Embrace Me (15 page)

‘He could make her do anything he wanted. Is it possible she obeyed one order too many and could not live with herself for having done so? Or that he had humiliated her once too often? He never did that to her in public, dared not. He knew she would walk away from him if he did. She often told him, as she told us, that she would do just that when their affair had run its course. Olivia believed that she had control and yet more than a few times she tried to leave him but had not the will to follow through. It was just not possible. She was angry with herself and him. I think she came to understand that he would keep her for himself no matter what she wanted,’ said Angelica.

‘He was a known sexual thrill-seeker, a sometime sadist. Something Olivia was not. He was always trying to corrupt her that little bit more,’ Marguerite declared.

‘He understood but could never accept that love, passion, forthrightness, adventure, governed Olivia’s life. In a strange way he loved and hated her for having those qualities. Every one of her friends believed that when she was through playing with her wild prince she would leave him. She had us all convinced she could. Now this! Quite obviously she came to understand she was his prisoner and he would never let her go. The drugs and the bizarre sex life they led altered her. She became two people: the Olivia we all loved and adored and the prince’s Olivia. He liked her dark soul, exploited it, taught her to embrace it. She used to say teasingly, “Embrace me, my dark mysterious soul,”’ said Miss Plumm.

‘No wonder you all feel so guilty. You let her run headlong into this situation and now you’ve lost her forever and a man has been brutally murdered,’ Jenny observed bitterly.

‘Sullivan!’ There was reproach in Harry’s voice.

‘Yes, sir,’ she answered, nearly jumping to attention.

There was a tense moment in the room until he broke the silence, calmly suggesting, ‘Let’s review what we have on the abandoned car, which in fact is what first brought us to Sefton Under Edge. Sullivan, you start.’

‘We know about the abandoned car,’ said Marguerite.

‘Do we? That’s how good detecting goes. Review the facts, again and again, until you have understood them and they provide a solution to your particular question. Proceed, Sullivan.’

September gazed into Harry’s eyes, transfixed by admiration for him. He never ceased to surprise her with that outer softness over a hard core. This was the man with whom she had fallen in love at first sight. She didn’t want to believe what he was saying: that Olivia had planned and plotted to kill the prince and to run away from them all to live a new life. Tears trickled from her eyes. Olivia had broken her heart. September knew Olivia loved her and it had not been deliberate, it was simply a sad by-product of Olivia’s having to rid herself of the prince once and for all.

Harry saw the distress in September’s face, the tears staining her cheeks. He went to her and sat on the arm of her chair to be close to her. She would understand that it was impossible for him to do more for her at that moment.

‘Sullivan?’ he pressed.

‘Lady Olivia, having fled the prince’s house and eluded the hunt for her, appeared at the Wasboroughs’. She borrowed Mrs Wasborough’s car and ten thousand pounds, gave no excuse for her actions and drove out of London. She told her friend that she would see that her car was returned. Lady Olivia drove the car to Sefton Under Edge and abandoned it, continuing her escape on foot or by plane from here with the help of friends.’

‘Wrong,’ said Marguerite.

‘Why?’ asked Harry.

‘Ten thousand pounds? How far would that get Olivia? No. She would have gone to where she had stashed several hundred thousand at least, picked it up, then flown herself out of England. That is if, and it is a big if, she had planned this murder.’

‘Very good, Marguerite!’ said an impressed Harry.

‘Then who drove the car to Sefton Under Edge? Do you mean she was never even here that night? How can you be sure? She might have hidden the money in the woods, driven here to get it, and then had a driver to take her to her next destination,’ said Jenny.

Silence hung like smoke over the room. Olivia’s friends were dazed by what was being said. It was Joe Sixsmith who spoke up. ‘Two people drove the car here, that was why both doors were left open?’

‘Wrong!’ said Marguerite most emphatically.

She looked over at Harry. Her mind was ticking like a time bomb. She was mentally putting the pieces together and the picture was strong and clear as nothing about Olivia’s disappearance had been until now.

Jenny Sullivan was irritated by every word Marguerite said. She tried to take over once more. ‘Why are you so sure that’s wrong?’

‘Both car doors were open – that was to make us think two people had been in the car. The lights left on? An indication of timing to hoodwink the police. The keys in the ignition to imply a hurried departure. A thumb and forefinger print left deliberately so as to identify Olivia as having been in the car. The car parked across the road to cause an obstruction. Another puzzle for the police. There was a twofold purpose to that: had she come here to seek help in the village or the Park? The abandoned car was just a red herring for New Scotland Yard to waste their time on. No, Olivia never came to Sefton Under Edge. She was following her original plan,’ deduced Marguerite as she walked to the drinks table and poured herself another calvados.

‘You will never find her, Harry,’ said James, looking decidedly anxious.

Harry felt James’s pain. Time would heal that and out of kindness the detective kept quiet. He did not tell James that he would pursue Lady Olivia Cinders until he had arrested her or had proof of her death, no matter how many years it took. He and the Yard would never close the file on her.

Chapter 15

Marguerite asked Neville to bring in two bottles of champagne and the ice bucket. She went to sit next to James. ‘Are you bearing up?’ she asked.

‘Yes, just about,’ he told her. She stroked his cheek.

‘That’s just about how we’re all taking this, James,’ said Angelica, who went to him, sat on his lap, and leaned against his chest.

Harry was mesmerised by the love and affection, the degree of genuine caring, this group of people showed towards one another without any shame. Marguerite, September, Angelica and James were open in the way they caressed, kissed and spoke to each other. It was a kind of intimacy rarely achieved. They gave each other everything and achieved something so special that Harry yearned to be part of it. He thought of Lady Olivia, and how she would never have this special something from them again. He understood, as they did, as surely Olivia must, the terrible price she had paid for her freedom.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Jenny Sullivan, stunned to silence by the behaviour of James. Angelica and Marguerite. He could see the shock in her face as she watched them together. She saw something she could never have because she simply did not understand it, and he felt pity for her.

Neville returned and opened the champagne, Marguerite filled glasses. And then Harry said, ‘Marguerite, I would not be best pleased to see you go into print with a book on the disappearance of Lady Olivia Cinders.’

‘You have my word I will never write about this. There will be plenty of other people fascinated by Olivia’s disappearance who
will try and write it for some fast money. But exploit her misery? I would never do that.’

‘So let’s recap,’ said Harry as he drew up a chair close to Miss Plumm’s.

‘We now believe that the murder of the prince by Lady Olivia was premeditated. That she has snookered New Scotland Yard and this investigation by planting false clues to keep the Yard busy while she makes a clean getaway,’ said Joe Sixsmith.

‘A little bald and not very elegantly worded but basically correct,’ agreed Harry.

‘This new theory seems the more probable of any so far. But it does pose new questions. “Follow the money and you’ll find your criminal,” some famous detective once said. I forgot which one but it seems like sound advice,’ said Marguerite.

‘You seem to be very good at this, Marguerite. Possibly too good,’ commented James.

‘Now what does that mean?’ she asked.

‘Should we, Olivia’s friends, go any further in helping to find her? Is that what she would want? We have to ask ourselves that question.’

Miss Plumm began to laugh and all attention was now focused on her. When she had herself under control, she said, ‘My dear James, Olivia has set us all up in a game where she is holding the key cards. If she were here right now she’d be laughing and teasing us because of it. Yes, indeed, she would want us to play her game, even if she is playing
in absentia
.’

‘Well, if that’s what she expects then we shan’t deny her a last game with us,’ he said.

Marguerite too began to laugh. ‘A deadly game, and that’s not just a pun. Now that we have worked it out, I can see that the path she chose to take was the only one open to her. It was a matter of survival; one of them had to die to be free from the other. It was merely a question of who would get there first. Olivia’s will to live was stronger than her passionate and sick relationship with the prince. He intended to keep her locked away in one of his palaces, as a sexual toy for himself and his friends. And she, having realised that was his object, plotted and planned her revenge and escape.’

Jenny Sullivan was lost with not the least idea of what Marguerite was implying. Joe Sixsmith did not have that problem, he was very much tuned in to what she was saying.

‘Now we have a motive for the murder,’ he announced.

‘Miss Chen, those are mere assumptions on your part. You have created a motive,’ Jenny was quick to declare.

‘They are
not
assumptions, Detective Constable Sullivan. They’re fact. Olivia told us of the depraved acts the prince demanded of her, and that she had willingly acceded. At first. Later she told us that he intended to kidnap her and keep her as a sex slave, and assured us that would never happen. That if it were to come to that it would be Olivia who would survive,’ said Angelica.

‘So now we have the motive,’ agreed James.

‘Marguerite, did you at any time think she meant to kill the prince?’ asked Harry.

‘Never!’

‘Then how do you account for his death?’ asked Jenny.

‘Because Olivia wanted to live, I’ve already told you, Detective Constable Sullivan.’

‘Then you believe as she did, that he would have killed her before letting her go?’ verified Jenny.

‘Does any of this really matter?’ Neville put in.

‘Only in as much as it goes towards motive. But let’s move on. Olivia found the right moment to destroy her lover. He went along with the bondage, being made love to by her, forced to keep silent. We will never know until we hear it from Olivia’s own lips what happened next. Did he still believe it was part of their sexual game when she slit his wrists? Had they planned that together? Had he done it in search of a new sexual high? If he had been willingly participating in this act, he made the fatal mistake of believing she would save him. I believe she had been planning to murder him for some time and this opportunity arose. It was perfect. Afterwards she sat on the bed with him and watched him slowly die.’

‘She was watching the darkness of her soul ooze away with every drop of his blood,’ put in Miss Plumm. ‘I know Olivia – she was purging herself of the darkness that had taken over her
life. Wherever she is, whatever she is doing now, she will be free and enjoying life. She will miss us as we will miss her but she will have worked out that it is better for her to be free and the wondrous person she can be than dead and gone forever like her dark prince.’

‘Miss Plumm, I believe you to be right. But how was she so sure that New Scotland Yard would not find her and bring her to justice?’ asked Harry.

‘Olivia would have refused even to countenance such a possibility. She will have planned her new life carefully, accepting she’ll be hunted always but never captured,’ answered Miss Plumm.

‘The brother’s arrival was unexpected bad luck, while finding the Wasboroughs at home was a stroke of good fortune. Borrowing Caroline Wasborough’s car was how she was able to get out of Mayfair. But where did she go then? Who drove the car to Sefton Under Edge?’ asked Harry.

‘That was where she was really clever,’ Marguerite maintained. ‘Olivia knew that she was going to kill the prince that day. She would have known that the Wasboroughs weren’t going out that night – she was always talking to Caroline. The ten thousand pounds was nothing to Olivia, she probably took it to make herself look desperate. Remember, everything was done to make the killing look like a sexual prank gone wrong.

‘So, she’s got the car and some money and has to get the car to Sefton Under Edge and create a mystery around it. But most of all she has to get out of England as fast as possible, within an hour of the murder. She could only do that one way: with the assistance of a villain who was on stand-by all along. Olivia would have paid them a huge sum, fifty or a hundred thousand pounds in non-traceable notes. Enough to keep them silent forever.’

‘How would she know such a person?’ asked Jenny.

‘I don’t know. But Olivia always managed to get anything she needed because she knew that money talks,’ said Marguerite.

‘So Olivia had this driver on stand-by during the night in question? It sounds a bit far-fetched,’ said James.

Marguerite slapped her hand down on the table. ‘Precisely.
And that was why it would work. It would have been some place central, all she had to do was drive to it and step out of the car for a minute to signal the person in question. It would have been somewhere central, packed with people. A McDonald’s, Burger King, fish-and-chip shop … somewhere she would never normally be seen dead in. The man is there waiting, joins her and gets instructions as to exactly how she wants the car dealt with. He drives her to her destination, and Olivia pays him off. Not long after she has been chased through the streets of Mayfair, she’s out of London and on her way into exile.’

‘And you said you weren’t going to write a novel about the disappearance of Lady Olivia!’ Jenny Sullivan laughed sarcastically.

Harry stood up and was about to dress Jenny down for her rudeness but was stopped by Marguerite who held up her hand, palm out towards him, as a signal for him to let her speak.

‘You know, Detective Constable Sullivan, I don’t understand what your problem is but clearly you have one with being here in my house and playing this truth game. You think me and my friends frivolous, have been rude to us on more than one occasion, patently disapprove of this evening and what is being accomplished, and have made it more than obvious that you are hell-bent on wielding your authority as a policewoman.

‘None of that is very smart. You’re so adversarial most of the time, and jealous, and just plain bigoted against Olivia and her lifestyle, that you are missing the plain fact that we are helping you understand what actually happened. Why don’t you cut out the attitude and try and get as much as you can out of this exercise?’

Jenny could hardly take her eyes off Marguerite. She detested this woman for her success and her posturing but everything Marguerite said was true. Jenny had no defence to offer.

‘I think I owe you an apology, Miss Chen. May I take the floor and ask a question?’

‘Well, that’s what we’re here for,’ answered a still angry but gracious Marguerite.

‘If your scenario is right, where did she get the money? We’ve had all her accounts frozen and investigated, and for months
before the murder no large sums had been liquidated,’ Jenny explained.

‘Good question, Detective Constable Sullivan. But Olivia was smart about money, knew very well how costly a lifestyle she enjoyed. And the prince spoiled her rotten. She would have worked out that she might never be able to touch her money if she vanished in such circumstances. My guess is that she had other funds, banked secretly. I believe she got millions from the prince. Ten, or twenty million dollars was pin money to him. Who’s to say? Maybe fifty or a hundred million. That would be enough to bankroll her escape?

‘If she didn’t get the money from the prince then she might have got it from one of her other admirers, a secret one. He would have to be a powerful man, above investigation and able to protect her. Someone worth billions of dollars and a law unto himself. And certainly a man who disliked the prince. Would she have fled to such a person? I doubt it. If Olivia didn’t trust us to help her then she would not trust anyone else. No. She picked up her fortune, paid off her villain, and having bought a small jet aircraft, loaded the money aboard and flew away from England while you, Harry, were still examining the scene of the crime.’

‘I don’t mean to be rude, Miss Chen, but you’re painting an imaginary picture and we need facts!’ Jenny objected.

‘Well, I don’t mean to be rude either but that’s
your
problem. You haven’t crawled into Olivia’s skin and thought as she thought, used your imagination, followed your hunches. Harry has, and so has DC Sixsmith. I gave you a scenario. Why not do some work on it, get some more clues? Follow the money, that’s where you’ll find Olivia,’ Marguerite declared.

‘Yes, you’re very good at this. You have at least given us some idea of how she might have eluded us,’ Harry confirmed.

Turning to face Jenny, he told her, ‘Go down to the office and get the following things under way: bank statements going back one year. Find out from the prince’s secretary if the prince made any large sums of money over to Lady Olivia. They would be cash transactions. Get the boys down at the Yard to check out all the small jet planes sold in the last year and find out to whom. Then return here with your notes about the flights that
were made on the night of the murder.’

After Jenny had left, Miss Plumm suggested coffee might be in order and September offered to make it. Marguerite’s head was still spinning with many possible explanations for what had happened to Olivia. She felt suddenly queasy. Aloud she said, ‘What if she is dead? If she was capable of deliberately killing the prince then it has to be a possibility that she has taken her own life or is prepared to do so if she has to. Harry, you’ll never capture her alive. Let her go. She’s better free than dead.’

‘I doubt that that is even a remote possibility. What we are all failing to acknowledge is that she
did
get clean away and by now is already installed in her new life. She’s no more behaving as a hunted woman than I am,’ argued Miss Plumm.

The relief on everyone’s face at this argument was obvious. Even Harry and Joe felt relieved to hear that their murderer was not the type to kill herself. Joe was by now as caught up in the mystery and charm of Lady Olivia and as determined to bring her to justice as Harry. It was he who asked the group, ‘So where are we now?’

‘Just where she wants us to be. Still in the dark. I wonder when she expected us to come to our senses and realise she’s been sending us on false trails right from the start? Not yet, I wager,’ observed Harry.

Neville spoke up. ‘Marguerite’s quite right, you must follow the money.’

‘First you have to find it,’ offered Angelica.

‘Good point. Has anyone any ideas where she might have stashed that amount of cash?’ asked Marguerite.

September returned to the drawing-room with a tray laden with coffee cups and saucers and a silver service. She placed it in front of Miss Plumm and asked her to serve. Angelica and Marguerite declared themselves famished and went to the kitchen to make sandwiches. James looked troubled and got to his feet.

‘Don’t you think we’re behaving like turncoats?’ he asked.

‘No, James. We’re trying to solve the mystery of what happened to Olivia. Even if it helps the police, it will get them nowhere. Olivia means never to be found. The police can look
for her for an eternity, they’ll never find her. That’s the truth and we all know it,’ said September.