Assassins at Ospreys (5 page)

‘We must stop! Honestly! We can’t possibly assume that our
histoire
is of any great interest to anyone but us! Recounting our ardours and endurances like that. So embarrassing. What must our visitors be
thinking
?’ Beatrice waved her hands. ‘There are few things more tedious than self-obsessed newly-weds. Middle-aged romances are a par-ticular bore. It must strike you as grotesque, the way we’ve been going on. No, don’t deny it! You are much too beauti-fully mannered to say it, I know . . . Len, we are getting peckish. Do you think you could . . .?’

‘Tea? Splendid idea.’ Colville rose obediently to his feet.

‘Thank you, darling. I keep expecting Ingrid to wheel in the tea, I am so used to it. ‘ Beatrice reached out for the pearl-inlaid cigarette box on the table and took out a gold-tipped cigarette with a languorous femme-fatale-ish gesture. ‘I keep forgetting things are different now. Would you like a cigarette? Antonia? No? Wise girl. It’s a filthy habit. Where’s the . . .?’ She looked helplessly round. ‘Hugh, I don’t suppose you happen to have a light? I am sure you are a smoker. I do believe I caught a whiff of some superior blend emanating from you.’

‘You are absolutely right,’ Payne said, crossing to her. ‘I smoke a pipe.’

Antonia pursed her lips. She had seen Beatrice place one of the two books on top of the matchbox with a casual gesture, thus ensuring the matches were hidden from view. Such flagrant falsity. Antonia watched her husband produce his lighter and flick it. As he held it for her, Beatrice put her two fingers on his hand.

‘
Thank
you, Hugh,’ she breathed. One might be excused for thinking he’d saved her life, Antonia thought grimly.

‘Turkish cigarettes?’ Payne was sniffing the air.

‘I see you are something of a connoisseur. Smell divine, don’t they?’

‘Where is Ingrid? Doesn’t Ingrid live here any more?’ Antonia asked in a loud voice.

I am jealous, she thought. Oh my God, I am jealous. What a dreadful feeling this is.

6
The Enigmatic Mr Lushington

So the golden-haired Bee Ardleigh had had the devil’s own luck. Amazing things
did
happen to some people. Poor Robin. What a blow the news would be to him. He didn’t feel particularly sorry for his friend, rather he felt strange excitement bubbling up inside him and that was mingled with a sense of anticipation. He couldn’t quite say why . . .

Father Lillie-Lysander shut his eyes and a little moan escaped his lips. He had had a vision of two meteors of living flame colliding and fusing into one enormous golden ball of fire
.
Was that it? Was it –
starting
?

He sat in his study, cross-legged, swathed in a rather sumptuous apple-green dressing gown with frogged lapels. On the round table by his side was a glass of Chartreuse, also apple-green in colour, which every now and then he raised to his lips. Not many people drank Chartreuse these days, but Father Lillie-Lysander was not like other people. He prided himself on being, in a great number of ways, unique.

Next to the glass with the Chartreuse lay his round, silver-framed reading glasses and a syringe. A minute earlier he had injected himself with morphine – he had stolen the ampoule from Ralph Renshawe’s bedside table – and was waiting for it to take effect.

Papaver somniferum
. Juice of poppies. Three grains would be fatal, but he was taking a ‘recreational’ dose. Like the opium eaters in the nineteenth century. Being of an obsessive mind, Lillie-Lysander had read all about it. On the floor beside his chair lay that month’s bank statement, where he had dropped it, also a letter from his bank manager. He had expected some such development. He was overdrawn. It was the second time in six months.

The week before he had won five thousand pounds at the Midas, the privately run casino situated in London’s Park Lane – only to lose it, again at the Midas, some forty-five minutes later. The Midas was Father Lillie-Lysander’s secret haunt. He went there every Friday night, wearing a dinner jacket, a red carnation in his buttonhole, and a false moustache. He had a penchant for the absurdly histrionic, for high-camp masquerades, for subterfuge and
noms de
plume
, for mind games and twilight dealings. Ambiguities of every kind delighted him. At the casino he was known as ‘Lushington’, which, as it happened, was his mother’s maiden name. (At school, inevitably, he had been known as ‘Lily’.)

He had bumped into Robin Renshawe two months previously at one of the gaming tables at the Midas. The two hadn’t met since their schooldays. At Antleforth – or ‘Antlers’, as Robin kept calling it – Robin had enjoyed universal adulation thanks to his languid good looks, sporting prowess and dangerous kind of wit – also for the skill with which he could tear a pack of cards in two.

They hadn’t been friends to start with; if anything, Lillie-Lysander had been a little afraid of Robin, but they had discovered common ground in their love for the theatre. They had appeared in every school play together. Contrary to expectations and much to his classmates’ dis-appointment, Lillie-Lysander had refused to play women’s roles, plumping instead for the slippered pantaloon/ stuffed shirt character part. He had raised great laughs as Pooh-Bah and Polonius while Robin had been Nanki-Poo and Hamlet. Then they had appeared in
The Master
Cracksman –
he had been a somewhat plump Bunny to Robin’s dashing Raffles. And finally, in their last year, Robin had played an exceedingly sinister Mephistopheles to his susceptible Dr Faustus.

‘I always knew you had a weakness for heavy betting,’ Robin had said, a smile on his thin handsome face, and it felt as though they had parted only the other day. ‘Or are you here to deliver the last rites to a fellow member who is about to blow his brains out? I did hear the ugly rumour that you’d become a priest – it’s not true, is it?’

‘It is true.’

‘Like Father Canteloupe!’ Robin gasped in mock-horror and covered his eyes. ‘Remember Father Canteloupe?’

‘Nothing like Father Canteloupe.’

‘Chaps here do get desperate, if only occasionally – not as much as in Monte, where at one time apparently they could never tell if the popping sounds were gunshots or produced by the uncorking of champagne bottles. The terrace at the back is a favourite spot. It’s known as “terror terrace”, isn’t that
silly
?’

Lillie-Lysander had laughed.

‘I wonder if I could employ your services, old boy. My uncle is on his way out and he needs a father confessor badly. No, I’m not joking. I’ve been commissioned to find a priest. Incidentally, that’s the cleverest moustache I’ve seen in a long while. Not mass-produced, I trust?’

‘No. I had it specially made.’

At school Robin Renshawe had been his hero. Lillie-Lysander had admired Robin’s cleverness and droll sense of humour, his air of sarcastic knowingness, his cool manner, the ease with which Robin always managed to bluff his way through the trickiest of situations. Had lust, as St Augustine put it so dramatically, stormed confusedly within him? He was not sure. No, he didn’t think so. He had always had a low sex drive and that, coupled with his extreme fastidiousness, he considered a blessing.

Take no care for the flesh in its desires
. St Augustine knew all about that kind of thing. Well, yes, quite. Now that he had turned forty, any vestige of desire he might have had for either man or woman had completely disappeared. Like Christ he had remained a virgin – the thought never failed to amuse him; he regarded that as another instance of his uniqueness. All of his energies for the past couple of years had been directed into his activities at the Midas. He found himself caring less and less what God made of it all – if indeed there was a God. It was a matter of genes, that was what they said anyway – you either had a God gene or you hadn’t . . . How then did one explain the fact that celebrating Mass in his gold-and-white robe some-times reduced him to tears? Odd.

Robin had seemed genuinely pleased to see him. ‘Such a marvellous stroke of luck, us meeting like that. I was thinking about you only this morning. They say there’s no such thing as coincidence. I do believe our paths were
meant
to converge. Come and have a drink . . . You would be perfect for the job . . . You aren’t a real priest, of course?’

‘I am.’ Lillie-Lysander giggled.

‘Good man. Well, it helps to have a mole in the citadel.’ Robin had ordered two double whiskies. ‘I’d be grateful if you kept me informed about what was going on in the old man’s mind.’

(Lillie-Lysander didn’t remember having said yes yet.)

‘I am not exactly
persona grata
at Ospreys. I must admit I am a trifle apprehensive about my future. My uncle thinks me not only dishonourable but without a trace of finer feeling. I am afraid that things might deteriorate. I want to know what’s going on, which way the wind is blowing and so on. As my uncle’s father confessor, you will be privy to his innermost thoughts and secrets. You will be his godly anchorman. He’s been given only two months at the most. I’ll make it worth your while. Can you start tomorrow? It’s in Oxfordshire – place called Ospreys.’

‘Ospreys? I believe I have heard of it.’

‘Excellent. Shall we drink to it?’

(How much money could Robin let him have?
Could
Robin provide him with regular supplies of morphine? Robin had hinted he had suppliers for ‘everything’ – a tan-talizing prospect.)

‘Ah.’ Father Lillie-Lysander gave a sigh of the deepest satisfaction as he felt himself relax more and more . . . and more. ‘The Holy Spirit is upon me,’ he murmured blasphemously, his lips curved in a ridiculous grin.

The morphine –
Papaver somniferum
! (He made it sound like a benediction.)

At last . . . At last. (He must speak to Robin . . . Break the news . . . What
would
Robin do?)

Strangely enough, Father Lillie-Lysander’s last thought before he passed out was of Miss Ardleigh. There was something that wasn’t right about her. He was an old thesp and he was ready to swear that that blonde hair of hers – What a delicious sensation – it felt like being in the centre of a giant centrifuge!

Down-down-down – light as a feather.

7
The Letter

‘Ingrid? Do you know Ingrid?’ Beatrice appeared surprised.

‘I met her in Hay-on-Wye,’ Antonia reminded her.

‘Of course you did. Sorry, my dear. I’ve got so much on my mind. Oh, yes, she still lives here, but now that Len’s moved in, she’s planning to move out.’ Beatrice Ardleigh gave a sigh. ‘I am so sad. I am
deeply
grateful to her. She did
everything
for me, you see. We’ve lived together for – what is it? Nearly thirty years? Goodness, that’s a terribly long time, isn’t it? She never allowed anyone to come near me. Never.’

‘Not even your doctor?’

‘Dr Aylard found her quite difficult.’ Beatrice held her cigarette away from her eyes. ‘Once she pushed him out of my room. Well, Ingrid saw me through all my indignities. When I couldn’t sit up and had to lie down all the time. When I couldn’t go by myself to the loo. It is so easy to be dismissive and say, “Oh, one of those feverish female friendships,” I am sure that’s what people are saying, but it was so much more than that. Whenever I felt down and wanted to have a little cry, Ingrid sat beside me and held my hand. She read to me. She’s particularly good with voices. She sang me to sleep. Honestly. She fed me, mopped my brow, brushed my hair, bathed me, gave me massages. She dealt with all my correspondence –’

‘She reads your letters?’ Payne interrupted.

‘Used to – I mean she did it until recently. Not any more – not since Len’s been around. But before that she acted as my secretary. She was also my nurse, nanny – mother, if you like – guardian angel! All rolled up in one! I was Ingrid’s baby, her very special little girl. I know this sounds ridiculous and strange, but she lost her child, you see. She was seven months pregnant when it happened. It was going to be a little girl, apparently. Claire.’

‘Claire?’

‘That was the name Ingrid
intended
to give her little girl. She had been listening to “Clair de Lune” on the radio when the accident happened. She’s got all those photos in her room – various little girls – blonde and demure-looking. She said they were her nieces, but, you see, she hasn’t got any sisters. Once she was off guard and she said, “That’s Claire, my daughter.” Some of the photos are actually magazine cuttings. Photos of fair-haired girls modelling children’s clothes.’

‘You mean she pretends they are her daughter?’ Payne’s eyebrow went up. ‘ She imagines they are her daughter?’ ‘Yes.
Yes.
She could never get over the loss of her baby. She keeps having conversations with Claire in her head. She sends a monthly cheque to the Convent of the Poor Claires. She keeps listening to “Clair de Lune” –’ Beatrice broke off. ‘Oh, I know – I
know –
it’s totally mad. You poor things – the look on your faces! Well, losing the baby was a most devastating blow for Ingrid. She was quite unable to come to terms with the fact she’d never have another child too. To cut a long story short, I became a – a substitute. I allowed her to mother me. I don’t care what people think. Great shame it all has to end like that.’

‘She didn’t like the idea of you marrying?’

‘She didn’t. She was distraught. She made a ghastly scene.’ Beatrice shut and opened her eyes. ‘It was quite frightening. Honestly. She said some truly appalling things to me. She made me cry. I didn’t really see why the three of us couldn’t be happy together. I honestly didn’t. Len said he didn’t mind at all; he is an angel . . . I misjudged the situation completely, it seems. I must be terribly naive. Ingrid took it all rather badly. “You don’t really expect me to
cohabit
with you?” How she screamed! She seemed out-raged. She made it sound as though I’d come up with some really improper suggestion.’

‘You haven’t made up?’

‘I am afraid not. She’s still extremely cut up. She won’t speak to Len. Pretends he’s not there. She calls him “the interloper”. She hates Len. She is very, very cross with me. She keeps saying I betrayed her. She calls it an “act of treachery”. She said I was “the most selfish, the most ungrateful, the most unappreciative person who ever lived”. She hates me. I did try to explain – to reassure her. I did my best, believe me.’ Beatrice’s voice shook. ‘I made it clear that nothing had changed, but she didn’t want to listen. She was beyond reason. I did want to discuss things openly and rationally, the way sensible people do, but she just sat and stared in her inscrutable manner.’

‘Where is she?’ Antonia asked.

‘I have no idea.’ Beatrice stubbed out her cigarette and looked at the clock. ‘She went out over three hours ago. It’s freezing cold outside. Where
does
she go? She has no friends.
Not a single friend
. Can you imagine? She mistrusts people. I do hope she’s taken the train to Oxford and gone to the cinema and is not roaming the streets, brooding.’

‘Does she go out often?’

‘Quite often, yes. Lately, that is. She slips out without a word. And here’s an odd thing – we hear her but
never see
her.
She seems to time her exits very carefully. We hear the stairs creak or the front door opening or closing. And she always comes back
after
we have gone to bed. I thought it was my imagination, but then Len noticed it too – and he is not particularly imaginative . . . Ingrid’s exits and entrances invariably take place when Len and I are together, either here, watching something on the box, or in our bedroom. We tend to spend a lot of time in our bed-room.’ Beatrice gave a coy smile. ‘Call me a stupid fool, but each time Ingrid goes out, I tend to imagine the worst – that she would do something silly. She did say once that the idea of suicide was never too far from her mind.’

The chink of china was heard, the door opened and a beaming Colville wheeled in a trolley laden with tea-things. Four cups, a large silver teapot, a muffin dish, a plate of smoked salmon sandwiches and a chocolate cake. ‘She is often troubled by suicidal fantasies,’ Beatrice went on. ‘I am telling them about Ingrid, darling.’

‘Ah. Ingrid.’ Colville’s smile faded and he shook his head.

‘She told me that at times suicide seemed not only frighteningly real but the
only option
. Varied and violent methods of ending her life keep presenting themselves to her – Darling, would you pour? At first it was the usual stuff – sleeping pills, cyanide, exhaust fumes, but then she said she had started considering slitting her wrists with the blades of a Gillette sensor razor or cutting her throat with an X-Acto knife . . . Another drop of milk, please . . . Now that’s too much! Honestly!’ For a moment Beatrice looked furious. ‘I am sorry, Len, but you
know
I don’t like my tea drowned in milk. Can I have another cup?’

‘Yes, of course, darling. So – so sorry. I didn’t mean to –’ Colville appeared greatly flustered. ‘Here you are. Sorry, darling.’

‘
Thank
you.’ Beatrice leant towards Payne. ‘What
is
an X-Acto knife? I’ve been wondering. Is it an
army
kind of knife?’

Payne admitted he had no idea.

‘Ingrid once went so far as to try a beam in her room to see if it would be strong enough to support a noose. And on another occasion she considered driving off a cliff.’

‘People who talk so much about killing themselves never do it,’ Colville said a shade regretfully. ‘Did you show Miss Darcy the letter?’

‘I haven’t yet. I was about to. Would you be an angel and turn on the lights?’

Again Colville did as asked. ‘Better hurry up and do it before she comes back.’ He glanced at the clock on the mantel. ‘Remember what happened the other day?’

‘I certainly do.’ Beatrice took a sip of tea and grimaced. ‘Darling –
sugar
. Why is it that you
always
forget?’ She looked at Antonia and said gravely, ‘I owe you an apology, Antonia. May I call you Antonia?’

‘Of course you may.’

‘And you must call me Bee. Well, I have a confession to make, Antonia. I detest fibbing, I really do – but I did tell you a fib the other day when I spoke to you on the phone.’ ‘About the letter?’

‘Yes.’ Beatrice picked up one of the two books that lay on the little table beside her. From between its pages she drew out an envelope. ‘I meant to tell you the truth – but Ingrid came into the room just then, so I couldn’t. I didn’t want her to know who the letter was from, so I told you I didn’t know the man from Adam.’

‘You said his name was Ralph.’

‘Yes. Ralph Renshawe.’ Beatrice pronounced ‘Ralph’ over-emphatically as
Rafe
. ‘Many years ago he and I were engaged to be married. I was
extremely
young. Practically a child. It turns out he lives at a big house not so very far from here, can you imagine? A place called Ospreys. It’s a listed house. There is a wishing well in the back garden that goes back to the seventeenth century, apparently. I read a piece about it in
Homes and Gardens
. We’ve been practically neighbours all this time and neither of us the wiser! Life is so
strange
. Anyhow. I want you to read the letter. I rely on your wise counsel.’ She handed it over to Antonia. Payne moved closer. He thought he detected a slight medicinal smell emanating from the envelope.

The letter was written in a faint, shaky, hardly legible hand. It began:

This is a communication from the past you never expected
and almost certainly did not want. I hope you will read it. And
before you rip it up and drop it in the bin, I must tell you that
I am dying
.
This is the literal truth: I have been given a month
at the most. I do not deserve any sympathy and I do not expect
any . . .

It was not a long letter. Eventually Antonia looked up.

‘What do you think?’ Beatrice held her hand at her bosom. ‘Extraordinary, isn’t it?’

Antonia said slowly, ‘You and Ralph Renshawe were engaged to be married. He was driving you in his car. There was an accident. It was entirely his fault. He had been drinking. You had a head-on collision with another car. He wasn’t hurt but you were. Your injuries were extremely serious. You became paralysed from the waist down. You spent a very long time in hospital.’

‘Six months,’ Beatrice whispered.

‘Ralph visited you only once, then disappeared. You never saw him again. That happened thirty years ago. He went to Nova Scotia, then to Calgary, where he married a very rich woman –’

‘He married an oil heiress,’ Colville said stiffly. ‘There was something about it in the paper – years ago. She must have left him all her money. The price tag put on Ospreys was just over eight million pounds.’

‘Len knows all about houses. If you are interested in buying or renting a house, he is your man,’ Beatrice said. ‘All right, darling, I won’t embarrass you, I promise. Oh, how I wish we weren’t so worried about money! Sorry, darling!’ Colville had harrumphed again. ‘Well, nobody believes me when I say we are as poor as the proverbial church mice.’

She really was most indiscreet. Must be a nightmare, being married to her, Antonia thought, shooting a sym-pathetic glance at Colville.

‘I suppose appearances can be jolly deceptive,’ Payne murmured, glancing round the comfortable room with its crackling cosy fire.

Beatrice laughed exuberantly once more – as though he had made some risqué joke. ‘Honestly,’ she breathed. ‘I am afraid Daddy’s money is running out – and poor Len’s come an ugly cropper in his business dealings –’

‘Bee,’ Colville said warningly.

‘Well, I admit I am scared,’ she declared. ‘Honestly! I think I might end up like some sort of an Emma Bovary of the impoverished squierarchy! I know I am being silly.’

Antonia went on, ‘Soon after he inherited his late wife’s fortune, Ralph Renshawe came back to England and bought Ospreys. He was then diagnosed with cancer. He has been told it is terminal, inoperable. He is dying. He is consumed by guilt. His reason for writing the letter is to beg your forgiveness.’

‘It’s all so – so operatically melodramatic, isn’t it?’ Beatrice rolled up her eyes. ‘I can’t imagine Ralph filled to the brim with remorse and shaking in fear of eternal damnation. I simply can’t. Thirty years ago he was completely different – hard as nails. Now he mentions God in every sentence he writes.’

‘He mentions a priest,’ Antonia said.

‘Yes. His very own personal padre, it seems.’

‘He is a Catholic then?’

‘He wasn’t a Catholic when I knew him. He wasn’t any-thing. He looked down on all religions. He said there was no God. Do you think there is God, Hugh?’

‘Yes,’ Payne said. ‘Indubitably.’

‘When I hear a person of subtle intelligence express such positive views, I feel terribly encouraged. But sometimes I do wonder.’ Beatrice gave a mournful sigh.

Payne had been examining the envelope. He tapped the letter with his forefinger. ‘Renshawe asks you to visit him. Says it would mean a lot to him if you did.’

‘Oh dear, yes. I have no idea what I should do about it. I haven’t written back or anything. I thought you might be able to give me some advice. I am in a quandary. Len thinks I shouldn’t.’

‘You shouldn’t,’ Colville said. ‘Let him rot. He wrecked your life.’

Payne looked at him. ‘Did you know him, Colville?’

‘I did. Not at all well. Long time ago.’ There was a silence but Colville said no more.

‘How does Ingrid come into this?’ Antonia asked with a frown.

‘Well, she came into the room that day.’ Beatrice lowered her voice. ‘Just as I’d started telling you about the letter. I couldn’t possibly give you any details with her in the room. I lost my nerve. Ingrid would flip if she knew that Ralph is not only alive but living just round the corner from here as well. She’d go and – I don’t want to think what she might do. I really don’t.’

‘She’d kill him, that’s what she’d do,’ said Colville.

‘Why should she want to do that?’

‘Well, you see, Antonia, I told her that Ralph had left for Nova Scotia, which was true, but I also said he’d died there,’ Beatrice started explaining. ‘I told her I’d read his obituary in the paper. She seemed frightfully disappointed. She said he’d had an easy escape. So much hatred! It can’t be good for her, can it? I read somewhere if you hate too much, you develop cancer. Ingrid still flies into rages at the mere mention of his name! Honestly.’