Maidens in the Vale : A Novel (2023), page 40
“Jane Fontridge’s heart missed about seven successive beats, and she just said,”Oh my God! What do you mean missing?”
“It happened on Thursday morning. My uncle went riding out on the property with an old friend from England. They took a couple of those big hunter ’chasers he loves and no one’s seen either of them since. The police are on the case but they actually think something terrible has happened.
“And the chief detective down here thinks either one, or both of them have been murdered. Everyone finds it impossible to believe he would just vanish without even a phone call home. He never goes anywhere without his iPhone.”
“Oh my God…!” said Jane again. “Oh my God…I cannot believe this.”
Hugo could hear the lady he had called ‘Auntie’ for as long as he could remember weeping on the telephone, unable to continue the conversation. Hugo, who was now nineteen, and already slotting into a senior position in the family, was now an adult studying at the Law School of the University of Buenos Aires.
“Jane, Auntie Jane…Auntie Jane…please, you have to calm down—and I know you have called for something important. You would not have woken the household before dawn unless it was important…”
“Hugo,” she said hesitatingly, “He wrote to me, he wrote to me on Thursday afternoon and he wanted to know about my niece, Dr Sally Scott-Martin…Hugo—I don’t have a niece called Sally Scott-Martin. I’ve never even heard of her…Hugo, she’s a fraud and she’s a liar…and I’ll never forgive myself for not alerting Eduardo.”
“JESUS CHRIST!” he yelled.”I thought she was a very old friend. He just introduced her as Sally Scott-Martin from England…I assumed they’d known each other for years.”
“Would you recognise her?” asked Sally.
“Well, I don’t know, really, she was tall, blond and very pretty.”
“Oh my God,” said Jane for the 60th time in five minutes. “That damned roving eye of Eduardo’s. He probably fell in love with her in the first 30 seconds—and after that cast care to the winds. But I should have read the email. I should have warned him. I just feel so badly about this…”
“Right now, I’m studying human rights,” said Hugo. “And anyone has a human right not to read their fucking emails.” He too had now cast care to the wind and was speaking to Jane as if she were one of his mates from University.
“I’m serious about that. Of course it’s not your fault. But I do understand it will always be in your mind, that if you’d made this phone call a couple of days ago, there wouldn’t be a police manhunt going on now out on the Pampas, with helicopters, and Christ knows what else.”
“Hugo, I can only assure you this Sally Scott-Martin is a fraud. We don’t have anyone even remotely connected with that name. Honestly, I do our Christmas card list every year, and I have never seen anything even close. We don’t even have a Sally, never mind a Scott-Martin.”
Hugo pondered this for a moment, like a lawyer standing before a courtroom witness box. “At the moment, the police have not yet dismissed the possibility that something may have happened to them both. Your message puts an entirely different light on it. This Sally woman is now a known conman, entering the family under false pretences, lying about her background and probably her name. I think the Mendoza police headquarters will now accept they are probably looking for a body, and searching for a murderer. That’s very different. I intend to call them right now with an update.”
Jane Fontridge said good-bye, and told Hugo she hoped with all her heart that Eduardo could be found alive, and this Dr Scott-Martin would be brought to justice.
“Let’s stay in touch, Janie,” he said, as he put down the phone.
****
Sophia glanced out of the cabin window, as the Boeing raced above the fields of France, the landing wheels coming down with a near silent ‘clump’, as it stretched out for the runway at Charles de Gaulle airport. As before, the flight was not busy and Sophia was out and through the airport with a quick wave of her Canadian passport at immigration. She picked up a cab and made it to her apartment in 40-minutes.
It was 7am, and her driving instinct was to go to bed and stay there for at least a day, but she had another instinct so much more powerful, and she decided to sleep only for five hours.
She awakened at midday, and packed a light suitcase, because the only thing she really wanted to do was find Charles Barton, whom she had not seen for more than a month. She could hardly believe what she was doing but she grabbed her suitcase, her raincoat and her shoulder bag and buzzed down for Gaston to find her a cab. It was only a short journey to the Gare du Nord train station, where she would jump on the next available Eurostar to London, which departed at 2pm.
She read and dozed all the way across France and through the Channel Tunnel. The Eurostar flashed through Kent, the Garden of England, before running into the sullen suburbs of South London. Sophia Morosova disembarked at St Pancras Station shortly after 5.30pm, without the slightest idea what she was going to do next.
She simplified her task by deciding she’d only come to London to see Charles, and since she could scarcely present herself at the desk of New Scotland Yard, like some detective sergeant, she’d risk going straight to South Audley Street. And there she’d throw herself upon the mercy of Lady Penelope Barton, Charles’s acerbic, autocratic but essentially kind and generous mother.
It was, of course, the middle of the London rush hour. The journey would have taken about 20 minutes in the middle of the night, but right now it could take an hour-and-a-half.
As it was, the cockney driver swerved into South Audley Street in just over an hour. And Sophia, slightly dazed, and dizzy with travelling, attempted to pay him with Argentinian pesos, which caused him to say, poetically, “Come on now, darling! What’s all this about? Pesos! What do you fink I am, a bloody bull-fighter?”
Sophia scrabbled about in the secret compartment, discarded about $5,000 worth of euros and finally located a few British pounds, which she gave him with a very generous tip. The young cockney thanked her, and with an East End flourish, drove off with his fist in the air, shouting, “Ole!”
She laughed, despite her tiredness, and with some trepidation, walked up to the door of Lady Penelope Barton and rang the bell, thinking to herself…Gosh, she might not even remember me.
The door opened and her Ladyship stood there with a beaming smile and exclaimed: “My goodness, Sophia! Where have you been? You do seem to make a habit of turning up at dinnertime. Let me get Hudson to take your case up to your room, and we’ll go and have a drink.”
To Sophia’s surprise, she heard a so-familiar, adorable voice call from the drawing room, “Mum! Do you remember I’m dining out tonight?”
“Not any more, you’re not,” she retorted. “Trust me.” And she led Sophia Morosova into the room where Charles was sitting in a deep armchair, reading a pile of documents. He looked up, and it was clear he could not believe his eyes. He stood, and opened his arms wide, as Sophia rushed across the carpet and flung her arms around his neck, as if she would never let him go.
“We’ll be three for dinner, Hudson,” called Lady Penelope.
“You can say that again,” Charles mumbled, from somewhere next to Sophia’s Parisian cut and combed, dark hair.
His mother made a discreet exit, leaving the Scotland Yard superintendent with 1,000 questions to ask the Russian-born girl, whom he loved.
“We’ve got, quite a lot to talk about I think,” she said. “I’ve been so far away and I have missed you so much and Moscow was so bloody depressing and I’m finished with travelling, for at least a couple of months.”
Charles asked her how long she could stay, and she replied simply, “About 1,000 years, if you like.”
Charles Barton had not been this happy for as long as he could remember. Certainly not since that magical night at Morton’s, which seemed a lifetime ago.
The three of them had a reunion drink together and there was so much to say, dinner was not served until after 8.30pm. They finished late, and each had a glass of 40-year-old port, and, generally speaking, behaved as if Charles and Sophia were about three steps away from Felix Mendelssohn’s Wedding March.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Swoop of the Condors
The University had never even heard of a Dr Sally Scott-Martin.
There was no record of any Dr Sally Scott-Martin ever having
worked at the huge London College. In its 182-year history, not
even a student of that name.
Charles, however, had struggled valiantly to restrain a seven-ton Burmese bull-elephant, right in the middle of his mother’s dining room. This particular Jumbo was private only to him, and it came in the form of a little bombshell of a memorandum, from the Big Boss of Scotland Yard, that very afternoon. And memorandums from the Big Boss were rare, the Commissioner believing that his senior detectives were world-class, and that every last one of them understood every last requirement of the tasks in front of them.
Also, tomorrow was Sunday, and while it was not entirely unusual for the Boss to turn up on the Sabbath, he must have an extremely urgent reason to do so, like a hot scolding from the PM or even the Monarch.
The memo read: Charles, I am receiving intense pressure from our masters, to make immediate progress on the murder of Lord Fontridge. Is there any chance we can make an arrest and charge someone? If only to shut them all up. I know it’s difficult when hard evidence is lacking, but I’m just afraid this thing could ride up to the PM. And we really don’t need that. I’ll be in the office for a couple of hours in the morning. Let’s have a chat, and see if you can come up with something.
Best,
Reggie
Sir Reginald Warren,
(Commissioner Scotland Yard)
No memorandum in Charles Barton’s career had ever landed on his desk with so many complications. This was unimaginable. He accepted he was helplessly in love with this Parisian goddess. Never in his entire life had he met a girl of such allure, such fun and such droll intelligence.
The prospect of spending even an hour of his life with someone else was unthinkable. And now, it was a damned sight worse, because here was Reggie bloody Warren virtually ordering him to arrest her, and march her into some fucking courtroom, charged with murder.
The memorandum preyed on his mind or, phrased more realistically, tormented him. Here was Sophia, and despite this being his mother’s house, he longed to sleep with her tonight, and every night for as long as he lived.
But that was out of the question. How could he? How could he finally cement this sublime relationship, knowing that tomorrow afternoon he might have to put her in handcuffs?
“Fuck it!” thought Charles. “They’ve got me every which way. I’ll take Sophia to her room, but she must sleep alone tonight. And I’ll have breakfast very early tomorrow and get to the office before she’s out of bed. Mum’ll look after her. But by Christ! The life of a policeman sure as hell has its drawbacks.”
At this point, he cast aside the fact that, but for his occupation, he’d never have laid eyes on the fabulous Sophia Morosova in the first place.
****
The office of Sir Reginald Warren, situated in the penthouse area of New Scotland Yard, represented sacred ground to the hundreds of policemen who swarmed all over London every day. Most of them had never even seen it, through an open door. Most of them never would. And now Detective Chief Superintendent Charles Barton walked into the police kingdom’s Holy of Holies.
“Morning Charles,” said Sir Reginald, who was already seated behind his desk, wearing a frown that very nearly dug a trench across his forehead. “I do not wish to put too fine a point on it,” he said, “But this Fontridge death is heading towards a right bugger’s muddle. It’s been several weeks now, and I can just tell the media are getting slightly agitated about our silence.
“One of those bloody tabloids came up with a Why, oh why? Is Scotland Yard covering this up? The very next evening, last Friday, I received a note from the Attorney General, informing me that our political masters are demanding action and I must respond.”
Charles nodded, he hoped, sagely. But he knew the game was up. He had to level with Sir Reginald, at least part of the way, without actually informing the old tyrant that he happened to be in love with the murderess.
“Sir,” he said, “This is a very difficult case…”
“I know that, old boy,” grunted Sir Reginald, “Otherwise we wouldn’t be bloody well sitting here, would we?”
Charles shot him another sage-like nod, and then began, “I do have a suspect, sir. In my view, the only possible suspect. George Kenny down in Lewes and his team have interviewed every single person who attended Rigoletto the night his Lordship died.
“There’s only one person who can’t really explain herself, and I’ve even been to Paris to see her. Unfortunately, she’s the niece of a senior Russian cultural attaché at the Embassy, here in London. And he’s a very powerful and secretive presence. But she could have done it at the first interval of the opera, and the man sitting behind the four complimentary Russian Embassy seats actually wonders if she ever came back after the interval.
“Someone came back, but it might not have been her. The guy behind was a jeweller from Brighton, light of step, and a bit of an expert on the sapphire, butterfly earrings she wore—at least she wore them until that first interview. But when she came back, she was wearing pearl studs in her ears. Both I, and the light-stepping Brighton jeweller, consider it might have been a different person.”
“And you are suggesting that’s enough to arrest her and charge her with murder?”
“Of course not, sir, but there is more…”
“There’d better be,” added Sir Reginald.
“Sir, she had a motive and a very powerful one. She and her little sister, as teenagers, had been beaten, raped, and ravaged by Fontridge, who, as you know is a Law Lord, Appeals Court, a member of her Majesty’s Privy Council, and one of the most respected lawyers in the country.”
“Holy shit,” said the Commissioner inelegantly. And he asked Charles Barton, “Can you prove this?”
“I can,” said Charles. “Although that still does not guarantee her guilt. She may have had the opportunity, the right time, the right place and one hell of a motive. But the cultural attaché of the Russian Embassy will stand alongside her in any courtroom, and swear to God he took his niece to the opera, where she watched the entire performance, and then accompanied him, in an embassy car, back to London. The jury would have to do a lot of thinking.”
“The jury are not the only people who would have to do a lot of thinking,” said Sir Reginald. “If some bloody barrister steps up to defend her, can we really permit him to savage the reputation of an English Law Lord, right in front of the entire country, as it would most certainly be?”
“I was pretty sure you’d say that, which is why I’ve been a bit reluctant to make a forward move on the case, and the suspect does live in a foreign country. She speaks perfect English, but I don’t think she would ever admit to the murder. She’ll plead not guilty, and the fucking case will go on for about a month, allowing tabloid editors in London to go berserk.”
Sir Reginald then wanted to know why a Detective Chief Superintendent had taken so long to alert the upper echelons of England’s judicial system of the complications of the case?
“Because I knew everything, but the motive,” replied Charles. “And without that motive there’s not a prayer of a murder charge. The motive, however, as you well know, changes everything…but brings with it a ton of problems, which, in my judgment may prove insurmountable. Anyway, I only just discovered it.”
“Yes, Charles, I understand what you say. But I have to tell the AG something. I think I’ll release a public statement, which says, ‘Scotland Yard expects to make an arrest in the case of the murder of Lord Fontridge, sometime in the next few days.’
“Although, quite frankly, I think we need advice on this, and the first step may be to talk to a senior barrister about the ethics of destroying the reputation of a deceased high court judge.”
“I’ll do that right away,” said Charles, “And I’ll keep you posted, maybe even late this afternoon.”
“Good boy, Charles,” said Sir Reginald, but before Charles reached his office door, the Commissioner asked him, “Tell me one thing, did you actually ask this lady whether she plunged a dagger into the heart of Lord Fontridge, and then shoved him into the Glyndebourne Lake?”
“Not yet, sir, but I will, if I have to.”
“Good luck with that,” chuckled the Big Boss.
Charles took the elevator down to his office, pondering to himself who should be briefed to defend Sophia. And he decided to put in a call to an old and trusted friend of his father’s, Sir Roger Beaumont QC, one of the best trial-lawyers in London, whose dazzling successes had earned him an impressive, penthouse apartment in Lowndes Street, one of the finest addresses in the Belgrave Square area of London.
Charles had his private number, and the Titan of the
Old Bailey’s Central Criminal Courtroom, told him to come over right away, stay for lunch, if he wanted.
And within 20 minutes the Chief Superintendent was ensconced with the tall, white-haired 60’ish barrister, whom he had known for most of his life. Lady Beaumont insisted he stay for lunch, while young Charles outlined the case against Sophia Morosova.
He started by suggesting that the truly shocking motive involved, was a double-edged sword, because, at once it pointed the finger of guilt sternly at the defendant, but at the same time it provided the most drastic, extenuating circumstances, which would almost certainly cause the jury to throw the case out.
“Charles,” replied Sir Roger, “The motive is the bedrock of the case. If you want me to fight for the life of this young lady, you give me no alternative but to drag Fontridge’s name through the deepest mud, and I have to tell you, I will not have the slightest hesitation.
