This Was a Man (The Clifton Chronicles 7)

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When Paulo took Jessica to Annabel’s to celebrate her nineteenth birthday, neither of them noticed the elderly couple seated in an alcove.

Virginia and the duke usually left the club around eleven, but not tonight. In fact the duke dozed off after a third Courvoisier even though he had suggested on more than one occasion that perhaps they should go home.

“Not yet, darling,” Virginia kept saying, without explanation.

The moment Paulo called for the bill, Virginia shot out of the stalls and made her way quickly across to the private phone booth discreetly located in the corridor. She already had a telephone number and the name of an officer she had been assured would be on duty. She dialed the number slowly and the phone was answered almost immediately.

“Chief Inspector Mullins.”

“Chief inspector, my name is Lady Virginia Fenwick, and I wish to report a dangerous driving incident. I think the driver must be drunk, because he almost hit our Rolls-Royce as he overtook us on the inside.”

“Can you describe the car, madam?”

“It was a yellow Ferrari, and I’m fairly sure the driver wasn’t English.”

“You didn’t by any chance get the registration number?”

Virginia checked a slip of paper in her hand. “A786 CLC.”

“And where did the incident take place?”

“My chauffeur was driving around Berkeley Square when the Ferrari turned right down Piccadilly and drove off toward Chelsea.”

“Thank you, madam. I’ll look into it immediately.”

Virginia put the phone down just as Paulo and Jessica passed her in the corridor. She remained in the shadows as the young couple made their way up the stairs and out on Berkeley Square. A liveried doorman handed Paulo his car key in exchange for a five-pound note. Paulo jumped into the driver’s seat, eased the gear lever into first, and accelerated away as if he was in pole position on the starting grid at Monte Carlo. He’d only gone a few hundred yards when he spotted a police car in his rearview mirror.

“Lose them,” said Jessica. “It’s only a clapped-out Sierra.”

Paulo moved into third and began to dodge in and out of slow-moving traffic. Jessica was screaming obscenities and cheering him on, until she heard the siren. She looked back to see the traffic moving aside to allow the police car through.

Paulo glanced in his rearview mirror as the traffic light in front of him turned red. He shot through it, turned right, and narrowly missed a bus as he careered down Piccadilly. By the time he reached Hyde Park Corner, two police cars were in pursuit and Jessica was clinging onto the dashboard, wishing she’d never encouraged him.

As he swerved around Hyde Park Corner and onto the Brompton Road, he ran another red light, only to see a third police car heading toward him. He threw on the brakes and skidded to a halt, but was too late to avoid crashing head-on into the squad car.

Jessica didn’t spend her nineteenth birthday in the arms of her lover in his luxury Knightsbridge apartment, but alone on a thin, urine-stained foam mattress in cell number three of Savile Row police station.

27

SAMANTHA WAS WOKEN just before seven the following morning by a telephone call from Chief Inspector Mullins. She didn’t need to wake Seb, who was in the bathroom shaving. When he heard his wife’s anxious voice, he put down his razor and walked quickly back into the bedroom. He couldn’t remember when he’d last seen Sam crying.

A cab pulled up outside Savile Row police station just after 7:30 a.m. Sebastian and Sam stepped out, to be met by flashing bulbs and shouted questions, which reminded Seb of when Hakim was on trial at the Old Bailey. What he couldn’t understand was who could have alerted the press at that time in the morning.

“Is your daughter a drug addict?” shouted one.

“Was she driving?” Another.

“Did she take part in an orgy?” Yet another.

Seb recalled Giles’s golden rule when facing a pack of hacks: if you’ve got nothing to say, say nothing.

Inside the police station, Seb gave the duty sergeant at the front desk his name.

“Take Mr. and Mrs. Clifton down to cell number three,” the sergeant instructed a young constable, “and I’ll let the chief inspector know they’ve arrived.”

The constable led them along a corridor and down some steep steps into the basement. He inserted a large key into a heavy door and pulled it open, then stepped aside to allow them to enter the cell.