Two for Sorrow

certain amount of putting two and two together but, if I’m right, Jacob Sach—Amelia’s husband—is Marjorie’s father.’

‘You mean the Bakers adopted her?’ He was surprised. Maria Baker had struck him as someone whose own children were far too much of a burden for her to consider taking in other people’s on a long-term basis.

‘No, no, more than that—I’m not making myself clear. The Finchley case attracted a lot of publicity and comment, even by the standards of the crime—and if Josephine has her way, it will be resurrected for another generation.’ Penrose was tempted to argue, but the story was too important to interrupt. ‘Part of the strength of feeling was due to the horror which infanticide always causes, but part of it was due to Amelia Sach herself. She’d set herself up as a model of respectability, you see, caring for young women whom society judged too harshly, earning a living through her own initiative, working her way up the social scale—and it was all a front. Amelia was well known in the neighbourhood, she’d run several so-called nursing homes in Finchley—and her disgrace was an impossible burden to carry for those who were left behind after her execution. Apart from the stigma, there was also a very real possibility that one of the mothers who had unwittingly given up her child to be murdered would come looking for revenge. Sach is an easy name to trace, after all.’

‘So he changed it to something less recognisable. Jacob Sach became Joseph Baker.’

‘Exactly. Baker was his mother’s maiden name, I believe. There was much talk at the time of how involved he might or might not have been in Amelia’s business, and I can’t tell you what the truth of that was. I suspect only he really knows. But he did everything he could to distance himself from his wife’s crimes after the trial. He left Jacob Sach behind in that house in Finchley and moved away to make a new start as Joseph Baker. It was easy enough to do back then, and he didn’t waste any time. I believe the “For Sale” notice went up on the day of the execution.’

‘And you knew all this at the time?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t mean any disrespect, but it seems a lot of information for a prison warder to hold.’

She took the comment as it was meant. ‘I’d be the first to admit that I wasn’t ideal prison officer material, Inspector Penrose. I never quite managed the art of detachment that’s so important if you want to be good at the job. I got far too involved in the lives of those women—that’s partly why I didn’t stay at Holloway for very long. I thought I could solve all their problems.’ She smiled sadly. ‘In fact, all you can ever do for a woman inside is treat her like a human being and try to remain one yourself, but it’s hard not to make promises you can’t keep, particularly in the condemned cells—you say what they want to hear because you think they’ll never know the difference. I sat for hours at a time with Amelia during the last three weeks of her life, and I got to know her— better than I knew any of my colleagues at that prison, better than I know most people here. When your time is precious, you talk about what matters—and what mattered to Amelia was her daughter.’ She held up her hands when she saw his face. ‘Yes, I know what you’re thinking—the irony of that is quite remarkable when you consider her crimes, but Amelia would have made an excellent prison warder: her detachment from the reality of what she had done never faltered. To this day, I don’t know if she sensed that I was malleable and manipulated the situation or if she was simply desperate and poured her heart out—either way, I heard myself promising to look out for her child when she was gone.’

‘That was very generous.’

‘You mean very stupid.’

‘Perhaps naive would be fairer. That was why you were in touch with her husband?’

‘Yes. Amelia didn’t trust him to look after Lizzie properly, although I don’t think she ever dreamt that he’d give her up.’

‘And why did he?’

‘I can only guess, but I think she reminded him too much of Amelia. Lizzie was the spitting image of her mother.’

‘That seems very hard on the child.’

‘Perhaps, but I suppose there’s precious little room in a fresh start for the mirror image of what you’re running from. I never asked him why he did what he did—it wasn’t my business and I was all too conscious of having overstepped the mark already.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I went to see him two days before the execution. It was entirely unofficial, of course—I would have been dismissed instantly for making any contact with a prisoner’s family. But I’d promised Amelia that I’d talk to Jacob, offer him some help if he needed it, and I wanted to be able to look her in the eye before she died and tell her that I’d fulfilled my promise.’ She got up and walked over to the window which looked out on to Henrietta Street. ‘It was snowing then, as I recall. Winter is always so exciting before Christmas, and so depressing afterwards. Anyway, I found the house and knocked before I could change my mind. When Jacob came to the door, he didn’t recognise me at first; he’d seen me often enough at the prison when he came to visit his wife, but people look different out of context, and he thought I’d been sent by a newspaper—he’d had several reporters hanging round the house from the moment Amelia was arrested. He let me in eventually, and there was a desolation about that place, a bleakness that I’ve never seen before or since. As we went through to the kitchen, I noticed that all the rooms had been stripped bare. Lizzie was nowhere to be seen, and Jacob had started drinking heavily by then. There was a box absolutely crammed with empty bottles in the yard.’

She sighed heavily at the memory of it all, and sat back down at her desk. ‘To cut a long story short, I told him why I’d come and asked if there was anything I could do to help with Lizzie. He didn’t hesitate: he told me that if I really wanted to help, I could take the child off his hands, the sooner the better.’

‘That must have put you in a very difficult position.’

‘It did. I could hardly go back and tell Amelia that her daughter was about to lose her father as well as her mother, but I could see for myself that it wasn’t in Elizabeth’s best interests to stay in that house.’ The phrase echoed what she had said to Geraldine Ashby in the foyer, and Penrose wondered how many decisions she had made for other people over the years. ‘From what I could see, Jacob intended to drink himself to death as soon as possible,’ she added, ‘and he wasn’t about to let a child stand in his way. Then he threw a pile of papers across the table at me—letters, all from women who had contacted Amelia Sach, requesting to adopt a child.’

Penrose was astonished. ‘But my understanding was that there was never any truth in the adoption story. I thought it was just a front for what she really did?’

‘No, Inspector. It was never as straightforward as that. Not all the children were adopted, obviously, but some were.’

‘And did you show these letters to the police? It might have affected the case.’

She looked at him like a parent looks at a child who insists on the existence of the tooth fairy. ‘The police knew all about them already. As far as they were concerned, they had linked Amelia to the murder of one baby and that was enough to hang her. They weren’t interested in any of the other children who might have passed through her establishment.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I told Jacob I’d take care of it, but that he’d have to give me time. Then I took the letters, parcelled them up and sent them to one of the charities that looks after children’s welfare, together with an anonymous letter explaining the situation. Please don’t look at me like that, Inspector—I know I went too far. I should never have let myself become emotionally involved, but it was such a desperate situation and I just wanted to help. And sure enough, within a few days of Amelia’s execution, someone had been in touch with Jacob and the adoption was arranged. None of the women who wrote got the child, of course, but Phyllida Ashby had a lot to do with that; she was on the board of the charity, and the child went to her housekeeper. But it was all done legally and it worked out well, for a while at least—Lizzie could have made a good life for herself if she’d been allowed to leave her past behind. I don’t know how much you heard of what went on downstairs, but I stand by what I said to Lady Ashby— she had no business playing with things she didn’t understand.’

‘Although you said your mistake was twenty years ago, not thirty.’

‘Implying that what I feel truly guilty about is what happened then, rather than the original act? Yes, I suppose it is. I prided myself on knowing when my pupils needed help, but I was wrong. It would have been terrible if it had been any of those girls, but it was worse because it was Elizabeth. It felt like I’d betrayed two people—her, and Amelia.’

Penrose was interested in the extent to which Celia Bannerman continued to talk of Sach as a friend rather