by Nicola Upson
Chapter Six
Hilda Reader emerged from the underground station at Piccadilly Circus into a world transformed by freshness and light. Snow had fallen heavily overnight and into the early hours, and now there was a look in the sky which promised more. She had always thought that winter suited London better than any other season; the city was bright with the peculiar, hard brilliance of cold weather, and she was glad that she had decided to leave the stale fug of the underground a stop early in order to enjoy it. At street level, the snow had fallen victim to traffic and the games of children but it remained unspoilt on canopies and rooftops, and the upper storeys of buildings faded into blacks, whites and greys, almost as if she were looking at a photograph. The only splashes of colour came from a few resilient flower sellers who sat on the steps around Eros, their displays made suddenly more precious by the bitter weather.
She walked on down Coventry Street and across Leicester Square, looking forward to work as she always did. The Motleys were busier now than ever and she went in most Saturdays, glad of the chance to get on with jobs which the constant supervision of thirty girls often made impossible during the week. It didn’t affect her home life: her husband was a buyer for Debenhams and she was lucky in her second marriage to have found a man who valued her career as highly as his own. Widowed at thirty by the war, Hilda had been forced to accept that the prospect of building a loving home like the one in which she was raised had been buried in Belgian soil along with her husband. Grudgingly, she resigned herself to a life without intimacy, glad at least that her profession was not one which she was expected to relinquish to the handful of men who returned from the fighting, and, in her work with Motley, she found a different sort of fulfilment. Later, as her friendship with John grew miraculously into something more, she lived in fear of having to choose—but she had underestimated him: he was a good man, and wise enough to understand that, had he been tempted to force the issue, she would never have agreed to marry him.
But the marriage had worked, and the time they spent together was important to them both. They always went out on a Saturday night, and Hilda knew the West End theatres and cinemas as well as most people knew their friends. The Motleys encouraged her to see as much as possible and to keep up with the new ideas and changing fashions of the stage; that was what she loved most about them—their willingness to include others. They listened to her as carefully now as they had when they were sitting at her feet, learning to sew, and the fame of the last few years hadn’t changed that. The business grew more chaotic by the day, and it drove Hilda’s ordered mind to distraction at times, but it was the large, unruly family she had never had and they were blessed with a good set of workers at the moment. She would be the first to admit that the prospect of taking on ex-prisoners had filled her with horror, but she had been wrong; now, her biggest worry was how to hang on to Marjorie, how to keep her on the straight and narrow and make sure that she was sufficiently involved not to be lured away by any of the other fashion houses who knew talent when they saw it.
As Hilda turned into St Martin’s Lane, the first flakes of the threatened snow shower began to fall. She fumbled around in her bag for the heavy set of keys, but was surprised to see that the wrought-iron gates which divided the street from the staff entrance were unlocked. The sisters must have come in early, she thought, but one look at the perfect covering of snow on the cobbles told her that no one had entered the premises that morning. Surely Marjorie hadn’t worked all night? Or perhaps she had simply forgotten to lock the gates when she left, in which case Hilda would have to have a quiet word with her on Monday. She pulled the gates shut behind her and trudged into the yard, enjoying the dry crunch of untouched snow beneath her boots. When she turned the corner, she stopped short in her tracks: at the foot of the iron staircase, too close to the building to be visible from the street, someone was lying motionless in the snow, partially covered in a blanket of deathly white. Please God, no, she thought, hurrying forward, not Marjorie—the child must have slipped on the stairs in the darkness; if she’d been there all night, she’d have had no chance against the cold. But as she got closer, she realised that the figure was a man, and, bending over him, she saw not Marjorie but her father.
He was beyond help—she could see that instantly. He lay on his side, his eyes still open, flakes of snow frozen to his eyelashes and the stubble on his face; Hilda felt the lonely horror of his death at the same time as she thanked God for saving her from a deeper grief. There was a profound stillness about the scene, and she wondered why she had never noticed how quickly the everyday sounds of St Martin’s Lane disappeared once you were in this courtyard. Here, amid the double disorientation of snow and sudden death, her mind struggled to make sense of what had happened. Had Marjorie’s father come looking for her and met with an accident? Or was it worse than that? She remembered how upset the girl had seemed when she came back from lunch yesterday. Had there been some sort of struggle? Had he tried to hurt her, and had Marjorie—in putting up a fight—gone further than she intended? Hilda hesitated for a moment. She knew she must go upstairs and telephone for help, but was reluctant to leave the dead man on his own. It was stupid, she realised—no more harm could come to him, and cold and loneliness had lost their power to hurt—but it seemed wrong to abandon him now and, in truth, she longed for company herself, even that of a stranger.
Quickly, Hilda turned and went back towards St Martin’s Lane, where she caught the attention of a young man who happened to glance in through the gates as he passed. Startled but keen to help, he offered to go back into the street and find a policeman, but she knew it would be quicker to call from the studio and, in any case, she had to telephone the Motley sisters as soon as possible to let them know what was happening. Leaving the man with the body, she went carefully up the steps; they were still perilous, and she clung tightly to a handrail which was slippery and far from reliable, wondering again where Marjorie was and what had happened. When she got to the top, she saw that the door to the building was open. The wind had blown some of the snow into the corridor, where it had melted into a muddy dampness. She walked quietly towards the studio, sensing somehow that she was not on her own even before she saw Marjorie sitting on the other side of the room, her back to the door.
‘Marjorie, love—thank God you’re safe. What on earth’s happened?’ The girl must be in shock, Hilda thought, because she didn’t move or respond in any way, even when she called her name again. ‘It’s all right, love—whatever’s gone on, you’re not on your own. We’ll look after you.’ As Hilda stepped closer and reached out her hand, she noticed the smell but the significance of it didn’t register until it was too late; by now, she was at an angle to see Marjorie’s reflection in the full-length mirror which stood just a few feet away from her. She stared in revulsion and terror at the blood and bruising around her mouth, at the needle still hanging on a thread from her lips, at her own image standing over the dead girl, adding to Marjorie’s degradation by the very act of witnessing it. Understanding now why there had been no response, Hilda opened her mouth and screamed for them both.
Detective Inspector Archie Penrose sat at his desk in New Scotland Yard, wondering how he could make a pact with the devil to add a few more hours to each day. He had been at work since just after seven and was only halfway through the reports that had come in overnight. Among them was Fallowfield’s account of the thefts and anonymous letters at the Cowdray Club; it was not the sort of thing which Penrose would normally investigate, but the chief constable was putting pressure on him to give some time to it, and the sooner it was cleared up, the better.
He picked up the telephone to make an appointment but, before he had a chance to speak to the operator, Fallowfield stuck his head round the door. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Sir, but we’ve got to go. Thompson’s just called up from the desk—a man’s reported two bodies, and I recognised the address. It’s your cousins’ place—and one of the bodies is a young woman.’
&nbs
p; For a second, Penrose was numb, trying to take in the implications of what he had heard. Then he reached for the telephone again and barked Lettice’s number into the receiver. ‘Come on, pick it up,’ he muttered as it rang and rang, but there was no answer, and the result was the same when he tried Ronnie’s flat. ‘What else did Thompson say?’ he asked as they ran out to the car. ‘Do we have a description of the dead woman?’ Fallowfield hesitated, and Penrose knew that there was something he was reluctant to share. ‘Well?’
‘We don’t have a description of the woman, Sir—only what’s been done to her.’
‘And? Oh for God’s sake, Bill, just tell me.’
‘Someone’s stitched her mouth up.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Penrose paused before getting into the car, and tried to rid himself of the images crowding his mind. ‘Please God, no,’ he said, more quietly this time.
‘Come on, Sir—we don’t know anything for sure yet,’ Fallowfield said calmly, taking the keys from Penrose’s hand and going round to the driver’s side. ‘She was found in the workroom. The other body’s outside in the yard—looks like he fell down the stairs on his way out.’
‘And who reported it?’
‘Chap called Gaunt. Ellis Gaunt, I think.’
The name meant nothing to Penrose, but then very little else did either. The short journey from the Embankment to St Martin’s Lane was a blur to him, and he was out of the car even before Fallowfield had brought it to a standstill in front of number 66. Just inside the gates, he saw Lettice and Ronnie comforting an older woman whom he recognised as their head cutter; another man—presumably the Gaunt who’d made the call—stood awkwardly to the side, at a discreet distance from the group of women, as if reluctant to intrude on their sorrow. All of them looked up, startled, as Penrose ran over to them. ‘Thank God,’ he said, scarcely caring that it was not the most professional of responses. ‘I thought for a moment that one of you …’
‘No, Archie—we’re fine.’ Lettice smiled weakly, but she and Ronnie both looked ten years older than when he had last seen them, and Ronnie in particular seemed to be struggling to keep her emotions under control—anger, he noticed, rather than tears, but that was what he would have expected; ever since they were children, Ronnie’s response to grief or injustice had always been to rage against it rather than admit her vulnerability. The other lady—why couldn’t he remember her name?—was making a valiant effort to pull herself together, but in vain: she stared down at the handkerchief in her hands, winding one of the corners repeatedly round her finger and shaking her head; she seemed grateful when Lettice saved her from having to go over what had happened straight away. ‘No, it’s Marjorie who’s been killed—Marjorie Baker, one of our girls. Hilda found her father over by the steps when she came in to work this morning. She went up to telephone for help, and that’s when she found Marjorie’s body.’
Penrose glanced over to the foot of the iron staircase. ‘There’s another way we can get up to the workroom, isn’t there?’ he asked.
‘Yes, through the clients’ entrance at the front and up the stairs there.’ Lettice opened her bag and took out a set of keys. ‘Here, you’ll need these.’
Penrose walked back to the street, where Fallowfield was getting some gloves and other equipment out of the car, and handed him the keys. ‘Have a quick look round inside, Bill—I want to get everyone out of the yard. They’ve had a shock and they shouldn’t be out here in these temperatures, but check everywhere first. We don’t want any more surprises.’
He returned to the group and spoke gently to the woman who had found the body. ‘I’m so very sorry for what you’ve been through. My sergeant’s just checking the premises and sealing off the workroom. He won’t be long, and then I’ll need to ask you a few questions. We can do it in one of the rooms here, or, if you’d rather not go back into the building straight away, I’m sure I can find us somewhere nearby to talk.’
‘No, no—it’s fine,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to make any more work for you.’
‘We’ll go into the flat upstairs in a minute,’ Lettice said, squeezing Hilda’s shoulder. ‘It’s chock-a-block with materials, but it’s quiet and well away from everything, and at least we can have some tea to warm us up.’
Penrose was grateful for his cousin’s tact. The comings and goings of photographers, scene-of-crime officers and mortuary vans were not comfortable things to witness for anyone who didn’t work with them, and he needed Hilda to concentrate without any upsetting distractions. ‘You must be Mr Gaunt?’ he said, holding his hand out to the man by the gates. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Penrose. I gather you reported the murder?’
‘That’s right,’ Gaunt said. ‘I was on my way to work, when I saw Mrs Reader coming out from the yard. She was obviously upset about something, so I stopped to find out what was wrong. She asked me to wait down here with the man’s body while she went to call the police, just to make sure that nobody else came into the yard. Then I heard her screaming, so I went straight up—I thought she was in trouble.’ He paused, looking at Hilda Reader. ‘When I saw what had happened, I was so sorry that I’d let her go up and make the call, but it seemed the best thing at the time—she knew where the telephone was and everything. But I wish I could have saved her from seeing that. It’s terrible up there—even more so for anyone who knew the girl.’
‘You weren’t to know,’ Penrose said, impressed by the young man’s decency. ‘What did you do when you got upstairs?’
‘I asked Mrs Reader where the telephone was, and told her to wait in the corridor. Then I called you.’
‘And you came down together as soon as you’d finished.’
‘No, Archie—they did a little light dusting and finished the spring collection. Of course they came straight down—they’re hardly going to stay up there with a human pin cushion, are they?’ Ronnie’s frustration had finally got the better of her, but there were tears in her eyes as she glared at him.
Gaunt looked uncomfortable, but Penrose nodded encouragingly at him to continue. ‘More or less straight down, Sir. Mrs Reader wanted me to telephone her employers as well. So I went back to do that, and then we came down here to wait.’
‘We came straight away,’ Lettice explained. ‘We just couldn’t believe it. I suppose we’d been here about five or ten minutes before you arrived.’
‘And neither of you have left the courtyard?’
‘No, of course not. We knew we mustn’t touch anything.’
‘There is one thing, though.’ Hilda Reader spoke so faintly that Penrose could hardly hear what she was saying. ‘Upstairs I … it was the smell, you see. I couldn’t stop myself. The shock of finding her there like that, seeing what he’d done to her. I’m afraid I … I was sick. I couldn’t help it,’ she said again. ‘I’m sorry—I hope I haven’t ruined anything.’
‘Oh, Hilda,’ Lettice said, wrapping her arms round her. ‘How bloody awful for you. There’s no need to be sorry.’
‘Lettice is right, Mrs Reader,’ Penrose said. ‘There’s absolutely no need to apologise—it’s a perfectly natural reaction.’
‘I didn’t realise she was dead at first, you see,’ Hilda explained. ‘She had her back to me, and when I saw her I thought that something had gone on between her and her father. If I’m honest, I thought she’d hurt him—then I realised it was the other way round.’
‘Why did you think that Marjorie had hurt her father?’ Penrose asked.
‘Because he was hanging around here at lunchtime yesterday, asking to see her. She went over the road to meet him, and when she came back she seemed upset—angry, really. I think she was ashamed of him—she never talked about her home life. She kept apologising in case he’d been any bother to me.’
‘It’s us that should be sorry,’ Lettice said. ‘All the time it was going on, we were just across the road at the theatre. My God,’ she added, remembering, ‘we even saw the lights go out. We could have helped her.’
‘What time
was that?’
‘Just after the play finished, so around ten-fifteen, I suppose. We should have gone up to see her, like we said we would. We should never have let this happen.’
‘Damn right we shouldn’t.’ Ronnie lit a cigarette and looked provocatively at Archie, daring him to forbid her to smoke at a crime scene. ‘Why didn’t we know that Marjorie was in trouble? Because we never have time to talk to those girls about anything except work, that’s why. We’re so busy with our plays and our reviews and our fucking charity galas that we can’t see what’s going on under our roof. I swear to God, if that bastard hadn’t cracked his own skull open, I’d be more than happy to do it for him.’