The Unseen

14

2011

Leah spent a week reading the police files on the Cat Morley case, and searching the papers later in 1911 for details of Robin Durrant’s trial. She stared at the photograph of him that appeared each time the story was reported; at the elegantly curved top lip that she remembered from the dead soldier, so many miles away in Belgium. It was unsettling to recognise that the two faces, living and dead, were one. He was found guilty of wilful murder; the conclusion that it had been a crime of passion, since Cat’s reputation was not good and she was found wearing only her slip. As such, the jury recommended mercy and he was sentenced to life imprisonment rather than hanging. Only one man seemed to have had any doubts in what was otherwise treated as an open and shut case. The Home Office’s man, Professor Palmer, noted that there was much less blood staining on Cat’s slip than he would have expected had she been wearing only that when she was attacked and killed; and that if their meeting had been a passionate one, a tryst gone awry, then he found it strange that she had arranged to meet her other lover, George Hobson, and to elope with him that same morning. And also that she had removed her dress carefully, and folded it up neatly. Hardly the actions of a couple in the throes of passion. There were also the fragments of glass in the girl’s face, which never were accounted for.

Added into the file, like an afterthought, was an extra statement from Mrs Sophie Bell, the cook and housekeeper at The Rectory. Made several weeks after the inquest and shortly before Robin Durrant’s trial, Mrs Bell stated that she had found a bloodied towel in the kitchen at The Rectory on the morning of the murder, and that it had subsequently disappeared. Asked why she hadn’t reported this before, the woman said she had been too shocked and upset at the time, and had forgotten all about it until later on. She also stated that the vicar and his wife had been most peculiar, and much changed since the killing; although she stressed that they had always been good and kind employers, and that the alteration in them might be purely ascribable to shock. There was a memo from Professor Palmer, suggesting that the statement be included in the trial evidence, and that further investigation be made into The Rectory and its occupants, but this recommendation was not acted upon.

Reading the files, Leah felt a tremendous sense of urgency. She knew where the glass in Cat’s face had come from – from the murder weapon, Albert Canning’s binoculars. She knew that the reason there hadn’t been much blood on Cat’s slip was because she’d been dressed as an elemental when she was killed. And she knew why the vicar, whose journal reflected a man rapidly losing his grip on reality, would have lashed out at the girl. He had been duped, surely and completely. Finding this out must have rocked him to his very core, and tipped him over the edge of reason. She knew why Hester Canning, desperate at first to stop any suspicion falling on her husband, had hidden the evidence she’d found at The Rectory on the day of the murder; and why thereafter, as she came to suspect her husband, she had been tortured by guilt and fear. Leah felt like running to somebody in authority with what she knew; telling the police, the press, anybody. As if she could change these events, a hundred years later. As if the real killer could be brought to justice, and Hester not forced to live out her shadowed life with him.

The newspapers, by the time of the trial, had managed to find photographs to go with the story. They printed the Cannings’ wedding portrait, taken in 1909. The couple stared serenely from the page, two pairs of pale eyes in soft young faces, the irises so clear that even in black and white, it was obvious that they must have been light blue or green. Hester was smiling slightly, glowing with contentment. The vicar, who was wed in his clerical dress, had an air of mild anxiety and no smile on his lips. Leah stared at the woman’s face with a feeling of recognition. And there was a picture of Cat Morley, the murdered housemaid, whose role as the elemental was never publicly discussed, even if there had been those with suspicions at the time. It was a poor shot, taken from a distance at the Cold Ash Holt fête for the coronation in June, 1911. An array of finely dressed ladies, including Hester Canning, had paused in their revelry to have their picture taken. Bunting and parasols, tea tables laid with bright white cloths and three-tiered cake stands. And, behind them, a short, slight girl in a grey dress, with a clean apron tied tightly around her and a soft cotton cap on her head. She was holding a silver teapot, as if paused in the act of filling the china cups laid out in front of her. It was not a good picture, and too distant for her face to be clear. Short locks of black hair came out from under her cap, and her face was set in a scowl which might have been down to the bright sunlight, but might not. Dark brows drawn down in a thin, angular face. The elemental, Leah thought, with a pang of anguish for the girl.

The more Leah read, the more Hester’s letters made sense; facts and references dropping into place. She began to write her article, which grew and grew, and became as much about depicting the truth that Hester Canning had so longed for as resurrecting the dead girl, whose role in it all had never before been properly understood. And as she stared at the Cannings’ faces, and went back to Hester’s letters to Robin Durrant, something else became abundantly clear.

She was interrupted on Friday afternoon by a phone call from Mark.

‘Hello, stranger. Are you ignoring me now that you’ve got your story, or what?’ he said.

Leah smiled, glanced at the clock and realised that her legs were numb, her back aching. ‘No! Sorry, Mark. Not at all. I’ve just been so caught up in filling in all the gaps… I have some rather significant news for you, actually. I was saving it until I could give you the finished piece, but perhaps I should tell you sooner.’ She stood up from her table in the reading room and stretched.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Oh, it’s far too juicy to tell you over the phone. Let’s have some lunch at the pub – but first, meet me at the church in Cold Ash Holt. Say, in an hour?’

‘All right then.’

‘And bring that picture of your grandfather, Thomas.’

The day was mild and blowy, a damp wind nudging at them and trembling the grass as they walked along the rows of gravestones surrounding the church of St Peter. Leah had a bunch of flowers underneath her arm, the cellophane crackling softly. White lilies and pink cherry blossoms; a big, extravagant spray.

‘If you’re looking for Hester and Albert, they’re over there,’ Mark said, pointing to an oblong tomb near a vast and brooding yew tree.

‘We’ll get to them. I’ll need a photo of their graves for the article. First there’s someone else I want to see.’

‘This article of yours is getting pretty chunky. Maybe you should turn it into a book?’ he said.

Leah paused, a smile spreading over her face. ‘That is an absolutely brilliant idea. Why don’t I? I’ve got enough to write about. Theosophy, a fairy hoax, a murder, a miscarriage of justice…’

‘Was it a miscarriage, though? After all, it was the theosophist’s fault she was killed, from what you’ve told me.’

‘Yes, but the vicar should have faced justice too, for what he did. Not just your great-grandfather,’ Leah said, and waited while Mark unpicked this remark.

‘What do you mean “the vicar, not just my great-grandfather”? The vicar was my great-grandfather,’ he said.

Leah shook her head, smiling. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘What links those two letters Robin Durrant kept? What does Hester mention in both of them?’

‘Er… doubts and fears, suspicions… begging for information…’

‘But what else?’ she pressed. Mark shook his head. ‘Her child, Mark. She talks about her child in both of them. Firstly that she’s about to give birth, and that she thinks it’s a boy; secondly at length about him as a toddler.’

‘Maybe, but so what? She probably talked about him in the other letters she sent as well.’

‘Perhaps, perhaps not. And maybe he didn’t mean to lose the others. Why would she mention her child at all, to a man convicted of murder who she’s clearly uncomfortable writing to, and when she clearly has more important things to write to him about?’

‘I don’t know… aren’t all new mothers a bit obsessed with their kids?’ he countered.

Leah took a printed page from her back pocket. ‘I found this in the newspaper archive – it’s Hester and Albert on their wedding day.’

‘Oh, so that’s what they looked like. That’s great,’ Mark said.

‘Did you bring the picture of Thomas? Hester’s son? Can I see it?’ Leah asked. Mark pulled it from his coat pocket and handed it to her. She held the two portraits up side by side. The flimsy printout flapped a little in the breeze. ‘What do you notice?’

Mark obediently studied the two pictures for a while, and then shrugged.

‘I don’t know. What am I supposed to be seeing?’

‘The eyes, Mark. Any A-level biology student will tell you – it’s almost impossible for two blue-eyed people to have a brown-eyed child. Thomas wasn’t Albert’s son. He was Robin Durrant’s.’

‘My God… are you sure?’

‘I’m sure. They must have had a fling or something. Something that of course ended badly when the murder and all the rest of it happened. The CWGC can do a DNA test for you, if you like. Your great-grandfather was a theosophist, was convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, and was sent to fight in the trenches like a lot of convicts. And he died there, with all of his secrets intact. Until now.’

They walked on for a bit longer, still searching, until Leah’s eyes lit upon the name she’d been looking for.

‘Here! Here she is,’ she said. But her excitement quickly faded into something more subdued. It was a small gravestone, so weathered and furred with lichen that it was easy to overlook. It sagged sideways with a slightly weary air, and the turf in front of it was tussocked and neglected. Just visible were chiselled words, the name and the epitaph. Catherine Morley, April 1889 – August 1911. Safe in the Arms of the Lord. ‘Her nickname was Black Cat, according to the papers,’ Leah said.

‘Why?’ Mark asked, as they crouched down by the stone. He put out his hand and brushed gritty lichen from her name with his thumb.

‘Who knows? Some things are just lost, after so much time. It could have been a slur on her character,’ Leah sighed. She put the bouquet of flowers on the grave and they looked out of place, too bright.

‘God, she was only twenty-two. So young. You haven’t got anything else to spring on me, have you? Cat Morley wasn’t my long-lost cousin or something?’ Mark smiled.

Leah shook her head. ‘No. Nothing like that.’

‘Well, you did it.’ He patted Cat Morley’s stone. ‘You found out who the dead soldier was, and solved a murder along the way. And you managed to get me out of the house. Thank you, Leah,’ he said seriously.

‘Don’t thank me – thank you for all your help! I couldn’t have done it without you,’ Leah said, embarrassed.

‘Yes, you could.’

‘Well. Thank goodness you decided to go for a pint at The Swing Bridge that first evening. I’m not sure I’d have had the guts to knock on your door again, after the reception I got the first time.’

‘And I probably wouldn’t have answered it if you had. Which would have been a huge mistake,’ he said. Leah smiled briefly and looked down at the grave between them. His steady grey gaze was disconcerting, made it hard to think. There was a heavy pause, the wind rustling quietly through the cheery flowers.

‘So, when is this meeting with your CWGC… contact, then? Where the grand reveal of the soldier’s name will be made?’ Mark asked, with a note of fake drama, fake lack of interest in his tone. Leah watched him across Cat’s grave for a moment, until he looked away across the cemetery and into the black depths of the yew tree.

‘Tomorrow. There’s a party at his parents’ house. I said I’d drop it in then.’ She searched around for something else to add, but found nothing.

‘A party. Sounds nice. Do you want me drive you? Surrey, you said before, didn’t you? It’s not far. Then you could have a drink,’ he offered casually.

‘Oh, that’s kind of you, but there’s really no need to bother-’

‘It’s no bother,’ he said, quickly.

‘It just might be… a bit… You know,’ she said, uncomfortably. She did not want him anywhere near Ryan, she realised. As if Mark might get tainted somehow, stained by her toxic feelings, the poisonous shreds of her past life.

‘Awkward?’ he suggested. Leah shrugged, unable to meet his eye. She suddenly felt horribly guilty, as though she’d been caught cheating.

‘Maybe.’

‘Look, I won’t come in or anything. I’ll just chauffeur you. By the sounds of it, you’ll need a drink when you get there. OK?’

Leah glanced up at him and smiled. ‘OK. Thanks.’

‘So, what will you do now?’ Mark asked, as they headed east along the M4 the next day. The journey had been odd and uncomfortable; Leah’s excitement at showing Ryan what she’d found clashing with the strained silences in the car.

‘Go home, I suppose,’ she said. ‘Back to London to start work on my book. I need to speak to my agent – and start touting for a publisher.’ She glanced over at him. Mark nodded, smiled, said nothing. ‘What about you?’ Leah asked.

‘I should think about starting over, I suppose. Get job hunting, stop festering away at Dad’s place. Put it on the market, perhaps.’ His voice betrayed no real enthusiasm at the prospect.

‘Mind if I come back and take some pictures before you do? For my book?’

‘You can come back any time you want, Leah,’ he said gently, and Leah shifted in her seat, fiddling awkwardly with the file of papers in her lap.

‘I hope it won’t affect the asking price – me revealing to the world that a murderer, his adulterous accomplice and a theosophical hoaxer once lived there!’

‘All publicity is good publicity, right?’ Mark laughed. ‘I don’t think it’s very fair to call Hester his adulterous accomplice, mind you.’

‘No, it’s not. Don’t worry – I’ll make sure readers know how much she struggled with it,’ Leah assured him. They drove on in silence, and Leah thought of five different conversations to start, abandoning each one in turn.

‘Here – this is the one,’ she said, leaning forward in her seat with a sudden storm of nerves cramping her stomach. Mark pulled into a smart, wide tarmac driveway flanked by twin five-bar gates. The house was an immaculate neo-Georgian pile, three storeys high, with a long rank of garages topped by a brass weathercock that gleamed in the sunshine.

‘Nice,’ Mark remarked. ‘Not short of a bob or two, then?’

‘Or three, or four,’ Leah agreed, neutrally. She unclipped her seat belt, flicked her hair back behind her shoulders and licked her lips nervously. She drew breath to thank Mark for the lift, but he cut her off.

‘If you want me to pick you up again later…’

‘No, no. It’s fine. It’s a five-minute cab ride to the station, and I’ll head back to The Swing Bridge from there. Thanks so much for bringing me, and for… all your help, Mark. You’ve been fantastic.’

‘Perhaps not quite fantastic enough,’ he said quietly.

Leah swallowed, pretended not to hear the remark, not to understand what he was asking. Her heart was high in her throat.

‘Well, I’ll be back, anyway. Before too long – I’ll need to get into the Newbury police files again, and the newspaper archives…’

‘Sure.’ He looked away, rubbing one hand along his jaw. ‘Look, are you sure you don’t want me to wait for a while? I don’t mind. It might be… a bit difficult in there. With all the family around and everything…’

‘I’m sure it will be. But I’ll be fine, really – don’t wait. I don’t know how long this will take, and I hate to think of you just sitting around, waiting for me…’ Leah flushed, the words suddenly seeming to be about something far more important than a lift back to Berkshire. Mark watched her intently, but Leah could find nothing else to say.

‘If you’re sure,’ he said. Leah leant over and kissed him on the cheek. His skin was warm, slightly rough for want of a shave. The smell of him sent an odd pang into the pit of her stomach. Her pulse was speeding, thoughts confused.

‘Thanks, Mark. I’ll… see you soon.’ She got out of the car before he could speak again. Her chest felt odd, too tight, and the familiar excited dread at seeing Ryan washed through her. Behind her, she heard Mark turn the car around in the driveway and pull back out into the road. The sound made her pause, turn quickly to catch a glimpse of him. With him gone she felt suddenly naked and vulnerable. She halted on the front step, frozen, uncertain.

Just then the door opened, and Ryan smiled down at her.

‘I thought I heard a car. You’re bang on time, as ever. Come in. Did you find out who our mystery man is? I’m dying to know,’ he said.

‘I… did,’ Leah said, suddenly breathless. Her eyes scoured his face, the familiar, wonderful lines of it. And something seemed different. Something she couldn’t put her finger on. He looked unreal, somehow. Counterfeit. His scruffy hair and playful, schoolboy smile too young for him; only skin-deep.

‘I’m so glad you’ve come, Leah,’ he said softly, as if sensing her hesitation. He tapped the file she carried with one finger. ‘Is this it? What you’ve found out? Come in, why don’t you – don’t hang about on the step.’ Leah took one heavy step over the threshold, but then stopped again.

‘Yes. Yes, it is. Ryan, I… I need to talk to you. About what happened in Belgium…’ she started to say, but suddenly a tumbling female laugh and a flash of chestnut hair further along the hallway stopped her. She saw Ryan’s face tighten, the smile grow slightly strained. Saw him watching her carefully.

‘Is that Anna?’

‘Leah, don’t start-’

‘Don’t start? Don’t start?’ Anger flashed through her like a lightning strike. ‘You didn’t say she’d be here. I thought she was still in the US?’

‘She was – she is. But she was hardly going to miss her father’s birthday party, was she?’

‘Her step-father’s birthday party,’ Leah corrected. ‘Quite an important distinction, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Not in this instance. Look, Leah. My parents really want to see you. They’ve missed you – we all have. Won’t you just come in and… forget about the other stuff? Now is not the time to make a scene.’ He used the gently cajoling tone she would once have found impossible to resist. That she had found impossible to resist in his room in Belgium. Now it sounded wheedling, pathetic. He took her hand and ran his thumb over her knuckles. She waited for the burning sensation of his touch, for the shivers it would send flooding out over her skin. They didn’t come.

‘You’re right,’ she said, calmly now. She pulled her hand away. ‘I’ve no more scenes to make. Not for you, anyway. You were sleeping with your step-sister behind my back the entire time we were together, and then you bullied me into keeping it secret for you. Into lying to your whole family – who, I might add, I’ve always liked and respected, and who certainly don’t deserve to have a son like you. What kind of arsehole are you, Ryan?’ She shook her head, incredulously. Behind them there was movement in the corridor, and the shocked silence of somebody who’s heard something they can hardly believe.

‘Leah, keep your voice down for fuck’s sake!’ Ryan hissed furiously.

‘Too late, by the looks of it,’ she said coldly. ‘Goodbye, Ryan. Don’t expect to hear from me, and really – really – don’t contact me again.’ She turned her back on him and his incredulous expression, walked down the steps and towards the gate. There she paused, and turned. ‘The soldier’s name is Robin Durrant. He was a convict. You can trace any remaining relatives from that information, but I doubt there’ll be any. And for the rest – you’ll have to wait until my book comes out!’ she shouted.

She didn’t look back again. Her legs felt elastic, stretching into long, purposeful strides as she walked away. She felt desperate, impatient, but as she walked she realised it wasn’t Ryan she was desperate to get away from, but somebody else she could not wait to return to. Hoping it wasn’t too late, she got her phone out of her bag and started to dial, her fingers clumsy with nervous excitement. She hit the wrong key and had to start again, swearing under her breath. A car horn blared from across the street and startled her. She looked up to see a familiar muddy Renault, parked twenty yards from the house. Mark waved to her from behind the wheel, his eyes anxious but a grin on his face. A wide smile of relief welled up and lit Leah’s face, and she waved back. With happiness making her footsteps light, she crossed the road and ran to where he was.

1911

The weather is turning, autumn stealing in with a noticeable chill to the morning air, and touches of bronze, gold and brown on the trees all around. Tess walks along the towpath into Thatcham with two letters of Mrs Canning’s to post. She rehearses the directions carefully in her mind, worried about losing her way, about not finding The Rectory again on the way back. She has only been in her new position for a fortnight, and everything is still strange. From the wide open spaces all around, to the quiet and the calm; and the good, hot food after months of the cruelty and deprivations of Holloway and Frosham House. She can’t help but eat everything that’s put in front of her, and already the hollow between her hip bones is filling out again, her stomach and arms growing rounder. Sophie Bell seems pleased at this. The cook says little, her moon face careworn, but she smiles at Tess, pats her on the shoulder from time to time, and treats her well. Most of the woman’s attention is showered on a little black and white cat, a scrawny stray that appeared at the kitchen door several weeks earlier, and which Sophie has adopted with an almost superstitious devotion. She feeds it cream from a saucer, and saves the kidney trimmings for it when she makes a pudding. But Sophie Bell hasn’t given it a name, simply calling it ‘cat’, so Tess secretly names it Tinker.

Hester Canning seems an odd woman, full of nerves and disquiet, but she is clearly trying to make Tess feel safe, and welcome. She is softly spoken, so different to The Gentleman, and to Mrs Heddingly. To the many and various wardens and masters Tess has suffered of late. Hester Canning speaks and moves as if there is something sleeping in the corner of the room that she fears to wake. She often keeps one hand curled protectively around her midriff, and Tess wonders if she is expecting. She hopes so. A child is what the house needs to brighten it. The vicar is a vague and silent man. He hasn’t said two words to Tess; does not seem to have noticed her arrival. Tess doesn’t mind this. She has seen much in the past rough months of her life, and she no longer has much trust in men – even a man of the cloth. The household appears to run quite well without any input from him. And all around the house, unmentioned but unavoidable, Cat’s absence is felt. The police found her last letter to Tess, in the bag abandoned in the meadows. It found its way to her eventually, after her arrival in Cold Ash Holt and her first learning about her friend’s death. A message from beyond the grave – one that made her cry again, when the first storm of grief had scarcely passed. Tess is here because Cat is not. Everybody at The Rectory knows this, and Tess wonders if it will always be thus.

She takes a deep breath, stifles fresh tears at the thought of her murdered friend. She refuses to walk across the blameless meadows where it happened. She takes the longer route, along the lane and then onto the towpath beside the bridge. Nobody suggests that she should do otherwise. If Cat’s ghost is anywhere, it is haunting those meadows, angrily lamenting just how close she came to freedom, how close she came to starting her new life. Whatever the reason she met with the theosophist that morning, if she just had not, if she had gone straight to see George, she would be with him now, loving and laughing; radiating that bright strength that had drawn Tess to her like the moon pulling the tide. The injustice of it is so vast and bitter that Tess is too angry with God to say the Lord’s Prayer at the end of the church service. Her eyes stay open, her lips sealed. When she reached for the chamber pot one morning soon after her arrival, she found a small brass crucifix tossed underneath the bed. After careful consideration, she left it there. God will have to prove himself to Tess, after what has been done to Cat.

She keeps walking and at last buildings begin to appear further along the canal. She hears voices, laughter and splashing. Pausing nervously, she pulls her shawl tighter around her shoulders and cautiously walks on. By the bridge where she is to take to the road and follow it to the centre of town, a group of boys are bathing, their blazers and straw hats scattering the grassy bank. It’s some kind of impromptu swimming gala, the boys let out from school, and a crowd has gathered – men and women and children, hanging from the bridge to watch. Tess joins them, smiling uncertainly, laughing at the boys’ antics as they swim a cigarette race – the winner being he who can make it to the far bank and back twice over with his fag still alight, in spite of the hearty splashing all around.

Eventually, Tess turns to walk on into town, but just as she does a steamboat chugs slowly into view from the east. She pauses to watch it, as the boatman whistles a shrill warning through his fingers, and the boys make way for him, scrambling onto the banks to clear a path. The boat is old and battered; wreathed in clouds of steam and smoke. But it has fresh paint, half-finished. The cabin has been done up in Romany colours – greens and reds and yellows. The sides are still faded and flaking, except for the name of the vessel, done neatly in white against a dark blue ground. Black Cat. Tess’s heart leaps and she runs back to the side of the bridge to see it better. The man at the tiller is weathered and strongly built. He smiles and thanks the boys as he passes, but his eyes are sad. Tess’s eyes stay fixed on him, and she has the sensation that she knows him – so powerful that for a second, when he is close, she almost calls out to him. Tess watches until the boat slides out of sight, and suddenly she grows calm. The autumn sun shines softly on her face, and she walks on into Thatcham with a feeling that things will be well. That she will be well. She feels as though a friend is walking beside her.