The Unseen(147)

The newspapers, by the time of the trial, had managed to find photographs to go with the story. They printed the Cannings’ wedding portrait, taken in 1909. The couple stared serenely from the page, two pairs of pale eyes in soft young faces, the irises so clear that even in black and white, it was obvious that they must have been light blue or green. Hester was smiling slightly, glowing with contentment. The vicar, who was wed in his clerical dress, had an air of mild anxiety and no smile on his lips. Leah stared at the woman’s face with a feeling of recognition. And there was a picture of Cat Morley, the murdered housemaid, whose role as the elemental was never publicly discussed, even if there had been those with suspicions at the time. It was a poor shot, taken from a distance at the Cold Ash Holt fête for the coronation in June, 1911. An array of finely dressed ladies, including Hester Canning, had paused in their revelry to have their picture taken. Bunting and parasols, tea tables laid with bright white cloths and three-tiered cake stands. And, behind them, a short, slight girl in a grey dress, with a clean apron tied tightly around her and a soft cotton cap on her head. She was holding a silver teapot, as if paused in the act of filling the china cups laid out in front of her. It was not a good picture, and too distant for her face to be clear. Short locks of black hair came out from under her cap, and her face was set in a scowl which might have been down to the bright sunlight, but might not. Dark brows drawn down in a thin, angular face. The elemental, Leah thought, with a pang of anguish for the girl.

The more Leah read, the more Hester’s letters made sense; facts and references dropping into place. She began to write her article, which grew and grew, and became as much about depicting the truth that Hester Canning had so longed for as resurrecting the dead girl, whose role in it all had never before been properly understood. And as she stared at the Cannings’ faces, and went back to Hester’s letters to Robin Durrant, something else became abundantly clear.

She was interrupted on Friday afternoon by a phone call from Mark.

‘Hello, stranger. Are you ignoring me now that you’ve got your story, or what?’ he said.

Leah smiled, glanced at the clock and realised that her legs were numb, her back aching. ‘No! Sorry, Mark. Not at all. I’ve just been so caught up in filling in all the gaps … I have some rather significant news for you, actually. I was saving it until I could give you the finished piece, but perhaps I should tell you sooner.’ She stood up from her table in the reading room and stretched.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Oh, it’s far too juicy to tell you over the phone. Let’s have some lunch at the pub – but first, meet me at the church in Cold Ash Holt. Say, in an hour?’

‘All right then.’

‘And bring that picture of your grandfather, Thomas.’


The day was mild and blowy, a damp wind nudging at them and trembling the grass as they walked along the rows of gravestones surrounding the church of St Peter. Leah had a bunch of flowers underneath her arm, the cellophane crackling softly. White lilies and pink cherry blossoms; a big, extravagant spray.

‘If you’re looking for Hester and Albert, they’re over there,’ Mark said, pointing to an oblong tomb near a vast and brooding yew tree.

‘We’ll get to them. I’ll need a photo of their graves for the article. First there’s someone else I want to see.’

‘This article of yours is getting pretty chunky. Maybe you should turn it into a book?’ he said.

Leah paused, a smile spreading over her face. ‘That is an absolutely brilliant idea. Why don’t I? I’ve got enough to write about. Theosophy, a fairy hoax, a murder, a miscarriage of justice …’

‘Was it a miscarriage, though? After all, it was the theosophist’s fault she was killed, from what you’ve told me.’

‘Yes, but the vicar should have faced justice too, for what he did. Not just your great-grandfather,’ Leah said, and waited while Mark unpicked this remark.

‘What do you mean “the vicar, not just my great-grandfather”? The vicar was my great-grandfather,’ he said.

Leah shook her head, smiling. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘What links those two letters Robin Durrant kept? What does Hester mention in both of them?’

‘Er … doubts and fears, suspicions … begging for information …’

‘But what else?’ she pressed. Mark shook his head. ‘Her child, Mark. She talks about her child in both of them. Firstly that she’s about to give birth, and that she thinks it’s a boy; secondly at length about him as a toddler.’