The Bee's Kiss (10 page)

The constable and the sergeant were settled in the back seat, the hamper wedged firmly between them. Each was studiously ignoring the other. Tilly sat rigidly, taking on just the degree of frozen composure to signal that her proximity to the sergeant was imposed and displeasing. Armitage looked fixedly through his window, whistling a tune under his breath. Joe thought he made out a snatch of ‘Ain’t We Got Fun.’

‘Lovely house, Westhorpe,’ he commented politely.

‘Ah, yes. Jolly expensive to keep up though,’ she replied coolly.

Joe sighed. He was not going to have his investigation compromised by a display of entrenched hostility but he decided against offending the intelligence of either one by delivering a pep talk on the necessity of pulling together. No, he decided it would be more productive to attempt practical methods of achieving some sort of fusion. And he’d already begun by installing them together in the back though he was aware that each had expected to sit in the front next to him.

Joe fought his way through the Sunday afternoon strollers and chugging omnibuses, south-west over the river, through Putney and Kingston and on to the Portsmouth road. The rows of neat villas petered out. Single, grander villas took up the tale and these too gave way to hedgerows, fields and church spires glimpsed across meadows. Soot-blackened trunks of elm trees lining the route were replaced by the unsullied boles of beeches trooping down green hillsides to gather in stands by the edge of the road. Gentle hills rose up before them, offshoots of the North Downs, and river valleys beckoned and wandered off enticingly into a blue distance.

Though Nature still had the upper hand here, Man was fast encroaching. Chimney stacks projecting above concealing trees and shy glimpses of impressive façades revealed that houses had recently been built. New money was moving out of London into hunting country and acquiring for its owners the trappings of gentility. The more discerning nouveaux riches were engaging architects of talent who knew how to make good use of local materials and how to position a house perfectly in its site, surrounding it with gardens designed to help its stone, brick and oak timbering to flow naturally into the countryside.

When Joe was confident he could identify buildings or an architectural style, he pointed them out with comments for the benefit of his silent passengers. He had slowed to 10 mph, talking enthusiastically of the romantic vernacular sweeps of tile-hung walls to be seen if they would just look to their left, when an exasperated sigh cut through his eulogy.

‘Please don’t feel you have to be so
interesting
, sir!’ said Tilly.

‘Ah! Time for a sandwich, I think,’ said Joe good-humouredly and pulled off the road into the shade of a small spinney. He got out and settled himself against a fallen tree. ‘I think you two can wait on me. What’s in the hamper, Westhorpe?’

‘Oh, sorry about that, sir. Couldn’t stop him. There’ll be the usual . . . ginger beer, a flask of coffee, cold roast chicken, smoked salmon sandwiches . . .’

‘Quails’ eggs?’ asked Armitage brightly in what Joe had come to recognize as his ‘posh’ voice. ‘I’m
so
hoping there’ll be quails’ eggs!’

‘It’s not the season for them,’ said Tilly, closing down the conversation.

Joe grinned. There was no season for quails’ eggs and he wondered how the pair had scored themselves on that opening round.

Joe eyed the tempting spread laid out in front of him on a picnic rug, hungry but hesitating as to how to start. Armitage came to a decision. He reached out and lifted a dish of tiny blue-shelled eggs and offered them to Tilly. In a voice so controlled he managed to speak with only the slightest emphasis he asked, ‘
Plover’s
egg, Constable? Will you start with a
plover’s
egg?’

Tilly looked at the sergeant with any attention for the first time that day and smiled her kilowatt smile. ‘How too, too marvellous! I’d simply adore one!’

If it wasn’t quite a truce, it was at least a slackening of hostilities, Joe reckoned, and set himself to chatter through the improvised luncheon party, insisting that each contributed to the conversation, an exercise which tested even his supple skills. In the end he decided that this was not a game for three adults but rather for one grown-up faced with two strange and hostile children. He changed tack and embarked on the one subject he knew would get a positive response from both.

‘We’re about half an hour short of our destination, I think,’ he said in his professional voice. ‘Not sure what to expect. But it’s bound to be awkward.’ He sighed. ‘Worst part of the job . . . breaking the news of a death . . . hearing the first reactions. But, unpleasant though it may be, you can pick up some useful information at such times. Stay alert, both of you. Just remember that we’re looking for someone close to the victim who had a motive for bashing her head in. And I hardly need to tell you that the people closest are most often to be found in one’s home.’

‘I can help you there, sir,’ said Westhorpe. ‘I did a little telephoning before you arrived and I’ve scraped together some information about the family. The Dame’s mother is Alicia Jagow-Joliffe. A widow, wealthy on her own account, I understand. Well known before the war for her efforts on behalf of women’s suffrage. She must be in her sixties but don’t expect a capped and mittened old lady. Like daughter, like mother. She has a son living with her, Beatrice’s brother . . . Orlando . . . I’m afraid.’

‘Anything known? Romantic poet by any chance?’

‘No. Seems to be a romantic artist. Spends a lot of time up in town paying court to the likes of Augustus John, buying rounds for the scroungers in the Fitzroy Tavern and paying the bill at the Café Royal. That sort of artist.’

‘I’m supposed to infer – dilettante . . .
flâneur
? Has he had time to get married, this boulevardier?’

‘I believe not. Though he does have an . . . er . . . attachment. Not always the
same
attachment. The current one’s called Melisande . . . Melusine . . . something like that. She’s his model. One of his models.’

‘How too bohemian for words!’ drawled Armitage.

For once, Tilly Westhorpe seemed to be in accord. Disapproval was evident in her voice as she pressed on: ‘Orlando is in his late thirties but he’s had time to provide himself with several offspring. No one’s quite certain how many. They all had different mothers and the mothers have all legged it, I understand. The present incumbent of his affections has taken the whole brood under her wing. And that’s the extent of the family. You will enjoy the house, sir. Though not grand, it’s reckoned to be of some historic and architectural interest.’

‘Makes a change from the widow in Wapping whose daughter got her head bashed in last week,’ commented Armitage in a neutral voice. ‘I had to tell her her oldest girl had snuffed it down by the docks where she had her beat. With six other kids in a single room I think they were all glad of the extra space on the mouldering mattress.’

‘Well, I think we’d better break up this jolly
déjeuner sur l’herbe
,’ said Joe, ‘and move on. I said we’d arrive at about three so we’re on schedule.’

‘Would you like
me
to drive, sir?’ said Westhorpe and Armitage in chorus.

Joe held his hands up in mock dismay and surrender. ‘Oh, all right! You’ve suffered enough, with no more than the occasional hissing intake of breath as a commentary on my driving skills, so I’ll surrender the wheel to . . . eeny, meeny, miney, Westhorpe. And I promise you can drive us back all the way to London Town, Bill.’

Even Armitage seemed content to be in the hands of Westhorpe who moved off smoothly and worked her way up through the gears, proceeding, on reaching a clear stretch of road, to put her foot down and try for the 70 mph Joe had assured them his otherwise unspectacular car was capable of.

‘Er, we don’t want to get there too early, Tilly,’ was all he would allow himself for comment.

To his surprise, Armitage leaned forward and engaged Westhorpe in conversation. Not very elevating conversation in Joe’s estimation but both seemed to find it absorbing enough: ‘What sort of car do you drive yourself, then, Constable?’

‘Oh, just a little thing. A two-seater sports car. A Bull-nose MG. A red one.’

‘Very nice too!’

‘Oh, underneath the pretty bodywork, you’ll find much the same chassis and engine as you’ve got in this Oxford.’

‘Ah! I thought you climbed behind the wheel with a lot of confidence.’

‘Easy to drive but one could always do with a bit more power.’

‘I’d have thought it was lively enough . . . gold medal in the London–Land’s End trial, wasn’t it?’

‘Well, yes. I can get it to 60 mph from a standing start in twenty seconds so I suppose you’re right. And yourself, Sergeant? What do you drive?’

‘Anything I can get my hands on! I haven’t got a car of my own – not possible on a sergeant’s pay – but I trained in high speed driving and did six months in the Flying Squad.’

‘So you were a thief-taker?’ Tilly was impressed.

‘Yes. Not as exciting as it might sound though,’ said Armitage modestly. ‘Too many hours cooped up under cover with a squad of sweating coppers parked outside a bank, waiting for something to happen. And then, as often as not, we’d find the villains had a faster set of wheels.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘With so many motor bandits operating these days, someone up there in the hierarchy –’ he glanced at Joe to check that he was listening – ‘is going to have to bite the bullet and put in for something a little more lively than the old Crossley RFC tenders. Perhaps when they’ve re-equipped with Bentleys I’ll reapply.’

‘Now you’re talking! They say the new model will be able to do over 100 mph.’

Well, it was a start. Joe groaned in boredom, closed his eyes and tuned out.

Westhorpe slowed down as they approached their destination. They looked with varying degrees of appreciation and envy at the house coming into view about a quarter of a mile from the road. It was attractive; it was unpretentious. It was distorted as, over five hundred years, the timber frame had settled into the soft heart of the land. Through years of faithfully applied ochre lime wash, the silhouette had blurred to a point where the house seemed to belong to the earth. The many-faceted lead panes of the oak-mullioned windows gave back a reflected sparkle as they picked up the rays of the afternoon sun.

Distantly, two enormous pear trees of incalculable age and white with blossom like ships in full sail formed a background to the house, peering over the mossed confusion of the steep-tiled roof with its soaring cluster of chimney stacks. It was a house Joe would have counted himself blessed to possess.

The approach was by a narrow carriage drive running between two imposing gate piers. Westhorpe saw them first. ‘Look, sir! I think that’s a welcoming party forming up. Or are they preparing to repel boarders? Not, apparently, mourning the dear departed exactly.’

Joe caught sight of two small figures – no more than children – who had been loitering at the base of the stone piers and were now furiously climbing upwards. Joe could guess what they were up to. Every county magazine featured photographs of bright young things at country house parties posing on top of gate piers pretending to be stone lions or Egyptian deities.

Joe smiled. ‘Approach slowly, Westhorpe, and pause in the gateway. Pay no attention to what I say. Hand me that leather-backed notebook from the glove locker, would you?’

The car came to a halt and Joe stepped out, book in hand. Placing himself in the centre of the driveway, eyes flicking from the distant house and back to his book, he began to pretend to read for the benefit of his passengers: ‘“The original structure is that of a modest West Surrey brick-built farmhouse of the sixteenth century. To this has been added a centre block in rough imitation of the style of Sir Christopher Wren: rosy Home Counties brickwork, solid, substantial white-painted sash windows . . . Skilful additions made probably in the early years of this century, somewhat in the manner of Charles Voysey . . .” There – the wing to your right. Observe, Constable. Voysey? Would you say Voysey? I’d have said rather – Lutyens.

‘“All is well until we come to the gate piers where a regrettable piece of naughtiness breaks out. Classical in style and combining practicality with grace, though the architect’s vision and – we have to say – taste desert him when it comes to the statuary atop each pier.” Note the statuary, Sergeant.’ Joe waved a dismissive hand.

The statuary, which had hitherto remained commendably motionless, now began to twitch.

‘“Diana on the left, holding her bow, and, on the right, her target, Actaeon. Perhaps that was the intent? More Grotesque than Grecian will be the judgement of the discerning visitor.”’

Diana on the left uttered a strangled gurgle and allowed her bow to droop. Actaeon on the right uttered a hissing, ‘I say!’

‘Drive on, Constable. I think we’ve seen enough here!’

The butler flung the door wide a carefully calculated five seconds after Joe’s double knock. Joe greeted him by name: ‘Reid? We spoke earlier on the telephone. Commander Sandilands.’ He presented his card which received a careful scrutiny.

‘Mrs Joliffe is expecting you, Commander. I will let her know you have arrived, sir.’ He nodded to a footman who took Joe’s hat and Armitage’s cap. With a shake of her head, Westhorpe indicated that she would retain her hat and they followed the butler along to a small south-facing drawing room. French doors were open on to a lawn set for croquet. A fire burned cheerfully in the grate under a carved oak mantelpiece. The room was furnished with a mixture of elegant pieces of traditional English design – Joe briefly noticed a particularly good set of Hepplewhite chairs – and some objects of more recent Arts and Crafts style. Oak tables, Turkey carpets and old pewter had settled down companionably side by side with modern hangings and silver ornaments. Joe thought the blend seemed right in this very English house in the shelter of the North Downs.

The tall, slender woman who turned to greet them on hearing their names announced, however, was straight out of a London drawing room. Dark red hair, short-cropped and turning to grey, strong features and haughty gaze gave Joe a disconcerting impression of the daughter he had only known in death.