snapping away with their cameras. There was Lock, the legendary hatter, now more than three hundred years old. She looked through the window – still no signs of modernity. If they used computers, they concealed them carefully. All she could see was handwritten ledgers, sinister-looking wooden moulds and shop assistants wearing morning coats and winged collars. Major Payne had bought a polo cap from them, also a fez. Putting on the fez, he had recited verses from Kipling. Antonia smiled at the memory. On the other side of the street was John Lobb – quality handmade shoes and boots. She looked up. That was where Lord Byron had once held a bachelor establishment -
Suddenly she came to a halt. She thought she had seen a familiar figure go up the steps at White’s. Tall, distinguished-looking in a dark pinstriped suit and an old- fashioned Homburg, grey gloves, a rolled-up umbrella.
Her heart was beating fast. Lawrence Dufrette? Surely not? Before she could take a closer look, the man had disappeared inside the club. He had always hated London, he had told her so himself. Well, that was twenty years ago. She hadn’t seen him since the fatal day. She hadn’t seen Lena either… Lena had been hysterical, deranged with grief, which was odd, to say the least, given that, prior to the tragedy, she had paid her daughter only scant attention. ‘Run along, darling, Mamma’s terribly busy.’ (Busy leafing through the Harrods catalogue – busy drinking a spritzer – busy eating a chocolate gateau as high as Mont Blanc – busy painting her fingernails scarlet – busy watching television.)
Where did the Dufrettes live? St John’s Wood, someone had said. Or had they separated? She seemed to remember a rumour to that effect. Would Lawrence Dufrette be in central London on this day of all days, this tragic anniversary, twenty years since his daughter’s death?
Could Lawrence Dufrette be looking for her, Antonia? Was there going to be a commemorative service perhaps? Or was it possible that there had been… developments? She couldn’t say what developments exactly she had in mind, but if that had been the case, surely it would have been the police looking for her, not Lawrence Dufrette? Though why should the police want her?
I am being reclaimed by my past, Antonia thought. She knew this was nonsense. She was becoming paranoid. Perhaps she should seek medical help?
She entered the Military Club.
3
Taste of Fears
She could still feel a little surge of excitement when she arrived at the club library. She relished the ‘unknown factor’, the uncertainty as to what might turn up, the possibility that it might be something really exciting. It was the detective story writer and mystery enthusiast in her as much as the librarian. One never knew. The library users sometimes had very interesting enquiries, out of which there emerged the most fascinating stories.
There had been the old boy who had known T.E. Lawrence in the short while before that fatal motorbike accident, which of course, he claimed, hadn’t been an accident at all; the chap whose aunt had been a nanny to the children of King Zog of Albania; the retired MI6 officer who told Antonia in great detail how he had foiled a plot to kill the Dalai Lama. The books themselves – Antonia tended to think of the books almost as people – often yielded surprises too, especially those that were brought in as donations. Old volumes of memoirs, frequently privately published, of the two world wars, of travels in the East when it had really been the ‘mysterious Orient’, and in Africa. Then there were the old personal archives, which she got to investigate from time to time.
‘Ah, Miss Darcy. You are back.’
‘Good morning, Mr Lodge,’ responded Antonia. She had been about to close the library door behind her. Mr Lodge was the club secretary: a small man in his late forties, rubicund and dapper, invariably sporting a bow tie, a polka-dotted one this time.
‘You look as though you’ve had an excellent holiday, if you don’t mind my saying so. You look tanned and fitter than before you left.’
‘Thank you. I had a very good time.’
‘I am glad to hear it. You did seem in need of a holiday. We’ve had upheavals here while you’ve been away.’
‘Really?’
He glanced over his shoulder. ‘New management on the way. It looks like war,’ he whispered. In his normal voice he said, ‘I have some more books for you. More donations.’
‘Oh, good. Thank you, Mr Lodge.’ They had known each other for three years, but somehow there was no question of first name terms ever being established between them.
He was holding a cardboard box containing a number of books. ‘Brigadier Shipton left them for you, in case they were of interest. It’s a mixed bunch. There is a rather unusual recipe book… Not for the squeamish!’ Antonia at once thought of cannibals but it turned out to be for dishes favoured by the ancient Mongols.
Now inside her inner sanctum, she stood beside her desk and looked at the pile of letters that had accumulated in her absence. The one at the top was addressed to Mrs Antonia Rushton, c/o the Military Club, St James‘s, W1.
Antonia stared. Rushton? She had reverted to her maiden name, Darcy, after her divorce, and she had been using it for the past six months. The handwriting seemed familiar, though it might be her imagination. Could it be something to do with Sonya? It didn’t look like an official envelope, so it couldn’t be the police. It was somebody from the past – Lena? – who had written to her. Somebody who didn’t know about her change of circumstances.
Now this won’t do at all. There’s no one out there who wants to get you. Pull yourself together, girl. Snap out of it.
Mr Lodge appeared at the door once more. ‘I am sorry, Miss Darcy. I keep bothering you. I have received the new Who’s Who. Would you like last year’s edition?’
‘Thank you. It would be very useful.’
‘Here you are… So heavy, aren’t they? Someone’s cranium could easily be smashed with this. The perfect murder weapon, eh?’ He gave her a knowing look and left. Major Payne had told her that it was common knowledge now that she had penned a mystery yarn. On an impulse she opened Who’s Who and went to D.
Dufrette, Lawrence – well, last year, at least, he had been alive. He would be seventy-one in September. He lived in South Kensington and listed as his interests ‘the Babylonian brotherhood and walking’.
Hearing the sound of running steps, she looked up. It was Martin, the porter. ‘Oh, ma’am, look what I’ve got!‘ He was carrying three large hardbacks. ’These came back for you, at last! I thought we’d never see them again.‘
Grinning with genuine pleasure, he showed her the books. Of course. She’d completely forgotten about them. The memoirs of various cricketers, which Martin, a keen amateur sportsman, had been borrowing and slowly but delightedly reading, regaling everybody who would listen with anecdotes. Their absence from the library shelves had hit him and his fund of stories hard. ‘They were left on the table in the hall, Miss Darcy. Can you imagine?’
Antonia tut-tutted and shook her head. (What was the Babylonian brotherhood?)
‘They should have brought them here, shouldn’t they? What can they be thinking of?’ The porter tapped his forehead significantly. ‘Some of these old codgers…’
‘Don’t talk like that, Martin,’ she reprimanded him.
On the floor beside her desk there were more books in cardboard boxes, some of them sticking out of the heap at crazy angles. More donations, left for her by various well-meaning club members while she had been away. Buchan’s Greenmantle. They Die With Their Boots Clean by Gerald Kersh. MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman. Anthony Powell’s The Military Philosophers. So far so predictable. Her brows went up. Lesbia’s Little Blunder by Frederick Warne. She picked it up. The blurb promised ‘two ripping school yarns’. The book had been published in 1934 – the picture on the cover showed two smiling girls, bursting with rude health and holding hockey sticks. She leafed through it. No, it wasn’t a spoof – it wasn’t what the title suggested either. All perfectly innocent, actually.
Pushing the boxes out of the way, she sat down in her swivel chair. She found she was still holding the letter from the top of the pile, but postponed opening it. All around her apparent chaos ruled. In the days leading up to
