Murder on the Serpentine Read online

  “I think Germany is going to matter, a lot,” Daniel replied. “They are getting stronger all the time. The kaiser declared nine years ago, in 1890, that he had plans for Germany to build a much larger navy, and to gain some more territories overseas.” He was watching Pitt’s face intently.

  Pitt felt a coldness flood through him. The kaiser’s Weltpolitik statement was meant as a boast, but it was also a warning only a fool would ignore.

  He nodded slowly. “That is certainly true. Have you thought yet about what you want to do?” Please heaven, he would have the choice, and another war would not rob him of it.

  Daniel took a deep breath; his hand was still gripping his knife as if it were a life belt. “Not exactly. But if I’m good enough, maybe the diplomatic service, or…something like that.”

  Charlotte knew that what he meant was that he would like to follow in his father’s footsteps in Special Branch, but he was afraid to say so, in case Pitt broke the dream.

  She glanced at Pitt. Did he know that?

  Pitt smiled. “Then German would definitely be of more use to you,” he agreed. “But so would French. Don’t drop that.”

  Daniel’s face filled with relief, his smile wide, his eyes shining. “Thank you, Papa,” he said very quietly, and took another mouthful of toast.

  When both children were gone Pitt allowed the anxiety to come back into his face.

  “Are you worried Daniel’s going to move from one thing to another and not finish either?” she asked him.

  “Is he?” He looked at her very gravely.

  “I don’t know. But I’m very glad you gave him the benefit of hoping. He would have stayed with Latin, to please you, if you’d insisted.”

  “I know.” Pitt pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. She stood also, and reached up to give him a quick kiss, but she meant it very deeply. To have power, yet be able to not use it, was for her the most admirable strength.

  Sensing the emotion in her, he turned and put both arms around her and kissed her more deeply, and for longer than she had expected. It felt extraordinarily good, like coming home. He wondered if she had any idea how much he loved her. Perhaps she did.

  —

  EMILY MANAGED TO FIND another event a day later. This time she was quite certain that Delia Kendrick would be present. It was a much smaller affair, little more than an afternoon call, but well contrived in advance. Charlotte wore one of her own dresses, one that was quite glamorous enough for an occasion where she intended to look casual, almost incidental. It was mostly soft blues, a little toward the green, shades that suited her very well.

  Emily called for her at mid-afternoon, glanced at her up and down, and pronounced herself satisfied. She herself was dressed in a delicate floral pattern that suited her surprisingly well. Lace would have been too much for this time of day. But she had a parasol. It was more decorative than of use, yet it commanded attention without the slightest effort. Exactly Emily.

  The lady they were calling upon was the wife of another member of Parliament, whom Emily knew only slightly. Although titled and of considerable wealth, he was currently junior to Emily’s husband, Jack Radley, so Emily sailed in with Charlotte beside her with great ease, introducing Charlotte as if she had been expected.

  It was a beautiful house in Fitzroy Square, one of the classical Georgian squares, and eminently suitable for entertaining casual visitors. The marble-floored hall opened into spacious rooms, which in turn had French doors into a tiny garden.

  They indulged for a few minutes in all the customary small talk, which gave Charlotte a good opportunity to observe Delia Kendrick, who had apparently arrived a few minutes before she and Emily.

  Delia had an unusually dramatic face, with strongly marked brows and very handsome eyes, so dark as to appear almost black. Time had been kinder to her than to Felicia Whyte. Her more olive complexion and high cheekbones kept the brittle, slightly sagging look at bay. Her eyes met Charlotte’s with boldness. Charlotte had either to smile at her or to look away. She chose the former. It was Delia who responded with a cool acknowledgment. But Charlotte did not dare to risk being caught a second time. That would require an explanation, which she did not have.

  “…so difficult with daughters, I always think,” Mrs. Farringdon was saying, eyebrows raised.

  Charlotte had no idea what the conversation had been. “I’m sure you are right,” she agreed, hoping it was something reasonable.

  “One of the most important days in your life,” Mrs. Farringdon went on. “I think it should be as close to home as possible, don’t you?”

  “Whose home?” Charlotte inquired. She still did not know what they were talking about. Mrs. Farringdon stared at her.

  “Why, the bride’s home, of course!”

  “I suppose so, unless of course there is a reason for…”

  “Dear Mrs. Kendrick’s daughter was married heaven knows where!” Mrs. Farringdon said in a whisper. “In fact, for all we know…” She left the rest unsaid, but very clear in its implication.

  Charlotte was instantly annoyed by the spitefulness of it. She did not know Delia Kendrick further than the one deep stare, but leaped to her defense on principle.

  “Perhaps the groom was of a different nationality, and if he was of a noble family, with huge estates, for example, it would be natural for them to marry among his people.”

  Mrs. Farringdon looked taken aback. Clearly that idea had not occurred to her, and she did not like it. She raised her voice considerably to be certain to attract Delia’s attention where she was standing, half turning away from them.

  “My dear, Mrs. Pitt mentioned that your daughter married into a foreign family of some considerable note. I must congratulate you. I had no idea. So modest of you not to speak of it…”

  Delia turned to them, caught off guard.

  Now Charlotte was really angry. “I apologize,” she said to Delia. “I did not say so at all. Mrs. Farringdon said a couple should always marry close to the bride’s home. I pointed out that there are exceptions. Apparently she considers your daughter, whose name I do not know, to be one of them. I don’t consider it to be my concern, and I did not suggest it.”

  Delia’s face softened but her body was rigid, as if, under the plum-colored silk, every muscle was clenched. She gave the briefest nod of acknowledgment to Charlotte, then faced Mrs. Farringdon. “Hardly a foreign country, Eliza, only Scotland. But yes, Mrs. Pitt is perfectly right, Alice married into an excellent family. They are titled, and of course they have thousands of acres of land. I believe he is the only nobleman left in the country who has the right to keep his own private standing army. Not that there is anyone to fight against. Wonderful land, but too far from here to travel back and forth easily. And of course now that she has young children, she would not leave them.”

  “How sad,” Mrs. Farringdon said, with a tone that might have been sympathy but sounded far more like frustration to Charlotte.

  “Do you think so?” Emily was not going to be outdone. “I think it sounds incredibly romantic. I know Her Majesty loves Balmoral. She goes there whenever she can.”

  “She used to,” Mrs. Farringdon corrected her. “It is a long and rather tedious journey. As Delia has pointed out, not one to undertake lightly. I’m not sure I should allow my daughter to marry a Scot. I would worry what might happen to her, and I would not be able to go to her.” She looked directly at Delia. “You don’t go so very far north often, do you? Fearful about the winter. Does poor Alice find it very strange so far from home?”

  “The climate is little worse than that of Derbyshire, or all the West Country,” Delia replied, amid absolute silence from everyone else. “I have seen some terrible winters on Dartmoor. And since my first husband was a Scot, they are not alien people to her…or to me.”

  “Really?” Mrs. Farringdon said blandly. “I had no idea. Come to think of it, I cannot recall ever hearing you speak of your…first husband.” Her hesitation suggested she doubted his
existence.

  Delia kept her composure, but there were two spots of color high in her cheeks and nothing could disguise the tension in her body.

  Charlotte searched her mind for something to say that would silence Mrs. Farringdon. Why was their hostess not taking control of the situation? The answer was obvious: She did not like Delia either, whatever the reason. Could it lie with Alan Kendrick? Perhaps his sudden rise in the favor of the Prince of Wales was the subject of a degree of envy. When there is a new favorite, old friends lose at least some of their influence. The possibilities were many, and the undercurrent of emotion dangerously swift. Charlotte remembered what Felicia Whyte had said of Alan Kendrick’s attempt to marry into the aristocracy. Was the duchess’s refusal to allow her daughter to marry him because he was without title or heritage? Or something quite different? Was it a tragedy that marked his life, or merely a very ordinary happening that gossip had blown up beyond the reality?

  It was Emily who interrupted the silence.

  “I do not speak often of my first husband either,” she said quietly, and looked at Delia. “Losing him was distressing, and I would not ask or wish to put anyone else to the pain of reliving such an experience. I hardly imagine that any of you would do so. It can only have been a slip of the tongue that suggested it.”

  Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief and shot a quick smile at Emily.

  “We won’t speak of such things,” she agreed fervently. “Has anyone seen the new exhibition at the National Gallery? I hear there are some marvelously beautiful landscapes.”

  “Thank you,” Delia murmured as she passed close enough to Charlotte to speak with no one else hearing.

  “It’s nothing,” Charlotte said softly, but she knew very well that it was an interesting and excellent beginning.

  PITT STOOD IN THE sun on the bank of the Serpentine, watching two small children playing with a miniature sailing boat. Their father had rigged it for them, and the slight breeze moved it across the bright surface of the water. They jumped up and down with excitement as the small craft hit a ripple, remained upright, then caught the wind again and finally made it to the farther shore, diagonally across from them, where an older boy was waiting for it.

  This was how Pitt thought of the Serpentine, a peaceful place for children to play.

  What on earth had made John Halberd come here alone so late, and get into a rented rowing boat? Was it even imaginable that he had intended to remain alone? The only explanation Pitt could think of was that Halberd had come here for reasons of privacy, safety, or anonymity, for a meeting. It was a well-known landmark, in the open, where no one could approach him unseen.

  Had it been a woman he could not meet openly? A rowing boat seemed a chilly, hard, and uninviting place to make love—not to mention public, should anyone else be taking a walk in the dark. It had been a clear night and close to a full moon. The light on the water and the summer sky would make figures easily discernible.

  Had it been to meet someone with whom he did not wish to be seen, even by a driver or a butler, let alone others dining in a restaurant? That was a darker thought. For what purpose? Blackmail? The passing of dangerous information? The handing over of goods of some sort?

  Had he been meeting someone he did not know by sight? There were hardly likely to be others hanging around, unless they were courting couples.

  There was always the possibility that Halberd’s taste was for boys rather than women, but nothing Pitt had learned of him supported that view, and he had asked.

  Pitt had been back to speak to Superintendent Gibson but had learned nothing more. Now he was waiting for the young man who had found the body, early in the morning, while walking his dog. Pitt was at the exact spot where Halberd’s corpse had lain. At least he believed he was; there was nothing whatever to mark it as unusual, just part of the gentle bank sloping down to the water’s edge. There were bushes on the far side, many of them in bloom.

  A few minutes after Pitt’s arrival a young man approached him, a fox terrier on a lead held firmly in his hand.

  “Mr. Pitt?” he asked nervously.

  “Mr. Statham?” Pitt smiled at him. “I’m obliged to you for coming. Is this the right place?”

  Statham looked around, blinking a little. The dog sat down obediently, even though she had not been specifically asked to. Her ears pricked as she watched the children twenty yards away.

  “Look at the far bank,” Pitt suggested. “Is that the same?”

  “I…I think so. I don’t know what I can tell you, sir.” Statham was clearly unhappy. “I’ve already said all I know.”

  “Then try putting it into different words,” Pitt suggested. He knew that when people repeat a story they are sometimes remembering not what happened, but what they said in recounting it.

  Statham hesitated.

  “Were you cold?” Pitt prompted him.

  “Yes. Yes, actually I was. It was a cold morning. No clouds, but a bit of a wind. Slices across the open park, it does. Not really a good time for walking Flora here, but got to do it.” He bent down and patted the dog affectionately. “I was a bit surprised to see anyone out in a boat. I was a distance away, and I saw the boat first. Then…then I saw something on the edge of the water, and I knew it wasn’t right. Flora began to bark and pull on the lead.”

  “Go on.”

  “She jerked out of my hand and ran over here.” He pointed to a slight dip in the grass close to where they stood. “He was lying here, feet in the water, all sodden wet. Actually he was soaked all over, like he’d been in the water. I spoke to him, but he didn’t move. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I tried to turn him over to see his face. Then I realized he was stone cold. He had to be dead. I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Was there blood on him?” Pitt asked.

  “Not that I could see.”

  “Think carefully, Mr. Statham. Can you describe the boat, exactly? It was in the water, you said. How far from the shore? Where were the oars, precisely?”

  Statham blinked. “Oars?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Statham thought hard. “I saw only one. It was floating in the water, this side of the boat.”

  “And the boat was the right way up, or capsized?”

  “Right way up…I remember now, there was quite a bit of water in the bottom of it…as if it had been at least halfway over, and he’d managed to right it again. But I don’t know what could have happened so close to the bank. He was a tall man. He could have stood up in the water easily. Must’ve been drunk out of his mind.” He hesitated. “Sorry, sir, but it’s the only thing I can think of. Unless somehow he fell overboard and the boat swung around and hit him when he was struggling to stand.”

  By accident? Pitt thought about it. “Stood up in the shallow water, lost his balance, fell and hit his head against the boat,” he said. “Anything to suggest that? Which way was his head where he was lying? Toward the bank, or toward the water?”

  “Toward the bank, sir, as if he’d crawled out. Only his feet were still in the water. I don’t see how he could have fallen that way.”

  “If his head injury was serious he could have succumbed after he’d reached the bank,” Pitt pointed out.

  Statham gave him a dark look. “If the boat hit him when he was struggling to stand up in the water, it’s unlikely he’d have got that far…if it had hit him really hard, enough to knock him out, or…or to kill him.”

  “Did you look at the boat itself?”

  Statham shook his head. “I didn’t inspect it, but it was close in to the shore, and I pulled it to the bank, sir. In case it floated away. It seemed…right.”

  “It was right,” Pitt assured him. “Then you called the police?”

  “Yes. There was another gentleman walking a dog, a big sort of retriever of some kind. I told him there’d been an accident and to get the police. I waited here. I know it sounds stupid…” He looked away from Pitt and across the sun-dappled water. “I felt like I shouldn’t leave
him alone. Not that he’d care…”

  “You were right,” Pitt repeated quickly. “You said he was wet all over. Even his hair? His face? His shoulders?”

  “Yes, he was all wet. Why?”

  “So you secured the boat, in case it drifted away?”

  “Yes. I thought…I don’t know what I thought.” Statham looked confused and unhappy. The little dog was intent on watching a small model boat on the water.

  “You said the boat was wet inside?” Pitt asked.

  “Not enough to make him soaked like he was,” Statham said with assurance.

  “But it was wet?”

  “Oh, yes, quite wet. Very wet.” He sounded certain, as if he were seeing it in his mind again.

  “How about the sides? And the other oar?”

  “One side was very wet, the other…I don’t think so. But the oar was gone. I remember that now.”

  “Which oar was gone? Please be sure. Close your eyes and see it in your mind. What was wet, and what wasn’t?”

  Statham closed his eyes obediently.

  “One oar was in the water, between the boat and the shore where he was. That side of the boat was wet…” His eyes opened wide.

  “You mean as if it tipped over and somebody righted it again?”

  “Yes…it was wet like that. Just quick, like. It wasn’t all wet.”

  “And the oar? Did you see any blood on it? Please be exact. Don’t say anything because you think I want it one way or the other. Just close your eyes again and tell me whether you looked at the oar to put it back. Describe it to me.”

  “It was just an ordinary wooden oar, sir. Quite a wide blade on it.”

  “Did you pick it up?”

  Statham hesitated.

  “Did you?” Pitt insisted.

  “I put it back in the boat, sir. I remember now, the other one was still in its rowlock, and shipped safely, but that one was loose in the water. I don’t know what the poor gentleman can have been doing. Why would he have stood up? He was too far out to climb ashore without getting wet.”

  “It’s possible he struck his head. Did you see any blood on the gunwale? There was blood in his hair.”