Blood on the Wood (32 page)

‘Do you know if she found it?'

‘Yes I do, miss, because I leave this train at Oxford. I told her when the connection was and saw her to the waiting room on the right platform myself. Couldn't go wrong.'

So at Oxford I did exactly what Janie had done and waited for the Swindon connection. When the train arrived I got on it. It was evening by then, quite crowded and no point in asking if anybody had seen a woman and baby ten days ago. Swindon's a big and busy station, full of steam and clanging and hot metal smells from the railway works alongside. The other passengers who got out hurried away along the platform but I lingered, wondering how it would look to an unhappy and tired young woman with a baby and not much money. Terrifying, was the answer. In Janie's place, I'd have sat down on a bench and cried. There was no need to go that far in putting myself into her shoes, but at least it gave me an idea of what to do next. I found my way to the stationmaster's office and said I wanted to see him. After a short wait in an outer office I got not the man himself but somebody who was probably a senior clerk. He had the resigned air of a man used to dealing with complaints from the travelling public. My question made him blink.

‘A young woman with a baby, sitting on a bench and crying? I'm sure if it were drawn to our attention we should act with proper humanity.'

‘Yes, but how exactly?'

‘That would depend on the circumstances. If, for instance, the lady was distressed because she'd missed her train, we'd calm her and ascertain the time of the next one.'

‘But if she'd just arrived and didn't know where to go?'

‘In that case, we should probably enquire in what part of the town her friends or relatives lived and show her to an omnibus stop or cab rank as appropriate.'

‘And if she had no friends or relatives?'

His look and tone turned a shade colder. ‘Are we talking about a vagrant, madam?'

‘We're talking about a distressed young mother without relatives or money. If one of your staff had found her, would there be a record of it?'

‘What date did you say?'

‘Monday 26 August, about this time of day.'

He went away, came back shaking his head. ‘We have no record of any such event, madam.'

‘Supposing she had asked somebody for help, what do you think he'd have advised?'

‘That would depend. He might suggest that she go to the police station, but vagrants usually aren't very eager to do that.'

‘So what else?'

‘Perhaps one of the churches. There's one in particular that runs a mission for railway vagrants.'

I asked directions to it. A short walk from the station, past brick terraces grimed with railway smoke; even the privet hedges were so grey their leaves might have been made from metal. About five minutes away the clerk had said, but probably three times that for a woman weighed down with a baby, her world fallen apart.

The main door of the church was locked but a side one was open. I found two women carefully polishing a brass eagle lectern. They didn't seem surprised when I enquired about a woman and baby, though neither of them had any knowledge of her. The curate would know, they said.

‘Where can I find the curate?'

‘He's in the house at the back, but he's having his tea.'

They made it sound as if it were some kind of religious ceremony. I went round to the back and interrupted the curate at his tea. He was a young man but slow in speech and movement, as if dazed by the problems of the world.

‘Yes, there was an unfortunate young woman. I'm not sure which day it was, but certainly about this time of day some time last week.'

‘What happened to her?'

‘I gave her a cup of tea and escorted her to Lady Mary Bentley.'

‘Who?'

‘Its full title is the Lady Mary Bentley Memorial Home for Distressed Women, though not many of us use it. Use the name, I mean. The home as well, of course … that is to say…'

His embarrassment made it clear what sort of home it was. I asked directions. Three or four more grey terraces, men in grimy overalls and heavy boots marching homewards from their work in the locomotive factories now the sun was setting. Janie would have taken that same walk, with the self-conscious curate beside her and the baby in her arms leaving no doubt at all where she was heading. It was a substantial brick house at the end of a road, set a little apart from its neighbours, the sort of place where the railway owners might have lived before they used their profits to move to healthier places. I walked up the steps to the black-painted front door and knocked.

After some time a harassed woman in a dress the colour of the sooty privet leaves opened it. She didn't give me a chance to speak.

‘No visitors after four o'clock.'

From somewhere behind her, unseen, a small chorus of babies cried.

‘I just want to enquire if a friend of mine named—'

‘All enquiries between office hours of nine-thirty and three-thirty, or in writing to the trustees.'

‘But can't you even tell me if—?'

She shut the door on me. I was tempted to hammer until she opened it again but guessed it wouldn't help.

The trail had come temporarily to an end against that door and I was doomed to a night in Swindon. I spent it at a decent kind of lodging house for the poorer sort of railway traveller near the station, a necessary economy because my money, like Janie's, was running low. Lamb chop, beans and mashed potato for supper, then bed in a partitioned-off piece of a room so narrow that if you happened to stand with hands on hips your elbows grazed the walls on either side. The bedding was clean but the mattress lumpy. Not that it mattered because sleep was unlikely anyway, with noise from the trains going on most of the night and the locomotive works in full cry by six in the morning. At nine-thirty on the dot I was back on the doorstep of the Lady Mary Bentley Memorial Home.

*   *   *

The same woman in the same dress opened the door and pretended she'd never set eyes on me before. I restated my business and she grudgingly allowed me into a small office with a desk, a cupboard and two hard chairs and left me there for a quarter of an hour or so without another word. The place smelt of cheap polish and carbolic disinfectant, with a stubborn undertone of sour milk and misery. When the woman returned she asked me yet again the name of my friend, managing to say the word ‘friend' as if it were something that had to be picked up with tweezers.

‘We have nobody of that name here.'

‘Then she must have given a different name. The young woman I'm looking for was brought here by a curate on the evening of the Monday before last.'

‘Are you the young woman's employer?'

‘No, I'm a friend of her husband's.'

That caught her by surprise at least. She went to the cupboard and brought out a thick ledger with cloth covers and a leather spine. When she opened it on the table I saw long columns in copperplate writing.

‘A young woman and a male infant were admitted that evening. She gave her name as Brown.'

‘May I speak to her, please?'

‘She is carrying out her domestic duties at present.'

I stood up and leaned across the table so that she had to look at me.

‘Her husband's frantic with worry. He has no idea where she is. Whatever she's doing can't matter as much as this.'

She stared, then went to the door, opened it and shouted into the passage, ‘Send Brown Three to the office. She's in the laundry room.'

‘Brown Three?'

‘They nearly all say they're called Brown or Smith or Jones.'

Silence in the room, broken at last by footsteps on the linoleum in the passage. The door opened.

‘You wanted to see me?'

Janie, in grey dress, soiled apron and white cap with a few damp strands of hair straggling out from it, hands bright pink and wrinkled. A smell of boiled towelling followed her into the room. Her eyes were downcast and she didn't see me. I stood up to let her sit down, but the woman gave me a look that said it was against the rules.

‘Mrs Sutton,' I said.

Her head jerked up. She recognised me and looked terrified.

‘Walter? Has something happened to Walter?'

‘No, he's quite safe – only very worried about you.'

She seemed frozen.

‘Can we talk on our own, do you think?' I said to the woman, but got a shake of the head.

‘Mrs Sutton, Janie, if there's anything he did to make you leave I promise you there's never been a man more sorry. He wants you and the baby back.'

‘It wasn't him did anything.'

She said it in a whisper to the floor, her sodden pink hands twisting against the apron as if still wringing out wet nappies.

‘Who, then? What happened?'

She didn't answer. I didn't blame her, with the woman listening.

‘Will you come back home with me now? Whatever it is that scared you, I promise we'll protect you.'

The woman answered for her. ‘They're not allowed to leave unless with an employer or close relative.'

I could have argued with that. Legally I was sure Janie had the right to take the baby and go, but it had to be of her own free will and she looked incapable of even getting out of the room without being told to. I made sure that I spoke to her rather than the woman.

‘Well then, I'll go straight back home and tell Mr Sutton where you are. If there's time, I'm sure he'll be back here by this evening. If not, it will be tomorrow. Will you be all right till then?'

She managed to look at me and say yes.

‘They'll be needing you back in the laundry, Mrs Sutton.'

There was just a touch more kindness in the woman's voice, now Janie had a Mrs to her name. When the door closed behind Janie, she almost managed an apology.

‘How are we to know? Most of them say they're deserted wives or widows.'

‘Does it matter?'

I went without saying thank you or goodbye. Afterwards I thought I was hard on the woman who, after all, had to live with the sour milk and boiled nappy smells as well. At the time, I was simply angry. Angry for Janie and the other girls. Even more angry because, after all the trouble of finding her, I was no nearer knowing what had made her run away.

Chapter Twenty-One

I
T DIDN'T HELP MY MOOD THAT
I missed a connection on the way back so it was mid-afternoon by the time I walked into the workshop.

‘I've found Janie. They're all right.'

I had to say it again before he let himself believe it, then he staggered and would have fallen if he hadn't hung on to my arm. At first he thought I'd found her somewhere in the village and it took a long time to make him understand about Swindon and the home for distressed women.

‘Why did she go to a place like that?'

‘She was running away from something and I still don't know what it is. She's still scared, but she'll come back with you. She can't stay where she is.'

Once he'd gathered that she was waiting for him he rushed upstairs to change and collect money for the journey. I called up to remind him that the three of them would probably have to stay in Swindon overnight and he'd better take their marriage lines with him or the place might not let her out. The train wasn't due for some time but he insisted on going straight away in case of missing it. I went with him and he almost ran up the street. When people looked at him he shouted, ‘She's all right! I'm going to fetch them home,' and went hurrying on.

‘So it wasn't Janie who took the money from the chest,' I said, trying to keep pace with him.

It hardly registered with him, he was so intent on getting to her. I tried a couple of times more and, still unsuccessful, wished him luck and left him on the platform, staring along the line as if he could make the train come earlier by sheer force of will.

*   *   *

I went up to the Venns' house and asked to see Carol. She was in the studio, Annie said. The maid always had a scared look on her face when she opened the door these days, as if expecting more trouble. She was probably right.

It was the first time I'd been in the studio since finding Daisy's body. The black oak cabinet had gone and at first glance the room was back to normal, but it wasn't the harmonious place it had been just two weeks before. All the fine pieces of furniture seemed to have lost their glow, even though the curtains were drawn back and afternoon sun was coming in through the windows. A light fur of dust had collected, probably because Annie couldn't be expected to come in and clean after what had happened.

At first I couldn't see anybody in the room and stopped, as on my first visit, to look at the woman in the tapestry with her crinkly hair, her remote smile and long white feet among carefully disordered grass blades. Then there was some small sound and I turned to find Carol on her knees by the far wall, paintbrush in hand.

‘I'm sorry,' I said.

‘Don't worry, admire her while you can.'

She was wearing a dark dress with a painter's smock over it. I went closer and saw she was painting a wooden firescreen with a design of two swans facing each other, necks entwined. She dipped her brush and drew a long white stroke.

‘They're beautiful.'

Her sad smile made her look even more like the woman in the tapestry.

‘A commission. You know the way fire fenders are shaped, like swans' necks?' She put down her brush and used both hands to draw complementary curves in the air. ‘A client wants to follow it through with this and two log boxes. I haven't been able to work on it but … but what do you do after all when things are falling apart round you?'

‘It's not all bad news,' I said. ‘I've found Janie Sutton.'

She listened to the story, still kneeling by the firescreen.

‘But what possessed her to run away to that?'