Assassins at Ospreys

26

Strong Poison

The discovery of Father Lillie-Lysander’s body in the grounds of Ospreys was announced later that evening on the ten o’clock news. He had been murdered – stabbed to death. The camera lingered on the theatrically Gothic pile with its absurd gables and turrets, then swept across the wildly overgrown garden, parts of which looked distinctly un-English due to the late Moira Montano’s now dilapidated pink conservatory, ragged palms, fantastical grotto benches and clumps of bamboo; it all brought to mind a decayed Mediterranean film set.

The camera came to rest on a rook perched on the edge of the seventeenth-century wishing well. The rook – rather a large specimen – gazed straight at the camera, flapped its wings and crowed. There was no perceptible change in the newscaster’s voice when he said that the priest’s body had been at the bottom of the well. It had been a particularly brutal attack. At the time of discovery, the body had been in the early stages of decomposition. The perpetrator was unknown and the motive for the crime remained unclear. The police were conducting an investigation and they were anxious to speak to Miss Ingrid Delmar.

‘Good lord, that’s not Ospreys, is it?’ Sir Marcus Laud said, peering at the TV screen.

‘It is Ospreys,’ Lady Laud said.

She was thirty years younger than her husband and his fourth wife. She had reappeared soon after he had got rid of Ospreys and since then they had been leading a life of unadulterated bliss in South Kensington. Sitting on the floor beside his chair, resting her auburn head against his knee, the fourth Lady Laud – who had read English at Oxford and was something of an expert on Kipling – sighed and once more she told the story of what had made her run away that day.

She had been aware of a little grey shadow, as it might have been a snowflake against the light, floating at an immense distance in the background of her brain. She had then been plunged into overwhelming gloom. Her amazed soul, she said, dropped gulf by gulf into that horror of great darkness which is spoken of in the Bible, and which, as auctioneers say, must be experienced to be appreciated. Despair upon despair, misery upon misery, fear after fear, until she found herself in a state of absolute panic. She hadn’t seen any ghosts or heard any voices – nothing like that, but, nevertheless, she had felt the overpowering urge to be as far away from Ospreys as possible. And again Sir Marcus – who had never read Kipling’s story ‘The House Surgeon’ – said comfortably that he wasn’t the least bit surprised. It was that sort of place.

(The truth was of course quite different and much more prosaic, and it had something to do with an unexpected phone call from a past lover who had suggested that they have one last month of passion in the Caribbean.)

The conversation then turned to Moira Montano.

‘In one of her films she comes out of a lake on a freezing cold night and hovers above the surface,’ Sir Marcus said. ‘There’s a chap in a boat and for some reason he’s got stuck in the middle of the lake. She is beautiful as a dream. Golden hair, enormous green eyes, a wide red mouth, but when she smiles at the chap, her teeth show white and pointed, sharp as needles – as many teeth as a strange fish.’

In Knightsbridge, reclining so far back in his chair that he was horizontal in front of his TV set, his arms crossed behind his head, Robin Renshawe too watched the broad-cast. A glass and a whisky bottle stood on the table before him. He had started by mixing himself whisky sours with grenadine, fresh lime and crushed ice, but had ended up drinking it neat. The ice cubes in the bucket had all melted. He was rather drunk; he was on the point of reaching that highly desirable state in which relaxation and irresponsibility mingle.

‘Who the fuck is Ingrid Delmar?’ Robin asked aloud. There hadn’t been much regret in his reaction to Lily’s demise. He had always regarded Lily as expendable. As disposable as a cocktail stick. Requiescat in pace, he had murmured and he had raised his glass. He had then wondered if it would be worth the trouble of sneaking into Lily’s flat and collecting the marble bust of Cicero or whoever that was. It seemed to have caught his fancy, oddly enough. No. That wishing well might have been swarming with flies, but Lily’s flat would be much worse – it would be swarming with les flics. Robin laughed at his joke, but his heart was far from light.

Another of his lieutenants gone. A couple of minutes earlier he had received a call from Eric at long last. Eric had told him he hadn’t been able to do what Robin had asked him. I am very sorry, Robin. The silly ass had given the most pathetic reason imaginable for failing to go to Ospreys on the morning of the 26th. Eric had been most apologetic in that absurd lisping voice of his. That famous saying, Looks like Tarzan, speaks like Jane, might have been invented with Eric in mind. Robin should have known better.

‘Why do I always associate with people like that?’ Robin murmured. ‘Why? Why?’ He shut his eyes.

Golden… golden… hair and eyes… and paradise. The words of a song floated through the open window in the warm night. Some people, it seemed, were managing to have a good time.

Everything had gone wrong. Lily was dead while his uncle was alive. Robin had been on the phone to Saunders, trying to pump him for information about the will. He had wanted confirmation – was there a new will? Saunders, however, had been terribly tight-lipped about it. Saunders had given him the cold shoulder. Saunders had been much nicer to him in the past, but then of course Robin had been his uncle’s main legatee. Now Saunders treated him like a leper. All solicitors were bastards. Profiteering hypocritical bastards. Robin had then called Wilkes. It was she who had told him about the new will, which she had witnessed – together with one of the cleaners. Well, she had confirmed what he had known all along. Everything to Beatrice fucking Ardleigh! Christ. The whole Judith Hartz fortune. Wilkes had commiserated with him. She had been on her way to the airport, apparently, off to get married or something.

‘Why Ingrid Delmar? Who is this Ingrid Delmar? ‘ Robin cried. ‘It is to Beatrice Ardleigh you should be speaking! You fucking ineffectual flics. It was Beatrice who killed Lily – must have done! Who else?’

His front doorbell rang. He remained seated. He yawned. He stretched his arms. He was not at home. The doorbell rang again. A manservant would have been able to deal with the matter in a smoothish kind of way. Mr Renshawe is not at home. May I take a message? Well, he couldn’t afford a manservant, unless he asked Eric to do it for free? Eric would look jolly presentable in a black alpaca coat and striped trousers. No, not Eric -he was finished with Eric – not even if Eric, like his famous namesake in the book, learnt to do things properly, little by little.

What the fuck was that? Robin couldn’t believe his ears. Someone was forgetting this was Knightsbridge and not fucking Redbridge. Manners, please. Fists had started banging on his front door. A voice shouted: ‘Mr Renshawe? We know you are there! Open up. Police!’

Robin remembered how as a boy he used to read the Norse myths and how he cheered on Loki, the trickster malcontent and shape-shifter, who was doomed to agonized failure in his persistent battles with the Asgard gods… They must have found something… Saunders must have talked, blast him… His uncle must have been saying things. .. Had Eric too talked? Eric tended to want to ‘share’ things with people in the girlie way he had… Would the Asgard gods batter down the door if he didn’t open?

They couldn’t put him in jail – there wouldn’t be enough evidence – but they were capable of making his life distinctly unpleasant for a while. The Mortification of Moriarty. How ironic, Robin Renshawe thought. It was almost as though Lily had known some such thing would happen all those years ago when he had devised the twist at the end of their play.

At her enemy’s mercy…

Who was her enemy? Ingrid was sure she knew. If only her head didn’t hurt so badly, if only so many thoughts didn’t insist on crowding round her brain, it would come to her… The name or the face… So hard to think of one particular enemy, when one had so many! Ralph. The interloper. Bee. Father Lillie-Lysander – no – Father Lillie-Lysander was dead – killed like a pig.

How he had bled!

What was it the handkerchief in her mouth reeked of? It was such a familiar smell. A mixture of tobacco and scent. A smell she associated with someone she had once loved dearly. No, not Claire… Claire didn’t smoke. Claire was too young, completely unspoilt… Her little girl… Lovely lips like a rosebud, clear blue eyes, hair like lint, so fair it hardly made any shadow on her pale forehead. Where was Claire?

Ce Soir Je T’Aime and stale Turkish cigarettes. That was it – the malodorous melange. To think that there had been a time when she hadn’t minded the smell of either, that she had actually liked it since they were both part of Bee… She had been dabbing drops of Ce Soir Je T’Aime behind her ears as part of her impersonation – but it was not something she wanted in her mouth.

For no apparent reason a memory floated into Ingrid’s head. A balmy day in early August. The sun shimmering off the river in bright waves. Bee and she sitting contentedly within a nest of large brocade cushions. A starched tablecloth on the grass. A picnic lunch. Pimms, grilled salmon-trout, sauteed potatoes, green salad, a bottle of white wine, followed by lemon sorbet and, finally, thick black coffee out of exquisite Meissen porcelain cups, which Ingrid had brought over from the house carefully wrapped up in two silk shawls. The summery buzzing of bees in the air. Bluish smoke rising from Bee’s Turkish cigarette. Bee reminiscing once more about the grand hotels in the South of France where she had stayed with her father – vanilla and strawberry palaces in their vastes parcs fleuris, sheltered by parasol pines and fountaining palm trees – sleek-headed bellboys in duck-egg grey uniforms – taps that filled the bath in thirty seconds and caused it to overflow in thirty-five… Then the wild beating of wings – two ducks fighting on the river. How they had laughed! Quack, quack, Bee had said in her droll way. Quack, quack, quack. Ingrid remembered her thoughts. This is too perfect.

Ingrid had reached out for Bee’s left hand, held it palm upwards and compared it with her own. Look, our hands are practically identical. Bee had hastily withdrawn her hand – didn’t Ingrid know it was unlucky to compare hands? Ingrid had told her not to be silly. Ingrid hadn’t really expected anything bad to happen, but had felt a little disconcerted when the following morning at ten a man introducing himself as ‘Leonard Colville’ phoned and asked to speak to Bee. Ingrid had put her hand over the receiver and whispered – Sounds like some pompous fool – hope you won’t be too bored.

Ingrid realized that she was dead already. Her parents had killed her, her boyfriend had killed her, Ralph had killed her, Bee had killed her, the interloper had killed her, the wasted years had killed her. When the heart was dead, all was dead, though the victim might not fully be aware of it for a long time – She tried to scream but all that came from her mouth was a faint moaning sound. What kind of a box was this? As a child she used to be punished by her father by being shut up in a wardrobe or small cupboard, where she had imagined that a small creature was trying to bite off her toes. Had her toes been bitten off -

She was delirious again.

Was the mixture of Parisian scent and Turkish tobacco in her mouth going to make her throw up? If that happened, she would choke on her own vomit and die a slow horrible death. Maybe that was the intention?

No, that was not the intention. Ingrid knew she was going to die a violent death, but she believed there was a purpose as to why she had been kept alive so far. There was a good reason why she hadn’t been killed outright in the garden at Ospreys, the way the priest had been, why the first blow hadn’t been followed by a second, lethal one.

The priest had struggled – that had been his undoing. There had been a spurt of blood – then another. The priest had thrashed about and then had lain on the floor twitching. Yes, she had seen the priest perish. She had stood outside the french windows and watched, fascinated, hypnotized by the sight of the blood…

It was only moments later that she had made her presence known. Hello. The shocked look on his face – those foolish bulging eyes, that gaping mouth, those cheeks the colour of ripe tomatoes! It had made her laugh. He had been dragging the priest like a sack of potatoes across the terrace towards the stone steps that led to the garden.

She had started speaking. The things she had said! She had let all her frustration, all her resentment, all her bitterness, all her hatred spill out, but she had also, in a strange kind of way, enjoyed herself. Oh yes. She smiled at the memory. She had felt extremely powerful and in complete control. The torrent of words unleashed from between her lips had been frightening.

She had let rip.

Do you think you will be allowed to get away with this? Your interloping days are over. You are finished. You’ll spend the rest of your days in jail. You will end up as some big boy’s bitch. I will see to it. They may even kill you. You’ll never be allowed to touch your beloved again. I’ll see to it. But it was when she had started with the more specific taunts – Bee’s got a rat-ing system, you know – she rates all her lovers – if you only knew what she said about you, how she laughed when she said you lacked that significant It in the boudoir department, you wouldn’t want to live! – that the blow had fallen.

Suddenly the lid opened and Ingrid was blinded by light -

An electric torch had been flashed into her face. She moaned – it burnt her eyes. She felt the tape being removed from her mouth, roughly and painfully peeled off, the handkerchief pulled out. Air! She coughed and gasped. Bright spots swam before her eyes. Then, in negative black and white, she saw something familiar. Wasn’t that the holly tree in front of Millbrook, the house she and Beatrice had shared for thirty years? Of course it was. The holly reached up to her bedroom window – why, she had trimmed it only last week!

Then she saw where she was. In the boot of a car – not in a coffin. She opened her mouth wide – not to scream but to breathe. She filled her lungs with air. Had help come? Earlier on she had been praying to Mighty God Rook -

No. Ingrid couldn’t make out the features of the face looking down at her, but she knew very well who it was. It was – him. I will have you for assault and illegal constraint, she wanted to shout but the next moment she smelled bitter almonds. She tried to bite the hateful fingers that were pushing the lump of cyanide into her mouth – how she would have liked to crunch them off! – but failed. She snarled – she felt her chin being pushed upwards. She heard her teeth click. She felt the cyanide gliding down her tongue, like a boat down a sluggish river, sinking deep into her throat. She gasped again – choked – gurgled -

Then, in the couple of seconds she had to live, Ingrid saw why she had been kept alive so far and brought to Millbrook House. It was one of those instant flashes of intuition.

The plan was that her death be made to look like suicide. It was her cyanide, she knew. The cyanide she kept in a phial in her room. Her cupboard had been raided. Suicide – wasn’t that what loopy people like her did when they reached the end of the line? The police were meant to assume that it was she who had killed the priest – that he had tried to protect Ralph, that they had had a fight – and she had stabbed him. No doubt they would discover the fruit knife in her pocket – it would be suitably smeared in the priest’s blood. They would assume she had panicked and bolted – that she had been hiding. She would be found stretched out on her bed beside her daughter’s photos -

One last gasp – one last convulsion – and she was still.