‘But you’re a journalist.’ The statement came out with a faint crackle of accusation, and even Jenny turned and stared at her, no doubt the word a familiar one.
‘Yes.’ Palmer must have told her.
The older woman’s eyes were like twin points of jet, and Riley wondered how many times Sir Kenneth had been fixed with them for some transgression or another, before he finally developed an impenetrable outer casing.
‘Very well. Palmer said I should trust you. What do you wish to know?’
‘It’s about your husband,’ she said, trying not to clink her cup and saucer together.
‘Ex-husband,’ Lady Susan dropped the magazine on the floor as if signifying what she thought of him ‘What has he done now?’ Her tone was of the much-put-upon wife waiting for the latest piece of bad news about her husband’s drunken debauchery.
‘I was wondering why… why you left him?’
Just for a second, Lady Susan looked as if she’d swallowed a live frog, and the maid jumped as if Riley had made an obscene suggestion. So much, thought Riley, for the maid not having much English. A large carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticked quietly away, as if counting down the seconds until she was hung, drawn and quartered and thrown into the gutter to rot for having breached a clear rule of etiquette.
‘Jenny. Go and see to dinner, will you? I think I might dine early this evening.’ She sat and watched her maid depart, then looked at Riley with an expression of cool distaste. ‘That’s a highly personal question.’
Riley nodded. ‘I agree. It is.’
Surprisingly, the other woman almost smiled, and sat back in her chair. ‘You were at the wedding reception, weren’t you - with Palmer?’
‘Yes.’
‘You may well have formed the opinion that my ex-husband is a very capable person. He’s a good diplomat and administrator. He’s also extremely clever, articulate and astute at dealing with awkward situations - especially political ones. An ideal person, in fact, for the posts he has held.’
Riley nodded and sipped her tea. It was fragrant, light and very refreshing. Darjeeling? Earl Grey? But definitely not Tesco’s Finest. What was this line of talk building up to? She immediately had her answer.
‘Unfortunately, he’s also a fool and a gambler. The two rarely mix well.’ Lady Susan plucked a hair from her lap and flicked it away. ‘I could tolerate the foolishness, but not the gambling.’ She swivelled her eyes towards her guest. ‘You know what I mean by foolishness.’
‘Umm… I suppose.’ Riley could hazard a guess, but she didn’t think uttering the words ‘other women’ was necessary.
‘Good.’
‘So you divorced him because he gambled?’
‘No. I divorced him because he lost.’
‘Oh.’ Riley felt an urge to laugh outright at the directness of this statement, but decided it might be misinterpreted.
‘Do you gamble, Miss Gavin?’
The look accompanying the question would have melted Riley into the carpet if she’d said yes, so she shook her head and thanked the stars for never having picked up the habit. She was sure the other woman would have seen through a lie. ‘No. It’s never been my thing. Didn’t he try to change your mind?’
‘Miss Gavin, after all the years… it was too late. Besides,’ she smiled for the first time with what looked like genuine humour, ‘when I make up my mind, it would take far more than anything Kenneth could do to change it.’ She shrugged slim shoulders. ‘He was too involved in his work, anyway. I knew what it would be like right from the start, but instead of improving, it got worse. It became a vital form of release for him, I suppose.’ She suddenly looked at Riley and said, ‘Why am I telling you this?’ The idea seemed to genuinely surprise her.
‘Perhaps because you needed to?’
She smiled. ‘Yes. Maybe you’re right.’
‘When you said he lost, was it a lot?’
The older woman’s eyes dimmed and she looked away, as if trying to decide whether to answer or not. When she spoke it was with a sigh. ‘In the beginning, when we were first in Colombia, not too much. He’d lose some, which depressed him. Then he’d have a big win and everything would be rosy. Then another loss, followed by others, then a win or two. It’s hardly a unique story. The wins, of course, never quite matched the losses, and in the end he lost a great deal. Far too much.’ She looked directly at Riley, but didn’t elaborate, and Riley guessed she had probably never spoken about this before. It must have taken her a great deal of effort to do so now.
‘He must have won recently, though. The work on the house… the wedding.’
‘Palmer warned me you might ask about that. He said I should help you if I could, but that the outcome might not be pleasant. Is that what you think – that it won’t be pleasant?’
‘To be honest, I don’t know.’ Riley was surprised, both by Palmer speaking for her and at Lady Susan’s evident regard for his opinion.
‘Palmer’s a strange man,’ the other woman continued, as if Riley had spoken out loud. ‘Very tough to those who don’t know him, but not so much to those who do. He was close to my daughter, at one time.’ She took a deep breath and her next words came out in a rush. ‘My family has no money, Miss Gavin. Not a bean. This house is held in trust, and will go to my daughters when I die. I can’t sell, if that’s what you’re wondering, but I can’t afford to live elsewhere, either. A stately prison is, let me tell you, still a prison. Ask the royal family.’
There was no mention of her son, Riley noted immediately. She was tempted to jump in and ask why, but decided to leave it for the time being. There were other things to find out. ‘What about Colebrooke?’
‘A rotting pile of stones into which Kenneth is pouring money at a demented rate.’ She raised a perceptive eyebrow. ‘And you’re wondering how can he afford it if he gambles so unsuccessfully. Well, I wish I knew.’ She put down her cup and rearranged the folds of her dress. ‘I’ve never told anyone else, but it’s one of the other reasons I decided to leave him.’
‘You don’t know where the money comes from?’ Riley asked softly. She felt her mouth go dry and asked herself how far this was going. For some reason, she still hadn’t been thrown out on her ear and Lady Susan was still talking about matters she must have found deeply upsetting, not to say humiliating. Yet there was an almost rehearsed manner in which she was speaking, as if the words didn’t quite match the emotion she must have been feeling.
‘No. I don’t.’ She stood up and looked through the window into the street, and Riley stood, too, feeling the interview was over. But Lady Susan hadn’t finished. ‘To be frank, that’s why I agreed to talk to you – talk to someone, anyway. I’m terrified it may have something to do with Christian’s death.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Riley was stunned. Death?
‘I’m not stupid, Miss Gavin. My son is dead, I know that.’ Her lower lip trembled, then became firm as her chin lifted again. When she spoke, it was as if she was alone in the room, her voice as soft as velvet but as cold as permafrost, the rehearsed tone absent. ‘We had our children late in life. Christian was the youngest. He should never have gone to America in the first place. There were lots of other places he could have visited. But Kenneth knew best. It would make a man of him, he insisted; broaden his horizons and show him the real world.’ Her words dripped with a coating of bitter sadness. ‘As if Kenneth had ever experienced the real world himself.’
‘But the trip was Christian’s idea, wasn’t it?’
Lady Susan turned with a faint frown. ‘Is that what Kenneth told you? I suppose it was, really. At first, anyway. Christian hated Colebrooke, said it was like a mausoleum for old things and old people. I quite agreed with him. He desperately wanted to travel, to see the world just as his friends were doing. But he was concerned about me and decided to stay here with me in London and get a job. Kenneth objected most strongly. He felt spending a year away would be good for Christian. A year away from me, is what he meant, foolish
man. Not that he ever understood our son.’ She turned away again and a tremor ran through her slim frame. ‘I’ll forgive him for many things, but never that.’
There was nothing more to say and Riley couldn’t ask any more questions without feeling that she was turning the knife in an already open wound. She wanted to ask if she was aware that her ex-husband had now lost his position in the diplomatic corps, but decided against it. Maybe she knew about it anyway, along with all the other indignities he’d heaped on her during the marriage.
She quietly left Lady Susan to her sadness.
‘He’s some hero, that Sir Kenneth,’ she told Palmer later.
They were waiting in Palmer’s office in Uxbridge. After leaving Lady Susan, Riley had received a brief call from Mitcheson. He was on his way from the airport, and suggested she might like to get together with Palmer, to hear some interesting information. He had ended the call without saying why, but he’d sounded serious. She had immediately called Palmer and arranged to meet him at the office.
It was small and lacking in light, and bore the wear and tear of the years. But Palmer had demonstrated his dislike of innovation by using ancient furniture and never moving anything, not even the dust. That included pot plants, desk, chairs and filing cabinets, all of which were probably welded to the carpet by the passing of time.
Pride of place on Palmer’s scarred desk was a Rolodex, a present from Riley, who thought that all private detectives should have one, and a flat-screen computer monitor, with an impressively flashy power unit tucked away on the floor underneath. When he wasn’t out working, this was where he could usually be found, playing games and surfing the Internet as if he had all the time in the world.
‘How so?’ Mention of Myburghe made him check his watch. The former ambassador had gone to ground in London with his butler/bodyguard, and told Palmer to take some time off. Palmer was plainly expecting a call anytime soon to get back on the job at Colebrooke House.
‘He cheats on his wife, gambles away her family fortune, lets her go without a fight, then kicks his son out into the world where someone kidnaps him and chops off his finger. And all the time he’s maintaining his image of probity and spending money like his balls were on fire. Money his wife claims he doesn’t have. Can’t have. Doesn’t that strike you as unusual?’
Palmer said nothing but stared at the desk top as if he was half asleep. He hadn’t said a word since Riley had begun talking. After a few seconds, he sat up and spun the Rolodex with a dry clatter. ‘We need to find out more about Colombia, and what happened over there. That’s where it started.’
‘What about your mate, Charlie, in Whitehall?’ she suggested. Charlie was a records man deep in the bowels of the Ministry of Defence who knew all manner of useful people and secrets. He had been very helpful in the past, when she and Palmer had needed information available only through official MOD channels.
‘I already asked him. Whatever is out there won’t be on any of his records. We need information of the other kind. Preferably inside information – even gossip.’
‘Where are we going to get that?’
Before Palmer could answer, the office door swung open and John Mitcheson walked in.
**********
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
‘Well, it’s not FARC you’ve got to worry about.’ Mitcheson dumped his flight bag on the floor and dropped into a chair. ‘The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia are too busy fighting off a government crack-down at the moment to send nasty surprises to foreign diplomats.’ He sounded tired, but the sombre tone in his voice wasn’t entirely due to jetlag. He leaned across and kissed Riley, then nodded at Palmer.
‘Jeez,’ Palmer breathed. ‘I’m glad you got that the right way round.’
Riley stared at Mitcheson, then craned her neck to study the baggage reclaim ticket affixed to his bag. ‘Me, too. Where have you been?’
‘I had a delivery job to do down in old Panama. After what you told me, it seemed a waste to go all that way and not do some digging.’ He looked at Palmer. ‘You wouldn’t have some tea in this place, would you? I’ve had enough bad coffee to kill a wombat and if I drink anything alcoholic, I’ll fall over.’
Palmer swung his feet from behind his desk. ‘Breakfast or Green?’ He walked over and poured hot water from a kettle into a mug. ‘Actually, make it Typhoo – the mice like the Green.’ He turned back and bent to examine the luggage tag, peeling off the top layer to reveal another ticket underneath. ‘I see you’ve been to Colombia.’
‘What?’ Riley was stunned. Apart from the surprise of hearing where he’d been, she knew how dangerous it was for Mitcheson to go anywhere near the country he’d once been flown out of in such a hurry. ‘What the hell did you go there for?’
‘For you, of course.’ He smiled back at her. ‘It’s okay, I was there less than an hour.’ He stretched out his legs and yawned. ‘I know a tour guide down there who used to be with the British army. He knows as much as anyone about what goes on, so I asked him to sound out some people for me.’ He nodded as Palmer handed him a mug. ‘Turns out he didn’t have to do much. He did a tour with the Close Protection unit guarding Sir Kenneth Myburghe.’
‘What did he say?’ asked Riley.
‘Nothing too electric to begin with. There had been vague threats because the British were trying to persuade the hill farmers to grow other cash crops instead of poppies and coca. Unfortunately, the farmers weren’t happy because the price of alternative crops like fruit, coffee or exotic flowers didn’t match what they could get for poppy cultivation. Neither could they harvest more than one crop a year. Some of them became very militant and that’s when FARC got involved.’
‘Hell of a sandwich,’ commented Palmer. ‘Cartels on one side, FARC on the other.’
‘Right. Because of the tension, the CP team on the embassy was strengthened, which is when Col, my contact, joined them. They accompanied Sir Kenneth everywhere in armoured vehicles. Government meetings, briefings, embassy bashes, foreign trade events - you name it, they went there. In between they scouted routes, searched buildings and vehicles, briefed embassy and military contacts, checked anyone and everyone likely to come anywhere near him. The team before them said it was pressured and frantic, and they’d soon wish they could get out of there. They’d had three attempts on the previous ambassador’s life, several attempts on other officials, especially the military attaché, and discovered plans to bomb the embassy and set off explosions in culverts on the route from the embassy to the airport. Even their families were targets.’
Riley thought back to her talk with Lady Myburghe. Had that been the reason for her getting out of the marriage? Living in an embassy compound couldn’t have been much fun, especially knowing her husband had been targeted by the local drug lords. But was it enough after all this time?
‘Col was on the team for quite a while,’ continued Mitcheson. ‘He accompanied Sir Kenneth pretty much everywhere he went. The timetable was changed every day, as were routes in and out of the embassy area, the cars involved and even the drivers, in case details were leaked. It became standard practice. But each time there was a change, it was an official one; there was always a briefing at the last minute, then they’d switch cars or venues, change their clothes, keep full radio contact, that sort of thing. Everything was as tight as a drum. It had to be.’
Riley sensed something was coming. It was in Mitcheson’s face. ‘Until?’
‘A few weeks after Col joined the CP team, Sir Kenneth arranged a meeting at a country club outside Bogotá. The team had just left the embassy compound, supposedly on their way to a trade meeting, when Sir Kenneth gave them a new set of directions. They did as he ordered and arrived at a large, fancy building in the country. Sir Kenneth went in with one man, a guy who’d been with him for years, and told the rest of them to stay outside.’
‘Unusual?’
‘Bloody suicidal, according to Col. They should never have been there without notifying the e
mbassy first and having full backup from the local police or army. The team leader went ape-shit because they couldn’t check out the building or the approach routes first. But the ambassador always had the last call.’
Palmer stirred. ‘He pulled rank.’
‘That’s right. The meeting lasted just over an hour, everything was civilised and they all went home safe and sound.’
‘So no problem.’
‘Not at first. He had three more meetings in the same place over the next two months. Each time they were unannounced until the day. And always Sir Kenneth went in with the same one man. After the third meeting, the team leader decided to check out the place for himself, to make sure they weren’t being set up to take a hit. What he saw made his hair stand on end. The place was a fully-fledged casino. No house limits and any game you cared to try – including a few I shouldn’t talk about in polite company. He counted twelve gunmen around the place, and a bunch of known cartel women.’
‘Women?’ said Riley.
‘Girls. He got out of there fast and relayed the information to the embassy. They sat on it. Told him it was all okay and not to worry.’
‘Did they go there again?’
‘Yes. There were other meetings in remote locations, sometimes late at night. Each time Sir Kenneth had his man with him, but not always the full CP team. On a couple of occasions he met with an American. The team leader didn’t get a name.’
‘Always the same man?’
‘Yes. Then one day the team leader insisted on going in, too. It was a new place they hadn’t been to before. They had a stand-up row. Sir Kenneth eventually gave in, but only on the understanding that the leader stayed in the lobby. There wasn’t much more he could do. Sir Kenneth and his usual man went upstairs, and when they hadn’t come down after an hour or so, the leader went for a look-see. He was just in time to see Myburghe and his guard coming out of a suite. They were accompanied by the American… and a man he recognised as Jesus Rocario. Rocario’s a senior cartel member and wanted on several counts of murder and drug trafficking.’
No Tears for the Lost Page 15
