Payment in Blood (Inspector Lynley, #2)(85)
“But Profumo and Keeler seem like such ancient history,” Deborah remarked. “Surely that sort of scandal wouldn’t affect a family’s reputation now.”
Lady Helen agreed, but her comments were obviously reluctant. “There’s truth to that, Simon. Murder Joy. Destroy the scripts. Murder Gowan. All because Geoffrey Rintoul was seeing a call girl twenty-five years ago? How can one argue that as a credible motive?”
“It depends on the level of importance attached to the man’s position,” St. James replied. “Consider Profumo’s case as an example. He was secretary of state for war, carrying on a relationship with Christine Keeler, a call girl who also just happened to be seeing a man called Yevgeni Ivanov.”
“Who was attached to the Soviet embassy but was reportedly a Soviet intelligence agent,” Vinney added and smoothly continued. “In an interview with the police on an entirely different matter, Christine Keeler volunteered the information that she had been asked to discover from John Profumo the date on which certain atomic secrets were to be passed to West Germany by the Americans.”
“A lovely person,” Lady Helen commented.
“This leaked to the press—as perhaps she intended—and things heated up for Profumo.”
“And for the government as well,” Havers said.
Vinney nodded his agreement. “The Labour party demanded that Profumo’s relationship with Keeler be debated before the House of Commons while the Liberal party demanded the prime minister’s resignation because of it.”
“Why?” Deborah asked.
“They claimed that as head of security services, the prime minister was either aware of all the facts on Profumo’s relationship with the call girl and was hiding them or he was guilty of incompetence and neglect. However,” Vinney finished, “the truth well might be that the prime minister merely felt he could not survive another serious case involving the resignation of one of his ministers, as would likely occur if Profumo’s behaviour was examined closely. So he gambled that nothing against Profumo would come out. If the Profumo affair came to light so soon after the Vassall case, chances are the prime minister would have to resign.”
“Vassall?” Lady Helen’s body tensed. White-faced, she leaned forward in her chair.
Vinney looked at her, clearly perplexed by her reaction to his words. “William Vassall. He was sentenced to prison in October of sixty-two. He was an Admiralty clerk who was spying for the Soviets.”
“My God. My God!” Lady Helen cried. She got to her feet, spun to St. James. “Simon! It’s the line from the play that all the Rintouls reacted to. ‘Another Vassall.’ The character was running off with no time to return to London. He said he wouldn’t become another Vassall. And they knew what it meant when they heard it. They knew! Francesca, Elizabeth, Lord and Lady Stinhurst! All of them knew! This was no call-girl relationship! It was nothing of the sort!”
St. James was already pushing himself out of his chair. “Tommy will move on this, Helen.”
“On what?” Deborah cried.
“On Geoffrey Rintoul, my love. Another Vassall. It seems that Geoffrey Rintoul was a Soviet mole. And God help them, but every member of his family and a good part of the government appeared to know it.”
LYNLEY HAD left the doors open between his dining and drawing rooms, largely so that he could hear the music from his stereo while he was eating dinner. For the past few days, food had held little attraction for him. Tonight was no different. Because of this, he pushed most of his lamb aside uneaten and instead gave himself over to the passion of a Beethoven symphony that swelled from the next room. He moved away from the table and leaned back in his chair with his legs stretched out before him.
In the last twenty-four hours, he had avoided thinking about what the case he was building against Rhys Davies-Jones was going to do to Helen Clyde. Steadfastly forcing himself to keep moving forward from fact to fact, he had managed to keep Helen out of his mind entirely. But she intruded now.
He understood her unwillingness to believe in Davies-Jones’ guilt. She was, after all, involved with the man. But how would she react when she was faced with the knowledge—irrefutable and supported by a score of facts—that she had been cold-bloodedly used to facilitate a murder? And how could he possibly protect her from the devastation that knowledge was going to cause in her life? In thinking about this, Lynley found that he could no longer avoid looking directly at the truth of how damnably much he missed Helen and how irrevocably he might lose her if he continued his pursuit of Davies-Jones to its logical conclusion.
“My lord?” His valet was standing hesitantly in the doorway, rubbing the top of his left shoe against the back of his right leg as if in the need to make adjustments to his already immaculate appearance. He ran a hand over the top of his perfectly groomed hair.
Beau Brummel of Eaton Terrace, Lynley thought, and said encouragingly, “Denton?” when it appeared that the young man might go on with his grooming indefinitely.
“Lady Helen Clyde’s just in the ante, my lord. With Mr. St. James and Sergeant Havers.” Denton’s expression was a model of nonchalance, something he no doubt considered suitable to the occasion. However, his tone conveyed some considerable surprise, and Lynley wondered how much Denton already knew—in that omniscient way of servants—about his rift with Lady Helen. He had, after all, been seeing Lady Helen’s Caroline rather seriously for the past three years.