Blue Blood

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘I don’t like the look of that at all,’ she said. And she shivered.

  Richard was waiting for her at the kitchen table when she got downstairs. He hadn’t brought her up her usual cup of tea, so she knew something was distracting him and had rushed through her morning routine with unusual - unsettling - speed. Something about the deceptively summery day made her fear the worst but to begin with there was nothing to sharpen her fears. Richard was sitting at the table reading. There was a big teapot steaming fragrantly from beneath its cosy, apparently forgotten. The table was laid and the makings of a continental breakfast supplemented by the aroma of simmering porridge.

  ‘Look at this!’ he said as soon as she appeared, holding out the paper. It was pink in colour - the Financial Times, therefore. As always he had folded it so that the article which interested him was uppermost and the headline would have drawn her eye in any case:

  HERITAGE MARINER STOCK RIDES HIGH

  ‘Just exactly what you said!’ Richard continued. ‘Word for word. You know you amaze me sometimes.’

  ‘Did they interview you?’ she asked, frowning over the article.

  ‘Nope. I’d have mentioned it.’

  ‘Hmm. I’m not convinced; we haven’t actually completed a sentence since the twins came home ten days ago.’

  ‘True enough. But I’d have told you somehow. They haven’t been near me.’

  ‘Nor me. Well they can’t have talked to Daddy or Helen; they’d have mentioned it. They at least seem able to get words wedged in edgeways - even when the twins are home.’ Robin’s father, Sir William Heritage, and his second wife, Helen DuFour (French, Republican and most militantly not Lady Heritage), were senior executives of the company, with Richard and Robin. And Charles Lee, their Hong Kong Chinese finance director. Together, with some stock held in trust for the twins, the family held the controlling 51% of the buoyant Heritage Mariner stock.

  ‘They’ll have got it from Charles, then. He’s the darling of the City at the moment in any case.’

  ‘Of the chattering classes at any rate,’ agreed Robin thoughtfully, still reading. ‘He’s such a colourful character you never know whether you’ll find him in the financial sections or the social sections. Or the gossip columns. With his mistresses, his yachts, his charities. And his gambling.’

  ‘He says he spends more in a month of sailing than he loses in a year of gambling,’ said Richard. ‘And he’s been a great supporter of the Katapult series. How many of them have we sold on his say-so? To his expensive friends and contacts?’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Robin didn’t sound all that convinced.

  ‘Who was it said that sailing is like standing under a cold shower tearing up fifty-pound notes?’ asked Richard.

  ‘I don’t know. But I sometimes think Charles has progressed to one-hundred-pound notes. Thank God it’s his family fortune and not our salary that he’s pissing away.’ Robin could get quite animated on the subject of Charles Lee - and not always in a ladylike way.

  Richard poured her a cup of tea as she continued to read and fulminate, ‘Yes, this is Charles’s doing all right. His is the only Heritage Mariner name in the whole article - and he has managed to slip in references to the Fastnet Race, his latest brainless blonde bimbo, and what on earth is this?

  Richard, uneasily, knew exactly what this was. ‘The new limited edition Lamborghini Murcielago with the removable roof and...’

  ‘And how much did it cost him?’

  ‘Nearly half a million dollars. Including shipping and import costs. He bought it in New York. You can’t get them here yet but he couldn’t wait. Or she couldn’t...’

  ‘Ye Gods! Boy and toys! There ought to be a law!’ She threw the paper down in some disgust and sucked fiercely on her tea, scalding her lips and adding to the darkness of her mood. ‘What are those letters?’ she demanded.

  ‘Would you like some breakfast? Porridge perhaps.’

  ‘No. I’ve just burned my bloody mouth on that bloody tea. Bloody porridge is not an option today. What are those letters?’

  ‘One for you and one for me. I haven’t opened them yet,’ he answered evasively. And she came down on the slight uneasiness in his tone like a hawk on a hare.

  ‘You know what they are, though, don’t you?’

  ‘Yours is from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch of the Department of Trade...’

  ‘That’ll be something to do with the inquiry, I suppose. Yours?’

  ‘Mine’s from London...’

  ‘London? It looks like the sort of envelope that you get wedding invitations in. Or summonses to tea with the Queen. Very high-quality. Who’s it from?’

  ‘It’s from Bentley Motors Limited. From Andrew Assay, their marketing director, I suppose. I’ve been expecting it.’

  Robin sat for a moment, her face so cold it should have cured her scalded lips.

  The Bentley was a sore point. A very sore point indeed.

  Some time ago, when Richard had taken full control of Heritage Mariner on Sir William’s retirement, the board had agreed that, as CEO, he really needed a car that reflected his importance. And the importance of the newly floated company as quoted on the stock exchanges in London, New York, Hong Kong...

  Neither the E-Type nor the Range Rover Freelander that he and Robin currently owned would do. Richard must follow in his father-in-law’s footsteps and get a Bentley.

  With a certain amount of reluctance, Richard agreed. Robin, unwisely, left him to it, busy with her own concerns and thinking nostalgically of Sir William’s Turbo Mulsanne and the Queen’s specially adapted Red Label Arnage. This had been a ghastly mistake. She saw that all too clearly and she never ceased regretting it. It was particularly regrettable that he saw it as a huge coup, and was filled with unredeemedly boyish enthusiasm whenever they talked of it.

  He had been up to Crewe to be fitted for it - as though he were going to Lobb’s for his handmade shoes or Gieves for his bespoke suits. He had agreed colour, trim and all the rest, endlessly popping across from Heritage House to the salesrooms in Conduit Street over this detail or that.

  The promise of the super car seemed to ignite something in him that Robin had never quite seen before. Boyhood fantasies filled with the 1929 4.5 litre that John Steed had driven in The Avengers on TV, with its racing-green paintwork, Vanden Plas coachwork and its massive gill-slitted bonnet held closed with leather straps seemed to emerge from nowhere - Robin had supposed him a fan of Westerns, not spy stories.

  But no. For, perhaps more influentially still, he talked dreamily of the three battleship-grey Bentleys that James Bond had driven in Ian Fleming’s original books. The 1930 4.5 litre Blower he had used until Hugo Drax’s henchmen had destroyed it in Moonraker; the open-topped Mark VI tourer he replaced it with, until he was seduced by Aston Martin before Goldfinger. And the Mulliner-made, Capron-bodied dangerously supercharged Mark II Continental with which he had swept his soon-to-be wife off her feet in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

  In short, sent out to buy a sedate saloon, he had instead bought himself a Bentley Continental GT sports car, in silvered steel, with battleship-grey interior - or as close as the people at Bentley would let him come to it. Or, more accurately, he had added his name to the long list of prospective buyers. It had a huge 6-litre, W12, turbocharged engine and could go from 0 to 60 in a good deal less than five seconds; and (downhill and with a following wind) it might be expected to top 200mph. But never, of course, in England. Even with a full range of mouth-watering extras, the Bentley cost much less than half as much as Charles Lee’s Lamborghini, which it could, at a push, outperform. But that did not appease Robin at all.

  Nor did the fact that it was a breathtakingly beautiful, if immensely powerful and toweringly impractical car - broad-shouldered and slim-hipped; long-nosed and a little brutal. Two-doored - if four seated; seeming to close out the twins altogether, and invite aboard ladies like Charles Lee’s - John Steed’s and James Bond’s - lissom fantasy escorts, r
ather than the practical, down-to-earth mistress of Ashenden.

  All of which got on Robin’s nerves as absolutely as it had got under Richard’s skin. Which was some going for a vehicle that neither of them had actually seen yet - let alone driven.

  In not very companionable silence they each slit their envelope open. Robin spoke first. ‘Yup. That’s it. The inquiry into the wreck of the Lionheart will be held at the magistrates’ court in the Guildhall, Penzance, one week from today. I must attend, according to this. My travelling expenses and loss of earnings may be defrayed on application but not the cost of any legal representation I might elect to bring. Lucky I wasn’t proposing to take any then.’

  ‘Why haven’t I got one of those?’ demanded Richard, who had been more closely involved than Robin in the legal - and financial - results of the adventure so far.

  ‘You weren’t in the driving seat, my love. You weren’t even in a fit state to drive, as I recall.’

  The acid comment caused the blue dazzle of his gaze to fall, prompting her to ask at once, ‘Yours?’

  ‘You were right. It is an invitation - though not quite to tea with the Queen. The Bentley’s due in next Monday. Can I go up for final fitting, test drive and such?’ Even though he fought to keep his tone matter-of-fact, she caught the tremor of excitement in the gravelly rumble of his voice.

  ‘I’ll drop you at the station on my way down to Penzance,’ she offered. ‘Unless you want to take the E-Type up and garage her at Heritage House while you get to know the new love of your life.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, darling. I’m coming down with you. I daresay I can pick up the Bentley anytime.’

  ‘No, love,’ she persisted with gentle, honeyed malice. ‘You’ve been looking forward to this for simply ages. I dare say picking up the Bentley will be much more complicated than giving evidence to an inquiry. It’ll be the simplest formality I’m sure. You pick up the Bentley and drive on down to join me. It’s a bit extravagant taking two cars all that way, but I love driving the Freelander and it’ll give you a great opportunity to test your new toy. You can introduce me to her personally by taking us both around Cornwall for a day or two after we’ve finished. I expect I can garage the Freelander at my hotel down there. You never know; it might be good fun!’

  ‘Well,’ he temporized, wracked between guilt and desire. ‘We’ll see.’

  And so, unknowingly, they sowed the seeds of disaster before they had even had breakfast.

  It was that kind of day.

  Chapter 10: The Falling Glass

  In fact, after a week of distractingly hectic effort on both the social and professional fronts, Robin left for the inquiry in Penzance on the next Sunday. One or two questions soon revealed that Lionheart’s Captain Tom Bartlett had been summonsed, as had Sparks and the Chief. Doc had gone back to Australia in the interim and by all accounts it wasn’t held to be an important enough hearing to summon him back. There had been damage to the hull - since fixed; damage to a beach - since repaired. There had been no loss of life. And the facts of the matter had been presented by the media in a manner unquestioned by any of the bodies involved and seemed to be clear and undisputed. The inquiry was just dotting a few i’s and crossing a few t’s for the sake of legal form.

  Robin’s attendance might be the merest formality, but she wished to prepare for it by settling in to her hotel and getting a good night’s sleep. It was a six hour drive to Penzance in any case. Leaving at 3 a.m. to be certain of arriving for 10, seemed to Robin neither advisable nor practical. Especially as she and Richard had capped the week off with a charity ball at the Grosvenor House in London, arranged by Charles Lee, on the Friday night.

  Richard had still received no summons - but they thought little of it, for his involvement in the actual damage to Lionheart, by chance, had been less immediate than hers. When the inquiry into the loss of Goodman Richard was set up, he expected to be summonsed to that. But to the Lionheart inquiry? Perhaps not. They tried to contact Andrew Atherton Balfour, their solicitor and friend, but the best they could do was to catch a distant glimpse of him and his dazzling wife, the barrister Margherita DaSilva, at the ball on Friday night. Charles, expansive, ebullient and surrounded by glitteringly expensive women as always, had shown neither knowledge of nor interest in the Lionheart inquiry and so they pursued the matter no further.

  Richard in particular had also been so frantically busy during the daytime overseeing the deployment of the last of the new SuperCats on their cross-Channel routes - with all the resultant publicity, glad-handing and meetings with everyone from Heritage Mariner part-board to insurers and the Department of Transport - that he was hardly at home in any case.

  Their return home from the ball in the wee small hours of Saturday morning was the first time that Robin and he shared a bed since he had rolled out of it and wandered on to the balcony last Monday morning. Had he not been asked especially by the vicar to perform his duties as churchwarden at matins, he would probably have stayed up in London for the whole weekend. Certainly it would have made much more sense to pop across from Grosvenor House to the Heritage Mariner company flat on Leadenhall Street rather than driving back to Ashenden through the night. But Richard, tee-total for more than twenty years and full of restless energy despite the strain and the work, didn’t mind a midnight spin - even through driving rain.

  So, as things were, they spent a tense and snappish day together at home with Robin packing and Richard fussing, then they rose late, broke their fast coldly and went to church. They returned in silence, ate cold cuts again, locked up Ashenden and left.

  It was a grey and gusty day, a fitting representative of the whole week, which had seen the unobserved glass in Richard’s untenanted study falling steadily and the needle swing relentlessly from WET to STORMY. As Robin drove south-westwards towards the nearest en route town where Richard could catch the London train without adding too many more miles to her Penzance drive, the clouds thickened threateningly, the day darkened relentlessly and the wind thumped increasingly powerfully against the high sides of the Freelander.

  ‘Looks like it’ll be a nasty journey,’ said Richard glumly as the first squall of rain dashed across the square windscreen like a handful of gravel.

  ‘For you but not for me,’ she answered. ‘This lot is staying in the east. It’s warm and sunny west of Worthing. I may sunbathe on Newlyn prom before dinner. I shall certainly be taking a long walk to think things over.’

  The opening phrase of Robin’s dark and vaguely threatening answer rang a distant bell deep beneath his conscious mind which distracted him from any other messages it might have contained. Apparently inconsequentially, as he stood alone on the windswept, streaming platform, waiting for the London train, an hour or so later, he found himself singing the old First World War song so beloved of Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy L. Sayers’ famous detective novels:

  ‘The bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling

  For you but not for me

  And the little Devils all have a sing-a-ling-aling

  For you but not for me...’

  On a more conscious level as he sang, Richard found himself reaching into the capacious store of useless knowledge that he - in common with many sea-farers - carried around with him. The fruits of long night watches enlivened by books, newspapers and magazines without number. Hadn’t ‘Mrs Merdle’, Lord Peter Wimsey’s car, been a Bentley?

  No other thought could have seduced him away from worrying about Robin’s long drive - and the inquiry to which it was leading - but this one did. Which was why, one might suppose, Robin mistrusted the whole idea of the Continental GT in the first place.

  Hardly surprisingly, Richard had the first-class compartment to himself as the train sped Londonwards. It was Sunday lunchtime - others like him who habitually came up from the country in such luxury as the train companies offered would all be at table at home now; recently returned from post-sermon, pre-prandial pubs, awash with best bitter, gin and good-humour.
Their prospects would be of roast meat followed by brisk walks through woods with dogs or across golf-courses with friends; thoughts of travelling to town far distant from their minds.

  There was a feeling of illicit adventure to the experience, therefore. One which was compounded almost deliciously as he opened his weekend case and brought out from beneath his neatly folded clothes the bright stack of brochures and booklets that Bentley had supplied him with in preparation for tomorrow. The shiver of anticipation - foreign and poignantly novel to the cheerfully monogamous family man - was something he supposed equivalent to rereading passionate, secret correspondence from a glamorous mistress awaiting his arrival in some secluded little love-nest.

  He had just finished when the train pulled into Charing Cross and he hopped out into the stormy afternoon. He loved walking around London and would normally have marched up the Strand and along Fleet Street towards Leadenhall and Heritage House. But such a move on such an afternoon would have been simply stupid, so he stood in the shelter of the great terminus’s awning and hailed a cab.

  ‘Where to, guv?’ asked the driver in an interesting mixture of Cantonese and Cockney intonations.

  ‘Leadenhall, please. No. Wait. Let’s go to Conduit Street first.’

  ‘Lighty-ho. But it’s in the opposite direction.’ ‘I know. I just want to look in at a showroom there.’

  ‘Lighty-ho.’

  ‘Are you local?’

  The cabby laughed. ‘Not what you call “local”, guv. Even you not count grandparent and parent born Canton, I work Hong Kong till ten year ago.’

  ‘I thought I recognized the accent.’

  He stood outside the closed Bentley showroom like a child outside a sweet shop, oblivious after all of the pouring rain and the squally wind whipping round the corner out of Regent Street.