CE20_p90_p91_Sketch Diary 7/8/2009 11:10 Page 2
will, but in his soul he remains a Their boss was eventually found floating
newspaperman; Fleet Street hack, as in the Mediterranean. His hair had
he is the first to admit. turned bright red. Maxwell’s real name
He spoke of his part – brief as it was Koch. Another thing I learned; he
was - in the Lord Lucan mystery. tried an assortment of identities, the most
Lucan, a Mayfair gambler, ridiculous being du Maurier. He had
disappeared in 1974 after his nanny, grabbed that, in the war, from a packet of
Sandra Rivett, was found bludgeoned cigarettes.
to death in their dining room. Fleet I asked Johnny about the celebrities
Street searched the world for the he’d met. He reported, “I sat next to Joan
missing peer. The mystery remains. Collins once – hadn’t the faintest idea
“I’d been at a bar on the remote who she was - and asked her what she did
Caribbean Island of Becqui and was for a living – some reporter, eh? To be
sure the barefoot man drinking fair to me that was before Dynasty and
alongside me was Lord Lucan. The ‘the bitch in big shoulders.’
fellow left, climbed into a dinghy,
rowed to a moored yacht and sailed
It was time to say goodbye.
away.
I picked the chap’s glass up with a
napkin and hid it in a bush to retrieve
I peered into the comfort of the house,
later. I had to fly to Barbados, then to
past the sofas, pot plants and book-lined
Miami and on to New York before
walls, to the impressive paintings and to
returning home. The glass remained
the huge digital screen on which tennis
carefully wrapped in the napkin in my
gladiators grunted in combat.
baggage. Back home the story got out
about my ‘discovery’ - how I’d rushed England!
home after work only to find that
someone had ‘helpfully’ washed up
Yes, Johnny’s a lovely man. And he
the glass. Didn’t happen.
surely has a discerning eye. (.org)
The truth of the matter was less
We’ll be hearing more of him.
funny. The police didn’t have Lucan’s
fingerprints in their data bank and my
‘discovery’ – even though it may well
have been the Lucan glass - was all in
vain!”
The garden was simply
terraced, separated with
lime-stone walls and
paving and filled to capacity
with clipped box hedges,
elegant topiary and a tumble
of lavender, thyme and herbs.
Silky grass tails trembled in the
day’s gentle breath.
“Smile,” we’d commanded as
we pointed our camera at
Johnny posing in his back
garden.
“I don’t smile,’ growled John.
“I’m a serious art dealer. Open
by Christmas! Got that down
Jacquie?”
He smiles a lot
Lunch was presented on the patio;
the difinitive Middle England Sabbath
actually. Laughs a lot too.
banquet. Guests helped. One chap,
waving a sharp knife in the sunlight as
Johnny has an eclectic mix of friends.
he excitedly told of his week’s
One whispered that attending a lunch
adventures, attended to a hunk of
party at the Penrrose home is always a
beef, a choice filet de beouf quivering
hoot. I wondered about the guest list. I
in an elegant pool of blood.
was the only one without a double
The arrangement of wooden
barrelled name. Deprived at birth.
furniture; sun-loungers, armchairs and
At a previous Penrose lunch party I
benches would have embarrassed
attended the table had been hugged by
Harrod’s Patio Hall.
an energy of journalists; editors,
columnists, critics. The topic of Robert
Maxwell again. They all worked for him.
Inspiring life in the Cotswolds 91
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