For Nancy, this was not a large party – the Kennedys and their entourage including Casey Bishop and Eamon Farrell, without whom they seemed unable to exist, and her special friend Philip Kerr, Lord Lothian. Casey, Eamon and the three Kennedy children were out, Nancy said, exploring Cliveden’s gardens.
‘I think you know one another, don’t you?’ she said as Lothian rose from his armchair, putting aside a copy of The Times.
‘Yes, indeed. How nice to see you again, Lord Edward, but I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Miss Browne.’ Lothian held out his hand and Verity took it, contenting herself with a neutral smile, trying not to see him as the epitome of everything she disapproved of about the so-called ‘Cliveden Set’.
Lothian was one of Nancy’s oldest and dearest friends. He was calm and quiet but was always ready to listen to her chattering away on subjects about which she knew nothing. She liked to tell stories against herself and one she told over tea and crumpets concerned Gandhi to whom Lothian had introduced her.
‘When he came over to England in 1931 for the Indian Round Table Conference, Philip brought him to Cliveden. I must say I thought the Indians were very fortunate to be part of the British Empire and I told him so, probably at too great a length. I remember I called him a humbug and told him his policy of nonviolent opposition to the British authorities in India was destructive.
‘How I dared, I really can’t think, but I did. He listened quietly to everything I had to say and then asked me whether I would like to listen to him or go on talking. Of course I apologized and promised to listen to him without interrupting. He then told me the whole story of the national movement in India and I was immediately converted. It’s one of the things Winston and I quarrel about most often – giving India independence. He’s such an old imperialist that he won’t hear of anything which smacks of surrendering the British Empire.’
‘You know Mr Churchill has had death threats from Indian nationalists?’ Edward put in. ‘I wondered, Lord Lothian, whether you thought he ought to take them seriously?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Lothian replied easily. ‘Now the IRA . . . I would take threats from those brigands seriously.’
Kennedy disagreed. ‘Naw! The Nazis or the Commies will get him first. Sorry, Miss Browne, I don’t mean your polite kind of Commie. I mean those guys that did for Trotsky.’
‘Did you know –’ Nancy turned to Verity – ‘that Karl Marx wrote a pamphlet about Lady Sutherland who lived here at the beginning of the last century?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ she replied, intrigued.
‘Well,’ Nancy went on, ‘she had great estates in the Highlands of Scotland and these were “improved”, which meant the wholesale removal of the impoverished population – mostly subsistence farmers – to new settlements on the coast. Many died or emigrated and Marx wrote Sutherland and Slavery in 1853. There’s a copy in the library if you’d like to see it.’
‘I would indeed,’ Verity said, already contemplating writing an article on the subject for the Daily Worker.
At that moment, they heard shouting in the hall and Kick Kennedy came in, looking wild-eyed and very much not the cool, sophisticated young woman Edward had met in London.
‘I say, you folks,’ she said, breathlessly, ‘I’ve just told Mr Lee to telephone for the police. We’ve found a body in the – what do you call it? – the Blenheim Pavilion.’
‘A body in the Blenheim Pavilion?’ Nancy repeated. ‘Whose body?’
‘I don’t know whose body,’ Kick said with a touch of irritation.
‘A man or a woman?’ Lord Astor barked, getting up from his armchair.
‘A man – a young man. Not a tramp.’
‘Well, we had better go and look. You stay here, Nancy. We won’t be long but if it’s a member of staff . . .’
‘May I come with you?’ Edward asked. ‘I have had some experience of dead bodies.’
‘Of course.’
‘And I’ll come too,’ Kennedy said with almost too much enthusiasm. ‘I have had no experience of dead bodies but I guess that’s all going to change.’
Carrying torches, as it was now quite dark, and dressed for the cold, damp air, the little party approached the pavilion.
‘Joe,’ Kennedy called. ‘Are you OK?’
‘That you, Dad?’ It was Jack’s voice. ‘We’re OK but this poor fellow isn’t.’
The two boys made way for their father and Lord Astor. Eamon and Casey were kneeling over the body but moved to one side when Edward asked to examine the victim. He lay flat on his back, almost formal like a marble funerary monument, except that his eyes were open and staring.
‘He’s dead all right,’ Edward said, feeling for a pulse. ‘Quite cold. Has anyone moved him?’
‘We haven’t but someone must have. He didn’t die here. He must have had a jacket or coat but we can’t find anything,’ Eamon remarked. ‘I wonder who he is?’
They all stared at the dead man. He was about thirty-five with black, wiry hair. His clothes – a white Aertex shirt and slacks as though he was dressed for tennis – were in disarray but there was no evidence of a fight and no sign of blood. He was not much physically. His shoulders were rounded and his narrow chest suggested that he might be consumptive.
‘Has he had a heart attack?’ Joe Jr asked doubtfully.
Gingerly, Edward lifted the dead man’s head and gave a snort of surprise. The shaft of a thin knife – what he thought of as a poniard – was protruding from the side of his neck. Gently, he lowered the head and stood up.
‘We should leave now and not touch anything,’ he said decisively. ‘This young man has been murdered.’
‘Murdered! But that’s not possible,’ Lord Astor exclaimed.
‘I’m afraid it is,’ Edward replied. ‘Is he known to you?’
‘I’ve never seen him before in my life.’
‘I know who he is,’ Verity said in a small voice from the doorway.
‘Verity! What are you doing here? I thought you had stayed with Nancy.’
‘No, you know me. I tagged along,’ she replied miserably.
‘Well, who is he then?’ Kennedy demanded.
‘He’s a man called Tom Wintringham. He’s a . . . he was a journalist I knew in Spain.’
‘But what’s he doing here?’ Lord Astor asked irritably.
‘He may have been coming to see me,’ she said unwillingly.
‘You had an appointment with him . . . here?’
‘No, I had no idea he was here. He came to see me in London. He wanted to warn me . . . he wanted me to know . . . if anything happened to him . . .’
‘Know what?’ Lord Astor demanded.
‘He believed he knew who was behind the IRA plot to bomb London.’
‘Did you tell the police?’ Lord Astor asked sharply.
‘I didn’t. I told him he should but he said he didn’t dare . . . as a married man.’
‘As a married man? What does that mean?’ Kennedy demanded.
‘He feared for his life if the IRA got to know he had informed on one of their men,’ Verity explained. ‘He said he had seen someone called Danny O’Rourke talking to two men he recognized down at the docks – Liam MacDade and a man called “Bomber” Kelly. They are all IRA and Danny’s a Communist.’
‘O’Rourke!’ Kennedy exclaimed. Edward thought he was going to say something more but lapsed into silence. However, he gave Eamon a look and there was no doubt in Edward’s mind that he recognized the name. ‘Did you know these men too, Miss Browne?’ Kennedy suddenly demanded.
‘No!’ Verity was on the defensive. ‘Or rather,’ she added, ‘I knew Kelly in Spain. He used to blow up bridges.’
There was a stunned silence. Then Edward said dubiously, ‘Well, one thing, Lord Astor, as Mr Farrell says, Wintringham – if that’s who our corpse is – didn’t die here. Do you see? There’s no blood, no nothing – just the body. But why on earth did they dump him here?’
‘His spectacles,’
Verity said, wanting to close the staring eyes. ‘Where are his spectacles?’
‘And where is his coat or jacket?’ Edward murmured. ‘It’s a cold night to be out in just a shirt.’
Verity looked at the frail, hunched body of her friend and felt as though she might be sick. He had come to her for help and she had not given it. She swore to herself that she would find O’Rourke and accuse him of murder. Surely, it had to be one of the three IRA men who had killed him – unless, of course, they had the perfect alibi and were in police custody.
‘Ah, that sounds like a police car,’ Lord Astor said.
‘That’s all I know, Inspector.’ Verity was weary and depressed. It was the following morning and she had been at the police station for over an hour. Would she be arrested and, if so, for what? She had gone over her story three times and Inspector Voss still seemed unconvinced. He was a tall, ungainly man with a lazy eye which somehow made his expression difficult to read.
‘Of course, Inspector,’ Edward ventured, ‘we cannot be sure that Wintringham was going to see Miss Browne. You didn’t tell him you were spending the weekend at Cliveden, did you, Verity?’
‘No,’ she agreed, ‘but who else might he have wanted to see?’
‘Lord Astor, Mr Kennedy . . . who knows?’
‘You’ve informed his wife?’ Edward asked the Inspector.
‘We have.’
‘Presumably she knew nothing about why he was here?’
‘No,’ the Inspector answered shortly. He obviously had no intention of sharing his thoughts with them.
‘Poor little Megan,’ Verity sighed. An image of the little girl in her blue coat, hand in hand with her father in the fog outside the Kardomah, came vividly to mind.
‘You never met his wife?’ the Inspector asked.
‘No, I told you. I hardly knew Tom. I didn’t even know he was back from Spain until I saw him that evening. I never even talked to his daughter. I just . . .’
She gulped. It was against her principles to cry but, really, this was the last thing she needed. She felt she was in some undefined way to blame for his death. As she knew he would be, the Inspector had been highly suspicious that she had met O’Rourke at a Communist ‘cell’ meeting, as he called it. He had made a telephone call and confirmed – sounding rather disappointed – that O’Rourke was still being questioned by the police but MacDade had been released and Kelly had not yet been found. The combination of the IRA and Communism was as if she had admitted to meeting Guy Fawkes just before he blew up the Houses of Parliament. She knew that, if Edward had not stood at her side throughout her interrogation, she might have been given an even rougher ride.
And now she was worried that she might get into trouble with David Griffiths-Jones and George Castle. They would probably assume that she had turned informer. For a few days she had been so happy. Was it now all turning sour? She glanced at Edward. His expression was stern but watchful, like a bird of prey protecting its young.
‘Thank you, Miss Browne,’ Voss said at last, ‘and you, too, Lord Edward. I don’t think I have any reason to detain you longer. I gather you are staying with the Astors until Monday morning?’
‘That is correct, Inspector, and if you need us after that you have our addresses.’
Verity wondered if Lord Astor would want her out of the house before Monday. She knew she wanted to go. After this, it was going to be a hundred times worse than she had ever imagined.
When they were back in the Lagonda, Edward said, ‘You know something, V? When we gave the Inspector our addresses, it occurred to me that we haven’t given any thought to where we are going to live after we are married. You have a flat hardly big enough to swing the proverbial cat and I have rooms in Albany, a bachelor establishment if ever there was one. Poor Fenton has to lurk in a small room in the attic which has always embarrassed me. We must buy a house. Shall we live in London, do you think, or would you prefer a country life? Somewhere for Basil.’
Basil was Verity’s curly-coated retriever who currently lived at Mersham where there was plenty of room for him and to whom both the Duke and the Duchess were devoted.
‘I don’t think we would want to live at Mersham, do you?’ he went on. ‘I know Gerald would give us a house on the estate but I don’t think we would want him breathing down our necks.’ Edward was well aware that his brother did not approve of his future wife and, while Connie would do everything in her power to make it work, living close to the castle would be difficult for all of them.
Verity looked at him with a smile of gratitude. She knew that talking about where they would live was his way of reassuring her that Wintringham’s death and her contacts – with what the Inspector no doubt considered ‘enemies of the state’ – did not make him regret asking her to marry him. He had not reproached her with either word or look for failing to tell him about Tom’s visit and his warning about the IRA threat. She knew that Edward put up with a lot of criticism – silent and not so silent – about his choice of wife and this was just the sort of thing that made people say ‘I told you so.’ There had been a poisonous, unsigned article in the Mail insinuating that he had been trapped into marriage by a scheming harpy. When he had shown it to her – he would never have pretended not to have seen it – they had both laughed and counted it a compliment. But still the drip, drip of – if not abuse, certainly disapproval – was wearing.
‘I’ve been meaning to tell you,’ she said. ‘I had a letter from Adrian and Charlotte. They say there is a house just near their cottage which they think would suit us. I thought – when this is all over – we might spend a weekend with them and look at it. You know they’ve been pressing us to stay for months.’
‘Good idea!’ Edward said. ‘We’ll do that. I say, about Megan and Wintringham’s wife or rather his widow. I can see you are really cut up about what it will do to them. Shall we try and find them and see what we can do to help?’
‘Would you mind?’ Verity said, a flood of relief making her feel once again that she might cry. ‘I would really like to. I don’t understand exactly why but I can’t get the image of the little girl out of my mind. I feel responsible even though I know I’m not.’
‘Good, that’s settled then. Now let’s get back to Cliveden. I know we would both rather turn tail and run for home but that’s not our way, is it? We’ve got to see this through, haven’t we?’
Verity stuck out her chin and nodded in agreement but in her heart she wasn’t sure she could hold out.
Nancy did her best to ensure that the body in the pavilion did not cast too great a gloom over the company. She decided not to cancel arrangements for dinner that evening which included guests from nearby. Dr Channing, Lord Astor told them, had a cottage on the estate. In exchange for treating any of the household who might fall ill, Dr Channing had, rent free, a delightful cottage and use of Cliveden’s gardens, swimming pool and tennis courts.
There was something bogus about Channing which struck both Edward and Verity as soon as they were introduced to him. He was altogether too full of himself. He smiled and rubbed his hands and bowed until Edward was reminded of the bumptious clergyman, Mr Collins, in Pride and Prejudice. He professed a belief in the fashionable evangelical Christianity preached by Frank Buchman, an American Lutheran priest whose ‘Oxford Group’ – so-called because it had many adherents at the university – had recently changed its name to Moral Re-Armament. It purported to provide an alternative to the other kind of re-armament and strove to attract those, like Edward, who rejected both Fascism and Communism. In fact, Edward saw it as at best a delusion and at worst a distraction from the fight against Hitler. The Astors, on the other hand, were attracted to it. Buchman – like Lothian – believed he could mediate between the dictators and the democracies, but calling Hitler the ‘front line of defence’ against Communism, as he had done recently, had lost him credibility. Moral Re-Armament appealed to outdoor types, such as Kay Stammers’ friend, the tennis player Bunny Austin who thought
it was just ‘common sense’, but, as far as Verity could see, it was simply another anti-Communist pressure group.
Dr Channing had brought with him two girls, one of whom Verity was dismayed but not surprised to find she knew. It was Lulu – Lucinda Arbuthnot-Grey – to whom David had introduced her at the meeting in Ransom Street. She recalled David hinting that she might come across her at Cliveden and, if they did meet, she was to pretend not to know her.
Lulu smiled sweetly at Verity and allowed herself to be introduced as though they had never met before. Clearly, Lulu too had her orders and Verity – unwillingly – allowed herself to be drawn into the conspiracy. There had been enough said already in front of the Astors about her Communist connections, and she thought they might rebel if it was brought to their attention that another of her dubious acquaintances had turned up at Cliveden in the company of their tenant.
Fortunately, Lulu then ignored her and concentrated her attentions on the Ambassador. Although, as Christian Scientists, the Astors were teetotal, they did not inflict their views on their guests. To Verity’s disgust, Kennedy drank with all the enthusiasm of a confirmed drunkard. The champagne caused him to drop his guard and he made it obvious that he found Lulu to his taste. She stroked his hand and played up to him, revealing too much cleavage. Dr Channing seemed to find the whole charade amusing and even encouraged the old man. Edward wondered how this squared with his professed belief in moral probity. Verity was interested to see the different reactions of Kennedy’s two sons. Joe Jr made an effort to steer his father away from the girl and the bottle, his embarrassment at his father’s behaviour painful to watch. Jack’s expression was less easy to read. He, too, seemed to find Lulu attractive but he did not paw her like his father, though Edward rather fancied she was not unaware of his interest. Kick, at the other end of the table, talked to Edward and Lothian, ignoring her father’s antics.
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