Rebecca drew the curtains and took off her dress. Her body was still trembling. She’d felt scared and sick all day, unable to concentrate on her work, dreading a call announcing that the police were in reception and they’d like to talk to her. But nothing had happened. No one had tried to contact her. Everything had been normal. Her boss had noticed something was wrong. She’d told him she felt unwell and he’d urged her to take the afternoon off. He was really sweet, very appreciative and considerate, delegated heaps of things to her so her job was never boring. He was retiring at the end of the year. She wasn’t looking forward to that. She put her dress on a hanger, pulled on her jeans and a cotton top, then reached under the bed for her comfortable shoes.
The tiredness was really getting to her now. That was probably why she felt so nervy and scared. Annushka had got her home before eleven, but she hadn’t fallen asleep until the sky had begun to lighten. She’d just laid in bed, shaking, dreading the knock on the door, dreading the arrival of the police. Ever since she’d been a child she’d been a bit scared of policemen. They were big and faintly menacing, always silent and watchful. Last night her pulse had quickened every time a car had whispered down the street and her ears had strained for the creak of the gate.
She returned to the tiny kitchen, made a mug of tea and a ham sandwich. She’d eaten nothing all day. Hunger could be making her feel nervy and unwell, quite apart from the tiredness. She took them into the sunlit sitting room at the rear of the house, pushed aside swatches of curtain fabric, then sank into the sofa and clicked on the television. Conflict in the Middle East, wranglings in parliament, a scare about processed meat, the flatlining economy; there was nothing on the rolling news programmes about the death of an MP’s daughter at Darnel Hall.
Perhaps Annushka had been right; perhaps it had been wise to just drive away from trouble. She slid her mug on to a low table and wandered back to the kitchen for a biscuit. Only three chocolate ones left. She took them all, then re-sealed the plastic bag. The tin box that had held them was down in the cellar, crammed with the mobile phones and hidden under a big stone shelf. It was the first thing she’d done when she’d arrived home last night.
Annushka had seemed so streetwise, so worldly. Perhaps her mother’s death, two stepmothers, housekeepers, all of those security men, had matured her, made her older and smarter than her years. Thinking about it, Rebecca wished now that she hadn’t let her dump the phones on her. The story about prying housekeepers and nosy security men wasn’t all that convincing, but she’d been so assertive. Surely Annushka could have hidden them somewhere? And what were they going to do with them? She reminded herself that one or more could hold images of her doing intimate things with Julian or Timothy, or any one of half a dozen other men if videos had been made at earlier parties. They’d probably been wise to take as many as they could find. The phones were safely hidden. She’d wait a few days, then contact Annushka and discuss what was to be done with them. Perhaps the best thing would be to break them up with a hammer and put the pieces in the refuse bin. Just get rid of the things.
CHAPTER THREE
Samantha stood beside the reception desk in the Connaught Hotel, looking across the foyer into the cocktail bar. Red leather chairs, clustered around low circular tables, formed islands on a carpet of a deeper red. Wood panelling, its varnish darkened by age and tobacco smoke, made the room seem dingy. Loretta Fallon was its only occupant. She was sitting beside a window at the far end, well away from the bar and the entrance, gazing out over sunlit gardens.
Her appearance hadn’t changed: iron-grey hair drawn tightly back and tied with a black ribbon, navy-blue suit with a pencil skirt, white silk blouse with a choker collar, black low-heeled shoes. Clothing that was more uniform than fashion statement. Her features, large for a woman, were composed, her posture relaxed. If the Department was in the grip of a crisis, she was betraying no sign of it.
‘Can I help you, madam?’
Samantha turned. A tall grey-haired man was smiling at her across the reception desk.
‘I’m meeting someone in the cocktail bar. Until we’ve talked, I don’t know whether or not I’ll be booking a room. May I leave my cases here for a while?’
‘Of course, madam. I’ll have them carried into the office.’
She crossed the foyer, passed through the doorway and moved silently over thick carpet towards Loretta. When she was close, she murmured, ‘Miss Fallon.’
The woman turned. Cool grey eyes looked up at her and thin lips pulled into a smile. ‘Miss Quest.’ A long and slender hand gestured towards a chair. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘Did I have any alternative?’
‘You could have just walked away.’
‘Curiosity overcame me.’ Samantha sat down and smoothed the skirt of her dress.
‘Can I order you some tea? A drink from the bar?’
Samantha shook her head.
Elbows on the arms of her chair, chin resting on linked fingers, Loretta Fallon studied the woman facing her across the table. Marcus Soames was right, she mused. Quite beautiful, but what man would want to wake and find those huge green eyes staring into his? Ice cold and still as death, they seemed to freeze one’s mind. Her gaze lowered to slender arms, lightly tanned, the sleeveless dress, perfectly cut and of a pale bluish-grey, the matching bag and shoes. Very elegant. And the gleaming black hair had been exquisitely cut and styled. Perhaps she’d been travelling with the hairdresser, the male model. Loretta sniffed. ‘Was your friend Crispin with you when I called?’
‘We were holidaying together. I’ve left him behind. How did you find me?’
‘I always know where you are. How did you explain the sudden departure?’
‘I told him a friend had asked me to take over an appointment with one of her regulars. He thinks I’m a high-class whore.’
Loretta laughed softly. ‘We’re all whores, Miss Quest, selling some part of ourselves for food and clothes and shelter. Your hair gave you away. He’s shaped and styled it perfectly. And did he choose the dress?’
Samantha nodded.
‘Marcus told me he helps you choose your clothes. He has impeccable taste.’
‘He has an eye for colour.’ Changing the subject, Samantha asked, ‘How is Marcus?’
‘Fine, as far as I know. He’s been taking a few days’ leave; spending them with Charlotte and his daughters on the farm. He’s driving back to London today.’ She straightened herself in the chair. ‘We’d better talk about why you’re here.’
‘I presume it’s serious?’
‘If it’s not handled deftly, it could assume catastrophic proportions.’ Loretta drew a breath, then began. ‘I was called to number ten in the early hours of this morning and taken into the Cabinet Room. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner were there. I could feel the tension the moment I stepped through the door.
‘It seems the night before there’d been a party at a place called Darnel Hall, a run-down old house owned by Earl Farnbeck. It was a gathering of the offspring of the elite: cabinet ministers’ sons, a couple of viscounts, possibly a more elevated member of the aristocracy. They couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give me a list of the people who’d been at the party, but I gathered that the young men had all attended a very exclusive public school called Conningbeck, and the young women had been educated at the Martha Hemmingway School for Girls.’ She saw the shadow of a smile touch Samantha’s lips. ‘You know it?’
Samantha nodded. ‘School motto is Educate, Enlighten, Empower. I’ve had dealings with one of its former pupils.’
Loretta hurried on. ‘During the course of the evening a girl died – the PM kept referring to it as a tragic accident – and one of the young men, Viscount Barksdale, contacted his father. His father conferred with Earl Farnbeck, and they passed the problem up the line. An hour later, Buckingham Palace had dispatched one of the Queen’s Lord Lieutenants, Major Sir Kelvin Makewood, to the ha
ll. I wasn’t told what transpired while he was there, but by the time he’d left, Sir Nigel Dillon, the Police Commissioner, had visited the scene with one of his senior officers, the dead girl had been taken away in an ambulance and Alfred Mortmane had been lined up to do an early-morning post-mortem. The partygoers all insisted they hadn’t seen her fall from the landing, but they did say she enjoyed sliding down the marble handrail of the stairs. They could only think she’d lost her balance and tumbled down into the entrance hall.’
‘There was a forensic investigation?’
Loretta shook her head, ‘There was no forensics team. Sir Nigel and the plain clothes officer went unsupported. I’ve got someone in the Met. He’s trying to find out what he can, but as yet there’s no incident report in their system and no gossip about it amongst the force. Mortmane released his report on the autopsy about 9 a.m. It confirmed that death had resulted from a fall from a considerable height, with the impact to the crown of the victim’s head. He also recorded extensive bruising to the limbs and torso of a kind caused by rough handling, and an unusually large quantity of semen in the vaginal canal. He suggested this was consistent with the deceased having had sexual intercourse with several men shortly before her death. He was told to edit the report by removing all reference to the bruising and the semen.’
Samantha raised an eyebrow.
‘Presumably they thought bruising wasn’t consistent with an accidental death. The girl was the daughter of Lucas Manning, an MP considered to be a rising star in the party; no doubt they wanted to spare him and the party the embarrassment of the comment about semen.’
‘The politicians told you all this?’
‘They told me as little as they could. After I left the meeting I gave instructions for all communications between the parties to be monitored, round the clock. Mortmane faxed his handwritten report on the autopsy through to number ten, the PM phoned him back within minutes, then faxed him a copy of the report with the offending statements redacted. He took pains to make clear to the pathologist what he was expected to write. We intercepted and printed out the exchanges.’
‘And Mortmane went along with all this?’
‘Protested vehemently when the PM phoned him. When he was reminded he’d been pencilled on to next year’s Honours list, a knighthood, he decided to go along with it.’
‘Have the girl’s parents been told?’
‘Dillon gave them the news, told them the girl’s features had been badly distorted by the fall, said she’d been identified by friends and by documents in her handbag, and they need only view the body if they wished.’
‘And how have they reacted?’
‘We’ve heard nothing so far. Lucas Manning has his political career to consider and, quite apart from that, the family might not want to kick up a fuss and have the media nosing around.’
Samantha smiled. ‘It seems the establishment’s closed ranks and stitched things up very neatly. Why involve you?’
‘There’s a little more. Vincent Fairchild, the Foreign Secretary’s son, was given a grilling by his parents when he arrived home. He’d had to beg a lift because someone had taken his car. When his father asked him why he didn’t phone so he could be collected, he said his phone had been taken, and that most, if not all, of the young men at the party had lost their phones, too. He was with a girl called Annushka Dvoskin. Apparently when she learned that boys had been taking intimate photographs and videos of couples, she snatched his phone and car keys and ran out of the room. He presumed she’d gone through other rooms, grabbing what phones she could, then driven off in his car.
‘His mother contacted Dillon at the Met, told him the girl who’d taken her son’s car had also taken phones that held embarrassing images. By that time the police had picked her up on the M25 and were going to charge her with taking the car without consent and driving without a licence. The girl told the police she knew nothing about phones, said hers wasn’t working because the batteries needed charging, then became truculent and defiant. When they checked her phone it was completely dead. They found nothing in the car and returned it to the Fairchilds within the hour. They were instructed to take the girl to a secure children’s unit just outside Gloucester, not to charge her, and not keep any record of the incident.’
‘This Annushka Dvoskin,’ Samantha murmured, ‘does she have any connection with the Russian oligarch, Vladimir Dvoskin?’
‘His only child.’ Loretta reached down beside her chair, lifted an attaché case onto her knees and clicked it open. She leafed through a folder, plucked out a glossy ten-by-eight photograph and passed it across the table.’
Samantha studied it. ‘Very pretty: she’s going to be a beautiful woman.’
Loretta retrieved the image. ‘I understand she has her father’s temperament: Slavonic grit and determination combined with a boldness that verges on arrogance. People who’ve met her say she’s smart and extremely precocious, the product of a difficult childhood. Her mother and father were forever raging at one another and she was cared for by a succession of nannies and minders. The atmosphere in the home was so poisonous, the child so wild and rebellious, none of them stayed long. When the mother died the father settled her in England and sent her to boarding school.’
‘Has her father been informed? Incarcerating a wealthy Russian’s daughter without legal process could prove embarrassing.’
‘I made that point. He’s honeymooning on his yacht, a vessel of considerable size, with his third wife. They’re cruising – Black Sea, Mediterranean, Aegean – and not easy to contact. His daughter was heading for their London flat when the police picked her up. The family home’s near Gloucester, a place called Underhill Grange; there’s a housekeeper and security men in residence. They told the police they’d no means of contacting Vladimir; I gather they were less than helpful. The police have been instructed to say the girl was agitated and difficult, her parents were absent, so they put her in a secure children’s unit fairly near to her home for her own safety. We’ve started intercepting all communications to and from the yacht. They’re heavily encrypted, but we’re working on it.’
Samantha gazed across the table at Loretta. The sound of adult laughter and children’s voices drifted in from the foyer. Lift doors opened then rumbled shut and the place fell silent again. She said, ‘I’m still not clear about your involvement in all this?’
‘They’ve instructed me to recover the mobile phones – we should be able to identify at least some of the people at the party from the list of numbers they gave me – and they want me to arrange the discreet questioning of the girl, the transcript of the conversation to be for the PM’s eyes only.’
‘Why not leave it with the Metropolitan Police?’
‘If they involve Sir Nigel Dillon he may feel he has to let the law take its course. They think a more covert investigation’s appropriate, otherwise they could lose control of the situation.’
Samantha frowned. ‘It’s delicate, but there’s been worse. And they’ve covered it up rather well. I’m surprised they’re quite so concerned.’
‘There are two possible reasons. One involves a member of the Cabinet, the other’s conjecture on my part.’ Loretta slid two more photographs from the folder and passed them over the table.
‘Well, well.’ Samantha’s eyebrows rose when she glanced at the first image. Annushka’s pert little posterior was perched on the pedestal of a statue, the hem of her skimpy pleated skirt drawn up to her hips, her long legs wrapped around Alexander Fairchild’s waist. White linen shorts around his ankles, underpants around his knees, he was holding her tightly, his handsome head thrown back, his eyes closed, his lips parted. She turned the photograph so Loretta could see it. ‘Where was this taken?’
‘Tennis party at some big country house. The statue of Apollo is at the centre of a maze. One of the officers in the security team was ours. He followed them and took the photograph.’
Samantha studied the second image. Annushka Dvoskin was
straddling Alexander Fairchild who was sprawled across a rumpled bed. They were both naked. The photograph was less clear, a little grainy, but the identity of the parties was unmistakable. ‘And how did you get this one?’
‘They’re in a flat, Fairchild’s pied-à-terre in Mayfair. Tripod mounted camera with a telephoto lens located in a hotel room on the opposite side of the street. We put him under surveillance when we discovered he was interested in his son’s girlfriend. Foreign Secretary having an affair with the underage daughter of a Russian oligarch; it could pose quite a security risk.’
‘She’s below the age of consent?’
‘She was when these photographs were taken. She’s sixteen now.’
‘And very well developed for her age,’ Samantha murmured. ‘You said there could be two reasons for their excessive concern. What’s the other one?’
‘I think they might be trying to hide something bigger. Why did the palace send one of the Queen’s more formidable Lord Lieutenants to Darnel Hall? Would they be so concerned about a couple of viscounts the public have never heard of, or was there someone more important at this party? And the account of events doesn’t ring true. I had the researchers locate a photograph of the hallway and stairs at Darnel Hall. They found one in Blackwell’s Historic Houses of the Home Counties. The stairs aren’t steep, they sweep down very gently, and the marble handrail’s almost a foot wide. It would be difficult to fall off.’
‘Drink, drugs?’ Samantha suggested. ‘Perhaps she was hardly able to stand.’
‘Then she wouldn’t have been able to hitch her bottom on to the handrail; the balustrade’s quite high. And how did she get all the bruising?’
A motor mower appeared between shrubs at the far end of the garden and began to drone towards the hotel. Loretta went on, ‘Something serious happened at Darnel Hall last night, and the sons and daughters of the great and the good are mired in it. Just how great and how exalted, we don’t know. This girl, this Russian oligarch’s daughter, may have seen something that frightened her, that made her run away. And there could be incriminating videos and images on the phones she took. She could be in considerable danger.’
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