Your Royal Hostage (20 page)

Hostage?' Princess Amy guessed that he was smiling behind the mask; that thought did not reassure her either.

'Look, I'll show you something,' he said suddenly. Beagle took a small key and unlocked the cupboard beneath the basin. He drew out further rolls of photographs and started to strew them round the floor, on the boards, on the white cushions, finally on the bed. These were not photographs of seals, or indeed of animals, wild or domestic. With increasing apprehension. Princess Amy recognized herself in a series of enormous images, some clearly cropped from bygone royal functions (at which she had in fact cut an extremely minor figure) some snatched as she entered the Cumberland Palace gates. One actually showed her leaning out of the first-floor window at Cumberland Palace, laughing. Laughing! What on earth had she been laughing
at?
Don't brood,
talk.
Amy told herself fiercely.

'So you see. Your Royal Highness, you're my little private passion,' observed Beagle pleasantly. He stood over the photographs on the floor for a moment, gazed at Amy as though to compare them, and finally
rolled them all up again. 'Now
will you go to sleep? With or without food. I wouldn't let any harm come to you, would I? No violence. My little private passion.'

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

In a Secret Place

'They're holding her. In a secret place,' said
Ione
Quentin. 'Now will you help me?'

Jemima Shore's first reaction was that Princess Amy's normally equable lady-in-waiting had taken leave of her senses; presumably under the strain of the wedding preparations. But wasn't that exactly what she was hired for? A talent for calm administration. Oh well, people went mad at all sorts of awkward moments and for all sorts of awkward reasons.

Ione
Quentin's arrival at Jemima's Holland Park Mansions flat had several bizarre aspects to it. For one thing, her name on the intercom had not been immediately recognizable (Jemima tended to think of her merely as 'the lady-in-waiting') so that Jemima took her at first to be some importunate fan; Megalith was not supposed to divulge her address, but there had been visits in the past and after all Megalith was no longer bound to protect her. Jemima did distinguish the word 'help' and decided she was not in the mood for offering kindness to strangers.

It was Rick Vancy, lingering after the so-called working breakfast (actually coffee and orange juice with bran muffins), who rolled his eyes and said: 'Hey, that sounds interesting. I haven't seen you in your sleuth's role before. I'm kind of curious to watch how you operate.' At which point Jemima decided that in order to get rid of Rick Vancy ('I'm afraid I never allow outsiders in on this kind of thing' she observed sweetly), she would pay the price of attending to a distraught member of the public.

Rick Vancy, thus dismissed, passed
Ione
Quentin coming up the stairs; he too did not recognize her, or not immediately. He did place her a minute after she had been admitted to the top-floor flat but by then it was too late - too late to satisfy his curiosity about the nature of her mission. He made a mental note to enquire what that was all about when he next talked to Jemima. (It would probably be gross to call her from the car, and the woman, Quentin, might still be there.) Is Jemima holding out on me over something, he wondered. Much later Rick Vancy would curse the rare impulse towards reticence which had possessed him at this precise moment.

In the meantime Jemima was staring at
Ione
. Both women remained standing. 'Why are you telling me this? Surely the police - my God, what are
they
doing about it?' And the journalist in Jemima caused her to add in spite of herself: 'Why hasn't anything appeared in the Press?'

Ione
explained in a surprisingly steady voice just why nothing, so far, had emerged. Agitated at the beginning, or merely nervous, she had regained her poise, it seemed. 'They want to get her back first. Naturally. A free hand to act. I suppose it always happens in kidnapping cases if one did but know: they try to keep it all quiet. But they won't get her back. Not without your help. And my help.'

Ione
was looking straight at Jemima as though willing her to agree; there was something fierce, almost domineering about her gaze; suddenly she flinched. It was in fact the cat Midnight who had wandered insouciantly through the open balcony window and was now rubbing himself against Ione's leg. 'Oh, a cat. I thought —' she managed a smile. 'I'm not like Lydia, I'm not a terrific animal lover, I'm afraid. Humans very much first.'

'Lydia?'

'My little sister, Lydia. That's the point. That's why I'm here. I'm afraid she's terribly involved in all this. I know she is. She led them into the box, the men who grabbed the Princess. She asked if she could present her host to Princess Amy - he's some kind of philanthropist. So I arranged it. That's how they got in, not the philanthropist but some Arabs, or men dressed as Arabs. And now she's vanished. She ran off, didn't come home with me. That's exactly why you've got to help me.'

'Lydia Quentin!' exclaimed Jemima. The girl in the box next to her at the opera. The man
in the box: that man who had al
so been at prayer in Westminster Cathedral. She had a vision of the intense face of her neighbour at Covent Garden, eyes staring ahead, staring indeed at the Royal Box. 'Burning eyes.' Where had she heard that phrase and heard it extremely recently? Pompey who had called her only minutes ago about the new witness in his murder case. Was that Lydia Qucntin? She felt she was on the edge of understanding. For the time being she turned back to
Ione
.

'Miss Quentin, what can I
do?' But to tell the truth Jemima was attending to
Ione
with only half her mind. The other half of her attention was focused on the fact that here she was, Jemima Shore Investigator, being presented with the scoop of her career, the scoop of anyone's career, and what on earth could she do about it, what on earth
should
she do about it?

Ione
's voice cut across these thoughts.

'You see, Jemima, I know where they're holding her.' The fact that
Ione
addressed her unasked by her Christian name was now the single sign of disturbance tha
t she displayed. What an incred
ible woman! thought Jemima. She witnesses her mistress kidnapped, abducted, or whatever you like to call it, she has reason to think her own sister is involved and she's still as cool and collected as if she's wearing a hat and white gloves at Ascot.

'Then you
must
go to the police -'

‘I
f I go to the police, something ghastly will happen. I know it. She might even kill herself.'

'Oh surely not,
Ione
* - since they were friends - I
would imagine that's the last thing she would do! Not that I know her as you do of course. One interview and that's all. All the same I thought she came across as surprisingly spirited, for Royalty, if I may say so without offence. Not at all the suicidal type.'

'Royalty?'
Ione
looked fleetingly puzzled. 'Oh Royalty. No, Jemima, I'm not talking about Princess Amy. I'm talking about Lydia. My sister.'

Jemima reflected that under the circumstances it was a fairly amazing thing to say but then the circumstances themselves were fairly amazing. And
Ione
Quentin was adding to them, minute by minute, in this tale she was unfolding.

'There's this man who got hold of her, I know he did, got hold of her and made her do all sorts of things. She's so impressionable, Lydia, and she's been badly ill. She's really not responsible for what she does, you must see that. You made that programme, I watched it when Lydia was — well, in pretty terrible shape. "Look To The Weak". It helped me get through. I've done what I can since our mother killed herself, that's when it all started, really started. Lydia adored our mother. It was such a shock.'
Ione
paused. 'But she was always - fragile is the word I use. Or weak -your word. She had a little collapse once when a dog had to be put down when it bit someone, a grown-up who was teasing it. Our f
ather as a matter of fact. Leele
e said all sorts of wild things about putting down the grown-up instead - Daddy, that is. He was terribly strict - they didn't get on. She hated all his shooting and things like that. And he was so much older. She was easily upset, you see. Tender hearted. She loved animals, Jemima. She thought they were innocent! She's always felt so guilty herself. This photographer, the man who got hold of her, played on that.'

'Animals and innocence. So this is Innoright. And a photographer -' The shape of the conspiracy was beginning to appear to Jemima: an intense girl, a middle-aged businessman, and a rangy-looking young photographer who had come late to the Republican Hotel and sat next to her. All of these, and perhaps some others, had been gathered in that chapel at Westminster Cathedral. Was she at the same time stumbling towards a solution of Pompey's murder? In the meantime
Ione
continued to pour out her confidences concerning her sister.

'Of course it's Innoright! I've tried so hard to save her from it all. I used to go through all her things but she got cunning. Then I took to following her; there were certain stories she always told me about cinemas with girlfriends, late nights listening to their troubles. Whatever she told me about listening to other people's troubles, I knew she was, well, in trouble herself. I was always wary then. Poor darling, it wasn't so difficult to follow her, thinking she was so clever with her changing Tubes and her codes and all that. In many ways Lydia is still a baby.' 'This man, I gather, is not a baby.'

'He has this place in Covent Garden,' continued
Ione
as if Jemima had not spoken. 'I'm sure that's where they are. Horribly sordid. But that's not the point. If we went together we could talk to her. It could all be settled. Quietly. I'd take her away, take Leelee away. I do realize she'd have to go away —'

'Whether you're right or wrong, we
must
tell the police.' Jemima displayed a firmness at least equal to Ione's. 'These people are dangerous maniacs. No, not your sister. The others. As for your sister -' she stopped. She thought
Ione
Quentin had probably got enough to cope with at the present time. Besides it was important to keep her contentedly, or more or less contentedly, in line with what Jemima now proposed to do. For the time being, 'dangerous maniacs', politely excluding Lydia Quentin with her burning eyes, was appropriate enough.

'Dangerous maniacs' was however the mildest of the terms currently being used at Scotland Yard where the Innoright demands had just been received. Chicken had delivered them: she had been chosen as the least conspicuous of the cell (of those not currently involved in other tasks such as the guarding of the Princess). Moreover she assumed a traffic warden's uniform to do so, courtesy of Leaviss, which in a true sense made her even less conspicuous. Shortly after Chicken delivered the flat envelope to Scotland Yard, Fox telephoned to advise of the demands' arrival.

Fox was deputed by Monkey to do so: Monkey did not trust his own rather plummy voice to be sufficiently concealed, besides which he had been seen publicly with Lamb. Fox made the call from Pussy's flat, taking care, he hoped, to deepen his own naturally rather high voice. (Fox, a frustrated actor-turned-costumier, was proud to perform the task.) Pussy's flat was arranged, he found, like some kind of chapel; but as Beagle's secret studio was dedicated to animals. Pussy's flat centred round huge photographs of a blonde girl with long hair. Fox vaguely recognized her: wasn't that some well-known model? But Fox was not interested in Pussy's private life: having telephoned as arranged, his chief concern was to get back to Noel.

'Would you be interested in meeting Noel? That's my dog,' he could not resist asking in the temporary mood of exhilaration which seized him after he had made the call.

'A pet?' Pussy's voice, the voice
of one referring to some truly
barbaric practice, was icy; too la
te Fox remembered Pussy's views
about pets and the story, the hideous story, about Pussy and the
Alsatian. If she were to lay a finger on Noel! Pussy was dangerous.
That sort of thing was the work of a maniac

'Dangerous maniacs!' The phrase, with others considerably less agreeable, continued to be bandied about Scotland Yard.

'Princess Anne held up in The Mall, attempted kidnapping, that man in Her Majesty's bedroom wanting to talk to her or so he said, and now this - at the opera of all places - where will it end?' intoned a senior policeman in a doleful litany.

'It's simple, now, isn't it?' said an even more senior policeman patiently. 'Now we know where she is. We agree to them all, these demands, don't we? For the time being.'

One of his colleagues began to list the demands in a kind of rising frenzy. 'So where do you suggest we start?' he ended aggressively. 'The free-zone for animals in Windsor Great Park, for example? Incorporating the animals
in the Windsor Wild Life Park -I
think I'm quoting correctly. The whole of Windsor Great Park to be running wild with sweet little wolves and tigers and seals and dolphins right up to the castle itself. Correction: seals and dolphins don't run.

'Shall we start there?' he went on. 'Or the airlift to Africa and India perhaps, the airlift of all the animals in British zoos hailing from there? Shall we begin with the airlift perchance? Seeing as I note the Windsor Great Park scheme merely needs a public broadcast to inaugurate it. No problem, that.

'Or, let me see, Regent's Park, another free-zone, no, I beg its pardon, Innozones is what they will be called. Zones for innocents.' His voice rose and he was almost screaming. 'Isn't that lovely? Lions and tigers milling all about the American Ambassador's residence. That should take care of our security problems there nicely. No more guards necessary.'

As the senior policeman remained impassive, his colleague looked at the paper again and made a visible effort to control himself. 'As a matter of pure interest, if we do promise all this, what guarantee have they got, Innoright, these nutters, that the demands will be carried out? Once we've got her back.'