Fall of Angels Read online

  “The record tells us that, physically damaged and mentally deranged by force-feeding and other tortures in Strangeways prison, she dashed onto the course deliberately to throw herself in a suicidal gesture under the hooves of the King’s horse. By bringing it down and killing herself in the process, she would gather the greatest possible press coverage for her organization. Presumably she was hoping also for a certain amount of public sympathy.” He raised his head and looked her straight in the eye. “In that respect, she made a fatal misjudgement. The vast majority of the British public would always instinctively show more concern for a downed horse—and a royal horse, what’s more—than for a strident, law-breaking woman protester.”

  “Oh, dear! Not so impartial a man of the law, then!” She sighed. “Though I grant you are telling me no more than the blunt truth. Or are you trying to hurry me on? I see I must come to a conclusion which will open your eyes. Look at the evidence in your hands, Inspector! And admire the insight, intelligence and sheer doggedness of the person who collected it together in the teeth of much opposition. My daughter!”

  Sombered, he turned again to the evidence.

  “There, you see, Emily’s movements are not wild and uncontrolled. This is not a suicide attempt. She’s carrying something in her hands, do you see? She steps out deliberately seeking out a particular horse, easily distinguishable by the bright colours worn by its jockey. But she does not attempt to pull the horse down or harm it in any way. Have you identified the object she’s carrying yet?” She passed him a magnifying glass, and he took it closer to the light and peered.

  “Good Lord! It’s . . . it’s . . . are you telling me that it’s this scarf? This very one?”

  “Your own eyes are telling you that. The object she held in her hand is the one you now have in yours. If you have it tested in your laboratory, you will identify soil and grass from the Epsom Downs and the blood of Emily Davison. It’s a suffragette scarf, bearing their message in large letters along the bottom. Emily had planned that she would throw it over the horse’s neck so that it would gallop over the finishing line in front of the battery of news cameras bearing for all to see: ‘Votes For Women.’”

  “Nonetheless, a suicidal gesture is the best interpretation a disinterested witness could put on her actions.”

  “Unless you know, as I do, that the week before, she had been practicing on the downs with colleagues this very gesture of throwing a scarf over a galloping horse. She did not intend to die.”

  “A clever woman. She must have known the risks.”

  “She did. And accepted them. She was very ill, Inspector, a result of the infamous treatment she had suffered at the hands of the police and prison staff. I believe she knew she had not long to live and wanted to use her last resources of strength to make an impression at a time and in a place when the attention of the whole country would be on her.”

  “She certainly got the attention of the poor jockey who was unseated when his mount did what any horse would do naturally and tried to avoid contact with a human. Here, look at this photograph. The beast is terrified. He wrenches his head away, and in the entanglement of reins and scarf, he falls and drags her down with him, pounding her—involuntarily—with his hooves.”

  “The jockey bounced up again and was fit enough—and moved enough by Emily’s brave sacrifice—to attend her funeral.”

  “And what bearing does this fascinating bit of history have on your daughter’s murder, Ellen?” he asked quietly.

  “Emily Davison became a fixation for Louise. Most girls of my daughter’s age collect photographs of film stars and crooners or air aces. Louise was fascinated by women like Emily. Just as seven hundred years before, Christine de Pizan was fascinated by Joan of Arc, who was her contemporary. Christine died two years before Joan was betrayed by her own people and handed over to the English army for torment, trial and death. She was found guilty of witchcraft and burned at the stake. The knowledge of such brutality at the hands of men would surely have rendered Christine’s book less hopeful and joyous, if indeed she had retained the will to write the book at all. Listen, Inspector. For an eighteen-year-old, seven hundred years is too long a time to wait for reason, justice and rights to prevail. Seven days is too long. Louise’s school encouraged her in her enquiring attitude and taught her scurrilous tricks for advancement in the modern era. She corresponded with national newspaper editors and members of Parliament. Masters of colleges in Oxford and Cambridge were her targets; lord mayors trembled at the mention of her name.”

  Ellen took the pile of photographs from him and replaced them in their packet. She tapped it with her finger. “Louise saw these as the template for her own campaign, Inspector. Emily Davison did not succeed but she saw before her death that in the modern age, the tools for advancing a cause had been forged. The media of the newspapers, the wireless, the ciné film. This is the way to inform and sway the national conscience, to convince and persuade the people who elect the lawmakers.”

  She fell silent and studied him critically, clearly wondering whether she was giving away more than was good for her and her deceased daughter. “She learned early on that the men—for it is only men who disseminate this information—are not all men of integrity. Many abuse their position as it pleases them or their paymasters to tell lies. Outright lies. And because their words appear in printing ink or are broadcast via the wireless, the credulous public believes them without question. We still venerate the word, be it written or heard over the ether. You yourself have just admitted you accepted the published version of Emily’s death, without question! And you are a man in the business of questioning. An educated, thinking man!”

  Placated by his silence, she ironed the note of hysteria from her voice and spoke with greater urgency. “Louise reckoned that, once you knew the newspapers’ strength, you could use it against them. I know she was planning to apply the rules of the jujitsu fighting she was so good at to a mental tussle with the press. She intended to use these weathercocks, these jackals, as an instrument to convey the lies or truths she wished to tell. ‘All these words come from the hand of a man, mama,’ she told me. ‘Even the text of the Times is not handed down from heaven already inscribed in stone.’ Physically, men can be thrown over a girl’s shoulder, Inspector, and equally, they can mentally be diverted by a clever woman to her own use.”

  “Indeed! It happens to me two or three times a week,” Redfyre tried to counter the venomous tone she was developing with a touch of humour. “I rather think it may be happening to me now.”

  Ellen Lawrence merely stared at him, irritated by his interruption. “She was energetic and right-minded and—for one so young—unusually ruthless. There are several men not a million miles from here who would have gladly pushed her into jail, under a horse, or off a cliff. Now one of them has done it.”

  Before she blurted out the name of her suspect, bringing the hunt to a premature end, Redfyre decided to head her off and make his final assault from firmer ground. “I’ve just come from the home of the Bensons, the pair who were employing Louise in their family business. A business in which I understand your husband has more than an interest—an association.”

  “Yes. The two concerns are compatible as you must have established. They have a simple joint aim: putting pills in mouths. Which pills, whose mouths, and for how much profit are their only concerns. My husband employs the very best of scientific researchers in his enterprise and is, he assures me, on the verge of making a discovery that will improve the capabilities of medicine a thousandfold. He stands to become a very successful, very rich man over the coming years. He would normally, of course, count on handing the business over eventually to a son. Unfortunately, he has only daughters. Clever and able, all three. But female. Had Louise been a boy, she would have fitted at once into the hierarchy, would have learned the routines and been respected as the next owner. Instead, she was sent away to a peripheral school, den
ied a university education and parked with a safe employer until such time as she might marry. Hopefully, and with a little direction, her choice of husband would have been a man who would himself take up the reins of Oliver’s business.”

  “Cambridge being a pretty good place to embark on such a selection?”

  “Oh, yes. Oliver had a few local candidates in mind, one or two already in his employ.”

  “Enough, if true, to start any girl on the road to insurrection,” Redfyre agreed.

  “She plotted and planned to fight back. She had gathered about her a group of like-minded women. They were not members of any existing suffragist group. These had all failed, according to Louise. They’d called a truce for the duration of the war. Even rolled their sleeves up and joined in the war effort at home. Yes, Inspector, they kept the home fires burning, but afterwards, were unable to rekindle their own.”

  “The war ended in 1918 and, that very year, women were granted the vote,” Redfyre pointed out. “Perhaps that went some way to cooling the ardour? Perhaps we could even say that Emily Davison had not died in vain.”

  Her response was scathing. “Women over the age of thirty were enfranchised, and only those who were property owners and financially secure in their own right. A tiny percentage of the population. Men merely have to attain the age of twenty-one. Not many women were taken in by this empty gesture. Not even rich old birds like your Aunt Henrietta, who is my last remaining friend from the old days. Louise and her young colleagues hoped for better. They accused the suffragist groups of throwing in the towel, of failing in particular to represent the rights of women of the underclass—who are the vast majority, after all. They formed an action group of their own. Not entirely drawn from the literate and learned upper classes, either. Louise deliberately sought out strong-minded women in the lower ranks of society. A class of women, she maintained, who had even greater grievances than their well-to-do sisters. And they had an invaluable part to play in her schemes. They were—are—an unknown quantity.”

  She anticipated his next question and rushed on. “No use asking me who these women are, Inspector. They scarcely know it themselves, I think. Much secrecy. They even took false names when together and knew each other only by those. They have not gone so far as to name their organization. The moment you fly your flag and rally round it, you become a visible target. It’s easier to spot and root out a single wasps’ nest than deal with a cloud of midges. But they can both ruin a picnic.”

  “Mmm. It’s hard to discredit or lay information against a movement that has no identity,” Redfyre observed. “Not even a catchy set of initials. Now, the press does appreciate a set of initials. It saves space and makes them appear to be in the know. They might even have invented one for the group . . . ‘Women’s Association for the Suppression of Paternalism,’ perhaps? ‘WASP’?” She was looking at him strangely, so he gathered himself and asked more formally, “May I ask, Ellen—you tell me Louise could be ruthless. Would she have been capable of making an attempt on the life of a woman, possibly someone she knew? Could she, at the least, have recklessly endangered another girl’s life?”

  Ellen frowned. “I can’t say. Not unless you are willing to be more precise.” Thinking carefully, she added, “She was a life force, Inspector, not a death dealer. Oh, I know that’s an easy, overdramatic expression, but it summed her up. She had the utmost respect for her fellow men, women, all creatures. She was the sort of child who rescued mice from the cold bathroom and installed them in the airing cupboard with a dish of nuts. But she was equally hot-blooded and would never have ruled out a passionate and physical reaction to cruelty and injustice.”

  “Why did Louise not confide in you? You were of the same mind and could have helped her in her struggle.”

  “I was of no use to anyone. She knew my condition, and from the time she returned from Surrey, she worked to identify the cause. Once she ferreted it out, she conspired with me to overcome a very dark force. What you are hearing from me now is a relatively sane voice. Some weeks ago, I was mute and senseless. Within a hair’s breadth of being carried off to a mental institution. Two signatures from the medical profession is all that is necessary for such a step. And my husband—the fiend who has made me into the mental and physical cripple I am—has many, many friends and dependants in the medical trade.”

  “This is a very serious accusation you are making, Mrs. Lawrence.”

  “Of course it is!” she snapped. “Do you ever say anything original, man?”

  “Hardly ever. I react, I enquire, I uphold the law with all the patience I can muster. Cleaning up the messes made by others calls for a certain steadiness, a plodding approach that may well be out of step with the emotional flights the suffering and guilty are experiencing.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll try to plod along with you. Please understand that I make this accusation using a mind that has only recently regained its ability to think. For years, he has been giving me pills to counteract the depression that fell on me after my last child was born. Increasing the dose and changing the formula at his whim. He didn’t use me only as his guinea pig, he declared me an invalid and kept me deliberately out of sight in a darkened room for years. Louise, when she returned and looked about her, realised what was going on, and instead of making a fuss, challenging him and putting him on his guard, used subterfuge and deception to wean me off the doses whilst hiding the fact from Oliver. He still has no idea that we know the villainy he is up to, the criminal damage that he and Benson are inflicting on the women of this country. Louise found out. She worked for days in her father’s labs, and at the factory at the other end. She used her own contacts outside the businesses to check her findings. She gathered evidence that would send them to jail! Right where they ought to be. And Benson’s appalling wife with them. She knows, and she encourages and instigates!”

  The overstuffed pay packets. The secret savings account. Suddenly and shockingly, these were accounted for, his suspicions confirmed. Blackmail. The only way to escape it was to take the Duke of Wellington approach: “Publish and be damned!” Or to kill off the blackmailer. Because once started, blackmailers never stopped. No wonder the Bensons had jumped through hoops to establish that they’d been spending a quiet evening with Oscar Wilde at the moment Louise had met her death. Though her own father was every bit as much exposed and stood to lose his career, his livelihood and his reputation if Louise chose to spill the beans. Or the pills, to be precise. He had more questions to ask about the pills.

  “The Bensons and your husband are still unaware that Louise acquired this dangerous evidence?”

  “What do you think! No, they found out! Louise was very excited these last few days. Her schemes were about to be launched. She didn’t tell me anything about them, so I wouldn’t give anything away. I still have my low moments, Inspector. She was planning to take me away from this house and set us up in a small apartment somewhere. A refuge for her younger sisters. She had a little money in reserve, she said, though goodness knows where that had come from. There was a small bequest from her grandfather five years ago, and I know she put that into a savings account. The money I brought to the marriage is all gone—Oliver’s used it to develop his business, though I still have some jewelery to sell. She was always expecting to move away and on and up, and made provision for it. She could have done without the extra baggage of a sick mother holding her back. But that’s Louise. She has a heart of gold if you care to look for it.”

  “Had a heart, Ellen. Until someone stopped it beating last night.” Cruel and insensitive, but Redfyre was running out of time and did not want to leave without hearing the name he sensed was trembling on her lips. Uttering a denunciation was the hardest part for most witnesses, and some needed a sharp push in the right direction. “Are you going to confirm what I have already worked out for myself?” he asked, smoothing her path.

  She nodded and looked anxiously at the clock.
“It’s past six. My husband will be here at any moment. Beth won’t say a word if you can get away before he arrives.

  “It was Vaudrey. The creature who strangled my daughter—his name is Vaudrey.”

  Chapter 15

  The inspectors’ meeting room stank of fish and chips. At eight o’clock on a busy Saturday night, Sergeant Thoday had had to use his police clout to get to the front of the queue in Stan’s Fish Supper Parlour to place his order for cod and chips with salt and vinegar times three.

  Even Redfyre had not complained about the lack of plates and forks, but had tucked into the newspaper-wrapped packages of hot food with his fingers. Upon finishing, the three men crumpled their sheets into balls and threw them into the distant wastepaper basket.

  “By gum, we all needed that after the day we’ve had!” MacFarlane announced, wiping his hands on his handkerchief. Thoday allowed his eyes to swivel sideways and run along the lineup of seven used tea mugs on the superintendent’s desk in wordless comment.

  “Now, Redfyre, don’t keep us waiting. Tell us how you got on in the house of horrors.”

  “Would that be the one at Midsummer Place or de Montford Avenue, sir?”

  “Both, in time sequence. I’ll shut you up when you start to repeat yourself. Hiccups and belches are acceptable, but I can’t be doing with tedious.”

  He managed to avoid all three pitfalls as his story flowed, dovetailing acceptably with Thoday’s own account of his meeting with the girls.

  “So, what I’m hearing from the pair of you is a useful but surprising account of this girl Louise’s character and activities. And on a quick count, you’ve between you collected four more people who would cheerfully have strangled her. That’s five, if we reckon with some bloke on a bike crossing the common last night.” MacFarlane interrupted his own account and paused for a moment in reflection. “A potential nuisance to the Force, that little Miss, I’m thinking, if she’d stayed alive and active. All that jujitsu rubbish! A London colleague of mine ended up hanging from the railings of Buckingham Palace by his braces when a certain Miss Garrud of the self-styled suffragette bodyguard squad had done with him. And now they’ve set up shop in Cambridge, you’re telling us. Go round and throw your weight about, Redfyre. Well, metaphorically speaking, of course, and tell them they’re not welcome—under surveillance—whatever comes to mind.”