The Lamplighters

by Emma Stonex

  —He’s alive.

  —You believe your husband and the men he was with escaped the tower?

  —Yes. Something got on there with them and took them away.

  —Such as the person mentioned in Mike Senner’s report?

  The woman had a round face and heavy eyelids, with a posture that was somehow both alert and bored, like an owl in a petting zoo, unimpressed by passers-by.

  —The place has a bad atmosphere. Bill said it a lot.

  —Between the three of them?

  —No. Just in itself. Like bad things have gone on there.

  —Things Bill did? Or one of the others?

  Jenny swallowed. Her throat hurt. Everyone assumed Mike Senner was lying, and maybe he was. Mike was known for telling tales as a way of getting attention for himself, and good sense told her no one could land on a tower without Trident’s say-so. But he had seemed so sure. He promised he’d been the last to see them. He said Bill told him they’d had a man on there with them. Wasn’t that important? Didn’t it matter?

  If she admitted she believed Mike’s account, they’d put a cross in her box. They’d go through her stores, her bins. Her household cleaning receipts.

  —That’s not what I mean. Things get stuck. Trapped. There isn’t enough room on a lighthouse. Everything’s cooped up.

  —Are we talking about ghosts?

  —Not a sheet with eyes cut out. Just what I said, an atmosphere, a bad atmosphere. Some lighthouses have it in them. Look at Smalls.

  —What about Smalls?

  She’d heard the story from Bill about what happened at Smalls Lighthouse, off the coast of Wales, last century. In those days the stations went two-handed, only a pair of keepers on them at a time, and a few weeks in one of them died in an accident. Everyone knew those two didn’t get on, so the one left behind grew worried he’d get done for murder if he got rid of the body. So, he decided to sit it out and wait for all the time to go until the relief. The thing was, after a while, he couldn’t stand the smell. All he could do was build a coffin to hang off the lantern, but as soon as there was a gale it blew right open, and the rotting corpse was there with his arms hanging all over the place. Every time the wind gusted, the dead man’s arm hit the top of the tower.

  Bill said it must have looked as if the man was beckoning. The dead one saying to the living one, come on, beckoning him to join him. It started to get inside his head. Made him lose his mind. Ships passed off in the distance; they saw this man waving; they didn’t think anything was wrong, so they never came. At the end of it, the living keeper wound up worse than the dead one. He’d had to listen to that rapping sound all day and night, tapping on the window, asking to be let in. By the time he came ashore he was a wreck, plagued by nightmares and the haunting whistle of the wind.

  The owl sat straighter, but still with that blank, placid expression.

  —That’s an interesting story.

  —That’s all this is to you, isn’t it? A story.

  Doubtless Jenny looked mad, her hair unbrushed since Saturday, same clothes as yesterday and anyway the shirt was Bill’s. It smelled of him. Of bark and sweat.

  —Helen next door says they drowned.

  —She would. She’s a liar. You’ll find out.

  —A liar?

  —It’s criminal her saying that. She’s the PK’s wife. She ought to have more loyalty, making it sound like they didn’t know what they were doing. When Bill gets back, he’ll be pleased I kept my trust in him and didn’t say it was down to the fact he couldn’t do his job.

  —Helen led us to believe it’s a supportive atmosphere in the cottages.

  —It was.

  —Was?

  —Are you going to repeat every bloody thing I say?

  —There were two stopped clocks on the tower, Jenny. Both were stopped at quarter to nine. Did that time have any special significance to Bill?

  —No.

  —To any of you?

  —No.

  —You don’t know? Or it didn’t?

  —I don’t know. Both. Either.

  —Helen suggested the batteries had gone.

  —Had they?

  The woman had the courtesy to look self-conscious.

  —Unfortunately, we weren’t able to verify this. Both batteries were in place but there’s a chance their points were reversed. The search crew Trident sent removed the batteries and replaced them. Then they couldn’t be certain.

  She had a flash of Bill flailing in the waves. He couldn’t swim.

  —Something was on that lighthouse with them. And before you say that’s mad, it’s not half as mad as saying two perfectly good clocks conked out at the same minute on the same day.

  —The alternative would be that one of the keepers stopped the clocks.

  —Why would they do that?

  There was a knock at the door. An assistant brought in two cups of brown liquid that resembled the thin gravy they served at the carvery in Mortehaven. Jenny had a memory of Bill before they were married, taking her for dinner there in his best suit.

  The smell of the coffee made her feel sick.

  —I need to go to the bathroom.

  Afterwards, in the hall, she met Carol, who offered her the baby to hold but she didn’t want him. She didn’t want to be touched by anyone except Bill.

  When she went back into the living room, the stage was still set. For the rest of their lives, this would be Christmas – the inspectors, the sausage rolls, the paper bells and balding tree. Hannah and Julia were at a friend’s house, but she couldn’t leave them there forever and soon she’d have to explain. Seven and two, they’d understand the bones of it: that they might never see their father again. Hannah might have a recollection of him, but Julia probably wouldn’t. The baby wouldn’t have anything.

  He’s coming back.

  If she thought it enough times, it might turn out to be true.

  What if it didn’t? She would have to survive each day, knowing what she’d done. It served her right. She deserved her loss.

  —We’re considering whether the men could have planned their disappearance.

  —That’s ridiculous. Bill would never do it to me.

  —Would Arthur do it to Helen?

  —That depends.

  —On what?

  —I don’t know what goes on in their marriage, do I?

  The man drank his coffee. He wrote on his pad.

  —Did your husband ever talk about Vincent Bourne?

  —Bill didn’t like talking about the tower when he was ashore.

  —It might bother some people, that Vincent had been in prison.

  —There’re worse things than stealing. It’s hardly as if he hurt anyone.

  The man watched her for a moment. Then he exchanged glances with the woman, who traced a nail the colour of pre-packaged ham around the rim of her cup.

  —Did you ever meet the Supernumerary, Jenny?

  She had met him once, coming ashore in Mortehaven, after he’d traded places with Frank. Early twenties, lanky, round shoulders. He’d had a cigarette in his mouth, hardly visible beneath a deluxe moustache. She’d been able to smell his moth-eaten Guernsey, musty, smoky, a damp, ancient smell she’d come to associate with the tower, because Bill smelled of it whenever he came back and it took days of her washing and sachets of pot-pourri in his shirt drawer to get him smelling of home again.

  —You’re right that Mr Bourne served time over the years for petty theft. However, his last spell in prison was for a rather more serious offence.

  —What?

  —I’m afraid we can’t disclose that. Such a detail could raise speculation and hamper the inquiry.

  —A detail? I’d hardly call Vince being banged up for a crime that put Bill in danger a detail. What was it? Tell me. I’m his wife. I’ve a right to know.

  —We can’t surmise that Mr Bourne’s crime had anything to do with the disappearance, or that he put anyone at risk.

  —But it’s poss
ible?

  The pair looked sorry for her. Sorry, she thought, for more than just the circumstances. They conferred for a moment then told her.

  She took a while to process what they had said, and it was like reaching the end of a TV programme and realizing you had watched it all wrong. The truth about Vincent Bourne rippled through her like a flag on the back of a ship, a lone stark flare of red.

  She wasn’t the only one with a secret.

  35

  PEARL

  —I’ll have you know it nearly killed me getting down here, a woman my age in the state I’m in. They’ve put me on blood thinners now for me heart but all they do is make me dizzy and freezing bloody cold all the time; look at me, I’m shaking! Hands like a bloody ghost, you can see right through ’em. That’s the warfarin, that is. I’d rather be having another stroke at this rate.

  —Would you like a drink, Mrs Morrell?

  —Not unless you’ve a cherry brandy, I’ll have one o’ those. And it ain’t Mrs, it’s Miz. S’pose you think a woman like me’d have a husband, don’t you?

  —I hadn’t really thought about it.

  —Well, I did once. We had a big fancy wedding an’ all. Then he went and buggered off, di’n’t he, went out to buy a pint o’ milk one morning and never bloody came back. You hear stories like that. In my case it’s true. Di’n’t even give me a peck on the cheek before he left. D’you think I should keep my wedding ring on after that? Not bloody likely. Leaving me t’ look after the baby, five months old and screaming murder at me all day and night, no, thank you very much. Thought I saw him at a petrol station in ’68, filling his car up with some tart in the front. Can I smoke?

  The man passed her an ashtray, one of those posh glass ones to be expected in an establishment like this. Pearl had never stayed anywhere like The Princess Regent, with its gigantic bed and feather pillows and ensuite bog, and the breakfasts . . . eggs and bacon, kippers and pancakes, it made a change from her usual crumpet and fags while staring out the window of her high-rise at the traffic lumping past on the A406.

  —We appreciate you making the journey, Ms Morrell.

  —You’re paying for me t’ stay in this gaff till we’re done, right?

  —Trident House wishes to look after relatives at this difficult time.

  —So you keep saying. I wouldn’t want t’ be in their shoes. Can’t say I’m surprised about any of it, t’ be honest. That boy was always set to come a cropper. He was trouble all his life and he’d carry on being trouble till the end of it. Now you’re sitting there sweating when there’s no big mystery the way I see it. Everyone’s talking about this mystery but there ain’t one. When I got that call, I thought, ah, here we go.

  —How’s that?

  —I saw it coming. Maybe not like this, I’ll grant you it’s a clever way of doing it. But I saw it coming.

  —What, exactly?

  —Ain’t that your job to find out? I di’n’t know nothing about it. Di’n’t even know he’d joined the bleeding light’ouse service. When he got out the nick, he never called or bloody came round, the ungrateful sod; I di’n’t even know he was out. It was only cos of the fact of Erica knowing this bird he started seeing. That’s how we knew.

  —He has a girlfriend?

  —Stranger things.

  —What’s her name?

  —Erica’ll tell you. Erica’s my daughter. She wanted to come but I told her no. I’m the adult in charge. I’m responsible for that reprobate whether I like it or not.

  —What did you think about Vincent working on the lighthouses?

  —Shocked they took him on, after what he did. But then I worked out he must’ve lied about it. Vinny was always a good liar.

  —Trident thought his history made him a suitable candidate for the work.

  —Ha! Now I’ve heard it all. Di’n’t they mind what he got found guilty of? Di’n’t that put ’em off? It bloody should’ve. Don’t they care who they put on these light’ouses and the sorry sods that get lumbered with him? I feel for those men, I do. My nephew’s the reason they’re gone. An’ it costs me a lot t’ say that, that he’s my nephew, cos if I had a choice I’d say he was nothing whatsoever t’ do with me, not my flesh and blood. But if you’d asked me a year ago where I saw him winding up, I’d tell you something like this.

  —Do you believe Vincent hurt the others?

  —Course. He knew what was what. Picked it up on the streets then the slammer finished the job.

  —How would you describe your nephew? In your own words.

  —Who else’s bloody words am I going to use? Nightmare since the day he was born. My sister couldn’t deal with him; she’s in her grave now. He drove her to it.

  —How old was Vincent when his mother died?

  —Thirteen. See here, before you go looking sorry for him, life don’t always come up smelling of roses. Quicker he learned that the better – ’specially when it was down to him. He had the devil in him, that boy. I said to Pam the second I clapped eyes on him, that baby’s not all there, Pamela. He had a real wrong look in his eye, he did. When he grew out of being a baby and started being a toddler, he used to beat her up. Smacked into her. Gave her bruises and black eyes. Head-butted her when she went to pick him up, or he kicked an’ hit her, and he never ate anything she put in front of him and he never slept neither, just spent all night shouting so she never got a wink o’ sleep. Pam lost her head. He got put in and out of care – how old was he then, two, three? Up on his hind legs anyway, by the time they took him away. Services came and it shook Pam, it did, but she was in no fit state. She never wanted him in the first place and that makes it harder. At least with Erica I’d wanted her, that is to say at least I was all right with having a baby. With Vinny she coped with it for a bit, but she couldn’t carry on. Not with the demon in him.

  —When you say ‘in and out’ of care, do you mean he came back to her?

  —A few times. It weren’t just Pam that couldn’t deal with ’im, it were those foster families and all; they’d keep sending him back cos he ruined their lives too. And I’d be thinking, give the poor girl a rest! She said she don’t want him, bloody well leave her alone. It just made her worse.

  —Worse?

  —With the drugs. She overdosed in the end. Fairly sure she meant to. I can’t say I blame her. It weren’t Pamela’s fault; it were his. His and his dad’s.

  —Where’s his father now?

  —Buggered if I know. Or care.

  —He didn’t help to bring up his son?

  —That’s a joke if ever I heard one. I never clapped eyes on that dirty fucking rat and let me tell you he can thank his lucky stars for that. I’d strangle him. I’d wring his bloody neck like a Christmas turkey then I’d stuff him up his arse. Pam only met him the once. She di’n’t agree to Vinny coming about, if you see what I mean.

  —I’m not sure I do.

  —He was some bloke in an alley one night who stuck it in her even though she di’n’t want it. Get it now?

  —I’m sorry.

  —Why? It’s nothing t’ do with you.

  The woman asking the questions sat back. They had obviously thought, you do the old bird, go on, you’ll have your feminine ways about you. She’ll be softer with you.

  Now the man leaned in, interlacing his fingers on the table.

  —Why did you take on Vincent after she died?

  —Sisters stick together. Last talk I had with Pam, she made me promise. She said, ‘Pearl, you’ve got to swear to me you’ll look after him.’ That’s why I reckon she meant to top herself. You’d think with having two kids they’d have got me a better place t’ live, wouldn’t you? T’ be fair that were part of it; I thought if I said yes to having Vinny, I’d get a better house. Turns out doing a saintly deed ain’t what it used to be.

  —When was his first arrest?

  —Now you’re asking. Would’ve been fourteen, fifteen? Hot-rodding cars, that sort o’ thing. Vinny got warnings off the bill but what was I
to do? I di’n’t control him. Not being funny but I was pleased when he got sent down. Borstal were a good fit cos he weren’t any good at living in the normal world but he di’n’t get on with the fosters neither. It must’ve felt right to him too – he went back enough.

  —How long was he in the borstal?

  —Few months each time. ’Cept the last time. That were just over a year, and by the way I thought he got off lightly for that. Rita’s Glen, he got six years just cos he never finished putting in some fancy bathroom in some rich punters’ house up on the Heath. You’d think they could afford to get someone else in, wouldn’t you, living all the way up there in a mansion? Without having t’ make a song and dance about it.

  —Was he ever violent towards you?

  —Glen?

  —Vincent.

  —Wouldn’t bloody dare.

  —So, you never saw evidence of violence from Vincent yourself?

  —Di’n’t have to. I saw Pam’s bruises, di’n’t I?

  —If Vincent harmed the men he was with—

  —If he killed ’em, you mean?

  —If he had, then what would he have done?

  —I haven’t a clue, mate. All I know’s Vinny had a nickname in prison. Houdini. You’ve heard of him, the escaper? They called him Hairy Houdini cos of that moustache, horrible thing he fancied himself in. Some women like it but all that scruff round the chops, it looks downright disgusting t’ me. When I saw my husband at that petrol station he had a great big beard hanging off his chin you could’ve kept a bowl o’ cornflakes in and I looked at that tart in the front seat and I thought, you can bloody well have him, love.

  The man frowned. Pearl lit another Rothmans.

  —Houdini’s after how he planned his escapes. For a boy without an education, his brain’s all right. Makes me think his dad could’ve been anyone – we thought he was one thing but maybe he weren’t, maybe he were posh, went to one o’ those big posh schools and had a big posh house and just went after a bit o’ rough one night and Pam were the lucky one. D’you know what it comes down to? Arrogance. Like father like bloody son. Vinny used to say anything you’re good at is half talent and half believing you’re the best and convincing others that you are. It’s a con. He’s a con man. He could talk his way out of anything. He could’ve escaped the light’ouse. He’d know just how t’ do it. How t’ make it look to other people just how he wanted it t’ look. How to get us thinking the wrong thing. I don’t think Vinny’s dead for a moment.