Sea Change (18 page)

The trial before the House of Commons of Charles Stanhope, Secretary to the Treasury, was closely argued and narrowly decided. The evidence presented seemed damning, but Walpole spoke vigorously for the defence and rumours abounded that the King had pleaded with certain Members to abstain. Abstentions, indeed, were what ultimately saved Stanhope. Three members of Brodrick's own committee left the House before the vote was taken, the aptly named Sloper among them. Stanhope was eventually acquitted by 180 votes to 177.

The public reaction to thus being cheated of a prime victim was predictably querulous. A mood of simmering riot prevailed for some days afterwards. Once more, it was widely and plausibly asserted, the politicians had spat in the eye of Justice.

To avoid inflaming the situation still further, it was decided that the funeral of James Craggs the younger, lately deceased Southern Secretary, should be held at night. Under the cover of darkness, therefore, late in the evening of the day following Stanhope's acquittal, many of the great and the good of Augustan England — or the greedy and the grasping, according to taste — filed into Westminster Abbey to pay their obsequial respects to one for whom death had forestalled many reproaches.

Near the front of the sombrely clad gathering, Viscount Townshend found himself awkwardly seated between Walpole and the Earl of Sunderland, between the coming man in the political firmament and its fading force.

For one whose power was draining away almost by the hour, however, Sunderland contrived to seem remarkably unconcerned by the difficulties that confronted him. 'Carteret will be confirmed as Craggs' successor within days, I believe,' he casually ventured. 'You think you will find him pliable, Townshend?'

'He has not been recommended for his pliability, Spencer.'

'Has he not? For his ability, then? Ability can be a dangerous thing.'

'Except in oneself,' Walpole muttered.

'Oh, quite, quite,' said Sunderland. 'And securing Stanhope's acquittal undoubtedly suggests ability of a high order … in someone.'

'It certainly augurs well for those yet to answer to the case,' said Walpole with a sidelong smile.

'His Majesty would be pleased if all his traduced ministers could be acquitted,' said Sunderland. 'Preferably by handsomer majorities.'

'That may be asking for too much.'

'The prerogative of kings, Walpole. If you don't understand that….' Sunderland shrugged and flipped open his prayer-book, then closed it again and tapped the cover. 'What of the other matter so much on His Majesty's mind?' He smiled. 'Das Grune Buch, as he coyly refers to it.'

'In hand.'

'But not in our hands.'

'Not yet.'

'Soon?'

Walpole curled his lip. 'I trust so.'

'You sent Wagemaker, didn't you?' Townshend did his best not to look surprised by this disquieting evidence that Sunderland's information network was functioning as efficiently as ever. 'What if he should fail — or fall by the wayside?'

'Don't worry, Spencer,' Walpole replied. 'Whatever happens, we shan't ask you for advice.'

'No? Well, here's some anyway. You should—'

Before Sunderland could let fall his pearl of states-manly wisdom, the funeral drum sounded and a noise from behind them of shuffling feet and clearing throats signalled the arrival of the coffin. The three men rose, along with those to right and left of them. There was a second drum-beat. Then, in the instant before the dirgeful music began in earnest, Sunderland leaned towards Townshend and finished what he had been saying, though in too hushed a tone for Townshend to think that Walpole would be able to catch the words.

'Always assume the worst.'

Assuming the worst had become second nature to Nicholas Cloisterman since his departure from The Hague in the company of the late Colonel Wagemaker. Nothing had gone right and almost everything had gone wrong. Wagemaker was dead, the Green Book was probably already on the other side of the Alps and Cloisterman's own recent conduct, he could not but admit to himself, bore no close inspection. He had fled Berne with a singular lack of vice-consular dignity and no clear plan other than to return to Amsterdam and face down any criticism that Dalrymple threw at him.

The lapse of days had made that plan seem less and less prudent, however. At Burgdorf he had sold his horse, being no natural horseman, in favour of travelling by post-wagen, a slow but reliable mode of transport that had taken him first to Lucerne, then Zurich, then the spa town of Baden, where he had thought to sample the waters in the hope that they might have some tonic effect on him, before heading north to the Rhine and seeking a passage downstream. It was at Baden, on the evening of Craggs' funeral in London, the waters as yet unsampled, that he finally realized it would not do; it simply would not do.

He reviewed matters over a mournful pipe as he paced the chill and empty promenade by the banks of the Limmat. Turn it over how he might, his situation was even less appetizing than the meal he had just consumed at the Rapperswil inn. But sometimes it was as necessary to confront uncomfortable truths as it was to swallow unpalatable food. He would be expected to have done more than he had. Ultimately, he served the same master as Wagemaker. And that master would be satisfied by nothing less than retrieval of the Green Book. Failure would only be excused if it could be shown that no effort had been spared in the attempt. Thus far, Cloisterman's efforts did not look unstinting so much as grudging, if not minimal. He was going to have to do better.

He stopped and gazed soulfully down into the river. This sort of business did not suit him. It really did not. Yet it was business he would have to attend to. As from tomorrow. He sighed, turned up his greatcoat collar and started back towards the inn. There was an early call to be arranged.

An early call did not figure in William Spandrel's intentions for the following day. His flight from Berne had been far from the aimless retreat Cloisterman had contrived to make, but had yielded strangely similar results. Feeling unable to risk returning to the Drei Tassen for his horse, he had walked south along the Interlaken road to the first post-house, where he had used some of Mcllwraith's money to have himself driven on to Thun. There he had stayed overnight, heavy-hearted and lonely, before boarding a southbound coach early the following morning. Many jolting hours later, he had discovered that what the Thun innkeeper meant by south was not the Simplon Pass but Lake Geneva. He had finished his second day on the road at Vevey, as far from his destination as he had begun his first.

Naturally, he had intended his stay at Vevey's Auberge du Lac to be brief, but he had been woken in the night by the onset of a violent ague that kept him abed for the next two days, too ill even to think of leaving his room, let alone the inn. It was, according to the not unsympathetic landlady, Madame Jacquinot, 'La grippe; c'est partout.' There was nothing to be done but to sweat it out. The evening of Craggs' funeral in London and of Cloisterman's about-turn in Baden found Spandrel decisively out of action.

Some semblance of normal health began to return to him the following day. By the afternoon he felt well enough to sit by the window of his room and watch the comings and goings of ferries and barges from the quay below the inn. The sun sparkled on the lake and warmed him through the glass. There was a springlike bloom to the weather. But for anxiety born of the knowledge that he had accomplished precisely nothing towards fulfilling his promise to Mcllwraith to hunt down Estelle de Vries, he might have been able to summon a degree of contentment as he surveyed the scene.

He thought of Mcllwraith more wistfully then than at any time since leaving him to die in that snow-patched meadow outside Berne. It was not only that he missed him more acutely than he would ever have expected. It was also that it had been so easy to let him decide what to do and when to do it. Now, Spandrel had to think and act for himself. Tomorrow, he would set off for the Simplon Pass. If Estelle had gone that way, she was almost certainly beyond the Alps by now, perhaps even beyond Milan, although his grasp of Italian geography was far too insecure to guess where she might be, or how long it might take her to reach Rome. He should have paid more attention to Mcllwraith's references to the journey that lay ahead while he had the chance. As it was, he would have to rely on whatever information he could glean along the way.

Luck would be bound to play its part, of course. So far, he did not seem to have enjoyed his share of it. But luck, he reflected as he watched an elegant pink-sailed yacht nose in towards the quay, always turned in the end, one way or the other.

And there below him, as the yacht tied up and the passengers disembarked, it did so, in that instant, just for him.

There were three passengers: two men and a woman. The men were both wearing plush hats, beribboned wigs and extravagantly swag-cut greatcoats, flapping open to reveal frilled stocks and brocaded waistcoats. They were of about the same age — mid to late twenties — and clearly neither lacked for funds, at any rate to lavish on expensive tailors. Physically, they could hardly have been more different, however. One was tall and cadaverously thin, with a narrow, pale, bony face to which his fruitily feminine lips seemed scarcely to belong. He struck a pose with every step, flourishing a cane as counterpoint to his daintily flexed ankles. The other was short and fleshy, poised between youthful plumpness and middle-aged corpulence, with puddingy features set in a smirking face, the high colour of which suggested a toping disposition. He clumped along the quay in what was presumably intended to be a confident swagger.

They were both English. Spandrel could hear their braying tones from where he sat, though he could not make out more than the odd word. Their female companion was also English. This he knew, even though she was saying nothing as far as he could tell. Nor was it her taste in clothes that gave her away. The sky-blue dress visible beneath the mushroom-grey travelling coat was undeniably fetching, but also curiously anonymous. What settled the issue beyond doubt was that he recognized her very well. She was Estelle de Vries.

Spandrel put on his boots and coat so quickly that the exertion induced a coughing fit, from which he had barely recovered when he left his room and hurried downstairs. Estelle and her new-found friends had been ambling along the quay when last glimpsed, admiring the view of the lake and the snow-capped mountains beyond. But Spandrel was convinced he would find them nowhere in sight or already going back aboard the yacht. The chance that fate had handed him was a fleeting one. He had to seize it, though how to do so was still unclear to him as he reached the hall and turned towards the front door.

But he need not have hurried. There they were, in front of him, being ushered into the dining-room by Madame Jacquinot, no doubt attracted, as he had been, by the Auberge du Lac's freshly painted air of welcome. Estelle glanced along the hall at him as they went. He saw her catch her breath and look quickly away. Then she stopped and said something to Madame Jacquinot. It seemed to be a request of some kind. The two men moved ahead into the dining-room. But Madame Jacquinot led Estelle further down the hall. Spandrel moved back up the stairs out of sight. A door opened below him. He glimpsed a wash-stand and mirror in the closet it led to. 'Merci, madame,' said Estelle. She stepped inside and closed the door. Then Madame Jacquinot bustled off to attend to the men, whose laughter could be heard echoing in the low-ceilinged dining-room.

Spandrel moved cautiously to the closet door. It opened as he approached and Estelle stepped out to meet him. 'Mr Spandrel,' she said. 'This is… a surprise.' And not, her expression suggested, a pleasant one.

'There's a small garden.' Spandrel nodded towards the rear quarters of the building. 'We can talk there.'

'I can't be gone long.'

'I don't know who those two preening ninnies are, Mrs de Vries, but I'd wager they know nothing of the murdered husband you left in Amsterdam, not to mention the dead lover in Berne. In the circumstances, I think you can be gone as long as you need to be. Shall we?'

'You don't look well,' she said, as they reached the daylight and turned to face each other.

'You, on the other hand, look uncommonly well.' It was true. Perhaps it was the lake air, or the thrill of the chase, that had given a heightened colour to her cheeks. She did not seem at all frightened. She seemed, indeed, utterly calm, inconvenienced by this turn of events, but undismayed.

'Where is Captain Mcllwraith?'

'Dead.'

She frowned. 'That I am sorry to hear.'

'A Government agent caught up with us. There was a duel.'

'And the agent?'

'Also dead.'

'So much death. I am sorry, Mr Spandrel. Though I don't suppose you believe me.'

'Why should I? You lied about me in Amsterdam. You lied to me in Berne.'

'Those lies seemed… necessary.'

'You still have the Green Book?'

'It's in a safe place.'

'Where?'

'A bank. In Geneva.'

'Why didn't you make for the Simplon Pass when you left Berne?'

'I'm not sure. I was confused. Pieter's death was so violent, so… stupid. I could scarcely think for the shock of what had happened. They killed each other, he and Jupe. You know that?'

'I saw their bodies. Left by you for someone else to discover.'