by Julie Sarff
Okay, that part I already knew. I urge him to continue.
“Ms. Rue, do you know that somebody ransacked the office of your editor on the night of the murder outside your cottage in Bourton?”
“Yes, I am aware of that.”
“Right, well, we believe that the burglar in your cottage was searching for something in particular. We also believe that the people who ransacked your editor’s office the same night on the other side of the Atlantic were looking for the same thing. You have to understand, based on what we know, and what we have just been told, all of this appears orchestrated by someone very powerful. Now you tell me that Mr. McKenzie was in possession of pictures of the Minister of Public Works with the Prime Minister’s ex-husband. Well, I’m beginning to put two and two together, but I’m going to need to see a copy of those pictures you have. If you fax them to me, we’ll make sure to get a copy to the detective in New York, and whoever else needs them.”
“Of course,” I say, nodding my head.
“In the meanwhile, I don’t think going to a meeting with a woman you barely know at the British Museum and showing her these pictures sounds like a good idea at all.”
I don’t respond.
“If you are set on this course of events, then please program my direct number into your cell.”
Torrance Mach gives me his number, and I type it into my cell right away. I don’t have time to fax the papers properly, so I take a picture of each one with my cell phone and send them to his way.
Once I’ve finished, I make my way to the tube station.
Chapter 17
Twenty minutes later I walk up the beautiful steps of the British Museum. With my heels click-clacking on the marble tile, I enter the Great Court. Usually, the tessellated ceiling that soars overhead takes my breath away. Today, however, I pay no attention to the grandeur of this space. In a no-nonsense fashion, I make my way to the cafeteria where I spy Marianne and Jack sitting alone in a corner of the room. It’s still early for lunch, but there are plenty of people about. If Jack and Marianne are going to kill me, they picked a pretty public place to do it.
Quickly, I slump down into an orange-laminated cafeteria chair at their table and say, “Well.”
“Tell her,” Jack demands in a rough voice. Marianne doesn’t respond at first. She sits still as a rabbit, looking scared. Irritated, Jack reaches out and jostles her shoulder.
“I knew your ex…” she says in a small voice.
“What?” I ask. My stomach does a summersault. Good heavens, are Marianne and Jack some kind of agents who ran into me accidentally-on-purpose that morning at the Canadian Memorial?
Marianne stares at me. Her mascara is smudged.
“Tell her everything you told me.” Jack’s tone is laced with anger.
“I knew Sean. I was in love with him. I met him when he was working on the biography of the Prime Minister. We spent a lot of time together.”
“When?” I ask in a dead serious voice.
“Before he met Tatum.”
Oh Lord, I think I’m going to be sick. Sean was seeing yet another woman.
“I asked him to break up with you. He said he would,”
Ow, I feel like I’ve been slapped.
“I see.” I stare down at my shaking hands. “And were you ever with him at his cottage in Bourton?”
“Yes,” she mumbles.
Right. Mental note to self - throw out all the sheets at the cottage. Better yet, I’ll pile them in the fireplace and set them ablaze.
“I was there with him once. He had a picture of the two of you propped up on his desk. I was insanely jealous. I cut out your head.”
I don’t reply. I just glare at her as if she is insane. Did she kill Sean?
“I was angry,” Marianne continues, “Sean was using me, using me to spy on meetings between the Public Works Minister and Pierre St. Clair.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“While working on the biography of the Prime Minister, Sean got wind of something untoward happening in the building permits department at the Ministry. That’s how I met him. I believe Sean only wanted to be with me because he knew I worked in Mrs. Wilkes’ office after regular hours. You see, Minister Wilkes’ regular assistant, Autumn, was eight-months pregnant and she was working short days. When Autumn went home in the early afternoon, I would take over for her until Minister Wilkes left for the evening.”
“And?” I ask when she pauses.
“And anyway, Sean fixed me up with a spy camera, one that you can put in a handbag. All you have to do is cut a tiny hole in your handbag and insert the camera. And voila, I got him the proof he needed, proof that the Public Works Minister and Pierre were having a lot of late night meetings.”
“You took those pictures….and you cut out the picture of my head. So that makes you the mysterious E.,” I say slowly, trying to assimilate all this bizarre information.
“My sister is Elena Marianne Preston and I swear I had nothing to do with any of this. I had no idea that Marianne was stalking you that day she ran you down in Green Park,” Jack insists looking quite unnerved.
“I wasn’t stalking you. I-I heard about Sean’s death. It was all over the press here because of his biography of the Prime Minister. Anyway, I also read the Schnellings’ press release. It was public knowledge that you were taking over the biography of Prince Alex.”
Jack glances at me with sad eyes as Marianne says this. Poor man, we have both lied to him. I lied to Jack about writing a biography of Emma of Normandy instead of the Prince, and Marianne has lied to him about everything else.
“I know Schnellings’ authors stay at the Park Lane. I spent many nights there with Sean, after all,” she mutters and stares down at her shoes.
Jack clears his throat.
“Anyway, in the press release that named you as the new author, it gave the date of your first interview with the Prince. I was circling around Green Park waiting to catch a glimpse of you that morning. I knew you would probably be coming out of the hotel at any time. I actually took the day off to watch for you, and I invited Jack along for an extended ride in Green Park. I figured you would probably walk to Buckingham. I mean, it’s just right across the park. It took a while to find you. Jack and I had been circling around and around for a while. Jack wanted to go home. He didn’t know why I wanted to keep riding along the same part of the park over and over. We were just about to leave when I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw you standing there, by the Canadian Memorial. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I felt this rage come over me. I aimed for you and ran you down.”
Jack tsks and looks away.
“I’m sorry. I guess I had it bad. I was…I mean, I am, even now, still in love with Sean.” Marianne blushes scarlet.
“So let me see if I’ve got this straight. You were helping Sean?”
Marianne nods.
“And he knew there was something happening at the department of Public Works. And he believed it was connected to the Prime Minister and so….and so…he basically seduced you.” I swallow hard. “In order to get information.”
Jack turns an ugly shade of gray at the word “seduce.”
“Yes, yes that’s it. He found out because he was constantly with the Prime Minister and he saw her ex, Pierre St. Claire, come and go to her office. Sean believed that Pierre was the go-between Wilkes and Morton. They were all in on the kickback scheme together. Sean was going to bust the story wide open. All he needed was some proof and some pictures. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I had the pictures to show that Mrs. Wilkes, Pierre St. Claire and the Prime Minister were in cahoots. But after I sent the photos to Sean, I never heard anything. Sean never leaked the story. So one night, I called him. I believe it was right before he left you for Tatum and…”
I roll my eyes when she says, “Left you for Tatum.” I can’t help it. It still hurts.
“And, then something changed. Sean told me he had showed the pictures directly to
Pierre St. Claire and that they had come to a financial arrangement. He told me if I informed anyone about the photos, Pierre would have me killed.”
Jack tsks again and I feel the room spinning. “Sean was blackmailing Pierre?”
“He was,” Marianne sighs, “And for several months, I’ve been scared for my life. I wondered if you knew anything when you arrived. From the little I saw of you when I ran you over on my bike, it seemed like you didn’t know anything. It seemed like you were just concentrating on writing your biography of the Prince. So…”
“So?” I ask.
“Nothing, that’s it. That’s the entire story. And you must know that Jack knew nothing about any of this. Not until today”
Jack looks extremely grave.
“I had no idea the two of you would meet up again, in the park, and that he would ask you out.”
Yes, it’s all quite ironic, I think darkly. Quite ironic that my ex’s lover’s brother would ask me out on a date.
“So you can imagine my shock when you showed me those photos, Trudy,” Jack begins in a low voice, “when I saw they were signed with a flourishing E, I immediately recognized the handwriting. I couldn’t understand, how was it possible that you had pictures that were signed by my sister? I had no idea what was going on. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. As unbelievable as this whole strange sequence of events is, ladies, I believe we all need to go together to the police.”
I nod at this. “If you give me a second, I am sure I’ll be able to bring them to us,” I say, and dial Torrance Mach’s phone number with a shaky finger.
Chapter 18
A week later, Pierre St. Claire is arrested in St. Tropez. He is shipped back to New York where he faces murder charges. The prosecutor informs me on the phone that it will be hard to charge Pierre with murder in the first degree. According to NYPD police, there is actually surveillance video showing Pierre talking to Meg and I at the time Sean was murdered.
“Piecing it together from the evidence we have, we believe an acquaintance of his, a Maggie Delvers, was the one who actually pulled the trigger. We have video footage of her at the party. She was missing during the time of the murder. Presumably, she went up the back stairwell and killed Sean at the exact same time Pierre was talking with you and your editor,” the prosecutor, a lady named Tayler Banner, tells me on the phone.
Later, I learn from Emmeline Vance that the NYPD believe it was Maggie who searched Meg’s office under orders of Pierre St. Clair. Apparently Pierre had become worried that Sean had sent the photos of him and Mrs. Wilkes to Meg in an attempt to break the story.
“Detective Puyn says that Pierre isn’t talking. Although he did say Maggie Delvers is doing quite a bit of talking. Claims she was a hired gun. She also says Pierre paid thousands to keep Sean quiet about the kickback scheme but Sean kept asking for more money. In the end, Pierre found it cheaper to simply hire someone to kill him. According to Maggie, Pierre was the one who searched your place in the Cotswolds.”
“And murdered that poor man who tried to stop him from burglarizing the cottage.”
“Exactly,” Emmeline confirms. “Trudy, the police have frozen Sean’s accounts. He had over a million dollars in a bank account in Switzerland.”
I should be shocked by this news, but nothing shocks me anymore when it comes to Sean.
“I suppose they’ll want the keys to the cottage as well. I suppose Sean paid for that out of the blackmail money.”
“I don’t know about that. Meg was just telling me yesterday how she can’t understand why Sean would do any of this. She says Sean was making a lot of money on royalties. So the cottage may have been paid for with those funds.”
“Then I can keep it?”
“As far as I know,” Emmeline replies. “You should keep it, enjoy it. Relax. You deserve it. I talked to Meg earlier this morning and she says you should finish the biography of King Crustus or something.”
“Croesus,” I say with a smile.
“Ya, that guy,” she laughs. “Gotta go. Getting my hair done in ten minutes and it’s across town. Take care of yourself.” Click.
King Croesus was one of the most influential and powerful leaders of Ancient Asia Minor, I type.
Bah. Boring sentence.
King Croesus, richest man on earth, was the first king in Asia Minor to coin money.
Oh, dear, I need a verb with more action than “was.”
I try again.
King Croesus, rose to power…
What a cliché. I give it up and decide to finish my tea cozy instead. I am so close to being done, a few more double crochet stiches and it is finished. I tie off the end, snip the yarn and sit the pink tea cozy on my coffee table. I don’t care what people say, I think it’s beautiful.
I am just trying to decide how to spend the rest of my Saturday, (debating about whether to try to work some more on the Croesus biography, or do a bit of sightseeing) when there’s a knock at my cottage door. I peer through the lace curtains. Some man wearing a hoody is standing there holding a white box and a sack of groceries.
Wait a minute, I know who it is!
“Lizzie,” Alex says, when I open the door so fast that he practically falls in my entrance.
“What are you doing here,” I laugh.
“My cousin Rose dropped me off. She very much wanted to come to Bourton-on-the-Water and do a bit of shopping,” he explains with a mischievous look.
“Oh she did, did she?”
“Hmm,” he replies facetiously, glancing around my room, “she loves all the fine whatchamacallits they sell in Bourton.”
“Well, there is a shop that has all sorts of cat figurines.”
“Cat figurines. That’s it. That’s what she wants. Rose adores them. Her apartment at Kensington is covered floor to ceiling in cat figurines.” He grins madly.
“But what are you doing here?”
“Ah, well, that. Thank heavens your home, Lizzie, because it turns out I abhor shopping. So I thought I would come by and see if you wanted to catch a cricket match on the TV while Rose is out and about.”
He looks around as if he desperately wants to put his parcels down. The grocery bag is beginning to slip from his overloaded arms. In addition to the groceries and white box he is carrying, he also has a big faux-leather travelling bag slung over his shoulder.
“And what’s all this,” I ask.
“Well, it would have been terribly rude of me to show up at your door and ask you if you wanted to watch cricket with me while Rose shops for cat figurines. The least I could do is bring over groceries to make up a little dinner.”
The Prince has come over to make me dinner? I almost fall on the floor.
“Here, take this,” he insists and hands me the box. “It’s a delicious chocolate cake, made it myself. And where should I put these?” he asks with regards to the sack of groceries that is about to slip from his grasp.
I take the cake box and lead him into the kitchen.
“It’s brilliant.” He smiles when he sees my tiny kitchen. “I see I’ll have everything I need to whip us up dinner.” Then he proceeds to unpack all sorts of goodies from the bag: leeks, carrots, potatoes, lentils and a couple of bottles of ale.
“B-but I don’t understand what you’re really doing here. How did you find me?”
“Bourton-on-the-Water’s a small place,” he laughs, “And I’ve come because I have a few things to discuss with you. I’ve also come to teach you about cricket. Since you’re an American, I assume you don’t know even the smallest of facts about the game, and there’s an important match on today. The whole country will be watching, and I didn’t want you to feel left out. But forget about all that for now, how about a nice slice of cake? I made it myself.”
His cake, as it turns out, is hideously ugly. I don’t tell him this because he seems so thrilled to surprise me with it. It looks like a large, squashed, black bat, and to tell you the truth, it kind of tastes like one too. Nonetheless, I try
to force it down as we both sit on the sofa, and the Prince starts picking through my basket of remotes.
I still haven’t figured out how to turn on the blasted television.
“What’s this?” he asks spying my tea cozy.
Alright, here it comes, another insult.
“I know what this is.” He picks it up. “It’s a tea cozy.”
I beam.
“My mother makes them too. I believe she knits hers, though.” He glances at my crochet needle. “You and my mother are the last of a dying breed.”
“I want you to have it” pops out of my mouth.
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly.”
Why not? Doesn’t he want it? Of course he doesn’t want it, people think it’s hideous. Not to mention, people give the Prince gifts all the time. They give him so many things, he has to turn around and give his gifts away to the sick and the less fortunate.
“Well, if you’re sure,” he replies, “I would be delighted to have it. My mother knitted me one, but it is more light-weight. This looks like a good, proper, winter-weather cozy. Thank you, I shall cherish it.”
I melt right into the cushions of the sofa.
“Oh, and I have something for you, but it will have to wait a minute. First I need to find the cricket match on TV.”
The prince drops the cozy into the large bag he brought, then goes back to examining all of the remotes. Deftly, he picks one up and clicks. The TV roars to life. He turns to a channel, and declares triumph. The cricket match between the U.K. and Australia is about to begin.
“I still can’t believe you are here,” I murmur.
“Umm,” he replies, “You are going to be seeing a lot more of me in the future.”
I feel a tingle of happiness all the way down to my toes. What does he mean I’m going to be seeing a lot more of him in the future? And what does he mean he has something for me?
“And why is that?”
“Because you are my biographer.”