4.Little Victim

by R. T. Raichev

  ‘In the carpet?’

  ‘The carpet was their idea. My men – I suppose you’d call them my goons? – are not entirely without enterprise, you know.’ Roman gave a faint smile. ‘All I told them was to do their best not to attract too much attention. I meant to come and look at her sooner, but I was so busy with the party upstairs. It’s been hell, having to smile and chat to people, pretending I was fine, knowing all along she was down here, packed in ice, dead. She will be given a proper send-off,’ he said very quietly. He touched Ria’s forehead once more. ‘What I want from you is to find me the murderer.’

  24

  The Wrong Man

  ‘You won’t make her disappear, will you?’ Payne might have been talking about some conjuring trick.

  ‘Disappear?’ Roman scowled. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Drop her into the lake or something.’

  ‘I will do no such thing. I said a proper send-off, Major Payne. Ria was my queen, so her departure from this world will be commensurate with her status.’

  A pyre? Antonia wondered.

  ‘I don’t suppose you will let her relatives in England know that she has died?’ Payne went on.

  ‘Her father is dead. She hated her father. There is a stepmother and an aunt, I think, but I don’t believe Ria cared much about them. She had no one close. In that respect she was like me. Solitary, rootless, rebellious. No, Major Payne, I won’t be letting anyone in England know. There’d be no point.’

  ‘If we are to undertake this investigation,’ Payne said slowly, ‘we’ll need to eliminate you as a suspect first. Can you prove it wasn’t you who killed Ria?’

  Hugh was pushing his luck. Once again Antonia cast an anxious glance at Roman, but he showed no signs of anger or agitation. All he did was place his left hand at his chest. ‘You think it was me? You think I killed Ria?’

  ‘How do you explain this then?’ Payne was holding something between his thumb and forefinger. ‘A broken cufflink made of platinum, same as your tie-pin earlier on, and it’s got the initials RS engraved on it. It’s yours, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sounds like mine.’ Roman didn’t leave Ria’s body. ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘It was clutched in her hand. How did it get there?’

  Roman went on stroking Ria’s forehead. ‘I have no idea. If you think I was there and we had a fight and then I killed her, you are wrong. The killer must have planted it, to throw suspicion on me. I was wearing the platinum cufflinks the last time I was with her. Last night. I didn’t stay the whole night. I left my cufflinks in Ria’s bedroom – forgot all about them – on her bedside table, I think.’

  Major Payne cleared his throat. ‘What if I told you somebody claimed they actually saw you strangle her?’

  ‘I would say he was a damned liar,’ Roman answered promptly, without any particular rancour.

  ‘How do you know it is a he?’

  ‘When could I have strangled Ria?’

  ‘Sometime in the morning?’

  ‘I spent most of the morning in Charlotte’s company. I drove Charlotte round in my car. I showed her the sights. We started at nine. I’d have suggested you came with us, but you were still sleeping . . . We kept stopping. We watched the solar eclipse . . . You can ask her. You can check and double-check. I didn’t leave Charlotte’s side for a moment.’

  Charlotte, Antonia reflected, was not exactly a paragon of moral probity. Roman could have easily persuaded her to give him an alibi. In her own admission, she had a soft spot for men that went too far. All Roman needed to do was don his turban and play the smouldering sheikh. But he sounded as though he was telling the truth. Antonia saw a puzzled expression on Hugh’s face – the idea must have occurred to him too. The time factor. Once again she had the strong feeling there was something very wrong with the important times in this affair.

  ‘Find me the murderer,’ Roman said again.

  ‘Do you have any idea who that might be?’

  ‘It – it couldn’t have been a robber, could it? I wanted to provide her with a permanent guard, insisted on it, but she said no. We had a big argument about it. She is – was – very independent.’ Roman’s voice shook.

  ‘We found no signs of breaking and entering. What about Sarla – your former wife?’

  ‘Sarla? She is still my wife, damn her. So you have heard about Sarla? Yes. She hates Ria. She is jealous of her. My spies tell me she’s been doing some really crazy things. Visiting witch doctors and so on.’ Roman paused. ‘If you did find out it was Sarla, I would slit her throat with my own hand.’

  Then he broke down once more and now his grief and despair were much worse than the first time. He called out Ria’s name. He sobbed and howled and a flood of tears ran down his face. He was completely unselfconscious about it. He didn’t seem to care that he was making a spectacle of himself, that they were watching him. His shirt front was wet with his tears. He picked up the dead girl’s body, put his arms around it and buried his head in Ria’s neck. He rocked backwards and forwards.

  Antonia glanced across at her husband. Payne looked exasperated, though something like sympathy had crept into his expression. She signalled with her eyes: Shall we? He nodded and the two of them tiptoed out of the cellar.

  It isn’t Roman, Antonia thought. Roman didn’t kill her. He is the wrong man. He wouldn’t have kept asking them to find the murderer if he had. He had nothing to gain from their involvement. If he had been in denial, he’d have acted differently. She didn’t think he was pretending either. But then who was it? Who killed Ria?

  The long-haired taxi driver. Could it have been him? The young man with a dangerous penchant for speed had suddenly become subdued at the mention of Roman Songhera’s girlfriend. Aone-night stand on her part, something a girl like her did out of boredom, much deeper for him? Ria, Antonia imagined, had enjoyed her power over men. The driver was excitable and volatile. One supposed Ria to have been habitually transgressive. Didn’t trans-gressive behaviour induce transgression in others? Strangling suggested a crime passionnel – something done on the spur of the moment – shades of Othello . . .

  Or was it the discontented wife, mad Sarla, after all? She might have killed Ria and pushed the body under the bed, before ‘becoming’ Ria.

  No. Neither of these solutions explained Julian Knight’s claim. Julian Knight had insisted it was Roman who killed Ria.

  The partial solar eclipse . . . Evil under the sun . . . Tan out of a tube . . . The fake tan was important somehow . . . Then there was the question of which shoulder Julian Knight had held higher, the left or the right . . . According to his Chinese landlord, it was the right, but she and Hugh thought it was the left . . . I need to arrange my ideas properly, Antonia thought; this whirlwind won’t do . . . This Masquerade . . . A masquerade came into it, she felt sure, but it was also something to do with the sun, or rather with its disappearance . . . Why did she keep thinking about the solar eclipse?

  ‘Solitary, rootless, rebellious,’ Payne murmured. ‘Interesting. That’s the definition of a psychopath, d’you realize?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes. According to Stafford-Clark. It’s textbook material. Maybe a bit dated now. How did it go on? Um. Plausible but insincere, demanding but indifferent to appeals, dependable only in their constant unreliability.’

  It was as they walked back into their room and turned on the light that the answer came to Antonia – as though illumination had come not only literally but metaphorically as well. She had remembered what the policeman had said and why she had thought it so important.

  Julian Knight had died at the time of the partial solar eclipse, which had taken place at eleven in the morning and had lasted for five minutes. There was no doubt about the time of the solar eclipse. Which meant that Antonia’s encounter with Julian Knight couldn’t possibly have happened when it had – after six in the evening, when the garden party at Coconut Grove had been in full swing.

  But it had happ
ened. She hadn’t dreamt it. Julian Knight had told her he had witnessed a murder!

  Well, that could mean only one thing – there had been two of them.

  25

  The Case of the Discontented Wife

  Her exaltation hadn’t abated – quite the reverse. The young man’s sudden appearance might have had something to do with it, she wasn’t sure. Such a handsome young man! Golden skin and lips like rose petals. Better-looking than Roman. Younger. She had expected Roman to turn up and make love to her, but he hadn’t. She had no doubt that Roman would find her irresistible. Well, he might still come. She would wait –

  No. Change of plan. There was something she needed to do rather urgently. I must say thank you, she thought.

  Sarla’s heart was beating rather fast. She wished she didn’t feel so happy! When people were happy, they didn’t want to do anything but sing and dance and laugh! She was happier than she had been ever before in her entire life. Happier than on the day she had married Roman. Happier even than when she had won the lottery.

  The curse had worked. And how! The curse had brought along a murderer. It had made Roman and Ria’s love-nest the focus of dark forces, of violence, of death and destruction and – as though that were not enough – Sarla had been there to see it happen!

  She kicked off the high-heeled shoes and danced about the bedroom on the balls of her feet one last time, laughing and giving thanks to her masters, then she took off the whore’s rags, ripping one apart in the process, what she believed was called a ‘bustier’, and pushed them into the wardrobe; that was where she had found them in the first place.

  She changed back into her sari. She covered her face with her scarf to avoid recognition – in case someone saw her leaving the bungalow. One or two of Roman’s men might be lurking around. Actually she didn’t care a fig about Roman’s men. She wasn’t really afraid of anyone any longer – she felt confident – strong and powerful – invincible! Her masters were watching over her. She would never come to any harm. What can man do to me? Sarla sang out as she opened the front door and walked out.

  It had been some minutes after nine o’clock in the morning when she came up to the bedroom window. She had been carrying a bag filled with powdered bones. Her third bag. She had kept repeating the curse under her breath. She had emptied the bag on the ground outside the bedroom. Apparently the curse was at its most potent if one brought the bones in the morning. ‘I have become death, the destroyer of worlds,’ she whispered.

  She had assumed Ria was still sleeping, the lazy spoilt English girl, but she had heard a noise inside the bedroom. A very strange kind of noise. It sounded like someone gurgling, choking, gasping for breath. The window had been ajar – the curtains hadn’t been fully drawn –

  Well, she had witnessed the slut’s neck being wrung in the same way as she (Sarla) had wrung the necks of all those chickens. Was that a coincidence, the manner in which the slut had died? She didn’t think so! It was a sign from her masters. Her masters wanted to make it absolutely clear to her that it was all their doing, in case she started doubting. Sarla had also seen the killer. Very clearly. The killer’s face was twisted with rage and suffused with red, like a cockerel’s crest. Mouth open – teeth bared – like a snarling hyena’s. It was a face she would never forget – not as long as she lived.

  The slut hadn’t reacted – she hadn’t struggled – hadn’t tried to push the killer back –no, none of that. She had merely lain on the bed, limp, lifeless, inert, like some life-size doll! Had she been stunned first? Oh, how Sarla had relished the sight of those strong hands around Ria’s throat!

  Sarla frowned. There had been someone else there. She had thought it odd. No, not in the bedroom. Outside the bungalow. Yes. She was sure she hadn’t imagined it. The killer seemed to have brought a friend. An accomplice. A man had sat there on the porch, his face in his hands, shaking his head, weeping. The man had been very upset about something, in a real state, muttering to himself. Sarla had seen him as she had approached the bungalow with her bag only a minute earlier. The man had been completely unaware of her. The killer hadn’t noticed her presence either. She might have been invisible. Perhaps she had been invisible? Yes – Sarla nodded to herself – her masters had seen to it – of course!

  Sarla wanted to speak to the killer. She wanted to express her gratitude. She wanted to put her indebtedness into appropriate words. Perhaps when she kissed the killer’s hand, some of the killer’s super-human strength and tenacity would seep into her? She felt the overwhelming desire to touch the killer. She needed strength. She needed extra power. To defend herself, but also – to attack! She pursed her lips. Roman was next on her list. Roman was her enemy. Roman would be distraught when he found his beloved dead. He would suspect her, Sarla. He would have her killed. He had told her he would do it if she went anywhere near Ria. Well, what Roman didn’t know was that there was someone more powerful than him – someone who was Sarla’s ally and protector!

  As a matter of fact she didn’t desire Roman any longer. Roman hated her, despised her – as though it were her fault she’d given birth to a stillborn child! He said he found her revolting. Don’t come near me or I’ll hit you, he said. She shrugged. What did it matter? She could have any man she wanted now. That beautiful young boy! All she needed to do was to . . . to . . .

  She couldn’t think what at the moment. She had lost the thread of her thoughts. She had actually heard the snapping of the thread in her head. She shook her head impatiently.

  She tried to keep up a brisk pace, but the day was hot and muggy, suffused with sloth and sullen expectation, so her progress was not as fast as she wanted it to be. She was covered in sweat. She mopped her face with her scarf. Her body felt hot, wet and slippery. She felt itchy – far from comfortable.

  Roman was to blame for everything. She had started putting on weight after he had left her – he had said such terrible, such hurtful things to her! He had said she was of ‘impure stock’. Roman’s men had been spreading the story that one of Sarla’s aunts had given birth to a giant rat. He was still using her money but he showed no gratitude. He said her head would roll if she made any fuss about the money. She wanted Roman . . . dead! Yes. Dead, like the slut. No mercy. Perhaps a little word in the killer’s ear? Killers developed a taste for death after they had killed once, they felt the urge to do it again, she had read somewhere.

  A bond had been forged between her and the killer. An unbreakable bond. The killer had felt compelled to come to Kilhar and strangle Ria because Sarla had chanted the curse and smashed the bones with her feet and danced the dance of death. The killer had come from afar to oblige her. The killer had flown thousands and thousands of miles to bow to her will.

  Sarla thought back. It was only when the deed had been done and the slut lay dead on the bed that the killer left the bedroom. There had been some muffled talk outside the bungalow – in English of course – between the killer and the man on the porch. She had then seen them walk down the road, the two of them, the weak and the strong. The slut was still there, on the bed, in her red pyjamas, lying on her back. Sarla had been afraid Ria might come to and get up, so she had climbed into the bedroom and checked Ria’s pulse. No, the woman who had ruined her life was dead all right. Sarla had slapped Ria’s face, quite hard, to make absolutely sure. No, nothing. Just a little foam at the corner of the mouth. Dead as a doornail, as the English said. Sarla giggled. The English had so many silly sayings! Dead as a dodo and silent as the grave and a cup of proper coffee in a copper coffee pot.

  Ria’s golden-brown hair had been all over the pillow. Sarla couldn’t see Roman wanting to stroke the hair of a dead girl. No, of course not. Which meant that her, Sarla’s, hour had come. She reached out for her bag – her other bag – the bag she always carried with her. She had pulled out the golden-brown wig from it.

  What happened next Sarla couldn’t quite remember, not with any great clarity.

  She had suddenly found herself standing
in the middle of Ria’s bedroom, reflected not only by the dressing-table mirror but by all the mirrors on the ceiling as well. She felt like an actress on a stage. She saw she was wearing the slut’s fishnet stocking and the snakeskin high-heeled shoes. She looked really sluttish. Really beautiful. Her face looked different – no longer her own but a lovely peachy colour – the most seductive eyes and luscious lips ready for kisses. The blusher had made her cheekbones stand out and her face no longer seemed fat. All the make-up had come from the slut’s make-up kit on the dressing table, though Sarla had no recollection applying it to her face. No recollection at all. Wasn’t that funny?

  Sarla had screamed in surprised delight and slapped her hand across her mouth. Then she had started laughing. She hadn’t been able to stop herself. How she had laughed! Tears had come out of her eyes. Once, not so long ago, she had felt unhappy, lonely, insecure, unfulfilled – no longer! She had stood examining herself in the mirror, then her mouth opened and she began to say things to her reflection, words which she never thought she knew. Some really dirty words. Her father, the retired schoolmaster, would smash her teeth and rip out her tongue if he ever heard her use such language. Bad language. The funny thing was that it had felt so good.