Free Whitby Vampyrrhic by Simon Clark Page B

finding locations for the filming.’
    â€˜By all means, use the hotel. And let me know if I can be of any help in helping you scout suitable places to shoot your picture.’
    â€˜Perhaps you could be in it?’ Sally gushed.
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜And your brother.’
    Again, a slip of the mask. ‘Ah, no, he’s not the acting sort.’
    â€˜Camera shy, Eleanor?’ Beth wanted the question to dig through the mask.
    Eleanor simply shrugged. ‘He’s not in the best of health, unfortunately. He stays in his own place. A little cottage in the hotel yard.’ She set her mug down. ‘So what’s your film about, ladies?’
    Beth told her, ‘It’s called
This Midnight Realm
. The government want to show the rest of the world how ordinary British families cope with day-to-day life in wartime. In this case, the families will be from Whitby.’
    â€˜And you’ll be playing these ordinary Whitby folk?’
    â€˜Yes.’ Sally grinned. ‘I’m playing a wayward daughter – she lives for dancing the night away.’
    Eleanor gave a long
Hmm.
‘I would be careful what you tell the locals. One thing they won’t take kindly to is what they see as pampered actors and actresses from London pretending to be them.’
    â€˜I’m not from London,’ Sally protested. ‘I’m from Wakefield, and that’s Yorkshire, too, like Whitby.’
    â€˜Nevertheless. I’d keep the film’s plot a secret, if you can, otherwise the locals will think you’re making fun of them. Then, believe me, they’ll turn hostile.’
    â€˜We’ll deal with it,’ Beth told her.
    â€˜Good, because once they turn nasty on you they’ll try and wreck your filming.’
    â€˜We saw some of the hostility tonight,’ Beth said.
    â€˜Ah, Mrs Brady and her daughter.’
    Sally exclaimed, ‘The poor girl’s teeth. They looked so strange. I mean . . . they were really tiny in her mouth. Like a baby’s milk teeth. And I’ve never seen teeth as white as that before.’
    â€˜Ah . . .’ Eleanor collected the mugs on to the tray. ‘When Victoria was eighteen she got some kind of fever. She never fully recovered. There was an outbreak of it in the town about twenty years ago.’
    Beth raised an eyebrow. ‘Twenty years ago? But Victoria didn’t look much more than twenty herself.’
    Another siren sounded. This one differed to the rising and falling cry that warned of imminent attack. The alert started with a very low note that rose into a sustained call across the town.
    â€˜There goes the all clear.’ Eleanor clapped her hands together. ‘I’ll get you to your rooms.’
    Sally checked her watch. ‘Two o’clock in the morning. At least we should be able to get a few hours’ sleep. God willing.’

Four
    Mary Tinskell needed to escape her husband. If only she could put on her best coat, then walk smartly down to the station and board a train that would take her from him and his wearying obsession. Harry played darts. Only, it went beyond that. Those diminutive arrows were his life. Once she, Mary, had been his life, and the children, of course. But now darts, darts, darts. That’s all he ever thought about, talked about and probably dreamt about. Oh, he played well, no doubting that. Harry challenged men in the local pubs. Invariably, he won the wagers of beer, which pleased him no end.
    â€˜I went out with exactly the same money I came back with,’ was his proud boast (accompanied by waves of beery breath).
    Only, it had reached the point where he’d come home, after the pub had closed, to practise darts for hours in the front parlour of their cottage on Henrietta Street. That monotonous thud-thud-thud of darts hitting the board at gone two in the morning had driven Mary outside in desperation. She had to escape that sound; the