Death of an Avid Reader (20 page)

‘Did she live with her family?'

‘No, and there's another thing that is not to her credit. She was in lodgings, up Bayswater Road way. Said that her mother had remarried and she did not get on with her stepfather.'

‘Did she take the stepfather's name?'

‘Who knows? One would not know what to believe about a girl like that.' Mrs Carmichael looked at her watch. ‘Oh dear, look at the time. I take an early break and must be back for my hour on the counter.'

I weighed my choices. Stay here and grill the reluctant Lennox, or see what information I could garner from Mrs Carmichael, who was revealing an unexpected streak of malicious jealousy.

‘Do you mind if I join you, Mrs Carmichael? I'm feeling a little peckish myself.'

She hesitated. ‘I take a turn about town, and then eat a sandwich at my desk.'

‘Then please break your habit. Let me treat you to a bite at the Corn Exchange.'

She blushed, whether from embarrassment or pleasure I did not know, but agreed.

We left the building, walked along Commercial Street and took a right turn onto Briggate.

‘Tell me,' she was making an effort not to sound ghoulish, ‘did Dr Potter look like himself when you found him?'

I gave her a sanitised version, which lasted as far as the café where we were shown to a table near the centre of the room.

The menu was chalked on a board.

‘What are you having, Mrs Shackleton?'

‘Sardines on toast, but choose whatever you want.'

When the waitress came, she hesitated and then said, ‘Welsh rarebit.'

When we were alone again, Mrs Carmichael said, ‘You don't fool me, Mrs Shackleton.'

‘Oh?'

‘You cannot help being a private investigator can you? I expect you want to know who else was at the library on Friday morning after you left.'

‘Yes, I suppose I do.'

‘You know how poor the weather was? Some of our Friday regulars stayed away. Miss Merton changed her library book. Miss Heaton placed a collecting tin on the counter for the widow of the retired commissionaire who needs medicines. Father Bolingbroke read Thomas Aquinas. Mr Castle looked at the cartoons in
Punch.
He never borrows books, you know, not in all his years as a proprietor. A gentleman from the university spent an hour poring over the
London Gazette.
Mr Lennox and Mr Castle discussed library business with Professor Merton.'

So Professor Merton, Dr Potter's rival had been at the library. Much as I would have liked to pursue an enquiry as to who did kill Dr Potter, my first obligation was to find Lady Coulton's daughter.

‘I am afraid this dreadful business has me flummoxed, Mrs Carmichael.' Slowly, I returned to the subject of Marian Montague. ‘A person who does intrigue me is the dismissed library assistant.'

‘Intrigue you? She is a brazen hussy and a thief.'

‘Just the kind of person who is interesting to a detective. I should like to visit her, if you have no objection.'

‘Why would you want to do that?'

‘Are there still books missing?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then the least I can do is to try and retrieve them. It is my area of expertise.'

‘She will have sold them by now.'

‘Perhaps, perhaps not. You say she lives in the Bayswater Road area?'

‘Yes, number nine, Back Enfield Street. But I don't believe you'll find her there.'

‘Why is that?'

She hesitated. ‘In confidence?'

‘Of course.'

‘I saw her, shortly after she left. I believe she is now living in the kind of slum where she belongs. A den of thieves, probably. I have not told Mr Lennox. He had a soft spot for her, many gentlemen did, and she took full advantage.'

‘Dr Potter liked her.'

Mrs Carmichael pulled a face, which was meant to express contempt but merely made her look unpleasant. ‘She fooled everyone.'

‘Where did you see her?'

‘In one of the courtyards, not far from here. I was in the market to buy an apple and came out onto Back New York Street, to walk along and eat it where no one would see me. It's so unladylike to eat an apple in the street. I saw her coming out of an alley. Well, isn't that just the kind of place one would expect to see her? She saw me and we ignored each other. I almost choked on my apple, seeing the thief at liberty, giving me a bold stare.' She looked at the clock. ‘Goodness! Is that the time. I must rush.'

I left with her and said, ‘Which was the courtyard where you saw Miss Montague?'

She smiled. ‘I am glad I am not a detective. I expect you like to know things about the criminal classes and where they meet each other, their dens of iniquity. It's just round the corner.'

We left the Corn Exchange and walked a few yards. ‘That's the place. I don't know what it's called. I hope you won't go in there.'

If entering this dismal alley might lead me to Sophia Wells, a troop of dragoons would not stop me.

Nineteen

One might pass the entrance to Danby Court on the way to or from the market without noticing it, except for the stench from the middens. Twelve paces through a narrow passageway of red brick took me across uneven cobblestones. My feet alternately squelched and crunched over cinders, spread by some enterprising soul across filthy puddles. The overwhelming feeling was of gloom. Outside, the day was grey and in here several shades darker. Ahead, and on either side, loomed tall brick houses. Outside landings hinted at a multitude of occupants.

Aware of being stared at from every side, I trod lightly, taking in everything while appearing to look at nothing and no one.

A toddle of barefoot tots played listlessly at the bottom of broken concrete steps that led to upper rooms. One of the bairns hemmed in a spider that moved this way and that, trying to reach impossible sanctuary. Two men lounged by a wall, smoking. Three women formed a huddle, chatting to each other. One was immensely stout, one thin as a length of string and the other not taller than a child and with legs so bowed they made a perfect ‘O'.

‘Excuse me.'

The length of string turned to me. Her eyes were hollow, her cheekbones prominent.

I remembered something a ward sister had said about a patient who died after an operation, too weak to pull through: ‘Women feed their children and starve themselves.'

This was a dwelling place not for the poor who lived from week to week but for those who scraped by on pennies, day to day, hour to hour.

Counter assistants earned no fortune. Miss Montague should have afforded better than this, but perhaps not, if she had been sacked without a reference.

The three women now all looked at me, as did the children. The tormentor of the spider forgot his work. Perhaps the spider scuttled free. One of the lounging men cleared his throat and spat loudly on the ground.

‘Hello. I'm looking for a Miss Marian Montague. I believe she lives or visits here?' Even as I spoke, it sounded absurd.

The thin woman shook her head. She looked at the other two and said something. They also looked blank. In unison, all three stared at me, and then looked away, as if that might make me vanish.

A prompt might help. ‘She is tall and has reddish hair. She dresses well, keeps herself neat.'

Finally, the short woman with the ‘O' legs answered for them all. ‘You've come to't wrong place. There's no one by that name and no one fits that description.'

‘Thank you.'

I hesitated, wondering whether to leave my card, and then fished one from my satchel and handed it to ‘O' legs.

She looked at it upside down before passing it to the thin woman who took it carefully between finger and thumb, but said nothing.

I waited for a moment, but they had decided on silence as the group response. ‘Well thank you.' I felt awkward, stupid and out of place as I walked away.

*   *   *

Fortunately the roads were not too busy. I drove along Briggate to North Street passing the Dispensary that is shaped like a battleship. This was where the poor took themselves with their broken limbs and damaged eyes. I passed the park they called the Jews' park, and the tailoring shops, butchers, greengrocers, pawnbrokers and engineering works. It was my guess that if you worked on North Street, it must feel like the centre of the universe.

The blundering tram made its straight way before curving onto Roundhay Road. I followed it. There is something both reassuring and stifling about tram routes and timetables. They will take you only in the allowed directions; no going off the rails.

What I found dispiriting about whole swathes of Leeds was the sameness of the brick-built back-to-back houses, the cobbled streets and the dismal greyness that hung over lives. There was a feeling that this was it. Once locked in the greyness, there would be no escape to a greener place, to a broader life, to possibilities.

Perhaps Marian Montague had wanted more. Had she really stolen valuable books? ‘No one ever looks at them,' she had told herself. ‘I'm clever. I can earn a little money.'

Lady Coulton's daughter might well have an inborn sense of entitlement, and the acquisitiveness of the English aristocracy coursing through her veins.

Someone who had aspired to be a counter assistant in a library must have a rich inner life, an imagination, a thread of consciousness that took her out of time and space, to wilder or more romantic places.

It was hard to make up my mind who or what I was searching for: the truth about a murder; a missing daughter; a thief; a wronged young woman.

The stench of Sheepscar Dye Works almost choked me. Now I must make a right turn, onto Holroyd Street.

Once upon a time, I hardly knew how to find my way around Headingley. Now I knew the streets of Leeds so well that I could run a taxicab service if required.

Back Enfield Street was far more salubrious than Danby Court. The end house, Marian's address, was the most impressive in the street. It was surrounded by a two-foot-high brick wall, topped by a foot-high fence. To the left of the gate was a dilapidated stable, converted into a garage; some sign of prosperity here. To the right of a green-painted door were two large sash windows, ground floor and first floor. Above them was a narrower attic window.

I knocked on the door.

After a moment, it was opened by a broad-cheeked pleasant-looking woman in a flowered pinafore.

I apologised for disturbing her and told her my name.

‘Have you come about the room?'

‘No.'

‘Only I thought you might have seen the card in the window.'

‘I'm here because this is the address I have for Miss Marian Montague.'

‘You a friend of hers?'

‘I'm from the library where she worked.'

‘You best come in.'

I edged into the heavily furnished room, past a table and chairs, a sewing machine, dresser, and a rocker and bedchair on either side of the fireplace.

She indicated the rocker for me, and perched on the bedchair.

‘Marian came because she saw my card in the window. Eighteen months she were here and then this.' She stood up and took a sixmo sheet of paper from behind the clock on the mantelpiece.

I took the note from her. It read:

Dear Mrs Claughton, Sorry to leave without notice. Thank you for all you have done. Marian Montague

‘When did she leave?'

‘Early one morning, a couple of weeks ago. A Saturday. Had her supper as usual the night before. I didn't hear a sound. She must have crept out like a cat burglar.'

‘Did she take her things?'

‘Yes. Not that she had much, her clothes and such, a nice brush and comb set, some photographs, and books. She didn't take all her books.'

‘Do you still have her books?' I felt a shiver of apprehension. Was I about to find a stash of stolen goods?

‘Well yes, I kept them because I didn't like to throw them out. Might you be in touch with her?'

‘I would like to be, that is why I came.'

‘Come up then. I'll show you the room. Perhaps you'll know some decent person who's looking for board and lodging. Not that it'll be available long.'

I followed her up two flights of stairs to the attic. It was furnished with a single cast-iron bedstead with brass knobs on each corner. The bed was neatly made, covered with a cream candlewick counterpane decorated with roses. On the chest of drawers stood a cheval mirror, a basin and jug and a brass candlestick. Above it were two shelves. In place of a wardrobe, someone had ingeniously fixed a rail diagonally across the corner of the room.

‘My husband put up them bookshelves especially for her.' A note of hurt entered her voice. ‘I wouldn't have guessed she would just go off like that.'

‘Did she give any hint, any sign of something wrong?'

Being sacked from her job would be enough, I should think, but since Mrs Claughton did not know about this I was not about to tell her.

‘She was sometimes a bit nervy. Once I heard her crying. Over some lad I guessed but as far I know she wasn't walking out with anyone.'

‘What about family?'

‘She had a stepfather. Her mother died years ago. The lass was treading her own path through the world as best she could, and making a good fist of it I thought. My children left long ago. I was fond of Marian. I'd like to know she's all right.'

‘You didn't think to make any enquiries?'

‘It's not up to me. She left the note and she was off.'

I looked at three books on her shelf, and opened each one, hoping some note or photograph might fall out, but nothing did.

‘I've bottomed the room. Another person might have squeezed two paying lodgers in here but that's not my way. If there's anyone else at your library looking for a place, tell them this is a clean house.'

‘I will.'

‘You have me worried over her now. I hope it's not some man taken advantage of her.'