The Death of Corinne (20 page)

28

A Case of Identity

It was two o’clock in the afternoon.

Major Payne and Antonia were in the library. They were standing by the window, watching as the police cars started leaving. The day had clouded over and once more it promised rain – but it had got milder. Payne opened the window a crack, to let in some fresh air. They heard what they believed to be a nightingale, but there was no final chug-chug-chug, so they decided it was a blackbird.

‘The Victorians maintained that a death without a deathbed was a horrid thing,’ Payne murmured.

‘Unless it took place on the field of battle – or in the missionary field.’

‘How does one die in the missionary field?’

‘Man-eating tigers – mosquito bites – snake bites.’

‘Cannibals?’

‘The police have gone,’ Antonia observed.

There was a pause. ‘Well, that’s that, my love,’ Payne said. ‘An open-and-shut case if ever there was one. Eleanor Merchant’s fingerprints on the gun. Cuttings from the
International Herald Tribune
in Eleanor’s bag. Aunt Nellie’s address and telephone number in Eleanor’s address book . . . She made a hash of it at the end when she lost her nerve and killed the wrong person. She must have been getting frustrated and desperate. She must have reached the state known as panic depression . . . What Arthur Machen, I believe, called “horror of the soul” . . . The police thought she must have spent at least one whole day in a confined space. She had had very little food and drink. She was cold. All that would have made her highly strung, jittery and trigger-happy. The police are perfectly satisfied.’

‘They are, aren’t they?’ Antonia said.

He cocked an eyebrow. ‘You are not?’

‘The address and the phone number. How did she manage to get them so easily? Then there’s the gun. How did Eleanor manage to obtain a gun? There was a knife in her bag. She might have been preparing to
stab
Corinne. She couldn’t have brought a gun with her on the plane from the United States. She couldn’t have got the gun in France and then boarded the Eurostar either. Not with the kind of security there is at the moment . . . OK. She might have bought the gun on the black market, after her arrival in London, but I am far from convinced.’

‘What other solution is there?’ Payne started filling his pipe. ‘
Could
Corinne have done the double shooting? It might have been her way of overthrowing the Maginot regime . . . Corinne’s plan might have been to make the Merchant look like the guilty party – but she lost her nerve and fled . . . Corinne might be much more devious and cunning than she appeared. Perhaps it was she who led the Merchant on, making sure she got Aunt Nellie’s address and phone number and so on?’

‘Well, somebody did lead Eleanor Merchant on,’ Antonia said.

‘Who? You don’t think it’s Jonson, do you? Maginot? No, can’t be Maginot – doesn’t make sense. Incidentally, what about our theory that Maginot is in fact Ruse? Where does it fit in precisely?’

‘It doesn’t fit anywhere.’

Payne had struck a match and was about to put it to his pipe. He looked at his wife across the tiny flame. ‘It doesn’t?’

‘It doesn’t. We were wrong. Maître Maginot isn’t Ruse.’

‘What do you mean? We noticed the resemblance! Maginot
is
Corinne’s mother – it was confirmed by Jonson – remember the way he stood and stared?’

‘Only for a minute – his expression changed as soon as you said your aunt and Ruse had been debs together in pre-war London. He was right when he told us that we’d got the wrong end of the stick altogether.’

‘Maginot can’t be Ruse because . . . Corinne isn’t Corinne? No, that’s not it.’ Payne rubbed his forehead. ‘Impossible. I don’t know why I said it –’

‘It isn’t impossible. Far from it.’

There was a pause. ‘Corinne isn’t . . . Corinne?’ Payne repeated.

‘No. In that photograph – the photograph I found in Jonson’s case – Corinne is seen stroking a kitten – but she couldn’t have – it would have made her feel very ill – might even have killed her.
Corinne suffered from an acute
allergy to cats
.’

Payne stared at her. ‘She came out in red blotches after sniffing a cat, Aunt Nellie said. Golly . . .
Yes
. The woman in the photo clearly had no problems with cats. Clever of you to notice. How did you –’

‘There was a magazine on the table in the greenhouse –
Vogue
– it had the picture of a model holding a cat on the cover,’ Antonia explained. ‘Nicholas is allergic to plants – he kept sneezing. The two things suddenly clicked in my mind.’

‘Jonson said nothing about a kitten. He mentioned a
kipper
– I did think it damned odd . . . Jonson knows the truth, doesn’t he?’ Major Payne said quietly.

‘He does. For some reason he is protecting that woman . . . He is either being paid hush money – or else he is in love with her.’

‘In love with
la fausse
Corinne . . . How jolly complicated. An impostor, eh? A woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Corinne in her prime . . . Last night she wore lashings of slap, did you notice?’

‘Yes – for the wrong reason. It was the thick pancake variety – what ageing actresses put on to conceal deep wrinkles and other ravages of time, so that they can play the ingénue without provoking screams of derisive laughter. But her jaw-line is that of a young woman,’ Antonia pointed out. ‘She is youthfully slim. Her whole bearing is that of a young woman. Well, she
is
a young woman. I do believe that.’

‘What you mean, my love, is that we’ve been witnessing the oddest of double bluffs.’ Payne stroked his jaw with a thoughtful forefinger. ‘Or is it triple? A young woman . . . pretending to be an ageing diva . . . who is doing her utmost to look young . . . Those creepy flesh-coloured gloves . . . The true reason again is not to conceal the fact that she has wrinkles but that she
hasn
’
t got any
. The same purpose, one imagines, is served by her high-necked dresses and those enormous bows?’

‘Correct. She doesn’t want it to be seen that her throat is in fact smooth and unlined . . . As for the wig, I think she wears it not because she is bald or in any way deformed, but because her hair’s a different colour and too short, and it would have been too much trouble if she’d had to grow it long, style it, keep colouring it and so on.’

‘But – I say – look here, old thing. This young woman’s features are very similar if not the same as Corinne Coreille’s. More importantly, her
voice
is the same as Corinne Coreille’s. You heard her sing last night. It would be madness to assume that there’s a young woman who is Corinne Coreille’s absolute double, or rather, younger version. Unless – ‘ Major Payne broke off, the idea at last dawning on him, as Antonia had hoped it would. ‘Good lord. She isn’t Corinne’s
daughter
, is she?’

‘She is. What you called the old DNA provides the only feasible explanation. Remember that Corinne
did
have a child,’ Antonia said. ‘By Peverel.’

‘But she lost the baby! That’s what my sister told me.’

‘A story to that effect was put around, no doubt. That was the version of events they presented to poor Peverel. For good measure, it was even suggested that Corinne couldn’t have any more children. I see Mr Lark’s hand in it, don’t you? It was done with the sole purpose of putting Peverel off, of severing all links between him and Corinne. Peverel must have been seen as a threat to Corinne’s career. Corinne could never be allowed the distraction of a boyfriend or a husband. Corinne’s daughter was given away for adoption – or placed in the care of somebody they trusted . . . Some relative? Wasn’t there an aunt, on her father’s side, who was a Mother Superior at a convent outside Lourdes?’

‘There was.’ Major Payne puffed thoughtfully at his pipe, his eyes following the swirls of smoke as they rose towards the ceiling. ‘The girl grows up looking the spitting image of her famous mother . . . She has also inherited her mother’s amazing voice. She can sing like her.
Exactly
like her . . . Corinne’s daughter is now – what – thirty-two – thirty-three years old?’

‘Yes. She gave herself away last night – remember what your aunt told us?’

‘I do remember. It all makes perfect sense now. Aunt Nellie asked her if she remembered her mamma, by which she meant Ruse, and she received an extremely curious reply. Corinne’s daughter knows nothing about Ruse, who is her
grandmother
and who died in Kenya well before she was born. (We made fools of ourselves over that one, didn’t we?) She said she remembered her mother’s voice – then she referred to “Love Story”. Her earliest memory of a song, she called it. The first song she really liked. That made no sense at all. It had nothing to do with Ruse, who couldn’t sing for toffee, so Aunt Nellie was taken aback. Corinne’s daughter was talking about her mother, the real Corinne. Then she realized she had blundered and said that of course that was the song
she
sang in French. “His-toire d’Amour”.’

‘Whereas it was the
real
Corinne Coreille who sang it . . . Yes. Corinne’s daughter must have heard the song on the radio, or on television. Somebody – her great aunt – perhaps drew her attention to the fact.
Listen
–
that
’
s your
mamma singing
.’ Antonia paused. ‘“Love Story”. The song – as well as the film – was extremely popular throughout the ’70s . . . Corinne’s daughter was born in 1970 or 1971. She must have been three or four when she heard the song for the first time. Her earliest memory, she said.’

Payne had been gazing thoughtfully into the bowl of his pipe. ‘A daughter passing herself off as her famous mother . . . She even goes and gives a concert in Japan, to great acclaim and not a whiff of suspicion . . . Well, my love, as Sherlock Holmes puts it, life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.’ He looked up. ‘Wait – the resemblance between Maginot and Corinne! It was there all right. Their eyes. The way they tilted their heads. I know we didn’t imagine it.’

‘We didn’t,’ Antonia said. ‘They are mother and daughter all right.’

‘But – but then that means –’

‘Yes.’

‘It can’t be. No, no, no. Out of the question –’ Payne broke off. ‘Well, it must be. Maginot – is Corinne? Or rather – was?’

29

Beauty and the Beast

‘Correct. That’s why Jonson suddenly relaxed. Jonson knows their secret and for some reason he is extremely protective of it. At first he thought the cat was out of the bag, but then realized that we’d been thinking of the
wrong
mother and daughter. Not of Corinne and her daughter, but of Ruse and Corinne.’

Payne said, ‘We skipped a generation.’

‘Corinne’s little finger is as long as her index finger. Peverel told us about it – that bizarre detail has been mentioned on one of the websites devoted to her. I noticed it in the greenhouse this morning, when I stood looking at Maginot’s body. Then there’s Corinne’s odd penchant for authoritarian figures. Napoleon – Miss Mountjoy. Corinne
did
enjoy playing the nagging dragon.’

‘Yes . . . It might be said that from the very start there was a Maître Maginot lodged somewhere deep inside her consciousness – screaming to be let out.’

‘Both Miss Mountjoy and Maître Maginot wore turbans and they liked to boss people round.’ Antonia smiled.

There was a pause. ‘Maginot looked nothing like Corinne. Too tall – too heavy. Could she have changed so much over such a short period of time? Her voice was rasping and crow-like – her face the face of a gargoyle – and she looked much older than fifty-five . . . On second thoughts,’ Major Payne continued musing aloud, ‘platform shoes would take care of the height – and people can age prematurely, through illness or stress or the wrong diet. Maginot did like her drink. Besides, she’d had a stroke. That too would have altered her appearance . . . Would it change it beyond all recognition, though?’

‘Maybe not – but something else certainly would. Do you remember where Corinne was believed to have gone – at the time she disappeared from view?’

Payne held the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. ‘To Switzerland? One of Peverel’s scouts was of the opinion that she’d had something major done . . . Good lord! You don’t mean –’

‘I remember reading a hair-raising article once, about what happens if your body proves intolerant to surgical intrusions. The silicone that has been implanted in your face starts moving, your eyes swell shut, your head balloons to the size of the Taj Mahal, then you get gangrene, which in turn may lead to “skin death” or necrosis . . . If you don’t die, you never look the same.’

‘Plastic surgery that goes wrong . . .’

‘Here’s a theory,’ Antonia said. ‘For some thirty years Corinne Coreille has been able to have a most successful singing career. Through regular diet, exercise and the latest in beauty care, she has managed to remain “young” – unchanged. She has contrived to preserve a certain memorable image. She has had at least one face-lift, various nips and tucks. However, age does catch up with her, eventually. She is forty-nine now and one day she discovers she doesn’t look right any more – or perhaps the realization has slowly been creeping up on her?’

‘Yes. She can’t imagine going on stage, stepping out under the spotlight, looking haggard, her face collapsed.’ Payne pulled a demented grimace. ‘She cancels one concert, then another. None of the intensive beauty treatments seems able to erase time’s satanic footprints. She grows desperate – decides on a radical solution. She’d have something major. A total image reconstruction. Nothing less would do. She disappears from view. She books herself into a superior Swiss clinic, from which she is confident she will emerge spectacularly rejuvenated from under the knife, thirty years younger – a girl once more!’

‘Only she doesn’t.’

‘She doesn’t . . . The surgery goes spectacularly wrong – some dreadful infection sets in – she nearly dies. Well, the doctors save her – she recovers – but she loses her face. It is patched up – however, she can no longer be recognized as Corinne Coreille. She looks like Godzilla. Something has gone terribly wrong with her vocal chords too, maybe as a result of the shock. The famous voice – the beautiful voice that had once charmed General de Gaulle – is no more – gone! Corinne Coreille has suffered a permanent
extinction
de voix
.’ Payne started relighting his pipe and he waved his hand as though to say, ‘Over to you.’

He’s enjoying this as much as I am, Antonia thought. She took up the tale. ‘Corinne spends the next five years in the wilderness. She suffers severe depression, has a nervous breakdown, starts hitting the bottle, puts on weight. She becomes a hermit, leads a twilight existence, which for her, after so many years in the spotlight, is a living death. She ages – now she looks ten years older. Maybe she assumes a different name. She realizes that she is finished. She is haunted by the thought – tormented – crazed by it. Her mind becomes somewhat unhinged. Then – then something unexpected happens –’

Payne put up his finger. ‘
Corinne meets her daughter
. She hasn’t seen her for quite a while, maybe she’s never seen her as a grown-up woman at all, so when they stand face to face, she is struck by the remarkable resemblance her daughter bears to her young self. Then she hears her daughter sing. She is stunned – she can’t believe her ears – that unique voice, the Corinne Coreille voice –
her
voice, as it was in her prime! She has the uncanny feeling that she is hearing one of her own early recordings –’

‘Actually Corinne saw her daughter on video. It was the nuns who recorded the tape,’ they heard someone say. ‘Two flighty
soeurs
who had got tipsy on absinthe. It showed Monique dressed up as Corinne, singing one of Corinne’s songs. The title of the song, prophetically enough, was “Je Reviens”.’

Peverel had entered the library without either of them hearing him.