Woman Who Spoke to Spirits Page 19

  Felix grabs a second stool and sits down opposite him. ‘Are you Marm Smithers?’ he asks.

  ‘Who wants to know and why should I tell him?’ the man says truculently.

  Suspecting that this isn’t the first pint and recalling what the fat young woman said, Felix says pacifically, ‘I’ve just come from the Battersea Illustrated News’s offices, and Polly Alderton told me where to find you. She said to tell you she sent me,’ he adds as Marm Smither’s expression softens.

  ‘Pol,’ he says, a smile on his handsome but dissipated face; the skin is reddened as if by overexposure to wind and weather, the lines are surely too deep for a man who can only be in his late thirties, at most, and the intelligent blue eyes have pinkish lids and quite a lot of broken veins. His brown hair is a little too long and streaked with grey and his jacket, shirt and trousers all look as if they need a good clean, as do his well-worn shoes.

  Despite all these drawbacks, Felix warms to the smile, and to the way Marm goes on to say, ‘She’s a sweetheart, is Pol. A woman to warm a man’s bed at night, and no bony hips or knees to dig in to your tender parts.’

  ‘You speak from experience?’ Felix asks with a grin.

  ‘Wish I could say I did,’ Marm replies. ‘No, she’s about to be married, and utterly faithful to her young man.’

  So much, Felix thinks, reproving himself, for Polly wanting to be more than his friend.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ Marm asks. ‘Got a story for me?’ His eyes gleam hungrily.

  ‘No. Well, I don’t think so,’ Felix replies. ‘It’s more that I want to ask you about a story of yours.’ He takes out his notebook. ‘Missing women. Five in the Battersea area, one in Chelsea.’

  Marm’s expression has sobered and he nods slowly. ‘Six in Battersea, not five,’ he says quietly. ‘And I’d stake my pension, if I had one, that there are more.’

  Felix glances down at his notes. ‘You postulate in one of your articles that the reason nobody is taking these disappearances seriously enough, or perhaps seriously at all, is that the women were prostitutes.’

  ‘Too bloody right I do,’ Marm says, a spasm of anger creasing his face. ‘Does that make them no longer human? Does it make their deaths – for don’t you go believing they’ve simply decided to leave the area and try their luck elsewhere – does it make their deaths unimportant? Not worthy of a proper investigation? At least seven women, one of them only sixteen, one a year older, and who cares? Nobody fucking cares.’

  Felix waits for a moment, then says, ‘You obviously do.’

  ‘Yes, and I get told to cut my articles by half and leave out all the speculation and the tub-thumping because it’s not what our readers want to hear about.’ His fury is evident in the way he almost spits out the last words.

  ‘Yet you persist.’ Felix looks at his notes again. ‘The last piece was only a fortnight ago.’

  Marm nods. ‘Yes, that’s right, although it wasn’t occasioned by another woman going missing.’

  ‘No, you were trying yet again to get something done about the ones who already have.’

  Marm looks at him, interested now. ‘You bothered to read the article,’ he remarks. ‘Wish more people did. What did you say your name was?’

  ‘I didn’t but it’s Felix Wilbraham.’ He takes out a card. ‘I’m with the World’s End Bureau.’

  Marm takes the card, glancing down. ‘I’ve heard of it,’ he says. ‘Your chief’s a woman.’

  ‘Yes,’ Felix confirms. He feels it would be insulting to Lily to qualify the answer.

  And also insulting to Marm, as it turns out, because, ‘I like the thought of a woman boss,’ he says.

  Felix grins. ‘It’s different.’

  ‘I also hear she’s had not a few successes,’ Marm goes on. ‘Good for her. Now, Mr Wilbraham, I suggest you go and buy me another pint, and one for yourself and maybe a pork pie too as they’re uncommonly good here, and then tell me what your interest is in my missing women.’

  Felix stands up, feeling in his pocket for coins, and does as he’s told.

  An hour and three more pints later, Felix has greatly enlarged the list of names and the sparse details that he has managed to glean from the back editions of the King’s Road Chronicle and Gazette and the Battersea Illustrated News. Now after each name is an age, a description, a brief account of where last seen and a summary of the speculations, if any, as to what became of the missing woman. In some cases there is also a last known address, although for quite a few this information, indeed any address, is absent. ‘Some of them don’t live anywhere,’ Marm says when Felix asks about this. ‘They define precisely and brutally what’s meant by a hand to mouth existence. They earn a few pennies and it’s enough for a few drinks and something to eat. Then they earn a few more and can afford a bed for the night in some rooming house. They carry everything they own on them, and that’s made easy because most of them own bugger-all. A broken comb, a handkerchief, a bit of ribbon for their bonnet.’

  ‘And, having no place where they’re expected to come home to, nobody notices when they don’t.’ Felix, feeling the effects of three – or was it four? – pints of best bitter on a stomach containing nothing in the way of solid food but a pork pie, isn’t sure his utterance makes sense, but Marm understands anyway.

  ‘That’s right,’ he agrees. ‘That’s what I meant earlier when I said there’s probably many more gone missing. Of course,’ he adds charitably, ‘what the disinterested majority have to say about street women moving on is right, as far as it goes, and that may well account for some of them. But it’s no reason not even to fucking investigate!’

  The last words are shouted, which is unfortunate as one of them is a swear word, but happily the noise level in the Cow is so high now that nobody minds, and anyway Felix is quite sure Marm isn’t the only one using bad language.

  ‘What do we do?’ he asks when Marm stops shouting.

  ‘Do?’ Marm pretends to think about it. ‘We could stop men using women for paid sex, but that’d mean most of the women starved because that’s their only income, so that’s no good. We could take away nine-tenths of the wealth of the ruling classes and distribute it among the poorest in the land, but that’s not going to happen because the wealthy hold the reins. We could make sure girls get an education approaching that of boys and encourage them to work and put some money by so that they become independent. We could give them the vote, God help us, so that the sex who make up half the population actually have a voice.’ Abruptly he runs out of steam, folding his arms on the table and dropping his head on to them. ‘I’m tired, Felix Wilbraham, and I’m more than a little drunk,’ he says, his voice muffled. Then, raising his head again, he adds, ‘But I would like to talk to you again.’

  Felix gets uncertainly to his feet and holds out his hand, which Marm takes and grips. ‘I would like that too,’ he says.

  Then, the world revolving a little, he makes for the door.

  Back at Hob’s Court, Lily charitably overlooks the fact that he is unsteady on his feet and probably reeks of beer and tobacco smoke. She watches him sit down behind his desk, and presently she reappears with a cup of tea and a ham sandwich.

  ‘Blotting paper,’ she remarks, indicating the sandwich.

  He eats, drinks, suppresses a beery burp or two. She takes away his cup and brings it back full again. He drinks that too and starts to feel more alert. But his bladder is bursting and he really can’t ignore it any longer. Muttering an apology, he goes out to the lavatory by the back door. After the exquisite relief of passing a very long stream of urine, he straightens his clothing, runs his fingers through his hair, pauses in the scullery to wash his hands and splash cold water over his face and goes back into the office.

  She takes one look at him and instantly struggles to suppress laughter.

  ‘What?’ he demands. He is still too tipsy for diplomatic reticence.

  ‘Your shirt’s all wet,’ she replies. ‘Did you miss your face when y
ou were trying to wash it?’

  She disappears, returning with a hand towel. It is clean, ironed, fragrant from washing soap. ‘Mrs Clapper,’ he murmurs.

  ‘If you are commenting upon my help’s laundering skills, then you are absolutely right. If you are declaring a secret passion for her, as I am tempted to conclude by the fervour in your voice when you speak her name, then sadly I must inform you that she is married.’

  He looks up at her. He’s not sure he’s ever seen her laugh before, or even smile for this long at a stretch. ‘You look very, very lovely when you laugh,’ he mutters.

  She pretends she didn’t hear.

  She leaves him in peace for half an hour or so, then comes back into the outer office and says, ‘Now, if you feel up to it, shall we talk about what we have found out?’

  ‘I most certainly do feel up to it,’ he assures her. ‘I apologize for my state of slight inebriation, but I was in deep and very relevant conversation with a journalist and he was encouraging me.’ He frowns. ‘Or possibly it was the other way round,’ he adds honestly. ‘But you go first: what did Mrs Sullivan have to say?’

  She tells him, listing her discoveries as a series of main points. One: there have definitely been cases of women going missing and the general view seems to be that they are women of the street whose movements are not easy to trace. Two: there is, however, a persistent rumour that something very sinister is happening, with suggestions of women being snatched for unspeakable purposes.

  ‘Did Mrs Sullivan elaborate?’ Felix interrupts, his eyes alight. ‘Did she speculate about white slavers and women sold into eastern harems to satisfy men’s lusts?’

  ‘She skirted very carefully round the subject, but in essence yes she did. I gather there has been a lot of gossip among the parishioners of St Cyprian’s Church, which brings me to my third point: James Jellicote doesn’t like this gossip, which he condemns as inflammatory.’

  ‘He’s probably quite right,’ Felix says fairly.

  ‘Yes, perhaps.’ But there is something on her mind; something that has been nagging at her for a while now. She says tentatively, ‘What do you think of the Reverend Mr Jellicote?’

  Felix sits back in his chair, narrowing his eyes in thought. ‘Former curate at St Albans, took a fancy to young Albertina Goodchild, moved to Battersea to take up his first incumbency and was, presumably, delighted when the same young lady came seeking him out when her elderly great-aunt died and left her alone in a city full of strangers. Introduced her to— Oh!’ He sits forward again, alert suddenly. ‘Yes, I believe I can see what you mean. If he was sweet on Albertina, why did he not begin to pay court to her himself when she turned up? Why did he make a gift of her to Ernest Stibbins?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I would quite put it like that,’ Lily says. ‘I do feel that we must consider Albertina’s feelings. Perhaps James Jellicote did indeed pay court, as you say, but Albertina, not having the same attraction to him as he had to her, looking upon him more as a source of help and support than a potential husband and therefore turned him down.’

  ‘“Whilst not unaware of the great compliment you pay me, Mr Jellicote, I very much regret that I do not reciprocate your sentiments,”’ Felix says in a prim falsetto.

  ‘Yes, quite.’ Lily suppresses a smile. ‘So, with his own suit unsuccessful but still aware that Albertina needed someone to take care of her, he guided her towards the kindly, decent, respectable and lonely widower, Ernest Stibbins. She wants a baby,’ she adds.

  ‘Albertina?’

  ‘Yes of course Albertina! Mrs Sullivan told me she’s been suggesting some home improvements to Ernest, and all the old ladies of St Cyprian’s think that must be why.’

  Felix nods. Then, after a pause, says, ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Hm? Yes. That was my last point: that Albertina and Ernest may be thinking about starting a family.’

  ‘And why is that relevant to our missing women?’

  ‘It isn’t,’ she replies. ‘It was simply something I learned from Dorothy Sullivan, and I thought I’d share it. I’m going to Circle tomorrow, by the way.’

  ‘Yes, good,’ he says absently. But he already has his notebook out, and she suspects his mind has leapt ahead to how he plans to share his own discoveries with her. ‘Well, here’s what I’ve found out,’ he announces, and proceeds to talk pretty much non-stop for the next ten minutes.

  ‘Your Marm Smithers seems to be a man with a conscience,’ she remarks when he has finished. ‘It sounds as if he’s on the point of embarking upon a one-man crusade concerning the wretched conditions of the women he describes.’

  ‘He’s certainly angry that their apparent disappearance is met with little more than a shrug of the shoulders,’ Felix agrees.

  ‘So, what next?’ she asks.

  ‘I think I’ll go along and speak to one of the guardians of the law,’ he says.

  ‘If by that you mean the police,’ she replies, ‘I’d suggest you leave it until tomorrow.’

  He grins. ‘When I no longer smell of beer. Yes, that’s what I thought.’

  Lily is alone in the office the following morning. Felix, she knows, planned to call in at the police on his way in, so she knows not to expect him yet.

  She wishes she had a similar mission. She is going to the Thursday seance this afternoon and, although she is reluctant to admit it, she is nervous and would welcome something to distract her. It’s not only the prospect of sitting in the dark with Albertina and the spirits that is worrying her; it’s this tale of missing women. It’s not as if I was unaware these things happen, Lily thinks to herself. It’s simply that I’ve never had occasion before to dwell on them, and now it seems I have.

  She pictures the dark power of the river, running down there at the bottom of the road. So close. So ancient. What secrets does it keep in its cold, swift depths?

  And she recalls her visit to Alf Wilson and his Disciples in the river station at Wapping. She had gone, she recalls, with some vague plan of finding out about the drowned Enid Stibbins, Ernest’s first wife, and inadvertently let herself in for a discourse on bodies in the Thames in general.

  She decides to pay Alf Wilson another visit. She isn’t sure why, other than to get her out of the office, and tells herself vaguely that it’ll undoubtedly be helpful. A little under an hour later, she is back in Alf’s snug little office on its pier overlooking the river, the scent of the water strong in the air, the Thames powering past only a few feet beneath her boots.

  Alf is flatteringly pleased to see her – it seems to be a quiet day – and he puts the kettle on for tea, talking all the time about the weather, the tide, the antics of one of the Disciples and how he missed his footing and almost fell in the water, ‘Only almost doesn’t count, miss, and he’ll be a sight more careful next time!’

  She explains, when she can get a word in, that having been warned by a friend about the dangers of being out alone after dark, she was prompted to search through the newspapers and came across a dreadful story of missing women – ‘From right where I live, Mr Wilson, beside the river at Chelsea!’ – and, remembering her earlier visit and his exceptional knowledge of such matters, has come back hoping she might ask him some more—

  ‘Course you may, miss!’ he cries even before she can finish. ‘Like I told you before, bodies in the river is my job!’ He fumbles in a pocket and removes a pair of spectacles – she has her notebook on her lap – and says, ‘Got a list of dates and locations and what-not there, have you? Give it here, then, and I’ll see what I can do.’

  Some quarter of an hour later, he shakes his head and says with obvious reluctance, ‘Well, miss, I don’t see as how there’s much to say.’ He raises his head, removes his spectacles and, looking at her worriedly, goes on, ‘See, it’s not as if those poor women have anything to identity them. If someone has a missing relative or friend, of course, it’s different, because very often they can spot a facial feature or a birthmark, or a wedding ring or some item of cl
othing or whatever, and then it’s easy. I’m not saying it’s nice,’ he adds reprovingly as if she has suggested it was, ‘but at least it provides an answer. But the other way round, when there’s a body and we’re trying to find out who it is, well, that’s another matter entirely.’

  He leans forward confidingly. ‘I mean to say, some are naked, some are broken, some are taken from the water in bits and pieces, a head here, a bit of a torso there, a leg or two.’ He shakes his head again. ‘Course, bodies can get broken by the action of the water. That’s a powerful old current out there –’ he nods reverentially down at the river – ‘and when a corpse gets thrown against a jetty or a pier, a moving or a moored boat or even a big enough bit of rubbish, it’s the corpse that’s always going to come off worse. So, you see, miss, it’s not always right to suppose that the beheading and the dismemberment got done before the body went in the water.’

  ‘Yes, I do see,’ Lily agrees. ‘But sometimes it did?’

  ‘Oh, yes, no doubt about it,’ Alf agrees. ‘It’s a cleaner sort of cut, see, when someone’s taken an axe to ’em.’

  ‘I suppose it would be,’ Lily murmurs.

  Absently Alf refills her cup and offers her a biscuit. ‘We do see some strange old things, mind,’ he says, and she can tell by his expression that he has gone back into his memories. ‘One in particular turned up last autumn, and we never did get to the bottom of it.’ He makes a wry face.

  ‘What did it involve?’ she prompts. She is hoping very much he won’t suddenly remember he’s talking to a weak and feeble woman, to quote an earlier queen, and, deciding this conversation really isn’t fit for female ears, clam up. But it seems he is well into his stride now.

  ‘Well, I don’t rightly know how to describe it,’ he muses. ‘It was the naked body of a woman, and a very young woman at that. Lovely long hair she had, down below her waist, reddish-brown, and a nice figure. Generous curves, tiny little waist.’ He puts down his cup and sketches a figure of eight between his hands, then, perhaps appreciating that these somewhat lascivious reflections are not suitable in front of a respectable woman, gives her a sheepish grin. ‘Sorry, miss.’