This morning she had overheard the two men talking on the phone. Presumably Serridge was a client of the firm, perhaps in connection with his purchase of 7 Bleeding Heart Square. It should be easy enough to find out.
Over three quarters of the pages had been used, and the invoices went back to the end of 1927. The chief clerk wrote a beautiful hand, upright, elegant and easy to read. Lydia skimmed through the pages, working backwards. Her eyes ran up and down the column that contained the clients’ names. She moved through the years, faster and faster as she grew more accustomed to the task, until she reached the first entry in December 1927.
Afterwards she closed the heavy book with a sigh and stretched to relieve her aching shoulders. There had been no mention of Mr Serridge. Nor, come to that, of Miss Penhow, the lady who had owned the house, the lady who had gone away.
When Rory arrived, he found Fenella washing up in the kitchen. She wore an overlarge pinafore apron and looked like a child playing at being grown-up. He took a tea towel and dried a knife.
‘Have you eaten yet?’ he asked.
‘There hasn’t been time.’
‘Perhaps we can have something together, later.’
She put a saucepan down on the wooden draining board with unnecessary violence and didn’t reply.
‘What’s up?’ Rory said.
‘Just a gas bill. It’s rather more than I’d budgeted for.’
‘If you let me, I’ll help.’
She threw him a smile. ‘I knew you’d say that. You’re very kind.’
‘That sounds like an epitaph,’ Rory said. ‘May I?’
‘No.’
He knew she was refusing more than money. ‘Where does the cutlery go?’
‘Still the same place. Left-hand drawer of the dresser. What have you been up to?’
Rory ignored the fact that he had spent the morning traipsing across London, looking at the former home of Lydia Langstone and feeling angry with wealthy people flirting with poverty. ‘Looking for a job. Nothing new’s come up but I’ve got a couple of irons in the fire.’
‘It’s not much fun, is it?’
‘What isn’t?’
‘All this grubbing for money.’ Fenella threw the mop into the sudsy water. ‘I hate being poor. I need a fairy godmother.’
As though in an answer to prayer, there came the ring of a bell.
‘Perhaps that’s her,’ Rory said. ‘I’ll go.’ He gave her a wry smile, trying to turn the whole thing into a joke. ‘Are you at home?’
‘I’m always at home,’ she said.
Rory went into the hall and opened the door. A man was standing on the doorstep with his hat in his hand. He smiled at Rory with the easy charm of someone used to being liked. It was that fellow Dawlish. Rory pretended not to recognize him.
‘Good evening. Is Miss Kensley in?’
‘Yes. Would you like to come in? I’ll fetch her. Who shall I say it is?’
‘Julian Dawlish. Thanks.’
Rory showed him into the drawing room and left him standing on the hearthrug in front of the dying fire. He was not the sort of chap you would take into the kitchen.
Fenella blushed when he told her who was waiting for her. She pulled off the apron and asked Rory to tell Dawlish that she would be with them in a moment.
In the drawing room he and Dawlish talked about the weather and skirted rather uneasily around the subject of the Spanish strikes and Catalonia’s abortive attempt to declare its independence from the rest of the country. Fenella’s footsteps hurried to and fro across her bedroom overhead. At last she came in and the men sprang to their feet. She had changed her dress and combed her hair. Rory thought she had probably done something to her face as well.
Dawlish loped towards her, flannel trousers flapping around his legs. ‘I hope I haven’t called at an inconvenient time, Miss Kensley,’ he said in his soft, expensive drawl. ‘You were kind enough to say I could drop in if I were passing but casual callers can be a frightful nuisance, can’t they?’
She gave him her hand and smiled. ‘Not in this case. I hope Mr Wentwood’s been looking after you.’
Dawlish smiled benevolently at the space between Fenella and Rory. ‘Absolutely,’ he murmured.
They sat down and lit cigarettes from Mr Dawlish’s case.
‘What have you been up to?’ he asked Fenella.
‘I re-papered most of the lodger’s bedroom today.’
‘I just don’t know how you do it all.’ Dawlish looked admiringly at her. ‘Running this place and so on. She’s never idle, is she, Wentwood?’
Rory muttered in agreement.
‘Have you eaten, by the way?’ Dawlish went on, his eyes on Fenella. ‘I haven’t had anything since breakfast in fact, and I’m starving. I wonder whether you’d like a bite to eat. There’s quite a pleasant little Italian place in Hampstead.’ He hesitated, only for a fraction of a second but it was enough. ‘We could all go, of course,’ he added, turning to Rory.
‘I’ve eaten already, thanks,’ Rory said.
‘Oh. Never mind.’
‘It would be lovely,’ Fenella said. ‘But are you sure that-’
‘Of course I’m sure. I wanted to ask your advice in any case, so we can mix business with pleasure.’
‘Advice?’ Fenella asked. ‘What about?’
‘I’m writing a pamphlet. Actually, it might even be a talk on the wireless. I know a chap at the BBC. It’s about the role of women — how they can make a difference in the class struggle and so on. Whether women are naturally against Fascism.’
‘Are they?’ Rory said, determined to be contrary.
Dawlish grinned at him, refusing to take umbrage. ‘That’s what we want to find out. But I’m sure Miss Kensley has a better idea of how to do it than I do.’
It had been neatly contrived, Rory thought bitterly, as he walked back to Bleeding Heart Square. There had been no reason for him to stay, since he claimed to have eaten already, which he hadn’t. Dawlish, ever the perfect little gent, had offered him a lift to the nearest Tube station, which Rory equally politely had declined. He walked partly to save money and partly because it fed a masochistic appetite within himself to feel even more miserable than he already was.
There was, he accepted, no one he could reasonably blame for this state of affairs except himself. Fenella had given him fair warning that their engagement was suspended, probably over: she was quite within her rights to change her mind and prefer someone else to him. He himself was hardly much of a catch. But Fenella had been a central feature of his emotional landscape for so long that her absence from it was hard to envisage.
He plodded home. In a side street off the Clerkenwell Road he stopped for a pint in a pub that sold only beer. The place chimed perfectly with his mood. It had grimy sawdust on the floor and smelled of cats’ urine. Surly men played shove-ha’penny and dominoes, and stared at him with surreptitious hostility until he left.
The shops of Hatton Garden were dark and shuttered. In Charleston Street the windows of the Crozier were blazing with light. Someone was thumping the keys of a piano inside the saloon bar and producing a sound that was just recognizable as ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’. He turned into the alley leading to the square and hesitated. He wanted whisky, he thought, he wanted a whole bloody bottle of the stuff.
The music from the pub was gathering in volume, and people were singing. He didn’t want to get drunk among all that cheerfulness. Besides, Ingleby-Lewis would probably be there, and perhaps Fimberry or even Serridge. He still had nearly half a bottle of gin in his flat. Drinking alone was far more appealing than that dreadful jollity inside the pub. It would be cheaper too.
He left the alley and passed into the relative gloom of Bleeding Heart Square. It was very quiet after the din of the pub. Suddenly the silence was broken by running footsteps. He had time to register that they were behind him, that they belonged to more than one person, and that they were coming towards him. He turned towards the
