4.Little Victim (12 page)

Payne asked her if she was nervous.

‘Of course I am nervous. Is my face too red?’

Payne had put on his jacket. He kissed her. ‘Not at all. Your headache gone?’

‘I never had a headache.
You
did.’

‘Look here, old thing – we must be careful,’ Payne said.

Antonia suddenly sat back on the edge of the bed. ‘Roman wouldn’t like it if he caught us trying to prove he was a murderer. What shall we do if we do find Ria’s body? Or, for that matter, Julian Knight’s body?’

‘We’d be in something of a fix. We could try reporting the matter to the police, though chances are we’d be shopped to Songhera straight away. I don’t know. We’ll have to play it by ear. We could try to get in touch with the High Commission in Delhi, I suppose. Delhi’s miles from here. God knows if our mobiles will work. The last time I checked, there was no network.’

‘There’s an internet room downstairs,’ Antonia said.

‘The internet was not working this morning, at least that’s what the boy said. We seem to be completely cut off. Didn’t Knight tell you he couldn’t get through to the British High Commission?’

‘He did. The line was down, apparently.’

‘He had no mobile phone?’

‘I have no idea. I didn’t see a mobile. They wouldn’t have rung up Coconut Grove and asked for him if he did have a mobile, would they?’

Major Payne said, ‘The more I think about that phone call, the less I like it.’

17

Journey into Fear

They managed to leave the house without attracting too much attention. Antonia feared they might bump into Mrs Depleche but that lady was nowhere to be seen. Nor was their host. The bearded concierge sat behind his highly polished mahogany desk and he wished them a resounding, ‘Good evening, sir. Good evening, madam! Kindly remember – fireworks at nine. It will be a spectacle you will not want to miss.’

Outside, the party was going on. Music and laughter and the popping of champagne corks came from the terrace and the garden, both of which were now illuminated by a profusion of Chinese lanterns and flickering firefly lights. English voices –

‘Brown’s, as in Dover Street in London. It does look like the real thing, yes. That’s where English visitors usually congregate – unless they’ve decided to go native. It overlooks the sea – spectacular view – sometimes we go there for tea.’

It was a woman who had spoken. The adulterous Mrs Gilmour? Other English people seemed to have turned up for the firework party. How large exactly was the expat colony in Kilhar?

‘There are some new arrivals. An ornithologist and a couple that had Home Counties written all over them. Quite respectable-looking. The husband was in a dreadful state – he was accusing his wife of cheating on him, that’s what it sounded like.
It was you. You lied to me!
She was very much the
pas devant
type – trying to put her hand over his mouth. Actually, I’m not sure they were husband and wife –’

‘The place is riddled with superannuated hippies, simply riddled,’ a man was saying. ‘Some of these chaps have been here since – you wouldn’t believe this – 1967! One keeps bumping into them on the beach. They stagger about in headgear twisted and broken by long use, straw sticking from fraying rims, suitable only for donkeys to wear – like mad kings in Shakespeare’s plays!
Peace, man
–’

Arm-in- arm, the Paynes walked briskly down the dimly lit drive. Coconut trees grew on both sides of it. The air was heavy with the heady aroma of mimosa and some other flowers Antonia did not recognize. Hugh’s left hand was clenched into a fist, she noticed – as though he anticipated some form of attack. Neither of them spoke. Julian Knight had been holding something in his left hand – so tight that his knuckles had turned white. What
was
it? She would never rest till she found out. She looked up. The moon was out – full moon – enormous – blood-red – sinister.

She consulted her watch. It took them exactly a minute to reach the electronically operated gates. Antonia glanced over her shoulder once, then a second time. She had imagined the bearded servant’s hand had moved towards the phone on the desk. Had he informed his master or the chief of security that they had left the building? Well, nobody was following them. There was a guard standing by the gates, a powerfully built Indian in a white short-sleeved shirt and black, carefully pressed trousers. He gave them a good-natured smile and waved them through. Thank God! She sighed with relief. She had been convinced they would be intercepted, frog-marched back and put under house arrest.

They saw several cabs further down the street, their drivers standing about, smoking and talking.

They got into the first one. ‘Fernandez Avenue,’ Payne said. ‘You know it?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the young driver replied in English. He had long raven-black hair, which he wore in a pony tail. ‘Fernandez Avenue is very near. Very nice street. Very nice peoples.’

‘Do many English people live there?’

‘Rich peoples. Some English ladies and gentlemen live in Fernandez Avenue. Yes. Some Portuguese peoples too. Very nice clean place. Very nice houses. Real class. Very safe place.’

They had been plunged into total darkness and were driving at a breakneck speed along an extremely bumpy road. There wasn’t another car following them, was there? No. The driver took a turn – they felt the helpless swing of the skid – then another bump! Antonia clutched at her husband’s hand.

Major Payne cleared his throat. ‘A bit too fast, old chap?’

‘I like speed. Speed is good. I like fast cars!’ The driver laughed. ‘James Bond!’

‘Have you been frightfully busy this afternoon?’

‘Busy, sir? Yes. I am very busy today. Not all time, no.’ He glanced at Payne over his shoulder, causing Antonia to wince.

‘Watch out!’ she cried as the car leapt upwards.

The driver laughed again. ‘James Bond,’ he said again. ‘James Bond has new car every time.
Every time
. I want to write letter to James Bond.’

‘You can’t. He’s a fictional character,’ Payne said.

‘I can write in English!’ Once more the driver glanced over his shoulder.

‘Hugh,’ Antonia said warningly.

‘James Bond most famous English gentleman in the world!’

‘You think so? Not David Beckam? Well, you are right. David Beckam is one of nature’s gentlemen, but hardly what you’d call “the real thing” . . . I suppose you could send your letter to James Bond care of the Pinewood Studios in London. There’s bound to be somebody there who’ll answer it. They may even have a specially designated employee who takes care of that sort of thing –’

‘
Hugh
.’

Payne asked if by any chance the driver had seen an English gentleman walk out of Coconut Grove. ‘About – um – an hour and a half ago?’

The driver waved his hand. ‘I see many English gentle-mans today. On the beach, on the market and on nice restaurants. Goa is a very popular place.’ Suddenly the car slowed down. ‘This is Fernandez Avenue. What number, sir?’

‘Number 19.’

‘Ah, number 19.’

‘You know it?’ Antonia asked.

‘I know number 19. I go sometimes, yes. A very nice English lady live at number 19. Very young, very beautiful. No, not today. Today I go other places. James Bond has new girlfriend every time.’ The driver sighed. ‘
Every time
.’

‘Bond girls tend to get killed, don’t they?’

Hugh should stop provoking him, Antonia thought, but the driver laughed. ‘I like killing!’

‘You do?’

Fernandez Avenue had some street lamps, but they only emitted the palest of glows. A ghostly road . . .

‘The English lady at number 19 is Roman Songhera’s girlfriend, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the driver said after a pause.

‘You know Roman Songhera?’

‘Everybody know Mr Songhera.’

‘Did Roman Songhera come to number 19 today, do you happen to know?’

‘No, sir.’

‘You mean he didn’t or that you don’t know?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What car does Roman Songhera drive?’ Payne persisted.

‘Two car. BMW M6 Coupe. Aston Martin DB9. And he has a Suzuki Bandit 1200S motorbike . . . This is number 19.’ The driver pointed.

‘You don’t happen to know which of the James Bonds “The Look of Love” is from, old boy, do you? A friend of mine and I were having an argument about it,’ Major Payne said as he was paying him. ‘You know the one?’ He hummed a couple of bars.

‘
Casino Royale
,’ the driver said.

‘Of course. That silly old one
– not
the new one. Thank you so much. I don’t suppose you approve of a blond Bond? You strike me as a purist.’

‘Hugh,’ Antonia warned again.

‘Le Chiffre and that infamous torture scene. Must tell Charlotte,’ Major Payne murmured as he helped Antonia out of the cab.

He thought the fee the cab driver asked quite exorbitant. ‘Notice how monosyllabic and subdued the chap became the moment I brought Songhera into the conversation?’

18

The Mirror Cracked

They stood looking at number 19. ‘Not exactly what one imagines a courtesan’s
casa
to be,’ Payne said. ‘But then what
does
a courtesan’s
casa
look like?’

‘We might be in Bognor Regis.’

‘Or in good old Broadstairs.’

It was a neat white bungalow, indeed of the kind one saw at the English seaside – highly respectable – freshly painted – green shutters – a pleasant little garden in front – a trim beech tree – no unruly palms. At the moment all the windows were lit and had been left open – thin silk curtains fluttered in the light evening breeze. Lively music was coming from inside. An Italian song. It struck the only exotic note. ‘Una Lacrima Sul Viso’.

‘Is that Bobby Solo?’ Payne murmured. As they walked up the path towards the front door, he observed that everything seemed to be fine. Ria seemed to be entertaining. She seemed to have recovered from her bad tummy.

‘She is supposed to be at Coconut Grove, Hugh. You said Roman looked very worried. This doesn’t make sense,’ Antonia said.

‘It doesn’t, you are right. This is rather spooky, actually.’

They rang the front door bell several times, then knocked. When they got no reply, Payne tried the handle. The door opened and they entered. The music became louder. ‘Hello!’ Payne called out. ‘Miss Leighton?’

No answer came. They stood and looked round.

The hall was brightly illuminated. They saw open doors and caught a glimpse of the rooms behind them. There appeared to be four rooms. Only one door was closed. Antonia’s eyes fixed on it. The bedroom? She was aware of her heart starting to beat fast. Everything was white – the floors, the walls, the furniture, the rugs, the chest beside the bedroom door. The whiteness created an impression of spaciousness and light. It also made the air feel cooler somehow.

Payne wondered whether the choice of white held any special meaning. The obvious association was with ‘coolness’ . . . A cool girl . . . There was also the Snow Queen . . . Was Ria trying to strike a balance between being a lust object and an ice maiden? Or perhaps she intended it as an ironic statement – white also stood for innocence and purity.

Antonia was sniffing the air. A scent? Something old-fashioned and stately – not what one would have associated with a young girl of Ria’s persuasion, but then Ria might have got a kick out of playing different parts.

‘Badly pulverized petits fours.’ Payne had picked up a red, black and gold box from the floor. It looked as though someone’s heavy foot had trodden on the box and caused it to burst open and spill out its contents. ‘
Madame Landru,
Geneva. The best quality chocolate, marzipan, almonds and
nougat
,’ he read out.

‘Camillo’s Valentine gift?’

‘Yes. Must be. What
was
it he saw?’ Payne placed the squashed box on a side table.

‘The mirror – somebody’s broken the mirror.’ Antonia pointed.

The hall mirror had hung on the wall opposite the closed door, but it now lay on the floor. There was a crack running across it.

‘Camillo might have pushed it off the wall as he fled from whatever horrors he witnessed. Or it may have fallen off of its own accord. Mirrors sometimes do, inexplicably. According to the ancient superstition, when that happens a seven-year curse follows.’

‘The hook’s here.’ Antonia was standing beside the wall. She tried the hook with her forefinger. ‘There’s something caught on it. What’s this? Looks like white hairs.’

‘Ria might have been visited by some malignant old crone,’ Payne said. ‘The Wicked Witch of the East? Or she might have had a fight with some client of venerable age. She might have found his demands too much on the
outré
side.’

Antonia shook her head. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of saying silly things?’

Payne stood peering at the hairs. ‘These are not human hairs. It is some animal. A goat? This is getting stranger by the minute.’ Turning round, he bent over the white rug in the middle of the hall. He ran his hand over its surface. ‘No, this is too short.’

They looked into each room in turn. Sitting room, dining room, kitchen – all gleaming white, spotlessly clean and in perfect order. Only the radio in the sitting room was blaring away – some Italian station, by the sound of it –
Buona sera, signorina, buona sera
–

Payne turned it off.

Then they stood outside the closed door.

It was the bedroom, as they knew it would be.

Antonia’s hand had gone up to her throat. What kind of stormy petrels were they? Wherever they went, murder and mayhem seemed to follow. It had been said that certain events attract certain people, but it might be the other way round – certain people attracted certain events . . .

The bedroom, however, was empty. There was no sign of Ria, dead or alive. Perversely, Antonia felt a twinge of disappointment.

Standing side by side, they took stock of their surroundings.

A rosewood four-poster bed carved to perfection. Two pale cream satin chairs. A rather striking antique dressing table. The clock that stood on the table was all pink enamel and gilt amoretti, and beside it lay a book whose cover bore the picture of an imperious beauty with almond-shaped eyes.
The Dream of the Red Chamber
. Antonia could never resist the sight of a book, so she picked it up and read the blurb. The story of an
ernai
– the pinnacle of Chinese courtesans – who had become a favoured consort of the Chinese Emperor and been so richly rewarded for her services that she managed to provide financial support for three generations of her family.

Well, Ria didn’t need to support any of
her
family. The Leightons, Antonia imagined, were extremely well off. Why exactly did girls like Ria become prostitutes? That should be the real mystery.

‘That’s the devil of a lot of mirrors!’ Payne was looking at the ceiling. ‘Wouldn’t you like to have mirrors like that on our bedroom ceiling in Hampstead?’

‘No,’ said Antonia.

He frowned. ‘Why has the bed been pushed to one side? A whacking big four-poster . . .’

‘The maid – while hoovering?’ Antonia ran her finger across a side table and discovered it was covered in dust. ‘No. The room hasn’t been cleaned today.’

Payne opened the wardrobe and peered inside. ‘Haute couture. Prada stilettos. Some rather outlandish outfits. Gosh. Quite outrageous, in fact. Enough to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window. Designed to beguile and entice rather than to clothe. Wouldn’t you like to take a peek?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘What a little Puritan you are.’

‘I am not a little Puritan. All right, let me see.’ She joined him beside the wardrobe. ‘Wow.’

‘You don’t have to humour me.’

Ria couldn’t still be plying her trade behind Roman’s back, could she? Antonia wondered aloud if perhaps Ria had kept these garments as mementoes of her colourful past career. ‘Garments’ being a courtesy title since the idea behind them was clearly to
reveal.

‘Perhaps Songhera likes her to dress up,’ Payne said.

Antonia’s attention was drawn to a black bustier, which had been ripped apart.
The clothes of the dead won’t wear long
– they fret for the person who owned them.
So claimed another ancient superstition. ‘We’d have some serious explaining to do if Ria suddenly came back,’ she said.

‘Pray that
Songhera
doesn’t suddenly turn up!’

The bed was unmade. ‘Silk sheets . . . The wasteful extravagance of it all . . . Is she a brunette?’ Payne had detached a black hair from one of the two pillows.

‘No idea. It might be Roman’s.’

‘Too long.’

‘His hair might be long under the turban. Sikhs keep their hair long, don’t they? Is he a Sikh? Or a Hindu?’

‘He is an ass.
The Asinine Assassin
. That’s the play Ionesco never wrote,’ Payne said. ‘The Honourable Charlotte should be more discriminating in her choice of friends, really. A woman of her standing shouldn’t be consorting with thugs.’

Antonia examined each one of the bed’s four pillars. ‘No blood. Well, Julian Knight said there wasn’t any blood.’

‘There wouldn’t be if her neck was broken or if she suffered an internal haemorrhage.’

‘Solid wood – extremely hard. Would it be enough to cause death, though? I suppose it all depends on Roman’s strength and the fragility of Ria’s skull,’ Antonia mused. ‘Julian Knight said he heard a crack.’

‘Couldn’t she have been merely concussed? She might have come to eventually and walked off.’

‘Julian Knight was positive that she was killed. Her eyes remained open, apparently. It was Roman who closed them.’

Major Payne stood examining the array of objects that lay on the right-hand bedside table. A pair of pendant earrings, a make-up kit, a bottle of nail varnish remover, a Penguin paperback.
Andersen’s Fairy Tales
. How interesting. One always assumed hookers were pragmatic, hard-boiled and cynical. He couldn’t quite envisage Ria reading fairy tales at bedtime. Hard to imagine her identifying with, say, the ultra-fastidious princess who had been given a sleepless night by a pea placed under a pile of mattresses.

What was that? A single sheet of mauve-coloured writing paper lying across the pillow. He picked it up and smoothed it out. It was a letter. He glanced at the bottom first, then read it through.

‘How normal and reassuring that she should have an affectionate aunt called Iris who lives in Cambridgeshire,’ he observed. ‘Ria’s father died last November . . . He died of a pulmonary embolism . . . The funeral was a “grand affair” . . . They didn’t get on,’ Payne looked up. ‘Maybe her father’s the reason she turned out the way she did? Martinets’ children frequently develop dissident personalities, haven’t you noticed?’

‘Should we be touching things like that?’

‘We should have been wearing gloves, you are absolutely right. Too late now. You don’t suppose we will be arrested on suspicion of murder, do you?’ He didn’t seem particularly concerned. ‘That might provide you with spectacular publicity for your new novel.’

‘We may be doing the local police a grave injustice. It would serve us right if they suddenly burst into the room and ordered us to hold our hands up.’

‘Is the aunt Ria’s only next of kin? Did Ria have no mother? Was she an only child? How frustrating not to know anything about her previous life.’ Payne pulled out the bedside table drawer. ‘Hello. What have we got here?’

‘What’s that?’

He had taken out a bundle of letters held together with two elastic rubber bands. Detaching the top one, he read out, ‘
Noon’s Folly Cottage, Noon’s Folly, nr Ayot St Lawrence,
Hertfordshire
. Noon’s Folly. How quaint. D’you think “noon” is a corruption of “nun”? One
can
imagine a nun committing a folly . . .
My dearest girl, I love you more than
words can express
. A love letter, by Jove.
Your loving father
. Well, not quite. What’s the matter now?’

‘I do feel uncomfortable about reading people’s letters.’

‘Decent folk don’t do that sort of thing? You are right, they don’t. Well, it’s a low job searching people’s rooms and we are low hounds to do it, but the circumstances, you must admit, are quite exceptional. It’s not as though we are motivated by vulgar curiosity.’ Payne went on examining the letters. ‘
Your loving father
. . .
I would give
anything to have you back
. . .
Your loving father
. . .
Don’t you
think you’ve been punishing me for too long? Have I been sentenced
to a life of misery and pain? Please, my child, come back.
Your loving father.
’ Payne looked up. ‘All the letters are from her father.’

‘So I gathered. Poor man. He probably died of a broken heart.’

‘He writes like a man possessed . . . Does anyone still live at Noon’s Folly, I wonder? There’s a phone number. Who knows? It may be up to us to break the awful news to Ria’s next of kin.’