Against the Light Read online

  Alice stayed silent for some time, circling the toe of her grey suede boot on the asphalt path while gazing unseeingly at Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of the many statues placed around the gardens. ‘I should speak to this woman. Can you find out where she lives? I’d like to meet her.’

  Considerably taken aback, he said, ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I happen to know. But you must not even think of going there, Alice. The East End is not where ladies go alone.’

  She smiled faintly. ‘You forget, it’s where I spend a great deal of my time, David. Every day lately. Anyone might imagine I would be stepping into a den of iniquity.’

  ‘That may not be so far from the truth,’ he answered grimly. ‘But there really isn’t any point, anyway. She refused to say anything more than to tell your husband to be careful.’

  ‘All the same, I must speak to her. Please let me have her address.’

  The sun had gone behind a cloud and the sandwich eaters were beginning to disperse back to their places of work. He had learned never to rush headlong into anything and he was uneasy with the proposal, to say the least. He took refuge in prevarication. ‘Miss Reagan is probably back in County Down by now.’

  ‘In that case I shall have wasted my time, but I must at least try.’

  ‘You could,’ he ventured, ‘always ask Edmund himself.’ Before she could answer, he held up his hand, ‘No, I’m sorry, that was foolish. I see that wouldn’t serve, in the – er – circumstances.’

  He now regretted even more the impulse that had made him mention Mona Reagan to her, especially when he saw the stubborn tilt to her chin. ‘Very well. If you absolutely insist—’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘But only if you agree to me going with you.’

  She smiled. ‘David, don’t be absurd. There’s absolutely no need for that.’

  ‘There’s every need. Like it or not, I was the one she spoke to. There’s more likelihood of her talking to you if I’m there. Before we make any sort of move, however, I must try to find out a little more of what all this is about – if it amounts to anything at all, which I doubt – and then there might be no need to speak to her.’

  She hesitated, but then she nodded. ‘All right – and thank you, David. I would be glad if you’d do that.’ She stood up. ‘I must not keep you any longer. Thank you again for everything.’

  ‘My dear Alice, it’s the least I can do.’

  ‘Goodbye for the present, then.’ She held out her hand and as he took it she repeated, unhappily, ‘He would never under any circumstances do anything dishonourable, I know.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’ If dishonour didn’t include cheating on your wife, David reflected. It did sound as though she was trying to convince herself, and he suspected that confiding in him had cost her a great deal more than she was revealing. ‘I’ll see what I can find out. It’s bound to be something trivial, that he doesn’t want to worry you with. I don’t know at the moment if anything will come of it, but I’m always happy to do what I can for you. I hope you know that.’

  It was all he could offer, nothing more than a polite, conventional reply, but he felt something passed between them, a long, quiet moment of recognition, when they both realized something else had been said.

  ‘Thank you, David. I’ll remember that.’

  He felt bad, letting her think she had convinced him to agree to what she proposed when he was damned if Alice and Mona Reagan would ever meet – or not if he had anything to do with it. His intuition told him it would be disastrous, why he couldn’t imagine, but he had learned to trust that sixth sense which made him so good at his job.

  He needed to proceed with caution. Latimer might well be headed for some disaster, for all he knew, but in his present capacity David was there to pick up the pieces rather than shatter the edifice.

  They parted after arranging that he would let her know within the next couple of days what had transpired, and he went back to his office in the House of Commons where he worked like a man possessed until nearly midnight, until he was bone weary and the print on the papers started to dance before his eyes. Then he made his way to the small service flat within easy reach of Westminster which he occupied. It served him very well when the House was in session, though he liked nothing better when Parliament was not sitting than to travel home to Derbyshire, exchange his immaculate, formal suits for comfortable, well-worn tweeds and stride for hours over the hills, drop in at various pubs and keep in touch with the country and townspeople who made up his constituents, some of whom led lives of poverty and deprivation equal to any of those in the great cities. Going back was both a relaxation and a salutary reminder of why these people, for whom it was both duty and inclination to do his utmost, had elected him to be their representative in Parliament. Yet increasingly he knew his real life could never be wholly in Derbyshire. That lay here, in the corridors of power, among clever, ambitious and powerful people, where he had to keep his considerable wits about him in a busy and demanding environment, while never forgetting the real reason he was there.

  At last he capped his fountain pen, shuffled papers together, closed files and then sat for a long time thinking about the problem Alice had faced him with. The only conclusion he came to was that he could do nothing for the moment except to put out feelers, then watch and wait. The longer they had to wait, the less determined Alice might be to carry out her intentions, though a wry intuition told him it would not do to be too hopeful about that.

  He went to bed and fell asleep buoyed up by the memory of that brief snatch of conversation with her, when a line had been crossed into unknown territory and his world had suddenly gained another, brighter and yet infinitely more dangerous dimension.

  Acquaintances in the smart circles she frequented would have been astonished to see the change in Mrs Fiore as she sat curled up on the hearthrug in front of the leaping fire in the room she called her boudoir. At that moment, she looked ten years younger than her age and scarcely recognizable as the woman Edmund Latimer had briefly spoken to at the Essendines’ soirée. Relieved of the punishing whaleboning of her formal clothes that was essential to give women the sculpted, much admired hour-glass figure, she looked soft and yielding. She was wearing a Japanese kimono, peach-coloured silk lavishly embroidered with sprays of chrysanthemums and cherry blossom, and the leaping firelight cast a glow on to her cheeks and brought out the lights in her rich brown hair as she leaned back against Edmund’s knee.

  Turning her head sideways, she reached for his hand where it lay on her shoulder and pressed it to her cheek. They hadn’t spoken for the last fifteen minutes or so, their long familiarity having no need of it.

  ‘What must I do about all this, Connie?’ he said at last. The firelight was not as kind to him as it was to Connie. It accentuated the lines and hollows in a face grown older even in these last few weeks.

  ‘Won’t you let me help?’

  ‘You help me all the time, more than you’ll ever know. But not this time, not in the way you mean. You know what I think about using influential friends. This is something I’ve brought on myself.’

  ‘Indeed it is not! You must not castigate yourself, none of it is of your doing, and you must have faith that it will all come right in the end, if you do what you think is right.’ Her voice was low and soothing. She had almost lost her American accent by now.

  ‘Will it? I wish I could be as certain. One starts something, but one never knows where it will finish up. We fail to see consequences, for ourselves and for those dear to us. I never thought to find myself – or you – in a situation like this.’

  ‘My dear, we do what we have to do. And you need have no worries for me. I can face up to whatever is necessary.’

  ‘I have never doubted that you would, Connie my love. But I can’t understand it. We have always been so careful.’

  For a man of his intelligence and occupation, Edmund Latimer was sometimes incredibly naïve. How could he believe that their ten-year affair could have be
en kept in any way secret among those they knew? Herself, she was simply grateful that a blind eye was turned on such liaisons as theirs, as long as they were kept discreet – as it always had been, until now.

  She believed he loved her in his own way, if it was only because she had forgiven him for marrying Alice, in a moment of weakness for which he now bitterly reproached himself. She had understood the reasons for a man in his position needing a wife, and had indeed approved, especially since she and Edmund could never marry. Mrs Fiore had not then, as she had allowed it to be generally understood, been a widow. Her husband, Alessandro Fiore, was still alive, but living in seclusion back in America, looked after by a devoted manservant who had been with him for forty years.

  It had not taken her long after they were married to discover the truth. Her husband was drunk on their wedding night and scarcely sober for long periods afterwards and it was very soon evident he was fast becoming wholly dependent on alcohol. Long-term abuse was already causing liver damage, but he neither attempted nor wished to give up drinking, not even for the sake of saving their marriage. She was gradually forced to admit that the passing attraction between them had been just that – on her part, dazzled by the prospect of marrying into the sort of wealthy, self-made, entrepreneurial family so much admired in America, and on his perhaps fragile hope that it might pave the way to end his drinking. But that had never happened and it was clear to both that the decision to marry had been a huge mistake. Like the rest of the extended, closely bonded emigrant Fiore family, who made no decisions without the knowledge and approval of the whole tribe, Alessandro was strongly Roman Catholic, and there was no question of divorce. When she asked for a separation and an allowance that would allow her to live comfortably in Europe, a collective sigh of relief arose from within their ranks and a mutually satisfactory agreement was immediately drawn up. She had made an agreeable life for herself here in London, her arrangement with Edmund a suitable one for both parties while, contrary to what she had expected, the drink did not kill Alessandro, over in America. Until last year, when he had at last died and, to the fury of the Fiore clan, it was revealed he had failed to change the will he had made on their marriage, in which he had left everything he had to his wife.

  Since then, Connie had made changes in her life, moved from the tiny apartment in St John’s Wood she’d occupied to a larger one, began to have her clothes made in Paris, and made general improvements in her style of living. The only fly in the ointment was that Edmund was still married to Alice.

  She steeled herself. ‘I believe you should tell her, Edmund.’

  ‘Tell her? Tell Alice? No! How can I? She is not at fault here. She married me in good faith and she has always played her part.’

  She regretted having spoken. She was as much aware as he was of the consequences of such an act: divorce which meant social ostracism, his reputation for integrity in shreds, questions hanging over his political future.

  It struck her suddenly how little she really knew him, after all these years of intimacy – quite possibly, how little anyone knew him, even, or perhaps especially, Alice, his wife.

  Prosser Street, and what the devil was he doing here, David asked himself, for maybe the tenth time. How had he persuaded himself into doing something he positively knew was not a good idea? But he hadn’t truly needed much persuasion and if he was honest, he was finding this mad escapade surprisingly stimulating, stirred as he had been to an uncharacteristic recklessness, a trait he didn’t normally acknowledge he possessed. His only excuse was Alice. Sensible and independent-minded as he knew her to be, she was also inclined to be impulsive and he had little doubt she would have come here on her own if he had simply given her the address. On the other hand, if he hadn’t supplied her with it, she was more than capable of finding it out for herself, and acting upon it. Every nerve had told him that would be the wrong thing to do.

  The business of the day had left him with no choice but to make his plans, hopefully, for the evening, but in any case, where he was going wasn’t the sort of district where you paid polite afternoon calls and left visiting cards. He was free at a reasonable hour, and as it became dark, he was able to get ready. It wouldn’t do to stand out where he was going, so he donned the serviceable but well-worn tweeds and flat cap he wore in Derbyshire and added a muffler. It was the best he could do. It wasn’t a cover-up that would stand up to any sort of examination, especially if his hand-made, well-polished shoes were spotted, but nothing better could be mustered up in the circumstances.

  Having memorized the route from the map, he took a cab as far as he thought wise, and then walked. Plunging further and further into the dark heart of this alien part of the city, he became even more shocked than he had been when he first learned that Mona lived here, a girl accustomed to the soft, clean air, the green hills and the fresh winds of County Down. No wonder she wanted to go home. He was appalled that anyone at all should be forced to live here, among these noisome courts and crumbling tenements, everything overhung with the stink of poverty. Perhaps that was why so many of them took to the streets. Despite the lateness of the hour a vibrant outdoor life was still being lived there, people thronging the pavements where smells from the stalls of the food sellers mingled with the distinctive, unpleasant odour of the naphtha lights flaring above them. Women shopped for cheap, tired, end-of-day vegetables. Dirty and ragged children who should have been tucked up in bed long ago swarmed around in rowdy gangs. As much as possible he kept circumspectly to the shadows, aware that if he drew the attention of any of the unsavoury characters hanging about outside the pubs or on the street corners he could be relieved of the money that was in his pockets and maybe the clothes off his back. He didn’t allow himself to think of the possibility of having his throat cut. And thankfully, it was still a bit too early for the night-ladies to be out and about, ready to hang on to his sleeve and offer an invitation.

  It had never been part of David’s plan to allow Alice to seek out Mona Reagan. Even as he had promised to find out more, he knew he would find some way of preventing contact. He didn’t admire himself for allowing her to think he would, but it had not been one of his finer moments when he had revealed to her his last encounter with that young woman, and he still tingled with mortification at having done so. As soon as it had passed his lips, he had known it was a blunder ever to have allowed the woman’s name to be mentioned. True, he was more accustomed to dealing with men than with women, but all the same, he ought to have known that any woman was likely to show some reaction when her husband’s name was coupled with another’s, however innocent the context. God forbid that she should ever find out the real truth about Latimer.

  And then he’d also made matters worse by promising to accompany her when all the time he suspected the mission would be futile. Either Mona would already have left the Prosser Street house and gone back to Ireland, or she’d refuse to say anything more than she’d said to him. What was it about Alice that made him act so out of character, to want to protect her? She was a self-reliant woman who had no need of that. All the same, he had a gut feeling it would be a disaster to let her get involved in what was probably nothing more than a young woman’s casual reference to something quite unimportant, but might well, in the volatile world of politics, turn out to be something very nasty indeed. He fully intended none the less to get to the bottom of what it was about Latimer that worried her so much, while proceeding with caution. Nothing would be achieved by rushing.

  While trying to decide what to do, he had meanwhile put out a few more feelers, with not much result. He had learned only that Mona Reagan had ceased working for Wee Joe Devlin, which didn’t mean she had necessarily left London. At first, it had been no more than a fleeting thought, but the idea of finding out whether in fact she had left or not grew quickly and he had acted before he had time to let mature consideration take over. He still wasn’t quite sure what was making him do this, except that all at once, he’d felt that he’d spent too many year
s being cautious. He didn’t want to go into middle age as a man who had never done what he wanted rather than what he ought. Recklessness had begun to have a certain appeal. He hadn’t felt like this since he was a schoolboy. Still, here in the dark, on Prosser Street, hiding in the shadows, he couldn’t help feeling he was a fool, and that he was going to live to regret his decision.

  Beyond the main road, in contrast to the teeming streets he’d just left, he had passed into this relatively quiet area, disturbed only by the occasional passer-by on this cold and moonless night. A few of the gas lamps had escaped the vandalism of street urchins and still had some of their glass or mantles intact, but the yellow light they offered was insufficient and the spaces between were pools of black shadow. A seedy street, but better than what he’d left behind. One side of the once respectable but now run-down Prosser Street was a row of flat-faced, three-storey terraced houses with steps leading to the front doors, black iron railings guarding more steps to the basements. It was a short street with houses on one side and on the other an ornate yellow brick building that announced itself by a sign carved into the stone above the main door as the Municipal Baths and Wash House. It was into the dark, recessed doorway of the one marked ‘Women’ that David pressed himself while he made up his mind what to do. No sounds of Irish conviviality issued from the tall, thin house opposite on which his interest was focused, though there were lights in nearly all the windows and multiple shadows moved constantly behind the thin curtains on every floor. Those living there must be crammed in like herrings in a barrel.

  Reluctant to cross the street, he stood for some time while an intermittent drizzle blew into his face. The almost eerie feeling about the street began to give him the creeps. What had possessed him to come here, what on earth did he hope to find? He had intended nothing more than knocking on the door of the house he sought and asking for Mona, but now that he was here, the idea was cut short at birth. She would think he was spying on her – and of course that’s what he was doing, but only because he couldn’t dismiss the persistently queasy feeling this whole business was giving him. He knew only too well he wasn’t brave or cut out for this sort of thing, but if Latimer – and therefore Alice – was involved in something underhand, then he would have done much more.