‘Come on, youbuggers,’ Sir David said, referring to his legs, hoisting one and then theother out of the buggy, as if he had two lead weights attached to his pelvis.
One of his entouragejumped from the rear of the buggy and readied a pair of walking sticks in frontof him. With the sticks firmly in his hands, he stood upright, a tall,formidable and blackguard figure. He certainly seemed like a man used togetting his own way.
An equallywizened woman appeared from the passenger side, waving off the offer ofassistance from a deferent aide. Lady Maria Charlotte Windsor-Sackville,née Spencer, born 1915. A fearsome beast, if ever Morton saw one. She was dressed in an all-in-one lemon-coloured outfit with matching hat thatwouldn’t have looked out of place on the Queen. With one sweep of herhand, an aide came dashing over.
‘Is that them?’Juliette whispered, an edge of disappointment in her voice. Mortonwondered what she’d been expecting. Younger, more agile opponents maybe.
‘Yeah, that’sthem,’ he answered.
The redoubtableduo, armed with their walking sticks, ambled up the temporary steps onto thestaging, closely followed by five attentive aides. Morton gazed at thescene in front of him; it was like some garish wedding rehearsal and hecouldn’t help but feel something akin to respect for their vigour. Couldthat decrepit old pair really be responsible for murder? Was he nowlooking at James Coldrick’s parents? He wasn’t sure, but the morethat he observed them, the more obvious it became to him that the distinguishedpair, despite their age, continued to wield and exert an incredible power overthose around them.
Morton withdrewhis iPhone and pulled the scanned copy of James Coldrick’s mother from hisonline cloud storage space, holding it aloft beside Maria CharlotteWindsor-Sackville.
‘What do youthink?’ Morton asked. ‘One and the same?’
Jeremy andJuliette leaned in either side of him.
‘No way, lookat the nose,’ Juliette said emphatically.
‘It could bethe same person,’ Jeremy said. ‘Look at the shape of her jawline. I thinkit could be the same woman.’
‘I’m not sure,’Morton said, as his view of Lady Maria was supplanted by a humungous backsidein black leggings.
A dishevelledmother, with far more children than can possibly have been healthy for herwomb, parked herself and her family directly in front of them, marking theirterritory by pulling a picnic blanket from one of three large Primarkbags. Ordinarily, Morton would have taken exception to losing front rowseats but the more he thought about it, the more he considered that beingslightly camouflaged was no bad thing.
Morton cranedhis neck around a greasy-haired girl and watched as one of the Windsor-Sackvilleattendants, a young, slender woman sweltering in a tight pinstripe suit usheredthem towards two gold-trimmed, red-velvet chairs in the centre of thestage. It was such a cliché as to be laughable. Morton, halfexpecting a pair of court jesters to leap out onto the stage, could see thatthe chairs were cheap fabrications. It was all about image, he realisedas he studied them, bolt upright in their thrones, issuing orders to theirminions. The image of the Windsor-Sackville family needed to be preservedat all costs. At any cost. Yes, Morton was starting to believe thatthey would consider murder an acceptable method to protect the family name.
A man, whoscreamed of self-importance, marched with his clipboard onto the stage andthrust his hand towards Sir David, who greeted him with a vague head gesture,large scowl and reluctant shake of the hand. A narrow, pathetic excuse ofa smile passed across the scarlet-painted lips of Lady Maria, before her eyessurveyed the slowly gathering crowds with what looked to Morton likethinly-veiled contempt. The man continued to speak to the pair,gesticulating his clipboard in large circles as he spoke. The racket madeby the growing number of people prevented Morton from catching what was beingsaid on stage, but his interpretation was that his jokes and officiousnessweren’t going down too well with the knight and his good lady wife, who satstaring at the crowd indifferently.
A few minuteslater, with a sufficiently large crowd assembled, the man with the clipboardstepped up to the podium and tapped the microphone. The volume of thecrowd fell to a low murmur. ‘Can everyone hear me okay?’ he said with alarge grin. A smattering of people in the crowd weakly replied that couldhear him and so he carried on. ‘Good, that’s marvellous. I’m soglad to see the sun shining for us here today and I’m delighted that so many ofyou have turned out to enjoy all we’ve got on offer at the Sedlescombe Fete,including a marvellous falconry display with seven different species of owl, aTai Kwan Do display and what I’m particularly looking forward to is TractorsThrough the Ages – I noticed a fine Massey-Ferguson similar to the one I usedto plough this very field as a youth, but that’s another story! Before Ihand you over to our very special guests to open the fete, I would just like touse this opportunity of thanking Sir David and Lady Maria for their kind loanof this field to host the event.’ He paused, anticipating some greatreaction from the crowd, but what he actually got was a half-hearted, staggeredclap, like a pitiable Mexican wave. He spoke over the last dregs ofapplause, ‘Well, I’m sure none of you paid to hear me droning on, so, withoutfurther ado, would you please give a hearty Sedlescombe welcome to Sir Davidand Lady Maria Windsor-Sackville.’
The crowd gavea unanimous round of applause as Sir David and Lady Maria rose from theirthrones. Morton felt something akin to admiration for the pair as theyapproached the podium without the aid of their walking sticks. Sir Davidpulled the microphone closer and spoke with clean, crisp grandiloquence; avoice that seemed entirely ageless to Morton. He hoped that he would beso active at their age, but who knew what terrible hereditary illnesses andcauses of premature deaths lurked
