Death and the Jubilee lfp-2 Page 25

  ‘You are always asking me for a definite answer,’ said Knox, irritated with this need for simple certainties in the battle against a devious and invisible enemy. ‘On balance, I should say that there will be an attempt at some kind of outrage. It may be that we will be able to prevent it. But I do not believe it will take place on the main route of the procession.’

  ‘Why not?’ said the General.

  ‘Think of it, man, think of it.’ Knox addressed the General as though he was talking to a rather stupid child. ‘This isn’t like a football match with supporters of two different teams attending. There is only one team, Victoria’s team. Fifty thousand soldiers are going to march along the route. All of them are to be told to keep their eyes open for anything unusual in the crowds. There will be policemen everywhere charged with the same mission. Plain-clothes men will be placed among the crowd at certain points – one entire stand near Fleet Street will be filled with them. Nobody could attempt to fire a shot or place a bomb with that amount of surveillance, not unless they are on a suicide mission. And however much the Irish profess their love for their country and its freedom, none of them has so far been prepared to blow himself up in the process.’ General Arbuthnot always found it difficult talking to Knox. The man was so elusive, so quick to qualify whatever decisions he might have made.

  ‘So where might we expect something, do you suppose, Mr Knox?’

  ‘I don’t know, General.’ He’s off again, thought the General, longing for the ordered certainties of the parade ground. ‘I’m afraid I just don’t know.’

  Lord Francis Powerscourt had gone back to Blackwater. He had forbidden himself the library in case of distractions. He knocked once more at the door of Samuel Parker’s cottage.

  ‘Good morning, my lord,’ said Parker. ‘Good to see you again.’

  ‘I trust Mrs Parker is well? And you must be relieved to have Miss Harrison off your hands?’

  Powerscourt smiled. From what Lady Lucy had told him, old Miss Harrison would not have been an easy visitor, residing in her mind somewhere between heaven and hell.

  ‘She’s gone to those Italian Lakes, my lord. Mabel was right glad to see her go. Old Miss Harrison began talking to her one day as if she was an angel.’ Samuel Parker shook his head sadly. ‘I’m not saying that Mabel mightn’t have looked a bit like an angel when she was young. But you’d have to be off your head to think she was one now.’

  ‘Mr Parker,’ Powerscourt was moving on from the civilities, ‘I wonder if I could borrow your keys, the ones to the temples round the lakes you had with you before. I’d just like to have another look around. And is there a boat anywhere I could borrow – a rowing boat, I mean? I thought I might have a poke about on that little island.’

  ‘The island, my lord? I’ve just remembered. I don’t think I mentioned it last time, it quite slipped my mind. But sometimes Old Mr Harrison used to row himself over there, all on his own, my lord. He wasn’t a very good rower, mind you, it used to take him about ten minutes. He went round in circles sometimes.’

  Parker disappeared behind his front door and came back with one of the largest bunches of keys Powerscourt had ever seen.

  ‘The temples are all marked, my lord. And you’ll find a boat underneath the Temple of Flora.’

  Parker watched him go, the sunshine dancing on the lake. I’ll say one thing for Lord Francis Powerscourt, he said to himself as he went inside to tell Mabel the latest news, he doesn’t give up easily.

  Powerscourt wandered slowly round the lake. Somewhere there must be a key or a clue to the terrible events that had engulfed the House of Harrison. Round these paths the old man had wandered on his pony, the faithful Parker accompanying him. By these temples he had stopped and taken out his writing desk, already trying to solve the mystery that brought Powerscourt to this water’s edge. Inside these temples, perhaps, he had conducted his correspondence with his contacts in Germany, sending Parker to post them on his own to avoid the postal system in the main house. Inside them too, he had read his replies, returning to Blackwater to mutter to his sister after dinner about conspiracies and secret societies. Old Mr Harrison had made some connection between events in Germany, perhaps in Berlin, and the deaths that struck his family and weakened his bank.

  Powerscourt walked into the echoing dome of the Pantheon. The statues mocked him. We know, we are gods, they seemed to say. You are merely an ignorant mortal doomed to wander in the shadows of ignorance for the rest of your days. The cupboards and the window seats in The Cottage had no secrets for him. The sun was flooding the Temple of Apollo, the lead statue of the hero glowing in the light. Once again Powerscourt tapped on the lead as he had tapped on the marble of the other statues. No hollow sound, no promise of a secret cache here. The whole lake seemed to be laughing at him, mocking his ignorance and rejoicing in its older, superior knowledge.

  By the Temple of Flora, where yet more statues failed to yield up any secrets, he found the boathouse. He was looking out at the Pantheon and the little island that lay half-way between it and The Cottage. Powerscourt rowed slowly, remembering the flat fens he had rowed past in his days at Cambridge, the thrill of the chase, the wonderful excitement of making a bump on the boat ahead. No other boats followed him here, only the ripples on the water. He tied his boat to the nearest tree and went to explore.

  The island was very small, some seventy yards long and fifty yards wide. It was ringed by trees so the little clearing at the centre was almost invisible from the shore. Powerscourt suddenly heard the voice of the Sibyl in Book Six of the Aeneid sounding in his brain.

  ‘In a dark tree there hides a golden bough and it is sacred to the Juno of Hell: It is not given to anybody to approach earth’s hidden places except he first plucked from that tree its golden foliage.’

  Golden boughs and golden foliage seemed appropriate to a banking family, thought Powerscourt, looking round for dark trees with golden foliage. There was a dark tree, but it was old and withered. It had a hollow centre reaching up to his shoulder. Feeling slightly self-conscious he put his hand inside. There were leaves and clods of earth lying on the top. There was something hard beneath them. When he had brushed the mould away Powerscourt saw there was an ill-fitting piece of wood lying across the hollow, like a badly made trapdoor. He tried to move it with his hands. It didn’t move. He tried levering it up with Mr Parker’s largest key, a formidable instrument over two feet long. There was a crack, then a harsh creaking noise as the wood came away. Powerscourt peered inside. The top of the tiny chamber was covered with towels. There must have been half a dozen of them. He thought of the housekeeper at Blackwater, checking her stores, looking in her books, complaining to anyone who would listen that her towels kept on disappearing.

  At the bottom of the towels was a small black document box, made of iron and sealed with a formidable lock. As he lifted it out of its hiding place he could see the legend ‘C.F. Harrison’ written on the side.

  Powerscourt peered through the trees. For some time he had wondered if he was being watched. There was nothing definite, just the sense of hidden eyes following him round the lake. Perhaps it was the statues.

  He looked at the lock. He wondered if any of Mr Parker’s keys would open the box. He wondered about Mr Parker. Surely he must have known about the cache on the island on the lake? Surely he must have known that his master sometimes took things to and from his box? Was Mr Parker to be trusted, or was he yet another mystery in the labyrinth that was Blackwater?

  Powerscourt sat on the ground and began working through Mr Parker’s keys. There must have been over fifty on the ring. Beyond the island a cormorant beat its way across the lake, making guttural calls to its fellows. Blackwater foresters could be heard way in the distance sawing at a rotten tree. He wondered if the key had been kept by Old Mr Harrison himself on his own key ring. Perhaps it had been removed, like his head, before his last macabre voyage down the Thames to London Bridge. Then he found it. The key was stiff, maybe the lock
was stiff after all that time in the tree. Powerscourt turned it and found a very small pile of papers at the bottom of the box. Damp had got to some of them, the ink fading before its time. There was a musty smell as if the papers themselves were going bad.

  He pulled out four letters, all written in German. There were also two newspaper articles, going yellow with age. Both related to the fall of Barings Bank some seven years before. The old man had made marks on the articles in a red pen, circling some passages and underlining others. Maybe Harrison’s had been involved in the rescue, Powerscourt thought.

  Should he put the letters back in the box? Should he take the box away with him? Should he take the box back to Mr Parker and tell him he was taking it and its contents back to London? He looked at the key, sitting comfortably on Mr Parker’s key ring. It looked as though it had been there for years. He wondered once more about Samuel Parker, sitting on the ground, looking out over the water. He could see his little rowing boat bobbing gently up and down. The classical facade of the Pantheon was on his other side, the statues within guarding their ancient mysteries. Was Samuel Parker secretly in league with Charles Harrison, reporting Powerscourt’s every move and repeating every word he said? He couldn’t be sure. He even wondered about an unlikely alliance between Parker and Jones the butler, praying together perhaps on the stone floor, whisky bottles drained beside the shells and the golden cross as they planned a campaign of fire and murder.

  Whatever he did he must act fast. Powerscourt thought he had been on the island for about ten minutes. That he could describe satisfactorily. Anything longer might be a problem. He took the letters and the newspaper articles out of the box. He folded them carefully and put them in his pocket. Please God I don’t have an accident on the way back to the shore, he said to himself, the papers would become so sodden you couldn’t read anything at all. He locked the box and put it back in the tree. He covered it with the towels and its trapdoor. Then he gathered some leaves and moss from the bottom of the tree and placed them on top. He found a branch lying on the ground and brushed the area around it, trying to remove any footprints that might reveal his presence.

  Then he went back. Mr Parker was waiting for him at the boathouse. Powerscourt wondered if Parker had watched his every move. He looked back to the island, reassured that you could not have seen a man removing boxes from the hollow tree. ‘Did your mission meet with success, my lord?’

  ‘In a way it did,’ said Powerscourt, handing over the keys. ‘I’d completely forgotten how much I enjoyed rowing. Maybe I shall get back on the river.’

  Powerscourt was lost in thought about possible links between Blackwater, Berlin and Harrison’s Bank when he returned to Markham Square. The noise hit him as soon as he opened the door. There seemed to have been an insurrection on the upper floors. Doors were banging. Fists were beating on the walls. Occasional screams broke through the high-pitched racket. Punctuating the sound effects came the repeated cry ‘I don’t want to go to bed! I don’t want to go to bed!’ Thomas Powerscourt was not on his best behaviour.

  His father took the stairs two at a time and confronted his wayward son. He was wrestling with the nurse in the corridor outside the bathroom over a pyjama top which she seemed to think he should be wearing. Thomas, for his part, had correctly identified the donning of the pyjama top as a form of surrender to the demands of bedtime. ‘I don’t want to go to bed, Papa. I don’t want to go to bed.’ He stamped a small foot defiantly on the floor.

  Powerscourt couldn’t help smiling at the intensity of his son’s passion. Men had presented Bills or Budgets in the House of Commons with less feeling than this.

  ‘Now then, Thomas, let me tell you something.’ He picked up the angry bundle and pressed him tight against his shoulder. ‘Everybody goes to bed. I go to bed. Mama goes to bed. Your grandparents go to bed. The Prime Minister goes to bed. Queen Victoria goes to bed. I expect God goes to bed.’

  He suddenly realized he might have made a mistake. He could be involved for hours in discussion about what kind of bed the Almighty slept in, whether God wore pyjamas, what time he retired, who read him a bedtime story. He took a quick look at Thomas. The waves of wrath seemed to be subsiding. Thomas looked as if he was about to ask a question.

  Powerscourt thought rapidly about a diversion. He searched desperately in his pockets. Help was at hand.

  ‘Look, I’ve got you some more coins. For your collection. French ones. I don’t think you’ve got any of those, have you?’

  He produced two gold French coins from his pocket. The little boy was fascinated by coins and had amassed a large collection, kept in remarkably tidy piles on a shelf in his room. Lady Lucy was already convinced he was going to be the foremost banker in London when he grew up. Powerscourt would tell her gloomily that the coin obsession could just as easily lead to an alternative career as London’s most successful burglar.

  Thomas inspected them carefully. The crisis seemed to have passed.

  ‘Can I go and look at them in my room, Papa?’

  ‘Of course you can. Nurse Mary Muriel will see you into bed,’ said Powerscourt in what he hoped was his most authoritative voice. It worked.

  ‘I’d better see to Olivia,’ said Mary Muriel, looking anxiously at her employer. ‘I think she’s still in the bath.’

  ‘Don’t worry about her,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘I’ll look in on her now.’

  Olivia Eleanor Hamilton Powerscourt was sitting happily in a few inches of water. Even at the age of two and a half she seemed to have the smile of satisfaction children sometimes wear when their elder brothers or sisters are in trouble with the authorities.

  ‘Hello, Olivia,’ said Powerscourt, sitting on a wet chair at the side of the bath.

  ‘Thomas naughty,’ said his daughter, pointing out of the door. ‘Thomas naughty boy.’

  ‘Never mind about Thomas,’ replied her father, anxious to change the subject. ‘We’d better get you out of the bath.’

  He reached down and let the plug out. ‘Watch the way the water goes out. It’ll go round and round in circles in a minute.’

  The little girl looked at him with disapproval. Then she watched, fascinated, as the water did indeed go round in circles.

  ‘Olivia,’ said her father, ‘I’m going to turn you into a parcel.’

  Little Olivia’s favourite person in the whole world was her grandmother. Powerscourt’s parents were dead, but Lady Lucy’s had two houses, an eighteenth-century mansion in Oxfordshire and a huge castle in Scotland, full of dark corridors and Jacobite ghosts.

  ‘I simply don’t understand it, Francis,’ Lucy had often said of her mother. ‘When we were little, there was no affection at all. If you were lucky you got an occasional peck on the cheek, that was it. The horses and the dogs seemed to get much more love than the children. Just look at the difference now.’

  Maybe it was because Olivia Eleanor Hamilton Powerscourt was Lady Macleod’s first granddaughter after a large collection of boys. The old lady would take Olivia round the garden, showing her the flowers. She would take her to the stables and promise her a pony of her own when she was a little bit bigger. Biscuits would appear at regular intervals. At bedtime she would read stories to the little girl as if she wanted to do nothing else for the rest of the evening. Perhaps she didn’t. But the last time the family had been there Powerscourt had seen a very special event. The butler had walked into the room in the middle of the morning with a very large parcel for Olivia’s grandmother. Her name was written on it in large letters. There was an impressive collection of stamps. It was wrapped in thick brown paper with copious amounts of string. Olivia had been fascinated. She had been enrolled as her grandmother’s principal assistant in the unwrapping of the parcel. This, Powerscourt remembered, had taken almost an hour. Knots had to be undone. The string had to be carefully rolled up in little bundles. The brown paper had to be taken off very carefully. It too had to be folded. There was another layer of paper inside which requir
ed similar treatment. The final contents, a jumper of a sensible brown colour, had proved of little interest after all the previous excitement.

  Powerscourt had an enormous white towel in his arms. He picked Olivia up. A pair of blue eyes, rather like her mother’s, peered up at him, trusting, clear, unfathomable. Powerscourt often thought she had been here before. He wrapped her very tightly in the towel.

  ‘First of all,’ he said to Olivia, ‘we have to make sure the parcel is wrapped up very tight.’ He made a number of folds in the towel and tucked the ends very firmly in position. Olivia had disappeared completely. She looked like a small white mummy, awaiting final incarceration in some dead Pharaoh’s tomb.

  ‘All right in there, parcel?’ asked Powerscourt, suddenly worried that she might suffocate.

  ‘Parcel all right,’ reported the small package.

  ‘Now we’ve got to put some string round it.’ Powerscourt’s fingers made a series of loops round the package, pausing occasionally to fasten imaginary knots.

  ‘Address now,’ he said. He began to write heavily with his finger on Olivia’s back. ‘Lady Cynthia Macleod, Beauclerc House, Thame, Oxfordshire. I think we’d better write it on the front of the parcel as well.’ He turned the towel over. There was a yelp from within.

  ‘Tickles,’ said Olivia Powerscourt with great delight, ‘tickles.’

  ‘Now we have to put the stamps on,’ said her father. He stamped his fist all around the package, finishing with a final triumphant flourish on the top of her head. ‘Now you have to be handed over to the postman. Please Mr Postman, could you take this parcel for Oxfordshire. It’s got all the stamps on. “Yes, sir,” says the postal gentleman, “we’ll take care of it for you.”’

  Powerscourt now threw Olivia around, explaining that she had joined all the other parcels in London at a great sorting office.

  ‘Warwickshire, Devon, Dorset, Norfolk.’ He threw various imaginary missives round the bathroom. ‘Ah,’ he put on another voice, ‘this one’s for Oxfordshire. Put it in the train up there.’