8

I stumbled past the warehouses on Tooley Street, trying not to run. Above my head, a rope was dangling from a pulley, designed to haul freight up to the precarious doors opening into mid-air on the first and second storeys. The rope was swaying in the light breeze and I thought of Drake’s corpse lying pale and limp on the floor. Could a woman of God truly have murdered him? Could she have broken the sixth commandment and afterwards knelt before His cross?

As I reached the crowds on London Bridge, my breathing became more measured, and I slapped my leather-hard cheek with my palm, which caused me more pain than one might suppose. I was being foolish. Religion had nothing to do with this. It was logic that would uncover the killer, and logic was telling me that Sister Agnes possessed the strength to hang a man and that she was leading the strangest of double lives. She was surely a suspect.

But that didn’t make her a killer. I needed proof.

It was nearly lunchtime and my feet were walking unbidden towards Rosie’s shop. I enjoyed a brief surge of anticipation, not only for one of her pies, but also for that rarest of gifts, the chance to tell her she was wrong. But I desisted. Something told me that Rosie wouldn’t be receptive to the truth just yet.

I took a route along the south side of the river and over Blackfriars Bridge, arriving at the newspaper office just as Mr Coxswain was pushing his trolley past my desk. His vegetable soup was lukewarm and glutinous, but it sated my appetite, and I was feeling much better by the time Harry looked up from his typewriter.

‘Where’ve you been?’ he demanded, as though he himself was a paragon of punctuality. ‘Never mind. Read this and tell me what you think. It’s not finished yet. This is just the introduction.’

He pulled the sheet of paper from his machine and handed it to me. I read it with admiration. Amidst his spelling errors and the gradual fading of the ink, he was typically persuasive and erudite.

‘I haven’t heard of Frederick Lampton before.’

Harry took a sip of his tea, which I noticed was in my cup. He had a habit of taking it whenever his own needed washing, as well as my notebooks, hole-punch, lamp and, on one occasion, typewriter, claiming that an unknown vandal had spilled half a pint of ale over his. I felt a warm glow spread across my chest. This was how it felt to be among the company of men; liking each other, japing with each other, trusting each other. It was all I’d ever wanted.

‘He’s a Member of Parliament, the new man in Conservative circles. He has the ear of Lord Salisbury and if they win the next election …’ he pulled a face, being more disposed to the Liberals, ‘he’s in line for a senior post, some even say Home Secretary. He’s a frightfully good orator. He says the most awful things, but brilliantly.’

‘Well, this is very good. I’m sure it’ll be the top story.’

I thought our conversation was at an end, but he hadn’t finished.

‘Why don’t you come with me? He’s giving the speech this afternoon. Likely to be explosive, from what I hear.’

I looked up at the clock. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t today. I have a story of my own to write.’

I didn’t give him any details. Partly, I doubted it would make the newspaper, as J. T. had told me not to pursue the matter further. Not to mention, I hadn’t yet finished my review of Clever Things Said by Children, and he was stringent on the matter of deadlines. But more importantly, I was unsure of what to write. Our readers had a taste for eccentric tales from the city peripheries – what Harry called ‘colour’ – sometimes sending letters to tell us how much more they enjoyed them than the usual dry stuff about debates in Parliament and treaties in the Soudan, but the quotes I’d garnered from Sister Agnes were oblique and theological at best. I doubted anyone would be bothered to read them.

In the end I wrote a succinct hundred words, briefly praising Mr Drake’s community spirit and mentioning Sister Agnes’s peculiar double life in sympathetic terms. But then I realised I couldn’t possibly submit it to the subeditors’ desk. I didn’t know whether or not Sister Agnes had guessed what I was under these clothes. If she was arrested, she might tell the police, and then I would be arrested too.

Would I ever be rid of this fear of discovery? Must every thought and emotion be rooted in my malformation? I sometimes dreamed that my artifices could become real: the bindings on my chest clinging so tight that my breasts disappeared, the crush of paper in my shoes attaching to my feet, the roll of cloth in my trousers quickening and bonding itself to my pubic region. I could almost imagine it possible. How would it be, to have a torso as strong and upright as an oak and to feel the bristling of hair on my chest and chin? Even my hands could enlarge, a single span reaching from Q to P on my typewriter. I would guffaw and slap other men on their backs as though born to it.

I was too agitated to stay seated, so I stood up and foolishly met the eye of J. T. as he was exiting his office in the direction of the privy. Thinking it best to avoid him in case he asked what I’d been working on, I made a tactical retreat into the stairwell, where I bumped into Harry again. He was wearing his coat and brown felt hat.

‘You know, I think I will go with you after all,’ I told him.

He grinned. ‘Good man. Still haven’t completed that book review, I suppose?’

‘No. Where are we going?’

I had never before heard of the Beaconsfield Club, and was doubting Harry had the right address even as we approached it. The building was on Pall Mall – that most traditional of streets for such amenities – at the end of a row of larger buildings. On any other street it would have seemed impressive, with roman columns and a shiny brass plaque, but here it was humbled by the grandeur of its near neighbours, the Carlton and Athenaeum, and one might have passed it by without a glance.

Two well-dressed ladies were standing on the stone steps leading up to the door.

‘You should be ashamed,’ one of them announced.

There was no one else on the pavement so I assumed she must be addressing us.

‘We’re reporters,’ replied Harry, flashing a merry grin. ‘Not here to cheer on Lampton, just to write down what he has to say.’

She folded her arms. ‘Then I hope you’ll be writing that he’s an uncaring brute with no regard for others, who might be his mother, sister or wife.’

‘Heaven forbid,’ the other muttered under her breath.

I wondered what it was about Lampton that might have riled two such ladies. Harry had been circumspect concerning the likely topic of the speech, saying only that I should wait and see.

Once we’d navigated the fellow at the reception, we followed the sound of voices to the bar. Sadly, it wasn’t selling alcohol this afternoon, but was laid out formally, with a lectern at the front and several rows of seats for the audience, who had already assembled. They consisted of two very distinct orders of men: wealthy gentlemen on leather club chairs at the front, and reporters on hard wooden benches at the back. Even all together, we were no more than forty, and the applause was patchy as a whiskered fellow stood up and introduced Mr Lampton.

The star attraction was a middle-aged gentleman near as slim as I was, with a neatly cut beard and long, doggish face. As he surveyed the room, I had the impression he wasn’t so much noting who was there as who was absent.

He cleared his throat and made a nervous little cough into a handkerchief he produced from his pocket.

‘As you know,’ he began, ‘I am a great supporter of the institution of marriage. The place of a wife is next to her husband. She has vowed before God to obey him, so what was hers becomes his. As a Member of Parliament and a Christian man I must uphold the evident truth, that once such a vow has been taken, it cannot be untaken.’

His delivery was measured and stern, lacking the histrionic arm waving and lectern thumping of most politicians, and his accent was straight from the grander houses of Mayfair, almost to the extent of parody. My friend Peregrine Black, currently on tour with his theatre company, would have relished mimicking those inhibited vowels.

Lampton raised a finger and leaned forward. ‘It is our duty to protect and nurture our wives, just as it is their duty to provide a calm and clean household for us. How can a man better himself if he does not have a good lady at home to comfort him on his return? Make no mistake, it’s not money, trade or armies that is the foundation of the Empire, it’s the English way of life, and at the heart of that is the sacrament of marriage. The very future of the Empire depends upon it.’

He then spoke at some length about the Empire and the influence of Britain around the world, and I admit my mind wandered. I couldn’t shift the memory of Sister Agnes’s quiet voice in that windowless room. If I closed my eyes, I was back there again. I could almost smell the smoke as the candle was extinguished.

Harry nudged me, and I took a deep breath to wake myself up.

Lampton was, contrary to Harry’s claim, an average orator. What Harry had meant was that his rhetoric would survive transcription to the page in a way most wouldn’t, relying less on performance than architecture. If one accepted that families were the cord that held together the Empire and that wives were essential to families, then it followed naturally that we should do whatever was necessary to keep wives in their place. For a few seconds I found myself almost convinced, before remembering that Rosie had been a wife, beaten regularly by her late husband – along with her children – until she’d been driven to plan his murder. It seemed far more likely that what held together the Empire was not marriage but money, of which Lampton had much and Rosie little. From what he was saying, he seemed to believe she should have even less.

‘This is why,’ he declared, ‘I cannot condone the Bill which will shortly be presented to the House concerning married women’s property. It would, for example, make wives responsible for their own debts …’ He paused so we could absorb the true horror of this prospect. ‘Can you imagine? The next time your wife overspends a little on dresses and hats, as they are prone to do …’ he smiled tolerantly, acknowledging the murmurs of assent from his audience. ‘You might never know it has happened. And when the bailiffs come knocking to reclaim the liability, it will be her they drag away to debtors’ prison. Such an event is unconscionable, a derogation of our duty, and we cannot allow it.’

I found myself strongly disliking this man, who appeared to believe that the sex he would assign to me, if he knew the truth of my physical design, was incapable of understanding the complexities of money or possessions. This was plainly ridiculous. Alfie took good care of his finances now, but always said that his late wife, Helena, was the superior accountant.

I couldn’t leave without appearing rude, so I sat and fidgeted, earning irritated looks from my neighbours. Rarely had I felt so out of place, and I’d lived my entire life in the wrong body.

‘Furthermore,’ continued Lampton, adopting the tone of one who is finally getting to the good stuff, ‘I intend not merely to oppose the coming Bill, but also to seek the repeal of the erroneous legislation dating from eighteen-seventy, which started us along this path, dissolving the very principle of masculine authority. It’s time we returned this country to the state that God intended.’

I sensed that he had finished, but also that he had overestimated the familiarity of his audience with legislation from the previous decade. There was some clapping, perhaps more out of politeness than agreement, and then a shifty-looking reporter from the Standard asked him, purely for the benefit of others in the room, what the consequences would be if his campaign was successful.

‘Wives will no longer be able to inherit property,’ replied Lampton. ‘It will go to their husbands, as it should. Otherwise, a marriage is little more than a contrivance, an expedient arrangement between two people. It’s time for this country to say no to such depravity.’

This prompted some general muttering and hasty scribbling from the journalists. The realisation of what Lampton’s plan entailed was slowly seeping into my brain. If he got his way, Constance would be unable to inherit the pharmacy. If Rosie were ever to marry again, her shop would become the property of her husband, no matter that it had been founded by her grandfather. No matter that her last husband had whipped her bloody with his belt.

Without being aware of what I was doing, I stood up.

‘That’s monstrous,’ I declared.

Everyone looked in my direction.

‘Who are you?’ asked Lampton, with a predatory glare.

‘Stanhope from the Chronicle.’

‘I’ve never heard of you.’

‘What about husbands who are vicious, wicked and drunken? Should women be in thrall to them for ever? Is that their Christian duty?’

Lampton placed his elbows on the lectern. He had a habit of interlocking his fingers and fluttering them, as if his hands were a butterfly drying its wings.

‘Yes,’ he said.

He nodded to a large fellow standing behind him, who fixed his eyes on me and cracked his knuckles.

Afterwards, as we were standing on the Pall Mall pavement, Harry clapped me on the back. ‘Well, that was quite a scene,’ he said. ‘The first time I’ve ever been thrown out of a press conference.’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’

‘No need to apologise. It was quite splendid. And don’t worry, I won’t mention it to the old man.’

I hadn’t considered what would happen if J. T. discovered I’d told a prominent Member of Parliament that his ideas were monstrous. I might lose my position at the newspaper, though it was equally possible he would laugh and offer me a glass of whisky. He wasn’t an easy man to predict.

When I got home to the pharmacy, Constance had cooked something she claimed was potato hash. Afterwards, I complimented her on her culinary skill, which surprised her and baffled Alfie, but I was feeling all too aware of the work that women endured on men’s behalf and hoped she might improve with some encouragement.

As evening fell, Alfie and I shared the dregs of a bottle, while Huffam – no epicurean, he – noisily devoured the last of the potato hash. Afterwards, I went to bed, certain that tomorrow would be a better day. I would finally finish my review of Clever Things Said by Children and was planning to visit Rosie at lunchtime, hopeful that my previous tactlessness would be forgiven, especially as I had been proven correct about the convent.

And yet, when I was lying on my bed that night, I found myself unable to sleep. I kept turning the same question over and over in my mind: was Sister Agnes a real person and Irina Vostek a creature of her imagination, or was it the other way around?

The following day, before I had even sat down at my desk, J. T. approached me, clutching the day’s newspaper in his hand.

‘Where’s my son?’ he demanded, pointing at Harry’s empty chair.

His gruffness was actually a good sign. He treated Harry and me like puppies in need of training, and worried that if he ever succumbed to the more agreeable side of his nature we would scurry away and get ourselves into even more trouble.

‘I’m sure he’ll be in soon.’

This was optimistic. When we’d parted the previous day, Harry had said he intended to return to the office to finish his article about Mr Lampton. He thought it was certain to make the second page. Afterwards, I had no doubt, he headed to the bar for an early celebration, and was likely now to be sleeping it off. But I couldn’t let him down; his father already believed him to be the more feckless puppy of the two of us and had threatened to chain him to his desk if he didn’t learn how to behave.

J. T. grunted. ‘Christ. He writes one decent story and takes a week to recover. Right, we need to have a word about this article, Stanhope.’

‘Which one?’

He prodded the newspaper. ‘Which one do you think? The nun. Is what you wrote about her true? I won’t blame you if you made it up, but you need to tell me.’

I stared at the page, unable to believe what I was seeing. My article was there, printed in black and white. And I hadn’t even submitted it.

Of course: Harry. He was forever taking my things. He must’ve spotted the article on my desk and submitted it on my behalf. Damn him.

J. T. tapped the newspaper again. ‘Well?’

‘Yes,’ I stammered. ‘Of course, it’s all true.’

‘Then why did you bury the best bit in the fourth paragraph? Thank God the subeditors did their job, or no one would ever have found out about Sister what’s-her-name and her double life.’

‘Agnes. And she’s not a nun, she’s what I believe they call a “woman religious”. Specifically, a Sister of Mercy.’

He stared at me with an expression of incredulity. ‘Don’t tell me. I don’t care. Get yourself back down to that convent right away.’

I rubbed my eyes, trying to gather my thoughts. The article was printed on page five, making it the most prominent I’d ever written.

‘Why?’

He shook his head despairingly. At moments like this, his northern accent became more pronounced.

‘Because she’s the bloody story, you idiot. Go and find out where she’s from and how she became a fighter. How she squares that with being a nun and if she intends to continue. And whether she’s a murderer. Go and be a journalist, for God’s sake.’

When I arrived at the convent, a group of fifteen or twenty people was waiting outside on the pavement. Some of them seemed to be locals or passers-by, but others were clearly reporters, clutching notebooks and waiting by the door. These weren’t the affable fellows I knew from my usual beat, who sat with me through arid announcements about newly discovered cures for warts or the exact movement of Venus, and who would willingly share spare pencils and cigarettes. These were weathered professionals with greasy skin and down-turned mouths. One was picking at his gums and another was hacking phlegm into his handkerchief.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

The gum-picker shrugged, breaking off from excavating his molars with his forefinger to let his tongue take a turn.

I turned to the phlegm-hacker, but he was more concerned with the contents of his handkerchief and wouldn’t meet my eye.

I tried the door. It was locked.

Having no alternative, I slouched against the wall next to them. Journalism might sound thrilling to those not in the business, but most of it was just waiting for something to happen. There were times when I missed the raw excitement of being a hospital porter.

After what was probably only ten minutes, but felt like forty, the door was pushed open and a young, blond constable came out.

‘Stand aside everyone,’ he bellowed, as if we were a horde of thousands.

A sergeant emerged, followed by a sad sight indeed. Sister Agnes was being led out between two further policemen. Her expression was one of bewilderment.

The journalists immediately started yelling questions.

‘Are you a real nun?’

‘When did you decide to murder him?’

‘How many men have you wrestled?’

And then, as they saw her more clearly.

‘Are you an actual woman?’

She glared from side to side, blinking in the sunshine, but didn’t reply. The policemen steered her towards a side street where, I now saw, a Black Maria was waiting for them. The street ran parallel to the railway, and the clatter of a train drowned out the reporters’ pestering.

She looked back and caught my eye, but I wasn’t sure if she recognised me.

As they approached the Black Maria, she slowed. The blond constable gave her a push in the small of her back. ‘Get a move on.’

She flinched away from his touch. ‘But I haven’t done anything wrong. Where are you taking me?’

She slowed further, almost to a stop, and stared back at the spire of the convent chapel climbing into the blue sky.

‘Why did you kill Oswald Drake?’ called one of the reporters, prompting another avalanche of questions, impossible to distinguish and rising in volume until they were practically being yelled at her. ‘Over here! Look at me! Tell us … my darling, look at me? When did you … look at me!’

When she reached the carriage, she leaned against it, gripping the roof-rail. The constable tugged on her wrist and, when he was unable to dislodge her hand, beat down on her forearm with his fist. She cried out and gritted her teeth, but still held on. He swore loudly and fumbled for his billy club.

Before he could pull it out, she spun and grabbed his neck, shoving him backwards against the dumb-iron of the carriage. His hands flailed as his helmet flew off and bounced across the dirt. Another constable attempted to pull her away, but it was like trying to uproot a tree. The first constable’s veins were standing out on his florid face and his eyes were wide with fear.

The sergeant clutched the back of her tunic and struck her on the head with his club. She fell to her knees in the mud.

For a few seconds, no one moved. Then, she took a deep breath and clenched her fists.

The sergeant raised his club above his head.

‘No!’ I shouted to her. ‘This isn’t the wrestling ring. They’ll kill you.’

Our eyes met and I could see her fury boiling. She did not like to lose. But eventually, she bowed her head, clutched her hands together and climbed into the carriage.

The young constable was rubbing his neck. ‘Bloody Catholic bitch.’

None of them seemed keen to get in beside her. The sergeant and one of the constables clambered up next to the driver and the other two stood on the steps, holding on to the roof-rails.

With a shake of the reins, they were gone.