LIBBY STARED. ‘HOW DO you know?’ she said finally.
‘Why? Is it a secret?’
‘Well, no, but it’s a police operation. I didn’t think they’d broadcast it.’
‘Things get around. People always want to tell a TV reporter things.’
‘I suppose they do.’
‘Or ask them things.’ Cameron cocked his head interrogatively.
‘Oh. You got the message, then.’
‘Of course. I didn’t get back to you, I’m sorry. But I’ve been a bit busy this last week. I’ve been sitting in as anchor.’
‘You’ve what?’
‘Anchor. The person in the studio for the news report.’
‘Oh. Is that promotion?’
‘No, not really. And I’d hate to do it all the time. I prefer to be out and about. But John’s been on holiday. So, tell me, what did you want to ask me? Was it about the children?’
‘Yes,’ said Libby, exasperated. ‘Why does everyone else know about them and we don’t?’
‘There’s nothing to know, really. There was a ghost story going round in the fifties when they dug up a body by accident.’
‘Yes, that’s what Rosie said.’
‘Who’s Rosie?’
Libby was wary. ‘A friend of Fran’s.’
‘Has she asked you to look into these children?’
‘Not really. We just sort of – came across them.’
‘And no one knew about them? I find that surprising. It’s a well known folk tale around here. What about your friend Jane?’
‘She knew but got upset. You know she’s pregnant?’
‘No, I don’t really know her. Very pregnant?’
‘Almost due, I think. In fact, she’s not home today, so she could even be in hospital as we speak.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you what I know, but I don’t suppose it’s any more than you’ve learnt already. And I assume your interest has led to the police investigation.’
‘Er.’ Libby cleared her throat. ‘In a way.’
‘Right. I shall want an exclusive as soon as you know anything.’ Campbell leant back on his elbows. ‘Go on, ask away.’
‘Well, so far, a friend who’s a historian has turned up the fact that the workhouse was turned into a TB hospital.’
‘The Princess Beatrice, yes.’
‘There, see?’ Libby was even more irritated. ‘It took us an expert to find that out.’
‘Why? It’s online, surely?’
‘I was looking for the White Lodge and the Cherry Ashton Workhouse. It didn’t come up at all until our Professor Wylie found the records.’
‘Professor Wylie? I know him. We use him as a talking head sometimes,’ said Campbell, making himself more comfortable against the wall. ‘And the answer to that is simple. It wasn’t called White Lodge until after it was the Princess Beatrice.’
‘But it came up on a search as the workhouse,’ said Libby.
‘Yes, that’s a bit odd. Why didn’t it say “formerly the Princess Beatrice and the Cherry Ashton Workhouse”?’
‘I don’t know, although I expect between them Ian and Andrew will get to the bottom of it.’
‘Ian and Andrew?’ Campbell frowned.
‘DI Connell – and Andrew is Professor Wylie.’
‘Oh, he’s co-opted him, too?’
‘Only because we had. So what was the story about the dug-up child?’
‘It was when the former owner wanted to clear the ground at the back. That was when they discovered the graveyard.’
‘Oh, for f – goodness’ sake,’ said an exasperated Libby. ‘How come none of this is on record anywhere? What former owner?’
‘The bloke who bought the hospital after it fell into disrepair. The back garden was so overgrown it needed to be completely cleared. When the child’s body was discovered they realised there were several more gravestones and decided they must be from the hospital, so they wouldn’t disturb them. Then some idiot who worked there said she’d seen a ghost and the stories grew.’
‘Well, that makes sense, but not why the grave was cleared recently,’ muttered Libby.
‘What?’ Campbell sat up and Libby cursed herself.
‘Look, that’s not common knowledge. Don’t you dare use it. It’s actually,’ Libby said, improvising wildly, ‘why Ian’s looking into it. Because the grave was cleared.’ Well, that was true, wasn’t it?
‘Why was it cleared?’ asked Campbell.
‘Weren’t you listening? That’s what Ian’s trying to find out. It can’t be someone left who remembers a TB victim, can it? That would be nearly a hundred years ago.’
‘When it did it stop being a TB hospital? People were still being put in sanatoria in the 50s, you know.’
‘Really?’ Libby was startled. ‘I thought it had died out by then.’
‘No, and it still hasn’t,’ said Campbell. ‘But everyone has the BCG vaccination now. And the old idea of sleeping out in the fresh air whatever the weather came to an end, too.’
‘Did they?’
‘Oh, yes. And they were in hospital for months and months. Years sometimes. I heard of a small child, two years old, I think, who went in and didn’t come out until she was five. Her mother was only allowed to visit every six weeks.’
‘That’s horrific!’
‘But true.’ Campbell shrugged. ‘Anyway, they don’t do it now.’
‘So that child could have been quite recent when they dug it up in the fifties?’
‘I suppose so. Anyway, it isn’t the same grave this time, is it? Can’t be.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Libby. ‘Perhaps it is. I asked what had happened to the original body, but Rosie didn’t know. Perhaps they reburied it.’
‘Is that all you know?’ Campbell leant his forearms on his bent knees. ‘How did you come to be interested?’
‘Oh, this and that.’
‘That means you won’t tell me. Was it this Rosie?’
‘Could have been.’
‘But a secret?’
‘Well – yes.’
Campbell laughed. ‘Honestly, you two. You expect everyone to give you information, yet you won’t give any yourselves.’
Libby felt herself going red. ‘It isn’t that. It just isn’t my secret, and anyway, now the police are involved, I couldn’t tell you anything anyway.’
Campbell sighed. ‘If there is anything, will you tell me?’
‘Of course.’ Libby patted his arm. ‘I really am sorry. When we asked you they hadn’t found a body. We didn’t know anything.’
‘OK. I absolve you from any blame. After all, I did try to get Fran to talk to me about being a psychic detective once, didn’t I?’
‘And she hated you for it.’ Libby grinned. ‘So we’re quits. But seriously, Campbell, you’re sure to get to hear of it. And you can always ring up Professor Wylie and ask him. If he knows anything, of course.’
‘Do you think he does?’
‘Well, he has been called in as a consultant, mainly because they wanted to investigate the historical records. And look at the building.’
‘What did they want to do that for?’
Bugger, thought Libby. ‘Oh, to get an idea of its date, I suppose,’ she said vaguely. ‘He said he couldn’t do a proper visual analysis.’
‘But the date of the building is quite well documented. It’s early sixteenth century or thereabouts. Of course, there was an older building on the site.’
‘Perhaps they want to find traces of that,’ suggested Libby.
‘I don’t know why they would,’ said Campbell. ‘That was destroyed by fire.’
‘Oh, I don’t know then,’ said Libby. ‘Anyway, it’s nothing to do with me any longer.’
‘Thrown off the case, eh?’ Campbell grinned and stood up, brushing himself down. ‘Let me know if anything breaks.’
‘May I tell Fran what you’ve told me? About the hospital?’ Libby looked up at him, shading her eyes.
‘Of course. It’s public knowledge.’
Not that public, thought Libby, as she packed her book and thermos into her basket. We didn’t find out about it that easily. She stood up, thinking about the poor little two-year-old who’d been sent into a sanatorium. If Jane knew about that sort of thing, no wonder she didn’t want to talk about it.
‘Sophie said you were here.’ Fran was leaning on the railings on top of the sea wall. Libby climbed the three steps to join her.
‘I felt like a day on the beach. Only I’ve had enough. Campbell was just here.’
‘Sophie told me. What did he want?’
‘He didn’t come to Nethergate just to see us. He was here doing some report on sewage outfall.’ Libby pulled a face.
Fran nodded. ‘Just round into the other bay. It’s not that bad here, actually.’
‘Sounds awful,’ said Libby. ‘Would you like some of my thermos tea? I haven’t drunk it.’
‘Come on. I’ll make you a proper cup. I could do with one.’
‘That sounds ominous. How was Chrissie?’ Libby followed Fran across the road to her front door.
‘Dire.’ Fran opened the door. ‘How I ever spawned that child I shall never know. Thank goodness she doesn’t live any nearer.’
‘You haven’t heard anything from Jane I suppose?’ Libby put down her basket and followed Fran into the kitchen.
‘No, but I doubt we’d be the first people she’d tell when something happens.’ Fran switched on the kettle and opened the back door for Balzac, who strolled in, dark furry tail waving like a plume of feathers behind him.
‘I suppose not,’ said Libby, ‘and we don’t want to become those infuriating people who keep ringing up and asking if they’re still there.’
‘No, we don’t,’ said Fran. ‘In fact I want to become one of those people with as low a profile as possible.’
‘Oh, dear. Was Chrissie worse than usual?’
‘Do you know what she had the cheek to say?’ Fran turned to Libby, brimming with indignation.
‘No, what?’
‘She thought I ought to move in with her and Bruce a month before the baby’s due and stay for a couple of months afterwards.’
‘No!’ Libby couldn’t help giggling. ‘And what did Guy have to say to that?’
‘I just asked her quite calmly if she and Bruce were going to move out of the master bedroom for us.’
‘I bet she loved that.’
‘She was a touch taken aback. Bruce wasn’t there, of course, and he wouldn’t have it anyway. He’s only just got over the shock of becoming a prospective father.’
Libby shook her head. ‘I just hope it doesn’t split them up. She’d be bound to descend on you like she did last time.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Fran grimly, pouring water into mugs. ‘She won’t get the chance.’
They carried their mugs through to the sitting room and sat down either side of the huge inglenook fireplace. Balzac promptly jumped on Libby’s knee and nearly sent her tea flying.
‘So what did Campbell have to say?’ asked Fran. ‘You still haven’t told me.’
Libby told her everything Campbell had said. ‘So now perhaps we ought to look it up backwards, if you know what I mean,’ she finished. ‘Although I really don’t know why all this history didn’t come up before when we were researching it.’
‘What we still don’t know,’ said Fran, staring thoughtfully into the empty fireplace, ‘is who owned it in the fifties.’
‘No.’ Libby frowned. ‘And that’s the most puzzling bit of all. We know it was a merchant’s house, then a workhouse, then a TB sanatorium, but we don’t know what happened after that, and who was excavating. Who dug up the body? And Campbell said it was someone who worked there who put around the story of the ghost.’
‘But far more puzzling,’ said Fran, ‘is who is clearing the grave and laying flowers now?’
‘Well, I said to Campbell, it surely wouldn’t be a relative of the person who’s buried there. It would be too long ago.’
‘Fifties? A child? We’re talking between forty and fifty years ago. It could easily be a relative. A younger sibling. An older one, even. It could even be a parent.’
‘I suppose so, but not a parent. They’d be too old to clear the grave.’
‘It still doesn’t seem right to me.’ Fran put her mug down on the hearth. ‘Why, if there are graves from that long ago, is someone trying to scare us off?’
‘Not just us,’ said Libby, ‘everybody. That music plays for the police, too.’