Best Kept Secret Read online

  She went down to the kitchen to see if Mrs Tibbet was feeling poorly, but there was no sign of her. Janice wondered where she could possibly be.

  Mrs Tibbet was in fact on a No. 148 bus heading down Whitehall. She still didn’t know if she could go through with it. Even if he did agree to see her, what would she say to him? After all, what business was it of hers? She became so preoccupied that the bus had crossed Westminster Bridge before she got off. She took her time walking back across the Thames, and not because, like the tourists, she was admiring the views up and down the river.

  She changed her mind several times before she reached Parliament Square, where her pace became slower and slower until she finally came to a halt outside the entrance to the House of Commons, when, like Lot’s wife, she turned to salt.

  The senior doorkeeper, used to dealing with people who were overawed by their first visit to the Palace of Westminster, smiled at the frozen statue and asked, ‘May I help, madam?’

  ‘Is this where I come to see an MP?’

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Mrs Tibbet, hoping she would be turned away.

  ‘Don’t worry, not many people do. You’ll just have to hope he’s in the House, and free to see you. If you’d like to join the queue, one of my colleagues will assist you.’

  Mrs Tibbet walked up the steps, past Westminster Hall, and joined a long, silent queue. By the time she reached the front over an hour later, she remembered she hadn’t told Janice where she was going.

  She was escorted into the Central Lobby, where an official ushered her across to the reception desk.

  ‘Good afternoon, madam,’ said the duty clerk. ‘Which Member were you hoping to see?’

  ‘Sir Giles Barrington.’

  ‘Are you a constituent of his, madam?’

  Another chance to escape, was her first thought. ‘No. I need to speak to him concerning a personal matter.’

  ‘I understand,’ said the clerk, as if nothing would surprise him. ‘If you’ll give me your name, I’ll fill in a visitor’s card.’

  ‘Mrs Florence Tibbet.’

  ‘And your address?’

  ‘Thirty-seven Praed Street, Paddington.’

  ‘And what is it you wish to discuss with Sir Giles?’

  ‘It’s about his nephew, Sebastian Clifton.’

  The clerk completed the card and handed it to a badge messenger.

  ‘How long will I have to wait?’ she asked.

  ‘Members usually respond fairly quickly if they’re in the House. But perhaps you’d like to have a seat while you’re waiting,’ he said, pointing to the green benches that circled the walls of Central Lobby.

  The badge messenger marched down the long corridor to the Lower House. When he entered the members’ lobby he handed the card to one of his colleagues, who in turn took it into the chamber. The house was packed with members who had come to hear Peter Thorneycroft, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announce that petrol rationing would be lifted following the end of the Suez Crisis.

  The messenger spotted Sir Giles Barrington seated in his usual place and handed the card to a member at the end of the third row, from where it began its slow progress along the packed bench, each member checking the name and then passing it down the line, until it finally reached Sir Giles.

  The Member for Bristol Docklands stuffed the card in a pocket as he leapt to his feet the moment the foreign secretary had dealt with the previous question, in the hope of catching the speaker’s eye.

  ‘Sir Giles Barrington,’ called the speaker.

  ‘Can the foreign secretary tell the House how the president’s announcement will affect British industry, in particular those of our citizens who work in the defence field?’

  Mr Selwyn Lloyd once again rose to his feet and, clutching the dispatch box, said, ‘I can tell the honourable and gallant gentleman that I am in constant touch with our ambassador in Washington, and he assures me . . .’

  By the time Mr Lloyd had answered the final question some forty minutes later, Giles had quite forgotten about his visitor’s card.

  It was about an hour later, when he was sitting in the tearoom with some colleagues, that he pulled out his wallet and the card fell to the floor. He picked it up and glanced at the name, but couldn’t place a Mrs Tibbet. He turned it over and read the message, shot out of his seat, bolted out of the tearoom and didn’t stop running until he had reached Central Lobby, praying that she hadn’t given up on him. When he stopped at the duty clerk’s desk, he asked him to page a Mrs Tibbet.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sir Giles, but the lady left a few moments ago. Said she had to get back to work.’

  ‘Damn,’ said Giles, as he turned the card over and checked the address.

  32

  ‘PRAED STREET, PADDINGTON,’ said Giles as he climbed into a taxi outside the members’ entrance. ‘And I’m already late,’ he added, ‘so step on it.’

  ‘Wouldn’t want me to break the speed limit, would you, guv,’ said the cabbie as he drove out of the main gates and nosed his way into Parliament Square.

  Yes I would, Giles wanted to say, but he held his tongue. Once he learned Mrs Tibbet had left the Commons, he had rung his brother-in-law to tell him about the stranger’s cryptic message. Harry’s first reaction was to want to jump on the next train to London, but Giles advised him against it, in case it turned out to be a false alarm. In any case, Giles told him, it was just possible that Sebastian was on his way back to Bristol.

  Giles sat on the edge of his seat, willing every traffic light to turn green, and urging the driver to change lanes whenever he saw a chance to grab a few yards. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Harry and Emma must have been through during the past two days. Had they told Jessica? If so, she’d be sitting on the top step at the Manor House waiting anxiously for Sebastian to return.

  As the taxi pulled up outside No. 37, the cabbie couldn’t help wondering why a Member of Parliament could possibly be visiting a guest house in Paddington. But it was none of his business, especially as the gentleman gave him such a large tip.

  Giles leapt out of the taxi, ran to the door and hammered several times on the knocker. A few moments later, the door was opened by a young woman who said, ‘I’m sorry, sir, but the last room has been taken.’

  ‘I’m not looking for a room,’ Giles told her. ‘I was hoping to see –’ he glanced once again at the visitor’s card – ‘a Mrs Tibbet.’

  ‘Who shall I say wants to see her?’

  ‘Sir Giles Barrington.’

  ‘If you’ll just wait there, sir, I’ll let her know,’ she said before closing the door.

  Giles stood on the pavement, wondering if Sebastian had been just a hundred yards from Paddington Station the whole time. He only had to wait a couple of minutes before the door was flung open again.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Sir Giles,’ said Mrs Tibbet, sounding flustered. ‘Janice had no idea who you are. Please come through to the parlour.’

  Once Giles had settled into a comfortable high-backed chair, Mrs Tibbet offered him a cup of tea.

  ‘No, thank you,’ he said. ‘I’m anxious to find out if you have any news about Seb. His parents are worried out of their minds.’

  ‘Of course they are, poor things,’ said Mrs Tibbet. ‘I did tell him several times that he should get in touch with his mother, but—’

  ‘But?’ interrupted Giles.

  ‘It’s a long story, Sir Giles, but I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  Ten minutes later, Mrs Tibbet was telling him that the last time she’d seen Sebastian was when he left in a taxi to return to Eaton Square, and she hadn’t heard from him since.

  ‘So as far as you know, he’s staying with his friend Bruno Martinez at forty-four Eaton Square?’

  ‘That’s right, Sir Giles. But I did—’

  ‘I am greatly in your debt,’ said Giles, rising from his seat and taking out his wallet.

  ‘You owe me nothing, sir,