Assassins at Ospreys (14 page)

‘No, thank you. Back to your secret assignation,’ Payne went on. ‘I assume Ingrid didn’t turn up?’

‘She didn’t. I sat at a table and waited and drank I don’t know how many cups of coffee, but she didn’t come . . . What time did I get to Oxford? Well, at about ten to ten. I drove there in my car. We have two – Len drives a Peugeot. I found the café easily enough and I sat there until twenty past eleven. There was some perfectly dreadful man who sat at a nearby table. He made advances – offered to buy me a drink. He was quite insistent.’

‘Did you accept?’ Payne asked.

‘Of course not. Hugh!’ Beatrice giggled. ‘Oh, the whole thing was so dreary! I don’t really blame that man. I mean I was suspect – woman on her own, all made up and wearing a hat – he must have taken me for a tart, but then thank God Cressie de Villeneuve turned up – a dear, dear old chum of mine I hadn’t seen for ages, so we went and had lunch together –’ Beatrice broke off. ‘What was the meaning of that phone call? Have you any ideas? I mean –
where
is Ingrid?
’

There was a pause. Payne asked, ‘Is Colville sure he saw her?’

‘Positive. Ingrid was dressed up as me, wig and all. He saw her as she left the house and started walking in the direction of the bus stop – it’s further down the road. The number 19 takes you to Coulston and it stops practically outside Ospreys . . . Len was standing by the window – Oh I’ll show you!’ Beatrice rose to her feet.

‘He snapped her.’ ‘Snapped her?’ Antonia echoed.

‘I mean, took a photo of her – with the Polaroid.’ Beatrice pointed to the camera lying on the small desk beside the window. ‘He thought of it on the spur of the moment. He had a brainwave. He decided it would be a good idea to show Arthur – his Scotland Yard friend – what Ingrid got up to, in case Arthur didn’t believe him.’

‘Did he show the photo to the police?’ Payne asked.

‘He certainly did. They took it away with them, but there’s a second photograph. Len took
two
photos.’ Beatrice opened the top desk drawer and took out a photo-graph. ‘It’s got the date – and the exact time. 26th November, 9.12 a.m . . . Look . . . Frightful, isn’t it?’ For a moment it looked as though Beatrice was going to sit on the arm of Payne’s chair. ‘Poor Ingrid. She does look like me on a bad day. She’s put on weight.’

‘She’s wearing a jacket with your monogram on the breast pocket,’ Antonia observed.

‘Oh,
that
suit,’ Beatrice said dismissively. ‘
So
’80s. Look at the horrible padded shoulders. To think that was all the rage, remember, Antonia? Power dressing! Always made me look
enormous
. I’ve only worn it once or twice. She’s welcome to it.’

Payne said thoughtfully, ‘So that was the last time she was ever seen . . . She asked you to go to Oxford while she – she went to Ospreys . . . We are assuming she went to Ospreys . . .’

‘Why ask me to go to Oxford when she had no intention of going there herself?’ Beatrice leant forward. ‘Why send me on a wild-goose chase? Why ask me to wear dark glasses and a hat
and
insist I continue wearing them in the café? Why ask me to put on different lipstick? I did every-thing – to humour her. It made me look a bit like Joan Collins, but I followed her instructions to the letter. In case she came along, saw I didn’t look the way she expected and left. Ingrid can be wildly temperamental.’

‘She asked you to wear a hat and dark glasses at the café – and different lipstick?’ Antonia was frowning. ‘While she herself was dressed up as you . . . Ostentatiously so – with your initials emblazoned in gold on her chest, for the whole world to see . . .’

‘I still don’t understand –’ Suddenly Beatrice gasped. ‘No – I do. I do understand. Oh my God.
Oh my God
. I see it now. Antonia, you don’t think she went to Ospreys to kill Ralph – and she wanted to make it look as though I had done it?’

‘That’s the likeliest explanation.’

‘She must really hate me. Oh, how she must hate me,’ Beatrice whispered. ‘Well of course, it all makes perfect sense now. The ingenuity of it!
She didn’t want me to have
an alibi for the time she was at Ospreys.
She didn’t want me to be recognized by anyone who saw me at the café.
I was
to be her scapegoat
. Oh my God. And she warned me
not
to tell Len where I was going! It all fits in. Oh, why does she hate me so much? Why?’

‘Your marriage,’ Antonia said. ‘Your part in her daughter’s death. What
she
sees as your part in her daughter’s death.’

‘So you do believe she heard me – the other night? As I was telling you about it? When she came in?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right.
All right
. Let’s be rational about it,’ Beatrice said. ‘Ingrid was last seen going to Ospreys. Let’s assume she was going to Ospreys. Did she disappear
before
she got to the house – or could it have been
after
?’

‘That,’ Major Payne said, ‘is the million dollar question. Before – or after?’

‘Well, she didn’t kill Ralph, that’s for certain. We’d have known by now if she had. The police phoned Ospreys from here, as it happened – a nurse answered – a male nurse, apparently – everything seemed to be fine. I mean Ralph is alive.’

Payne cleared his throat. ‘Renshawe was going to change his will in your favour on the morning of the 26th – correct?’

Beatrice stared at him out of guileless doll-like eyes and spoke breathlessly. ‘Yes. Yes. He said he’d instructed his solicitor to go to Ospreys at eleven in the morning, but I have absolutely no idea whether their meeting took place or not.’

She spoke as though she had forgotten all about it – or as though it couldn’t matter less. Antonia felt sure her indifference was feigned.

‘Len was dismissive about the whole thing. He thinks it was just the ramblings of a mortally ill man,’ Beatrice went on. ‘But Ingrid
couldn’t
have known about the will, could she? I am terribly befuddled now. If Ingrid did go to Ospreys, it was to kill Ralph as an act of revenge and make me take the rap for it . . . It couldn’t possibly have had any-thing to do with the will, could it?’

‘No. Though I have a feeling the changing of the will may be important in some way,’ Major Payne said. ‘If Renshawe had died
before
eleven o’clock in the morning, you wouldn’t have become his sole beneficiary. Only he didn’t. Who was the beneficiary from the previous will, do you know?’

‘Ralph’s nephew Robin,’ Beatrice answered promptly. ‘Ralph told me when he phoned, you see. Said Robin had been a great disappointment. He said Robin was forty, but hadn’t done an honest day’s work in his life.’

‘Renshawe has an idler of a nephew, eh? Is he a Catholic too? Forty – same age as Father Lillie-Lysander,’ Payne said in a thoughtful voice. ‘Do you know anything about Father Lillie-Lysander? That’s the priest who visited Renshawe.’

‘No, I don’t.’ Beatrice shook her head. ‘Oh my God. The Catholic priest! He too has disappeared, hasn’t he?’

‘He has.’

‘I read about it in the paper. Do you think there is a
connection
between him and Ingrid?’

‘Both of them knew Ralph Renshawe,’ Antonia said. ‘They visited him at Ospreys. Father Lillie-Lysander was Ralph’s father confessor. It is not inconceivable that they did bump into one another at some point. They disappeared on the same day. I believe that is a line of inquiry the police will want to follow – are probably following at this very moment.’

‘
Assassins at Ospreys.
I don’t know why I said that. Sorry.’ Payne waved his hand. ‘It just struck me as a damned good title for a detective novel.’

‘It’s fantastically clever,’ Beatrice breathed. ‘Alliterative – or do I mean onomatopoeic?’

Antonia said nothing. Her face remained blank. She would never use a title like that,
never
, she determined.

There was a pause. ‘I think it’s time we went to Ospreys again and took a look round,’ Payne said, glancing at his watch. ‘It’s half past three. What do you say, my love?’

‘Excellent idea,’ Beatrice said. The next moment she giggled and her hand went up to her lips. ‘Sorry!’

‘All right,’ Antonia said. I can’t believe she did that, Antonia thought.

‘Did you say “again”? Have you already been to Ospreys?’ Beatrice frowned.

‘Yes. We did go to Ospreys the day we came here, or rather the night,’ Payne explained. ‘We wanted to make sure Renshawe was all right. But we found no one at the house.’

‘That must have been when Ralph was rushed to hospital. As a matter of fact, I too want to go to Ospreys,’ Beatrice declared. ‘I’d like to come with you, if I may . . .
Please
.’

‘Well, you are perfectly entitled to a visit. After all he did ask you to visit him,’ Major Payne said. ‘I think it’s time Ralph Renshawe saw the person to whom he left his fortune. The real Beatrice Ardleigh.’

21
Without a Clue

‘. . . but the priest, as you say, got in her way – perhaps he tried to defend Ralph Renshawe, so she killed him. Then she panicked and fled. It
could
have happened that way, but then if it did, where is Father Lillie-Lysander’s body? You couldn’t get any sense out of Ralph Renshawe, could you?’

‘No. We did try. I don’t think he was aware who we were. He kept talking gibberish. Said that when one’s mind was fixed on death, everything started to spiral and to magnify. He asked if I knew how many spirals there were. Then he told me: double helixes, spiral galaxies and corkscrews.’ Inspector Hopper tapped his forehead with a forefinger.

‘Ralph Renshawe is gravely ill, isn’t he?’

‘Yes. Dying, apparently. Cancer. There was a nurse there – a man – not the original nurse – he was new. South African. Came last night. There’s no other staff, which is odd enough for a big house like that. We are trying to track down Nurse Wilkes. She left yesterday. Seems to have gone off. Somewhere abroad, I gathered. She’s been with Ralph for a couple of months at least. She might be able to tell us something. Did she let Ingrid Delmar into the house? Was the priest already there? Did she see the priest go? It’s odd, her leaving so suddenly . . .’

‘It is odd, yes . . . You found nothing of interest at Ospreys?’

‘No. It all seemed in perfect order. Nothing suspicious. We saw no need for a proper search at this stage.’

‘Perhaps the murder took place outside. Perhaps Ingrid ran into the priest as he was leaving. He might have become suspicious – realized that she wasn’t Beatrice Ardleigh – and challenged her? That was when she killed him – she might have had a knife – or cracked his skull with something heavy – picked up a stone. Then she put him into the boot of her car – no, she hadn’t a car. But if she did kill the priest, what did she do with the body?’

‘Hid it somewhere on the grounds . . . Or inside the house?’

‘Could she have done that – dragged the body into the house?’

‘No. I don’t see how – not without the nurse becoming aware of it. It was broad daylight – morning.’

‘Nurse Wilkes would have heard the noise . . . There’d have been blood . . . Perhaps Nurse Wilkes was in on it too. Wilkes might have helped Ingrid dispose of the body?’

‘She might have . . . Well, we should get a warrant, go back to Ospreys and do a proper search. Yes. It’s imperative that we speak to Nurse Wilkes . . . Where
is
Ingrid Delmar? Where’s she vanished to?’

‘On the run. Hiding somewhere. At some hotel. Some B and B. Skulking under a bridge. She’s a nutcase. Keen on revenge. Pretending to be the other one. All those photos of little girls in her room. She claimed they were her daughter. And she wrote a poem – “Madrigals for Mad Girls”. Serious hair-raising stuff. She should never have been allowed to walk free. We’ll get her sooner or later. She’s conspicuous enough, with her black gloves and blood-red hand.’

‘If she keeps her gloves on, her blood-red hand won’t be noticed . . . She might be dead.’

‘You mean it’s the other way round? The priest killed Ingrid?’

‘I meant she might have committed suicide. She’s harmed herself in the past, hasn’t she?’

‘She has. Apparently she talked about suicide – dis-cussed ways of doing it. Been violent too.’

‘Couldn’t get over the loss of her unborn child. Leonard Colville said so and Beatrice Ardleigh confirmed it. She confirmed it rather reluctantly. Great tension between those two. Haven’t been married long. He was keen to tell us all about Ingrid’s madness and masquerades, and she wasn’t too pleased . . . Sensible chap. I found Beatrice Ardleigh’s attitude rather puzzling.’

‘What is she like?’

‘Beatrice Ardleigh?’ Inspector Hopper frowned. ‘Speaking unprofessionally, I’d say kittenish, stupid-clever and, in normal circumstances, I imagine, an amusing talker – but circumstances were far from normal.’

‘Attractive?’

‘Attractive . . . She bit her lip when I suggested she might have had a hand in this dressing-up business – avoided my eye . . . Denied it of course, but I think she’s in it, somehow . . . Looked guilty as hell . . . Strange business.’ ‘You don’t think Beatrice knows where Ingrid is – that she might be helping her hide somewhere? Or could Ingrid be lurking somewhere inside Ospreys? Whacking pile of a place, you said – most of the rooms not in use?

‘Yes. Furniture shrouded in sheets, from what I could see. You mean she might be lying doggo, hiding under one of those? Well, she might – she’s a nutcase. What was that?’

‘
Monster in the Closet
. . . There was a film of that name – saw it as a teenager twenty years or so ago. Scared the hell out of me.’

‘Don’t get too fanciful, Bancroft,’ Inspector Hopper said. ‘Let’s see about that search warrant, shall we?’

22
The Monster in the Closet

Antonia had the feeling that in the course of the conversation something very important had been said – or was it something she had seen? Some object in the sitting room at Millbrook? Yes. She believed it was something visual rather than verbal . . .

Something that belonged to Beatrice . . . Yes . . . What
was
it? Antonia shut her eyes and thought back. High heels? Necklace? Scent? It would come to her. It always did. Soon, she hoped. Cocktail dress? Cigarette? Golden hair? (Beatrice didn’t wear a wig, did she? No. Beatrice’s hair was her own. It was Ingrid who wore a wig, to make herself look like Beatrice.)

No, that was all wrong – it was something that
shouldn’t
have been there.

What an odd thought. Antonia opened her eyes. What exactly did she mean by that?

They were in the car bound for Ospreys. Major Payne was driving and he expressed the hope that they would-n’t clash with the police. If the house was under some sort of guardianship, they would certainly not be allowed in. The police didn’t like amateur investigators meddling in their business.

‘Why are amateur detectives always cleverer than the police?’ Beatrice looked at Antonia over her shoulder. Beatrice’s spirits appeared to have revived completely. She sat next to Payne in front while Antonia sat in the back of the car. Antonia didn’t quite know how that had happened.

‘It’s a convention in detective fiction,’ she said.

‘Don’t you think you should break it? Isn’t that what conventions are for?’ Beatrice laughed. ‘I mean, write a novel in which things happen
the other way round
? Have the amateur detective lose the battle of wits to the professional policeman?’

‘A jolly good idea,’ Payne agreed heartily. ‘Don’t you think?’ He addressed Antonia, but she remained silent. She was annoyed because he was right. It
was
a good idea.

‘Just imagine we are characters in a detective novel,’ Beatrice went on after a pause. ‘We are hurrying towards the scene of a crime, but it is only the author who decides what is going to happen next . . . Perhaps the author doesn’t even know at this point who the victim is – he may not even know who the killer is going to be. That’s quite scary, don’t you think? I mean it could be
anyone
. It could be the padre – it could be Ingrid – it could be Ralph – it could even be me!’

‘Yes, it could even be you,’ Antonia agreed.

‘What was that called?
Meta
fiction?’

Showing off, Antonia thought – trying to impress Hugh. Beatrice had spent half an hour in her room, getting ready. Her make-up, when she appeared, was revealed as flawless. She had changed into a wasp-waisted tweed suit and more conventional but still rather smart shoes. She had replaced the rather embarrassing Taj Mahal necklace with a string of pearls. She wore a scarf of unusual yellow-green colour –
yerba de mate
, she told Antonia – intricately wound round her head and had elegant dark glasses on. She looked as though she might have stepped down from some 1950s advertisement . . . Advertising what? The best way to steal a husband, that’s what, Antonia thought. There would be a bubble coming out of her mouth, saying,
Husband-snatching is such fun
.

Beatrice kept leaning towards Hugh, laying her hand on his arm. She was doing it again now, at this very moment. She was laughing. He had said something, which had amused her. Antonia pursed her lips. She regretted not having got in front first. Was she being unreasonable?

‘That’s not how it happens in real life, is it?’ Beatrice went on. ‘How many private investigators do you know who tumble to the truth while the police fail lamentably?
Are
there private investigators any more?’

‘They are in the Yellow Pages, apparently. I have never checked, so don’t quote me,’ Payne said.

Beatrice looked over her shoulder once more. ‘Do you know any private detectives, Antonia?’

Antonia said she didn’t.

Beatrice then asked whether they went to the theatre and the opera often. Living in London they probably went every week? No, not every week, Antonia said. Beatrice missed London terribly. Wallingford was utter ghastly drears – a cultural desert, really. Not a single person to have a decent conversation with. Nothing but tiresome county types. Philistines and oh so smug with it! A woman called Pamela Montdore had referred to Beatrice as the ‘soul of pampered self-absorption’, which Beatrice had found extremely hurtful. Len seemed keen on cultivating the friendship of a husband-and-wife duo called Sutcliffe, but she couldn’t stand them, Beatrice said.

She went on speaking in a wistful voice. Even when they did go to London, things happened to prevent her from enjoying herself. Len grumbled about parking and he hated the sight of too many people. Len wasn’t terribly keen on theatre, and he was even less enthusiastic about opera. He fell asleep during a performance of
Othello
and afterwards it had taken Beatrice
ages
to explain about the significance of the handkerchief.

Beatrice looked over her shoulder.
Othello
was one of the first psychological thrillers, wasn’t it?
And
it contained elements of the classical detective story – that handker-chief – so clever! Well, yes, Antonia agreed. There was a pause, then for no apparent reason Antonia’s husband started telling Beatrice how to make an Opera cocktail. He listed the ingredients: gin, red Dubonnet and maraschino liqueur.

‘Sounds awful,’ Antonia said.

‘Not so if you shake it properly with ice and strain it into an appropriate chilled glass!’

‘Delicious
.
I would love to try it,’ said Beatrice. ‘Hugh, may I have a light?’ She had produced a cigarette from a silver case, which she was holding in an inexperienced, almost gauche, manner, as though she had no idea what to do with it. The femme fatale had been replaced by an ingénue. Beatrice suddenly seemed utterly helpless. For a moment it looked as though Hugh was going to abandon the wheel and strike a match for her – she seemed to expect it. Antonia gasped in horror – they were just about to negotiate a roundabout!

‘I smoke nothing but Turkish. One can only get them at a little place in New Bond Street,’ Beatrice said. ‘They are a treat, really – I smoke only rarely and I
don’t
inhale.’

Antonia was seething. What was Beatrice giving herself a treat for? For succeeding in vamping Hugh? Why had she dolled herself up, if not for Hugh’s delectation? What a bitch, she thought. She didn’t trust her one little bit. She wouldn’t be surprised if Beatrice turned out to have killed both Ingrid
and
the priest. Well, a fabulous fortune was at stake – and Beatrice had admitted to an agonized craving for the
luxe.

Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?
Antonia didn’t think Father Lillie-Lysander was anything like Thomas à Becket. Now, why would Beatrice want to kill the priest? She might want to kill Ingrid to prevent her from killing Ralph and thus make it possible for him to sign his new will – but why kill the priest? Unless the priest was another assassin? Assassins at Ospreys. How ridiculous.

Antonia knew she was being irrational. Well, she was jealous. Extremely jealous. Terrible thing, jealousy. It made her feel insecure. Hugh had denied being attracted to Beatrice – did he tell the truth? That was how things had started with her first husband – it had been the beginning of the end –

Soon after, they reached Ospreys.

Ingrid came to, slowly. She tried to rise and a sharp pain pierced her head – she had banged it against some hard surface. The left side of her face was numb. She felt con-fused and disoriented. She could smell petrol and oil. She wondered if she had been in an accident. Or was it a dream? Was she dreaming about
the
accident? She some-times did, though not recently . . . Where
was
she?

Her hands – something had happened to her hands. She couldn’t feel her hands! Had they
gone
? No – her hands were behind her back – tied – they had gone numb, that’s why she didn’t feel them.

How dark it was. She seemed to be in a box of some kind. For some reason she thought of a closet or a small wardrobe. No, she was horizontal, not vertical. A coffin, she thought. I am in a coffin. Not only bound but gagged. She could hardly breathe because there was a rag of some sort in her mouth and some kind of sticky tape across the lower part of her face. The rag – was it a handkerchief? – reeked of something, a smell she knew well. She could only breathe through her nose, just about.

Her head hurt badly, where the blow had fallen. She believed she had bled from the side of her head. She could smell blood. She could taste it too. Her lip had burst. Well, she was no stranger to blood. Years ago she had used to cut her arms and thighs. The sight of blood had excited her. She hadn’t minded the pain one little bit. Each time she made a cut, she wanted to see how deep she could go . . .

Ingrid’s legs were numb too. She tried stretching them and failed. She tried wriggling her toes but couldn’t do that either. She had lost all feeling. Pinpricks sparkled faintly through her calves . . . She was bound and gagged. She was incarcerated. She was at her enemy’s mercy –

Her enemy. Who was her enemy? If only she could think more clearly . . .

Minutes passed . . . Hours . . . Ingrid had no idea how many. She must have passed out and then come to. She made an effort to remember what exactly had happened. She tried to trace the exact sequence of events that had led her being placed inside this . . . coffin? Was she
really
in a coffin? Had she been buried alive? Apremature burial, like in Poe . . . Well, she remembered being dragged across the garden – someone pulling her by the shoulders . . . .She also remembered the knife glistening in the sun . . . That had been earlier on.

Ingrid had got on a bus – then – then she had arrived at Ospreys. She had walked up the drive. There had been rooks again, circling above her head, shrieking. Yes. She remembered the rooks. She had known at once there was something wrong. The rooks were her friends and they had been trying to warn her. She had started running . . .

She had arrived late, not at the time she intended. And the reason? Something had distracted her. She had seen a little girl on the bus – for a moment she had thought this was her daughter, her little Claire, but of course that was impossible. If her daughter had lived, Ingrid reasoned, she would have been thirty now. Ingrid had stood gazing at the girl, listening to her prattle to her little brother. She had wanted to reach out and stroke her fair curls – pinch her cheek. She wanted to pick her up and give her a kiss – She had missed her stop, that was it! She’d had to walk back. That was why she had had to run . . . Yes . . . Across the garden . . . How the rooks had screeched and flapped their wings! Catching sight of the well, she made a wish.
Please, Mighty God Rook, let me be the first to get to Ralph.

She had opened her bag and taken out the knife. She had wondered whether the priest would be there already. Her thoughts came back to her.
I’ll be damned if I let him kill
Ralph. With a soft pillow? An easy death? Oh no. That is not
the death Ralph deserves.
She had heard the priest talk about using a pillow into his mobile the day before – she had been concealed among the rose bushes in that overgrown garden.

The priest had been talking to Ralph’s nephew. What was the nephew’s name? Robin? Yes. Ralph didn’t trust Robin – well, with good reason! How funny that there should have been a
second
plot to kill Ralph – the kind of thing Antonia Darcy might have dreamt up.
Assassins at
Ospreys
– some such ridiculous title.

So she had been right about the priest. She knew that he was a dodgy one the moment she laid eyes on him, though a less likely hired killer one could not possibly imagine. Who would get to Ralph first? She had liked the challenge. She’d relished the adrenalin rush. She had been convinced she’d beat the podgy padre to it, oh yes, she had no doubt.

As Ingrid came round the corner of the terrace, however, she heard the priest’s voice coming from inside Ralph’s room. Father Lillie-Lysander was speaking in conversational tones.
Did you say your solicitor was coming at eleven?
You are definitely leaving all your money to Miss Ardleigh? No
change of heart?
She realized at once the french windows of Ralph’s room were open. Exactly as she’d anticipated them to be on a warm day like that. The priest had beaten her to it! Well, no – not quite. Not yet.
Ralph was still alive
. There was time. She had halted and now she looked down at the knife in her hand. The blade caught the sun and for a moment she had been dazzled. She remembered her thoughts:
Now I will have to kill the priest as well
.

She had started walking across the terrace but the next moment had stopped short.

She had stood and stared.

She hadn’t been able to believe her eyes –