Andrew Taylor - Bleeding Heart Square

‘Really?’ Lydia kept her voice calm and quiet, sensing that the conversation had shifted abruptly into another direction.

‘A man’s heart, that is.’

‘How interesting, Mr Fimberry. And where was that?’

‘In France,’ he said, as though stating the obvious.

‘In the army?’

He nodded. ‘I still dream about it, you know. Not just the heart, all of it.’ His eyes were imploring, asking for something that it was not in anyone’s power to give. ‘I was only out there for three months. Passchendaele. They sent me home after that. Invalided out. My nerves have never been quite right since then.’

Lydia said that she was sorry to hear that too. It was a shockingly inadequate thing to say but it seemed to satisfy Mr Fimberry, who nodded and smiled greedily at her, which made her feel even worse. It was almost with relief that she heard a car drawing up outside the house.

‘I wonder if that’s Mr Serridge,’ she said.

‘I shouldn’t be surprised,’ Fimberry said in a normal tone of voice as though nothing had happened. ‘He spends a lot of time driving about, doesn’t he?’

Neither of them spoke. They listened to the sighing and whistling of Ingleby-Lewis’s breathing, to the slam of the front door and to movements in the house below. Lydia finished her tea.

There were heavy footsteps on the stairs. Serridge came into the room without knocking. He was still wearing his hat and overcoat, and he had the parcel under his arm.

‘When did this come?’ he demanded.

‘Mrs Renton said it was this afternoon,’ Lydia said.

He grunted and swept off his hat. ‘Sorry to barge in, Mrs Langstone. I’m just wondering if this is another of those damned pranks. Somebody’s idea of a practical joke.’

Ingleby-Lewis sneezed. His eyes opened and focused on Serridge. ‘Ah — there you are, old man. Got your parcel, I see.’

‘I’ve a good mind to throw it in the dustbin.’

‘Can’t be sure it’s one of those,’ Ingleby-Lewis pointed out. ‘No reason why it should be.’

‘I’ll take it away.’ Serridge glanced at Lydia. ‘In case it’s something not fit for a lady’s eyes.’

‘Lydia won’t mind,’ Ingleby-Lewis said. ‘Will you, my dear?’

She smiled at him. ‘If you say so.’

‘Chip off the old block, eh? Tough as old boots.’

Serridge said, ‘If you’re sure, Mrs Langstone,’ and put the parcel on the table. He took out a pocket knife and cut the tightly knotted string. He tugged the paper impatiently and it glided away to the floor. Lydia, who was sitting across the table from Serridge, saw that the parcel contained a cardboard box marked City Superfine Laundries Ltd . He eased off the lid, revealing yellowing newspaper roughly crumpled into balls. She leant forward. There was something white beneath the yellow. Serridge poked it gently with his fore-finger.

‘Christ,’ he muttered. ‘Sorry, Mrs Langstone.’

‘What have you got there?’ Ingleby-Lewis said, his hand groping blindly for the glass on the table beside the sofa.

‘It looks like bone,’ Lydia said.

Serridge’s hand plunged into the box. ‘It’s a bloody goat,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘Pardon me, Mrs Langstone. An old billy goat by the look of it. Look at that forehead. Must have been a real bruiser in its prime.’

Lydia stared at the long skull with its curving horns. The lower jaw was missing. It wasn’t like the head of an animal, she thought, more like a weapon. She heard the creak of Fimberry’s chair and his uncertain footsteps coming towards the table.

‘A goat’s skull,’ he said. ‘A billy goat. Yes, most interesting. I suppose it fits perfectly, doesn’t it?’

Serridge said in a very gentle voice, ‘What does it fit, Mr Fimberry? Come on, tell us.’

Fimberry gave a nervous little laugh. ‘With Bleeding Heart Square, Mr Serridge. With the legend of the lady dancing away with the devil. The goat is a symbol of Satan.’

On Tuesday morning Rory walked to Southampton Row, where a former colleague on the South Madras Times now had a position as a copywriter with the marketing department of a firm manufacturing sanitaryware. The colleague was unfortunately too busy to see him. Rory returned to Bleeding Heart Square, making a detour via Farringdon Road to buy tobacco.

His route took him past Howlett’s lodge at the bottom of Rosington Place. The Beadle was in the act of opening the gate to let in a large silver-grey car, a Derby Bentley sports saloon with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel. The nearside window at the back of the car glided down. A man threw out a cigarette end. He had a smooth, pale face with rounded features; he was clean-shaven except for a small moustache, and his black hair was swept back from his forehead, exposing a neat little widow’s peak at the centre.

Rory had never seen him before. But he recognized the man sitting beyond him on the other side of the car. He had only a glimpse of the profile but it was enough. It was the younger of the two men he had seen coming out of Lord Cassington’s house in Upper Mount Street. In other words, it was almost certainly Marcus Langstone.

In the few seconds that Rory was waiting on the pavement, he had time to notice that Howlett was all smiles. He actually saluted as the car slid past him into Rosington Place. The impression of a loyal retainer welcoming the young masters home was only spoiled by Nipper’s behaviour. The dog had been shut inside the lodge but he had scrambled up to the window ledge and was making his feelings felt with a piercing yapping.

Something to do with Lydia Langstone, Rory supposed — perhaps they were going to call on her at Shires and Trimble. The poor kid. Her family wouldn’t leave her alone. Not that she was a kid, of course. She was as old as he was, and a married woman.

On Tuesday Lydia had a day off. She had only learned about it the previous evening. Mr Shires was proving infuriatingly vague about when he wanted her at the office, which made it difficult to plan anything.

After breakfast she tidied away and made the beds, her father’s as well as her own. He had gone out, and she was alone in the flat. She found the brown paper from Mr Serridge’s parcel under the table. She smoothed it out, folded it up and put it in the kitchen drawer. Waste not, want not, as Nanny used to say. These days she had no choice in the matter.

As she was sweeping the hearth, she heard a car drawing up outside the house. The doorbell rang. Mrs Renton’s footsteps dragged along the hall.

‘Mrs Langstone?’ she called upstairs a moment later. ‘A visitor for you.’

Lydia ripped off her apron, glanced at her reflection in the mirror by the door and went to the head of the stairs. It might be Marcus or possibly her mother, and in either case she was ready for a fight. There was no going back now in any sense, not after what she’d seen on Sunday at Frogmore Place.

‘Lydia! Darling!’

Standing in the hall was her sister Pamela. As soon as she saw Lydia, she ran upstairs with her arms outstretched.

‘Sweetie! So this is where you’ve been hiding yourself. It’s lovely to see you.’ She flung her arms around Lydia and enfolded her in an embrace that drove the breath out of her. Pamela drew back and looked at her. ‘Darling — you feel so thin. Have you been on a diet?’

‘No — well, yes, in a way.’

‘And your hands! When did you last have them manicured?’

Mrs Renton was still looking up at them. There were voices outside, growing nearer, and one of them was Serridge’s.

‘You’d better come in,’ Lydia said, opening the door to the sitting room of the flat.

Pamela followed her in. For a moment she stood in the doorway, looking around. Her eyes lingered on the ruined armchair in the corner. ‘Good Lord. I say, this is jolly. So … so Bohemian.’