David Dickinson - Death of a wine merchant

‘Doubtless somebody already has,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Sir Pericles, could I ask you a favour? Could I ask you to cast your eye or perhaps your palate over the Colville products and let me know if any of them are suspect?’

‘With pleasure,’ replied Freme. ‘I presume time is not on your side, Powerscourt. How soon would you like to come back for my report?’

‘Could I say in three days? All that tasting must be a time-consuming business. And could I beg you one further favour on my return?’

‘Of course,’ said Freme.

‘Could we have another of your splendid recipes on my return visit?’

Sir Pericles laughed. ‘Oh, yes, we can. I’ve got plenty more of those.’

Powerscourt found Lady Lucy in a very troubled state when he returned home from Freme and his recipes. Even the arrival of Johnny Fitzgerald did not appear to be enough to calm her spirits. Fitzgerald was Powerscourt’s oldest friend and companion in arms. They had served together in the Army in India and Johnny had worked on almost all of Powerscourt’s investigations since. Johnny was just under six feet tall with bright blue eyes that often danced with mischief or merriment.

‘Oh, Francis, it’s all too terrible,’ Lady Lucy began, ‘that poor family. And those poor children. I don’t know what we’re going to do!’

‘Hold on a moment, my love,’ said her husband, ‘take it slowly. Which family? Whose children? What might we have to do?’ He smiled a smile of welcome at his friend.

Lady Lucy felt that she might fall victim to one of those male conspiracies where the men look knowingly at each other and you can hear them say ‘Women!’ without actually opening their lips.

‘Sorry,’ she said, and stared firmly at the painting of one of her ancestors on the wall above the fireplace for a moment. ‘You remember I said I had a cousin who was married into some part of the Colvilles? And that she had a rather disagreeable husband called Timothy Barrington White?’

‘I do recall that. I remember now. I’ve been hearing horror stories about this Barrington White every now and again for most of our married life.’

‘Well,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘he’s really done it this time. You know how he fell in and out of jobs all the time. Eventually my cousin Millicent, Milly we always call her, persuaded one of the Colvilles to give him a job in the wine business. I think he had to look after that enormous gin distillery they have near Hammersmith. I don’t know what exactly went on but something really bad must have happened. You see, the Colvilles fired him.’

‘I can’t think it’s a very strenuous job, looking after a gin distillery these days,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald with a knowing air. ‘You put the stuff in, mix it all about, wait a bit and put it into those funny bottles.’

Lady Lucy was not sure that it was as easy as all that. ‘What’s more, there was a terrible row with Randolph and Cosmo Colville when they fired him.’

‘I always thought they looked after their people,’ said Powerscourt, ‘those Colvilles and the other wine merchants. Loyalty a great premium, take care of the staff, noblesse oblige , all that sort of thing.’

‘The point is this,’ said Lady Lucy, feeling that the conversation was beginning to drift away from her, ‘there was this tremendous row. The Colvilles told Terrible Timothy that he’d never work in the wine trade in England ever again. They even refused to pay his last month’s wages. And they’ve got no money, no money of their own, that family. I mean, Milly did have some money, but I think Timothy got through that fairly quickly at the start of their marriage. And they’ve got three children under five. What’s poor Milly going to do? I must go and see her, Francis, they only live in West Kensington, it won’t take long to get there.’

As Lady Lucy hurried off to fetch her coat and hat Johnny Fitzgerald opened one of the Powerscourt cupboards and pulled out a bottle of Fleurie. ‘I was talking to a man this very day and he asked me about my habits with wine, Johnny.

I said that I bought it and my best friend drank it. Things don’t seem to have changed.’

Johnny settled himself into the deepest armchair and suggested that Powerscourt fill him in on the details of the case. Two glasses later he knew as much as his friend.

‘This silence business, Francis,’ he said, ‘do you think there’s a woman behind it? Or maybe it’s a scandal. If there was some catastrophe about to fall on the house of Colville maybe the only way to put a stop to it is to say nothing at all. If you keep it up long enough, of course, there won’t be any question of you speaking out because you won’t be here. Maybe you could take the scandal with you to the grave and keep it there.’

‘I plan to go up to Norfolk to see the place where it all happened, Johnny. Maybe I’ll get a better sense of it all up there.’

‘And what would you like me to do, Francis? The latest bird book can wait a while. I’ve finished the text and it’s with the publishers now.’ In recent years Johnny had found a profitable and enjoyable occupation as an author and expert on the birds of England and Europe. He had even held conversations recently with his publishers about the possibility of the Birds of India.

Powerscourt grinned at his friend. ‘Do you remember that earlier case we had years ago about the forgers and the art world? On that occasion you managed to infiltrate what you might call the underworld of the art business, the porters, the drivers, the men who carry the stuff round at auctions. I think you should do the same with the Colvilles and the wine business. Make friends with these fellows. See what they have to say about their employers. If there are any scandals at Colvilles, these people will know more about it than the people in the boardroom.’

‘It will be a pleasure, Francis. Mind you, I hope these fellows don’t have the head for drink some of those art people did. Prolonged exposure to them and their drinking haunts could be very bad for the health. I’ll get on to it straight away.’

While he waited for Lady Lucy to return later that evening, Powerscourt wondered if reticence had stopped her drawing the obvious conclusion to the travails of Milly Barrington White. For while the husband’s loss of job and loss of income was very serious, there was one other point that he felt sure Lucy must have seen. Timothy Barrington White, present at the wedding, had a very real motive for wanting to kill Randolph Colville. The undesirable husband was more than a wedding guest, he was also a murder suspect.

Shortly before lunch the next day Georgina Nash was waiting for Powerscourt in the church of St Peter’s, Brympton. She was tall, with light brown hair rather than the flaming red of her daughter and pale blue eyes that looked as if they had been weeping a lot.

‘Mrs Nash,’ said Powerscourt, ‘how very kind of you to meet me here and guide me round where it all happened. It must be very painful for you.’

She just managed a smile. ‘If there’s anything we can do to help, Lord Powerscourt, we’re more than willing. Now, let me show you the church.’

She led the way into the empty building. The door creaked slightly on its hinges. The ropes of the bell ringers were tethered neatly at one end. All the box pews but one had their doors carefully closed. There were fresh flowers around the altar. On Powerscourt’s left as they advanced up the nave was a stone effigy covered with some dark substance. Georgina Nash noticed Powerscourt’s look.

‘Willoughby and the vicar think it’s bats up above doing the damage,’ she said, ‘but we sent one of the stable boys up before the wedding and he couldn’t see any bats at all. Maybe they’ve left by this time of year. Anyway, Lord Powerscourt,’ she stopped at the steps before the altar, ‘it’s a perfectly ordinary church. At this point it was still a perfectly ordinary wedding. The groom’s side were on the right, we were on the left. The organist behaved himself up there in his organ most of the time, though he did slip in one or two awful modern pieces before Emily arrived. She was a little late, Emily, but she looked so beautiful. I’m not going to desecrate the church by saying what I think about our evangelical vicar, I’ll leave you to work it out on your own. The service took about half an hour.’