Take No Farewell - Retail (39 page)

‘Because you’re wrong, Mr Quarton.’

‘About what?’

‘About being unable to trace Malahide. You see, I know where he is.’

I reached London too late that afternoon to pursue Malahide. In the morning, however, I intended to find out his address from Croad, the builder who, according to Giles, had last employed him. He would not, I felt certain, elude me for long. So it was that I returned to Suffolk Terrace with something to show for my absence – though much less than I had hoped.

I parked the car in the street, took my bag from the boot and walked slowly towards the house, fumbling for the key in my pocket as I went. These mundane actions so casually performed emphasize how unexpected what happened next was, how much worse and more shocking than any spoken rebuff. Dusk was descending rapidly. The lamps were already lit. A neighbour was walking away from her door, trailing her dog on a lead. This street – and the house I was approaching – had been my home for ten years. But that was about to end.

Three steps to the door. I slid the key into the lock. It stuck halfway. I tried again with the same result. Then I examined the key. Yes, it was the right one. But the lock was not. When I looked at it closely, I could see that it was brand new, hastily fitted to judge by the chips of paint missing from the door around it.

My initial reaction was disbelief. This could not mean what I thought it meant. Pointlessly, I tried the key again, then stared at the door as if willpower alone could force it to open. And then, at last, I pressed the bell. There was no response. I pressed it again and stepped back in order to look up at the windows. As I did so, the net-curtain in the drawing-room bay was abruptly lowered. A moment before, I felt certain, it had been raised to see who was ringing the bell. Surely, now they knew it was me, they would answer.

But they did not. With an oath, I grasped the knocker –
the
faithful old brass dolphin I knew so well – and beat it against its plate fully a dozen times, then paused to listen for the sounds of approaching footsteps within. At last, my efforts were rewarded. Surely that was Nora’s tread I could hear. I stepped back, struggling to decide what I would say when she opened the door.

But it did not open. Instead, the flap on the letter-box stirred and a long narrow buff envelope appeared, being pushed through from the other side. Instinctively, I reached out and took it, turning it over in my hands. My name had been typed on it in block capitals. GEOFFREY STADDON, ESQ. But there was no address.

I stumbled to the nearest street-lamp, tearing the envelope open as I went, then held the contents up to read. The letterhead of Martindale, Clutton & Fyffe was immediately recognizable. They were Sir Ashley Thornton’s solicitors.

Martindale, Clutton & Fyffe,

5–7 Partridge Place,

High Holborn,

LONDON WC1.

7th January 1924

Dear Mr Staddon,

Our client, Mrs Staddon, has instructed us to notify you that she is instituting proceedings against you for divorce on the grounds of physical cruelty. Pending a hearing of this action, she requires that you quit the property at 27 Suffolk Terrace, Kensington, of which, as you know, she is sole lessee. If you wish to remove any of your belongings currently lodged therein, please contact this office in order to agree a date and time when they can be collected by a third party.

We should be obliged if you would advise us of the solicitor who will be representing your interests in this case at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

H. Dodson

pp G. F. Martindale (Senior Partner)

I thrust the letter into my pocket, turned slowly and looked back at the house. No curtains moved. Nothing stirred or shifted or glimmered within. This dark cold blankness was the only home-coming Angela was prepared to grant me. This, and a curt letter from Martindale, Clutton & Fyffe, signed by a clerk in the senior partner’s absence.
Per procurationem
. Which was only appropriate, given that henceforth Angela and I would meet in front of witnesses, communicate through intermediaries, greet each other by petition and
subpoena
. It would take the lawyers many a month to bring this sad little case to what they termed a satisfactory conclusion. But I would neither help nor hinder them. I had not thought Angela would move so far and fast against me. But, now she had, I would not resist. If an end was what she wanted, an end she would have. I took my leave of her there, alone in the silent street, as night closed like a black cloud upon the roof-tops. I took my bleak farewell of all we had been to each other, and all we might have been. And then I climbed into the car and drove away.

Chapter Thirteen

I HAVE MANY
times wondered why Imry Renshaw is such a good friend to me. I can name precious few occasions on which I have come to his aid, yet he has come to mine more often than I could ever deserve. So it was that night of my exclusion from Suffolk Terrace and for many of the nights that followed. Without his cheerily given advice and boundless generosity, there is no knowing what I might have done. Thanks to his influence, however, I held to a sane and sensible course.

I slept at Sunnylea – slept, at all events, for the few hours of darkness that remained after I had poured out my frustrations and resentments by Imry’s fireside. In the morning, we travelled into London together, Imry having undertaken to approach Martindale, Clutton & Fyffe with regard to my belongings and to consult some estate agents about the availability of bachelor flats. We agreed to meet later at his club.

For my part, Angela’s action had merely heightened my determination to trace Malahide. His pursuit staved off for the present all thoughts of the acrimonious convolutions divorce might force me to describe. I welcomed indeed the excuse he had given me to forget them; his was one lie I could confidently hope to nail. Pausing at Frederick’s Place only to confirm the little Giles had previously told me, I set off for Woolwich.

Croad’s men were cramming some dismal-looking housing onto a site near Woolwich Dockyard. Happily, the foreman knew my name and was as helpful as could be. Malahide had worked there until the Saturday before Christmas. Since then, nothing had been seen of him. He was a skilful worker – but unreliable, as his departure without so much as a day’s notice demonstrated. My request for his address caused much amusement. Any pub between Woolwich and Wapping was one suggestion. Some of his former workmates, however, knew his daughter’s husband, Charlie Ryan. He was a porter at Deptford Hospital and might, if handled carefully, tell me more.

I found Ryan in a dank corner of the hospital laundry. Lean, sallow and unsmiling, he proved as informative as he was disagreeable. A cigarette and a patient audience was all he needed to unburden himself on the subject of his father-in-law, a man he clearly loathed. The long and the short of it was that he did not bother to keep track of the old man’s frequent changes of lodging, but that his wife, Alice, did – much to his regret. I should find her at home that afternoon and was welcome to tell her that my visit was yet another indication of her father’s predictable failure to mend his ways.

The Ryans inhabited one of a terrace of mean yellow-brick houses off the Old Kent Road. The street was a cul-de-sac, entirely overshadowed by the vast grey wall of a gasometer at its farther end. There was an acrid taste of gas in the air, blending rankly with blocked drains and rubbish-choked gutters. The Ryans’ door stood open, revealing a bare linoleumed passage. Inside, a child was crying. I hammered on the door and shouted ‘Hello!’

‘Through here,’ came the reply. I followed it towards the rear of the house and found myself in a low-ceilinged kitchen where the air seemed even colder than in the street and a young, heavily pregnant woman was wringing clothes in a sink. Behind her, in a high-chair, sat the bawling infant, who
fell
instantly silent as I entered and stared at me, uncertain how to respond.

‘Mrs Ryan?’

She turned to look at me and started with surprise. Probably no more than twenty-five, though poverty and toil had lined her face and chapped her hands, she was that saddest of creatures, one who looked worthy of a better life. There was a spark of intelligence in her eyes, a hint of pride in her bearing. She seemed weighed down by hardship, but not yet completely crushed by it. ‘Who are you?’ she said suspiciously. ‘Thought it must be the tallyman, with a knock like that.’

‘I’m looking for your father, Mrs Ryan. Tom Malahide.’

‘He ain’t here.’

‘I realize that. I hoped you might be able to tell me where I could find him.’

‘What d’you say your name was?’

‘I didn’t. I’m a … a business acquaintance of your father.’

‘Oh yeh? Well, if Dad wanted to do business with you, he’d have told you how to find him, wouldn’t he?’

‘Indeed. It’s simply that we’ve lost touch.’ To avoid the challenge of her gaze, I stepped further into the room and looked around at the sparsely stocked shelves and peeling wallpaper. ‘He spoke of you, however. That’s how—’ My eye was suddenly taken by a scrap of paper pinned to the edge of the nearest shelf. It was a rudimentary shopping list: bread, tea, flour, butter, candles. But the handwriting was familiar. It was what, until recently, I had thought of as Lizzie Thaxter’s. Quarton’s words came into my mind. ‘
It’s definitely a feminine hand, so he must have an accomplice
.’ I reached out and tore the list free, then peered at it more closely. There could be no mistake.

‘Here! What d’you think you’re doing?’

I turned to confront her. Subterfuge would serve no further purpose. That at least was clear. ‘The game’s up, Mrs Ryan. I’m one of those who bought a letter off your father. A letter, as it turns out, written by you.’

‘I never—’ She stopped, unable, it seemed, to compose a denial, least of all a convincing one.

‘This is your writing.’ I held up the list.

‘Well, yeh, but—’

‘Then there’s no room for doubt. I know the letter I was sold is a fake and now I know who faked it. You.’

‘You can’t prove nothing!’

‘With this, I rather think I can.’ I slipped the list into my pocket, then smiled in an attempt to reassure her. ‘Look, Mrs Ryan, I’m not trying to get you into trouble, though no doubt I could. All I want to do is to speak to your father.’

She stared at me, falteringly now, with little pouts of indecision. She was frightened, but also determined not to let me trick her into a betrayal. All this seemed to declare itself in the protracted silence that followed.

‘How did he talk you into it?’

‘I’m saying nothing.’

‘And did he tell you what to write? Or did you copy it from the original?’ A mute glare was her only answer. ‘Has he shared the money with you?’

‘What money?’

‘He’s made several hundred pounds out of this so far, you know. At least, I hope you
do
know.’

Her jaw had sagged, her eyes had widened. Then she frowned. ‘You’re lying.’

‘No. My word of honour, Mrs Ryan. I paid him a hundred and fifty pounds. I know of at least one other person who paid him a similar sum. As to how many buyers he had altogether, well, you’d know, wouldn’t you? How many letters did you write?’

‘A hundred and fifty quid?’ Disbelief had transformed her expression. ‘You paid him as much as that?’

‘I did.’

‘Gawd.’ She put her hand to her mouth and turned away. ‘The lying old—’ Then she looked back at me. ‘I ain’t got a penny of it, mister. That’s the honest truth.’

‘So, your father’s kept all of it. Perhaps that makes you think he doesn’t really deserve your loyalty.’

‘All of it?’ She sniggered harshly. ‘No, he ain’t kept the lot.’ She pointed at an open box of painted wooden bricks on the floor. ‘He bought them for the kiddy’s birthday last week.’ She sniggered again, but this time it was closer to a sob. Then, with a sudden swing of her foot, she kicked one of the bricks the width of the kitchen. It bounced off the leg of a table and rattled to rest beneath the mangle. ‘Bloody bricks!’

‘Will you tell me where I can find him, Mrs Ryan?’

‘Oh, I’ll do better than that.’ She grasped a cloth and dried her hands energetically. ‘I’ll take you there. It’s not just you who wants a word with him now. It’s me an’ all.’

The child was deposited with a neighbour. Then, wearing only a thin raincoat and a headscarf over her indoor clothes, Alice Ryan led me north towards Rotherhithe, by narrow streets and back-alleys, past more foul-smelling factories and beneath more dank railway viaducts than I would ever have guessed could be jammed between the swathes of tumble-down housing. As we went, she sustained a monologue explaining and excusing her involvement in Malahide’s scheme, as much, it seemed, to relieve her own feelings as to appease mine.

‘I should’ve known better, of course, but Dad knows how to talk me round. He has the gift of the gab even if he has the gift of nothing else. And he said it was so easy. All I had to do was copy what he’d written out for me and he’d see I got some of whatever he made. And, Gawd, could we do with a bit extra. So, I went along with it. Why not? I never thought it was going to bring the likes of you to me door. But, like I say, I should’ve known better. Dad’s little wheezes, as he calls ’em, never work out the way they’re supposed to.

‘Dad said he had this letter left him by a bloke he met in the nick who was hung. After he came out a couple of years ago, he passed the letter on to the bloke’s family. So he says,
anyway.
But I reckon he sold it. Otherwise, why should he have thought there was money to be made from it now? And why should he have kept a copy of it? That’s how he was able to make something out of it, you see, because he still had the copy. But it was in his writing, of course, and nobody was going to take his crabby hand for a young woman’s. So, he got me to copy it again in me best script. Three times. He reckoned he could flog all three copies for a tidy bit of cash, with this trial coming up. And it seems he was right. But I never thought – I never dreamt – it’d be as much as you say it is. Gawd, my Charlie could hump dirty linen down the hospital for a year and not see a hundred and fifty quid for it.