“What?” I snapped.
“You are bleeding on my new white shag!”
“What?” It was a whisper. I hate the sight of blood, especially my own. And there it was, dripping from around a vicious looking shard of Meissen china sticking out of my knee. I must have knelt on the damned thing but hadn’t noticed because I was so concerned about Sally. My head swam, but Ashburnham women don’t faint. We look the devil right in the eye and…
“Oh, my goodness…”
Sally was obviously a lot more attentive in first aid class than I had been. She yanked out the shard of china, and then swabbed my leg with the disinfectant Mairead handed her. I saw Sally’s secret smirk when I yelped at the sting. She applied a sticking plaster with really admirable efficiency.
While this was going on, Mairead left the room and we could hear her out in her sitting room, phoning the carpet cleaning company. Nice to know she cares.
“So, why didn't you tell me what the necklace was worth? I thought it was, well, worth a bit, providing it wasn't paste. You see, I thought it probably was paste, that you'd sold all the good stuff and had copies made to save face…”
“My God, Sally, do you think I'm that pretentious? No, we kept the jewellery; it's like a sacred trust, like Alexandria House. You've no idea what sacrifices we Ashburnhams have made to hang on to those bits of fancy stones and that ancient pile of stone.”
“Well, why'd you do it, then? You could live pretty well off the proceeds if you sold the lot,” Sally said.
“It’s because – well, they're not really mine to sell. They belong to The Estate. I don’t want to be known for the next five hundred years as the Ashburnham-Who-Lost-The-Lot.”
Sally and the cops exchanged glances. I was expecting men in white coats and a straitjacket to arrive and carry me off to the funny farm. Come to think of it, a nice cosy cell with rubber walls, and three square meals a day, with no responsibilities, didn't sound half bad right now.
“Now, Miss, who was there when you took the necklace off?”
“Oh, oodles of people. I didn't know half their names.”
“Well, it might actually help you to remember who you gave the necklace to?”
“Okay.” Sally pulled her legs up beneath her on the baby blue leather upholstered chair and rubbed her chin. It's a habit she has when deep in thought. I remember it from the GSCE exams, nearly drove me crazy.
“Okay, there was Mairead, Diana's cousin. And there was a fat guy with a smelly cigar and a woman in a really weird hat, it had what looked like a dead cat draped around the brim.”
The two guys had that glazed look again.
“Sally, just name the people you can, or give their positions, like race steward, etc.,” Detective Liam urged.
“Oh, that's it! I know what happened to the necklace! James has it! I gave it to James, the chauffeur!”
The two detectives exchanged a meaningful glance. “That would be James O'Reilly, the chauffeur?”
“Ah, you know him! Does he have a record?” I asked.
“James O’Reilly is known to us, Ma'am.”
My, aren't we getting formal? I turned to Sally. “If you gave it to James, then why didn't he give it back later?” I asked.
“Rest assured that we will ask him that question, Ma'am,” Detective Liam promised.
“Well, when you question him, also ask him what he was doing in Richard's study with a small camera when he wasn't even supposed to be in the house, let alone have a key!”
The room was silent. We could clearly hear Mairead bullying the cleaning company's representatives.
“Please do not say a word to Mrs Ransome about her chauffeur. We wouldn't want to worry her unduly.”
“Or tip him off.” I frowned.
“I think, Lady Diana and Miss Barnes, it would be a good idea if we continued this conversation at the police station.”
With no further explanation to Mairead, we were hustled out to the waiting car and 'helped' into the back seat like common criminals.
“Now what have you got us into?” Sally asked.
Moi? Was it me who handed a very valuable necklace to a criminal chauffeur? Fortunately I had the good sense to keep those thoughts to myself.
CHAPTER TEN
I really am going crazy. Sally's revelation to Josh and Bill in the hotel restaurant back in Dublin about the state of my mental health really had been a major exaggeration. But I’m coming to believe that I do suffer from a whole raft of neuroses.
I especially suffer from a type of claustrophobia brought on by being crammed into a smelly little interview room with green walls and a half-hysterical Sally and an apparently deaf woman police officer as my only company.
We were left in the room for a couple of hours, with only the bland-faced promise that 'someone will be with you shortly' as reassurance to our plaintive demands to know what's going on.
Finally a heavyset middle-aged man entered the room, his scruffy sports coat and weary-hound face proclaiming him a detective. Certainly not a solicitor or a barrister, not in that cheap suit.
Attack is the best defence and years of aristocratic breeding mean I do
it well. “Look, my good man, if you don’t tell us immediately why we are being held here, then I will be calling up a barrister friend of mine and he'll have your asses whipped faster than you can say habeas corpus,” I snarled at him as he pulled out a chair and sat down.
“It's been my experience that only people with guilty consciences feel that need to start screaming for a lawyer the minute their bums touch the interview room seats,” the man replied.
“Great, now you've annoyed this bozo! Besides, we can't afford Arnie the Ambulance Chaser, let alone a barrister,” Sally shrieked.
“I happen to have several cousins who are officers of the courts,” I said sniffily, I redirected the glare at the man sitting opposite us. “And as for you - Our bums have hardly just touched the seats; we've been here for hours! I have a lunch date. I did have a lunch date!”
He grinned evilly. “Have you mentioned your suspicions about James Hegarty to anyone in the Ransome household?”
“I don’t even know a James Hegarty. Let alone have suspicions about him.” I sniffed petulantly.
“Of course you do, dummy, it's Juicy James, the chauffeur.”
Bless Sally, always fast to jump in with info I’d rather keep to myself.
The man across the table was grinning widely, a grin which grew to almost face-splitting proportions as the door opened and none other than Juicy James, er, James the Chauffeur, walked in.
“Ah, 'tis Juicy James himself!” the officer snickered
“What?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing at all, sir.”
“Sir? The man's a common criminal! Why are you being so polite to him and treating us like crap? You call this justice?” Sally snapped
“Shhh, Sally,” I muttered, pulling her back down into her seat. It was all starting to slowly dawn in my brain.
“I'm sorry you've been kept here so long, they were waiting for me to get here,” James said, settling himself down in the chair the detective had already vacated. “I hope they've treated you well?”
I wanted to leap across the table and rip out his throat with my teeth.
“Look, James or whoever you are, we've been here over two hours. We haven’t had a cup of coffee or even a pee break. This detective was positively rude, and now you come waltzing in here, smooth as honey and hope we've been treated well?”
He must have caught the deadly note in my voice. I guess a man this good-looking has developed a well-honed survival instinct for recognizing a woman on the edge of reason.
The man called James, certainly a more authoritative version of the one we called Juicy James the chauffeur, turned to the woman officer who stood on dragon duty at the door, “Is this true? No bathroom breaks or coffee?”
“Detective Inspector O'Grady's orders, sir.”
“Did Detective O'Gr
ady say why?”
“Well, sir,” the woman had the good grace to blush, “He said they were English so they must be guilty of something. “
I knew it was only a matter of time before an Ashburnham would be called upon to pay for our Cromwellian ancestors' excesses, but I never thought it would be in some grungy little interview room in the back end of Dublin.
With great restraint I kept the thought to myself. Discretion is the better part of valour. Maybe I'll have that emblazoned on the coat of arms as our new family motto. Sure beats what we have scrawled on the bottom of it now, which I am sure is a botched translation of some noble Latin declaration of familial honour.
James scowled. “Bloody hell, okay, let's get this straight. You're here as a protective measure while we ask some questions to ascertain some things. You are not under arrest. You are free to leave, with my apologies for the way your visit has been mishandled.”
A master of confuse-and-distract, was our James.
“However, it is very important to a police operation, and to me personally, that you stay and answer our questions.”
Sally and I looked at each other. The same thought was passing through both our minds. Who could turn down such a lovely request from someone as tasty as James? Besides, we really were ravening to find out what this was all about.
“Okay,” Sally said firmly, “We’ll stay and at least hear you out. But first, a trip to the ladies room without the Dragon Lady over there as company, and two cups of latte, large.”
“It will be done,” James said, standing and opening the door for us. “Back here in five minutes?”
“Yeah, right.”
Of course we weren't back in five minutes. We hung around the less than salubrious police ladies' room for as long as we could. When we returned, there were two delicious looking lattes in tall glasses awaiting us, along with an amused looking James who was swigging down what looked and smelled like a super-sized, double strength Columbian.
“So, Detective O'Grady says that you mentioned seeing me in Richard Ransome's study the last night?”
“ Yes. You must admit it does seem a bit strange, especially as Mairead told me you weren't even in the house at the time,” I said pointedly. “I don’t know what you' were doing there, or what you've said to these policemen to get them to—oh my God!”
Call me really dumb, but even when James was sitting there opposite me in the interview room, I thought he'd been brought in for some sort of comparison between our stories. Duh! It took a while for it to dawn on me that James was there in the police interview room because he was a policeman. Double-Duh!
“You’re a cop!” Obviously, a light bulb went off for Sally at the same time.
“That’s right,” James said, “But not the uniformed type. I'm an officer with CAB, the Criminal Assets Bureau.”
“So why were you in Mairead's study?” Sally asked. “And why do you think you get to keep my necklace?”
“It’s my necklace, and he was in Richard's study,” I pointed out. Sally glared at me. I shrugged.
“What necklace are we talking about?” James asked, making a show of looking puzzled.
“Oh, please,” Sally muttered, rolling her eyes heavenwards. “The necklace I handed to you when I received my prize on Ladies' Day. Are you going to try to wriggle out of that? You stole a very valuable heirloom.”
“You didn't hand me a necklace. You gave it to Mrs Roberts-Pierce. She was standing next to me and she was exclaiming about how lovely it was, and you asked her to hang onto it for a minute and maybe I could take it back to Mrs Ransome's house.”
“See, I knew you were involved.”
“But I never had the necklace. I was called away. I thought Mrs Roberts-Pierce would either give it back to you, or see that it got to Mrs Ransome for you.”
The room was quiet. Sally had gone very pale. “I remember now,” she said, sniffing back tears. I searched furiously through my bag for tissues. Sally in a full tearful flow is not a pretty sight. “I did offer it to you, but Mrs Roberts-Pierce, if that's the sweet lady in pink with the dreadful peacock feathered hat—? “
James nodded.
“Then the necklace is truly missing. I thought I gave it to you. I thought we'd soon have it back. Oh, Diana, I'm so sorry, what will we do?” Sally was in full-fledged wail now and the men were all backing away looking embarrassed.
I handed her a bunch of tissues to mop her face with, feeling calmer than I had since this whole thing started. “Doesn’t someone have Mrs Roberts-Pierce's phone number and we'll give her a call?” I suggested. Middle-aged matrons who wore pink suits and peacock feather hats did not, at least in my experience, generally commit quarter of a million pound robberies.
James was pulling out his mobile phone, but I waved him away. I had mine out already. “Let me call her. If she gets a call from CAB she'll likely have a heart attack. What's the number?”
Another officer handed me a slip of paper with the number he'd looked up in the phone book. And just like that, we found my precious Ashburnham Emeralds.
A very embarrassed Mrs Roberts-Pierce explained that she'd intended to give the necklace to Mairead's chauffeur, only he had gone. “I was going to find Mairead, but my daughter phoned to say she was having labour pains and asked me to come immediately. It's my first grandchild, a beautiful baby boy, and everything else went out of my head until this morning, when I was clearing out my handbag and found the necklace. I was going to wait until a more decent time than 7:00 A.M. to call and apologize,” she said breathlessly.
I congratulated her on the new grandchild and told her someone would come by to pick up the necklace.
“Now that that's been cleared up, we're off,” I said, “I have a luncheon date with Lord Overwater.”
“Oh, I'm afraid you're not going anywhere. You’re still helping the police with their inquiries.” James' voice was so quiet and firm, I momentarily wondered if he had handcuffs. And if he had any creative uses for them...
I saw his odd look and hoped he didn’t guess what I was thinking. “You’ve got five minutes, ask your questions. I have a lunch date at noon, and I need a full manicure, pedicure, a full body job, really.”
“A full body job?” Was that a blush on his manly cheeks?
“Yeah, well, I think I'll skip the bikini area wax.” It was worth it to see the guys wince.
“What do you need a full makeover for?” Sally asked. “You’re having lunch in a public place; it's not likely he'll know whether you've waxed or not…” Sally's voice trailed off and her lower lip wobbled. A fat tear followed its fellows down her cheek and she wiped her face on the cuff of her sweater.
“Well, maybe not on this date,” I replied blithely, hating myself for cruelly hurting my friend's feelings. She'd just better get used to the idea; this is my husband hunt and Joshua is my class of guy.
So why did it feel so bad?
But I would feel a whole lot worse when James was done with us.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“So, are you going to tell Mairead?”
Sally wanted to know if I was going to warn my cousin she was possibly married to a crook. We didn’t know for certain, the jury hadn't convened yet.
“I honestly don't know.”
“Well, I think that policeman – the one with the eyes like a toad -would be very upset with you if you warned Mairead about what's happening and ruined their investigation.”
“I thought you believed all the police are pigs and we should do whatever we can to undermine them?” I said, reminding Sally of rant she’d had when her then boyfriend, Billy Carter, had been arrested for breaking and entering. Billy’d been guilty as sin, too., even though he'd been guilty.
“That was different, poor Billy didn’t have two pennies to rub together and he was only looking for a decent meal. Mairead's husband is filthy rich and still prepared to rip people off!”
I didn't bother mentioning that Billy had pinched a set of gold cufflinks
and a brand new DVD/TV combo along with his ham sandwich. Some things aren't worth arguing over with your best friend. And I knew what she meant – one law for the rich and one for the poor.
“Mairead shouldn’t be punished for what her husband does; I think I should warn her.”
“That’s fine as long as she leaves with what rightfully belongs to her and nothing illegally received. But if she passes the warning on and he gets rid of the evidence, or leaves with her, well, it's just not right.”
“ But we keep our mouth shut and wait until the trial, if Richard is convicted, then the Criminal Assets Bureau can probably help themselves to most of the stuff and Mairead will be left with nothing – and six kids……”
“ She might even want to come to live with you, her close cousin.”
Sally can be downright evil, although the awful thought had briefly crossed my mind.
There didn’t seem to be any correct answer, and we were a glum looking pair strolling into our hotel lobby, where I found out my troubles were going to get much worse.
The desk clerk was furiously waving in my direction, distracting me from a commotion over in the corner; where three hefty security guards seemed to be struggling to prevent a riot.
“I am so glad to see you, Lady Diana!” The woman said, sounding like she meant it. She pointed loftily towards the scuffle. “Will you please deal with that!”
She pushed an envelope at me just as the hefty security bodies parted to reveal an angelic looking little boy clinging by his teeth to someone's jacketed arm. I only hoped the victim had his shots, because I didn't think Dave and Greg's little son had been to the vet's recently. “What is Adam doing here? And where are his Dads?”
The receptionist gave me a cold look. “I have no idea, my lady. A harassed looking man left the child here, handed me this envelope and said you'd know what to do.”
Know what to do? Oh, yes, I knew what to do, but the gun laws are rather strict here.
“Now, would you please do something?” shrieked the clerk as a valuable looking vase swayed on its pedestal when kicked by a small leather clad foot.
Marrying Money: Lady Diana's Story Page 7