Dark Mirror (15 page)

The phone at his elbow rang; the duty officer. ‘Got a woman on the line, sir, says she’s got information about Marion Summers. Very insistent on speaking to the senior officer on the case. Says her name is Sophie Warrender. Sounds posh.’ He sounded sceptical,
understandably, after so many hoax calls and nutters. ‘Shall I put her through to the hotline?’

‘No,’ Brock said.
Warrender
. The name had been in the file somewhere. ‘I’ll take it, thanks.’ A click, then he went on, ‘Good morning, this is Detective Chief Inspector Brock. Can I help you?’

‘Yes, I hope so. My name is Sophie Warrender. I know Marion Summers, the victim in that terrible poisoning case. I’m sure it must be the same person—twenty-six, a PhD student at London University?’

‘That’s her. How are you connected, Mrs Warrender?’

‘She’s been doing work for me, research for my next book. I’m an author, you see.’ That rang a bell. ‘We’ve been out of the country, just flew back last night, and I hadn’t heard. I thought I should speak to you.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Notting Hill, Lansdowne Gardens.’

‘Ah yes.’ Brock was scanning the list of Marion’s telephone contact numbers. ‘Can I have your phone number, please?’

She gave him a couple of numbers, which matched those on the list.

‘And you have some information for us?’

‘Well, I’m not altogether sure, but yes, I think I should speak to you. Do you want me to come to see you?’

‘Did Marion visit your house in Notting Hill?’

‘Yes, this is where I have my office. She was here quite often.’

‘Then I think I’d like to come to you.’

He rang off and called for a car. As he prepared to leave, his mobile rang, Suzanne on the other end. He felt a familiar warmth as he heard her voice.

‘Are we still on for tonight?’

He patted his wallet with the tickets for the National Theatre. ‘Of course. Is Ginny lined up to look after the kids?’

‘Yes, she’ll stay at my place for the weekend.’

‘Good. Where do you want to meet?’

‘At the Long Bar? Can we eat afterwards?’

‘Certainly. Tell me, I’ve just had someone on the phone. Her name sounded familiar, but I wasn’t sure. An author. I wondered if you’d heard of her—Sophie Warrender?’

‘I certainly have heard of her. I gave you her last book at Christmas. Don’t you remember?’

‘Ah, yes, of course. The one with the odd title.’

‘
How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear
. I thought you told me you read it?’

‘Er, most of it. I ran out of time in the end, but it was interesting. She writes biographies, then?’

‘That’s right, great Victorians usually. She’s highly regarded. Are you going to speak to her again?’

‘Yes, I’m on my way to her house now.’

‘In Notting Hill?’

‘How the hell did you know that?’

She laughed. ‘Maybe you should appoint me as a consultant, David. I wish I were going with you. I want you to tell me all about it tonight, especially about the house.’

•

He turned into Lansdowne Gardens: old-fashioned lantern streetlights, Jaguars and BMWs in the parking bays, mature trees budding into life. The houses, two and three storeys, were late Georgian or early Victorian, Brock judged, with classical porches at the front doors, pale cream stuccoed ground-floor walls and yellow London brick above, with cornices and pediments over the windows. They stood shoulder to shoulder addressing the streets, while behind, he could see in passing glimpses, the backs opened
onto shared gardens like long thin private parks lying between the rows of houses.

The Warrenders’ house was at a corner with a cross street, and the picturesque tendency that had been apparent in its neighbours, but hidden beneath their classical symmetry, was here given freer rein. Arched attic windows peered over the parapets between the tall chimneys, and a conservatory-like room with a flamboyant double-curved ogee lead roof was attached to the side, surmounted by a small Italianate tower.

A truck and skip stood outside, laden with builders’ debris, and Brock had to wait at the balustered front wall while men in white overalls came out of the house carrying drop sheets and pots of paint. When they’d passed, he went to the portico and pressed a brass bell-push.

A middle-aged woman came to the door. Brock’s first impression was of bright, intelligent eyes scrutinising him over the top of slender glasses, and auburn hair pulled back. She had a full, attractive mouth with which she formed a careful smile when he said who he was.

‘And I’m Sophie Warrender. Do please come in.’ She led him through the hallway, the smell of fresh paint very strong, and down a short corridor towards the conservatory room that Brock had noticed from the street. It had tall windows on three sides to the garden, the walls in between lined with bookshelves. In one corner a woman was typing at a computer on a large, book-covered desk; in another, a few seats were arranged around a coffee table as for a meeting; in the third stood another writing station, and in the fourth a spiral stair led up into the tower.

Sophie Warrender introduced her secretary working at the desk. ‘Do you want to finish up now, Rhonda? I think we’ve broken the back of it. Thank you so much for coming in today.’

Rhonda nodded and asked if they wanted coffee, but Brock
said not and Sophie took him over to sit at the low table. The door closed behind her secretary, and she began, in a low, confidential voice.

‘Marion began working for me almost a year ago, Chief Inspector, helping me with the research for my current book. I write biographies, of nineteenth-century figures.’

‘Of course,’ Brock said, ‘
How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear
. I enjoyed it very much. If I’d known I was going to meet you I’d have brought it for you to sign.’

She was pleased, looked shrewdly at him, reassessing him. ‘That’s kind of you. Of course, I’d be delighted to sign it. Perhaps we’ll have another opportunity. And I take it as a real compliment that you enjoyed the book. In a way we do similar things, don’t you think? Trying to tease out the hidden motives and misdirections of the people we study. But I think my task is simpler, working on dead subjects. The living are much more elusive. But since you’ve read the book you’ll understand when I tell you that we’ve been in Corsica for the past four weeks.’

‘Ah.’ Brock remembered part of the Lear biography dealing with his painting expedition to the Mediterranean island.

‘When I was doing the research for that book I retraced his steps on Corsica, and it was during those visits that Douglas, my husband, and I found the house that we bought and now have as a holiday retreat. We went over there to get out of the way of the decorators, and didn’t keep up with the English news. That’s why I had no idea about this tragedy until this morning. I was appalled when Rhonda told me—she just assumed that I knew.’

‘So Marion was working for you as well as studying for her doctorate?’

‘Yes. The job with me was part time, casual. She could fit it in around her other commitments.’

‘Her tutor, Dr da Silva, didn’t mention that.’

‘No, well, he probably didn’t know. Marion was on a scholarship of some kind, and there were restrictions on how much paid work she could do, so she just didn’t tell them at the university. In fact the research for me did help her own studies, because we were both examining the same group of people, the Pre-Raphaelites—that’s why I picked her in the first place.’

She hesitated, and Brock waited, letting her tell her story at her own pace. She was frowning, pursing her lips, and he sensed some inner debate going on.

‘I suppose other people have described Marion to you?’

‘To some extent, but we’d like to understand her better. We haven’t found anyone that she really confided in.’

‘No, I’m not altogether surprised. That was my impression of her, a lone . . . well not wolf, perhaps. A lone tigress, maybe. She was a very spirited girl, very fervent and single-minded about her work and ideas. Sometimes, when she was talking about the people she was studying, the dead painters and poets and their spouses and lovers, I used to feel that they were her real friends, the ones she felt closest to, who interested her so much more than the living people she had to put up with.

‘I can’t say I blame her, really—they were fascinating characters, and their lives were all tangled up in such passionate and complicated ways. I’m working on a biography of Jane Burden, the wife of William Morris, the socialist poet and creator of all those wonderful fabrics and wallpapers and pieces of furniture you can see in the V & A. But she was also the very striking model for Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was infatuated with her and was her lover for years, while his friend William looked helplessly on.’

‘And Dante’s wife was Lizzie Siddal, the model for the drowned Ophelia, who looked remarkably like Marion,’ Brock said.

‘Yes. You have been doing your homework. I’m impressed. I
had no idea the Metropolitan Police were so well read.’ She gave a little frown and said, ‘Sorry, that sounds patronising, doesn’t it? I didn’t mean it.’

‘Well, Victorian biographies probably don’t figure high on the reading lists of the Met, though when I think of some of the stuff we have to read I’d say it’s a great pity.’ Brock was trying to recall Kathy’s report. ‘We got the impression that Dr da Silva felt Marion’s interest in these people had a morbid element to it.’

‘He may be right. That’s really what I wanted to speak to you about. Can I ask . . . Rhonda showed me a report in the
Guardian
this morning, that there’s a rumour she died of arsenic poisoning. Is that true?’

Brock frowned. ‘We haven’t officially released that information, but yes, it does seem to be the case. Is that significant?’

‘Well, it’s an extraordinary coincidence. You see, in recent months Marion became increasingly interested—I would say almost obsessed—with arsenic poisoning. I found myself trying to deflect her with other topics that I wanted researched, but she was quite stubborn. Once she got her teeth into an idea, she just wouldn’t let it go.’

‘How was it relevant to Jane Burden and the Pre-Raphaelites?’ Brock asked.

‘Arsenic certainly had a big influence on the life of Jane’s husband, William Morris. His father established what was then the biggest arsenic mining company in the world, near Tavistock in Devon, which created the fortune that Morris inherited and which allowed him to finance his other projects. Arsenic also cropped up in several coincidental ways in their story—it was used in dyes and paints, in medicines and make-up. They treated syphilis with it and used it in all sorts of patent medicines. All this was well known. It was just a fact of life in Victorian England. But Marion seemed to want to make more of it.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘She had very firm ideas about the way the Pre-Raphaelite women were used by their men. She thought they were exploited and oppressed.’

‘You didn’t agree?’

‘Oh, there was a lot in what she said, but I felt the relationships were more nuanced than that—the triangle between William Morris, Jane Burden and Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a very interesting case in point. But where she really lost me was in claiming that arsenic was an integral part of this oppression, deliberately used to keep women sickly and docile.’

‘Really?’

Sophie Warrender shook her head sadly. ‘I gathered that Dr da Silva thought this was nonsense. She was quite scathing about him. But when I cast doubts on the line she was taking she stopped talking about it and became more secretive. And now this. If it weren’t so tragic one would say it was a triumphant vindication of her theories.’

‘Are you suggesting that Dr da Silva might have given her arsenic?’

‘Oh, no.’ She looked acutely embarrassed. ‘That would be a shocking thing to suggest. No, it was just such a strange coincidence . . .’

‘Too strange?’ Brock asked.

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, then again offered him a coffee. This time he accepted, and followed her out to the kitchen, obviously freshly re-equipped and decorated, with the maker’s sticker still on the oven door.

Sophie opened a large stainless-steel fronted fridge-freezer and groaned. ‘Oh dear, no coffee. We may have to make do with tea, I’m afraid.’

Just then a man came in carrying a large cardboard box filled
with groceries. He was powerfully built, late fifties, face red with exertion. He swore and dumped the heavy box on the table, then noticed Brock. ‘Hello, who are you?’

‘Dougie, this is Detective Chief Inspector David Brock, from the police.’

‘Oh?’ He drew himself upright. ‘How d’you do.’

Brock offered his hand. ‘Mr Warrender?’

‘That’s right. What’s the problem?’

‘It’s about Marion Summers, darling,’ Sophie said.

‘You called the police?’

‘I thought I should.’

He frowned and said dubiously, ‘Yes, quite right.’

‘Did you know Marion, Mr Warrender?’ Brock asked.

‘Hardly at all. Shocking thing, of course. I suppose you come across it every day.’ He looked around distractedly. ‘Where’s Rhonda? Can’t she sort out this mess?’

‘She’s my secretary, darling, not our housekeeper.’

‘She managed to look after the builders for the past month, didn’t she? Can’t she lend a hand?’

‘She’s gone home. You know she doesn’t usually work on a Saturday. Did you get coffee?’

Her husband grunted. ‘Bugger coffee. I’m opening a bottle of the Nielluccio.’ He bent over a case in the corner and pulled out a bottle of red wine. ‘You’ll join us, Chief Inspector? Corsican, fresh from the vineyard.’

‘Thank you. Perhaps I will. This is a wonderful house. How long have you been here?’

‘Over forty years, would you believe.’ He began opening cupboards, all empty. ‘Where are the fucking glasses?’

‘I think they’re all in the dining room, darling.’

Douglas Warrender stomped out to fetch them and Sophie went on, to Brock, ‘It
is
a wonderful house, isn’t it? Built at about
the same time that Morris and Company started up in business. That was one reason I was drawn to write about Janey Morris. When I walk through the house I can imagine her here, advising the first owners on wallpapers and fabrics. Dougie’s parents bought it when they came back from India in the sixties.’