by Nicola Upson
‘Not everyone’s the same. Julian still believes in you.’
‘That’s sweet of him, but I meant the organisation. We all feel it, you know – that sense of pride in being part of something truly extraordinary. We bitch about the way it’s run and the vanity of the broadcasters and the aloofness of the controllers, but we wouldn’t have a word said against the BBC by anyone on the outside. And that’s where I am now – on the outside. I miss it already. A sense of pride in one’s work is quite unusual in my family. I suppose someone’s told you by now what my maiden name was.’
‘Yes,’ Josephine admitted. ‘Several people. In fact, one of them reminded me only the other night that I have your sister to thank for one of my most – or least – memorable birthdays.’
‘Oh, Olivia certainly knew how to throw a party.’ It was hard to say if the edge in her voice was scorn or bitterness. ‘That’s where I met Anthony, you know. I was working in one of her clubs – off the Strand, not the Golden Hat. He used to come in with some friends after work. Eventually, he suggested that I went for a secretarial job at Savoy Hill. He knew I wasn’t happy at the club, so he put a good word in for me. Neither of us realised how much I’d love it. It rather backfired on him, I suppose – he thought he was giving me respectability until we married, and instead he gave me a career that I wasn’t prepared to sacrifice, for him or for anybody else.’
The idea of Anthony Beresford setting himself up as broadcasting’s very own Henry Higgins hardly endeared him to Josephine. ‘It’s good to know that respectability was so important to him,’ she said. ‘At least on the surface.’
Vivienne smiled. ‘It never really worked. The friends he wanted to impress – the ones who were happy to drink with me in the club – never accepted me, even after we were married. But it was different with people who didn’t know what I’d done before. I never found it hard to earn their respect, not until now.’
‘Did you love him?’
‘Always. I loved him so much that it was very easy to hate him when the time came.’
Her words echoed Julian’s, and Josephine wondered how soon in the marriage the transition had been made. ‘When did you find out that he was having an affair?’ she asked.
‘The first time? Almost immediately. We’d only been married a few weeks.’
‘Did he know?’
‘Oh yes, I couldn’t hide that sort of anger. When you first find out, it feels as though someone has kicked you in the stomach. You worry about the most ridiculous things – do they talk about me in bed? Are they laughing behind my back? But that passes, and what you’re left with is doubt. You don’t trust anyone from that moment on. No one is who they say they are, and the only thing you have to hold onto is that no one will ever hurt you like that again.’
‘But he did.’
She thought about it. ‘No, not really. Not in that extreme, all-consuming way. He was never faithful, but I stopped expecting him to be, and our marriage became merely dull rather than painful. I doubt we were unique in that.’
‘Something must have changed, though. What you’ve done now might not be unique, but it is extreme. How long had you been planning it?’
Again, she considered the question. ‘There isn’t an easy answer to that. The when and the how was quite recent, but I don’t think I can say when an inclination to do it became an intention. It crept up on me gradually, I suppose. I used to find myself imagining life without Anthony – I’d picture myself alone in the house, or in a different house that he’d never known, and eventually I was brave enough to admit that I’d prefer it that way. I’d fantasise about his having an accident – something quick, I never wanted him to suffer – and I realised how little grief I’d feel. Then guilt would get the better of me and I’d picture him as an old man, as if that could outweigh all the wicked thoughts. But that image of us together in ten years or twenty – well, it became less convincing each time.’
‘There must have been a catalyst, though.’
‘I discovered that he was going to leave me. He’d resigned from the BBC, and they were going to Canada. They must have been planning it for weeks, and I didn’t have the faintest idea.’ Already, Josephine had a hundred questions, but she wanted to let Vivienne finish her story before interrupting again. ‘It was so strange, that moment. I felt as if I were standing outside myself, watching, while Anthony was shot. It was like a film, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Even now, it doesn’t seem real.’
‘Did you ask Anthony about his plans?’
‘No. I couldn’t bear the lies.’
‘But you’re sure he was going away with Millicent Gray?’
‘Of course I am. Why?’
‘It’s just that she was engaged on several different productions over the coming months. She was making plans, and that doesn’t sound to me like a woman who was about to head out for a new life in Canada.’
‘I found the tickets, Josephine. What are you trying to say? That one of them wasn’t for her?’
Her voice was angry and insistent now, and for a moment Josephine’s faith was shaken; if Vivienne had killed Millicent, the thought that she had done so unnecessarily would naturally horrify her. ‘Was Anthony away from home much?’
‘Yes, quite often. He’d disappear for two or three days at a time, usually at weekends, but not always.’
‘There was no trace of him in that flat, Vivienne. If he’d spent that much time there, surely he’d have left something behind?’
‘How do you know there was nothing?’
‘I found Millicent’s body. Julian asked me to go and see her to talk about the play.’
Vivienne stared at her, genuinely shocked. ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea. That must have been terrible for you.’
‘It was. I’m not supposed to discuss it, and especially not with you, but I will tell you this – if I didn’t know already, I would never have guessed from her flat that there was anything serious between Millicent and your husband, and the girl who lives upstairs told me that he was hardly ever there.’ She hesitated, reluctant to deal another blow to a woman who could surely not take much more. ‘She also said that Millicent thought she was being made a fool of. Is there a chance that Anthony might have met somebody else?’ Before Vivienne could say anything, they heard the sound of keys in the door and the warder appeared again. ‘Five minutes, ladies.’ Josephine nodded, keen to dismiss her and make the most of their remaining time. ‘Well?’ she asked, her impatience getting the better of her. ‘You said there was something different about him, a sense of resolution. Could it have been that?’
‘I don’t know, Josephine. I have no idea what to think anymore. What does it matter, anyway? It’s too late now to put things right.’
‘Who do you think killed Millicent? Could it have been Anthony?’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Perhaps she was causing trouble for him. Perhaps Millicent wasn’t as keen to let the affair go as he was.’
For the first time, a flicker of something like hope transformed Vivienne’s face. ‘Maybe that’s why she wanted to see me.’
‘What?’
‘Millicent Gray. She left me a note at the BBC, asking me to visit her on Wednesday morning. I assumed that she was going to tell me what she and Anthony were planning, but perhaps she was actually going to tell me that someone had replaced us both. She would have had nothing left to lose, after all – if Anthony had betrayed her, why shouldn’t she hurt him and me at the same time?’
‘Was Anthony capable of murder?’
She thought for a long time, and Josephine looked anxiously towards the door, willing it not to open. ‘I would never have said so before. He could be vain and self-centred, and he always put his own feelings first, but he was never violent – in thought or in deed. Looking back, I’m not sure I could honestly say that I ever heard him raise his voice, and that used to infuriate me.’ In Josephine’s experience, vanity and selfishness were just as indicative of a
capacity to kill as a propensity for violence, and nothing she had heard convinced her that Anthony Beresford was out of the frame for his mistress’s murder; if that were the case, a jury might be persuaded to take a very different view of his death – but she was getting ahead of herself, and Marta’s words of warning sounded again in her head. ‘But I really don’t see how he had time to do it,’ Vivienne continued. ‘It was the most important day of his career, and pride would never have allowed him to risk that.’ She sighed heavily, the hope fading already. ‘Maybe they were just careful, Josephine. Maybe that’s why there was nothing of him in that flat. It’s not as if he hadn’t had plenty of practice at adultery.’
‘So who did kill her, if it wasn’t you and it wasn’t Anthony? Can you think of anyone?’ Vivienne shook her head. ‘And it’s not just the flat. It’s something Millicent said to me about never being enough for the person you love.’
‘I didn’t know you knew her that well.’
‘I didn’t. It was just a collision of unfortunate circumstances.’
Vivienne looked at her curiously. ‘Your glass house?’
‘I really must learn not say anything to you if I want it forgotten.’
‘Yours wouldn’t be the only secret I’ll take to my grave, and it’s becoming an increasingly safe bet.’ The attempt at a joke fell flat, and she spoke again, more seriously this time. ‘Tell me about him. We’ve spent an hour turning my marriage inside out, and I can’t help feeling at a disadvantage. Who is he?’ Misunderstanding Josephine’s hesitation, she added: ‘I’m not in a position to be indiscreet, even if I wanted to be.’ The door opened behind her, and she gave Josephine a wry smile. ‘Saved by the bell.’
‘Time’s up,’ the warder said, taking Vivienne by the arm. She flinched, but resisted a move towards the door and looked pleadingly at her visitor. ‘Tell me next time. Please, Josephine – promise me you’ll come back. It’s helped so much to talk to you.’
Trying not to think about what Marta would say when she found out, and knowing how foolish she was being, Josephine nodded. ‘Yes, I promise. Is there anything else you need?’
‘Only some time to think about what you’ve told me, and that’s something I seem to have plenty of at the moment.’
3
Hampstead was quiet on Sunday morning, its countrified peace contributing to a sense that London was finally getting back to normal. Even the weather seemed to have relaxed now that the pressure of the Coronation was over, and the tense grey skies of recent days were replaced by a powder-blue wash and feather-brushed clouds that refused to hurry. Josephine left Holly Place early, having no desire to be there when Lydia ‘popped round to collect a few things’. The sound of bells filled the air, calling people to mass at St Mary’s, and, as she passed the church’s distinctive white facade, nestled among a row of Georgian houses, she realised that the crippling sense of panic which normally gripped her whenever she walked away from Marta was entirely absent. For the first time in the three years that they had known each other, she felt confident of their relationship, unrationed and unrestricted. For the first time, she felt normal.
Their evening had been all the more precious for coming so soon after her visit to Holloway. Despite Josephine’s concerns, Marta seemed to understand her reluctance to abandon Vivienne Beresford to her fate; if anything, she understood it better than Josephine did herself. Compassion and a belief in justice only offered half an explanation, and in some strange way, Josephine’s urge to help was connected to the situation she found herself in with Lydia – penance, perhaps, to one wronged woman for the guilt she felt over another. She found a taxi quickly in Hampstead High Street, and on the spur of the moment asked the driver to drop her in Wigmore Street rather than Cavendish Square. The chances of finding Effie and her friends at home on a Sunday were good, and she wanted to find out if they could remember anything else about Millicent’s relationship with Anthony now that the immediate shock of her death had passed. By the time she visited Vivienne again, she hoped to have more to tell her.
The quadrangle was quiet, except for the strains of a violin which drifted down from the top floor of one of the other houses. Josephine glanced through the railings of number 4 and saw that the basement apartment appeared exactly as it had on Thursday, except that someone had left a bunch of tulips outside. She rang the bell and looked up, hoping that Effie might appear at the first-floor window, but this time the door was opened by another girl – dark-haired and slightly older, wearing an oriental dressing gown and brandishing a slice of toast. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you on a Sunday,’ Josephine said, ‘but I was hoping to speak to Effie. I was here the other day, and . . .’
‘Oh, was it you who found Millie?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘Super! Come in. I’m Lou, and Effie’s upstairs – we were just having breakfast and reading the papers. Isn’t it extraordinary? Come up and have some coffee.’
Slightly overwhelmed by the welcome, Josephine followed Lou up the wide staircase to the first-floor landing, trying to remember if she was the girl who worked at Heal’s or the untidy one with rich parents. When Effie saw who her visitor was, she greeted her as if they had known each other for years. ‘We were just talking about you!’ she said, after introducing Josephine to Vi. ‘I wanted to get in touch, but I suddenly realised I had absolutely no idea of how to get hold of you. Sit down. I’ll fetch another cup.’
Josephine took the one remaining chair, thinking of how much the flat reminded her of her own days in shared lodgings and boarding houses around the country. She was amused to see that the seat next to hers – the most comfortable one in the room – was now occupied by Millicent Gray’s cat, who had made an elaborate nest for herself among discarded coronation bunting. The cat glared at her, as if daring her to change the seating arrangements, and Josephine leaned over to reassure her. ‘I see someone’s fallen on her feet,’ she said.
‘Betty? Yes, we had to take her in,’ Vi said. ‘She’s missing Millie dreadfully, but we’re trying to make it up to her.’
‘You seem to be doing all right,’ Josephine observed, looking at the piece of bacon on Betty’s blanket. ‘She doesn’t look too traumatised.’
‘I wish we could all get over it so quickly.’ Effie put a tray of coffee and toast in front of Josephine and sat down on the floor. ‘Her parents came the other day and it was just awful. They were devastated – her mother didn’t stop crying the whole time they were here. She said the worst thing was having to break the news to Millie’s brother. He had an accident a few years back and he nearly died. It was Millie who helped him pull through. But I’m rambling – you must know all that.’
‘I can’t believe that woman could kill them both,’ Vi said with feeling. ‘What had Millie ever done to her? Something must have been wrong at home if the bloke went sniffing round elsewhere, and that was hardly Millie’s fault.’
‘Some women are spiteful like that, though. They just hate other people to be happy. We’ve got plenty of them at work – miserable at home, so they take it out on everyone who isn’t.’ Lou gestured to the pile of papers on the floor, satisfied that the news bore out her shop-bought wisdom. ‘It was obvious what was going to happen when you read it all in black and white. Millie just didn’t know what she’d got herself into.’
Josephine looked down at the headlines, horrified. She had known that it wouldn’t be long before Vivienne was named in the press, but even she could not have predicted the raft of vitriol that covered the front pages with varying degrees of subtlety. In most papers, the story of Anthony Beresford’s murder ran over several columns, and many contrasted his glittering career at the BBC with his wife’s ‘scandal-ridden’ past, focusing with delicious irrelevance on her family connection to the disgraced nightclub hostess who had died in mysterious circumstances. Josephine looked with interest at the photograph of Paradise House, Olivia Hanlon’s home; it was a substantial, rambling farmhouse near Harrow, ironically named, and capt
ioned somewhat predictably by the press as ‘Paradise Lost’.
‘You can take that if you like,’ Effie said despondently. ‘I can’t bear to read them anymore. Just think – I saw that woman on the day she killed Millie. I could have stopped her. If I’d done something, Millie might still be alive, but we were late for the bloody Coronation.’ She glared at Vi, and Josephine guessed that there had been some harsh recriminations between the two of them. ‘And it’s not even as if we saw much.’
‘It hasn’t been proven that Vivienne Beresford killed Millie,’ Josephine said tentatively.
All three turned to look at her in surprise, and she suddenly knew how Goldilocks must have felt. ‘Do you know something we don’t?’ Effie demanded. ‘Of course! That policeman who came here the other day – you knew him. What did he tell you?’
‘Nothing,’ Josephine said hurriedly, wondering how to encourage a little more circumspection on Vivienne’s behalf without fanning the flames of rumour any further. ‘I just meant that she’s denied it, which is strange when she so readily pleads guilty to her husband’s murder. Perhaps she’s telling the truth.’
‘So the person who did this to Millie might still be out there somewhere?’
Surprisingly, that thought hadn’t actually occurred to Josephine, so caught up was she in the idea that Anthony Beresford might have killed his lover before he died. Vi looked horrified at the prospect of a murderer working his way gradually up the house, and Josephine felt obliged to reassure her. ‘I think Millie’s death was very personal,’ she said. ‘I’m sure there’s nothing for you to worry about, and perhaps I’m being overcautious about the accusations.’
