A Death in Diamonds полностью

‘Decency? Protecting Abigail Pinder?’

‘Not Abigail,’ he said, frowning. ‘William.’

‘What?’

‘Her brother.’

The Queen turned round to face him properly again.

‘How does he come into it?’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake! All right.’ Philip threw his hands up. ‘If you must know, I met up with Roly Hill at the Artemis. He was called to the phone because Abigail was trying to get hold of him. She said she was with her brother and she was desperate. She wanted Roly to go over and talk to Pinder about the state he was in, but Roly couldn’t. His wife had a new baby and she’d have divorced him if he didn’t get home by midnight. Then he pointed out I knew Pinder pretty well, too.’

‘Did you?’

‘We served together in HMS Valiant during Matapan. Brave man. Exceptional sailor. That’s how I met Abigail. According to what she told Roly on the phone, Pinder’s wife Marion had effectively left him. Abigail was on her own with him and he wouldn’t talk to her. He was threatening to . . . Well, as I said, he was in a bad way. Roly was stuck, so I said I’d go over. It involved a certain amount of subterfuge, of course. Nothing in this life is bloody simple. Obviously, it wouldn’t do for anyone to know I was going to a house at night with a very pretty blonde in it. I took precautions not to be caught in the act. I’m not stupid.’

Oh, if only you knew, the Queen thought. She said nothing.

‘So I gave my security the slip and we hightailed it to the mews in Roly’s Aston Martin. The street was dark and quiet, nobody about. He dropped me off right outside and headed home. Abigail let me in and explained about Pinder.’

‘What about him?’

‘He’d locked himself in the back bedroom with a bottle of whisky and a gun.’

‘What?’

‘Quite. Abigail caught sight of the barrel just before he locked the door on her. An old service pistol. He was being hounded by MI5, did you know that?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’d been working for them for ten years, and they’d got it into their heads, because he knew a couple of Russians socially, that he was the Third Man.’

‘I’d heard.’

‘Preposterous, of course, but they wouldn’t let it go. The poor sod was suicidal. It took me a good hour to talk myself into the room, and three more to talk him into handing over the gun. I took the magazine out, but it wouldn’t clear so I fired into a pillow, just to be sure. The thing went off and practically deafened us. I’m amazed no one else heard it. Anyway, by then it was the early hours. Abigail joined us and we finished the bottle, the three of us, sitting up against the bedroom wall, listening to Grieg on Pinder’s gramophone. Very soothing, Grieg, if you’re in a certain mood. Then I called my equerry, who called his brother in the Grenadiers, reliable chap, who came to pick me up in his car.’ He shrugged. ‘And that’s it. The whole story. Hardly a night of unbridled passion, or whatever you were thinking.’

‘I didn’t know what to think.’

‘No need to think anything.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Philip raised his arms again in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Not my story to tell. Pinder was in a very bad way. He doesn’t want half the country knowing his business.’

‘I’m not half the country!’ she pointed out, raising her voice again.

He looked grumpy, and only slightly apologetic. ‘Officers’ code. I assumed you’d understand.’

‘Well, I didn’t.’

There was a pause. Philip had said that was the whole story, but of course it wasn’t.

‘And what about Abigail?’ the Queen added quietly. ‘You say she’s a friend.’

‘Exactly!’

She looked at him very steadily. ‘What sort of friend?’

‘The best sort! For God’s sake, Lilibet. The sort who’s interested in Jung and Heidegger. Don’t tell me you are too, because unless Heidegger was running in the four thirty at Newmarket, you wouldn’t give a damn. Abigail’s studying psychoanalysis. She’s very interesting on the subject.’ He reached out a hand and laid it on her arm. His voice was softer. ‘I don’t bore you with Jung, Lilibet, and you don’t, thank God, bore me with your breeding programme for the Derby. But I’m yours, you know that. Body and soul.’

He didn’t say such things to her often, but every time he did, they sung through her like electricity down a wire. Nobody could be as serious about love as Philip could. Or as serious about anything. Or as funny. Or as damned complicated. Her mother was right.

He brushed a tear away from her face. ‘Now, stop fretting. It doesn’t suit you.’

After an argument like that, and all those weeks of tension, and the sudden clearing of the air, there was only one thing to do – but it would have to wait. Bobo was knocking at the door and there was more than a hint of urgency in her voice as she pointed out the time.

Much later, in the middle of the night, Philip had gone back to his room and the Queen lay wide awake. Jet lag, she supposed. It reminded her a little of the night Anne had had toothache, but that had been fraught, and now she felt more relaxed than she had in months.