A Matter of Loyalty Read online

  ALSO BY ELIZABETH EDMONDSON

  VERY ENGLISH MYSTERIES

  A Man of Some Repute

  A Question of Inheritance

  OTHER WORKS

  The Frozen Lake

  Voyage of Innocence

  The Villa in Italy

  The Villa on the Riviera

  Devil’s Sonata

  Night & Day

  Fencing with Death

  Finding Philippe

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Anselm Audley & Elizabeth Edmondson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542046589

  ISBN-10: 1542046580

  Cover design by Lisa Horton

  To my co-authors:

  P.C.A.

  1942–2011

  E.A.E.

  1948–2016

  Chorus angelorum te suscipiat

  et cum Lazaro, quondam paupere

  aeternam habeas requiem.

  Contents

  Saturday

  Sunday

  Monday

  Tuesday

  Wednesday

  Thursday

  Friday

  Saturday

  Sunday

  Afterword

  About the Authors

  Saturday

  Scene 1

  The defection of Bruno Rothesay was headline news. Hugo Hawksworth had run through the news items, from the screaming tabloid headline, ATOM SCIENTIST MISSING, to the more sober report in The Times that a physicist from the Foxley Atomic Energy Research Establishment had disappeared. As Foxley was barely five miles from Hugo’s desk in Thorn Hall, the Service’s archive facility in the hills above Selchester, it was of more than academic interest. Sir Bernard, head of Thorn Hall, had been forced to cancel a weekend’s shooting and summon his key staff in on a Saturday.

  Hugo put the last of the newspapers down – nothing there to indicate a leak – and looked out of his window. It was a cold January day, fog blanketing the valley. The spire of Selchester Cathedral was quite invisible, the room around him chilly. Thorn Hall’s magnificent summer views of the valley came with a price: high on a north-east-facing hillside, its failing Victorian plumbing not among the Service’s priorities, it was never warm. The aged cast-iron radiator under the window was cranking itself up with an alarming series of gurgles and thumps.

  The telephone on his desk rang. It was Mrs Tempest, secretary to Sir Bernard. ‘Sir Bernard asked me to let you know that Inspector Jarrett is on his way over.’

  ‘Inspector Jarrett?’

  ‘Inspector Jarrett is from Special Branch, he’s come down from London with regard to the investigation of Dr Rothesay’s disappearance. He wants to know more about Dr Rothesay’s background, so Sir Bernard said he had better talk to you.’

  Hugo replaced the receiver. Thank you, Sir Bernard. That was all he needed, one of those disagreeable Special Branch men who thought the intelligence services had no business with a place like Foxley. He could press the button to summon Mrs Clutton, his Archivist, but instead he got up from his desk and limped the few yards down the corridor to put his head around Mrs Clutton’s office door. Best to be prepared.

  In the usual way, she had anticipated his request. Bruno Rothesay’s file was already on her desk.

  It was quite a recent thing, this investigation into the pre-war backgrounds of the scientists at the Atomic, as the locals called Foxley. They knew perfectly well what went on there, just as they knew Thorn Hall was no Government statistics office, whatever the sign on the gateposts might say.

  Any scientist employed at Foxley was security-vetted by London before they were allowed to set foot on the premises, but it had become all too clear that some information was leaking from the establishment. Hugo, office-bound ever since a bullet wound in a Berlin street had confined him to the sort of intelligence work he could do behind a desk, was duly tasked with combing through the records. Allegiances, tidbits, dust-dry interviews, with more than a sprinkling of spiteful gossip.

  He was no more than halfway down the first page when Jarrett barged in without knocking. He was tall and dark, with cold eyes and an aura of hard if disagreeable competence about him. ‘Good morning. You’re Hawksworth? I’m Jarrett. Sir Bernard told me to come and see you. I want to find out what you’ve got on Rothesay’s past.’

  He sat down in the chair opposite Hugo, rather as if he owned the place. Hugo, disliking him on sight, flicked open the file. He said crisply, ‘I’m not finding anything suspicious in his record up to 1939. That’s the period that Sir Bernard asked me to investigate. I know during the war he was involved with the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, but the records on that will be elsewhere.’

  Jarrett said, ‘I’m well aware of that. I want to know about the time when he was a student and doing his first research jobs. He wasn’t at Cambridge, that’s one thing.’

  Hugo suppressed a smile. Since Burgess and Maclean’s defection, the equation in too many corners of the intelligence community had been laughably simple. Cambridge had been a hotbed of Communist sympathies in the 1930s, the Service’s two most embarrassing defectors were Cambridge men, ergo if there were any suspicion of treachery, Cambridge was probably at the bottom of it.

  ‘No, he was an Oxford man. Pembroke College. First in physics, 1921. Then on to the Roberts Laboratory, to work on electron physics.’

  Jarrett said, ‘Of course, while we know that Cambridge bred spies, no reason to suppose that there weren’t just as many at Oxford.’

  ‘Perhaps the Oxford spies are clever enough to avoid detection,’ Hugo said. He disliked the way Jarrett’s eyes lit up at the possibility of finding more traitors, as if that were something to be relished.

  ‘Treason is no laughing matter. If you haven’t found Rothesay’s Communist links, you just haven’t looked hard enough. Given that someone is clearly passing information from Foxley, I’d expect you to have left no stone unturned to discover the sympathies of the people working there.’

  Hugo said, ‘I’ve been working my way through all the records, and I must say I’m surprised about Bruno Rothesay. From his record, his history, and his known political views, he wasn’t high on anyone’s list of suspects.’

  ‘That just shows how wrong you can be. Letting opinions get in the way of the facts. Man’s defected, that’s quite clear. He’ll have skipped the country now with that wife of his.’

  Hugo said, ‘I’m surprised the whole thing was allowed to reach the papers. I’d have expected it would have been kept under wraps until it was known for certain that he had defected.’

  Jarrett frowned. ‘That’s what I’d have done. My lord and master, Chief Superintendent Pritchard, decided that the publicity might help catch him before he left the country. But it’s nonsense.’

  His tone suggested that this Pritchard was overdue for retirement. Possibly involuntary.

  Hugo said, ‘You think his wife is with him?’

  ‘Certainly. She’s obviously in this with him. We’ve been investigating her background. She seemed blameless enough, bu
t she must be involved. No living relatives, nothing she couldn’t leave in a hurry. She telephoned the laboratory three days ago to say that he was ill and wouldn’t be in, that’s why it took a while for the alarm to be raised.’

  Hugo knew this already from Superintendent MacLeod, the local police officer who was involved in the inquiry. On the second day, in accordance with Foxley regulations, two colleagues from the Atomic had gone to Rothesay’s cottage on the outskirts of Selchester, to check what was wrong with him and see that he was getting proper medical attention.

  There had been no reply to their knocks. The house had a deserted air, with curtains drawn and lights out. In the end, they had broken in. ‘Nobody there,’ MacLeod had said. ‘Everything neat and tidy. He must have left early, the breakfast things were washed up on the draining board. Post from that day and the day before lying on the mat. Wherever he is, he hasn’t been at home ill.’

  ‘Damn sloppy to leave it two days,’ Jarrett said sourly. ‘Bunch of amateurs. You’ve gone slack down here in the sticks.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Hugo, fixing a cold eye back on him, ‘you can advise the Select Committee as to which operations should be closed down to free up some extra funds.’

  Jarrett ignored him. ‘But then, you’ve had quite your share of security breaches here, too. A double agent right under your nose, and weren’t you suspended from the Service yourself in the autumn? Meeting a known MGB officer without permission.’

  Hugo had indeed met Colonel Orlov without permission, and found him considerably better company than Jarrett. He had a concern for what was right and what was not. God only knew how he’d held on to such a sense in the MGB, it was hard enough in the Service.

  ‘If you know about that, you know the inquiry has been resolved,’ Hugo said.

  Jarrett’s expression made it clear that he held no higher a view of the authorities involved than he did of Pritchard. Hugo wondered whether he’d ever actually met a Soviet intelligence officer, principled or otherwise.

  ‘You lodge at the Castle, don’t you?’ said Jarrett. Hugo thought it unlikely that he was changing the subject. ‘Imposing place. I suppose it’s rather empty without the late Earl’s presence.’

  ‘I never knew it before,’ Hugo observed. He thought it was probably a much more comfortable place now than it had been. The late Earl had not been a pleasant man. His unexpected successor, Gus, had until recently been an American classics professor, and possessed a great deal more basic decency.

  Hugo turned over a page, without much hope that Jarrett would take the hint.

  ‘His niece still lives there, too, doesn’t she? Freya Wryton.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hugo, without looking up.

  ‘Buried in some tedious family chronicle, so I hear.’

  ‘I believe she’s writing a history of the Fitzwarins.’ Which would have been far from tedious, had that actually been the subject of her labours. Her ancestors had been a turbulent lot, he gathered. Troublesome barons in the Middle Ages, uppity earls from the time of Richard III, bitter recusants and recalcitrant Royalists thereafter. More than a whiff of the Machiavel about them, with the odd note of brimstone here and there. Fine subject for a historian, but Hugo very much doubted Freya was up to anything quite so worthy.

  ‘How is she finding life as a maiden aunt?’

  This time Hugo did look up. That was a thoroughly personal question. He wondered who this Jarrett was, and how he knew her.

  He was saved a reply by the shrill peal of the telephone.

  ‘Hawksworth here. Oh, it’s you, Superintendent.’

  Jarrett leaned forward, a raptor’s gleam in his eyes. Not a man Hugo would want to have on his trail.

  Hugo listened to Macleod. Well aware that Jarrett could only hear one side of the conversation, he was careful not to say anything too specific. ‘Has she? Where? How did that . . . Oh, I see. You’ve had it checked, I take it? All above board. And the call? No idea. Nothing from the exchange? You’re looking into it. Says it’s all stuff and nonsense. I see. Thank you. I imagine our guest from London will want a word. Yes, he’s here. In my office. I’ll send him over.’

  Hugo put the phone down before Jarrett could demand to speak to MacLeod himself.

  ‘That was Superintendent MacLeod, of the county constabulary.’

  ‘I know MacLeod,’ said Jarrett. ‘Don’t waste my time.’

  ‘Dr Rothesay’s wife has turned up,’ said Hugo, with quiet satisfaction. ‘She’s been staying with her sister-in-law in Wales this last fortnight. Hill farm in Radnorshire, no telephone, snowed in until yesterday. Plenty of witnesses, including some neighbouring farmers and a Methodist minister. She didn’t make the call, and she has no idea where Dr Rothesay might have gone. Says this defection story is stuff and nonsense, and he hasn’t a treasonous bone in his body.’

  Exactly the conclusion Hugo had come to, as it so happened.

  If Jarrett was taken aback, he didn’t let it show. He was on his feet in an instant. ‘Curious thing for a wife to do, in the depths of winter,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘There’s more to this than meets the eye. Where is she?’

  ‘At the police station.’

  ‘I’ll be over again this afternoon,’ Jarrett said, looking down at the files as if he could spot a lie even through a manila envelope. ‘You can show me everything you’ve got on the wife.’

  In a moment, he was off. He didn’t bother closing the door behind him, and an icy draught swirled around Hugo’s desk. The dull ache in his leg sharpened to a twinge.

  ‘Peace and quiet,’ said Hugo, getting up to close the door. ‘For now.’

  The phone rang ten minutes later. It was Mrs Clutton.

  ‘Sir Bernard wants to see you,’ she said.

  Scene 2

  Sir Bernard was standing at his big eastern window with his hands behind his back, looking out over the fog. It was his great-man-of-affairs pose, and the room suited it, even if Sir Bernard didn’t. He was stocky, ruddy-faced, very much the image of an English civil servant.

  ‘Ah, Hawksworth,’ he said as Hugo limped in. Sir Bernard’s enormous office was wood-panelled to within an inch of its life, even the ceiling, but that did make it rather warmer. That, and the maintenance crew’s natural tendency to pay attention to their chief’s office first.

  ‘Sir Bernard,’ said Hugo. He was waved to a seat. Sir Bernard took his.

  ‘Bad business at Foxley,’ Sir Bernard said, steepling his fingers. His hands weren’t long or elegant enough to pull the gesture off.

  ‘I take it all the usual things are being done?’ said Hugo.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Sir Bernard. ‘But I’m afraid this is all rather too late. A man doesn’t just defect on a whim between one day and the next. He’ll have planned it all. Meticulous types, these scientists.’

  ‘He knew we were investigating him,’ Hugo pointed out.

  ‘You’ve been doing that for weeks, on and off. He could tell we weren’t taking it too seriously, or you’d have been on it full-time. Plenty of time to let his controllers know, plan the getaway.’

  ‘There’s still nothing in the files to point at him,’ Hugo said. It might not be the politic line to take, but as far as he was concerned, Bruno wasn’t the leak.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Sir Bernard, cutting him off. ‘You just haven’t found it. London wants results. I want the missing thread. You know it’s Rothesay now. Go back through the files with a fine-tooth comb. His background is your only task until further notice.’

  Hugo knew enough of the Service, and of Sir Bernard, not to say any more. Keep your mouth shut, and there was room for manoeuvre.

  ‘Oh, one more thing,’ Sir Bernard said, with a distinctly apologetic note in his voice. ‘I’m afraid your assignment includes assisting this Jarrett with his inquiries. Some bureaucratic hoo-ha going on in London. Give him any help he needs.’

  Hugo gave a reluctant nod and stood up. As he turned to go, Sir Bernard spoke again. ‘I know you’re not wild
about this, Hawksworth. Nor am I, and nor is the Chief. He doesn’t want Special Branch to have the slightest excuse for poking its nose into our affairs down here. Find Jarrett his proof, convince him we’re quite on top of security, and get him back to London as soon as you can.’

  Scene 3

  ‘It should be working now, Miss Freya,’ said Ben, ducking through the passage from Lady Matilda’s wing. ‘I’ll go back in every couple of hours to see how it’s doing.’

  Freya Wryton looked up from her detective novel with a guilty start. She was sitting in the warm Castle kitchen, far from her typewriter, with tea by her side. A purring Magnus was draped across her lap, flexing his claws back and forth in her oldest, most disreputable tweed skirt.

  Ben was half the Castle staff in these straitened times – handyman, gardener, groom and caretaker all rolled into one. At the moment, most of his time was spent knocking Lady Matilda’s wing back into shape for the new Earl and his family. Already displaced by his sudden elevation from widowed New England classics professor to Earl of Selchester, Gus had drawn the line at installing himself and his two daughters in the old part of the Castle. Neither Polly nor Babs had been happy at the prospect of beams, bare stone, and walls six feet thick.

  Lady Matilda’s wing, built with every mod con the 1890s could boast and still in good shape, had been ideal for them, with the added benefit that Freya, Hugo, and Hugo’s sister Georgia had been spared the hunt for new lodgings.

  The same, however, could not be said of the ballroom. Sometime over the New Year, more of the makeshift Army plumbing had given up the ghost.

  ‘No bodies?’ Freya said, remembering what had happened the last time the Castle plumbing broke.

  ‘No bodies, Miss Freya,’ Ben said.

  ‘I suppose we’re clean out of missing earls,’ said Freya. She might not actually be writing a worthy tome on the Selchesters, but she knew enough of the history that she wouldn’t have been so very surprised to find a few minor scions of the family buried under the floorboards here and there.

  ‘’Tisn’t good to speak lightly of the dead, Miss Freya,’ said Mrs Partridge from the scullery. Mrs Partridge was the other half of the staff, cook and housekeeper and witch of all work.