Death of a Dancer

‘Three cheers for English justice. Good old English justice.’

Daniel drew back his arm, clenched his fist and swung with all his might at the stone wall of the Old Bailey. If I hadn’t managed to grab his sleeve I think the contact would have broken bones. Even as it was, the skin of his knuckles was shredded and blood ran down his fingers. He stood, looking at the blood, then at me.

‘Daniel, please come home. This won’t help her.’

‘What will then? What will?’

I couldn’t answer.

CHAPTER TWO

The case of Columbine’s murder started, as far as I was concerned, on a February Saturday morning in Hyde Park, just as the sun was rising, turning the mist to a silver haze. At that point, Columbine still had two and a half days to live. Frost was on the grass, beads of moisture on the sleeve of my riding jacket. I was riding my horse Rancie, one of the finest mares in London, with the blood of Derby winners in her veins and the sweetest temperament – if you treated her kindly – of any horse ever foaled. Amos Legge rode beside me on a powerful but clumsy-looking grey called Bishop. We’d come in from Park Lane through the Grosvenor Gate and cantered northwards along the carriage drive. This early, there were no fashionable riders out, only soldiers from the barracks or grooms exercising horses from livery stables. We slowed to a walk near the point where the carriage drive turned westwards. Bishop jibbed, planting his feet and shaking his head from side to side, although there was nothing visible to account for his alarm. Rancie rarely jibbed at anything, so I gave them a lead and Bishop followed reluctantly, walking sideways and snorting. Within a few paces, he went as calmly as if nothing had happened.

‘Horses know,’ Amos said.

It was the site of Tyburn tree, where the gallows had stood for hundreds of years, from the time when London was no more than a village. The gallows had been taken down fifty years before, because respectable people who’d moved to new houses by the park didn’t care for hangings on their doorstep. Still, as Amos said, horses knew. As we turned back down the drive a couple of grooms on matched dark bays came out of the mist. Amos knew them and called out a cheerful insult about carriage nags. I looked ahead, conscious of their curious glances. Rancie was worth looking at and my outfit respectable enough not to disgrace her. My riding jacket was the most fashionable garment I owned, fine black wool with leg-of-mutton sleeves tapering to tight cuffs, rows of silk-covered buttons decorating the wide lapels and a peplum at the back that flared out elegantly over the saddle. It was a bargain from a second-hand clothes shop, almost new. One of the advantages of living in Mayfair is the quality of second-hand clothes shops. The black skirt and top hat, from the same source, were passable but no more. Most of the nap had been rubbed off the hat, but I concealed it as best I could by tying a piece of black muslin round it as a scarf that flew out on the breeze.

‘Get a lot of questions about you, I do, miss,’ Amos said.

‘What sort of questions?’

‘We’ve been noticed, going out early like we do. People want to know who the mystery lady is.’

‘I’m no mystery.’

‘They think so. Riding the way you do on a mare worth a small fortune, they reckon you’re a rich lady with her own reasons for not wanting to be seen.’

‘If they only knew! What do you tell them?’

‘Me, I don’t tell ’em anything. I just listen to what they say.’

‘Oh? And what do they say?’

‘There’s some think you’ve run away from a husband that ill-treated you. Some reckon you’re secretly married to a duke, and another one offered to bet me you’re a Russian princess, in London for your health.’

I almost fell out of the saddle from laughing. I knew Amos well enough to be sure that when he said he hadn’t told the inquirers anything he’d spoken the literal truth. But he had a way of not saying anything that was as good as a nod and a wink, and I could just imagine the glint in his eye as he let every one of them believe that his particular ludicrous guess was on target.

‘Who’s this coming?’ I said.

Even through the haze, the horse and rider coming towards us didn’t have the air of a barracks or livery stables. They were moving at an easy canter, horse’s tail streaming out like a banner, the rider upright but relaxed. As they came closer, we could see that the horse was a bright bay, Arab or part Arab. The rider’s tall top hat gleamed as brightly as the hide of his horse, with dark curls flying from underneath it. He rode with the reins in one hand and an air about him that suggested he should be carrying a lance or sword in the other. Altogether, they looked as if they’d be more at home galloping across some desert wasteland than in Hyde Park. I was about to say something along those lines to Amos when I realised I knew the man. Before I could gather my wits he’d reached us, brought the mare from a canter to a walk and turned her deftly so that he was walking alongside us. He raised his hat.

‘Good morning, Miss Lane. Are you enjoying your ride?’

I managed an answer of some kind, probably looking as surprised as I felt.

‘You ride early,’ he said.

‘It seems you do, too, Mr Disraeli.’

Now that I was recovering from my surprise, I had to fight an urge to laugh with delight at the beauty and unexpectedness of him and the horse. This was only the third time in my life that I’d met him, and on the first two occasions the circumstances had been so strange that they might have happened in a dream. From the first I’d sensed a quality in him that made the world an exciting place, full of possibilities that most people couldn’t imagine. I wasn’t even sure that I liked him. For one thing, he was far too pleased with himself. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament and my political sympathies were quite the other way. There was, too, an edge of mockery in the way he looked and spoke, as if he couldn’t take anybody except himself quite seriously. Although he’d given me no reason for mistrust, I did not quite trust him. Still, being in his company was like breathing mountain air.

‘It seems as if a man has to get up early if he wants to talk to you, Miss Lane.’

On the face of it, this was ridiculous flattery. Granted, he’d only been a Member of Parliament for a few months and a notoriously unsuccessful one until now, but he had influential friends and was so far removed from my world that he shouldn’t have known or cared if I rode in Hyde Park or on the surface of the moon.

‘To talk to me?’

He moved even closer, so that his stirrup iron was almost touching Rancie’s side.

‘When we last met, Miss Lane, I made you a promise. I have done my best to keep it.’

I nodded, unable to think of anything to say.

‘A certain person who did you a wrong has retired to his estates in Ireland. He no longer appears in the House of Lords and he most assuredly will not be received at Court.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Did you know that?’

‘I had heard, yes.’

I’d met Mr Disraeli the summer before. My father had been murdered and my whole world whirled apart as if by a hurricane. Through no fault of his own, my unconventional and good-natured father had become tangled in affairs of state that reached all the way up to the throne. Mr Disraeli and I shared knowledge of events that might have disturbed the peace of the country had they become public at the time. But that was all over now, so why was Mr Disraeli suddenly seeking me out to tell me he’d honoured a promise?

Amos Legge had drawn back and was riding behind us, as if he really were just a groom instead of a friend. I was grateful for his presence. The conventional world would know exactly what to say about a lady who permitted a gentleman to approach her in the park, before most people were up and about. I was some distance outside the conventional world, but not as far as all that.

‘How are you liking life in London?’

He asked it almost as if we were meeting over the teacups, but there was an edge to his question.

‘Well enough, thank you.’

‘Perhaps time is heavy on your hands.’

‘Far from it. I work for my living. I give music lessons.’

My voice sounded sharp to me, but I didn’t want him to be under any illusions.

‘You’re a versatile lady, Miss Lane.’

Certainly a hint of satire in his voice. When we’d last met, I was posing as a governess. I said nothing. His mare, impatient at our slow pace, tossed her head, flecking Rancie’s withers with foam from her bit.

‘I wonder whether you might consider doing a service for a friend of mine,’ he said.

‘Does he need music lessons?’

He frowned, knowing that I was teasing him. When he spoke, his voice was harder.

‘I understand you have connections in the theatre world.’