‘Ignore me.’
‘No! What do you mean?’
It was a detail, but he sensed he’d get nothing out of her if he kept on avoiding her questions. And this one was at least easy to answer. He held up his hands. ‘Your new title may be a different thing, but one wouldn’t know. You look like a typist, you go to every length to be treated as one, and then you’re angry when you are.’
‘No, I don’t!’
‘You wear dowdy serge suits and sensible shoes.’ He’d been brooding on this for a while. ‘You have a typewriter on your desk, for God’s sake! You told me so yourself. You type up memos and do the filing. You take work from the real secretaries and are surprised when they treat you with suspicion. No wonder they’re confused. I would be.’
‘I . . . I’m just . . .’ Joan struggled for words, and he saw how white-faced she was again. She was still in physical pain, which he’d forgotten momentarily, and he suddenly felt an absolute heel.
‘Anyway, that’s beside the point,’ he amended. ‘The fact is, you work with classified information, and you’re currently running around London in fancy dress, and going to highly sensitive places. Who are you doing it for? And who—’ he was relieved to come back to the nub of the issue at last ‘—is trying to kill you?’
Joan looked dazed.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, quiet again. She shook her head. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
Finally. At least they could have a proper conversation.
‘What were you doing at the Artemis Club?’ he asked more gently.
She gave him a sardonic smile. ‘If I was doing something I shouldn’t, I couldn’t possibly admit it.’
Touché.
‘Who are you working for?’
She raised an eyebrow, gathering her forces. ‘Well, officially it’s the Queen.’
He waved her response away. ‘Yes, we know that, but who really? Who asked you to go to the club?’
Joan smiled. ‘You have to trust me. There’s only so much I can say.’
Hector reluctantly admired her loyalty. Whoever she was protecting, it was someone important. Someone in a hole.
‘The part about where someone tried to kill you . . .’ he reminded her. ‘You really do have to trust me a little too.’
She regarded him for a long time, thinking.
‘All right,’ she said at last, ‘there’s an individual at the palace who’s concerned about what happened on the night of the Chelsea murders. I was trying to find out what the staff at the Artemis knew, but it didn’t amount to much.’
‘You mean what they knew about the movements of the suspects?’
‘Yes.’
‘And another individual?’ he suggested. It was starting to make sense now.
‘I can’t say.’ Her frank stare was a silent admission.
Hector sighed. Was that all? ‘It doesn’t explain why—’
‘I know!’ she said, interrupting him. ‘I mean, I didn’t find out anything more than you must already be aware of. The staff were bandying it about pretty freely. Why go for me the next day? Why not any of them? I assume they haven’t been threatened?’
‘Not to my knowledge, no,’ Hector agreed. ‘There must be something else.’
Joan put a hand over her eyes. He was about to ask her another question, but she motioned him away. It wasn’t rude this time: he could tell she was thinking. So he fussed around her quietly, removing the soup tray and straightening her blankets. He was as invested in her progress as she was.
Meanwhile, it was a relief to know that at least one of the young Queen’s courtiers was looking out for Her Majesty’s best interests. She was right about him working for MI5. It would make his own job a bit more difficult if there was to be interference from the palace, but Hector had been deeply worried for some time about a huge potential royal scandal and it did not bode well that nobody in the Queen’s close circle seemed to be aware of it. Now he knew better. Joan might not admit who it was, but Hector had a couple of likely candidates in mind.
He dumped the tray in the kitchen. On his return, Joan looked up and said, ‘There was one thing. I saw Tony.’
‘Radnor-Milne?’
‘Yes, in a corridor at the top of the club. I didn’t think much of it. He’s a member of the Artemis, I assume, so I wasn’t surprised to see him – just worried that he’d recognise me.’
‘And did he?’
‘I wasn’t sure, but I think he did. That must have been a bit of a surprise.’
‘No doubt,’ Hector agreed. ‘Who was he with?’
Joan cocked her head. ‘That’s the interesting thing. I paid no attention at the time. I was focusing on Tony. But it was the Duke of Maidstone.’
‘That idiot?’ Hector was astonished – not that the duke would be there, but that Joan seeing him there could have had such consequences. ‘How d’you know him?’
‘I don’t, really,’ Joan said. ‘I happened to meet him a couple of times in the war, because we used the dower house of his home as accommodation when I was training for . . . something I was doing at the time.’
That would have been her work at Trent Park, Hector surmised. She didn’t know he knew about that, but he had requisitioned her file from the palace after he recognised her from Longmeadow Hall. He was surprised they had employed her after that blot on her copybook, but Sir Hugh was obviously more liberal and forgiving than his stiff military bearing suggested.
Hector didn’t press for confirmation about Trent Park. He liked Joan’s tendency to give away no more than was strictly necessary – even now, with her life in danger. He liked a lot about Miss Joan McGraw, he admitted ruefully to himself. He would sleep well at last tonight, knowing she was here, safe, and would start worrying as soon as she left Dolphin Square again, knowing that she wasn’t.
‘You’re certain it was Maidstone?’ he asked. ‘The light would have been dim.’
‘It was, but I am,’ she said.
‘They were in private conversation?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did they react when they saw you?’
‘Only Tony really looked at me. He seemed, confused. I turned away quickly and didn’t see what he did afterwards.’
‘Do you have any idea what they were talking about?’
‘Absolutely none. Honestly.’
He believed her.
‘Well, if you or your mysterious partner in crime come up with any conclusions, let me know.’
She nodded.
‘I take it you’ll be going to the office tomorrow,’ he added.
‘Of course. I must.’
He sighed. ‘I’ll order you a taxi. Only get in if the driver mentions my name.’
This time, she agreed without creating difficulties.
Chapter 45
The Joan McGraw who got into the taxi the following morning did not resemble the one who had come home from the palace the week before in several ways. First, her arm was in a sling, which was perhaps the most obvious thing, but also, her lipstick was a stronger shade. Her hair was styled loose in careful waves; soon she would have it cut in a more flattering style. Her shoes were patent courts with a noticeable heel. The skirt suit she wore was her Sunday best. As soon as she could commission her aunt to make a couple more, in the style of Pierre Balmain, she would, and possibly some belted dresses to show off her waist . . .
Joan had always thought of women at work who dressed to impress as flirts. However, she had also seen, without really paying attention, that the women who reached senior positions in the Wrens were happy to stand out from the other ranks. She liked it when they did; she had just never thought of herself as one of them. But Hector was right. How much more senior did you get than ‘Assistant Private Secretary to Her Majesty the Queen’, as she had said to him so stuffily yesterday? It might make her uncomfortable, but she’d better get used to it.