‘Ma’am?’
‘Not McGinty. You’re thinking of the nursery rhyme. Thank you so much, Hugh.’
This was a dismissal, and he knew it. He was astonished.
‘Ma’am.’ Sir Hugh bowed and left.
Afterwards, the Queen smiled to herself. His grey whiskers had quivered with indignation at the very idea of a lowly secretary taking on such a valuable role in the Private Office. As she had known they would.
It was inevitable that the men in moustaches would provide acute resistance to a girl with an Irish name, a typist, no less, taking her place alongside them. But the Queen needed an ally, someone outside the close-knit institutional world she had inherited from her father. She sensed this morning, looking into those clever, frank hazel eyes, that she had found one.
Hence her forcefulness with Sir Hugh just now, which was rare. Her private secretary wasn’t going to make Joan’s life easy, but he would at least give her a chance, because he had no choice. The rest would be up to her.
Chapter 7
Inspector Darbishire made his way to the interview room at a police station in Southend. After a nationwide search lasting two weeks, Beryl White had finally been tracked down by a sergeant working for the Vice Unit. DS Victor Willis had discovered the missing escort at the home of her brother and his family. She refused to return to London, so Darbishire and Woolgar travelled to Essex while Willis stayed with her to ensure she didn’t do a flit.
‘Nice work, Sergeant,’ Darbishire acknowledged, as the man waited at the door to greet them.
Willis gave a friendly smile. He had a record of helping out with reluctant witnesses. His slick good looks and a kindly manner seemed to have a special effect on women of ill repute.
‘Would you like me to sit in with you, sir?’ he asked, eyeing Woolgar, who lurked further down the corridor.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Darbishire assured him, although he briefly wondered what it would be like to employ Willis’s sharp wits and good looks, instead of Woolgar’s bulk and lively imagination. ‘Anything I should know? What frame of mind is she in?’
‘I told her she could have the duty solicitor if she wanted, sir, but she declined.’
Darbishire nodded. Silly girl – but he wasn’t complaining. It was easier for him if there was no lawyer to interfere with his line of questioning. Given the approach he planned to take today, it helped a lot. ‘Still being difficult, is she?’
‘Oh no, sir. She just wants it over with. I told her as long as she cooperates and tells us everything she knows, she’ll be all right. She should be a good girl. I gave her a decent talking-to.’
Darbishire wasn’t entirely happy with this. It should have been a job for the duty solicitor she didn’t want – but he assumed Willis had done his best. He called Woolgar over and they went in, leaving Willis to make his way home.
Beryl White was precisely what you would expect a high-class escort to be, that is, young and beautiful, with skin like silk and a nose like something off a Greek sculpture, perfectly coiffed platinum-blonde hair and a buttoned-up dress fitted a size too tight, to show off her assets. The Raffles agency advertised its services as offering ‘pleasing feminine company for uplifting conversation with the discerning gentleman’. It was quite plain that it wasn’t chiefly conversation that got uplifted in her company. But perhaps she was good at that, too.
As Darbishire sat down opposite her, he noticed the frequent glances she gave DS Woolgar from under those long eyelashes of hers. Once again, he managed to fill the room with his looming presence, though he had positioned himself behind his boss, near the door. She seemed intimidated, but if she was afraid of what Darbishire thought she was afraid of, it might help for her to know that the police could also be a force to be reckoned with.
‘So, Miss White—’
‘Call me Beryl. Everyone does. Except . . . my gentlemen.’
‘What do they call you?’
Beryl slid her eyes to meet Darbishire’s. ‘Whatever they like.’
He held her gaze. He was aware that he was about to do the same, in a way.
‘With all due respect, I prefer Miss White.’
‘“With all due respect,”’ she echoed, raising one sculpted eyebrow. ‘May I?’ She fished a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag and lit one, eyeing Woolgar once again through the smoke.
Darbishire got down to business.
‘You’ve been away from London for some time, Miss White. Would you like to explain why?’
‘I needed some sea air.’
‘And why was that?’
She shrugged and glanced around the little room. ‘Can’t a girl need a bit of a break sometimes?’ Then, catching his stern expression, she stared down at the table between them. ‘I lost a good friend,’ she added, subdued.
‘You made yourself very hard to find. You must have known we were looking for you.’
She shook her head adamantly. ‘I had no idea. My brother’s family don’t get the papers. It was just a little break, that’s all. I’ve got nothing to hide.’
We’ll see, Darbishire thought.
‘Tell me what happened the day of the thirty-first. You were due to see Dino Perez, as arranged by the agency. He’d asked for you specifically, the day before.’
‘Not specifically, no,’ she corrected him. ‘And it was two days before, not one. He was out of town, but he said he’d like company when he got back. His last companion was . . . otherwise engaged. I suppose I was closest to what he wanted.’
‘Which was?’
‘A princess.’
She looked at him archly and let the words hang in the air. The way she carried herself, her bone structure, the way her blonde hair caught the light . . . He could see why the agency picked her.
‘Any princess in particular?’
‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘A blonde.’
‘What happened next?’
Beryl started off composed. ‘I put the date in my diary. But the next day I woke up with the most god-awful headache. A real blinder. I could hardly see.’ Her eyes briefly widened, as if she was reliving it. ‘Once it comes it stays for a day or two and I’m out of it, and afterwards I’m good for nothing. So I told Gina, God bless her, and she said she’d step in for me. And she did, the next day.’ She paused, lips trembling. ‘I’ll blame myself forever.’
She glanced away with a shuddering breath. Her act was touching, but slightly over-rehearsed, in Darbishire’s opinion.
‘Why ask Gina yourself?’ he asked. ‘Why not get the agency to sort something out?’
Beryl shrugged. ‘Once you say yes to a job, it’s up to you to get it done. Besides, I knew Gina would do it. She owes me. Owed me.’ Her long eyelashes brushed her pretty cheeks with tears.
He came in gently for the kill. Having spoken to the agency, he knew about the request. ‘There’s something I don’t understand, Miss White. Why ask Gina to stand in for you, if Mr Perez wanted a blonde?’
A slight frown formed between Beryl’s eyebrows, and for an instant she looked a bit rattled.
‘What d’you mean?’ she asked.
‘Gina was normally a brunette, wasn’t she? She is in all her photographs. She had very recently dyed her hair – to become a blonde, like you, yes?’
Beryl took a moment to restore her composure. ‘She was dark, yes, but she didn’t want to be. She’d seen the sort of clients I got. She’d been interested in changing her look anyway.’ With a steady gaze, she added, ‘Gentlemen prefer blondes, you know.’
Darbishire didn’t, personally. His wife’s hair was jet black before the grey started to appear. But then, he didn’t think of himself as a gentleman, either. He moved on.