The Crimson Rooms (41 page)

“And you still think he’s innocent.”

“I still have no opinion, Miss Gifford. As I’ve said, I believe, for the time being, what my client wants me to believe.”

“Why did you ask him about the incident in the war?”

“Because there’s a danger the prosecution will pick up on the fact he was part of a firing squad and therefore, they’ll say, practiced at killing in cold blood.”

I
arrived at Lyons well before Mother,
because I wanted to speak to Carole Mangan privately. I spotted her at once, near the kitchen, indistinct in the smoky restaurant, one foot resting against the wall, a lock of pale hair hanging over her brow. Though white with fatigue, she ushered another waitress out of the way. “Is there news?”

“We are making progress. You have been an immense help, more than I can say. But it’s possible we may call on you again if we need to, if any of the men on your list prove to be important and we need to have them identified.” She nodded. “And I was wondering, could you tell me any more about the day Stella came in late, when she hadn’t been home?”

“Not really. She was tired and grubby. Secretive. That’s all.”

“Did you have an idea where she’d been? You must have wondered.”

She rubbed fruitlessly at a tea stain on her apron. “I suppose I did. She was so tired. And frightened and upset. I thought she must have had a bad time with someone—not with Wheeler, he’d never treat her bad—but if so, why wouldn’t she say?”

“And yet you didn’t suspect her of having an affair?”

“There were no signs, no. And why would she, if she was engaged to Stephen? Why not just break it off with him?”

At that moment, Mother arrived, a somewhat incongruous apparition from Clivedon Hall Gardens, dressed in her usual hat with the spotted veil and a black double-breasted coat, both far too heavy for so warm a day. She removed one glove, and looked about nervously as if she’d never been anywhere so lowly before, though I suspected that before her marriage, in the days when she was merely the daughter of a former actress and struggling schoolteacher, she would have been grateful for meals in establishments far humbler.

“This is my mother, Miss Mangan.”

Mother smiled at Carole in the queenly fashion she reserved for lower classes not directly in her employment and said nothing. Because we so rarely had lunch together and this, I insisted, was my treat, we ordered expansively, croquettes with potato salad, and tea. Mother agreed that the meal sounded tasty but took little interest and instead scanned the room as if seeking out spies at other tables. She seemed determined to make an effort to establish good relations, however. “So tell me what you’ve been doing this morning.”

“Mr. Breen and I visited Stephen Wheeler in Wormwood Scrubs.”

She adjusted the front of her veil. “And how is that case progressing?”

I could not think of the Wheeler case, even in her presence, without being flooded by memories of Thorne’s kisses in the hot lane. “Badly. But I’m sure this place is significant. My theory is that Stella, the victim, who was a waitress here, had a rich admirer. And the obvious place for her to have met such a person is while she was on duty.”

“
Rich
, you say, how rich?”

“Rich enough to have spent fifty pounds on a present.”

“Surely nobody that rich would come here. Why on earth would they, when there are so many restaurants and clubs around Piccadilly, just down the road? Your father was scarcely what I’d describe as rich, but I never knew him to set foot in somewhere like this. Can you imagine?”

She had a point. Father’s haunts had been his club, the hushed dining rooms of expensive hotels (if a client were treating him), or the smoky restaurants around Chancery Lane. He and his colleagues feasted on roast beef, not poached eggs. “Perhaps Stella’s gentleman came in on the spur of the moment,” I said, “in need of a cup of tea, and Stella happened to catch his eye. She was very pretty, by all accounts.”

We watched Carole clear a table and give the surface a perfunctory wipe. “Depend upon it, there is another explanation.” Mother had assumed her role of glamorous hostess, expert at making connections. “He will have met her elsewhere then found out where she worked. And she, the little minx, will have ensnared him and given him just enough promise of future favors that afterward he came back time after time.”

“Mother, it almost sounds as if you talk from experience.” I caught my breath. There she was, my veiled, inadequate mother, who had spent her adult life lavishing love on husband and son, caressing, praising, nurturing. But really, was that the only side of the story? What had Father been up to on the nights he was late home? She seemed oblivious as she dipped into her handbag, removed a handkerchief, and dabbed at her nose. Or was there just a hint of self-consciousness, a tremor in her hand? “What about that other nasty case,” she asked, “the woman who injured your face?”

“We are still trying to get her children back.”

“I can’t understand why the home wouldn’t be glad to get rid of them and return them to the mother.”

“It’s not that simple, we have to prove that she is able to care for them.”

“And is she? She didn’t treat you very well.”

“Not by herself perhaps, no, but I believe she has a good friend who will help and, in the long run, the children would be better off among people they know than shipped abroad to heaven knows where.”

“Goodness me, Evelyn, it seems to me that you are taking a great deal on yourself—all this responsibility for other people’s children.”

Our conversation was suspended as Carole set out our lunch. Instead we talked of Grandmother’s deteriorating sight and of Prudence’s cottage, which she planned to visit to ensure that mice or burglars had not got in while the
wretched
tenants were in Scotland.

“But actually,” said Mother, shifting forward and speaking in a low voice as if about to divulge a state secret, “did you know that Prudence has offered the cottage to Meredith, once the lease has expired at Christmas?”

“That’s very generous of her.”

“I shall never understand Prudence. One minute she is calling the girl an impostor, the next she is taking her side.”

“What does Meredith say to the offer?”

“I’m afraid she laughed. She said she and Edmund would die of boredom if they had to live in the country.”

“Nonetheless, it’s generous of Prudence.”

“Oh, it is—I don’t deny it. And so unlike her.” Mother approached her face even closer to mine, so that her veil brushed my cheek. “You know that Prudence has also offered Meredith money. All she has. Her next suggestion was that she, Meredith, and Edmund set up house together in town on the proceeds from the sale of the cottage.”

“But that is extraordinary,” I exclaimed obediently, though in truth I had seen this coming.

“She says Edmund is heir to the Gifford name and that someone must ensure he is supported. She has changed sides
completely
.”

“And what does Meredith say to this?”

“She too seems to have changed her tune. Evelyn, I’m not sure that Meredith knows what she wants; I think all this talk of expensive apartments is bravado but I’m equally sure the last thing on her mind is a ménage à trois with Prudence and Edmund.” She poured the tea, her fingers delicately crooked over the clumsy pot. “The fact is, Evelyn, since your precipitate action, telling Meredith to leave, I have been thinking. It is my belief that we have a duty to her and the boy and we cannot simply send them away. Oh, I don’t blame you entirely. It is partly my fault, I admit, that we pitched ourselves against her in the first place. I was so shocked when she arrived that perhaps I was not as welcoming as I might have been and my response affected you. It was up to me, after all, to set the tone. Well, I’ve considered all the possibilities and we simply can’t afford to rent her a flat in London. So what I’ve thought is this: perhaps we could create Meredith a little apartment within our house. It wouldn’t cost us much to make her a sitting room, even a little kitchen, but we would at least be offering her a home. I was thinking of the second floor, where she could have the spare room—and James’s room.”

I was stunned. That she should offer James’s room, his shrine, was extraordinary. “It would mean sacrifice on your part, I’m afraid,” she added, taking up a fork and pushing her croquette aside. “If we were to give them a sitting room, and Edmund his own room which of course he must have in time, you might have to move to the top floor.”

“I don’t understand you,” I cried, “this is the complete opposite of what you . . .”

“Hush, Evelyn.” Again she looked nervously about. “Don’t make this more difficult than it is. Can’t you see, we owe Meredith a home?”

The food was too peppery for my liking but I ate several mouthfuls while I decided whether now was the time to disclose the terrible allegation Meredith had made about James. The trouble was that since my conversation with Nicholas I was less sure; the edges of my outrage had been blurred. Meanwhile, Mother snapped open and shut the clasp of her handbag. “The truth is, Evelyn, I have not been quite honest with you. Your father did tell me about Meredith and the child though I must admit that over the years, because I’d heard no more about them, I pushed the fact that they existed to the back of my mind. I knew of course that your father had met her in London, and that she was expecting . . . I was too upset at the time, so soon after James’s . . . And we decided we must keep it all quiet, what good would it do for everyone to know that he’d . . . ? The woman was going back to Canada after all. We thought we’d never see her again.”

Mother’s eyes and mouth were wet as she gave me a nervous look then again opened her bag. “We did something else which you may find hard to forgive. I think you will be very angry but I’m prepared to risk that. James wrote to us after he’d left the hospital, a day before he was killed. The letters arrived a fortnight or so following the news of his death while you were at work. He told us about Meredith, that he had treated a woman badly is how he put it, and that he wanted us to care for her, should she come to us for help. He said he loved her and would have married her if she’d returned his love but that unfortunately she did not. I made your father burn the letter. I was very angry, actually beside myself, given this news came so soon after his death, to think of this woman toying with my son. And it was so unexpected to receive that sort of letter instead of his usual affectionate . . . It was so unlike all his other lovely brave letters.”

Her hand was in the bag, hidden from view. “Until Meredith turned up again, I never regretted not telling you. I was jealous of you, as a matter of fact, because you had such a fine, unsullied image of your brother, whereas I had to imagine . . . But one thing I have always regretted, and that is the need to hide from you the fact that he had also written to you, and we didn’t give you the letter because we thought it would contain a confession about what had happened with this woman. I’ve never opened it, my conscience is clear on that front, but nonetheless. I could not bring myself to destroy it—it was yours—and now I have decided to give it to you because I know you are very angry with Meredith, and I’m hoping that whatever James wrote will convince you to be kinder to her.”

She brushed the surface of the table with the side of her hand and placed on it a small, poor-quality envelope. When I didn’t move or speak, she gripped my arm and I saw that a tear was caught in the webbing of her veil. “Evelyn, don’t be too hard on me. We wanted you to think well of your brother and we thought this would upset you too much.”

Carole was hovering to clear the table. Mother’s meal was uneaten. I picked up the letter and put it in my lap. “I’ll pay for the lunch,” I said. “You go.”

“You’re not too angry with me?”

I forced myself to speak calmly; anything to be rid of her. “You go now, Mother. Why don’t you do some shopping while you’re in town? Buy a new hat. Something summery and small with a turned-up brim. No veil.”

My voice was a stranger’s, low and toneless. Nevertheless, she was so relieved I had not made a scene that she responded laughingly: “I have never known you to care about what I or anybody else wears. What has come over you?”

She kissed me through the veil, then hung her bag over her arm and walked uncertainly away. At the door, she turned and waved. As she went past the window, her back straightened and I knew she would go to Self-ridges and look for a hat both to please me and as a reward to herself for being so brave.

The restaurant had quietened a little. Carole approached, glanced at James’s envelope, and offered to bring me a fresh pot of tea. Nothing changed in that constantly changing place, the ebb and flow of diners, the straggling queue at the cake counter, the flies, the waitresses in their black dresses. I imagined Stella’s arriving late one morning, her eye sockets bruised from a sleepless night. She must have glanced at the clock to see how late she was and then, as she hurried to the cloakroom, felt calmer, because here she was again, safe. Carole said Stella had looked often at the door that day, as if expecting repercussions from whatever she’d been up to. A fortnight after the missing night she was married, and in another few weeks murdered. I had no truck at all with the idea that these things in Stella’s life were unconnected. One thing led to another.