The Death of Corinne

15

The Haunting

It was early the following day, 2nd April.

Antonia sat in bed writing her diary, a blanket around her shoulders. Her bedside table lamp was on. It was five thirty in the morning and too early to expect tea. The heating had not come on either.

Antonia was dying for a cup of tea. She wished she had accepted Lady Grylls’s offer of an ancient Teasmade. It would have been so nice to have it hissing and spluttering on the bedside table. Beside her Hugh hadn’t stirred… Should she sneak down to the kitchen in her dressing gown and brew herself a pot of tea? No. Too cold. The wind was in the east. She could hear it roaming about the house like a ranging animal, thrusting its paws into the crannies and holes that had been formed as a result of the late Lord Grylls’s reluctance to repair and modernize Chalfont, sniffing under lintels, whining hoarsely the while. Antonia shivered and pulled the blanket round her shoulders. She remembered what Noel Coward had written in his diary after a weekend visit at Chalfont in the mid-1930s: Woke frozen. Shaving sheer agony. Loo like an ice-box. Breakfast a bore.

She concentrated on her diary.

Corinne Coreille is not quite real. (Antonia wrote.) Her perpetual, unchanging youth for one puzzles me. We have been given so much information, some silly, some downright bizarre, all of it fascinating, and yet, like Aunt Nellie, I feel I know nothing about her. What is she like as a person? Really like. Has she got a personality at all, like us, ordinary mortals? She must have and yet I keep thinking of her as belonging to an alien species, as of some fabulous monster, an ageless phantom embalmed in her all-devouring myth.

I had a dream last night. I was walking down a labyrinthine yellow road – hints of Oz? – under crepuscular light. Orchids, roses and other exotic flowers whose names I didn’t know, grew on either side of the road, Triffid-sized, as tall as trees! I had no idea where I was going but I was aware of a sense of anticipation. Then suddenly, at the end of the road, standing on a raised circular platform and revolving like the ballerina on an old-fashioned music box, I saw Corinne. She was singing. It was a song called ‘Vous Qui Passez Sans Me Voir’. (Is there such a song?)

As I went closer, she started vanishing. She took off her hair first, which was just a wig, then peeled off her face, which was a mask, then her hands, the way one removes gloves. Underneath there was nothing. Nothing at all. She never for a moment stopped singing. Eventually her dress fell to the platform and she disappeared completely. It was like H.G. Wells’s invisible man. The platform went on turning round and her disembodied voice went on singing. I felt as though I had witnessed some conjuring trick.

I continue to feel uneasy about Jonson – or Andrew, as Aunt Nellie insists on us calling him. Last night he declared the house and the grounds ‘clean’. The more I get to know him, the more I like him. And yet, I don’t think that he’s told us the whole truth about Corinne Coreille. There is something wrong there. What is it he knows? He couldn’t be the killer, could he? No, of course not. He might have been able to arrange for the death threats to be sent to Corinne in Paris, but how could he possibly have known about Eleanor Merchant and her letters? Well, he could have seen Eleanor’s Saverini website. But zuhy should he want to kill Corinne?

All right – they might have had an affair after she employed his services last year. He might have fallen madly in love with her and become very upset and angry when she broke up the affair. No, that’s nonsense – Corinne wouldn’t be asking him to do another job for her if their parting had been in any way acrimonious, would she?

NB. I need to learn to curb my imagination. This is NOT a detective story.

The rain outside continued pouring down and the wind could be heard wailing in the chimney. The dining-room windows creaked and rattled. (Double glazing was one of the things the late Lord Grylls had considered ‘vulgar’.) All the lights were on and every now and then they flickered. The house, Lady Grylls said, needed rewiring. ‘When I asked Rory to have it done, he told me I knew as much about such matters as your average Masai warrior. He said soda-water siphons knew more about rewiring than I did… D’you know what Rory liked doing best?’ Lady Grylls looked round the table. ’Getting up at the crack of dawn, putting on an old shooting jacket and pottering out to the woods at the back to “investigate” the habits of badgers. Before the badgers he was engrossed in some drama involving a colony of bats. He wrote endless letters to The Times about his “findings”.’

So much for my lavishly lovely spring, Antonia thought as the windows rattled again. The picture that was emerging of the Gryllses’ marriage was not particularly attractive either. Soda-water siphons! Antonia suddenly felt rather depressed. I am glad Lady Grylls had an affair with a Frenchman, she thought defiantly, to boost her spirits.

It was nine o’clock and they were sitting around the polished Queen Anne table, having breakfast. Two kinds of eggs, scrambled and boiled, somewhat overdone rashers of bacon, glue-like porridge, which proved amazingly tasty, Oxford marmalade, toast, tea and coffee. She couldn’t afford kedgeree or devilled kidneys or any such nonsense people staying in country houses seemed to expect, Lady Grylls had declared. Still, the butter pats were pressed with the Grylls baronial coronet, Antonia noticed. Peverel, they were informed by Provost, had left very early in the morning in his car.

‘It’s a filthy day but these are glad tidings.’ Lady Grylls cast an affectionate glance at Jonson who was standing by the sideboard, plate in hand. She seemed to be crediting him as the main contributor to her nephew’s departure. She lit a cigarette, then picked up her cup and took a sip of coffee. ‘You are not eating much, Antonia. You aren’t on a diet, are you?’

‘No… I don’t think I should be on a diet, should I?’

‘By no means – but Hugh might have been giving you ideas. Men are funny about that sort of thing. Elizabeth was thin.’ Lady Grylls lowered her voice. ‘Too thin, I always thought.’ Elizabeth was the name of the first Mrs Payne.

‘I didn’t like it.’ Payne spoke from behind The Times. ‘I told her but she wouldn’t listen.’

Antonia felt absurdly gratified.

Provost had left the dining-room door open and the telephone was heard ringing in the hall. That was the third time since they had started breakfast. Jonson looked up. Lady Grylls leant back in her chair and said, ‘I bet it’s our friend, the anonymous caller, again.’ Payne pulled at his lower lip and shot Antonia a glance. Eventually Provost entered the dining room. He looked across at his mistress, his brows slightly raised.

‘The anonymous caller?’ Lady Grylls said.

‘Yes, m’lady.’

‘He means business, clearly. Whatever his business is. Again – not a word – just breathing?’

‘Yes, m’lady.’

‘Breathing! Wrong time of the day. I mean that’s the kind of call one normally receives late at night, not during breakfast.’ She guffawed.

‘The call lasted four and a half seconds exactly. I timed it. I said hello several times and asked who it was, but the person rang off. The same as earlier on.’

‘Man or woman, d’you think?’

‘Couldn’t say, m’lady… Woman, I think.’

‘Really? How interesting. How could you tell?’

‘I don’t know, m’lady.’

‘Breathing like a woman… Breathing like a man… Do women breathe differently from men? Oh well. Never mind. The world’s full of crackpots,’ Lady Grylls declared cheerfully and poured herself more coffee. ‘I loved that puzzle you told us last night, Hughie. About the dead man in the middle of the field with the square package beside him. I don’t suppose you know any more like that?’

‘Oh, no – no more puzzles, please,’ Antonia said.

‘As a matter of fact I do.’ Payne pushed The Times to one side. ‘Did I tell you the one about the woman kissing a stranger?’

‘No – but I rather like the sound of it.’

‘Very well. A woman is walking in the street. Suddenly she rushes towards a man and gives him a long kiss on the lips that attracts everybody’s attention. She has no idea who the man is. Why should she want to kiss him?’

‘And I suppose he is not madly attractive? No. Well, she knows her husband’s following her and she wants to make him jealous? That’s what I would have done, if Rory had been the least bit jealous, which he wasn’t.’ Lady Grylls paused wistfully. ‘That’s not the correct answer, is it?’

‘No. The man’s had a fit and is lying on the ground. She gives him the kiss of life.’

Lady Grylls looked enchanted. ‘A fit! Oh, you are so frightfully clever! A fit!’

A tinkling crash on the terrace betokened the fall of yet another tile from the roof. There was a pause. Major Payne said, ‘Could that have been the Merchant? I mean the person who keeps phoning.’

‘Don’t call her the Merchant, Hugh… How could she possibly know this number?’ Antonia looked at Jonson.

He shook his head. ‘She couldn’t. Maitre Maginot said nobody knew it, apart from her and Corinne. She couldn’t know the address either.’

‘Ah, but you are forgetting that people of a lunatic cast of mind like the Merchant are terribly cunning,’ Lady Grylls said. ‘Method in their madness and all that… Does anyone want more toast?’

Antonia looked round the table and asked, ‘Is there a song called “Vous Qui Passez Sans Me Voir”?’

‘You who pass without seeing me?’ Payne translated. ‘Not one of Corinne’s, is it?’

‘I don’t know. I believe I dreamt about it.’ Antonia smiled. ‘It would be very odd if no such song existed.’

Jonson cleared his throat. ‘I think it’s an old song. One of Jean Sablon’s,’ he said, going red. ’Jean Sablon was a crooner. France’s answer to Bing Crosby -‘ He broke off, aware of their eyes on him. ’I like French songs. I developed a taste after – um – after I heard Corinne Coreille sing.’

‘About that photo you found in Emilie’s locker, old boy. The photo of Corinne sitting in front of her mirror, putting on her make-up. With the kipper in front of her and so on. I don’t suppose you have it here, have you?’ Payne said. The night before he had told Antonia that he found the kipper business damned odd. ‘I’d like to take a squint at it, if possible. I’ve been wondering what Corinne looks like these days.’

Antonia was watching Jonson and she was convinced that there was an infinitesimal pause – a flicker of the eyelids – before he shook his head. No, he didn’t have the photo. He had handed it over to Mademoiselle Coreille – together with the negative – and the film.

He was lying. This time there was no doubt about it. He wasn’t used to telling lies. He was a decent man and, like most decent men, a bad liar. That’s why he kept giving himself away. For some reason he had kept the photograph. No – had a copy made. Why had he done that? For his records? She saw him cast his eyes upwards, at the ceiling, and look down at once. His hands were on the table – she saw them clench and unclench… Not only did he have a copy of the photograph, but for some reason he had brought it to Chalfont with him! Antonia felt great excitement surge through her. Yes. The photograph was in his room – in his briefcase, most probably. Antonia had caught sight of several files and manila envelopes when Jonson had taken Eleanor Merchant’s letters and the death threats out of it… For some reason Jonson didn’t want them to see the photo.

It would be interesting to know why. Extremely interesting… Why had he brought the photo with him? That case was over, finished. Was it to remind himself of his past triumph? As proof of it? He didn’t look the type who did that sort of thing… Why do people carry photos with them? For sentimental reasons? For blackmailing purposes? Now that was an interesting line of thought… There was something in that photo Jonson didn’t want them to see. What was it? She needed to find out. She must find out.

She was going to ask Hugh to keep Jonson occupied while she went up to his room and looked inside his briefcase… When should she do it? Antonia glanced at the rain-bespattered windows. Well, no better time than the present.

The conversation at the breakfast table had turned to billiards. Jonson was saying that he rather enjoyed playing whenever he got the chance. As a matter of fact, so did he, Payne said. There was a billiard room at Chalfont, did Jonson know? Yes, he had been in it the night before, briefly, Jonson said, during the ‘checks’.

‘Rory and I used to have the odd game. He always accused me of cheating. Why don’t you two boys have a game?’ Lady Grylls urged and she offered to keep the score for them.

‘Yes, why don’t you?’ Antonia said casually. ‘The perfect solution for a wet day.’