The Mudflats of the Dead

‘A fair way off there were other folk getting the cockles.’

‘But they did not come near you or the corpse?’

‘When they go, they go the other way, towards the church.’

‘Was the corpse clothed?’

‘She hev a kind of little bodice that hardly cover her breasts (not that she hev much up there to cover) and a little pair of bathing drawers that hardly cover —’

‘Yes, a bikini. I see. What about the clothes she must have taken off before she bathed?’

‘Oo, I wouldn’ know nawthen about any other garments but those I describe. Now I come to recollect, though, Crowner did ask the gentleman who spoke to knowing the body — ’

‘Mr Kirby?’

‘That’s him.’

‘The coroner asked Mr Kirby about the girl’s clothes?’

‘Yes, that did. The gentleman said the young woman was liable to run straight out of the cottage in her bathers and, when she’d had her dip, that would lie out on the doons and dry off.’

‘What about shoes?’

‘I couldn’t go for to say.’

‘Well, she might have done all that in the sunshine, although I think she would have worn shoes of some sort to cross the marshes,’ said Billington, ‘but at night she surely would have something on over her bikini and have taken a towel with her? It gets chilly at night when there’s no sun to dry you.’

‘I couldn’t speak as to any of that, but if she had any clo’es and a pair of shoes, I reckon she left ’em on the doons out of tide reach and the Old Mole had ’em.’

‘And who is the Old Mole?’ Dame Beatrice enquired.

‘That’s an old mumper live by himself and talk foreign. When he ent mumpin’, that scavenge up and down the place looking for driftwood or empty bottles, or maybe bits of sandwiches and cake left behind by picnickers, or anything else that’s there. Proper old jackdaw. Pick up whatever take his fancy.’

‘Oh, a beachcomber,’ said Billington. ‘And where is he to be found?’

‘That doss down in a shed on the Old Quay.’

‘Oh, a neighbour of yours!’

‘That’s harmless. We pass the time of day.’

‘What, exactly, is a mumper?’ Dame Beatrice enquired. ‘The word is new to me.’

‘Dialect for beggar,’ Billington explained. ‘Why is he called the Old Mole?’ he asked Sleach.

‘On account that purtend to be blind. Carry a white stick, but that’s only to poke about with. Help him in his mumpin’ to let the visitors think he’s blind. Makes them feel sorry for him, if you take my meaning, but that’s an old fraud, that is. Can see as well as you and me, and don’t miss nawthen if there’s anything worth picking up on the beach or among the doons.’

‘He sounds an interesting and enterprising character. So you think, Mr Sleach, that if the dead girl’s clothes had been left on the shore, this man will have found and kept them? Maybe he has sold them by now.’

‘Too fly for that, I reckon, ma’am. That wait until all the fuss die down. If he hev the poor young mawther’s clo’es, they’re still in his shack.’

‘Then I must ask him to produce them.’

‘We’ll come with you,’ said Billington.

‘No. My thanks for the chivalrous thought, but that will be quite unnecessary. I see that my man has followed me up with the car. He will escort me and I have no doubt, Mr Sleach, that your aunt will be good enough to point out where this man lives. I am most grateful for your assistance, both of you.’

‘A pleasure,’ said Billington. ‘Come on, then, Sleach. I can do with another pint and so can you.’ He walked over to the car with Dame Beatrice and added, ‘I can see you don’t want to involve Sleach any further. Will you let me know how you get on with the Old Mole?’

‘It is the least I can do, although I expect nothing to come of my visit to him.’

‘Would it help your enquiry if it does turn out that he picked up the girl’s clothes?’

‘To a certain extent, I think it would, particularly if he is willing to tell me which day he found them. She does not appear to have returned to her cottage on the night of the moonlight bathe she took with a friend, so the inference is that that is the night on which she was drowned, but, so far, that has not been proved.’

‘Ah, yes, the medical evidence was more than a bit sketchy regarding the actual time of death, I remember. But if the Old Mole does have the clothes, isn’t that going to be a bit awkward for the – for her fellow bather?’

‘He is already under some supicion.’

She got into the car and gave George directions to take her back to the Old Quay.

CHAPTER 11

THE OLD MOLE

‘Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.’

Oscar Wilde

« ^ »

Digging out the Old Mole proved to be a matter of no difficulty. Dame Beatrice reintroduced herself to Sleach’s aunt. The beggarman’s domicile, the least disreputable of the rotting warehouses, was pointed out with the warning that it was probably infested with rats, undoubtedly stank and, in any case, was no place for a lady.

Dame Beatrice enquired whether the old man had ever engaged the interest of the police, and was reassured.

‘That’s harmless. Fossick about on the shore, after the tide go out, for bits of wood, and room the doons for bottles and old tins. Like a jackdaw, that is, for anything that shine. What he do with the things nobody know for certain, but, with a bit of mumping, that live.’

Without being asked, but with a set, masculine expression on his face, George accompanied his employer to the building which had been pointed out. He was carrying a heavy spanner wrapped in a piece of brown paper to conceal its real nature and appearance. His alternative means of persuasion was in the form of a couple of tall cans of beer which he carried in the long pockets of the overalls he had assumed when Dame Beatrice had indicated the scope of their enterprise.

Knowing him, she deduced the nature of his precautions and observing merely that the carrot often produced better results than the bludgeon, and that she anticipated ‘none of what Mrs. Gavin would call the rough stuff, George,’ she kicked with a firmly shod foot at the rickety door. It flew open and disclosed the interior of the warehouse.

The bursting in of the door had caused the two sets of shutters, one on the north, the other on the east side, to fly open as well, so there was sufficient light to disclose the contents of the big shack. These included an elderly man wearing frayed trousers and what had been an Army greatcoat over a sweater. He came forward leaning on a crook-handled, white-painted stick.

He was unkempt, but not filthy, and although the building gave forth an odour of closeness and human occupation, to say that it stank would have been an exaggeration, Dame Beatrice thought. He said,

‘If it be you boys, go away. You know I can’t see you, so stop tormenting of me.’

‘Mr Mole, I presume,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘That’s a lady’s voice. I don’t want no soup kitchens. I manage all right on my own. Salvation Army, is it?’

‘You know very well that it is not. Where are my granddaughter’s clothes?’

The old man put what to him was a pertinent query.

‘I ent in trouble with police?’

‘Answer my question, please.’

‘You ent no right.’