The Great Shroud

Book 5: The Anglian Detective Agency Series

by Vera Morris

Genres: General Fiction; International Crime & Mystery; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

Aldeburgh, 1972. The local community is devastated by the accidental death of a local fisherman. Another tragedy to add to the recent murders of three young women. Soon, Laurel Bowman, Frank Diamond and the rest of the Anglian Detective Agency are pulled in to investigate another complex and dangerous case. But one of them is convinced that the fisherman's death is not an accident and they'll do anything to prove it. Even risk breaking up the agency. With a killer on the loose, time is of the essence, but can Frank and Laurel unravel the mystery before another life is lost? And will the agency survive the investigation?

Release date: August 19, 2021

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 256

Sample

Tuesday, 12 September, 1972

The Aldeburgh fish and chip shop was closed for the day, and the sun had set. In the flat above the shop Matthew Grill was alone. In the bathroom he splashed water over his face, and pulled a comb through his thick brown hair. He’d had a bath as soon as he got home after he’d finished selling the rest of the day’s catch from his hut facing Market Cross Place. He’d scrubbed himself hard, trying to scour away mucus, scales and the smell of fish, then splashed on the Old Spice Musk aftershave he’d bought from the chemist in the High Street.

The girl behind the counter had smirked at him. ‘Not like you, Matt. Your Sarah turning you into one of them new men?’ The pharmacist coughed and gave her a stern look. He’d paid, grabbed the bottle and left without replying. She was close to the mark. Sarah had started pushing him away. ‘You stink of fish. I have to smell it all day long, and then you come home smelling ten times worse than the shop.’ She hadn’t been like that when they were first married. Sometimes he’d taken her when he came back from the hut, before they opened the shop for the evening.

Married nine years. She was as beautiful as then: blonde shoulder-length hair and a good figure – but it was her irresistible face, and the way she looked at you, her large blue eyes seductive behind half-closed eyelids. She still flipped his stomach over.

The day had started well. He’d opened the prep room door of his fish and chip shop, and heaved in a loaded container of glistening cod and haddock. No sign of Sarah. ‘Morning, Ethel.’

‘Morning, Matt. Want a cuppa before you go back to the hut?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Lily,’ she shouted to the girl scrubbing down a draining board, ‘tea for Mr Grill. Nice and strong, not like that weasel’s piss you gave me yesterday.’ She seized a large cod and with a few swift movements of her knife chopped off its head, ripped out its guts, and cut it into fillets. ‘That’s a good, big ’un.’

‘Seen Sarah?’

‘Yes, she’s up and out. Said she had some shopping to do.’ She didn’t look up from her work.

He drained his mug. ‘Good cuppa, Lily.’

Lily Varley blushed and smiled. Ethel sniffed.

‘How’s your mum, Lily?’

The smile disappeared. ‘No better; doctor’s coming this morning.’

‘Do you need to go home?’

She went back to her scrubbing. ‘No. Dad’ll be there.’

‘Give her my regards.’

She turned and smiled. ‘Thank you, Mr Grill.’

‘Right, Ethel, I’ll bring the next load in, then me and your Tom’ll be busy all morning.’

‘Good catch?’

‘Not bad at all. Besides this lot,’ he pointed to the container, ‘some good-sized Dovers, bass and five lobsters. Tom’s boiling them up. Chef at the White Lion Hotel, he’s ordered three, already.’

‘See you later, then.’ She continued her massacre.

‘You on this evening?’

‘No, but I’ll have prepared everything.’ She turned to Lily and pointed to a bulging sack. ‘Time to get those spuds peeled so I can chip ’em.’

‘I’ll move them to the yard for you, Lily. Are you working this evening?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, I’m serving with Betty, Wilf’s frying.’

‘Lily.’

‘Yes, Mr Grill?’

‘Don’t walk home by yourself. That’s an order.’ He turned to Ethel. ‘Can you make sure someone will walk Lily home before you leave? What about Wilf?’

‘There’s no need, Mr Grill. It’s not far to home, and people will still be around,’ Lily said.

She sounded cross. Good to be strong-minded, but not now. ‘While you’re working here, you’ll do as you’re told.’ He tempered his words with a smile.

Her lips quivered. ‘If you say so, Mr Grill.’

‘I’ll make sure she’s OK,’ Ethel said. She slashed at the air with her filleting knife. ‘I’d like to catch the bugger – I’d settle his hash if he attacked me.’

Lily giggled. ‘I think you’re too old for him, Ethel.’

Ethel waggled the knife in Lily’s direction. ‘And you’re too tall, from what I’ve heard he seems to like little ones, you cheeky sod.’

He left them to it.

Matt ran down the stairs and opened the door that led directly into the High Street. He stood back and looked up at his home. It dominated this part of the town; three stories high, with a grand door to the shop on the corner, and above it, against blue paint, the sign, Aldeburgh Fish and Chips. It was exactly as it had been when his mother ran the shop. He hadn’t changed a thing. He hadn’t wanted, or needed, to.

He grimaced; he should have checked everything was ship-shape before he left. He felt in his jacket pocket; he had the keys. He turned right and came to the gate leading into the yard. It was never locked. He took a key, opened the prep-room door and flipped down two switches. The yard and prep room were flooded with light. First, he checked the smokery. There were some bloaters hanging up. No other fish. That was one thing he would like to get rid of. It didn’t seem worth the effort, but his mother didn’t like to waste fish and she said kippers and bloaters still sold, especially to the older folk, but also to hotels. He hated dealing with the smoked salmon: they had to buy in the fish and he couldn’t persuade Ethel to slice it up. ‘You do it better than anyone else,’ she said. It was a real fiddle pulling out all the pin bones.

He walked round the yard; the potato peeler was clean and the stone floor had been swabbed down. He didn’t know why he bothered checking; Ethel, or whoever was in charge of the preparation, was trustworthy. The prep room was just as clean and tidy; the chip-cutting machine immaculate. But there was still that lingering gluey smell, even though the wooden boards used for cutting up the fish were scrubbed clean. It hadn’t bothered him until Sarah kept going on about it.

He sighed. If only his mum hadn’t decided, after his dad died, she didn’t want to run the chip shop any more, and had taken a job as a school cook. If she’d been here, Sarah wouldn’t have got all those big ideas.

It was ten years since Dad had drowned. Matt had been twenty-one, courting Sarah, and amazed she’d agreed to be his girlfriend. They’d married a year later; she’d given up her job in an office in Ipswich to help Mum in the shop. She was a hard, quick worker, and used her bookkeeping skills to take over the accounts and tax returns. Mum said she’d got a good brain; she was happy to leave the business and the profits to them when she’d moved to Blackfriars School.

Then, after the murders, the school closed down, and Mum became a member of The Anglian Detective Agency, looking after the three detectives, working and living in Miss Piff’s house in Dunwich. And she wasn’t Mabel Grill any more, she’d married Stuart Elderkin, one of the detectives. Matt liked him, but he didn’t like the thought of his mum in bed with another man.

He puffed out a stream of air and went into the shop. It was also clean and tidy; smells of beef dripping and vinegar lingered in the air. He grimaced and rubbed his chest; he needed to take some bicarb. It was the third time in as many days Sarah had plonked battered cod and some tired chips in front of him for his supper. ‘Sorry, haven’t had time to go to the butchers. I’m meeting Mandy at seven. I expect you’ll be fast away when I get back. I’ll sleep in the other bedroom. Don’t wake me when you get up, too early for me.’ She pecked at his cheek, then sniffed. ‘That’s nice. Old Spice?’ She paused. ‘Why don’t you try Brut? I like that better.’ He’d reached out to pull her to him, but she had slipped away as sinuous and as quick as a silver eel. Who’d she smelt Brut on?

He opened the front door of the shop, locked it and stepped out into the narrow street dividing the shop from the White Hart Inn. He walked towards the sea, pausing under a street light on Crag Path to glance at his watch. Half-nine. He wasn’t meeting him until ten-fifteen. God knows why it had to be so late. He needed to be up at four and out in the boat by half-past. Sun didn’t rise ’til half-six, but they must be at the fishing grounds before the rest of the boats got there. His dad had trained him to be up and about early. ‘Soonest out there, soonest home, soonest money in your pocket.’ If he’d heard it once he’d heard it a thousand times. Now, he wished he could hear it again.

A north-westerly wind was blowing over the Suffolk fields. It had been a poor summer weather-wise: cool, below average temperatures, with only a few brief spells of sunny weather. There hadn’t been so many day trippers this year, but the shop had done well and the catches were still good. His stomach clenched. He didn’t want to think about it. He still hoped his suspicions were wrong.

He’d stopped checking the monthly statement from the bank; Sarah did all the bookkeeping and tax returns. She used to show him the statements and explain the details. He was grateful, figures bored him, apart from the weight of catches and the price per pound of different fish. A few days ago, an envelope, embossed ‘Midland Bank’ on the back, shot through the letter box as he was about to go out. He had torn it open, wanting to see the total for August. It was always their best month: a peak month for visitors, the bank holiday an extra boost. He’d stared at the figure. That couldn’t be right. He didn’t understand it. It should have been much more than that. Where had the money gone? No! He felt cold and sick as he thought of the obvious, perhaps the only, plausible reason.

He walked north along Crag Path, oblivious to the off-shore breeze bringing with it smells of the land, oblivious to the dark, sighing sea and the sickle moon high in the sky, clouds racing over it. Now he had to sort out another problem. He didn’t want to do this, but he’d promised her he would. He blew out his cheeks. He’d sort this one out tonight. It shouldn’t take long. He was probably a bloody fool, but it niggled at him. He had to make sure. Should he have talked it over with someone? But, if he was off the beaten track, which he probably was, he’d look a fool, and it wouldn’t be fair to put his thoughts into someone else’s head if he was wrong. Was there time to nip into the Cross Keys for a pint?

‘Hello, Matt.’ There were several of the lifeboat crew propping up the bar, including Tom, Ethel’s son, his first mate on the boat and second cox’n of the lifeboat crew. Matt had been proud when he’d been made cox’n, the boat’s commander; carrying on his family’s tradition. He wished his dad had lived to see him take up the post.

He waved to them, then moved to the far end and ordered a pint of Adnams bitter and took it to a vacant table near a window looking out onto Crabbe Street. Tom said something to the rest and made his way over.

‘Heard about that German coaster that exploded off Folkstone?’ Tom asked, sitting down opposite him, his clown’s face smiling below a mass of curly brown hair. However down you felt, Tom’s face made you smile.

‘No, missed that one. Anyone hurt?’

‘Two injured, one had to be winched up by coastguard helicopter. She was five miles south of the town. Could have been much worse.’

He took a deep swallow.

‘That was a good catch today, Matt; let’s hope tomorrow’ll be as good.’

‘Ay, it was.’

Tom shifted in his chair. ‘You all right, Matt? You’ve not seemed yourself lately.’

He didn’t reply. What could he say? He was worried his wife was two-timing him and taking money from the shop for herself? He was worried someone he knew had done something dreadful? He finished his beer. Tom looked puzzled; he was waiting for an answer. ‘I’m fine, Tom, don’t worry about me. I’m off, need my beauty sleep. See you tomorrow.’

‘Good night, Matt. Don’t forget, I’m always here for you.’

He smiled at him and slapped him on the back. It was true, they’d always looked out for each other, right from their first day at school. His best friend – he decided he’d talk to him, and his mum, but he needed to have it out with Sarah first.

‘Night, Tom. Don’t stay too long, don’t want you half-drunk tomorrow, falling overboard.’ He waved to the others and stepped out into the night.

Wednesday, 13 September, 1972

Tom Blower, half-asleep, half-awake, moved uneasily under the bedding. He turned and slipped his arm over Betty’s body, easing himself close to her, his chest against her back, cupping a breast with his hand, tucking his knees into the back of hers, forming the spoon. He slid his hand inside her nightdress, her skin soft against his rough palm. He sighed, and buried his face in her hair. She made a soft, moaning sound. His worries about Matt eased and he drifted into sleep.

There was a great crack of noise. He jerked up. A maroon. Then the second. He leapt out of bed and dashed to the window. Two white flashes, high in the air. Explosive signals fired from the mortars at the Coastguard Station at Fort Green. He ripped off his pyjamas, groped for his clothes and pulled on his pants. Betty was up, switching on the light, throwing him his other clothes. The alarm clock by the side of the bed showed ten past two.

She hugged him. ‘Take care, my boy. We need you.’

A quick kiss, a fleeting look at Mary and Joshua, still asleep in their rooms.

‘I might beat Matt to the lifeboat,’ he shouted as he ran down the stairs, unbolted the door and burst into Slaughden Road. Matt had an advantage, he lived closer to the lifeboat; if Tom got there before him it would be the first time. The streets were deserted, dark, the sound of his pounding footsteps echoing from walls as he cut through Hertford Place onto Crag Path. In the distance he could hear other men running. His heart raced, adrenalin surging through his body. This was what they loved, all the crew, every one of them. Someone out there needed you, prayed you’d come to them. When they were ready to launch, the Charles Dibdin, with everyone on board, was tipped forward, the securing chain knocked off and the boat started off down the slipway, gathering speed, hitting the sea in a burst of spray and a gut-retching thud, as it met solid water.

The wind had changed since he went to bed. It was blowing off the sea and he could make out the white caps of waves. Where would they be needed tonight? There were lights on in some of the houses on Crag Path. Those maroons would wake the dead. His feet pounded the promenade, every cell of his body energised. He was ready and eager to be part of the launch into the dark waves.

He hoped Matt was all right, and he’d had some sleep. He was sure Sarah must have upset him. It wouldn’t be the first time. Matt had told him a few months ago she’d wanted to close the fish and chip shop, and turn it into a restaurant. Aldeburgh without its chippy? Matt said they had had terrible rows as he’d refused to even think about it. ‘She seems to have forgotten it isn’t even our shop, although it will be one day, it’s my mum’s,’ he’d said.

As Tom neared the car park, there was the thump, thump, thump of heavy machinery – a light on in the lifeboat shed. What the hell was Matt doing? Why’d he turned the tractor on? It wasn’t needed until they came back, when it hauled the lifeboat back onto its landing slide.

He raced towards the noise. A slit of light shone onto the pebbles of the beach. The door was ajar. The sound wasn’t right. There was something wrong with the tractor. A wave of diesel fumes seared his nostrils as he pulled the door fully open. The room seemed empty; the row of orange life jackets hung on pegs, the table and sink, the electric kettle – everything was normal. Where was Matt? He turned towards the tractor, on the south side of the shed. Then he saw him.

‘No!’ Matt was caught in the chain that hauled the boat back up the slipway. His head banging against the tractor, his body flopping like a dead rabbit, arms and legs jerking. Tom froze in horror, his legs turned to jelly. This couldn’t be happening. He staggered to the tractor and turned off the ignition. The reverberations of the engine spluttered and died.

He knelt down beside him. ‘Matt, Matt.’ Tears rolled down his cheeks. There was no need to search for a pulse. Matt’s head was a bloody mass. Tom tried to ease him away from the machinery, but something was gripping him round his neck. He laid his hand on Matt’s hair, rocking backwards and forwards, calling his name.

The sound of running footsteps.

‘My God, what’s happened, Tom?’

Clasping Matt’s body to him, he turned.

Alan Varley, the boat’s engineer, face white, eyes staring in disbelief, was standing petrified in the doorway.

Tears streaming down his face, Tom groaned, ‘It’s Matt – he’s dead.’

It was a bright morning as Frank Diamond, the founder of The Anglian Detective Agency, drove to a new case. He turned to Stuart Elderkin. ‘What’s the name of this place we’re going to?’

‘I’ve told you twice already. You’re slipping back into that bad habit you had when we were in the police. Always wanting things repeated. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were losing your marbles.’ Frank was formerly a detective inspector in the Suffolk Police Force and Stuart his sergeant.

Frank glanced at the dashboard; eight forty, their appointment was for nine. He floored the accelerator of the Avenger GT and overtook a tractor. ‘You hadn’t said anything for at least ten minutes. It was a way of checking if you were still alive.’

Stuart sighed. ‘It’s Gladham Hall, and don’t forget what Dorothy said, address him as Sir George.’ Dorothy Piff was the Agency’s administrator, her house being their base. ‘Think I’ll have a few puffs before we get there, don’t think I’ll be allowed a smoke once we get inside.’ He fumbled in his jacket pocket and took out a briar pipe, a tin of shag tobacco and a box of matches.

Frank groaned. ‘In that case, open your window.’ He turned off the A12 for Wickham Market, then took the B1078 for Needham Market.

Several puffs later, ‘We’re coming up to it,’ Stuart said. ‘There, on the right. See the gates?’

‘You can hardly miss them,’ Frank replied. He waited for two cars to pass then turned between impressive wrought-iron gates onto a wide gravelled drive. No sign of a house, just acres of parkland. ‘I’m more interested in the case, whatever it is, now I’ve seen this. I hope the house lives up to its surroundings.’

‘See your team did well last night. Two nil, not a bad result.’

Frank nodded. ‘I think the Anfield crowd expected more, it might not be enough. Eintracht Frankfurt are a good team; we might go down when we get to West Germany.’

‘You ought to support our local team,’ Stuart said. ‘Ipswich did well in the Texaco Cup. Good win, four-two.’

Frank laughed. ‘Stuart, they were playing St Johnstone!’

‘A win’s a win.’ The parkland merged into wide lawns, bordered by yew hedges. ‘Dorothy said there’s three hundred acres of land,’ he muttered, taking a last suck at his pipe.

‘What a pile!’ Frank exclaimed as they turned a bend in the drive. The hall was impressive, four-storied with tall chimneys, built of once-red brick which had faded to pale pink. He parked the car in front of a wide flight of stone steps, leading up to a massive oak door.

Stuart turned to him. ‘Dorothy was right, you should have worn something a bit more formal.’

Frank shook his head. ‘Apart from the suit I take out exclusively for all the funerals we keep having to go to, this is as formal as I get. They’re lucky it wasn’t a T-shirt and jeans.’ What was wrong with a black leather jacket and white polo? He was wearing proper trousers; they even had a vague crease in them. Stuart as ever was the essence of respectability in a three-piece suit, white shirt and sombre tie. Mabel, his wife, and the Agency’s cook and housekeeper, had fussed over him before they left. ‘Not every day you meet one of the nobility,’ she’d said.

Dorothy had sniffed. ‘He’s only a Knight Bachelor, made his fortune making sweets.’

Mabel brushed an invisible hair from Stuart’s lapel. ‘Trubshaw’s Truffles, they’re my favourite, but I wouldn’t mind a box of Trubshaw’s Trios, if Sir George is giving away free samples.’

Dorothy rolled her eyes. ‘The only thing he’s free with is his morals, so I hear. He embarked on his third marriage about ten years ago; she was a finalist in Miss Great Britain . . . 1952? No doubt he’ll be trading her in for a new model before long.’

Frank smiled at the memory of the exchanges and the look on Dorothy’s face.

The front door silently swung open and ‘a lackey’ in a dark suit stared at them.

Frank thought his left eyebrow moved a millimetre upwards as he cast a glance over his dress. ‘Mr Diamond and Mr Elderkin to see Sir George,’ he said, trying to keep a straight face.

The man stepped aside and waved them in. ‘I will let Sir George know you are here.’ He glided away, leaving them, no doubt, with time to be impressed by the palatial hall and a wide staircase sweeping upwards, curving to the left, its barley-twist oak balustrade gleaming from centuries of wax polish and elbow grease.

The man glided back. ‘Please follow me, gentlemen. Sir George is in the sitting room.’

He opened the door to a vast room panelled in pale oak, its walls festooned with portraits of bewigged men and unsmiling ladies in various period dresses. A man rose from a cluster of ornate furniture grouped round a marble fireplace.

‘Welcome, welcome.’ He was a few inches taller than Frank’s five eleven, with an avuncular face, light brown wavy hair dusting his collar, a large bony nose and a no-lips mouth.

After introductions he waved them towards the fireplace and two settees plus two tub chairs, all covered in the same patterned red satin.

‘No fire, I’m afraid, not ready for that yet, are we?’ He laughed heartily.

Frank couldn’t see the joke, but smiled politely.

‘Do sit down. I hope you didn’t have any problems getting here?’

Where does he think we came from? Outer Mongolia?

‘No, indeed, we had a trouble-free journey,’ Stuart replied, sounding like an undertaker about to move the corpse from the funeral parlour to the grave.

‘Good. Good,’ Sir George said. ‘Can I offer you refreshment? Coffee? Or something stronger?’ He raised his eyebrows and twinkled at them.

‘Coffee would be fine,’ Frank said. Drinking at nine in the morning?

Trubshaw pressed a bell. The front-door man – was he the butler? – glided in.

‘Coffee for three, Giddings, and perhaps a few buns . . . or whatever Cook has made.’

Stuart beamed.

Frank decided he’d inherited some of his father’s rabid left-wing views as he was starting to dislike Trubshaw and his gilded life. ‘Sir George, you didn’t make it clear when you phoned, exactly what you wanted us to do for you. Perhaps, before the coffee comes, you might enlighten us.’

Trubshaw moved uneasily in his chair, the friction between satin and the expensive cloth of his trousers making a slithery sound like a snake moving over dry grass. ‘Oh, yes, of course.’ He grimaced, the lines running from his nose to his mouth deepening, making him look older than his fifty-nine years. ‘Before I tell you, I must be reassured you won’t discuss this with anyone else.’

Frank explained that before they accepted a case it was discussed with all members of the Agency and they only accepted it on a majority decision, although usually there was no problem.

‘Can you rely on the discretion of all of your partners?’

‘Completely.’

‘Very well. I want you to investigate the theft of some very expensive jewellery.’

‘You’ve informed the police?’ Stuart asked. ‘You’ll need to do that for the insurance, won’t you?’

More snake-like noises.

‘No, er, no, I haven’t. The items were not insured, and I don’t want a load of country bumpkin flat-feet tramping all over my property. I’ve had excellent reports of your successes and I’d like you to take on this case. I’ll pay above whatever your rates are, I’m a generous man, don’t worry about not getting your money.’

Up until that moment, Frank hadn’t been worried about non-payment. ‘If we take the case, the usual terms will apply and you’ll be asked to sign an agreement, so I’m afraid there’s no chance of non-payment.’

Trubshaw looked flustered. ‘My word’s usually been enough when I make a deal. However, I suppose this is the modern way.’

Stuart’s back had straightened at the mention of flat-footed coppers. ‘I presume you know Mr Diamond and myself are former detectives in the Suffolk Police Force? We still have many colleagues and friends there.’

Trubshaw’s already choleric complexion deepened. ‘Oh, of course. I’d forgotten. Do forgive the faux pas.’

‘What items were stolen and when did this happen?’ Frank asked.

Trubshaw leant towards them. ‘Three very beautiful pieces of jewellery: two rings and a bracelet. I’ve photos of them – in colour,’ he said, cocking his head and smiling as though this was an achievement equal to the production of an old masterpiece. He passed the photos to Frank, who glanced at them and handed them to Stuart.

When the photos were back in Trubshaw’s hands, he rapped his fingers against them. ‘There’s too much of this going on. I read in the paper only this morning, Bernard Lee.’ He paused, obviously feeling he hadn’t grabbed their attention, and rapped the photos again. ‘You know, the actor. He was robbed in a hotel room by two young thugs. Disgusting.’

‘Shall we get back to the jewellery?’ Frank asked.

Trubshaw frowned and pointed to the first photo. ‘Flawless emerald-cut diamond ring. Nearly four carats. Worth forty thousand pounds. The next one, French handmade platinum bracelet with a Ceylon sapphire and a diamond-cluster strap, forty thousand five hundred, and lastly, my favourite, a 1930s’ Art Deco diamond-cluster ring, with a central three-carat diamond, all set in platinum, at least another forty-five thousand.’

Stuart pursed his lips. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t insure them, sir. One hundred and thirty thousand grand’s a lot of money. Can I ask why you didn’t insure them?’

Trubshaw’s nostrils flared. ‘That’s my business, not yours.’

Frank gave him the fish eye.

Trubshaw shrugged his shoulders. ‘If you must know, it was Lady Trubshaw, she forgot to remind me those particular pieces were due for renewal. She’s terribly upset about the whole matter, so when you meet her, please don’t ask her about any of this. Only deal with me.’

The door opened and Giddings entered, carrying a loaded tray. A petite, voluptuous platinum blonde bounced after him. ‘Oh, do hurry up, Giddings. I’ve seen stiffs move faster than you. That coffee will be stone cold if you don’t get a shift on.’

Giddings’ pace increased from glide to stride, his face turning from alabaster to rosy marble.

‘There you are, Georgie. Trying to keep me away from these handsome men.’

Frank and Stuart stood up.

She pranced towards them, holding out her hand, her large breasts moving in unison. ‘Oooh, real detectives. I’ve read about you two.’ She turned her come-hither eyes onto Frank. ‘You remind me of The Saint. Are you Diamond or Elderkin?’ She turned to face her husband. ‘See, I can remember names when I want to.’

Frank shook her hand; it was dry, warm and lingering. ‘I’m Frank Diamond, Lady Trubshaw.’

Her happy, moon-shaped face creased with laughter. ‘Call me Hazel, dear. Can’t be doing with all that formality. Georgie likes it, but it’s never cut any ice with me. I didn’t marry him for his title, you know.’

Frank longed to ask if free Trubshaw’s Trios had seduced her. He smiled politely.

‘You must be Mr Elderkin?’

Stuart tentatively stretched out his hand, as though afraid she might start nibbling it. ‘Pleased to meet you, Lady Trubshaw.’

She pumped it up and down. ‘I’ve told you, it’s Hazel.’

While this was going on, Frank was observing Sir George. He was surprised; instead of the expected expression of annoyance or even anger, a smile played over those thin lips and a look of fondness and indulgence softened his face. Sir George was enamoured by Hazel’s antics.

She moved to the coffee tray. ‘How do you like your coffee, Frank? Black, hot an. . .