Ghost Song (65 page)

Shona was being very clever about keeping her secrets in this new place. They kept sending people into the room to talk to her, to try to get the secrets out of her, but she could outwit them all.

The latest one they had sent was a youngish female— Shona thought she had seemed familiar and had relaxed a bit and been getting ready to talk in a friendly way to this person. But just in time she realized this was another of their tricks to make her talk about what she had done to Elspeth, Anna and Mother. She was not falling for that one!

Elspeth and Anna—Mother too—were actually becoming a bit of a nuisance these days. They planted themselves at the foot of her bed every night, or they stood against the wall—Mother was still messy and unkempt from the vodka, which was disgusting. Shona could not make them go away, even though she screamed and sometimes flew at them, scratching and clawing at their faces with her fingernails. They did not like the clawing at all; Anna absolutely hated it, because it disarranged her hair and spoiled her make-up. She was still a vain little cat.

At times Shona thought the people in this place guessed about Elspeth and Anna and Mother coming into the room; she thought they tried to get her to open up about what was happening. They were soft and insinuating with their questions, but she was not falling for that, either! She was perfectly polite, as she had been brought up to be, but she did not give anything away.

The worst thing of all, though, the thing that really terrified Shona, was Iain Seymour with his frightening eyes and hands. He was nearly always in the room now.

Of course I'm here, Shona,
he said.
I always told you I would be. Both of us inside Thornacre together.

Shona did not scream at Iain Seymour or try to scratch his face. She huddled in a corner of the room, trying to make herself as small as possible, and folded her hands over her head.

‘There are three pieces of news,' said Hilary, as she and Robert sat in the comfortable sitting room at Levels House two days later. ‘And we've saved them up so we can tell you properly, with as many of the facts as possible. Robert's going first, though.'

‘Only because my side is more mundane,' said Robert, ‘and Hilary wants the drama of being the finale. Mine's about the body from under the Tarleton's stage. It's being formally buried on Friday. There's still no identification and I don't think there ever will be, but there is one rather intriguing thing the police have told me.'

‘Yes?'

‘It's apparently the body of a man in his late fifties or early sixties. There was a bullet in his ribs, so they're assuming he died of gunshot wounds.'

‘Poor man.' Madeleine waited, and Robert said, ‘But they found something among the remnants of his clothes, and this is the interesting part. It doesn't tell us his identity, but—'

‘But it sort of gives him an identity,' put in Hilary.

‘It was a small photograph,' said Robert. ‘They let me see it. It's very old and very faded, but it was possible to make out the features. It was inside a leather case—probably a wallet, which had helped preserve it.'

‘Who…?'

‘A lady of about twenty-five,' said Robert. ‘Not pretty in any conventional sense, but very striking. It was sepia, of course, so it was impossible to know the colouring, but she had dark eyes, and those marvellous slanting cheekbones.'

‘Is there any clue as to who she was?' said Madeleine.

‘Only a first name,' said Robert. ‘
Flora
was written on the back. That's all. No date, nothing else, although when I described the hairstyle to Hilary she thinks it might be around the late 1890s. I'm trying to get permission to have one of those computerized copies made of it: I don't think the police will mind—there's a bit of red tape to get through, but I think it will be all right. So you can both see it, and have a copy if you like.'

‘I'd like a copy,' said Madeleine at once, and considered for a moment. ‘Flora.'

‘Yes. It could have been anyone.'

‘Toby's mother was called Flora,' said Madeleine.

‘Was she? Are you sure?'

‘I think so. Yes, I am sure. My father mentioned her a few times. He said she was very attractive, very unusual, but not pretty in the fashion of her day. Could the body be Toby's after all? Or Toby's father?'

Robert and Hilary exchanged glances, then Hilary said, ‘Madeleine, while you were in the hospital I spent some time in the attic, as you know. I wasn't sure what I was hoping to find, but I thought there might be more about Toby and your father.'

‘And was there?'

‘Well, some,' said Hilary. ‘I've unearthed a lot of photographs and old programmes—some from Frank Douglas's ENSA days. Some sheet music as well, and some Chance and Douglas songs. “Tipsy Cake” is there and “The Ghost Walks”—they're actually hand-written, and they're initialled. T.C.'

‘Toby Chance,' said Madeleine.

‘Well, it's a reasonable assumption. They're in this envelope for you. I'd love to get them framed and made part of the Tarleton's reopening,' said Hilary. ‘Although a collector would probably pay a fair sum for them if you wanted to sell.'

‘I don't want to sell,' said Madeleine, taking the envelope. ‘They're part of the Tarleton's history. Let's have them on display, as you suggest, Hilary.'

‘Good,' said Hilary. ‘But in the box beneath them was this letter, and that's the second thing we want to tell you.' She took the letter she had found from its careful wrapping and laid it on the low table in front of Madeleine.

‘Toby again?' said Madeleine, staring at it.

‘I think so. Read it.'

‘Remarkable,' said Madeleine, having done so. ‘Extremely suggestive. Did you find the song itself? The one he refers to?'

‘No. I spent ages searching for it before I had to go back to London,' said Hilary, ‘but I didn't find it. That doesn't mean it mightn't still be up there, though.'

‘Or,' said Robert, ‘that it mightn't simply have been destroyed.'

‘Lost for ever? Don't be such a pessimist, Robert.'

‘He's right though,' said Hilary, smiling at Madeleine.

‘How significant is it?' said Madeleine, reaching for the letter to study it more closely. ‘I mean—how far could it go in solving the Tarleton mystery? I'm no historian, but that Sarajevo assassination was the start of the first world war, wasn't it?'

‘It was indeed,' said Hilary. ‘The assassination of the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand sent shock waves through most of Europe and finally plunged it into the Great War. I've never heard of Tranz, though, and neither has Robert.'

‘I was on shaky ground with the assassination as well,' said Robert rather wryly.

‘Your forte is knocking down walls,' said Madeleine briskly. ‘Hilary, I've never heard of Tranz, either. But Toby—if it was Toby who wrote that letter—talks about having played a part in that.'

‘And not wanting to be thought of as one of the plotters,' said Hilary eagerly.

‘But look here,' said Robert, ‘how likely is it that Toby—or the writer of that letter—would have written a song with clues in it? Would anyone have put something so important—something that meant so much to him-inside a song?'

‘It's very likely,' said Hilary. ‘Some of those old songs were a whole lot deeper than people realize now. Have you ever heard Albert Chevalier's “My Old Dutch”? “We've been together now for forty years, and it don't seem a day too much…” People still use that line—parodying it, of course, but it's still remembered. But the song itself was written about an elderly couple forced to go into the workhouse and being separated for the first time ever. It's the husband's lament—it's his farewell to his wife as they take the last walk together up the hill to a grim old Victorian workhouse. I want to howl whenever I think about that,' she said.

‘And I thought you were such a cynic,' said Robert, smiling at her.

‘I do my best to be.'

‘OK, I accept that a song with hints in it could have been written,' said Robert. ‘But who was actually behind that murder in 1914? Do we know that? I mean—was it a single person or country, or some sort of underground political organization?'

‘I don't know, but it should be easy enough to find out.' Hilary reached out to touch the letter with the tips of her fingers, as if by doing so she could touch the past and its secrets. ‘Could this be the clue to Toby's disappearance at last, d'you think? Was he mixed up in that political killing in Sarajevo?'

‘Or made to appear as if he was?' put in Madeleine. ‘Framed? He says he'd like people to know the truth one day, and for people to understand.'

‘But why couldn't he tell them the truth at the time?'

‘I can't imagine,' said Hilary. ‘And I shouldn't think we'd ever be able to find that out. But if there was some involvement—if he was there that day, say—that could have provided a good reason for him to vanish.'

‘Unless—' began Madeleine, and stopped.

‘Yes?'

‘Unless the body you found in the Tarleton's cellar
is
Toby.'

Hilary and Robert looked at one another. Then Hilary said, ‘Madeleine, can I get that photograph of your family from the hall? The one of the group with the 1920s clothes and hairstyles? It's just near the front door.'

‘Yes, of course. Why…' But Hilary had already gone into the hall and was back holding the large framed photo which she had been studying the morning Caley Merrick arrived.

‘This is the third thing to tell you,' she said, placing the photo on the table, then taking from her bag an extremely battered book.

‘Prospero Garrick,' said Madeleine, leaning forward to read the title. ‘My goodness, it's the old boy's autobiography.'

‘You wouldn't have actually known him, would you?' said Hilary. ‘I mean—he was way before you were born.'

‘I didn't know him, but I knew of him. Elise Le Brun used to tell a very good story of how he'd get happily drunk on performance nights, and make rather fuddled attempts to seduce the females. All perfectly amiable, apparently, and no one was ever really offended.'

‘He wrote his autobiography in the late 1920s,' said Hilary. ‘I found a small extract from it on the internet and managed to track down a copy—there are so many good secondhand book-finding set-ups these days. I've read it and it's unashamedly egocentric, but I think he sounds rather a nice old boy. And he mentions quite a number of the people he performed with. Toby Chance is one, of course.'

‘Yes, I think Prospero quite often appeared at the Tarleton.'

‘Prospero—or his publishers—included quite a lot of photographs,' said Hilary. ‘Most of them are pre–first world war—that's probably because they show Prospero himself when he was a fairly young man. There are quite a number of him—bewhiskered or wearing natty waistcoats, or dressed as Richard II or Hamlet, always in the most incredible make-up. But there's also this one.' She turned the pages, being careful of their fragility, and then placed the book alongside the photograph of Madeleine's family. ‘The book's photo is dated 1912,' she said. ‘But look at it side by side with your family group. Do you see it?'

Madeleine looked at the two photographs: the one in the old actor's book, the other in the narrow oak frame.

‘But, Hilary—this surely isn't right? Are the names wrong, or something?'

‘I don't think so,' said Hilary. ‘Neither does Robert.'

Madeleine said, ‘But the caption under the photo in the book says it's Toby Chance.'

‘Yes.'

‘But that's the man I knew as Rinaldi,' said Madeleine.