Two for Sorrow jt-3

by Nicola Upson

  Then there were shouts in the corridor outside. For the briefest of seconds, Wyles was overcome with relief—until she realised that the prospect of help was just the impetus Bannerman needed to finish what she had started. As desperate shoulders pushed against the heavy oak door, she felt the scarf tighten around her neck and knew that the struggle was all but over. Seconds later, she heard Penrose’s voice calling her name and felt him dragging Celia Bannerman away from her, but she lost consciousness before she was able to thank him.

  ‘Loving you is hard for me—it makes me a stranger in my own house. Familiar things, ordinary things that I’ve known for years like the dining-room curtains, and the wooden tub with a silver top that holds biscuits and a watercolour of San Remo that my mother painted, look odd to me, as though they belonged to someone else—when I’ve just left you, when I go home, I’m more lonely than I’ve ever been before.’

  Josephine had tried not to look over to Marta’s table too often, but the music-hall sketch had given way to an exquisitely written piece set in a railway station cafe, and, as Gertrude Lawrence’s character continued with an understated but affecting monologue which seemed so accurately to express the situation they found themselves in, she was compelled to look to Marta for some solidarity, if only to reassure herself that she wasn’t suffering alone. Lydia chose that moment to stand up and walk to the bar; as she passed behind Marta, she let a hand rest on her shoulder and Marta squeezed it affectionately. It was an unconscious gesture, not designed to be provocative in any way, but its very ordinariness was the last thing that Josephine wanted to see: it spoke of a bond that didn’t need to be continually questioning itself, a life too busy being lived to find its way into the pages of a diary, and it was so different from the connection which she and Marta shared that she could stand it no longer. She stood to get some air, wondering if Noël and Gertie had ever had to put up with so much disruption during a performance. The mood at supper afterwards was likely to be deadly.

  The door to Henrietta Place stood open and she watched the comings and goings in the street for a while, too glad of the anonymity to worry much about the cold. Putting Marta from her mind, she wondered where Archie was; she had long given up trying to work out what was going on—the conclusions she came to were simply too bizarre to contemplate—but she was worried about him, in spite of his reassurances that everything was fine. As if in response to her concern, the noise of an ambulance cut sharply across the murmur of night-time traffic in Oxford Street; to her horror, it rounded the corner a moment later and pulled up by the kerb, followed shortly by two police cars, and she moved back into the foyer to allow the men through unhindered.

  One or two people began to drift out of the hall when they heard the commotion. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Gerry asked.

  ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ Josephine shrugged. ‘I just hope that everyone’s all right.’ It seemed a ridiculous thing to say as people in uniform continued to pile into the building, but she had nothing else to offer. Ronnie and Lettice joined her, but she had barely begun to explain when Archie appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘Thank God,’ she said, then looked on, astonished, as he held the door open for Celia Bannerman to be brought through; Fallowfield and another officer led her carefully downstairs, her dress stained with blood, to where a crowd was gathering in the foyer.

  ‘Are you all right, Celia?’ Josephine asked, but her voice faded as she saw that Bannerman’s hands were cuffed behind her back, and she looked apprehensively at Archie. ‘What’s she done? Who’s been hurt?’

  ‘It’s WPC Wyles, but she’ll be fine, thanks to Miriam Sharpe. They’re taking her to hospital, but there’s no danger.’

  ‘And what else?’ In her heart, Josephine already knew the answer; still, she clung to the possibility that there might be some other explanation, but Archie’s silence said it all. She turned to Gerry, but it was too late to stop her.

  ‘You fucking bitch,’ she screamed, throwing herself at Bannerman. ‘Did letting Lizzie die give you a taste for it? What did Marjorie ever do to you?’

  Archie pulled her away and held her until she was calm. ‘She will pay,’ he said quietly. ‘It may not seem like justice, but I promise you—the pain that Marjorie suffered will come back to haunt her when she’s waiting in that cell, and the fear will be a thousand times greater than anything Marjorie had time to know.’

  Ronnie looked at Celia Bannerman in disbelief. ‘Marjorie? You did that to Marjorie?’

  Fallowfield tried to move on, but Josephine caught his arm. ‘Why, Celia?’ she asked softly. ‘I’ve looked up to you since I was eighteen. All the people you’ve taught and cared for, every woman you’ve given a start to in life—does that count for so very little that you just trample all over it as if it never existed?’

  Celia Bannerman stared back at her. ‘You can’t rewrite history, Josephine, no matter how hard you try. Those achievements still stand, regardless of anything else I’ve done.’

  ‘Of course they don’t. They were tainted the moment you started choosing between lives to build and lives to destroy.’ She looked at her old teacher, wondering how she could possibly remain so unchanged by what she had done. ‘I don’t even know who you are any more.’

  Bannerman laughed and took a step towards her. Josephine flinched as she felt the woman’s breath on her face and Archie stepped forward to intervene, but she waved him away; her pride refused to let her pull back, and, in any case, she was still hoping for some sort of explanation which would help her to understand how she could have been so wrong. ‘And do you know who you are, Josephine?’ Bannerman asked, her voice low, almost gentle. ‘The lives you separate, the names you hide behind—one day, they’ll all come crashing down and you’ll be left on your own, trying to work out where the real person went. If I’ve taught you anything, let it be that.’

  She turned and allowed herself to be led away. Fallowfield headed for the Henrietta Street entrance, but Penrose stopped him. ‘No, Bill,’ he said, unable to resist a quick glance in the chief constable’s direction. ‘Take her out the front. She inflicted as much humiliation as she could on Marjorie Baker—let’s show her how it feels.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Penrose glanced through the small window of the interview room where Celia Bannerman was waiting for him. She seemed calm now, with no trace of the frenzied anger that had prompted her attack on Wyles, and, when he opened the door, she simply lifted her face and gave him a steady, faintly scornful stare. He sat down opposite her, Fallowfield next to him, and took two pieces of paper from the file in front of him.

  ‘Before we start, Miss Bannerman, I understand that you’ve chosen not to have any legal representation present during this questioning. It’s my duty to advise you against that, and to ask you to reconsider.’

  ‘I’m my own counsel, Inspector. I’ve never relied on anyone else for help, and I have no intention of starting now.’

  ‘Very well. You have already been charged with the attempted murder of a police officer. This interview relates to the murders of Marjorie Baker and Jacob Sach—also known as Joseph Baker—on Friday 22 November at 66 St Martin’s Lane.’

  Before he could continue, Bannerman interrupted him, showing no more sign of agitation now than when he had sat down at the Cowdray Club to question her as a witness. ‘I imagine you have no proof of my involvement with those murders, Inspector, or that little stunt with your policewoman wouldn’t have been necessary.’

  She was absolutely right, of course: there was no evidence as yet to place her in St Martin’s Lane on Friday night, or to prove that Lucy’s fall had been anything other than an accident. A meticulous search of her living accommodation had revealed nothing of any significance, but Penrose never expected it to: one look around her office had told him that she was not the sort of woman who left her life lying around for others to read. He had one more gamble up his sleeve, though, and he chose his next words cautiously, careful to avoid a lie: ‘T
hat may have been true last night, Miss Bannerman, but I’m pleased to say that things are very different this morning. Perhaps you’ve forgotten Lucy Peters? She’s only a servant, I know, and probably not very important in the scheme of things as you see it, but she was close to Marjorie Baker and the two of them shared some very interesting information.’

  She laughed, but he was encouraged by the first flicker of doubt in her eyes. ‘You’re bluffing, of course. People with mouths as badly scalded as Lucy’s are incapable of talking, no matter how interesting the information they have.’

  ‘Indeed. But they can write things down.’ He let the suggestion sink in, then pushed the two letters across the table towards her. ‘These notes, one written by Miss Baker and found in your desk, and one by WPC Wyles, refer to a secret in your past which you would prefer to forget. Would you care to tell me what that is, Miss Bannerman?’

  She stared at him for a long time. ‘You’re talking to a dead woman, Inspector,’ she said eventually.

  Her voice was soft, but the calm acceptance of something too horrific for most people to contemplate unnerved him. ‘I’m glad you can look at your fate so stoically,’ he said, ‘particularly as you have such an intimate understanding of what the process of justice involves.’

  Bannerman smiled, and settled back in her chair. ‘That wasn’t quite what I meant, but do go on. Why don’t you tell me what you think you know about my life?’

  Refusing to let her condescension frustrate him this time, Penrose said: ‘With pleasure. Let’s start thirty years ago, when you left Holloway and moved on to your new job in Leeds. By that time, you were involved with a former prisoner called Eleanor Vale. Vale had attacked you in Holloway, but you were young and dedicated to your work, and you genuinely believed that you could rehabilitate her and turn her life around. You meant well, but your efforts were misguided,’ he continued, satisfied to see that his condescension was beginning to irritate her. ‘Not content with forgiveness, you took her into your home, and by the time you realised your mistake, Vale had become so dependent on you that it was impossible to free yourself of her. The only way out, as far as you could see, was to leave her behind once and for all, so you accepted a position in Yorkshire and made sure that she was unable to follow you. Eleanor Vale made the ultimate sacrifice for your career. She died for it.’

  When he had finished, she began to applaud. ‘You tell a good story, Inspector, and a far more accurate one than your friend. Accurate, except for one important detail: Eleanor Vale isn’t dead.’

  Her words threw Penrose for a moment: if Vale was still alive, the whole foundation of his case was destroyed. Why would Bannerman start to kill so suddenly if not to hide a past crime? As he struggled to make sense of what she was saying, she stared at him impatiently, incensed by his confusion. ‘Someone like Celia Bannerman could never have killed Eleanor Vale. Do you understand that?’ She slammed her hand hard down on the table, making him flinch. The force of the blow must have damaged skin which was already burnt and sore from Saturday, and he saw a trickle of blood seep out from beneath the bandage, but she seemed oblivious to the pain. ‘Do you understand that, Inspector, or do I have to spell it out for you? Celia Bannerman did not kill Eleanor Vale. Eleanor Vale killed Celia Bannerman. She pushed her under a tube train, to be precise, and walked away with her life.’

  Penrose heard Fallowfield draw his breath in sharply, and suddenly he understood exactly why he had found it so difficult to reconcile the compassionate prison warder whom Ethel Stuke had described with the woman he was convinced was a killer. ‘You’re Eleanor Vale, aren’t you?’ he said, shaking his head in disbelief, ‘and you’ve lived as Celia Bannerman for thirty years. How the hell have you managed it? She was a respected prison officer and a qualified nurse with a great future ahead of her.’

  ‘And Eleanor Vale was just a convict? A baby farmer with no right to any other identity, branded with one mistake for life? I was a qualified nurse, too, Inspector. I had a future, and those thirty years were only the life that I would have had if circumstances had been different.’

  ‘You mean if you hadn’t served two years’ hard labour for leaving babies to die in railway carriages.’

  ‘Don’t even begin to talk about things you don’t understand. I did what was necessary to survive. All my life, I’ve done that. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.’

  ‘And why was it so necessary to kill the woman who tried to help you?’

  ‘Help me? She picked me up and dropped me. How do you think it feels to be taken on as a project until something better comes along? To spend your life being grateful, only to find out that it’s all been for nothing? Yes, I was dependent on her, as you put it, but only because she made me that way. And if I was that disposable to her, why should she be any different to me?’

  ‘So you planned to kill her.’

  ‘No, not at all. It had never occurred to me that I was capable of killing anybody. I begged her to change her mind and either stay or take me with her, but she said it was impossible. On the morning she was due to leave, I watched her pack her whole life into two suitcases and stow away all her private papers and precious letters of reference, and I walked her to the underground station. It was the middle of August, and so hot in those tunnels. The platform was busier than usual because London was full of summer visitors, and I remember feeling more and more desperate as we waited. Even then, I don’t think I’d have done anything about it, but when we heard the train coming and she turned to kiss me goodbye, she looked at me and she said: “However will you manage without me?” ’ She rubbed a hand across her eyes, and Penrose could see that she was making an effort to suppress a thirty-year-old rage. ‘I’m afraid that was more than I could tolerate, Inspector—not just the smug, self-righteous arrogance of it all, but her complete inability to understand what she’d done. I must have pushed her, because the next thing I knew, she was under the train and people were screaming, but I have absolutely no recollection of that moment. I was eaten up with anger and resentment, and I just wanted to be rid of her. Please don’t misunderstand me—I’m not trying to make excuses, and I’m not sorry for what I did. She played with my life, then taunted me with my own weakness, and I killed her for it. But if she’s looking down now, she’ll see exactly how I’ve managed without her.’

  Penrose stared doubtfully at her; in his heart, he believed what she was saying to be true, but it was an enormous risk to take, and he said so.

  ‘What did I have to lose? I picked up those cases automatically and walked away, half expecting someone to come after me, but it was too crowded for anyone to have noticed what happened. I suppose I was in shock, because I walked around for ages before it occurred to me that I had a chance, that I was holding the possibility of another life in my hands. I went back to that house one last time to pack up Eleanor Vale’s things, and I sent them to a charity—Celia would have approved of that, and most of the clothes were her cast-offs anyway. Then I went north.’

  ‘And what about the death you left behind?’ Penrose had been involved in enough clear-up operations on the underground to know that the usual identification of a body might not have been possible; during the last few years, the country’s dire economic situation had led thirty or forty people a year to view the trains as a way out of their despair, and many of the stations had begun to install deep pits between the tracks to minimise their chances of success and to keep those still alive safe while the train was being moved. Even so, something tangible was usually found at the scene. ‘Were you really so confident that there was nothing on the body which would expose the lie?’ he asked.

  ‘Everything that testified to Celia Bannerman was with me, in her luggage. The one thing she was wearing that was remotely personal was a locket I’d given her when she first took me in; it was the only thing of any value I had to give at the time. She didn’t wear it very often, but she made a big thing of putting it on that day—asked me to fasten it for her, as if I’d
feel better about being abandoned if she left me wearing my jewellery.’

  ‘Your family—didn’t they wonder what had happened to you?’

  ‘They disowned me as soon as I was arrested. I went to them when I got out of prison, but they turned me away. Celia was all I had, God help me.’

  ‘But surely someone must have missed her?’

  ‘The only people she associated with were connected to her work,’ she said, echoing what Ethel Stuke had told him. ‘Even I was a mission, as it turned out. And nobody who knew her professionally had time to realise she wasn’t there any more; as far as they were concerned, Celia Bannerman left one job and reported when she was supposed to for the next. No one in Leeds knew what she looked like. If someone from Holloway or the hospitals we were in before had turned up, that would have been it, but they didn’t; Leeds was a long way from London in those days, and it worked in my favour that she’d tried to get as far away from me as possible. Of course, I made sure I kept a low profile for the first few years,’ she added, smiling. ‘Very self-effacing was our Celia—she never wanted the limelight, and she always refused any public recognition for what she did. A living saint, you might say.’