Ghostly Images Read Free

matter...”
    “Tell me!” John nudged David in the arm. He sighed and gave in.
    “Elizabeth said that she was a dead woman. Just before I called, she’d received an anonymous note saying she would soon be dead. She asked if I’d sent it.”
    John glanced at the bite marks on the back of his hand while taking in this revelation. “We should have gone to the police.”
    “Mrs Jenkins insists we remain silent.”
    “We could persuade her to change her mind. Especially now you’ve mentioned the threatening note she’d received. Nothing was said in the newspaper about her receiving anything like that.”
    “But I’ll be under suspicion…and perhaps you too.”
    John blinked with realisation. “When you put it that way, Mrs Jenkins could be under suspicion as well.”
    David drummed his fingers on the wall. He did not want to dwell any longer on the troubling matter of Elizabeth Betts. “Reflections on the water would make an interesting photograph.”
    “What other photographs have you taken with the Tate camera?”
    David sighed, wondering if the sole topic of conversation for the rest of the day would be his camera. “You know the answer to that question already. The one of the kitten had no unusual features. Your portrait came out well, didn’t it?” For both images David used the faster gelatin-bromide process and a much shorter exposure time of merely one-second.
    “Reasonable, I suppose.”
    David saw John look to the ground as if inspecting his shoelaces. John never appreciated any photograph of himself, conscious, no doubt, of his excess weight.
    “Have you taken any other photographs with the camera?”
    “Only one other…,” admitted David sheepishly as he saw John raise his eyebrows. He thought about changing the topic but knew John would not back down. “On the 10 th August...I had to take a photograph of Mr Jenkins, minutes before he died.”
    John stepped back and glared at him. “I was out that day! Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
    “You’re right. I should have mentioned it to you,” David apologised. “Mrs Jenkins ranted and screamed at me until I gave in. I deliberately left the plate in the studio.”
    “Has she said anything about developing the plate?”
    “No. She will have come to her senses.”
    John sighed. “Even if she changes her mind, it’ll be too late now. Those bankruptcy vultures have taken over the premises.”
    “Mrs Jenkins insisted that her husband shouldn’t be disturbed by the flash of magnesium while he was sleeping so I had to take a long exposure for seven seconds using gelatin-bromide—in gaslight.”
    “There’s little chance of obtaining any worthwhile image, then.”
    David nodded. “Money worries sent Mr Jenkins to his grave. He’s better off dead.”
    “You shouldn’t say that,” scolded John.
    “At least he will not suffer the humiliating sight of creditors putting their sweaty palms on his precious cameras and equipment.”
    When John didn’t reply, David looked up at a newspaper swirling in the wind near the upper windows of Thompson’s, the bakers. Above that, plumes of chimney smoke floated above the red pantile rooftops of Grape Lane. Mr Jenkins had nurtured David’s interest in science and chemistry by buying him books to aid his learning. David wished his father could have been more like his late employer.
    The two men resumed walking, taking a right turn down Grape Lane and approaching The Raffled Anchor Inn. The tavern had a commanding position overlooking the River Esk, but David never stepped inside the place and always walked past the tavern quickly, particularly late at night. David blamed Mr Jenkins and his many exaggerated and lurid tales of it being a notorious area for press-gangs some eighty years earlier.
    Ghauts, the narrow, cobbled alleys leading from a main street right up to the water’s edge, were a common sight in Whitby. Perhaps the best known of all was Tin Ghaut located just off Grape Lane. Mr