Two for Sorrow

‘Why didn’t you call me as soon as Lucy returned to the club?’

Her demeanour changed instantly when she saw that he had no sympathy with her self-recriminations. ‘I left a message as you’d instructed, Inspector, so please have the decency to acknowledge your own shortcomings as I have mine. Cowdray Club business can hardly be brought to a standstill while we wait for the left hand of Scotland Yard to communicate with the right.’

‘No, Miss Bannerman, of course it can’t. A girl has been murdered and another one lies at death’s door, but evening cocoa must still be drunk.’ He ushered her into the corridor, locking the door behind him. ‘There will be a police presence outside the treatment room until Lucy regains consciousness,’ he said, as he walked with her back to the stairs. ‘I’ll take your advice, and remain positive that we’ll be able to speak to her very soon. There’s no doubt in my mind that she holds the key to Marjorie’s murder.’

It was said with a confidence which he certainly didn’t feel, but he thought he saw a flicker of fear pass across Celia Bannerman’s face. On their own, the lies that she had told signified nothing; taken together, though, they painted a rather different picture, and the possibility that she had simply been mistaken on so many accounts was slim. He wondered if he should confront her with them now, but decided against it; there was nothing that he could relate directly to Marjorie’s murder, and the other reason for bringing things to a head—ensuring Lucy’s safety, albeit a little late—could be easily achieved by the police presence he had warned her of. No—before he talked to Celia Bannerman again, he wanted to find out if Marjorie and Lucy had been to see Ethel Stuke, and, if so, what she had told them.

Downstairs, he met Fallowfield just coming up from the kitchens. ‘Anything interesting your end?’ he asked, after telling him about Miriam Sharpe and Celia Bannerman.

‘No, Sir. Nobody saw what happened—only Miss Bannerman trying to help the girl, and then the business of getting her moved upstairs.’

‘I wonder how hard she really was trying to help Lucy?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re missing something, Bill. Think about it: the only motive we’ve got at the moment for Marjorie’s murder—and her father’s—is what they knew about the Sach family history. Put Edwards to one side for a minute. There are three people in this club who freely admit a connection with that story— Geraldine Ashby, Miriam Sharpe and Celia Bannerman—but none of them has a reason to kill because of it. To our knowledge, though, only one of them’s lying; Bannerman lied to Josephine about Ethel Stuke’s death, and to me about going to see Jacob Sach; now she’s first on the scene at Lucy’s accident. I can’t help feeling I made a terrible mistake in sticking with Edwards rather than coming straight here when we heard Lucy was back.’

‘I’m not sure about that, Sir. What if Edwards was more involved in the baby farming than anyone realised, and lied in court to save her own neck? She told us herself—Sach loved his wife; if he found out later that Amelia had been made a scapegoat, he’d have been more resentful of Edwards than ever. He might have told Marjorie, maybe even threatened to go to the police—that would give her a powerful motive to shut them both up.’

‘You think Edwards did it?’

‘I wouldn’t rule it out. She lied, too, remember—she’s been lying for years.’

‘Yes, but I can understand why. I bet what she told us about the backlash they had to put up with after the trial only scratches the surface. On the other hand, Bannerman’s lies seem senseless—that’s what makes them interesting. There’s a significance in them that we haven’t seen yet.’

Fallowfield looked doubtful. ‘I spoke to the kitchen girls just now, Sir. Lucy was telling them how kind Miss Bannerman had been to her this evening. Said they’d had a long talk.’

‘Does Bannerman honestly strike you as the kind of woman who has cosy chats with her staff?’ Penrose asked impatiently. ‘Patronise or discipline—those are her codes, and there’s nothing in between.’

‘You don’t like her, do you?’

‘No, but that’s not the point,’ he said, a little more emphatically than was necessary. ‘Surely you don’t, either?’

‘Not especially, but I admire what she did as a prison warder. There’s obviously more to her than posh clubs and committees. And I do think she’s got more sense than to try to kill a girl in the middle of the Cowdray Club on a Saturday night. It’s a bit risky.’

Fallowfield’s defence of Celia Bannerman was beginning to grate on Penrose, not least because it made sense. ‘It didn’t have to be risky—that staircase is effectively a separate room, and it can’t be seen from the foyer or the public rooms above. And perhaps she had no choice—perhaps that little chat you mentioned was about establishing what had to be done. If Lucy had been to see Ethel Stuke with Marjorie—those postcards aren’t a coincidence—and learned something about Bannerman, then Bannerman would have been forced to act before we got to her.’ Fallowfield remained unconvinced, but Penrose pressed on. ‘Try this for a scenario— Sach sees that picture in Tatler and tells Marjorie something about Celia Bannerman that he thinks he might be able to make some money from, something she might pay to keep quiet. He wants Marjorie to do the dirty work because of her connections with Bannerman through Motley, but she doesn’t believe him. Why should she? He’s got her into trouble in the past, and this time she’s got more to lose. So she verifies it for herself. Remember what she said to Lady Ashby—her father told her something that turned out to be true; we assumed that was about his own history, but perhaps it wasn’t.’

‘What would Jacob Sach have on Celia Bannerman? She’s freely admitted that she interfered in his daughter’s adoption when she shouldn’t have done, so she’s hardly likely to bother to keep that quiet, and I don’t see what else he could have known?’

‘Maybe that’s what Ethel Stuke will tell us. I’m going to Suffolk first thing in the morning to talk to her, while you clear the decks on everything else. Go back to Campbell Road and try to establish once and for all if Edwards was at home last night—that house is so crowded that I refuse to believe we can’t find out for sure, no matter how hard they try to fob us off. Mary Size will need to be told what’s happened to Lucy, and she may have more to say about Celia Bannerman—but be careful there; don’t alert her to anything. I’ll brief Wyles and tell Ronnie and Lettice to come up with something that will keep her here round the clock. Did you find them, by the way?’

‘Yes, Sir, in the drawing room upstairs. They’re all right—shocked, of course, but to be honest, they both still seem so numb after what happened this morning that I don’t think this has touched them like it might have done otherwise. Anything else?’

Penrose thought about it. ‘Yes. It might be worth trying to find out a bit more about Lizzie Sach’s death—get on to the boys in Birmingham in the morning and ask them to look up a suicide at Anstey Physical Training College in 1916.’

‘Right-o. And Miss Tey should be able to help us with that.’

‘Is she still up?’

‘Yes, Sir—with your cousins.’

‘Good. I thought I might ask her along tomorrow. I want to know everything she can tell me about Bannerman, and I’m not happy about her being here at the moment anyway.’

Fallowfield nodded at the camera in Penrose’s hand. ‘Do you want me to get that developed?’

‘Yes. Was the girl who confirmed Bannerman’s alibi for last night down there when you talked to the staff just now?’

‘Tilly Jenkins? Yes, Sir.’

‘Good. Nip back down and double-check with her to make sure, and tell them they can get that staircase cleaned up. I’m going to talk to Josephine, and I’ll find out how Lucy is before we leave. I want to look through those prison files again when we’re back at the Yard, just in case I missed something. We’ll leave Edwards until tomorrow, when you’ve been back to the Bunk and I’ve seen Ethel Stuke.’

He found Josephine in the drawing room with Lettice, Ronnie and Geraldine Ashby. Like the other public areas of the club, this room struck a peculiarly feminine note; even if it had been empty, he would have known somehow, through the refinement of detail, that it was a place where women assembled, one in which he would not, as a matter of course, be welcomed. Unusually for Penrose, who was egalitarian by nature and comfortable in the company of either sex, he felt a small stab of resentment at the female solidarity which the building proclaimed in its every feature. It struck him all the more strongly for coming at a time when Josephine’s friendship with Marta Fox had created a part of her life from which he was similarly excluded, and he wondered if he would feel the same if she became close to another man. Probably not: as much as he hated the way in which his emotions were suddenly reduced to an antiquated stereotype, he realised that his resentment stemmed from the fact that, with