Three Things About Elsie(66)

‘I do wish they’d all stay together.’ Miss Ambrose seemed to have found her breath again. ‘I would have expected more from Mrs Honeyman at least. She’s not usually so difficult.’

‘Mrs Honeyman?’

‘Yes. She was with them as well, wasn’t she? We can’t find her either.’

‘Oh I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen Mrs Honeyman since the West Cliff.’

Simon felt his mouth go dry and a ball of unease roll into his stomach.





FLORENCE


‘A musician?’ The three of us spoke in a little chorus, and waited in a row for our verdict. Jack gripped the handle of his walking stick, and my hands found the belt of my coat.

‘Indeed he was. And a Whitby man, too.’ The man with the pencil moustache was buried deep in a drawer of photographs, and his voice trailed up from beneath the counter. ‘A travelling musician. Drifted from band to band. There was a lot of it after the war.’

‘How do you mean?’ Elsie peered down and spoke to the top of his head.

‘People were displaced. They felt untethered, I suppose.’ The man appeared with a box of cellophaned pictures. ‘They wandered from job to job, place to place, trying to find out who they were again.’

‘Like modern-day minstrels,’ said Jack.

‘You could say that.’ The man searched through the photographs. ‘Only more drums than dulcimer. Although I do believe Gabriel Price was a pianist.’

I stopped twisting. ‘I remember watching the pianist at the town hall, seeing his hands on the keyboard. He wore a ring. On his little finger. It was very distinctive, very delicate. Not a ring you’d expect a man to wear at all.’ I paused. ‘Did Gabriel Price wear a ring?’ I was scared to ask. Sometimes, my thoughts can lead me so far up the garden path, it’s difficult to find a way back again.

The man pulled a photograph from a sleeve of cellophane and laid it on the counter. ‘Let’s have a look, shall we?’ he said.





HANDY SIMON


They covered the whole of the West Cliff. All the way from the whalebones to where a stripe of coastal path disappears its way to Sandsend. There was no sign of Mrs Honeyman. Barry volunteered to keep the rest of the group together, although he’d run out of ghost stories and had to herd them towards the whalebones, where they had a half-hearted sing-along and three verses of the national anthem. Miss Ambrose called Miss Bissell, and Miss Bissell appeared at the side of Captain Cook clutching a Gideon’s Bible to her chest.

‘I’m sure Mrs Honeyman is around here somewhere,’ said Miss Ambrose, although her face didn’t look as certain as her words. The veins in her neck beat the same rhythm as Miss Bissell’s swearing and Simon could see lines appear on her forehead, even from where he was standing. One of the residents said she remembered seeing Mrs Honeyman go into the public conveniences but didn’t recall her coming out again, and it was decided that Simon should investigate just in case a door needed breaking down.

‘But they’re ladies’ toilets.’ He stood at the entrance to the building with his arms folded. ‘And I’m not a lady.’

In the end, Miss Ambrose agreed to lead the way, and they found themselves staring at three empty stalls, and surrounded by the smell of sand and wet concrete.

‘How could she just disappear?’ Simon pushed at one of the cubicle doors, even though it was at its maximum pushing. ‘People don’t just disappear.’

‘She was seen going in, but not coming out,’ said Miss Ambrose. ‘Although being as there’s only one exit, it beggars belief where she could have got to.’

They both studied the tiny windows, which were decorated with cobwebs and a collection of specimens that would have made a lepidopterist’s chest swell with pride.

Simon put his hands on his hips and took another breath of wet-sand air. ‘Two hundred and fifty thousand people go missing each year,’ he said. ‘Which is the equivalent of the entire population of Plymouth vanishing every twelve months.’

‘Simon, I really don’t think it’s helpful—’

‘Seventy-four per cent are found within twenty-four hours.’

‘Well, at least that’s reassuring.’

‘Only one per cent are found dead.’

They listened through the postage-stamp windows, as the North Sea threw itself on to the rocks below.

‘Maybe we should call the police,’ said Miss Ambrose.





FLORENCE


We all studied the photograph.

Even though we knew it wouldn’t be Ronnie, it was still a shock to see a stranger staring back at us. Gabriel Price was not what I expected. Perhaps I was searching for shades of Ronnie Butler, something I could hold on to and dislike, but the man who looked back at us from the photograph had kind eyes and a soft smile. His hands rested on piano keys, and he looked straight into the camera, as though he’d been waiting for us to arrive. He was a little older than Ronnie. A little thinner, and although I never knew him, I felt as if he was someone who could be trusted.

‘It’s not Ronnie,’ I said.

‘No.’ Jack sighed. ‘But we never really expected it to be, did we?’

‘We didn’t, but I was hoping they would look like the same person. Isn’t it ridiculous,’ I said, ‘to hope that you might be losing your mind?’