The hunt for Sonya Dufrette

13

Mothers and Daughters

Reaching the end of Elizabeth Street, the main shopping quarter of Belgravia, Antonia stopped and took stock of her surroundings. The blocks of mansion flats off Eaton Square were solid in nature, giving evidence of having been built to last, though their Georgian facades were extremely pleasing to the eye too. Wasn’t it somewhere here that Lord Lucan had had a flat? Antonia found Coburg Court Mansions soon enough and she entered a rather magnificent hall with a mosaic floor, potted palms, geometrical lights and sun-ray pattern mirrors on the walls. A man who looked like a Field Marshal, but who was actually a commissionaire, greeted her portentously. ‘Lady Mortlock? Third floor, flat number five. Does Miss Garnett know you are paying them a visit? She does?’ He opened the lift door for her with a dignified gesture.

Antonia navigated a maze of carpeted corridors, went up a flight of stairs, before she eventually stood uncertainly outside Lady Mortlock’s flat.

Her heart thumped in her chest. She didn’t know quite what to expect. When she rang to arrange the visit, the telephone had been answered by an energetic voice, a Miss Garnett, the companion, as it became clear. Emboldened by her amiable tone, Antonia explained that she had been a good friend of the Mortlocks once, adding for good measure that she had been writing Lady Mortlock’s family history.

‘But of course,’ Miss Garnett breathed. ‘The Jourdains of Twiston. I have read it, all one hundred and five pages. Wonderful stuff. Pity you never managed to complete it. I’d be delighted to meet you. I love chronicles of old dynastic families. I’ve just finished reading Knole and the Sackvilles.’

Antonia murmured humbly, something to the effect that her book could hardly be compared to Vita Sackville-West‘s, but Miss Garnett would have none of it. Antonia, she said, wrote superbly. The Sackville-Wests, she went on in vehement tones, didn’t really deserve a book – they were mediocre spendthrifts and selfish incompetents while the Jourdains were a highly talented clan who had given the world inventors, thinkers, polymaths, intellectuals and educationalists. Pausing, Miss Garnett continued on a more mundane note, ’Hermione seems to be in tolerably good spirits today, and she’s been quite alert. She may even recognize you, though there’s no guarantee. She’s taking a bath at the moment, but if you could come at four, or four thirty, I’d be happy to give you tea. One more thing – isn’t your name Rushton?‘

‘It was. That’s my husband’s name,’ explained Antonia. ‘I am divorced now.’

‘That accounts for it,’ said Miss Garnett cheerfully.

Replaying the conversation in her head, Antonia decided she rather liked the sound of Miss Garnett and that she had nothing to fear. The front door was made of solid mahogany and it bore the old-fashioned notice Please Knock and Ring. Antonia did both and as she rang the bell, a light came on over the door. Nothing happened though. Several moments passed and she rang again. What was keeping Miss Garnett from opening the door? Antonia suddenly panicked. Why had she come? What was she hoping to find out? Lady Mortlock was a very old woman, bedridden and incapacitated, whose once first-class brain had all but gone. Did she really believe she could expose Lady Mortlock as a liar, as the mastermind behind the abduction and killing of a child?

Antonia took a step backwards and was on the point of turning round and leaving when she heard a flurry of footsteps followed by a rattling of a door-chain and locks. The door opened.

‘Miss Darcy? So sorry to keep you waiting^! I am Bea Garnett. How do you do?’ Lady Mortlock’s companion sounded a bit out of breath, but she held out her hand and shook Antonia’s vigorously.

‘How do you do,’ Antonia said.

Early sixties, stoutish, a round, remarkably smooth face, apple cheeks, at the moment extremely flushed, horn-rimmed glasses halfway down her nose, grey hair done up in a neat bun, pearl earrings and two strings of pearls around her neck. She wore a crepe de Chine dress of floral pattern.

‘Do come in. We’ve had a bit of a – I suppose you’d call it a rumpus.’ Miss Garnett was looking down at her left hand. She had a handkerchief wrapped around it.

‘Is everything all right?’ Antonia saw that the handkerchief was stained deep red.

‘I’ve cut myself. It’s nothing. Just a scratch. Some damned piece of glass. So treacherous. We’ve had a bit of an upset, that’s all. Norah’s got it all well under control now. I wouldn’t have been able to cope on my own. Too old. I suppose I am a bit shaken up… Don’t you believe it if somebody told you octogenarian ladies are frail and gentle. This one’s a devil.’ Miss Garnett gave a mirthless laugh and pushed the glasses up her nose.

‘Do you mean Lady Mortlock?’

‘Who else? I don’t know what’s got into her, I really don’t. She was perfectly calm only a few minutes ago.’ They were standing in the hall and she turned to Antonia. ‘I wonder if she heard me speaking to you on the phone, whether it had something to do with you? Sometimes Hermione gets agitated about the oddest things. I have given up trying to fathom out the way her mind works, what’s left of it. Do let me take you to the sitting room. You must pretend not to see the mess. This way. As I said, she was perfectly fine, calm and sensible. She was telling me about a dream she had had last night…’

The sitting room was light and spacious, but overheated and in a state of some disarray.

‘It was something about going down in a sinking ship. A ship that had been torpedoed – sometimes Hermione comes up with the most extraordinary details. She saw herself shut inside a small compartment behind a watertight door, slowly being overcome by a high-pressure gush through a shell-hole.’

‘How terrible,’ Antonia said.

‘I suppose it is. She dreams a lot. She can’t sleep at all well, but when she does, dreams a lot. Nightmares, mainly, poor soul. Sometimes she wakes up screaming… Look at the mess, just look at it. She does have tantrums, mind – fits of rage – but never before on such a scale. I can’t think what -’ Miss Garnett broke off again. ‘I’m not dripping blood, am I? No. Good. That’s Norah,’ she said as a voice was heard somewhere in the background. Although the words were blurred and indistinct, the voice sounded as though it were addressing a child.

Antonia smiled. ‘She sounds extremely competent.’

Miss Garnett’s lips tightened slightly. ‘Norah can be trying sometimes. She does take liberties, but, yes, I must say she is fully qualified to deal with difficult cases. She has worked both at an old people’s home and at a psychiatric hospital. Hermione attacked her the other day – scratched her arm badly – reminded me her nails needed trimming. We hardly get any visitors these days, and I am not really surprised. Hermione is so unpredictable. Most of her friends are dead anyhow. Do sit down.’ Miss Garnett motioned Antonia towards a high primrose-yellow leather-upholstered sofa. ‘Hermione’s in bed now. She isn’t normally, not at this hour, but that’s where we take her when she’s been a bad girl. Teach her a lesson. She needs to understand that’s not the way to behave.’

‘Plato and Nietzsche.’ Antonia picked up two books from the floor.

‘She aimed them at Norah’s head but missed,’ Miss Garnett explained. ‘No one would have thought she used to read Plato’s Dialogues, if they’d been able to see her earlier on! Nor Thus Spake Zarathustra… She read them in Greek and in German, respectively, you know. Oh, if you had seen her earlier on – clawing and hissing and kicking and scratching! A proper beldame straight out of Macbeth! Knocking things over – throwing them around. Anything she could lay her hands on…’

An embroidered stool had been overturned. The floor was littered with more books, bric-a-brac, some of it reduced to smithereens. A vase too had been smashed and the flowers that had been inside it, large crimson roses, strewed the carpet like splashes of blood.

‘No, don’t touch it. I’ll do it… It took the two of us to restrain her.’ Miss Garnett picked up the roses. ‘It’s most unfortunate that she should have got like this just when you were expected. I’ll go and make the tea now. I could do with a break. I have made some smoked salmon sandwiches; there are meringues and a date-and-walnut cake. Would that be all right?’

‘Sounds wonderful. Thank you.’

‘I won’t be a jiffy.’ Miss Garnett went out.

Antonia gazed round the room. From the urn and scrolls she deduced the fireplace to be Adam. There was a small but very beautiful writing desk of the Davenport kind. There were two armchairs, primrose yellow, like the sofa. Three striking period chairs, Hepplewhite, which she felt sure she had seen at Twiston, were ranged against the wall. Some good pictures, one possibly a Sargent. There was a pencil drawing of a triumphant-looking phoenix rising from the flames, with a motto underneath. Antonia expected it to be something on the lines of ‘Sorrows Pass and Hope Abides’ but, disconcertingly, it turned out to be ’Survival of the Fittest‘.

It was only then that she noticed the photographs, which was surprising given that almost every surface in the room was filled with them. The mantelpiece, the bookcase, the two small tables, the window sills… Two photographs lay on the floor amidst shards of glass. They were all black and white.

Leaning over, Antonia picked up one of the photographs gingerly and looked at it.

A girl… She thought the face was familiar somehow… Perhaps she was mistaken… No, it couldn’t be…

Her heart started beating fast. Rising to her feet, she started examining the rest of the framed photographs. Each and every one of them showed the same beautiful girl with short dark hair and a carefree smile, who looked no more than twenty. The photographs had been taken against the backdrop of Venice’s gondolas, canals and churches. The girl’s rather chic clothes suggested the late 1950s…

Antonia examined the girl’s face closely. No, she thought – it can’t be.

‘Oh, that’s so sad.’ Miss Garnett’s voice was heard from the doorway. ‘That’s Hermione’s daughter. Venice 1958. The last holiday they had together.’

‘But -’ Antonia bit her lip. Turning round, she watched Miss Garnett place a laden tea tray on the low table in front of the sofa.

‘Hermione’s daughter died tragically young. Hermione adored her. She never got over it. Oh, but I am sure you know all that.’ Miss Garnett picked up the teapot. ‘Shall I be mother?’

Andrula Haywood’s eyes were full of tears. She wiped them with the back of her hand. ‘Yes, I am Chrissie’s mother. You thought I was Chrissie?’

‘Chrissie?’ Major Payne echoed.

‘She was christened Chrisothemis, but she never liked her name. It’s a beautiful name but she was embarrassed by it. She was very self-conscious about being Greek. She wanted to be English, like her father. I don’t know why since he wasn’t much good. He left us when Chrissie was four. I don’t know where he is. Sorry – I don’t know why I am telling you this.’

‘Butterflies… Of course… Sorry, Mrs Haywood.’ Chrysalis. That was what Antonia must have been thinking about. ‘Do go on.’

Her hand went up to her forehead and she looked at him as though she doubted he was quite real. ‘Who are you? Is your name really Pain?’

‘It is. WithaYand an E at the end… Major Payne.’

‘You are a soldier?’

‘Well, yes. In a manner of speaking. I mean I’ve never done any proper soldiering – plenty of administrative jobs – intelligence service and so on. My son is a soldier. He is in the Guards.’

‘Keith, my husband, was a soldier. He was stationed in Cyprus. In 1960. That’s where we met. I was very young. I was a hospital nurse. I fell in love with him. I was very much in love with him, but it was a mistake to marry him.’

‘Where is your daughter?’ Payne asked after a pause.

She bowed her head. ‘I don’t know. The last time I heard from Chrissie, she was in Australia. That was four months ago. She was in New Zealand before that. She is restless. She is not happy. She keeps moving. She can’t settle down. She has money – she’s made some wise investments, I think – but she is not happy. She hasn’t married. She doesn’t keep in touch.’ Andrula Haywood sighed. ‘Twiston… Was that what the house was called? Were you there when it happened? I mean when – when that poor child drowned?’

‘No. A friend of mine was. She wants to get to the bottom of it, you see. She wants to find out what really happened. She is worried about – um – some aspects of the affair. There are things that don’t quite tally. I am helping her. She is a very good friend.’

‘Is she your girlfriend? Sorry. I shouldn’t be asking you such questions.’

‘No, that’s all right. Well, she isn’t my girlfriend – not yet at any rate, but I very much hope she’ll agree to marry me one day in the not too distant future.’ Golly, Major Payne thought. That’s the first time I’ve ever said it aloud.

‘I hope you will be very happy. You look like a good and decent man.’

‘Thank you. Now then. What was it your daughter told you? I mean about the money, how she got it. Did she explain?’

‘She said she had won it at the pools. It was a lot of money. An incredible amount. I couldn’t believe it when she told me. I – I didn’t like the way she said it. I knew something wasn’t right. It happened soon after that child – the child Chrissie had been in charge of – died. The little girl…’

‘Sonya. Sonya Dufrette.’

‘Sonya… Yes… I never made the connection between the two, I honestly didn’t – I mean between Sonya and the money. I did wonder later on, though of course it didn’t make any sense, so I dismissed it altogether from my mind. I can always tell when Chrissie tells a lie. She isn’t good at it. She isn’t a bad girl, but she does do stupid things and then suffers for it.’ Andrula paused. ‘So. Let me get this clear. She said I was very ill and that she had to come and see me? That she had to leave the house? Is that right?’

‘Yes. Somebody put her up to it. It was part of a plan. We don’t think it was her idea, if that’s any comfort to you. Somebody planned Sonya’s disappearance, somebody rich and influential – we don’t know who that person is, though we have our suspicions. We have no idea what the reason for it might be either. This person paid your daughter a large amount of money for her to leave the house on the morning of the 29th -’

‘That was the day of the royal wedding, wasn’t it?’

‘It was. We think the royal wedding was pivotal to the scheme. No witnesses – everybody inside, watching TV. We are talking serious business. Whoever planned Sonya’s disappearance meant it to work with oiled precision.’

‘My God! That’s wicked – evil!’ Andrula cried. ‘What did they want with a young child like that?’

‘That’s the question we keep asking ourselves, Mrs Haywood… You don’t have any idea who it might have been?’ Payne asked gently.

She covered her face with her hands. She sat very still. He wondered if she was praying, or simply trying to concentrate. Eventually she spoke. ‘Chrissie gave me half of her “winnings”, that’s what she called it. I did accept it, although, as I said, I wasn’t happy about it. I had a funny feeling. We were in Margate. I had a boyfriend then. We were having such a good time, but then I got the paper and read about Sonya’s disappearance. “Presumed drowned”, it said there. I recognized the name at once. Sonya Dufrette – yes. Chrissie had told me about her position with the Dufrettes – that they were really posh and very eccentric.’ Andrula pressed her handkerchief against her lips. ‘She liked that little girl, Major Payne.’

‘I am sure she did.’

‘She felt sorry for her. She did talk about her. She told me Sonya had something wrong with her. Sonya was young for her age. She was seven but she acted like she was five… I met them once, actually. Mr and Mrs Dufrette and little Sonya -’

‘You met the Dufrettes?’

‘Yes. They were going somewhere in the car – a very big car but very old. Anthos – my boyfriend – said it was a Daimler. 1950s model. Anthos knew about cars. They were going to stay with some friends of theirs, somewhere in the country. Chrissie needed to collect something from the house, so they stopped outside. Mrs Dufrette – Lena – came out and said hello to me. She was very friendly. She was a bit drunk, too, I think. She had this amazing hat on. A Stetson and she wore cowboy boots with spurs and she had a red kerchief tied round her neck. Her face was very painted – her lips and cheeks – and she had henna-dyed hair. She was very – colourful.’

‘You are too kind. “Garish” is the word I’d choose.’

‘Anthos said, “Here comes the circus.” Lena asked me whether I could dance sirtaki and was it true that Greeks broke plates when they got excited at parties. She said she really liked that – that she liked breaking plates herself, whenever and wherever she got the chance. She was joking of course.’

‘Don’t be too sure,’ Payne murmured. ‘Did you get to speak to Dufrette?’

‘Mr Dufrette? No. He stayed in the car. He was scribbling something in a notebook. Lena said he was writing a new history of the world. I could see his lips moving – he was talking to himself. All right, I did think them very odd. The little girl didn’t say much – she came out too but she just stood there smiling.’

‘I see… Mind if I smoke?’ Payne had produced his pipe.

‘Please do. I used to smoke myself but gave up.’

‘Did your daughter ever mention a woman called Hermione Mortlock? Lady Mortlock?’

‘No, never. At least, not that I remember.’

‘Where did your daughter go after she left the Dufrettes’ employment?’

‘Well, she moved in with us for a bit… in this house… She didn’t like it much. She didn’t get on with Anthos.’ Andrula sighed.

‘Did she receive any visitors – any phone calls? Do you remember?’

‘I don’t think Chrissie had any visitors, but there were several phone calls for her… Two from Lena, actually. Mrs Dufrette.’

Major Payne took his pipe out of his mouth and leant forward. ‘Lena phoned your daughter? And it was after Sonya’s disappearance? You sure?’

‘Yes. Twice… The first time Chrissie wasn’t at home. I answered the phone. Lena said, could Chrissie get back to her as soon as possible as it was extremely important.’

‘How did Lena sound? Anything unusual strike you?’

Andrula frowned. ‘Funny you should ask that. She didn’t sound like someone who had lost a child. It was the week after the tragedy, you see. I expressed my condolences – I was close to tears, but Lena – Mrs Dufrette – kept making jokes and laughing and acting all comical. I was stunned. Then I thought it was the shock, that she had gone slightly mad, or that she was on medication or something. Anti-depressants can make you high, can’t they?’

‘I suppose they can. I believe they call Prozac “bottled sunshine”.’

‘I gave Chrissie the message when she came back. Chrissie went all pale. She looked – well, frightened. She couldn’t hide it. She’s not very good at hiding her feelings. She then closed herself in the lounge and told us not to go in while she was making the call. She sounded very tense. I could see she was very upset. Afterwards she went straight up to her room. She refused to eat anything. Later I heard her crying, but didn’t dare ask her what it was about. I knew then for certain that there was something very wrong, only I couldn’t think what it was.’

‘You said Lena called a second time?’

‘Yes. The very next day. This time Chrissie was at home and again she closed herself in the lounge and screamed at us not to spy on her. With some justification.’ Andrula swallowed. ‘You see, Anthos did listen in. He ran into the kitchen and got on to the extension. I went after him – told him not to do it, but he pushed me away. He knew something was going on. He wasn’t a fool. I am afraid he didn’t like Chrissie. He thought she was stuck up – made fun of her hair-do because it was like Princess Diana’s – called her a snob. He kept calling her “Her Highness”. They were forever snapping at each other.’

‘Did he tell you what he had heard?’

‘He did. I don’t think he made it up. Lena’s exact words were, You’d better keep your mouth shut, my girl, or they will kill us both.’

‘Really?’ Payne sat very still. ‘Who’s “they”?’

Andrula shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He didn’t hear anything else. The extension went dead; there was something wrong with it. Anthos was convinced that it was something to do with spying, Lena being Russian and all that. I thought he was talking rubbish. I didn’t really let it worry me. I decided that Lena had probably gone mad with grief, that she didn’t know what she was talking about… But Chrissie did look terrible when I saw her later. I asked her what the matter was but she just shook her head.’

There was a pause. ‘How long after that did she win the pools?’ Payne asked.

‘That same week. After she got the money, Chrissie changed and for a while at least she seemed happy. She kept hugging me – kissing me – laughing and crying – tears of joy, she said. She apologized for behaving badly and then said she wanted to share her fortune with me -’ Andrula broke off. ‘It couldn’t have been Lena who gave her the money, could it? I don’t think the Dufrettes were really rich, Chrissie said they weren’t. So, if she didn’t win the pools, who gave her the money?’

‘Who indeed?’ Payne relit his pipe. “‘They”? Who’s “they”? The same “they” who had threatened to kill Lena and her? Interesting.’

‘What’s all this about? That poor child – merciful God, what did they do to the child? What was that other name you mentioned? You asked me if she had phoned? Lady Mortlock? You don’t think it was she who was behind it? Whatever that was?’

‘The idea did cross our minds. Well, it was Lady Mortlock who lied about you being very ill, in hospital,’ Payne said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder now… I very much wonder.’