Read Online The Quality of Mercy by David Roberts - Free Book Online Page B

doctor who prescribed the ergot – Gray may have taken an overdose. Then he would have been ill – you get vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach cramps – but he might have thought he’d recovered. You start to feel better but later you can suffer kidney or liver failure and die. Oh, and too much ergot can give you hallucinations. ’
    ‘Before you die, presumably. Could it have been murder?’
    ‘Bloodthirsty little thing! It could have been but it’s much more likely to have been an accidental overdose.’
    ‘Has . . . what’s-his-name? . . . Gray, got any relatives?’
    ‘A niece, Adrian says. Apparently she was an orphan he took in when she was a baby.’ Edward saw Verity’s interest flag and hurried on. ‘And another thing – a beautiful film star asked me to save her from her husband.’
    Verity laughed. ‘Tell me another one!’
    ‘No, it’s true, honest Injun.’ He told her all about Joan Miller.
    ‘So what are you going to do?’
    ‘Don’t know yet. Nothing, probably. It’s not my business, though she is very beautiful,’ he teased, but Verity was too exhausted to rise.
    When the taxi drew up outside Cranmer Court, Verity was sleepy and rather drunk. He almost had to carry her up to her flat and had to dig around in her handbag to find the door key which was, as he put it to her later, in ‘deep litter’. He was taken aback by how bleak the place looked. Verity had never got round to hanging pictures on the walls. There was a layer of dust on the table and no milk in the refrigerator. He had been thinking of making a cup of tea to sober her up. She had all but collapsed on the sofa and he wondered if he dared leave her in her present state.
    He decided the best thing he could do was to put her to bed. He carried her into the bedroom, removed her shoes and stockings and then heaved off her dress. He looked at her with compassion. She seemed as vulnerable as a child and he wanted more than anything in the world to have the right to look after her. As he pulled the sheet over her, she half woke and to his alarm started weeping.
    ‘Don’t leave me, Edward,’ she muttered. ‘I’m so cold. Hold me.’ And she put out her arms to him.
    With a sigh, he took off his tie and dinner jacket, lay beside her and held her in his arms. Within a few moments, she began to breathe deeply and regularly. After half an hour he thought he would see if he could disentangle himself and sneak out without waking her but, when he tried to move her arms from round him, she stirred and burrowed her face in his chest. He resigned himself to an uncomfortable night. Her weight on his arms, light as she was, was giving him pins and needles. In the end he did sleep and, though he opened his eyes several times during the night, Verity was still in the deep, unfathomable sleep of the exhausted.
    The next morning Edward woke up early and lay beside Verity, not wanting to wake her, thinking about the tasks Liddell had set him. He had no idea how he was to get to meet ‘Putzi’ – Heinrich Braken – short of turning up at Claridge’s and asking to talk to him. Of the people Liddell had suggested might introduce him, he had met only Harold Nicolson and they had disliked each other on sight. Unity Mitford he had heard was mad and Randolph Churchill . . . well, much as Winston loved his son, Randolph had the alcoholic’s unpredictability and Edward knew enough about him not to want to get involved if he could possibly avoid it.
    In the end, as so often happens, there was no difficulty. He didn’t know whether they had been put up to it by Liddell or, more likely, Mountbatten, but he received an invitation from Joan Miller and her husband to dine at Claridge’s, where they also were staying, to meet Braken.
    Claridge’s was Edward’s favourite of the grand hotels. Charles Malandra, the king of maîtres d’hotel, was an old friend and he was warmly welcomed when he strode into the restaurant. The surroundings were austere but