on the discomfort as an antidote to the pain which seared through her whenever she thought of having missed Lizzie’s fourth Christmas, and of the Christmases yet to come which might now proceed without her. She missed her daughter even more than she missed her freedom. The sorrow of a lost child and the sound of a mother crying softly in the night were imprinted on her heart, part of the pattern of her chosen life; for the first time, she understood how that felt.
From the moment she set foot in Holloway, Amelia had made Lizzie’s future her priority and it hadn’t taken her long to identify an ally. Celia Bannerman was younger than most of the prison officers, and had not yet served at Holloway for long enough to soak up its cynicism; neither had she learned to hide her horror at the way in which some of the prisoners were treated, and Amelia had known as soon as she met her that Celia’s sympathies could be harnessed if necessary. She had considered offering her money to look out for Lizzie, but sensed that this was not the way to deal with someone whose very desire to do good made her vulnerable; she could exploit that vulnerability if necessary and, although Amelia still firmly believed that she would be vindicated in court, she took comfort from the fact that Lizzie would not be left solely in her father’s care.
It was getting late, but she was too anxious to try to rest and, in any case, the plank bed was almost impossible to sleep on. She was fighting a cold—the blue serge cloak which she was expected to wear for exercise had been greasy with dirt around the neck from its previous occupant, so Amelia had scrubbed it repeatedly, preferring to shiver in it wet than wear it dry and filthy—and her hands were so chapped that they had begun to bleed from innumerable small cracks. She had asked for some ointment to ease the soreness, but the Stuke woman only laughed; in the end, Bannerman told her that the grease from the top of the cocoa, rubbed in well, was an excellent remedy, so she skimmed it off on to a plate each evening and applied it as it set. Grease was one thing that Holloway had no shortage of: a thin film of it covered everything she touched with such relentless thoroughness that she could almost believe it came from her own skin.
At least she would be allowed to wear normal clothes at the trial tomorrow, although she knew already that she would feel like a stranger in them: every last trace of her femininity had been systematically and efficiently eroded over the last seven weeks. She visualised the state of her hair after so long without attention, knowing from the evidence on her collar that her scalp was dry and full of dandruff, and that her skin would appear sickly and sallow in the harsh light of the courtroom. Not surprisingly, she had lost weight, but, more significantly, thanks to the psychological effect of appearing as a slut amongst dozens of sluts, she had lost her self-respect. What sort of impression would she make on the jury if she looked as bad as she felt? Until now, she had considered the absence of a looking glass to be a merciful omission; tomorrow, she would need all the help she could get to make herself presentable.
There was a noise outside in the corridor, and Amelia jumped up to hammer on the cell door. When it opened, she was relieved to see Celia Bannerman. ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘What was the verdict on Vale?’
‘Two years’ hard labour,’ Celia said; there was the ghost of a smile on her lips, or so Amelia thought in the flicker of the gas lamp. Suddenly, she was overcome by a relief so intense that she could scarcely breathe. Hard labour—what could be harder than these hours of waiting, trying to guess what her future would be? She would gladly fill coal scuttles in the pouring rain or haul gallons of scalding liquid up three flights of stairs if it meant she could see her daughter at the end of it. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.
‘You’ve heard then?’ Ethel Stuke came up behind Bannerman and smirked at Amelia. Wearing a dark-blue bonnet with strings hanging down on either side of her long face, jangling the bunch of keys and chains at her waist, the prison warder reminded Amelia of something from Dickens which had missed its appointment with Christmas but was determined to deliver the warning anyway. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, Sach. Yours is a very different case. Vale hasn’t killed anyone.’
‘Neither have I. The jury will understand that.’ Amelia tried to keep the doubt out of her voice.
Stuke laughed scornfully. ‘Not when Darling’s finished with them, they won’t. He’s not called the hanging judge for nothing, you know.’ She walked over to where Amelia sat on the bed and gently straightened her collar, allowing her hand to linger for a second on the back of her neck. It was a fleeting gesture, but its significance was obvious and Amelia felt the panic well up inside her. ‘Anyway,’ Stuke continued, ‘Vale was lucky with the prosecution—made a right mess of it, he did.’ She paused to make sure that her words were hitting home. ‘Trouble is, he’s defending you. Sleep well, Mrs Sach.’
She forced Bannerman out of the cell ahead of her, and the door clanged shut behind them. Their footsteps faded away, and Amelia listened as the calls for attention from further down the landing grew faint from exhaustion, then ceased altogether. Left alone with Stuke’s words, she was too frightened even to scream.
Chapter Eleven
Sylvia Timpson looked suspicious, then horrified when she opened her front door to Fallowfield on Saturday afternoon. Clearly policemen were as unwelcome in the claustrophobic suburbia of Westcott Road as they were in Campbell Bunk, because she ushered him over the doorstep of her small terraced house with unseemly haste, then carefully positioned herself in the hall to ensure that he could go no further without an explanation.
‘I would have thought that any more questions about this unpleasant business could have been handled at the club, Sergeant. I don’t appreciate being bothered in my own home.’
Fallowfield smiled politely at her. ‘I’m afraid it’s a different unpleasant business this time, Mrs Bishop,’ he said, noticing her surprise at his use of her married name. ‘Marjorie Baker was killed last night, and I need to ask you a few questions.’
At first, she seemed to struggle to place the name, and then said: ‘The Motley girl? She was at the club yesterday lunchtime. But why do you need to talk to me?’
‘We’re speaking to everyone who saw her on Friday,’ Fallowfield said non-committally. ‘Might I come in for a minute?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She led him through to a typically unused front parlour where the only thing that caught his attention was a photograph on the mantelpiece of a young woman in a nurse’s uniform, standing on the pavement outside St Thomas’s Hospital. She saw him looking at it. ‘That was taken so long ago now that even I don’t recognise myself,’ she said, and there was a note of bitterness in her voice which she made no effort to hide.
‘I didn’t know you’d been a nurse, Mrs Bishop.’
‘Why would you?’
‘Is that how you came to be at the Cowdray Club?’
‘How I ended up there, you mean? Yes. I lost my nursing career because I was foolish enough to get married, Sergeant. Now I sort mail for the women who were cleverer than me—women who’ve kept their independence—and the women who are too rich or too titled to care. It’s funny how life works itself out, isn’t it?’
‘You regret your marriage?’
‘I was one of those starry-eyed young women who gave themselves up to the service of the sick during the war. It was a typical nurse-and-wounded-soldier marriage, like a thousand others. We all felt as though we needed to make up to those boys for what they’d gone through, but that was all they were—boys, looking for a mother figure. The gratitude was welcome for a while, but it soon wears off.’ Her description of the marriage was very similar to her husband’s, Fallowfield noticed. ‘But what can this possibly have to do with Marjorie Baker?’
‘I believe you were on duty yesterday when Miss Baker came to the club.’
‘That’s right. She delivered some things from Motley for Miss Bannerman.’
‘How long was she there?’
‘About fifteen minutes, I suppose.’
‘And who else did she talk to?’
‘Miss Size was there. They obviously knew each other already.’ From her tone, there was no difficulty in guessing what her opinion was on the rehabilitation of prisoners. ‘And Lady Ashby made the usual exhibition of herself in the foyer.’
‘In what way?’
‘She made it very clear that she was looking forward to her fitting, if you know what I mean. That was it— except Baker wanted to see Lucy Peters, so I made her wait outside until Peters’s break. We can’t have staff
