17. He Stole a Life

REMEMBERING REBECCA - Part 17

Candice Kristen had, according to the records, been born in 18, Poplar Grove and had lived there all her life.

Those same records contained an almost hidden subtext which may well have explained why she remained a single and lonely spinster all her adult life. Born to Amy and Denis Kristen who themselves were immigrants and struggled with English, the language of their chosen home, the one they had fled to as refugees after the calamitous upheavals of the second world war, Candice had always shown personal insecurity and the need to cling to others, yet to happily remain subordinate to her peers.

The most important person in her life had been Rebecca Rowbotham, who had given her a kind of stability due to Rebecca’s own need to be the subject of a gentle variety of hero worship. With this in mind, they did become truly close friends albeit because they were dependant on each other, though for very different reasons.

This was all that Detective Inspector Baur could glean from the sources discovered by Detective Constable Robinson as she thumbed through her junior officer’s notes while the other drove the car, but it gave her some sort of understanding why Candice still lived in the family home into which she had been born a little over seventy years earlier.

“I get the impression she’s lived a lonely life,” she remarked to Sheila.

“Probably, but it seems she’s finally making a change,” Sheila told her, “if you look at the last page of my notes you’ll see something that might surprise you.”

Rosie ruffled through the few sheets of notes until she reached the end.

“This is a change in fortune!” she said, “so she’s in her seventies and planning a life of married bliss?”

“And to one of the four on my list,” pointed out Sheila, “Mr Styles, Samuel, is a retired schoolmaster, his second career after following in hie own father’s footsteps and joining the army, where he had an exemplary record until he was injured in the Falklands war and invalided out. Once he recovered his health he retrained as a teacher and spent the last dozen or so years before retirement working at the Primary school where our little group went sixty years ago.”

“Coincidence on top of coincidence,” breathed Rosie, “and you say the two of them are planning to get married?”

“There was a notice in the Gazette a few months ago,” said Sheila, “I only came upon it by chance when I put a search for Candice in the computer and it came up with a notice in the personal ads column.”

“Well, well, well,” murmured Rosie, “and by the look of it we’re on Poplar Grove already. Look: over there, number eighteen.”

It must have been Candice Kristen who opened the door. A rather dowdy and untidy elderly lady who leaned heavily on a walking stick even when she was standing still, she looked at Rosie inquisitively.

“I know who you are,” she said, her voice uncertain, wavering, and her attitude nervous, “you’re that policewoman looking into, poor Amelia and Betsy’s tragic deaths. I’ve seen you about.”

“That’s why we’re here, Miss Kristen,” said Rosie, “do you think we could have a few words with you?”

“What about?” demanded the other, nervously, “I’ve not done anything to them! I wouldn’t hurt them!”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” replied Rosie, “we’re perfectly sure of that! But we’re speaking to everyone who was at Brumpton Primary school sixty years ago. There might be a connection even though sixty years is a very long time.”

“To hold a grudge, you mean?” wavered Candice.

“Possibly,” agreed Rosie.

The older woman looked at her for a moment, possibly deciding how much she could say and she must have concluded that she could trust Rosie.

“You should have been round here back then,” she said, “at our school. It was a good school, you know, we were taught well and even the headmistress was even handed in that her lad was one of us and she gave him as many thrashings when he was bad as she’d give anyone.”

“I believe punishment could be harsh in the past,” put in Sheila.

“Didn’t do us any harm and we learned right from wrong,” sighed Candice. “At least, most of us did! Then there was one day, the worst day of my life, the day that Rebecca died.” She went silent after saying that, and Rosie thought there the catch of a tear in her voice.

“Rebecca Rowbotham?” she asked, encouraging Candice to say more.

The elderly woman nodded. “She was the best friend a girl could have,” she mumbled, “my life changed when she died, and never went right after that. In a way I suppose I loved her, like kids who’re best friends might love their pals. But when she was taken from me a light went out, and it was never relit. I sometimes pop into the cemetery even these days, all these years after, and stand for a while talking to Rebecca. And, in my head, she talks back, like she always did.”

“I understand,” said Sheila quietly, “I had a friend way back when I was a lot younger than I am now, and she got ill and passed away. Cancer it was, cruel, cruel cancer, and she wouldn’t have even been ten.”

“I’m sorry,” whispered Candice.

“It’s all water under the bridge now,” sighed Sheila.

“That’s been the trouble with me, “there’s no bridge in sight, not since poor Rebecca died, and never will be.”

“Were you there when it happened?” asked Rosie.

Candice nodded, then shook her head.

“It was the exam day, you know, the eleven plus, and there was only our class in the playground. We used to do handstands, did us girls, you know, against the brick wall of the school, you know, tucking our skirts into the elastic of our knickers, and just round the corner was the place where Rebecca breathed her last. They said there was a strange man there, but I never saw him. But there was the boy, the headmistress’s boy, the Richard Roper boy.”

“Did you like him?” asked |Sheila.

“What? Snooty Roper? Nobody liked him! Not even his mother! And you know what, now you’ve made me think about it there can’t have been a beating heart as liked that kid!”

“Why do you mention him?” asked Rosie?

“Why? You ask me why? Ain’t it plain as the nose on your face? I mention him because… because… because…”

“Yes, because?” asked Rosie gently.

“Because he stole my life!” she shouted, “and if there’d been coppers like you around it might have been sorted once and for all!”

© Peter Rogerson, 22.01.21