Not My Blood

CHAPTER 8

“Almost there! Look, I think we won’t refer to this business in front of the family. Anyone who wants to know can hear that Jackie’s been spending some time up in London with me and I’m delivering him back-a bit late-to his school. Better tell me who you’ve got in the house at the moment.”

“Oh, just the usual hand-out.”

“A long-suffering husband and a gaggle of left-over-from-Christmas orphans?”

“No. We’re remarkably un-busy as a matter of fact. Close family, that’s all. It’s why I was able to get up to London for a couple of days. I left Marcus and the girls in capable hands.” She added carefully: “We’ve got Dorcas staying with us. Perhaps I should have mentioned it earlier.”

“Dorcas? Heavens! I haven’t seen the child for ages.” Joe spoke heartily to cover his surprise. “Now, she won’t be pleased to see me turning up unexpectedly. You can’t have failed to notice, Lyd, that she’s been avoiding me like the plague for years. And she’s never taken the trouble to tell me why. But I do notice that when I spend any part of any holiday with you, she’s not there. And she descends on you the minute I’ve gone back to London.”

Joe left a space in the hope of an explanation. He realised he would even have settled for a polite denial. But Lydia wasn’t hurrying to allay his fears. “It’s mystifying, insulting and-dashed annoying,” he finished in a spurt of disappointment.

“It’s tedious for the hostess. And saddening that two people I love dearly behave like the figures on an Alpine weather clock. You know-those wooden contraptions people will bring back from skiing trips. When the sun shines a lady comes out of her little chalet, smiling. When the rain starts, she goes inside again and a gentleman in lederhosen pops out yodeling. Rather unseemly behaviour, I’ve always thought.”

“One in, one out, never seen together. That’s me and Dorcas, all right.”

“And you used to be as thick as thieves. She trailed after you wherever you went, whenever she could, and you were always patient-no, you were more than that, you were-jolly kind to her. I know you can be as hard as nails. I’ve seen you beat a man half to death.” Lydia grinned and patted her brother’s knee. “I don’t forget that in your blood you’re a moss-trooper, a sheep-stealing, hot-tempered Borderer. And the war turned you into a killer. You still keep the visible evidence of it right there on your face as a warning, I do believe. That scar! ‘Keep your distance!’ it says.”

“There are those who admire a tough exterior.”

“But Dorcas saw what I’ve always seen. The lovely man underneath. We all thought-don’t laugh-that she had a crush on you. You know, like the passion I had for father’s steward when I was that age. I grew out of my obsession but Dorcas seemed to snap out of hers. Whatever did you do, Joe? Or was it something you said?” Lydia hesitated. “I’ve never liked to ask, always expecting it would blow over.… And then, somehow, it was too late to bring it up. Do you think you could tell me?”

Joe allowed his truculent silence to stretch on, testing the boundaries of sisterly patience and, a moment before she boxed his ears, said brusquely: “Watch it, Lydia! You risk adding insult to Dorcas’s injury. Not quite sure what you’re implying. If I were, I’d probably chuck you out into the snow. I’ll just say: No fault of mine. Honestly. It’s worried me, too, and I’ve given it serious thought. I’ve absolved myself of any possible misdemeanour, intended or otherwise. Sorry! How pompous.” He added lightly: “She was never the same after she got that French haircut.”

Lydia smiled. “Well, I did notice she’d changed when her father brought them all back from France. I put it down to Nature. Growing up.”

Joe snorted. “Growing up? The child had found her long-lost mother and the French family she didn’t know she had. She’d fallen in love with an entirely worthy scion of a noble Champagne family. Affection reciprocated to all appearances. And been closely involved with two murder cases. All in the space of a summer. Bound to have an effect.”

“But no reason there for dropping you like a soiled glove.”

“She made use of me, Lydia. I’ve realised she always did. The ‘crush’ you mention would have been more acceptable. Flattering even! And I could have handled it.” His swift smile faded. “No, it was the hard man that she saw and was intrigued by. Dorcas had no time for gallantry. She had a heap of troubles on her plate seven years ago. The day I first clapped eyes on her, she watched me deliver a shot amidships to her appalling grandmother who was making her life hell and she decided there and then to recruit me to sort out her remaining problems. That’s her father’s theory, and it’s mine too. She’s quite unscrupulous, you know. She cracked her whip, and I performed my circus tricks. Did what she asked. Took her where she wanted to go. And then, when she was entirely satisfied: ‘Thank you so much, Joe, that’ll be all’ is what I heard. And, having found her wings, away she flew.”

“Well, she didn’t fly far. She still spends as much time with us as she does with her scoundrelly father. And we’re delighted to have her. The house comes alive when she’s here. And the food improves no end! Did you know the girl can cook, Joe? I mean really cook?”

“It runs in the family. Her mother’s the best I’ve ever encountered. I expect she’s been learning at her apron strings.”

“It’s a talent but it can be inconvenient. It doesn’t go down well with the staff. Dorcas gets very bossy in the kitchen. I’ve had two cooks hang up their pinnies, put their hat on, and stomp off in high dudgeon when her suggestions got a bit-er-fanciful.”

“You’re about to give me some sisterly advice, Lyd?”

“No. An ultimatum. Brother, I insist that you come to some socially acceptable arrangement for as long as you stay under the same roof. I won’t put up with bickering. It might not be easy. Dorcas has never asked for your news and you have never tried to catch up on her. You might as well be strangers. Oh, and let me tell you … she’s certainly not a child any more. She’s twenty-one-that’s practically an old maid these days-and she graduates this year. In psychology, in case you’d forgotten. And that’s psychology, not psychiatry. She gets angry if you confuse them. So. I want you to treat her with some respect, Joe.”

“I always did, Lydia.”

It was already growing dark as they passed through a quiet village and turned off the High Street between the two stone pillars that marked out Dunsford House. Sensing the change in speed and the crunch of gravel under the tires, Jackie began to stir and yawn.

“Well, here we are, old man!” Joe announced and, parking the car by the front door, spent a moment gently reminding the disoriented boy of who he could expect to see greeting him in the next few minutes. “Your Uncle Marcus. Your two girl cousins-remember their names? That’s right. Big girls now … they’ll take good care of you. Oh, and a friend of the family, Dorcas Joliffe. She’s a grown-up. A student at the university.”

He gave a toot on the horn, and the door was flung open to reveal the cast list. A manservant struggled through the flurry of welcoming laughter and kisses to take Joe’s hat and see to the luggage. Lydia put up a hand for calm and reached into the back seat to draw Jackie forwards.

“Girls! This is your cousin from India. Jack Drummond. I say ‘cousin’ because he’s the son of two of your Uncle Joe’s dearest friends: Andrew and Nancy Drummond. Andrew is something big in Bengal. He fought in the same regiment as Joe in the war and was wounded at Mons,” Lydia said airily. “Jackie, this is Vanessa and this is Juliet.” Her two fair-haired daughters came forwards to shake his hand and then give him a hug, murmuring a welcome.

“And here’s your Uncle Marcus.”

“Drummond! Delighted you could come!” said Marcus, responding to the child’s formal stance and outstretched hand. “Now, what about a spot of tea?”

Joe’s eyes were seeking out the dark girl standing a little behind the family group. “I can see you, Dorcas! Come and meet Jackie. Jackie, this is Dorcas, the daughter of Orlando Joliffe, a friend and neighbour.”

Joe watched anxiously as they shook hands and eyed each other warily. As a girl, Dorcas had always had a way with younger children, showing an interest and an instinctive understanding. Could this skill have survived maturity and still be there under the layers of sophistication she had no doubt built up over the years? Joe wondered.

In appearance, she’d hardly changed. The inches she’d put on since his first sighting seven years ago had brought her up to average height for a woman, but she still had the slender, whippet-like figure, the same glossy, dark bobbed hair. Long gone and unregretted were the hand-me-down clothes and worn sandals Joe remembered. The thick red sweater she was wearing suited her but Joe wasn’t so certain about the black cord trousers of mannish cut. Jackie, of course, with his Indian background, would be completely at ease with the sight of women in trousers, from whipcord jodhpurs to silken harem pants.

“Tea? Oh, I think we can do better than that, Uncle Marcus. I saved you some lunch, Jackie,” she told the boy. “Just in case you didn’t find time to stop anywhere on the way down. Did you?” Her voice was lower than he remembered with no trace of the country accent she’d had seven years before.

“I don’t know if we stopped. I’ve been asleep. But I know I’m hungry.”

“Good. Then what do you say to some fish pie? And then cherry trifle-bottled cherries, but delicious-with cream from the home farm. It’s as yellow as a buttercup.”

“Oooh, ahh.…” Jackie turned to Joe for help.

“Well, I don’t know about Jackie, but I’m growing faint at the very thought. Shall I speak for both of us? Lead us to it!”

She smiled and, tucking the child’s arm under hers, led him into the hallway, leaning towards him and talking confidentially. Hurrying to follow behind, Joe thought he caught “… regiment … wounds … hero.…” and an amused look thrown back at him over her shoulder. He was touched by Jackie’s emphatic response to her comments: “No, Dorcas. Uncle Joe was a Northumberland Fusilier.… he told me so.… Daddy was an officer in the Indian Army. And he was wounded at Ypres. Auntie Lydia got that wrong.” Dorcas accepted the correction without demur and took down the tension with a joking remark. Jackie was emboldened to pour more military details into the ready ear.

For the second time, Joe noted that the boy was a stickler for detail. Well brought up, he apparently was uneasy with anything less than the truth. Wherever else, he didn’t get that from his mother! Joe crushed the unworthy thought. This was a quality that could prove awkward over the next few days. But, again, it could be an asset-if carefully managed.

“Ugly little brutes!” Marcus’s voice was gruff. “What a collection!”

He poked at the photographs Lydia had spread at random on the table in the drawing room after supper, not comfortable until he had them in a straight line and equidistant from each other. Sensing his companions’ disapproval, he tried to explain himself. “I mean-look at them! Seven … eight … nine of ’em and all dashed unattractive … Spotty … Skinny … Goofy … Tubby and Big Ears. I know who they are-saw them playing Snow White’s little helpers in the panto at the Lyceum the other day. And will someone tell me why boys of this age always have such big teeth? Looking at this line-up I’m happy I’ve been blessed with girls. Bonny from the day they were born!”

He looked to his wife for approval, but Lydia glared at him and he plunged deeper into the mire: “You have to take your hats off to these schoolmaster chappies-facing up to serried ranks of brats like this just to earn a crust. Imagine being greeted by this lot on the front row on a Monday morning!” Something in his arrangement caught his attention and he picked out one face and thoughtfully placed it on the extreme left of the line.

“Marcus! You’re being facetious! I thought you’d understood! We don’t know who they are or where they are. These poor little sausages could well be victims of some unspeakable crime. These photos were secreted away in the pocket of a notebook of a dubious character violently done to death almost under the eyes of our Jackie!”

“If you say so, my dear,” Marcus batted on. “Though I don’t see what his death has to do with his photo album. Perhaps he owes the racecourse bookies a bundle? The Brighton gangs are notoriously strict about payment of debts. Leg-breaking and worse goes on! I get some of these cases up before me in the Magistrate’s Court after every big race. Or-more likely-he’s got Matron into trouble and she’s wreaked vengeance on him. Grabbed a tongue depressor and inserted it into a soft part? Something on those lines? I can’t see why you and Joe are making such a song and dance over these. Am I the only one to notice the obvious?”

Marcus collected their enquiring glances and shrugged his shoulders. “The tenth photograph!”

They looked again and counted silently.

“Conspicuous by its absence, you’d say. Hey? No sign here of Joe’s nephew, is there? I search for but I don’t find his handsome features in the gallery! If there’s anything going on, your Jackie has nothing to do with it. Not on the menu, I’d say.”

Lydia and Joe exchanged looks.

Married couples, Joe had observed, soon fell into a mutually agreed role-playing arrangement. In this marriage, Lydia was always presented as the clever one, the undervalued mainspring of the family and Marcus her largely ineffectual but indulgent and loving husband. Not all true, Joe considered. He turned to the comfortable figure of Marcus, fair hair glittering with silver in the lamp light, florid features beginning to show the effects of a second brandy. Joe resisted any invitation to patronise or underestimate his brother-in-law. The sharp eyes missed little, the good humour in his remarks often masked a fund of cool common sense.

“So how then, Marcus, would you account for this unusual collection in our victim’s private journal?” Joe appealed to him. “Any theories? Help us out!”

Marcus turned over one of the images. “Oh, right-o. If you like. For a start, they’ve been roughly cut with scissors from a larger print, see here.… And we’re all familiar with this size of head shot. Been taken from the annual class photograph. You know-line them up on the first day of term … shoot ’em … and there they are preserved in the amber glow of happy schooldays forever more. The girls have both got their own class photos in their rooms. Compare them for size in the morning if you like.”

Joe nodded encouragement.

“And, if you look on the back, as I just did,” Marcus went on, gaining confidence, “you’ll see something remarkable, which is to say, nothing at all! The girls-and all the children I know-write the name of their classmates on the back. But as you see, nothing here to identify these fellows. I dare say this Rapson knew exactly who was in his collection but was too discreet to record it. You’ll just have to find other means of identifying them. If you think it will help. Mightn’t be easy. Some of these are much older than the others. The photos I mean. This one here’s in sepia.” He pointed to the one he’d moved to the end of his row. “Pre-war, would you say?”

Joe nodded again.

“I know you detectives look for links and, apart from the obvious ones like uniform, I’d say there’s just one.”

“Which is?”

“Age.”

“Age? They’re all prep-school boys. Between the ages of seven and thirteen. Colonial and foreign pupils a speciality. All dietary requirements catered for.…” Joe quoted from the brochure he’d been handed.

“I’d judge first year of prep school. Not much older. None post-pubertal. One of them, you see, is very young-he still has a gap where his second teeth should be. Late developer? Early entrant? And if you think about it, that would put Jack into a different space, wouldn’t it? Didn’t someone tell me he was a late arrival at St. Magnus?”

“Yes. That hadn’t occurred to me,” Joe said. “He was sent up a year or so after the normal entry. He tells me his mother hung on to him as long as she could. It was his father who insisted on sending him to his own old prep school. They came over and stayed with him in the neighbourhood and visited the school before the start of the school year last summer. It would seem to have passed muster as the boy stayed and they went back to India.”

“But they would have had no way of knowing that this establishment is the subject of an enquiry at the highest and most secret level of government,” Lydia said. “Go on! Tell him about Truelove’s interest, Joe!”

“Truelove? James Truelove?”

“Ah, yes, I believe you know the man, Marcus.…”

“Shall we say he’s known in this house?” He exchanged looks with his wife.

Marcus was fascinated to hear of Joe’s encounter with the Secretary of State but confessed himself nonplussed. Finally he gave his verdict: “Politicians! They’re a mystery to us all! Never trust ’em! Though if you had to take one seriously, you could do worse than pick this one. At least he’s consistent. He’s clever … wonderful orator-go and hear him in the House one day, Joe. He’s got the most solid of backgrounds and he’s charming. He’ll need all of those assets if he’s going to win round the crusty old buffers in his party. He’s a Tory, of course, but … um … rather of the left wing, it’s whispered. The words ‘socialist leanings’ have been mentioned.”

“Perhaps the day will come when we no longer have to whisper them,” Lydia commented sweetly. “Whatever his politics, I’m glad to hear there’s a man of strength and principle in this ragbag of assorted egotists you men call a government.”

“Is that quite fair, my love?” Marcus protested mildly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Joe. “How else do you describe a Tory majority run by a Labour prime minister with the fickle support of the Liberals? A coalition? That is to imply some sort of working together, perhaps even with a plan in mind to advance the general good. This mob is uncontrollable. Ever tried to herd mountain sheep without a good dog at your beck and call? You can’t. They scatter and run in all directions. Ramsay MacDonald will need to call on all his ancient farming skills if he’s to shepherd this bunch to a safe place. No-I prefer Lydia’s label.”

“They style themselves the ‘National Government,’ and who can argue with that? It will do for the moment. But there are those who’ve concluded that the head of our government is quite unqualified for the job: He’s self-educated, the illegitimate son of a Scottish farm-labourer and house-maid, he’s an advocate of Scottish home rule and seemingly over-indulgent towards our enemies, the Germans. That sort of thing doesn’t go down well in the Shires, you know.”

“It goes down well in the cities where he’s tackling unemployment, alleviating poverty and improving schooling,” Lydia said. “And besides, you’ve got to admire a man who dares to appoint a woman to a cabinet post.”

“A good move, Lydia, as all agree, but-he also appointed that scallywag young fascist Mosley to the Privy Seal’s office,” Marcus countered equably. “That alone makes the old man’s judgement questionable in my book. Tired? Ill? Too many lavish suppers chez Lady Londonderry? So-the jury’s out, I’d say, on his latest appointee-the holder of this new Office of State. Reform, eh? A broad canvas. I expect he’s treading on a lot of toes while he sets about marking out his territory.”

“And I’m thinking that perhaps the shepherd has found his dog,” Joe said. “In which case we should all be heaving a sigh of relief that it’s not Oswald Mosley he’s chosen to go haring about biting bums on his behalf! Do you think that could be so, Marcus? That what we’re looking at is no more than the tip of an iceberg? The visible bit of a political power struggle. How dull!”

“Dull for you and dull for me,” Marcus said thoughtfully. He began to rearrange the photographs to his further satisfaction. “Perhaps not for these poor little tiddlers. How do they come to be caught in the net? I’m thinking you’ll be needing all your nifty footwork to sort this lot out, Joe!”

“No nifty footwork expected. I find myself once again the tiniest cog in the affairs of state. I’m just required to do my job without snarling up the works. Insignificant.”

“Below the horizon isn’t a bad place to lurk in dangerous times,” Marcus commented. “It worked for Lord Nelson. Be insignificant but-make sure your cannon are primed and ready to go. Now tell me why young Truelove’s poaching on police preserves.”

He grinned and added: “And how you’re planning to confound him!”