The following morning, half an hour after midday, the police finally arrived.
I had sent the lad Tommy with a note to my foreman informing him that my fever was worsening, and I wouldn’t be able to come to work. I could ill-afford the loss of income, but what other choice did I have?
After that, I stood in the doorway of the pharmacy for a while, until Alfie told me to remove myself lest his customers thought some damn fool was preventing them from coming in. Since then I’d been sitting on the stool, from which I had a good view of the black police coach drawing up. Hooper climbed out, followed by the same constable I’d seen before, with receding hair and expansive girth. Hooper squinted up at the sunshine and spoke to the driver who, I noted, waited for them. No, for us.
‘Mr Stanhope,’ said Hooper, removing his bowler as he entered. ‘We need a word.’
I led them through to the back room.
I had one faint hope.
‘They ran away,’ I said.
Hooper folded himself into a chair. ‘What did you say?’
‘The Hannigan children. They ran away. I don’t know where they are now.’
It sounded implausible even to me, and I doubted it would be enough to keep me out of prison. After all, I had kidnapped two children. I was guilty.
Hooper exchanged a look with the constable.
This is it, I thought. I am saying goodbye to this life, this name, these clothes. These are my last moments of truly being me.
Hooper shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sir Reginald Thackery assured me they’ve been taken care of. That’s what great men do, Mr Stanhope. They have big hearts to go with their big wallets.’
I could hardly comprehend what he was saying. Sir Reginald must not have carried out his threat to have me arrested for kidnapping. But why? Certainly not to save my skin. He must have reasons of his own, though I couldn’t fathom what they might be.
What was he hiding?
Unless, of course, Mr Ramsden hadn’t admitted that he didn’t have custody of Aiden? He had received payment in advance, plus presumably a bonus, to give the boy a new name and ensure he would never be found. He might have decided to keep his silence and the bribe. But that wasn’t likely. Not only was it, at best, a short-term gain, but he didn’t seem the type. He was far too subservient.
My brain felt like sludge. I wished everyone would leave me alone for a few hours to actually think.
‘When did you last see John Duport?’ asked Hooper.
‘We met at …’ I couldn’t remember whether I was supposed to lie about meeting John or not, and my thoughts wouldn’t run fast enough for anything but the truth. ‘We met at a pub, the Marquis of Granby. The Friday before last, I think it was.’
He pulled out his notebook and peered over his spectacles at it. ‘Right. That makes you the last person to see him. No one else knows a thing about the man. No family, no previous address, no anything. Why do you suppose that is?’
‘I couldn’t tell you. We aren’t close.’
‘That’s what everyone’s been saying. Apparently, he has no friends at all, aside from you and Miss Hannigan herself.’
‘That doesn’t make me guilty of anything.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ Hooper raised his eyebrows and stayed silent, presumably hoping I would babble incontinently and incriminate myself. It was the same trick he’d tried last time, but he had no idea who he was dealing with.
The constable, who had been picking dirt from under his fingernails with one of Alfie’s knives, piped up: ‘You might as well tell us.’
Hooper rolled his eyes and glared at the fellow, but he was already back at his fingernails.
‘Think of it this way,’ Hooper said, leaning across the table towards me. ‘The victim had your name and address on her person, didn’t she?’
‘I can’t explain that.’
I was feeling light-headed and reckless. Having expected to be arrested and imprisoned, this mere interrogation felt almost playful.
Hooper scratched his beard. ‘So you keep saying. But, how I see it, without Mr Duport, your alibi’s disappeared. Puff of smoke. So, if he shows up, you’ll be sure to tell me, won’t you? It’s in your interests. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘Good.’
As he stood up to go, he caught sight of Ciara’s tooth on the saucer on the floor. He stooped to pick it up.
‘Whose is this?’ he asked.
I almost said it was Constance’s, but she was twelve and it was some years since she’d last lost a tooth. Thankfully, my brain found one last teaspoonful of coherence. ‘My landlord does dentistry as well as pharmacy. It probably came from one of his customers.’
‘I see.’
Hooper put it into his pocket, and I wondered whether he viewed it as evidence or was thinking of adding it to the set in his own mouth.
Once they’d gone, I sat in the back room in a daze, listening to the scratch of Alfie’s pen on his ledger and the clink and rustle of coins and notes being counted and scooped into bags. Such commonplace sounds, I barely heard them any more.
This was what I had wanted, wasn’t it? Routine. Ordinariness. A quiet life where I was responsible for no one, and no one was responsible for me.
I despaired at how easily that resolve had been broken. All it had taken was two children I’d never even met three weeks before.
And now, for their sakes, I was lying to the police and risking arrest.
I needed help. Fortunately, I knew of someone who might be willing, and who always had an insight different from my own. She had stood by me in my darkest moment.
I left the pharmacy and began the walk to the pie shop thinking: I hope you’re at home, Rosie. I need you now.
As I opened the door, I was, as ever, assailed. There were bigger shops on grander streets, selling more expensive pies with finer-sounding ingredients, but there were no better pies.
The heat carried with it an aroma that was, for me, more than just a smell. Contained within that pastry, meat and fruit was comfort and peace and the memory of a kitchen, long ago, where Bridget was preparing our breakfasts and chitter-chattering to herself, or perhaps to me, it was hard to tell which.
In addition to Rosie and her three children, the premises was shared with an elderly couple, whose names I habitually failed to remember. It was the female half who greeted me today, her face discoloured and shiny like polished leather; the result, I assumed, of a lifetime spent peering into ovens.
‘Mr Stanhope!’ She brushed her hands down her apron. ‘We ain’t seen you around here for quite a while.’ She indicated the somewhat depleted racks of pies on the counter. ‘We don’t have much left, I’m afraid. All the kidney’s gone, and the lamb too. Couple of chicken and bacon, and these, which not everyone likes but I think are the best of all: beef cheek and parsnip, with a tiny drop of marmalade to sharpen the taste. I don’t know how she came up with that, but it’s like rising up to heaven, every mouthful. Rising up with the angels singing. All for sixpence.’
I barely had enough in my wallet for the rent, and had already decided not to spend Sir Reginald’s guinea as he would certainly want it back, after I had failed to follow his instruction. Nevertheless, a pie might buy some cooperation, as well as appease my growling stomach.
‘I’ll take one. Is Rosie here?’
I could hear sounds from the back; a chair leg scraping and a child’s voice. I had never been beyond the shop. I imagined a room much like Alfie’s, with a table for their evening meal, chairs for them to sit on, pictures on the walls and cupboards for their personal things. And upstairs, a bedroom which Rosie and her husband Jack had once shared.
The leather-faced woman handed me the pie in a paper bag and pursed her lips harder, as though suffering from a toothache. ‘I’ll caution you to be mindful, Mr Stanhope. Last time you was here, it was most disruptive. Most disruptive. She came back soaked to the skin and was in bed for three days afterwards with a fever. And her recently widowed and all. I know it had something to do with you, and the trouble you got her into.’
‘I assure you—’
She dropped her voice. ‘You never thought to visit, did you? To see how she was getting on. Not once. You should have visited, Mr Stanhope, and that’s a fact.’
But I couldn’t, I thought, not after what Rosie had done. But of course, Rosie didn’t know what she’d done and hadn’t intended it. What must she think of me now?
The leather-faced woman went into the back and I could hear their conversation, which sounded as if it might have become heated towards the end. Then Rosie herself came through, her hands white with flour.
She glowered at me. ‘What do you want?’
I could feel the heat of the pie through the paper bag.
‘Can we talk please? I need some help.’
‘Is that the only reason?’
I nodded, not wanting to admit that I regretted how we’d parted at the zoo. She surveyed me, rubbing her chin.
‘Very well, I suppose. Can you manage to be polite this time?’
We slowly circumnavigated the municipal conceit of St Paul’s Cathedral, its pale stone walls and decorative columns casting shadows over the orderly shopfronts, listless beggars and gatherings of stray dogs around it.
I explained everything that had happened. The one detail I left out was my first lie to the police. I was too ashamed to tell her that.
Afterwards, she spent several seconds deep in thought, the mist of her breath dissipating in the chill air.
‘You’ve had a lucky escape, Leo.’
‘I know. Sir Reginald hid the truth about where the children were, even from the police. I have no idea why.’
‘Some men like to control things. Most men, actually.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘My guess is he didn’t want to admit his plan had failed.’
‘What plan?’
She breathed deeply, glancing up at me with a strange expression as if wondering how to break bad news.
‘The way I see it, if you’d left those kids at the orphanage as you were supposed to do, no one except you and Sir What’s-his-name would’ve known where they are. Or who they are.’
‘Exactly.’
She turned to me, her hands clutched together. ‘Don’t you see, Leo? That means if someone had gone looking for them at that place … what did you call it? The halfway house? Well, they wouldn’t have found them, would they? And who was the last person to see them? Who took them away and never brought them back?’
Such a sharp pivot on which our fates had balanced. Rosie was right. If Aiden hadn’t objected to being separated from Ciara, I wouldn’t have seen Mr Ramsden’s piece of paper. I would have left them at the orphanage as Sir Reginald had instructed. The children would have disappeared, and I would be the person who had taken them from Mrs Downes’s halfway house and never returned them.
‘I’d get the blame for their disappearance,’ I said. ‘I could be accused of selling them or even … even murdering them!’
My legs were feeling weak. I leaned against a metal rail, looking south towards the river. From here, I could smell the oil and hear the creaking of the cranes unloading the ships. Such industry they had, such purpose, while I was like a toy boat bobbing in the bath, waiting for a splash to sink me.
‘And at the same time,’ continued Rosie, ‘his son has scarpered, and your alibi’s gone with him. What a coincidence. Seems to me they’ve tried to make you look guilty of the murder of the mother as well. These rich families, they always stick together against the likes of you and me.’
It took me a moment to untangle what she meant. ‘You think John and his father are in cahoots?’
‘In cahoots?’ She grinned, despite her awful conjectures. ‘If you mean together, then yes I do. No matter how much they disagree, a parent will always help their child. And a son born rich doesn’t turn his back on such help when he has need of it.’ She faced me, squaring her shoulders. ‘There’s nothing else for it. You have to tell the police that John Duport and John Thackery are one and the same person.’
‘Why?’
‘How will it look if you don’t? You’re keeping a secret for a man who’s trying to incriminate you. You don’t owe him anything.’
But of course, I did owe him something. Or not him exactly, but the boy he’d been: my model, my exemplar. If I gave away his secret, how could I ever object if someone gave away mine?
‘No. I won’t do that. We don’t know he’s guilty of anything.’
She shook her head, despairing of my foolishness. ‘Then what do you suggest we do?’
I felt embarrassed that she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. ‘No, I can’t involve you in this. You might be arrested too.’
‘I’ll take my chances. You’ve obviously got yourself into a muddle and I’m going to have to help you out of it.’
I thought of her shop and her children, her care of them as unconscious as breathing.
‘You can’t be a mother and go hunting for murderers, Rosie.’
‘I don’t see what one has to do with the other.’
‘Yes, you do.’
She folded her arms, reminding me of a firework that has failed to go off and that one shouldn’t approach. ‘No, I don’t. I’ll tell you what. I’ll absolve you of blame right now.’ She crossed herself in the Catholic manner and flicked her hands as if tossing away any responsibility I might bear for her well-being. ‘Some man killed that poor woman and orphaned her children, and he deserves to pay. It makes me so angry I could spit. Now, will you come to the shop tomorrow, so we can make a start? I’ll give you a pie for your dinner, half price.’
‘It’s not safe, Rosie. It’s not what I intended.’
We had almost gone right round St Paul’s and were heading back the way we’d come. She quickened her pace.
‘It’s been my experience, Leo Stanhope, that you rarely have the slightest idea what you intend.’
As I reached the pharmacy, I could see a figure hovering outside it. I almost convinced myself it was a policeman come to take me into custody after all and was dumbfounded when I realised it was John Thackery, with his hat pulled low over his forehead, his coat collar up and a scarf wrapped around his neck, obscuring much of his face. Indeed, I only recognised him by his nervous stance, hopping from foot to foot.
‘We need to talk, Leo,’ he said, in an urgent tone. ‘Not here, though.’
‘The police are looking for you.’
I wasn’t sure if I was warning him or just enjoying telling him.
‘I know. That’s what we need to talk about.’
We walked three hundred yards to the churchyard at St Anne’s and sat side by side on a bench, much as we had all those years before. I swished my feet, imagining autumn leaves piling up around us. I used to love kicking them, watching them scatter and swirl, but hated having to sweep them up afterwards. I felt a brief surge of jealousy for my younger self, who had no idea what horrors were to come.
‘They haven’t found whoever killed Dora,’ John said, staring at his feet. ‘I don’t believe they’re trying, quite frankly. They care about my father’s bloody mill, but not a human being.’ His voice cracked, and he wiped his eyes. ‘I miss her, you know, all the time. She was clever and funny, and she believed in a better world, in her own way. She held classes, you know, for the children from the club. All of them, no matter where they were from or how brief a time they were staying for. She said that they must receive an education, or they’ll end up as labourers, living and dying at the whims of their masters. She saw the future, you see, more than any of us. I can’t believe she’s gone.’
I was certain his grief was real. I recognised it. Even a year on, I sometimes imagined I might see the one I had lost, that she would come through the door and embrace me, or I would turn and there she would be, blowing kisses from an upstairs window.
‘Dora’s wake is on Thursday at three o’clock,’ John continued, wiping his eyes, leaving shiny smears on the backs of his gloves. ‘It’s at the club. You should go.’
‘I only met her once.’
‘You’ll hear about what we’re doing. Well, what they’re doing. Edwin Cowdery will be giving a speech and he’s worth listening to. I won’t be able to attend, I’m afraid. I’m utterly distraught about it, but I’ve had to leave the club. Permanently.’
‘Why?’
‘The thing is, I was seen at the mill. Spotted, you know.’ He put his hands over his eyes, shutting out the world. ‘The police will arrest me if they find me. I have no choice but to vanish.’
‘What do you mean, vanish?’
He gave me a thin smile. ‘Well, not me exactly. But John Duport is no more. I’m sorry.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
‘But you’re my alibi as much as I’m yours!’
‘Yes, quite. That’s why I’m here; to tell you to stick to the story, no matter what. You really don’t have any choice as far as I can see. I mean, you can’t change your mind now, can you?’
‘I have other considerations now.’
He looked at me sharply. ‘What considerations?’
I realised I had said too much. It would be best to keep the children out of this completely.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It certainly does matter.’ He was sounding more and more like his father. ‘If you don’t stick to the story, you’ll be arrested for conspiracy, at least. And I can expose the truth about you, remember. We both know that underneath that suit and hat, you’re just a woman.’
I was damned if I was going to listen to him making threats after he’d abandoned me to the very lie he’d forced me to tell. Perhaps Rosie had been right after all. Why should I keep this man’s secret?
‘If you do that, I will inform the police about who you are too,’ I replied, almost spitting out the words. ‘John Thackery, whose childhood governess was murdered and who’s been lying about his name. The son of the very man whose mill he was plotting to burn.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ he snapped, as if I was the one being unreasonable. ‘I just came here to advise you to stick to what we agreed. It’ll be best for both of us.’
Of course, he would say that. He wanted me firmly attached to the lie. And then, when it suited him, he could recant his story to the police and I would look even more guilty. I was utterly trapped.
‘Have you visited your father yet?’ he asked.
‘No.’
He sighed deeply, like a teacher whose worst pupil has failed a simple test.
‘Why not?’
I didn’t want to discuss my family with him. I didn’t even want to think about them.
‘That’s not your business.’
‘I don’t understand.’ He looked at me earnestly. ‘I never did, to be honest. Why would you leave that way? You had everything: a good family, a kind father—’
‘You don’t know anything.’
‘I know you didn’t deserve him. You think the reverend was strict, and sometimes I’m sure he was angry with you, but you have no idea how fortunate you were. I would have given anything to be part of your family instead of mine. My own father was …’ He briefly took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘He was truly cruel. He never forgave me.’
A woman came out of the church, humming a hymn under her breath. She nodded to us and I nodded back, waiting for her to pass out of earshot before continuing.
‘He never forgave you for what?’
John laughed briefly and looked away. ‘For existing, Leo. For existing.’
Neither of us spoke for half a minute, and then a realisation crept over me. ‘Is that why you felt entitled to use me as your alibi? Because you were envious, and resented me for leaving my family?’
He closed his eyes and bowed his head as if praying. ‘It wasn’t personal. The greater good, remember? You left a decent family who treated you well, and this was your chance to make up for that.’
‘Like a penance?’
He stood and pushed his hat more firmly on to his head. ‘You’re choosing to be argumentative. You were always intelligent, but your father thought you were far too wilful, and it seems he was right.’ He checked his watch, which was attached to his waistcoat on a chain. For the first time, I noticed how much better dressed he was than before, in a morning coat and ascot tie. ‘Six o’clock. I have an appointment. Don’t forget what I said, will you? Stick to the story and we’ll both be fine.’
He strode away, leaving me in the churchyard, wondering what would happen next. I felt as if I was slipping into a hole, and everything I tried to grab hold of was withering in my hand.
I knew for certain I couldn’t trust him. He would desert me and think it justified, even virtuous; a punishment for the sins of my past.
I decided I had to follow him.
He crossed over the road, pausing to light a cigar in the shelter of a doorway, and then turned right and left and right again, taking a zigzag route northwards. He seemed to be in no particular hurry, stopping twice to relight his cigar and once to stroke a dog the size of a small pony. As the streets became wealthier, the cadaverous tenements of Soho gave way to townhouses, and the rumble of industry was replaced by birdsong and wind in the trees. After a mile or so, he reached a strip of grass with houses set either side of it like rows of dentures. He kept his head down and became markedly more cautious, peering nervously from side to side and burying his chin in his scarf. In truth, he could hardly have looked more suspicious, though I was just as bad, and had to scuttle behind a tree when he glanced back over his shoulder.
As he reached the corner, I lost sight of him in the shadow of an imposing church with a rose window like a great eye watching me. I rushed forwards into a square consisting of a small park surrounded by houses, four storeys tall and three windows wide. Each had a porch with steps down to the pavement and a balcony from which one might wave to an adoring crowd.
I looked up at the road name: Gordon Square. It sounded familiar, and then it came to me. I pulled Sir Reginald’s letter from my pocket and, sure enough, there it was in his letterhead. Sir Reginald’s address was 34 Gordon Square.
John was going to his father’s home.
But still I couldn’t see him.
I found number 34, and the door was closed. Surely, he hadn’t been far enough ahead to enter the house without my noticing?
I checked the streets leading out of the square, but there was no sign of him. He must have gone into one of the other houses or perhaps the park.
It was well kept, divided by paths into lawns where, in warmer weather, nannies could push their perambulators in the shade of the trees, and dotted with benches where a gentleman might read a newspaper between engagements. Not today; it was empty, and a drizzle had drifted in, whispering through the branches of the trees and glistening on the iron railings.
I settled down opposite number 34, wedged between a tree and the fence, feeling oddly detached from the world. The rain was pattering on to the grass, but I was dry under the leaves. No one knew I was there. I could remain in this spot, I told myself, for as long as I wanted, and then I could go. I could escape to some other town, far away, and adopt a new name, just like John. I could become a laboratory assistant in Oxford or a shipping clerk in Southampton. I need never think of Dora Hannigan or her children again.
After half an hour or more, I was jolted to alertness by the rattle of a shiny blue carriage drawing up.
The door to number 34 opened and a lady came out. It took me a few seconds to recognise her. When I had last seen Mrs Thackery – or Lady Thackery as she was now – she had been brisk and bossy, thinking nothing of giving instructions to my mother on the proper way to decorate the church. Now, she was leaning on a stick and hobbling as if each step caused her pain.
Behind her was a young man of about fifteen.
I almost gasped.
He was the absolute image of Aiden.