Folly Du Jour - Barbara Cleverly [77]
Intrigued by the nuances of speech and the unusual ideas they hinted at, Joe felt himself steered into asking with more familiarity than he would normally have assumed: ‘How are you placed, Pollock – dynastically speaking?’
He seemed ready enough to reply. ‘I’m not impressed by dynasties, successions, and all that family rubbish. I suppose I take that attitude from my father. My mother – oh, it’s well known – married beneath her, as they say, and my father brought me up to be very dismissive of all that inheritance nonsense. I went to a Good School where the other boys merely confirmed me in my prejudices. On the whole, the grander the nastier, I concluded. But – the system seduces us all, I suppose you’d say. Did I refuse my cousin’s offer of a recommendation to the right person? No. And I have to confess, Sandilands, that . . .’ Again he lowered his voice, taking Joe into his confidence, slightly embarrassed at what he was about to reveal. ‘ . . . there’s a chance . . . a good chance . . . that there’ll be an honour in the offing for me before very long. Knee on the velvet cushion, sword on the shoulder, “Arise, Sir John” stuff! And, do you know – I shan’t feel inclined to turn it down. I’ll have earned it. It will be my own achievement and will owe nothing to a scheming old ancestor having pleased some capricious monarch in the dim and distant.’
‘So, if we were making a book on the runners and riders in the Somerton slaying, we’d be giving short odds on the new baronet?’
‘I’d certainly leave him on the list until we have more information. And his mother. At slightly longer odds, of course. Any more suspicions?’
‘Vague ones. Tell me, Pollock – there’s been a suggestion that the whole thing was staged deliberately to be witnessed by Sir George . . . or for the delectation of someone else in the audience. What’s your opinion on that?’
Pollock frowned. ‘A bit far-fetched but not out of the question, I suppose,’ he replied cagily.
‘I wonder if it had occurred to you that there might be a similarity with another crime scene you were dragged into some four years ago? I only mention this because the officiating pathologist at both crimes turns out to be one and the same – efficient fellow called Moulin.’
Pollock’s face livened at the name. ‘I remember. Yes, indeed. Good man! Effective and businesslike. And the scene was in the Louvre of all places! Good God, is it really four years? To me it’s as clear as if it happened yesterday. Did he fill you in . . .?’
‘Yes, he gave me the details of the discovery of the body, the means of killing, the identity of the corpse and so on. But the most interesting thing he had to say was that, in common with that of Somerton, the murder was undertaken as a form of display to an invited audience of Egyptologists and academics, who all had reason to hate the man. Did you have the same feeling, I wonder?’
‘Certainly did! The whole event was – well, just that! – an event. Apart from the representatives of law and order, there were three of us non-combatants, so to speak, caught up in the sorry scene. A very nice couple of Americans who raised the alarm when they caught sight of the blood pool under the coffin box – and me.’
‘What on earth were you doing in the Louvre? Did anyone orchestrate your movements on that day?’
‘Do you know – that thought never occurred to me! No . . . I’d say it was impossible. I was newly at the Embassy.