A Matter of Loyalty

by Anselm Audley

  ‘This is, regrettably, an affair of some importance,’ Miss Winscomb said, looking at the two of them over her desk. ‘All of the reputable papers and some of the less reputable ones, too, have sent journalists down to root around. If any of them are so devoid of manners as to approach you, say nothing to them. Don’t linger on your way home this evening.’

  Polly nodded, looking across at Georgia with a warning in her eyes. For once, Georgia wasn’t inclined to be stubborn.

  ‘Good,’ said Miss Winscomb. ‘If there’s any trouble, I should like to know about it. Any reporter who bothers you will find himself in very deep water. Figuratively speaking, that is.’

  Now Georgia tried to walk on, but she found him blocking their way across the road. She couldn’t tell how he’d moved so quickly. She didn’t like him one bit.

  ‘Can you give me a few words on what it was like to find the body?’ the reporter asked. Only she wasn’t at all sure this was a reporter. She’d seen them loitering that morning. They all had much the same look and manner. Newshounds, they were called, and there was a certain bright-eyed curiosity to them all.

  This man was quite different. His eyes didn’t wander, and his tone wasn’t right. She rather thought she recognised him.

  ‘Would you please move out of the way?’ she said, with more firmness than she felt.

  He didn’t. They couldn’t turn, because he’d positioned himself in the way of their bikes.

  ‘Who are you?’ Georgia demanded. ‘I’ve seen you before; you’re always poking around. I shall report you to the police.’

  The threat didn’t move him, but something else did.

  ‘You there! What’s your name?’ came a sharp voice from behind them. Georgia nearly died of relief. It was Daisy Dillon’s father, Stanley Dillon, chief Feoffee of Selchester and a man not at all to be trifled with.

  The man’s eyes tightened with frustration. He turned and strode away, ignoring Stanley Dillon, slipping into the alley behind the row of Victorian houses down the road from the school.

  Stanley Dillon’s face was hard and resolute, but it was the face of a man very definitely on their side.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Stanley asked, his eyes following the man’s passage. He’d been worried about something like this, and had taken the rare step of coming to pick Daisy up and check on the other two. Only a van had dropped its load on Garver Street, and he’d been late.

  The two girls nodded. Mr Dillon tightened his lips in sudden anger. That this should have happened to any girl, almost within sight of the school gates . . .

  ‘Did he say anything about where he was from?’

  ‘I’ve seen him before,’ Georgia said. ‘He was here last year. But he wasn’t a reporter then.’

  Stanley Dillon would have laid odds the man wasn’t a reporter now. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave your bikes at Mrs Gumble’s. You can pick them up tomorrow.’

  Scene 10

  Despite Hugo’s best efforts, Jarrett gave him a lift home to the Castle, roaring up the drive and through the gate arch with fractions of an inch to spare. He screeched to a halt outside the door.

  ‘Looks the worse for wear,’ he said, jumping out to have a look at the gaunt dark bulk of the Castle. ‘Still, I suppose this Yank has grand plans for it, they always do. Do the place good to be brought up to date. It’s like one of those Hammer Horror flicks.’

  Hugo levered himself out of the car, rather more slowly. There was a great cawing of rooks in the trees, aggrieved by the violence of the new arrival.

  The door opened. It was Freya, bundled up in an ancient Arran sweater. She stopped abruptly at the sight of Jarrett, a shuttered look on her face.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Jarrett. ‘Still stuck in the sticks, I see.’

  With some effort, Freya ignored him.

  ‘Hugo, Georgia needs you.’

  That was an odd thing to say.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Oh, that sister of yours,’ said Jarrett. ‘Don’t know what you’re thinking of, sending her to school in a place like this. She should be in a proper boarding school. Otherwise she’ll end up like Freya here, a lifelong spinster.’

  ‘I believe Freya went to Yorkshire Ladies’ College,’ said Hugo neutrally. ‘Goodnight, Inspector. Thank you for the lift.’

  He turned for the door without a further word.

  The door slammed, the tyres squealed, the engine gunned. The rooks rose in another chorus of protest.

  ‘Thank God,’ Hugo said. ‘What’s this about Georgia?’

  Scene 11

  Georgia was in the cheerful chaos of the kitchen, arguing with Polly over their history homework. Daisy Dillon was doodling on a scrap of paper, rather more interested in the treacle tart Mrs Partridge was making. Gus and Stanley Dillon had retreated to the calm of the South Drawing Room.

  ‘What rubbish this is. There were hardly any real Protestants in England,’ Polly declared. ‘Just the ones Henry got to come up with reasons he could have his wicked way with Anne Boleyn.’

  ‘Anne was a Protestant,’ Georgia pointed out.

  ‘See? Lust. One of the seven deadly sins. Nothing more.’

  Mrs Partridge, already scandalised at this rank Popery being bruited about in her kitchen, shot her a stern look. ‘None of that, Miss Polly.’

  ‘Then why did we all become C of E even after Henry died?’ Georgia demanded.

  ‘Because Elizabeth hung and drew and squashed anyone who disagreed with her. They had to hide in priest holes.’

  ‘It’s hanged, not hung, don’t you know anything? And what do you mean, squashed? She chopped people’s heads off, like the Earl of Essex.’

  ‘Essex was a nobleman, and anyway he was guilty. If you didn’t plead, they squashed you under a stone until you died.’

  ‘Did they teach you that in your American school?’ Georgia asked, rather envious of a curriculum with such details. ‘I thought you didn’t learn any history before the Mayflower.’

  ‘I read it in a book,’ said Polly, who had been to a convent school in Boston. ‘School had all the lives of the saints with those lugubrious illustrations, just as dull as Miss Ormskirk. But less wrong.’

  ‘She’s not wrong,’ said Georgia stoutly.

  ‘That wasn’t what you said when we did Richard III,’ said Daisy. ‘Can you put more treacle in, Mrs Partridge?’

  ‘Now, Miss Dillon, it may not be rationed any more, but that doesn’t mean there’s plenty to go around.’

  ‘You should ask my father – he can get you more.’

  Hugo and Freya came through from the corridor, Hugo looking distinctly weary.

  ‘You were talking about me,’ Georgia said. ‘You don’t need to. I’m fine.’

  ‘But wrong,’ said Polly.

  Georgia elbowed her in the ribs. ‘I should think you need attention more than I do,’ she told Hugo. ‘You look like someone picked you up and shook you. Who was in that noisy car?’

  ‘I was given a lift back by Inspector Jarrett.’

  ‘Poor you,’ she said, remembering him from this morning. He hadn’t actually questioned her, that had been stodgy old MacLeod, but she’d heard him berating a pair of policemen for not jumping to it quickly enough. ‘I bet he drives like the clappers. Probably always getting stopped by the police and then flashing his card at them, like some Soviet commissar, so they have to salute and watch him zoom off. Have a stiff whisky, you need it.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Hugo asked.

  ‘Of course,’ she said scornfully. ‘I’m going to get better marks than Polly in history this week. She’ll write all sorts of Papist propaganda and Miss Ormskirk will give her an E.’

  ‘I shall have my reward in heaven,’ said Polly with a sidelong glance, ‘while you roast with all the other heretics.’

  ‘Heretics are much more interesting,’ Georgia declared. ‘They say what they think. I bet Miss Ormskirk would have been in the Inquisition.’

  Hugo decided
this would be a good time to ring Leo, as Freya had suggested. The clamour of an argument renewed, following him down the stone passages into Grace Hall, where the Castle’s telephone resided.

  Hugo’s call to his uncle was brief. He well knew Irene from the exchange would be hanging on his every word, and his recounting of the news was brisk, contained. Leo had seen the headlines, and would know to read between the lines.

  ‘I have tutorials tomorrow and a Mass in the evening: I’m deputising at the Chaplaincy. It’ll have to be Wednesday. I can leave first thing.’

  Not as soon as Hugo had hoped, but it couldn’t be helped.

  ‘There’s something else,’ Hugo said. ‘Bruno Rothesay was an Oxford man. Pembroke, early twenties. Tallish, black hair, later picked up a Heidelberg scar.’

  ‘Say no more,’ said Leo. ‘Then I shall be on the three-fifteen.’

  A crisp click of the receiver. Such a nuisance, having to watch every word you said on the phone. Then again, Grace Hall in January was nearly as cold as his office, and he had no desire to linger.

  ‘Wednesday,’ said Hugo, spotting Freya in the doorway. ‘Will she . . .’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ said Freya. ‘As Gus would say, she’s a tough cookie.’

  Hugo tapped the phone with a finger, lost in thought. ‘That man, though. Time and time again he’s turned up, and we’re none the wiser as to why.’

  They’d all encountered the pale-eyed man before. Jenkins was his name, or at least the name he went by. Freya had endured some unpleasant questions from him on the way back from Selchester’s funeral, and he’d followed the newly minted Lord Selchester across the Atlantic, only to turn up again in Selchester at Christmas.

  ‘Stanley will ask a few questions. Daisy was caught up in it, too. He’s not happy about that, and he doesn’t like this sort of thing happening on his turf.’

  ‘Nothing helpful from the police, I suppose.’

  ‘They’ll have a sharp word with Jenkins if he does anything of the kind again, but there’s nothing more they can do. We already know he’s a private investigator. MacLeod thought he might have had some police experience at one point. He has a very good idea of just what he can get away with.’

  Footsteps in the passage.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ Gus said, coming out into Grace Hall with Stanley Dillon behind him. ‘We were wondering whether that car was our Hungarian friend arriving early.’

  Hugo looked blank. ‘Hungarian friend?’

  ‘I was just about to tell him about our visitor,’ Freya said, cursing Gus and Stanley for their curiosity. She couldn’t tell Hugo the whole thing now, as Stanley Dillon didn’t have security clearance. Gus had told her when she returned from town, leaving her with a sense of unease and a desire to get the low-down from Hugo.

  Hugo, however, was quite in the dark.

  ‘Hasn’t Sir Bernard briefed you?’ Gus asked.

  ‘I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Sir Bernard today,’ said Hugo. ‘I’ve been up at the Atomic with Jarrett.’

  There was a perplexed silence.

  ‘I think,’ said Stanley after a moment, ‘that the three of you need to talk. I’ll take Daisy off. It’s time she had her dinner.’

  ‘She was rather hoping to have dinner here, I think,’ said Freya. ‘Something to do with a treacle tart.’

  ‘There’s more afoot than Mrs Partridge’s cooking, by the sound of it. Sir Bernard can be a crafty one when he wants to be, for all that dignified exterior. I’ll take my leave here, Lord Selchester, if you don’t mind, and let you know if I get anywhere with this Jenkins fellow.’

  Scene 12

  They repaired to the South Drawing Room, where Gus filled Hugo in on the afternoon’s visit.

  ‘He’s arriving tonight?’ Hugo asked.

  ‘Nine or thereabouts.’

  Hugo smelled a rat. Chaotic the Service could be, occasionally bureaucratic, prone to keep secrets even from itself, but this had all the feeling of a clever manoeuvre on someone’s part.

  ‘Spit it out,’ Gus said. ‘You look as if you’ve sucked on a lemon, and I’d rather hear it plainly than wrapped up in weasel words. Sir Bernard didn’t sound too happy about it either. Apologised twice for doing everything in such a hurry.’

  ‘As well he should,’ said Freya, who had no time for Sir Bernard, and didn’t like the sound of this one bit. ‘He’s acting as if he were still a trustee, and the Castle a place he can park inconvenient guests. Present company excepted, of course.’

  ‘As I recall,’ Hugo said, ‘you weren’t too happy to have me and Georgia pressed on you either.’

  She lifted her chin. ‘I’m glad you came here, if not with the manner of it.’

  ‘Spoken like a true Selchester,’ Gus observed.

  Hugo said, ‘I think someone was relying on your ignorance of British ways, and particularly the Service’s ways.’

  ‘In other words, I’ve been had.’

  His father would never have been had. The late Lord Selchester might never have risen as high as he had clearly wished, but Freya had never seen anyone successfully cross him. One didn’t. Perhaps it was a point in Gus’s favour that he could make such a mistake, that he lacked her uncle’s ruthlessness.

  ‘They pulled a fast one,’ Hugo conceded.

  ‘Literally.’

  Freya glanced at the clock. Half past six. Too late for Hugo to go back to the Hall and have his secretary pull Dr Bárándy’s file before he arrived.

  ‘Do you think this Dr Bárándy might be a danger to Polly and Georgia?’ Gus said. ‘If he is, I’m not having him in my house, gentleman’s agreement or not.’

  ‘They wouldn’t put a peer’s daughter at risk,’ said Hugo. ‘Too much danger of the whole story getting out, more scandal and bad press. We’ve had enough of that with Burgess and Maclean. More likely they’re just playing on your sense of hospitality to get themselves out of a tight corner.’

  ‘Why keep you out of the way, though?’ Freya asked. ‘Pick a day you were out of the Hall, make very sure you didn’t know about it in time.’

  ‘I’d have queried it with the Chief,’ said Hugo. It didn’t normally do to go around the chain of command like that, but the Chief had sent him to Selchester because something was amiss here. Now it seemed something was amiss in London as well.

  Gus nodded. ‘I shan’t do your Service another favour in a hurry, that’s for sure. I suppose we’ll have to make the best we can of it. Whatever the Service may be up to, Dr Bárándy deserves our hospitality. Mrs Partridge thought we might put him in my father’s room, to give him some privacy. It has its own private sitting room next door.’

  ‘From Communist Hungary to an earl’s bedroom,’ said Freya. ‘Quite the change for this Dr Bárándy.’

  Scene 13

  ‘Some brandy, that’s what you need,’ said Mrs Partridge from the doorway.

  Freya looked up from Cromwell’s England with a start. She’d been curled up on the sofa since supper, deep in the tangled webs of John Thurloe. Why would she need brandy?

  She didn’t. Hugo did, limping across to a chair by the fire. The library was the warmest of the Castle’s grand rooms, particularly on a January night with a wind howling outside. Polished wood, faded leather, a deep carpet, the crackle of seasoned logs, there was nowhere better to read.

  ‘You look almost cheerful,’ she said.

  With an hour or two to recover from the various unpleasant surprises, Hugo was feeling rather more himself. One learned to be adaptable in his line of work. He sank down in the chair, glad of the warmth.

  ‘Chalk it down to the prospect of working on my own again,’ he said.

  Freya folded the book shut, keeping her finger on the page. ‘Do tell.’

  He caught a glimpse of the cover. ‘Thurloe. Research?’

  ‘Unexpectedly fascinating. Dinah pushed it on me. I always thought, what a dull decade, no theatres and no Christmas, but such goings-on. A seethe of intrigue.’

  ‘B
etter at a distance?’

  ‘Perhaps. I’d rather have lived in the Restoration – such mischief – but you have to look at the years before to see why. All those plots and counterplots, informants everywhere, Cromwell making up the rules as he went along. No wonder everyone wanted strong drink and loose women once Charles was back on the throne. They were lucky to be in one piece.’

  ‘I suppose your ancestors were in the thick of it.’

  ‘Not in the most edifying way. The ninth Earl tried to buy his way back from exile by betraying a Royalist plot, but his wife found his letters and threatened to send them to the King unless he behaved. Thurloe called her some quite colourful names in his correspondence.’

  ‘Here you are,’ said Mrs Partridge, coming back in with a glass of brandy.

  ‘What’s this about working on your own again?’ Freya said, her attention diverted back to the present.

  ‘I convinced Jarrett we should work from different angles.’

  ‘Heard as Mrs Rothesay gave him a piece of her mind,’ said Mrs Partridge with satisfaction. ‘Good job, too, coming in like one of Uncle Joe’s commissars and hauling law-abiding citizens over the coals.’

  Hugo had long since given up wondering how Mrs Partridge got her information so quickly, but he wouldn’t have guessed Alice Rothesay would be so ready to tell.

  ‘I didn’t know she spent that much time here,’ said Hugo.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ said Mrs Partridge. ‘Her husband may have spent all his time at the Atomic, but not all his colleagues had work on their minds.’

  On which oracular note, she swept out.

  Hugo took a sip of his brandy. An affair with one of her husband’s colleagues made a certain sense. None of Jarrett’s business, necessarily, but enough to put Mrs Rothesay on the defensive with a policeman prone to see the worst in everything.

  ‘How well connected is Jarrett?’ Hugo asked Freya, then added, ‘If you don’t mind talking about him.’

  ‘He was well connected when I knew him,’ she said. ‘All his own work, though. He’s the sort of man who Gets Things Done with great vim and vigour, turns places inside out. Someone the Government calls on when they need to be seen to be doing something.’