Murder at the Villa Byzantine chm-6

by R. T. Raichev

  ‘You had no business to pry into my affairs. It’s scandalous that you should have eavesdropped on Julia’s telephone conversations. It’s an absolute outrage. I have a good mind to report you to the police.’

  Antonia shrugged. ‘There was only one telephone conversation and I didn’t eavesdrop. I just happened to be there when Julia answered the call.’

  ‘You – you actually set a trap for me. Who do you think you are? Haven’t you got anything better to do? You went to the Corrida Hotel and paid my bill. They told me it was my sister, but it was your name – Antonia Darcy – that was on their computer. You introduced yourself as my sister! You had the gall to impersonate my sister. Don’t you know that that’s a criminal offence punishable by law?’

  ‘I expected a reaction from you, which I have now got.’

  ‘You don’t have a scrap of evidence,’ said Morland. ‘It’s all a theory. Nothing but a wild hypothesis. Parlour games. Red Bull and champagne!’ Morland laughed but it wasn’t a particularly convincing performance. ‘Complete and utter bull!’

  ‘I spoke to a chambermaid at the Corrida Hotel. She told me you arrived with a dark-haired girl wearing a long black coat that didn’t look too clean. You booked a room-’

  ‘Those foreign girls would do anything for money! They’d say exactly what you want them to say! How much did you give her? I am sure you bribed her. Lies, all lies! Moon was not-’ He broke off.

  ‘She wasn’t wearing the chinel?’ Antonia gave a little smile.

  ‘Watch out, Morland. You keep giving yourself away, you know,’ Major Payne said.

  ‘As a matter of fact, you were captured on camera. You and Moon. There are security cameras in the hotel lounge. The manager let me see the recordings,’ Antonia went on bluffing boldly. ‘The police saw them too.’

  ‘The police? You mean you’ve contrived to get the police involved in this nonsense? You don’t honestly expect me to believe the hotel manager allowed you any access to their security cameras? I think you are the greatest liar who ever lived. D’you often play games with people’s lives?’ His hand went up to his chest. Antonia hoped he wouldn’t have a heart attack and die in their drawing room. ‘Even if it is as you say and we were caught on camera, what proof is there that any “impropriety” ever took place? It’s not as though we’ve been caught in flagrante, is it?’

  He was no fool, Antonia thought. There was another pause.

  ‘I am planning to adopt Moon,’ Morland said in a thoughtful voice. He sounded almost calm now. ‘Poor girl, she’s got no one in the world. I was very much in love with Stella. I adored Stella. I was devastated when she died. I propose to take good care of Moon. I feel it’s my duty.’

  So that was going to be his line. A good lawyer, if it ever came to that, would be able to get him off without any particular difficulty, Antonia reflected.

  ‘I needed to talk to her in private. She can be difficult, she doesn’t really like me, so I thought a change of location might be conducive to a constructive discussion about the future, hence the hotel,’ Morland went on. ‘Moon’s never been anywhere near the Villa Byzantine. That handkerchief was not hers. She has nothing to do with any of this lunacy… I don’t know what I’m doing here. I really don’t. Wasting my time. I’m going. I’ve had enough.’ Somewhat shakily Morland rose to his feet.

  Antonia said, ‘Stella’s death was a direct consequence of your affair with Moon.’

  ‘There are very strict libel laws in this country, Miss Darcy, as I’m sure you are aware,’ he said with a ghastly smile.

  ‘Stella died minutes after she tumbled to the fact that you and her daughter were having an affair. There were letters. Stella found them. She read them.’

  Morland had started walking towards the door. He halted and turned round. ‘What letters?’ There was a harsh, even ragged, edge to his voice.

  ‘Highly compromising letters written by Moon to you. Letters that made it obvious to Stella that her daughter and you were lovers. The letters were in the car.’

  This was an audacious guess, but Antonia couldn’t resist it. She remembered Moon telling them how she’d got in trouble at school for writing letters to teachers she ‘liked’. Something did happen in the car, Antonia was certain of it. She didn’t believe Moon had simply chosen that particular time to regale her mother with details of her affair with James Morland.

  ‘What car are you talking about?’

  ‘Your car. Your second car.’

  ‘The uncool one,’ Major Payne put in. ‘The one you keep in the garage. Moon’s been driving it, hasn’t she?’

  ‘I believe you are both mad. You are a danger to civilized society. You shouldn’t be at large. You need psychiatric help,’ Morland said, but the bluster had gone.

  His expression had changed at the mention of the letters. He was making a visible effort to pull himself together.

  ‘How did Winifred die?’ Morland asked after a pause. ‘Was she beheaded too?’

  ‘No. Her head was bashed in. It was a ferocious attack.’ Payne produced his pipe. ‘Somebody took a crack at her skull. Three cracks, to be precise. The blows were dealt with the doorstop from Tancred Vane’s study. A genuine Victorian article in the shape of an owl.’

  ‘You certainly had a good motive for wanting to be rid of Stella,’ began Antonia. ‘However-’

  ‘You are wrong if you think you can pin either murder on me,’ Morland said. ‘I killed no one. I am not a killer.’

  ‘We know you are not,’ said Payne. He started filling his pipe with tobacco from the tobacco jar. ‘On the morning Stella’s murder took place you were attending a board meeting. The police checked. You have an unbreakable alibi. And we don’t think it was you who followed Winifred to the Villa Byzantine either. Yours was not the hand that picked up the owl.’

  Morland gazed glassily at him. He looked puzzled and oddly disturbed by Payne’s last words. ‘The owl?’

  It was at that point that his mobile rang.

  Once more Antonia bit her lip. One could always trust a mobile to add drama and suspense to an already fraught situation!

  Morland took his mobile out of his pocket with a mechanical gesture.

  ‘Yes? Yes, it’s me-’ He swallowed. He didn’t make any effort to disguise his feelings. His expression changed.

  Extreme tenderness mingled with fear.

  It was Stella’s daughter, Antonia knew at once.

  ‘Where are you? What – what’s that noise?’ Morland glanced from Payne to Antonia. He looked like a trapped animal. ‘What do you mean, after you? Who is after you?’

  The police, Antonia thought. The police were after her.

  ‘You aren’t driving, are you?’ Morland groaned. She was driving his car – the second car. Antonia went on filling in the gaps. The police were after her. It was all over. It should have happened sooner. Poor lovelorn Winifred needn’t have died.

  ‘I love you too – please stop the car – you may have an accident – you have nothing to fear!’ Morland cried, throwing all caution to the winds.

  ‘Actually, she has everything to fear,’ Payne said in a loud voice. ‘The game is up, Morland.’

  Antonia wished Hugh didn’t use such melodramatic phrases.

  ‘Hello? Moon? Hello? Hello?’ Morland slumped down heavily on the sofa. He gazed wildly at Payne. ‘An owl? Did you say an owl?’ Some kind of realization seemed to have dawned on him. His face was grey, ashen. ‘But-’

  It was the owl that had sent shivers down his spine the day before. He had remembered.

  Moon had told him her mother had mentioned the owl to her, but Stella couldn’t have known about it! Vane had bought the owl the day Stella was killed. After she was killed. Vane had shown him the owl while they were sitting in the library at the Villa Byzantine.

  Morland remembered the exact sequence of events. Vane had poured out two drinks, then gone up to the round table in the middle of the room and reached for one of the packages he had brought with
him earlier on. The owl had been in a red cardboard box with golden stripes. There had been a blue star in the middle of the lid.

  ‘Bought it this morning. For Pupil Room. That’s what I call my study. Clever birds, owls. Symbolize the wisdom of the author-’

  Vane had babbled on. He had been a little hysterical.

  No, Stella couldn’t have seen the owl. At the time Vane opened the red box with the yellow stripes and the blue star, Stella had been dead. Her body had been lying in Vane’s drawing room. Yet Moon told him that her mother had mentioned Vane’s owl to her. Since her mother couldn’t have done any such thing, since Morland hadn’t told her about the owl either, there was only one conclusion to be drawn Moon had seen the owl with her own eyes.

  She had been inside the Villa Byzantine. She had gone up to Vane’s study. To the so-called Pupil Room. She had actually picked up the owl and- Why in heaven’s name had she killed Winifred?

  Morland covered his eyes with his hands. What sounded like a moan escaped his lips. He shook and swayed. The shock was so immense, he wondered if it would bludgeon him into some kind of unconsciousness. It’s all my fault, he thought.

  He had been wrong to think her innocent. She had been to the Villa Byzantine not just once but twice… Stella… That morning… It had looked stormy… Stella had seemed preoccupied at breakfast… He had left… She and Moon had gone to the Villa Byzantine together. They must have done. Moon had driven her mother to the Villa Byzantine… In his old car. The uncool one…

  Like Antonia before him, he went on filling in the gaps.

  His old car – he should have got rid of it ages ago – his old jacket on the back seat – he shouldn’t have left it there – the letters in the pocket – damned careless of him – he’d asked Moon to stop writing to him, though he had to admit he had been thrilled by the things she wrote – so damned liberating – never happened to him before, that sort of thing – so flattering – the praise she heaped on him – he should have destroyed those letters – why hadn’t he destroyed the damned letters?

  They watched his lips tremble, his face crumple.

  Light of my loins, fire of my life – or rather the other way round. Sin and soul came into it, Payne did imagine.

  Though it was doubtful whether Morland would have put it in any such Nabokovian terms.

  36

  I Confess

  ‘A folie a deux, eh?’ Lady Grylls suggested hopefully.

  ‘No, no, darling. They weren’t in it together,’ said Payne. ‘Nothing like Laurent and Therese Raquin or the Honeymoon Killers or Bonnie and Clyde or the Macbeths. Poor Morland had no idea what his teenage inamorata had done. When enlightenment finally came – when he realized that she had killed not only once but twice – he broke down and wept like a child.’

  It was exactly three weeks later, another grey afternoon, and he and Antonia sat in Lady Grylls’ drawing room in St John’s Wood, having tea.

  ‘Stella signed her death warrant the moment she told Moon about Tancred Vane’s samurai sword,’ said Antonia. ‘She described the sword in some detail. She knew Moon would be interested. Stella had been anxious to “bond” with her daughter, you see.’

  ‘Moon decided she simply had to have the sword,’ said Payne. ‘Stella objected at first, saying it would be impossible to steal it and carry it back. Moon insisted that nothing could be easier. They would do it together.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Lady Grylls scowled. ‘Of course you are simply frantic with brains, but you couldn’t have deduced everything – could you?’

  ‘No, darling. We didn’t deduce everything. The girl confessed. The girl seems rather proud of what she has done. She is completely without remorse. A callous attention-seeking narcissist.’ Payne shook his head. ‘Once they arrested and handcuffed her, there was no stopping her. She wanted everybody to know what she had done.’

  ‘The police had been keeping an eye on her and they got her as she was driving at breakneck speed towards a scrapyard somewhere in East London,’ said Antonia. ‘Her intention, on her own admission, was to strip the car of its plates and abandon it there.’

  ‘Inspector Davidson let us listen to a recording of her recital – as a token of his gratitude.’

  ‘He did? Highly irregular,’ Lady Grylls said with relish.

  ‘Well, he was jolly grateful. It was Antonia, after all, who alerted him to some of the facts and she also gave him an idea or two.’ Payne reached out and patted his wife’s hand across the tea-table.

  ‘Tell me about the day of the murder.’ Lady Grylls held up her cup. ‘What happened exactly?’

  ‘Moon drove her mother to the Villa Byzantine in James Morland’s old car. Stella knew Vane wouldn’t be in. He had told her he was going to the British Library. She had managed to pinch one of the front door keys. She sat in the back of the car. Morland’s old jacket was lying on the seat beside her. At some point she seemed to pick up the jacket. Moon saw her bury her face in it.’

  ‘That’s how Stella found Moon’s letters?’

  ‘Yes. They were in a pocket of Morland’s jacket. Apparently they were rather frank love letters. Short – but uninhibited. There were about ten of them, I think the girl said. Morland had kept them all, stupid old fool.’

  ‘He is only a couple of years older than you,’ Antonia said.

  ‘He looks like the Ancient of Days compared to me.’ Payne waved a breezy hand. ‘Stella recognized her daughter’s handwriting at once. By the time the car drew to a halt outside the Villa Byzantine, she had worked herself up into a dreadful state.’

  ‘At first she said nothing – she must have been speechless with shock.’

  ‘Moon described her mother as looking like a “dazed zombie”. Stella unlocked the front door and they went into the drawing room,’ Payne went on. ‘Moon took the sword off the wall and unsheathed it. She delivered a couple of blows, decapitating one of Vane’s golden chrysanthemums as well as a curtain tassel. Clearly Morland was exaggerating her wrist injury!’

  ‘It was then that Stella started screaming,’ Antonia said, taking up the tale. ‘She stood in front of the fireplace waving the letters in the air like a flag. She demanded an explanation. Had Moon been sleeping with James? Were they really lovers? How long had it been going on?’

  ‘Moon told her mother to stop shouting, but Stella became even more agitated and vociferous. She said she wanted the whole world to know what kind of daughter she had.’

  ‘Stella threatened to take drastic measures. She told Moon she intended to go to the police and report James, whom she referred to as a “perverted” type and “disgusting paedophile”. This made Moon laugh. Stella said she would make sure James was put in jail for child abuse.’

  ‘She had lived in England long enough to know that her allegations would be taken very seriously indeed,’ Payne murmured.

  ‘Moon explained to her mother, very calmly, or so she claimed, that it was she who had seduced James, not the other way round, after she noticed how he kept staring at her.’

  ‘Stella called her a “shameless slut”. She said she would take Moon back to Bulgaria.’

  ‘She threatened to have Moon put in a “reformatory”. These, Moon explained, are special units for delinquent teenagers, notorious for their harsh discipline. Her mother had used that threat before, Moon said, but now it sounded as though she meant it.’

  ‘That’s when it happened.’ Payne pursed his lips.

  ‘That’s when the gel-?’ Lady Grylls broke off. ‘Goodness.’

  ‘Apparently it all happened very fast,’ Payne said. ‘Moon had been holding the sword aloft. She admitted to having smoked a spliff earlier on in the car, so it all felt a bit like a dream. There was a thud as her mother’s head fell on the floor and rolled towards the window. Then she saw her mother’s body fall. Talk of lethal Lolitas!’

  ‘Some of the blood went on Moon’s clothes, but, as it happened, her brand new clothes were in the boot of the car. Morland ha
d bought them for her,’ Antonia explained. ‘She changed into the new clothes and stuffed the jeans and the jumper she had been wearing into the Top Girl bag. She had worn her black gloves throughout, so she didn’t have to worry about fingerprints. She left the house, got into the car and drove off. She dropped the bag in the river.’

  ‘She didn’t take the sword with her? After everything?’ Lady Grylls said in some surprise.

  ‘No. The sword had been contaminated with her mother’s blood. She said she couldn’t bear to touch it ever again. She left the car near the river, smoked another spliff, then wandered round London. She went on the tube where she was eventually picked up by the police.’ Payne frowned. ‘Am I missing anything?’

  ‘She hadn’t wanted to kill her mother. It simply “happened”. She has already pleaded diminished responsibility. She is very clever,’ Antonia said. ‘It was all her mother’s fault, she insisted. Her mother had no business to threaten her with the reformatory… I hope they keep her in for a very long time.’

  ‘What about the handkerchief with the initials? MM, which was actually WW?’

  ‘That, darling, is what I believe experts call a non-clue. Isn’t that so?’ Payne turned to Antonia, who shrugged. ‘The handkerchief was important in that it alerted us to Winifred’s part in the affair, but, strictly speaking, it did not constitute a clue.’

  ‘Stella had a sneezing fit at Melisande’s party. As she had no handkerchief, Winifred lent her hers,’ Antonia explained. ‘It was a silk handkerchief with the initials WW embroidered on it. Stella forgot to return it. She had been using it moments before she was killed. She took it out to wipe her tears, Moon said. She happened to be holding it in her hand when the blow fell. That was how the handkerchief got soaked in blood.’