Deirdre Collingwood had read Le Maistre’s delightful little book, Voyage Autour de Ma Chambre, at her finishing school and now she resolved to imitate the French author, and find occupation and amusement enough to take her mind off her worries over Charlie and Rupert and her other discoveries and all that had been happening. She intended doing this by making a mental inventory of every article of furniture she could see around her in her drawing room and by following it up with the associations, which a sofa, a chair, a chaise-longue, an occasional table or a lamp might have for her.
Only it didn’t quite work. She was in an anxious, unsettled state of mind and she found it hard to concentrate.
She had had dinner all by herself and she was now sipping black coffee out of one of her tiny fragile-looking Meissen cups extravagantly fashioned like seashells. She was also smoking a purple gold-tipped Sobranie. It was one of her very rare cigarettes. The cup was so tiny, the sip didn’t amount to more than a tongue-dip. Deirdre tried to amuse herself by pretending she was a cat but that didn’t cheer her up much either.
She was sitting on the exceedingly uncomfortable Empire sofa upholstered in maroon and silver, which had once been at Collingwood. The sofa was uncompromisingly hard. She might have been sitting on a wooden bench – or on two planks put together. Well, sometimes Deirdre wanted to be uncomfortable. It helped her to concentrate. The Buhl desk in the corner, on the other hand, was an object of exquisite beauty. It sported some unusual red tortoiseshell decorations on its lid.
Thank God for Hugh Payne! Hugh Payne had been able to locate Charlie. Charlie had since called her and reassured her that all was well. There had been a mistake, a misunderstanding, which was a relief. She wondered whether to ring Bedaux. She craved a chat with Bedaux. Bedaux understood her. There was a special kind of rapport between them, one of those mysterious bonds that were impossible to explain in a rational manner.
She took another tiny sip of coffee. ‘Meow,’ she said. Perhaps one day Bedaux would help her get rid of Rupert?
She had a headache. She should bathe her temples with eau de cologne. And then – an Aconite? Yes. It would be bliss. She was unhappy, oh so terribly unhappy!
As she heard the clock strike ten, her thoughts strayed back to the morning and the discovery she had made.
She had gone up to Rupert’s study and rifled Rupert’s desk. She wasn’t sure what she had hoped to find but she had been convinced that there would be something. She had always wondered if the theft of the Reynolds and the Vlaminck from Collingwood the year before hadn’t been staged by Rupert and his mother, so that they could claim the insurance, which they had done … Or perhaps there would be love letters …
Well, she found a letter, not exactly a love letter, and it was linked to the draft of a brand new will. The two were together, inside a slim black folder.
The letter was from Ada de Ravigny, with whom, some twenty-five years ago, Rupert had had an affair. Well, that didn’t come as a particular surprise. Rupert had never denied the affair. It was an exceedingly short letter, no more than a few lines. The date at the top indicated it had been written a couple of months ago, back in May. Ada informed Rupert that she was dying – and she wanted to tell Rupert something which he needed to know –
Simona snapped her fingers in Mr X’s face and laughed when he blinked, but then she became serious again.
‘I want to see where my friend is, Grandpa, I am very worried, can’t you see I am worried? Are you so insensitive? Can’t you wait a little? Are you a child?’
‘I want us to start. Please.’
‘Are you a child? No, you are not. Of course you are not.’ She spoke with contempt. ‘You are an old man. You are a very old man.’
‘I am not that old.’
‘You are very old. You are seventy-two and two months. I saw your passport. That’s very old. In my country that is very old. So you need to be patient.’
‘At my time of life being patient is a luxury I can ill afford. I endeavour to live every moment as though it were my last.’ Mr X stood in his perfectly tailored suit, his silk handkerchief peeping out of his breast pocket, looking piteously at her, the ivory brush held aloft in his hand.
‘Don’t quote the Bible to me! I don’t like the Bible. Religion is the opium of the people, that is what my grandparents were taught at school and I believe that. Shush. I don’t want to know. I am not interested. I don’t want you to speak. I’ve got a headache.’ Simona took out her mobile. ‘I am worried about my friend.’
‘Is that Inga?’
‘Inge,’ Simona corrected him contemptuously. ‘Inge. Is it so difficult to remember a name? You are an educated man. You had the best education money can buy. You told me so yourself. Your parents spent thousands and thousands on your education.’
‘I have problems with my memory,’ Mr X said.
‘It’s because you are old, that’s why. Of course you have problems with your memory. Your brain is melting. I don’t want you to speak now. No, don’t say a word.’ She held the mobile phone to her ear. ‘Come on, where are you?’ Simona muttered.
‘Why do you have to talk to your friend now?’ Mr X asked.
‘Because I want to.’ It wasn’t like Inge to vanish like that without getting in touch for – what was it? Five hours? Six?
Simona hoped nothing had happened to Inge. In a job like theirs one met all kinds of problems, all kinds of men. Simona remembered something Inge had told her. Inge had been visited by a woman some time ago. A young woman, Inge said. English. Very polite, very well dressed. The woman had asked her questions about the job they did. What they called ‘escort’. Not about the catering. The woman had assured Inge that her name wouldn’t appear anywhere. It was some kind of anonymous survey. The woman had paid Inge to talk and Inge had talked. Inge was a fool. Mr Bedaux wouldn’t like it if he knew …
Where was Inge?
The idea that the dead girl might not actually be Olga occurred to Fenella Frayle at about ten-fifteen in the evening and it pushed the nightmare into a completely new dimension. She had never had the chance to look at the girl’s face. It was the conjunction of the blonde hair and the open front door that had made her believe the girl was Olga …
She had got up and picked up the brandy. She was now on her second glass. She didn’t feel calmer, exactly, rather she felt resigned.
If the dead girl wasn’t Olga, Fenella reasoned, that meant she hadn’t really carried out her part of the deal, so she couldn’t possibly expect Charles Eresby to go and kill Aunt Clo-Clo in return, could she?
But who was the girl if not Olga? What other blonde would have been standing outside Olga’s house?
Billy Selkirk was not at all sure he wanted to marry Joan Selwyn. He doubted whether he loved Joan Selwyn, though he was certainly fond of her. Well, to love was to invent. Love filled the imagination before taking possession of the heart. Would love ever take possession of his heart, where Joan was concerned?
As it happened, it was Mortimer whom Billy loved passionately and unconditionally. His life, he had decided, had no meaning unless lived alongside Mortimer.
Well, discretion would be the name of the game. After he and Joan were married, he and Mortimer could carry on seeing each other in a seemingly casual manner, though with clockwork regularity. There wouldn’t be any slackening. After all, they had been together since Haileybury. Billy firmly believed Joan could be made to slip into the equation somehow. (He was a bit vague on that point.) He thought that things could be made to work somehow. He was an optimist – though he wished Mortimer wasn’t so hideously jealous and possessive. Mortimer would never admit to it, but he was. Sometimes Mortimer was a little bit too temperamental for his own good, though you wouldn’t think it looking at him. He had said he would kill Joan. He said he would slit her throat. He didn’t mean it of course. At least Billy didn’t think so.
Billy smiled at the memory of one of Mortimer’s rare outbursts. Mortimer had gesticulated and shouted. He had made himself sound like a Corsican or something, though anyone looking less like a Corsican Billy could not imagine. For one thing, Mortimer was awfully keen on laws and rules and such-like, which Billy believed to be completely alien to the Corsican nature. (Mortimer’s latest invention was a punishment called the Cupboard and Its Perfumed Depths, at the thought of which Billy gave a little shudder.) Then there was the fact that Mortimer was fair-haired while the whole world knew that all Corsicans were dark.
Billy glanced at his watch. He was sitting at a table at Porters in Covent Garden, waiting for Joan to turn up and secretly hoping she wouldn’t. She was often critical and disapproving, a little too severe for his liking.
She was already ten minutes late, which wasn’t like her at all. She hadn’t phoned him, so he didn’t know where she was or what had happened. He hadn’t tried to call her either, though he had rung Mortimer and explained the situation. Mortimer had laughed and said that was what one should expect when one went out with girls. ‘We are going to Gstaad for Christmas, Selkirk!’ – this, despite the fact Billy had made it absolutely clear to him that he and Joan would be doing something completely different at Christmas …
It suddenly came to Billy that the reason Joan couldn’t phone him was because she had left her mobile at his flat the day before. He remembered now. He had been meaning to let her know but hadn’t had a chance yet. Some people had a second mobile, but Joan didn’t seem to. Not even her worst enemies could have accused Joan of extravagance or profligacy.
For some reason Billy had the uneasy feeling that Joan’s lateness might have something to do with Mortimer. The last time he had seen Mortimer, which was six and a half hours ago, Mortimer’s fair hair had been at its sleekest, his face alight with mischief. Mortimer had teased him that it would be silly for a Selkirk to marry a Selwyn – Wilt thou, Selkirk, take this Selwyn – it sounded, well, wrong.
Mortimer didn’t like Joan. He was always terribly polite to her, he jumped to his feet the moment she entered the room and so on, but once or twice Billy had caught him gazing at her in a speculative kind of way. As though – what? He wasn’t sure, but it had made him uneasy.
Gstaad for Christmas, eh? He was certain it was the kind of place he would enjoy. Skiing and drinking punch in front of cosy fires and so on. He looked at his watch. Could Joan still be with Lord Collingwood? She had told him she was going to see Lord Collingwood, but that was in the morning, wasn’t it? Joan and Lord Collingwood seemed to be on extremely friendly terms, of which Billy approved. He thought that Lord Collingwood might be a useful contact for him to have one day. Mortimer, who knew Lord Collingwood, said Lord Collingwood was as mad as a hatter – or was it Lady Collingwood who was as mad as a hatter? Billy remembered Joan telling him some rigmarole about some mysterious friend of Lord Collingwood’s – now, what was that about?
Billy reached out for the bottle of wine and poured himself a second glass. It was getting terribly late. Something told him Joan wouldn’t be coming. He felt himself relaxing. His spirits soared. She cometh not! He held up his glass and drank a toast to it, then he took out his mobile and gave Mortimer a ring.
Olga led the way across the hall to what looked like the door to a broom cupboard, which she opened and then moved to the left without looking at what lay inside.
Payne said sharply, ‘Is there a light?’
Again without looking, Olga reached out and flicked a switch.
Our fingerprints are everywhere now, Antonia thought in mild panic. This is all most irregular. What would the police say?
The body had been placed on a piece of tarpaulin, face up. It was the body of a young woman with blond hair. The eyes were open and they stared back at them.
Not a natural blonde. The hair’s roots were dark, Antonia observed.
‘Who is she?’ Major Payne asked. He turned round and glanced across the hall. Charlie remained silent. He hadn’t joined them; he was leaning against the wall, his head bowed.
It was Olga who told them. ‘This is Charlie’s ex-girlfriend. Her name is Joan Selwyn.’