Murder at the Villa Byzantine: An Antonia Darcy and Major Payne Investigation

by R. T. Raichev

  But Miss Hope said she’d never before clapped her eyes on Stella!

  Tancred Vane held his breath. He had remembered one of the questions Stella asked him that day. Did Mr Vane know a woman called—?

  Now, what was the name? It was rather an unusual, rather an actressy, sort of name—

  12

  The She-Wolf

  Melisande Chevret had had a mental picture of James dropping on his knees, bowing before her and begging forgiveness. She had envisaged a passionate reunion – James covering her hands with kisses, then rising and burying his face in her bosom, mumbling that he was sorry, so terribly sorry, he had been mad to turn his back on her, he had no idea what had possessed him – would she take pity on a miserable sinner? – would she give him a second chance? – would she have him back?

  But of course nothing of the sort happened. James was stiff and formal and far from demonstrative. He shook hands with her, then, as an afterthought, gave her a peck on the cheek, near her left ear – as far from her lips as possible.

  She was wearing her immaculately cut pearl-grey peignoir with blue ribbon bindings along the edges, with several long gold chains strung from her neck. She had had a massage and a facial in the morning and thought her face looked particularly smooth and luminous, like that of the Dresden shepherdess on her dressing table. She was whippet-thin now – exactly the way she wanted to be. The ayurvedic diet seemed to have worked. No red meat and nothing but liquids after 6 p.m. She’d hated it, but now she looked at least fifteen years younger. Il faut souffrir pour être belle.

  She led the way into the drawing room and sat down on the sofa. She patted the place beside her and gave him her most seductive smile, but he chose to sit in one of the armchairs.

  All right. Suit yourself, buster, she thought. Perhaps she was expecting too much. Perhaps it was too soon. It was only three days since Stella had been separated from her head. James was pale and tense and he too seemed to have lost weight. His habitual bulging orb seemed to have diminished somewhat. He kept avoiding her eye.

  No, nothing to drink, he said – thank you so much, but nothing to eat either. So much for her carefully prepared dinner à deux. (Asparagus soup, chicken in aspic, green salad, figs in strawberry sauce, Stilton, black coffee.) Why had she bothered? Why had he come? She pressed him to have a drink and eventually he said he would like a cup of tea. Tea! She’d always despised people who asked for a cup of tea, but this – this was particularly bad.

  James was wearing a black suit, black tie and black shoes. And black socks. For heaven’s sake, she thought. All he lacked was a black armband! The disconsolate widower! He looked quite absurd. Maestro, the Death March, please, and don’t spare the violins!

  Melisande felt the urge to laugh aloud, blow a raspberry, neigh like a horse, but she managed to exercise self-control. She still believed she had a chance with him. Having handed him his cup of tea, she poured herself a large brandy. This was not how she had imagined their reunion, most certainly not the way she had contemplated the evening ahead.

  ‘Kind of you to come when you clearly have so much on your mind, James,’ she said softly. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Not awfully well. I’ve been sleeping badly.’

  ‘I am so terribly sorry. Have you seen your doctor?’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t had a chance. Too busy.’

  ‘Poor darling. Would you like one of my sachets? They reduce you to the most delicious kind of coma and no headaches afterwards, just a pleasantly treacly sensation. I am quite addicted to them.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Would you like me to massage your poor neck and shoulders? It would release the tension. You know I can do it really well.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Melisande pursed her lips. She had only been trying to be helpful. Did he fear she might try to seduce him? He used to love it when she had massaged his neck and shoulders in the past, couldn’t get enough of it, the greedy pig.

  She thought the atmosphere in the room had become charged with wariness and potential conflict. I see the world through a shroud that is as clammy as it is dark. Who said that? One of those middle-aged women characters Winifred was urging her to play? Was it Carlotta in Song at Twilight?

  She took a sip of brandy. Perhaps she should get roaring drunk?

  ‘Have the police released the body?’

  ‘No, not yet. I don’t know when exactly that will be. They keep their cards very close to their chests. We’ve been trying to contact Stella’s relatives in Bulgaria.’

  ‘What a bore. Who’s “we”?’

  ‘Moon and I.’

  ‘That awful girl.’

  ‘She is very young.’

  ‘Ghastly manners. Quite shocking. I don’t believe she gives a fig for her mother, dead or alive. Where is she now?’

  ‘At my sister’s place in Kensington.’

  ‘That’s the flat next door to yours, isn’t it? There is a communicating door, if I remember correctly. Poor Julia. How I pity her. What an ordeal. How is she coping?’

  ‘It hasn’t been too bad, actually.’

  ‘Make sure the girl doesn’t cut your throats as you sleep,’ Melisande murmured.

  ‘Sorry?’ How ridiculous he looked, cupping his ear and thrusting his head forward.

  ‘I said, make sure the girl gets enough sleep.’ Melisande raised her voice. ‘Sleep at that age is so very important, James.’

  ‘I know it is.’ He sighed. ‘Moon’s been under terrible strain. We’ve been trying to contact Stella’s relatives in Bulgaria, but the whole communication business has been a nightmare.’

  ‘Well, darling, what else can one expect when one goes exploring the unknown rather than exploiting the assured? If people fall below something called a certain standard, they are asking for trouble. No, I am not in the least angry with you, darling. It’s just that I don’t quite see why you should be going out of your way to accommodate that girl. It’s more than clear it’s affected your health. It breaks my heart to see you looking so ill.’

  He harrumphed. ‘I’m not as bad as I was.’

  ‘I think this whole thing was nothing but a ghastly mistake from start to finish. The sooner you realize that, the better. It is my firm belief that once Stella has been buried, and her daughter goes back to Bulgaria or America or wherever, you will start seeing things in a totally different light.’

  ‘I’m not sure I will.’

  ‘You’re still in a state of shock, darling. I don’t imagine you’ve been thinking rationally. You really have been your own worst enemy, you know.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’

  ‘The impulse to destroy oneself is among the most ancient human impulses. It is the crux of most of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies. The moment of madness – when a great man makes a single decision that sets his downfall irreversibly in train. Macbeth allowing the witches to plant ideas in his mind. Lear preferring his wicked daughters to his good, loving one.’

  ‘I don’t think I understand—’

  ‘Clearly insane decisions,’ she said firmly. ‘It is almost as though some bacillus has infected your entire physiology and unbalanced your judgement!’

  ‘What bacillus? What are you talking about?’

  She took another gulp of brandy. I am going to drink myself into scintillations of self-pity, she thought.

  ‘Remember Malvolio suckered into wearing yellow cross-garters as a supposed aphrodisiac to his employer, Olivia?’

  Looking at his blank face, it occurred to her that she might not be adopting the right approach. James wasn’t the least bit artistic or intellectual. Theatrical allusions weren’t exactly his thing. Witty parallels between life and high literature were all but lost on him.

  Rising from the sofa, she went up to him and perched on the arm of his chair. ‘I feel for you, James. If you only knew how much I feel for you. My heart bleeds for you, darling. You can kiss me, if you like.’

  ‘I’d
rather I didn’t – sorry, Melisande. I don’t feel terribly well—’

  He’d rather he didn’t. She was dismayed. He was off her. He’d always called her Meli, never Melisande. This was the end. He no longer found her attractive. He no longer desired her. He was off her!

  She told herself to persist. ‘I admire you for wanting to do the right thing, darling, I really do. You have such a munificent heart. I am sure everything will be all right in the end. You will see Stella’s body transported back to Bulgaria in one of those hermetically sealed coffins, give the daughter a couple of bucks and make sure she is safely ensconced on the plane. After that you will be a free man! The paralysing effect this whole dreadful business has had on your faculties will wear off soon enough and you will start seeing things as they really are.’

  ‘Moon doesn’t want to go back to Bulgaria.’

  ‘Well, she’ll have to go! She has no other option!’ Anger surged through Melisande like blood bubbling up through a sharp cut in skin. ‘You’d better impress it on her. You mustn’t allow that little bitch to twist you round her little finger, James, you really mustn’t! She’s taking advantage of your good nature, don’t you see? The brazen gall of it!’

  ‘She is very young,’ he said again.

  ‘I am sorry, James, but I have very little patience where that girl is concerned. I find her tiresome beyond endurance. She was outside the house this morning.’

  ‘Moon was outside your house? Are you sure it was her?’

  ‘Of course it was her! She was wearing that disgusting shinel.’

  ‘What was she doing?’

  ‘Standing and staring, James. Standing and staring. Indulging her penchant for meddlesome intrusion. Spying – writing things down, in what looked like a notebook – trying to intimidate us! She’s got a screw loose, that much is clear. We nearly called the police. Poor Win said it gave her the heebie-jeebies, looking at that girl, though I believe it was me Moon was after. She hates me.’

  ‘She must have been playing at detectives. She—’

  ‘She is a bitch, James. A manipulative bitch. She is twisting you round her little finger.’ Melisande smoothed her peignoir with her hand. ‘I am sorry, darling, but sometimes it is best to be brutally honest. Do you know what? I pray for you incessantly. You can move in here, if you like,’ she added casually, giving his earlobe a playful tweak. ‘How about it?’

  ‘Don’t do that, please.’ The way he drew back, she might have announced a leprous condition. ‘Thank you, but I’m afraid that – that will be quite impossible.’

  ‘Impossible? I suppose you need more time to recover?’

  ‘I think so. Yes. I need more time – and space. My own space.’

  Melisande rose slowly to her feet. Her expression didn’t change, but the turmoil inside her frightened her. It was only with great difficulty that she resisted the temptation to claw his face or strangle him with his black tie. Examining her long red fingernails, she asked him if he wanted another cup of tea.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  She sighed. ‘We seem to have been overtaken by events,’ she said obscurely. ‘How is the investigation progressing? They haven’t yet caught the killer, have they?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. There has been nothing in the papers or on TV. I have no idea what is going on.’

  ‘So they still don’t know who did it. You don’t think it’s the girl?’

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘The daughter, James. Stella’s girl. The offensive offspring. Moon. Didn’t you say the police found her hankie not far from her mother’s body and that it was dripping blood?’

  ‘The police thought it was her handkerchief, but they were wrong. It has the initials MM on it, but it is not her handkerchief. She’s not the only one with the initials MM. It could be anybody’s handkerchief.’

  ‘Indeed it could be.’ An icy calm descended upon Melisande. ‘It could be my friend Lady Mariota Madrigal’s – only she happens to be in Acapulco at the moment. It could also be Marcel Marceau’s, the French mime artist. Or is he dead? The handkerchief could also be yours, you know.’

  ‘I am not in the mood for jokes.’

  ‘Your second name is Morgan. You told me your parents used to call you Morgan when you were a boy and how much you hated it.’ She laughed. ‘Morgan Morland – sounds a bit silly, I agree, but it matches those initials perfectly.’

  ‘It’s a woman’s handkerchief.’

  ‘Well, darling, some men get a kick out of carrying feminine articles about their person. Lipsticks and powder compacts and bottles of nail varnish. Some men wear their girlfriends’ silk stockings wrapped tightly about their bodies. It’s called fetish, James. One meets more fetishists than farmers, according to statistics, socially, I mean, though of course, one doesn’t realize it – it isn’t something one sees written on their foreheads. Soft materials can be a particular turn-on—’

  ‘I am not in the mood for jokes,’ Morland said again.

  ‘I am absolutely, utterly, profoundly serious. What if I told you it was my handkerchief?’

  ‘It isn’t your handkerchief.’

  ‘My unwed and unweddable sister gave me such a peculiar look when I announced Stella’s death to her. Win didn’t seem to believe that it was you who’d phoned me and told me about it. I have an idea she’s been avoiding me.’

  ‘Why should she want to do that?’ Morland spoke absently. He looked at his watch.

  ‘I believe she is afraid of me. Perhaps she’s got it into her head it was I who killed Stella? Perhaps she thinks I am MM? My middle name, after all, is Mariah. Melisande Mariah.’

  ‘Your middle name is not Mariah. You have no middle name.’

  ‘You are right, I haven’t. But I have a good motive for Stella’s murder. Stella stole you away from me. I have been consumed by jealousy – devoured – tormented – crazed! My pride has been severely wounded. Perhaps I decided to get rid of her, so that I could have you back? Perhaps, unlike the cat in the adage, I didn’t let I dare not wait upon I would?’

  ‘What cat?’

  Really, Melisande thought, he is rather stupid. He will never belong to the aristocracy of the mind, as Proust or somebody put it. And he is so fat and so pink. Heaven knows why I am so terribly keen on binding his faithless heart to mine. Of wanting to unite my destiny with his. This is quite the wrong kind of obsession.

  ‘Do you think I killed Stella, James?’

  ‘Of course I don’t. I need to go now.’ He stood up. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. The eager way you gulped it down, it might have been the elixir of life. Goodness, you do exude clerical severity. Must you wear black? That rather tedious police inspector wanted to know where I was on the fatal day and I said I was at home, but I wasn’t. Has it never occurred to you that good murderers are often good actors? Both species have a lot in common, haven’t you noticed?’

  James started walking towards the door.

  ‘Vain, determined, egocentric – and they possess an enviable amount of sangfroid. Both species can bluff their way through the trickiest of situations. How many times have I forgotten my lines on stage and had to improvise – and no one the wiser?’

  13

  Three Sisters?

  ‘You would never believe this, my love,’ Major Payne said, handing Antonia a gin and tonic, ‘but while you’ve been away, I got myself embroiled in murder.’

  ‘I have had enough of murder to last me at least a month, thank you very much. I am not starting on a new book till after Christmas.’

  ‘I am serious.’

  ‘So am I. No murder till after Christmas.’

  ‘A murder took place on Tuesday. At the Villa Byzantine.’

  ‘One thing is certain. In America they take murder mysteries much more seriously than they do here. Even if they call them “cozies”. I wish they didn’t. I believe the intention of whoever coined the phrase was to domesticate the genre, but what he, or she, succeeded in do
ing was to trivialize it. I strongly suspect it was a she.’

  ‘Remember Morland? The chap we met at Kinderhook. He’s asked me for assistance—’

  ‘Nobody mixes a gin and tonic quite like you.’ Antonia gave him a searching glance. ‘You look thinner. You haven’t been eating properly, have you? Omelettes, I suppose? Did your aunt have you over for dinner? She promised she would look after you.’

  ‘It was Stella Markoff who was murdered. Didn’t you see any English papers?’

  ‘No, thank God.’

  Payne sat down in the chair opposite Antonia. ‘Stella was beheaded at the Villa Byzantine.’

  ‘Was she? By a republican, no doubt. Or perhaps it was someone who resented being bored by lectures on the future of the Bulgarian monarchy?’

  ‘The Villa Byzantine is in St John’s Wood. It is an architectural oddity. Faux oriental,’ Payne persisted. ‘My aunt actually went and took a peek at it. She thought it perfectly gruesome – singularly suited to a beheading.’

  ‘This is all terribly amusing, but I am not in the mood, Hugh.’

  ‘My aunt may prove to be a valuable spy. She’s quite thrilled at the prospect of doing a Mata Hari—’ Payne broke off. ‘Do I have the fatal knack of making everything I say sound a little preposterous?’

  ‘You do, rather. I must admit it’s part of your charm, but at the moment I happen to be tired, oh so tired. I believe I have jetlag. I can never sleep on planes. I watched a wonderful film. The Illusionist. I should have seen the twist at the end coming, only I didn’t.’

  ‘The Villa Byzantine belongs to a Tancred Vane who is a royal biographer. Stella showed us photos of both – at Melisande’s party. Remember?’

  ‘Melisande’s agent insisted I should go on stage. Do you think I should? He said I had something.’