Bleeding Heart Square

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Once again they moved forward like a wounded crab, his arm still draped over her shoulders.

‘Are you all right?’ he said, his voice much clearer now.

‘It’s you I’m worried about.’

‘I didn’t mean to-’

‘Save your breath.’

Rory was flagging badly. Step by step, they struggled onwards. Lydia kicked open the lavatory door. She manoeuvred him inside, lowered the cover over the pan, and sat him down. His breathing began to quieten. She turned on the Ascot and filled the basin with hot water. There were two damp hand towels on the rail. She used one as a flannel to bathe his face. The water in the basin turned a darker and darker shade of pink. He kept his eyes closed, and she examined the blue veins on the lids. It occurred to her with a little jolt of surprise that this was the first time in her life that she had ever washed anyone other than herself.

‘How does your mouth feel?’ she asked.

The eyes flickered open. ‘Like a battlefield.’

‘Have you lost any teeth?’

‘I don’t think so.’ He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. ‘One’s chipped.’

‘You’re going to have some bruising on your face. I’m not sure what to do about the ankle. Assuming it’s a sprain, we take off the shoe, bandage it up and raise it on a stool or something. The trouble is-’

‘No bandage, no stool,’ he said. ‘Also, if I take the shoe off I’m not sure I’m going to get it on again. Where are we? Is this where you work?’

‘Shires and Trimble are two floors up. I think I’m going to have to get help. You can’t walk out of here. You’ll need a taxi. The problem is we don’t want to get you out while Marcus might still be around.’

He nodded. ‘And I’d better not go back to the flat.’

‘The others were going to Mecklenburgh Square.’

‘I know,’ he said absently. Then he looked sharply at her. ‘But you were with them, weren’t you — Fenella and Dawlish? And that old chap who stood up and started shouting.’

‘Mr Goldman. He’s a jeweller in Hatton Garden.’

‘What happened?’

‘We hid in here. The Biff Boys thought we’d had time to get away.’ She didn’t mention Serridge, and how he and Howlett had lied to save them. It was an odd circumstance; it needed more thought.

‘I think they planned to get me from the start,’ Rory said. ‘As soon as the row started at the back of the hall, a couple of them near the front made a beeline.’

‘I was afraid of that.’

He glanced up at her, and his eyes were bright with intelligence. ‘Is that why you came? To warn me?’

‘My sister told me Marcus was after you.’

‘I thought you wanted to avoid your husband.’

She tried to ignore the embarrassment she felt. Rory was fiddling with a patch of grazed skin on his knuckles; perhaps he was embarrassed too. For a moment neither of them spoke.

At last he lifted his head. ‘Thank you. He arranged the attack outside the house the other night too.’ He hesitated. ‘A case of mistaken identity.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I gathered from something your husband let slip that he thought I’d been — pestering you. He thought I was Fimberry.’

‘Poor Mr Fimberry,’ Lydia said automatically. ‘But why?’

‘He must have seen me in Fimberry’s room when I was helping Mrs Renton with the curtains. Has he always been like that? So — so possessive?’

‘Yes.’ Lydia thought of the shocked and bloody face of the amorous subaltern at the hunt ball and Marcus’s smirk when he threw the boy out of the house in front of Lydia and the servants. Desperate to change the subject, she said, ‘The other reason I wanted to see you was because of the typewriter.’ She was talking too quickly, and he was looking puzzled. ‘That’s why I’ve got the key to this house. There’s a cupboard on the landing upstairs outside our office, with an old typewriter inside. If you needed to use one over the weekend for your article, I thought you could use that. I know where they keep the key.’

Rory stared at her as though seeing her for the first time. ‘You’re very kind,’ he said slowly. ‘Thank you. But listen — there’s something I need to tell you. I’m worried about your husband. He attacked me with a cosh.’

‘You’re safe here.’

‘No — I’m worried about him. I had to fight back however I could. I used the goat’s skull as a weapon. What happened to it?’

‘It’s still outside the chapel as far as I know. You dropped it. So you actually attacked him with it?’

‘I jabbed it in his face. I may have poked it in his eye. Possibly both eyes.’

‘He didn’t seem too badly damaged,’ Lydia said. ‘Judging by the way he was coming after you.’

‘I’ve never gone for anyone like that. Do you understand? It was like sinking down to their level.I–I didn’t feel quite human any more.’

Lydia bit back the retort that Marcus had often had that effect on her too. ‘If it’s any consolation, I doubt Marcus is worrying about the damage he did to you. What Marcus does has to be right. That’s article one of his personal code.’

He was staring at her. ‘You’re a strange mixture.’

‘What you’re thinking is that I’m bitter,’ she said. ‘I know it’s not a very endearing trait but believe me that’s what living with Marcus does to you.’

At that moment it struck her that this was the strangest conversation to be having at this time and place, and with a man like Rory Wentwood. But she didn’t care any more, not about that sort of thing. She felt that she had earned the right to speak her mind. She thanked Marcus for that at least.

She turned away from Rory and examined her face in the mirror over the basin. After the events of the last few hours, she was surprised how respectable she looked. A trifle pale and a trifle shabby, she thought, but you could take me almost anywhere. Aloud she said, ‘I’d better go and tell Mr Dawlish and Miss Kensley where you are. What’s the house number in Mecklenburgh Square?’

‘Fifty-three. You’ll probably have to go down to the area door.’

It was a relief to be dealing with practicalities again. Lydia warned Rory about the danger of showing a light. She gave him a cigarette and left him smoking it forlornly on the lavatory.

At the front door, she knelt to look through the letter box. The street lamp on the other side of the road was already alight. The muddy golden aura around the bulb holder was streaked with rain, and the roadway glistened with moisture. No one was about.

She let herself out of the house and ran over to the wicket gate in Bleeding Heart Square. On the way, a puddle caught her unawares, soaking her shoes and ankles. In the square there were lights in the windows of her father’s sitting room and of the two ground-floor rooms — Mrs Renton’s and Mr Fimberry’s. As she approached the door of number seven, Mrs Renton’s curtain twitched.

Upstairs, the sitting-room door was ajar, and she heard her father’s voice. He had a visitor. Marcus? She slipped across the landing and into her bedroom, where she opened the wardrobe as quietly as possible. She changed her stockings and shoes, found her umbrella and tiptoed back towards the stairs.

The sitting-room door opened.

‘Lydia, my dear,’ Captain Ingleby-Lewis said. ‘There’s someone else to see you. We’re having quite a day, aren’t we?’

The heartiness in his voice made her instantly suspicious. Marcus? Please God, not now, not ever. Her father’s articulation was clearer than it usually was at this time of day, which suggested that he hadn’t had as much to drink as usual.

‘Mrs Alforde dropped in. Come along.’

Reluctantly, she allowed herself to be drawn into the room. Mrs Alforde was sitting in the armchair near the fire, bolt upright, prim and respectable, still wearing her hat.