4.Little Victim

by R. T. Raichev

  ‘Marigold Leighton is your daughter, isn’t she? I am afraid she is dead.’

  ‘No.’ Lord Justice Leighton made a stifled sound and covered his mouth. ‘Not dead. Can’t be.’

  ‘I am sorry, sir. She died yesterday. She was murdered.’ Payne was watching the former judge closely. ‘She was strangled.’

  ‘Strangled? Oh – oh, my God.’

  ‘We thought you should be informed about it as soon as possible. I am sorry.’

  ‘When – when did it happen?’ Leighton’s speech was a little slurred. Had he been sedated?

  He was going through the motions but his heart was not in it. He spoke his lines in a tired, distracted manner.

  He tried to appear shocked, grief-stricken, stirred to his depths, but it was a somewhat vague and perfunctory performance. Well, he had passed through it once already. He had been through hell, Antonia had no doubt, but that was yesterday; it was hard mustering up the right feelings at will, doing a repeat performance. He appeared exhausted – deflated – drained of energy – all passion spent. His eyes didn’t focus properly.

  ‘Your daughter’s body was discovered this morning.’

  ‘This morning? How – how did you know where to find me? How did you know I was here?’ Leighton looked confused. ‘Did the police get in touch with you?’

  ‘The police contacted your sister in England. Your sister told us that you were here, the name of your hotel and so on. She rang the British High Commission in Delhi.’

  ‘Iris contacted the British High Commission? But Iris has no idea – she doesn’t even know –’ Lord Justice Leighton broke off.

  Payne pounced at once. ‘Your sister has no idea you are here, has she? Of course she hasn’t. You managed to keep your trip a secret from everyone! Well, we also contacted your wife at Noon’s Folly in Hertfordshire. It was she who told us the whole story,’ he went on improvising. ‘About all the letters you wrote to your daughter and how you came to Goa to try to persuade Ria to go back to England.’

  ‘You contacted . . . Lucasta? But you couldn’t have!’ Suddenly Lord Justice Leighton gave a thin reedy laugh. ‘What nonsense is this? You aren’t really from the High Commission, are you? Who are you?’

  Antonia wondered whether Hugh would come up with some portentous phrase like ‘pawns of destiny’, but he didn’t.

  ‘We know exactly what you did yesterday morning,’ Payne said.

  ‘I’ve done nothing.’

  ‘You killed your daughter.’

  Lord Justice Leighton’s hand went up to his forehead. ‘I didn’t kill my daughter. You are mad.’

  ‘This we believe to be the sequence of events. Do correct me if I get something wrong.’ Payne cleared his throat. ‘You went to Ria’s bungalow in Fernandez Avenue yesterday morning. She let you in. You told her you’d come to take her back to England. You had an argument. Things got out of hand. You lost your temper – you shook her – pushed her back on the four-poster bed. You were in her bedroom. Her head hit one of the bedposts and she passed out. Then – then you strangled her.’

  Leighton rasped out, ‘I want you out of here now, or else I will call Reception and ask them to – to . . .’

  ‘You want to summon the law? Please go ahead.’ Payne waved at the telephone. ‘I am sure the local police would be very interested in talking to you. I hope you have a good alibi for yesterday morning?’

  ‘I don’t need an alibi. I don’t know what you are talking about. Please leave me alone. I am awfully tired. I am not well. I have a terrible headache. I get three kinds of headache.’ Leighton shut his eyes. ‘This one is the fabled winged headache with red and green feathers and gold-black claws that clutch and squeeze while its heavy wings beat faster and faster and faster. It’s causing me agonies. I sit in a dull haze and suddenly it comes. I have become an expert on headaches. I could write a monograph on headaches.’

  ‘You are acting crazy now.’ Payne clicked his tongue and shook his head. ‘I don’t think it will help you much.’

  ‘You won’t get a penny out of me. You are trying to blackmail me, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not at all. We are trying to establish the truth.’

  ‘There is nothing to establish.’

  ‘We are private detectives and we have been investigating your daughter’s murder.’

  ‘You aren’t private detectives.’

  ‘As a matter of fact you have already met my wife. You couldn’t have forgotten my wife, surely? You met her only yesterday evening, at our employer’s Valentine party. You had a long conversation with her. In the folly. Before you disappeared . . . Something of an actor manqué, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’ve never seen this woman before,’ Lord Justice Leighton said firmly.

  ‘You entrusted me with the diary of the man you killed and then impersonated,’ Antonia said, taking the reddish-brown notebook out of her handbag and holding it aloft in her hand in a gesture that seemed vaguely threatening. How absurdly melodramatic. She might have been confronting Lady Isobel Vane of East Lynne notoriety.

  The former judge fixed his boiled-gooseberry eyes on Payne. ‘Did you say your “employer”?’

  ‘That’s correct. We work for Roman Songhera. He commissioned us to find his fiancée’s killer. Which we now have.’

  ‘Nonsense. I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Come along, darling,’ Payne touched Antonia’s arms. ‘We mustn’t make Mr Songhera wait.’

  ‘Wait.’ Lord Leighton seemed to have come to a decision. ‘You are very much mistaken. I didn’t kill Ria, but –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I will tell you who did. I’m damned if I let her get away with it.’

  There was a smell in the room and now Antonia became aware of it for the first time. Not medicinal. Was that what eternal damnation smelled like? It was some stately scent and, funnily enough, it seemed familiar. Now, where . . .? Antonia frowned. Not such a long time ago – at Ria’s bungalow? Yes. In the hall, then in Ria’s bedroom. Antonia had thought it an unlikely choice for a young girl of Ria’s persuasion.

  Did he use the scent? Antonia experienced a slightly creepy sensation. Lord Justice Leighton couldn’t be a transvestite, could he? She had also noticed a kimono and lady’s slippers beside the double bed, as well as a brooch in the shape of what looked like a triton, two diamanté hairpins and a jar of cold cream on the bedside table. A beaded scarf of the kind Moslem women wore lay on another chair. The veil? That was what he had worn when he killed Knight. Antonia cast round, trying to spot a woman’s wig somewhere. An immaculate hairdo. Where had she heard something about an immaculate hairdo? Split personality? A Norman Bates kind of solution?

  She was aware of a draught. The door behind her seemed to have opened –

  Turning round sharply, Antonia gave a little cry. What she saw gave her such a shock that icy coldness passed right through her and broke out on her skin in gooseflesh. For a moment she couldn’t feel her heart beating at all and then it seemed to pound with enormous rhythm.

  A woman had entered the room. A woman whose stiff ghost-white hair looked like a helmet, which was a remarkable feat to have achieved in this hot weather. Her Roman nose was very red as a result of over-exposure to the sun – it brought to mind a ferocious Red Indian. She wore a snuff-coloured khaki suit and, in addition to her handbag, she held a grey finely woven straw hat with an ivory satin ribbon. She was pressing a handkerchief to her left cheek.

  The stately scent became more pronounced. It was her scent of course.

  The woman seemed to have met with some accident. Her right hand looked badly scratched. Could she have been attacked by some animal? There was also an ugly gash across her left cheek and her handkerchief was saturated in blood . . .

  31

  The Veiled One

  ‘Lord, it’s you,’ the former judge groaned. ‘I thought I caught the Chimera whiff. I told you not to come back. Why is it you never listen to me? Why did you come back? Go away. I don’t wa
nt to see you ever again. For as long as I live. Which won’t be long now.’

  The woman said, ‘How are you feeling, Toby?’

  ‘I feel rotten. I won’t last the day. I see my future like an inch-long white ribbon before my nose.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve taken your medicine. You promised you would without fail.’ The woman spoke in a precise, measured, level way.

  Too measured, Antonia thought – like one of those electronic voices issuing from machines. It must be his wife. Lucasta Leighton. Antonia watched her go up to the former judge and reach out for his forehead. Her manner had something of the sleepwalker in it.

  ‘You are dripping blood all over me! What have you been up to? She drinks blood,’ Leighton told Payne. ‘She is a vampire. Dotty and doting. She takes advantage of my helplessness. I detest her. She is a monster.’

  ‘Why haven’t you taken your medicine?’

  ‘She insists on sleeping in my bed. She’s ruined my life. I keep telling her to go away but she doesn’t listen.’

  ‘Who are these people?’ Lucasta Leighton was examining her bloodied hand with a puzzled frown, as though she had noticed there was something amiss for the first time.

  ‘They have been sent by Roman Songhera. Well, Ria told me what he does to his enemies. Roman Songhera should be told about you, don’t you think?’

  ‘I think you need another injection.’

  ‘No, not another injection! Don’t let her go to the bathroom!’ Leighton cried. ‘Would you do me a great favour, Major? The bathroom floor’s made of what I believe is called tessellated marble. I want you to go and smash each one of this human manticore’s syringes and bottles against it, reduce them to powder with your heels, then flush all her witchy tinctures down the loo.’

  Oh dear. Antonia felt the sudden urge to laugh. How perfectly awful. Comedia horribilis. A black farce!

  When Major Payne made no move, Leighton said, ‘These people work for Roman Songhera. They know everything about it, Lucasta.’

  ‘There’s nothing to know. Pay no attention,’ she mouthed at Antonia and tapped her forefinger lightly at her forehead. She seemed to suggest the former judge was deranged.

  ‘They know everything,’ he reiterated. ‘They know everything.’

  ‘They are lying. Look at them! Just take a good look at them!’ Lucasta’s voice was higher now. A hysterical note had crept into it ‘How can you think they work for Roman Songhera?’

  ‘We most certainly do not look the part,’ Major Payne said. ‘That’s precisely the reason why he employed us. The money’s awfully good. And we’ll get more as soon as we give Songhera a name.’

  ‘He’s bluffing,’ Lucasta said.

  ‘They think it was me. I can see why. I thought it was me! They’ve been very logical about it.’ Once more Lord Justice Leighton shut his eyes. ‘Nothing matters any more, but I don’t see why they should go on believing it was me. It isn’t right. You led me on. You deceived me. It was you, not me.’

  ‘I am awfully sorry but I must ask you to leave, if you don’t mind.’ Lucasta Leighton turned towards the unwelcome visitors in a parody of graciousness. ‘My husband is in precipitately declining health.’

  ‘I refuse to take part in any sort of consolidated alliance,’ Leighton declared, sticking out his lower lip. ‘Especially one of a criminal nature.’

  ‘My husband has a serious condition. Physical as well as psychiatric. He is on medication. Please –’

  ‘I have, after all, devoted my entire adult life to law and justice. I will not betray my principles.’

  It was you. You lied to me. Those were the words Mrs Gilmour had overheard. It had been Lord Justice Leighton and his wife. A middle-aged couple. Home Counties written all over them. The husband had looked distraught. Of course. Antonia held her breath. Lucasta Leighton had been at Ria’s bungalow. She had entered the bedroom after Lord Justice Leighton had left it. Leighton had believed he had killed his daughter, but he hadn’t.

  ‘Please,’ Lucasta Leighton said again, with greater emphasis, and this time she gestured towards the door. She took her hand off her cheek and Antonia gasped – it was an incredibly deep wound. Lucasta Leighton’s cheek appeared to have been ripped apart.

  ‘What – what happened to you?’ Antonia couldn’t help asking. ‘Who did this to you?’

  ‘Let me tell you first what Lucasta did.’ Leighton had loosened his chartreuse-coloured cravat from around his throat. ‘I will tell you everything. She destroyed my daughter and now she wants to destroy me. You should know about it, then you can report back to that filthy wop. Tell him it’s the wicked stepmother who did it. Let him deal with her as he sees fit. Tell him I insist on something protractedly painful.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing, my dear.’ Lucasta gave a dismissive smile. ‘A little accident.’

  ‘I understand Roman Songhera keeps crocodiles.’ Leighton smacked his lips. ‘He breeds them. Ria wrote about Roman’s crocs in the most lyrical terms. You will be fed to the crocodiles, Lucasta, and they will tear you apart and they’ll devour every bit of you until you disappear completely.’ He spoke with weary relish. ‘You are bound to taste foul but I don’t think they are particular.’

  ‘Now, Toby –’ The next moment Lucasta Leighton winced. She must be in dreadful pain, Antonia thought.

  Leighton laughed horribly. ‘Oh dear. I keep forgetting you have been wounded. That woman struggled, I expect? You said she was big? Did she bite you?’

  Had Lucasta Leighton committed three murders? It was she who had taken one of the fruit knives, of course, of course. A woman with an immaculate hairdo. Antonia felt a sick feeling in her stomach. She tried to catch her husband’s eye but he appeared ghoulishly mesmerized by the spectacle of the warring Leightons.

  ‘You wouldn’t have thought it of her, would you? It wasn’t all plain sailing, though. At one point she was seen.’ Lord Justice Leighton gave the impression of having summoned up all his strength. ‘There was a witness to Ria’s murder. She told me about it. That wop’s wife happened to be peeping in through the window. She called on Lucasta yesterday. They had tea together.’

  ‘Sarla Songhera witnessed the murder?’

  ‘She did. Mrs Songhera was quite amiable, apparently. Grossly fat but amiable and well disposed. She seemed to approve of what Lucasta did. She seemed to admire her for killing my daughter. She came again today and again they had tea together, then Lucasta came up to change – into her hunting outfit. Just look at her!’ Leighton shook his forefinger. ‘Aquascutum. Lucasta believes in being dressed for the occasion. Well, the hunting season opened this morning. Vive le sport! She was clutching something in her pocket. A knife, I think. I knew at once she intended to kill that woman. She had that look about her. Did you manage to do it, my precious?’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, Toby. I am afraid you are delirious.’

  ‘How I got to marry her, I don’t know. I admired her air of efficiency and sense of the theatre. We used to do impressions together,’ Leighton confided in Major Payne. ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw her sitting downstairs, waiting for me. I’d just arrived from the airport, but there were great delays, so she beat me to it. She’d bought all the right things. Sola topis, mosquito repellent and antihistamine tablets.’

  ‘You didn’t tell her you were coming to Goa?’

  ‘Of course not. I said I was going to Baden-Baden, for my health, but she’d found my ticket in my desk, damn her. She’d been rifling my desk, reading my letters, spying on me! She then followed me all the way to the subcontinent. One might have been excused for taking her for my bloody shadow. She hopped on the next plane apparently and that’s how we ended up at this ghastly place.’ Lucasta Leighton went to the door and opened it. She looked at Antonia, then at Payne. ‘If you don’t leave at once I will call the management.’ She was pressing the handkerchief against her cheek once more.

  ‘I am nothing but a feeble-minded fool. No
one would have thought I was once described as “possessing the finest legal brain in Britain”. I thought the world of Lucasta’s managerial qualities,’ Leighton went on. ‘She’s not quite human. She’s a demon. Never gets tired. Can exist on four hours’ sleep a night – like that Thatcher woman! Disgrace to womanhood. I didn’t feel too well that day, so it was she who phoned Knight. We weren’t sure about the address. Knight showed us where Fernandez Avenue was, though he didn’t come with us. We went together, she and I. I should have gone alone, then none of this would have happened.’

  ‘I wanted to help you,’ Lucasta said. ‘I love you.’

  ‘My brother-in-law is a fool but sometimes fools see the truth more clearly than the wise. I happened to overhear something he said. It was to the effect that Lucasta poisoned Imogen while nursing her – that’s my first wife – in order to get me! I didn’t believe it then, but now I wonder. I very much wonder.’