Against the Light Read online

  At that point, Inskip gave himself a mental shake. This was getting personal. Despite his background, he never thought of himself as particularly Irish. He didn’t go out of his way to associate with the many Irish expatriates in London, nor did he go to mass – and anyway, he was only Irish on his mother’s side. The Inskips had been imports from England to the godforsaken island across the Irish Sea through a seventeenth-century ancestor who’d been a servant to one of those English colonists. But despite himself, Inskip felt drawn further and further into the coils of the present tangled situation by the mysterious ties of race and blood. And the mere fact that it was O’Rourke they were looking for gave a particular fillip to his determination that he must be found, somehow. And not only for murdering Lennie Croxton. Memory turned like a knife in his gut – however belatedly revenge came, it would be sweet. He made an instant decision not to make public the extent of his previous connection to the man – at least not just yet – only to tell Gaines that he knew who O’Rourke was. Which would, unfortunately, entail the superintendent, Renshaw, being informed.

  Renshaw wouldn’t have got where he was if he hadn’t been a good man in his younger days, but desk-bound responsibilities and caution had come with promotion. He hung on to his job nowadays through going strictly by the book. Inskip couldn’t be sure, but he suspected that if he revealed too much about his connection with O’Rourke the super might find a convenient reason to have him taken off the case, pronto. He was wary of Inskip in any case, saw him as something of a loose cannon, that much Inskip knew. He preferred working with the more predictable Gaines, a more experienced, steadier, if slower-thinking man who nevertheless was one of his best detectives. On the other hand, Inskip and Gaines had grown into working well together and Renshaw knew it.

  He couldn’t – and wouldn’t – keep his connection to O’Rourke quiet for too long. But before Renshaw got to hear of it, he had enquiries of his own to make, unhampered by anything the superintendent might decide was the more cautious line to follow. In fact, it was Leonard Croxton who looked like being more of a problem than finding O’Rourke might be. Who was he, and what had he been up to, that it was necessary for someone to murder him? Where had he disappeared to during the last few weeks? Tracing him would be difficult, if not impossible. The starting point had to be O’Rourke, and where he had stayed.

  Five

  It had been Mrs Lowther who had made the telephone call to Alice at the Dorcas, which said everything for the urgency of the situation. For nothing less would she have brought herself to use the mysterious Instrument, as she referred to it. She had come to acknowledge, grudgingly, that it was useful in emergencies, but she still approached it gingerly when forced to use it. She didn’t rightly see how it could work, except by some sort of black magic.

  Kidnapped.

  A fantasy word, one so unfamiliar in ordinary life you could scarcely take in what it meant. Something that happened in books, or to other people. Not to the Martens family. Not to Lucy! This had to be some awful, horrible mistake. But the telephone message, though garbled, had left little room for doubt.

  Alice found them waiting for the police in Violet’s morning room, a small room overlooking the side of the house, Violet herself, in floods of tears, and Lucy’s nanny, white-faced and obviously upset. The cup rattled on the saucer as Emma, a normally unflappable person, handed tea to Violet, who waved it aside, too incoherent for speech. Alice gulped hers and waited for further enlightenment, but over Violet’s drooping head Emma would not meet her eyes and looked away. Guilty? Lucy was her charge, after all. Or just unwilling to be drawn? Whichever was true, perhaps it was better that Violet shouldn’t have to listen while the distressing details were repeated. When the police arrived, the events would all need to be gone over again, anyway.

  So Alice, still numb with shock, curbed her impatience and remained pretty much in the dark. Lowther, who’d been sent to fetch her home, had also stubbornly refused to go into details, though she’d had to share the front seat of the motor with him, due to her bicycle having to be wedged, not without difficulty, into the back beside the seats. She knew nothing except that Lucy had been taken for her afternoon outing to the Regent’s Park and there she had disappeared. ‘Baby carriage and all,’ said Lowther, not without a certain relish.

  ‘Disappeared? How on earth—?’

  ‘You’ll know soon enough, Mrs Latimer, madam,’ he’d grunted, but with a sort of gruff sympathy. After which he became clam-like, infuriatingly refusing to say more, if indeed he knew anything, which Alice suspected he did not.

  ‘Where are the police, why are they not here yet? Violet was demanding fretfully. Her handkerchief was screwed into a ball, her pretty face was blotched and her feathery eyelashes were dark and spiky with tears. ‘And oh, why did Ferdie have to choose today, of all days, to go racing?’ she moaned. Alice, on the other hand, was rather glad Ferdie wasn’t here and hoped, not yet knowing any details, that all this was a temporary misunderstanding that would all be resolved before he arrived home. If Violet, oh-so-controlled Violet, was in a state of collapse, it was hard to imagine what the effect of this would be on Ferdie. He had set off the previous day as a passenger in his friend Fitzwilliam’s open tourer to drive to the races in Worcester, where Fitz had a horse running. They had planned to stay the night there, and should by now be on their way home. Hopefully, straight home, if the horse hadn’t won, with no stops for celebration.

  ‘And why isn’t Edmund here yet?’ Violet sobbed.

  ‘Edmund?’

  It appeared that he, the one to whom everyone, especially Violet, automatically turned for support in this family when authority was needed, had been sitting in committee when he’d been called out to receive her message, and though shocked and appalled, it had been impossible for him to come home at that precise moment. Leave it with him, he’d said, and he’d be there as soon as ever possible. And of course he would, Alice said reassuringly, pressing Violet’s heaving shoulder. Where Lucy was concerned, Edmund would have moved the earth.

  A measure of how much she needed comfort, Violet allowed Alice’s hand to stay there for a moment before shrugging it off. She sat twisting her rings round on her slim fingers. Her normal poise had completely deserted her, although not to the point where she looked in the least dishevelled: the form-fitting coat-and-skirt outfit she was still wearing was uncreased and elegant as her clothes always were, although its sombre bottle-green only exaggerated her pallor.

  The table was laid for tea with a stiffly starched white cloth, cups and saucers and a plate of scones which no one wanted. The light, modern room today felt oddly cold. It struck Alice for the first time that although the last word in modernity, there was nothing precisely comfortable about Violet’s choice of furnishings. She walked to the window. The sun, which had lived up to its early promise and been out all day, now, in the late afternoon, had disappeared. It was windless and the garden was still. A blackbird’s evening song sounded, piercingly clear. This contradictory year had started out mild and brought the blossom out early and now it had fluttered down from the one cherry tree always the first to flower, to make a snowy carpet on the grass, a mute reminder that this was where Lucy’s pram usually stood when she was put outside to sleep in the fresh air. The garden, too, looked exceedingly chilly. There might even be a late frost tonight by the look of the cold sky, turning from duck-egg blue to pale green as the light faded. And out there, somewhere, was little Lucy.

  Stoical enough as a rule, DI Gaines had been more than a trifle miffed at having this additional investigation thrust upon him, being ordered to drop everything and jump through hoops like a circus performer, all for something which he felt could have been resolved without the intervention of Scotland Yard. But when the direction had come from on high, as this one had, querying the whys and wherefores was not an option. Especially since it had come via Edmund Latimer, MP, no less, pulling rank and quick to invoke the services of the Yard, the natural inclina
tions of prominent politicians like him being to demand nothing less than the best.

  ‘It’s probably nothing much – you know how these mothers can panic over some mistake or other,’ the childless Renshaw had told Gaines, rather sharply in the face of his obvious reluctance when the case was given to him. ‘Soon over and no harm done. But you’d better go and make a good impression.’

  Gaines was momentarily rendered speechless, that the idea of a mistake over a baby’s disappearance could be entertained, even for one single moment. A baby, not even a toddler who had wandered off and got itself lost.

  The pause had given Renshaw the opportunity to administer the final clinch. ‘Besides, this other business isn’t properly under way yet, is it?’

  This other business, the small matter of a murder. Not to mention that, in the way these things happen, just at the point when some breathing space was needed, every criminal in London, or so it seemed, had decided to step up their activity. But Gaines sighed and resigned himself to the inevitable. The whole department was stretched to capacity, but that didn’t mean to say there was any question that the disappearance of a baby didn’t have the highest priority. It was normal to have several cases on the go at once, nor would it be the first time he was required to juggle two important ones at the same time. He didn’t want anyone else to take over his investigation on the taxicab murder, but since it was true that it wasn’t going anywhere much at the moment …

  Although Inskip’s interview with his Aunt Orla had established the identity of the victim and turned up a promising lead on the Irishman, O’Rourke, the search for him, not to mention ferreting out details of the victim himself, gave every indication of being a slow business. It was a bonus that Inskip knew the Irish folk O’Rourke had been known to associate with and who were likely to know where he was, but they were not talking. Frustrating, to say the least, when they were almost certain of the identity of the murderer, that the business of finding him might stretch out for months. But gathering information at this stage was the most they could do, and Renshaw knew it. In any case, whether the child’s disappearance was being regarded lightly by other people or not, it wasn’t in Gaines’ nature to dismiss the distress of any mother in such circumstances, however it should turn out. So he had set off with as much grace as he could muster, summoning Inskip to accompany him.

  ‘What’s up with you, then?’ he asked on the way there, sensing Inskip wasn’t quite with him. The sergeant didn’t always listen as closely as he should, his mind on its own trajectory.

  ‘Oh, nothing, sir.’

  Gaines didn’t press him, though something was evidently bothering him.

  At Manessa House, while the three women waited, ten minutes stretched out into what felt like an hour. But at last, there was the sound of voices, footsteps outside. The door opened and two burly men were shown in. They still looked like policemen despite the fact that they were wearing plain clothes, though the younger man’s attire was anything but.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t the Lord Mayor of London!’ The exclamation came from Emma, the baby’s nanny. Too late, she pressed her lips together. Remarks like that were scarcely in order today, however involuntary, but no one else had seemed to notice.

  Not even the dandified younger man to whom the remark was addressed. ‘Nice to see you again, too, Miss Pavel.’

  ‘You know each other, then …?’ Alice stopped, hearing herself stating the obvious.

  ‘We’ve met before,’ Emma said.

  ‘Indeed we have, Miss Pavel.’ The senior man, who had a drooping moustache that made him look older than he probably was, and wore a slightly rumpled suit in sharp contrast to the other’s smart brown check, gave Emma a smile and took charge, introducing himself as Detective Chief Inspector George Gaines and the Lord Mayor as Detective Sergeant Joseph Inskip, both from Scotland Yard.

  ‘Scotland Yard?’ repeated Violet sharply. Instinctively, she had sat up straighter when they entered, her hand going to her hair. She need not have worried. Its loops and swirls were smooth and immaculate, undisturbed despite the last frantic hour or two.

  ‘That’s right, Mrs Martens.’ Gaines spoke reassuringly, giving no indication of his feelings, but as he went on there was something in his manner that said it wasn’t his idea to be investigating this, a domestic matter normally not within his remit.

  It wasn’t surprising to Alice, however. Once her husband had been told, strings would have been pulled. The name of Edmund Latimer, MP was sufficient to open doors closed to lesser mortals, a facility which he didn’t hesitate to use when necessary. It caused Alice uneasiness from time to time but in this case she wasn’t about to cavil at unfairness and privilege, even when it meant invoking the services of Scotland Yard for what to this officer was no doubt something which would turn out to be a storm in a teacup, however catastrophic and earth-shattering it might be to a baby’s parents.

  Whatever he felt, he was giving the matter his full attention, and wasted no time in getting down to the facts of the disappearance; a mystery in itself, that it could have happened at all, the apparent abduction of a baby in charge of her nursemaid, in broad daylight, in a well-populated public park. ‘Take me through what happened,’ he said encouragingly to Emma.

  Emma hesitated. ‘I—’

  ‘Nanny wasn’t there,’ interposed Violet, swallowing another sob. ‘I had given her the afternoon off to go and visit her mother.’

  ‘Then who was in charge of the baby?’

  ‘I was. I took her there myself. Oh, if only I had not!’

  ‘You did, Violet?’ The idea of her sister-in-law performing the duties of nursemaid and looking after her own child struck Alice as so extraordinary her tact deserted her.

  ‘Yes, me, her mother! Why not?’ replied Violet sharply, stung into forgetting her tears for a brief moment. ‘There was no one else to do it in any case. Mrs Lowther – our housekeeper, Inspector Gaines – is usually only too delighted to have the chance to look after Baby, but she’d gone to buy new sheets at Swan and Edgar’s.’ She paused then added pointedly, ‘Now they’re functioning properly again after those dreadful suffragettes smashed their windows last month!’ Gaines coughed. ‘Well, anyway, she wasn’t here, and all the other servants were too busy to attend to Lucinda. But she was restless for some reason, she would keep on crying and her little face was awfully red.’

  ‘She’s teething, Mrs Martens,’ put in Emma.

  ‘Yes, of course, I know that, Nanny. But I couldn’t settle her, Inspector. I know Nanny takes her to the park every afternoon and I thought wheeling her there might lull her to sleep. Which eventually it did. I was afraid she might wake again if I stopped, but I was tired of walking around like that, so I risked it and found a seat.’

  ‘Whereabouts in the park was this?’ asked Inskip.

  ‘What? Oh, I don’t remember exactly where … somewhere,’ she said vaguely. ‘There were nursemaids with prams and a lot of little children running around and making a great deal of noise further along, so I chose a seat well away from them, where it was quiet.’

  The noisy children, Alice suspected, were an excuse and she guessed this hadn’t escaped either policeman. The park was frequented on a daily basis by nursemaids and their charges and, in common with most of the women in Violet’s circle, she wouldn’t have known what to do if she’d found herself in the midst of a gaggle of them. Facing their disapproval, moreover. A lady like that, wheeling her own child out! Unheard of!

  ‘What happened next?’ asked Gaines.

  ‘Why, nothing. Except that a woman came and sat on the seat beside me.’ The sergeant, who was doing the note-taking, looked alert. ‘But she began cooing over Lucinda, who was still asleep, and when I showed my annoyance that she might wake her, she moved away. It was warm and pleasant in the sun and – well, I’m afraid I became a little drowsy myself.’

  The sergeant’s mouth turned down but both men studiously avoided comment. Alice knew that Violet invariably stayed
in bed until noon after a late night, and often took a nap before dressing to go out for the evening. She and Ferdie rarely arrived home before the small hours. It was hardly surprising she had dropped off.

  ‘I swear I closed my eyes for no more than a few minutes,’ she protested, ‘but when I woke up, my baby had gone!’ A fresh bout of tears threatened.

  ‘Can you describe this woman, the one who sat beside you?’ Gaines asked.

  ‘What? Well, no. She was just … She was only there for a minute or so and I don’t recall at all what she looked like.’

  No further explanation was needed to tell them that she had not been a ‘lady’, then. Women like Mrs Martens were able to recognize, sum up and remember every detail of a woman from their own social strata from twenty yards away.

  ‘What does it matter, anyway? She walked away and disappeared towards the lake.’ Suddenly, her hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh. Oh, you don’t – you can’t mean she might have been the one – oh, dear God, no! The lake!’

  ‘No, I don’t mean that, not at all, not the lake,’ Gaines said hastily, ‘though she might, just possibly, have been the one who took her away. But,’ he was quick to add, ‘we don’t want to jump to conclusions of any sort, just yet.’

  Alice could guess what he held back from saying. Such things did happen: women pushed to madness in a frantic desire for a child they couldn’t have, or after the death of one which, with all the newly vaunted medical advancements nowadays, still happened only too frequently, as well she knew. Mother love, the longing for a child, was after all one of the most powerful instincts on earth. If some such poor, crazed creature had taken Lucy the odds were that she could be lost forever in the teeming, anonymous population of London, or even be many miles from here by now. Or had Violet in her fright been nearer the mark, and had it been some woman mad in another, more terrifying way? Driven to kill, perhaps. There had in the past been a horrific spate of child murders by a woman horribly named by the press as ‘The Angel Maker’, and the memory still haunted parents’ nightmares. No wonder Violet had reacted like that at the thought of the lake.