Assassins at Ospreys (10 page)

Colville passed his hand across his face. Bee had a tat-too above her instep. Two intertwined snakes – that was what it looked like at first sight, that was what she
said
, but Colville strongly suspected it was the letters B and R intricately interwoven together.
Bee and Ralph
. She had been very much in love with Renshawe. She had admitted as much. Perhaps she was still in love with him? So amusing, she kept saying. He had made her laugh.

Why wouldn’t she allow him to take a closer look at her leg? Colville had the idea of drugging Bee and inspecting the tattoo properly . . . He had acquired a most powerful soporific specially for the purpose . . . Perhaps he could do it tonight?

Colville hadn’t slept at all well the night before, he was feeling like a boiled owl, so now his eyelids drooped and he nodded off. At once he dreamt that Bee had entered the room and sat beside him on the sofa. She looked different somehow. She had a tiara studded with diamonds on her golden head and wore elbow-length gloves. She looked like a royal princess. Her manner was formal and distant to start with but then she gave him a rather suggestive look and put her head downwards towards him, as if expecting him to kiss her on the ear. He could smell her scent. (Ce Soir Je T’Aime.) They hadn’t exchanged a word and there was a great tension between them, which he recognized as sexual in nature. Her head went lower. He said, ‘I am sorry, ma’am, but I can’t hear very well what you are saying.’ At this she replied: ‘That’s because I’m wearing a kilt.’ She was in fact wearing a rather glamorous silvery evening dress with a deep décolletage – Colville woke up with a start. His heart was beating wildly. The sofa beside him was empty. His nerves were pulled taut as marionette strings, his mood one of wretched despair.

He heard the stairs creak.

Was Bee back? No – it was Ingrid, coming down. Ingrid – he’d completely forgotten about Ingrid. As though he hadn’t enough worries! What should be done about Ingrid? He had a friend who was a policeman, a Scotland Yard inspector, no less, and Colville had a good mind to contact him and explain the situation. Arthur would listen to him. He looked at the telephone. He sighed. It would cause Bee great distress if he did call Arthur – especially if Arthur decided to take action. (What action? Ingrid hadn’t actually committed any criminal act as such. Arthur would probably suggest he contact a psychiatrist.) Bee seemed to think that ‘things would be all right’, that ‘it would blow over’ – that Ingrid would ‘come to her senses’. Bee could be so naive!

The stairs creaked again. Ingrid was in the hall now.

‘
Honestly
,’ he heard her murmur to herself, sounding exactly like Beatrice. She’d got her verbal tricks to perfection!

Colville felt nauseous.

He heard the front door open and close. He rose from the sofa. Catching his reflection in the mirror above the fireplace, he winced: his grey hair stood on end, his cheeks were the colour of cranberry sauce, his eyes were round, his expression wild – he had a shell-shocked air about him – as if he had stepped out of an explosion! And he looked ridiculous, hugging that cushion. Why should Bee want to stay with him? He couldn’t think of one good reason.

He ran to the window and stood beside it, concealed behind the curtain. My God, he thought, and again –
My
God
. If he didn’t know Beatrice had already left the house, if he hadn’t his own eyes as witnesses, he’d have sworn it was Beatrice he was seeing. It was the same as the other day. No – worse!

Look and be afraid
. He stared at Ingrid – the way Rikki-Tikki-Tavi had at the oscillating body of the black cobra with the glinting red eyes and the spread hood.

There she was in all her splendiferous splendour! Wearing one of Beatrice’s old suits with padded shoulders and the initials BA embroidered in gold on one of the chest pockets. She had gloves on. Her face glowed – her eyes were dark with mascara – had she used Beatrice’s make-up? And what was that she was wearing round her neck? Anger and dismay surged through him.
Not
the Taj Mahal necklace? Bee’s Taj Mahal necklace – it had been his engagement present to Bee! How dared this unspeakable creature take it! She’d been in Bee’s room, dipping her dirty paws inside Bee’s jewel case!

There was a beatific smile on Ingrid’s face – she was walking slowly – she appeared to be humming a little tune to herself – and somehow that was much more frightening than an expression of malevolent determination might have been. Ingrid was walking in the direction of the bus stop. There was a spring in her step.

Something had to be done about it. This obscene charade had to stop. (The Taj Mahal necklace – she had no right!) Colville held desperately on to his wits as a man holds on to his hat while crossing a desolate moor in a whirlwind.

He needed to convince Arthur how serious the situation really was.

Ingrid consulted her watch and saw it was 9.10. There was a bus in five minutes. Well, she’d be at Ospreys by 9.35 at the latest. She had thought the whole thing through very carefully. She had managed to pinch Bee’s mobile earlier in the morning – it had been lying on the hall table. She was going to phone the nurse and get her out of the way – say that somebody was lying on the ground outside the park gates, bleeding, in need of urgent attention – some-thing on those lines. (When afterwards the police checked the incoming calls on the Ospreys phone, Bee’s number would come up.) She’d then walk briskly round the house and enter Ralph’s room through the french windows. They were bound to have been left open in this weather but she’d pick up a stone and smash them if they weren’t. She’d have finished by 9.45. She wasn’t going to stand on ceremony. The priest wasn’t coming until ten o’clock, that was what he had said on the phone. She liked the challenge. Who’d get to Ralph first? Nothing like a challenge to set the adrenalin going. Suspense followed by thrills. It was like one of Antonia Darcy’s ridiculous plots. Life imitating art? Well, hardly
art
–

Had she got the knife? Now where –?

Ingrid halted and her gloved fingers started rummaging frantically inside her bag.

Colville discovered he was still holding the Polaroid cam-era. On an impulse he raised it to his eyes and snapped – an instant photograph came out . . . Ingrid seemed to be looking for something in her bag. He pressed the button again and another photograph started emerging. He rehearsed what he was going to tell Arthur.

This woman has lived with my wife for thirty years . . . She
has started dressing up as my wife . . . She makes herself look
exactly like her . . . She wears a blonde wig . . . She puts on my
wife’s jewels . . . She’s completely off her rocker . . . She hates me.
She hates my wife too . . . She is jealous. She disapproves of our
marriage . . . She is extremely dangerous –
.

It sounded feeble and absurd, put like that, the ram-blings of an idiot, but how else could he describe the situation? And wouldn’t Arthur get the wrong idea about Bee? What sort of person shares a house with a mad-woman for thirty years? The question of the exact nature of Bee’s relationship with Ingrid was bound to come up . . . He had wondered himself . . . Had they been –? Bee had told him not to be silly – but she had also admitted she preferred Ingrid’s massage techniques to his!

Well, he would need to explain about the accident and about Ralph Renshawe. He must calm down first – pull himself together – rehearse very carefully what he was going to say – make a few notes perhaps? No, there was no time for notes –.

He looked down at the two photos and smiled grimly. He had proof now. As clear as daylight. The date:
26.11.05
– and the time:
09.12 a.m
. This would show Arthur that he wasn’t getting into a flap over nothing! Still, even if Arthur took his story seriously and
did
do something about it, how long would it take before the police got cracking? They were notoriously slack these days, or so he had often heard. Something
had
to be done . . . There was no time to waste. Ingrid was clearly on her way to Ospreys. That was where she had been going all this time – dressed up as Beatrice. He blinked – had that been the gleam of a blade? He felt the blood draining from his face. Merciful heavens. Did she have a
knife
in her bag? They should be able to arrest her for that, surely?

The next moment Ingrid’s intentions became clear to him.

The knife was for Ralph Renshawe
. . .

Something had to be done . . . White and dazed, his heart thudding, Colville stumbled towards the telephone.

14
Ceaseless Turmoil

In Knightsbridge, in his minimalist flat, Robin Renshawe looked at himself in the mirror and thought:
I wish I felt as
cool as I looked
. He was wearing conventional pepper-and-salt tweeds and a black tie, in preparation for the call, which he hoped would come from Ospreys at some point. The phone call would inform him of his uncle’s – sad but not unexpected – demise.
In his sleep – it was a peaceful end
– it was his heart, Master Robin
. He gave a little smile – that was how Wilkes
would
have addressed him, had they lived in a different age.

Who else would Wilkes notify? If Lily did the job properly, there would be no question of the police being called. That doctor fellow – he was the only one Wilkes would phone – for the death certificate . . . Saunders of course would already be there . . . Saunders would have arrived too late . . .

What if Beatrice (‘Bee’) Ardleigh turned up? Well, let her
. For him, she was always
the
woman.
Robin sniggered. Bee was bound to be disappointed if she had expected to be left a fortune. By way of compensation Robin would give her a glass of Uncle Ralph’s best dry sherry. He already saw himself as taking control of the situation at Ospreys. Well, he
was
his uncle’s only surviving relative.

Crossing over to the drinks table, Robin opened a bottle of Chivas Regal whisky and poured some into a glass. Opposite him on the wall hung a Derek Hill portrait of his mother in a lavender dress and a broad-brimmed gardening hat and gloves, contemplating a bed of nasturtiums. He tried to avoid her mournfully reproachful, heartrendingly patient gaze and quickly glanced at the picture next to it – one of St George Hare’s allegorical and suggestively erotic paintings showing a semi-nude captive slave chained to a rock by the wrists with a butterfly hovering over his tousled head. Robin didn’t care much for the slave. Too blond – too Teutonic. There had been other, more valuable paintings, including a Poussin and a Freud, but those he had sold.

Lily must be on his way or was already at Ospreys. He had said he would try to get there at five to ten, or earlier. Would he funk it at the last minute and think up some excuse why it couldn’t be done? Well, time would show. Robin thought he sounded philosophical when he said the phrase aloud, but he didn’t feel philosophical at all. The truth of the matter was that he felt extremely anxious. .

Had it been a mistake to employ Lily as his myrmidon in the first place? No – that had been a happy inspiration on his part. Once more Robin’s thoughts turned back to school and the fox . . . Poor fox . . . It hadn’t stood a chance. .

Whack-whack-whack
. Robin grimaced squeamishly at the memory. The spectacle had been too gruesome for words. A veritable bloodbath. Lily’s intention, it would appear, had been to reduce the fox to a pulp. Robin had turned round only after the whimpering had ceased completely and he had heard Lily say,
Consummatum est
. Lily had been bespattered with blood, a cross between Macbeth
post
Duncan and Hannibal Lecter
post –
well, dinner. Lily had stood there looking at Robin, strutting a little, a jubilant expression on his cherubic face. Had Lily done it to impress him? That he believed to be the main reason – though Lily had also given the distinct impression of having actually
enjoyed
the experience.

Robin took another sip of whisky. Some of the tension started to depart. He smiled. Lily was a natural born killer. The methodical, relentless, rather
rhythmic
way he had bashed away at the beast – as though he had been playing some esoteric musical instrument. He had been totally unmoved by its screams. The fox had snarled and tried to bite him and that had only speeded up its end.

Still, strange things did happen. Sudden, inexplicable, logic-defying transformations were known to take place in the minds of the most unlikely people. The idea of miracles made Robin nervous, the twinges of anxiety sud-denly returned and he drank more whisky. He had a superstitious streak in him, which sometimes manifested itself at times of crisis. I mustn’t go down that path, he told himself, but it was already too late. The fear worked like yeast in his thoughts and the fermentation brought to the surface images of likely disasters – the whole catalogue of threats known to the lapsed Catholic rose to haunt him.

What if Lily, having killed his uncle, was suddenly over-come with remorse? What if he had a vision of Our Lady of Sorrows, or saw tears coming out of the eyes of some marble saint, or even heard a voice calling down to him from above? Either of those might send him running to a priest, a
real
priest, one of those pious, interfering bastards. Lily might feel compelled to make a full confession.

Oh father, I have just killed a man –
.

Miracles did happen from time to time. One never knew. Uncle Ralph had undergone his remarkable conversion the day the doctor had told him that he faced death – that he had only months to live. Nobody had thought it possible. In his young days his uncle had been a rip, a reprobate and a rapscallion, the black sheep of the tremendously respectable, if not stuffy, Renshawe family. It was death that had changed him – the news that he had only a short time to live.

Would death change Lily? His uncle’s death, that was. Robin thought it unlikely, though who could tell? Lily was so fucking unpredictable –.

Robin drained his glass and put it down. He looked at the clock. Decorators were coming to his flat sometime after ten. Robin’s kitchen didn’t really need decorating, but he thought he should have an alibi for the time of his uncle’s death. Just in case.

Five minutes to ten. Lily must be at Ospreys. Perhaps he was entering the hall at that very moment, exchanging pleasantries with Wilkes, glancing up at the angels on the ceiling – .

Oh father, I have just killed a man. I smothered him with a
pillow. It was a friend of mine who put me up to it. It was his
uncle, you see – a very rich man.

How reliable an accomplice was Lily? Robin considered the point. Well, Lily seemed to have started cranking himself up – if those pinpoint pupils were anything to go by – and junkies were notoriously erratic in all their dealings. Still, Robin didn’t think Lily was yet at an ‘advanced stage’, besides Lily was greatly attracted to the idea of easy riches, so chances were that he would pull himself together and do the job properly.

Leaning his elbow against the mantelpiece, Robin pondered the promise he had made. He had told Lily they would go halves . . . That was an awful lot of money . . . If he had to be perfectly honest, he didn’t feel like parting with half of Uncle Ralph’s fortune. In fact he hated the idea of it.

Well, weren’t promises made so that they could be bro-ken? It happened all the time. It wasn’t as though Robin had put anything in writing or had had his promise recorded on tape. But there was bound to be a reaction, if he failed to abide by his word. Lily could become a nuisance. Lily could turn . . . nasty. Lily wouldn’t go to the police, for obvious reasons, but he could think of a way of turning the tables on Robin. Lily was clever. He was devilishly devious. Lily could be, well, dangerous. Robin admitted to himself that he was a bit afraid of Lily.

If only – if only Lily, having completed the job, could . . . disappear? If Lily could vanish from the face of the earth as utterly and completely as if the devil had snatched him down to hell by the heels . . .

Kill the killer, eh? That was an idea worth considering, but another body would complicate matters. Dead bodies, no matter how well hidden, tended to turn up sooner or later. Could it be made to look like suicide? Push Lily off a cliff? String him up from a beam? Feed him an overdose of sleeping pills? Feed him to the fish in the river?

No – too complicated – too much bother.

How about
scaring
Lily – having him roughed up a bit by way of a warning? More than just a bit. Lily did do crazy things, but he was not really a brave man. Throw a plastic bag over his head – give him a black eye, split his lip, rip off part of his ear, bust his nose, crack a rib perhaps, fracture a finger or two in a lingering kind of way . . .
Yes
. . . That would show him what might happen if he tried something. A single phrase whispered in his shell-like ear should do the trick.
Next time it would be much
worse, so don’t try anything funny
. Something on those lines. It needed to be done soon after Lily had emerged from Ospreys, while the thought of death was still fresh in his mind . . . That would be the right psychological moment . . . Yes . . .

Robin rose slowly and once more he stood before the mirror, empty glass in hand, examining his reflection . . . He wouldn’t do it himself of course . . . Certainly not. He would be nowhere near the scene of the incident . . . Perhaps he could have a word with Eric? It was some time since he had seen Eric.

(Why was it that he always thought of Eric when he was drunk?)