The Second-last Woman in England

by Maggie Joel

  What were the police here for?

  Harriet closed her eyes for a brief second and felt a pressure at her temples.

  ‘This is a very pleasant neighbourhood, Mrs Wallis,’ remarked the inspector, settling back in his chair.

  Harriet observed him silently over her cigarette. No doubt Scotland Yard found themselves more often than not in unsavoury places. The remark had been fatuous and there was no need to reply to it. Though she had an idea that this young inspector did not just make conversation.

  There were footsteps outside in the hall, then Cecil’s voice.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Thompson,’ and in another moment the door opened and Cecil came in. Or rather he stood in the doorway as if this wasn’t his house and he hadn’t the right to simply come walking in and where, a week ago—two days ago—Harriet might have smiled at this, now she felt a rush of irritation.

  Cecil was in his Saturday uniform, which meant grey flannels of a fractionally lighter grey than the grey trousers he wore to the office, a white shirt, a striped club tie and a blazer. His shoes were brown loafers and in deference to the unseasonable September heat he wore beige socks rather than the usual dark grey. His hair was neatly flattened and precisely parted. It was only when the inspector got hurriedly to his feet that Cecil took a step forward into his own room and held out his hand. Reticent, that was Cecil. But there nothing on his face to indicate guilt. Surprise, yes; confusion, possibly; but certainly not guilt.

  ‘Inspector,’ he said. ‘How do you do? What can I do for you?’ and he shot a quizzical look at his wife, perhaps weighing up whether she already knew or not. Harriet returned his look calmly through a haze of cigarette smoke.

  Was he remembering the last time two policemen had come to the house? But that was in 1944 and there had still been a war on. He had no reason to think that this was in any way connected.

  ‘Perhaps we might go somewhere private, Mr Wallis?’

  Good God! Had Cecil visited a prostitute or something?

  But Harriet banished that thought almost at once. Cecil still did not look even vaguely guilty—although he was now beginning to look somewhat alarmed. Besides, Cecil with a prostitute! No, it was something the inspector wanted to inform Cecil about, not something he wanted to charge him with—and Harriet felt the pressure at her temples again.

  ‘No need, Inspector,’ she said getting up. ‘I’ll leave you gentleman to your business,’ and she left the room so abruptly that Cecil had to sidestep rapidly to avoid being bowled over.

  Harriet closed the door behind her. Outside in the street a milk cart rattled past returning empties to the depot. Upstairs she could hear the children’s voices:

  ‘Unfortunately he lost an ear and his nose last Christmas, which is rather sad, don’t you think?’

  Anne’s voice floated down the stairs quite distinctly and Harriet presumed her youngest child was introducing nanny to her teddy bear. Downstairs in the kitchen Mrs Thompson had the Light Programme on—Housewives’ Choice or something equally edifying—though all one could make out was a background whine of popular music and a steady stream of crackling interference. The radio abruptly went silent and a moment later Mrs Thompson herself emerged from the kitchen below, her face red and shiny with the effort of ascending the short flight of stairs.

  ‘Everything all right, is it?’ she enquired, without even the grace to look abashed at asking such a question.

  ‘Mrs Thompson, it’s stifling in here and the gentlemen are finding it quite unpleasant. Please open up the French doors so they can get some air. And see if they’d like coffee. I expect Mr Wallis will want some as it’s approaching noon. And some biscuits, of course. But do see about that door at once.’

  Mrs Thompson reached the top of the stairs, paused, then opened her mouth to reply. Mrs Thompson would, of course, have her own thoughts about the opening of doors—French or otherwise.

  ‘Oh, and open the doors in the dining room too,’ Harriet added.

  She went through into the dining room and walked over to the bay window that looked over Athelstan Gardens. The milk float had gone. Two small boys walked past carrying fishing nets and glass jars with string handles, heading south towards the river. A nanny and a small child emerged from a house further up the street, crossed over the road and walked towards the garden opposite. She couldn’t see into the enclosed garden from here, the privet hedge was too high. It was possible to see in from the upstairs rooms, though, if one was looking.

  After a short delay Mrs Thompson bustled in, her face a little redder, a little more indignant.

  ‘Weren’t too pleased about being interrupted, those gentlemen,’ she observed, casting a malevolent look at her employer. ‘Said they didn’t wish for coffee, thank you very much,’ she added, going down to the far end of the room and attacking, with pointed vigour, the doors that opened onto the back garden.

  It was possible these doors had not been opened since before the war, but Mrs Thompson had located a key and was already shooting back the bolts at top and bottom and throwing open both doors with a gesture dramatic enough to rival Elsie Morison in last year’s production of The Marriage of Figaro.

  ‘Will you be wanting coffee?’ asked Mrs Thompson, rounding on her employer suspiciously.

  ‘No thank you, Mrs Thompson. And we shall be lunching at the Mumfords’, so we shan’t be wanting anything till teatime.’

  She had informed Mrs Thompson of this fact two days earlier, and again last night, but it seemed important to restate it now—Mrs Thompson did not cope well with changes to the household routine.

  ‘I see!’ replied Mrs Thompson, her nostrils flaring as though this was the first she had heard of any luncheon at the Mumfords’ and frankly she’d have preferred a little notice, thank you very much, and she swept from the room.

  Surely there had been a time (before the war) when domestic staff had said, Very good, madam, and did one’s bidding without comment?

  Would they be lunching at the Mumfords’?

  Harriet walked down to the garden end of the room and took in a deep breath of fresh air. Outside sparrows swooped and dived noisily, observed by next door’s tom cat. A wasp buzzed in through the open door, followed a moment later by a large fly. In the distance a child in a neighbouring garden laughed, a car backfired, distant traffic rumbled on Fulham Road. A burst of birdsong—a thrush, a chaffinch?—filled the air for a moment and when it ended an abrupt silence fell.

  ‘Rocastle? Dear God. But it’s … I simply can’t believe it of him.’

  Mrs Thompson had evidently opened the French doors in the reception room as instructed. Harriet stood on the step facing the garden, blowing her cigarette smoke carefully in the other direction. It wouldn’t do for her smoke to drift into the room next door.

  It was Cecil who had spoken. Rocastle worked at Cecil’s firm. He had dined with them here in this very room, he and his wife, though the man was quite junior in the firm. He had some connection—an uncle who held a senior post at the F.O.—which explained the man’s presence at the dinner. She remembered him as being a rather bland man, a little over-eager perhaps, and his wife a bit not-quite-the-thing. But pretty.

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be much room for doubt, I’m afraid, Mr Wallis.’

  The inspector said these words as though he were reading the lines from a detective novel. Perhaps that was how it was if one worked for Scotland Yard—one said the same things over and over again so that eventually everything sounded like a cliché.

  ‘I see. You are aware, Inspector, the fellow’s an Etonian? A Cambridge man? He went to my old college. Damn it, his uncle is in the F.O.! Really, Inspector, I find it impossible to believe—’

  ‘Facts speak for themselves, I’m afraid, sir. The safe has been opened, it’s empty—well, barring some documents which I’m hoping you’ll look over for me, sir? And a sum of money has gone. A Mr Pickering noticed the safe this morning—’

  ‘Yes, Pickering is the nightwatchman bu
t—’

  ‘Quite, sir. And the safe, as I can myself verify having just come from there, was opened using the combination.’

  ‘But surely a safecracker—’

  ‘Quite so, sir. However this same Mr Pickering has made a statement to the fact that Mr Rocastle was working late in his office last night, very late indeed, it would appear. And now he is gone and so too are the contents of the safe.’

  ‘Then he has been kidnapped! Or he is at home right now. I mean, really, Inspector. Pickering is a decent enough man, but he’s not—’

  ‘No, indeed, sir. But you’ll be interested to learn that Mr Rocastle is not, in fact, at home—number …’

  There was a pause while presumably the inspector consulted his notebook.

  ‘Flat 9, Leinster Mansions, Hammersmith. I took the liberty of going straight there, you see, sir, where I discovered the household in question to be in some …’—he cast about for an appropriate word—‘uproar. The man of the house had, it soon became apparent, not returned from the office the previous evening and furthermore—’

  ‘Then surely—’

  ‘And furthermore, his passport had been taken. So too his ration book, chequebook, various items of clothing, one, or possibly two, pairs of shoes—the lady of the house was uncertain as to the exact number—and a large suitcase. Dark green in colour, I believe it was.’

  ‘Well, but—’

  ‘Now, sir, if Mr Rocastle had indeed been kidnapped as per your hypothesis, then might I venture to say that it would be a very thorough, not to mention fortunate, kidnapper who had endeavoured to spirit away not only Mr Rocastle himself but Mr Rocastle’s passport, his ration book, his cheque book, plus sundry other items previously mentioned, in a large, dark-green suitcase, and all under the nose of Mrs Rocastle.’

  There was a silence.

  Harriet pulled on her cigarette which had been burning slowly away unsmoked as she had listened. Intolerable little man, she thought, picturing the inspector observing Cecil with his placid gaze. He was thoroughly enjoying himself at Cecil’s expense.

  A footstep at the doorway of the neighbouring room suggested someone—Cecil?—had walked over and was standing on the step. Harriet took a precautionary step backwards. Her cigarette had gone out but she held off relighting it.

  Jeremy, that was his name. Jeremy Rocastle. So, he had gone bad, had he? She would never have spotted it and it went without saying Cecil hadn’t. Perhaps what she had taken for eagerness was really ambition, greed. Or perhaps the man had got himself into some difficulty—a woman, gambling, a debt, some indiscretion, a business venture gone sour. The poor wife.

  The exact details hardly mattered. The point was: what was going to come out? How much would the firm—would Cecil—be affected? He hadn’t even enquired, of course. That would have been the very first thing she would have asked.

  ‘There is no absolutely no question, Inspector, that any one of us could have seen this coming,’ said Cecil, his voice much louder and closer than she had expected so that she took another step backwards. ‘He was a model employee, excellent war record. Really I … But his poor wife. Poor Jenny. He was so … so ordinary, really. What can have happened?’

  There was no reply to this and the inspector did not attempt to offer one.

  ‘Have you spoken to Standforth or MacIntosh or to Sir Maurice, Inspector? They’re the other directors of Empire and Colonial. Sir Maurice Debden is the chairman.’

  ‘Not yet, sir. Yours was the first name Mr Pickering gave us.’ There was a silence, then: ‘We’ll need you to go through the books, sir, of course.’

  ‘But good God, man, you can’t suspect him of embezzling company funds? Surely this is just a one-off thing?’

  ‘In my experience it rarely is a one-off, sir,’ replied the inspector in his tiresome, world-weary way.

  But how typical of Cecil not to even think of it!

  ‘My God, the firm!’ he said.

  And that was it. That summed up Cecil. The firm. Never mind he himself might be implicated, or that the family may very well be exposed to Lord knew what sort of unsavoury publicity.

  And today, of all days.

  Harriet turned and paced the length of the dining room.

  What was to be done? Nothing until the policemen had gone. Would they take Cecil with them? That would set tongues wagging. No, Cecil wouldn’t put up with that—he’d surely insist it wait till Monday morning. The policemen, then, must be made to leave.

  She looked at the clock on the wall and saw that the half-hour was about to strike. If they were going to make it to Leo and Felicity’s at all they needed to leave at once. Well, it was probably best to assume they were going. To do everything as normal.

  And the nanny! What a day for her to turn up.

  Harriet went quickly up the two flights of stairs to the second floor, following the sound of the children’s voices. They were in Anne’s bedroom.

  ‘Don’t pay any attention. It’s generally rubbish,’ observed Julius from behind the half-open door, no doubt dashing some extravagant claim of Anne’s.

  Harriet pushed open the door to see Anne sitting on the floor at one end of an extensive line of stuffed animals, stretching from Panda to what looked like a headless elephant. Anne looked up and, seeing her mother, jumped to her feet excitedly.

  ‘What do the police want, Mummy?’ she demanded.

  ‘Don’t be vulgar, Anne,’ Harriet countered, then she regarded the toy parade lined up on the carpet. One of the animals, a small brown bear, was minus an eye and in places its fur had worn completely away. They had purchased the little bear themselves, she and Cecil, at Harrods the week before Anne was born. When they had returned from the hospital Cecil had placed it in the cot and Anne’s tiny hands had clung to the thing, curling tightly around it.

  Something caught at the back of Harriet’s throat at the memory and she bent down and reached for the little bear. From behind the door there was a scuffle of feet and the rustle of cheap clothing as the nanny leapt to her feet.

  Harriet stood up abruptly. ‘Anne, aren’t you a little old for all these?’ and she indicated the menagerie on the floor.

  ‘Oh, but I asked to see them,’ said the nanny.

  And so it had begun already: the conspiracy of nanny and child against parent.

  ‘Miss Corbett. I didn’t see you down there.’

  ‘That’s because she was behind you and you don’t have eyes in the back of your head,’ observed Julius, who was standing, leaning against the window, hands in pockets so that you didn’t know if he was being clever in an irritating way or deliberately rude.

  ‘We shall be leaving for Uncle Leo and Aunt Felicity’s very soon, so please both be ready.’

  ‘Mrs Wallis—’

  ‘But why are the police here, Mummy?’ said Anne, interrupting the nanny. At Anne’s question the nanny turned pale and looked as though she wished she were anywhere else but here.

  ‘I’m sure it’s none of our business, Anne,’ said the girl, kneeling down to pick up Panda. ‘Now why don’t we put these away and get you ready to go out.’

  She really did look as if the very last thing she wanted to know was why on earth two policemen had turned up at the doorstep of a prospective new employer’s house. Perhaps the nanny was used to the police turning up? No doubt when the police arrived at one’s house in Stockwell one assumed the very worse and was rarely disappointed.

  ‘Thank you, nanny. We’ll let Anne clear up. May I have a word with you outside?’

  She went back out, not waiting for the girl’s reply.

  The girl followed her. She was tall, taller than one expected so that her eyes were at the same level as Harriet’s own—or perhaps even an inch higher. She was thin-faced and pale—a childhood of slum tenements, dark alleyways and air raid shelters, presumably. But her nails were clean and her clothes and shoes sensible (though what dreadful shoes!) and her hair tightly crimped in a ghastly home permanent wave which was,
after all, what one wanted from a nanny. And the children seemed to have taken to her. Not that one could imagine the children not taking to someone—they seemed amazingly indiscriminating.

  ‘I do apologise, Miss Corbett, for not concluding our interview.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right, I understand—’ and the girl stopped because that was leading her perilously close to matters which did not concern her. At this point she seemed to realise she was still holding Panda and she dropped her arms down to her sides as though to hide him.

  ‘Quite. Well, I am satisfied that you have proved yourself adequate to the position, so if you are happy with the conditions outlined by the agency you may commence employment with us at once.’

  The girl seemed to take a deep breath, but whether this was because she was relieved or because she was having second thoughts—or simply because she was short of breath—it was impossible to ascertain.

  ‘Thank you. That would be wonderful,’ she said.

  Would it? Were the girl’s ambitions so stunted that working as a child-minder for some other woman’s children on two pounds a week plus board seemed wonderful? Apparently so. And thank God for it, Harriet reasoned, otherwise one would be forced to look after one’s children oneself. At least during the school hols anyway.

  Two floors below, voices could be heard in the hallway.

  She turned back to the nanny. ‘Now, perhaps if you’ll see that the children are ready, Miss Corbett? We are having lunch at my brother-in-law’s house, Mr Leo Mumford’s at Hampstead, so we shall be away till teatime, I would think. I suggest you move in tomorrow morning around nine o’clock when Mrs Thompson will show you your room and give you a tour of the house.’