‘Your theory is,’ Geoffrey had said, ‘that Dimitri Kostas was able to kidnap Jessica because he looked so like his twin brother, Michel, the Stephanopouloses’ driver, that Jessica didn’t realise until too late.’
Theodora nodded.
‘Where’s Michel now?’
‘I think he’s still with the Stephanopouloses. He has digs in Camden and reports for duty to either the embassy or to Hampstead as he’s told.’
‘This is according to Stella?’ Geoffrey inquired. ‘Could you have a word with him?’
‘I thought of that. Of course it would be ideal. But on the one hand Stella is not for me asking questions in case it jeopardises Jessica’s safety at the hands of the kidnappers. She seems to credit them with supernatural powers, like some sort of mythical Furies.’
‘And on the other hand?’
‘And on the other hand, of course, I can’t question him without an interpreter. My modern Greek just isn’t good enough.’
Geoffrey grinned. ‘Hexameters not his vernacular?’
‘Almost certainly not,’ Theodora replied austerely. ‘However, I was wondering if you had any information about Dimitri from Mrs Kostas.’
‘You remember she came to me on Monday night after her son’s death?’
Theodora nodded.
‘Well, she told me then she didn’t know where her husband was. I think I mentioned it. What I don’t think I mentioned was that on Tuesday morning I went into church to sort out the jumble for the boot sale and I came across the boy, the twin brother, Peter, lurking in the vestry. And he said something curious about his father having said that the fortune of the family had departed. Something like that.’
‘Was he referring to the death of his brother?’
‘I took it so at the time. But if he did mean that, then that would mean that he was in touch with his father, that his father knew of his son’s death, which according to his wife he didn’t, or anyway didn’t from her. I simply didn’t make the connection at the time. And the session with Troutbeck rather pushed it out of my mind.’
‘And you didn’t manage to catch up with Peter again?’
‘No. I charged all over the school looking for him but he’d gone. As I told you, Springer’s tale was that his father wanted him with him in Cyprus.’
‘So on Wednesday evening you reckon Peter and his father flew to Cyprus?’
‘Either that,’ Geoffrey agreed, ‘or Peter travelled alone and his father had already gone.’
‘Do you think they’ve got Jessica with them?’ Theodora asked.
‘Wouldn’t it be difficult to take a girl out of the country?’
‘Not necessarily,’Theodora was authoritative.‘You don’t need a passport to go out of Britain, only to get back in. Our regulations are designed to prevent immigration, not emigration.’
‘But why should she go willingly?’
‘Frightened? Drugged? Compliant for some greater good?’
‘Such as?’
‘Really,’ Theodora gave vent to irritation, ‘I don’t know. I’m just hypothesising.’
‘So if they flew out there need be no check kept by airport authorities?’
‘I doubt it. There may be passenger lists if they went out by an airline.’
‘Could we check?’ Geoffrey clearly felt the need for action.
‘We aren’t the police. They might not be too willing to tell us.’
‘Do you think the police have got this far?’ Geoffrey asked.
‘I think as far as they’re concerned they reckon they’ve got their man. Ralph Troutbeck’s still not been bailed. So why should they look further?’
‘I meant,’ said Geoffrey, ‘as regards Jessica.’
Theodora paused. ‘I think there are difficulties about Jessica from the Stephanopoulos end. I’ve thought from the first they aren’t fully cooperating with our police. When I met Stella this morning she as good as admitted as much. She spoke of the husband, George, taking his own steps. She certainly thinks that Jessica’s kidnap is a political act to do with George’s time in Cyprus before partition. Whether she knows more than that, I’m not sure.’
‘So what did George do in Cyprus?’
‘Military cultural attaché.’
‘Sounds an impossible combination to me,’ said the ex-naval officer.
‘Culture used as a weapon? It’s a bit new to the English scene. But we’re getting there. All this heritage stuff is from the same line of country. Using beauty, quality, historic value and worth in order to sell a culture or to dominate one: it’s all from the same stable. Like your church, like the portraits at St Veep’s, and indeed much else there. We’re all in the advertising business now, reinventing tradition like mad.’
‘Sad,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Everything should be itself, and not another thing. However,’ he went on, ‘I’ve got a better idea than the police. I know a chap, Harry Gunn. We flew choppers off the Splendid together. There’s just a chance …’
With that Geoffrey gulped the remains of his coffee and flung himself up Theodora’s stairs to his own part of the house. Nice of him to think of her phone bill, Theodora reflected.
Twenty minutes later he’d returned, smiling from ear to ear. ‘Harry says three seats were booked on Greek Airlines for the 18.40 flight to Larnaca, Southern Cyprus on Wednesday night, in the name of Kostas.’
‘Pretty impressive,’ Theodora congratulated him. ‘Now all we need to know is why?’
‘Why?’ Geoffrey clearly felt affronted.‘Surely it’s enough that they went?’
‘Why on earth have the Kostases kidnapped Jessica, if they have, and why was their son killed?’ A note of exasperation entered Theodora’s voice.
‘Are the two connected?’
Theodora felt Geoffrey was being obtuse. ‘If the death wasn’t an accident, surely they must be. They can’t just be coincidental.’
‘All right,’ said Geoffrey with resignation, ‘why?’
‘Let’s start with the kidnap and leave the killing for a moment.’Theodora was analytical. ‘The note to Stella Stephanopoulos said they wanted two icons.’
‘Which two?’ Geoffrey was not disposed to be helpful.
‘Yes, quite. If they wanted the one on Jessica’s dressing table, why not just break in and take it?’
‘Perhaps it was the wrong one. Or perhaps they thought Jessica knew where the other was.’
‘The only other icon we know about is the one which Jessica gave to Cromwell before she was snatched. And that icon wasn’t a copy of the one in her room. The Stephanopoulos one is of a Virgin and child; the Jessica copy one is an annunciation.’
‘Where from?’ Geoffrey was interested in spite of himself.
‘Ah, if only,’ said Theodora and then went on. ‘Look, there is just a possibility. I had a look at my grandmother’s diary in the St Veep’s archive this evening. She describes purchasing an icon when she was on her honeymoon in Athens in 1923.’ Theodora paused to make quite sure Geoffrey was with her. ‘The description which she gives of it matches exactly the one Jessica made a copy of.’
‘You don’t say,’ Geoffrey’s response was quite flattering, Theodora felt.
‘And what’s more, the dealer my grandmother got it from was called Andreas Stephanopoulos.’
‘Ha!’ said Geoffrey, as triumphant as if he had made the connection himself. ‘So where is your grandmother’s icon now? Is it amongst her things? Can Jessica have had access to it?’
Theodora shook her head. ‘It’s not amongst the St Veep’s archive, I checked with Miss Aldriche. I can’t remember Grandmother having anything which looked like an icon when she was living at Medwich. I won’t say I knew every object. I mean, I don’t think I ever went into her bedroom, for example. And, of course, by the time I knew her, she was getting on and she’d shed a number of her things round the family, just in order to be able to get into a flat.’
‘What happened to her stuff when she died? I mean, apart from the bits that we
nt to St Veep’s?’
‘Well, I was ten at the time, so I’m not really too sure. But some of it went to my father and some of it to my Great-uncle Hugh, her brother-in-law.’
Geoffrey looked at his watch. It was eleven-twenty. ‘Does your uncle keep late hours?’
‘All right,’ said Theodora with resignation. ‘I’ll phone him.’
‘Use my instrument,’ said Geoffrey kindly.
The rattling of the Turkish Airlines’ seats seemed to have got louder. Then they began to heave. The man next to Theodora, in a dark suit with a powerful beard waiting to take over his face, suddenly leaned forward, put his head in his hands, and groaned. Theodora glanced across the gangway. Two old women with black dresses and black shawls over their heads had their hands folded, their eyes fixed on the fusellage. Theodora briefly commended her soul to God and resumed her review of events.
The conversation with Canon Hugh had not been easy. It wasn’t that he wasn’t awake. Though now into his eighties, he kept up a regimen of prayer, reading and gardening which would have sent many a younger man early to bed. But Canon Hugh read his last office at midnight. He had, however – as Theodora knew – his own priorities, from which he was reluctant to depart. Theodora dreaded to intrude upon his routine.
The telephone was answered almost at once. The sound of ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’, played on what she recognised as her uncle’s flute, was followed by her uncle’s voice saying, ‘Hugh Braithwaite here, I regret I am not at leisure at the moment. If you wish, you may leave a message after the tone. If, on the other hand, you have inquiries about baptisms, weddings or funerals …’
Theodora settled down to wait. She should have known that, having discovered the wonders of modern communications. Canon Hugh would use them to the full. ‘If, however, you would like to join us at our worship …’
The tone, when it came at last, was Canon Hugh’s flute again, at G-sharp. Theodora winced. ‘Uncle Hugh, Theodora here. I’m sorry to butt in on you at this time of night, but I really would like to speak to you rather urgently. I’m phoning from 081 6—.’
‘Hello,’ Canon Hugh’s voice cut in. ‘Theodora, my dear, how very nice to hear you.’
The voice conjured up the long bony face, which would have looked well on a horse, and the small, dark study with its view over the fens.
‘Where are you?’
‘At home. St Sylvester’s. I wondered—’
‘Are you well?’
‘Yes, I’m fine, thank you. And you? Look—’
‘I had a touch of rheumatics in my left hand last week which put me back with the tomatoes. But I’m quite recovered now, thank you for your kind inquiry. Have you—’
‘Uncle Hugh, I’m sorry to interrupt but I’m … I haven’t too much time. It’s about Grandmama’s effects.’
‘Who?’
‘Grandmama Braithwaite, Helena. Your sister-in-law,’ she added, lest there should be any mistake.
‘Ah, Helena. There was a fine funeral. A bishop, a suffragan, a dean and two canons. Pity your grandfather didn’t live to see it.’
‘Yes, great pity. What I wanted to know was, what happened to her effects?’
If Canon Hugh found her questions surprising, or even impertinent, he gave no sign. ‘The money went three ways: me, your Uncle Louis and your father. May he rest in peace.’
‘Yes.Yes. I know. It’s not the money. It’s the effects.’
‘Furniture went to your Aunt Daphne, china to that home for decaying horses, clothes to Oxfam.’ Canon Hugh’s memory did not apparently fail him. She could almost see him ticking items off on his long, elegant fingers.
‘It’s the pictures I was interested in. I’m—’ She could not stop him. He was off again.
‘That appalling Landseer of a cow she was so fond of – I don’t know if you recall it? It hung over the drawingroom chimney at Mark Beech and later, when your grandfather got his archdeaconry, in the hall at King’s Lynn. That went to …’ There seemed no way of halting him. He was clearly set to go through the entire collection, their aesthetic merits, their hanging positions in two houses, their ultimate destination.
‘Then that portrait of her as a flapper went to her old school, St Veep’s.’
‘It’s that I rather wanted to—’
‘I always felt that was its spiritual home. It was a kind of icon of a certain sort of energy, of young womanhood, if you understand me, that sort of thing. It summed up, in a way, some of your grandmother’s least admirable qualities.’
‘Icons are rather what I wanted to ask about,’ Theodora managed to put it.‘I’m trying to trace a particular icon. A Greek or Italian or Cypriot one of an annunciation which Grandmother bought in Greece on her honeymoon in 1923. Hello?’ The chatter from Lincolnshire had ceased. There was a marked silence.
‘Hello. Uncle Hugh, are you still there?’
‘Yes. A Greek icon you say?’
If Theodora could have imagined that it was possible for Canon Hugh to be evasive – and she certainly could – then she would have said that that was what he was being.
‘An annunciation,’ she pressed him. ‘Do you happen to recall it?’
‘It was very fine,’ the voice seemed more distant, ‘very fine indeed. Quite unlike her other stuff. To be honest,’ the voice grew more intimate, ‘I always coveted it. I had hoped she’d leave it to me.’
‘And did she?’
‘No,’ said Canon Hugh bleakly. ‘No, she didn’t.’
‘So where did it go?’
‘It went to the Foxes.’
‘Who?’
‘Two sisters: Joanna, was it, and Clarissa? Yes, Clarissa; she was the closer of the two.’
‘Hell’s teeth,’ Theodora muttered. ‘What is he on about?’
‘Helena was at school with them. Then they went into suffrage together. They were cleverer than your grandmother. Girton, I think.’ Canon Hugh’s voice evinced as much distaste as it was possible for him to reconcile with his priestly profession.
‘So when Grandmother died, she left the annunciation to her old friend Clarissa Fox?’
‘No, no, she was dead by then. To her daughter, Clarissa: she was at St Veep’s too. Regular nest of vipers, St Veep’s.’
‘I’m doing some part-time teaching there at the moment,’ Theodora said.
‘Well, I’m sure you do them a great deal of good,’ said Canon Hugh heartily. ‘Less learning and more religion is what’s needed there, by all accounts.’
Theodora wondered whose accounts he’d heard.
‘Do you happen to know the name of Clarissa’s daughter?’
Canon Hugh’s genealogical knowledge did not fail him. ‘Bennet,’ he said firmly. ‘She married Roderick Bennet’s second son.’
He’s better than a computer, Theodora thought.
Geoffrey and Theodora turned the new knowledge about between them. If Clarissa Bennet’s daughter, Clarissa Two, had been an acquaintance of Jessica’s, might that mean that Jessica had had a look at, even been allowed to copy, the Bennet icon, formerly the Braithwaite annunciation? Geoffrey had looked at his watch.
‘No,’ said Theodora. ‘No. I am not ringing up a totally unknown parent at a quarter-past midnight to inquire if she has an icon which she allowed a friend of her daughter’s to copy.’
‘Even if copying it resulted in her abduction?’ said Geoffrey. ‘Even if it might give an indication of her where-abouts? Even if …’
‘All right.’ Theodora gave in.
Mrs Bennet was the opposite to Canon Hugh in telephone manner. She had a fine line in curtness. Not unnaturally, she was not pleased to be roused and asked the sort of questions which Theodora wanted to put to her. When it got to the crux of the matter, however, she was able to say that yes, she did possess Helena Braithwaite’s icon and yes, Jessica had come home with Clarissa on occasions and might well have made a copy of it. Frankly, given how unsuitable her daughter’s usual acquaintances were, she’d rather taken to
Jessica, who had nice quiet manners and an interest in religion. Surely not a bad thing for young people to have? No, Theodora had hastened to agree with her. And where, Theodora inquired tentatively, where was the icon at the moment? ‘Just above my head,’ Mrs Bennet replied. ‘And since I imagine you’re going to ask me to sell it to you, I’ve had two other offers over the last month – I can save us all a lot of sleeping time by saying I won’t.’Theodora heard the sound of a phone being put down.
‘Who’s asking her to sell, do you suppose?’ Geoffrey inquired.
Before she could reply, the phone bell rang. It was Theodora’s flat. She answered it.
‘Theodora?’ The voice was St Veepian. It was Oenone’s. ‘I’m so sorry to ring you at home at this hour. Except it’s just that I can’t bear to think of Ralph in that smelly cell.’
Theodora sympathised with her revulsion.
‘Well, the reason I’m ringing is that, you remember Geoffrey asked me to have a word with Dame Alicia about Uncle Jeremy’s stuff which went to Dick Pound? Dame Alicia said that what he left him was his campaign medals – I really do think it was mean of him not to leave them to Ralph. So marked. I know Ralph’s not the military type, but he is his son – and a collection of photographs. It’s the photographs I thought might be of interest. You did say icons, didn’t you? Yes, well there’s a photograph of one.’
‘What’s it of?’ Theodora could not prevent herself from interrupting.
‘It’s of the Virgin and child. I think. Aren’t they all?’
‘Not necessarily. What’s the setting?’
‘Wait a minute. I’ll get it.’
‘She’s enthroned with lots of little angels round her, holding – wait a minute, I’ll get a better light – holding a ladder and a mountain in her hand. Would that be rather odd?’
‘Not necessarily. Do you happen to know the provenance?’
‘On the back it says “Ayia Maria, Montevento, May 1974”. Does that help?’
Theodora thought it might.
‘Where’s Montevento?’ Oenone inquired before she rang off.
‘Cyprus,’ said Theodora. ‘Northern, now Turkish Cyprus.’
When she’d gone back to Geoffrey, he’d said gravely, ‘It’s definitely an icon then, is it, that’s caused the death of one child and the kidnap of another?’
Holy Terrors Page 15