THE HOURS BEFORE: A Story of Mystery and Suspense from the Belle Époque (8 page)

‘No, no, not at all, Mrs. Peters. And I do apologise if I have given that impression,’ Levine mumbles as he hastens, almost retreating backwards towards the door.

‘I am not discouraged by your reticence, Mr. Levine,’ Deborah states. ‘Nor by your scepticism.’

But he fails to respond. He simply nods politely, almost a bow of sorts as he bids her farewell and then makes his exit as quickly as possible, picking up his coat and hat from the maid in the hall without stopping. Furious for a moment, Deborah closes the door loudly behind him. ‘What! Was the poor man so terrified that he had to run away?’ she asks herself as she goes to the window and, wiping the moisture from the pane, looks down to the dark figure, umbrella held aloft, hurrying from the portico below and along the street. Worse - it occurs to Deborah then, that in his urgency to be gone, the scheduled business of the hour has been completely abandoned and there had been no opportunity to discuss the divorce settlement at all. Most unfortunate under the present circumstances, because every day that passes in which Hugh’s rapaciousness remains unchallenged can only serve to strengthen his hand. It has been altogether a most disappointing experience.

Get some help
, he had told her. ‘The cheek!’ she thinks as she settles down at the chair by her desk. But it serves as an unwelcome reminder that, even if she felt so inclined, there are probably not too many individuals she could turn to in that respect. Not any longer. The frantic demands of her career over recent times have squeezed out almost all of her old companions from the world of the stage and the arts. Her own parents are gone. No living relatives she cares to keep on terms with. She really has lost contact with her past - intentionally so in most cases - moved away into what all at once seems to her a cold and friendless sort of space. And as for all her ex-husband’s friends, once hers as well, of course - they have simply cut her dead ever since the divorce.

There is always Rachael, naturally. Deborah has always considered her to be a loyal and constant friend. But her kindness has been well stretched of late - no doubt too far, and too often. The holiday to the Riviera has been put on hold; and whenever they do get a chance to meet, Rachael always changes the subject if Poppy is spoken of - and these days, she hardly even bothers to reply to any of her letters or messages. How odd.

Then, as if the very thought of her busy correspondence has evoked a summons, her housemaid raps on the door and enters with the midday post, freshly arrived just a moment earlier and including, she is disturbed to discover as she takes up her paper knife, an envelope with the familiar heading of Peters Associated Publishing upon it and, inside, the equally familiar scrawl of thick, insistent writing of her commissioning editor: ‘Deborah, where on earth is the manuscript of your new book? Don’t forget - we need something concrete to work on. Your deadline was last Monday. Contact me and advise on earliest date of delivery. This is urgent.’

Heavens - yes, of course. In all the calamity and upheaval, she’d clean forgotten they were waiting on the draft of her latest book,
The Hand Never Lies
, a popular instructional piece on Palmistry. There are five thousand more words to write; and - as a quick glance at her copy of the contract confirms - the whole thing should already have been sent to the States last week.

Well, so what! a voice comes from inside, rebellious at the prospect of a long hard stint of office work appearing upon her immediate horizon. How very tedious. After all, she is a high-profile individual these days - Deborah Peters, author and gossip columnist supreme -
Queen of the Cards
, as they call her - not just some hack of a writer with no reputation. Yes, too bad. They will just have to wait for their wretched manuscript, she concludes, as she pours another glass of wine and begins yet again to mull over the imprints of her daughter’s hands - a series of regular snapshots of her life, for the prints themselves had been taken annually - one page of inky testimony for each of her daughter’s twenty-one precious years of life.

Dear Poppy, her beautiful and enchanted child - wanting always to travel and explore, and which Deborah, recalling her own longings and aspirations at that age, had understood perfectly and had tried to stimulate. Had it been too soon to have let her go? No - surely not. Because the blame, if there is any blame to be apportioned, must surely lie with the poor girl’s father, with his constant attempts at achieving just the opposite, to stifle her imagination, to mould her amazing originality into his own dull regime. Yes,
there
sits the blame, she tells herself, fairly and squarely on
his
shoulders - just as Hugh, she surmises, no doubt blames her in turn. Oh well - at the end of the day, incriminations are of no use. Poppy must be found and brought home again. That is all that matters.

‘Yes, Poppy, you are alive - as much in the flesh as you are in my heart,’ Deborah whispers as if speaking to her daughter, as if she were present in the room. ‘I know this with a mother’s instinct and with all my insight and wisdom. You would not have taken your own life - no matter who ordered you to do so, no matter what bizarre, twisted pretext they gave you. You are alive and captive to some terrible dark force, and I will find you if it takes every ounce of vitality, every breath in my body. This is my promise to you, Poppy, my own tender flower, my one and only Poppy.’

And with yet another glass of wine, the tears begin to fall once more, a few of these upon the paper; and the ink, thus infected, runs and slides upon its surface.

Always under tension; never quite at rest, the entire structure, like that of so many of the buildings here in the heart of London’s Fleet Street, sometimes feels alive, the floors and walls sentient with the faintest vibration. Were one to descend deep into the lower reaches of the place one would encounter the source of it - one would be assailed below ground in the press room by the constant roar of the huge, mountainous contraptions of newspaper production, relentless beasts of black iron and steel churning out edition after edition by day and by night. Even at weekends they do not fall silent - for then the Sunday Papers take over the territory, racing into production with possibly even greater expediency. It is a subterranean world of noise and iron, a towering blur of newsprint pouring forth from the enormous, rolling machines - these operating at velocities that defy belief, and presided over by men in nankeen overalls with inky fingers and black-circled eyes who seem by the scale of things to be dwarves amid a giant kingdom, and among whom - since they are unable to hear one another speak even at a distance of a few inches - a regime of sign language and hastily scribbled notes holds supreme.

The rest of the building is no less active. At street level the revolving doors of the portico play host to an endless stream of journalists, photographers, compositors, commercial artists, theatre critics, sports writers and international correspondents coming and going at all hours - these dressed in smart suits for the most part, punctuated just occasionally by an elegant lady or two, a secretary or typist, and these generally making a dash towards the staircases - for it is here, on the floors immediately above, and as far distanced from the grime and din of the press room as possible, where the mechanical churning is replaced with the collective clatter of much smaller machines, the ring of typewriters; the wiring of new-fangled electrical devices from telegraph rooms - and always competing with the constant chatter of the editorial staff who for the most part speak loudly and are to be discovered in a state of dignified panic as they go about the task of pulling in stories from all over the world, digesting them and regurgitating them in simple English to the news-hungry public.

Here, within dimly lit, glass-partitioned rooms with hardly a window to the outside, editors and sub-editors slouch at desks populated by ashtrays that are always full, or by glass tumblers used for water or scotch that are invariably empty - while all around them runners and messengers do their bidding, in constant, feverish motion along corridors and staircases - all so very busy - until, were one to continue yet higher, and although still infected by the faintest of tremors within the floorboards, one would reach the rarefied atmosphere in which those who really run the show have their headquarters and where, located along fine, wood-panelled corridors, can be found doors to those places of quiet and secrecy belonging to the proprietor and directors of the firm - including most notably those chambers occupied by Hubert Peters, head of Peters Associated Publishing and who this afternoon, from the prestigious and advantageous heights of his suite overlooking the Thames, rises slowly to his feet and, flexing his wrists in his inimitable manner of one squaring up for a boxing match, addresses the assembled board of directors sat before him. They are proving to be especially recalcitrant this afternoon, and he is not at all happy about it.

‘It is not that I am unwilling to discuss the matter, gentlemen,’ he assures them in his usual beguiling Canadian accent as, from his position at the head of the table, he glances from side to side along the length of its polished mahogany surface to all the inquisitive faces staring up at him. ‘However, I must stress we will manage the book wing of Peters Associated perfectly adequately without the kind of drivel being peddled by my ex-wife. After all, we do claim - do we not - to be a serious news and publishing outfit? Why then ...’

‘Yes, but is it really wise to withdraw such a firm favourite with the public?’ one of the more senior directors observes, a gentleman whose dress of batwing collar and frock coat harks back to former times of early Victorian sobriety, and with a look on his old, white-whiskered face that seems to say: surely there should be more important things to be discussing? ‘Granted her best days are, like me, perhaps more in the past than the future,’ he continues, ‘but Mrs Peters is still a much loved celebrity. Why go to all the bother and expense of removing her?’

Dipping his chin, a morose Peters scowls at the floor, his mind recollecting his wife’s society and gossip columns. These, he has to admit, continue to be consistent in their popularity, while in certain circles she remains a sought-after speaker at house parties frequented by numerous well-connected people. It is sometimes almost beyond his comprehension - her acceptance among the otherwise well-educated and intelligent classes. Madness.

‘Also, there is a handsome revenue stream from her magazine articles and books on the occult - especially in the States,’ another member of the board chimes in. ‘Despite what we might think of such subjects today, at the onset of the twentieth century, it would in my view be foolhardy not to at least retain the rights to Mrs Peters’s existing publications as long as her popularity endures. Meanwhile, as I know from my own dear lady wife, her reviews of the arts, of drama and opera, are still valued by many in the upper echelons. Whatever way one views the situation, she is still a considerable asset to the company.’

Peters surveys the assembled team with a typical narrow-eyed glance of deliberation - an almost sinister blend of calculation, shrewdness and silent contempt that surfaces whenever he is examining the motives of others and assessing their usefulness to him: a visage as unbecoming to its owner as it is clearly difficult for him to suppress. ‘Well and good, gentlemen,’ he accedes at length, albeit clearly still most reluctantly; and the icy smile escaping his lips is one only of the most grudging variety. ‘I of all people should not be accused of allowing the heart to rule the head, eh?’ he adds with an attempt at levity. ‘Only just for the record let me make it abundantly clear, gentlemen: the moment these revenues begin to diminish, even by a small percentage, I intend to eliminate her, and all her absurd, superstitious mumbo-jumbo. I will wipe it off my shoe like any other piece of excrement - and no one will have any justification to the contrary. Understood?’

Everyone is assured of the sincerity of this statement. The company itself, which is steadily swallowing up numerous minor publishing houses here and abroad to add to its prodigious literary empire is becoming notorious for removing all traces of the arts and culture, religious and occult material from its lists with an almost missionary zeal. The reason is clear enough. It’s been that way ever since his daughter’s tragic demise, the blame for which he places squarely at the door of his ex-wife. And as the meeting is brought to a close, and as the directors, secretaries and accountants file out in orderly fashion, no one is left in any doubt of the determination of the present head of the empire of Peters Associated Publishing to have his way.

One man among the distinguished assembly remains at the table, however: The chief’s unassuming but constant shadow: the ever-faithful, ever-exacting, Joseph Beezley, a man who clearly expects additional orders will be given him before he is allowed free.

‘Ah, money, Joseph - money,’ Peters sighs, not really addressing the flesh and blood of the man in his company, who meanwhile takes the customary liberty of drawing up his chair nearer to his master in preparation for a private review of the day’s proceedings. ‘Oh, I know what they are all thinking,’ Peters continues, ‘that I’m bitter - that I blame my wife for Penny’s death. But Joseph, tell me: did she not warp and corrupt the poor child’s mind with all that mystical stuff - with palm reading, clairvoyance, meditation - and Jesus knows what other half-baked superstitious garbage? What chance did she have when even as a small child she was bombarded with it? Even if we cannot throw Deborah out of here just yet. We must make absolutely sure she has no rights over the Scottish estates. These were purchased through Peters Associated Publishing, so P.A.P will retain them. Same with the family home in Hampshire. I want these court orders and eviction notices to stick - whatever it takes to ensure she is excluded. Understood?’

Beezley, pen in hand, taking notes, murmurs something to the affirmative. Sombre of face, compliant as ever, without emotion of any kind, he merely observes the clenching of his master’s fists with the faintest suggestion of one raised eyebrow. ‘Will that be all, sir?’ he checks after an appropriate minute or two of silence has ensued, removing his pince-nez and noting by the clock that his master is due to leave shortly for a luncheon appointment anyway.

‘Yes, for now, thank you,’ Peters replies, a little embarrassed perhaps by his own vehemence. ‘But this I will say, Joseph,’ he adds, still it seems unable to let the matter rest. ‘I have a neat little prophecy of my own regarding the celebrated Mrs Peters.
My
crystal ball tells me that her halcyon days of sloth and luxury are well and truly numbered. What do you think of that? Oh yes: In time, I will destroy her - you mark my words. I will destroy her utterly. And this is one prediction that
will
come true - at least while there is breath in my body.’

Beezley casts his gaze downward, keeping silent until allowing himself to be dismissed by one nonchalant sweep of his master’s hand, and at which he leaves the esteemed chief of Peters Associated Publishing to his own very personal deliberations - alone at last in his seat of absolute power, gazing out at the featureless grey skies of London, plotting in silence his bitter revenge on the woman who has not only robbed him of his only child, but of his dignity and pride as well. Unforgivable.