Anne Perry: Buckingham Palace Gardens

For once Minnie blushed.

Cahoon’s face was still red, his eyes blazing.

“Calm down and don’t be an ass,” Hamilton Quase said calmly and with a delicate derision. “Nobody is fooled by any of this. We are all afraid. There’s a madman loose in the Palace, and he may be downstairs socially, but there is no bar on the stairway and he can come up anytime he wishes, as demonstrated by the fact that the wretched woman was found in the cupboard on our landing. Please heaven, let’s hope this policeman is up to his job and takes the man away as soon as possible.”

Cahoon turned to regard Hamilton coldly. “Do you have any idea what you are talking about, Hamilton? I saw the woman’s body! It was like nothing you have ever imagined. Or perhaps you have? How long were you in Africa?”

Liliane was gripping her fish fork as if it were a weapon, her knuckles white. She stared at Cahoon, hatred in her eyes. “Long enough to show courage and resolution in the face of tragedy, Mr.

Dunkeld, and to know how to help people rather than make things worse by losing his temper and his judgment,” she said loudly. “How long were you there?”

Hamilton looked at her with some surprise, and a sudden, overwhelming tenderness in his eyes. Then he turned to Cahoon.

Elsa wondered what they were talking about. She could see Julius’s eyes widen, and a faint flush on Hamilton’s face. They were referring to something specific. They knew it. She, Minnie, and Olga were completely confused.

Slowly Cahoon sat back in his chair.

Elsa found herself shaking with relief.

The servants, who had stepped back, resumed their silent duties, and one by one everyone began to eat again.

Elsa’s mind raced. What had Cahoon been referring to? It had been an attack on Hamilton somehow, and Liliane had leaped in to protect him, as she seemed to do so often. From what? What was she afraid of? According to Cahoon, a woman of the streets had been murdered here where they were guests, and everyone was afraid. But were they all afraid of the same thing, or was it different for each of them?

The main course was served. Cahoon introduced the subject of the great railway again. The men all contributed from their various skills and fields of knowledge as to the difficulties they might face and how they should be overcome.

Simnel was a financier, brilliant at attracting funds at the most excellent rates. What he had to say was in many ways dry: lists of bankers and wealthy men who would be willing to invest. It was the wealth of his knowledge and his memory for detail that impressed. He knew not only everyone’s worth, but their history, and, if he chose to, he could be amusing in recounting it.

He spoke mostly to Cahoon, but he included all of them. When he looked at Olga it was casual, as it was to Elsa and Liliane, no more than that. When he looked at Minnie there was a heat in his eyes, and he moved his glance quickly, as though he knew he betrayed himself.

He did not look at Julius at all. Elsa wondered if it were guilt because Minnie was his wife, or something older and deeper than that.

Did he want Minnie for himself, or was it really because by taking her he was cuckolding his brother?

They moved to discussing one of the most difficult legs of the journey diplomatically, which, as Olga had said, lay between German East Africa and Congo Free State. Julius touched briefly on how it was both a political and a logistic problem. It was his art to persuade, suggest compromise, know every nation’s ambitions and fears, strengths and weaknesses, so he could offer a solution that left all parties feeling as if they had had the best of the deal.

Elsa listened to him intently, and only moved her gaze from his face when she noticed Cahoon watching her, and then Minnie’s smile. Julius had never once looked at her. Was he afraid in case his looks were too close, too soft? Or did he simply have no wish to? How much of what she remembered was really only imagination, her own wish, her burning hunger, and for him merely politeness, possibly even embarrassment?

Minnie was so vivid, so alive. Cahoon was watching her now, his face brooding, but his eyes bright with pleasure. He was the organizer of men and labor. He had a farsighted vision in planning the movement of machines, timber, and steel. He knew where to buy and how to ship. He was passionate about the whole vision and the excitement of it rang in his voice. He seemed to radiate energy.

Minnie turned quite deliberately to watch him.

What he was describing would be the backbone of Africa from the Cape of Good Hope, which divided the South Atlantic from the Indian Ocean, almost seven thousand miles, up across the equator, to the delta where the Nile poured into the Mediterranean. In spite of herself, Elsa was fired up by the vision too.

Lastly Hamilton spoke. He was the engineer. He could not only weigh and judge the more obvious issues, he could make leaps of the imagination laterally, create possibilities no one else had considered, solve problems, and devise new methods of doing things. He spoke well, with dry, self-deprecating humor. Was it a mannerism, as if he had been taught the vulgarity of self-praise? Or did he really have so little regard for his own abilities?

Elsa looked at Liliane, to see if she perceived it also, and saw fear without knowing of what. Then she wished she had not understood so clearly. She was guilty of an intrusion.

She was not really interested in the facts. Of course, she wished the project to succeed because it was what the men wanted. It would bring them both immense financial profit, and even more, it would inevitably bring fame and honor. She knew that was what Cahoon hungered for.

She looked at him where he sat now, his broad shoulders hunched a little as if his jacket restricted him, his face intent.

What he wanted was recognition, title. He had a compelling hunger to be ennobled, and to become part of the Prince of Wales’s circle. That was the highest in the land, since the Queen had no circle anymore. She had lived in a kind of seclusion ever since Prince Albert’s death more than three decades ago.

Elsa looked across the table where Minnie was watching her father. There was a warmth in her face, an ease in her eyes and mouth, and yet she was still not entirely comfortable. Her concentration was too direct.

They were all pretending to be absorbed in the intricacies of the great plan, but she wondered how many of them were actually more interested in their own hungers? Why did Minnie find Simnel attractive? Was it to test her power because she could not find in her own husband the passion she longed for?

Suddenly Elsa was assailed by guilt. She imagined being in Minnie’s place, married to Julius. To the outside world she would possess a happiness any woman would desire. Elsa did! Yet in reality perhaps Minnie was also alone, close but never touching in the heart or mind, nearness without intimacy. How many people lived like that?

Someone was speaking to Elsa, but she had not heard him. It was Cahoon, and he was angry that she was not listening. It showed a lack of respect. Did it hurt anything more than his vanity? He wanted her to love him, she knew that. But why? For the power it gave him? To feed his self-esteem? Or because he too ached for tenderness, someone to share his laughter and pain?

“Elsa!” His voice was sharp.

She must pay attention. “Yes, Cahoon?”

“What’s the matter?” he demanded. “Are you ill?”

“No.” She must think of a quick lie. “I was wondering if the policeman was having any success.”

“There are two of them, and they are from Special Branch,” he corrected her. “Apparently they are more discreet than the regular sort. I asked you if you would like to come with me to Cairo when we negotiate some of the details there.”