until I could get a job.’
‘But you’ve got nothing coming in on a regular basis?’
She shook her head.
He sighed gustily. ‘A job, eh? And what sort of job could you do?’
‘I don’t know. Anything.’
‘Can you use a typewriter?’
‘No, but I’m sure I could-’
‘Have you had any sort of job in your life? A real job, I mean?’
‘Well, not as such.’
‘Not as such,’ he echoed. ‘Lydia, have you ever done anything useful? Do you
Lydia glared at him. ‘I’m sure somebody would. I–I know how things are done, for example. That could be useful.’
‘How things are done,’ he echoed, and this time he didn’t try to disguise the sarcasm. ‘You mean, whether the wife of a peer goes into dinner in front of the wife of an ambassador, eh? Which flowers are best for the drawing room in September? I don’t think you’ll find there’s much call for all that. Not around here.’
‘I’m sure someone must-’
‘Perhaps one of your mother’s friends might take you on as a companion? Though I’m not sure your mother would be very happy about that. She’d put a stop to it if she could.’
‘Then I shall advertise. It may take a while but-’
‘But if you’re lucky you might find a position with the wife of some jumped-up tradesman in Turnham Green.’ He flicked the cigarette end into the fireplace. ‘On the other hand you almost certainly wouldn’t last five minutes because as soon as you open your mouth you’d remind them what ghastly little snobs they were.’
‘Father,’ Lydia said. ‘I know it may not be easy, but could I at least stay with you for a few weeks? I can pay my own way. And I could help with — with the housework, perhaps.’
‘Have you ever done any housework in your life?’
‘I’m sure I could learn. Perhaps your housekeeper would be able to show me.’
Ingleby-Lewis threw back his head and laughed. ‘I don’t have a housekeeper. I don’t have anyone.’
She frowned. ‘Surely someone comes in and-’
‘No. There’s nobody, Lydia, it’s as simple as that. Sometimes Serridge’s charwoman takes pity on an old buffer and tidies me up a bit but that’s out of the kindness of her heart.’ He leant towards her. ‘All right,’ he said in a gentler voice. ‘You can stay for a week or two. But I’m telling you now, you won’t enjoy it. You’re not used to this sort of life.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Mind you, I’ll have to square it with Serridge.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘My landlord, among other things. That parcel downstairs was for him.’ Ingleby-Lewis smiled at her, exposing brown jagged teeth. ‘You had better let me have a few pounds for him. He won’t let you have the room for nothing.’
Lydia opened her handbag and found her purse. ‘Would five pounds do for a start?’
Her father nodded. He took the money and put it in his wallet. He stood up slowly. ‘I have to go out for a while. I’ll leave you to it, shall I?’
‘I wonder … what about food?’
‘What about it? If you want to buy some, you’ll find shops in Charleston Street. Or go across to Fetter Passage.’ He nodded to her and said, with a ghostly geniality that seemed to belong to a much younger, happier man, ‘Must dash. Au revoir, my dear.’
Lydia listened to him on the stairs. The door banged. She went to stand by the window. Captain Ingleby- Lewis walked slowly and carefully across the square and into the doorway of the Crozier. She waited a moment. From the windows of her father’s room you could see the length of Bleeding Heart Square and, on the corner by the old pump, the alley leading past the pub to Charleston Street. On the right was the bulk of the chapel with its pinnacles dark against a sky the colour of dirty cotton wool. If she craned her neck she had a glimpse of Rosington Place beyond, where the long, shabby terraces faced each other, cut off from the rest of London by the railings at the end and the lodge where the Beadle stood guard with his little dog. She shivered with a mixture of cold, fear and excitement.
As she was about to turn back into the room she caught sight of the figure of a man standing in the alley near the Crozier. She expected him to go into the pub. But instead he stood looking from one end of Bleeding Heart Square to the other with leisurely attention, as though he were a sightseer. Automatically she stepped back so he would not be able to glimpse her face against the glass.
She wondered idly who he was. Just a young man in a brown raincoat with a flat cap and a muffler round his neck. Perhaps a clerk of some sort or somebody who worked in a shop. One of the army of little people, as Marcus used to say, one of those who needed other people like Marcus to tell them what to do.
The young man hurried out of the square and into Charleston Street, where he glanced up and down as if wary of pursuit. Half a dozen schoolgirls from St Tumwulf’s threaded their way around him. He began to walk rapidly east. Narton, who had been sheltering from the wind on the steps of the public library, crossed the road and followed. He calculated that he had nothing to lose and perhaps everything to gain.
He caught up with his quarry in Farringdon Road. Maybe he was heading for the Tube station. Narton touched his shoulder, and the man swung round, alarm flaring in his eyes. He had a long bony face and the tip of his nose was red with cold.
‘Excuse me, sir. Can I have a word?’
‘What about? Who are you?’
‘My name’s Narton, sir. Detective Sergeant Narton.’ He took out his warrant card and allowed the man a glimpse of it. ‘And you are?’
‘Me — oh, my name’s …’ He paused, and Narton wondered whether he was nerving himself to come up with a false name. ‘Wentwood. Roderick Wentwood.’
‘You’ve got proof of that, have you, sir?’
‘Of course I have. Look, what is this about?’
‘Perhaps you could show me.’
Wentwood muttered something under his breath. He unbuttoned his overcoat and produced a worn brown wallet. Inside was a letter, addressed by hand to R. Wentwood, Esq., c/o Mrs V. Rutter, 43 Plessey Street, Kentish Town, with a Hereford postmark.
‘All right?’ Wentwood said. ‘Satisfied?’
‘No call for sarcasm,’ Narton said mildly. ‘Why don’t we get out of this wind? I could do with a cup of something, and I dare say you could too.’
Wentwood’s eyes darted to and fro. Maybe he wanted to make a break for it. Surely he wouldn’t be so stupid?
‘I’ve done nothing wrong, you know.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Let’s go and have that cup of tea, shall we?’
The cafe was opposite the Dead Meat Market at Smith-field. Most of the other customers were men with bloodstained overalls. Narton ordered two teas, trying not to begrudge the expense. They stood side by side, leaning on a shelf sticky with spilled sugar and speckled with ash. Wentwood rubbed a circle in the steamy haze on the plate-glass window and looked out at the lorries and vans in Charterhouse Street. The rank smell of raw meat hung in the smoky air.
‘You’ve been hanging around Bleeding Heart Square,’ Narton said.
‘Not really. I’ve strolled past once or twice, I suppose. Is there a law against it?’
‘Depends why you’re doing it. Not somewhere you stroll past by accident. It’s a cul-de-sac, Mr Wentwood. You have to make up your mind to go there.’
‘I told you: there’s nothing suspicious about it.’
‘But you do have a reason.’
