4.Little Victim (3 page)

‘It’s been an hour. He said he’d be back in twenty minutes. It’s very cold outside. He’s weak as a kitten. Am I a fool to worry so much?’ Lucasta had a somewhat manic look about her. ‘What do you think?’

Iris blinked through her glasses. ‘You – you don’t mean we should go and
search
for him?’

‘Would you mind awfully?’

The idea of a ramble through the misty forest was far from inviting. ‘Of course I wouldn’t mind. Not a bit,’ Iris assured her.

She in fact felt the reluctance of a dog about to be led to its bath water.

3

Flowers for the Judge

My dear girl, Lord Justice Leighton whispered as he leant against the ancient oak tree and shut his eyes.
My dear
sweet gir
l. Just now I had the very strong feeling that you were here with me. This oak – do you remember?
Our
oak.

Of course you remember. It looks and feels exactly as it did twenty years ago. Gnarled and misshapen and bunioned and covered with patches of moss.

The same. Unchanged. How is it that
you
changed so much?

We used to walk in the woods, you and I. You were five or six at the time. The loveliest, cleverest little girl. You had such a winning way with you. If I forgot to take your hand you pushed it into mine. We always ended up beside the oak. It had become
our
oak. You kept asking for stories. You loved nothing better than a good story. Andersen, the Brothers Grimm. Andersen, in particular. Little Ida, Gerda, the Snow Queen! All a little too spooky, I thought, but then you were fond of Winnie-the-Pooh as well . . . Funny fellow, Milne. Wrote all those books for the parents, rather than the children, or so it’s been claimed. Christopher Robin hated him, apparently. Read about it somewhere. Christopher Robin said he felt ‘exploited’. Wrote a memoir on the subject. Talk about unsatisfactory fathers!

You adored that bouncing Tigger. You said you were going to marry Tigger when you grew up, remember? When we tired of playing at Pooh-sticks, pretending to be Heffalumps, and having ‘expotitions’, I started making up stories for you. One particular story became your favourite – about a little squirrel who lived inside the oak. The squirrel had a squint, got squiffy on squash that had been laced with liqueur, squandered her acorns and quarrelled with her squaddies! It was all unbearably silly nonsense but that was the way you liked it. I made things up as I went along. How you laughed! I would give anything to hear your laugh again.

The squirrel’s name was Ria. You liked that name so much, you started calling yourself ‘Ria’. You still do. Ria. That’s how you sign your letters. It gives me a jolt, every time. The name suited you, I thought.

It’s as though none of it ever happened.

I am still in a frightful state about you. About you becoming that – that other person. I don’t understand it. It defies logic. Sometimes I think it is all a bad dream. Why choose the gutter when you could have had the sky? You had beauty, brains, every social advantage. You’d never wanted for money either. I sent you to the best schools. Queen’s Gate, Kensington, then Mont Fertile in Switzerland, to be ‘finished’. Such a marvellous place, Switzerland. All those mountain peaks glittering like wedding cakes.

You had a string of the most eligible suitors. Young men from good, distinguished families. I keep thinking of Prince Norbert of Wchinitz and Tetau. You met him in Geneva. At a
thé dansant
– they still hold old-fashioned social events like that there. I found him a charming young man – such excellent manners and so taken with you! You would have made the perfect princess. I rather wished – I rather hoped – in fact, for a while I
did
believe that he and you . . . but it wasn’t to be. You were not interested.

I know I mustn’t upset myself – must take care of my heart – that’s what Lucasta keeps saying, damn her. I didn’t bring any pills with me.

Was it all my fault? I keep racking my brains, but I haven’t been able to get a satisfactory answer. It couldn’t have been Lucasta’s fault. It would be so easy to blame Lucasta for our estrangement, the wicked stepmother and all that, but the problems started
before
Lucasta appeared on the scene.

You didn’t like the discipline I tried to impose on you. You began to rebel, to act in a wilfully disobedient manner. You started defying me. You seemed to
enjoy
defying me. You took particular pleasure in saying outrageous things. You seemed to find some of my reactions amusing. Well, I do tend to over-emphasize, pontificate and use Latin phrases – to enunciate orders as though they were papal encyclicals! There was that scornful look in your lovely eyes. That upset me. You don’t know how much that upset me
. Stop treating me as though I were one of your
criminals
. That was what you said.

Did I treat you like a criminal? It’s my unfortunate manner, I know
. Mea culpa
. I am sorry. Perhaps after so many years on the bench, some kind of professional deformation does take place? I was never aware of it – not until you mentioned it.

I am sorry I hit you that day. I should never have done it. I am haunted by the memory. That last day, when you said you were never coming back. I never meant the things I said to you. Your letters make it clear you believe that I hate you. ‘Detest’ is the word you use. Oh, my dearest child, if only – if
only
– I could put into words how much I love you, how much I care! I only wanted what was best for you . . .

The mist seems to be thickening. Darkness falls. Or is it my eyes? How drab and barren everything looks. Black clumps of earth, dry leaves, not a single flower in sight! Flowers – you loved picking flowers. Bluebells in spring. You’d pick a bunch of bluebells, hide them behind your back and then give them to me as a surprise. You would then shut your eyes and I knew you expected a kiss. Your sweet lovely face . . . No bluebells now – wrong season – not a single splash of colour. Only last week the trees were flame-red, but nature’s started dying. Decayed leaves everywhere – heaps – mounds. I don’t like mounds, they remind me of graves. There’s a smell in the air . . . something rotting . . . some dead animal . . . I don’t feel too well –

I am being morbid and melodramatic, I know, but if I were to die, would you come back for my funeral? Put flowers on my coffin, shed a tear?

I haven’t been able to sleep. It is as though I’ve been fed
Cannabis indica
. That’s Indian hemp, hashish. I suppose you get a lot of that sort of thing where you are at the moment? Do you take any drugs? I am prone to all sorts of silly fancies . . . Paranoid . . . You see, I suspect Lucasta of putting something in my tea, of trying to sedate me. She fusses too much. She believes I am mortally ill, that I may pop off at any time. I find her attentions annoying, to say the least. I know she means well, but she does tend to overdo things. Perhaps it was a mistake marrying her. I should have devoted myself to you, body and soul – to
you,
dear child. I should have tried to understand you better.

There is a heaviness about my heart. Pain in my left arm. Lead and ice. Lucasta tells me it’s no good investing so much feeling in you, but it’s like ordering the sun not to set in the evening. The other day she called my love for you a ‘galloping gangrene of the soul’. She doesn’t understand a thing. Jealous, I suppose. She says my love for you will kill me eventually. She’ll never succeed in putting me off you, never. I only need to shut my eyes and I see you – the way you were as a child – a halcyon creature – a circle of golden summer round you. So lovely, so warm, so
bright
. . . I must stop. You never liked me when I went on. Sodden with a sick kind of self-pitying sentimentality, I can hear you say!

Your letters. I cannot get your letters out of my head. I can recall every single word you wrote. I find it impossible to believe you’ve done any of those things. Shall I tell you what? I think you made it all up in order to punish your foolish old father for what he said to you that day. Well, I deserve to be punished for being unable to control myself. Perhaps I deserve to suffer.

They do something called ‘anger management’ nowadays. Some nonsense. I’m too proud to do anything about my moods, you see. I can’t express my feelings properly. I was furious when you refused to do as I told you. Please, forgive me. I can’t help loving you. Is that such a terrible thing? All I wish for is that you should come back – make up with me –
ut amem et foream
– allow me to love and cherish you once more – get married to the right boy – lead a good life – a
normal
life.

I dreamt you came back the other night. I felt so happy, so relieved. I fell to my knees and asked you for forgiveness. You kissed me and allowed me to kiss you. It was a reconciliation scene on the grand scale.

What a thick black cloud that is. As black as a tar-barrel. I think it has wings! How fast it comes. It looks like some monstrous crow.

I refuse to believe that you
– that you are about to marry
an Indian gangster
. That’s what you wrote in your last letter.
Roman is a cool guy who collects automated weapons and
kukris – the curved knives favoured for decapitation.
You made that up, didn’t you? You can’t possibly marry an Indian gangster. Such a preposterous idea. I absolutely refuse to believe the other things you wrote either, in your earlier letters.

I have been engaged in transactional relationships for some
time now. There is no economic reason to be moral. I have been
trading sex for money. I am expensive and high maintenance. A
night’s ‘work’ buys me a Louis Vuitton bag.

You couldn’t really have worked as a professional call girl, could you?

Trading sex for money
. Nonsense. I can’t believe it. I can’t. I
can’t
–

* * *

Lord Justice Leighton gasped and the silver-topped cane slipped from his gloved hand. It’s true of course, he thought. He knew it was true, the news of the forthcoming nuptials with the gangster. In his latest report over the phone, Knight had told him that his daughter now went round with a young Indian whose name people in the streets of Goa whispered with awe and fear. A young man who was extremely,
murderously
jealous of Ria. Those had been Knight’s exact words. Apparently Knight had witnessed a row between the two. Then the rest must be true too – what Ria had written about acting in a film.
A blue
movie
, she had called it in the American manner.

He shut his eyes. The caress of the mist through his hair seemed human and caused him to shiver. He started shaking.

You slut. You unprincipled whore. To have descended to the
very depths of Gomorrah. Trading sex for money. Was that really
what you wanted? To fuck in front of a camera? First with men,
then with other sluts as well? While being watched? You wrote
as though you’d enjoyed every moment of it. How can you do
this to me? Is that your gratitude, for everything I have done
for you?

Lord Justice Leighton’s right hand went up to his chest. There it was again. The pain. Lead and ice. Only now it was sharper, much sharper than the other day. Like a knife cutting through him. He found it difficult to breathe.

Ria, he whispered.
Ria.

He kept his back against the oak. Dazed and numb. He looked round. There was a man with a dog. Not too far. Would he see him? It was so dark, or were his eyes failing? He put up his left hand. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. Perhaps the man would notice him if he moved away from the tree? He took a tentative step to the right, waved his arms and suddenly pitched forward.

He fell into a heap of dry leaves. The rotting smell in his nostrils was overpowering. Was that it? Was that it? Was that the end? Death. Contrary to what Henry James said, there was nothing distinguished about it. It wasn’t how he’d imagined it. To die like a dog. Like one of Iris’s dogs. How ridiculous. Lucasta’d be upset. Had he signed his new will? Lucasta actually loved him. Shame that he no longer wanted her love.

He tried to raise his head. How dark it was. Was he going to die without seeing Ria? The pain came again – quick and sharp as that of fire – excruciating. No sensation whatever in his left arm – a chilling numbness was wrapping itself about his heart, creeping into it. He gasped as he felt something like a taut wire snap. The next moment the monstrous crow descended upon him . . .

Lord Justice Leighton didn’t see the man and the dog start walking fast in his direction. Nor did he see his wife and his sister who were following at a run.

Iris Mason-Stubbs’s hands flailed ineffectively in the air as she stumbled over a tree root. She had already managed to lose her glasses. With her wild hair and round eyes she brought to mind the White Queen in
Alice
. As it happened it was she who arrived first and kneeled beside her brother’s body.

‘Oh dear. My poor Lucasta,’ Iris said after a pause. ‘He is dead.’