Promise me you’ll stand her corner when you write about her.’
‘Good God, Gerry, I couldn’t possibly write about her now. Too many people have been hurt—it wouldn’t be right.’
‘But why not, if it’s the truth?’
‘That’s just the point—how do I know what’s true and what isn’t? If we hadn’t had this conversation, I’d have given completely the wrong impression of Lizzie, and then how would you have felt? And God knows what lies and misunderstandings I’m spinning about her mother. You can’t guess at history.’
‘And you can’t ignore it, either. I admit I was furious at first when I heard you talking, but then I listened to what you said about why you were doing it and it made perfect sense. It’s right that we try to understand—not judge, but understand. If Lizzie had believed that more people would be willing to do that—if she’d been given the chance to do it herself—perhaps there’d be no book to write.’ She held up her hands in a mock truce. ‘Far be it for me to try to influence your famous sense of right and wrong—but I, for one, would feel better if Lizzie’s story were told fairly. Promise me you’ll think about it?’ Josephine nodded, but remained unconvinced. Gerry stood up and winked at her. ‘That’s if you’re not too busy after Friday night.’
They left the dining room, much to the relief of staff who were waiting to reset the tables for lunch, and walked slowly back upstairs. ‘What’s Marta like?’ Gerry asked, and then, as Josephine hesitated, added impatiently: ‘I don’t want a carefully considered paragraph. I want an instant reaction. Put the writer down and be a normal human being for once.’
‘All right. She’s impossible—quick to lose her temper, brave to the point of recklessness, and irritatingly good at seeing straight through any nonsense. She’s stronger than anyone I’ve ever met—she’d have to be to survive what she’s been through—and she’s never afraid to speak her mind. She’s passionate, warm and intelligent, full of contradictions, and I suspect that life would be infuriating with her, but never dull.’
‘And never peaceful.’
Josephine laughed. ‘No, probably not.’
‘And she’s beautiful, from what I remember of the press pictures.’
‘Anyone with that description would be, surely? But yes, in the way you mean, she’s beautiful.’
They stopped outside the drawing room, and Gerry looked at her knowingly. ‘I take back what I said about your having made your decision already,’ she said. ‘But whichever way you jump, at least talk to her. She’s given you an easy way out by telling you not to turn up if the answer’s no, but she doesn’t mean that. Talking to someone face to face is so important—if I know anything now, I know that. And it’s not for me to give you advice, but she won’t appreciate any more of that false modesty you seem to have got away with last time—so don’t tell her she doesn’t know how she feels, and if she says she’s in love with you, accept that she’s in love with you. The question—the only question—is whether you want that love or not. And Josephine?’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s plenty of time for peace, eventually.’
Chapter Eight
Except for its prison, Holloway was an undistinguished area which blended so uneventfully into the neighbouring boroughs that it was hard to identify where one ended and another began. Campbell Road, where Marjorie and her father had lived, cut out of Seven Sisters Road, dissecting a line of busy shops close to Finsbury Park tube station. Although not technically a slum, the street held some of the poorest housing in north London and, to Penrose’s mind, some of the worst living conditions: his first few days in the force had brought him here—called to the death of a three-year-old girl, accidentally suffocated in her sleep by a family huddled together in one bed against the cold—and he had never forgotten the misery of that visit, fifteen years ago on a day very similar to this.
‘Kids brought up in the Bunk are usually tough enough to take care of themselves,’ Fallowfield said as he drove, giving the street the name by which it was best known among both locals and police, ‘but I don’t see how anything could have given that girl a chance.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t get her face out of my mind, you know, Sir. Poor kid—how old can she have been? Twenty? Twenty-one?’
‘Twenty-three, according to the records my cousins kept,’ Penrose said, ‘and she’d done three stretches in Holloway in as many years.’
‘Well that figures, coming from round here.’
Fallowfield’s comment might have sat uncomfortably with the welfare officers, but it was not entirely unjust. All districts had their notorious streets, but Campbell Road’s reputation was darker than most and the Bunk held a certain legendary status amongst the officers who dealt with trouble there on a daily basis. A chameleon by nature, the street was rife with domestic violence and disputes between households, yet it closed ranks at the slightest hint of interference from strangers, presenting an unfriendly but remarkably united face to the outside world.
They parked at the southern end of the street in front of a newsagent’s and a small beer off-licence. A group of men stood around on the pavement talking and idling away a Saturday morning, their ragged coat collars turned up to keep out the cold, their breath mingling with smoke from their cigarettes. The air bristled with hostility as Penrose and Fallowfield got out of the car. ‘Watch your motor, copper?’ a small boy shouted insolently from the other side of the street, and one or two of the men sniggered as a handful of snow and mud hit the windscreen. The boy moved nearer to the car, kicking a few stones towards the vehicle as he walked, full of bravado in front of his friends. Fallowfield glared at him and seemed about to say something, but Penrose shook his head. How early the antagonism set in, he thought as he led the way up the street; the oldest of the boys could only have been six or seven.
The Bunk was broad enough to give the impression that its houses had a right to be there and, unlike most slums, the street did not crouch into the shadows of a factory or gasworks. In fact, a stranger oblivious to its history would never have guessed that the three-storey buildings housed anything other than the artisan classes they had originally been designed for. The social face of the street may have changed, but traces of its architectural aspirations remained in the generous pavements and iron railings which ran in front of the houses, protecting a tiny sliver of private land from public footsteps. The door to number 35 was worn and neglected, the woman who answered it much the same; she looked forty but was probably younger; Penrose could smell the alcohol on her breath before she even opened her mouth. ‘We’re looking for a Mrs Baker,’ he said. ‘Is she at home?’
The woman smirked. ‘Maria? I don’t know where else she’d be. Top of the house—two rooms at the back. Would you like me to show you up, Sir?’
She spat the last word out sarcastically, and Penrose pushed the door open and walked past her, ignoring the mock curtsey that accompanied the offer. ‘No, thank you. We’ll find our own way.’
Inside, the house was in desperate need of repair: the plastered walls were peeling, the ceilings stained and dingy and, as they walked over to the stairs, Penrose noticed that the floorboards were springy with damp. Sections of balustrade had been removed for firewood, making the dimly lit, uneven steps more dangerous than ever. From what he could see through open doors on his way up, the overcrowding seemed to have got worse since he was last here. There must be more people per room than the law allowed, but that was hardly surprising; he knew from experience that what was acceptable was defined by what people were used to rather than what was legal.
‘We’ll just tell her the facts as gently as possible,’ he said quietly to Fallowfield on the middle landing. ‘Presumably she knew them both better than anyone else, so it’ll be interesting to see what conclusions
He knocked at the first of four doors which led off the second-floor corridor, and it was answered almost immediately by a dark-haired woman in her late forties or early fifties. She looked up at him with tired eyes, her face sallow and expressionless—the look of guilt or dread which usually greeted his arrival was entirely absent. ‘Mrs Baker?’
‘What’s he done now?’ Her voice was deep and roughened by cigarettes, her accent that of a born Londoner. ‘It must be something serious if they’ve sent the busies. Or is it Marjorie you’re after?’
‘I need to talk to you about both of them, I’m afraid. May we come in?’ She nodded and stood aside to let them pass. After the dirt and degradation of the rest of the house, the Bakers’ room was refreshingly clean, but
