The Boy Who Lived With the Dead

Book 2: Albert Lincoln

by Kate Ellis

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

It is 1920 and DI Albert Lincoln is still reeling from the disturbing events of the previous year. Before the war, he'd investigated the murder of a child in a Cheshire village, and now a woman has been murdered there and another child is missing. With the help of the village schoolmistress, Albert closes in on the original pre-war killer. He soon realises the only witness is in grave danger, possibly from somebody he calls "the Shadow Man". And as he discovers more about the victims he finds information that might bring him a step closer to solving a mystery of his own – the whereabouts of his son.

Release date: December 6, 2018

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 384

Sample

Mabley Ridge, Cheshire –

September 1920

Patience Bailey looked down at the baby asleep in her arms and wondered why she’d ever agreed to meet there in that field of the dead where graves jutted from the ground like crooked teeth, stained with lichen and darkness. It was no place for a baby … or a woman alone.

The church bell in the distance tolled ten times and on the final chime a bat swooped from a nearby yew tree and flittered close to her face. She flinched at the unexpected movement before wrapping the soft blanket tighter around the infant’s body while she murmured a familiar and comforting prayer: deliver us from evil. Over the past few years evil had overwhelmed good; evil had sent men to be slaughtered like animals in the battlefields of France in trenches they’d shovelled out with their own hands. Now they were lost forever. The world was wicked and she would do her best to defend the little one from harm, especially now that harm was so close to home.

A white marble headstone a few yards away glowed in the dim moonlight like a deformed ghost burrowing its way out of the earth and the sight of it made her shudder. She took a deep breath and carried on walking towards the agreed meeting place. She’d wanted to arrive first, to be in control, but now she feared this had been a mistake.

When the toe of her button boot met a raised patch of newly dug earth she almost tripped and she cupped the baby’s head in her hand for protection, fearing she’d accidentally stepped on a fresh grave. But the tiny mound lacked any sort of marker so she convinced herself it was probably a molehill and continued walking, softly crooning his favourite lullaby.

The shadows shifted among the cold, still gravestones and she had an uncomfortable feeling that she was being watched by unseen eyes. When she turned her head she thought she could see a pale face at the upstairs window of the small lodge by the cemetery gates but when she looked again it was no longer there so she told herself she’d imagined it.

As she made her way along the cemetery path she noticed a gaping rectangle of darkness to her left; an open grave awaiting its occupant with a small hill of soil heaped up to one side. She paused, inhaling the damp stench of newly dug earth mingled with rotting vegetation. Then she heard an urgent whispering which might have been the wind in the surrounding trees – or it might have been a human voice. Although she wasn’t sure, she gathered her courage and made for the source of the sound. She had no time for games.

‘You’re late,’ she called to the darkness with a confidence she didn’t feel.

The whispering stopped and everything was still for a few moments … until a dark shape rose slowly from behind a headstone.

‘Come out. You’re frightening me.’ Her heart was beating fast, thumping against the baby’s little body, but he didn’t stir.

The shape emerged from its hiding place, unfolding itself until it loomed in front of her blocking out the sky.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said, backing away.

Then she heard another whisper, a hiss like a snake and the crack of a footstep behind her on the gravel path. As she turned she felt the child being tugged from her arms with a speed that left her too stunned to fight. She tried to snatch the infant back but in her confusion she flailed about and her blows hit air. Eventually she lost her balance and dropped to her knees but her every instinct was to save the child so she scrabbled blindly towards its whimpering cries. Then she heard the grinding of metal against earth and a moment later darkness descended and she felt nothing more.

She wasn’t aware of toppling into the open grave; nor did she feel the earth falling on her, deeper and deeper, entering her nostrils and her throat.

After a short while she began to come round, struggling for breath beneath the veil of choking soil. Then, in one last desperate attempt to survive, she summoned what scant strength she had left to raise her right hand and push it upwards, feeling for the outside darkness before the heavy earth robbed her of life and her spirit drifted from her body.

Peter

I like to watch the graveyard while the others are asleep. Sometimes there are owls and bats but last night I only saw the Shadow Man.

If I’d looked out earlier I might have seen the old lady who always comes as soon as it’s dark but Jack and Ernie told me to stay in bed and stop messing about or they’d tell Mam. By the time they were snoring it was late and only the Shadow Man was there which was funny ’cause he usually comes as soon as the old lady’s gone.

He’s big and tall and he doesn’t have a face but our Ernie said everyone’s got a face so I was having a bad dream – either that or I was making it up. But I never. The Shadow Man’s real. One night I woke Jack and Ernie up to show them but by the time they looked out of the window he’d gone and they called me a liar. Everybody calls me a liar. But I’m not.

Ernie said it might have been my Shadow Man who took our Jimmy but I said the Shadow Man wasn’t around back then. Anyway, our Jimmy wasn’t taken, he was murdered.

I still talk to Jimmy. I still hear his voice in my head and I always will ’cause we’re twins. When it happened I was only little but I’m nearly ten now and if I’d been as big as I am now I might have been able to save him. But I couldn’t.

I don’t think I’ll tell anyone if I see the Shadow Man again ’cause nobody ever believes me. But I’m not lying. I have seen him. Just like I saw the lady in the grave when I went out this morning.

It was early when I went out ’cause I wanted to get there before the Body Snatcher. He looks for dead animals and birds just like I do but he just takes them away while I give them nice funerals with prayers and flowers and a little cross on the grave, all proper like. They’re God’s creatures so it’s what they deserve – not to be taken away in the Body Snatcher’s dirty old sack.

I didn’t find any dead ’uns this morning but when I looked into the new grave Dad dug yesterday for old Mrs Potts I saw an arm sticking out and I knew it couldn’t be Mrs Potts ’cause she hasn’t been buried yet. Dad left his spade there so I lay down and scraped some of the soil off and the lady was just lying there – not even in a box. I touched her with the spade but she didn’t move.

I might tell Miss Davies about the lady in the grave. She never calls me a liar.

Gwen Davies wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for the war. If it hadn’t been for the war she’d probably never have heard of Mabley Ridge – which might have been a good thing. Some might have called it fate but in her family there had never been time for such fanciful notions.

She stood in front of the children and they sat with their arms folded waiting for her signal, some fidgeting, others statue-still. She’d been teaching at the village school for six months and in the lonely evening hours when her marking was done she had a lot of time to think about the events that had brought her there; how she’d trained as a teacher in Liverpool where she was born and how, when war had broken out and her two brothers enlisted, she’d volunteered to do her bit for king and country by working on the land.

Fate had led her to the farm just outside Mabley Ridge where every night her bones and muscles had ached from the unaccustomed physical labour in the Cheshire fields, although she knew that was nothing compared to the sacrifices the men had had to make. Somehow she’d got through the days milking cows and harvesting hay; up before dawn and fast asleep when darkness fell. What little free time she’d had she spent in the village library and that was where she’d first met him. Fate again.

Her mother had insisted that she’d been quite wrong to return to Mabley Ridge when the war was over to face further temptation. But when she was offered the teaching post there she’d accepted eagerly, nursing hopes of picking up where she’d left off; of claiming the happiness that had been denied her that first time. Only when she’d returned to the village she’d found things had changed in her absence and cruel death had robbed her of the future she’d allowed herself to dream of.

She sometimes wondered why she stayed on in the village where her hopes had been shattered. According to her family, her loss was punishment that had to be endured; sometimes she hated her family.

She tore her thoughts back to the present and looked at the expectant faces in front of her. Twenty-three village children: boys and girls aged from seven to thirteen; good and bad; mischief-makers and dreamers.

‘Hands together, eyes closed,’ she said.

The children knew the routine and they obeyed, apart from a couple of the older boys who kept one eye open so it looked as though they were winking at her. She repeated the order and waited for total obedience.

‘Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, oh Lord; and by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.’

The children joined in with a hearty ‘Amen’ and she wondered whether they knew what the perils and dangers of the night really were. She hoped they didn’t because the reality behind the words was too terrible to contemplate. She dismissed the class to the thud of desk lids being lifted and closed and the hum of excited whispers. At this time of day the children reminded her of young cattle released into the fields after a winter in the barn and this memory of her days working on the farm brought on a pang of nostalgia.

‘Quietly,’ she said as they lined up to leave. The reminder was automatic; she said it every day before she watched her charges break into a trot as soon as they left the confines of the building and split up into groups. The girls skipped and chattered as she used to do at that age and the boys charged about fighting mock battles. Even after the horrors of the war years, little had changed on the surface. But underneath – where it really mattered – everything had.

‘Miss.’

She turned to see a freckled face looking up at her, the wide eyes trusting. Peter Rudyard, with his fair curls and distant manner, was a strange boy and even his own siblings accused him of making things up. The other children called him a liar and Gwen hated their casual cruelty. Something about Peter made her want to protect him and she’d done her best to put a stop to the name-calling.

Not that she herself believed every word that came out of Peter’s mouth. He was always full of tales of ghosts and monsters and, according to his elder brother Ernie, he loved playing amongst the gravestones near the cemetery lodge where they lived, as though he preferred the company of the dead to that of the living. Having said that, Peter wasn’t a difficult child. Rather than getting up to mischief he spent half the school day staring out of the window, lost in his own world. His main talent lay in drawing pictures and making up stories – although a surfeit of imagination was probably a curse rather than a blessing for a child with his disadvantages in life.

Gwen gave him an encouraging smile, the sort she reserved for those who tried hard but couldn’t quite manage the task. ‘What is it, Peter? Isn’t it time you went home?’

Peter looked her in the eye, his own eyes blue and unblinking. She’d seen that look before when he told his stories, as though he was able to see a different world, far beyond the humdrum life of the school and the village.

‘I found a lady in a grave, Miss. I couldn’t wake her up.’

‘In a grave?’

‘In Mrs Potts’s grave – the one my dad dug yesterday. I saw her arm sticking up out of the ground so I got Dad’s spade and scraped some soil off and there she was. Her eyes were open and she looked at me but she didn’t move.’

‘When was this, Peter?’

‘Before school this morning. I told Mam but she said I was telling fibs again and told me off for getting dirty.’

‘Did you tell your father?’

‘He wouldn’t believe me. He never does.’ He looked at Gwen hopefully. ‘But if you told me Mam she’d believe you, Miss.’

Gwen knew she ought to tell him to go straight home and forget about it but she couldn’t bring herself to be unkind. There was enough unkindness in the world.

Millions had died because of it, and yet she knew it would be better in the long run to ignore Peter’s fantasies rather than encourage them.

‘Please, Miss, come and see.’

She hesitated. It might not be wise to indulge the boy but at least it would put off the moment she’d have to return to her lodgings and her landlady, Miss Fisher. ‘Very well, Peter, I’ll come. But I can’t be long.’

After everything that had happened to her during the war years, after the love and bitter loss, she suspected she’d become too soft-hearted for her own good.

To her surprise Peter grabbed her hand. He was almost ten and most boys of his age thought themselves too old to hold hands even with their mothers, let alone their teachers. Peter, though, had always been different.

Gwen allowed herself to be led down the road, past the small streets of terraced houses built to house the staff who worked in the big houses. The rich had come to Mabley Ridge when the railway was built; cotton barons from Manchester fifteen miles away. The people in the village called them the Cottontots and every day these masters of industry caught the train to their work amidst the smoke and grime of Manchester and returned each night to their leafy mansions and their silk-clad wives. Even the war hadn’t changed all that; perhaps nothing ever would.

The cemetery lay at the very edge of the village, the land of the dead slightly apart from that of the living. The entrance was guarded by the small red-brick lodge that was home to the Rudyard family: mother, father and four children, although Gwen wasn’t sure whether the latest addition was a boy or girl.

It was common knowledge in the village that in 1914, shortly before the outbreak of war, Peter Rudyard’s twin brother had died in tragic circumstances and that a detective from Scotland Yard had been called in but hadn’t been able to find the culprit. When she’d asked Miss Fisher about it she’d said it was something best forgotten.

Peter’s grip on Gwen’s hand tightened as they neared the cemetery lodge, as though he wanted to make sure she wouldn’t escape.

‘This way, Miss.’

When they reached the house Gwen wondered how she’d explain herself to Mrs Rudyard if she emerged from the front door to see her son leading his teacher by the hand. Peter’s mother was a large woman with a round, pasty face and a snub nose and Gwen had always found her rather fearsome. Her husband was a stocky, taciturn man with a reputation for being handy with his fists after taking too much drink. Word had it that he’d suffered some unspecified injury during the war which had left him morose and short-tempered. Whatever the truth, it didn’t prevent him digging graves for the people of the village, rich and poor alike, an occupation he combined with working as a gardener at one of the big houses. On leaving school his eldest son, Jack, had joined him in his work, whereas Ernie, his second son, still in her class for one more year, had ambitions to work in the garage that had once served as the local smithy. The Cottontots had now, without exception, exchanged their grand carriages for the latest motor cars; shiny, noisy things that chugged down the High Street terrifying dogs and children.

‘She’s over here, Miss.’

Peter led the way down the central path towards the back of the cemetery and came to a sudden halt near the boundary wall.

‘She’s still here, Miss. I told you, didn’t I?’

Gwen could see a newly dug grave, yawning to receive its occupant, and she stepped forward to peer into the shadowy hole, trying not to think of death. A spade lay on the heap of soil beside the grave and she hesitated before picking it up and kneeling at the edge. Then she lay flat on her stomach, no longer caring about the state of her clothes, because she’d seen a hand protruding from the earth, pointing at the air accusingly, and a partially uncovered face veiled with soil. She began work, leaning over to scrape the earth away with the spade, and eventually her efforts revealed a woman in a black dress with what would once have been a crisp white collar. Gwen could see she was wearing lisle stockings but she couldn’t make out the colour of the hair beneath the small black hat still pinned in place on her head. A shoe lay at the side of the grave but the other had tumbled in with her, probably lost while she’d been struggling for her life.

Gwen hauled herself to her knees and brushed the soil from her dress.

‘Do you know who she is, Miss?’

She saw the excited anticipation on Peter’s face, as though the horror of a woman being buried alive was a great adventure he might read about in a comic.

Gwen knew the boy should be home with his parents and yet she was reluctant to let him go because that would mean being alone with the body. But this was selfish because a child shouldn’t have to stay within sight of something so horrible, and, when she was growing up, selfishness had been considered the deadliest of sins.

Before she could stop him Peter rushed to the edge of the gaping grave and stared into its depths, studying the body as though he was examining an interesting item on the class nature table. ‘I saw him last night. I wonder if he killed her.’

‘Who are you talking about, Peter?’

‘The Shadow Man, Miss.’

‘Who’s the Shadow Man?’

‘I don’t know. He doesn’t have a face.’

Gwen placed her hands on his shoulders and steered him firmly away from the grave.

‘Run to the police station and fetch the sergeant please, Peter,’ she said, trying to sound as though she was in control. She knew it was no use calling Dr Michaels because the woman was well and truly dead and, as corpses don’t bury themselves, somebody in Mabley Ridge had killed her.

Mallory Ghent took his gold watch from his waistcoat pocket and examined it as the train chugged into Mabley Ridge station under a cloud of sooty steam. The watch had been his father’s, acquired when the mill was in its heyday, and the weight of the gold felt reassuring in his fingers.

Ghent recognised many of his fellow passengers and doled out businesslike nods as they alighted on to the platform. He felt grimy after a day in Manchester where the air itself was grey but at least it hadn’t rained that day, which was a rare blessing.

He no longer had a chauffeur to meet him – after the war the last occupant of the position had chosen to open his own garage selling motor cars in nearby Wilmslow – so Mallory walked the length of the High Street, self-consciously swinging his cane and politely raising his hat to a lady who was emerging from the milliner’s; the wife of a cotton trader he was hoping to do further business with. After turning the corner by the post office his pace slowed as the road became steeper until at last he reached the grand wrought-iron gates of Gramercy House. As he marched up the drive he was surprised to see his wife standing at the open front door, as though she was waiting to greet him, though when he drew closer he could tell by her expression that something was wrong.

Jane Ghent was standing quite still, a thin figure in grey, her fair hair gathered in a bun at the back of her head. Not for her the bobbed haircut of the fashionable; her skirt was longer than was now in vogue and the collar of her frilly blouse sat high on her neck as though she was anxious to avoid any unnecessary display of flesh. Ghent’s heart sank. It was only since the war ended that she’d become so dowdy; since the telegram had arrived to tell them their son, Monty, had been killed in France a few weeks before peace was declared. Until she’d received that terrible news Jane had taken pride in her appearance and she’d enjoyed parties more than her husband had. Yet even before the telegram arrived the couple hadn’t been close and they hadn’t shared a bedroom since the birth of their daughter. When Mallory had married Jane for her father’s factory he had expected other benefits to follow but these had never materialised as he had hoped.

‘Patience is missing,’ she said anxiously as soon as he was within earshot.

Ghent saw that she was fidgeting with her cuff. Since her paid companion Patience Bailey had come into their lives four months ago Jane had become dependent on her. Too dependent perhaps.

‘What do you mean, missing?’

‘She went out last night and she hasn’t come back.’ The words came out in a whine, like a child who’d been deprived of its favourite toy.

Ghent, who’d spent the previous night at his club – or so he told his wife – did his best to look sympathetic. ‘What about the child?’

‘He’s gone too. How could she leave me like this?’

‘Some people are just ungrateful, my dear. You’d think after all we’ve done for her – taking her and her child in because we considered it our duty to help a war widow … ’

Ghent had never liked Patience Bailey, let alone had any idea what was going on in her mind, but he could see his wife was on the verge of tears.

‘Have you looked in her room? Has she taken her things?’

Jane Ghent looked affronted. ‘It wouldn’t be right to pry.’

‘But if something’s wrong … She might have had an accident.’

Jane hesitated. ‘She takes the little one out walking a lot … sometimes in the evening to get him off to sleep. If she went up to the Ridge she might have … ’

‘Why on earth would she go there?’

‘She said she sometimes walks up that way and I told her to be careful. But perhaps you’re right. Maybe we should find out whether anything’s missing.’

Jane turned away from her husband and headed for the stairs while he hovered in the doorway, unsure how to react. When he saw the maid emerge from the kitchen at the back he called out to her.

‘Daisy, have you seen Mrs Bailey?’

Daisy straightened her cap and smoothed her hair in a swift, automatic movement before walking towards him. ‘No, sir. Not since yesterday.’

‘She didn’t say anything to you? Or to Cook?’

‘No, sir. Nothing.’ She looked at her employer through lowered lashes. ‘The mistress asked me earlier and I told her the same.’

A secretive smile appeared on Daisy’s lips, as though she was gratified that the lady’s companion had put a foot wrong. Before the war, servants had known their place but recently things had changed – and Daisy knew it.

‘Is Miss Esme at home?’ he said, his eyes meeting Daisy’s in a brief moment of intimacy.

‘No, sir. She went out this morning.’

Ghent glanced up at his wife who’d just reached the top of the stairs. Neither of them liked the set their daughter was mixing with. Fast motor cars, jazz and champagne … and, he suspected, other things besides.

Slowly Mallory Ghent followed his wife upstairs. His knees ached and he suddenly felt old; too old, perhaps, for the life he was leading. As soon as he reached the landing he saw Jane making for the narrow corridor leading to what had been the nursery wing in days gone by; the wing of smaller, humbler rooms where the children of the house, along with their nannies, had been banished until they were old enough and sufficiently civilised to join the adult world. His heart often ached for those simpler days when Monty and Esme had occupied those rooms; the days before war had destroyed everything.

He watched as Jane entered Patience Bailey’s room and as he waited his gaze was drawn to the side window that overlooked the stable yard. From there he could see the door leading to the place that was his and his alone. He’d seen Patience Bailey trying that door once, but he’d soon put a stop to that.

After a few seconds his wife called out, her voice quivering with panic.

He’d always feared that Patience Bailey and her brat would bring trouble.

Grace Rudyard ignored the crying baby and stared out of the window. She could see Peter standing with his teacher near the grave her husband had dug the previous day for old Mrs Potts who’d passed away at the age of ninety-three. The teacher was young – not much more than a girl – and she seemed to believe every word that came from her son’s lying mouth. Grace cursed her naivety. Paying heed to his nonsense like that would only encourage him and bring no end of trouble.

There were times she feared for Peter and times when his words frightened her. He’d been one of twins but his brother, Jimmy, was dead, although Peter oft. . .