After Clare (16 page)

A look of dismay, quickly veiled, crossed Poppy's face when he told her he was from Scotland Yard, and that his name was Novak, Detective Inspector Novak.

‘I'm sure,' said Mrs Tripp, with a quick glance towards the window where a young couple appeared to be hesitating over the only exhibit, a rather beautiful, elongated ceramic black cat on a white tripod, standing on scrunched emerald velvet, ‘your conversation would be more private in the office.'

As the shop bell went again and the couple entered, Poppy took Novak into a room at the rear of the premises, where a small desk, stacks of cardboard boxes and a drop-leaf shelf bearing a gas ring and the wherewithal for making tea didn't leave much room for anything but a couple of stools. The kettle was on a low light and she asked him if he would like a cup of tea.

‘I wouldn't say no, Miss Drummond.'

He waited, perched on one of the stools, while she busied herself with the tea-making, her movements quick and impatient.

‘I know why you're here, though not who sent you,' she said abruptly, turning and handing him his tea in a wide black and eau-de-nil patterned cup with sharply sloping sides and a large saucer. ‘It's about Peter Sholto, isn't it?'

‘So you've heard about that?'

‘Yes – my brother told me. Valentine. He's working for Mr Stronglove at the moment.'

Ah, yes, the untidy young man at a desk in the corner of Stronglove's study, who had been waved a dismissal when Novak was shown in.

Smooth, affable, urbane, Stronglove had apparently decided to cooperate. ‘Anything I can do to help, Inspector. Though I've told you, Peter Sholto and I only came into contact when he was working here. I'm a busy man and it didn't leave room for chat about his personal life. I believe he was friendly with the young Markhams, but you'll have to ask them about that.'

‘You said before that your sister was fond of him? Maybe she could help.'

‘Marta? Well, yes, she did take a shine to him, you might say. Poor, motherless boy and all that – but then, she wasn't alone. Most women seemed to find him attractive. Cigarette, Inspector? No?' He crossed the room, took one himself from a box on a low table and lit it. Turkish smoke filled the room. He performed each action smoothly and without hesitation. Close up, he could evidently see well enough, and in a room that was familiar he moved around easily.

‘And Peter? Did he reciprocate?'

‘Who can say? He didn't give much away. Agreeable enough young chap, but hard to get beneath the surface.' He paused. ‘A bit deep sometimes, actually.'

‘How long did he work for you?'

‘Not long. Twelve months or so, I suppose, just before the war – until I moved to London, in fact. Nothing of a job for a young fellow like him, really.' He tapped ash into an onyx ashtray and added, ‘To be honest, I felt it was time for us to part company, anyway.'

‘He wasn't good at his job?'

‘When he kept his mind on it, I found him useful.' He hesitated again. ‘Good secretaries are hard to come by. It's not as easy as you might think, finding the right man.'

Novak had recently interviewed a businessman who had a
woman
secretary, but they were everywhere now, women. They'd even infiltrated the police.

Stronglove said unexpectedly, ‘These spectacles – I don't wear them as a decoration, you know. They say I'm going to need an operation, sooner or later. Not a pleasant prospect and I have to confess I'm funking it.'

‘As anyone might, sir. I'm very sorry. The war?'

‘No, not at all. My eyes weren't so good even before then, so being able to speak several languages, they made me a translator. Cushy number.'

This self-deprecation was not how Novak saw Stronglove. Working as a translator had been valuable and much-respected work in wartime, and he was in no doubt that this man would be well aware of his worth.

‘I only mention the eye problem because I expect you're wondering why I need a secretary at all. My manuscripts are a mess, I have to confess, so at the moment I need a man who can deal with the business of getting them ready to send out to my publisher – as well as proof-read and so on.'

‘So why
did
you want to get rid of Sholto?'

‘As I say, he was – satisfactory, shall we say – when he didn't have his mind on other things.'

‘Such as?'

‘Oh, nothing specific.' He hesitated. ‘Apart from what I felt was a slightly unhealthy interest in the contents of this house.'

‘You mean you thought him dishonest?'

‘Pilfering the spoons? Lord, no. It was the old furniture that interested him, the craftsmanship and so on – or so he said – but frankly, I thought it a little sad that a young chap of his age should have nothing better to do. Interest is all very well, but he took it too far. I reckon he drew and made notes on every piece of furniture in the house.' Scorn underlined his words.

An unusual interest, Novak acknowledged, but – unhealthy? A budding connoisseur, perhaps. People who had a passion for things often began early; they said Mozart was composing piano concertos aged seven. Novak suspected a smoke screen: there were other, more cogent reasons for wanting to get rid of the boy.

‘As it turned out, the decision was made for me when I decided to move to London,' Stronglove went on. ‘When war broke out, I heard that Peter had volunteered for the army.' He paused. ‘Well, I suppose everybody was a patriot then.'

It was at that point that the new secretary – young Drummond – had returned and Novak, sensing that was as far as he should go with Stronglove at that time, had left.

‘It wasn't Val who sent you here, was it?' his sister said now.

‘It was Mrs Erskine who told me where I would find you.'

‘Mrs—?' She frowned, then gave a little laugh. ‘Oh, yes, of course, you mean
Dee
. You've seen her.'

Indeed he had. Smart, blonde little Mrs Hamish Erskine in her modern bijou house just off Sloane Square, with her pretty pursed-up button of a mouth. A smiling, sugar-coated sweetie with a hard centre. She had been in a hurry to go out, all dressed up in summer silks and a daring little hat, fragrant and made up, a diamond on her finger the size of a walnut, taking meaningful looks at the diamanté watch on her wrist. He'd known straight away he'd get nothing from her, but she'd been on his list of those young people who had known Sholto – and she lived conveniently in London.

‘Why did Dee send you to
me
?'

‘She told me you knew Peter Sholto.'

She turned her head rather sharply. ‘
Did
she indeed? Well, she knew him better than I did, they lived in the same village, after all. I only met him when I spent school holidays at Steadings, with Dee and her family, when he made up a four for tennis.' She bent her head to take a sip of tea, but not before he had seen something resembling a sharp flicker of pain in her eyes. They were her best feature, her eyes, luminously grey-green with dark pupils, beautifully shaped, thickly lashed and slanting slightly upwards under winged brows.

‘The other three – that would be Mrs Erskine and yourself – and Mrs Erskine's sister?'

‘No, not Rosie, she was only a little girl. It was me, Dee and her brother David, who was in the Royal Flying Corps in the war. He . . . wasn't one of those who came back.' Her bent head, as she took another sip of her tea, hid her expression. ‘I'm very sorry Peter's dead. Especially like that. It's too shocking.'

‘But not altogether surprising, Miss Drummond?'

She flushed. ‘Did I make that so obvious? Well, to be
absolutely
truthful, I suppose I'm not entirely surprised he got into trouble – though not to that extent. He would
meddle
with things and . . . and I'm afraid he could be rather beastly at times, you know.'

‘In what way?'

‘Would you like some more tea, Inspector?'

He shook his head. ‘No, thank you.' He'd had enough trouble holding the fashionably designed cup by the little triangular lump that was the handle to risk another, and besides, he had not been offered milk, and the lemon in the tea had made the inside of his mouth shrivel up.

‘Perhaps I've said too much.'

‘This isn't a time for discretion, Miss Drummond.'

‘All the same, I shouldn't have spoken like that. Peter could be awfully charming, when he wanted to be. Most people liked him. He talked a frightful lot of rot sometimes, and he didn't like it if you didn't go along with what he wanted. But it was nothing really, nothing that really
meant
anything . . . not now that he's dead, anyway.' There was a shine of tears in her eyes as she added, ‘He didn't deserve to be killed.'

‘Why do you think he deserted and came back to Leysmorton, Miss Drummond?'

‘How should I know that? And as I said, Dee knew him better than I did.'

But Dee Erskine had said just the opposite. She had implied that Poppy Drummond knew Peter Sholto very well. And what might that have meant –
not now that he's dead
?

Jogging home peacefully along the village street, Rosie's morning ride was interrupted when from the direction of Kingsworth came the distant sound of a motor car. After the closure of the hospital at Leysmorton, a motor was once again an event in peaceful Netherley, interesting enough to cause two little boys to abandon their game of marbles and run to watch. A woman washing her windows turned to stare, and Rosie prudently reined Dandy in and turned him aside into Cat Lane.

She held him still as the open-topped motor approached the village at a great rate, but although the driver, whom Rosie recognized as Archie Elphinstone, the best man at Dee's wedding, slowed down considerably, he didn't stop. Poppy was in the passenger seat, a long voile scarf wound around her head and streaming out behind her, and when she saw Rosie, she leant out and waved. ‘Sorry, can't stop, darling!' she called, and blew a kiss. ‘On our way to Leysmorton.'

Rosie decided she wouldn't go over there then, not this morning. Lady F would be too absorbed in other matters to want her around – and besides, Rosie, who had once adored Poppy, wasn't sure that she liked the smart, brittle person she had become.

It was after the horrible death of her father that Poppy had been invited to spend holidays at Steadings. Rosie, who had never before met this distant relative, who happened to be at the same school as Dee, had been afraid on that first visit that she would turn out to be a miserable creature, constantly in tears about her father and putting a damper on everything, but she turned out to be fun. She was very obliging and would even help Stella with her diary and correspondence, something no one else would do – Stella was lazy about answering letters and hopeless at fixing and remembering dates. Everyone liked Poppy. It had been a wonderful summer, until everything fell apart – until the Awful Thing with her mother had happened, and then the war, and dearest David going away to fight for his country and being killed. And though nowadays Poppy was very bright and amusing when you met her, she wasn't fun any more.

‘What beautiful pearls!'

‘Yes, lovely, aren't they?'

‘I expect they're yours now,' Poppy went on speculatively.

Emily lifted her eyes from an inspection of the samples Poppy had brought and spoke to the men who were positioning stepladders to lift down her mother's portrait in its heavy gilt frame. ‘You can take it down now. But please go carefully.'

She sank onto the old sofa, happy enough to just watch. There had been a lot to do in preparation for the redecoration of the library, even with these two men Hugh had insisted on sending round from Steadings to help with the heavy work: shifting weighty furniture, rolling the carpet, taking down the moth-eaten tapestry curtains that weighed a ton-and-a-half and had descended to the floor releasing clouds of decades-old dust. The books, thank goodness, could be left as they were, in their glass-fronted cases, while the decorating went on.

There were hundreds of books – enough for the room to be called a library, covering two walls floor to ceiling as they did – and huge sagging chairs where you could curl up to read in front of the enormous stone fireplace, but it had never been just a library. It was more of a general living room, the place where people naturally gravitated – for teatime, or just to chat, for playing cards in the evenings, for gathering round the old walnut piano with its brass candle-sconces, where the girls had practised their scales and listened to Mama playing Chopin or the latest songs.

It must never be changed too much. It smelt of happiness still, of Mama's lily-of-the-valley scent, the resinous fragrance of Christmas fir needles, toast, Papa's roses in the summer, their scent floating in from the Rose Walk, or from where they were massed in big silver bowls on the tables. Of the lost days and years.

While Poppy darted about, leaving written instructions for the painters and making notes for herself, Emily kept her eye on the portrait as the men cautiously manoeuvred the frame down from where it had hung ever since it had been commissioned. It was said to be an act of courage to have oneself painted by G. H. Watts, who was not interested in surface prettiness or even beauty, was not merciful and would only paint people he liked – for a very large fee. Still, it was an acceptable, if not flattering, depiction of Leila. She wore no jewels, apart from the rope of pearls, their milky lustre glowing against the rose-coloured silk of the gown she wore. Emily found herself unable to take her eyes off them.
The pearls, yes
!

Marta stood by the doorway as the men manoeuvred through with their bulky burden. She looked flustered, not liking her routine to be disturbed. She had thought Hugh's offer to send men to help was unnecessary and her cooperation had been grudging. Now she began to follow Poppy around the room, adjusting dust covers, moving this and that.