4.Little Victim

by R. T. Raichev

  ‘Your English is very good.’

  ‘My father beat me. I hope he dies soon.’

  ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘Will you kill my father?’

  ‘More tea?’

  Sarla leant across the table and spoke urgently. ‘Ria was going to die. I had a feeling that morning. I knew it, but I didn’t know how she was going to die. I knew it was coming to her. I didn’t expect somebody like you.’

  ‘This is all quite remarkable.’

  A nod and a smile . . . Non-committal . . . Perfect poise . . . Preposterous . . . Say as little as possible . . . No other option, really . . . What is the time? What’s poor darling doing? Won’t speak. Won’t even look at me . . . Must be strong . . . Such dreadful tension . . . Despised and detested . . . Mustn’t burst into tears . . . Did it for the best . . . Impossible situation. . . . No winners.

  ‘The woman who sold me the hex said, great power. She said, the masters know how to do it, you just wait. Great power.’ Sarla was nodding over her chocolate éclair. ‘You don’t look like a killer at all. The masters choose the most – the most – what is the word?’

  ‘The most unlikely means?’

  Ridiculous, providing her with the mot juste. Get out of here, you crazy lump. You ugly fat monster. Your fingers are covered in chocolate. Your mouth too. You are starting on the sachertorte now . . . Dear God . . . Do you intend to eat everything within sight? Can’t stand watching you stuff yourself . . . Makes me sick . . . Such puffy eyes . . . Smile . . . Wouldn’t do to antagonize her . . . Smile . . . The maître d’hôtel is watching us, wondering whether to intervene. Waiting for a sign from me. All I need is give a nod. No. The creature might turn nasty . . . A scene . . . The last thing I need . . . Need to concentrate, reflect, make sense of things. What am I to do?

  ‘You don’t know Ria?’ Sarla said.

  ‘No. Shall I ask for more cakes?’

  ‘You got the call. You knew you must come. A feeling – and a thought, yes? I was told how it works. You knew it here . . .’ Sarla touched her voluminous bosom. ‘And here . . .?’ She touched her head now.

  Humour her. ‘Yes. You are absolutely right.’

  The way she’s pushing her breasts into the lemon tarts! She’s wearing ‘European dress’ this morning . . . Lime-green frilly blouse, skirt like a tent . . . So greedy – dipping her fingers into the custard tarts – so fat – if she had been a man, the buttons would have flown off her waistcoat like bullets . . . Henry said that once, about someone at his club . . . How much longer? I’m getting desperate . . .

  ‘You felt you had to come, yes?’ Sarla went on. ‘You gave up everything and got the plane. You knew you must come to Kilhar?’

  ‘I knew I had to come to Kilhar.’

  ‘I think you were in one of my dreams once.’

  ‘Really? How interesting.’

  ‘Sometimes I see things that are not there.’

  It is clear that she is mad. The way she rolls her eyes. Such a monstrous lump. Some glandular disorder? How strong is she? Would she put up a fight if –? My wrist hurts. The way she goes on stuffing herself . . . Crushing meringues between her fingers!

  ‘More tea?’

  Can’t go on like this . . . Hands brushing again . . . She’s doing it on purpose . . . The glint in her eyes . . . Possessed by the spirit of hero-worship . . . If I had poison, I’d put it in her tea . . . Am I destined to be having tea with her till kingdom come? Doomed for eternity! That’s what hell must be like . . . Mustn’t become hysterical . . . What am I to do?

  ‘That man,’ Sarla said. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘You came together.’

  Looks sly . . . Knowing . . . Seen us . . . Mad people can be very cunning . . . She knows too much . . . What’s that, gleaming in the sun? Fruit knives? Yes. Sharp, very sharp . . . Yes, why not? As sharp as scalpels . . . Checked one with my forefinger last night at dinner . . .

  ‘You told a lie, but it doesn’t matter. I checked at Reception. I asked them your name. I won’t tell anyone. You knew Ria. You have the same name as her.’ Sarla put her forefinger across her lips and looked round. ‘Leighton.’

  There was a pause then the killer said, ‘What would you say to a walk along the beach?’

  No one would suspect me . . . Plenty of suspects . . . Roman Songhera – though of course they wouldn’t touch Roman Songhera . . . Everyone in this damned place seems involved in some kind of illegal racket . . . The police are notorious slackers . . . It will be all right . . . Murder is easy . . .

  ‘A walk?’ Sarla breathed. ‘Only the two of us? I want you to kill my husband.’

  ‘I will have to change first. Won’t be a moment. Would you like to wait for me outside?’

  A fruit knife, yes . . . In the back of the head, just above the neck . . . Quick as a flash . . . Somewhere on the rocks? Then shove her into the sea . . . What are those screams? Curlews and seagulls . . . Hungry, always hungry . . . Would they peck at her eyes?

  29

  At Brown’s Hotel

  The hotel with its white Georgian façade and Union Jack dangling limply loomed before them. It looked incongruous in the haze, like a film set – somewhat distorted – shimmering. It was as though a sheet of hot glass were stretched between it and them.

  The air felt close and oppressive. Something angry in it, or so Antonia imagined. Some active malignancy was slowly gathering round her, throbbing to a white-hot head. She could feel it like a weak current from a battery.

  They entered the foyer. Payne crossed to the reception desk at once. There was a queue.

  Antonia stood, looking round. Potted palms, Persian rugs and big buttoned leather armchairs that brought to mind the Military Club. A man and a woman sitting on the over-stuffed sofa, not talking, each one with a newspaper. English of course. The Times, five days old. The Telegraph, ten days old. Like a couple out of Somerset Maugham. Not exactly a picture of marital bliss. Might have been strangers. Perhaps they were strangers?

  She didn’t think the air-conditioning was working properly. She really mustn’t stay in the sun too long, not even in her new straw hat. She had spent ages putting on sun cream. She wasn’t particularly keen on acquiring a tan. She remembered Miss Bingley sneering at Elizabeth Bennet for having grown ‘so brown and coarse’ as a result of travelling in summertime. People became delusional if they spent too much time in the sun. Mad dogs and Englishmen. A lot of mad-looking dogs had barked at them as they’d walked along the beach. Hugh had thrown a stick at one of them and that had sent the whole lot into paroxysms of rage. No RSPCA. Of course not. Dangerous place. Marvellous-looking beach, though.

  ‘They are burning patchouli sticks again,’ grumbled the Englishman on the sofa.

  ‘It’s not patchouli. It’s something else,’ the woman said.

  ‘It’s patchouli,’ he said.

  Their faces were hidden by the newspapers. He: mottled frog hand, signet ring and horizontal-striped socks. She: patterned silk dress, flat sensible tan-and-white shoes, varicose veins . . . Marital ennui . . . Conversation of numbing banality . . . Would she and Hugh sit in companionable silence on over-stuffed sofas in former outposts of the Empire one day? Would they ever run out of things to say to each other? I hope I haven’t got sunstroke, Antonia thought. She dabbed at her forehead with her handkerchief. Why was it that one could always tell the English abroad?

  What was Hugh doing? Still in the queue beside the reception desk.

  Journey’s end. They had reached the metamenusis stage, where the detectives were required to explain their reasoning. Time for the final surprise. It would turn out Julian Knight hadn’t been killed by Lord Justice Leighton after all, but by somebody completely different. By, say, the adulterous Mrs Gilmour? Her husband had asked Julian Knight to follow her – she’d been having an affair with an Indian. Or why not a vindictive she-male from the notorious brothel where Mr Agrawal had been a habitué? Lady-boys, as they were also kno
wn, could be loyal to the death, Antonia had read somewhere.

  No – the faux Julian Knight didn’t fit in with any of these solutions. It had to be Lord Justice Leighton. A somewhat outlandish denouement. Would he have registered under a different name? He hadn’t intended to kill his daughter. He had loved Ria more than anything in the world. He had wanted her back. It had been a spur-of-the-moment murder. Not even that. An accident – a tragic accident – he’d lost his temper –

  ‘Garçon, la même chose.’ The Englishman on the sofa had lowered his newspaper and was swirling his forefinger over his empty glass.

  ‘Why are you speaking French?’ His wife frowned. ‘We are no longer in Monte. You’re drinking too much.’

  ‘You are talking too much.’

  Antonia was replaying the conversation in the folly in her head. Lord Justice Leighton – in the guise of Julian Knight – said he had seen Roman bang Ria’s head against the bedpost. That, he seemed to believe, was what killed her. But Ria had been strangled. He hadn’t said a word about strangling. Well, they were not really sure how she had died, actually. Curious. Things like that bothered Antonia. She didn’t like loose ends.

  Hugh was talking to the receptionist. At long last! Antonia moved closer. He was asking if they had a Lord Justice Leighton staying at the hotel. The answer, after a brief check in the hotel register, was yes. Lord Justice Leighton was in his room. Would the gentleman like to leave a message? The gentleman wanted to see Lord Justice Leighton? Was the gentleman expected? No? Well, in that case they were not sure. (The Hispanic-looking receptionist kept employing the royal ‘we’.) Lord Justice Leighton hadn’t been feeling very well. Some twenty minutes earlier he had been outside, but had come back. The night before he’d had a bad turn. The resident doctor had been called. They had specifically been asked not to disturb him.

  The couple on the sofa were talking again.

  ‘That woman we saw earlier on. The tall one with the immaculate hairdo.’

  ‘What about it?’ The husband appeared uninterested. ‘You know her?’

  ‘No. She did something quite extraordinary. She glanced round, then quick as a flash she took one of the –’

  ‘I am absolutely certain he will see me, my good man,’ Payne said in impossibly clipped tones, what Antonia called his Plummy-Blah voice. Hugh was doing his military trick of standing as though on parade, bent a little forward from the waist, his arms slightly curved at the sides. She could see the receptionist was impressed.

  ‘Would you please call him at once and tell him that it is about his daughter? Tell him it is an extremely serious matter. The name is Payne. Major Payne. He wouldn’t know me, no. And Mrs Payne. From the British High Commission in Delhi,’ he added.

  So that was going to be their game. Antonia shook her head. Were they being irresponsible? It would be a cruel deception. On the other hand, why not? Hadn’t Lord Justice Leighton played a cruel deception on her? Hadn’t he made a fool of her in the folly?

  The receptionist had picked up the phone. He turned his back on them as he dialled a number. He spoke in a low voice. A moment later he said, ‘Lord Justice Leighton will see you. Room number 45. Fourth floor. Would the gentleman and the lady like to be escorted by the bell-boy?

  ‘No, thank you. We’ll find our way up,’ Major Payne said.

  As they headed for the lift Antonia heard one of the waiters say in perplexed agitation, ‘There were six fruit knives, I swear. There are only five now!’

  30

  Thou Art the Man

  The moment they entered the lift, a thought struck Antonia like a thunderbolt. ‘He will recognize me! We spent at least fifteen minutes together in the folly.’

  ‘Well, if he does realize the game is up the moment he claps eyes on us, he’s bound to give himself away at once. That’s what we want, isn’t it?’

  They were walking down the corridor now. Framed photographs on the walls. Cricket teams. 1903 . . . 1928 . . . 1935 . . . The Cricket Club of India . . . Lord Willingdon, the cricket-loving Viceroy, resplendent in dress uniform, his epaulettes, medals and crosses lending him a faint air of light opera . . . The Maharaja of Patiala (1891–1938). A chunky man in thigh-high boots and a bulbous turban adorned with a peacock feather. Face the shape of a heraldic shield, an aquiline nose, the thickest horn-shaped moustaches she’d ever seen and the boldest and lustiest of stares. A lady-killer, if ever there was one. The type, Antonia reflected, Edwina Mountbatten, Charlotte’s maenad-mentrix, must have found irresistible.

  Major Payne pointed to another photograph. ‘Yadavindra Singh. The best cricketer the Patiala dynasty ever produced. He was a crowd-pleasing batsman in the aristocratic style, given to short but spectacular innings with lots of fours and sixes and as little running between wickets as possible. He had a passion for botany.’

  ‘Can anyone be killed with a fruit knife?’ Antonia asked suddenly.

  ‘Of course they can. You must aim at the jugular or the nape.’

  Number 45. A solid mahogany door the colour of dried liver. Antonia felt distaste bordering on revulsion.

  ‘Pull your pretty bonnet over your eyes and keep a step behind me,’ Payne whispered.

  He knocked on the door twice.

  As no one answered, he tried the door handle. The door opened and they entered the room.

  There’d be a kind of poetic justice, Antonia thought, if they found him sprawled on the floor dead, either as a result of a massive heart attack or by his own hand.

  It was an opulently decorated cherry-red room, which at the moment was sunk in gloom, an effect created by the coral-coloured curtains having been drawn across the windows and the balcony door. A fine black chinoiserie chest, late eighteenth-century, Payne imagined. Decorative gold-leaf garlands along the walls . . .

  Lord Justice Leighton sat very still in a recently upholstered gilt and ormolu armchair with his back to the window. The phone, a 1940s model, was on a little table beside him, on his right. On his left stood a larger circular gilt-surround occasional table with a coffee cup on it and several medicine bottles. Against the table leant a silver-topped cane.

  He didn’t say a word, just stared back at them. He might have been a wax effigy. The pale face brought to mind a death mask. He looked nothing like the Julian Knight who had talked to her in the folly, Antonia thought. A high domed forehead of the kind that might have been described as ‘noble’ – tufts of white hair – thin lips pulled down at the edges. The protuberant, bloodshot eyes were empty, devoid of expression. No – the eyes had a haunted look. (Gnawed away by guilty conscience? Tormented by his sense of loss?) He wore a light blue shirt, a cravat the colour of chartreuse, white trousers and white slip-on shoes. She’d never have recognized him, Antonia reflected, never.

  ‘Lord Justice Leighton?’ Major Payne had removed his panama.

  The figure in the armchair stirred. ‘What is this about my daughter? What’s happened?’

  Antonia was mesmerized by the look and sound of him. Breathing not good. Wheezes. Hands pink and mottled, like a monkey’s paws. Right hand across chest. Left hand on knee –

  ‘My name is Payne. Major Payne. I am from the British High Commission. This is my wife.’

  The tortured eyes gazed at Antonia indifferently, without a flicker of recognition. (Was he pretending?)

  ‘Has anything happened to my daughter?’

  What was that? Her heart started beating fast. His little finger was missing. So that’s why he had held his hand in a fist throughout their conversation in the folly. She had assumed he was holding something, but he hadn’t – his hand had been empty. He knew a missing little finger would attract attention, that it would be noticed and remembered. So it was him!

  ‘I am afraid I am the bearer of bad news,’ Payne said.

  ‘What bad news?’

  Antonia was put in mind of an Edwardian problem painting in the grand manner of, say, the Hon. John Collier – the kind of painting that spelled everything out with g
reat clarity and attention to detail, leaving very little to the spectator’s imagination. It would be called . . . well, Bad News of course. It was the air of dated formality that she imagined hung about the three of them that had given Antonia the idea.

  There was the upright grave-faced Major with his stiff upper lip, his greying blond hair sleeked back, clutching his white panama before him . . . The Major’s mem, immaculate in her pale yellow silk-and-linen dress and straw hat, whose black ribbon hinted subtly at the horror of the situation, her right hand cupped in a nervous gesture at her discreet cleavage . . . The distinguished-looking elderly gentleman leaning back in the red velvet-and-gilt armchair, his white hair ruffled, his mouth agape, his right hand pressed against his heart, his left pulling at his elegant cravat, as though he were choking –