‘You must be kept busy.’
He smiled disdainfully.
Rose turned to one of the stacks. ‘What are these?’
‘Leaflets about swine fever. Everything along here relates to agriculture. Not much to interest a lady.’
She asked whether the numbers painted in white on the base of the rack were significant and he started telling her about the classification system.
Rose cut in. ‘There must be a list of all these numbers somewhere.’
‘There is. I’ll show you.’
As they followed him to the end of the rack Rose tapped Antonia’s arm. ‘See you at the car.’
She stood for a minute or so in front of the plan and index displayed on the end wall — long enough to learn that the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths section was in Rows GRO1 to 6 and that Form 134/B (Disposal) was stored in GRO6. Gascoigne was running his finger down the list pointing out items that they might have come across as housewives.
Rose sidled around the end of the nearest rack, turned and walked away, up the column towards the far end. As soon as she reckoned Gascoigne wouldn’t see her if he turned round she stepped out fast. She relied on Antonia to invent some excuse.
She slowed to pass two people with trolleys. They didn’t give her a second look. She could imagine how easy it would be to get into a zombie-like state pushing a trolley up and down these aisles. Whichever one you chose the scene was the same: dark shelves reaching almost to infinity and lit at intervals by lamps with conical shades coated in dust.
The system also made strong demands on one’s concentration. She reckoned the racks marked GRO ought to have been about halfway along, but she’d gone three-quarters of the way and still hadn’t found them. She stopped, not wanting to panic, yet fearing she was in error. If she retraced her steps she had no certainty of doing any better. Her shoulders went tense and she breathed faster. Couldn’t stand still. Had to look as if she knew what she was doing.
She turned and went back the way she had come, along the ends of the rows, checking the code numbers. About the middle she became convinced that she was wasting precious time. None of the GRO numbers was there. She would have noticed the first time.
Then she raised her eyes and saw a set of letters and figures much higher up the rack she was standing beside. Because she’d first noticed the information at eye level she hadn’t looked any higher. There was a whole series she’d missed. Encouraged, she moved on and found the rack marked GRO6 just a short way ahead. She reached out and ran her hand along one of the shelves. Now all she had to do was find 134/B (Disposal).
The stationery itself was not on view. It was stored in brown paper packets with the coding written on labels pasted on to the ends. She moved along the rack reading them off.
134/B. She clenched her fist in triumph, or relief.
Her idea was to unwrap the top packet, remove a disposal form and tuck it into her handbag. With some care she prised her fingernail under the fold to separate it without causing a tear.
‘Are you looking for something?’
A man had come up behind her.
She gasped and spun round.
‘What are you doing, exactly?’ He wasn’t one of the trolley-pushers. He was in a suit like Gascoigne. An important-looking man with silver hair and a black moustache.
A surge of fear galvanized Rose. A lie sprang readily to her lips. ‘I was sent over from Somerset House. They ran out of 134/Bs. Mr Gascoigne told me where to find them.’
‘Ah. Gascoigne.’
‘Here they are. Good.’ She tucked a packet under her arm and set off at as brisk a walk as she dared towards the far end of the warehouse and the exit. She wouldn’t stop if he called out. There was such a pounding in her head that she wouldn’t hear anyway.
She stared ahead, knowing she was trapped if anyone chose to block her path. It was the recurring nightmare of being chased up a narrow passageway, thinking she could make it to the end and then being met by a leaping tiger. Or, in this case, Gascoigne. But he didn’t appear. She turned right and headed for the swing doors without a glance to either side. People were moving about there and she avoided looking at them. Through the doors and into the corridor.
Walk.
It was longer than she remembered. God, she thought, I hope I picked the right doors. And then, oh, no, what am I going to tell the doorman?
He turned to face her as she burst through the doors. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Yes.’ She smacked her hand over the label on the packet. ‘I got the things.’
‘You seem to have lost your friend.’
‘Oh, she’s following. Got talking to someone. ‘Bye, then.’
‘Best of luck.’
She’d already had more of that than she was entitled to expect.
28
Through the rear-view mirror of the Bentley, Rose’s eyes were fixed on the farthest pillar in a row of housefronts at one end of Lowndes Square, the point where she would first catch sight of somebody approaching from the Stationery Office Depot. She had the engine running and her hands gripping the wheel.
Please God let it be Antonia, she thought.
Yet how absurd. She was sitting here waiting for the woman who had tried to chloroform her, who would surely have murdered her, whatever she claimed afterwards. A callous, unpredictable killer for whose arrival Rose was praying fervently. She had no illusions about Antonia. The charm was totally resistible now. Remarks that once seemed witty left her cold, yet she couldn’t ignore the certainty that she herself was destined for the gallows if Antonia was arrested and persuaded to confess. What a mess! She didn’t see any way to untangle herself.
So she waited in the car.
Two more minutes went by. Rose drummed her fingers on the rim of the wheel.
Then Antonia appeared, her fair hair springing against the black velvet collar as she clattered around the corner in her high heels. She flashed a wide smile when their eyes met. Bravado, Rose thought sourly as she leaned across and lifted the lock on the door, but smiled back.
Antonia hauled it open, sank into the seat and swung her legs in.
‘Any joy?’
‘Behind you.’
Antonia turned, looked at the packet of forms on the back seat and whistled. ‘Hell’s bells, Rosie, we only needed one.’
‘It was easier to take the packet.’
‘Five hundred! Gordon Bennett! Are you going into business?’ She started to laugh.
Rose joined in the peal of giggles, a frankly hysterical reaction as they shattered the tension.
‘You don’t do things by halves, ducky!’
Their laughter shrilled at least an octave higher, recalling that hilarious moment — Rose had forgotten the cause of the hilarity — in the Black and White Milk Bar just after they had met in Piccadilly. For a few blissful seconds it blotted out everything that had happened since that afternoon.
Someone had to say something when the laughter died and it was Antonia. ‘Ah well, who knows, the extra ones may come in useful.’
‘What?’ Rose almost swung the car into a taxi she was overtaking.
‘In case the pen slips and I mess it up, darling.’ She gave a chesty laugh. ‘What else?’ This time Rose didn’t join in.
As they approached the traffic lights at the top of Sloane Street, she returned to practicalities and suggested they stopped somewhere in Hyde Park. ‘If we fill the form in right away, we can get to an undertaker’s before they close.’ She got a nod from Antonia so she turned right, through the Albert Gate into South Carriage Drive. ‘How did you cope with Gascoigne?’
‘Told him you’d had trouble with your suspenders.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’
‘What’s up? It was the perfect thing to say. He went pink and twitchy at the thought and his eyes glazed over, dirty old sod, so I knew what to talk about — stocking-tops, belts, garters, corsets and quivering thighs, forests of them. And how to hitch up your stocking with a sixpence. Oh, and the shortage of elastic. That really got his smutty little mind going. The steam was coming out of his ears by then. He forgot all about his precious coding system and he didn’t mention you for ten minutes.’