Two for Sorrow

by Nicola Upson

  ‘Josephine!’ His impatience turned to delight as soon as he saw her. ‘I didn’t think you were in town until the weekend. What a lovely surprise!’

  ‘I won’t stay long if this is a bad time,’ she said, kissing him. ‘You didn’t look like a man who needed visitors when you answered the door.’

  ‘Don’t be silly—I thought you were Ronnie. She’s locked herself out five times in the last two days, and I swear she’s started to do it deliberately just to keep me fit.’ He smiled, and stood aside to let her in. ‘It’s wonderful to see you. Why the change of plan?’

  ‘Oh, there’s some research I need to do for a new book idea,’ she explained casually, hoping he wouldn’t ask exactly how long she’d been in London. ‘I thought I might as well build it in around the gala night next week. And now I’m here, I’m dying to see your new pad.’

  ‘As long as you’re not expecting too much—nothing looks very impressive at the moment. I haven’t even unpacked yet and none of the furniture’s arrived—but the most comfortable box is all yours.’ He took the bottle she offered him and looked approvingly at the label. ‘You might have to be patient while I look for some proper glasses, though. We’re not drinking this out of a mug.’

  She followed him up three flights of stairs to the top of the house. ‘Are Ronnie and Lettice working late? I saw the lights on in the studio as I came past.’

  ‘Oh, someone’s bound to be there,’ Archie said. ‘They’re snowed under at the moment, and there’s been much muttering about extra staff and overtime rates, as you can imagine. But they’re actually having some time off tonight—it’s the Snipe’s birthday, and they’ve taken her to see Romeo and Juliet.’

  ‘Lucky her. I can’t wait to see it.’

  ‘Mm. I’m not sure how much of a treat the Snipe regards it as. When she left this evening, she was still muttering that if she wanted to see two families at each other’s throats, she could have stayed at home and saved them the expense of an extra ticket. At least they’re taking her for supper afterwards.’

  Josephine laughed. ‘I think even the Snipe will be won over. Peggy’s supposed to be magnificent as Juliet, although I shall have to tell Lydia that she’s awful if I’m put on the spot. She still hasn’t forgiven Johnny for not casting her—and with nothing else in her life at the moment, a snub like that is bound to hurt.’

  ‘It’s not like Lydia to be without a girl on her arm for so long, is it?’

  Archie’s comment was light-hearted, but it was true enough: the actress’s reputation for attracting and tiring of a succession of lovers was legendary; only once had Josephine ever seen her truly settled, but the relationship had ended in difficult circumstances the year before, with Josephine caught in the middle of it. ‘I think she’s hoping to make a new start with Marta eventually,’ she explained as he showed her into his flat. ‘She’s never been as happy with anyone else.’

  ‘Has she heard from Marta, then?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’ She left Archie rummaging around in a tiny kitchen to find a glass to match the quality of the wine, and walked through to the living room. It was even more chaotic than he had suggested, but the piles of boxes—some half-unpacked, apparently at random—could not hide what a beautiful space it was. Archie had obviously been working before she interrupted him. A makeshift desk and chair had been fashioned from a couple of large book trunks, and a cigarette burned slowly down in an ashtray next to an untouched mug of coffee and a pile of folders and paperwork. Idly, Josephine glanced down at a series of black-and-white photographs; by the time she realised what she was staring at, it was too late to walk away. A dark-haired woman of around forty was lying back on a bed with what looked like a silk stocking tied around her neck. Her left leg was bare. A tassel attached to the jumper she was wearing seemed to be caught in the ligature, and there were bruises on her neck and around her throat. On the pillow, a few inches from the woman’s head, there was a thin dental plate, presumably dislodged from her mouth as she struggled.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Archie said from the door, ‘I’d forgotten they were out.’ He put the glasses down and hurriedly gathered up the files. ‘Sorry—you shouldn’t have seen those.’

  ‘My fault for looking,’ Josephine said, still a little shocked. ‘Poor devil—what happened?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. The maid found her strangled in her flat in Piccadilly. She was in debt to the tune of forty guineas for some furs, and there was talk of suicide but Spilsbury’s convinced it was murder. One of the neighbours heard her arguing with a man about money the night before.’

  ‘And you don’t know who he was?’

  ‘No, but there’s no shortage of candidates—she’d been up in court on seventy-four counts of prostitution before she died.’

  ‘Then I can see why you haven’t unpacked.’ She chose a box next to the fireplace and sat down. A fire was already laid in the grate—the only impression that Mrs Snipe had been allowed to make on the room as yet—and Archie threw her some matches to light it.

  ‘That’s just the beginning,’ he said, carefully uncorking the bottle. ‘There are three other cases on the go, not to mention a load of extra paperwork. It’s always the same after a general election—they want to reassure people that they’re safe in their beds so we have a complete overhaul of all the procedures, only to carry on in exactly the same way.’ He sighed and gestured towards the boxes. ‘So it might be some time before this lot gets sorted. I think I’ll just wait a month and assume that anything which hasn’t surfaced by then is surplus to requirements. That way, I can give all the unopened boxes to the deserving poor. We’ll let this breathe in the glass, shall we?’

  Josephine nodded, and held both drinks while he pulled another box up to the hearth. ‘Do you want some help?’ she asked, glancing round at the chaos.

  ‘God no—let’s just enjoy a drink. I’m spending so little time here at the moment that it hardly matters.’

  ‘Well, start by opening this,’ she said, handing over the flat, square parcel. ‘At least the walls are peaceful—you might even be able to see it.’

  Intrigued, Archie unwrapped the brown paper and stared in delight at the painting, a delicate watercolour of a lake surrounded by woodland and the perfect likeness of his home in Cornwall, where he and Josephine had spent some time together during the summer. Regardless of its personal meaning, the painting was superb and the artist—like all the best watercolourists—had made the medium look deceptively simple. The minute detail of the trees contrasted with spontaneous washes of colour for the sky and the surface of the water and, looking at it now, Josephine felt as though she would sense the magic of the place even if she had never been there.

  ‘Loe Pool!’ Archie exclaimed. ‘Where on earth did you find this?’

  ‘I got it while I was there,’ she said, pleased that he liked it so much. ‘There was a painter on holiday—he was staying in the village, but he was by the lake whenever I went for a walk; I must have seen him do at least fifteen pictures. I pestered him to let me buy one, and eventually he agreed—just to get rid of me, probably. It came back from the framer this afternoon.’ She watched his face as he looked down at the painting, and knew that he was thinking about the tragic events that had taken place there just a few months earlier. ‘I thought it might help to remind you of how beautiful the place is,’ she added gently, ‘and perhaps wipe out a few images that aren’t so pleasant.’

  Archie looked across at her. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s perfect.’ He stood up and held the painting against the wall, where a previous occupant had obligingly left a picture hook. ‘Over the fireplace, I think, don’t you?’ She nodded, and he hung it in place, then picked up his glass. ‘To a quieter winter.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that.’

  ‘Now—tell me about this new book.’

  Josephine accepted a cigarette, and Archie listened while she outlined the crimes of Sach and Walters and explained her own connection with Sach�
��s daughter. ‘Have you heard of the case?’ she asked when she’d finished.

  He shook his head. ‘No, although the crime’s familiar and I know about Dyer. She tends to eclipse everyone else, simply because she was so prolific. It’s funny you should mention it now, though—it’s very topical. Baby farmers are high on the government’s new agenda.’

  ‘What? You mean it still goes on?’

  ‘Absolutely. The Home Secretary’s just announced a new committee to look into the whole adoption issue. Wait a minute.’ He got up to rummage through a pile of newspapers, and handed her a copy of Tuesday’s Daily Mail. ‘Here you are—“Government Drive against Baby Farmers”. The process is different these days, of course—it’s more a case of selling babies to countries where it’s illegal to adopt native children—but the principle is exactly the same. Making money out of unwanted children.’ He refilled their glasses while she read the newspaper article, then asked: ‘What will the book be? A fictionalised account of the Sach and Walters case, or a modern version of it?’

  ‘I haven’t really decided. It’s so different from anything I’ve written recently that it hasn’t found its shape yet. I suppose Kif is the closest I’ve come to looking at the story of a crime without turning it into a detective novel, so it’s a bit like going back to the first book I ever wrote, but with a true case. Anyway, I’m going to have a look through all the newspaper accounts of the trial tomorrow and find out as much as I can about the two women to see what that throws up, but I think what really interests me is the impact the crimes had on everyone else around them. When Sach met Walters—however that happened—they set up a chain of events which didn’t just stop with their execution, and so many people were drawn into it; their families, the mothers of the children, the people who were responsible for them in prison. It’s a whole cast of characters, unconnected except by these two women and changed by them for ever. Look at what happened to Elizabeth Sach, for God’s sake, and that was nearly fifteen years later. I don’t think I’d be taking this on if I hadn’t known her and seen first hand how crimes can linger.’

  ‘That’s interesting. It sounds like your book starts where most of them finish.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it does.’ She smiled. ‘I think I’ve only just realised that myself. You don’t often get the aftermath in detective fiction—the sense of life going on, I mean. Or not going on, in Lizzie’s case. It’s funny, and I hadn’t thought about it before, but Lizzie would never have been able to come to terms with what her mother did because she wasn’t given the chance to talk to her about it. The death sentence doesn’t allow for that sort of solace.’ She set down her glass for a second to put some more coal on the fire. ‘I’m glad you think it sounds interesting, though—I was beginning to have my doubts after talking to Celia earlier. She wasn’t exactly encouraging.’

  ‘Her name sounds familiar. She was one of the warders, you say?’

  ‘That’s right. And she does a lot of charity work, so her name’s often in the papers—usually mentioned in the same breath as the Queen.’

  He laughed at her expression of distaste. ‘The society pages aren’t exactly the ones I’m drawn to first when I pick up The Times.’

  ‘No, nor me. But she did tell me she’s called your lot in to the Cowdray Club—perhaps that it’s, although I wouldn’t have thought it was serious enough to bother the inspector with.’

  ‘Ah, the anonymous letters—that’s it. I knew I’d heard her name recently.’

  ‘Letters?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry—I shouldn’t have said anything, but it sounded like you already knew.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about anonymous letters. Celia told me it was theft.’

  ‘Yes, there’s been some of that, too, apparently, but you’re right—that wouldn’t concern us. Unpleasant letters to the great and the good, however, are a different matter altogether. The chief constable’s wife is a member.’

  ‘Unpleasant in what way?’

  ‘I suppose spiteful would be the best word to describe them. There’s nothing threatening or violent about them, but they play on people’s vulnerabilities with remarkable skill. Four members of the staff or committee have had them so far, including Miss Bannerman herself.’

  ‘And do they come from another member or from outside the club?’

  ‘We don’t know yet, and I can’t go into details, but they imply a knowledge of the recipients rather than just random targeting.’

  ‘How upsetting. Celia said there’d been trouble between the nurses and the other members—I wonder if it’s anything to do with that?’

  ‘Possibly. I don’t think you need to worry, though—it’s not the members themselves who are receiving them; only people closely involved in the running of the club. You haven’t had anything, have you?’

  Josephine decided to come clean. ‘Nothing like that, no—only a mysterious gardenia that no one seemed to want to put a name to.’

  ‘What?’ he asked in mock offence. ‘You mean someone’s welcomed you to town before I did? I’ll have to up my act.’

  ‘Well, at least wait until the other one’s died—the room’s too small to look like a florist’s shop.’ She drained her glass. ‘I’d better go—it’s late, and I’ve got a long morning at the British Museum ahead of me.’

  ‘I’ll walk you back—unless you’d rather take a cab?’

  ‘No—let’s walk.’ They went out into the street and headed towards Leicester Square, and Josephine took his arm, enjoying the easy way that she and Archie seemed to fall into each other’s company these days, no matter how long it was since they were last together. It hadn’t always been that way: when Josephine’s lover—Archie’s closest friend—had been killed at the Somme, Archie had blamed himself, and the subsequent distance between them, the impossibility of ever understanding how the other truly felt, was one of the many ways in which the war had blighted the lives of those who survived it. She knew that their relationship would never be straightforward—neither of them had the temperament to make it so—but they had both learned to accept its limitations, and to rely on an honesty and understanding which they found only in each other. ‘I wonder why Celia didn’t mention anything about those letters to me?’ Josephine asked as they picked their way through the late-night revellers in Piccadilly.

  ‘Nothing more sinister than an eye on the club’s reputation, I should think. You’re a client as well as an acquaintance, don’t forget, and she won’t want to unsettle the members. She’s got books to balance, and discretion and privacy are what her customers pay for. News of this getting out is the last thing she needs, especially with the gala coming up on Monday. That’s bound to attract publicity.’

  ‘You’re still coming with me, I hope?’

  ‘Of course, although I’m heartily sick of it already. Whenever I do see Lettice and Ronnie, it’s all they seem to talk about.’

  ‘It’s quite a coup for the club, though, getting Noël and Gertie—especially when Tonight at 8.30 hasn’t even been seen in London yet.’

  ‘Isn’t some relative of his involved in the Cowdray Club?’

  ‘His aunt, yes. He agreed to do it for her as long as some of the money goes to the Actors’ Orphanage. He’s president, and he takes his role very seriously, apparently. I suppose that’ll be another bone of contention—even less money for the nurses.’

  ‘It could turn into quite an interesting evening—anonymous letters, charities at each other’s throats. I suppose it’s more interesting than just waiting to see what plum role Noël’s written for himself this time.’

  She hit his shoulder playfully. ‘Don’t act the cynic with me. You loved Private Lives when we went to see it. In fact, I seem to remember you were quite tongue-tied with awe when Gertie spoke to you at the party afterwards, and we could all hear the ice cubes rattling when she asked you to hold her drink.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ he said, holding his hands up in defeat as they turned into Cavendish Square. ‘
I do have a soft spot for Miss Lawrence but I’ll try to curb it on the night.’ They stopped outside the club. ‘Listen, I don’t know how much time I’ll have over the weekend, but it would be nice to see you. Do you have any plans?’

  ‘Only to get some more work done, and to call in on the girls to try the dress they’ve made me for the gala. They haven’t told me anything about it, but they’ve made enough clothes for me by now to know what I like.’

  ‘I’ve seen it, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Shall I telephone when I know what I’m doing?’

  ‘Yes, do. There’s a new Hitchcock on at the Odeon—we could go to see that.’

  ‘Excellent, but it might be short notice.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. I’ll be here most of the time.’

  ‘Am I allowed in if it’s not on official business?’

  ‘Only if I vouch for you, so no more talk of Gertrude Lawrence.’ She kissed him goodnight and ran up the steps to the club, feeling much more cheerful than when she had left it. The lift was still out of order, so she took the stairs reluctantly, thinking how ashamed Celia Bannerman would be if she saw her pause for breath at the second flight: Anstey girls were not supposed to pant, even in the grip of approaching middle age. Ashamed of herself, she pushed on to the third floor and was surprised to see her bedroom door ajar. There was a light on inside, although she knew she had left the room in darkness, and the spiteful letters—which had seemed a world away in the warmth of Archie’s flat—suddenly seemed much closer to home. Gently, she pushed the door open a little further. The lamp was on at her desk, and the girl she had met earlier—the one who had knocked her parcels to the floor—was standing by the chair, reading through the pile of papers which Josephine had left by her typewriter before she went out.