In her room Posie quickly changed in a mad dash, relieved to be out of her soiled clothes at last. But then she noticed that something wasn’t quite right; the room wasn’t as she had left it. It had been ransacked.
Hurrying over she saw that her holdall had been emptied, and the few contents were spilled willy-nilly across the wooden floorboards. Her purchases from the market yesterday were scattered carelessly around the place, and the lovely painting she had bought as a wedding gift had been swept onto the floor, shattering the glass frame. The expensive soaps were broken and splintered. The bag for Prudence lay on the floor. Outraged, Posie spun around and checked through her possessions again. Odd! Although the place was a mess, nothing was missing. What had the intruder been after? How fortunate that she carried her most valuable things like her passport and tickets around with her at all times in her carpet bag!
She tried to make some order, and then she spotted something hidden way back under the little writing desk, discarded or dropped in a hurry. It was a single typewritten page.
Posie got onto her hands and knees and retrieved it. It was a random page which had obviously come adrift from Ianthe’s novel, the staple hanging loosely at the corner. It was clearly the very end of a chapter, as there was only one short paragraph typed on it. It was unfamiliar to Posie as she had only read the very start of the novel, and it obviously belonged to a much later chapter. She scanned it briefly:
“So, she had done it after all! She walked in a calm sort of triumph, all the while unaware that she was being observed from up on high.
BLOOD WILL OUT, the observer thought to themselves!”
The rest of the page was blank. Posie smiled at Ianthe’s dramatic turn of phrase. She searched around the room looking for the rest of the manuscript so she could place it together with it and cursed aloud, not finding it. Strange!
She remembered leaving the manuscript on the counterpane of the bed yesterday, before going out to the market, and she searched under the bed, through the bed covers and even under the pillows.
With a rising sense of panic she ran around the room looking for it. But it had gone. It was the only thing missing from all of her possessions, and with a feeling of creeping certainty she realised that this was the very reason her room had been searched.
The intruder had slipped up though, leaving a page behind. If it had not been for that, it might have been hours until Posie had realised the manuscript had been stolen.
But it made no sense! This was not the only copy of the book by any means – it was about to be published and printed in London by Bernie Sharp – soon anyone would be able to pick up a real copy at a news-stand, for reading in their coffee break or on their lunch hour.
Posie felt cross with herself for not having read the whole book, heaven knew she had had the time! And now she knew just how insightful Ianthe had been about the real-life characters involved, the book could have proved invaluable.
She shoved the page in her bag and sighed as she went down in the birdcage lift. It seemed likely that the person who stole the manuscript had done so deliberately, not wanting Posie to finish reading it while she was out here in Ortigia. And who had taken it? Cosima? The man in the mask? Binkie Dodds?
As she exited the lift she realised that all was not well in the entrance hall. Alaric was motioning for her to come quickly to the Hotel Manager’s front desk. He passed her a telegram which she ripped open. It had been sent by Inspector Lovelace half an hour previously. It was the shortest telegram she had ever received. She read:
URGENT. CALL IMMEDIATELY.
R. LOVELACE.
‘I’ve been talking to the Hotel Manager. Apparently you’ve been getting phone calls every ten minutes or so for the last hour,’ Alaric said, frowning with worry. ‘All from Scotland Yard. It must be serious, eh?’
Posie nodded, taking the telephone, but refusing to panic. Today was the day of the Inquest into Ianthe’s death at the Coroner’s Court in Victoria. Perhaps Inspector Lovelace needed to confirm a point of detail with her about her discovery of the body? If she had been in London she would have been called to give evidence in person, but as she was away they were relying on her Witness Statement. Perhaps something was missing from it?
As the International Operator put through the call, Posie checked her wristwatch and realised it was only seven o’clock in the morning in London. Alaric hung back, arms crossed, pensive. Within a minute she heard Inspector Lovelace’s brisk voice, more harried than usual:
‘Posie? Oh thank goodness! Thank goodness! Are you all right?’
‘Yes. What’s happening?’
‘Something terrible!’ the Inspector said anxiously. ‘I take full responsibility, of course.’
Her blood froze and she avoided Alaric’s searching eyes, his head bent low beside her, listening in. Posie had a sudden horrible feeling that Lady Violet had come a cropper, that somehow the murderer had killed her, or attempted to, possibly for something she knew, or for her now rather considerably-enhanced inheritance prospects from Ianthe.
‘Oh my gosh! What is it? Has something happened to Violet?’ she stammered, a cold hand of fear clutching at her heart.
‘No, no,’ the Inspector continued. ‘It’s rather a case of police misconduct. You remember how I told you on Monday that I had last been to Boynton Hall on Friday?’
‘Yes. Yes, I remember. You placed the household under house arrest. The local police force were standing by, making sure no-one came or went. You reassured me that there wasn’t a chance anyone from the house could have left, and certainly not have followed me over here, tailing me around…’
She heard Alaric gasp beside her, and Inspector Lovelace groaned into the receiver.
‘I know! I know! It seems I messed up by using the local bobbies. I should have placed Rainbird or Binny down there continuously. It seems that the local police thought it was adequate enough to remain outside of Boynton Hall, making sure no-one came or went. They haven’t been inside the place since I left it on Friday! Can you believe it? Sergeant Binny went down at the crack of dawn today to collect the whole ruddy lot of them to bring them to London for the Inquest, and guess what?’
Posie’s stomach lurched. ‘I don’t want to,’ she answered in a small voice.
‘I’ll tell you! Binny called through in a blind panic about an hour ago. It turns out that the whole household have gone and bally well disappeared! At some point since Friday each and every one of the following have left: Lord Roderick Boynton, Lady Eve Boynton, Lady Violet Boynton-Dale, Mr Burns and Codlington the Valet!’
‘WHAT?’
‘I know,’ the Inspector said in a small voice. ‘The only ones who are left are the old Butler and the maids. We’ve had some important information come our way now about key access to and from the house. But it’s a case of too little too late!’
‘I don’t understand!’ Posie wailed. ‘How did they all leave?’ and then Posie’s voice tailed away, for suddenly she knew. When she spoke again it was in unison with Inspector Lovelace in London and with Alaric at her side, ashen-faced, and they all said the same words in a bitter, resigned manner:
‘The Priest’s Hole!’
The Inspector continued: ‘So it is entirely possible that someone from Boynton Hall has followed you to Ortigia and has been stalking you. I’m so sorry, Posie. I’ve been giving you false assurances about your safety. And you’re there all alone, with goodness knows who on your tail…’
Posie calmed him down somewhat, explaining about having found Alaric safe and sound. Inspector Lovelace breathed a sigh of relief down the phone:
‘Well, let’s be grateful for small mercies. But he should be watching his back, too. I’d feel better if you both got out of there, pronto. Put me on to Boynton-Dale, please.’
Alaric took the phone and obviously had the same warning from the Inspector before he handed the receiver back to Posie.
‘And there’s something else you should know,’ the Inspector co
ntinued, sounding more upset and harassed than Posie had never heard him before. ‘Do you remember Bernie Sharp, the literary agent?’
‘Of course!’
‘It could be accidental, of course, but I very much doubt it. There’s been a fire, this morning, at his office in Covent Garden. The whole place is gutted, a smoking wreck. The fire brigade are over there now. They seem to think petrol was involved, which means it was deliberate. Nothing has survived. Unfortunately for Bernie Sharp it seems that he was a total workaholic, and he was already in his office at the crack of dawn today. His body has been recovered. He died of smoke inhalation.’
Posie gasped in horror. Another death! She felt dreadful for asking, but ask she must:
‘And the manuscripts of The Tomb of the Honey Bee? What about them? There were two left over: Bernie told me he was sending one copy to the printer, and that he was holding on to his own copy for safekeeping.’
‘All gone, I’m afraid. The printer was due to receive the copy for typesetting today by courier, but it was never sent out. It’s been burnt to a cinder and so has Bernie Sharp’s own copy. Am I correct in thinking that you have another copy?’
Posie groaned, bracing herself, and told him how she had just realised there had been an intruder in her room and how her copy of Ianthe’s manuscript had been stolen. She was met with yet more silence.
‘Well, someone is obviously desperate to destroy the copies which existed,’ the Inspector said at last. ‘Ruddy good job we’ve got Ianthe’s original copy sitting here locked in our evidence room at Scotland Yard. We’ll keep it well protected. Oh! I almost forgot! Some good news on that score! You remember the final page went missing from the original manuscript at the crime scene?’
‘Mnn?’
‘Mr Maguire in Forensics seems to think he might be able to recover the last page from the typewriter ribbon which was left inside the machine. It was sloppy of the killer not to have cleared it out at the same time as he stole the final page. It’s going to take a while and we’ll need to call in a special expert but Maguire is hopeful for a good result. Maybe that reconstructed page will give us some key information?’
Posie agreed. ‘Now I need to tell you something new,’ Posie said into the mouth-piece quietly to Inspector Lovelace, trying to avoid Alaric’s gaze.
She told the Inspector about her possible sighting of Cosima Catchpole in the harbour market and how there had been reports of a woman matching her description hanging around the Locatelli guesthouse. She didn’t bother to mention her run-in with Binkie Dodds; she had decided it was entirely unimportant, that he couldn’t possibly be dangerous to her.
The Inspector said nothing.
‘Are you there, Inspector? Did you jolly well hear any of that?’
‘Yes. Unfortunately.’
‘And? What do you make of it?’
‘I don’t like it,’ the Inspector said. ‘Not one bit. I don’t understand it. I’ll obviously send Binny down now to their house and check on Lady Cosima – see if she really has disappeared, or whether you might just have seen someone else. That’s not what worries me: it’s rather the masked chappie you were telling me about on Monday, following you around. I’m guessing now that that might have been Codlington. He would have had enough time to get out there if he left Boynton Hall on Friday or even Saturday. Please take care, Posie.’
The Inspector sighed wearily.
‘I must dash. I’ve got to prepare for this Inquest and then hold a Press Conference. The public interest in Ianthe Flowers’ death is unbelievable! They can’t get enough of it! She’s more famous now she’s dead than she ever was alive! But too late for poor old Bernie Sharp, eh? Her books are flying off the shelves and the journalists can’t get information quickly enough for their liking! Anyway, I’m happy to hear you’ve got Boynton-Dale out there with you, at any rate. Now get the hell out, as I said. Come back home. And if you run into any trouble in the meantime, make sure you get in touch with my contact at the Police Station in Siracusa; name of Inspector Geraldino Gobbi. Here’s his number. You got that?’
Posie took the details and hung up.
Alaric was giving her a strange, resigned look, but all he said as he picked his rucksack up off the floor and threw his hat on again was:
‘Better get your stuff from your room and we’ll clear out quickly. We’ll talk about what to do next over breakfast. I know a little café nearby on a hidden square. It’s jolly nice and quiet there. We’ll be undisturbed.’
****
Sixteen
However, it turned out that the whole of Ortigia was bound up in a crazy musical procession, with hundreds of revellers wearing carnival masks and bearing musical instruments and drums. The streets and cafés were anything but nice and quiet.
As they followed the street away from the Locatelli guesthouse, Posie and Alaric got caught up in the very thick of it, and it was with a sense of real relief that they found a free table in the shade at the small café in the hidden square Alaric had mentioned. The café was very busy and full of people who were also glad to have found a seat in among the chaos.
A masked waiter dressed in a harlequin’s outfit brought them coffee and croissants, and another one dressed as a pirate served them with plates of local cheese, fish and meat. They ate ravenously and in a tense silence as they watched the little square filling up with throngs of carnival characters, several bands of musicians and even a mobile Puppet Theatre. Bunches of tourists were now trailing in too, curious to see what all the fuss was about. The sun baked down relentlessly on the crowds in the square, even though it was still early morning.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Posie said at last.
‘I don’t know why I didn’t tell you about having seen Cosima yesterday. I think it was because I wasn’t quite sure of what I had actually seen. I don’t even know if it was her or not. I realise how much she means to you and it was wrong of me to hide that information from you,’ she tailed off flatly.
‘It’s fine,’ said Alaric in a resigned manner, like he meant it. He wiped the sweat away from his face with a linen napkin. He seemed preoccupied, but he also seemed to have come to a decision which had cost him much effort, and he looked out over the square with a new resolution in his strange-coloured eyes:
‘I acted like a first-rate ass, hoping everything would come right between Cosima and myself. The signs were there for me to see: I just ignored them. Heavens! She even broke up with me and I still couldn’t get it through my thick head that it was over! To be honest, even if she has come out here to find me, which I doubt, I think the scales have finally fallen from my eyes. And I have you to thank for that.’
Posie gulped at her strong coffee in some embarrassment: she was not used to men speaking so frankly with her about matters of the heart.
‘I can’t love her anymore,’ Alaric continued in his gravelly voice.
‘Oh?’
‘Wasn’t it Bernard of Clairvaux who said “Love me, love my dog”?’
‘I don’t know, I’m afraid,’ said Posie, feeling stupid and uneducated for once. But then she remembered Lady Violet telling her that Alaric had always been ‘the clever one’ in the family, and Hugo Marchpane saying that a lot of what Alaric said went right over his head. And it turned out that even Lady Cosima hadn’t bothered to listen!
‘Well,’ Alaric said, smiling, ‘all I mean is that if someone is no friend of Bikram, they’re no friend of mine. I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. Anyway, you’re right to have doubted whether you actually saw Cosima here: she famously hates travelling; gets sick in planes, buses, cars. Moans non-stop if she has to travel anywhere further than London. She just about tolerates trains. See how misguided I was? A pretty poor companion for an explorer, eh?’
Posie nodded, not liking to add that Cosima was a married companion into the bargain, and that made her unsuitable, too, but she held her tongue. She was perplexed. If what Alaric was saying was right, there was no way Cosima could have made it
down to Sicily by train alone.
Alaric smiled. ‘Now, shall we order an almond granita to drink? It’s so hot here, even in the shade.’
As they waited for someone to take their order they discussed what to do next.
‘The next boat will leave tonight from Palermo,’ said Posie, who had found that a strange calm had descended on her. ‘We can get to Genoa on the ferry, then try and get a train home through France. We’ll just have to lie low and make sure no-one is following us.’
Alaric was staring at her strangely. He started to laugh:
‘Boats?’ he uttered in disbelief. ‘Trains? Home? Who said anything about any of that?’
Posie looked at him in surprise, tucking her hair behind her ear nervously. ‘Well, I just thought…’
‘That’s complicated. And dull. And it takes a long time. I did that already on my way down here, too. What I need is an aeroplane and an air field. Do you have a map on you by any chance? I did have one but I left it behind at the Monastery. I didn’t realise I would be leaving Sicily quite so soon.’
‘Oh my gosh!’ Posie was scrabbling in her bag, searching for the red and gold Stanford’s map. She was pulling out other random bits of paper too and heaping them up carelessly on the table. ‘Did you leave anything else important up at the Monastery?’
Alaric shook his head, then spied the single remaining page of Ianthe’s manuscript sitting on the table. He picked it up idly.
‘That’s the only bit of Ianthe’s The Tomb of the Honey Bee that I have left!’ Posie said quickly, focused on shaking out her map and pressing it down carefully, looking for the symbol for an airfield in the key at the bottom.
‘The intruder into my room must have dropped it in his hurry to get out carrying the rest of the book. That page was lying under my desk, unnoticed.’
Alaric read the text casually, with a lopsided grin of amusement on his face and then suddenly he drew in his breath sharply and sat up very straight in his chair. Posie noticed the change of body language and looked at him quickly. He was reading and re-reading the text, and he looked ashen in the face, his eyes like dead black holes.
The Tomb of the Honey Bee: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series Book 2) Page 16