Assassins at Ospreys

14

Ceaseless Turmoil

In Knightsbridge, in his minimalist flat, Robin Renshawe looked at himself in the mirror and thought: I wish I felt as cool as I looked. He was wearing conventional pepper-and-salt tweeds and a black tie, in preparation for the call, which he hoped would come from Ospreys at some point. The phone call would inform him of his uncle’s – sad but not unexpected – demise. In his sleep – it was a peaceful end – it was his heart, Master Robin. He gave a little smile – that was how Wilkes would have addressed him, had they lived in a different age.

Who else would Wilkes notify? If Lily did the job properly, there would be no question of the police being called. That doctor fellow – he was the only one Wilkes would phone – for the death certificate.. . Saunders of course would already be there… Saunders would have arrived too late…

What if Beatrice (‘Bee’) Ardleigh turned up? Well, let her. For him, she was always the woman. Robin sniggered. Bee was bound to be disappointed if she had expected to be left a fortune. By way of compensation Robin would give her a glass of Uncle Ralph’s best dry sherry. He already saw himself as taking control of the situation at Ospreys. Well, he was his uncle’s only surviving relative.

Crossing over to the drinks table, Robin opened a bottle of Chivas Regal whisky and poured some into a glass. Opposite him on the wall hung a Derek Hill portrait of his mother in a lavender dress and a broad-brimmed gardening hat and gloves, contemplating a bed of nasturtiums. He tried to avoid her mournfully reproachful, heartrendingly patient gaze and quickly glanced at the picture next to it – one of St George Hare’s allegorical and suggestively erotic paintings showing a semi-nude captive slave chained to a rock by the wrists with a butterfly hovering over his tousled head. Robin didn’t care much for the slave. Too blond – too Teutonic. There had been other, more valuable paintings, including a Poussin and a Freud, but those he had sold.

Lily must be on his way or was already at Ospreys. He had said he would try to get there at five to ten, or earlier. Would he funk it at the last minute and think up some excuse why it couldn’t be done? Well, time would show. Robin thought he sounded philosophical when he said the phrase aloud, but he didn’t feel philosophical at all. The truth of the matter was that he felt extremely anxious..

Had it been a mistake to employ Lily as his myrmidon in the first place? No – that had been a happy inspiration on his part. Once more Robin’s thoughts turned back to school and the fox… Poor fox.. . It hadn’t stood a chance..

Whack-whack-whack. Robin grimaced squeamishly at the memory. The spectacle had been too gruesome for words. A veritable bloodbath. Lily’s intention, it would appear, had been to reduce the fox to a pulp. Robin had turned round only after the whimpering had ceased completely and he had heard Lily say, Consummatum est. Lily had been bespattered with blood, a cross between Macbeth post Duncan and Hannibal Lecter post – well, dinner. Lily had stood there looking at Robin, strutting a little, a jubilant expression on his cherubic face. Had Lily done it to impress him? That he believed to be the main reason – though Lily had also given the distinct impression of having actually enjoyed the experience.

Robin took another sip of whisky. Some of the tension started to depart. He smiled. Lily was a natural born killer. The methodical, relentless, rather rhythmic way he had bashed away at the beast – as though he had been playing some esoteric musical instrument. He had been totally unmoved by its screams. The fox had snarled and tried to bite him and that had only speeded up its end.

Still, strange things did happen. Sudden, inexplicable, logic-defying transformations were known to take place in the minds of the most unlikely people. The idea of miracles made Robin nervous, the twinges of anxiety sud-denly returned and he drank more whisky. He had a superstitious streak in him, which sometimes manifested itself at times of crisis. I mustn’t go down that path, he told himself, but it was already too late. The fear worked like yeast in his thoughts and the fermentation brought to the surface images of likely disasters – the whole catalogue of threats known to the lapsed Catholic rose to haunt him.

What if Lily, having killed his uncle, was suddenly over-come with remorse? What if he had a vision of Our Lady of Sorrows, or saw tears coming out of the eyes of some marble saint, or even heard a voice calling down to him from above? Either of those might send him running to a priest, a real priest, one of those pious, interfering bastards. Lily might feel compelled to make a full confession.

Oh father, I have just killed a man -.

Miracles did happen from time to time. One never knew. Uncle Ralph had undergone his remarkable conversion the day the doctor had told him that he faced death – that he had only months to live. Nobody had thought it possible. In his young days his uncle had been a rip, a reprobate and a rapscallion, the black sheep of the tremendously respectable, if not stuffy, Renshawe family. It was death that had changed him – the news that he had only a short time to live.

Would death change Lily? His uncle’s death, that was. Robin thought it unlikely, though who could tell? Lily was so fucking unpredictable -.

Robin drained his glass and put it down. He looked at the clock. Decorators were coming to his flat sometime after ten. Robin’s kitchen didn’t really need decorating, but he thought he should have an alibi for the time of his uncle’s death. Just in case.

Five minutes to ten. Lily must be at Ospreys. Perhaps he was entering the hall at that very moment, exchanging pleasantries with Wilkes, glancing up at the angels on the ceiling -.

Oh father, I have just killed a man. I smothered him with a pillow. It was a friend of mine who put me up to it. It was his uncle, you see – a very rich man.

How reliable an accomplice was Lily? Robin considered the point. Well, Lily seemed to have started cranking himself up – if those pinpoint pupils were anything to go by – and junkies were notoriously erratic in all their dealings. Still, Robin didn’t think Lily was yet at an ‘advanced stage’, besides Lily was greatly attracted to the idea of easy riches, so chances were that he would pull himself together and do the job properly.

Leaning his elbow against the mantelpiece, Robin pondered the promise he had made. He had told Lily they would go halves… That was an awful lot of money… If he had to be perfectly honest, he didn’t feel like parting with half of Uncle Ralph’s fortune. In fact he hated the idea of it.

Well, weren’t promises made so that they could be bro-ken? It happened all the time. It wasn’t as though Robin had put anything in writing or had had his promise recorded on tape. But there was bound to be a reaction, if he failed to abide by his word. Lily could become a nuisance. Lily could turn… nasty. Lily wouldn’t go to the police, for obvious reasons, but he could think of a way of turning the tables on Robin. Lily was clever. He was devilishly devious. Lily could be, well, dangerous. Robin admitted to himself that he was a bit afraid of Lily.

If only – if only Lily, having completed the job, could… disappear? If Lily could vanish from the face of the earth as utterly and completely as if the devil had snatched him down to hell by the heels…

Kill the killer, eh? That was an idea worth considering, but another body would complicate matters. Dead bodies, no matter how well hidden, tended to turn up sooner or later. Could it be made to look like suicide? Push Lily off a cliff? String him up from a beam? Feed him an overdose of sleeping pills? Feed him to the fish in the river?

No – too complicated – too much bother.

How about scaring Lily – having him roughed up a bit by way of a warning? More than just a bit. Lily did do crazy things, but he was not really a brave man. Throw a plastic bag over his head – give him a black eye, split his lip, rip off part of his ear, bust his nose, crack a rib perhaps, fracture a finger or two in a lingering kind of way… Yes… That would show him what might happen if he tried something. A single phrase whispered in his shell-like ear should do the trick. Next time it would be much worse, so don’t try anything funny. Something on those lines. It needed to be done soon after Lily had emerged from Ospreys, while the thought of death was still fresh in his mind… That would be the right psychological moment… Yes…

Robin rose slowly and once more he stood before the mirror, empty glass in hand, examining his reflection… He wouldn’t do it himself of course… Certainly not. He would be nowhere near the scene of the incident… Perhaps he could have a word with Eric? It was some time since he had seen Eric.

(Why was it that he always thought of Eric when he was drunk?)