The Crimson Rooms (17 page)

“I’ll do what I damn well like in my own courtroom. Take her down.” Breen uncrossed his legs, stood up, and lightly drummed on the desk while he waited for stillness to fall. His mouth was quirked into an incredulous smile and when he spoke his tone was jocular, as if he were conducting a conversation with a close but misguided friend: “Your Worship, this is quite unlawful. Imprisonment with hard labor cannot be imposed for contempt. We will appeal.”

“Do so, Breen, by all means. Mr. Clerk, is the next case ready?”

I made a play of gathering and sorting my papers, then crushed them into my briefcase. Breen leaned across, screwed the lid onto my pen, and handed it to me, presumably to signal that he was firmly on my side. Meanwhile, Leah sobbed violently and shouted abuse as she was led down to the cells. A young lawyer, waiting for his own case to be heard, sniggered in the benches behind me. I sensed that Meredith’s passionate gaze was on my face but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. The inside of my head was dark, apart from one thought, white and hard as a pebble, so that when Breen took me by the elbow, steered me across the foyer, ushered me to a cramped interview room, and closed the door, I could not prevent myself from saying in a choked voice: “You should not have intervened.”

He had perhaps intended to utter a few bracing words of advice; at any rate, he was fired up to leap into action with his customary zeal and knock the British justice system into shape on behalf of the two victims of this disaster, Leah and myself. Therefore my words affected him like a blow to the cheek. I had never seen him so taken aback; he visibly stiffened and his eyes, usually full of fire, went cold. “I do beg your pardon.”

“You made me look a fool, even more of a fool. It’s bad enough that Leah is now facing months of prison. I was wrong on two counts. First, I allowed my ambition to stand up in court to take precedent over a client’s best interests. As was clear to all, that magistrate had no intention of giving a woman advocate a fair hearing. Then, I went against my own judgment in persuading Leah to plead guilty. But at least I did it by myself, at least I was seen to be handling the case start to finish, however badly. But then you stepped in. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask for an appeal but you didn’t give me the chance. Mr. Breen, have you considered how you would feel if I were to stand up in the middle of one of your cases and intervene with a point of law?”

He had a child’s tendency to show that he was wounded by the jutting of his lower lip and the heaviness of his lids. Settling his hat firmly onto his unruly hair, he bowed slightly and said: “Forgive me, I shall try to be more circumspect in future.”

My heart ached in the knowledge that I had spurned a loyal and influential colleague. “Mr. Breen, this afternoon, if you remember, I am visiting Stella Wheeler’s workplace, Lyons. Will I see you afterward, in the office?” But he was gone and the door snapped shut.

Alone in that nasty little room, I stared at the frosted glass in the window and drew a long breath. Not here, not now, Evelyn, no self-recriminations yet. You must act first.

So I planned my next moves with the precision of a military operation: I would tidy my hair, adjust my hat, open the door, and cross the foyer to the usher’s desk. There I would lodge our appeal. I would speak to Mrs. Sanders and explain what had happened. Then I would go down to the cells and face Leah. If Meredith was waiting for me, I would send her away. Under the circumstances, I did not think I could stand her pity or indignation.

What I would not allow myself to do for the time being was dwell on the disgraceful behavior of the magistrate, Shillitoe, or my impulsive criticism of Breen. And I would put off, until later, consideration of the awful truth that, largely because of me, Leah was further than ever from release.

But when at last I emerged from that evil-smelling interview room, there was no sign of Meredith. I filled in a lengthy form and delivered it in person to a senior clerk; still no Meredith. I went down to the cells and conducted a pitifully short interview with Leah Marchant, who turned her face to the wall. When I reemerged, by now longing for a little companionship, no Meredith. How typical of her to do the one thing guaranteed to disturb me most, in this case witness the fiasco of Leah Marchant’s hearing, then disappear without a word.

B
y two o’clock, I was walking
down Regent Street in search of Stella Wheeler’s Lyons tea shop. For once abandoning Prudence’s dress code, I wore neither hat nor jacket, both of which were stuffed into the top of my briefcase. No wonder I drew curious glances. The day was dull and cool for the end of May, but I rolled up my sleeves and occasionally a fierce gust of wind ripped a strand of hair from its pins, so that when I glimpsed my reflection in a shop window it was a madwoman I saw, white-faced and Medusahaired. Although the pavements were crowded with lunchtime shoppers, the crowds parted before me.

At the end of Leah Marchant’s case, when I had gathered up my papers and clutched them so tightly that their edges scrunched in my hand, the goldfish bowl of the courthouse had seemed to shrink and enclose me and I thought I wouldn’t be able to get out. And when the pebble words to Breen—
You should not have intervened
—burst from my mouth, I had glimpsed, again, that the end of endurance would mean an end to self-control. After all, I knew what it was to peer over the edge of reason into an abyss where images of the dead howled unobstructed along vacant passages of my consciousness. Last time I had ended up facedown on the hall floor, scarcely able to draw breath, my fists squeezed tight as they drummed the cold tiles.

I marched on amid office workers who dived in and out of shops or plunged across the road. London heaved and churned, billboards and summer frocks and omnibuses, but that afternoon I couldn’t for the life of me see the point. Nor could I stand the churning faces, in and outside my head: the way Meredith, Leah, Thorne, Breen, Stella, and Stephen Wheeler spun round and round in the tumbrel of my mind.

“For heaven’s sakes, have some consideration,” said an elderly lady as I barged into her, and she grabbed my arm to hold herself steady as she adjusted her shoe. The encounter calmed me. I apologized profusely and waited patiently while she tied the lace. Being useful, after all, was safe territory; it had been my vocation since birth.

Here it was, Lyons tea shop. The door stood wide open and inside was the usual counter stacked with Eccles cakes, doughnuts, iced buns, and sausage rolls, upon one of which a bluebottle feasted. Beyond the counter was the restaurant with a green-and-brown-patterned linoleum floor covered with rows of tables and bentwood chairs. Swing doors at the back led to the kitchen and beside them a vast dresser was piled with crockery and napkins. Although it was not quite the end of the lunch period, business was slack and I might have chosen any one of a dozen empty tables. In the end I sat under the clock, facing the room. To my left, across the counter, I could see onto the street.

Because it was a cool day the ceiling fans were still, though when I looked up at their fly-blown wings I was reminded of the warm air that had wafted onto my face when I had tea with Nicholas Thorne. Thank God he at least had not been in court to witness my shame today.

The table needed a wipe, sugar was sprinkled across its top, and a fly landed again and again to feed. I didn’t mind. I was alone, anonymous. I closed my eyes to the clink of crockery, the ebb and flow of other people’s conversations, the roar of traffic on the street beyond.

A tea shop. How many thousand conversations about everything and nothing had been conducted here? How many love affairs begun and ended? I remembered Thorne’s shapely hand moving among the tea things inches from my own, which had been primly clasped on the edge of the table (Prudence maintained that hands, particularly those belonging to children, should be constantly in view). The colors in my head stopped spinning. I smelled tea and sweet pastry, and faintly the disinfectant they used to swab the floor. Then I opened my eyes and the restaurant was spread before me, Stella Wheeler’s premarriage world, where she’d worked nearly seven years: since leaving school until the eve of her wedding. It was as if the remnants of a pea-souper lingered in the room, a translucent pall of old cigarette smoke, bacon rinds, and coffee grounds. Despite the precision with which the tables and chairs had been arranged in rows, there was an impression of untidiness, something to do perhaps with the dingy floor and lassitude of the waiting staff. I was surprised that a girl with a taste for finery, like Stella, should have been content with such a humble workplace.

A waitress approached, languidly swaying her hips. She held a tiny notepad and raised her eyebrows uninterestedly to take my order. I picked up the tariff card, and out of habit asked for poached egg and a pot of tea, both considerably cheaper than at the Peter Jones department store. But in any case, I decided, for once I shall be like Theo Wolfe and make a claim on Breen & Balcombe’s petty-cash box. If I were to be dismissed by Mr. Breen for insolence, at least I should not be out of pocket.

When the girl came back with my pot of tea (the egg would take longer, as it had to be put
fresh on
), she also brought a dishcloth with which to swipe the sugar granules onto the floor. “I was wondering,” I said, “if I might speak to the manager. It’s about someone who used to work here, Mrs. Stella Wheeler.”

The girl had exquisite skin but irregular features, including a beaky, high-bridged nose and close-set eyes. Beneath the unwieldy cap her hair hung lank and dead straight. When she heard Stella’s name, she clenched the dishcloth and pressed her pale lips together. “You did know Stella, then,” I said.

“She was Stella Hobhouse when she was here.”

“I realize that. But you did know her?”

“ ’ Course I did.”

“Do you think you might be able to help me? I have a few questions.” The girl took a step back but hovered. Her eyelids were pink, as if from recent tears or sleepless nights. “I’m a lawyer, you see. This is a very difficult question to ask but I’m assuming you know what happened to Stella?”

“Of course. The police come in and asked us all questions.”

“What did they tell you about her?”

“That she was dead. That she was shot.”

“What did they want to know from you?”

She backed a little further and said, “I should fetch my manager,” but continued to watch me with her light eyes, as if mesmerized.

“The thing is, we need to make sure that the police have collected all the information necessary,” I told her.

“They said Stephen probably done it. They was asking if we knew how he treated her when they was together.”

“I suppose that’s partly what I want to know too. And I also would like to learn more about Stella.”

“Why don’t you ask the police?”

“We think they’ve made up their minds about Stephen and might miss something. We want to do our best for him so we thought we’d look into things ourselves.”

“Did Stephen do it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he say he hadn’t done it?”

“He hasn’t said anything. He can’t or won’t speak.”

She was now even paler and her large eyes were fixed, though not focused, on my face. “I knew him. I knew them both. I was at their wedding. Stell and me was mates.”

“Can we talk then?”

“I should get my manager,” she repeated, this time with even less conviction.

“Don’t do or say anything that makes you uncomfortable. Take your time to decide whether or not you’d like to talk to me.”

We exchanged names—hers was Carole Mangan—then she disappeared to fetch my egg (cooked to perfection and piping hot), and, when she’d unloaded her tray, darted away to serve a couple of ladies who came in laden with shopping and wearing hats that were surely far too heavy for the season. They dropped into their chairs, scattered bags about their feet, and exclaimed how
exhausted
they were and how they had spent far too much but never mind. Carole, in her well-trodden shoes, stood by patiently, waiting to take their order.

I wondered how proficient a waitress Stella Wheeler had been. Given her fastidious taste in underwear, I presumed she would have noticed the unsuitability of those hats, especially the one with dark brown velvet ribbons. And how had she endured the uniform, the calf-length sack of a dress and nurse’s apron with its bib rising to chest height then split to cross the shoulders in wide bands? Had Stella worn her hair short or long? Short, I guessed; there had been no dish containing hairpins on her dressing table. And with a stab of excitement very far from my earlier despair I realized that Carole would know every one of these details. If they’d worked together for years, they must have had oceans of time to share intimacies.

I sensed that Carole was aware of me even as she took the latest order through to the kitchen and that though she was nervous, she was intensely interested in talking to me. When I’d finished my lunch, she came close again. “If you’ll let me know the truth about what’s going on, I’ll talk to you in my tea break. Our manager doesn’t tell us nothing. It’s not fair.”