False Pretences (6 page)

Again. And again. Like a squirrel in a cage.

Or a hamster, maybe.

The phone rang several times, but she ignored it. The house was silent above her since both the youngsters had gone out for the evening.

She paused mid-stride. Some of these old houses had once had wells in their back gardens. In its growth from prehistoric village to today's megalopolis – if that was the right term – the originally swampy ground had been drained by many small rivers all leading down to the Thames; rivers such as the Fleet which had subsequently been built over and forgotten. Many of the gardens around had once had their own well, used for drinking water as well as everything else. Unsanitary, but pretty.

She liked the idea of a well in her back garden. Something in soft red-brick, built up to hip height, with a lead canopy over it, held up by wrought ironwork. Charming. And of course, offering a neat solution to grief.

That is, if there'd been any water in the bottom of the imaginary well, which there might not have been, in that dry summer.

She pulled her thoughts back from the darkness in which they wanted to dwell and went into her office to switch on her computer.

Zander had decided he couldn't work for Lady Honoria.

Bea sympathized. She wouldn't have liked to work for her, either. On Monday Oliver would see if there was anything suitable for Zander in their books. Probably not, but you never knew. Jobs for office managers were not precisely their field. Bea had volunteered to ask if her busy Member of Parliament son might know of an opening for him.

Something Oliver had said was bothering her.

Over the years the agency had found staff for clients of all sorts and sizes, titled and otherwise. Hamilton had made Bea learn how to address their clients in the manner to which they were accustomed. Granted, they were more likely to be asked to find a butler for one of the embassies that proliferated in Kensington, than to provide staff for a prince in a palace. She'd probably misunderstood what she'd heard. But it did no harm to check, did it? And the longer she occupied her mind with something downstairs, the less time she had to pace up and down her bedroom, sleepless hour after hour.

There were some amusing sites on the Internet, offering to sell you a lordship or a title for peanuts. All scams, of course.

She found the site she was after at last; it was pretty comprehensive, but it didn't entirely answer the question that was hovering at the back of her mind.

Was Honoria really entitled to call herself
Lady
Honoria? Surely only the children of the top echelons of society had that right? Unless, of course, her husband was a knight. But the Honourable Denzil had not been a ‘sir', or someone would have mentioned it. Honoria might well be exactly what she claimed to be, the daughter of a duke or an earl, but somehow Bea doubted it.

She had no good reason to doubt it.

Except – Roquefort. Strong cheese.

She sighed, exited the site.

It was still only half past nine. Her eyelids were stiff, her legs were tired, but her brain was going round and round and . . .

She delved into her handbag. Somewhere she'd kept a business card for a certain Mr Cambridge, the father of a school friend of Oliver's. Oliver had a knack of making friends of all ages, and this Mr Cambridge had not only taught him a whole load of tricks to use on computers – which Bea suspected might not be entirely legal – but had also instituted himself as something of a guru in Oliver's life.

She dialled, hesitated, cut the line. The answer phone light was winking, indicating three missed calls. She ignored them.

Who was Mr Cambridge, exactly? Oliver had said he was an expert called in by the police on occasion. ‘Occasion' not specified.

He'd looked old enough to be the grandfather, rather than the father, of Oliver's schoolfriend, but he'd certainly known how to summon the right policeman to sort out a nasty case of murder in which Bea had been involved some time ago.

She'd kept his card, thinking she would never want to use it, but he was the only person she could think of who might be willing to listen to a moan about a bully of a woman, injustice and racial prejudice. He'd said that if ever she wanted to talk over a tricky case, he'd always find time to listen.

She dialled again, and this time let the call go through.

‘Mr Cambridge? Bea Abbot here. I wonder if you remember—'

‘Most clearly. You unravelled a tangled ball of wool with great skill some time ago. How may I be of assistance?'

She was already regretting the impulse which had led her to call him. ‘It's nothing, really. I can't see that anyone can do anything, but . . .' She tried for a laugh. ‘I hate injustice, and I think you do, too.' Should she tell him? He had offered to listen any time she wanted to talk, but had he meant it? Well, she'd try him and see what happened. ‘Could you spare me ten minutes while I rant away about something? You don't need to take any action afterwards.'

‘I can do better than that. I have a rather good bottle of champagne here. Shall I bring it round? I don't suggest your coming here as my son appears to be having a rave-up downstairs.'

‘I can offer a quiet room overlooking a peaceful garden. I would suggest we open the bottle in the garden, but I'm a martyr to midges.'

‘Ten minutes.'

She felt better already. She looked down at what she was wearing, thought it was boringly biscuit-coloured, but did nothing about it. She renewed her lipstick and ran a comb through ash-blonde hair, making the fringe lie aslant across her forehead. Checked her make-up, giving a passing regretful thought to young Kylie and her probable descent into prostitution.

She was upstairs, tidying the big sitting room, when he rang the bell. A quiet man, grey and thin, who drifted like smoke into the house and opened the champagne with the minimum of fuss.

She had glasses ready; they sipped, expressed approval, settled into comfortable chairs in the sitting room. The blinds and shutters were closed at the front of the house, the French windows at the back left open to let in the cooler evening air.

He was wearing grey, shirt and trousers. He had grey eyes and a finely cut nose over a long upper lip. A wide mouth, a satisfactorily sharp chin. The skin on his neck was not yet deeply seamed, so he was probably younger than his air of fragility would seem to indicate. About her own age?

He set down his glass. ‘So, rant away.'

‘A question first. What do you know of the Tudor Trust headed by Lord Murchison?'

He was still for a moment then picked up his glass again, to sip at the champagne. To gain time? ‘Why do you ask?'

‘Another question; when is a woman entitled to call herself Lady Honoria?'

The faintest of wrinkles on his brow. ‘I'm sure you know as much about the peerage as I do.'

‘I doubt it.' She put her glass down with a click. ‘I'm guessing that you know Lord Murchison socially, and that you would know how to uncover a scandal which he would very much like to keep quiet. Am I right?'

‘I think you'd better start ranting. I'm totally in the dark at the moment.'

She didn't think he was. He knew something, she could sense it. His middle name was probably Discretion, or Loyalty. Could she prise him open? Not if he didn't want to be prised, no. But she had a feeling that even if he denied all knowledge of Lord Murchison, even if he told her she was barking mad, he'd not forget what he'd been told and might even do something about it.

If she pitched her tale well enough.

‘We start,' she said, ‘with an innocent abroad, who happens to be of mixed race but is what my parents would have called one of nature's gentlemen. A man who believes in God, who enjoyed his work helping other people. He suffered some racial abuse but put up with it, until . . .'

She talked on, while the light faded. He refilled her glass once, but she refused any more after that. When she'd finished telling him what had happened that day, she said, ‘So tell me I'm being stupid. Tell me I can go to bed and forget what's happened, that it's nothing to do with me.'

His eyes had been fixed on her all the time she'd been talking. She suspected that if asked to repeat what she'd said, he'd be able to do it without missing a word.

Now he let his eyes wander round the room. He could probably produce an inventory of her room without taking notes.

He got to his feet and, hands behind his back, walked over to inspect her dear husband's portrait, which hung beside the back window.

‘Who did this? It's good.'

‘My first husband, the portrait painter. Surprisingly, they were good friends for some years before . . . before. Hamilton used to say he smelled Roquefort when something odd like this came up.'

‘I met him once. There was some suggestion of putting him in for an honour in the Queen's birthday list. He refused, said he was dying. Cancer, wasn't it? A loss.'

She was not going to cry. No. Where had she left her handbag? Did she have a hankie on her? Probably not. She sniffed, hard.

He said, ‘Do you really think Honoria has invented a title for herself?'

‘I don't know.' Sniff. ‘She's a detestable woman.'

‘That's no grounds for wanting her investigated.'

‘No, I don't suppose it is. I told you, I just needed to rant and rave.'

‘The racist slurs. You say the man won't prosecute?'

‘Would you?'

He resumed his seat, steepled long fingers. ‘You've no proof of anything but racial abuse. Tell your client to return to work and make notes of anything else racist which is said to him. Get him to threaten to prosecute, to go to the press. That should stir things up nicely. Meanwhile, I'll get you an interview with Tommy Murchison, whose son was in the army with me. Tommy's no fool. It will be interesting to hear what he thinks about all this. Roquefort, you say?' He lifted his glass to Hamilton's portrait and drained it. ‘Roquefort, it is.'

FOUR

B
ea slept well enough. Surprising, really, as the interview with Mr Cambridge had raised more questions than it had answered. For instance, what on earth did he expect to achieve by arranging for her to have an interview with Lord Murchison? And was it really a good idea to urge Zander to go back to work?

She felt flat. And unexcited by the fact that the sun was shining. Hooray for the sun. Lots of people would welcome its appearance. Personally, she didn't. Church bells were ringing; people were waking up to the day of rest and turning over in bed, thinking that they could have a nice long lie-in, and . . .

And not bother about the phone ringing. There was no sign of Oliver or Maggie so she would have to answer the phone herself.

‘Mother, where have you been? That young man of yours said you weren't feeling quite the thing the other night, but you knew it was an important occasion and I do think you might have made an effort to come.'

Ah, her important Member of Parliament son, Max. Now what did he want?

‘Sorry, darling. You know how it is.'

‘You're not going down with a depression, are you? That sort of thing gets around, and people don't know how to deal with it. One of Nicole's friends went into a depression, and she was off work for months. How will you cope at the agency if you're off work? You'll have to sell and—'

‘Oh, shut up, Max!' Had she really spoken so sharply?

Shocked silence at the other end.

She made an effort to keep her voice down and soft. ‘No, Max. I'm perfectly all right. I got overtired, that's all. Haven't been sleeping well.'

‘That's one of the symptoms, isn't it? Have you seen the doctor?'

‘No, and I don't need to. Really, Max. I'm touched that you care so much, but I'm going to be all right. It's just that I haven't had a holiday for a long time and have been working too hard.'

‘Oh. Oh, well; Nicole and I have been thinking about a holiday, but the airlines won't take her at the moment. Too near her time, they say.'

‘Yes, well. Perhaps you can find somewhere in Britain?' Nicole was finding the later months of her pregnancy hard going and made sure everyone knew it.

A heavy sigh from Max. ‘You wouldn't like to come over and sit with Nicole for a bit, would you? She complains that I'm out almost every evening, but she doesn't want to go out herself because she feels so awful and looks such a sight. And when I try to suggest something, she doesn't want to know. I really can't bear it when she cries.'

Bea set her teeth. ‘Perhaps I can give her a ring this afternoon, arrange to see her midweek.'