A Capital Crime (37 page)

He could go and see Benson, and try to persuade him to look after his child, but beyond extorting the necessary consciencemoney, there was fuck all he could do. Benson had obviously never had any intention of leaving his wife. For all he or Monica knew, they might be starting a family as well. If only he’d never agreed to Monica working at that bloody studio … He took a gulp of his drink. If only he’d been a better father, husband, copper – a better
person
…

He thought about Reg, in … 1940, it must have been … discovering the extent of his son’s criminal activities and going berserk. He’d sat silently for hours at their kitchen table and then burst into fury at Stratton, calling him an interfering shit and accusing him of having cooked the whole thing up to, as he put it, ‘make him look bad’. Stratton understood, now, how his brother-in-law had been feeling, although, as far as he himself was concerned, it was less to do with other people’s opinions than with one’s estimation of oneself. What Reg, with his unearned worldliness, would have to say about Monica’s current situation, he couldn’t bear to think.

Later, in the bathroom, he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Christ, he looked one step away from the madhouse. Perhaps he was going off his rocker, too. The pillow, usually comfortable, felt like a sack of potatoes under his head as he lay wet-eyed, staring hopelessly into the thick darkness of the curtained room.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Monica sat hunched over on her bed, clutching her favourite cushion, found in a bric-a-brac shop and carefully washed and mended, to her stomach. It was definitely ‘friendly’ – she’d thought so the minute she’d spotted it – but it wasn’t doing her any good now.

What on earth was she going to do? She didn’t want a baby. Now Dad had found out – and she’d known, somehow, just as soon as he’d looked at her, that Pete had broken his promise – there was no chance of her being able to go to the place that Raymond had suggested and have it taken away … Lying to Dad had been horrible, pretending that she had normal feelings for Raymond, and all the time knowing that the truth was a hundred, thousand times worse. Saying the words out loud, and seeing the expression on Dad’s face – his disappointment and fury – had made her feel sick. Oh, God … Why,
why
, had she allowed Pete to goad her into telling him? She should have known he couldn’t be trusted.

Dad had called Raymond a bastard. The word had been reverberating in her head ever since he’d said it. This child really would be a bastard. It wouldn’t be long before her belly started to swell and then everyone would know and she’d have to leave her job. It would be like all the cautionary tales she’d heard – the knowing looks, the pointed remarks, the questions about who the father was, the shame for her family, and then having to give birth in one of those places where they humiliated you and made you scrub floors because no decent, proper hospital would take you …

The baby, she supposed, would have to be adopted. That would mean handing it over to strangers who might or might not love it, and that it would grow up knowing – supposing it were told – that its mother had rejected it, and it would hate her. But she couldn’t keep it, could she? Here, a memory surfaced of a girl from school who’d vanished for several months and whose mother’s ‘late baby’ had been greeted with nods and winks and tuts. She had no mother, so it would have to be Aunt Doris who pretended, supposing that she’d even consent to such a thing – and why should she? Everyone said babies were sweet and lovely and all the rest of it – she’d never thought so, particularly, although perhaps it was different if it was
your
baby – but they certainly seemed to involve a lot of looking after, and Aunt Doris had enough on her plate already.

Or would they expect her to look after it herself? After all, it was her responsibility. If that were the case, she’d never be able to go back to work, never do any of the things she’d dreamt of doing. And it wouldn’t always be a baby. It would grow up, resenting her for its illegitimacy, for the taint and shame that she’d inflicted upon it. And as for her own life – that would be over before it had begun.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Wrapped in the counterpane, Diana sat on the floor beside the dressing table, her face buried in the thick fisherman’s sweater James had worn for filming outside in the winter. The curtains were still drawn, and she had no idea how long she’d been there, listlessly picking through the contents of her handbag, looking for … what? She didn’t know. Just something, anything, to hold on to, to reassure, to comfort – but there was no comfort to be had from the stubs and scrapings of cosmetics, the balled-up handkerchiefs, the tickets from pawn shops for items she’d never be able to redeem, or the pitifully thin purse. Behind her, Claude’s five pound note lay on the bedside table, an accusation in black and white, evidence of her weakness, her lack of judgement, her pathetic betrayal both of James and of herself. She hadn’t wanted to touch it, but she knew that eventually self-disgust would be swallowed up by necessity, and the knowledge made her hate herself all the more.

Scrabbling once more in her handbag, she fished out a tattered piece of thick writing paper, folded into four: F-J’s last letter.
You are the natural prey of an unscrupulous man (as I was) …
Never more so than now. Diana shook her head in weary self-recrimination and scanned the rest.
You might contact Edward Stratton … he is a good man
. ‘How can I?’ she muttered, letting the paper fall to the floor. Every time she’d thought of him since that awkward meeting by the river at the Festival of Britain, she’d squirmed inwardly at
her gushy, girlish behaviour. He’d been so diffident – obviously horribly embarrassed by the whole thing. The past should remain in the past, she thought, remembering the look on his face in the café all those years ago as he’d tried to warn her about Claude. ‘He’ll destroy you, Diana.’ Well, she’d proved fairly well capable of doing that all by herself, hadn’t she?

Even if she did contact him, what was there to say? ‘Oh, dear, I’ve made the same mistake all over again, please rescue me?’ How pathetic! Besides, he had his own life, and, doubtless, his own troubles, and neither was anything to do with hers … And just the thought of doing anything was exhausting. In any case, it wasn’t a matter of working out what to do next, because there didn’t seem to be any ‘next’. At least, she couldn’t summon up either the energy, or the inclination, to work out what it might be.

She was woken, several hours later, by a loud, insistent pounding at the front door of the flat. Disorientated for a moment, she stared wildly around the room, and then remembered. Perhaps it was James! He’d come back. She scrambled off the bed. Everything was going to be all right – she’d
make
it all right, she’d do
anything
to make up for Claude, for— Catching sight of the empty champagne bottle, she kicked it under the bed. Dragging on her dressing gown, she glanced into the mirror, hastily patting her hair. She looked a fright, but it would have to do. Dabbing the last of her perfume behind her ears, she rushed across the sitting room to open the front door.

‘Darling, I—’

‘Expecting someone, were you?’ Her landlady, diminutive and belligerent, was on the landing. With her pinched, beaky face and pecking head movements, Mrs Pritchard had always reminded Diana of a hen left behind in the rush for scraps, but she didn’t look like that now. ‘I can see it wasn’t me.’ Bristling, she pushed Diana back inside the flat and closed the front door firmly behind them both. ‘Where’s your husband?’

‘He …’ Wordless in her disappointment, Diana stared numbly at the small form that seemed almost to pulsate with righteous anger.

Mrs Pritchard eyed her shrewdly. ‘Gone off and left you, has he? If he was ever your husband in the first place.’

‘Of course he was!’

‘No “of course” about it, if you ask me. One man coming round to pay your rent, and from what I’ve heard there was a different one here last night, sneaking out at six o’clock this morning. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’re not doing it under my roof. I want you out of here now.’

‘But—’

‘I’ve had complaints – noise and I don’t know what else – and this isn’t the first time. I told that man who paid your rent I wasn’t happy about it. I was willing to give you a second chance, but now …’

Jock didn’t mention any of that to me, thought Diana, wondering if the ‘second chance’ had been given in exchange for extra money. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘I haven’t got anywhere to go.’

‘You should have thought of that before. There’s plenty of people want rooms, you know. Decent people, who’d pay double what you do for a place like this, and they wouldn’t keep me waiting, neither. People who don’t want the likes of you under the same roof.’

‘But you can’t just—’

‘Oh, can’t I just? You watch me!’

‘But,’ said Diana, desperately, ‘what about my things?’

‘You can come back for those. I want you out, and that’s that.’

‘But—’

‘Listen,
Mrs
Carleton. My husband’s waiting downstairs. You can pack a suitcase and leave quietly now, or I’ll call him up here and he can throw you out. It’s up to you.’

Diana had seen Mr Pritchard on a few occasions when she’d gone down to her landlady’s flat to pay the rent. A bull-necked hulk of a man who breathed through his mouth, he was a silent,
glowering presence in her kitchen. She fled to her bedroom, and with shaking hands, dressed herself and packed as much as she could into a single suitcase. Mrs Pritchard followed her, and began to inspect the room, sniffing and tutting, running her hands over her precious fixtures and fittings as though checking for contamination. With no fight left in her to counter the accusations or stand up for her rights – whatever they might be – all Diana wanted was to get away.

Closing her case, she turned to pick up the five pounds that Claude had left beside the bed, but the little table was bare and so was the floor around it. Perplexed, she rifled her purse, but it wasn’t there, either, or anywhere in her handbag. Mrs Pritchard, now standing in the doorway, was glaring at her like a gorgon, arms folded in outrage.

‘There was five pounds on that table,’ said Diana. ‘What have you done with it?’

‘Accusing me of stealing now, are you?’

‘It was
there
,’ said Diana, pointing. ‘Now it’s gone.’

Mrs Pritchard shook her head. ‘You’re a fine one, you are, calling me a thief. Well, I’m not going to stand here and be insulted by the likes of you …’

‘Mrs Pritchard, that money belongs to me!’

‘Yes, and we all know how you earned it, don’t we? On your back!’

‘So you did see the money—’

‘I never saw any money. I know your game, and I’ve had enough of it.’ The landlady took a couple of paces back and, turning towards the still open door of the flat, bellowed, ‘Arthur! Come up here!’

‘Please,’ said Diana. ‘Wait …’

‘Wait, nothing!’ Eyes glittering with malice, Mrs Pritchard advanced on Diana. ‘Now you’ll get what’s coming to you, all right. You won’t look so fine when he’s finished with you, my lady.’

Scarcely able to believe her ears – surely the woman couldn’t
threaten her like that? – Diana ran to the window. Struggling to open it, she said, ‘You can’t do this. I’ll call a policeman.’

‘And I’ll tell him you’re nothing but a common prostitute. You’re the one who’s been stealing – what about my rent? What about that?’

Shock rapidly giving way to anger, Diana shouted, ‘You’ve got a lot more than your rent in your pocket. You’ve just taken it!’ She tugged desperately, breaking two nails, but the sash refused to budge. Heavy footfalls in the next room made her redouble her efforts, but the window remained obstinately shut.

‘What’s going on?’ Arthur Pritchard’s huge frame filled the doorway of the bedroom.

‘Calling me a thief, now, she is.’

‘A thief, is it?’ Pritchard advanced on Diana, catching hold of her arm.

‘Take your hands off me!’ Diana clawed at him, but his grip was vice-like.

‘That’s enough of that!’ He slapped her across the face so hard that, if he hadn’t had hold of her, she’d have fallen onto the bed. She clutched her cheek. Her right eye, hot and stinging, felt as if it were about to explode. Shoving her back against the wall, and breathing beerily into her face so that she thought, for a moment, that she might be sick, he said, ‘One more word …’

‘Please,’ said Diana, through clenched teeth. ‘Let go of me.’

He leered at her, nose so close to her own that all she could see was a greasy landscape of pores. ‘Out you go,’ he said, and jerked hard on her arm so that she cried out in pain.

Pausing only to scoop up her suitcase in his free hand, he dragged her out of the flat to the top of the stairwell. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘get out before I throw you out.’ Flinging her suitcase down the stairs with one hand, he pushed her after it so hard that she’d have fallen if her flailing hands hadn’t found the banister.

Her case had burst open on impact. As she scrabbled about on the landing, trembling with humiliation and fear as she shoved
her clothes back inside and struggled with the locks, her handbag, thrown from the top of the stairs by Mrs Pritchard, with a cackle of ‘Good riddance!’, narrowly missed her head. Watched by the triumphant pair, who stood side by side, arms folded, at the top of the stairs, she picked up her things and fled.

Chapter Fifty-Five

It was dusk. Diana dropped the suitcase on the path and sat down on the bench, watching the lights reflected in the sluggish, oily water of the Thames and wondering exactly where she was and how long she’d been walking. She wasn’t even sure what she’d put in the suitcase, other than James’s sweater.

Her arm still ached where Mr Pritchard had grabbed her, and so did her face, but a glance in her pocket mirror had told her that she didn’t have a black eye. Something to be grateful for, she supposed. She hadn’t gone to find a policeman – what was the point? Even though she was in the right about the five pounds it would be her word against theirs, and Claude
had
spent the night with her. He’d left her the money, yes, but she hadn’t offered herself to him for it … It would, she thought, be impossible to explain. How terrible to think that one wouldn’t be believed. There must be people who go through their whole lives with everybody thinking the worst of them. She’d never really considered it before, merely assumed that some sections of society must be less honest than, say, her own. Now, for the first time, she saw how appallingly unjust this was.