Major Payne lowered the book. ‘Nobody’s ever drunk, they are “inebriated”. Nobody hurries, they “hasten”. And flowers are invariably “bedecked”. It is all unbearably sycophantically courteous. It might have been written by a courtier.’
‘Wasn’t Shawcross a courtier?’
‘I don’t think so. He’s a journalist.’
‘I bet her gowns and hats and boas are described in vivid detail?’ Antonia smiled.
‘Yes, they are. In vivid vacuous detail …’ Payne opened the hefty tome at random. ‘Listen to this. “Cream chiffon moiré with appliqué bars of silver lame … Ivory georgette, heavily beaded … Japonica-pink velvet …” It’s strictly for readers that are secretly drawn to sartorial orgies … This seems less a biography of a person than a swatch of high-end dress fabric!’
‘No satirical edges?’
‘None whatsoever. All deadly serious, solemn, bland and adulatory.’
‘She lived to be a hundred and one. How could anyone write about her without a satirical edge?’
‘That’s what I keep asking myself.’
‘Doesn’t one get to know what she was like? I mean – really like?’
‘Well, no. I don’t think so. I was particularly curious to find out what it was that made Hitler call her the “most dangerous woman in Europe”, also more details of her treatment of Diana, but there is nothing about any of that. What one gets instead is the highly dramatic account of how, on one memorable occasion, she almost walks into a diplomatic reception wearing the légion d’honneur on the wrong shoulder.’
‘Wow,’ Antonia said.
‘The key word, please note, is “almost”. There are lots of opportunities for high comedy, but they have been missed.’
‘It’s such a big book.’
‘Yes! More than a thousand pages.’
‘I suppose we could employ it as a rather unusual doorstop?’ Antonia suggested.
‘Not a bad idea!’
The phone rang and Payne picked it up.
It was a woman’s voice that he didn’t recognise.
‘Hallo – is that Hugh Payne?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Oh hallo, Hugh. It’s Deirdre Collingwood speaking. Hope you remember me? We met at a party at the Peruvian embassy some time ago, last February, I think.’
‘Of course I remember you. Those grisly canapés!’
‘They were rather awful, weren’t they?’
‘What a remarkable coincidence.’ Payne grimaced at Antonia. ‘My wife and I were just talking about diplomatic receptions.’
‘It was Rupert who gave me your number,’ Lady Collingwood explained. ‘I do hope you don’t mind terribly. I am at my wits’ end. Rupert was against my calling you. He said I couldn’t possibly bother you about it, that it wasn’t the done thing, that I should call the police –’
‘What’s happened?’ Payne asked.
‘Charlie isn’t answering his phone. I don’t know where he is. He answered his phone just once. The first time. That’s when he told me about Olga. I have no idea where he is or who he is with. He was in a car – I could tell by the noise. I don’t want to call the police, not yet. I am afraid Charlie would be furious if I did. Rupert is not much help. He is in one of his moods. He’s gone to his study now. Rupert’s study is – well, inviolable. I simply don’t know what to do. Could Charlie have been kidnapped, do you think?’
‘What makes you think so?’
‘I am perfectly aware that this is a terrible imposition, Hugh, but I was wondering whether I could ask you for help. Rupert said you knew all about this girl Olga Klimt. I understand he told you the whole story.’
‘He told me about Olga, yes.’ Payne cast another glance at Antonia. ‘What happened exactly?’
‘To be perfectly honest,’ Lady Collingwood said, ‘I couldn’t care less whether Olga is dead or alive. It’s an awful thing to say, but I am mainly concerned about Charlie’s safety and state of mind. He should never have got involved with that girl, never, but you know what young men are. I called Charlie about half an hour ago. He was in a dreadful state. He was sobbing. I have no idea where he is at this very moment. All he said was that Olga was dead.’
‘Is that all he said?’
‘Yes. Olga is dead.’
Payne asked her a couple more questions. He reached out for the pad and pen they kept on the telephone table and made some notes. Eventually he rang off. He looked at his watch. ‘That was Deirdre, Lady Collingwood.’
‘So I gathered.’ Antonia rose slowly from the sofa. ‘Something’s happened to Olga Klimt, hasn’t it?’
‘Olga Klimt is dead. Deirdre doesn’t know any details. She has no idea how accurate the information is. She phoned her son earlier tonight. All he said was, “Olga’s dead”. Then he rang off. She hasn’t been able to contact him since.’
‘What does she expect you to do?’
‘She wants me to track him down.’
‘She should have called the police.’
‘She doesn’t want to call the police because she is afraid it may infuriate Charlie.’
‘What has Lord Collingwood got to say about it?’
‘He appears to be incommunicado. He has shut himself in his study.’ Payne looked down at the pad. ‘Deirdre rang the clinic where Charlie’s been staying – place in Bayswater – but was told that, following a phone call, Charlie left – he was seen running out of the building – then the porter saw him get into a cab. He was wearing his dressing gown and slippers. He appeared to be crying.’
‘We could assume that the phone call he received was something to do with Olga. Someone told him that Olga was dead,’ Antonia went on thoughtfully. ‘It was either the person who stumbled across her body or else the killer announcing their deed to Charlie.’
‘Why should the killer want to declare their deed?’
‘I don’t know … Oh.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘No, nothing.’
But there was something. Something impossibly silly and irrelevant. She had remembered Eddy chanting, Aunt Clo-Clo must die. Aunt Clo-Clo must die. It had happened that day at the Sylvie & Bruno Nursery School. When she had asked Eddy who Aunt Clo-Clo was, he said he didn’t know, but he had seen it written on a sheet of paper on Miss Frayle’s desk. The sentence had been written at least ten times, he had counted them! He had sworn he wasn’t lying.
Well, Antonia did remember him going up to the desk after Miss Frayle had left to attend to the man who had fainted and been brought into her nursery school. That man was Charles Eresby.
As it happened, it wasn’t Aunt Clo-Clo who was dead but Olga Klimt. Could there be a connection? Did Fenella Frayle have an aunt called Clo-Clo? Did she wish her dead? Antonia then remembered that Fenella Frayle had struck her as preoccupied when she and Eddy were first ushered into her office that morning … No, nonsense … Miss Frayle couldn’t have anything to do with Olga Klimt’s death!
Payne was talking, ‘Charlie may be anywhere at the moment, but we might as well start by visiting Olga’s little house in Fulham. It is called Philomel Cottage. Collingwood told me the address. It’s in Ruby Road … We’ve got the satnav, so we’ll get there in no time … Perhaps that’s where the body was found … Though it may be somewhere else … What do you say?’
‘Do we need to get involved in this?’
‘We most certainly do. I have been thinking of little else since Collingwood told me the Olga Klimt story. Things have now come to a head …’ He started patting his pockets. ‘Car keys?’
Antonia sighed. ‘I’ve got them.’
‘Allons-y! Cometh the hour, cometh the man. And the woman.’
‘She should call the police … There are better things we could do with our lives, Hugh.’
‘I am sure there are, my love, though not perhaps at this particular moment in time. We expected Olga Klimt to be killed and she was killed. How could we not get involved?’
In the car Antonia said, ‘She may have died a natural death. Sorry to be a wet blanket, but we shouldn’t immediately assume that she’s been killed. Or she may have died in an accident. Or she may have committed suicide.’