[Brenda & Effie 05] - Bride That Time Forgot Read online

  The Bride That Time Forgot

  PAUL MAGRS

  headline

  www.headline.co.uk

  Copyright © 2010 Paul Magrs

  The right of Paul Magrs to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2011

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 5946 2

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Brenda’s Christmas

  Effie’s Christmas

  Robert

  Brenda in Bloomsbury

  Two Brides

  Return from Qab

  For Deborah Moody

  Brenda’s Christmas

  Hello there!

  Winter in Whitby and here I am. Up to my eyeballs in hard work and intrigue. I’m out chopping logs in my back garden and I find it quite therapeutic. Thunk, thunk, thunk, making all this noise. Bits of mouldy bark flying about all over the place, and my breath puffing out in white clouds. Of course, then I notice that I’ve gone and cracked a couple of the paving stones I laid for my path just last spring. I don’t know my own strength.

  As I’m taking a breather, and sipping a mug of hot spicy tea, I catch a glimpse of Effie in a top window of her tall house next door. She’s looking down at me. Funny look on her face. Watching me and thinking I wouldn’t notice her up there. I go, ‘Yoo-hoo, Effie!’ Waving my axe around.

  Effie doesn’t wave back. Doesn’t even crack a smile. She backs away into the dark upper room till I can’t see her any more. Not very friendly at all. But Effie’s not been the same for a few weeks now. People have remarked on it. Sometimes it’s like she’s a completely different person. And only I know the real reason for that, don’t I? Only I know what’s really turned her head.

  But enough of that for now. We’re all pretending nothing has changed. We’re all carrying on as normal. Behaving as if nothing queer has come over the owner of the shabby antiques emporium next door to me.

  I think I’ve been able to put Effie’s moodiness out of my mind because I’ve been run off my feet. For some reason this winter season my little guest house is besieged by bookings, right through the approaching festive period as well. This is good news because for the past year or so I’m afraid I let things get a bit slack and slapdash. Oh, the place was always immaculate and tidy, of course, and I never gave my guests anything less than fantastic value and a superlative sojourn, but it was like my heart wasn’t quite in it. Days and weeks started slipping by with my B&B only half full. Sometimes it was even empty. I think I had too many distractions, if I’m honest.

  Now, however, I believe I’m back on track. Brenda’s B&B is open for business and filled up for fifty-two weeks of the year. Six double rooms furnished in olde-worlde splendour. Tasty, nourishing home cooking and good company. A chintzy oasis at the very heart of this small, antiquated fishing town on the breathtaking coast of north-east England.

  Now I’m sounding like my own adverts. I’ve made up a little brochure that I send out, blowing my own trumpet. My young friend Robert helped me with all the technical gubbins on his laptop and we had hundreds of the things printed up. I now also have a website, which is my little window on the world, Robert says. Or rather, it’s the window through which the whole world might peer and decide on a sudden whim to book themselves in for a visit.

  Robert came round with his new digital camera and we took some lovely snaps of my house, front and back, and all the rooms done up their nicest. He even tried to persuade me to have my own piccy on the website. ‘Give it the personal touch, Brenda,’ he urged, but I demurred at that one. Essentially I’m a very reserved person.

  Anyhow, I reckon I’m being proactive enough. The publicity certainly seems to be paying off, what with all the new bookings I’ve been getting. Soon I’ll be able to offer guests what I hope will be the best room in the house. Shortly I’ll be putting finishing touches to the Red Room, which is sumptuous and glamorous, and I’m half tempted to take it for myself.

  I’d certainly say my B&B was on the up-and-up. Perhaps it won’t be long before I’m able to afford a little help around the place. I could get someone in to lend a hand with the cleaning and the breakfasts some days. Give myself a little break. Robert warns me against overdoing things. Apparently I’m not getting any younger.

  I had to smile at that. For so many years it felt that the very opposite was true – that I wasn’t getting any older. I’ve been just the same for donkey’s years. However, the rigours of recent times have worn me out and I’ve even started to feel my age. Really! Well, some of it, anyway.

  I’ll not dwell for too long on the exhausting depredations of recent years that I have just alluded to. I would rather press on and tell you about more recent happenings. All I’ll say here is that it’s not just the general hard work of running my own business that has me frazzled. Nor is it the demands of a very active social life among the bright lights of Whitby. I’ve also had a hectic time of it with my love life, as it happens (Me! Me who was convinced all that malarkey was well behind her.) I had a little dalliance a while ago with an eminent Professor Cleavis, who was here on business of a fairly mysterious kind and happened to renew his acquaintance with me. It turned out he was a very old flame of mine, though you know what my memory is like – which is a good reason for me keeping a proper diary like this.

  Professor Cleavis whizzed off and left me in the lurch, just as he did the first time we met, decades ago. I felt quite gutted, as a matter of fact, and came to the conclusion that he was just here for the monsters.

  Oh, yes. The monsters.

  Something we’re famous for, here in Whitby. Sometimes you’d think the town was swarming with them. Ghosts, goblins, ghoulies, witches, mummies, anything you can think of. Real ones, fake ones, madly deluded ones. And even ones from different dimensional planes. They all seem to make their ghastly way here. Just lately we’ve been having a spate of what I call the Walkers. That’s supposedly dead bodies that get up and simply walk away from the morgue. But I’ll not elaborate on that ghastly topic just yet. . .

  There are several very good reasons for our town’s various infestations, which I shall go into presently. For now, I’ll just say that we are a kind of Mecca for the monstrous. It is my – and that snooty mare Effie’s – job to guard this little town, this bijou bastion, against supernatural terrors of all kinds.

  That keeps us pretty busy, as well as everything else that we get up to.

  Oh, I should say, I had another disappointment in love just recently. Just over a month ago, in fact. I’d had a rapprochement with my ex-fiancé after many years apart. I wasn’t keen on us joining forces again, but he was pretty persistent, as is his wont. Anyway, I caved in and
for almost a year we were happy again, being a couple. It seemed to be working out for us, believe it or not.

  The reason he’s not here now wasn’t the fault of either of us. Fate intervened. Terrible, wicked fate. I haven’t seen my Frank since this Hallowe’en just gone. If you’ll forgive me, I won’t go into the whys and wherefores of it all now. Suffice to say I’m on my tod again and I’ve probably got good reason to fling myself headlong into work and general busyness. I don’t relish dwelling on heartache and disaster, that was never my thing. I need to look forward – to Christmas. Fun, prosperity and the company of a few good friends. And beyond that, the New Year and everything it might bring. I want to be looking lively and feeling optimistic.

  I just wish that Effie was more like her old self. She seems so distant somehow. Not unfriendly, nor depressed. I’ve seen her like that. Many, many times. This is quite different.

  I am burning with the secret about Effie I have kept since Hallowe’en. I hate being the only one who knows for sure what’s awry with her.

  The thing is, I’m frightened. I’m in denial about what’s become of Effie Jacobs. I’m starting to doubt my own senses. I’m hoping that I’m wrong, but at the same time I know I’m not.

  Enough. Enough teasing. I need to do something about these suspicions of mine. I need to get my act in gear.

  Well, it’s late and I’ve worn myself out writing all this. I’ve not written so much in months. Quite nice, sitting up here in my cosy attic space with my bacon sandwiches and a tot or two of sherry. Nina Simone pounding away on the stereo. Putting all of my thoughts in order.

  It was Robert who said I should start keeping a diary again. Well, here I am, as instructed! Though I don’t know who this is even for. I certainly don’t want to go showing all my secrets to anybody any time soon.

  So here I am, anyway, whoever you are! Welcome back to my world!

  The next day.

  I had a bit of an afternoon off today. I saw off one load of guests and I had the place cleaned up in a flash. I don’t muck about. The new ones weren’t turning up until later, and so when Robert called in and said did I fancy a coffee in town, I said yes, that’d be lovely.

  Now, Robert’s about thirty and quite handsome, I think, but then I’m prejudiced. Him and me, we’ve been pals since my first year in Whitby. Back then he was an elf at the Christmas Hotel on the West Cliff. Like all the elvish staff there, in their figure-hugging felt outfits, he was in thrall to Mrs Claus, the hideous owner of that gaudy establishment. Well, I seem to recall that I’ve told the tale elsewhere, but Effie and I were investigating that horrifying hotel together. It was one of the first mysteries we tackled as a team.

  Now I think back, we made something of a hash of it, but that doesn’t matter. What’s important is that while old Effie and I were cementing our friendship and forming our bond over the solving of supernatural mysteries, another friendship was blossoming: between this lovely young gay man and yours truly. We’ve been good pals ever since – through Robert’s leaving the Christmas Hotel and his assuming responsibility for the Hotel Miramar, a rather downmarket (though profitable) joint further out of town.

  Robert was thrust into a management role with alacrity, following the disappearance of the Miramar’s owner, Sheila Manchu. (Actually, we all know what happened to Sheila Manchu. We just don’t like to talk about it.) Any road up, he’s enjoyed being in charge this past year, and as far as I can make out, he’s acquitted himself splendidly.

  Even all that weird business this Hallowe’en, with the cursed and haunted film crew staying at the Miramar, hardly put a dent in his confidence. In fact, he even seems to have profited by the publicity generated by the whole Get Thee Inside Me, Satan debacle. I’ve done pretty well out of the attendant hoo-ha myself, if I’m honest.

  It seems that the more macabre the mysteries, and the spookier the shenanigans, the more Whitby seems to draw ever-increasing numbers of curious visitors. I’m torn between enjoying the booming business and lamenting the loss of my quieter life, with fewer untoward goings-on. But there you go – life’s never perfect, is it?

  Today Robert is all muffled up against the wintry winds that come buffeting up from the harbour. He insists that I wrap up properly with my pashmina (Effie, last Christmas, elegant), woolly hat (self-knitted, hideous, to tell the truth): the whole shebang. He frets over me like I’m some infirm old biddy, but it hardly ever annoys me.

  ‘I’ve left Penny in charge at the front desk,’ he tells me, as I lock up and we exit at the cobbled side passage of my B&B. He’s right about the cold. The keen wind slices through me as we totter on to the steep main street. ‘Did I tell you? Penny’s staying right through Christmas, working at the Miramar. She’s not going home to her family.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good,’ I tell him. ‘I imagine you’ll need the help.’

  He nods enthusiastically. ‘She says that she’s found herself a new family here in Whitby, with us.’

  I smile at him. ‘We are, really, aren’t we? That’s what we are.’ Then I get a stab of guilt. Not a stab – a twinge, maybe. That’s because, right at that moment, we’re passing by the dusty front windows of Effie’s Antiques Emporium. Or junk shop, as I always call it, just to wind her up. It’s not been open for custom for days, as far as I can make out.

  ‘Give her a knock,’ Robert urges. ‘You know you want to.’ It’s good of him to suggest it, because although he and Effie get along better than they did at the start, he’d much rather it was just me and him going for coffee this afternoon. These days, on the rare occasions that she does venture out, Effie is wont to cast something of a pall.

  Anyway, it makes no odds either way. I give her front door knocker a good banging, but there’s no joy. She’s not deigning to answer. I sigh heavily and Robert looks concerned.

  ‘Is she still in a funny mood with everyone?’

  ‘Seems to be,’ I say, not wanting to go into it now. I turn to lead the way down the hill towards the harbour. The chill wind is really quite savage now, I’m glad I heeded Robert’s sartorial tip.

  Sotto voce he asks me: ‘Has Effie still got him in there with her? You-know-who?’

  I pull a face. ‘I suppose so. But you know what he’s like. Coming and going under cover of darkness. We’re none the wiser whether he’s there or not.’

  ‘She’s under his spell again.’ Robert shudders.

  Well, I don’t want to go into it this afternoon, quite frankly. Effie has made her coffin and she can lie in it – or do anything else she fancies in it. If I’ve warned her once about him, I’ve warned her a million times. She’s had at least one previous narrow escape from the leeching beggar and now she’s took up with him again. I don’t think he’s much of a catch. Skinny little old fella. Smells of fried black pudding. Still, she seems to see something in him.

  I hurry along into the mid-afternoon melee, bustling over the bridge across the harbour. Robert can tell I don’t feel like endlessly dissecting the doings of Effie, so he changes the subject. Such a sensitive, caring boy!

  By the time we arrive at my favourite café in the old town – The Walrus and the Carpenter on Church Street – Robert is telling me all the latest news on the Limbosine.

  ‘There’s been another one,’ he mouths, as we take our places at mine and Effie’s usual table, right in the bow window. ‘A middleaged fella from Staithes, picked up in the Limbosine on Sunday night. Subsequently given the most horrifying ride of his life. Later found dumped by the roadside, not a stitch on, gibbering like a fool. He was out in the countryside, by the Hole of Horcum, four miles out of town.’

  All I can offer is a lot of tutting and shaking of my head. At least he was alive, that bloke. Worse things have happened to people round here. Recently, too. What about the Walkers, eh? The waitress bobs up at my side and takes an order for coffee and walnut cake as I mull over Robert’s report. I’d already read about the latest case in last night’s edition of the local rag, The Willing Spirit. But I�
��ve noticed that Robert quite enjoys imparting these little nuggets of info to me in person. It’s as if he’s playing the role of my investigative assistant. Perhaps he thinks this is the part that Effie takes in happier times, when she is less preoccupied and pleased to be involved in my kind of cases. As it happens, though, she isn’t as helpful an assistant as all that. I usually know more about what’s going on, quicker than she does. Effie most often sits there munching on cake and slurping tea, with her beady eyes on all the other denizens of our favourite café. It’s rare, really, that her mind stays for very long on our latest case.

  ‘Brenda?’ Robert prompts, and I’m ashamed then because I realise I’ve been distracted as well, from the spooky matter at hand.

  ‘So, erm, who was it dubbed this mysterious vehicle “The Limbosine” anyway?’ I ask him. ‘Was it the press?’

  He shakes his head. ‘One of the first victims, remember? When they came back to their senses, days later. They said that the creepy chauffeur himself described his car in those terms.’

  I frown and wish our order would arrive. My tummy’s rumbling like crazy this afternoon because I skipped lunch. I was so carried away with scrubbing out my en suites with Vim.

  Right now I’m picturing someone driving one of those ludicrous and extravagantly long limos around and about the narrow winding lanes of Whitby and its environs. It’s a strange thing to do, in and of itself, let alone the rest of the funny abducting business. The Limbosine seems to single out lone victims and pull up beside them, very quietly. The window rolls down and a chauffeur in shades and a smart cap invites you to step inside his luxury interior. This is your night for a de luxe surprise. The night ride of your lifetime!