The Bohemian Girl

‘What have you done?’

He laughed without humour. ‘It’s a long tale.’ He began to tell her about Albert Cosgrove.

They walked for an hour, then, finding themselves in Oxford Street, went on and turned into Church Street and to Kettner’s. She surprised him again by making no objection to dinner; he had thought that she didn’t want to be in public with him, but there was nothing to that. They were both hungry, ate hugely of the French food, drank a bottle of wine, laughed. It can be like that, first a kind of ultimate talk on which futures hang, then lightness, even light-headedness, an emotional exhaustion, even with things left unsaid.

They talked about other things. She told him she was leaving the Society for the Improvement of Wayward Women. She was going to put her mother in a better home; she wanted to find herself a new place to live. She would remain, however, aggressively independent: his hint that she might live with him made her briefly angry.

So much had happened that he was confused about what he had told her and what he hadn’t. He realized only afterwards, when she looked confused by something he said, that she knew nothing about the mystery of the letter found in the Wesselons. He told her now about the note in the painting, the young woman named Mary Thomason; about Aubrey Heseltine, the art dealer, Geddys.

‘What have you done about the woman?’

‘Went to see Munro — it seems like weeks ago. It’s not his bailiwick. ’

‘Did you go to the Slade?’

‘Where Geddys said she was a student? No. I’m sure they wouldn’t talk to me — give information about a woman to a man who isn’t a relative, even a friend?’

‘They’d give it to me. I’d tell them she had applied to the Society for clerical work and we lost her address.’

‘Would you? When?’

‘Tomorrow. Tomorrow?’

‘Yes, tomorrow, yes-’

‘Off on another wild hare together, Denton?’

‘The last one did all right, didn’t it?’

She touched the scar on her face. ‘Is there a monster this time?’ She had told him once that she believed that all men hated all women.

‘I hope not.’

She smiled. ‘Well, it’s something we can do together while we’re — coming towards each other.’

She wouldn’t let him see her home. There was no repetition of the kiss, which, he was sure now, had been a mark of punctuation, not a statement. He saw her into a hansom and watched it roll away into the rain. So, he saw, did his police follower, now a thin man in a baggy tweed.

Time, she had said. Taking their time was ludicrous for two people of their ages. It was all of it ludicrous — men, women, kissing, emotional exhaustion, waiting. But probably inescapable.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Next day, he met Janet Striker in front of University College in Gower Street on a walk in the now-flowerless gardens near the college entrance. People, most of them students, were going around them. She had already been to the offices of the Slade.

He said, ‘I had a with Munro about her. The divisions and the coroner have never heard of Mary Thomason. That means she didn’t report anybody trying to hurt her, and her corpse hasn’t turned up.’

‘Good, because we’re going to talk to her landlady.’

‘You got her address?’

‘The Slade people wanted to be helpful. It wasn’t easy — the fact is, it was months ago, and she seems to have made very little impression, and students leave all the time. I did learn that she was on a list to do modelling, so she probably needed money.’

‘In the-Without her clothes on?’

Janet Striker laughed. ‘No, clothed. Nude models are a separate species, it seems.’

‘Why did they think the Society for the Improvement of Wayward Women wanted her? Did you suggest she was wayward?’

‘No, I suggested we were interested in starting an art class for our women. They didn’t question that — even gave me the names of other students who might want to teach.’

‘Had she told them she was leaving?’

‘A note, purportedly after she’d gone home. Somebody brought it by, they thought — they didn’t remember. I asked about her friends. They knew nothing, of course — it’s only an office. They suggested I see a man named Tonks who teaches drawing. Of course he isn’t here just now. Shall we go?’

‘You seem eager enough to enter into my project.’

‘I told you, it’s something we can do together.’

That sounded encouraging. ‘You can enter into my life, but I can’t enter into yours?’

She looked away as if something had caught her attention along Gower Street. ‘Maybe there’s something in that.’ She clutched his arm. ‘Let’s go — it’s raining.’

‘Not like last night.’ He was glad for a cue to mention it, afraid that the emotional intensity, the kiss, the dinner, would be allowed to slip away. She glanced at him, grinned, flushed. She squeezed his arm. ‘We’re going to Fitzroy Street. Do you know Fitzroy Street?’

‘Why did you smile just now?’

‘Because we’re both thinking about last night.’ She laughed. ‘What a pair of fools we are.’

Number 22 Fitzroy Street was a tall house that came right to the pavement, its brick blackened, a sign advertising rooms in a front window. Despite the remains of a broken urn that had fallen off the doorstep and lay next to it, and despite the roar and horse-piss smell of Euston Road hard by, the house had a look of stubborn respectability in the blind face it turned to the street — no wrappings of food put out on the windowsills to stay cool, no broken panes patched with paper, no views through uncurtained windows into student squalor. Beside a bell, a handwritten slip of paper said ‘Mrs Durnquess’.

‘The Slade keep her name on a list. She’s some sort of preferred haven for new students — her record is good, I suppose. The woman I dealt with said that Mrs Durnquess was “trusted by the parents”, whatever that means. I can’t imagine that parents with a girl at the Slade know much of what goes on, unless they live in Euston Square.’

She rang the bell. Thirty seconds after a second ring, an adolescent with an Irish accent opened the door. Without waiting to hear what they wanted, she said, ‘No rooms — all gone.’

‘I want to see Mrs Durnquess, my girl.’ Janet Striker’s voice could have gone through steel.

‘Oh, yes, ma’am. Didn’t look properly at you, I’m so sorry, ma’am. I’ll git her direct.’

‘May we come in?’

‘Oh, oh, sure you may, ma’am, I’m all to sixes and sevens today — forgive the mess the students make please, ma’am — and sir — I’ll just git-’ She was off down the corridor that ran the depth of the house. A door on their left had once led to a front parlour, Denton supposed, now rented to somebody trustworthy enough to keep the front window curtains closed. On their left, a staircase ran to the upper floors, once-figured carpet climbing it wearily, held back from collapse by tarnished rods. The banister and newel showed signs of many collisions. The place smelled of boiled meat.

‘I’ve seen worse,’ Denton murmured.

‘I live in worse.’

The Irish maid appeared again at the far end of the corridor, waving them towards her. Her hair hung down in sweaty curls from a grubby cap. She was fastening her sleeves, which had been unbuttoned when she opened the door, as if they had been rolled up. ‘Miz D will see you in her parlour,’ she said, and, pointing at the last of the doors, vanished.

A voice answered his knock. The open door showed a room chock-a-block with furniture, perhaps all the