by Amy Myers
‘Are you interested in the Daks case, Georgia?’ Zac continued casually.
She recognized this move. ‘To some extent.’
‘Because you found the body? That would be just like you.’
Trust him to guess. ‘No. Because he told someone he wanted to find Lance Venyon.’
It was a risky comment but even so she hadn’t bargained on the response. There was an instant stillness at the table, and it wasn’t caused by Zac. As in the Benizi bedroom she had that same feeling that something was going on here from which she was excluded. Madeleine and Antonio said nothing, looking at her with politely bland expressions. It was Zac who broke the silence.
‘That’s a coincidence, isn’t it?’ he said brightly.
Chapter Seven
‘You’re pulling my leg.’ Peter stared at her in amazement – and she could hardly blame him. She’d kept the news about Zac until last. More important (for Marsh & Daughter) was to tell Peter who the Count and Countess of Orvona were, and even more importantly that they, as Mary Venyon, believed that Lance could have been murdered. Then, as casually as possible, she had told him about Zac.
‘Do I look as if I’m joking?’ she asked flatly. ‘It was Zac. And he hadn’t changed.’
‘That sounds credible.’ Peter grimaced. ‘What doesn’t is that you’re still relatively sane about it. Tell me all.’
She did – nearly all, at any rate. She kept to herself the frisson that seeing Zac had given her. It had almost disappeared overnight in the normality of relating some of the day’s events to Luke plus a night’s sleep. ‘Do I accept Zac’s kind invitation to introduce me to Roy Cook and Co. in Dover?’
‘Dover,’ Peter repeated thoughtfully, and she could see exactly where this was leading.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Not Dover Castle on a nostalgia trip in the steps of King Arthur. This would be a visit to a twenty-first-century art gallery.’
‘Bound up with a crime, if Zac is to be believed. Do I have to remind you all this could be his fantasy? It’s only because we know about the Daks connection that you’re taking it seriously.’
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Georgia said. ‘We should hand the lead over to Mike in case it’s new to him.’
‘You think Zac would want to take Mike rather than you?’
Caught off guard, she laughed. ‘You’d be surprised. Zac claims he sometimes works with the goodies, the Art and Antiques Unit of the Met. He tells me that as a former suspect in these art thefts, so he had some claim to credibility.’
‘Knowing Zac, he’s probably lying over that too.’ Peter hesitated. ‘It’s your business, Georgia, but is Luke going to clap his hands in joy at the idea of your going on little jaunts with Zac?’
‘I doubt it.’ Knowing Luke he’d clam up, not try to stop her going. He was too fair for that, especially if it was work-related. Nevertheless he wouldn’t like it one little bit. That was a given; what was not a given was how she herself would feel about it. If she were honest and stopped trying to dismiss the thought, she had found being with Zac all too easy, despite every hackle in her body being raised in self-defence. It was hackles, wasn’t it? Nothing else. No refiring of old embers, no lingering wish for yesteryear?
‘And so?’ he asked.
‘I’d go if Mike agreed.’
‘I’m glad you remembered this is Mike’s case. What if I came too?’ he threw in casually.
Clever, she thought. ‘Is this a test, father dear?’
‘It is.’
‘Then yes, come by all means. Or take my place.’
‘Neat, Georgia. I’ll ring Mike. Let Zac stew for a while; we’ve other fish to fry.’
‘What breed of fish?’’
‘You helped catch them,’ he pointed out. ‘You ought to know. Firstly, Venetia Wain is in our sights. She rang me, and we’re going to the seaside next week. Won’t that be nice?’
‘Splendid. Madeleine is cagey about her, perhaps naturally if she feels proprietorial over Lance’s favours. Antonio is cagey too. Could be something there, especially since they aren’t fans of Jago either?’
‘Why not, I wonder?’
‘Largely because he married Jennifer, I suspect,’ Georgia said. ‘She was Madeleine’s flatmate.’
‘Ah. Even more interesting. That has some ballast with it.’
Georgia groaned. ‘In the shape of King Arthur galloping in with hidden treasure stories and paintings? Incidentally Madeleine, like Jago, referred to paintings in the plural, but all they discussed was the one I saw.’
‘You did well in getting them to show it to you.’
‘It was more that they decided to show me,’ she said fairly.
‘Why should they do that?’
‘Because it might have been the reason that Lance was killed. And,’ she continued crossly, ‘here we go again. Every time we follow a lead about Lance Venyon it lands up with King Arthur. I know this pleases you, but nevertheless it could be just a wild-goose chase to deflect us from the people involved. Like Venetia Wain.’
‘Has it occurred to you that the reason for King Arthur’s frequent appearance is that he really was the cause of Lance Venyon’s death? I had a merry time on the Internet yesterday, with one blog in particular. Jago was right. Theories are buzzing to and fro like hornets, and just as potentially dangerous. I suspect that Jago is working under the not very complicated codename of Badon because his current hobby horse is the Battle of Badon Hill, Arthur’s big battle – if we assume he is Gildas’s Ambrosius Aurelianus, who routed the enemy Saxons, and gave peace to the land for many years. Although Malory’s story of Arthur’s fight with Mordred on Barham Downs doesn’t describe a decisive battle, Jago is convinced that it was here that the historical – if I might use that word – Battle of Badon took place rather than in the many other sites in the British Isles suggested for it. Jago is convinced Badon is simply a word-of-mouth mishearing, a contraction of Barham Down. The theory has a few dating problems, to put it mildly, but Jago has an answer to them all.’
‘Which is?’
‘If you’ve a day or two to spare, I’ll tell you.’
‘Most kind of you. I take it Barham was a Saxon or Anglo-Saxon word, not Celtic?’
‘Yes. Jago eagerly points out that the Saxon for bear was bera, and the name Arthur, originally Irish, also means bear. The snag, which Jago’s opponents point out with relish, is that the Saxons would be unlikely to name a hill after the chap who slaughtered their mates.’
‘What about the goblet?’
‘Whispers, whispers. Some think it’s somewhere on Barham Down, and nothing to do with Gawain. Others that it’s at Richborough or Eastry.’
‘But it is thought to exist?’
‘The consensus is yes,’ Peter said cautiously.
‘Based on what?’ she whipped back.
‘Don’t be fierce, Georgia,’ he replied mildly. ‘There are references to Ruskin, for instance—’
‘Yes, Antonio mentioned that too.’
‘Antonio? You do seem to have struck up an accord.’
‘I can still tell a hawk from a handsaw,’ she replied, nettled at this implication.
‘I’m not sure Hamlet could, in fact.’
‘In any case,’ she continued firmly, ‘that’s only one line. We gave it precedence because we began the investigation with Jago – whose passion is King Arthur. We’re not getting to the man himself, where Lance is concerned. It’s time to move on.’
‘And Sandro Daks?’
‘The only link we have is that Lance was a friend of his grandfather’s. Like most young men, he took this so seriously he didn’t even bother to contact Lance’s daughter.’
As Margaret came in Peter scented an ally in his indispensable carer. ‘What’s your view of King Arthur?’
‘Richard Harris,’ she said briefly. ‘In Camelot. And lunch is in half an hour.’ She removed the coffee cups and disappeared.
‘There you are, you see,’ Geor
gia declared. ‘Arthur’s a dead duck historically. Only survives on celluloid.’
‘And in the passions of men, Georgia.’
*
The seaside proved to be further away than the Kentish coast. Venetia Wain lived on the outskirts of Bognor Regis in Sussex, and when on the following Wednesday Georgia drove there with Peter it took them past familiar territory, as they had visited the air museum at Tangmere during their last case to meet former Spitfire pilots. Aldwick, where Venetia lived, was where George V had famously stayed with his Bognor-loving wife Queen Mary, despite uttering the famous royal words of ‘Bugger Bognor’. His Majesty had hardly been staying in the worst part of town here, Georgia thought, as she drove along the Aldwick road after leaving the Bognor promenade. The sea could lift one’s spirits even on a dull day such as this, especially in a town getting ready for the holiday season. Unfortunately it had displayed little of its Regency splendour, but here and there she had had glimpses of a more gracious past.
Venetia lived on a newish estate, in a pleasant yellow-brick home with lattice windows, and from the size of the garden alone it spoke of a leisured retirement – though that was probably an illusion in today’s world.
A ring at the doorbell brought instant response from a barking dog, which was rapidly silenced with a firm, ‘Quiet, Falstaff,’ from within. The door was opened by a small wiry lady of about eighty, and a collie’s head was poking suspiciously round its owner’s legs.
‘Let’s sort out the wheelchair,’ she said briskly after greeting them, and summing the situation up. ‘Round the back, I think.’
Peter had said that Venetia had simply brushed this issue aside on the telephone with a casual ‘we’ll manage’. ‘That could mean anything,’ he had forecast gloomily, ‘from a long flight of steps to a privy at the end of the garden.’ In this case, fortunately, it merely meant entering through large French windows at the rear of the house and a ground-floor bathroom.
‘I’d move in tomorrow,’ Peter said gratefully.
‘Delighted.’ Venetia disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Falstaff to entertain them, and returned with a medley of coffee cups in a variety of different chinas and colours. ‘Now,’ she said, seating herself in an upright chair, ‘you want to talk about my old lover Lance. Not so old when I met him, of course.’
Georgia was relieved. So far no sign of the serpent, even if she could believe in the Eve. Venetia must have been stunning when younger. ‘I was wondering how we would broach the subject. Your daughter explained that you weren’t very well, so we didn’t want to spring it on you.’
Venetia waved this aside. ‘Maureen says that to everyone. Some people are such bores. They want to ask frightfully technical questions about sailing, and I’ve long since put all that out of my mind. Or else they want to probe what my innermost thoughts might have been out there alone on the ocean. Most of the time it was what to have for supper.’
‘Do you still sail?’ Peter asked.
‘As a passenger only. I’ve a dog to think of.’
‘You take him with you?’ Georgia misunderstood.
Venetia laughed. ‘Hardly. He prefers the smells of dry land. What’s your interest in Lance and me? I’ve looked at your website, but I’d like to hear it from you.’
‘His wife’ – Peter launched into the by now familiar words – ‘didn’t believe that Lance’s death was an accident. She thought he was murdered.’
‘Of course he was.’
Venetia’s reply, even more assured than Madeleine’s, flabbergasted Georgia and she could see that Peter was equally taken aback, so much so that Venetia looked astonished. ‘Well, presumably you do too or you wouldn’t be here.’
‘We were expecting a blank look of surprise,’ Georgia confessed. ‘That’s what the response often is. Especially as in this case we haven’t yet come up with firm evidence of murder.’
‘Surely even the murderer would be surprised,’ Venetia said drily. ‘It’s well over forty years ago. He or she would assume it over and done with. Have one of my scones – they’re as hard as ship’s biscuits, but no weevils, I assure you.’
This procedure took some time, but allowed them a respite to readjust, especially since the scones were delicious. ‘Why are you so sure he was murdered?’ Peter asked.
‘Lance wasn’t the type to have an accident by falling overboard. He loved life too much to let it cheat him that way. He never drank when he sailed, he was never much of a drinker anyway. He obeyed the rules of the water, which I suppose was odd as he never obeyed any on land.’
‘Such as?’ Peter enquired politely.
‘Marriage for a start,’ Venetia said cheerfully. ‘He led Mary a worm’s life – I can’t say dog’s, since Falstaff finds his rather good. I know I contributed to Mary’s worm’s life but if it hadn’t been me it would have been someone else, and anyway there were several someone elses.’
‘You mean he wasn’t serious about you – I’m sorry,’ Georgia apologized belatedly when Venetia didn’t answer.
‘I take no offence,’ Venetia said at last. ‘I was thinking how to define serious. Yes, Lance was serious. I was serious too. I loved the damned man for a while, but it was serious between us within given boundaries. We both knew we were too similar for a marriage to work between us; he was already married to Mary and saw no need to alter the situation. I was married too, with a husband I didn’t much love, but with a child that I did.’
‘It must have been difficult for you,’ Georgia said.
Venetia looked amused. ‘Not at all. I was away sailing for weeks at a time, and Lance was travelling. We met abroad, we met in England, but seldom in Wymdown, except socially. Then we were all the best of friends. It worked splendidly, especially as I’m pretty sure both our spouses knew anyway, and chose for their own reasons to ignore it.’
‘Have you any ideas as to who murdered him and why?’
‘I could have done, for a start,’ she said cheerfully. ‘You’ll have to decide whether I did. A nice puzzle for you. We could have a murder weekend, and write your book for you.’
‘We’d need a little evidence,’ Peter pointed out.
‘Signed confession, that sort of thing?’
Whether or not Venetia was a suspect, she was certainly an eccentric. ‘That would be a start,’ Georgia said, ‘but I’d hate to be sued on the grounds that it was false.’
‘Very well. Let us be earnest.’ Venetia pulled a face. ‘I could have killed Lance, believe me. I had reason to. I was in Wymdown when he died. We had arranged to meet on the 13th in Hythe, the day before he vanished.’
‘You were actually in Hythe that day?’ Peter asked.
‘I should have been. I had a call from him just before I set out, telling me something had come up. He sounded flustered, which was most unlike Lance. He said he couldn’t make it after all.’
‘Did you take that to mean he wasn’t going himself or that he didn’t want to meet you?’
‘Whatever I took it to be, he clearly meant the latter.’
‘Mary Venyon testified at the inquest that he was expecting to meet someone that afternoon, presumably in Hythe. Was that you?’
‘I wouldn’t know. We’d arranged to meet at sixish, have a meal and sleep on board, perhaps go sailing the next day.’
‘He didn’t mention another visitor before you? I’m meeting X at three so you come at six – that sort of thing?’
Venetia regarded him with an amused eye. ‘It’s a long time ago, but I’m sure I’d have remembered something as obvious as that – I’d even have told the police. As it was, I knew nothing, and I was off the hook to get over the shock by myself. That was tough, especially when the boat was found. Of course if I’d pushed him off it, it wouldn’t have been a shock,’ she added straight-faced.
‘True. Did you have any reason to kill him?’
‘Oh yes,’ was her casual admission.
‘And that was?’ Peter took this in his stride.
‘Patience. I’ll tell you, but first you must understand what Lance was like. I once told him somewhat savagely that he was like the sea. I’d call him Father Neptune from time to time, to which he replied that I was Mother Carey. She looks after the souls of drowned sailors, doesn’t she? Daft, the things you call each other when you’re in love. Lance claimed I’d have a job with his soul, and he was right. He could be kind and thoughtful, a good lover on a calm blue-skied day, with just the occasional swish of waves lapping on the beach, but there were times when one couldn’t predict him at all. The tide was out. I could never reach where he was then, nor did I want to. There were times when the tide was racing in, when he was all set to go haring off on a project, sweeping all before him, not caring what wreckage he caused. There were times when he was as buoyant as the Dead Sea, supporting you by the sheer force of his personality. But there were also the times when he’d let you sink like a stone without a moment’s hesitation. And there were the stormy times, bad weather ahead. Batten down the hatches. Stay in harbour. Anchor where you can. Lance is heading this way.’
‘Which mood was he in at the time he disappeared?’
‘I saw him the day before he left for Hythe. I’d say the mood was stay in harbour. Storm rapidly approaching.’
‘From which direction? Did he give any idea?’
‘No, but he’d been preoccupied for some days. I’d see his car nipping up the hill on the Barfrestone Road. Jago Priest had bought Badon House—’ She glanced at them. ‘You’ve heard of him?’ When Georgia nodded, she continued, ‘Mary and Lance kept an eye on the place for him, arranged for work to be done and so forth. It wasn’t unusual to see one or other of them nipping up there, but I noticed Lance going that way several times, usually alone or with Mary, but once with a young man.’
‘Do you know who that was?’ Peter asked.
‘Oddly enough, I did ask him casually about it, and he said his name was Michael. Nothing more, and the mood was definitely storm brewing. Silly, isn’t it, the details one remembers?’