Knowing that to hesitate would be fatal, she took a piece of paper out of the drawer and began to write.
It was just after ten o’clock when Penrose left the canteen, a snatched cup of coffee still burning the back of his throat. He took the lift to the third floor, ready to brief his team. The public sharing of information and progress on a case was normally something he enjoyed tremendously but this morning, as he walked down the long corridor to the CID office, he realised to his surprise that he was nervous. Usually, when he stood in front of his officers, he had the backing of the Yard’s chemists, pathologists and photographers, not to mention a well-tested system of analysis and procedure; today, he was asking them to trust him rather than the evidence. This time, the experts had been unable to help, and even Spilsbury’s typically thorough post-mortem report on Marjorie Baker and her father had only told him what could not have happened. His case against Celia Bannerman was based on his personal dislike, as Fallowfield had pointed out, and on a pieced-together narrative gleaned from unreliable sources, one of which made no attempt to hide the fact that it was fiction. The chief constable had hit the nail on the head —he must be going out of his mind—but his attempts to shrug off the seriousness of what he was doing did not entirely blind him to the reality of the situation: if he was wrong, his career and everything it meant to him were on very shaky foundations.
The sane, businesslike atmosphere of the CID room reassured him a little, if only by its familiarity. Fallowfield had already gathered the rest of the team together, and they looked at Penrose expectantly as he walked in. ‘Right, everyone,’ he said, perching on a desk at the far side of the room, his back to a wall covered in maps of the different London divisions, ‘you all know why you’re here and you’re all familiar with the details of the two murders in question. Some of you have put good work in on the case already, but patience and persistence hasn’t got us anywhere, so it’s time to step things up a gear. Before we go any further, though, I have to stress that what we talk about in this room today goes no further than the people present.’ He saw one or two of the men exchange glances. ‘The Cowdray Club and the College of Nursing are respected organisations with high-profile connections. WPC Wyles is already working at the club under cover, and I’ll brief her later this morning when I go over to Cavendish Square, but she’s the only other person who will know what’s going on.’ He smiled wryly at his colleagues. ‘We don’t want to upset the chief constable’s evening, do we?’
A ripple of laughter ran through the room. Penrose opened the file he was carrying, and passed the contents round. ‘There are some plans of the club here, and photographs from a recent
He nodded to Fallowfield, who gave a brief resume of the past which Celia Bannerman wished to forget—or at least Penrose’s version of it. To his credit, the sergeant showed no sign of the doubts which he had expressed privately to Penrose; loyalty was one of his many fine qualities and, if he still favoured Edwards as prime suspect, none of the younger officers would have guessed as much. Penrose was grateful: if tonight was to be a success, the whole team needed to believe in what it was doing, and he knew that the officers had as much respect for Fallowfield’s opinion as they did for his. ‘Thompson and Daly have been through the records office with a fine-tooth comb,’ the sergeant said, referring to the storehouse of past misdeeds at the Yard, where hundreds of thousands of files were kept on all types of convicts and their associates, ‘but there’s nothing to help us at all with Vale. Of course, it may be that her sentence did the trick and she turned over a new leaf when she got out, or it may be that she just happened to disappear off the face of the earth when Bannerman left London. On the other hand, Bannerman’s employment record since she took the job in Leeds is exemplary, as Inspector Penrose says. No one can speak highly enough of her. I don’t say that as a testament to her good character, but merely as an indication of how much she’s got to lose.’
Penrose took over again, and held up his copy of the club’s floor plan. ‘The gala will take place on stage in the Memorial Hall,’ he said. ‘That’s where Bannerman will be for most of the evening so we’ll concentrate our efforts there, although we’ll also have some of you positioned amongst the guests in the bars and dining room. I want her under close surveillance at all times, and Sergeant Fallowfield will tell you all where you’re to be in a minute. Lucy Peters is being cared for in the treatment rooms on the second floor, which is actually part of the College of Nursing. You don’t need to worry about the distinction between the two organisations; as you’ll see from the plan, they’re linked architecturally, but it’s a complicated building and I want you to know it like the back of your hand before tonight. Bannerman does, and that’s the one advantage she has on us. There are two staircases and lifts between the floors; the stairs by the Henrietta Street entrance are the most direct route to Peters’s room, but don’t take anything for granted.’ He glanced down at the timetable that Wyles had given him for the evening. ‘The champagne reception starts at seven, and the show itself at eight-thirty, but the highlight of the evening doesn’t come till later, after the interval. If Bannerman is going to do what I think she is, she’ll choose the moment when Noel and Gertie take to the stage—that’s when everyone will be in the hall.’
‘Don’t blame them, Sir,’ chipped in one of the officers. ‘That Miss Lawrence is a bit of all right.’
Everyone laughed, including Penrose. ‘I couldn’t agree with you more, Ben,’ he said, ‘and if we get the job done, no one will be heading for the front row faster than me. But this is where it gets serious. At that point, if nothing untoward has happened, the policeman on watch outside Peters’s room will come down for a drink and a look at the show. He’ll make sure that Bannerman sees him—she’s been up to check on the poor girl every hour or so, I gather, so there won’t be an issue about her recognising him.’ He took a deep breath and sounded as confident as he could. ‘That’s when she’ll leave the room and go upstairs.’
‘Will there be someone in the room with the girl?’ Merrifield asked.
‘Absolutely. There must be no risk whatsoever to Peters’s condition—it’s fragile enough as it is. I wish we could put someone in her place, but Bannerman’s not stupid. Whichever one of you is in that room, wait as long as you can to make sure that our murderer incriminates herself, but do not—I repeat, do not—put the girl in danger. And if it’s a choice between the two, for God’s sake do the right thing. I’m going to have enough trouble persuading Miriam Sharpe to let us do this at all, so don’t let me down.’
‘Can she be trusted, Sir? Miss Sharpe, I mean.’
It was Fallowfield’s question, and something that Penrose had already thought long and hard about. ‘I’m as sure as I can be, Bill,’ he said, ‘and we have no choice. I don’t doubt that she’s capable of keeping this to herself and she’s no great fan of Celia Bannerman; my only concern is that she’ll object to the ethics of the thing. I know what she means, but if I can convince her that Lucy’s in no additional danger, I think she’ll go along with it. Any other questions?’
‘How will Bannerman do it, Sir?’
‘Suffocation, probably, or perhaps an injection. It depends how prepared she is for the right opportunity.’
Another hand was raised hesitantly, and Ellis glanced nervously at his colleagues before speaking. ‘What happens if you’re wrong, Sir?’
Penrose smiled. ‘Good question. If that turns out to be the case, then I’ll be introducing you to Detective Inspector Fallowfield on my way out of the building.’ The joke eased the tension in the room, and only Penrose realised that there was a serious side to it. ‘I’ll leave you with him now to go over the details for later, and don’t be afraid to ask any questions you like. We need to be as prepared as possible. So best bib and tucker, everyone, and good luck.’
On his way over to the Cowdray Club, Penrose thought about how best to approach the subject with Miriam Sharpe and decided that honesty was the only way to convince her. Even so, as he sat across the desk from her in her office, he realised that he had a long struggle ahead of him. ‘Of course she’s in danger, Inspector. The girl has third-degree burns on a large percentage of her body, and all the other complications which that involves. I hardly think you needed to come all the way from the Embankment to tell me that.’
‘That’s not quite what I meant, Miss Sharpe,’ Penrose explained patiently. ‘I must ask you to keep this strictly confidential, but I don’t think Lucy Peters’s fall was an accident and I think there may well be another attempt on her life during the gala tonight.’
‘Not an accident? That’s impossible, surely. Celia was on the scene immediately, and there simply wouldn’t have been time for someone to push the girl and get away without her seeing them.’ As Penrose remained silent,
