And then, dear God—a mummy! An actual Egyptian mummy, lurching towards him, the loose ends of its embalming bandages flapping. His nightmares had come to life. The mummy seemed to be unravelling as it jerked along the pavement. Nearer and nearer. Ramsay was paralyzed by the sight. He wondered if he might be going mad. Most artists were probably mad, one way or another. It was almost a badge of honour.
And then he heard the hoots and shouts of drunken laughter and saw that the mummy was being followed by Bo-Peep, then a large, paunchy bear, and, bringing up the rear, a masked harlequin carrying the threat of a wooden bat.
Not the boy king come back to haunt him but a harmless troupe of drunken partygoers in fancy dress.
Relatively harmless. He was suddenly surrounded by them, laughing and jostling as they circled him, not quite as convivial as they seemed at first sight. They reminded Ramsay of the bullies who used to lark around him at school. Close up, the bear smelt rank—it was a costume, of course (he certainly hoped so)—and Bo-Peep, he could see now that he was nearer her, was actually a man. Beneath their costumes people could be anyone, their intentions anything. It was a frightening idea.
Ramsay managed to break free of their dubious embrace and run off.
* * *
—
“Everything all right at the Sphinx?” Nellie greeted him.
“Yes.”
“And the Flying Dutchman—how is he?”
“Same as ever.”
“And you?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” Nellie’s gimlet gaze bored into him. It was like being the guilty suspect in a courtroom, prosecuting barrister, judge and jury all wrapped in the unholy trinity of his mother. “Have you been up to something, Ramsay?”
“No!”
“Nothing has happened?”
“Well, yes, a police raid, but it came to nothing. I do think someone might have told me about the trick with the bar.”
“Don’t be peevish,” Nellie said. “It suits you too well.”
“Did you know about it? Did you have a tip-off from Maddox? I thought he wasn’t our friend any more.”
“He isn’t,” Nellie said. “We have another friend now.”
* * *
—
A wild-eyed Kitty was the last to arrive, the Molinard lipstick smeared and the fox-fur tippet in a bedraggled state.
“What happened to you?” Nellie asked sharply.
“Nothing much,” Kitty said. She was reluctant to mention her recent misadventure as she would undoubtedly be blamed for it herself.
“Try again.” Nellie stared at Kitty, Kitty stared back. A war of attrition. Kitty finally capitulated.
Despite her inherently reckless nature, Kitty had politely declined the man’s offer as she knew from her sisters’ conversation that there was something vaguely disgusting about this “spinning” thing. Therefore, when he had reached out and grabbed her arm and tried to pull her into the car, Kitty had struggled like a fish on a line, roaring, “Murder!” at the top of her lungs until the man released his catch. He laughed and told her that she was “more trouble than she was worth,” a byline that would, unfortunately, follow Kitty for the rest of her life.
“What sort of man?” Nellie asked.
“Dunno.”
“Maddox?”
“No, I know what he looks like. It wasn’t his car.”
“What sort of car was it?”
“A Mercedes-Benz, yellow. The Sports Phaeton model.” Kitty knew cars, she studied Niven’s motoring magazines, intending to own a Rolls-Royce when she was older.
“Was it indeed,” Nellie said thoughtfully. It didn’t seem to be a question.
“Tried to persuade me to go for a spin with him.”
“Did he indeed.”
* * *
—
It was possible, of course, Kitty thought now, that he would not have done something horrible to her but would simply have imprisoned her somewhere (she imagined a bed of straw, a kindly jailer) and delivered plates of hot buttered toast at regular intervals until the ransom demanded of her mother was paid. Would Nellie pay, and if so, how much? There was another scenario, of course, where the man might well have done unspeakable things to her but rewarded her with an endless supply of iced buns and lemonade and many other diversions and she would have got to ride around like a queen in the back of his yellow car. She felt a pang of regret now that she might have missed out. The next time the man—or any man—offered to take her for a spin, she might very well go along just to see what happened.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” Nellie said, as if she could read her thoughts. “The kittens, too.”
* * *
—
And so it begins, Nellie thought. Opening salvos from the enemy—arson, abduction and a raid. All attempted, all failed. Maddox’s signature was all over the raid and the fire. Not the kidnap, though. A yellow Mercedes-Benz had been parked outside the Goring when she arrived there this afternoon. There couldn’t be that many in London.
“Mr. Azzopardi’s?” she had said to the doorman.
“Couldn’t possibly say, madam.” The doorman grinned, pocketing her pound note.
Azzopardi was trying to frighten her, whereas Maddox was trying to destroy her—or rather he was trying to destroy her business, which was much the same thing as far as Nellie was concerned. Maddox wanted the clubs, but Azzopardi seemed to be playing some kind of game with her. Nellie didn’t like games, there was always the chance that you could lose.
Nellie turned inward. She was thinking.
Morning Tea
Unlike most men, Frobisher was always relieved when he could go to work. At work he could repair himself. In Ealing he unravelled.
Miss Kelling had been his first thought this morning when he woke, even though his wife lay in bed next to him. He was struck painfully by guilt. Sometimes he wished he was Catholic, absolution must be a great comfort.
Lottie was snoring gently, not an entirely unpleasant thing in a beautiful woman. There were translucent pearls of sweat on her damp forehead and a stray lock of her dark hair was sticking to her cheek. On some (many) days, the house in Ealing seemed more like a sanatorium, their relationship resembling that of doctor and patient rather than man and wife. He was always trying to devise little pick-me-ups for Lottie—wouldn’t she like to go for a walk in the park with him? Should he pull her chair out into the garden, where she could sit in the sunshine and watch the birds? How about they take a boat out at Richmond on his day off? And so on and so on.
Frobisher had married comparatively late in life, not knowing what to expect. It had seemed noble, saving a woman, the way he had saved Lottie, but later he had to question—hadn’t it simply been weakness when confronted with beauty? Lottie was beautiful. If she had been plain, would he have been drawn to her? It was an awkward question, but asked only of himself. She was as opaque as opal and they remained hopelessly unknowable to each other.
Lottie had already been rescued once before. It was not Frobisher who had raised her from the ruins of Ypres, he had been kept busy fighting the losing battle against crime on the home front—one war that never ended. It had been an English major in the Royal Hampshires who had brought her back to England and then abandoned her.
He had first encountered Lottie balancing on the parapet of Waterloo Bridge, reminding him of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, except, unlike the statue, Lottie had still been in possession of her head, if not her mind. He had grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back down to earth. He had saved her, and in doing so he had lost himself.
Frobisher should perhaps have realized that Lottie was a woman who was resistant to salvage. She had risen and fallen like the tide, but she seemed to favour the ebb rather than the flow.
Perhaps when he retired they should move back to the countryside for her health (his, too). She had no love for the suburbs, perhaps the fields and woods would revive her. He gently brushed the lock of hair from her cheek and she muttered something in French. Frobisher sighed.
He brought her a cup of tea, the first and last resource of an English husband.
* * *
—
“Is Maddox back?” Frobisher said, shrugging off his overcoat.
“No, sir. They seek him here, they seek him there,” the desk sergeant laughed.