Two for Sorrow jt-3

by Nicola Upson

  ‘What happened after Amelia Sach’s execution?’ Penrose asked. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘We moved around a lot at first—Kilburn, Stockwell, the East End, but somehow people always found out who we were, or at least who Jacob was. It seemed like there was no one who didn’t know about that trial, and they tormented him, as if he’d been behind it all. They threatened him in the streets, drove him out of any job he tried to hang on to. Sometimes they’d leave stuff at the house—kids’ clothes and old news-papers. Once we came back from the pub and found a baby doll with a rope round its neck on the doorstep. All because that bitch was never satisfied and couldn’t see what she had already. As the years went on, people forgot about us and moved on to some other poor bastard. It got easier for us then, but the damage was already done.’

  ‘How involved was Jacob in what was going on?’

  ‘He wasn’t,’ she said quickly. ‘Oh, he knew about it all right—he wasn’t stupid. But like I said, he loved her. When he couldn’t get her to stop, he just shut it out. Most men would have come down hard on her, forced her to do what she was told and remember her place, but not Jacob—he turned all that resentment in on himself instead. Sometimes I think that’s what I was to him—a punishment, a second-rate version of what he’d lost.’

  ‘So why did you stay with him?’

  ‘How many options do you think I had? I was nineteen and unmarried, with a bastard to bring up—the sort of fool who made the Amelia Sachs of this world possible. And it didn’t take him long to saddle me with more children and make sure I couldn’t go anywhere.’ Her tone was scornful, but she softened slightly when she added: ‘Anyway, it’s taken years for me to work out what was going on. You don’t realise when you’re young, do you? We were bound together by what happened in Finchley, for better or worse.’ She laughed bitterly to herself. ‘And in sickness rather than in health. I thought I loved him.’

  ‘Is that why you gave such damning evidence against his wife?’ She glared at him, but said nothing. ‘Surely what you said about Jacob also applies to you, Miss Edwards? You weren’t stupid. You must have known how Amelia Sach made her money.’

  ‘Which crime are you putting me on trial for, Inspector?’

  It was a fair point, but Penrose was not about to admit that. ‘I’m not putting you on trial for anything, Miss Edwards. I’m just trying to establish what happened all those years ago and assess its relevance to this investigation. Marjorie discovered something that got her killed. We know from another witness that the information came from her father, and that she had checked it out herself and found it to be true. It’s reasonable to assume that the secret which made her vulnerable is connected to your family’s past history, and the only person I can think of who would care about protecting that secret now is you.’ He paused, and she stared at him defiantly. ‘You tell me you’re innocent, so now I have to go back over the facts to see who else might kill to keep the past in its place. Jacob’s daughter, Lizzie—she was adopted by a couple in service in Sussex, I believe.’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know who they were. It was all done in such a hurry, and Jacob wanted a clean start so he insisted on not being told the details. Some prison warder sorted it out.’

  ‘The same prison warder who came to see you during the war to tell you that Lizzie had died.’

  ‘Lizzie’s dead?’

  She seemed genuinely shocked and saddened by this, and the contrast with her attitude to Marjorie threw Penrose for a second. ‘You know she is,’ he said, confused. ‘Celia Bannerman came to tell you when you were in Essex.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nobody told us anything about Lizzie from the moment she was taken away.’

  ‘Well, she told Jacob. He must have kept it from you.’

  ‘Why would he do that? I tell you, this Bannerman woman never came near us. Apart from anything else, we weren’t in Essex during the war.’

  Thinking back, Penrose realised it was he who had said Essex, although Celia Bannerman hadn’t corrected him. Perhaps she hadn’t heard, or simply thought it insignificant. Even so, he couldn’t see what Nora Edwards stood to gain by lying about it. ‘When did you go to Essex?’ he asked.

  ‘January 1919, straight after Jacob came out of Pentonville. He did a four-year stretch for assault which conveniently coincided with the war. He was a bit old to fight, but they were getting desperate so he thought he’d make sure.’

  Essex and Pentonville were difficult places to confuse, Penrose thought, but he couldn’t see why Bannerman would lie about it, either. Whether or not she had broken the news of Lizzie Sach’s death to her father made no difference to anything, except perhaps her own conscience. ‘Can you think of anyone else who knew your past history?’ he asked.

  ‘No. In my experience, when anyone found out about it, they couldn’t wait to throw it in your face, so I think I’d know.’

  ‘Your first child—what happened to her?’ he asked.

  ‘Him,’ she corrected, and Penrose reproached himself for forgetting that not everything in Josephine’s manuscript was fact. ‘I don’t know. Jacob made me give him up. When he said we’d make a clean start, he meant it.’

  Whatever the truth of her life was, Penrose could see why Edwards was bitter. As he understood it, she had withstood a great deal of pressure from Sach and Walters to keep her baby, not to mention the social ostracism which she faced as an unmarried mother, only to lose her child to another man’s selfish guilt. Was that why her relationship with her other children had been so strained, he wondered? Because they reminded her of what she had given up and the man who had made her do it? Just as he was about to ask, there was a knock at the door. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Sir,’ Waddingham said nervously, ‘but there’s an urgent phone call for you at the desk. It’s about Lucy Peters.’

  ‘Hardly bloody urgent, Constable,’ Penrose said impatiently. ‘Sergeant Fallowfield gave me that message half an hour ago.’

  ‘No, Sir, this is a different one. The girl’s had an accident on the stairs, and they don’t know if she’ll pull through.’

  Chapter Twelve

  By the time Penrose and Fallowfield arrived at the Cowdray Club, Lucy Peters had been moved to one of the treatment rooms on the second floor. Without waiting for an invitation, they went through the foyer into the separate staircase hall. Two maids were hard at work on the stairs, trying in vain to remove the mess caused by Lucy’s accident, but there were still enough traces left for Penrose to guess at the extent of her burns.

  ‘Get them to stop that until we’ve established exactly what happened here,’ he said quietly to Fallowfield, ‘and have Peters’s room locked. Then get statements from anyone who was close by when she fell. I’m going to find out how she is.’ He turned to go back to reception, then added: ‘And if my cousins and Miss Tey are here, make sure they’re all right, will you, Bill? The last thing Ronnie and Lettice needed tonight was another shock.’

  A nurse was waiting at reception to show him through to the college. ‘Shouldn’t Miss Peters have been taken straight to hospital?’ he asked, as he followed her down a short corridor past the dining room and up another staircase, less ostentatious than its Cowdray Club equivalent but just as graceful. The newer building which housed the college had, he noticed, been carefully designed to conform to the type of the older one with which it was connected; it was a great architectural feat, achieved without a hint of awkwardness, and a visitor might easily pass from one house into the other without realising it.

  His guide smiled at him reassuringly, as if he were a concerned relative. ‘She really won’t get better treatment than we can give her here,’ she said. ‘With injuries like hers, it’s best to be moved as little as possible, and the faster those burns can be treated, the more chance she stands of making a reasonable recovery.’

  ‘And you have the facilities to do that?’

  ‘Oh yes. Not on any great scale, of course, but the college is superbly equ
ipped and you won’t find a greater concentration of knowledge anywhere in the country. Good, practical nursing knowledge, I mean, and that’s what’s needed here. We wouldn’t perform major surgery, but cleaning wounds and preventing infection, monitoring her blood levels and managing the pain as best we can—that’s all second nature to everyone here, and we have excellent contacts with the local hospitals. A doctor will check on her at regular intervals and oversee the treatment. Please don’t think I’m making light of what’s happened, Inspector, but if I were going to scald myself, I’d rather do it here than anywhere else.’

  ‘How serious is it?’

  ‘Extremely serious, but Miss Sharpe will explain everything to you. Wait outside, please. I’ll let her know you’re here.’

  Left alone in a long, barrel-vaulted corridor, Penrose glanced through the glass in the door and saw Lucy Peters lying on a hospital bed; her injuries were hidden by a bed-cradle which had been placed over her upper body, preventing the sheets and blanket from touching her skin and ensuring that her wounds were protected but remained exposed to the air. Three nurses stood at her bedside, including one in a matron’s uniform whom he presumed was Miriam Sharpe. There was no sign of Celia Bannerman.

  He watched, impressed, as Miss Sharpe calmly lifted the sheet to examine the girl’s body, then whispered some instructions to one of the other women. When she came out to greet him, she said nothing at first but gestured to a narrow space at the end of the corridor which had been furnished as a sitting room, with upholstered chairs and a Sheraton bookcase. When she spoke, her words held the same composed economy as her actions. ‘How can I help you, Inspector?’ she asked, and he detected a lingering note of Yorkshire in her voice.

  ‘I was intending to come here later tonight to question Lucy Peters in connection with the death of Marjorie Baker,’ Penrose said, pleased to see that their conversation was unlikely to be punctuated with time-consuming formalities. ‘Obviously, events have overtaken me. How is Miss Peters?’

  ‘Her condition is critical. Surprisingly, she escaped the fall without any serious damage other than a blow to the head, but the burns to her face, neck and chest are extensive and severe, particularly those on her chest where the cocoa soaked into her clothing and was kept in contact with her skin for longer. We’ve cleaned the wounds, drained the blistering and removed any loose rolls of epithelium—that’s the thin tissue on the outside of the skin—but her body is in shock and her blood pressure dangerously low. The next two hours will be crucial, and even if she survives those, there’s still plenty to worry about—secondary shock, anaemia, infection. I can’t offer you any guarantees at the moment, I’m afraid, except with regard to her care.’

  There was no point in beating about the bush. ‘Assuming the best possible outcome, when will I be able to speak to her?’

  ‘Not for some time. If she regains consciousness—and I do mean if—she will still be in no state to be questioned by the police. The stress of that alone might kill her, and I couldn’t possibly allow it. Apart from anything else, she has extensive burns to her lips and tongue which will make speech painful, if not impossible.’

  ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

  ‘I wasn’t there, but I understand she tripped and fell down the stairs with a pan of scalding liquid. Quite what she was doing in that situation in the first place, I couldn’t say. The running of the Cowdray Club is entirely Celia Bannerman’s domain, but if you intend to ask her what the hell she thinks she’s playing at by allowing that sort of thing to go on, then you have my full support. My girls have enough to do in their day-to-day work without wasting time on accidents that could have been prevented by common sense.’

  Penrose detected a degree of animosity in the outburst which went back further than current events. ‘Where is Miss Bannerman now?’ he asked.

  ‘Having her own injuries treated.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Just minor burns on her hands from trying to help. After that, I advised her to go to her rooms to lie down—she was in shock herself.’

  ‘Was she first on the scene?’

  ‘By a matter of seconds, I gather. It was just as well that she was—someone without a nursing background might have done more damage by trying to help. Celia might have spent years in administration, but you never forget your practical training.’

  ‘I’ll need to speak to her as soon as she’s free, but do you have time to answer some more questions first? I wouldn’t keep you if it weren’t important.’ She nodded. ‘You knew Marjorie Baker?’

  ‘I’d met her once or twice. This wretched circus on Monday night has been somewhat forced upon me—if it were up to me, it wouldn’t be happening at all, but as it’s done in the name of the college of which I’m president, I feel obliged to take part. Anyway, I met Miss Baker at the fashion house. She helped at the fittings. Please tell me that Lucy Peters is not a suspect for her murder.’

  ‘Would that shock you?’

  ‘Quite frankly, Inspector, it would horrify me. I’m sure you’re already aware of recent shameful events at the Cowdray Club which have involved the police and which invariably reflect on the college. If you’re now going to tell me that one of the club’s employees is suspected of murder, I may as well hand in my resignation immediately. We’re supposed to be two organisations devoted to the care of the sick and the professional needs of those who look after them. We prolong life. We do not take it.’

  Penrose thought about Sach and Walters and others like them, and wondered where their crimes fitted into Miriam Sharpe’s view of her profession. ‘Miss Peters isn’t a nurse, though.’

  ‘That’s hardly a distinction allowed for by the headline “Killer arrested at the heart of nursing”. And you haven’t answered my question. Is she a suspect? I have a right to know how much disgrace Celia Bannerman has brought on us, if only to try to limit the damage.’

  That antagonism was there again, and he was interested to see that she made no attempt to hide it. She was right, of course: the papers would go to town on a story like this. ‘I’m not ruling anything out at the moment,’ he said cautiously, ‘but I want to talk to Lucy Peters primarily because she was Marjorie’s friend and I hope she might give me an insight into aspects of her life which other people can’t. Nothing more than that at this stage.’ He paused, thinking back to the Tatler photograph which he had been about to discuss with Nora Edwards again; Miriam Sharpe had been in that picture and, if Bannerman was right, she might have had a connection to Amelia Sach early in her career. ‘You spent some time at St Thomas’s Hospital, I believe?’

  She seemed surprised by his change of direction. ‘That’s correct. I did my probationary period there and stayed on afterwards, first as a staff nurse and eventually as matron.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘From 1896 until 1916, when the college was established. Why?’

  ‘Did you know Amelia Sach and Annie Walters?’

  ‘What can that possibly have to do with anything?’

  He repeated the question, although the expression on her face had already given him his answer, and, when she said nothing, added: ‘Marjorie Baker’s father, who was also found dead last night, was Jacob Sach, Amelia’s husband. I believe that Marjorie’s death has something to do with the crimes and execution of those two women. Anything you can tell me about their history may help, no matter how irrelevant it seems.’

  ‘I knew of Amelia Sach, but that’s all. Annie Walters, on the other hand, worked with me for a while. I assume by your question that you know they met at St Thomas’s Hospital?’

  ‘I’d heard as much, yes.’

  ‘They were both trained midwives—Sach was young and ambitious, I gather; Walters was very much of the old school, a time when nursing was not the caring profession which it is today. Some people may tell you that I belong to that school myself, Inspector, but they confuse discipline with hard-heartedness; one does not necessarily lead to the other.’ Penrose nodded; he had
already seen enough of Miriam Sharpe’s style to know exactly what she meant, but he wondered where she was going with her story. ‘Walters was the product of an emotionless regime, one which trained women to be psychologically robust, particularly in their dealings with patients. I’m not excusing what she did later on; plenty of nurses were trained in that way, but very few of them, to my knowledge, went on to be killers. But that environment blended with her particular mentality to create devastating results. In the late 1890s, we had a number of stillbirths at St Thomas’s; that was not unusual in itself, but the number continued to escalate and the authorities were obliged to investigate. Walters was in attendance at many of these births, and it was thought that she may have been responsible.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘If a baby is suffocated at the point of delivery, before it has a chance to take its first breath, then the death will appear to all intents and purposes like a stillbirth. She was reported by one of her colleagues, but there was no proof and of course she denied it. She was dismissed, but no criminal charges were brought because of the lack of evidence. Gossip was rife amongst the nurses, as you can imagine, and there’s no question that Sach would have heard about it. She left shortly after-wards to have her own child, but I often wonder if it was that incident which sowed the seeds of the scheme which she developed later, and I feel to a certain extent responsible. You see, Inspector, I reported Annie Walters to my superior and began the chain of action against her. It’s a turning point, in hindsight, which disturbs me a great deal.’

  ‘You could hardly have kept quiet, though. Who knows how many more lives might have been lost? More, probably, than Sach and Walters took.’

  ‘Oh, I know, and I have no doubt that what I did was right. But the lesser of two evils is still evil, Inspector. You must see that all too often.’

  He nodded, intrigued by a connection with the past which he had certainly not expected but unable to see how it aided his present concerns. ‘Indeed I do, Miss Sharpe, and thank you for being so frank. Now, I’d like to see Miss Peters’s room.’