“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?”