by Emily Gunnis
‘Of course, dear,’ said Rosalind, before waving her off cheerfully.
It wasn’t until Sam got back to her office and settled down with a strong coffee that she had a chance to digest the morning’s events.
‘So what’s going on?’ asked Fred, looking over his glasses at her.
Sam pulled the letter from her bag. ‘My nana found this amongst my grandad’s paperwork. It’s a letter written by a young girl called Ivy in 1956. She’s pregnant by her footballer boyfriend, who doesn’t want to know by the sound of things.’ She pulled her laptop from her bag and fired it up. A picture of Emma filled the screen as it loaded.
‘Nice pic,’ said Fred. ‘She’s beautiful.’
‘Thanks, she would be – she’s mine,’ said Sam, smiling as she clicked on Google and typed in Father Benjamin’s name.
‘So who is this Ivy?’ said Fred, glancing at the letter.
‘No idea, but the letter mentions Father Benjamin, who is the priest whose remains were found at that derelict mansion. Kevin covered it last week,’ said Sam, turning the screen towards him. ‘And Kitty Cannon, as in the chat show host . . .’
‘Cannonball?’ said Fred.
‘That’s the one,’ said Sam. ‘She was at Father Benjamin’s inquest, apparently.’
‘Why?’ said Fred, leaning over towards her.
‘Not sure yet. I went to the house this morning,’ added Sam, tapping at a picture of St Margaret’s on the screen.
‘What? When?’
‘Before I came to work.’ She took another glug of coffee.
‘You’re a maniac. I haven’t even had breakfast yet,’ said Fred, laughing.
‘Well, they’re pulling it down on Tuesday, it’s a building site,’ said Sam, taking a flapjack from her top drawer and ripping it open with her teeth. ‘Anyway, in one of the rooms was a portrait of Mother Carlin, who was mentioned in Ivy’s second letter. The site manager who showed me round St Margaret’s sent me to an old people’s home down the road where he thought she might be. As you kindly found out for me, Mother Carlin died many years ago, but I managed to blag my way into the room of another nun who used to work there. She made a strange comment about Mother Carlin, saying no one cared about what had happened to her on the night she died. Want one?’ She pulled out another flapjack and threw it at him.
Fred picked up the squashed snack and put it to one side.
‘Also, this nun, Sister Mary Francis,’ Sam continued, ‘she definitely knew of Kitty, and her father, George Cannon. She called him a philanderer.’
‘Maybe Kitty was the product of an affair and was born at this mother-and-baby home, St Margaret’s,’ said Fred, taking his glasses off to clean them, then looking over at Sam. ‘Jesus, if that’s the case, it’d get picked up by all the nationals. You could write your own ticket.’
‘Maybe. You look nice without your glasses,’ said Sam, smiling at him.
Fred turned seven shades of red and stammered for something to say. ‘Well, I wear contacts for climbing; it’s just my eyes are a bit sore as I was out at Harrison’s Rocks all night.’ He went to put his glasses on again, then hesitated.
‘You climb in the dark?’ said Sam, flicking to her emails and scrolling through them.
‘Sure, I’ve got my head torch. I’m stuck here most of the time, so I don’t really have a choice.’ He shrugged.
‘Would you climb every day if you could?’ asked Sam, finishing off the last of her breakfast.
‘Definitely. It’s vertical Zen. When I’m soloing a hard route, I don’t care about all the shit with my family and what a disappointment I am to everyone. It’s just me and the rock. When you free solo you can’t make mistakes. You get one chance at doing it right.’
‘So climbing up a huge rock with nothing but the ground to catch you relaxes you?’ said Sam, laughing.
‘Harper!’ yelled Murray from across the room. ‘Get over here.’
Fred pretended to wrap a rope around his neck and hang himself as Sam stood up and walked over to her boss.
‘Why has Kitty Cannon’s press officer just called wanting the low-down on you?’
‘Um, I read that her talk show is finished and she’s retiring. She grew up in Sussex, so I just put in a request for an interview.’
‘What’s that got to do with St Margaret’s mother-and-baby home?’ said Murray irritably.
‘Kevin mentioned he’d seen her at Father Benjamin’s inquest, so I did some digging. I think she might have some connections to it.’
‘What kind of connections?’ Murray coughed loudly, clearing phlegm from his lungs.
‘Well, I’m not sure yet, but I’m working on it.’
‘That’s Features’ job; aren’t I giving you enough to do?’ Murray snapped.
‘Yes, I was going to pass it over. It was just an idea,’ said Sam, trying not to stare at Murray’s monobrow, which looked like a large slug.
‘Well, did you get a result?’ barked Murray. Sam shook her head. ‘Fine, well let’s focus on news, shall we? I don’t want to piss off a press office as powerful as that without good reason.’
‘I’m obviously rattling some cages if Kitty Cannon’s office are bothering to find out about me,’ said Sam, returning to her seat.
‘What did you say to them?’ said Fred.
‘That I had some information about Kitty’s association to St Margaret’s mother-and-baby home.’
‘And look what just came in on the wire,’ said Fred, turning his screen towards her.
Sam rubbed her throbbing eyes. She had got up at 5 a.m. to be at the St Margaret’s building site before sunrise, so she thought her caffeine-soaked brain was hallucinating as she read the news on Fred’s screen.
‘Jesus. There’s going to be a funeral service for Father Benjamin today.’
Fred nodded. Sam felt a surge of adrenaline as she read on.
Born Benjamin Cook in Brighton in 1926 and raised in Preston, Father Benjamin was the son of Dr Frank A. Cook, a surgeon, and Helen Elizabeth Cook, a housewife.
He attended All Saints’ School and was a 1944 graduate of Brighton High School. He also attended classes at the Brighton College of Art and played the piano.
Father Benjamin was the highly regarded vicar of Preston church for over thirty years, before retiring at the age of sixty-five to Gracewell Retirement Home in Preston village. He went missing on 31 December 1999, and his friends received the shocking news in September 2016 that his remains had been discovered in the foundations of St Margaret’s in Preston. He has no surviving relatives.
‘Fred, you’ve got to cover for me, I have to go to this.’ Sam turned to her long-suffering colleague.
‘What? You’ll be out for hours. I’ve got the afternoon off for the British Bouldering Championships,’ Fred whispered.
‘Look, if I’m right about this Kitty Cannon stuff, it’s gonna be huge. I’ll be back by half one at the latest. What time do you need to be there?’
‘Three,’ said Fred, ‘but I can’t be late.’
‘You won’t be. Please?’ Sam started whimpering like a lost puppy.
‘Fine,’ said Fred, looking over at Murray’s office. ‘I’m doing an interview later with the daughter of one of the original Suffragettes for the centenary. I’ll say my car won’t start and you’ve gone in my place. But file it before you go to the service, will you? He’s on the warpath for me too at the moment because he thinks we’re in cahoots.’
‘Sure. Oh, and one more favour,’ said Sam, throwing her belongings back into her bag.
‘One of my kidneys perhaps?’
‘I really need to find out who Ivy was writing these letters to. He was a professional footballer, she mentions his first season at Brighton in her letter dated 12 September 1956 and talks about him being handsome and not wanting a scandal. Maybe see if you can pull up any names in the cuttings around that time, he must have been a bit of a star. It’s a long shot but if any footballers around that time died unexpectedly, we could
be onto something. It certainly looks like everyone else mentioned in these letters met a rather sudden demise.’
Fred saluted her.
‘I love you,’ said Sam as she grabbed her laptop and notepad and charged out of the newsroom.
As she started up her trusty Nova in the car park, Sam’s mobile began to ring. She pulled it out of her bag, not recognising the local number. ‘Hello?’
‘Is that Samantha?’
She pressed her finger into her other ear to make sure she could hear.
‘Yes, who is speaking, please?’
‘This is Rosalind. You came to my house this morning, do you remember? My son was cooking.’
‘Oh yes,’ Sam replied hastily.
‘I’m calling because I rang my cousin after we spoke and he remembered the accident you were asking about. It was talked about a lot in his local pub at the time. Chief Superintendent George Cannon, you said?’
‘That’s right.’ Sam waited patiently for her to go on.
‘He was a very well-liked local policeman, so it was quite a shock when it happened. My cousin couldn’t remember anything about the accident other than the fact that his little girl was in the car with him.’
‘His little girl? There’s nothing about that in the cuttings,’ Sam said, pulling her notebook out.
‘Yes, she survived, I believe. Well, according to a local lad who drank in the Sussex Arms and who was walking home that night. He came along just after the crash had happened, and said there was a young girl in the road.’
‘In the road?’ repeated Sam.
‘He was a known drunk, this lad, so I don’t think the police took much notice of his statement. She was wearing a bright red coat, apparently. The car was in the ditch but she was standing in the headlights, and she ran off as soon as she saw him. He tried to chase her to check she was okay, but she was gone.’
‘Thank you, Rosalind, that’s really helpful,’ said Sam, scribbling in her notebook. ‘I really appreciate you calling.’
She ended the call and threw her mobile into her bag, then flipped to the page with Father Benjamin’s name and wrote George Cannon underneath.
Chapter Fourteen
Sunday 5 February 2017
Kitty sat in the black cab on her way home from her session with Richard Stone and switched on her mobile to check the messages. Two from Rachel asking her to call back. She sighed, leaning back in her seat. She felt utterly drained.
As the cab turned onto Victoria Embankment, the phone rang and ‘Rachel Ford’ sprang up on the screen.
‘Yes?’ said Kitty, answering it, ‘I was just about to call you back.’
‘Hi, Kitty, sorry to call you on a Sunday. Can you talk for a second?’ said Rachel, her tone slightly anxious.
‘Yes, what is it?’ Kitty snapped, pressing the phone harder to her ear.
‘I wanted to run something by you. Does the name Samantha Harper mean anything to you? She’s a journalist at Southern News who wants to speak with you.’
‘Never heard of her, what’s it about?’
‘She’s asking about your connection to a mother-and-baby home. St Margaret’s in Preston, Sussex.’
Kitty felt a rush of blood to her head. A bike pulled out in front of them and the taxi swerved to avoid it, honking his horn and shouting as they went past.
‘Kitty? Hello?’ said Rachel.
‘I’ve no idea what she’s talking about. What else did she say?’
‘Nothing as far as I’m aware. She just put in a request for an interview. I called a guy called Murray White who runs Southern News but he didn’t seem to know anything about it and said he’d ask her,’ said Rachel.
‘Who is this Samantha Harper? Email her biog over straight away.’
‘Okay. I thought you’d want it, so it’s ready – sending it now.’
‘Good, hold on while I look at it,’ said Kitty, opening the email and clicking on it impatiently. Slowly a picture of Sam came up on the screen.
Instantly she knew who she was. Her hands began to shake as she stared at the picture of the red-headed girl with the blue eyes looking back at her.
‘Are you still there, Rachel? I need you to find an address for me. I want you to focus solely on this all day, nothing else. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, okay, what’s the name?’
‘Annabel Rose Creed, age sixty, born and raised in Sussex. She’s six years younger than me but we went to the same school; Brighton Grammar. I haven’t seen her for many years, find her.’
‘Okay,’ said Rachel. ‘I’ll do my best.’
Kitty carefully placed her phone back in her bag as they pulled up outside her riverside apartment on Embankment. She thanked the driver, gave him a hefty tip, and then disappeared inside.
Chapter Fifteen
Sunday 5 February 2017
The Black Lion pub, with its thatched roof, oak beams and roaring fire, was the centrepiece of what appeared to Sam to be the perfect chocolate-box village. After tearing herself away from an interview with Clara Bancroft, whose mother was one of the first Suffragettes, she had driven at high speed over to Preston. Making her way through the meandering high street, where hanging baskets adorned the street lights and pavements were lined with perfectly manicured hedges, she had spotted the pub and rushed out of the rain into the busy bar – which seemed to be harbouring all the men of the village – to ask for directions to the church.
‘Straight up the road, love, top of the hill. You can’t miss it,’ said a bearded gentleman with a bulbous nose and bloodshot eyes.
‘You going to the memorial service?’ asked a man at the bar.
‘Yes, I am,’ said Sam.
‘Know him, did you?’ asked another, peering at her over his pint.
‘No, but I believe he was involved with St Margaret’s and I’m doing some research on mother-and-baby homes in the UK.’ She scanned the pub quickly as she chatted, and noticed an elderly lady in a scarlet woollen coat watching her from across the room.
‘What do you wanna do that for? Miserable business. You should be writing about something happy, nice pretty girl like you.’
‘Er, okay. I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Sam, slightly taken aback. ‘Well, thank you for your help.’
As she turned to go, she saw that the elderly woman was being helped across the room on her Zimmer frame. As she reached the pub entrance, she stopped and turned back as if looking for someone. Sam recognised her but couldn’t place where from. She was in her nineties she reckoned, painfully thin, with no colour in her sharp cheekbones and her white hair scraped back in a bun. As she watched, the woman scanned the room and then suddenly stopped as she locked eyes with Sam. Her hollow cheeks flushed red as she stared, her eyes glistening. Feeling uncomfortable, Sam turned away, and when she looked back, the woman’s companion was helping her over the threshold and out of the door.
Sam thanked the men hurriedly and ventured out into the cold just as the elderly lady was being helped into a minicab. The church bells began to chime as the cab drove off, the woman staring at Sam as they passed her. After jumping back into her car, Sam followed them up the steep hill. By the time they reached the church, the front pews were full and the service was starting. Sam waited as the elderly woman was helped to her seat, then perched herself at the end of the opposite aisle. As the vicar stood at his lectern and began to speak, she switched her phone to silent.
‘We are gathered here today to celebrate the life and work of Father Benjamin, who touched endless hearts in his life as parish priest for thirty years, and to pay tribute to his devotion to those who needed help.’ Sam looked from the vicar to the old woman, who was staring ahead and clutching her handbag tightly. ‘The discovery of Father Benjamin’s body at St Margaret’s has been a difficult time for many people here. None of us could rest easy in our beds while he was missing, but the news of his death was a tragic fulfilment of our worst fears. Now, given strength from our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, we can lay h
im to rest, and pray for his soul to live in peace for all eternity.’
Sam looked around at the small congregation. Most were elderly; she spotted Sister Mary Francis amongst them, her head bowed. Next to her was Gemma, the carer who had let her into Gracewell, who was staring up at the vicar intently.
‘Father Benjamin, who also founded and over-saw the running of St Margaret’s mother-and-baby home in Preston, went on to volunteer with the Community Care Trust well into his retirement, going out into the community, sometimes in the harshest winter months, and giving out food and blankets to those most in need. He was a wonderful influence on the younger members of our congregation, teaching at Sunday school and helping to strengthen Christian values throughout our village, where modern-day life can sometimes distract from what is fundamental to us as human beings – the teachings of Jesus Christ our Saviour. In light of this, we have a reading from Hannah Crane, who remembers Father Benjamin fondly from her Sunday school days at the church.’
A woman with long blond hair made her way up to the lectern and unfolded her piece of paper. At first she wasn’t able to be heard, and a chuckle of laughter ran through the church as the priest fumbled with the microphone. Eventually she began to speak, her voice wobbly.
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die!
Sam glanced over at the elderly lady, who was staring down at the floor now, wiping tears away with a handkerchief she clutched in her shaking hands. Slowly she opened her handbag and pulled something out, holding it between her narrow fingers.