by Dan Waddell
He looked at the names and the chip on his shoulder told him there was money here. Closer inspection revealed his hunch was right. Henry Oakley was local, a brewer.
One of Hardwicke, Oakley and Parsons, known universally as Hops, a small London brewery that passed away in the early 1980s after being bought by a national brewer.
Henry Oakley was the last of the family to run the business; in fact, his retirement was the catalyst for it being floated on the stock market.
Foster fed the information back to Nigel, who told him to head to the National Archives to check out the Oakley children. He was getting nearer. He could sense it and he was enjoying the feeling.
Henrietta Oakley bore five children, all girls. Her elder brother was Henry junior. Childless, it appeared. He did not marry either. Foster went to the death indexes; in 1962
Henry junior died of pneumonia. He returned to the birth indexes, this time in search of the offspring of Kathryn Ashbourne, nee Oakley, who married in 1960.
Her first child was born in 1969. She went on to have three, after nine years of childlessness. Anthony Chapman was adopted in 1964. Would four years have been enough time for the family to have panicked? The brewery was still in their hands. The firstborn was dead, the only male.
Their elder daughter was giving birth to a string of females.
The younger was in her fourth year of marriage, no child.
Obviously the anxiety would be most keenly felt by Kathryn, who would want a child of her own. But wouldn't the lack of a male heir to a family business increase the pressure, persuade the family to take drastic action?
There was no reference to Kathryn Ashbourne in the death indexes. She was still alive.
Next was the National Newspaper Library at Colindale. The Times had run a detailed obituary of Henry Oakley. At the end it mentioned nine grandchildren. The BMD
indexes confirmed eight. He cross-referenced his information with an old copy of Who's Who, which also said nine grandchildren.
One was unaccounted for.
Foster hurtled along the M40, on his way to Clifton Hampden and the home of Kathryn Ashbourne.
He turned up a gravel drive that led to the old vicarage, which had been the family's home for the past twenty-five years. The electoral register told him the Ashbournes lived there alone, the children long gone. As he got out of the car, Foster noticed the silence. A dog barked way in the distance, but apart from that nothing. It always made him feel edgy. He was a city boy -- he needed the background thrum of the city, and the lack of noise made him feel uneasy.
He went to the side of the house and saw a portico entrance. He rang the doorbell. No answer. He rang again.
Please let them be in, thought Foster. Just as he was about to give up he heard the sound of footsteps. A latch was dropped and the wooden door swung open, revealing a tall, proud and still-handsome woman in her late sixties.
'Mrs Ashbourne?'
'Yes, I'm Mrs Ashbourne,' she said in soft yet clearly enunciated tones.
'Sorry to disturb you at home. I'm from the Metropolitan Police. May I come in?' He flashed his ID.
The woman's pale ivory skin appeared to blanche further.
'Oh, no,' she said, panicked. Whatever's happened?'
'Nothing to be alarmed about, madam,' Foster explained softly. "I just need a quick chat, if you have the time?'
'Yes, yes, of course,' she replied, and ushered him in.
The house was silent, apart from the sonorous tick and tock of a large grandfather clock. They went through a reception area into a drawing room. The windows at the back looked out on to a vast and well-manicured garden.
She gestured him towards a sofa while she went and made tea. After five minutes of oppressive silence, just the sound of his breathing and the solemn ticking of the clock, she returned with a tray replete with teapot, jug of milk, sugar and cups with saucers.
'Is your husband around, Mrs Ashbourne?' Foster said, accepting his tea.
She shook her head. 'No, he's retired but he spends a few days a week as a non-executive director for some companies up in town. There's a meeting today. He's due back around four.' She glanced at a wall-mounted clock. It was just gone two.
She heaped two sugars into her tea and gave it a vigorous stir. Then she sat down, perched on the edge of the chair. She seemed fit and active. Foster guessed the immaculate garden was her doing. He also wondered at her resolve. He had been in the house for some time and not once had she asked the reason for his visit.
Are you here about Edward?' She took a sip of tea.
'Your husband?'
Yess, my husband, Edward.'
'No.' Foster took a sip of tea. It was scalding hot. The woman must have asbestos lips. He put it back down on the table. 'It's quite a delicate situation, to be honest.'
'Oh. Really?'
'I'm sorry, there's no way for me to do this without being blunt. I apologize in advance.' He paused. 'Did you adopt a child in 1964?'
She said nothing. Just stared at him without blinking.
Then she took a sip of tea before she glanced down at the floor. 'So it's about Dominic,' she said quietly.
Yes.'
She sighed. Her face no longer appeared proud. She looked sad, almost broken, as she nodded her head. 'I suppose deep down I've been waiting for this day for a long time. What has he done?'
We just want to speak to him in relation to a case we're working on,' he said.
'Is he in trouble?'
We don't know. But we need to speak to him. Are you in contact with him?'
She shook her head. Her eyes were beginning to well.
'Not for a while. Quite a while, actually.'
Why?'
She turned her head and stared sadly out of the window.
The sun had just broken the clouds. It appeared to galvanize her. "I was desperate for a child, any child. My father was desperate for a boy, an heir for the family business.
It seemed the easiest option. It didn't turn out that way.' She folded her hands in her lap.
Why not?' Foster asked.
'He was always a difficult little boy. He didn't sleep much and he seemed to have a real anger within him. I loved him, though. My husband wanted little to do with him -- he was never that sold on the idea in the first place, so when this cross little child turned up and kept us awake all hours he became even less enamoured with it all. It nearly forced us to part. Fortunately, I became pregnant and we had our own son, then another, and then a girl.
And Dominic? Well, Dominic just got squeezed out of our affections, I'm ashamed to say.'
'In what way?'
We sent him to boarding school very young. Too young, in hindsight. He didn't tell us but it turned out he had a wretched time there. In the holidays he was sullen and uncommunicative. I did try but my husband could barely stand to have him around and treated him quite harshly.
Dominic seemed to be so full of resentment. I don't blame him for some of that, and I accept my fair share of the blame in making him that way, but he became impossible to deal with. The only person he seemed to get on with was our daughter. She liked him. The two boys and he fought constantly. Eventually he left school and he didn't come home any more. There was the odd letter. I sent him money once. We had one or two calls from the police. Nothing serious.'
'Do you have an address or any idea where we could find him?'
'No. The last I heard, eight or nine years ago, he was up in London. He wasn't married. He changed his surname a few times, so I heard.' She turned to the garden once more. 'I do hope he hasn't hurt anyone.'
To ease your guilt? Foster thought. He felt a twinge of sympathy for the poor sod. Given away by his parents, adopted by a new family and then cast aside and rejected when they had a son of their own. Unloved and unwanted.
Runt of the litter. He thought of the daughter he'd never met. The child he never wanted in the first place. He was in no position to judge.
'Do you know anyon
e who might know of his whereabouts, Mrs Ashbourne?' he asked.
The old woman gave it some thought. Her eyes were red and ringed now with great sadness. 'I could ring Clarissa, my daughter. I wouldn't be surprised if they were in touch. She did tell me a few years ago that he was living in Barking. Would you like me to call her?'
'If you wouldn't mind, thanks,' Foster replied.
She left the room.
It's like a textbook on how to screw up a child, he thought.
A few minutes later, Mrs Ashbourne came back into the room. 'Clarissa hasn't heard anything since the last time she told me he was in Barking.'
Where Leonie and Gary lived, he thought. 'She doesn't have any numbers, or an address?'
'No,' she replied quickly, almost snappily. She composed herself. 'Sorry,' she said. 'This sort of news hits one very hard.'
Does it? he thought. After hearing her story, his reserves of sympathy were low. 'I better be going.' He rose. 'Thanks for your time.'
He knew where he needed to go next.
She was aware only of the putrid smell of the sheets and the ticking clock in the corner. Counting the last seconds of her life. She felt alone and so far from her home. Her dreams were all about the open fields and the empty skies, the crisp winter mornings and the long, hot summers that seemed never to end. But mainly they were filled with the look of her mother, the creases at the corners of her eyes and the soft smile. Except in the dreams those laughing eyes often frowned.
And those screams, those awful screams.
This city had been a place to live but it had never been home. For her two daughters and their families it was. They would never know the joy of living from the land like she had.
The doctor had been. She had fallen asleep but it was clear she was dying. The vicar was on his way to administer the last rites. At least there will be the comfort of the Lord, and the chance to be reunited with Horton. Maybe up there -- and she had prayed every night since his death that their sins be forgiven and they be allowed to join Him in his eternal kingdom -- they might find other ways to be redeemed.
That could only happen in the arms of the Lord. Down here, there was damnation. She must find a way to warn the little girl.
Hours slipped by. It could have been days. She half-remembered the vicar sitting by her bed, his hand on hers. He was a good man.
She had found a good church. They would get what little she had, unlike those two ungrateful, godless daughters of hers. Isaac was a good boy. She knew he would be up there one day, and she longed to see him. The other two could rot in the other place.
But not the little girl. She needed to be saved.
She woke with a start, gasping for air before she settled. It was almost a disappointment. Death's warm embrace seemed a better option than the cold spare room at her daughter's. It was morning.
Was it? It didn't matter. The same dreams. Her mother's soft face and her anger. Those gut-wrenching screams . . .
The sheets had been changed. The window opened. Someone had been. Emma, she presumed. It was then she noticed somethingfrom the corner of her eye. On the chair, eyes wide, sat little Maggie. Her legs were swinging ever so slightly but when she caught her grandmother looking at her they stopped. 'Hello, Grandmother,' she said weakly in her sing-song voice.
She tried all she could to muster a smile. Bless her. Sarah stretched out her hand and with great effort beckoned the girl closer with a bony finger. The child got up and walked across the room. Sarah gestured for her to come even closer. She could hardly raise her voice beyond a hoarse whisper and she wanted her words to be heard.
'You're a good girl,' she wheeled and she clasped her clammy hand around the little girl's. She held it therefor a few seconds, perhaps longer. Time ceased to have much meaning.
She opened her eyes. Maggie was still there, eyes wide, unblinking.
Sarah felt a bolt of pain sear up from her chest. The shot the doctor had given her was wearing off. She groaned. She was so weak. The end was soon. The little girl stood back.
The pain eventually subsided. She opened her eyes and beckoned Maggie in once more.
'They will come,' she said. 'They will come for you like they came for your grandfather.' She sucked in some more air. The little girl stood transfixed. 'By my bed, there's a box. Get it.'
The girl rooted around.
In the cupboard,' she gasped.
The little girl found it.
'Put it on the bed.'
She did. Sarah fumbled with the lock and the combination. It was exhausting but eventually she opened it.
'Look at it.'
Maggie peered in.
'Pick it up,' she hissed.
She held it in her hands. The photograph the police said was on Horton's broken body when it was found crushed on the road. Killed by an omnibus, they said. She knew different. They had found him and murdered him. The police gave her his belongings and the photograph was among them. She recognised the man with the spade.
Even the burned-out buildings. She went home and cleared out their things and moved away immediately. They had not yet found her, but she knew they would never stop looking. Whether she was alive or dead they would come for her kin. The rest could take their chances but the little girl must be warned and she must be told.
Maggie's hands were shaking. She stared at the picture, appalled.
She was terrified, poor mite. But it was the only way. She would thank her later.
'Some of them were no older than you,' she said.
She closed her eyes. Another stab of pain. She groaned again.
When she reopened her eyes the little girl was still holding the picture, her face leeched of all colour. How long had she been staring at the awful picture of slaughter? Long enough, she hoped.
The and your grandfather were responsible for that,' she whispered, a rattle in her throat. 'May the Lord forgive us! It was an accident, I swear. But the kin of those poor souls burned alive will come for atonement and nothing will stop them. Nothing! Not even my passing. Save yourself my sweet. Get yourself safe.' She sucked in air. Never, ever have children. For as sure as the sun rises and sets they will keep looking and they will seek atonement; all those who stem from my loins will be killed and baptised into the faith.
Protect yourself as if from the Devil himself! When you sleep, they will scour the earth for you. All in the Lord's name. Hide yourself!
They will never relent!'
When she next came to, the girl had gone. The photo was lying on her chest, the box by her side. She placed the photo back inside and locked the box, then wrapped her arms around it and held it to her chest. She would take it with her. There was no more to be done. She had done her duty to her granddaughter.
It was now in the wounded hands of the Lord.
The sky was darkening. A light rain fell, the angry clouds pregnant with more. Foster stood on a grimy yet quiet backstreet in Bethnal Green, staring at the door of number 17. A phone call of his own to a telecommunications contact gave him the number Mrs Ashbourne had dialed -- that of her daughter's, or so the old woman had said. It was ex-directory, but belonged to this terraced house, the stone bricks still flecked with soot from the days of coal-burning, industrial grime and pea-soup fogs.
He ambled up the path. Darkness and silence. No one there. In the distance he could hear the ratde of trains on their way into Liverpool Street and the bustle and noise of Bethnal Green Road. But on this innocuous side street there was nothing.
He turned away from number 17 and went next door.
No one in. The same with number 13. At number 11, light peered out from behind the curtains and he could hear the muffled noise of a television. He knocked. The door opened almost immediately. A teenage girl, a sneer of contempt and boredom on her face, still in school uniform, stood there.'
What?' she said.
Charming, he thought. Must be the famous East End hospitality he'd read about. 'Is your mother home?'
'Mum,' she
screamed, and went upstairs leaving the door open and Foster on the threshold.
What?' an impatient voice cried. A woman in a pair of slippers emerged from a room at the back -- a kitchen, presumably, given that she was wearing lurid yellow washing-up gloves. She looked angry. 'Yeah?'
'I'm fine, thank you.'
You what?'
'Never mind. Number 17, the lady who lives there.'
'Lady? Number 17? Not any more.'
'Really?'
'Yeah, old Edith passed on a few years back.'
'Edith?'
'You deaf or summat?'
'So who lives there?'
'Some posh bloke. Not in, is he? Nah, he never is. Think he must have another place somewhere else. He comes and goes but keeps himself to himself. It's changed a lot round here recently, people from the city moving in, prices going up. I can't complain because we moved in seventeen years ago, so I'll have done all right when the kids leave and I sell up. Why you interested?'
'Just a courtesy call,' he said.
He thanked her and she closed the door. A second later he heard her bawl at her daughter to get her bloody arse in gear, now.
He walked back down the street, mulling over what the woman had said. At the door of number 17 he stopped, looking up at the house, still in darkness. Nothing moved.
Then, inside, a phone rang. It continued to ring. Then stopped. Too short for an answer service to kick in. He thought he might have heard a voice but wasn't sure, given the background noise. There was a doorknocker. He grabbed it then pulled it back, letting it thud heavily against the door.
There was a thump from within. A door shutting, perhaps? It was more muffled than that. He stepped back and looked at the houses on either side. No, it had definitely come from number 17. What was it, though?
He went to the front window. It was slightly ajar, perhaps ten inches or so. Curtains blocked any view into the room. From inside he swore he heard another noise.
Someone was in. He went back to the door and was about to let go of the door knocker when he heard another noise. A voice this time?