The Villa on the Riviera: A captivating story of mystery and secrets - the perfect summer escape. Elizabeth Edmondson
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‘Good Lord, no. As English as they come, bad barons going back through the centuries.’
‘So why France?’
Oliver went quiet, then lifted his glass and finished his whisky. ‘He prefers it,’ he said.
‘Do you have other family over there? Is your mother …?’
‘My sister might be out there for the winter, with or without her husband, but she needn’t bother you.’
Polly sighed. ‘It’s kind of you to ask, Oliver, and I should love to go to France, but it’s impossible.’
Polly had suggested to Roger that they go to France for their honeymoon, Paris, she said, thinking of that city so redolent of artists, of galleries crammed with wonderful paintings, of la vie bohème. Then they could go down to the south for a few days, perhaps …
Roger had shaken his head. ‘I don’t care for France, and you wouldn’t like the south of France, it’s a frivolous place, if you mean the Riviera. No, mountains are better. Lots of clean, good air, and I might get some climbing in. Switzerland might be best, or Austria.’
‘Why impossible?’ said Oliver.
‘Oh, too expensive, and no, before you offer, I won’t let you fund me, and no, you don’t want to buy one of my pictures. Come on, Oliver, you and I have always been honest with one another.’
‘Have we?’ said Oliver. ‘I suppose so.’
One says these things, Polly told herself. But it isn’t true. Oliver keeps most of his life to himself, I only ever get a glimpse here and there, when he comes out of his own world to come visiting in mine. And what about me? I haven’t told him about Polyhymnia, and I don’t know why not.
‘Besides, Roger wouldn’t care for my going. I’ve got to consider his feelings.’
‘Surely he isn’t jealous of me?’
‘No, but …’ Polly didn’t want to tell Oliver that Roger disapproved of her friendship with him. He probably knew it already. Was that something else that would be cut out of her life, once she was Mrs Harrington? No, it wasn’t. Her days would be her own, Roger couldn’t keep tabs on her for every hour of the day, she wasn’t entering a harem, for heaven’s sake.
‘Live a little, before you get shackled for the rest of your life, I can’t see a woman like you ever leaving her husband. Shake the savings out of the piggy bank, and splurge it all on a ticket. Away with the gloom of an English winter, a month in the sun, what could be better for you? Bring some colour back into your cheeks.’
His words echoed those of Dr Parker, was she really so pallid? ‘I don’t believe it’s sunny anywhere in January. I bet it rains there too.’
‘Oh, it does, and snow has even been known to fall, every twenty years or so, but mostly it’s far warmer, and always brighter. It’s the light, Polly, that’s why artists love the south of France. Now, finish your lemonade, and I’ll take you to Bertorelli’s for supper.’
‘I had a huge lunch.’
‘Yes, but emotion is very draining, you need to keep your strength up.’
He said goodbye to the luscious Irene, the bosomy barmaid who presided over the bar at the Nag’s Head, and they went outside.
‘Touch of frost, tonight,’ said Oliver. He lifted his hand as a cab came in sight, and opened the door for Polly.
Sitting in the dark, slightly smelly interior, Polly asked, ‘How much does it cost to get to France? Oh, I suppose that’s a silly question. You’d travel first class.’
‘Third class would be about ten pounds,’ Oliver said. ‘Having second thoughts?’
‘I haven’t got ten pounds,’ Polly said regretfully. ‘Having ten shillings to spare at the end of the week would be a minor miracle.’
‘Get some more of those book jackets you do.’
‘And there’s my work in Lion Yard to consider. I don’t want Mr Padgett finding someone else to take my place.’
‘It seems that you’ll have to give it up in any case, so why not a month sooner?’
‘No, Oliver. It’s tempting, but I can’t come, and that’s that.’
SIX
Max Lytton arrived at the Feathers Inn before Inspector Pritchard. It was an old-fashioned pub, not so very different from when it was built in the seventeenth century, with its polished wooden boards and a warren of narrow passages and staircases that led into unexpected rooms or out into one of its several yards. It had been a haunt of highwaymen in its heyday, and it was easy to imagine booted and cloaked men lurking in dark corners or in the cobbled courtyard, where the stables had been turned into a bar.
Max went into the downstairs dining room, a discreet place, with the tables set against the walls and screened by high-backed wooden seats. A perfect place for private conversation, which was what Max wanted. A log fire burned in the wide stone fireplace, and there was sawdust on the floor. He found an empty table and sat down with a tankard of the pub’s famous ale.
‘I’m waiting for a friend,’ he said to the waiter who was hovering to take his order, and as he spoke, he saw Pritchard standing at the door. Pritchard hesitated, looking round and then, as Max rose, lifted a hand in greeting and came over to join him.
A pint of bitter was brought for Inspector Pritchard, and the waiter came back to take their order. He could recommend a cut off the joint of Welsh lamb, excellent today or, of course, there was the inn’s renowned steak and kidney pudding.
‘They make it in the traditional way, with oysters,’ Max told Pritchard.
‘I’m not a great man for shellfish,’ Pritchard said in his lilting Welsh voice. ‘I’ll have the lamb, since it comes from my country, and our sheep are the best in the kingdom.’
The waiter went away, and the two men regarded one another in silence. They had met two years before, when Inspector Pritchard was a detective sergeant, hoping for promotion. He had been working on a murder case, and Max, obtaining information that the police had no access to, had passed it on to the eager policeman. The case had been solved, a very unpleasant criminal brought to justice, and Pritchard had got his promotion.
‘I take it this is a professional meeting,’ said Max.
Pritchard’s soft brown eyes were guileless, but Max knew better than to take the look of sleepy indifference at face value. Pritchard was a wily man, who possessed a strong moral sense coupled with a healthy cynicism as to the essential evil dwelling within his fellow beings.
‘Professional, yes, but a matter best not tackled through the usual channels, do you see?’
‘Unofficial business? That doesn’t sound like your outfit.’
‘Not precisely unofficial, just best if the details are kept between the two of us. You have your masters and I have mine. And yours are happy for me to talk to you about this. They, too, want to keep it unofficial for the time being.’
To his friends and relatives and to the closed world of London society, Max Lytton was no more than a man about town. An attractive man, surprisingly still a bachelor, despite the best efforts of debs and their mamas. He came from an old family, had considerable private means — a fortune inherited from a great aunt had come as a surprise to a younger son and a source of discontent to his father and older brothers. Because of this, he could live the life he wanted; a life to which his father took endless exception. ‘Didn’t fight for your country in the war, now you live an idle life, of no value to yourself nor anybody else. We weren’t put upon this earth to be comfortable, but to leave it a better place, I don’t see you doing that.’
Max knew there was no point in remonstrating or arguing with his father, who knew perfectly well that it was