The Kill Fee Read online

  “Then why –”

  Marjorie raised her hand. “Well, some of it does, but I’ll get to that later. First I need to get the personal stuff out of the way. It’s about my son, Oscar.”

  “Oscar? What about him?”

  “I think he might be in trouble.” Marjorie lowered her voice to a whisper as the cleaning lady walked past them carrying her bucket and rags. Poppy nodded to the woman and smiled. She received a warm smile in response.

  Marjorie drummed her fingers on the back of the pew in front of her. Poppy had never seen the Member of Parliament and minister to the Home Office so agitated. Aunt Dot always said she had the backbone of Genghis Khan, having withstood personal and public attacks in her rise to power that would have cowed a lesser human being.

  “Why do you think he’s in trouble, Mrs Reynolds? Have you spoken to him about it?”

  Marjorie flexed her fingers and then folded them softly in her lap. She steadied her breathing and visibly forced herself to appear composed. “I’ve tried, but you know what children can be like with their parents. He thinks just because he’s thirty-five I don’t have a say in his life any more. And he’s right, of course. But I’m his mother. And since his father died, he’s all I have. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Poppy did, but perhaps not in the way Marjorie would have hoped. At twenty-two she was trying desperately to break free of her parents’ influence, knowing that they didn’t fully approve of her new career. But she knew that wasn’t what Marjorie wanted to hear. She smiled. “Of course I do, Mrs Reynolds. It’s only natural for a parent to worry about their children – however old they are. But what is it that’s worrying you?”

  Marjorie picked up the envelope and slipped out a photograph. Poppy recognized the setting immediately; it was the bar at Oscar’s Jazz Club and three men were in deep discussion: Oscar, the barman and Andrei Nogovski. Poppy had a sense of déjà vu. She had seen this picture before. Or had she? Oh, hang on, it wasn’t the photograph she’d seen; it was the real-life tableau. This was taken the night she had danced with Prince Felix Yusopov. The night Andrei Nogovski had muscled his way into the club and had gone downstairs with Oscar. She had noticed then that Oscar looked uncomfortable. She had intended asking him about it. And now here was his mother, apparently worried about the same thing.

  “Who took this picture, Mrs Reynolds?”

  Marjorie shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. But it came to my attention at the Home Office. Some of my colleagues were concerned that Oscar might be involved with Nogovski and Safin in some way. Apparently the interim ambassador arrived soon after this picture was taken. And this, apparently, is not the first meeting they’ve had.”

  “But surely it’s just a matter of a host speaking to one of his patrons,” said Poppy.

  “Yes, that’s what I told my colleagues. But they’re not entirely convinced. And neither am I.”

  Poppy paused again as a man in a clerical robe nodded to them as he passed. “But why do you assume it’s something underhanded or illegal? Nogovski and Safin are legitimate representatives of the Russian embassy. Oscar does catering. Perhaps they were arranging a reception or something.”

  Marjorie straightened her tweed skirt with brisk strokes. “You don’t believe that, and neither do I.”

  Poppy sighed and told Marjorie what had happened the other night.

  Marjorie listened, her mouth in a tight line. “He was scared, you say?”

  “That’s how I interpreted it, yes. It appeared as if Nogovski was intimidating him in some way.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. Nogovski is not a man to be trifled with.” Her hand quivered slightly as she withdrew another photograph from the envelope. She offered it to Poppy. It was a family portrait. A well-to-do aristocratic family: a powerfully built middle-aged man in Imperial Russian military uniform, a woman in her mid-thirties, two boys of around ten and twelve, and a small girl of about two with a halo of black curls and puppy-dark eyes.

  “The family of Count Sergei Andreiovich, previously of Moscow, Russia. This was taken in 1912.” Marjorie pointed at each of the family members in turn. “The count, his wife Sofia, their two sons Boris and Jakov, and the baby, Anya.”

  “They look like a lovely family,” said Poppy, not knowing what else to say.

  “They were. But now at least three of them are dead. The mother and two boys – along with their grandmother, uncle and family butler – were massacred in their home in October 1917.”

  “By Bolsheviks?” asked Poppy.

  “That’s what we think, yes, but the Russians have put out a rumour that one of our lot did it.”

  “Our lot?”

  “A Brit. A woman by the name of Ruth Broadwood.” Marjorie slipped another photograph from the file. Poppy looked into the plain, sensible face of a woman of around sixty. She reminded Poppy of her aunt Daphne in Morpeth. Poppy could not imagine for one moment that this Aunt Daphne lookalike was capable of murdering an entire family. But appearances could be deceiving…

  “She doesn’t look the type, does she?” said Marjorie, reading her mind.

  Poppy shrugged. “Not really. But stranger things have happened.”

  “They have,” agreed Marjorie, “but when you consider that two grown men and two strapping teenage boys were among the victims, some of whom had been hacked to death before they were shot, I think it is highly unlikely that a woman of Ruth Broadwood’s age and physical stature could have done it.”

  Poppy felt the bacon sandwich in her stomach churn. She imagined the horror of the scene and was grateful that she had not been presented with a photograph of it. “Indeed,” was all she managed. She picked up the photograph of Ruth Broadwood again and looked intently into her eyes, trying to read something of her story. “Who is she?”

  “Well, the Bolsheviks are right – she is one of ours. In fact, she’s a friend of your aunt’s new companion, Miss King.”

  “Really?” asked Poppy, incredulous.

  “Really. They both worked for David Lloyd George when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer at 11 Downing Street. Ruth was a translator, Miss King a nanny.” Marjorie then went on to recount how Ruth had been recruited by Lloyd George for the secret mission to the tsar’s household in St Petersburg and how she had later transferred to the house of the reformer Count Sergei Andreiovich in Moscow.

  Poppy looked at the photograph of Ruth Broadwood with renewed respect. A spy? At her age? Good for her! “So do you think the Bolsheviks knew she was a spy?”

  Marjorie leaned back her head and stretched her neck from left to right. “Probably. They raided the office of our Moscow attaché around the same time the Andreioviches were murdered. That was the office Ruth used to send us her reports in the diplomatic pouches. Our attaché managed to get out, as did the ambassador in St Petersburg, but a lot of sensitive information was lost in the process.”

  “Why would the Bolsheviks raid our offices?” asked Poppy.

  Marjorie raised one eyebrow at Poppy. “It’s because of how our royal families are connected. As you know, the Queen Mothers, our Queen Alexandra and Empress Maria Federovna, are sisters; their brother is the king of Denmark. Their sons, our King George and Tsar Nicholas, are – were – cousins.”

  Poppy noted the change in tense. So Marjorie and the Home Office also believed the stories that the Russian royal family had been murdered, even if the old Queen Mother – and poor, deluded Princess Selena – did not.

  It was now approaching nine o’clock and members of the clergy were beginning to set up for the morning service. On another day, Poppy might have stayed, but today she was far too interested in the story of the dead Russian family, the British spy and how – if at all – it was connected with Andrei Nogovski.

  “Perhaps we should go outside,” she suggested.

  CHAPTER 20

  Marjorie and Poppy sat together on a bench in the graveyard of St Bride’s, a dour yew tree hunched above them. The photographs were laid out bet
ween them.

  “So,” said Poppy, “let me see if I’ve got this straight. A Russian family – known for its reformist sympathies – was murdered during the Russian Revolution. You believe the Bolsheviks did it, but they say it was one of our spies, a woman posing as a nanny. They did this, you believe, because they were paranoid about British interference with the Russian royal family. Which turned out to be unfounded, because in the end our King George failed to send anyone to rescue them and in fact denied them asylum when they first asked.”

  Marjorie took a sharp intake of breath. “Well, I don’t want to criticize the royal family…”

  “Of course not,” said Poppy, wishing that more people would. She took a deep breath and pushed the critical thoughts about the failings of the royals out of her mind. “So, where is this Ruth Broadwood?”

  Marjorie picked an autumn leaf off the bench and pressed it between her gloved palms. “Well, no one knows for sure. But we suspect she is with the youngest member of the Andreiovich family – the girl Anya, who will now be about nine. She was the only member of the family not found at the house. We think she and Miss Broadwood managed to escape and – if they’re still alive – are on the run.”

  Poppy touched the face of the little cherub in the photograph, imagining what she would look like five years on when her family were murdered, and then now, three years after that, if she were still alive. Then she touched the barrel-chest of the father – Count Andreiovich – and examined his cleanshaven face bracketed by impressive mutton-chop sideburns. He had the same dark eyes as his daughter and a mouth that although firmly set for the photograph had a slight upturn at the corners, suggesting a man who easily laughed. The fairer boys appeared to take after their mother, a beautiful woman in the prime of her life. But they were all gone. Or were they?

  “What about him? The count. You didn’t list him among the dead.”

  Marjorie let the leaf fall to the ground and land in a small puddle on the churchyard path. It floated on the trapped water.

  “No. Count Andreiovich was not killed with the family. He was on the Western Front, as far as we know, when it happened. At least we think he was. We lost track of him in 1916.”

  A chill wind had picked up and was playing with the churchyard leaves. Poppy pulled up the collar of her turquoise mackintosh to meet the rim of her cloche hat. “You lost track of him? Why were you keeping track of him in the first place?”

  Marjorie cleared her throat and straightened her posture on the bench. “Well, it was before my time at the Home Office, but I believe it was because we hoped he might work for us.”

  “Another spy?” Poppy tried to keep the delight out of her voice. Oh, this was turning out to be more exciting than a detective novel.

  “Not exactly, no. He had reformist sympathies and we thought we might be able to use him to influence the tsar. The writing was on the wall for the regime if it didn’t change; we were hoping to avoid what happened in 1917. But as it turned out, the tsar and tsarina dug in their heels in the face of criticism. If they’d listened to the likes of Andreiovich instead of Rasputin, things might have turned out very differently in Russia.”

  Poppy absorbed this. She wondered if things would have been different, or whether the Bolshevik Revolution was inevitable. Which reminded her again of Andrei Nogovski. “So what has any of this to do with Andrei Nogovski?”

  Marjorie looked to the left and right, as if checking for eavesdroppers. There was only an elderly woman tossing chunks of bread to a flock of gathering pigeons. “I’ll get to him in a minute. But first I need to tell you how we think all this fits in with the murder of Princess Selena.” Two of the birds started squabbling over a crust. The old woman flicked her scarf at them. They flew off and dropped the bread, which was picked up by an opportunistic youngster that flapped its wings in victory.

  Poppy was assailed by a memory of the actress dead on her dressing-room couch. Yes, she mustn’t forget in all this titillating intrigue that there was a dead woman at the centre of it. “I assume Selena was connected with the Andreioviches in some way.”

  “You assume correctly,” confirmed Marjorie. “Selena was sort of a double agent.”

  “Sort of?” asked Poppy, trying to reconcile the silliness of the dead princess with the image of an international spy.

  “Yes, sort of. She had Bolshevik friends from her days in Paris.”

  Poppy remembered the photograph of Selena with Vladimir Lenin in Paris. It was also taken around 1912, if she remembered correctly.

  “Yes, I know,” said Poppy.

  Marjorie raised a curious eyebrow, suggesting she was surprised that Poppy knew anything about it at all. Poppy was slightly miffed, but let it pass.

  “But Selena, being Selena,” continued Marjorie, “did not really know what it was all about. Her family realized this and did not take her pseudo-socialist views too seriously. Both sides, it seems, tried to play her. The royals tried to get information out of her about developments in Bolshevik circles; the Bolshies used her to get intel on the royals. Fortunately for us, because she was such a renowned gossip, neither side could trust her and just used her to spread misinformation.”

  “How do you know all this?” asked Poppy.

  Marjorie stamped her foot to chase away a pigeon that was edging towards her. “We – the Home Office – had informers. One of them was Ruth Broadwood. She sent us information while she was inside the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. Then again when she was with the Andreioviches in Moscow. As I said, we lost track of the count in 1916. We never knew, though, whether he had died or had decided that blood was thicker than water and gone on some secret mission for his cousin the tsar. We were hoping Ruth would be able to find out.”

  “Did she?” asked Poppy.

  Marjorie checked her watch. “No. She didn’t. It seemed that the countess was just as much in the dark as we were. In fact, she agreed to do something, very foolishly, in order to get some information out of the tsar. She believed Nicholas knew where her husband was. Whether he did or didn’t, we don’t know. But she agreed to become a treasure-keeper in return for information on her husband’s whereabouts.”

  Poppy’s ears pricked at the familiar term: a treasure-keeper. That’s what Selena had claimed to be. The rest of the royals, it seemed, thought she was just a simple thief. Was she? Poppy remembered the information in the Jazz File about the missing necklace in Paris. Was that just a coincidence? She decided not to mention it to Marjorie.

  “Look, Poppy, time’s getting on. So let me wrap this up. Very quickly: Selena took a Fabergé egg to Sofia Andreiovich for safe keeping on behalf of the tsarina. Ruth Broadwood sent a despatch to us to say that she believed the egg contained a key and that the key opened another egg that held very sensitive information that might expose our royal family to scandal.” She picked up the photograph of the dead family. “We believe the Andreiovich egg was stolen the night the family was murdered. And we believe the egg stolen at the exhibition last Saturday might have been the egg containing the information. Or at least the thief thought it might be.”

  Poppy was stunned. So that was how it was all connected. “All right…” Poppy took a deep breath, then exhaled. “So, whoever it was who stole the egg has access to the information. What will they do with it?”

  Marjorie raised her hand. “We don’t know if they do have the information yet. Firstly, there are nearly fifty Fabergé eggs in circulation. Any one of them could contain the secret. We think that perhaps the thief just assumed Selena’s egg would be the correct one. But we would be very surprised if the tsarina had entrusted something so sensitive to her silly cousin. We have been told that other eggs have been stolen too: in Paris, Venice and New York. We also don’t know if the Moscow thief even has the key. You see, we think Ruth Broadwood managed to get it from the egg first. And that’s why the Bolsheviks put out word that she had killed the family. So she could be hunted down.”

  Poppy picked up the picture of the el
derly spy. “But she hasn’t been found yet?”

  “No. Not that we know of.”

  “And are you certain it’s the Bolsheviks who are after her – and the eggs?”

  Marjorie shrugged. “My colleagues seem to be. But let’s just say it serves their purpose to believe that – and to let others believe it too.”

  Poppy looked at the older woman, surprised at her candour. She had all but admitted that the British government had a policy of smearing the communists. She let it pass. “But in reality it could have been someone else. Someone with another agenda.”

  Marjorie nodded. “It’s possible, yes.”

  The clock of St Bride’s struck half past nine. It was time she got to the newsroom. And time she got to the point. “So, Mrs Reynolds, let’s get to it. What has all this to do with Andrei Nogovski and Oscar?”

  Marjorie started packing up the photographs. “Oscar, I’m not sure, and that’s what I’d like you to try and find out. He won’t tell me anything, but he likes you. And you seem to have a way of getting information out of people. Can I ask you, if you find anything out, to tell me about it first, before it gets into the papers?”

  Poppy sucked in her breath. Was Marjorie trying to dictate to her how she did her job? She looked at the older woman and the worry lines around her eyes. No, that wasn’t what she was doing – at least not in relation to Oscar. She was just a mother, trying to protect her son. “I could, yes,” agreed Poppy. “But I will need something else in return.”

  Marjorie’s mouth twisted into a half-smile. “Of course you will. You’re Rollo’s girl.”

  Poppy shrugged, choosing to take the jibe as a compliment, not an insult. She opened her satchel and took out the greetings card that had been attached to the chocolate box in Selena’s dressing room. She held it between thumb and forefinger. “Tell me, Mrs Reynolds, does the Secret Service hold fingerprint files on leading figures and other ‘persons of interest’?”

  Marjorie’s mouth relaxed into a full smile accompanied by a twinkle in her eyes. “The Secret Service, Miss Denby? Why, I have no idea what you mean. However, the Home Office may have access to certain files, yes. Why do you ask?”