Two for Sorrow (17 page)

‘Shouldn't you tell Lydia?'

‘Yes, I should, but I need to think carefully about what I'm going to say first.'

‘Marta always liked you, didn't she?' Lettice looked at her and Josephine knew what was going through her mind, but she was kind enough not to force the point. Instead, she said: ‘I'm sure you'll work it out, but if you need any help, you know where I am. No one else need ever know.'

Josephine smiled gratefully at her. ‘What will you tell the others? They'll wonder why you're chasing after me in the snow.'

‘No they won't—they think I found your glove under the table.' She squeezed Josephine's hand. ‘It'll be all right. I'll see you tomorrow.'

When Marjorie came round, she found herself lying on the workroom floor. All the main lights in the studio had been switched off, and the only glow in the room came from a lamp
on Hilda Reader's desk. It was desperately cold, and she tried to raise herself to a sitting position, but her body felt heavy and the nausea and dizziness were so extreme that she found it impossible to stay upright for more than a few seconds. Her head fell back on to the boards and she lay there in the silence, waiting for the symptoms to pass and trying to make sense of what had happened. The room was so quiet that she thought she was alone, but her relief was short-lived; a noise came from over to her left, a sound like pills being shaken from a bottle, and, as she listened more carefully, she could hear footsteps moving softly around the room. Something in their leisure-liness made her afraid.

She must have passed out again. When she regained consciousness, she was dimly aware of someone standing over her, then she felt hands under her arms, lifting and dragging her like an invalid over to the head cutter's table. She was pulled roughly on to a chair, where her hands were fastened behind her with a length of soft material. Although she tried to protest, the words were thick and heavy in her mouth and the noise that came from her throat was unrecognisable even to her. A cold sweat broke out on her face and the palms of her hands, and—whilst a small part of her told her that it must be the effect of the spray she had inhaled—it felt like the physical expression of her fear, spreading slowly but irrevocably through her body. Desperately, she tried to see what was going on but there was a shadow between her and the lamp, and only when it moved away did she realise that what she had experienced so far was nothing compared to what was to come. The light from the lamp shone down on to a needle—not the sort that was commonplace on Hilda Reader's desk but a sack needle, used for hessian rather than silk and familiar to
Marjorie from her time in prison. Next to it were the beads she had bought that morning, still in their box. As the box was calmly lifted and opened, she heard again the sound which she had believed to be pills, and watched in horror as the beads poured out on to the desk in front of her, a stream of sharp, black glass.

The waiting was unbearable, eased only by the fact that she was so dreadfully tired. More than anything, she wanted to lie down again and allow unconsciousness to get the better of her, but she was tied to the chair and, in any case, what instinct for life she had left told her that she must try to stay awake. Her breathing came in deep, irregular sighs now, but she made one last effort to look this madness in the eye. It was her final act of defiance. The deadly calm was replaced in an instant by a frenzy of violence and hatred, and Marjorie felt hands on her face, wrenching her mouth open and stifling any attempts at a scream with handful after handful of glass. The sharp edges of the beads cut into her tongue and ground against her teeth, and her mouth began to fill with blood. She tried to spit the glass out before too much of it went back into her throat, but strong fingers held her nose, forcing her to swallow in order to breathe, and she felt the piercing certainty of death moving down into her stomach. Just for a second, the hands moved away and she was able to gasp for air, but the intensity of her breathing only served to aid the invasion of her body, leaving her choking and helpless, and then the torture began again. Her head was yanked back from behind and the needle tore through her skin, focusing her mind on a pain so great that nothing else existed, ripping the tissue in an outpouring of rage. The sensation of the thread moving in and out of her lips made her gag, but there was nowhere for the vomit to go except
through her nose or back into her throat. She felt herself slowly suffocating, and her feet beat uselessly against the floor, counting out the final seconds of her life. Just before her vision began to fade, the hands were once more at her face, but this time the violence was gone. Unable to struggle any longer, Marjorie allowed her head to be moved gently round to the right and, in the full-length mirror which had been so carefully placed, she watched the ugly, humiliating horror of her own death.

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.'

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.'