Johnson-Johnson 06 – Dolly and the Nanny Bird (17 page)

And Rosamund had shut up.

I was able to study the scene, since the head steward led the Booker-Readmans and Johnson right off to see their hostess, and I was left sitting upright in a deep-buttoned armchair in the Empfangs-Halle, watching their cases being wheeled off to their staterooms.

There was no other luggage about: the last of the guests must have come from the airport and were probably even now sleeping off their jet lag in their cabins. By my reckoning we had been fed eight times in the last twenty-four hours and no one would miss lunch, one would imagine. From the deck above, a murmur of music and laughter and the distant tinkle of plates told that the European guests, already well settled in, were making the most of the cuisine. Groups of people from the cabin area drifted upstairs from time to time to join them, or crossed the carpet to enquire about cashing cheques or making telephone calls.

None of them looked at me, although like the stewards, I amused myself pricing their clothes and identifying them. The Eisenkopps hadn’t been far out in their guesswork. Men and women, they were a credit to Ingmar, and I had a shot at guessing which of them had begged to come and which she had paid to do so. It wasn’t an uninformed guess either. Private nurses and children’s nannies know more about the personal lives of the idle rich than any gossip writer ever born. It’s why half of them never hanker to marry, any more than the crowds at Brands Hatch want to change seats with the drivers.

Outside, I could hear a lot of muted activity: voices calling in German and machinery clanking and feet padding about, but inside it remained warm and scented and calm. Someone came and sprayed water all over the flowers, and someone else walked about letting fly with a ten-litre bottle of Ingmar’s new scent, in a pink and silver aerosol. I shut my eyes and a man in a white jacket said, ‘Fraülein Emerson? Will you be so kind as to follow me, please?’

He took me up two flights of carpeted stairs to the Kleine Halle of the boat deck. To the biggest suite, of course, on the
Glycera;
since Mrs Warr Beckenstaff was the charterer. The only person for many months ever to employ my second name and reasonably, also, since she was paying for me. Since she had attempted to hire me right from the beginning, before anyone knew I was free, the week after Mike Widdess had died.

Then the steward took me down a long corridor, past the fire extinguishers and the drinking water containers, and stopped at a double door swagged in pink velvet. The voice which answered his knock was high, commanding and totally English.

‘Send the girl in!’ said Grandmother Warr Beckenstaff; and in my pudding-basin hat, my uniform coat, my brown gloves and low, polished shoes I drew a breath and walked firmly forward.

The clear, cold voice spoke again before I saw anyone at all in the room: behind the flowers, the cushions, the sofas: the ceiling and walls of pink and grey velvet.

‘Tell me, girl,’ said the voice. ‘This extraordinary man Johnson Johnson: are you and he sleeping together?’

She must have been seventy-five anyway, which when you look around is no great age, I suppose in a woman, and you would expect her to have everything tucked that would tuck; and she had. But she also had the poise and the drive and the dress sense of a woman who had married a small émigré pharmaceutist and turned him into a world cosmetics industry, with centres in London and New York and Paris.

The bewildered Warr Beckenstaff had a breakdown and died shortly after the tenth balance sheet; and thereafter nothing could stop her. And now she stood there in her pink silk jersey dress and examined me, the wealthy lady who had chosen the schools and colleges and finishing establishments which had made Rosamund what she was, and looked like making an equal mess of my Benedict.

Tall as her daughter, Ingmar Warr Beckenstaff was spider-thin, the brittle shafts of her wrists and shoulders emphasised by the weight of metal she wore, embedded with gemstones. Her eyes were Rosamund’s: large and sunken and heavy-lidded; and if her chin was too definite, her cheek-bones were good and her mouth still had planes that could be tinted. The hair, a smooth bouffant silver grey, stopped just short of her ears and swept asymmetrically over in a wing which just cleared her left eye. Glimpsed briefly, from the other side of a street she would have had Donovan after her.

I must have smiled at the thought because she said, ‘You disappoint me. Why not answer? I thought you had character,’ and sat down.

‘I’m sorry. I was trying to remember,’ I said. ‘Was that all you wanted to know?’

‘How very prudish,’ she said. She had a gold and black onyx cigarette holder to match her necklet and was choosing a pink and silver scroll to screw into it. She looked up. ‘Sit down, girl. I am unlikely either to be shocked or to sack you for immorality. I am told that you have been a devoted and courageous nurse to my grandson, and I hope you feel that your services are being adequately recognised. I wish you to continue your excellent care of him. I also wish, in exchange, some information. My son-in-law sleeps around, and I don’t like it.’

I sat down, keeping my back straight, my ankles crossed and my hands with my gloves in my lap. ‘Not with me, Mrs Warr Beckenstaff,’ I said politely.

‘I think that’s probably true,’ she said annoyingly. ‘Go on. With whom, then?’

I said, ‘I have a full-time job with Benedict. There really isn’t much opportunity to study what else is going on in the household. In any case, it isn’t my business.’

‘So it’s the Eisenkopp woman. I was afraid so,’ said Mrs Warr Beckenstaff. I wondered how I had given that away, and concluded she was the only piece of crumpet who lived so near that I was bound to have noticed. Or else she knew already, and it was merely a move in the game. The power game which, of course, she was playing with me.

I said, ‘I can’t make any comment. I’m sorry. Would you trust my discretion on anything else if I did?’

I hadn’t leaped forward to light her fag and to do her justice, she didn’t appear to expect it. She put the lighter down and gazed at me through pink scented smoke. ‘It depends what else you know. For example, have you no questions about Benedict?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I haven’t.’ Shot-gun weddings are not my affair. Or the reverse, as in this particular case.

‘You haven’t wondered,’ said Mrs Warr Beckenstaff, her clear voice quite unaltered, ‘how, with a father of Simon’s colouring, the child appears to be growing so dark? Or about other aspects of his appearance? Of course you have. And I expect you, not being uneducated or defective, to be able to give me a sensible opinion when I ask for it. Who does that grandson of mine remind you of?’

Because it was Ben, I hadn’t said anything even to Johnson. But now, of course, there was really no help for it.

‘Hugo Panadek,’ I said. ‘The Eisenkopps’ Design Director.’

Neither the pink swags nor the head of the Warr Beckenstaff Corporation fell to the ground. ‘Exactly,’ said Benedict’s grandmother impatiently. ‘The Booker-Readman fellow, of course, must be completely infertile although my daughter, as is obvious, is besotted with him. I cannot imagine she could have resorted to a bald-headed Serbian otherwise.’

‘
I’ll have to run to Grandma for help
,’ Simon had said tauntingly to his angry wife. He wasn’t afraid of this lady: why should he be? Rosamund had only to be nasty to Simon and he would spill the whole story: how he wasn’t the father of Benedict, and how the heir to the Warr Beckenstaff fortune was the son of a bald-headed foreigner.

And Hugo… It was Hugo who had referred to both Benedict’s parents, his lip curling, as
punks
. Hugo who had shown no surprise over the peculiar affair of the ikons and who had arranged Johnson’s accident at Cape Cod, one might well reason, in order to expose Simon’s liaison with Beverley. Hugo, one might suggest, in whose Wonderland Rudi Klapper, the shooting stall attendant who had given the Booker-Readmans their first kidnapping fright had been employed; but who could hardly be interested in kidnapping his own son; especially as he, as well as Simon, had the power to blackmail the Warr Beckenstaff Corporation with the truth about its heir. I said however, to be sure, ‘If it’s Mr Panadek, will he make an approach, do you think, about Benedict?’

The large, lidded eyes continued to gaze at me through the smoke. ‘For money?’ said the easy breath coming through the pearly capped teeth and silver-pink mouth. ‘If there were any person in this world who can induce me to pay what I don’t intend to pay, I shouldn’t be talking to you of all these matters now. Mr Panadek is much too wise a gentleman to attempt blackmail. He has no interest, I am sure, in the child. While it would be a pity, there would be no permanent damage caused by Benedict’s parentage being known. My will ensures that if Benedict dies, my daughter inherits no more than the barest minimum. If on the other hand, Benedict has the ability, I shall be quite content to see him take over the business when he is of an age. I have made provision for that also. In the meantime, my main concern is to preserve the child from his parents. If need be, I shall do it by placing him totally in your hands. That is why you were chosen.’

It seemed as good a chance as any. I said, ‘I was told that you asked for me even before I was free of my last job. Might I ask who recommended me?’

‘You may, but I am afraid I cannot indulge you,’ Ingmar said. ‘There were a dozen of you, and my secretary made the enquiries which led to the final selection. We had the opinion, I believe, of another nanny and several employers. Indeed, in your case, the Princess at Cape Cod was one.’

I’d never been employed by the Princess. But Hugo knew her. He had had lunch there. I said, ‘I think Benedict is bright. He’s worth cultivating.’

‘In spite of the fact,’ said his grandmother, ‘that if he’s kidnapped he could cost me a fortune?’

I said, ‘He’s as safe as he can be. The yacht is very secure, and Mr Johnson has taken every precaution.’

‘I believe he has,’ Ingmar said. She swung her feet slowly round, and removing her cigarette holder, took out and stubbed the cigarette. Then, one red nailed hand on her knee, she said, ‘Do you always sit like that? Yes. Your training, I suppose. Well, I must tell you I was taken with your Mr Johnson when I first met him, and I have been impressed with him at each meeting since. Rosamund tells me the painting is quite astonishing. He is not, therefore, behind these attempts on Benedict and you are not, I now see, in collusion with him. I am glad to be reassured.’

My mouth dropped open. I stared at her and then, despite myself, felt my face relax in a grin. ‘You thought… Of course, you might very well imagine such a thing.’

‘The projection of possibilities,’ Ingmar Warr Beckenstaff said, ‘is the structure upon which large businesses are founded and flourish. You had better return to your charge. I have arranged that from last month onwards, your salary will be increased by a third. I have also left instructions that all your existing cosmetics should be thrown away and replaced by those of the firm by whom you are employed. No excuse is acceptable: there is an anti-allergy range. What is it?’

She was talking to someone behind me. I turned my head and saw the blotched face of Ingmar’s P.R. man. He said, ‘Madame… ’ and the telephone rang.

‘Answer it,’ said Ingmar Warr Beckenstaff, to me.

I answered it, squeezing between the pink sofas and around the silver baskets of roses and paeonies. It was on a desk by the large boat-deck windows and as I picked it up and said, ‘Hullo? Mrs Warr Beckenstaff’s cabin’, my gaze rested on the voile curtains and the deck and the harbour beyond them. And on the water.

Which was odd.

A voice said, ‘This is the Captain. May I speak with Mrs Warr Beckenstaff, if you please?’

I put my hand over the telephone and said, ‘It’s the captain. Mrs Warr Beckenstaff, we’re sailing.’

‘So I see,’ Ingmar said. ‘Give me the telephone.’ The door closed behind the public relations man and she spoke into the phone briefly, in German. She put the receiver down and I replaced the phone on the desk. ‘You don’t understand German,’ she said. Beyond the pink swagged door, the ship’s tannoy could just be heard, making a booming announcement. I thought of all the sleepers it would wake up, and of all the people, like the Eisenkopps, who were spending the afternoon at an hotel, and would return to the quay to find the
Glycera
absent.

I said, ‘No. I don’t understand German. Why are we sailing?’

‘To sever our connection with the land,’ said Ingmar Warr Beckenstaff, seating herself at her desk, and drawing pen and paper towards her. ‘You had better go, and send in my secretary. Fortunately, press and photographers are on board and, of course, all the, European guests who joined us at Venice.’

She was writing. ‘Mrs Warr Beckenstaff,’ I said, ‘I have to get back to the baby. Why are we sailing?’

She half looked up. ‘Ah, the baby,’ she said. ‘He has been vaccinated, I should hope?’

Beneath my chaste lilac uniform, like a crab from its shell, the bottom fell out of my stomach. ‘Oh heavens,’ I said. ‘It isn’t smallpox?’

‘Ah, passion at last,’ she said, writing firmly. ‘Yes: an outbreak of smallpox was announced by Belgrade late this morning. Confined, they believe, to the Dubrovnik region, but we shall move out of the seaway for safety. No one comes aboard except in emergency, and unless he or she has been vaccinated. No one leaving the ship for the danger area will be permitted to come aboard a second time. The news reached the airport, I am told, just after our plane arrived and many if not all of the passengers are waiting there to take the next scheduled flight home. You didn’t hear an announcement?’

‘We left by car, before the others did. Mrs Warr Beckenstaff…’

She put down her pen with a crack. ‘I am aware of your problem. It is minor. We shall make a temporary stop off Ploče to allow a launch to return you to the
Dolly
. I see no difficulty, provided the
Dolly
remains at sea, and all those on board have been vaccinated. You will be safer than before, it seems to me. The militia have cordoned the area.’

I couldn’t get on deck then quickly enough. Johnson was hanging over the port side, his hair mixed up with his spectacles, watching the noisy approach of a launch full of luggage and people. Among them were the black and blonde heads and cashmere sports casuals of Comer and Beverley Eisenkopp.

Unlike the faces round about us, Johnson’s was stamped with neither excitement nor horror. He listened with attention to all I told him of my visit to Ingmar and at the end said only, ‘She’s right. I could do without the
Glycera
wandering about, but in a way, the cordon makes our job easier. It’s almost bound to force the other side into a change of plan, and that always leaves room for errors. The other thing is the health hazard. Are you worried?’

Below, the launch had reached the foot of the companion-way, and the captain and the chief officer had appeared there. No one had come aboard.

I said, ‘Ben is protected, and I’m all right. What about you and Lenny?’

‘I’m a permanent walking chemical factory,’ Johnson said.

‘And I know Donovan is all right, and his invisible comrades. It’s a mild outbreak. I gather the vaccinated can walk about anywhere so long as they have the right papers. And that’s what the said other side are going to find awkward. I only hope, after this, the poor sods aren’t moved to abandon the kidnap.’

‘Surely not,’ I said. Pained.

The shouting below had risen in volume. Craning over, we could see the wind lifting Comer’s creamed hair, and hear the despairing twang of Beverley’s accent. I said, ‘Comer’s against vaccination as a matter of principle.’

‘Ain’t that a bitch?’ said Johnson sympathetically. ‘Then he’s going to miss out on the Warr Beckenstaff gala. What do you think they’ve done with Bunty and the two Eisenkinder?’

‘Sent them on to Herceg-Novi,’ I said. I tried very hard to keep the laughter out of my voice. ‘Bunty’s vaccinated, you see. And when we were in Cape Cod, she got Dr Gibbings to do the kids without telling Comer.’

It was as well she did. The car, clearly, had been allowed to proceed to the seaside, and the Eisenkopps had had to return to plague-ridden Dubrovnik, to see the
Glycera
majestically sailing out of the harbour. No wonder they were clean out of alphas. I said, ‘I ought to get back to Benedict. I could take that launch. But I don’t want the Eisenkopps on
Dolly
.’

‘I don’t imagine you’ll get them on
Dolly
,’ said Johnson placidly. ‘I’ll come with you, if you like, to dissuade them. But if I know Comer, he’ll take the first plane back to health, hygiene and sanity, and force Beverley and the kids to go along with him.’

But he didn’t. By the time Johnson and I boarded the launch it was empty of all but the rejected Eisenkopps and a number of tightlipped representatives of the Warr Beckenstaff Corporation. The Booker-Readmans, if appealed to, had clearly not come to the rescue. Neither had Ingmar herself although Dr Gibbings, looking hurt, turned on his heel as we arrived and walked away from the head of the gangway. Comer said, his voice hoarse with declaiming, ‘I’m glad to see two folks with sense. You’re gonna fly the kid out of the God-damned country.’