A Matter of Loyalty

by Anselm Audley

  Her face shuttered at once. ‘I shan’t come to find you again,’ she said, running off ahead.

  By the time he caught the others up, she and Polly had gone on, waiting by Gus’s car. Freya had seen Georgia’s face as she came back, knew something was wrong, but this wasn’t the time to talk about it.

  ‘I hope it was a worthwhile evening,’ said Hugo to Árpád, as they drove back in the darkness. He was glad Leo was driving. His leg always hurt more when someone reminded him of it. The dull ache was mostly fading, but it hadn’t faded quite enough.

  ‘But of course,’ said Árpád. ‘I see a slice of your English country life, as you would say, although perhaps not so typical to find a scholar full of strange ideas and an Austrian Jew.’

  Hugo was baffled. ‘What?’

  ‘You do not know? She is a Mitteleuropean. Definitely she is Jewish, most likely from Austria or Bavaria, although perhaps she is from Transylvania, where there were many people who spoke German. It is in her voice, you see. When I was a boy, we lived in Vienna for a while. It was very cosmopolitan, I met people from all over the empire, and learned to recognise the way they spoke. I could tell, this man is a Croat, this one perhaps from Upper Austria, this woman is a Czech. And, of course, also you could tell, this one lives in the countryside and does not come to Vienna often, that one is a Jewish intellectual, this one is loud and swaggering, he is perhaps in the cavalry.’

  ‘Miranda keeps very quiet about it. Her English is perfect.’

  Leo said, ‘It wasn’t easy being a refugee in the thirties. A great many people over here didn’t realise how bad the Nazis were, couldn’t see why all these foreigners wanted to be in England. So many of them changed their names, tried to fit in as best they could. She has a good ear, she married an Englishman and made a life here, she may prefer to forget her past.’

  ‘In Eastern Europe,’ said Árpád, a touch mournfully, ‘it is very hard to forget the past. There were things the Nazis did, then the Soviets, and then under that many old hatreds, Serbs and Croats, Romanians and Hungarians. This is why I shall go to America. They ask you to be American, it is a new start. If I were to meet a nice American girl, as they say, I should like my children to be American, to grow up away from such things. It will be hard for me, but easier for them.’

  They came through the gatehouse to find a low sports car parking by the main door.

  ‘I wonder who that is?’ Leo asked.

  A moment later, they had their answer when Mrs Partridge opened the door, casting light on the scene.

  ‘Oho,’ said Hugo, rolling the window down. ‘Another uninvited guest to rain on Gus’s parade. It’s Lady Sonia. She must have decided to come down with Emerson.’

  When Gus unexpectedly displaced his half-sister, Lady Sonia, as heir to the Selchester fortune, he had politely told her that she should still consider the Castle her home. Lady Sonia, with her customary ruthlessness, had taken him at his word and descended for Christmas. Now she was doing the same again.

  ‘There you are,’ said Sonia, as Gus and Freya came towards her. ‘I’d have let you know I was on my way, only Emerson was in too much of a hurry, sped me right out of town.’

  Hugo, who knew Emerson to be a courteous man, doubted he’d done any such thing.

  ‘You’re always welcome here,’ said Gus, who surely couldn’t mean it. Wondering whether he could steal away to New England again? ‘Mrs Partridge, would you make up a bedroom for Lady Sonia, and another for Mr Emerson?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Emerson, who was taking Sonia’s cases out of the boot. ‘I wouldn’t dream of imposing on you. I’ve booked a room at the George & Dragon, they’re keeping some food warm for me. Excellent landlord, Mr Plinth. You should try luring him back to the Castle.’

  Mr Plinth had been the Castle’s butler before the war.

  ‘It’ll be chill tonight,’ said Mrs Partridge, who had very little time for Lady Sonia. ‘I don’t believe in heating rooms when they aren’t being used, not with fuel so scarce, and with so little notice, there’s no fire burning.’

  Sonia managed to look annoyed, even though she had no one to blame but herself. ‘I’ll have a hot-water bottle,’ she said, with ill grace.

  ‘Be polite,’ said Emerson, climbing back into his car. ‘Else Mrs Partridge will put hellebore in your scrambled eggs, and I shouldn’t blame her if she did. I’ll be around early tomorrow, Hugo – catch you before you go off.’

  He revved the engine into life and roared away.

  ‘Well, don’t be hanging around out here,’ said Mrs Partridge. ‘You’re letting all the warmth out.’

  ‘You two go in,’ said Leo, as Mrs Partridge ushered everyone inside. ‘I shall put the car away.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Hugo, who wanted a moment with his uncle.

  ‘You have secret business,’ said Árpád cheerfully. ‘I shall leave you.’

  He scrambled out, slamming the door. The car crunched away across the gravel, around to its home in the old coach house.

  ‘Do you think a man would betray his country out of professional pique?’ Hugo asked, as they locked up. ‘It’s been suggested to me as a motive, more than once.’

  Leo was silent for a moment. ‘In my experience, people are drawn to the Communist cause to give meaning and purpose to their lives, because they see a dearth of those things in the world around them. You might as aptly ask, would a man turn to God out of professional pique? To betray one’s country, give one’s allegiance to its enemies, is no small step.’

  ‘Taken in haste, repented at leisure?’ Hugo suggested, as they turned towards the Castle.

  ‘Slipping classified material to the Soviets is hardly something to be done in the heat of the moment.’

  Leo, then, was no more convinced than Hugo as to Rothesay’s guilt.

  ‘I should say,’ Leo went on, ‘that such a suggestion tells you more about the person making it than the person they’re talking about. You might find they have little insight into the minds of others. Or that they wear their own loyalties lightly.’

  ‘Marriage vows, for instance?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Thank you. I rather think I’ve slotted one minor piece into place.’

  They walked under the great dark bulk of Freya’s tower, back towards the door.

  Saturday

  Scene 1

  Emerson pulled up promptly at half past eight, while Lady Sonia was still asleep. She groaned, turned over, and gave the clock an annoyed look. Why did he have to be so early? Why, for that matter, was he so keen to get Ingham off? Sonia was a firm believer in letting sleeping dogs lie, except where they had something of value to her. If Hugo and Freya hadn’t meddled, the Castle would have been in the hands of the developers by now, her father’s precious home being altered out of all recognition. Too bad he couldn’t have stayed buried there, to see it all in progress.

  She turned over to go back to sleep.

  Georgia and Polly had gone off on their bikes, bound for school and then their expedition to Pagan Hill. Gus had told them in no uncertain terms to be back before sunset, and no quibbles. Mrs Partridge had slipped a solid slice of fruit cake into each of their lunchboxes, to keep them going.

  Hugo was up and about, his sleep short and disturbed. His dreams had been full of dark corners of Berlin, shadowy figures stalking him, gunshots from behind. He’d found himself in the Lago, unable to move, being driven towards a cliff by a faceless MGB man while Valerie waved inanely from the pavement. All in all, not a good night.

  Emerson had breakfasted at the George & Dragon, and breakfasted well, but he still found space for two slices of toast and some scrambled eggs he’d charmed out of Mrs Partridge. He was intrigued by Árpád, and promised to come back after Hugo was done with him.

  Hugo took Emerson up to the sitting room he and Georgia shared, far from listening ears, and unfolded as much of the story as he could. There were certain details he couldn’t reveal to anyo
ne outside the Service, Official Secrets Act or no, which made the whole process rather more frustrating.

  ‘The Saul I know,’ said Emerson, who quite filled the large wingback chair Hugo normally sat in, ‘wouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘I don’t believe he did,’ said Hugo, glancing out over the Castle gardens. It was a lovely morning, misty with the promise of sun to come, a frost glinting on grass and trees. Lucky Georgia, to have a day like this for her expedition.

  ‘He mentioned this Rothesay quarrel to me once, years ago. During the war. One of those conversations around a fire where everyone brings out their stories on a particular theme. In this case, it was fights they shouldn’t have picked. He told us he’d fought a duel with a scientist, but they’d chosen the wrong place, been discovered by a coterie of witless undergraduates and had to run for it.’

  ‘That matches the story my uncle heard.’

  ‘The important thing about Saul,’ Emerson went on, ‘is that enormous chip on his shoulder. I twit him about it. He knows it’s there, and he tries his best, but sometimes it’s stronger than he is.’

  ‘Strong enough to kill a man for gloating over his misfortune?’

  ‘Aha,’ said Emerson, ‘that’s my point. Saul needs to prove he’s better. It’s not about winning, it’s about showing his mettle.’

  Hugo understood. ‘He wants them to know he won.’

  ‘Exactly. I dare say he might have killed an unwary German sentry, but the point of killing a sentry is to stop him raising the alarm.’

  ‘Whereas the point of fighting Dr Rothesay would have been to show him which of them was the better man.’

  ‘I won’t say he might not have killed someone accidentally, punched them too hard . . .’

  ‘Or run them through with a fencing sword.’

  ‘Indeed. I think he might well have killed the late Lord Selchester, if they’d ever met again. God knows, he had reason enough. But he’d have done it face-to-face, so Selchester had time to realise what had happened, and he’d have done it to show Selchester he could bleed and die like any other man.’

  As indeed Selchester had, at the hands of someone he’d believed to be in his power.

  ‘The trouble is,’ Hugo said, ‘that none of this will count for much with the police.’

  ‘They are rather literal-minded.’

  ‘Anxious to get rid of this Inspector Jarrett.’

  ‘My God, is he here? The man’s a menace.’

  ‘You’ve come across him before?’

  ‘Put a lot of pressure on one of my clients who was trying to recover a looted painting. Goering gave it to a Luftwaffe ace for his hundredth victory or some such. Being a fighter pilot rather than a Nazi, he’s become a big cheese in the new West Germany, and the Government didn’t want to alienate him. Jarrett dropped a lot of heavy hints about how unpatriotic it was to pursue private justice at the cost of public interest.’

  ‘He seems to me to be after justice at any price.’

  ‘Order is more like it – an order with him on top. Saul won’t get any mercy if he’s involved in the case. They’ll find a hanging judge to try it. I did some ringing around yesterday, seems the Service is quite keen to have this all closed up.’

  ‘They don’t like Jarrett poking around any more than we do. I’ve had a fair number of veiled invitations to take myself off to a new line of work.’

  Emerson laughed. ‘They did that to me. Take the offer and run, is my advice. If they want you out, they’ll just keep making life difficult.’

  ‘They’re not pushing me out while an innocent man is in peril of the gallows,’ said Hugo. ‘I’m running out of ideas, though. I know you’re here to help Saul, but I don’t know how much you can do.’

  ‘I shall take myself off to visit him. I must say, I’m intrigued by the gun which was found at his cottage. Planting something like that without being detected takes a degree of skill.’

  ‘It was searched from top to bottom not long ago, been empty ever since. The owner of the cottage died last year in very murky circumstances. Possibly a Soviet spy, certainly a sympathiser. That’s why there was so much attention from the press, and other quarters, when Dr Rothesay first went missing. Georgia was hassled after school by an unpleasant fellow called Jenkins. We’ve seen him around Selchester before.’

  Emerson sat bolt upright. ‘Jenkins? Tall, cold-looking, pale blue eyes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s no journalist.’

  ‘Known to the police, apparently, some sort of private investigator. He told Freya he’d worked for the late Lord Selchester. She thought he might have been an official, although he didn’t have the feel of one.’

  ‘That he may have done, but she was right, he was never an official. There isn’t really a description for what he does. You might call him your unofficial counterpart. He’s worked for several powerful men in a hemi-demi-semi-official capacity. Situations where the Government absolutely can’t be seen to have a hand in things, but the people he’s negotiating with need to be sure their message will reach the right ears.’

  ‘An odd sort of man to be turning up in Selchester. Is he on the level?’

  ‘No,’ said Emerson, ‘he was involved in some very murky dealings. I came across him in Madrid during the Civil War, meeting several high-level people in the Republican government. Then he turned up in the Nationalist HQ too, bold as brass, straight into a meeting with one of Franco’s aides. I couldn’t enquire too closely, he had some dangerous friends and it wasn’t a safe place to be.’

  This Jenkins was a piece that didn’t fit. Crossing the Atlantic with Gus, poking his nose around the town, asking intrusive questions on trains. Working for Lord Selchester, too.

  ‘Lord Selchester was in the Government during the Civil War,’ said Hugo. ‘And well into the war too. Could he have been meddling?’

  ‘Everyone was meddling in Spain and pretending not to. From Selchester’s record, I’d have expected him to be a Franco sympathiser, but the Republicans were the official government. Perhaps there was something to be gained in talking to them.’

  ‘I’ll see if Jenkins has a file.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky to find one. I queried him to London when I was in Madrid. Slapped down at once, mind your own business. Met him again in Lisbon in even murkier circumstances. Same request, same response. You might have an easier time of it now, with Selchester and others of his generation safely in their graves.’

  ‘Any history of violence?’

  ‘He’s a hard and capable man. Whether he ever gets his own hands dirty, I can’t say.’

  Hugo rather thought he did, from the number of suspicious accidents which had befallen Gus. Why try to kill Selchester’s son, though? What was there to be gained? He’d apparently given up, too. Left Selchester at Christmas, hadn’t been seen until he popped up outside Georgia’s school.

  ‘I should say,’ Emerson added, ‘that he’d be more than capable of planting evidence in a country cottage. Particularly if the owner had odd connections. You never know who might have a key.’

  ‘Are they letting you in to see Saul?’

  ‘They are indeed, although I suppose they’ll watch me like a hawk.’

  ‘Ask him about this Jenkins, see whether their paths ever crossed. See whether he ever dealt directly with any of Selchester’s other people. We already know Selchester involved Saul in one sort of dubious business in post-war Berlin. We might be able to trace the other people who did his dirty work. Find out what they’re up to now. I should be off, Valerie awaits.’

  Emerson heaved his bulk out of the chair. ‘Thank you for not giving up on Saul, by the way. Decent of you.’

  ‘He isn’t out of the woods yet.’

  Emerson felt in one jacket pocket, then the other, then the inside. He frowned. ‘I had a note for you from Henry Surcoat. Sends his regards, scrawled a few lines and sealed it in blood, as it were. Seem to have left it in my room, though. No wonder the Service didn’t
want me.’

  ‘Bring it when you’re finished with Saul. I shan’t be back for a few hours. Better still, give it to Leo, it’ll be safe with him. I’d rather not have it lying around where anyone can pick it up, we’ll have all sorts in for the rehearsal this afternoon.’

  Scene 2

  Yarnley should have been a pleasant place to wait in the morning sunshine: a small market town with a merry river, assorted old pubs and a slightly sleepy air. The stationmaster gave Hugo a civil greeting and they exchanged a few words about the weather. The station tabby was so similar to the one in Selchester that Hugo wondered whether it was the same cat, prone to hop on and off the trains to ensure itself extra meals.

  The cat seemed at ease, stalking among neatly bordered flowerbeds; Hugo was not. He hadn’t worn his formal suit in more than a year, and it didn’t seem to fit any more. Mrs Partridge had been a touch enthusiastic with the starch on his collar, too.

  ‘There you go, Mr Hawksworth,’ she’d said. ‘Can’t have Londoners saying we don’t know how to dress in Selchester.’

  Scene 3

  Mrs Partridge clearly hadn’t met Peter Woolhope. He and Harriet had wangled five minutes in private with Hugo on Friday afternoon, an illicit conference in Peter’s chaotic office. They’d all been pulled off their regular work for a special job of Sir Bernard’s, a task of extreme tedium and no apparent urgency. This happened about once a month, as Sir Bernard tried to impress his superiors in London, but on this occasion the timing was suspicious.

  ‘Did you get anywhere at Foxley?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘I did indeed,’ Hugo said. ‘The rat I smelled turned out to be Laurence Oldcastle. Tried to get his group to pull off some tricky plutonium processing on a wing and a prayer. No proper equipment, no competent experimentalists, and a great deal of pressure from above.’

  ‘What did he stand to gain?’ Peter asked.

  ‘The credit. It was time for Rothesay to get his own department, but Oldcastle knew he’d lose his ace in the hole.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Harriet said.

  ‘They all do. Rothesay wasn’t shy about telling anyone. He was the source of Árpád’s leak, we can be quite sure of that. I think I know how that got back to the Russians. One of his numerous amours was Miranda Pearson, who I’m told has fairly radical views. I think if we delved, we’d find they’d been fellow travellers in the thirties.’