The taxi jolted slowly but steadily up the hill, and Josephine sat in the back, wondering what on earth she was doing. The driver’s first few efforts at conversation had met with such a brusque response that he soon lapsed into silence, but the peace did nothing to help her make sense of her thoughts, or to form any sort of rational decision on what she was going to say when she knocked at Marta’s door. Archie’s words had hit a nerve, and not only because she recognised how upset he must be to make his feelings so obvious; in truth, she was at a loss even to understand the situation she found herself in, and she certainly had no idea how to resolve it. The only thing she was sure of was that the longer she hesitated, the more damage she would do.
Hampstead rested on higher ground than most of the city, and had a clean, country feel to it, even on a grey, November afternoon; the church clock which struck the half hour as she got out of the car had little other noise to compete with, and the spire which nestled among the trees just ahead of her could easily have graced any village in the south of England. When she turned into Holly Place, she found it quieter still; as she rang the bell at number 8, only the poignant song of birds about to roost and the dry rustle of leaves along the pavement disturbed the peace. She waited, but there was no answer, so she rang again, relief mingling with disappointment at the prospect of finding no one in. Still, the house refused to come to life, and she was just about to leave when a woman ran down the steps of the house next door. ‘She’s in the garden,’ she called to Josephine over her shoulder. ‘Try round the back.’
She did as she was told, following a narrow path around the side of the house. Her heart sank when she heard Marta’s voice—the last thing she needed was to walk uninvited into a crowd of strangers—but she resisted the temptation to turn back. In fact, Marta was alone. She stood next to a pile of earth by the far wall, wrestling with a large ceanothus root which stubbornly refused to budge from the ground. On the lawn next to her, there was a wheelbarrow piled high with dead branches, stones and bits of brick, and a motley collection of spades, trowels and secateurs, none of which seemed to be of much use in the task she had set herself. ‘Come out, you bastard,’ she swore loudly, oblivious to the fact she had any company other than the tree.
‘Do you want some help?’
Marta let go of the wood as if it had burnt her. ‘Josephine! What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Is this a bad time?’
‘No, of course not. Well, yes, but only because of my pride. Look at me—I’m such a mess.’ She gestured at the mud on her face and the twigs caught in her hair, but, if anything, she looked more striking than ever, and it occurred to Josephine that this was the first time she had ever seen Marta truly at peace with herself. ‘Muck and dirt wasn’t exactly what I envisaged wearing when we met. If we met.’
The contentment left her face, and Josephine knew that Marta was trying to work out if her appearance five days ahead of their scheduled meeting was good news or bad. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Muck and dirt suit you. What do you want me to do?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re hardly dressed for gardening.’
‘No, I’m not. It was probably short-sighted of me, but I didn’t expect to be digging up trees in November in virtual darkness. If you insist on it, though, I might as well join you.’ She took off her hat and fur, and threw them down on a wrought-iron table, next to her bag. ‘Anyway, they’re only clothes.’
Marta smiled. ‘At least let me get you a coat.’ She disappeared into the house for a moment, and returned carrying an old tweed jacket, gloves and a pair of boots. ‘I’ll feel better if we both look ridiculous. I can’t be seen in rags while you stand there in Chanel.’
Josephine slipped the jacket on, noticing that it smelt faintly of cigarette smoke and Marta’s perfume. ‘It’s a lovely house,’ she said. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘Only a couple of months, and it was the location I chose it for.’ She picked up a spade and started digging again. ‘I couldn’t be in the city, Josephine—I’ve had enough of being hemmed in by bricks and mortar day after day. I took a flat in Kensington when I got out, but I soon realised that a place doesn’t have to be a prison to feel like one. I couldn’t face the loneliness of the country, either, so this is a perfect compromise—solitude in the middle of London. And you’re right,’ she added, touching the crumbling red brick which enclosed the whole garden, ‘there’s something special about these walls. Think how many summers’ worth of sun they must hold.’
‘I must try something like this one day,’ Josephine said, raising her voice slightly as an aeroplane clattered lazily overhead. ‘I’ve never made a new home in my life.’
‘You’ve always lived in the same house?’
‘Not in the same house, no, but always the family home. I’ve got an encyclopaedic knowledge of digs, boarding houses, hotels and other people’s homes, but that’s not the same as choosing something for yourself.’ She dug a fork deep into the earth and lifted it so that Marta could cut through the sinewy roots that had spread towards the wall. ‘It’s pure laziness, I suppose. I could easily have had a flat when I was teaching, but I preferred even the ugliest of rooms to doing anything for myself.’
‘You should try prison,’ Marta said drily. ‘It doesn’t get much uglier than that, and you never have to cook a thing.’ They worked in silence for a while, each preoccupied with their own thoughts. ‘Do you have a garden in Inverness?’ Marta asked eventually.
‘Yes, and it’s full of every sort of shrub and tree, from hydrangeas to monkey puzzle, all painstakingly cared for and agonised over each year, but if you were to ask me what I love most about it, I’d say the daffodils that fill the drive in the spring without a moment’s work from me. I know it’s not a very original observation, and if I were a proper gardener, it’s probably the last thing I’d single out, but I don’t care. I look forward to them every year, and every year they surprise me.’
A thin trail of smoke rose up from a pile of burning leaves in a neighbouring garden and the smell filled the air, at once nostalgic and bitter, the final goodbye to summer. ‘That’s the point of a garden, though, isn’t it?’ Marta said, wiping soil off her face with the back of her hand. ‘Something to look forward to, something permanent. That’s what I want to create here—markers of a year. You can keep your flower pots and your annuals—they’re all far too temporary for me. No sooner has something flowered than you’re deciding what to replace it with, and I can’t cope with that at the moment. I need something that promises to come back, something that convinces me I’m going to be here to see it.’ She glanced up, embarrassed at having strayed into the emotional territory which they both seemed to have been avoiding. ‘Something like your daffodils.’
Josephine crouched down and took off her gloves, then gently brushed the mud away and let her hand rest on Marta’s cheek. ‘I can’t be what you want me to be,’ she said.
Marta smiled sadly at her, and covered Josephine’s hand with her own. ‘But you already are—that’s the problem. None of this is about changing you.’ The encroaching dusk brought a melancholy aspect to the garden, and the lights from the house combined with the smoke and the evening mist to create an atmosphere of pale ochre. Marta stood up. ‘It always gets depressing at this time of night,’ she said. ‘Let’s go inside.’
Josephine followed her into the house, and waited alone in the sitting room while Marta went to change. Inside, the house was very much what she would have expected—elegant, although not particularly tidy, and furnished according to individual taste rather than fashion or expectation. In two months, Marta had managed to create the illusion of a much longer occupancy, and Josephine could imagine how much time she had invested in the house, seeking the safety that Mary Size had talked about in a home rather than another human being.
The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and she walked over to the French windows, looking out into the darkness and enjoying the sound of the rain against the glass. ‘It’s a lovely view when you can see it,’ Marta said, putting an armful of logs down in the hearth. ‘Just trees beyond the wall, with the odd roof or gable, and the spires of the city in the distance.’ She waved dismissively at the garden. ‘Shame about the no-man’s-land in between.’
‘It won’t look like that forever. You’ll have it beaten into shape by the spring.’
‘Damn right I will. Beverley Nichols is moving in round the corner, apparently, so the challenge is on.’
She took longer than was absolutely necessary to lay the fire, and Josephine noticed that she was much less relaxed than she had been in the garden, as if coming inside had forced her to focus on the awkwardness between them. Being here with her was a different experience entirely from reading the diary, where the strength of Marta’s emotions and her ability to analyse them had left Josephine feeling like a gauche, inexperienced schoolgirl. Shy and reticent when it came to anything other than her work, Josephine so very rarely made someone else uneasy; now, she seemed to be more in control than Marta, and she was ashamed to acknowledge that she found it gratifying.
Marta poured them each a large gin and sat down by the fire. ‘So what did you dress for, if it wasn’t gardening?’
‘A day by the sea. Archie had to go to Suffolk for something to do with a case he’s investigating, and he asked me to go with him.’
‘Doesn’t he have sergeants any more?’ Marta asked, and her expression was so like Archie’s whenever her own name was mentioned that Josephine would have laughed had she not found the inevitable triangle so tiresome. Right now, she would gladly have absented herself from the whole situation and let the two of them fight it out between themselves. ‘Does he know you’re here?’
‘Yes.’
‘I bet that made his day.’ Josephine said nothing; she refused to be drawn into a conversation which would reflect badly on Archie, and to defend him felt like protesting too much. ‘Is there anyone else?’ Marta asked, and Josephine shook her head. ‘You know, I often wondered if you and Lydia would get together after I left. She’s always admired you.’
‘We’re friends, that’s all,’ Josephine said impatiently, wondering if she would be asked to justify every relationship she had. ‘It will never be anything more than that.’
‘And where do you draw the line? Spending time together? Enjoying things more together?’ She finished her drink and got up to fetch another. ‘Having sex?’
She was being deliberately provocative, and Josephine realised that she was simply adopting the best form of defence, but her question was less straightforward than it sounded. Even as it stood, her relationship with Marta was unlike anything else in her life: she and Lydia shared a creative bond and a mutual admiration, but she increasingly felt obliged to be somebody else whenever they were together and, if you removed the theatre, they had very little in common; Ronnie and Lettice’s friendship was an uncomplicated joy, which was picked up and put down again with no damage to its significance; and Archie—well, there was no question that she loved Archie and would choose his company over any other; if he pushed her like Marta was pushing her, she had no idea what she would do—but she knew that he never would. None of those relationships risked anything, none of them made the slightest difference to the world she returned to in Inverness—to her real life, she supposed. But Marta was different: she threatened to blur all the boundaries that Josephine had so carefully drawn. Although they had spent very little time together, most of it had been on their own without the safety of numbers, and they had been thrown together in circumstances which demanded an intense emotional honesty; she knew that Marta was capable of awakening something in her which her life would be happier—or at least more content—without. Complacent, Gerry had called it, but frightened would have been more accurate.
She took the diary out of her bag and put it down on the table. Marta said nothing, wanting her to speak first. ‘This is all so foreign to me that I don’t even know how to begin to respond to it,’ Josephine said quietly.
‘Because it comes from another woman?’
‘What? No, don’t be silly. Why should that make a difference? No, it’s not that.’ She hesitated, realising that any attempt at an explanation would expose flaws in her own character which Marta might scorn, but she owed it to her to be honest. ‘It’s the intensity of it, Marta—the strength of how you feel. I’m not hard-hearted, I don’t lack imagination, but I’ve never felt like that about anyone. This love that you have for me—look how unhappy it’s made you. I haven’t often made people unhappy in my life.’
‘Perhaps they just didn’t tell you. But I didn’t hand it over for you to beat yourself up with—making you feel sorry for me was the last thing I wanted.’
‘I know, and that’s not what I meant.’ She left the sofa and sat down by the fire next to Marta. ‘I’m being much more selfish than that. You’re writing about emotions that terrify me—because of what they might do to both of us.’
Marta took her hand. ‘You really didn’t know, did you? I thought at first that you were just trying to brush it aside, but you had no idea how I felt until I told you.’
‘No, I didn’t. And I suppose, in hindsight, that makes me very stupid.’ She laughed. ‘Even Lettice had spotted it, for God’s sake.’
‘You’ve spoken to her about us?’
‘No, not really, but she saw I was upset the other night at dinner and I told her you’d been in touch. Lydia was there as well, much to my surprise. As you can imagine, it wasn’t the easiest of evenings.’
‘Surely you didn’t say anything to Lydia?’
‘Of course not, but I felt vile about it and we can’t go on like this.’ She took her hand away and stared resolutely into the fire. ‘Go back to Lydia, Marta. She loves you, and she’ll accept all the love you can give her in a way that I don’t think I ever could.’
‘So that’s still your answer? To come here as some sort of selfless ambassador for someone else?’ She got up and placed herself in front of the hearth, forcing Josephine to look at her. ‘And what if I did go back to Lydia? How would you feel? Tell me honestly, Josephine.’
There was no need to think about it: she had asked herself the same question many times. ‘Jealous, I suppose. Resentful. But mostly relieved—relieved that things could go back to normal.’
‘And what does normal mean? Sitting in Inverness where no one can touch you? God in heaven, Josephine—what on earth is the matter with you? Why submit to being half alive when life is so short? Don’t you ever want to watch the sun rise from somewhere that isn’t Crown Cottage or Cavendish Square? Breathe some different air for once?’
Josephine was used to Marta’s sudden bursts of anger by now, and it wasn’t that which unsettled her. ‘You don’t understand,’ she began hesitantly. ‘I’m perfectly happy as I am.’
‘I’m sure you are, but just remember—a dying man often says leave me alone, I want to die, but when he recovers, he trembles every time he remembers his foolishness.’
‘So being with you is a matter of life and death, is it? Jesus, Marta, I thought I was arrogant. Why don’t you just listen for a moment? I don’t want the things you think I should want, and telling me that I want them won’t make me change my mind.’
‘No? Then perhaps this will.’ Marta moved forward to kiss her. As Josephine tasted the gin on her mouth and felt the softness of her skin, she realised that she wanted more than anything to understand what it was like to lose the rest of the world in the sheer joy of one person. She felt Marta hesitate, surprised by her response; tenderly, she put her hand up to Marta’s face, pulling her closer in the hope that the sudden wonder of their intimacy would be enough to prevent her from coming to her senses. For a moment, the simple disbelief of what was happening was enough to convince her that nobody could be hurt by what they did, that she herself would remain unchanged by it; as hard as she tried to forget it, though, Josephine knew that Marta would change her, no matter how much she claimed not to want to, and she pulled away.
Confused and upset, she got up to leave but Marta reached the door first and slammed it shut. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Please don’t go. Just stay and talk to me; we haven’t finished this yet. Please, Josephine—don’t leave like this.’
‘Let me get this straight. You want to arrest the secretary of a prestigious private club—a woman with a distinguished career in nursing and welfare, who is admired and respected by all and sundry, who was Lady Cowdray’s right-hand woman—on two counts of murder and one of attempted murder without any evidence at all? Are you out of your mind, Penrose?’
The chief constable glared across his desk, and Penrose took a deep breath. ‘I wouldn’t say that we’re without any evidence at all, Sir. Sergeant Fallowfield has traced three women who died just before Celia Bannerman left for Leeds and whose bodies were unidentified at the time. Two of them were recovered from the Thames, and the third went under a tube train.’ Penrose was convinced that one of these women was Eleanor Vale; certainly, there was no trace of her in the Leeds area as far as they could tell, and while this was in no way conclusive—people disappeared all the time, as he had explained to Josephine—he had not yet found anything which disproved his theory. ‘So it’s three counts of murder, really, and one of attempted murder. I think Celia Bannerman killed Eleanor Vale, and the current crimes …’
‘I’m not interested in the death of an ex-convict from thirty years ago, and neither should you be. From what you tell me, she should have hanged anyway and the pressure on us from the Home Office is rather more contemporary than you seem to realise.’
‘But that’s my point, Sir—there is a direct connection to what we’re investigating now. I think the Baker murders and Lucy Peters’s fall happened because Marjorie and her father found out about Vale’s death and were foolish enough to try to blackmail Miss Bannerman.’
‘Yes, yes, Penrose—I understand what you think. You’ve made that very clear. But I’ll ask you again—where’s your evidence? I don’t count three unidentified bodies who happened to depart this world just as Celia Bannerman was catching a train as incontrovertible proof. London’s full of women who disappear without leaving anyone behind to care—God knows it was even worse back then. And apart from anything else, the picture you paint of Bannerman’s well-intentioned interference in prison hardly fits with someone who could take a life simply because it was convenient to her.’
That was true, and the contradiction had made Penrose doubt his own theory at first; but, in his conversations with Celia Bannerman, he had detected a streak of steel, the kind of dedication and self-righteousness which occasionally blurred the boundaries between right and wrong, and he was willing to believe that her crusade to do good had, in her own mind, justified evil in its progress. The chief constable was clearly not in the mood to discuss the finer points of human nature, however, so he stuck to the basics. ‘Then there are the postcards I found in Lucy’s room,’ he said. ‘She and Marjorie had obviously been to see Ethel Stuke—the woman in the tea shop in Suffolk confirmed as much.’ It’s just as well she had, because the miraculous piece of evidence which he had hoped to find on Lucy’s camera had failed to materialise: all that the film would testify to was a girls’ day out, poignant in hindsight because of what had happened since, but nothing more than that.
‘A day out by the seaside and some idle gossip are hardly enough to warrant an arrest, though.’
It sounded thin, even to Penrose’s ears, but he pressed on. ‘Not in themselves, perhaps, but taken together with Celia Bannerman’s lies and the fact that she was on the scene at Lucy’s accident, I think we have enough to bring her in for questioning.’
‘Has Bannerman got any connection to this Baker girl other than having her frock made?’
‘No, but her father …’
‘And has she an alibi?’
‘A partial alibi.’
‘But there’s absolutely nothing to put her at the scene after two-thirty that afternoon, when she readily admits to being there?’
‘No, but she has a history with the family …’
‘And that’s all it is, Penrose—a history. What about the girl’s mother? Am I right in thinking that she has no alibi for the murder, that she was on bad terms with her family, and that she and Marjorie had been fighting in the street? Or did you make all that up just to pad out your report?’
‘Of course not, Sir.’
‘Then I suggest you concentrate on the woman you already have in custody and get a result before some do-gooder from a welfare organisation starts suggesting that we’re hounding the socially disadvantaged without good cause.’
‘I questioned her again this afternoon when I got back from Walberswick, Sir.’ He omitted to say that the interview had consisted mostly of questions relating to Eleanor Vale and Celia Bannerman, and that it had got him nowhere; if Jacob Sach and Marjorie knew something about that relationship, they certainly hadn’t shared it with anyone else in the family. Fallowfield had still been unable to establish a clear alibi for Edwards but, whilst this was a blow to the sergeant’s professional pride, it created no problematic doubts for Penrose: after the interview, he had taken her downstairs for the formal identification of Marjorie’s body and there was no question in his mind that her grief—which seemed to have gained strength from being denied for so long—was genuine. She had touched her daughter’s bruised and violated lips with a tenderness which Penrose doubted she had ever expressed while Marjorie was alive and, of all the regrets which he saw pass across her face, remorse at having killed her was not one of them. ‘The truth is we don’t have any good cause to keep her here,’ he said as patiently as he could. ‘I really don’t think it’s her.’
‘But you don’t know it’s not. You seem to be confusing the issue, Penrose. I asked you to take a look at the Cowdray Club because of some anonymous letters and a spate of petty thefts; I did not ask you to investigate the private lives of its members, and in particular of its secretary.’
‘I think they’re connected, though.’ It was a half-truth; he agreed with Fallowfield that Sylvia Timpson was likely to be behind the spiteful letters, driven by bitterness about her own abandoned career, but that didn’t exclude the possibility that Bannerman had received a threatening note from a different source. ‘Marjorie delivered two letters to the club on Friday morning,’ he explained, ‘and only one of them was from my cousins—I’ve checked that. I think Marjorie wrote the other one herself and challenged Celia Bannerman to …’
‘Can you prove that?’
‘Not yet, sir, but it seems reasonable to assume …’
‘It’s not reasonable to assume anything when you’re dealing with something as sensitive as this. I hope to God you haven’t been stupid enough to tell anyone else what’s in your mind. When I asked you to look into the matter, I told you to be discreet.’
‘To be fair, Sir, we weren’t investigating two murders at that stage. Sudden death does rather limit the opportunities for discretion.’
He knew he’d pushed his luck too far: sarcasm was never the right tack to adopt with the chief constable, and certainly not with an issue that contained such a strong political subtext. ‘Do I need to remind you, Inspector, that the murders to which you refer happened half a mile away on someone else’s premises?’ The rank was spoken in such a way as to suggest that it was a temporary arrangement which could easily be dissolved. ‘Premises owned by your family, in fact. Perhaps I should take you off this case. The fact that one of the victims was your cousins’ employee creates an obvious conflict of interests.’
The comment wasn’t worth addressing seriously and Penrose ignored it; he was arrogant enough to realise his value to the force, and he knew that the Chief would never risk insulting his integrity without a better reason than the one he had just given. ‘But Lucy Peters wasn’t half a mile away, Sir.’ He had checked regularly on the girl’s condition with Miriam Sharpe and there had been no marked improvement; she may have survived the immediate trauma but, as Sharpe had warned him yesterday, there was still plenty to worry about. ‘She was well and truly on the Cowdray Club premises.’
‘And she fell down the stairs. It’s all very tragic, I agree, but it can’t be helped.’
‘But just suppose for a moment that I’m right, Sir. Peters is in danger, because the killer will try again.’ He was careful to avoid using Bannerman’s name; it would only antagonise his superior even further. ‘Do we really want to risk that? A young girl’s death caused by our negligence—that really would be a scandal.’
‘You’ve got a man posted outside her room around the clock, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Then I don’t quite see your problem.’ The Chief hadn’t met Celia Bannerman in Lucy’s room and seen the fear in her eyes, Penrose thought; the longer Lucy survived the accident, the more desperate Bannerman would become. ‘Look, I understand what you’re saying to me and normally I admire your flair—you know I do.’ Penrose accepted the condescension through gritted teeth, but he knew that the battle was over for now. ‘This time, though, I honestly think you’ve got it wrong. There’s the gala tomorrow night to consider, and the minister’s going to be there. I really can’t allow you to make waves unless you’ve got the facts to back it up. Go back and talk to Baker or Edwards, or whatever her name is.’
Penrose knew that he could talk to Edwards until he was blue in the face, but the answer would still be the same: she hadn’t killed her daughter or her husband. Understanding now exactly how Miriam Sharpe felt about society getting in the way of the job, he tried one more shot. ‘And if I can bring you evidence that Bannerman is involved somehow?’
The chief constable looked at him as though he were a weapon which had fallen into dangerous hands. ‘Then of course I’ll allow you to bring her in,’ he said cautiously. ‘Good God, man, we’re not in the business of hushing things up. But don’t waste time that should be spent on the Baker woman, and if you can get a confession out of her before tomorrow night, it would reflect well on us all.’
Never mind that it’s the wrong one, Penrose muttered to himself, but he recognised a dismissal when he heard one. ‘I’ll do my best, Sir,’ was all he could manage to say with any degree of courtesy.
‘And you’re at the gala tomorrow night?’
‘Yes, Sir. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’ He smiled, enjoying the nervous expression on his superior’s face.
‘Then I hope I can rely on you to put on a good show. There’ll be lots of important people there, and it wouldn’t do your career any harm to make a good impression. No nonsense, Penrose.’
‘Of course not, Sir.’ Still seething, Penrose shut the door behind him and went to look for Fallowfield. Perhaps the chief constable wasn’t entirely wrong after all, he thought, remembering the half-finished evening cloak which Marjorie had been working on for Celia Bannerman: a good show tomorrow night might be exactly what was needed.
‘I thought I might publish it, you know—the diary.’
‘You should do. It’s beautifully written. I imagine that people who can read it without feeling guilty will be fascinated by it—there’s a big market for angst by proxy.’
Marta laughed. ‘You wouldn’t mind?’
‘No, not really. Are you writing anything else?’ She and Marta had arrived at a fragile peace and, by an unspoken agreement, had lapsed into pleasantries to protect it. Josephine sensed that they both needed time to reassess what was going on between them; Marta had disappeared for ages on the pretext of getting them something to eat but, when she finally returned with plates of cheese and fruit, neither of them had touched it. While Josephine had been glad of the breathing space, she knew that sooner or later they would have to face their feelings or something precious would be lost; superficial chats on social occasions were not what she wanted from Marta, and she was surprised again by how important the relationship had become to her. ‘What about another novel? I can’t imagine you idle.’
‘I’ve started something, but I haven’t got very far with it. And you? I kept an eye out in the papers for a new play, but there hasn’t been anything.’
‘No, I’ve gone back to crime. It’ll be out early next year.’
‘Please tell me I didn’t drive you to it.’
‘Not to the crime, no, but there’s a character in it you might recognise—an actress. I gave her your name and Lydia’s personality.’
‘Determined to couple us in one way or another, then,’ Marta said, turning the bottle in the grate to warm the other side. ‘How is Lydia?’
‘Up and down. Work’s dismal, but the cottage is heavenly. She spends as much time there as she can, I gather.’
‘You gather? Don’t you see her much?’
‘We drifted apart a bit after what happened at the end of Richard, and it didn’t help that Queen of Scots wasn’t quite the career boost that she’d hoped for. We’re still friends, but it’s all a bit superficial at the moment. She’s never really forgiven me for being the one who was there for you when you needed someone. I get the feeling she doesn’t trust me any more.’ She gave a wry smile and poured the wine. ‘With good reason, as it turns out.’
‘You saved my life, Josephine—literally. Lydia couldn’t have done what you did to make me believe in a future; she would never have said the right things. And I haven’t even thanked you for that, have I? All those pages of pouring my heart out to you, and I never once mentioned it. It must seem ungrateful of me, but it felt like the sort of thing that I should say to your face—if I ever got to see your face again. So thank you.’
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the soft crackle of the fire. ‘Sometimes I think it would have been kinder to let you do what you intended,’ Josephine said at last. ‘What you went through instead can’t have been easy. I was at Holloway yesterday.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘It started out as research for a new book, but really I went for you.’
Marta lit a cigarette and stared at her. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because I wanted to understand. There’s so much that I don’t know about you, Marta. I met you as Lydia’s lover, and we’ve hardly seen each other—yet here we are, talking about love and deciding whether or not we should go to bed together.’
‘What do you want to know before you have your wicked way with me?’
Josephine took the cigarette out of Marta’s mouth and made her light another. ‘Don’t be so glib,’ she said irritably. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘No I don’t. I’m astonished and touched that you would bother to walk round Holloway just to understand what I’ve been through, but I don’t see why anything else matters.’
‘So if you could ask me anything at all, you wouldn’t bother?’
She shook her head. ‘Not if it was about the past, no. I don’t need to. How I feel about you won’t change just because I know what school you went to.’
Josephine flushed, and felt like a naive child who had failed to understand the simplest of life’s truths. The control she had marvelled at earlier was now all but gone and the power between them had shifted: at the beginning of the evening, it was Marta who had laid her soul bare, Marta who wanted something; now, Josephine wanted it too, and that made her vulnerable, as Marta clearly recognised. ‘Do you ever do what’s expected?’ she asked angrily.
Marta held up her hands in apology. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like a Victorian parent scouting for a suitable daughter-in-law, but are you really so surprised that I don’t want to dwell on things that are over and done with? My whole past is dead, Josephine. There’s no one left to testify to the person I’ve been for most of my life—no parents, no lovers, no children. Lydia is the longest connection I have, and I’ve only known her for two years.’
‘That sounds quite liberating to me—you can be anyone you want to be.’
‘It’s not liberating, it’s terrifying. It’s almost as if I never existed, because my whole history died with the people I loved. I used to think that was the peculiar hell of the very old, you know, to be the last of your generation; now I know how easily it can happen. I want someone who can testify to my future, not my past. Is that really so unreasonable?’
‘No, of course it isn’t, but if Lydia is the longest relationship you have, why not try to make it last?’
‘Because everything’s come to pieces in my hands, Josephine. How could I inflict that on her?’
Josephine couldn’t resist raising an eyebrow. ‘But you’re happy to inflict it on me?’
‘You’re different—you can take it. Lydia’s not as strong as we are—she glosses over things. It’s a useful talent to have and I love her for it, but it’s no good in the end. She just hands me a plaster and sings while I bleed; you amputate the arm and tell me to get on with it.’
It was an insightful comment, and Josephine was reminded of why she admired Marta’s writing. ‘So you do still love her?’
‘Yes. Not in the way I love you, but I still care about her.’
Josephine remembered what Mary Size had said about Marta’s needing something to rely on, and she knew in her heart that it wasn’t these extremes of emotion and snatched hours spent with her. ‘Then put the pieces back together, Marta,’ she said quietly, hoping that the sadness didn’t show in her voice. ‘The way you love me won’t help you do that. There are only so many limbs you can lose.’
Marta sighed impatiently. ‘You make it sound so straightforward. Apart from anything else, why should Lydia even think of taking me back after everything that’s happened?’
It was the first hint of acquiescence, and relief was the last of the emotions which Josephine felt. ‘Coy really doesn’t suit you,’ she snapped. ‘Of course she’d have you back. Surely you’ve read her letters?’ Her jealousy took her completely by surprise, and she realised suddenly that many of her reasons for bringing the couple together were utterly selfish: as long as Marta was with Lydia, there was no danger of losing her completely. ‘Anyway, it’s not up to me to tell you to make a go of it with her. I’m just saying don’t make me a reason not to.’
‘But you are. Damn you, Josephine—my head tells me to go to Lydia, but still I cling to this ridiculous dream that you and I might have a future together. I never dreamt when I started that bloody diary in February that by November I’d still be incapable of looking at anyone else because of you, but it’s true. Even then, I thought that seeing you would be a kill-or-cure method. That’s all very well, but you forget that sometimes those methods do actually kill.’ She drained her glass and rubbed her hands across her eyes. ‘You got me through prison, too, but if I’d known then what I know now—what your coming here today has taught me—I think I’d have turned my face to the wall and given in.’
‘What has it taught you?’
‘That there’s no such thing as pride any more. I used to think that my feelings for you were all or nothing, that if I ever had the guts to declare myself to you, I’d also have the strength to walk away. I meant what I said, you know—if the answer was no, I vowed I wouldn’t bother you again.’
‘And now?’
‘Now?’ She put Josephine’s glass down and took both her hands. ‘Now I think that just to be in the same room as you is adventure enough, that your friendship would be more exciting than most people’s love. All my good intentions left me the minute I set eyes on you today, and I know that even if I tell you to go now, sooner or later I’ll come crawling back like a spaniel begging for any crumb you might throw me. I know that my love for you will make me lie my way into your friendship, that I’ll deny the very fact of its existence just for the joy of seeing you.’ She looked away, suddenly self-conscious. ‘It’s ironic, isn’t it? I don’t want you to change at all, but I’ll become whatever I have to just to be near you—I’ll even be your friend.’
‘Don’t you think there’s more permanence in that, though? If we were lovers, you’d soon get tired of it.’
Marta laughed scornfully. ‘You think I only want you because I can’t have you? That’s really not worthy of you, Josephine. I’m forty-four, but even when I was sixteen I didn’t confuse those issues. I’ve told three people in my life that I love them, and each time I’ve known that it would always be true, no matter what happened. I meant it when I said it to Lydia, and I mean it when I say it to you.’
‘But Marta, you can’t go around collecting lovers—that’s not worthy of you.’ Josephine looked at her in disbelief and pulled away. ‘If you’re always going to love Lydia, I don’t quite see where I fit in.’
‘That’s not what I meant. I was just trying to convince you that this isn’t about a cheap conquest. And anyway, if it’s about fitting in, I have no illusions about the fact that I’ll have to fit in with you. I know you have a life. I know you have responsibilities. I look at you sitting there and I know that whatever we do or don’t do, you’ll have to go away some time. If you stay the night, morning will call you back to Cavendish Square; if you stay a week, you’ll still go eventually, and I’ll be left longing for you to return.’
‘And you really want that sort of life?’
‘I want you. If you come with that sort of life, then so be it. I can accept that.’ Marta sat as close as she could without touching her, and Josephine had no doubt that she realised the power of that restraint. ‘If you’re holding back because you really don’t want me in your life, then go—I won’t stop you again. But don’t do it for my sake. This sort of thing doesn’t happen very often, Josephine, or with many people. If we ignore it, we’re missing something splendid, and I think you want it as badly as I do.’
‘How can you have any idea of what I want if I don’t know myself?’
‘Because we’re alike, you and I. We both want peace and freedom. The only difference is that I believe you can find them in another human being—that we can find them in each other—and you’ve yet to be convinced.’
‘And you think you can convince me, I suppose.’ Josephine stood up and put her empty glass down on the table. For once, Marta seemed to have no arguments left; defeated by Josephine’s resolve, she sat staring into the fire, saying nothing. ‘Well?’ Josephine asked impatiently.
Confused, Marta looked up. ‘Well what?’
‘Do you think you can convince me? I don’t want to be right about this, Marta, so if there’s the slightest chance that you can prove to me what you say you can, then what are you waiting for?’
‘I don’t understand.’ Marta spoke hesitantly, scarcely daring to believe what she was hearing. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m not. I’m not sure about anything, and the more we talk about it, the less sure I become.’ Fear made Josephine antagonistic, and she took Marta’s hand to soften the words. ‘It’s going to kill us, all this talking,’ she said. ‘We analyse everything and it’s one of the things I love about us, but there are times when that isn’t necessary, and perhaps this is one of them.’ The truce had been so long in coming that Josephine was reluctant to place any more obstacles in its way, but she spoke anyway. ‘I need to know that you meant what you said, though—about understanding my life and not changing anything. If you’re just saying that, and you’re going to come to me in a week or a month or a year and want more, then I should leave now.’
‘A year?’ Marta grinned wickedly. ‘If you’re giving me a year, this must be serious.’
‘Don’t joke about it. This has to be between you and me, and no one else.’
The grin faded, and Marta looked at her for what felt like an age. ‘I was right,’ she said eventually. ‘They are grey.’ Gently, she touched Josephine’s cheek, just below her eye. ‘I’m not joking, Josephine. I know this isn’t a competition, but you’re not the only one who’s vulnerable. We both need to be sure of what we’re doing.’
For the first time, Josephine recognised how much Marta stood to lose by loving her, and somehow the fact that their bond was based on a mutual fragility gave it strength. ‘I’m sorry. That was selfish of me. It’s just …’
Marta interrupted her. ‘I know what it is. You need to be safe, and I understand that. But this isn’t Inverness, Josephine. It isn’t the West End. What happens between us, in this house, has nothing to do with anyone.’ She smiled and stood up. ‘Wait here—I won’t be long. I don’t have to lock the doors, do I?’ Josephine shook her head, and listened as Marta’s footsteps faded. When she came back a few minutes later, she stood at the door and held out her hand. ‘Come on.’
The bedroom was a beautiful, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house. Marta had lit a fire, and the flames threw a muted reflection on to the mahogany of the bed, turning the wood an even richer red. The only other colour in the room came from a painting on the far wall, an oil of a village street which reminded Josephine of somewhere in France she had visited as a girl. Everything else was white, and there was a stillness about it which seemed to underline Marta’s promise to her of peace. Suddenly unsure of herself, Josephine walked over to the window and looked out into the darkness; Marta’s reflection stared back at her, vague and insubstantial in the lamplight, and she put her hand up to touch it. The glass was cold beneath her fingertips.
‘Are you all right?’
Josephine nodded. ‘None of this feels very real, though. It sounds ridiculous, but I’m half afraid to turn round in case you’re not there.’
Marta kissed the back of her neck. ‘Where else would I be, now I’ve gone to all this trouble?’ She took Josephine’s hand and led her over to the bed. Slowly, they undressed each other. Transfixed by the curve of Marta’s back as she leaned forward, by the way her hair washed over her shoulders, Josephine was forced to acknowledge a need which had been suppressed for more years than she cared to remember. They lay down together and Marta pulled her close, kissing her hard as she became more aroused, then gently guiding Josephine’s mouth towards her breasts; as Josephine felt the nipple harden against her tongue, she had to fight the rush of her own desire to prevent her from hurrying anything about this moment. Aware that the first time would always be special, she explored Marta’s body inch by inch, tenderly stroking her skin, then allowing her hand to move softly across her pubic hair. Her touch—hesitant at first—grew more urgent, and she heard Marta whisper her name with a longing that both moved and frightened her. For a moment, she tried to deny the emotional impact of what was happening, but, as Marta cried out and pressed against her, Josephine knew it was useless to pretend that the joy she found in their bond was simply a physical attraction.
The strength of her feelings took her completely by surprise. Struggling to make sense of them, she ran her fingers back across Marta’s stomach and traced the contours of her breasts, noticing that her skin was flushed with desire. Marta kissed her fingertips one by one, then turned and took Josephine in her arms; her hand moved lovingly down Josephine’s body, and Josephine felt a combination of exhilaration and safety which she had never thought possible. Her instinct was to close her eyes and submit all her other senses to the joy of Marta’s touch, but it was impossible: Marta’s gaze held her as steadily as the arm around her shoulders, and she couldn’t have looked away even if she had wanted to. She lifted her hand to Marta’s cheek, a silent apology for having doubted her, and Marta drew her closer as she came, softly kissing tears from her face and neck. In the peace of the moments that followed, Josephine wondered how she could ever have believed Marta to be dangerous.
For a long time, they lay together without speaking. ‘What are you thinking?’ Marta asked eventually.
Josephine glanced away, reluctant to answer. ‘You don’t want to talk about the past.’
‘I’ll make an exception. You look so sad.’ She tried to keep her tone light, but it sounded forced and unconvincing. ‘Is it someone you’ve loved and lost?’
‘No, of course not.’ Josephine kissed her. ‘What more could I possibly want than this? No, it’s not my past I was thinking about—it’s yours, and what you had to go through when you were married. I can’t bear what he did to your body, how he must have hurt you.’
‘It’s my mind he fucked with, not my body. That’s where the real scars are.’ She smiled sadly, and ran her fingers through Josephine’s hair. ‘And even they’re fading. Every time you look at me like that, he takes another step back.’
Josephine found it hard to believe her, but she didn’t argue; if Marta wanted to convince herself that her past could recede so easily, she wasn’t about to disillusion her, but she doubted that the memory of her husband—and in particular the things he had driven her to do by separating her from her children—would ever allow Marta to live her life entirely without shadows. ‘Even so, I can’t imagine that Holloway is the best place to lay your ghosts,’ she said.
‘I don’t know; at least I had plenty of time to think about what happened. I remember wondering if that was why I loved you—because you understood, and you gave me the only connection I had with the daughter I’d never known.’ She smiled, ‘It didn’t take me long to realise there was more to it than that, but you met Elspeth before she was killed and that made you precious to me, regardless of anything else. I tried to get in touch with Elspeth’s adoptive mother,’ she added hesitantly. ‘I wrote to her from prison, but the letters came back unopened. Then when I got out, I went up to Berwick to see her.’
‘What happened?’ Josephine asked softly.
‘Nothing. I couldn’t do it. There was a little park at the end of their street, and I sat for hours trying to find the courage, but I couldn’t even go to the door. In the end, I just caught the train back again.’ She rubbed her hand angrily across her face. ‘If I’d given up so easily on other parts of my life, things might have been very different.’
Josephine caught Marta’s hand and wiped the tears away more gently. ‘What did you want from her?’
‘I told myself I wanted to know about Elspeth’s life,’ she said. ‘I had some bizarre notion that sharing the loss of a child might bring us together, that we could help each other, but really that was nonsense. I wanted forgiveness, Josephine. Actually, more than that: I wanted someone who mattered to hold me and tell me that what happened to Elspeth wasn’t my fault. I must have been insane. Why would that poor woman lift a finger to comfort her daughter’s killer?’
‘You didn’t kill Elspeth, Marta.’ She said nothing, but Josephine felt her body stiffen in an effort to control her tears. ‘And she was your daughter, nobody else’s.’ The words were a trigger for Marta to submit to her grief. Her sobs—raw, violent and intense—shook them both, and Josephine clung to her as if she could somehow absorb some of Marta’s pain into her own skin, desperate to help but at a loss to know how. Coming so soon after their closeness, it was a shock to her to realise that a degree of separation would always exist between them, regardless of love: no matter how well she grew to know Marta, she would never understand what it was like to lose a child. It was a lesson which all lovers had to learn, she supposed, different in each case but carrying a universal sense of regret; even so, Josephine had not expected to be faced with it quite so early in their relationship.
‘I’m sorry,’ Marta said at last, following her thoughts. ‘You must wonder what the hell you’ve got yourself into.’
‘I know what I’m doing, Marta. And you have nothing to be sorry for. You’ve apologised enough.’ As the night went on, they made love again, and this time the intensity was replaced by a tender assurance which seemed to Josephine to hold its own excitement, if only because it hinted at a past and a future. Afterwards, she lay awake for a long time, her body pleasurably tired, her mind weary with guilt at having unlocked in Marta a grief which would be with her long after Josephine had returned to Inverness.