Embrace Me (3 page)

Nothing was said for several minutes, all of them lost in memories of Olivia. In one way or another they had been, and always would be, in love with her. That was the way of it from the day she’d first entered their lives as a child.

Sir David Buchanan and his wife Molly had been her godparents and Olivia, orphaned when still a young child, was brought up for much of the time with the Buchanans’ children. For James, Angelica and September, even now with this horrible scandal laid before them, Olivia was no less a part of their lives, their extended family. Marguerite could almost feel them closing ranks, loyalty rising from the ashes of something terrible to which they would, if not exactly close their eyes, then at least detach themselves.

James cleared his throat several times before he was able to speak. When he did his voice was sad but firm. ‘There are very few facts here and a great many assumptions. The investigation has only just begun. We must stand by Olivia, we are all the family she has. Her friends are ours. My guess is they will remain true to her and take a position not unlike our own: one of silence, non co-operation with the media, availability to the police but above all loyalty to her. It’s all we can do for her. If
we are questioned we must be honest about Olivia but always play down the dark side of her nature. So far as they’re concerned, it must be presented as no more than a game she liked to play.’

‘But where has she gone? And why did she run away? Has she done it – murdered her lover? She must be out of the country by now. Who did she go to for help? Was she coming here? The abandoned car … Had she been driving it? Was she frightened by someone or something or possibly, at the last few minutes coming up the drive, she realised we would be abetting her escape and she could not bring herself to drag us into her scandal,’ said Marguerite.

‘Marguerite! If we must question and speculate let us all make a pact – never before anyone outside this room,’ James commanded.

Marguerite was taken aback. The tone of his voice brooked no denial.

‘I think we should drink to that,’ suggested Angelica.

‘A vow?’ said September.

‘If you like,’ answered James.

‘And smash the glasses in the fireplace! You can’t be serious?’ said Marguerite incredulously.

Her answer was silence. Angelica rose from her chair and walked to a console table where she filled four small long-stemmed crystal glasses with calvados and placed one in front of each person. She took her seat again then raised her glass and said, ‘Olivia – wherever you are.’ She drained the calvados in one swallow and immediately broke the stem of her glass on the edge of the table. James was next, followed by Marguerite and September.

Afterwards James rose from his chair and left the room. The three women remained at the table. The calvados seemed to have eased the shock they had suffered.

Marguerite adored Olivia but the young woman was not such an integral part of her life as she was of the Buchanans’. Marguerite had seen just how fiercely loyal they intended to be to Olivia. But what if she was a murderer? The question kept repeating itself in her mind. The other three seemed by their
words and actions determined not to let that deter them. Could she follow suit?

Not to have drunk that toast would have alienated her from James, September and Angelica and, she had no doubt, their friends and the villagers. Did the taking of a life mean so little to them that they had not even paused to consider the morality of what they were doing?

Marguerite herself had rallied to Olivia not because she was afraid not to but because she remembered her young friend as one whose passions were many and whose courage to live them to the full, with dignity and joy in life, was uplifting and inspiring. Could a woman like that be a cold-blooded killer? Marguerite could face the truth: everyone is capable of killing if circumstances demand it. And Olivia had run away, an indication she might be implicated. Marguerite knew that the murdered prince and Olivia’s dash for freedom would dwell on her mind, whereas the Buchanans would simply ignore any fact that implied her guilt. And that really troubled Marguerite.

Her thoughts were interrupted by James’s return to the dining-room. He held in his hands an ebony box inlaid with silver and ivory roses. He told the women at the table, ‘Pass the broken glasses down to me. We’ll put them in this casket and have them mended when Olivia has come home to Sefton.’

September, recovered now from the shocking news, spoke up. ‘Olivia cherished life. She lived for the moment and taught us to do the same. We’ve all benefited from her generosity and kindness, her endless
joie de vivre
. That’s why we all love her – why her beauty of body and soul enslave everyone who met her. She is dangerously beautiful and I for one will do anything I can to support and stand by her. I don’t believe she has a friend who will not feel as I do.’ With that she rose from the table and walked away.

‘What we must never forget is that the prince was a most charming cad all the time, a sadist some of the time, a sensualist who had dragged Olivia down into his depraved world where she wallowed in sensation. She assured herself and her friends that she would pull out of that life when she was
bored with it. Olivia was strong-willed. She believed, and made us believe, what she said. And now this! To hell with the prince, I say. She loved him and he used her.’ Angelica too rose and walked away.

Chapter 3

Gerry and Cimmy Havelock were having breakfast in the garden when he shook the paper open and saw Olivia staring out at him. The
Guardian
’s photograph of her was enchanting: a laughing beauty with her head thrown back and arms open in come hither fashion. He imagined he could hear her laughing.

Gerry read the article and immediately declared, ‘Impossible!’ He rose from his chair and dropped the newspaper into his wife’s lap. Kissing her on the cheek, he told her, ‘Don’t wait dinner for me, I’ll be late.’ And was gone before she could say a word.

Fortunately his car was already outside on the gravel sweep. Gerry slipped into the driver’s seat and drove slowly away from the manor house. The head gardener, Pringle, was just opening the iron gates. Gerry waved and gave one of his most charming smiles as he drove through them. Pringle raised his cap and called after him, ‘Morning, sir.’

‘Morning, Pringle. Can’t stop, running late.’

Pringle looked at his watch and wondered what the man was going on about. He was spot on time. Gerry Havelock was habitually punctual. In the twenty years the Havelocks had lived in Sefton Under Edge, Pringle had never known Mr Havelock be late leaving the house.

Cimmy Havelock picked up the paper and began reading about Olivia. Her first thought was of Raife, her son. How he had loved Olivia! Believed she loved him in return. And for a short time Olivia had loved the Havelocks, become a part of their life.

The thing about Olivia was that once you had a taste of her, you always wanted more, much more. She was everything that
was lacking in one’s own life. Why had Cimmy not realised that before it was too late? Before Olivia, Gerry and Raife had betrayed her with lies and evasions, while ostensibly trying to spare her the pain of their deceit. She had loved Gerry and Raife before Olivia took them away from her, but it had been a blind unquestioning love. She loved them still but was not so foolish now. And what of her own love for Olivia? Crushed and kicked aside, not by herself but the men in her life, her husband and her son. All had been forgiven years ago but not forgotten by her. No one ever spoke about what had happened. Time had healed the wounds Olivia had dealt them. For several years now, when Cimmy and Gerry’s paths had crossed Olivia’s, it was as if the entire affair had never happened.

Genuinely sweet of character, submissive, charming in an old-fashioned way, Cimmy was the best of wives to her husband and mothers to her son. She worked for the needy and opened her seven-acre garden, which the eighty-one-year-old Pringle had been working on for fifty-five years, to the public in aid of charity once a year. Yet she screwed up the newspaper and threw it violently in the rubbish bin.

The Reverend Edward Hardcastle did not hear about Olivia by reading the morning newspaper. He received the news from the butcher, Mr Evans, who remarked, ‘That lovely, sweet, pretty girl … known her all her life, Vicar. Lies, all lies. She’s no more done that foreigner in than I have.’ And handed the vicar his own copy of the
Mirror
.

The vicar was distressed by what he read. Mr Evans was correct, of course. Olivia – or the Olivia he knew – would be incapable of such an act. He took his packet of bacon from the butcher and headed back to the vicarage. All the way home he thought about Olivia, now on the run from the police. He kept remembering the agony and ecstasy of his suppressed lust for her. How difficult it had been to force her out of his life though finally loyalty to God had triumphed.

Lilith Hardcastle had never guessed the sexual fantasies her husband had wrestled with and finally managed to dispel from his mind. How appalled she would have been to learn that Edward, the man she believed she knew to the marrow of his
bones, lusted after a young woman. The Hardcastles were pillars of wisdom and kindness to the village, working night and day for their parish. Their six children, now grown and all at university, when at home filled the vicarage with gaiety and friends. The Reverend Hardcastle and his family exuded an aura of stability, love, contentment. Everyone wanted to be included in their magic circle. Even, for a time, Olivia.

In The Fox for a drink before or after dinner, depending on his work-load, Edward would change his collar for the philosopher’s hat and join some of the regulars holding forth on how to solve the problems of the world. At a round table close to the bar would be seated the vicar and possibly Lilith, Gerry Havelock, Miss Marble from the tea room, who never said a word from the time she greeted everyone to the time she wandered off home pleasantly tipsy, the retired General and the retired Admiral, who never agreed on anything.

At home, Edward went directly to the kitchen where he knew he would find his wife. He told Lilith about Lady Olivia Cinders as he handed her the bacon. She, like everyone else who heard the news, was shocked. She took a seat at the kitchen table and poured her husband a mug of coffee. Lilith’s first words were, ‘I don’t believe she could do such a thing! We must support her, do something about these accusations.’

‘I don’t think you should make a cause out of this, my dear,’ warned Edward.

‘Surely you could give her a character reference?’ insisted his wife.

‘Let’s wait for the right time. If and when we’re needed, Olivia knows we will help her. But until she asks for us we’d best stay out of this,’ he insisted.

Lilith rose from her chair and went to the cooker. She carried on making breakfast while keeping Olivia in the forefront of her mind. Edward must help! She could not understand his hesitation. It was very unlike him to hold back on anything when he could be of service.

The smell of bacon and eggs filled the kitchen, and even that incited further memories of Olivia. ‘Remember how she loved my fried eggs, Edward? I would make them for her and Beth the
morning after one of their sleepovers. Let’s pray she’s not out there somewhere in the world alone and without friends. Edward, you must try and reach her to let her know she can count on our friendship. Beth will be so upset when she hears the news. After the Buchanans, she was Olivia’s best friend.’

‘Lilith, Olivia drifted away from Beth and our other children a very long time ago. Let’s just wait and see what’s really happened before you start a support group for her. What we should do is pray that she comes to her senses and returns, goes to the authorities and clears her name. It would be best for her and for everyone. This village is a haven of peace and love, a paradise to live in. I shudder to think what would happen to it if the police appear here and throw us to the media.’

‘Well, you and your cronies at the pub will have plenty to talk about tonight,’ was his wife’s only reply.

Edward forked into his mouth a piece of bacon and egg, its rich yellow yolk dripping off the silver prongs on to his plate.

‘There goes Miss Plumm, off to the butcher on her bicycle, and here comes Jethroe with his dogs, swinging a brace of rabbits.’

Jethroe entered through the kitchen door without even knocking and slammed the rabbits down on the worktop. ‘Morning. Thought you might like these for a stew, or marinated in herbs and olive oil and thrown on your barbecue. God, that bacon smells great. Makes the mouth water.’

Lilith placed four more rashers in the frying pan and turned up the gas. ‘You will stay for breakfast, Jethroe?’

‘Well, since you ask,’ he replied with a smile.

Both Edward and Lilith found his appearance in their kitchen, bearing a gift of game, strange to say the least. He behaved as if this was the norm when indeed it was not. Though Jethroe had been in their house innumerable times it had always been by invitation.

As a publican he was first class; as a man a devout sinner and a mean drunk, a notorious womaniser, and not a very discreet one. He treated his current lover Hannah Brite, the barmaid at The Fox, abominably. The occasional bruise on her forearm and face were all too obvious.

‘Nice of you to bring us the rabbits, Jethroe. Aren’t they wanted in The Fox’s kitchen?’ asked Edward.

‘I got lucky, shot more than we need. I suppose you’ve heard about the abandoned car and now all the scandal over Olivia? I called my old station in London to get the inside information. It seems she did kill him and got away. They’ll catch her in the end. Interpol’s already on it. The pub’s sure to be full tonight with all this to chew on.’

‘I hope you said nothing that will bring them down around our ears?’

‘I said nothing, and suggest you do the same when or if she’s not found and New Scotland Yard starts digging deeper into her life. Might I suggest you write down where you and your wife were last night. It’s conceivable that you might have forgotten by the time the police become aware of who her real friends are. She has many here in the village as well as at Sefton Park. They’re bound to come asking for information.’

After Jethroe finished his breakfast he thanked Lilith and left rather abruptly.

‘That’s the first time Jethroe’s ever behaved like that with us – as if he were our bosom friend. Walking in without even a knock at the door, and bringing the rabbits. He’s never given us any before! They were just an excuse to pay us a visit, and I don’t believe for a minute that it was to warn us to have an alibi ready for last night. Such melodrama,’ said Lilith.

‘It was more as if he was establishing one for himself – being out shooting last night – and this is the evidence, fresh-killed rabbit,’ said Edward as he raised a poor dead beast then laid it neatly on the draining board.

Jethroe had been right about one thing. That evening and well into the night The Fox was as crowded as it could possibly be. The talk was all of the abandoned car, the police roaming through the wood questioning the villagers, and finally of Lady Olivia. The majority of the drinkers agreed it had to be a mistake. She wasn’t the sort to be a murderess.

Detective Chief Inspector Harry Graves-Jones was sitting at his desk in New Scotland Yard with a bad feeling about the case to
which he had just been assigned. On the one hand he was delighted to be offered such a high-profile murder investigation. On the other, the case had all the ingredients to intrigue the general public: a foreign prince, a beautiful aristocrat who had fled the scene of the crime, high society, mega wealth, glamorous living and playing, sex and politics. The media would gobble up every detail and keep him under constant scrutiny. ‘How those bastards on Fleet Street will love this!’ he said aloud.

The commissioner, sitting in a swivel chair looking out of the window, spun round to face him.

‘Sorry, sir, thinking aloud. Fleet Street … the tabloids … they’ll milk this story dry.’

The commissioner had been droning on about procedure, how the Yard must come out of this one as having behaved impeccably in everything they did to apprehend Lady Olivia. The investigation was going to be doubly difficult because a prince from one of the Gulf States was involved. That meant interference from a foreign government who would certainly put pressure on the Home Office who in turn would pester the commissioner. Harry had only been listening to him with half an ear. The commissioner, as he always did, assumed they would succeed in finding their quarry and delivering her to the courts. For him it was just a matter of days, a week at the most, before they captured Lady Olivia.

The commissioner had followed Harry to his office from the ward room where he had been instructing his officers, thirty-seven of them, to call at every house in Mayfair, question every resident in the hope of obtaining some clues.

‘In an investigation such as this one time is your enemy, Harry. At the moment it’s on our side. She can’t have gone too far. You checked out the London stations and airports, didn’t you?’

‘There’s been no sighting of her. Nothing. But a woman like that has to have friends. She could be hiding out right under our noses, or they could have driven, sailed or flown her out of the country by now.’

All the while Harry and his superior were talking, Harry kept his gaze on a silver-framed photo of Olivia standing on his desk. She was incredibly beautiful, like fire and ice. She had a classical
aristocratic English beauty with a seductive flame that burned bright beneath. He had taken the photograph from on top of the piano in Olivia’s drawing-room at Albany on Piccadilly, one of the smartest, most exclusive addresses in London.

‘Sir, we’re dealing here with anything but a common criminal,’ Harry observed. ‘It’s the privileged classes we’ll be dealing with and my guess is they’ll close ranks. Lady Olivia’s friends and relations and the anglophile Arabs who surrounded the prince will be more of a hindrance than a help. We’ll be out on our own on this one. Co-operation will hardly be the name of the game.’

‘That’s why you were assigned this investigation. You know how to deal with that sort. You can be unorthodox but you never overstep the mark. Run this case any way you like, I’ll give you as much assistance as I can and fend off the press as much as is possible.’

With that the commissioner rose from his chair as did Harry. The two men shook hands and the commissioner left the room. Harry sat down again. He took the silver-framed photograph in his hands and studied Olivia’s face for a considerable time. He drew her into his subconscious, wanting to carry her with him. He hoped to achieve a sense of her, to get into her head, think the way she would be thinking, predict how she would react to being on the run, so that he could pre-empt her movements and track her down.

Within hours the crazies as well as the Good Samaritans would be calling in with sightings of Lady Olivia. Every last one of them would have to be followed up. If only one per cent of the calls was genuine luck was on Harry’s side. He rang the ward room and asked for two young detectives, Joe Sixsmith and Jenny Sullivan.

They entered the room together. The three of them had worked well as a team before. Sixsmith and Sullivan were familiar with this new breed of detective of which Harry was the best New Scotland Yard had to offer. They were somewhat in awe of his crack investigative mind, his posh voice and knowledge of the English aristocracy and how it works. Behind his back fellow officers referred to him as The Gent, because of his public school and Cambridge education, his Savile Row suits:
hound’s-tooth, grey flannel; blue fine cotton shirts; the subtle burgundy silk tie, and always the tiny white orchid in his lapel.