The Killing of Olga Klimt (6 page)

‘He will forgive you. He is mad about you.’

She stretches out her hands towards me. ‘Mr Bedaux, you make everything so simple, so easy! I love you so much. You know? I always like older men,
always
. You and I get married when Charlie dies, yes? And then we will be together for ever.’

‘After a decent interval has passed, we’ll get married, yes … We’ll go abroad … To a place no one knows us … Somewhere warm, near the sea … Perhaps an island … But remember, we must be very, very careful …’

I spot Mr Eresby’s mobile on the drawing-room table. I pick it up and check if there are any messages. No, nothing.

Just as I step out of the front door, a shaft of sunlight dazzles me and I am impelled to cover my eyes with my hand. Someone seems to have opened a car door. For a moment the blood rushes from my head and I have the completely irrational feeling that this is somehow a bad omen.

I feel like running back into the house and holding Olga in my arms, holding her as tight as I can. The impulse is powerful, but I manage to fight it down.

I decide not to hire a cab. I am going to walk. I need to collect my thoughts.

I glance round Sloane Square and note its solidity and grace, its charm and unostentatiously plutocratic decorum. The trees glow with cupreous tints. A woman is walking two Pekinese dogs on bejewelled leashes. They move at a stately pace. Although the day is warm, there is a mink stole draped round her shoulders. Her expressionless face is of the well-bred equine variety. Her pearl choker brings to mind a horse collar. The sight amuses me and I smile.

I head for Symons Street. I know I must hurry but I don’t. I take my time. For some reason I do not feel like reaching
my destination. I need to think and as I do, my mood changes. I stop smiling. I feel a cold hand clutching at my heart.

A vision slowly rises before my eyes.

I see Olga in Mr Eresby’s arms – they are kissing passionately – it is their wedding night – they are in the double-poster bed in Mr Eresby’s bedroom – they are making love –

I almost come to a halt. My heart is beating fast, too fast. Why, I believe I am jealous! Yes. The realisation frightens me. The truth is I hate the idea of sharing Olga with Mr Eresby. I try to be rational about it. I remind myself that one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, also that jealousy could be fatal since it is capable of destroying every careful plan Olga and I have made.

I make a conscious effort to steer my mind in a different direction. I think of the woman with the little boy at the Sylvie & Bruno Nursery School. Miss Frayle addressed the woman as ‘Miss Darcy’. I have an idea I have seen that woman before. Like royalty, I rarely forget a face. I have seen her, yes. The exact place suddenly comes to me. Hatchards, in Piccadilly. It was three months ago. Yes. I had popped in to buy two books for Lady Collingwood. (
The Chalet School
and
Madame de
…)

A moment later I remember more. Her name is Antonia Darcy and she writes detective novels. When I last saw her, she was sitting at a small desk and signing copies of her latest book.

I have an uneasy feeling about her … I can’t say why … I saw her looking down at me, from the top of the stairs … Well, so what? A cat can look at a king!

I used to read detective novels a great deal as a boy. I remember that I always tended to despise the police and side with the criminal. I identified with the criminal. I always thought it
more fun. Didn’t someone say that only as a criminal could one achieve ultimate freedom?

I believe Antonia Darcy writes traditional whodunits. I don’t like whodunits. The artificiality and various contrivances of such stories irritate me. What I relish are crime stories in which you know who the culprit is from the very start and where the action is one long, unpredictable, frequently demented loop that keeps you on the edge of your seat and where all focus is on the villain.

I try to imagine how Antonia Darcy might see the situation I have engineered, how she would be likely to sketch it out in her plotting notebook, if of course she keeps one.

Two colluding lovers set out to dupe the heir to a vast fortune. The plan is to get the girl to marry the heir and subsequently kill him – but not before he has made a will leaving his money to her. The lovers will then marry and share the fortune. The male part of the conspiracy is the heir’s valet who has managed to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes by affecting animosity towards his master’s girlfriend.

Something on those lines.

Perhaps Antonia Darcy will introduce a counterplot, or rather a complication, one that runs alongside the main murder plot … Mr Eresby asks his valet to kill Olga Klimt, not realising that the valet and Olga Klimt are intent on killing
him
.

I am smiling once more, remembering that this actually happened.

Poor innocent Mr Eresby!

How will he die? It will be a sudden kind of death, I think. There will be an accident, a freak accident, maybe. Mr Eresby will slip and smash the back of his head against the edge of the marble bath. Or he will fall in front of a speeding car. Or he may try to fix a faulty fuse by means of a stepladder and –

So many possibilities!

A vastness and variety of vistas.

(Count on a would-be murderer to have a fancy prose style.)

Phew, what a day! Fenella Frayle sat at her desk and thought back to the extraordinary conversation she had had with Charles Eresby.

After Antonia Darcy had departed and little Eddy Rushton had been introduced to his new class, Fenella went up to her snuggery to see how the uninvited guest was getting on. She found Charles Eresby – the ‘biscuit heir’, as she’d started thinking of him – crying into one of her sofa cushions, shaking his head and muttering to himself, or rather repeating the same phrase again and again.

‘I want her dead, I want her dead, I want her dead.’

That’s what it had sounded like.

Miss Cooper had apparently replenished his sherry glass twice, which was probably the reason for the strange mantra. Mr Eresby didn’t seem to have a head for drink. Perhaps one day his name would appear in the
Guinness Book of Records
under the heading: first man to suffer delirium tremens induced by Croft’s Original.

Fenella Frayle was good in a crisis. She had cultivated a mock-bully manner, which never became abrasive or over-powering. Like the man in the Kipling poem she was adept at keeping her head even when all about her were losing theirs.
She considered herself an expert at putting distressed souls at their ease – how many times had she had to provide comfort not only for a lachrymose child but for one of her staff as well?

She told Miss Cooper she could go, then she sat down in the armchair opposite the sofa. Charles Eresby slowly raised his head and looked at her and he started telling her his tragic story, some terrible rigmarole about a girl called Olga Klimt, whom he had loved more than anything in the world but whom he now hated.

He was in hell. That was why she had to die, Charles Eresby concluded. It was payback time. If he couldn’t have her, no one else could.

‘Do you know for sure if there is anyone else? Another man?’ Fenella asked. She was a firm believer in the therapeutic effect of conversation.

‘I have no idea. The little bitch didn’t tell me. She used to have a boyfriend in Lithuania – maybe he’s come to England? I am sure that’s what’s happened. She clearly thinks he is a better lover than I shall ever be. I’m sure they are together at this very moment!’

‘You don’t know that.’ Fenella looked down at her neatly crossed ankles. ‘You shouldn’t jump to conclusions, you know.’

‘If she thinks she can walk out on me, just like that, she is wrong. She can’t. Well, as I said, it’s payback time.’

‘I do hope you won’t do anything silly, Mr Eresby.’

‘It won’t be anything silly, I promise you. Oh no. Not
silly
.’ He sniffed. ‘If I can’t have her, no one else can.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean exactly?’

‘I am sure you can guess.’

‘I can’t. Please tell me.’

‘I intend to take the ultimate drastic measure.’

‘What’s that?’

‘
I will kill her
.’

Fenella felt the sudden urge to laugh. Really, she thought, the whole thing was too absurd for words. Of all the garbled, cliché-ridden tales of love, betrayal and revenge! The biscuit heir was clearly off his rocker. As for the Lithuanian girl, she sounded too trashy and trite for words. He wouldn’t really try to kill her, would he?

‘You can’t go about killing people, Mr Eresby,’ she said resolutely.

‘Not people. Only one person. A girl called Olga Klimt. You see, I’ve already made up my mind.’

‘They’ll catch you.’

‘They
won’t
. I’ll be really clever about it. All I need is an alibi.’

‘They’ll catch you.’

‘They won’t.’

‘Alibis are tricky things, Mr Eresby. You won’t be able to get away with it. Murderers almost invariably get caught these days.’

‘Not always. Not if they are clever.’

‘Nowadays the police have the most advanced technology –’

‘Have you ever hated anyone? I mean, really hated?’ Charles Eresby asked quietly.

‘Sorry?’ She blinked. ‘Have I –?’

‘Hated anyone?’

‘Have I hated anyone? N-no. No! Of course not! I’ve never hated anyone!’

‘You have.’ He shook his forefinger at her. ‘You have! I can see you have.’

‘Nonsense. I haven’t.’

‘You have. You hesitated. You are a lousy liar. You are turning raspberry-red.’

‘I am not.’ Her hand went up to her cheek.

There was a pause.

‘Who is it? It would help me enormously if you told me. Who is the person you hate? Please, tell me. Then I’ll know I am not the only one. It would really help me.’

She tried to pull herself together. ‘You are most certainly not the only one, Mr Eresby. All right. I agree. Everybody has hated somebody at some point in their life. A horrible boss or an obnoxious neighbour or a difficult husband or wife or –’

‘Who is it you hate?’

‘No one. No one.’

‘It would really help me,’ he said again.

‘No one.’

‘Please.’

‘No one.’

‘I should feel honoured if you confided in me.’

‘The silly things you say!’ Fenella laughed.

‘Please.’

She threw up her hands. ‘What a pest you are! Oh very well. I have an aunt who is difficult. I don’t love her, though of course I wouldn’t dream of killing her!’

‘Who said anything about killing her?’ He gave Fenella a look out of the corner of his eyes. ‘So you hate your aunt?’

‘All right, yes, I hate her. She is difficult.’

‘How difficult?’

‘Difficult enough. Very difficult. All right, extremely difficult.’

‘Go on.’

‘My aunt is unpredictable and can be unpleasant.’ Fenella swallowed. ‘She is volatile and, well, completely irrational. She enjoys saying terrible things, hurtful things, spiteful things. She is poison. Especially after she’s had a drink. She enjoys intimidating me – humiliating me –’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, that’s it. That’s what she does. That’s why I find her difficult. She wants to see me fail. As a matter of fact,
she’s been trying to sabotage my work,’ Fenella suddenly blurted out.

‘Oh? That sounds serious.’

‘It is serious, yes … It’s extremely serious … It’s my life!’

He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I am interested in your aunt. I want to hear all about the old horror. You are in some way dependent on her, aren’t you?’

‘Well, yes. Aunt Clo-Clo started this place – this nursery school – she and I – we set it up together – we were business partners –’

‘Aunt Clo-Clo? What kind of name is that?’

‘That’s what I used to call her when I was a child. “Aunt Clo-Clo”. Her name is Clotilde.’

‘What’s her second name?’

‘Why do you want to know? Lemarchant. Clotilde Lemarchant. She was the headmistress here before me – she is the one who owns this place officially – the Sylvie & Bruno Nursery School. Then she retired. Everything was OK for a bit – she was difficult but I could live with it – but then she decided to withdraw her financial support – I thought I could still manage but then she told me it was time for me to close down –
close down
– I couldn’t believe my ears – she said she needed the building – Jevanny Lodge – for other purposes – she said she was planning to turn it into kennels!’

‘She likes dogs?’

‘She hates dogs. She detests dogs. She loves cats.’ Fenella passed her hand across her face. ‘It’s sheer bloody-mindedness –– she’s doing it out of spite – she said I’d become too big for my boots – she said I needed to be taught a lesson – she told me to start getting rid of the “kiddies” –’ Fenella’s voice shook.

‘Did you say she drank?’

‘She drinks, yes – each time she rings, she sounds inebriated
–– it’s done something to her brain – she told me she’d always hated my mother, her late sister – my mother’s been dead for years – she started referring to past injustices, most of them, I am sure, imaginary. I don’t know what to do!’

‘You sound at your wits’ end,’ Charlie said quietly.

‘I am at my wits’ end, yes – you are absolutely right – it’s my life’s work, you see – everything I care about is here – I can’t just get rid of the children – we have some very exclusive parents – I have no life outside the school – I don’t really know what to do!’

‘Don’t you?’ He gave her another look out of the corner of his eyes. He looks like a corrupt cherub, she thought.

She took a deep breath. ‘Aunt Clo-Clo told me to expect to hear from her solicitors very soon. Next week, in fact.’

It was at that point that Charles Eresby had come up with his idea. He had told her they were going to join forces. He had explained exactly what they were going to do and how it was going to work. Fenella Frayle had been unable to believe her ears – yet, what he said had a kind of mad logic about it – she believed it was the kind of thing that had been done before – in a book or in real life, she couldn’t say at the moment, but somehow it made perfect sense –