Death on the Nevskii Prospekt (5 page)

Powerscourt could barely restrain himself from smiling happily at the mixed metaphors pouring from the Foreign Office mandarin.

‘This is the task your country asks of you, Lord Powerscourt. Go to St Petersburg. Solve the mystery of the murdered man. Find out who killed him and come back to London. I need not tell
you that your services would be exceedingly well rewarded. Will you do it? Will you answer your country’s call?’

Powerscourt was furious. ‘No, Sir Jeremiah, I will not. And how dare you come into my house and try to bribe me to work in the service of my country! I have served Queen Victoria for many
years as an officer in her army. I have served her in dangerous places, more dangerous even than the corridors of the Foreign Office. I have risked my life in battle while you and your colleagues
compose memoranda on future policy and fill the passing hours with meetings about the changing map of Africa or the tribal troubles on the North West Frontier. If I wanted to serve my King and
carry out this mission I would never have asked for money. You demean yourself and your office by offering it, you demean me by making me listen to it. I have said No to your offer twice already.
Now I say it again.’

Powerscourt rang the bell for Rhys. ‘And now, Sir Jeremiah, if you will forgive me, I have work to do. Rhys will show you out. Thank you for considering me for this task. The answer will
always be No.’

Two hours later there was an emergency meeting in the Powerscourt drawing room. Johnny Fitzgerald had been summoned from sorting out his notes on the birds of East Anglia.
Lady Lucy had returned from a shopping mission with the twins to Sloane Square. Powerscourt had spent most of those two hours pacing up and down his drawing room in a state of total uncontrolled
fury.

‘Well, Francis,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, opening a bottle of Pomerol, ‘I hear the Senate has come to the farm to recall Cincinnatus to the service of Rome. Maybe you could ask
for dictatorial powers?’

Powerscourt laughed. ‘I don’t think you could refer to the Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office as the Senate, Johnny. Not even a consul. Maybe an aedile. Weren’t
they some sort of minor official?’

‘God knows,’ said Johnny cheerfully. ‘I only got as far as consuls. What did the fellow have to say?’

‘Beanpole,’ said Powerscourt, ‘was eight feet tall and less than eight inches wide. He looked as though he had been ironed. Some British diplomat has been found dead on the
Nevskii Prospekt in St Petersburg. He was on a secret mission. Beanpole and his friends, Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, want to know who killed him and if he spilled any secrets before he
died. I said No, of course.’

Powerscourt looked at Lady Lucy as he spoke, as if seeking her approval. She smiled. ‘Well done, Francis,’ she said. ‘I’m very proud of you.’

‘Sounds bloody dangerous to me, Francis,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, taking a second sip of his Bordeaux. ‘They enjoy blowing people up, those Russians, rather like other people
enjoy playing football.’

Johnny Fitzgerald was fascinated by Powerscourt’s reaction to this offer of a dangerous but important investigation. It was exactly the sort of challenge his friend enjoyed. And Johnny
suspected his friend was ambivalent about the whole business of retiring from investigations. He was almost certain that Lady Lucy had finessed Francis into renunciation before he was fully
recovered from his injuries. Of course he understood her position and her fears for the children without a father. But he and Powerscourt had led such intertwined lives, fellow army officers,
fellow investigators, now fellow authors. Johnny Fitzgerald could not see his friend being pushed in his wheelchair along the Promenade des Anglais on the Mediterranean sea front in his old age
without having carried out one more major investigation. Powerscourt’s Last Case. Johnny had often thought about that. Maybe even Powerscourt’s Last Stand. Was this Corpse on the
Nevskii Prospekt that final mission?

Lady Lucy too was perturbed. She sensed – no, if she was honest with herself, she knew that her husband would love to carry out this investigation. He had turned it down because of her and
the promise she had exacted from him in Positano. She wondered if she should release him from his vows.

And Powerscourt? To be fair, even he would have said that he didn’t know what he really felt about the offer. Flattered, yes. To be sought out more than two years after he had stopped
investigating was no mean tribute to his powers. Part of him felt, as Ulysses said in Tennyson’s poem that brought him back from the dead, that he did not like rusting unburnished, not to
shine in use. But he had given Lucy his word on that hotel balcony in Positano. He could not go back on it now.

‘There’s only one thing I’m sure of,’ he said, pouring himself a glass of wine and smiling at his wife and his friend. ‘Beanpole is the advance guard, the
voltigeurs, the skirmishers in Napoleon’s army, if you like. He may have failed. But he won’t be the last. They’ll come back. And next time they’ll bring the cavalry. Maybe
the heavy artillery.’

Powerscourt would have been surprised to learn that Sir Jeremiah Reddaway was not unduly upset by his reception in Markham Square. For he had not expected success at the very
first attempt. He felt now like a general in charge of some mighty siege operation. The siege train has been battering the walls for weeks. An infantry attempt to break through has failed. The
general will simply have to continue his bombardment and plan his next attack. The main reason Reddaway had opened the assault himself was that he wanted to have a look at Powerscourt in person, to
get a feel of the man. Now he had no doubt that Powerscourt was the right choice for the task ahead, if only he could be persuaded to take it on. Sir Jeremiah merely widened his net in the quest
for the key or the trigger that would change Powerscourt’s mind. Powerscourt’s old tutor in Cambridge was contacted. Charles Augustus Pugh, a barrister who had been closely and
critically involved in one of Powerscourt’s cases, reported that he had been approached by some person from the Foreign Office wearing the most vulgar shirt Pugh had ever seen. ‘Fellow
tried to pump me for information about you, Francis, so I sent him packing. I couldn’t have looked at that shirt for another second in any case,’ his note to Powerscourt said. Even
Johnny Fitzgerald told the Powerscourts that some chap he had known years before had tried to get him drunk at an expensive restaurant in South Kensington. His contact also worked for the Foreign
Office and, Johnny announced happily, had to be carried senseless from the table by two waiters while he, Johnny, walked home unaided and pinned the rather large bill on to the man’s suit as
he lay stretched across the pavement. As a final touch, Johnny said, he bumped into two policemen at the end of the street and reported that a drunk was lying on the pavement further down and
obstructing the King’s Highway.

Two days after the meeting with Sir Jeremiah a rather nervous Lady Lucy spoke to her husband after breakfast. Powerscourt was feeling cheerful that morning. The day before he had delivered the
proofs to his publisher and he was looking forward to resuming work on his second cathedral volume.

‘Francis,’ Lady Lucy began, ‘I’ve just had a note. It’s from one of my relations.’

‘What of it, my love?’ said Powerscourt. ‘You must get one of those a couple of times a day, if not more.’

‘Well, this one’s from a cousin of mine, not a first cousin, a second cousin, I think. Anyway, he wants to come and see you at eleven o’clock this morning.’

‘Never mind, Lucy. All kinds of people come and see me, even now.’ Powerscourt regretted those last two words as soon as he said them. He saw the look of pain cross Lucy’s
face. ‘Didn’t mean that last bit, so sorry, my love. I suppose I have to meet this person if he’s a relation. What is his business?’

Lady Lucy looked sadly at her husband. ‘He’s a politician, Francis, member for some constituency in Sussex, I believe.’

‘Name?’

‘Edmund Fitzroy.’

‘You’re keeping something back from me, Lucy, I can tell from the look on your face.’

‘He was in the army, Household Cavalry or one of those. Now he’s a junior minister in the government, Francis.’ Even before she finished the sentence Powerscourt knew what was
coming. ‘In the Foreign Office.’

‘Is he, by God?’ said Powerscourt. ‘Never mind, Lucy.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’ll just have to see him off like that other fellow.’

Edmund Fitzroy was a plump young man in his middle thirties with sandy hair and dark brown eyes. He looked older than his age, always a useful asset for a politician.
Powerscourt thought when they met in the drawing room that he would go down well with old ladies. Fitzroy had one main objective from Sir Jeremiah. He was to find out why Powerscourt had given up
detection. Once he knew that, Reddaway felt, he might be closer to success.

‘You would think,’ Powerscourt said to Lady Lucy and Johnny Fitzgerald later that day, ‘that even a politician would try to be polite to his host in his host’s own
drawing room.’ But it was not to be. Fitzroy was rude from the beginning and grew progressively ruder as the conversation continued.

‘I’ve heard from Sir Jeremiah Reddaway about your disgraceful attitude over this Russian business, Powerscourt, and I think you should be ashamed of yourself,’ was his opening
gambit.

‘Really?’ said Powerscourt, resolutely avoiding all eye contact with the man.

‘You’re a disgrace, Powerscourt,’ Fitzroy went on, ‘refusing to serve your country when we ask you. Just remember the oaths you swore when you accepted Her
Majesty’s commission all those years ago. Now you seem to think they mean nothing, nothing at all. I too have sworn the same oaths and regard myself as bound by them today as I was twelve
years ago. You seem to have decided that patriotism is something you can put on and off like a coat on a rainy day. Others may have to endure much in the service of their country while you indulge
your conscience or your reluctance for the fray in the luxury of your drawing room.’

‘I think you’ll discover,’ said Powerscourt, in the most patronizing tone he could muster, ‘if you take the trouble to find out about these things, forgive me for
sounding arrogant, that my service to this country is considerably more distinguished than yours, which consisted, as far as I know, of remarkable courage shown on the parade ground at Aldershot,
and bravery under fire while in charge of Royal Salutes at Windsor Castle.’ Lady Lucy had passed on this last piece of information just as Fitzroy was ringing the doorbell.

‘That’s not the point, Powerscourt, and you know it.’ Fitzroy had attended too many political meetings to be deterred, even by such a direct hit. ‘I am still prepared to
serve my country. You are not.’

‘I served my country for many years in a variety of dangerous situations. This, thank God, is still a free country. A man may retire from the military with full honours without being
bullied by politicians who never saw a shot fired in anger.’

‘You’ve lost your nerve, Powerscourt, and you know it. Why did you stop investigating, for God’s sake? Was one bullet in the chest enough to put you off? Did you just run
away?’

‘It was my decision, and none of your damned business, Fitzroy,’ said Powerscourt, struggling to keep his temper. He could see perfectly clearly what the man was trying to do. He
hoped to taunt Powerscourt with suggestions of cowardice so he would announce he was not afraid and volunteer to take on the Russian commission to prove it.

‘But why, man, why? For years you were one of the best investigators in Britain, then you just throw in the towel. Why? Did Lucy make you retire?’

‘It was my decision and I have no intention of telling you anything about it.’

Something about the look on Powerscourt’s face when he mentioned Lady Lucy made Fitzroy think that she may have had something to do with it. But he had another line of attack to press.

‘That’s another thing, Powerscourt, the family. Not your Irish lot, but your wife’s family, the Hamiltons. They’ve been in the army for hundreds of years. Military
service, military loyalty is in their blood. They’re not going to be pleased when they hear that an addition to the family has let the nation down.’

‘Are you going to hand over the four feathers in person, or are you going to get Sir Jeremiah to do it for you in a special ceremony at the Foreign Office?’ asked Powerscourt,
anxious now to be rid of this incredibly offensive person.

‘The family will remember, Powerscourt. They don’t take this sort of thing lying down, I can tell you.’

‘Right,’ said Powerscourt, taking three rapid strides to pull the bell and call for Rhys the butler. ‘I have had enough of this discussion. Rhys will show you out. I regard
your behaviour here in my house this morning as beneath contempt. It is a disgrace to the good name of the military and unworthy of a gentleman. Don’t ever try to come back here. You will be
refused entry. Now I suggest you take yourself and your disgusting manners back to the gutter where you belong. Good morning.’

With that Powerscourt left his drawing room and went to the upper floors in search of a twin or two to calm him down.

‘Bloody man, bloody man,’ Powerscourt said later to Lady Lucy. ‘He practically accused me of being a coward. I tell you what though, Lucy. He is never to be
admitted to this house again. And will you please tell your relations that if he is invited to any social function, wedding, funeral, christening, death of the first-born, ritual character
assassination, afternoon tea, we shall not be attending.’

The following morning Powerscourt had gone to look up some information in the London Library in St James’s Square. Just after eleven o’clock a very grand carriage drew up outside the
Powerscourt house in Markham Square. Lord Rosebery, former Foreign Secretary and former Prime Minister, was ushered respectfully into the drawing room. Lady Lucy was not sure her hair was what it
should have been, nor was she certain of her dress, but Rosebery, apart from his public functions, was a very old friend of her family’s in Scotland. As a boy he had attended her christening,
as a man he had attended both her weddings, he was one of the three people allowed to call her Lucy. Because of his great position as a former Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister she had never
been able to call him anything other than Lord Rosebery.