Star Locket

by Natalie Jane Prior

  Her father was despondent to the point where he no longer cared whether they lived or died. Their English relatives had consistently failed to answer their letters. Estée had tried to find work, but there were few jobs to be had. The hard times of the last few years had affected Ostermark no less than other countries, and she had no saleable skills. She could not sew, she was too shabby for a shop or office, and, fatal to her chances, she was not a native Ostermarkan. Francis Sinclair may have found her accent strange, but if she sounded like a foreigner to his English ears, she equally could not pass for a local in Starberg. It was as if she hovered in limbo somewhere between the two countries, in reality belonging to neither one nor the other.

  Now she had to explain to her landlady why she must yet again fail to pay the rent. It was hard to imagine a worse excuse than having been put in prison, and as she approached the house, Estée was further dismayed to see a policeman standing outside the door. A few other people were gathered around him, mostly neighbours, or passers-by drawn by the whiff of crisis. Her first instinct was turn and run away, but she told herself sternly not to be ridiculous. There was no reason for the police to have come looking for her. In fact, it was clear there had been an accident, for as she drew nearer Estée glimpsed one of the narrow-wheeled litters which served in Starberg for ambulances. It was drawn up against the wall of the house, and there was a blanket-shrouded stretcher on the ground beside it. Someone in the house had died. Suddenly Estée had a premonition that here, at last, was an explanation for why her father had failed to arrive at the prison. She ran forward, her heart in her mouth. It could not be—surely it could not be, for the figure under the blanket was shrunken and tiny, and Jonathan had always been a huge man. Then she saw the carpet slipper sticking out from underneath the blanket, still attached to the blackened foot, and as she slipped and staggered in the gutter she began hysterically to scream.

  ‘Of course, I never wanted them here. They were nothing but trouble from the day they arrived,’ said the owner of the house to the police sergeant who was questioning her. She was sitting at the table in Estée and Jonathan’s main room, the one that was neither parlour nor dining room, but served some of the functions of both. Regular tenants would have noted that her face was whiter than usual, and that furthermore, her hands were twisting and untwisting a handkerchief in a most uncharacteristically nervous fashion.

  ‘Foreigners,’ said the policeman. From his tone, it might be assumed that foreign residents of Starberg burst into flames and smouldered away on their bedroom hearthrugs every day of his working life. ‘I know.’

  ‘The girl was half-Ostermarkan,’ said the landlady, attempting to be charitable. ‘But then, she’d been raised abroad. She used to go out of her way to avoid me, and they were always behindhand with the rent. Waiting for money from England, the girl said when I asked her; well, that’s as may be, I told her, but not a penny have I seen for all the letters you’ve been posting, and you’ll have to do something about it. That was on Saturday, and she promised to have the money for me by the evening.’

  ‘Saturday.’ The sergeant wrote the word down in his notebook, and twirled his pencil between his fingers. ‘And then?’

  The landlady shrugged. ‘She went out late in the afternoon. I saw her leave from the kitchen. Then I didn’t see her again, either with or without the rent money, and I saw nothing of the father either, until—’

  ‘This morning.’ The policeman flicked back a few pages in his notebook. ‘You sent the maid up to deliver a letter—’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘At a quarter to eleven. You heard the maid scream, and came running. And you found him—’

  ‘On the bedroom hearthrug, as you saw him.’

  ‘And you say he was quite cold—’

  ‘Stone cold,’ said the landlady, and added bleakly, under her breath, ‘what was left of him.’ As she spoke, their conversation was interrupted by an altercation on the stairs outside. There was a thud, as if people were struggling, and hysterical shouting. A girl was screaming.

  ‘It’s not true! I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you!’

  ‘Poor child,’ said the landlady, with unwonted sympathy. ‘I could hardly believe it either, when I saw it.’ Then her eyes went back to the bedroom door, and her lips pursed together, for alas, it was true, after all.

  ‘I know nothing about this,’ said Estée in a congested voice, for the umpteenth time an hour later. Her face was swollen with weeping and she felt sick and faint and cold. ‘I wasn’t even here. I can’t explain this. I can’t see how I can help you.’

  ‘No,’ said the police sergeant, looking at his notes. ‘You were in the cells at the central police court, following the riots at the opera house. You sent a letter to your father, asking him to come and help you. When it arrived this morning, he was already dead.’ He sounded slightly disappointed, as if he would have preferred Estée not to have had such an ironclad alibi. ‘His death must have happened some time on Sunday.’

  ‘But how did it happen?’ insisted Estée, tearfully. ‘People don’t just die like that, like—what’s his name? Krook, in Bleak House?’

  ‘Pardon?’ said the policeman.

  ‘A novel. An English novel. Don’t worry, you won’t have heard of it,’ said Estée, who was under no illusions as to the average Ostermarkan’s exposure to works of literature written in languages other than their own. ‘There’s a character in it who dies, who gets burned up…like my father. Spontaneous combustion.’ Her voice faltered over the words. ‘But it’s only a book. It doesn’t happen in real life.’

  ‘I admit, I have never seen it before,’ agreed the policeman. He looked at the notes on the table. He did not really believe the girl had anything to do with her father’s death, or that it could have been anything but a bizarre accident. It was strange that she had been missing from the house when it had occurred, but her story that she had been held after the opera house riot had been checked at the police court, and the landlady claimed they had always appeared a devoted pair. It was hard to imagine this girl, a mere child, being responsible for the unspeakable mess in the room next door. It had sickened the men who had been brought in to remove the body, hardened policemen accustomed to all types of depravity and violent death, while the maid who had found it had been so shocked it had been necessary for the police doctor to sedate her. The Englishman had died of indeterminate causes, and the death certificate was likely to state as much for there had been virtually no body left to examine. The real mystery lay in what had happened to the corpse. Despite the fact that the stove had gone out and there were no lamps, candles or matches, it had somehow caught fire and smouldered away, leaving a ghastly black greasy film over the walls and furniture. All that remained of the late Jonathan Merton, sticking out from the sleeves and hems of his flannel nightgown, were two blackened feet, two twisted hands, and a mass the size of an orange that might once have been a head.

  ‘Formal identification will be impossible due to the condition of the body,’ said the police sergeant, reluctantly giving up on what was clearly a useless line of questioning. ‘However, perhaps you could identify some of your father’s effects for us…’ He pulled a tin tray across the table and folded back the cloth covering it. Estée’s eyes burned, and helplessly she started to cry again. On the tray were the carpet slippers she had already seen downstairs, removed from her father’s body, and two brass buttons, heavily coated with soot.

  ‘Those are the buttons off my father’s greatcoat. And the slippers he wore around the house.’

  The policeman promptly covered the tray and shuffled his papers into a neat stack.

  ‘There are no inquests of the English type in Ostermark. The police will make a ruling and file a report. It is up to my superior officer to decide whether further investigation is warranted. Your father’s body will be taken to the mortuary. It will be released for burial when the doctor has examined it more closely. In the meantime, you will oblige us by ke
eping us notified of your whereabouts.’

  He left her, still weeping, at the table, and Estée heard him walk downstairs to the kitchen where the landlady was. A few drifts of conversation floated up to her, and she heard the street door shut. For the next half an hour she sat, alternately crying and shivering in the freezing cold room. At last, even this became too much to bear. Estée got up stiffly from the chair, dried her eyes as best she could on the ends of her sleeves, and walked downstairs.

  The landlady was still in the kitchen, going through baskets of coarse linen, which had evidently been returned from the laundry. Cabbage soup was cooking on the gigantic range. The smell made Estée feel ill. She did not think she would ever be able to look at food again.

  ‘I can’t stay here any longer. Not after what has happened. I’ve come to give notice.’

  ‘There are seventeen crowns still owing,’ said the landlady sharply. She was not without sympathy, but business was business, and there was no gainsaying the fact that these foreign lodgers had caused an enormous amount of trouble. ‘Also, that bedroom must be cleaned. I won’t be able to re-let the rooms while it is being done; in fact, it might be some time before I am able to re-let them at all—’

  ‘My father had clothes,’ interrupted Estée. ‘There was a winter coat with a fur collar; it was worth a lot of money.’ As she spoke, it occurred to her that Jonathan had actually been wearing this over his nightgown when he died; she went on, hurriedly, ‘He had a fur hat, too. And a big metal trunk, full of all his other things. He won’t be needing them now. I’m sure when they’re sold I shall be able to pay you all you’re owed.’

  ‘You were going to pay me last Saturday,’ said the landlady unkindly. ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me you’ve lost the money.’ Then she relented. ‘All right. Sell his things, find somewhere else to live. But your own belongings stay here until you’ve paid your bill in full.’

  She followed Estée to the front door, to make sure she took nothing with her she was not supposed to. As Estée left the house, her father’s fur hat buttoned securely into her coat, she heard the great cathedral clock strike three.

  She had been an orphan for just over three hours.

  The crowd that had been attracted by the disaster had dispersed with the ambulance and the police officers, and Castle Street was well nigh empty again. Estée put her head down against the cold and walked to the far end, where a wider thoroughfare led to the cathedral, the meat market, and the old university quarter. As she turned the corner, a soft hand came down unexpectedly on her shoulder.

  ‘Miss Merton.’

  Estée jumped. Though heavily accented, the voice had spoken in English. It was a language that was virtually unspoken in Starberg, and as she turned she was amazed to see a woman with red hair standing in front of her. Red hair. She could not remember the last time she had seen a red-haired person. The hair was scraped back high on the back of the woman’s head in a tight bun, and she was wearing two or three thick shawls wrapped around her shoulders in the local manner. It was not a fashion affluent people affected, yet it was more than improbable that a poor woman here should have learned any language but her own.

  ‘What do you want?’ Estée spoke in Ostermarkan. It was a bad area, and she did not know many people outside the building where she lived; any stranger, even a woman, was automatically untrustworthy. All the same, there was something about this woman’s face that struck a chord with her. The colouring was alien, but the high forehead seemed somehow familiar, and she had clear, attractive, blue-green eyes. When Estée spoke, she smiled, and Estée saw she had beautiful teeth.

  ‘Wonderful! You do speak Ostermarkan. I hoped you might: it has been so long since I lived in England I no longer speak English very well. Miss Merton, my name is Mrs Michael Barker. I doubt it will mean much to you, but I am a relative of sorts on your mother’s side. She used to call me Cousin Bridget.’

  ‘Barker is an English surname,’ said Estée. ‘My mother never mentioned any English relatives.’ She made as if to walk on, but Bridget Barker’s hand came down again upon her arm. The grip was not a tight one, but there was enough firmness in it that Estée halted in her tracks. She began to feel slightly frightened. There was no other way out of Castle Street, and it was not the sort of place where people readily came to rescue anyone who was assaulted. She backed up against the wall of the nearest house and, somewhat to her surprise, Bridget let go of her arm.

  ‘Please don’t be frightened. I am here to help you, not harm you; but you must trust me and believe what I say. I am not English myself. My husband’s father came from England, and I lived there for a time when I was a child. My maiden name is van Homrigh; we are connected to your mother’s family, the Triers, by marriage. Did your mother never speak to you of us?’

  ‘Never,’ said Estée. ‘She hardly ever mentioned her relatives. Only her parents, and a sister.’

  ‘Her parents were Peter and Amelia Trier,’ said Bridget. ‘And her sister is called Esther. You were named after her.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Estée shortly. ‘I was named after her, and then they had a big argument and never spoke to each other again. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got things to do—’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Bridget. ‘Miss Merton, I think you will hear from Esther Trier very shortly. I don’t know what your mother may have told you, but you must know such a meeting will not be to your advantage. That is why I am here. I want to help you, to keep you safe, but I can’t do that unless you are willing to trust me.’

  ‘Trust you?’ expostulated Estée. ‘I don’t even know you. Besides, if you wanted to help, why didn’t you come forward before? When my father and I had no money, and were about to be turned out on the streets?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Bridget. ‘I realise how it must look to you, but the simple fact is the…family didn’t know you were in the city. If we had, we would have done something long before this, I assure you. Unfortunately, there are very few of us, and our resources are stretched terribly thin. It was only when the riot happened that we realised what was afoot. It’s to do with the star locket, Miss Merton. That is why your father died. The men who killed him did not go there for him. They were looking for the star locket and for you.’

  ‘For me? Why would anybody be looking for me?’ Bridget laid a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. ‘Why don’t you come with me and I’ll explain everything properly. We can go somewhere where you will feel safe; a public building, like the cathedral, or a coffee house. The cathedral would be safer, and we would be less likely to be interrupted.’

  For a moment, it was a tempting offer. Estée found herself on the verge of consenting. Then she pulled herself together. The woman was a perfect stranger. She had no idea who she was, or whether there was a grain of truth in what she said; for all she knew, Bridget Barker might be the respectable front for a gang of thieves. Estée threw off her hand, and this time there was no resistance. ‘No. Thank you. I can look after myself.’ Without leaving an instant in which the other woman might protest, or she herself hesitate, Estée pushed past into the main thoroughfare and hurried away.

  Estée had half expected Bridget Barker to follow her, but when she reached the end of the street and glanced back, her slim, beshawled figure was still standing on the corner of Castle Street. She did not even appear to be watching; indeed, as Estée paused, Bridget turned and walked off in the other direction.

  Perversely, Estée felt disappointed. They had come to Starberg to find her mother’s sister, Esther, and Bridget Barker was the first person she had met who had actually claimed to know her. She was also the first person in Starberg who had offered genuine assistance, apart from Francis Sinclair, who hardly counted. She had said she was a relative. And she had spoken English. However well Estée spoke Ostermarkan, English was her native language, and England, a country in which she had spent less than a year of her life, was home. Her father had left it as a young man, had travelled with his family abo
ut as far as he could get from it, and spent his entire life mocking the place. Nonetheless, his mockery had taken them nowhere, and the hope of some last forgiving relative back in Leeds was now all Estée had left. Bridget Barker, with her strangely accented English and her English husband, had the potential to help her find them. And Estée had just turned her away.

  Impetuously, Estée turned around and hurried back towards Castle Street. Bridget Barker had by now disappeared, but the street terminated at the western door of the huge cathedral church of Saints Peter and Paul and there were no cross streets she might have turned into. If she had gone inside, Estée might catch her up even now.

  Estée ran through a high, wrought-iron gateway and across a cobbled yard. Until today she had never troubled to go inside the cathedral; trained by her father to have a critical eye, she had always considered the building absolutely hideous. It did not surprise her at all to discover that the interior was even worse. It was dark without being atmospheric; the stained glass was ugly, and the original High Baroque decoration, badly damaged during the Napoleonic invasion, had been repaired in an unsympathetic early nineteenth-century style that was now itself in need of renovation. Somebody was playing the organ behind a carved horror of a screen. Bach, thought Estée gloomily. She had always been vague about music, no one in her family having much of an ear for it, but such a dreary fog of sound could hardly have been written by anybody else.

  There was no immediate sign of Bridget Barker. However, it was a large building and on a cold winter’s afternoon there were not many people inside. Estée started walking along the western aisle, looking carefully at each person she passed. A few of them looked at her strangely. At one point a man in a cassock came up to her and shook a collection box in her face. Estée started and shook her head. He did not trouble her again, but the incident rattled her, and as she reached the end of the centre aisle without success and turned back along the eastern side, the tears she had been suppressing all afternoon suddenly welled up in her eyes again. Estée began to cry, not in a discreet fashion, as befitted her surroundings, but loudly and immoderately, until it was soon impossible to stop. She reached for a handkerchief, and of course, she had none. By now people were starting to look, so she blundered into the nearest pew. Unfortunately, it was occupied.