by Nicola Upson
Archie once said that your mother helped him to see the beauty of the world more often. His day-to-day landscape is brutal and bleak, a world full of hate, and his job expects him to understand why we do the most terrible things to each other. Now, while his heart breaks, his answer is to seek justice for Bridget—but he knows, too, that the other answer is love. At the moment he’s afraid to trust in it, and perhaps you are, too. But you are the only two people in the world who can truly understand each other’s pain, and I hope that will bring you together. As I said, a love that begins in darkness has a habit of lasting.
Yours very sincerely,
Josephine Tey
Josephine sealed the letter, which had been her one salvation in a night of sleeplessness and regret. Her confrontation with Archie had left her numb, but, as the shock wore off, the rawness of his anger came back to her and—selfish as it was when so much else had been lost—she found herself in mourning for their friendship. In her heart, she had known from the moment of Marta’s revelation on Garret Hostel Bridge that the bond of trust between them was under sentence, but she could never have predicted the tragedy which had made every lie less redeemable. Now, she felt more isolated than at any other time in her life, and she longed to be with Marta. In the morning, she would make arrangements to go back to Scotland, and then to America. Archie was unreachable, and there was nothing else she could do here; her absence was the only thing which might begin to heal the rift.
She dressed and set out for Little St Mary’s Lane to deliver the letter. Phyllis would probably still be in hospital, and Josephine had no idea where she lived, but she would have to go back to her mother’s house sooner or later to begin the heartbreaking process of dismantling Bridget’s life. As soon as she turned in off the main street, she hoped for Phyllis’s sake that it was later: a small but intrusive clutch of newspaper reporters was gathered outside Bridget’s front door, obviously waiting for someone to return there, and, as Josephine watched, she saw a photographer put his camera to the downstairs windows and take pictures of the rooms inside. There were too many men for this to be purely a local story, and Josephine felt a rush of helpless rage on Bridget’s behalf as she imagined her murder splashed all over the national papers, making an insufferable situation even worse. She lingered by the church railings, knowing that she couldn’t approach the house and put something through the letterbox without being photographed; the letter would have to go in the post.
As she was turning to go, the bells of Little St Mary’s began to ring out, calling worshippers to early morning mass. Josephine hesitated, drawn to the complex, tuneful sound which she had begun to take for granted in a town of ancient churches. There was something clean in this call to the heavens, something pure and unchangeable, and for the first time in her life she found herself tempted inside a church by something other than curiosity or a love of its earthly beauty. The church was aisle-less, with no division between the nave and the chancel, and she wondered if it might at one stage have been intended as part of a larger college chapel. Light flooded through a beautifully decorated east window and Josephine slipped into a pew at the back, breathing in the pungent smell of incense and hoping that something in the service would bring her comfort. But she wanted it too badly: the words and the music failed to touch her, and she left the church as far from peace as she had entered it.
She found a stamp in her bag, posted Phyllis’s letter, and headed home. It was after nine o’clock now, but the newsagent’s on the corner of St John’s Street was still in darkness. A handful of delivery boys hung about outside, late to collect their allocation of the Sunday papers, and a few disgruntled customers were standing in small groups on the pavement, waiting impatiently for the shop to open. Josephine joined them, scarcely having to guess at the main topic of conversation; she tried not to listen as she glanced through the advertisements in the window to pass the time. A card caught her eye in the bottom left-hand corner, different from most of the others in that it wasn’t offering or asking for accommodation; it was an advert for a stage-hand at the Festival Theatre, poignant in light of what had just happened there but innocent enough otherwise, and Josephine tried to put her finger on why it troubled her. She looked at the other cards, thinking back to the very first time that she had entered the shop and recalling the conversation between the newsagent and a young girl looking for a flatmate; back then, she had assumed he was being friendly, but in hindsight the exchange seemed more probing. What better way to identify young women living alone than in a seemingly harmless conversation about their domestic arrangements while he wrote out their card? She imagined Phyllis placing the advert, drawn into a conversation about how busy she was at the theatre and how much time she spent on her own there, then dismissed the idea as fanciful. But something nagged at her sufficiently to scour the rest of the window, and there it was—an advertisement for rooms to let in St Clement’s Passage, rooms in the house where Mary Ennis had been raped.
Josephine walked away, stunned by the thoughts that raced through her head with such seductive logic. Why would the shop be closed without notice on a busy Sunday morning? Surely the newsagent would try to make capital of yesterday’s shocking events—unless, of course, he had something to do with them and wanted to keep a low profile. She remembered the scorn with which he had discussed the police investigation, his indignant dismissal of the false arrest on Armistice Day—almost as if he knew better. She remembered the rattle of an old bicycle that Mary Ennis had heard and the one that often stood outside the little shop. And then she thought about the state of Mary’s bedroom, the violence and the hatred with which everything safe and familiar had been destroyed. Suddenly she knew what the filthy black staining on the sheets was because she had washed it countless times from her own hands. It wasn’t dirt and it wasn’t coal dust. It was newsprint.
When she got home, she sat in the kitchen and tried to talk herself out of her conclusions, but now that the seed of suspicion was planted it refused to go away. A newsagent was perfectly placed to know all the things that the rapist had needed to know: where a girl lived and with whom; when lodgings were empty; when a landlady cancelled the newspapers, signalling her absence from the house. And it would be very easy for the police to find out if the other victims had frequented the shop, innocently chatting away while the man behind the counter selected his next target. Eventually, she went into the hall and picked up the telephone. There was no point in asking for Archie: he wouldn’t take the call, and in any case her accusation would be safer in the hands of someone less involved. But if she was right, if the newsagent was the man who had terrorised the town for months and taken Bridget’s life, then perhaps Archie would see that she had done all she could to put things right. Perhaps he would forgive her.
26
Josephine looked down over Times Square from her window at the Hotel Astor, and marvelled for the thousandth time at its spectacle. From the moment she arrived in New York, she had behaved like a small child at a funfair, desperate to experience everything, and the city hadn’t let her down. More than anything, she had come to love this part of Manhattan, with its clutch of theatres and music halls—stoically battling an influx of peep shows and vaudeville—and the faded splendour of the grand, turn-of-the-century hotels. Each night, the square came miraculously to life, lit by brightly coloured billboards and huge electrified signs which made Piccadilly Circus seem like a quiet backwater; she and Marta returned together to their temporary home in this hotel of a thousand rooms—tired, anonymous, happy.
But now it was morning and a heavy fall of snow had muted the colours of the unlit billboards even further, transforming her view of the street into a movie played out slowly in monochrome. Few people had ventured outside on foot, and the roads were deserted except for a handful of cars which had been abandoned on the pavement and were now covered by a delicate film of white. The glare was so intense that even the light seemed to freeze in tiny shards on the buildings opposite, and she op
ened the window a little to breathe in the sharp, exhilarating air. It was early on Christmas Eve, and the city which seemed to offer everything had delivered the perfect gift: a clean, white day, as hopeful as a blank sheet of paper.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Marta put a cup of coffee in her hand and kissed the back of her neck.
‘Yes, it is. I’m not remotely interested in going home.’
‘We’ve got a few more days yet, so don’t even think about it.’ They watched as a solitary bus inched its way nobly down Seventh Avenue for the benefit of one or two passengers. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t come here when your own play was running on Broadway,’ Marta said. ‘I’d have gone every single night, but then I’ve always had a shameless lack of modesty.’
Josephine laughed. Her biggest stage hit, Richard of Bordeaux, had transferred to the Empire Theatre shortly after its West End run, but she had resisted all the invitations to come over and promote it. ‘No, it was stupid of me,’ she admitted, ‘but I’m glad now that I didn’t. I would never have wanted to see New York for the first time with anyone but you.’
Marta smiled. ‘Well, I think we’ve seen just about every inch of it by now. And it’s been nice to hear you laugh again.’ She took Josephine’s face in her hands, and drew her into a long, intense kiss. ‘It will be all right, you know. He called, didn’t he? The ice is broken, and Archie made the first move.’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘It was never going to be easy, and believe me—I rue the day I ever walked into that station buffet and met Bridget and Phyllis, but what’s done is done. Archie’s not stupid enough to sacrifice your friendship, and it’s thanks to you that he caught Bridget’s killer. Neither he nor Phyllis will ever forget that. You’ll have a relationship with both of them, but you just need to give it time.’
Josephine stood up and walked over to the vast art deco wardrobe on the other side of the room. ‘You’re right, but I don’t even want to think about that now. I want to savour every moment of the time we’ve got left here.’ She threw Marta a bundle of warm clothes and scarves. ‘And I think you promised me Christmas in Central Park.’
*
Archie stood in the Front Court of King’s College and watched as the myriad lights from inside the chapel grew stronger against the encroaching darkness. It was bitterly cold, although the winter hadn’t yet seen fit to offer snow, and he pulled his coat around him as he waited for the end of the service. The opening bars of ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ gave him hope, and within a few minutes the choir and clergy were proceeding out of the chapel, followed by the various officials of the college and their guests.
He moved a little closer to the south door, trying to remember the last time he had felt so nervous. A woman who seemed familiar was walking towards Wilkins’ Building, and, as she passed a lighted college window, he recognised Virginia Moorcroft. She looked surprised to see him, then pleased, and took a different path to speak to him. ‘Have you been in for the service, Chief Inspector?’ she asked.
‘No, I’m afraid I couldn’t face it after everything that’s happened.’ It was hard to explain, but it wasn’t just the tragic history of this particular day which had prevented him from entering the chapel; since Bridget’s death, he had been too angry to step inside a church, even for her funeral, and although it made little sense to rail against a God in whom he had never believed, he couldn’t help himself. ‘What about you?’
‘I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Teddy sang the solo. He’ll be insufferable now, of course, but I’m pleased for him. Pleased for us all. It felt . . . well, it felt cleansing.’ She stared past him across the court, and he waited for her to continue. ‘I’m so ashamed of what Robert did,’ she admitted, ‘and I can’t thank you enough for saving Teddy.’
‘There’s no need. As it turned out, Teddy was never in danger.’
‘But you didn’t know that. You went to look for him, regardless of the consequences, and things could have been very different. I owe you a great deal.’
‘Then there is one thing you can do for me.’
‘Just name it.’
‘You can accept that you have nothing to be ashamed of. We can’t be responsible for other people’s decisions, whether we love them or not. You have to look to the future now—for Teddy’s sake, and for Evie’s.’ She smiled, but he knew from personal experience that it would take more than logic and wise words to convince her. ‘What will you do now?’ he asked.
‘Pray that the divorce goes through as quickly and as quietly as possible. There’s bound to be a furore in the press when Robert goes to trial, but I’ll grit my teeth and look after the children as best I can. Then, when a decent amount of time has passed, I’ll sell the Priory. It was always my husband’s home, not mine.’
‘Do you know where you’ll go?’ Archie asked, surprised by how much he cared.
‘Not yet. My father wants me to move back to Chicago, but I’m not sure about that. Teddy loves England, and I don’t see why the children should suffer for any of this.’ By now, the general congregation was spilling out from the chapel, their Christmas well and truly under way, and Archie looked over to the crowd. ‘Are you waiting for someone?’ she asked.
‘My daughter.’
He still felt no ownership over the words, and Virginia Moorcroft looked at him in surprise. ‘I didn’t know you had a daughter.’ Archie gave a wry smile, and her surprise turned to curiosity. ‘But then why would I know that? I really don’t know very much about you at all.’
‘It’s a long and complicated story. I’m not sure I understand it myself yet.’
‘Then perhaps you’ll tell it to me someday. I’d like that.’
They said goodbye and he watched her walk away, then turned back towards the chapel. Phyllis was heading towards the porters’ lodge, where they had arranged to meet, and Archie longed for the day when everything about her that reminded him of Bridget would be a cause for joy rather than resentment. She waved when she saw him and he quickened his step, feeling the bewildering muddle of awkwardness and pride which was still so new to him. They greeted each other hesitantly, and then, as they headed out into King’s Parade, she smiled and took his arm.
Acknowledgements
Nine Lessons had two very different inspirations—a love of M. R. James’s ghost stories, which remain among the finest ever written; and a real-life haunting, the period in the early 1970s when the Cambridge Rapist terrorised the streets of a quiet and beautiful university town.
Peter Cook assaulted at least nine women in a series of increasingly violent attacks, but his crimes affected the whole town: removing the freedom that women had fought so hard for; casting suspicion on to innocent men; and humiliating a local police force which worked under pressure at a time when even Scotland Yard still had no specialist methods of investigating rape. Cook was arrested in June 1975 and given two life sentences; he died in prison in 2004. The Cambridge Rapist: Unmasking the Beast of Bedsitland by Paul G. Bahn gives a full account of the case, and I’m grateful to the staff of the Cambridgeshire Collection for access to extensive national and local press coverage.
The events of that time are still tangible today, in the barred ground-floor windows that you can see as you walk around the city, and in the memories of those who lived through the fear. Like many women, my partner, Mandy, unwittingly met the Cambridge Rapist several times in the course of her everyday life; her recollections of those months—the sense of shock and vulnerability—have made a vital contribution to the novel.
It’s taken me a long time to set a book in the city I live in and love. Writing this has left me with a terrible sense of nostalgia for the 1930s Cambridge which I never knew, but also with a much greater appreciation of all that remains precious and unchanged. My thanks go to Peter Monteith, Assistant Archivist at King’s College, for information about the Chapel and College during M. R. James’s time; and to the Cambridge Buddhist Centre for preserving so beautifully the fab
ric and history of the Festival Theatre. Sheila Mann’s history of the Evelyn Hospital and Down Your Street by Sara Payne provided invaluable Cambridge research, and Gaynor Griffiths gave life to 10 Park Street. Anyone with a love of snowdrops and Jacobean architecture will recognise the inspiration for Angerhale Priory, but its inhabitants are entirely fictional.
Of the many books on M. R. James and his work, those by Michael Cox and Peter Hailing were particularly helpful.
It’s true that James failed to finish a new story for Christmas 1913, but his reasons were far less sinister than those I’ve given him, and the glorious tradition that he started is still honoured in Cambridge to this day. I hope that King’s College Chapel will forgive me for bringing the shadow of an imaginary horror to its door, but like Portmeirion, the BBC and London’s West End, I suspect its reputation will easily withstand the attentions of a crime writer who loves it.
Love and thanks, as always, to my mum and dad, whose support and encouragement is more important than they’ll ever know. I’m indebted to Walter Donohue at Faber, and Veronique Baxter and Laura West at David Higham Associates for their continued support; to Sandra Duncan and all at W. F. Howes for giving the series a wonderful audio life; to Mick Wiggins for his beautiful cover illustrations; and to the growing band of librarians, booksellers and readers whose enthusiasm for the series ensures that Josephine’s adventures will continue.
And to Mandy—not just for the conversations, insight and ideas this time, but for making Cambridge more special than anyone else ever could. Thank you.