No Tears for the Lost

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Fifty-five minutes later, Riley arrived outside a splendid town house in a smart white-stucco terrace, with an imposing portico and a shiny black front door not unlike the one at Colebrooke House. The litter-free street was lined with cars, all gleaming as if in testimony to their owners’ status, and she felt a frisson of nervousness as she mounted the steps and rang the bell.

She was half expecting to see another version of Rockface, stiffly formal in a suit and tie. But the door was opened by a tiny Filipino woman in a smart royal-blue dress, who didn’t look as if she could throw a fit, much less a punch. She smiled and invited Riley in with a timid gesture, and it was obvious she had been told about Riley’s appointment.

Riley stepped past her into a large hallway furnished with a deep pile carpet and several impressive pieces of antique furniture. The walls were exquisitely decorated in soft shades of sage and oatmeal, and she felt relieved at having changed into a smart skirt and decent shoes before coming here.

‘Please go through to the drawing room,’ the maid asked her, indicating a door to the right. Then she turned and walked away with tiny, elegant steps.

Lady Susan Myburghe was flicking through a glossy magazine and sipping at a porcelain cup of colourless liquid. She wore a beautiful silk dress of burgundy and black, off-set by a string of black pearls, yet her feet were encased in a pair of fluffy pink bedroom slippers with frayed toes, a startling contrast in colour and style. It was only when she looked up that Riley saw her eyes bore a deep sadness and her skin lacked lustre, like faded parchment.

She felt a twinge of guilt for coming here with what she had in mind, but reminded herself that this woman had been her husband’s close companion for many years, and consequently should know more about him than anyone on the planet.

‘Sit down, Miss Gavin.’ The invitation was crisp and authoritative, promptly shooting down in flames any thoughts Riley might have had about sweet, defenceless old ladies. And up close, she judged her age to be somewhere in the late fifties. This was a woman accustomed to being in charge, no matter how saddened by the hand that fate had decided to deal her. She reminded Riley of a young-ish Nancy Regan, only without the former First Lady’s brittle outer casing. She gave a signal to the maid, who had slipped into the room without a sound. ‘You’ll take tea?’

‘Yes, please,’ Riley agreed, since it didn’t seem to be in any doubt, and sat on a hard, low-backed couch which must have been reserved for short-stay visitors. She hoped she didn’t tumble over the back and disgrace herself.

Lady Myburghe went back to her reading and sipping, which Riley decided meant she wasn’t supposed to speak until tea was poured. She thought about Palmer and what he would have done if he’d been here. No doubt he’d have had this old biddy eating out of his hand.

After an age, the maid returned and poured tea, including one for herself. Then she sat in a chair by the window and studiously ignored them both.

‘Don’t mind Jenny,’ said Lady Susan. ‘She barely understands English and acts as my chaperone. So. Frank Palmer speaks very highly of you. He says I should help you.’ A faint softening of her features made Riley wonder if there was a member of the Myburghe clan that Frank Palmer hadn’t made a good impression on.

‘Frank and I sometimes work together,’ she explained. ‘As we are at the moment.’

‘But you’re a journalist.’ The statement came out with a faint crackle of accusation, and even Jenny turned and stared at her, no doubt the word a familiar one.

‘Yes.’ Palmer must have told her.

The older woman’s eyes were like twin points of jet, and Riley wondered how many times Sir Kenneth had been fixed with them for some transgression or another, before he finally developed an impenetrable outer casing.

‘Very well. Palmer said I should trust you. What do you wish to know?’

‘It’s about your husband,’ she said, trying not to clink her cup and saucer together.

‘Ex-husband,’ Lady Susan dropped the magazine on the floor as if signifying what she thought of him ‘What has he done now?’ Her tone was of the much-put-upon wife waiting for the latest piece of bad news about her husband’s drunken debauchery.

‘I was wondering why… why you left him?’

Just for a second, Lady Susan looked as if she’d swallowed a live frog, and the maid jumped as if Riley had made an obscene suggestion. So much, thought Riley, for the maid not having much English. A large carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticked quietly away, as if counting down the seconds until she was hung, drawn and quartered and thrown into the gutter to rot for having breached a clear rule of etiquette.

‘Jenny. Go and see to dinner, will you? I think I might dine early this evening.’ She sat and watched her maid depart, then looked at Riley with an expression of cool distaste. ‘That’s a highly personal question.’

Riley nodded. ‘I agree. It is.’

Surprisingly, the other woman almost smiled, and sat back in her chair. ‘You were at the wedding reception, weren’t you — with Palmer?’

‘Yes.’

‘You may well have formed the opinion that my ex-husband is a very capable person. He’s a good diplomat and administrator. He’s also extremely clever, articulate and astute at dealing with awkward situations — especially political ones. An ideal person, in fact, for the posts he has held.’

Riley nodded and sipped her tea. It was fragrant, light and very refreshing. Darjeeling? Earl Grey? But definitely not Tesco’s Finest. What was this line of talk building up to? She immediately had her answer.

‘Unfortunately, he’s also a fool and a gambler. The two rarely mix well.’ Lady Susan plucked a hair from her lap and flicked it away. ‘I could tolerate the foolishness, but not the gambling.’ She swivelled her eyes towards her guest. ‘You know what I mean by foolishness.’

‘Umm… I suppose.’ Riley could hazard a guess, but she didn’t think uttering the words ‘other women’ was necessary.

‘Good.’

‘So you divorced him because he gambled?’

‘No. I divorced him because he lost.’

‘Oh.’ Riley felt an urge to laugh outright at the directness of this statement, but decided it might be misinterpreted.

‘Do you gamble, Miss Gavin?’

The look accompanying the question would have melted Riley into the carpet if she’d said yes, so she shook her head and thanked the stars for never having picked up the habit. She was sure the other woman would have seen through a lie. ‘No. It’s never been my thing. Didn’t he try to change your mind?’

‘Miss Gavin, after all the years… it was too late. Besides,’ she smiled for the first time with what looked like genuine humour, ‘when I make up my mind, it would take far more than anything Kenneth could do to change it.’ She shrugged slim shoulders. ‘He was too involved in his work, anyway. I knew what it would be like right from the start, but instead of improving, it got worse. It became a vital form of release for him, I suppose.’ She suddenly looked at Riley and said, ‘Why am I telling you this?’ The idea seemed to genuinely surprise her.

‘Perhaps because you needed to?’

She smiled. ‘Yes. Maybe you’re right.’

‘When you said he lost, was it a lot?’

The older woman’s eyes dimmed and she looked away, as if trying to decide whether to answer or not. When she spoke it was with a sigh. ‘In the beginning, when we were first in Colombia, not too much. He’d lose some, which depressed him. Then he’d have a big win and everything would be rosy. Then another loss, followed by others, then a win or two. It’s hardly a unique story. The wins, of course, never quite matched the losses, and in the end he lost a great deal. Far too much.’ She looked directly at Riley, but didn’t elaborate, and Riley guessed she had probably never spoken about this before. It must have taken her a great deal of effort to do so now.

‘He must have won recently, though. The work on the house… the wedding.’

‘Palmer warned me you might ask about that. He said I should help you if I could, but that the outcome might not be pleasant. Is that what you think — that it won’t be pleasant?’

‘To be honest, I don’t know.’ Riley was surprised, both by Palmer speaking for her and at Lady Susan’s evident regard for his opinion.

‘Palmer’s a strange man,’ the other woman continued, as if Riley had spoken out loud. ‘Very tough to those who don’t know him, but not so much to those who do. He was close to my daughter, at one time.’ She took a deep breath and her next words came out in a rush. ‘My family has no money, Miss Gavin. Not a bean. This house is held in trust, and will go to my daughters when I die. I can’t sell, if that’s what you’re wondering, but I can’t afford to live elsewhere, either. A stately prison is, let me tell you, still a prison. Ask the royal family.’

There was no mention of her son, Riley noted immediately. She was tempted to jump in and ask why, but decided to leave it for the time being. There were other things to find out. ‘What about Colebrooke?’

‘A rotting pile of stones into which Kenneth is pouring money at a demented rate.’ She raised a perceptive eyebrow. ‘And you’re wondering how can he afford it if he gambles so unsuccessfully. Well, I wish I knew.’ She put down her cup and rearranged the folds of her dress. ‘I’ve never told anyone else, but it’s one of the other reasons I decided to leave him.’

‘You don’t know where the money comes from?’ Riley asked softly. She felt her mouth go dry and asked herself how far this was going. For some reason, she still hadn’t been thrown out on her ear and Lady Susan was still talking about matters she must have found deeply upsetting, not to say humiliating. Yet there was an almost rehearsed manner in which she was speaking, as if the words didn’t quite match the emotion she must have been feeling.

‘No. I don’t.’ She stood up and looked through the window into the street, and Riley stood, too, feeling the interview was over. But Lady Susan hadn’t finished. ‘To be frank, that’s why I agreed to talk to you — talk to someone, anyway. I’m terrified it may have something to do with Christian’s death.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Riley was stunned. Death?

‘I’m not stupid, Miss Gavin. My son is dead, I know that.’ Her lower lip trembled, then became firm as her chin lifted again. When she spoke, it was as if she was alone in the room, her voice as soft as velvet but as cold as permafrost, the rehearsed tone absent. ‘We had our children late in life. Christian was the youngest. He should never have gone to America in the first place. There were lots of other places he could have visited. But Kenneth knew best. It would make a man of him, he insisted; broaden his horizons and show him the real world.’ Her words dripped with a coating of bitter sadness. ‘As if Kenneth had ever experienced the real world himself.’

‘But the trip was Christian’s idea, wasn’t it?’

Lady Susan turned with a faint frown. ‘Is that what Kenneth told you? I suppose it was, really. At first, anyway. Christian hated Colebrooke, said it was like a mausoleum for old things and old people. I quite agreed with him. He desperately wanted to travel, to see the world just as his friends were doing. But he was concerned about me and decided to stay here with me in London and get a job. Kenneth objected most strongly. He felt spending a year away would be good for Christian. A year away from me, is what he meant, foolish man. Not that he ever understood our son.’ She turned away again and a tremor ran through her slim frame. ‘I’ll forgive him for many things, but never that.’

There was nothing more to say and Riley couldn’t ask any more questions without feeling that she was turning the knife in an already open wound. She wanted to ask if she was aware that her ex-husband had now lost his position in the diplomatic corps, but decided against it. Maybe she knew about it anyway, along with all the other indignities he’d heaped on her during the marriage.

She quietly left Lady Susan to her sadness.

‘He’s some hero, that Sir Kenneth,’ she told Palmer later.

They were waiting in Palmer’s office in Uxbridge. After leaving Lady Susan, Riley had received a brief call from Mitcheson. He was on his way from the airport, and suggested she might like to get together with Palmer, to hear some interesting information. He had ended the call without saying why, but he’d sounded serious. She had immediately called Palmer and arranged to meet him at the office.

It was small and lacking in light, and bore the wear and tear of the years. But Palmer had demonstrated his dislike of innovation by using ancient furniture and never moving anything, not even the dust. That included pot plants, desk, chairs and filing cabinets, all of which were probably welded to the carpet by the passing of time.

Pride of place on Palmer’s scarred desk was a Rolodex, a present from Riley, who thought that all private detectives should have one, and a flat-screen computer monitor, with an impressively flashy power unit tucked away on the floor underneath. When he wasn’t out working, this was where he could usually be found, playing games and surfing the Internet as if he had all the time in the world.

‘How so?’ Mention of Myburghe made him check his watch. The former ambassador had gone to ground in London with his butler/bodyguard, and told Palmer to take some time off. Palmer was plainly expecting a call anytime soon to get back on the job at Colebrooke House.

‘He cheats on his wife, gambles away her family fortune, lets her go without a fight, then kicks his son out into the world where someone kidnaps him and chops off his finger. And all the time he’s maintaining his image of probity and spending money like his balls were on fire. Money his wife claims he doesn’t have. Can’t have. Doesn’t that strike you as unusual?’

Palmer said nothing but stared at the desk top as if he was half asleep. He hadn’t said a word since Riley had begun talking. After a few seconds, he sat up and spun the Rolodex with a dry clatter. ‘We need to find out more about Colombia, and what happened over there. That’s where it started.’

‘What about your mate, Charlie, in Whitehall?’ she suggested. Charlie was a records man deep in the bowels of the Ministry of Defence who knew all manner of useful people and secrets. He had been very helpful in the past, when she and Palmer had needed information available only through official MOD channels.

‘I already asked him. Whatever is out there won’t be on any of his records. We need information of the other kind. Preferably inside information — even gossip.’

‘Where are we going to get that?’

Before Palmer could answer, the office door swung open and John Mitcheson walked in.

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