Tabby came back quite early in the morning, so Amos left in plenty of time for the stables. I made tea for us.
‘What’s happening at the Maynards’?’ I said.
‘You sure you’re strong enough to talk?’
I must sound worse than I realized. She’d never been so solicitous before.
‘Yes. Do I still look that bad?’
‘Like a hen’s carcass a dog dug up. They’re all at sixes and sevens at the house, lights on all night. The police have been round, talking to the servants.’
‘Did they include the scullery maid?’
‘Nah, they wouldn’t expect her to know anything. Only the upper servants like the housekeeper, the butler and Mrs Maynard’s maid. They knew she didn’t go out by the front door because the butler locked it at midnight and put the key in his pocket, and she was seen after that by Mrs Maynard’s maid.’
‘Are they treating it as murder or suicide?’
‘Dunno. The only one I could get to talk to was the gardening boy, Toby, and the police didn’t bother to speak to him either. They think he only comes in by the day and don’t know he sleeps in the greenhouse. If they did, they’d have saved themselves asking about the front door. Toby saw her go out through the garden.’
‘When?’
‘He doesn’t know the time but says it was just before it got light, so that would be around four o’clock. He says he usually sleeps sound but he heard a noise. He thinks it was her stumbling on the gravel path. He woke up and looked out because he thought it might be me. He’s got it in his head that I’m a burglar.’
‘Why would he …?’
‘Don’t worry about it. Anyway, there was this woman in a cloak with the hood up. He says he didn’t know at the time it was Miss Felicity, but she was moving like a young woman and he thought somehow she was quality. Then, later, round about their breakfast time, the place was in an uproar because Miss Felicity was missing, so he knew it must have been her that he saw.’
‘Didn’t he tell anybody?’
‘Wasn’t his place and nobody asked him. One thing, if she went out the back way, Jane should have known. She sleeps in the kitchen.’
‘So Felicity went out just before first light. To throw herself into the Thames?’ Up till then, I’d accepted Tabby’s belief Felicity would not commit suicide. I didn’t know the girl – she’d been absent from the dinner party at the Maynards’ – but it had to be a possibility.
‘Nah. I reckon she was going to meet somebody, or was looking for somebody.’
‘Who?’
‘I told you – Jane and the man she’d been seeing had some sort of hold over Felicity. Suppose they were blackmailing her and she’d gone to talk to him or hand over money?’
‘At the building site?’
‘That’s what I reckon. She knew he came from there and she’d gone to find him.’
‘And he hit her on the head and threw her in the river? Very neat. The only problem with that is that he couldn’t have. Before Felicity came out of the house, you’d followed him to St Giles and he stayed there.’
‘So we come back to Jane. I said she’d have known if Felicity went out the back. But suppose she wasn’t asleep in the kitchen? Suppose she’d told Felicity to meet her somewhere outside the house and was waiting for her?’
‘And killed her? But would Felicity have gone out to meet her?’
‘If she had no choice. We don’t know what they had over her.’
‘How big was Felicity?’
‘Tall, quite slim.’
‘And Jane?’
‘Not so tall, and broader across the hips and shoulders. Looks strong.’ I still found it hard to accept that a woman could bludgeon another over the head, but suspected Tabby would know of examples, so said nothing. ‘Anyway, I’ll need to go back there and make her speak to me.’
‘Will she, do you think?’
‘She’ll have to, if I threaten to tell the housekeeper about her having a lover calling on her.’ I doubted that Tabby would do that, her sympathies usually being with scullery maids, but she’d make it an effective threat.
‘I’ll come with you.’
She looked me up and down. ‘For one thing, you’re not up to it yet. For another, we don’t want anyone knowing you’ve come back.’
‘They won’t. I’m sure Jane never saw me at the Maynards’.’ A scullery maid wouldn’t wait at the table. ‘You can just say I’m a friend of yours.’
In the end, she gave in, on condition that we went to Westminster by cab. We put together an outfit for me from the clothes upstairs, a plain blue wool dress and a bonnet that came well forward over the face. The dress was too hot for the day but I welcomed the warmth with my bones still cold from the river. We got out of the cab on the north side of Westminster Bridge and stood for a while looking down at the water. The tide was going out again, brown water sucking against the stone pillars. I imagined a body being bludgeoned head first against the stones, not sure whether I was thinking of Felicity’s or my own. When I looked back upriver there were the familiar landmarks – the partly finished towers, the abbey, the prison. We walked past the building site along Millbank, the road clogged with a mixture of smart carriages and wagons loaded with building materials, then crossed into the open area surrounding St John’s Church. Two carriages were parked outside the Maynards’ house. Friends or family condoling, I supposed. The blinds were down in mourning over all the windows, so there was no fear of Mr or Mrs Maynard looking out. In any case, after ten days in the near dark and a ducking in the Thames, I knew I was looking very different from the light-hearted woman who’d arrived for the dinner party. We went into the garden by the side door. The gardening boy, picking French beans, glanced up at us then warningly towards the greenhouse and mouthed two words. Inside it, a gardener with his back to us was doing something to espaliered fruit trees. I looked questioningly at Tabby.
‘Dismal Jim. He’ll go inside soon. We’ll get you in the cowshed and I’ll go and talk to Jane.’
The cowshed was occupied by the little Jersey sheltering from the sun, but she was obliging enough to share it with me while Tabby walked up to the kitchen door as if she belonged in the place and disappeared inside. She was gone for about ten minutes and came back looking grim.
‘She’s scared, but I made her see she’s got to talk to us. She’ll come out to the greenhouse when Dismal Jim goes inside for his beer.’
We watched as the gardener shuffled towards the house. Soon afterwards, a young woman in a black dress, white cap and apron came out of the kitchen door, glanced round her and started walking towards the greenhouse. We met her at the door and I opened it for us to go inside. The air was hot and heavy. Perfect downy peaches hung from trees espaliered along the wall and melons were ripening, each one netted in its miniature hammock, filling the air with tropical scent. I led the way to the far end, our feet echoing on the metal grating, and stopped by a big lead water tank. Jane’s eyes were red-rimmed and terrified, her breathing heavy. In happier circumstances, she’d have been pretty enough – curly hair, big brown eyes, a pleasant roundness of figure. Now she leaned back against the tank, trying to put as much space as possible between herself and us, and the sharp whiff of her sweat mingled with the fruit smells.
‘We’re not going to hurt you,’ I said.
‘Wh-who are you?’
‘Friends of the family. We’re just trying to find out what happened.’
‘She’s dead.’
‘We know that. We’re wondering why she left the house. You keep a watch on the back door, don’t you?’
‘I sleep there. It’s handy in case the dogs bark in the night and I have to go to them. I’ve got a bed to myself that folds up in the day, and it’s warm from all the cooking.’
‘So you saw her go out?’
A nod.
‘Did she say anything to you?’
‘Not then, no. Earlier, she’d been angry with me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of something I’d done.’
‘What had you done?’
Silence.
‘Had she found out that you were seeing a man from the building site?’ I said.
It’s odd when you’re questioning somebody and suddenly find out that you’ve made a mistake. I saw it in her eyes. She was still terrified, and yet somehow I’d just said something that made her feel a little more secure. When she replied at last, her voice had an edge of defiance.
‘She couldn’t have, because I wasn’t.’
Tabby had been silent up to then, but she broke in. ‘No point in saying you weren’t. I saw him being let in, and you’re the one in the kitchen.’
‘I didn’t know he was from the building site. I never knew where he was from.’
‘But you let him in,’ Tabby said. She looked ready to shake the truth out of Jane. I put out a hand to stop her.
‘Only because I was told to.’
Tabby and I looked at each other. ‘Who told you to?’ I said.
‘She did. Miss Felicity.’
Her eyes, staring into mine from a few feet away, were now more hostile than terrified.
‘Miss Felicity told you to let him in? Why?’
Just the glimpse of a grin from her at my supposed naivety. ‘Why do you think?’
‘She’s dead. You won’t gain anything from bad-wording her.’
‘I’m not bad-wording anybody. It’s God’s truth. She gave me things – money and stockings and underthings. It was her secret and I had to keep it. I liked her. Better than I liked the rest of them, anyway.’
‘And after you’d let him in?’
‘She’d take him into the parlour. I didn’t spy on them. It was nothing to do with me. Then I’d let him out.’
‘How long has this been going on?’
‘Since May. Twice a week, most weeks.’
‘And the night before last, he came as usual?’
‘She hadn’t told me he was coming. She’d always told me before. He just arrived at the back door, no warning. I knew she was up in her room with a headache, so I told him she was indisposed and he went away.’
‘Had she known he was coming?’
‘Can’t have, or she’d have told me. She’d had another argument with her mother that evening. We all knew about it from Mary – her mother’s maid. Miss Felicity and her mother were always arguing. This time it was over a man that proposed to her but she wouldn’t have him. So she’d gone to her room and didn’t want to be disturbed. Then, later I thought maybe she should know he’d called, so I went up and tapped on her door and told her. She was mad with me for turning him away, but I don’t see what I could have done.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Late … after midnight. I went back down to the kitchen and went to sleep, and the next thing I knew, a few hours later, there she was, walking out.’
‘And you didn’t tell anybody?’
‘’Course not. Then, at breakfast time, there was all the fuss because she wasn’t there, and of course I didn’t tell anybody because it would all have come out about the man. Later on, the police were round here asking questions, but I kept clear of them. You won’t tell them, will you?’ She glanced at Tabby. ‘She said you wouldn’t tell them if I talked to you.’
I’d have hesitated to give that assurance, but Tabby would never willingly talk to the police. I’d have to decide later whether I was bound by what she’d said.
‘Why didn’t you want to talk to them?’
‘Because if it came out about me letting him in, I’d lose my job and get no reference – then what would I do?’
It seemed such a small matter in the circumstances. I had to remind myself that for her it would be a disaster far above Miss Felicity’s death. She turned and looked out to the garden. ‘Dismal Jim’ll be back any time. I have to go.’
‘Just one more thing. Do you think Miss Felicity was going out to meet the man?’
‘I don’t know. She couldn’t have expected to meet him that night or she’d have told me to let him in.’
We stood aside to let her walk past us to the greenhouse door. She turned after she’d taken a few steps.
‘You won’t tell the police, will you? It had nothing to do with me, her being dead.’ The door closed behind her and we watched as she hurried across the garden.
We let ourselves out of the garden and started walking back towards the abbey.
‘Do we believe her?’ Tabby said.
‘Yes. She was too scared to lie. Still, it’s almost incredible the risk Felicity was taking. The police should know about it.’
‘Why? We know he can’t have killed her.’
‘We need to speak to him. That means we must go back into that site.’ We looked across at it. A team of six horses was pulling a wagon of timbers through the gate. ‘I wonder if the police have been talking to the workmen there. It’s one of the places where she might have been put into the river.’
‘You could do that anywhere. Still, if we could walk round I might see him.’
‘I still have the blankets that Mr James wrapped round me, and the workman’s clogs. It would surely be only civil to return them.’
We walked on in silence for a while, looking for a cab.
‘I’ve been thinking about that bitch,’ Tabby said. I almost groaned. She seemed obsessed by the dog. ‘Suppose it wasn’t Jane that let her out. Suppose it was Felicity.’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘Because the man who was seeing her told her to.’
‘So, by your theory, she’s not only let a lover into the house, she’s involved with whatever plot is going on?’
‘Is there anything else that makes sense of this?’
We waited on the corner by Westminster Bridge. Several full cabs trotted past. ‘You’ve seen Felicity,’ I said. ‘Did she strike you as remarkable?’
Tabby shrugged. ‘Only a couple of times, from a distance. Why should she?’
It was a fair enough question, but it was in my mind that Felicity must have been quite remarkably daring. For a girl from her sheltered background to take a lover was surprising enough, even more so that he seemed to be from the working class. How in the world had she met him? Then to bribe a servant to let him into the house secretly was something altogether out of the common. A girl capable of that would surely be capable of anything.
An empty cab appeared. Tabby signalled to it to stop and we folded ourselves into it. On the slow journey back, I worked out in my head the details of our return to the building site. What we’d do if she came face-to-face with Felicity’s lover was something we’d have to deal with when it happened. An odd recklessness had come to me after my time in captivity. I’d escaped from that and didn’t see what could be worse. If Tabby’s suspicion turned out to be right – and I was still by no means convinced of that – then this was a trail that at some distant point led to Robert. With nothing else to point the way, all we could do was follow it.