by Nicola Upson
‘I’d love to, but only if you’re offering cold cuts for supper. You’ll never sell if you keep cooking. The kitchen simply won’t withstand it.’
‘Nothing more ambitious than an omelette, I promise.’ She laughed softly in the darkness and Josephine shivered as she felt Marta’s hand move down her back. ‘Come on – let’s find a cab.’
‘I’ll call one from the club. It’ll be quicker.’
They went inside and ordered a taxi to Hampstead. ‘He’ll be five minutes,’ the receptionist promised, ‘and there’s a note for you.’
Josephine thanked her and took the envelope. ‘What is it?’ Marta asked, seeing the look on her face as she opened it.
‘It’s from Archie,’ Josephine said. ‘Vivienne Beresford wants to see me.’
6
By Friday morning, Penrose felt like a naughty child for whom harmless distractions had to be found. The royal visit to the suburbs had kept him busy for most of Thursday afternoon, as Londoners eagerly reprised the celebrations of the day before, their appetite for the new reign apparently nowhere near as jaded as his own. Once again, roads were impassable, but this time without the formality and resources of coronation day itself: perspiring police struggled to clear the way, while small boys jumped on the running board and people stared in disbelief at the sight of their king and queen in ordinary residential streets, admiring the decorations that had been raised in their honour. Later that night, the massed drums and pipers of the Brigade of Guards beat the Tattoo in Horse Guard’s Parade, and thousands gathered to witness the moving, floodlit spectacle. Penrose’s presence was still mysteriously vital to the royal couple, so much so that he was beginning to feel that he knew them personally. And now, just when his bosses were running out of ideas and royal occasions, someone had obliged them by finding a woman’s body in the cellar of an Islington furniture store. Rygate had sounded almost jubilant at the prospect of an engrossing murder that had nothing to do with the BBC, and with Vivienne Beresford due to make her first appearance in court at any minute, things were almost back to normal.
‘What do we know about this one?’ Penrose asked as Fallowfield drove them through Clerkenwell.
‘She was found this morning by the manager – Mr Pollock – and one of his employees. The shop’s closed for the coronation holiday, so no one’s been around for a few days. The victim’s in her forties, and we think she’s a local woman called Rosina Field – she lived round the corner from the shop in Duncan Terrace.’
‘Someone’s identified her?’
‘Not officially, no, but the local bobby recognised her. She was a familiar face on the streets and in the pubs, and lots of men round there knew her very well.’ Fallowfield didn’t have to be any more specific for Penrose to guess at the sort of crime that awaited them, and it was the sort that depressed him most, not least because it was so common. He had no idea how many murdered prostitutes he had seen in his career, but he never became immune to the senseless, squalid nature of their deaths, born naturally out of areas such as this with highly populated slums and dreary streets, areas that cried out for open spaces between the shabby blocks of buildings. ‘Spilsbury’s already there, sir,’ Fallowfield added, and Penrose nodded.
Harding’s Furniture Manufacturers occupied a large premises on Islington Green, and the windows on the ground floor revealed a confused mixture of shop and warehouse space. A small group of people had gathered on the pavement outside, and after the fuss over Beresford’s murder, Penrose was gratified to know that the death of an ordinary person could also draw a crowd. He opened the door, conscious of the faces peering over his shoulder, and the shop bell rang needlessly to mark his arrival. Three people – two men and a woman – sat at one of the firm’s dining-room tables, the centrepiece of its showroom. In different circumstances, they might have been a happy family group, proof of the domestic bliss which Harding’s furniture no doubt guaranteed; today, they looked absurdly out of place. Penrose introduced himself and refused the offer of tea. ‘What brought you all here today if the shop was meant to be closed?’ he asked, addressing his questions to the manager.
‘It was Stan. He got this note, see, so we came straight away to see what it meant.’
Penrose turned to the younger man, who cleared his throat nervously. ‘Who are you, sir?’
‘Stanley Witon. I’m one of the salesmen.’
The last word was spoken with pride, and Penrose guessed that Stanley was new to the firm. He held out his hand in an awkwardly formal gesture; the skin was clammy, the grip weak, and Penrose had to resist the temptation to wipe his hand on his trousers. ‘Can I see the note?’ Stanley looked at his boss, and Pollock slid a piece of paper across the table. The handwriting was poor, and Penrose looked curiously down at a single, bold declaration: I don’t know anything about this woman getting into the cellar. ‘How did you get this?’ he asked.
‘Fred gave it to me in the pub last night.’
‘Last night? Why did you wait until this morning to do something about it?’
Stanley flushed and looked uncomfortable. ‘I was a bit worse for wear, sir, and I didn’t want Mr Pollock to think I made a habit of it.’
‘Nothing wrong with a drink for the King, lad,’ Pollock said reassuringly.
‘Anyway, I thought it was a joke at first, but I told Mr Pollock this morning and he said we’d better check.’
‘And who is Fred?’
Pollock stepped in again. ‘Frederick Murphy. He’s the odd-job man – cleaning, deliveries, that sort of thing.’
‘Is this his writing?’ Pollock and Witon nodded in unison. ‘There’s been no sign of him today, I suppose?’
‘No, but I can give you an address for him. He lives in Colebrooke Row.’
‘What number, sir?’ Fallowfield asked.
‘Fifty-seven.’
The sergeant thanked him and left the shop, taking one of the uniformed constables with him. Penrose turned back to Pollock. ‘Tell me what happened when you got here today.’
‘We went straight down to the cellar. We couldn’t see anything at first, and we were just about to give up when Stan found her.’
‘She was hidden, you see,’ Stan said, growing in confidence now and keen not to have his moment of glory snatched from under him. ‘Even then we weren’t sure. It was hard to tell what we were looking at.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Someone had wrapped her up in paper.’
‘Paper?’ Penrose repeated, finding it hard to believe what he had heard.
‘Yes. We use it for deliveries.’
The paper’s usual function hadn’t been the issue, but Penrose moved on. ‘Did you touch the body?’
Stanley hesitated. ‘Not really.’
‘Yes or no? It’s important.’
‘Well, we pulled the paper back from her face, just enough to know we couldn’t help. Then Mr Pollock told me to go and find a policeman while he stayed with her.’
‘Thank you,’ Penrose said, standing up. ‘Now, perhaps one of you could show me the cellar? I believe my colleague’s already here.’
Pollock did as he was asked and Penrose made his way downstairs. The basement was bigger than he had expected, but low ceilings and feeble lighting made it cramped and claustrophobic. Part workshop, part storeroom, it smelt of freshly sawn wood. A police photographer had finished his initial work and stood patiently to one side while Spilsbury knelt awkwardly in the far corner of the room. He was a tall man – well over six feet – and his presence gave the space a strange, lilliputian air. ‘You won’t have seen one like this before, Archie,’ he said without looking up. ‘It’s not often we’re presented with a body that’s been gift-wrapped.’ Penrose could see nothing from where he stood and he moved closer, listening to the soft rustle of wood shavings underfoot, the sound of a forest in autumn. Rosina Field’s body had been hidden behind a large tin trunk, squashed into a tiny space between the trunk and the wall, and all but obscured by a pile
of wood. As Witon had described, she was wrapped tightly in thick brown paper torn from one of the rolls that leant against the wall – mummified, Penrose might have said, were it not for the complete absence of dignity and respect. Spilsbury had cut more of the paper away now and Penrose looked down at the dead woman’s bruised and swollen face, at the scattering of blue-and-purple fingermarks on her neck. ‘She’s been dead less than forty-eight hours,’ the pathologist said. ‘She was strangled, obviously, but not before she’d taken a hell of a beating.’
Dark bloodstains on the collar and lapels of Rosina Field’s blue wool coat underlined his words. ‘Can you say if she was killed here?’ Penrose asked.
‘Almost certainly yes. There’s blood on the floor and wall over there which would be consistent with the injuries.’
Fleetingly, Penrose closed his eyes, allowing the last horrific moments of the woman’s life to play themselves out in his imagination. ‘What a waste,’ he said quietly, speaking as much to her as to his colleague. He watched the pathologist work for a while, wondering if the care and respect with which he handled her body was something that Rosina Field had ever known in life. The paper and the attempt to conceal the corpse jarred with the peculiar note that Witon had been given; why would Murphy draw attention to the body if he had gone to such lengths to hide it? Perhaps he had simply found Rosina Field and written the note as a defence against any accusations that might come his way. He explained the situation to Spilsbury, knowing that any thoughts he had would be interesting.
‘Frederick Murphy, you say?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Do you remember Katherine Peck?’
The name was familiar to Penrose, but he wasn’t surprised that Spilsbury’s encyclopaedic memory had him at a disadvantage. ‘Remind me.’
‘It was 1929, found in Flint Street with her throat cut,’ the pathologist said, reeling the details off as if he were reading them straight from his record cards. ‘A chap called Frederick Murphy had been seen drinking with her, and later that night he told two men that he’d killed her, but he denied it to the police when they reported him. He was charged, but one of the men subsequently disappeared and there was insufficient evidence for conviction in the one remaining testimony, so he got away with it.’
Penrose recalled the case, although it had not been one of his. ‘It’s not necessarily the same man,’ he said cautiously. ‘Murphy’s a common enough name, and people don’t usually cut a throat one day and strangle the next.’
‘That’s true, but there’s no rule book,’ Spilsbury pointed out, using the same measured, non-judgemental tone that made him such a devastating expert witness. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this did turn out to be him, Archie. Men like Murphy prey on women. They use them when they’re alive, and they’re not too fussy how they get rid of them.’
‘You don’t doubt he did it, then? The first murder, I mean.’
‘Of course he did it.’ Spilsbury paused in his work for a moment and looked up at Penrose with a steely smile. ‘I hope it is the same man. I’d rather like a second chance at him.’
‘It’s not like you to take a case so personally,’ Penrose said. Spilsbury was known for his fair-mindedness and his absolute devotion to the scientific facts, and he rarely allowed his own opinions to blur any conversation.
‘You know as well as I do, Archie – glamorous cases like Anthony Beresford get the headlines, but our work is mostly this. They might not get the public outrage, but it’s nice when they get justice.’
‘Speaking of Anthony Beresford, are you absolutely sure about the time of death for Millicent Gray?’ The pathologist gave Penrose a wry smile. ‘What’s that for?’
‘I’ve been warned not to indulge you, Archie.’
‘No prizes for guessing by whom. But I don’t think Vivienne Beresford killed her, Bernard.’ He returned the smile in kind. ‘So you’d be indulging justice, not me.’
‘Either way, I’m afraid I can’t help. There’s nothing to complicate the time of death, and I haven’t seen anything to suggest that Vivienne Beresford couldn’t have done it. Whether she did or not is a different matter, I agree. Can I ask why you’re so convinced?’
‘She doesn’t strike me as a liar,’ Penrose said. ‘It’s as simple as that. She’s been absolutely honest about how and why she killed her husband, and I don’t see why she’d behave differently with Millicent Gray. The evidence is largely circumstantial, and it won’t be that which convicts her anyway. It’ll be all the stuff in the papers – you can rely on the press to paint it blacker than it is. Beresford was a saint in most people’s eyes, and his infidelity won’t do him any harm. The men will cheer him on and the women will simply wish they’d been the one who tempted him to stray.’
‘What a cynical view you have of the world,’ Spilsbury said, standing up to allow the photographer a different angle on the body. ‘I can’t think why.’
‘And if that isn’t enough, they’re dredging up all the scandals associated with her sister when she had nothing whatsoever to do with those.’
‘That isn’t strictly true,’ Spilsbury said, and Penrose looked at him in surprise. ‘She worked at the Golden Hat for a while. Didn’t you know?’
‘No, I didn’t. Are you sure?’
‘Positive. There was some trouble over a girl who died after leaving the club one night. Her fiancé broke it off, so she went home to her flat, drank cocaine in water, and died of convulsions shortly afterwards. There was no direct link to the Golden Hat other than her being there, and Vivienne Beresford – or Hanlon, as she was then – gave evidence to that effect at the inquest. Thinking about it, it must have been before your time – or shortly after you joined the force, anyway.’
‘Nobody mentioned that when Olivia Hanlon died. Beresford led me to believe that his wife had nothing to do with it.’
‘Yes, I expect he did. But if you recall, there wasn’t much mention of anything when Olivia Hanlon died.’
‘You weren’t involved, were you?’
‘Not officially, no, but I’ve cleaned up plenty of Miss Hanlon’s messes in my time – hers, and others like her. Those clubs were a breeding ground for pimps and drug-peddlers, and it’s women like Miss Field here who pay the price eventually.’
Again, Spilsbury’s strident tone was uncharacteristic and it surprised Penrose. ‘There’s an element of that,’ he said, ‘but you could also argue that people like Olivia Hanlon and Kate Meyrick kept the girls off the streets by giving them somewhere safe to do what they would have done anyway.’
‘You could argue that, but I choose not to. Freda Kempton, Nora Upchurch, Beatrice Sutton, Dora Lloyd, Katherine Peck – need I go on? It’s like every other profession, Archie. The hard ones survive. The rest do what they can, and end up with people like Frederick Murphy.’
As if in response, Fallowfield appeared at the top of the cellar steps. ‘Any luck?’ Penrose asked.
‘I’m afraid not, sir. The woman he lives with hasn’t seen him since last night. She knew about the body, though. Murphy told her the same story – said he’d found it, but he didn’t kill her.’
‘All right. I want a full search of the pubs and coffee stalls tonight – as far afield as you can get the manpower for. Did you get a good description?’
‘Better than that, sir. She gave me this, and I got the impression that she wouldn’t be sorry to see the back of him.’
Penrose took the photograph and looked down at the ravaged face of a man in his fifties, thickset and unattractive. He showed the picture to Spilsbury. ‘Is that your Frederick Murphy?’
‘Oh yes,’ the pathologist said instantly. ‘Do find him quickly, Archie. I’ll look forward to seeing him again.’
7
The court appearance was over so quickly that Vivienne half-believed she had dreamt it. There was very little that she remembered clearly, just a series of fleeting impressions. The sudden shaft of light as she emerged from a dark passage into the courtroom.
The cool, polished wood which steadied her as she stood in front of the magistrate. The buzz of conversation from the public gallery, and – as she was led away – the woman who screamed at her for what she had done. It seemed wrong that a stranger could care so much for Anthony, when she – his wife for ten years – felt so little; it made her wonder what sort of person she was, and that was a question to which she had no answer.
She rubbed her ankle where she had twisted it, stumbling as she climbed the steps to the dark-blue prison van. They were loaded on like cattle, she and the other women, and the vehicle was cramped and awkward inside – five locked compartments on either side of a central corridor, each scarcely big enough to hold a prisoner and her shame, with a police matron watching for trouble from a seat at the end. Vivienne’s shoulders bumped against the walls whenever the van lurched to left or right, and she had to put a hand flat to the door to prevent herself from being flung forward as it braked. Above her, through a small grille, she could see a single, inadequate ventilation shaft; the fan went round whenever the vehicle was moving but still there was no air, and the stuffiness made her feel sick and dizzy. She breathed deeply, trying to get some sense of the distance they had travelled or the direction in which they were moving, but it was impossible; without windows, and coloured by the uncertainty of what lay ahead, the journey was bewildering. The punishment had begun even before they reached Holloway, she thought. There would be no final glimpse of freedom, no brief connection with an ordinary London day.
The Black Maria slowed down again, and this time she heard voices and the sound of gates being opened and closed. The van swung sharply to the right, then drew to a halt, and the engine fell silent. As soon as the doors were unlocked, it was obvious that some of the women were already familiar with prison routine; they led the way confidently to a small waiting room signposted reception, leaving Vivienne and the other first-timers to trail along behind. A policeman handed a pile of paperwork to the woman behind the desk, and Vivienne took a good look at her fellow inmates while they waited for instructions, guessing at the stories that had brought them here. She was surprised by how unremarkable they seemed – different ages and different classes, some with harder lives than others, but the sort of group that might be seen at any bus stop or in any post-office queue.