Authors: Roberta Latow
‘Well, we’re covering a great deal of territory and everything we learn here is contributing in some way. I’d like to ask you a few questions. Let’s start with where you were the night of the murder. No fancy stories, Jethroe. Be brief and to the point.’
‘I went on a bender with a couple of guys and then to a local whore. Stayed the night.’
‘I assume you have witnesses to that?’ asked Harry, who was already bored and irritated with questioning Jethroe because he was certain the publican was lying.
‘Yes,’ he answered, a self-satisfied grin on his face.
‘Who was the man in your cap and jacket walking your dogs in the early hours of the morning when the postman discovered the abandoned car?’
‘No one else walks my dogs. The postman must have got that wrong. They were with me in the back of my Range Rover that night. My hat and my jacket? No way could anyone else have been wearing them. I was.’
‘And I suppose you can prove that?’
‘Certainly I can.’
‘Then who could it have been in the wood that morning?’
‘A poacher. We have a terrible time with them round here. The gamekeeper from the Park can verify that.’
‘Jethroe, you’re a lying bastard.’
‘Now, now! A detective like you in your hand-made suit and a fresh orchid in your lapel, I’d have expected better language and a little more respect for the public you serve. I’ll put it down to frustration because you have no leads on Lady Olivia’s whereabouts. Prove your accusation, sir,’ snapped Jethroe.
‘I don’t have to do that. You’re too mouthy, Jethroe. A thug trying to be a gentleman publican. Whatever you were doing that night, I doubt it had anything to do with Lady Olivia. I have learned a great deal about the lady and one thing is for sure: she would never have put her life in your hands. Not for a
second. She was clever about people and would have seen, as I do, that your ego would one day have led you to brag about your role in the disappearance of Lady Olivia Cinders.
‘You run a good pub, you’re a terrific publican. Stick to that and not what you really did that night. Pike’s a good detective. I think I’ll leave him to question you about it further.’
Harry slammed a five-pound note on the counter and said, ‘For the lemonade and your drink.’ Then he walked away and out of the pub. There was a great deal to think about: his case, falling in love with September, these strange few days in Sefton Under Edge where nothing was as it seemed to be.
Walking through the village, he greeted several people and was calmed by the bird song, the warmth of the day, the sun that bathed the village in soft yellow light. Pieces of the mystery seemed to settle into a pattern he had not seen before. He watched the ducks for some time before he felt a yearning for tea at Miss Marble’s.
The bell on top of the door tinkled as Harry entered the tea room. There were several middle-aged women sitting at a table over cups of tea. Locals who had lived there all their lives, they nodded a greeting to Harry then returned to their gossip. He knew from Joe and Jenny, who had interviewed them, who they were and how they felt about Olivia. He remembered that every one of these plain and simple people had at one time or another been indebted to Olivia for some act of kindness or generosity.
Joe Sixsmith had summed it up. ‘For the locals, Olivia was their celebrity. She brought home to Sefton Under Edge the jet set people usually seen in
Hello
magazine at the hairdresser’s. She was the beauty they aspired to be, living a riotous life at Sefton Park with the eccentric Buchanans. One of them even commented, “They’re the Bloomsbury set of today: talent, eccentric, fun loving, and frighteningly intelligent.”’
Miss Marble came into the room from the kitchen. She smiled at Harry. ‘Tea?’
‘Oh, yes, please.’
‘And an assortment of cream cakes glazed with dark Belgian chocolate. How would that suit you, Chief Inspector?’
‘To perfection, Miss Marble.’
Harry took a seat by the window and watched what little traffic there was pass by. His mind was a blank, just drifting in space and time while subconsciously he placed the pieces of his investigation together to solve the puzzle of what had happened to Lady Olivia.
A very elderly woman pushed her bicycle along the cobbled walk and leaned it against the window. She looked at Harry and smiled an apology for interrupting his view with the two-wheeler. She had one of the loveliest faces he had ever seen. Age had been kind to it. Every wrinkle seemed only to soften her beauty. She had deep violet eyes. Her white hair looked like spun sugar and she wore it in a shoulder-length bob. She was dressed in wide white linen trousers and a white blouse with long sleeves. She was an enchantress even now in her advanced years. Her body was slim, youthful, and her walk more of a stride. On her head she wore a somewhat battered straw hat with a wide brim. Her eyes were skilfully made up but she wore no other make-up save for a pale lipstick that was nearly transparent. Her soft skin was a pale creamy colour, and nearly translucent. She had a long slender neck and around it wore an ancient Roman coin set in a circle of gold and mounted on a black silk cord worn as a choker. Harry had recognised her at once as Miss Plumm, the oldest lady living in Sefton Under Edge. She was revered by everyone it seemed.
She entered the shop and the gossiping women rose from their chairs and went to greet her. Harry heard suggestions that she should join them. She graciously declined and was saved by the appearance of Miss Marble. The two women spoke and then the proprietor walked her over to Harry’s table. He rose from his chair and having been introduced to Miss Plumm, kissed her hand and offered her a chair. She removed her hat and took a seat.
‘I thought you might enjoy having tea together. The Chief Inspector has a sweet tooth, Miss Plumm,’ announced Miss Marble.
‘I hope I’m not intruding? I do apologise if so,’ said Miss Plumm.
‘You’re not intruding. I’d be delighted to have your company.’
‘But you would have had it this evening anyway. I’m invited to
dinner at Marguerite Chen’s. I must admit I have been very curious about the detectives from New Scotland Yard. You’re not at all what I’d expected.’ And Miss Plumm laughed. It was a seductive, charming sound. Like silver bells, thought Harry.
‘And when had you proposed to interview me about the night of the murder?’ she asked.
Harry noticed a glint in her eye. ‘You’re very to the point, Miss Plumm.’
‘Not always, Chief Inspector,’ she replied mysteriously.
Miss Marble arrived at the table with a fresh pot of tea and a slice of lemon tart with a dollop of clotted cream on the side for Miss Plumm. ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to manage the pudding and your bicycle, Miss Plumm. I’m sure the Chief Inspector would be pleased to carry it for you, wouldn’t you?’
Harry hardly heard what Miss Marble was saying, he was so distracted by Miss Plumm’s hands. They were beautiful, not a liver spot on them, slender, with long fingers and oval fingernails. She used them eloquently, the way a ballerina entices with her arms as she creates wonders with her feet. There was something altogether mysterious and enchanting about Miss Plumm. Harry wanted to know her, what she had done with her eighty odd years. She was a romantic figure, more than just the oldest inhabitant of Sefton Under Edge.
Harry heard Miss Marble say, ‘The pudding, Chief Inspector? Will you carry it for Miss Plumm?’
He snapped to attention and said, ‘With great pleasure.’
‘You needn’t bring it now. Why don’t you come with your colleagues for an apéritif and we can all go to Marguerite’s together, pudding and all? It’s to be my contribution to the dinner party.’
And so it was decided.
Not being with Harry was no easy thing for September. She knew that they were not really estranged, would never break away from each other over her feelings about Olivia and Harry’s having to bring her to justice. She also knew it had been unfair of her to ask him to let Olivia go, but hell, life wasn’t fair.
She was in her studio, thinking about Harry and what their life was going to be like when they were living together. There was one thing for sure – when Harry returned to London she intended to go with him. That resolved in her mind, she placed her paint brush in the jug where they were kept, called the pub and asked to be put through to him. She had to be kept waiting on the line for a considerable time because the telephone was constantly engaged.
Jethroe told her, ‘I think something has happened, a breakthrough of some kind, because the two detectives assisting the Chief have been burning up the telephone lines. Never off them for a minute.’
September was still holding the line when James and Harry entered the studio. She began to laugh, holding out the phone and shaking it vehemently. ‘I’ve been waiting for ages to get through to you, and – hey presto, here you are.’
Quite suddenly her laughter vanished and she grew pale. ‘Has something happened? Something terrible? Why are you together? Olivia … oh, God, you’ve not found her dead?’ September backed away from the two men until she was against the wall.
Harry rushed to her. With his hands firmly gripping her upper arms, he shook her and said, ‘No. Whatever made you think
that? On the contrary, she’s been sighted several times.’ And he pulled September into his arms and kissed her, stroked her hair and kissed her again.
The colour came back into her face. ‘I thought I had my fear for her under control,’ she told them shakily.
James went to his sister and said as he gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek, ‘I was just showing Harry to the studio. Be kind to yourself and don’t expect miracles, Sept. None of us will get over Olivia’s disappearance for years, if ever. Accept that it’s going to be that way and let’s get on with our lives.’
There was no question in Harry’s mind that James was right. For the first time he saw the suffering that Olivia’s friends were going through, and because he was in love with September could hardly bear her pain which had become his. But what difference did that make in the pursuit of justice? None. Fortunately he was a man trained to separate the emotional side of his nature from his work. Harry was a man with real strength of character, an iron will.
‘You seem suddenly far away, what are you thinking?’ September asked.
‘That James is right.’ And Harry walked from her to her brother and the two men shook hands.
‘I must run,’ James said. ‘I need to get away from all this and carry on with my life. I’m assembling an expedition in search of the rare butterflies of Guyana. There’s a great deal of planning before we go on one of these treks. If I start setting it up now we could be off within the next six months.’
Harry and September watched him leave the studio. Once more, Harry felt as if he belonged in Sefton Park. That fate, not Olivia, had brought him to this place. He walked back to the woman he loved and took her in his arms. ‘Come and live with me in London? I don’t think that I could bear to leave you here.’
‘I’ve been packed and ready to go, mentally at least, since the first time you touched me. Now it’s only a matter of physically getting my things together. I’m not easy to live with, as I’m sure you’ve figured out. Painting’s my life in the same way as justice is yours. I can’t cook. I earn quite a bit of money but I’m extravagant. Can you live with that?’
‘Sounds like bliss to me,’ was his answer.
They kissed. Passion took over that kiss, and love, and a sense of oneness that was overwhelming.
Harry was enthralled by September’s studio, one of the most gracious and at the same time exciting rooms he had ever been in. The room was two storeys high, what must once have been the ballroom of the house in its grander days, the many-paned oriel windows to either end of the room flooding it with light. But the paintings were what made the studio truly exciting. Large and rich with colour, abstract but with such refinement and passion, mystery and intrigue. They were potent with life; even the dark ones that should have been dull had an uplifting power about them, a sense of rebirth and a new ascendancy. They were intensely romantic.
Harry walked away from that passionate and extraordinary young woman to view them. September could see he was genuinely overwhelmed by her work and with an understanding of it that gladdened her heart. She followed him around the room and after a considerable time, when they were both swept away by the thrill of experiencing fine works of art, she skipped in front of him and began turning around paintings that had been facing the wall.
They had hardly had time together to discover each other, so swift had been their falling in love. Now Harry was learning more about her through her work than he ever could have discovered if they had been together for weeks, possibly months. She was more much more than he could have hoped for. She was that one in a million woman with talent and beauty, brains and a taste for the erotic.
‘I am besotted with you and your work,’ he told her finally.
‘I love you, Harry. If not for Olivia we might never have met. You might never have found Sefton Under Edge. We might have missed the most important event of our lives.’
Olivia too had eaten into his life. She would always be there. He had been smitten with her before he had met September and knew that Olivia was not done with him. He would always be smitten with her until the day he finally caught her and brought her to justice.
Now he wanted the taste of September in his mouth. He was thirsty for her orgasms, hungry to fuck her. He had no need even to tell her that; lust for her transformed his face like a mask. September took him by the hand and led him over to the chaise near the west window. There they undressed and lay down in each other’s arms.
There was a dew drop of come on the tip of his rampant penis. September licked it away. ‘We mustn’t do this, not now, as much as I want you,’ he told her.
‘Why not?’
‘Look.’ A red sun was slowly setting, casting a pale pink light over the room and their entwined bodies. ‘I don’t want to fuck you and leave you. We need time so that I can make you come and come and come. And at the moment I don’t have that time, I have things to work out before we go to Marguerite’s for dinner.’
September placed a kiss on his lips. It was sweet and filled with passion. She trailed her kisses down his body to the base of his penis then licked it to the very tip. Slowly and deliberately she sucked him into her mouth and fondled his testes. He slid on to his back and September stood astride him and impaled herself upon his penis. With hands on her hips she rode up and down on Harry, all the time whimpering with pleasure. He felt the rush of her orgasms as she leaned forward and kissed him wildly. Harry was in a state of sexual ecstasy. His own orgasm was copious and release brought him perfect pleasure. He closed his eyes and drifted into oblivion for a few seconds. His heart was racing. He tore at her hair as he pulled September to him to suck on her nipples, fondle her breasts.
After a few minutes, just long enough to get a modicum of control over themselves, September pulled Harry off the chaise and started to dress him. His shirt first, then his tie. He stopped her. She smiled at him when he told her, ‘I don’t want to leave you.’
She slapped his hands lightly and went back to buttoning his shirt. ‘I don’t want you to leave me either. But we must start as we mean to go on. I’m sure this isn’t going to be the only quickie we’ll ever have, and I quite like adventurous sex. We have full
lives to live, Harry. Work, fun, love … a lifetime in front of us.’
‘Marry me?’ he asked.
The offer of marriage quite overwhelmed September. Tears came into her eyes. She gave up dressing him and sat down to watch him complete the task. They never took their eyes off one another. ‘Tell me you love Sefton Park and the village enough to make it our country house? I could never leave it, Harry.’
‘You didn’t answer my question, September. Just say yes.’
‘You didn’t answer mine,’ was the only answer she gave him.
Together they both said, ‘Yes,’ and rushed into each other’s arms. Afterwards they walked from the studio through the house, arm in arm, and agreed they would make no announcement of their engagement until they were set up in London. Their relationship was still intensely private and they wanted to keep it that way for as long as they could.
‘About tonight at Marguerite Chen’s. If I seem aloof, please realise that it’s because I’m working and I have to switch off my emotions when on official business,’ Harry warned.
September stood on tiptoe and pulled his head down to hers. She whispered, ‘I’ve already seen you in work mode, you needn’t have said anything about it. That split personality, the brilliant sleuth and the passionate lover, is the real you. I’m in love with both parts of you. Now give me a kiss and get on with whatever you have to do.’ They kissed and September, heart filled with joy, ran away from him laughing.
When he unlocked his car, Harry saw the large cake box sitting on the front passenger seat. It reminded him of Miss Plumm whom he had yet to interview. He was more curious about her than suspicious. As he drove past her cottage he noted it was quite large and her garden utterly charming. There were lights on in the house and the yellow glow of dusk gave the place an intensely romantic look. She stuck in his mind as he continued on his way to the pub.
There were people drinking in The Fox, Jethroe and Hannah busy serving. Jethroe, having seen Harry enter the pub, watched him as he headed for the stairs and followed Harry. ‘May I have a word?’
‘Be quick about it, Jethroe. I have a great deal to do in a short period of time. And, by the way, we’ll be pulling out of here late tomorrow afternoon.’
‘About the talk we had earlier today …’
‘That’s over and done with. I thought you understood, I no longer consider you a suspect.’
‘Maybe I could swop you some information if you could forget to call Chief Inspector Pike.’
‘There’s nothing you could tell me that would be of interest, Jethroe. Sorry, no deal.’ And Harry walked away from him.
He heard a muffled, ‘Prick!’ and smiled as he took the stairs two at a time.
Joe seemed to be drowning in faxes, Jenny lost between stacks of paper, and both of them were still on the telephone. Harry scribbled a note that he was going to bath and change. He ordered a malt whisky and when Hannah arrived with it was only half dressed. He could not help but notice a fresh bruise on her cheek. She touched it, and her face reddened with embarrassment.
‘You must have scared Jethroe half to death. He’s told us all to be particularly nice to you.’
‘Well, he’d better be particularly nice to
you
, and keep his business legal and above board.’
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘For what?’
‘For giving me back my dignity. I gave in my notice last night. That’s how I got this. He really can’t help it. If I were to stay with him he would always do it to me because I let him get away with it that first time.’
‘Where will you go?’ asked a concerned Harry.
‘I don’t know.’
He walked to the table and took one of his calling cards, writing down his home number. He handed it to Hannah, telling her, ‘If you’re ever in trouble, or need anything, call me.’
The young girl, tears in her eyes, rushed to Harry and gave him a hug of gratitude. Then she stood back and, after wiping her eyes, asked, ‘Is there anything more you want, sir?’
‘No, Hannah. Thank you.’
Once dressed again, he sat down and sipped his drink. His mind was on Olivia and how she’d got away, so cleanly and so fast. The more details he learned, the more certain he was that not only was the murder of the prince premeditated but so was her escape. He rose from his chair, finished his drink in one swallow and went to see his assistants.
‘No more calls, and switch those phones off. I want to know what you’ve found out about these South African sightings.’
Joe began, ‘The tract of land is owned by Lady Olivia. The prince bought it for her when they visited South Africa two years ago, as a birthday gift. She wanted it for a game reserve, but never got around to doing anything with it. That information came from the Chief of Police of the surrounding area. That tract is called the Lalabella Reserve. The security guards report any problems that arise there to the Chief of Police and he reports them to Sir Thomas Redburn. Redburn is the wealthiest Englishman living in South Africa. He packs a great deal of power and deals with anything to do with the Lalabella Reserve. There’s been nothing for him to do yet. As far as the Chief of Police, Walter Tombey, knows, Lady Olivia Cinders was only there once with the prince who took her on a tour of the area. They were joined on safari by the President of South Africa and the prince’s younger brother. Tombey met her that once and has never heard of or seen her since.
‘His office claims that the fax we received was not sent from them. We checked with Sir Thomas Redburn’s office and reached him at his home. Both claim they did not send the fax about Lady Olivia being sighted in South Africa, but clearly someone sent it from somewhere nearby, either because she is there and they want us to catch her or it’s a bogus fax sent in the hope that New Scotland Yard will grab the bait and fly down there on a fruitless hunt,’ said Jenny.
‘What would be the advantage to Lady Olivia if we had taken the bait? If it
is
bait,’ asked Joe.
‘She would be buying time to settle in where she really is, probably on the other side of the world: the jungles of Mexico or some South American country. She could be anywhere, if she’s still alive. She’s a very clever lady who has been planning
this for some time and so far is foxing us brilliantly,’ said Harry.
No one said a word. He was surprised at the despondent expressions on their faces. He did not feel at all defeated. ‘Why such glum faces?’ he asked.