Andrew Taylor - Bleeding Heart Square

An eyewitness account. The ring of authenticity. It’s not something you can fake .

Somewhere here was the key to the whole mystery. The problem was, she didn’t want to be the one to unlock it. She had enough troubles of her own already.

It was nearly midnight before she heard Captain Ingleby-Lewis’s footsteps on the stairs. While she waited, she had returned to Virginia Woolf and A Room of One’s Own . Mrs Woolf improved on acquaintance.

Her father ambled into the room and tossed his hat onto the table. It skidded to the edge and fell to the floor.

‘Hello, old girl,’ he said, yawning. ‘Thought you’d have turned in by now.’

‘I waited up for you.’

‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’ He beamed at her. ‘Well, goodnight. I’m off to Bedfordshire.’

‘I’d like to talk to you.’

Her father, who had clearly remembered the awkwardness of their last meeting, was already edging towards the door. ‘Better leave it until the morning. We’ll be fresher then.’

‘This won’t take a moment,’ Lydia said. ‘Have a cigarette.’

Automatically he changed direction and advanced towards the packet she was holding out to him, for his responses were Pavlovian in their precision where alcohol and tobacco were concerned. He took the cigarette. She struck a match for him. He grunted with effort as he lowered his head to the flame. When the cigarette was alight, he fell backwards onto the sofa.

‘Are you really throwing me out, Father?’

He looked reproachfully at her. ‘You know it’s not like that, my dear.’

‘That’s what it seems like. Why can’t we carry on as we are? I’m going to divorce Marcus, and then there will be more money coming in. Everything will be much more comfortable.’

‘Langstone may not make it easy. As far as I can tell, he seems pretty keen on staying married to you.’ The Captain was drunk but not too drunk. He added courteously, ‘Of course that’s understandable.’

‘The lawyer seems to think I should be able to get a reasonable settlement. Enough to live on.’

‘Who have you got?’

‘Mr Shires.’

‘Did Serridge arrange it for you?’

‘No. I arranged it myself.’ As she stared at her father, however, Lydia wondered whether this was in fact true. She remembered how cautious Shires had been at first when she mentioned the divorce, and how, a few hours later, he had become much more helpful, and the question of who was going to pay his bills no longer seemed to concern him so urgently.

Ingleby-Lewis shrugged. ‘You know your own business, I suppose. Never had much time for the fellow myself.’

‘Your friend Mr Serridge seems to like him well enough,’ Lydia said carefully.

‘Anyway, that’s not the point,’ he went on. ‘The long and the short of it is that you can’t stay here.’

‘Why are you listening to Mrs Alforde and not to me? I want to stay here.’

‘It’s for the best. Believe me.’

‘Is it because there’s something going on? Something you don’t want me to know about?’

He snorted. ‘Of course not. It’s quite simple. This isn’t really a suitable-’

‘New York,’ Lydia said. ‘Ring any bells? Grand Central Station, New York City.’

Captain Ingleby-Lewis dropped the cigarette on his lap. He leapt to his feet, swearing and patting his trousers. The cigarette fell to the carpet. Lydia picked it up and gave it to him.

‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said, sinking back on the sofa and swiftly recovering his poise.

Lydia opened her handbag and took out the papers she had found in the writing box. ‘Do you know what these are?’

‘Of course I don’t. Not a mind-reader in a music hall, am I? Can’t this wait until the morning?’

‘Two pieces of paper,’ Lydia said, ignoring him. ‘There’s Miss Penhow’s signature on one of them, written over and over again. It looks as if someone was practising it.’

Her father stared straight ahead.

She unfolded them. ‘On the other bit of paper are the words “I expect you are surprised to hear”. And there’s something else on the other side.’ She looked up at her father but still he did not react. ‘It’s written in pencil, in a different handwriting and rather faintly. Shall I read it to you? “And so tell the vicar you’re sorry for all the upset, that you met an old pal, a sailor who you were-”’

‘That’s enough,’ Captain Ingleby-Lewis said quietly. He sat in silence while he finished the cigarette. He stubbed it out and said, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know.’

He sucked in his cheeks. ‘I thought you might be about to start making threats.’

‘So did I,’ Lydia said. ‘And perhaps I will, I don’t know. Does it mean what I think it means?’

Captain Ingleby-Lewis shrugged. ‘That rather depends what you think it means, doesn’t it?’

‘I’m told that you’ve always been good at copying things with a pen.’

He looked at her. ‘You mean they’ve told you that I forged some cheques. They’ve told you about the mess accounts.’

It was not a question so Lydia said nothing.

‘I had to leave the army. I wasn’t court-martialled but everyone knew the reason. The mess sergeant was involved as well. But he wasn’t so lucky.’

The significance hit her. ‘Mr Serridge?’

Her father nodded. ‘He was in prison for two years. Still, all that’s water under the bridge. But of course it’s one reason why you shouldn’t be staying with me.’

Lydia folded the papers. ‘And what about these?’

‘That silly Penhow woman, I knew she’d cause trouble. All heart, no head — that was her problem.’ He looked sternly at Lydia. ‘Running off like that without a word. Most inconsiderate.’

‘That’s not what some people would call it.’

‘Oh I know. You’ve heard people saying that he did away with her just for her money. All those damned gossips at Rawling. I’m not saying the money wasn’t the attraction as far as Serridge was concerned — but what’s wrong with that? It wasn’t as if she was getting nothing in return. And then she meets somebody she likes better and off she goes.’

For a moment it sounded almost reasonable. Then she remembered that Serridge apparently owned the house they were living in, as well as Morthams Farm and heaven knew what else besides that had once belonged to Miss Penhow.

‘What could the poor chap do?’ Ingleby-Lewis asked, flinging wide his arms. ‘He was in an awful fix. Everyone was claiming he had done away with the poor woman and he couldn’t prove he hadn’t. People can be damnably malicious. Anyway, he knew I was off to try my luck in the States, and he asked if I could do something to help.’

‘So you faked a letter from Miss Penhow to the Vicar of Rawling?’

‘Why ever not? No harm in it. I owed Joe Serridge a favour. Besides, I’d be the first to admit that he’ll cut a corner or two if he has to, but he wouldn’t harm a fly. Certainly not a woman. No, I was in New York and it was simple enough for me to drop a line to get him off the hook. I couldn’t see why not. Matter of common decency.’

‘I don’t think the police would agree.’

Ingleby-Lewis struggled off the sofa and stood up. ‘Just helping a pal out of a hole.’

‘As Serridge helped you? By buying the farm from you?’

‘It was exactly what he and Miss Penhow were looking for. And I let him have it for a jolly good price. I could have got at least a couple of hundred more.’

‘And now he lets you live here. Do you actually pay rent? Or perhaps there’s no longer any need to. It seems a very cosy arrangement all round.’

‘Don’t you get on your high horse, my girl,’ he said, sounding both sober and angry. ‘It’s all very well to be sitting in judgement when you’ve got money in the bank. You see things very differently when you haven’t a couple of shillings to rub together. That’s when you find out what really matters. And who your pals really are.’