by Nicola Upson
‘Do you know, Josephine, I’m not sure I care. After what you showed me in those newspapers and the case we’re starting to build, I have a feeling that I’m the one who’ll be knocking on his door – and nothing will give me greater pleasure.’
6
Penrose left Scotland Yard early on Tuesday morning, hoping to catch Billy Whiting before he set off for work. He left Fallowfield with a list of excuses to choose from if anyone asked where he was, and headed out towards the Notting Hill address that Whiting had given in his statement, relieved not to have been obliged to ask anyone at the BBC for the information. In his pocket, he carried the keys that he had found in Anthony Beresford’s office drawer; it was strictly against the rules to ‘borrow’ evidence in this way, but he got on well with the sergeant in charge of its safekeeping, and he had a compelling hunch that he was on his way to see the man who would be able to tell him exactly what those keys were for.
The morning was beautiful, dry and warmer than it had been for several days, and this handsome quarter of town – with its elegant interlacing of broad streets, fine squares and unusual crescents – did wonders for Penrose’s mood. But as much as he admired the spacious mid-Victorian houses in Ladbroke Grove, with their stucco fronts and grand porticoed balconies, he knew that the lifting of his spirits had a deeper explanation, and he was truly grateful to Josephine – for the specific piece of information which had brought him here, and for giving him a renewed sense of purpose. It wasn’t the first time that bureaucracy and protocol had stood in his way, and he usually found a more creative way around them; he wasn’t the type to abandon his principles so easily, and this morning he was pleased to feel a little of the old belligerence returning.
Dunworth Mews was off Westbourne Park Road – a pretty, cobbled street with a row of small terraced houses on either side, built in the traditional mews style with garages below and living quarters above. The lane was a dead end, and the address that he wanted was about halfway down. Billy Whiting’s house was plainer than those on either side, which were variously adorned by flower pots, window boxes and a large wisteria, but it was tidy and well-kept, and Penrose wondered if he lived alone. Like most cottages of its kind, built to serve as stabling and staff quarters for the grander town houses, the property enjoyed an enviable location, central and convenient but tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the main street. And for a man of Billy’s profession, it had the added advantage of somewhere safe to keep a car.
There was a door next to the garage, painted in the same cheerful red, and Penrose knocked loudly, hoping to be heard from the living area on the first floor. When there was no response, he tried again, but the result was the same and he was forced to concede defeat. Disappointed, he knocked at the house next door. When neighbours lived in such close proximity, the community spirit was bound to be strong – and prized or hated according to your personality; with a bit of luck, he would find someone who could help him. The woman who answered seemed surprised and a little wary at first – but she was also of the age that succumbed most easily to Penrose’s good looks and pleasant voice. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ he said, ‘but I’m looking for Billy Whiting. Do you happen to know if he’s already left for work?’
The woman smiled up at him, happy to oblige. ‘I think Billy must be away,’ she said, and there was the faintest hint of a Welsh accent in her voice, light and distant, as if it were the one thing left over from her childhood. ‘I haven’t seen him for a couple of days, and he said he had some leave due to him after the Coronation.’
Penrose’s heart sank. ‘Can you remember exactly when you last saw him? It is quite important.’ He took out his warrant card, confident that the woman belonged in the half of the world which was more likely to help a police officer than obstruct one. ‘It’s about what happened last week on Constitution Hill. You may or may not know, but Mr Whiting was an important witness.’
‘Yes, he told me. Very cut up about it, he was. That poor man. What sort of woman takes a gun to her husband, just like that? I said to my Harry, you don’t know how lucky you are.’ She put a hand conspiratorially on Penrose’s arm and winked. ‘Mind you, he’s been ever so good to me since, so it’s not all bad, is it?’
Penrose smiled, and wondered at the logic which could make Vivienne Beresford simultaneously a figure of hatred and a role model for downtrodden wives all over the country. ‘And Mr Whiting? You were going to tell me when you last saw him.’
‘Oh yes. It must have been Saturday or Sunday. Sunday, probably. He was putting the rubbish out, and they come on Monday.’
‘Thank you, Mrs . . . ?’
‘Hughes. Bronwen Hughes.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Hughes. When Mr Whiting comes back, would you ask him to contact me at Scotland Yard?’ Penrose couldn’t help feeling that it would have been more accurate to say ‘if’ rather than ‘when’, but there was no point in alarming her. ‘My name is Detective Chief Inspector Penrose. Shall I write that down for you?’
‘No, there’s no need. I’ll remember you,’ she promised, and Penrose believed her. Furious with himself for the wasted time that had allowed Billy to slip through his fingers, he waited for Mrs Hughes to go back upstairs, then peered through the windows of the garage, but the glass was crackled and it was impossible to see anything. The door had a padlock on it, and he felt the weight of the keys in his pocket. Ignoring a voice in his head which was politely enquiring what he might do when he left the police force, Penrose took them out and chose the most likely candidate. The key fitted, as he had somehow known it would, and the padlock fell away. Quickly and quietly, he slipped inside.
The garage smelt of oil and leather, and it took a moment for his eyes to accustom themselves to the half-light. He saw the car in silhouette first, enough to know that it was a classic sports model, and just as he was debating whether or not it was safe to look for a light switch, the sun obliged him by emerging from behind a cloud to reveal the Bugatti in all its glory. Penrose stared in admiration at the sleek, torpedo shape of the bodywork, with its elegant flying fenders and the distinctive pear-shaped radiator and split windscreen. The car was a work of art, deep blue with a magnolia leather interior, dating back, he guessed, to the 1920s, but immaculately kept. It wasn’t inconceivable that Billy should own such a vehicle, or that he looked after cars for other people as a sideline to his main job, and Penrose tried to keep an open mind – but he knew in his heart that the Bugatti belonged to Anthony Beresford. He got into the driver’s seat, not entirely immune to the strange law of nature which turns a man into a boy at such moments, and tried a key in the ignition. The engine started first time, smooth and low and inviting, and he turned it off before the temptation to drive became too much. Kensington, where Beresford lived, was just a few minutes away through Holland Park, and the keys had been found in his desk; surely there was only one conclusion to draw, but why was the car such a secret?
The answer suggested itself as soon as he searched the interior. There was a pocket on the inside of the passenger door, and he took out a pair of women’s sunglasses, a hairbrush – she was a blonde woman, obviously – and a chiffon scarf, heavily scented with Narcisse Blanc, the same perfume that Bridget sometimes wore. The car was one of the models which had a small additional seat in the back, and as Penrose rummaged around on the floor, his hand fell on a book, a copy of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince, translated into French. He remembered the child’s tin soldier which he had found with the car keys, and understood suddenly that what he was seeing here was a window into Anthony Beresford’s other life – a life which had nothing to do with his wife or with Millicent Gray, a life which, in some way that he couldn’t yet fathom, had killed two people. He used the last key to open the boot, and found a small suitcase with a single change of clothes – flannel trousers, an open-necked shirt and a sleeveless pullover, all very different to the standard BBC ‘uniform’ of suit and tie. Who did Anthony Beresford become, he wondered, when he left thi
s garage?
Conscious that he had been away from Scotland Yard for far too long already, Penrose locked the garage securely and knocked once again on Mrs Hughes’s door. ‘I’m sorry, but there’s one other thing I forgot to ask. Do you know if Mr Whiting went away in his car?’
‘Yes, he did. At least, I know he was planning to.’
‘So it’s not still in his garage?’
For the first time, it seemed to dawn on Mrs Hughes that the questions were a little irregular, but her respect for his title won Penrose the day. ‘He never used the garage,’ she said, ‘so no, his car isn’t there. He rented the garage to a friend to make a bit of extra cash on the side. Billy always parked on the street.’
‘Did you ever meet his friend?’
She shook her head. ‘No, but I used to see him when he came to collect the car. I can’t help you much there, though – there was nothing very memorable about him.’
Except his voice, thought Penrose. He thanked her and drove back to the Yard, deep in thought. From his office, he telephoned Broadcasting House, hoping that his enquiry would be one that could be dealt with by reception. When a woman answered, he chose not to give his name and asked if Mr Whiting was working today. The answer was all too predictable: Mr Whiting had called in sick on Monday morning. No one knew when to expect him back.
7
Cambridge thrived on its past, and how Marta had ever thought that she could leave hers behind here was a mystery to her now. She had forgotten how disarmingly beautiful the city was in May, when its natural talent for languid pleasures fused with the hope and urgency of a new summer, and she wandered the pavements for hours, relieved to find that a place she once loved had changed far less in her absence than she had. It charmed her now as much as ever, but she found it hard to gauge how happy her present-day self might be when all the time a girl sat like a ghost at her shoulder, annotating every building and stretch of river with a different memory. When it was time for her to leave, she had made no decisions about her future, but the ice, at least, was broken.
Her route to the station was mapped according to the streets she most loved: the jumbled collection of buildings on King’s Parade, whose variety was a perfect foil to the single-minded grandeur of the chapel on the other side of the street; the secluded corners of St Edward’s Passage, where a theatre now stood next to the church, mirror-images of worship in their own way; a glance down to the tiny cottages in Little St Mary’s Lane which had always intrigued her, then past the Fitzwilliam Museum and through the Botanic Gardens to the outskirts of the town. The long approach to the station opened up in front of her, culminating in the familiar yellow brick and handsome arched frontage of the railway buildings, and she remembered how relieved she had been to walk down this road twenty years ago and wave her husband off to war. After so long, the intensity of the memory shocked her, and she was only thankful that she had not known then how much grief lay in store for her. Sometimes, ignorance was bliss, and perhaps that was the spirit she should adopt here: it was pointless to speculate about where she might be most content – far better simply to rent a house she liked and see what happened.
She was a little early, the train a little late, so she decided to pass the time in the station’s buffet. Sunlight streamed through the frosted windows and she queued patiently at the counter, where glass cases piled high with sandwiches and cakes were flanked by small armies of lemonade and soda bottles, all arranged with military precision. A wireless was on in the background but it was no match for the woman behind the counter, whose cheerful commentary on the day’s events was only interrupted by the gushing of a vast tea urn. Marta ordered coffee, chocolate and a packet of cigarettes, then looked round for somewhere to sit. There was an empty table by the window, but she was distracted by a familiar face in the corner, playing idly with a teacup and absorbed in a book. ‘Bridget! How nice to see you,’ she said. Bridget looked up and the expression on her face was hard to read, but Marta thought it was more than the usual surprise at meeting someone out of context. ‘Are you going back to London? Archie will be pleased to see you.’
‘No, I’m here until tomorrow. I’ve just been seeing someone off.’
The question of who hovered over the two empty cups and plates, but Marta didn’t know Bridget well enough to pry. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’ she asked instead.
‘No, of course not.’ Bridget gestured to the chair opposite, but refused the offer of another cup of tea. ‘Is Josephine with you?’
‘No, I’m on my own.’ The answer seemed to come as a relief, and Marta supposed it was only natural that there should be some friction between Bridget and Josephine. Josephine’s friendship with Archie was unique and unshakeable, straying untidily into love and formerly – on his side at least – into desire, and Marta had found it very daunting herself in the early days. ‘I’m thinking of taking a house here, so I wanted to spend a bit of time looking round,’ she explained.
‘A house in Cambridge? That’s a bit sudden, isn’t it?’
‘Not really,’ Marta said, trying not to resent the idea that where she chose to live was anybody’s business but her own. ‘I spent several years here when I was younger. My father and my husband were both academics.’
‘Oh, I didn’t realise that.’
‘No, it’s not something I talk about very much.’ She had no intention of talking about it now, either, and was about to change the subject when the door opened behind them. Bridget glanced across the room and Marta was surprised by the look of panic that crossed her face. Hurriedly, she stood up to prevent the newcomer from reaching their table, but the young woman was too quick for her. She was tall and attractive, not much older than twenty, and Marta looked at her with interest.
‘I forgot to take the key,’ she said, trying to catch her breath. ‘I’m sorry – I’ve just run the whole length of the platform and it wasn’t a very graceful entrance. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’
‘Don’t worry – we were only chatting.’
‘Phyllis, this is Marta,’ Bridget said. ‘She’s a friend of mine from London – we met at Portmeirion last year.’
‘Not the most restful of holidays, I gather,’ Phyllis said, and Marta was struck by the familiarity in that wry, engaging smile. A guard put his head round the door to give the final call for the Birmingham train, and Phyllis looked at Bridget in exasperation. ‘Oh, please hurry up, Mother! If I miss this, I’ll have to wait ages for another one.’ Bridget found what she was looking for and handed it over, her face impassive. ‘It was lovely to meet you,’ her daughter said, oblivious to the awkwardness that she had caused. ‘I’m sorry it’s been such a rush. Perhaps next time we’ll have longer to talk.’
She kissed Bridget on the cheek and hurried back out to the trains, and Marta waited for the door to close behind her. ‘Does Archie know you have a daughter?’ she asked quietly.
‘No, I haven’t told him yet.’
‘Why on earth not?’
‘I just haven’t found the right moment.’
‘In nearly a year?’ Marta stared at her in disbelief.
‘I’m not sure this is any of your concern.’
The words were aggressive but they were spoken half-heartedly, and Marta sensed that they prefaced a conversation which Bridget both feared and longed for. ‘Perhaps not,’ she said, trying to sound less judgemental. ‘But I don’t understand why you’d keep something like that from Archie if you genuinely care for him. Surely you don’t think it would make any difference to how he feels?’ Bridget said nothing, and her silence gave free rein to Marta’s imagination. ‘Unless, of course, there’s another complication. Are you still with Phyllis’s father, Bridget? Is that what you don’t want Archie to find out? That you have a completely separate life here, one that he doesn’t fit into?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘Life is, when you keep secrets. I should know.’
‘I love her father. I love him very much.’
Her sadness seemed to come from nowhere, sudden and all-consuming, and it was a much more effective line of defence than the hostility she had shown up to now. Marta had never expected to see such vulnerability in Archie’s wilful, spirited lover; she had always found Bridget’s independence deeply attractive, but now she seemed lost. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,’ she said gently.
‘Don’t you? I hoped you might guess and make it easy for me. That way, I wouldn’t have to say it. She’s his, Marta. Phyllis is Archie’s daughter, and he doesn’t even know she exists.’ Marta stared across the table, trying to make sense of what she had just heard, and Bridget’s fear and frustration got the better of her. ‘So do you understand now? Every moment I spend with Archie is a lie, and I don’t know how to make that right. I can’t make it right. It’s too late.’
‘Why didn’t you tell him at the time?’ Marta asked. ‘Were things really so bad between you?’
‘No, they weren’t bad at all – it was just over. What we had was lovely, but neither of us intended it to be for life. He went back to war and I went back to the Slade, and we parted before we grew tired of each other – that’s one of the things that made it so special. Then I found out I was pregnant, and I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified.’
‘Because you didn’t think he’d stand by you? Archie’s not like that.’
‘No, it wasn’t that – I was scared because I knew he would. I knew he’d marry me and we’d raise our child, then other children after that, and I didn’t want that life. I know it was selfish, but I wanted my freedom and I’ve never really regretted that.’
‘Until now?’
Bridget nodded. ‘I never dreamt I’d see Archie again,’ she admitted. ‘Even when we bumped into each other at Portmeirion after all those years, I thought it would be a fleeting thing. I never imagined that either of us would feel so strongly – more now than we ever did. I thought it was young love, but it’s turned out to be something rather more. Just shows how wrong you can be, doesn’t it? It would be funny if it weren’t so fucking tragic.’