Forgotten Murder Read online

  Jenny had grown up with stories of doughty daughters of Empire doing their bit amongst fire, flood and famine. Elementary nursing had played a part there. Rotherdean had taught her how to manage a house, both at home and abroad, instruct servants, supervise the cooking and presentation of dishes from bandicoot (stewed in milk) to hash bogurrah (mutton with ginger) how to greet an Indian Native Prince and what to say to an Arab chieftain’s first wife. In addition, she was taught French, Latin, fine needlework, botany, the piano and had been instructed in watercolours.

  That was all well and good and doubtless useful to the right woman in the right place, but none of it added up to a job. At a pinch, Rotherdean admitted that occasionally a pupil might be employed as a governess, but Jenny loathed the thought.

  No; she didn’t want to be a governess but she did have to work. She spent some of her small reserve of money on learning to type. That was bound to be useful. Martin wanted her to take a job in Leeds, but she’d set her sights on London.

  Mum had been a Londoner and always talked about London very fondly. Jenny had managed to find a room in a decent boarding-house in Catton Street off Southampton Row, and then set about finding a job. She had never thought about being a house agent but the advert in the Evening Standard had leapt out at her. The idea of Stowfleet being a village was, to her Yorkshire-bred senses, almost laughable, but at least she wasn’t hemmed in by endless streets. There was open space in Stowfleet. Mum would’ve liked it.

  Mum. It would be nice to have been able to tell Mum where she was and what she was doing and how, after only a few weeks, she had made the longed-for jump from behind the office desk. Apart from anything else, the sensation of being outside in the sunshine, even if the wind was chilly, instead of being inside made her feel as if she’d been given the next best thing to a holiday.

  She arrived at the gate to Saunder’s Green. She opened her handbag, checking the note from the office. The house was untenanted, but the housekeeper was a Mrs Offord. Jenny took a moment to gather her impressions.

  Saunder’s Green was one of a series of houses built on a slope that ran up to half an acre or so of shrubby grass that was all that remained of the green. At a guess, Saunder’s Green had come first and the other houses accumulated around it, so that it was now part of a suburban square.

  It was a substantial detached house – could it be described as ‘manageable’? thought Jenny, in the language of Wilson and Lee – separated from the road by a reasonably sized front garden with a driveway leading to what was obviously the later addition of a garage.

  How old was it? Victorian, about 1880 or so, at a guess. Brick-built with a red-tiled roof, it seemed to Jenny to exude stability and comfort. It would, Jenny thought, who had studied Wilson and Lee’s ‘To be Let’ or ‘Sold’ properties closely, sell for anything up to £850, depending on the condition inside.

  Not that, as Mr Wilson had told her, Saunder’s Green was for sale. It was to be let only, but with a value of about £850, that meant the rent should be about one pound, ten shillings a week. She guessed Mr McKenzie would verify the figures, but if she’d got them right, that would be another feather in her cap.

  She opened the gate and walked down the flower-bordered path to the front door. The date 1882 was carved into the stone lintel above the door. She’d been right about the age.

  The door was opened by a plump, comfortable-looking, older woman, evidently Mrs Offord.

  ‘You’re from the house agents?’ she said. ‘Mr Lee telephoned to say to expect you. Miss Langton, is it? Come in, do,’ she said, leading her through the lobby into the hall. ‘Let me take your things, Miss.’

  She opened the cupboard in the hall, hung up Jenny’s coat and hat, and turned round with a smile. ‘I must say, I was surprised that it was a …’ She broke off and quickly summed up the grey suit and Jenny’s apparent social status. ‘A lady who was coming. Mind you, ladies do all sorts of jobs nowadays, don’t they, Miss?’

  ‘We have to,’ said Jenny, with a smile, entering the hall. ‘However, I enjoy what I do very much. I love looking round houses.’

  Now, why had she said that? The truth was that although she had the usual amount of curiosity, she had no particular affinity with houses as such. A job was a job and she was determined to do her best, but this house was something special.

  The hall was exactly right, so much what a proper hallway should be. An imposing staircase led up to the upper floor, lit by a coloured glass window at the turn of the stairs, throwing patches of rich amber and blue light onto the brass-rod separated stairs. It was all just as it should be, even to the carved wooden pineapple on the newel post of the banister.

  ‘What a lovely house!’ she exclaimed.

  Mrs Offord smiled at her genuine pleasure. ‘It’s nice to hear you say so, Miss. I do like to keep it nice, even though I say so myself. Mind you, there’s plenty of work for me and Mavis, the housemaid. I daresay she’d be willing to stay on if that was desired. She’s in the village at the moment, but I know I can speak for her.’

  That was worth knowing. Finding the staff to run a large house like this was the big difficulty in letting these older houses. They had been built in the secure knowledge there was an endless stream of girls willing to go into domestic service. That was before the war and long before what was called the servant problem had arisen. Servants nowadays wanted rather better wages and an array of labour-saving devices that would have shocked the original tenants of Saunder’s Green.

  ‘Would you stay on, Mrs Offord?’ asked Jenny.

  Mrs Offord’s face fell. ‘I can’t say as I would, Miss. I’ve only stayed on to oblige, like. I was looking to retire, when the new tenant comes.’

  That really might be a problem. There were quite a few Victorian houses on Wilson and Lee’s books, no matter what the papers said about a shortage of housing. The staff to run them simply couldn’t be found or afforded.

  ‘If a family was here,’ said Mrs Offord, unconsciously echoing Jenny’s thoughts, ‘there’d have to be more staff, of course.’

  ‘Was there a family here?’ asked Jenny. She felt oddly moved that Saunder’s Green, with its coloured window and polished oak bannisters, should be left unloved. The house needed a family. A happy family in a happy house.

  ‘What, with children, you mean, Miss?’ Mrs Offord shook her head. ‘I’ve not known a family here, Miss. Not in my time, and I’ve been here twelve years and more. No, it was Colonel and Mrs Trenchard that had it, and after the Colonel passed away, Mrs Trenchard kept it on, even though it was really too big for her. For the last couple of years she couldn’t manage the stairs, poor soul, so it’s all untouched upstairs. Not that I’ve neglected the cleaning, of course.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ agreed Jenny. ‘I can see it’s been very well kept.’ She looked around the hall and gave a little sigh of satisfaction. ‘I don’t know what it is, but it feels a welcoming place, somehow.’

  Mrs Offord was obviously pleased. ‘It’s funny you should say that, Miss, but I’ve always felt that, too. I’ve always found it a very welcoming house, despite what some say.’

  ‘What do they say?’ asked Jenny. If it was a question of drains, draughts, a leaky roof or awkward neighbours, she’d better know.

  Mrs Offord seemed flustered. ‘It’s nothing, really, Miss. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I daresay you’ll think it’s a lot of nonsense and silly tales.’

  Jenny was intrigued. ‘What is?’

  Mrs Offord took a deep breath. ‘I hardly like to say, Miss, but there are those who say it’s haunted. I know what it sounds like,’ she added, bridling at Jenny’s sceptical look. ‘I must say I’ve never seen anything myself, but Mrs Trenchard, she saw something and, of course, the tale got around, as it would. Mrs Trenchard,’ she added, as if suspicious Jenny was going to argue the point, ‘was as honest as the day was long.’

  She was obviously so sincere, Jenny moderated her scepticism. She didn’t believe her, b
ut the last thing she wanted to do was put the housekeeper’s back up.

  ‘That must’ve been very upsetting for her,’ she said diplomatically.

  ‘Oh, she wasn’t frightened, Miss. It’s not something to be scared of. Mrs Trenchard said as how it was a lady in blue. That’s all. Just a lady in blue. She saw her a few times. Out in the garden, it was. It was always in the garden and always in the afternoon. Mrs Trenchard said she’d see her just like it might be out of the corner of your eye and then gone. The lady in blue doesn’t mean any harm but she’s there.’

  Jenny decided not to add the ghost, scary or not, to her notes. In her opinion, Saunder’s Green House would be difficult enough to let as it was, without telling any prospective tenant an afternoon in the garden would be disturbed by visitors from beyond the veil. ‘That’s very interesting,’ she said, hoping that was enough of a placatory comment.

  Mrs Offord shook her head. ‘I can see as how you don’t believe me, Miss, but I know what I was told. But as I say, she does stay in the garden.’ She shook herself, as if to draw a line under the conversation. ‘Never mind about that. You’ve come to be shown over the house. Shall we start with the kitchen?’

  Jenny followed Mrs Offord through the green baize door off the hall, noting measurements. A good-sized kitchen, fifteen foot by twelve, with a vast old-fashioned range, which led on to Mrs Offord’s sitting-room, where she did the household mending. Not that, as Mrs Offord said, there had been much with just poor Mrs Trenchard to look after. A scullery (eleven foot by seven) coal store and larder completed what Wilson and Lee would undoubtedly call the domestic offices.

  Once more in the hall, Mrs Offord led the way upstairs. ‘We’d better start at the top of the house, Miss, and work down,’ she said, as she wheezed her way up the attic stairs. ‘Not that I ever comes up here much.’

  The dusty attics (two rooms, twenty-three foot by twenty) were, to Jenny’s eyes, exactly like any other attics with a collection of old boxes and trunks.

  She was about to go downstairs when a box, a white-painted ottoman with a cushioned seat and a wooden back, caught her eye. It would be perfect for toys. Dollies, skittles and a jack-in-the-box that would make her jump.

  ‘I like the ottoman,’ said Jenny. ‘It needs repainting and upholstering but it’s a nice thing. I suppose it’s empty?’

  She lifted the lid. It wasn’t empty. A jumble of Victorian dolls with porcelain faces stared out at her and there, on top, was a small box with a clasped lid. She slipped back the clasp and, with a tinny whistle, out came the papier mâché clown’s head of the jack-in-the box.

  Jenny started back. For a fraction of a second, she was very small and the jack-in-the-box was very large. The clown’s face, with its sinister painted smile, rocked on the cloth-covered spring. Jenny gulped, squeezed it back into the box, fastened the clasp and shut the lid of the ottoman.

  ‘There now,’ said Mrs Offord in surprise. ‘I wonder how Mrs Trenchard came to have such a thing? I never knew it was there and that’s a fact. What a face! It’d scare a child, that would.’

  Yes, it certainly would, agreed Jenny to herself.

  ‘Shall we go downstairs?’ she asked. For some reason the sight of the old toys had rattled her.

  First the Watcher and now the jack-in-the-box. She got a firm grip on her nerves. Maybe Mum had been right about the Watcher. Maybe she really was making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe, as Mum had said, there was no Watcher, just a man – different men – who she happened to see from time to time. Maybe; but she didn’t really believe it and she hadn’t liked the jack-in-the-box.

  Once on the first floor, she consciously resumed the mantle of house agent. A bathroom with a magnificent Victorian bath, a separate lavatory on a dark-stained oak step, various cupboards and four good-sized bedrooms were all noted down. Everything needed painting, but nothing was in disrepair.

  That left two adjacent bedrooms, one belonging to the absent Mavis and the other which was Mrs Offord’s own.

  ‘I don’t mind if you go in, Miss,’ said Mrs Offord easily, as Jenny hesitated by the door. ‘And I’m sure Mavis won’t mind you looking in her room either. It’s not as if you’re prying, is it? I knows you have to take down the particulars.’

  ‘What a lovely room!’ said Jenny impulsively as she walked in.

  It really was a lovely room, bright with sunshine, looking out onto the garden. The gardens themselves, with the lawn, flower beds and a big cedar tree in the middle, would be a wonderful place to have afternoon tea.

  ‘It is a nice room,’ said Mrs Offord, with some pride. ‘Mind you, we did have a problem with damp. That’s a good while ago now, of course, and we haven’t had any problems since. It turned out to be a leaky gutter and when the Colonel sorted it out, he said to me, as the room needed re-decorating, I could choose the wallpaper and furniture.’

  ‘If I had this room, I’d want a window seat so I could enjoy the view,’ said Jenny.

  Mrs Offord laughed. ‘I haven’t much time for sitting and staring out the window, Miss, but it’s funny you should say that. There was a window-seat here, but it had to be taken out because of the damp. Colonel Trenchard, he did talk about having it replaced, but I said as I didn’t miss it, so he left it as it was.’

  ‘It was blue,’ said Jenny with complete certainty. ‘Powder blue.’

  Why on earth had she said that? It was weird. It was as if she’d seen the window seat. It wasn’t as if anything else in the room was blue. There was a pinewood chest of drawers, stained to look like dark oak, a large wardrobe built into the alcove that matched the chest of drawers, a dark maroon bedspread on the bed and floral wallpaper with a pattern of red roses.

  Mrs Offord’s eyes widened. ‘Blue? That’s strange, Miss. Now you come to mention it, I think it was blue.’

  ‘The tiles round the fireplace were blue as well,’ said Jenny. How she knew she couldn’t say but she knew. ‘They had blue flowers on them.’

  Mrs Offord stared at her. Jenny could see sudden fear in her eyes.

  Without a word, Mrs Offord walked over to the fire screen and pulled it away from the empty grate.

  The tiles round the fireplace were a pattern of blue cornflowers.

  ‘You don’t have second sight or anything, Miss?’ asked Mrs Offord uneasily. ‘Because how you knew about those tiles I do not know, as true as I’m stood here.’

  ‘No, no, I don’t have second sight,’ said Jenny hastily. The idea frightened her. There must be a reasonable explanation. She smiled weakly, trying to reassure the housekeeper. ‘It’s a common design for Victorian tiles.’

  That was rubbish. Jenny didn’t have a clue if it was a common design or not. She’d never thought about tiles. On the other hand, say it was a common design. That must be it. She’d seen tiles like these before – they were very pretty – and, without realising it, had remembered them. Naturally, once she’d thought of the blue window seat, it was obvious there had to be blue tiles to go with it.

  And why had she thought the window seat was blue? Well, that was obvious. What other colour would you have in a room like this? It was all this dark oak and gloomy maroon with the red roses that was wrong. What this room needed was a white paper with something blue and yellow as a pattern. That would bring out all the natural light in the room.

  Mrs Offord relaxed. ‘A common design? That must be it, Miss, but it’s funny you should guess it straight off like that.’

  And that was all it had been. A lucky guess, but for a moment the actual room had seemed to be overlaid with another room, a room with a powder blue window seat, a bed with a white bedspread and white wallpaper with a blue and yellow pattern. She shook herself. She had a job to do and, what’s more, she didn’t want the housekeeper to start any sort of gossip that might get back to Mr Lee’s ears about the young lady from the house agents having funny fancies.

  ‘I wish I was always as good at guessing,’ said Jenny, starting to measure the room. ‘I could win
some money on the Grand National, perhaps.’

  That was mundane enough. It could even pass as a joke. She was rewarded with a chuckle from Mrs Offord.

  ‘That’s thirteen foot by twelve,’ said Jenny, jotting down the figures in her notebook. ‘I’ve finished in here. I just need to look at the last bedroom and that’s all the upstairs done.’

  ‘Very good, Miss,’ said Mrs Offord. ‘The other bedroom, Mavis’s room, is next to this,’ she said, leading the way out onto the landing. ‘You can, if you like, make the two rooms into a suite, as there’s a connecting door, not that we ever use it. Here we are,’ she said, opening the door into the bedroom.

  Jenny gripped her hands together so tightly her nails dug into her palms. Mavis’s room, a smaller version of Mrs Offord’s bedroom, was full of natural light with the same view of the garden, but here the wallpaper wasn’t a pattern of red roses; it was white with blue cornflowers tied round with a yellow ribbon.

  It was the wallpaper she had imagined in Mrs Offord’s room.

  ‘This room,’ she said, and was alarmed to hear her voice come out as a croak. ‘This room hasn’t been redecorated, has it?’

  ‘Not in my time,’ said Mrs Offord, casting Jenny a worried glance. ‘Excuse me, Miss, but do you need to sit down? You don’t look well. Are you all right?’

  Jenny took a deep breath. She was angry with herself. She’d been given the opportunity to tackle a job that she really wanted to do and instead of getting on with it, she’d allowed herself to be rattled by a box of old toys and some wallpaper.

  This was stupid! She must’ve seen the wallpaper somewhere else. That had to be the explanation and it was plain silly to allow herself to be scared. Because that’s what she was; scared by the wallpaper.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, as firmly as she could. She had to measure the room. Measure the room and note down the features. That was what she was being paid to do. She pulled out the tape measure but had to blink hard to see the numbers on the tape.