01 - Memories of the Dead by Evelyn James

afield, surely?”
    “And when she finally decided
on paying the 5d the fuss she made because the maps she looked at didn’t cover
all the countryside and villages around the town as she wanted. I said to
meself, she wants an atlas not a map, way she goes on.”
    Clara smiled as her mind
relaxed and tuned into the everyday matters that didn’t involve death which
Annie relayed. Even the headache seemed to be lifting.
    “Thick as thieves with that
little Elaine as works for Mrs Wilton, she is. I had meant to say to you miss,
about it. Thought perhaps you could mention it to Mrs Wilton before that girl
turns Elaine’s head with all her talk about what she would do if she had a
spare bit of money. Fancies herself a lady that one.”
    “See what I miss when I don’t
go out?” Tommy complained with a devilish smile.
    “Tsk, Thomas Fitzgerald, I
only think of your health.” Annie pouted.
    “And very glad I am for it too,
but I get fed up being cooped indoors.”
    “Well the weather is about to
turn and then you can be a gad-about again.” Said Annie, trying to press a
disintegrating sprout onto her fork, “Or so the boy who works for Mr Bankes
tells me.”
    “Mr Bankes?” Clara said
sharply.
    “The photographer in the high
street. Bit experimental, or so I hear, very keen on ‘natural light’ apparently
for his pictures, which is why he keeps such a close watch on the weather, so
he can predict when to take the best portraits or something. So his errand boy
says, I think its half nonsense the lad makes up, he reckons Mr Bankes gets his
forecasts from a man in London!”
    The conversation reminded
Clara of a job she had to do the next day which she wasn’t looking forward to. Annie
was clearing away the dinner plates and talking about pudding, but Clara
protested her headache and said she was going to bed early.
    Upstairs she lay in her dark
room, her mind flicking from the happy noise of Annie and Tommy laughing
downstairs to the visit she must pay to Bankes the next day, and his crime
scene photos.
     

Chapter Seven
     
    Bankes photography stood between a bakers and a butchers,
which had created an oddly pleasing rhyme in Clara’s head and made her wish
Oliver had been a candlestick maker to fit in with his neighbours.
    It was a neat, but not grand
shop, painted dark green with the name picked out in gold and the window
blocked with thick black drapes like an undertakers. Though, instead of a
display of coffins or memorial stones, Bankes had several large family group
shots and portraits mounted on easels. A quick glance certainly would have
given no notion of the darker side of Oliver’s work.
    Clara pushed open the heavy
door and stood in a small reception that smelt faintly of chemicals. There was a
counter with a bell on it. She waited a moment then rang it.
    “Coming.” A harassed looking
woman with her hair all at odds appeared from a side door, “Are you a client?”
    “Not as such, but Mr Bankes is
expecting me.”
    “Can I take your name, dear?”
The woman reached out for a scrap of paper with one hand and a pair of glasses
with the other, “Memory like a sieve, so I write everything down. I blame
working around these fumes all day. Right, who should I say is calling?”
    “Miss Clara Fitzgerald.”
    “I’ll tell him straight away,
but he’ll be a moment. The cat has knocked a load of bottles all over, yet
again. Gone on the floor and on Mr Bankes, poor soul. Some of them chemicals
can scald you know. But won’t have a word said against that cat. Just wait
here, won’t you?”
    The woman bustled off again
and Clara took to surveying the many photographs lining the walls. Gentlemen
stared out at her with their thick moustaches and elegant ladies in heavy
dresses scowled, while alongside them more modern artistic images of girls in
cloche hats and shapeless dresses displayed the changing times and fashions.
    “Some of those are my
father’s.”
    Clara jumped at the unexpected
appearance