The Murderess

by Jennifer Wells

  ‘That means nothing,’ I said quickly. ‘She is guilty and she says so herself.’

  ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘This letter says that she has served nine years and has a special recommendation from the prison governor. All being well, there will be a hearing in March next year in order that she be released when she has completed her tenth year!’

  ‘It will come to nothing,’ I said. ‘She has never said a word about why she did it, so no parole board in the land would see her as repentant.

  ‘But there is hope,’ he said. ‘She has been behaving well. She has been receiving visits from charitable Christians who are making her see sense. She has been studying the Bible and making handicrafts for the poor. She no longer believes that it is still 1931. She is starting to live in the present again. Her behaviour is much changed, she is beginning to talk about her life around the time of the incident – admitting that she was not in her right mind when it happened.’

  ‘She pushed an innocent woman under a train,’ I said, finally getting the door open and stepping out on to the iron mat. ‘She could never say enough prayers to excuse her of that!’

  ‘But think of her mental state, Kate,’ he said, grabbing at my arm, ‘and the trauma that the attack in the walled garden must have caused. If we can prove that your mother saw the same tramp again at the station that day, the board would know that she must have been unhinged by such a thing, they might have some leniency.’ He drew a long breath and then said slowly: ‘Your mother may even be released!’

  There was something about the childish excitement on his face, the spring in his step and the letter trembling in his hand that I found too much to bear. I no longer wanted to hide from him or avoid his questions. I let him know exactly what I thought: ‘Don’t you remember all that we had to go through because of her?’ I screamed. ‘The reporters knocking on the door, the legal bills piling up on the doorstep, the hours spent in the waiting rooms at court, the people pointing at us in the street, the whispers, the friends who no longer called, the days we spent unable to leave the Grange?’ I grabbed the letter from his hand, crumpled it up and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. ‘Our home now has a family of strangers renting the old gardener’s cottage, not to mention the unwelcome relatives who have taken over upstairs!’ I jabbed my finger in the direction of the drawing room where Aunt Audrey was no doubt listening to every word I said. ‘We have been left neither to own the Grange nor enjoy it, but to clean it and watch it decay. We went from having everything, to having –’ I waved my hand at the hallway with its worn tiles and peeling wall paper ‘– to having this!’

  Dad took the letter back out from his pocket and flattened the creases out against his chest, then handed it to me. He shook his head slowly as if he felt sad, not for the years of ruin that we had lived through but for me and how I failed to share the mad little bits of hope that he imagined.

  ‘You should try and talk to her, Kate, for she may be accepting visitors now and may, at last, reply to our letters. She might want to talk about things with someone. Go and visit her in prison. It saddens me that you have never even submitted a request to visit her.’

  ‘Neither have you,’ I said sharply.

  ‘You can be very like your mother, Kate,’ he said. ‘She too had a temper but few ever saw it because most of the time she was the kindest and gentlest of spirits. You remind me so much of her, can you blame me for wanting her back?’

  ‘Don’t you think that you have wasted enough of your life on this already?’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he said meekly. ‘I don’t.’

  I thrust the letter back at him and slammed the door behind me.

  ‘That woman should have hung!’ I said under my breath.

  *

  I walked into town and posted Audrey’s letter in the box on the old village green. Then I turned to go home but thought only of Dad waiting for me, the letter still in his hand. I considered sitting on the bench under the oak tree to avoid returning but I had forgotten my book and there was a chill in the air. The tearoom was just opening but I did not want to spend what little money I had and I had no errands to run in the high street.

  Then the number 34 bus went past on the way to meet the morning train and I remembered that the station was only a short walk away. I thought of Dad’s face, his moist eyes magnified by his thick spectacles and his body quivering with excitement, and I realised that I could not face the months of pitiful behaviour that would follow if I did not put an end to his obsession. I made up my mind and took the road towards the station. I reasoned that, if he mentioned the tramp when I returned home, I could at least tell him that I had been to the station and made enquiries and that would put an end to his nonsense once and for all. And if he did not ask me about it, I would not upset him by mentioning it.

  The road took me to the edge of the old village and through the new housing estate. It was gone ten o’clock and the curtains in the new houses were open but the windows remained lifeless and black and I imagined the throng of commuters in pinstripes and bowler hats that I would have encountered on this route just a few hours earlier.

  It was the same road that I had walked just a day ago as I had hurried to collect Audrey and Jemima from the station, but now the journey seemed to drag and I found myself questioning my sanity with every step.

  At last I saw the red halo of the underground sign and the back of the bus as it pulled away from the low brick building. I headed to the entrance, past walls which had once been plastered with garishly coloured views of Brighton and Southend and now contained sombre War Office messages about finishing your meal, digging your allotment and holding your tongue.

  The ticket hall was empty of both staff and passengers and the click of the buttons on the machine echoed hollow in the air. I purchased the cheapest ticket that I could – a single to the next stop on the southbound line, but it was not the estates and factories of Oxworth that I wanted, only access to the platform and the spot where the tramp had stood.

  I crossed the footbridge to the southbound platform and walked to where I had seen the tramp as he stood in front of the bench by the Missensham sign. On the wall was a London Underground map and a train timetable, but the man had been facing away from these, gazing across the tracks and I realised that the only thing that he would have seen was the place where I had stood as I waited for Audrey’s train – the same place that my mother had pushed a woman on to the tracks nine years earlier.

  Then I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. I had told myself that I had come to this place for my father, but Dad was a man terrified of leaving the walls of the Grange and had no way of knowing where I had spent my morning. Did this all mean that I wanted to hope for my mother’s release or that part of me believed in her innocence?

  I went to the edge of the platform and peered down on to the tracks but the blown petals that had reminded me of blood were long gone. A rat ran along the line, its fur slicked with oil and I thought it must have been carried here by one of the trains from the city as it seemed fearful of the daylight and the spindly grasses that grew between the tracks. In my mind, I could still see the ghost of the woman as she fell, but had I actually seen my mother’s hands upon her? Nine years had passed and it was only now that the doubt had returned.

  Then came the buzz of electricity flowing through the metal and I looked up to see the blunt head of the train, so close that I could discern the figure of a driver in the window of the cab.

  I felt a tug on my sleeve and I stumbled backwards as the train sped through in a blur of windows and carriages and then it was gone again, the rails sparking as it disappeared into the distance.

  I spun round to see a large man in the dark uniform of a stationmaster, his face stern and his hand still on my arm. ‘Pardon me, Miss, but—’

  ‘Sorry, yes, yes, I should have been paying more attention,’ I said, dusting myself down hurriedly, ‘but I did not hear an announcement.’

  The stationmaster took his han
d off my arm as if it was only now, with the distant echo of the train, that he was sure of my safety. ‘There was no announcement,’ he said, his manner softening a little now that he knew that I was neither mad nor intoxicated. ‘I’m afraid this is not a busy time, so we don’t usually bother.’

  ‘Why was that train going so fast?’ I said. ‘Why didn’t it stop here?

  ‘It’s just the fast train,’ he said.

  ‘The fast train?’

  ‘They don’t stop at the smaller stations like Evesbridge and Missensham. It makes for a faster journey between the Oxfordshire connections and the London stops. There are fast trains running on both lines.’

  ‘Won’t it catch up to the previous train?’ I said, anxiously. ‘The ten thirty must have barely left the platform; there can only be minutes between them.’

  ‘The slow train pulls onto another track while the fast overtakes.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, feeling stupid.

  ‘The fasts have been running for several years now, I thought everyone knew about them.’

  ‘I try to stay away from here as much as I can,’ I said flatly.

  ‘Very well,’ he said and turned to go.

  ‘Wait!’ I said, realising that I might have sounded rude. ‘I’m sorry, but could you tell me if you remember seeing a tramp here yesterday?’ I asked.

  The stationmaster tutted. ‘I’ve seen plenty of tramps here,’ he said bluntly and turned his back once more.

  ‘An old soldier,’ I said quickly. ‘One with a cap pulled down low.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss.’

  ‘He was holding some flowers, red—’

  ‘Roses?’ he said. ‘Those ones with little frilly petals.’

  ‘Peonies!’ I exclaimed. ‘You mean peonies.’

  ‘Well I don’t generally recognise flowers,’ he said, ‘but I do recognise the chap you mean. We normally kick the tramps out, you see, but this one had a ticket.’

  ‘So you know of him?’ I said. ‘Does he come here a lot?’

  ‘No, hardly ever.’ Then he paused, his brow furrowing. ‘Actually it is once a year and always with the flowers. I only remember him because I had just started in the job the first time he came, and at the end of the day, I found that he had left the flowers behind on the platform.’

  ‘He forgot them?’ I said.

  He put his hands in his jacket pockets and slouched a little as if he was no longer talking as a stationmaster but a man who yearned for more conversation than a snatched word with the guards as they passed through to other stations. ‘Back then I lived with my folks on the Sunningdale Estate,’ he continued. ‘It was my mum’s birthday, so I thought that I would take the flowers back as a treat for her but, as I passed the war memorial at the crossroads, I started to feel dishonest, so I left them there instead. The thing is, a year later he comes again, with another bunch of the same red flowers and he leaves them behind again.’

  ‘A year later,’ I said. ‘Are you sure it was a year?’

  ‘To the day, like I said, it was my mum’s birthday. That’s how I remembered.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  ‘So the same thing happens on the same day the next year also,’ he continued, ‘and I realise that maybe he’s not forgetting the flowers, but leaving them on purpose, so I started to leave them on the platform, so they get to stay at least until the cleaner comes. It don’t make no difference to me what happens to them in the end though, as long as they are gone by the end of the week when the inspector comes.’

  I had come to the station hoping to forget about the man we spoke of, but now I could no longer be sure that his appearances on the anniversaries of the murder were just coincidence. ‘How many years has he been doing this?’ I said starting to feel a little unsettled.

  ‘I don’t know, I was the first one to notice him.’

  ‘Well, how long have you worked here?’

  ‘Seven years,’ he said quietly and I realised that my question must have sounded like a demand. He took his hands from his pockets and straightened his cap but said no more.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, trying to smile. ‘Are you saying that this man has been coming here on the same date for seven years?’

  ‘Maybe longer, but you see I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Of course, thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure, Miss. If I might get back to—’

  ‘Of course,’ I said

  He started walking back to the ticket office.

  I thought of the tramp; a man who had come to the station on the same day, without fail for seven years. Or could it be longer? Could it be possible that this man knew what had happened here nine years ago?

  ‘Wait!’ I shouted, hurrying after the stationmaster. ‘This tramp, do you know where he comes from, or where he goes after he leaves the flowers?’

  ‘I don’t recall, Miss, but he has a ticket, he comes in on the train from the Evesbridge direction, then he takes the footbridge over the tracks and leaves on the next train out again. I don’t know why he bothers personally. I think he’s a bit mad, if you know what I mean, a lot of them are.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  ‘Well, he don’t come here for the warmth of the carriages, like a lot of them do. You see, most will try to spend their days on the train, drunk or asleep, feeling quite at home but, no, this one seems like he doesn’t want to be here.’

  ‘Then why—’

  ‘Because he is mad, that’s why!’ he said as if there were no other explanation. ‘He always stands in front of the Missensham sign, waiting for what, I don’t know. There’s a fast train comes through and as soon as he hears it coming, he gets a look about him like he’s seen a ghost. You just saw one for yourself; the fast trains arrive suddenly, they come at you in a wall of noise and wind. Some of these old soldiers get shell shock, don’t they? He must have seen some things, an old geezer like that.’

  ‘Yes I expect so,’ I said.

  ‘Well it’s too much for him, I think he must get in such a state that he forgets where he was supposed to be going, forgets the flowers, so every year, they get left there, under the bench.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  He nodded and walked back to the ticket office.

  I went and sat on the bench. I fancied that I could still see the tramp in his red jacket and cap, standing just in front of me, staring towards the opposite platform. Then I looked down and through the slats in the bench I saw a burst of crimson from the concrete under me. I glanced after the stationmaster but he had already started up the stairs of the footbridge. It was Wednesday, the inspector would not come until the end of the week so the platform had not been cleaned – the flowers were still where the tramp had left them.

  The track started to hiss with electricity, the sign of a train approaching. Then came the blur of windows, the rattle of the carriages and the clunk of doors opening. Passengers spilled on to the platform, chattering loudly as if the carriage had been airless and it was only now that they could draw breath. They swarmed around me in a jumble of bags, coats and clattering shoes and I could neither see the track nor hear the announcement that crackled somewhere above my head.

  Then, just as quickly as they had arrived, the passengers were gone and I watched the carriages buffeting each other as the train pulled jerkily away.

  I reached underneath the bench and picked up the flowers. They were peonies – a deep red bound with string, their stems wrapped in crepe paper and, when I lifted the bouquet, I saw that they had suffered little overnight, just a little crisping of the outer petals and a loss of firmness in the stem.

  Tucked inside the blooms was a card and I prised it gently from the petals. The writing was untidy but just about legible.

  For my darling Rosalie.

  Around me, the echo of footsteps faded to nothing.

  Chapter 5

  May 1940

  The peonies lay on the kitchen table. I stared at the small bouq
uet – the deep red of the flowers had not faded, the petals clustered in a tight knot at the centre of each bloom, with only a slight tarnish to show for a night spent on cold concrete. I did not remember picking them up from the platform nor carrying them home from the station nor taking them into the house and putting them on the table. Yet I had done all of these things without knowing as my mind raced with thoughts of speeding trains and shell-shocked tramps.

  I jumped when Dad came in and slapped his old slippers down on the table next to them.

  ‘Flowers?’ he said. ‘Are they from an admirer?’

  ‘No,’ I replied absent-mindedly. ‘They are the ones left by the tramp. They were still at the station when I got there, but it’s funny because I don’t remember—’

  ‘You went to the station after all?’ he said. ’Oh, Kate, I thought that you had forsaken your mother!’ He sat down next to me and leant forward excitedly and I wondered if he even remembered that morning’s row in the hallway. ‘So, did you find anything out?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Well not enough anyway.’

  ‘Well, something then, at least. What was it?’

  I hesitated, he was already flushed with energy, and I realised too late that I had said too much and could not take any of it back.

  ‘Oh, nothing really,’ I said, trying to sound casual. ‘Only that the tramp I saw yesterday lays flowers at the same spot on the platform on the same day every year, and has been doing so for seven years at least, maybe more, and there was also a—’ I was going to tell him about the card that had been with the flowers and the handwritten tribute to ‘Darling Rosalie’ but his breaths were already quickening, so I kept the card in my pocket.

  ‘Well it is highly likely that he was there nine years ago then too, and he would easily remember that fateful day. It is not something you are likely to forget.’ He sprang to his feet and started pacing the room as he repeated his mad theory about the tramp attack in the walled garden which had left mother traumatised enough to kill a stranger and, as I listened, I cursed myself for unsettling him with stupid information that could never come to any good. ‘…And we could have ourselves a new witness,’ he concluded after several minutes.