SATURDAY, 5 OCTOBER 1924, MORPETH, NORTHUMBERLAND
At ten o’clock on Saturday morning a train pulled into Morpeth Station. Waiting for it was a tall, grey-blonde man of sixty, wearing a black suit and a clerical collar. The Reverend Malcolm Denby was as lean and wiry as he had been when he was twenty-five years old and left his law studies at Durham University to marry an earnest Methodist girl whom he had met handing out free cups of soup to the poor of Newcastle. Malcolm, on his weekends home from Durham, started attending Brunswick Methodist Chapel in the centre of the city, rather than the high Church of England St George’s, in well-to-do Jesmond, which his family had attended for four generations. Alice Drew, the girl who had first caught his attention on a freezing cold morning on Northumberland Street, was a greengrocer’s daughter. Her father had a stall in Newcastle’s Grainger Market, and her mother, like all decent women, stayed home and looked after the house and their six children. Alice was the youngest child and had not had any formal education other than that offered on Sundays by Brunswick Methodist. But what she lacked in intellectual learning, she made up for in goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. She spoke to him often about the Fruit of the Spirit and how she felt called to help those less fortunate than herself – all in the name of her beautiful saviour, Jesus Christ. As he came from a family that was far more fortunate than hers, and had, after all, been baptized in the name of the same beautiful saviour, he felt stirred to do the same.
Despite his family not considering Alice a good match, he married her anyway, in 1894, and changed his course from law to theology. A few years later he became an ordained Methodist minister, and he and Alice, and their two-year-old son Christopher, took up one of the mission’s more challenging posts in the twin mining villages of Ashington and Hirst, in Northumberland.
The post was a hard slog. The miners were glad of the practical support of the mission – the Sunday school for the children and the access to spiritual services for baptisms, weddings, and funerals – but the expectation that they were to give up their one free day a week, where they didn’t have to go underground and could spend time in the fresh air and sun, was too much to ask for some. Beyond that, the mine itself provided leisure activities for its workers and their families – including galas, fairs, brass bands, and an array of educational courses held through the Miners’ Institute. Ashington was considered a model mining community by industry standards, and even boasted a state-of-the-art sports ground. Over the years Ashington had produced some fine sportsmen, including cricketers, rugby players, and footballers, some of whom were to eventually play for regional and national teams. Add to all that the lure of dog racing and fighting, as well as the all-consuming passion of pigeon rearing and racing, and the Methodist Mission – and indeed all of the other church groups trying to save souls in the town – were hard pressed to offer anything other than spiritual succour; and for many they found that at the Kicking Cuddy, anyway. Eventually, though, Malcolm and Alice’s hard work bore fruit, and a small, but thriving congregation took root, justifying the building of a fine stone chapel.
They spent five years there, including their time overseeing the building project, and despite the many challenges, they were some of the happiest of their lives. It was there that young Christopher grew from a toddler to a child. And it was there that beautiful Poppy was born. But Malcolm knew it was also a hard time for his wife, Alice. He spent most of his time preparing sermons and officiating at services, but it was Alice who took the brunt of the day-to-day troubles of the miners and their families.
Only this morning, after reading Walter Foster’s article in the Morpeth Herald about the murder of Agnes Robson, had he been reminded of the time when Alice had tried to help the unfortunate woman when she was a young girl, and all the rigmarole around it. It was that, he recalled, that had eventually prompted them to apply for the position at the more well-todo Morpeth Methodist. Alice could no longer take the hatred and vitriol thrown at the Robson family and their supporters after the death of the art teacher and the revelation that the young girl had been having conjugal relations with him, while the children of the miners innocently painted in the next room. To this day, Malcolm still shook his head at how the townsfolk saw the Robson girl as a willingly fallen woman, not a victim of a seducer who took advantage of his position of power.
But now she was dead. He had been shocked to read that his very own Poppy had witnessed the death, and that his sister’s friend Grace had been arrested. He had hidden the newspaper from Alice over breakfast. He knew how she felt about their daughter’s wild escapades as a reporter and sleuth in London, which despite Poppy’s best efforts to play them down, sometimes still made it into the regional press up north. He too was worried about her, but unlike his wife had grown proud of their only daughter, and begrudgingly come to respect her choice of career. Alice, he knew, did not think she should even have a career; she thought that paid work was not something a Christian woman should aspire to – unless it was as the wife of a clergyman (with a two-for-the-price-of-one stipend) or, at a push, a teacher or a nurse. However, even those jobs should be given up to serve husband and family when the time came. And the pursuit of a husband and family – after pursuit of a relationship with God – should be their daughter’s primary goal.
Malcolm, as a good Christian man himself, paid lip service to these views. Yet, secretly, he admired women who made a go of things. His Aunt Mabel had been a marvellous traveller and adventurer. His own sister, Dot, had moved to London back in the early 1900s and made a name for herself as one of the leading actresses of her day. And then, of course, she had become one of the famous Chelsea Six suffragettes, and helped pave the way for women to get the vote. As a political socialist, Malcolm quietly welcomed the extension of suffrage, but his wife, he knew, did not. And despite now qualifying herself to vote, he knew she had not yet acted upon it.
Malcolm sighed inwardly. He had hoped that today, on the celebration of his sixtieth birthday, the Denbys would be able to have a rigmarole-free family get-together, with some friends and congregants from the church. But with the death of Agnes, and the supposed involvement of Grace Wilson (what in heaven’s name was going on there?), it would be far from it. Nonetheless, as the door of the train carriage opened and he saw his sister and daughter waiting to disembark, his heart leapt with happiness. He loved these two women, no matter what shenanigans they got up to.
He waved at them: “Dot! Poppy! Over here!”
A quarter of an hour later – with the help of station porters – Dot was disembarked from the train and into an awaiting taxi, her wheelchair strapped to the back. Malcolm got in the back with Poppy while Dot took the front seat. He directed the driver to take them to St Mary’s churchyard. “Your mother is there.”
Poppy nodded. Her brother, Christopher, had died two days before her father’s birthday. It was the ninth anniversary of his death today.
“Actually, Daddy, could you drop me at the graveyard? I wouldn’t mind going to visit Christopher too. I shall see if Mother wants to walk back with me. Or we can catch a bus. Is that all right?”
Her father, his shoulder pressed against hers in the snug confines of the taxi, squeezed her hand. “Actually, I think that’s a good idea, pet. Your mother will be pleased to spend some time alone with you before everyone starts arriving for the buffet lunch. Your aunt and I can catch up, too.”
“Splendid idea!” said Dot, turning around and beaming at her brother.
Poppy smiled to herself. Dot was never good at hiding her true feelings. What she really meant was: What a relief that I don’t have to spend as much time with my sister-in-law as I first feared.
The taxi driver pulled up outside the cemetery and let Poppy out.
“We’ll see you in about an hour,” said her father, and waved to her as they pulled off.
Poppy climbed the stone steps and skirted around the 600-year-old church of St Mary the Virgin. She picked her way through fallen grave markers – some nearly as old as the church itself – and made her way towards her brother’s grave in the more modern part of the cemetery. Under a spreading yew, burgeoning with red berries, she came across the family burial plot of the Davison family. She stopped for a few moments to pay her respects. Buried along with other family members was Emily Wilding Davison, the suffragette who died protesting in favour of women’s suffrage at the Derby back in 1913.
It was two years before her brother died and a year before the Great War started. She had been fourteen and her brother seventeen. They had joined a crowd of thousands lining the streets to honour the return of Emily’s body. Aunt Dot, Grace, and the four other members of the Chelsea Six had come north to attend the memorial. Soon afterwards, two of their members would be imprisoned for arson, when they returned to London. But for now, they were all together and she, Christopher, and both her parents had come to pay their respects. Poppy’s mother – although not a supporter of women’s suffrage – came out of respect for a fellow Christian woman and Methodist.
Poppy wished she had some flowers to place on the grave, but all she had were her warm thoughts and prayers. She thanked God for Emily’s life and for the brave women – like her aunt and friends – who were inspired by her. She prayed too for Emily’s family, who, eleven years later, would still be feeling the loss of their loved one. And then she turned left towards where her own loved one lay.
Hunched over the neat plot, edged with stones and decorated with a single vase of orange chrysanthemums, was her mother. Alice’s brown hair, painted now with streaks of grey, was pulled back into a tight bun. Her hat lay beside her handbag on the grassy bank. As Poppy approached a gust of wind picked up the brown felt with a swirl of dry leaves. Poppy skipped forward and caught it as Alice turned towards the commotion. She smiled gently as she saw her daughter, but her brown eyes were still pooled with sadness.
“Hello pet,” she said.
“Hello Mam,” said Poppy, and sat down on the grass beside her mother’s handbag.
“Is the taxi here?”
“Aye, it is. But I’ve sent Daddy and Dot home in it. I thought you and I could walk or catch the bus.” She paused and looked at the gravestone. “After we’ve spent some time with Christopher.”
Christopher’s body had only been returned to them three years ago. They thought it had been buried in a mass grave in Flanders, but in 1921 a farmer had come across a skeleton when clearing some land. It was of a young British soldier. His tags identified him as Private Christopher Edward Denby. A postmortem showed he had died of a single gunshot wound to the heart.
However, this grave plot had been here since his death in 1915, and his mother, Alice, had tended it in anticipation of his eventual return. Now here he was, resting forever.
The wind was picking up even further and now large drops of rain fell on the two women. Alice looked up at the sky and said: “God is weeping with us.”
Poppy, who in the past had often wondered why, if God did weep with us, he didn’t do anything to stop the cause of the weeping in the first place, just nodded her agreement. She and God currently had a temporary truce. It was not that she no longer questioned him, but she no longer worried as much that her questioning meant she had lost her faith.
She put up her umbrella and stepped forward to cover her mother.
“Thanks pet. I suppose we should be getting back then. Lots to do before folk start coming for your father’s party.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Aye, there might be – putting out and clearing up. The church ladies are helping, so that’s something.”
“Aye,” said Poppy, noting that, as she usually did with her mother, she had slipped into her old Northumbrian dialect. “Well we’d better get going then.” She checked her watch. “There should be a bus coming in about fifteen minutes, if they still come past this way.”
“Aye, they do.”
Alice stood up, dusted down her skirt, and put on her hat. She didn’t have an umbrella so stayed close to Poppy. To her daughter’s surprise, she linked arms – a physical intimacy quite out of character. Poppy’s mother had never been demonstrably affectionate, yet Poppy did not doubt that she loved her. It was just… what was the word?… difficult to receive that love at times. Alice’s love seemed to come with conditions. She had very set ideas about how a Christian – and particularly a Christian woman – should behave. Poppy, unfortunately, rarely lived up to those standards, at least not since she’d moved to London. In Alice’s eyes, Poppy’s fashion choices were frivolous, her make-up inappropriate, her consumption of alcohol dangerous, and her career choice quite unsuitable. On previous visits home Poppy had pointed out that Alice herself worked, as she served the church, ran a charity shop, and organized soup kitchens.
“But that’s God’s work,” her mother had said. For a few years Poppy had thought she was right – and felt guilty for her life choices – but she had recently come to realize that her job as a reporter, seeking the truth and keeping the public entertained and informed, was just as much “God’s work” as her mother’s. Did her mother not read newspapers? Of course she did. Then why should someone who chose to produce them be considered lower in God’s pecking order of acceptable work? And as for her side-line in detection, well, just ask the families of the victims whether or not Poppy’s work had any value.
However, this was not a discussion Poppy wanted to get into today and she hoped her mother didn’t either. The two women walked arm in arm under the umbrella to the bus stop.
“Is it only Dot who is with you?” asked Alice.
“It is. Grace is… busy.”
Alice sniffed. “I read the paper this morning, Poppy, even though your father tried to hide it from me. I know what happened.”
“Oh. I see.” Poppy braced herself for another one of her mother’s pet complaints: how that Wilson woman has brought shame to Dot. And why, oh why, does Dot put up with it?
But that’s not what Alice said. Instead, in a voice heavy with unshed tears, she said: “Poor, poor Agnes. She didn’t deserve to die like that. I pray that the good Lord will have mercy on her. I don’t know if she repented of her wild life – I’ve heard the stories of what happened in Paris – but she didn’t have the best start, you know. And she was a lovely lass. She really was.”
Poppy pushed open the gate at the bottom of the steps and the two women exited the graveyard onto Castle Bank and walked down the hill towards the bus stop.
“Yes, she told me all about it.”
“Really? Oh, I’m glad she got it all off her chest. What did she tell you?”
Surprised and heartened by her mother’s sympathetic tone, Poppy went on to tell her mother everything that Agnes had told her, and what had happened in Newcastle over the last few days. Well, nearly everything; she decided to leave out the frisson of romance between her and DI Sandy Hawkes. Poppy’s lack of suitable marriage prospects was another topic she always tried to avoid with her mother.
Alice listened quietly, and as they took their place at the bus stop, she said: “So you’re doing some detective work then.”
Poppy tensed. Oh dear, here we go… “Well, sort of, but not properly. It’s just until Yazzie gets here – I mean Mrs Rolandson, the barrister.”
“Your editor’s new wife?”
“Yes, that’s her. She is a top-notch lawyer.”
“And she’s still working now that she has a family?”
Poppy’s fist tightened around the umbrella handle. “She is. She and Rollo are quite well off, you know, and can afford domestic help.”
“How nice for them.”
“Yes it is,” said Poppy, more snappily than she intended.
They were both silent for a while, looking up the road, hoping the bus would come soon. Eventually Alice spoke. Her voice was quiet and uncertain, something Poppy had rarely heard. “Don’t stop investigating, Poppy,” she said. “You need to find out who did this to Agnes. Her family deserve to know.”
Well, you could have knocked Poppy down with a feather. Was her mother actually encouraging her in what she once described as her “scurrilous hobby”?
“I’ll do my best,” said Poppy. “Between me, Yasmin, and the Newcastle police – despite them thinking for now that Grace did it – I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“I pray that you will. Her poor mother must be beside herself. I shall see if I can visit her.”
“I’m sure she’ll appreciate that. Do you think I could come with you? Me and Yazzie? I’m sure she’ll want to talk to the family and it would help if the introduction could be made by someone Mrs Robson knows and trusts.”
The bus summited the hill. Alice opened her handbag and took out her purse. “All right. I’ll see what I can arrange. Will Monday be too late for you?”
“Monday should be fine. Aunt Dot has a telephone in the house now. I’ll give you the number when we get home. Can you ring when you know what’s happening?”
Alice said she would. And then, as the bus pulled up, she said, to Poppy’s utter astonishment: “I wonder if this has something to do with Agnes’ baby.”
“What baby?” Poppy whispered as the two women stepped on to the bus and paid their fare.
Alice gave her daughter a knowing look, then led the way to a seat halfway down the aisle. She nodded to other passengers and waved to a woman further back. Then she sat and lowered her head towards her daughter. “The baby I swore never to talk about,” she said in hushed tones. “But if it might help to find Agnes’ killer, I think you need to know.”
It was half past three when the last of the platters, teacups, and saucers were returned to the kitchen of the church hall. Half a dozen ladies – all of whom Poppy had known since she was a baby – got their fill of news about Poppy’s life in London, and passed on their own about which of Poppy’s peers had just got married or had a baby. Somehow word of Poppy’s photographer beau had made it up to Morpeth and the ladies commiserated with her that he had abandoned her for a life in the colonies. Mrs Green – the convener of the prayer group – gently patted her on the arm and declared that perhaps it was for the best, as she had heard the young man was not a believer in the Good Lord. “Thou should not be unevenly yoked, Poppy,” she said.
Poppy was saved from having to choose between swallowing her tongue or giving Mrs Green a piece of her mind by the Reverend Denby appearing in the doorway. “Do you ladies mind if I steal my daughter for a few minutes?”
Relieved, Poppy slipped into the curve of her father’s protective arm and left the ladies to a discussion of the relative merits of cleanliness and godliness.
“Thanks Daddy,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder for a moment.
Malcolm kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you for coming all this way to see me.”
“Oh Daddy, of course I’d come to see you! I’m so sorry that it’s all been marred by the awfulness with Agnes. You know I was planning on staying with you and Mother until Monday. But I’m sorry; I think I need to go back to Newcastle.”
Malcolm looked at his daughter with pride. “I know you do. Your mother has told me. And she’s right. You need to go. Just promise me you’ll come up for a longer visit soon.”
“I promise Daddy, I will. How about Christmas?”
“That will be lovely, my flower.”
Her mother came up to them. “Thank you for your help, pet. I’ve rung for the taxi and it will be here shortly. Dot’s already outside, talking to Walter Foster.”
Oh dear, thought Poppy. What information is Dot passing on to him? It’s definitely not about Agnes’ baby… Poppy was sure after what she’d heard on the bus that her mother had not told anyone else, other than her husband, about that. However, Poppy could not wait to tell Yasmin about it when she got home as she, like her mother, believed it might very well have something to do with Agnes’ death.
Poppy hurried outside to find Walter and Dot chuckling away about something. Whatever it was, it surely wasn’t the serious business of Agnes’ death.
“Oh Poppy! Walter and I were just remembering a show I did at the Theatre Royal. When was it, Walter – back in 1908?”
Walter chortled. “It must have been. I was covering the arts and entertainment beat, Poppy, just like you. In those days we had a budget that allowed me to travel down to Newcastle to do reviews of London shows on tour. Your aunt was up doing an Ibsen. The leading man – Ralph Rudolph – was a notorious soak. He kept fluffing his lines, but your aunt covered for him marvellously!”
“Oh yes! Do you remember the time –”
“Sorry, Aunt Dot, do you mind if I interrupt for a moment? I need to speak to Mr Foster.”
Walter took Dot’s hand and kissed it. Dot giggled. Alice Denby shook her head in mild disapproval. Malcom Denby smiled benignly.
“Of course, Poppy,” said Walter, standing up from the garden bench to join Poppy.
“A fine article in the paper this morning, Mr Foster. My father showed it to me. I was just wondering, though, about the last paragraph you wrote. The one about the tragedy ‘stirring up memories of the unsolved death of Michael Brownley twenty-seven years ago’. What did you mean by that and what was your source?”
Walter tensed as Poppy knew he would. She wouldn’t like it if her professional practice was questioned either. “I meant, Poppy, that there were parallels between the two deaths. Both, of course, involved Agnes, but both also involved someone being pushed to their deaths from a height.”
“But as far as I know Brownley wasn’t pushed to his death. Wasn’t it declared an accident? Or do you have further information on that?”
The older journalist cleared his throat. “Nothing official, no. But it was widely speculated upon at the time. It was before you were even born, young lady. But I was working on the paper. I remember. I am the source.”
Before Poppy could offer her observation that she was of the opinion that it was not a journalist’s job to speculate and fan the flames of gossip, the taxi arrived and she and Dot were bustled into the vehicle and waved off by her parents and a glowering Walter Foster.
“What did Walter have to say, darling?”
“I’ll tell you about it on the train home,” said Poppy, quietly fuming.