Guy and Louisa walked through South Kensington, not yet wanting the night – this fateful night – to come to an end. The rain had been and gone while they were inside the restaurant, leaving only faint traces behind with wet cars and slick reflections on the pavements of the street lamps. It still wasn’t late, there was yet the sense of London being alive, changing shifts from day workers to night workers and party people.
Unable to say out loud anything of what they were feeling, the two of them continued silently, trying to calm their whirling thoughts into submission and failing, as they turned into Old Church Street. Just up ahead of them on the right was the Chelsea Arts Club and it looked as if a party of some sort had come to an end, as the men and women flowed out on to the pavement. They were of another time and place, Guy thought. Never would he see any one of their kind on the streets where he lived. The women wore long coats of rich textures and many colours, worn loose and open, showing flashes of the reds, yellows and oranges beneath as if their bodies were aflame. Their heels were high, their faces made up and they were shouting as if they hadn’t realized there was no longer any music above which they needed to make themselves heard. The men were perhaps more soberly dressed in dark coats and top hats, though there were enough flourishes for the occasional artist to make himself known. Were they afraid that without a paintbrush in their hand or an easel before them that they might be mistaken for a City pen-pusher? They announced their integrity instead with cravats, winding scarves and pipes. Guy was enjoying watching this strange species as they grouped and broke off, like peacocks in a mating dance, when he felt Louisa grab his arm to make him stop walking. She nudged him to the side of the pavement, into the shadows by the wall.
‘What is it?’ he asked, half hoping and half shocked that she might be trying to kiss him in the street.
‘Shhh,’ she said. ‘Look. That couple there, on the right.’
Guy looked but it took him a while to make his eyes focus. They weren’t too far away, in fact, only a few more steps and he and Louisa would have walked right past them. But it was unlikely that the couple would have even noticed. They were standing a way apart from the crowd outside the club and he saw that the small, slim, blonde woman was Diana Guinness. But the man she was standing with was not Bryan. He was tall, and he was holding his hat in his hand, showing his thick mass of slicked-back dark hair, a large face with high cheekbones and a strong nose that sheltered a black moustache. He looked vaguely familiar but Guy couldn’t quite place him. Diana was looking up at him intently, hanging on to his every word as the man was talking in what looked to be a serious, quiet way, meant only for her ears. Their heads were angled so near to each other that you could almost see the magnetic force between them and it looked as if they might kiss at any moment, like bath bubbles on your fingertips put too closely together.
‘That’s Sir Oswald Mosley,’ whispered Louisa. ‘I recognize him from the papers.’
‘The politician?’
Louisa nodded. ‘Diana met him a few weeks ago. I knew there was something different about it and she’s been in a strange mood lately. Apart from everything else, I mean.’
‘Ah.’ Guy wasn’t entirely sure what Louisa meant but even he, with his terrible eyesight, could see that whatever was going on between Diana and Sir Oswald was not something her husband would have approved of.
‘I hope she isn’t going to be an idiot,’ sighed Louisa. Then she looked up at Guy and he thought – we’re in the shadows, aren’t we? And he pulled her into him, and they kissed again.
Back at work the next day, Guy marvelled how a change in his happiness could have such an effect on even the most prosaic of minutiae. The tea at work tasted better, the people around him seemed gayer and kinder, and if they weren’t he cared not a jot. Even so, there was a task he had to complete. It was the very last thing he wanted to do but he knew that he had to, not only because it was right but because Louisa had asked it of him last night.
Excusing himself from the station on an errand, he grabbed his hat and coat and headed over to Covent Garden station, taking the Piccadilly underground from Knightsbridge. A busker was playing saxophone at the entrance to the platform and Guy was feeling so jolly he dropped a half-crown in his hat. Out the other end on to Long Acre, packed with market stalls, Guy threaded his way to the police station, where he asked for PC Marshall at the front desk. ‘He’s on the beat today,’ said the constable. ‘But he’s only just started, you might catch him if you head out quick enough. He usually starts with a cup of tea at Joe’s caff. Out the door, second street on the left.’
Guy walked fast to Joe’s and as he pushed open the door, a uniform was on his way out. In spite of his lowly rank, he was older than Guy, with jowls and eyes the colour of shrapnel. ‘PC Marshall?’ asked Guy.
‘Who’s asking?’
‘DS Sullivan, Knightsbridge. Might we have a little chat?’
‘You’ll have to walk with me, I’m on duty.’
‘Lead the way,’ said Guy, with an insouciance he didn’t feel. For all his pleasure in apprehending criminals, Guy was not a man who enjoyed confrontation.
They walked along the narrow pavement, jostling against each other and having to separate crocodile fashion as others pushed past, people hurrying to work or appointments. By the time Guy was able to speak properly, his breath was short, undermining what he had hoped would be his gravitas as the senior policeman.
‘I understand you arrested a Mr Luke Meyer recently.’
PC Marshall didn’t break his stride. ‘Yes. What of it?’
Whatever had happened, this was a man on the back foot. Guy knew he had to tread carefully. He couldn’t incriminate himself by interfering in criminal justice before he had forced PC Marshall to retreat.
‘He’s a personal friend of Mr Bryan Guinness.’
‘Thinks that puts him above the law, does he?’
‘No,’ said Guy. ‘But it does buy him a good lawyer.’
‘Best of luck to him, then.’ Not once had PC Marshall looked at Guy but kept his eyes straight ahead.
‘Mr Meyer has given a second statement of the events that night, to us at CID.’
There was a momentary break in his rhythm then.
‘Right. And this concerns me because?’
‘PC Marshall. I suggest you think carefully before you repeat that question. I think you know what Mr Meyer will have said. Now, we can take this to court and have it all heard there, or you can realize that you made an error in your arrest, and have the charges dropped immediately.’
PC Marshall still didn’t look at Guy but he stopped walking. ‘You and I know this is how policing works. All I’m doing is upholding the law.’ He pushed his face closer to Guy’s. ‘Are you doing the same, DS Sullivan?’
Guy didn’t flinch. ‘Magistrates don’t see it quite like that. I don’t think you want to be another Reginald Handford, do you?’
PC Marshall sneered. ‘I can see it’s my word against his and you’ve decided to believe the rich man. Money always talks, doesn’t it?’
‘What’s more, PC Marshall, I’ll be keeping an eye on your arrest record. I’d stick to the petty thieves if I was you.’
PC Marshall made no reply to this but walked away and disappeared around the corner.