A Splash of Red

by Antonia Fraser

  'But why did it have to happen then?’ she asked despondently. 'When he'd told me so much - but not everything. Not every detail. And he hadn't told you - second time round - anything at all. No sworn statement.'

  'My old mother, another woman of remarkable fortitude, always used to say, "Into each life a little rain must fall.'" Pompey was maddeningly cheerful. You would not think, to look at his spare relaxed figure, once more installed in the gracious Country Lifestyle drawing room of Sir Richard Lionnel's flat, that he had just lost a prime witness in a murder case.

  It was Tuesday evening and Pompey had invited himself over for an 'after-work chat' as he put it. Jemima envied his aplomb. She herself was suffering from a feeling of irrational guilt that she had prematurely frightened Valentine to death by dragging his story from him, instead of letting him tell it all to Pompey. She knew that it was ridiculous: Valentine needed, indeed had deliberately sought out, her encouragement. Yet she was haunted by the memory of his pallid face, his groans as he contemplated the exposure of his private tastes to a mocking world.

  'And you won't even pay attention to his last message,' she concluded in a gloomy voice. '"He came back" - maybe someone came back to the flat, someone we don't know about.'

  'Certainly he came back. Athlone came back. Your voice from the grave is most convincing,' Pompey responded happily.

  Jemima's depression over the death of Valentine - and after all they had been friends long before Valentine proposed a professional relationship - was increased by the grotesque circumstances which had accompanied it. The detached kindness and carefully worded statement of Professor Leinsdorf hardly compensated for the irritation engendered by further contact with Dr Harman. What was more, the two women were not only staying in the same hotel, close to Adelaide Square, but as Dr Harman made absolutely clear, actually sharing a room.

  'It iss, you understand, a very large room,' she stated in her usual ponderous manner which seemed to convey some threat even when the words were palpably innocuous. 'Professor Leinsdorf iss most generous. Each year we meet like this. We see only each other. And off course we do our work.' She shot a look of ferocious devotion in the direction of her companion. 'Each year it is Professor Leinsdorf who pays.'

  All the same the two women proposed to give Jemima tea in the hotel lounge, an arrangement for which Jemima was duly thankful. Intimate contact with their domestic arrangements would only bring further embarrassment. Already Dr Harman could hardly allow the Professor to pour the tea without patting her hand; at one point she even pushed back one of the Professor's soft brown curls which had strayed onto her cheek.

  'Yeah, it needs a good cut. I know it,' was all the younger woman said; she gazed speculatively at Jemima's corn-coloured bell of hair.

  'John of Thurloe Place—' said Jemima hastily, hoping to fend off further intimacies from Dr Harman (whose own hair could have done with some attention).

  The passions of others being notoriously unfathomable, Jemima reflected that she would probably never understand what drew the Professor, a charming woman by any standards, towards her uncouth watchdog; it was much easier to sympathize with the latter's evident infatuation. The attraction had to be in Dr Harman's mind, since in Jemima's humble opinion it could hardly lie in her personality or her appearance; no doubt the appeal of Dr Harman's thoughts on German economics, or whatever the Professor's special subject might be, was overpowering . . . although an annual idyll with the good Doctor would hardly be Jemima's idea of amusement, it had to be admitted that this intellectual approach was also to the Professor's credit. She was interrupted in these frivolous thoughts by a loud and almost girlish laugh from the Professor.

  'I guess Irina has just never got over her younger sister earning more than she does!' she exclaimed. 'Why if she came to the States, she could put us both up at the Savoy ... As it is I have to leave Henry once a year to look after himself. I'm always on at her to make the switch. It was just my good fortune I went to the States when I did.'

  'Ach, no, Poupa—' Jemima could not help being extremely relieved that the adoration in Dr Harman's eyes had now been revealed as sisterly in origin. It was still slavish.

  At Jemima's request Poupa Leinsdorf — as she must now learn to call her - ran through Valentine's last actions and stumbled words yet again.

  'He looked very sick. He gave some kind of cry, more like a cry than a groan, would you say, Irina?' The doctor nodded, her enchanted gaze held to her sister's face. 'He half put out his hand, I guess he wanted water or something. I jumped up. You got up too, Irina, at that point.' The Doctor nodded again. 'I asked him if he needed some assistance. He didn't answer right away, just said nothing at all for approximately twenty seconds. Then he said, and this is my precise recollection, and I believe Irina will confirm it: "He came back." Those three words. Then: "I've got to tell her." Quite distinct, wasn't it, Irina? Then he slumped forward. The rest you know. He didn't speak again, nothing that could be understood as more than a groan. Irina thinks he muttered something like "Mother" or "Mummy" but I would not want to be too positive about that.'

  Back with Pompey, who had already perpetuated the Professor's information in the form of a statement, Jemima tried rather hopelessly to think of any way in which Valentine's words were not peculiarly damning to Kevin John. Her heart was no longer in it. Even without the help of Valentine's last words - to which Pompey refused to pay attention - it was going to be very difficult to persuade Pompey that Kevin John had not committed the murder: the prime suspect now known (if not proved) to have been present at the scene of the crime.

  'We'll get him,' said Pompey of Kevin John. 'Other witnesses will come forward. He'll confess. You see if he doesn't. You, my dear, have been most helpful in what you have remembered. Good memory inside that pretty head.'

  'I hope so, Pompey,' said Jemima in a pious voice. 'It's a question of the trained mind rather than the pretty head, by the way. Like Dr Harman.'

  'Oh myself, I like women to have both beauty and brains; no objection to that at all. I've made that quite clear to Mrs Portsmouth from the very start of Women's Lib. Any time she wants to go to the Open University, Adult Education, evening classes - you name it. No holds barred. Instead of which she prefers to direct my gardening out of articles she's read in the evening paper with her feet up. I ask you! Women simply won't grab their opportunities.'

  Pompey then abandoned the elaborate teasing which appeared to give him much pleasure and reverted to his brisk manner.

  'The Coroner's inquest opens tomorrow, by the way. Purely formal -you won't be needed. In view of our current enquiries, we'll suggest an adjournment. You see, now we know exactly what questions to ask Athlone. We know, for example - without being able to prove it, naturally - that he lied about his lunchtime visit to the flat. The net is closing, my dear. The net is closing. We're bringing him in for questioning again, right away. The only fly in our ointment at this stage is Punch Fredericks. He's been brought in on the act.'

  Jemima whistled. 'Punch Fredericks! Very impressive. How did that come about?' The youngest of the three Fredericks brothers was a well-known radical solicitor interested in a number of social causes, including law reform; he was notorious, at least to the police, for believing in bail-for-everyone-including-murderers (as Pompey sardonically put it) and armed with the traditional will and energy of the Fredericks family, very often secured it.

  'Friend of the gallery owner who looks after Athlone, I believe. Very rich, very left-wing, lives happily in Chelsea, you know the type. Creep? No, that's wishful thinking. Creed. At all events Creed is putting up Athlone, so he's probably hired Fredericks at the same time. Bail-for-every-one, indeed!' Pompey shook quite fiercely.

  For the rest of the week Jemima abandoned her research in the British Library. This was not only the result of an aversion towards the scene of Valentine's death - Jemima would have thought it her duty to conquer that kind of feeling. No, the fact was that Jemima was in some doubt as to whether t
he Brighthelmet Press itself would survive with the sudden demise of its energetic proprietor-cum-chairman-cum-managing director. In its future the survival of her own contract was only one petty problem. Jemima herself was constitutionally incapable of working without, as it were, a deadline. She had once been prepared to toil unsociably for the whole of August, disappearing into a noiseless borrowed flat. The flat was no longer noiseless, thanks to the furore engendered by Chloe's murder. Now her actual motive for research had been removed by the death of her publisher. And what was more, she had lost two friends in a week.

  Work being Jemima's cure, she badly needed a substitute if this disastrous summer holiday was to be rescued. Fortunately there was work of a sort to hand: good useful work which might at least avenge Chloe's death and unravel the mystery of her last hours.

  And if work was Jemima's cure, curiosity was her stimulus. The first-floor flat at Adelaide Square was still at her disposal, Lionnel Estates having not yet proffered an alternative although Jemima received twice-daily calls from a Miss Katy Aaronson, describing herself as Sir Richard Lionnel's private assistant - 'No, not his secretary, Miss Shore, his private assistant.' She was reminded of Laura Barrymore, Isabelle Mancini's cool 'personal assistant'.

  In fact Miss Katy Aaronson turned out to have a secretary of her own, who put through her frequent calls to Jemima in an important voice; that again reminded Jemima of Laura Barrymore.

  The call which Miss Katy Aaronson made on Thursday morning, apart from being made at 8.20 am - half an hour earlier than Miss Aaronson's wonted hour which was early enough - brought with it an additional surprise in the shape of an invitation to lunch from Sir Richard Lionnel.

  Miss Aaronson did indeed apologize with her usual suavity - another Barrymore touch - both for the earliness of the hour and the shortness of notice. Her use of titles as opposed to Laura Barrymore's transatlantic employment of Christian names possibly indicated the difference between a personal and a private assistant.

  'Unexpectedly Sir Richard finds himself free for a late lunch in London, since he is taking an ordinary commercial flight from Glasgow to Heathrow ... before going down to Sussex by helicopter later in the afternoon to join Lady Lionnel at Glyndebourne. And the Minister, that is to say Lord Manfred, accompanied by Lady Manfred, hopes to join them by car from Hastings, where the Minister will have inaugurated ... So if we sent the car for you at one-forty-five ... There's a Greek restaurant in Percy Street just off the Tottenham Court Road where Sir Richard likes to lunch late ... He finds the ambience . . .'

  What on earth made tycoons' assistants imagine that the complicated social arrangements over which they themselves were destined to toil were of equal interest to the rest of the world, Jemima wondered irritably. The stately movements of Sir Richard Lionnel across the British Isles both dispensing and pursuing culture were no concern of hers; but Miss Katy Aaronson took care to inform her that Sir Richard had been lecturing at some Festival of Scottish Industrial Architecture in the presence of the youthful arts-minded Prince Frederick of Cumberland as well as other notables.

  The apology, for all its suavity, was purely ritual. Jemima was not expected to refuse; if she had any other arrangements she was expected to put them off - in fact she had invited Isabelle Mancini to lunch to talk about Valentine and she did put her off; nor was Jemima expected to cavil at the late hour or the choice of Greek 'ambience'.

  What would have happened, she wondered, if she had firmly opted for the Savoy, stating (untruthfully) that she hated Greek food? But Jemima always preferred other people to make the choices, not so much out of indecision as out of an observer's interest in the tastes revealed.

  She contented herself with one flash of independence: 'No car, thank you, I'll walk to "The Little Athens". It's only a few minutes away. I know its ambience well.'

  Imagining she would have quite a wait for Sir Richard, whose Scottish plane would inevitably be delayed, Jemima brought her Nadine Gordimer novel with her. The prospect of a concentrated read in the pleasant little restaurant, with its wide plant-filled window embracing Percy Street, was not displeasing. But when she arrived, she recognized the unmistakable figure of her host - well-cut fawn tweed suit, white shirt, black knitted silk tie - seen through the window as though in a frame. He was reading a magazine and laughing.

  From its format, Jemima recognized Jolly Joke. Its pages were perpetually filled with rather crude satirical attacks on Lionnel and his ilk - this week's issue was no exception. For a man supposedly sensitive to Press criticism, Sir Richard was certainly showing remarkable sangfroid in laughing quite so freely. However at her approach Sir Richard covered Jolly Joke with a copy of Christie's catalogue illustrating a sale of antique clocks. Still the impression remained of a man in one way at least indifferent to public hostility.

  Was Lionnel sufficiently indifferent to it to go further, divorce his wife and marry Chloe? And at the same time aim at respectability and the chairmanship of cari? Perhaps Lionnel would not recognize the conflict: he would simply see it as a problem to be managed.

  Chloe had been so specific about the marriage to Valentine, it was difficult to believe there was nothing in it. Just as this thought had formed in her mind - against a background of urbane conversation, quick efficient ordering of whatever she cared for in the line of food and drink, almost as though Miss Katy Aaronson had previously reconnoitred her tastes - Sir Richard surprised her still further by openly contradicting it.

  Jemima had anticipated - obviously - that they would discuss Chloe; she did not flatter herself that Sir Richard had taken a sudden irresistible fancy to her on the strength of one brief meeting under

  traumatic circumstances. Nevertheless the directness of his approach confused her.

  'The most attractive woman in the world. I was absolutely mad about her, don't you see?' he was saying, leaning forward and fixing his mesmeric black eyes upon her. The black ring of curls lifted in the faint breeze of the window, but Jemima had the impression that they were also flickering with his own personal electricity.

  'But of course I would never have left Franccsca. No question of that.' He was not only direct but, as on the night of the murder, strangely lacking in embarrassment. 'She's wonderful, Francesca. Wonderful hostess - you've never seen Parrot, I suppose? You never stayed there with the Hampshires? Retta Hampshire is beautiful in somewhat your style - cat's eyes - she's much older, of course.'

  'I've never even met the Duchess of Hampshire.'

  'You must come down, you positively must. What Francesca has done there is quite amazing; everyone says so. Even our match-boxes are eighteenth-century adaptations, I believe. The Hampshires had let it go terribly down hill.' The thought of match-boxes reminded Sir Richard to strike up yet another black cigarette; he used a lighter very similar, if not identical, to the one Kevin John Athlone had discovered in Chloe's bedroom. Jemima wondered if the police had returned it to him - or did he perhaps have quantities of such elegant objets7. Had they also returned the razor which had been found by Chloe's bed?

  'Did you read the article in Taffeta?’ he was saying. '"Francesca goes Lionnel-Hunting"? - they meant all the original furniture she dug out of antique shops. Marvellous photograph of Francesca by that jolly little girl photographer, do you know her? Short black hair. Dresses in knickerbockers for some extraordinary reason, but very fetching.'

  'I know Binnie Rapallo.' Jemima had definitely not come to lunch, chucking Isabelle for the occasion, to discuss the lissome but curiously irritating Binnie Rapallo. She was therefore somewhat startled to hear Sir Richard declaring himself'mad about' Binnie Rapallo, in much the same language as he had used to express his admiration for Chloe. Even the tone in which he expressed enthusiasm for his own wife's taste - hardly a fault that, it had to be admitted - was remarkably similar. These repeated enthusiasms, couched in terms which were almost schoolboyish, gave an overall impression of lack of passion rather than the reverse.

  Surely there was some differen
ce of degree - between Binnie and Chloe at least, even if Chloe and Lady Lionnel were mentioned in the same breath. He was astonishingly open about it all. Throughout the conversation Sir Richard chain-smoked his black Sobranies, but otherwise showed no sign of embarrassment.

  When he had finished the packet he requested the proprietor of the restaurant, a handsome but sad-eyed man with the heavy fleshy build of a successful opera singer, to request another from his chauffeur.

  'Sir Richard is feeling better today?' said the man conversationally when he returned.

  Thank you, Stavros. I certainly am. But it was my wife who was ill not me,' replied Lionnel with a flash of the satyr's grin. 'Now I bet you're never ill,' he said looking at Jemima as the proprietor turned deftly away, too experienced to look embarrassed at the mention of a wife, but somehow conveying apology for having instigated a conversation about one lady in front of another. 'Francesca has rotten health. London for example simply doesn't suit her. She feels right as rain at Parrot - sea air and all that kind of thing.'

  'But I take it she comes up sometimes? Here, for example?' Jemima's curiosity about Sir Richard's domestic arrangements was aroused in spite of herself.

  'Oh absolutely. In fact we had lunch together here on Saturday.' It took Jemima a second or two to realize that he was referring to the day of the murder.