Bea noted the effect they were having on one another and sighed. ‘But Jamie is expected to marry and produce children?’
‘That’s so. We used to have a laugh, he and I, when some girl or other tried to get him interested in her. His father died last year, and he’s been seeing a girl recently . . . She’s very pretty, but I didn’t think he was serious about her. But he popped the question yesterday. The idea that they might die soon has made both him and Duncan rush into action.’
‘You said Duncan had chosen a suitable girl; what about Jamie?’
A shrug. ‘As I said, she’s a pretty little thing.’ Hermia was neither pretty nor little. ‘She’s, well, a man’s woman. I think that would be the right way to describe her. I’m sure she’ll suit him very well.’
Bea made a note that Hermia didn’t like Jamie’s fiancée. Perhaps she wouldn’t have liked anyone who married her childhood friend?
Oliver said, ‘You’re trying to tell us that Lord Fairley hasn’t the brains to murder Tomi, Harry and Nick in the ways we know they were killed?’
‘Jamie hasn’t that kind of mind.’ No hesitation. She smiled to herself. ‘He’s not a complicated sort of person. You’ll see for yourself, won’t you? I told him you’d want to meet him, and he says he’ll be in later on this afternoon if you want to pop over.’
Bea put a query mark by Jamie. ‘Next on the list is Gregor.’
She dropped her eyes. ‘I don’t know. He’s tricky Dicky, wily as a fox. His father’s Hungarian. He made a lot of money, though no one quite knows how. Gregor’s handsome, charm incarnate, chucks money around, has a beautiful house, gave his ex-wife an adequate divorce settlement and is still friends with her. Everyone’s good friends with Gregor; he won’t let you be otherwise.’
‘Does he dream of millions to come?’
Again she shut down on them. She shrugged. ‘Possibly. He’s got companies with offshore accounts, and they’ve got companies which have spawned yet more companies. He takes over this, sells that and buys Impressionist paintings. Some of his affairs are being investigated by the Fraud Squad, and yet he seems totally unconcerned, says they’re not even warm and will give up soon. If this were a three-card trick, I’d say Gregor did it. But it’s not a trick. It’s deliberate murder. And somehow I can’t see it.’
Oliver said, ‘He’s the one who could mop up a few extra million without feeling it?’
An indulgent smile. ‘Oh yes. Diamonds for the latest piece of arm candy, a yacht in the Med, more visits to the bankers in Saudi Arabia. He has the ambition to buy a football club some day. But murder? I suppose I can see him arranging for someone to have an accident, but . . . No, I still don’t see him knocking off old friends.’
‘But you want it to be him. Why?’
She stared into the distance. ‘It’s like that old party game. If you have five people in a balloon and have to lose one of them so that the rest of you survive, then who do you throw out? You’re right. My head says to vote for Gregor, even while my heart is saying he didn’t do it. He’s the only one who’s refused to see you, by the way. Now, I really must go.’
She made as if to rise, but Bea stopped her. ‘You’ve missed out Claudine.’
Hermia picked up her handbag. ‘It’s not her. She wouldn’t have the time to think up such things. She’s a practical, down-to-earth, deputy head of a secondary modern which always gets good Ofsted reports. Her long term, live-in relationship went sour last autumn, and she threw him out for getting drunk every night. She has someone else who seems a better match now, but I haven’t met him. She said she’d be at home after school for a couple of hours if you wanted to drop by. Now, I really must go.’
This time she made it to her feet. She looked a question at Chris, who nodded. He said, ‘I’m superglue, coming with you. I’m serious; I don’t want your money.’
She flashed a smile at him, waved goodbye to Bea, ignored Oliver, and swept out.
Bea’s phone rang, and she answered it.
‘Your son,’ said Miss Brook and put the call through.
Bea said, ‘Max? I rang earlier, but Nicole—’
‘It would be best if you didn’t bother her for a while. I ought to have gone up north to the constituency last night, but decided to stay down overnight to look after her, so I’m in a hurry to get away now. Nicole’s gone down with influenza, so we’ve got a nanny in to look after Pippin. Nicole needs bed rest and a quiet life. She asked me to phone you, to make it clear that she doesn’t want or need visitors for the time being.’
Bea felt as if she’d been stabbed to the heart. She couldn’t speak.
‘You do understand, Mother, don’t you?’
She cleared her throat. ‘Max, I thought I was helping. What about the shopping and cleaning . . . ? Why won’t you let me help?’ She wanted to wail and cry, but knew that would only annoy him more.
‘The nanny is properly trained and up to date with all the latest methods in child care. Her references are beyond reproach.’
‘Is Pippin going to be all right?’
He barked, ‘Of course he is.’
‘How long do you think it will be before I can come over?’
He clicked off his phone. She put her receiver down. She was going to cry. But no, not in front of Oliver, who must be going through his own version of hell at the way he’d been ignored by his best friend. Think about Oliver, and perhaps you won’t cry.
Oliver was sitting in his chair, hadn’t moved since Chris and Hermia walked past him and out of the room. His fingertips were together, one leg was casually draped over the other. His eyes were hooded.
Chris and Oliver had been friends at school. Chris had been the only one from Oliver’s past to keep in touch with him when he was thrown out by his adopted family. When Maggie had brought Oliver back home with her and he’d started working for the agency, Chris had drifted along, too. It was Chris who had introduced Oliver to the Health Club, which had made so much difference to his physical well-being.
On the other hand, Oliver had always been the steadying influence on the mercurial Chris’s life. They’d partied, and helped one another out in every way you could think of. Chris had had girlfriends, which Oliver hadn’t; at least, not to Bea’s knowledge. But Chris had never taken a girl seriously until now.
Five minutes ago Chris had walked past Oliver and out of the room without so much as a nod in his direction. Oliver must be feeling as if he’d been cut in two.
Bea got out a handkerchief, went to stand by the window, looking out. Blew her nose. How could Max have . . . ? He didn’t realize, of course, how much he’d hurt his mother. Of course he didn’t. And poor little Pippin . . .
Bea blew her nose again. Told herself to face up to it. Young people didn’t want grannies telling them how to manage their lives.
Please, Lord, keep an eye on them? Let this nanny be a good thing. It really doesn’t matter if they won’t take advice from me, so long as they get good advice from someone, so long as Pippin thrives.
A rustle of cloth. Oliver came to stand beside her, also looking out on to the garden. ‘The snow’s all gone and the sun’s come out.’
So they weren’t going to talk about Chris and Hermia. Nor about Max and Pippin.
She nodded, sniffing. ‘The leaves will soon be showing green. I really must try to get a walk in the park.’
‘I’ll come with you. That is, if Miss Brook doesn’t catch us first and tell us we can’t go out till we’ve eaten up all our greens.’
Bea managed to laugh. Used her handkerchief one last time. ‘I suppose we ought to look at the junk room, see what needs saving and what we can throw away. Otherwise, Maggie will have the builders in before we can turn round.’
They almost tiptoed up the stairs to the first floor. Once there, they looked at one another and laughed. Bea said, ‘I think I promised to ring a client back this morning. Do you think Miss Brook will haul me back down to deal with it?’
‘I was going to hav
e another look at Tomi’s laptop.’
They climbed the stairs to the top landing. The door to the crowded box room stood open, and someone – Maggie? – had already pulled out some cartons to see what they contained. Bea inspected the first one. ‘These were Hamilton’s. Early seventy-eight vinyl records. Do we junk them?’
‘I’ll sell them on eBay for you, if you want to get rid of them. Some of them may be collectors’ items. Do you think Hermia was being frank with us about her friends?’
‘No, I don’t think she was. Some things rang true; she likes and trusts Claudine. I think. When people look you in the eye like that and swear someone’s squeaky clean, I start wondering what magic tricks they’re up to. Did you think Hermia was sincere about Claudine?’
‘It sounded to me as if Claudine’s too much like Hermia for them to be close friends.’
‘Maybe they are just that. Hermia doesn’t approve of Lord Fairley’s very new fiancée, does she?’
‘There may be a touch of jealousy there. Even if she didn’t want him herself, she might not be best pleased that he’d chosen someone else.’
Oliver had obviously decided not to speak of Chris. He pulled another box out. ‘Railway lines?’
‘Oh!’ Bea smiled, remembering. ‘That’s Max’s toy train set. There should be three boxes of it. He was mad keen on it for a couple of years and ran it all over the floor up here. I’ll ask him what he wants done with it.’
‘Next, two boxes of old paperbacks from the fifties, sixties, seventies. I wouldn’t mind dipping into those some time.’
‘Then you’ll have to build yourself some shelves.’ She fingered some, thinking back to the days when she was married to Piers, straight from school. Long before she met Hamilton. ‘When we were young, we got planks of wood and some bricks from a builders’ yard and made shelves that way for all our books . . . For everything, in fact. If you want to keep these books, we’d better get some shelving built into the new room for you.’
‘What did you think of the banker, Duncan?’
‘He’s all right. Looks like a baby, but has a sharp mind. He seemed fond of Julian and genuinely distressed about Tomi. He wasn’t really bothered about Harry and Nick, even though he was shocked by their deaths. He likes everything in its proper place, and this affair is upsetting to one of his temperament.’
‘Old curtains.’ Oliver opened another box. ‘Any good? Oh, probably not.’
‘Moths or mice?’
‘Broken glass. Someone put some photographs on top of the curtains, and then someone else has put a box of books on top of them and smashed the glass.’
‘Oh dear. That was probably me. Hamilton took down some old photos of his aunts – the ones who brought him up after his parents died – because the frame had come unglued. He intended to have them reframed, but never bothered.’
Oliver tipped the broken glass to one side, so that Bea could retrieve the photographs from what had once been a double frame. Two black and white pictures of women of a certain age, with kind but firm expressions. Old-fashioned clothes and hairstyles.
She said, ‘These two sisters founded and ran the agency. They left it to Hamilton, who hadn’t intended to take it on, but did. Then I came along, worked with him in it, and took it on when he died. I never knew them. A pity.’
Oliver looked over her shoulder. ‘We could have the photos repaired and blown up. We could get them properly framed – I know someone who does that – and hang them downstairs in the agency rooms, together with a picture of you. Our clients would like the idea that the agency carries on through the years, guided by people of integrity. Maggie’s picture will hang there one day, too. Maybe mine, as well?’
She was going to say his photo didn’t belong there because he was going to make his name in the academic world, but stopped herself just in time. Oliver needed to belong somewhere, and he had, after all, done as much as anyone to get the agency back on its feet after Hamilton’s death.
‘Of course. And in due course of time, when you’re hobnobbing with the great and good of this world, I’ll ask Piers to paint you, and we’ll put that picture up by Hamilton’s in the sitting room.’
He coloured up, but said, ‘Nonsense. You can’t discriminate like that. What about Maggie? She’d have my guts for garters if I were painted and not her.’
She managed to laugh. ‘Yes, of course. You’re right. Can you get these photos done for me, please? And now –’ she looked at her watch – ‘we’d better catch something to eat, shove something in the oven for tonight’s supper, and be on our way, if we’re going to see Lord Fairley today.’
Friday afternoon
Claire put the baby down to sleep. His tummy was full. He’d burped up his wind. He squirmed, then relaxed. His hands opened, slowly, letting go of consciousness.
Claire tucked him in. She could hear Nicole whining and coughing in her bedroom. Nicole was going down with a nasty dose of flu, if Claire knew anything about it. Nicole really oughtn’t to be looking after a baby when she was infectious, but Claire couldn’t help because she was otherwise engaged this weekend, wasn’t she?
THIRTEEN
Friday afternoon
Estate agents’ eyes glisten when a Chelsea house – however small – comes on the market. Lord Fairley’s house was early Victorian, and though not actually on the river, was a mere hundred yards away from it down a quiet street. Dark red brick, symmetrical large windows, three stories, idiosyncratic roofline. It was the kind of house Bea imagined Oscar Wilde might have lived in, or Macauley, or Dickens. It reminded her of carriages, ladies who wore crinolines, butlers in frock coats, nursery maids in caps, and parlour maids in black.
Bea heaved on the doorbell. It was one of those that you pulled rather than pressed. A satisfactory clamour arose inside the house.
A tall man opened the door; no butler in sight. Well, who could afford a butler nowadays? Or a parlour maid, come to think of it.
‘Lord Fairley? I’m Bea Abbot, and this is my son Oliver. Hermia suggested we call.’
‘Come in, come in.’ The hall was too dark for them to see him properly, but he led the way to a room at the back of the house, which looked on to a small garden, bounded by ancient brick walls. The light was better here.
Jamie, Lord Fairley was well over six foot. Not athletic; no. String-bean thin, light-brown hair with a tendency to curl, puppy-dog brown eyes and a self-deprecating smile. Excellent clothes of the casual variety. A man who enjoyed life. He had none of Hermia’s drive, but was probably a more relaxed companion. Less brains, but more good humour?
Immense charm. Bea thought that Chris had made her immune to a charming manner, but at first sight she liked Lord Fairley because he seemed to like her.
‘Forgive the disarray. Bachelor quarters, you know.’ Smiling, he gestured them to comfortable old armchairs, upholstered in leather which had not been treated with the proper care, and so were cracking here and there. The room had probably been furnished by his parents or grandparents, and not much changed since. The walls and ceiling had once been painted cream, but the paint had darkened with age; or possibly with nicotine from cigarette and cigar smoke? Lord Fairley’s fingers were not stained with tobacco, so presumably he didn’t indulge.
The pictures on the walls were Baxter prints – rather good ones at that – with a couple of framed silhouettes of Victorian ancestors on either side of the fireplace. The silver tray on the mahogany dresser could have done with a polish, and the windows needed cleaning.
Bea gained an impression of someone who liked to be comfortable, but wasn’t going to polish silver or windows himself. Perhaps his fiancée would remedy this?
‘You’re here about Nick’s death.’ He shook his head to indicate how upset he was about it. ‘Poor old Nick. I’ll miss him. We played golf once a month, regular as clockwork.’
‘It’s not just Nick’s death that’s important. Harry’s and Tomi’s are too.’
He leaned forward in his chair
, eager for them to share his viewpoint. ‘Surely it’s obvious Harry killed Tomi, and then killed himself? Nick, now. That was a bit of a jolt.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘Sorry. Late night. Celebrating.’
‘Hermia told us you’d got engaged. Congratulations.’
He nodded, smiling, his eyes straying to the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, which would probably fetch a good price at auction, but which had stopped at noon. ‘Mustn’t be late. She’s working, or I’d introduce you. I’m picking her up and taking her down to see Mother this weekend. You don’t really think someone’s bumping us off one by one, do you?’
Bea said, ‘All three victims had barbiturates in their stomachs before they were killed. Doesn’t that make you think?’
‘Sleeping pills, you mean?’ He rubbed his chin, and then the back of his neck. ‘I’ve never had any truck with them. I hit the pillow and that’s it. Out like a light.’ He didn’t appear to have anything to add to that, but waited to see what they had to say next.
Bea glanced at Oliver, who seemed not to want to help with the questioning.
‘Lord Fairley, I wonder—’
‘Jamie, please. When people say “Lord Fairley” I look round for my father. Dead now, of course.’
‘Jamie, then. May I ask if the lottery money is going to make a big difference to you?’
A broad grin. ‘Apart from nudging me into proposing to the sweetest little girl in the whole world, you mean? Well, now. Let me think. I won’t have to work so hard, that’s for sure. But more than that? Well, when I was younger I had the odd ambition, but life – as they say – puts paid to one’s wilder dreams. I used to think how splendid it would be to rent a grouse moor for the shooting, or perhaps lay out a golf course on the far side of the estate. My father had plans to reinstate the lake in front of the house, which has got silted up over the years. I’m not sure I’d bother, though I’m looking forward to having some days out with the guns in the autumn.
‘I expect my future wife will have her own ideas. I said to her, she can have a free hand at the Manor once my Mother’s gone, but we’d better hold back till then. Mother has the whole of the ground floor at present, the first floor’s let to a couple who work in the City, and I live in the attics. I don’t know how Mother will take it if I ask her to leave. She can be a bit sharp, you know.’
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