Another long pause, then Palmer said, ‘I’ll call you back.’ He rang off.
Riley sat and waited, partly because she wasn’t sure what to do next. She was worried that her friendship with Palmer was approaching a watershed, and was beginning to regret having pressured him to take sides. True, he was quite capable of making decisions for himself, but clearly he was also fighting his own moral code about making judgements on the people he worked for. And having Riley pushing him with information he wouldn’t normally have been privy to was plainly clouding his deep-seated issues of loyalty.
He called back after twenty minutes. ‘One hour’s time,’ he said briefly, and gave her an address in Belgravia. ‘Don’t be late.’
‘Will you be there?’ she asked.
‘No.’ He disconnected.
***********
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.