Chickenfeed (8 page)

Kensal Rise, north London – Friday, December 5th, 1924

T
HE HAIRDRESSER HAD PINNED
Elsie’s hair into a neat coil at the back. Now she teased the fringe into a cloud of soft curls around the girl’s face. ‘Going somewhere nice?’ she asked, nodding towards the overnight case at Elsie’s feet.

Elsie stared at herself in the mirror. She’d asked for a new style that took attention away from her glasses. Had it worked? Did it make her look pretty? ‘Sussex,’ she said.

‘I went to Brighton once.’

‘I’m having my wedding there.’

‘That’s nice,’ the woman said. ‘I suppose it’s cheaper out of season. When’s the big day?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Goodness! Who’s the lucky chap?’

‘Norman Thorne,’ Elsie told her. ‘He’s a farmer . . . has his own house and everything.’

The woman smiled. ‘And all I got was two rooms and a dustman. Where did I go wrong, eh?’ She framed Elsie’s face with her hands. ‘How’s that, dear? Will it suit?’

‘Oh, yes. Norman won’t recognize me.’ Elsie lifted the little case on to her lap and moved aside a wash bag to find her purse. ‘How much?’

‘Sixpence should cover it.’

The hairdresser couldn’t help noticing how little was in the case. A baby’s frock, two pairs of shoes and the wash bag. She wondered what kind of girl would go to her new home with no knickers.

There was even less in the purse. When Elsie had paid for her new hairdo, there were only a couple of pennies and a train ticket left.
Still
. . . It wasn’t a hairdresser’s place to question a client’s word.

But, oh, my goodness! How she longed to tell the skinny little thing that her green knitted dress didn’t suit her. And that chewed fingernails and the desperation behind her horn-rimmed glasses put lovers off quicker than anything.

Blackness Road

Crowborough

Sussex

Sunday, December 7th, 1924

My own darling Elsie,

Well, where did you get to yesterday? You said you were coming on Saturday so I went to the station to meet you. Did something go wrong? Let me know as soon as possible.

Your ever loving,

Telegram, 10.00 a.m. Wednesday, December 10th, 1924

From: Donald Cameron, 86 Clifford Road, Kensal Rise, London

To: Norman Thorne, Wesley Poultry Farm, Crowborough

Elsie left Friday. Have heard no news. Has she arrived? Reply.

Telegram, dated 3.00 p.m. Wednesday, December 10th, 1924

From: Norman Thorne, Wesley Poultry Farm, Crowborough

To: Donald Cameron, 86 Clifford Road, Kensal Rise, London

Not here. Cannot understand. Sent letter on Sunday.

Blackness Road, Crowborough – Friday, December 12th, 1924

I
T WAS AT TIMES LIKE
this that PC Beck wished he was thinner. It was hard work pedalling his heavy cycle along Blackness Road. When he reached the Wesley Poultry Farm and saw the muddy state of the field, he gave up on the bike and went looking for Mr Thorne on foot.

He found him in one of the chicken sheds. ‘Mr Thorne?
Norman
Thorne?’

‘That’s me.’ Norman wiped his palms down his trousers and offered an open hand. ‘Sorry about the mess. The rain’s chewed up the ground. What can I do for you?’

The policeman returned the handshake. ‘I’m here about Miss Elsie Cameron, sir. I believe you and she are engaged.’

‘That’s right. Has she had an accident or something?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. Her father reported her missing yesterday. He says she left London a week ago to come down here.’

Norman shook his head. ‘I haven’t seen her. She told me she was coming on Saturday . . . but she never turned up. I wrote the next day to ask what was going on but I haven’t had a reply. All I’ve had is a telegram from her dad.’

‘Do you mind telling me what you were doing last Friday, Mr Thorne?’

‘Not in the least.’ Norman gestured towards his shed. ‘How about a cup of tea? It’s warmer inside. I can give you a photograph of Elsie if it helps. I’m pretty damn worried about her, you know.’

But not worried enough to come to the police station himself, thought PC Beck sourly as he picked his way through the mud. He studied the picture of Elsie while Norman set the kettle to boil.

‘Mr Cameron says she left his house on Friday afternoon,’ he said, taking out his notebook. ‘Do you want to give me your movements from lunchtime onwards?’

Norman’s memory was surprisingly good. He recalled in great detail what he had been doing on Friday, December 5th. Shortly after lunch he had cycled to Tunbridge Wells to buy some shoes. On his return at around four o’clock he had fed his chickens and collected some milk from Mr and Mrs Cosham.

‘After that I made some tea and took a nap,’ he said. ‘I was whacked. The round trip to Tunbridge Wells is a killer.’

‘But Miss Cameron didn’t come here?’

‘No. I went out again a bit later . . . about a quarter to ten I should think. I’d promised to walk a couple of lady friends home from the station. Mrs Coldicott and her daughter. They spent the day in Brighton and came back on the ten o’clock train.’

‘Address?’

Norman gave it to him. ‘I stayed at their house about fifteen minutes and was back here for half-eleven. There was no sign of Elsie . . . but I wasn’t expecting her till Saturday.’

‘How do you know the Coldicotts?’

‘The way I know most people round here. Mrs Coldicott buys a hen from time to time.’

‘What did you do on Saturday, Mr Thorne?’

‘Fed and watered the chickens then went to the station to meet Elsie. She told me she’d be coming in on the ten-fifteen. I waited around for an hour then caught the train to Tunbridge Wells.’

‘Was that normal?’

‘What?’

‘That she stood you up?’

Norman stared at him for a moment. ‘I didn’t think of it as standing up. I assumed she’d had to stay home for some reason. Do you mean was I worried?’

‘If you like.’

‘Why should I have been?’

PC Beck shrugged. ‘No reason. What did you do in Tunbridge Wells on Saturday?’

‘Nothing much. Walked around a bit, then came home again. I checked at the station in case Elsie had come on a later train, but no one had seen her. So I stopped off at the Coshams for some milk and asked if she’d booked in with them. But she hadn’t.’

‘Is that where she usually stayed?’

Norman nodded. ‘They’d planned a party for Saturday night. I was hoping to take Elsie to it.’

‘Did you go anyway?’

‘No. The Coshams cancelled it because not enough people could come.’

The policeman made a note. ‘What did you do instead?’

‘Went to the Coldicott house. There was a film I wanted to see at the cinema. I asked Miss Coldicott if she wanted to come with me.’

PC Beck took another glance at the photograph of Elsie. ‘How old is Miss Coldicott?’

‘Twenty.’

‘Is she a special friend, Mr Thorne?’

‘No. She just likes going to the movies.’

‘And you say you wrote to Miss Cameron the next day, asking what had happened to her?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Do you have her letter to you, saying she’d be down on Saturday?’

‘We didn’t arrange it by letter. She was here the weekend before. We agreed the day and time then.’

PC Beck took the mug of tea that Norman handed to him. ‘Do you have any idea what might have happened to her?’

Norman shook his head again. ‘I did wonder if she nodded off on the train and ended up in Brighton. She takes pills for her nerves. They make her go to sleep in the oddest places.’

‘But she wouldn’t have stayed there, would she?’

Norman pulled a face. ‘I don’t know. She might be trying to scare us into taking notice of her. She can act pretty strange at times.’

PC Beck gave a report of this conversation to his inspector.

‘What did you make of him?’ the man asked.

‘He’s a young chap. Looks as if he’s struggling to make ends meet. His place is more like a pigsty than a chicken farm. But he’s pleasant enough and looks you in the eye when he answers questions.’

‘So you think he’s telling the truth?’

‘I checked with Mr and Mrs Cosham and they confirmed what he said. I also visited the Coldicotts. They did the same. But I’m not sure Bessie Coldicott is quite the casual friend he claimed. She’s a handsome piece and she talked about Thorne’s farm as if she’s a regular visitor.’

‘Interesting.’ The inspector steepled his fingers under his nose. ‘According to Mr Cameron, his daughter was pregnant by Thorne. Is Bessie attractive enough to make the lad wish he hadn’t been so careless?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Beck drily. ‘In terms of looks, there’s no contest.’

Elsie’s photograph appeared in the newspapers that weekend under the caption:
‘Has anyone seen this woman?’

It prompted two flower growers in Crowborough to come forward. They told the police they’d passed someone matching Elsie’s description at ten past five on the day she went missing. She was walking in the direction of Wesley Poultry Farm.

This time a team of officers visited Norman’s farm. He was asked if he had any objections to the huts being searched. ‘Of course not,’ he told them. ‘I want to help all I can.’

The inspector sent his men to check the chicken sheds while he went into the shack with Norman. He refused to sit down or take a cup of tea. Instead he moved about the room, pulling open drawers and examining Norman’s clothes.

He asked Norman the same questions that PC Beck had asked. And received the same answers. ‘You have a good memory, Mr Thorne.’

‘My life’s pretty boring. There’s not much to remember.’

‘So the last time Elsie came here was Sunday, November 30th?’

Norman nodded. ‘I haven’t seen her since.’

The inspector eyed him for a moment. ‘And how often have you seen Miss Coldicott in that time?’

‘Just once,’ said Norman truthfully.

Bessie had been in the shack when a reporter came to the door. Norman hid her from view by stepping outside and closing the door behind him. But Bessie had taken fright.

‘I don’t want to be in the papers,’ she said after the reporter had left. She was trembling.

Norman tried to comfort her.

‘No,’ she said, pushing him away. ‘I can’t see you again till this is over. I won’t bring scandal on my family, Norm.’ She slipped away in the dark without saying goodbye.

The inspector might have been reading Norman’s mind. ‘I’m told you’ve had reporters here, Mr Thorne.’

‘I didn’t invite them. They just keep coming.’

‘But you show them around and let them take photographs of you with your chickens.’

Norman gave a morose shrug. ‘What else can I do? If I refuse, they’ll say I have something to hide. They hang around the gate, waiting for me to come out.’