‘Suter more or less told me that we could name our price. So we did. But there was one condition. And I am sure you could guess that in one, Lord Powerscourt.’
‘Silence,’ said Powerscourt.
‘Total and absolute silence. We all had to sign a document drawn up by his lawyers. Even Muriel signed it, didn’t you?’
‘There was nothing to say that we couldn’t talk about it in the privacy of our own homes, William dear. And we did very well out of it in a way. A few years after that we were able to move in here, weren’t we?’
Powerscourt remembered a conversation about blackmail with a very intelligent Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police several years before. They had been on their own in the back room of a quiet pub by the river.
‘It’s like this, my lord,’ said the Superintendent, drinking his pint slowly and deliberately. ‘The first thing the blackmailer has to do is to get his claws into his victim.’ He squeezed the back of his left hand very firmly with the fingers of his right. Briefly, the blood drained away. The skin went white. ‘Then they start asking for more. Year one, it may be just a preliminary finger, my lord. By year two the blackmailer feels he can ask for a bit more. Then a lot more. After a while the blackmailer starts to feel that his victim owes him the money, that he, the blackmailer, deserves it. Very strange that.’
‘Could I ask you about the arrangements, Mr Simmons? How the money was paid and so on.’
‘Oh, it was all very honest and above board, Lord Powerscourt.’
‘William wouldn’t have had it any other way, would you, my dear? What would the bank have said if there had been anything strange about it all?’
What indeed, said Powerscourt to himself.
‘It came every month. The story we all agreed on was that they could be referred to as naval pensions for the boys. If anybody asked. But nobody ever did. The money came like clockwork. From a branch of Finch’s in London.’
‘And did you find that the whole business became more expensive as time went on? What with the doctors and the treatments and all that sort of thing?’ Powerscourt was trying to sound as innocent as he could. He needn’t have worried.
‘Of course it did, Lord Powerscourt!’ Mrs Simmons was indignant. ‘Every year it became more expensive! We’ve been to Switzerland, to London, to America to see the doctors there. We had to buy new clothes and new hats for all these trips. And if we stayed on for a little holiday afterwards, then no one was going to object, were they? Think what we were all going through! Think of the shame if it ever came out! I could never have raised my head in the village again! We’d have had to move! I think silence is beyond price, don’t you agree, William dear?’
‘Have the arrangements always worked smoothly? No unfortunate mishaps along the way?’ His Superintendent came back to Powerscourt. Something he’d said was teasing away at the back of his mind.
‘If any of the arrangements about paying the money ever go wrong, then it’s panic all round, my lord. Frightful panic. Very hard to put the genie back in the bottle again.’
‘They’ve always worked very well,’ said Simmons. His wife had temporarily vanished from the room. ‘They’ve only gone wrong once and that was fairly recently. But we managed to sort that out.’
‘And the boys themselves, young men, I should say. I know that one of them died last year. Are all the rest all right?’
‘As well as can be expected, that’s what the doctors say. Sometimes they go for years with no trouble, then it flares up again.’
‘And your own Alfred? Does he live here with you?’
‘Lord Powerscourt! Do have some of my special cake! My modest effort always wins the prizes here in the village. I once had a third place with it at the Dorset County Show!’
Mrs Simmons had returned, triumphant, with an enormous fruit cake, and a small, leather-bound book.
‘There! A generous slice for you, Lord Powerscourt! William always says there is no point in having mean portions of my cake!’
‘Our son is quite well. He’s our only child,’ Simmons carried on, ‘he lives most of the time here with us.’
‘William was able to secure him a small position in the bank, Lord Powerscourt! So kind of William! And, unlike most boys of his age, Alfred really loves living with his mother! Isn’t that right, dear?’
‘Is he here at the moment?’
‘No, he’s not.’ Simmons was rendered almost speechless by a mouthful of his wife’s fruit cake. ‘He’s been away since the start of this year. He’s gone to a friend of his in Norfolk, somewhere near Fakenham. Alfred goes there often. He’s always been excellent with a rifle. I think they do a lot of shooting.’
Powerscourt took refuge in his cake. One Britannia brother was good with the hunting knives perhaps. Another one was good with a rifle. They could be a deadly pair up there in Norfolk, not far from Sandringham. He began composing another note to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
As he left The Laurels, he was trapped again by Mrs Simmons.
‘Lord Powerscourt! We can’t let you leave until you’ve signed our little visitors’ book! All our guests do! And if you could sign it Lord Francis Powerscourt, that would be too nice for words! Otherwise they mightn’t believe you were really a lord! Dearie me! That would never do!’
For the first time in his life, he signed himself Lord Francis Powerscourt. Simmons shook him warmly by the hand as he left, saying that if he needed further help, then he must come again. Mrs Simmons assured him that he would always be more than welcome in her humble home. There was another cake recipe she could perfect before his next visit.
18
‘Just you sit yourself in the back of the boat, Francis.’
‘I think they call it the stern, Johnny.’
Powerscourt and Fitzgerald were setting off from Hammersmith up the Thames to view the secret house of London’s homosexual rich. Powerscourt wanted to see the building for himself. It was late in the evening, a cold wind blowing across the river. Fitzgerald had procured an ancient rowing boat from somewhere.
‘The thing is, Francis, I’m getting very superstitious about that house. Twice now I’ve seen single magpies on my way back from there. No matter how long I waited I never saw another one. And I’m fed up with being stuck up that bloody tree. So we’ll creep up on them the way they’re least expecting. Christ, Francis, sit still, for God’s sake. We’ll all be in the water at this rate.’
The rowing boat seemed to have a will of its own, swaying, lurching, dipping at unpredictable moments.
‘Which way are we going, Johnny?’
Powerscourt wondered if he could swim back to the bank, as the vessel zigzagged its way towards a fatal rendezvous with the bastions of Hammersmith Bridge.
‘Shut up, Francis! I’ve just got to get the bloody thing into the middle of the river. The current’s not so bad there.’
At last the boat settled into a rhythm, Fitzgerald’s powerful arms moving them upstream. Hampton Court, thought Powerscourt, we could reach Hampton Court if we kept going, or Oxford. Though not at this rate, not this year. Even in the middle the current was still strong, progress very slow, the splash of the oars unnaturally loud in the middle of the Thames.
To Powerscourt’s right lay the waterfront of Hammersmith lined with taverns and fine houses, occasional sounds drifting out across the water. To his left, beyond Hammersmith Bridge, the trees of Barnes kept silent vigil over their progress. Strange pieces of river jetsam floated by on their passage towards the open sea: pieces of wood in fantastic shapes, bits of material that might have once have been clothes, bottles without messages. A rowing eight, dressed entirely in black, shot past them going the other way, a ghostly light at the front of their boat, the current sweeping them downstream towards Putney.