Andrew Taylor - Bleeding Heart Square

‘Oh no. He left just after you did. Were you all right? I was quite worried.’

‘Never better, thank you. When you say Mr Wentwood left, what do you mean exactly?’

‘A couple of the Blackshirts escorted him out. I didn’t see quite what was happening but I’m afraid he upset them.’ He peered at Lydia. ‘In fact I assumed you had all gone together — you and he and those other people.’

‘No. We got away.’

‘I — ah — I expect he will turn up.’ Fimberry swallowed. ‘They — they were rather rough, weren’t they?’

‘They behaved like animals,’ Lydia snapped. ‘Do you have your set of keys?’

‘Eh? Oh — you mean for the chapel? Of course. I shall go in later and make sure everything’s shipshape.’

‘So the Fascists were still there when you left?’

‘They were tidying up. They do a very neat job, I must say, unlike some.’

‘Will you come over there with me?’

‘Now?’

‘Yes — with your keys.’ She spoke slowly, as though to a child. ‘You’ve a perfect right to be there. After all you’re representing Father Bertram. And you need to make sure everything’s safe and sound.’

‘But what about you, Mrs Langstone? If your husband-’

‘That’s my affair, thank you.’

Mr Fimberry wilted under her gaze. To her horror, Lydia saw that the eyes behind the pince-nez were swimming with tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. The door began to close. ‘Really I am. But I’m not a brave man. Physically I–I suppose I’m a bit of a coward.’ He was trembling now. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve seen too much. I’ve seen what’s under the skin, you see, all the flesh and bone. It was the war, Mrs Langstone. I was very different before the war.’

Shades of dark grey became blinding white. Rory screwed up his eyes against the glare from the light bulb dangling from the vaulted ceiling. Iron scraped on stone. He slid off the table and stood up. The door opened. Slow footsteps approached.

Three men faced him: two Blackshirts and, standing in the doorway with his back to the cloister, the dapper figure of Sir Rex Fisher.

‘Good — not damaged,’ Fisher said to the two Blackshirts, addressing them with a certain formality as if he stood on a lecturer’s podium. ‘Force should always be proportionate.’ He abandoned his lecturer’s manner and approached Rory, limping slightly. Lips pursed, he stared at him. There was something both fastidious and contemplative about his gaze: he might have been at Christie’s, examining a picture which had little obvious merit and which he did not want to buy. He glanced over his shoulder. ‘And what were your instructions exactly?’

‘Mr Langstone-’

Fisher hissed, a tiny sign of displeasure.

The man recovered swiftly. ‘This chap was pointed out to us before the meeting began as a likely troublemaker. Believed to be a communist agitator, sir. If there was any sort of trouble, we was to nab him and put him in here. As you see.’ There was a hint of truculence in the man’s voice. ‘Nipping trouble in the bud, that’s what we was told.’

‘Has he been searched?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

Fisher’s neatly plucked eyebrows rose. He turned back to Rory. ‘And what is your name?’

‘Roderick Wentwood.’

‘Address?’

No point in concealing it: they would find out soon enough if they searched him. But would Fisher know that Lydia Langstone was living under the same roof?

‘Seven, Bleeding Heart Square.’

‘And why are you here, Mr Wentwood?’

Rory rubbed his cheek where a bruise was coming up. ‘As an interested member of the public, Sir Rex. Finding out what British Fascism has to offer the British businessman.’ He leant back against the table, hoping to conceal the fact that his legs were trembling. ‘I want to leave now.’

Fisher’s face was unsmiling but not hostile. ‘I’m sure. But I don’t think you should leave, Mr Wentwood. Not just yet. It might be rather amusing to find out what you had to say about us first.’

‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘Of course you do.’ Fisher removed Rory’s notebook from the pocket of his own overcoat. ‘I understand you were writing in this before you felt obliged to join the rowdy elements in the audience and try to disrupt the meeting.’ He flipped through the pages. ‘I don’t read shorthand myself. But many of my colleagues do. And I see that you have thoughtfully written some words en clair , as it were. Berkeley’s , for example. I wonder whether that might be the weekly magazine? Rather strange you didn’t think to mention that you’re a journalist.’

The door leading to the cellar was open. Lydia heard Serridge’s voice below, and Howlett replying to something he had said. They were moving furniture around down there. Serridge intended to sell the better pieces.

She tapped again on Mr Fimberry’s door, which he had shut in her face five minutes earlier. She heard scuffling on the other side.

‘Who is it?’

She did not reply. She waited, her body tense, just outside the door. The men’s voices continued in the cellar, backwards and forwards like a long rally in a tennis match. It was all nonsense about women being gossips, she thought — men were just as bad.

There was stealthy movement in Fimberry’s room. Almost simultaneously Lydia heard the clatter of claws on the cellar stairs. Nipper appeared at the end of the hall.

The key turned in the lock. The door began to open. Nipper yapped and launched himself down the hall. Lydia flung her weight against the door and pushed her leg into the gap between it and the jamb. Fimberry’s pink, sweating face appeared, only inches away from hers.

‘Please go away, Mrs Langstone.’

She pushed harder. ‘If I scream, Mr Serridge will hear me.’

Fimberry stood back. The door swung open, banging against the edge of his washstand. Nipper shot through the gap. Lydia followed. The dog ran round the room, sniffing vigorously.

‘Please, Mrs Langstone,’ Fimberry whimpered, ‘please leave.’

‘Serridge and Howlett are in the cellar,’ Lydia said firmly. ‘In a moment or two, I’m going to go and see them. I’m going to tell Mr Serridge that I saw you buying offal at Smithfield. That I saw you buying hearts . Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr Fimberry? If necessary I will also say I’ve seen you posting them.’

‘But, Mrs Langstone, I didn’t. You know that’s untrue. You know-’

‘I don’t care what is true or untrue,’ Lydia interrupted, magnificent in her ruthlessness. ‘The only way you can stop me is by letting me borrow the chapel keys for five minutes.’

‘I’ve already explained-’

‘And I’ve explained what will happen if you don’t let me have them. You don’t have to come with me.’

Nipper sniffed Fimberry’s ankles. Fimberry edged away from him, his eyes still fixed on Lydia’s face.

‘Oh, and by the way,’ Lydia added, deciding that she might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, ‘I shall also tell Mr Serridge that you tried to kiss me.’

Fimberry backed over to the bed, sat down and put his head in his hands. For a moment she felt a terrible urge to comfort him.

‘Please, Mrs Langstone. Please.’

‘None of this need happen,’ Lydia said gently. ‘Not if you’re sensible. Where are the keys?’

‘In the top drawer. On the left.’

She knew she had broken him. She felt ashamed. She opened the drawer and took out the keys. ‘Which is which?’

‘The small modern one is the door into the cloisters from the road. The Yale keys are for the storeroom and the vestry.’ His voice was muffled because his head was still in his hands. ‘The others, the big iron ones, they fit the Ossuary, the undercroft and the chapel itself.’