‘One of them, the taller one with the dark hair and the smart suit. She’d been on since Edinburgh and they had lunch together in the restaurant car. Spent a lot of time talking, they did.’
‘So they seemed to know each other well?’
‘I don’t know about that, but they were definitely getting on like a house on fire.’
‘What about the other woman?’
‘I don’t think I’d seen her before, but there are a lot of meals 26
served on that journey – I might not have noticed. But she certainly wasn’t eating with the other two.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘Nice-looking, I suppose, for her age – she must have been in her forties. Long hair, but that’s about all I remember.’
Penrose had heard enough to confirm that Elspeth’s companions matched the signatures in her magazine. ‘Were they still with Miss Simmons when she got back on the train?’ he asked, trying to keep the sinking feeling out of his voice.
‘I told you – I don’t know. They’d all disappeared by the time I looked again and I just assumed they’d left. I didn’t see anybody get back on, but you know what it’s like when there’s people getting off and luggage everywhere – it’s far too busy to keep an eye on everything that’s going on.’
‘All right, we’ll let it go now but it’s vital that you don’t tell anyone what you saw in the train – do you understand?’ he asked sternly, without any real hope of his words being heeded. The boy was bound to talk to someone because, as Penrose knew from his own experience, there was nothing worse than the twisted intimacy of being the first to look upon a dead body. The loneliness of it was unbearable.
Maybrick re-entered the room and gave a brief nod. ‘Well Tommy,’ Penrose said, ‘it looks like your Ivy might be keener than you thought. She’s confirmed what you’ve told us, so tell the Constable where we can get hold of you if we need to and you can be on your way. Better not keep the girl waiting any longer but remember what I said – no details to anyone.’
‘To be honest, I haven’t really got the stomach for courting now,’ Tommy said despondently as Maybrick handed him a pencil to write down his address, ‘but I suppose I shouldn’t disappoint her.’
As Penrose left the waiting room to look for his sergeant, he saw Fallowfield already approaching and knew instantly that the man at his side had come to King’s Cross to meet Elspeth Simmons. Her father, he guessed, or perhaps an uncle – too old, in any case, to be 27
a boyfriend. But whatever connection he had had to the girl, the news of her death seemed to have devastated him: his walk, his shoulders, the constant movement of his hands and the blank expression on his face – all signalled the stubborn disbelief of the violently bereaved.
‘This is Frank Simmons, Sir,’ said Fallowfield. ‘He’s Miss Simmons’s uncle.’
Archie held out his hand, knowing from experience that the habitual formalities of everyday life could, in their very familiarity, act as a small but reassuring prop to those whose world had just been snatched from under them. ‘Detective Inspector Penrose,’ he said, and then simply, ‘I’m so very sorry.’
The man nodded in acknowledgement. ‘It’s all my fault, you see,’ he said, in response to an accusation which came not from the policemen but from a voice inside his head. ‘I was so late to meet her. If only I’d just stayed where I was, she’d be all right now.’
Penrose let him talk, making whatever confession he thought necessary, until he had been led gently to a seat in the waiting room. ‘This is going to be difficult for you, I know, but it’s important that I ask you some questions now about Elspeth and any arrangements that had been made with her for this evening. What did you mean when you said you should have stayed where you were?’
Simmons rubbed his forehead with his fingers, as if the pressure would help him to discipline his thoughts. ‘I came to meet her in the van like I always do,’ he began, ‘but when I got here one of the guards told me that the train was late and wouldn’t get in for an hour and a half or so. I often have to wait and usually I just kick my heels on the platform or have a cup of tea round the corner, but today I hadn’t finished my round and I thought an hour would give me just about enough time to drop off the last order and still be back here to meet Elspeth. That way, we could go straight home and there’d be plenty of room in the back for the new stock she was bringing down. There’s always hell to pay with Betty – that’s my wife – if anything gets squashed.’
28
By now, Penrose was lagging some way behind in the conversation. ‘What were you delivering?’ he asked.
‘Tea mostly, and coffee, but the Coventry Street shop needed some new equipment and that’s what was taking up the room.’ As the Inspector continued to look questioningly at him, he expanded a little on his explanation. ‘I’m a driver for Lyons. I’ve been with them ever since I left the regiment. It’s not the most exciting of jobs, but you get to know your way around. That’s why I was sure that a few short cuts would get me there and back in no time, but something had gone on in Judd Street. I was stuck there for ages before I could get through and make the delivery, and then I couldn’t find anywhere to park at the station. By the time I got back to the platform, you lot were crawling all over the place and I knew something had happened.’
Fallowfield opened his mouth to speak but Penrose, anticipating what he was going to say, shook his head. There would be a time to ask Frank Simmons to prove that he was away from King’s Cross when the train had pulled in, but this was not it; all the life had already been kicked out of him and there was worse still to come. Saving any further questioning for the next day, he concentrated solely on what could not be avoided. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to identify Elspeth’s body,’ he said quietly. ‘Her next of kin must be told, of course. Is that her parents?’
‘Yes. Well, her mother at any rate – that’s my sister-in-law. My brother died last year. Elspeth was adopted, though. They couldn’t have kids of their own so she meant everything to them – to all of us, really. I don’t know how Alice would have got through these last few months if it hadn’t been for her. Elspeth kept her smiling.’
As the reality of his loss came home to him, Simmons finally lost the self-control to which he had been clinging so doggedly. ‘How am I ever going to face Alice knowing that I’ve taken that away from her?’
Acknowledging the question but realising there was no answer he could give, Penrose said nothing. Instead, he led Simmons gently from the waiting room towards his niece’s body, and his worst fears.
29
Three
When Josephine awoke next morning, it had just gone nine and St Martin’s Lane was in full swing. It was Saturday and, even at this early hour, an air of obligatory enjoyment had settled on the weekend inhabitants of the West End. From her window at Number 66, she looked south towards Trafalgar Square, marvelling as she did so at the multitude of human dramas which were unfolding in the street below – far more than could possibly be played out each night in the more artificial realms of London’s theatre-land.
She shifted her gaze across the narrow street to the building opposite, and wondered how long it would be before Elspeth looked her up at stage door as she had promised. The New Theatre, where Richard of Bordeaux was about to enter its last week, sat imposingly between the Salisbury and the Westminster County Court, the daily necessities of ale and justice and make-believe found in companionable proximity to one another. To say it was the finest theatre in London was as pointless as electing a best church – they all served different creeds, and one was as good as another – but it was magnificent, even to an eye less partial than hers. Built only as an afterthought on a leftover plot of land that backed onto Wyndham’s, to which it was still linked by a footbridge, the New was nevertheless a splendid example of clas-sical design, its Portland stone facade, bold ornamentation and giant pilasters giving a dignity and permanence to the elusive trick of entertaining the public.
Number 66 St Martin’s Lane would be Josephine’s home for the next few days, as it often was when she visited London. It had 31
more than its convenience for the theatre to recommend it: once the workshop in which Thomas Chippendale had created understated furniture for an enthusiastic market, it was now home to another name famous for simplicity and restraint. The Motleys were two talented sisters who had revolutionised theatre design and contributed to some of the greatest successes the West End had seen in recent years. Josephine was the first to admit that the appeal of her own play lay as much in the romance of their costumes and sets as it did in her dialogue and, over the last eighteen months, the three women had become firm friends. She was astonished at how naturally she had found herself slipping into the Motleys’ cheerful domestic stage set, and arriving at Number 66
always felt like coming home.
As thoughts of breakfast drew her from her room into the large central studio, she was amused to find that the space was even more chaotic than usual. Exhausted from her journey, she had retired before her hosts arrived home and slept the sleep of the dead, utterly oblivious to the furious burst of activity which had clearly continued long into the night. The walls were now covered in deft costume sketches for a new Hamlet which she knew was due to go into production later in the year and, even at this early stage, it was obvious that the Motleys had surpassed themselves.
The designs were divided into contrasting sections, each extrava-gantly styled in a picture of medieval Denmark which could not have been further from the Depression-worn shapes of the current age, and she was instantly captivated by their ingenuity. On the floor, work had already begun on materials for the costumes: bits of scenery canvas covered in dye and metallic pigments were strewn across the floor, punctuated by squares of thick felt which had been heavily treated with kitchen soap and paint to look uncannily like leather.
She was pleased to see that the architect of this glorious disorder was, as usual, on the telephone and centre-stage in her own cre-ation. Veronique Motley – or Ronnie, as she was more often called
– had inherited her mother’s beauty and her father’s disregard for convention. Reclining on a peacock-blue chaise-longue which the 32
sisters had dyed themselves, and covered by an enormous bearskin cloak as if in deference to the cold Scandinavian climate in which she had spent the night, Ronnie was in full flight.
‘My dear, we’re only just recovering from the shame,’ she purred into the handset. ‘We should have known from the minute they brought the monkey in that the whole production was going to be a fiasco from start to finish. The creature bit everybody at the dress rehearsal and we were all absolutely terrified. Hephzibar threw out her arms in such a fright that her stitching gave up and we had to sew her back in. She still isn’t at all herself. And don’t even ask about the cost – we’d spent four thousand pounds before the curtain went up, and still the whole thing looked more like the Trocadero on a Friday night. Never mind the Dream, it was our bloody nightmare!’
Catching Josephine’s bemused expression, she made a face of studied ennui and hurriedly brought the call to an end. ‘Anyway, dear, I must go. We’re seeing Johnny soon and you know what he’s like – he’ll want to go straight to Ophelia’s death-scene and we haven’t even got a costume for the poor girl to live in yet.’
‘Were the Crummles in town for the gala week, then?’ Josephine asked wryly as Ronnie replaced the receiver and picked her way through mounds of upholstery cloth and calico to wrap her friend in a hug.
‘Something like that,’ Ronnie said, laughing and leading her over to the breakfast table. ‘It is lovely to see you, you know. Lettice and I were saying only the other day that you’ve spent too long up in dry old Inverness this time.’
Smiling, Josephine heaped sugar into her coffee. ‘It’s good to be here,’ she said. ‘At least in London I don’t feel I need to apologise constantly for having a hit. The English are much more generous-minded than the Scots.’
‘Oh, all small towns are the same, dear. It doesn’t really bother you, does it?’
‘Honestly? Yes, I suppose it does a little. It’s all this “grocer’s daughter made good” business, as if I’ve no right to a life down here with different friends and a different outlook. For them, it’ll always be barrow first and pen second.’
33
‘Hang the lot of them, then. Any more trouble and Lettice and I will come and sort them out. They won’t know what’s hit them.’
‘Don’t make rash promises – I haven’t told you about the woman who runs the post office yet.’