The hunt for Sonya Dufrette

18

Major Payne remained unperturbed. ‘It occurred to me it might be important,’ he said with an easy smile. Pushing his hand inside his jacket, he produced the letter. ‘I couldn’t read it because it is in Russian. Nazdarovye. That’s the only Russian word I know. I am not familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet.’ He unfolded the sheet and laid it down on the table. ‘Thick paper, pale mauve with gold edges – you are absolutely correct, Dufrette. I meant to ask someone to translate it – someone who knows Russian.’

Dufrette touched the letter with his long pale forefinger.

‘Do you know Russian?’ Payne asked.

‘No. I meant to learn it when I married Lena, but never got round to it. It wasn’t necessary, really. When she was a child Lena had an English nanny, and then of course she was sent to a school in England.’

‘Ashcroft,’ Antonia said.

‘Yes. That was Hermione’s school. One of the best in the land, though you wouldn’t have believed it if you judged it by Lena.’

Did he know about Lena and Lady Mortlock? Antonia wondered but decided not to say anything. Why cloud the issue? She looked down at the letter. ‘No address. 17th March 2001. That’s four months ago.’

‘You believe it’s a letter from someone who also wrote to Lena twenty years ago?’ Major Payne addressed Dufrette. ‘Do you know who?’

‘No… Not at the time.’

‘Weren’t you ever curious to discover who was writing to your wife? Didn’t you ever ask her?’

‘I was never curious.’

‘There’s no name at the bottom – only initials,’ Antonia went on. ‘B.B.’

Major Payne picked up the letter, sniffed at it, then held it up to the light. He’s doing his Sherlock Holmes trick, Antonia thought. ‘Ink the colour of burnt sugar… A loping scrawl – it suggests a no-nonsense personality… Very expensive… Water sign. Maison de la Roche, Paris… So B.B. might be living in France -’

‘No, not B.B. In Russian that’s V.V. B in Cyrillic is actually V in the Roman alphabet,’ Dufrette explained, turning towards Antonia. ‘Don’t you see? She said V.V. – not Vivian.’

‘V.V.? Well, she spoke rather indistinctly. She was slurring a lot. Lady Mortlock too thought it was Vivian. So Lena was referring to the person by their initials.’

‘What did she say exactly?’ Dufrette asked.

‘She complained about V.V.’s meanness. V.V. had given her money but was reluctant to give her any more… Do you know who that might be?’

‘As a matter of fact,’ Dufrette said slowly, ‘I do.’ He removed his reading glasses. ‘The funny thing was that it did occur to me at the time that there might have been an abduction and that our nanny might have been involved. But I was thinking of the wrong kind of abduction. Chrissie was Greek, had a Greek mother, and I knew there was a trade to supply childless couples with children in rural parts of Greece. It’s an open secret out there, apparently. I did imagine that Chrissie might have been in touch with child traffickers… Blond, blue-eyed children fetch the highest price on the black market. I had read an article about it -’

‘She hated Greeks. That’s what her mother said,’ Payne put in.

‘I know. That’s why I decided in the end that a Greek conspiracy was unlikely. Besides, it is boys mainly who are in demand. No Greek family would have had any use for a retarded girl… Well, an abduction did take place,’ Dufrette said, ‘but it was what you’d call an “inside job”… I should have guessed it was them at once, only I didn’t.’ He started counting on his fingers. ‘They were childless. They adored children. They doted on Sonya. They always gave her presents. They paid us regular visits, but after she “drowned” they vanished from our lives.’

‘My God,’ Antonia whispered as realization dawned on her.

‘They sent me a letter of condolence. It was an exceptionally nice letter. It moved me to tears. It was signed by both of them but I am sure it was she who wrote it… It was something to the effect that I shouldn’t grieve – that I should have no doubt in my mind that Sonya was in paradise – that she was well and happy… In a funny kind of way, she must have been telling the truth. One of their holiday homes was on the Seychelles. It was the kind of place tourist brochures tend to describe as a “paradise island”.’

Antonia saw it in her mind’s eye. Clear blue-green water that caught the sun and dazzled in a thousand brilliant points like molten silver – unbroken horizons on a vast disc of paler blue sparkling with sunlight – a green belt of palm trees with wooded hills rising beyond them… Antonia heard Sonya’s delighted laughter – the splashing of water – Veronica Vorodin’s voice saying, ‘Don’t go too far in, darling. Stay close to Mummy.’

Major Payne cleared his throat. ‘You are talking about the Vorodins, right? The mega-rich Russian couple that turned out not to be the type that howls for pearls and caviar? They had been staying at Twiston, but left early on the morning of the 29th.’ He tapped the letter. ‘V.V. That’s Veronica Vorodin, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Veronica engineered the whole thing. It was her. I am sure of it,’ Dufrette said. ‘She had brains as well as beauty. Anatole was a decent sort of chap but not particularly bright.’

‘Veronica held the belief that a mentally disabled child was a gift from God,’ Antonia said. ‘She told me that having a child like that would never let her forget her own humanity, that it would prevent her from getting spoilt by her wealth.’ Antonia paused. ‘She said she’d love a child like Sonya more than she would a normal one

… Could she have felt guilty on account of being rich? Could she have been looking for hardships – as some form of atonement?’

Dufrette frowned. ‘Lena’s mother was like that. All the Yusupovs are a bit mad. Evgenia – Lena’s mother – was preposterously pious. She could have lived in Biarritz, but she became a nun instead. She chose to end her days at some slummy Franciscan convent. Apparently she did things she didn’t even have to do, like shaving her head and picking nettles with her bare hands.’ He paused. ‘The Vorodins’ letter of condolence was written on plain white paper with black borders – nothing like this one. As I said, it was addressed to me… Only to me. It didn’t register at the time. I was moving in an impenetrable fog of grief. I mean, there was no mention of Lena. That’s where Veronica slipped up – do you see?’

‘Yes. You were the only one who needed comfort. Lena knew that Sonya wasn’t dead.’

Payne said, ‘Let’s see what happened exactly. Veronica and Anatole took their departure early on the morning of the 29th. They said they had a plane to catch. One of them then phoned Twiston pretending to be the hospital where the nanny’s mother had been “rushed”.’

‘It must have been Veronica. She had been an actress, hadn’t she?’ Antonia looked at Dufrette.

‘Yes. Before she married Anatole. She was wonderful with voices. Could do anyone – Bonnie Tyler, Mrs Thatcher, Barbara Windsor. Had us in stitches. Joyce Gren fell, Penelope Keith.’

Payne continued, ‘The Vorodins left, but came back later, when they knew you’d all be sitting in front of the box. They parked their car outside the gates. They found Sonya in the garden. Lena had made sure of that… Sonya would have gone to them straight away, wouldn’t she?’

‘Oh yes. She knew them. She liked them, though of course she’d have gone to anyone.’ Dufrette gave a sad smile. ‘She was like a friendly puppy. She lacked any defence mechanism.’

‘I wonder if Veronica regarded what they were doing as some sort of rescue operation.’ At once Antonia wished she hadn’t spoken.

‘You mean – rescue Sonya from her pernicious parents? You are probably right. I was not a good father.’ Dufrette’s lower lip trembled. ‘If I had been, I’d have taken better care of Sonya.’ Suddenly his hands clenched in fists. ‘How could Veronica do a thing like that to me? She knew how much I loved Sonya! To – to make me think that Sonya had drowned. That was – cruel.’

The sound of an ambulance siren came from the street outside. Payne asked, ‘Would you have agreed if they had asked you to allow Sonya to be adopted by them?’

‘No. Of course not. Out of the question. Never… Lena sold our daughter,’ Dufrette’s voice shook. ‘She’s got a lot to answer for.’

‘They had to make it look like drowning,’ Antonia said. ‘They needed to make everybody believe that Sonya had drowned, that she was dead. If the police thought it was merely an abduction, they would have started a search for her. Sooner or later they’d have got to the truth.’

‘Would Sonya have needed a passport? She was seven,’ Major Payne mused aloud. ‘No. She would have been added to one of the passports of her new parents… Where did they take her?’

‘To paradise,’ Dufrette said grimly. ‘Some faraway place, where no one knew them – where news of Sonya’s disappearance couldn’t have penetrated… Lena. Yes. It all starts and ends with Lena. Lena knows

… She will lead me to them… I’ll find them. Even if I have to travel to the end of the world, I will find them.’ Dufrette gripped his cane and rose slowly from his seat. A vein pulsed in his temple. He looks like an elderly hound of impeccable pedigree, Antonia thought.

Reaching out for the letter, he put it into his pocket. ‘My little girl. I want my little girl,’ he whispered. ‘Lena must know… A little talk, yes… No preliminaries, no deviation from the subject. Just a few straightforward questions. There’ll be no cajoling and no entreaties. If I don’t get the answers I expect -’ He broke off. ‘Look what I have here.’

He put his hand inside his jacket, paused dramatically, then produced a gun. He gave a smile, his wolfish smile.

It was a small gun, no more than five inches long, but showy, trimmed in silver and mother of pearl. Antonia supposed it had come from an antique duelling set. It seemed in excellent condition. What was it – a Derringer? (She had done research on firearms for a possible novel not such a long time ago.)

Major Payne too was looking at the gun with interest. ‘Is it loaded?’

‘Of course it is loaded.’ Lawrence Dufrette went on smiling. ‘What would be the point of carrying an empty gun?’

He put the gun back into his pocket, paid the bill and started walking towards the exit. He had a preoccupied air about him. He seemed to have forgotten all about them.

They followed him at a distance. Antonia wondered whether they should inform the police. There might be trouble. Unprepossessing as Lena was, Antonia felt it was wrong to allow Lawrence Dufrette to shoot her, which she believed he’d do if Lena refused to cooperate.

‘Lena couldn’t have recovered yet, could she?’ Antonia whispered.

‘Highly unlikely. Not even if somebody has managed to force ten Prairie Oysters and an industrial dose of Alka-Seltzer down her throat. No. She’s probably comatose. I would be, if I’d pumped so much brandy into my veins.’

‘She might be sleeping it off.’

But it was much worse than that. As they walked across to the Elsnor, they heard the siren again and saw an ambulance leave. It had been parked outside the hotel. Several moments later they made enquiries at the reception desk and were told that Madame Lena had been taken away. Madame Lena had been found unconscious, lying behind the bar in a pool of her own vomit. She wasn’t going to recover soon, no. Her condition had actually been described as ‘life-threatening’. There was the likelihood that Madame Lena might not last the night.