2006 - Wildcat Moon (21 page)

She was, the papers said, indisposed at present and being cared for in a nursing home. Sister Mary Campion told reporters that, understandably, Mrs Greswode was overwhelmed with distress both for her dead husband and her missing child and was not well enough to give an interview.

Archie read the papers over and over again. There was a photograph in one of them showing Romilly standing between her parents. It was faded and a little out of focus. Jonathan Greswode was a tall, sniffy-nosed-looking man and Mrs Greswode had a pretty face and a sad smile. Romilly was looking at the camera curiously, her head on one side, one hand clasped in her mother’s, the other firmly behind her back as though she didn’t want to hold hands with her father.

Archie fretted for Romilly and prayed for her each night before he went to bed. He lit a special candle and placed it in front of the Virgin. He hoped that Romilly was safe and that the crazy woman wouldn’t harm a hair on her head.

There was no point in him ever going up to Killivray House again now that Romilly was gone. He would never discover what had happened to Thomas Greswode without her help.

It had been a daft idea anyway. Him and his mysteries! How could two kids have ever found out about someone who died so long ago? And what was the point?

He just hoped that the police would find Romilly soon and bring her back safe and sound to Killivray. If she did come back then maybe they could start being friends all over again?

Suddenly he remembered the things that Romilly had left for him in the stove the last time he’d been up to Killivray. What with all the fright of the car arriving and seeing the black man in the woods he’d shoved it all away in his cupboard. And before he had a chance to look at them he had gone down with the chickenpox.

He slipped quietly out of bed. His legs felt as weak as a kitten’s and he had to drag himself slowly across the room. Catching sight of himself in the wardrobe mirror, he was shocked at his reflection. He’d got even skinnier since he’d been ill and had to hold up his pyjama trousers to stop them falling down round his ankles. He opened the cupboard door quietly, because if Mammy heard him up and about she’d play merry hell with him.

Grabbing the diary and the envelope from the back of the cupboard, he scuttled back to bed.

He tried for ages to open the lock on the diary but it would not budge. Then he had a thought. He got back out of bed and found the bunch of keys that Benjamin had left him. Painstakingly he tried the smallest of the three keys but he had no luck. It was a sturdy lock and rusted in parts and he’d need to get something like a hammer to belt it with. A bloody sledgehammer, even.

He turned then to the pile of letters. They smelled vaguely of pine and were thin and yellowed, curling up at the edges. The ink was badly faded and in parts they were almost unreadable.

At the top right-hand corner an address was written: Casa delle Stelle, Santa Caterina, Italia…

The letters were written to Thomas Greswode all right and signed by his papa but that was all he could make out. If only he could read Italian! Impatiently he folded them back up and put them under his pillow. Then he opened the envelope and looked inside.

There were three photographs inside the envelope. They were rough around the edges and looked as if they had been hastily ripped out of a photograph album. He took up the first one and examined it closely.

It was a peculiar photograph and it took him a while to realize which way was the right way up. There was a man hanging upside down on a trapeze and flying towards him was a woman with her hands outstretched. Archie felt giddy just looking at it Seconds later the photographer would have seen their hands meet and the audience would have known that she was safe and dapped like billy-o! But you couldn’t be sure, looking at the photograph, that he did catch her!

The second photograph was a sepia picture of a young boy. It took Archie some moments before he realized that the boy was standing outside the summerhouse in the gardens at Killivray. How different it looked in the olden days! The wood looked new and there were even curtains at the windows. The boy was smiling, a really happy smile. He was dressed in an old-fashioned sailor suit and he was holding a cricket bat. On the back someone had written in sloping handwriting,
Thomas at Killivray July 5
th
1900
. He turned the photo back over quickly and knew that he was looking into the face of Thomas Gasparini Greswode. It felt really peculiar to be looking at someone who was dead and buried beneath the floor in the wobbly chapel.

He picked up the third photograph and looked at it There was a white tear line running through the middle of it as if it had been ripped in half. He looked at the back and saw that someone had glued tracing paper over the back in an attempt to mend it It wasn’t half as interesting as the other two. It was a photograph taken at a wedding; disappointingly there was nothing written on the back.

He lay the photographs down on the bed and compared them. Then suddenly he gasped.

The man in the wedding photograph was the spit of Thomas Greswode, just older looking. He stared at the photograph of the bride, a very pretty woman looking up at the bridegroom as if she could eat him up. She looked the way people were meant to look when they were in love. Yuk!

He looked again at the face of Thomas Greswode. He had a nice face, cheerful and honest-looking, the kind of boy you’d want to have as a friend.

With dismay he heard the clattering of crockery downstairs. Any minute now Mammy would be up the stairs bringing him beef broth or junket and other disgusting muck that was supposed to be good for him but tasted terrible. He shoved the diary and letters hastily underneath the bed, folded his hands across his chest and assumed an air of innocence.

One cold and dank morning in the middle of January the bells tolled in Rhoskilly Church for the funeral of Jonathan Greswode. Folk from the Skallies made their way along the sodden lane and together with the villagers of Rhoskilly they took their seats in the ancient church.

There were only a few family mourners sitting stiff-backed at the front of the church. There was a wizened old woman who sniffed incessantly. She was the old nanny from Killivray. There were a few well-dressed friends from London including a pale-faced, haughty young woman and a tall, stern-faced man they assumed was her father.

After the service the villagers stood at a discreet distance from the other mourners and then, when the final prayer was over and a handful of soil thrown onto the coffin of the late Jonathan Greswode, they moved slowly away.

Jonathan Greswode was laid quietly to rest with his father Charles beneath the towering stone angel.

Nan walked back to the Skallies with Freddie and Charlie Payne. They were silent until they were halfway back.

“Funny old funeral,” said Freddie Payne. “Hardly any flowers. He couldn’t have been a popular man by the amount of mourners there.”

“Who was that woman who was weeping her socks off?” Charlie asked.

“I think she was the one staying at the house when he was murdered,” Freddie replied.

“Perhaps it was her who murdered him; she was a hard-faced little bint by the look on her.”

“Nan! Don’t be so wicked!”

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if Miss Brazen Face was his fancy woman,” Nan said defiantly. “She had that look about her.”

“Nan! Shame on you. You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

“Well, that’s what it looked like to me.”

“His wife weren’t there, though, were she? Funny thing that, a woman not turning up to her own husband’s funeral.”

“Maybe they didn’t get on,” Nan said with a shrug.

“Whether they got on or not it’s a mark of respect to go to your husband’s funeral.”

“It said in the paper she was in a bad way with her nerves. Not well enough to be let out,” Charlie remarked.

“Think she’d have made the effort though. Them nuns could have brought her,” Freddie grumbled.

“I don’t suppose the poor devil’s in a fit state what with the husband killed and the little girl missing,” Charlie added.

“They’ll catch up with that governess woman sooner or later, you mark my words, and if she’s hurt that child shell swing,” Freddie Payne shook his head.

“That’ll be the last of the Greswodes in Killivray House, mind. The child can’t live there on her own even if she’s found, which I very much doubt.”

“By law the wife should inherit, I suppose, but I can’t see her coming back after all that’s happened, can you?”

“Maybe she will, one day,” Nan said. “Maybe she’ll enjoy me place better without him.”

“You’re a cold-hearted bugger, Nan Abelson,” Freddie said, looking at her in surprise.

“Well you never know what goes on between a husband and wife in a marriage; he could have been a cruel devil to her and the child for all we know,” Nan said angrily.

“Even so I don’t expect she would have wished him to end up losing his life at the hand of a murderess,” Charlie said, shocked by Nan’s outburst.

“Who knows?” Nan remarked coolly. “I saw her once or twice in the village. She looked a gentle type, downtrodden if you ask me.”

Charlie and Freddie Payne looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

They’d always known that Nan had a downer on men at times. They put it down to a past bad experience for in all the time she’d been in the Skallies she’d never made a mention of Cissie’s father or whether she’d been married or not. The fact was she was on her own and left with a young child to bring up. It couldn’t be easy raising a child like Cissie who wasn’t the full shilling.

“Well,” Nan said, brightening, “ifll all come out in the wash, I dare say. Do either of you two fancy a pint? On the house of course.”

“Go on then, funerals always brings on a thirst in me,” Charlie replied enthusiastically.

“Have a drink while we still can, you’re a long time dead after all,” Freddie mused.

Spring came with a rush to the Skallies. The sun rose earlier each morning, bringing with it a weak yet welcome warmth. Fresh winds blew in from the sea, drying out the houses and whipping away the fusty damp smell that had plagued them all winter.

Spring cleaning began in earnest except at the Kellys’. Washing flapped on the makeshift lines strung up along the beach. Windows were cleaned with vinegar, front steps scoured with carbolic and brass buffed up until it gleamed. Rugs were battered mercilessly out of upstairs windows and curtain nets dipped in Reckits Blue.

In Killivray House cobwebs festooned the diamond-paned windows and dust blew under the doors and gathered in the corners of the abandoned rooms. Birds roosted in the towering chimneys and mice nibbled at the feet of the stuffed brown bear at the top of the stairs.

The hedgerows in the surrounding lanes grew thick and primroses and snowdrops flowered in profusion.

Bluebells and yellow poppies sprang up in the grass of the sand dunes and apple blossom drifted down from the gardens of Killivray House and speckled the beach with petals.

Three mewling kittens were born in the backyard of the Pilchard Inn and the Paynes brought in a catch of fish so large that it almost sank their boat.

And Archie thanked his lucky stars and winked at the Virgin on his wall because there was still no news from the porker.

In late April a boatload of trippers landed on Skilly Beach and invaded the Skallies, keen to hear the gruesome details of the Killivray murder and see the strange folk in the Skallies that the newspapers had talked about.

After that they came each fine weekend. Life in the Skallies began to change and there was a busyness and sense of purpose that hadn’t been there before. Nan was run off her feet in the Pilchard and Cissie learned how to wash glasses and clear the tables.

The Eayne brothers found a couple of battered tables and set them up outside the pub and the Arbuthnots surprised everyone by serving afternoon teas in their front parlour. Cissie sold bracelets made from shells and the Paynes smoked mackerel and set up a fish stall outside the Peapods.

In Cuckoo’s Nest Mrs Kelly waited until the youngest children were taking their afternoon nap before she steamed open the letter that had arrived that morning.

It was addressed to her husband but he was out fishing with the older boys and wouldn’t be back until dusk She couldn’t wait that long to find out who had written to him. The postman hadn’t called at Cuckoo’s Nest in years. Who in all the world would want to contact him after all this time?

She read slowly, struggling over the longer words and when she came to the end she slumped down onto a chair and fanned herself with the letter.

It must be some sort of a joke. It couldn’t be right. This sort of good fortune didn’t come the Kellys’ way. They weren’t the sort of family that fortune favoured, they were born unlucky. And yet, and yet this looked like an official letter from a solicitor in London. She replaced the letter in the envelope, stuck it back down and put it behind the broken clock on the mantelpiece.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, if this were true then they had no more worries.

She felt the baby quicken in her stomach and made the sign of the cross.

Archie had no luck trying to pick the lock on the diary. He poked at it with a rusty compass and a bent hairgrip but nothing would make it budge. In the end he sneaked a saw from the cupboard under the stairs but it took him ages to saw through the leather band that attached the lock to the front of the diary.

He took himself down to the beach, settled himself behind a rock and opened the diary.

He skipped through the slippery pages until he came to an entry in June of 1900. He read avidly, enthralled as life in the past began to unfold.

June 2
nd

Received a letter from Sizzie today. She is well but broke her wrist falling out of an olive tree! She doesn’t say what she was doing up the tree but she is quite wild! The fiesta is soon to be held and the flags are up in Santa Caterina. How I would love to be there. Everyone will eat and eat until they are stuffed and stay up half the night. Sizzle’s mama has been looking after our house while Papa is away. He arrives back there tomorrow. Sizzie said a brother from the monastery drove his cart off the road and ended up on the roof of Signer Rabiotti’s cantina. Sizzle’s cousin has had a baby boy called Allesandro.