Read Online A Murder in Mayfair by Robert Barnard - Free Book Online Page B

first.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œEarly reports in popular newspapers are very misleading.”
    â€œThe reports in the posh papers convey pretty much thesame information in a different way. The Telegraph has always been very hot on sensational cases—murder, sex, or whatever. And particularly combinations of the two, as here.”
    â€œYou hadn’t got to the third category, you say, Colin?”
    â€œNot yet.”
    â€œA bit more came out later on, about the nanny. She was Australian, by the way.”
    â€œYes—one paper picked that up in the piles I have read.”
    â€œA graduate—Sydney University. She and the Revills went around to plays, opera, and so on.”
    â€œWas that in the early days, before Lord John seduced her, or vice versa?”
    â€œWhat an old-fashioned word! You have no evidence who seduced who, or if anything that could be called a seduction took place. It was probably mutual attraction and shared enthusiasm. I don’t think it was only before the affair began. There’s mention in one of the gossip columns of their having been seen at Turandot, and Chips with Everything and All’s Well as a threesome. That was in the month leading up to the murder.”
    â€œCould still be before the affair began, or before it was found out by the wife. . . . Presumably someone baby-sat the children.”
    â€œWhat do you mean? Someone who could have known or got to know what was going on? It could be the housekeeper. She’s another shadowy figure.”
    â€œYes, she is,” I agreed. “So, with the nanny, it wasn’t just a matter of having a typical upper-class servant. The formidable dragon, passed on from one aristocratic family to another. It was more in the nature of an au-pair arrangement, with her doing the cultural sights in return for housework and child-minding.”
    â€œThat’s right. Lucy Mariotti was her name—christened, presumably Lucia. English graduate, but no English relatives to gethospitality from when she came over to do the cultural scene. There was a big Italian migration to Australia just after the war. In fact the Mafia took over a lot of the markets and raised the crime profile no end. Not that that’s relevant in this case. As far as the reports went there was nothing to suggest that her background was anything other than respectable.”
    â€œDid the Revills advertise for a nanny in Australia?”
    â€œNo, in The Times. She was already over here, and replied.”
    â€œWell, that starts filling in the picture . . .” I cast my mind back, lighting up a cigarette to Susan’s predictable annoyance. I went over and puffed smoke out of the open window. “What were you looking so pleased about when you came back?”
    She smiled her slow smile.
    â€œI’d been lunching with someone who’s doing a thesis on the color supplements.”
    Oddly enough I felt a sudden spurt of joy: she hadn’t been lunching with a boyfriend. Oddly, and stupidly, too—because she could have been doing that on any or every of the four hundred or so days since we had split up. I tried to keep my voice low and natural when I spoke, though I guessed she had observed my reaction. Susan was a first-rate observer.
    â€œWhat a very silly thing to do a thesis on.”
    â€œNot at all. The color supplements have molded middleclass tastes in the last thirty or forty years. They say you ought to want it, and in no time at all you do. They also contain articles of general interest . . .”
    â€œSuch as the Revill affair.”
    â€œSuch as indeed. My informant came up with three, all in the last twenty years.”
    â€œâ€˜Where are they now?’ stuff?”
    â€œTo some extent. Pictures of the children grown up, but never anything more than that. Caroline and Matthew their names are.They’ve never cooperated with any of the muckrakers, or any of