Authors: Barbara Cleverly
“Huh! If our old friend Plutarch isn’t wrong, Pericles’ best speech—the humdinger he delivered from the steps of the Parthenon at the opening ceremony—was written for him by a
woman
!”
“Only a man would be surprised to hear that.”
Joe hesitated. Should he risk breaking the news? Surely she knew? He would phrase his next sentence carefully and have his handkerchief at the ready … prepare for tears and sobs.
“I was just thinking—if Sir James depends on
Lady
Truelove to pen his
bons mots
for him, Parliament’s in for a jolly boring time! His wife, Lavinia, is one of the silliest women in London, I hear.”
“Ah, but Pericles’ muse was not
Mrs
. Pericles.” She spoke with no surprise. He would have said rather with quiet triumph. “The speech-writer you’re thinking of was his well-educated and utterly lovely Aspasia. A courtesan. The only class of woman worth knowing in ancient Greece, I would have thought.”
“A hetaira? A good-time girl?”
“But well educated and witty, an ideal companion for a politician. I sometimes think we should revive the institution. It would so cheer up the lives of those dull duffers in Parliament.”
“To say nothing of their speeches! But no need to encourage the notion, Dorcas. They’ve been at it on the quiet for years in Westminster.”
Her answering smile was the one he most disliked—the enigmatic one. Hinting at possible revelations.
“Here’s the champagne, Joe. Oh! Goodness! Veuve Cliquot ’26! Have I deserved this?”
He smiled blandly. “No. But it’s what I always give my lady friends.”
I really must rise above this, Joe thought to himself.
Strangely his comment seemed to please her. Or the gesture. Could it be that she suddenly realised the grapes whose essence had become this vintage had been ripening in the vineyards the last time they’d dined together in France?
A delicate compliment. Joe’s own silent toast to the past.
She did remember and reached out to squeeze his hand, murmuring a sentimental reminiscence, when a discreet cough and a whiff of tobacco-infused tweeds at his side distracted Joe’s attention. Inspector Martin was standing, looking thoughtful, a solid and lugubrious presence.
“I do beg your pardon for interrupting, but may I have a quiet word, sir?”
Joe made his excuses and followed him to the bar.
“Sorry about that, sir. I hadn’t realised how things stood between you and the young lady.…”
“
Things
don’t stand at all, Martin. She’s a colleague, and I’ve known her for years. It’s the surroundings that are disreputable, not us. Can I help you?”
“Yes. Just knocking off. Gosling said I’d find you here. Got
your note. But I wondered … you said you might be able to make headway with the knife grinder I’ve still got locked up. I’ve had him in jug for two days now, and he’s due for release unless I come up with something. Do you still want to have a look at him before I cut him loose?”
“Yes. I hadn’t forgotten. In fact, I’m arranging it now. I’ll meet you—where? Town jail? Tomorrow morning. Seven o’clock too soon for you?” He had given an over-brisk reaction, he realised, in his concern to quell any suspicion that the London copper might be sleeping in with a hangover or worse.
Joe returned to the table. “Now I’ll tell you how you can earn your champagne supper. Do you still speak Romany, Dorcas?”
He weathered the outburst of denials: “Years since I spoke it … only ever used it as a child with other children … never very proficient anyway.…” until he received a grudging: “Oh, very well then. Anything to find out who stuck the knife in Rapson.”
T
HEY WERE THE
first couple to leave the dining room, followed by the glances of the other diners.
“Early start in the morning. I’d better show you to your room, Dorcas,” had been Joe’s awkward announcement as they both refused coffee and brandy.
He followed her up two flights of stairs and down a long corridor until she stood, key in hand, in front of a white-painted door bearing a decorated plaque announcing ‘48
Diane de Poitiers.’
Joe unlocked the door for her and stepped inside, looking about him.
“Frightful hidey-hole they’ve given you, Dorcas. Diane de Poitiers indeed! A French king’s mistress and owner of the loveliest château in France—I don’t think she’d reckon much to this dog kennel. Simply ghastly. Narrow little bed. It won’t do. You should have told me. I’ll speak to the manager.”
“Don’t fuss! The maid says they’re full tonight. It’s really of no concern. I’m used to sleeping on flea-infested blankets under
the stars and washing in mountain streams. At least there’s a bathroom across the corridor with hot water and good soap.”
“Look, they’ve most unfairly—I can’t imagine what they were thinking—given
me
a huge room with not one but two double beds in it, a surprising number of mirrors and an adjoining bathroom with gold taps. Here, take my key. It’s number 31. Er, the ‘Sir Lancelot suite,’ I’m afraid. I can only suppose the architect they employed had a sense of the ridiculous. Use that room, and I’ll camp out in here. You’ll enjoy the adjustable shower spray. No, really! You’re not the only one accustomed to discomfort. I can trump your nights of ‘fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees’ with four years of rat-infested trenches. But, entertaining though it would be to stand here comparing bites—”
Laughing, Dorcas launched herself at him and folded him in a tight hug. She looked up and kissed his cheek. “Joe, only you would say you couldn’t imagine! They weren’t expecting Diane to be welcoming a guest this evening, you twerp! This room is just a face-saving token. A retreat in case the lady gets cold feet. Or the gentleman snores. But it would be mean-spirited to refuse such a chivalrous offer. Thank you!” She kissed his other cheek. “I’ll beetle off now and spend the night in the arms of—Sir Lancelot, was it? Goodnight, Joe. I’ll see you in jail tomorrow.”
After an awkward exchange of luggage, padding to and fro along carpeted corridors, Joe took off his shoes and slumped, head spinning, onto his narrow bed. He glared, confused and resentful, at a painting some clown had fixed on the wall opposite the foot of the bed. It was a gilt-framed portrait of the sixteenth century royal courtesan herself, by someone trying for the style of François Clouet. A well-known tribute to the lady, making play with the name she shared with the goddess of the hunt. The eternally virginal and vengeful Diana. Naked save for a pearl necklace round her throat and the oddly erotically placed leather thong of
an archer’s quiver across one white shoulder, the lovely woman, caught like the goddess Diana at her toilet, stared down at him with hauteur. Tempting, knowing and unattainable, the divine huntress made no attempt to join him. Not even in his dreams.
T
he station house was tidy, well-ordered and welcoming when Joe arrived with Dorcas at the appointed time. The small number of holding cells—three, and of those, only one occupied—said much for the general peaceableness of the town, Joe calculated.
Before they took a look at the prisoner, Dorcas asked if she could see his belongings. The constable on duty, after a swift exchange of looks with Inspector Martin, pulled down a cardboard storage box from a shelf.
“He’s known hereabouts as ‘Old Rory.’ No one knows his surname. Not much to take the fancy in here, I’m afraid, miss. We removed everything removable including his belt and shoelaces. Well, you never know—wouldn’t be the first time.”
Dorcas looked quietly at the meagre collection. “No money?”
“Two shillings and threepence, miss. That’s kept locked in the duty sergeant’s drawer.”
“Nothing written. No photos. Nothing personal. Just an old hanky.”
“Been tested for blood. It’s clean. Well, of blood anyway.”
“A half-whittled wooden bird … and a blackened old cherry briar pipe. Ah, our bloke’s a pipe smoker. He must be missing it.”
“He hadn’t any baccy left, miss. There’s a leather pouch in
there … shouldn’t touch it … we’ve inspected it, and it’s empty.”
Dorcas held out a hand. “Inspector, hand me the packet of St. Bruno I see bulging your right pocket.”
Narrowing his eyes, Martin did as she asked and was rewarded by a dazzling smile of complicity. “This’ll do it.” She picked up the pipe and the empty pouch and headed towards the cells.
The accompanying constable returned with the keys, shrugging. “She told me to push off. Seems to know what she’s doing, sir.”
A rattle of language no one understood followed. An exchange of greetings very likely. Then, surprisingly, exclamations, laughter and chatter.
Joe looked back apologetically at the two Sussex men. “She has the same effect on dogs. Seen it myself,” he said, and the three men listened and waited.
“Perhaps I should warn you, Inspector,” Joe murmured, “in case you’re planning future encounters with Miss Joliffe, that a largely unsupervised upbringing by a bohemian father has equipped the girl with an eccentric view of the world. Not only that, she swears like a trooper. In several languages.”
“Sounds like a stimulating companion, sir,” Martin replied diplomatically.
“
W
ELL, THERE WE
are.” Dorcas rejoined them, pulling on her gloves. “Charming man! Irish. Gaelic speaker. Lucky I knew a bit. And he had a bit of Romany, so we managed. He’d like bacon and eggs for breakfast and fish and chips for lunch, and he’ll be off at noon which he calculates is the longest time he can manage to stay out of the weather as a guest of the Suffolk Constabulary.”
“He spoke willingly, miss?” Martin started to enquire.
“Oh, yes. A man who’s gone without his baccy for two days will tell you whatever you want to know. He was using you,
Inspector. Nice warm, quiet billet, cooked food served up at regular intervals, and nothing at all on his conscience to worry him. Well a bit of poaching perhaps. I said you wouldn’t hold it against him.”
“Did you get him to make a statement?”
“Nothing so formal. If I’d taken a pencil from behind my ear, licked it, and proceeded to make notes he’d have clammed up. But he told me exactly what his movements were on the days you’re interested in.”
Dorcas listed from memory the clients Old Rory had serviced with the donkey cart mounted grinding stone he lumbered with from village to village. “At the school, he sharpened the six scythes and the grass cutting machine blades and the pruning knives for the gardeners, oiled them, and left them ready for spring, then he did his usual consignment of kitchen knives. He never touched the rest of the cutlery. Two dozen knives ranging from small three-inch vegetable peelers to twelve-inch bread knives. There were four six-inch knives in the bundle. He returned every one to the kitchens.
“After that he again went on his usual rounds and presented himself at the back door of Ma Bellefoy’s cottage. At lunch time on the afternoon of Rapson’s death, this was. It was just starting to snow, so he put his grinder in the shelter of the old cow sheds. He did her knives twice a year. She has six. Odd ones. None of them a set. Two of them are six-inch meat knives. Both very worn. Getting like tissue paper. Only one more season left in them, Rory says. They’re old friends—he knew her when she was up at the school, and he likes to deliver news and gossip as he works. He usually gives her a wooden toy he’s made himself—for her little boy. It wasn’t the only thing he delivered. He gave her—or sold her—a rabbit. One he’d poached? He claims it was a wild one from up on the heath. That’s what made him unwilling to talk to you. A nasty magistrate could send him to
Australia for poaching, to join his Uncle Tom, who suffered that fate twenty years ago.”
Martin shook his head in irritation. “He’s living in the past, miss. No one’s bothering him for a bit of poaching. There’s families around here couldn’t keep their ribs apart if they didn’t break a few daft rules.”
“Then, with the snow threatening, he went off with his donkey into town, where he could shelter and pick up the hotel business the next day. That’s where you caught up with him. He hopes you’ve taken care of his donkey.”
“He’s all right. Well, that gets us nowhere,” Martin grumbled. “Everything agrees with Ma Bellefoy’s account. She has a full complement of knives—they’re all present and correct. But there’s only three six-inch knives in the school kitchens. One missing. And then my constable picks one up out of the snow melt. Two questions: Who took the knife out of the kitchen? And why wasn’t it in Rapson’s ribs? Well, the weapon’s in the labs by now, and we’ll have to wait and see what the lads in white coats can come up with. Meanwhile, there’s a bit of honest-to-goodness police work the local plod can do.”
Martin detained Joe as he was about to start off back for the school. “A moment, sir. Your colleague, Miss Joliffe.… I was wondering if she’s as good at getting words out of small boys. Ma Bellefoy’s little lad is who I have in mind. I’m sure there’s things he knows that he’s too scared to tell to a big policeman.”
“Martin, you must ask her yourself. I’m not her boss.”
“I’ll do that. It could give us just the leg-up we need.”
He smiled at Joe and smoothed his mustache in a comic-opera gesture. “Watch it, Commissioner! We’ll be up that staircase while the Yard’s still feeling for the light switch.”
T
HERE WERE TWO
eager faces waiting for him when Joe reached Rapson’s study: Gosling and Godwit.
Godwit spoke at once. “Commissioner, you must attend to my young colleague first. My news can wait. He is due to give a hockey lesson directly. It’s a Saturday. I’ll return in a moment.”
“Five minutes, sir?” Gosling suggested.
“Right, Gosling.” Joe settled at the desk. “Spielman. What have you to report?”
“Bugger all, sir. Phone engaged—or off the hook more like—for hours, but I kept trying. Finally I got the butler. Shifty, I thought. Or perhaps just in the dark like yours truly. Didn’t want to speak to
me
. What possible business could it be of
mine
? ‘Put your headmaster on if you deem it absolutely essential,’ and all that going on. You know what butlers are like. I kept at it and managed to get out of him that
he
really hadn’t a clue either. The master was still out in deepest Sussex and, after a brief phone call just after five o’clock, the mistress had packed and gone off in the Dodge to join him.”