A Woman Unknown

Acknowledgements

‘Most men were gentlemen enough to go through the farce of adultery with “a woman unknown” and thus give their wives grounds for divorcing them.’

The Long Weekend, Robert Graves and Alan Hodge

The Times

Monday, September 3, 1923

Mr Everett Roderick Runcie has died at the age of forty-seven. Mr Runcie, younger brother of the third Baron Kirkley and a director of Kirkley Bank, had returned to Yorkshire for the start of the grouse shooting season.

A well-known, convivial figure, Mr Runcie was seen in public last Wednesday, at the Ebor Handicap, where he appeared to be in rude health and good spirits, though not enjoying a winning streak.

A charismatic and energetic character, and a patron of the arts, Mr Runcie was unafraid of adventurous schemes. He recently excited enthusiasm among certain investors with his championing of the Big G mine, Tasmania, and the Bechuanaland Peanut Farm Company.

Mr Runcie married Miss Philippa Emerson, only daughter of the American chain store magnate, in 1918. They divided their time between Cavendish Square, London, and Kirkley Hall, Yorkshire.

The Coroner has ordered an inquest.

Ten days earlier

My name is Kate Shackleton. I am a private investigator, drawn to the work almost accidentally through trying to discover what happened to my husband, Gerald, last seen towards the end of the Great War. I received the usual telegram: missing presumed dead. Part of me has gone on hoping he will still be alive. After five years, hopes dim, but occasionally some odd story from the newspapers, or a Chinese whisper of survival, wafts hope to life.

At half past six on an August evening, I was picking out a new tune on the piano, and deciding it was time to send for the tuner, when I heard a familiar rat-a-tat-tat at the backdoor. I closed the piano lid. My ex-policeman assistant does not usually sidle up to the back door in his size tens. He is a front door person.

Walking along the hall, I wondered what brought him here at a time when he would usually be at home with his wife, Rosie, and their children.

Mr Sykes pressed his nose against the kitchen window. I opened the door and stood aside to let him in.

He whipped off his trilby. ‘Sorry to call out of the blue, Mrs Shackleton. I’d just sat down for my tea when someone turned up on my doorstep in a right state of agitation, asking for our help. Told him I couldn’t make any promises till I’d talked to you.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Mr Cyril Fitzpatrick.’ He spoke the name meaningfully in his this-could-spell-trouble voice.

‘And what have you done with Mr Fitzpatrick?’

‘He’s sitting on your front wall. I told him to wait there while I spoke to you.’

‘What does Mr Fitzpatrick want?’ I led the way into the dining room that doubles as my office.

‘He’s concerned about his wife. What she might be up to behind his back.’ Sykes parked his trilby on top of the Remington typewriter. ‘I’ll feel responsible if Mrs Fitzpatrick has gone dancing down the wrong path. You remember how we got her out of trouble last year?’

I liked his royal ‘we’. Sykes had been on store detective duty in Marshalls when he spotted Mrs Fitzpatrick slipping a bottle of perfume into her shopping bag. He challenged her. She burst into tears. He led the distressed damsel to the manager’s office. She explained that only the day before she had called the doctor to her mother and learned that there was no hope. The tissue paper-wrapped bought-and-paid-for length of flannelette was to make a nightdress for her mother. Mrs Fitzpatrick had been preoccupied by bad news, leading her to be absent-minded about the expensive perfume.

Sykes had felt sure she was honest. I guessed that she must be young and good looking.

‘Let me guess. Mr Fitzpatrick suspects his wife is shoplifting again?’

Sykes sighed. ‘He claims she’s up to something, and he doesn’t know what. Says he’s at his wits’ end.’

‘If every wits-end husband and wife came a-calling, they’d queue all the way to Woodhouse Moor.’

‘That’s as may be. But if she is shoplifting, letting her off won’t do my reputation any good.’

‘You sit down. I’ll let Mr Fitzpatrick in.’ I turned back at the dining room door. ‘Is there anything I need to know before we see him?’

Sykes shook his head. ‘He’ll have plenty to say for himself.’

Sykes had met both Mr and Mrs Fitzpatrick. I had met neither.

As I looked at the man who stood inches from my front step, gazing at me expectantly, a frisson of