The spaceman in the photograph

“I have a new case for you, Mr Peters,” Ms Lemann passed me a slim file.

I’d given up trying to get her to call me Neil. Ever the professional secretary, she’d actually looked like she was eating a lemon when I invited her to be more informal. Now I couldn’t even recall her first name.

“New?” I said, realising what she had said.

New was not a word used much in this office. The mysteries I usually investigate date back at least a hundred years if not more. My most recent case had been to solve the previously unfathomable dancing bodies case when an entire village danced themselves to death in the 1500s. Let’s just say, concoctions of hemlock and an over generous hand with the mead may well have contributed to the fatalities.

I’ve always been a history enthusiast, and was raised on a diet of Agatha Christie and Inspector Morse mysteries, so it’s no surprise that I ended up working here in the Historical Mysteries department of Oxford University.

“Recent,” Ms Lemann clarified. “Some witnesses may still be alive.”

Now, that was tempting. Although I loved a good mystery, I had to admit that when I solved historical cases, I could only prove my answer to a reasonable degree. My reputation seemed somewhat in question, judging by recent reviews of my historical YouTube channel. What I needed was a career boost and live witnesses to work with might just offer me the chance.

“I’ll take it,” I said, enthusiastically. Ms Lemann nodded and disappeared to the pile of post which she disinterestedly sorted into three piles; the yes pile, the possible if work runs dry pile and the don’t be ridiculous pile, which she consigned to the bin. I trusted her judgement implicitly, so if she brought a case specifically to my attention, I sat up and took interest.

At first sight, I was disappointed. There was a photograph of a young girl sitting in a meadow of flowers in the North of England; a leaflet describing the workings and lighting apertures of a Kodak camera, and handwritten testimonies from 1964.

I looked up at Ms Lemann doubtfully but thought better than to question her as her eyebrows deepened in warning above a set of steely, translucent eyes. I could still hear the whip of her response burning my ears when I had last dared to question her reasoning.

So, I read on.

According to a newspaper clipping from 1964, Mr John Barrowly had taken the photograph of his teenage daughter that summer, when out for a day trip with his wife, Susan, and daughter Elspeth. He was a keen photographer and had taken his time to set up the scene, insisting that his wife stayed out of view.

I turned my attention to the black and white photograph. The child, Elspeth, sat in a field, a forced smile on her thin face as she waited for her father to finally be satisfied. She was wearing a patterned dress that appeared too small for her developing body. Her short hair was held back by a large hairband. So far, so normal.

I flicked to John Barrowly’s statement. He took the film into his local Kodak shop, where the proprietor knew him. When John went back to pick up the photos, the proprietor congratulated him on excellent close-ups of his daughter, but it was a shame the other figure had got in the way.

“What other figure?” John had asked. In one of the photographs, in the background behind Elspeth, stood a tall figure illuminated in light. It appeared as if they were facing away from the scene and their head appeared to be in some kind of helmet.

“Did you take a spaceman with you?” the proprietor joked.

“But no-one else was there!” John said.

I looked at Ms Lemann and decided to take my chances. “Not a fake?”

Her fingers paused on the keyboard.

“Not according to Mr Barrowly or the camera shop proprietor, Jacqueline Corrall.”

I nodded, impressed how much information Ms Lemann could gather, after a quick perusal of files. “But photographs can be faked,” I ventured. “I mean, look at the fairies in the garden photographs back in 1917. Those girls just used paper cutouts, but people wanted to believe in them.”

“If you read the files thoroughly, Mr Peters, you’ll notice that Kodak carried out a thorough investigation and decreed the photograph as genuine.”

“No tampering?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Ok, so, someone else got in the shot then.” I looked at the photograph. “That could be Barrowly’s wife. What was her name?”

“Susan,” Ms Lemann replied. “According to her testimony, which you’ll find behind Mr Barrowly’s…” she waited while I found the correct paper. “She did not dare interfere with her husband’s viewpoint and waited behind him.”

“Sounds like he was a bit of a monster, this John Barrowly.”

“What makes you think so?” Ms Lemann asked, her tone crisp. “I see no evidence of that.”

Amazed, I saw a spot of colour invade her cheeks. What on Earth had I done to rattle that usually impassive cage?

“Returning to first impressions,” I blustered. “There appears to be a figure behind the child. It is wearing an astronaut costume, along with a helmet. However, that could be an illusion. I really don’t see much to interest me here.”

“I’m sending you a link,” she said and tapped at her keyboard. I opened my emails and found an investigative article, clearly based around hype and speculation. I quickly read past the suspicions of Barrowly, the confirmation from Kodak and the proposal that this could well have been a UFO sighting.

I sighed. How many UFO sightings had I been offered? I was surprised Ms Lemann thought I would be interested. I looked at her disapprovingly but then quickly looked back at the screen as I felt her getting ready to bite. There must be something here to grab her interest, I thought.

I continued reading the article which included a statement from John Barrowly. He had told his drinking buddies about the photograph and next thing he knew; he and the photograph were splashed on the front page of his local newspaper and then in the national newspapers. I could only envy the viral nature of his story. Social media had been decidedly unimpressed with my clever denouements recently.

“So, he was famous for fifteen minutes. I see no case to be solved here, Ms Lemann. A trick of the light, a strange fluke, Susan Barrowly losing her head and running across the field in a fit of pique … who cares?”

“The Ministry of defence for a start,” Ms Lemann snapped. “The report is in the file, Mr Peters.”

“The Ministry of … what?” I shuffled the papers to find the official symbol on top of a typewritten report. What could the MOD have been doing getting involved in this?

I flicked back to John Barrowly’s statement, becoming increasingly uneasy. He claimed that a few weeks after the photograph was taken, two men in dark clothing knocked on the door. They were keen to find out exactly what had occurred that day and, without invitation, they entered and examined his camera and photographs.

“I thought the police had asked them to come,” his statement explains. “I was worried someone was playing tricks on me. The men asked lots of questions, and it felt strange. My Elspeth was scared to death when they spoke to her. Then they disappeared.”

I looked at the MOD report. Much had been redacted, yet there were references to other worldwide, unexplained incidents that summer, all involving unusual sightings.

“UFOs? Really?” I tutted.

“Remember, this was 1964, Mr Peters,” Ms Lemann reminded me. “Space was of huge interest and apparent sightings of aliens were common.”

I looked again at John Barrowly’s statement. “Poor Elspeth, she must have been terrified.” Ms Lemann twitched and I looked up in surprise. “Did you say something, Ms Lemann?”

“There is a school report in the file, Mr Peters.”

I cast my eyes over a depressing indictment of 1960s British schooling. Reading between the lines, Elspeth, previously a bright and willing pupil, had become unable to concentrate on her work. There was talk of ‘unfortunate incidents,’ which I interpreted as bullying by other teenagers. I could imagine the merciless taunts about astronauts, and from the report, Elspeth had grown increasingly morose and isolated. She had begun talking to herself and no longer cared about schoolwork. The school, rather than reacting with concern, had complained of her ‘poor attitude’ and suggested a change in educational venue.

“Poor girl,” I muttered. “Well, if this was a complicated hoax by John Barrowly, I hope he feels guilty.”

“John Barrowly died in 1974,” Ms Lemann informed me acidly.

“Oh. Hang on, you said that there might be witnesses.”

“Susan Barrowly died in 2010, but was survived by her daughter, Elspeth.”

“How do you remember this?” I marvelled. “So, Elspeth must be, what, in her mid-seventies, something like that?” I surmised and Ms Lemann nodded. “And do we know where Elspeth is now?”

By ‘we’ I clearly meant ‘you’ and was not surprised when Ms Lemann nodded. “Elspeth Lemann lives in a care home near here. It’s in York Road, just around the corner from us.”

“Elspeth Lemann?” I looked at Ms Lemann incredulously. “Lemann as in…?”

“Elspeth Lemann is my mother.”

I was thunderstruck. If questioned fully, I would have sworn Ms Lemann had been forged from fire and ice, not human flesh. Now, not only did it transpire that she had a mother, but she had also quite unprofessionally and uncharacteristically manipulated me into taking an interest in this case.

“Ms Lemann…”

She looked towards my desk, rather than at me and, again, I noticed the heightened colour on her cheeks. “Mr Peters, I know you may think this strange, but I was desperate. It’s my mother, you see. She is struggling with her health now, but her mind is as sharp as a knife. That day with the photograph seems to be imprinted on her mind.”

“I really don’t see what I…”

“Please Neil, I would be so grateful if you would meet her.”

The Earth seemed to spin a little faster as she used my first name. It had certainly been a day of surprises.

We went together to the care home, and I was touched to see Ms Lemann’s usually prim chilliness soften as she kissed her mother’s head. “Mum, this is Mr Peters. He’d love to hear what you’ve got to say about your photograph.”

Elspeth Lemann looked up and although her eyes were watery, there was a shrewd awareness in them. “Mr Peters,” she said. “You’ve come about the alien, haven’t you? Do you believe in aliens?”

“Well,” I hesitated. What could I say to that? “It’s certainly an interesting subject.”

“My father did not find it interesting,” she said. “He was very cross with me that summer.”

“Cross?” I pulled my chair closer. “Why was that then, Mrs Lemann?”

“Call me Elspeth. He said I should be playing with people my own age, not thinking about spacemen.” She laughed ruefully. “Of course, he was a bit of a tyrant.”

I looked at Ms Lemann, who avoided my eye.

“So, Elspeth. Can you tell me about the photograph?”

“I suppose I was a bit naughty, looking back. It was meant to be a family day out, but Jedda was so much in my thoughts that summer. I used to gaze up at the stars every night to talk to him, held by that steely, translucent gaze.” Mrs Lehmann shut her eyes and smiled.

“The photograph?” I prompted quietly.

She opened her eyes and blinked at me. “It was Jedda, you see. He was meant to be a secret, but when I told him about the meadow outing, he couldn’t resist visiting.”

I looked at her in disappointment. So, the big mystery was no mystery after all. A boy had fancied a girl and had dive bombed the family photo. The girl had been terrified of her tyrant father and so had not revealed who her boyfriend was. What a lot of fuss about nothing.

“Well, thank you. That’s very… illuminating,” I said, trying to keep irritation from my voice.

I looked at Ms Lemann, holding her mother’s hand, and shrugged. She frowned back, as if I’d missed something.

“Mum,” she said. “Can you tell Mr Peters what happened next?”

Elspeth Lemann chuckled. “There was a lot of fuss and bother. Jedda had broken the rules you see. It was difficult to keep him under the radar after that. Did you know, the Ministry of Defence even questioned me?”

“Yes, I saw that report,” I said. “That must have been unnerving.”

“It was, particularly with my father stomping about like a gorilla. He’d had enough of all my alien talk, and I was so frightened of getting Jedda in trouble.”

“You were just children,” I said.

Elspeth’s eyes flashed, showing a little of the fire and ice I often caught in Ms Lemann’s glare.

“Jedda wasn’t a child.” She turned to her daughter and asked for the photograph. “What do you see, Mr Peters?”

I looked again at the photograph, at the young girl, the meadow, and the willowy shape, that from a certain angle could have been viewed as an astronaut. I looked closer still and saw a bright streak emanating from its form all the way to Elspeth Barrowly. The light shone on her abdomen as she smiled a secretive smile.

“Who was this Jedda?” I asked.

“My spaceman,” she answers, taking the photograph back. “That year, 1964, six of them were chosen to consider the suitability of Earth for their species. I was selected as the British guide and Jedda was my visitor. He stayed all year, he even came to school with me, but that was too dreadful, even for him.”

“You mean…he really was an alien?” I asked, doubtfully.

“Oh yes,” she nodded. “The Ministry of Defence suspected but when they questioned me, I wouldn’t say a word to endanger Jedda. The fuss died down eventually. Our family changed our name to Lemann to avoid any more notoriety, and we moved area to begin a new life. My father went to his grave, suspected by most of fraud, and my mother would never discuss it.

“And Jedda?”

Elspeth Lemann looked up at me. “He left Earth in 1965 as did the others around the globe. They realised our species was not a kind one to anyone different, as I also discovered.” She sighed but then smiled. “My daughter here thinks I’m a bit touched, Mr Peters. She’s been examining all the facts for so long, trying to solve the mystery.”

“The mystery of the photograph?”

“The mystery of her parentage,” Elspeth corrected, her eyes twinkling.

Ms Lemann’s eyes regarded me with that steely, translucent gaze.