Fall of Angels Read online

  “Always a pleasure to see you, John. And you’re not incommoding me in the slightest. I always dress neatly on Sunday mornings. My habit is to go to evensong so, early on Sunday, I’m free to receive calls.” She spoke with the exaggerated care of a Victorian lady, laughing at her own formality. “Being in the centre of things, I have to expect visits. My neighbours pop in, my gardener calls for his wages, my landlord makes his weekly visit to check that all is well. Sadly, I don’t own this wonderful little retreat. It’s on Barnabas land. We’re firmly in the realm of Academe here—every square inch belongs to some college or other.

  “But, ‘Minerva,’ eh? If we’re to have a conversation, you ought to know that I’ve never much liked the name anyway—my eyes are not grey, I have no particular fondness for owls and I’m not especially wise. Just a bit older than my sisters in the group and much bossier, so they occasionally allow me to have the last word, though I’m not the oldest. Your aunt Henrietta claims that status. It was impossible to find a Roman name for her—they tend to be rather hidebound, the Romans, and limited in the range of attributes they revere. Hetty settled for the more adventurous grouping of Norse mythology and called herself ‘Elli,’ Goddess of Old Age.”

  It was a moment before he could master his surprise. “Don’t be deceived. My aunt is a shape-shifting mischief-maker! Though I love her dearly, I fear that ‘Morrigan’ is nearer the mark.” His lighthearted tone, he thought, just about covered his dismay at discovering once again that his aunt was a tricky old so-and-so.

  He decided to play one of his aces and produced the group photograph.

  Her eyes flicked over it without much concern. “Ah, yes. Ellen Lawrence told us you’d wormed a copy out of her. Hetty did warn us about you. She agreed that it would be a good piece of insurance to have the friendly eyes of the law keeping a watch from the front row of the stalls at the concert. We needed an impartial witness, of course, to the college’s bad treatment of Juno Proudfoot. And who better than the rising star of the Cambridge CID? We calculated that his evidence, taken with that of the crime reporter for the Oracle, would be compelling, even unchallengeable. Devastating indeed for the college authorities! And so it proved in Saturday morning’s article.” She flashed a speculative smile and tilted her head. “You came out of that well, John, but you should have left it there. You weren’t supposed to take it further. Too zealous by half. Busying about with crime scene tapes and interrogations of innocent girls, involving the master when, if anything, you should have been tearing out the toenails of the dean. I’m of the opinion that it is your fervent attempts at exposure that provoked someone to kill Lois Lawrence—to ensure her silence.”

  “Hang on a minute! That’s grossly unfair. In fact, turn back two pages, will you? Are you telling me you and your colleagues knowingly and carelessly exposed Juno to a murder attempt—two, in fact—on Friday evening? If sensible Earwig hadn’t snatched back that inhaler, I don’t—”

  “Wait! What are you saying? Two attempts?” Suzannah had turned pale and put down the cream jug with extreme care.

  Reining in his outrage, Redfyre went succinctly through the events of that evening, explaining the presence of lethal mercury cyanide in the smelling salts container so conveniently on hand, a split second from delivering an excruciating death. And these attempts on the life of the first girl, he told her, had been followed within a couple of hours by a successful attack on a second.

  “Oh, my God,” Suzannah breathed. “Earwig was right. There is someone tracking us.”

  “Tracking! I’d say he was doing something much more active than prowling about after all of you, observing. He’s knocking you off the chessboard one by one at a quick rate. He seems set on eliminating your group. That’s why I’m here, Suzannah. To warn you that you’re in danger. You’ll understand that I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that a third one of your members was murdered last night.”

  He pointed to the small blonde girl smiling so brightly on the front row. “She was strangled, and her body placed in the archway in Senate House Passage.”

  “No—not Venus!” She was unable to voice her emotions, but her stiff, expressionless features betrayed the depth of her shock. Her strong hands began to fidget and her breathing quickened.

  Fearing an outburst, Redfyre reached for the coffee pot, poured another cup and held it up to her. To his gratification, she accepted the gesture as he had intended, a wordless sympathy, and acknowledged it by taking a symbolic sip.

  “I shall need all the help you can give me if I’m to lay hands on the monster who’s doing this, Suzannah,” he said quietly. “He is no creation of mine, but I shall un-create, by which I mean destroy him.”

  “I know what you’re implying. We dreamed him up, didn’t we? Conjured him up.”

  “Children say that if you give the Devil a name, he will come when you call him. Yes. I think you gave him flesh and a voice. I believe in evil in my old-fashioned way. I’ve seen enough of this world to know how easily and thoughtlessly it can be let loose. Though you’re not to report that to my superintendent, who already thinks I’m too whimsical by half. Three innocent, well-meaning girls have challenged this killer, awakened his anger and paid the price.”

  She reached across the table and clutched his hands. “Should I apologize? The word means nothing! I’m left with no words but words of resolve. I’ll grieve for my friends later. Tell me what I can do—I’ll answer any questions you ask.”

  “I think I’ve grasped the significance of Juno’s fall down the stairs, but the second attempt by mercury cyanide is still a puzzle. Equally puzzling was the arrival of a poison pen letter from the same hand as the first collection, sent to her in hospital, along with a lugubrious death wreath. And a crowing message of the ‘Pride goes before a fall’ nature. I’ve suppressed that—no need to scare her further.”

  “Juno’s all right. She’s way out in the country, staying with Earwig’s family, and she has friends looking out for her.”

  “No such good fortune for Rosalind Weston—Venus. What have you to tell me about her? Why was she chosen—rather than you, or Hetty, or the two remaining unknowns in this photograph?”

  “We loved Rosalind. She went out of her way to talk to people you would never have expected her to want to know. She was witty, resilient, cheery and suffered her dreadful life—which she’d led from the age of fifteen—with enormous fortitude. Her story is the usual one—betrayed at an early age by the one she loved, degraded and made homeless. But she had spirit, and until she was twelve and her schooling finished, she had a thirst for learning. Lois was doing volunteer evening school teaching for deprived adults when Rosalind turned up as a pupil in her class. They got on well. I think Lois learned more from Rosalind than vice versa.”

  “So there was just the element of friendship in play here?” Redfyre asked, his brain beginning to whirr.

  “More than that. Rosalind confided that in her profession, she came into contact with some eminent men about Cambridge. One or two of their names struck a spark with Lois and Earwig and Juno. Men who were guilty of some pretty dreadful acts against the female sex, apart from the abuse they paid for. For them, in their conceit, a prostitute had no more thought processes than a pillow, and if they were asked in the right way, answers to some telling questions could be eased out of them. Lois listened to what Rosalind had to disclose and made notes. She had acquired scurrilous evidence against some powerful men.”

  “Blackmail?” Redfyre asked wearily.

  “No. She was building up cases against several villains, but to my knowledge, she never made use of it. She was saving it up for the right moment.”

  “And what was that?”

  “You have little idea of Lois’s quality, John.”

  “You’d be surprised. People are very keen to sing her praises. A girl who had influence beyond her class and far beyond her age, it seems to me.”<
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  Suzannah smiled. “It helps to know who her heroines were.”

  “I know she was inspired by Emily Davison.”

  “Weren’t we all? But the one she revered was Joan of Arc. Joan was seventeen when she led the French army in a successful assault on English-occupied Orleans. Seventeen! The youngest commander of a national army we know of. Much younger than Alexander the so-called Great. Vainglorious, egotistical sot that he was! And the same age as Louise when I first met and recruited her. Joan was nineteen when she was burned to death. Lois celebrated her nineteenth birthday last month. She would have said, along with her heroine: One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.

  “I don’t believe the world will ever produce another such as Joan, but Lois set out to emulate her. Her fight was not against foreign occupation, but unfair male domination. The lesson she learned from Joan was to use—and skilfully—their own weapons against them. Joan had donned armour and wielded a sword; Louise used cunning, intrigue, persuasion and the voice of the press. Given a few more years, John, she would have built up the power to launch herself onto the political stage. She would have become the first female Member of Parliament for Cambridge. And now we shall never hear the fine speeches she would have delivered, never see the social changes she would have brought about.”

  Redfyre sensed tears were not so far from the surface. “I’m guessing from those chapter headings you’ve just treated me to that history is not your discipline?” he said mischievously as an antidote to the welling sentimentality. “But go back a step, will you? You say you ‘recruited’ Louise? To what organisation? Who is its head?”

  Suzannah Sturdy sighed. “We have no name. There is no head. The moment you take on an identity, you become a target. But there is a movement, and it’s widening and gathering strength. Like a tide turning or a storm brewing, we are a natural force. Unstoppable. The suffragettes? Everyone knows their names and where to find them. Their every escapade is signalled in advance and thwarted. The press barons delight in portraying them as mad and destructive. The window smashers, the banner wavers, the prison protesters are consigned to history. They’ve played their part—and a brave one—but most have happily settled into domesticity. This is a new age, a new generation. Lois was, for me and many others, the personification of this new generation.”

  “How did you meet her? She was never a pupil at your school.”

  In short, crisp sentences to counteract her emotion, Suzannah told him of an evening at the end of the last summer term. In concern for the two younger Lawrence sisters, who appeared to be going into academic decline, she had fixed an appointment to see either or both of the Lawrence parents to establish a reason for this. To her surprise, it was Lois who turned up for the interview. Her father, she explained, could not spare the time from his Masonic duties, and her mother was doped out of her senses. Lois declared that she was the only one who could tell the truth. A hideous story followed. Suzannah had done her best to help. She soon realised that Lois was an extraordinary girl, and one who might well join her and a few other like-minded ladies in Cambridge—no, they were not all on that photograph, and no, she would not name them.

  “But a schoolgirl?” Redfyre questioned. Was it fair, was it moral for a woman in Suzannah’s position—head of one of the most prestigious girls’ schools in the city—to recruit in this way, he wanted to know.

  She replied with a smile that she doubted Lois had ever been a schoolgirl. She was not, in any case, one of her own. She called shame on Redfyre for entertaining the thought that she would have been so unlicensed and so unprincipled in her behaviour as to take advantage.

  The steely headmistress, incorruptible and fierce, was suddenly on show, and Redfyre backed down.

  “This generation—Lois’s generation—must succeed, John,” she summarised firmly. “Inch by inch, if necessary. I may not know much history, but I intend to help to write the next chapter.”

  “And many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak,” he suggested.

  “Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act 2,” she said with a smile. “Are you now testing my English? Since you’re familiar with this play, I’ll draw your attention to a line in the first act which I’ve always thought summed up Lois: O tiger’s heart, wrapped in a woman’s hide!”

  “More flattering to refer to the heart of a tigress, I think. I understand the female of that species vastly outdoes the male in courage and stoicism.” Was he appeasing her or drawing her out? Neither, he decided—just showing off his knowledge.

  “And loyalty. Have you hunted tigers?”

  “No, but I’ve yarned the night away with blokes who have. Hunters who sing the praises of the tigress. Much smaller in size than the male, of course, but she’s quite capable of seeing him off. He knows he will always win a stand-up fight to the death, but why risk losing an eye in the process? He usually slopes off at her warning smile.”

  “Well you’re spot-on. Lois had that tigress quality. The man who got close enough to her to kill and escape unscathed, John, must have very special qualities or standing.”

  He felt this might be the right moment to make the point he’d come to make. “Exactly. And, Suzannah, you may be next on his menu, along with the remaining women in this photo or the group.”

  “And you want me to name them?”

  “Please. For your safety and theirs.”

  She shuffled round the table and sat next to him, the better to study the photograph he’d left at his elbow. “Eight of us. The camera was in the hands of Juno, of course. She’d just bought it and was demonstrating her skill with it. Hetty is at the tea table. That’s Earwig, or Luna if you prefer, showing her knickers doing a Fragonard on the swing. There I am on the left, trying to hide behind a teacup, and at my feet are Lois and Venus. That leaves this pair.” She pointed to two girls in tennis skirts sitting next to Venus. “They’re friends of Lois from her school in Surrey.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “Vesta and Diana. Both, like Lois, had finished at boarding school. No need to worry about that pair. You can come off watch, Inspector. Their ambassador father has taken them off to join him and his wife in their next posting. Though as it’s to Turkey they’re headed, perhaps we should be screwing our concern up a notch. Stirring times in the Caliphate, I understand. Or should I now say Republic?”

  It seemed to Redfyre that her relief was entirely genuine. Her mood was certainly elevated as she went on. “Rest easy! Just three left on the list. Now, Hetty. He can’t possibly know about her. If her own nephew didn’t know—and you didn’t, did you? Ha! Gotcher! Then there’s me. He’s welcome to try! Earwig? She’s heavily protected! Have you seen those brothers of hers? They were all in the war and came out of it staggering under the weight of medals for valour or skulduggery of one sort or another. And they’re all home for Christmas. Let’s have a second pot of coffee, shall we?”

  As she bustled out into the kitchen, Redfyre got up and gave the fire an encouraging poke, then went to stand by the window, enjoying the sunshine streaming into the room and the elegant architecture it slanted over outside. There were few enough pretty houses in the city, so it was a treat to see evidence of age, style and generosity of finish.

  A movement at the end of the cobbled alleyway caught his attention. A figure emerged from the archway and strode purposefully towards Suzannah’s house. He watched with amused sympathy as Richard Henningham was detained by a call from—what had Suzannah said his name was? Canon James?—from a house on the left. Frozen in stride and clearly eager to be on his way, the master of Barnabas paused to greet a dog-collared, bible-carrying gent. He allowed himself to be engaged in a conversation, which seemed to be heavily one-sided, with the chatty cleric before tearing himself free and continuing. He arrived on the doorstep and banged
heartily with the knocker.

  Redfyre called to Suzannah. “Your landlord’s at the door! Are you sure you’re fully paid up?”

  She dashed from the kitchen, put the coffee down and tore off her pinny. “Oh, Lord! Richard’s early.”

  The flush on her cheeks and the slight smile spoke to Redfyre, and he didn’t much like what he was hearing. “So sorry, Suzannah! I’m afraid I’ve intruded and really have messed up your Sunday routine, haven’t I? Look, I’ll grab my hat and be on my way.”

  As he made his way to the hatstand, he heard Suzannah greet her visitor and ask him to come in.

  “Can’t this morning, my dear,” came the answer from the doorstep. “I’m on a mission. Look, Miss Sturdy, would you think me very impertinent if I were to ask you to pack your things and return to the school for this next bit?”

  He overheard Suzannah splutter in surprise.

  “I wouldn’t ask, but I’ve been notified—just an hour ago—by the police of a most appalling crime. A detective sergeant has apprised me of a murder committed just a few yards away in Senate House Passage. A woman has been strangled to death. Yet another!”

  Suzannah responded with exclamations and a question.

  “She was discovered in the doorway the college uses to take the rubbish from the college premises in a discreet way. There will be panic, no doubt, when the story leaks out, and I know you are not one to be unnecessarily afraid. But all ladies in the vicinity are to be alerted—particularly ones living by themselves. The sergeant has enlisted the assistance of the college in this. You and old Mrs. Handley at the tobacconist’s are the only solitaries I know of in my bailiwick, so I’m doing my civic duty in warning you. Though his old mother is most unlikely to be on the murderer’s shopping list, Mrs. Handley’s son has kindly agreed to come and calm her nerves, and my duty is to account for you. You will be more secure in your apartment at the school, where there are always staff on duty. Porters on hand to repel boarders. Please, assure me you will leave! Today.”