Diana's Altar

by Barbara Cleverly

  “Opposition? Are you saying Adam’s dead?”

  “He’s presently unconscious and safely in handcuffs. I think he’ll survive if the Branchmen can keep Despond from doing him further damage. How’s your patient?”

  “Dead. Very dead. It worked faster than I had calculated.”

  Alarmed, Joe put out a hand and checked the pulse point on Pertinax’s neck.

  “As you say. Dead.” And with foreboding: “Um . . . what worked, Adelaide?”

  “Well, as you can see—it wasn’t Doctor Easterby’s magic rejuvenating potion. I gave him a shot from the second syringe I’d prepared.”

  “Oh, my God! What was that?”

  “It’s a formula my father’s been experimenting with. He objects to putting animals out of their misery with a gun, and he’s trying to perfect a painless injection method. I brought some back with me. I used a quarter of the amount he uses for a carthorse. I’ll come quietly.” She looked up at Joe with a sad smile.

  Joe was lost for words.

  Calm and resigned, she bent to fasten up her bag. “He wasn’t going to let any one of us get away, was he, Joe? He was gloating, explaining himself. Hunnyton, I mean. Speaking freely to victims he knew would soon be in no position to contradict him.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right. All his nonsense about recruiting us to his cause was a ploy to encourage me to reveal exactly how much I knew and who else was aware. He never intended to let me loose. I believe he had other plans for you. I believe he was truly fond of you, Adelaide. Pertinax would not have survived the day—indeed, any untidy deaths occurring on the premises would certainly have been put onto his account and explained away. The Desponds? I’m not sure what they’re doing here but they seem very uncomfortable. Good old Guy nailed his colours to the mast by beaning Hunnyton with a cocktail jug. Appropriately he anointed him with the Coup de Grâce, though I’m sure he didn’t have the time or presence of mind to select it.”

  “God! Joe! What does it take to make you give a serious, heartfelt reply? One man dead, two injured here and twenty blown to smithereens in Cambridge, and you spout frivolities!”

  “Sorry, Adelaide! They’re all safe. What you saw wasn’t the laboratory going up in smoke—it was a giant bonfire built by the scientists themselves, most of them, I suspect, appropriately enough, members of the anti-war group. On Parker’s Piece. With a little know-how from the chemistry department, they gave it every appearance of a bomb going off. I couldn’t say anything there and then—I was trying to extract a confession from Hunnyton, a wallowing-in-success euphoric state which often loosens tongues. Bacchus and his boys—Clive the butler was one of them—were taking witness notes from the salon.”

  “How on earth did they manage to get in?”

  “Thanks to two agents in place—the right place—this place, we had a good enough picture of the defences and how they functioned. You and Aidan certainly earned your infiltration agents’ thirty bob a week. I was advised to use the Branch only in dire emergency. I judge the thwarting of a diseased, perverted blackmailer with his hands at the throat of dozens of our great and not-so-good and an egomaniacal Fascist a dire emergency. Just up their street, a bit of infiltrating with intent! God! My head aches! Hunnyton’s in worse nick! If he survives, he’ll be charged with a list of offences as long as my arm.”

  “Thank goodness for that! I’m in the business of preserving life, you know. If I had to balance the life of this degraded, diseased monster—and I reckon I did—against that of the Desponds and you and who knows how many others, well, there was an easy decision to be made. I mentioned the name ‘Clarice Denton’ as I made the injection. I’ve worked with my father since I was a small girl. Animals sometimes have to be put down. Sentimentality is not part of my make-up so you don’t need to talk me through it.” She gave him a sly smile, having accurately guessed what his next task would have been. “Now, tell me to whom I should give myself up. I don’t think it should be you. You might refuse delivery, Joe.”

  “Well, there’s Bacchus downstairs. He’s my head of Special Branch. He’ll advise. But I’m telling you, Adelaide, I will not let you be taken in charge.”

  “Well just make certain I don’t have to share a cell with Hunnyton, will you? You know—you got it wrong. Hunnyton is the mad man. This chap here was suffering from brain decay and one can understand and sympathise. Hunnyton is, to all appearances, sane, purposeful, easy and sociable. And yet there’s a disconnection there. An inner coldness at his core.”

  “Come away, Adelaide. We’ll leave the clean-up team to do their stuff.”

  She picked up her bag. “Something you ought to see. On his wall. Waiting for him to die, I had a chance to look around me. Over here. What do you make of this?”

  Mounted on a folding screen close to the wall at the foot of the bed and not immediately visible by anyone entering was a grouping of pictures and photographs. A very ancient sepia photograph of a fiercely moustached man in an old-fashioned and, to Joe, unrecognisable uniform glared down at him. Pertinax’s grandfather, he assumed. Next to it was a Kodak shot of a young couple, probably on honeymoon, surrounded by the palms and bougainvillea of the south of France. Mother and father? Perhaps most interestingly there was an enlarged reproduction of a press photograph that Joe—and the world—had seen towards the end of the war. A wide view of a broad boulevard edged by elegant classical buildings bore the date and place in gold lettering underneath: Riga. 3 September 1917. Militemus!

  The German army, victorious the previous day, was marching into the captured city, stepping out with perfect military precision, immaculate in every way.

  “He wasn’t a Russian sympathiser, was he, Joe?”

  “His forefathers believed themselves Teutonic Knights and they had names such as Gottfried and Heinrich,” he remembered. “Aidan found that out. The Pertinax coat of arms is a simple black cross on a white background. Waiting for a decoration, Aidan thought. Add to it a swastika and you have an eye-catching little number. Perhaps that’s what he was planning. No offspring—for the obvious reason—so this mad line ends here, I’d say.”

  Adelaide shuddered. “It never ends, Joe. This man’s madness. It will have spread already . . . physically, by infection . . . intellectually, by oratory and false logic. The need to grab power and have someone else pay for it.”

  She took his arm as they began to descend the staircase—more in the interest of keeping him steady on his feet, he suspected.

  “I’ll drive you back into town, Adelaide,” he offered boldly. “What do you think you’ll do now? Too soon to say?”

  “Thanks but I’ll be safer on my bike. First I shall resign from Easterby’s practice and then I shall go back to Suffolk for a while. Oddly, young Alexander needs some help. The poor little rat’s falling to pieces. Probably the one Truelove who has had no hand in sin and death, but he’s suffering on their behalf.”

  Chapter 26

  Mayfair, London: November 14th, 1933

  “I think it’s this one, cabby.”

  Joe stopped the taxi and peered out through the gloom of an early London evening. Fog was rising from the river and silently working its way up through the city, gathering smoke and soot into its stinking yellow miasma. The taxi had crawled along for the last mile, navigating by the feeble orange glow of the street lamps.

  “Yes, this is right,” he decided, looking at the brightly lit house. “Give me a second to get my parcel out, will you?”

  Mr. Barnes answered the door at once. He didn’t seem surprised to see Joe, but Joe didn’t think surprise was in his repertoire.

  “Miss Dorothy? A moment. I’ll check whether she is at home.”

  Joe propped his brown-paper-wrapped parcel against the wall and scribbled a note on the front just in case she had decided to make herself unavailable. He wouldn’t blame her. Disaster followed Dorothy whenever she met Joe, it see
med. This gift was precious little reward for saving his life, he reckoned.

  “From Zeus. For Antiope. With incalculable gratitude,” he wrote.

  He heard the butler speaking to someone in the distance, in tones calculated to carry all the way back round the corner to Joe, he guessed.

  “Miss Despond. There’s a policeman with a big package waiting in the hall to see you. Shall I tell him you’re unavailable?”

  “How could I resist? Of course I’m available, Barnes! Unless, of course, his name’s Sandilands, in which case I left for New York ten minutes ago . . . Joe! Well there you are! On your feet again and . . . Oh! How ghastly! Good gracious! Your face looks like a sunset by Turner! Come and let me see it.”

  She bustled down the hallway and Barnes moved off, humming to himself.

  Dorothy was dressed for an evening’s entertainment, wearing a stunning gown in red satin, a diamond necklace and far too much lipstick. She shook Joe’s hand heartily, peering at his stitched and swollen features with a cry of concern.

  “Oh dear! Your poor nose! Will it ever recover?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s broken. They’ve done their best. I shall just have to hope it scares the villains. As well as the horses and small children. And now girls in red dresses, it seems.”

  “Not at all!” Dorothy stood on tiptoe, leaned forward and pressed the gentlest of kisses on the end of his nose.

  Joe caught his breath in surprise and wondered if he now looked like a clown.

  “I brought you a gift. Spoils of war! I think you’ll recognise it. I’ll leave it with you and buzz off—I see you’re dressed for something or someone exciting this evening.”

  “No, no. Father is having what he calls a soirée. He’s entertaining some new clients. They won’t be here for a half hour or so. We’re to start the evening with a warming English punch. Barnes is concocting it in the drawing room. Shall we go and help ourselves before anyone arrives?”

  In the drawing room, Barnes was steaming gently—on his third tasting glass, Joe judged—wielding a silver ladle to encourage clove-studded oranges to bob about more vigorously in the punch bowl. Invited to sample the brew, Joe took the glass he was handed and pronounced it delicious. A little more cinnamon wouldn’t hurt, he suggested as it seemed an informed comment was expected. Barnes nodded in agreement, selected four more cinnamon sticks and popped them into the mixture.

  “Barnes, tell my father when he appears that the commissioner has arrived with a picture for me and he’s taken it up to my sitting room to find a place for it on the walls. We’ll take our drinks up with us. Can you summon Harry to help with the picture? It’s a bit cumbersome.”

  As they set off up the stairs, following the footman, Dorothy explained, “I have a suite of rooms for myself up here on the second floor. The public rooms downstairs are designed to impress my father’s guests. I have no hand in decorating them or choosing the pictures on the walls. I content myself with doing exactly what I want up here in my own rooms.”

  Entering her sitting room, Joe was dismayed. The furnishings were modern, clean-cut and the ones that didn’t bear the “Liberty of London” label had been shipped in from Paris, he guessed. The colours of the fabrics were bright but the walls were covered in a white linen to show off the many pictures Dorothy had chosen to have about her. Her professional work was clearly both centre stage and background for her private life. Most of these had been painted in the last ten years, he judged; a few were classical and he even recognised one or two by very famous artists. One thing was certain. The Watteau he’d brought for her would be completely out of place.

  He said as much, adding that he would take it away and try his luck at Christie’s.

  “If you don’t want it for yourself,” Dorothy said. “That would be a good idea. Joe—I don’t think you realise—that painting is worth ten times what you paid for it. It is the real thing. As right as rain. My father lied to Pertinax to annoy him. I can see why it wouldn’t please you to keep it. Bad memories!”

  “Dorothy, you’ve never told me—and perhaps you should—how you and your father came to be involved with the man.”

  “I was waiting for you to ask. I thought that must be your reason for coming. Father says he wants to tell you himself. I suspect he’s not told me the whole truth. But—this is as good as any time, I suppose. Art lovers all know each other. They gossip, they play tricks on each other. It’s a cutthroat world. My father and Pertinax had dealings that turned sour. Pertinax asked about, exerted pressure in certain quarters and found out about some pretty shady deals my father had done when he was starting out in the business. He could go to prison if anyone pressed charges. At the very least, his reputation would be lost. Blackmail ensued. He never pushed father too hard—he had a good feeling for how far he could go and he sensed that my father had the grit to poke him in the eye if he crossed the line. They had an uneasy relationship, tossing each other the occasional snippet of information, the occasional recommendation. Well, you’ll remember how you got involved yourself.”

  Joe asked her to say no more on the topic. He told her that, following on the death of Pertinax and the incarceration pending trial at the Old Bailey of Hunnyton, there had been many ends to tie up and trails to follow. Inevitably, this unpleasant business had been firmly laid at Joe’s door. “Sandilands is aware. He has his eye in. Let Sandilands complete what he has begun.” Policy decisions had been taken at the highest level and it had all culminated in a bonfire. But this time an imaginary bonfire. It was about to be revealed in the press that Sir Gregory, who had been suffering for some years from an incurable tropical disease, had recently died at his home near Cambridge. His body had been found in a summer house in the grounds where he had been storing memorabilia of various kinds. Family documents, photographs and filmic records had all gone up in the blaze. The Fire Department had attended the scene and subsequent investigation showed that the cause of the fire was a cigarette left unattended. Sir Gregory used, according to his butler’s statement, to be in the habit of retiring to his summer house to smoke his favourite Balkan Sobranies against all the advice of his man of medicine.

  As he talked in his top-policeman’s voice, he watched her strained features begin to soften and regain their brightness.

  “So! There you are! Poof! Up in smoke,” he said in conclusion. “Reputations saved. Men all over the country will read that piece, thank their lucky stars, put their revolvers back in the drawer and live to fight another day. You may tell your father. He’s in the clear. You’re both in the clear. Whatever you’ve been up to,” he added with a teasing snarl.

  “They ordered an imaginary fire, you said . . . Hmm . . . Where are the records at this moment, Joe? The evidence on film that he was holding. Who has them?” Once again, Dorothy had gone straight to the heart of the matter.

  “Ah. Many would have liked to get their hands on them, MI5 being first in the queue. Bacchus found them. Not outdoors at all but secreted away in a strong room in the house. It was he who peeked at the material and saw there such images from hell he was resolved to set the whole house on fire around it. Bacchus may be a bit of a thug but he’s quite the puritan when it comes to such things. That wonderful house! Jacobean! Riddled with rots wet and dry, woodworm and furniture beetle, but all the same—I couldn’t allow it! We discussed it and then hit on the notion of putting a match to the whole lot in the summer house I’ve just described. The fire was not imaginary. And the relief felt by the dozens of men he’d threatened and squeezed dry for years will be justified when they read tomorrow’s Times.”

  At last Dorothy seemed to feel relaxed enough to sink down onto one of her sofas. He handed her the mug of punch and sat down beside her. He suggested a toast. “Let’s drink to Loki, shall we? Norse god of mischief. And fire! I think he’s been looking down favourably on us.”

  “Naughty Joe! You’re too freethinking and too
free-acting to be a man of law. You’re nothing but an anarchist manqué, I’ve concluded. You should stop pretending to be a policeman, resign and find another job. What would you really like to do?”

  “Well if you should sack Barnes, call on me. I could make punch and growl in the hallway when randy, fortune-hunting gentlemen call on you. I could carry your chequebook for you when I escort you to Regent Street to choose Italian silk for your drapes.”

  Dorothy grinned. “Oh, would you, Joe? I’d love that!”

  She looked at him strangely and spoke again hesitantly. “No, I’m not joking. I really would like to see you more often and father has plans to introduce you to some of his friends. The ones he thinks you’ll like. Since he saved you from being hurled over the balcony, he feels rather proprietorial towards you, I’m afraid.”

  “Gracious! You remind me—your father’s party! I must make myself scarce. Dorothy, you clearly don’t find satyrs and nymphs the most fashionable subjects to have about the place—I’ll take it away.” He leapt to his feet and picked up his parcel.

  ‘‘No, no. Wait.’’ She joined him and began to tear away the paper. ‘‘I’ve thought of just the place for it. It’s designed to go above a doorway. Offer it up for size over my bedroom door, will you? Ring for Stanley if you need help—or a chaperon.’’

  She had scurried off through an open doorway into the next room before he could voice his objection. He stood truculently holding the picture before him like a shield, and feeling foolish.

  ‘‘Oh, come on! You’re a policeman. I’m not going to attack you. There,’’ she said. ‘‘The very spot. Exactly the right size. Leave it by the wall and I’ll have it put up tomorrow.’’ She peered more closely at the image. ‘‘Yes, I see it. He does look a bit like you. Before Hunnyton rearranged your face.’’