Death of an Avid Reader (3 page)

‘That was reported, and there were fatalities, though Hartlepool took the brunt. I would have remembered had a thirteen year old girl died.'

‘Would you?'

‘Yes. A baby was killed, in a Scarborough park.' We were silent for a moment. I could see I had not convinced her, so added, ‘I think you can be almost certain that your daughter was unharmed.'

‘I hope you're right.' She sighed. ‘I took a risk in writing to Mrs Wells six months ago, under the pretext of asking about the upkeep of Nanny Tarpey's grave. I received no reply.'

‘There could be any number of reasons for that. Sometimes letters go astray.'

‘Or Mrs Wells may have thrown my letter on the fire.'

There was very little to go on, and we both knew it.

I don't know why I asked my next question. ‘Did you remain in touch with Sophia's father?'

‘No.'

‘Did he know you were to have his child?'

‘Certainly not. He … he was a young man, someone who came to the house in the country, to do cataloguing in the library connected with some old diaries belonging to my father-in-law. I was alone with the children, and very few staff.'

She had told me what I needed to know in order to search for her daughter. But what intrigued me was what she did not say. Who was the passionate young man who danced into her life so briefly? How must she have felt, giving birth to a child and then handing the baby to a stranger, to be brought up under another name?

I tried not to make a connection with my own experience, but it was difficult not to. My mother was born into the aristocracy, married an up-and-coming police officer and was childless for longer than she liked. They adopted me from the widow of a police constable, my father, who died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving my natural mother with too many mouths to feed. But from an early age I had known that I was adopted. Did Sophia Wells know? How extraordinary it would be to live into adulthood, certain of your identity, and then to have that certainty ripped away.

My own birth mother had handed me over to her late husband's superior officer and his wife when I was just a few weeks old. My father kept her informed about me. When I eventually met this stranger, this mother, I discovered that the family had always talked about me, and followed my progress, long before I met them. My birth mother said she was glad that I had done so very well. It left me with an odd sense of obligation. I felt as though there was something I should do or say, but did not know what. ‘Glad,' was the word my birth mother had used.

Lady Coulton wanted that same small gem of gladness: the knowledge that her daughter was safe and well.

Finding Sophia Wells should not be too difficult. Knowing what to say to her might be tricky. Lady Coulton seemed not to consider that, and only concentrated on the finding part. Perhaps she was right to take one matter at a time.

I privately decided to try and find Mrs Wells first, and discover what she had told Sophia.

‘What were the financial arrangements?' As I heard my own question, for the first time it occurred to me that my father must have paid for me. Did he go on paying, in the form of supporting that other family, the constable's widow and her children?

Perhaps the shock of the thought showed in my face, because Lady Coulton gave me an odd look.

‘I gave Mr and Mrs Wells a lump sum when they took Sophia. After that it would have been difficult. My husband and his accountant kept control of our finances. It would have been difficult for me to go on paying Mrs Wells without raising suspicions. It is different now. I have more freedom.'

‘From what you say, Mrs Wells may have come to regard Sophia as her child and as the years passed, that feeling would become stronger.'

She flexed her fingers. ‘Just so.'

Sophia was the daughter of a fishmonger and his wife. A gulf separated Mrs Wells and the woman who faced me, with her carefully manicured nails, delicate way of crossing her ankles, the haughtiness that she conveyed by a mere jut of her chin. I wondered in what ways Sophia may have remained her mother's daughter. What gestures she might employ, whether she had that same sideways glance that Lady Coulton gave now, when someone walked into the room and took a seat, well out of earshot.

‘If I find Mrs Wells, she is almost certain to guess what is behind my search.'

‘Yes, I see that. But I am sure you will think of something, a reference to her old nanny's employer, something of that sort.' Once more she delved into her handbag. ‘My nanny and her sister were quite plain, to put it kindly. In the postcard, as a child, Sophia looked like me when I was that age. That is why I have had to hide the photograph for years. She has probably grown into a beauty. She must look in the glass and know that she is from a different stable to Mr and Mrs Wells.' She handed me another photograph. ‘Here I am, in my twenties, the age Sophia will be now. She may still look like me.'

This was also a postcard-size photograph and had been tinted. ‘It's from a painting, I think?'

‘Yes. The portrait was commissioned on my engagement. Coulton calls it the
Symphony in Blue.
'

She wore a long gown that revealed her shoulders. In her right hand she held a rose. Her gaze challenged the painter with grave dignity, as if she cared not a jot what he saw. She knew she was a beauty. Unconventionally, her long hair fell loose to her shoulders, more in the way an artist might pose his model than as a painter would portray a lady. The impression was of languidness and a lazy grace.

‘May I keep this, for now?'

‘Yes.'

‘If she does resemble you, and you hope to be reunited, won't the likeness between you speak the secret you have kept all these years?'

‘I will worry about that if it happens.'

‘Am I to give her a hint if I find her? What do you intend?'

‘I am not sure.' She sighed. ‘It's too ridiculous, I know. I began to dream of Sophia when my husband first took poorly. The day after my last dream, I escaped the sick room and met your aunt for lunch at Claridge's. Berta talks about you, her niece the detective. That was when it occurred to me that it may be possible to find Sophia.'

She did not go so far as to admit that in spite of her many friends she was lonely. She did not need to.

An uneasy feeling crept over me, an excess of caution. So many sayings tell us to let sleeping dogs lie, don't rock the boat or lift the stone.

‘I will see what I can do. How shall I contact you if I have further questions, or something to report?'

After a few more words, our interview reached its conclusion. I walked with her to the door, where Alfred produced her coat.

I watched her go. She crossed the square.

There he was again, the man in black. He seemed to appear from nowhere. Keeping a short distance, he followed her, almost as if ready to pounce.

Not pausing to pick up my coat, I went after them.

Lady Coulton went in the front door of her house.

The man in black took the steps down to the servants' quarters.

Was the ailing Lord Coulton, or one of their sons, paying this man to spy on her ladyship?

Now I wished I had told her my suspicion that she was followed, but it was too late to warn her.

Four

The next morning, we were on the train to Scarborough. Jim Sykes, a former policeman, is a stickler for wanting to do things in an orderly fashion. He had a face on him.

‘Spit it out. What's the matter?'

‘Never mind, we've done it now.' He is good at sulking.

‘Go on, say it.'

‘Proper preparation prevents poor performance.'

‘Yes, and…?'

‘I don't like this jumping straight in business. Another hour and I could have checked
Kelly's Directory of the North and East Ridings
in the Central Library.'

‘We have an address for Mr and Mrs Wells: Wells's Fresh Caught Fish, Victoria Road.'

‘They may have moved.'

‘Then we'll be on the spot. I want to start sooner rather than later. The days turn dark so early now.' I made a conciliatory gesture. ‘Here's the guide book, and you have the map.'

‘Yes.'

‘Well then, what more do we need?'

He sighed. ‘All right. Have it your own way.'

As we reached York, he unfolded the map. ‘It's no distance from the station to Victoria Road.'

‘This might be the most straightforward job we have ever had.'

Beyond York, he had overcome his sulk and treated me to snippets of information from my
Black's Guide to Yorkshire.
‘Scarborough is rightly known as Queen of English Watering Places.'

‘And where's the King of Watering Places?'

‘It doesn't say. Bognor, probably.'

Our train chugged through the flat East Riding landscape where fields lay fallow, their washed-out colours changing from mustard to brown to a muddy grey, so sludgy that it made the slate sky bright by comparison. My novel was Winifred Holtby's
Anderby Wold,
set in just this landscape. I imagined the fierce farmer heroine, Mary Robson, driving her cart along a winding lane, full of energy and determination about her imagined and imaginary future.

Sykes stared glumly across the barren land. ‘Typical. We have a paid for trip to the seaside and it couldn't be in July, could it? No. Has to be at the dead end of the year.'

‘Cheer up, Mr Sykes. The sky is trying to show a touch of blue. Look, there's a patch big enough to mend a hole in a shirt. It could be bright in Scarborough.'

‘Bracing more like.'

‘If we find out what we need to know quickly, I'm all for a stroll along the front and a decent lunch. I might walk up to St Mary's and pay my respects at Anne Brontë's grave.'

Sykes scowled. ‘Don't include me in the pilgrimage. I've no truck with graveyards. Let the dead in peace to get on with being dead. I'll wait till I'm carried there.'

‘What would you like to see, besides the sea, time permitting?'

‘I fancy a stroll up to the castle. I always try to drag the kids there but they prefer the beach and the rides.'

*   *   *

Arriving in a place associated with holidays and endless time for strolls and enjoyment lifted my spirits, but not for long.

As the carriage door slammed shut, I caught sight of a tall figure in black coat and black homburg. Something about the way he moved made me think that I had seen him before. Straight away, I thought of the man who had followed Lady Coulton to and from the club.

I touched Sykes's arm. ‘Don't look now but I think someone is following us.'

Without needing to speak further, we made our way to the buffet bar. I found a seat in a corner. Sykes went to the counter to order.

There was no sign of the man in black, though I had felt so sure.

I explained my suspicions to Sykes, adding that even though Lady Coulton was followed, there could be no question of the person knowing what she and I had talked about in the club.

‘How long have they been married?' he asked.

‘Almost thirty years.'

‘The husband will know she had a lover. He may know about the child, even if he says nothing.'

‘I don't believe he does know.'

‘In any case, it is a bit late in life for him to be spying on her.'

When we finished our tea, we took the precaution of separating, each making our way, in a roundabout fashion, to Victoria Road.

Confident that I had not been followed, as I stepped between a tramcar and a delivery van, I caught the whiff of fresh fish as a woman hurried by carrying a shopping basket.

Sykes approached from the other direction, pulling down his hat as a sharp gust of wind blew up from the North Sea. ‘Who'll do the talking?'

‘If it's Mr Wells, you. If it's Mrs Wells, I'll ask to speak to her privately, saying we have an acquaintance in common.'

‘It could be the daughter, Sophia.'

‘We'll think of something.'

Sykes could not resist his little jibe. ‘If I'd been able to look at an up-to-date directory, we would have known what to expect.'

‘It's more interesting this way.'

There had been a change of name. The sign above the shop read, Scarborough Fresh Fish.

To his credit, Sykes did not say I told you so.

Inside, a dapper chap with fair wavy hair and a small moustache finished serving a customer.

Sykes introduced himself. ‘Am I speaking to Mr Wells?'

‘Oh no, sir. Mr Wells died a long time since. My name's Richard Bryam. We took over from Mrs Wells. She kept the shop going until the lease expired in 1912 and then decided it was too much for her. Mind you, if I'd known what was coming, I would have had second thoughts. It was a devil of a job for the fishing once war was declared.'

‘We're trying to trace them, for a friend of the family.' Sykes handed him our card.

Mr Bryam wiped his hands on a tea cloth and looked at the card. ‘Mrs Wells and the girl stayed in Scarborough for a bit, but I heard they went away.'

‘Do you know where she moved?'

‘I'm sorry, I don't.' His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you chasing her for money? I wouldn't help no one who was hounding a widow.'

It was my turn. ‘Nor would we. Truly. This could be to her advantage. Mr Bryam, do you know what school Sophia attended?'

‘You've got me there.' He went to the door between the shop and the house and opened it. There was a smell of baking buns. ‘Madge! Lady here has a question.' A slender fair-haired woman appeared. ‘They're asking about the Wells family and which school the lass went to.'

She wiped her hands on her apron. ‘She was a pupil at Queen Margaret's, a right bonny, clever lass.'

‘Where is Queen Margaret's School?' I asked.

She looked at me, judging me to be neither bonny nor clever. ‘On Queen Margaret's Road. Where else would you put it?'