Gillespie and I (48 page)

While the Clerk read the indictment, I was able to get a glimpse of Belle and Schlutterhose. For the present, they were refusing to look at me: both of them kept their faces resolutely fixed, to the front. Their appearance was, once again, disconcertingly genteel. They were well dressed and groomed, commonplace and sober. The German sported a dark, double-breasted reefer with spotless collar and cuffs; his hair had been trimmed, his whiskers shaved. Belle looked almost prim, in a high-necked grey frock. Both she and her husband wore ingenuous, slightly wounded expressions: all in all, very unlike the public conception of kidnappers and killers. To the uninformed eye, they must have seemed hardly capable of scolding a child, never mind abducting or murdering one. It seemed to me that this façade might easily fool an honest jury.

Both Schlutterhose and his wife pleaded ‘Not Guilty' to the charges on the indictment: a surprising decision on their part, and no doubt a frustrating one for their lawyers, given what was soon revealed in the German's declaration. However, according to what I had heard from Caskie, their counsel had been unable to persuade them to plead guilty, even to the lesser charge of plagium. Despite already having admitted to snatching Rose, Schlutterhose seemed determined that the lion's share of the blame should fall upon me.

According to the following day's
Glasgow Herald
, I was ‘pale, but composed' when I made my plea, and, in pronouncing the words ‘Not Guilty', my voice was ‘soft and serene'. Pale, no doubt; soft-spoken, perhaps, but I felt neither composed nor serene. Every nerve in my body was alert, my throat was dry, my palms wet. Moreover, I was shivering. The only fireplaces in the room flanked the bench, for His Lordship's comfort. I was cold; but, above all, I quaked with fear. And yet, it seems that I was able to conceal my disquiet, albeit unwittingly, as we humans often do.

There are no opening speeches in Scottish criminal trials, and so, following the preliminaries, Mr Aitchison, the prosecutor, called the first of his witnesses, thus embarking upon his mission to paint as ghastly a picture of events as possible.

The trial had begun.

Friday, 8 September 1933
LONDON

As yet, there is no reply from Mr Pettigrew of the Glasgow asylum. I wonder how long one ought to wait before telephoning again? Another letter could be sent, but my last foray to the pillar box was not an unqualified success. Having failed to post the letter at the surgery, I was obliged to try again, at our local box, the following day. In so doing, I met with a tiny accident—just a slight tumble; luckily, I had already put the letter in the box. Nothing broken, and no fuss warranted but several people ran out of Verrechio's to come to my assistance. They were all very kind, of course, especially Signor Verrechio, although it was all quite unnecessary and a little embarrassing. I could easily have come back up in the lift by myself, but the Signor insisted that I wait for Sarah, and he kept a lookout for her, and called her over to the café when she came plodding around the corner.

Needless to say, she wanted to know why I had left the apartment, and when I told her that I had intended to buy cigarettes, she asked where the cigarettes were—and where, for that matter, was my purse? And then I had to admit that I had left it upstairs. I could tell that she doubted my word. She seems to think that I passed out in the street, although I keep telling her that I simply tripped on a loose paving stone. And no wonder: the pavements in Bloomsbury are in an abominable state.

Then, on Saturday, we had another slight mishap.

I have come to realise that Sarah never emerges from her room in less than full garb: shoes, stockings and all. She bathes, of course, but I have never glimpsed her in a robe: she is always dressed when she enters and leaves the bathroom. If the roof blew off in the middle of the night, in a gale, I do believe that she would appear in the hallway, seconds later, decked out in mackintosh and galoshes.

Having realised that she avoids baring her skin, I tried walking in on her, on Saturday night, after she had gone to bed, hoping to surprise her as she undressed. Once she had bid me good-night and shut herself away in her room, I left an interval of two minutes, which I judged to be just long enough for her to begin taking off her clothes. However, when I threw open her door and marched in, unannounced, it was to find her seated in the armchair, fully clothed, and stitching her quilt. She looked shocked to see me there, striding into her chamber, as well she might, I suppose. I was then obliged to go through a little pantomime of having mistaken her door for that of the WC.

She now seems to think that I am losing my wits. She keeps asking me if I feel quite well and, this evening, I noticed her checking the level of whisky in one of the bottles.

Yesterday afternoon, I suggested to Sarah that we go for a swim.

‘This never-ending heatwave is oppressive,' I told her. ‘It's too stuffy. We must get out of here for a while. Have you ever swum at Hampstead Heath?'

She had not. Neither had I, as a matter of fact, but I had read about Kenwood Ladies Pond, several times, in the
Ham and High
, which tends to paint a picture of the place as an oasis of bucolic tranquillity, where scores of women bathe all year round, even in blizzards, when restricted to a mere hole in the ice—and all this a scant few miles from Oxford Circus. Of course, I know the Heath well, and was aware of the Highgate Ponds, but had never ventured, bodily, into any of the waters.

Sarah baulked at my suggestion of a swim, and I could tell that she was reluctant to go, because she kept asking me if I felt well enough, evidently hoping to discourage me. The trouble is, when Dr Derrett telephoned the other day, she was right beside me, trying to get a stain out of the rug, and so she heard every word. Apparently, Derrett does not like the look of my blood sample and wishes me to be X-rayed. I suspect that he is simply showing off and making himself feel important by sending patients for needless, horrible procedures. He offered to book a hospital appointment for me, next week, and I played along with him, but I have no intention of attending. I know all about the consequences of meddling with X-rays: during my time in America, Edison's poor assistant died in agony because of them. At any rate, having overheard the conversation, Sarah has got it into her head that I am poorly, and she tried to use this as a reason why we should not go for a swim. However, in the end, I persuaded her. She toddled off to make sure that the birds had sufficient water and, ten minutes later, reappeared in the hall with a towel folded across the top of her bulging carpet bag.

At my suggestion, we went by tram, rather than cab. Of course, as Sarah pointed out, this would take longer, but it suited my purpose that we should get as hot and bothered as possible, so that, upon arrival at the Heath, we would be longing to peel off our stockings and plunge into the cool waters of the Pond. There was no shade at the tram stop and by the time the right car came along, we were already boiling hot. The staircase presented a challenge, but I wanted to sit on the top deck for the benefit of the view, and the conductor was kind enough not to ring the bell until we were safely installed. Then, off we shot, and rattled at great speed towards King's Cross, before the tram began its long, slow climb out of the city. En route, I pointed out one or two shops that I thought might interest Sarah—Hathaway's confections, for instance, and Zwanziger the baker—but she said little in response.

Presently, behind the panes of glass, we began to bake, like two hothouse plums. Indeed, I was stewed, having, for convenience sake, worn my bathing costume beneath my clothes. As for Sarah, the fabric of her voluminous frock began to emit, ere long, a terrible scorched smell and, assuming that this was body odour, I politely refrained from making mention of it—until we realised that her skirts were, in fact, on fire: either her cigarette or mine (it was impossible to establish which) must have brushed against the cloth and set it quietly a-smoulder, and what with all the other smoke upstairs, we had failed to notice. Thankfully, we were able to smother the flames without too much trouble, and only a small patch of the material was charred.

Sarah caught fire: I cannot help but wonder whether this is a horrible irony.

By the time we got to the terminus, we were both frazzled. Luckily, we found a cab idling outside the Duke of St Albans and although the driver was reluctant to undertake such a short trip, which he claimed was ‘not worth his bloomin' candle', he agreed, in the end, to deposit us towards the top of Millfield Lane. From there, we hastened, gratefully, into the green shade of the trees and, after a short stroll, emerged at the Ladies Pond grove, where the facilities are simple: naught but a shed in which to change one's clothes, a deck and pier arrangement of wooden planks, and a few platforms, for diving. A perimeter of thick undergrowth provides bathers with a degree of privacy. On this weekday afternoon, the place was quiet, despite the heat. There were no swimmers in the water, but about half-a-dozen ladies were sunning themselves on the little meadow that slopes down behind the deck. A stout female lifeguard in overalls sat at a metal table by the hut, pouring tea.

Since I had worn my bathing suit, I could undress without having to bother with the changing cubicles. I simply divested myself of my clothes, then combed and repinned my hair, which is very long, these days, and entirely silver. My assumption was that Sarah would go inside to don her costume. However, upon turning to put my comb in my bag, I was surprised to see that she had not, after all, gone up to the hut. Instead, she had spread out her towel on the meadow and was seated upon it, fully clothed, peering warily at the grass on all sides, as though on the lookout for marauding insects.

‘Do get ready, dear,' I said. ‘We should have a swim now, to cool down, and then dry off later, in the sun.'

As I spoke, I noticed her focus shift towards the deck behind me, and she smiled, as though to greet someone. Glancing back, I saw, bearing down upon us, the sturdy attendant. Her hair was bobbed: thick, brown and coarse. She came to a halt at the top edge of the meadow, planting her feet wide apart. She had broad, athletic calves, and her shoes were so sensible that they might well have been made for a man. Ignoring Sarah, she looked down at me, sceptically.

‘Can you swim, madam?'

‘Yes, indeed, thank you,' I replied. ‘I‘ve been swimming since I was a child.'

‘Well, you shall have to prove it. See that buoy?' She pointed towards one of the floats in the water. ‘If you can reach that, you can swim all you like, but I shall have to watch you do it first. Forgive me asking, but you are perfectly fit, are you? We do get a lot of old ladies, so it's not necessarily a problem, but how's your heart?'

I looked at her.

‘Any strokes, heart attacks?' she added.

‘Certainly not.'

‘Good.' She glanced down at my assistant. ‘What about you, madam? Would you be able to reach that float?'

Sarah laughed. ‘Oh, I'll not be going in the water,' she said. ‘I can't swim. I'm just going to sit here, quietly.'

And with these words, she pulled a sewing tin out of her carpet bag, followed by her Kensitas Flowers quilt. From where I stood, I could see that the bag contained nothing else: it seemed that Sarah had brought no bathing costume.

The attendant turned to me.

‘Well, madam, if you wouldn't mind, just swim to that float whilst I keep an eye on you, then I'll know you're safe to be in the water.'

‘You can't swim?' I said to Sarah.

‘No,' she replied.

‘But that's why we came here—to get out of our clothes—and swim.'

‘Well, I never said I'd swim. But I'm quite happy for you to go in, Miss Baxter. You go on, enjoy yourself, and I'll just sit here.'

I stared at her, in disbelief. My armpits prickled, although whether it was with perspiration, or irritation, I could not tell. A fly buzzed, annoyingly, at my ear. I could feel the sun cooking the thin flesh of my scalp to the bone, like meat under a grill. Sarah flipped open the lid of her sewing tin. The lifeguard—who had been following our conversation—cleared her throat, and strode back towards the hut, calling out over her shoulder: ‘Whenever you're ready.'

Sarah glanced up at me.

‘You can't swim,' I said again.

‘No, I've never learned, even though I grew up by the sea—isn't it funny?'

A cloud passed across the sun. From this angle, the Pond looked murky, the colour of Brown Windsor soup. I turned my gaze upon the other ladies, who were seated on the meadow. Some of the younger women's bathing suits were slashed well above the knee, and one girl's costume was designed with a daring, cutaway section, at the midriff. Then I looked at my assistant, who sat there, in her stockings and shoes, and that frumpy frock, now with a silly charred patch in the skirts, and a hole the size of a fist. She had taken a length of cotton and was peering down at her fingers, to thread a needle. Her tight cuffs bit into the soft flesh of her wrists.