A Splash of Red (20 page)

Work being Jemima's cure, she badly needed a substitute if this disastrous summer holiday was to be rescued. Fortunately there was work of a sort to hand: good useful work which might at least avenge Chloe's death and unravel the mystery of her last hours.

And if work was Jemima's cure, curiosity was her stimulus. The first-floor flat at Adelaide Square was still at her disposal, Lionnel Estates having not yet proffered an alternative although Jemima received twice-daily calls from a Miss Katy Aaronson, describing herself as Sir Richard Lionnel's private assistant - 'No, not his secretary, Miss Shore, his private assistant.' She was reminded of Laura Barrymore, Isabelle Mancini's cool 'personal assistant'.

In fact Miss Katy Aaronson turned out to have a secretary of her own, who put through her frequent calls to Jemima in an important voice; that again reminded Jemima of Laura Barrymore.

The call which Miss Katy Aaronson made on Thursday morning, apart from being made at
8
.20
am - half an hour earlier than Miss Aaronson's wonted hour which was early enough - brought with it an additional surprise in the shape of an invitation to lunch from Sir Richard Lionnel.

Miss Aaronson did indeed apologize with her usual suavity - another Barrymore touch - both for the earliness of the hour and the shortness of notice. Her use of titles as opposed
to Laura Barrymore's transatl
antic employment of Christian names possibly indicated the difference between a personal and a private assistant.

'Unexpectedly Sir Richard finds himself free for a late lunch in London, since he is taking an ordinary commercial flight from Glasgow to Heathrow
...
before going down to Sussex by helicopter later in the afternoon to join Lady Lionnel at Glyndebourne. And the Minister, that is to say Lord Manfred, accompanied by Lady Manfred, hopes to join them by car from Hastings, where the Minister will have inaugurated
...
So if we sent the car for you at one-forty-five
...
There's a Greek restaurant in Percy Street just off the Tottenham Court Road where Sir Richard likes to lunch late
...
He finds the ambience . . .'

What on earth made tycoons' assistants imagine that the complicated social arrangements over which they themselves were destined to toil were of equal interest to the rest of the world, Jemima wondered irritably. The stately movements of Sir Richard Lionnel across the British Isles both dispensing and pursuing culture were no concern of hers; but Miss Katy Aaronson took care to inform her that Sir Richard had been lecturing at some Festival of Scottish Industrial Architecture in the presence of the youthful arts-minded Prince Frederick of Cumberland as well as other notables.

The apology, for all its suavity, was purely ritual. Jemima was not expected to refuse; if she had any other arrangements she was expected to put them off - in fact she had invited Isabelle Mancini to lunch to talk about Valentine and she did put her off; nor was Jemima expected to cavil at the late hour or the choice of Greek 'ambience'.

What would have happened, she wondered, if she had firmly opted for the Savoy, stating (untruthfully) that she hated Greek food? But Jemima always preferred other people to make the choices, not so much out of indecision as out of an observer's interest in the tastes revealed.

She contented herself with one flash of independence: 'No car, thank you, I'll walk to "The Little Athens". It's only a few minutes away. I know its ambience well.'

Imagining she would have quite a wait for Sir Richard, whose Scottish plane would inevitably be delayed, Jemima brought her Nadine Gordimer novel with her. The prospect of a concentrated read in the pleasant little restaurant, with its wide plant-filled window embracing Percy Street, was not displeasing. But when she arrived, she recognized the unmistakable figure of her host - well-cut fawn tweed suit, white shirt, black knitted silk tie - seen through the window as though in a frame. He was reading a magazine and laughing.

From its format, Jemima recognized
Jolly Joke.
Its pages were perpetually filled with rather crude satirical attacks on Lionnel and his ilk - this week's issue was no exception. For a man supposedly sensitive to Press criticism, Sir Richard was certainly showing remarkable
sangfroid
in laughing quite so freely. However at her approach Sir Richard covered
Jolly Joke
with a copy of Christie's catalogue illustrating a sale of antique clocks. Still the impression remained of a man in one way at least indifferent to public hostility.

Was Lionnel sufficiently indifferent to it to go further, divorce his wife and marry Chloe? And at the same time aim at respectability and the chairmanship of
cari
?
Perhaps Lionnel would not recognize the conflict: he would simply see it as a problem to be managed.

Chloe had been so specific about the marriage to Valentine, it was difficult to believe there was nothing in it. Just as this thought had formed in her mind - against a background of urbane conversation, quick efficient ordering of whatever she cared for in the line of food and drink, almost as though Miss Katy Aaronson had previously reconnoitred her tastes - Sir Richard surprised her still further by openly contradicting it.

Jemima had anticipated - obviously - that they would discuss Chloe; she did not flatter herself that Sir Richard had taken a sudden irresistible fancy to her on the strength of one brief meeting under 
traumatic circumstances. Nevertheless the directness of his approach confused her.

'The most attractive woman in the world. I was absolutely mad about her, don't you see?' he was saying, leaning forward and fixing his mesmeric black eyes upon her. The black ring of curls lifted in the faint breeze of the window, but Jemima had the impression that they were also flickering with his own personal electricity.

'But of course I would never have left Franccsca. No question of that.' He was not only direct but, as on the night of the murder, strangely lacking in embarrassment. 'She's wonderful, Francesca. Wonderful hostess - you've never seen Parrot, I suppose? You never stayed there with the Hampshires? Retta Hampshire is beautiful in somewhat your style - cat's eyes - she's much older, of course.'

'I've never even met the Duchess of Hampshire.'

'You must come down, you positively must. What Francesca has done there is quite amazing; everyone says so. Even our match-boxes are e
ighteenth-century adaptations, I
believe. The Hampshires had let it go terribly down hill.' The thought of match-boxes reminded Sir Richard to strike up yet another black cigarette; he used a lighter very similar, if not identical, to the one Kevin John Athlone had discovered in Chloe's bedroom. Jemima wondered if the police had returned it to him - or did he perhaps have quantities of such elegant
objets
⁷
.
Had they also returned the razor which had been found by Chloe's bed?

'Did you read the article in
Taffeta?’
he was saying. '"Francesca goes Lionnel-Hunting"? - they meant all the original furniture she dug out of antique shops. Marvellous photograph of Francesca by that jolly little girl photographer, do you know her? Short black hair. Dresses in knickerbockers for some extraordinary reason, but very fetching.'

'I know Binnie Rapallo.' Jemima had definitely not come to lunch, chucking Isabelle for the occasion, to discuss the lissome but curiously irritating Binnie Rapallo. She was therefore somewhat startled to hear Sir Richard declaring himself'mad about' Binnie Rapallo, in much the same language as he had used to express his admiration for Chloe. Even the tone in which he expressed enthusiasm for his own wife's taste - hardly a fault that, it had to be admitted - was remarkably similar. These repeated enthusiasms, couched in terms which were almost schoolboyish, gave an overall impression of lack of passion rather than the reverse.

Surely there was some difference of degree - between Binnie and Chloe at least, even if Chloe and Lady Lionnel were mentioned in the same breath. He was astonishingly open about it all. Throughout the conversation Sir Richard chain-smoked his black Sobranies, but otherwise showed no sign of embarrassment.

When he had finished the packet he requested the proprietor of the restaurant, a handsome but sad-eyed man with the heavy fleshy build of a successful opera singer, to request another from his chauffeur.

'Sir Richard is feeling better today?' said the man conversationally when he returned.

Thank you, Stavros. I certainly am. But it was my wife who was ill not me,' replied Lionnel with a flash of the satyr's grin. 'Now I bet you're never ill,' he said looking at Jemima as the proprietor turned deftly away, too experienced to look embarrassed at the mention of a wife, but somehow conveying apology for having instigated a conversation about one lady in front of another. 'Francesca has rotten health. London for example simply doesn't suit her. She feels right as rain at Parrot - sea air and all that kind of thing.'

'But I take it she comes up sometimes? Here, for example?' Jemima's curiosity about Sir Richard's domestic arrangements was aroused in spite of herself.

'Oh absolutely. In fact we had lunch together here on Saturday.' It took Jemima a second or two to realize that he was referring to the day of the murder.

'I thought you were alone—' she exclaimed, startled.

He grinned.

'Alone except for my wife. What can I say? Lunch with my own wife. Embarrassing, wasn't it? Originally I told the police I was alone in order to keep Francesca out of it. And I kept vague about the restaurant. Chloe never knew; I only rang her beforehand, to be frank, to check she was safely stowed inside the flat. Not to invite her out. As you know, she never answered. The police know now, of course, and our friend Stavros here has vouched for me. For some reason Francesca insisted on coming up to see me before I went on holiday and I got the lunch hour off from number ten.'

But Jemima knew the reason which had brought Francesca Lionnel pell-mell to London: the information about Chloe Fontaine's trip to the Camargue, carelessly or maliciously passed on by Valentine's mother at tea the previous day. Exactly what had transpired that fatal lunchtime? If Francesca had become 'ill' in the restaurant there must have been some kind of scene. Had she taxed Lionnel about the affair with Chloe and had he confessed? But Jemima realized she was unlikely to be told the truth of that now and it was - probably - no longer important. Sir Richard had clearly mended his fences with his own wife since Chloe's death, if not before.

She understood however what Pompey had meant when he told her that Lionnel had proved 'after all' to have an alibi - 'Quite a good one as a matter of fact. A lady. A Nonny Mouse.' Then Pompey had chuckled. He was right. There was a kind of grim humour about Sir Richard deceiving his mistress with his own wife.

Jemima decided to wrench the conversation back to the subject of Chloe Fontaine. She was still uncertain whether Lionnel was carefully rewriting history. With Chloe no longer around to contradict him, he was busy making it clear that their affair had never amounted to more than 'one of my little flings' as he put it. 'I fall head over heels in love, don't you?'

Jemima in response gave her famously enchanting smile, made famous that is to say by television, curling the corners of her wide mouth, and revealing the perfect white teeth with which Nature had thoughtfully endowed her for the purposes of her chosen profession. It was also a mechanism for concealed emotion. The real answer is - yes, I do fall, and head over heels, from time to time, she thought, her mind on Adam. But not in love. Love is another matter.

The mention of Lady Lionnel and her talents for decoration suddenly concentrated Jemima's mind. The flats, the various styles of decoration, how were they to be explained if they were not the creation of that paragon of virtuous good taste, Francesca Lionnel? In response to Jemima's careful probing questions, Sir Richard was even more startlingly frank.

'Katy Aaronson did the office suite, I think,' he said rather carelessly. 'You know Katy, don't you? She keeps me straight, rules me with a rod of iron all day then home to mother and father in Highgate in the evening - well, most evenings, anyway. No personal life at all, well, nothing outside work, awfully pretty too, first-class brain and legs like Betty Grable. Pity in a way they didn't let her go to Cambridge like her brother. Still it's been my good luck. What more could a man ask in his private assistant? I think she decorated the office suite - she's always wanted to do something like that, it seemed. Something more feminine than her usual work. I chose the mirror and table in the hall - picked them up for a song when I was quite a young man and had time for those things. Then who did the bedroom? Was it that smashing Czech Countess I met at Jane Manfred's? Or did Katy do the bedroom and the smashing Czech do the drawing room? Do you know that Czech girl? I'm absolutely mad about her. Quite beautiful and she does it all herself with a spray-gun and scissors; amazing. Come to think of it, she certainly pinned up all that green stuff on the bedroom walls.'

'And the third-floor flat?' Jemima hoped Lionnel would not ask her how she had penetrated it. He did not.

'Oh that. The photographer. You know, we were just talking about her. The one who wears knickerbockers.'