Death and the Princess

by Robert Barnard

  But I didn’t let him. I never went much on horror tales. I escaped down the staircase and out into the night, leaving them drawing straws as to who should stick around until she woke.

  But it was no sleep yet for me. I knew I wouldn’t shut my eyes until I had sorted out the connections between all the names on Bill Tredgold’s list. I drove straight to Victoria and the Yard, and plodded along the half-deserted corridors to the library — open all night, though without professional attendance. Still, I knew roughly what I needed. With the help of the catalogue I found my way to the appropriate part of the Reference Section, and humped out Burke’s Peerage, Debrett, The Landed Gentry, and a few other related volumes. I’d never been so grateful for my training as a weight-lifter as when I lugged the enormous volumes back to my office. Who says the aristocracy is dying out? I dropped them with a heavy thud on to my desk and got stuck into the research.

  Once I found my way around the various methods of entry, and the abbreviations, things began to seem easier. It had been roughly as the divine Edwina had said. Two Edwardian beauties, the Brackenbury sisters, had married into the aristocracy, and their husbands, in the fullness of time, had become respectively Marquess of Cumberland and Earl of Leamington. George, the present Marquess (born 1920), and John, the present Earl (born 1915), were their sons. The heir of the Marquess of Cumberland was Lord Stourbridge (born 1944), and the heir of the Earl of Leamington was Lord Nuneaton (born 1938). The Honourable Edwin Montague Frere was the Earl’s third and youngest son (born 1954), by a second marriage.

  Lord Oldham was a different kettle of fish at first sight: he was that lowliest of blue-blooders, a life peer (the sort of thing that hardly gets you more than a frosty nod from the head waiter at the Savoy). He had been enpurpled in the Resignation Honours List of Sir Alec Douglas Home, after serving his party as Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Deputy Chairman (Midlands) and obedient lobby-fodder all his years as MP for Middleford. He had since been Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire, and had served in all sorts of puffed-up local capacities. But his name was Richard Fergusson Frere, and he was the younger brother of the present Earl. No doubt he had served the family interests in the Commons, while the Earl had done similar selfless service in the Lords.

  So all that could be summed up in the manner of the old history books (we had very old history books at my school) by the following family tree:

  All this was satisfactorily neat. Practically like Mr Bunn the baker and his family. A nice little inter-related network, all tied up together. But tied up in what, for God’s sake?

  I thought back to the letter Brudenell had been writing at the moment he died:

  Dear John, I must tell you, with great regret, that I can no longer . . .

  Was it to the present Earl of Leamington? If so, was it significant in any way at all? What could he no longer do? Why was he typing it as his murderer shot him?

  I had got to this point when Joplin strolled in.

  ‘Hello, hello,’ I said. ‘Back from the Palace? And how did you make out with the Princess? She seemed to be happy to be with someone of her own age at last.’

  ‘I just dropped her at the Palace,’ said Joplin airily, as if it was a casual date he’d driven home. I forbore to say that it seemed to have taken him an extraordinarily long time. ‘I just looked in here to see if anything had emerged at the party.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, something did,’ I said. ‘Things march. Come over here.’

  And I showed him my little family tree, pointing one by one to the names on Bill Tredgold’s list. I think I must have looked smug because Joplin (who is short on reverence and respectful address) said:

  ‘Good heavens. Someone must have put you on to that.’

  ‘It was my own natural detective instincts put me on to it,’ I lied.

  ‘I bet it was that old bag of jelly who threw the party. She looked the type who’d tell you anything in return for a quick bang in the back seat.’

  ‘There’s no back seat of any car in existence that would accommodate the bulks of her and me engaged in a quick bang, as you horribly call it. You’re getting very uppish, Joplin, now you’ve become a Royal Favourite. That is an honourable position when it is a woman, considerably less honourable when it is a man.’

  ‘The burdens our sex labours under,’ grinned Joplin.

  ‘You’d do better to sit down and think what the connection is between this little family network and our Hedda Gabler of Kensington Palace.’

  ‘Who’s Hedda Gabler?’

  ‘A Norwegian lady who found Norway so boring she took to manufacturing her own excitements. Come on, get to thinking what it is this little lot is involving Helena in.’

  Obedient for once, Joplin sat down and thought.

  ‘They’re trying to marry her off to the repulsive Edwin?’ he suggested, without much hope.

  ‘Oh, come off it, Garry. They may well be, but that’s not a crime. You don’t get to marry royalty without a bit of manoeuvring. Life in those spheres is not all Barbara Cartland, even for Barbara Cartland. And remember, we’ve got two murders on our hands. You’ve got to come up with something better than the marriage game.’

  ‘I wasn’t very hopeful you’d bite at that,’ Garry said equably. He went back to thinking, and so did I. Eventually Garry said:

  ‘Why Operation Seneca?’

  I shrugged. ‘Just a joke, I suppose. All those military operations with code names: Operation Crossbow; Operation Cicero. You know. The thriller writers often invent them to get a good title.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. But why Seneca? Who was he?’

  ‘Roman writer of some kind,’ I said, vaguely off-hand because in fact I didn’t know much more than that. ‘There’s an encyclopaedia over there.’

  Joplin took it down from the shelf and browsed through the entry on Seneca.

  ‘Committed suicide on Nero’s orders,’ he said. ‘Very obliging of him. You don’t think it could be significant? Suicide has figured in this case, after all.’

  ‘Faked suicide,’ I pointed out. ‘Happening after Tredgold’s own death. You’re not making much of a case. I expect he just thought it sounded right — reminded him of Operation Cicero.’

  ‘Did he have a classical education?’ asked Joplin.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. Latin and Greek are about on a par with theology in the educational world these days.’ However, I idly reached over and consulted his file. ‘Sorry, take that back. His A-levels were French, History and Latin. Went on to read History at Birmingham University.’

  ‘You see,’ said Joplin.

  ‘I suppose you’re right. With that sort of educational background you probably wouldn’t just use the name haphazardly. In fact, Tredgold doesn’t seem to have been the type to do anything haphazardly. I’ll go along with you: the name must have a meaning, but what the hell it could be I haven’t a clue.’

  I took the encyclopaedia over to my side of the desk and went through the entry myself.

  ‘Philosopher . . . wrote tragedies . . . was tutor to Nero. That must have been an even dicier job than the one we’ve got now. Committed suicide by opening a vein. A noble, Roman way to go. I don’t see what we can make of any of that.’

  Joplin shook his head in agreement, but still looked dissatisfied. ‘There’s got to be something,’ he said. ‘Is it just the name, perhaps? What does it mean?’

  ‘The name? It’s just his name. I don’t suppose it means anything at all.’

  ‘English names do,’ Joplin pointed out. ‘Like Thatcher means your great-great-great put the roofs on cottages.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know a blind thing about Latin names,’ I said ungraciously.

  ‘It’s just that . . . I don’t know . . . there’s something in the back of my mind . . . What does the word “senescent” mean?’

  ‘It means something like “connected with old age”. You must have heard it over the last week or two. It has the same sort of ro
ot as “senile” and “senior”. Some Latin word like senex, I think . . . Good Lord!’

  Garry looked at me: ‘You don’t think . . . ?’

  And I looked at him, gaping. ‘I don’t know what to think. I just can’t see . . . Hold on a tick. I’m going back to that library.’

  It was more than a tick before I got back. Information on Latin names was hard to come by without expert assistance. When I did get back, I was in a mood of rather dubious exaltation.

  ‘Who’d be a scholar?’ I said. ‘That was bloody hard work. But as far as I can gather, the name Seneca indicated a sort of branch or subdivision of a larger family (God! — I’m beginning to sound like Lady Dorothy). And its meaning derives from senex, or old — in a pejorative sense.’

  ‘Talk bloody English.’

  ‘Talk bloody respectfully to your senior, who is not yet senescent. It means something a bit sneery — like “old boy”, “old geezer”, “gaffer” — you know the sort of thing. But the main thing is, it means something to do with the old.’

  ‘Which, you might say, the Princess is.’

  ‘You might indeed. Oh God, what’s the connection . . . I’m just remembering that bod at the Palace. What did he say? “We don’t specialize . . . Has she been overdoing it in that direction?” Something like that.’

  ‘What was it Bill Tredgold had been working on just before he died?’

  ‘Failures of the Welfare State, and that kind of thing . . . neglected old people, hypothermia, appalling Homes . . . There’s a connection, if only we can pin it down.’

  ‘Wasn’t he interested in local government corruption, and that kind of thing?’

  ‘He was indeed. Oh, there’s something there, you know. Something Tredgold was on to, something he was killed for. Garry, let’s call it a night.’

  ‘I’m easy on that.’

  ‘I’ll leave a message here, asking for all the files on the various noble bigwigs to be on my table tomorrow.’

  ‘You don’t think they’ll have done time for anything?’

  ‘I do not. Still, we can have hopes for the future. It would improve the tone of Pentonville no end. And I’ll have them get the details of all the charities connected with the old that the Princess has been undertaking appearances for.’

  ‘Aid for the Elderly, and all that?’

  ‘That’s the ticket.’

  ‘When I went to their AGM they all seemed perfectly sincere and well-meaning do-gooders.’

  ‘There is nothing in the world so easy to fool as a sincere and amiable do-gooder. What I want is a list of all the upper echelons and office-holders. Do you know, Garry, my boy, I see light at the end of the tunnel.’

  CHAPTER 16

  Henry Shorthouse Tucker

  And in the morning, there it all was waiting for me, in a neat little folder sent up from records. I opened it with a feeling of expectation hardly at all damped by having had very little sleep. Needless to say, on the five noble lords the sheets were entirely blank. Their careers were, to the public eye, blameless. Edwin Frere had been questioned a couple of times — about gambling debts, and a default on a loan. Nothing had come of either episode. I didn’t doubt that on both occasions he had been handled with the double-thickness kid gloves the police do put on when dealing with people with titles, position, or clout of any kind. I could just imagine all the ‘Sorry you’ve been troubled’s’ that were flying round.

  But the prospectuses and PR material for Aid for the Elderly were decidedly more interesting. It was a nationwide enterprise, but it was divided into regions. On the national committee, along with MPs, newspaper editors, senior television executives and committed radical novelists, I found the Earl of Leamington and Lord Stourbridge listed as Vice Presidents. As President of the South Midlands regional group I noticed the Marquess of Cumberland, and as Honorary Secretary of the North Midlands region I found Lord Nuneaton. Lord Oldham was chairman of the fund-raising committee (Midland region). Clearly they were a family united, nay single-minded, in their determination to serve the old. All the regional groups bulged with names which had a vaguely familiar ring — business people, mostly, I suspected, with a sprinkling of senior sportsmen, local politicians and suchlike.

  But one name interested me particularly, and it wasn’t one of the Frere clan at all. If I was right about what had been going on, the king-pin position had to be that of Treasurer. I looked at the prospectus (Midland region) and saw the following:

  ‘Treasurer (Midlands): Henry Shorthouse Tucker (M.I.Ch.A)’ Something seemed to ring a very tiny bell.

  ‘Garry,’ I said, when he came in, ‘does the name Tucker mean anything to you?’

  He thought.

  ‘Not in isolation. Shall I get the computer on to it?’

  We have a computer at the Yard, with all manner of names and aliases used by all manner of villains over the last thirty or forty years. Mostly it isn’t working; when it is, it feeds you back so much info that you spend weeks sorting through it for the nugget you actually want.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I leave the mechanized future to the younger boys. I’ll remember in a second . . . Do you remember that entry in Bill Tredgold’s notebook: “Treasurer”. We thought it might refer to one of the local government cases he was also dealing with at the time, but I think we were wrong. Garry, it’s an off-chance, but could you get me the Shropshire telephone directory?’

  Off-chance it may have been, but there it was:

  ‘Tucker, Henry S., 9, Clunbury Lane, Knightley.’ And it was then that I remembered.

  ‘Garry — I’ve got it. It was before your time — mostly before mine too, but there was a marvellous little crook, confidence trickster, call him what you like, who had as many aliases as the Queen has titles, but who as often as not used the name Tucker.’

  ‘Would that be Jimmy Hopgood?’ asked Garry.

  ‘You’re right. How on earth did you know about him?’

  ‘I heard about him from my Dad. He was in the force, you know. He nabbed him absconding with a load of bets from Aintree.’

  ‘That’d be Jimmy.’

  So we sat down and chewed the cud over everything we could remember about Jimmy Hopgood.

  He was first and foremost a master of disguise. Not the crude stuff, with dark glasses and false moustaches. When Jimmy Hopgood took on a new name and a new game, he took on a new personality. I remembered him as Simeon B. Tucker, a slow, anxious, humourless creature, pathetically willing, working for a multi-national with offices on the Embankment. Dim Sim, the other bright sparks in the office called him. Dim Sim had diddled the Nordica Oil Company of something like thirty thousand pounds before that day when he failed to turn up at work and uncharacteristically didn’t send in a doctor’s certificate either. They never got him. Before that he’d been Harold G. Tucker, tetchy, meticulous, slightly military, a stickler for doing things according to the regulations. He had been employed by the London Northern Bank, and had even risen in a short time to being temporary manager in a small branch in Balham. They got him that time, and got back most of the loot too. Hopgood did four years, and was a model prisoner. He rose to be trusty librarian, and when he left he took with him a disregarded first edition of Scenes of Clerical Life, donated and signed by the author. That was his last jail sentence, and since then nothing much seemed to have been heard of him. Earlier on there had been Roger Dashwood Tucker, the Second World War flying ace, down on his luck, Gerald Fitzjames Tucker, the man-about-town with a flair for the Stock Exchange, and Honest Harry Tucker, The Bookie You Can Trust. The changes to his appearance were minimal, which was a disadvantage at identification parades, but an advantage in almost every other way: I have never known false moustaches inspire real confidence. He was a frustrated actor, of course, an actor of the Alec Guinness type; one who submerges himself totally in the character he is playing. I’m quite sure that when he was Simeon B. Tucker he made himself a bedtime cup of cocoa every night, and when he was Honest Harry Tucker he went to b
ed slightly pissed and didn’t aim too well at the loo. There are criminals (even murderers) in the contemplation of whom even the most law-abiding can only stand back and admire; here is an artist. Jimmy Hopgood was one of these.

  ‘And Jimmy Hopgood, I wouldn’t mind betting, is now living in semi-retirement in Clunbury Lane, Knightley,’ I said.

  ‘Turning a dishonest penny,’ agreed Garry. ‘If it’s him, how old would he be?’

  ‘Sixty-five or so, at a guess. You wouldn’t expect Aid for the Elderly to employ a young man.’

  ‘I guess he regards Aid for the Elderly as a charity just made to keep him in a comfortable retirement.’

  ‘Hmmm. Well, I’m afraid that’s going to come to an end. But it’s not him I’m really interested in, Garry. It’s obvious that Hopgood is just a tool. What’s more, as I remember him, he was as unlikely a murderer as they come. Still, I’m looking forward to meeting him. I wonder what percentage they give him. Pretty bloody low, if I know my noble families. Well, well, I think today is the day I take off for the Midlands again, Garry.’

  Which is what I did. I took the Inter-City to Birmingham, picked up a car from the central police pool, and drove over to Knightley, arriving in good time for afternoon tea. It struck me again as a pleasant village to retire to. The weather was still rather nippy, but some of the good people of Knightley (few of whom were young) were out in their gardens getting on with the little jobs that precede the coming of spring. Henry Shorthouse Tucker was not one of them. If he had been, I suspect he’d have been round the back and out the back gate before I’d got my key out of the ignition. But his garden was neat, the paths well cared for, the roses (which must have been a picture last year) well pruned back. He was obviously in one of his meticulous phases.

  I went up the weedless crazy-paved path, and rang the doorbell.

  The man who opened the door of the stone-dashed, symmetrical little bungalow was dressed in a neat grey cardigan and well-creased grey flannels, and he peered short-sightedly through rimless spectacles. He was the spit-and-image of the professional gentleman, the professional financial gentleman, in retirement.