He sat back, alarmed, as the girl went off like a pistol, jumping to her feet and laughing. ‘Gawd, sir! You know how to make a girl wet her knickers! … Oh, Lord! Oh!’

Her face turned crimson at her indiscretion. She put a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with horror, burbled something and started for the door.

Joe leapt up, dashed over and grabbed her by the arm. ‘Steady on! Don’t bolt! I’m not insulted. I’ve heard worse in the trenches.’

‘Sorry, sir. It’s just a common saying … where I come from it means nothing, not a …’

‘Shh. Don’t go and spoil it. I’ve never had a compliment of the kind before. I’m rather relishing it. The nearest I’ve come to such a pinnacle of approval is from Amalthea Jameson who declared once, in a fit of heightened emotion – occasioned by a bunch of violets, I remember – that I certainly knew how to make a lady’s heart flutter. I think I prefer the earthier tribute! But look – before you lose complete control of your tongue and any other dicky bits of your anatomy, why don’t we get someone to drive us to Simpson’s-in-the-Strand? Lunch goes on there until supper time. And their gravy is wonderful. They make it with red wine, you know.’

Joe burbled on, calm and amused, until he felt her muscles begin to relax again. He released her arm. Though still avoiding his eye, Lily managed to get her voice in gear. ‘I’d like that, sir. And perhaps while we’re about it, you can tell me about Anna Petrovna’s motive. I don’t think I mentioned one?’

She was putting on her gloves when the phone rang.

In his urgent quest for roast beef and suitable accompaniments, he very nearly ignored it. Grumpily he picked up the earpiece and announced himself. He looked questioningly at Lily.

‘A package, you say? For Miss Lily Wentworth, care of this office? How big is this package? Three feet by two? That big? And heavy? I say – have you checked it for … Of course. Can’t be too careful these days. Then get two strapping fellers to haul it upstairs, will you? Use the lift. I’m just off to lunch but I can wait a few more minutes, I suppose. Tell them to get a move on, will you?’

The commander waited until the two uniformed coppers left before he approached the brown-paper wrappings of the carefully boxed parcel with a penknife. He first examined the label. ‘They made no mistake, Wentworth. It is indeed addressed to you care of my office. Were you expecting anything of this nature? Bagatelle board from Hamleys? Travelling guillotine? The missing Mona Lisa?’

She shook her head, perplexed. He clicked out the blade of his knife and began to strip away the wrapper.

After five minutes of combined effort, they stood speechless, absorbing the contents.

Sandilands was the first to regain his voice. ‘Congratulations, constable! You seem to have made a very favourable impression. A most gracious gesture – I’m sure even you will agree.’

He bent and picked up an envelope that had fallen from the wrappings. He waited while she opened it and read the message on the single sheet it contained. When she coloured and put it away he asked no question.

They continued to stare. Joe approached the painting of the Russian forest, now reset in a heavy gilt frame, and peered at it more closely. He shook his head and looked again. His fingers reached out to touch it but left off before they contacted the oil surface. He began to speak hesitantly, as though talking to himself and feeling his way through hostile territory in the dark: ‘I wonder – and you’ll tell me if you think this a fanciful idea – are we … could we possibly be … looking at a motive? Of sorts? A motive for murder? Anna Petrovna’s reason, if you can call it that – most would say “unreason” – for wanting the Prince of Wales dead? Is it staring us in the face? Am I making an unwarranted and utterly crazy assumption? If not, it’s worse than we thought.’

He turned to Lily, full of foreboding. ‘We’re staring into a depth of madness that makes anarchy and revolution look like cool common sense.’

Chapter Twenty-Nine

In the bustle of Simpson’s, Joe sat wrapped in thoughtful silence, paralysed by his insight. Disturbing though this clearly was, it showed no sign of affecting his appetite. He settled to his rib of beef and was halfway through it before he remembered his manners and engaged again in conversation with his equally preoccupied companion.

‘Lamb suit you, Wentworth? Mint sauce not too fierce?’

‘It’s all perfect, sir.’

After a pause: ‘You can’t send it back, you know … The painting, I mean.’

‘That’s exactly what my mind was turning on. I’m not used to receiving such lavish presents. I was trying to find the right phrases for a note to the prince.’

‘Well, you can forget about returning it with a few polite words. Out of the question. No one returns a royal gift. Ever. You must admit that it was a thoughtful gesture – and well deserved. Altogether, highly appropriate.’ He caught his bossy tone and added, more mildly: ‘I say, you weren’t really minded to return it, were you?’

‘Not on your nelly! I’m keeping it. I’m not such an ingrate as to spurn a gracious offering. And besides, I like it. My admiration was genuine. I encouraged the prince to bid for it. I can’t wait to show it to my father. It has an uneasy and depressing presence but it’s wonderfully done.’

‘Know what you mean. One wouldn’t hang it in one’s drawing room, perhaps …’ Joe agreed. ‘Tell me what you see in—’ He stopped talking, seeing the wine waiter approach to pour more burgundy into his glass.

Lily waited until they were left alone. A table discreetly placed in a corner, behind a small tropical forest of broad-leafed plants, had been put at Sandilands’ disposal. And not for the first time, judging by the warm greeting and the swift accommodation from the maître d’hôtel. The rest of the diners who crowded the room had already embarked on their sponge puddings and custard; some were as far advanced as brandy and cigars. All were loudly talkative, cheery and unbuttoned. No one was paying the slightest attention to the quiet couple in the corner.

‘It’s a frightening vision,’ Lily said. ‘Deliberately so. The princess told us all – do you remember – that no photographic equipment is allowed any longer in Russia. The country’s being laid waste, people are fleeing their homes or starving to death, massacres are going on, and what do the rest of us see of this? Nothing! The painting is an allegory. It’s a scream of protest, a warning, a cry to the world for assistance from whoever sees it. It shows the trackless wastes of the artist’s homeland but in the forefront there’s a deep, freshly dug grave. Reminiscent of a plague pit. It’s standing ready to receive its cargo of corpses. We know this from the crosses lining up in the background. Crosses made of human bones. Russian bones.’

‘Is that what you see, Wentworth? An allegory? Is that all?’

Lily looked at him in puzzlement. ‘Isn’t that enough? A foreshadowing of disaster for the Russian people? The death of a great empire?’

‘No. You haven’t looked closely enough. Look – we’ll finish up here and go back. We’ll pass a magnifying glass over the paintwork. And I’ll fill you in on our goddess. I called her the “Morrigan” after the Irish deity but I see I may have been poking about in the wrong pantheon.’

Joe talked on while Lily concentrated on her lamb and mint sauce. ‘She’s really Morana. In Russian and Slavic pagan religion, Morana was the goddess of death and winter. A beautiful girl with black hair and light skin but endowed also with wolf’s teeth and clawed hands. And she has form – she’s known to have killed her own husband, the god of fertility. She’s a dangerous goddess of darkness, frost and death.’

‘I begin to think you see one of these charmers around every corner, sir. Herr Freud might suppose you were frightened at an impressionable age by an odd-looking nursemaid!’