Mortmain Hall Read online

  Rachel gave an exaggerated sigh. “As Gilbert Payne, you enjoyed success in publishing. The business struggled until you started pumping out thrillers. Tales of derring-do. Manly Englishmen confronting sinister Orientals and crafty Continentals. Lion Lonsdale, Captain Chalmers, Sidney Smart-Fox, the names changed, but not their courage or patriotism. No matter how low a foul opponent stooped, our clean-living heroes always triumphed.”

  “Sneer if you wish, and be damned to you.” His eyes flashed with anger. “Gilbert spotted an opening for decent entertainment. Exciting stories devoured by men whose bravery beat the Kaiser. As well as by keen young lads who wished they’d been old enough to fight.”

  “Unlike Gilbert Payne, of course,” Rachel said. “Lame since childhood, and thus spared the chaos of the Western Front.”

  “I trust you’re not suggesting Gilbert was a coward?” he retorted. “Nonsense! He served his country to the utmost of his ability. In his own way.”

  “His ways were unorthodox, weren’t they?” Rachel said. “Entertaining the keen young lads?”

  He curled his lip. “Your inference is contemptible, madam. Gilbert was a fine man. You only need read the books he published to see that he detested unnatural behaviour. He had a wide circle of friends. All of them, like me, were left distraught by his untimely passing.”

  “The face of the body they pulled out of the Thames was damaged beyond recognition, wasn’t it?”

  “After twenty-four hours in the murky depths, what would you expect?” His voice rose, as if declaiming a long-rehearsed speech. “The corpse was wearing Gilbert’s monogrammed wristwatch. The coroner suggested that before falling into the water, the poor fellow had been knocked about by a boathook. To say nothing of the mischief done by sea life. An utter tragedy. Poor Gilbert had been out celebrating his firm’s latest book, and he’d drunk more than usual. He fell victim to a robbery that went wrong. The inquest verdict was clear. Murder by person or persons unknown.”

  “Robbers who omitted to steal a valuable watch?”

  “They panicked when they saw he was dead. All they wanted was to hide the evidence of their crime.” His cheeks reddened; temper was strengthening his confidence. “And now you accuse me of assuming my friend’s personality. Poppycock! I can’t imagine who you are, or what your motives are, but it’s a shameful falsehood. Today of all days, when Gilbert’s mother will be laid to rest.”

  “I hate to be insensitive,” Rachel said, “but where are the other mourners?”

  He stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “Yesterday, when I arranged to join your party, the Necropolis Company was expecting Letty Mountford, Mrs Payne’s lady help, to travel to Brookwood, together with your elderly aunt. Your mother’s death came out of the blue. A devastating blow for you. You always intended to see her again one day, but the time was never right. The danger was too great. The least you could do was make sure she had a good send-off. Using the name Bertram Jones, you wired money to Letty Mountford, so your mother could be buried at Brookwood, alongside your father.”

  “How do you know this?” he whispered. “Why are you tormenting me?”

  “What do you think happened to Miss Mountford and your Aunt Clara?”

  “The porter said they’d sent a message that they were indisposed. A virulent bug of some kind.”

  “That same porter omitted to mention the two men who took their place.”

  “What men?”

  “Were you too preoccupied to spot them in the compartment next door? It was prudent to leave your arrival at the station to the last minute, but you can be sure they made certain you boarded this train.”

  His face was white. “I can’t… I can’t imagine who they might be.”

  Rachel leaned towards him. “Use your intelligence, Mr Payne. If I’ve learned that you are back in Britain, so have others. Someone wanted you gone forever. Tell me why.”

  He glared. “Why on earth should I trust you? A woman who appears out of nowhere, who slanders my dead friend, and calls me a liar?”

  “Because I am your only hope.”

  “Nonsense!”

  In a sudden movement, she seized his wrists. He flinched at her iron grip. “Your enemies are on this train, but I have a fast car waiting at the South Station of the Necropolis. Attend your mother’s service, then join me. That way, you will survive long enough to see another dawn.”

  She let his wrists go, and he sank forward on the seat, pushing his head in his hands.

  “Has it occurred to you,” he said in a muffled tone, “that regardless of your farrago, I might no longer care whether I live or die?”

  “Unhappiness is suffocating you,” she said. “Listen, I know what it means to lose a parent. Grief needn’t destroy you. You sacrificed so much to stay alive.”

  He made no reply, but pulled himself upright, and turned to contemplate the passing landscape. She allowed him a few minutes of silent reflection before consulting a wristwatch brilliant with diamonds.

  “Time is ticking, Mr Payne. Soon we arrive at Necropolis Junction.”

  “Why won’t you listen?” There was something pitiful about his bluster. “Let me repeat myself. I am not Gilbert Payne.”

  She folded her arms. “I shall not attend the service. Consider my proposal while your mother is buried, and ask yourself whether she’d want you to follow her to the grave with such haste. I’ll wait with my chauffeur. My car is parked close to the Keith Mausoleum. Grasp this lifeline, Mr Payne. There are no other straws to clutch.”

  He took a breath, and stared blankly past her, as if he’d put himself into a trance.

  “I’ve given you my answer.” His voice was hollow. “My name is Bertram Jones.”

  *

  From the mainline junction, the funeral train reversed down the private cemetery line, through wooden boundary gates, and past laurel hedges, ornamental shrubs, late-flowering rhododendrons, and a redwood avenue formed by towering wellingtonia. They’d arrived in Brookwood Cemetery, the largest burial ground in England, some said in the world. Conceived by enlightened Victorians as a sanitary alternative to the capital’s overcrowded graveyards, this estate was vast enough to accommodate London’s corpses for centuries to come. A city of the dead.

  First stop was the North Station, a low white-painted wooden building with green drainpipes and guttering and an overhanging roof. This was the halt for dissenters’ funerals. Rachel’s compartment stopped alongside a refreshment room for mourners. There was even a licensed bar. A stone’s throw away stood the Nonconformist chapel.

  A handful of mourners dismounted. They were greeted by functionaries of the Necropolis Company whose task was to escort the mourners to the service. They’d assembled in a line and taken off their hats as a mark of respect. Passengers fiddled with umbrellas in the drizzle. An attendant loaded a coffin on to a hand-bier.

  Gilbert Payne’s eyes were closed, but Rachel thought he was too frightened to doze. Perhaps he was hoping she belonged to a nightmare, and that when he looked again, she’d have vanished. Just as four years ago he’d gone in the blink of an eye.

  The train set off again, and as they approached South Station, Rachel played her final card.

  “Think about what I’ve said, Mr Payne.” She lowered her veil. “The choice is yours. Life or death.”

  *

  Jumping on to the platform, she glanced into the next compartment. The faces of the two men who had bribed the porter at Westminster Bridge Road were pressed to the window. They paid her no heed. Perhaps they assumed she’d made a mistake and travelled in the wrong compartment. Her impression was of men whose brutish muscularity didn’t allow for a high opinion of female intelligence.

  The weather was in keeping with the sombre atmosphere of the cemetery. As the mourning parties awaited direction from the cemetery staff, she hurried away past the Anglican chapels and towards her destination. The Keith Mausoleum was a Gothic edifice in marble, with stained-glass windows, and a cast-iro
n door bearing the family’s name. Parked beyond the level crossing was her Rolls-Royce.

  Trueman leaned against the bonnet of the Phantom, a mountainous figure, immaculate in his chauffeur’s uniform and oblivious to the rain. A small pair of binoculars nestled in the palm of his huge right hand.

  “What news?”

  “I talked to Payne.” She shook her head. “He clings to the pretence that his name is Bertram Jones.”

  “Anyone followed him?”

  “Two hired thugs. They’ll sit behind him in the chapel while the parson reads a eulogy to his dear departed mama. It’s not a last act of kindness; it suits them better to bide their time. I expect the plan is to finish him off on the return journey.”

  Trueman nodded. “When his guard is down, and his thoughts are wandering. Easy prey.”

  “If he’d died before the funeral, there would be more awkward questions.”

  “Does he understand they mean to kill him?”

  “I warned him in words of one syllable. The trouble is, he’s lived a lie for too long.”

  “You’d better jump inside the car. No point in us both getting wet.”

  She took her place in the back of the Phantom, and waited.

  *

  The rain was easing off as Gilbert Payne emerged from the Anglican chapel. He’d trudged back there after following his mother’s coffin to the graveside for the committal, while everyone else retreated to the refreshment room for a ham sandwich and a cup of tea. Had he been making his peace with God?

  He limped towards the platform, still clutching his suitcase. It was nearly a quarter past two. The funeral train was ready to return to London. Studying him through the binoculars, like an ornithologist tracking the flight of an elusive bird, Trueman saw that he didn’t even spare the Phantom a glance.

  Rachel joined him and he passed her the glasses.

  “Payne is supposed to be dead,” he said. “There’ll be no suppose about it, if he doesn’t see sense.”

  “It’s all too much for him,” she murmured. “He’s tired of running, of pretending to be someone he’s not. He simply doesn’t care any more.”

  “Not care? After going to such lengths? Look at everything he threw away. Thriving business, swish home in Chelsea. His dear old mum.”

  “He was scared into believing he had no choice. Now he’s had four years in the sun. Perhaps he’s decided it was enough for a lifetime.”

  “Ready to die so young?”

  Rachel shrugged. “I dare say he still hopes he can talk his way out of trouble. Negotiate. But he’s not haggling with literary agents now. Come on, people are getting into the train.”

  They strolled forward, keeping sight of Gilbert Payne as he approached the throng of passengers on the platform. The two men following him were outside the refreshment room, waiting to see what he did next. He reached the compartment he’d shared with Rachel on the outward journey, and peeped inside. For a split second, he hesitated.

  Had he expected to see her there again? Was he reconsidering her offer? As she and Trueman watched, he squared his shoulders. Decision made, he opened the door. The moment he was inside, he yanked it firmly shut.

  Rachel let out a breath. Now he could not escape. Did he really believe he could survive?

  The false vicar and his companion left their vantage point. The train was filling up, and a porter was urging everyone else to climb on board. Keeping to the timetable was a point of pride for the staff of the London Necropolis Company. When the two men were the only passengers left on the platform, their stride quickened. As the porter turned his back, they jumped into Gilbert Payne’s compartment. A moment later, the flag was waved.

  As the engine pulled away, Trueman shrugged.

  “Jokers call it the dead meat train. They never spoke a truer word.”

  3

  As Rachel Savernake talked with a ghost, Jacob Flint sat cramped up with his fellow newspapermen on a hard, narrow bench in the Old Bailey. The final witness for the Crown in the case of R v. Danskin was giving evidence. This trial had knocked every other story off the front pages, but Minnie Brown wasn’t basking in the limelight. She looked more frightened than the prisoner in the dock.

  Minnie was only twenty-two, but already the cares of work and motherhood had taken their toll, stooping her shoulders and fading her pale prettiness. A waitress in the ABC teashop across the road from the Central Criminal Court, she had met the accused there two years ago when he had popped in for a cup of char and a crumpet.

  Within days Clive Danskin had become her lover; inside twelve months he had fathered her child. Now Minnie could not bear to look him in the eye. Like everyone else in the courtroom, she knew her tale of woe formed the last link in the chain of circumstantial evidence wrapped around the accused. A chain strong enough to drag him to the gallows.

  Fiddling with his pince-nez, a habit born of nervous energy rather than need, Sir Edgar Jackson KC consulted the Matterhorn of documents in front of him.

  “And did the accused make payments to you in respect of your daughter?”

  “Yes,” Minnie whispered. “But the money didn’t come in regular.”

  “Did you obtain at Guildhall Police Court, on 4 September last year, an order against the accused for maintenance of the child?”

  She bowed her head. “I did.”

  “And did the prisoner make the payments ordered by the court?”

  “Yes,” she said, before looking up and noticing counsel’s glare. “At least… he did until this March.”

  “March of this year?” the prosecutor demanded. “The month before the murder of which the prisoner stands accused?”

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  The case against Clive Danskin was complete. Hooking his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, Sir Edgar leaned back on his heels. He’d constructed an elaborate case like a legalistic Lutyens, and felt entitled to pause to admire the aesthetic excellence of his handiwork.

  “Speak up, Miss Brown!” he bellowed.

  “Yes.”

  Her voice echoed in the silence, loud and clear and mournful. Tears formed in her eyes. Tragic reluctance was precisely the picture Sir Edgar wanted to leave in the jury’s mind. This wasn’t a woman scorned, taking revenge on the cad who had betrayed her. Minnie Brown was a victim who still nursed a morsel of affection for a man she now knew to be not only a cruel deceiver but a callous murderer.

  As Sir Edgar milked his triumph, the lawyers representing Danskin shifted in their seats. The scarlet-robed judge yawned, his thoughts evidently drifting towards lunch. The jurors were sombre; they seemed to Jacob to have aged during the course of the trial, as if worn down by the knowledge of what a guilty verdict meant.

  Jacob looked about him. His neighbour, chief crime correspondent of the Witness, was scrawling on his pad: Final nail in coffin. The stomach of the Daily Mail man rumbled, the fellow from the Times shot his cuffs. The other journalists, most of them twice Jacob’s age, had sat through dozens of capital cases. A death sentence meant fifty thousand plus on their newspaper’s circulation. Jacob hadn’t yet reached the point where familiarity with the pomp and paraphernalia of the legal process bred contempt. Not that he’d admit it to a living soul, but he felt a chill every time he recalled that a man who lost in this game would pay with his neck.

  Behind them, a bald, burly man was staring at Minnie Brown. His fierce concentration had nothing to do with curiosity, ill manners, or prurience. Roy Meadows was a courtroom artist who often contributed sketches from trials to Jacob’s newspaper, the Clarion. The law forbade anyone to draw a picture or take a photograph in court, so the trick was to memorise the appearance of the principal characters in the drama: judge, jury, lawyers, witnesses, and above all the wretch in the dock. Meadows’ technique was to identify a feature that brought a character to life. It might be something as simple as the way a barrister wore his wig. Poor Minnie must be a challenge. She was so nondescript.

  Next to Meadows, the Witnes
s’s courtroom artist, a pale, handsome fellow with straw-coloured hair and a beaky nose, alternated between nibbling his pencil and chewing at his fingernails. His gaze wandered from Minnie Brown and came to rest on a woman at the front of the public gallery. Jacob followed his eyes. It wasn’t youth, beauty, or elegant grooming that had attracted the artist’s attention. Her grey hair was an unruly mop, her chin sharp. She was craning her long neck forward, as if desperate not to miss a word that was said.

  Jacob thought she looked like a witch. Add a broomstick and pointed hat, and you’d have a splendid caricature. Perhaps she intrigued the artist because she was a prominent public figure. Jacob couldn’t place her, but the great and the good liked nothing better than to take in a few hours of the finest legal theatre. This trial had attracted an audience as eager as any found at an Aldwych farce. Without his press pass, Jacob would have been forced to join the long queue each morning to stand a chance of seeing Sir Edgar do his damnedest to hang Clive Danskin.

  The witch was studying the prisoner. Searching for visible clues to the rottenness of his character, as a philatelist might inspect a rare stamp for flaws. Danskin struck Jacob as a remarkable specimen, as much a collector’s item as a Penny Black. This wasn’t because his appearance had special distinction. With his neatly combed brown hair, toothbrush moustache and natty taste in suits, he was dapper enough to seduce impressionable tobacconists’ assistants and teashop waitresses, but he’d never be mistaken for Ramon Novarro.

  No, what made Clive Danskin extraordinary was his demeanour. Throughout the trial, he’d resembled a spectator at a game of croquet rather than a man on trial for his life. A few weeks hence, he would surely be executed. Yet as Sir Edgar built his case, he listened to each witness with a calm verging on indifference.

  Motive, means, opportunity: the prosecutor had spelled out the whole sordid story. Danskin was a silk stocking salesman whose travels gave him endless opportunities to seduce lonely women. A married man, he was up to his ears in debt. After his car had been found on fire one night in a remote area of the north of England, a man’s charred remains were discovered inside. A distinctive silver tip from the cane Danskin carried was found at the scene. At first, the police inferred that Danskin had been killed in a horrific accident, but when his photograph appeared in the papers, an irate creditor spotted him climbing into a taxi in Trafalgar Square. That same day, the police arrested him at Croydon Airport, minutes before he was due to board a flight for France.