The office boy was still confined to bed with what his mother now claimed was German measles. Mr Reynolds remarked that it was most inconvenient. Mr Smethwick said the young shaver was a little beast and Miss Tuffley, as befitted a member of the gentler sex, said he was a poor lamb. One consequence of the boy’s absence was that Lydia was obliged to work on Saturday morning.
As she made herself ready, she heard her father snoring in his room. In the sitting room the empty brandy bottle lay on its side in the hearth. Pulling on her gloves, she went down to the hall.
Among the small pile of post on the table was a letter addressed to her in her sister’s handwriting. There was also a parcel, slightly larger than a tennis ball, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, for
Footsteps came slowly down the stairs. Letter in hand, she moved away from the table, reluctant to be caught spying. It was Rory Wentwood, walking slowly and a little stiffly.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad it’s you. I wanted to say thank you.’
‘It was nothing. How are you feeling?’
‘Rather better than I thought I would.’ His dark eyebrows wrinkled into a frown and he winced, giving the lie to his words. ‘Most of the time, at any rate. I know I’d be feeling a lot worse if you hadn’t turned up when you did.’
‘It was just luck. I still think you should see a doctor.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m all right.’
‘Who do you think attacked you?’
He shrugged. ‘Friday-night toughs, I suppose. Had a few drinks and decided to go on the rampage. I imagine they were after my wallet.’
‘Well, I’m glad it’s no worse.’ Lydia moved towards the front door.
‘I say — Mrs Langstone? I’d like to thank you properly for being so sporting about this. Would you let me buy you lunch?’
She turned back. ‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Wentwood, but-’
‘You’d be doing me a favour. Otherwise I’ll feel guilty for ruining your evening.’ His long face grew longer and even more melancholy than before. ‘You could think of it as an act of charity.’
She found herself smiling at him. ‘Very well. When?’
‘What about today?’
‘All right.’
‘Thanks awfully.’
He arranged to meet her outside the office. On her way to work, Lydia opened her sister’s letter. It enclosed an invitation to a private view at a gallery in Cork Street on Tuesday evening. Pammy had scribbled a few lines in violet ink.
Lydia stuffed the envelope into her handbag and pushed open the street door of 48 Rosington Place. She missed her sister but she wouldn’t go to the opening or to the Cafe des Voyageurs. She had finished with that sort of thing. A working woman, she marched up to the second floor.
The prospect of being taken out to lunch buoyed her up during the morning. In any case Saturday was not like other days at Shires and Trimble. It was only a half-day, and most of the time was spent on dealing with the post and tidying up loose ends from the previous week. Everyone was in a mood which if not exactly festive was at least cheerful, as though the temporary liberation of the weekend offered a glimpse of the happier world outside Rosington Place.
At half past twelve Lydia went downstairs with Miss Tuffley, who was going up west to have lunch with a friend and then on to the pictures. Mr Wentwood was waiting for her outside the door. Miss Tuffley looked at him with interest and, Lydia suspected, would have been happy to be introduced if Lydia had given her the slightest encouragement. As it was, she said goodbye and clattered down the pavement towards the Tube station.
‘Where would you like to go?’ Rory asked. ‘I don’t know anywhere around here except the Blue Dahlia.’
‘Let’s go there then,’ Lydia said, thinking that at least it was cheap but wishing in a dark and shameful corner of her mind that it was the Cafe des Voyageurs. ‘Better the devil you know.’
The cafe was less crowded than it usually was at lunch-times, since most of the clientele had gone home for the weekend. The fat lady behind the counter greeted them with a nod. They sat down at a corner table and studied the menu.
Rory glanced at the blackboard behind the counter. ‘I’ll have the special. Liver and onions.’
Lydia thought of the parcel on the hall table at Bleeding Heart Square. Liver was offal and so was heart. ‘I think I’ll have the shepherd’s pie.’
They ordered their lunch and sat smoking while they waited.
‘How are you feeling now?’
Rory touched the faintly discoloured skin on his cheekbone, and winced. ‘Still in one piece.’ He went on in the same tone, ‘I’ve not been altogether honest with you, I’m afraid.’
It took a moment for his words to seep in.
His face was even gloomier than usual. ‘About my reason for moving into Bleeding Heart Square.’
‘I thought you were looking for a job and needed to be near the City.’
‘That’s true as far as it goes.’ He flicked ash from his cigarette. ‘But there’s another reason. You remember the girl I was with on Sunday? In Trafalgar Square? She has an aunt, a lady called Philippa Penhow.’
Lydia crumbled her bread and watched Rory. He was smoking very fast.
‘They haven’t been in touch for more than four years,’ he said, speaking quickly as if trying to get the words out before he changed his mind. ‘In fact Miss Penhow doesn’t seem to have been in touch with anyone. Fenella — Miss Kensley — is rather worried.’
So that’s who she is, Lydia thought — Fenella Kensley. She supposed that some people would think the name was rather pretty.
‘The thing is, just before Miss Penhow disappeared, she met Mr Serridge. In fact he was one of her tenants at Bleeding Heart Square. She told Fenella that they were going to get married. A whirlwind courtship, I gather. They moved out of London in the spring of 1930 and bought a place in Essex, near a village called Rawling. Morthams Farm.’
Lydia ground out her cigarette. ‘What happened then?’
He shrugged. ‘She left. Mr Serridge said she met an old friend and went off with him.’ He paused, sowing doubt with a silence. ‘Anyway, a few weeks later she simply wasn’t there.’
‘Surely people asked questions?’
‘There weren’t that many people who noticed she had gone. She and Serridge had only just moved to Rawling. Before that, Miss Penhow lived in a private hotel in South Ken. She hadn’t any friends there, not real ones. And before that, she’d lived with an old aunt in Manchester or somewhere, but the old lady died. The only other relations she had were Fenella and her parents, but they weren’t close.’
Lydia wondered: then why the interest now?
‘Anyway, the Kensleys had a lot on their minds,’ Rory continued. ‘Fenella’s father was very ill for a year or two before he died. Afterwards her mother had to take in a lodger to make ends meet, and then she herself died last summer.’
‘So there’s been no sign of Miss Penhow since 1930, and Mr Serridge seems to have acquired the house?’
‘That’s about the size of it. And don’t forget the farm. That seems to be his as well.’
‘Has anyone talked to the police?’
‘They were notified of her disappearance. But there was no sign a crime had been committed, and no reason to doubt Serridge’s story about an old boyfriend. Fenella said there really was a man, years and years ago — she remembered her parents talking about it. A sailor, apparently. Miss Penhow wanted to marry him but her family wouldn’t let her. And then there was a letter that seemed to confirm it. Miss Penhow wrote to the Vicar of Rawling
