1
In St John’s Wood Lady Grylls was talking to her butler.
She was not wild about going to Roderick Remnant’s funeral, she wasn’t in any way
And could she have another glass of sherry? She didn’t think the hat needed cleaning, or dusting, for that matter. She had worn it only the other week, for Caroline Heppenstall’s funeral. Caroline had been a mere seventy- two. These days Lady Grylls went to more funerals and memorial services than weddings. Most of her friends’ grandchildren were already married and some of the
‘But don’t misunderstand me, Provost, I am not in the least depressed. Not a bit of it. I am now quite used to funerals. Well, I’ll be eighty-two this year, so that’s perhaps how it should be. How many funerals do you think I have attended so far?’
‘This year, m’lady?’
‘No. In my entire life.’
‘I couldn’t say, m’lady.’
‘Come on. Have a guess.’
‘A thousand, m’lady? Two thousand?’
‘Don’t be silly, Provost. Twenty-eight. One day I sat down and calculated. My doctor keeps telling me I need to exercise the old cerebellum, otherwise it will simply stop functioning. I may have omitted one or two, mind.’ She took a sip of sherry. ‘I will go to Roderick’s funeral, but I don’t think I will attend his memorial service.
‘Perhaps not, m’lady, but it will be some time before Lord Remnant is forgotten.’
‘Roderick’s personality may have been more forcefully colourful than those of the bland and timid masses, but one does tend to forget people the moment they stop coming to dinner, Provost. Certain people one even forgets
‘Old Timer’s, m’lady?’
‘That’s what Mary Gaunt calls it, awfully funny. You know what I mean — the brain-melting disease. I seem to have forgotten its name, which is a bad enough sign.’
‘I don’t think you are suffering from Alzheimer’s, m’lady,’ Provost said.
Lady Grylls took another sip of sherry. She had known Roderick Remnant’s first wife, the tragic Deirdre, rather well. Deirdre had been at school with one of Lady Grylls’s younger cousins. Lady Grylls didn’t care much for Roderick Remnant’s
‘Clarissa, m’lady. Nee Vuillaumy.’
Lady Grylls cupped her ear. ‘
‘Lady Remnant has a son from a previous marriage, m’lady. The young man’s name is Stephan Farrar.’
‘Stephan, that’s right. I understand he takes drugs. Same as your boy used to do, only worse, much worse, I think. Gerard Fenwick is Roderick’s only brother. I used to be great chums with Felicity Fenwick’s mama. Gerard will be — what?’
‘The thirteenth earl. According to Debrett’s.’
‘It seems to me you know too much about the aristocracy, Provost, it’s positively unhealthy. You need to get yourself a girlfriend. Gerard writes, or tries to. Everybody nowadays seems terribly keen on becoming a writer. Can’t understand it myself. My niece-in-law writes detective stories, though she says her advances are staggeringly small. Felicity dabbles in interior decorating and sells furniture, I believe.’
‘The new Lady Remnant has a shop in South Kensington, m’lady.’
‘The extraordinary things you know, Provost. You should be on
‘The Grenadin Island. One of the Valance group. Previously known as the St Philippe group.’
‘What fun that documentary was. I believe we watched it together, Provost, didn’t we? It made Roderick look quite mad. That high-pitched giggle! Those snow-white pyjamas! Never took them off. Had
‘No, m’lady.’
‘The way he strutted about, fanning himself! He looked a bit like Alec Guinness playing Lawrence of the Caribbean in an Ealing comedy.’
‘It was not the most flattering of representations, m’lady.’
‘Far from it. Well, Roderick had only himself to blame, though I don’t think he was the sort of man who blamed himself for anything. The camera made a big thing of his outsize sombrero, his temper tantrums and his fan. How did he explain the fan now?’
‘Lord Remnant said that in another existence he must have been a geisha, m’lady.’
‘
‘I am afraid I haven’t, m’lady.’
‘I must say Roderick behaved terribly badly. At one point the camera showed him waving money at what was said to be a transvestite prostitute. He then kicked the documentary director in the shin and hit him on the head with his fan! Remember, Provost?’
‘I do remember, m’lady.’
‘That poor chap! It looked as though he was going to cry. Roderick said he had many abilities including irritability. That was terribly funny, though of course one could see what an impossible character he was.’
‘Lord Remnant gave every appearance of enjoying himself. He talked about his profligate lifestyle with considerable relish.’
Lord Remnant had boasted of spending forty million pounds on buying and developing property and throwing parties. He had admitted to blowing ten thousand on a special kind of tent which had been hand-made in Ceylon and delivered to Grenadin by helicopter.
‘Back in the seventies those parties were considered the epitome of glitz and glamour, Provost. Or what in the seventies passed for glitz and glamour. Roderick became known as the Jet Set Monarch. He was always photographed wearing a crown … I believe he was interested in witchcraft as well?’
‘Lord Remnant dabbled in voodoo or hoodoo, m’lady. Apparently he attempted to resurrect the dead.’
‘His idea of a party trick, I suppose. Well, it seems to be the right part of the world for that sort of thing.’
Provost cleared his throat. ‘Lord Remnant and his family were said to be under a curse, m’lady. It has been claimed that he built La Sorciere on top of a piece of West Indian holy ground, which he should never have