Ghostly Images (11 page)

As the men’s conversation turned to other topics, Hood took another sip of his whisky and brushed his nagging doubts about the Tate camera to the back of his mind.

Chapter 19

Friday 31
st
August 1894

D
AVID
TOSSED
HIS
COPY
OF
The Whitby Herald
down on the ground, wishing he’d never bought it in the first place after leaving the library. Reading the details of Eleanor’s murder made him shudder.

Farther down the promenade, he could hear the shrieks of children’s laughter as they watched the Punch and Judy show. Frank Hawk was in fine form as usual judging from the shrieks of laughter coming from the children.

David went into a grey, canvas-topped bathing machine for male swimmers and put on his swimming trunks, swimming cap, and goggles. It didn’t seem right to go swimming so soon after Eleanor’s murder, but in the sea, he got peace, contentment and relaxation—even his persistent headache abated.

Swimming kept him sane.

The bushy-moustached attendant in the bathing machine looked up and smiled. “You take care of yourself, and don’t upset Melvin Shank, whatever you do.”

“I’m not going to let him swim faster than me just to please him, if that’s what you mean.” David walked over to the sands and could see the familiar sight of Melvin’s distinctive black-and-white striped cap a few hundred yards away, just past the far leg of the pier. He disliked the man intensely but enjoyed the unspoken contest between himself and the gangster, particularly since it was clear David was his only serious swimming rival locally.

Melvin’s notorious criminality even surpassed Hood, but when David and Melvin were both in the sea, none of that seemed to matter. He was just a swimmer, enjoying the waves as much as anyone.

For a few minutes, when they competed and splashed through the waves together, there was a bond between them. However, as soon as the man left the sea, it was a different matter. He became a vicious criminal once again. David waved at Melvin as he strode into the sea. But, as usual, the man never acknowledged it.

David made his way to the far end of the pier. No other swimmers would go there, apart from Melvin. It was too dangerous. Last year, a massive wave tossed a swimmer’s body against one of the legs of the pier and the huge, rusted bolts attached to the pier had smashed through the man’s skull. Since then, Whitby Town Council had placed a large sign in red letters reading, D
ANGER
A
REA
. K
EEP
A
WAY
.

David could still hear the laughter from the Punch and Judy show on the shore. He wiped some dirt away from his goggles, smelling the rubber, and felt the sea breeze. The sun’s rays reflected on the water, its hazy blue colour almost took his breath away. Next to him was a line of other swimmers, lying flat on their stomachs, gently paddling farther out to sea. The water was calm with hardly a ripple.

The swimmers patiently waited for a swell to appear. They didn’t have to wait long. David smiled and looked at the others, who smiled back. One young swimmer was quick to launch himself into the foaming white water whilst others drifted in the current, timing their movement more carefully.

David turned around and could just make out Melvin, still waiting, in the distance. He didn’t want to exhaust the man’s patience, so he swam swiftly in his direction. Seeing a turbulent mass of water, he dipped his head beneath a large, incoming wave. The powerful current jolted him backward, but he soon countered this by making strong sweeps of his arms.

The current suddenly became stronger as he swam to the far leg of the pier where it swirled like a whirlpool and had sucked four men to their deaths over the years. A huge wave appeared when he was a few yards away from Melvin and tumbled him about, but he quickly recovered.

The wave retreated. He looked up and couldn’t find Melvin. But, just like a cork popping up in water, so did Melvin a few seconds later. He had already set off swimming towards the shore. David followed suit, battling against the powerful currents, determined to win this race.

Within yards of the shore, David managed to catch up with Melvin and emerged out of the sea a second or two ahead of his opponent.

David stood on the sands with Melvin beside him. Melvin was a tall, muscular man in his mid-thirties, with thick brown hair, a square jaw, and a broken nose. On his right arm, just below the elbow, was the crater-like scar of an old bullet wound. His back and left arm also had several scars. Neither said a word as they recovered from their exertions.

“Shall we make it the best of three?” asked Melvin.

David nodded.

I
N
THE
LAVATORY
ADJACENT
TO
THE
PIER
, a young man leaning next to the sink glanced up. “Got any ’baccy with you, Hood?”

“You know I hate the sight of you, Harry.”

“I’m sorry to bother you. I just thought you might have ’baccy.”

“I warned you never to approach me again after letting me down last year. Do you know what this means? You are in big trouble, Harry.” Hood placed the heavy bag of contraband on the floor.

“I’m sorry, Hood.”

The sound of children’s voices outside made Hood pick up his bag and hide it on top of a water tank in one of the cubicles. A football rolled inside the entrance of the lavatory. Seconds later, two small boys rushed in to retrieve it.

Hood trapped the ball beneath his foot. He then booted it with all his strength, hitting Harry square in the face, felling him to the ground. The two boys stood watching in horror, open-mouthed and motionless. Harry slowly picked himself up, blood trickled from a cut along his cheekbone. The ball rolled back, and Hood gave it a fierce kick, once more hitting Harry, in his stomach this time, and making him fall to the ground again.

“You can go now,” said Hood. Harry picked himself up, gasping for breath and limped away. Hood turned to the boys. “Any of you lads fancy being the goalkeeper next?”

They stood speechless. Hood picked up the football and handed it to one of them. The boy trembled, and the ball fell from his hands onto the floor.

Hood pulled his leg back as if to kick but stopped. He picked up the ball and handed it to the boy once more, grinning. “Give them some money for sweets, Percy.”

Percy handed a shilling to the boys. They took the money and ran.

Laughing, Hood and Percy came out of the lavatory. From his pocket, Hood pulled out a collapsible telescope and placed it against his eye. He noticed Melvin Shank walking from the sands into the sea.

Hood had proved more than useful in selling Melvin’s stolen goods. He had some contraband tobacco for him, which he would take round later. Hood wasn’t going to charge for it—he was on good terms with Melvin Shank and wanted to keep it that way.

Gordon Deakin was an entirely different matter. He’d moved to Whitby from York six years ago and was expanding his criminal empire in the area. Thus began the Shank-Deakin War. Melvin Shank had recently stabbed Gordon Deakin in the shoulder. This prompted fights in The Raffled Anchor Inn for several days running between the two men. For some time Hood had been worried that Deakin would take revenge on him, since two men that had either worked for Shank or supplied him with stolen goods had died horrible deaths under mysterious circumstances.

Hood took the telescope away from his eye and checked the messages in his pocket. He flicked through several small scraps of paper. “Billy has a shipment in for us, Percy.”

“About soddin bloody time!”

“Billy bought ten drums of tea in Holland for only sixpence a pound. What is the latest price of tea in England?”

Percy checked the papers in his pocket. “Fifteen shillings a pound. This will make us a tidy profit when we take it down The Frigate.”

“If the landlord gets greedy, we will make him see the error of his ways, but what really annoys me is the bribe we always have to pay to the Customs and Excise man.”

“Couldn’t we make
him
see error of his ways?”

“We will leave him alone for now.”

Hood brought the telescope up to his eyes once more and focused on the warning notice attached to the side of the far corner of the pier saying D
ANGER
A
REA
. K
EEP
A
WAY
. He saw David, cleaning his goggles.

“I can see my white rabbit,” he said. “He is swimming in the prohibited danger area with Melvin Shank.”

“I’ll march him back to the studio.”

“John will be taking care of business, so there is no need to worry. Anyway, swimming might do David the world of good.”

“He must be a daft idiot to swim there.”

Hood lifted his cane thoughtfully and rested the handle against his chin. “It reveals a great deal, Percy.”

“In what way?”

“Young David needs excitement and danger in his life...and that is a benefit to us.”

Chapter 20

Saturday 1
st
September 1894

D
AVID
AND
J
OHN
SAT
AT
THE
TABLE
IN
THE
STUDIO
. In front of them was the envelope containing Hood’s assignments for the day. David opened the envelope and shook his head.

“Has he lumbered us with six or seven assignments today?” asked John.

“No. The opposite. ‘As a sign of my friendship and generosity, I have ensured that there are no engagements for you today. Please find enclosed your usual ten shillings.’”

John smiled. “I didn’t expect that.”

“It’s all part of Hood’s carrot-and-stick approach to controlling us,” said David as he spread the coins on the table and then handed John his five-shilling share.

“Nevertheless, it’s still nice to have a free day. I’ll be able to go over and see Laura.”

“And I’ll go for a swim.”

“I didn’t see anything unusual on the plates of the sitters from yesterday.” John picked up a stack of prints and handed them to David. “I found some images of people in Marsh’s files. I wasn’t sure if they closely resembled their dead relatives, so I made them as hazy and blurred as possible. Have I overdone it?

“No. You’ve done an excellent job with your new camera. Or did you use Marsh’s Lancaster?

“I had to use the Tate camera since a client wanted to inspect it. But the exposure times were no more than a second.”

David chuckled but didn’t make comment.

“I had time to take a peek in Tate’s journals,” said John. “I think I’ve made a very important discovery. It’s something we should have realised from the start.”

David wasn’t sure whether he should be bemused or irritated on hearing this. “What’s this
important
discovery?”

“We’re using fast gelatin-bromide, but Tate was still using the collodion process and had been getting high success rates in capturing spirits because of the longer exposure time the process requires. The latest photographic techniques might be too fast to capture spirits. Psychic images are electromagnetic energies that can only be captured by using a slower process.”

David rubbed his temples, frustrated at John’s unscientific balderdash. “You know this trait in psychic images as fact, do you? It doesn’t sound very convincing to me.”

“But you could at least try using the collodion technique, if only to prove Tate wrong. We could see what results we get without resorting to any tricks.”

“Alright, if you insist. We’ll try the collodion process. ” In truth, David was only too glad of the opportunity to use the full range of his skills in chemistry once more in preparing the plates with this particular process.

“Let’s have a look through his journals and see what Tate had to say about spirit photography,” John suggested.

David gazed out the window. “My priority is swimming, not wading through this pile of nonsense!”

John raised his hands in a gesture to calm. “It won’t take long to look at them, and then, you can go for your swim. I’ve made a note of a few key dates in Tate’s journal.” He went to the file cabinet. David fidgeted impatiently on the chair and contemplated escaping while John’s back was turned. But as David stood, his golden opportunity evaporated when John quickly returned with two battered-looking journals. David sat again.

“Listen to this,” John said.

Reluctantly, David nodded.

John flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for and then read, “‘
20 February, 1878. Taxidermy has been kind to me. Indeed, I’m the best man in this business in Yorkshire. But after a photographer took a photograph of my stuffed fox last year, I became interested in photography and decided to combine the two trades. My trade in photography has grown.

“‘I invited Gareth Jenkins, one of the best photographers, next to John Waller, into my studio this afternoon for some advice. What a mistake! He looked at my photographs and said I was an amateur and should stick to taxidermy. Bloody nerve! He went on to say I lacked technical skill, with the many blemishes, spots, and streaks from uneven coating of the plates. At first, I was furious and determined to ignore the ignorant Welshman. Then it struck me that he’d done me a big favour in helping me to make my mind up
.
Today, I bid a final farewell to taxidermy to concentrate full-time on photography
.’”

David shrugged, unimpressed, but John continued to prove his point.

“Tate continues to make good trade as a conventional photographer, but on 4
th
January 1880, he makes a discovery.
‘Sophie carelessly walked behind Will Smith whilst I was taking his portrait. When I developed the plate, a semi-transparent, ghostlike apparition of Sophie appeared behind Will.

“
‘I apologised to Will when showing him the photograph. I didn’t tell him that my wife had caused the odd effect. I offered to take another photograph of him without charge. He turned down my offer, much to my amazement. He was adamant that it was the image of his dead wife Betty in the background. How could a clever bloke like Will be so stupid? Why do most folks continue to believe in religion and the afterlife? It is a mystery to me.’