“How do you feel about some nasty-minded bleeder taking the kitchen scissors to your mum’s painting?” he asked.
“It pisses me off.”
“You always did like the painting, didn’t you? You pretended not to, but I knew you liked it. Me, now, I don’t understand it. I like a proper painting.”
“Tits and bums?”
He ignored that. “It occurred to me once that you might have nicked it because you liked it so much. Oddly enough I’m not so very sure that you did nick it now, in fact I’d even go so far as to say that I believe in your innocence, Johnny. Perhaps I’m getting soft in my old age, or perhaps I’ve caught a nasty case of food poisoning from the milk of human kindness, but I really do believe that I did you an injustice all those years ago.”
“Then say you’re sorry.”
“I’m sorry, Johnny.” He bared his horse’s teeth at me. “So tell me, you bastard, why didn’t you report an attempt on your life? I know it’s a miserable life, and probably not worth preserving, but we are mildly interested in murder attempts.”
I abandoned the rest of my breakfast. “Who told you about that?”
“Who the hell do you think told me?” Harry took the last sausage from my plate. “The Contessa, of course.”
“The Contessa?” The only Contessa I could think of was a make of boat. A very nice make of boat. I’d nearly bought a Contessa 32 once.
Harry shook his head in grief for my sanity. “The Contessa Pallavicini. Who else?”
“Jennifer Pallavicini?”
“Oh, of course, I keep forgetting. You’re a nob as well. You probably don’t use titles amongst yourselves. I suppose you call her Jenny-baby or Passion-knickers. Yes, Johnny. I mean Jennifer Pallavicini.”
“Bloody hell fire,” I said softly. I had thought I was the one earning pennies from heaven by not using my title, and all the time Jennifer Pallavicini was hiding her own? I felt stupid and astonished. “I didn’t know she was a Contessa,” I said limply.
“Her mother married the title, but she’s Lady Buzzacott now, so the daughter uses the handle. Mind you, those Italians seem to give away titles with their cornflakes, so perhaps it doesn’t mean anything.”
I gaped at him. “She’s Buzzacott’s stepdaughter?”
“You didn’t know that either?”
“No.”
Abbott was pleased with himself. He leaned back in his chair. “Surprised you, did I?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Well you can stop fancying her, you evil-minded bastard. She’s engaged to some Swiss businessman.”
“She doesn’t wear a ring,” I protested a little too hastily.
“That’s the modern way, isn’t it? Equality and all that rubbish. Or else she keeps the ring in a bank vault. The Swiss bloke must be a zillionaire.” He looked at me closely, then gave an evil grin. “You do fancy her, don’t you?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“Then it’s your lucky day, Johnny, because she wants to see you.”
“I thought she was in New York?”
Abbott rolled his bloodshot eyes. “Not everyone crosses the ocean by hanging rags on sticks. She flew back yesterday in Concorde. We’re going to meet the family, you and I. It’ll be very la-di-da. Are you sure you don’t want to put on a suit?”
“I’m sure.” I hated the thought of meeting the Buzzacott family, for I was in no mood for social politeness, but, by phoning Harry Abbott, I had condemned myself to whatever inconvenience followed. For Georgina’s sake.
Harry swallowed the rest of his coffee and snapped his fingers for the waitress to bring the bill. “It’s nice to be back on crime again,” he said happily.
“They took you off it? What are you now? In charge of school crossings?”
“I’m just a dogsbody,” he said mysteriously. “They just gave me this case for old times’ sake, and to save some other poor sod from looking up the files. So shall we go, Johnny boy? I’ve got a car outside. But pay the bill first.”
I paid, then joined Harry in a clapped-out Rover that he proudly claimed as his own car. We drove north and I wondered about a Contessa and whether she knew that the Swiss are rotten sailors. They’re good at making cuckoo-clocks, and presumably they can ski, but they’re sod all use at anything else. Except making money. And that was a depressing thought, so I tried to forget Jennifer Pallavicini. Instead, at Harry’s insistence, I told him all about Garrard and Peel, and how Charlie had saved me in the nick of time, and then, when Harry had sucked all the juice out of that, he told me golf stories all the way to Wiltshire.
We parked on the airport-sized forecourt of Comerton Castle. Two footmen ran down the steps to open the car doors. Harry smirked, and said he could get used to this style of life. We were ceremoniously conducted to the entrance hall where a pin-striped butler waited to greet us. He already knew Harry, but didn’t bat an eyelid at my dirty jeans and crumpled shirt. “Welcome to Comerton Castle, your lordship. If you would care to follow me?”
We did so care, following his silent footfalls through rooms big enough to hold fully rigged schooners. The ceilings were painted with riotous gods and the walls fluted with marble columns. The furniture was worth a small fortune, while the pictures on the walls would not have disgraced any gallery, though clearly Sir Leon did not consider them worthy of his own. Harry Abbott wet his fingertips and tried to smear back his thinning grey hair. “Not a bad pad, is it?” he confided in me, then jerked at his jacket and straightened his tie.
“Uncomfortable, Harry?” I asked.
“Christ, no. We coppers are always slumming with the nobs.”
The nobs were waiting in a glazed terrace filled with potted palms and comfortable sofas. Sir Leon and Lady Buzzacott smiled a gracious welcome. There was no sign of Jennifer. I made polite small talk. I agreed it was a lovely day, and such a change after the recent stormy weather. Yes, I had been to Sir Leon’s gallery, and had been very impressed.
“My daughter told me she’d met you at the gallery,” Lady Buzzacott said very blandly, which suggested that her daughter had also told her that she had put the boot in as well. “I do wish she’d brought you to the house that day and introduced you.”
“That would have been very pleasant,” I said with insincere gallantry. I was being polite for Georgina’s sake, but I was feeling increasingly resentful. It was not that I felt out of place, for I didn’t, but I did feel patronised. Two days ago I had been racing a gale, and now I had to tiptoe through the conversational tulips.
“Jenny also told us about her visit to the Azores,” Lady Buzzacott went on. “She said you hit a veritable giant?”
“Only twice, Lady Buzzacott.”
“You must call me Helen, and I shall call you John. Leon, I think John could do with a drink. And I know Harry wants one. I suppose the loveliest thing about being a policeman is that you can drink and drive as much as you like?”
“Quite right, your ladyship.” Harry was being very obsequious, and I realised that he probably fancied Lady Buzzacott, which wasn’t surprising, for she was a beautiful woman. The beauty was genuine, not purchased in spas and health farms or on some surgeon’s operating table. Her hair, like her daughter’s, was dark, but just beginning to show grey, and clearly Lady Buzzacott had no intention of hiding the grey.
If she impressed me, her husband rather surprised me. Sir Leon was very small, very rotund, and seemingly rather timid. I had expected to meet a frightening tycoon, but instead he seemed very eager to please. He ordered drinks, then took Harry Abbott off to see some orchids.
“They’ll talk golf,” Lady Buzzacott said despairingly, and I began to like her.
“I’ve had little else but golf all the way from Devon.”