Chapter 23 A Cuckoo in the Nest
“I thought it would be nicer to go for a walk,” said Hilary, “and talk informally, rather than at Scotland Yard.”
He and George entered Brompton Cemetery.
From the brightness of an early June afternoon, they were plunged into cool shade.
Tall ancient beeches overhung the wide path bordered by ivy-clad stone crosses, carved angels, and flat marble memorials.
The dead were the only witnesses to the conversation about to take place.
“Is that usually a consideration of yours, then?” said George. “Being nice?” Her tone was teasing, but she looked straight ahead with a sober expression.
“Ah, I mainly meant nicer for me. There are some days I can’t bear being stuck in an office.”
“Oh? I’ve never worked in an office. I’ve always thought it sounded rather convivial. Do you have a tea lady who comes around with a cart?”
“Certainly. She has biscuits, too.”
“You seem to get out and about a lot, though. I suppose one must, as a detective.”
Comyns took his cue. “Obviously you’re aware that your house underwent an official search. I trust it didn’t take you too long to rearrange everything.”
George gave him a sidelong glance. Underwent!
As though the house had volunteered itself for the experience.
And that sterile phrase, official search, connoting nothing of the reality of it.
They’d left a complete mess. A vase had been smashed, her personal items pawed through, dresses and coats pulled out of the wardrobe and left on the floor.
“It ought not to be allowed,” she said. “How would you like it if you came home to find the place ransacked?”
“I apologize. My colleagues from the constabulary—they are…” He made a vague gesture, apparently unwilling or unable to describe their shortcomings. “In any case, they couldn’t fail to notice a very large stain on the underside of your mattress. Blood, by the looks of it.”
“Are you married, Detective Inspector?” asked George.
“No, I’m—”
“Yet you understand the workings of the female body?” She was being sarcastic. Still, she had her doubts. There was something ascetic about Comyns, this elegant man who spent his days wading through moral filth while remaining miraculously, conspicuously spotless.
“I saw it myself. It was—”
“Not menstrual blood? Would you be prepared to swear to that in court?”
“Miss Mountford-Owen, you seem to be putting words in my mouth. If you say there is an innocent explanation, then please, there’s no need for us to go into detail.”
George’s cheeks burned. The indignity of it.
Irritably she said, “Well, then. If you think I can help you to frame Mr. Reznikov for something he didn’t do, I’m afraid you’ve got another think coming.
What that poor man must be going through.
Have you no conscience? He was persecuted by the Nazis, you know. ”
“I do know. But do you know his history with Mr. Sullivan?”
She extracted a hanky from her cardigan sleeve and blew her nose.
“Excuse me. A touch of hay fever.” She had gathered, of course, that Jimmy had committed some horrific wrong against Saul in the distant past. Mina had confirmed as much, while refusing to divulge the gory details.
Honor, too, refused to explain the two men’s erstwhile connection—which made George suspect it had to do, somehow, with Jimmy and herself being siblings.
She felt like she was going insane, being kept in the dark about the fabric of her own life.
“Why does it matter,” she said, “what I know and don’t know?”
He indicated a bench. “Shall we sit?”
The bench’s horizontal iron slats pressed coldly through her cotton skirt.
She longed for this encounter to be over, to be in her room with a cup of tea, listening to the Light Programme.
As he started monologuing about how Saul wouldn’t have been arrested were it not for certain evidence, but that pieces were missing, George’s mind split in two.
One half paid attention to Comyns while the other half deliberated over how Jimmy could have been her brother.
Was she adopted? Though she could scarcely imagine her parents, of all people, assuming responsibility for an unwanted baby.
Then again, perhaps she didn’t know them at all.
Perhaps everyone harbored unfathomable secrets.
All this time, she realized, she’d lived among strangers at Tregunter Road.
It had never occurred to her to be wary or mistrustful.
Yet except for Mina, they had all misled her as to their true selves, had concealed cataclysmic facts.
George was circling ever faster around this ruminative helter-skelter when Comyns said, “Mrs. Wilson’s brother,” pulling the whole of her attention back to him.
“I beg your pardon,” she said. “Could you repeat that?”
“Mr. Sullivan. He was Mrs. Wilson’s brother. Her real name is Elizabeth Armstrong, and she comes from an impoverished background.”
She smiled, almost involuntarily. So she, Honor, and Jimmy were siblings. Amid all her anger and befuddlement, the thought of Honor as her sister made George feel warm inside.
“Forgive me,” said Comyns, “but you don’t seem surprised. Mr. Reznikov gave me to understand that nobody knew of Mrs. Wilson’s prior identity.”
“No, I am surprised. I’m a little confused, though, as to what I’m even doing here. How do you think I can help with your investigation? Seeing as you’re evidently much more in the picture than I am.”
“I suppose I wanted to give you the chance to tell the truth. Your relationship with Mr. Sullivan—”
“There was no relationship. I don’t know how much clearer I can be.”
“Were you jealous that he was carrying on with Mr. Trafford? Is that why things ended between you?”
She laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t even know about that. Nor could I have cared less if I had.”
“And you wish to maintain your position that Mr. Sullivan’s whereabouts, his fate, is unknown to you?”
“Of course I do. It’s not a position, as you put it. It’s the truth.”
As George was pondering hers and Honor’s blood relationship, Honor was trying to calm herself by making up her face.
Now that Saul understood the depth of her wickedness, she mused, spitting on a tiny brush and rubbing it on a mascara cake, now that the past had finally caught up with them, it was almost a relief.
When he strode into the kitchen the morning after his night in a police cell, she saw straight away that he knew, that he hated her and always would.
How Comyns had found out about the theft, Honor couldn’t begin to fathom.
It was a credit to him, really. And now he meant to pit them against each other.
“He doesn’t have enough evidence to take me to trial,” Saul had said.
“That’s obvious. But he thinks I’ll turn on you.
Believe me, I’d do it. My only fear is that he won’t believe you acted alone.
Not the burial and everything. And I don’t want any of the young people implicated. Especially not Mina.”
Honor tilted her dressing table mirror to get a better light.
She’d lost too much weight, she knew, and it wasn’t doing her any favors.
Not at her age. As a younger woman, the extreme slenderness she’d maintained had been chic.
Girlish. Now, as she scrutinized her face, she saw the edges of her eye sockets pressing against the skin.
Her front teeth—which at some stage had acquired perfectly symmetrical tobacco stains—seemed to protrude as the flesh around her mouth waned.
It reminded her of how Gerald had looked during his last days.
She smeared on more Pan-Stik and added coral-colored rouge.
That was better. I must go to the office, she thought, and help Robbie.
Despite an encroaching sense of futility, they were planning to publish Vista’s summer issue in August. Yet she continued to sit at her dressing table, wondering why she couldn’t move.
For the hundredth time, she went over her own conversation with Comyns.
When he had ambushed her yesterday, in Peter Jones’s glass and china department, she’d been rather rude to him.
“Are you following me, Detective Inspector?” she said.
“Hoping to catch me in a criminal act?” This won’t do, she thought, and immediately softened her tone.
“Actually, I’m looking for a new vase for George, to replace the one those officers of yours smashed.
You can help me choose it. Lulu”—and here she indicated her dog, whose little ears pricked up at the sound of her name—“is not an ideal shopping companion. Her taste in home decor runs to gaudy.”
And so she and Comyns browsed together. To the store’s other clientele, the gaily dressed housewives on a quest for a wedding gift or a new teapot, they doubtless looked for all the world like a normal couple.
“How is Mr. Reznikov?” asked Comyns.
“He’s bearing up, I suppose.” Honor stopped to consider a small Murano vase in swirling shades of green. “He’ll be better once you drop all charges against him.”
“I must say, I find it creditable, the loyalty you two share. There comes a time, however, when you must think of yourself.” He spoke softly.
If an innocent person had been eavesdropping, they’d have heard nothing but compassion in his tone.
“That you didn’t obtain a divorce from your first husband—well, obviously I only investigate crimes of a more serious nature. ”
She turned to him with a radiant smile. “Do I hear a but coming, by any chance?”
“Mrs. Wilson, you’re an intelligent woman. Whether or not you choose to cooperate, Mr. Reznikov will in all likelihood be tried for murder.”
She tried to interrupt, but he kept talking: “But as I understand it, for you to be branded a bigamist has wider consequences than mere loss of reputation.”
“And you have it within your power, do you—”
“Of course.”