Oxford Blood (23 page)

'No one. No, wait. How odd. I did see someone else. I saw Fanny.'

'Fanny?
What on earth was she doing? Or was she just paying what you call a social call, like everyone else?'

'Fanny? I doubt it. She's quite prim, Cousin Fan. No, she was carrying a pile of sandwiches of all ridiculous things. She said it was to put outside the Gobbler's room. As a joke.'

Then Lord St Ives arrived, and almost immediately after that the doctor accompanied by Binyon. Jemima, after a discreet explanation of her presence, judged it the moment to withdraw.

Soon the telling would have to begin, first of all the telling of Tiggie's mother - would she be found in the arms of Proffy? Did it matter? Did anything make it any worse or better now that her child was dead? Then the telling of the house-party, followed by its disbanding. Then the telling of the world.

The worst moment, the very worst moment of all, so Jemima told Cass afterwards, was the next morning when Eugenia Jones broke down and started screaming.

'She chose Lord St Ives as her target - words like "your bloody, bloody family" - but I felt it could well have been anyone there, anyone in the house, the house itself. She became like one of her own Greek characters, Medea perhaps.'

'Except that Medea killed her own children. And Eugenia Jones' child killed herself!' Cass pointed out.

'Or did she? I don't know.
Did
she? Oh Cass!' Jemima felt herself starting to cry again. 'That poor little girl. I should have done something. I knew something was wrong. Something was wrong about the whole weekend. But then, what with the proof, if you call it that, that Saffron was illegitimate, and the discovery and I do call it that, about Eugenia Jones being his mother—'

Cass hugged her again.

'You'll find out what happened. And at least there'll be some justice.'

'Justice! Where was the justice in a twenty-four-year-old girl killing herself by - or possibly being killed by - an enormous overdose of heroin acting on a great deal of alcohol.' Jemima, in spite of herself, found the tears coming again.

'I keep thinking of her, her little interventions at the tennis match. That evening in her white dress. Like Ophelia.'

'Come on. Who could have done it? Think of that. Are you sure she didn't kill herself?'

'Not sure. The police, by the way, are quite sure that she did. Accidentally. Not suicide. They say they have much experience of these things, alas, and you can't expect drug addicts to behave rationally or self-preservingly in any way. They gave me the impression of having a pretty poor opinion of the said addicts, including, I may say, poor Tiggie.'

'But you don't agree?'

‘I
t's Saffron,' said Jemima slowly. 'He's positive that Tiggie didn't use heroin all that much, plenty of cocaine however, and when she did, she sniffed it. She hated needles. I remember her saying it about blood tests. Why couldn't blood be sucked out instead? You see, there were no other syringe marks. Even the police admitted that.'

'How did they account for that?'

'There had to be a first time. And this was it. It was unhelpful that Tiggie had been in such a daze all day. All her friends agreed about that: the police talked to them. And she had been taking a lot of coke: they all had to agree about that too. So the combination was lethal, with the drink as well.'

'Where did she get the syringe?'

'That was rather unhelpful too. Only her prints on it. Wait. No, that's odd, isn't it? Why no prints of the person who sold it to her?' Jemima felt her spirits revive. 'But if the syringe was wiped clean after she was killed -injected with this enormous dose, that is on top of a lot of cocaine - the murderer had only then to plant her prints on the syringe with her hand.'

'The Press has been ghastly, hasn't it?' interjected Cass. 'Poor Lord St Ives. Poor Lady St Ives. I even feel sorry for Saffron, something I never expected to be. The engagement weekend: the stately home. The dashing, now tragic, young lord with his handsome face and his evil reputation. It's all been jam for them.'

'The Press! No worse than Eugenia Jones' denunciations, and in a way better, because more impersonal. There and then in the great hall the next morning, the young gathered forlornly with their suitcases. Binyon trying to organize them into their cars like a portly sheep dog. Both the girls, Poppy and Nessa, were crying. Fanny looked frightful and I thought Jack was going to be sick.

'Then Eugenia Jones comes flying down that great wooden Elizabethan staircase, feet clacketing as she came. I thought she was going to slip at first, black hair all over the place - yes, you're right, she was like Medea. Then she starts on Lord St Ives.'

'Didn't anyone try to stop her?'

'Lord St Ives stood for once like one frozen. Nobody else had the wit or courage. Perhaps Binyon might have had a go - but he was lugging suitcases outside. So she went on and on. Saying things like: "You should have done something" over and over again, "You should have stopped her." Finally Proffy appeared and put his arm around her. He said something to her. I think it was in Greek. He sounded very tender. And he took her away. I didn't see her again.'

'I'd like to say something tender to you, in Greek if you like, and take you away. Jemima, why don't we have a holiday? I'll talk to my clerk. I'll take you to Greece—'

'I've got to solve it,' said Jemima doggedly. 'Besides, believe it or not,

I've still got to make this programme:
Golden Kids.
Yes, Cy Fredericks thinks it has become something called sociologically reverberating. That's the next stage up after being socially relevant, it seems. To compensate, I'm going to solve the mystery of Saffron's birth if it kills me.' 'Because it has killed Tiggie?'

'In a way. And probably that boy at Rochester, Bim Marcus. And nearly killed Saffron. Can I bear that holiday in mind to see me through?'

'You can. And now let me give you something else to bear in mind to see you through.'

They went into Jemima's bedroom. It was a reunion, but unlike most reunions it was all sweet not bitter; both Jemima and Cass wondered afterwards as they lay in the huge white bed with its airy views of the tops of the Holland Park trees why they ever found it necessary to try other views of other trees in other bedrooms and elsewhere. But neither of them gave voice to the thought. It was not in the contract.

Immediately after Cass left, Jemima, who had been half-feigning half-feeling sleep, leapt up and pulled on her honey-coloured robe. Action would blot out all such reflections which unlike the reunion were half sweet, half bitter. Cherry. Cherry and Jamie Grand, in that order. Cherry, superbly efficient (unless her love life was in chaos) could be entrusted with this new mission over the telephone, but Jamie Grand needed more dulcet treatment.

To Cherry, Jemima outlined her latest task, only to be greeted by a most un-Cherry-like gasp.

'But it's only a birth certificate, Cherry,' pleaded Jemima. 'You've done this before. Don't you remember that case we had? The little girl. You were so brilliant, darling darling Cherry—'

'What do you mean, Jem, done this before? Who has ever looked for a birth certificate for a baby born probably under the name of Jones somewhere in London?' Cherry spluttered. 'When I've got this new wonderful fellow in his late forties, just getting over his third marriage, and his third wife's cooking, all he wants is to eat out, hold my hand, and forget.'

'All that food should strengthen you,' replied Jemima soothingly. 'Which reminds me that I've got a new contact for you at Oxford, to do with the
Golden Kids
programme. He's called the Gobbler, but don't let that put you off. I think you're going to have a lot in common.'

'Jemima—'

'After all, you do know the baby was a boy. And the date of birth, twenty-eighth October 1964.'

'Isn't that fantastic? We know he's a Scorpio. The sexy sign. But I daresay you knew that already, didn't you?'

Jemima maintained a short dignified silence; Cherry had a feline ability to discern the possible direction of Jemima's fancies which simply could not be encouraged.

Then she said in her most winning voice, which she knew would not fool Cherry for an instant: 'I have found out one or two other things which will be helpful. London is certainly the place, Nurse Elsie definitely mentioned London - she did talk of the other mother being "not far away". You see Saffron was officially born in the St Ives' London house, which was then in Bryanston Square - they've sold it long ago of course. Hence Nurse Elsie as the private midwife, hence the opportunity to practise the deception which couldn't have been carried out in a nursing home, let alone a hospital. Nurse Elsie had also delivered the other mother very recently, Eugenia Jones we now think, when Lady St Ives' labour started prematurely. Start with the local Registry office for Bryanston Square.'

'And work out. Start with Jones and work - where do I go from Jones, Jemima? Smith, Brown, Robinson—'

'Concentrate on the date. Children have to be registered by law within six weeks of their birth. So the time span isn't too large. Also the new baby, the illegitimate baby who is now, we think, Saffron, can't have been much older otherwise somebody would surely have smelt a rat. As for the name, I think she almost certainly did use her own name: its very anonymity must have been attractive. And it is after all an offence to register under a false name. You can get into all sorts of trouble.'

'Let's hope the Joneses of the world weren't in an especially productive mood in October 1964' were Cherry's last gloomy words.

Jamie Grand was invited by Jemima to lunch at Monsieur Thompson's on one of those frequent forays to London from Oxford which his interpretation of a sabbatical year as a visiting professor did not preclude. Unlike Cherry, Jamie was highly responsive to Jemima's request for information, especially when she prefaced her invitation with the words 'This is about gossip not literature, Jamie.'

'What a relief,' he sighed down the telephone. 'There was a time when Oxford itself was more like that. I'm trying to use my short stay to re
-
educate them. Serena of Christ Church is a nice girl but she will keep asking me about W.H. Auden
...'

'Eugenia J
ones. The life and loves of Eugenia Jones.'

'Beyond Proffy?'

'Before Proffy. Jones, the mysterious Jones. What happened after his death, which actually occurred, Eugenia told me, before Tiggie was born.'

'It won't be difficult just at the moment. Everyone's terribly sorry for her. She's totally shattered, one hears. Added to which Eleanor Mossbanker is pregnant. Again.'

'An unlucky life.'

'Eugenia or Tiggie?'

'Both, I suppose. Two unlucky lives
...
I actually meant Eugenia.'

A few days later Jemima's impression of Eugenia Jones' unlucky life was thoroughly confirmed by the tale spun out - not without a certain rueful relish, it had to be admitted - by Jamie Grand at Thompson's.

'Your friend Marigold Milton was a great help. That woman has a talent for gossip which is very much underdeveloped. She remembered a number of absolutely vital rumours about Eugenia twenty years ago which even I had quite forgotten.'

Over exquisite portions of fish in various delicate vegetable sauces, Jamie Grand talked of passion, passion and Eugenia Jones.

'A very passionate undergraduette. Was one still permitted to use that word in the fifties? Perhaps not. At all events, a brilliant mind, a brilliant career ahead and an astonishing capacity for indulging in the most hopeless love affairs on the side. She might have been a man, her capacity for divorcing her judgement at work from her judgement in bed was so absolute. Names? I could name a few—'

Jemima allowed him to amble on. One loved or loathed gossip, but in Jamie's company one simply had no choice but to share his preoccupation.

'But then something more serious started,' pursued Jamie. 'We're now at about nineteen sixty. An affair with a married man. Something she didn't talk about, something which obsessed her. She was in London by then, working on her first book, travelling a good deal to Greece. A slightly different circle of friends. Her movements were much less circumscribed. You know what Oxford's like, or
should
be like. Not much individual freedom there, freedom from gossip. There was even one rumour - here Marigold Milton was useful - that Eugenia, with that fine classical mind of hers which always seems to excite amateurs of secrecy, was mixed up in some kind of intelligence work.'

'A spy? Eugenia Jones?' At one level all this was difficult to reconcile with the Eugenia Jones she knew, or had at least encountered quite frequently over the last traumatic months. And yet she had to recall that mysterious sense of power which Jemima had sensed in her from the first, that feeling of impenetrability - only a rare public flash of anguish after her daughter's death.