The Dead Woman Who Lived

by Endellion Palmer

  Jean looked over at her friend, nodding.

  “My boys loved her from the start,” continued Daphne. “She got on marvellously with my lot. I always thought she’d make a good mother when the time came. She got on with all of them, although Charlie was the one that really fell in love with her. Well, him and…”

  She tailed off in some embarrassment. Alistair saw the quick look that the women shared and leaned forward, unwilling to let it slide.

  “Jamie Evans?” he asked. “I had heard that they got on well together.”

  Jean was quick to jump in, her eyes solemn. “There was never any impropriety, Mr Carr,” she said, shaking her head. “And no gossip or anything around the subject.”

  That meant a great deal. If there had been no gossip, then it meant that there had been nothing to see. It wouldn’t take much to set the local grapevine abuzz.

  “But, yes, she and Jamie hit it off splendidly,” continued Jean. “Having no siblings and going away to school meant that she had missed out on that side of family life growing up. For Juliana, finding Jamie here was like finding a brother. That was how she saw him, I believe.”

  “She got on well with Damaris, too,” put in Daphne. “There was no animosity between them on that score, Mr Carr. You know, I almost wonder if Didi wasn’t a little relieved when Juliana turned up. She had had to be the strong one in that relationship for so long. Even as children, she protected her brother. Fancy…”

  Again she broke off, and looked at Alistair with some confusion.

  “Has anyone ever told you how easy you are to talk to?” she asked.

  She swung back on her chair legs and looked at him askance across the table. She sounded almost sounded cross with herself, and Jean gave a smile.

  “She’s quite right, Mr Carr. However, in your line of work I suspect that it is a benefit. Now, Daphne, don’t get all upset. Mr Carr needs to know what was going on at that time, and you can’t leave Fancy out. She was at Trevennen, and is still there now. And although I ought not say it, still causing trouble, I suspect.”

  The chair legs thumped back onto the floor with a clatter as Daphne pushed her chair further from the table and folded her arms.

  “Fancy Evans can be a difficult woman to get along with. If it was Fancy whom someone had attempted to push over the cliff, the police would have come straight to me, I’m afraid,” she admitted. “We have never got along very well. I had no time for her from the moment I moved to the village, when I married Bob. The twins were about five then, and I was looking forward to having children of my own. I saw through her right away. And I’m afraid I didn’t hide it very well.”

  Jean wrinkled her nose. “She needed to be stood up to,” she said. “Bullies always do.”

  Daphne looked sad. “The worst was when the boys ran off and joined up without telling anyone. Fibbed about their ages and then came back to present their fait accompli. I’ve never seen someone so angry and yet so cold at the same time. I was angry with Simon, I admit, because I was terrified. I don’t think Jamie could feel the same way about Fancy. Fancy was angry that he had disobeyed her. And she never acknowledged how awful things were out there at the Front. She preferred not to. Stuck her pretty little head in the sand as usual. There were times I’d have willingly chucked the fire irons at her, just to get some sense into her head.”

  Jean’s mouth quirked, although she smoothed out her expression fast enough that Daphne didn’t notice.

  “I always wondered what Fancy thought about Jamie and Juliana, you know,” Daphne continued. “You’d have had to be blind not to notice how well they got on. Perhaps resented Jamie transferring his loyalty to another woman, despite her not having time for the boy herself. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had made mischief there too, with Adrien. I’m fairly sure that she did so to Juliana, over Belinda.”

  Daphne looked a little surprised at the words coming out of her mouth, and looked shamefaced. “Oh, don’t pay any attention to me,” she said. “Bearing grudges is one of my sins. Good Lord, Mr Carr, what must you think of us?”

  He smiled at both of them.

  “I think you delightfully honest,” he reassured them. “It can be difficult to get to the truth, and often the truth is exactly what is required, warts and all. It might not be pretty, but it is essential. Thank you both for your honesty.”

  At that, the kitchen door burst open and the twins burst through, accompanied by Walter Cundy. They were all covered from head to foot in damp sand, having apparently been to the beach with the housekeeper, and both women excused themselves to deal with their offspring. Alistair thanked them and took his leave.

  Chapter 15

  Alistair drove home, thinking hard. The only person he saw upon his return was Jamie, who was reading in the library. He looked up as Alistair came through the door.

  “Out sleuthing?” he asked.

  “Of a kind,” he replied. “Mind if I have a word?”

  “Of course not,” Jamie said a little nervously and went to the side table.

  Alistair settled back into his chair and lit a cigarette. Jamie poured himself some whisky, then came over and took the opposite seat. He looked at Alistair warily.

  “I know you want to talk to us all,” said Jamie. “Where do we start?”

  “Why were you all here? When Juliana disappeared,” asked Alistair.

  Jamie sat back in his chair.

  “Workmen at our house. There had been a problem with the main drain at home. Mother had finally decided to get it fixed, and the house was uninhabitable. Juliana came round one day and was horrified. The floors were up everywhere, and it was difficult to get to the front door. She suggested we all stay at Trevennen for a while. We were glad to get out, believe me.”

  Alistair nodded. That all seemed to be clear. It had been Juliana herself who had invited the Evans family to stay. They had not requested it.

  “So you and your mother and sister were here that weekend. But you went back to Plymouth the night that Juliana… fell?”

  There was a pause.

  “Yes. I left around six. Mags drove me up to the station for the six-thirty.”

  “Any particular reason you left so abruptly?” Alistair asked. He was not sure how much Jamie Evans was going to divulge without prodding.

  “I was planning on staying a few days more,” Jamie said slowly, looking over at Alistair as if unsure how much to say. Then his face cleared, as if he had made up his mind about something. “I had an awful argument with my mother late that afternoon. I was so angry with her that I left on the spot.”

  He looked embarrassed. He picked the cushion from the seat beside him and fiddled with the velvet, pulling at the fringe.

  “I regretted it all the way back. I always loved being here. Honestly, I don’t normally argue with my mother, but she had really riled me that day. I didn’t find out about Julie until the next day. Nearly collapsed on the spot when Damaris told me what was happening. Dr Abbott was there, luckily, and he was wonderful. Made me a cup of tea himself, then told me to get back to Cornwall pronto.”

  Jamie looked a little easier after this, and Alistair decided to jump right in.

  “You did the original post-mortem, I believe?”

  Jamie turned a queer colour. His eyes blinked and he swallowed several times.

  “I helped,” he said, a touch green around the gills. “The pathologist from Penzance was in charge. He had no assistant, he’d driven the last one away, so I was asked to step in.”

  “Sound man?” Alistair asked.

  Jamie managed a weak grin. “I should say not. He was a cantankerous old brute, very set in his ways, and liked a tipple. He’d had one over the eight the night before, so when he got to the morgue, he practically sleepwalked through the whole thing. Lucky him!”

  He was still a ghastly hue, and Alistair eyed him curiously. “Bad, was it?” he asked.

  “Absolutely bloody!” replied Jamie fervently.

  “But that’s
what you do for a living! And the War… you must have seen some things in your time?”

  Jamie shook his head. His eyes were dark with remembered horrors, and he fumbled for his glass, then drained it before taking a deep breath.

  “I have seen some terrible things. Lived through them. Hoped I’d get over them,” he said with a gulp, as if something hard was sticking in his throat. “Most of the time I manage. But seeing Julie’s body on the slab… well, not her body, I suppose, but we all thought it was at the time—the personal angle made it so much worse.”

  Alistair was sympathetic. It must have been hard, trying to reconcile what was left of the corpse with a woman he had been fond of.

  “Can you tell me what you found?” he said. “I hate to ask it of you, but I’d like to hear it from someone who was actually involved. Help me… I hesitate to say ‘flesh out’ the autopsy report, but you get my meaning?”

  Jamie nodded. The whisky had helped, his face a more natural colour, and Alistair poured some more, taking a glass for himself too. Jamie took another gulp and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Alistair noted a neatly mended patch by the cuff of his shirt.

  “What made you believe it was Mrs Creed?” asked Alistair. “I mean, apart from the fact she was missing. There must have been something concrete.”

  Jamie shuddered.

  “The… the body had been in and out of the water for quite some time. Caught up in rocks, they thought, after being bashed around the coast for a while. You’ve been to the cliffs, seen the beach, haven’t you? Apart from that tiny patch of sand, there’s nothing but bloody rocks along the coast here, caves, blow-holes, not much that isn’t solid stone between the towans and the harbour. Given the weather we had during that spell, and the time she’d been underwater, it’s a miracle there was anything left at all.”

  “What was left? Or if it’s easier, what was missing?”

  Jamie snorted. He closed his eyes, and started to list what he remembered.

  “Her eyes were gone. Most of her teeth were missing, and given that and the state the rest of her face was in, it looked like she had fallen head first onto the rocks from a substantial height. All the damage consistent with the initial fall and then abrasion from the local rock. Her right arm was missing from below the elbow, fingers gone from the left. Most of the toes too. Bloody crabs had been at her at some point. There’s not much gets past a crab when he’s hungry.”

  He paused and lit another cigarette, sucking down on it so hard the tip sparked. He held the smoke deep inside for a long moment, then grudgingly blew it out.

  “Haven’t touched one of them since,” he said. “Just the thought makes me want to be sick.”

  Jamie continued with a sad shrug of his shoulders. “Most of the evidence pointed to Juliana. The hair, the skin, the height and build were all right. The teeth that remained were all whole, no abnormalities or stoppings or anything like that. The thing that clinched it for everyone was the fracture.” Alistair nodded.

  “I understand she had fallen from her horse a month or so before?”

  “Yes, Juliana took a tumble when Honey balked at a stream. It wasn’t a bad break, as things go. Left arm, fracture to the ulna. Uncle Bob fixed her up with a cast and a sling. It had only been taken off a short time before she went missing. The body from the bay had a similar break. It was enough. Given the findings, and the fact that Juliana was the only person missing for a hundred miles that fit that general description, she was declared dead.”

  He took a deep breath. “Not by Adrien, by the way,” he added quickly. “But the coroner and Joe Vercoe and Uncle Bob all agreed it must be her.”

  “And you? Dr Medbury?”

  “Medbury wanted to get back home to his bottle. He’d have agreed that it was Queen Mab herself if it got him out of there. As for me… Alistair, I didn’t want it to be her. But after the PM, I gave up hope.”

  Alistair was sympathetic. He saw the unease on his companion’s face and paused for a moment, then pressed on, watching Jamie carefully.

  “Dr Sinclair came up from Penzance today. He took another look at our mystery girl.”

  Jamie looked more than a little surprised. “She’s been exhumed?”

  “William Saxby was arranging for her to be moved, and I thought it provident for someone to have another look.”

  “Good idea,” said Jamie, although he didn’t look like he meant it. Alistair was silent and Jamie looked over quizzically.

  “And?” he asked. “There’s something you are not saying, isn’t there?”

  Alistair watched him closely. “There was a discrepancy over the fractured arm,” he said, then paused before dropping his bombshell. “And the hyoid bone was crushed.”

  Jamie looked at him and paled beyond anything he had managed before. “Dear God” was all he said, resting his head on the back of the chair, his eyes closed.

  Alistair waited, watching different emotions race across the younger man’s face. Finally Jamie looked up.

  “How on earth did the old fool miss that? That changes everything, doesn’t it?”

  “You don’t think it might be natural causes?” asked Alistair.

  Jamie gave him a look of exasperation. “Do you?” he asked with asperity. “I suppose there’s an outside chance, but… no, this puts a completely different slant on it.”

  Alistair was in agreement and said as much.

  “You said earlier that no one else was missing,” he continued. “One of the main factors that led to a decision being made that it was Juliana’s body. But I thought there was a girl from one of the farms who went missing at the same time?”

  Jamie thought for a moment, his forehead wrinkled. The shadows were dark under his eyes, and he looked tired now.

  “Gwenna Black,” he said, his face clearing. “But she wasn’t missing. Ran off with some fellow.”

  A wry smile crossed his lips.

  “Bit of a flighty girl, Gwenna, but good-hearted. We were great chums when we were younger. Me, Simon and her. The first girl I ever kissed.” He paused. “First girl Simon kissed too, I think.”

  He smiled again, this time a genuinely warm one. His face lit up, the fatigue erased.

  “She was lovely, was Gwenna. Bluest eyes I ever saw. Always fun to be with. Brave as any boy. She fell out of a tree once. It must have hurt like blazes, but she never whimpered.”

  “You remained friends with her, even as you grew up?”

  “I said she was the first girl I kissed, didn’t I? I think that was when I was fifteen. We were friends right up until Simon and I left for France. And even afterwards… we didn’t see much of each other then, but when we did, we still got on like a house on fire. She was working over at Blackford Hall, near Hayle. Parlourmaid. When we were away, she changed. One moment a scamp, the next a young lady.”

  “Was she popular?”

  Jamie nodded, acknowledging the unasked question. “One word for it. You know how villages are. But she just wanted some fun, that was all. Nothing wrong with that. It was enough for most people round here, though. There was talk. One day she ran off, and that was the last anyone saw of her.”

  “When did she first disappear?”

  “About a week or two after Julie went missing, I think,” Jamie replied, his forehead wrinkling as he thought about it. “Not entirely sure, things were awful around that time and it’s all a bit murky now. Joe Vercoe will be able to look it up for you. He was in charge. Compulsively tidy man, Joe. He’ll be able to put his finger on the file in under a minute, I’ll lay odds.”

  “And no one thought the body might be Gwenna?” asked Alistair.

  He was wary. It seemed unlikely that two girls could be missing at the same time and a body only attributed to one of them without further enquiry.

  “She wasn’t missing!” Jamie said, sitting up straight. He pushed his hair back out of his eyes, and then his forehead creased again, this time with anxiety. “At least, it didn’t seem so. There were lett
ers to her parents. Why would she go to London and then come back here to throw herself off a cliff? Plenty of opportunity right there in the city.”

  Alistair nodded. It was a good point. Letting Jamie get back to his book, he drove once again into town, hoping that the sergeant was back from his wrangling over the sheep. The sky was still light as he coasted down the hill, but the sun was hidden behind a bank of thick leaden cloud hovering over the sea that threatened rain for the night. He stopped at the post office and bought cigarettes and chocolate, as well as a jotter and some new pencils.

  He was in luck. Joe Vercoe was behind his desk at the station, laboriously copying out notes into the leather-backed ledger. The tip of the policeman’s tongue was caught between his teeth as he worked. Alistair felt bad about disturbing him, but the look of relief on Joe’s face when he looked up was reassuring.

  Joe looked expectant.

  “What can I do for you, sir? My wife said you were looking for me earlier.”

  “I hate to disturb you, Vercoe,” Alistair said, but Joe only smiled.

  “Just copying out some notes while they are still fresh in my mind.”

  He shook out his right hand gently and Alistair could see some bruising along the knuckles.

  “My hand is still sore after sorting out those boys up at Crowan. I could do with a rest.”

  He gestured to the only other chair in the office and Alistair moved it over towards the desk and sat down. Joe was clearly relieved that the mysterious corpse was no longer in his vicinity.

  “I had some questions, Vercoe, about the body that everyone assumed was Mrs Creed.”

  Joe looked interested. The point was not one that had escaped him. The inhabitants of Sancreed had been agog with talk of it.

  “I thought you might,” he said. “I’m happy to help you with any information you want.”

  He was happier now that his position had been verified by his superiors and sat back with an eager look on his face.

  “The original post-mortem,” said Alistair. “It was carried out by your usual man?”