Rosemary Aitken (2 page)

‘Count yourself lucky,’ Aunty Madge said when she heard. ‘At least it’s something that you’re accustomed to. There was a woman down Tresidder way called all her servants ‘Rose’, just so she never had to learn their different names. Anyway, what’s wrong with “Effie”? It’s what you’re always called. It’s even written on that box of yours.’ Which, of course, it was.

The recollection troubled Effie now. Would Mrs Thatchell have to learn a different name again, when she had been sent off to the workhouse in disgrace and a new maid took her place? She could not bear to think about the possibility. She had known that it was naughty, the trick that she and her friend Lettie had contrived, but it had all seemed so simple at the time.

Lettie was lady’s maid and dresser to the daughter of a grand house on the outskirts of the town: a pretty young lady who always looked a treat, but properly spoiled by her Papa, by all accounts. Miss Caroline was a member of the subscription library herself, but – like Mrs Thatchell – sent her maid to get her books for her, usually on alternate Tuesdays, luckily enough. That was how the two servant-girls had come to meet and now they looked forward to their little chats.

‘Proper waste of sixpence,’ Lettie grumbled once, taking an exciting-looking volume from the shelf. ‘Only joined the library because her smart friends belonged. Sends me in each fortnight for her books – the latest things so she can show them off – then scarcely even seems to glance at them. Read them myself to save the waste, I would, except I’ve never been a one for books, myself.’

‘Oh, I am!’ Effie said, unthinkingly.

Lettie turned to her with a wicked smile. ‘Tell you what, there is always something I could find to bring me into town – letters to be posted or shoes to be re-soled – even on non-library weeks. Suppose that on the alternate weeks I come and stand outside, bringing some book Miss Caroline’s decided not to read? She’ll have already paid the fee so if you take it home, and promise me you’ll get it back before the date runs out, who will be the wiser? And don’t look at me like that. It’s not as if it’s stealing – it’s only borrowing. And she don’t want it, so who is hurt by it?’

Effie had been easy to convince. Surely it was doing no-one any harm? And it had worked like magic – up to now that is! But obviously the Misses Weston had discovered it. And now the police were here and it was too late to escape – Miss Blanche had seen her and was gesturing her to come.

Miss Blanche was not pretty, she was too tall and thin for that, but she was generally kind and – unlike her elder sister – would greet you with a smile. Absurdly, she was smiling now. ‘There you are, Constable, this is Effie Pengelly – the very girl that we were talking of.’ Her voice seemed very loud as she beckoned to Effie with a bony lace-trimmed hand. ‘Come along, Effie, you are just in time. This policeman needs to have a word with you. I was about to direct him to Mrs Thatchell’s house.’

Effie gulped. Thank heaven he had not come knocking at Mrs Thatchell’s door! Things were bad enough, without being made an exhibition of in front of the whole street. It was all her own fault, too, that was the worst of it. It was a mercy Lettie hadn’t yet arrived to be involved in this – though doubtless the policeman would catch up with her as well. Effie found that she was blinking back the tears as she stumbled down the pavement towards Miss Blanche Weston and the waiting constable.

Blanche Weston looked affectionately at the girl as she approached. Nice little creature, she had always thought. Almost a young woman, now, and very nearly pretty if she weren’t so skinny and anxious-looking, poor thing. Blanche was glad that she’d defied her sister, just for once, and recommended Effie for the maid’s post at that house, even though they only knew her by repute. It was all very well for Pearl to say that she should not have spoken up.

‘Just because that sewing-teacher at the school asked if we knew of any vacancies, you did not have to put our reputation at such risk,’ Pearl had chided sharply, when she heard of it. Pearl had been disappointed of marriage in her youth, and had been very fond of chiding ever since. ‘Simply on the basis of some stupid sewing-prize! What do we know about this Effie, anyway? Suppose she turns out to be a thief, or worse?’

But of course, she hadn’t. It had worked out very well and Blanche took a particular pleasure in the fact. It was almost as if the child was her personal protégée. But whatever was the matter with the girl today? She was walking as if her legs would hardly carry her. But of course, it was the presence of the policeman at the door – the child must have realized that something was amiss.

‘Come on, girl, do hurry. This poor young constable hasn’t got all day!’ That was Pearl now, bounding from the shop, rather like a sheepdog harrying the lambs.

Blanche smiled inwardly at her own comparison. Pearl did look rather like a terrier, the way she held her pointed chin up high. She was slightly the shorter of the two but had inherited their mother’s air of effortless authority, which made her seem somehow larger than she was. And she had the looks. Blanche had no illusions on that score. She herself had a bony face and long teeth like a horse, but Pearl would have been handsome if she were not so severe, though since her ‘disappointment’ with that dreadful man she seemed actively to rejoice in making herself plain. Her hair was always scraped back into an unforgiving bun and her thin lips were pursed into a disapproving ‘O’, as if to echo the hairstyle from the front.

She was turning those pursed lips to Effie now. ‘Well now you’re here, you’d better come inside. Don’t want the whole town listening, do we?’

Effie had found her voice. ‘If it’s about the books . . .’ she managed.

The poor thing was clearly frightened. Blanche said, with a smile, ‘Never mind the books, dear. That can wait a little while. The constable has something he wants to say to you. Something very serious has been happening.’

The stricken look on Effie’s face gave her a pang of guilt. Of course, Blanche thought, it was a terrible event – finding a dead man lying in the yard – and she should be ashamed that it had given her a little secret thrill.

It would have been a different thing, perhaps, if she had been the first person on the scene, but when she went out for water from the tap (they hadn’t really needed to have it piped inside; that sort of thing was a terrible expense) there was the butcher from the shop next door saying that there was someone lying in the corner of the court. He had been cross at first because he thought it was a tramp – you did get itinerants who climbed the wall sometimes and tried to huddle in the corner out of the wind and rain. But of course, when she went over with him, it was clear this man was dead. There was no blood or anything, but the corpse was stiff and cold.

And she – Blanche Weston – had been the one to go and fetch the police. A pair of them there’d been: an older sergeant, whom she’d seen before, and this young, dark, good-looking constable. They’d listened to her story and come straight back with her.

Pearl had, predictably, been simply furious. ‘Bringing the police here?’ she had hissed, when Blanche got back. ‘What are you thinking of? All over town by nightfall, it will be. And what will our better class of customers suppose?’

Blanche had surprised herself by finding sufficient courage to retort, ‘How do you suppose that we could keep it quiet? A dead man in the yard? Did you expect to hide it? Anyway, the butcher saw it too – and he’ll tell everyone who comes, in any case. At least this way we’ve done the proper thing by that poor dead fellow – whoever it might be.’

‘Poor fellow, you call him!’ Pearl had snorted. ‘Well, on your head it shall be. When the police start asking questions, I shall tell the truth. Yes, we have seen him before. He came in here yesterday, as we were shutting up the shop, asking for that Pengelly girl you think so much about. What did I warn you! Now look what she’s done. Bringing trouble to our door! Well, I shall tell them straight!’

And that is exactly what she did, once the body had been moved and the police had taken charge. In fact, she hadn’t even waited to be asked. She collared the sergeant as soon as he came in – he had maddeningly gone and spoken to the butcher first – and told him the whole tale. He hadn’t seemed much moved.

‘Well then, missus, we’d better find the girl. Maybe she can tell us who he is. Nothing on the body to tell us anything. Nothing in his pockets but a single ha’penny. No initials, nothing. Just a torn bit of a train ticket, by the looks of it. Might give us a lead if we can work out exactly what that was – though in fact, it looks as if he walked a fair old way. One of his soles is almost worn right through. Seems as if he’s fallen on bad times. No overcoat, for one thing – that’s what did for him. Died of cold and hunger, so the doctor thinks. Not this Effie’s father or brother, I suppose?’

It was Pearl who’d answered. She shook her head at him. ‘Shouldn’t think so for a minute. Father’s a tinner down a local pit and if there were other children – which there aren’t – stands to reason they’d be Effie’s sort of age, not rising fifty like this man clearly was. Didn’t look a tinner, either, from what I saw of him. Fancy voice he had. Wanted to know when Effie would be in. Well, I told him, not until today. She always comes on Tuesday, and I told him so.’

She sounded so disapproving that Blanche had butted in. ‘He didn’t even stop to ask us where she lived, just thanked us quite politely, and went off down the street. And that’s the first and last we saw of him – until today of course.’

The sergeant nodded and put his book away. ‘Well we’d better find the girl. I understand that you know where she is? I’ll leave the constable to take down her address while I go and make some more enquiries. Someone must have seen this fellow in the town. Though I don’t believe he was a local man. I’ve never seen him anywhere about and the butcher swears he’s never set eyes on him before, though between us we know almost everyone. But perhaps this Effie can enlighten us.’

And here the poor child was, looking so terrified that it would melt your heart. But Pearl seemed almost pleased. She gave one of her rare smiles to the young policeman at her side, who was running a finger round the high collar at his neck and looking uncomfortable in his uniform. ‘You can use the little back office-storeroom if you like, Constable. We also use it as a sitting-room, so you will find a chair and table and there is
a fire alight in there. You won’t be disturbed if there are customers.’ She led the way towards it and Blanche and the policeman trooped in after her.

But Effie was lingering for an instant at the door. For a moment Blanche thought that the girl was going to run away, but then she realized that all she’d stopped to do was to pull back the cover from the basket on her arm and stuff a pile of books back on the shelf labelled ‘Returns’. Wasn’t it like Effie to put her duties first, even at a moment like this? Blanche gave her a small approving smile.

Effie coloured scarlet and stared down at her feet, then turned and followed Pearl and the policeman into the sitting-room.

Constable Alexander Dawes, Police number 663, looked around the poky little room where the elder of the spinsters was pulling out a chair. There was scarcely room in here for either him or it – the walls were stacked with boxes and the writing-table too – though the other woman was busy clearing off a space.

‘There you are, Constable. You make yourself at home. Effie here can have the wooden stool.’

Alex ran a finger round his collar-edge again. It wasn’t only nervousness: the new serge chafed his neck. Though he
was
a little anxious, if the truth be known. It was only a few months since he had joined the Borough Police and having completed the required training period of ‘drill’ this was the first time he’d been out on his own – up to now the sergeant had accompanied him throughout – and it wasn’t going to be as simple as he’d thought.

His task had simply been to find out an address and report back to the station as soon as possible, but here the girl Effie had actually turned up. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d have to talk to her. It was clear the shopkeepers expected it. Perhaps he could question her a bit and take her to the station a little later on and let the sergeant carry on from there. That might be best. He gave her an uncertain smile and was surprised to realize that she was even more nervous than he was himself.

Perversely, that gave him a sort of confidence. He pulled out his little notebook, took the pencil from the back and licked the tip of it. That helped a bit as well. He looked at the three lines of writing, which was all that the notebook up to now contained, and put on what he hoped was a policemanly sort of voice. ‘Now, let me see. Your name is Effie Pengelly I believe?’

She nodded, swallowed, and then blurted out, ‘Well actually it’s Ethel, but they call me Effie, sir.’

Calling him ‘sir’ was oddly flattering. He nodded. ‘And you work for a Mrs–’ he looked down at his notes – ‘a Mrs Thatchell in Morrab Road?’ The girl didn’t answer, so he tried again. ‘Can you confirm that? It’s what the ladies of the shop have told me.’

The girl Effie had dropped her head and was looking up at him with enormous hazel eyes. She would have been a proper stunner, he thought, if she hadn’t been so thin. She had lovely chestnut hair, though she had pulled it back in an unbecoming twist – from which, he noticed, it was trying to escape. She gave him a brief nod. ‘I suppose you’ll have to tell her about all this,’ she muttered, suddenly. She sounded close to tears.

‘All this?’ he echoed. ‘So you already know what this is about?’ If so, perhaps this interview would not be so bad.

She nodded. ‘Yes, sir, I’m sorry . . . I’m afraid I think I do.’

Relief was spreading up his shoulder blades and he let himself lean back in his uncomfortable chair and press his fingertips together, as he had seen Sergeant Vigo do. ‘So perhaps you can tell us who this fellow is?’

The downcast gaze had turned into a stare and her shock and amazement could scarcely have been feigned. ‘Fellow? What fellow?’

He took a deep breath. ‘Forgive me, I thought you said you knew. There has been a stranger in the town. Came here to this shop yesterday asking where you were.’