He looked towards the unconscious woman. ‘She was beautiful, but one day Dom Cyp returned very late and visited Petra to say good night. He found her in bed with Sureen. They were making love and he was afraid that she was a lesbian.’
Bas stared at Grant with a sincerity which was almost pathetic, yet everyone saw that his fingers were still firm against the trigger. ‘You know how a human mind works. Did I do wrong? Dom Cyp Moreiro said that anything was better than allowing the girl to stay ignorant, and that a man must show her what sex could mean between a man and a woman. Was I wrong when I agreed to do what he wanted? Tell me, Doctor. Please. Because he caught me up in his own excitement and made me promise to teach her everything. And I did.’
Grant was very gentle. ‘He was your master, Bas, and you had been under his influence for years. He may have said things to affect what we call your subconscious mind and prepare you to do what he wanted. And Petra must have been a powerful young woman. I’m sure she could have stopped you if she hadn’t wanted you.’
Bas bowed slightly. ‘You are very kind. I became her lover and until a few days ago went to her whenever she wanted me. Though much happened throughout the years,’ he added, ‘and the first big thing was when Dom Cyp’s valet told me that Petra was having passion with Cyp himself.
‘I was angry,’ said Bas. ‘And I asked her why she needed a second man.’ He smiled slightly. ‘It was a stupid question, but she made me forget that she had been bad and told me everything she had done with him. It excited her to tell the story. And I found that it also excited me, so I began to encourage her, because I found that after telling me about an hour with Cyp she was more passionate towards myself.
‘But I still sent pictures and never forgot that the man was my enemy. It pleased me when I began to understand that I was using him to make Petra more exciting with myself, and it became part of my revenge.
‘Some things then happened fast. Petra took poison and tried to kill herself. Dom Cyp was posted to his first embassy in Europe and I became jealous of Mikel Brandt. He had been visiting us for about ten years and everyone knew that he wanted to marry Petra. I had begun to learn a little about politics and knew that my master suspected he was a Peronist, though very careful not to show it. And when Petra wanted to marry him Cyp would agree only if it could be proved that the man belonged to General Peron. In which case Cyp felt that he would be useful to have in the family. I told you how I managed to prove this, but I did it only for Petra, my little half-sister: and it was difficult for me to leave prison and find her married to the man I hated more than anyone in life. More, even, than Dom Cyp, because he had only killed my friends and father and disgraced my mother, but Mikel Brandt had stolen my woman. My sister if you like!’ he almost shouted. ‘But she was still my woman. Mine. And I needed her. As much in Buenos Aires as I had in Rio.’
A cunning look crossed his face. ‘I was happy when she told me that he had refused to use her body and that they had agreed to live separate lives. She was still my woman and I was her man. The only man who mattered. And she loved me. And I loved her.
‘Sureen Socosani still visited us, but Petra had a new friend, and when Helena Mauriac was visiting I didn’t see so much of my woman. A few nights ago I went out to a café in the Boca and met a man I hadn’t seen for seven or eight years. In fact the last time had been in Manaos where I had been left in charge of Dom Cyp’s house while he and Petra went upriver. They were away for four weeks and I had begun to worry when they returned. But I was more afraid when she refused to tell me where they had been.’
Bas spoke quietly, his face suddenly graven with sadness. ‘The man was another who remembered the old days. He had always been rough, but our talk in the Boca proved that he was also a sadist … if that is the right word. He liked to hurt people. And he had been with Petra and Cyp these four weeks before the marriage when they had gone to Xingu territory to look for Indians. The things he told me made me sick. His face began to look strange and seemed to dissolve into a ball of light. Next thing I remember I was walking in San Martin looking for a taxi. But I couldn’t find one, so I walked on and on. Just anywhere. I had never been able to believe that Cyp was really her father, because they played the part of brother and sister so well that we never spoke about it. I often forgot even about the birth certificate I had seen so many years earlier. But somehow that man made me understand completely that they were father and daughter, and told me how she had enjoyed torturing natives. How she had brought little girls to Cyp and made them watch while she killed their fathers. It was the old horrible story of Indian murder all over again. We all know it and the whole world has had the chance to know it. Yet I had forgotten it myself until that man made me relive it again.
‘I found myself outside a church. The moon was like a gold coin in the sky. God sent me inside and I met a priest. We talked and although it was not the hour he heard my confession. My punishment, he said, must be to do the will of God.
‘So I came back to this house to find it and found my mistress, my half-sister Petra, arranging flowers sent by Dr. David Grant.
‘She was worried and told me you were a spy, but I saw you as an instrument sent to help me because God had shown you how devil’s evil had corrupted everyone in my life. The priest had given me a new way of thinking and I then saw Petra for what she was. I saw my own sin in having known her body. I saw the greater sin of her love for her father. And I understood, for the first time in my whole life, that even half-breed Indians are also God’s people, so I knew that Petra was doomed to damnation.’
‘So what did you do, Señor Bas?’ Krystelle managed to register complete understanding and Bas responded.
‘I watched, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I listened at dinner when Mauriac and Sureen Socosani were saying things to the doctor.
‘I tried to be everywhere at once, and my friend Roca, who was stupid, but loyal to Petra and myself, also tried to be everywhere at once. We heard pieces of conversation and it began to make sense. All three were worse than I thought. My half-sister had to be mad. Cyp, her father, was even more mad. And her husband Mikel Brandt was as bad as the others, because I did overhear a little of his talk and discovered that he too enjoyed killing.
‘The trouble is,’ he said, ‘that I blame myself for everything, because if I hadn’t taken the photographs when I was a little boy Mikel Brandt might never have found out the evil that men did to the Indians. And it was the same photographs which made Petra want to do the same things. It was the figa I gave her which made perverted sex a toy: and it is possible that by sending pictures of the Indians to Cyp I reminded him of his evil youth, until, when he was growing older, he wanted to relive that youth again. So my own pictures may really have made him do all these wicked things I told you about.’
He tensed over his gun as Grant lit a Peter Stuyvesant. ‘Tell me, Bas,’ he said, ‘did no one tell you how Mikel Brandt was actually sired by your own father and that Pedro Bosca threw your mother out when she told him she was six weeks or so pregnant? Or how she tricked an Englishman into marrying her and believing that he was the father of a premature child? Because Brandt discovered all that, and more, when he visited Mauriac shortly before he married Petra. Which would be when you were in prison. But didn’t she tell you later? Because the real reason why the Mikel/Petra marriage went wrong was when Brandt, your own half-brother, discovered that Petra had known about him all along but had actually thought herself into believing that he was really her own full brother. She enjoyed the idea of incest. She had done it with her father. She was kidding herself that she could do it again with her so-called brother Mikel. And I’ll take a bet on anything you like that she knew your story as well. In fact that’s why she got kicks out of being, as you said, “your woman”. Why don’t you ask her? After all, you both have the same mother.’
‘David Grant!’ Petra’s voice was cold with hate. ‘You are the bastard of all bastards. How did you find that out? Who told you? Why did you
have to pass it on to Bas?’ She lapsed into a torrent of obscenity which made Krystelle raise her eyebrows and she drawled a query across to the man still standing by the door, but now with the set jaw and tensed muscles of a killer about to jerk into action. ‘Señor Bas. Com licença. Let me handle her.’
Bas pulled himself together and nodded almost automatically as Krystelle whipped the cummerbund from Petra’s eyes. ‘Well now, honey doll,’ she said. ‘Try and hypnotise me, you foul-mouthed jungle vixen. Maybe you’re not crazy, after all. Maybe Bas is right and you’re just old-fashioned bad. But, Petra, this time you go to sleep, ’cos white magic is bigger an’ better t’ing than evil. Yo’ find out one minute. Yo’ go sleep fast. Looka you at Krystelle, honey. Jes’ keepa lookin’. Yo’ look inta a deep deep comfort sleep if yo’ go do as Krystelle says. Now yo’ sleep. Savvy? Jes sleep, honey. You poor white trash wit’ crazy notions ’bout figas an’ voodoo an’ allasame nonsense.’
Grant listened, fascinated. Krystelle’s English varied like the weather from switched-on hippie slang to London W1 or Caribbean-Polynesian patois, and by the way she was reacting he knew that she was going to tie up everything both fast and final. ‘So dat’s right, yo’ stoopeed kink! Sleep an’ send yo’ soul right upta da ceilin’. Krystelle’s gotta lotta say. Now answer fast. When did yo’ find out dat Bas was yo’ half-brother?’
Petra had gone out like a light. ‘When I was eleven.’
‘And how did you find out that he was your half-brother?’
‘The Boscas kept fingerprints of everyone on the estate. It was a local police order. My mother got Ramon’s file back from the police as a souvenir when he was older and they took another set of prints. I found it among my mother’s things.’
‘Keep talking,’ said Krystelle firmly. ‘What happened then?’
‘One day I spilled some ink and Bas left fingerprints on a piece of paper I had used for drawing. I liked the marks and kept the paper.’
‘Then?’
‘Some weeks later when he had gone back to Manaos for a holiday I had nothing to do and found the two papers with finger-marks. I had been reading Edgar Wallace stories and knew about fingerprints.’
‘They were the same?’
‘I thought they were the same.’
‘But you told nobody?’
‘No.’
‘So you only thought?’
‘I was almost sure. But I became certain when I remembered a photograph of Ramon in my mother’s wallet. He had the same ears as Bas. So then I was sure.’
‘And that is why you allowed him to be your first lover?’
‘Yes. And because he had always been kind to me.’
Bas interrupted with sudden excitement. ‘Ask her the name of her favourite lover. I want to know the name of her man.’
Krystelle flashed a warning glance to Grant. ‘Petra,’ she said, and her voice was very soft, ‘who did you dig most?’
‘My father.’ Petra was speaking in a monotone which lacked all emotion. ‘Cyp is a good man,’ she added.
‘Bas!’ Grant had switched on his parade-ground voice. ‘Wait till Krystelle has finished.’
‘And these jewels, honey. Did you mean that I could have them if we killed Mikel and let you go free?’
‘Yes. If I had to.’
‘Then where are they?’
‘In a safe in my room.’
‘What is the combination?’ Krystelle’s face was tense with concentration.
‘XOB 13957.’
‘Then listen,’ said Krystelle, and she spoke with slow emphasis. ‘When you wake up you will remember everything I have said. And you will remember this in partic’lar. I am David Grant’s woman and I don’t like what you did to him. So I’m taking every jewel in this house, and I’m doing it as punishment. You took my man for a few hours so I’m going to take your jewels for ever. And I’m going to sell them and send money to the Villas Boas brothers, who are doing better work for the Indians than anyone else in history. I don’t go along wit’ retribution too much, but these guys need money and the way I see it you should pay for your fun. Both you and Cyp. So his necklace goes too.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Wake up.’
Bas stared at Krystelle in astonishment. ‘You can’t give them to anyone,’ he said at last. ‘Or didn’t I tell you?’
‘Tell us what?’ snapped Grant.
Bas smiled with a cunning which made even Grant tense with excitement. ‘We are now in God’s hands,’ he said. ‘I sent every servant into B.A. tonight. The Swedish girl has gone to visit friends and Helena Mauriac is dining with her musical director. But it was God who made them all agree to visit the city and leave the house empty. And it was God who gave me time to prepare for the end. Because you see we must all die. Sureen Socosani is only half bad. But if she hadn’t taught Petra to be half lesbian Dom Cyp might not have asked me to be her lover. And I deserve to die because I was as bad as any of them until I saw the light. But now I know I must die with the others to save my soul.’
Grant was very careful. ‘It is sad, Bas, but I agree. And I too am bad, because I killed Roca. But what has Miss Krystelle done?’
Bas hesitated. ‘She must die to save her soul because she has heard so much evil that she too must now have been corrupted.’
Grant struggled to say the right thing. In some respects he was more afraid of religious maniacs than anything else in life. ‘You said that our lives were in God’s hands. What have you done?’
Bas motioned towards the fridge. ‘Please pour me a drink of lime juice,’ he said. ‘Most of this house is wood and I emptied twenty gallons of petrol over the ground floor. A simple electric circuit has been arranged so that the first person to open the front door and switch on lights will make a flash. If it is God’s will the petrol will then explode and we shall burn to death.’ He glanced again towards Grant. ‘Did I do the right thing? We must all suffer hell, and God told me in a dream that if we suffered fire on this earth we could pass direct to heaven. And then,’ he said, his eyes slowly turning towards Petra, ‘I shall be able to live again with my woman, because we shall both have been purified.’
‘And the time now?’
Bas held out his wrist. ‘Look at the watch yourself.’
‘Eleven-thirty-five,’ said Grant. ‘Helena should be back almost any moment. The Swede may be later, I fancy. But when do you expect staff to return?’
‘I told them back before sunrise,’ said Bas.
‘Then Helena will be our executioner?’ Krystelle began to laugh, but her laugh had a metallic hardness which meant that she was still waiting for that one elusive chance which might matter. ‘If she lives long enough to understand how she too is going to die she’ll maybe get kicks out of finding how real life has more twists than opera.’
‘What do you mean?’
Bas was only mildly interested, but Krystelle saw a glimmering of hope. ‘The explosion will kill her. Nearly instant. So what has she done to offend God?’
Cyp interrupted for the first time. ‘We are entitled to the services of a priest.’
Bas looked at him curiously. ‘Don’t you understand you are in the hands of God, and if someone smells petrol or fails to switch on the light nothing will happen, and that will also be the will of God. So you don’t need any priest, since our lives are in His hands and He will take them only when He is ready.’
Grant tilted his. head and listened. ‘Krystelle!’ he shouted. ‘It’s happened. I can hear crackling. And the house shook. Someone’s closed that circuit.’
Bas crossed himself as Krystelle fell upon her knees and began to pray. ‘Ah can smell burnin’, Lord. Give us strength to die well.’ She bowed her head against the floor, muttering the Lord’s prayer and swaying her body about in weird ecstasy. ‘David Grant,’ she shouted, ‘get on your knees and pray. Tonight we meet the Lord. Señor Bas. On your knees beside us. Let’s die singing to de Lawd. Jesu lover of my soul. Merciful Father bring your servant Bas beside us and give us power
to die good. Chesus, David! De floor is hot.’ She began to cry and tears were streaming down her cheeks when Bas suddenly dropped upon his knees near the door.
‘Thy will be done on earth,’ he was saying in English when Grant and Krystelle catapulted themselves across the room in a duet of controlled violence which gave Grant the gun while Bas was pinned by Krystelle in a double Japanese stranglehold which made him gasp for breath.
‘All over, lover boy,’ she was saying when Grant brought both Cyp and Petra down with a low burst which cut across their thighs. They crumpled in a heap, blood jetting from a series of tiny fountains a hand’s breadth above the knees. ‘Sorry, Petra,’ he said. ‘But you asked for it. Why couldn’t you have sat it out? We promised you’d either go back to Amazonia or else to hospital. Why for gawdsake didn’t you play it cool?’
He was tying a tourniquet round her thighs when she spat straight in his face.
Cyp was lying close beside her and as he fastened his hands around her throat Grant heard her first scream. Seconds later an explosion did rock the house and he dived for Sureen.
Krystelle and he had put on an act just in time and infected everyone with the idea that the fire had already started. But now there could be no mistake. There was a fierce crackling chatter from burning timber, and time left for action was measured in minutes.
‘You were going to sell me out to save yourself!’ Cyp was quietly strangling his own daughter and laughing as he enjoyed every second of it. Grant felt that he had finally crossed the line of no-return and been thrown into irreversible aggression when he heard Petra offer Bas his life in return for her own. Petra’s eyes were staring, terror-struck and bloodshot as her face suffused purple, and then he lifted a knife to cut Sureen’s ties. There was nothing else to do! He threw the girl over his shoulder and was pointing for a door when the first flames flickered through the floor, and he paused, unconsciously and against all reason, when he drew level with Brandt. The man was conscious and his eyes now clear.
‘I suppose we do deserve to die,’ he said. ‘But I’m glad Sureen has still a chance.’
Crimson Jade Page 16