Murder at the Villa Byzantine

32

The Exterminating Angel

A lugubrious El Greco horizon suffused with inky rain – a sudden flash of lightning darting across the sky, then a second one. The driver had mentioned a storm. It’s the kind of setting that lends itself to melodrama, she thought.

Under the low-hanging clouds the Villa Byzantine loomed, gloom-shrouded and desolate. More yews – thick and black and forbidding. Why did she keep noticing yews? Yews were said to be symbols of death.

An earlier splash of rain had soaked the fallen leaves into a paste of dark slush under her feet. Miss Hope exclaimed, ‘Oh dear, look at me. Up to my eyes in mud. People will think I have been playing catch-as-catch-can with pigs!’

Winifred Willard didn’t say a word. She stood by the front door, opened her handbag and took out the key. She had managed to have a replica made of one of Tancred’s keys – she’d never told him, but she didn’t think he would mind. No, of course he wouldn’t.

She unlocked the door and went in. She stood in the hall and breathed in the sweet smell of lavender, beeswax and pot-pourri. She smiled again, remembering those fifties American films. Honey, I’m home! It was always the husband who said it, the wife was invariably in the kitchen, baking a cake.

There was a clap of thunder. All the window panes rattled. Although it was only morning, the hall was dark. She didn’t really like this house. It had a certain – atmosphere. She wouldn’t have called it a happy house. No. The sooner Tancred got rid of it, the better.

‘Now this is what I want you to do. Please listen very carefully. I would be extremely grateful if you didn’t interrupt.’

Winifred had spoken with strange incisiveness. Happening to glance into the tall silver-framed mirror on the wall, she noted that Miss Hope’s face was now quite expressionless.

‘Would you stop for a moment, please?’

But Miss Hope didn’t stop. She pretended she hadn’t heard. It was clear that Miss Hope resented being told what to do. She was stubborn as a mule. They started going up the stairs.

The front door opened noiselessly and was shut at once.

(If she had glanced back over her shoulder Winifred would have seen the killer, but she didn’t.)

The killer stood in the shadow of the grandfather clock and listened as Winifred Willard proceeded to give instructions to Miss Hope.

‘Everything must disappear. Some of it is bona fide, which is a shame. I am sure you know that Tancred did have other sources of information, you were not the only one. I am talking about reliable sources, but it is all mixed up with your lies – so it is no good.’

(Talking to herself, the killer thought.)

‘Tancred will be so upset,’ Miss Hope bleated. ‘Can’t we keep some of it?’

‘I am afraid we can’t. There is no way round it,’ Winifred said. ‘Allow one rotten apple in – and the whole barrel is contaminated.’

‘Tancred will be devastated.’

‘Tancred will understand. It will be a shock at first, but he will understand. I will explain everything to him. What good are bogus biographies to anybody?’

‘Some people would read anything. Books with titles like Reheated Cabbage and Pregnant Widows.’

‘Should such people be encouraged?’ I don’t know why I am talking to her, Winifred thought.

‘Tancred will have a nervous breakdown.’

‘He won’t. Tancred is a young man. He is strong and resilient.’

The door to Pupil Room was open. The owl doorstop was in place, preventing the door from shutting. The doorstop was in the shape of an owl whose solemn bespectacled face, it suddenly struck Winifred, looked uncannily like that of Miss Hope.

Pupil Room was sunk in gloom. The curtains were half-drawn across the windows. The moment she entered, a flash of lightning lit the study with searchlight brilliance and while it lingered, dimming and brightening, for a split second too bright to look at, the inevitable thunder rolled and cracked.

Winifred crossed to the desk and switched on a brassbase table lamp. She glanced at the book that lay on the desk. Waiting for Princess Margaret. An anti-memoir, Tancred had called it. Flawed but fascinating. Winifred’s eyes strayed to the petunias in the small vase – they were quite dead now. Tancred’s ‘domestic help’ was far from efficient. Winifred pursed her lips. When they were married, she’d give the slouch the sack.

Her eyes passed over a sepia photograph showing Hitler shaking King Boris’ hand. Tancred believed the photograph had been taken in 1943, at the start of the fatal visit. Boris had died soon after his return from Germany. There had been rumour and endless speculation that Hitler had had something to do with the death…

Winifred turned on the computer. As she waited for the icons to come up, another clap of thunder shook the windows and the next moment the rain came, a battering kind of sound, like a hail of bullets… It was a firing squad that had executed Prince Cyril… There seemed to be reminders of death everywhere today… There had been a dead mole in the garden that morning… Winifred had put on her gardening gloves, picked it up, wrapped it in an old copy of the Telegraph and dropped it in the bin. She was not the least bit squeamish.

Documents. Exactly what she wanted. There it was. For a second she hesitated. No – never slack your hand in the day of battle!

Prince Cyril biography. Delete.

She stooped a little, her eyes above the half-moon glasses fixed on the computer screen. Her hand became busy.

Click – click – click – and click.

There it was. So easy. The work of a moment!

All gone. The so-called ‘biography’ was no more. Thank God.

She could imagine Professor Goldsworthy waiting in vain for the Vane papers…

It was all over! The relief of it! The damage had been undone. She felt the knot in her stomach start loosening. She had been envisaging problems. She had imagined Miss Hope might put up a fight!

‘Well done,’ she told Miss Hope. ‘Now take Tancred’s black leather notebook – there it is – and put it in your bag. We’ll deal with that later. How about a bonfire tonight?’

Winifred thought she heard the stairs creak, then the sound of footfalls across the landing. Suddenly she remembered the slamming of the car door she had heard earlier on. Had she imagined it? Could Tancred have returned? Her hand went up to her mouth. What if Tancred were suddenly to come into Pupil Room? What would he do when he realized she had destroyed the Prince Cyril biography? Well, it would be a shock – he might fly off the handle – he might get into a blind rage, pick up the owl doorstop and She told herself that such wild fantasies were unworthy of her. Tancred would never hurt her. Besides, she couldn’t imagine Tancred in a blind rage – going berserk – no, of course not – why, he was the gentlest of men – apart from being a gentleman.

She heard a scraping sound – exactly as though the owl had been removed from the space between the door and the floor.

‘You must get out of here, quick,’ Miss Hope whispered urgently in her ear. ‘Don’t stand and stare. Turn round. Look behind you!’

Winifred’s hand went up to her forehead. ‘I have the strangest feeling there are two people inside me.’

The next moment the blow fell.

Without a sound she slumped to the floor.