Bleeding Heart Square

And there’s another reason why she stays: mad though it is, in some part of herself she’s still hoping, against all the evidence, that there will be a happy ending.

Hunger is one of the most powerful arguments in the world. That was the main reason why Rory found himself walking up Doughty Street to Mecklenburgh Square at five to one. He had already spent his allowance for the week. Any sort of lunch would be better than none, and pride was a luxury reserved for those with full stomachs.

Number fifty-three was on the north side of the square, one of a terrace of tall, stately Georgian houses which had seen better days. Rory opened the gate in the railings, went down the area steps and knocked on the basement door. It was opened by Julian Dawlish, who was holding a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whisky in the other.

‘Glad you could come, Wentwood.’ He stood back to allow Rory into the house. ‘Fenella is hacking things up in the kitchen, and I’m in charge of liquid refreshment. It’s going to be a sort of indoor picnic in the primitive style. Can’t manage cocktails yet but do you fancy a spot of whisky? There’s gin if you prefer, and I think there’s some beer somewhere.’

‘Thanks. Whisky, please.’

Fenella appeared in a doorway at the end of the hallway. She was wearing a long apron stained with what looked like blood. ‘Rory, how lovely.’ She held up her cheek to be kissed. ‘I opened a tin of soup and it sort of exploded. Give him a drink, Julian, while I lay the table.’

They were acting just like a bloody married couple already, Rory thought savagely, as he followed Julian Dawlish into a sparsely furnished sitting room at the front of the house. Dawlish splashed whisky into another glass and handed it to Rory.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘What a hole. Help yourself to soda.’

‘Not at all,’ Rory said stiffly. He squirted soda into his glass. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheerio.’ After they had drunk, Dawlish went on, ‘It will look very different once it’s properly decorated and the curtains are up. Fenella is going to move some of her own stuff in. It will be very snug, I think.’ He snapped open his cigarette case and held it out. ‘Smoke?’

They lit cigarettes and sat down opposite each other on hard chairs. They both drank more whisky. Rory was nervous and he drank faster than usual. Before he knew what was happening, Dawlish had topped up his glass again.

‘How’s the job-hunting going?’ Dawlish asked.

‘So-so,’ he said, feeling a warm glow suffusing itself through his stomach.

‘Do you do any freelancing?’

‘I’ve not had much time to look into that. One needs the contacts, you see. And having been in India …’

‘Yes, of course. And it’s damned hard these days, I imagine, finding the openings. But would you be interested, in principle?’

The second whisky was rapidly joining the first. ‘I’d go for it like a shot.’

‘Because I might be able to put you on to something. If you’re interested, that is.’ Dawlish smiled apologetically — he had to a fine art that knack of making it seem that you were doing him a favour by allowing him to do you a favour. ‘Pal of mine edits a magazine. A weekly. I know he’s always looking for good stuff. Every time I see him he goes on about how hard it is to find reliable contributors.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘Berkeley’s.’

‘I know.’ Of course he knew of Berkeley’s, a magazine that specialized in political analysis and cultural reviews. Lord Byron had probably read it. So had Gladstone. So did everyone who was anyone except for dyed-in-the-wool Tories, whose reading was confined to the Morning Post.

‘Interested?’ Dawlish said.

‘Very much so. But I’m not sure what I can offer.’

‘Ah,’ Dawlish said. ‘I think you underestimate yourself. Look, it’s easier if I put my cards on the table. This could do you a good turn, but it could do me a good turn too.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘I know the editor is interested in how the Fascists work in this country. Their recruiting, their propaganda and so on. As you know the magazine, you’ll appreciate they’re — well, let’s say sceptical about Fascism and all its works. There’s the meeting coming up in Rosington Place at the end of the week. Now that’s interesting, because it shows that Mosley is trying to target the business community in particular. He’s not a fool — he realizes he’s not going to get anywhere without financial backers, without substantial support from the City — not just the big guns but the little fellows too. And a lot of his sponsors were put off by the violence in Earls Court in June. The iron fist was a little too obvious, if you follow me. So if you were to write a piece of say a thousand or fifteen hundred words about the meeting, showing how they’re trying to recruit support, I think that could be interesting. And if there’s anything I can do to help, just ask.’

He leant forward with the whisky bottle. Rory held out his glass.

‘You’re assuming I would take a critical slant?’

Dawlish smiled. ‘I’m assuming you’d report what you saw and heard in an accurate and interesting way. Fenella showed me some of your cuttings. She’s got a scrapbook, you know.’

Rory tried to remember what he had sent her. There must have been the usual drivel he wrote for the South Madras Times — pieces on receptions and cricket matches, court cases and anecdotes. Samples of the jobbing work of a provincial journalist.

‘What particularly interested me were the ones on the Congress Party. There was one on the consequences of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, I remember, and another on Gandhi’s work with the untouchables. It’s a shame there weren’t more like that.’

‘They didn’t go down well with all our readers,’ Rory said. ‘Nor with the editor. I only got some of the pieces through because he was on leave. But they weren’t political in stance. I was only reporting what was actually happening.’

‘I don’t think Berkeley’s would mind that sort of reporting. In fact I think they’d rather like it. It’s a fresh eye, the outsider’s perspective. Have you got a typewriter, by the way?’

‘Yes, of course.’

There were footsteps outside. ‘Lunch is served,’ Fenella said. ‘Bring your glasses.’

Fear smothered her like black treacle, making it hard to breathe and impossible to think. She tried the door again. It wouldn’t move. She ran to the window and peered through a gap between the planks. All she could see were dying nettles and a stretch of ragged hedgerow. She opened her mouth to call for help and then closed it.

There were two possibilities: either a sudden gust of wind had improbably blown the door shut and somehow wedged it, or somebody had closed it deliberately with the intention of making her a prisoner. If she called out, the only person likely to hear would be her captor — assuming there was a captor.

Lydia had been standing with her back to the doorway looking at the cigar box. Nobody could have closed the door without seeing her inside. Why shut her in? She tried to think it through but there was not an obvious answer.

Sooner or later, she told herself firmly, she would be missed. She had been seen in the village. She had little doubt that Mrs Alforde would organize a search party, and little doubt that Mrs Alforde would find her. It was tiresome — not least because it was growing colder — but surely nothing to worry about.

In the depths of her mind, however, more malign possibilities were stirring. A mother and baby had died in this nasty little barn. It was a place that aroused strong emotions. As the minutes passed, she found it harder and harder to be entirely rational. The light was fading, and she thought she heard rustlings in the straw and saw minute movements on the very edge of her range of vision.

And were there rats too?

‘Help! Is there anyone there? Help!’ She waited by the window, and then tried again, crying out the same words that were flat and useless because there was nobody to hear them.

Lydia’s throat was growing sore. There were half a dozen smoke-blackened bricks in one corner of the barn,