A Fatal Likeness (6 page)

Sam shrugs. “Don’t mean it ’as to be an actual murder though, do it? I mean, people like that, they gets very hot and bovvered when the likes of us starts rummagin’ about in their private affairs. That newspaper story you found about Shelley co-’abitin’ wiv another woman—that ain’t the sort’a thing they’d want diggin’ up. Not now.”

“And certainly not,” says Charles dryly, “if they’ve been doing everything in their power to ensure it remains safely buried.”

“But even if they ’ave, it don’t prove this ’arriet was murdered. She coulda died in any one of an ’undred ways. Small-pox, typhoid, childbirth—”

“She was living apart from her husband.”

There is a silence. Charles glances up and sees Sam looking at his bandaged hand. “Look,” he says, pulling his hand away under the table, ”I know what you’re saying but I just don’t believe it’s as simple as that. And more to the point, neither did Maddox.”

Sam eyes him carefully. “He’s still not well then.”

Charles shakes his head. “But you know as well as I do that he would never have written those words if he wasn’t absolutely sure of what he was saying. Even if he didn’t have the proof necessary to make such an accusation in public.”

Sam nods; even in 1850 Maddox is remembered in the Metropolitan Police, and Sam needs no reminding of either his achievements, or his much-merited reputation.

The waitress comes towards the table with their two plates under tin lids, and clatters them down. There is a delicious smell of meat and gravy, and the two of them fall on the food like men half starved.

“I was thinkin’,” says Sam a minute later, his mouth full of pie, “those words of your uncle’s—he obviously weren’t the only person as thought there’d been a murder. Someone ’ad obviously spoken to ’im about it and ’e didn’t believe ’em—or at least not to start wiv.”

Charles raises an eyebrow. “I had just about managed to get that far, Sam,” he says.

“No, what I mean is, ’as it occurred to you that that person
might be the same one
the Shelleys want you to spy on? I reckon this other person’s showed ’em papers of ’is own—papers they ’ad no idea existed, and that’s what’s set the cat among the pigeons all of a sudden. I’m prepared to bet them Shelleys ’ad never even ’eard the name
Maddox
before that.”

Charles is staring at him now—staring like a man who has just had a revelation. As indeed he has.

“That’s brilliant, Sam—
brilliant.
I’ve been wondering what the sudden urgency is in all this—why the Shelleys didn’t try to track my uncle down years ago if they were so worried about what he might say—but if they’ve only just discovered he was involved that would explain everything. That has to be the answer—
has to be.
”

Sam grins. “Glad to be of use.”

Charles picks up his fork, then lays it down again. “One more favour, Sam. Can you have another look at the Runners’ files for 1816? Not for Harriet this time, but for my uncle—see if there’s any mention of his name—any suggestion of what he might have been doing back then.”

Sam wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “Right you are. Now then, what do you say to pudding?”

THREE

A Wanderer

B
ACK
AT
B
UCKINGHAM
S
TREET
, time scarcely seems to have passed at all. It is as if the house is becalmed in a perpetual present tense: Molly is cooking, Billy is filling the coal scuttles, Abel is sitting at Maddox’ side, and the old man himself is straying still, like a day-appearing dream, through the dim wildernesses of his closed and darkened mind. Charles heads up to the office, where he goes again through the case files for the years before 1816 for any possible clue he might have overlooked. But there’s nothing. Nothing, oddly, apart from another section mysteriously missing from late 1814, but there are no scored-through words there, either before or after the excised pages, and therefore no clue, now, as to what they once contained.

Charles is putting the book back on the shelf when he registers the sound of the door-bell downstairs, but assumes it’s the butcher’s boy until he looks up to see Billy standing at the office door.

“Female to see you, Mr Charles.”

Charles sighs. The lad is good with Maddox, and strong enough to lift him, which Abel clearly can no longer do, but the price to be paid in almost-insubordination is inching higher by the day.

“What sort of word is that, Billy?”

“Well, Mr Charles, I wouldn’t say as she were a ‘lady,’ if you take my meanin’.” Billy’s cheek twitches, in the half ghost of a half wink. “Though she’s dressed a bit fancy for a ‘woman,’ I should say.”

“Thank you, Billy. You may show her up here to the office. And perhaps you might consider giving the same degree of attention to the difference between a well-polished boot and a merely adequate one?”

But sarcasm is lost on Billy, who simply grins and sidles back out of the room.

When the door opens a few moments later, he would hardly have recognised her. A neat dark blue dress, a white lace collar, and a bonnet demure enough for a Sunday-school teacher.

“Well,” he says, slightly lost for words, “you look—”

“Respectable for once?” Nancy smiles. “Weren’t so ’ard. I ’ad all this stuff anyway. Used to be an ’ousemaid before I fell for Betsy and got chucked out on me ear. Comes in useful wiv blokes as wants to act out their little make-believe about doing the governess, and I aims to cater for all sorts. I can do the voice too, if I’ve a mind. Which is just as well, considerin’.”

Charles pulls out the only other seat in the room and offers it to her, his manners modulating unconsciously to match her dress.

“So what happened? Did it work?”

Nancy nods. “Give that to yer—you knew exactly what rope to pull with that one.”

“So you took the child with you?”

Nancy smoothes her skirt. “Went one better. Stuffed a pillow up me petticoat and pretended I were in the family way. And I made sure Betsy was ’ungry, so there I was standing outside the ’ouse in the rain with a screaming child and me makin’ as if to faint away. The maid were down to fetch me in a trice. Took me into the front parlour and sat me down, then whisked off to get Betsy a glass a’ milk.”

“And? What happened then?”

“I ’ad a good look round the room like you said, but couldn’t see nuffin’ like a box of papers. Piles of books with words on ’em as must ’ave been foreign. And pictures too, though lots was stacked against the walls as if they’d just arrived—or were just goin’. But it were only a minute before the door opened and she were there.”

“The servant?”

“No, not ’er—the woman as owns the ’ouse. Well, not
owns
it as it turned out. She’s just rentin’. “

Charles frowns. “Are you sure? There was no man there with her? No husband, or brother, or the like?”

Nancy shakes her head. “Nah, not ’er. No weddin’ ring, that’s for certain. In fact I don’t fink she ’as a lot of use for men. Got the feelin’ she’d been let down once too often and decided she’d do better on ’er own. Lord knows I know ’ow she feels.”

Charles studies at her a moment, his brain absorbing this new revelation. He’d assumed without even thinking about it that the resident of Carlo Cottage would be a man—he may be getting the measure of Lady Shelley now, but even by her standards it seems gratuitously discourteous to refer to a woman by her surname alone.

“She were right taken wiv Betsy though,” continues Nancy. “Took ’er on ’er knee and made that much fuss of ’er. Said she’d brought up fifteen kids not ’er own, poor cow. And I fink I ’ave it tough.”

“And you’re absolutely sure it was the right house?” It’s a stupid question, and the girl bridles, as if he’s implying the stupidity is hers.

“ ’Course I am! And anyway, the maid used ’er name. Came in wiv a letter for ’er. Must ’ave been a bill because she looked right fretted by it. Put it to one side and said they could wait for their money. I didn’t know what exactly she meant but it seemed clear enough she were a bit strapped. And that’s when I got the idea.” She smiles at him, clearly delighted with herself. “Can’t you guess?”

Charles shakes his head, more than a little apprehensive.

“I said to ’er, did she know of anywhere that me brother could lodge for a week or so. Said ’e were comin’ back from a trip abroad and needed a place to stay for a while till ‘e could find a place of ’is own. And Lord above she swallered it! Said she ’ad two spare rooms upstairs and ’e’d be welcome to come and ’ave a look at ’em. Said she couldn’t deny the cash’d come in ’andy. Asked a lot of questions, a’course—was me brother a respectable young man, what did ’e do for a livin’, and such like. But I laid it on pretty fick, and she lapped it up. I said ’e was eddicated, but ’e was a painter, so ’e was good wiv ’is ’ands and ’appy to do little jobs about the ’ouse. She’s only got the one maid and I could see there was a few bits and pieces needed doin’, even in that room, so I knew as that’d go down well.”

She’s still smiling, clearly waiting to be congratulated for her cleverness, but Charles is being uncharacteristically dense. “I don’t see how that helps us, Nancy. Who is this brother of yours?”

The girl laughs in loud delight. “Why
you
are, a’course!”

He gapes at her.
“Me?”

Nancy claps her hands. “Genius, ain’t it? Even if I do say so meself. Now you can get in there and ferret about to yer ’eart’s content. Reckon I’ve earned the rest of that cash, and no mistake.”

Charles reaches automatically for his pocket, still trying to come to terms with what she’s done. It is—on one level—a masterstroke, and part of him is impressed despite himself with her presence of mind. And as she says, there could be no better way than this to pursue his enquiries—both the covert and the overt, both the Shelleys’ mysterious agenda and his own. Only a month ago he’d have packed his bag this very afternoon, but how can he leave now, with Maddox as he is?

Nancy has clearly divined his ambivalence. “I did all right, didn’t I? I mean, gettin’ you in there? Sorry about sayin’ as you were a painter, but I ’ad to fink on me feet, and sittin’ there wiv all those pictures it just came into me ’ead. And what wiv all ’em books bein’ foreign, it seemed to me she’d ’ave a fellow feelin’ for someone else as ’ad been travellin’.”

Charles smiles as he hands over the coins. “You did a fine job, Nancy. Perhaps too good. It’s going to be a bit difficult for me to be absent at the moment, that’s all. My great-uncle is very unwell, and I don’t like to leave him.”

“But you got all these people ’ere, aintcha? I mean, there’s that boy, and the old fella. And the girl too—that black one. She’s lookin’ after Betsy for me downstairs. Wondered for a minute about ’er, to tell the truth—she seemed not quite all there, if you know what I mean—but Betsy seemed to take to ’er all right.”

“She can’t speak,” says Charles, blushing; a reaction Nancy no doubt duly notes and files away for possible future use. “Molly understands what you say, but she can’t reply. That’s what makes her seem—elusive. But that’s all it is—the child will be perfectly safe with her.”

“Right then,” says Nancy, getting to her feet. “Best I be gettin’ back.”

They stand facing each other for a moment, then she sticks out her hand, as if she feels they need to seal the episode in some formal fashion.

“Nice doin’ business wiv yer, Mr Maddox. ’Ope I can be of use again. Easiest money I’ve come by in a long time.”

He follows her out onto the landing and watches her go down the stairs, holding her skirt carefully as if she were indeed the lady she has been mimicking. Standing at the balustrade, he has a view down to the hall below, and he can see Molly on her knees on the floor playing with the child. Watching them, even for this tiny moment, he realises with a jolt that he has defined the girl in his own mind not just in silence but in stillness, whether in the kitchen, on the street, or in his bed. But now she is crawling about on the tiles like a child herself, rolling a ball of twine backwards and forwards as Betsy shrieks in glee and runs about her trying to catch it. And for the first time since Charles has known her, Molly is smiling. A luminous, almost exultant smile that is all the more intense for being private, and unobserved. He must have moved then, or cast a shadow, because suddenly she looks up and they stare at each other for a frozen moment, and the look on his face takes all expression slowly from her own. Then Nancy catches her daughter up in her arms, the front door opens, and the two of them disappear down the steps into the windy street.

It takes Charles a good hour to convince himself that Nancy’s plan is practicable, and the next task thereafter is to convince Abel of the same. Though there, to his surprise, he meets no resistance. Stornaway clearly feels that the household can cope quite well without him. “Like I said, Mr Charles, the interests of yer clients must come first, and yer great-uncle would be proud of ’ee for thinking so.”

Charles has the good grace to flush at this—he hasn’t told Abel of his recent researches, or that he plans to defraud, or at the very least deceive, these particular clients, and the old man’s honest openness puts him a little to shame. Only a little, though, because surely, he tells himself, Abel would understand. If he knew.

“I’ll come back at least once a day.” He continues quickly, “To make sure all is well. And you’ll send for me at once, whatever the hour, if there’s any change? Of if my uncle takes a turn for the worse?”

“Aye, I will. And you dinnae need to worry, Mr Charles. He and I managed on our own long enough, and now I hae Billy and the girl to help me. We’ll fare well enough for a few days, never ye mind.”

Charles sighs. “Very well. In that case I will endeavour to persuade the lady in question to take me in. At least for a week or so, until I can find out what I need. Though I don’t mind telling you, Abel, the mere thought of being closeted in that tiny house with a sour old spinster is almost more than I can stomach.”

• • •

It’s shortly after nine the following morning when Charles walks up the steps to Carlo Cottage and stops for a moment to take a breath before ringing the bell. He’d been worried he’d never pass muster as a painter, though Abel seems to think he will at least look the part (but if there is a veiled message there about the less-than-immaculate state of Charles’ hair and wardrobe, it completely passes him by). The door is opened by the same servant he saw in the street when he was last here.

Charles touches his hat. “My sister was here yesterday and suggested I might call—”

“Ah yes, sir,” she says brightly. “The mistress has been expecting you. Please come in.”

She shows Charles to the same parlour Nancy must have sat in, and he too is struck at once by the impromptu, provisional look of the place. It looks—in fact—rather as his own attic room did until only a week or so ago, though like Nancy he cannot yet decide if this is the impermanence of moving out, or moving in. He has no talent for languages, as you perhaps remember, but it seems Nancy was right when she guessed that very few of the books here are in English—a number appear to be Russian, or some other language that uses the same alphabet, while most of the rest look to be Italian. The prints and pictures certainly are—the two hanging above the fireplace are views of Florence, and there’s a larger one propped against the far wall that shows the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius, a curl of smoke rising from the volcano’s crater into a clear Campanian sky.

“Did you visit Italy? When you were travelling?”

No sour spinster ever sounded like this. A voice the colour of honey—a rich music of a voice that seems to bubble with suppressed amusement, and when Charles turns round the woman before him is a conflagration of all his preconceptions. Shorter and slighter than he is, with smooth olive skin, and glossy black hair that shows no grey, though he guesses she must be—what—fifty? Even fifty-five? But it’s the eyes that have him. So drowning dark the iris and the pupil melt together, and so brilliantly intense he can only meet her gaze a moment before he wants to look away. Only he can’t. Something about those eyes holds him and will not let him free, and all he can do in the end is nod and look gauche, and be all too uncomfortably aware of it. The woman, meanwhile, seems to be perfectly accustomed to the effect she is having; she looks at him briefly, her head on one side and that little ripple of amusement playing about her mouth, then offers him, with some panache, her hand.

“It is such a beautiful country, is it not? Claire Clairmont. Delighted to make your acquaintance.”

It is a name that may well be familiar to you, but it means nothing whatsoever to Charles. And he will not be alone, not in 1850, when the circumstances of Shelley’s private life are still largely unknown, and will remain so in some respects, even into the twenty-first century. Meanwhile, and for one absurd moment, Charles is considering kissing those proffered fingers—and wondering immediately how many other men have thought or done the same.

“You will think me hopelessly frivolous,” she continues, shaking his hand. He can feel the barest pressure of her fingers through the bandage, but while she, for her part, cannot fail to notice it, she chooses to say nothing. “But I omitted to ask your sister your name.”