Текст книги "A Spider in the Cup"

Автор книги: Barbara Cleverly

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

CHAPTER 11

Ten o’clock. Inspector Orford cast a calculating look at the skies over the Thames and his agitation increased. He muttered to the river policeman standing quietly by his side in the shadows: “Clouds moving in, Eddie. It’ll be dark in a minute or two. Can’t wait any longer. Something’s gone wrong.”

They were sharing, in some discomfort, the confined space of a workman’s shelter put up at the inspector’s request by the City of London maintenance department, keeping watch on the Chelsea foreshore.

River Officer Eddie Evans shrugged. He was a tough-looking young man with the weathered features and muscular build of a sailor. The peak of his képi, pulled squarely down over his forehead, accentuated the mischievous glitter of his eyes, the black slicker cape about his shoulders turned him into an element of the grey and umber palette that was the riverbank in this under-lit part of Chelsea Reach. He was at home here in the shadows. “Well, there goes your tide,” he murmured, “more than half way out, I’d say. Next low in twelve hours’ time—broad daylight.”

Orford hoped this wasn’t going to turn technical. He knew as much about the tides as most Londoners: they came and went twice a day. If asked, he would have hazarded a guess that the water rose by the height of a London double-decker bus. But, truth to say, he only noticed it when it disgorged something unpleasant into his lap.

“There’s a slippage of course—a drag of an hour and a bit each day—so what you’re seeing at this minute is not exactly the scene as it was three days ago.” His River Rat associate never consulted a Thames tides table, Orford noted. These men, technically a part of the metropolitan police, spiritually an independent outfit, lived their lives on a crime-infested fast-flowing sewer that carved its way through the busiest city in the world. They were an unlikely blend of law enforcer and sailor and they’d take on anyone—drugs gangs, smugglers, Lascar pirates and other low life—armed with no more than a stout baton held in a gnarled hand. The same hand that, the next minute, would be extended to save a drowning soul from the water or haul in a corpse caught in the nets they kept aboard their motor launch. The Thames was the last resort of the desperate—and occasionally the first resort of the murderous.

“You’d have got more or less the same conditions as we have now. Perhaps a bit less light in the sky,” said Officer Evans. Keeping it simple for his land-lubber colleague, thank God, Orford thought. “If your villains really knew what they were doing, they’d have made their play before the moon got any higher. Now—tonight’s moon? You’ll find she’ll be waxing gibbous. That’s three quarters to you, Governor. It’ll be too bright in half an hour. Time to pull your finger out!… Sir,” he remembered to add.

Oh, Lord! Moon timetables to consider now as well as tides. Orford felt suddenly old, wrong-footed and crotchety. “You’ll find I’ll be waxing gibbous, my lad, if you dish out any more of your advice when you ought to be keeping quiet.”

“S’what I’m here for!” the young man said, unabashed. “On-the-spot fluvial, riparian and meterological information and support.” The words tripped off his tongue with relish. “And here’s a bit more you can have for nothing: if I were planting a body right there,” Eddie pointed to the foreshore where the dowsers had been at work, “I’d have stuck it in at midnight. On Wednesday. Perfect conditions. Wouldn’t have taken long. Easy digging and the water washes your tracks away. Wouldn’t be the first time some smart aleck had the same thought. You’d be surprised what we’ve found a foot or so under! You hide your stuff and clear off sharpish. Even if the next tide dislodges it, you’re long gone. And, once it’s afloat—well it could have come from a hundred miles upstream as far as anybody can tell. Chances are it’ll be rotted away beyond ID-ing by the time it ends up in our nets.”

He peered back over his shoulder at the embankment. “No gas lights to speak of? Did you think to …?”

“Someone’s removed the gas mantle. And no one’s reported it yet. Not very socially responsible, the residents. Very convenient for our burial party, are we thinking?”

“So. Is he at home, your witness? Shall we go and disturb him? Ask him what he saw and heard two nights ago at about this time? What vehicles he saw on the embankment.”

Orford began to realise that patience was not a virtue valued by the River Rats. Action was more in their line. “Hold your horses, Eddie. I’ll ask the questions. My beat blokes are aware of someone skulking around in the area but haven’t spotted him today. They weren’t alerted until this afternoon so they weren’t exactly on the lookout. I got here a couple of hours ago—full daylight—and he hasn’t approached the boat in that time. That’s a south-facing slope open to direct sun … there’s no way he would have spent the afternoon out there under a boat. So—he’s not there yet. He’s either got wind of something and scarpered or he’s gone off for a fish supper.”

Officer Evans was not at ease. “Look, sir—these rough sleepers—there’s hundreds of ’em on the foreshore along down as far as the estuary. They wash in and out as regular as the tides. And when they’ve found a billet, they stick to it. Fight for it. Establish rights. A boat like that,” he pointed to the overturned clinker, “may not look much to a bloke like you with a house in Bermondsey, but it’s dry and it keeps the worst of the weather off. A bit of shelter worth staking a claim to. The minute the ‘owner’ fails to turn up you can bet your boots someone else will take over. If you want the right one, he’s in there already—nipped in when you weren’t looking—or he’s buggered off and you’ll find the wrong bloke sneaks in to take up residence.”

Orford made his decision. “Let’s go. Torches off.”

They approached in silence, just able in the dying light to avoid obstacles on the dried mud. They paused within a foot of the rotting timbers and looked at each other. Eddie Evans held a finger under his nose, registering disgust. Orford nodded in agreement. The riverbank was a stinking place but punching through the general background of effluent was an overpowering odour of decay. It was seeping up through the flaking boards of the upturned boat.

Eddie put a hand on the surface. The planks still retained heat from the afternoon sun. At a nod from Orford, Eddie rapped on the wood. They listened. Eddie knocked again, more loudly, announcing, “Thames Police! Anybody at home?” No sound. Orford shook his head and mimed uplifting the boat. The two officers clicked on the strong beams of their police torches, placed them on the ground, illuminating the scene, and seized the landward rim of the gunwale.

“Go!” grunted Orford and the boat, lighter than he had anticipated, shot upwards. The whole contraption rolled over, rocked back drunkenly and settled onto its ancient keel.

Gasping, spluttering and swearing, it was a long moment before they could communicate with each other. Orford flung a large cotton handkerchief over his nose and mouth in a vain effort to blot out the stench, the buffet of hot air that hit him in the face and the swarm of flies that rose up to invade his nostrils. He was distantly aware of a stream of sea-salty curses spouting from the River Rat.

“You were right, Eddie,” Orford gasped. “Someone’s at home. And, I’d say, been right here, simmering gently in the heat all afternoon. No need to check for vital signs,” he added queasily. “Flies seem to have made that decision for us. They always know. We need help with this one. Look are you all right to stay and keep the dear departed company while I nip to the police box?… Um, what would you say to dowsing the lamps?”

“Good idea! Wouldn’t want to attract an audience.” The officer grinned. “Can’t stand ghouls. Make it sharp though, Guv! I don’t mind the dark but I don’t like talking to myself.”

He switched off the torches to keep his vigil over the silent corpse.

CHAPTER 12

As they entered the gloom and disorder of the anteroom to the police laboratory, Kingstone brushed a sooty cobweb from his shoulder and snorted in disgust. “Is this the best you can do? Who’s behind the door at the end of the corridor? Count Dracula?”

“No, sir.” Joe was icily polite. “Just one of the two best pathologists in the world—nothing more alarming. The Met have suffered the privations of many years of cutbacks and we’re fortunate indeed to be able to afford his services. We could have had our subject taken to the bright lights and shining surfaces of St. Mary’s or St. Bartholomew’s hospital across the city but discretion and speed seemed to be called for.”

Doctor Rippon, at least, offered reassurance by his presence. Even Kingstone appeared stunned by the handsome figure in the austere elegance of an evening suit and stiff-collared dress shirt. Joe noted that Rippon refrained from offering his hand to his visitors on being introduced but inclined his head with great courtesy. Joe had seen him do this before. Many of the people arriving at his laboratory or pathology lab, already in a state of distress, were squeamish—or superstitious—about touching the hand of the “death doctor,” he’d explained, and in deference to this, he never put them on the spot. On meeting the doctor some months ago, Joe had refused to take notice of his reticence, guessing the reason for it, and had firmly reached for and shaken the warm strong hand, which was probably the most hygienically clean in London.

“Going on somewhere, doctor?” Joe asked. “Surprised to find you still here.”

“Oh, I took five hours off to go back to Bart’s. Fitted in three more post mortems. All straightforward—not like this one to which I returned, after a shower and a shave, in the hope that the back-room boys had come up with test results. I told them you’d flagged it as top priority.”

“Quite right. Do they have them?”

Rippon held out a manila envelope. “Good lads! They’ve strained a fetlock getting it ready before the weekend breaks over us.” Joe had noticed the staff usually responded with commendable efficiency to the doctor’s needs. He felt the same compulsion himself. “You’ll find what you want in there. It’s all typed up, checked by me and signed. A few surprises, I think you’ll say. I’ll stay on and work through them with you if you wish.” This was a serious offer, made with a smile. And, typically of Rippon, it came with no reference, petulant or joking, to the fact that he was already dressed for an evening with more animated company than the police morgue could supply.

“But this is the gentleman who may be able to identify our young lady, I take it? When I got your call I had her body brought out of cold storage and placed on the table. If you’ll come this way? It’s just next door.”

Joe was glad of the courtesy, glad that Kingstone was to be let off the chilling experience of the opening of the morgue drawers with their nightmarish squeaking and the inch by inch revelation of grisly contents. He’d known fainter hearts to turn and run.

Kingstone turned to Julia and Armitage. “You two don’t have to come in. I’ll do this myself.”

“No. I want to see her,” Julia said.

In the end, the four of them crowded into the pathology laboratory with Rippon. Joe stationed himself on the far side of the table the better to watch the reactions of the two main players. They all stood quietly, staring at the body. She had been laid out with a white sheet draped over her from head to foot. With solemnity Rippon took hold of the sheet and drew it down below her shoulders. The presentation was neatly done. There were no signs of the postmortem incisions other than the row of stitches running downwards from her neck and away out of sight. The hair, now dry, had been combed out and rested in a dark cloud about the waxen features, concealing the pathologist’s work on the head.

In the silence that followed, Joe heard drips of water falling from a tap into the metal sink in the corner and counted to six before anyone responded. Kingstone reached for the comfort of another hand. Joe noted it was Julia to whom he’d turned to share this tense moment. But out of despair or relief?

It was Julia who spoke first. “This is not Natalia Kirilovna. I’m sorry, I’ve never seen this girl before. I don’t know her.”

Joe’s eyes flashed to Armitage standing behind the pair. Bill raised his eyebrows, signalling helpless mystification. Kingstone shook his head in denial also but remained where he was, hypnotised by the pathetic sight. Finally, he spoke to the doctor. “Poor child! Poor little creature! So like Natty but not her. May we see her feet? Yes, there it is. Don’t ask me why, doctor, but I seem to be in possession of the missing part. Sandilands? You have it? I think we should restore it to the doctor.”

Puzzled, Rippon watched as Joe produced the gold chocolate box, opened it and offered him a view of the contents. For a moment, prompted by the familiar gesture, Joe was seized by the ghastly urge to share a joke, the kind of grisly exchange of what passes for humour to fend off the horror of the most tragic circumstances. Rippon looked from the box and back to Joe and his eyes flared in response. He fought back the comment he’d been about to make but his shoulders shook as he slipped on a glove, delicately crooked his little finger and extracted the offering. “You can keep the rest for later. I mean—you’ll be wanting to retain the box for processing, no doubt. I’ll need time to examine this, but, yes, at a quick sighting, I’d say we have here the last piece of the jigsaw.”

“If only!” Joe muttered.

Rippon found a tray and dealt with the object. He turned again to the visitors. “One last thing: this was delivered here after I left to go to Bart’s, Sandilands. I’ve no idea when. I found it in my in-tray a minute ago. It’s addressed to me but inside there’s a sealed envelope with your name on it.”

Joe thanked him. “Probably a note from Inspector Orford. He’d expect me to be back here this evening.”

Joe glanced at the typed address on the outer cover and was intrigued. Not from the inspector. Orford would have had to scrawl his own letters on any envelope he was sending to Joe. Secretarial assistance was at a premium these days, the few girls who remained overburdened with work. Even Assistant Commissioners had to wait a day on occasion before general typing came through from the pool. Urgent notes were invariably handwritten. He even addressed his own envelopes to save Miss Snow, his personal secretary, the time. He opened it and took out the inner envelope. He looked again, startled.

Too late, he noticed that Kingstone had seen it too. The senator shivered but it wasn’t the dank, chill atmosphere and the presence of the corpse that were affecting him, Joe guessed.

“My God!” Kingstone’s voice was a stunned whisper. “Someone’s watching me. I’m being—what’s that phrase they have in witchcraft?—overlooked. He knows where I’m going … what I’ll do next. He’s got into my hotel room and now he’s here with me in the morgue.” He rubbed the back of his neck between his shoulder blades. “I know what it feels like to have a sniper take aim at you. But this one’s targeting the inside of my head. Let me see that, Sandilands.”

Joe held it out. An inoffensive enough address: For the attention of Assistant Commissioner Sandilands.

In elegant black calligrapher’s handwriting.

A LABORATORY ATTENDANT tapped on the door and entered without waiting for a response. He seemed agitated.

“Doctor Rippon, sir. Urgent message from the river.” He glanced at a note in his hand. “Telephone just now. Redirected from HQ. From Inspector Orford for Commissioner Sandilands. They said he might be here.”

“You’ve come to the right shop then,” Rippon replied. “Here’s Commissioner Sandilands.”

“Sir! He’s found a body. Another one, on the riverbank. He’s having it brought in now.”

Joe and the doctor exchanged glances. “Lucky to have caught us,” Joe commented. “Were you planning to sleep tonight, Rippon? Do you have an assistant who could …”

“Same as you, Sandilands, I reckon. I learned to do without sleep years ago. All the same …” He turned to the attendant. “Thank you for that, Harper. Look—better ring Doctor Simmons and tell him I need to speak to him. And can you stay on? What about Richardson? He can type. Have him paged, will you?”

“You’ll be needing all hands on deck if the Commissioner’s planning a gathering of the sheeted dead,” Kingstone said bitterly. “Who’re you expecting now, Sandilands, to turn up for your weekend come-as-a-corpse party? Male or female?” he asked anxiously. “And—that envelope—do I have to snatch it from your hand and open it myself?”

Joe bit back a spirited reply, reading the man’s mood.

“Psychological projection,” he’d learned to call this reaction. Dorcas would have explained that Kingstone, unable to bear the strain, was resorting unconsciously to a defence mechanism in order to maintain his stability. Blame someone else and ease the load. Not quite so primitive as an outright denial of events but disturbing. Inevitably, the man must now be conjuring with the idea of a second dancer’s body coming to light in the same place. Natalia this time? Kingstone was right—why the hell couldn’t the inspector have said—“a male body” or “a female body”? The awful thought that perhaps he’d been unable to make a judgement occurred to Joe. They were always the worst cases: the indistinguishables.

Kingstone had suffered three shocks to the system within the last hour and now, Joe feared, a fourth blow was about to be delivered. Nothing good was going to come out of the envelope all had their eyes on.

He ran a finger under the flap.

JOE READ THE few lines quickly and looked up at his audience. He was carried back for an uncomfortable moment to a time long-distant when he’d been staying with his elderly uncles in London. Unusually, there had arrived, addressed to the eight-year-old Master Joseph Sandilands, a letter which bore a stranger’s handwriting. To Joe’s fury, Uncle George had, without thought, opened it and read it before revealing the contents to Joe. The sender and the message were so innocent and so unimportant—an invitation to tea and a children’s play at the theatre—Joe could barely now recall them. But, with the indignant and pleading eyes of his audience on him at this moment, he could relive the urge to snatch it from his uncle’s hand. And now, he could also understand the old man’s concern to protect and act as a buffer between his nephew and the unknown.

How to defuse this explosive piece of nonsense he was holding? Impossible. The shell had been launched and, one way or another, it would reach its target. Joe could not deflect it.

“More of the same,” he said, dismissively. “Medieval writing, medieval thoughts from a medieval mind! I’d say—chuck it in the bin, if I weren’t obliged to keep it in evidence. I’m not going to pass it over to anyone—it will have to be examined—so I’ll read it out then show it to you.

“Darest thou die?

The sense of death is most in apprehension,

And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

“That’s Measure for Measure, I think.” Joe steadied his voice. “There’s one more line. Not the Bard’s words. He adds: The beetle suffered.”

Kingstone appeared drained of colour and his voice, when he could find it, seemed lifeless. “That’s it. A message for me. They’ve killed her and I’m next. That’s what all that means. I ignored them for a while. Like you, Sandilands, I scorned their mumbo-jumbo. I didn’t ring the number they gave me. They said they had her and the only way I could save her was by hearing them and doing what they told me. I refused.”

“Would this have anything to do with your role at the conference?”

“Of course it darned well would! Everything to do with it. They wanted me to make a speech at the meeting this afternoon—”

“To the Pilgrims?”

“That’s right. To the world’s policy makers. The Pilgrims. A speech advocating a very particular political and economic direction. Delivered straight to the listening ears of influential men and all reported in tomorrow’s Times. Yes, they’d arranged for a reporter to be there. But he never got to write up the script they fed me. I heard my cue and let it go by.”

Even in his distress, Kingstone was choosing his words, Joe noted.

“I fouled up their schemes. I guess they sent the toe to indicate their displeasure.”

“And have they contacted you subsequently to question your non-performance?” Joe asked carefully, remembering Bacchus’s account of the Nine Men’s meeting.

“I’ve just told you. The toe. That was their communication. Speaks volumes, wouldn’t you say? I didn’t expect a bunch of flowers. And now this damn-fool note.”

“And is that it? One demand denied and retribution extracted? If you’re still dangling from a hook they’ve set up for you, I should very much like to be told.”

“I think you know I am. The speech was only to have been the first step in a progression. Their ultimate aim is that I should give words of advice directly to the president. Not necessarily advice I would normally give.”

Joe’s fingers were clenching with the raw urge to seize the man and shake him until he spat out the truth. The worst possible approach in these circumstances, he knew, and he calmed himself to ask, “Is your influence so great that the president would listen to you and act according to your suggestions?” He thought he’d better get this straight at least.

Kingstone paused and gave a considered reply. “In the end, he’ll do what he wants to do. But he’s been known to take advice from those close to him. Men he trusts. He trusts me. He chooses his friends carefully and stays loyal to them. We’re working together on some very special projects … his New Deal? You know about that?”

Joe nodded.

“We’re both concerned to get a scheme running … in the Tennessee Valley. My home county. If it goes well, schemes like it could pick the country up by its bootstraps, reinvigorate the US economy.” He gave Joe a twisted smile. “Interesting, isn’t it—and revealing—the way different countries react to a depression? The US hitches up its britches and puts the unemployed and impoverished into work, building hydroelectric power schemes and farming new land; the Germans invest a billion marks they don’t yet have in autobahns, bridges and steel mills; you British cry, ‘Hey, nonny, nonny,’ and build a luxury liner or two.”

Joe smiled at his jibes but did not reply to them, sensing Kingstone was getting close to making a point he wanted to hear.

“Well, this president’s bottom-up way for economic growth isn’t popular with some. His democratic ideas, which we would see as far-sighted, bold and compassionate, are anathema to many.”

“To many? Whom have you in mind?”

“Republicans, Communists, Fascists, Daughters of the Revolution, Seventh Day Adventists … you name it. Hard to believe, but a fully employed population earning a living wage with provision for good health, equal status for coloured folks and immigrants of all races, and equal rights for women come pretty low on the agenda of the wealthy and privileged. But how to attack it without appearing inhumane? They tar it with the same brush as ‘communism’ and take this as the authority to stamp down hard on it in a self-righteous, patriotic hand-on-heart way. Their number includes some bankers and industrialists he hasn’t yet managed to haul on board and never will. And these same money-men are right here in London. Plotting and planning.”

HE WAITED TO see if Joe had got the point of his speech, which had been delivered with increasing urgency, his breath shortening, his jaw tightening.

“And coercing politicians into taking action against their better judgement?” Joe said. “That’s a crime, I’m sure. I don’t know exactly what we’d call it here but give me what you have and I’ll run them down and charge them with something high-sounding enough to shove them into the Bloody Tower for a spell. Perhaps an appointment with the axe man on Tower Green at dawn? If any Englishmen are involved, they’ll find that treason is still a capital offence.”

Kingstone’s sudden guffaw was alarming in the grim room. Armitage put a hand on his arm to steady him but he shook it off with unnecessary vehemence. Rippon cast a glance full of professional concern at Joe and raised a warning eyebrow.

“ ‘Assault on the gold standard with malice aforethought’? How does that sound? Because that would be hitting the nail on the head. That’s what it comes down to. Money and power. And a British bobby like you wouldn’t get near the men involved. They can spend millions on getting their way and then covering their tracks. They are men of the world, international power brokers. They stand to make grotesque amounts of money if the conference goes the way they’d prefer. If it doesn’t?” He spread his hands and shrugged. “No problem whatsoever. They can still make money. They just need to know for sure before the announcement’s made. Coming off or staying on the gold standard may sound like a political decision to you but when there are fortunes to be made or lost, politics, morality and the law get squashed like that damn beetle.”

He looked down with anguish at the dead girl. “And this poor child? And her dancer’s toe? Why is she caught up in this net? A substitute? A token?… Oh, Lord! I see it! I’m not thinking straight! She’s an understudy, a stand-in, pushed on stage to play a dying role …” The enormity of the realisation seemed to make him reel. “Why? Where did they lay hands on her? They just used … killed and disfigured her in order to scare the hell out of me? Can I believe that? I don’t want to believe that. But it is believable because I’ve known them do worse harm for less gain. Used and thrown away.”

He was muttering to himself. Repeating words and phrases. His normally clipped, allusive style was reduced to fervid ramblings. Seeing Joe’s concern, he swallowed and pulled himself together. “And Natalia? She’s been used too. Tortured. Dead. I’ve accepted that. They don’t waste time. The next body you haul in will be hers. All to coerce a pigheaded, God-fearing, straight-talking Tennessee man who wouldn’t be bought, who was naïve enough to think they’d never go that far. Not in a civilised country. But I’ll tell you what I’ve learned, Joe—you talk of the Tower of London … huh!… these guys have the keys to your Tower in their back pockets! As they always have. Think of your boss. Now think of his boss and then his boss and you’re getting somewhere near the guy they’ve got on the end of a lead. You’re just another insect under their boots, Joe. And, believe me, I’m no giant, but I’m going to die. Sooner rather than later.”

He was breathing fast, his limbs were twitching uncontrollably, his face, in the cold room, shone with perspiration. Joe was uneasy with his task but he knew he had to push Kingstone to the limits of his resilience.

“That’s how you interpret this scholarly bit of venom? I mean—it’s hardly ‘Pay up or you’re a gonner, guv,’ is it?” He held the elegant black writing in front of Kingstone’s face.

The man shuddered and pulled away. “It is. That’s just a bit of theatre. They’re devilish but they’re human. They even like their bit of fun. And they’re clever. They can converse in ancient Greek, can you believe that? Shakespeare? That’s for dumbos like me … they could give you the whole of the Iliad at the drop of a hat. They’ll leave me to squirm a bit, but not for long. They won’t waste any more time on me. I’m expendable. No—worse than that—I’m a walking liability. If she’s dead, I have nothing more to lose. I’m a loose cannon and they’ll have to tip me overboard. It’ll be so subtle you won’t hear the splash. It’ll come suddenly and apparently entirely naturally. A heart attack, a traffic accident. Ask Armiger here—he knows this sort of stuff. He’s up to his ears in clandestine thuggery. That’s why I have him around. But even he can’t stop a London bus if it’s aimed at me. I’m not even going to make it back to the hotel.”

His head went down with the abrupt, sobbing despair of a winning racehorse whose heart had given more than it had in reserve and was about to fall to its knees in the paddock.

They couldn’t reach him, so far had he sunk. Joe had seen many strong men broken by circumstance and he knew that Kingstone had put his finger on it when he’d claimed, crazily, “they’re targeting the inside of my head.” A series of incessant, calculated, malicious blows—possibly more than Kingstone had declared to anyone—had laid the senator low. Joe was tempted for a moment to produce the slim hip flask of scotch he kept inside his jacket for just such crises of confidence but a glance at the puritan features of the pathologist dissuaded him from the simple soldier’s gesture.

Armitage turned a distraught face to Joe with a silent plea. When it came to protecting his boss, Bill could out-gun, out-run and out-wrestle anyone, Joe guessed, but he had no skills to save him from the mental collapse that seemed to be taking place before their eyes. He had no idea what to do next.

It was the doctor who stepped in. “Have a seat, sir.” With brisk authority, he pushed forward a chair and, hand on shoulder, eased Kingstone onto it.

In instant understanding and collusion, Julia pulled up another one for herself and settled down, side by side with the senator. Her pat on his thigh was a nanny’s reassuring gesture and her voice brisk and unruffled: “Cor! I thought no one was ever going to offer anybody a seat! And you call yourselves gentlemen! That’s a long time to keep a lady standing on one leg, if I may say so. You need to take the weight off after a shock like that. Any chance of a glass of water, Mr. Harper?” The attendant, who was just coming back into the room, took in the scene at a glance, turned round and hurried off again.

Humming a jaunty air from Cosi Fan Tutti, Rippon casually took Kingstone’s wrist and began to check his pulse. The routine, authoritative gesture seemed to calm Kingstone a little. “Fine,” he said. “Racing just a little. One quite sees why!” He pulled down a lower eyelid, peered at the colour and nodded approval. “Well—I’d say you were a man in the pink of health and the prime of life, Mr. Kingstone. Yes?”