Fraser's Line (13 page)

‘Same here,’ said Fraser, ‘I know just how you feel where that’s concerned. I hope you will tell me the whole story soon.’

‘I promise, but now we must concentrate on Edie. Why don’t you try and tell me something of her life history, in a nutshell? A sort of potted version. Do you think you could? I think it would be easier to make sense of what I see when I look at her things.’

‘Alright – let me think. She was born in 1939 of Dutch parents, in Rotterdam. Her father was in the Dutch Army. Her Dutch name was Edda, and the surname was Bakker. As you might know, on 14
th
May, in 1940, the Germans bombed the city, killing many soldiers and also civilians. Edie’s father was one of the army’s casualties. By the time the tide of the war was turning Edie’s mother had contracted TB and as she feared she hadn’t long to live she was worried about her daughter’s future. I think there were no relatives who could help so she devised a courageous plan to get to England, where she believed Edie might have a better future.

‘She managed to persuade Dr Barnado’s organisation that Edie would very soon be entirely on her own and they agreed to take her into one of their homes. Her mother then went back to the Netherlands, where I think she died shortly afterwards. The name was changed to the anglicised form, Edie Baker, and she quickly picked up English, as young children do, speaking it like a native in no time. She got lucky a couple of years later because by the time she was eight years old she was adopted by Pat and Ernest, who already had a daughter, Beryl, and they wanted a sister for her, knowing they couldn’t have any more of their own.

‘They gave her a kindly, if unexciting, upbringing, and Edie forged a close relationship with Beryl, who’s been a real sister to her. She was fond of her new adoptive parents, who took seriously their responsibility to enable her to live independently. They believed her best route would be to qualify in secretarial work, as jobs were usually available in that line. Poor Edie really did not want to do that, as she longed to get into the fashion trade, no matter in how humble a capacity initially – but her parents held out, so she found herself at Pitman’s College for Shorthand and Typing. For good measure, to try and add a little sophistication, they also started her on a flower arranging course with Constance Spry. It soon became clear to Edie, however, that the method used there was to spear every single bloom with a piece of wire, and she thought that was hateful. She walked out and wouldn’t go back! But she did finish her Pitman’s course, and was able to get a job in London with an insurance firm.

Before long she had made friends with some of the other girls, and three of them decided to go into digs on their own. They had a great time, partying whenever they could, and meeting lots of young men. Then one day I saw her on the top of a bus, and I managed to get her to agree to a date – and that was that. Neither of us looked back, and a year later we were married. Along came first Sarah, and then Joanna, and the rest, as they say, is history.’

‘Were there ups and downs?’

‘Oh goodness, yes – life, for Edie, consisted of ups and downs. Much of the time she was bright, happy, full of fun – even excited, you might say. But I must admit she did sometimes seem to go down to the depths of despair. I couldn’t find out what was wrong – she wasn’t able to explain, only said that she felt “low”. Of course I worried about it a great deal to start with, but I learned that she would, given time, pick up and become bright and happy again – and when she did she would be sorry, and want to make it up to me – then we’d have a wonderful time. I think I also came round to realising that it wasn’t actually anything to do with me that had caused her such anguish, and that made me feel able to wait patiently for it to pass.’

‘What sort of things made her happiest of all?’

‘She loved the social situation – perhaps being at a party – she had all the men flocking round her, and she could captivate them with her liveliness – she never seemed at a loss as to how to entertain others with sparkling conversation. She’d come back glowing, feeling, I think, a great success.’

‘And what had the opposite effect?’

‘That’s harder to answer. I don’t really know. But sometimes she’d seem completely dissatisfied with herself – complain that her hair looked dreadful, or she was getting fat – then nothing I said would make her feel better – it was almost as though she was bent on hating herself, and she’d end up getting mad with me for trying to make her feel better. I inevitably put my foot in it.’

‘That’s given me a very good picture,’ said Angela thoughtfully. ‘In fact, you’ve done better than you realise. Well, perhaps we should get to work now. Where do you suggest we begin?’

‘She kept all her personal papers in the spare bedroom, in the bureau. I rather think it’s locked. Follow me.’

They went upstairs, and came to a halt in front of the bureau. It was the upright kind, with a closing lid, and three layers of drawers underneath. The first were half width drawers, and under them two full width ones, and each had its own lock. Fraser tried them all, and none would open.

‘I was pretty sure she kept it locked,’ said Fraser, ‘but I’ve no idea where the key is.’

‘Let’s think,’ Angela replied. ‘If you were her, and you wanted a secret place for the key, where would you put it?’

‘I can’t imagine wanting to lock anything away. Why would I do that? I shared everything with Edie.’

‘I think you’re going to have to accept that she functioned differently. It seems there were things she wanted to keep to herself. So what would she have done? Put it in a handbag, perhaps?’

‘I let the Charity lady take all those with her clothes. They were so personal, I didn’t want them around.’
‘Oh dear – are we going to have to go rushing round to the Charity shop?’

‘I don’t think so, because I did say please check inside the bags, and I gave them a box for any items they came across. They found a few things – coins, receipts, and so on – and left them in the box – and there was no key among them.’

‘Where else, then, do you think?’

‘It would need to be somewhere that I wouldn’t notice her putting it away, so obviously not anywhere in our bedroom. More likely, I suppose, to be in here as I rarely came here.’

Angela started looking round. She tried the bedside tables by the twin beds, but they were empty, apart from a box of tissues. Then her eyes lit on a small console table in the corner. It was rectangular, and had two small drawers in it, and several framed family pictures on top. The drawers contained a few pieces of costume jewellery and some early photos of the grandchildren – but that was all. Then she noticed that the top was hinged. She removed the pictures and lifted it up. The contents of the drawers were now on display. She was about to close it again when it occurred to her that the drawers were very shallow – the depth of the table would have allowed for deeper drawers. She pulled them right out, and saw underneath a secret compartment – a small, built-in box, with a sliding lid. She removed the lid – and inside was a key.

Fraser’s heart began to beat faster. He took the key and inserted it into the lock on the lid of the bureau, turned it, and heard the click. One by one he undid all the locks.

‘This is it,’ he said. ‘Now it begins.’ He sat down on the chair in the corner and put his head into his hands.

‘I have to ask,’ Angela said. ‘Are you sure you want me to do this?’

‘Yes,’ he groaned. ‘It must be done. Please go ahead.’

Angela drew up a chair and sat down. First she did a quick look through, and saw that the compartments at the top were neatly filled with various stationery items. The top drawer on the left had financial papers, the one on the right seemed to contain official documents, the middle drawer had photographs and some personal letters, and the bottom drawer contained travel brochures, and some other papers. She remarked on all this to Fraser, and then started at the top.

There were notelets, birthday cards, pads of writing paper, envelopes of different sizes, pens and pencils, and an address book. In the corner compartment there were some small cards, the front of which had pink hearts all over them. She opened the address book and flipped over the filled pages. This was not the time to tell Fraser that she had made a study of Graphology – interpreting character from handwriting – but as soon as she opened the book and saw the marked backward slant of the writing she knew it belonged to someone with a strong tie to the past. The long, wide loops of the lower zone also revealed a writer with an emotional nature. She began to comment out loud on what she was seeing, and asked, ‘Did Edie ever use a computer?’

‘No, she liked to handwrite everything, especially in the later years. When we were first married she had a small, portable Olivetti typewriter, which lasted for a long time. But when it eventually gave up, she decided she preferred to handwrite. She never was one for modern technology, and computers frightened her. It’s different for modern generations who grow up with them, and they’re second nature – we older folk who haven’t had any training can find them difficult.’

‘That’s very true – fortunately I did learn to use them, and find them a great asset, but lots of older people haven’t done so. I must say it’s all very neatly arranged. I’ll start on the first drawer, the financial one.’

This contained bank statements, old cheque books, and Angela found the latest one, half used. She did not feel comfortable abut looking into these, and asked Fraser if he wished to have them.

‘No, it’s as we said at the beginning, I want to use you as an objective observer who has no interest personally. You have my full permission to look into things and tell me what you see. She had a Savings Account, which I set up for her, and over the past twenty years or more I’ve paid in sums of money, whenever I had some spare. She was, of course, free to use it whenever she chose – she could transfer money from there to her Current Account, and she certainly didn’t have to ask permission. But I did ask her to think of it as a sort of insurance for old age, in case I suddenly dropped down dead. That’s rather ironical, isn’t it? So without knowing anything precisely, I would think there should be somewhere between £100,000 and £150,000 in her Savings Account.’

‘There’s a statement here, with the latest balance, which is given as £15,565.56.’

‘That must be the Current Account – and it shouldn’t have all that money in it, really.’
‘No, it’s the Savings Account – it says so at the top. I’ll find the Current Account documents.’ She delved further and came up with another set of statements. ‘That has £7,689.49 in it.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Fraser. ‘Where’s all that money gone? What do the details say?’

‘The Savings Account simply says that amounts have been transferred to the Current Account. The statements do not go back very far, but she seems to have been transferring money for a while. The Current Account shows some amounts taken out as cash, and a great many cheques drawn on the account. I’ll see if the cheque book stubs are here.’

She searched further, and found a brown envelope at the bottom of the drawer. Inside there were notes – a lot of them, totalling over £2,000. She saw the cheque book, and opened it. The stubs were filled in with amounts, but there were no payees’ names written in. An amount of £500 was paid out regularly on the first of each month, and this had been going on for the life of that cheque book. She couldn’t find any other old ones. She passed this information on.

Fraser thought for a bit. ‘The cash could have been for the car which Joanna claims her mother had promised to buy her. I don’t know why she would do that, but it shows her kindness – and certainly doesn’t justify Joanna’s outburst against her. Joanna also said that her mother had been giving her money. I wonder if those payments of £500 are what she meant. And what possible reason could there be for Edie to do that?’

‘Can you remember Joanna’s exact words when she talked about it?’

‘Well, she simply said that she’d been receiving money from her mother – I can’t think of anything else she said – and at that point I got mad and spoke loudly – I was asking her why on earth Edie would give her money – and that’s when she told me to be quiet. She said “Hush”.’

There was a pause – then they both said together, ‘Hush money!’

‘This gets worse,’ said Fraser. ‘I simply can’t imagine why Edie should have to pay Joanna to keep quiet – whatever can she have had to hide? And how could Joanna possibly do that to her mother?’

‘I’ll look in the other drawers,’ Angela said, feeling it was time they moved on. She looked in the drawer with official papers. She could see no sign of a will among the papers, but there were a number of certificates. Edie had taken classes at Adult Learning Centres, and had gained Certificates for completing courses on various subjects, mostly to do with Art, including one on Dutch artists, and there was also a cookery certificate. Surprisingly, one certificate showed she had taken a course on the history of the Second World War. In a separate brown envelope there was the marriage certificate, and in yet another brown envelope, which was carefully sealed, and was inside the first one, there was Edie’s birth certificate. Angela frowned.

‘What is it?’ asked Fraser.

‘I’ve just come across the birth certificate. You said Edie was originally Dutch?’

‘Yes, born in Rotterdam.’

‘Not according to this certificate. She was born in Berlin, her name was Edit, and the surname was Baecker. Her mother was Gertrude, and her father, Karl, was in the German military organisation.’