Two for Sorrow (55 page)

‘Your family—didn't they wonder what had happened to you?'

‘They disowned me as soon as I was arrested. I went to them when I got out of prison, but they turned me away. Celia was all I had, God help me.'

‘But surely someone must have missed her?'

‘The only people she associated with were connected to her work,' she said, echoing what Ethel Stuke had told him. ‘Even I was a mission, as it turned out. And nobody who knew her professionally had time to realise she wasn't there any more; as far as they were concerned, Celia Bannerman left one job and reported when she was supposed to for the next. No one in Leeds knew what she looked like. If someone from Holloway or the hospitals we were in before had turned up, that would have been it, but they didn't; Leeds was a long way from London in those days, and it worked in my favour that she'd tried to get as far away from me as possible. Of course, I made sure I kept a low profile for the first few years,' she added, smiling. ‘Very self-effacing was our Celia—she never wanted the limelight, and she always refused any public recognition for what she did. A living saint, you might say.'

‘Until now. That was a very stupid slip, Miss Vale—allowing yourself to be photographed in that way. No wonder you were so angry with Marjorie. I suppose she paid for your arrogance.' She said nothing, but the look in her eyes and the tight clenching of her hands told him that he was right, and he guessed
that the rage which had led to such a spiteful murder had remained with her in the days since Marjorie's death. ‘I can see how you killed Celia Bannerman and got away with it,' he said quietly. ‘What I still find astonishing is that you managed to live as her.'

‘I had all I needed to be Celia Bannerman in those two cases and in here,' she said, tapping the side of her head. ‘She may have had the references, but I certainly had the qualities to live up to them, and in all my life I've never let anyone down the way she did. What I start, I finish.'

‘As Marjorie Baker learned to her cost. She and her father knew all this, I suppose.'

‘Good God, no. Don't be ridiculous—you give them far too much credit. I doubt that either of them had ever heard of Eleanor Vale. They knew enough, though. Marjorie's father saw the photograph in the
Tatler
she took home, and he told her I wasn't Celia Bannerman.'

‘Because he remembered the woman he'd given his child to?' She nodded. ‘And that's why you lied about going to see him during the war—to give yourself some sort of continuity with the person you were pretending to be. But Marjorie didn't trust her father's word—she had a lot to lose, and she wanted to make sure that what he said was true.'

‘Yes. I'm afraid Ethel Stuke sealed Marjorie's fate as effectively as if she'd hanged her.'

At last, Penrose understood what Stuke had said that seemed so conclusive to Marjorie. ‘She knew you'd never been attacked, didn't she? She'd handled your fittings at Motley, and she knew there was no scar.' It was a simple, feminine thing, but irrefutable, and Marjorie could have had no idea of the danger she was putting herself in by using her knowledge. Her death,
he realised now, was a vicious, sadistic parody of the means by which she had gained that fatal piece of information. The peculiarly female intimacy of the dress fitting had come back to haunt her.

Vale nodded approvingly at him. ‘Yes. She was measuring me for silk and piercing me with steel. The letter came just before the final fitting.'

‘She wanted money?'

‘Of course. Nothing more imaginative than that. All the women I've taught and nurtured, all the people I've fought for to ensure they get a decent working life—and that stupid little bitch wanted everything handed to her on a plate. When I went to Motley on Friday afternoon, I promised her she'd have what she asked for later that night. I kept my word.'

‘And you got her to make sure that her father was there as well?'

‘No. I knew nothing about her father until he turned up drunk at Motley. Marjorie hadn't mentioned him or how she'd come by her information in the first place, and I certainly had no idea who was in her family. He was waiting for her outside, and he caught me leaving the building. He slurred something about seeing me in that photograph, and that's when he told me how he knew the real Celia Bannerman.'

‘Did he find out what you'd done to his daughter before you pushed him down the stairs?'

‘Does that really matter?'

Penrose looked at her for a long time before speaking again, astonished at how little remorse she seemed capable of. ‘Don't you regret any of it?' he asked eventually. ‘If you could go back to that underground platform, would you really do it all again?'

‘Yes, if it enabled everything that I've achieved during the years in between. People aren't good or bad, Inspector—their actions are, and everyone is capable of both. Take Amelia Sach—a good mother, by all accounts, yet capable of destroying that sacred bond in others to advance her own position. And Celia Bannerman, of course—such an asset to society, so selfless in her efforts to help people, and yet she dropped her little rehabilitation project like a stone the minute a better offer came along. Ambition—that's what it was about. That's what it's always about. Everyone in public life says it's the work that counts, and what does it matter who does it—but deep down we all want the credit for our little piece of progress.'

‘Even when those achievements are undermined by the very violence on which they're built? What about the people whose lives you've destroyed?'

‘A convict who would have been in and out of jail for the rest of her life? A drunk who made no contribution to society and couldn't even keep his wife from the gallows?'

‘A police officer?'

‘Who was herself involved in an act of deception.'

‘You're surely not comparing that with the lie you've lived for thirty years?'

‘I'm not the one making
any
judgements. I'm saying that we all fool ourselves and others to get by. Some of us even making a living out of it.'

The barbed reference to Josephine wasn't lost on Penrose, but he refused to be drawn by it. ‘Let's talk about Lucy Peters,' he said, confident now that they were far enough along with the questioning for his own deception not to matter. ‘Did she know that killing Marjorie wasn't enough for you? That you had to torture and humiliate her first?'

Vale looked at him warily. ‘Surely you know what I said to Lucy if you've been exchanging letters at her bedside?'

Penrose just smiled. ‘Eleanor Vale, you will now be formally charged with the murders of Celia Bannerman, Marjorie Baker, Jacob Sach and Lucy Peters, and taken to a …'

‘You bastard,' Vale shrieked, standing up and shoving the table hard into his stomach. She lashed out at his face, but Fallowfield was too quick for her, catching her by the wrist as her arm came down. She screamed in agony as the sergeant's fingers tightened around the blistered skin, but somehow she still managed to pull away, her rage exploding in a stream of abuse as she grabbed hold of a chair and went for them again. This time, though, Penrose was expecting the attack: he moved to one side, and the chair crashed harmlessly into the door while he held Vale's arms behind her back, pinning her against the wall for long enough to give Fallowfield time to get the handcuffs on. Later, he would regret showing any emotion at all, but as he walked her into the corridor and gave instructions for her to be taken downstairs, his anger was the mirror image of hers: ‘I hope you rot in hell for what you've done,' he said.

Josephine sat at the front desk of New Scotland Yard, wondering what Archie wanted. She had been surprised to get his message, but relieved to have any excuse to get out of the Cowdray Club for an hour or two. The atmosphere there was unbearable: crime reporters given a tip-off by their society-page colleagues were the latest addition to Cavendish Square, and the arrival of the mortuary van to remove Lucy's body was an image that no one was likely to forget, but the sadness ran deeper even than that. Everywhere she looked, Josephine
saw her own sense of betrayal reflected in the faces of the other members; a professional mourning ran throughout the building, a feeling amongst the women that they had battled governments and legislation for so many years, only to see what they had worked for tarnished from within. They had been let down by one of their own, and it left them all feeling angry and foolish and guilty; personally, Josephine couldn't remember a time when her trust had been more comprehensively destroyed.

When Archie came down to fetch her, he looked pale and exhausted. ‘I won't bother to ask how you are,' she said. ‘You'll only lie, and anyway, I can see it in your face.'

‘Let's just say it's been an eventful night.'

‘How's your policewoman?'

She saw him smile at her phrasing of the question. ‘She'll be fine. She's shaken, obviously, and she took a nasty cut to the chest, but thank God for the College of Nursing. Miriam Sharpe was wonderful.'

There was so much she wanted to ask him about what had gone on overnight, but she knew it would put him in an impossible position. ‘So why have I been summoned to the Yard?'

‘Come with me a minute.' He led her out on to Victoria Embankment and pointed across the road.

‘What am I looking at?'

‘Do you see the woman on the bench over there?' She nodded. ‘That's Nora Edwards.'

Josephine stared in astonishment. ‘What's she doing there?'

‘We released her straight away last night and took her home, but she was back a few hours later. I noticed her when it started to get light, but God knows how long she'd already been sitting
there. I can only suppose it's because she knows we've got her daughter's killer here.'

‘I thought you said she didn't care about Marjorie?'

‘Either I was wrong or she was. And going back to that place on her own with everything that's happened can't be easy. She's had enough gossip and prejudice in her life, and now people are going to start on her all over again.' Josephine knew exactly what he was going to say, and she tried not to look as horrified as she felt. ‘Anyway, I thought you might want to talk to her. I can't arrange it—it wouldn't be right now—but there's nothing to stop you going over there and striking up a conversation.'

Josephine was torn between grabbing the only chance she would ever have to speak to someone who had been at Claymore House, and a cowardly reluctance to put herself through what was bound to be an ordeal. ‘I'm sure she's been through enough without an interrogation from me,' she said doubtfully. ‘Anyway, I was going to drop the whole thing. It's too painful now; too many people have been hurt.'

‘Have you told your publisher that?' he asked cynically. ‘You've got the story of the decade. It's up to you, though: if you don't think it's appropriate, that's fine, but I didn't want you to miss the chance to satisfy your own curiosity, whether you go ahead with the book or not.' As she hesitated, he added: ‘Just don't tell her that I sent you. She's hardly likely to be open with you if she knows you're a friend of the person who's spent the last two days accusing her of killing her daughter and her husband.'

‘So how will I explain who I am?'

‘You'll think of something.' He smiled, recognising that she had made her decision. ‘Come and see me before you go, and
let me know how you get on. I'll tell the chap on the desk to expect you.'

Josephine crossed the road, and played for time by buying two cups of coffee from Westminster Pier. She went towards the bench, but lost courage and walked straight past, then realised how ridiculous her behaviour would seem if she finally did announce herself. Before she could change her mind again, she retraced her footsteps and stopped in front of Edwards. ‘This is going to sound very odd coming from a complete stranger,' she said quietly, ‘but I'm so sorry about Marjorie.'

The woman looked up at her in astonishment. ‘What do you know about it?'

She must have been in her fifties, and it took Josephine a second or two to remove herself from the moment in which she had been so absorbed and add thirty-odd years to the Nora Edwards of her story. Feeling self-conscious as Edwards continued to stare at her, she held out the coffee. ‘Marjorie worked for some friends of mine,' she said. It sounded feeble, even to her, but it was the best that she could do. ‘Can I sit down for a minute?' Edwards shrugged, and took the cup. ‘I never met your daughter, but I gather she was very talented.'

‘Was she? You know more than I do. Everyone seems to be talking about someone I don't recognise.' She laughed bitterly. ‘And no one talks about Joe at all, as if his life counted for nothing.' Josephine was silent: it was true, she thought—Marjorie's father had hardly been mentioned over the last few days, except with regard to his true identity. They had all been happy to condemn Celia's valuing of one life above another, but everyone betrayed their own innate prejudices at a time of grief. ‘Who are you, anyway?' Edwards asked.

‘My name's Josephine, and I realise how this may look, but
I'm writing a book about Amelia Sach and Annie Walters.' Edwards put the coffee down and started to get up, but Josephine caught her arm. ‘I knew Lizzie,' she said. ‘We were at a school in Birmingham together, and I was there when she died. It seemed to me that she was another victim of Amelia's crimes and all the publicity that followed, but there were plenty of other people whose lives were ruined by what happened—you and your husband more than most, I imagine. That's what the book's about. If you don't want to talk to me, I understand and I'll leave you alone—but let me be the one to go, not you. Please, sit down.'