A Matter of Loyalty

by Anselm Audley

  ‘What did it say?’ Leo asked, as they paused at the door to his room. ‘Was it indeed from Henry?’

  Leo also knew Henry Surcoat, although they hadn’t been in the Service at the same time.

  ‘It was. Once the police discovered that Luger, they asked the Service to take a look at it, and the ammunition. It seems, although nobody has thought to inform me through official channels, that the bullets match one the doctors took out of my leg last year.’

  Scene 15

  Pacing the Castle, unable even to contemplate sleep, Hugo’s steps brought him to the ballroom. The drapes were still drawn back, light from the new-risen moon spilling silver across the parquet floor. The chairs were still there, arranged in two distinctly disordered rows along the edge of the room, the stage clear, the harpsichord pushed to the corner.

  He stared at it for a very long moment, his mind full of terrors and torments, of what had been and what might be, of his sister terrified in the dark somewhere. Such things belonged to the world he’d reluctantly left behind, not to the peace of Selchester. Where could Georgia be safe, if not here?

  He pulled the stool out and lifted the lid. For a moment, his fingers hung above the keys, uncertain, and then he began to play.

  The sound carried through the tall windows and the heavy drapes of Árpád’s room, bringing to an uneasy mind memories of a happier time, Vienna before the first war, when all seemed stable and everlasting, when music floated from balconies on summer evenings.

  He woke, and hearing it still, took himself in search of it, to hear it more clearly.

  Scene 16

  Freya’s room was too far away for the sound to reach her across the roofs. Restlessness had driven her to walk the corridors, until she caught the plangent tones of a harpsichord drifting up through Grace Hall. She saw a figure vanish into the darkness below, and caught up with him again at the half-open door to the ballroom.

  Árpád gave her a grave smile, said nothing. Hugo played on, quite lost in the music. It was a ghostly sound, well fit for moonlit tranquillity even amid a sea of troubles.

  Hugo reached the end of a movement, went straight into the next with barely a pause. She’d had no idea he was so good, nor that he had so much music in his head. There were wrong notes and fractional hesitations here and there, but he played as a man listening to the angels, determined above all not to stop.

  They stood there in the darkness for a long time, until finally Árpád nodded again and slipped away, back up the stairs to her uncle’s bedroom. A moment later she realised why. He’d known the sonata was coming to its end, and hadn’t wanted to intrude. Freya, lingering to hear the last of it, was caught unawares. She turned to go, but her slipper scuffed on the floor, and Hugo looked around. For once, though, no defences went up. Tonight, he wasn’t the spy, the keeper of secrets, only a man in anguish, worried for the safety of kith and kin.

  ‘Scarlatti?’ she said, walking out to join him.

  He nodded. ‘I can’t have woken you.’

  She stood by the side of the harpsichord, running her fingers over the wood. ‘I couldn’t sleep. Much too worried. It’s harder at night.’

  Hugo said, ‘Now entertain conjecture of a time/ When creeping murmur and the poring dark/ Fills the wide vessel of the universe.’

  ‘Henry V,’ said Freya. ‘He must have seen the world in a most extraordinary way, to come up with so many such lines in the middle of all that tumult, players and Puritans and conspiracies all about him. I didn’t know you were a Shakespearean, was it all that lighting you did for OUDS?’

  Hugo pulled a small, scarred volume out of his inside pocket. Freya turned it over in her hands, to see in the moonlight. Complete Works of Shakespeare. The type was tiny, she’d have had to squint to read it even in daylight.

  ‘My perpetual companion on the road. I’ve had it since before the war. A few more years and I shan’t be able to make the words out, but it’s done its duty. I must have read most of them through at least half a dozen times. After my father’s ship went down, I read Hamlet over and over again. After my mother died, it was Antony and Cleopatra, don’t ask me why.’

  ‘But not tonight.’

  ‘Tonight . . .’ He rested his fingers on the keys. ‘I couldn’t have changed what happened to my parents, and they wouldn’t have wanted me to. They did their bit, they were happy to be doing their bit. Georgia didn’t ask to get mixed up in all of this.’

  ‘No more and no less than your mother,’ said Freya. ‘Georgia was born into this time, and you’re doing what you can to ensure she grows up in a free country, not a hell like Árpád’s Hungary. The difference is that you’re responsible for her. You weren’t for your parents.’

  ‘Cold comfort.’

  ‘I shan’t try to varnish it. You’re worried sick about her, and so am I.’

  ‘She means a great deal to you.’

  ‘Yes, she does. I didn’t expect it. I didn’t want either of you here, as it happens.’

  ‘I remember. Never mind cold comfort, your welcome the first time we met was distinctly chilly.’

  ‘She’s quite won me over. I never had a younger sister, and I doubt she’d have been as quirky and original as Georgia.’

  ‘You do yourself too little credit.’

  ‘Georgias aren’t ten a penny.’

  ‘No,’ said Hugo, ‘they’re not.’

  Neither spoke for a moment. Then Hugo gently closed the lid of the harpsichord and rose from the stool. They turned back towards the door.

  ‘I forgot,’ said Freya, fishing in her dressing-gown pocket. ‘The girls found this on Pagan Hill. It was at the end of a dead-end path. Rather an odd thing to lose in such a place, don’t you think? If I owned such a thing, I wouldn’t tramp around the countryside with it.’

  Back in the light, Hugo examined the pen, and unscrewed the cap to look at the nib. Left-handed.

  ‘Very curious indeed,’ he said. ‘Now what would an eminent scientist be doing in a place like that?’

  ‘You know whose it is?’

  ‘I do indeed. It belongs to Laurence Oldcastle.’

  Sunday

  Scene 1

  Hugo woke abruptly from a shallow, restless sleep, full of threatening dreams and Georgia’s voice calling from a bottomless abyss. He’d fallen asleep in the library chair, a half-finished whisky close by his head.

  Freya had come in, already dressed, with a cup of tea.

  He sprang to his feet. ‘What time is it?’ A faint promise of daylight glimmered around the edges of the curtains. How long had he been asleep?

  Freya said, ‘Don’t fret. It’s half past seven, time to have a quick bath and put some fresh clothes on. MacLeod sent a constable up, he’s sending more to comb the grounds. They may not find Georgia, but they’ll be able to tell if anyone’s been in or out. There’s quite a heavy frost.’

  ‘I hate to have everyone out combing the countryside when she won’t be there,’ said Hugo.

  ‘The more people know, the more hope of something being picked up.’

  Hugo said, ‘If only the rehearsal were sooner.’

  Mrs Partridge was up and about, ladling scrambled eggs on to toast. The kitchen was full of people – Emerson already up from town, Árpád in a coat borrowed from her uncle. As Hugo wolfed down a few bites, there was a great roar from outside, and dogs barking.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Polly asked.

  That, it turned out, was Arthur Hampton-Bishop, driving a mud-spattered Jeep with a bloodhound in the back. In a Land Rover behind him were Lady Priscilla and Sir Archibald, with two of the Selchester Hunt’s finest, tails wagging furiously. Magnus took one look and bolted.

  ‘Heard what was up,’ Arthur said. ‘Roped the godparents in. Do you have something of your sister’s, a shirt she’s worn recently? Or shoes. Shoes are good.’

  ‘You shouldn’t,’ said Hugo.

  ‘Course I should. Can’t imagine how you feel. My mother says I’ve the imagination of a cabbage in
any case, but I’ll lend a hand, and Morpheus here can lend a nose. He’s not the brightest tool in the box, I’m afraid. I’m having rather a time training him up, but he’ll do his best.’

  Freya had to concede that Morpheus was a distinctly dim-looking bloodhound, but even a dim bloodhound was better than none. Mrs Partridge left Pam to stir the eggs, with strict instructions to hand out flasks of tea to all and sundry, and went in search of Georgia’s clothes.

  ‘Right-ho,’ said Arthur, as she came back. ‘Who saw her last?’

  ‘I did,’ said Polly.

  ‘Lead on, Macduff.’

  They spilled out of the kitchen into the morning sunshine. Thank heaven it was another clear day. The circle was full of people and noise, and there was someone else coming through the gatehouse on a bike. For a moment, Hugo’s heart leapt, thinking it might be Georgia, but it was Dinah Linthrop, come to join the search.

  Polly led them in a gaggle to the last place she’d seen Georgia. Morpheus set off, combing the ground this way and that, then loped along towards the ballroom.

  ‘She did go this way,’ Polly said, excited.

  They came to a corner at the back of the ballroom, through an arch into a disused service courtyard with two or three doors, one into a little turret.

  ‘What’s this for?’ Hugo asked Freya.

  ‘It leads into the servants’ corridors, it’s the quickest way from the kitchen to the ballroom terrace.’ She remembered uniformed footmen coming in and out with drinks during a summer party long ago, following them back.

  They had to find Mrs Partridge for the keys, but no sooner was the door opened than Morpheus lost the scent entirely. Arthur frowned.

  ‘What was she doing in here?’ Leo asked. ‘We’d better have a look upstairs and downstairs, just in case.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll be finding her in here,’ said Mrs Partridge. ‘I keep this locked. You never know what sort of people are on the loose these days. I’d say I haven’t turned that key these five years.’

  ‘What about the other side?’ Gus asked. ‘If I judge rightly, that corridor leads through to the door Vivian and I opened the other day, in the ballroom. We didn’t go in. Too dusty.’

  ‘Where is this bicycle, though?’ Árpád asked. ‘We know she was on it.’

  ‘Something a bit fishy about this, if you ask me,’ said Sir Archibald. ‘Are you quite sure she’s run away, Hawksworth? Don’t like to be the one to suggest something worse, but a man’s got to face the possibility.’

  ‘I have, Sir Archibald, believe me.’

  ‘Well, no use all of us clumping about in a huddle like this, we’ll put Morpheus right off his game. I say we split up, comb the grounds again in daylight. You did your best last night, by all accounts, but a winter evening before moonrise is no time to be out searching.’

  Scene 2

  When Georgia woke again, it was to the greyest, the dimmest of lights. Her head was fuzzy still, her muscles aching. She was cold, very cold, hunched along the wall in the inadequate cover of the blankets. How had that happened? She’d only meant to rest for a little while.

  She blinked a few times, to clear her eyes. Her stomach was groaning, and she had a crick in her neck. Weren’t they going to come back, whoever they had been? She realised she could see a little of the room. Wood and brick, just as she’d thought. There was a line of light high up, a rectangle, like daylight around the edge of a curtain or shutter. Better than the dark, anything was better than the dark, but the room was so small. She must have been around it twice last night, it was barely big enough to lie down in.

  Groggy, she heaved herself up and reached for the line of light. It was above her head, too high to see out, but there was a latch of some kind. Her stiff fingers fumbled to open it, and at last it moved, with a creak. She looked up, out, to a distant slice of blue sky, an expanse of brick and lead. She was in an attic somewhere, the roof of the school looked just like this. She could just about see a line of shadow on the brick, the sun was quite high. She must have been asleep for hours and hours and hours.

  She shouted, but her voice barely echoed in the passage. She looked around the room again. There was no door, not even a hatch in the floor. Her heart began to pound. How could she be in a room with no door? Her mind raced to oubliettes, like the ones they used in the Middle Ages, where you couldn’t even climb out. She pushed and prodded and poked and shouted until she was hoarse, but there was no reply, not even a sound. She didn’t drink the water, a little suspicious of it. What if it had sent her back to sleep?

  In the corner, she found a panel which opened when she pressed a corner, but only into a tiny dusty cupboard, almost bare and empty. Two old books sat on a shelf. She picked them up. They looked ancient, when had they last been used? They were full of Latin in blotchy type, a great big papal emblem on the front page of each, the last few pages blank. Underneath them was a little black notebook, much more recent, full of indecipherable squiggles. Wedged in a crevice at the end of the shelf was an old pencil, almost too blunt to use.

  She looked at the tiny little room, then very deliberately she tore out the last page of one of the old books, wrote HELP, and then after consideration a proper message: MY NAME IS GEORGIA HAWKSWORTH I HAVE BEEN KIDNAPPED LOCKED IN A CUPBOARD UNDER ROOF OF BIG OLD BUILDING PLEASE HELP, like a telegram. Then she folded it into a paper plane. She hated to spoil the old books, heaven knew when they were from, but the paper was so thick, surely it would fly well? She didn’t know whether anyone would find it, whether it would just flutter a few feet and lie on the roof, but it was all she had.

  She stood on tiptoe, threw the dart with all her might, and returned to tear out the next-to-last page.

  HELP MY NAME IS GEORGIA HAWKSWORTH . . .

  Scene 3

  By half past eleven, Hugo’s leg could take no more. He’d stayed with the search parties right through the garden, out into Upper Wood, and back down to confer with MacLeod by the Lodge. It was more exercise than he’d taken in a year, and it showed.

  It was Leo who insisted he take a rest, bundling him into a police car for a lift back up to the Castle, where he hobbled through into the kitchen. Mrs Partridge bundled some ice cubes up in a cloth for his leg.

  ‘Don’t you go doing yourself a mischief,’ she said sternly. ‘Miss Georgia needs you in the best of shape. Look at your shoulders, crooked as can be.’

  They were indeed. He’d found in the last hour or so that he could keep going if he held himself at an angle, the better to put less weight on the leg.

  ‘Just a few minutes,’ said Hugo. ‘I want to look at that doorway again, without a great crowd of people hovering around.’

  ‘You stay right here,’ said Leo. ‘I shall take a look. I’ve much the same training as you, and I shan’t be limping around like Richard III on a bad day.’

  ‘Don’t you speak ill of him,’ said Mrs Partridge sharply. ‘The Castle won’t like it, d’you hear.’

  Although she’d spent most of her life out of the Fitzwarins’ service, only returning after the late Lord Selchester’s disappearance, Mrs Partridge had nevertheless firmly adopted most of the family’s ancient prejudices. Save those where Papists were concerned.

  ‘An excellent and much-maligned king,’ said Leo diplomatically, and took his leave. He knew why Hugo wanted to have a look. It made no sense for Georgia to have headed towards the Castle before reversing her course and running away. It made rather more sense if, say, she had seen something amiss, gone to investigate, and run instead into a kidnapper lying in wait. A kidnapper with keys to the Castle, though, that was the oddest thing.

  He paced along the corridor. There were footprints on the stairs, but they were those of the searchers, trampling over the evidence in their search for Georgia’s bicycle – nowhere to be found, of course. Perhaps there was a trace of it outside, though. There was a path along the back of the Castle at cellar level, through the old pantries and workshops. Someone could well have taken a bik
e along there, brought it around the far side of the gatehouse and loaded it into a car.

  He let himself out, followed the path down the steps, past dusty and shuttered rooms – carpenters’ and joiners’ workshops, unused boiler rooms, sculleries, and the cavernous nineteenth-century kitchen, designed for a staff of dozens. He came out on to a lawn by the hothouse, just where the mediaeval and Elizabethan wings met. There was Magnus rushing about on the grass, chasing something which flitted in the breeze.

  One of several somethings, actually. What were they? Paper planes, how odd. He picked one up, prompting a furious attempt by Magnus to retrieve possession, and a claw in his finger.

  ‘Ouch. Off, cat!’

  He unfolded it, read it.

  With quick precision, he gathered up every one of the planes he could find, and went back to the staircase, an indignant Magnus trailing at his heels.

  Scene 4

  Freya saw Leo as she came freewheeling down the garden path, laden with thermos flasks – her turn to ride back to the Castle and replenish them. The searchers were out at the edge of the park now, a constant trickle of people joining in from the town. Some of the cast had arrived early with packed lunches and spare sandwiches, ready to lend a hand.

  Leo waved, abruptly. Come here. She veered off, stopped by him. He pulled a piece of oddly folded parchment out of his pocket and showed her the message on it.

  ‘The priest hole,’ she said. ‘I told you about it, it’s called The Room That Has No Ears.’

  Leo knew all about priest holes. ‘Does anyone know where it is?’

  ‘I never did,’ she said. ‘I can ask Sonia, although it’ll be tricky to hide why I’m asking.’

  ‘Can we trust Mrs Partridge to keep a secret? She may know.’

  ‘Show her the note,’ said Freya. ‘For something really important, she won’t breathe a word.’

  Mrs Partridge was incandescent. ‘It’s a wicked, wicked thing. Not a shred of decency these people have, and to think here in Selchester. I shan’t breathe a word indeed, not to anyone. To threaten Miss Georgia’s life like that. Savages, that’s what they are.’