The Boy Who Lived with the Dead (Albert Lincoln Book 2) Page 5

  ‘Mrs Rudyard. I’m sorry to bother you. I wonder if I might have a word with Peter. Maud said he was unwell. I do hope he’s feeling better.’

  In spite of Gwen’s cheerful confidence Albert suspected that she felt as nervous about facing Grace Rudyard as he was.

  Grace hesitated for a moment before answering. ‘He’s been poorly today, Miss – tummy ache.’ The woman’s eyes wandered from her children’s teacher to Albert, who was hovering behind her.

  As soon as she saw him her face hardened. ‘What’s he doing here?’

  Albert stepped forward and fixed an apologetic smile to his face which he feared had turned into a grimace of agony, betraying how he felt.

  ‘How do you do, Mrs Rudyard. I need to ask Peter some questions and I thought he’d feel more comfortable if Miss Davies was present too.’ He spoke softly, trying to ignore the hatred in her eyes.

  ‘Whoever killed that woman, you’ll never find him … or the little one. You’re useless. A waste of God’s good air.’

  She spat the words with such hatred that he felt the blood rushing to his face.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Rudyard, but I really need to speak to Peter … and the rest of the family.’

  She stared at him. Her eyes were bulbous with dark bags beneath. For years those eyes had haunted his dreams – until worse things had replaced them in his nightmares.

  Gwen had bowed her head and he could tell that the news of his connection with Jimmy’s death had come as a shock to her.

  To his relief Mrs Rudyard gave a curt nod. ‘You’d better come through. Peter’s in the kitchen.’

  Albert followed Gwen inside, feeling like a naughty schoolboy.

  The large black range was lit and the heat in the small room, mingled with the smell of cooking vegetables, was oppressive. Near the range washing hung from a rack fixed to the ceiling: towelling nappies beside vests, long johns and shirts, all drooping grey and damp like mourning flags at half-mast in the rain. Peter was sitting at the scrubbed kitchen table peeling potatoes and dropping them into a large pan of starchy water. When he saw Gwen his face lit up.

  ‘Miss,’ he said, rising from his seat, an old wooden chair spattered with paint.

  ‘Hello, Peter,’ Gwen said with forced cheeriness. ‘Maud told me you haven’t been well. I’ve brought you some work to do. Are you feeling up to doing some sums?’

  When Peter nodded enthusiastically Gwen produced an exercise book from her bag and sat down next to the boy. For a minute or so Albert stood as she explained what she wanted the boy to do, their heads together in a tableau of concentration. Albert was aware of Grace Rudyard standing in the doorway, watching the scene in silence, but he didn’t turn his head to look at her.

  Once Gwen had finished she gave him a small nod, a signal that it was his turn.

  He sat down opposite Peter and the boy gave him a nervous half-smile. ‘Hello, Peter. We’ve met before … a long time ago.’

  ‘I remember,’ the boy said, staring at the exercise book in front of him.

  Albert was glad when Gwen spoke.

  ‘I know you’ve already spoken to Sergeant Stark but Inspector Lincoln’s come all the way from London.’ She paused to let the name of the capital sink in. ‘He’d like to talk to you about the lady in the cemetery. Is that all right, Peter?’

  Peter nodded, fidgeting with the pencil he was holding.

  ‘Had you ever seen the lady before?’

  ‘Only once in the village.’

  ‘Did she have a baby with her?’

  Another nod. ‘She was pushing a pram. Left it outside the post office while she went in.’

  ‘Did you take a peep at the baby?’

  ‘That’s something girls do,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘Of course,’ said Albert, giving him a ‘we’re all men of the world’ smile.

  ‘Where’s your bedroom, Peter?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with you?’ There was no mistaking the aggression in Grace Rudyard’s voice.

  Albert twisted round to face her. ‘If his room overlooks the cemetery he might have seen something if he looked out of his window.’

  To his surprise Gwen interrupted. ‘You often look out of your window at night, don’t you, Peter. You write stories about what you see.’

  ‘What did you see that night, Peter?’ said Albert, suddenly hopeful. Something in the way Gwen asked her question had suggested to him that he had seen more than wildlife during his nocturnal vigils.

  The boy shot a nervous look at his mother, who was still glowering from the doorway.

  ‘Don’t you dare tell any of your lies, now,’ she snapped. ‘You don’t want to believe a word he says. Always fibbing, he is.’

  ‘I’ll remember that, Mrs Rudyard,’ said Albert, wondering whether her animosity towards her son was a result of him surviving when his twin was dead.

  The woman folded her plump arms and stood her ground as Albert caught Gwen’s eye.

  ‘I’ve seen the old lady … Mrs Pearce,’ said Peter. ‘She comes every night and leaves food.’

  Albert gave Grace a questioning look.

  ‘She’s a batty old biddy,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘Her son went missing in the war and she leaves food for him by the grave where his sister and father are buried. My husband told her to stop but she swears it’s always gone by morning. She says that proves her son’s alive but if you ask me animals have had it.’

  A smug look appeared on Peter’s face, as though he was privy to a secret nobody else knew about.

  ‘What time does Mrs Pearce usually come, Peter?’ Albert asked gently.

  Peter looked confused. ‘When it’s just got dark. I didn’t see her that night but she’s sometimes a bit late so she might have come while I was in bed.’ He hesitated. ‘But I got up later once Jack and Ernie were asleep. That’s when he came.’

  ‘Who are you talking about, Peter? Mrs Pearce’s son?’ ‘Might be. He wears a soldier’s coat.’

  ‘You call him the Shadow Man in your stories,’ said Gwen. Peter nodded. ‘That’s ’cause he’s like a shadow.’

  ‘Did you see him with the dead lady, Peter?’

  The boy shook his head. ‘No, I never saw her till the next morning when I found her in Mrs Potts’s grave.’

  ‘Do you know who the Shadow Man is?’ Albert held his breath, waiting for an answer.

  ‘Mr Nobody, that’s who he is,’ Grace Rudyard interrupted harshly before the boy could reply. ‘There ain’t no such person as this Shadow Man he goes on about.’

  ‘You’ve seen him in the cemetery before?’ Albert asked, ignoring the mother.

  ‘He always comes after Mrs Pearce has gone. I’ve seen him take the food she leaves.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘He’s big and tall and he hasn’t got a face.’ ‘Everybody’s got a face,’ Mrs Rudyard muttered. ‘Either he’s had a bad dream or he’s making it up.’

  ‘I drew a picture of him, didn’t I, Miss?’

  ‘Yes, Peter, you did.’

  ‘I’ve done another.’ He rummaged among the papers on the table and produced a picture which he handed to Albert. It showed a figure in a big coat with long lank hair and a blank space where the face should have been. Albert handed it back.

  ‘You can keep it. It’s a present.’

  ‘Thank you, Peter. Have your brothers or Maud ever seen him?’

  ‘No, just me,’ the boy said quickly.

  ‘He shares with our Jack and Ernie and they’ve never said anything about no Shadow Man,’ said Mrs Rudyard. ‘It’s all in his head.’

  ‘They’re always asleep when he comes, that’s why,’ said Peter with a hint of defiance. ‘They don’t see nothing.’

  ‘Next time you see the Shadow Man you should wake Jack or Ernie so they can tell us what they saw.’

  ‘Jack and Ernie need their sleep,’ Mrs Rudyard snapped. ‘I don’t want them woken up in the middle of the night with some cock and bull
story.’

  One glance at his mother’s face was enough to crush Peter’s enthusiasm for detective work. He bowed his head and Albert knew he’d lost the fight. Even so he decided to have one last try.

  ‘Think hard, Peter. Tell me exactly what you saw on the night before you found the lady. Were you looking out of the window?’

  Peter’s eyes slid towards his mother before he replied. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Don’t know. Just before dark. I was looking out waiting for Mrs Pearce to come but Jack and Ernie told me to get into bed ’cause they couldn’t get to sleep with the curtain open.’

  ‘And you did as they said?’

  He nodded. ‘But I woke up later when it was dark ’cause Jack was snoring. That’s when I saw the Shadow Man near the place where she leaves the food. I think she must have come while I’d been asleep ’cause the Shadow Man was carrying something.’

  ‘You saw him clearly? It was night-time and he must have been some way away.’

  Peter thought for a moment. ‘There was a full moon.’

  ‘How did he get into the cemetery? Surely your father locks the gates at sunset.’

  ‘That’s only the main gates. There’s a wooden gate at the side which doesn’t lock. He must use that.’

  Albert stood up. ‘Why don’t we go outside and you can show me where you saw the Shadow Man. Is that all right, Mrs Rudyard?’

  Grace Rudyard shrugged, as though she was washing her hands of the whole affair. If this fool of a detective wanted to believe the boy’s lies, that was up to him.

  Albert was relieved when the noise of a baby crying in the next room made the woman hurry out, leaving them alone with Peter. Five minutes later they were outside following the boy down the path to the back of the cemetery where tall yew trees fringed the boundary between the territory of the dead and the fields beyond.

  One grave in particular stood out in Albert’s memory: a small headstone lovingly tended with a vase of fresh flowers placed in front of it. He didn’t need to read the name. He knew it: Jimmy Rudyard. Taken from us July 1914 aged 4. With the angels. Jimmy and Peter had been identical twins so the boy by his side was a constant reminder of the one who lay there beneath the earth. He wondered how Grace Rudyard could bear the sight of him.

  Albert walked beside Gwen in silence, longing to ask her what she was thinking. As Peter’s teacher she knew the child better than anybody outside his immediate family and he valued her opinion.

  Peter stopped suddenly beside a well-tended grave. On it was a single late rose, fading now, its red petals limp and turning rusty-brown. ‘I can see this grave from my window. It glows when the moon’s out. Like a ghost.’ He pointed to the sad single rose. ‘Someone’s left a flower. Do you think it was the dead lady?’

  Albert bent forward to read the words on the headstone, a neat white marble slab matching the marble strips that outlined the shape of the grave. The centre was filled with grey chippings, neat and weed-free. The grave looked fairly new.

  ‘It belongs to a George Sedding.’ He looked at Peter. ‘Know who he is?’

  ‘One of the Cottontots. Owned a big mill in Stockport. Died last year.’

  ‘Did he fight in the war?’ Albert asked. He glanced at Gwen and saw that her pale cheeks were red as though something had upset her.

  ‘Nah. He never went to war,’ Peter said dismissively. ‘He had a lovely funeral. Six black horses with fancy plumes pulling his hearse. I watched it from my bedroom. Me mam said it was better than a show.’

  ‘I expect you see a lot of funerals.’

  Peter’s face lit up. ‘I like funerals. If I find a dead bird or animal I always give it a nice funeral – a proper box and flowers. That’s if the Body Snatcher hasn’t found it first.’

  ‘Who’s the Body Snatcher?’

  Peter looked away. ‘That’s a secret.’

  ‘Are you sure you’ve never seen the dead lady in the graveyard before?’

  Peter shook his head again.

  ‘Did you see the Shadow Man leave that night?’

  A look of disappointment passed across Peter’s open face. ‘No. Me dad came in from the pub and told me he’d take his belt to me if I didn’t get back into bed.’

  ‘And you did as you were told?’

  ‘Didn’t want to get a belt, did I?’

  ‘Have you seen the Shadow Man since that night?’

  He shook his head.

  Albert squatted down so his face was level with the boy’s. ‘If you see him again will you tell me or Miss Davies?’ Peter gave him a solemn nod. ‘I promise,’ he said. Before Albert could say anything else he heard Grace Rudyard’s voice, calling her son home.

  Chapter 13

  On his return from the cemetery Albert Lincoln installed himself in the back office at the village police station at a desk allocated to him by Sergeant Stark for the duration of his visit. It was Stark’s own desk and he’d removed all his things. Albert found the neatness disconcerting. His desk at Scotland Yard was notoriously cluttered with reports, stationery and his favourite photograph: the silver-framed image of Frederick taken in a studio at great expense on the boy’s fifth birthday. In the picture Frederick sat in his sailor suit staring at the camera; to Albert it wasn’t a particularly good likeness because it lacked any suggestion of his son’s cheerful nature, but it was the only one he possessed and he kept it with him always, placing it at the top of his suitcase on every trip away. The only occasion he’d forgotten and left it behind on his London desk, had been when he’d travelled to Wenfield to conduct the investigation which had ended in so much personal tragedy. Ever since then he’d made sure he had it with him, like a talisman against future misfortune.

  The photograph sat at the back of the desk now and as Albert looked at it he couldn’t help wondering whether his other son, his and Flora’s, bore any resemblance to Frederick. But he had to face the possibility he might never find out. For all he knew the boy – the only thing he knew about the baby was its sex – could be anywhere. He might even be dead; the influenza epidemic had claimed so many young and otherwise healthy lives in the year following the war, just as it had claimed Frederick.

  Albert was almost relieved when Stark poked his head round the door of the little office, the best the village station had to offer. He needed a distraction to take his mind off his losses.

  ‘I’ve telephoned Gramercy House, sir. Mr and Mrs Ghent are home if you want to speak to them. Mr Ghent says his wife’s still upset about her companion so … ’

  ‘Mrs Ghent presumably knew the dead woman best so I need to speak to her.’ He saw Stark frown. ‘Don’t worry, Sergeant, I’ll mind my p’s and q’s. I take it the search for the child is still going on.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but there’s still no sign.’

  ‘There are a lot of big houses around here. Have they all been visited?’

  Stark hesitated, shuffling his feet. Albert recognised embarrassment when he saw it. ‘Er … I didn’t think there was any point visiting the big houses. It’s hard to hide a baby in servants’ quarters – there’s always some cook or housekeeper around to bring any silly young girl into line and the servants who live out have homes in the village so they’ve been spoken to already.’

  ‘What about the families who own the houses?’ He tilted his head to one side and awaited the answer.

  ‘Oh we don’t need to bother them, sir. They won’t know anything.’

  Albert raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I don’t give a damn if a man owns ten cotton mills – he’s as capable of murder as anybody else. Someone out there knows something and I don’t care if their majesties King George and Queen Mary themselves are in residence. I want every house in the area visited, and that’s an order.’

  There was a look of horror on Stark’s face, as though he thought Albert had just uttered a blasphemy. The sergeant had spent his professional career deferring to the inhabitants of the big houses and no doubt h
e regarded keeping them and their property safe as the main purpose of his job, but if Albert had any say in the matter the wealthy would come under suspicion just like anybody else. Back in London this was something he’d been used to since the beginning of his police career; here however things were different and it was time Stark learned a few vital lessons.

  Albert took his watch from his waistcoat pocket and checked the time. ‘If the Ghents are expecting me I won’t waste any more time,’ he said, taking his hat from the coat-stand in the corner of the room. It was a pleasant September day and the rain that had threatened earlier hadn’t arrived. From his previous experiences of this part of England he knew that this was a blessing.

  ‘Would you like me to come with you, sir?’

  Albert shook his head. He would do things his own way and make his own judgements.

  Fifteen minutes later he was tugging at the bell pull beside the Ghents’ grand front door. There was a time before the war when police officers had been expected to use the tradesman’s entrance near the kitchens but, as far as Albert was concerned, those rules no longer applied, especially to a Scotland Yard inspector.

  The door was opened by a plump, pretty girl with a pale face and sharp eyes. Her hair too was pale and her eyebrows so light that they were barely visible. She wore a clean white apron over a pale-blue dress which didn’t suit her complexion.

  ‘Inspector Lincoln. Mr and Mrs Ghent are expecting me. Daisy is it?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said even as Albert saw a challenge in her eyes. The initial impression of meekness had suddenly vanished.

  ‘I’ll need to speak to you later if that’s all right?’

  She nodded warily and as Albert followed her through the entrance hall he heard the faint sound of music drifting down from upstairs, jazz from a gramophone. He remembered Stark saying that the Ghents’ son had been killed in action but that they also had a daughter who was, presumably, the unseen jazz enthusiast. She would be another person to ask about the life of Patience Bailey.