The Death of Corinne

24

Vous Qui Passez Sans Me Voir

Jonson and Major Payne appeared at the door. Neither of them spoke. Jonson was fully dressed. Payne was wearing his trousers, pyjama top and dressing gown.

Antonia’s eyes fixed on Jonson. He looked unwell – troubled. His face was extremely pale and a little puffy, with dark circles round his eyes. His hair was uncombed. He seemed to have aged overnight. She saw him shut and open his eyes several times, then shake his head, the way people did when they imagined they might be dreaming. He then spoke and made it clear to the boy Nicholas that he wanted him out of the greenhouse that very minute. At first Nicholas pretended he hadn’t understood, but eventually he obeyed, though with sulky ill grace.

For several moments Hugh and Jonson stood silently, looking down at the bodies of the two women. The scene could be described as terrifying, yet with every second that elapsed, it seemed more and more unreal… Antonia was put in mind of the time they had done The Duchess of Malfi back at school and the fun they had had, splashing red paint about and over each other.

She showed them the passport.

It was Payne who broke the silence. ‘The Merchant. Incredible. So she did manage to get here after all!’

Jonson passed his hand over his face and Antonia heard him take a deep breath. ‘Yes… It is – incredible…’

‘It looks as though Maginot found the Merchant lurking here and the Merchant shot her,’ Payne said. ‘After which she proceeded to blow her own brains out… Maginot intended to check all the outbuildings last night, didn’t she?’ He turned towards Jonson. ‘Did you know Maginot was coming to the greenhouse?’

‘Not to the greenhouse, specifically. I knew she was checking the grounds. I did insist I do the outside and she the inside, but she said no.’ Jonson spoke haltingly. ‘She asked me to go around the house – check all the rooms… The lofts and the cellars… It – it should have been the other way round, but she wouldn’t be swayed – she got angry when I suggested it.’

‘She looked exalted,’ Payne murmured. ‘Unstoppable. Bursting with confidence. Dangerously bellicose – ’

‘Vive la guerre,’ Antonia said.

‘Quite – the way she brandished Uncle Rory’s niblick. Not that it helped her -’

Antonia reflected that no one was pretending to be in any way saddened by the deaths. Shocked and unsettled and sickened, yes, but no more than that. They had never known Eleanor Merchant, but the picture that had emerged from her letters gave one a strong dose of the shudders. Maitre Maginot, while alive, hadn’t invited any warm feelings either. Contrary to what John Donne wrote, not every death diminishes us – there are deaths that simply don’t, Antonia thought.

She saw her husband’s eyes travel from the gun clutched in Eleanor Merchant’s hand to the torch that lay beside Eleanor’s body. He then looked at Maitre Maginot’s body and back at Eleanor’s. He seemed to be trying to estimate the distance between the two bodies. He cleared his throat. ‘Yes, it does look as though Maginot discovered the skulking Merchant, who panicked, whipped out her gun and shot her. I don’t suppose the Merchant had any idea as to who it was she had shot -’

‘Stop calling her the Merchant,’ Antonia said. She was annoyed by his flippancy. They didn’t have to stand around with bowed heads and whisper and put on a show of respect they did not feel, but it was poor taste, making someone who had died a horribly violent death appear ridiculous.

‘I stand corrected… We can assume that Mrs Eleanor Merchant went to the body and flashed her torch on it. I don’t suppose Maginot’s face meant much to her, but one thing Mrs Eleanor Merchant must have become aware of at once – namely, that she’d never be able to get Corinne now, not after what she’d done. She must have realized she’d lost the game. So – she turns the gun on herself and pulls the trigger. She probably meant to kill herself all along, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Well, she bought only a one-way ticket… Her son had killed himself… A suicidal streak might have been in her blood,’ Antonia said thoughtfully. She found she was standing by the bamboo table. There was a book on it: Who’s Who in EastEnders, also a magazine: Vogue.

‘What did you do last night?’ Payne asked Jonson. ‘I mean, after you checked the bedrooms?’

Jonson said that he had gone to bed. He had fallen asleep almost at once. He had been dog-tired. Jonson spoke haltingly. ‘It was about midnight. Maitre Maginot said she’d call me on her mobile if she noticed anything suspicious, only she didn’t, so – so I assumed everything was fine and that she’d come back to the house and gone to bed herself. I heard no noise. Nothing. No shots.’

‘No one would have heard any shots. The gun’s got a silencer,’ Payne said.

‘I never thought Eleanor Merchant could be anywhere near the house.’ Jonson shook his head. ‘I didn’t think she could be in England

… I didn’t think it possible…’

There was a pause. ‘That phone call last night,’ Payne said. ‘The American woman who rang while we were having coffee. She introduced herself as a – chat-show hostess? She wanted to talk to Corinne. What did Provost say her name was?’

‘Thora – no, Tricia – Tricia Swindon,’ Jonson said. ‘Some such name.’

‘And she rang off as soon as she heard Maginot’s voice? That must have been Eleanor Merchant.’

A muffled noise was heard from the doorway. Nicholas was standing there furtively, looking in, his hand cupped over his nose.

‘I told you to go away,’ Jonson called out to him. The boy disappeared, this time for good. They saw him through the window, walking across the lawn towards the house. Jonson said, ‘It must have been Eleanor Merchant who phoned, yes. On her mobile. Heaven knows what she’d been hoping to achieve.’

‘She probably didn’t know herself,’ Payne said astutely.

Antonia was looking down at the cover of the magazine, at the picture of the super-thin model and the Siamese cat. For some reason she found herself thinking of the photo she had found in Jonson’s case once more… Corinne Coreille had been snapped sitting at her dressing table – she had taken time off from applying her make-up to stroke a kitten… A kitten, yes. A live kitten. The kitten seemed to have jumped on the table… There was no kipper on the table – Jonson had made that up. He had been about to say ‘kitten’ but had changed his mind… Nicholas on the other hand kept sneezing because he was allergic to plants… Now, why did she think there was a connection between the two? An association of ideas…

Antonia frowned. Something was stirring at the back of her mind. A memory was about to surface – it was something both Lady Grylls and Peverel had mentioned… Hope I am not getting unhinged, she thought, casting a glance at Eleanor Merchant’s body and immediately looking away.

‘That kitten in the photograph,’ she said aloud. ‘Where did it come from?’

Jonson stared at her. He looked like a man who was waking up from a dream. ‘It was a stray – one of the gardeners had found it and brought it into the house. Mademoiselle Coreille apparently took a fancy to it.’ He spoke mechanically. ‘I understand Maitre Maginot and Mademoiselle Coreille had an argument about it. Maitre Maginot objected strongly -’ He broke off. ‘How do you know there’s a kitten in the photograph?’

‘You told us,’ Antonia said.

‘I didn’t -’ Suddenly Jonson looked terrified.

‘Oh, but you did.’ I can bluff too, Antonia thought, though she felt rather sorry for him. ‘Kipper’, he had said to avoid saying ‘kitten’. A silly lie – he’d been unable to think of another word. He was a poor liar.

‘We must be getting back to the house,’ Payne said, looking at his watch. ‘I expect the police will be here any moment now and they will be cross if they find the three of us cooped up with the bodies.’

‘Yes,’ Jonson said. ‘Yes.’ Without another word, he turned round and left the greenhouse.

‘I touched Eleanor’s passport,’ Antonia said.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ Payne said.

‘I held it very lightly – by the corners.’

‘It doesn’t matter. You’ve as good as signed it with your full name. There’s no escape from the old DNA. If the police decided the Merchant didn’t do it after all, you’d be their next prime suspect, d’you realize?’

Antonia cast one last glance at the bodies. The good ended happily and the bad ended unhappily, she thought absurdly.

‘What was Corinne’s reaction to the news?’ Antonia asked a few moments later as they were walking across the lawn towards the house.

‘I don’t know if she’s been told anything yet. Somehow, I don’t expect her to have hysterics – do you?’

‘No…’

‘You’d never believe this, but it’s like in that damned French song Antonia was talking about yesterday morning. The one she heard in a dream,’ Lady Grylls said as soon as she saw them. ‘What was it called? “Vous Qui Passez Sans Me Voir”.’

‘What do you mean, darling?’ Payne frowned.

‘Corinne’s disappeared – and no one’s seen her go. She is nowhere to be found. Her bags have gone too.’