B004M5HK0M EBOK (6 page)

Seeing the long queue for the roast pork, rather than wasting time trying to evaluate how long it would take her to wait and whether or not she should stand in line or come back, Auntie had taken the sensible decision to press her suit as one of the oldest people there, and had walked to the front and held out her plate. ‘Hello, Auntie,’ called Emily. Auntie gave a queenly wave, but she didn’t look back. She was concentrating on her plate as the meat piled up on it. ‘A liccle more,’ she said to the man in the chef’s hat, each time he paused. ‘A liccle more.’

Now Dr. Muriel was heading in Emily’s direction, her cane in one hand, a cup of punch in the other. ‘I wonder if it’s true,’ Emily said to her, ‘that roast pork smells like roasting human flesh.’

She’d thought Dr. Muriel would say something obvious like, ‘Let’s hope we never find out!’ Instead she said, ‘When is something “true”, Emily? Is it when you read about it or hear about it, when you see it with your own eyes – or is there some other term of reference for you?’

‘In this case,’ said Emily. ‘I’d have to smell it with my own nose, wouldn’t I?’

Dr. Muriel sat down next to Emily, as though Emily had been waiting for her. So Emily took advantage of the situation to expound her theories about the knife throwing.

‘No-one has seen Zsa-Zsa since the knife throwing. Did she die right in front of me? Was she stabbed afterwards? Or is she alive?’

‘It might have been an accident,’ said Dr. Muriel. ‘Seems like a night for mishaps. A girl just set herself on fire over there by the house. One of the performers. A silly girl with a cigarette holder and a silver flapper dress. The fringe of her dress went up, whoosh! Luckily for her your friend whatshisname, Sonny Jim, he was there to smother the flames.’

Was he? Emily thought of Joe, heroic and strong, wrestling Elise to the ground to save her from burning– and hopefully bruising her a bit in the process.

She said, ‘It could have been anyone at the party who threw that knife.’

‘But if Zsa-Zsa died, then who was it who came back again to show us that it was a prop? To show us that she
hadn’t
been killed with a knife? You’re not saying they did something with mirrors? Or videotape? I was watching and I saw that girl come back, large as life.’

‘So we have suspects,’ Dr. Muriel said. ‘But no murder. That’s interesting. That’s a conundrum. ‘Remember, remember, the 5
th
of November. Gunpowder, treason and plot.’ How very apt that you should be investigating a murder that may not have happened, on Bonfire Night, a night which celebrates a regicide that never happened. You need a motive, don’t you? Though before you start with that, I’d say you need to have a murder.’

‘I’ve got a murder – I’ve just got to convince everyone else.’

‘Alright then, m’dear. You need a body. If there’s been a murder, there will be a body.’

‘You’re right. I need to find one. And if I can’t find one, I can at least look’.

‘Flower beds? Anything recently dug up.’

‘It’s just a tangle of weeds everywhere. Nothing has been touched for twenty years.’

‘The bonfire? You couldn’t really tuck a body in there without the whole lot falling down like a pile of fiddlesticks.’

‘Let me think.’ Emily closed her eyes to concentrate and instead of seeing where they might have hidden the body, she thought of Jessie. Even at the end, when everything else had gone: sight, hearing, back legs and sphincter, Jessie could smell a gravy bone across the kitchen. She’d have enjoyed the game of hunting for Zsa-Zsa, even if it was rather a ghoulish game. And, as Emily thought of Jessie, it was almost as though the dog was helping her with her enquiries (only almost, because of course she didn’t believe in ghosts), and she thought about that cellar with the poor dog in a cage down there. A dark cellar would be a very good place to hide a body.

She opened her eyes and looked towards the side of the house where the cellar was situated. She could see Joe arguing with Chris and Zizi up by the locked side door to the house where Midori had vomited.

‘I feel that I’m going about this the wrong way,’ Emily said to Dr. Muriel. ‘I should just ask Joe. Or Zizi. Or any of them. I should ask them straight out.’

‘Indeed,’ said Dr. Muriel. ‘But you won’t know what to ask them unless you find a body. If it was just a jolly good trick, they won’t tell you their professional secrets, will they?’

‘If there’s been a murder, I don’t suppose they’ll confess. Who’d want to admit to killing someone?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Dr. Muriel. ‘There are boastful people, frightened people, and those who just want to unburden themselves. You know, in my line of work, I enquire into all sorts of tricky situations, and after a while one starts to see that there is no absolute right and wrong. There is only what might be and what must be. One quickly adjusts to the idea that in certain situations, for certain people, it would be no trouble at all to kill someone.’

Emily stood and looked down for a moment on Dr. Muriel’s meaty-looking shoulders and that cane with the silver head on it. ‘Assuming that’s not a confession,’ she said, ‘I’ll go and look in the cellar. Unless you want to save me the trouble and tell me where you hid the body?’

Dr. Muriel laughed and waved her cane. Emily set off towards the cellar – and Joe.

‘Was that Zizi you were talking to?’ she asked Joe. There was no sign of Chris or Zizi. Or Zsa-Zsa.

‘She’s not very happy with me,’ he said. He looked embarrassed.

‘I’m going to the cellar, Joe. I think Zsa-Zsa may be in there.’

‘Really? You think Chris locked her in there with that dog? He’s not such a bad man as you make out.’

‘I saw the three of you arguing. I wish I could talk to Zizi.’

‘She’s leaving,’ said Joe. ‘Maybe she already left.’

‘Just Zizi?’

‘They’re leaving. Isn’t that what I said? Their mother is sick in Hungary. She has Alzheimer’s. They have to go back.’

‘The thing is, Joe...’ How to put this? ‘I really want to know what happened tonight. You dragged a dead body out of there after the knife throwing. And then, miraculously, she seemed to come to life.’

‘What you talking about, Emily?’

‘I told you about my dog?’

‘Emily, tonight you told everybody.’

‘She was old and I knew she was going to die. I was really worried about it. I hoped that she would die in her sleep. But she got more and more frail, and more and more old, and in the end I had to get the vet to come round. And it was actually a peaceful death – so much so that, in my emotional state, I felt that I could almost enjoy going round with the vet, from house to house, watching as animals are killed peacefully.’ Emily was getting a bit off-track here. ‘But of course that sounds a bit weird. What I mean, Joe, is that I watched as she died. And she just ceased to be.’

Not surprisingly, Joe looked bemused. ‘I’m sorry about your dog, Emily.’

‘I watched and saw exactly the same thing with Zsa-Zsa. I know she died. So what happened? Was it an accident? Did Zizi throw inaccurately? Did someone throw a kitchen knife from the balcony?’

‘It was a stunt, Emily. But Zizi threw a bit hard. Her sister fainted. I pinched her ears in the corridor and she stood up and took her bow.’

‘You pinched her ears?’

Joe smiled. He leaned forward and took hold of the outer edge of her left ear with his right hand. He didn’t pinch it. He touched her, and then he let go. ‘Try it,’ he said. ‘It really works. You know?’

‘Zsa-Zsa fainted?’

‘It was a bit emotional. They had a row today.’

‘Ah. I thought so.’

‘They look identical. When a man’s tired... When a man’s tired and a girl gets into bed with him... Maybe the sister plays a trick and it gets out of hand.’

‘Chris! The weasel! I saw that lipstick in his bedroom. I can’t believe I missed such an obvious clue. He slept with both of them? No wonder they were angry.’

‘Emily, maybe it’s not the man’s fault.’

‘It’s always the man’s fault, Joe. So Zizi killed her? She stabbed her sister out of jealousy? I’d been trying to find a motive – people smuggling, drugs, diamonds...’

Joe had been looking worried but he laughed at Emily’s list. ‘Emily, nothing happened. There wasn’t a murder.’

‘I saw it happen.’

‘I know you feel sad about your dog. Everything doesn’t relate back to that. You know?’

‘And Chris is implicated. I know you’re covering up for them but you’ll get in trouble if you don’t go to the police, Joe.’

‘But somebody already called the police – they came here and saw for themselves there wasn’t a murder.’

‘Yes. That’s the clever bit. Now if we call again and tell them what happened they’ll never believe us. We need evidence. All I have is theories but I
know
Chris put something in Midori’s drink and poisoned her. He set fire to Elise because she tried to give me a clue.’

‘Chris set fire to Elise?’

‘Dr. Muriel told me. Her dress caught fire and Chris was there. I thought she was talking about you but she meant Chris. Setting fire to someone or smothering the flames – to an onlooker, there’s very little difference. He was giving Elise a warning, telling her to keep silent. He’s dangerous, Joe. You be careful.’

‘Emily, I tell you what. I think you’re crazy but I’ll talk to Chris. I’ll talk to Zizi. I’ll see if I can find Zsa-Zsa. Will that do?’

But Emily was distracted. Up ahead in the darkness, near the house, she could just about make out Dr. Muriel skirting past the bushes. She was heading for the cellar. ‘You see what you can find out,’ Emily said to Joe. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.’

Before Emily could reach her, Dr. Muriel had opened the cellar door and gone inside. Emily followed, hating the darkness. This was the king of darkness compared to the ill-lit passageway that led here, and the corridor that looked on to the grand hall. This was a spidery darkness, full of stacked things and shadows – and, presumably, Dr. Muriel.

‘Emily?’ Dr. Muriel’s voice was behind her. A light flared in the cellar, showing the row of giant faces, painted on fibreglass heads as big as a person, each one with different features, but similar in construction to the glowing heads Emily had seen in the garden when she first arrived. She looked for the cage with the dog in it but it had gone.

‘Dr. Muriel?’ Emily called. ‘Is it just you in here?’

‘Come and look at this, m’dear.’

Emily went back towards the cellar door. She saw a thin beam of light from a pen torch on a key ring as Dr. Muriel shone it on a painted sarcophagus, depicting a larger than lifesize pink naked woman with long black hair and big blue eyes, her nudity innocent as a mermaid’s, though from what Emily could see of it, she had legs. Dr. Muriel tapped, like an electrician tapping at panelling to check whether the space behind it is hollow and might contain wires that could kill if someone drills into them. She pulled at a catch on the side of the lady, just about where her ribs would be, and lifted the lid upwards to reveal another painted lady inside. It was Zsa-Zsa, the kitchen knife still in her chest, her pretty face tinged with a blue that matched her costume.

‘I know what you said about right and wrong,’ Emily said. ‘But until you see something like this, you can’t really believe it.’

Dr. Muriel said, ‘Sometimes people are driven to do terrible things.’

And then, as if proof were needed – which it was not – Emily felt the business end of Dr. Muriel’s cane on the back of her head, and she went down in a lump.

A short while later, Emily regained consciousness. She was standing upright and her legs were untethered, but her arms were pinioned. She was in darkness, her upper body enclosed in a roughly spherical space. The air that she breathed had the smell of an art room about it. From outside, roast pork and bonfire smokiness drifted into the cellar – she couldn’t have been unconscious for too long. It was still the night of the party.

‘Emily,’ called Dr. Muriel, fairly robustly, considering the circumstances, ‘what is this? A pantomime horse.’

‘I think you might be inside a giant head. You didn’t whack me, did you, with your cane?’

‘No, of course not! You really are a most suspicious girl.’

‘Dr. M., what do you know about Chekov?’

‘Ah, well.’ Dr. M cleared her throat as if to start on a very long lecture. Her voice echoed slightly in her improvised prison. ‘The Russians, of course-’

‘I mean, tell me the name of some Chekov plays.’

‘The Seagull. I think that might be my favourite because-‘

‘Dr. Muriel, can you just give me a list?’

‘The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya... I could tell you a rather amusing story about the time I saw Uncle Vanya in-’

‘Please don’t.’

‘Three Sisters.’

So that was it. ‘Three sisters!’ Emily said. ‘It seems obvious now, doesn’t it? It’s simple arithmetic. If two are alive and one is dead...’

An arc of light swung through the darkness in the cellar – Emily could see it through the peepholes in the head which were located in the nostrils that had been painted on the face. She looked for the painted sarcophagus but she couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see who was in the cellar with them – whether rescuer or assailant. ‘Shh,’ she whispered to Dr. Muriel. ‘I think we’re not alone.’