Against the Light Read online

  Alice said, ‘Wait.’ She went out and returned with brandy in a glass. ‘Drink this,’ she said firmly, and watched while he did.

  His colour began to return as he sat silently listening to what little more Gaines had to say. ‘And that’s it?’ he asked, when it was told. ‘That’s all?’

  Gaines had to wonder how much he’d taken in. He did not seem to be quick on the uptake, an easy-going charmer with not much under the surface, and it was hard to imagine what was going on behind that slightly vacuous expression. But the disappearance of his child had without question hit him like a physical blow, and he must be struggling not to think the unthinkable. ‘You know as much as we do at this moment, sir.’

  Martens shook his head, turned to Alice and said, ‘I did hear correctly, didn’t I? Do I understand that it was Violet who had taken Lucy to the park?’ Alice said yes, it was. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In her bedroom, resting. She’s awfully distressed, Ferdie.’

  ‘I must see her.’

  As if on cue, the door was pushed open and Violet, wrapped in a silk peignoir, and her hair let down, rushed back into the room and flung herself towards him with uncharacteristic lack of control. ‘I heard the motor car. Oh, Ferdie what have I done? I blame myself! How can I ever—’

  ‘Don’t be such a silly goose, Violet, nobody’s blaming you,’ he interrupted, almost absently, releasing himself from her arms, and though he did it quite gently, she was forced to flop into a chair. This was evidently not the response she had expected. She looked affronted, but then gave him a nervous, almost frightened glance. To give her nervous hands something to do she snatched up some nearby fancywork she was currently engaged on, stabbing a needle at the fine rows of smocking destined for a baby’s dress as if her life depended on it.

  Gaines stood, preparing to go. Having just repeated everything that had previously been said, there was nothing to be done by staying and he was already balking at the thought that it would have to be gone over yet once more, in his report to his superiors at the Yard. But how much worse it was for this bereft family, who would without doubt worry at it endlessly, like a dog at a bone, until there was nothing left. It was what happened when people tried to make sense of something that appeared to have no rational explanation, something that descended like a bolt out of the blue. ‘We’ll be in touch, sir.’ He added awkwardly, ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Martens, Mr Martens. Every effort will be made, I promise you. This sort of thing affects all of us.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector. I appreciate what you’re doing.’ Martens’ blank expression did not change but he automatically held out his hand, cold as ice.

  Six

  The chill of approaching evening could be felt as Gaines and his sergeant left Manessa House and the young mother and father to their anxiety, though Gaines had begun to see that the latter, as soon as his high spirits had so suddenly drained away with the shocking news that awaited him, was not so young as he had at first seemed – nearer forty than thirty, he guessed. Vastly different, in any case, from the fellow who had sprung so blithely from his friend’s motor car.

  In view of the urgency when the summons had come, the expense of taking a taxi-cab from the Yard had been justified, but Gaines couldn’t see the super looking kindly on one for the return journey. Official motor cars were a luxury not readily allotted for use by the hoi polloi. The two of them hopped on to a packed omnibus. There was no room downstairs and they managed to find the last two, separate, seats upstairs on the open deck. The journey was slow. London was going about its daily, noisy business, home-going office workers in pinstripe and bowler hat thronging the pavements, street vendors shouting, motor cabs hooting and jostling for position with horse-drawn traffic, making for frequent stops and rowdy altercations between drivers. The racket from the omnibus’s engine was considerable and the din rising to the upper deck was enough to preclude conversation, even had they been sitting together. It wasn’t until they’d dismounted at Trafalgar Square to walk the rest of the way and set their steps in the direction of Scotland Yard that there was any opportunity to talk.

  ‘Tell me what you got from the servants,’ Gaines said.

  ‘Nothing much. Nothing we hadn’t already heard at any rate.’ Sensing some reservation, Gaines raised an eyebrow but Inskip merely went on to enumerate the staff employed at Manessa House.

  The combined household was a relaxed one, it seemed, employing just a few servants. No butler or footmen, just the cook-housekeeper, Mrs Lowther, who was in charge of them all; the prim, middle-aged parlour maid, Ivy Hewson, who had admitted them when they arrived and a couple of younger maids lower down the hierarchy. Mrs Lowther’s husband acted as chauffeur, handyman and gardener, and a woman came in every Monday to do the laundry. Extra help was brought in when either family entertained at home, but their social obligations were more often fulfilled by booking a table at a restaurant, making up a theatre party and so on. Even including Newcombe, Mrs Martens’ personal maid, and Emma, the baby’s nanny, it was a fairly modest staff compared with most households of the same social standing. All of them were apparently trustworthy, confirming what Mrs Latimer had stated.

  ‘Let’s not forget the previous nanny, though. Struthers, wasn’t it? The one there was some unpleasantness with when she left. Maybe she still has a grudge to settle. And she’d be in a position to know how the household functioned, where they were all likely to be at any given time. Get hold of her.’

  Inskip made a doubtful face, but he nodded agreement and after that Gaines didn’t seem inclined to speak further. Nothing more was said until they were in the office, having divested themselves of their coats and were drinking tea which young DC Watts, ever on the alert for promotion prospects, brought in without being asked. Gaines, still silent, thoughtfully stirred sugar into his cup, and Inskip didn’t have a mind to interrupt his cogitations, guessing uneasily where it might lead. But eventually the inspector gave him a sideways look and asked, ‘So what else have you to tell me? About that young woman,’ he added, as Inskip tried, without success, to look mystified. ‘Emma Pavel … is there something going on between you?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’ Inskip could feel himself reddening.

  ‘More’s the pity, then. She’s a decent lass – well set up, and sharp-witted—’

  ‘Not to say sharp-tongued.’

  ‘You could do worse. I had a feeling when we were on the Challoner case that you’d taken a fancy to her. I was wrong, then?’

  Inskip couldn’t think what to say. He had discovered aspects of Gaines’ character quite alien to his own: the inspector was in fact a church-going Methodist and a deacon at his local place of worship. It was something he’d found hard to swallow, that a tough London policeman like Gaines could also be a Bible-thumper. It probably explained why he swore only rarely, and was to all intents and purposes almost teetotal. He was a bit strait-laced, in Inskip’s opinion, unwilling to admit it was often he who was the more easily shocked at some of the things they encountered. All the same, Inskip had come to respect him as astute but fair-minded and not open to easy condemnation of anyone, even the criminal classes they had to deal with.

  ‘So what did Emma have to tell you?’ he asked at last, evidently having given up his attempts at matchmaking, for which Inskip thanked the Lord.

  ‘Nothing much, but – well, there was something, sir.’

  After he had questioned the other servants, Inskip had sought out Emma and found her wandering in the garden, aimless at having been deprived of her duties. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said when she saw him. ‘What do you want, then?’

  It wasn’t like the young woman he remembered to be ungracious. Quick with a comeback, yes, but that was par for the course where they both came from. He decided it was unintentional.

  ‘Just a bit of a chat. The inspector won’t be ready to go just yet.’ He watched her scooping up a handful of fallen cherry blossom petals, rubbing them through her fingers and letting them drop,
one by one. ‘We don’t half meet in some funny circumstances, Emma. Pity it takes something like this.’

  They had first met the previous year, when Russian anarchists had been causing mayhem in London’s East End, and she had been working as a maid in the family of a woman who had been shot dead, a murder that he and Gaines had been called in to investigate. He’d been hoping to come across her again although, committed bachelor that he was, he had to admit he hadn’t made overly strenuous efforts to find her. At the back of his mind, maybe, he didn’t want to admit that Emma probably saw very little in him to admire, much less to want a renewal of their acquaintance.

  ‘You’re looking well. Being a nanny suits you,’ he pressed on. Although somehow, he didn’t see the independent-minded young woman he’d come to know willingly going back into service after that time, even though she wasn’t educated for much else. The truth was, of course, it wasn’t often a matter of choice for such as Emma, with her background, as well he knew. It was pretty much the same as his, and he didn’t need to be told what a struggle it was to get away from it.

  ‘It’s better than what I was doing before. I’d no mind to be a parlour maid all my life.’ She seemed to feel that becoming a nursemaid to a privileged baby was a big step up in the servant hierarchy, and maybe it was. She’d always been one intent on bettering herself, not content to accept the role assigned to her by reason of being born poor, and a woman into the bargain.

  ‘Still friendly with those pesky women’s rights folks, are you then? Breaking windows and causing bother?’

  ‘I never did any of that,’ she returned sharply, ‘and well you know it, Joseph Inskip. Mind you, that doesn’t mean I don’t still think they’re in the right. But I’ve given up the meetings, working for them. I couldn’t stomach it … not after what happened.’

  The murder of her mistress had been unutterably shocking, disrupting a well-to-do, pleasant and harmonious household where the servants had been fairly treated and Emma herself had developed a particular friendship with a young cousin of the family, now studying at Cambridge, who had been involved with the suffragette movement. Those same suffragettes who, for a while, as well as some Latvian revolutionaries who had settled in the East End, had been suspected of being involved in the murder.

  ‘So how come you ended up here?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘the house in Egremont Gardens was given up, you know, what with Miss Kitty being married, and the master off across the world. They gave me good references but with my ma not being so perky lately, I went back to stay with her till I found another position that would suit me – not so easy, though.’ She made a face. ‘Anyway, you know the Dorcas Clinic – Doctor Weston?’ she asked. Inskip nodded. Who didn’t, around where he lived? ‘Well, his wife needed a bit of help with their little ’uns when she fell pregnant again, and I went there for just a bit, to help till she got herself sorted. Then little Lucy’s nanny took it into her head to pack her bags without notice and Doctor Alice recommended me. She seemed to think I was good with babies.’

  She would be, of course. She had helped her widowed mother bring up a family of younger siblings until they were all off her hands.

  ‘They treat you all right here, then, do they?’

  ‘Mrs Martens can be a bit— But yes, it’s all right.’

  A silence fell. He cleared his throat. ‘I was thinking, Emma, you and me. Maybe we could … well, you know, we could go out somewhere … you must have days off …’ His voice trailed away. ‘I was just wondering.’

  ‘Oh, were you? Think a lot of yourself, Sergeant Inskip, don’t you?’

  He coloured, allowing his fingers to smooth down the fine broadcloth of the suit his Aunt Orla had so admired. It fitted him superbly, showing off his well-muscled figure. He had a handsome face and a lithe body. The ladies didn’t usually take the mickey.

  ‘Well, all right,’ she relented, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘I’ll think about it – when we get little Lucy back. I can’t, not just now.’

  For a few minutes he’d succeeded in making her forget what was happening, but now he watched her fingers pleating her apron, her face thoroughly miserable again as her mind went back over the day’s events. ‘She’ll be missing her dolly, poor lamb.’ It was a rag doll, she explained, home-made by Mrs Martens’ old nanny, who now lived in retirement and had nothing better to do. It was a funny little thing, made shabby by much love, and wouldn’t have been allowed in the pram with Lucy when Violet had wheeled her out, but Lucy wouldn’t go to sleep without it.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Em. You know that.’

  She laughed shortly. ‘Well, I never thought it was! Only, I just wish I hadn’t asked for this particular afternoon off, and I wouldn’t have, only I’d had a message that my ma had been taken real bad … I wish it had been me with the baby. Catch anybody trying to make off with her then!’

  They wouldn’t have dared. She wouldn’t have fallen asleep in the sun anyway, that was for sure. Inskip’s acquaintance with mothers of babies was small, but the idea of this one taking forty winks while her baby was snatched from beside her stuck in his craw.

  She said suddenly, ‘What your boss said, about some woman taking her because she hasn’t a baby of her own. He might have something there, I suppose, but if it was, it was somebody who knew they’d only have Mrs Martens to bother with.’

  He stared. ‘Supposing they did know that, they couldn’t have known she would take the baby to the park. Or that she was going to fall asleep.’

  ‘She didn’t need to be asleep. Even if she’d been wide awake, they could have just grabbed the baby and made off. A lady like her wouldn’t have the first idea of how to put up a fight. Not even with a woman – and I can’t see a man wheeling the pram away.’

  ‘She’s right about that,’ Gaines said some time later, when they were exchanging the impressions they’d gained, and Inskip had finished recounting this last bit of his conversation with Emma.

  ‘Yes. Had to be a woman, didn’t it, sir?’

  Of course it did. The unparalleled sight of a man pushing a baby carriage would have excited comment. Love and care for his children as dearly as Gaines had when they were babies, even he wouldn’t have brought himself to be seen doing that. No self-respecting man would. It was woman’s work, just as it was the husband’s job to go out to work and provide for his family. No, a man intent on taking Lucy would almost certainly have simply lifted the child out of the pram and left it, rapidly making off with her through the nearby gate – where no doubt a motor car would have been waiting.

  ‘Something queer going on there, I reckon, all the same, sir,’ Inskip went on after a moment’s hesitation. Thinking of little else for the last hour he’d come to some conclusions of his own. ‘It doesn’t seem like a random snatch. Too convenient … the very day Emma had begged time off, the housekeeper off to buy bed-linen, the father out of the way for the day. The lady’s maid indisposed, and the mother left to look after her own baby. Somebody was in the know, as Emma said.’

  He had straddled a chair and rested both arms along its back, supporting his chin. His face was pugnacious. It hadn’t taken long for Gaines to work out that he was feeling resentful at what Gaines had told him. He reproved himself for mentioning to the sergeant that it was unlikely they’d be allowed to run two big cases at once and if this turned out to be a big one, having regard to the positions of the people involved, the taxicab murder would very likely be taken out of their hands, however unpalatable the reason was. Since then Inskip had been pretty quiet. It was clear that in his opinion, the other should have priority and Gaines wondered, not for the first time, what Inskip wasn’t telling him about the suspect, Daniel O’Rourke. He wasn’t yet prepared to push him. From what he knew of his sergeant, he would tell him in his own good time.

  ‘So what are you suggesting?’

  ‘It’s been done before. And you must admit it looks odd.’

  ‘No,’ said Gaines fi
rmly. ‘I mean yes, it is odd – but Martens? His grief was too genuine for that. Think again.’

  Inskip thought, and saw Gaines was following where it led. ‘Violet Martens—’ he began.

  ‘Faking the kidnap to extract money from Martens senior? Except that in this case money looks unlikely to be easily forthcoming, if at all. I told you what Alice Latimer said about the grandfather and how he won’t part with money. Which would make the whole affair pointless, if the parents are involved.’

  ‘Unless they imagined Martens Senior would come to the rescue when it came to the crunch?’

  ‘Forget it, Joseph. From what I heard, there’s absolutely no certainty of that. Emil Martens would apparently call the kidnappers’ bluff rather than pay up.’

  ‘Whatever they ask for, it would be a drop in the bucket to him. He’s Martens’ Bank, for God’s sake! What sort of grandfather is he?’

  ‘The sort whose money means more to him than the anxiety of his son or even the safety of his granddaughter? According to Mrs Latimer, he never shows the slightest interest in the child.’

  Could anyone be that heartless and unfeeling? Unfortunately, where money was concerned, they both knew only too well that some people could be – and more. If ransom was the ultimate purpose of the snatch, then it looked as though the kidnappers didn’t know, or had underestimated, the character or wealth of Emil Martens. There was always an outside chance, of course, that if it came to the crunch he would pay up, but it would be foolhardy in the extreme to rely on that.

  Money obviously meant a great deal to that family, especially to Violet Martens. Her clothes and her surroundings had indicated as much. But it was also very obvious to Gaines that she was perhaps even more acutely conscious of her social position and the need to keep up appearances, and he felt sure that if nothing else, then to risk the notoriety the kidnapping of her own child would inevitably bring, if it came out, would have prevented it. He also thought that the very notion of bringing herself to act like a common criminal would be too infra dig for her to stomach. He shook his head. ‘They’d have to be pretty desperate. Put the idea out of your mind.’