Camellia

  'I doubt I could make much impression on yours,' Nick replied angrily. 'Besides I can imagine what Bonny put you through – it must have been a great shock, being confronted with her daughter.'

  'How would you know?' Scorn twisted Jack's features.

  'Because my father loved her and he's told me all about her. He was a married man too remember.'

  'Then why is he such a damn fool to believe the kid is his?' Jack raised his voice. 'She married Norton. I saw the wedding photographs, Camellia looks just like him.'

  Nick felt a surge of hope. 'Apparently Norton's blood group was wrong. But then that's no evidence that either my father or you were responsible. Once I find Mel maybe she and Dad can have further blood tests.'

  'Do that.' Jack sat back down on his seat with a bump, as if he'd run out of steam. 'Look, I'm sorry, I'm not handling this very well, anymore than I did when the girl came to me. I was covering my back that day and I'm doing it again now. Sit down won't you.'

  The man's sudden honesty was heartening, and Nick was glad finally to be offered a seat. 'I'm no threat to you,' he said. 'I came here to try and clear up a few mysteries. You don't know me from Adam and there's no reason why you should trust me.'

  'I know a man I can trust from the set of his face,' Easton growled. 'It's guilt that's bothering me. I knew that girl had been through some sort of hell the day she came in here – but I just didn't want to get involved.'

  Nick leaned forward in his seat. 'What did she say to make you think that?'

  'Nothing. I just felt it. It was the tolerant way she spoke about things. People only get like that by going through the mill'

  Nick nodded. Easton was as perceptive as his father. It seemed Bonny went for a certain type. 'Didn't she tell you about her friends, where she'd come from, anything.'

  'I just wanted her out of here,' Easton said quickly. 'All the time she was here I kept thinking Ginny would find out. I mean I don't get many young girls in here, people talk. But we talked a bit about Bonny and me when we were kids. She was desperate to know more about her mother.'

  Over a glass of whisky Nick heard everything Easton could remember that he'd told Camellia – about Lydia Wynter dying and why he hadn't informed Bonny.

  They discussed at around the same time the fact that Bonny had approached Jack and Magnus about Camellia.

  'Why would she do that?' Nick asked. 'It doesn't make sense.'

  'Attention I guess,' Easton sighed. 'She was always making things up so that people noticed her. I didn't get to the bottom of it though. She phoned me at the garage a couple of times, as well as writing, and she seemed very agitated. She said once that she was afraid her life was about to fall apart. I asked her all the usual things, like whether her old man was having an affair with someone, whether they were short of money? But it wasn't anything like that.'

  'Strange!' Nick frowned.

  'Tricky is the word I'd use to describe her,' Easton pulled a face. 'She must have known from Lydia that I was struggling to make ends meet in those days. If I'd had this place then it would have made more sense. But that's all long ago, over and done with. What's oddest to me is that she eventually drowned herself. I couldn't see her jumping in a river if the hounds of hell were after her. To be honest that's played on my mind a lot since Camellia told me. I even went down to Rye to look at all the old newspapers and check it out.'

  'Did you find anything? I was intending to go there next.'

  Easton shook his head. 'Maybe you'll have more luck than me though. I mean I couldn't go to the police and show any interest openly. You can if you're looking for Camellia.'

  Nick got up. 'I'd better push off,' he said. 'Thanks for seeing me. Can I leave you my phone number just in case she contacts you again?' He took an Oaklands card from his pocket and left it on the desk.

  'Of course.' Easton stood up. He paused for a second then grasped Nick's hand.

  Their eyes locked in silent understanding, then Easton thumped Nick's shoulder.

  'I hope it all works out for you,' he said gruffly. 'I liked Camellia, despite her mother. I like you too, Nick. Let me know the outcome?'

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sergeant Bert Simmonds approached the Mermaid Inn from the back entrance and paused to brush snowflakes from his sheepskin coat, glancing around to see if anyone fitted the description the library had given him that afternoon. He had been told the man was a typical journalist: young, well spoken, with untidy blond hair, and a brown leather jacket.

  The Mermaid, standing near the top of Rye's most famous cobbled street, had once been Bert's favourite watering hole. It hadn't changed much since the fifteenth century: black beams hewn from old ships' timbers, ancient wooden settles and huge carved fireplaces big enough to roast an ox. Bert still had great affection for the place, but in recent years the old inn had become too much of a tourist attraction for his liking. Although Bert welcomed the prosperity visitors brought to the town, when he had a pint he liked his drinking companions to be unsophisticated, ordinary folk. These days the Mermaid seemed to be full of Americans with booming voices, or worse still Hooray Henrys down from London in their sports cars.

  The snow storm which had started that afternoon had deterred any locals from coming out. It looked as if the few people in the bar were all guests at the inn. There was an elegant-looking couple sitting at the bar, and a lone male just inside the door – but he was at least forty and too well heeled to be the journalist. Two couples sat hugging the fire, but he could hear their American accents from across the room.

  Bert was just about to move on when he spotted a young man tucked right up in the corner, half hidden by the side of the wooden settle, studying some notes in a shorthand pad. He wore a chunky navy-blue sweater, not a leather jacket, but Bert knew the chances of there being two such handsome strangers in town in January were very slim.

  Bert walked straight up to him and smiled. 'Can I get you another pint?' he asked, picking up the empty glass.

  The young man looked startled at such generosity from a total stranger.

  'I'm Sergeant Simmonds from the local police,' Bert explained. 'I heard you were making some inquiries and I'd like to talk to you about them, if you don't mind.'

  The other man leapt up, holding out his hand. 'Nick Osbourne,' he said. 'But let me get the drinks?'

  Bert demurred and ordered two pints of bitter.

  'Who told you I was making inquiries?' Nick asked once the sergeant had returned with the drinks. Nick thought he should have guessed this man was a policeman, even out of uniform. He was around forty-five, and heavily built, with a strong face, unwavering blue eyes and fair hair cut uncompromisingly short. His voice was pleasant; surprisingly soft for such a big man, with a rustic Sussex burr.

  'Let's just say I have my sources,' Bert replied with a friendly smile. 'Now suppose you tell me why you're interested in this drowning?'

  Nick was taken aback. He had arrived in Rye soon after two and gone straight to the Library. He had sensed a little hostility when he asked to look at the local newspapers from July 1965 onwards, but he had put that down to laziness on the part of the women at the desk.

  'Is it a crime in Rye to dig into the past?' he asked, keeping his voice light. The two couples in front of the fire got up and left, presumably to have dinner in the dining room. Nick had eaten a couple of sandwiches earlier, as the menu here was too expensive for him. 'Or was there something unusual about Bonny Norton's death that you don't want people finding out?'

  'Let's move closer to the fire,' Bert suggested. They were almost alone in the bar now. Apart from themselves, there was just the lone male and the barman, and they were now deep in conversation.

  'That's better,' he sighed once they'd taken more comfortable seats in front of the blaze. He pulled out his cigarettes, offering one to Nick. 'I'll be honest with you. Here in Rye we are all sick of sensationalistic journalists dredging up that old story. Leave us be for goodness sake.'

  Nick took
a cigarette. He was confused now. There had been nothing sensational in the accounts he'd seen – in fact they had made very dull reading. 'I think you've got me all wrong,' he said. 'I'm an actor, not a journalist.'

  'Don't say someone's decided to make a film of it,' the policeman groaned.

  'I'm not writing a story or making a film,' Nick said. 'I'm just trying to find Camellia Norton, the dead woman's daughter. I hoped I might get a little help here in her home town, but it seems I was mistaken.'

  'Camellia? Do you know her?'

  'Of course,' Nick said. 1 wouldn't be looking for her otherwise. She's been working for my father for the past two years.'

  He took an Oaklands card from his wallet and handed it over. Then as an afterthought he pulled out a snapshot of himself and Mel taken by his father in Weston-super-Mare last summer.

  'Does that satisfy you,' he asked with a touch of sarcasm. 'Now, I wonder if you could tell me whether you know if she's been here in the last three or four months?'

  Bert Simmonds looked at the snapshot. The pretty dark-haired girl was willowy and suntanned, wearing a simple cotton dress. 'This is Camellia?' he asked.

  Nick's irritation grew. 'I take it you've never met her.'

  'That's just where you're wrong,' Bert said in a sharp tone. 'I knew Camellia right from when she was a baby. I just wouldn't have known her from this picture. As to whether she's been here or not, I doubt anyone in Rye would recognise this girl as Bonny Norton's daughter.'

  Nick could see he had got off on the wrong footing. 'Look, Mr Simmonds,' he said more gently. 'Let me put you in the picture. This girl came to work for my father as Amelia Corbett. Both of us grew very fond of her, but it was only when she disappeared from Oaklands that I discovered her real name was Camellia Norton.'

  'What did she do?'

  Nick frowned. 'Do? What do you mean? Her position in our hotel?'

  'No, I mean did she rob you? Or was it fraud or something?'

  'Why should you think that?' Nick asked, scandalised. 'Mel isn't that sort of girl!'

  For a moment the older man looked as confused as Nick felt. 'I'm sorry, it's just after all that last lot about her in the papers I guess I'm becoming as cynical as everyone else.'

  Nick felt an unpleasant prickling down his spine. 'It seems to me, Mr Simmonds,' he said, 'that you and I are on different chapters of the same book. As you tracked me down here for some purpose and you've known Mel longer than I have, I think you should tell me all you know about her.'

  Bert felt uneasy. He had come here tonight simply to try and make sure that there would be no repetition of the journalistic madness which had occurred three or four years before. There had been troupes of scavenging press men in town then, looking for a new angle to keep their squalid stories about Camellia's attack in Chelsea and the subsequent death of her friend going – and they found it when they discovered about Bonny Norton.

  Town councillors, professional and tradespeople were appalled then to find their picturesque town suddenly linked with drugs, pornography and prostitution. They had panicked as they saw journalists photographing the Nortons' old home in Mermaid Street and the river where Bonny's body was found. Earlier today when Bert heard that questions were being asked again, he feared Camellia was involved in a new scandal.

  His main aim had been to prevent any more adverse publicity for the town, but as a man who had once taken a paternal interest in Camellia he was deeply curious about her too. A sixth sense told him this young man was in love with her. Bert guessed that if he didn't tell Nick the truth, someone else would, and their version might not be as accurate or as unbiased as his own.

  He told the story simply – the plain facts without any hearsay or embroidery – but just the same Nick turned pale.

  'I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you.' Bert put one hand on Nick's forearm in sympathy. He wished he'd stayed at home by the fire. 'You see I was very fond of Camellia when she was little. I was the one who found Bonny's body, and broke the news to Camellia. No one in Rye knows her family history better than me, and I have to say, after the example she was set by her mother, it wasn't really surprising that she fell by the wayside for a while.'

  'I'm not upset by it.' Nick had a lump in his throat. 'Mel warned me she'd had a past – she said she worked in a nightclub, she even told me about her friend dying of an overdose. What's got me now is that I remember that case in the papers. I just never connected it with her.'

  Bert went to the bar and Nick sank back into old memories. In 1970 he too had been living in Chelsea and used to drink in the Elm, a pub just around the corner from Beaufort Street. The case of the American and the nightclub hostess he brutalised had been the butt of many jokes: 'What do you call a tied-up tart?' The answer being 'Free and Easy'. Or 'What's a tied-up tart's favourite song?' 'Wriggle while you work.'

  He felt absolute horror now that in those days he had found it funny. He hadn't had even a shred of sympathy for the girl. Even her unusual name hadn't registered; all he remembered clearly was thinking she probably deserved all she got.

  As Bert came back with two whiskies he took one look at Nick's stricken face and felt a surge of sympathy. He'd been equally horrified when he discovered the girl was Camellia and felt so sad that life hadn't been kinder to her.

  'Get this down you,' he said, passing over one of the whiskies. 'I can't take back what I've told you, and neither can I tell you where she is now, but I might be able to give you some useful background information. Suppose you tell me your side of the story first? And call me Bert, everyone else does.'

  Nick hesitated for a moment or two. Aside from not wishing to admit Mel had withheld evidence at the time of her mother's death, he was also concerned for his father's reputation. But the policeman seemed to have integrity and a genuine affection for Mel. He had to trust him if he wanted to find out more.

  He took a big gulp of whisky and launched into telling everything he knew. Bert listened carefully, his manner entirely sympathetic.

  'Well, first off,' Bert said once Nick was through. 'I find it hard to believe Camellia wasn't John Norton's flesh and blood. She was dark like him, and she had his grave manner too. They were an ideal father and daughter, and he doted on her. Back in the fifties it was unusual for a man to be really involved with his children, but John was. Although he was away on business a great deal, when he was home he was always out walking with her, or down at the swings on The Salts. She was an old-fashioned little thing. She could tell you just where her dad was in the world, and he'd taught her to read long before she started school.'

  Bert went on to tell Nick how the Nortons were always entertaining when he first came to Rye as a young constable, and how he used to stop to speak to Camellia when she was sitting on the steps outside their house. He blushed a little as he spoke of Bonny and Nick guessed he'd been sweet on her.

  'Everyone was shocked when John died,' he went on. 'Presumably you've walked up Mermaid Street and seen how close the houses are to one another? Almost all of them are owned now by rich people, but back in the fifties there were ordinary folk living in many of them. Everyone knew one another, and the Nortons were liked – even if they were newcomers and a great deal better off than their neighbours. Death is acceptable when someone is old or sick, but John was only just forty, and he left a beautiful young wife and a six-year-old daughter.'

  'Did Bonny grieve for him?' Nick asked.

  'Oh yes, for a month or so she was distraught. I believe Bonny never quite got over losing John. She certainly never found another man able to take his place.' He paused for a moment as if torn between his own opinion and those of others. 'But she didn't grieve openly long enough for some people. There are some who would tell you she appeared in a pink frock before John was hardly cold. As the years went by her behaviour made her a target for gossip. I'd have been hard pressed to find one person who didn't think she was glad to be a widow.'

  'And Camellia, how did she take it?'

 
'On the surface, quite well. But even before her father's death she was a quiet solitary child, so it was difficult to know what was going on in her head. I was in a difficult position, being a young man then. I would have liked to have been able to pop in as I did when John was alive, but small towns being what they are, I had to keep my distance.'

  Nick fell silent for a moment, digesting what he'd heard and adding it to information received from Magnus and Jack.

  'I've got reason to believe Bonny had some sort of problem in the summer of 1954,' he said eventually. "That was the time she met up with my father accidentally again, and contacted the other two men. Can you remember anything about that year?'

  Bert frowned, trying to think back. 'Roger Bannister ran the four-minute mile and sweets came off the ration,' he smirked. 'I remember the first because I was a keen runner in those days, but he halved my speed record. As for the second I called round one day to the Nortons and Bonny was gloating over a huge bar of chocolate she'd just bought. She told me a story about a friend of hers who stole one like it in a village shop during the war and how she blackmailed him with it to let her join his all-boys gang. That brought her on to telling me about the time she nearly drowned.'

  'I've heard that one, and met the chap who saved her,' Nick smiled. It was encouraging when stories he had heard were confirmed; it made the pictures more vivid. 'But can you remember anything more pertinent to the Nortons?'

  Bert thought for a moment. 'Yes.' Suddenly he was very animated. 'Helena Forester, the Hollywood actress came to stay with them. Everyone was talking about it, she was red hot in those days, huge queues for her films everywhere and it was the first time a big star had come to Rye. I saw her and Bonny together in a big black Daimler, they were going off towards Hastings with Camellia standing up in the back waving like royalty.'

  Nick leaned forward eagerly. 'Did Bonny tell you about this visit?'

  'Did she!' he laughed. 'I don't think there was one person in Rye who didn't know Helena Forester was coming.'