He waited for Joe’s explanation.
Joe took a letter from his pocket. “In a manner of speaking, you could say that is what happened. Look at this. The anonymous letter I mentioned, delivered to me at the Yard last week.” Hunnyton read the sheet and grunted. “Woman’s writing. Not girls’ public school—have you noticed they always do their e’s the Greek way? Secondary educated, though … it’s nicely formed with even the odd curlicue and it’s joined up properly.” He puffed again on his pipe. “The phrasing’s top-drawer. Short, peremptory. ‘Get yourself down here and sort this out. Call yourself a copper?’ Mmm … so you thought the Dowager was responsible?”
“I think so. Dictated, I shouldn’t wonder, to her maid. I’d say that old lady enjoys a bit of intrigue.”
“It’s her middle name.”
“This proven, I’d say, by her behaviour just now in the lane. All that: ‘There you are! Dinner gong goes at seven,’ stuff. Well, it worked, for here I am! I’m sure you’re right and I ought to accept her invitation … or command, rather. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. A party thrown together at the last minute? It can hardly be a jolly occasion considering they’re all supposed to be in mourning still. Look, Hunnyton—could it be that with Lavinia out of the way she’s enjoying being the mistress of the house again? Showing everyone what it used to be like in the glamorous old days when they entertained royalty?” Joe suggested.
Hunnyton raised his eyebrows in speculation, then nodded.
“I begin almost to feel a pang of sympathy for James Truelove—with a mother and a wife like that pair on the premises, his life must have been hell,” Joe ventured.
“It was no stroll through the cowslips. They hated each other. They used him as a pawn, of course. But save your sympathy. James was never a victim. He had his ways of escaping their attentions. Uncomfortable for everyone, though, including the servants. It’s never easy serving two mistresses, and both of them batty.”
“Bad luck on poor James, though?” Joe persisted.
Hunnyton shrugged. “His choice of wife. His father’s choice of wife, come to that. They made their own beds. They got what they wanted. Needed, I should say. That sort of man looks elsewhere for his emotional and sensual fulfilment.” He paused to allow his veiled message time to be absorbed, then, wiping the distaste from his face, went on: “The men of that family have been marrying money since the Norman Conquest. Money is no guarantee of character in a wife, but it does keep the place afloat. These are hard times. Many estates have gone under, the houses bulldozed, grand old names buried with them. Where are the offspring of those old English families now? Manufacturing paperclips in Letchworth Garden City perhaps. Selling paint door-to-door? But the Trueloves are where they’ve always been and their roof is in tip-top condition, their moat clear as glass, their fields tilled to the last inch, their cattle and hogs as fat as any in England.”
“Where did it come from, this financial parachute? Are you allowed to say?”
“It’s no secret, it’s just that if you want to keep your head on your shoulders you never refer to it. Midlands manufacturing money in both cases. The old girl’s family made their fortune in Manchester. Cloth industry. Lavinia’s lot came from Birmingham. Metal. They prospered during the war. Any war you care to name. She was brought up in a family seat her grandfather bought for himself on the proceeds of carnage, well away from the soot and smoke and the sight of the labouring poor, in the hunting shires of the Midlands. Her father had aspirations of grandeur and the wherewithal to achieve them. He bought himself a baronetcy and his three daughters all married into the minor aristocracy.”
“But Lavinia and James produced no heirs to carry on the Truelove tradition of fortune hunting, I understand?”
“None. They were married for over ten years but no luck. She refurbished the old nursery and it stood equipped and ready to go, but over time it degenerated into a spare guest room. The strain of waiting and hoping sent her a bit doo-lally, I think. She certainly got worse with each year that passed. She was a woman who’d always got what she wanted the moment the want entered her head. She could never quite accept that Nature might be thwarting her. Her mother-in-law never mentioned it, of course, but it was clear to anyone who knew them that she thought Lavinia was a hen-headed waste of time. As did her son.”
“James was less than attentive, I’m guessing?”
“He was spending longer and longer periods of time away from Suffolk.”
“Busy man. A rising star on the political stage—you’d expect that.”
“Lavinia was accepting of his ambition. She shared it. She was already planning to do over the accommodation at number ten Downing Street. Ghastly thought! No—it was his other activities that roused her resentment.”
“His philanthropic and academic interests?”
“Yes. Begun by his grandfather, continued by his father and lately vastly extended by James—at his wife’s expense. Lavinia fancied she saw her money being poured into support for university research into subjects she hadn’t the slightest interest in. ‘Long-haired, socialist riff-raff’ were having their pockets filled with her family’s hard-earned cash and encouraged to while away three years of their lives making stinks in laboratories and downing pints in pubs.”
“Many people would say she had a point.”
“And many people would say you’re trying to start an argument, Commissioner. They might even add you’ve got your own dark horse entered in this mad steeplechase over hedge and ditch.”
“I never bet on the outcome, Hunnyton. I’ve been surprised far too often in this game. It’s one of my faults, perhaps. I keep an open mind for too long. I extend the benefit of the doubt until the moment I’m looking down the barrel of a gun in the hand of someone I’ve been doubting since the whistle blew.”
Hunnyton began to gather up the dishes. “Well, watch yourself up at the Hall. They’re not short of firearms of one sort or another. There are people up there barmy enough to use them and you’re barmy enough to provoke them.”
The mild insult was accompanied by a sudden intensification of warmth in the Saxon eyes. Joe had noticed that Hunnyton was confident enough of their relationship to neglect due deference to rank when it suited him.
The superintendent looked at the clock. “Better be off.” He handed Joe some pencilled sheets from his pocket. “Here’s some bumf I prepared for you. Plan of the Hall in case you need to run away in the night. Names of the senior staff. Map of the grounds, distances marked. Over the page, I’ve drawn a plan of the stable lay-out. I’ll walk you round the out buildings but leave you to it inside the moat. Oh, by the way, the drawbridge is pulled up at sunset. Traditionally and actually.”
“Drawbridge?” Joe questioned, suddenly alarmed. “Where are you sending me? Doubting Castle? The lair of the Giant Despair?”
“Drawbridges, in fact. One in front, one in the rear. Both in good working order. Most nights they remember to hoist them up and lower them at dawn. Guests from London enjoy that sort of thing. They write home about it. Take my advice—before you do anything else, ask the lad on the gate to show you where the levers are—anybody with two hands can work the mechanism.”
“Drawbridges! I loathe the things. They’re responsible for more death and injury than the enemy they’re supposed to be keeping out. Why the hell does Truelove feel he needs a moat in this day and age?”
“Moats are no big deal out here in Suffolk. Cattle troughs mostly, nowadays. Every farmhouse of any size has one, fed by underground springs. It was the main water source in the past. They’re not for defensive purposes, though perhaps in the Middle Ages they might have been. The great houses keep them for show and entertainment. Some stock them with fish. Truelove keeps his weed-free and crystal clear—a sight more healthy than Byron’s Pool in Grantchester, I can tell you. Everyone in the village who can swim learned to do it in that old moat. Younger guests like to splash about and squeal in the summer. Don’t worry—you won’t be expected to perform—it’s been far too cold a season so far and the water’s like ice still.”