The Hampton Pier Inn, it had to be said, had seen better days. So had the pier itself, swept away by the grey, surging sea and the collapse of the cliff. The Great Storm three years before had finished it off and the wind moaned in Margaret Murray’s room on the hotel’s first floor, making the curtains twitch and quiver. She sat by the dressing table, unpinning her hair and watching the breakers crash on the shingle as night fell. She turned up the lamp and, as she did so, caught sight of a figure wandering at the water’s edge. It was a man, certainly, short and solid, with an Ulster around his shoulders which flapped in the wind. The warmth of an Indian Summer had gone now and it was cold on that beach, promising a grim autumn and winter to follow.
She wondered briefly who he was, the solitary soul on the edge of his world, standing foursquare against the wind. Then she reminisced on the day she had spent, making her enquiries. No one here had heard of Helen Richardson. Nor of Alice Groves. No one remembered seeing a mousey-haired girl wandering the old tramway track or digging in the dead oyster beds. A woman with a trowel in her hand, let alone a pick and shovel, would have merited notice; surely somebody would have seen her. Likewise, a London demi-monde would have raised eyebrows too. None of it, Margaret sighed, as she clambered into bed, made any sense at all. There had been no Helen or Alice staying at the Pier Inn and that was the only hotel in town. And she lay awake, listening to the moaning wind and the deadly hiss of the sea.
At breakfast, she saw him again; the solitary soul at the water’s edge as night had fallen. But this time, he turned sharp right and was making his way to the hotel. More than that, he was coming into the restaurant, sweeping off an unfashionable wideawake and shaking the rain from the shoulders of his Ulster. He was a square-built man, with thinning hair and a waxed moustache, heavy hands and a thick neck. But his eyes were kind and twinkled in the reflection of the newly lit fire.
‘Your usual, Inspector?’ the waitress bobbed before him.
‘Thank you, Elsie,’ he said, and found himself a seat. To be fair, the Hampton Pier Inn wasn’t exactly crowded. Apart from the waitress, Margaret Murray and the inspector were the only ones there. The archaeologist chose her moment and made eye contact.
‘Good morning, Inspector Dier.’
A flicker of amusement swept briefly over the man’s face as a pot of tea was placed in front of him. ‘I think you must have mistaken me for somebody else, madam,’ he said.
‘Indeed I have,’ she said, and transferred herself and her teacup to the man’s table. ‘You are actually Edmund Reid, late of Scotland Yard. You joined the Force in 1872 and the detective branch in P Division two years later. A series of promotions followed, as well as fifty commendations, I believe. You set up J Division in 1886 and retired four years ago. Since then, I appear to have lost your spoor.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ Reid said. ‘And feel free to join me, by the way.’
‘I’m so dreadfully sorry,’ Margaret said, ‘but I am a woman on something of a mission and you, Inspector, are a beacon on a stormy sea.’
‘As you say, madam, I am retired. I rarely talk to the Press and you have the advantage of me.’
‘How remiss,’ she said as Reid’s hearty full English arrived. ‘Margaret Murray.’
‘Miss Murray.’ Reid shook the outstretched hand. ‘Star? Sun?’
‘Doctor,’ she corrected him, glancing down at his plate. ‘Neither of the above – and those sausages are bad for you.’
‘Er …’
She laughed. ‘Just my idea of a little joke,’ she said. ‘I am a doctor of archaeology, not medicine. I followed your exploits in the Whitechapel murders on a daily basis during the autumn of terror, living in the sticks at Rugby as I was.’
Reid shook his head. ‘Not my finest hour,’ he muttered, buttering his toast. ‘We never caught him.’
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Once Fleet Street had invented Jack the Ripper, there wasn’t the slightest chance of finding the actual killer.’
‘You may have a point,’ he said, sprinkling his salt liberally.
‘May I be frank?’ she asked.
‘You may be anyone you like, Dr Murray,’ he said.
‘The Inspector Dier mysteries; I understand the author was a friend of yours.’
‘Charlie Gibbon? Yes, he was. Alas, no longer with us.’
‘That’s a shame,’ she said. ‘I hoped later books would improve. They didn’t do you justice. The Weekly Despatch called you – and I quote – “one of the most remarkable men of the century”.’
‘One of?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘And that was so last century.’
They both laughed. ‘Balloonist,’ she said, ‘conjuror, actor, a tenor of rare ability – how can all that be packed into one man of …’
‘… only five foot six,’ he finished the sentence for her. ‘Just lucky, I suppose. Come to that, I was lucky to get into the Met at all, what with the height requirements back then. I wore thick socks on the day, that was my secret.’
‘Ah,’ she remembered, ‘I was turned down for nursing for exactly the same reason, but since you loom over me, Mr Reid, I will have to bow to your experience. And it is that experience I need now.’
‘You do?’
‘Do you live here?’ she asked.
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘But I hope to soon. I’ve got my eye on a little property not far away.’
‘Lovely,’ she said, finishing her tea. ‘A cottage by the sea.’
‘It was to have been a sort of retirement home for my wife and me.’
‘Was to have been?’
A sudden sadness crossed his face. ‘Emily died, Dr Murray, earlier in the year. In her memory, though, I thought I’d buy the house anyway.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mr Reid,’ she said. ‘And good for you.’
He ferreted in his pocket and produced a card. ‘This is how I spend my days now,’ he said. ‘In between the ballooning, of course, and the legerdemain and the singing …’
‘A private detective,’ she smiled. ‘How exciting! I don’t believe I’ve ever met one of those before.’
‘Well, I’ve never met a doctor of archaeology before,’ he told her.
Margaret clicked her fingers to summon the waitress for more tea. ‘Well, that’s the nub, actually,’ she said, folding her arms on the table. ‘I’ve lost one of my students.’
‘Careless of you,’ Reid said.
‘I’m not sure careless is the word. She was murdered.’
Reid paused in mid-chew. ‘Really?’
‘Well, the papers said suicide. So did Inspector Blunt.’
‘Athelgar Blunt?’ Reid’s eyes widened and he reached for more HP sauce. ‘Last I heard of him he was on the horse troughs in Tooting, which I took to be the pinnacle of his ambition. Who was she?’
‘Well, that’s the curious thing,’ Margaret said. ‘I knew her as Helen Richardson, a part-time student of some promise. Alas, it appears that she was leading something of a double life, in a dingy apartment in Storey’s Yard, Westminster.’
‘By double life, you mean …?’
‘She was, it seems, a prostitute, a scarlet sister, an unfortunate, a lady of the night. The world has many phrases to cover up tragedy, doesn’t it?’
‘Indeed it does. But what brings you to Hampton-on-Sea?’
‘A railway ticket in a box in her rooms. A box that had been rifled before I got to it.’
‘Yet, the ticket was still there?’
‘Indeed, an oversight, I believe, by whoever had … jemmied it? Is that the phrase?’
Reid laughed. ‘We’ll make a trasseno of you yet, Dr Murray,’ he said. Seeing incomprehension etched on her face, he added, ‘Crook, in the East End.’
‘Praise indeed.’ She laughed too.
Margaret nipped back to her own table for her handbag. ‘I don’t have a photograph of Helen,’ she said, ‘but this is my rough sketch of her. It’s not marvellous – the hair isn’t quite right.’
‘Not familiar, I’m afraid. The woman I saw was heavier, the hair dark.’
‘You … you saw someone?’
‘Yes. Four, perhaps five days ago. On the Reculver road near Swalecliffe, not far from the Lavender Brook.’
‘Was she alone?’
‘I believe so. Had a large canvas bag with her and was wearing rather shabby clothes. I took her to be a woman of the roads at first.’
‘And later?’
Reid looked uncomfortable. ‘Later, I thought she just might be one of the world’s scarlet sisters. Her skirts were raised and buttoned up, showing a considerable amount of stocking for Hampton-on-Sea.’
Margaret laughed. ‘That’s female archaeologist attire, Mr Reid,’ she said. ‘It’s to keep our skirts out of the mud. It’s all right for you men – a pair of plus fours or a navvy’s moleskins would be perfect for the job at hand. But if we ladies tried that, there’d be a national outcry. Mr Reid,’ she looked at him solemnly, ‘I have imposed upon you and ruined your breakfast, the most important meal of the day.’
Her second pot of tea arrived.
‘Think nothing of it,’ he smiled.
‘I wonder, though, could I impose further? Could you, when you’ve finished your toast, show me exactly where you last saw this girl? I mean, what are the odds of two female archaeologists wandering the byways of Hampton-on-Sea?’
‘And it was here you saw her?’ Margaret Murray peered up at the private detective.
‘Yes. Along this road. She said “Good morning”, I said “Good morning”. That was about it.’
The sea was still roaring along the shingle and the wind showed no sign of abating from the night before. Reid’s Ulster snapped in the gusts and Margaret had to wrestle with her skirts. She had read only the other day that clothes for ladies were become more practical, but clearly, the haute couture of Paris had never considered the problems of the Kent coast.
‘To the untutored eye,’ she shouted over the wind, ‘and I don’t mean to offend, that looks like a disused building site.’ She was pointing to the level ground above the beach.
‘It does,’ Reid conceded.
‘Walk with me,’ Margaret said and picked her way over the stones. Reid couldn’t see it at first, but as the archaeologist talked him through it, all became a little clearer. ‘This was the praetorium, the headquarters of a commanding officer. Oh, this is a smaller version of the real thing, of course. In legionary bases, the praetorium is about the size of a seaside villa, at the centre of a barracks. All Roman military camps were laid out in the same way, all very geometric and businesslike. How far is Reculver from here?’
‘About three miles,’ Reid told her. ‘That way.’ He pointed west, along the coast.
‘It would be my guess,’ Margaret said, ‘that what we have here is an outpost of Reculver – Regulbium, the Romans called it. I am assuming, Mr Reid, that the woman you saw was not local.’
‘I’d never seen her before and I haven’t seen her since,’ he said. ‘But then, as you know, I’m not local myself. Have you asked around? The hotel? The golf clubs? Ah, I bet the Herne Bay Decorum Society could help.’
‘The what?’
Reid laughed. ‘A not-very-well-meaning clique of busybodies, largely female, saving your presence, who twitch curtains and look for outrage.’
‘Ah, the perpetually offended,’ Margaret smiled. ‘You may remember, Inspector, that London has its fair share of those.’
‘Indeed,’ Reid nodded. ‘Then, in the fullness of time, they retire and come to live in Herne Bay. Shall I introduce you?’
Ethelfleda Charlton had helped to put the ‘bomb’ into bombazine. That she was a stout lady could not be denied, but her corsets and various whalebone structures added to that concept appreciably and she reminded Margaret Murray of depictions of the Biblical juggernaut she had used when teaching Sunday School back in Rugby. That said, Ethefleda’s drawing room was tasteful enough and her tea, particularly after a tramp along the beach, most welcome.
Inspector Reid was notable by his absence. Having effected introductions after a simple ring of the bell and an apology for the unlooked-for intrusion, he had remembered an important prior engagement and done, as the Underworld he knew all too well had it, a runner. More than that, he was away on his dancers.
‘Archaeology,’ Ethelfleda was saying, peering at Margaret through her lorgnette. ‘How fascinating. Men’s work, though, surely?’
Margaret smiled. Rising before her was another brick wall of chauvinism, built, no doubt, by generations of men of the Charlton family. ‘I believe the distaff side can make an effective contribution,’ she said.
‘Oh, you sketch things, do you? Pots and so on?’
‘Among other things,’ Margaret said. ‘I also translate hieroglyphs, working from Egyptian originals and the occasional Greek. Latin, if I must.’
‘Good Lord!’ Ethelfleda had simply no idea.
‘And, of course, field work.’
‘You work in fields?’ Ethelfleda was astonished.
‘It’s often where we find ancient remains,’ Margaret explained, ‘which is, I believe, what the young lady I am looking for was doing.’
‘Ah.’ Ethelfleda’s face hardened and her lips twitched as she sipped her Tetley’s. ‘Yes, I am afraid that the Society had to send a Note.’ The capital N rang down Ethelfleda Charlton’s nasal passages as through a carynx.
‘A note?’
‘Why, yes. My dear Dr Murray, what is the point of having a Decorum Society unless decorum is rigorously observed? It is our raison d’être, as the French have it.’
‘Then you know the young lady’s name?’
‘Alas, no. One of our Society had seen her wandering the beach and took her, at first, for an escapee from some asylum.’
‘As indeed you would,’ Margaret smiled, trying desperately to see the world through the cock-eyed lens of Ethelfleda Charlton.
‘Quite. On one occasion, the wretched girl was seen with a trowel in her hand and what looked like a paintbrush. Now, picture the scene, doctor; a woman, alone, without a chaperone of any kind, dressed, I have to say, indecently, carrying the tools of a workman. It was all very odd and not a little disconcerting. She was staying at the Customs House.’
‘The …?’ Margaret was reaching for her notepad.
‘Oh, I shouldn’t bother with that. It fell down last week.’
‘Fell down?’ The archaeologist wasn’t sure she had heard right. ‘You mean it just …?’
‘Fell down, yes. It happens all the time on this part of the coast. Erosion, I believe it’s called. I’m sure they’ll find a cure for it one day. The place was never very secure and it was far too near the sea. It was a small cottage, really, rented out for the summer months. I’m afraid I have no idea who actually owned it. Apparently, this girl was staying there, though for how long and exactly why, I have no idea. Well, obviously …’ Ethelfleda Charlton adjusted her rolltop bust as discreetly as she could; whalebone did cut in so, as the afternoon wore on. ‘Obviously, the Note was dropped through the Customs House letterbox, addressed to “The Occupier”, demanding to know who she was and what she was doing here. You must realize, Dr Murray, that we live in dangerous times. Apart from those wretched Boers, there are far too many deranged women in the world. One of them, if you read your Telegraph, threw an axe at the Kaiser the other day.’
Margaret tutted and shook her head. ‘Did you receive a reply, Miss Charlton?’ she asked.
‘No … well, yes, of sorts. Our Note was penned by dear old Mabel Bickersteth, our secretary. Mabel did receive a missive, but it was blank. As Chair, I have it here. All it has is a letterhead. In Latin, I’m afraid.’ She chuckled. ‘And I must concede, that was never my strong suit at the Hinchindale Academy for Young Ladies, of which I am a graduate.’
Hooray for education, Margaret mused. ‘May I see it?’
‘Of course. The lack of reply, a calculated mark of contempt, I’m sure you agree, is obviously the result of an appalling upbringing.’
Ethelfleda rummaged in an escritoire on a nearby table and produced a piece of paper. Sancte et Sapienter was printed at the top. Margaret smiled. ‘King’s College,’ she said, and stood up. ‘Thank you, Miss Charlton. You’ve been more helpful than you know.’
‘Well, at least the Note did the business. The wretched girl hasn’t been seen since. And of course, the collapse of her house was just the final full stop; wouldn’t you agree?’
‘I would, Miss Charlton,’ Margaret said, gathering up her belongings to leave. ‘If you were right.’
Edmund Reid had not been too pleased to be winkled out of his seaside torpor by a bustling little body like Margaret Murray. He had seen her off on the London train and had never thought that he might become the clichéd grieving widower shut away in a boarding house on the coast but somehow – here he was. He had not enjoyed good health since his wife had passed away – since before then, if he were to be scrupulously honest with himself – but what with one thing and another, he had soldiered on. Sitting looking out to sea with an occasional stroll along the Esplanade had suited him down to the ground. Until now. Now, he was sitting at his solitary tea, watching the sun gild the tips of the waves as the tide turned, and he felt his old detecting urges tapping at the back of his head, just like they had in the old days.
He sliced his Battenberg cake across, dividing the quarters into eighths, into sixteenths, into crumbs. His tea got cold, the tell-tale scum on the top denoting that the Girl Who Did at teatime had put the milk in second again. He sipped it and put the cup hurriedly back in the saucer. Cold. He glanced at the clock and round the room. Half past four – he was the only one left in the lounge. All the old biddies and the occasional old geezer had all gone upstairs for a lie down or a titivate, according to taste, before the dinner gong went.
Edmund Reid had not made Inspector at Scotland Yard by shilly-shallying, as he told his subordinates on a regular basis. He pushed the mangled Battenberg aside and marched across the hall on his way to his room on the first floor, turn left at the top of the stairs and then left again; he had a room with a view of the sea, one of the honoured few. Mrs Mulvahey the landlady liked to treat her single gentlemen well; as she told her friends at tea in her private sitting room, as a widow, one never knew where it might lead. He slung his Ulster over his shoulders, crammed the wideawake down on his head and clattered down the stairs and out through the revolving door into the sharp sting of an easterly. The sun on the waves had been a bit of a joke by the weather; it was bitter out and he did up every button, right to the chin, before bending his head into the wind and setting off, retracing the steps he and Dr Murray had already taken, out to the exposed site of Helen Richardson’s abandoned dig. He didn’t know why; but it was certainly better than sitting in the bay window crumbling cake.
Once upon a time, Edmund Reid had been more at home in the dark than in the light. He had had eyes like a cat and could see every nuanced shadow. He was pleased to discover that he hadn’t lost the knack, at least not completely. He told himself to listen to his feet, to feel the ground beneath him, not to hurry because rushing got you nothing but grazed knees and, at the worst, a bloody nose. Despite the wind, he made good time and was soon at the site of the dig. Without an archaeologist at his elbow, it made even less sense now than it had before. Margaret Murray had pointed out various elements which meant something to her, but now, by the light of the rising moon, it looked like a few lines of stone which could almost be naturally occurring, so encrusted were they with lichen and impacted sand.
Reid had always been more involved in the here and now than the there and then, but he could see the draw of the past as he looked out at the site. The sea had engulfed this part of the coast many times, covering the remains deep in sand and shingle, only to uncover it all again. To his right, as he stood with his back to the sea, which had turned as he walked along the Esplanade and was going out, was a stand of dune, sculpted so that it almost looked like a wave frozen in flight. The under-edge was scooped out as though by a giant spoon and the surface was so smooth it looked like stone. Like a man drawn to walk under a ladder, Reid walked towards the dune and stopped under its lee, out of the wind. Without the whistle in his ears, the place was as silent as the grave. He fancied he could hear the tramp of sandalled feet, the cries of the parade ground, the slap of leather and metal as the ghostly Romans banked and wheeled on the square beyond the dune. He chuckled to himself; what would people think if they knew that Edmund Reid, Detective Dier, was so fanciful? He shrugged his Ulster back on to his shoulders and pressed down his hat as he turned back into the wind. Why he had come, he now scarcely knew. But whether it was the fresh sea air or the thought of getting back out and detecting, he felt ten years younger and twenty years healthier. He could almost hear his beloved wife chuckle with him, to see him so chipper.
It happened almost before he could draw another breath. With a soft whisper, the dune, hanging as it was through good luck and the compacted sand, salt and marram, collapsed over his head, knocking him on to his hands and knees. He braced his back against the weight of it, feeling his thighs and arms tremble with the effort. The fall seemed to go on for ever but finally, with a last susurration, the sand stopped moving and all was still.
Reid stayed still for a moment, waiting, as all policemen probably do, for the cosh on the back of the head, the knife between the ribs, the bullet through the skull. But nothing followed, just more silence and the whine of the wind. He had kept his head down and his eyes shut and as he clambered to his feet, he stayed that way. Being careful not to use his sandy fingers, he wiped his face on the cuff of his shirt, and blew through his moustache, cursing the wax which kept the sand thickly around his mouth. His beard was full of it too, but his eyes were clear and he looked around. There wasn’t a soul to be seen and, with the moon full and high, anyone would be obvious running along either the beach or the ridge above.
He shook himself all over to dislodge as much sand as he could. He knew that he was not going to be popular at Mrs Mulvahey’s establishment – the strictures against bringing sand into the premises were clearly written in very large capitals in the lobby. But he could cross that bridge when he came to it. He had stuck his head over this particular parapet and lived to tell the tale. And for now, that was enough.
Or, perhaps not. As he turned to walk away, there was another sigh from the remains of the dune and he turned to watch it under the moon. As he had got to know this coast, where he intended to make his home, he had watched the dunes and the beach change almost daily. Buildings tumbling to the power of the waves were not even newsworthy; as Ethelfleda Charlton knew only too well, it happened all the time. And yet, there was still something hypnotic about it, the sigh as the sand began to lose its adhesion, the inevitability of its slow descent to a lower level. He had never watched a collapse by moonlight and something about Margaret Murray had made him fanciful, so he stepped back to get the best effect. He also didn’t fancy being engulfed again, not only because of what Mrs Mulvahey would have to say about it.
It was disappointing. He had expected a smooth slide of silvered sand but it seemed to be impeded by something. A branch of a tree appeared to be sticking out of the hanging dune, a bunch of twigs on the end pointing to the sky. Filaments of moss hung from the branch and swayed in the wind, whipping and flicking sand in small gobbets into the air. Then, the whole thing collapsed, not slowly as he had expected, but with a rush, the tree rolling and careening down the slope. Reid found that he was worrying about the Roman camp above. It would be a shame, after it had survived so much and for so long, for it all to tumble down on to the beach to be eaten by the tide. He took another step back, just in case.
And then, holding his breath and narrowing his eyes against the salt-laden, stinging wind and his natural short sight, he stepped forward and stared at the horror on the beach. Because there, one arm to the sky, the other clasped across her breast, her skirts kirtled up against the mud and the wet, lay the body of a woman. Young. Stocky. Dark-haired. And very, very dead.