The Mistletoe Bride(45)

I hesitated a moment outside. I was late home already and I looked a sketch. Salt water splashed up the back of my raincoat, my gloves stiff with mud. Mrs Sadler would be sure to pass comment, she was the type who didn’t let anything go. But there was something I had to do, read, before I went home. I wouldn’t rest else. Mrs Sadler would have to wait.

I ran up the steps and into the library. To my relief, Albert was still on the front desk, his glasses perched on the tip of his red nose. Saying I’d forgotten something, and he wasn’t to worry, I headed through the stacks to the archive room at the back of the building, where back issues of local and parish newspapers were kept. Floor-to-ceiling hanging files and oversize drawers, nothing had been put onto film yet. In the middle there was a large central desk with drawers, large enough to accommodate ten people working at any one time. I scanned the years, months, weeks, until I found the box I wanted:



My heart going nineteen to the dozen, I flicked through until I found the edition I was after. Saw what I didn’t want to see. I stared at the black and white photograph in the newspaper, looking into the eyes of the murdered girl. Her hair curled out beneath the cap, the belted jacket and pleated skirt, shirt and tie. I caught my breath. And beneath, the description of the murder: her throat cut and marks on wrists suggesting she’d been kept captive for a while before her body was found in Cornmill House.

I slumped down on the chair, the photograph bringing it all back. The whispers, the pointed fingers, the speculation. Remembering when the police had gone, hearing Mum and my stepfather arguing in whispers, so the neighbours wouldn’t hear through the walls. She took Harry’s side, of course. Tried to defend him. Said they were talking to every man over sixteen, nothing sinister about it. Bound to be one of the soldiers billeted at Oakwood or Goodwood. Besides, what respectable girl would go on her own, to a place like that? Asking for trouble.

I put the newspaper back in the box and the box back in the stacks, then turned off the light. I waved to Bert on the way out and held up my bag, proof that I’d found what I was looking for, then I went out into the fading afternoon. Cold, dark, ice underfoot. Proper December weather. Back up Mill Lane, over the road to the row of terraced cottages where we lived. The back door was unlocked. I took off my boots and hung my coat, inside out, on the back of the door, before calling out.

‘It’s only me,’ I said, going through to the hall. ‘Sorry I’m late. I got held up.’

Mrs Sadler was dressed for outside, hat and gloves on, hands folded in front of her. She glanced pointedly at the clock on the window sill by the sink.

‘How’s he been?’

‘Same as usual,’ she said in a tight, clipped voice.

‘Has he had his tea?’

‘At four. He’s asleep now.’ Her voice was begrudging, hard done by. ‘He’s been agitated all afternoon, mind you. Talking about some girl. Your brother Harry, too, though it’s hard to know what he’s saying. The language.’

‘I’m sorry if he’s offended you, Mrs Sadler,’ I said, more sharply than I intended. ‘Thanks for staying on. I’ll see you Monday, as usual?’

A sly look crossed her broad face. ‘I don’t know. Mr Sadler doesn’t like me coming here, you know. He’s not one for talk.’

I was tempted to say, no I didn’t know, to make her come out with it. Admit that she’d heard the rumours about my stepfather, about our family. At least then I could say something in our defence. But I was more shaken up than I cared to admit and, besides, who else would come in and sit with him? So I just suggested we should perhaps come to a new financial arrangement, to compensate for any inconvenience. I got a note out and put it on the table. Would that help matters indoors? I could see her thinking about it, totting up the extra few bob. She held out a moment longer, then reached and pocketed the ten shillings.

‘See you Monday,’ she said.

After she’d left, I locked the back door and since there was no one about to see, stepped out of my skirt and sponged the mud as best I could. While it dried, I put on my old gardening skirt that was hanging over the back of the chair where I’d been mending it earlier. I looked at the clock. Five o’clock and it was pitch black. The idea of the long evening ahead was almost more than I could bear, but I knew I’d get on with it just the same. Just as I always did.

I leaned over the sink and pulled on the curtains to shut out the dark. The wire was old and the fabric too heavy, so they stuck halfway, as they usually did, leaving a slat of silver coming in from the light in the alley that ran along the back of the cottages. I knew I should go in to the front room and see how he was, but I couldn’t face it. I was still turning the events of the afternoon over in my mind.