by Pat Herbert
“I think you should read some more newspapers, madam. After I was hanged.”
Anbolin folded up her knitting and put it away. She stood up and stretched her old, creaking bones.
“I have studied the press, have no fear. I know what happened to your brother and I don’t believe he was guilty for one minute.”
“That’s all you know.”
“I wouldn’t say that with any confidence,” said Anbolin, “You see, I can see right through into your dark soul. I know everything. Your thoughts are an open book to me.”
“How can you read my thoughts? I’m a ghost.”
“That makes no difference to me. I know all about you. You are evil or, more correctly, you were evil. Being dead, you can’t do any more harm. That’s something we should all be grateful for.”
Robespierre swung round on his rope in exasperation before disappearing. Anbolin left the shed with a smile of grim satisfaction on her face.
“So – did she tell you what she saw in Robespierre’s ‘dark soul’?” Robbie, who had been sitting sipping his whisky as Bernard related what Anbolin had told him after the visit to Carl Fentiman’s shed, was all agog. “She seems a remarkable old bird if she can do that.”
“Well, I did ask her, naturally,” said Bernard, refilling Robbie’s glass. “All she said was she knew everything, but proving it was another matter. She said that Robespierre Fentiman hadn’t killed this Dulcie Mortimer – that much she did say. Again, she couldn’t prove it – at least, not yet.”
Robbie swirled the amber liquid in his glass thoughtfully. “Hmm,” he said. “I wonder if she ever will.”
“That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question. I gather that Danton was proved guilty of something after his brother was hanged. But what that was she wouldn’t say.”
“I see,” said Robbie. “So, what’s the next move? Did Anbolin say what she planned to do now?”
“Why don’t we ask her, Robbie?” smiled Bernard. “After all, she is staying here. She’s probably eating her way through Mrs Aitch’s larder as we speak, but maybe she can spare us a few minutes.”
Bernard opened his study door and called to Mrs Harper who, he knew, would be in the kitchen at this time of the evening preparing the cocoa.
“Do you know where Anbolin is, Mrs Aitch?” he called over the landing banister.
Mrs Harper emerged from the kitchen, a saucepan of boiling milk in her hand. “In ’er a room as far as I know. I took ’er a plate of custard creams and a pot of tea not ten minutes since.”
“Thanks, Mrs Aitch. Can you ask her to come and see us in the study?”
“Can’t you? She’s only two doors along from you. I’ve got my ’ands full at the moment.” Nancy Harper never ceased to wonder at Bernard’s capacity to annoy her. Couldn’t he do anything himself? All right, she was his housekeeper and, as such, was supposed to do his bidding, but there was a limit. How could she make the cocoa and knock up old women at the same time?
“I – I don’t like to disturb her, Mrs Aitch…”
“Not while she’s eating, you mean?”
Bernard laughed. “Well, not exactly, but I don’t think it’s my place to --- I mean, you’re a woman, Mrs Aitch. She might be undressed or something.”
Mrs Harper sighed. She supposed he had a point.
Bernard returned to his study and sat down. Both men lit their pipes and sipped their drinks awaiting the arrival of Anbolin. This duly happened about ten minutes later. The old lady appeared, still munching a custard cream and carrying a bag of knitting.
“Nancy said you wanted to see me, Reverend,” she said through a mouthful of crumbs.
Bernard stood up and found her a chair which he pulled up to the hearth next to Robbie and himself. “Thank you, dear,” said Bernard, “we hope we’re not disturbing you.”
“Made me drop a stitch,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Crumbs remained on her chin, however, which made Robbie smile. She was a charming old lady, ramshackle in appearance, but lovable. Margaret Rutherford to a ‘T’.
“Oh, sorry about that,” said Bernard, not sure how serious this was in the scheme of things. Did it mean she would have to go back to the beginning and start the garment again? Looking at the knitting she was holding, he couldn’t make out exactly what that garment was supposed to be, but he supposed she knew.
“Never mind, never mind,” she said, clicking her needles furiously, obviously unperturbed by the loss of a stitch or two. “Who’s this?” She looked appraisingly at Robbie.
“Let me introduce myself, dear lady,” said Robbie, “I’m a good friend of Bernie here. My name’s Robbie MacTavish. I’m a doctor.”
“A doctor, eh?” she said, screwing up one eye while she stared at him with the other one. “Business good?”
“Er, well, it’s not so bad this time of year. I get more complaints in the winter.”
“Complaints? About you, you mean?”
Bernard couldn’t help smiling as he watched the old woman deliberately wielding the wrong end of the stick and his old friend getting rattled.
Robbie saw, just in time, that Anbolin was playing with him. He suddenly warmed towards her and gave her a sweet smile. She returned it and they were firm friends from that moment.
She couldn’t shed more light on what had occurred that afternoon, but she put a chubby finger to the side of her nose and assured them that she knew all about the ghost and what he had done and why he was evil. She couldn’t give them chapter and verse, but she knew that Robespierre was innocent of the murder of Dulcie Mortimer. It didn’t make him whiter than white, though, and she would tell them more in due course.
Summer, 1956
Robbie fully intended not to see Freda Lossways again, but he also fully intended to keep to his promise to meet her as arranged. He had invited her to dine with him and dine with him she would. It would be the act of a cad to break a date with a lady even though Bernard had strongly advised him to do so. His friend feared he wouldn’t be strong enough to resist meeting her again, but Robbie was going to prove him wrong. Going out with married women was wrong; he knew it was wrong and Bernard was right. Well, that is what he kept telling himself as he made his way to the appointed meeting place outside La Belle Margarita restaurant in Wandsworth High Street.
Of course, it would be difficult not to see her again. He knew that the moment he saw her waiting for him inside the doorway of the restaurant. She looked like Marilyn Monroe, but with an even better figure and even prettier face. Dressed up as she was, she was stopping traffic, and he couldn’t help feeling proud that she was waiting only for him. He gulped as he came up and greeted her with a peck on the cheek.
“Have you been waiting long?” he asked. He knew he wasn’t late, and took the fact that she was already there as a very good sign. She must really like him. He couldn’t believe his luck, until he remembered his promise to Bernard not to see her again after tonight.
“Oh no, not long. The bus got me here quicker than I expected,” she said, smiling. She didn’t want to appear too eager, naturally.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said politely. “This looks a nice place,” he added, indicating the lighted windows of La Belle Margarita. “Have you been here before?” He presumed she took all her beaux there, but hoped there hadn’t been too many of them.
“Oh, it’s my favourite eating place,” she said. “I came last week with my mother.”
Her mother? Pull the other one, thought Robbie. Never mind, she’s a peach. “Let’s waste no more time, my dear,” he said, taking her arm and opening the restaurant door. “I’m feeling quite hungry.”
“Me too.”
When they were seated in a cosy alcove with the menus in front of them, she cleared her throat and looked nervously at him. “You think I go out with a lot of men, don’t you?”
Robbie was taken aback by the direct question. “Er, well, I – I don’t believe I’ve thought about it,” he lied.
> “Oh, yes you have,” she grinned disarmingly. “I’ve never brought my mother to this place.”
Robbie studied his menu, trying hard to think of a response to that. He felt like saying, well I didn’t suspect you did, but thought it would be ungallant to say so. He looked up slowly and gazed into her beautiful dark blue eyes.
“I – I don’t mind who you’ve come here with,” he said finally, “as long as you’re here with me now.” Oh God, he thought, Bernie wouldn’t be happy about that. But she was so lovely. And there was no denying it – she was.
“My – er, my mother’s dead,” she then said, “so I would be hardly likely to bring her here, would I?”
“I’m sorry,” said Robbie. He was fast losing the thread of the conversation. She might be the prettiest woman he had ever seen, but he was beginning to think she was twopence short of a shilling.
“You needn’t be,” she said. “She’s been dead nearly twenty years.”
“You must have been very small when she died,” said Robbie sympathetically.
“I was two. She was murdered.”
On that bombshell a waiter loomed over them. “Are you ready to order, sir?”
Robbie was trying to take in her last statement, as the man hovered, pencil poised over his pad. “May I recommend the halibut?”
You may recommend a fortnight in Tuscany if you like, thought Robbie, give me a chance. Out loud he said, “Can you give us five minutes, please?”
The waiter, looking disgruntled retired. Before Robbie could question Freda further, a gypsy violinist approached their table and proceeded to murder ‘O Sole Mio’.
The gypsy, who Robbie suspected was no more a gypsy than himself, walked up to Freda and bent over her with his bow. Just because he’s wearing an earring doesn’t give him the right to spoil people’s digestive systems with that racket, thought Robbie.
“Excuse me,” he shouted above the noise of the violin, that could hardly be described as music. “Can you please go away? We are trying to have a private conversation.”
The man looked as disgruntled as the waiter, but obeyed. After all, there were more than a dozen other tables to annoy, but he rather wanted to serenade the beautiful lady.
Robbie looked at Freda and then they both laughed. It was proving difficult to be left alone, they realised. They quickly ordered, avoiding the halibut.
“Now,” said Robbie, “what happened to your mother, dear?”
Freda, who had almost forgotten the bombshell she had dropped before the waiter and gypsy interrupted them, looked puzzled for a moment. “Happened?”
“You said your mother was murdered…?”
“Oh yes. It caused quite a stir at the time. She was a barmaid like me. She left me with my father to go off with another man and he killed her.”
“How awful. Why did he kill her, do you know?”
“According to dad, she was making the man’s life difficult – threatening to tell his wife – so he stabbed her. He was hanged.”
“I should think so, too,” said Robbie.
“Except …” she said, as the first course arrived.
The waiter took a long time arranging the table and an even longer time placing a napkin across her knees. Finally, he retired to whence he came and they were alone again.
“Except?”
“I don’t think he did it.”
“You mean, you think he was wrongfully executed? Why do you think that?”
“Because … Oh, well, no it doesn’t matter. I mustn’t bore you with my troubles. This soup is delicious.”
Hang the soup, thought Robbie impatiently. “You’re not boring me at all,” he said, “I’d love to know why you think the man didn’t do it.”
She looked at him closely as she raised the spoon to her lips. French onion soup was her favourite. “Can I tell you in strictest confidence?”
“I am a doctor. I keep the privacy of all my patients, so I think you can trust me.”
“I think – I think my father killed her.”
Robbie nearly dropped his spoon as she said this. He dabbed his chin with his napkin and swallowed hard.
“My dear girl, why on earth do you say that?”
“Oh, because I know my dad. I lived with him all my life until I got m…” She stopped and looked embarrassed.
“Until you got married,” Robbie finished for her.
“Oh, so you know,” she said, blushing. “Like mother, like daughter, isn’t that what they say?”
“I knew you were married,” said Robbie, and I promised my friend, who’s a vicar, that I wouldn’t see you again after tonight. He also thinks I’m too old for you, and I suppose he’s right…”
At this, she stretched out her hand towards him. “Oh, no. I much prefer older men.” She looked sad for a moment. “I – I’m sorry. I really like you. I know you think I’m awful, but I only got married to get away from my dad. He’s not a nice man, very bitter. And I believe he’s a murderer. So I got married to the first man who asked me. I don’t really love him, but we get along all right most of the time.”
“You just want a little romance in your life, I suppose,” said Robbie sympathetically. And with your looks, he thought, you’d certainly be able to find it easily enough. He recalled with pleasure seeing the film “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and the vision of Marilyn Monroe stuck through a porthole. As he looked at Freda, the expression on her face reminded him so much of the expression on Marilyn’s face while she was in that predicament.
“Yes, I suppose that’s about the size of it. I really would like to see you again,” she said, almost pleadingly.
What could he do? Robbie was only human, after all.
Autumn, 1936
Colin Mortimer was a patient man; he needed to be. He spent most of his evenings looking after his two-year-old daughter while his wife worked behind the bar in the Rutting Stag public house in Market Street, Tooting. He loved his little Freddie, and didn’t mind looking after her in the least, but he sometimes wondered why Dulcie never seemed to have an evening off. After all, it was the enlightened nineteen-thirties and they had abolished slave labour hadn’t they? At least in England, he was sure.
But it was the same ritual every evening: he would sit with his newspaper pretending to read it, but all the time watching his wife as she leaned precariously over the fireplace, looking into the mirror that hung above it, putting on her make-up and generally titivating herself. He wasn’t daft, he told himself. He knew she made herself up to look as glamorous as possible so that she could attract the male customers. He was proud of her looks, everyone commented on how much she resembled Jean Harlow. But with all that came the inevitable knowledge that she would never belong to just one man alone. Although he considered himself a patient man, even patient men reach a point beyond which they will not go. He hadn’t quite reached that point yet, but he was getting pretty damn close to it.
It was a mild September evening, as he watched his wife spit on her mascara before mixing it with her brush. Her obsession with looking like Jean Harlow really got on his nerves. Separating her eyelashes like that photo of her in the film magazine open on the table, he thought crossly, what a palaver. Harlow’s eyebrows were just pencil lines and the eyelashes were long, distinct and separate. Colin thought she looked unreal, like a plastic doll, and not a particularly pretty one at that.
But Dulcie seemed satisfied with her face as she studied it in the mirror. Colin wished she wouldn’t go to such lengths with her make-up; she was far prettier than Jean Harlow in his opinion. But he supposed all the men that chatted to her in the pub liked the way she looked, and that was obviously more important to her than anything her husband had to say on the matter.
“Working again?” he said with resignation. His tone was just a little sarcastic.
“Of course,” she said perkily. “Where else d’you think I’d be going at this time of night?”
He had several ideas, but decided not to voice them. The
last thing he needed was a row. Little Freddie had just gone to sleep and he didn’t want to risk waking her.
“Don’t you ever get a night off?”
Dulcie turned from admiring herself in the mirror and looked at him with pity in her eyes. Colin returned her stare; he knew just exactly what she thought of him. He was too docile, a limp article of a man. How could she love him, he thought, when the only men she seemed to admire were up on the silver screen: men with fire in their bellies and devilry in their hearts.
“Don’t wait up,” was all she said, as she picked up her handbag and draped her coat, newly purchased that week, over her arm. “I expect I shall have to stay behind and wash the glasses.”
“Are you really going to tell him, Dulce?”
Ducie’s friend, Beryl Chambers, was by her side as she trotted off to meet her lover.
“Got no choice, have I?” she said briefly. “He’s got to do the right thing by me.”
“But, how can he? He’s married and so are you.” Beryl was accompanying her friend to meet Robespierre Fentiman, at Dulcie’s request, but it was under protest. She had broken her own date to do so, and she was far from happy. But her friend had been insistent; she needed moral support tonight.
“So, how’s it going to work then? You say you’re gonna have this Robey’s baby, but it could just as well be your hubby’s. Why rock the boat? I bet Robey won’t divorce his wife anyway.”
Dulcie stopped and gave her friend a meaningful look. “For one thing, Beryl, me and Colin haven’t had relations in months, so I don’t think he’d wear it for a minute. He’s daft, but not that daft. And, second, I want this man. He belongs to me. He doesn’t love his wife – he’s told me so often enough.”
“But you told me a while ago that you thought he was getting tired of you,” Beryl pointed out.
“Yes, well, that was then,” said Dulcie with a haughty sniff. “He’s not tired of me anymore, because I give him what he wants. But he knows the score. You play with fire, you get burned.”
That’s as maybe, thought Beryl to herself, but it was easier for a man than a woman to avoid the fire.