She had often thought of “the funny little thing” he had mentioned at lunch the last time they’d met, a woman with a peculiar name. The more Natalie thought about her, the more she remembered. He called her Polo and she lived near Kensal Green Cemetery. It might be a good idea to hunt this woman down. An interview with Fiona Harrington was a must and maybe another with Natalie’s own predecessor. She knew very well that hadn’t been Jeff’s ex-wife but a woman called-she tried for a while to remember her name. It would come back to her. Jeff had talked of her frequently enough, and mostly with bitterness, while he and she were together.
A restaurateur? A doctor? The chief executive of some agency or charity? She’d let her memories of Jeff’s references to this woman and the few sentences he’d spoken about “Polo” lie at the back of her mind. There was no hurry. One day soon she’d delve down into the jumble in there and maybe some interesting things would come to the surface.
Chapter 29
HOUSE-TO-HOUSE inquiries were conducted in the neighborhood surrounding the spot where Eileen Dring had died. Officers called at the Wilsons’ but left as soon as they discovered who Laf was. He’d already told them of his trip to the theater on Saturday night with his wife and their friend from next door, had sent in his report by Sunday evening, as soon as he heard about Eileen’s death on the radio. In it he described how he and Sonovia and Minty had seen the old woman alive, well and awake at five minutes to one on Sunday morning. He talked in more detail to the superintendent in charge of the case, but he said nothing about Minty’s curious behavior in the tube on the way home, her hallucinations and talking to herself. After all, as he said to Sonovia later, she was a friend and you didn’t say things about a friend behind her back. You didn’t, for instance, say she’d had too much to drink.
Minty was at work the first time they called. Sonovia had told them over and over that she would be, but they still called. Getting no answer, they went to the next house, and Gertrude Pierce came to the door. As soon as they told her who they were and what they wanted she called her brother. “Dickie, there’s a woman been murdered at the end of the street.”
Mr. Kroot appeared, hobbling on two sticks. His already pale face drained of color. He had to sit down. Gertrude Pierce gave him something to inhale and something else to swallow for his angina and the police officers wondered if he was going to drop dead in front of them. But after a minute or two he rallied. “You want to put that woman next door through the third degree,” he said in his wavering old voice. “She’s a funny one. Her and her auntie, they’ve not spoken a word to me for twenty years.”
“That’s right, Dickie,” said his sister. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d murdered me.”
Jims had taken a taxi up to Park Lane. There he sought out prestigious West End estate agents, handed them the keys to the Abbey Gardens Mansions flat and those to Fredington Crucis House, and requested them to sell both properties. His agent would handle everything. He was going abroad for an indefinite time.
This idea for his future had come into his head on the spur of the moment. In fact, he had no plans and could hardly see beyond the present. He strolled down to Hyde Park Corner and decided to return to Westminster, as he had read MPs living in north London used to do, by walking on grass. Once you could have come all the way from Bayswater through Hyde Park, Green Park, and St. James’s Park, and barely set foot on stone or tarmac. This was no longer quite possible but still he managed to walk on turf and under trees as far as the palace and, having crossed a couple of wide thoroughfares, was once again in a cool and leafy paradise. No one recognized him, no one stared. He thought about never having to set eyes on Zillah again. He thought about the very large sums of money that would accrue to him through the sale of his houses, something in the region of £3 million. Jims wasn’t in need of the money, he had plenty, but it was nice to know it was there and more of it coming in.
After a while he set foot on the bridge that spans the lake and, pausing in the middle, looked from Buckingham Palace on his right to Whitehall, Horse Guards, and the Foreign Office on his left. It hadn’t changed much in a hundred and fifty years, apart from the addition of the London Eye, the great wheel that rolled across the sky behind Downing Street, silver and shining, all spokes and capsules like big glass beads. The sunlight glittered on the water, the weeping trees made deep shadows, swans glided under the bridge, and the pelicans gathered on their island. But the idea of leaving had begun to take hold. He would go abroad. It might be years before he returned. How long before he saw that view again?
On the move once more, he recalled a story he’d heard about a chamberlain at some Oriental court who, inadvertently breaking wind in the presence of the potentate, was so stricken with shame that he fled immediately and wandered the earth for seven years. Jims, however, felt not in the least ashamed, he simply wanted to avoid the argument, recriminations, inquests, speculation, and need to defend himself. “Must,” said the first Queen Elizabeth, “is not a word to use to princes.” Well, “why” and “explain” and “justify” were not words to be used to him. He’d go tonight. The car, of course, must be left for his agent to garage somewhere or sell. He didn’t want to be encumbered by it. The same applied to his clothes. It occurred to him that if he ever wore a suit again it would be purely for the pleasure of admiring the look of himself in the mirror. But really he preferred his appearance to be admired by someone else.
Morocco, he thought, he’d always wanted to go there and for some reason never had. New Orleans, Santiago, Oslo, Apia-all places he hadn’t yet been to. Politics had enslaved him, kept him to the grindstone, stolen all his time. It was over now. As he entered Great College Street from the northern end, Big Ben was striking five. He had never before noticed how sonorous and deep-throated were its chimes and how forbidding. The porter who had done their shopping was standing behind the desk.
“Is Mrs. Melcombe-Smith back yet?” He thought this a cunning way of phrasing it.
The porter said she’d just gone out again. To take “Master Jordan” to an appointment in Harley Street, he thought. Relieved, Jims thanked him. Was there anywhere else in the world where a child of three would still be referred to in these terms except this tiny spot of England, London, Westminster, the environs of Parliament? Pity, really. He liked feudal ways and would soon be leaving even their vestiges behind.
Not quite convinced, he entered the flat cautiously and, finding it as empty as he’d hoped, threw essentials into an overnight bag along with his passport. The estate agent had promised a valuation of the place by the following afternoon. His garage, which had his car keys, would pick up the car at much the same time. They could get on with it, he wouldn’t be here. Quietly, he went down by the stairs and out into the street by the car park. There he hailed a taxi and asked the delighted driver to take him to Heathrow. The first flight going somewhere he’d never been he would take.
As he sat back in the cab, all his worries, his real anguish at hopes blighted and ambition wrecked, vanished like smoke in the wind. At first he couldn’t define the source of his sudden surge of happiness and then, all at once, he could. It was called freedom.