Assassins at Ospreys

4

Malice Aforethought

The ground was frozen and crunched under her feet. The sky was a forbidding shade of grey. Rooks, stiff and black, croaked and circled low above the house. For a moment she had imagined they were ospreys – otherwise why call the house Ospreys? People did give country houses silly names. Clouds – Nunspardon – Charleston – Ham House – Owlpen Manor! She stopped, her hands thrust deep in the pockets of her mink coat, the cashmere scarf the colour of crushed raspberries covering her blonde head, and watched the rooks for a couple of moments. They had been perched on the turrets but had heard her coming. Creatures of ill omen, harbingers of doom, or so it had been said – could they really sense death, someone about to die?

Ralph had bought Ospreys from a Sir Marcus Laud, who had been eager to sell. It was easy to see why. A faint smell, as from a sick animal, emanated from the crumbling plaster. No one in their right mind would want to live in a place like that. The House of Usher, Ralph had called it. Something in that. She could well imagine children com-ing over on Hallowe’en with lighted pumpkins and marching round Ospreys, chanting spells that invoked evil spirits. One whole wall was covered in ivy. Creeping ivy hides the ruin it feeds upon. (Cowper?) There was smoke coming out of only one of the six chimneys. Most of the rooms were not in use, that was what the nurse had told her.

The walk from the bus stop had taken only five minutes. Thank God for that. It was another bleak, dark, dispiriting day. The air was raw and she felt chilled to the bone. Five minutes if she walked briskly. If she dawdled, ten, even fifteen. She had timed her journey carefully during her very first visit. She had also drawn a plan of Ralph’s part of the house – the french windows – the terrace – and, for good measure, she had added the wishing well too – it was in a direct line from the windows. She didn’t know precisely why she did that. She had been in an odd mood that day. She had made it look like one of those diagrams one found in old-fashioned detective stories.

X marks the spot. This is where the body was found. Antonia Darcy probably knew all about house plans. Modern detective stories weren’t likely to have house plans in them, but then Antonia Darcy didn’t exactly write ‘modern’ detective stories. Well, writers who did not trust their descriptive powers resorted to diagrams. As a matter of fact she had the sheet with the diagram in her pocket at that very moment. How funny. It wasn’t as though she would ever need it. Sometimes she did do things, she had to admit, which were not entirely rational…

Progress was slow today. So slippery – that damned ice! Her shoes needed new soles, or maybe she needed new shoes? It would have been much faster if she had been driving. Once upon a time, a million years ago, she had been able to drive – she’d had a cherry-red racer – she had enjoyed driving. No longer. The mere thought of getting into a car and sitting behind the steering wheel made her start shaking.

Again she passed the priest. She looked at her watch: four o’clock. Her coming and his going always seemed to coincide. Today Father Lillie-Lysander was wearing a tall astrakhan hat and was smoking a cigar. His dog collar was invisible under a scarf of some shimmering silver pattern and he wore grey gloves. He was carrying a small black leather bag. He looked prosperous – nothing like a priest – he brought to mind a banker or a rentier. He had a some-what furtive air about him and she wondered as to the reason. (Weren’t priests allowed to smoke cigars?) This time he acknowledged her with a distant nod; for a moment his eyes rested upon her speculatively.

The front door opened before she reached it. ‘Good afternoon, Beatrice,’ the young nurse greeted her cheer-fully and she gasped at the sight of her breath coming out of her mouth in swirls. ‘So cold, isn’t it? I hadn’t realized. Much colder than yesterday. The ground’s frozen.’ Nurse Wilkes – stating the obvious as usual. ‘That’s a nice scarf… Ralph’s expecting you. He kept asking me to look out for you.’

Pale face, pink lipstick, dark nail varnish, gold stud in the nose. And she was chewing gum. As annoying a habit as the use of the first names. ‘Ralph’ – ‘Beatrice’ – they weren’t exactly Nurse Wilkes’ contemporaries or friends, were they? What was private medical care coming to? Had the stately matron type gone for ever? She was conservative about that sort of thing. Incongruously, Nurse Wilkes was holding what looked like a half-finished jumper and knitting needles.

‘Come in, come in. It’s freezing!’ Nurse Wilkes cried.

‘How is he?’

Well, Ralph had had a seizure the night before but had recovered. For a man in his condition he was doing remarkably well. Nurse Wilkes spoke with relentless good cheer. She led the way in. ‘He’s been much better since you started coming. Isn’t that wonderful?’

Ralph’s room was on the ground floor, just across the octagonal marble hall with the armour and the angels. He had been in an upstairs room to start with, but had been moved downstairs because it made things so much easier for her, the nurse said as she pushed the door open.

She took off her scarf. The nurse spoke in a very loud voice. ‘It’s Beatrice, Ralph. Beatrice is here. I’ll leave you alone now.’

She looked at the french windows. She could see the flight of crumbling steps and had a clear view of the terribly overgrown lawn. Ralph sat slumped between several pillows. His eyes were shut. He looked worse, she noted with quiet satisfaction, contrary to what the nurse had said – much worse. He blinked several times. ‘What? Who is it?’ His voice was softer and thinner than before. ‘Wilkes?’

‘It’s me -’

‘Bee? Oh, my dear. You’ve come again.’

‘I said I would.’

She sat on the edge of the chair beside the bed. It was her third visit. She’d come the day before and she hoped to come again tomorrow – and the day after. She felt her spirits soaring. She was enjoying herself so much! She resisted the impulse to rub her hands. She glanced round. If anything the room looked more Spartan than before; it was like a monk’s cell. The crucifix above the bed was slightly askew. Did they dust it? She felt the urge to laugh aloud at the thought of a feather duster being run ticklishly over Our Saviour.

There was a photograph propped up against one of the medicine bottles on the bedside table, which hadn’t been there before. Ralph and Bee at the Colosseum, April 1975. It was his writing at the bottom, faint and jumbled, as it had been in the letter. He had written it recently. He had been thinking about the past, clearly. In the photograph he looked dashing in a white suit – handsome – not unlike Cary Grant in his prime – nothing like the ragged scare-crow in the bed.

‘D’you remember the Colosseum, Bee? You look so lovely there with your golden hair,’ he said.

‘I look grumpy. Why do I look grumpy?’

‘Don’t you remember the ice-cream cone? Some ice-cream dripped on your dress… You’ve hardly changed at all… If only we could turn the clock back…’

If only they could… April 1974… She felt a shiver run down her spine. That was only a month before the accident. She knew why she remembered it so well. She had been to her gynaecologist for a check. Once more she saw Dr Fallowell’s smiling face. No problems at all. Everything was going to be fine. Excellent progress. This is better than I expected. You are going to have a healthy baby.

She had conceived her plan as soon as she read Ralph Renshawe’s letter. She hadn’t hesitated one second. She had neither deliberated nor prevaricated. The idea had come into her head fully formed. Double revenge. Two birds with one stone. She had set herself some conditions. One, Ralph had to know he was being murdered, therefore it had to be done slowly and methodically. Two, no ambiguities. The murder had to be made obvious – the police mustn’t waste their time thinking that it might have been an accident or suicide. Three, the killer’s identity had to be plain and unequivocal, so that it led to an immediate arrest…

Well, she had changed her mind the moment she had laid eyes on him. She had abandoned the plan. This was better – watching him dying slowly, by degrees – savouring every moment of it.

She regarded him dispassionately. He looked worse today. He was disintegrating before her very eyes! They had tried some alternative remedy – in a half-hearted kind of way, she gathered – he had been dehydrated and fed nothing but raw carrots and walnuts for a month, some-thing like that – there wasn’t the slightest evidence it had done him any good.

A doctor apparently came every now and then, but these were little more than courtesy calls. They could do nothing more for him. He was given morphine injections, to keep the pain at bay, to ease his suffering. The way his head lolled and his mouth gaped! Urgh. He was no longer of this world. She hadn’t expected him to be so ill on first reading the letter. I am at death’s door. Well, she had suspected him of exaggerating the gravity of his condition, of employing melodramatic phrases to gain her sympathy.

‘Would you like tea – coffee? Cake? All you need to do is press that buzzer,’ Ralph Renshawe said. ‘Wilkes will bring it.’

‘No, thank you… Honestly… I am all right.’ The idea of sipping coffee or eating cake in this room of death filled her with revulsion.

He said he was feeling better now for seeing her. He tried to smile, struggled up. ‘You aren’t cold, are you? My hands are like ice.’

‘I am afraid I can’t stay long,’ she said abruptly. The idea that her arrival might have made him feel better, that her presence might have the effect of a positive stimulant, irritated her. ‘I need to get back promptly today – or they’ll wonder what’s become of me.’

‘Who’s they? If you don’t mind me asking.’

‘My husband,’ she said. ‘I am married now.’

‘Married? I am so glad… I didn’t mean to pry… I feared I – I might have ruined your life.’ His breathing was again becoming extremely laboured.

He feared he might have ruined her life. She remained silent and still, but her hands clenched into fists. Fury rose inside her – the sudden urge to attack him – to batter at his face with her fists. She wanted to push him off the bed and kick him till she smashed every bone in his body. Suddenly she felt extremely hot. She broke out into a sweat. She took off her gloves.

You don’t understand. You did ruin my life. You destroyed me. That’s why I am here.

‘You have forgiven me, haven’t you, Bee?’ His voice was barely audible. He was peering at her. He sounded extremely anxious. ‘Really forgiven me?’ He looked like an ancient tortoise – the way he pushed his head forward. He was only – what? Sixty – sixty-one? The illness had made him look a hundred.

She stared down at her hands. I haven’t forgiven you. You fool. You think you know me but you don’t. You don’t under-stand a thing. I could tear you apart with my bare hands. The only reason you are still alive is because it gives me such great joy to watch you die.

Suddenly Ralph Renshawe’s eyes grew wider with incredulity and fear. He had seen something. A memory had stirred at the back of his mind and that was followed by a shocking realization. His eyes darted towards the buzzer. Then something equally curious happened. He gave a little sigh; he sank back and a tight little smile appeared on his bluish lips.

She was not aware of the changes in his expression; she had been looking at the crucifix on the wall once more, at the pathetic, broken figure of the Christ. Stick-like arms and legs, tiny cache-sex, dolorous, rolled-up eyes, agonized mouth. Her lip curled scornfully. Orthodox religions filled her with contempt. Christianity she deemed particularly bogus. How could anyone accept the idea of a benign all-loving, all-caring, all-powerful Creator?

An all-loving Creator wouldn’t have allowed her little girl to perish.