Blue Blooded

by Emma Jameson

  “I have one last thing on my schedule,” he told Deaver. “Then I can spend the weekend up in the clouds awaiting the all-clear.”

  Tony arrived in Whitehall about thirty minutes early, hoping to find Gert waiting near the area she’d named, the formal entrance to St. James and Buckingham Palace. The Horse Guards parade area was where the world-famous changing of the guard took place, which meant it was always packed with tourists, but especially on a sunny, mild day like this. No sane Londoner would propose meeting anyone in such a crush of holiday-makers, so Tony assumed Gert had actually meant within sight of the area, perhaps on the lawn not far from the colossal white monument to Queen Victoria.

  Once again in his Tony the homeless man costume, floppy bucket hat on his head, he staked out a place in the shadow of Victoria Regina and scanned the people on the green. Say what you will about London damp and cold, it made the residents truly grateful for a whiff of Spring. There were Uni students on blankets, mums and kiddies in canvas lawn chairs, Frisbee games, boys and girls chasing one another, and a football getting kicked around. When the wind picked up, these hearty souls zipped their hoodies and put on their gloves. They were enjoying the blue skies and sunshine, cold breeze be damned.

  He was thinking about Sir Duncan’s smiling double shaking hands in Heathrow when he noticed the woman loitering about. It wasn’t Gert with her springy red curls and big lime specs. This woman was much younger; tall with dark hair cropped very short, a long calico dress, denim jacket, knitted scarf and matching fingerless gloves. Her back was to him. Yet as she paced, clearly waiting for someone, he noticed her confident bearing—head up, shoulders back.

  Mark identified Mariah’s body. Peter and Hannah asked him to do it by phone, didn’t they? And never saw him again, except in photos around Westminster. No one’s seen or spoken to Mark since last December. He’d be gone without a trace, except for the times he stands near a CCTV camera. Like a living reminder. A rebuke.

  Tony strode toward the young woman, nearly pushing aside a tourist in his haste. Gert the social worker was heading in from the other direction, a worried look on her face, but Tony got there first.

  “Mariah Keene. How wonderful to meet you at last.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mariah didn’t flinch. If anything, she seemed relieved to hear her name spoken aloud.

  “You don’t look like I expected.” Her eyes raked over Tony, from his paint-splattered trousers to his shapeless Oxfam bucket hat. “Investigators usually wear suits and sunglasses. You crept up on me.”

  Gert reached them at last, curls windswept, lime glasses slipping. “Oh, my. What’re you doing here, Tony? This is my client. She has a right to privacy. You have to respect that.”

  “I do,” Tony said mildly. “I was retained by Lord and Lady Brompton to locate their son, Mark. But he was buried under your name, wasn’t he, Mariah?”

  She nodded.

  “We can’t talk about this out in the open,” Gert whispered, looking about nervously. “Mariah’s life is still in danger.”

  “We can’t go back to my place. I don’t have one, really,” Mariah said. “I’m sleeping on the floor at a friend’s flat. She doesn’t know who I really am.”

  “My office is about as private as Paddington,” Gert said.

  “Never fear. I know just the place,” Tony said. Amused by Gert and Mariah’s dubious expressions, he added, “Trust me.”

  The Black Horse & Bridle was a crumbling hole in the wall that looked like it had survived the Blitz, but actually dated back to 1982. It billed itself as “Westminster’s Most Authentic Pub,” which was problematic on several levels, not the least of which was, it was actually in Clerkenwell. Owned and operated by an old B&E man who’d served his time in HM Prison Wandsworth and come out willing to inform on all his former associates, the Black Horse & Bridle catered to serious drinkers. It had a short bar with four stools crammed together, a hearth with a little table and two chairs, and a single wooden booth. On the rare occasions when its clientele needed elbow room, they spilled into the courtyard out back.

  “Hiya, Frankie,” Tony called to the proprietor, a bald seventyish man who sat behind the bar reading the Daily Mail.

  “That’s Mr. Tucker to—oi! Lord Hetheridge in the flesh,” Frankie said. “I didn’t recognize you. Undercover for Scotland Yard?”

  Mariah and Gert must have looked astonished, because Frankie immediately tried to paper over his mistake.

  “Oh, ladies, don’t listen to me, teasing this old rascal. He’s my mate from the joint, where everyone called him ‘Lord’ on account of his manners. So what’ll it be, milord? Single malt? Dom Perignon in cut crystal?”

  “Two glasses of cider for the ladies. Lager for me,” Tony said. “And private use of your beer garden, if you don’t mind.”

  Frankie snorted. “Private’s not a problem. Bloody cold out there. Stay inside and I’ll switch on the electric fire. Don’t worry about me listening in, I’ll be minding my own business. Reading my newspaper, hearing nothing. Oblivious, as it were.”

  It wasn’t hard to see how Frankie’s threadbare lies had ended his breaking and entering career. It was harder to see how he acquired enough information to serve as a Met snout when he denied eavesdropping before anyone accused him.

  “The beer garden is a must,” Tony said. From the inner lining of his hat, he withdrew a couple of notes—three times the cost of the alcohol—and placed them on the bar with a smile. “Have one for yourself. I’ll show the ladies out and return to collect the drinks.”

  “I’ll bring them.” The cash disappeared from the bar top, secreted somewhere in the vicinity of Frankie’s many-pocketed apron. “Just go and take the air. I’m not bothered. Happy to provide privacy. More peace and solitude for me.”

  “He’ll be listening at the door,” Gert whispered as Tony led them into the beer garden. It consisted of two tables, four benches, and a view of grim brick walls with gray shuttered windows.

  “Which is why we’ll speak quietly.” Tony indicated the nearest table, remaining on his feet until Mariah and Gert had seated themselves. “My name is Tony Hetheridge. Retired from Scotland Yard and working with a private investigator called Cecelia Wheelwright.”

  “Dad’s still searching for Mark,” Mariah said. She didn’t sound pleased.

  “Your mother, too.” Tony studied Mariah, who in person was more attractive than her family photos had suggested. Her ultra-short hair emphasized her eyes and cheekbones; her frank gaze made her look like a woman to be reckoned with.

  “I saw her on TV. The appeal is on YouTube for anyone to watch.” Mariah’s voice, like Hannah’s, was quite low, verging on mannish. “All she does is sit there. Dad’s the one who actually begs Mark to come home.”

  “Yes, well, having met your mother, I suspect she didn’t trust herself to speak on camera without breaking down,” Tony said. “Hannah fears for your brother. She told me he was fragile. Even likened him to your grandfather, who committed suicide. She believed you were murdered, because she insisted you’d never take your own life.”

  “Mark wasn’t fragile,” Mariah said hotly. “He didn’t top himself. He sacrificed himself. And I did want to die. Mum always gets it wrong. She sees nothing. I pity those children with leukemia she’s meant to help. She couldn’t find a cure. She couldn’t find her own arse with Google Earth.”

  “Here we are, don’t mind me, don’t let me interrupt,” said Frankie, entering the beer garden with three pints. “Cider for madam.” He placed a glass in front of Gert. “Cider for madam.” He placed another in front of Mariah. “And lager for a geezer that doesn’t deserve such beauty.” He put the final pint in front of Tony. “Can I bring you something else? We have peanuts, pig snacks….”

  “Privacy,” Tony said.

  “I find nothing goes with a bit of solitude like a salty….”

  “Privacy.” Tony looked Frankie in the eye. The old B&E man went away grumbling, but he went away
.

  “I think I should say sorry for lying to you, Tony, back at the shelter.” Gert curled her fingers around her glass of cider, but didn’t seem interested in drinking it. “I first met the Keenes years ago. When I did in-home therapy for troubled children, Mark was one of my clients. I knew he was dead. I’ve known for weeks.”

  “She saw a picture of ‘Mark’ in Bright Star and thought he looked odd,” Mariah said. “Funny old world, isn’t it? Trained investigators accepted me as Mark. Mum and Dad accepted me as Mark. Then Gert took one look at a photo and said, ‘Nope, not right, I don’t believe it.’ So she came to the City and walked around every day asking questions. Made an arse of herself until I gave up and appeared in front of her, dressed as Mark. She threw her arms around me and said, ‘Mariah, you’re alive, thank God.’” Mariah sniffed, blinking back tears. “She knew me. My brother’s old therapist is the best friend I’ve got.”

  “I only wish you’d let me do more,” Gert said.

  “And end up dead? Like Ford Fabian? Like Jennie Concord?”

  “An informant told me Sir Duncan wanted Fabian killed,” Tony said. “And he asked the No-Hopers to make it happen. Do you know if that’s true?”

  Mariah shook her head. “I really am dead to them. If I nosed around at all, I’d be back on Duncan’s radar. I’m surprised he hasn’t made more of an effort to find Mark. For weeks, he and my brother were like this.” She held up crossed fingers. “Probably the No-Hopers are waiting for Mark to surface online, and pin him down that way.”

  “Why does the name Jennie Concord have a familiar ring?” Tony asked. “Is she with the Scottish Greens, or some other eco—” He stopped. “Ah. I was used to thinking of her as Jennifer Lane Concord. One of Sir Duncan’s friends from before the trial.” He didn’t add that prosecutors had believed, but never succeeded in proving, that Jennie Concord was an accomplice in the triple murder. Tony could recall her sitting in the witness box, blonde hair in a French twist, dressed in the good-girl costume suggested by her counsel: white blouse buttoned all the way up, floral skirt, cardigan with shiny brass buttons. She’d lied unwaveringly for Sir Duncan with an eerie calm, just like the rest of her cultish friends.

  “What happened to Ms. Concord?” Tony asked.

  “She fell out with Duncan.” Mariah shivered as the wind kicked up, rattling gray shutters above the little courtyard. “The No-Hopers treat him like a god. And Aaron Ajax and his girlfriend, Kay, like the high priest and priestess. It’s bizarre, full stop. But since Jennie knew him from Uni or whatever, she talked to Duncan however she liked. She accused him of being sick.”

  This dovetailed with what Lady Isabel had told Paul. Tony asked, “Sick in what way?”

  “Ill. With something he picked up in the jungle, maybe. Or cancer,” Mariah said. “He’d gone skin and bones. Never worked out anymore. Dark smudges under his eyes. Jennie said, this is bollocks, you’re going to see someone, you look like death. And Duncan went off on one of his speeches about the number 144 being the measure of both a man and an angel and when you die as one, you’re reborn as the other.”

  Gert sighed. “When was this?”

  “First of December,” Mariah said. “I’ll never forget that day. We were in Jekyll House. It’s five minutes from here, around Cardinal and Victoria. An office building, four stories, with a furnished IT room for the No-Hopers to work and a top-floor flat for people to crash.

  “Anyway, Jennie and Duncan were up in the flat, screaming at each other. Mark was frightened. Everyone was frightened, except Aaron and Kay. They’re addicted to drama. So Jennie asked Duncan point-blank, ‘Are you saying you won’t see a doctor because you want to die? That you think you’ll transform into something better?’

  “He slapped her,” Mariah continued. “Hard enough to put her on the floor next to the hearth. Then he kicked her. Over and over. He just kept kicking her.” Her voice broke but she struggled on, blinking back tears. “It was… endless. I wanted to do something, but I was too afraid. I think I could have tackled Duncan. He was breathless, trembling, overheated. But Aaron and Kay were right there watching. Having the time of their bloody lives, the sick pair. I couldn’t make a stand against all three.

  “When he was exhausted, he got down on the Turkish carpet beside her and lay there to rest. Jennie wasn’t moving,” Mariah said. “I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not, her face was—well. Hardly a face. Next thing I knew, Aaron and Kay were carrying her body out of Jekyll House, rolled up in that carpet.

  “I wonder why you didn’t choose that moment to run away,” Tony said.

  “Haven’t you heard of PTSD?” Gert snapped. “She’d been in an abusive environment for months.”

  “Yeah. No. Cheers, Gert, but that wasn’t it,” Mariah said, giving the social worker a sad smile. “I could have slipped away. But there was Mark. He was in deep with the No-Hopers. They’re like any other gang with the initiations. New blood has to prove themselves by committing a crime. So Mark wrote some ransom code to lock a hospital staff out of their database. They had to pay several thousand pounds in Bitcoins to get their lab tests and x-rays back. Aaron videoed the whole thing. Insurance in case Mark decided he wanted out.”

  “If you had gone, would they have hurt Mark?” Tony asked.

  Mariah shook her head. “Can I start over? I began in the middle, really, with Duncan killing Jennie.”

  “By all means,” Tony said. “Begin at the beginning.”

  Mariah took a sip of cider. “It’s always been Mark and me. Even now, I feel like it’s still the two of us against the world. He’s been dead for four months, yet he’s not quite dead to me. Maybe he never will be.

  “Have you heard that theory of family dynamics? That every child has a fixed role to play? In ours, I was the hero,” Mariah said. “Good manners, top marks, cheery, never sulked or grumbled.”

  “Whereas poor Mark was the scapegoat,” Gert said. “Labeled anti-social. An embarrassment to his father and a project for his mum. But the diagnosis and the meds made a difference.”

  “Except he wouldn’t stay on them,” Mariah said. “He kept quitting them for stuff he heard about online. Like Spice. And Spice made Uni a disaster for Mark. He kept having meltdowns. Wouldn’t go to class. One day he was so high, he decided to get physically high, too. So he broke into the school’s clock tower, climbed to the top, and sat by the bells until the cops removed him. That was it for Uni. But after the climb, he wanted more. Urbex, BASE jumping, that sort of thing. So he looked up Aaron Ajax and joined the No-Hopers.”

  “Did your parents know?” Tony asked.

  “They should have done. I told them. But they don’t listen. Mum was always at the lab, and Dad changed the subject.”

  “I had the impression Lord Brompton was wholly devoted to you. That your wellbeing was his top priority,” Tony said, hoping to prod out the truth.

  Mariah’s upper lip curled. “Bloody hell.”

  “He appears quite distraught,” Tony went on. “Your old bedroom has become a shrine of sorts. Most of your current possessions are gone. Replaced with toys. A crystal constellation on the ceiling. A princess canopy over the bed.”

  Gert placed a hand over Mariah’s. “Do you want me to tell him?”

  “No.” Mariah met Tony’s gaze. “You know he’s a paedo, don’t you?”

  Tony nodded.

  “Did you hear he was caught with kiddie porn on his government computer?”

  “Yes. Though I’ve no idea how he managed to keep a lid on the scandal. Forgive me for speaking plainly, but your family’s finances have been lean for some time. He couldn’t have paid off the investigators.”

  “He didn’t. He’s a solicitor, you know, as well as a politician. He threatened to sue the government for discrimination if they didn’t allow him to seek help,” Mariah said.

  “Was he sincere?”

  “I don’t know. I doubt he knows,” Mariah said contemptuously. “But he’s good at seeming sincere w
hen his back’s against the wall, just like any politician. In the government, a minister with a drink or drugs problem can get help. Same with gambling or sex addiction. It’s all very discreet, no revelations to the constituents.

  “Dad swore he’d been fighting his obsession all his life, and he wanted to be cured. Then he accepted everything they offered. Aversion therapy, psychiatric meds, talk therapy….”

  “I’m astonished your father confessed all this to you.”

  “He didn’t. Aaron discovered it when he was hacking into the DEFRA mainframe for Duncan,” Mariah said. “Duncan wanted to know about the government’s long term plans to fight climate change, internal memos about the Paris Accords, etc. Aaron did one better—he blackmailed my dad and got himself access to Parliament through dad’s campaign.”

  “For information?” Tony asked.

  “The No-Hopers were already providing that,” Mariah said. “I think Duncan needed a mole for something else. Probably something more hands-on. Anyway. I was trying to explain about Mark and me. Until I was ten, I was Daddy’s girl. I adored him. He was my best friend. I don’t count Mark, because Mark was like the other half of me. One soul in two bodies.

  “Then one night, when it was time for bed, my father came to tuck me in. I’d had a bad day at school. I was teary, in need of a kind word. He climbed into bed with me. I fought but—” She stared hard at Tony. “Do I have to say it?”

  “No,” he said quietly.

  “He swore me to secrecy. I said yes. I would have said anything to drive him away. Once he went to Mum’s bed, I slipped into my brother’s room.

  “Mark wasn’t asleep. I knew he wouldn’t be. He could always feel it when something was really wrong with me,” Mariah said. “I had to tell him. You can’t keep a secret from yourself. I fell asleep in his bed. While I slept, Mark got up, took the silver letter opener off Mum’s writing desk, and crept into the master bedroom.