Page 71 of Crazy Spooky Love
“Maybe not right now, Mum,” he says quickly before she can fill her lungs. “Did you find anything out?”
“Artie, you know me. I’m a burrower, a ferret, a seeker, if you will.” He’s nodding. Her theatrics must be all part of her charm, he’s clearly used to her by the way he waits patiently for her to go on. “You give me the scent of a bone, and I’m like a terrier, I’ll dig and dig until I find that pesky bone.”
Endearing as his mother is, I wish she’d cut to the chase now, we’re on a tight schedule and I’m starving.
“Did she find the bone?” Marina hisses. “Did you find the bone, Artie’s Mum?”
I don’t know if Mrs. Elliott has taken acting classes or if she’s just a born dramatist, but I can almost hear a drumroll as we all stare at Artie’s phone, rapt.
“Did I find that bone?” she breathes. “Did I ever!” Her voice reverberates with triumph. “Charles Frederick Scarborough Henson, born at Hull Maternity Hospital to Priscilla Elizabeth Henson on June 22, 1920. Father unknown.”
“Father unknown?” I say. I knew the rest, but that came as a surprise.
“Oh, she’d have to have put that down, love, if she wasn’t married and he wasn’t there,” Mrs. Elliott informs me. “But she did give thebaby Scarborough as one of his middle names, which indicates strongly that she wished to include the father in some way.”
“Right.” I speak loudly to make sure she can hear me. “That’s brilliant. Thank you, Mrs. Elliott.”
“Oh, I’ve not finished yet, love,” she laughs. “There’s more for you, if you’ve time?”
I’d hoped she might say that. “Go on,” I urge, and Marina and I step closer to Artie so we don’t miss a thing.
“Well, Charles grew up and married his sweetheart, Evangeline, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. She was pregnant when he left, and sadly he never came home again. He died whilst serving in the British Army, leaving Evangeline to raise their son, Richard Charles Scarborough Henson, alone.”
Marina’s eyes are brimming with tears already, and to be honest I feel incredibly moved too. This family’s history is fascinating and complicated, and I understand Isaac well enough now to know this information will come as a blow. He left his wife and child to protect them from the stigma of being thought of as a murderer’s family, yet Charles had gone on to live such a short, interrupted life, and Priscilla had borne the loss of her only child alone.
“Still there, folks?” Mrs. Elliott calls out, and Artie asks if there is anything else she needs to tellus.
“Well, there is, actually,” she says. “Richard Scarborough Henson is still alive and lives in Hull with his daughter, Jojo.”
I work through the information overload in my head. “So Isaac has a grandson called Richard, and he’s still alive and living in Hull?”
“That’s it, lovey, you’ve got it!”
I like Mrs. Elliott. She’s thorough and she sounds like she spends her life wearing a flowery apron and baking cakes, even though I know from Artie that she actually spends her time feeding rats to Pandora the Python and singing music-hall hits to the local old-age pensioners.
“Oh my God,” I say, as Artie hangs up the phone. “I need to go and tell Isaac what we know, because if Isaac didn’t murder Douglas…”
“And let’s assume for a moment that Lloyd did…” Marina adds, right there with my train of thought.
“Then Lloyd would never have inherited this house,” I breathe. “In fact, if he’d been found guilty, he’d most probably have been hung for it.”
“Which would obviously mean that his son wouldn’t have been born, nor his grandson, nor…”
“Donovan Scarborough wouldn’t even exist,” Artie gasps, finishing the theory forus.
We all go quiet and digest what this means.
“What a terrible injustice,” I say. “Not only did Isaac lose his family and his home, but his son and grandson lost out on inheriting this place too.”
It feels as if the jigsaw is slowly slotting itself into place in my head. I can understand now why Isaac’s distress is powerful enough to hold not only his own ghost here, but Lloyd’s too. So many unresolved questions, and really only one way to find a definitive answer.
“We have to find the knife,” I say, seized by new determination. “If we can prove who murdered Douglas, then maybe there’s a chance all of this can still be put right.”
“How?” Marina asks, confused.
Artie turns over the facts in his head. “You think the house might be in the wrong hands?”
I shrug, unsure. “I don’t know the ins and outs of property law, but I do know that the only way the Scarborough brothers are going to find peace is by sorting this mess out once and for all. Which is really why we’re here, so let’s concentrate on that.” I chew my index fingernail, damaging the oxblood polish as I think. “And who knows? Maybe it will also mean that Isaac’s grandson is the rightful owner of the house, or he might at least be entitled to half.”
