Clara and Alice got off the train at Tynemouth railway station. There were only a few passengers on the platform, including a man in a dark blue coat who looked for a moment as though he were going to approach Clara and Alice, but at the last minute turned around and headed into the gentlemen’s cloakroom. Clara wondered if she’d seen him before. There was something familiar about him. In fact, she was fairly sure he’d been on the train on Saturday, too. But she put him out of her mind and exited the station with Alice.
Although a seaside village, like Whitley Bay, Tynemouth had less of a holiday feel. Instead of excited children with buckets and spades, the genteel oak-lined streets provided shade to well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, strolling past its tea rooms, salons and boutiques. Alice led Clara past the well-to-do King’s School, which offered private education to the sons of the wealthier residents of the locale – ‘let’s just say me and Jimmy couldn’t afford to send our bairns there.’ Then she ushered Clara through a small but pristinely kept park, topped and tailed by a memorial to the South African War at one end and a statue of an austere Queen Victoria at the other.
Alice then turned right into Percy Park Road announcing: ‘The Carousel is just down here,’ when she stopped in her tracks. Down the road, on the left, was a completely empty plot. Whatever had been there had been bulldozed to the ground. ‘Dear God, what have they done?’ Alice ran down the road, Clara ran after her, and a minute later they were standing in front of an expanse of rubble. ‘They’ve destroyed it! They’ve bulldozed it! There’s nothing left!’
‘Who’s done it? How could they do it without your permission?’ asked Clara.
Alice had tears in her eyes but she was seething with rage. ‘I don’t own it anymore. The bank repossessed it. Nothing I could do without the insurance money. And the Paradise will go the same way unless we can prove it was arson.’
Clara squeezed Alice’s arm. ‘And we will prove it. We’ve already got a lot of evidence.’
‘There’s nothing we can get from here though, is there?’
No, there wasn’t. Clara had been hoping to take samples as she had in Whitley Bay and to have a look at the window that the Whittakers said had been prised open. The window she now believed Horace Fender had used to gain access to the building to set the fire in the projection room. But there was no hope of that now.
‘Well, we’ll just have to focus all our attention on the Paradise then. And we might still find something at Fender’s flat. Don’t worry, Alice, we’re still in the game.’ She smiled encouragingly at Alice, who eventually gave a weak smile in return.
‘You’re right. Thank you, Clara. Let’s not give up yet.’
‘Never!’ said Clara. ‘Now, lead the way to Balshard Insurance.’
The women were three quarters of the way down Front Street, towards the historic priory, when Alice stopped outside a premises at the corner of Hotspur Street. ‘This is Balshard Insurance.’
Clara cast a quick glance into the bay window of Balshard’s, then looked up and down the adjoining streets. ‘So, Horace Fender lived somewhere around here then. Above a shop. But which one?’
‘Should we just go in and ask?’ suggested Alice.
‘Yes, let’s,’ said Clara. ‘We can split up; you take that side and I’ll take this. But let’s not go into Balshard’s, for now. I don’t want them to know that we’re here. And let’s not tell anyone who we really are either. Perhaps best we say we are friends of Mrs Fender and we’re here to find where her late husband lived, so she can pick up his things at a later stage.’
‘Good idea,’ said Alice, and crossed to the other side of the road. Fifteen minutes later the women reconvened.
‘Any luck?’ asked Clara.
‘Aye, I’ve found it. The barber says he rents his flat out to Balshard’s and they put staff members up there. He hadn’t heard that Fender was dead but didn’t seem too upset about it. In fact he looked relieved, and wondered if Balshard’s would put someone better in there now.’
Clara grimaced. ‘Yes, from what I’ve heard of him, I don’t expect Horace was anyone’s dream tenant. We can let Mrs Fender know the address, then perhaps she can arrange for us to have a look inside.’
‘Or,’ said Alice, pulling a key from her pocket, ‘we can have a look in there now.’
Clara gasped. ‘Where did you get that?’
Alice shrugged. ‘I just asked for it. I said we’d get a few things for Mrs Fender now, then she would come and sort the place out properly in a few days. Whether she will or not I have no idea, but he didn’t have to know that.’
Clara grinned. ‘You’re becoming a jolly good detective, Alice.’
Alice managed the flicker of a smile. ‘You’re not too bad yourself, Clara.’
Clara cast another quick look at the window of Balshard Insurance, and then took Alice’s arm. The two women walked up the side street to the barber shop. Alice waved through the open door to the barber, now preoccupied with a client. ‘This is my friend who’s here to help me. I’ll pop the key back with you shortly.’
The man smiled and waved. Next door to the shop was a locked door at street level. A few moments later, the two women were inside and up the stairs. Clara sniffed. The room smelt of stale cigarette smoke, sweat and something else. When they pushed open the door they could see what the something else was: a sinkful of dirty dishes, with a half-eaten plate of food beside it, turning rancid in the summer heat. Clara found a window and opened it, taking a few moments to inhale some restorative fresh air.
Then she turned to face the flat. It was just a single room with a bed and small kitchen area, with a separate bathroom and lavatory, which gave off an even more foul smell. ‘No wonder the barber’s not grieving his loss,’ observed Clara.
‘Where do we start?’ asked Alice. ‘And what are we looking for?’
Clara shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Anything, I suppose, that might link Horace to the Carousel or Paradise fires. Or dirty dealings on behalf of Balshard. Let’s just see if anything jumps out at us.’
Ten minutes later, after sifting through Fender’s meagre belongings, nothing had jumped out. Alice sighed. ‘Well, that was a waste of time. Nothing to link him to anything other than booze and poor housekeeping.’
Clara gave her a sympathetic look. ‘Don’t worry. We’ve still got the kerosene evidence, which ties him to it. I’ll pass that on to the police. Never mind, we had to try.’ She felt a pressure in her bladder. She wondered if she could hold it, but wasn’t sure if she could.
‘I’m loath to do it in there,’ she said, nodding to the bathroom, ‘but I need to spend a penny. Two ticks.’
Clara held her breath and went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. It was as filthy as it smelt: the bath, basin and lavatory, thick with scum – or worse. She decided it was best to just squat rather than sit. She did what she needed to do, then, as she was adjusting her clothes, her shoe caught on a loose floorboard. She gave it a poke with her toe and it shifted to reveal a cavity. There was something inside. Curious, she knelt down to have a closer look, lifting the board to reveal a folded handkerchief. She extracted the hanky and weighed it in her hand. Suddenly, she had an inkling of what it could be.
‘Alice!’ she called out, ‘Come in here! I think I’ve found something.’
Moments later Alice was standing in the bathroom doorway and looked down to see Clara, on her knees, holding in one hand a dirty handkerchief, and in the other a heavy key.
‘Is this what I think it is?’ asked Clara, her heart racing.
Alice burst into tears.