‘Of course I’m not.’ She couldn’t say it with any great certainty, though. She felt this wasn’t her father she was seeing, but a stranger. The last two days had made him different, in a way she couldn’t put her finger on. And she didn’t feel it was only due to the shock of Mama’s death, and the way she’d been killed.
‘Then trust me and we’ll consider the subject closed.’
‘Trust me.’ The same words Marcus Villiers had used yesterday.
Immediately, she began to wonder what he knew about this? She felt even more certain now that there had been something inherently mysterious about his relationship with Mama. She had not been mistaken. The word ‘collusion’ sprang immediately to mind. As her daughter, Kitty did not want to believe that possible, but as a woman she knew it was. But … collusion about what, for goodness sake? It seemed obvious he had known Mama in ways they – or at least she, Kitty – had never suspected. In which case, how much more did he know about why Lydia might have been killed than he had been willing to admit?
Her father brushed his hand across his eyes, as if to erase what was too painful for him to think. ‘Don’t look so stricken, child. Be brave, for your Mama’s sake, as well as mine. Give me time, and all this will be cleared up. Meanwhile, be careful what you say to the police when they come back, as they will. They will question you and try to put words into your mouth.’
He was right about the police coming back, at least. When Kitty left the study, Bridget approached her. ‘Oh, there you are! I’ve been looking for you. One of those policemen is back – he’s been talking to everyone and now he wants to see you.’
‘Me? What does he want to see me about?’
‘Only the same silly questions they’ve asked Uncle Louis and all of us about your mama, I suppose. Such as had she quarrelled with anyone, had anything been worrying her, had she seemed different …?’ She sounded impatient but she looked shaken – thinking of her own differences with Lydia, probably. ‘It’s the chief inspector, not that sergeant. He won’t bite your head off, he’s quite reasonable.’ She added, ‘For a policeman. All the same, I’d watch my step if I were you.’
What did she think she, Kitty, had to keep from the police? For a moment, she actually wondered if Bridget knew about the icon, but she could hardly think that possible. Had she guessed those secret things about Mama that Kitty had been worrying about? Was that what they had quarrelled about? She had been in a very edgy, unaccountable mood since yesterday. But suddenly, in a very un-Bridgetlike way, she quite gently kissed Kitty’s cheek. ‘Don’t worry, my love.’
Kitty didn’t know who was the more surprised of the two.
Eleven
She was indeed relieved it wasn’t Sergeant Inskip waiting for her, but the other detective, Gaines. Unlike Inskip, he didn’t set her teeth on edge. He seemed to be a calm and matter-of-fact sort of man, though something warned her not to underestimate him. When she went in, he was finishing a cup of tea someone had brought him and immediately put it down and stood up. He held out his hand. ‘I won’t keep you long, just a few words, if you don’t mind.’
‘No, I don’t mind.’ But she felt bound to add, ‘Though I can’t see there’s anything I – or any one of us, for that matter – can tell you that’s going to be of any use.’
He studied her for a moment and his voice was noticeably cooler when he said, ‘I’m here to help find who is responsible for your mother’s death, Miss Challoner. She may have left clues that will help us find that person, whoever it was.’
‘What kind of clues?’ she asked sharply, and instantly regretted such a crass question, as if she was expecting him to creep around on all fours with a magnifying glass, like Sherlock Holmes.
But Gaines didn’t give any sign that he found it anything but a reasonable query. ‘Clues that may give some indications of what sort of life she led, what people she may have associated with, what may have led to this shooting.’ This sounded very much like a hint that he thought she might not have been altogether blameless for what had happened, which gave Kitty a distinctly hollow feeling. After a pause he said quietly, ‘Your mother, Miss Challoner, was a victim, not a suspect.’
‘Then how can her friends matter?’
‘If any of them were Russian, it may have a great deal to do with it.’
‘One or two acquaintances were, but none of them were close.’ This was the same question they had asked Papa. To the police, Russians would signify trouble, she supposed, after those shootings earlier this year which had so appalled everyone, but they must be clutching at straws, surely, if they were trying to link her mother’s death to that sort of person, simply because she too had been shot, and because her father, Kitty’s grandfather, had been Russian. He had, however, been Nikolai Kasparov, and it was clear his activities in support of his countrymen, blameless or otherwise, could not have been unknown to the police.
‘I see.’ Gaines stood up. Her answer seemed to have satisfied him for the moment. Perhaps, then, he could begin by seeing her mother’s bedroom, and where she had worked? He added unexpectedly, ‘I’m aware this may be a trifle upsetting but I’ll try not to be intrusive.’
Her bedroom? ‘Yes, of course,’ Kitty said nervously. ‘I’ll get someone … my father, my aunt?’
‘Perhaps you’d be kind enough to do the honours yourself? We can have our little talk at the same time.’
Kitty shrank at the thought of going into that room yet again, never mind having a ‘little talk’ and she wondered for a moment what he would do if she refused, but of course she knew she had no choice. He was politely waiting for her to lead the way.
His keen interest in everything was evident as they went up the wide staircase that curved gracefully between polished mahogany banister rails to the rooms off the first landing where the bedrooms were situated, and then upwards again to the next floor. It was such a familiar background to Kitty, having lived in this same house ever since she was born, that it was something she rarely noticed. Certainly, it had never occurred to her before how it might appear to strangers, but now, seeing it through his eyes, she was suddenly aware of how the rich reds, blues and greens of the Turkey-patterned carpet echoed the stained-glass window on the first landing, how in turn the window threw lozenges of light on to the pale walls. Of the huge, dark blue vase, reputedly from the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg, hand-painted and lavishly ornamented with gilt, standing four feet tall in the angle of the staircase, and of how the rich oil paintings on the walls contributed to an overall impression of taste and discrimination. Seeing in this light the collection of beautiful objects chosen and arranged by her mother made her catch her breath and once again, she was rather glad it was Gaines, and not Inskip, who was here. Inskip was certainly the sort of man who would despise such expensive comfort.
‘Here we are,’ she said abruptly, pushing open the bedroom door and standing back to let him in.
‘Thank you.’ He waited for her to step inside before following. His gaze went immediately to the icon in the corner and she had to remind herself that he knew nothing about it; he could have no idea that it was only a facsimile of something far more valuable that had been kept locked in the safe in her father’s study and was now missing. It was hard for Kitty to believe, yet, what she had just learnt about it, that something so beautiful and arresting could be a mere copy, or that her mother, for whatever reason, should even have contemplated selling the original. Gaines seemed to be looking at it a long time – but it would have been strange if anyone seeing it for the first time had not stared at it. Its glowing beauty immediately drew attention away from anything else in the room, prettily furnished in cream and a deep rose colour, but otherwise unremarkable. ‘Striking,’ he said.
‘It was her most treasured possession. It had belonged to her family for generations.’
Eventually he took his gaze away. ‘I need to look in the cupboards and so on, Miss Challoner, you understand?’
She stood back
to watch, but all he did was to open a few doors and drawers and take what seemed to be a fairly cursory glance at the contents, almost as if he was just going through the motions. An elusive drift of perfume escaped from the rows of silks, velvets and chiffons as the two wardrobes were opened. A shoe was dislodged from its rack – champagne kid with a buttoned strap across the instep, Louis heels. She had worn that pair last week with – Kitty turned away, unable to bear it, but he quickly replaced the shoe and shut the doors again. She could only suppose that detailed searches, if they were deemed necessary, were normally delegated to someone of lesser rank, and that those clues Gaines had spoken about and hoped to find were perhaps less tangible. He did what he had to do with efficiency and with little fuss, hardly disturbing anything at all, throwing out the odd question here and there as it occurred to him. Questions about her mother’s state of mind recently, whether Kitty had been aware of anything worrying her, had anything unusual or untoward occurred? Kitty shook her head. Which church had she attended? The Russian Orthodox Church, she told him, adding that she very rarely went at all lately. What sort of recreations did she enjoy? Theatre, music, reading – and riding. He asked what Kitty knew about Marcus Villiers. She was in such a quandary over Marcus just then that it was as well she had little more to tell Gaines other than that he was a friend who went riding with her mother and sometimes escorted her to the theatre or a concert which her father did not wish to attend after a tiring business day.
He made no reply to this, and it was only when he came to the polished inlaid trinket box, lifted the lid and saw the ambers inside that he spoke again, his interest apparently aroused, asking if any of it was of great value, or if anything was missing.
Kitty could say with certainty that everything was intact, or at least as intact as it had been when she had seen it on Sunday morning, and that the box contained nothing particularly valuable, but at his request she checked it again and reminded him that there was other, more expensive jewellery in the safe downstairs. ‘It’s all here,’ she repeated. The pendant-cross was something of such little significance it could add nothing to his enquiries, certainly nothing that could have anything to do with Mama being killed, but in the end she added, ‘Apart from a silver cross which is usually kept with the other things. It’s nothing important. I expect it’ll turn up somewhere else.’
‘What sort of cross?’
‘A crucifix – what they call a three-barred cross.’ She described it to him: the upright with its two horizontal bars at the top, one shorter than the other, and a third diagonally angled bar near the feet. ‘It wasn’t of any particular value and my mother never wore it. It was too heavy, for one thing. She may have got rid of it.’
Not for one minute did she believe that, and if Gaines didn’t either he didn’t say. He had moved over to the pretty little walnut writing table and the nearby bookcase with the Russian novels on the shelves, and was looking at the book bearing the name of Marie Bartholemew between the soapstone elephants. ‘So this was where your mother worked?’ he asked. So, he had been told about her writing. The thing she had been so insistent on keeping a secret was in the open now. Soon, everyone would know.
‘Yes, except when she was working in the office with Miss Drax, who types her manuscripts.’
‘My wife enjoyed reading this.’ He tossed out the information as he opened the desk’s single, shallow drawer, finding nothing in it but pens and pencils, India rubbers, blotting paper and the like. ‘No new work in progress?’
‘No,’ Kitty answered, reflecting this was at least the second time she had lied to him within a few minutes, salvaging her conscience by trying to believe none of it was a direct lie. In any case, the few pages in the exercise book labelled number three that she’d picked up and which was still in her own room, though she hadn’t yet attempted to decipher Lydia’s scribble, could hardly be described as work in progress. ‘Miss Drax is working on getting her second novel ready for the publishers. When you’re ready I’ll take you along to see her if you wish.’ And there she could leave him. She desperately wanted to be alone. She was beginning to feel there wasn’t enough air in the room to breathe. Her chest felt tight.
‘Are you all right, Miss Challoner?’
‘Yes, it’s nothing.’ But she’d caught a glimpse of herself in the dressing table looking glass a few moments ago and knew Gaines had every justification for concern. She looked pale and drained and unattractive. The black dress didn’t help. She’d never worn black before and it leached all the colour from her face. Aunt Ursula had sent for ready-made mourning clothes from Swan and Edgar for Kitty, Bridget and herself, tutting over the cut and quality when they arrived, but thankful that they need only be worn until they had all been measured and fitted for better ones, though they would of course still be black. ‘It’s just a little warm in here, that’s all.’
He crossed to the window and opened it wider. She breathed deeply, aware that he was studying her and then, seemingly satisfied she wasn’t going to faint at his feet, he turned his attention to the Russian tracts and pamphlets that occupied the bottom shelf of the bookcase, while Kitty stood near the window, through which came a dancing breeze, the scents of summer, the hum of traffic and the sounds of a distant hurdy-gurdy. An ordinary day for other people. Below, a nursemaid in a round felt hat wheeled her charge round the garden in a wicker perambulator, with a terrier on a lead. A small boy jumped alongside, astride his hobby horse. A cat arched its back at the dog, but when the dog began to show interest in a fight thought better of it and melted into the bushes.
Back in the room Gaines was picking up one booklet after another. He paused in flicking the pages over, and she sensed some sharpening of interest in him. ‘I’d like to take these away, if you don’t mind,’ he said at last, gathering them together. Politely, as though it would have made any difference if she had objected. ‘They’ll be returned to you, of course.’
‘They were my grandfather’s. I mean, he wrote them, years ago.’
‘Not all of them.’ He indicated names on the front covers of one or two. The pamphlets written by Nikolai Kasparov were by this time a little ragged, timeworn and well-thumbed, but the ones Gaines seemed more interested in looked newer. She saw the reason for the small leather attaché case he had with him when he packed them into it.
‘People used to send my mother this sort of thing, you know,’ Kitty told him. ‘It annoyed her considerably. Some of those who wrote those pamphlets are very violent in their opinions, I believe, and she hated violence of any kind.’ But a small voice inside was whispering that she had kept them, hadn’t she, and not thrown them away, and though he didn’t say so, she felt certain he must be thinking the same thing.
He said suddenly, ‘Why don’t we sit down for a moment, Miss Challoner?’
‘Oh. Oh, very well.’ There were several chairs in the room, and she chose to perch on the edge of the rose-coloured velvet armchair in front of the window, leaving him to take one of the straight chairs. If he had brought her here on purpose to this room, which he must realise held such emotive echoes for her, to trap her into saying something unwary, she didn’t want to be facing the light. But he sat stroking his moustache for a while without saying anything, then took the wind out of her sails by saying abruptly, ‘You have a cousin who edits a radical newspaper called Britannia Voice, I believe?’
‘Jon?’
‘Jonathon Devenish, yes. He has quite advanced socialist opinions, I gather. Like those of the Russian revolutionaries who wrote these booklets.’ He tapped the attaché case which he had deposited on the seat of the chair next to him.
A sense of teetering on the brink of disaster made her heart give an uncomfortable thump in her chest. ‘Perhaps you should look at the name of the paper again, Inspector Gaines. Britannia, it’s called,’ she said as steadily as she could manage. ‘Britannia Voice.’ She put a heavy inflection on the ‘Britannia’.
‘Owned by a Russian called Aleksandr Lukin.’
Kitty tried not to show that this disagreeable titbit was news to her. ‘Well, not every Russian is a troublemaker. And Jon does have a strong social conscience, yes, but he isn’t interested in turbulent Russian politics. Or in violence at all, for that matter. Quite the opposite. He’s a pacifist.’
He sounded rather tired when he answered. ‘Everyone with a social conscience today is interested in the terrible news coming out of Russia, and in its politics. It’s a country in turmoil and what’s happening there is arousing sympathy throughout the world, as I’m sure you know. You may be surprised how many people in Britain are showing their support for a revolutionary movement.’
‘Including my mother?’ She knew what he was hinting but it was outrageous to suspect Lydia of being in league with those thugs when she had been so adamantly against them. ‘I can tell you she felt very strongly that those who were robbing, stealing and killing while calling themselves patriots were doing actual harm to their cause rather than good.’
‘From what I have gathered, however, Mrs Challoner was a generous and compassionate woman. Is it feasible she wouldn’t have wanted to help her countrymen?’
‘Well, of course she did. In a sensible way. She – and my father – gave to many refugee charities.’
‘Yes,’ he said softly, ‘and your father has told us she was a member of SFRF.’
A silence fell between them. The Society of Friends of Russian Freedom. ‘Well, yes, I believe she was. But not an active member,’ she said eventually, hating the defensive way she heard herself speak. And she couldn’t help asking herself with a sick, shocked feeling: how do I know? Lydia had been British in all that mattered, but how could anyone deny her obsession with her Russian roots?
Gaines stood up. ‘All right, Miss Challoner, don’t upset yourself. We’ll leave it at that for the moment. I shall probably have to talk to you and the other members of your family again, but for the moment I’d like to see your mother’s secretary – Miss Drax, you say her name is? Perhaps you can tell me where I may find her?’
The Firebird's Feather Page 10
