Prologue
It had been twenty-five years since I had last seen the face of Iris Caldwell. I had never expected to see her again, yet the flickering grey figure that glowed from the whitewashed wall of the church hall that evening was definitely Iris. She wore the long white gown of the May Queen but the paleness of her complexion and her long, fair hair were dulled to grey by the aged cine film, her steps reduced to jerky movements as if she was no more than a marionette controlled by the hand of the projectionist. This was all that was left of Iris – an object captured in light and shadow – but my own memory of Iris had not faded, and at that moment I recalled the girl with the determined spirit and strong will as she had been back in the spring of 1912.
Iris crossed the village green in stockinged feet. Behind her I could just see the dark outline of the maypole, its ribbons still tied, and the long shadow cast by the oak tree. On May Day 1912 Iris should have been Missensham’s May Queen, but she would never walk in the procession or wear the willow crown, and now I watched her twenty-five years later as she walked with just one other – a man in a cloth cap whom she leant against as he led her across the grass.
Yet it was Iris’s face alone that held my gaze. At fifteen years old Iris Caldwell had been young and beautiful, but fifteen she had remained, because after May Day of 1912, Iris Caldwell was never seen again.
Iris’s face gave away nothing of what had happened to her on that morning or what was to come but, for just a second, she raised her head, as if she had heard a noise or could sense something in the air. I felt her eyes connect with mine as though she could see me as I sat on my wooden seat in the cold church hall. I fancied that she could see past my ageing body – my thinning hair and slackened skin – and recognise me as the woman she had once known, even read my thoughts and memories as if she gazed out at me from the afterlife.
At that moment, there was nothing more than Iris. I no longer felt the hard wood of the fold-up seat, the throb of my arthritic fingers or the chill from the old windowpanes. The silhouettes of the people seated in front of me mingled into the wavering light, and the murmurs of the audience and the rhythmic clicking of the projector sank into silence. It was not only me who recognised Iris because, as her face appeared on the screen, the people became still as if the room itself was taking one large breath.
Then a name was whispered, her name – ‘Iris Caldwell’. It was repeated quietly over and over, the words rippling across the room. Heads turned towards me – faces darkened by the glowing screen, wisps of hair caught in the beam of the projector, the grey flicker mirrored in dozens of spectacles. Then another word – ‘Murdered’.
Then a hand was raised in front of the screen, the shadowy finger pointing to the man Iris walked with – the man who would now be accused.
The people shuffled in their seats, chairs grating on the floor. They looked at each other with wide eyes, hands held up to open mouths, and whispered in each other’s ears.
I stood up quickly, the chair falling from under me. I fought my way to the aisle, pushing past knees and handbags and tripping over feet, the leaves of the oak tree quivering across my jacket and the spindles of light almost blinding me. I headed for the door, my legs threatening to buckle beneath me as I tried desperately to blink away the glowing images that lingered like ghosts behind my eyelids.
I should not have seen the face of Iris Caldwell again. She should not have been on that film, because by sunrise on the morning of May Day 1912, Iris Caldwell was believed to be dead.
1
It was an image that haunted me – the expressionless face of the young girl, her eyes reduced to dark pits by the grainy film, as if she held a secret she was not ready to share. When I closed my eyes I could see her again, looking out at me from the screen as if somehow glimpsing her future.
I sat down shakily on the bench outside the church hall, taking deep breaths of the cold night air, pulling my shawl about me and flexing my arthritic fingers.
I was not usually one for such drama. Before my husband’s death I had been a vicar’s wife. I had held hands at funerals and been an ear for all the village’s woes. I had lived through the horrors of the Great War and the epidemic that had followed it. I had learnt how to harden myself, to not get upset by things. After all, I had lived with the memory of what had happened on May Day 1912 for twenty-five years, but seeing the old image flashed across the screen so unexpectedly had caught me off guard.
I had been expecting a nice evening out – a special screening of Missensham’s past by the historical society, a chance to catch up with some of the older parishioners and an evening away from my lonely cottage – and until Iris had appeared on the screen, it had been so. The evening had begun well. The grey faces had jostled with each other onscreen, sending smiles and waves from the past, and the audience had given voices to their silence as they laughed along with them. I’d seen people I had known in my youth, faces forgotten as well as remembered, buildings that had long since decayed, fashions that had waned, and streets that were empty of cars.
There had been chatter all around me: ‘Those were the days!’
‘Hasn’t he changed!’
‘She looks just like her daughter did at that age!’
‘I remember when that teashop was a dressmaker’s!’
Then the film had moved on to the May Day preparations – a willow arch propped up against the wall of the blacksmith’s yard and some little girls running around in frothy white dresses.
Things had changed when Iris Caldwell appeared on the screen. She was no more than shades of grey cast by the tangled beams of the projector, yet she flickered out of the darkness like a spirit. I could even see her with my eyes shut, the image ghosting purple under my eyelids, a single word echoing round my head – ‘Murdered.’
I had never liked that word, for it took me to a lonely place – a thicket of wych elms high up on the common land, foxholes nestling in tangles of bare roots, and low branches shielding all from view. For a moment I fancied that I could feel the winds that chilled that place and smell the dampness of the earth.
‘Excuse me, Mrs Ryland?’
But then the thought was gone.
‘Mrs Ryland?’
A man stood in front of me and, from the sound of his voice, I thought that he must have repeated my name several times before I heard him. When I looked up, I recognised his stocky silhouette and dark moustache. He wore an old brown suit and cap, and not his usual sergeant’s uniform, but the seriousness of his tone told me that he was now on duty.
‘Please call me Agnes,’ I said composing myself. ‘We have been friends long enough, Roy.’
I looked out into the night. The village green was in darkness. The large oak tree, church, pub, tearoom and doctor’s surgery had all faded into the night, the only light coming from the dull blue glow of the police station’s lamp and the bright orbs of the lampposts that marked the road.
The door of the church hall cracked open, a stream of people spilling out on to the pavement. They turned to each other, laughed and whispered but they spoke the same words that I had heard repeated over and over in the hall. A young man in a bow tie and round spectacles sat on the kerb, smoking a cigarette. He held his head in his hands and I fancied that he was the projectionist, only now aware of the meaning of the film he had shown.