‘Celia Ravenscroft,’ said Mrs Oliver, doing her best. ‘Yes, yes, of course. Yes, definitely.’
Not that any picture rose before her eyes of Celia Ravenscroft, not, that is, since a very early time. The christening. She’d gone to Celia’s christening and had found a very nice Queen Anne silver strainer as a christening present. Very nice. Do nicely for straining milk and would also be the sort of thing a god-daughter could always sell for a nice little sum if she wanted ready money at any time. Yes, she remembered the strainer very well indeed. Queen Anne—Seventeen-eleven it had been. Britannia mark. How much easier it was to remember silver coffee-pots or strainers or christening mugs than it was the actual child.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, of course. I’m afraid I haven’t seen Celia for a very long time now.’
‘Ah yes. She is, of course, a rather impulsive girl,’ said Mrs Burton-Cox. ‘I mean, she’s changed her ideas very often. Of course, very intellectual, did very well at university, but—her political notions—I suppose all young people have political notions nowadays.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t deal much with politics,’ said Mrs Oliver, to whom politics had always been anathema.
‘You see, I’m going to confide in you. I’m going to tell you exactly what it is I want to know. I’m sure you won’t mind. I’ve heard from so many people how kind you are, how willing always.’
I wonder if she’s going to try and borrow money from me, thought Mrs Oliver, who had known many interviews that began with this kind of approach.
‘You see, it is a matter of the greatest moment to me. Something that I really feel I must find out. Celia, you see, is going to marry—or thinks she is going to marry—my son, Desmond.’
‘Oh, indeed!’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘At least, that is their idea at present. Of course, one has to know about people, and there’s something I want very much to know. It’s an extraordinary thing to ask anyone and I couldn’t go—well, I mean, I couldn’t very well go and ask a stranger, but I don’t feel you are a stranger, dear Mrs Oliver.’
Mrs Oliver thought, I wish you did. She was getting nervous now. She wondered if Celia had had an illegitimate baby or was going to have an illegitimate baby, and whether she, Mrs Oliver, was supposed to know about it and give details. That would be very awkward. On the other hand, thought Mrs Oliver, I haven’t seen her now for five or six years and she must be about twenty-five or -six, so it would be quite easy to say I don’t know anything.
Mrs Burton-Cox leaned forward and breathed hard. ‘I want you to tell me because I’m sure you must know or perhaps have a very good idea how it all came about. Did her mother kill her father or was it the father who killed the mother?’
Whatever Mrs Oliver had expected, it was certainly not that. She stared at Mrs Burton-Cox unbelievingly.
‘But I don’t—’ She stopped. ‘I—I can’t understand. I mean—what reason—’
‘Dear Mrs Oliver, you must know … I mean, such a famous case … Of course, I know it’s a long time ago now, well, I suppose ten—twelve years at least, but it did cause a lot of attention at the time. I’m sure you’ll remember, you must remember.’
Mrs Oliver’s brain was working desperately. Celia was her goddaughter. That was quite true. Celia’s mother—yes, of course. Celia’s mother had been Molly Preston-Grey, who had been a friend of hers, though not a particularly intimate one, and of course she had married a man in the Army, yes—what was his name—Sir Something Ravenscroft. Or was he an ambassador? Extraordinary, one couldn’t remember these things. She couldn’t even remember whether she herself had been Molly’s bridesmaid. She thought she had. Rather a smart wedding at the Guards Chapel or something like that. But one did forget so. And after that she hadn’t met them for years—they’d been out somewhere—in the Middle East? In Persia? In Iraq? One time in Egypt? Malaya? Very occasionally, when they had been visiting England, she met them again. But they’d been like one of those photographs that one takes and looks at. One knows the people vaguely who are in it but it’s so faded that you really can’t recognize them or remember who they were. And she couldn’t remember now whether Sir Something Ravenscroft and Lady Ravenscroft, born Molly Preston-Grey, had entered much into her life. She didn’t think so. But then … Mrs Burton-Cox was still looking at her. Looking at her as though disappointed in her lack of savoir-faire, her inability to remember what had evidently been a cause célèbre.
‘Killed? You mean—an accident?’
‘Oh no. Not an accident. In one of those houses by the sea. Cornwall, I think. Somewhere where there were rocks. Anyway, they had a house down there. And they were both found on the cliff there and they’d been shot, you know. But there was nothing really by which the police could tell whether the wife shot the husband and then shot herself, or whether the husband shot the wife and then shot himself. They went into the evidence of the—you know—of the bullets and the various things, but it was very difficult. They thought it might be a suicide pact and—I forget what the verdict was. Something—it could have been misadventure or something like that. But of course everyone knew it must have been meant, and there were a lot of stories that went about, of course, at the time—’
‘Probably all invented ones,’ said Mrs Oliver hopefully, trying to remember even one of the stories if she could.
‘Well, maybe. Maybe. It’s very hard to say, I know. There were tales of a quarrel either that day or before, there was some talk of another man, and then of course there was the usual talk about some other woman. And one never knows which way it was about. I think things were hushed up a good deal because General Ravenscroft’s position was rather a high one, and I think it was said that he’d been in a nursing home that year, and he’d been very run down or something, and that he really didn’t know what he was doing.’
‘I’m really afraid,’ said Mrs Oliver, speaking firmly, ‘that I must say that I don’t know anything about it. I do remember, now you mention it, that there was such a case, and I remember the names and that I knew the people, but I never knew what happened or anything at all about it. And I really don’t think I have the least idea …’
And really, thought Mrs Oliver, wishing she was brave enough to say it, how on earth you have the impertinence to ask me such a thing I don’t know.
‘It’s very important that I should know,’ Mrs Burton-Cox said.
Her eyes, which were rather like hard marbles, started to snap.
‘It’s important, you see, because of my boy, my dear boy wanting to marry Celia.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I’ve never heard anything.’
‘But you must know,’ said Mrs Burton-Cox. ‘I mean, you write these wonderful stories, you know all about crime. You know who commits crimes and why they do it, and I’m sure that all sorts of people will tell you the story behind the story, as one so much thinks of these things.’
‘I don’t know anything,’ said Mrs Oliver, in a voice which no longer held very much politeness, and definitely now spoke in tones of distaste.
‘But you do see that really one doesn’t know who to go to ask about it? I mean, one couldn’t go to the police after all these years, and I don’t suppose they’d tell you anyway because obviously they were trying to hush it up. But I feel it’s important to get the truth.’
‘I only write books,’ said Mrs Oliver coldly. ‘They are entirely fictional. I know nothing personally about crime and have no opinions on criminology. So I’m afraid I can’t help you in any way.’