Free Skeleton-in-Waiting by Peter Dickinson Page A

traffic in exploitation might have gone both ways.
    â€œThese are letters people wrote to Granny, I suppose.”
    â€œOh, yes, some of them. But do you remember, after the funeral, you brought a man called Alex Romanov to talk to me? There’s a whole thick box of copies of letters HRH sent to him. I think that’s what they must be. He was talking about them. Carbon copies you know.”
    â€œThat doesn’t sound like Granny at all. Hang on. He did say she’d started using a hard pencil—she’d need that for carbons. They must be absolute hell to read.”
    â€œOh, yes, dreadful. Like those scribbles on walls. In Russian, too.”
    â€œHonestly, it would be hardly fair on Mrs Walsh … wouldn’t you do best just to sling the whole lot off to the Palace and ask them to sort it out?”
    â€œOh, no, my dear. You know what HRH thought of the Palace. And somebody’s got to go through them. I’ve no idea what she’s saying, but she could be very, very personal, you know.”
    Louise glanced at Carrie, who nodded. The signals were a joint mental note, so that in the car Carrie would say “Something about the Dowager’s papers?” and Louise would then get out her Filofax and make a physical note to get Joan to telephone Sir Sam …
    â€œWhat did you make of Alex Romanov?—You might have known his mother, Mrs Walsh. Apparently she acted as a sort of gossip-exchange for the whole family.”
    â€œWe saw very little of the exile community. They centred, of course, round your grandmother, with whom Her late Majesty was barely on speaking terms.”
    â€œHRH often said that Queen Mary had swindled her out of millions of pounds worth of jewels,” said Aunt Bea.
    â€œI very much doubt whether the jewels in question would have come to Her Royal Highness,” said Mrs Walsh. “But it is certainly true that Her late Majesty paid less than a third of their true value for the Dowager Empress’s jewellery. We exiles were all in the same case. We sold what we could for what people would pay us. We were fair game.”
    She spoke calmly, with no bitterness. If anything her reproach was less against Great-grandmama’s rapacity than against the Romanovs for making such a fuss about this notorious scandal.
    â€œI liked Count Alex,” said Louise. “He’s got a lot of charm, hasn’t he, Aunt Bea?”
    â€œI suppose so, my dear, but I’m afraid my life has taught me to be just a weeny bit suspicious of charm.”
    Louise caught Carrie’s eye and looked away. The point was that some male gene in the Surbiton line seemed to pass on a unique form of loutishness, as repellent in its attempts to please as in its more usual manifestations of aggression. Aunt Bea had doted on each generation in turn, down to the present Lord Surbiton, her grandson, now serving a gaol sentence in Japan.
    Conversation became the normal vaguely probing exchange you’d expect between new neighbours. Mrs Walsh relaxed her hardness and reserve, if only slightly, and listened to Aunt Bea’s sighings and meanderings with patient attention. The subject of offspring naturally arose. Aunt Bea described her grandson’s plight with surprisingly deft prevarications—something legal, but of course the Japanese were so different, there were bound to be misunderstandings, weren’t there? Mrs Walsh said only that her daughter lived abroad and hadn’t married. You’d have been hard put to find two less well-matched old ladies, Louise thought, but when she rose to leave it was clear that Mrs Walsh intended to stay a bit longer, and just as clear that Aunt Bea wanted her to. They were both lonely, and at least they had the shared experience of court life. That counted for a lot. People outside didn’t understand at all.
    As on most evenings Louise rang Mother to tell her what she’d been up to. She described the visit