having had it so long.’
‘It was only an old box. Our generation wasn’t sentimental over possessions. We couldn’t be. We had none. And those we had went up in flames in the war.’
‘It’s just that I understood May left it to one of her carer’s daughters. I wondered why she would have done that.’
‘I didn’t know that. Her mind was going, you know. She was probably confused.’
Annie sensed minor puzzlement, but no wariness. Maybe she’d imagined it before.
‘Did the box ever belong to May’s father?’
‘No, it was May’s always.’
‘Her father was in the whaling industry I believe?’
‘That’s right. He was killed in an accident on the dock when May was thirteen. All our fathers went to sea. In peacetime. And those that could went out in the war, too. They didn’t all come back, not by a long chalk.’
‘Did your father work with May’s father?’
‘Yes, for a time, on the whalers, you know.’
‘Uh … the Jawbone Gang?’
Annie watched closely for a reaction, but Eliza just said, ‘That’s right. They were both in a jawbone gang. Who told you that?’
‘I just guessed from something I saw.’
Frustration welled up. Annie knew she was close to something, but she must be careful. If she upset Eliza she might be thrown out and the uniformed carers would become guards who would bar her way back. Eliza mentioned the Jawbone Gang with no hint of unease, but that was as expected. The Jawbone Gang was from a different age.
To keep things rolling, Annie asked, ‘What is a jawbone gang, anyway?’
She only half listened as Eliza talked about stories her father had told of life aboard the old whalers … the size of the animals … the need for a gang to deal with just its jaw.
The key question formed in Annie’s mind.
‘That’s interesting,’ she said. ‘I know next to nothing about the whaling industry, but it must have been big in Hull back then. Only it isn’t that jawbone gang I really want to know about. It’s the Jawbone Gang that was to do with May’s locked box.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ The words shot out too quickly. Eliza’s beady eyes did their best to lock with Annie’s, but couldn’t focus.
Annie saw Eliza’s bent fingers clutch at the chair arms, but she suppressed a rush of triumph. It was an achievement to have found someone alive who held the key to May’s secret, but she reminded herself that knowing Eliza had the information was a long step from getting her to tell. And even if she did, there was no reason to think May’s old secret had anything to do with Michael Walker or Joshua Yates.
‘Some tea!’ Eliza shouted suddenly, making Annie jump. As she spoke the words, Eliza reached to the table at her side and banged her hand on a bell push.
Annie imagined the light flashing in the office down the corridor. She must make a split second decision whether to push hard now or whether to retreat and try to secure a later visit.
‘Uh … I … what can I bring you next time I come?’ She gabbled the words out, wanting to divert Eliza from having her barred from visiting again. ‘Something to read, audio books, maybe? I could find you an old player if you don’t have one. Not so heavy to lift.’
Eliza chuckled. ‘I know you’re trouble. I sensed it the moment you arrived. I wasn’t born on an apple cart, you know. But I will let you come again. You’re to bring me a packet of Hamlet cigars and something good to drink. I like brandy and water. A good brandy, mind. None of this modern cheap stuff.’
The door clicked open and two women bustled in, both throwing suspicious glances Annie’s way.
‘How you doing, Eliza, pet?’
‘My visitor’s going,’ said Eliza. ‘I can’t remember her name. I can’t be bothered with names these days. She’s coming again, though, and she might take me on a trip out. We haven’t decided yet.’
‘Well, that’ll be nice for you.’ They turned friendlier faces to Annie. ‘That’ll be nice for her.’
‘Yes,’ said Annie. ‘I’m coming back this afternoon.’ Seeing Eliza pull a face at this, she added, ‘It has to be. I’m short of time.’
‘I’ve rung for a cup of tea,’ Eliza said. ‘And the girl’s going now. She’s tired me. I’ll have a cup of tea, then I’ll take a nap.’ She lifted a crooked finger to point at Annie. ‘Bring one of those big bottles of spring water. Don’t stint. Ice and lemon, too. And don’t forget …’ She raised her hand to her mouth and mimed the action of smoking.
Chapter 24
Annie hadn’t been back at the office for more than a couple of minutes before the phone rang. It was Ron Long asking for a report on his case.
‘I can’t talk just now,’ she improvised. ‘I’ll get back to you.’
‘You’re with someone, are you? Well, how soon? Time’s pressing, and Sheryl won’t budge until she has your verdict. We can come in this afternoon.’
‘Sorry, I have no time at all this weekend. Early next week. Can you come in on Tuesday?’
‘Make it Monday.’
‘OK, but I can’t give you a time right now. I’ll ring you back later today or tomorrow.’
‘And you’ll have a result for us?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll be waiting for your call.’
Annie put down the phone knowing this was a loose end she must tie carefully. It wasn’t her job to wrap felons in neat parcels and hand them on to the police when she hadn’t a scrap of solid evidence against them. Furthermore, she must allow people their own agendas without prying. But there was a line she wouldn’t cross when it came to turning a blind eye and she’d yet to determine just where this line lay with the Longs.
She returned the file to its draw
er. There were a couple of days to think it through.
A pile of messages lay on the desk. Annie flicked through them. Most were for Pat, but one had her name on it.
‘Oh hell,’ she murmured, as she read Barbara’s scrawl.
Horse woman rang to confirm fancy-dress comp. Told her you’d be there.
Now she would have to get in touch and grovel a bit, but not now.
More immediately problematic was Eliza Ellis. Without much hope, she pulled out the petty cash tin. The cash book showed a positive balance of £50, and a scrawled handwritten note fluttered out that said, ‘IOU 30 quid. Barb’. At the bottom of the tin, a solitary 50p rolled about.
That would barely buy matches, let alone good brandy. Annie let out a sigh. It would mean risking her credit card and fighting out the claim later.
Brandy? Do me a favour!
As she set off, she wondered where to find ice and how she could transport it.
Three hours had passed since her first visit when Annie arrived back at the residential home.
It was a stranger who opened the door to her, still with no particular acknowledgement or curiosity. It was as though she’d been ringing this bell to be let in twice a day for years. This time she could answer yes when asked if she knew the way to Eliza’s room.
She knocked and hesitated, but when there was no sound from inside, she opened the door and found Eliza in the same chair as this morning, but now bundled in a thick coat with matching hat and gloves in her lap.
‘Is that you?’ Eliza greeted her, squinting her eyes in an effort to make out who had come in.
‘Yes, it’s me, Annie. I’m here to talk some more about May.’
‘Let me see what you have.’
Annie opened her carrier bag and lifted out the brandy which Eliza peered at from close range before pronouncing it to be, ‘Not the stuff I remember, but good enough. Put it back in the bag for later.’
Annie held up the two-litre bottle of spring water.
‘It’ll do,’ was the verdict. She turned the packet of Hamlet cigars in her hand. ‘It’s a good many years since I had one of these. Did you bring matches?’