‘Thank you, Jameson, I’ll manage.’ He peered at the faint blue letters. ‘There’s nothing here I can’t take away to work on. I’ll slip it into my briefcase to read on the train. I like to have something to set the pulses racing when I’m travelling.’
‘Not taking your diary along for the journey, then, sir?’
It was a moment before he realized his secretary had attempted a joke.
‘I’m no Oscar Wilde, Miss Jameson,’ he said repressively. ‘However, if I were compelled to review the passage of my life between here and Devon, I would agree with Oscar that “each day is like a year. A year whose days are long”.’
He hoped he’d not been too squashing.
‘And the nights? Each one an eternity …’ She lowered her gaze to her immaculate calfskin shoes, sighed, and shook her head gently, hinting at some deep sorrow.
‘Ah! Insomniac are you? It’s these hot nights … we all suffer. I may have the answer for your condition. Wincarnis, Jameson! The Mysterious Restorative. I recommend a slug before retiring. Ten thousand doctors and my mother swear by it, and my mother’s never wrong.’ He glanced at his wristwatch and, alarmed by what he saw, shot to his feet.
‘The Cornish Riviera Express leaves at ten thirty. Do be sure to take one of the slip carriages for Taunton, won’t you? No need to worry – you have a good forty minutes, sir.’ The voice, quite unabashed, dripped honeyed reassurance. It had the irrational effect of irritating the commander beyond reason. ‘I hope you don’t mind, sir, but anticipating that you’d be running late I took the liberty of ordering up a squad car and driver for you. You’ll find it sitting panting down below on the Embankment.’
Joe did mind. He toyed with the notion of making use of the dreaded word ‘austerity’ and wagging a reproving finger at her, but he hadn’t the time. He let the moment pass and here she was, smoothing down the already smooth chignon at the nape of her neck and dimpling.
‘Ten minutes to Paddington as long as you’re not held up in Park Lane … you’ll have time for a cup of tea. You have your ticket, sir? Clean handkerchief?’
Joe suppressed a schoolboy urge to present his freshly washed hands, front and back, and bare his faultless teeth in a ritual snarl for Matron’s nightly inspection. A spurt of mischief pushed him to pat his inside wallet pocket in a theatrical manner. Impervious to teasing, she tilted her head in acknowledgement of his gesture and nodded her approval. The woman was turning herself into his nanny.
If your taste inclined to the statuesque – and Joe’s did – Amalthea Jameson was undeniably attractive. She was a tall, well-shaped blonde from a good military family, a product of Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Oxford. She had had her training with a recently retired deputy commissioner and was eagerly sought after by his colleagues. Sandilands had to agree with them that he was an ungrateful bastard who didn’t deserve her. Sly approaches suggesting her transfer to the department of a more appreciative boss had been made to him. Quite out of order, he thought. Miss Jameson was not a commodity to be traded, and as she seemed happy – suspiciously happy – to serve the office of commander in spite of the apparent demotion, there was little he could do but grind his teeth and try to appreciate her undoubted qualities.
Ah, well … perhaps she would find some poor soul, marry him and leave? And then he could put in for a male secretary who wouldn’t sigh in his ear and concern himself with the state of his handkerchief. Trivialities! Joe reproved himself for being distracted by them. Time he followed his guns to the country.
He was under no illusion as to the style of entertainment on offer: an all-male gathering, the other guests being stars from the government and the military. A general flown in from Ireland, an admiral snatched from his battlecruiser, the flamboyant head of the Secret Service lured from the Savoy Grill and a press baron: all these featured on the list Commissioner Horwood had himself written out for him in pencil. It had concluded with the name of the head of the diplomatic service. And perhaps this outspoken mob would be needing the active services of a diplomatist before the weekend was out. The presence of Max Beaverbrook, leader of what he himself called ‘the Press Gang’, promised to be somewhat inflammatory when another name on the list was that of Winston Churchill, the man he had seriously annoyed with his articles in the Daily Express.
Joe expected a clash of antlers at worst, point-scoring at best. They’d been promised a soothing after-dinner performance from the exiled Russian bass, Chaliapin, accompanied by Rubinstein on the piano and, according to the pencilled note, a soprano called Olga?/Vera? would be released from Covent Garden to put in an appearance on the second night. Nothing but the best on offer for the Gratton Gang, evidently. But his sharp sister had it right, Joe reckoned. ‘Minnow’ had been a little derogatory, perhaps, but all the same … he did wonder what on earth a not-very-exalted policeman could be expected to contribute to the occasion.