Bleeding Heart Square

by Andrew Taylor

  Dawlish rubbed a coil of ash into his corduroy trousers. He had lost his glasses during the fight in the undercroft, which made him look naked and unprotected. ‘As a matter of fact I’m the owner.’

  Rory had a beguiling vision of a world where wealth made everything possible: where you had houses at your disposal, and obliging taxi drivers, and full bottles of whisky when you wanted to entertain your friends. In his half-tipsy condition, he was ready to feel jealous of Dawlish. He glanced across the room at the man and saw that he was looking at Fenella; and for a moment there was something so vulnerable and woebegone about his face that Rory stopped feeling jealous.

  He said, as much to change the subject as to receive an answer, ‘I say, I wonder if I could ask you to read my draft when I’ve finished it – just to make sure I’m not wildly off the mark.’

  ‘Of course,’ Dawlish said. ‘But I shouldn’t worry too much. You were there. It will work because of that.’ He waved the hand holding his mug of whisky and tea; Rory realized that Dawlish too was well on the way to being tipsy. ‘An eyewitness account. The ring of authenticity. It’s not something you can fake.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Fenella stirred, as if about to say something. But it was Lydia who spoke first.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said slowly.

  ‘Of course what?’ Fenella asked in a rather unfriendly voice.

  Lydia smiled at her. ‘The ring of authenticity. As Mr Dawlish said, you can’t fake it. You know, if you don’t mind, I think I should go home now.’

  Dawlish said he would fetch a taxi. Lydia said she preferred to walk. Dawlish pointed out that it was still raining and repeated the offer; then, working out that Lydia was trying to save money, he recalled that his brother’s Lagonda was parked at the back and that he had promised his brother he would turn the engine over at least once a day; so, truly, it would be doing him a favour if Lydia allowed him to run her back to Bleeding Heart Square. While he was there, he could pick up anything Rory needed for the night.

  While Dawlish was bringing the Lagonda round to the front of the house, Fenella and Lydia went into the little hall where the coats hung on a row of hooks. Rory watched the two women through the open door. His tea had been replaced with a glass of whisky. He felt at peace with the world, and the sensation was all the more enjoyable because he knew it would be short-lived.

  A car horn sounded outside. Lydia belted up her coat and waved to Rory. Fenella returned to the sitting room and helped herself to a cigarette from Dawlish’s case, which was on the mantelpiece. She knelt in front of the electric fire which stood on the hearth. Her mood had changed again, he thought – her eyes were gleaming with excitement.

  ‘Do you mind?’ Rory asked.

  ‘Mind what?’

  ‘My staying here for a while.’

  She turned the full force of her smile on him. ‘Of course not, silly. Anyway, it’s not my house. Even if I move in while you’re here, you’ll be in the attic and I’ll be down here. We’ll probably hardly see each other.’ She turned away and tapped ash from the cigarette. She confused him by adding quietly, ‘Though of course I hope we do.’

  From the doorway of number seven Lydia watched the tail-lights of the Lagonda disappearing into the narrow passage between Bleeding Heart Square and Charleston Street. The Crozier was packed because it was a Saturday night. Captain Ingleby-Lewis would be in the saloon bar.

  She shut the front door. In the hall she hesitated, then she tapped on Mr Fimberry’s door.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Mrs Langstone.’

  There were no words and no movements on the other side of the door but she sensed he was standing there, very close to her, listening.

  ‘Mr Fimberry, I’ve come to apologize.’ She raised her voice a little. ‘Won’t you open the door and let me do it face to face?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry about the keys,’ Lydia said, feeling foolish about talking to a door. ‘It was urgent or else I wouldn’t have done it. One of the Fascists was trying to hurt Mr Wentwood.’

  Fimberry grunted. ‘Looked more like the other way round to me. I saw the poor chap he attacked. Wentwood’s a maniac.’

  ‘Were you able to get your keys back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the skull?’

  ‘Yes. One of the horns was broken, and most of the teeth have gone.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that. Is – is everything all right now?’

  ‘Of course it’s not.’ Fimberry’s voice grew louder as his sense of outrage swelled. ‘How can it be? It’s a terrible world. All that blood. All that nastiness.’ His voice was even louder now, almost a scream. ‘Go away, please, Mrs Langstone.’

  ‘Perhaps we can talk in the morning,’ Lydia suggested. She waited a moment but there was no reply. She wished the door goodnight.

  As she turned to go upstairs, she realized that she was not alone in the hall. Mrs Renton was standing in the doorway of her room. She could have heard the whole conversation.

  ‘Mr Serridge says that Mr Wentwood is moving out,’ Mrs Renton said, mumbling because her teeth were out.

  ‘On Monday, I believe.’

  The little eyes considered her. ‘He didn’t last long.’

  ‘No,’ Lydia agreed. ‘By the way, have there been any more parcels lately for Mr Serridge?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘I was wondering, you see,’ Lydia went on. ‘Do you think the hearts and the skull came from the same person?’

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lydia said. ‘You would. But should you?’

  ‘What will you do with Miss Penhow’s skirt?’

  ‘I’ll wrap it up and send it to Miss Kensley. Her niece.’

  She smiled at Mrs Renton and went upstairs. She turned on the fire in the sitting room and drew the curtains. She had been very stupid, she thought.

  She went into the bedroom and took out the skirt and the two sheets of brown paper, its inner and outer wrapping. She picked up the lighter-coloured sheet of the two, the outer wrapping, and went into the kitchen. There was another piece of brown paper in the drawer. The colour of the two sheets matched. In the sitting room she unfolded both of these sheets and placed them side by side on the sitting-room table. Each had three straight edges. Each had an irregular fourth edge that looked as if it had been cut by someone in a hurry with a pair of blunt scissors. She lined up the two irregular edges. They fitted perfectly together.

  An eyewitness account. The ring of authenticity. It’s not something you can fake.

  Somewhere here was the key to the whole mystery. The problem was, she didn’t want to be the one to unlock it. She had enough troubles of her own already.

  It was nearly midnight before she heard Captain Ingleby-Lewis’s footsteps on the stairs. While she waited, she had returned to Virginia Woolf and A Room of One’s Own. Mrs Woolf improved on acquaintance.

  Her father ambled into the room and tossed his hat onto the table. It skidded to the edge and fell to the floor.

  ‘Hello, old girl,’ he said, yawning. ‘Thought you’d have turned in by now.’

  ‘I waited up for you.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’ He beamed at her. ‘Well, goodnight. I’m off to Bedfordshire.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to you.’

  Her father, who had clearly remembered the awkwardness of their last meeting, was already edging towards the door. ‘Better leave it until the morning. We’ll be fresher then.’

  ‘This won’t take a moment,’ Lydia said. ‘Have a cigarette.’

  Automatically he changed direction and advanced towards the packet she was holding out to him, for his responses were Pavlovian in their precision where alcohol and tobacco were concerned. He took the cigarette. She struck a match for him. He grunted with effort as he lowered his head to the flame. When the cigarette was alight, he fell backwards onto the sofa.

  ‘Ar
e you really throwing me out, Father?’

  He looked reproachfully at her. ‘You know it’s not like that, my dear.’

  ‘That’s what it seems like. Why can’t we carry on as we are? I’m going to divorce Marcus, and then there will be more money coming in. Everything will be much more comfortable.’

  ‘Langstone may not make it easy. As far as I can tell, he seems pretty keen on staying married to you.’ The Captain was drunk but not too drunk. He added courteously, ‘Of course that’s understandable.’

  ‘The lawyer seems to think I should be able to get a reasonable settlement. Enough to live on.’

  ‘Who have you got?’

  ‘Mr Shires.’

  ‘Did Serridge arrange it for you?’

  ‘No. I arranged it myself.’ As she stared at her father, however, Lydia wondered whether this was in fact true. She remembered how cautious Shires had been at first when she mentioned the divorce, and how, a few hours later, he had become much more helpful, and the question of who was going to pay his bills no longer seemed to concern him so urgently.

  Ingleby-Lewis shrugged. ‘You know your own business, I suppose. Never had much time for the fellow myself.’

  ‘Your friend Mr Serridge seems to like him well enough,’ Lydia said carefully.

  ‘Anyway, that’s not the point,’ he went on. ‘The long and the short of it is that you can’t stay here.’

  ‘Why are you listening to Mrs Alforde and not to me? I want to stay here.’

  ‘It’s for the best. Believe me.’

  ‘Is it because there’s something going on? Something you don’t want me to know about?’

  He snorted. ‘Of course not. It’s quite simple. This isn’t really a suitable—’

  ‘New York,’ Lydia said. ‘Ring any bells? Grand Central Station, New York City.’

  Captain Ingleby-Lewis dropped the cigarette on his lap. He leapt to his feet, swearing and patting his trousers. The cigarette fell to the carpet. Lydia picked it up and gave it to him.

  ‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said, sinking back on the sofa and swiftly recovering his poise.

  Lydia opened her handbag and took out the papers she had found in the writing box. ‘Do you know what these are?’

  ‘Of course I don’t. Not a mind-reader in a music hall, am I? Can’t this wait until the morning?’

  ‘Two pieces of paper,’ Lydia said, ignoring him. ‘There’s Miss Penhow’s signature on one of them, written over and over again. It looks as if someone was practising it.’

  Her father stared straight ahead.

  She unfolded them. ‘On the other bit of paper are the words “I expect you are surprised to hear”. And there’s something else on the other side.’ She looked up at her father but still he did not react. ‘It’s written in pencil, in a different handwriting and rather faintly. Shall I read it to you? “And so tell the vicar you’re sorry for all the upset, that you met an old pal, a sailor who you were—”’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Captain Ingleby-Lewis said quietly. He sat in silence while he finished the cigarette. He stubbed it out and said, ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He sucked in his cheeks. ‘I thought you might be about to start making threats.’

  ‘So did I,’ Lydia said. ‘And perhaps I will, I don’t know. Does it mean what I think it means?’

  Captain Ingleby-Lewis shrugged. ‘That rather depends what you think it means, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I’m told that you’ve always been good at copying things with a pen.’

  He looked at her. ‘You mean they’ve told you that I forged some cheques. They’ve told you about the mess accounts.’

  It was not a question so Lydia said nothing.

  ‘I had to leave the army. I wasn’t court-martialled but everyone knew the reason. The mess sergeant was involved as well. But he wasn’t so lucky.’

  The significance hit her. ‘Mr Serridge?’

  Her father nodded. ‘He was in prison for two years. Still, all that’s water under the bridge. But of course it’s one reason why you shouldn’t be staying with me.’

  Lydia folded the papers. ‘And what about these?’

  ‘That silly Penhow woman, I knew she’d cause trouble. All heart, no head – that was her problem.’ He looked sternly at Lydia. ‘Running off like that without a word. Most inconsiderate.’

  ‘That’s not what some people would call it.’

  ‘Oh I know. You’ve heard people saying that he did away with her just for her money. All those damned gossips at Rawling. I’m not saying the money wasn’t the attraction as far as Serridge was concerned – but what’s wrong with that? It wasn’t as if she was getting nothing in return. And then she meets somebody she likes better and off she goes.’

  For a moment it sounded almost reasonable. Then she remembered that Serridge apparently owned the house they were living in, as well as Morthams Farm and heaven knew what else besides that had once belonged to Miss Penhow.

  ‘What could the poor chap do?’ Ingleby-Lewis asked, flinging wide his arms. ‘He was in an awful fix. Everyone was claiming he had done away with the poor woman and he couldn’t prove he hadn’t. People can be damnably malicious. Anyway, he knew I was off to try my luck in the States, and he asked if I could do something to help.’

  ‘So you faked a letter from Miss Penhow to the Vicar of Rawling?’

  ‘Why ever not? No harm in it. I owed Joe Serridge a favour. Besides, I’d be the first to admit that he’ll cut a corner or two if he has to, but he wouldn’t harm a fly. Certainly not a woman. No, I was in New York and it was simple enough for me to drop a line to get him off the hook. I couldn’t see why not. Matter of common decency.’

  ‘I don’t think the police would agree.’

  Ingleby-Lewis struggled off the sofa and stood up. ‘Just helping a pal out of a hole.’

  ‘As Serridge helped you? By buying the farm from you?’

  ‘It was exactly what he and Miss Penhow were looking for. And I let him have it for a jolly good price. I could have got at least a couple of hundred more.’

  ‘And now he lets you live here. Do you actually pay rent? Or perhaps there’s no longer any need to. It seems a very cosy arrangement all round.’

  ‘Don’t you get on your high horse, my girl,’ he said, sounding both sober and angry. ‘It’s all very well to be sitting in judgement when you’ve got money in the bank. You see things very differently when you haven’t a couple of shillings to rub together. That’s when you find out what really matters. And who your pals really are.’

  They looked at one another for a moment, neither giving way. But the anger drained from both of them.

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ she said suddenly. ‘I’d rather stay here.’

  He nodded. ‘I’d rather you stayed here too. Hermione Alforde is right, though. It isn’t suitable. You’ll be better off with them.’

  Swaying slightly, with stooping shoulders, he made his way towards the door. Lydia stayed in her chair, staring at the glowing tracery of the gas fire. This had started with Mrs Alforde, she thought: something had happened to make her change her mind, something in Rawling on Thursday, 29 November.

  But that made no sense at all.

  The Captain’s footsteps stopped behind her, and she felt a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t move. His familiar aroma of dust, tobacco and stale beer enveloped her. He kissed the top of her head. She said nothing. He moved away. The door opened and closed.

  It was the first time her father had kissed her.

  The only bed at present in the house filled most of a small room off the kitchen in the basement – a damp cell with little natural light and a strip of wallpaper curling away from the wall like a striking snake. The large iron bedstead must have been assembled in the room because it was too large to get through the doorway. A stained mattress lay slightly askew on top of it.

  Dawlish foraged on the upper floors and came back with an armful of bla
nkets and cushions. ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ Rory said.

  Fenella and Dawlish departed a little after nine o’clock. Rory helped himself to a nightcap from the whisky bottle. But the alcohol wasn’t helping now. Quite the reverse. His body had reduced itself to a shifting, twitching network of aches and pains. Much worse than that was the fact that he was frightened, his thoughts rampaging beyond control. The violence in the Ossuary – his own as well as Marcus’s – had unleashed terrors he had not known existed. What would happen if he never learned how to tidy them away into his memory, let alone how to forget them?

  Without removing his clothes or bothering to wash, he collapsed on the bed and burrowed into the musty blankets. Almost instantly, sleep glided over him. He remembered nothing more until he awoke with a start, hours later. For a moment he thought he was in his old bedroom at his parents’ house. He had a slight headache and his mouth tasted and felt like a used dishcloth. He lay there feeling oddly happy and full of hope, letting the memories of yesterday seep into his consciousness. He fumbled for matches and struck a light. It was only half past six but he had no desire to stay in bed.

  During the morning he worked on the article, drafting and redrafting it in pencil at the kitchen table. Towards midday Dawlish turned up with a flask of coffee and a portable typewriter. Shortly afterwards Fenella arrived with a basket containing their lunch, most of which came out of tins. When they had eaten, the others left him to finish the typing. He was aware of the murmur of their voices in the sitting room.

  Rory finished the article and read it through. Was it finished? Was it as good as he could make it? He had read it so many times and in so many versions that he was no longer capable of judging. He went down the hallway towards the half-open door of the sitting room, intending to ask for a second opinion. His ankle was still painful but he could move quite comfortably if he leant against the wall. But he had taken only a few steps when Fenella’s voice suddenly rose in volume.

  ‘Stop it! Just get off me. Stop mauling me, will you? You’re just the same as all of them. Filthy beasts.’

  Careless of the pain from his ankle, Rory scuttled back into the kitchen and pushed the door to, so it was almost closed. He heard footsteps in the hall, and Dawlish saying something, his voice low and urgent. The area door slammed. The flat was silent.