Whatever secrets Wilde had to impart, he was certain she had far more.
Chapter 15
‘I have a lot of questions for you, Miss Hartwell – but I’m afraid I also have something I must tell you. Something of an extremely distressing nature.’ He was struggling to find the words – ‘distressing’ was wholly inadequate, and the noise of the car and the wind did not help. ‘I think you should find a layby and stop the car. I can’t make myself heard properly above this wind.’
‘What? What have you got to tell me?’
‘Please, I really think you should stop.’
‘Is this about Peter?’
They were on a narrow stretch. She swerved into a farm track and brought the car to a juddering halt, kicking up a cloud of dust from the dry earth.
‘Well? Is this about Peter? I know he’s dead, if that’s what you mean.’
That was something at least. One piece of bad news that he would not have to break to her. ‘There is that, yes – but something else, too,’ he said, still searching through the recesses of his vocabulary for the appropriate phraseology. How could he tell this young woman that her father was dead, hideously murdered, his throat slashed in his own bedroom?
‘Come on, Mr Wilde, spit it out. And while we’re about it, perhaps you’ll give me some clue as to why you were up in Scotland – and why you tried to follow me to London.’
‘Your father’s dead.’ There, he had said it. Plain and unvarnished – and horribly brutal.
She frowned, her lips curled in a disbelieving smile. ‘I’m sorry? What did you just say?’
‘Your father, the Reverend Hartwell, is dead. I was there with him at the end.’
‘What utter nonsense. Daddy isn’t dead.’
Wilde nodded his head slowly, firmly.
‘He can’t be dead.’
‘I dearly wish it wasn’t true, Miss Hartwell, but I’m afraid it is.’
‘How? How is he dead? He wasn’t sick – people don’t just die.’ She was angry now and yet unsure of herself. Trying to weigh up the possibility that this man might just be telling the ghastly truth.
‘He was murdered. I’m so sorry.’ He reached out to touch her arm, but she shook him away as though ridding herself of an irritating fly.
‘How dare you say such a thing? No, I won’t believe it. You’re lying.’
‘He was killed at his home near Clade. I was there earlier today.’
‘Daddy murdered?’
‘I’m really, truly sorry. I wish there was some easy way to tell you this.’
‘Who by . . . how?’
‘He was stabbed. I can describe the killer to you, because I saw him fleeing on a motorbike. I believe his name to be Mortimer, but I can’t be certain of that. I have no idea about the motive. That’s all I know.’
She recoiled, shying away from him even as she faced him full on, disbelief in her eyes. Disbelief, rage and something else. Fear?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, for want of a better word.
‘If this is some kind of cruel and unpleasant joke, Mr Wilde, I don’t think it’s very funny.’
He so wanted to give her a comforting word, but there was none to be had. ‘It’s the truth. I wish it weren’t but it is. I was brought up a Catholic and wanted to give him the last rites, but I didn’t know the words, or even if I was entitled to, not being a priest. I don’t really believe but I thought some sort of blessing or prayer might bring him some comfort in his last moments. There was nothing more I could do for him, you see . . . nothing that could save him.’ He was gibbering now, irrelevant information pouring forth from his mouth for want of anything better to say.
‘No, I refuse to believe you.’
But he knew she did.
‘Damn you, why were you there? Why didn’t you save him? Did you kill him?’
‘No.’
‘Then what are you hiding from? Why are you avoiding the police?’
‘Because I couldn’t explain to them why I was at your father’s home. I was there because I was looking for you – your passport said you were from Clade. I found his name in the telephone book. Nothing more to it than that. I turned up at the house, the door was open – and I found your father. Someone – the killer – had escaped through the window and I saw him riding away on a motorbike.’
She clenched her eyes closed and howled. A long, unrelenting wail that carried across the field like the cry of a wild animal. He wanted to put an arm around her, comfort her, but her hands were curled into talons as though she would rip into his flesh. Suddenly her whole body slumped and she was silent, save for the whisper of her shallow breathing.
Tears were streaming down her face. ‘Was he tortured?’
‘I don’t know.’ It was the truth. There had been so much blood, he could only see the obvious injury – the deep gash to the throat. On reflection, though, he now realised there were other marks – something like burns on his face. If he was being tortured, it was possible the slash to the throat was a panic measure when the killer was disturbed by hearing Wilde’s knocks at the door, his voice and his footsteps approaching. A killer’s strike to finish off his prey once his usefulness was done.
‘They were trying to find me,’ she said. ‘They would have tortured him to discover where I was. But he didn’t know anything, so what could he tell them? Anyway, even if he had known where I was, he would have said nothing, whatever they threatened him with, whatever they did.’
Wilde nodded. The thought had occurred to him already that she might have been the killer’s true target.
‘Why, Miss Hartwell? Why would someone go to such lengths to find you?’
‘To kill me, of course. To silence me. Poor Daddy. He died because of me. Poor Georgie and all the others – they all died because of me.’
‘Georgie?’
She looked at him as though he were slow-witted. ‘Prince George. The Duke of Kent to you. He was never the target – I was. Me and Rudi. Georgie and the others just happened to be there on the plane. Wrong place, wrong time.’
‘Rudi?’
‘Oh, never mind. None of it matters now.’
‘But if what you say is true, you’re still in grave danger, Miss Hartwell.’
‘That’s about the size of it, yes. Bit of an understatement actually.’
‘Shouldn’t you go to the police?’
She laughed, even as she was wiping the tears from her eyes. ‘You have no idea what we’re dealing with, do you, Mr Wilde?’
‘The police will protect you.’
‘And you really believe that? Who do you think is trying to kill me?’
‘I have no idea. I simply can’t imagine.’
‘Cui bono, as Daddy would have said. Who stands to gain? All you need to know is that if I went to the police, I would be dead within a couple of hours.’
‘Then why trust me? If you are being hunted, why let me into your car?’
‘Because you had something of mine. But mostly because Mimi trusted you and so did Peter. He had spoken about you often. He said you were the only person in Cambridge he had any confidence in. And clearly you are somehow involved, for why else would you have been in Scotland – and why else would you have gone to the Dada Club?’
‘I had no idea I had made such an impression on Peter Cazerove.’
‘Well, you did – which must be why he came to you when he decided to kill himself. He wouldn’t have wanted to die alone.’
So she knew that he had been in the carriage when Cazerove poisoned himself.
‘I’m afraid your presence here with me in this car puts you right in the firing line, too,’ she continued. ‘So what are we going to do, Mr Wilde? No, what are you going to do? You can get out now if you want and walk back to Cambridge or wherever you want to go.’ She leant over him, yanked the door handle and pushed it open. ‘There you are. Off you go. Much safer for you. I wouldn’t want to be in proximity to me if I were you.’
Wilde made
no move. ‘Drive to the American embassy in London. I’m an American citizen. Whatever danger you’re facing, I can offer you protection there.’
She pulled the door shut. ‘No, we’re going to Mimi’s.’
Chapter 16
Lord Templeman – Richard to his family, Dagger to his friends and colleagues – was at his desk in Cambridge, dismantling a German wireless transmitter that had been brought to him earlier in the day. An in-box to his left contained a pile of decrypted papers, but none of them were considered highest priority so he was putting off reading them, preferring the practical work of examining a piece of enemy technology. It wasn’t really what he was employed to do; as head of V Branch, MI5, he was responsible for day-to-day liaison and coordination between the various sections of MI5 and MI6, a position which allowed him access across the secret services. The door opened with barely a sound and he looked up. Philip Eaton of MI6 stood there, leaning on his stick and assisted by Walter Quayle of MI5.
Templeman put down his thin screwdriver. ‘Take a seat, gentlemen, make yourselves comfortable. We have a problem to solve. A series of problems, in fact.’
Both the newcomers were limping – Eaton from the damage to his left leg incurred three years earlier, Quayle from the kicking he had received in return for importuning a young fisherman on the coast of Caithness.
‘You look a sight, Walter,’ Templeman said. ‘Been up to your old tricks with rough trade, I hear.’
‘Forgive me, Dagger.’
Templeman touched his forehead. It was a habit he hated but could not lose, however hard he tried. He did it because he had a port-wine stain above his left eyebrow and some wag at school many years ago had said it looked like a dagger. ‘Nice boy was he, Walter? Well, stick to your own class in future. Anything broken, apart from pride?’
‘One rib – and my nose has shifted. The doctor has prescribed brandy – and it’s time for my medication.’
‘Help yourself.’ Templeman nodded towards the sideboard where three decanters and half a dozen fine crystal glasses awaited. ‘And then we must work out our next step. We have to find the girl quickly, alive or dead. Walter, where exactly are we on this? And Philip, where’s our errant professor?’
‘The police in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and all neighbouring counties have Wilde’s description. We’re having the devil’s own job keeping the prying eyes of the local press away from the house in Clade. I’ve had to put a Defence Notice in place, but that doesn’t go down very well in a small town where everyone knew the Reverend Hartwell, and everyone is already aware that he came to a grisly end. They even know the name of the man the police want to talk to. For some unknown reason Wilde identified himself to a woman in the town centre.’
Templeman unfurled himself from his seat and suddenly his study did not seem so big; he was six feet seven inches tall and his enormous height seemed to take up an awful lot of space.
‘Yes, I came across your American professor a few days ago at a meeting with their new OSS outfit. Bunch of bloody well-meaning amateurs, but there you go. They might catch on by the time the show’s over, I suppose. Wilde was the only one of them who seemed to have any idea what he was doing. Bill Phillips seemed exactly what he is: a superannuated diplomat. Anyway, we need to find Tom Wilde. Obviously he didn’t kill Harriet Hartwell’s father, but if he was there he must know exactly what happened. But why was he there?’ He focused his attention on Quayle. ‘More important in the first instance, however, is the whereabouts of Harriet herself. Where is she?’
‘She’s vanished, Dagger. Not a sign of her since Scotland.’
‘Are we sure the shepherd boy found her?’
‘Well, I believed him – and so did Wilde – but I doubt anyone else in the region did. He has a reputation as a fantasist and a liar. No one would listen to him. Nor would I except for the fact that I already knew Harriet Hartwell was on the plane. The thing is, the boy was convinced she was dead.’
‘Your gut feeling?’
‘She must be alive. Bodies don’t just vanish.’
‘So where is she, Walter?’
He shrugged. ‘Search me.’
‘Well, let’s assume she’s alive. Sergeant Jack was able to survive the crash, so why not Harriet too? It would probably depend on where she was in the plane.’
‘Of course,’ Eaton put in, ‘it might be that she survived initially, got lost looking for help and died of exposure and injuries elsewhere on the moor. Is that possible, Walter? You know the area better than we do.’
‘Yes, that’s possible,’ Quayle said. ‘It’s a vast estate. In fact, she could still be wandering around.’
‘But we all know Harriet,’ Templeman concluded. ‘My money’s on her surviving – and I think she’s long gone from the moors. Anyway, that’s the presumption we’re going to work on. And then we come to the big question: why hasn’t she made contact?’
‘Concussion?’ Eaton ventured.
Templeman shook his head. ‘I don’t buy it. What really worries me is the secrets she has. We don’t know what she’s going to do with them. You know what I think, gentlemen? I think she’s gone rogue – if that’s the right word for the female of the species.’
Eaton nodded gravely. ‘That has to be a worry, given her link to Cazerove.’
Templeman looked from Eaton to Quayle, and back again. ‘So I say again, where is she? We need to apply science. Do some proper detective work. Check on all her known haunts, everyone she knows – both inside and outside the service. And, Philip, as for your American chum, we have to pick him up and shut him down. We know he got as far as Cambridge because of the embassy car. Is he still here? He’ll know a lot of people in the town.’
‘If he is, I’ll find him,’ Eaton said.
‘The problem is we can’t trust him, can’t even take him into our confidence.’
‘He owes me a favour, a very big favour.’
‘But he’s American, so his loyalties will lie in Washington, not here. And we know he has suspicions and that he has somehow deduced that the Sunderland was returning from somewhere rather than leaving.’ Templeman’s voice had lowered to a growl, the closest he ever came to overt anger. He turned again to Quayle. ‘I have to say, Walter, that I hold you responsible for this. You were supposed to hold the man’s hand in Scotland and make sure he returned home none the wiser. You opened the lid, now you must slam it shut and hope nothing has got out. There must never be even the vaguest rumour of the Drottningholm meeting. Understood?’
‘Understood,’ Quayle repeated.
‘Philip, you too?’
‘Understood, Dagger.’
‘Because otherwise I’ll have your balls fried with garlic.’
*
Wilde and Harriet carried on towards London. She was a good, confident driver. There was much to talk about, but conversation was limited by the noise of the wind about their ears until they reached the outer suburbs of the capital and had to reduce speed.
‘You still haven’t told me who wants to kill you, Miss Hartwell.’
‘The Athels.’
At another time and under different circumstances, Wilde might have laughed at such a preposterous reply, but he didn’t. Her father had just been killed and she was on the run. Even if she was having paranoid delusions, she deserved the courtesy of being taken seriously. ‘Why would they do that?’ he asked.
‘Do you know about the Athels?’
‘I know roughly what they are. They are certainly not the only secret society one encounters in Cambridge, or anywhere else for that matter.’
‘Well, they don’t like the course of the war, Mr Wilde. They think England has taken a wrong turn and they want to do something about it. I’m afraid they believe I might stand in their way – and they would be right.’
‘Can you tell me more?’
‘No, I can’t.’
‘You seem to think the Athels have links with the police.’
‘Good God, they’re everywhere. As
they have been for almost 150 years. They own England, they are the secret beating heart of the Establishment. The Old Etonians and the Harrovians might take the leading public roles, but behind the scenes it is the Athels who make the real decisions. When you fall foul of them they are ruthless. And I have fallen foul of them.’
‘And the plane crash? Are you saying they caused that?’
‘They had reason to.’
‘But how did you survive?’
‘I really don’t know, Mr Wilde. But they must realise I’m alive, so they’ll do something about it. And if they discover that you’ve tangled yourself up with me, they’ll do for you, too. Perhaps they already know. Did you tell anyone that you had my passport?’
‘No, but there is a shepherd boy in Scotland who might have done, for it was he who found you and stole your passport and money.’
‘Then you are also in grave danger.’
If someone had made such a claim a few days ago, he would have dismissed it as a delusion. But there had been deaths, unexplained deaths.
‘Your father taught at Athelstans. Was he an Athel?’
‘He loved the school, but he loathed the Athels. Anyway, they would never have accepted him – he wasn’t nearly wealthy enough.’
*
‘Be careful where you tread, Mr Wilde. There are dog turds everywhere.’
They had arrived in Westminster, in a street of large houses, mostly residential. Wilde looked around and saw bombed-out buildings on both sides of the road and a great deal of rubble swept back on to the pavement, but he couldn’t see any canine excrement. Harriet, meanwhile, was looking not at the pavement but at the cars and pedestrians, as though worrying that she might be observed. It was a reasonable fear after what had happened. Wilde followed her a few yards along the path.
She stopped outside a large white terraced house with one of its two ground-floor windows boarded up. It was wedged between another house and an expensive florist that had a fading sign on the door saying it was closed for the duration. She knocked at the rather grand black door of the white house and they waited in silence. After half a minute, the door opened. Mimi Lalique stood there in a garish oriental kimono, falling open at the lower extremity to reveal mottled bare legs. A cigarette holder with a dead cigarette hung from her elegant fingers. Two Pekingese dogs with long golden coats were at her heels, yapping.
A Prince and a Spy Page 13