Troy

1

Brompton, London

February 23, 1950

Brompton Cemetery was full of dead toffs. Just now Troy was standing next to a live one—John Ernest Stanhope Fitzclarence Ormond-Brack, umpteenth Marquess of Fermanagh, eligible bachelor, man-abouttown, and total piss artist. They stood, as they had done this day every year since 1946, at the grave of Johnny’s elder sister, Lady Diana Brack. It was her birthday. Neither man was sure how old she would be turning until they read the dates on the stone. Forty. And they would forget again by the next time. Neither man had brought flowers.

A few years ago they had reached an unspoken agreement not to mention the fact that Troy had killed Diana. At about the same time, they had reached a spoken agreement to the effect that the previous umpteenth Marquess, Johnny’s father, had been, in the words of the incumbent, “an utter fucking gobshite.”

They stood a few moments in silence.

Johnny Fermanagh, like nature, abhorred a vacuum and usually filled a silence.

“Got time for a quick one, Freddie?”

“It’s nine o’clock in the morning.”

“Call it a nightcap then, almost my bedtime.”

“A copper’s working day, Johnny. I’m picking Jack Wildeve up at his flat in less than ten minutes.”

“Might one ask . . . a body?”

“A body on the beach, to be precise.”

“Really? The body on the beach? Sounds like a book by one of