Two for Sorrow (30 page)

She sighed heavily at the memory of it all, and sat back down at her desk. ‘To cut a long story short, I told him why I'd come and asked if there was anything I could do to help with Lizzie. He didn't hesitate: he told me that if I really wanted to help, I could take the child off his hands, the sooner the better.'

‘That must have put you in a very difficult position.'

‘It did. I could hardly go back and tell Amelia that her daughter was about to lose her father as well as her mother, but I could see for myself that it wasn't in Elizabeth's best interests to stay in that house.' The phrase echoed what she had said to Geraldine Ashby in the foyer, and Penrose wondered how many decisions she had made for other people over the years. ‘From what I could see, Jacob intended to drink himself to death as soon as possible,' she added, ‘and he wasn't about to let a child stand in his way. Then he threw a pile of papers across the table at me—letters, all from women who had contacted Amelia Sach, requesting to adopt a child.'

Penrose was astonished. ‘But my understanding was that
there was never any truth in the adoption story. I thought it was just a front for what she really did?'

‘No, Inspector. It was never as straightforward as that. Not all the children were adopted, obviously, but some were.'

‘And did you show these letters to the police? It might have affected the case.'

She looked at him like a parent looks at a child who insists on the existence of the tooth fairy. ‘The police knew all about them already. As far as they were concerned, they had linked Amelia to the murder of one baby and that was enough to hang her. They weren't interested in any of the other children who might have passed through her establishment.'

‘What did you do?'

‘I told Jacob I'd take care of it, but that he'd have to give me time. Then I took the letters, parcelled them up and sent them to one of the charities that looks after children's welfare, together with an anonymous letter explaining the situation. Please don't look at me like that, Inspector—I know I went too far. I should never have let myself become emotionally involved, but it was such a desperate situation and I just wanted to help. And sure enough, within a few days of Amelia's execution, someone had been in touch with Jacob and the adoption was arranged. None of the women who wrote got the child, of course, but Phyllida Ashby had a lot to do with that; she was on the board of the charity, and the child went to her housekeeper. But it was all done legally and it worked out well, for a while at least—Lizzie could have made a good life for herself if she'd been allowed to leave her past behind. I don't know how much you heard of what went on downstairs, but I stand by what I said to Lady Ashby—she had no business playing with things she didn't understand.'

‘Although you said your mistake was twenty years ago, not thirty.'

‘Implying that what I feel truly guilty about is what happened then, rather than the original act? Yes, I suppose it is. I prided myself on knowing when my pupils needed help, but I was wrong. It would have been terrible if it had been any of those girls, but it was worse because it was Elizabeth. It felt like I'd betrayed two people—her, and Amelia.'

Penrose was interested in the extent to which Celia Bannerman continued to talk of Sach as a friend rather than a prisoner, even now, but he was keen to move the story on. ‘Did anybody ever find out what you'd done?'

‘I admitted it to Phyllida later, when any possibility of reprimand was past. Our paths crossed on the board of several charities, and naturally I was interested in Elizabeth's progress.'

‘Did you have any contact with Jacob Sach after the adoption?'

‘Yes, when his daughter died. I'm afraid I didn't believe him when he said he never wanted to hear her name again—proof that naivety doesn't relate to age, I suppose.'

‘You wrote to him in Essex?'

‘No, I went to see him in person. He turned me away without shedding a tear.'

‘But you didn't know anything about his new family?'

‘No. He was hardly going to invite me in to talk about old times over a cup of tea.'

‘Then how did you know about Marjorie? Baker is a common enough name—you said yourself, that was the point of his taking it—so I don't understand why you would assume that the girl doing your dress fittings was part of that history?'

‘You're right. I would never have thought anything of it, but when I went to Motley last Friday, I saw a man outside in the street. I noticed him because he was talking to Marjorie Baker and I knew his face, but I simply couldn't place it. It had been driving me to distraction, but even then I don't think I'd have remembered him if I hadn't been digging up the past with Josephine. Talking about those years brought it all back, and last night I remembered—he'd aged, and life had obviously not been kind, but it was him. That was why I couldn't sleep—if I'm honest, those years are ones I would prefer to forget.'

‘But you're sure about all this?'

‘I'm sure that the man I saw outside Motley with Marjorie was Jacob Sach—as I said, the rest is putting two and two together, but it makes sense to assume that a young girl called Baker who associated with him was his daughter.'

It made sense to Penrose, too, and if this was the secret that Marjorie had been killed to protect, the obvious suspects were the ones closest to home. Just for a second, he doubted his instinctive dismissal of Joseph Baker as a candidate for his daughter's murder, and wondered if there was another explanation for the corroborative evidence which Spilsbury had given him; but then he thought about Maria Baker—her unemotional reaction to her daughter's death, the fight which the two women had allegedly had in the street, the jealousy and the resentment. What was her past, he wondered, and how much had she suffered because of the stigma attached to her husband's name? Did she even know about it? He wished now that he'd been firmer with her rather than trying to respect a grief which wasn't there; he would have to see her again immediately.

When he looked up, he realised that Celia Bannerman was
waiting for an answer from him, but he had been too distracted with his own thoughts to hear the question. ‘I said, have you spoken to Miss Baker's father yet?' she repeated impatiently.

‘I'm afraid that's not possible,' Penrose replied, and he saw in her face that his tone had told her what his words had not.

‘He's not dead as well, surely?'

‘Yes. His body was found at the same time as his daughter's.'

‘At Motley?' she asked. He nodded, and she was quiet for a long time. ‘Another life destroyed by those crimes,' she said at last. ‘If only Amelia could have known how far the violence would spread. Can I ask—was he murdered as well?'

‘I'm not in a position to say at the moment, I'm afraid.' Her wry glance suggested that she knew what that meant, but she said nothing. ‘Did Jacob Sach recognise
you
when you saw him last week?'

‘To my knowledge, he didn't even see me. He was deep in conversation with Miss Baker at the time, and he didn't seem to be taking much notice of what was going on in the street around him.'

‘And did Marjorie ever give you any indication that she knew about her family background, or your connection with it?'

‘No. She talked generally about the weather and the gala, and she asked me a lot of questions about myself, but that was simply professional curiosity.' She smiled. ‘You couldn't be expected to know this, Inspector, but there's a certain etiquette shared by hairdressers and dress fitters which demands that they affect an interest in their clients. It gives us the impression that we matter to them, and it glosses over the more embarrassing intimacies which we have to endure to look
respectable. Miss Baker was very good at it—she was always pleasant, and had a healthy appetite for inconsequential detail.'

‘And you didn't say anything to her?'

Her reply was a frosty look. ‘Of course not.'

‘But someone must have told her.'

She shrugged. ‘I can't help you there. Perhaps her father let it slip—he was obviously still a drinker. Is her mother alive?'

‘Yes.'

‘She probably didn't know herself, though. I can't imagine he'd feel the need to be entirely honest at the beginning of a new relationship.'

‘No, although I got the impression they'd been married for a long time. Marjorie was among the youngest of eight children. Anyway, we can easily establish that now we know what we're looking for, so thank you for the information. Of course, Marjorie might have found something out in prison—I'm sure gossip has a longer life in Holloway than in most places, doesn't it?'

‘Yes, now you mention it,' she said, although it seemed to take her a second to understand what he meant. ‘And I suppose no one can disappear entirely—not even Jacob Sach can have rolled up every carpet behind him.'

It was an apposite phrase. ‘And in all these years, you've never mentioned his new identity to anyone?'

‘Absolutely not. It was never my secret to give away.'

‘You weren't even tempted to point Josephine in the right direction?' he asked, imagining what she would have given for the opportunity of five minutes in a room with Jacob Sach. ‘She told me that you'd helped as much as you could.'

‘It's not the stuff of fiction, Inspector. I would have thought
that you of all people would know enough about the debris of crime to realise that it isn't a subject for fireside entertainment.'

‘That isn't my impression of what Josephine's trying to achieve.'

‘Perhaps not, but her digging has already caused trouble between myself and Lady Ashby, and I can't imagine that either of us is happier now because we know more than we did last week. I'm sure Josephine's intentions are good,' she added, and Penrose resisted the temptation to mention stones and glass houses, ‘but what she's doing isn't right.'

‘Even if it helps people come to terms with what's happened to them? I can understand why you would want to put certain things behind you, but burying the past can hurt the victims of a crime as much as it silences the perpetrators. It isn't the best way of ensuring justice.'

She scoffed. ‘When did you last read a crime novel that was about justice, Inspector?'

‘That's a question for my sergeant, I'm afraid—he reads more of them than I do. But he would probably tell you that
A Pin to See the Peepshow
did more to highlight the flaws in the Thompson and Bywaters case than any amount of campaigning has managed.'

‘By encouraging a popular readership to simplify a complex issue?' She shook her head, and Penrose wondered why he felt as if, of the two of them, he was the one lacking in legal experience. ‘Anyway, now that the past seems to have come crashing into the present, perhaps you can discourage Josephine from taking her project too far.'

‘Josephine will do as she likes,' he said, and his smile—although polite—did not entirely mask his irritation.

‘Yes,' she said, softening suddenly, ‘I seem to remember that she usually did.' He opened his mouth to speak, but she interrupted him. ‘Please forgive me for being so harsh, Inspector, but that time at Anstey was a moment of real crisis in my life, and that's very hard to admit to a former pupil—vanity gets in the way of honesty. It's hard to explain, but I look at Josephine whenever she's staying at the Cowdray Club and I see a successful, independent woman with so much still ahead of her—and people adore her, though she doesn't look for it, sometimes she doesn't even notice it. From the way you leap to her defence, I imagine you understand that yourself.'

Penrose was furious with himself for allowing his hesitation to acknowledge the truth of what she said, and his response was uncharacteristically simplistic. ‘You envy Josephine's success,' he said.

‘No, not at all. Please don't misunderstand me, Inspector—I've got an enviable career of my own to look back on. The improvements in nursing and in administration which I've helped to make will last, and women's lives will be the better for it. I don't regret any of the decisions I've made about my life, and I'm content. Not happy. Content. But every now and again, respected, contented women of my age wonder what they might have missed. It doesn't last long, and we don't get hysterical about it, but it's there.'

As she spoke, she opened the top right-hand drawer of her desk and took out an envelope, which she passed across the desk to him. Penrose opened it and took out a single page of the Bible, roughly torn from the rest of the book. It was from the Song of Solomon, and, across the top, two words were written in pencil: ‘Thank you.'

‘Amelia gave me that on the eve of her execution,' she
explained. ‘It comforted me until Elizabeth died, and it's haunted me ever since. You see, Inspector, when you make a decision that your work will be your entire life, it's important to get that right. If you don't, you feel that you've failed on more than a professional level; you feel that you've failed as a woman. When Elizabeth Price committed suicide, I had no right to mourn her, except as a teacher mourns the loss of a pupil; I wasn't her mother, I wasn't even her friend. More to the point, I couldn't think of anyone whose death would change my personal life rather than my professional one—and I suppose that made me wonder if it was all worth it. After Lady Cowdray died, things changed here, and now I find myself wondering that again.' She paused, apparently embarrassed by her own frankness, and then added more cynically: ‘You press on as if it
were
worth it, though, don't you? To admit the lie would be unbearable.'