‘The thing is, it’s going to be all hands to the pumps until we find your replacement. Fiona’s replacement, I should say. We have a particularly intense few months ahead. Lots of diplomatic visits abroad. Denmark is . . . Denmark. Always good to be friends with the Scandinavians. And they’re related, of course.’
‘I’m sorry, who are?’
‘Her Majesty and their royal family. So is the duke. That always helps. But then we have the trip to Canada and America coming up, and that must absolutely not go wrong. Canada is a jewel in the Commonwealth crown. Her Majesty already knows the country and is fond of it. And the United States . . . I need hardly say . . . after Suez . . .’
‘I understand,’ Joan said.
Sir Hugh looked sceptical. ‘Washington’s reaction to the intervention in Egypt was alarmingly hostile. They threatened our economic stability.’
‘I know,’ Joan said. ‘It must have come as a shock to Mr Eden, after the close relationship during the war.’
‘It did, rather. He had overplayed his hand.’
‘And I suppose they’re still angry about Burgess and Maclean.’
Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean were British diplomats who had suddenly fled to Moscow in 1951, provoking a national scandal. Both had worked in Washington on sensitive issues while reporting to the Foreign Office and – as it turned out – the KGB. Too late, it had been discovered that they had been pouring secrets into Russian ears for years.
Sir Hugh gave Joan an appraising glance through his spectacles. She sensed that transatlantic political tensions hadn’t been Fiona’s strong point.
‘Anyway, there are bridges to rebuild,’ he acknowledged. ‘And Her Majesty is Mr Macmillan’s secret weapon. To be deployed with deadly accuracy and devastating effect. She must dazzle.’
‘Do they want to be dazzled?’
‘In my experience, everybody does. A few inverted snobs think they don’t, but they end up being the most dazzled of all. We have the advantage that she is an attractive young woman. And a dutiful one. The Queen may lack the education of her courtiers, but her instincts are good.’
Yes, they are, Joan thought. Possibly better than yours. She said nothing.
‘She seems to like you, so I imagine you’ll spend plenty of time in her company when we get back. If any issues arise, I want you to bring them to me directly. May I have your assurance on that?’
‘Absolutely,’ Joan lied.
‘Excellent. Good luck. And let me know if there are any problems with Dolphin Square meanwhile. Her Majesty wouldn’t have raised the issue if she didn’t want it solved, so I’ll assume you’ll say yes? You can move in at the weekend.’
‘Dolphin Square?’ Joan asked.
Sir Hugh frowned. ‘Didn’t I say? Your new address. Large block of flats near the river. It’s several blocks, in fact. A few MPs use it as their London pad. My aunt used to live there for a while. It’s perfectly respectable, and above all, safe. Ah, Dilys. Yes?’
His secretary had arrived to announce that his next visitor was waiting to see him.
Back at her desk, Joan wondered if Sir Hugh thought he had just bought her complicity with the offer of a posh address. He certainly wanted to know what she – and Her Majesty – were up to. But Joan didn’t really blame him for that. If she had been in charge of the Private Office, she’d have wanted to know too.
If the private secretary was working against the Crown, he was covering his tracks extremely well. It was hard to imagine sounding more dedicated to supporting it. But equally, that meant he understood what the stakes were. If he did want to undermine the Queen, he’d know exactly how to do it.
Could he be in the pay of a foreign state? Joan wondered. Had the Soviets managed to recruit him in the thirties, like Burgess and Maclean? Surrounded by Georgian architecture and antiques, it was hard to imagine anyone more British. But, if they wanted a spy, wasn’t that precisely the sort of person they would pick?
Chapter 12
Back in London after his brief trip to Essex, Inspector Darbishire was happy to be on home turf again. It was accidental that Cresswell Place happened to be so close to where he lived with his wife and daughters. However, it had turned out to be quite useful in this case because he was still trying to speak to a couple of key witnesses, and they were turning out to be stubbornly difficult to get hold of, except by telephone in one case, which had thrown up more problems than it solved.
They were never in during working hours, so he had taken to popping round to their houses in the mews first thing in the morning, or after tea, to see if he could go over their statements. Still no joy. Now it was nearly ten o’clock at night and every self-respecting Londoner – those that didn’t go gadding about in gentlemen’s clubs, or serve the ones who did – was on his way to bed. Would Mrs Gregson from number 23 be at home? Darbishire was increasingly curious to find out.
He was still working on the theory that the murdered couple were lured to their deaths because of something in Mr Perez’s murky business dealings. Darbishire and his men had interviewed all Miss White and Miss Fonteyn’s recent clients, who were a motley selection of financiers and playboys, expatriates and industrialists. In Miss Fonteyn’s case, there was even a lovesick poet who couldn’t afford her, like something out of the opera. Most were acutely embarrassed to be questioned, but none looked the type to garrotte a man, or had any discernible reason to do so. Perez, on the other hand . . . Perez was travelling on forged documents and Darbishire was still waiting for information about where they came from. There lay his answers, he felt sure.
The why of the murders would surface any minute; the how they already knew. But the exact when continued to elude him – and how it was done without anyone else in the street noticing. The answer surely lay with Mrs Gregson, the key witness, who lived almost directly opposite the dean’s house. She must have made a mistake about who went in and out, missing the murderers entirely, but she swore blind at the time that she was completely accurate.
Mrs Gregson was a young mother who had been nursing a restive baby at her living room window that night, and was probably sleep-deprived. She spoke to a couple of detective sergeants from his team the day after the bodies were discovered. She had a remarkable memory for timings, and claimed it was because she was desperate to get the tot to nod off, and kept looking at the clock.
Darbishire knew she’d got the arrival and departure of the Artemis Club crowd right because the times were corroborated by the cab driver who’d brought them to Cresswell Place and two others who’d picked the guests up later. There would be no shame in admitting she got something else wrong – but something odd was happening. He needed to sort it out.
Unlike its pastel neighbours, Mrs Gregson’s house at number 23 formed part of a short row of houses in the Arts and Crafts style. The top half was hung with terracotta tiles that gave it airs and graces beyond its station, in Darbishire’s opinion, as if it thought it was a cottage in Tunbridge Wells. He knocked at the door. A young man answered, whom Darbishire had met before. He was thin, pasty-faced and nervous. Or, not nervous so much as wary. There was a difference.
‘Ah, Mr Gregson?’ The young man nodded. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you at this late hour. Is your wife back?’
‘Back?’ The man blinked.
‘Only, you said last Monday she’d gone to her mother’s. Because of the stress. Quite understandable. But I found the telephone number for the address you gave me in Shropshire – her parents live a long way away, don’t they? – and when I rang, they said she’d gone out for a walk with her little girl. She was very helpful when she rang back. She confirmed everything she’d told us before. But I’m confused. I think we must have got crossed wires somewhere.’