Bleeding Heart Square

like a child trying to attract her parent’s attention.

‘Julian, come on. I don’t like it here. Please.’

Instantly he was all concern, enquiring solicitously about how she was feeling while blaming himself for being insensitive. Lydia looked at her more closely. Fenella was trembling slightly and her face was grey.

‘The thing is,’ Dawlish said, ‘what about Wentwood?’

‘There’s not a lot we can do,’ Fenella said. ‘Let’s face it, they can’t really hurt him. Anyway, they don’t know he’s a journalist, and perhaps they’ll leave him alone. You’d think they’d have chucked him out already if they were going to.’

Dawlish looked from one woman to the other. ‘Perhaps we should-’

‘Can we go? Please, Julian.’

‘The sooner we leave the better,’ Lydia said, turning away so neither Fenella nor Dawlish would see the anger in her face. ‘I’ll tell Mr Wentwood what’s happened, if you like.’

They slipped outside. Rosington Place was deserted. Fenella, clutching at Dawlish’s arm, almost dragged him away. He turned and waved to Lydia. She and Mr Goldman went through the wicket gate into Bleeding Heart Square.

‘I can manage by myself now,’ he said, scowling at her. ‘Thank you for your help, Mrs Langstone.’ He stalked off, leaving Lydia staring after him.

‘Mr Goldman?’ she called. ‘Are you all right?’

He paused by the pump and looked at her. ‘No, I’m not, Mrs Langstone. How can I be? I’m frightened.’

He raised his hat in farewell and a moment later was out of sight. It was only as Lydia was letting herself into the house that she realized what he had meant. He was not frightened of the uniformed thugs in the undercroft. He was not even frightened for himself. He was frightened of what the uniformed thugs stood for. He was frightened on behalf of all those people who stood in their way. He was frightened of the future.

Slowly the light faded from the afternoon. Lydia sat at the table in her father’s flat and looked down at Bleeding Heart Square, at the wicket gate to Rosington Place and at the wall of the chapel beyond. Reckless of expense, she had turned up the gas fire as far as it would go and fed the meter with shillings. Her father was still out. Among the butts in the ashtray beside her were a couple from Pamela’s cigarettes. The room felt empty without her.

At last the meeting in the undercroft came to an end. Most of the audience walked down Rosington Place towards Holborn. A trickle came through the wicket into the square, among them Mr Byrne from the Crozier and one of the mechanics from the workshop at the other end of the square. Mr Fimberry hurried after them.

But there was no sign of Rory. Lydia didn’t want to feel solicitous about him but it seemed she had no choice. Bloody Fenella didn’t give a damn about him. Anyway, she needed to tell him about the typewriter.

Ten more minutes passed at a funereal rate. There was still no trace of him. She went downstairs and tapped on Mr Fimberry’s door. There were shuffling footsteps in the room. The door opened a crack.

‘Mrs Langstone!’ The eyes blinked behind the pince-nez. ‘What — what can I do for you?’

‘Do you know where Mr Wentwood is?’

‘No.’ Fimberry was in his shirtsleeves. ‘I’ve no idea, I’m afraid.’

‘Was he still at the meeting when you left?’

‘Oh no. He left just after you did. Were you all right? I was quite worried.’

‘Never better, thank you. When you say Mr Wentwood left, what do you mean exactly?’

‘A couple of the Blackshirts escorted him out. I didn’t see quite what was happening but I’m afraid he upset them.’ He peered at Lydia. ‘In fact I assumed you had all gone together — you and he and those other people.’

‘No. We got away.’

‘I — ah — I expect he will turn up.’ Fimberry swallowed. ‘They — they were rather rough, weren’t they?’

‘They behaved like animals,’ Lydia snapped. ‘Do you have your set of keys?’

‘Eh? Oh — you mean for the chapel? Of course. I shall go in later and make sure everything’s shipshape.’

‘So the Fascists were still there when you left?’

‘They were tidying up. They do a very neat job, I must say, unlike some.’

‘Will you come over there with me?’

‘Now?’

‘Yes — with your keys.’ She spoke slowly, as though to a child. ‘You’ve a perfect right to be there. After all you’re representing Father Bertram. And you need to make sure everything’s safe and sound.’

‘But what about you, Mrs Langstone? If your husband-’

‘That’s my affair, thank you.’

Mr Fimberry wilted under her gaze. To her horror, Lydia saw that the eyes behind the pince-nez were swimming with tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. The door began to close. ‘Really I am. But I’m not a brave man. Physically I–I suppose I’m a bit of a coward.’ He was trembling now. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve seen too much. I’ve seen what’s under the skin, you see, all the flesh and bone. It was the war, Mrs Langstone. I was very different before the war.’

Shades of dark grey became blinding white. Rory screwed up his eyes against the glare from the light bulb dangling from the vaulted ceiling. Iron scraped on stone. He slid off the table and stood up. The door opened. Slow footsteps approached.

Three men faced him: two Blackshirts and, standing in the doorway with his back to the cloister, the dapper figure of Sir Rex Fisher.

‘Good — not damaged,’ Fisher said to the two Blackshirts, addressing them with a certain formality as if he stood on a lecturer’s podium. ‘Force should always be proportionate.’ He abandoned his lecturer’s manner and approached Rory, limping slightly. Lips pursed, he stared at him. There was something both fastidious and contemplative about his gaze: he might have been at Christie’s, examining a picture which had little obvious merit and which he did not want to buy. He glanced over his shoulder. ‘And what were your instructions exactly?’

‘Mr Langstone-’

Fisher hissed, a tiny sign of displeasure.

The man recovered swiftly. ‘This chap was pointed out to us before the meeting began as a likely troublemaker. Believed to be a communist agitator, sir. If there was any sort of trouble, we was to nab him and put him in here. As you see.’ There was a hint of truculence in the man’s voice. ‘Nipping trouble in the bud, that’s what we was told.’

‘Has he been searched?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

Fisher’s neatly plucked eyebrows rose. He turned back to Rory. ‘And what is your name?’

‘Roderick Wentwood.’

‘Address?’

No point in concealing it: they would find out soon enough if they searched him. But would Fisher know that Lydia Langstone was living under the same roof?

‘Seven, Bleeding Heart Square.’

‘And why are you here, Mr Wentwood?’

Rory rubbed his cheek where a bruise was coming up. ‘As an interested member of the public, Sir Rex. Finding out what British Fascism has to offer the British businessman.’ He leant back against the table, hoping to conceal the fact that his legs were trembling. ‘I want to leave now.’

Fisher’s face was unsmiling but not hostile. ‘I’m sure. But I don’t think you should leave, Mr Wentwood. Not just yet. It might be rather amusing to find out what you had to say about us first.’

‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘Of course you do.’ Fisher removed Rory’s notebook from the pocket of his own overcoat. ‘I understand you were writing in this before you felt obliged to join the rowdy elements in the audience and try to disrupt the meeting.’ He flipped through the pages. ‘I don’t read shorthand myself. But many of my colleagues do. And I see that you have thoughtfully written some words en clair, as it were. Berkeley’s, for example. I wonder whether that might be the weekly magazine? Rather strange you didn’t think to mention that you’re a journalist.’