When Gabriel Price (or perhaps Ronnie Butler) finally appeared, the police said they were charging him with an arson attack.
‘The ironing board in Miss Claybourne’s front room?’ said Miss Ambrose, which led to a ten-minute conversation with the policemen and a lot of confusion about health and safety.
No, no, they said. This was an incident dating from 1953. A house fire. Someone was killed.
Simon’s mouth opened very slightly.
Ronnie Butler didn’t even skip a beat. He simply straightened his trilby and smiled. He was just about to leave when Miss Claybourne burst through the double doors, spilling over with shouting and hysteria, and carrying what looked like pieces of torn sheet music.
‘Finally,’ she said. ‘Finally someone listened.’
‘Miss Claybourne. Florence …’ Miss Ambrose’s words did nothing to alter the situation, and the first policeman shepherded Ronnie Butler out of the room and into the car park, because it looked as though Florence might launch herself towards him at any moment.
‘He pushed him in,’ she shouted after them. ‘HE PUSHED HIM IN.’
‘No one pushed anyone anywhere.’ Miss Ambrose lowered Florence into a seat and crouched beside her. ‘This is to do with a fire, although I don’t know any more details.’
‘A fire?’ Florence became very still. ‘Which fire?’
Miss Ambrose looked up at the second policeman, who looked at his colleague disappearing from the room and coughed.
‘From a long time ago, from the 1950s. The fire brigade got everybody out, except one.’
Simon started to say something, but changed his mind.
‘How can you possibly connect someone with it after all this time?’ said Miss Ambrose.
‘Oh, Ronnie Butler was a suspect back then. The accelerant was found at his property.’
‘Accelerant?’ said Miss Ambrose.
‘Petrol.’ Simon shuffled his feet. ‘That’s what people usually use. Although it would have still been rationed in 1953.’
The policeman looked over at him. He didn’t look away for quite a long time.
‘I do a lot of reading,’ said Simon. ‘It’s one of my hobbies.’
‘Witnesses also placed Ronnie Butler at the scene.’
Simon watched Florence. She looked as though someone had pressed a pause button. The hysteria was still there, it just seemed to be held in the moment, somewhere behind her eyes and in the lines that gathered around her mouth.
‘Ronnie started the fire?’ she said. ‘It was Ronnie, not me?’
The policeman frowned at her.
‘So why on earth wasn’t he arrested sixty years ago?’ said Miss Ambrose.
The policeman coughed again and looked at his notebook. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘for all intents and purposes, he was dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘Drowned,’ said the policeman. ‘Or at least, that’s what we were led to believe.’
‘Washed up on Langley Beach,’ Florence whispered. ‘The fish ate most of him. My Fred would have been so proud.’
Miss Ambrose glanced at Florence and looked back at the policeman. ‘So how did you trace him here, and why is he calling himself Gabriel Price?’
‘He came to our attention after he was mugged, and we noticed the name Gabriel Price was still on the Missing Persons Register. We questioned him, and something just didn’t feel right.’
‘No,’ said Miss Ambrose. ‘It didn’t feel right here either.’
‘We’ve had a number of phone calls, including one from a retired detective. Perhaps individually they wouldn’t have meant much, but put together … plus, there was some interesting information put forward by North Yorkshire Police. He had a motive, too. He’s still a suspect in a hit and run.’
‘A hit and run?’ Miss Ambrose saucered her eyes.
The policeman looked at his notes again. ‘Also from the 1950s. A young woman was killed by a car, and no one was ever charged. Big investigation. Lots of hearsay, but unfortunately nothing could be proved.’
‘But you think Gabri— Ronnie Butler is responsible?’
‘Almost certainly,’ said the policeman. ‘That’s why he made the arson attack a short while afterwards. He believed there were witnesses in the house.’
‘Belt and braces,’ said Florence. ‘He knew I always stayed over at Elsie’s after the dance. It was me he was trying to get rid of, just in case they eventually caught up with him after all.’
The policeman frowned again, but he didn’t say anything and returned to Miss Ambrose’s questions. ‘We thought we could prove that one.’
‘But he wasn’t charged, because you presumed he’d drowned?’
‘Exactly. A body we believed was him washed up a few weeks later. No formal identification of course, not in those days, but the height, build and age matched, and when we traced back along the estuary, we found Ronnie’s ID card on the river bank. With no one else reported missing, we assumed the body was his and the case against him drifted into nothing.’
‘Did no one think the body might be Gabriel Price’s?’ said Miss Ambrose.
‘Gabriel’s wife didn’t go to the police for some months, because she just assumed her husband was still on the road. When she finally did try to file a report, up in Yorkshire, there was no reason to connect him with a body washed up all the way down here.’
‘Until Ronnie was mugged,’ said Florence. ‘And a small act of kindness put Gabriel Price’s name on the front page of all the newspapers.’
‘Which is why he came looking for anyone who might be able to identify him. He wanted to frighten them off. Discredit them.’ The policeman closed his notebook.
‘But you can prove it’s him now?’ said Miss Ambrose.
‘We think we’ve got a good chance. Especially with the dental records.’
‘Dental records?’ said Miss Ambrose.
The policeman nodded at the filing cabinet. ‘He had a set taken in his twenties as well. Got into a fight.’ He did a little policeman laugh. ‘Fortunately for us.’
‘He needs an X-ray and stitches. My father will take him,’ Florence said, although Simon wasn’t sure who she was talking to.
He looked at Miss Ambrose. She had her hand to her mouth.
Everyone watched from the door as Ronnie walked across the car park. At first, it was strange to think of him as Ronnie and not Gabriel, but it was amazing how quickly you got used to it. Perhaps a name didn’t really mean much at all, Simon thought. Perhaps it was just another thing to carry around, like your date of birth and your national insurance number. Perhaps what really made you you, was where you were now, where you wanted to be, and how you decided to get there.
It was whisper-quiet as Ronnie got into the car. He didn’t seem to be bothered about being arrested, which Simon found very strange. Ronnie even started whistling, although it wasn’t a tune that Simon recognised.
‘Ronnie started the fire. Ronnie.’
It was all Florence had said since the police drove away. She couldn’t be tempted on to any other subject, no matter how much everyone tried. Miss Ambrose got her a glass of water, and then a small sherry, but none of it made any difference.
‘He was worried I’d change my mind, and tell the police,’ she said. ‘He knew I stayed over at Elsie’s every Saturday night, and he wanted me gone.’
‘She’s making no sense,’ said Miss Ambrose. ‘What does she mean, “tell the police”?’
Simon shrugged and knelt on the floor. ‘That’s a nasty bruise you’ve got on your ankle, Florence. Did you have a bit of a stumble? It needs a compress, that does.’
He nodded at Gloria, who disappeared into the kitchens.
Florence leaned forward. ‘Ronnie started the fire,’ she said. ‘All these years, I thought it was my fault, and it was him all along.’
‘I know he did, Flo. But it’s nothing to do with you. Nothing to worry about.’ Simon held on to her hand.
‘I need to let Elsie know. I need to tell her.’
Miss Ambrose looked at Simon, and she gave a small shrug.
‘What have you done with her? Where is she?’ Florence tried to stand up, but she seemed to change her mind. ‘You’ve sent her to Greenbank, haven’t you? Whilst my back was turned?’
Simon looked at Miss Ambrose, and tried to find some guidance in her face.