Antonia rose. ‘Good morning, Colonel Haslett,’ she greeted her boss brightly. Despite his advanced years Colonel Haslett OBE, DSO dealt with every matter at top speed before passing on to the next item on his always-extensive list. In his wake he left ripples, which tended to develop later into a large backwash of things to do.
‘Ah, Miss D., you are back. Good, excellent. How have you been getting on with the Gresham papers?’ Colonel Haslett was leaning heavily on his silver-topped cane and craning his head forward, half-moon glasses at the tip of his nose, his hand cupping his right ear. At his neck he had a starched damask napkin; it was clear he had had a late breakfast in the club’s dining room. He frequently forgot to remove his napkin. It was Colonel Haslett’s record with the Number One Commandos on the French coast early in the war and in North Africa and Burma that had won him a reputation for outstanding leadership. He had been nicknamed ‘Junior’ because another Haslett, a first cousin of his, had been a commanding officer.
‘Well, Colonel Haslett, the Gresham papers are proving a bit – ’
‘The reason I ask is that we may have a contact at the Historical Manuscripts Commission. A friend of m’wife‘s, actually. A Miss… um
… Can’t remember her name, but she is the right person for this kind of job. She’s been highly recommended. On the highest authority. She could help us with them, you know. I mean, take the Gresham papers off your hands, Miss D. Good idea, what? I can see you have lots to do, lots to do.’ He was peering round her office, at the heaps of unprocessed books and mounds of paper. ‘Not to worry.’
‘Well, I suppose it would make sense to -’
‘Good, excellent. She’ll be round quite soon, tomorrow as likely as not. She’s that sort of woman. Damned efficient. Puts us all to shame, what? Cathcart, that’s it. Her name’s Cathcart. Miss – or Mrs Cathcart. Don’t know which. Actually she comes round our place occasionally and we play bridge together. You know her?’
‘I’m afraid not -’
‘You haven’t got very far with the Gresham papers, have you? Been an arduous task, I imagine.’
‘Well, actually -’
‘Never mind, never mind. I can see how much there is to do here. You’d better get on with it. Get cracking.’
He patted her arm bracingly and, despite his stick and gammy leg, marched swiftly out of the room with amazing agility.
I was quite enjoying the job, Antonia finished the sentence to herself. Looking down at the box filled with books that stood beside her desk, she noticed that the one at the top bore the title, The Greatest Secret. It had been placed on top of Greenmantle. Had it been there earlier on? She had the feeling that it hadn’t. Underneath the main title was written, No one who reads this book will ever be the same again.
4
Six Characters in Search of an Author
There are some events, Antonia reflected, of which each circumstance and surrounding detail seem to stay with us for the rest of our lives, even though we may have convinced ourselves we have forgotten all about them – and so it was with the drowning of little Sonya Dufrette. As she started leafing through her twenty-year-old account that evening, everything came back to her with stark clarity, in vivid Technicolor, as though it had all happened only yesterday. (She had found the folder containing it at the back of the bottom drawer as she had known she would. It was something else, some other papers, that had caused the jamming – not that that changed anything.)
What she had written was more than a mere account. Some of it read like a diary, some like a story. She leafed through the pages. She had actually researched the main protagonists’ backgrounds, she saw with surprise. Twiston, she had made clear, had once belonged to the Jourdains, who were Lady Mortlock’s ancestors, not Sir Michael’s. She had recorded her thoughts and feelings on various subjects. She had described the river, the oak tree, the hideous hollow and the outfits worn by Lena and Veronica. She had mentioned the fact that Major Nagle smoked Egyptian cigarettes out of a monogrammed Asprey’s slide-action silver case. She had told how Sonya loved ‘Lavender’s Blue’ to be sung to her. She had even quoted Tennyson. It was curious how many details had managed to impress themselves on her mind, but then, she supposed, she must already have decided that she wanted to be a writer.
It had been the month and the year of the royal wedding. July 1981. Antonia had been married for eight years – happily, or so she had believed. Her son David had been six and a half and she had intended to take him with her to Twiston, Sir Michael and Lady Mortlock’s country house outside Richmond-on-Thames. Lady Mortlock had assured her it would be perfectly all right as there was going to be another child there. A little girl who was the same age as David. However, at the eleventh hour she had decided to leave David with her mother in Hatfield. She had persuaded herself that she needed a proper break.
Things might have been different if David had been able to go with her. David had been extremely mature for his age. He would never have allowed Sonya to walk down to the river by herself – never. He’d have been aware that there was something wrong with Sonya, that she was not like other children. He would have been very protective of her, Antonia felt sure. Richard too had been invited and Antonia had dearly wanted him to be there, but he had had to go to France on a business trip. (It was only later, much later, that she learnt the truth, namely that he had been at a hotel in Reading with his mistress of the moment.)
She had been included in the weekend party at Twiston as a matter of course. She had already been spending time there helping write Lady Mortlock’s family history. She saw she had described Twiston as the best sort of doll’s house come to life – a masterpiece of Jacobean exuberance, all mellow red brickwork, elaborate chimneys, extravagant gables, fantastical griffins and gargoyles.
She had become very fond of both the house and its owners, Sir Michael and Lady Mortlock, then in their late sixties. Tall, imperious, austere, Lady Mortlock looked like the headmistress of a girls’ public school and indeed had been one until some six years earlier. She was always impeccably turned out – she had worn a very desirable silk dress on the day of the royal wedding – and was noted for her acerbic wit. Her father, Frederick Jourdain, had been a famous if controversial consultant who specialized in rare blood diseases. In the 1930s he had become a dedicated believer in the ‘German miracle’ and he had managed to infuse (some said ’infect‘) his daughter with some of his pet theories. It wasn’t a subject Lady Mortlock was ever willing to discuss, though Antonia had seen books on eugenics and euthanasia on her study bookshelves, even one favourable account of the Final Solution. Lady Mortlock had also been extremely interested in the welfare of the several girls who came to clean the house and had tried to help them in various ways, but had not met with any great success. Antonia had observed the girls put their heads together, whisper and giggle. Not a very happy woman, Antonia had decided.
Sir Michael had retired from his top MI5 job only the year before, but was already showing signs of mental and physical decline; the once keen intelligence was no longer in evidence and he had turned into an amiable old buffer who pottered about his house and garden dressed in shabby country tweeds, cigar in hand, and liked nothing better than to sit reading P.G. Wodehouse or simply dozing in the sun, like an ancient lizard.
It was Sir Michael who had invited the Dufrettes, a decison which had angered Lady Mortlock so much that, in a rare outburst, she had referred to it as ‘extremely ill-judged, bordering on the feeble-minded’. Lawrence Dufrette had been working in MI5, in what, prior to his retirement, had been Sir Michael’s department.