Two for Sorrow (19 page)

It occurred to Penrose that this was the first time he had attended a murder scene in a room he knew well, and he was struck by the way in which violence affected the atmosphere; it went far beyond the power of any physical damage, and he wondered how Lettice and Ronnie would cope with what had taken place here, or if Hilda Reader would ever feel capable of working in this studio again. He remembered what he and Josephine had discussed the other night: the story wasn't the crime or the investigation—the stages which concerned him;
it was how people picked up from there and carried on with their lives. If the obvious explanation here turned out to be the truth, and Marjorie's father had fallen to his death after killing her, then Penrose's involvement in their narrative was over before it really started; for everyone else—Marjorie's family and workmates, others who would be destroyed by the shame of what her father had done—it was just the beginning, and he suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow for the unrecognised victims of murder, the thousands of people for whom justice was not the same as solace, and who were left to cope while professionals like him washed their hands of one set of lives and moved on to the next.

Somehow, though, he didn't think his business with the Bakers was finished yet: the obvious scenario might be logical, but he couldn't quite bring himself to believe it. He glanced across the table next to the body, taking in the cotton reels and squares of material, the boxes of pins and needles—all the clutter which would make the necessary analysis of the scene so difficult—and stopped when he noticed an empty vodka bottle and two glasses. That might easily explain how Marjorie had been drugged, but, after what Hilda Reader had said, would the girl really have settled down for a cosy drink with her father on work premises? He doubted it. There was something else, too: on the floor by the mirror lay another sewing smock, exactly like the one which Marjorie wore. When he bent down to examine it, he could smell the faintest trace of vomit and see that it was covered in tiny flecks of blood. Clearly, the smock had been worn by the killer. Why had it been left behind? he wondered, but, more to the point, was Baker the sort of man who would bother to take such precautions? He was wary of jumping to too many conclusions before
he'd heard the scientific evidence, but his instinct told him that, if Baker had killed his daughter, it would have been with a blow to the head or a hard shove down the stairs—something clumsy and unimaginative. This was altogether different; it was spiteful and emotional and—if he really wanted to speculate—the sort of crime more often committed by a woman than a man. The stitching of the mouth had obvious connotations: Marjorie had said too much, exposed a secret, perhaps, or told a lie. Then she had been made to watch herself die, taunted and mocked by her own helplessness. The evidence might prove him wrong but, at the moment, the personality of the crime did not tally in Penrose's mind with the man who lay dead outside.

Deep in thought, he heard a noise behind him and turned round, expecting to see Fallowfield or a scene-of-crime officer, but it was Ronnie. ‘What the hell are you doing here?' he snapped, his concern for her making him react more angrily than he meant to. ‘I told you to go to the flat.' He went over to the door and took her arm, but she shook him off.

‘I want to see her, Archie,' she said, ‘and don't think you're going to stop me. These are our premises and Marjorie is—was—our responsibility. Hilda walked in on this when it should have been one of us, and she's up there now in some sort of private hell created by what she's seen. I can't just hide upstairs and pretend I know how awful it must be. I won't do that. It's disrespectful to Marjorie and plain bloody cowardly as far as Hilda's concerned. Please—let me see her properly.'

She tried to push past him but he wouldn't let her. ‘Does Hilda know you're here?' he asked. She shook her head. ‘No, I thought not. She didn't strike me as the sort of woman who'd want to share her pain—not like this, anyway. There are ways
of helping her that don't involve putting yourself through this just because you feel guilty.' He and Ronnie were alike in many ways, and he understood exactly where her anger was coming from. ‘Trust me, please—I didn't know Marjorie and you did, but no woman would want to be seen like this—that's not respect. You can stay here with me for a minute if you like, but I won't let you go any closer.' Ronnie seemed to realise that she had no choice but to accept his decision. She stared across the room, bewildered and horrified by what she saw, and he watched her face as she tried to come to terms with a string of unfamiliar emotions, understanding how alienated and helpless she must feel in a space where she was usually so in control. ‘Have you noticed anything out of place?' he asked after a moment or two.

‘Apart from a dead seamstress, you mean?'

‘Apart from that, yes.'

Ronnie looked around the room. ‘The mirror's been moved,' she said eventually. ‘It's usually over there by the window to catch the light. Otherwise, it's all as it should be.' She laughed bitterly. ‘You could almost believe it was a normal working day, couldn't you? Oh, Archie—why did he have to pick Hilda's table to kill her at? It seems such a small thing, I suppose—what does it matter
where
she died when she died so horrifically? But if it had been anyone else's, they need never have known. Now, I honestly don't know how any of us can carry on here.'

He saw no point in lying to her. ‘It's going to be difficult at first, and I agree with you—Hilda may find it impossible. But it does fade, you know—that image in your mind. Perhaps it shouldn't, but it does.'

‘Did he really stitch her mouth up?' He nodded, and Ronnie
seemed to search for words that would express how she felt. In the end, she simply said: ‘I liked her, Archie. I really liked her.'

‘Come on,' he said gently, leading her away. ‘Let's go upstairs.'

They walked back along the corridor and, as they passed the open doorway which led on to the staircase, he glanced down into the courtyard, where Fallowfield was busy organising the other officers as they arrived. The snow was still falling, but only lightly, and he was pleased to see a sense of urgency in the proceedings; the sooner they could photograph both scenes and remove the bodies for post mortem, the better. He needed some preliminary results as soon as possible to confirm exactly what he was dealing with, and he knew he could rely on Spilsbury to be both swift and thorough.

Lettice had not been exaggerating about the state of their old flat on the top floor of number 66. There were rolls of material everywhere, and the living room had been transformed into a makeshift workroom to accommodate extra staff during busy times. The three bedrooms that led off it looked like the storage area for a West End jumble sale: each was packed with props, set models and costumes from past productions, and Penrose wondered how long it would take his cousins to fill Maiden Lane as well. Somehow, Lettice had found the sofa amid the clutter and she and Hilda Reader were drinking tea; he was pleased to see that both looked a little stronger than they had downstairs. As soon as she saw her sister, Lettice got up and gave her a hug, and some unspoken words of comfort passed between them. Not for the first time, he admired and envied their closeness.

‘Mrs Reader—would you mind taking me through exactly
what happened when you got to work this morning?' he asked, sitting down opposite her.

‘Well, I knew something wasn't right when I found the gates unlocked,' she said. ‘I thought that Miss Lettice or Miss Ronnie might have come in early—we've got so much on at the moment, and they often do—then I realised that wasn't so because the snow was untouched. Beautiful, it looked.'

‘So there were no footprints or marks in the courtyard at all?'

‘No, nothing, so I just assumed it was carelessness. Then when I got through the arch and turned the corner, I saw someone lying at the bottom of the stairs. I thought it was Marjorie at first—she'd been working late the night before, and I thought she'd slipped on the steps in the dark—but when I got closer, it was obviously a man. I was so relieved at first, which was wicked of me, I suppose, but I was just glad it wasn't Marjorie.'

Penrose let her compose herself for a moment, and then asked: ‘Why was Marjorie working on her own last night? Was that usual?'

It was Lettice who answered. ‘There's been a lot of overtime recently—like Hilda says, we've been rushed off our feet and it's coming up to Christmas, so the girls are all happy to have a bit extra in their pay packets. They'll often stay late. But Friday night's different—they all want to get home to their families or go out for the evening, so they clock off at the normal time.'

‘But not Marjorie?'

‘No,' Hilda said. ‘She seemed keen to stay. I always got the impression there wasn't much for her to go home to, although, like I said, she never talked much about her family.'

‘You didn't suspect that there was something particular she wanted to stay for, though? A reason why she might want to be alone in the building?'

Hilda shook her head. ‘No, I can't think of anything that would make her want to do that. You see, she always made an extra effort to show that we could trust her. We're lucky with most of our girls—they're honest and hard-working, but I think Marjorie always felt she had to try that bit harder than the rest because of where she'd come from.'

‘Sorry—I don't understand.'

‘She'd been in prison,' Ronnie explained. ‘We took her on trial six months ago, just after she got out of Holloway—for the third time, I believe. You know Mary Size?'

‘The deputy governor?'

‘That's right. She's a great believer in finding prisoners some sort of meaningful work to go to when they're released. Some of the women have a talent for needlework—God knows they get enough practice—so she approached us. Marjorie's the fourth one we've had in the last couple of years. All of them have done well, actually, but Marjorie flourished.'

‘What was she in prison for?' Penrose asked, surprised and impressed by his cousins' understated social conscience.

‘Theft, mainly—petty stuff, but persistent.'

‘And you've had no trouble like that since she's been with you.'

‘No,' Lettice said firmly. ‘Absolutely not.'

‘Who was last to leave, apart from Marjorie?'

‘I was,' Hilda said. ‘We had a late fitting for the Cowdray Club gala. Lady Ashby was here and Marjorie was dealing with her, so I waited until they'd finished.'

‘What time was that?'

‘Seven o'clock. I'm sure about that because Lady Ashby needed to be at the Ham Bone Club by half past, and I offered to call her a taxi but she said she'd have time to walk. We went down to St Martin's Lane together. She tried to persuade Marjorie to go with her, but I think she was joking.'

‘I doubt it,' Ronnie said. ‘No pretty girl in London is safe when Geraldine's on heat.'

In any other circumstances, the expression on Hilda Reader's face would have been priceless. ‘How did Marjorie seem when you left her?' Penrose asked.

‘She'd cheered up since the incident with her father at lunchtime. We kept her busy, and work seemed to help her to forget about it. I made sure she knew what jobs were to be done, and I left her to it. She seemed impatient to get on.'

‘And did you lock the gates when you left?'

‘No, I just pulled them to. It's hard to unlock them from the inside, you see, because it's so dark under the arch. I thought it would be easier for Marjorie when she left.'

Penrose didn't bother to ask if anyone could have opened the gates from the street; it would be easy enough to check for himself and he didn't want to say something which might suggest to Hilda Reader that she was in any way to blame for Marjorie's death. ‘And there was no sign of her father hanging around outside when you left?'

‘No. If there had been, I'd never have left her on her own.'

‘Of course not. Could you tell me what happened at lunchtime?'

‘It was just after twelve. One of the other girls came down to the workroom from up here to fetch something, and she told me there was a man outside asking for Marjorie.'

‘So he'd come into the yard?'

‘Yes. When I went out to talk to him he was standing at the top of the stairs, just outside the door. I recognised him right away—he was often hanging about when the girls left on a Friday, but I never knew it was Marjorie he was waiting for. He introduced himself—Joe, I think he said his first name was—and asked if he could have a quick word with Marjorie. I told him she was out—she'd gone to the Cowdray Club to drop some samples off—but she'd be back any time. He said he'd wait across the road for her, and could I be sure to tell her? By across the road, I assumed he meant the pub. I had a quick look out the window, but I couldn't see him in the street.'

‘And what was Marjorie's reaction?'

‘Embarrassed. Angry. Worried that he might get her into trouble, I suppose.'

‘But she went?'

‘Yes, but she wasn't gone long. About ten minutes, I suppose. She didn't bother taking the rest of her lunch break.'