Before the Poison (34 page)

I shouldn’t have been, given Louise’s history, but I was shocked by her angry outburst. ‘It reflected the morality of the times,’ I said.

‘“Morality of the times”. Now there’s a phrase that covers many evils. So did the Roman bloody Empire chucking Christians to the lions reflect the morality of the times? And what about slavery and concentration camps, too? Were they all right because of the morality of the times? Hiroshima? Nagasaki? How about sending convicts to Australia in chains in cramped conditions in stinking, disease-ridden, overcrowded ships? Was that just the morality of the times, too? If it was, it doesn’t excuse them, it doesn’t mean they were
good
things. And if you really think this “morality of the times” has really progressed that much, then look at Zimbabwe, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan. I could go on.’

‘I’m not saying they were right,’ I argued. Why did I suddenly feel like a defender of fifties morality? Especially when I’d spent the last thirty years in the relatively footloose and fancy-free world of southern California? I might not be a revolutionary, but I was no reactionary, either. I thought of myself as fairly liberal, a liberal humanist, in US terms a Democrat, over here . . . well, certainly not pro-Coalition.

‘Sorry,’ Louise said, seeing my frustration. ‘I know it’s not your fault. It just makes me so bloody angry, that’s all. I’m just letting off steam.’

The food came, and we ate in silence for a few minutes. I could hear the waves crashing against the harbour wall and the buzz of conversations around us, occasional laughter.

‘One of the things Morley mentioned in his account of the trial grabbed my attention,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t part of the evidence in the case. It came quite early on.’

‘Yes, I noticed he gave a bit of background on Grandma and Grandad. Those were the most interesting bits. I don’t know where he got them from.’

The words still sounded odd coming from Louise in reference to Grace.
Grandma and Grandad
. But it was true. She was Randolph Fox’s daughter, after all, no matter how many name changes and tragedies the family had been through. Grace and Ernest’s granddaughter.

‘No doubt the police did thorough background checks on all concerned,’ I said. ‘Talked to Grace’s parents, people who had known her in Saltburn. And Morley probably did a bit of research, too. Anyway, he mentioned a broken engagement when Grace was just eighteen. To a man called Edward Cunliffe.’

‘I remember that bit.’

‘Apparently, Grace threw him over and went off with a budding poet called Thomas Murray. He ended up dying in the Spanish Civil War, but that’s probably beside the point.’

‘What
is
the point?’ Louise asked.

‘The way Morley puts it was that Thomas Murray was a rake, a libertine, a bad boy, no doubt consumed with admiration for Byron and the Romantics, who ran off with another woman soon after, leaving Grace with an abandoned and wronged fiancé and a bad case of shattered nerves. She was so ill she was sent to her Aunt Ethel’s in Torquay to recover.’

‘So?’

‘Well, it was pretty obvious what he meant, don’t you think? This was often the way people referred to unfortunate girls who got pregnant out of wedlock and disappeared to the country for a while to have their babies, then came home without them. It was a means of hiding a serious transgression, something that could have devastating effects on the rest of the girl’s life, especially if she came from a good family.’

Louise stared at me. ‘You mean you think my grandmother got pregnant by this Thomas Murray?’

‘Not only that,’ I said, ‘but I believe she had a baby. Someone saw her talking with a young man in uniform on Castle Walk a few days before her husband’s death. Whoever saw them didn’t know who he was. It went nowhere. The fling with Murray took place in 1930, when Grace was eighteen. In late 1952, her son would have been twenty-two, about the right age. What if that
was
him? Grace’s son? What if his reappearance had something to do with what happened afterwards, or with her inability to defend herself?’

We had both finished our meals now, and a young man came and collected the plates. Louise put her chin in her hands, elbows resting on the table. ‘Her son?’

‘You have to admit that it’s a possibility.’

‘But you can’t know this for certain.’

‘Of course not. It’s just speculation.’

Louise frowned. ‘I don’t know. It’s just so confusing. I wasn’t ready for all this detective stuff.’

‘OK. Maybe I
am
going too fast. But I know you’re interested. I know you care about your grandmother’s memory.’

‘Of course I do. If I can help . . . I just . . . You’re so far ahead of me. I know so little.’

‘I’ve been thinking about it and studying it for longer than you. I don’t have the blood connection you have, but I think I have some sense of what a remarkable woman your grandmother was and what injustice was done to her. You’ll have to trust me.’

Louise contemplated me through narrowed eyes. ‘That’s a big ask.’

‘Maybe, but give it a try. You never know. All I’m saying is that we both think the police and the courts did a wretched job. Maybe they missed something, some essential connection or event? Let’s face it, they looked in one direction and one direction only – Grace Fox. They crucified her. Even Sam Porter was dismissed as a serious suspect pretty quickly.’

‘You don’t think he was involved, do you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve talked to him. He’s an old man now, still painting, as you know, full of memories and sadness, but his mind’s still sharp. I think he really loved your grandmother, if you want my opinion, and he never got over her and what happened. He’s as mystified as the rest of us, but he doesn’t believe she did it, either.’

‘You talked to him?’

‘Yes. In Paris.’

‘You went all the way to Paris to talk to Samuel Porter?’

‘Yes. It’s not that far. Not from here.’

‘But why?’

‘I wanted to meet him, to know what he thought, what he remembered.’

‘Was it worth it?’

I remembered the paintings and sketches. ‘Oh, yes.’ One day I would tell her about them. Perhaps we would even visit Sam together, if he would admit me again, and she could see them for herself. Meeting Grace’s granddaughter. Sam would like that. An artist, herself, too. But not yet. She still felt a certain mistrust towards me, and I didn’t blame her. I also wasn’t entirely sure how stable she was after the terrible experiences she’d been through. I didn’t know how far I could trust her, either. But showing me Grace’s things and giving me the DVD was a strong start. I was hoping we would be able to help one another and build up trust as we went along.

‘Anyway,’ I went on. ‘What do you think about my theory?’

‘I really don’t know,’ she said slowly. ‘I mean, I’ve heard of such things, like you say. But wouldn’t somebody have said something?’

‘Morley did. As much as was needed. Everybody who read that would have known exactly what he was inferring.’

‘But at the trial?’

‘It wasn’t relevant. It happened over twenty years before the crime they were trying. And it was a matter of character. It was the sort of thing that might have come up if Grace had entered the witness box, perhaps, but she didn’t. Her barrister wouldn’t let her. He had that much sense, at least.’

‘I wondered about that. Wouldn’t it have been better if she could have spoken for herself, told them the truth? I couldn’t really understand that part of the account.’

‘Read it again,’ I said. ‘It’s one of the things Morley is remarkably clear on.’

Louise chewed her fingernails and thought for a moment. ‘Let’s assume you’re right, then. Or that you
may
be right. What do we do about it?’

Here, I must admit, she had me stumped. Whatever my talents, trolling through records in dusty register offices, or wherever they were kept, was certainly not one of them. I neither knew where to look, nor had the patience to look when I did find out. ‘There has to be a way,’ I said.

Louise leaned forward. ‘I might just be able to help you there.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah. I was never really into it, myself, but some of my friends back in Oz were really keen on compiling family trees. There’s software for it, books, guides, all kinds of stuff. The information’s there, all over the place. I know where to find it. We even did some of it on the computer course, just for exercises.’

‘So you know where to go, how to do it?’

‘Hold on a minute. I know some of the basics, have a few ideas. I’m not making any promises. This was in Oz, remember, but a few of the people were digging for family roots back here. With a bit of legwork and an Internet connection you can dig up quite a lot.’

‘And you’d be willing to do that?’

‘I’ve got a few days before my new job starts, though I’m heading down to Cambridge the day after tomorrow to take up my new digs. But yeah, I think I’d be able to get something going in the meantime.’

‘Terrific. I’ll pay any expenses, of course.’

She gave me a stern glance. ‘You don’t need to do that. I’ve got money. Particularly since I sold you the house. Besides, if I’m doing this, I’m working
with
you, not for you.’

I held my hands up. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

She gave me another long look, then nodded. ‘No offence taken,’ she said.

‘This is why I chose Staithes,’ Louise said as we made our way through the small clifftop cemetery. ‘I wanted to see where Grandma was buried, and it was the closest place with a decent cottage for rent.’

We were somewhere between Staithes and Redcar. The graveyard lay at the end of a rough track a couple of miles from the road. There was nothing else around except the tiny church and a cleared area for parking beside it. Louise and I walked along the overgrown path, the wind off the North Sea howling around our exposed ears. It reminded me of St Mary’s graveyard in Whitby, where Dracula had landed, though this one was much smaller and more isolated. There were no 199 steps, and the church wasn’t open to visitors. The door was padlocked against vandals.

Many of the tombstones were eighteenth- or nineteenth-century, and over the years the salt wind had stripped the names from those facing the sea. They were dark monoliths overgrown with moss and lichen. The newer ones were easier to read, though they were overgrown, too, and Grace’s simple stone stood angled slightly away from the sea. There were windblown flowers on the grave, no doubt from one of Louise’s previous visits, but nothing else. The inscription was simple: ‘Grace Elizabeth Fox, 15th November, 1912 to 23rd April, 1953. RIP’. Underneath was written ‘Oh for the touch of a vanished hand / And the sound of a voice that is still’. Tennyson. It brought a lump to my throat and the wind made my eyes water.

‘Who chose this particular cemetery?’ I asked.

‘No idea,’ said Louise. ‘I wasn’t even born in 1982. I imagine Dad made enquiries, found out where she came from, and this is what they offered. Maybe it wasn’t every churchyard would take a body transplanted from a prison cemetery?’

‘I suppose not,’ I said. I looked at the squat stone church and wondered whether Grace had ever had any connection with the place. Nobody had mentioned that she had been religious at all, though Sam Porter had told me that the Fox family went to church in Richmond, like most prominent local families did back then. Grace was hardly that much of a rebel that she would fly in the face of that convention. She would probably have paid lip-service, at least.

I pulled my collar tight around my throat. The wind was sharp and seemed to get in between every seam and button. ‘Want to go?’ Louise asked.

I looked again at the simple stone, then out to sea, the churning grey waters, the dark clouds of a storm massing on the horizon, and nodded.

18

Extract from the journal of Grace Elizabeth Fox (ed. Louise King), February, 1942. Singapore

Friday, 13th February, 1942