Bloody Royal Prints (7 page)

Fortunately, since she spent so much time with him, Dinah liked James, the driver Jonathan had hired. James was happy to answer her questions about the buildings and parks and stores they passed, and he took her wherever she wanted to go. He was amazingly patient with the checkpoint people, and the ever-present guards. Maybe he was afraid of being shot if he didn't cooperate.

Londoners joked about the security around the U.S. Embassy, but they hated the guns and the fences and bollards that spoiled beautiful Grosvenor Square. Dinah shared their distaste, and missed the freedom she'd enjoyed in New York. In London, she had little freedom, and, except for Rachel, no friends.

Where should she go today for food? Her favorite place was Fortnum's, but she couldn't go there every day. “Let's go to Whole Foods,” she said.

“Yes, madam,” James said.

Dinah had been thrilled to hear there was a Whole Foods in London, and not very far away. She had found London supermarkets very different from those in New York, and Whole Foods was a store she knew well. But the Whole Foods in London was unlike those she knew in the United States. In some ways it was better: The cheese department was fabulous, as was the produce. Whole Foods offered a large selection of prepared food and a wide range of spices, reflecting London's diversity. The Kensington High Street store was multistory, and the shopper took an escalator down to the basement to reach the main floor, much like Eli's in New York. Not much in the way of frozen food or American brands, but a store that was fun and rewarding to visit.

•••

She returned to 23 Culross with her groceries, including a cold supper for Jonathan. He preferred a hot meal, but it was the best she could do. She couldn't get into the kitchen to cook, or even heat food. The women in the kitchen guarded the room. Tonight would feature another boring meal with an irritable husband, and early to bed.

Tuesday, May, London

By seven, Rachel had dressed and breakfasted, and was at her desk. She planned to work on her book until Dinah and Stephanie arrived at eight thirty. When her private line rang before she had written the first word, she was annoyed. Few people would call her at this hour. She picked up the receiver, expecting a recording trying to sell her something, or a wrong number.

“Rachel? Julia here. You're not going to believe this: Princess Stephanie has discovered a man's body in her bathroom. I think it's suicide. But, of course, it could be murder. She's hysterical. The police are on their way. If you can get here before they arrive, I'll let you in as my guest. If they arrive first, they may close the building to visitors. Once you're in, you'll be in a position to know what's going on.”

Rachel didn't hesitate. The death must be connected with the theft of the prints and the extortion. Surely Stephanie wasn't involved in two sinister and almost simultaneous unrelated events? Since Rachel was committed to helping to solve the first crime, she felt compelled to look into the new one. Maybe she should alert the police to the theft of Stephanie's prints and blackmail, since the crimes were almost certainly connected. If she was in the Little Palace, she might have an opportunity to speak to the police.

Her driver wouldn't arrive until ten, but she would have no difficulty hailing a taxi. She wished she had time to change into something less frivolous. The cream-colored suit she'd put on to wear to lunch with Julia at The Goring was inappropriate for visiting a death scene—too celebratory, too cheerful. Oh well, it couldn't be helped.

She slipped on the coat that completed the outfit, tossed her beige carryall over her shoulder, and hurried to the door, pausing to let her maid know where she could be reached, and to send her driver to the Little Palace as soon as he arrived, and wait for her there. She scribbled a note for Miss Manning, her assistant, who would come in at eight, asking her to call Dinah and cancel their coffee date. She would telephone Dinah later.

At the Little Palace, the doorman and the concierge were as calm as usual. The marble-paved lobby, adorned with tattered and slightly soiled oriental rugs and several enormous arrangements of fading cherry blossoms, showed no signs of disarray, or police activity. The doorman saw Rachel into the elevator to the fourth floor.

Julia had left the door of her flat ajar, probably to listen for the elevator, and she came out into the hall to greet her. Rachel was startled by Julia's appearance. Usually carefully dressed, Julia wore droopy beige slacks, a threadbare white cotton shirt, fuzzy blue bedroom slippers with yellow ducks' heads, and white cotton gloves. She put a gloved finger to her lips.

“Let me take your coat. I'll hang it in the closet. You should leave your boots here—they are rather noisy. I'll put them in the closet with your coat. Let me give you a pair of slippers. We have to be quiet. We'll slip up the stairs to the fifth floor, and I'll show you the crime scene,” Julia whispered.

Rachel suppressed a smile. Julia's excitement seemed ghoulish, but Rachel could understand it. She and Julia shared a passion for mystery novels, films, and television, but neither of them had ever been close to a criminal investigation, or been near a crime scene. Julia would relish every minute of the experience, as would Rachel. It was sad that someone had died, but the dead man was not someone she knew, and it sounded as if Julia was right—his death was his own choice. In any case, the death seemed unreal, like something out of a book.

Of course, Julia was like a character in a book. She played up her resemblance to the late Joan Hickson—the actress who had played Miss Marple in the BBC series featuring Dame Agatha Christie's elderly heroine. Rachel and Julia agreed this was the best adaptation—wearing country tweeds, ruffled silk blouses, dowdy hats, and no make up. Like Hickson, Julia was tiny. She resembled one of Beatrix Potter's small animals, just as Hickson had. Julia did her best to act like Miss Marple. She sprinkled her otherwise elegant English with expressions she picked up from her favorite books and television. Some of them probably dated back to the 1930s, when Dame Agatha's books about Miss Marple were new; others were from contemporary novels and programs, and sounded strange coming from Julia.

Rachel followed Julia up to the fifth floor, which was as quiet as the fourth floor and the lobby. The corridor was empty, but a door stood open.

“That's Stephanie's flat,” Julia whispered.

“Where
is
Stephanie?” Rachel asked.

“Downstairs with her friend Izzy. When around six I heard Stephanie screaming, I ran upstairs to see what was wrong. She was crying and shaking. She said she'd just come home, and found a body in her bathroom. I escorted her to Izzy's flat on the third floor—Izzy is the girl-in-waiting I mentioned. She tags after Stephanie everywhere, and is willing to put up with her theatrics.

“After I dropped Stephanie off, I came back up here and sneaked into her bathroom to see for myself. I had no intention of calling the police on Stephanie's say-so. She tends to exaggerate and cry wolf—to do anything to get attention. But this time she was quite right. The poor man looks like a waxwork at Madame Tussauds, before they are painted or dyed or whatever it is they do to try to make those figures look human. I'm warning you, the room is a ghastly mess—blood all over the floor—an abattoir, my dear. Would you care to take a look?” Her small, heavy-lidded eyes gleamed with excitement.

Rachel knew she should not enter that apartment. She'd learned about crime scene contamination from films and television programs. But she could not resist. If it was suicide, no criminal was involved, but the police would investigate, and they might be angry if they learned she had trespassed.

Nevertheless, she was determined to do it. She felt disoriented, as if she were someone else—perhaps Helen Mirren in
Prime Suspect
?

She walked as quietly as she could behind Julia, who tiptoed in her silly slippers through the pale pink entry and sitting room. The rooms were fragrant with the scent of the stargazer lilies in bowls on every tabletop. The pink-flowered chintz curtains were closed, but the rooms were lit by table lamps and Rachel could see that the sofa and chairs were covered in the same chintz as the curtains.

She followed Julia down a corridor to the open door of the bathroom. When Julia used her gloved hand to widen the opening, Rachel realized why she'd worn gloves: fingerprints! Smart Julia. Good thinking about the gloves and the soundless slippers, too.

The contrast of all the pink flowers with the bloody corpse was horrific. The bathroom smelled like a badly kept butcher's shop, mixed with the even worse odor of human waste. Rachel put her hand over her nose and mouth, and held her breath. She'd read that police smeared Vicks VapoRub on their upper lips to block nasty odors at death scenes. She wished she had some, but Vicks was not the sort of thing one carried in a handbag.

The man's nude body was gray and waxy, just as Julia had said. His overlong black hair made him look paler than he probably was. Except for his pallor, and the great slash across his throat from ear to ear, the man looked young and healthy. His most prominent feature was his hairiness—black hair grew on his arms, his hands, and his chest. A white towel appliquéd with pink roses covered most of his face, and another was draped across his groin. His arms were stretched out, Christ-like, and a little blood was trickling to the floor.

A straight-edge razor—it looked brand new—lay beside the body, not far from his left hand. The razor troubled Rachel.

“Where does one get that kind of razor?” she asked.

“Lots of places,” Julia said. “Barbers and hairdressers use them.”

“This scene reminds me of Dorothy L. Sayers's book
Have His Carcase
, when Harriet Vane finds the body on the beach.”

Julia raised her eyebrows. “Well, Harriet's corpse and ours were both killed by having their throats cut. That's the only similarity I see,” she said.

Cut with a straight-edge razor. Rachel thought the similarities were remarkable, but this was not the time or the place to discuss it. She'd had more than enough of this room.

“Let's go,” she said.

A few minutes later they were back in Julia's sunny sitting room. Rachel glanced around, thankful for the lavender-blue walls, and that the flowers in the chintz that covered the sofa and chairs were yellow daffodils and yellow and white narcissi. The room smelled clean and fresh, with a hint of the scent from a vase of fresh narcissi. She could see through the glass doors to the tiny balcony, bright and cheerful, with pots of yellow and white tulips. Rachel had never cared for the color pink. After what she had seen this morning, she disliked it intensely.

“Inconsiderate of him to kill himself in Stephanie's bathroom,” Julia said.

“Why would anyone commit suicide there?” Rachel asked.

Julia shrugged. “I can think of a number of reasons. Perhaps he asked her to marry him, and she refused him. Or he was her lover, and she broke it off. Or he found out she was two-timing him.”

“Who is he? You sound as if you knew him,” Rachel said.

“I don't know him, but I've seen him with Stephanie. He's a Russian, claims to be a descendant of one of the tsars—his first name is Ivan. I never heard his last name. He was one of several men courting Stephanie. All of the young men she goes out with want to marry up. They think Stephanie's a matrimonial prize, because of her distant relationship with the Windsors, even though she is not in line for a throne, nor do her relatives pay her much heed.”

“How did you recognize him?” Rachel asked.

Julia raised her eyebrows. “My dear, he has a pelt, and he's very dark. I've never seen blacker hair. He has bushy black eyebrows, too, although you couldn't see them. I'd know him anywhere, even naked and dead in a bathroom not his own.”

“Isn't cutting one's throat an unusual way to commit suicide?” Rachel said.

Before Julia could reply, the telephone rang. Julia answered, and after a brief conversation, turned to Rachel. “That was Izzy. She says Stephanie has calmed down, and knows you are here. She wants to talk to us. Do you mind if they come up?”

“No, not at all. I'll be interested to hear what Stephanie has to say.”

•••

A few minutes later the doorbell rang. Julia admitted Stephanie, wearing a quilted pink robe and matching slippers, her hair loose and tangled, and her face bare of makeup. Her eyes were red, but she wasn't crying.

With her was one of the plainest women Rachel had ever seen, even in the orphanage in Oklahoma where she had spent her childhood. The harridans running that place had worked hard to make the girls look as ugly as possible, because many women would not hire a pretty girl to work in their homes, fearing that a son or husband would be attracted.

Stephanie's companion had mouse-brown hair pulled back tightly from her bony face. She wore orange plastic-framed glasses, held together on one side with adhesive tape. Her long tan dress—it looked as if it was made of burlap—fell to her ankles, and hung loosely over her gaunt body.

“Come in, have a seat,” Julia said. “Rachel, this is Stephanie's friend Izzy.”

Izzy nodded. She sat in a straight-backed chair and crossed her ankles, revealing droopy tights, and clogs.

Stephanie paced up and down the room, talking all the while. “I don't know why this is happening to me. I don't know why Ivan was in my apartment. When I came in this morning, there he was . . . yes, yes, I stayed out all night! There's no law against it; I'm an adult,” she said, as if she had been accused of misbehavior.

“Where were you?” Julia asked.

“With a friend,” Stephanie snapped.

Julia raised her eyebrows and looked at Rachel. “So much for Miss Congeniality,” she murmured.

Rachel thought finding a dead man in one's bathroom might make anyone irritable. “Do you think this—uh—event is linked to the stolen prints?” she asked.