Blackstone and the New World (20 page)

‘If I’d done it just a few minutes sooner, I’d have been dead by the time Mrs Kenton arrived,’ Jenny said plaintively. ‘When you see her, tell her I’m sorry for upsetting her, will you?’

‘There’ll be no need for that,’ Blackstone said, with feigned heartiness. ‘You’ll be able to tell her yourself in a day or two.’

‘No, I won’t,’ Jenny said, with a certainty that was quite chilling. ‘You
know
I won’t.’

‘
Why
did you do it, Jenny?’ Blackstone asked, still softly. ‘Whatever possessed you to want to end your life?’

‘I did it because I’m no good,’ Jenny told him. ‘I did it because I’m a very wicked person.’

‘No, you’re not,’ Blackstone said soothingly.

‘You don’t know,’ Jenny said, with as much passion as her weak state would allow. ‘You’ve no idea.’

Up until perhaps a minute earlier, he’d firmly believed that the reason she’d asked to see him was because he’d become her new father figure – a living breathing replacement for the picture she’d cut out of the magazine.

And that was probably just what
she
believed, too.

But there was so much more to it than that, Blackstone was now starting to realize.

Jenny knew she was going to die, and something deep within her – perhaps the soul she was probably only vaguely aware she even possessed – was driving her to unburden herself before death took her.

And
that
was why he was there.

Not as a replacement for the man whose picture she cut from the magazine at all, but as a father figure in a much more traditional sense – as a priest, who was supposed to hear her confession and grant her absolution.

‘I’m sure you could never have done anything that other people would consider even remotely wicked,’ he said.

‘Wicked,’ Jenny mumbled, almost deliriously. ‘Wicked.’

‘But if you want to tell me about these
so-called
terrible things that you think you’ve done, I’ll be happy to listen,’ Blackstone assured her.

‘I betrayed the master,’ Jenny said. ‘He was never anything but kind to me, and I betrayed him.’

The knot in Blackstone’s stomach was now so tight that he was finding it difficult to breathe.

‘How did you betray him?’ he asked.

But from the strange look which had come into Jenny’s eyes, he doubted she could even hear him any more.

‘He’s dead because of me,’ Jenny whimpered. ‘He’s dead because I betrayed him.’

‘Jenny, listen to me!’ Blackstone said desperately. ‘Try to hear what I’m going to say to you.’

But it was hopeless – she was too far gone now.

‘It wasn’t a bullet that killed the master,’ Jenny whispered, her voice so faint that he had to lower his head closer to her mouth to even hear what she was saying. ‘It was me!’

Her grip on his hand had been growing weaker and weaker as she spoke these last few poignant words, and now there was no grip left at all.

The doctor, who had been watching the whole scene from a distance, now stepped forward and placed a finger on Jenny’s neck.

He shook his head sadly. ‘She’s gone, I’m afraid.’

Blackstone just stood there, looking down at the dead girl.

‘You can let go of her hand, now,’ the doctor said.

‘What?’

‘She can’t feel you any longer, so there’s no point in you continuing to hold her hand.’

No, there probably wasn’t, Blackstone thought. And yet his own hand seemed reluctant to release its grip.

‘There are things to do,’ the doctor said, a hint of impatience entering his voice. ‘We have to wash her and lay her out. We’re going to need the bed.’

Blackstone forced his fingers to open and Jenny’s arm flopped back on to the bed.

He turned and walked towards the door, and as he did so, he felt his eyes start to prickle. It was a long time since he could last remember crying – but he was crying now.

SEVENTEEN

T
here was only enough space for a single bed, a night-stand and a small wardrobe in Jenny’s bedroom, but given her former life at the orphanage, thought Blackstone – who knew all about orphanages himself – it must have seemed unimaginably luxurious to the girl.

He looked down at the blankets and sheets which covered the narrow bed, and which were themselves covered with a dark brown stain.

How Jenny had bled!

How she must have lain there in quiet despair, watching her life slowly seep away!

‘Where are Isobel, Emily and Benjamin?’ he heard Meade ask from somewhere behind him.

‘At the moment, they’re with Mr and Mrs Barlow, our neighbours,’ Mary O’Brien replied. ‘But they can’t stay there for much longer.’

‘Why not?’

‘It wouldn’t be fair to the Barlows. They’re very willing to help, but they’re old people, and it must be a strain on them having even three
well-behaved
children around.’

‘So if they can’t stay with the neighbours, what
are
you going to do with them?’

‘The children must come back to the apartment.’

‘Is that wise – after what’s just happened here?’

‘This is their home,’ Mary said firmly. ‘And if it contains unhappy memories – as it unquestionably does – they must learn to come to terms with them. Because you can’t live your life by running away from unpleasantness or pretending it never happened.’

‘I still think you should consider . . .’ Meade began.

But Mary had left his side and was already standing next to Blackstone and looking down at the bed.

‘I’ll have to clean this up before they get back,’ she said. ‘I can at least spare them that.’

‘If there’s anything we can do, you know that you only have to ask,’ Meade said.

‘I
do
know that, and I’m very grateful for it,’ Mary told him. She began stripping the sheets and blankets off Jenny’s bed. ‘I’d like to throw these away, but I simply can’t afford to. Still, the stains will hardly show if Jenny boils them really . . .’ She faltered. ‘Jenny
won’t
be boiling them, will she?’ she continued, with a choke in her voice. ‘Jenny will never be boiling anything again.’

‘Perhaps it might be a good idea if you sat down for a while,’ Meade suggested.

‘There’s no time to sit down,’ Mary said, collecting up the bedding in her arms. ‘There’s still far too much to do.’ She looked down at the mattress, and saw that the bloodstains had left their mark there, too. ‘The mattress is beyond saving,’ she decided. ‘It will just have to be burned. Could you gentlemen . . . could you take it down the basement for me, and ask the janitor if he wouldn’t mind putting it in the furnace?’

‘Of course,’ Meade said.

‘Be glad to,’ Blackstone told her.

When Blackstone and Meade returned from the basement, they found Mary pacing back and forth across the living-room floor.

‘There’s a bottle of whiskey on the table,’ she said. ‘Will you please pour us all a drink, Alex?’

‘I’m not sure that’s . . .’ Meade began.

‘We must drink to Jenny’s memory,’ Mary said firmly. ‘We at least owe her that.’

Meade poured the three drinks, and handed one to Mary.

‘Patrick always said that it was an insult to good whiskey to drink it standing up, so do please sit down,’ Mary said.

But she did not sit down herself. With her own glass of whiskey held tightly in her hand, she continued to pace the floor.

‘There is so much to do,’ she said, not for the first time, and in a voice which kept oscillating between the despairing and the frantic. ‘So very, very much to do. The orphanage where Jenny was brought up was run by Presbyterians, you know, and once she came to live with us, we went to great pains to see that she continued to follow her chosen religion.’

Or, at any rate, the religion that had been chosen
for
her, Blackstone thought, because in that – as in so many other aspects of her life – she had been able to make very few choices of her own.

Do you think the fact that she killed herself means she can’t be buried in consecrated ground, Alex?’ Mary asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Meade replied.

‘It shouldn’t. It’s not
fair
that it should. But perhaps, even if it does, I can persuade her pastor – who is also the orphanage pastor – that she never
intended
to kill herself.’ She looked at Blackstone, perhaps hoping for some sort of support, but the inspector could think of nothing to say. ‘Or perhaps I can tell him that she was just punishing her body in the same way as the flagellants punish theirs.’

‘I don’t think Presbyterians do that,’ Blackstone told her.

‘No, I don’t suppose they do,’ Mary said. ‘Or that she
did
intend to kill herself, but changed her mind at the last moment.’ she continued, as if searching for something –
anything
– that they could agree on.

‘Perhaps that’s just what she did do,’ Blackstone said, feeling as if the words were being torn from him.

But he didn’t believe it. Not for a second.

Jenny had known what she was doing. Weighed down with her guilt over O’Brien’s death, she had sought the only escape she thought was open to her – and had taken her own life.

‘But even if the church won’t bury her with all the trappings of religious ritual, she still has to
be
buried,’ Mary said. ‘Can she still have a funeral service, even if the grave is not consecrated?’

‘I don’t know,’ Meade said for the second time.

‘I must find out,’ Mary said. ‘I must arrange for the burial. I must send out the notices.’ She stopped pacing, as if a new, terrible thought had suddenly struck her. ‘There is
no one
to send notices to,’ she wailed. ‘She was an orphan. She had no family of her own. She had no friends . . .’

‘No friends at all?’ Blackstone asked.

‘There was one,’ Mary remembered. ‘A girl called Nancy – Nancy Greene – who she was in the orphanage with. This Nancy went into service at a big house on Fifth Avenue, and Jenny used to go and see her once a month.’

‘Do you have an exact address for the girl?’ Blackstone asked.

Meade shot him a questioning look, as if to say, why would you want the girl’s address?

And Blackstone replied with a look of his own, which said, it’s too complicated to explain now, but I’ll tell you all about it later.

‘Nancy’s address?’ Mary said. ‘Yes, I must have it somewhere. We would never have allowed Jenny to leave the house without knowing exactly where she was going.’

‘Well, if you give me the address, I’ll go and see her myself, and break the sad news to her,’ Blackstone promised. ‘And while I’m there, I’ll ask her to attend the funeral.’

‘You’re very kind,’ Mary said. ‘And you will come to the funeral yourself, won’t you?’ she added imploringly.

‘Of course,’ Blackstone agreed.

‘I’ll come too,’ Meade said. ‘And I’d be grateful if you’d allow me to pay for it.’

‘Why?’ Mary asked. ‘You hardly knew the girl.’

Meade shrugged awkwardly, as he always did when he found himself in this sort of situation.

‘It doesn’t matter that I didn’t really know her,’ he said. ‘I’d still like to pay for her funeral.’

‘The reason you’re making the offer is to save me bearing the expense myself, isn’t it?’ Mary asked.

‘Partly,’ Meade conceded.

Mary took a deep breath. ‘I still have a little money left. Not much – but enough to see Jenny buried decently.’

‘But you have all your other expenses to consider,’ Meade protested. ‘Your children . . .’

‘Jenny lived in this house,’ Mary said. ‘It would be hypocritical of me to say I regarded her as fully a part of the family – but I was fond of her, and I want to do the right thing. Do you understand that?
I
want to do the right thing!’

‘I understand,’ Meade said.

‘Did Jenny ever leave the house alone, apart from going to see Nancy?’ Blackstone asked.

‘No.’

‘Didn’t she go to church?’

‘Of course she did. Patrick insisted on that. He wasn’t one of those Catholics who believe that anyone outside the True Faith is damned. Rather, he believed that when Jenny prayed, she prayed to the same God as we do.’

‘But, surely, if she went to a different church, that meant she went out alone every Sunday,’ Blackstone said.

Meade was growing more and more perplexed and even Mary was looking a little puzzled.

‘We always take . . . we always
took
 . . . a cab to church,’ Mary said. ‘We’d drop Jenny off at her church on the way to ours, and pick her up on the return journey home.’

‘Can I ask you something else?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Did your husband ever bring any of the work connected with his investigations home with him?’

‘What?’ Mary said, as if she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about – as if this latest tragedy had blanked out all memory of anything that had gone before it.

‘Did he bring home any files?’ Blackstone persisted. ‘Or notebooks? Or anything else that might be tied in with the cases he was working on?’

Again, Meade gave Blackstone a quizzical look, and again Blackstone signalled that all would be explained later.

‘Yes, he did sometimes bring files home,’ Mary said. ‘But he always took them away again in the morning.’

‘So they were here overnight.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where did he keep them?’

‘He had an office. A room next to Jenny’s bedroom. Hardly a room at all in fact. More of a cupboard.’

‘And did he keep it locked?’

Mary thought about it. ‘The door
does
lock,’ she said finally. ‘But I don’t think he ever locked it himself. Why should he have? This was his home.’ She frowned. ‘Why are you asking all these questions, Mr Blackstone?’

‘Because—’

‘Because, even though
I
seem to have forgotten it,
you
are still investigating my husband’s murder?’ Mary interrupted.