Assassins at Ospreys (6 page)

She loves that word ‘honestly’, Payne thought. Was there an antigram? He did some quick mental arithmetic.
There was.
Honestly – on the sly! How very interesting.

‘I personally don’t bear Ralph any grudges. I honestly don’t,’ Beatrice went on. ‘I did suffer, I know. I suffered awfully. My life was turned upside down by the accident, but it’s never occurred to me to want to kill him. Not even in my darkest hour.’

‘You are easily the nicest person who ever lived,’ Colville said.

She shook her head resolutely from side to side. ‘No, I am not.’

‘Yes, you are.’

No, she is not, Antonia thought. You fool.

‘I happen to be well adjusted, that’s all. Ingrid is not. Ingrid has always inhabited an agitated universe. Awful things keep happening to her. Let me give you an example. When she was a girl she had a pet owl called Cassandra and she doted on it, but one day the poor wretched thing swallowed the end of the cord for the window blinds. It was found swinging in the breeze upside-down – hanged! Can you imagine? Ingrid was distraught.’

‘I think she killed that bird,’ Colville said. ‘The way she killed those two bitches.’

‘Darling!’ Betrice protested. ‘Well, Ingrid
is
volatile. She was diagnosed as manic-depressive well before she lost her baby. She told me all about it. She said she tended to brood for hours on end on something trivial. She was prescribed all sorts of powerful drugs. Demerol? Then of course she had the nervous breakdown and that was
–
mega
. They feared for her life. She kept harming herself. She wrote a frightfully disturbing poem called “Madrigals for Mad Girls”. She started having delusions. Once she imagined her doctor was Ralph in disguise and she tried to stab him in the eye with the paper knife from his desk. She underwent all sorts of very special treatments and it took her
ages
to recover.’

‘She never recovered,’ Colville said emphatically. ‘
Au
contraire
.’

‘I know she’s been particularly horrid to you, darling, but do try to be fair.’ Beatrice sighed. ‘She still takes anti-depressants – when she remembers, that is. Her room is full of pills. Well, taking care of me seemed to help her. Len is not convinced, but she
did
get better for a while. She put on weight. She started taking an interest in clothes and flowers and things. We went places. That picture on the mantelpiece – Len, would you be so kind? Thank you, darling. Look at us! Just look at us. We are at Cliveden. Doesn’t Ingrid look in the pink?’

‘She certainly seems different from the time I met her,’ Antonia admitted.

The photograph showed a radiant Beatrice in her wheel-chair, a mink coat draped around her shoulders, clutching a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, and a plumper, smiling Ingrid, her eyes a little puffy, in a Yum-Yum haircut and encased in a silk magenta-coloured trouser suit with an embroidered front.

‘She looks like an ornament the Astors might have brought back from their travels in the Mysterious East,’ Payne murmured.

‘Yes! Doesn’t she just?’ Beatrice leant towards Antonia and whispered, ‘
Your husband says such clever things
.’

Colville’s smile, Antonia observed, was beginning to look as if it had been left on his face by an oversight.

Beatrice had become wistful once more. ‘We had such good times. All right. She’s deteriorated since.’

‘Tell them about the bitches,’ Colville prompted.

‘Ingrid had two dogs,’ Beatrice began after a pause. ‘A golden retriever and a pit bull – Pip and Taylor – both bitches, as it happens. She had them put down for being “control freaks”. She explained the dogs had been putting her under an awful lot of pressure. The funny thing is that Ingrid is something of a control freak herself. You saw her in Hay-on-Wye, Antonia. You noticed the way she acted? I am infinitely grateful to Ingrid, mind, but sometimes it did feel as though she’d injected me with some paralysing fluid. I am probably being fanciful, but every so often I’d get this most peculiar feeling. How can I explain it? As though I’d been cocooned in an undetectable glaze of fixative. Goodness, that does sound weird, doesn’t it?’

Payne murmured, ‘Perhaps she did inject you with something?’

‘I bet she did,’ said Colville. ‘She gave Bee all sorts of injections – vitamins, painkillers and so on. She had plenty of opportunity to do something to her.’

‘Well, there were times when I did feel my power of choice diminishing – my rational judgement about things weakening –’ Beatrice broke off. ‘My main worry at the moment is that Ingrid might do something terrible to Ralph if somehow she were to learn that he isn’t dead but living next door.’

‘What’s the connection between Ingrid and Ralph?’ Antonia was frowning. ‘And how did Ingrid and you meet?’

‘Oh, didn’t I say? I am hopeless at explaining things. Sorry, my dear. It was the accident. The accident brought us together,’ Beatrice said. ‘I was in hospital – bedridden. The worst time of my life! Ingrid paid me a visit. She sat beside my bed and stroked my hand. She said she intended to take care of me. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, it honestly did, at least at the time. I knew at once she was looking for a substitute, but that didn’t really bother me much.’

‘A substitute? What substitute?’ Payne looked puzzled.

‘For her dead child of course,’ said Beatrice. ‘ She lost her baby, you see. In the accident.’

8
Doppelganger

Payne stared. ‘In the same accident?’

‘Yes – she was in the
other
car. The one we collided with. She was seven months pregnant at the time. She survived but she lost her baby. She had a miscarriage.’

‘How terrible,’ Antonia said.

‘Oh, it was. Doesn’t bear thinking about!’ Beatrice flapped her hands. ‘It was the most tragic thing. Poor Ingrid was all alone in the world when it happened. She wasn’t married. She hated her parents. She had run away from home. She wasn’t in what is known as a “stable relationship” either. A caring, loving, understanding husband or boyfriend might have helped her recover, but that man – Ingrid’s boyfriend – the child’s father – was no good. He’d never really loved Ingrid.’

‘He didn’t care about the child?’

‘Not one bit, Antonia. Poor Ingrid, on the other hand, wanted a child more than anything else in the world, so she lied to him that she was on the pill. I don’t think he ever forgave her for it. Oh, it is all so sordid. Anyhow, she got pregnant, which had been her intention all along. It made her extremely happy. She started buying things for the baby – clothes, a cot, a pram, various toys.’ Beatrice pressed her handkerchief against her lips.

‘I don’t think you should get upset now, really.’ Colville put a protective arm round her shoulders.

Beatrice sniffed. ‘She said she’d never been so happy . . . But then the accident happened and she lost the baby. And then – then she was dealt another blow – the doctors told her she couldn’t have any more children. That’s when it happened. She said it felt like a wire snapping inside her brain.’

‘She swore she’d kill Renshawe, didn’t she?’ Colville said portentously.

Beatrice didn’t answer. She had covered her face with her hands.

There was a pause. ‘Ralph was drunk that night, but he isn’t the only one to blame.’ Beatrice looked from Antonia to Payne, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘I haven’t told you the whole story. You see,
it was my fault too.’

‘Nonsense,’ Colville said robustly. The next moment he looked up. ‘Was that the front door?’

‘No, it
was
my fault. I was tipsy that night. Not as drunk as Ralph was but tipsy nevertheless. We had been drinking at Baudolino’s Bar in Greek Street. We’d had such a marvellous time. Ralph made me laugh. He said such outrageous things! I was very much taken by him, I must admit. How I laughed. I was quite hysterical with it. That’s always a bad sign, isn’t it?’

‘I think Ingrid’s back,’ Colville said.

Beatrice didn’t seem to hear. ‘I didn’t stop Ralph from driving. I should have done, but didn’t. I had actually brought a bottle of champagne with me
.
We kept drinking from it. I encouraged him to drive fast. If I had been a mature, responsible kind of person, I wouldn’t have allowed Ralph to get into the car, but I wasn’t. I was intent on having a good time. I wanted to please Ralph. We could have taken a cab. Don’t you see? I might have prevented the accident. Only I didn’t.’

‘Did you ever tell Ingrid that part of the story?’ Antonia asked after a pause.

‘Goodness,
no
. I gave her a completely different version of events. How I’d begged Ralph not to drive that night. How I had implored him. How I had wept. How I had tried to hide the car keys. I told Ingrid a pack of whoppers. Well, I am as bad as Ralph. I as good as killed Ingrid’s baby. What’s the matter now, darling?’ Beatrice asked irritably as Colville rose abruptly from his seat. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going to check,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I think Ingrid’s come back.’

Beatrice blinked. ‘
Come back?
’ Her expression changed and she clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh my God. The
door
–’ She shook her forefinger. ‘Look! It’s ajar! Oh, Len, why didn’t you shut it?’ She gesticulated frantically.

Without a word Colville lumbered out of the room.

Beatrice Ardleigh looked at Antonia with wild eyes. ‘Do you think she might have heard? Was I shouting? I was shouting, wasn’t I? Oh my God.’

‘I don’t think you were that loud,’ Antonia tried to reas-sure her.

‘I was shouting, Antonia . She must have heard every word I said. She knows now that I lied to her.’

The next moment Colvillle re-entered the room. He stood by the door and leant against the wall. His ruddy face was visibly paler. His eyes had a dazed look. He appeared to have had a shock of some kind.

‘Darling, what is it?’ Beatrice cried. ‘Was it Ingrid?’

He swallowed. Then he gave an awkward laugh and passed his hand across his face. ‘It must have been, but it looked nothing like her.’ Aware how absurd this sounded, he shook his head.

‘What the hell do you mean, Colville?’ Major Payne asked.

There was a pause. ‘If I didn’t know that at this very moment Bee was here in this very room,’ Colville said hoarsely, ‘I’d have said it was . . .
her
.’

‘You thought it was me? What – what are you talking about?’ Suddenly Beatrice looked terrified.

‘It was your doppelganger, Bee. Your double. I saw your double going up the stairs.’ He swallowed. ‘She even
smelled
like you. She smelled of Ce Soir Je T’Aime.’

9
Partners in Crime

Father Lillie-Lysander had ‘gone off’ at five in the after-noon. It was over two hours later that he came to. He found he was lying across his bed, spread-eagled, still wearing his sumptuous dressing gown. He had no recollection of going into his bedroom, but he must have done. It was dark now. He had missed the twilight – he liked the twilight.
An atmosphere of tenebrous deliquescence
. That was how Baron Corvo would have put it.

Twilight. He remained lying with his eyes open. He had a special feeling for twilight. He got a thrill out of it. Well, he seemed to be one of those men who – how did it go? – rebelled against the light and knew not the way thereof, nor abided in the paths thereof.

Suddenly he laughed. He had remembered a joke Robin had made concerning the long black cassock favoured by Jesuits, about one of its rather peculiar features – the sleeve-like strip of material attached to each shoulder – the so-called wings. These curious appendages, Robin had said, are a vestigial legacy of the days when the Holy Fathers had four arms and could distribute the Body of Christ in two directions at once.

Lillie-Lysander wondered idly what his bishop’s reaction might be if he went to him and made a full confession – about the way he felt, the thoughts he had, the things he did. Would the old fool call for an exorcism? For public defrocking? The bishop would probably have him flogged if he could! He might even be inspired to write a sermon on the subject.

Be vigilant, my brethren
(Lillie-Lysander improvised).
These cunning, crafty and artful creatures manage to pass them-selves
off as men of God, but they are only wolves in sheep’s
clothing. They preach not the Gospel of Truth but their own
diabolical philosophies and counsels. They make the black night
their morning and ally themselves with the terrors of the pit. Yes,
they feel secure only when surrounded by deep shades of
darkness –

Father Lillie-Lysander rose gingerly from the bed. He felt only the tiniest bit woozy – a trifle swimmy. He had read somewhere that drugs killed brain cells. Surely that was an exaggeration? He was proud of his brain; he wouldn’t want to harm it. He should be fine in a couple of minutes. After he had had a cup of coffee and some break-fast – he was feeling ravenous – or did he mean dinner? It
was
morning, wasn’t it?

He knew he needed to do something rather urgently. He needed to speak to somebody – no, not to the bishop. To Robin? Yes. He needed to speak to Robin. Poor Robin. Lillie-Lysander put on his slippers and walked across the room. How funny. He felt light inside, yet it was like wading through treacle.

Lillie-Lysander dialled Robin’s number and as soon as he heard Robin’s voice, said, ‘I am afraid I have some bad news. I don’t think you will like it.’ His tongue felt thick – but he didn’t think he was lisping.

‘I will most certainly not like it if it’s bad news.’

‘Your uncle has sent for his solicitor, Robin.’

‘Don’t tell me he intends to change his will,’ Robin said quietly.

‘Well – yes.’ Lillie-Lysander was a bit annoyed that Robin had guessed the nature of the problem so quickly, but then Robin must be thinking of little else. ‘That is his intention. You are no longer his heir.’ Lillie-Lysander kept shutting his eyes and shading them against the electric light with his hand. He felt extremely thirsty.

‘I expected something of the sort,’ Robin sounded almost casual. ‘Who or what will be getting the Hartz millions?’

‘You will never guess.’

‘Don’t tell me it’s you, Lily. That might mean I’d have to marry you.’

‘No such luck, I fear. I will get my rewards in heaven.’ Lillie-Lysander giggled.

‘Not Wilkes? I’d definitely marry Wilkes.’

‘Not Nurse Wilkes either. I said you’d never guess. Well, he has decided to leave all his money to Beatrice Ardleigh.’ Lillie-Lysander paused, expecting an interruption, but there wasn’t any. ‘Your uncle’s solicitor is coming tomorrow morning.’

‘Who the fuck is Beatrice Ardleigh?’

‘A woman your uncle nearly married thirty years ago. They were in an accident and she lost the power of her legs. She’s been calling on him –’

‘Good lord.
That
woman. I have heard the story of course. Bee Ardleigh, is how Uncle Ralph refers to her.’ course. Bee Ardleigh, ‘That’s correct.’

‘You don’t mean she’s been perambulating herself to Ospreys in her wheelchair? Are you sure she is not a mere chimera? Perhaps she only exists in my uncle’s imagination. I bet my uncle is delusional. That frequently happens to those about to depart.’ Robin continued to sound extremely composed. Lillie-Lysander would have preferred him to sigh, groan, even utter some unprintable oath.

‘She is real enough, Robin. I did meet her. She seems to have made a complete recovery. She is in fine shape. Her legs are perfectly steady. The only oddity about her, if you’d call it that, was that she wears a wig.’

‘You couldn’t have misunderstood about the will? Uncle Ralph is less than lucid these days; you said so yourself.’

‘He was extremely lucid. He talked about his decision at some length. He still feels guilty about Beatrice Ardleigh and is determined to do something by way of compensating her for the torment and misery he has caused her. His solicitor is coming tomorrow at eleven.’

‘I think we should meet. I am coming over.’

‘Actually, Robin, I am not feeling very well at the moment. I have a bit of a headache. Can’t we meet tomorrow morning?’

‘Make some coffee. One of your superior brews. I’ll be with you in about forty-five minutes.’

Lillie-Lysander lived at Athlone Place in Charterhouse Square while Robin had a tiny flat in Knightsbridge.

Lillie-Lysander started saying something but realized that Robin had rung off. He shook his head and smiled, a slightly twisted smile
. I am coming over.
Robin hadn’t asked whether it would be convenient. He had shown scant regard for Lillie-Lysander’s headache. Well, Robin always saw things exclusively from his own point of view. It was remarkable how Robin always managed to get his way. Lillie-Lysander’s resentment was mixed with admiration. He had intended to go back to bed and read from
Don
Tarquinio
, a book which he knew by heart and whose author, the enigmatic Baron Corvo, was one of his heroes, but he went to the kitchen instead.

‘
Bearing armorials on their tabards, displayed at the prow the
double-cross and the high Estense gonfalon
,’ Lillie-Lysander quoted aloud, articulating as carefully as he could while at the same time speaking fast and making it sound like a tongue-twister. He wanted to prove to himself that he wasn’t really lisping. Robin had a sharp ear and was bound to tease him about it.

His kitchen was a Vermeer oasis of pewter and glass. He put coffee in the percolator. Coffee from the Himalayan Hills. The packet bore the Harrods label. Well, he simply
had
to have the best. Some of his smart acquaintances were boycotting Harrods, but he personally didn’t disapprove of Mr Al Fayed. Lillie-Lysander couldn’t help having affinity with people who did outrageous things and defied the Establishment.

As he turned on the radio, he peered at the clock – not eight yet? It was still dark outside and the lights in the kitchen were on. Was there a storm coming? No, he didn’t feel like listening to the radio. It was exactly twelve minutes to eight. Thought For The Day would start any second, and that was the last thing he wanted. He had an aversion to high-minded bores. Liberated ex-nuns and suchlike. The next moment, remembering that it was eight in the
evening
, not in the morning, he laughed, a somewhat high-pitched giggle.

He was getting confused.
Papaver somniferum
was turn-ing out to be more powerful than he expected, but oh the joy and ecstasy supreme before oblivion had taken over! He reached out for the radio once more and found Jazz FM. It was a little-known Cole Porter song they were playing. ‘A Shooting-Box in Scotland’. Lillie-Lysander hummed along with the singer:

         ‘
Having lots of idle leisure,
         
I pursue a life of pleasure –
’

Actually that wasn’t true. He didn’t have lots of idle leisure. He did work. He listened to the incredibly boring confessions of mortally ill elderly gentlemen. He then reported to the elderly gentlemen’s scapegrace nephews. He could actually run that as a regular service, he supposed.
A
double-crossing father confessor seeks employment. Would under-take
most delicate and unusual of tasks. No religious scruples –

Lillie-Lysander felt so light-headed, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he had started soaring up to the ceiling.
The Times
lay on the kitchen table. He hadn’t been able to so much as glance at it. He put on his reading glasses but the next moment he started recalling how he had pinched the ampoule from Ralph Renshawe’s bedside table. He had been tempted. He had always wondered what it would feel like.

The wicked flourish like a green bay tree.
Well, yes. Quite. He was in excellent health and brimming with ideas.

Lillie-Lysander kept his eye on the clock, imagining that Robin, true to his inconsiderate nature, would be either late or early, but Robin was as good as his word. Forty-six minutes later his friend was lounging on the sofa, his legs stretched out before him. Robin had taken off his long charcoal-grey coat but left his white muffler fluttering rakishly at his throat. He wore a black Dior jacket, a cashmere roll-neck and slim polished boots. He looked smart in a French,
nouvelle vague
kind of way.

Lillie-Lysander put the small tray with the silver coffee-pot and two cups on the round malachite table between them. Robin’s foxy face looked merely blank but he must feel far from happy. Well, it had been Robin’s intention to spend Christmas in the Seychelles. It was his uncle’s money that he had felt sure would pay for it since his uncle would be dead by the end of November, early December at the latest. Robin had probably been envisioning himself bouncing around in speedboats feeding caviar to the fish. Now of course he would have to review his plans.

‘
All
his money?’ Robin sipped coffee from the delicate eggshell cup with the gold border, which Lillie-Lysander had handed him. ‘Surely not
all
his money?’

‘Every penny of it,’ Lillie-Lysander said with ill-concealed relish. ‘Those were his exact words.’

‘He’s lost his mind. Do sit down, Lily. It puts me on edge seeing you hovering about. And would you stop rustling that newspaper?’ For the first time Robin was showing signs of emotion.

Lillie-Lysander balanced himself gingerly on one of his little flat-seated heraldic chairs and took a sip of coffee. The chair was part of a set, which he had bought at Christie’s. He had been enthralled by the elaborate armorial painting on the chairs’ backs. ‘You can always contest the will,’ he said.

‘And who’s going to foot my legal bills? Would you? Incidentally, does the lucky slut know about his intentions?’ ‘No. He hasn’t told her yet. He hasn’t said so, but I think he intends it to be a surprise.’

‘A surprise . . . What precisely did he say about me?’

‘Well, um, he said you have been a disappointment. He said he hoped you would understand why he was doing this –’

‘Would I?’

‘You were still young and –’

‘Young?’ Robin gave a rueful smile. ‘I will be forty-one soon.’

They were the same age but beside him Robin looked positively boyish, or rather, as the Gallic flavour of his clothes suggested,
comme un garçon
. Did he like
les garçons
? Lillie-Lysander wondered. Robin had courted a baronet’s daughter twenty years before, at least that was what he had told him – a girl called Samantha, they had been practically engaged, but she had gone and married someone else who was in politics. Once at the Midas, Lillie-Lysander had seen him arm in arm with two exceptionally good-looking young Spaniards. He had introduced them as his ‘neophytes’. On that particular occasion Robin had been rather drunk. But then Lillie-Lysander had also encountered Robin at the gaming table, holding hands with a stunning-looking black girl. The girl had been long-legged, smooth-skinned and pouted a lot. She looked like a model and Robin appeared quite taken with her. Robin had introduced her as Mascot – or had he called her
his
mascot? She had certainly brought him luck that night, Lillie-Lysander remembered.

‘Your uncle referred to the money your father left you,’ Lillie-Lysander went on. ‘He said your father had left you extremely well provided for.’

‘My father didn’t leave me well provided for. Or if he did, that was a very long time ago.’

‘Your uncle said that if you’ve frittered away your father’s money, his decision might be an incentive for you to get a job. He said you had no history of lawful employment. He called you an idler and a waster. He said you were leading a parasitic existence.’

‘How well my uncle knows me.’ Robin frowned. ‘A job would be a bore
and
a bind . . . So he’s serious about dis-inheriting me?’

‘Yes. He is convinced he has made the right decision. He did ask me for my opinion though.’ Lillie-Lysander paused. ‘I said that this was a very serious matter and he shouldn’t rush things. I told him that he should give the matter careful consideration.’

‘That was kind of you, Lily, but I don’t imagine my uncle was swayed by your views on the subject?’

‘No. Actually it made him laugh. This brought on a coughing fit. It nearly killed him –’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ Lillie-Lysander was watching Robin carefully. ‘Your uncle started gasping – choking. It was ghastly – absolutely ghastly. Nurse Wilkes ran over. Your uncle did look as though he were breathing his last. He recovered eventually, but for a minute or two I was quite worried that I might have killed him.’

Robin loosened his muffler. His face remained expressionless. ‘You were worried that you might have killed him. You realize, don’t you, that if you had – that if my uncle had died there and then, as a result of your perfectly innocent remark – you would have been talking to a multi-millionaire now?’