The Desolate Garden E-Book

Daniel Kemp

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

What secrets lie in the ledgers of the Royal Government Bank?

After Harry Paterson is summoned to London following his father's murder, he finds out that the late Lord Elliot Paterson had discovered hidden information dated all the way back to 1936... and a vast quantity of money erased from the accounts.

Mysterious initials and an address in Leningrad - a major port in former Soviet Union - are his only clues.

Together with the attractive Judith Meadows, Harry must unravel his father's mysterious death - and figure out the mystery hidden in the files of the Royal Government Bank.

Leseprobe

The Desolate Garden

Heirs and Descendants Book 1

Daniel Kemp

Copyright (C) 2017 Daniel Kemp

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2020 by Next Chapter

Published 2020 by Next Chapter

Cover art by Cover Mint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Chapter One: Poison Ivy

The first time I saw her was three days after I was told that my father had died.

All the national newspapers had carried the story in their first editions; most describing him as a private banker, others as simply a financier. All had speculated as to why. The majority of the more respectful had suggested pressure, and stress in the current financial world. However, the most popular tabloids had repeated the accusation for which he had successfully sued them, that his money had come from unscrupulous and tyrannical rulers of various African countries. Only this time they glossed over some previously mentioned names, and added the word 'alleged.' They had not known that he had been murdered.

* * *

“Tell me a joke,” she said. She was seated at the table nearest the bar in the Dukes Hotel, in London's St James's.

“What?” I replied, in complete surprise.

“I've had a really shitty day, and I need cheering up. Come and join me,” she suggested, enticing me in from the lobby.

She was about thirty but, in the dim seductive light of the world-renowned Martini bar, I could have been wrong by ten years either way. She had long curly dark hair, penetrating large eyes of an indeterminable colour, and a very attractive face. As to her figure, I had no way of knowing for sure but, from what I could see, she was quite petite. A colourful shawl draped from a glimpse of bare shoulder, and the cut of the red dress she wore was modest and high. What stood out was her perfume. The clear, smoke free atmosphere carried an array of sweet aromas, mingling with the gin and lemons and the fresh damp air of the outside night, but hers was the sweetest. It reminded me of raspberries ripening on autumn canes, mixed with jojoba oil and honey. I smelled of whiskey and tobacco; not the catch of the night, I supposed.

“What makes you think I'm here on my own and not with my wife?” I replied flattered and interested, but guarded, unforthcoming to her obvious appeal.

“Well, you're not wearing a wedding ring for a start. Want me to go on?” My new friend said playfully.

I nodded my acquiescence, adding, “Why not…I've got nothing better to do with my time,” trying to seem disinterested, which I definitely was not.

“Your shirt could do with an iron and the suit has seen better days, your hair needs a trim and, quite honestly, you look out of place. Not a local…by many a mile. Up from the country for a day or perhaps two, no more than that I'd say. You've been dragged here reluctantly and want to get back to the farm as soon as you can. Anyway, I only asked for a joke, not a page by page description of your inactive life.”

“Perhaps my lady friend is equally unattractive,” I responded to her accurate assumption and correct observation.

“That's an old-fashioned expression but at least it establishes that you're not gay, plus you're not pretty enough anyway. I'm Judith by the way. What did those lady friends of yours call you, when you were younger and playing the field?”

“Am I that ancient? Thank goodness I left my bath-chair back in my room. I would have felt embarrassed had I have brought it.”

* * *

This was the second invitation I'd had in three days to have a conversation with someone I had never met. All of a sudden my hitherto selected social circle of friends was widening; and one of those acquaintances was not welcome.

Joseph, my butler, had answered the front door to the knock I had heard, and was now standing in front of me announcing the arrival.

“There is a police officer wishing to see you, Sir. Shall I show him through?”

“Lord Paterson? I'm Detective Chief Superintendent Fletcher of the Special Branch. I've got some news for you about your father…may I come in?”

It had been the previous Sunday, around about three in the afternoon, and I had just driven home from my local pub after spending all morning blasting crows out of the sky. I reeked of alcohol, sweat, and cordite. The twelve-bore 'Purdy' shotgun lay dismantled on the gun-room table, and the rest of my gear was scattered around the floor. He glanced at the gun.

“Been busy, Sir?” He asked, in an official police tone.

“Yes. One of my tenants keep sheep, and they're lambing. The crows pick out the lambs' eyes almost the minute they're born, nasty creatures, so I lend a hand killing as many we can. My license is in the estate office, if you want to see it? Incidentally I'm not a Lord, only a lowly Honourable.” I replied, without looking at him.

“I never knew that about crows. As for the license, that won't be necessary.” He paused. “I'm afraid that your father was found shot in the head by the housekeeper at his home in Eton Square, London, at ten past one this morning; so, as I understand it, you are now a Lord,” he stated, in the standard perfunctory, manner that the police inform relatives of the unfortunate. “Can you think of anyone who may have wanted to kill him?” He enquired, without a change of tone to his voice or any pretence of remorse.

The shame of it was that I could not. However, that did not imply that he had no enemies; only that I had been unable to discover them, and I should have.

“Absolutely none. He was the last person I would have thought of to have had enemies. It might have been money they were after…he had plenty of that,” I declared, not trying to hide my indifference.

“He was alone in the ground floor sitting room. There were signs of a forced entry Sir, and the housekeeper says that he was alone that night. He had no company.” His monosyllabic style of speaking was beginning to annoy me.

“Was there anything missing?” I asked, knowing exactly what the housekeeper meant by company.

“No, Sir, nothing that the housekeeper or his valet knows of. I was hoping you might be able to provide some information, throw some light on it. Has he been in touch with you lately?” He asked, fingering the bespoke carved stock. “Very lovely gun. Expensive, I expect,” he added.

“Yes to the gun, and no regarding him being in touch,” I curtly replied. I had never had much time for the police and he was not changing my opinion.

“Has he written at all, or perhaps telephoned you in the past with any worries he had…any problems he was having with anyone?”

“Can't help you there. A private man my father, not one to wear his heart on his sleeve.”

“You wouldn't have any of his old letters to you, would you?”

“No, sorry. I don't keep things like that.” I took a sip from the glass of whisky I had poured in readiness for the gun cleaning ritual that I always enjoyed doing myself. I had not offered him anything, nor was likely to, even though he looked the drinking type, grey inanimate eyes, a bulbous red nose under which was a nicotine-stained moustache and, even further down, a fat rounded beer belly. I was not in a social or generous mood, and had no wish to adjudicate on the innate evils of modern society as seen through the eyes of the law.

“It's just that we could not find the exchange number for the home here in Harrogate on any telephone records of his. Clearly he didn't like the phone or is it you that's got an aversion to telephones?” He asked, smiling, as if attempting to ingratiate himself. But I was not in any sort of a jovial conversational mood, either.

“Look… he and I didn't get on. We haven't spoken to each other since he left before my mother died. I haven't spoken to him or seen him in almost two years and, quite frankly, I don't give a toss that he's dead. If that's all, Detective Chief Superintendent, I've got lot more important things to do than discuss the personal relationship the two of us had or didn't have.”

My abruptness and directness had shocked him, or perhaps it was my inhospitality and his need of a drink that hastened his departure, I was not sure which. However, before he left what he considered to be an unfinished conversation, he summoned me to London the following Wednesday to meet with a Government Official. He did not name him, nor his office, but declared. “You will be met at the station, and we will expect your full cooperation in all of this, your Lordship. It is, as you will appreciate, a matter of great importance. I look forward to your collaboration at our next meeting.” Irascibly, he stressed the 'next', as I closed the door behind him.

I had no qualms over the forthcoming journey to London, other than my complete distaste of that city and all who traversed its capricious streets. What did worry me though, was the question of who had shot my father? I could think of a reason why it had happened; but had no idea who could have done it!

“The name's Harry, and I think I must be the joke after how you've described me. Harry Paterson, how do you do Judith?” I shook her proffered hand, adding as I did so, “You certainly don't look out of place, and you are far too beautiful to be on your own.” I had decided that diffidence was no longer necessary. A shield and a sword would be better if all conquering I would go.

The waiter had arrived and was hovering with his drinks menu, and the obligatory bowl of nuts. No everyday peanuts for the ritzy clientele of this bar oh no, here they were offered salted macadamias and olives, with crunchy pretzels in various shapes. I would have preferred the roast spuds at 'The Spyglass and Kettle' a pub back home. But for the prices they charged here they had to appear more chic than wholesome, I supposed. I ordered another gin martini for my new companion and asked for my 40-year-old Isle of Jura single malt. I had checked before I had booked that they stocked it otherwise I would not have been at this particular hotel. However, with hindsight, given the cost that they charged per glass, a more frugal man would have brought it with him. 'Mean, I may be, but never to be seen,' was an old maxim that my father had many occasions quoted in my presence; I wished I had never heard and remembered it!

“Call me Judy, and I'll call you, H. Never had a drink with a Harry before, or at least, anyone by that name that I can remember. What's your joke?”

She was an easy conversationalist but not, as I first suspected, an easy woman. It would not have been the first time I had been approached by an escort in a hotel bar and I'd used a few bars, that is. I won't admit to anything else, or deny that I hadn't been tempted, but I had never succumbed. I had never needed to pay for what came easily to me.

“Let me see.” I played for time, searching my memory for amusing lines I could repeat to a woman who, in this light, was an extremely desirable and sexy young lady who I fancied as much as the Scotch before me. I was out of practise, and having been drinking before I had arrived back in my hotel, was faltering badly at the first hurdle. I was more accustomed to ribald horsey female types, swigging beer and telling stories of successful matings of stallions and mares of one kind or another, usually as inebriated as I.

“Ever heard the ones that end 'that's how the fight started'? No? Then, if you're sitting comfortably, I'll begin.” I started the little anodyne tales of animosity between partners or family that I had heard somewhere in the past.

“One year I decided to buy my mother-in-law a cemetery plot as a Christmas gift. The next year I bought her nothing. When she asked me why, I replied, 'Well, you still haven't used the gift I bought you last year!' That's when the fight started.” There were several like this, and I found myself joining in her laughter as I recalled as many as I could.

She refused a third martini, opting for a mineral water instead, explaining “I'll need a clear head in the morning.”

“I hope tomorrow won't be as bad as you say today was,” I said, still waiting for her to expand on why her day had been as shitty as she had said.

“I'm not expecting any difference for a considerable time, I'm only too sorry to say. Do you want to know why that might be Harry?”

“Thought you'd never tell.” I was on my fourth Jura and set for a night of bliss, as my undoubtable charms had obviously seduced her, or so I thought!

“It was because I was ordered to meet you, and you haven't disappointed me. You're exactly as your file reads. I can summarise it in one word: chauvinistic. Thought you'd scored, didn't you? Shame…you couldn't be further from the truth. I've got to hold your hand all the way through the debrief. I'm your liaison officer, and I'm stuck with you. How did your reunion with our lord and master go? Was Trimble wearing that sarcastic smile of his? I find it so irritating, how about you?”

“Who are you?” I was completely thrown by this reference to Peter Trimble, my previous drinking partner, who I had left half an hour ago at Box 850. I had then arrived here for my final night, before I could return home and find the refuge it gave me.

“I'm in the same business as you, Lord Harry, except I'm across the river at Five. Did you and 'C' come up with any idea as to who bumped off Daddy? What's the time of your train tomorrow? I'm to travel back with you, and can't let you out of my sight. Lucky me, eh?”

“I've forgotten,” I lied. Trimble had said he was to appoint someone to run me through everything; only he never said it would be a woman!

“Don't be such an asshole Harry, and take your thumb out of your mouth. It's not very edifying for us serfs to see the nobility sulk. You'd better let them know back at your palace, so they can make up a room for me. Tell them to make it as far away from you as possible. No sleepwalking; it's not allowed.”

“I'm on the 12:43. First class of course. Doubt your expenses will cover that.” Slowly, I was recovering from the shock.

“No expense to be spared in your case H, orders from above. While we're on the subject, can you claim for bedding all the virgins in the Kingdom of the Patersons? Do you still have that role to fulfil, or are there none left for the new Earl to indulge? Heard of your investiture and gone running off to the hills, have they?”

“Got me on that one I'll have to check in Burkes peerage. If it is one of the privileges of office, can I add your name?”

“Most certainly not, H. I'm past that painful stage of life but I'm glad you recognised that purity in me. See you at King's Cross. I'll be wearing a white rose and carrying a newspaper under the Station Clock. Look out for me, won't you? I'd hate to miss you in the crowd.”

She left to catch a taxi, quietly mouthing the words and the tune to the song 'Poison Ivy.' “You can look, but you better not touch,” she murmured, looking pleased with herself.

Chapter Two: Dark Blue Lilacs

The name of Paterson, with all of its lineage, had been affiliated with banking since John of Gaunt, in 1342, persuaded the Compagnia dei Bardi of Italy to lend his father, King Edward the Third, 400,000 gold florins to continue the Hundred Years' War against France. Our ancestral line went indirectly to that King and his daughter, Elizabeth of Lancaster Duchess of Exeter, and more particularly her husband; John Holland and an unnamed mistress.

Our first direct genetic line to banking was to be found in 1407 in Genoa, where most of the royal houses of Europe deposited their money, at the Banco Di San Giorgio.

When England broke away from the Catholic Church in 1534 the then English King, Henry VIII, severed all links to that bank and ordered our lineal relative, Lord Phillip Paterson Earl of Harrogate, to return home and establish the Bank of Saint George in England. At its conception it operated in the same manner as its originator, handling the money of the Royals and other wealthy individuals. By the 1850s and the start of the Crimean War, it had evolved into what it still was on the death of my father, Elliot: the covert financial funding of all things the British Government wanted surreptitiously hidden from public scrutiny.

The Patersons, throughout the centuries, had been prodigious at bearing a male offspring to take up the chalice the bank presented. Only on one occasion had they faltered at the production of honest, upright, dependable bloodstock from which to draw on for the Bank's wellbeing. That juncture happened late in the nineteenth century, when the then Earl of Harrogate was only able to originate one son amongst his flock of eight children; and he, unfortunately, was convicted of manslaughter, killing a fellow card player whilst defending himself. The fact that the other man carried a single-shot revolver, and the heir apparent was unarmed, saved him from the charge of murder, because the horrendous injuries inflicted far outweighed the defence of one's own life. He was sentenced to a lenient prison term of three years, the only period in its history that a female Paterson ran the Bank's affairs.

You would never, through the years, find this bank listed in any directory, nor was it regulated by the Financial Services Agency nor governed by the Bank Ombudsman of its day. It was not even situated in the prestigious City of London; it had no need to be. With Victoria's accession to the throne, and a permanent royal residence established, Queen Anne's Gate, a relatively quiet street running parallel to Birdcage Walk and within easy walking distance of the Palace, the Houses of Parliament and Eton Square was where, if you were in the know, you would find that office. It was hidden behind a highly glossed black painted door, free from adornment of any badge or crest or name, with just a simple brass plaque stating 'Private.'

For a hundred years or more what lay beyond that door was never altered nor changed. A card system index introduced in the late 1800s was its only modernisation to its recording of secret British interference in the affairs of other nations.

In the Bank's developing years, deposits and the payments of profits were conducted in cash. Bags, or in some cases, chests, were deposited with my ancestral custodians and carried from palace to palace. Once, on a visit to Leeds Castle for some sort of pageant, there was an attempt to steal the monarchs treasury chest. In that attack by raiding Danes, The Honourable Jeremiah Paterson gave his life fighting alongside Henry, his King, and 'Keeper of the Royal Purse' was added to the name Paterson, alongside all its other titles.

In time, promissory notes, then cheques, took away most of the need of cash, but this bank still dealt in a commodity little mentioned in today's society; that of trust, on which all good partnerships are built. The vaults at 'Annie's', as the offices at Queen Anne's Gate became known, were full of banknotes and share certificates. Files on investors, past and present, were overflowing and the urgency of more space was prominent in the incumbent Patersons mind, so he exchanged the cash which littered his floors into bank Bearer Bonds. These bonds were extremely convenient in the transference of cash. They took up little room, as they were printed on a single sheet of paper, and covered any amount from a thousand to a million pounds or more. They could be used as currency, the same as cash or cheques, and were payable on demand from any commercial issuing bank. They carried a small amount of annual interest, as effectively the buyer of the bond was lending that commercial bank his money. One other facet of these sheets of paper was their anonymity. There was no name on them; simply a number which denoted the date of issue and the promise to pay the bearer the sum of money the bond was worth! In less scrupulous hands than the Patersons, it could have been an indiscriminate and easily abused system of handling money.

What appeared to be the start of a slide into oblivion for the Patersons began with the election of a Socialist ruling party in 1945, and its stance on pro-decolonisation of the Empire. To Lord Maudlin Paterson it seemed that the part that the Patersons had played in the building of that Empire was about to be betrayed. It was the final straw in the haystack that was enveloping him. Poor Winston the war boss, the leader of all free men, had been shown the door by a grabbing, ungrateful public, and an American named Marshall was throwing money at Britain's defeated enemies with none coming to the victors. Instead we, the only bastions of democracy left in Europe at the start, were subsidising that loan by being forced to repay huge interest on that debt for holding out until they deemed it time to step in and reap the glory. The bank, however, had prospered well. The war had proved profitable, through Maudlin's astute structuring of the assets he held on behalf of his clients, in stocks of American financial institutions, petroleum companies and currencies; but he baulked at becoming the Orwellian image of an American 51st state.

He made a monumental decision and contacted his old Etonian and Trinity college friend, the then head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, without the knowledge of the Foreign Secretary or the Cabinet Office, to whom his bank was responsible. He offered the resources of 'Annie's' directly to the SIS, the Secret Intelligence Services, behind the government's back. Chief, or 'C' as he is always known, accepted this patriotic proposal and adopted the Bank of Saint George under his secretive umbrella, thereby removing it from the clutches of the all-embracing arms of a nationalising programme for the supposed public good.

With the bank beyond the grasp of Attlee and his penny-pinching auditors, he could work his magic to his heart's content, safe in the knowledge that his largesse would hide his illusion. In 1956, at the conclusion of the crisis over the Suez Canal, the secret side relinquished its sole interest in the Paterson bank. It preferred to share it with the new Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, as he, with the SIS, sought ways to retain influence in the disappearing British Commonwealth whilst Maudlin sought more ways to secrete the names of the 'others' he now cared for. On his retirement, my Grandfather Lord Phillip Paterson managed the bank's affairs, but never delved too deep into the double entry bookkeeping accounts as Maudlin kept tight reins on his son. In 1981, my father, Elliot, took over the running of the bank.

Thanks to the birth of another brother, about the only thing I was grateful to my father for, I was destined towards a diplomatic career or in one of the services, it was always the youngest male who had the bank to look forward to; the rest of us Patersons were left with choices. My dynasty had seen conflict from the heights of Agincourt and the fields of Waterloo, to the slopes of Gallipoli, and on to the mud of the Somme and the sands of North Africa. They had served their country in those wars and in all the battles in between. Some of them were spared. Others were not.

After my own dalliance, I had a commission in the Blues and Royals and saw operational duty in Bosnia and Afghanistan, I was disillusioned. After nine years and a few months I came to the conclusion that the Army was not the life that I wanted. I was not that brave. For those that had charged the French archers, or the machine-guns and tanks, I had the uppermost respect; but for my part I had seen enough wanton death caused by political ineptitude, and news reporters wanting to be newsmakers, to realise that wars had changed. In my formative years of understanding of just who was who, depicted in the dull soulless portraits hanging in the Great Hall and corridors of the family home, I believed that the Patersons had invented the word patriotism…only I didn't want to wear the cross of Saint George so conspicuously.

As far as the diplomatic world was concerned, I had more self-respect than to simply regurgitate the policies of politicians, and had scant regard for in their sanctimonious crusade for personal power and fame. I wanted the ability to shape and control what was happening, not just to react to the situations made by others. I moved sideways into 'the office' and the dim and shadowy world of The Defence Intelligence Staff, gathering information in the ongoing war against the undermining of this great country of ours.

* * *

I entered this prominent world of ours on the 29th of July 1970, and was given over straight away to my wet-nurse. I survived that experience and moved on, to various nannies, tutors and instructions, in all things needed for an Earl's first born to assimilate and learn from. I attended the Methodist Ashville Preparatory School, just beyond our estate, when deemed necessary. When I reached the age of 13 I was sent away to Eton College, carrying on the long tradition of Patersons as 'King's Scholars' boarders. My feet found the same indentations made by previous family members to the doors of Cambridge and Trinity College. While there, I spent most of my time making up for my lost childhood years by sharing beds with as many women scholars as I could.

I displayed no prejudice to them being over-me or under me-graduates, as long as they furthered their education with my body. I was as attentive at my tutorials and lectures as my wandering mind and aching body allowed me to be, as it searched for other suitable experimental, or previously experienced, participants. At my Finals I received three 'one ones' in Engineering, Mathematics and Chemistry, and two 'one twos' in Physics and Economics, but had there been examinations for sexual prowess and endurance, I could have plastered the four walls of the dining room at Harrogate Hall with 'double first' certificates. And they were enormous walls!

Chauvinistic; not an incorrect word to describe me, I admit. I've never been completely sure whether I had a choice as to my relationship to women, or whether it had been passed down through the male chromosomes of John Holland, but I had never experienced a wish to form any lasting deep commitment to, or from, any woman that I met. My imagination could not stretch to the wearisome life of couples arguing or compromising over each others' obligations within their partnership. I was too selfish to share my life and risk criticism, and neither would I have recognised the saintly sacrifice many make in times of illness or approaching death. In this respect it could be levelled at me, the charge of being a hypocrite, because that is precisely what my father did. He left my mother when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer citing his own inability to cope, but my defence would rely on the fact that I would never have married in the first place.

The stance I took over his departure owed more to my own weakness, I suspect, than his own. I'm not proud of my psyche, and neither am I ashamed. I am what I am; and it is only me that has to live with that.

As far as my father was concerned, it was a different matter. He did not have only himself to answer to. On the surface, he seemingly had everything: a beautiful wife, five children who, for the most part, were happy and contented with their lives, and a lifestyle many could only imagine. He had the estate here in Harrogate where he could play the 'gentleman farmer' role with his Holsteins and Herefords whilst enjoying his hunting and his stables of polo ponies and those of his thoroughbred race horses. They had added seventeen trophies, in his time, to the bulging cabinets where the accumulated silverware was kept, showing the Patersons equine significance over the ages.

There was the Eton Square mansion with its eleven bedrooms, of which he only ever used the one, and only four others were occupied, the housekeeper with one maid, a cook and his valet-cum-secretary George. He had been in the Paterson employ for forty years; from boy to man, fourteen to fifty-four.

Abroad was the house in Portofino, Italy, where his yacht a sixty foot two-masted schooner, was moored. Occasionally, scholastic calendars, scholarly agendas, and 'Annie's' permitting, we holidayed there as a family, until he found his own world and withdrew himself into it again. He was a complex and introverted man with many interests that kept him away from his family in Yorkshire. Horse racing, as I have said, and also the polo and sailing for which the schooner Britannia was on show; having been either sailed by him, or delivered to Cowes for the biannual 'Fastnet' race, coming runner-up three times in the challenge cup. What was more important to him than any of these things were his 'women-friends'.

He had started keeping a mistress a year after marrying my mother, Alice, who was aware of all of them. He had six in total, throughout their 39 years of marriage. He had a penchant for professional partners: a famous classical singer the daughter of a titled family who dabbled in interior design, a barrister who has since taken silk, a college professor (who, innocently, I introduced him to) and a film executive. His final extramarital consort was a first violinist, whom he was still seeing up until his death, even though it was her father who caused that defended lawsuit with his allegations of financial corruption.

The thing they all had in common, my mother told me days before her short, but uncompromising, illness claimed her life, was that they all made him happy. A strange thing for her to say, but nevertheless, that was what she said.

“He needed the distraction that they gave him,” she had said. “I couldn't give him all that he required, other than legitimate children, and for that blessing I always loved him. He loved me back, but in a different way. Love doesn't die Harry, it kills without sorrow,” she concluded.

I had never had the opportunity to truly know her spending most of my later life away from home. But I had always loved and admired her, and, on her sharing of that information, respected her even more.

In my early years, when I had time with her, it was her reasoning that endeared her to me so much. She never did adopt the 'I know best because I'm an adult' line. Instead, she sat and spoke to me, not at me. She was gentle in her words and explanations, and a patient listener to mine. There was always a smile and a reassurance from her, and I felt a sense of belonging when with her. Something I never felt from my father, to whom I was never close.

He had left her to die when he heard that she had just a small amount of life left in her, informing my sisters, Rose and Elizabeth, that he could not handle the situation of dealing directly with death; they would have to. I was overseas at the time, June 2008, as was my middle brother Maurice, but I managed to return for those final days. My youngest brother Edward, who lived in a rented flat in Cadogan Gardens, would not be released from his London duties, he informed us. He added, as an afterthought, “I will not allow him to see your mother during her decline.” Sage words from such a learned man!

He was a user of women, in my opinion, rather than an admirer of them. I'm both, I suppose, having already admitted to my disconnection and unwillingness to any commitment. However, my addiction to women is not solely driven by sexual appeal. I hope I am not so one-dimensional and one day, I may change.

It was my brother Edward who first raised concerns about my father when he approached me at Alice's funeral.

“There's something amiss with Dad you know. I can't put my finger on it, but something's not right. Do you think you could have a word?” He stupidly asked.

“Don't be as foolish as you look Teddy. Mum's dead. Learn to wipe your own backside there's a good chap.”

I then walked away from him, and from all things to do with London.

Chapter Three: Red-Veined Snake Head Fritillary

I've never been one to reminisce, to rediscover memories locked away in parts of the mind only psychologists know about, but in those last few days that I had with my mother, I found myself swept away in her nostalgia. I had not thought of my father as being a handsome man but there, in the photographs of their wedding, stood a person I could not recognise as him. As to her beauty, the wedding memorabilia only testified more strongly in confirmation of what I already knew. As to the man beside her, it was a stranger that I stared at. He looked taller than I remembered with jet-black hair combed back from his forehead, sharp clean features in a strong commanding face far more mature than the 26 years of age that he was then. There was a dashing, debonair look about him, a nonchalant character whom I could believe had swept my mother off her feet, as she had told me. He was not the person I had always remembered him as.

“He was impetuous then, Harry, romantic and audacious a lot like you are today, I suspect. He was dangerous around women. Are you the same?” I didn't answer that question of hers, but understood entirely what she meant.

To me, he had always been an eccentric old man with no hidden charms or fascination. I searched those photographs and more, to find some of us together, but could find none. No snaps of us two kicking a ball or hitting one, riding ponies and whirling mallets in unfinished chukkas or leaning over the side of the boat and landing fish. In fact, none of us being father and son. Perhaps there were no secret memories, none there to find, even had I have looked closer. No shared happiness, no laughter, no hugs and certainly none of affection. Perhaps he had entered my life as he had left it; a disillusioned, self-obsessed man.

As I have said, to me he had never changed. He was portly in build and slow in movement, more deliberate than made so by his slightly excessive weight. He had thick white hair parted at the side, dull blue eyes shaded by broken red veined cheeks and nose, and his constant spectacles, wearing his reading variety permanently around his neck. At all times he was smartly dressed, his pocket watch suspended from his buttonhole by a double gold chain and carried in the breast pocket of his suit jacket. Always grey light or dark; pinstriped or checked, but always a shade of grey, for his daily London attire.

“I never wear black, too sombre…looks like you're in mourning,” he explained. “Blue is for those continentals, the Italians and Southern French, goes with their colouring. And never, never wear brown that's for those shirt-lifters. Lots around in my day, especially up at Cambridge. Mind you Harry, the breeding ground was Eton. Never could spot them there…I wasn't their type. Now there seems to be more Queens than Kings everywhere, even here!” We were in Boodles, his London club, too many year ago to recall, but I can remember vividly what he was doing, he was renowned for it. Expounding on life in general and demonstrating his practised skill at cognac consumption, there was no one in the family better at both.

In the winter months, he would say, that his hat matched the colour of his overcoat, as would his gloves and scarf, but not the colour of the green rubber boots that he wore on his walk to 'Annie's'.

“Look after your feet son, and they will carry you through life without complaint.” This was, perhaps, the only sensible advice he ever gave me.

He was not particularly tall, maybe it was my mother who made him appear so in that nuptial snapshot but strode in a military fashion, straight-backed with swinging arms, pacing out his steps with his silver-topped walking stick. He had served in the Coldstream Guards before his inevitable transfer to the bank at the age of 39. Longevity lay before him in this role and maybe it was this that had burred away at his impulsiveness, dulled the sharpness and taken away the spirit that shone from those photos. However, his self-assurance and assertiveness stayed with him for all to see. It was only with me that he let that curtain rise, and then only briefly, months before his death.

Most banking Patersons lived well into their eighties. Five had reached the three-figure mark, and the normal age of their youngest to take outright charge of the bank was in their late forties. Elliot had been the youngest, but he had been the exception, as his father Phillip was quick to point out.

“I had enough interference from your grandfather. He kept his nose in the trough almost until he was dead, and that was not until he was ninety-three! I'm not going to make the same mistake. I'm going before you're forty; you can have the worry, boy.” When I was told this story, I wondered what could have been meant by the word worry.

In 2003 Elliot began the transfer of all the Saint George files onto computer discs, and that was when his trouble-free complacency began to be interrupted irretrievably.

Eight months before the shot was fired from the Slovak semiautomatic pistol found beside my father's body, he had spoken to me on the telephone. At a younger age I would have replaced the receiver on hearing his voice, but I recognised his courage in taking that step. When I left him on the threshold of Eton Square almost eighteen months previously, having used most of the expletives in current usage and some, I'm sure, I conjured up on the spot as he stood there open mouthed and traumatised, I had left him with no doubts into the advisability of contact between the two of us.

“Harry, I am sorry that I have to disturb you, but I have no option. There is something terribly amiss in some notes I've found of Maudlin's, and I don't know what to do about it.” There was an element of fear in his voice; I had heard fear at the end of telephones too often in my life not to recognise it.

“Thought of confiding in Edward? Why trouble me with it?” There was not much compassion in my response to his call for help.

“He's too young Harry, too young for most things. It's big and if I'm correct, it's still going on. It's certainly over my head, and I'm way out of my depth. I think Maudlin was a spy working for the Russians, and I'm not sure how I can save the family name.”

“Where are you speaking from?” I asked.

“I'm at my club, why?”

“Have you told anyone else, anyone at all?”

“No,” he replied, in a questioning tone.

“Good. Don't call me from home, or from the bank. Tomorrow…no do it tonight, there must be somewhere open in your godforsaken part of the world for it, it's only seven thirty buy a mobile phone, a pay as you go one, no contracts understand? Then buy a twenty-pound top-up card, and charge the phone overnight. I'll call you at 'Annie's' in the morning, no, that won't do. Stop at that call box you pass in Hobart Place and ring me here with the number. Remember to write it down before you leave.”

“You're being forgetful, Harry. If it's a number, I'll remember it,” disdainfully he replied.

“Have you enough cash? I don't want you using a card.”

“I expect so.”

“That's not what I asked, was it? How much have you got on you?” I asked, curtly, with no respect.

“Couple of hundred, I suppose. Haven't looked.”

“Well, now would be a good time, don't you think?”

There was a pause whilst I heard the sound of the rustling of paper.

“I've got one hundred and sixty in notes. Will that be enough?” he asked, innocent of the world beyond his own.

“Yes, that will be fine. Dad…don't tell anyone about this, not even George. When you get the phone, look through the security options and put a password in it, so no one can access it without your say so. If George sees it and asks about it, tell him it's for another of your liaisons…he'll understand that or, better still, say that your young violinist is causing you trouble again. Tell him that her father has found out that you haven't broken it off yet and you need a different number to keep the sordid arrangement going. After all, George might be able to relate to that, you being almost three times her age.” I stressed the 'her,' hoping he would notice. The knife that had only grazed my mother was buried deep in my heart.

“I understand,” was his only reply as a momentary silence split our conversation. “I'll do as you say,” he added, eventually.

“Good, and I will do the same tomorrow. No more land lines, or personal mobiles, never that okay?”

“All a bit melodramatic, the need for all these precautions, Harry. It's only a suspicion, after all.”

“Maybe, probably. Let's hope so…but better to be cautious Dad, just in case there is something in what you say. We don't want the good name dragged around needlessly, do we? Keep all this between the two of us for now, and remember the old war motto: Keep Mum, She's Not So Dumb.” He was one for platitudes, my father. I enjoyed the usage in return, for once, knowing he wouldn't miss the ridicule in my voice. I had his acquiescence, but not only that; I also had the same feeling of fear and trepidation as he did.

“Make that call here early in the morning. We will have to arrange times to call and other ways to contact each other. By the way, don't ring again tonight, I'm out,” I had added trying to sound as impassive and as unconcerned as I could.

“I hope I'm wrong about Maudlin, Harry…I honestly do.”

I said goodnight, but I didn't think he was. I had found some old photographs of Maudlin whilst rummaging through the family photographic chronicles, and one in particular had caught my eye. I needed answers and, I needed help in finding them.

Chapter Four: Hibiscus From Malaysia

She was there as she had threatened to be, waiting at the gates for the East Coast Line and beckoning me enthusiastically.

“Over here, Harry Paterson!” I heard her call, above the commotion of King's Cross station.

The rose and the newspaper were missing, but that was not what had caught my attention. It was her hair; I had been wrong as to its colouring. It was a patinated copper, the colour of the flames of a fierce bonfire, a beautiful combination of red, brown and orange, and extraordinarily striking.

The first thing that caught my eye was that hair, as it flowed in time with her waved greetings and brushed against her impractical pink linen coat. Then her skinny legs, which ended in the cream leather high-heeled shoes. She would have been better suited in boots, and warm ones at that. The late March weather in London had been touching the lower 70s on the Fahrenheit scale, whereas in Harrogate it had barely risen above freezing, and I had no intentions of telling her! The absence of a suitcase caused me to wonder if the outfit she wore was her only clothing, and I remarked on it.

“Have you got a spare pair of everything you need in that document case?” I asked, when I was beside her.

“Oh now, don't you worry about my welfare, H. I'm more than capable of looking after myself in that regard. Censeo et Conslio family motto, or Resolve and Purpose Harry, if you're a bit short on your Latin. Have no fears about me.”

She was jumping around like a demented child who had never been on a train adventure before. I did have a singular fear of being arrested for the transportation of a live skeleton on British Rail, for which I'm sure, there must be some law against in the lost journals of the Empire.

The fact that my father held the position he did had meant that a Government enquiry had been inevitable. However, my position within the SIS had complicated matters, and had led to the appointment of Judith Meadows as my personal inquisitor, the would-be discoverer of the truth as to who may have committed the crime. I had called Peter Trimble that morning and was told all I apparently needed to know about her, which was not a lot!

“She is good at what she does, Harry, very thorough.” That, along with her surname, is all the information I got.

As I had approached my would-be interrogator, my annoyance was slightly tempered by the realisation that not all was lost. I had been right about her face.

She was indeed very attractive, with large hazelnut shaped green eyes, my favourite colour. I decided on the age of 32, short without the heels, which somehow accentuated her slightness. She reminded me of a pink mannequin displayed in the windows of fashion shops, one of those minus zero size females who are advised to eat air for sustainability.

Since my university days and my indiscriminate fascination in women, I had graduated in selection and had settled on a preference for voluptuous, sensuous types. The sultrier the better, and the more full-figured the more magnetic. Judith had none of these desirabilities, and her vivaciousness only underlined my distaste and my hostility.

“Did you stay for more to drink last night, or did my departure spoil your evening?” She asked, as she linked her arm through mine and pulled herself close to me.

“I'd rather we didn't play happy families, Judith. Or should I address you as Miss Meadows, or Ma'am, as you're the senior officer here?” I detached her arm and quickened my walk so that I was a few steps ahead.

“Don't be petulant, Harry. There's no seniority here, only friends. Actually, I'm a Mrs, even though I don't wear a ring. Please, slow down, I can't walk that fast in these heels!”

“Why aren't you at home caring for him, instead of frequenting bars and accompanying chauvinists layabouts to their country lair? By claiming to be married are you trying to avoid any virginal duties you may have with the new Earl on his estate? I thought you knew all about them, but I'll be glad to fill in the missing details.”

She stopped, tugging at my sleeve as she did so. “My husband died, Harry; five weeks after we married. He was a Major in the Ordinance Disposal Regiment, on active service in Afghanistan. He was blown up into little pieces. I would be obliged if you weren't to mention him again.”

There was a deep determination in those green eyes perhaps tinged with sadness, I'm not sure, but certainly spirit and a great deal of tenacity. She was, as I was beginning to understand, a stubborn, intransigent woman; self-contained and belligerent at times.

“You brought him up, not me,” I answered, in my defence.

“No, you used the word 'Miss' in a disparaging way. I'm acutely aware of your enmity towards me and the resentment you must feel over others examining your father's death. I'm here to help you, not trick you,” she replied, truculently causing a brighter colour than her hair to wash over her face, blemishing an otherwise pure complexion.

'Help' not 'trick' me…strange words to use, I thought. Could she know what I was already hiding, or was this the subtle way of the practised interrogator?

'Tell us what we know you're concealing, and we'll give you a candy bar.'

Suddenly I viewed Mrs Meadows in a different light. Perhaps her zero size did not match the zero evaluation I had given her. I made no reply to either her offer or threat.

“I've sent two of our sitters up to your place by road. I've phoned ahead and forewarned them of their coming and their requirements. They won't need accommodation, we found them berths in a local hotel. I thought about using your stables for them when I found out that you don't keep those racehorses of yours anymore, but decided they deserved better, the poor souls. They have all their equipment in a van, but I sent my car up with them. Can't bear to be parted from it for too long and, who knows? We might want a drive up to the moors, you and I.” Judith had regained the composure I had displaced, returning to her bullish best as we took our seats. I contemplated her words whilst exchanging tiresome banalities for the remains of our journey.

After Alice's death, my father had taken permanent residence in London, having no need or want of Harrogate. He had sold the estate's racing stock at Newmarket and the polo ponies had also gone long before this; his age, other pursuits, and the lack of interest in the sport shown by my brothers and I being a contribution in his decision. These changes had led to the letting go of our stable manager and most of the hands, now we had only the six horses in the stables for riding out or the occasional point-to-point race. I hadn't hunted in years, nor had I thought of it much since the changing of the laws, but her comment made me think of the chase of the fox, as long as the scent wasn't wrong and it was not me that was being chased. There was to be the full response to such a situation, recording machines both audio and visual and the electronic data readings of pitch in speech. It was not quite a polygraph; more refined, it showed the slightest agitation, because most in my trade could lie with conviction. That is, if they knew what was a lie, or the truth, if it stared them in the face. Why, then, the need of a drive and away from the recording of Lord Harry Paterson, Earl of Harrogate, I wondered? Was that where the trickery made its entrance?

That evening, after dinner, we began the first episode of what was to be a challenging time for both of us. I was changing that first opinion of mine; albeit slowly. Her car, a Porsche Panamera, one of those four-door saloon types that are shaped like a coupé, had been loaded with matching luggage, and her obvious wealth could not have come from Civil Service pay alone.

She had dressed for dinner, something I had not expected nor done since dining with my mother. I was waiting without a tie but luckily I had a jacket, otherwise her rebuke may have been more severe.

“Harry, we have to have rules. Rules are what I live by, and I love a good routine. After breakfast, through lunch and one hour before dinner, we work. We go back in time and recollect all that we are trying to forget; or hide. We play by the SIS house rules that we both understand. At dinner we adopt the rules of the upper classes, of which you are most notable, and as are my own family. I am Lord Davenport's daughter, he is the Queen's private secretary, amongst many other things. Heard of him?”

I had…by accident one could say. His father, Judith's grandfather, was one of those I was investigating in the mysterious photos I had found, now cut short by that gunshot of Sunday last.

“No,” I lied, but we were not in the library where the machines now lived, we were in the lounge beside the huge log-burning fire. She had discarded the pink travelling coat and now looked considerably warmer. Her hair was pinned to her head and woven into a circle at the back. The long crimson dress covered every inch of flesh except for her neck wrists and ankles, and although I have already spoken of her slight figure, I could not deny her femininity.

Joseph, my father's butler had stayed at the Hall when he had left, and had been in the room through all her detailing of the code to be adopted throughout her stay. He had just finished pouring our drinks, so no doubt the rest of the household would soon know of my guest's high principles, I thought.

My sisters had, like Elliot, long departed, and now I was the only Paterson left here in the hereditary home, but I was not alone. With Joseph I had inherited two footmen, my own valet, two cooks and three kitchen maids. There was a housekeeper with four maids to care for the thirty bedrooms and all the grand rooms that were constantly in use, a chauffeur who had met us from the train, and three gardeners. Oh yes, and three stable-boys, and one stable-girl. All, apart from the gardeners and the stable-hands, were housed on the estate which covered some 220,000 hectares and contained four tenanted farms, as well as our own. A colossal undertaking which I took over from my father on retiring from the Army and, then, my partial retirement from the SIS. I say partial because they never really let you go! They don't know how to trust anybody on the outside.

“I'm going to bend those rules of mine at little tonight H. After all, that's what rules are for, don't you think…to be broken a bit?” Her head was tilted to one side as if to accentuate her question.

She waited for an answer, but all I could think of was making love with a skeleton. My imagination tried hard to stretch that far but I was unfortunately, ahead of myself again.

“Well, I do anyway. Let's get some background filled in. Start with your childhood, and your relationship to your late father.” Her requests were more demands than mere inquires; they carried a note of compliance rather than the choice of disregard.

I painted that failed closeness in flowing, complimentary terms of harmony and kinship; it was easy for me to do. It was how I had dreamt it should have been since I was sent away to boarding school, something I had emotionally built on every day of my life that I spent there in nigh solitude, bereft of love and affinity from anyone. I was a good liar. I'd had plenty of time to conjure up an idyllic adolescence, and I told my imaginary story well.

I had been fifteen years of age when great-grandfather Maudlin had died and thirty-one when his son Phillip had passed away. Both had been instrumental in my life, even more so than my own father. They had filled my head with tales of the adventures of their siblings or their forbears, and my head had swollen in pride. Grandfather Phillip's eldest brother had seen action in the Korean War and the Malaysian Conflict in the middle sixties, and I heard of his exploits first hand. Phillip and Gerard would sit in this very spot with me, on one or the other's knee, listening to those deeds in avid attention. Then Phillip, not to be outdone by his elder, would praise his own efforts in 'Annie's' involvement in the protection of British interest in the Far East. Both would refer to Maudlin in an almost religious manner, never in my memory addressing him as 'father' or simply 'Dad.' Only the words 'he' or 'him' and, less occasionally, The Old Man were used whenever reference was needed to my great-grandfather.

“They even named a military operation after 'him', you know. Operation Claret they called it, an intelligence lead incursion against the Indonesian forces. I was with the misinformation section, SIS by any other name, but that was what they called us then. We were spreading falsified rumours amongst the Chinese, stirring them up against the President principally. Anyway, it worked, and an opportunity arose to assassinate him; his name was Sukarno if I remember correctly. I led that operation, Harry. I saved the day, and saved Malaya becoming a communist extension of Indonesia,” Gerard told me.

“It was 'he' who provided the funds from 'Annie's', then covered over the Government's connection and any trail leading back to the Foreign Office. It allowed BP to continue out there, and protected our rights to the rubber,” Phillip informed me.

So the bank became pivotal to me and my interest deepened, leading to my knowledge about Saint George, and broadened my interest into lies and as Gerard had put it; misinformation.

“You're fortunate, Harry, that you don't have the responsibility of the intricate nature of the bank. It's an elaborate affair, and only 'he' knows the full complexity,” one of them had added, but I forget exactly who.

We were together, 'he' and I, on the first of August; three days after my ninth birthday and six and a bit years before his death. I recall the day well, because I was to make my debut in the Halls cricket match against the estate tenants. The house was fully staffed in those days and, with the stable hands, there were more than enough adults to fill the eleven needed. However, the day had coincided with the unexpected arrival of my grandmother's sister and her entourage, compelling most of the staff's withdrawal. I was to go in last and had received batting advice from Maudlin. Fortunately, my uncles Charles and Robert were making a good show of things, and with my grandfather standing as one of the umpires, I considered my position in the proceedings as being well protected. He