Bleeding Heart Square

by Andrew Taylor

  The woman came to stand beside her. She screwed up her face. ‘Looks like blood,’ she said.

  ‘What does?’

  ‘On that parcel.’

  Lydia stared at it. It was true that there were rusty stains on one side of the brown paper. But surely only a lurid imagination would identify it as blood? To her relief, she heard footsteps above them. Captain Ingleby-Lewis slowly descended the stairs, holding tightly but warily on to the banister rail as though grateful for its support but afraid that it might at any moment give him an electric shock. He was wearing his overcoat but neither collar nor tie. When he reached the safety of the hall, he stared at the two women and rubbed the stubble on his chin.

  ‘Ah – Mrs Renton. You’ve met my daughter, I see.’

  ‘Is she having the attic?’

  ‘No. What were you talking about? I heard somebody say something about blood.’

  Mrs Renton indicated the parcel. ‘There’s blood on it. See? And it stinks, too. It was smelling yesterday, but it’s much worse today.’

  Ingleby-Lewis propped himself against the newel post and frowned. ‘Who’s it for? I haven’t got my glasses.’

  ‘Mr Serridge. Postman brought it on Friday.’

  ‘Well, he’s not here, is he? Heaven knows when he’ll be back.’

  ‘We can’t leave that parcel there,’ Mrs Renton pointed out.

  ‘Then you’d better open it,’ Ingleby-Lewis said.

  ‘Mr Serridge wouldn’t like it. He’s most particular about his post.’

  ‘Nonsense, Mrs Renton. I take full responsibility.’ He glared at her. ‘Open that parcel.’

  She shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

  Mrs Renton pulled the knot apart and coiled the string into a roll. She unwrapped the parcel gingerly. The smell grew steadily worse. Finally she drew back the last fold of brown paper, exposing an object like a misshapen egg about four inches long and two inches high. Most of it was a dark, mottled red, but there were streaks of a pale yellow embedded into its texture, and minute white specks milled about almost invisibly on its surface.

  ‘Meat,’ Mrs Renton said.

  ‘But it’s rotten,’ Lydia said, shocked.

  ‘I can see that,’ Ingleby-Lewis barked. Holding his nose, he came nearer. ‘Damn it, those are maggots. What the blazes is it doing here?’

  Mrs Renton looked at Lydia. ‘Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘What is it, anyway?’ he asked in a quieter voice.

  ‘It’s a heart, sir,’ Mrs Renton said. ‘A rotten heart.’ At half past eleven, Captain Ingleby-Lewis went out, saying that he had an appointment and that he would not be back for luncheon. Lydia wasn’t sure what lunch would have consisted of if he had come back because she had found nothing to eat except a small tin of sardines.

  Not that it mattered. A trace of the decaying meat that she and Mrs Renton had found lingered in the air, even here, upstairs and with the door closed. It wasn’t so much a smell as a pallid, unlovely ghost that probably had more to do with memory or imagination than actuality. But it was enough to stifle hunger.

  Why would somebody take the trouble to send a piece of offal in the post? She tried to think about it as an anthropologist might think about the practices of a primitive tribe. After all, she was in a strange place, among strangers, and no doubt they did things differently here.

  She remembered, quite irrelevantly it seemed, how Marcus had shown her a dead rabbit at Monkshill Park when they were children. He had shot it in the head with his .22 rifle. She had known what the outside of a rabbit was like, the fur, the white tail, the long ears. Now, for the first time, she saw what lay beneath the fur: the blood and bone and sinew, and the grey matter of the brain. The discovery made her sick. ‘Just like a girl,’ Marcus had said, and laughed.

  She went into her room and unpacked her suitcase, marvelling at the curious assortment of clothes that she had brought with her. Apart from the hooks on the back of the door, there was nowhere to hang them so she had to put most of them back in the case. She washed the bowls and saucepan in the little kitchen but could not find a tea towel to dry them with. She returned to the sitting room and tidied it as best she could. At least it was warmer here than elsewhere in the flat because she had fed the gas meter with a couple of shillings.

  By the time she had finished, the room looked almost as bad as before. She sat close to the gas fire and tried to fill the emptiness by reading A Room of One’s Own. ‘One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.’ She wondered whether Mrs Woolf had ever had to live somewhere like Bleeding Heart Square and lunch on thin air, with the prospect of dining on a small tin of sardines. Her attention strayed to her bookmark, the snapshot of her sister. The photograph had been taken on the Riviera that summer: Pamela looking mischievous in a bathing costume, with a cluster of young men around her. Looking at it made Lydia want to cry.

  Her father returned a little after three o’clock. She heard his footsteps on the stairs and his coughing on the landing. He pushed open the door so violently that it banged against one of the chairs at the table. Lydia looked up, closing the book, shutting Pamela and Mrs Woolf away.

  ‘There you are,’ Captain Ingleby-Lewis said, sounding mildly surprised.

  Swaying slightly and bringing with him a strong smell of beer, he advanced slowly into the room. He pulled off his overcoat and draped it over one of the chairs at the table. He sat down heavily in the armchair opposite hers. His waistcoat was smeared with ash but the suit had once been a good one, and the trousers were neatly creased. Perhaps he put his trousers under the mattress of his bed while he slept.

  For a moment they stared at each other. The usual social niceties – ‘Have you had lunch?’ ‘I see it’s stopped raining’ – seemed irrelevant here. They were separated by five feet of threadbare carpet and an enormous gulf of mutual ignorance.

  ‘This can’t go on, you know,’ he said abruptly, patting the pockets of his jacket. He took out a packet of cigarettes. ‘You can see for yourself. It’s – ah – it’s not suitable.’

  ‘My being here?’

  ‘Exactly. You’ve got a perfectly good home of your own. And a husband.’

  ‘I’d rather stay here, Father.’ The word Father felt awkward in her mouth, as though it belonged somewhere else, but it was also a weapon.

  ‘But why do you want to come here?’ He struck a match with a trembling hand and squinted at her through the flame. ‘You’ve got along perfectly well without me for nearly thirty years. To all intents and purposes, that fellow Cassington is your father, not me. Anyway, you’re married now. You’re Langstone’s responsibility. He can give you everything you need.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of all that,’ Lydia said.

  ‘A wife belongs with her husband, you know.’

  ‘This one doesn’t.’

  ‘And your mother? What does she say?’

  ‘She doesn’t know I’m here. No one does. She won’t even know that I’ve left home unless Marcus has told her.’

  He smoked in silence. A cylinder of ash fell from the tip of the cigarette to the carpet. Somewhere outside a woman was shouting, ‘So where’s it gone then, you bastard? I want it back.’ She repeated the same words over and over again: ‘I want it back, I want it back.’

  Ingleby-Lewis cleared his throat. ‘I don’t mind telling you, my dear, I’ve had a few ups and downs lately. Shares not doing as well as they might. Taxation. This damned government of ours. It’s all changed since the war. If you want to live like a gentleman these days, you have to be as rich as Croesus. The long and short of it is, I can’t afford to keep you.’

  ‘I needn’t be a burden on you.’

  ‘But how are you going to live? Have you got any money of your own?’

  ‘A little. And I have a bit of jewellery. I thought perhaps I could sell some of it and that would tide me over until I could get a job.’

  ‘But you’ve got nothing coming in on a regular basis?’
<
br />   She shook her head.

  He sighed gustily. ‘A job, eh? And what sort of job could you do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Anything.’

  ‘Can you use a typewriter?’

  ‘No, but I’m sure I could—’

  ‘Have you had any sort of job in your life? A real job, I mean?’

  ‘Well, not as such.’

  ‘Not as such,’ he echoed. ‘Lydia, have you ever done anything useful? Do you know anything useful? There are millions of unemployed out there. Go into that library in Charleston Street any day of the week, and it’s packed with the blighters. Why should anyone want to give you a job?’

  Lydia glared at him. ‘I’m sure somebody would. I – I know how things are done, for example. That could be useful.’

  ‘How things are done,’ he echoed, and this time he didn’t try to disguise the sarcasm. ‘You mean, whether the wife of a peer goes into dinner in front of the wife of an ambassador, eh? Which flowers are best for the drawing room in September? I don’t think you’ll find there’s much call for all that. Not around here.’

  ‘I’m sure someone must—’

  ‘Perhaps one of your mother’s friends might take you on as a companion? Though I’m not sure your mother would be very happy about that. She’d put a stop to it if she could.’

  ‘Then I shall advertise. It may take a while but—’

  ‘But if you’re lucky you might find a position with the wife of some jumped-up tradesman in Turnham Green.’ He flicked the cigarette end into the fireplace. ‘On the other hand you almost certainly wouldn’t last five minutes because as soon as you open your mouth you’d remind them what ghastly little snobs they were.’

  ‘Father,’ Lydia said. ‘I know it may not be easy, but could I at least stay with you for a few weeks? I can pay my own way. And I could help with – with the housework, perhaps.’

  ‘Have you ever done any housework in your life?’

  ‘I’m sure I could learn. Perhaps your housekeeper would be able to show me.’

  Ingleby-Lewis threw back his head and laughed. ‘I don’t have a housekeeper. I don’t have anyone.’

  She frowned. ‘Surely someone comes in and—’

  ‘No. There’s nobody, Lydia, it’s as simple as that. Sometimes Serridge’s charwoman takes pity on an old buffer and tidies me up a bit but that’s out of the kindness of her heart.’ He leant towards her. ‘All right,’ he said in a gentler voice. ‘You can stay for a week or two. But I’m telling you now, you won’t enjoy it. You’re not used to this sort of life.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Mind you, I’ll have to square it with Serridge.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘My landlord, among other things. That parcel downstairs was for him.’ Ingleby-Lewis smiled at her, exposing brown jagged teeth. ‘You had better let me have a few pounds for him. He won’t let you have the room for nothing.’

  Lydia opened her handbag and found her purse. ‘Would five pounds do for a start?’

  Her father nodded. He took the money and put it in his wallet. He stood up slowly. ‘I have to go out for a while. I’ll leave you to it, shall I?’

  ‘I wonder … what about food?’

  ‘What about it? If you want to buy some, you’ll find shops in Charleston Street. Or go across to Fetter Passage.’ He nodded to her and said, with a ghostly geniality that seemed to belong to a much younger, happier man, ‘Must dash. Au revoir, my dear.’

  Lydia listened to him on the stairs. The door banged. She went to stand by the window. Captain Ingleby-Lewis walked slowly and carefully across the square and into the doorway of the Crozier. She waited a moment. From the windows of her father’s room you could see the length of Bleeding Heart Square and, on the corner by the old pump, the alley leading past the pub to Charleston Street. On the right was the bulk of the chapel with its pinnacles dark against a sky the colour of dirty cotton wool. If she craned her neck she had a glimpse of Rosington Place beyond, where the long, shabby terraces faced each other, cut off from the rest of London by the railings at the end and the lodge where the Beadle stood guard with his little dog. She shivered with a mixture of cold, fear and excitement.

  As she was about to turn back into the room she caught sight of the figure of a man standing in the alley near the Crozier. She expected him to go into the pub. But instead he stood looking from one end of Bleeding Heart Square to the other with leisurely attention, as though he were a sightseer. Automatically she stepped back so he would not be able to glimpse her face against the glass.

  She wondered idly who he was. Just a young man in a brown raincoat with a flat cap and a muffler round his neck. Perhaps a clerk of some sort or somebody who worked in a shop. One of the army of little people, as Marcus used to say, one of those who needed other people like Marcus to tell them what to do.

  The young man hurried out of the square and into Charleston Street, where he glanced up and down as if wary of pursuit. Half a dozen schoolgirls from St Tumwulf’s threaded their way around him. He began to walk rapidly east. Narton, who had been sheltering from the wind on the steps of the public library, crossed the road and followed. He calculated that he had nothing to lose and perhaps everything to gain.

  He caught up with his quarry in Farringdon Road. Maybe he was heading for the Tube station. Narton touched his shoulder, and the man swung round, alarm flaring in his eyes. He had a long bony face and the tip of his nose was red with cold.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Can I have a word?’

  ‘What about? Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s Narton, sir. Detective Sergeant Narton.’ He took out his warrant card and allowed the man a glimpse of it. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Me – oh, my name’s …’ He paused, and Narton wondered whether he was nerving himself to come up with a false name. ‘Wentwood. Roderick Wentwood.’

  ‘You’ve got proof of that, have you, sir?’

  ‘Of course I have. Look, what is this about?’

  ‘Perhaps you could show me.’

  Wentwood muttered something under his breath. He unbuttoned his overcoat and produced a worn brown wallet. Inside was a letter, addressed by hand to R. Wentwood, Esq., c/o Mrs V. Rutter, 43 Plessey Street, Kentish Town, with a Hereford postmark.

  ‘All right?’ Wentwood said. ‘Satisfied?’

  ‘No call for sarcasm,’ Narton said mildly. ‘Why don’t we get out of this wind? I could do with a cup of something, and I dare say you could too.’

  Wentwood’s eyes darted to and fro. Maybe he wanted to make a break for it. Surely he wouldn’t be so stupid?

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong, you know.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Let’s go and have that cup of tea, shall we?’

  The café was opposite the Dead Meat Market at Smith-field. Most of the other customers were men with bloodstained overalls. Narton ordered two teas, trying not to begrudge the expense. They stood side by side, leaning on a shelf sticky with spilled sugar and speckled with ash. Wentwood rubbed a circle in the steamy haze on the plate-glass window and looked out at the lorries and vans in Charterhouse Street. The rank smell of raw meat hung in the smoky air.

  ‘You’ve been hanging around Bleeding Heart Square,’ Narton said.

  ‘Not really. I’ve strolled past once or twice, I suppose. Is there a law against it?’

  ‘Depends why you’re doing it. Not somewhere you stroll past by accident. It’s a cul-de-sac, Mr Wentwood. You have to make up your mind to go there.’

  ‘I told you: there’s nothing suspicious about it.’

  ‘But you do have a reason.’

  ‘It’s a private matter.’

  ‘In my job nothing’s private.’ Narton paused. ‘On the other hand, I’ve no interest in things that don’t concern me. But sometimes I need to know something that’s private. Just so I know it don’t matter. So I can rule it out. See?’

  Wentwood nodded.

  ‘You’re interested in number seven, aren’t you?’<
br />
  He nodded again.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s a man there. A friend of a friend.’

  ‘Why don’t you knock on the door and ask for him?’

  ‘Because he’s not there at present. Anyway, he doesn’t know me. I’m waiting for him to come back.’

  ‘Ah.’ Narton swallowed a mouthful of tea. ‘And who might that be?’

  ‘His name’s Serridge.’

  Narton felt a glow that had nothing to do with the warmth of the tea. ‘Now that’s interesting.’

  ‘What is?’

  Narton didn’t reply. He produced a packet of cigarettes and, feeling reckless, offered one to Wentwood. ‘So,’ he said, bending towards the match that Wentwood held out to him. ‘Tell me about you and Serridge.’

  The other man sighed, which made his long face look even more melancholy than it naturally did. ‘I – I just want to see him. To get an idea of what he’s like. He used to know the aunt of a friend of mine.’

  ‘Miss Philippa Penhow,’ Narton said.

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘And what’s your connection with the lady? Do you know her?’

  ‘No. But I know her niece.’

  Narton fished out his notebook. ‘Miss Fenella Kensley. Lives with her parents in Belsize Park.’

  ‘Her parents have died.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, I’m sure,’ Narton said mechanically, and made a note. ‘You must be very friendly with her.’

  Wentwood flushed. ‘As a matter of fact we’re engaged.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘It’s not official yet. We are waiting until we can afford to marry. That’s why I’m here, in a way.’

  ‘Looking for Serridge?’

  Wentwood shook his head. ‘In this part of London, I mean. I’m looking for a job, and also for somewhere to live. Somewhere central. And while I was in the neighbourhood I thought I’d look at Bleeding Heart Square. Just – just in case.’

  ‘In case what, Mr Wentwood?’

  ‘In case I saw Serridge … or even Miss Penhow. Or perhaps he might tell me where to find her.’

  ‘You say Serridge doesn’t know what you look like?’