Death and the Jubilee

28

Michael Byrne was a very superstitious man. He had never lost his faith in the Roman Catholic Church. Years of exposure to its teachings had left their mark. Nobody who had attended the Christian Brothers’ school in Clontarf, the prayers and religious instruction reinforced with regular communion with the strap, could ever truly escape. So he had decided to send his last messenger to London disguised as a nun. With wimple and crucifix, rosary and prayer book, he believed his envoy would surely avoid detection if the agents of the British Government were watching the ports. The nun would always get through.

But the susceptibilities of Ireland were not shared by the policemen of Liverpool. Sister Francesca, like the two previous emissaries, was followed all the way to London.

Lord Francis Powerscourt was feeling cheerful as he walked back to Markham Square. The sun was still shining and the warm weather had brought the crowds out into Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, young lovers lying happily on the grass. It looked as though this difficult case was nearly over. Tonight, he decided, he would take Lady Lucy out to dinner. A new restaurant had opened just off Sloane Square, specializing in fish. Lucy was very fond of fish. Then, when the Jubilee celebrations were complete, he would take her away, maybe to Naples and the ruins of Pompeii.

The front door was open when he arrived. Powerscourt had a sudden premonition that something was wrong, something was terribly wrong. He called for Lady Lucy. There was no reply. He hurtled up the stairs to check that the children were safe. Thomas and Olivia slept the deep sleep of the very young. Robert was nowhere to be seen. He looked in all the bedrooms for his wife. Perhaps she has gone for a walk in the park, he said to himself. But he knew that was not very likely. Lucy had said to him before he left for his meeting with the Prime Minister that she would be waiting for his return. She was anxious to hear the news.

Then he saw the letter. It was lying innocuously on the little table by the front door. ‘Lord Francis Powerscourt’, it said, in a handwriting that had not been learnt in an English school. Powerscourt tore it open. He noticed that his hands were shaking slightly.

‘Dear Lord Powerscourt,’ it said, ‘We have your wife. If anything is done to save Harrison’s Bank between now and Monday, you will never see her again. If events are allowed to run their course, she will be returned unharmed. But if Harrison’s are saved, she will be dead within the hour. And if we see you or any of your associates, or any policemen, in uniform or not, we shall begin by cutting her face open.’

Lady Lucy had been kidnapped.

There was no signature. Powerscourt felt his head spinning. Christ in heaven, he said. Christ in heaven. He looked again at the envelope. He inspected the notepaper for any clues. Both were perfectly normal and could have been purchased in any stationer’s shop in London. Or in Germany. He looked at them again. He wanted to scream. He began walking up and down the room, blinking back the tears. Christ in heaven, he said again. The bastards. Strange memories of Lucy danced across his brain. He saw her as she had been in this very room in the early evening a couple of days before. She was sitting in her favourite armchair by the window, reading. The late afternoon sun was pouring through the windows casting a glow, almost a halo over the blonde hair. One side of her face was in deep shadow. As she read, little smiles or slight frowns would cross her face. When she realized he was looking at her, she had blushed a bright pink. ‘Francis,’ she had said, ‘I didn’t know you were watching me like that. I’m not one of your suspects, am I?’ And then she laughed as she rose to embrace him.

Now she was gone. The bastards. Hold on Lucy, Powerscourt sent his prayer out into the pagan air of Chelsea, hold on. I’m coming, Lucy. I’m coming.

He had no idea how to find her. He knew he wasn’t thinking very clearly. He wrote a note to Johnny Fitzgerald and signed it Excalibur. Excalibur meant drop everything, whatever you are doing, come as fast as you can. He had only used it once before. He started walking up and down the room again, his anger rising inside him in waves of fury he couldn’t control. Then the door was flung open and an exhausted Robert collapsed on the sofa. His face was very red and he was panting heavily.

‘Francis,’ he gasped, ‘they’ve got Mama. The bad men.’

Powerscourt sat down beside him. ‘Let me get you a glass of water,’ he said, ‘you look as if you need it.’

Robert drained the glass in one long pull.

‘Tell me what happened,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Take your time. Take it slowly.’

‘It must have been about an hour ago.’ Robert’s voice was breaking as he spoke. ‘I heard this great row going on down below. I came out of my room and peeped round the stairs. Two men were pulling Mama along the hall. They were shouting at her to be quiet. She was shouting back. I think she was saying, How dare you? Let go of me. Then she screamed. One of the men put something over her face and she went quiet. They pulled her out of the front door. I think they had a cab waiting outside.’

The boy stopped. He took a couple of deep breaths. Powerscourt thought the tears weren’t very far away.

‘I came down the stairs as fast as I could,’ Robert went on. ‘And I saw the cab up at the corner of the street so I ran after it. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.’

‘Did you see where it went, Robert?’

The boy nodded and pulled a rather dirty handkerchief from his pocket. Blowing his nose seemed to calm him.

‘You know how bad the traffic is at that time of the day,’ he said, looking to Powerscourt for confirmation. His stepfather nodded. ‘If I ran as fast as I could, I could just about keep up with them. I kept some way behind them. I didn’t think you would want me to get too close in case they saw me.’

Powerscourt nodded. ‘You were right, Robert, absolutely right.’

‘They went up the King’s Road as far as Sloane Square,’ Robert went on. Powerscourt had a sudden vision of that new restaurant he had been going to take Lucy to, just off Sloane Square, the white linen crisp and clean on the table, the candles glistening in the evening light, the wine sparkling in the glasses. He dug his nails very hard into his palms to stop the tears.

Hold on Lucy, I’m coming, hold on.

‘Then they went down towards the river for a bit,’ said Robert. ‘Over into Pimlico Road – the traffic was quite light there, I had to run at full speed for about two hundred yards, I was worried I was going to lose them – and then they got stuck turning into Buckingham Palace Road. They ended up at Victoria station.’

‘Did they get on a train?’ Powerscourt was really worried now. Victoria was where people went if they wanted to go to Dover and the Continent. If they have left England, he thought, he might never find Lucy again.

‘I thought I’d lost them there, the crowds were so big,’ Robert continued. ‘Then I saw them. Mama looked as though she was drunk or drugged or something like that. The two men were pulling her along. Nobody took any notice. I suppose they thought she was ill. They took a train to Brighton. I know it was Brighton because I asked the ticket man after it had left if the train stopped at all. He said it didn’t, it went direct.’

Then Robert broke down completely. He cried for his lost mother, sitting on the sofa in her house in Markham Square, dusk slowly falling over the streets of London. Lady Lucy’s favourite clock was ticking quietly in the corner.

‘Robert,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I am very very proud of you. You have done magnificently.’

It didn’t work. The tears flowed on. Powerscourt was close to tears himself as he looked at the boy, twelve years old and you could see his mother in his face, the same eyes, the same nose, the same fair hair.

‘The thing is,’ Robert went on’ ‘I should have got on the train. I could have followed them to Brighton and seen where they went, then come back and told you.’ Robert shook his head. He reached for his handkerchief again and wiped his eyes. ‘But I didn’t have any money. I hadn’t any money at all. I did have the money Mama gave me but I’d been to buy a new cricket bat. It’s upstairs in my room. I think I’m going to throw it away now. If only I’d waited until tomorrow.’

Robert wept, the tears falling onto the new cushions Lady Lucy had bought the week before. Powerscourt felt desolated.

‘You mustn’t throw your new bat away,’ he said very gently. ‘You must tap it in and then when your mother comes back we will come and watch you score a hundred.’

‘Do you think she will come back?’ asked Robert through his tears.

‘I’m sure of it. Thanks to you, we know where she is. All we have to do now is to find her.’

‘Can I help? Can I help you find her?’

Powerscourt wondered what his mother would have thought about Robert missing school. He felt sure she wouldn’t approve. He had seen Robert packed off to his lessons with colds that would have kept lesser men in bed for the day.

‘I don’t think your Mama would want you in any danger, Robert,’ Powerscourt said. ‘You’ve done most of the work already, now we know where she is.’ He sat down beside Robert and held him very tight. ‘We’re going to find her,‘ he said. ‘We’re definitely going to find her.’

Hold on Lucy, I’m coming, hold on.