A Murder in Mayfair by Robert Barnard Read Free Book Online

objection to reminding you of a woman.”
    She shot me another quick glance.
    â€œWell, I don’t think it’s likely, but if you insist. Much of the time in the seventies it was either Margaret Thatcher or Shirley Williams. That was in my first spell at the Department of Education.”
    â€œWhat were they like?”
    â€œAbout as far apart as you could get in ideology, behavior, treatment of people, likes and dislikes. Funnily enough, what they actually did was strangely similar.”
    â€œThe power of the Civil Service machine winning out over political standpoints?”
    â€œI don’t think so. Force of events, a case of the prevailing orthodoxies swamping the personal ideologies. . . . Anyway, you certainly don’t remind me of either of them.”
    And so she went on, covering her transfer to one of the big economic ministries, then back to the Department of Education in the late eighties.
    â€œKen Clarke, John Patten, emphatic no in both cases, Gillian Shepherd the same . . .” She pulled her hand through her wiry gray hair. “No, I’m sorry, Colin. I’ve failed you entirely.”
    â€œNo point in going over the less remarkable people?”
    â€œNo, there’s not. As I say, you reminded me—momentarily, be it said—of someone who for one reason or another is etched on my consciousness. Unremarkable ministers are not.”
    I stood up regretfully.
    â€œSorry I involved you in a fruitless trip down Memory Lane, Margaret.”
    â€œI’ve quite enjoyed it as a memory-retrieval exercise.”
    â€œIt was certainly a lesson to me on how short political reputations can be.” I was just about to give her the conventional thanks and assurances that I’d had a lovely evening when an idea struck me. “You said you worked as a typist in Whitehall even before you went up to university.”
    â€œYes.”
    Her brow furrowed again, and I struck in with: “What about the people you worked for then?”
    Suddenly she sat down on the sofa.
    â€œOh.”
    â€œYou’ve remembered something?”
    But I knew she had, and I sat down again, too. This was going to repay some going into.
    â€œYou won’t like this,” Margaret said after a moment, probably one spent wondering if she could avoid saying anything, and deciding she couldn’t. “This is actually more serious than you’ve been pretending, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou’re—I don’t want to pry—in some way trying to find out who you are.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’m sure this has nothing to do with who you are, but—”
    â€œMargaret, I’m not looking for a cozy ending,” I said. She swallowed.
    â€œIt was Lord John Revill.”
    I blinked. That was someone I had heard of.
    â€œThe man who—what?—murdered his children’s nanny?”
    â€œMurdered his wife, and was sleeping with his children’s nanny.”
    â€œYou worked for him?”
    â€œAs a typist. He had a very junior post at the Home Office. . . . You could say he was the most disturbing man I ever worked for . . . in retrospect.”
    â€œWhy in retrospect?”
    â€œBecause at the time he had seemed so ordinary, so conventional, so nice.”
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    Without asking, she poured me more black coffee, and I drank down half a cup without sugar. Watching me do this decided her to pour me another glass of brandy, and a stiff one.
    â€œThe man who disappeared,” I said at last.
    â€œWithout trace,” she said. “The most successful vanishing act in criminal history. Usually they surface in the heart of South America, or in some African state riddled with disease and corruption. Even the Nazi war criminals eventually seem to be traced to places like that, and with half your mind you say, ‘Well, that’s some punishment