anyone left who remembered her, or if there was, that I could find them. Grace had lived the last half of her short life at Kilnsgate. So I continued on to Staithes for my appointment with Louise King. My excitement at the thought of reading Grace’s journal had been mounting over the last couple of days, and I had been only slightly distracted by Heather’s problems and my plans for Christmas.
Though the landscape was bleak and sere for the most part, it was an unusually sunny day for December in Yorkshire, and when the coast came into view near Boulby, below the high cliffs to my left, I could almost imagine it was a summer’s day. The choppy water was bluish-grey, dotted with whitecaps and long curving lines of breaking waves. A couple of tankers sailed out on the horizon, and six fluffy clouds rode almost in formation overhead on the stiff breeze like giant white chariots.
As Louise had given me directions while I drove her to her car in Richmond market square the other evening, I left the Volvo in the car park at the top of the hill and started to walk down. It was very steep, with magnificent views of the bay, the seascape and the cliffs, and I didn’t relish the climb back up. The sun belied how cold it actually was, mostly thanks to the strong winds off the North Sea, and I was glad I had brought the fleece-lined winter jacket I had picked up at Yorkshire Trading.
It was around half past eleven when I turned down the snicket Louise had told me about between the jeweller’s and the baker’s. The cottage was at the far end of the short narrow passage. Louise answered my knock and asked me in. I had to stoop to avoid banging my head on the lintel. I found myself in a small living room, very cosy, with a low ceiling and French windows leading out to a small patio. A table and two chairs stood outside, but I doubted that anyone would be sitting on them until spring. The view was stunning, across the harbour to the lifeboat station, and out to sea. But that was not what I had come for.
On the low table in front of the sofa lay strewn an array of objects that I took to be Grace’s legacy. I could hardly contain the excitement I felt, and it made me vaguely ashamed of myself for letting Grace Fox become such an obsession. Here I was, like a gourmet in front of his meal, or an alcoholic in front of a bottle, barely able to wait for permission to tuck in.
Louise was looking far healthier and more attractive than she had the first time we met. Her hair shone with gel, and she had applied a little make-up, which improved her complexion no end. Wearing jeans and a scallop-neck red top, she still had that gaunt, haunted quality, the facial metal and a deep, damaged seriousness that guaranteed she would be difficult to know and love, should anybody get close enough to try. She could also stand to put a bit more flesh on her bones. It was impossible for most people to begin to imagine what she had been through, and what reserves of strength, courage and perseverance she had had to draw on in order simply to survive intact. She seemed relaxed enough at the moment, and even chatted for a while about the history of the cottage and the Staithes fishing traditions. She could no doubt see me eyeing the table greedily, practically salivating at the prospect before me, but she talked on.
‘Help yourself,’ she said finally, gesturing to the table. ‘I’ll make some tea.’
‘OK.’ I didn’t need telling twice. She was no sooner at the sink filling the kettle than I had a wad of photographs in my hand. Black and white with deckled edges. Some had faded corners or traces of stickiness on the back, as if they had been removed from albums. Most of them featured Grace and her fellow nurses posing with wounded soldiers, many of whom had their arms in slings, bandaged heads or legs missing. The nurses were often dressed in tropical uniforms of flattering white dresses, veils and shoes, and sometimes in plain shirts and slacks, or even battledress.
It was easy to pick out Grace, though the only images of her I had seen so far were the family portrait in Kilnsgate and those painted by Sam Porter. Her dark wavy hair fell only as far as her neckline, and she wore it mostly tucked behind her ears.
There was one photograph of her that pierced my heart. She was in some sort of makeshift medical tent in her white dress and veil, stooping as she handed an emaciated patient a mug of tea, trying to place it carefully in his outstretched hands. His face was completely covered in bandages, with a small gap for the mouth and breath- holes by the nostrils. I guessed that he had probably suffered serious burns, perhaps lost his eyesight. It was so real that I could almost see his hands shaking. Grace had an expression of such mixed concentration and compassion on her features, lips compressed, eyes tender, a small furrow in her brow. In the background, outside the tent, stood an army truck with a big cross on its side. It was clear she hadn’t known she was being photographed, and I guessed that a colleague must have taken it and given it to her later.
There was another photograph of Grace with a group of friends, and they seemed to be having fun, all wearing bathing costumes, laughing and frolicking on a beach. In another she stood holding her hair back from the wind on a rocky promontory against a backdrop of rolling waves. It could have been Cornwall, I suppose, but she was wearing a white dress with epaulettes and little buttons up the front. In another, she posed astride a large motorcycle in full army battledress, tin hat cocked at a jaunty angle, a lopsided grin on her face.
There were two photographs of Grace standing outside Kilnsgate House, her hair longer, wearing a pale dress that came in tight at the waist and flared out below, buttons up the front, like her white nurse’s uniform. She was shielding her eyes from the sun and smiling at the photographer. Another showed her with her arm around the shoulder of a young boy in the garden at Kilnsgate, near the gate, pointing towards the lime kiln. He was about Randolph’s age at the time of the murder, so I wondered whether it had been taken close to that time. But Grace was wearing a summer frock, and the boy wore only short trousers and a shirt. I couldn’t see his face because he was in profile. I asked Louise about it when she brought the cups and teapot over on a tray.
She shook her head and said, ‘No, that’s not my dad. I don’t know who it is.’
Another puzzle. I had a vague idea who it might be, but I would need to do a lot of research before I could find out whether I was right. And even if I was, it was still puzzling that the photograph had so obviously been taken at Kilnsgate House.
There were no wedding photographs, in fact no images of Ernest Fox at all, and only a few of Randolph, ranging from age two or three to five and six. There was one photo of Grace and a female friend in Richmond market square that showed an old tenement building by Trinity Church and the obelisk. It certainly wasn’t there now. I didn’t know who the friend was. Could it have been Alice Lambert? Grace had other female friends in town, too, I assumed, women she had met through the operatic and dramatic societies, for example, or from the subscription concerts she went to, but I hadn’t heard anything about them. Clearly, none of them had played a relevant role in the events of January 1953, though I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d had a friend close enough to be a confidante, someone to whom she had told all her troubles and indiscretions. I realised it wouldn’t help me if she had, though. If the friend was Grace’s age, she would be pushing a century now and mostly likely dead.
That thought made my whole endeavour seem suddenly futile, and a wave of tiredness and depression surged through me. What was I trying to prove? Why? What did it matter? I glanced at Louise and wondered how much the truth would really mean to her, assuming I found it and it differed from the official version. Would the truth make Louise any happier, or would it damage what fragile balance she had worked so hard to achieve? Maybe Bernie had been right all those weeks ago in Soho when he had told me it was sometimes best to leave the past well alone. Was I doing this all for myself? Was it all about Grace, or was it really about me? Was it only me who needed the explanation to be different from the official verdict? I didn’t know the answer to any of these questions.
I shook off the melancholy, put the photos back down on the table and picked up the small leather-bound journal. The cover was soft and scuffed. Some of the pages were stained. Blood, tea, water, wine, I had no idea. On the front flyleaf Grace had written, ‘If lost, please return to Grace Fox, Kilnsgate House, Kilnsgate Lane, Kilnsgarthdale, nr Richmond, North Riding of Yorkshire, England’.
When I opened the volume to the first entry and saw Grace’s tiny, precise hand, just like the notations on the Schubert, I felt a shiver run up my spine. I also realised that there was no possible way I could read this in the short length of time I would be spending in Staithes, and I felt a sense of panic creep up inside me. Most of it seemed to have been written in pencil, with the occasional entry clearly in fountain pen. Ballpoint pens hadn’t been invented then, I supposed, and a fountain pen would have been too difficult to maintain in some of the conditions Grace had had to endure.
It was with slight disappointment that I found the journal covered only the years 1940 to 1945 and did not stretch as far as 1952 or 1953. Even so, I knew it would make fascinating reading, and it might contain a hidden gem of information or two, some missing pieces. Also, from what I could see on a brief perusal, she had skipped over whole periods, months sometimes. Most of the entries were brief, almost note form, but some were quite lengthy, and there were only three or four empty pages at the end. She had just made it. Some pages were
