Camellia (2 page)

At twelve noon of the same day, Bert Simmonds came out of the police station and lit up a cigarette. He needed time alone to collect himself.

The police station was in Church Square, right opposite the parish church: a small Victorian redbrick building set back from the rest of the terrace, almost as if it were apologising for having had the impertinence to sit amongst its fourteenth and fifteenth-century neighbours. A new police station was being built in Cinque Port Street, down near the railway station. Though Bert welcomed this move for practicality, he knew he would miss the peaceful churchyard, the splendid views of the marsh from the back of the station and its central position. But today he wasn't considering the beauty of his surroundings, as he usually did when he paused here. His mind was filled with Bonny.

Finding her body was one of the most traumatic events in his entire career. Now he was faced with breaking the news to her daughter.

It was so hot. His shirt was damp with sweat and his serge trousers sticking to his legs, still smelling of river mud.

'How do you tell a fifteen-year-old something like this?' he sighed.

From the first day in the summer of 1950 when Bonny, with her husband and baby, moved into the pretty house in Mermaid Street, she had made an impact on the town. It wasn't just that she was only twenty-one and stunningly beautiful, or that her serious-faced, much older husband was wealthy enough to call in craftsmen to renovate their home. She was outstanding in every way.

Bonny was an embodiment of the leap forward from the austere war-torn forties to the fifties. Her blonde hair was pure Hollywood glamour, she wore brightly coloured tight sweaters, mid-calf clinging skirts and high heels. The sight of her tight round buttocks wiggling provocatively as she wheeled her baby in a pushchair was enough to stop traffic, and the way she spoke airily of her time in West End theatres left her more retiring neighbours gasping in astonishment. There were those of course who didn't really believe she'd been a dancer, but she soon set the record straight when she joined in an amateur production and left the local girls looking like carthorses. The Desk Sergeant summed her up in a few well chosen words: I've seen pictures of girls they call "Sex Kittens", but until I saw Bonny Norton I thought it was just a photographic trick.'

Bonny was an enigma: a pin-up girl, but a loving wife and mother too – at least in those days. While men envied John Norton and secretly lusted after his wife, their women befriended her, tried to emulate her style.

Bert was guiltier than anyone of watching her too closely when she first arrived in town. He too was only twenty-one then, the youngest constable at the station, a shy, rather awkward young lad. It was a good couple of years before he so much as spoke to her.

One summer when Camellia was around three or so, Bert found her sitting on the doorstep in Mermaid Street playing with her dolls.

She was an odd little girl, very plain considering how beautiful her mother was, with poker-straight dark hair and almond-shaped dark brown eyes, old beyond her years. Bert guessed she was a bit lonely; he'd never seen her playing with other children. He paused to chat to her that day and before long their conversations became a regular feature of his beat. She would tell him where her daddy had gone on business, show him her dolls and books. Bert often brought her a few rationed sweets.

The first time Bert was invited into the Nortons' home was engraved deeply on his memory, perhaps because it was his first real close-up view of them as a family. It was a hot summer's evening,and as always he was lingering longer than necessary in Mermaid Street.

Camellia was sitting on the doorstep in a long pink nightdress, holding a small doll in her hands. As Bert approached her serious small face broke into a wide, welcoming smile. 'My daddy's come home,' she said.

'Has he now?' Bert crouched down on his hunkers beside her. John Norton was one of the top scientists for Shell Petroleum and was often away in the Middle East.

'Daddy brought me some new things for my doll's house. Would you like to see them?'

A gust of laughter from inside the house warned Bert the Nortons had visitors. He was just going to make an excuse when John came to the door. 'Bedtime, Melly,' he said, scooping the little girl up into his arms.

John Morton had the label of 'a real gent' in Rye. He was always impeccably dressed in hand-tailored suits, with sleek dark hair, a neat moustache and a deep yet soft voice. A great many women likened him to the actor Ronald Coleman. His face was too lean and his manner too serious to be considered really handsome, but yet he had a quiet endearing charm. He lifted his hat to women, always remembered people's names and asked about their families. Local tradesmen never had to chase him to pay his bills. He was courteous to everyone, however humble their status in life and he'd been accepted into the community in a way which was rare for a relative newcomer.

'This is Mr Simmonds, my friend,' Camellia said, playing with her father's moustache. 'Can he come and see my doll's house?'

'I've heard a great deal about you, Mr Simmonds,' he said and he smiled as if he liked what he'd heard. 'I'm pleased to meet you at last. The house is packed as always, but do come in. I'm sure my wife would love to meet you too. Maybe Camellia might be persuaded to go to sleep once she's shared her new treasures with you.'

Bert had never seen the inside of the house before, but it was just as perfect as he'd imagined it to be.

There was only one large room downstairs, with polished oak floorboards, thick fringed rugs and antique furniture. Everything just perfect in that understated, classy way that rich people had of doing up their homes. The Nortons' friends were all plummy voiced strangers to him, six couples in all, elegantly dressed, standing around with drinks in their hands. They smiled as John introduced him, but Bert felt uncomfortable.

Bonny was at the far end of the room lighting long green candles on the dining table, which was laid for dinner with silver, starched napkins and flowers. Behind it open windows gave a view of a small walled garden. To Bert, who was only used to canteens and transport cafes, it looked like something from a film set.

Bonny turned to greet him, a little unsteady on her feet, as if she'd had a few drinks already. 'So we meet our baby's policeman friend at last! We didn't expect someone so young or handsome,' she said, making Bert blush with embarrassment. I hope she hasn't been pestering you, Mr Simmonds. She's a great deal like me, expecting everyone to adore her. Now can I get you a drink?'

It would have been hard for any man not to adore Bonny Norton, especially the way she looked that night. She wore a floaty blue dress with full skirt, her bare arms golden from the sun. Her hair was piled up on top of her head, loose tendrils escaping from the pins curled around her neck and ears, and her cheeks were flushed with the heat.

'I'm on duty,' he managed to get out, suddenly acutely aware of his rustic vowels. He'd heard rumours the Nortons entertained titled people. 'I'll just see Camellia's doll's house, then I'll get out of your way.'

Camellia's bedroom was the prettiest Bert had ever seen: a white bed with a kind of canopy affair above it, dolls, teddy bears and books arranged on shelves, a thick carpet and a padded seat at the window, with a view over the rooftops and the marsh across to Winchelsea.

Camellia bounded across the room towards the big Georgian-style doll's house. John smiled at Bert. 'I'm glad of this opportunity to thank you for taking an interest in Camellia,' he said, with genuine warmth and sincerity. 'I'm away from home so much and it's good to think she has a friend to share things with.'

'She's a lovely kid.' Bert felt an immediate affinity with the man. 'She counts the days till you come home you know!'

'Come on, Mr Simmonds,' Camellia said impatiently, beckoning him to join her at the house. "These are the new things I got today – the piano, the lady sitting at it and the maid with the tea trolley.'

To a man of simple tastes like Bert, it wasn't a toy but a work of art. Everything was to scale like a real house. Little chintz-covered armchairs, table lamps, even plates of food on the dining table.

Camellia took out the piano and placed it in Bert's hands. It must have cost a small fortune, a tiny replica of a real grand piano.

'It even plays,' she said reverently, tinkling it with one small finger. 'Daddy finds me the best things in the whole world.'

It was soon after that evening at the Nortons' house that Bert discovered Bonny was a tease. She sensed he had a crush on her and used it to her advantage.

She would invite him in for a cup of tea and it would always transpire that she wanted some furniture moved, or some other little job. Bert didn't mind this one bit, but she often asked him very personal questions, and sometimes he had the feeling she was waiting for him to make a pass at her. One sunny afternoon when they'd taken their tea out into the garden, Bonny had stripped off her sundress. Beneath it she wore a minuscule bikini, the first Bert had ever seen other than in pin-up pictures in the newspapers.

'Well?' she said with a provocative pout, lifting her hair and striking a model-like pose. 'Does it suit me?'

He was aroused instantly. Dressed she was sensational enough, almost naked she was ravishing: a tiny waist, long slender legs and the pertest of rounded buttocks. He gulped down his tea and left hurriedly, with the flimsiest of excuses, then spent the next few days wishing he'd had the courage at least to compliment her. He didn't dare confide his growing passion for her to any of his friends at the station. Superintendent Willis was very chummy with John Norton and Bert knew if it got to his ears he'd be out of a job.

When John joined the cricket team, Bert felt even more awkward. John was no longer a shadowy figure in the background, but a flesh and blood man who clearly wanted to be closely involved in the community. Bert liked the man's quiet humour, his intelligence and his total lack of snobbery, and if it hadn't been for his feelings for Bonny he knew they would have become very close friends. Sometimes over a couple of pints after a game, John would talk about both his wife and daughter, and it was clear they meant everything to him. He once confided that he had moved to Rye from Somerset because he had been afraid to leave his young wife alone in such an isolated place. He felt someone as vivacious as Bonny needed people around her, shops, cinemas and bustle. He was very anxious about being away on business so much, and Bert got the distinct impression John was asking him to keep an eye on his wife and daughter.

Bert tried very hard to see Bonny as just the wife of a friend, but he couldn't. He would wake from vivid erotic dreams of her feeling deeply ashamed. His heart leapt even if he saw her in the distance, and he knew he was guilty of inventing excuses to call at the house in Mermaid Street.

It was a bewildering and dangerous addiction, made worse by knowing she was totally aware of how he felt. She would fix him with her flirtatious turquoise eyes, her so-very-kissable lips pouting provocatively, and hold his hand just a little too long.

There were occasions too when she went a little further to tempt him, fastening her suspenders in front of him, leaning over so he could see right down her cleavage, on one occasion opening the front door to him wearing only a towel wrapped round her. What really baffled Bert though was
why
she played with him as she did. When she had everything any woman could ask for.

Bert knew the answer to that question now, some ten years later. Bonny Norton was a sensationalist who had to have a few admirers dangling on a string to satisfy her ego. Maybe if John hadn't died when he did, she might have grown out of it and come to realise how fortunate she really was. But John's death came unexpectedly. At twenty-seven Bonny was too young for widowhood and too giddy to cope with the pressures of bringing up a child alone.

'Poor Camellia,' Bert murmured. 'As if you haven't been through enough already!'

Chapter Two

August 1965

Sgt Simmonds jumped as WPC Carter spoke at his elbow.

'A penny for them, Sarge,' Carter said. 'Wondering if you've posted your pools?'

Wendy Carter had been in the force a few years, but less than a year in Rye. She was an excellent policewoman, compassionate, sharp-witted, with a dry sense of humour. Bert thought she would go far. But she didn't know the Norton family history, or his involvement with it.

'Nothing so trivial,' he said. 'I was remembering Bonny as she once was. I wish it wasn't me who had to tell Melly.'

Carter looked puzzled.

'Melly! I thought her name was Camellia?'

'Her father called her Melly,' he sighed. 'He'll be turning in his grave at this moment. He once entrusted me to look after his wife and little girl. I didn't make a very good job of it.'

Carter studied the sergeant out of the corner of her eyes as they walked down East Street towards the High Street. Bert Simmonds was the kind of man she'd like to marry. Strong, dependable, good-natured and sensitive too. At thirty-six he was in his prime, with a firm muscular body and sun-streaked blond hair, just that little bit longer than the normal regulation cut. Not exactly handsome,but a good face, weathered by time and experience, his eyes grey-blue like the sea on a dull day. She thought Sandra Simmonds was very lucky. WPC Carter wouldn't mind being tucked up in bed with him.

Carter didn't get many offers from men herself. She was a plain stocky girl of twenty-nine with mousy hair and a snub nose, who had to rely on her intelligence and her cheerful nature to make friends, and those qualities didn't seem to get her very far with men.

Bonny Norton, on the other hand, had only to click her fingers and men came running. Carter had seen the woman many times, across a crowded bar, parading down the High Street, and like nearly everyone she had been fascinated by her. By all accounts Bonny was first with everything, the first woman to wear a bikini back in the fifties, the first adult to master the hula-hoop, and just recently the first woman of over thirty to dare wear the new short skirts. Carter admired such bravado.