Two for Sorrow (25 page)

‘You don't know that. I'm sure it wasn't a mercenary thing.'

‘Really? I know how these women work, Josephine, and they're all the same. Bannerman only tolerates my presence because the Ashbys contribute so heavily to the Cowdray coffers. She's never been comfortable with my being here—I used to think it was because my louche behaviour threatened the club's precious reputation, but now I know why.'

‘Will you tell Celia what happened? How Lizzie found out, I mean.'

‘Oh, don't worry—I'll make sure that Celia understands everything perfectly. And there's something you need to
understand, too. You said Lizzie was hard to like, but that isn't true. She was just sad, Josephine. Her world had been torn apart for the second time, and she was lost—utterly lost. Who wouldn't lash out at a time like that? Promise me you'll stand her corner when you write about her.'

‘Good God, Gerry, I couldn't possibly write about her now. Too many people have been hurt—it wouldn't be right.'

‘But why not, if it's the truth?'

‘That's just the point—how do I know what's true and what isn't? If we hadn't had this conversation, I'd have given completely the wrong impression of Lizzie, and then how would you have felt? And God knows what lies and misunderstandings I'm spinning about her mother. You can't guess at history.'

‘And you can't ignore it, either. I admit I was furious at first when I heard you talking, but then I listened to what you said about why you were doing it and it made perfect sense. It's right that we try to understand—not judge, but understand. If Lizzie had believed that more people would be willing to do that—if she'd been given the chance to do it herself—perhaps there'd be no book to write.' She held up her hands in a mock truce. ‘Far be it for me to try to influence your famous sense of right and wrong—but I, for one, would feel better if Lizzie's story were told fairly. Promise me you'll think about it?' Josephine nodded, but remained unconvinced. Gerry stood up and winked at her. ‘That's if you're not too busy after Friday night.'

They left the dining room, much to the relief of staff who were waiting to reset the tables for lunch, and walked slowly back upstairs. ‘What's Marta like?' Gerry asked, and then, as Josephine hesitated, added impatiently: ‘I don't want a
carefully considered paragraph. I want an instant reaction. Put the writer down and be a normal human being for once.'

‘All right. She's impossible—quick to lose her temper, brave to the point of recklessness, and irritatingly good at seeing straight through any nonsense. She's stronger than anyone I've ever met—she'd have to be to survive what she's been through—and she's never afraid to speak her mind. She's passionate, warm and intelligent, full of contradictions, and I suspect that life would be infuriating with her, but never dull.'

‘And never peaceful.'

Josephine laughed. ‘No, probably not.'

‘And she's beautiful, from what I remember of the press pictures.'

‘Anyone with that description would be, surely? But yes, in the way you mean, she's beautiful.'

They stopped outside the drawing room, and Gerry looked at her knowingly. ‘I take back what I said about your having made your decision already,' she said. ‘But whichever way you jump, at least talk to her. She's given you an easy way out by telling you not to turn up if the answer's no, but she doesn't mean that. Talking to someone face to face is so important—if I know anything now, I know that. And it's not for me to give you advice, but she won't appreciate any more of that false modesty you seem to have got away with last time—so don't tell her she doesn't know how she feels, and if she says she's in love with you, accept that she's in love with you. The question—the only question—is whether you want that love or not. And Josephine?'

‘Yes?'

‘There's plenty of time for peace, eventually.'

Except for its prison, Holloway was an undistinguished area which blended so uneventfully into the neighbouring boroughs that it was hard to identify where one ended and another began. Campbell Road, where Marjorie and her father had lived, cut out of Seven Sisters Road, dissecting a line of busy shops close to Finsbury Park tube station. Although not technically a slum, the street held some of the poorest housing in north London and, to Penrose's mind, some of the worst living conditions: his first few days in the force had brought him here—called to the death of a three-year-old girl, accidentally suffocated in her sleep by a family huddled together in one bed against the cold—and he had never forgotten the misery of that visit, fifteen years ago on a day very similar to this.

‘Kids brought up in the Bunk are usually tough enough to take care of themselves,' Fallowfield said as he drove, giving the street the name by which it was best known among both locals and police, ‘but I don't see how anything could have given that girl a chance.' He shook his head. ‘I can't get her face out of my mind, you know, Sir. Poor kid—how old can she have been? Twenty? Twenty-one?'

‘Twenty-three, according to the records my cousins kept,' Penrose said, ‘and she'd done three stretches in Holloway in as many years.'

‘Well that figures, coming from round here.'

Fallowfield's comment might have sat uncomfortably with the welfare officers, but it was not entirely unjust. All districts had their notorious streets, but Campbell Road's reputation was darker than most and the Bunk held a certain legendary status amongst the officers who dealt with trouble there on a daily basis. A chameleon by nature, the street was rife with domestic violence and disputes between households, yet it closed ranks at the slightest hint of interference from strangers, presenting an unfriendly but remarkably united face to the outside world.

They parked at the southern end of the street in front of a newsagent's and a small beer off-licence. A group of men stood around on the pavement talking and idling away a Saturday morning, their ragged coat collars turned up to keep out the cold, their breath mingling with smoke from their cigarettes. The air bristled with hostility as Penrose and Fallowfield got out of the car. ‘Watch your motor, copper?' a small boy shouted insolently from the other side of the street, and one or two of the men sniggered as a handful of snow and mud hit the windscreen. The boy moved nearer to the car, kicking a few stones towards the vehicle as he walked, full of bravado in front of his friends. Fallowfield glared at him and seemed about to say something, but Penrose shook his head. How early the antagonism set in, he thought as he led the way up the street; the oldest of the boys could only have been six or seven.

The Bunk was broad enough to give the impression that its houses had a right to be there and, unlike most slums, the street did not crouch into the shadows of a factory or gasworks. In fact, a stranger oblivious to its history would never have guessed that the three-storey buildings housed anything other than the artisan classes they had originally been designed for.
The social face of the street may have changed, but traces of its architectural aspirations remained in the generous pavements and iron railings which ran in front of the houses, protecting a tiny sliver of private land from public footsteps. The door to number 35 was worn and neglected, the woman who answered it much the same; she looked forty but was probably younger; Penrose could smell the alcohol on her breath before she even opened her mouth. ‘We're looking for a Mrs Baker,' he said. ‘Is she at home?'

The woman smirked. ‘Maria? I don't know where else she'd be. Top of the house—two rooms at the back. Would you like me to show you up, Sir?'

She spat the last word out sarcastically, and Penrose pushed the door open and walked past her, ignoring the mock curtsey that accompanied the offer. ‘No, thank you. We'll find our own way.'

Inside, the house was in desperate need of repair: the plastered walls were peeling, the ceilings stained and dingy and, as they walked over to the stairs, Penrose noticed that the floorboards were springy with damp. Sections of balustrade had been removed for firewood, making the dimly lit, uneven steps more dangerous than ever. From what he could see through open doors on his way up, the overcrowding seemed to have got worse since he was last here. There must be more people per room than the law allowed, but that was hardly surprising; he knew from experience that what was acceptable was defined by what people were used to rather than what was legal.

‘We'll just tell her the facts as gently as possible,' he said quietly to Fallowfield on the middle landing. ‘Presumably she knew them both better than anyone else, so it'll be interesting to see what conclusions
she
jumps to about what happened.'

He knocked at the first of four doors which led off the second-floor corridor, and it was answered almost immediately by a dark-haired woman in her late forties or early fifties. She looked up at him with tired eyes, her face sallow and expressionless—the look of guilt or dread which usually greeted his arrival was entirely absent. ‘Mrs Baker?'

‘What's he done now?' Her voice was deep and roughened by cigarettes, her accent that of a born Londoner. ‘It must be something serious if they've sent the busies. Or is it Marjorie you're after?'

‘I need to talk to you about both of them, I'm afraid. May we come in?' She nodded and stood aside to let them pass. After the dirt and degradation of the rest of the house, the Bakers' room was refreshingly clean, but shabby and depressing nonetheless. Faded curtains with barely enough material to cover the windows hung on a piece of string, and the linoleum on the floor was scuffed and torn. The ceiling was covered in the obligatory damp stains and the bed stood at an awkward angle in the corner to avoid the three or four places where water was dripping through. A cot, an ugly deal table and chair and a chipped marble washstand were the only other significant items of furniture. A toddler with a shock of straw-coloured curls began to cry, and the woman went over to calm her down. Penrose watched as she lifted the girl from the cot, noticing the scald marks and scars on her work-sore hands; how impossible it must be to live safely in these inadequate rooms, with coal fires to cook on and oil lamps and candles for lighting; it was a wonder there weren't more fatalities.

When the toddler was quiet again, Maria Baker looked challengingly at them, daring them to surprise her with
whatever news they had brought about her family. ‘There's no easy way to say this, Mrs Baker,' Penrose began quietly, but he was interrupted before he could go any further.

‘Killed him at last, has she?' Her matter-of-factness wrong-footed him, and it must have shown in his face. ‘Nothing would surprise me about them two,' she added. ‘I've lived in the middle of their fighting for too long. It was only a matter of time before it got out of hand.'

‘I'm very sorry, but your husband and Marjorie are
both
dead,' he said, and for the first time Maria Baker looked shocked and confused. ‘Their bodies were found earlier this morning at Marjorie's place of work, but we believe they died last night. Marjorie was murdered. Your husband was found at the bottom of some steps and his death may have been an accident.'

‘He killed her?'

‘Is that likely?'

She walked over to the bed and sat down, then nodded to Penrose to take the chair. ‘They hated each other—always have. She stood up to him, you see—saw through his lies and his idleness and wasn't afraid to say so. Only one who ever has—but that's what girls are like today, isn't it? We were always taught to put up with what we were given, and we found our own ways round it. But Marjorie wasn't like that—she put him down to his face, played him at his own game. And Joe didn't like people getting the better of him.'

‘Was he violent towards her?' Fallowfield asked.

Mrs Baker looked scornfully at him. ‘He was violent to all of us—where do you think I got this from?' She parted her hair and Penrose could see where a cut was just beginning to heal. ‘I don't bang my own head against the wall, although
there's times when it feels like that. No, Joe's attitude was that if I wanted to run the household—bring the money in, discipline the kids—then I could take my punishment like a man, as well. He wasn't special in that—it's what men do here. They're no one on the outside, so they make their own power at home.' She thought for a moment, absent-mindedly smoothing the blankets on the bed. ‘He wasn't always like that, but it's hard to love anyone when you hate yourself, when you're ashamed like he was.'

‘Ashamed of what?'

‘Of his life. Of ending it here. He was an old man, sixty-seven next birthday. There were a lot of things that he regretted, and he blamed me for most of them. Marjorie could look after herself, though, especially as she got older—she had a hell of a temper. She broke his nose with a poker one night. If anything, he was afraid of her. That's why I thought …' The sentence was left unfinished as she tried to reconcile what had happened to her family with what she knew of them. ‘Are you sure he did it?'

Penrose evaded the question. ‘Marjorie's murder was clearly planned,' he said, ‘and I'm afraid that she was subjected to a brutal, spiteful attack.' He chose his words carefully, keen to spare her details which no mother would want to hear. ‘We have reason to believe that she was killed because of something she knew, perhaps a secret that she had threatened to reveal. Do you have any idea what that might have been?'