Bleeding Heart Square

by Andrew Taylor

  On the train home, Joseph said that he thought it might be best to ask his own solicitor to handle the purchase. I wondered whether we should ask Mr Orburn but Joseph said it would only add unnecessary cost and besides his man specializes in conveyancing and will do a better, faster job. I agreed. (I don’t want to give Joseph the impression I distrust his judgement and of course men know more about this sort of thing than women!)

  I nearly forgot to mention: Joseph asked me to wear a gold band on my ring finger, just for the look of the thing, in case I needed to remove my gloves. He introduced me to the clerk as ‘Mrs Serridge’. It gave me quite a thrill!!

  How cleverly Serridge arranged it all. Morthams Farm was conveniently near London yet unusually remote from everywhere. Philippa Penhow had lived almost all her life in cities. She had no idea what the country is like. The muddy paths, the absence of neighbours, the great brooding skies and the silence. The darkness at night. The fact that there may be no one to hear you.

  The office boy was still confined to bed with what his mother now claimed was German measles. Mr Reynolds remarked that it was most inconvenient. Mr Smethwick said the young shaver was a little beast and Miss Tuffley, as befitted a member of the gentler sex, said he was a poor lamb. One consequence of the boy’s absence was that Lydia was obliged to work on Saturday morning.

  As she made herself ready, she heard her father snoring in his room. In the sitting room the empty brandy bottle lay on its side in the hearth. Pulling on her gloves, she went down to the hall.

  Among the small pile of post on the table was a letter addressed to her in her sister’s handwriting. There was also a parcel, slightly larger than a tennis ball, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, for J. SERRIDGE, ESQ.

  Footsteps came slowly down the stairs. Letter in hand, she moved away from the table, reluctant to be caught spying. It was Rory Wentwood, walking slowly and a little stiffly.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad it’s you. I wanted to say thank you.’

  ‘It was nothing. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Rather better than I thought I would.’ His dark eyebrows wrinkled into a frown and he winced, giving the lie to his words. ‘Most of the time, at any rate. I know I’d be feeling a lot worse if you hadn’t turned up when you did.’

  ‘It was just luck. I still think you should see a doctor.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Who do you think attacked you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Friday-night toughs, I suppose. Had a few drinks and decided to go on the rampage. I imagine they were after my wallet.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad it’s no worse.’ Lydia moved towards the front door.

  ‘I say – Mrs Langstone? I’d like to thank you properly for being so sporting about this. Would you let me buy you lunch?’

  She turned back. ‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Wentwood, but—’

  ‘You’d be doing me a favour. Otherwise I’ll feel guilty for ruining your evening.’ His long face grew longer and even more melancholy than before. ‘You could think of it as an act of charity.’

  She found herself smiling at him. ‘Very well. When?’

  ‘What about today?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Thanks awfully.’

  He arranged to meet her outside the office. On her way to work, Lydia opened her sister’s letter. It enclosed an invitation to a private view at a gallery in Cork Street on Tuesday evening. Pammy had scribbled a few lines in violet ink.

  Do come if you can, darling – everyone will be there. Or if you don’t feel like doing the polite to all & sundry, would you like to meet for lunch at Café des Voyageurs on Wednesday? They say the new chef is divine. Let me know. With best love, Pammy.

  Lydia stuffed the envelope into her handbag and pushed open the street door of 48 Rosington Place. She missed her sister but she wouldn’t go to the opening or to the Café des Voyageurs. She had finished with that sort of thing. A working woman, she marched up to the second floor.

  The prospect of being taken out to lunch buoyed her up during the morning. In any case Saturday was not like other days at Shires and Trimble. It was only a half-day, and most of the time was spent on dealing with the post and tidying up loose ends from the previous week. Everyone was in a mood which if not exactly festive was at least cheerful, as though the temporary liberation of the weekend offered a glimpse of the happier world outside Rosington Place.

  At half past twelve Lydia went downstairs with Miss Tuffley, who was going up west to have lunch with a friend and then on to the pictures. Mr Wentwood was waiting for her outside the door. Miss Tuffley looked at him with interest and, Lydia suspected, would have been happy to be introduced if Lydia had given her the slightest encouragement. As it was, she said goodbye and clattered down the pavement towards the Tube station.

  ‘Where would you like to go?’ Rory asked. ‘I don’t know anywhere around here except the Blue Dahlia.’

  ‘Let’s go there then,’ Lydia said, thinking that at least it was cheap but wishing in a dark and shameful corner of her mind that it was the Café des Voyageurs. ‘Better the devil you know.’

  The café was less crowded than it usually was at lunch-times, since most of the clientele had gone home for the weekend. The fat lady behind the counter greeted them with a nod. They sat down at a corner table and studied the menu.

  Rory glanced at the blackboard behind the counter. ‘I’ll have the special. Liver and onions.’

  Lydia thought of the parcel on the hall table at Bleeding Heart Square. Liver was offal and so was heart. ‘I think I’ll have the shepherd’s pie.’

  They ordered their lunch and sat smoking while they waited.

  ‘How are you feeling now?’

  Rory touched the faintly discoloured skin on his cheekbone, and winced. ‘Still in one piece.’ He went on in the same tone, ‘I’ve not been altogether honest with you, I’m afraid.’

  It took a moment for his words to seep in. Was he married or something? ‘What do you mean?’

  His face was even gloomier than usual. ‘About my reason for moving into Bleeding Heart Square.’

  ‘I thought you were looking for a job and needed to be near the City.’

  ‘That’s true as far as it goes.’ He flicked ash from his cigarette. ‘But there’s another reason. You remember the girl I was with on Sunday? In Trafalgar Square? She has an aunt, a lady called Philippa Penhow.’

  Lydia crumbled her bread and watched Rory. He was smoking very fast.

  ‘They haven’t been in touch for more than four years,’ he said, speaking quickly as if trying to get the words out before he changed his mind. ‘In fact Miss Penhow doesn’t seem to have been in touch with anyone. Fenella – Miss Kensley – is rather worried.’

  So that’s who she is, Lydia thought – Fenella Kensley. She supposed that some people would think the name was rather pretty.

  ‘The thing is, just before Miss Penhow disappeared, she met Mr Serridge. In fact he was one of her tenants at Bleeding Heart Square. She told Fenella that they were going to get married. A whirlwind courtship, I gather. They moved out of London in the spring of 1930 and bought a place in Essex, near a village called Rawling. Morthams Farm.’

  Lydia ground out her cigarette. ‘What happened then?’

  He shrugged. ‘She left. Mr Serridge said she met an old friend and went off with him.’ He paused, sowing doubt with a silence. ‘Anyway, a few weeks later she simply wasn’t there.’

  ‘Surely people asked questions?’

  ‘There weren’t that many people who noticed she had gone. She and Serridge had only just moved to Rawling. Before that, Miss Penhow lived in a private hotel in South Ken. She hadn’t any friends there, not real ones. And before that, she’d lived with an old aunt in Manchester or somewhere, but the old lady died. The only other relations she had were Fenella and her parents, but they weren’t close.’

  Lydia wondered: then why the interest now?r />
  ‘Anyway, the Kensleys had a lot on their minds,’ Rory continued. ‘Fenella’s father was very ill for a year or two before he died. Afterwards her mother had to take in a lodger to make ends meet, and then she herself died last summer.’

  ‘So there’s been no sign of Miss Penhow since 1930, and Mr Serridge seems to have acquired the house?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it. And don’t forget the farm. That seems to be his as well.’

  ‘Has anyone talked to the police?’

  ‘They were notified of her disappearance. But there was no sign a crime had been committed, and no reason to doubt Serridge’s story about an old boyfriend. Fenella said there really was a man, years and years ago – she remembered her parents talking about it. A sailor, apparently. Miss Penhow wanted to marry him but her family wouldn’t let her. And then there was a letter that seemed to confirm it. Miss Penhow wrote to the Vicar of Rawling from New York asking him to apologize to Serridge on her behalf for going away so suddenly. The police think the letter’s genuine.’

  Penhow, Lydia thought, P. M. Penhow. The woman herself wasn’t here but her name was everywhere. Her father came into her mind, bringing with him as he usually did a faint sense of anxiety.

  ‘Liver and onions,’ said a loud voice just above her head. ‘Shepherd’s pie.’

  The liver landed in front of Lydia, the shepherd’s pie in front of Rory.

  ‘It’s the other way round,’ Lydia said.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said the manageress. ‘You’ve got hands, haven’t you, love? You give him his, and I’m sure he’ll give you yours.’

  Rory grinned up at her. ‘And that’s the way the world goes round, eh?’

  The fat woman roared with laughter and told him he was a caution. She waddled away from their table. Lydia and Rory exchanged plates.

  ‘She likes you,’ Lydia said in a low voice. ‘She barely tolerates me.’

  Rory looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s because I’m a man.’

  Lydia shook her head. ‘It’s more than that.’ Talking with a silver spoon in your mouth, she realized, could be more of a curse than a blessing. As far as most of the population was concerned, it made you a social leper and also almost unemployable because ladies weren’t supposed to work. That wouldn’t have mattered perhaps, if you actually owned the silver spoon and everything that went with it. But if you didn’t, you had the worst of both worlds.

  She and Rory were both hungry, and at first they ate in silence. Then Rory laid down his fork and looked at her.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘May I ask you something?’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘How long have you known Mr Serridge?’

  ‘I’d never even heard of him until I moved into Bleeding Heart Square.’

  ‘And your father?’

  She put down her own fork. ‘I believe they knew each other in the army. I’ll say this for Mr Serridge – he’s been very kind to him.’

  Rory sat back. ‘Did you know that Morthams Farm used to belong to your father?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The farm that Mr Serridge and Miss Penhow bought. Your father sold it to them. Did you know?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’ She was surprised to hear her voice was calm and level. ‘I had no idea. Look here, I—’

  ‘Have you ever heard him mention Rawling?’

  Lydia pushed her plate away. ‘I don’t like this. I don’t see why I should answer questions about my father. And I don’t really understand why you feel you should ask them.’

  He spread his hands out, palms up. ‘I’m so sorry. Unforgivable of me.’ He gave her a rueful smile; he was rather good at those. ‘You know how it is – one gets carried away.’

  Despite herself, she smiled back. They continued with their meal. Rory diverted the conversation to neutral subjects. He made her laugh with the story of Hitler’s oranges. There had been an item in today’s paper, he said, about a hundred thousand Spanish oranges which had been withdrawn from auction at Spitalfields yesterday because they had been wrapped in paper with a portrait of Hitler on it.

  ‘All one hundred thousand of them?’ Lydia asked.

  ‘So I understand. Individually wrapped. It caused a lot of excitement when they tried to sell them. There were cries of “Heil Hitler.” In the end the auctioneer decided to withdraw them. They say the consignment was meant to go to Germany. Though personally I would have thought that an orange is an orange is an orange.’

  ‘Not if it’s wrapped in a picture of Hitler,’ Lydia said. ‘It’s a political statement.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He sat back in his chair, reaching for his cigarettes. ‘People make such a lot of fuss about politics. What would you like for pudding? I wouldn’t recommend the trifle but the apple pie is relatively harmless.’

  Afterwards he asked for the bill. Lydia offered half-heartedly to pay her share and was relieved when he wouldn’t let her. He pulled a handful of change from his trouser pocket. There was a solitary cufflink among the silver and coppers.

  ‘Is that yours?’ she asked.

  ‘What? Oh – you mean the cufflink.’ He counted out four shillings and sixpence and added a small tip. ‘No. A souvenir of last night.’

  ‘Cinderella.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I thought.’ He helped her into her coat. ‘Find the other one, and perhaps I find one of the men who attacked me. Perhaps.’

  ‘May I see it a moment?’

  He fished it out of his trouser pocket and dropped it into the outstretched palm of her gloved hand. While she looked at it, he put on his own coat and hat.

  ‘Ring any bells?’ he said. ‘Looks like some sort of badge.’

  ‘I’m surprised you don’t recognize it. That gold thing in the middle is a fasces. Or is it fascis? Anyway, it’s the symbol of the British Union of Fascists.’

  He frowned. ‘So it is. That’s the problem with having been in India for five years. I’m not quite at home here any more. I didn’t feel at home in India either. Odd, isn’t it? The British Union of Fascists didn’t even exist when I was last in London.’ He gave a little laugh as if trying to suggest that what he had said was halfway to being a joke, though it clearly wasn’t. ‘What are you doing now?’

  She wondered why he had avoided the obvious implication. ‘Going back to the flat.’

  ‘I’ll walk with you.’

  He held the door open for her. Lydia thought that she didn’t belong anywhere either. Bleeding Heart Square wasn’t home. But neither was Frogmore Place or Upper Mount Street, let alone those tumbledown mausoleums in the country that her stepfather and Marcus were so attached to. But there was no point in worrying about it. At least she knew what she wanted now. Virginia Woolf had been right all along. One needed a room of one’s own and a minimum of £500 a year. And something to do with one’s life.

  As they were waiting for a gap in the traffic in Hatton Garden, Rory said casually, ‘Serridge isn’t involved with those Fascists, is he?’

  So he had come to that conclusion after all. Lydia said, equally casually, ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘You see, if the cufflink belonged to one of the toughs last night, it puts rather a different complexion on things.’

  ‘Even if the man was wearing a BUF cufflink, it doesn’t necessarily mean you were attacked by Fascists. Anyway, someone else might have lost the cufflink.’

  A baker’s van slowed to allow them to cross the road. Rory took Lydia’s arm and they jogged across to the opposite pavement.

  ‘I take your point,’ he said as they were passing Mr Goldman’s shop where Lydia had sold her great-aunt’s brooch. ‘On the other hand, these chaps knew exactly what they were doing. What’s the word? They were disciplined. They didn’t smell of drink. I should have thought of that before. I’m not even sure they wanted to rob me. I think they just wanted to give me a thrashing. Or worse. I’m pretty sure if you hadn’t come along when you did, the police would have had
to scrape me off the cobbles with a shovel.’

  She winced. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Sorry. But it really doesn’t make sense. There’s no reason why the British Union of Fascists should know of my existence. I haven’t the slightest interest in politics. Whichever way you look at it, it’s damned odd.’ He glanced at her. ‘Has anything else odd happened? Or was this just an isolated incident?’

  There were several answers to that question, Lydia thought, and some of them involved her father and some of them involved Marcus. There was no avoiding the fact that the only people she knew with Fascist connections were Marcus, her own family and their friends. In the end she mentioned the one thing that could have nothing to do with them, partly because it was also the one thing that worried her most of all.

  ‘Someone’s been sending Mr Serridge parcels,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘There was one on the day I arrived. It had been hanging around for a few days and it filled the house with a horrible smell.’ She stopped beside the Crozier, reluctant to turn into Bleeding Heart Square. ‘In the end we had to open it. There was a piece of rotting meat inside. Nothing else. No letter or anything. Mrs Renton said it was a heart, a lamb’s, perhaps, or a ewe’s. It – it had dried blood on it. I’ve never smelled anything quite as foul.’

  ‘But what was the point?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some sort of message?’

  ‘Saying what?’ Rory asked.

  Lydia looked into his long, ugly face and wondered whether he knew more about this than he was letting on. ‘Perhaps it was a way of reminding everyone of the name. Reminding us all that we live in Bleeding Heart Square. And then there was another one on the doorstep a few days ago. Mrs Renton cooked it. It smelled rather nice, actually.’ She tried to smile at him to show that she was ironically amused by the whole business, that it didn’t make her skin crawl, especially when she was alone at night. ‘There was another parcel for Mr Serridge this morning, as a matter of fact. That’s why I didn’t have the liver and onions.’