Sobs racked his body and tears streamed down his face.
He sat in the back of a cab. He was wearing his silk pyjamas, monogrammed dressing gown and slippers. He didn’t really care if the driver saw his tears or not. He had rushed out of his room, unheeding of the alarmed noises Nanny Everett and the other nurse were making. He had expected some kind of opposition as he had run out of the main entrance, but no one had attempted to stop him.
Olga, Olga, Olga. He kept whispering her name.
His heart was beating violently. It’s my fault, he thought. I did order her killing. He’d remembered. It had all come back to him. He had been in a befuddled state when he made his proposition. He had been drunk. That awful sweet sherry! Like drinking liquid Demerara sugar! He had wanted Olga dead. It had been his idea. But who would have thought that that fat lump would take it seriously? He couldn’t even remember her name! He had sensed something in her, similar vibes, a similar aura, whatever it was. Perhaps would-be killers possessed some kind of radar?
Miss Frayle, that was her name. Yes. Miss Frayle had gone and killed Olga. She was mad, must be! I never meant it, he whispered. I never meant it. I was extremely upset – not myself! Please, Olga, forgive me!
It couldn’t have been a prank call, could it? No. Something about the caller’s voice had struck him as chillingly genuine. What was it? Controlled panic. Yes. Her voice had sounded harsh with suppressed hysteria …
Someone less like a hired assassin he could not imagine – Miss Frayle had oozed stolid common sense – but now she seemed to expect him to do her murder! She wanted him to kill her aunt. He remembered the aunt’s name because of its sheer absurdity – Aunt Cluck-Cluck – something like that.
He remembered his exact words. He had said he would kill the aunt – but Miss Frayle had to kill Olga first.
Oh Lord. Oh, Lord. He buried his face in his hands …
His mobile phone rang. Automatically he put it to his ear.
It was Mummy. He didn’t want to speak to Mummy. He sobbed.
‘Charlie? What’s the matter, darling?’ Deirdre Collingwood asked.
‘Olga – Olga is dead.’ At once he regretted saying it. No one should know Olga was dead! He turned off the phone.
It rang almost at once. His mother clearly wanted to know details. I am not answering, he thought.
‘My fault, my fault, my fault,’ he whispered. He hadn’t been himself. It was a misunderstanding. A terrible misunderstanding. People uttered the most appalling idiocies when they were drunk and upset. The fat nanny had deprived him of the one person he loved more than anything else in the world!
He tried to get a grip on himself. He blew his nose and dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief.
No – she couldn’t have killed Olga – impossible – Olga was not dead – Olga couldn’t be dead – things like that did not happen – strangers didn’t exchange murders – she could not be dead …
But she was.
The body lay across the threshold, half in, half out of the open front door. He had asked the taxi to stop at the end of the cul-de-sac and had got out and run the short distance to the house … Philomel Cottage … It was he who had bought it for her … He remembered how Olga had clapped her hands in delight when he explained that it meant nightingale …
Tears streamed down his face. He knelt beside the body – reached out and touched her hair – there was a dark patch on her back – it felt sticky –
Blood.
She must have been stabbed, though there was no sign of a knife. At least he couldn’t see a knife. Had Miss Frayle taken the knife with her?
He thought of going into the house and turning on the hall light, but decided against it. There was a full moon, bathing the ghastly scene in its silvery light and with every second he saw more – the dark stain on Olga’s back became darker – she was wearing a light-coloured coat –
He heard a scratching noise followed by faint mewing – something soft brushed against him – the kitten – the poor little kitten – it was he who had given it to her. He picked it up. The kitten licked his fingers. He put it inside his breast pocket. They had meant to give it a name but had never got around to it …
His nostrils caught the whiff of a perfume – Olga’s perfume?
No, it wasn’t. He was familiar with Olga’s perfume.
He had the uncanny feeling of being watched and turned abruptly.
He saw a silhouette – a man standing very still, very straight, only a couple of paces away, looking not at him, but at Olga’s body.
Charlie rose. The man’s figure was familiar – too familiar.
‘Bedaux?’
I keep my hands inside my pockets as Mr Eresby tells me that Olga is dead. I remain silent. I believe Mr Eresby is wearing one of his five dressing gowns: the dark blue one with the dove-grey lapels.
In my right hand I clutch at the length of rope I brought with me. I clutch at it as though my life depends on it. It occurs to me that I won’t need it now.
I am motionless, speechless, breathless. I am aware of my lips moving, articulating her name. Olga. Olga. I can’t tear my eyes from her body. I can’t see it very well from where I stand but I feel no desire to go anywhere near it.
This, I tell myself, is the end.
Suddenly the choking sensation in my throat lifts. Now I feel nothing.
Nothing at all.
‘She has been killed – I found her – she – she’s been stabbed!’ Mr Eresby stammers.
Without a single word I turn round and walk back towards the main road.
Charlie made no attempt to stop him. The last thing he felt like doing at this very moment was talk to Bedaux. Somehow he didn’t believe Bedaux would call the police. From what Olga had told him, Bedaux had too many skeletons in his cupboard to want to have to anything to do with the police.
The kitten in his pocket mewed again …
Some instinct of self-preservation then began to assert itself and Charlie emerged from his stupor. He rose.
The police. He must call the police. That was what any law-abiding citizen would do in the circumstances. He knew he would immediately become their prime suspect. Olga had been his girlfriend. He was the rich boyfriend. It was his house. They wouldn’t bother to look for anyone else –
But he had an alibi! He had been in bed at the clinic when he got the phone call. The murder had been committed by then – that could be proven quite easily – he would have to do a lot of explaining, though – he would have to tell them about the woman from the Sylvie & Bruno Nursery School and their conversation – how they’d exchanged murders – then the ball would be back in his court – oh God – what was he to do?
The nursery nut – that bloody Miss Frayle! He couldn’t very well tell the police it was her without implicating himself – would they believe him that he’d never meant her to kill Olga?
He sniffed the air – that perfume again! Where had he smelled it before?
There was something wrong, though he couldn’t say what it was. Well – everything was wrong! Things couldn’t be more wrong.
He couldn’t possibly go on standing there any longer, with the front door to Philomel Cottage gaping open and Olga’s bloodied corpse lying across the threshold …
The next moment his mobile rang again.
He stood staring down at the name displayed on the illuminated monitor in shocked disbelief.
Olga? Olga was ringing him …
No, it couldn’t be her. Olga?
Shivers ran down his spine and his hair stood on end, but then realisation dawned on him and his irrational horror turned to outrage.
It was Olga’s killer calling him. Miss Frayle had taken Olga’s mobile. It was Miss Frayle who was ringing him from Olga’s mobile phone.
And of course that was Miss Frayle’s perfume that hung round the body.