The Intrigues of Jennie Lee Page 28

  She rose, stood for the national anthem and then made for the tube station. By the time she’d arrived at the steps down to the tube, Jennie had decided to march back the way she’d come. This time, she could detect no following friend. But she had kept to the crowded streets of a Saturday evening Oxford Street. There was no reason to hurry home to an empty flat, where she’d just have to continue waiting till Monday.

  * * *

  The loud and persistent rapping at the door finally penetrated her deep, dreamless sleep. Jennie lifted her head to look at the alarm clock: seven twenty-five. So early on a Sunday morning? She pulled the dressing gown from the covers and slipped her arms through it as she rose. By the time she’d reached the door, she knew the voice. It was Charlie Trevelyan.

  She threw the door open. Trevelyan literally staggered in.

  “Charlie, what are you doing here? You look a fright.” She couldn’t suppress the thought.

  “Traveling all night. Wanted to get here as soon as I could... before you saw the papers.” She took his coat and hat, turned back to him to see sheer agony on his face. He reached out to her arms and held them for a moment.

  There was no preface. Charlie just began to speak. “Jennie, Frank is dead.” In the silence he went on. “Shooting accident, yesterday afternoon.”

  All she could say was “How?”

  “Not sure. He was alone, at a stile. Gun must have discharged as he climbed over.”

  Now, he pulled her to him, to absorb the grief about to overtake her. It came, in waves of sobs and moans. For long moments, he held her as her hands closed about the folds of his coat and pulled violently at them, her head pounding on his shoulder until he had to have been able to feel the pain beneath the layers he wore, in his collarbone.

  She couldn’t compose herself. She wouldn’t compose herself. She did not want to do so. She needed to lament, to weep, to howl. It felt to her that, somehow, she had killed her lover, her partner, the person she cared for most in the world. She didn’t know exactly why she was responsible, precisely how she’d done it or at what moment. She just knew it was all her fault. She had walked away, made the breach, and over what? A trivial disagreement about politics? No, a deep disagreement and one about which she’d been completely wrong. That’s what made her responsible.

  Her mind wandered back and forth through these thoughts and images...all accompanied by pain, all over her body, down to her hands and fingertips, throbbing as she clutched at Charlie’s coat. The enormity of the loss came again, in a new way. Never again to look at Frank, to smile at him and be smiled at by him, to feel him with her, inside her, calming her or making her want to do things, teasing and being teased, sharing thoughts, memories, stories, emotions, all barriers down, long into nights. She’d never have any of this again.

  Feeling Trevelyan’s rough, unshaven cheek for a moment, she thought, This isn’t fair to Charlie. This is making it harder for him. She didn’t care.

  It must have been a quarter of an hour that they stood there. Her friend, her mentor, her long ago occasional lover, held her, without a word, without a gesture of impatience or emotional fatigue, without taking a step to staunch her lamentation or express his sympathy or comfort her, beyond holding her as long as she wanted to, needed to, cling to him. Charlie Trevelyan knew exactly what Jennie needed at this time, and more than anything he wanted to provide it.

  The lassitude of sadness finally submerged the violence of her grief. Jennie slowly released him, dropped her hands and, without turning, allowed herself to collapse into an armchair, still covering her face with her hands. Charlie dropped before her to his knees and forced a white kerchief into an unwilling hand. Then he rose and took a seat on the chesterfield opposite. There he waited until she was ready to look at him.

  “Jennie. There’s something we have to do.” She was puzzled but said nothing. “I’ve got the latch key to Frank’s flat. Is there anything of yours there?”

  Jennie nodded. “Some clothes, toiletries.”

  “Any letters from you to Frank?”

  “Don’t know. Perhaps.”

  “We’ve got to get them out. Before Dorothy finds them. I want to spare her feelings. I’m sure you do too. And it wouldn’t do to make matters public, anyway, would it.” Jennie shook her head.

  She rose and went into the bedroom to dress.

  * * *

  By Monday, the papers had the details of Frank’s accidental death. The trunk calls were coming in, from Nye in Wales, from Ellen in the North, from the few others who knew. After declining the first few, Jennie simply ceased to answer the telephone. There was nothing to say. She didn’t want to be consoled.

  But then, a week later, the letter came. The sender wanted Jennie to have no doubt about who it was from. “Dorothy Wise” was written in a firm hand and a wide pen point on the return of an envelope bordered in black. Jennie noticed her hands shake as she pulled it open.

  My dear Miss Lee Jennie,

  I do understand how hard it must be for you, who have no official ‘right’ to be considered, and who must carry on as if it were only a great friend and not more you have lost.

  I feel rather a humbug getting all the official condolences—but for his sake and the children’s I’ve got to go on playing the game of not letting the world know—and especially the few who half-knew and look to see how I take it.

  I think it makes it very much easier for me that you know I did care. If I hadn’t cared at all I might have made it easier for you both. If I had cared more, loved him more, I suppose I could have carried on, could have shared him with you, or at least loved the part of him he gave me. How does one blame oneself now for not living up to the bigger selfless outlook that I got a glimpse of?

  At Wallington Hall, Frank and I agreed to not blink at these issues, to face them in a spirit of friendly compromise and live our lives more separately. I know how much he meant to you.

  Now, I face a separation that will be easier for me to bear than the other might have been. I know it will be much harder for you.

  Please meet me a Frank’s London flat any time next week. I will be there to pack his things away and will want to give you a token or two to remember him.

  Dorothy Wise

  Jennie read the note twice, trying to piece its full meaning together. Dorothy Wise seemed to have learned everything, and to have learned it after Jennie had broken with Frank. Why had he told her, why had they agreed to live separately? What might it have meant for them, for Jennie and Frank? Could Dorothy Wise answer any of these questions? Jennie didn’t think so.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The door to the building was propped open, and the door to Frank’s flat was open as well, when Jennie arrived. Men had been moving packing crates and furniture into a van at the kerb. As she entered, Jennie could see from the looks of the flat that they had just about completed their work.

  There, in the midst of the lounge, stood Dorothy Wise, surveying what remained to be shifted. There were some traveling cases with papers on the window seats that overlooked Bedford Square. She was a large, middle-aged lady, hair parted in the middle and held in a bun, wearing grey mourning dress with a black crepe arm band. Frank’s widow looked very much “in charge,” dealing with matters and movers firmly. Jennie had only ever seen her at a distance, in the gallery of the House and even then had not looked at her long enough to hold her glance or even to notice whether Dorothy Wise was watching her. Now she was. Jennie entered and was met with neither a frown nor a smile, but a look she would have called ‘business-like.’ Could have been worse, Jennie thought.

  “Ah, Miss Lee...” Dorothy Wise cleared her throat.

  Jennie wondered if she was about to launch into something.

  “Jennie... please.”

  She hoped the meaning in her voice was clear. We’ve got to be friends to one another now.

  “I shall. I’m to be Dorothy then.”

  Jennie nodded. She was about to go on when a removal
man came in again. She fell silent as he moved his luggage trolley under the last of the crates. He paused, looked round and spoke to no one in particular.

  “Well, that’s it then.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Dorothy’s tone was dismissive...or perhaps she was just eager to be left alone with Jennie. She waited a full few seconds after hearing the trolley start to clatter down the steps. Then Dorothy led her into the bedroom, now bare and unfamiliar-looking, Jennie noticed with relief. There was, she suddenly realised, nothing left of Frank Wise in the flat that she could have taken to remember him by. Had Dorothy simply forgot why she’d invited Jennie? Had Jennie left it too late coming, when everything had already been packed or disposed of. It doesn’t matter, she thought to herself.

  “Miss...uh, Jennie, I need to talk to someone about a very difficult matter. And it might as well be you. You may have a stake in the matter.”

  “What is it, Mrs...Dorothy?”

  “Come, let’s sit.”

  She drew Jennie to the window seat, on which there was a large manila envelope. The woman planted herself and patted the wood as an invitation. Jennie did as she was bidden, trying to decide which of her questions to ask first. Dorothy was holding herself, as if in an iron grip.

  “I have to tell you, Jennie, I fear that Frank was murdered.” Before Jennie could reply a firm hand was placed on her thigh, as if to say, let me go on. “In fact I’m sure he was.”

  Eyes widening, Jennie could only gasp. “Oh...”

  Everything else she’d wanted to know about Frank’s last days had now lost any interest to her.

  “It had to have been murder,” Dorothy repeated, and then held up three fingers to count off her reasons. “First of all, Frank would never have crossed a stile with cartridges in barrels of a shotgun. I know. I hunted with him sometimes. He taught me always to unload before doing that.” Jennie nodded. “Second, the spent cartridges in the gun were the wrong size shot.”

  “Wrong size?” Jennie did not understand the words.

  “Exactly. The gun belonged to Frank and when they gave it back, the spent cartridges couldn’t have been his. He only ever hunted ground birds at Wallington Hall. When I got the shotgun back the cartridges were marked LG.” Jennie looked confused. Dorothy explained. “L.G.—large grape, as in ‘grape shot.’ The kind you use for larger animals, deer.” Jennie nodded, wincing as she imagined their effect at close range. “And finally, the barrels were clean, both of them.” Before Jennie could ask what that meant she explained. “They’d not been fired at all that afternoon!”

  “Not fired? But then how was he killed?”

  “Don’t you see? Someone killed Frank, with a shotgun firing LG shot then took the spent LG cartridge and put it in Frank’s weapon, to make it look like he’d shot himself. But whoever it was, the man knew nothing about shooting, or at least how our people do it.”

  Jennie understood, Our people, the upper class, the landed gentry, people you’d expect to run into at a weekend house party where there was a shoot.

  “What did the police say?”

  “I was already back home when the gun came back to me. I put two and two together and called the Chief Inspector in Newcastle. He listened politely and promised to call back. Haven’t heard a thing in ten days.”

  All this was making sense to Jennie, and making no sense. “But, Dorothy, who could have wanted to kill Frank?”

  “Yes, that was my question. Then I found something among his effects at home.”

  She reached over to the envelope lying next to Jennie. Jennie reached out, but Dorothy held it close and continued.

  “Some months ago, just before he resigned from the cabinet, Frank had a visitor, someone from Russia. You know, Frank worked for the Soviet Cooperative Societies.”

  Jennie could hardly tell her she knew this from the experience of traveling in Russia with Frank. She merely nodded.

  “Well, Frank knew this man well. I’d never met him before, but Frank greeted him warmly and made him stay to dinner. I’ve tried to remember his name. Kuznezov? Something like that.”

  The name jogged a memory for Jennie. The little man who guided us round Moscow two years ago.

  “Kutuzov, perhaps?” she offered.

  “Yes, that’s it.” Dorothy went on. “Anyway, I found these papers hidden in Frank’s office a few days ago.”

  “Hidden? Where?”

  “They were beneath the middle drawer of a desk that came out while I was reaching for its deepest contents. Drawer fell to the floor and as I bent down to pick it up, I saw the envelope.”

  Now, finally, she handed it over. There was Cyrillic writing in the upper left hand corner. Jennie opened the envelope and pulled out a sheaf of papers. Even before she began to rifle through them, she knew. These were the same papers the Duchess of York had brought to Jennie, papers Elizabeth wouldn’t even take back, made Jennie hide, papers that could destroy the Prime Minister.

  “Dorothy, I’ve seen all these papers before. In fact I have copies of them. Don’t ask me where I got them.”

  Jennie stopped to think. Yes, this is why Frank was murdered. There’s a Soviet spy in MI6—or maybe in SIS—filching the same documents that came to the King. Someone at the Russian embassy wanted Frank to know. Frank must have confronted Mosley with the information. “Have you shown these papers to anyone else? Charlie Trevelyan, anyone?”

  The other woman shook her head and bit her lip, no longer looking so formidable. She whispered, “There’s a motive here, isn’t there...for killing Frank?”

  Jennie sat very still, trying hard to recall every word she’d exchanged with Frank the night he’d resigned from government and she had broken with him. He’d never told her why he’d quit in so many words. He’d simply denied it was over politics. She’d said he’d not given a good enough reason to quit. She’d asked if it were not something else, something personal. It hadn’t been personal. It had been secret, dangerous, explosive. It had been treason in the pursuit of power, perhaps much worse, and certainly what Frank had feared. That’s why he had said nothing, had let her go without a word of explanation.

  Jennie looked at the woman next to her. She knew what had to happen.

  “Dorothy, you’ve got to destroy these papers. Forget you’ve ever seen them. You have children. You and they may be in danger if anyone knows you’ve even seen them.”

  “And what am I to do about my murdered husband?” She was belligerent.

  “Nothing. There’s nothing we can do, either of us. Not without risking our lives too, I fear.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Please, please, just leave it alone.”

  Your husband, my lover, died because he knew about Mosley, and confronted him. And then the thought overwhelmed Jennie, You’ve done this all, it’s your fault, you pushed the first stone down the mountainside when you destroyed MacDonald. This avalanche is all your fault. She gulped. The tears came and all she could do was reach across and hold on to the older woman as she began to shudder. Dorothy Wise mistook the tears for sorrow, sadness, a shared mourning. If she knew what I was guilty of? Jennie shuddered again. Can you live with the guilt? The answer came back immediately. No, I can’t. Well then can you expiate it?

  Jennie rose, looked down at Frank’s widow.

  “Let me try to...to...”

  She didn’t know how to finish the thought—to make it right? Make Dorothy Wise and her children whole again? Impossible! Revenge Frank? How would that help? Undo what she had done? Somehow turn the clock back to before all this disaster? Rewrite history? What could she do? And then she knew what she could do.

  Jennie finished her sentence. “Let me try to do something.”

  “What?”

  The voice was steady. Dorothy’s question was not laced with anything ironical, rhetorical, challenging. She simply wanted to know what Jennie had in mind.

  “I don’t know.” She had to make it work, she had to stop Do
rothy from taking matters further herself. “I don’t know yet. But I promise. I will do something. You’ll know when I do.”

  Perhaps Dorothy grasped what she would have to do to fulfil this promise. She handed Jennie the envelope.

  “Be careful.”

  Then she rose from the window seat, walked into the hall, took her coat from the hook behind the door, and left the flat. There was nothing for Jennie to do but follow her out into the street. Dorothy Wise mounted a cab at the kerb without looking back. Jennie couldn’t blame her.

  As the taxi drove off, Jennie couldn’t help notice there, across the road, was that owlish face in the horn-rimmed glasses who’d followed her to the films the day before Frank’s death—no, his murder, she now reminded herself. He was standing with his back to the shrubbery of Bedford Square. Quickly turning his face away, he drew out a newspaper from under his arm. His studious efforts to look like he was waiting for a bus were betrayed by the absence of a bus stop anywhere nearby. When Jennie strode off towards Montague Place, almost immediately he turned and followed her. A rank amateur, Jennie thought. Let’s confront him. Walking briskly, she turned away from the direction of her flat and instead circumnavigated the British Museum until she reached its main entrance on Great Russell Street. Then, she entered the gate and moved up the stair into the building. Let’s see, Room 40, great books. There are bound to be commissionaires about there, protecting the Guttenberg Bible.

  The cavernous interior was cold and gloomy in the late November afternoon. Jennie mounted the broad stair from the grand lobby and turned into the great hall of manuscripts, codices, folios and incunabula set out under poor light in glass cases. She knew her shadow had come with her, at least as far as the steps up the temple-shaped portico of the museum. She’d turn round once she arrived in the exhibit room and steal a glance to see if he were still there.