Sykes lit a cigarette. ‘Right, as long as you don’t choke on a crust while I’m gone.’
‘It just sticks in my gullet to eat pub sandwiches. My mother would be horrified. Don’t eat bought sandwiches and never eat in the street. And here I am.’
Sykes gave a cheerful grin. ‘We’re not exactly in the street.’
‘What else would you call sitting outside on a bench?’
‘I’d call it a holiday. Don’t worry, love, Mrs Shackleton and I will have this Whitby business sorted out before you can say donkey rides on the sand.’
Rosie had stopped listening. She was looking up the hill. ‘Hey up! Who’s that then?’
Sykes and I followed her gaze.
‘It is,’ Sykes said. ‘Well spotted, Rosie.’
She had seen us first and strode purposefully in our direction. She carried a carpet bag in one hand, a handbag and newspaper in the other, and wore that familiar tweed coat, far too heavy for August. From a distance one would think her older than she is because she dresses in the old-fashioned, pre-war way with clothes designed to last and to keep out the weather.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Rosie asked. ‘It’s her.’
Twenty-Six
The figure walking down the steep hill, tilted back by the gradient and the wind, was none other than my housekeeper, Mrs Sugden.
Rosie shaded her eyes. ‘I thought she was staying in Scarborough with her cousin.’
‘So did I.’
Sykes was already on his way up to meet her. They paused for a moment. He took her carpet bag. They walked a little way together and then Sykes turned off towards the cottage, taking Mrs Sugden’s bag with him.
She continued down the hill without him, fanning herself with the newspaper as she came to join us. ‘By heckerslike, it’s hot.’
We budged up to make room for her. Neither Rosie nor I suggested that she take off her coat. That would have been presumptuous.
Mrs Sugden let out a sigh. ‘Scarborough wasn’t to my liking. Well, not Scarborough itself, I’ve no complaints there. It’s that cousin of mine.’
‘Are you here for the day?’ Rosie asked.
‘I’m not stopping. Mr Sykes just took my bag into your cottage to save me carrying it round. I’m off back to Leeds on the late afternoon train. I’ve had enough of our Deborah.’
The waiter passed, carrying a tray of empties back inside. He gave us a querying glance.
Mrs Sugden shook her head. ‘I don’t eat bought dinners and I don’t eat outside, but I wouldn’t mind an ice cream in a minute, and a deck chair to have a cool off. It was murder on that charabanc. I could have gone back direct from Scarborough to Leeds but I wanted to let you know I was off, Rosie, and to say cheerio. I didn’t expect to find you here, Mrs Shackleton.’
Half an hour later, the four of us sat on deck chairs, looking out to sea. Rosie took out her knitting. Mrs Sugden reported on her attempt at a holiday.
‘She was such a lively lass, my cousin Deborah. That feller she married, and he’s no older than you, Mr Sykes, he’s turned her into an old woman. They go to bed before nine o’clock. He’s up and out at six for his constitutional. She does nowt, absolutely nowt. He takes her a cup of tea when he comes back from the walk. She’s not up till ten. She’s one of these that’s busy doing nothing. A little lass comes in and skivvies for her and the poor child can do nothing right in Deborah’s book. Her only conversation is about her ailments and what the child does wrong. Well I couldn’t be doing with it.’
‘That’s a shame!’ Rosie rested her knitting in her lap. ‘You had such high hopes of seeing your cousin.’
‘Aye well, more fool me. I should have taken the hint of how she’s changed from her letters, dripping with lumbago and ingrowing toenails.’
A good idea popped into my head. It would be a shame for Mrs Sugden to cut short her holiday, when she had been looking forward to it and all the arrangements were in place for the cat, the telephone and the post. ‘Come to Whitby, Mrs Sugden.’
‘I’m not staying at the Royal. Even if I could afford it, I wouldn’t thoil it at them prices.’
‘My friend Alma lives in a huge house, and she was disappointed that I wouldn’t stay. They had a room ready for me.’
‘Alma Turner, the prophetess?’
‘Yes. You wouldn’t object, would you?’
‘I would not. I’d like to meet her.’
‘That’s settled then. We’ll go back together.’
There would be time on the return journey to tell her more. She would need to know about the attack on Mr Cricklethorpe and we would have to make sure that Bagdale Hall was locked and secure.
Mrs Sugden had already taken to the idea. ‘That would suit me very well but I’m not going in another charabanc today. It was that hot. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a storm.’
‘We’ll all squeeze in the motor,’ Sykes said. ‘It’s not far. Do you want to come, Rosie?’
Rosie blew out her cheeks, giving her the appearance of a cherub. ‘What, and sit on’t car bonnet? I don’t think so. I’ll stop here where there’s some comfort and I can keep an eye on my lassies.’
‘You do right, Rosie,’ Mrs Sugden agreed. ‘I’d no notion of moving on myself. Thought I’d be settled for the duration.’
‘You’ll like Whitby, Mrs Sugden,’ I said encouragingly.
‘How much would your friend rush me for this room?’
‘Not a penny. She owns the house jointly with a Mr Cricklethorpe who is in hospital at present. They’d welcome you there.’
She brightened considerably. ‘That’s nice.’
‘Yes, only there is one thing you must promise me.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The house is on the neglected side, to put it mildly. I don’t want you to feel obliged to do anything different about that.’
‘Count on it. As long as my own room is clean, and the kitchen, that will do.’
The kitchen. I would keep quiet about the kitchen.
Mrs Sugden was smiling now, a rare sight. ‘I wasn’t relishing going home this soon and telling Miss Merton her help is no longer needed. She was quite excited at the thought of having your telephone calls passed on to their number, and minding Sookie. I would have felt a failure in the holiday-making department.’
Sykes stood. ‘I’ll fetch the ice creams.’
I moved to join him. ‘I’ll help you carry them.’
Rosie paused in her knitting and gave us an odd look.
As we walked towards the ice cream seller, Sykes said, ‘Summat’s up, eh? Are we on a job?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘What’s happened? These youngsters who’ve disappeared, is there some connection between them and the murder?’
‘I’m not sure. But I’ve been drawn into this, because of Alma. I was out looking for her on Saturday night and… well not to go into great details but I was picked up as a suspicious character and spent the night in the clink.’ I have rarely stopped a person in their tracks, but Sykes skidded to a halt on the sand. ‘Just keep walking, Mr Sykes. I’ll tell you about it on the way back. Mrs Sugden will need to know too, and Rosie if you’d like to tell her.’
‘Tell me now!’
‘If Sergeant Garvin had his way there would be a warrant for my arrest on the grounds of an unsatisfactory explanation regarding a toffee hammer found in a bin at the back of the Royal Hotel.’
‘Someone is trying to point the finger at you by planting the weapon at your hotel, if it is the weapon.’
‘Or, the suspect is staying at the Royal Hotel, or lives nearby.’
‘No. They would throw it in the sea.’
We joined the queue for ice cream, leaving a little distance between ourselves and the person in front and lowering our voices. ‘Mr Cricklethorpe, the joint owner of Bagdale Hall along with my friend Alma, he was attacked and is in hospital. That was just before I left to come here. I believe it’s because he has a suspic
ion about the jeweller’s killer.’
‘Then I’m very glad you came. Is Alma safe?’
‘I think so. She wears a cloak of naivety and that’s a good protection. In some ways she’s not of this world, though she knows a lot more than she lets on. I don’t think it’s occurred to Alma that she might be in danger.’
‘Do you feel confident that she and Felicity are not involved?’
‘At the moment I feel confident of nothing. I have this nagging worry that there’s much more going on, and I don’t know what. It’ll be up to the police to get to the bottom of it, but I would like to know for sure that Alma and Felicity have someone to look out for their interests.’
‘And yours!’
It was our turn. Sykes ordered four cornets, insisting, ‘These are on me.’
The dark-haired Italian man scooped ice cream into the cones.
I took two, Sykes took two.
We made our way back along the beach. Much as I hated keeping something back, mentioning plentiful supplies of whisky might be a bad idea. Mr Sykes would take a harsh line on dealings in contraband, even though it might be the trade that provided much-needed income in a town that seemed to have so little work for its inhabitants.
‘Rosie says she doesn’t mind that I came to find you, but what do you think?’
‘She might mind more if I’m under her feet for the fortnight and driving her mad.’
‘My engagement and wedding rings came from the late Mr Philips’s shop. He was such a charming man. I went back there and bought a hip flask for Gerald and had it engraved.’
‘And you want to know who killed him?’
‘Obviously it’s being investigated. It’s not up to me.’
‘But…?’
He licked his hand where melting ice cream had trickled. ‘I hate not having a clue what’s going on. For obvious reasons I can’t ask Marcus. He wouldn’t tell me anyway.’
Suddenly I heard a familiar voice call my name. I looked round.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Someone just called Kate – obviously they didn’t mean me because no one here knows me.’
‘I didn’t hear anyone call.’
I did not add that the voice sounded rather like Alma’s, and that was why I looked all around the crowded beach, but she was not there. Either I had imagined it, or she really did have the power to send astral messages. If so, I wished she would keep that talent to herself and not use it on me.
Sykes took a lick of ice cream. ‘About Chief Inspector Charles.’
‘What about him?’
‘Did that shipboard romance of his come to anything?’
‘How do you know about that?’
‘Didn’t you tell me?’
‘Certainly not, so how do you know?’
He took another lick. ‘Good ice cream.’
‘Don’t be annoying. Who told you?’
‘I happened to bump into your father. He’d heard something about it turning sour.’
I nearly tumbled over a sandcastle, destroying some child’s carefully made parapet. Fortunately the child had left the beach. ‘Are you and Dad discussing me?’
‘No, of course not. We never mentioned you. I just happened to see him one day, near the Town Hall when he was attending a meeting. He took a shine to Marcus when he was up here.’
‘So did I, for a while. But what’s Dad’s interest in Marcus’s private business?’
‘You’d have to ask him.’
Several thoughts flitted through my mind and I would have been better off without them. If Marcus was deeply unhappy and his shipboard romance really had turned sour, he might enjoy making me pay for turning down his proposal of marriage. The other thought was even more unsettling. Was Jim Sykes reporting to my dad on how I was getting on? In spite of everything I’ve achieved, there is nothing much to be done when men believe they have a woman’s best interest at heart and collude behind her back.
Now I was really curious. Had Marcus come back married to the woman he met on board ship? Sykes knew something, I could tell. He was waiting for me to ask. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
The four of us went back to the cottage on Martins Row. Sykes, Mrs Sugden and I needed a strategy. Mrs Sugden seemed content with the idea of coming to Whitby, especially if there would be something useful to do, i.e. ensure that I was not arrested and that we safeguarded Alma the prophetess.
By tacit agreement, Rosie Sykes was taken into our confidence. The four of us sat round the kitchen table in the cottage and I told them everything that had happened since my arrival in Whitby, including the attack on Mr Cricklethorpe.
‘And that’s where I’ll be staying, where this attack happened?’ Mrs Sugden made a fist.
‘Not if you don’t want to,’ I assured her. ‘I’m sure we can find somewhere perfectly clean and tidy that provides good meals.’
Mrs Sugden’s jaw tightened. ‘No thug will put me off. I’m only sorry I don’t have a lethal weapon to hand.’
Rosie had said she would keep quiet and just listen, but she was the first to speak. ‘The police can’t really imagine you murdered that man, and with a toffee hammer.’
‘It would be a plausible weapon. The mark on his skull was small. If he had a thin skull, it would be enough to cause a haemorrhage.’
The room went quiet while Sykes, Rosie and Mrs Sugden all thought about toffee hammers in a new light.
Rosie broke the silence. ‘But why? What motive?’
I shrugged. ‘I was protecting my friend from a dishonourable association with Mr Philips?’
Mrs Sugden leaped in with her theory. ‘I have great admiration for your friend Mrs Turner’s writings, and especially her prophecies written as Madam Alma, but she could be guilty of killing Mr Philips, if he let her down.’
Sykes took out his pipe. ‘Did Mr Philips never marry?’
‘No.’
‘Why would he change his spots now?’
‘I don’t know. But Alma had high hopes.’
‘Based on?’ Sykes asked.
‘Having tea, outings.’
Sykes tapped tobacco into his pipe. ‘Perhaps your friend read too much into it.’
‘She did, according to Mr Cricklethorpe. I wish I’d prompted him to tell me more.’
‘She’ll be a suspect in the attack on Mr Cricklethorpe then.’ Mrs Sugden took out her notebook. ‘And since that’s where I’m to be staying – if she agrees – then I should be on the look-out for any little slips, in relation to that and her movements at the time of the jeweller’s death.’
‘Could Mrs Turner have attacked Mr Cricklethorpe?’ Sykes asked. ‘The way you’ve described it, there were just the three of you in the house.’
I came to Alma’s defence. ‘I’m absolutely sure she’s innocent.’
All three looked at me as though I were the innocent.
‘And would Mrs Turner have had time to attack the jeweller?’ Rosie chipped in. ‘If she found out he wasn’t serious, she may have resented having spent time on him.’
Mrs Sugden welcomed an ally in the Alma-could-just-possibly-be-guilty-of-everything camp. ‘Of course there’s Madam Alma’s Prophecies for 1927. She did prophesy some rather strange events and was uncannily accurate. If I remember rightly, she prophesied a death that could have meant Mr Philips.’
‘Well that can’t be hard, can it?’ Sykes was showing signs of impatience. ‘We could all prophesy a death and then point to one.’
Mrs Sugden did not reply. She is dangerous when in a sulk. Needing her not to go silent, I had to think of something. The prophecies were written in rather tedious rhyme. I had read them very quickly, though not as quickly as they deserved. ‘I can’t remember the detail, Mrs Sugden. Remind me about this death.’
‘Hang on!’ Rosie went to the mantelpiece. ‘I brought my copy, thinking Madam Alma might sign it for me. Here it is.’
Mrs Sugden took the pamphlet, regarding herself as the expert in this matter. �
��Well you see what I wonder, Mrs Shackleton, is this. Does your friend know more than she realises?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ll give a few examples.’
Sykes glowered. Mrs Sugden made as if not to notice and continued. ‘Listen to this. “Across oceans lone voices travel, The mystery of distance to unravel.” What do you make of that?’
‘I’m not sure. What do you make of it?’
Mrs Sugden had clearly already given the matter some thought. ‘Wasn’t there that telephonic conversation across the Atlantic ocean earlier this year? None of us saw that coming.’
Sykes pooh-poohed the idea. ‘There are lots of people who keep up with developments in these sorts of things.’
‘Is Madam Alma one such?’ Mrs Sugden did not wait for an answer.
She opened the prophecies at another page. ‘There was that big earthquake in Japan. Well, listen to this. “The world turns dark for all to wonder, Earth will quake without lightning or thunder.”’
It had fallen to Sykes and Rosie to be Mrs Sugden’s audience, Sykes impatient, Rosie in thrall. My role became devil’s advocate. ‘There’s always an earthquake somewhere in the world.’
‘True, but she wasn’t to know what would happen in the diamond rush in South Africa. None of us knew what lengths big grabbers would go to. Don’t you remember? Companies hired athletes to stake out claims? There was a picture in the Sunday Pictorial.’
‘She mentions that?’
‘She does. “Where gems sparkle feet will race, Wealth and wonder to embrace.”’
‘It does sound rather like that incident, but it could be metaphorical. There’ll always be people chasing gold or diamonds.’
‘Not all of them do it in plimsolls.’
Sykes’s patience gave way. ‘So, what is your point, Mrs Sugden? You’ve quoted a few of her rhymes but there are bound to be more that mean nothing. It’s all to do with interpretation.’
Mrs Sugden produced her trump card. ‘Whatever we call her, Mrs Turner or Madam Alma, your friend has a gift, Mrs Shackleton. If the police trouble to read her prophecies she’ll have questions to answer. Listen to this. “For greed and envy a vicious smack Steals breath from life in fierce attack.” If that doesn’t foretell the jeweller’s death, I don’t know what does.’
Death at the Seaside Page 20