Theodora nodded. ‘My paternal grandmother was a pupil here, yes.’
It looked as though Oenone’s interrogation might start all over again, but Barbara Brighouse had had enough. ‘I think this might be quite a good moment for me to show you round. There’s that portrait of your grandmother by Laslo, and a good collection of books and manuscripts, including her diary of her travels in Greece and Turkey,’ she said, rapidly propelling Theodora before her.
They had not quite reached the common-room door when it opened and one of the three indistinguishable mathematicians flung it open wide and, briefcase in one hand, gloves in the other, said in a voice which had been useful to her as a house captain at Roedean, ‘Dame Alicia would like you all to remain here. One of our pupils has been kidnapped and the police will need to see everyone.’
Even so, Theodora got back to St Sylvester’s before Geoffrey. She let herself into the dark hall of the immense Victorian vicarage just before eight o’clock. The tessellated floor echoed to footsteps as she shook out her raincoat and hung it on the stand. There was evidence of other occupants in a dozen damp coats which the stand accommodated easily. A murmur of voices from the large door on the right indicated that the evening’s religious business was in hand. Theodora, who knew better than to use the light switch, made her way unerringly down the bare basement steps to her own flat.
She had inherited the flat from the previous curate whose tastes had run to the mechanical and she was still discovering tools the names of which she did not know at the back of the ample cupboards. The flat had its own entrance directly on to the street, but Geoffrey seemed not to mind her using the vicarage front door and, since this was more convenient, that was what she did.
Ten minutes later, Theodora heard Geoffrey’s feet scraping on the front door boot-scraper. She heard him hesitate and then walk across the hall. A moment later she opened her door to his characteristic tap. Theodora produced excellent bacon sandwiches, pushed the mustard in Geoffrey’s direction, and poured thick sweet Indian tea into two mugs, on the side of which was emblazoned, ‘St Sylvester’s Centenary Appeal 1877–1977.’
‘What’s up?’ Theodora inquired.
Geoffrey told her.
‘So it was an accident?’
‘Well, there’ll have to be an inquest but the place is being rewired. It
looks as though the workmen left the electricity switched on. The boy shouldn’t have been in the room and of course the workmen are swearing they secured the door. But …
‘Are you seeing the parents, or would you like me to? ‘Thanks. I’ve seen everyone, I think. Mother, though not father, police, staff, head, LEA officer, very worried.’
‘About insurance’, Theodora surmised.
Geoffrey smiled wanly. ‘What else?’
‘Who was the boy? Anyone you know?’
‘Yes, Paul Kostas.’
Theodora raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh dear. How about Kostas’s father?’ Theodora knew the family only by repute. Geoffrey had spoken of the boys, other parishioners knew some of the adults in that tough family. They were a large clan of Greeks whose place in local respect was assured partly by their resources (most of the men drove Mercedes) and partly by their aggression. There had been a recent court case, she seemed to remember; something to do with GBH against a neighbour. One of the Kostases had done six months in consequence, apparently.
‘Mother was evasive,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I think she doesn’t know where he is.’
‘Still inside?’
‘No. The efficient headmaster knew he’d been out three weeks.’
‘What about the twin?’
‘He’s silent. In a family of two sisters, a mother, a grandmother and some sort of aunt or cousin, all giving tongue to grief, he’s silent. As a family, of course, they’re close, and that will help; but on the other hand they’d like to make someone a scapegoat. I fear it may be the headmaster or perhaps the chap in charge of the group at the time.’
‘Who was?’
‘A fellow called Ralph Troutbeck. English and drama specialist. He doesn’t seem to have all that much control over the group. They appear to have been wandering around a bit.’
‘Troutbeck. An unusual name. There’s a Troutbeck at St Veep’s. Rather insistently well bred. Quizzing newcomers like me.’ She paused. ‘And we too have not been without incident at the establishment across the water.’ Theodora recapitulated on the happenings.
‘Do they know why the child was kidnapped?’
‘She’s the daughter of a Greek diplomat. Mother’s English.The chauffeur drives her in daily in a bullet-proof Mercedes. It was assumed that Mercs at the Greek embassy are all bullet-proofed, but of course now they’re wondering if there was a reason.’
‘I suppose the place is crawling with police?’
Theodora nodded. ‘Rather more than turned out for your sad little affair.’
Geoffrey had mentioned the squad car of a sergeant and a constable followed by a police ambulance. St Veep’s had had four plainclothes men, two dark, mustachioed security men with strong accents and an inspector.
He glanced curiously at Theodora. ‘And how is my sister coping?’
‘Need you ask? Splendidly. Barbara’s enjoying it rather. You are an admirable family, Geoffrey.’
Geoffrey smiled his delighted smile. It cleared his face from ear to ear.
‘Aren’t we?’
‘It’s terrible for the family though, and one hates to think of the girl. They’re trying to keep it out of the papers in case of a ransom demand, a request with which Dame Alicia’s only too happy to concur. I gather she’s rather thrown by something as eminently newsworthy as a kidnapping. She’s been used to getting prime-time publicity for St Veep’s at any price. Now that she could have it for free, pressed down and running over, she doesn’t want it. I think the notion of bad publicity for St Veep’s up to now has been oxymoronic. It’ll be interesting to see how she copes. Did you know, by the way, my Uncle Hugh married Dame Alicia?’
‘Surely not?’
‘It was long before she was known, of course. Hugh had a parish in Portsmouth at the time. Pound was something young and glamorous in the Navy – naval attaché? Something of the sort. Perhaps you knew of them?’
Theodora always gave full weight to Geoffrey’s naval network.
Geoffrey shook his head. ‘Is he still about?’
‘Killed in an air crash in Africa about ten years ago. I rather think he and Dame Alicia’d followed their own paths for some time before it happened.’
‘What a lot you know.’
Theodora sat up full in her chair. ‘I think it counts as pastoral skill.’
‘You could put it like that. Do you keep a card index?’
Theodora was genuinely hurt.‘You don’t seem to realise what’s involved in the clerical web,’ she said earnestly, taking a determined bite of the last bacon sandwich. ‘Of course, both you and I have family, school and university networks, but you must remember my lot have been clerical now for eight generations. You’re the first of your family in the priesthood. It mounts up, you know, more than masonic. There can’t be many parts of England Braithwaites haven’t at some time served in. What I lack, and rather envy you, is the services connection. That would help.’
‘No chaplains?’
‘To tell you the truth’, Theodora said apologetically, ‘we rather looked down on them as a breed. Like temporary gentlemen in the First World War.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Geoffrey conceded.‘I’ve had too much contact with the caring professions today. They all work off card indexes. Or, in the case of Lance Springer, computer records. I don’t know why I feel it’s more humane to trust to memory.’ He shrugged. ‘After all, one can widen one’s scope and be more accurate with a database.’
Theodora shook her head. ‘Numbers are not important and we, by which I mean the Church should aim at quality not quantity. After all, we’re not aiming to offer quite the same sorts of thing as th
e social services. As for accuracy, no computer I’ve yet dealt with matches my Uncle Hugh.’
The sound of voices and the clatter of feet on the hall floor above them announced the break-up of the parish meeting. Geoffrey lurched to his feet. ‘I must go and say a kind word to encourage Henry before he goes.’
He hurled the remains of his mug of tea down his throat as though it were vodka, and shot up the short flight of shallow steps to the ground floor. The most contained, the most modest of priests, his only excess was a certain histrionicism in his bodily movements. It was as though the fact that he was tall and red-haired evoked excessive expectations in people which his generosity did not like to disappoint but which his own balanced nature deprecated.The drama of gesture and posture, Theodora reflected, was his way of satisfying people whilst protecting his inner reserve. She watched the hot water splash over the plates. She’d been right to take the curacy. She was at ease with Geoffrey and he, she felt, with her. He cared about people in the right way, respecting them, leaving them space to choose. She could learn from him. Might he have anything to learn from her?
The telephone shrilled in the basement an hour later. Theodora pushed aside Mowinkel on the Psalms and reached for the instrument. Geoffrey, she knew from the sounds of doors closing and murmured voices, was engaged in the study.
‘Miss Braithwaite … Theodora, if I may. I am so very sorry to intrude at this rather late hour, but I really need to have a word. Barbara seemed to think that you keep late hours in your parish.’
Miss Aldriche’s pleasant low voice with its admirable enunciation of the language came clearly into the basement flat.
‘How can I help?’ Theodora was sleepy but willing.
‘It’s the Stephanopoulos girl of course. The one who was kidnapped.’
‘Yes?’
‘I naturally had a word with her mama, after the police had finished.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m really rather worried about her. I wondered …?’
‘Of course I’ll go and see her.’ Theodora’s pastoral instinct never failed.
‘Oh, if you could. We would be so very grateful. I rather paved the way for you. Family connection and so on.’
Theodora was nonplussed. ‘What?’
‘Well, your grandmother and Stella Stephanopoulos’s mother were both old girls.’ Miss Aldriche was triumphant. ‘So of course the history of the foundation as well as its present reputation is dear to her and to you too, I imagine.’
‘Naturally’. Theodora was guarded.
There was a pause. ‘What I mean is, Dame Alicia is anxious—’
‘I can well understand it.’
‘—that there shouldn’t be any …’
She now knew exactly to what Miss Aldriche was referring. ‘Mrs Stephanopoulos might break it to the press, blame the school? Something of that sort?’
‘She’s naturally distraught.’
‘When would you advise I call?’
‘I ventured to suggest tomorrow morning.’
Theodora couldn’t help but admire the lack of grass growing beneath the senior ladies’ feet.
‘They have an embassy flat in Church Row, Hampstead. I said about ten-thirty?
Geoffrey never, after all, reached the deserving Henry. The doorbell rang as he gained the hall. Swerving in his course, Geoffrey beheld in the porch the tiny, black-clad figure of Mrs Kostas. He drew her gently inside.
‘Father, my husband,’ she began, ‘I cannot find him. He is …’ ‘Come into the study, Mrs Kostas.’ Geoffrey’s manner effortlessly conveyed warmth and formal courtesy and the woman, who had clearly been weeping, repossessed herself.
CHAPTER FOUR
Innocent Objects
On Tuesday morning Stella Stephanopoulos heard the bell almost before it rang. She was standing in front of her bedroom mirror and, with a gesture which looked studied but was in fact, after years of indulgence, quite automatic, she smoothed her auburn hair back from her broad brow. The bedroom, its pieces de résistance a turquoise padded bedhead, and one complete wall faced with pink mirror-glass, faced south and caught the morning sun. The room had an air of a child playing at Hollywood.
Stella had missed the thirties but they had been her mother’s time. There were photographs on glass-topped tables and in morocco-covered albums. A great deal of furniture was in glass and chrome. Shagreen cases, the remnants of make-up in old crocodile handbags, even clothes in fabrics no longer known – tussore, gros grain – all these she had inherited from her mother. She had recognised her spiritual medium, seized it and enhanced it. Fox furs, silver and red, gleamed with artificial eyes out of the top of her wardrobe. The accoutrements from a past and, therefore, safer age, gave Stella the courage to inhabit her own period.
The last of a large family born to old parents, she had herself married late and, as it were, kept up the tradition. She had been an old-fashioned girl, but racy, fast driving as the thirties had allowed women to be. She was a miniature, pretty beyond words; not handsome, but every last bit of her made the best of. In her person, as in her drawing room, wherever the eye went, it was delighted and surprised. Bijou was a word that was heard of her, while her setting was decorated, illustrated almost, with plants, pictures, hangings. Her daughter, her only child – where was she now? – was destined, she hoped, to inherit it all.
Now the bell pealed in the Georgian cottage. The house did not really suit her adopted style. There was a tension she recognised but made no attempt to solve. It was a problem, she understood, for her audience, not for the actress herself. She descended the two floors, her tiny feet tapping and navigating the narrow staircase, its rickety turns testing her highheeled balance, which did not fail her. The maid reached the door before her but the security man anticipated them both. His massive back and thick, sleeked-back hair made a formidable outline as he stood framed in the cottage door and looked up into Theodora’s level and courteous gaze.
‘Ti?’ he inquired.
‘Theodora Braithwaite. I have an appointment with Mrs Stephanopoulos.’
‘Do come in.’ Characters in novels cry. Rarely so in real life. Stella
Stephanopoulos, Theodora noted, cried. Her deep thrilling voice with its
clipped thirties vowels cried. The security man, however, failed to give
way. His squat, solid form remained in place.
‘Oriste?’
Mrs Stephanopoulos resorted to syntactically perfect but Englishaccented Greek, and he stepped nimbly aside and came to attention.
Theodora smiled at him and remarked his elegant moustaches. The dog,
a Staffordshire bull terrier, brindle and white, stood dead centre in the
middle of the hall like a sailor on a swaying deck, his feet placed wide
apart and braced, his tail straight out behind him, a shark-like smile
slashed across his face. Theodora nodded to him in a comradely fashion.
He thumped his tail but, like the man, did not budge. This time Mrs
Stephanopoulos resorted to peremptory English and he swung sideways
to allow the two women to shake hands.
‘Miss Braithwaite, I am so enormously pleased to see you.’ Theodora stooped her head to enter the small front door and emerged
into the white-painted, panelled hall. Her eye took in a niche with a
wooden madonna, her beechwood robes fluttering, her honest peasant
face smiling in delight as she displayed in the crook of her arm the infant
Christ to a world which, she was confident, would want to admire him. At
the feet of the statue stood a small table with a silver salver and its litter
of cards, invitations, advertisements, like votive offerings. For a moment
Theodora’s eye rested on a familiar-looking card. Then she followed her
hostess upstairs. In the drawing room on the first floor, a toy fire glowed in
the minuscule iron grate. The room ran fr
om the front of the house to the
back, with something of a curve round the chimney breast in the centre.
Seventeenth-century walnut glowed, eighteenth-century silver glittered. Stella Stephanopoulos graced the room. There might well be resources
for a ransom here, Theodora reflected.
‘It is good of you to come. I, George, and I are …’ She stopped. Suddenly
the actress failed.
‘Have you had any news?’ Theodora asked gently.
‘Nothing. The police tell us nothing.’ She searched around for comfort,
‘Konstantin, the ambassador, has been so kind to George, to both of us.
He phoned yesterday twice. The second time in person. He said we
could call on any of the embassy’s resources. The security men and so
on. But it’s all a bit late.’ Theodora glanced over Stella’s head. Above the
fireplace hung a three-quarter portrait of a man in army uniform. He was
fresh-complexioned with sleek fair hair brushed back from a high
forehead. The face was large, and square, the grey eyes which met the
spectator’s were cold and level. Major George Stephanopoulos, was
inscribed in black letters on the small gilt plaque at the bottom of the
frame. He looked less Greek than German, Theodora thought and not so
much competent as ruthless. She turned her attention back to her hostess. ‘Do you know how it actually happened?’
‘Michel, our driver, takes her to St Veep’s from here about the same
time every day and picks her up after school.’
‘Michel is …?’
‘He opened the door to you. He’s on the permanent staff in this country.
He has British nationality. Before he picks her up she’s supposed to wait
inside the school in the entrance hall – on the marble, as they call it –
until he rings. You know St Veep’s of course?’
‘I know its reputation, of course. But in fact I only started teaching there
yesterday. I’m learning.’
‘Of course, I was there myself.’ Stella smiled wanly. ‘It hasn’t changed.
Physically, I mean, or in ethos. I think they’ve sharpened it up academically.
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