The Shade of Hettie Daynes (15 page)

‘Who was that?’ asks Felicity as her husband resumes his seat. She ought to know better.

‘None of your damn business.’ He sweeps the toast rack off the table with the back of his hand. ‘Cold, as usual.’ The slices skitter across the carpet. ‘
That’s
your business, Felicity, if only you’d attend to it.’

Carl’s hands curl into fists on the
tablecloth
.
You wait
, he thinks.
You think you’re so great, nobody can touch you, but you’re wrong. Just you wait
.

SIXTY

IN A CELLAR
under the
Echo
building lay the newspaper’s own library. It had no books, but there were copies of every edition of the
Echo
going back to the very first, printed in the spring of 1865. The papers were bound up between hard covers, each volume holding one year’s editions.

There was a broad, battered table and an old swivel chair. On the chair slumped Steve Wood, looking like a sack of spuds. He’d been here more than three hours, and had leafed through two hundred and twenty copies of the paper. On the table, open, lay the volume for 1887. The
historian’s
right hand rested on an inside page of an edition printed in November of that year. The library was poorly lit and hopelessly old-fashioned. Anywhere else, everything would be on disk or microfiche and he’d probably have found what he’d been looking for in minutes. Nevertheless he was feeling pretty pleased with himself as he read this:

A NEW SIMILE

The attention of your correspondent has been drawn to a rare phenomenon: namely, the rise of an apparently new simile, whose place and approximate year of birth are actually known. The simile, overheard in more than one conversation among factory hands at Wilton, runs thus: As daft as Hettie Daynes. It is applied to any person perceived to have committed a particularly foolish or imprudent act, and arises out of events in the village a few years ago, when it seems an apparently demented young woman was observed by many, weeping and rending her garments.

The origins of many similes in common use are lost in the mists of time, and it is interesting to speculate as to whether this one will spread beyond the boundaries of Wilton, and of the present century, to
issue
from the mouths of persons totally ignorant of the circumstance out of which it arose.

Steve Wood scribbled a note, closed the volume and replaced it on its shelf.
Events in the village a few years ago
. He sighed.
I wonder why they didn’t make the local paper, these events?

SIXTY-ONE

THE FEATHERS, THURSDAY
lunch time. Councillor Reginald Hopwood and journalist Stan Fox at their usual table. Fox lifted his tankard. ‘Cheers, Councillor.’

‘Cheers, Stan.’ Hopwood sipped his ale, feeling nervous. Would his companion mention the reservoir, his threat to the photographer,
Hettie Daynes?
Was he going to ask awkward questions, or had he not noticed anything unusual?

Curiosity Fox noticed
everything
, including the councillor’s unease. He had questions, but didn’t know quite how to put them.

‘So, anything new?’ he began. It was the one
question
he always asked.

‘Don’t think so, Stan.’ Hopwood kept his tone and expression neutral. ‘Quiet, I’d call it.’ He smiled. ‘
Too
quiet for you, probably – I know how you guys like a bit of sensation.’

‘We
do
, Councillor.’ Fox gazed into his tankard. ‘Especially me.’ He looked up. ‘I make no bones about it.’

Was it his imagination, or did his companion pale slightly at those last words?

As Fox and Hopwood fenced at The Feathers, Steve Wood ploughed through old census rolls at Rawton town hall till he found this:

Prince’s Street. No. 8
.

Ebor Daynes, textile operative
.

Alexis Daynes (wife) spinner
.

Children: Albert, 17 yrs. Carter’s mate
.

Hettie, 16 yrs. Textile operative
.

Henry, 11 yrs
.

Margaret, 10yrs
.

Mary, 8yrs
.

Harold, 6 yrs
.

Dorothy, 7 months
.

The historian smiled and nodded, jotting in his notebook:

Hettie, 16 yrs. Textile operative
.

SIXTY-TWO

FRIDAY MORNING, STEVE’S
phone played a bar from the 1812 Overture. He thumbed the green stud. ‘Hi, Avril.’

‘Morning, Steve.’

‘How’re you?’

‘I’m OK. I pinched some lab time last night, ran the tests.’

‘Great. And . . .?’

‘The bones’re a century old, give or take twenty years or so. And the skeleton’s female.’

‘Tremendous! That plonks it right where I hoped it’d be. Thanks, Avril, I mean it.’

‘There’s something else, Steve.’

‘What?’

‘Well – one of the bits we picked up Sunday . . . it’s not part of her, whoever she was.’

‘Not part of her . . . what d’you mean?’

‘It belongs to an infant. A very young infant.’

‘You mean
two
people drowned?’

‘Sort of. I can’t remember exactly where this particular bone was in relation to the skeleton, but I think the child was in the womb.’

‘Ah.’

‘I could probably confirm this by taking another look on site.’

‘OK, Avril. Tomorrow or Sunday, whichever’s best for you.’

Rawton Secondary School. Afternoon break. To avoid going outside in the drizzle, Carl Hopwood hid in the boys’ lavatories.

Carl liked to read on the lavatory. A lot of guys do. He fished from his pack the diary he’d found in the archive at home, and settled on the seat.

The diary had a lock, which Carl had forced. Its jacket was of scuffed leather, red once, now faded to a brownish pink. The year 1885 was embossed on it in tarnished gilt. On the first page
in
a fine copperplate hand, were these words:

The Journal of Stanton Farley Hopwood
.

Stanton Hopwood had been Carl’s great grandfather. He had died in 1939.

A musty smell rose as Carl turned the thin, foxed leaves, looking for October 6th. He’d read the entry a couple of times before. It was the one that had got his attention in the first place:

Accosted by H. this afternoon while crossing the yard. Strident. Told her be quiet, I was making plans and would speak to her soon. Plans! I have no plans. Would that I had
.

Boring stuff followed, until this on the thirteenth:

Waylaid again, this time perilously close to Father’s office. H. threatening to tell her mother unless I name the day. Silly little fool surely can’t imagine Father’s plans for me include marriage to one of his hands?

Carl smiled. He was only thirteen, but he pretty much knew what was what. Stanton Farley Hopwood had been a
very
naughty boy, and Carl doubted whether Councillor Reginald Hopwood (busy man) would want this to get out, even after all this time.

SIXTY-THREE

‘YOUR GLOSSY’S COME,’
said Norah Crabtree, when Alison got in from school. ‘It’s on the kitchen table.’ Norah was watching TV as usual.

Alison found the brown envelope under a mountain of clothes awaiting her mother’s iron. It was addressed to her, but Mum had opened it anyway. She pulled out Bill’s photo.

‘Oh,
sweet
,’ she whispered, gazing at it. ‘Am I a genius or what? That
skirt
, the way it hangs. The hair, the eyeliner –
everything
. And just
look
how my feet stand out white against the black of that puddle. It didn’t look
half
this good in the paper.’

She spun on one foot, laughing, holding up the
photograph
. ‘No
wonder
old Hopwood couldn’t resist giving me the prize!’

She scampered upstairs, punched in Bethan’s number. ‘Beth, my glossy came. Wait till you see it. I look
exactly
like the ghost we saw the night you slept over,
and
I’ve already decided what I’m going as next year.’ She laughed with excitement. ‘I’m going as our
skeleton
!’

She waited for her friend’s reaction, but instead a voice said, ‘Who
is
this? Alison? This is Bethan’s mother. Bethan’s in the bathroom, and it seems she’ll have some explaining to do when she comes out. Thank you for calling. Goodbye.’

SIXTY-FOUR

BETHAN CAME INTO
the kitchen. She’d changed out of her school clothes. Harry flashed her a warning look, which she failed to understand. She looked at her mother.

‘Did I hear my phone just now?’ Christa was stirring something in a pan. When she turned, Bethan saw the look on her face. ‘What . . . is something
wrong
, Mum?’

Christa nodded. ‘
I
think so, Bethan. You
did
hear your phone. Alison Crabtree called. She wants you to know her glossy’s come, and that she looks exactly like the ghost you and she saw the night you slept over.’

Bethan’s face fell. ‘Ah. Yes. Right.’ Her mind started to race, but it failed to turn up anything she might usefully say.