Oxford Blood (8 page)

Jemima saw that Saffron was crying.

When he finally looked up, however, his expression was quite steady. 'Such a relief to tell someone,' said Saffron after a while. He took Jemima's hand and pressed it.

'You haven't told me anything yet.' Jemima spoke gently; after all she knew - who better? - exactly what he was going to say. What she had not known till this minute was the fearful strength of Nurse Elsie's dying obsession - if that was what it was. It had never occurred to Jemima, famous instinct for once at fault, that Nurse Elsie, as the days passed and death came nearer, with no lawyer arriving, might have passed on her story to anyone else. Yet she
should
have known it of course: when Sister Imelda referred to Nurse Elsie's 'peace of mind' at the end, Jemima
should
have realized that Father Thomas had granted absolution - which supposed some form of revelation to someone. To how many others did Nurse Elsie tell her story, was the unspoken question in Jemima's mind, even before Saffron told of his own interview with the dying woman.

'Why me?' was what Jemima said when Saffron had finished relating Nurse Elsie's story. Then she received her second surprise. Saffron spoke flatly, as though all his emotion had for the time being been drained away.

'Because you knew already. That's true, isn't it? You were going to bring a lawyer. Expose the whole thing. Aristocratic fake. Phoney lord. Those were going to be the headlines on television.'

'For heaven's sake,' exclaimed Jemima, 'who on earth told you that? It is true I was going to bring a lawyer—' She stopped. What had she intended exactly? Oh wise Cass! she thought, why didn't I listen to you before I got involved in all of this? Too late now to step back. 'That was to bring comfort to a dying woman,' she went on carefully. 'The priest wouldn't give her absolution unless she made restitution, as it's called. Making a statement to a lawyer - he wasn't a solicitor by the way, so he wasn't a commissioner of oaths, just a barrister friend of mine - that was a kind of well-meant sop.'

Something else struck Jemima. 'Phoney lord, aristocratic fake. Those were never Nurse Elsie's words. Who else have you discussed this with your parents—' she paused delicately. After all, one of the main points of Nurse Elsie's story was that Lord St Ives had proposed the deception; he might have been motivated by a desire to spare his wife pain, but the consequence would be to deprive Andrew Iverstone - or more likely his only son Jack - of his inheritance.

'It's not true. Don't you understand?' Saffron said this very fiercely. 'It's not true! Of course I haven't told Pa. As for Ma, it would kill her. She's in a pretty dickey state anyway.' Now it was Saffron's turn to pause. 'As a matter of fact I did tell Tiggie. Not the truth, of course. Just that you were trying to rake up some scandal about me. Spill dirt all over me. And
she
put the point about television. She's into that kind of thing. After all, she screws Cy Fredericks, doesn't she? Or maybe she doesn't. With Tiggie, who knows? She said she'd fix it.'

'Fix me?'

Saffron gave her his disarming smile. 'Fix the programme if you like. Get Megalith so involved with me, your original Oxford Blood, that they wouldn't even want to expose me - not that there's anything to expose,' he added quickly.

'Ah.' One thing which Jemima had tucked away in the corner of her mind as not-to-be-forgotten and one-day-to-be-investigated was the reason for Tiggie Jones' hostile 'anonymous' telephone call. As for Cy Fredericks - to adapt the words of Saffron, who cared if he was screwing Tiggie or not - but in either case she understood the passionate advocacy of the
Golden Kids
programme which had infuriated her; clearly Tiggie was putting pressure upon him.

'So how does it all fit in? The murder attempts - if that's what they were - and Nurse Elsie's story. In view of what she said, why should anyone want to
kill
you—' Jemima stopped rather awkwardly, then decided that she might as well be frank. 'Wouldn't it be better for an interested party' - that was a delicate phrase - 'to
expose
you?' That was somehow less delicate, but Jemima ploughed on: 'Expose you as not being your father's real son?'

'Don't you see, that's for you to find out. All I know is that there have been these attempts. The car; that night when poor Bim died. And they all began when that horrible old woman died.'

'In short,' Jemima ended up telling Cass Brinsley, in a voice which she hoped was as disarming as that of Tiggie Jones, or Saffron himself, in short, I've agreed to go to the Chimneysweepers' Dinner at the beginning of next term as his guest. I'll pretend to be researching the programme. But actually I'll be there as a kind of protection. In case someone has another go.'

'Will you be wearing a gun?' enquired Cass. It was his turn to sound cold. He began to appreciate the irritation Jemima had felt at his interest in Tiggie Jones (although that was of course totally platonic, mere sociological interest in one so young, so bizarre - and admittedly so pretty). Was it possible that Jemima fancied the odious Saffron? 'Phoney lord' - yes indeed.

Reflecting later on this conversation with Jemima, Cass angrily hoped that Saffron would turn out to be the son of a butcher and then quickly corrected himself, realizing that this was a concept highly insulting to butchers. The trouble with Jemima was that she was so convinced that her head ruled her heart, that she never seemed to notice her extreme vulnerability to any rash suggestion on the part of the aforesaid heart, added to which, what was all this heart nonsense anyway? Saffron was an extremely handsome as well as extremely arrogant young man, and when had Jemima ever been averse to a handsome man, young or old?

Absolutely resolved to put all these thoughts away from him, Cass Brinsley reached for his telephone book and looked for the number of Flora, that pupil in his Chambers about whom Jemima had been so surprisingly suspicious. He then wondered idly what Tiggie Jones' telephone number might be and whether Cherry could be persuaded to disgorge it
...
When Jemima returned to London, he would try to dissuade her from further involvement with Saffron, involvement beyond the call of professional duty to the programme. Nothing personal. Merely his concern for Jemima's own best interests.

But it turned out that Jemima's own concern for her best interests did not exactly tally with that of Cass. During the academic holidays, Cy Fredericks' appetite for the
Golden Kids
programme was further sharpened by various exciting encounters with Tiggie Jones (faithfully reported to Cherry by Miss Lewis, who ran a nice line in quiet bitchery behind her agreeable Sloane Ranger exterior). And the beginning of May found Jemima once more installed in her suite at the Martyrs Hotel. What was more, she was preening himself in the mirror, preparatory to attending the Chimneysweepers' Dinner on the arm of Lord Saffron.

'Preening' was the word because she was not going to wear a gun to dinner, she was going to wear a new Jean Muir outfit consisting of wide flowing crepe culottes, a silk blouse, and a crepe jacket cut like a very grand cardigan. Jemima was now trying the effects of a scarf against the soft grape-coloured folds of the blouse. She was sufficiently distracted not to notice a large packet on her desk until it was almost time to sally forth.

Inside the packet was a book and a note. Jemima frowned. The title was not immediately seductive to one about to cut a swathe (in a new Jean Muir dress) among the notorious Oxford Bloods. She read the note first.

Study it, Jemima Shore Investigator. I actually went as a blood donor over Easter at Saffron Ivy because Ma is the local President or whatever, so my good blue blood was in demand, to prove giving blood is harmless in spite of AIDS. The Prince of Wales had just given
his
even bluer blood, and I was out to please poor old Ma. After recent events. I do have my nice side, you know. Except my blood wasn't blue exactly, it was AB like a reader of
The Times.
Which, according to the uniformed vampire who took it, is a fairly rare group. At least she made me feel my blood was socially useful even if I wasn't. Something else the vampire said made me ask Ma what her group was, and she said: 'O, I think, darling, same as Pa's.' 'Oh no, Lady St Ives' says the vampire importantly, that's not possible . . .' which set me thinking. Of course blood isn't everything, I hear you say. Or isn't it?

The paper was the familiar crackling parchment headed by the curly words 'Saffron Ivy'. There was a similarly curling S as a signature. A scribbled PS read, 'Why don't you come to the above noble pile? If you and I both survive the Chimneysweepers. You could say it would be for the sake of the programme.'

The title of the book (which had the book-plate of the Rochester College library) was
Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology.
A marker had been put in a chapter entitled 'Blood Grouping'. Page 349 contained a simple table, so simple in fact that even Jemima Shore, who had been woefully or perhaps wilfully stupid at science at school, could not fail to understand it. The table, entitled 'Derivation of Offspring After Landstei-ner', illustrated a sub-section called 'Blood grouping in cases of disputed paternity'. There were three headings in the table: 'Groups of Parents', 'Groups of Children' and 'Exclusion Cases'. Under 'Groups of Parents' Jemima traced down to O. The only possible blood group of children whose parents' own blood groups were both O, was given as O. The blood groups A, B and AB were specifically excluded from possibility.

That seemed clear enough, rather horribly clear in fact. In case it wasn't, there was a further Note appended: 'A and B agglutinogens cannot appear in the offspring unless present in the blood of one or both parents. This is common to the theories of von Dungern and Hirszfeld, and of Bernstein.' So if the table was correct - Jemima glanced at the date of the book - and if she had understood the table aright and if matters concerning blood groupings were really quite so simple, and above all if Lady St Ives had got it right about her own and her husband's blood group, then Saffron could not be his parents' natural child, because the A and B agglutinogen, whatever that was, could not be present in the offspring of two O group parents. According to Landsteiner, von Dungern, Hirszfeld, old uncle Bernstein and all. The date of
Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology
was 1950 and its author was one Glaister.

How odd, how truly ironic, if Saffron's blood, to which he paid such store, proved in the end to be a fatal liability!

Was it that simple? Could it be that simple? A good deal seemed to rest on the evidence of Lady St Ives, speaking off the cuff at some function which was only vaguely official; after all she could have easily been mistaken about her husband's blood group if not her own. Jemima remembered a recent case of a baby's disputed paternity which had been settled by blood tests taken from the two possible fathers; but details of the process had not been given. What was an agglutinogen anyway and could a blood test lie? Questions like this made a bizarre contrast to the evening ahead of her when the only blood likely to be under consideration was the aristocratic blood of the participants. At least she hoped it was.

And that blood was not actually going to flow. At least she hoped it wasn't.

8

Dress: Gilded Rubbish

Jemima's first reaction to the sight of the assembled rout of the Oxford Bloods at the Chimneysweepers' Dinner was that for once the newspapers had not exaggerated. The theme of the evening, Saffron had informed her, was to be taken from the magistrate's remarks at the end of the Martyrs case in which he himself had featured so prominently. 'Gilded rubbish' were the words used by the magistrate, and 'Dress: Gilded rubbish' was printed at the bottom of the Chimneysweepers' ornate invitation. Jemima herself could not have thought of a more exact description of the medley of peacocks which confronted her. It was as though a Beckett play was being enacted by a set of Firbank characters.

The club, for obvious reasons no longer welcome at the Martyrs, had taken refuge in a slightly down-at-heel restaurant on the edge of the river called The Punting Heaven, which was presumably prepared to overlook the Oxford Bloods' fearsome reputation for the sake of pecuniary reward. Now these sparkling tramps - was that Tiggie Jones emerging from a scanty parcel of newspaper sprayed with glitter dust? - congregated on the small lawn in front of the restaurant. Some of the Bloods were sprawled on the grass and champagne bottles already rolled among the gilded dustbins with which the path to the river was artistically lined.

Had the Bloods actually arrived in the enormous dustcart, suitably gilded and hung with other golden dustbins, which jostled with Jemima's white car at the edge of the lawn? Or was it perhaps for display purposes only? Was it indeed a genuine municipal object, decorated for the evening, or somebody's bizarre creation
? Jemima touched it. Papier ma
che and paint: characteristically superficial glamour. The structure began to sway perilously even to her light touch, and she backed away lest this
oeuvre
come to dust even before
the Chimneysweepers' Dinner had
begun. Along its flank was painted the insouciant motto: 'Gold is all that glitters' - another characteristic touch.