Woman Who Spoke to Spirits Page 18

  He relaxes against the meagre and rather smelly pillow. He has not slept well throughout this night, for he has been trying to remember who mentioned missing women even when he was semi-unconscious. Now, having answered his own question, he knows he will sleep like an innocent child until he is woken at a quarter to six by the regular fanfare of deep-chested coughing, hawking and spitting, and its accompaniment of thunderous flatulence, that is the daily reveille performed by his neighbour.

  Felix hates this room, but when he was almost out of money, it was all he could afford. It is small, dark, dank and, even now in late spring when the weather is warm and sunny, it smells of mould and there are ominous black fungal growths creeping down from the junction of walls and ceiling. The single window only opens a crack, and Felix usually leaves it shut because it is situated over the yard, and in the yard is the deeply noisome privy.

  For a man like Felix, who loves the fresh air and all his life has slept with at least a crack of open window, even in the bitterest weather, it is a slow torment.

  He thumps the lumpy pillow, draws up the blanket and, turning on his side, falls asleep.

  Lily is not in the office when he arrives at Hob’s Court just before nine o’clock. There is a note from her on his desk: she has been summoned to speak to Lord Berwick. Felix doesn’t want to think about that.

  He sits at his desk. He has evolved a plan for today, but he feels he should discuss it with Lily before putting it into action. There are quite a few clerical jobs he can be getting on with, however, so with a will he settles down to some report-copying, some letter-writing and some filing.

  It is an hour and a half later that Lily returns. She looks distressed, and tactfully he holds back the question he was about to ask. She meets his eyes. ‘Shall we have a cup of coffee?’ she suggests.

  He leaps up and goes into the scullery to make it. It is not a Mrs Clapper day, and he is quite glad. Her hostility towards him has lessened by a few degrees, but there is still some way to go before he can even begin to believe that she likes him. The mood in the Hob’s Court kitchen area is definitely more congenial when she isn’t there.

  The Little Ballerina’s undergarments are, as usual, soaking in a bowl of greyish water. As usual, he ignores them.

  He returns to the outer office to find Lily has drawn up the visitor’s chair and is sitting on the opposite side of his desk. She takes her cup and saucer from him with a word of thanks.

  She doesn’t initiate any sort of conversation, so he does. ‘The matter I wished to discuss with you yesterday, and which you asked me to postpone, concerns something I came across when I was looking for details of whatever is troubling George Sutherland. It concerns a succession of women who have gone missing over the past year or two. You’re probably going to ask me why it attracted my attention and what it’s got to do with us and the business of the Bureau, and I’d have to answer that I can’t really explain, other than to say I have the strongest sense that I ought to follow it up. Someone ought to, anyway,’ he adds in a mutter.

  ‘Go on,’ Lily says.

  ‘I’d like to go and speak to somebody on the Battersea Illustrated News,’ he says.

  ‘Yes?’

  Taking the brief response as an invitation to proceed and elaborate, he says, ‘I had a vague memory of somebody else having spoken to me about missing women, and after a night’s sleep I remembered who it was.’ He repeats his conversation with James Jellicote. ‘Now I’ve seen what the King’s Road Chronicle and Gazette has to say, which isn’t much and barely amounted to more than a brief mention until one of the missing came from their side of the river. What I’m thinking is that—’

  ‘The Battersea Illustrated News may have made more of a feature of the story since the women went missing there,’ she finishes. Her eyes have just a little of their usual sparkle, and he is relieved to have stimulated her out of her despondency.

  ‘That’s right,’ he says. ‘I’m hoping I can do the same trawl through back numbers that I did on the north side of the river, and with any luck find some keen-eyed journalist who has taken a personal interest in the story and has all the details at his fingertips.’

  ‘A man can hope,’ she mutters. He sees a thin smile on her lips.

  ‘I’ve a feeling I’m going to have that luck,’ he says firmly. Then, for her face has fallen again and now she also looks slightly anxious, ‘What’s the matter?’

  She stirs from her brief reverie. ‘This is rather odd,’ she says quietly.

  ‘What is?’ He senses it is somehow important.

  ‘I’ve remembered something, prompted, no doubt, by what you have just told me.’

  ‘What?’

  There is a short pause, as if she is having to concentrate hard to bring the details to mind. Then: ‘I believe I have it. When I left Albertina’s seance, Mrs Sullivan was anxious about my setting off for home by myself. She said—’ She frowns. ‘Yes. She said it wasn’t safe for a young woman on her own because there have been far too many … something.’

  ‘Too many something?’

  ‘She didn’t finish the sentence,’ Lily says with slight impatience. ‘Perhaps she thought it would only frighten me if she told me what there had been far too many of.’

  ‘Cases of women going missing?’ Felix suggests.

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ Lily agrees. ‘So, perhaps I should go and visit Mrs Sullivan, say I’ve been worried about what she said and please could she elucidate?’

  ‘Good idea,’ he says.

  She gulps down the rest of her coffee and stands up. ‘I don’t know how long I shall be,’ she says.

  ‘Well, I’ll be setting off too and nor do I,’ he replies. ‘We’ll compare notes later, shall we?’

  Dorothy Sullivan lives in a neat double-fronted terraced house with a small front garden, a privet hedge and a low gate. She opens the door to Lily’s knock and her slightly anxious expression turns into a beam of delight.

  ‘Miss Garrett! How very pleasant! I have just made a pot of tea, so will you come in and take a cup?’

  ‘I do not wish to disturb you, Mrs Sullivan.’

  ‘You’re not disturbing me! Please, step inside and go through into the front room – in there, yes, that’s right!’ Lily enters the room to the right of the front door. ‘I will bring a tray – make yourself comfortable, please!’

  Faced with such an effusive welcome, Lily obeys. The room into which Mrs Sullivan has ushered her is square and spacious, but it is so crammed with furniture, shelves, little tables and what-nots, pot plants, vases of flowers, cushions, bits of embroidery, ornaments, magazine and newspaper racks, photographs in heavy frames, landscape paintings in even heavier frames and piles of books that the eye is deceived into thinking it is in fact tiny. It is, however, clean, warm, homely and welcoming.

  Lily edges her way very carefully to a chair to the right of the fireplace; the chair opposite has a shawl draped over one arm and an open book on the other arm, a pair of spectacles placed in the angle between the pages, and is clearly where Mrs Sullivan has been sitting. She glances around, but there is far too much to take in; she would need a couple of days to do everything justice.

  Her eye is drawn to one of the photographs. It has pride of place in the centre of the mantelshelf, between two tall candles in brass holders. Before each candle is a posy of flowers in a small cut-glass vase. The photograph, a professional portrait, is of a handsome man with a twinkle in his eyes. Unusually for a studio photograph, he is smiling. Lily takes an instant liking to him.

  ‘You’re looking at my Rodney,’ says Mrs Sullivan, returning with the tea tray.

  ‘I am,’ Lily agrees. ‘I was just thinking that I’m quite sure I would have liked him.’

  Mrs Sullivan pauses in her setting-out of cups, saucers, milk jug and sugar bowl, silver teaspoons and sugar tongs. ‘You would, Miss Garrett. He was a dear, dear man.’

  Tea is poured, and Lily takes a sip. It is strong with just the right amount of milk.
She takes another sip, framing her next remark. ‘I hope Albertina helps you?’ she asks, very tentatively. ‘In reassuring you about him, I mean – I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but hear what she said to you.’

  ‘No need for apologies, dear,’ Mrs Sullivan says. ‘Albertina, bless her, offers private sessions for those who require privacy, but I’ve always felt it’s a help to be with others who grieve for lost loved ones. And as for reassuring me …’ She sighs. ‘Yes, I suppose she does. She means well, bless her, and I always tell myself that she may very well be hearing my Rodney’s voice, and that the comforting things she tells me don’t just come from her own kind heart and her wish to help.’

  Lily, taken aback, mutters something about Albertina certainly appearing to be a very kind person. But she is thinking about what Tamáz said; thinking that the words Albertina Stibbins says to Mrs Sullivan could very easily stem from the fact that she senses the old woman’s pain and hurt and so very badly wants to assuage them …

  ‘… such a dear, dear young woman,’ Dorothy Sullivan is saying, ‘and a good wife to Ernest, who was lonely and withdrawn after the loss of his first wife – why, there were times when he didn’t even come to church, and we were all so worried about him. But then along came Albertina, and they fell in love, and now there they are, happy as sandboys in that house that has become a home again, and Albertina so full of plans to open up and improve the areas not presently in use and—’ She stops, then, leaning towards Lily, says in a whisper, ‘Of course, I and some of the other ladies at church hope very much that perhaps a little addition to the family may be coming along in the not too distant future.’ She smiles roguishly. ‘After all, that is the usual explanation for a wife asking her husband to arrange for some more space in the house!’

  ‘How delightful!’ Lily says. ‘Albertina is still a young woman, so there is no reason why not, is there?’

  ‘No indeed, dear, and Ernest, although of course considerably the elder, is a very vigorous man, is he not?’

  It’s not the first word that springs to mind when Lily thinks about him, but nevertheless she agrees.

  Mrs Sullivan is topping up the cups. It is time, Lily realizes, to raise the matter that she’s come for. ‘Mrs Sullivan, when we all left the Circle meeting last Sunday you asked if I was going to be home by dusk and you told me it wasn’t safe for women on their own. You said there had been many instances of something, but you did not say what.’

  Mrs Sullivan’s cheery face has fallen and she is looking, or so Lily thinks, a little guilty. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Miss Garrett! I’ve thought it over many times since and I see now how foolish and inconsiderate I was to warn you of a danger and then not go on to explain! Oh, my dear, have you been very worried?’

  ‘Not really, no,’ Lily replies. ‘But I would very much like to hear what this is all about. I intend to visit Circle again, and I’m planning to do so this week in fact, and I’m wondering if I should take a cab home next time?’ She turns it into a question, pretending a tremulousness she doesn’t really feel.

  ‘Yes, yes, perhaps that would be wise,’ Mrs Sullivan says anxiously. ‘I myself am very lucky, for George Sutherland and his son always walk me home. Although it is not a little out of their way, they insist, and I am too cowardly to protest!’ She gives a short and slightly hysterical laugh. Then, her expression steadily tightening into firm resolution, finally she says, ‘Women have gone missing, Miss Garrett. Five or six, I am not sure, and those are just the cases reported in the newspaper, and for all we know there may be more.’

  ‘Missing?’ Lily repeats invitingly.

  ‘Yes, dear, and our vicar, the Reverend Mr Jellicote, ventures the opinion that they may very well be – er, women who have been unfortunate enough to, to encounter troubles that they cannot – that society does not – well, you know what I mean, I’m sure.’ She has flushed a rosy pink.

  ‘Of course,’ Lily says. Deciding to be frank, she goes on, ‘They have been seduced, perhaps, by a man promising marriage, only to find that they are with child and the man nowhere to be seen.’

  ‘Quite so!’ says Mrs Sullivan, her relief at being understood and not having to venture more in the way of explanation palpable.

  ‘Or I suppose they could be street women,’ Lily goes on, ‘in poverty, desperate, finding life no longer endurable.’

  Mrs Sullivan sighs. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ But there is something else she wants to say; Lily can sense it. She waits.

  ‘But, you see, there are also the rumours,’ she says after a moment.

  ‘The rumours?’

  ‘Oh, dear, dear, I’m not at all sure I should be repeating them, for Mr Jellicote does so disapprove of what he calls inflammatory talk …’ She eyes Lily, but it seems the naughty pleasure of sharing the rumours with a new and interested audience quickly overcomes the prospect of the vicar’s disapproval. ‘Some of us believe that the truth is even more wicked,’ she begins in a confidential tone, ‘that the missing women are snatched from the streets and taken to low dives to entertain the Chinamen who smoke opiates, or that they are imprisoned for the use of wealthy men, or even put aboard ships and taken far away to become slaves to men with flashing black eyes and dark skins who dwell in the desert in silken tents!’ She sits back, and her expression seems to say, Now what do you think of that!

  Lily, momentarily speechless, is both amazed and impressed by Mrs Sullivan’s vivid imagination. Whatever has she been reading, to put such ideas into her innocent head? Surely her life as a suburban housewife in a modest home in an ordinary street has not permitted any glimpses behind the murky veil of sin and vice?

  ‘I – I have heard tell of such dreadful happenings,’ she says. ‘To think that women could have been abducted from these very streets for such purposes is –’ Totally unbelievable, is what she wants to say, but it would be far too crushing – ‘horrifying,’ she says instead.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ agrees Mrs Sullivan.

  ‘Thank you for telling me,’ Lily says, putting her empty cup down on the table beside her chair. ‘And for the tea, which was most welcome. Now I must be on my way, and leave you in peace.’

  Mrs Sullivan gets up to see her out. ‘You are most welcome, Miss Garrett, and it was my pleasure to help,’ she assures her. ‘And how glad I am that you are to come to Circle again!’

  ‘I wouldn’t miss it,’ Lily says. ‘Good day, now!’

  Mrs Sullivan stands in her doorway waving until Lily turns the corner.

  TWELVE

  Felix finds the staff of the Battersea Illustrated News to be altogether more welcoming and friendly than Miss Mundy of the King’s Road Chronicle and Gazette. The fat young woman who sits behind the reception desk waves cheerfully at the large cabinets of back numbers and tells him to help himself, and when he’s been searching for half an hour – and already found several very pertinent articles – comes over to the desk where he sits reading and offers him a cup of tea and a bun. He says yes to both, and she comes to join him as she too eats and drinks.

  ‘I shouldn’t eat these,’ she says ruefully, waving her current-filled iced bun in his direction, ‘but I can’t help myself.’

  Felix, who after a couple of bites has found the bun so teeth-achingly sweet that he’s not sure he’ll be able to finish it, doesn’t want to hurt her feelings by insulting a favourite delicacy, so just nods and agrees that they are good, aren’t they? She glances over his shoulder at his notebook. ‘You interested in anything in particular? Oh, the women!’ She answers her own question before he can either do so himself or prevaricate. ‘You want to talk to Marm Smithers,’ she says, nodding. ‘Well, he’s Marmaduke really, but he hates it and we all call him Marm, or even Marmie. He’s the reporter who’s been doing the pieces on those poor women, well, I say women but quite a lot of them were not much more than girls, which in a way makes it worse, only it’s hard to see how it can be worse, and—’

  Very gently Felix interrupts. ‘That’s very helpful, thank
you so much!’ he says. ‘Could you, do you think, tell me where I might find Marm Smithers?’

  ‘Of course I can!’ She glances at the large clock on the wall, whose hands read 12:05. ‘He’ll be either on his way to or already installed in the Cow Jumped Over the Moon, which is the pub at the top of World’s End Passage where it comes out into the King’s Road.’

  ‘I know it,’ Felix says. Know it and have pretty often had a drink in it, he might have added. ‘Why does he drink over there if the newspaper’s this side of the river?’ he asks, curiosity getting the better of him.

  The fat young woman smiles. ‘For one thing, he’s not really attached just to the Battersea Illustrated, he writes for quite a lot of other papers too, and some magazines as well, so there’s no reason his local should be here in Battersea. For another –’ her smile widens – ‘he’s been banned from quite a lot of the pubs round here. Gets a bit argumentative, does Marmie, once he has a drink or two inside him.’

  Felix is putting away his notebook and pencil, picking up his hat. ‘I’ll go and look for him straight away. Thanks very much for your help, Mrs? Miss?’

  ‘Alderton, Polly Alderton, and it’s Miss,’ says his new friend, who, from the way she’s eyeing him and the lascivious ring she gave to Miss, could well be implying she would rather like to be more than a friend. ‘Tell him Pol sent you!’

  Felix hurries back across the bridge, up World’s End Passage and is outside the Cow Jumped Over the Moon – the Cow, as locals call it – some twenty minutes later. He has realized, as he paced along, that he should have asked Polly Alderton how he was to recognize Marm Smithers, but as he enters the smoky saloon bar (which seems the right option out of it or the public bar to try first) he appreciates that it wasn’t necessary. Marm Smithers sits on a stool at a small, round table in a far corner, the dregs of a pint of bitter to hand and a pork pie on a plate waiting to be broached, a cigarette between his fingers, and he has a notebook, two pencils and an edition of one of the broadsheets before him on which his attention is fixed to the exclusion of everything else, including, apparently, the racket going on all around him.