The Corpse of St James's (15 page)

‘Passion? At the age of . . . what, ten?' My voice was rising to a squeak in spite of myself.

Jonathan almost laughed. ‘Not that sort of passion. Not then, anyway. Their passion was for art.'

‘A
rt!' I smacked my forehead. ‘The palace! Joe Smith told us, remember, Alan? He said she knew a lot about the art, “wanted to get into that side of it”. That's why that palace filled with priceless art was her Mecca, the ideal place to work, even though she had to leave her daughter behind to do it.'

Alan shook his head sadly. He didn't say ‘misplaced priorities'. He didn't have to.

‘But Jonathan, that might make sense in a woman of thirty or so. But children at age ten? Seems strange to me.'

‘It's a long story,' said Jonathan, sighing, ‘and I'd really like some tea. Let me make it, and then we'll go on with the saga.'

I wanted to make the tea for him, but I realized he had to do it for himself, had to prove to himself that he could do normal things. So I watched him move painfully around his minute kitchen, put mugs on a tray, go through the whole ritual.

When we were settled, with steaming mugs in our hands, Jonathan took up the tale. ‘It began in The Lanes. You know them?'

Alan and I nodded. ‘The Lanes' designates an area of Brighton that used to be renowned for its antique shops. Now most of the shops are gone, moved to other areas or turned into junk shops, but years ago there were beautiful things for sale, at very high prices indeed.

‘Then you know the quality of the merchandise that used to be on offer. And you'll remember that Jemima lived in a household with no money to spend on anything except absolute necessities. Bert was somewhat better off. His father made a decent living, but his rigid view of life meant that there were no lavish expenditures on his son. He had to be taught that life was real, life was earnest, and good things had to be earned.'

‘A genuine Calvinist,' I commented.

‘Yes, but without the faith to back it up. There were no needlework mottoes of “The Lord Will Provide” in that house, I'll wager, though I was never inside it. No depending on the Lord. Bert had it drilled into him that the only way to succeed in life was to work, hard and constantly, with no time out for nonsense like music or art or sport or literature, or anything that might be enjoyable.'

‘No wonder they went off the rails, he and Jemima! What a terrible way to bring up children!'

‘I suppose he thought he was doing it for the best. But you're right. Both he and Jemima rebelled badly, and once they saw what money could buy in The Lanes, they simply had to have some. So they began to steal, first from their parents' purses and wallets and the housekeeping money, and then from any source they could find.

‘I had gone off to school by the time they got into real trouble. Jemima began dealing drugs to get money. Just marijuana at first, but I think cocaine after a while.'

I was too appalled to speak. Alan said sharply, ‘How old was she?'

‘Twelve, I suppose. She was caught, almost at once. She was too young to be clever about covering her tracks, but given her age, nothing much happened to her. She had to do some community service of some kind. Letty was devastated. She understood, in a way, but she could not condone. What she did do was arrange various jobs for Jemima – babysitting, dog-minding – jobs that would keep her off the streets and give her a little spending money.'

‘Hardly enough to buy antiques in The Lanes, I wouldn't have thought.'

‘No, but enough to buy inexpensive prints, reproduction china, that sort of thing. You'd have thought that would satisfy a child, but it only fed her obsession, her passion for the real thing. Whenever I came home for school holidays, she'd come to see me and try to wheedle some money out of me. My father, oddly enough, gave me a generous allowance. I suppose he wanted to make sure the other boys at school knew I was the son of a wealthy man. Anyway, I usually gave in. Jemima was a cute kid, and she was Letty's daughter, and she was a beautiful little liar.'

I was growing more and more disturbed. ‘Jonathan, nothing you've said has given me any confidence in Jemima's integrity. Quite the reverse, in fact. And I'm wondering, with a background like that, how on earth she landed a job at the palace. Don't they do security checks?'

‘Of course they do!' Alan ran a hand down the back of his head. ‘And with a record like that, I can't imagine why they'd have anything to do with her!'

‘Ah, but she changed!' Jonathan was almost beginning to enjoy himself. ‘You see, she and Bert eventually managed to put enough money together to buy something they'd always wanted, a nice pair of Staffordshire dogs. They split the purchase, each taking one of the pair. And that evening they sneaked out together to celebrate. They were wild with delight over their success, and they had a little wine, and one thing led to another . . . and Melissa happened.'

‘Oh, dear,' I said weakly. ‘That must have made matters much, much worse.'

‘You'd think so. But in fact it was the turning point. Jemima's not stupid, you know. She realized that she had a child to support, and she settled down to do it. She's always tackled life as if she was fighting tigers, and this was no exception. She had no marketable skills, so she set out to acquire some, took a secretarial course and landed a job with Quinn's.'

‘With your father!' I said, amazed.

‘He was dead by that time, and the man who took over didn't care who an employee was, so long as she was competent. Jemima was all of that. She had an unexpected talent for organization, and it wasn't too long before she was managing the business end of the catering department.

‘I got all this second-hand, you understand. I had finished at Hendon and made it into the Met, the very lowest rungs, but climbing one step at a time. I kept in touch with Letty, naturally. She'd inherited that house at Bramber – from an ancient aunt, I think – and with a tiny annuity and what I had set up for her in trust, she managed, but she couldn't have Jemima and Melissa living with her. The house was too small, and she wanted Jemima to make it on her own.'

‘Which she was doing, apparently,' I put in.

‘Which she was doing. Melissa was old enough for school, which helped a bit. Jemima had to have a childminder only part of the day. Even so, she was away from her flat more than Letty thought she should be, because she was still mad for art. Took classes in art history, that sort of thing, and applied for jobs in galleries.'

‘Where was Melissa's father all this time? Bert, was that his name?'

‘We all assumed it was Bert, though Jemima would never say. I was appalled by that. Her own cousin. I was sure the baby would turn out to be an idiot or something, but she turned out all right.' Jonathan stopped, remembering how, in the end, Melissa had ‘turned out'. He drank his tea, cold by now, and resumed.

‘Anyway, Bert had pretty much dropped out of the picture. He had helped out when he could, at the beginning, but he was just a kid, and he wouldn't have dared approach his father. He got a job in one of the local galleries, and did well enough there to go to London. I assume he's still there. I've not heard from him in ages.'

‘Would he have helped Jemima get the job at the palace?' asked Alan.

‘Possibly. I really don't know.'

I exchanged glances with Alan. He nodded. ‘I think we need to talk to him,' said Alan, ‘about that and several other things. He lives in London?'

Jonathan shrugged. ‘I suppose. As I said, I've lost touch. It's possible Jemima might know.'

‘And his surname is Higgins, I assume, as he's the son of Letty's brother-in-law?'

‘It was. He may have changed it, I suppose. It's not a classy-sounding name, is it? And the circles he moves in . . .'

‘Phone Jemima.' It was not a suggestion.

Jonathan fished his mobile out of his pocket and punched in a number. ‘No answer,' he said eventually. ‘She always answers. I can't imagine . . .'

Alan ran a hand down the back of his neck once more, then stood and looked Jonathan straight in the eye. ‘All right, my friend. It's obvious that Bert Higgins must be found. It's also obvious that the two or three of us, working on our own, can't do it. This is a job for the Met. It's time we told Carstairs the whole story.'

‘But . . . Jemima . . . the palace . . . the scandal . . .' I protested.

‘I hate it as much as you do, Dorothy.' Alan looked grim. ‘But it's that or risk a murderer going free. We must tell him. Now.'

‘Couldn't we try Jemima again?' I pleaded. ‘She might know where Bert is. It's worth a try.'

Alan pulled out his phone, pushed buttons. ‘Voicemail,' he said. ‘Let's go.'

We were a sad and sorry trio an hour later, leaving Carstairs' office. He had greeted us cordially, but once Alan launched into our story, the emotional climate became arctic. The Chief Superintendent ignored me completely, turned the occasional chilly glare on Jonathan, and said absolutely nothing throughout Alan's narrative.

‘I see,' he said when Alan had finished. His jaw worked, as if he had a great deal more to say. Alan's exalted one-time rank, however, kept him silent. ‘Yes, sir. I'm sure you will excuse me, as I now have a great deal to do.'

A curt bow to me and to Alan, another icy glare at Jonathan, and he strode out of the office, leaving us to find our way out.

‘There's a pub just around the next corner,' I said, finally. ‘Can you walk that far, Jonathan?'

‘I know the place. I can get that far.' He limped along. He'd left his wheelchair at his flat, not wanting to appear in it before his erstwhile boss. Now I thought he was regretting it.

None of us said another word until we were seated at a small table in the Sanctuary House, with pints in front of us. I took a large, refreshing gulp of mine and said, brilliantly, ‘Well.'

‘We deserved every word he didn't say,' said Alan, with a grimace. ‘We've been bloody fools.'

Alan almost never swears. I agreed with his sentiments, and his mood.

‘What do we do now, troops?' I asked when I'd finished my beer and reluctantly decided against another.

‘The very first thing is to phone Jemima,' said Jonathan. ‘I should have done it the moment we left the Yard, but I wasn't thinking very straight.' He pulled out his mobile and punched in some numbers.

I rolled my eyes at Alan. ‘We should have thought of that,' I whispered. ‘They may be with her right now.'

‘It's still going to voicemail,' said Jonathan, sounding doomed.

‘We have to trust them to be discreet,' said Alan. ‘They won't start a palace scandal if they can help it.'

‘The question is, will they be able to help it?' I wasn't optimistic. Scandal is the life blood of a tabloid, and dearly as I love England, I think the bottom-feeders in their press corps are much, much worse than their cousins in America. ‘We're really left with only one thing to do. Jonathan, phone Letty and ask her to meet us at the station in Shoreham. We need to be with her when the police get in touch with her, and we need to pick her brains.'

I put in a quick call to the Andersons, telling them to expect us back when they saw us. Alan hailed a taxi; Jonathan wasn't up to the walk to Victoria Station.

We said little on the journey. What was there to say? We had tried our best to help Jemima by keeping her name out of the murder investigation. It had been a foolish undertaking from the start, worse then foolish, verging on the criminal. And we had failed. We were simply not equipped to deal with matters involving the palace.

If it did involve the palace. I still wasn't totally convinced about that. Certainly, Melissa could have run into someone while she was abroad on her illicit tour of the palace, met someone who later took advantage of her naïveté and dragged her into an affair. And certainly we'd have to check on that list of footmen that Jemima had provided. But it didn't sit right with me, somehow. There was something wrong with the scenario, and I wanted to get to the truth.

Or I wanted someone to get to the truth. It looked, now, as if it was likely to be the mighty forces of the Met, and as long as they handled it discreetly, that was perfectly fine with me.

Of course it was.

W
e looked for Letty at the station, but couldn't see her. Jonathan finally spotted her car in the car park.

‘Oh, no!' he cried.

‘What's the matter . . . oh.' For I had seen what he saw. There were two people in the front seat, and the passenger was Jemima.

‘You idiot!' Jonathan lowered his head to Jemima's open window and spoke in a low, furious voice. ‘Don't you know running away is the stupidest thing you could have done?'

Her expression went blank. ‘I haven't the least idea what you're talking about. I didn't run from anything. I came to Letty for a little rest. I told the dragon my daughter had died and I needed some time off, and she gave me a few days' compassionate leave.'

‘Then you haven't seen the police?'

‘No! What are you talking about? What have you done?'

Jemima was growing more and more agitated, and Alan intervened. ‘Perhaps it would be best to discuss this in a less public place. I think we'll all fit in the car, Letty, if we squeeze a bit, and when we get to your house we can talk. Until then, Jemima, please be assured that nothing dire has taken place.'

Alan is not given to lying, and that, in my mind, classed as a whopper, but I followed his lead and tried to force Jemima into idle conversation on the short ride to Bramber.

‘Jemima, Jonathan tells us you're an expert on art. Do you have a favourite period? Myself, I've always loved the Impressionists.'