The hunt for Sonya Dufrette

10

Sleuths on the Scent

About an hour and a half later they were sitting at a table inside the club dining room. Major Payne had insisted that they continue over lunch. Antonia rarely had lunch at the club. She usually went to a cafe in Piccadilly.

For a while they found it impossible to talk. The place was full. Quite a few of the club members seemed to be entertaining visitors. There were at least six women wearing smart hats and laughing a lot. The table next to theirs was occupied by two extremely distinguished-looking elderly gentlemen, one sporting a white carnation in his buttonhole, both rather portly and flushed with the wine they had been drinking, also rather deaf, for they were talking at the tops of their voices.

‘Suez did destroy his health, you are absolutely right,’ one was saying as Antonia and Major Payne sat down. ‘That and his amorous indiscretions.’ He winked at Antonia and nodded at Payne conspiratorially.

‘He was never the same man after Suez. I was with him when he went on that cruise, you know.’

‘Really? Part of Eden’s entourage, eh? When was that? ’56?‘

“57. As a matter of fact I was one of his secretaries. We sailed to New Zealand. The RMS Rangitata. Lady Eden’s idea. It was meant to be recuperative, though Eden found the heat hard to bear. He kept getting these terrible giddy spells.‘

Soon after they finished their lunch and left, allowing Payne and Antonia to resume their conversation.

‘Is your Egg Florentine all right?’ Major Payne asked, pausing with his spoon filled with carrot-and-ginger soup in mid-air. ‘I can eat eggs only for breakfast… You sure you don’t want any wine? We could have a bottle between us -’

‘Yes, quite sure, thank you. I’ve got things to do in the afternoon.’

‘Keep forgetting you are still at work. Sorry. Won’t do for old Haslett to smell wine on your breath. Better keep our heads clear anyhow. So you say you haven’t seen Lady Mortlock since 1981?’

‘That’s right. I did ring her up a couple of days later, at the beginning of August, and she sounded polite, but extremely distant. She had suddenly turned into a stranger. She said Sir Michael was not at all well and that they’d probably be leaving for Malta quite soon. They had a holiday villa there. I hadn’t completed the job I had been doing for her – the Jourdain family history – so I asked when we were going to resume it. She said she feared the family history would have to be put on hold for a while. There were more important things than one’s family history. She sounded extremely tight-lipped. She’d contact me when they came back, she said. Well, she never did contact me.’

‘Why was that, do you think?’

‘I thought at the time that it was because she didn’t want any reminders of what had happened. I believed she wanted to isolate the whole distressing event in her mind and avoid anything – anyone – that might recall it. I then realized that I’d left some things at Twiston – an attache case, a portable typewriter, some books – which I needed. When I phoned again only a couple of days later, the Mortlocks had gone. It was a Mrs Linley, the housekeeper, who answered the phone. We arranged a date for me to go and collect my stuff, but then David was ill, and I rang again to make another arrangement, but nobody answered the phone. I tried several more times, but it wasn’t till mid-September that I managed to speak to somebody. As it happened, it was Mrs Maloney, the servant who had informed me about Miss Haywood’s departure. She told me that the Mortlocks were still in Malta, but I was welcome to go to Twiston, I only had to say when – she’d be there.’

‘You went?’

‘Yes. The gardens had been tended beautifully. I didn’t care much for the oak. It was the colour of mud. It looked mummified. I suddenly saw it the way Lena had. From a distance it did look like a hideous face distorted in rage.’ Antonia smiled and shook her head. ‘For some reason it made me think of Major Nagle… I bumped into a gardener. I congratulated him on the state of the gardens and he said he was receiving instructions from the Mortlocks’ son, who had come back from America.’

‘I thought the Mortlocks were childless.’

‘They were. George Mortlock is Sir Michael’s son from a previous marriage. He is Lady Mortlock’s stepson.’

‘Did you get to meet him?’

‘No. He hadn’t moved into the house or anything like that. He lived somewhere else, not far, and only came twice a week, to make sure the housekeeper and the servants kept everything in order.’ She paused. ‘It was a warm day, the day I went. The house was very quiet. It looked serene. There was nothing to suggest a tragedy had taken place there so recently. The windows had been left open and the curtains were blowing in the wind. I had the oddest feeling that – that Sonya was there, inside the house.’ Antonia frowned. ‘That she would suddenly appear from behind some curtain and cry, “Boo!” Somehow, at that moment, I felt absolutely sure she wasn’t dead. I remember standing in the middle of the hall – listening, waiting. I convinced myself I heard a child’s laughter but I am sure that was only my imagination. When a door opened, I jumped. Only it was Mrs Maloney. The spell was broken. She gave me a cup of tea. She was very friendly. She chatted away. She told me that the Mortlocks had no immediate intention of coming back to England. Sir Michael was still rather poorly. It was his nerves, she said. That’s what she had heard from the son.’

‘Nervous breakdown?’

‘That was the impression I got. Yes. He was extremely upset when Sonya disappeared. More than I thought possible. I saw him dabbing at his eyes. He was the only one who went up to Lena and put his arm around her shoulders. I remember wondering whether he might not have been in love with her.’

Payne smiled. ‘He might have been. He was known for his penchant for “chubby chicks”. That’s how somebody in the department put it.’

‘He had a Rubens in his study… Well, Sir Michael died the following year – or was it the year after?’

‘He died in 1982,’ Major Payne said. ‘I remember reading his obituary and talking to someone in the department who had known him well. It was exactly thirty years since he had started working at