The Snowfly (23 page)

“You knew Lady Hoe,” I said.

He nodded almost imperceptibly.

“She died without pain,” I said.

“Death is the enemy of life,” he said. “At any age, with pain or without.”

He was in a very bad humor and I decided to leave him alone.

After everyone had an opportunity to speak, I watched Charlie and a contingent of elderly pallbearers carry the unadorned casket down to a grave that had been dug at a small outcrop overlooking the River Drake. It looked down on the cottage as well.

“Her favorite place,” Charlie announced, his voice fading.

General Centre made his way over to me, his eyes red, chewing his bottom lip. To everyone else he looked like a dutiful mourner, but the voice I heard conveyed a very different impression. “Leave this Key business alone, Rhodes. You're rubbing against the Official Secrets Act and I assure you the powers of
this
state to protect itself are vast and unforgiving.”

With that he shuffled away, not waiting for Lady Hoe to be lowered into the ground.

There followed an informal dinner in Drake Hall and the crowd ate but did not linger. Charlie surprised us by announcing that he was going to bed shortly after nine p.m.

“So early, Charles?” Anjali asked.

He answered with a nod and shuffled away, leaving us alone.

Anjali and I sat together in the room where I had met Lady Hoe. Rain danced off the windows and we talked about things that seemed to flow out of her. Anjali was not bitter about being unable to be publicly recognized as Lady Hoe's daughter.

“I'm glad you came,” she said.

“I'm pleased to be invited,” I said. “I'm glad to be here for you, Anji.”

She gave me a quizzical look and I thought we were on the verge of a very personal conversation, but she only smiled and said, “In her later years, I was with her nearly every day. She was a wonderful woman. I won't say she was a great mother; she was more like my closest friend.”

“What will happen now?”

“Ah, the loot question,” she said.

“I didn't mean it that way,” I said.

“Of course you didn't, and if you had I wouldn't give you a drop of sweat. I have my mother's infallible instincts about people. The estate will be settled in due course. Charlie will ascend to the title of Lord, loathe it, and move himself into Drake Hall. He will, of course, have a seat in the House of Lords. It shall all be very civilized.”

“Where is your father?” I asked, not wanting to pry, but curious nevertheless.

“Dead in the struggle for Indian independence. Gandhi preached peace but my father was trained in war. He died violently, killed by Muslims opposed to Gandhi. I was still an infant and have no recollections of him.”

I felt bad for her. “Did Charles tell you that Ozzie Oxley was supposed to be here today?” she asked. “But he never appeared, and I cannot say I'm the least surprised. Pitiful human, that one. Did Charlie arrange for you to see him yet?”

“He said he's working on it.” That had been after our first trip to the Drake.

“Then it will happen. Our Charlie's good for his word.”

I told her about meeting General Centre and his refusal to answer my questions and how he had approached me at graveside and warned me away from prying into Key's past.

“The general wanted desperately to marry my mother,” she said. “Smitten by her all his life. So many men were.”

“The general?”

“She refused, of course. She told me he was nice enough, but boring and far too mired in his career. Spent his life in military intelligence, you see. Very hush. I believe that's how they met. During the war.”

“She told you that?”

“Not exactly; it's the sort of thing a daughter knows without benefit of words. She did tell me he was very boring in bed,” Anjali added with a giggle. “Can you imagine a mother telling her daughter such an intimate thing? I am so glad that we were close.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Like to know what my mother thought of you?”

I nodded anxiously.

“She said it was a bloody good thing that she wasn't closer to your age.”

I felt a blush creep up my neck. “Is it?”

“Extremely leading question,” she said. “It's lucky for me you're a gentleman.” She smiled, brushed a butterfly kiss on my cheek, and left me wallowing in disappointment.

The next day Anjali, Charlie, and I visited the Drake. It was slow but we managed to coax a few fish to dry flies, Anji got a couple of rolls of film exposed, and the three of us had a lengthy cold lunch at the caravan by the river. Servants had set an elegant table and brought the food. We sat down and unfolded our napkins. Charlie rubbed his hands together and declared, “Ah, vittles!”

I thought about Anjali constantly after that.

Within two days of my return from the funeral the British government announced that paratroopers were being sent to Northern Ireland to protect Catholics. I stepped out of my building one morning soon thereafter to find myself face to face with Shelldrake.

“Following the news, boyo?”

He looked angry. “I've seen it.”

“They'll soon be shooting Catholics with their plastic bullets.”

“Catholics?”

His face turned hard. “Catholics have been England's niggers for a long, long time. Mark my words, they're going up there under the rubric of protecting Catholics, but soon enough it'll be the Catholics being killed by Brit troops.”

“This is what you feared all along?”

Shelldrake turned and stalked away.

Within a matter of weeks his predictions had proved accurate. The protectors soon turned on the protectees and it was to go on for a long time. Though debates would sometimes address the issue of plastic and rubber bullets, these would be used for the duration.

The bullets were used by the local constabularies, but even more so by English troops. Assistant Police Commissioner Gerow Hedge had not lied to me, but I was certain he knew all along where and how the weapons would be employed.

 

•••

 

One Sunday morning in early October Charlie bounded into my flat to roust me from bed. I thought I had locked the door, but there he was at the foot of the bed. I was clawing for covers as Anjali stood behind him, radiant and grinning, her hair tied in a French braid.

“‘We few, we happy few!'” Charlie declared brightly.

“Bugger off,” I said, “and save the Shakeschirps”—his term for Shakespearean quotes. I struggled up onto my elbows and tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes. “What do you want, Charlie? Are you pissed?”

“You bruise my feelings,” Charlie said. “Ozzie will see us!”

I leapt up out of bed, the sheets falling away.

“‘We burn daylight!'” Charlie shouted, raising an arm as if he held a sword. “‘We must to horse, to horse!'”

Anjali passed Charlie and made direct eye contact with me. “If I go to horse, Charles,” she said, “I should choose to do so in privacy.”

Charlie suddenly stopped and looked down at me. “Good God, Rhodes! Be a decent fellow and cover your alleged asset.” He began laughing, and Anjali and I also laughed as I grabbed the covers to wrap around my waist.

“What about Ozzie?” I asked, trying to pretend composure.

“I told him I had a potential buyer for the Oxley angling books.”

“You don't know if there
are
books left in his possession,” Anjali said. “Or, for that matter, if books were
ever
in his possession.”

“They were, dear, they most certainly were. And I figured these would be the last things that Ozzie's chemically laden brain would let go of. Quite clever of me, actually.”

“Was he sober when you talked to him?” I asked.

“Sounded lucid enough,” Charlie said. “For Ozzie.”

It was a warm autumn afternoon by the time we departed. The trees and fields along the way were in full color and the drive to Greavy House in Hampshire was pleasant. Charlie, Anji, and I sat in the back of the Rolls, Anjali beside me and Charlie in the jump seat facing us. I felt warmth where Anji and I brushed against each other and each time we did, I felt her pull away. Her presence intoxicated me, but I had no idea how she felt. It was mildly rolling country and the house was set back on a dark river thick with cress and other aquatic vegetation.

“The venerable Test,” Charlie said when the river hove into view. “Planted fish and more rules than a men's club,” he said disgustedly.

The house was not as impressive as Drake Hall, but it was large. It was also in need of repair, and the gardens around it were going wild.

“Shameful,” Charlie said, his eyes sweeping the poorly maintained grounds.

“Thus spake Lord Green Thumb,” Anjali said playfully.

We were greeted at the door by a young woman with wild orange-dyed hair, no makeup, and sunken eyes. She was barefoot, wearing a bra but no underpants, and a little unsteady on her feet.

“Good mornin', dearie,” Charlie said, brushing past her. “Is Himself about?”

The woman looked at where Charlie had been then pivoted awkwardly to see where he had gone.

“Oo're
yew?
” she asked in a sharp accent.

The walls in the house were bare and there was little furniture. Dust covered everything; spiderwebs gleamed in the corners. I saw two hypodermic needles on the floor.

“Bleedin' dungeon,” Charlie said.

We found Oswald Oxley sitting in boxer shorts on the floor with his legs drawn up and crossed. He was holding a cigarette in a long ivory holder.

“Charlie old boy! You see my bird?”

The woman with the orange hair said, “I ain't yer bird, guv.”

Ozzie nodded his head as if it were filled with mercury. “Righto. Everybody's bird. For a price, what?”

“It's a livin', ain't it?” the woman said.

“Honorable profession,” Ozzie said.

“Yew wanker,” she said, bringing a crooked smile to his face.

Ozzie looked up at us with glazed eyes. “Charlie, so sorry I didn't get to the doings for Lady Hoe. She was a grand lady. I think she boffed my grandfather, or perhaps my father, or both. I never could keep such things straight. Got any aspirin?”

“Sorry, old man.”

“Gretch, old girl, please be so kind as to find old Ozzie some aspies, what?”

“Oy'm not yer bleedin' servant,” she said defiantly.

“The customer is always right,” he said. “You want to be paid, or not?”

She skulked away to find aspirin.

“I'd get up, but my legs won't cooperate,” Ozzie said. He was a tall man with a gaunt face and long hair with white streaks. “Lord Hoe now, eh? We'll have to get together with the Parlies, give 'em something to titillate.”

“Right, Ozzie. I called about the book collection.”

“Books, old chum?”

“Angling.”

“Ah, angling,” he said in a sorrowful tone. “Money is money, I suppose. Hated to part with the dears, but life is life and one has no bloody choice but to live it.”

“You've sold them all?”

“ 'Course I did. The dealer finally found an eager buyer, didn't he? Positively drooling for the lot.”

“Who?”

“It's bad form for a gentleman to sell and tell,” Ozzie said.

Charlie reached down suddenly, grabbed Ozzie's shirt, and hoisted him roughly to his feet. “Stupid sod, we've come all the way down from London!” He shook Ozzie hard enough to snap off his head. I stepped over and separated his hands and Ozzie fell forward to the floor, emitting a grunt of misery when he hit the uncarpeted stone.

Orange-haired Gretchen came back with aspirin, saw Ozzie sprawled on the floor, and threw them at him. “Pathetic sod.” She had repaired her face with makeup, run something through her hair, and donned trousers and a blouse with billowing sleeves. She sidled up to me.

“Yew're a right huge bloke.”

Anjali surprised me by slipping her hand into mine. “He has no need of paying for it,” she said with undiluted disgust.

I tried to put my arm around her shoulder, but Anjali subtly stepped away as if I had just wedged open her bedroom door.

Gretchen cackled. “They all pays for it, love. Indeed they does. Only question is method of payment, eh?”

I felt like Alice down the rabbit hole.

“Oy 'eard talk ov books, did oy?” Gretchen asked.

Ozzie began to belch and the belch soon faded into an uneven snore.

“His angling books,” Anji said.

“He sold 'em through a broker, see. Consignment, they calls it.”

“Do you have the name?”

“'Course,” she said. “What's it worth?”

Anjali stepped threateningly toward the woman, who held up her hands. “Just a joke, eh? Mister Brogger is the name. One of me most regular clients.”

I could not believe my good fortune.

“Why him?”

“Because oy'm better in the kip than his wife.”

“I mean the books,” Anjali said. I thought she was on the verge of punching the woman.

“Ozzie's near-bust, eh? Wants me service, but not enough quid. Oy set Ozzie up wid Brogger, oy did. The books sell, oy gets a piece, which is me just due, and so does Ozzie, if yew know what oy mean?” She leered at Anjali, who turned away in contempt.

“Do you have a telephone number for Mister Brogger?” I asked, to see if she was telling the truth. I had been unable to get the information from St. John Wonbrow, and now it seemed as though I might have the leverage I'd need to get it from Brogger.

“Sure, love.” She fetched a huge purse and pawed around in it until she found a card. “Here he is.” She handed me a second card and in a low voice said, “That's mine, eh love? Give me a call and oy promise oy won't disappoint you.”

We departed with Ozzie snoring away.