London Library like Marion, so she has no borrowing record there, although they do remember her visiting a couple of times and having a look around. She did leave a record at the other places, but I haven’t got to them yet.’
Brock realised the size of the task Pip had taken on. It would take her weeks. ‘Hm.’ He scratched the side of his beard, looking at the lists. ‘Most of the titles look like books about Victorian history and art, don’t they? Are they all like that?’
‘Some are about poisons and criminal cases.’ She pointed at one, The Cult of the Poisoner, and another, The Arsenic Conspiracy. ‘And there are some that you can’t really tell.’ She indicated After Midnight and The Brinjal Pickle Factory, which were among the later entries on Tina’s list. ‘They could be about anything; you wouldn’t know from the titles. There’s a few like that. Why The Brinjal Pickle Factory? God knows what that’s doing here.’
Brock was intrigued. ‘Okay. Well, I might have a look at the lists while you carry on checking the books.’
Pip looked apprehensive, clearly wondering what the chief was up to, as he took off his coat and jacket and rolled up his sleeves.
He began by looking for items that cropped up most frequently, books that Marion and Tina had kept returning to. They seemed predictable enough: volumes of poetry, diaries and letters relating to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Then he tried to relate borrowings to what they knew of the key events in Marion’s life-when she moved out of Stamford Street, when she lost the baby, and immediately before she died. It seemed that Marion had first discovered the Haverlock diary, hidden in the Havelock archive, the previous September, after which she made regular requests to see it.
At the same time she’d been checking other volumes from the Havelock archive, including the two memoirs that Pip had mentioned, After Midnight and The Brinjal Pickle Factory, both written by a Robert Harding. Marion had also searched for items from the archive at other libraries, presumably to see if there could be other copies of the Haverlock diary in existence. Her requests for ‘Haverlock’ were apparently unsuccessful, but it seemed that she had found the Harding books at both the National Archives in Kew and the London Library, and had requested them at both places. Brock wondered why. Tina must have noticed these requests, he thought, because they had been among the latest items she had been investigating. In fact, The Brinjal Pickle Factory was the last book that she had requested from the British Library, on the morning of her death.
‘Have you had a look at this Brinjal Pickle Factory book?’ Brock asked Pip.
‘Yeah, it’s like a cookbook, Chief.’ She poked around in the pile of volumes in front of her and handed him a slim hardback. Its dark green covers were faded, its pages yellowed, and when he opened it he caught the musty smell of old, unread pages. It wasn’t just a cookbook, he discovered, more a memoir by a former colonial administrator of his early years in India before the war. Skimming it, he could find no references to arsenic or the Pre-Raphaelites that might have provided some clue as to why it was on the lists.
‘How about After Midnight then?’
It turned out to be much the same. Its subtitle was A Memoir of Bengal, 1947-71.
Brock scanned the index at the back of After Midnight, a catalogue of the great names of the early years of independent India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, from Mountbatten and Jinnah to Sheikh Mujib. There was no mention of Haverlock or Rossetti, but his eye did pick out Warrender, R. 82.
He turned to page eighty-two and found the reference: Among our staff in Calcutta at that time was Roger Warrender, later Sir Roger, newly arrived in early 1948 with his attractive young English bride, Joan. Roger had had a great war, by all accounts, serving with Wingate and the Chindits in Burma with distinction in 1943, and later in the counter-offensive against the Japanese invasion of India in 1944. He had enormous panache and energy, and the turbulent conditions in Bengal at the time of Independence soon called upon all his courage and stamina, not least when Joan fell pregnant with their first-born, Douglas, under trying conditions. They became among our longest-serving staff, both playing significant roles in our evolving relations with the ruling groups in East and West Bengal. They departed finally in 1963, to London briefly, before moving on to New York, where Roger took up a senior position with UNICEF.
‘Found something, sir?’ Pip said.
‘Call me Brock, Pip, for goodness’ sake.’ He showed her the page. ‘Looks like Marion was doing a bit of homework.’ He took the book and the lists of borrowings over to a nearby photocopier and worked for a while, then returned them to Pip’s table.
‘I’ll let you get on,’ he said, and strolled off, humming to himself, leaving Pip with a puzzled frown on her face.
•
Kathy looked flustered, negotiating with her Action Manager and someone from head office over a file of time sheets. From the doorway Brock could see that it wasn’t going well. He called over, ‘Kathy, can you spare a moment?’ She looked relieved, and left the others to it.
‘I just paid a visit to Pip at the British Library,’ Brock said.
‘Oh?’ She looked surprised. ‘Any luck?’
‘She’s plodding on. But maybe you can tell me something about this
…’ He spread out the photocopies he’d made. ‘These two books are in the Havelock archive, along with the Haverlock diary, and Marion also requested them at Kew and the London Library.’ He’d highlighted the entries with a coloured marker. ‘They’re about India. But when I looked in the index of one of them, After Midnight, I found a reference to the Warrenders. Here.’ He handed Kathy the copied page which she read.
‘Reading up about her boyfriend’s family history,’ she suggested.
‘Yes, only she discovered this book last September, see? And Douglas Warrender told you he didn’t meet Marion until October, didn’t he?’
‘But she was working for Sophie Warrender, so the name would still have been of interest to her.’
‘Mm, yes. Why look for the same book in three different libraries, though?’
Kathy said, ‘I didn’t realise that Douglas’s father was with UNICEF in New York. I wonder if he was involved with the well-drilling program in Bengal, where he’d been working all those years. Dr da Silva’s friend, Colin Ringland, told me about it. It’s his area of research. It’s funny, isn’t it, how they all seem to be interconnected.’
Brock thought. ‘Perhaps we need to shake them up a bit, open up some of these connections.’
‘Yes, I agree.’
‘Any ideas?’
‘I’ll think about it.’
He watched her go back to her desk and thought, She’s up to something. He knew her well enough after all this time.
•
Kathy didn’t have much longer to wait. As she sat down with a fresh cup of coffee her mobile phone rang, the number she’d given Sheena Rafferty. It was Keith, sounding all the more shifty for trying to appear guileless.
‘Yeah, erm, look… I was thinking about what you were saying to Sheena the other night, and it made me put two and two together, like.’
‘And what did you come up with?’
‘Eh? Well, some things began to make sense. You were talking about Warrender, right?’
‘Was I?’
‘Well, I know he was Marion’s squeeze. I think I may be able to help you with your inquiries.’
‘That’s very public spirited of you, Mr Rafferty. You’d better come in and see us.’
‘No, I don’t think so. Mr Warrender has got friends all over the place. I just want a little chat, somewhere neutral. You know the Swan in Lambeth?’
‘Okay, but I’ll have a colleague with me.’
‘No, don’t do that. Just you and me, okay? Make it five, tonight.’
•
The pub was dimly lit and almost deserted, the air sour with stale beer. The publican didn’t look up as she came in, both he and a customer at the bar engrossed in their newspapers. She spotted Rafferty sitting at a small table in a far dark corner with a pint of bitter in front of him and, to her surprise, Nigel Ogilvie at his side, sipping anxiously at a Bloody Mary. Kathy went over to the pair.
‘Wanna drink?’ Rafferty said nonchalantly.
‘Not from you I don’t,’ Kathy replied. She sat on a stool facing them and took a tape recorder out of her coat
