‘Surely you could say,’ Fitzgerald was gazing sadly at an empty bottle, ‘that the dismemberment of the corpse could have been part of some secret society ritual, some private kind of initiation rite?’
‘I don’t recall seeing reports that the Elbe and the Rhine are occasionally blocked to traffic owing to the prevalence of headless corpses,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Even the Lorelei weren’t up to that.’
The Powerscourt cat had woken up and padded hopefully towards William Burke and his cigar smoke.
‘Good Lord, Francis. Does this animal like cigars? She must be very advanced.’ Burke looked at his new friend with astonishment.
‘I’m afraid she does, William.’ Lady Lucy smiled at her brother-in-law. ‘But her favourite place in the house is the cupboard where all the children’s clothes are kept. We’re going to have to make it catproof.’
Powerscourt had abandoned his fireplace and was walking restlessly up and down the room, his mind far away.
‘This is what I think we should do. I have to say I am not very sure of any of it. Johnny, I think you should go to Berlin. Didn’t the young Harrison go to university there, William?’
‘He did indeed,’ said Burke, ‘the Friedrich Wilhelm University, the city’s finest, they say.’
‘You want me to find out about secret societies, I presume, Francis?’ Johnny Fitzgerald was looking very serious now.
‘How is your German, Johnny?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘Well, I was once more or less fluent in German. I expect it’ll come back. But I’m not going to tell them that,’ his friend replied with a grin.
‘They drink an awful lot of beer and schnapps and things over there,’ said Lady Lucy with a smile. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to cope?’
‘I expect I’ll manage,’ said Fitzgerald ‘Maybe I need to get into practice, though, Lady Lucy. Would you be having any more of this Sancerre? All in the line of duty now, you understand.’
Powerscourt turned to the smoke-wreathed figure of William Burke.
‘William, can I ask you to make more detailed inquiries about Harrison’s Bank? The nature of their business, the shape of their finances, anything that could give us a clue as to what the conspiracy might be. Is there any chance that you could smuggle a man inside, a clerk or somebody like that? Somebody who could provide real inside information?’
‘It would be risky, I think.’ Burke inspected his cigar. ‘They are very tight, these German houses. They employ their own fellow countrymen whenever they can. And if it were found out, my own reputation would be floating in the river too.’
‘For myself,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I am going to continue my investigations into the old man’s activities at Blackwater. I cannot get that lake and those statues out of my head. Somewhere, somehow, I am certain the old man hid some of his papers down there. But there are so many clues, Hercules, Aeneas, river gods, Diana, Isis, the whole place is like a gigantic puzzle. I am going to begin in the National Gallery.’
‘Why the National Gallery?’ asked Lady Lucy, remembering a previous visit there with her husband and hoping she might accompany him this time.
‘It’s the layout of those temples. I’m sure the man who built the mythical garden had been looking at paintings by Poussin, or Claude, maybe even both. Something in the paintings may give us a clue.’
‘Francis.’ Johnny Fitzgerald was looking very sombre. ‘I shall set out for Berlin straight away. I may have to be there for some time. And I make you a prediction.’ He looked at all three of them in turn as though he had second sight rather than a second bottle. ‘I bet you that by the time I come back, there will be one fewer Harrison in this world. Another one will have gone to meet his maker in mysterious circumstances. But I’m not sure I could tell which one.’
Richard Martin was waiting for Sophie Williams in the coffee shop opposite Liverpool Street station. It was half-past five in the afternoon and the place would be closing soon. Outside the fog was getting thicker. It was ebb tide in the City of London. The army of occupation that had marched in that morning, as it did every morning, was in retreat now, slightly more cheerful as the foot-soldiers hurried towards the trains and the buses that would take them home.
Richard loved the coffee shops. He loved their history, the fact that so many of the great institutions of finance had their origins in places like this, the Jonathan’s and Garroway’s of a hundred and fifty years before that had given birth to Lloyd’s and the Royal Exchange and the Stock Exchange itself. Coffee from the East Indies had lubricated, oiled, stimulated the growth of the City of London.
A gust of wind and slivers of fog rushed through the door, quickly followed by Sophie.
‘Richard, oh Richard, I am so sorry I’m late.’
Richard Martin would have waited for the rest of his life for Sophie. In his darker moments he feared he might have to.
‘Don’t worry, Sophie, let me get you some coffee. You look cold.’
‘I’m angry rather than cold,’ she said, peeling off her gloves and laying them on the table. ‘I’ve had that meeting with the headmistress.’
‘And what did she say?’
Sophie paused while a black-coated waiter deposited a cup of coffee beside her. Richard had made his one cup last for forty-five minutes and didn’t intend to order any more if he could help it.
‘She said . . .’ Sophie looked close to tears. ‘She said there had been complaints about me.’ She paused and looked for her handkerchief.
‘Hold on, Sophie, don’t get upset.’ Richard wondered if he should hold her hand or put an arm round her shoulder. Maybe the place was too public for that. ‘What sort of complaints? Who was complaining? Surely they weren’t complaining about your teaching? Everybody knows you’re a fantastic teacher. The whole area knows that.’
Sophie managed a weak smile. ‘The complaints weren’t about my teaching. She said – Mrs White, that is – she said there had been complaints about my work for the women’s movement.’
Sophie was looking defiant now.
‘And what did you say?’ asked Richard, indignant on Sophie’s behalf. ‘Surely it’s none of her business what you do outside school hours?’
‘She said there had been complaints from two sets of parents. She wouldn’t tell me who they were. They want me removed from my job, these parents. They said they didn’t want their children being taught these ludicrous notions.’
‘What did you say to that, Sophie?’ Richard was looking very carefully at her hands. He thought they looked very soft.
‘I said I thought it was absurd,’ said Sophie. ‘I said I had never, never, referred to my beliefs in my teaching. Never. That wouldn’t be right. If all teachers were allowed to indoctrinate their pupils with their own beliefs, it would be terrible. I’m going to find out who these parents are, mind you. I think I shall ask the children.’
‘You can’t do that.’
‘Why not? You can’t tell me what to do in my own school.’ Sophie was indignant, her eyes flashing. ‘What do you know about it?’
‘I don’t know about your school at all, Sophie. Only what you tell me.’ In his heart Richard felt he knew a great deal about the school. ‘But if you ask the children, however you do it, they’ll all go back home and tell their parents. More of them may get involved. The whole business could get more difficult than it already is.’
Sophie looked at him. She thought that Richard was maybe wiser than he looked.
‘More important, Sophie,’ the young man went on, ‘what did she say she was going to do about it?’
‘She said that she was going to listen to what I had to say and then she was going to consider it. Mrs White doesn’t like taking decisions in a hurry.’
‘But your job is safe in the meantime? There’s no question about that?’ asked Richard.
‘Yes, it is. I suppose that’s good news.’
‘I tell you what I think she’ll do, Sophie. She’ll talk again to these parents and try to calm them down. She’ll make it clear to them that the choice of staff in the school must rest with her and not with the parents. Otherwise it would be chaos. She’ll probably say that she has made you promise that you won’t preach the suffragist cause in the classroom. She’ll probably make you promise that all over again. Then it’ll all be over.’