Death of an Avid Reader (7 page)

‘Lancashire.'

‘I prefer Wensleydale.'

‘What happened next?'

‘I've no idea. But the word is passed on through the staff. They all know about it and say nothing.'

‘The story is probably embellished as time passes.'

We sat in silence for a moment. If McAllister had missed his last train, for whatever reason, he would have had much explaining to do when he got home. What had he been drinking, as he worked late and alone? Or perhaps he had not been working at all, or had not been alone. A spectral visitation would provide a most original excuse. ‘Sorry I did not come home last night, dear. I was detained by a ghost.'

Miss Merton smoothed her skirt, glanced at the fire and then looked at me, perhaps sensing my disbelief. ‘That is how the story is told. There was a kind of corroboration, from a most reliable quarter.'

‘Oh?'

‘A priest told Mr McAllister that the description of the ghostly intruder fitted the deceased librarian, Vincent Sternberg, who died in post.'

‘I understand now how the staff could be unsettled, especially on these dark nights.'

‘The counter assistants should not be whispering these stories. I saw the ghost. They did not. I wouldn't dream of gossiping about it.'

‘Of course not.' I left a discreet pause. ‘And was that the end of the matter, regarding McAllister I mean?'

‘Some of the younger staff kept up the stories, held séances when the library was closed, claimed that they heard groans in the basement, a knocking sound behind a bookcase. Volumes would mysteriously leave their place and be found elsewhere. The bell that Sternberg used to summon staff was said to ring when no one touched it. Lamps would suddenly extinguish themselves when there was no draught.'

I smiled. ‘Young people working in a library are no different from those working anywhere else. They must have a little amusement.'

If we had not been sitting by firelight, I may not have asked my next question.

‘Miss Merton, what does your church teach about ghosts?'

‘I will partake of another small glass, Mrs Shackleton, if I may.'

I obliged.

She took a sip. ‘When a person dies, they are judged and go to Heaven, Hell or Purgatory. It happens in an instant. No souls hang about waiting to hear, Am I to ascend, descend or hover somewhere in-between. But it may just possibly be that in Purgatory God allows the soul to linger in those places familiar during life, perhaps to inspire prayers for the dead. If that is so, what better time than the approach to All Hallows' Eve? But of course there is another possibility. Such visions as people claim to see in churchyards and old buildings may be demons, disguised as the once living, whose purpose is to draw men and women away from faith. The library staff should be discouraged from dabbling. The way they are going, it would not surprise me in the least if some of the younger people, for a prank, tried another séance. That would be most regrettable. I would feel it necessary never to set foot in there again, G K Chesterton on the shelves or no G K Chesterton.'

A sudden loud knock on the door startled Miss Merton.

‘Excuse me.'

Reluctant as I was to break off our conversation, I went to the door. Before I reached it, the urgent knocking began again.

‘All right! I'm coming.'

I opened the door to a small creature with the face of a demon. He looked up at me. ‘There's a racket in your garage, Mrs Shackleton.'

This was the time of year when children played tricks on their elders, most usually knocking on doors and running away, or stretching string across a gateway.

‘You don't catch me that easily. It's not Mischievous Night yet.'

He took off his mask. It was Thomas Tetley, a sturdy ten-year-old who lived along the lane just below my house. The elastic of the mask had ruffled his brown hair. ‘I'm not kidding. There's a funny noise an' all. Did your cat run into the garage?'

There would be a group of children hiding somewhere, waiting to see whether I would fall for their nonsense.

‘Thank you for telling me. Now don't you have to go home for tea?'

Miss Merton was behind me, slipping on her coat and galoshes. ‘My brother will think I lost myself in the fog on the way home. Thank you for the hospitality, Mrs Shackleton, and the conversation.'

Thomas stood back to let her pass.

I walked her to the gate. The fog had lifted a little. It occurred to me that there was something else she had wanted to say. Only rarely did she or I step into the other's house.

She paused. Glancing at the waiting Thomas Tetley, she spoke in a low voice. ‘There was something I meant to tell you, warn you about. None of us is safe. Be careful, you and the child.'

Seven

Thomas scratched behind his ear. ‘I'm not kidding, Mrs Shackleton, honest. Something is alive in your garage and making a right old racket.'

My young informant once more assumed his demon mask to trot up to the garage with me. We walked through swirls of fog with small gaps of clear air between, as if the god of dirty weather liked to tease. Living north of the city, the theory goes, one should avoid the worst of the fogs that descend on the town and the industrial areas in the south, east and west. But like disease and good and ill luck, fogs sometimes break boundaries and seep into new territory.

My car had been tucked away for an hour or so, since I returned home with Miss Merton.

By the garage, we stood and listened. No sound emanated from behind the wooden doors. I inserted the key in the padlock and partially opened one of the double doors. Now was not the time to worry about rats. Perhaps an army of them had moved in to occupy an old worn tyre that leaned against the back wall. I planned, when winter changed to spring, to give the tyre to the local children to attach to a branch in the wood. If there was a creature lurking, perhaps it would be more scared of us than we of it. Leaving the door ajar would give it the opportunity to run away. Edging the door open, I half expected Thomas to run off and shout the late October equivalent of ‘April Fool!'

We stepped into the garage. Now was the moment for a horde of giggling children to leap from behind the car and then rush off telling tales of how they fooled the lady detective. None appeared.

‘I definitely heard it.' Thomas's words through the mask sounded odd and clipped, like a puppet's voice, like Mr Punch. He produced a torch from his pocket.

The silence was absolute.

Thomas played the flashlight's beam over the car, and into each corner, sweeping light from floor to ceiling. ‘It must have heard us.'

‘What do you think it was?'

‘I don't know. It chattered.'

‘Earlier you said it could have been the cat.'

‘Well it might have been. It made a scratching noise at the door.'

Bravely, Thomas bobbed down. He shone his torch under the car. ‘Nothing.'

The canvas flap by the driver seat was slightly raised. I pointed. ‘Here, direct the light here.'

He did so, and then shone the beam around the motor's car seats. He gave a sharp intake of breath. ‘Shut the big door, Mrs Shackleton, or it will get away.'

I did as he said, creaking the door shut.

Thomas shone the light on the flagged floor, to guide me back.

I took the torch from him and directed the beam around the interior of the car. Curled in the dickey seat at the rear was a small, trembling monkey, dressed in a red, yellow and green horizontally striped knitted coat with pearl buttons. It covered its eyes and peeped through its fingers, like a child that believes it can see you and you can't see it.

I turned to Thomas. ‘Is this some trick? Did one of you children run in after me and put it there?'

I could not see his face but there was hurt indignation in his voice. ‘I wouldn't put a monkey in a cold car, in the dark.'

‘Well where did it come from?'

The monkey removed its paws from its face but still cowered at the far side of the seat.

I handed the torch back to Thomas. ‘It must have climbed in when I was in town.'

He shone the torch once more, before pointing the beam away from the creature. ‘It's shivering.' In the dim light, our shadows loomed large on the far wall. The place did not seem like my garage at all but outside of time and space. ‘Don't let it run away, Mrs Shackleton. It might die.'

‘It will have to be returned to its owner, whoever that is.'

‘Don't you even recognise it?' His voice held a note of reproach verging on disbelief.

‘Should I?'

‘Well yes, if you're a proper detective. It belongs to the organ grinder. He came round here ages ago but I haven't seen him since the summer holidays. My mother said he keeps to the town, where people pay him to clear off, and to the poor districts, where people pity him. He plays a little organ on a one-leg stand.'

‘We'll have to do something to coax him out of that corner. I hope he won't bite.' I reached out a hand. ‘Come on, monkey.'

Thomas raised the demon mask to the top of his head. ‘He might be scared of me, think I'm the devil or something.'

‘Perhaps we'll have to come back with nuts, give him one, put a little trail of them, to build up his confidence.'

‘He likes music. He likes what the organ grinder plays.'

‘I don't have a barrel organ handy, do you?'

‘No, but I know one of the songs the organ grinder plays. Our choirmaster taught us. Shall I sing it?'

‘Well yes. I can't think of a better idea.'

Holding the flashlight quite still, Thomas began to sing in an exquisitely pure voice that bore no relation to the creaking music of a barrel organ. It was a song from
Rigoletto,
La donna è mobile.

As he sang, the monkey became alert in a very different way. It stared at Thomas as if hypnotised. After a long time, it switched its questioning gaze to me.

‘Start the song again,' I whispered.

Tentatively, I held out my hand, and waited.

Slowly the monkey raised itself and swayed towards us, half walking, half crawling. It paused for several seconds and then raised a paw.

As I reached down to it, the creature leapt at me with a sudden movement, clinging to my chest and snuggling up as if it mistook me for its long-lost mother. Its tail flicked back and forth. In the light directed upwards from the torch, I saw that it was dark brown, with a ring of fluffy white hair around its head. Thomas wisely continued singing as he reached for the motoring blanket. The torch made lines of light as he moved. He set his torch on the floor and wrapped the blanket around the monkey, all the while continuing to sing.

Here was a child who would go far in life.

‘Come on, monkey.' I passed the garage keys to Thomas. ‘I'm going to take you home, and find your master. He should keep a closer eye on you in this foul weather.'

We left the garage. Thomas closed the door, clicked the padlock shut and turned the key. I stroked the monkey's head, reassuring it, as Thomas talked to me. ‘Did you see the organ grinder in town, Mrs Shackleton?'

‘No, not since the summer. Perhaps he lost his monkey in the fog. It must have climbed into my car for shelter.'

As we walked back down the road, the monkey's eyes darted from Thomas to me, but it seemed content, making no attempt to leap free and run away.

Thomas reached out a finger and held the monkey's paw. ‘What if I take him home?'

‘Your mother might not be happy about that.' I stopped myself from reminding him that he had wanted one of Sookie's kittens and his mother had said no. ‘I'll make some enquiries. Come back tomorrow and by then perhaps I'll have found the organ grinder. Have you time to run an errand and earn tuppence before your tea?'

‘Yes. I'll do it for nothing if it's for the monkey.'

‘Then come inside. I'll give you a note for a gentleman in Woodhouse.'

‘That man who works with you, the policeman?'

‘He's not a policeman.'

‘He looks like one.'

I smiled. Out of the mouths of babes. Sykes prides himself on not looking like a policeman, but he can't help it.

Thomas followed me inside. He sat by the fire, in the chair earlier occupied by Miss Merton. I handed him the monkey to hold.

Leaving them for a moment, I went into the dining room that doubles as my office and wrote a note to Sykes, asking him to keep his ear to the ground for news of the organ grinder, and explaining that I had the monkey. It was an odd thing to have to write, but Sykes is very good at picking up titbits of information. His sources are many and his contacts legion.

I walked back into the parlour.

Mrs Sugden had heard me come in. She frequently speaks from a different, room, knowing her voice carries well. She started to talk as she walked along the hall.

‘What time do you want to…' The word ‘eat', which would normally have followed ‘What time do you want to', evaporated as she stared at Thomas and the monkey and they stared back at her. Reading her dismay, the creature hid its head under the blanket.

‘What have you got there, Thomas Tetley?'

‘We think it's the organ grinder's monkey.'

‘Well where's the organ grinder?'

‘We don't know. Mrs Shackleton is going to find out.'

I raised an eyebrow for Mrs Sugden. What else could one do?

Mrs Sugden pursed her lips. ‘Is this your family whistle?' She gave a short, a long and a short whistle. Quite tuneful.

‘Aye.'

‘Then you've been whistled for, half a dozen times. You better get yourself and that creature off home.'

‘What about the note to take to Woodhouse, Mrs Shackleton? I'll still do it.'

‘It's all right. I have to go out again. I'll deliver it myself. Anyway, it's too foggy for you to be staying out much longer. You'll end up with a sore throat and lose your singing-tomonkeys voice. If your mother ticks you off, tell her about the monkey, and that you were helping me.'