I walked on through the fields and the small plantation beyond, emerging finally on the long grass of Low Moor, the site of the old Richmond racecourse. Since finding out about the lime kiln, I had bought a book at the Castle Hill Bookshop and read up a bit on local history. Richmond racecourse had been in use from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth centuries, until horses had become too strong and fast for its tight turns. Now it was a vast tract of open moorland above the town, its bridle path used for occasional training gallops.
I passed the derelict stone grandstand, imagining what a fine building it must have been in its heyday, and paused to admire the view in all directions. It was a clear day, and I could see as far as the North Yorkshire Moors and Sutton Bank, rising from the plain of York, in the south-east, and more directly east, Darlington and the Teesside conurbation of Middlesbrough and Stockton beyond. The book said you could see as far as the east coast, but I couldn’t make out the shoreline.
I hadn’t seen a soul on my walk so far, but now I encountered a number of people walking their dogs. Most of them said hello and made some comment on the weather. When I remarked to one fellow what a lovely day it was, he agreed, but added with a typical Yorkshire nose for the downside that the sun had actually gone behind some clouds for a while not so long ago, and that it might well do so again soon.
I had been thinking about Grace Fox a lot since my talk with Ted Welland had provoked the sudden memory of my schooldays, and as I walked along across the grassy field that bright windy morning, shirtsleeves rolled up and jacket tied around my waist, I thought about her again. Had she trod this very same path? Had she enjoyed solitary walks, wondered about the magnificent ruin of the grandstand? What had she thought about? How had marriage to Ernest Fox become so unbearable to her that she saw murder as her only way out? Where was the edge, and what had pushed her over it? Perhaps, as Ted had hinted, times were so different then that a woman seeking to escape a suffocating marriage for a young lover might have no recourse but to murder. I doubted it, though. I couldn’t help but think that there had to be more to it than that. The fifties may have been a more sexually uptight era than our own, but it was hardly the Victorian age. Surely the war must have shaken morality up a bit?
As I walked on, mulling over all this, a question formed in my mind, and I couldn’t push it away: What if she hadn’t done it? Innocent people got hanged all the time. Look at Timothy Evans, who was executed for the murders John Christie committed at 10 Rillington Place, or Derek Bentley, who had murdered no one, had simply shouted the famous and ambiguous words ‘Let him have it, Chris’. As Ted had mentioned, there was even some doubt these days that Dr Crippen – such a monster that he’d been standing in Madame Tussaud’s for years – was innocent of his wife’s murder. So it was certainly within the bounds of possibility.
What if Grace Fox hadn’t done it? Why had no one considered that? Or had they? I realised how little I knew. Somehow, the idea of proving Grace’s innocence excited me. I quickened my pace as the breeze whipped up, hardly pausing now to stop and gaze at the view of the town spread out below me as I carried on down the hill past the Garden Village development at the old army barracks, surrounded by its high stone wall and narrow entrance. The hill was called Gallowgate, I noticed. Gallowgate. What irony! There was a lot I needed to know, and the first thing I had to find out was where to look.
One of the shops built into the south walls of what used to be Trinity Church, in the market square, was the second-hand bookshop Ted Welland had mentioned, Richmond Books, and it was there that I started my search. Unfortunately, the owner didn’t have a copy of the edition of Famous Trials that dealt with Grace’s case, though he said he would ask around and try to locate one for me. I left my address and telephone number with him. I thought of what Ted Welland had said of tracking down the newspaper accounts, too. They would be on microfiche somewhere. I decided to wait for the book and then see whether I felt I needed more detail.
The owner did, however, point me in the direction of Wilf Pelham, a retired local schoolteacher, who had been eighteen when Grace Fox was hanged, and apparently still had the memory of an elephant. At this time of day, the bookseller said, glancing at his watch, I was as likely to find Wilf propping up the bar in the Castle Tavern as anywhere else. A free pint would go a long way towards loosening Wilf’s tongue and sharpening his memory, he added.
There weren’t many people in the Castle Tavern at that time of day, and only one of them was standing at the bar. I stood beside him, and as the barman pulled my pint, I asked him whether he was Wilf Pelham.
‘And who wants to know?’ he replied.
I introduced myself and noticed him frown. His hair was greasy, he was overweight, and he had a three-day stubble, but his blue eyes were as lively and intelligent as they had probably always been.
‘So you’ll be the new owner of Kilnsgate House?’ he said, turning towards me and showing interest.
‘Word gets around.’
‘Especially if you’ve got nowt much else to do but listen to gossip,’ he said.
‘Can I buy you a drink and ask you a few questions?’ I offered.
‘I don’t see why not. Terry, give us another pint of bitter, will you, lad?’
While Terry poured the pint, I suggested that Wilf and I sit down. He didn’t object, and we found a quiet table away from the bar. He smacked his lips and sipped his beer. ‘Aren’t you something to do with Hollywood?’ he asked me.
I told him what I did for a living, and he seemed genuinely interested. He gave a little chuckle when I said I wrote the music nobody listened to. ‘That must be hard to take sometimes,’ he said. ‘No matter how much they pay you.’
‘You get used to it. But, yes… I’d like to make something more memorable.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘I’m giving it a try.’
‘Good for you, lad. Just don’t be writing any of the atonal drivel or that cacophony that passes for music these days. I’m all for experiment and progress, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.’
‘Where would you draw it?’
Wilf thought for a moment. ‘Schoenberg.’
‘Well, that’s pretty liberal,’ I said. ‘There are many would draw it a long time before him, and before Mahler, Bruckner or Wagner.’
‘Like I said, I don’t mind experimentation, up to a point, and I’m rather partial to a bit of Mahler once in a while. How do you do it, write film music?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you watch the film first?’
‘Good Lord, no. You start well before the film’s finished, usually towards the end of shooting. But it all depends, really, on what sort of relationship you have with the director.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Well, if you work often with one particular director, then you’ll be involved in the project right from the start.’
‘Like Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann?’
‘That’s right.’
My eyebrows must have shot up. Wilf grinned, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I’m not as thick as I look, you know. I was a music teacher once upon a time, centuries ago.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ I said. I was starting to warm to Wilf Pelham. ‘Believe me, I knew you weren’t thick when you mentioned Schoenberg.’
‘Is there anyone you work with often? Forgive my ignorance, but I don’t follow the cinema as much as I used to do.’
‘That’s all right. Can’t say I blame you. There’s a director I’ve worked with a few times. He’s called David Packer.’ David was also my best friend and had been a rock during my period of deepest despair after Laura’s death.
‘I’ve heard the name,’ said Wilf. ‘But how do you know what it’s all about, then? Do you work from the script?’
‘Nope. Never even read them. You can shoot a script a million different ways. I need something visual, so I usually work from rough cuts and pray for inspiration.’
‘Sounds like a hell of a job. Anyway, I don’t suppose you came here to be interviewed. What is it you want to know? It’s about the Foxes who used to live at Kilnsgate, I should imagine, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. The man in the bookshop said you were around at the time of the trial and you might know something
