Two for Sorrow

woman with so much still ahead of her—and people adore her, though she doesn’t look for it, sometimes she doesn’t even notice it. From the way you leap to her defence, I imagine you understand that yourself.’

Penrose was furious with himself for allowing his hesitation to acknowledge the truth of what she said, and his response was uncharacteristically simplistic. ‘You envy Josephine’s success,’ he said.

‘No, not at all. Please don’t misunderstand me, Inspector—I’ve got an enviable career of my own to look back on. The improvements in nursing and in administration which I’ve helped to make will last, and women’s lives will be the better for it. I don’t regret any of the decisions I’ve made about my life, and I’m content. Not happy. Content. But every now and again, respected, contented women of my age wonder what they might have missed. It doesn’t last long, and we don’t get hysterical about it, but it’s there.’

As she spoke, she opened the top right-hand drawer of her desk and took out an envelope, which she passed across the desk to him. Penrose opened it and took out a single page of the Bible, roughly torn from the rest of the book. It was from the Song of Solomon, and, across the top, two words were written in pencil: ‘Thank you.’

‘Amelia gave me that on the eve of her execution,’ she explained. ‘It comforted me until Elizabeth died, and it’s haunted me ever since. You see, Inspector, when you make a decision that your work will be your entire life, it’s important to get that right. If you don’t, you feel that you’ve failed on more than a professional level; you feel that you’ve failed as a woman. When Elizabeth Price committed suicide, I had no right to mourn her, except as a teacher mourns the loss of a pupil; I wasn’t her mother, I wasn’t even her friend. More to the point, I couldn’t think of anyone whose death would change my personal life rather than my professional one—and I suppose that made me wonder if it was all worth it. After Lady Cowdray died, things changed here, and now I find myself wondering that again.’ She paused, apparently embarrassed by her own frankness, and then added more cynically: ‘You press on as if it were worth it, though, don’t you? To admit the lie would be unbearable.’

‘Why are you telling me this, Miss Bannerman?’ Penrose asked, unable to put his finger on why their conversation had taken quite such a personal turn.

‘I don’t really know,’ she admitted. ‘I suppose it’s because what Lady Ashby said has touched a nerve. If you’d come an hour later, I might have had a chance to compose myself and you might not have had to listen to a middle-aged woman’s regrets when you’re trying to conduct a murder investigation.’

She smiled and stood to dismiss him, but Penrose was not quite ready to leave. He had come here to find out more about the Cowdray Club and the women in that photograph, and, although what Celia Bannerman had told him suggested that Maria Baker might only have mentioned the picture as a ploy to direct his attention away from her door, he still wanted some answers. ‘I’ve got just a few more questions, Miss Bannerman, if you don’t mind,’ he said evenly. ‘I won’t keep you much longer.’ Irritated, she sat down again. ‘Do people sign in and out when they leave the club?’

‘It’s a private club, Inspector, not a prison. Trust me—I know the difference. We don’t expect our members to report to us if they want to leave the building.’

‘But there’s always someone on reception?’

‘Yes, all day, and we have a night porter who takes over at ten o’clock.’

‘What about other ways in and out?’

‘There’s another entrance in Henrietta Street. Strictly speaking, it’s for the College of Nursing, but there’s nothing to stop members of the club using it if it’s more convenient.’

‘And there’s no one on that door.’

‘No. It’s locked at midnight, so your murderer may just have got back in time.’

Penrose ignored the sarcasm; the rapid change from deeply personal information to the most basic of police questioning seemed bizarre even to him. ‘So there’s no way of knowing who was in the building last night?’ She shook her head. ‘What can you tell me about your receptionist, Miss Timpson? Or should I say Mrs Bishop?’

Celia Bannerman looked at him with a grudging respect. ‘Sylvia has been with us since the club opened. She’s exceptionally good at her job—conscientious, reliable and always pleasant to the members and their guests. And if she chooses to use her maiden name at work, that’s really no business of mine—or, I would have thought, of yours.’

‘So she’s popular with your members?’

‘She’s polite and discreet, qualities which are much appreciated by us all. It’s not the business of a receptionist to make herself “popular”, as you put it.’

‘To your knowledge, did she know Marjorie Baker? Other than through the gala, I mean.’

‘I couldn’t say for sure, but I can’t imagine why their paths would have crossed.’

‘What about Miriam Sharpe and Lady Ashby? Did Marjorie have much contact with them, either through her work or outside of it? You said yourself—a dress fitting can be quite an intimate affair, and I imagine there are plenty of opportunities for conversation.’

‘Inspector Penrose, I have no idea what you’re trying to insinuate, but I refuse to discuss the members of this club or my colleagues unless you give me a very good reason why I should—and so far, you’ve failed to do that. You’re investigating the death of a seamstress on somebody else’s premises. I’ve made it clear to you that the dead girl came from a family with a lot to hide; even if that has nothing to do with her murder, I would have thought that there were more natural paths to pursue than this one—the people she worked with, for example, or the women she was in Holloway with. Grudges breed very easily within a prison environment, and no one has a longer memory than an ex-convict. The Cowdray Club is vulnerable enough at the moment without your help and, if you persist with this line of questioning, you will leave me no choice but to complain to your superior.’

‘Please feel free to speak to the chief constable, Miss Bannerman, but I know that his wife will be reassured to know that we’re making good progress in getting to the bottom of the spiteful letters that seem to be disturbing her sleep at the moment.’

It was a comment made without any substance whatsoever, but it had the desired effect: for the first time in the entire interview, Celia Bannerman seemed at a disadvantage. ‘What can those letters possibly have to do with the murder of Marjorie Baker?’ she asked cautiously.

‘That’s precisely what I’m trying to find out,’ Penrose said, ‘but it’s highly likely that there is a connection.’

‘By “connection”, I assume you mean that you think Marjorie Baker sent them? Why would you jump to that conclusion?’

‘There are aspects of this murder which suggest that Miss Baker was killed to keep her quiet,’ he began, and this time he refused to let her interrupt. ‘Yes, I know what you’re about to say, and I agree with you—what you’ve told me about her family history is a very credible motive for her murder. However, I have to investigate every possibility, and Marjorie’s mother has shown me a photograph which she believes may have something to do with her daughter’s death.’

‘A photograph?’ She looked concerned and with good reason, Penrose thought: if Marjorie had sent those letters and been killed for it, the implications for the Cowdray Club’s reputation were much more serious than Celia Bannerman could ever have imagined, and she was certainly intelligent enough to realise that. ‘The photograph was in Tatler last month. You were in it yourself.’

‘Yes, I remember it—the one taken at Motley.’

‘That’s right. Mrs Baker seemed to think that Marjorie was being forced by her father into doing something as a result of that photograph. Obviously, in light of what you’ve said, I’ll need to talk to Mrs Baker again to find out if she knew who her husband really was and, if so, how she fits into that history—but I can’t ignore other possibilities.’

‘Miss Baker might have sent the notes, I suppose, but I don’t see how she’d have gathered the information. I hate to say it, but I always assumed they were sent from within the organisation.’

‘She was friends with a Lucy Peters—they were in prison together and kept in touch afterwards. I understand that Miss Peters works here.’

‘Yes, she’s a housemaid. She’s been here for a few months, but we’re not in the habit of allowing housemaids access to personal information.’

‘Even so, they have a way of finding out. There was a small silver photograph frame found on Miss Baker’s body. It matches the description of one of the items which has been reported missing from the club, and it’s possible that the two girls were involved in both the thefts and the anonymous letters.’

She thought about it, and then said reluctantly: ‘It’s Lucy’s half day today, but I’ll speak to her as soon as she