“Do you know about a story connected with this island where a young man fell from the rocks and drowned?”
Dupin frowned. “I seem to recall such a story. He was driven onto the rocks by an angry crowd. A sort of people’s judgement.”
“Exactly.” Jasper felt a thrill of excitement that Dupin could tell him more about the events which Kyrioudis hadn’t been honest about. “And what was this people’s judgement meant to condemn him for?”
Dupin frowned even deeper. “I think theft. He was caught by house staff. At the villa.”
“The villa?”
“The villa which is now the hotel.” Dupin pointed up ahead.
“The young man who died by falling into the sea was at the hotel once? Before it became a hotel?” So it was possible Damaris Ramsforth had seen him there, with the garden being different and him standing over a dead woman’s body.
But what woman?
Dupin said, “I only know a young man was driven into the sea by an angry crowd. I think it was for theft. And yes, it happened at the hotel. When it was still the private property of a rich family.”
“Do you know what family?”
Dupin shook his head. “They moved in far different circles than I did at the time. I could only look up at the villa and admire how prettily it sat there.”
“Was a young beautiful woman living there at the time?”
“I think a family lived there. I don’t recall whether the wife was beautiful. Like I said, they moved in different circles. They kept to themselves like outsiders do.”
“They weren’t Greek?”
“No. American, I believe.”
“Or English?” Jasper asked, his heart beating fast.
“Possibly.”
They were near the hotel now, and Teddy Ramsforth ran up to them, his hair standing up as if he had raked his hands through it countless times. “You brute,” he yelled at Dupin. “What are you doing with my wife?”
He took a swing at the man, and Dupin raised a hand to ward off the blow. He struck out with his other hand formed into a fist, impacting on Ramsforth’s jaw, and the young man sagged to the floor.
“You need not have done that,” Jasper said sharply. “Merely warding him off was enough.”
“It happened in a reflex,” Dupin said, but Jasper caught the glimpse of satisfaction in his eyes.
Jasper leaned down over Ramsforth, who lay on the ground groaning. “Are you all right, Mr Ramsforth?”
“You’ll pay for this,” Ramsforth muttered. “You will.”
Unperturbed, Dupin led the donkey past the fallen figure to the hotel while Jasper helped Ramsforth to his feet. “Aren’t you grateful your wife is found?’
“I knew she was in league with him. She wanted to come here to see him.”
“I thought you decided to come here? Mrs Ramsforth never travelled abroad.”
Ramsforth ignored this point. “She lured me to her secret lover on the honeymoon.” He touched his jaw and winced. “That fellow nearly broke my face.”
“You can file charges against him if you want to,” Jasper said, flinching inwardly at the idea of Kyrioudis’s expression when he found out that additional wrinkles had been made in the perfect facade of the island as a holiday destination. He was acutely aware he had been hired to solve a situation that only seemed to get further out of control.
But at least Mrs Ramsforth had been recovered before she could hurt herself – or another.
He quickly followed the donkey and painter leading the animal to the hotel.
Chapter Thirteen
Damaris lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Her head felt so empty it ached. She didn’t want to feel the pain, she wanted to close her eyes and sleep. But she was afraid of the images that might come unbidden. They had even come as she had just stood there in her hotel room to gather a few things from her luggage. She had felt so unhappy, so guilty towards Teddy for ruining the honeymoon, for no longer looking at him as she had done before. She hadn’t thought about murder at all, just about losing the happiness which had meant so much to her.
And then, all of a sudden, it had been there, like a blinding flash of reality. The streaming sunlight, the dead body on the floor, the man bending over it, looking up at her. Her own scream. Piercing, high, terrified.
Jasper came in and sat beside her bed. She knew it was him because he was taller and broader than the others. And because there was a vague scent of pine surrounding him. Something that inspired confidence.
But she didn’t want to see him right now. No more questions to answer.
“Mrs Ramsforth,” Jasper said. “Have you got a photograph of your parents with you?”
Damaris turned her head to look at him. “What an odd question.” Her voice sounded normal, no longer squeezed off by fear and confusion.
“Is it? I’ve known a lot of people who carried around a photograph of loved ones they lost at a young age. They took it everywhere because it connected them to those who came before them. This is your honeymoon, your start into your own independent life. Would it have been so odd to carry a photo of your parents? Perhaps their wedding photo?”
“If you put it like that, it sounds quite lovely and like a wonderful idea.” Sadness squeezed inside her. “But I don’t have any photos of them. I did ask my aunt for them of course, but she said she didn’t have them either. I think… she wasn’t in touch much with my parents before they died.”
“Still, she took you into her family.”
“Yes, she had to. I had to go to her or into an orphanage.” Damaris shuddered. “I’m glad she took me in.”
“And your parents, what kind of life did they lead? Did they have money, opportunity to travel?”
“I don’t think so. My aunt told me my father had worked in a factory. He had met my mother on a public holiday, in the park. They married quite quickly.” Damaris smiled. “You see, that was why I thought it was all right in my case as well. That it could turn out for the good.”
“But they couldn’t have enjoyed wedded bliss very long. They died when you were only four.”
“Yes.” Damaris rubbed her arm. Her cut palm hurt, and she pulled the hand away.
“Do you know how?”
“Do these questions serve a point?” Anger rushed through her. “I don’t want to talk about them.’
“They serve a point, yes. Please try and help me.” His voice was pleading, his gaze sincere as he leaned over to her. “How did your parents die?”
“In a railway accident.” Damaris swallowed hard. “I never asked for the details. They seemed too gruesome.’
“I see. But if your father was a mere factory worker, how did he acquire half a million pounds to leave to you?”
“I don’t know. After Mr Fennick came to tell me, I thought about it. I thought that perhaps…” She fell silent. “It’s probably silly.”
“No, tell me.”
“I thought that perhaps the accident in which they died had been someone’s fault and that person gave money to ensure that his guilt would never be known. Because I was orphaned, the money was put away for me.”
“That makes a lot of sense. I could look into that for you, if you like.”
“I don’t know.” Damaris bit her lip. “I wish Mr Fennick hadn’t come and told me about the money. I wish none of it had happened and I was still with Teddy feeling like he loved me.” Tears pricked in her eyes.
“Do you feel that he does not love you any more?”
“He thinks I killed that woman.” Damaris looked at Jasper. “He claims he was in shock when he said it, and even Mrs Murray made the point that people don’t usually come upon their loved ones clutching a knife sticking out of a murder victim, but I can’t help thinking that if he had ever truly loved me, he would have assumed I was innocent.”
“We may expect too much of love,” Jasper said.
She studied his features. “Have you seen many cases where people who claimed to love each ot
her let each other down?”
“Yes. Husbands killing their wives to be with another. Wives poisoning their husbands so they could lay their hands on the life insurance money. Even parents killing their own children.”
“Or children killing their own parents?” Damaris added. She was staring up at the ceiling again. There against the white she suddenly saw the face of the dead woman. It wasn’t still in death, but looking at her, smiling. Calling her name.
Not Damaris. No.
Eleanor.
She could feel her feet skip, could hear her own voice sing a song. And the hand holding hers was warm, safe. Glancing up, she saw…
She sat up on the bed, her entire body crawling with goose flesh. “No.” She grabbed the sheet underneath her and crinkled it. Her palms hurt but she didn’t care. “No!”
Jasper had jumped up from his chair. He leaned over her. “What is it?”
She was in the half-open structure again, under the tea table. Playing with her doll and her bear. She could clearly see the doll’s porcelain face and the bear’s fluffy ears. She had played until she had heard sounds of arguing voices. Then she had crawled away until they died down. She had come out to ask if she could have lemonade. And the woman had been dead on the tiles, the man bent over her.
“Mummy.” She whispered it. “Mummy.’
* * *
Jasper watched the young woman closely. He wasn’t completely sure if the things she experienced were real, if she was under nervous strain, or just a very good actress. It bothered him that he even had the latter thought, but then any inspector who had been worth half his pay left all options open. And he couldn’t read her mind, couldn’t know what she was seeing as she stared into the distance.
He touched her arm. “Mrs Ramsforth.”
She turned her head to him. “My mother is dead.”
“Yes, you just told me. She died in a railway accident.”
“No.” She shook her head. “She died here. She died…” She got up from the bed and walked to the door, out of her room into the lobby, then into the walled garden. She halted and looked around her as if ascertaining the exact right spot. “Here. She died here. There was blood.” Her eyes widened as she looked at Jasper. “My mother died here. I saw it.”
With a gasp she fell against him and he caught her in his arms and steadied her.
“I saw it,” she repeated. “I saw it.”
“You saw your mother’s murder?”
“I saw her dead on the tiles and the murderer leaned over her. I screamed and they came for him. He fled. Out there.” She pointed to the wall behind which was the vantage point.
Jasper’s mind raced. A woman had died here at the villa. A man caught standing over her body had fled. A young man, according to Mrs Ramsforth’s statement. He had fled and been driven into the sea, pushed off or forced off, or jumping of his own accord in blind panic. The washed-up corpse who was buried in the cemetery without a name over his head was the killer who had struck right here where he was standing now. And his victim had been the mother of the young woman he sheltered in his arms.
Had the old island woman known? Had she recognised the murder victim’s features in the young woman’s face? Had she followed her and tried to scare her with the beetles and the skull? Had she tried to make life miserable for her by accusing her of infidelity? Had she sought her out on the beach and accused her there of having screamed and driven the young man into death? The young man who might not have been the killer?
Jasper’s mind reeled with all of these questions. But he knew one thing for certain. If Damaris Ramsforth was indeed the daughter of a woman who had died here, an eye witness to an old crime, she had to be protected. She couldn’t be alone, not even for a few minutes.
“Come along.” He led her back into the bedroom, calling out to the girl at the reception to come to him.
Medea came at once, asking if anything was the matter and how she might help.
“I need to send a telegram to Athens. Can you tell me how I might do that?”
“You can write down what you want to send and I can run down to the village. A fisherman can then take it across and it can be sent from the post office.” Medea tilted her head. “Is Mrs Ramsforth very ill? Do you need a doctor for her?”
Jasper shook his head, already pulling a notebook and pen from his pocket. He would write to Mrs Valentine, a dear friend of his mother’s who was a retired nurse, in Athens, to come over and see to Mrs Ramsforth’s wellbeing. Of course it would take Mrs Valentine time to get here, but he could rely on Mrs Murray to help for the time being. She had confided in him that she didn’t share her husband’s enthusiasm for old buildings and taking photographs, so she was glad to be at the hotel sitting in a cool room reading.
Mrs Ramsforth sank to the edge of the bed. “My mother was murdered. She didn’t die in a train accident at all. Why did my aunt tell me that? Why did she lie?”
She looked at Jasper. “And if she didn’t die like that, what if my father didn’t either?”
Jasper didn’t look at her. He was busy writing down his telegram message. But he also didn’t want to look at her lest she see something in his face. Worry, apprehension.
“Do you think…” Mrs Ramsforth’s voice was strangled, as if she had difficulty getting the words out. “…that my father killed my mother? That he died by execution? That could be the reason they kept it from me. To protect me from the truth. Me, the child of a killer.”
She looked down at her hands. “If my father was a killer, does that mean I could be one as well? I could have killed the old woman on the beach even though I can’t remember?”
Jasper finished his message and gave it to Medea, who hovered by the door. “Take this out, please, as soon as you can. Tell the fisherman it’s urgent.’
She nodded and hurried away.
Mrs Ramsforth said, “What do you think? Am I guilty?” Her voice was rising again as if she edged close to new hysteria.
Jasper went over and took her hand in his. “I don’t know who killed your mother. Or what happened to your father. We’ll find out together. Just lie down now and have a rest.”
She let herself fall backwards on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with wide, frightened eyes. He couldn’t blame her. He also worried her father had not died in that train accident.
Not by execution, either.
But right here near the hotel.
Driven off the cliffs into death by an angry mob.
Buried in a cemetery without even a name to mark his grave.
* * *
“But that is not logical at all,” Mrs Murray said in her pleasant, no-nonsense tone. Jasper had felt obliged to tell her what he had found out and suspected, to impress the urgency of the matter upon her. She glanced back at the bed on which Mrs Ramsforth lay with her eyes closed. Mrs Murray continued, in a whisper, “If Mrs Ramsforth saw her father bent over her mother’s body, would she not have recognised him? She says she saw the face of the young man quite well. Mentioning how afraid he looked. No, he can’t have been her father.”
Jasper felt a momentary relief, then the full force of the matter fell on him again. “It can’t be a coincidence,” he said. “Her coming here to the very place where her mother was murdered.”
“But she herself had no idea. Her mother died twenty-five years ago, she was raised by an aunt who didn’t tell her a thing. Who even lied to her about her parents. How can anyone have known to be able to bring her out here?”
She tapped his arm. “You’re probably suspicious of the husband. You think he had evil designs on her from the start.”
Jasper couldn’t and wouldn’t tell her about the money so he said nothing.
She shook her head. “I think he’s a very nice young man who has just been thrust into something bigger than himself. Imagine going on your honeymoon and then experiencing all of these odd things. They are both a victim of the situation.”
Jasper didn’t agree with her. He was
certain that Teddy Ramsforth had known something. Coincidences like these just didn’t exist.
Via the aunt?
But if she had kept the truth from Damaris, why would she have told it to Ramsforth? That made no sense at all.
Unless he had somehow lied to her, in order to get her to confide in him.
He needed to talk to the aunt. As soon as possible.
“Jasper!” A voice calling for him made him swing round. Kyrioudis stood at the reception desk gesturing for him to come over. He took his leave of Mrs Murray, urging her to keep the door shut and not let anyone near Mrs Ramsforth. Then he rushed over to the translator.
Kyrioudis looked positively appalled. “Another death,” he said in a low voice. “This is getting completely out of hand.”
Jasper’s mind raced to predict who it would be. “Petros?” he guessed. The old man had obviously known more than he was telling. And Kyrioudis himself had been the one to know this as he had dishonestly translated his words.
Kyrioudis shook his head. “It’s probably unrelated to the case. But I thought you should know. We never have suspicious deaths here and now two in a row…” He clicked his tongue. “My brother will not be happy.”
“Who died then?”
“A petty thief. Judging by the contents of his pockets. A scourge for the tourists so we should be happy he died.”
“How did he die?”
“Clubbed over the head. Could have been done with a rock. Then the killer tossed it into the sea.”
“It happened near the water?”
“There is a lot of water around this island,” Kyrioudis said with grim humour. “It happened at the other boat dock. It lies a mile away from the harbour.”
“Did anyone see it happen?”
“No, the dock is only used in early morning when the fishermen go out and when they come back. It’s quiet there most of the time.”
“Too bad. I think I know the man you mean. I took back something he had appropriated. Short, wiry man with a ferret-like face—?”
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