Lost and Gone Forever (29 page)

I
n the summer of 1891, a man and a woman who claimed to be married moved into a cottage at the end of Prince Albert Street in Brighton. Their name, they said, was Oberon, and the man said he was a cousin of Richard and Joseph Hargreave. He also said the brothers had lent him their home so that he could take the salt air while convalescing from surgery. He moved slowly and rarely left the house, but those neighbors who visited found him charming, even courtly. His wife was not as agreeable, and so, before long, the couple was left alone.

No one had been particularly close to the Hargreaves, and so no one bothered to write to them in London to verify the couple’s story. In fact, neither Richard nor Joseph Hargreave was ever seen in Brighton again.

It was during this same period that the number of unsolved murders and unusual deaths began to increase in East Sussex, and the constabulary was kept busy. The couple who were staying in the Hargreaves’ cottage stopped receiving visitors, and their windows were hung with black crepe. Neighbors were told that Mrs Oberon’s
sister had taken ill. Mr Oberon was often observed on the beach and he was always polite but distant. He walked slowly with a cane that had a distinctive brass knob at the handle. It was rumored that Mrs Oberon had left in the night to care for her sister, but she never returned.

In the spring of 1892, Mr Oberon reported the news of his wife’s untimely death. She had fallen from a horse in Provence and had been instantly killed. Many residents of the area thought it strange that the crime rate fell back to routine levels after Mrs Oberon’s departure. It was unthinkable, however, that anyone would bring the subject up to Mr Oberon, who appeared quite distraught.

Three months later he took a second wife, a young widow with a son. He took his new family away, claiming that there were too many memories for him in Brighton. He left no forwarding address or clue regarding his destination. The cottage on Prince Albert Street was shuttered and abandoned.

A week after that, two detectives arrived from London. One of the detectives was tall and uncommonly handsome, though his clothing was stained and creased. The other man walked with a slight limp. They carried with them a sketch of Mr Oberon and asked about him in all of the local establishments. They spent some time walking up and down the beach, observing crowds at the racetrack and talking to the beat constable on Prince Albert Street. They did not answer anyone’s questions about themselves.

There was much speculation after the detectives had gone, but soon life returned to normal. Every once in a while someone would see a silhouette on the beach at twilight and think,
There goes Mr Oberon for his after-dinner smoke,
before remembering that he had moved on.

Many years later, when the cottage was torn down to make room
for new terraced housing, the body of a woman was found behind the plaster of a pantry wall. No one living in the area was able to identify the badly decayed corpse, and there were no fingerprints left. She was buried in an unmarked grave, and her clothing, including her torn and tattered trousers, was
burned.

Alex Grecian
is the nationally bestselling author of
The Yard
,
The Black Country
,
The Devil’s Workshop
, and
The Harvest Man
, as well as the long-running and critically acclaimed graphic novel series
Proof
and recent series
Rasputin
.
The Yard
was nominated for the Barry Award and the
Strand Magazine
Critics’ Award, and was named one of 2012’s best ten crime novels by
Kirkus Reviews
.
The Black Country
was nominated for several awards, including the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association Dilys Award and the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion.
The Devil’s Workshop
was named to
Suspense Magazine
’s best-of-year list. Grecian lives in the Midwest with his wife and son, and is working on the next novel of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad.

alexgrecian.com
facebook.com/AlexGrecian
twitter.com/AlexGrecian

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