Something Wicked

by David Roberts

  Fenton drove him back to the regatta and Edward asked if he would help him look for Verity. ‘With my knee,’ he said, waving his stick, ‘I can’t move very fast. Let’s meet back here in about an hour.’

  He sent Fenton to walk along the river bank and gave him his binoculars so he could scan the hundreds of small boats still bobbing about on the water. Edward couldn’t understand why he had failed to agree a definite meeting place with Verity even though he knew only too well that she never stayed in one place for more than five minutes.

  He tried to think logically of all the places where she might have gone. As far as he could see, she was not in the stands on his side of the river. He limped over to the tea tent but there was no sign of her and everything had been cleared away. He thought the Booths might have seen her but they too had vanished. He looked in on George Bushell’s photographic exhibition, wondering if she had wanted to look at her picture again, but she was not there and nor was George. An assistant told him that he had gone to photograph the finals of the Diamonds and had not yet returned.

  Edward’s knee was beginning to trouble him – perhaps because he had walked too much or possibly in sympathy with his anxious heart. It was ridiculous to think that Verity could have been abducted in the midst of the throng. If anyone had tried anything like that, all she had to do was cry out and someone would have come to her rescue. On the other hand, perhaps no one would have noticed anything unusual. He thought of Harry. Might he have tried something? But surely he would be licking his wounds after failing to seduce Cathy Herold. He turned on his heel and limped back towards the river.

  There were fewer launches moored near the stands now the regatta was drawing to a close and he searched anxiously for Harry’s. It was larger than most and to his relief he spotted it but whether Harry was there or not was another matter. Reaching it, he thought at first there was no one on board but then he heard voices coming from the cabin. Clumsily, he climbed aboard, almost falling over as he did so, and the voices stopped. The cabin door was closed and, feeling suddenly shy about barging in on his friend and perhaps interrupting some amorous encounter, he knocked.

  ‘Who is it?’ The voice was Harry’s.

  ‘It’s me, Edward. Are you all right? I was looking for Verity. She seems to have disappeared.’

  The door opened but it wasn’t Harry’s face Edward saw – it was Violet Booth’s.

  ‘Come in, Lord Edward – now that you’re here.’

  She held a black snub-nosed revolver in one hand but it wasn’t pointed at him. In the confined space, she was no more than a few inches from Harry and the gun was pointed at his heart.

  Edward was alarmed but not wholly surprised. He spoke as calmly as he could in the circumstances. ‘Mrs Booth, is this really necessary? I know you think Harry murdered your sister but why don’t I call Inspector Treacher and you can tell him all about it?’

  She snorted. ‘That was what Alfred wanted me to do but I told him the police were perfectly useless and, if anything was to be done, it had to be done by us.’

  ‘You could have come to me.’

  ‘That was what he suggested but I told him it wasn’t good enough. I needed to confront Hermione’s murderer myself.’

  Edward looked at Harry. He was lying on a bunk, his hands behind his head, seemingly quite unworried by the gun or the accusation.

  ‘Harry, you did kill Miss Totteridge, didn’t you?’

  ‘You believe this woman, do you, old man?’ he answered lazily. ‘Well, what if I did – and I’m not admitting anything, mind. She deserved to die and so did the others.’

  ‘How did she deserve to die?’ Mrs Booth was outraged.

  ‘I’m not going to say anything more but I assure you she did. Ask Edward. He’ll tell you.’

  ‘It’s all about Isabella, isn’t it, Harry? She was the girl you told me about – the girl in Kenya you had an affair with – an affair she bitterly regretted. You said it didn’t work out. You loved her but she didn’t love you, did she? She loved her husband, Peter Lamming, so you killed him on a climbing expedition in the Drakensberg Mountains. But it didn’t make any difference. She still didn’t love you. She may even have suspected that you had killed the only man she ever loved.’

  ‘Peter . . .? You killed Peter?’ Mrs Booth’s voice shook.

  ‘Yes, my little Izzy’s poor fool of a husband. We all went climbing in the Drakensberg – Lamming, Herold and I. I thought that, if Herold could get away with killing his wife in a climbing “accident”, it should be possible to dispose of Lamming. We would never be suspected of murder. What possible motive could Herold or I have for getting rid of him?’

  ‘Did Herold help you kill him?’ Edward asked, aghast.

  ‘No, I thought it was better he shouldn’t know anything about it. I managed it rather well, though I say so myself. I think Herold blamed himself for the “accident”. He never noticed that the rope had been cut.’

  ‘You didn’t have much luck with girls, did you, Harry?’ Edward sneered. ‘Perhaps it was because you always chose other men’s wives. They all died in the end, didn’t they?’

  ‘You won’t trick me into confessing anything more and, if I do, I’ll deny it,’ Harry answered sullenly.

  ‘Answer him, damn you,’ Mrs Booth broke in. ‘I knew you had had an affair with Gwyneth Herold. It was something Isabella told me before she died. I couldn’t prove anything, of course, but – from what she said – I guessed you blamed James Herold for the accident. When I heard by chance that you were back in England, I thought – stupid me – that I might be able to warn him . . . to protect him.’

  ‘Herold was an arrogant fool. Yes, I did blame him for Gwynnie’s death and, even more, for making a fortune out of it – turning it into a sob story. The more I thought about it, the more I came to believe that he killed her – that it was no accident. She was an experienced climber but I was never going to get him to admit it. Even when I stood over him and watched him die, he wouldn’t confess.’

  ‘You’re a heartless killer,’ Mrs Booth said, raising the gun, ‘and this death is too good for you.’

  ‘I did him a favour, my dear lady,’ Harry could not resist answering. ‘Can’t you see that? He welcomed me as his fate. I gave him freedom. I was merciful, which was more than he was. Yes, I loved Gwynnie. She was going to go away with me but her husband found out and killed her.’

  ‘Wait, Mrs Booth!’ Edward commanded as he saw her begin to squeeze the trigger. ‘I still have some questions to ask him. Tell me, Harry, is that why you tried to seduce Cathy? Because she was Herold’s wife? Because she wasn’t Gwynnie?’

  ‘That wasn’t important, old chap,’ Harry sneered. ‘When I met Cathy with you, I knew I could have her if I wanted.’ He spoke almost proudly as though unable to resist bragging about how irresistible he was to women.

  ‘But she didn’t want you, did she?’ Edward jeered. ‘So you hit her. That’s cad’s behaviour, isn’t it, Harry? I knew you were a killer – you told me so yourself – but I didn’t know you were a cad.’

  This slur seemed to rile him, as Edward knew it would, and he abandoned his relaxed pose, removed his hands from behind his head and sat up.

  ‘But Hermione . . . what do you accuse her of doing? Why kill my poor sister? What had she ever done to you?’ Mrs Booth was breathing heavily.

  ‘You really don’t know? She poisoned Isabella’s mind against me. She told her I was a common murderer and she ought to go to the police.’

  ‘Isabella suspected that you had killed Peter – perhaps she knew you had. You probably bragged about it. That’s why she hated you but she had no proof – no way of making you pay for what you had done. She convinced herself that she was to blame for his death. She never forgave herself for having let you seduce her, for loving you, if only for a few weeks or months.’ Edward took a breath and added, ‘And she never forgave you. She soon saw you for what you were. The immorality of Happy Valley – the easy sex, the drugs,
the stupid, meaningless, hedonistic lifestyle – in the end she realized it wasn’t for her. You had seduced her, Harry, but she never loved you – not when she knew what you really were. When she got back to England, she went to see her aunt and blurted it all out.’

  ‘Silly old bat,’ Harry said with a laugh. ‘She poisoned my Izzy’s mind so I put a little poison in her tea. She was showing me her albums. There was one of my Izzy on her wedding day I just had to have. I put it with the photograph of my other true love, Christobel.’

  ‘Why do you keep on calling Isabella your “true love”?’ Mrs Booth demanded. ‘She was never yours. She was Peter’s and she hated you for seducing her in a moment of weakness.’

  ‘The old bitch told Izzy to tell the police what she suspected but Izzy couldn’t bring herself to do that,’ Harry said, almost dreamily. ‘She wrote to tell me so. That was when I decided I had to come to England to sort things out.’

  ‘So you killed Isabella and then Hermione Totteridge!’ Edward felt sick at the thought of such wicked, ruthless killing. He was face to face with a mass murderer, a psychopath. He thought he had known Harry so well but he hadn’t known him at all! He had put him down as a rogue and a womanizer but not a maniac. And yet, if he had learnt anything over the years, it was that most murderers looked exactly like everyone else. They didn’t have physical deformities or skulk around with their collars turned up. They were people like Harry – charming, attractive but somehow acting out their fantasies beyond the rules of normal behaviour. Harry’s magnetism had drawn women to him and, under his spell, they had broken their most sacred vows and betrayed those who had loved them. And then, like a child tearing the wings off flies, he had thrown them aside or, if they struggled to free themselves from him, had casually killed them.

  ‘I didn’t kill Isabella,’ Harry said, suddenly animated. ‘I loved her. I wouldn’t have hurt her. She died before I ever came to this godforsaken country. She died because of your husband’s incompetence, Mrs Booth. If he had seen how ill she was, she would be alive today.’

  ‘Don’t you dare blame my husband. He loved her as if she were his own daughter. We both did. We did everything we could but she . . . she didn’t want to live. You did kill her. You killed her because you burdened her with a terrible guilt . . .’

  ‘We all kill the thing we love most. Isn’t that what Oscar Wilde said?’ Harry murmured, almost with regret. ‘Even you, Edward – you killed . . . Did you really think I could forgive you for killing Christobel?’

  ‘Are you suggesting that I killed Lady Redfern?’

  ‘My darling Christobel, yes.’ For a moment he dropped his expression of amused disbelief and looked savagely at Edward. ‘You killed the one woman I truly loved. I loved her more than Izzy. She gave me hope that this perfectly pointless world might have some meaning for me if she was by my side.’

  ‘That’s a lie and you know it, Harry. You have twisted the truth into fantasy. You’ve convinced yourself she was someone special but she was just another of your girls, wasn’t she, Harry? Admit it. And if anyone killed her, it was you. Don’t give me all that sentimental claptrap. I know you for what you are, Harry – a liar, a self-deceiver and a killer. You don’t know the meaning of love. You can’t even love yourself, can you? You despise yourself and we all despise you too.’

  It wasn’t often that Edward lost his temper but he had done so now and it made him feel better. He slapped his forehead. ‘Oh, I see! That’s why you no longer drive. I thought it was odd. You used to love your cars and your aeroplanes in Kenya but you lost your nerve, didn’t you? After you broke her neck . . .’ Another wave of anger overcame him. To be blamed for starting a trail of bloodshed . . . He simply would not have it. ‘And General Lowther . . .’ he continued. ‘I suppose you are going to tell me you murdered him because he also killed with his car.’ He turned to Mrs Booth. ‘You told me Isabella’s parents – your sister Daphne and her husband – were killed in a motor accident near Godalming. Did you know that was where General Lowther lived before he moved to Henley?

  ‘Very good, Edward!’ Harry sneered. ‘Except I didn’t murder him. I merely suggested that he do what he had wanted to do for so long – pay the price of his folly. I didn’t need to kill him. He too was burdened by guilt. I discovered quite by chance that he regularly visited the church where Isabella’s parents were buried. Every month he used to leave a flower on their grave. It was quite touching. I just “bumped into him” on one of these visits. I told him that Isabella – the daughter of the couple he had mown down in his car – had died of grief. I didn’t mention that it was grief for her husband – not her parents – that killed her. I told him the time had come to make his peace with her and with himself and I gave him a little cyanide and a pithy quotation from the Bard. It seemed to do the trick. I even think he was grateful – as Herold was grateful. However, I have to admit that I was quite surprised when he did what I suggested.’

  ‘Did he know who you were?’

  ‘That was the strange thing. He wasn’t in the least bit interested. I think he thought I was fate or nemesis. And of course I was.’

  ‘When I read about the General’s death in the paper, I suspected he was murdered by whoever killed Hermione,’ Mrs Booth burst out. ‘But what could I do?’

  ‘You sent a wreath?’

  ‘I did, and when you came to see me I tried to tell you that there was a connection with my sister Daphne’s death in a road accident. I remembered that General Lowther had been driving the other car – not that the accident was his fault. Daphne wasn’t used to driving on English roads.’

  ‘Of course! You told me exactly where the accident happened – Godalming, where General Lowther used to live, but I was too stupid to pick up the clue.’

  Harry hesitated and then curiosity got the better of him. ‘So when did you first suspect me?’

  ‘I never suspected you to be a madman. It’s true that I was uneasy from the moment I came to Turton House and saw your reading matter. The Revenger’s Tragedy, Shakespeare, The Alchemist. I flicked through it and saw you had underlined Subtle’s words, “Art can beget bees, hornets, beetles, wasps out of the carcasses and dung of creatures” but I didn’t allow myself to imagine you could do what you have done.’

  ‘It was silly of me to leave that out for you to read but I couldn’t resist giving you the clue and watching you congratulate yourself for being so clever. I’m particularly interested in the Revenge Tragedies and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’ fixation with death and decay – with rotting flesh. You know they believed that the insides of a dead dog actually brought forth disgusting insects? A charming notion, I always thought.’

  ‘Is that why you invited me to stay with you in the first place and why you left my family motto on Eric Silver’s body? You were bored. It was all too easy. You wanted someone to challenge you. If the police refused to investigate, you thought I might be persuaded. It crossed my mind that you were taunting me but I did not know why. Then you said you blamed me for Lady Redfern’s death in that car accident on the Naivasha road. That it was you who was to blame, not me, did not seem to concern you. Your only mistake was not to kill me when you had the chance.’

  ‘I suppose I was being sentimental. Old school tie, that sort of thing.’

  ‘You thought I was a fly caught in your spider’s web! You thought to play with me just as you had with your other victims. How arrogant! That was always your undoing, Harry. You thought you were too clever to have to live by the rules. And to make sure I took the bait, you murdered poor Eric Silver and left my family motto on his body.’

  ‘Rather clever, I thought. I had been following you, wondering how to attract your attention. I wrote inviting you to stay but you ignored my letter. Then I overheard your dentist. It was a wonderful stroke of luck getting in without anybody seeing me – no nurse, no receptionist. I had no idea he had been dentist to all three of them. And when I heard him spin that pre-posterous theory about bug
s and insects . . . I was almost afraid you would hear me laughing. Fate does have a way of giving us what we want, doesn’t it, old man?’

  ‘So why didn’t you kill me? It can’t have been because we went to the same school. You had plenty of opportunities. I made things as easy as possible for you. Was it just too easy?’

  ‘Too easy, yes. I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. And anyway, I enjoyed watching you work at the little puzzle I had set you. In the end, I thought it might be better . . . more fitting . . . more amusing . . . to deprive you of the woman you loved, as you had deprived me of the woman I loved.’

  It hit Edward like a mallet. Harry had abducted Verity. For a few minutes, he had forgotten all about her. A cold dread made him feel faint and he leant heavily on his stick. Harry – the man he had once called a friend – was sneering at him and enjoying his final triumph. He had surveyed him like a lion watching his prey, deciding which was his weakest point, how best to hurt him.

  ‘Verity! What have you done to her, you bastard? If you have harmed her, I’ll kill you with my own hands.’ Edward wanted to shout and scream but knew he must remain calm if he was to find out where she was.

  ‘ “How choleric you are, my friend! Must I budge? Must I observe you?”’ Harry got up slowly. ‘“Must I stand and crouch under your testy humour,” as the playwright has it? Well, I don’t want to be ungenerous. After all, we were at school together. Mind you, I always thought you were a disgusting little prig. I’ll give you a clue. Now, how does it go? “A little water clears us of this deed.” Macbeth, a favourite play of mine.’

  ‘Harry, I thought we were friends,’ Edward found himself pleading. ‘Tell me in plain English what you have done with her. I never hurt you. It wasn’t my fault that Lady Redfern died.’