‘What is it?’
Carine let out a sigh. ‘Do you ever think that you see a person on the street that you know? You want to catch up with that person, tap them on the shoulder. On a closer look you see that you are wrong.’
‘Oh yes, that happens to me.’
‘Then you won’t think I’m mad if I tell you that I saw someone I had never expected to see again.’
‘Who?’
‘Edward. My first love. Like your Gerald, he didn’t come back. Life’s lucky dip gave me Tobias instead. But I’ve never forgotten Edward. I know I don’t look as if I mourn anyone, but I have mourned him all these years.’
I felt a shiver when she told me this. I know so well that feeling of being utterly sure, for an instant, that you have seen the person you want to see. ‘But it wasn’t him?’
‘Here’s the thing. It was, I’d swear. It was his walk, his movement of the head. If only I could have heard his voice.’
‘Did you see his face?’
‘No.’
‘That sounds so familiar, Carine. We see the person from behind and just for that instant they are back.’
‘He was wearing a hat. I didn’t even see the colour of his hair. He had black hair, dark brown eyes, brows that were a little too heavy, and the most gentle voice. He was a poet.’
‘But he died. You told me that he died.’
We all knew the story. Edward and Tobias were in the same regiment. Tobias came back. Edward did not.
‘Tobias was with him when he was wounded, and he said that he died, but what if …’ She made a dismissive gesture. ‘I know. I should shut up about this.’
‘No, of course you shouldn’t. What regiment were they in? It will be straightforward to check.’
‘Of course it will. I didn’t think of that. East Lancashire.’
‘So stop worrying about it now. We can enquire. The records are comprehensive and people are helpful. If you have any doubts at all, you ought to know, to put your mind at rest. I’ll help you.’
‘Thanks, Kate. If anyone can find out, it will be you. I wanted to ask you before but I held back.’
I took out my notebook. ‘What was his last name?’
‘Chester, Edward Chester. He was a poet and training to be a teacher.’
There was a sudden thumping on the ceiling from the room above.
Carine stood. ‘I won’t be a minute. I’ve settled Dad once, but he must be wanting something.’ She walked to the door that led to the upstairs rooms.
I admired the patience Carine showed towards her father. She paid for a nurse to come in each day for an hour, but most of the caring was left to Carine, which she somehow managed, in between taking portraits and working in the darkroom, as well as designing greetings cards. No one knew how she managed everything.
When she came back down, I asked about her father.
Her look gave nothing away, neither affection nor exasperation. ‘We just had a joke. He says that it’s his ambition to be Dr Green’s most interesting patient. If it’s not the gout, it’s his chest. If it’s not his chest, it’s the rheumatism and the dropsy.’
Surprisingly for us, we did not talk much as we walked up the lane. I was thinking about the presentation, and hoping it would go well. Carine was also preoccupied. She had a lot on her mind, with a sick father, a husband who drank too much and now the possible reappearance of her one true love.
The church bells chimed seven as we passed St Michael’s Church. Once, the church’s Yorkshire stone must have gleamed proudly. Fogs, brimstone and smoke from factory chimneys had slowly but surely turned the building soot-black.
We crossed the road and walked on, passing the Skyrack pub.
‘Are you doing anything afterwards, Kate?’
‘Only going home to read a book, so …’
‘Then come back with me. Tobias will be going to the pub. We can have a bit of a chat.’
‘Yes, I’d like that.’
Our society meets monthly in the Parochial Hall on Bennett Road. As I opened the door, we heard the ethereal sound of a Monteverdi song from the local madrigal group. They rehearse in the room on the left. Their voices added to a feeling of serenity, an atmosphere at odds with the occasional fractiousness of the groups that meet here.
The caretaker appeared and greeted us. ‘Hello. You ladies are soon here.’
He has a way of turning a greeting into an accusation.
‘I’m giving a presentation, Mr Tanner.’
Carine took the magic lantern. ‘I’ll set us up.’
The caretaker followed us into the meeting room. Giving the impression of having been born old and frown-marked, he carries himself with a stoop. His fading light brown hair blends with the colour of his smock.
He rubbed the bristles on his chin, sighed and began to set out the slatted chairs. ‘How many tonight do you reckon?’
‘Thirty or forty.’
‘And a treat in store then, eh?’ His special leer involves a twist of the lips and a narrowing of his eyes, as if to hide the light of interest. ‘I recall that Mr Murchison had some seaside pictures not so long since, lassies in bathing suits, almost what you might call saucy.’
Carine set up the equipment on the table.
‘Pop in and take a look if you like,’ I said to the caretaker.
‘I might just do that.’ He nodded towards the open door, and the singers’ rehearsal room. ‘It’d shut me off from yon screeching for ten minutes.’ He set out a few more chairs. ‘Do you want this door shutting against the caterwauling?’
Carine gave him a smile that took the sharp edge off her words. ‘No thank you, Mr Tanner. My friend Rita is one of the madrigal singers. Both Mrs Shackleton and I love their caterwauling.’
‘No accounting for taste.’
I was glad to have Carine’s support. My hobby has slid down life’s list recently and I was a little apprehensive about giving my presentation. We now have members who are more adventurous than I, creating collages, silhouettes and avant garde images from unusual angles. Knowing how some of my fellow snappers are apt to be highly critical, I had chosen more conventional work from an earlier time, when I entered competitions and was twice commended. We checked the slides and tested the images on the screen that had been set up earlier by the caretaker.
A few members had begun to arrive. The caretaker had finished setting out the chairs but he reappeared, carrying an envelope. ‘I forgot to tell you. One of your group called by earlier. She says sorry that she can’t come, and left this for you.’
I thanked him and took the envelope. It was from our membership secretary. She had scribbled her apologies on the outside, along with the words, ‘Applications for membership’.
I showed it to Carine, our treasurer, as it would no doubt contain postal orders. ‘Oh, I’ll give it to Tobias to read out the names and welcome anyone new who turns up.’
Tobias is our chairman. A noisy belch announced his arrival. ‘Hello ladies, and what is it you’ll give me, my dear?’ He tapped Carine’s bottom.
How she puts up with him, I do not know. She handed him the envelope. ‘New members.’
I caught Carine’s eye as Tobias made his way to the table. She simply shook her head and gave a shrug. ‘He is a lost cause.’
Tobias sat down at the trestle table and set out his papers.
Derek Blondell came in shortly after. Harriet has made a friend of him since he started going to the Hyde Park Picture House. She always tells me when he was at the pictures, and that she tore his ticket. He raised his hand, more salute than a wave. He is pale, and thin as a broom, with a neat haircut and an old but good tweed suit, with leather elbow patches and narrow strips sewn around the jacket cuffs. My friend the newspaper librarian tells me that Derek lives with his paternal grandmother, who brought him up when his mother died after giving birth to him.
Derek exchanged a greeting with Carine and then turned to talk to me. ‘Did you notice I have an item on the agenda, Mrs
Shackleton?’
‘Yes, something about an outing.’
He nodded. ‘I hope I’ll win support.’
I drew him to one side. ‘I’m sure you will, Derek. And you’ll need the support of Tobias Murchison, so be careful. Slander might lead you into serious bother.’
He blushes easily. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What you told Harriet. Slow poison? Mental torture?’
He was about to protest, when someone came to sit on my row.
My presentation went well, with no tricky questions afterwards. Carine and I returned to our seats. Tobias waited for the applause to subside. He is a big man, perhaps fifteen years older than Carine, with a florid complexion and bloated appearance. He usually races through the agenda, unless it is something he has to speak of himself, and then he becomes quite long-winded. He began by welcoming everyone to the meeting. When he opened the envelope, containing membership applications, he made a humorous moment of it. ‘Two applications! Our venerable society is becoming known. At this rate, we’ll need to hire the Town Hall.’ He read the first name. The person was not present, no doubt waiting until her membership had been formally confirmed.
He looked at the second form, and he looked again, and he adjusted his spectacles. ‘We have an application from Edward Chester.’
Carine gasped. She reached for my arm.
‘It’s not an unusual name,’ I whispered, but the moment I looked at Tobias, I knew that he thought exactly the same as Carine. A man has returned from the dead.
Tobias rocked slightly on his chair. ‘Is Edward Chester in the room?’ he asked, his voice sounding like that of a medium trying to conjure a spirit.
There was no reply.
With what seemed like relief, Tobias returned to the business on the agenda. Yet he seemed uneasy. Finally, he came to an item that sparked his displeasure. Immediately, he became his rather pompous self. ‘I have here a proposal that under the auspices of the society there should be a group photographic excursion in August. I did have notice of this proposal and I will not pre-judge …’
Naturally, he immediately pre-judged. He looked about the room. ‘I believe our members are sufficiently grown up and able to organise their own excursions, but in line with the rules, we will hear from the proposer.’ He pretended to search for the name. ‘D. Blondell.’ He looked about, making a show of deliberately not noticing Derek. ‘Is the proposer in the hall?’
This struck me as extremely odd, given that Harriet says Derek works in the photographic studio on his Saturday afternoons off.
Derek cleared his throat. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his palms. He blew his nose. He blushed at the sound of his own nose-blowing. Before he had time to take a breath, Tobias barked, ‘Apparently the proposer is not present.’ He made as if to move on.
Derek came to his feet. Very steadily, he held his arms by his sides, and then put one hand in a pocket. He raised the other hand, like a schoolboy in class.
‘Oh it’s you, young Derek.’ Tobias feigned surprise, though he must have known Derek’s surname.
At that moment, I became aware of the door opening and closing, and footsteps at the back of the room.
Derek glanced at the piece of paper in his shaking hand. ‘It’s as our chairman said. I propose that some members might go on a weekend photographic excursion together, under the auspices of the society.’
‘Do you now?’ said Tobias. ‘That means dipping into the society’s coffers, eh?’ Pleased with his turn of phrase, he gave a tight smile.
‘I thought there might be a contribution, Mr Murchison, I mean, Mr Chairman.’
‘Then let us have your formal proposal.’
Derek took a deep breath, executing a half turn so that he spoke to those at the back of the room as well as to the chairman. ‘The idea came when I was looking at old copies of the Photographic Journal and saw that Mr Arthur Conan Doyle made photographic expeditions with a group of friends and wrote amusing accounts for the magazine.’
Tobias interrupted him. ‘Sir Arthur to you I think, and we have still not heard you give the proposal.’
‘Mr Murchison, this was in the last century, when Mr Conan Doyle was a medical student, long before his knighthood for services in the African wars.’
‘I believe we all know that the true reason for that gentleman’s knighthood was because he brought Sherlock Holmes back from the dead.’ Tobias waited for the amused titter. No one laughed. He tapped his pencil. ‘I don’t suppose for one moment that, as a young man, Sir Arthur looked to some society to do his organising, and cough up to subsidise his wanderings.’
The room grew quiet. There was a sigh of disapproval from the man in front of me, impatient with Tobias’s bullying ways.
Derek held his ground. ‘As a young man, Mr Conan Doyle was very hard up.’ Derek jutted his jaw slightly, as if daring anyone present to accuse him of the sin of pennilessness. Derek continued. ‘Arthur Conan Doyle supplemented his income by writing those pieces. Having found them most entertaining, I suggest that we consider doing something similar.’
Some wag in the audience thought Derek’s proposal a capital idea. ‘We might take snapshots to illustrate a Sherlock Holmes story.’
Derek maintained his dignity. He was trying his best. He could not afford to go anywhere, and this was a great wheeze. I admired his initiative.
He cleared his throat. He held the piece of paper in his right hand, and now grasped his right wrist with his left hand to keep the paper from shaking. ‘I, Derek Blondell, propose that members of the Headingley Photographic Society organise a weekend trip for the purpose of taking photographs.’
Tobias looked down at his agenda. ‘According to the rules I must ask for a seconder, preferably one who has grown a few whiskers on his chin.’
This snide reference to Derek’s immaturity drew a whispered response from Carine who sat beside me. ‘He doesn’t mean to be cruel.’
It was just like Carine to see the best in people, even in her own boorish husband.
A gentle yet clear voice came from two rows behind us. ‘Edward Chester, new member. If it is in order for me to do so, I heartily second the proposal.’
Carine gulped. She was pale, as always, but a sudden red rash appeared on her throat and neck. She began to shake. She reached out and squeezed my arm so tightly that her nails dug into my flesh.
The pencil slipped from Tobias’s fingers. His booming voice became a hoarse whisper. ‘Do you wish to speak to the motion, Mr Chester?’
I turned to look at the speaker, three rows behind us. He was dark-haired, of middle height, broad-shouldered, smartly dressed in dark suit and red tie. It was obvious from the way that he held himself that he was a former soldier. But there was another sign, too. He was disfigured and had benefited from the skill of a surgeon. He must have been badly burned. From the cast of his left eye, I guessed that it was blind. Yet he held himself proudly, no shuffling of feet, or lowering of his head as if wanting to hide. His voice was sweet and mellow.
I turned back, not wishing to stare at him longer than you might look at anyone who has begun to speak. Carine stared at the floor, without turning her head. ‘It’s him. Kate, it’s him.’ She gripped my arm.
‘Do you need to go outside?’
‘I can’t move.’
In such a meeting, there are always sticklers for protocol. Our resident procedural expert cleared his throat. ‘Colonel Richard Thomas. As a member in full standing, I thank our newcomer for his intervention, but point out that it is not in order for him to second the proposal since he has not yet formally been admitted to the society by the treasurer, nor served his probationary period.’ Colonel Thomas allowed time for the weight of his wisdom to be appreciated. ‘To ensure proper procedure, I second the proposal. If there is money in the kitty, let us encourage the young.’
This was a surprisingly encouraging intervention from the curmudgeonly colonel. I assumed that he wished to disoblige Tobias.
> Mrs Howe on the front row – her special interest is photographs of her grandchildren – did not pause in the clicking of her knitting needles as she offered a ‘Hear, hear!’ Several more voices of support came from across the room.
‘Will anyone speak against the proposal?’ Tobias asked hopefully.
Answer came there none. I guessed that Derek had done his homework, and gained support for his plan.
Tobias pressed on. ‘What does the treasurer say?’
At first, I thought Carine would not manage to speak. Her voice came out in a croak. I wished I had a glass of water to offer. ‘We have sufficient money in the Society bank account, Tobias. Sorry, I mean “Mr Chairman”.’
Tobias frowned at the subdued titter, and then put the proposal to the vote. The motion was carried, with four abstentions and no vote against.
For the first time, members of the Headingley Photographic Society would undertake a trip.
Tobias asked for volunteers to organise the outing. Derek and I raised our hands. Carine, who was still clasping my wrist, involuntarily raised hers.
In the time-honoured tradition of special interest societies that take themselves rather seriously, Carine, Derek and I became the ‘Headingley Photographic Society Outings (1928) Sub-Committee’.
Derek had thought of everything. Winning approval for his scheme had boosted his confidence. He spoke to the room, without asking permission of the chairman. ‘Please put suggestions as to where you would like to go in the little box on the table at the back.’
Derek came over to our side of the room. ‘How about next Tuesday at half twelve, in the Kardomah for our subcommittee meeting?’
Carine gave her brightest smile but did not utter a word.
I admired her more than ever. She had just seen and heard a ghost, and yet she kept control. I turned to look once more at the man who had come back from the dead. There was no sign of him.
‘Is he there?’ Carine asked.
‘No.’
‘Did you see him? I daren’t turn round.’
‘Yes. Dark-haired, broad-shouldered. He was good-looking once, I’m sure.’
‘Once?’
‘I would say that he suffered burns.’
A Snapshot of Murder Page 3