Minerva Ch. 08 of 10

Helen gave the young woman a look that I couldn't decipher, and then grinned at me and winked. Before leading the way -- via the hall's service (read servant) passageways -- out to the carriage house, where the Rolls was already waiting.

Helen got into the Rolls with the young woman, Bernie and myself; the others got into John Carpenter's Range Rover.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

Helen gave me what I can only describe as a "Don't ask!" look, and then went on to say that there was a certain lady who wished to meet the young woman. Then she asked the impostor what her name was.

The young woman who for some reason I couldn't understand at the time was crouched forward in her seat, replied "Min... Sarah."

A little more prompting from Helen clarified her name further as Sarah Jessup.

"Christ, that's better, those things are nearly as bad as those damned built-up shoes!" Sarah added, finally sitting up properly again, and displaying a pair of coloured contact lenses lying in her palm for our inspection.

"That might go some way, to explaining the eyes." I mused.

"Sorry Gilroy?" Helen asked.

"Sarah's eyes looked too damned sad for Kylie. Probably because they were uncomfortable... but at the time... well, I thought maybe..."

"I think I understand Gilroy." Helen smiled back at me. "Now about this clinic Sarah?"

It was a futile question because Sarah did not know anything about the clinic. She was only aware that Burgess had mentioned the clinic to Fabian's father, some weeks before. The two men had rapidly changed their subject of conversation when she'd entered the room. Sarah had just assumed that Minerva was being treated there. Actually Sarah said... or claimed that originally she'd been engaged to impersonate Minerva only until she had recovered from her breakdown.

Helen Carpenter went quiet after that and asked Sarah no more questions during the journey. I thought I should ask some myself, but to be honest, I couldn't think of anything to ask her.

It didn't take long before the Rolls came to a halt outside the mansion I'd met Lady Tanya Simpson in, the previous day. There was no protracted journey to hide our destination that time.

We piled out of the Rolls and were joined by John Carpenter and Ronny Mackintosh again, then we were quickly shown into the drawing room where Lady Tanya was waiting.

"You did well JG, she certainly looks like Minerva. Maybe a little on the short side!"

Sarah surprised me by holding up her pair of built up shoes for Lady Tanya to see.

"Oh I see. I should imagine that they are uncomfortable to wear, young lady."

"Crippling." Sarah replied casually; remarkably casually I thought.

You know, I really do believe that girl was pleased... well relieved at least, that it was all over and she didn't have to pretend to be Minerva anymore.

"Come closer girl, let me have a good look at you?"

"Sarah Jessup, milady." Helen said, by way of introduction as Sarah having stepped closer to Lady Tanya, shook me by curtsying and bowing her head, very formally.

Behaving as if the rest of us weren't there Lady Tanya, looked Sarah over very... carefully. Making a couple of little critical (and personal) comments about the differences between her and Minerva. I can't be sure but possibly to infer that she would have spotted the ruse instantly. Sarah just smiled, slightly embarrassed by the remarks I believe.

Then Tanya looked over at the rest of us.

"Thank you Helen. Now I would like to have a few moments alone with Sarah, if you please."

"Lady Tanya..." Mackintosh went to object.

On security grounds if nothing else, I suspected. But Lady Tanya flatly ignored him.

"JG, you may stay, if you please." It wasn't an invitation; it was a polite request I believe. "I'm sure JG can handle anything that... goes down, Ronald!"

The old lady winked at me, and then at Sarah.

"Now please leave us alone the rest of you, and ask them to bring some tea in if you will. Tea is always good in these situations."

Surrendering the fight, the other three quietly left the room.

Lady Tanya wordlessly directed Sarah to the inquisition chair, I'd occupied the previous day; and equally by gesture, requested that I take another seat and remain silent.

Lady Tanya certainly had a strange way of communicating her wishes sometimes; perhaps it was because she was so used to being waited on hand-and-foot. A cursory wave of the hand, and you somehow knew, what she required of you.

Strangely -- I thought at first -- she didn't dive in and start questioning Sarah. For a short while Lady Tanya, made insignificant conversation about the weather with her. It took me a moment or two to realise that Lady Tanya, was putting the girl at her ease, or attempting too anyway. Then skilfully she steered the conversation around to Sarah's childhood, general health, education and younger life, eventually leading up to the circumstance of her impersonation of Minerva.

It was a rather long and protracted conversation; I won't bother boring you with the details about all that, because it's pretty unimportant to anyone except Sarah. However I must add that Lady Tanya's questioning was very cleverly done. Not the bull-in-the-china-shop approach I would probably have taken. I'm sure we learnt more than my questioning would have achieved, in a million years.

And so did the Carpenter's and Ronald Mackintosh. I discovered later that the room was wired and they had listened in.

Eventually Lady Tanya brought the interview to an end, with the words.

"Now Sarah, Mr Mackintosh is my legal representative on this earth... and as of this moment, he is going to be yours as well, aren't you Ronald?"

That statement brought Mackintosh, the Carpenter's and Bernie back into the room, post-haste. And that of course, was when I realised that the room had to be wired.

Lady Tanya then went on to repeat to Sarah that she would be 'well served' to be scrupulously open and honest with Ronny and the Carpenter's. But cautioned her that later, when the police questioned her, she was only to answer any questions that they asked her, under Ronny's close guidance.

"Poor girl, I'm sure she's just a pawn in this game. She does remind me of Minerva though, I'd hate to see her waste her young life, locked up in jail." Lady Tanya commented to the Carpenter's and I, after Ronny and Sarah left, to go to the local police station.

"I've already got my people looking into this clinic connection." John Carpenter informed us, but then went on to say that he feared it could take some time to discover were it was, and if Minerva was... well being unnecessarily held against her will, there. Lady Tanya commented that we needed to locate the place first; we could worry about the latter later.

After that there was a rather strange interlude, where the four of us sat around drinking tea by the bucketful. Actually that's a bit of a misnomer, because Lady T's cups could never be described as buckets. But numerous fresh pots of tea kept arriving.

John Carpenter received several telephone calls, mostly from his... operatives I suppose you'd call them, reporting in.

He informed us that Fabian had been detained by the police, but that Burgess had... well he'd pulled a fast one and legged it.

Somehow he must have got wind of what had happened. Shortly after they'd returned from the shoot, while Fabian was still looking for Sarah, Burgess had quietly slipped away; actually last seen heading in the general direction of the coach-house where all the vehicles were parked.

Shortly after that, his car had raced down the drive at high speed, running down a police officer and a couple of John Carpenter's crew in the process who had attempted to stop it. It then had managed to negotiate the main gate and get out onto the road. Where it was pursued by a couple police cars, that were supposed to have been blocking the end of the drive.

Burgess's car only got a mile or so before crashed into a hedge and overturned. But then the police discovered that Burgess had not been behind the wheel or even in the vehicle; the driver turned out to be one of his employees.

But unfortunately, the diversion had done its job. While everyone had been concentrating on that ruddy fleeing car, and the injured, Burgess had managed to vanish into thin air. Although I would have though that an impossible task, what with all those security guys kicking around!

John informed us that a cordon had been thrown around the mansion, and its grounds were being extensively searched for any sign of the man.

The next few hours were more than a little fraught for everyone. Lady Tanya handled it, by giving me a long and detailed dissertation on her life, and then another about Minerva's life as a child.

John Carpenter managed to extract himself quite early, by saying that he was going off to join the hunt for William Burgess.

That left Helen, Bernie and me to... well, placate, or reassure, the obviously worried Lady Tanya.

Bit of a turn around really, I'd been the one who had been worried on our previous meeting. I think that my discovery that the Minerva who had arrived back in the UK, was in fact an impostor. Had Tanya's mind -- not daring to ask out loud -- that same question that had been bugging me and most probably everyone else as well.

"Was Minerva actually still alive?"

On a lighter note, I learnt that had Lady T was disappointed to have lost-out on her big thespian moment. I gathered that she'd been looking forward to doing a 'rising from the dead' act out of her coffin, on the morning of her supposed funeral. My spotting that Sarah Jessup was an impostor, had kinda put the kibosh on that little plan.

Mind you, I think Helen was pleased that it had been me who dropped the spanner in the works and not one of John's and her employees.

John Carpenter had not returned before we all went to bed that night. My gear was of course still at Lady Tanya's stately home, but there was no way that I was going back there in a hurry. Well not until they'd located and arrested William Burgess -- and all of his cronies - anyway.

I should imagine that other people were worried about him as well, because some of Lady T's 'close security' guys searched the house very thoroughly before we all retired for the night.

The following morning John Carpenter did turn-up while we were at breakfast. Looking pretty worn-out -- from lack of sleep -- he informed us that it looked like William Burgess had got clean away from Tarrent Hall during the night.

An unconscious police officer -- with serious head injuries and minus most of his uniform -- had been found in the grounds during the night. Police officers from all over the county had been coming and going all night as well. Eventually -- after Tarrent Hall and all it's associated buildings and grounds, had been searched several times -- it was conceded that Burgess must have got through the cordon placed around the place, wearing the officer's clothing.

However, almost all of Burgess's staff and business associates had been detained by the police, either at Tarrent Hall or at the hotel where he'd been residing. The problem was, there were so many of them and the police had to question them all. Extra CID officers had being called in from far and wide to help, according to John.

Unfortunately the police would not let John Carpenter or any of his guys near the detained... suspects. Although from what John said, I gathered that Ronnie Mackintosh was getting a little more cooperation from the police than he was.

Maybe the police were embarrassed that they'd insisted that only their own officers and not John's men manned the outer containment cordon. John's guys had been set to work searching the grounds instead; camouflaged as some of them were, we'd have thought they'd have been the obvious choice for... yeah well, no point crying over spilt milk, or laying the blame, is there?

End of Chapter eight