‘It would be insensitive even by the miserable standards of Fleet Street to order a man to report on the murder of a girl he’d courted, and in whose house he’d been living.’
‘You don’t know Gomersall.’ He mustered a humourless smile. ‘What do I say about this evening? That I came here to make up a four for bridge?’
Rachel laughed. ‘A pleasing idea, but not, I think, appropriate. My name mustn’t cross your lips. Let’s talk further tomorrow morning, over breakfast.’
He thought about protesting. Whatever alibi she proposed would be far from watertight, but he’d learned that arguing with Rachel Savernake was futile. She was a true chess player, always thinking two or three moves ahead.
He changed tack. ‘How did you know I was going to Benfleet this evening?’
She breathed out. ‘You’d pursued me with such vigour, plainly you had a special reason for turning down an invitation to meet this evening. I always prepare for a range of eventualities. It was a simple matter to have you watched, as well as Elaine Dowd. The bungalow in Benfleet we already knew about. Your friend Thurlow was hopeless at covering his tracks. A poor advertisement for the Metropolitan Police, I’m afraid. He was useful to his paymasters for a while, but his sheer ineptitude made him a liability.’
‘His paymasters?’ Jacob frowned. ‘Someone outside Scotland Yard? Or on the inside?’
She gave a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘Time to catch up on your beauty sleep, Mr Flint. If you’ll forgive my saying so, you look rather the worse for wear.’
He took in a breath. Should he press her again about Gallows Court?
‘Permit me one last question. What is the Damnation Society?’
Putting a finger to her lips, she said, ‘Hush, Mr Flint. Goodnight.’
‘Please. What is the Damnation Society?’
Rachel Savernake’s expression hardened.
‘There is no such thing as the Damnation Society.’
22
The aching of Jacob’s head and shoulders provided a painful reminder of the punishment he’d sustained at Trueman’s hands. Four hours’ sleep, albeit in the most comfortable bed imaginable, was all he managed before the housekeeper summoned him to breakfast. It wasn’t nearly long enough to freshen his mind. He needed to crank up his brain like a misfiring Model T before he could even take in Rachel’s instructions.
She sat opposite him at the breakfast table, watching as Martha the maid served him in silence with a plate full of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, and fried bread. She looked immaculate in a pale-blue woollen dress emphasising her tiny waist and narrow hips. Not a hair on her head was out of place. Nobody would doubt that she’d enjoyed a virtuous night’s sleep following a quiet evening playing cards with her good and faithful servant. In the unlikely event that anyone came to check on Trueman’s alibi, she would supply it with absolute conviction, all sweetness and light as she spun her web of lies.
But he told lies too. Everyone did, when it suited them. When she asked what he’d told Mrs Dowd about his plans for the evening, he admitted saying that he was going out to celebrate his promotion, and expected to be back very late.
‘A good enough story,’ Rachel pronounced. ‘You may as well stick to it. If anyone wants to know, you wandered from one drinking den to another, and passed out in a back alley. That’s why you failed to return to Amwell Street last night, and why your jacket and trousers look so disreputable.’
He bit into the fried bread. ‘What about the clerk at Fenchurch Street?’
‘Irrelevant, unless the police become interested in your movements last night. For your sake, let’s hope they concentrate on other lines of enquiry. Don’t contact me, or come back here. When I’m ready to speak to you again, I will.’
‘What about Amwell Street?’ The way she drummed in her instructions made him feel like an incompetent apprentice. ‘All my clothes are there. All my possessions.’
‘Later today, you should go there, and console the grieving mother.’
‘I cared for Elaine myself, you know,’ he snapped.
‘Yes, she made sure you would.’
‘Was she… seeing Thurlow all the time?’
‘Intermittently. His opportunities for slipping away to meet her at the bungalow were few and far between.’
‘They used to meet in Benfleet?’
‘Yes. Thurlow lied to you about the bungalow. It’s one of many properties—’
‘Owned by Pardoe Properties Limited?’
Her eyebrows arched. ‘A deduction based on seeing the company’s name on a plate at Gallows Court?’
‘You know my methods,’ he retorted.
‘Splendid!’ Rachel mimed applause. ‘Presumably, I don’t need to tell you anything else. You know the rest already.’
‘This isn’t a game.’ Choking back the memory of Elaine’s corpse, he pushed aside what was left of his breakfast. ‘Three people are dead.’
Rachel’s smile vanished. ‘You think I’ve forgotten?’
‘Elaine was—’
‘Greedy. She was bribed to seduce Thurlow. And later, to lead you on. Didn’t you notice that the clothes she wore last night were far more expensive than anything a girl who works in a flower shop could afford? Save your tears for someone worthy of them.’ Rachel chewed her toast. ‘It’s not as if you were in love with her.’
He winced at her brutality. ‘Not… in love, no. But I liked her. Even her mother…’
‘Edgar Dowd was a rich man,’ Rachel interrupted. ‘His widow drank away his fortune, and when she and her daughter were offered money in return for rendering certain services, they had no qualms about taking it.’
He put his head in his hands. ‘God, what a mess. What should I do?’
‘Tell Patience Dowd you think you should move out. She’ll beg you to stay.’
‘And should I?’ He hated sounding like the classroom dunce.
‘Why not? You’ve suffered a bereavement, even if your loss is hardly as profound as Mrs Dowd’s. Nothing is more terrible than the death of one’s child. The consequences can be unimaginable.’
Something in her tone made him look up. To his surprise, a faint smile was playing on her lips, as if a memory amused her.
*
‘Where’s McAlinden?’ Gomersall demanded.
The question provoked ill-tempered muttering from Plenderleith and other senior members of the editorial team. McAlinden’s arrogance and naked ambition had made him unpopular, and Jacob suspected that the older reporters doubted he was competent enough to deserve a place on the staff, let alone the promotion he so obviously craved.
Jacob was making his first appearance at the conference which Gomersall led each morning. Half an hour was allocated for the journalists to debate the day’s stories, and decide which to prioritise. Jacob lurked at the back of the room. Today of all days, he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. In any case, the discussion would serve no purpose. As soon as news broke of events at Benfleet, nothing else would count for a bean.
‘Forgot to set his alarm clock again,’ Poyser said.
Gomersall grunted, and started talking about the political crisis. There was always a political crisis, Jacob reflected; there would be for as long as the hapless MacDonald remained in office, and probably forever and a day. As he half-listened to the journalists talking about the slump, he wondered what Rachel could possibly know about the loss of a child.
The door at the side of the room was flung open, and Maisie, who typed Gomersall’s confidential correspondence, hurried into the room. From the stir around him, and the shocked look on the editor’s face, Jacob gathered that this interruption amounted to an extraordinary breach of office protocol. He watched as Maisie bent to whisper something in Gomersall’s ear.
He didn’t need to be a lip-reader to know that the bodies in the bungalow had been discovered. Soon everyone would know why McAlinden had missed the meeting.
*
‘My sympathies once aga
in,’ Gomersall said, an hour later. He’d summoned Jacob to his office to brief him about the tragedy at Benfleet. The police had been summoned to the bungalow after a luckless postman had found the front door swinging open in the wind, and had ventured inside to check that all was well.
‘Thank you, sir. Although Elaine and I went out together a time or two, we were friends, nothing more.’ He was desperate to distance himself from the deaths. ‘I was one friend among many. She was a lively young woman, very gregarious.’
‘That’s one word for it.’ Cynicism came more naturally to Gomersall than condolences. ‘You knew about her and this policeman, Thurlow?’
‘He and I knew each other slightly,’ Jacob said, opting for vagueness. ‘Of course, he was married…’
‘You didn’t enquire too closely, I suppose? You need to be less tactful if you want to get on in this business. And what about McAlinden? The two of you were chummy at one time, weren’t you?’
‘Not really, sir. Though he used to lodge with Elaine and her mother, and when he moved out, he recommended Edgar House to me.’
‘Did he now?’ Gomersall’s thick eyebrows exercised themselves. ‘I suppose he gave up his digs after quarrelling with the girl, but never managed to get over her.’
‘It seems the most likely explanation, sir.’
‘Jealousy, yes. Worst sin of all, if you ask me. And McAlinden was the jealous sort, God rest his soul. Mind you, I can hardly believe it. Apart from any other consideration, he never struck me as… the marrying kind.’
‘Perhaps it was just his manner, sir.’
‘There had been incidents in his past,’ Gomersall said. ‘At Harrow and Cambridge. His father disclosed them to me in the strictest confidence when he begged me to give the boy a chance to make good in Fleet Street. He said it was simply a matter of youthful high jinks, but that always sounded like wishful thinking. Between ourselves, I took the lad against my better judgement. I doubt that surprises you?’
Jacob had never seen the editor of the Clarion in an introspective mood before. ‘Not really, sir.’
‘Never does any harm to have friends in high places, but if I had my time again, I’d say no. As for his father, this business has destroyed any hope he had of becoming head of the Civil Service. None of the law-and-order crowd will countenance a fellow whose son killed a pretty girl and her lover – a policeman, to put the tin lid on it! – and then took the coward’s way out by shooting himself.’
Jacob nodded, but kept quiet. It is always politic to let one’s superior do most of the talking. All the more so where one has so much to hide.
Gomersall shifted some papers on his desk. ‘As you know, I’ve asked Poyser to find someone else to cover the story. Too close to home for you, despite your recent elevation.’
‘Yes, sir. Of course, I’ll give him every assistance.’
‘Thanks, lad. I suppose you’ll want to nip off and have a word with the girl’s mother.’
Jacob could think of few things he wanted to do less. ‘She’ll be heartbroken, sir.’
‘Naturally. But our readers will want to hear her thoughts on the… sad situation. Poyser’s already sent out a photographer.’
Jacob nodded grimly. In his early days as a journalist, his attitude to newsworthy tragedies had been complacent, verging on glib. All that mattered was making sure that readers’ curiosity was satisfied. Now that death had touched him more closely, he wasn’t quite so sure. But these weren’t reservations to be shared with one’s editor the day after being granted a dizzying promotion.
‘Very well.’ Gomersall consulted his watch, a favourite prelude to dismissing subordinates from his presence. ‘On your way, then. We’ve both got a difficult day ahead. There’s only one thing that surprises me.’
Jacob stopped on his way to the door. ‘What’s that, sir?’
‘We talked before about your uncanny record of being in the right place at the right time.’ Gomersall’s wry grin signalled that the sardonic newspaperman was already reasserting himself. ‘I’m almost disappointed you weren’t on the scene at Benfleet. What a scoop that would’ve been, eh?’
*
The telephone was howling as Jacob returned to his room. ‘There’s a police officer here, wants to ask you a few questions,’ Peggy said, barely able to contain her glee. ‘I said you’d be down in a minute. And there’s a lady on the line for you as well. Insisted on holding.’
He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Was it Mrs Dowd, desperate to cry on someone’s shoulder?
‘Does the lady have a name?’
‘Wouldn’t give it,’ the girl said darkly.
‘Put her through… Hello?’
‘Mr Flint, is that you?’
Sara’s voice, urgent yet mellifluous, he recognised at once. ‘Yes, Miss Delamere. Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’ A pause. ‘I mean, no, not really.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I daren’t discuss it on the telephone.’ She sounded short of breath, as though she’d been running. ‘Can we meet somewhere? A public place, I’d feel safer there.’
‘Safer?’ He hesitated, bothered by her desperation. ‘Does the British Museum qualify as sufficiently public?’
‘Yes, all right. Not that I’ve ever been inside it.’
He glanced through the window. It was a crisp January morning, and there was even a thin streak of sun. ‘Let’s meet on the steps outside the main entrance. I have someone waiting to see me right now. Would one o’clock be convenient?’
‘Oh, thank you so much. You might just be able to save my life.’
*
The police officer proved to be a long-jawed constable in his fifties called Dobing, whose appearance put Jacob in mind of a melancholy horse. He already knew that Jacob was acquainted with all three of the people whose bodies had been found at the bungalow. Scotland Yard had moved with lightning speed, Jacob reflected. Hardly surprising, given that they had lost one of their own.
He didn’t need to simulate his horror about the deaths of three people whom he’d known with varying degrees of intimacy. His visit to Benfleet had all the qualities of an excruciatingly vivid nightmare.
Dobing was intent on gathering, rather than imparting, information, and he stonewalled Jacob’s occasional questions with the ease of long practice.
‘How has Elaine’s mother taken the news?’
‘Afraid I can’t say, sir. I didn’t have the sad duty of informing her about her loss.’
Frustrating as Jacob found this, some of his own answers were also less than helpful. He admitted to having been a drinking chum of Thurlow’s, while McAlinden was a work colleague with whom he rarely socialised (‘He took me out for a few drinks after I joined the Clarion, but we had little in common, and that was the only time.’) He denied any knowledge of a liaison between Elaine and Thurlow, which was true enough, and said he had no idea whether she and McAlinden had ever been romantically involved. (‘Neither of them mentioned it, but why would they, if it was over and done with?’)
Elaine, he said, had been a pleasant companion for an evening out, but although her mother occasionally teased her about settling down, their friendship was entirely platonic, and they’d never exchanged more than a chaste kiss. Dobing went so far as to raise a tufted eyebrow at this, but recorded Jacob’s denial with painstaking diligence.
Jacob knew enough about police procedure to realise that Dobing’s failure to challenge his account did not mean that it would be accepted without a murmur. This was merely the first stage.
His stomach clenched as he bade farewell to the policeman.
‘I hope that’s helpful, Constable. Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.’
Dobing’s equine features gave nothing away. ‘Thank you, sir. I expect we’ll take you up on that kind offer.’
*
As he walked down Great Russell Street towards the British Museum, Jacob caught sight of a willowy female figu
re, wearing a long coat with a fur collar and a hat with an unfashionably wide brim.
‘Sara!’
She spun round as if jolted by a thunderbolt. At the sight of him, she seemed to droop with relief. ‘Thank you so much for coming.’
‘The pleasure’s mine.’
‘Forgive me if I seem a little… on edge,’ she murmured. ‘It has been a very difficult few days since we last met.’
‘Of course.’ He coughed. ‘I’m so sorry about what happened to William Keary.’
She bowed her head. ‘It was terrifying. Unspeakable.’
He hesitated. ‘Shall we go inside the museum? Or find a tea shop nearby?’
‘Can we just talk as we walk? I’d rather keep on the move. You never know who might be listening.’
Her voice shook, and her hands had a nervous twitch. There wasn’t a trace of colour in her cheeks. He suspected she was on the verge of collapse. The horrific finale to Nefertiti’s cremation illusion was enough to shake anyone to the core.
Anyone except Rachel Savernake.
‘I called the Inanity.’ She looked doubtful, and he added quickly, ‘Not because I wanted to interview you about… what happened, but to see how you were coping.’
It was true, he told himself. Up to a point, at least.
‘How kind,’ she whispered. ‘Did they tell you I’ve thrown in my job?’
He was taken aback. ‘Really?’
‘I’ll never play the Queen of Egypt again. Or perform another illusion. I simply couldn’t face it.’
‘What happened wasn’t your fault,’ he said. ‘This man Barnes…’
‘Oh yes, George made sure that William couldn’t escape from his blazing tomb. But I was the one who set it on fire.’
‘You’d performed the trick scores of times. How could you know that Barnes wanted to commit such an appalling crime?’
‘I couldn’t know, of course,’ she said. ‘But that’s no consolation.’
‘I understand.’
‘Do you?’
He itched to tell her that he’d had his own shocking encounter with sudden, brutal death less than twenty-four hours earlier. But he daren’t break his promise to Rachel Savernake. He squeezed her arm as they crossed the street, and went into the garden in Russell Square. They found a secluded bench, and he noticed her glance surreptitiously this way and that, as if to make sure nobody was following.
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