Assassins at Ospreys (13 page)

19
The Vanishing

‘Your hair’s not done. What happened to your hair-dresser’s appointment?’ Colville asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

‘Oh, don’t ask!’ Beatrice flapped her hands. ‘The most awful calamity. Honestly! You won’t believe this, darling, but they suddenly found themselves without any electricity!’

‘Without electricity?’

‘Yes! There was a loud crack as I was entering. Some kind of short-circuit or power cut or something. Can you
imagine
? Alessandro didn’t know where to look – so terribly embarrassed, poor boy. Then I ran into Cressie. D’you remember Cressie de Villeneuve? Oh no, you wouldn’t. She and I used to be great chums but had rather lost touch. She’s come back from Brazil – where her husband’s our man – brown as a nut! We were at finishing school together, in Switzerland. The last time she saw me, I was in my wheelchair, so she didn’t recognize me at first. There was a lot of catching-up to do. She wanted to hear all about you.’

‘She did?’

‘Yes! Her people apparently knew your people. We went to have lunch at a place called Tiddly Dolls – such fun – the most divine Spanish omelette I’ve ever had – I completely lost track of the time! Then we went shopping – Cressie needed to buy a handbag and she wanted my opinion.’

She prattled on. It was half past four now. It turned out she had lost her mobile phone too; she had absolutely no idea where her mobile had disappeared, that was why she hadn’t been able to ring him. (A likely story! How could she have lost her mobile?) She had
meant
to ring, honestly. (A contradiction, surely? A moment earlier she had said she had lost track of time. He kept catching her out. She wasn’t really taking care, was she? She must have a very poor opinion of his intelligence. Didn’t she realize that all he needed to do was phone Alessandro’s and check whether there really had been a power cut?)

‘You haven’t been
worried
, have you? My poor darling, you do look terrible! Has anything happened?’

‘Nothing’s happened.’

‘You look different somehow. You look tired.
Years
older.’

‘Rubbish,’ he bristled. She had been with some young man, that was why he appeared older to her now. She was seeing him with ‘new eyes’. Or she had lain in the arms of somebody who looked younger and was more vigorous than his years – was it Payne?

‘Is it the heat? You aren’t awfully good in the heat, are you?’ She reached out and touched his forehead. Her fingertips felt cool. He shivered. Her power over him continued undiminished.

‘It must be the heat,’ he said.

‘Is Ingrid back?’ Beatrice heaved a deep sigh and shook her head when he said no.

Something rustled in his pocket. His fingers closed on the folded sheet of paper he had found in the pocket of the mink coat Ingrid had abandoned on the landing upstairs. The coat belonged to Bee. Ingrid had worn it until the weather had turned, as part of the Beatrice disguise. Ingrid had drawn a plan of Ospreys on it – it showed Ralph Renshawe’s french windows, the terrace and the wishing well in the garden. The police would certainly be interested in it. He wondered whether to show the draw-ing to Bee.

He saw her pull something out of her bag. It was an oblong in scarlet, black and gold: a Tiddly Dolls menu. Making a silly face, what she called her ‘duck face’, Beatrice waved the menu under his nose. ‘In case you don’t believe I had lunch there.’

Why had she brought the menu with her? She had
stolen
it from the restaurant. She had panicked. She felt he needed convincing – she had been worried he might not believe her. She wouldn’t have done it if she had been innocent. No. She didn’t realize that the menu was proof of her guilt. ‘Cressie de Villeneuve’ was an invention. Well, Bee might well have had lunch at Tiddly Dolls – in the company of her lover.

Was
it Major Payne?

Two days later, at one o’clock in the afternoon of November 28th, Major Payne sat at the kitchen table, a whisky and soda in his hand, his unlit pipe lying on the table before him, his attention divided between watching his wife make salad, playing Patience Solitaire with a pack of cards and leafing absently through an early edition of London’s
Evening Standard
. It was another very warm day and the kitchen window was wide open.

‘So, plenty of olive oil but no garlic? You sure about the garlic?’ Antonia said.

‘Absolutely. No garlic,’ Major Payne said firmly. ‘You don’t have to follow Miss Elizabeth David so slavishly. We don’t want to feel more Mediterranean than we already do, do we?’

‘I wouldn’t mind. I’d rather be hot than cold.’

‘So would I.’ He squinted at the row of Antonia’s cookery books. ‘I bet you don’t know what Mrs Beeton’s first name was.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Isabella.’

‘I would never have thought it possible. She doesn’t sound like an Isabella at all, if her recipes are anything to go by. Do you remember the pink blancmange?’

‘Vividly. The pink blancmange should never have been attempted. The whole Victorian dinner idea was a mistake from start to finish. I nearly died of indigestion that night.’

‘The oyster soup wasn’t too bad. Do you find Beatrice Ardleigh attractive?’

‘There we go again.
Not in the least
.’

‘That’s what Colonel Christie must have said when Agatha asked him the very same question about Nancy Neale,’ Antonia said with a smile. She then went on to say that perhaps detective story writers should not marry military men. It didn’t seem to work.

‘What absolute rot,’ Major Payne said.

‘If I were to disappear for twenty-six days, you would know why.’

‘I’ll lead the search party straight to the Harrogate Hydro.’

‘Do they say when this “front” is going to leave these shores?’ Antonia asked after a pause.

Payne looked down at the paper. ‘No . . . People have been splashing about in the fountains in Trafalgar Square and members of the Queen’s mounted guard have been seen hosing down their horses in an attempt to cool them.
Good lord
,’ he exclaimed as he reached page four.

‘What is it?’

There was a pause. The newspaper rustled in his hands. ‘I am
not
making this up, Antonia.
Mysterious disappearance
of a Catholic priest. The alarm was raised after Father Lillie-
Lysander, 40, failed to keep an appointment with his bishop and
there was no response to any of the calls made to his landline or
his mobile phone. Father Lillie-Lysander was last seen on the
morning of November 26th at Ospreys, a country house in
Oxfordshire, the property of Mr Ralph Renshawe
.’

‘Are you trying to say Ralph’s father confessor has dis-appeared?’ Antonia stood very still, a lettuce leaf in her hand.

‘That’s what it says here, it must be him. A second priest on the scene would be
de trop
.’

Antonia put her head to one side. ‘You are making this up.’

‘I am not. Golly.
Wait.
There’s been a
second
disappearance!’ Payne cried. ‘It’s reported on the very same page! They always report disappearances on the same page . . . Only a couple of lines . . . No, this is too much. You won’t believe this,’ he said again. ‘Listen . . .
The police are very
concerned about the whereabouts of Ingrid Delmar, 50, who
has been missing from her home since the morning of
November 26th
.’

‘You are making this up. We did talk about it, Hugh.’

‘I am not making anything up!
Miss Delmar, who has had
a history of depressive illness, lives in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.
She shares a house with friends of hers, Mr and Mrs Colville.
It was Mrs Colville who contacted the police. A search is under
way
.’

Antonia continued staring at him. ‘This is another of your jokes.’

‘I see why you should think that, but it isn’t another of my jokes. Well, see for yourself.’ He tossed the paper across the table.

Wiping her hands on a tea towel, she picked up the paper.

He was gratified to see her expression change. He saw her turn the paper over and scrutinize the front page as thought to convince herself this was indeed today’s paper, an authentic paper, and that he wasn’t playing some trick on her. One
could
produce a fake newspaper, as part of some elaborate hoax, he supposed. There was a place somewhere in London, where they did that sort of thing, he was sure. Somewhere near Covent Garden?

‘Incredible.’ He heard Antonia say. ‘Sorry, Hugh. I can’t believe this . . .’

‘What was the technical term for the doctrine of chance?’ Major Payne picked up his pipe.

‘What doctrine?’ She lowered the paper.

‘We were talking about it last night.’

‘The Calculus of Probabilities?’

‘That’s it. Well, according to the Calculus of Probabilities,’ Payne said slowly, ‘coincidence in these particular circumstances is
not
very likely. You agree?’

‘I don’t see how it could be coincidence.’ Antonia frowned. ‘Two disappearances – on the very same day – both missing persons with links to Ospreys and Ralph Renshawe. Something – something must have happened to them. People don’t just – disappear.’

‘O
mnia exeunt in mysterium
,’ Major Payne said. ‘Everything dissolves in mystery . . . Perhaps there is some human Bermuda triangle encompassing Ospreys?’ He put his pipe in his mouth and produced a match.

‘No, not in the kitchen, Hugh, I’ve told you.’

‘I need to smoke,’ he said. ‘Helps me to think.’

‘Oh very well, but only this once.’ She sat down slowly. ‘Where
have
they gone? Something must have happened.’ ‘Maybe the padre and Ingrid decided to elope and set up house together? Emotionally labile people attract one another. Plenty of examples. Bonnie and Clyde. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton – they got married, then got divorced, then remarried, then got divorced again. Hinge and Brackett – young men masquerading as old women. The Papen sisters –’

‘The Papen sisters were
sisters
, Hugh. They couldn’t have attracted one another.’

‘Wasn’t there a touch of incestuous lesbianism about them? Garbo and Gilbert.’

‘Gilbert and George?’ Antonia said despite herself.

‘Absolutely. See? The list is endless.’

‘Why would Father Lillie-Lysander and Ingrid want to elope?’

‘Because of the padre’s vows . . . Um . . . They need time to think ahead – plan the future – think of the best way to break it to the cardinals –’

‘For a man whose intelligence has been described as subtle, Hugh, you do talk a lot of nonsense.’ Antonia frowned. ‘Are you sure Gilbert was emotionally labile? I mean Garbo’s Gilbert?’

‘He thought he was the greatest actor who ever lived. He drank himself to death.’

‘We don’t know if Father Lillie-Lysander was emotion-ally labile.’

‘Well, he’s been listening to strangers describing their unspeakable fantasies for heaven knows how long.
Through a grille
. Try to imagine what that could do to a chap. Don’t you think the grille is a form of peephole to one’s most private peep show?’

‘No, I don’t. Really, Hugh –’

The next moment the telephone started ringing. Payne felt delighted at the interruption – he didn’t at all like the expression on Antonia’s face. ‘I’ll get it.’ Jumping up from his seat, he picked up the kitchen extension.

‘Oh, hello, Beatrice.’ He grimaced at Antonia. ‘Actually, we just read it and were talking about it. Yes, terrible thing to happen . . . I can imagine . . . What?
Now?
I see. I don’t know – um – Oh, I am sorry. Just a moment. Let me ask Antonia.’ Putting his hand over the receiver, he whispered, ‘She wants us to go to her place.
Now
. She is in a state. She’s had a row with Colville and he’s dashed out of the house.
She’s been abandoned by everybody
. She is in floods of tears . . .
hysterical
.’

‘Oh dear.’ Antonia glanced down at the salad bowl. ‘I suppose we’d better go.’

She was not sure whether she said yes out of concern for Beatrice Ardleigh, or because she was curious about the amazing turn of events. The latter, she admitted to herself. A double vanishing was most certainly worth investigating. Beatrice, on the other hand, was perfectly capable of coping on her own. Beneath that vulnerable fluttery exterior Beatrice was actually quite tough, Antonia felt sure. Why indulge her unduly? And it wasn’t as though they were her oldest – or her best – friends . . . Beatrice was after Hugh . . . Beatrice had probably been hoping she would be able to get Hugh on his own . . .

‘Doesn’t Poe refer to the Calculus of Probabilities in
The
Mystery of Marie Celeste
?’ Payne said as they were getting into the car.

‘You mean
The Mystery of Marie Roget
.’

‘Do I? Oh, of course. Association of ideas.
Marie Celeste
was the ship from which everybody disappeared mysteriously and without a trace . . .’

20
The Scapegoat

Once again they were at Millbrook House.

They heard the eerie sound of drumbeats, which should have been incongruous in Oxfordshire but some-how felt appropriate under the blazing sun. The front door opened even before they had rung the bell and Beatrice flung herself on Antonia’s neck. Between sobs and gasps, she managed to say that she had never felt so frightened in her life.
Everything
had gone wrong. Ingrid had vanished into thin air. The police had been noxious and officious. The police had acted as though she had something to do with Ingrid’s disappearance. Worst of all, Len had left her!

‘I am sure you are wrong,’ Payne murmured. ‘Colville worships the ground you walk on.’

‘No more,’ Beatrice whispered. ‘
No more
.’

‘What happened?’ Antonia asked.

Len had been extremely cross with her – Len was a prince among men, but she’d never seen him so furious – he had gone off – she seriously feared he’d never come back. Or that he might do something silly. It would serve her right if he did – she’d been telling fibs – she had been deceiving Len. She didn’t deserve Len. She was responsible for the whole catalogue of misfortunes. She was the architect of the disaster. She had brought all these troubles on her own head. She was terrified. She had always known she’d die alone. And it was less than a month to Christmas!

What had that got to do with anything? Payne thought. The bloody woman was hysterical. And those drums – enough to drive anybody mad! They were still standing in the hall. Payne strode into the sitting room and turned off the CD player. As he did so, he inadvertently pushed some CDs off a shelf and they spilled on the floor. Damn, he said, but didn’t pick them up. He could hear Beatrice sob-bing uncontrollably in the hall. He went over to the drinks table, poured some brandy into a glass and brought it back to her.

‘Thank you, thank you, dear friend,’ Beatrice clutched at his hand. ‘You and Antonia are the only friends I have. My only true friends.’ After this extravagant statement Beatrice gulped down the brandy. It made her splutter and cough, but she clearly felt better for she started examining her face critically in the mirror. She said she looked a ‘fright’. She asked Antonia whether she could borrow her lipstick. ‘I can’t find mine. We use the same colour. I noticed the first time I saw you,’ Beatrice breathed.

Antonia opened her bag and took out her lipstick, but in the process her diary fell out. She picked it up, not notic-ing the slip of paper that dislodged itself from between the book’s pages and fluttered down to the floor.

Having painted her lips, Beatrice led the way into the sitting room. Her arm was linked through Antonia’s. ‘What’s your favourite scent?’ she asked.

Antonia said she didn’t have a favourite scent. It struck her that she probably gave the impression of being rather puritanical. She needed to loosen up. Hugh was bound to start thinking her a nuisance sooner or later.

‘Mine is Ce Soir Je T’Aime. My life is incomplete with-out it,’ Beatrice said. She then promised to send Antonia a bottle of Ce Soir Je T’Aime for Christmas.

Beatrice’s hair had the sheen of Mycenaean gold; she wore preposterously high heels, a rather chic black cocktail dress and a heavy ornate necklace that didn’t really seem to go with the rest of her. (Had she dressed like that to impress Hugh?) On close inspection the necklace turned out to be made of miniature Taj Mahals. Payne had also taken note of the Taj Mahal necklace – he thought it an impossibly kitsch-y artifact – an affront to good taste.

‘Len had it specially made for me when we got engaged. He drew the design himself. They’d never had to make anything like it before,’ Beatrice explained. ‘The Taj Mahal was built by some Indian emperor for his beloved wife, wasn’t it? Len’s such a silly romantic. He paid a fortune for it. I don’t wear it often. To tell you the truth,’ Beatrice lowered her voice, ‘I don’t care much for it, but I put it on for Len’s sake. So that when he comes back, he will see that I am wearing his necklace and then he will forgive me. I am an idiot, I know!’

A novel by Françoise Sagan,
A Certain Smile
, lay on the coffee table beside an open, rather depleted, box of marrons glacés and a half-full glass of Tia Maria. Beatrice explained she had been trying to comfort herself and urged them to help themselves to marrons – or would they prefer drinks? ‘Do sit down, please!’ She then went into the kitchen and came back several moments later holding before her a tray loaded with cheese straws, smoked almonds and black Kalamata olives.

Only Beatrice and Major Payne had drinks. She stuck to brandy, which she drank out of an enormous globular glass, he had a whisky and soda. She saw him hold his pipe and insisted that he smoke it. She
adored
the smell of pipe tobacco. Payne told her, in serio-comical tones, how Antonia had banned him from smoking in their kitchen and Beatrice gasped in mock-horror –
‘No.’

Something like an easy intimacy was developing between them. Antonia didn’t like it at all. Beatrice leant towards Payne. ‘I don’t suppose you liked the drumbeats? It isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, I know. As a matter of fact that’s the authentic sound of a North African courtship ceremony. Honestly. It was Len’s idea.’ Beatrice’s nerves gave every appearance of having steadied themselves. ‘You’d never believe this,
but Len serenaded me with it
.’

Payne was surprised. He’d have thought that something on the lines of ‘Song at Twilight’ would be more Colville’s style. Or ‘Fools Rush In’, he thought unkindly as he watched Beatrice totter across the room on her high heels. Mistaking his look for one of sensual admiration, Antonia said in a voice that sounded over-loud, ‘No news of Ingrid’s whereabouts then? Since you reported her disappearance to the police?’

‘No. No. Nothing . . . It was Len who reported it, actu-ally. He has a friend at Scotland Yard. Arthur – Something-or-other?’ Beatrice looked at Payne as though she expected him to know the man’s surname. ‘Len’s already told Arthur about Ingrid, you see,’ she went on. ‘Oh, the police were awful! I was right not to want them told about Ingrid. That was the reason why Len got so very angry with me. The idiotic questions they asked! Was I sure it wasn’t me who’d suggested it to Ingrid to dress up as me, as a sort of lark? Hadn’t it really been
my
idea that she visit Ralph pretending to be me?’

‘It wasn’t your idea, was it?’ Antonia said with a smile. Beatrice stared at her. ‘Shall I tell you something, but you
must
promise not to breathe a word?’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ Payne said in solemn tones and he gave the Boy Scout salute.

‘Well, you see, I
did
suggest that Ingrid dress up as me once, but that was aeons ago,’ Beatrice said. ‘I thought it might cheer her up. It did make her smile! I helped her with the make-up and everything. I did think it funny. Of course I never thought she’d want to do it again, if you know what I mean?’

‘Did she look like you?’ Payne asked.

‘She did! It was uncanny. Oh, the police were ghastly. They gave me the third degree. All those questions! Hadn’t I had concerns about Ingrid’s state of mind before? Why had I failed to seek medical assistance? What medication had Ingrid been on? I was terribly vague about it and it made them suspicious. It doesn’t take much to make the police suspicious! I couldn’t find any of Ingrid’s prescriptions – all her pills seemed to have vanished from her room. She’s probably thrown them away, wretched thing – she never liked the idea of being considered “loopy”. Oh my God.’ She clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Did you notice? I’m already talking about her
in the past tense
! I don’t really believe that she is dead. I honestly don’t, but somewhere, at the back of my mind I
must
be thinking it. Isn’t that awful of me?’

‘Did you see her on the morning she disappeared? Two days ago, was it? That was what the paper said.’ Payne relit his pipe. ‘26th November?’

‘Yes. No, I didn’t see her, but she –’ Beatrice broke off. ‘All right, I’ll tell you. I didn’t tell Len. I lied to Len, and I lied to the police, but I will tell
you
. You see, she phoned me – it was the morning of 26th November, that’s correct. Sometime after nine. Len and I were having brekkers.’

‘Ingrid phoned you? Where from? Where was she?’ Antonia asked.

‘She said she was in Oxford – but she was in her room upstairs, so she must have rung me on her mobile! I didn’t know at the time she was in her room. How do I know she was in her room? Well, apparently, she came down just a few minutes after I’d left. Len told me – he saw her! It never occurred to me to doubt her when she said she was in Oxford – why should I? I suppose I am terribly naive. I told you she went out an awful lot. I was so happy when she said she wanted to see me.’

‘Is that what she told you? That she wanted to see you?’ ‘Yes, she said she wanted to talk to me.
Urgently
. I was
so
glad. You see, I’d been trying to talk to her for the last month or so, ever since she stopped talking to me – but she wouldn’t. And there she was now, asking me to meet her at a café in Oxford – a place called the Way to Heaven, not far from the Ashmolean Museum. She explained how to find it.’

‘You went?’

‘I did.’

‘Why didn’t you tell Colville?’ Payne asked.

‘Because, Hugh, I knew he’d fuss. He is a terrible fusspot. He’d have been scared Ingrid might do something to me. Len’s too protective. Could be tedious about it. Don’t you see?
He’d have tried to stop me
. So I lied to him. I told him I was going to the hairdresser’s. That’s why we had the row today, you see. He is convinced I’d gone to meet a man.’ Beatrice looked at Payne fixedly, then rolled up her eyes. ‘It’s perfectly awful. You would never believe it, but Len is jealous.’

‘Really?’ Antonia said. Surprise, surprise, she thought.

‘
Yes
. I had no idea. Frightfully jealous.’ Beatrice seemed pleased with her discovery. ‘I was already cross with him, you see –
really
cross, for spilling the beans about Ingrid. I mean he told the police everything – the whole horror story, about Ralph and the accident and the dead baby and Ingrid coming to the hospital – I mean,
everything
– from start to finish. Oh, he looked terrible – bug-eyed and red and glistening. I thought he’d have a heart attack. I had no idea he hated her so much. He waved his arms in the air and raved and ranted like – like –’

‘Like Lear of the heath?’ Major Payne suggested. At once he put down his glass and cleared his throat. ‘Sorry. Shouldn’t be saying things like that.’

Beatrice giggled. ‘Oh dear, yes.
Yes
. So apt. Quite impossible!’ Then she became serious. ‘Len let them see all those little girls – he had no right to! I mean the photos in Ingrid’s room. He also showed them that poem Ingrid wrote ages ago – to prove how mad she was. He wasn’t himself. He’s been in a ghastly state these last couple of days. His battery has been discharging faster than it could charge. The police took copious notes. Len exaggerated terribly – that’s what made me angry, you see. He made Ingrid sound like some dangerous lunatic – some homicidal maniac. Well, I was really nasty to him afterwards. I mean – really nasty. I shouted at him and said some very unkind things. I should have been more understanding but I lost my temper. Poor Len’s got an awful lot on his mind. He is terribly worried about his letting business, poor pet.’

‘What letting business?’ Antonia asked.

‘Len owns property. Several houses in London and in Oxford, which he rents out to people. He’s got tenants,’ Beatrice explained. ‘Sounds a marvellous thing, doesn’t it, being the wife of a
rentier
. Everybody immediately thinks of the Duke of Westminster. Oh, you’ve got houses – you must be rolling, everybody tells me, but the truth is the poor darling is not terribly good at it. He has had horrendous problems with some of his tenants. He’s been losing pots of money – he’s had three lawsuits in the last two months! I think
he’s on the brink of bankruptcy
.’

‘Surely not?’ Major Payne said.

‘I am afraid so. Yes. He doesn’t want me to know, he doesn’t want to upset me, but I’ve looked through his papers. Oh, he is too good, too decent, too unassuming, too
gentlemanly
.’ Beatrice looked at Payne and lowered her eyes, as though to suggest that she considered him to be of that vanishing breed too.

‘What exactly is the problem?’ Antonia asked.

‘Well, unscrupulous common people think of Len as a soft touch and they take advantage of him.
Everybody
has been taking advantage of him – his solicitors, his account-ant, the estate agents – the exorbitant bills they send him! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Quite ridiculous, really. Inflating the already bursting coffers of the legal profession! All right. Len is
not
terribly enterprising – it’s simply not in his blood. The Colvilles are of the untitled aristoc-racy, you see. I know one shouldn’t say things like that but on the other hand, why not?’

‘They are all in the Landed Gentry,’ murmured Payne.

‘They are. A fine old yeoman stock. Once the backbone of the empire. The Colvilles go back to the sixteenth century – Henry VIII employed a Colville as his Esquire of the Body. Once upon a time they were frightfully rich and influential, but they have fallen on bad times – one of Len’s cousins is being investigated for tax evasion – an aunt of his is in rehab – she is eighty-seven. Terribly depressing.’

‘
Tempora mutantur
. Or should one say –
Sic transit gloria
mundi
?’ Payne said, putting his forefinger to his cheek – like Rodin’s
Le Penseur
, Antonia thought. Or rather
Le
Poseur
– if ever there was a statue of Major Hugh Payne, that was the inscription it should bear.

She said, ‘So Ralph Renshawe’s money will come in quite handy, I suppose?’

‘Oh yes, Antonia. Dear me – yes! It will be the kiss of life Len needs –
we
need. The fairy godfather solution. I will let the poor darling have every penny he needs . . . Would you like another drink, Hugh?’