Murder at the Villa Byzantine

1
Peril at Kinderhook

Major Payne said, ‘We have had our share of murders and disappearances at grand houses, we unmasked the killer of the high-class hooker on the subcontinent and of the baronet at the exclusive retreat in Dulwich, but one thing we don’t seem ever to have tackled is the kind of mystery that is unremittingly suburban. I was thinking about it only the other day. Silly thing to think, but there you are.’

Antonia put away her lipstick and examined her face in the mirror. ‘Do people like reading murder mysteries set in the suburbs? Won’t that be too boring? Peril at Kinderhook…’

‘You suspect some devilry will happen at Kinderhook tonight?’ Payne’s left eyebrow had gone up.

‘I suspect nothing of the sort.’

‘You said Peril at Kinderhook.’

‘I thought it would make a good title, that’s all. You need so little encouragement.’

‘Is there perhaps something you know and I don’t?’

‘There isn’t. OK, it’s an odd name and it’s an odd-looking house and Melisande Chevret has definite possibilities, but that’s all. To tell you the truth, I am not at all wild about going.’

‘Would you rather we stayed at home and watched the box? Or we could play canasta. You are getting awfully good at it, you know.’

‘I am not at all keen on the box either, but at least I won’t have to talk to people I don’t know.’

‘Hell is other people, eh?’

‘I wouldn’t go as far as that… I believe I am shy.’

‘Your social manner is impeccable. You possess enviable poise as well as ease.’

‘It’s all an act… I don’t feel like playing canasta tonight. I suppose we could do the Times crossword. Or we could have an early night and read in bed… Oh, I hate it when I am indecisive! Don’t you hate me when I am indecisive?’

‘I love you in any and every state you happen to be in.’ Payne kissed her.

‘No – we must go. We’ve got the flowers and everything. Of course we’ll go. It’s only down the road anyway.’

‘Where did you say you and Melisande Chevret met? At the local Women’s Institute?’

‘At Wild Oats. We keep bumping into each other. Whenever I go in, she is there, or if I am already there, she suddenly makes an entrance. She is the kind that makes an entrance, yes. She is very dramatic. I must say she is always extremely charming to me.’

‘Perhaps she’s managed to engineer these meetings somehow? Perhaps it’s all leading up to something? Perhaps tonight is the night?’

‘The night for what?’

‘Some hair-raising outrage. Kinder sacrifice? Soul-bartering? Incidentally, what is wild oats in this particular context – not what young men sow?’

‘The local organic shop. You know that perfectly well.’ Antonia gave him a sideways glance. ‘I hope you won’t be saying silly things when we get there. Please. Don’t show off. Especially not in front of Melisande Chevret. Please.’

‘I am not entirely familiar with the local topography,’ Payne protested. ‘I don’t go shopping as often as you do.’

‘Perhaps you should.’ Antonia draped a scarf round her neck and patted her hair. ‘Melisande Chevret enjoys attention. The man who owns Wild Oats treats her like royalty. He is always dancing and bowing and scraping and tugging at his forelock when she is around. I think she likes that.’

‘It seems to be our lot, meeting people who are in the middle of some impossible drama, or else on the brink of perpetrating some terrible thing, have you noticed?’ Payne stroked his chin with his forefinger. ‘Or who are in some way desperate.’

Antonia said she didn’t think Melisande Chevret was desperate. ‘It’s her birthday.’

‘For some people that’s cause for desperation. How old is she? Seventy-eight? Eighty-three?’

‘I don’t think she is eighty-three. Don’t be silly.’

‘Sixty-six? The number of the beast.’

‘I don’t think anyone is meant to know her age. I suspect she is a little older than me, though of course she looks younger than me. I am not sure we should mention the word “birthday” at all. It is a cocktail party we’ve been invited to, don’t forget.’

‘I’ve never been to a birthday party masquerading as a cocktail party before. Did you say she had an older sister? So these are the people who bought Kinderhook. Two sisters. Chekhovian, almost.’

‘Melisande pointed out that she and I were the only celebrities in the area. I am not really a celebrity, am I?’

Payne said that Antonia was what was known as a ‘minor celebrity’. ‘You have written five detective novels. There are a number of blogs devoted to you. You were on the box last Friday. That was quite a performance,’ he went on reminiscently. ‘You tore strips off that play.’

Antonia had appeared on Friday Review.

‘I don’t think I was particularly horrid, was I?’

‘You used phrases like a “masterclass in pure theatrical torpor”. You said there was an almost epic scale to the play’s dullness. You said the sets were so horribly huge that even Fritz Lang would have considered them somewhat de trop. You were devastatingly witty. You made everybody laugh. If I were the playwright,’ said Payne, ‘I’d shoot myself with my old army revolver.’

‘Oh nonsense, Hugh. It’s a well-known fact that playwrights thrive on controversy, infamy, censorship and disgrace. As it happens, that particular playwright is already dead – has been dead for more than three hundred years. We are talking about Thomas Middleton.’

‘Middleton? Really? I must have dozed off.’

‘It was the direction and the production I criticized.’

‘In that case, it’s the director and the producer who should shoot themselves with their old army revolvers,’ Payne said smoothly.

‘Have you got the flowers?’ ‘Here they are. Should I kiss Melisande Chevret’s hand?’ ‘Certainly not. It will give her ideas. Purple roses – why purple?’

‘I thought purple appropriate for the mistress of Kinderhook somehow. Is my tie straight? I could have toddled along in my dressing gown and slippers… It’s acceptable in suburbia, isn’t it? Neighbours don’t stand on ceremony and so on.’

‘That would definitely give Melisande Chevret ideas.’

‘I must say you paint a somewhat disturbing picture of Melisande Chevret. Is she really a man-eater? I am scared now. I am not sure I want to go.’

They went out. Payne locked the front door. It was a warm evening in early August. The sun was sailing low in a pink and gold sky.

‘One can easily imagine an actress being called Melisande Chevret. It’s a jolly striking name,’ Payne went on. ‘Would you describe her as the kind of woman whose manner is normally faintly histrionic and often more emphatically so?’

‘I would. She likes to strike attitudes.’

‘The kind that either gets terribly excited or terribly upset about things and finds all that is in between sort of beige?’

‘That wouldn’t be a bad way of putting it.’

‘Perhaps you will make her the anti-heroine at the very heart of your next novel. She sounds just right for the kind of murder mystery you write,’ Payne said portentously. ‘Is she divorced or widowed?’

‘Divorced, I imagine.’

Payne gave his man-of-the-world nod and said that actresses were always divorced and, in that respect, minor actresses were the worst offenders. Hadn’t Antonia noticed?

Five minutes later they stood inside the drawing room at Kinderhook. Their hostess had gone to the kitchen to have a word with the two hired waiters.

‘I hate arriving first,’ Antonia whispered.

‘I thought it was being ushered into a crowded room you didn’t like… I have actually seen her before. She drives about in a cerise-coloured two-seater. She always wears a scarf round her head and dark glasses, even when it is far from sunny. The Garbo touch. Her nose is a perfect shape. She is the diva divina type. She seems in a febrile state – is she always like that?’

‘I believe she gave you the glad eye.’

‘I am sure you imagined it.’

‘I didn’t imagine it.’

‘You are notorious for your writer’s imagination. The roses were a hit. She adores purple roses. I believe she meant it. I promise to try not to say anything remotely funny,’ said Payne firmly. ‘We don’t want another Bee Ardleigh kind of situation, do we?’

‘She seems worried someone might not turn up, it’s the way she keeps glancing at her watch.’

‘I bet it’s her newly acquired toy-boy who’s causing her anxiety-’

‘Keep your voice down.’ Antonia cast a nervous glance at the door. ‘Terrible manners, standing around whispering!’

‘Golly, she was Joan of Arc – look at those photos!’ Payne pointed to the wall. ‘I’d say that photo was taken about thirty-five years ago. Theatrical make-up is a great giveaway. I must say she’s holding the sword most expertly – like a real pro. And there she is with a cocktail shaker, looking adventurous in taffeta – what play would that be?’

‘Some drawing-room comedy. William Douglas-Home?’

‘It could be an Agatha Christie… Spider’s Web? I wonder if she was Clarissa… D’you think she’d make a good murderess?’

‘Do you mean on stage or in real life? I can’t imagine her having the patience to plot and premeditate… Clarissa didn’t murder anyone, did she?’

‘No. She only told a lot of lies and tried to conceal a dead body. If Melisande Chevret did commit a murder,’ Payne said, ‘it would be in a fit of extravagant passion, which she would later regret-’

‘Shush – she’s coming.’

‘You’ll never believe this, but my sister has decided to put in an appearance. That in itself should be a cause for celebration.’ Melisande Chevret brought her hands together. ‘This morning she threatened she would lock herself in her room.’

‘I didn’t threaten anything of the sort.’ Melisande’s sister smiled.

‘You refused to come down to breakfast, darling.’

‘I didn’t “refuse”. I was extremely busy. I simply had to finish that book-’

‘I’d go blind or mad if I read as much as my sister, but Win is so terribly disciplined. My sister lives in organized rigour. I am the complete opposite. The light in this house is awful. So sorry, I’m forgetting my manners – Antonia and Hugh Payne – my sister Winifred.’ Melisande Chevret turned on Payne a gaze of embarrassing brilliance – the kind that ‘projected’ across footlights, he thought.

‘How do you do?’ Winifred extended her hand. ‘I don’t think your house has a name, has it?’

‘No, only a humble number,’ said Payne.

‘I hate houses with names,’ Melisande said.

‘I believe you have a cat?’ Winifred said.

‘Yes. His name is Dupin,’ said Antonia. ‘Do you like cats?’

‘I used to like cats. I have mixed feelings about cats.’

‘This must be the worst-lit room I have ever been in. I believe we all look like drowned people floating at the bottom of a lake.’ Melisande sighed. ‘For some reason nothing seems right tonight – or is it just me?’

‘I have heard about you of course, Antonia, but I’m afraid I haven’t read any of your books,’ Winifred said. ‘I read all the time, but rarely for pleasure these days.’

‘You aren’t by any chance a publisher’s reader? A small independent publisher?’ Payne suggested.

‘Yes… How did you know?’

‘I told you Hugh was frightfully good, didn’t I? I said he was bound to astound us all. Well, I was right!’ Melisande grimaced enigmatically at Payne. She laid her hand on his arm. ‘Do not be alarmed. I do not dabble in the dark arts. I tend to hear things, that’s all. I believe “Hugh” means “bright in mind and in spirit”, correct? I used to have a boyfriend called Hugh, that’s how I know.’

‘Would it amuse you to know that in Pig Latin “Hugh Payne” is “Ughhay Aynepay”?’ Payne avoided Antonia’s eye.

‘This is one of the funniest things I have ever heard in my life!’ Melisande laughed and clapped her hands.

‘I used to enjoy my job. I try to like the books I read, I really do, but slush piles are depressing things,’ Winifred said. ‘I’m afraid bad writing leaves me completely demoralized.’

‘I have never regarded acting as a “job”,’ Melisande said. ‘Actors are the opposite of people!’

‘I read a review of one of your books, Antonia. It was in the Telegraph, I think. The plot was described as “flowing with the fluid precision of the Changing of the Guard”.’

‘That was a bit silly,’ Antonia said quickly.

Winifred smiled. ‘The whole book was “cunningly conceived, satisfyingly shaped and enormously entertaining”. I’ll certainly get some of your books now that I have met you.’

‘You needn’t bother, really.’ Remarks like that always threw Antonia into an agony of embarrassment. At the same time she decided Winifred would be more interesting to talk to than her sister.

‘I love detective stories. Always have, since I was a girl. Nobody seems to take any care over plotting any longer, do they? Most modern crime writers seem obsessed with – issues. Commendable but tedious.’

‘I love stories that deal with the destruction of innocence and the corrupting effects of great wealth.’ Melisande spoke in a serio-comic voice.

She can’t bear not occupying the centre-stage, Payne thought.

‘Who is your publisher?’ Winifred asked.

Antonia told her.

‘I understand they don’t pay large advances.’

‘They don’t.’

‘I am no longer interested in money,’ Melisande said. ‘I intend to spend the next thirty years of my life educating my emotions. One doesn’t need money for that. If everything else fails, I’ll go into a nunnery.’ She glanced at her watch.

Does she ever mean anything she says? Antonia wondered.

Although their features were not dissimilar, one wouldn’t have been able to tell at once that Winifred and Melisande were sisters. With her demure chignon, virginal bosom and restrained, somewhat wistful manner, sensible dress and shoes, Winifred Willard might have stepped out of the pages of an Anita Brookner novel. Melisande, on the other hand, was highly strung, restlessly temperamental, brittle and ‘young’. Her eyes were a curious yellow-brown colour. She had good cheekbones, but clearly that was not enough – her face was heavily made up, her hair had been dyed copper; it was short and swept back boldly. She wore a little black dress, an Etruscan-style necklace and high heels.

More guests were expected to arrive at any moment, though not an awful lot, Melisande said. No other neighbours, no. She didn’t really care for the people who lived on either side of Kinderhook, she had to admit. They had made overtures, they seemed good, decent people, one saw them in their landscaped gardens at all times, building rockeries or hunting for moles, even in the foulest weather, but they were not her sort of people. No, no luminaries from the theatre world either – she was sorry if Hugh and Antonia were disappointed – it would be an intimate gathering – her fiance, her agent and a playwright friend, whose one-woman show Tallulah Melisande had performed a couple of years back, to spectacular acclaim.

‘Drinks! Do let’s have drinks – and something to eat. I hope you like pheasant pate? It’s organic. We look awfully solemn – awfully static – or is that the light? The light is all wrong tonight.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,’ Winifred said.

‘I’m afraid I am too temperamental. I seem to be one of those unfortunate human beings on whom fairy godmothers bestow moods rather than qualities. This is supposed to be the happiest day of my life. I should be in a blissful, glowing, untouchable kind of state, only I am not! There’s plenty of crushed ice, thank God. I don’t think I could have survived without crushed ice.’ Once more Melisande laid her hand on Payne’s arm. ‘Hugh, would you be an angel and open one of the windows? There isn’t enough air in the room. Am I being neurotic?’

‘You are being neurotic,’ Winifred said good-humouredly.

‘I do feel awful. I may need an oxygen mask soon- Oh! That must be James!’ Melisande exclaimed as the front door bell rang. ‘Thank God! At long last! I’ll never forgive James for making me wait, never! One thing I hate more than anything else in the world is waiting. I forgot to mention it, but James is bringing some people I’ve never met before, he told me at the eleventh hour. Hope they won’t be too boring. I have no idea who they are.’