by Sarah Rayne
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Maud knew she needed a good deal of resolve for what now lay ahead. She would have to do several things she had not done before, but she thought she could manage it. The main thing to remember was the address she had found that day in Thomasina’s desk–the address that had been tucked into a drawer, rather than being in Thomasina’s proper address book. Number 17, Paradise Yard, Seven Dials, London. And a name: Catherine Kendal.
Maud could see now that Thomasina meant Catherine Kendal to be kept secret, partly because the address was not in her proper address book, but also because of what Higgins had said in the bath-house at Latchkill about Thomasina: ‘One of her pretty little sluts from Seven Dials.’ Maud had instantly remembered Catherine Kendal and the Seven Dials address, and what Thomasina had said that day: ‘There’s a girl who lives in a poor part of London. She’s had to do some dreadful things to avoid starving, and she has a sick sister. She’d do anything in the world for that sister…’
Maud set off along the lanes. It was a quarter past midnight–a lonely time to be out, but she was unlikely to meet anyone. She needed to get to Chester where she could get a train to London. If she could walk as far as one of the small market towns–Barrow or Tarporley–there were little country trains. Milk trains usually ran around four a.m. and Maud did not mind travelling into Chester on a milk train.
It would be a very long walk to Barrow but she did not mind that either. She knew the way because she had quite often been there for shopping, and there were signposts and milestones. She would have little rests on the grass at the side of the road as she went.
If she had to, she was going to say she was a parlourmaid, dismissed because the son of the house had forced his way into her bedroom. Or was that a bit too much like a penny novelette? Perhaps she could say she was going to see her mother who had been taken ill. Yes, that would be better; it would get people’s sympathy. And if she had to give her name to anyone on her journey, she was going to say it was Catherine Kendal and that she lived in London.
Catherine Kendal, with that Seven Dials address. Catherine Kendal was one of Thomasina’s pretty little sluts, who would do anything to avoid starving. And who, Thomasina had said, was exactly Maud’s own age, exactly Maud’s own age…
It was easier than she had dared hope. There was indeed a milk train from Barrow, and the incurious train driver had said, Oh, yes, he was going to Chester all right, so hop in miss, and help yourself to a drink of milk from that churn while you’re about it. And she had hopped in and once at Chester had managed to get on a train bound for London.
It was a long journey, and as the train bumped and jolted along, Maud slipped in and out of sleep. Sometimes the tapping of the train wheels got mixed up with Thomasina and Simon relentlessly tapping on the walls of Twygrist–those sounds were fainter by this time, but Maud could still hear them. But sometimes the wheels sounded like the running feet of the man who had chased her and mamma through that long-ago autumn morning. Heavy menacing footsteps they had been, and when Maud looked fearfully back over her shoulder, she saw the man clearly. She had seen his face, which had been huge and misshapen, and she had seen that he was grinning with delight because he had been sure he would catch them.
Maud still did not entirely understand about that last morning with mamma. ‘We’re going to the place where your father lives,’ mamma had said, and the place they had gone to had been Latchkill. Had the man who followed them really been Maud’s father? Maud thought she had forgotten about him, but drowsing in the stuffy train, with the rhythmic hum of the wheels going on and on in her ears, she found she remembered him very clearly indeed. She could hear him pounding after them through the misty half-light, and she could feel the heaviness of his tread. Exactly like a giant running after a poor little human. Was that why she had thought of Thomasina as a giant on the night she had hidden in Charity Cottage when Thomasina had come striding across the park to catch her?
London, when she reached it in the early afternoon, was bewildering. Maud had been there twice, but once had been a school trip when they had all been taken to the Tower of London, and the other had been with the cousins she had stayed with after her mother died. One of the older cousins had been getting married and they had all gone to Debenham & Freebody to buy bridesmaids’ clothes. Still, it meant she knew about the ladies’ room at the station, where she had a wash and brush-up, and about the buffet, where she had hot coffee and fresh rolls. She knew, as well, about hailing a cab when she got out of the station.
‘Seven Dials, miss? You sure?’
‘Quite sure.’ Maud wondered whether to proffer the story of her sick mother again, or switch to the one about the housemaid ravished by the son of the house, but she remembered in time that people in London are too busy to be much interested, so she said nothing, and the cabman, clicking his horse, said, ‘Least it’s the daytime. You wouldn’t want to go there at night, miss.’
When finally they reached Seven Dials, Maud thought she would rather not have come here in the day either. She paid the cabman, who doffed his cap, and by way of friendly departure pointed out Paradise Yard.
‘Would you wait for me, please?’
‘Here? No bloomin’ fear, miss.’
‘Then,’ said Maud, ‘would you return for me? In–in half an hour’s time?’ She fished out a half-sovereign. Was it enough? Too much? She had no idea of the value of money in this situation, but it was several times’ the amount of the fare from the railway station. ‘I’ll pay you this if you return and take me–and a friend–back to the railway station.’
It seemed the half-sovereign was more than enough. ‘Half an hour,’ said the cabbie, doffing his cap. ‘I’ll be here.’
The cab clattered away over the cobblestones. Maud did not entirely trust him to return and she did not know if half an hour would be long enough for what she had to do, but she had done her best.
The noise, smells and sights of Seven Dials were like a series of violent blows. All round her was a jumble of streets and a seething mass of people. Some were scurrying along with anxious faces, some were propped against doorposts, staring at the world with despairing eyes, some were calling their wares from horrid mean little shops. Children ran along the streets, ragged and thin, with sharp, wise, little faces. The smaller ones played tip-cat and battledore and shuttlecock, but the older ones had an air of purpose.
Once the houses in some of these streets had been quite prosperous, lived in by merchants and city men, rather like George Lincoln. But by whatever curious alchemy governs such things, the houses and the streets had ceased to be prosperous and well cared for. They had slid grubbily down into extreme poverty, and the once imposing houses had been divided and sub-divided. Basements that had been intended for sculleries and servants’ quarters had turned into old clothes’ shops and shoe-menders and wig-makers. Despite the poverty, alehouses and gin shops of all kinds were everywhere. Maud thought it must be the most appalling place in the world.
Paradise Yard was an enclosed area just off one of the streets, and Number 17 was in one corner. Maud hesitated, looking up at it. It was as mean and as neglected as all the others, although tattered curtains hung at one or two windows as if someone had tried to make it slightly comfortable.
Stepping around the piles of squalid rubbish that strewed the cobblestones, Maud went towards the door of Number 17. She was nervous, but not actually frightened, and although she had no idea if this part of her plan was going to work, she knew what she was going to say.
She had thought she would knock on the door, which was what people in her world did, but this door was already open. Beyond it was a dank hallway, with doors opening off it. Were the rooms behind them all occupied by different people? If so, how would she find Catherine Kendal? Would she recognize her?
But Maud thought she would recognize her; firmly in her mind was that odd little conversation with Thomasina.
‘A girl who lives in a poor part of London,’ Thomasina had said.
‘She’s exactly your age, Maud.’ She had added, ‘There’s a sick sister–I think she’d do anything in the world for that sister.’
A girl who was exactly Maud’s age. A girl who had accepted Thomasina’s charity. And there was a sister who was sick, and for whom Catherine Kendal was prepared to do all kinds of things…
She had no idea which door to try first, but as she was trying to decide, there were sounds from overhead, a door slammed and quick light footsteps came along the landing and down the wide, once-beautiful staircase. The girl stopped halfway down and stared at Maud from suspicious, wide-apart eyes.
‘Catherine Kendal?’ Maud knew it was. (‘She resembles you a bit,’ Thomasina had said, that day. ‘If it wasn’t for the chance of birth, you might be in her shoes and she might be in yours.’)
And although this girl was not exactly a mirror image of Maud, she was very similar. She resembles you…She might be in your shoes…And if only the sister looked the same…
Maud scarcely waited for the girl’s nod of wary assent to her question. She said, in a firm voice, that she came from Miss Forrester, and that Miss Forrester wanted to offer medical help for Miss Kendal’s sister. No, she herself did not know the exact details, said Maud. Her tone suggested she was an employee of Thomasina’s: perhaps a companion or amanuensis, and that the medical details were not her concern. The thing was, the girl would have to come up to Amberwood. Well, yes, right away. She believed it was a matter of a specialist being in the area for a few days, and it was thought he might be able to help. Naturally Miss Forrester would pay for all the travelling and so on.
The girl listened to all this, not speaking. She put her head on one side, as if considering Maud in a way Maud did not much like. When Maud finished speaking, she said, ‘How do I know it ain’t a con?’ It was the accent of this dreadful world: this place of street urchins and poverty and evil smells.
Maud said, ‘A con…? Oh, I see. It’s perfectly genuine, I assure you. Your sister will be at Quire House with Miss Forrester.’
‘Not me as well?’
Maud had been ready for this. She said, ‘Miss Forrester only seemed prepared to pay for one. Of course, if you wanted to buy your own train ticket, you could come. Or you could follow in a few days’ time.’
‘Have to think about that,’ said Catherine Kendal. ‘Leaving London an’ all. I got my ladies to consider.’
‘Are you a sempstress?’ said Maud, and Catherine Kendal laughed.
‘You been working for Thomasina and you think that! Bit of an innocent, aincha? No, it ain’t sewing I do for my ladies. Nor for the gentlemen who come here, neither.’ She went on studying Maud, and Maud began to feel uncomfortable. She did not dare risk looking at her watch to see if the half hour was up yet, but she thought it could not be far off, and she had not yet seen the sister. Supposing the sister did not exist–that it had simply been a–what had she called it? A con. Supposing it had been a con to get money out of Thomasina.
Then Catherine said slowly, ‘She’d be at Quire House,’ as if the name was a charm that might open doors.
‘Yes.’
‘A proper doctor who might help her?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘Wait here,’ said Catherine. ‘I’ll see what she thinks.’
She was only gone a few minutes, but to Maud, who was in an agony of suspense, it felt like several hours. At last Catherine reappeared.
‘She’ll come.’
‘I’m so glad,’ said Maud, managing to sound as if it was a matter of complete disinterest to her. ‘Can she be ready at once? I’ve arranged for a cab to collect us in about ten minutes.’
‘Hardly time to pack winter furs, is there?’ There was a sudden grin, oddly reminiscent of a cat’s purring smile, and then Cat Kendal whisked back up the stairs and into the room overhead. In less than the ten minutes she was back, carrying a pitifully small bundle of things, a thin girl with translucent skin and tow-coloured hair at her side.
‘Nell,’ she said, by way of introduction. ‘Ellen if you want to be posh about it.’
Maud stared at the girl. It’s all right, she thought. The resemblance is strong enough. It’s going to work. But there’s one more thing, and I have to be sure.
Catherine said, ‘She don’t speak,’ and Maud, who had not until now trusted Thomasina’s other words that day, knew it was going to be all right. She knew that the last and most crucial piece of her plan had dropped silkily into place. (‘A sick sister,’ Thomasina had said, that day. ‘A mute. Fair-haired–pretty little thing. Great tragedy, though–she’s quite unable to speak.’)
‘She understands everything you say,’ Catherine was saying. ‘But she don’t never speak. She can’t.’
In a brisk voice, Maud said, ‘Oh, I see. Well now, Ellen–Nell–we’re going to take the train to Chester, and from there we’ll hire a conveyance of some kind to take us to Amberwood–that’s quite a short journey.’
It all came out as casually and as confidently as if she was accustomed to travelling up and down the countryside every day, ordering cabs and making complicated journeys. It had to be complicated, of course, this journey: the nearer they got to Amberwood, the more unobtrusive they would have to be.
So Maud made sure they got an afternoon train, which would mean they would not reach Chester until after dark, and not reach Amberwood until late in the evening. She bought lunch in the station buffet, relieved to see that although Nell Kendal ate hungrily, her table manners were acceptable. She wondered briefly about the two girls’ parentage, but since it was clearly impossible to question the girl, she concentrated on getting her back to Toft House.
As the train jolted its way out of London, she tried not to stare too greedily at this girl who might have changed places with her, and who could not speak…
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Godfrey Toy had been preparing for a quiet evening, which he thought was owed to him after the horrors of the last twenty-four hours. He was still very upset indeed. He told Oliver this, and Oliver said they were all very upset, and had recommended Godfrey to go to bed early with a hot drink, a good book and a couple of aspirin. He could put the phone by his bed if he was nervous, or even take the dinner bell to ring out of the window to summon help.
Godfrey thought this was unnecessarily flippant of Oliver, but he did think he would follow the first part of the suggestion. He would make himself a nice hot toddy to drink in bed. He might take one of the Barchester novels to read, so he could make the old joke about going to bed with a Trollope, but actually he would probably end up with Dorothy L. Sayers. He had always admired Harriet Vane’s angry independence, and he loved Sayers’ depictions of 1930s Oxford colleges.
He was just washing-up his supper things when there was a peremptory hammering at Quire’s main door. His heart skittered into a panic-stricken pattern, because although it was only seven p.m., what with murdered bodies in the music room and hangman’s ropes and convicted killers in Charity Cottage, you could no longer be sure who might turn up on the doorstep.
He waited until he heard Oliver’s second-floor door open, since, if there was some murderous maniac outside Godfrey was not going to confront him by himself, and then pattered down the stairs in the professor’s wake. Faint but pursuing, that was the keynote, although if he really had had a dinner bell he would have taken it with him, and if the caller had looked at all suspicious he would have swung it with vigour.
The caller did not look particularly suspicious; he looked impatient. He was a dark-haired man in his late thirties and he introduced himself as Jonathan Saxon and wanted to know if they could throw any light on the fact that Antonia Weston, whom he had come to see by prior arrangement, was missing. And that Charity Cottage was in darkness, its doors locked, and Dr Weston’s car was nowhere to be seen.
Godfrey was thrown into such a dither by this that he was grateful to Oliver for saying, quite coolly, ‘How do you do. Is it Doctor Saxon, by the way?’
‘It is.’
‘I thought it must be. You were Miss Weston’s boss at her hospital?’
‘I was. Where is she?’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t the remotest idea. I’m Oliver Remus, by the way. This is my colleague, Dr Toy. Has Miss Weston been in touch with you in the last twenty-four hours, Dr Saxon? I mean, to tell you what happened here last night?’
‘I haven’t spoken to Antonia since the day before yesterday, but I know she’s been the victim of some appallingly cruel tricks since she got here. I haven’t come to fight any battles for her, because she’s perfectly capable of fighting her own battles–I’m here because it sounded as if she needed a friend.’
Clearly he did not think Antonia was likely to have many friends in Amberwood, and equally clearly he did not know what had happened last night. Godfrey could not even begin to think how they would explain, and he was extremely relieved when Oliver said, ‘I think, Dr Saxon, that you’d better come in.’
They sat in Oliver’s big comfortable sitting room, and Oliver explained, briefly and succinctly, about Greg Foster’s death.
‘I’m extremely sorry about that,’ said Jonathan Saxon. ‘But it doesn’t explain Antonia’s disappearance.’
‘No, it doesn’t. That’s why I’m about to phone Inspector Curran,’ said Oliver, already dialling the number.
Inspector Curran arrived within ten minutes, and listened carefully to the story of Antonia’s call to Dr Saxon.
‘I suggested I drove up here for a day or so,’ said Jonathan. ‘And Antonia booked me in somewhere–the Rose and Crown I think she said. That’s in case any of you were thinking a different arrangement might apply.’
‘Oh no,’ said Oliver politely, and Godfrey glanced at him uneasily.
‘I don’t care who sleeps in whose bed,’ said the inspector, ‘but I do care about finding Miss Weston. We’ve tried her phone, but it’s switched off–although that might not mean anything. Her car’s gone and, as Dr Saxon says, the cottage is in darkness.’ He frowned. ‘Normally we wouldn’t concern ourselves with a lady who ducked out of a dinner date, but given the circumstances we’d better search the cottage. Have any of you got a key.’