Two for Sorrow (22 page)

‘That's right. Mrs Sach is a perfectly competent midwife.'

‘Have any other children been born here recently, Mrs Sach?'

‘Another lady had a child on Wednesday—a baby girl.'

‘And was that child removed from these premises without its mother?'

Four pairs of eyes tore accusingly into Amelia, and she looked round desperately at each one of them. ‘Surely you don't think …'

But the rest of her sentence was lost as the charge was spelt out to her. ‘Amelia Sach, I'm arresting you on suspicion of being an accessory to murder.'

‘Murder? No! That's not possible. You're not really saying that these babies are dead? That this woman has killed them?'

‘You'll be taken to King's Cross Road Police Station, where you will be remanded in custody for further questioning.'

‘Jacob—please!' she screamed. ‘What about Lizzie? Tell them this is ridiculous. Tell them I knew nothing about it.' The policeman took her arm and she shook him off, but he seized her again, more roughly this time, and led her out to the waiting vehicle. A small crowd had gathered further down the street, and she was almost relieved when the doors closed on her. As it pulled away, she glanced back at the house, stricken with fear at the thought that she might never see her home, her daughter, again; Jacob stared back at her from the front-room window, his face blank and emotionless. She
bowed her head in shame. They turned left out of Hertford Road, and the story she had just read to Lizzie echoed again and again in her mind: ‘ “I'll be judge, I'll be jury,” said cunning old Fury; “I'll try the whole cause and condemn you to death.” '

John Kyd watched his colleagues take Sach away, and spoke quietly to her husband. ‘I'm afraid we're going to have to search the house now, Sir. If you wouldn't mind waiting here until we've finished—we'll be as quick as we can.'

For a moment, he thought the man hadn't been listening because he neither spoke nor altered his expression, but then he said: ‘Can I fetch my daughter down from upstairs? She'll be in the nursery with Nora—it's at the top of the house.'

‘Yes, Sir, of course. If you could all wait together, that would be best. I'm going to have a word with your wife's patient now—Dr Wylie, perhaps you'd come with me?' The doctor seemed relieved to have a purpose, and followed Kyd out of the room without a moment's hesitation.

There was only one closed door on the first-floor landing, and Kyd guessed correctly that this must be the room in which Sach's unfortunate patient was resting, oblivious to the fate of her child. He knocked gently and went straight in, and was surprised to find a pleasant space, warm and comfortable and showing all the signs of good, attentive care. It was stupid of him to have expected anything else, he thought bitterly; Sach's business relied on respectability, and God knows these women had paid dearly enough for their nursing.

The girl lay back on her pillows, pale and obviously still tired, but attractive nonetheless. She must be about eighteen, he guessed, and—perhaps simply because of what he knew
he sensed a vulnerability about her which struck him all the more forcefully for coming so soon after Sach's cold self-assurance. ‘Miss Galley?' he asked, and she nodded, looking curiously first at him and then at the doctor. ‘I'm Detective Inspector Kyd. I'm sorry to disturb you, but I need to ask you some questions about the birth of your baby and your time here at Claymore House. Would you mind telling me when you last saw your child?'

‘It must have been on Saturday,' she said, and he noticed that her accent was not from the city; Wiltshire, he guessed, or Dorset. ‘About an hour after he was born, I suppose. I wasn't really well enough to remember much of what was happening, but Mrs Sach brought him in so that I could have a look at him. Then she told me to kiss him goodbye.'

‘So you were aware that your child was going to be removed from the premises.'

‘Yes. Mrs Sach had found him a new home. She told me that she had five ladies who couldn't have children of their own and who wanted to adopt—the child would be well looked after, she said, and would be left a lot of money eventually. I hope she's not in trouble for that,' she added, looking at the grave expression on the inspector's face. ‘She didn't force me into anything. I'm on my own, and I need to earn a living—how could I do that with a child in tow? We'd both be dead or in the workhouse. It was for the best, really it was.'

‘Did Mrs Sach tell you the name of the woman who was to adopt your baby?'

‘No. She said it was best that I didn't know. The mother wouldn't like it in case I changed my mind and wanted the baby back.'

‘And how long have you been here?'

‘Since September. I saw Mrs Sach's advertisement in the newspaper in August, and she took me in a month later.'

‘And you paid her money?'

‘Yes. Three guineas when I got here, then a guinea a week after that.'

‘And what about the adoption?'

‘She told me I'd have to give the new mother thirty pounds.'

‘Even though this woman was wealthy herself?'

‘Yes. Mrs Sach said she wanted to buy a present for the baby to remember its mother by. Thirty pounds was more than I could afford, though, so she said she'd write to the lady to see if she'd accept twenty-five—and she said she would.'

A present to remember its mother by—Kyd could hardly keep the disgust out of his voice when he continued his questioning. ‘Twenty-five pounds still seems a lot of money for a young woman to find.'

She looked down, ashamed. ‘I had to go to the baby's father,' she admitted. ‘His family didn't want a scandal, so they paid up. Am I in trouble? I didn't think I was doing anything wrong—honestly I didn't.'

‘No, you're not in trouble,' Kyd said reassuringly.

‘Then what's happened?' she asked, beginning to cry now. ‘Why do you want to know about my baby?'

Kyd looked at the doctor, who shook his head. ‘Miss Galley needs to rest now,' he said. ‘I'll stay with her for a bit and make sure she has something to help her sleep.'

The inspector stood up to go. The image of Ada Galley's dead son had been with him all day, refusing to go away no matter how hard he tried to expel it from his mind. There would be a time when he would have to explain to this girl
what had happened to her baby, but not before he had more answers and certainly not while she was still living under Sach's roof. He opened the door to go back downstairs, but found Jacob Sach outside on the landing, a child of about three or four in his arms. He had obviously been listening—there were tears on his face which he did not bother to wipe away—but what struck Kyd most was how like her mother Lizzie Sach was; for her sake, he prayed that the resemblance was purely physical. ‘Please go downstairs, Sir,' he said. ‘I'll be with you in a minute.'

It would take several hours to search the house thoroughly but, by the time Kyd joined Jacob Sach downstairs, he had seen enough to gauge the extent of his wife's business. His officers had found more than three hundred items of baby clothing in the house so far, presumably made by mothers who had no idea of how briefly they would be needed. Kyd found what was left of the family in the kitchen: Sach was sitting at the table, hunched over an untouched cup of tea, while a dark-haired young woman sat on the floor with two children, one only a toddler, trying and failing to keep them amused. As soon as she saw him, the woman stood up to go, but he held up his hand to stop her. ‘Miss …?'

‘Edwards. Nora Edwards.'

‘And you work for Mr and Mrs Sach?'

‘That's right.'

‘Miss Edwards—may I ask how long you've been here?'

‘Since July last year—well, not here, but with Mrs Sach. She was in Stanley Road then.'

‘And you moved here with her?'

‘With the family, yes.'

She seemed guarded in her answers, and he wondered
exactly how much she knew. It was difficult to believe that she could have lived in the Sach household for more than a year and remained ignorant of its comings and goings. ‘Did you answer an advertisement for a job?'

‘No, not for a job.'

‘Then for what?'

‘I went to her to have my baby.' She gestured to the younger of the two girls.

‘And your child was born in Mrs Sach's care?'

‘Yes. She looked after me herself. Sally was born last September.'

‘What happened after the child's birth?'

Edwards hesitated. ‘Mrs Sach asked me what I was going to do, and I said I didn't know. She told me there was a woman in Balcombe who would adopt Sally for twelve pounds. I didn't want to let the baby go and I told her as much.'

‘And did she argue?'

‘She said the woman would have a cot waiting for her, and that she'd be well looked after, but I couldn't do it.'

‘You stayed in the house, though?'

‘Yes. I paid her fifteen shillings a week at first, but then she offered me a job in return for our keep.'

‘And she never mentioned adoption again?'

‘No, never. She's always been good to us both, and the kids play together. You can see for yourself.'

Kyd looked down at the floor, but Lizzie's sulky expression and the tantrum threatened by the other child were no more convincing to him than Edwards's testimony of Sach's good nature. ‘And what are your duties?'

‘Oh, the usual—cleaning, a bit of cooking, the odd errand.'

‘And did you ever meet anyone called Mrs Walters here?' He described Annie Walters, and Edwards nodded.

‘I met someone who looked like that, but her name was Laming. I've seen her at both houses—here and in Stanley Road. She used to come when a child was born. Mrs Sach would send her a telegram.'

‘Did you ever see money change hands between them?'

Edwards looked nervously at Jacob Sach. ‘Yes, I did.'

‘And did Mrs Sach ever say anything to you about Mrs Walters?'

‘She told me not to tell the mothers that their children had gone with her.'

‘How many children would you say that Mrs Walters had taken away with her since you've been here?'

‘I don't remember. I wasn't counting.'

‘Please, Miss Edwards—just a rough figure.'

‘About eight, I suppose. And once Mrs Sach asked me to take a baby and three pounds to Mrs Laming—Mrs Walters, I mean—in Plaistow.'

‘Thank you, Miss Edwards.' He watched as she picked the toddler up from the floor and drew her close. ‘Did Mrs Walters ever speak to you about your own child?' he asked.

‘Yes, she did, Inspector, quite a few times. She said I was a fool to keep her.'

The house was unbearably quiet when the police left. Jacob Sach sat in the kitchen, going over and over the questions they had asked him about his wife, trying to associate the woman they had taken away with the one he had married, but nothing made any sense to him. He poured another glass of rum and took it out into the back yard, desperate now to get out of the
room which felt like the cell he imagined Amelia to be in. Had she confessed yet, he wondered? Or did she really believe herself to be innocent?

He heard a noise at the back door and turned to see Nora there, holding Lizzie in her arms. As the light from the kitchen fell on the child's auburn hair, it was like looking at his wife when she was young, and Lizzie's innocence stung him like a personal rebuke for all his failures.

‘Take her away,' he said quietly, not trusting himself to move.

‘But Jacob, she's asking for you. Don't take it out on her—none of this is her fault.'

‘I said take her away,' he yelled, and hurled the glass towards the door. It broke against the wall, and Nora looked at him in horror, then fled back into the house with the child.

Josephine usually took breakfast upstairs in her room, but the envelope which Marta had given her had, during a long and sleepless night, come to dominate the small space to such an extent that she was glad to leave it behind for the comparative safety of the club's dining room, where, if she were forced into any conversation at all, it would at least be of a reassuringly superficial nature.

The dining room was the centrepiece of the building's architectural design, situated midway between the Cowdray Club and the College of Nursing and easily reachable from both. Breakfast was laid out along one wall, and Josephine lifted the lid on a dish of perfectly cooked sausages before deciding that coffee was all she could face. She settled down at a table in the corner, enjoying the peace and general harmony of an exquisitely conceived room. The walls were entirely faced with oak panelling, and fluted Corinthian columns and pilasters with finely carved capitals supported a magnificent ceiling. The floor, too, was of oak, finished to a rich brown colour. All in all, the wood gave the room a warm, autumnal feel which contrasted pleasantly with the ivory-white enamel that served most of the building. Strong natural light flooded in from tall windows and a glass dome overhead, illuminating the room's decorative focal points: four portrait medallions—one on each wall—of Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell and the Viscount
and Viscountess Cowdray, ensuring that, wherever you sat, you could not escape a reminder of the club's nursing origins.