‘Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to attend. You hate opera.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Very well. I’ll go alone. When may I expect you to follow?’
‘I’m not sure.’ She stubbed out her cigarette, rose and walked across to me. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll think I’ll have a bath.’
She left me standing by the vase of orchids, the sunlight falling brazenly on their bright, waxy petals. I picked up the envelope and held it for a moment between my fingers. Water began to gush in the bathroom. Then I let the envelope fall and turned away.
The bathroom door was open and I glanced in as I walked past. Angela was standing by the bath, pouring some lotion in as the water rose, steam pluming about her. She was naked and, as my eyes rested on her for a moment, I could not help wondering if, after all this was over, my hands would ever again touch her pale, familiar flesh.
‘Goodbye, Geoffrey,’ she said, setting down the lotion bottle and moving away towards the hand-basin. ‘Let me know when you decide to leave.’
I watched her for one more second, then turned and hurried from the room.
Two days passed. I filled them with aimless drives into the mountains. I saw nothing of Angela and gave Cap Ferrat and Beaulieu a wide berth. I was marking time, waiting and hoping for some signal or event that would break the disabling hold Imogen Roebuck’s version of events had taken upon me. When a letter from Imry arrived, I thought it might herald my release. But its contents only made that release seem more remote.
Sunnylea,
WENDOVER,
Buckinghamshire.
15th November 1923
Dear Geoff,
I returned from York today with little to show for my enquiries on your behalf. Having agreed to go, I cannot, I suppose, complain, so here, whilst it’s all fresh in my mind, is what I discovered, or, more correctly, what I didn’t discover.
Colonel and Mrs Browning are a respectable, rather stuffy pair with a thirteen-year-old daughter – a late and only child. I told them I was a friend of the Caswells and gave my name as Wren. (May his shade forgive me.) Mercifully, they seemed to know nothing of Consuela’s court appearance and responded with righteous indignation to my suggestion that they might not have been completely frank about Miss Roebuck’s suitability as a governess. They’d been sorry to lose her and claimed to know of no specific reason for her departure aside from the attraction of a salary they couldn’t afford to match. She was with them nearly two years, arriving in the spring of 1921 with impeccable references from a family in Norfolk.
Colonel Browning is a drinking man. Ensconced in his favourite watering-hole and free of his wife’s starchy influence, he proved more forthcoming, but not in a way that will please you. He couldn’t have spoken more warmly of Miss Roebuck. Indeed, I began to suspect he might have made certain overtures towards her. Perhaps that’s what prompted her to seek another post. Certainly there was nothing to suggest she’d offered him any encouragement.
I have the name and address of her previous employer – the family in Norfolk – but I really don’t think you would gain anything by approaching them. The fortune-hunting seductress is a cap that will not fit.
Come home, Geoff. That’s my advice. And the sooner the better. I had Reg on the blower this afternoon and I virtually promised him you’d be back with them next week. If not, I shall have to put in an appearance. So, does one good turn deserve another?
Yours aye,
Imry.
A cold rain was falling as I drove to Cap Ferrat. The Mediterranean was grey and churning. Suddenly the Côte d’Azur had become a place I did not want to be. I wished I had listened to Imry and never come at all. I wished turning back seemed easier than going on.
The gates of the Villa d’Abricot stood open. I sped up the curving drive and pulled to a halt in front of the house. Then I jumped out and hurried towards the front door, my collar turned up against the rain. Before I reached the door, however, it was wrenched open from the inside and a figure burst out past me, striking my shoulder as he went.
I caught only a glimpse of him, but the glimpse was a memorable one. He was several inches broader and taller than me, dressed in a dark, travel-stained suit and cape. He was bare-headed, with unusually long hair that had once been jet-black, but was now streaked with grey, and a piratical moustache of the original shade. His face was distorted by a grimace of pain or fury – I could not tell which – and he was muttering under his breath, though what he was muttering – or in what language – I could not catch.
I watched him for a minute or so as he marched away down the drive. He was talking to himself quite loudly now, slapping one hand against his thigh and flinging out indecipherable oaths, throwing his head back and mouthing at the sky as the rain slanted down around him. Suddenly, I realized Turnbull’s Italian man-servant was standing beside me, straining to afford me the shelter of an umbrella.
‘Buon giorno, Signor Staddon.’
‘Good morning. Who’s that?’
‘I do not know. He has been to see Signor Caswell.’
‘Caswell’s here?’
‘In the drawing-room. With Signorina Roebuck.’
‘Good. I’ll go straight through. Don’t bother to announce me.’
They were on opposite sides of the room, Miss Roebuck sitting calmly in an armchair, whilst Victor was wheeling and pacing on the hearthrug, smoking frantically. He was speaking, almost shouting, as I entered.
‘No, no. He damn well meant it. I could—’ He broke off at sight of me. ‘Staddon! What the devil do you want?’
‘A brief word, that’s all.’
‘If you’re looking for your wife, you’ll find her lunching with Royston at La Réserve.’
‘I was looking for you.’
‘Well, you’ve found me.’
‘Would you like me to leave?’ put in Miss Roebuck.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I’d prefer you both to hear what I have to say.’
‘Spit it out, then,’ snapped Victor.
‘I wanted you to know: I’m going back to England.’
‘Royston will be sorry to hear that. He seems to enjoy your wife’s company.’
‘Angela may not be coming with me.’
‘Really?’ The thought that his friend might be making a cuckold of me seemed to cheer Victor. His tone shifted from the irritable to the sarcastic. ‘Well, wives can be damnably fickle, Staddon. I know that to my cost.’
‘My marriage isn’t something I want to discuss with you.’
‘No? You amaze me. You seemed eager enough to discuss mine.’
‘Victor!’ said Miss Roebuck, mildly but with a hint of reproof. ‘Would it not be simpler to let Mr Staddon say what he has to say?’ She looked across at me. ‘Am I correct in thinking you’ve seen the merit of the advice I offered you last week?’
‘Not exactly. I—’ Her gaze was coolly ironic. She knew I was defeated and she knew also how impossible it was for me to admit as much. ‘You won’t hear from me again. That’s all I’m saying. Unless I discover—’
‘Unless you discover what?’ barked Victor.
‘That I’ve been misled.’
‘You haven’t been,’ said Miss Roebuck, gazing at me in solemn assurance.
‘In that case,’ I continued, ‘you’ll hear no more from me.’
We stared at each other for a silent moment, then she said: ‘Thank you, Mr Staddon.’
I turned towards the door. ‘You’ll get no thanks from me,’ said Victor.
When I looked at him, I realized for the first time that his resolution ran no deeper than mine. His hostility was eggshell thin. Beneath, lay an uncertainty horribly akin to my own. ‘I expected none,’ I said, hurrying from the room before he could reply.
The hallway was quiet, so quiet I could hear the rain falling against the porch windows and a clock ticking somewhere deep in the house. At the top of the curving stairs stood a small, motionless figure in a pale blue dress with matching ribbons
in her long dark hair. She was standing still and upright, her hands held rigidly by her sides. Her face was expressionless, but in her eyes, as they met mine, there was something fierce and reproachful.
She had been there all the time, I felt certain. She had heard my every word through the open drawing-room door. She had heard and she had understood, only too well. ‘Jacinta—’ I broke off, suddenly aware of Imogen Roebuck standing behind me, looking past me and up the stairs.
‘If you’re ready, Jacinta, we’ll resume our lesson,’ she said. ‘Wait for me in your room.’
Without a word, Jacinta turned and walked away. As soon as she was out of sight, I moved towards the front door, eager for mobility and the open air, eager for the refuge they seemed to offer.
‘Mr Staddon—’
I looked back at her.
‘I am grateful, you know.’
‘You needn’t be.’
‘You won’t regret your decision.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Oh I am, believe me.’ She held out her hand. ‘Goodbye.’
But the handshake at least I could deny her. We had sealed no pact and I would do nothing to imply that we had. ‘Goodbye,’ I said, starting for the door in fugitive haste.
As Victor had said I would, I found Angela at a luncheon table of La Réserve, Beaulieu’s most exclusive restaurant, communing with Royston Turnbull over oysters and champagne.
‘Well, Staddon, this is a surprise.’
‘I’ve come to speak to my wife, Major, not you.’
‘What do you want, Geoffrey?’ Giggling and girlish the moment before she noticed me, Angela was now stern and cold.
‘I’m leaving Nice tomorrow. Will you be coming with me?’
‘You know very well that’s impossible.’
‘You refuse?’
‘Let’s say I decline.’
‘When can I expect you home, then?’
‘When you see me there.’
There was nothing left to say. Angela’s unyielding gaze confirmed as much. Turnbull swallowed an oyster, dabbed his chin with a napkin and grinned up at me. ‘Don’t worry, Staddon. I’ll take good care of her.’
I drove wildly back to Nice. Desertions, past and present, seemed to close upon me faster than I could ever hope to flee them. I drank away the afternoon in the bar of the Negresco, slept for a few stunned hours, then woke to find the rain still falling, heavier and wind-blown, from a dark and turbulent sky.
Early evening of the following day found me aboard the night-train to Calais. I had made no further attempt to reason with Angela and now, as the hour for departure grew close and I surveyed the bustling late-comers from the window-seat of my compartment, I entertained no hope whatever that I would see her among them. Disbelief at how little respect remained between us was all that prompted me even to look.
Whistles were blowing, doors slamming and the engine getting up steam when a familiar figure appeared on the platform. Not Angela, but the man I had seen leaving the Villa d’Abricot the previous day. A stern-faced gendarme was holding him by the arm and urging him forward whilst another gendarme in sergeant’s uniform trotted along in front, carrying a battered leather suitcase. My curiosity aroused, I opened the window and leaned out.
The sergeant flung back a door two carriages down the train, tossed the case inside and signalled with his thumb for its owner to follow. He scowled, shook himself free, brushed himself down, said something which the two gendarmes studiously ignored, then climbed aboard.
A moment later, the train began to move. As it gathered speed, the gendarmes remained where they were, staring pointedly towards the carriage where they had deposited their charge. Only when the guard’s van cleared the end of the platform did they turn away, shrugging at each other as if in relief at an awkward task accomplished.
A few minutes later, I made my move. Whoever the man was, I hoped he would now be calm enough to approach. And approach him I must. As a visitor to the Villa d’Abricot, he was merely interesting. But as a visitor to the Villa d’Abricot subsequently bundled out of Nice by the police, he was a man I had to speak to.
He had a compartment to himself, which was small wonder in view of his menacing appearance. He was slumped low in his seat, feet propped up on his suitcase, the cape wrapped about him making his vast frame seem gigantic. Not that this, the layers of dust on his clothes or the dishevelled state of his greying mane of hair was what would most have deterred his fellow-travellers. They would have found more intimidating still the angry curl of his lip as he muttered to himself, his twitches and snorts of indignation, his alternate stretching and clenching of his right hand.
He glared up at me as I entered, then looked away. ‘Bonsoir, monsieur,’ I ventured, but he did not reply. I sat in one of the seats opposite him and smiled. ‘Où allez-vous, monsieur?’ Again there was no reply. I took out my cigarette-case, opened it and held it towards him. ‘Voudriez-vous une cigarette?’ Still no response. I pretended to search my pockets for a match, then grinned across at him. ‘Excusez-moi. Pouvez-vous me donner du feu?’
His eyes flashed up and fixed me with a stare. ‘Deixe-me empaz, senhor,’ he growled.
It was what I wanted to hear. He had spoken in Portuguese. ‘I saw you leaving the Villa d’Abricot yesterday,’ I said in a rush. ‘Why were you there?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Was it because of Consuela?’
At the sound of her name, his muscles tensed. ‘Who are you, senhor?’ he said in a heavy Latin accent.
‘My name is Geoffrey Staddon.’
‘Staddon?’ He frowned, as if, somewhere he had heard my name before.
‘I’m a friend of Consuela. I’m somebody who—’
Before I knew what was happening, he had whipped his feet to the floor, kicked the suitcase aside, lunged forward and grabbed me by the wrist. His grip was like a steel manacle, his stare no less ferocious. ‘What kind of friend?’ he said slowly.
‘The kind she needs. The kind that believes she’s innocent.’
‘She has always been innocent. That is her mistake.’
‘You’ve known her long?’
‘Longer than you, I think.’
‘I first met her fifteen years ago. I built a house for her husband.’
‘For Caswell?’
‘Yes. Clouds Frome. Where—’
‘That is it! That is where I know your name. Staddon. O arquitecto.’
‘Yes, that’s who I am. But you still have the advantage of me.’
He let go of my wrist. ‘I am Rodrigo Manchaca de Pombalho. I am Consuela’s brother.’
Rodrigo was by nature a happy and gregarious man. I remembered Consuela speaking of him as such. O Urso de Mel, she had called him: the Honey-Bear. She had kept a special place in her heart for the brother nearest to her in age and spirit and he, it seemed clear, had done the same for her. We sat long and late in the restaurant-car of the train that night and, though Rodrigo’s true character emerged more and more as food and wine softened his temper, it was still swamped at intervals by the sadness he felt at his sister’s plight, the helplessness, the raging despair. He crushed a glass in his hand once when speaking of Victor and, at another time, wept like a child. His voice boomed, his arms waved, his eyes flashed; he was to his fellow-diners an object of horror and fascination. To me, however, he seemed an elemental force for hope. Joyous, angry and dejected by turns, he nonetheless succeeded in making me think for the first time that Consuela really could be saved.
Rodrigo’s elder brother, Francisco, was head of the family business. In this capacity, he attended many dinners and receptions where members of Rio’s diplomatic community were to be found. From an attaché at the British Embassy he had been dismayed to learn that his sister was to stand trial for murder. Hurt by Consuela’s failure to tell them herself and baffled by what little they could learn of the circumstances, the family had at first been too confused to act. At length, in defiance of his brothers’ wishes, Rodrigo had decided to trav
el to Europe and root out the truth, little realizing the magnitude of his task.
Upon arrival in England, he had proceeded directly to Hereford, only to confront the same brick wall as I had. Consuela had refused to see him, sending a message via Windrush that he had shamed her by coming and should return to Brazil at once. As for Victor, he had vanished to France, taking Jacinta with him. Windrush had offered to arrange a meeting for Rodrigo with the barrister he had recruited – Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett – but that was the extent of the assistance he could offer. Pausing only to antagonize a senior officer of the Herefordshire constabulary, Rodrigo had set off for Cap Ferrat.
His reception at the Villa d’Abricot had been predictably hostile. Victor had refused to let him see Jacinta, had rejected all suggestions that Consuela might be the victim of an injustice and had told him to leave straightaway or be forcibly removed.
‘I took him by the throat for saying that to me. He had not the right. He was frightened. I could see that. He was always a little frightened of me. But too clever. Too clever for Rodrigo. He sent the police for me. They told me I must leave France. Um criador-de-casos. That is what they called me. A maker of trouble. They said I threatened him. It is true. He deserved it. He deserved more, but … I left. I had no choice. I cannot help Consuela from a prison in France.’
Rodrigo was incapable of believing that his sister had committed murder. It was for him an article of faith. Questions of motive and evidence were therefore irrelevant. And, since Consuela was necessarily innocent, it followed that Victor was guilty, guilty of abandoning his wife to her accusers even if not of the crime they had laid at her door. When I suggested that there might be something improper in Victor’s relationship with Imogen Roebuck and that, if there were, it could have a bearing on the case, Rodrigo seemed genuinely confused.
‘You are like Victor. You are too clever for me. What I see is this. Somebody tried to murder Victor. He did not die. Que pena! I would not weep for him. His … his sobrinha … died instead. That is sad. But who did this thing? Not Consuela. Nunca, nunca. Then who? Somebody who wanted him to die. Somebody who needed him to die. Who is this somebody? I do not know. But when I find out …’
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