Sure and Certain Death (24 page)

‘Fucking hell!’ I heard one of the fire-watchers say shortly afterwards. ‘That looks like that was Manor Road!’

I’d been right. Not far from the East London Cemetery. I wondered who amongst the dear departed the Luftwaffe had blown from their graves this time. That one is not even at peace in death is so very common now. As for the living? I couldn’t see any of them, apart from the fire-watchers, and that included Fernanda Abrahams.

Chapter Twenty

‘
P
artly I blame myself,’ Mrs Darling said as she offered me a piece of cake that was heavy and grey and probably made from parsnips. Pleading a late breakfast, I refused.

Mrs Darling shrugged, sipped her tea and then said, ‘Esme should never have been left on her own. I knew it at the time, but . . .’

‘Mrs Robinson was adamant,’ I said. ‘I was there too, Mrs Darling. There wasn’t anything anyone could have done.’ We both went silent for a moment until I asked, ‘Did they, er, in hospital . . . did she have, um, a hard time? Were they . . .’

‘Coppers told her she was on her way to prison. Some doctor told her she was on her way to hell. What did you expect, Mr Hancock?’

What I’d expected had been just about what she had told me. War or no war, nothing much changes for those who choose to take their own lives. Maybe now, given that so many are dying not out of choice or by their own hands, attitudes to suicide are even worse. An embarrassment for a family, a sin for the religious, it is also a crime and probably always will be.

‘Esme had money and a will, apparently, and I expect that most of what she had will be left to her sister Rosemary,’ Mrs Darling said. ‘But that said, Mr Hancock, she did leave a note for me which gives instructions related to her funeral.’

‘She wanted me to perform it.’

‘Yes,’ the medium said. She sighed. ‘Wants to be buried next to Neville, God help her.’

‘You don’t think . . .’

‘Why would a bloke like Neville Robinson go down Rathbone Street in the middle of the night unless he was after some hanky-panky?’ Mrs Darling said.

I hadn’t been about to defend Neville in any way. I knew without any shadow of a doubt that he had indeed gone down to Rathbone Street for sex. What I wondered was whether Esme had known, and if she had, whether she had been the sort of woman who would forgive her husband such a thing. But Mrs Darling didn’t give me a chance to ask and just rattled on about the funeral.

‘There’s plenty of money of course,’ she said. ‘So we’ll all be expecting a good do. I think Neville’s monument’s being done now, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I’d organised that myself, with the monumental masons on Grange Road. ‘I’ll go and see Mr Piper and get him to add Mrs Robinson in. Date of birth was 1890, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

The same year as my sister Nancy.

‘Did Mrs Robinson ever say either to you or in her letter anything about wanting any other words or phrases on her monument?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘’Course, her family over in Canada may well want some other sort of dedication or what have you, but Gawd knows when they’ll get to know the poor woman’s even dead! I mean, the coppers say they’re informing Rosemary, and I’ve written to her myself, but whether my letter will ever get there . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Them U-boats are like sharks, aren’t they, Mr Hancock? Always waiting for our ships, always knowing where they are.’

Whether sharks do indeed lie in wait for their prey, I don’t know, but I understood what she meant. My old bearer Walter had been talking about the same thing earlier. He has a brother in America, his only living relative I believe, who he likes to write to and receive letters from. Walter moans about most things, but the interruption to his correspondence with his brother by deadly U-boats is one that I can sympathise with. Poor and lonely, Walter Bridges boozes for a reason, just like he comes into work often when I don’t need him for a reason.

Mrs Darling and myself discussed funeral arrangements while her husband brought in more tea and then, apparently, headed off up to his allotment.

‘Green fingers, he’s got,’ she said once Frank Darling had finally made his lugubrious exit. ‘Gawd knows where he gets them from. His father was hopeless, couldn’t grow weeds he couldn’t. Sometimes I wonder whether some of my sitters just turn up to get the odd carrot or parsnip from my old man’s allotment. Especially Cissy.’

‘Cissy likes vegetables?’ I said.

‘I don’t know,’ the medium said with yet another shrug. ‘Who can fathom someone like her, eh? Who can fathom most of my sitters. But Cissy’s always first in line if my Frank’s got something from the allotment. That said, it can’t be easy for a woman all alone in the world, can it?’

‘No.’

It wasn’t easy for Nan, but at least she had Aggie, the Duchess, Stella and myself.

‘And how is Cissy getting on with contacting her husband?’ I said. More than anything else I was making conversation, even if my motives for doing so did eventually change.

‘Oh, I don’t think he wants to come through,’ Mrs Darling said as she shook her head sadly. ‘I mean, Cissy, God love her, she don’t have no gift as far as I can tell. But when I try to get through to him myself there’s something blocking’. Then, possibly realising that what she’d just said didn’t sound entirely professional, she added, ‘’Course, I make contact, but . . . but he’s like I say . . . distant.’

It was then that I asked her whether Esme Robinson had been in touch in a spiritual sense. Mrs Darling eyed me narrowly. ‘Why would you want to know that, Mr Hancock?’ she said. ‘You don’t hold with what I do, do you?’

I didn’t answer her. We both knew that what she’d just said was true. Mrs Darling cleared her throat. ‘When a soul dies violently by their own hand, often they have no memory of it,’ she said. ‘So why Esme done herself in or what she might have known of Neville and his doings – which I know interests you, Mr Hancock – I don’t know.’

‘But she has contacted you?’

‘Esme has safely passed over,’ Mrs Darling said, not answering my question at all. But then had I really thought she might have something useful to tell me about Esme’s death? Did I really think that the Great Beyond might provide me with any answers to anything? Of course I didn’t, but I’d been compelled to ask because by this time I truly didn’t know what to do next. Five women, including Esme Robinson, plus her husband Neville had died seemingly because of their connection to the White Feather movement. The police, either because they didn’t feel that the White Feathers really were a connection or simply because they couldn’t cope with the notion of one person killing so many, hadn’t done much beyond arrest poor old Fred Dickens. He may well of course have killed his wife, Violet, so that he could court the barmaid Tilly, but I was doubtful even about that. What, after all, are drunken confessions really worth?

There was another mystery, though not of a supernatural nature, that Mrs Darling I felt might give me some assistance on. Having said that, I still didn’t discount the notion that it could all have been in my head. ‘Mrs Darling, I think that Fernanda Abrahams might have come to my shop last night.’

‘Might?’

I took a deep breath in and then I said, ‘Well, the raid was on and you know that sometimes I . . . well, I see things and . . .’

‘If you’re having visions, Mr Hancock, I would hope they’d be about something a bit more worthwhile than that old cow!’ Mrs Darling said heatedly.

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘Probably come not to see you but your Nancy,’ Mrs Darling said. Then, recalling the conversation I’d had with her at Neville Robinson’s funeral, she continued, ‘If your Nancy had reminded her old fella of things she didn’t want him reminded of, she probably came to tell her off.’

‘She’s already done that,’ I said. Nan, Aggie and Fernanda rowing out in the yard wasn’t something I was likely to forget.

‘Well then, I don’t know,’ the medium said. ‘All I can say is that whatever it was, it probably involved grief for someone. Such a nasty woman she always was! I liked her at first. Very keen to get in with me. But then when I found out how cold and unpleasant she was . . . Never knew why Marie took to her so. Too tender-hearted she was! You know, Mr Hancock, it is my opinion that if you was on fire in the street, Fernanda Mascarenhas is the sort of person who’d leave you to burn!’

As I walked up East Ham High Street to see if I could get a bus from Manor Park up to Claybury, I thought about something Aggie had said about the possibility of a woman being able to commit violent murder. She had been convinced it was possible. And in theory I agreed. In the case of these White Feather murders, however, I did wonder how a woman would be able to do quite so much damage to the bodies of the female victims, much less to Neville Robinson. Also, I had assumed that a man had to be the culprit because only men had been affected by the White Feather movement. Women were not and still aren’t required to fight. But what if the murderer’s motive was something else? What if the motive had more to do with obliterating a past that was unwanted than in wreaking revenge? Not that Fernanda Abrahams’s husband was unaware of what she’d been. But what if she was trying to hide her past from someone other than her husband? It was a very unusual, some would say bonkers, idea, but it was one that was sticking in my head. Everyone I’d spoken to about Fernanda Mascarenhas agreed that she was unpleasant, self-centred and ruthless. But did that make her a murderess capable of killing and then mutilating her victims?

I got up to Claybury just after the patients finished having their lunch. I asked if I could see Nathan Abrahams but was told that since his fit of agitation when his nephew had come to visit, his doctor had thought it better if he didn’t have any visitors for a while. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. I had wanted to talk to old Nathan so that I could, if possible, find out just who or what had made him react so badly. I wanted to know whether suddenly seeing Fernanda again had recalled his daughter Marie’s death to him. After all, the person who was murdering these women was getting into their homes very easily and without comment from others. Just like a female friend might do. But the nurse on duty was adamant. I couldn’t see Mr Abrahams and that was that.

‘Well, can I see the nurse who was on duty when Mr Abrahams became agitated?’ I asked.

She thought for a moment and then said, ‘That was Nurse Belmont. No. She’s not on today.’

I tried to think of the other woman Nan had mentioned when she’d told me about the incident. Alice had of course been there too, but I knew that she was out with my sister. Try as I might, I couldn’t remember the woman’s name until . . .

‘Mrs Ravens, one of our helpers, is on today,’ the nurse said. ‘She was there when Mr Abrahams became agitated. Would you like to speak to her?’

Mrs Ravens! Yes, that was it! I said that I would very much like to speak to her. I waited in the corridor outside the ward for about five minutes. Though far from silent, there was no screaming coming from inside on this occasion. I imagined that the food probably had much to do with that. Although my own sojourn in hospital after the Great War had been mercifully short, I still remembered that food had been important. When there is nothing else to look forward to, even a plate of watery soup can make your day.

‘Mr Hancock?’

I looked up and found myself staring into the face of a rather pleasant-looking woman of about sixty. Slim, with thin iron-grey hair, she had a very lined, very genuine smile. ‘I’m Mrs Ravens,’ she said. ‘Nurse Wallis said you wanted to talk to me about Mr Abrahams. You’re Miss Hancock’s brother.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s about when Mr Abrahams became agitated when his nephew came to visit.’

‘Oh yes.’ Mrs Ravens frowned. ‘Yes, that was distressing for all concerned. His nephew didn’t know what to do and your sister, Miss Hancock, well, it all came out of the blue at her. She was trying to be pleasant and friendly to Mr Abrahams’s nephew and his wife.’

‘Mr Abrahams started to scream.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know why?’

Mrs Ravens frowned. ‘At the time I thought I did,’ she said. ‘It seemed he was upset by his nephew and his wife turning up. But then nothing really happened until a few seconds after his nephew arrived. In fact Mr Abrahams seemed to be really very content until your sister left Mr Bannerman, who she was helping to feed, and came over to speak to the couple.’

This was not what I had expected to hear. I said, ‘So it was my sister who caused Mr Abrahams to become agitated.’

‘At first I thought that yes, it was Miss Hancock who upset him, but . . .’

Mr Abrahams had seen Nancy before. He’d spoken to her! For him to suddenly take so violently against her had never made any sense to me.

‘It’s my belief it was Miss Hoskin he was looking at as he screamed,’ Mrs Ravens said. ‘Like he’d seen the devil it was! Of course I didn’t say anything myself. Patients can take against people for no reason at all and Miss Hoskin hadn’t been on this ward for a long time, since before Mr Abrahams arrived I think. But I have noticed that she hasn’t been back on the ward since. Maybe Matron won’t let her. I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone, apart from me, even noticed.’

Nancy had said that her friend Alice had been on the ward feeding a patient called Bernie. I also had a recollection of hearing the name Hoskin in the not very distant past.

‘Mrs Ravens,’ I said, ‘is the gentleman my sister and Miss Hoskin were feeding called Bernie, or Bernard?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Bernie rather than Bernard, although . . .’

‘And Miss Hoskin, is her name Alice?’

‘Yes,’ she said with a smile. ‘Yes, it is. I think it was in fact Miss Hoskin who encouraged your sister to join the rest of us ladies in helping the patients.’

‘Yes.’ Something at the back of my mind felt bad. ‘Mrs Ravens,’ I said, ‘do you know Alice Hoskin very well?’