Andrew Taylor - Bleeding Heart Square

At Cornwallis Grove events began to move fast, as if an invisible brake had been removed. Almost overnight Fenella became full of energy and decision. Rory was afraid that the reason for this was the arrival in her life of Julian Dawlish.

If you had to design an elegant single solution to all of Fenella’s problems, you could hardly have done better than copy the man, inch by inch, atom by atom. He was rich, politically congenial and a gentleman. Like a fairy godfather, he produced flats and jobs at the click of his manicured fingers. To add insult to injury, Rory found himself rather liking the man.

It had been Dawlish who had pointed out that, now the lodger was no more than an unhappy memory and some curious stains on the carpet in her room, there was no longer any need for Fenella to remain at Cornwallis Grove, unless of course she wanted to, which she did not. The Alliance of Socialists Against Fascism was anxious to get itself up and running as soon as possible. The house in Mecklenburgh Square was standing empty. The flat in the basement could be made ready whenever she wanted it. Dawlish had visited an estate agent in Hampstead Village who was convinced that he would have no trouble in letting the Kensleys’ maisonette in Belsize Park for the remainder of the lease; in fact he already had a prospective tenant in mind.

Suddenly, it seemed, there was no reason for Fenella to stay and every reason for her to go. On Tuesday evening, Rory received a postcard from her, asking if he could spare the time to help with the clearing out; the Kensleys had been storing some of his belongings while he was in India, and she would be grateful if he could remove them.

Early on Wednesday afternoon, he took a tram in the Hampstead direction and was at Cornwallis Grove a little after two o’clock. Fenella was alone in the house. She was wearing overalls and her hair was bound up in a headscarf. The hall was still cluttered with the mortal remains of Mr Kensley’s ill-fated hobbies.

‘Work first,’ she said. ‘Tea later.’

As he followed her towards the stairs he stumbled again over the bag of tools and narrowly avoided treading on a crystal receiver.

‘Careful,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry to hurry you, but I’ve got the estate agent coming round next week and I want the place to look as clear as possible.’

She took him up to the box room, a former dressing room on the first floor where the Kensleys had deposited anything they didn’t want but could not bear to throw away. Rory found himself looking at two suitcases, much scuffed and dented, adorned with faded labels recording long-forgotten railway journeys. He had left them with the Kensleys just before going to India in what seemed another lifetime, and one that had belonged to someone else. He carried the cases out to the landing and rummaged half-heartedly through their contents. As well as clothes and bed linen, he found a tobacco jar, books he could not remember reading, chipped crockery, a stack of lecture notes and an embarrassing attempt at an extended poetic analysis of the discontents of civilization written in the style of The Waste Land .

‘I’m not going to want much of this,’ he said.

Fenella wiped a grimy hand across her forehead and grinned at him. ‘Nor am I. Why don’t you sort through it and chuck out what you can?’

He spent the next fifteen minutes picking through the contents of the cases. Moth had got into one of them. In the other, however, he found a heavy suit which still had some wear in it. The jacket fitted and the trousers would probably do if he asked Mrs Renton to alter them. By the time he closed the lid of the second suitcase, his hands were filthy and he had had more than enough of the detritus of his own past.

He poked his head back into the box room. ‘I’ve gone as far as I can go. One suitcase can go on the rag-and-bone pile. I’ll keep the other. I can give you a hand in here, if you like.’

‘Thanks. Could you lift down the box from the top of the wardrobe?’

The cardboard box brought a shower of dust with it. He put it on the floor and pulled open the flaps. It was full of dusty papers, letters and photographs.

‘How will you get the suitcase back to your flat?’ she asked.

‘Carry it to the bus stop, I suppose. Less walking than the Tube.’

‘No, don’t bother. Julian’s coming round later in his car. I’m sure he won’t mind dropping it off.’

‘Oh. That would be very kind.’

Fenella dug her hands into the box and deposited its contents on the carpet. A little photograph slipped to one side. Rory picked it up. It showed a woman on a park bench with a little dog at her feet.

‘Who’s this?’ he asked casually.

Fenella took the photograph from him. The good humour left her face. ‘It’s Aunt Philippa.’

‘She looks rather pretty,’ Rory said, surprised. ‘And I thought she’d be much older.’

‘It’s not a very good likeness,’ Fenella said, dropping the photograph in the open box.

‘In what way?’

Fenella turned away and opened the wardrobe door. ‘She made herself up as if she was ten or twenty years younger than she was. But if you got close to her, you could see the cracks. Literally. She plastered on the make-up. Father used to say Aunt Philippa made herself look ridiculous, mutton dressed as lamb.’

Late in the morning, Mr Smethwick tripped over the caretaker’s bucket and dropped three box files outside the general office. The contents of the files related to some of the late Mr Trimble’s pre-war clients. Pieces of paper floated over the landing and into the stairwell. Some reached the landing below, and two letters fluttered all the way down to the hall. Mr Reynolds rushed out of the office and gazed in anguish at the cascade of yellowing paper, rusting paper clips and pink ribbons.

‘Smethwick! What were you thinking of? Mrs Langstone! Come here at once!’

Lydia had never seen him so agitated. She and Smethwick gathered up the papers. Then it became her task to restore them to order, and Mr Reynolds would not let her take her lunch break until she had finished.

It was after two o’clock before she was able to escape. On her way to the Blue Dahlia she called into Mr Goldman’s shop in Hatton Garden. He was hunched over a necklace, peering at it through a jeweller’s glass. He looked up when the door bell pinged and uncoiled his long body.

‘Good afternoon, madam.’

‘Hello, Mr Goldman. I don’t want to sell today but I wanted an idea of what you’d give me for something.’

He inclined his head but said nothing. Lydia put her bag on the counter and took out a box containing a diamond and sapphire ring. It was the third and last of Lydia’s pieces of her great-aunt’s jewellery. Goldman opened the box and eased the hoop from its velvet setting. He screwed the glass back into his eye and examined it, breathing heavily through his nose.

‘I know it’s old-fashioned,’ Lydia said, hating the hint of desperation she heard in her voice. ‘But the stones alone must be worth a good deal.’

He ignored her and continued his examination. She turned aside and pretended to look at one of the displays. Beans on toast, she thought, her mind running over the Blue Dahlia’s limited menu, and a cup of tea: I can afford that. Push the boat out and have an egg as well?

‘It’s a handsome ring,’ Mr Goldman said at last. He rubbed it gently. ‘Forty or fifty years old. The sapphires are particularly fine.’

‘What would it be worth?’

‘What were you hoping for?’

‘I’ve no idea. A hundred, perhaps? A hundred and fifty?’

He shook his head. ‘There would be a case for reusing the stones. I might manage forty pounds. Forty-five, even.’ He saw the expression on Lydia’s face. ‘You might be able to get more elsewhere. Or you might decide to pawn it instead, although of course that would not raise as much.’