When Mrs Turner drained her cup, she stared at her tea leaves in a most intense fashion. She seemed to have slipped off somewhere else in her thoughts. Mrs Sugden remembered that Mrs Shackleton’s complaint had been that her school friend was slippery, couldn’t be kept on track. She might not be guilty of murder. Having met the woman, Mrs Sugden was ready to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she must have an inkling about the smuggling business.
The best way would be to pretend ignorance about absolutely everything. Make conversation and see what came out.
‘I’m sorry to ask this, because I don’t know your circumstances, Mrs Turner, but are you a widow, like my boss, Mrs Shackleton?’
Mrs Turner looked up from her perusal of the tea leaves and laughed.
‘What’s so funny, Mrs Turner?’
‘The idea of Kate Hood being your boss, and please call me Alma.’
Mrs Sugden would need to think about that. First names seemed a rather unwarranted intimacy. Mrs Sugden decided on a touch of flattery. ‘I suppose it must seem a little odd, me sitting here with you and you a prophetess and a woman of property – this fine house.’
Mrs Turner left the table for a moment, to tip her tea leaves into a plant pot. Perhaps she had disliked their message. ‘Kate was head girl, you know – at school.’
‘I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised.’ Mrs Sugden wondered if she should copy her hostess and tip her tea leaves into a plant pot, but didn’t.
‘Well, joint head girl. A rather dull girl shared the honour because Kate wasn’t entirely trusted. A lot of us girls boarded, including me and Kate. When we were in our second or third year, and we were the old hands, we’d see the younger girls, some of them so homesick they cried half the night. If they didn’t get over their misery after a day or so, Kate would do a whip round for the fare, take them to the railway station and put them on a train home. Being Kate, she managed to talk her way out of trouble.’
‘But she was made head girl.’
‘To direct her talent for helping – or interfering as some might see it.’
Alma Turner had avoided the question about whether she was a widow.
The silence stretched.
Finally, Alma said, ‘No. I’m not a widow. Felicity’s father and I have lived apart for a long time.’ She fell back on what Mrs Sugden guessed was an old explanation. ‘He is not a well man and preferred warmer climates.’
Mrs Sugden had always liked geography at school. She tried to remember whether the Gulf Stream made its way to Elgin, forming a mild oasis on the wild Scottish coast. She thought not. ‘But he keeps in touch, does he?’
‘Not regularly.’ She twisted the ring on her finger. ‘We haven’t heard from him for a long time, so long in fact that I…’
She did not finish her thought. Mrs Sugden did that for her. ‘If something had happened to him you would have heard, surely?’
‘That’s what I thought, and yet I did wonder. In fact, only yesterday I… you will think this silly.’
Mrs Sugden would be disappointed to think it silly. She had so looked forward to meeting this friend, the talented Mrs Turner, or Madam Alma when in her prophetic guise. ‘I’m sure I won’t find it at all silly.’ She suspected that she might.
‘Yesterday, when I was in my pepper pot – that’s my little place where I work on the pier – struggling to make sense of everything, I tried my automatic writing, and he came through. He is alive, though complaining about old age. Older than me, you see.’
‘That’s most interesting,’ Mrs Sugden said truthfully. ‘Did the police ask you about him when you reported Felicity missing?’
‘Not in the same terms that you have asked. Sergeant Garvin is a sensitive man in many ways. But he had previously probed about Walter. Now he seems more concerned about my sources of income, under the instruction of some horrid chief inspector.’
Mrs Sugden tut-tutted sympathetically. ‘A person’s life isn’t her own any more. There’s always some busybody wanting to know this or that. Tell me, was Mr Turner in the habit of staying in touch with you and Felicity?’
‘He would send a card to Felicity on her birthday. He put in a five pound note each time, no matter where in the world he was.’
Mrs Sugden was impressed by people who travelled for reasons other than making war. ‘And where in the world was he?’
Mrs Turner smiled. ‘Oh, Portugal at first, for a few years, and then Madeira. That’s where the cards came from. That didn’t seem so far away, but then it was somewhere in South Africa.’
‘How extraordinary that he was able to find English five-pound notes in all those places.’
‘Then it was Dublin and Belfast. I didn’t tell Kate all this because I know she’d think me a fool for not cutting him off or knocking him into shape.’
‘Goodness me, all that travelling and you living in an Elizabethan hall…’ Lost for words, Mrs Sugden shook her head at the marvel of it all. ‘And five-pound notes showering in every birthday, wherever he was in the world.’
Alma was in her stride now, distress temporarily forgotten. She leaned forward, she chuckled. ‘Believe it or not, the only place from where he didn’t send an English five pound note was Scotland. He sent a fiver drawn on a Scottish bank!’
‘Never! That’s the Scots for you. I expect it was one of their well-known banks or she might have had difficulty cashing it, the Bank of Scotland was it, or the Edinburgh Bank?’
‘No it was not.’ Alma laughed.
Mrs Sugden decided to invent some currency of her own. ‘I once had a pound note from a little bank in the midlands and I can’t tell you how many places turned it down.’
‘You are right, Mrs Sugden, you are right. Crickly – that’s Mr Cricklethorpe my co-owner of the house – changed this one for sovereigns. It was drawn on the Elgin Bank.’
‘Well, well, well.’ Mrs Sugden shook her head. ‘I am so glad I came here. And I suppose that must be a wishing well.’
‘It might well be. People do sometimes throw in the odd coin.’
‘Well then I will too.’ Mrs Sugden took out a penny. She threw the penny into the well and heartily wished that she had changed the subject quickly enough for Alma Turner not to notice she had admitted that Mr Turner was indeed in Elgin.
There were tea leaves in the bottom of Mrs Sugden’s cup and to her untrained eye they took the shape of an elephant. ‘What do you make of that?’ Mrs Sugden pushed the cup towards Alma, waited, and listened patiently to talk of a letter that would come from a relative.
Mrs Sugden walked to the plant pot and tipped in the informative tea leaves. It must be time for a change of scene. She delved in her pocket and took out the tickets for the charity bazaar. ‘Now do you fancy a walk up to this event in an hour or so, Mrs Turner?’
Mrs Turner put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, no! I’d entirely forgotten.’
‘What?’
‘Crickly and I, poor Percival who lies between life and death in a hospital bed and the matron wouldn’t let me stay…’
‘Well they don’t. They have to get on with their work.’
‘We are meant to be doing a reading in the Captain’s Room, a dramatised reading from Mrs Gaskell’s Sylvia’s Lovers.’
‘Oh dear, I haven’t heard of that one.’
‘It’s set in Whitby you see and it’s not for general consumption. It’s a special event for academic ladies from Leeds. What am I to do?’
Mrs Sugden could not at first think what to suggest. She watched as her companion went through various stages of distress, putting her head in her hands, biting her lip, pulling a face.
‘You have great talents, Madam Alma. Mrs Shackleton told me you were a whiz at amateur dramatics in school. You are an authoress, a teller of fortunes and a writer of prophecies. Just think for a moment, and I’m sure the answer will come to you.’
Mrs Sugden watched the effects of her words. At the reference to amateur dramatics and fortunes, Alma Turner’s shou
lders softened and dropped a little.
Mrs Sugden waited. Surely in such exalted company the suggestions need not come from her.
‘I’m at the end of my tether, Mrs Sugden. I can’t think.’
‘But you can recite, I’m sure, you can read. Do you have the novel to hand?’
‘Yes. The passages are marked and I have slips of paper in the appropriate pages.’
‘Then you can do it, or if you really cannot then the performance could be cancelled. People would be disappointed, but they would understand.’
Mrs Turner took a deep breath. ‘You are right. The late and lamented Jack Philips made the Seamans Mission his charity. I can do no less than play my part, as a tribute to his friendship and his memory. Wait here!’
She went inside and returned moments later with a book. ‘I will do a rehearsal. You may be my audience. If I can prevail upon your kindness, after the performance would you be so kind as to stand with a hat by the door?’
Mrs Turner took several deep breaths and did a chewing exercise, moving her lips and cheeks in a most rubbery manner, and then she began.
As she spoke, Mrs Sugden noticed a police sergeant come to the gate. He was about to step inside, but he paused, watching and listening, rapt with admiration.
At the end, he applauded.
Mrs Turner feigned surprise at seeing him. ‘Sergeant, what is it? Do you have news for me?’
‘No news yet, Mrs Turner. I came to make sure you are safe and sound and locking your doors.’
‘That’s kind. Mrs Sugden, this is Sergeant Garvin. Sergeant, my guest, Mrs Sugden.’
They exchanged how-do-you-dos.
‘I am glad you have company, and I’ll be keeping an eye. You are valiant, Mrs Turner, to go ahead with the reading at a time like this.’
She gave a brave smile. ‘Shall we go, Mrs Sugden?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not before you lock the door, ladies. I want to see you do it.’
Alma smiled. ‘You are a tyrant, Sergeant Garvin.’
‘I am a police officer, Mrs Turner.’
She locked the door.
He tipped his cap, and was gone.
The two women set off, Mrs Turner clutching the Gaskell novel. ‘I suppose it will take my mind off things to do the reading.’
‘Yes it will. I’m sure Felicity would be sorry to think of you worrying. When she comes back, you’ll be able plan how to go on. It must be difficult, living in a place that could do with an army of staff.’
‘If she comes back. For all I know she and Brendan have eloped.’
It was a pleasure to Mrs Sugden to walk towards the harbour and take in the view of the abbey. She was glad to be staying by the sea and not chugging back to Leeds on the train. ‘I did notice there was an elopement in one of your prophecies.’
‘Was there? I tend to forget what I’ve written. It doesn’t always come from me you see. I am the instrument through which the prophecies come.’
‘This prophecy concerned a boat.’ It was no surprise when Mrs Sugden saw the harbour that Madam Alma would have at least one prophecy featuring a boat.
‘Then I was more exact than I could have imagined. For all I know she and Brendan have eloped and I’ll never see her again.’
‘Oh you will. She’ll come back. There’ll be no finer antidote to romantic illusions than being cooped up in a small boat privy to another person’s bodily functions and irritating habits.’
‘She is too young to be irritated by others’ habits, except mine.’
‘Mark my words, she’ll be back quicker than she went.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Well that’s my own prophecy for what it’s worth.’
‘My powers desert me, what with the worry about Felicity and the attack on poor Mr Cricklethorpe. If only he were here now.’
‘You’ll do the reading wondrous well, I’m sure, and do him proud.’
‘Then there’s the shock of Mr Philips’s death – I had such hopes of that gentleman you see.’
Mrs Sugden could not be doing with this. Things happened. Life was unfair. There was no point in moaning about it. ‘You’ll excuse me if I speak plainly, Mrs Turner.’
Alma Turner shot her a quick shrewd look, saying, ‘You’ve spoken plainly so far, Mrs Sugden. I expect that’s why you and Kate get on.’
‘All I was going to say was this, Mrs Turner: women of a certain age, in which I include myself and Mrs Shackleton and you, we have to look to our own future.’
‘I do.’
‘Be sad for that poor man’s death, but think of yourself and your daughter. You weren’t engaged to be married to Mr Philips or any such thing. Look to your future, and your daughter’s. That house of yours could be a palace. I’m under strict instructions from Mrs Shackleton not to clean, but there is nothing to stop you from bringing in a couple of strong-armed young women to give the place a bottoming.’
‘They would want to be paid.’
‘Then pay them, or offer accommodation in return.’
‘We can’t get help locally. The house is said to be haunted. The only time there were live-in servants was when girls with no say were shipped in from a Catholic orphanage. I couldn’t be doing that.’
‘Something must be done.’
‘People always say that. I suppose human beings have said that since they were in the caves. Something must be done.’
‘You can’t wait for life to put itself right. You have to get on with it.’
‘That’s easy to say. I had such hopes. My fortune was so definite.’
‘You must help the future along, nudge life in your direction.’
‘How? I expected to be living in a bungalow at Sandsend.’
She glanced somewhere off to the north and as she did so, a thought struck Mrs Sugden. There were certain women who would always need a man to rely on, and here was one such who thought herself the half of a whole. Was she gazing north to Sandsend, or to Elgin? Wherever it was, no one would be gazing back. Here was a woman who would go on waiting. She would wait for her knight in shining armour to ride along the beach on his snow-white steed.
Mrs Sugden felt like telling her to pull up her socks and get on with it. She also felt a stirring of pity. Pity won, and then a thought struck her. ‘That nice, attentive Sergeant Garvin, is he wed?’
Alma stopped still, as if she had come up against a brick wall. ‘No. He lived with his mother, and she died.’
‘Ah, I just wondered.’ And then Mrs Sugden feared she may have said the wrong thing. Sergeant Garvin clearly had a soft spot for the prophetess but no member of the constabulary would be allowed openly to associate with a married woman, and a fortune teller.
They had turned off to the left. Lots of people were going in the same direction and just as great a number crossing the bridge. ‘My pepper pot is along here. We have a little time before my reading and I would show you inside but there’s Mr Dowzell and his wife. He’s on the Urban District Council and might suspect me of flouting the by-laws regarding Sunday closure.’
Mrs Sugden looked at the couple that Mrs Turner had indicated. He was a round, pompous-looking man. She was done up like a dog’s dinner in a fur coat that should only be worn when there was a letter r in the month.
I’m glad it’s Mr Sykes who’ll be dealing with that pair, Mrs Sugden thought to herself.
Twenty-Nine
It had not been the best of drives from Robin Hood’s Bay to Whitby. Rain pelted against the windscreen, blown by a high wind. The rain eased off as Sykes drove down the main street, heading towards the centre.
Rosie sat beside him, finely turned out in the green dress and coat that had to be called aquamarine, the making of which had turned the house upside down for a week. She peered out of the window. ‘This is Bagdale, look out for that house.’
‘You look out for it!’ Sykes’s attention was on suicidal pedestrians dashing across the road.
‘It’s there, on our right.�
�
Sykes slowed down and turned his head. He saw more than an Elizabethan house, he saw money. It was as if every leaded window reflected sovereigns. True, it was in a shabby condition but that is what a crook would want people to see. ‘I’m not a crook really. I can’t afford to fix the roof.’ Sykes, ready to suspect everyone, thought Mrs Shackleton had fallen in with a den of thieves.
At the bottom of the hill, Rosie instructed him to turn right. Since his wife had an unerring ability to make wrong guesses about direction, Sykes took the left turn.
Being with Rosie made finding the way through a strange place a simple business. He would simply do the opposite of whatever she suggested.
‘You could be right,’ Rosie said, as the crowd thickened.
‘Well I’d better stop or I’ll be mowing down the population.’
Sykes parked the motor. They climbed out. This was a strong-smelling spot that on weekdays must be the open-air fish market.
A gull perched on a covered stall watched them. ‘It’s Sunday,’ Sykes told the bird. ‘You’ll have to do your own fishing today.’
In reply, the gull flew across to the car and left a message on the roof.
‘Ask it where this sailors’ hall is when it’s at home,’ Rosie advised. ‘I thought it would be back where we’ve come from, and that it’d be a long low building. I pictured it in my mind.’
They walked behind an old woman in her long dress, a child on either hand. A younger man walked beside her, toddler perched on his shoulders. The little one wore the man’s bowler hat which covered its face. A little further on, people were turning left.
Rosie nudged him. ‘They’re all off to our event.’
‘You’re uncanny, love. You have a sixth sense for people’s intentions.’
‘Don’t rub it in that I fall down in the finding-my-way stakes.’
When they turned off the Pier Road, a fine brick Georgian-style building came into view with porch entrance, twin pillars and many windows.
They edged their way round the waiting crowd for a better view.
A placard outside announced:
Summer Bazaar and Sale of Work
Death at the Seaside Page 22