Newcastle upon Tyne, Sunday 25th August 1929
The next morning, a taxi dropped Clara and Alice at the top of Lemington Bank in the west end of Newcastle. Alice pointed to the valley below where the River Tyne snaked through the industrial heartland of the west of the city, then further down the valley to where the Vickers-Armstrong armaments factory belched out smog, telling her companion that that was where Bob had solved the case of the stolen ammunition. ‘Your uncle was a very good detective, Clara, and by the looks of it, you’re a chip off the old block.’
‘I hope you’re right, Alice. I’ve got a lot to live up to.’
Alice smiled at her. ‘You’re doing a grand job so far.’
The two women walked down the bank lined with Victorian-era terraced houses whose occupants serviced the various coal pits, glass works and factories in the area. This was where Horace Fender’s widow lived. Speaking to her might get them into trouble with Inspector Davidson, but, Clara calculated, if he really had anything to hold them on he would have done so already. And all she had promised him was not to fingerprint any more corpses, and that she would apply for a certificate for her gun. She intended to keep both of those promises.
She had not, however, promised not to conduct any further investigations into the Paradise Picture House fire or the related death of Horace Fender. Fortunately, Davidson and his men had not sought to confiscate any of the other contents of her satchel, so she still had the photographs on her camera film and the samples from the curtain and screen.
The address they’d been given was for a narrow street just off Lemington Bank, barely wider than an alley. Washing lines were strung between the houses and a gulley in the middle of the lane looked like it might be used as an open sewer. Clara shuddered as two little girls played horseys, jumping back and forth over the gulley.
Clara and Alice knocked on a door that was soon opened by a woman with a baby on one hip and a toddler clinging to her pinny. She had curlers in her hair under a cotton headscarf.
‘Aye?’ she said.
‘Mrs Fender?’ asked Clara.
‘Who’s asking?’
‘My name is Miss Vale and this is Mrs Whittaker. We were wondering if we could have a word with you, please?’
‘Me or Mrs Fender?’
‘Mrs Fender. We were told that she lives here?’
The woman’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Who’s asking?’
‘I told you, I’m Miss Vale and this is—’
Alice put her hand on Clara’s arm. ‘I’s askin’,’ she said and slipped into broad Geordie.
‘And who’s yee?’ asked the woman. After that, Clara could barely follow the back and forth, with neither woman softening her accent so the posh southern lady could keep up. The net result was the woman screaming ‘Mrs Fender!’ at the top of her lungs, causing the baby to join in.
Eventually an older woman, her shoulders hunched, shuffled to the door. She looked as if she’d been crying, her eyes red-rimmed.
‘Mrs Fender?’ asked Clara.
‘Aye,’ said the woman, ‘I know already. If it’s about Horace. The police have been and I know.’
Clara, Alice and Mrs Fender sat side by side on a narrow bed in one half of a small attic. The other half was piled high with boxes and crates. Ellie Fender lodged with another family and this was the only private space available to her.
‘So, they said I was to come to Whitley Bay tomorrow, to identify the body. They’ll send a car to pick me up.’ The woman looked first at Alice, then at Clara. ‘There’s a chance it’s not him. If they need me to identify him, it’s because they don’t know for sure.’
Alice shook her head sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry, hinny, but it doesn’t mean that. I’ve been through it meself. It’s a legal thing. They know it’s Horace. But the law requires the next of kin to say so. Besides, I saw him with me own eyes. And I’m sorry to say, it was definitely him.’
Ellie Fender slumped and leaned her back against the wall. ‘How’d you find him?’
‘He was hangin’. From the light in the projection room.’
Ellie nodded, her face frozen in grief. ‘Aye. That’s what the polis said. That two ladies found him. They said it was suicide. Was it?’
Clara shrugged. ‘We don’t know, Mrs Fender. There was no note. Was Horace the kind of man who would have left a note?’
Ellie gave a cold laugh. ‘No, Miss Vale, he wasn’t. Our Horace knew his letters and numbers and could write his name, but not much more than that.’
Clara nodded. ‘I see. When was the last time you saw Horace?’
‘Friday night just gone.’
‘And what sort of mood was he in?’
Ellie closed her eyes as if to access the memory. Eventually she opened them. ‘A funny one.’
‘How so?’ asked Clara.
‘He was down. Sad maybe. But also a bit angry.’
‘What about?’
‘He was sad about the lad who died on Thursday.’
Alice leaned away from Ellie as if she’d been physically touched. ‘You do know that it was your man who told the polis that lad was to blame for his own death, don’t you?’
Ellie swallowed hard. ‘That’s not what he did. He didn’t say the lad was to blame. He just told what he saw.’
‘Which was?’ asked Clara.
‘Which was, that the lad – Will Spencer – locked the door and put a key in his pocket before the show started. That’s what he told me.’
‘And is that all he told you?’ asked Clara.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, for instance, did he tell you that he had a new job and that he’d put down a deposit on a new place?’
‘Aye, he did, but what’s that got to do with owt? It’s nothing to do with the fire.’
‘Isn’t it?’ asked Clara.
Ellie’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’re you getting at?’
Clara noted the change in body language and urged herself to tread carefully. Up until now Mrs Fender had been speaking freely. ‘Nothing, I’m not getting at anything. I’m just trying to find out what happened on the day of the fire. We were hoping to speak to your husband, but, sadly, we have not been able to. So we were hoping he might have said something to you that could help us.’
‘Help you with what?’ asked Ellie.
‘Help me prove Will wasn’t responsible,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t know if you’re aware, but this is the second fire that’s affected my business. The picture house in Tynemouth also burned down. And then my husband was killed in an accident. Not very long ago. So I was hoping, one widow to another, you could help. And that I could help you if you needed it. Because I understand what it’s like to lose a man. I really do.’ Tears welled in Alice’s eyes and were soon mirrored in Ellie’s.
Clara did not want to intrude. The two widows shared a bond she did not.
‘How can you help?’ asked Ellie, her voice thick with tears. ‘How can you bring him back?’
‘I can’t do that, but maybe I can help in other ways. If I can find out the truth about what really happened the day of the fire, and clear Will’s – and my family’s – name, I can get the insurance to pay out. For this fire and the last one. And if they do that, I can give you something to help with expenses.’
‘You’re offering me money?’ asked Ellie.
‘Not now – I don’t have any – but if I get the insurance pay-out, I can give you something then.’
Clara’s eyes widened in surprise. Was Alice bribing this woman? Was it legal? Would Uncle Bob have done this? She wasn’t sure, and added it to the list of things she needed to ask Jennings & Jennings in the morning. But for now, she noted, Ellie Fender seemed interested.
‘Oh aye? How much?’
‘I can’t say how much,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t know how much I’ll get. And I’ve got lots of bills to pay meself. But I reckon it would be enough to cover Horace’s funeral expenses.’
Ellie nodded. ‘All right. That’ll be a help. Because Horace will have left me nowt. I’m weeping for him now, but he could be a right bastard. I don’t know if you’d heard, missus, but I’d left him. He was all right when he wasn’t on the drink, and he’d stay off it a while, but every time he’d go back to it. I’d try to save up a bit, but he’d take the money. I tried hiding it, but he’d find it. And once, when he couldn’t find it, and he was three sheets to the wind, he clobbered me. That’s when I left him. The bairns have grown and gone. There was nowt left for me. But then a few months back he started coming round again. Like he was trying to court me. He’d stopped drinking and said he’d got a good job.’
‘Did he say where?’ asked Clara.
‘Aye, with Balshard.’
Clara and Alice’s eyes met. ‘The same Balshard who owns the Majestic Cinemas?’ asked Clara.
‘Aye, that Balshard. But it wasn’t at the picture house. He was going to be a delivery fella for the insurance office. Picking up and dropping off stuff.’
‘What kind of stuff?’ asked Clara.
Ellie shrugged. ‘I don’t know, missus, he didn’t say. But he said he’d be working at the Tynemouth branch.’
Clara’s eyes widened in surprise, but she didn’t interrupt.
‘When did he get this job?’
Ellie thought then said, ‘Just before the May Day weekend.’
The weekend of the Carousel Picture House fire, thought Clara. ‘Did Horace mention anything about the fire that happened in Tynemouth soon after he got the job?’
Ellie’s eyes narrowed. ‘No. Why would he?’
Clara noted the change in tone and backed off from that line of enquiry. For now they needed to find Horace’s address. So instead she asked: ‘No reason. I was just wondering. But, perhaps you can tell us if he got a place to live there too? The Salvation Army said he’d moved out because he’d got a place somewhere. Do you know where it is?’
‘I don’t have the address, but he said it was a flat above a shop near the Balshard office. He wanted me to come and see it, but I wouldn’t. I wanted to wait to see if he was going to stay on the wagon. You can’t blame me for that, can you?’
Clara shook her head. ‘Of course not. I would have done the same in your situation. Tell me, did you tell the police where Horace was living?’
‘They didn’t ask. They didn’t stay long. Just to let me know and saying they’d pick me up tomorrow.’
‘Did they say when tomorrow?’
‘Two o’clock, they said.’
‘All right,’ said Clara, her mind ticking over, reworking her proposed timetable between now and then. ‘Tell me,’ she continued, ‘you said Horace had been sad, but also a bit angry. Do you know what about?’
Ellie closed her eyes again, no doubt remembering the last time she’d seen her estranged husband. Then she opened them. ‘He said he’d been lied to.’
‘By whom?’
‘He didn’t say. But he did say he’d been led up the garden path about summat. And that … well, and that he’d done summat terrible that he wished he hadn’t.’
Alice flashed a look at Clara. Clara nodded at her and continued in a calm voice. ‘Did he say what it was? What terrible thing he’d done?’
Ellie shook her head. ‘No, no he didn’t. But he did say he wanted to try and make it right, and that, well, that he needed to speak to someone about it. But if he did, he might lose his job. He didn’t know what to do. I asked him to tell me what he was talking about but he wouldna. He said the less I knew the better. Because it wasn’t safe to know too much.’
Alice’s eyes were the size of saucers. ‘Oh, Mrs Fender,’ she said, clutching at Ellie’s arm, ‘do you think he meant about the fire at the Paradise? Do you think he was going to tell the truth about what really happened?’
Ellie shrugged. ‘I don’t honestly know, missus. That’s all he said. And now, it’s too late for him to do owt. But perhaps that’s why he killed his self. He couldna see a way out of it. I think he thought that if he lost his job he would lose his last chance with me. And he’s right, he probably would have. But I’d rather have him alive without a job than dead with one. Oh, missus, what am I going to do?’ Her shoulders slumped and her chin fell to her chest.
Alice put her arm around her. ‘I’m sorry, pet, I really am. I’ll try to help ya, I will. But first we need to find out what it was Horace was trying to make right.’
‘How’re you going to do that?’ asked Ellie.
Alice shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But Miss Vale here will have some ideas, won’t you?’
Miss Vale just smiled sympathetically. She certainly did have some ideas, but whether any of them would help these two poor widows, she had no idea.
‘I’ll do my best,’ she said, then rose to her feet. ‘Thank you, Mrs Fender, you’ve been very helpful. And I’m so sorry we’ve intruded on your grief.’
‘No, no, that’s all right. I’m just grateful someone found him. Else he might have been hanging there for weeks and no one would have known. Quite a coincidence he did it when you two was there, wasn’t it?’
Alice and Clara looked at each other once more.
Clara slung her satchel over her shoulder. ‘Yes, Mrs Fender, it certainly was.’