‘I really don’t think so,’ Josephine said. ‘I haven’t known her 240
that long, of course, but we have talked a lot about our lives and she’s never mentioned anything that could possibly fit in. She had a brother who was shot in the trenches, but I’m sure she didn’t meet Bernard until long after the war was over.’
‘I’m not surprised he wanted to look after her financially,’
Lettice added. ‘They really were good friends, you know, and he valued her opinion on everything. I think she was closer to him than anyone, and of course he always admired her professionally.
He wasn’t one to let sentiment interfere with his business, but their personal friendship would have been strong enough to last through any decisions that the actress in Lydia didn’t like.’
Josephine agreed. ‘Lydia has a talent for friendship, if not for relationships,’ she said. ‘She was always fiercely loyal to Bernard and I think he prized loyalty above most things. It’s not a terribly common currency in theatre.’
‘But if the killer suspects they were close enough for Bernard to have confided in her about Arthur, that would be enough to make her a target,’ Archie said. ‘I’ll go and speak to her, and I’ll telephone to let you know she’s all right. Would you explain the situation to Marta when she gets here? I’m afraid it’ll mean coming clean about the flower, but try not to alarm her too much. I could be over-reacting and Lydia could be perfectly safe – let’s hope so –
but I don’t want another death on my hands, so I’ve got to consider every possibility. I’m happy to look stupid – even in front of Marta Fox – but not negligent.’
‘Is Marta coming over?’ asked Lettice, casting another suspicious glance at the flower which had so recently enchanted her.
‘Yes, in fact she should be here by now.’ Josephine looked at the clock, still distracted by what Archie had said. ‘I wonder what’s keeping her?’
‘Perhaps she’s sparing a thought for nervous policemen.’ Archie smiled and kissed her goodbye. ‘Try not to worry about Lydia,’ he said reassuringly. ‘I won’t let anything happen to her, even if I have to keep her under lock and key for her own protection.’
‘Thanks, Archie,’ Josephine said, walking him to the door. ‘And not just for that.’ When she returned to the middle studio, she was 241
surprised to see that Ronnie and Lettice had put their coats on.
‘Are you going out again already?’
‘Apparently so,’ said Ronnie peevishly. ‘It seems we’ve got to walk the streets to give you time to reassure Marta in peace.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Lettice said. ‘We can go to George’s for an hour or two. It would be better for you if you were on your own with her, wouldn’t it?’ she asked Josephine. ‘You’ll be all right?’
‘Of course I will. I don’t want to drive you out again, but it would make things easier and I’ll bring you up to date when you get back. There’s an awful lot you don’t know yet.’
‘Yes, like who the fuck Arthur is for a start,’ Ronnie called over her shoulder as they clattered down the stairs. Josephine waited a minute or two, then picked up the telephone. It was more than an hour now since she had spoken to Marta, and Lydia’s flat was only a ten-minute walk away. Where on earth could she have got to? Anxiously, she waited for a reply but none came. Perhaps Marta had simply got carried away with something else, but was now on her way? She was about to replace the receiver when the call was answered and she heard Marta’s voice, sharp and slightly agitated.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s Josephine. Are you all right?’
‘Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?’ she snapped, then softened.
‘I’m sorry, Josephine, I should have telephoned. I can’t come over after all – not at the moment, anyway. Perhaps later – but I’ll ring first. I need some time on my own. All right?’
It could be her imagination, but it seemed to Josephine that she was being despatched as quickly as possible. Why was that, she wondered? ‘That’s fine. I hope you and Lydia work it out, but you know where I am if I can help.’
‘It was very sweet of you to offer, but I think it’s something we need to sort through ourselves.’
As Josephine recalled, it was Marta who had asked rather than she who had offered, but there was no point in splitting hairs.
‘Have you heard from Lydia?’ she asked.
‘No. I told you – she’s at the police station. I don’t expect her 242
back for a while yet. Now, I really must go. Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow.’
There was no further explanation, and Josephine heard the line go dead long before she had a chance to raise the subject of Lydia’s safety. God, Marta was volatile. How could her attitude have changed so much in such a short time? It was like speaking to two different people. She was about to hurry down to the street to stop the girls making themselves scarce unnecessarily, but paused as she passed the ominous flower, incongruously dumped between bottles of Cointreau and creme de menthe. The widow iris. Of course, in her anxiety for Lydia she hadn’t thought to tell Archie that Marta was already a widow. Could that be significant? She tried to remember what Marta had actually told her: there was very little to go on – just that the marriage had been unhappy and that her husband had died; at the time, Josephine had assumed she meant during the war but, looking back, she realised that Marta hadn’t actually said that. When had the relationship turned sour, she wondered? She reflected on the letters she had received from Lydia, hoping that some of them might have contained information about Marta’s background, but the facts were remarkable only in their scarcity. Certainly, though, someone who was unhappily married didn’t bother to write stories for her husband and send them to the front; that was an act of love. So what had gone wrong? Unless, of course, those stories had been sent to her husband’s regiment but not actually to her husband.
Josephine sat down, still looking at the widow iris. She was used to working back from an unlikely starting point to see if she could build a plausible chain of events, but no scenario she had considered in her fiction could compete with the story now playing in her mind. Could it be that Marta’s interest in Elliott Vintner was more personal than
