A Matter of Loyalty

by Anselm Audley

  ‘That’s what I heard,’ said Mrs Partridge. ‘There was a right crowd on the bank when I went in, police vans and all. No sign of Miss Georgia or Miss Polly, mind you, but Farmer Loveless, lives up Nethercoombe way, said it was those two girls tipped him off to it, just as he was on his way home.’

  ‘Is she all right?’ said Freya.

  ‘He said she looked a bit chalky, but a good day’s school is just what she needs. You be here when she gets home, mind. Mr Hawksworth might be out till all hours, now there’s a body on their hands, and she’ll want familiar faces around her.’

  Of course Freya would be back. Such an awful thing for anyone to see, let alone a thirteen-year-old.

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ said Dinah firmly now. ‘Shaken, for a while. It’s not an easy thing, coming face-to-face with mortal remains. She didn’t see her mother’s body, did she?’

  Georgia and Hugo’s mother had been killed by the doodlebug which left Georgia trapped under the rubble for several hours.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Freya. Hugo had mentioned it once, something about small mercies. His mother had been in another room of the house when the V1 hit. ‘I just wish things would settle down for her.’

  ‘Get Leo down,’ said Dinah. ‘If she’ll talk to anyone, it’ll be him. He’s the closest she has to a father, never mind his Roman collar. Gus was very impressed by him. Says he’s known good men and good priests, but Leo is the best of both.’

  Leo was Hugo and Georgia’s uncle, a Catholic priest who lectured in physics at Oxford. Roman collar aside, Freya wouldn’t be surprised if in twenty or thirty years’ time Hugo looked just like his uncle. Leo had been in intelligence, too, during the first war.

  ‘Hugo can ring him this evening,’ said Freya, glad of the suggestion. ‘How is Gus’s latest translation going?’

  ‘You live in the same Castle,’ said Dinah, going around to the far side of the counter.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Freya, recognising a delaying tactic when she saw one. ‘He’s buying a lot of books.’

  ‘He needs a lot of books,’ said Dinah, with a glint in her eye. She liked her secrets, too, which Freya could well understand. ‘Were you looking for something, or did you just come for a break from your chronicle?’

  ‘I was looking for things on the Stuarts,’ Freya said.

  ‘Are you still on the Stuarts? You were in here, what, a year ago, asking for things on Charles II.’

  ‘The Selchesters were up to all sorts of things at the Restoration,’ Freya said, and then, improvising wildly, ‘I’ve found an interesting offshoot of the family. Early eighteenth century. Descended from the ninth Earl’s illegitimate son, who had all sorts of adventures during the Interregnum.’

  ‘He was the one married to Countess Maude, wasn’t he? The one you like? I wouldn’t have thought he had the spirit for illegitimate children.’

  Freya did indeed have a thing for Countess Maude, who had valiantly and skilfully defended the Castle against a Parliamentary army during the Civil War. She’d quietly abstracted the Countess’s portrait from the Gallery, to hang on her wall.

  ‘Oh, he had plenty of spirit for dashing about in Cavalier finery and sweet-talking the Southwark wenches. Less so for the privations of a siege.’

  ‘Was the mother a Southwark wench?’

  ‘No,’ said Freya, inventing herself even further into trouble. ‘A gentleman’s daughter. Quite scandalous. All hushed up, but of course everybody knew.’

  ‘Just like Selchester,’ said Dinah gnomically. ‘What did he get up to? This is like a Rosina Wyndham, and to think I imagined your research was dull.’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. Spying for the Royalists, maybe. I’m looking for some background,’ Freya said, back-pedalling furiously. There were Rosina Wyndhams to Dinah’s left, a whole row of them staring accusingly out at her. She’d had no problems coming up with plots for any of them before. Why was it so difficult now?

  ‘The Interregnum . . .’ said Dinah thoughtfully, walking over to the history section. The Interregnum wasn’t at all what Freya was after, but she’d dug herself into a hole now, so it would have to do. She could always pick out some other books for good measure. Or come back, following her imaginary trail forward into the Restoration. ‘You’re in luck. This came in a few months ago, hasn’t had any takers.’

  She pulled a heavy tome off the shelf and dropped it into Freya’s hands.

  ‘John Thurloe, Cromwell’s Secretary of State,’ Freya read. ‘The author is a Fellow and Tutor in early modern history at Trinity College, Cambridge . . . It looks awfully worthy.’

  ‘Isn’t history always worthy?’ Dinah said. She patted the book. ‘Never mind the dull title, he was in charge of all Cromwell’s spies. It’ll be just what you need. You’ll see. Now get along, or I shall think you’re only using me as an excuse not to work. Shall I wrap it for you?’

  Five minutes later Freya was standing in the chilly street, poorer by a considerable sum and richer – if one could call it that – by one distinctly dull book she didn’t need. Still, she could take it to the Daffodils and pretend to read it over a cup of coffee.

  She made for the tearooms.

  Scene 8

  Jarrett’s campaign to turn the Atomic inside out, one scientist at a time, came to a swift halt with a phone call from MacLeod. Bruno Rothesay’s wife was back in Selchester. Hugo had to endure another white-knuckle drive back to the police station to interview her.

  Alice Rothesay, brittle, and expensively dressed in a well-cut, light tweed suit and a hat that was far too smart for the country, had a similar silver-gilt beauty to Freya’s cousin Lady Sonia. In Mrs Rothesay’s case, the beauty was on the wane – more through temperament, Hugo thought, than time. Her mouth was set in a frown, and she was ill at ease in the interview room without a cigarette. Jarrett didn’t allow his subjects to smoke, said he didn’t want them at their ease.

  It was the first time Hugo had met her, his previous acquaintance being only through her husband’s security file. Eight years younger than her husband. Daughter of a High Court judge, old family of no great distinction, no political involvement. Degree from Oxford, which meant she was clever. The competition for places at the women’s colleges was intense. Married Bruno a couple of years after graduating, while she was working as an assistant in the chemistry department of University College London. No children, one brother killed in the war, no living family aside from this Welsh sister-in-law.

  All in all, a thoroughly uninformative file.

  ‘Anything more on this sister-in-law?’ Jarrett had asked MacLeod, pausing in the corridor outside the interview room.

  ‘Nothing yet. The Radnorshire police are taking their time.’

  ‘Sloppy,’ said Jarrett. ‘Probably out combing the hills for some Taffy’s lost sheep. If you haven’t heard tomorrow, I’ll give their Chief Constable a rocket. Can’t have them dragging their heels in a case as important as this.’

  The Radnorshire police, Hugo rather thought, might not hold the same view of their priorities. Particularly when forced to contend with snowdrifts deep enough to cut whole villages off for weeks at a time.

  Now the three of them sat opposite her in a bare green room, a deliberate intimidation. Jarrett snapped a file open, launched straight into his questions before MacLeod could say a word.

  ‘Mrs Rothesay. You left Selchester for Radnorshire on the thirtieth of December, correct?’

  Alice Rothesay lifted her head. ‘I believe it customary in civilised countries for gentlemen to introduce themselves. My father used to say that an absence of manners was the surest sign of a Bolshevik.’

  Jarrett clamped his jaw shut and allowed MacLeod to make his interrupted introductions.

  ‘We’ve already met, Mrs Rothesay. May I introduce Inspector Jarrett, of Special Branch, and Mr Hawksworth.’

  ‘Of the Statistics Office, so I hear. Is my visit to Radnorshire of economic interest? I’m flattered.’

  Hugo was begin
ning to like her.

  ‘If you would repeat the account of your movements that you gave to me,’ MacLeod said, ‘that would be greatly appreciated.’

  ‘Of course, Inspector. I didn’t go straight from Selchester, as a matter of fact. I went to London, to see the New Year in with some friends and go to the theatre. Not much opportunity to do that in Selchester. I left for Staffordshire on the seventh to visit an old friend of my parents on her sickbed, and arrived at Anne’s on the evening of the eighth.’

  ‘Anne is your brother’s widow?’ Jarrett asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  She was determined not to give Jarrett an inch and, Hugo suspected, taking a certain bitter pleasure in it.

  ‘How does a senior judge’s daughter-in-law come to live on a Welsh hill farm?’

  ‘She married again.’

  ‘And you went to stay with them for two weeks, in January.’

  ‘I went to stay with them for four or five days, but it snowed. I was stuck.’

  ‘When did you last speak to your husband?’

  ‘In London. We spoke on the telephone before I left for Staffordshire.’

  She was keeping her hands very still, tightly clasped around one knee.

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t really remember. I know I ought to, since it was the last time I spoke to him, but it didn’t register at the time. I think I told him about the plays I’d seen, and he pretended to be interested.’

  ‘Did he speak about his work?’

  ‘His work was classified, Inspector. I dare say he made a few remarks about his colleagues. I pretended interest in turn. I told him I’d be back around the thirteenth, and we left it there.’

  ‘Mrs Rothesay,’ said Hugo, intervening before Jarrett lost his temper, ‘I take it your marriage was not a happy one.’

  She paused, her fingers tightening in their clasp. ‘No, it wasn’t. My husband was a disappointed man, Mr Hawksworth. He wanted to be one of the greats, you see, like Rutherford or Bohr. But he also wanted to be more dashing than they were, a Renaissance man. While they were at conferences talking about physics, he was living the high life with the locals. Wine, women and song, it was all very diverting for him. Then he found himself up in a godforsaken valley in Westmorland, working yet again for Laurence Oldcastle, who’s half the scientist he was. He realised he’d flunked it.’

  Jarrett scribbled a few words on his notepaper.

  ‘I suppose you think that makes him ideal spy material, Inspector, but you’d be quite wrong. Whatever his other faults, my husband was no traitor.’

  ‘Did he change after that?’ Hugo said.

  ‘He became a bore, obsessed with making his mark on science. It was bad enough in Westmorland, never mind the appalling weather. After he was transferred here, I hardly saw him. I was a widow of the Atomic long before I became a widow in fact.’

  ‘Did he talk about an accident at Ulfsgill, a brush with death which might have changed his outlook?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, I know he was involved in an accident – he wouldn’t shut up about it. As to whether it gave him a greater appreciation of his life and career, perhaps. Mostly he grumbled about it, said he was being blamed. I was simply glad we were moving somewhere a little more civilised.’

  ‘He thought he was being blamed?’

  ‘My husband never thought anything was his fault. I gathered that someone else at Ulfsgill had blamed him, a theoretician, for getting too involved in some experiment. He, on the other hand, considered that his colleagues were doing mere engineering, and that his talents were being wasted.’

  Jarrett took over again: had she noticed any change in his behaviour recently, had she any reason to suspect he was hiding something, had she noticed him with any new people? Her answers were short, to the point, and as uninformative as her section in Bruno’s file. No, no, and no. He left early and came home late, she lived a quite separate life with frequent trips to London.

  Finally Jarrett could stand it no longer. ‘I must warn you, Mrs Rothesay, that failure to divulge evidence in a case of this importance could have very serious consequences.’

  ‘I don’t respond well to threats, Inspector,’ she said coolly. ‘I’ve given you the answers you deserve.’

  ‘Don’t you want your husband’s murderer brought to justice, Mrs Rothesay?’ MacLeod asked. Hugo had never found him the most tactful or observant of men, but beside Jarrett he was a model of sympathy and understanding.

  ‘I do. I loved him once. Even if I hadn’t, he was murdered in cold blood, and I should like to see his murderer hang for it, whoever he or she might be. But you mistake our relationship if you believe I was privy to any but the most superficial acquaintance with his affairs.’ There was ever such a slight emphasis on the last word, one Jarrett picked up immediately.

  ‘Are you suggesting your husband was having an affair?’

  ‘My husband was always having an affair, Inspector. The war didn’t put an end to that. If you’re going to ask me who was the current object of his attentions, I’m afraid I can’t tell you. He had two or three last year, they seemed to overlap with one another. There were a couple of local women, some ambitious young graduate student from London. Now I’ve had enough of your questions and your manners. If you want to talk to me again, I shall insist on having a solicitor here. My father lodged a generous sum of money with Hare & Warren in London to ensure that my legal affairs would always be taken care of. As I’ve barely touched it, there should be more than sufficient to deal with any nuisance you may cause.’

  It was left to MacLeod to show her out. Jarrett began writing, his pen heavy on the notepaper.

  ‘She’s hiding something. You know as well as I do.’

  ‘We all hide things. The question is whether it has any bearing on the case.’

  ‘It’s our job to hide things. It certainly isn’t hers. I suppose her father taught her how to lie with a straight face. Still, the truth will out. I’ll have her followed.’

  ‘Won’t work,’ said Hugo, who was as tired of Jarrett as Alice Rothesay had been. ‘Selchester is too small. She’ll find out in half an hour, and you’ll be the laughing stock of the town.’

  ‘I’ll thank you to keep to your files and let me do my job, Mr Hawksworth.’

  Hugo knew an opening when he saw one. ‘Then perhaps we should divide our efforts. It’s hardly efficient to have us both in each interview, when you’re taping everything up at the Atomic.’

  Jarrett’s eyes lit up at the word ‘efficient’, although not without a certain suspicion. ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘The circumstances of Dr Rothesay’s death suggest someone with capabilities rather out of the ordinary. When I went through the files before, my instructions were to concentrate on political connections. Now it seems we’re looking for a man with war service, perhaps not even directly connected with the Atomic. It might serve us well for you to concentrate on the circumstances of his death while I look into the background. That is, after all, why I’m here.’

  He was taking a risk. There were always things to be learned from an interrogation, even one conducted by Jarrett. Nuances of body language, a flicker of the eyes, could open up whole new lines of investigation. But instinct told him a more flexible approach was needed.

  Jarrett gave a curt nod and took up his pen. ‘Keep me updated every day. Let MacLeod know on your way out.’

  Hugo shut the door behind him with a silent sigh of relief and set out down the corridor. He heard a snatch of conversation from another room, something about stolen farm equipment. A constable was taking a statement about a local ne’er-do-well, a name Hugo recognised. It was all pleasantly mundane, a world away both from Jarrett’s disagreeable questions and from Hugo’s own previous life.

  When had all this become so reassuring? He’d been a city-lights man, yet all of a sudden Selchester seemed normal, and this world of files and spies distinctly alien.

&nb
sp; He turned a corner to see MacLeod handing some papers to a secretary.

  ‘Dispensed with your services, too, has he?’ MacLeod said.

  Hugo sketched the agreement they’d come to, and the Superintendent allowed himself an appreciative smile. ‘Wish I could do that.’

  ‘Haven’t you duties to attend to here?’

  ‘Only until Special Branch need something.’

  Hugo judged MacLeod in an amicable mood. They hadn’t the easiest of relationships, MacLeod far too willing to toe London’s line when it had been decided to pin the late Lord Selchester’s murder on an innocent man, but on Jarrett they could agree.

  ‘What’s his background?’

  MacLeod knew exactly what Hugo was asking, and was willing to be drawn. ‘I hear he was in counter-intelligence in the war, debriefing German spies. Went over to Germany in ’45, to hunt for traitors like Haw-Haw. These days it’s Russians, I suppose. He has a reputation for efficiency. Everything in tip-top condition.’

  ‘And his superior, Superintendent Pritchard?’

  MacLeod’s expression was almost reverent. ‘Now, there’s a real policeman. Not much to look at, mind you, but no one better on a tricky case.’

  Hugo heard a door slam, purposeful footsteps in the corridor. Time for a quick getaway.

  Scene 9

  The pale-eyed man was waiting just out of sight of the school gates. Georgia was deep in conversation with Daisy about their planned expedition through the woods to Pagan Hill. She didn’t see him until it was too late.

  He appeared, as if from nowhere, with a notebook poised in his hand. His manner was friendly, but his eyes were a washed-out blue, and very cold. He ignored Daisy, focusing his attention on Georgia. Polly was somewhere behind them; she’d left her exercise book in Miss Ormskirk’s classroom.

  ‘Might I have a moment of your time to ask about your discovery this morning?’

  Georgia wasn’t having any of that. She didn’t want to be reminded of the body in the river, stiff and pallid. They’d heard at lunchtime who it had been – the headmistress had called her and Polly in to tell them. Miss Winscomb wasn’t grand like her sniffy old headmistress at Yorkshire Ladies’, but there was a quiet authority to her which inspired more respect. Even in Georgia, who wasn’t prone to take much notice of headmistresses.