Skeleton-in-Waiting

by Peter Dickinson

  3

  “Do we have to have that thing on?”

  “There’s going to be a statement. I’ll turn it so I can just hear Big Ben.”

  “You sound a bit low.”

  “A bit.”

  “Not a good point at which to see that particular film.”

  “I don’t know. We’re completely different. Well, almost completely. I mean, what was he doing? For anyone? At least we’re working, in a sort of way. People still want us. Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t a sort of dream everyone’s having. If you don’t dream at all—I know a lot of people don’t think they dream, but they still have … what’s it called, sounds like some kind of medal?”

  “R.E.M. Rapid eye movement.”

  “That’s right. So they are dreaming, only they don’t remember, and if they didn’t have dreams they’d be off their rockers. But nobody actually knows what dreams are for. Nobody knows what we’re for, either, only we’re needed. Do computers dream?”

  “Not yet. There’s probably someone working on it.”

  “Dogs do, but … hang on.”

  “… at midnight on Thursday the twenty-fifth of February. It has been announced from Buckingham Palace that Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales is currently on a short private visit to friends in the Argentine. His Majesty’s Government had of course been consulted about the arrangements, and it had been agreed that in view of the current absence of diplomatic relations with the government of Argentina and also to protect the Princess from intrusion, the visit should be made in a purely private capacity, incognito. It was very much hoped that the media would respect that privacy. Here is our court correspondent …”

  Nothing much there. A bit more from Mr Reynolds, at least between the lines. Foreign Office ambivalent, Prime Minister clearly not happy, Soppy’s determined character, adverse comments in American media …

  “Are they going to want us to go to the States to make up?”

  “Don’t know. It’ll mean scrapping things here.”

  “Just don’t let it happen in the second week of September. There’s a conference in Baku I want to go to.”

  “We could … you mean you’d come to the States with me?”

  “And you could come to Baku with me.”

  “Goodness, I’d simply love to. But the FO would never let me …”

  “Now that Soppy’s broken the trail?”

  “That’s quite different. She’s having a breakdown. Or worse.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I had a sort of nightmare during the film. I was still watching it, I think, but I thought I was watching Davy. I really couldn’t bear it if they decided he’d better inherit instead of Vick.”

  “That’s absurd. Old Lady Whatsit …”

  “Bakewell. She wasn’t that old. I bet that’s why Father is in such a tizz about Granny’s letters. They’ll be full of stuff about madness running in Soppy’s family, dire warnings and so on. I know Mother wasn’t altogether happy about it either—she’s pretty superstitious about some things—you remember when Davy turned out to be a boy she said it showed you had good blood in your family?”

  “I still think it’s absurd. Nobody’s going to pay any attention to what your grandmother said.”

  “Haven’t you learnt yet? It’s a news story. At the very least it’ll put extra pressure on Soppy and Bert. Some rag is bound to dig up an expert who’ll say going dotty runs in Soppy’s family after all, and then that’ll put another lot of pressure on Vick while he’s growing up, and then you only want one more thing to go wrong—I mean suppose Soppy doesn’t get better, for instance?—and then you’ll have serious people beginning to say it isn’t worth the fuss and why not make a clean break by going straight on to Davy?”

  “Who’s to say there are not all sorts of hereditary horrors in my family?”

  “They won’t think about that. Anyway, the first thing I’ve got to do is nip over to Hampton Court and have a proper shot at getting Aunt Bea to cough up Granny’s papers before Alex gets them out of her. I’ve got a hole Tuesday. I kept it clear because Davy’s due a jab, but I don’t have to be here.”

  “What arguments do you propose to adduce?”

  “It’s Mrs Walsh, really. I think I can get the Palace to up her pension, which might help. The trouble is I don’t think she’s just being difficult for the money. I can’t even threaten her much. She must have read Granny’s papers by now, and she’ll know she’s got things to threaten back with. I think I can manage Aunt Bea, if I can get to talk to her alone. I suppose it’d be easier dealing with Mrs Walsh alone, too.”

  “Issue a royal command.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. Pull rank. From what you tell me my impression is of someone who makes a parade of being very much ancien régime. If she were to refuse a direct request from you she would be partially destroying that self-image.”

  “I’ll think about it. I hate taking that sort of line, if I can help it.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Let’s talk about something else. I wish I could remember what else I’ve got on in the second week of September.”

  “You said the Foreign Office wouldn’t let you come.”

  “I’m going to make them, somehow.”

  MARCH 1988

  1

  “That you?”

  “…”

  “Got anywhere? God, I’ll be glad when this is over. I’m sick with myself I ever got into it.”

  “…”

  “No. I’ll see it through. You know me. But it won’t be long now, and I’m telling you if you don’t take this chance while you’ve got it then I’m going to Security after all. I’ve shown you a way of getting what you want, without anyone getting hurt …”

  “…”

  “I don’t care. Better you and me than people who’ve done nothing wrong. I’m not having that on my conscience the rest of my life. So listen. They’re in a hurry now to get those papers back out of Hampton Court. You been reading about the other Princess?”

  “…”

  “That’s right. And that’s why they’re shit-scared now about the papers. Baby’s due his first jab tomorrow, and she’d kept it clear to be with him, but now she’s decided she’s got to go over …”

  2

  Since it had been Louise herself who had first asked if the officer in charge of her personal security could be a woman it was difficult now to suggest a change, but she had never been comfortable with Inspector Yale, a sturdy, square-faced thirty-five-year-old with naturally brassy hair. She sensed that the Inspector, though giving few tangible hints of it, regarded her present job as irrelevant both to her career and to the serious business of police-work, and who was Louise to say that she was wrong? She was efficient, calm and polite, but nuances meant nothing to her. When Louise had tried to suggest to her the best way of handling Piers, she had found herself talking about him as if he were a sulky and unstable teen-age lout.

  “We’ll do our best not to intrude unnecessarily, ma’am,” the Inspector had said.

  “I’m sure you will, but …”

  That but still hung in the air between them at their fortnightly meetings. Like Mother but unlike Albert and Father, Louise preferred to see her staff individually, instead of sitting down with everyone together to thrash the future through.

  “Anything special in the green diary?” said Louise. “You’ve been through it with Joan?”

  “Of course, ma’am. Mrs Pennycuik asked me to check with you about the visit to Reading General Hospital on the eighth.”

  “That’s only next week. That must be all fixed.”

  “In consequence of the public reaction to the visit of the Princess of Wales to Argentina we would prefer to move up to an A3 security level—with your consent, of course, ma�
��am. The agreed timings were only on the basis of a B1 security team.”

  “You want to cut something out?”

  “We shall have to. Besides, there is the likelihood of additional television crews, who will need …”

  “Oh, God. All right. Fix it with the hospital and tell Joan and the others what you’re doing. Try and keep the crèche, and as much of the talking-to-nurses and so on as you can. Those are the things the admin bods will want to chop, so they can keep their own share. If they do, talk about publicity … Oh, the hell with it—tell them it’s what I want. OK? Now, blue diary. I’m going over to visit Lady Surbiton again this afternoon—that’s all fixed. Saturday I’m here. Sunday, chapel at Windsor and then lunch with my parents. We’ll take Davy and Piers will drive me in the Rover …”

  “Under A3 you and Lord Chandler travel separately, ma’am.”

  “Well, we’re not going to. We don’t see enough of each other as it is. I mean, if it was a bomb scare, or something, but just because my sister-in-law … There’s a limit to the strain you can put on family life.”

  The pale, hard eyes glanced up from the note-book. Strain? they said—servanted, moneyed, shielded, secretaried, adulated? At Louise’s age Inspector Yale had been facing knife-bearing yobs in the streets and fending off macho sergeants in the station.

  “I’m sorry,” said Louise. “When I said OK about going up to A3 I was just thinking about public engagements. A3 is pretty well the whole shoot, isn’t it, an absolute cavalcade?”

  “Police cars preceding and following the passenger vehicles, and up to six outriders, depending on circumstance.”

  And half of them with guns, thought Louise. You didn’t ask about that sort of thing.

  “Well I’m not having that for family jaunts,” she said. “I simply don’t see the point. It only draws extra attention. People don’t like it if they see it, they think it’s a waste of policemen who ought to be out catching rapists. Look, let’s compromise. I won’t whinge about going up to A3 for public engagements, but anything private, things that haven’t been announced, when only you and me and Joan know what I’m up to, we’ll stay down at B. OK?”

  “Your attendance at chapel on Sunday has been announced by Commander Tank’s office.”

  Of course, thought Louise. And there’d be cameras there. The Family sticking up for family values. Sightseers too. The media excitement was at a frenzy—half the press corps must be out on the pampas by now, and not one of them had caught a glimpse or whisper of Soppy. Albert hadn’t heard either, Mother said.

  “Oh, all right,” she said. “You can lay on the troops if you want. But Piers and Davy and I are going in our own car. And things like visiting Lady Surbiton we’ll stay right down at B. Just Mr Dyce with me, and the other car tagging along.”

  Inspector Yale didn’t respond for a second or two, but sat staring at her pad, then made a note.

  “About Lady Surbiton, ma’am. This will be your third visit since November.”

  “Oh, God. No. I absolutely refuse. Once a month isn’t that often. I’ve just got one little bit of business to get fixed up—I might even get it finished today …”

  “But about Lady Surbiton herself …”

  “Aunt Bea! You can’t be serious!”

  “I understand she has a grandson …”

  “Oh, Tim. He’s a dead loss, but he’s out of harm’s way now. He’s in gaol in Japan, some kind of hopeless crazy fraud. I wouldn’t put anything past him, but he’s not due out for at least two more years.”

  “I believe Lady Surbiton writes to him regularly. It has been suggested that you should ask her not to mention your visits. He may have associates.”

  “Oh. OK. I must say it seems pretty far-fetched, but if you really think … Anyway Aunt Bea won’t mind. She’s convinced that everything that goes wrong for him is the result of him keeping bad company.”

  “There is also a Mrs Walsh, Lady Surbiton’s neighbour.”

  “What’s wrong with her, for heaven’s sake?”

  Inspector Yale unfolded a flimsy typed sheet and glanced through it. Her expressionless rubbery lips pursed.

  “She appears to have been somewhat uncooperative.”

  “Look, Hampton Court is full of old biddies and codgers. The fact that they’ve worked at the Palace or been ambassadors or things like that doesn’t mean that some of them don’t get a bit dotty, like any other lot that age. Actually Mrs Walsh has got her head screwed on more than most, I’d have thought. What do you mean uncooperative?”

  “She refused to admit a search team to her apartment.”

  “Search team? Sniffer-dogs and things? Why on earth …”

  “We are now at A3, ma’am. The fact that this was to be your third visit …”

  “You went up before you’d talked to me about it?”

  “We thought it for the best, ma’am. In view of the circumstances.”

  Louise stared at her. She could feel the tension of fury in her neck and shoulder-muscles, but she knew the Inspector would be unaware of it. If you’ve been born with the knack of self-control and had it reinforced by a childhood of training, even professionals can’t see though the mask. Father would have talked to Sir Sam about Granny’s papers, and persuaded him to let Louise see what she could do, but Sir Sam’s whole instinct would have been to put it into the hands of the professionals. They would have taken the excuse of Louise’s impending visit for this preliminary recce. And then what? Supposing Louise got nowhere? A break-in? The trouble was, they were just like real criminals—they always managed to persuade themselves they wouldn’t get caught. Think of the mess if they did. Hamptongate. But when they got the bit between their teeth …

  “Well, it’s done now,” she said. “I expect you didn’t like it either, only you’re not allowed to say. Let’s get on. The rest of the week’s solid green …”

  It is extraordinary how a stance or gait can snag the unattending eye. Louise was turning onto the bridge at Hampton Court, concentrating, she thought, on leaving room for an express delivery bike to weave past her, when she spotted Mrs Walsh on the pavement. The Rover was already past the spot before she realised who it was, but she didn’t need to crane round and check. She was sure. She indicated and pulled in.

  “The lady with the stick and the shopping-bag,” she said. “I want a word with her anyway.”

  John Dyce nodded and slipped out, closing and locking the door. In the main-mirror she saw her escort car drawn awkwardly in at the corner, and then in the wing-mirror watched John approach Mrs Walsh and speak. Mrs Walsh stared at him, her whole attitude expressing an almost passionate reserve and self-control, a rejection of any world in which unknown men, however well-mannered and tidily dressed, were permitted to accost her in the street unasked. After a moment’s pause she nodded. John offered to carry the plastic bag, but she refused and came stumping towards the car. She was wearing the same clothes as always, including the fabulous brooch. Perhaps it was not the risk it seemed—what mugger or bag-snatcher would guess it was anything more than glass? Louise leaned over and unlocked the door, but let John open and hold it for Mrs Walsh, who for the first time hesitated, as if looking for a running-board to step onto. She allowed John to take her by the elbow and half-turn her, and then help her lower herself into the passenger-seat.

  “You looked as if you could do with a lift,” said Louise.

  “Your Highness is more than kind,” said Mrs Walsh.

  She seemed to have put on an extra layer of formality to face the outside world, or perhaps she was just cold—she had chosen to make her expedition on this bitterish day without a coat. The effect of her being an emanation from the past was enhanced by a powerful odour of mothballs, presumably coming from her shopping-bag. The whole encounter couldn’t be luckier, Louise thought. She had been looking forward with some apprehension to the problem of separating
the two old ladies, so that she could tackle Aunt Bea about the papers without the stiffening presence of Mrs Walsh, and then put the Palace’s offer about her pension to Mrs Walsh in private.

  “You’re very spartan,” she said, as she eased the car away. “I suppose this doesn’t count as cold by Russian standards.”

  “When I was a child we went to Monte Carlo for the winter.”

  “That must have been fun.”

  “We travelled in our own four rail-coaches. When we needed to wait for a connection the servants would haul scenery out onto the platform and dress up and put on plays to entertain us.”

  “Goodness. It’s awful to think how only a few years later you were having to make that frightful journey across Siberia. Did you get the book? I expect you wrote, but my secretary mightn’t have showed me.”

  “I wrote to His Majesty expressing my deep gratitude.”

  “It was just lucky we still had that last copy. Look, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve got to talk to Aunt Bea about something in private.”

  “Of course.”

  “But there’s something I want to talk to you about too—I’ve got a suggestion to make, if you’d be interested. I’ll ring your bell, if that’s OK.”

  “The bell is out of order, but if you knock on the door I will be waiting.”

  “Terrific. I must say it’s marvellous that you and Aunt Bea seem to have hit it off so well. We were desperately worried about her when my grandmother died.”