Two for Sorrow (28 page)

Fallowfield put his head round the door and Penrose brought him up to date, then asked: ‘Are WPC Wyles's sewing skills up to scratch, do you think?'

Fallowfield looked curiously at him. ‘Why, sir, have you got something that needs mending?'

Penrose laughed. ‘No, but I'm about to tell my cousins that they've got a new member of staff—I want Wyles in that club, watching those women like a hawk.'

‘Why don't you ask Miss Tey to keep an eye out, sir? She's on the spot already.'

‘Because she's Miss Tey, not Miss bloody Marple. You've
been spending your evenings in St Mary Mead again, haven't you?'

Fallowfield looked sheepish. ‘Seriously, sir, that sort of work's not really up Wyles's street, is it? Women coppers are all right for taking statements and looking after juveniles, but undercover work's a bit risky.'

‘Oh don't be so old-fashioned, Bill. She'll suit a smock better than you will, and she's perfectly capable of looking after herself. I thought about putting her in there as a nurse, but that would mean trusting someone in the building and, for all we know, any one of them could be capable of wielding a sack needle. No, the girls' moving into the Cowdray Club is too good a chance to miss.' Fallowfield still looked sceptical. ‘Cheer up, Bill—even if I'm wrong, it might get the chief constable's wife off our backs. Have you got those anonymous letters handy? I'd like to have another look at them before we go over there.'

The telephone rang while he was waiting. ‘Inspector Penrose? It's Hilda Reader. I'm sorry to bother you.'

‘It's no bother, Mrs Reader. Are you all right?'

‘Oh yes, thank you, but I'm glad I've caught you. There's something you should know—something I've just found out from my husband.'

‘What is it?'

‘I told him about Marjorie—I hope you don't mind, but he could see how upset I was and it helped to talk to him about it.'

‘Of course. I understand.'

‘Well, it turns out he saw her yesterday when she came into the shop to get the things Miss Motley needed. A man in his department served her, and there was a bit of a scene between
them. John—that's my husband—had to go over and tell them to be quiet. It turns out that this man—Lionel Bishop, his name is—had been seeing Marjorie behind his wife's back, but she'd given him his marching orders. He was trying to talk her into starting things up again, but she was having none of it. John said he heard her threaten to tell Mr Bishop's wife if he didn't leave her alone. He was furious, apparently.'

‘And is Mr Bishop at the store today?'

‘Yes, Inspector. All day.'

‘Thank you again, Mrs Reader—you've been very helpful.'

‘There's one more thing, Inspector.'

‘Yes?'

‘I don't know if it's important or not, but he sold her those beads.'

Penrose went to look for Fallowfield and handed him a slip of paper in exchange for the folder of letters. ‘Lionel Bishop. Works in the haberdashery department of Debenhams. He's been playing around with Marjorie Baker, but she wanted to put a stop to it and threatened to tell his wife.'

‘And he wasn't best pleased?'

‘Exactly. Go and bring him in.'

The man waiting downstairs to be questioned stood up as soon as Penrose and Fallowfield entered the room. ‘What the hell is this all about, Inspector?' he demanded angrily. ‘Your lot turn up at my place of work, embarrassing me in front of my staff, and no one has the decency to offer an explanation. I have rights, you know—you might have been more discreet.'

Penrose gestured to him to sit down again and calmly introduced himself. In his experience, people who insisted on their rights so quickly were usually the sort who trampled obliviously over everyone else's, but he tried not to let cynicism cloud his judgement as he cast an appraising eye over Lionel Bishop. Marjorie Baker's would-be lover was in his late thirties, with a weak chin, pale complexion and thin, sandy-brown hair. His clothes were expensive but unimaginative, and he wore them without conviction, almost as if they spoke of an authority which even he doubted he possessed. Penrose tried to resist making judgements but, from what he'd heard so far, this was hardly the type of man whom the dead girl would notice, let alone be attracted to. ‘I'm sorry to have caused you so much inconvenience, but I need to ask you some questions in connection with the murder of Marjorie Baker,' he said, trying not to take anything but a professional satisfaction from the swift erosion of Bishop's moral high ground. ‘I believe the two of you were well acquainted.'

‘Murder?' Bishop asked. The shock was genuine, Penrose thought, but the horror in the man's voice seemed to stem from panic at his own situation rather than any genuine sorrow. ‘What's that got to do with me? I only knew her as a customer. She came into the shop once or twice a week to collect items on account.'

‘And you saw her yesterday?'

‘Yes, she came in around lunchtime and bought a few things—some beads and needles, and a roll or two of bias binding. We passed the time of day, that's all. Are you arresting everyone who spoke to her?'

Penrose ignored the question. ‘What sort of needles?' Bishop looked incredulously at him. ‘What sort of needles did Miss Baker buy?' he repeated impatiently. ‘It's a simple enough question.'

‘Standard embroidery needles.'

‘And did you and Miss Baker argue yesterday?'

‘There's not much to argue about in a list of haberdashery items, is there?' Bishop said sarcastically.

‘Where were you last night between the hours of nine o'clock and midnight?'

‘At home with my wife, of course. Where else would I be?'

Penrose looked at him for just long enough to make his scepticism obvious. ‘You won't mind if we confirm that with your wife?'

For the first time, Bishop looked nervous. ‘Will you have to tell her why? She might think …'

‘What might she think, Mr Bishop?' Penrose demanded impatiently. ‘Shall we start again? How well did you know Marjorie Baker?'

‘All right, all right. I took her out for lunch a few times, and
the odd drink after work. So what? There was no harm in that. You know how it is.'

‘I'm afraid I don't, so why don't you tell me?'

‘Look, Inspector, I met my wife when we were both very young and we got married far too quickly and for all the wrong reasons. It was during the war. She was a nurse, and I was back from the front for a bit with a smashed leg from a German bullet. We mistook compassion and gratitude for love—that's all there is to it. We weren't the only ones, but that doesn't make it any easier.'

‘So you comforted yourself with Miss Baker—until she'd had enough, and told you where to go. That must have made you angry.'

Bishop shrugged. ‘Not especially. There are plenty of girls like her about. Come on, Inspector—we're all allowed a little fun, aren't we? What my wife doesn't know can't hurt her.'

‘Except it's not your wife who's been hurt, is it, Mr Bishop?' Penrose stood up, convinced they were wasting their time with the man in front of him. ‘Give your details to Sergeant Fallowfield. If your wife confirms what you say, you'll be free to go.'

Men like Lionel Bishop brought out the worst in Penrose and he left the room seething. He was on his way up the stairs when Fallowfield called him back. ‘We need to hold on to him for a bit, Sir.'

‘It's a waste of time, Bill. He didn't care enough about Marjorie when she was alive to want her dead.'

‘Maybe not, Sir, but I'm wondering who's giving an alibi to whom?'

‘What do you mean?' Penrose asked, taking the slip of paper that Fallowfield held out to him.

‘It's his wife, Sir, Sylvia Bishop. At work, she goes under her maiden name of Timpson—and she works at the Cowdray Club.'

Celia Bannerman paused halfway down the Cowdray Club's main staircase, listening to the reassuring sounds of business proceeding as usual on the floor below. No matter how busy she was, she always found time to linger here, in one of the most beautiful areas of the building. The staircase was a magnificent feature of the original mansion house which had been left unaltered during the conversion to club and college and, as such, was the only part of the organisation to have an old-world feel about it. Grandiose paintings of ancient Rome covered the walls and ceiling, arguably the work of Sir James Thornhill, Hogarth's father-in-law and one of the best known mural artists of his day. That the staircase had survived undamaged to enjoy a new existence was a tangible reminder of the past amid an ever-improving present, a symbol of earlier achievements and a firm foundation for those still to come.

Or so, at least, she hoped. The recent unrest at the club, her constant battles with Miriam Sharpe over the future of the organisation and, in a different way, her conversations with Josephine Tey about the past had made Celia take stock of her life: on the whole, she was satisfied with what she had achieved—satisfied, but appalled at how quickly the years had passed and, if she were honest, a little afraid of what the future might hold for her. Her early training as a nurse, before she went to Holloway, seemed like only yesterday but it had, she realised now, been the inspiration for everything she had done since. She could still remember the shock of those first few months on the ward, when she felt more like a charwoman than a
young girl with a vocation to help the sick. Nursing at that time was little more than hard physical labour, often in nauseating conditions, and she had bitterly resented the fact that her goodwill and sense of duty had been so cynically exploited, that she and those who worked alongside her were expected to give so much of themselves in return for so little. Disillusioned and exhausted, she had abandoned her ambitions to reach sister or matron level just a few weeks after finishing her probationary period.

Ironically, it took the people she met in the prison service to restore her faith in the ideal of nursing and, although conditions were little better when she returned to the profession a couple of years later, she was, by then, armed with the determination to do something about it. After one or two administrative posts in hospitals in the north, she had been offered a senior position at Anstey and had jumped at the chance to train the nurses and teachers of the future; then came the war, and another generation of idealistic women had dedicated itself to the service of the sick and wounded, only to be financially and emotionally drained by the sacrifice. At Lady Cowdray's request, Celia had left the sheltered environment of Anstey—which had, in any case, been tainted by Elizabeth Sach's death—and thrown all her energies into the movement for reform, always with a commitment to education as the way forward. She had been instrumental in many milestones—training courses for nurses, scholarships for public health work and midwifery, the creation of a library of nursing and a student nurses' association—but nothing gave her greater satisfaction than her involvement in the College of Nursing and Cowdray Club. Thanks to the drive for modernisation, nursing was no longer an isolated, enclosed profession, but
was beginning to compete with other walks of life, where women earned new freedoms and rewards every day; Lady Cowdray's death had been a blow, but it made those who had worked with her even more determined to carry on her vision—and, no matter what Miriam Sharpe said, surely they had come too far now for all that good work to be undone by those who refused to leave the past behind?

Celia moved on down the stairs, pleased to see that the foyer and lounge were busy. Saturday lunch was always popular, and small groups of women—some dressed in work clothes, others in town for a day's shopping—stood around chatting, waiting for a free table in the dining room. She recognised one or two regulars, and stopped to talk to them on her way through to the office.

‘Bannerman!' Surprised, Celia turned round. ‘Just the woman I was looking for, God help me.' It was barely half past one, but Geraldine Ashby seemed to have been in the bar for some time. She stood in the doorway now, making no effort to conceal her anger. ‘I think you need to explain a few things to me. Starting with why you let a vulnerable young woman in your care string herself up in a fucking gymnasium.'

The silence which descended on the foyer was swift and unsettling, and Celia felt it as abruptly as if she had been suddenly plunged under water. She reddened with embarrassment and anger, but managed to keep the emotions out of her voice when she spoke. ‘Whatever you've got to say to me, Geraldine, I think it would be better if it were done in private, when you've sobered up a little.'

‘Yes, I'm sure you do. I'm sure that being involved in a young girl's death doesn't sit well with your professional pride
or
your social ambitions.'

‘Elizabeth Price's suicide was a tragedy and a senseless waste of life, but there was nothing I could have done to stop it.'

‘So it was all her own fault? You make me sick. You speak as if you had nothing to do with Lizzie until she killed herself, but let's not forget who set the tone of her life in the first place. You gave her an existence which was based entirely on lies, then tore her away from the one thing that had any truth in it. If anyone set her up to tie that rope around her neck, you did.'