‘You are being too hard on yourself,’ Colville grumbled.
‘No, darling, I am not.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘I am not. I was insensitive, wilful, demanding, selfish and deceitful.’
Beatrice had spoken with great relish, as though such self-flagellation was giving her inordinate pleasure. Something American about her crucifying candour. What a manipulative bitch, Antonia thought. She seemed to say things like that so that she could be contradicted. She was looking at Hugh again! Really, Antonia thought, feeling ridiculously upset, we shouldn’t have come.
‘Well, I was punished for it.’ Beatrice glanced down at her knees. ‘Nearly thirty years of unmitigated misery. I do believe in divine retribution.’
‘Don’t say that.’ Colville reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘Don’t you ever say that.’
‘Darling Len. I don’t deserve you.’ For a moment they sat gazing into each other’s eyes, then Beatrice gave a laugh and pulled her hand away.
‘We must stop! Honestly! We can’t possibly assume that our histoire is of any great interest to anyone but us! Recounting our ardours and endurances like that. So embarrassing. What must our visitors be thinking?’ Beatrice waved her hands. ‘There are few things more tedious than self-obsessed newly-weds. Middle-aged romances are a par-ticular bore. It must strike you as grotesque, the way we’ve been going on. No, don’t deny it! You are much too beauti-fully mannered to say it, I know . . . Len, we are getting peckish. Do you think you could . . .?’
‘Tea? Splendid idea.’ Colville rose obediently to his feet.
‘Thank you, darling. I keep expecting Ingrid to wheel in the tea, I am so used to it. ‘ Beatrice reached out for the pearl-inlaid cigarette box on the table and took out a gold-tipped cigarette with a languorous femme-fatale-ish gesture. ‘I keep forgetting things are different now. Would you like a cigarette? Antonia? No? Wise girl. It’s a filthy habit. Where’s the . . .?’ She looked helplessly round. ‘Hugh, I don’t suppose you happen to have a light? I am sure you are a smoker. I do believe I caught a whiff of some superior blend emanating from you.’
‘You are absolutely right,’ Payne said, crossing to her. ‘I smoke a pipe.’
Antonia pursed her lips. She had seen Beatrice place one of the two books on top of the matchbox with a casual gesture, thus ensuring the matches were hidden from view. Such flagrant falsity. Antonia watched her husband produce his lighter and flick it. As he held it for her, Beatrice put her two fingers on his hand.
‘Thank you, Hugh,’ she breathed. One might be excused for thinking he’d saved her life, Antonia thought grimly.
‘Turkish cigarettes?’ Payne was sniffing the air.
‘I see you are something of a connoisseur. Smell divine, don’t they?’
‘Where is Ingrid? Doesn’t Ingrid live here any more?’ Antonia asked in a loud voice.
I am jealous, she thought. Oh my God, I am jealous. What a dreadful feeling this is.
6
The Enigmatic Mr Lushington
So the golden-haired Bee Ardleigh had had the devil’s own luck. Amazing things did happen to some people. Poor Robin. What a blow the news would be to him. He didn’t feel particularly sorry for his friend, rather he felt strange excitement bubbling up inside him and that was mingled with a sense of anticipation. He couldn’t quite say why . . .
Father Lillie-Lysander shut his eyes and a little moan escaped his lips. He had had a vision of two meteors of living flame colliding and fusing into one enormous golden ball of fire. Was that it? Was it –starting?
He sat in his study, cross-legged, swathed in a rather sumptuous apple-green dressing gown with frogged lapels. On the round table by his side was a glass of Chartreuse, also apple-green in colour, which every now and then he raised to his lips. Not many people drank Chartreuse these days, but Father Lillie-Lysander was not like other people. He prided himself on being, in a great number of ways, unique.
Next to the glass with the Chartreuse lay his round, silver-framed reading glasses and a syringe. A minute earlier he had injected himself with morphine – he had stolen the ampoule from Ralph Renshawe’s bedside table – and was waiting for it to take effect.
Papaver somniferum. Juice of poppies. Three grains would be fatal, but he was taking a ‘recreational’ dose. Like the opium eaters in the nineteenth century. Being of an obsessive mind, Lillie-Lysander had read all about it. On the floor beside his chair lay that month’s bank statement, where he had dropped it, also a letter from his bank manager. He had expected some such development. He was overdrawn. It was the second time in six months.
The week before he had won five thousand pounds at the Midas, the privately run casino situated in London’s Park Lane – only to lose it, again at the Midas, some forty-five minutes later. The Midas was Father Lillie-Lysander’s secret haunt. He went there every Friday night, wearing a dinner jacket, a red carnation in his buttonhole, and a false moustache. He had a penchant for the absurdly histrionic, for high-camp masquerades, for subterfuge and noms de plume, for mind games and twilight dealings. Ambiguities of every kind delighted him. At the casino he was known as ‘Lushington’, which, as it happened, was his mother’s maiden name. (At school, inevitably, he had been known as ‘Lily’.)
He had bumped into Robin Renshawe two months previously at one of the gaming tables at the Midas. The two hadn’t met since their schooldays. At Antleforth – or ‘Antlers’, as Robin kept calling it – Robin had enjoyed universal adulation thanks to his languid good looks, sporting prowess and dangerous kind of wit – also for the skill with which he could tear a pack of cards in two.
They hadn’t been friends to start with; if anything, Lillie-Lysander had been a little afraid of Robin, but they had discovered common ground in their love for the theatre. They had appeared in every school play together. Contrary to expectations and much to his classmates’ dis-appointment, Lillie-Lysander had refused to play women’s roles, plumping instead for the slippered pantaloon/ stuffed shirt character part. He had raised great laughs as Pooh-Bah and Polonius while Robin had been Nanki-Poo and Hamlet. Then they had appeared in The Master Cracksman – he had been a somewhat plump Bunny to Robin’s dashing Raffles. And finally, in their last year, Robin had played an exceedingly sinister Mephistopheles to his susceptible Dr Faustus.
‘I always knew you had a weakness for heavy betting,’ Robin had said, a smile on his thin handsome face, and it felt as though they had parted only the other day. ‘Or are you here to deliver the last rites to a fellow member who is about to blow his brains out? I did hear the ugly rumour that you’d become a priest – it’s not true, is it?’
‘It is true.’
‘Like Father Canteloupe!’ Robin gasped in mock-horror and covered his eyes. ‘Remember Father Canteloupe?’
‘Nothing like Father Canteloupe.’
‘Chaps here do get desperate, if only occasionally – not as much as in Monte, where at one time apparently they could never tell if the popping sounds were gunshots or produced by the uncorking of champagne bottles. The terrace at the back is a favourite spot. It’s known as “terror terrace”, isn’t that silly?’
Lillie-Lysander had laughed.
‘I wonder if I could employ your services, old boy. My uncle is on his way out and he needs a father confessor badly. No, I’m not joking. I’ve been commissioned to find a priest. Incidentally, that’s the cleverest moustache I’ve seen in a long while. Not mass-produced, I trust?’
‘No. I had it specially made.’
At school Robin Renshawe had been his hero. Lillie-Lysander had admired Robin’s cleverness and droll sense of humour, his air of sarcastic knowingness, his cool manner, the ease with which Robin always managed to bluff his way through the trickiest of situations. Had lust, as St Augustine put it so dramatically, stormed confusedly within him? He was not sure. No, he didn’t think so. He had always had a low sex drive and that, coupled with his extreme fastidiousness, he considered a bles
sing.
Take no care for the flesh in its desires. St Augustine knew all about that kind of thing. Well, yes, quite. Now that he had turned forty, any vestige of desire he might have had for either man or woman had completely disappeared. Like Christ he had remained a virgin – the thought never failed to amuse him; he regarded that as another instance of his uniqueness. All of his energies for the past couple of years had been directed into his activities at the Midas. He found himself caring less and less what God made of it all – if indeed there was a God. It was a matter of genes, that was what they said anyway – you either had a God gene or you hadn’t . . . How then did one explain the fact that celebrating Mass in his gold-and-white robe some-times reduced him to tears? Odd.
Robin had seemed genuinely pleased to see him. ‘Such a marvellous stroke of luck, us meeting like that. I was thinking about you only this morning. They say there’s no such thing as coincidence. I do believe our paths were meant to converge. Come and have a drink . . . You would be perfect for the job . . . You aren’t a real priest, of course?’
‘I am.’ Lillie-Lysander giggled.
‘Good man. Well, it helps to have a mole in the citadel.’ Robin had ordered two double whiskies. ‘I’d be grateful if you kept me informed about what was going on in the old man’s mind.’
(Lillie-Lysander didn’t remember having said yes yet.)
‘I am not exactly persona grata at Ospreys. I must admit I am a trifle apprehensive about my future. My uncle thinks me not only dishonourable but without a trace of finer feeling. I am afraid that things might deteriorate. I want to know what’s going on, which way the wind is blowing and so on. As my uncle’s father confessor, you will be privy to his innermost thoughts and secrets. You will be his godly anchorman. He’s been given only two months at the most. I’ll make it worth your while. Can you start tomorrow? It’s in Oxfordshire – place called Ospreys.’
‘Ospreys? I believe I have heard of it.’
‘Excellent. Shall we drink to it?’
(How much money could Robin let him have? Could Robin provide him with regular supplies of morphine? Robin had hinted he had suppliers for ‘everything’ – a tan-talizing prospect.)
‘Ah.’ Father Lillie-Lysander gave a sigh of the deepest satisfaction as he felt himself relax more and more . . . and more. ‘The Holy Spirit is upon me,’ he murmured blasphemously, his lips curved in a ridiculous grin.
The morphine – Papaver somniferum! (He made it sound like a benediction.)
At last . . . At last. (He must speak to Robin . . . Break the news . . . What would Robin do?)
Strangely enough, Father Lillie-Lysander’s last thought before he passed out was of Miss Ardleigh. There was something that wasn’t right about her. He was an old thesp and he was ready to swear that that blonde hair of hers – What a delicious sensation – it felt like being in the centre of a giant centrifuge!
Down-down-down – light as a feather.
7
The Letter
‘Ingrid? Do you know Ingrid?’ Beatrice appeared surprised.
‘I met her in Hay-on-Wye,’ Antonia reminded her.
‘Of course you did. Sorry, my dear. I’ve got so much on my mind. Oh, yes, she still lives here, but now that Len’s moved in, she’s planning to move out.’ Beatrice Ardleigh gave a sigh. ‘I am so sad. I am deeply grateful to her. She did everything for me, you see. We’ve lived together for – what is it? Nearly thirty years? Goodness, that’s a terribly long time, isn’t it? She never allowed anyone to come near me. Never.’
‘Not even your doctor?’
‘Dr Aylard found her quite difficult.’ Beatrice held her cigarette away from her eyes. ‘Once she pushed him out of my room. Well, Ingrid saw me through all my indignities. When I couldn’t sit up and had to lie down all the time. When I couldn’t go by myself to the loo. It is so easy to be dismissive and say, “Oh, one of those feverish female friendships,” I am sure that’s what people are saying, but it was so much more than that. Whenever I felt down and wanted to have a little cry, Ingrid sat beside me and held my hand. She read to me. She’s particularly good with voices. She sang me to sleep. Honestly. She fed me, mopped my brow, brushed my hair, bathed me, gave me massages. She dealt with all my correspondence –’
‘She reads your letters?’ Payne interrupted.
‘Used to – I mean she did it until recently. Not any more – not since Len’s been around. But before that she acted as my secretary. She was also my nurse, nanny – mother, if you like – guardian angel! All rolled up in one! I was Ingrid’s baby, her very special little girl. I know this sounds ridiculous and strange, but she lost her child, you see. She was seven months pregnant when it happened. It was going to be a little girl, apparently. Claire.’
‘Claire?’
‘That was the name Ingrid intended to give her little girl. She had been listening to “Clair de Lune” on the radio when the accident happened. She’s got all those photos in her room – various little girls – blonde and demure-looking. She said they were her nieces, but, you see, she hasn’t got any sisters. Once she was off guard and she said, “That’s Claire, my daughter.” Some of the photos are actually magazine cuttings. Photos of fair-haired girls modelling children’s clothes.’
‘You mean she pretends they are her daughter?’ Payne’s eyebrow went up. ‘ She imagines they are her daughter?’ ‘Yes. Yes. She could never get over the loss of her baby. She keeps having conversations with Claire in her head. She sends a monthly cheque to the Convent of the Poor Claires. She keeps listening to “Clair de Lune” –’ Beatrice broke off. ‘Oh, I know – I know – it’s totally mad. You poor things – the look on your faces! Well, losing the baby was a most devastating blow for Ingrid. She was quite unable to come to terms with the fact she’d never have another child too. To cut a long story short, I became a – a substitute. I allowed her to mother me. I don’t care what people think. Great shame it all has to end like that.’
‘She didn’t like the idea of you marrying?’
‘She didn’t. She was distraught. She made a ghastly scene.’ Beatrice shut and opened her eyes. ‘It was quite frightening. Honestly. She said some truly appalling things to me. She made me cry. I didn’t really see why the three of us couldn’t be happy together. I honestly didn’t. Len said he didn’t mind at all; he is an angel . . . I misjudged the situation completely, it seems. I must be terribly naive. Ingrid took it all rather badly. “You don’t really expect me to cohabit with you?” How she screamed! She seemed out-raged. She made it sound as though I’d come up with some really improper suggestion.’
‘You haven’t made up?’
‘I am afraid not. She’s still extremely cut up. She won’t speak to Len. Pretends he’s not there. She calls him “the interloper”. She hates Len. She is very, very cross with me. She keeps saying I betrayed her. She calls it an “act of treachery”. She said I was “the most selfish, the most ungrateful, the most unappreciative person who ever lived”. She hates me. I did try to explain – to reassure her. I did my best, believe me.’ Beatrice’s voice shook. ‘I made it clear that nothing had changed, but she didn’t want to listen. She was beyond reason. I did want to discuss things openly and rationally, the way sensible people do, but she just sat and stared in her inscrutable manner.’
‘Where is she?’ Antonia asked.
‘I have no idea.’ Beatrice stubbed out her cigarette and looked at the clock. ‘She went out over three hours ago. It’s freezing cold outside. Where does she go? She has no friends. Not a single friend. Can you imagine? She mistrusts people. I do hope she’s taken the train to Oxford and gone to the cinema and is not roaming the streets, brooding.’
‘Does she go out often?’
‘Quite often, yes. Lately, that is. She slips out without a word. And here’s an odd thing – we hear her but never see her. She seems to time her exits very carefully. We hear the stairs creak or the front door opening or closing. And she always comes back after we have g
one to bed. I thought it was my imagination, but then Len noticed it too – and he is not particularly imaginative . . . Ingrid’s exits and entrances invariably take place when Len and I are together, either here, watching something on the box, or in our bedroom. We tend to spend a lot of time in our bed-room.’ Beatrice gave a coy smile. ‘Call me a stupid fool, but each time Ingrid goes out, I tend to imagine the worst – that she would do something silly. She did say once that the idea of suicide was never too far from her mind.’
The chink of china was heard, the door opened and a beaming Colville wheeled in a trolley laden with tea-things. Four cups, a large silver teapot, a muffin dish, a plate of smoked salmon sandwiches and a chocolate cake. ‘She is often troubled by suicidal fantasies,’ Beatrice went on. ‘I am telling them about Ingrid, darling.’
‘Ah. Ingrid.’ Colville’s smile faded and he shook his head.
‘She told me that at times suicide seemed not only frighteningly real but the only option. Varied and violent methods of ending her life keep presenting themselves to her – Darling, would you pour? At first it was the usual stuff – sleeping pills, cyanide, exhaust fumes, but then she said she had started considering slitting her wrists with the blades of a Gillette sensor razor or cutting her throat with an X-Acto knife . . . Another drop of milk, please . . . Now that’s too much! Honestly!’ For a moment Beatrice looked furious. ‘I am sorry, Len, but you know I don’t like my tea drowned in milk. Can I have another cup?’
‘Yes, of course, darling. So – so sorry. I didn’t mean to –’ Colville appeared greatly flustered. ‘Here you are. Sorry, darling.’
Assassins at Ospreys Page 5