The Tomb of Zeus (19 page)

“I have to say it's ingenious and perfectly feasible. And, whatever the motive for the note, it could have caused the most appalling ructions between the two. Good Lord! I wonder what the Russell men are making of the autopsy document? They must be reading it at this moment! How dreadful! Just imagine what will happen when Theo links George's presence in Paris with paragraph six! I can hear him now: ‘So!
Hippolytus,
what
have you
to say?’ And I don't like to think of the next gruesome scene in that tragedy.”

But Gunning, struck by a fresh thought, was riffling through his pages, rereading sections, hunting for something he was clearly not finding.

“What more are you looking for? Phoebe's condition is the only surprise in the report, isn't it?”

He thoughtfully put the sheets in order, folded them, and tucked them away in his pocket before replying. “Yes, it is,” he said. “And thank God for that! Look, I think we can order our coffee now. And there's plenty of time for a pastry to fortify you for the afternoon session.”

Gunning seemed unaccountably relieved, but Letty could not relax. She was struggling with a residual concern, with a gathering feeling of foreboding. “Are you thinking, William, that we ought to have done as George seemed to want? That we should have gone back to the Europa with him?”

William nodded. “Yes. I'm afraid so. He seemed quite insistent that we go. I should have given him my support.” He looked at his watch. “Too late now, do you suppose? We can hardly turn up, grinning, for the coffee.”

Letty reached out impulsively and squeezed his hand. “You
have
supported him, William. You've been a good friend. You've done more than you should. But I must remind you that
my
loyalties and interest lie—and always will until this is sorted out—with Phoebe. I've made a vow to her and I'm not about to break it. If I have to throw George to the lions to establish the truth—I will.”

“I'd say it's the bull he'll have to confront, wouldn't you?” said Gunning bitterly. “Look—I think, if you don't object, we ought to go to the Europa. Right away. Just call in casually, you know…say we're picking up a few papers…anything.” He jumped to his feet, alert and concerned. “We're going to the arena.”

The house, when they pushed open the front door and made to walk into the hall, was in turmoil. Stewart cannoned into them, obviously on his way out. Dickie was striding about biting his nails. In the dim depth of the back corridor, a maidservant yelled and sobbed and was silenced by a gruff male voice in Greek.

“William! Thank God!” said Dickie.

Surprisingly Stewart also seemed pleased to see him, and halted his outward rush to seize him by the arm and haul him inside.

“We don't know what to do! They're killing each other! You've got to go in and stop them!” implored Dickie. “Perhaps we're too late. Listen! George has gone silent. He may be already dead!”

A crash and a torrent of angry words exploded from the direction of the library.

“Ah! Still at it! Well, thank goodness for that! Alive at least! They came back just after noon, friendly enough, talking as they usually do, and went straight into the library. It was all quiet for about half an hour and then all hell broke loose!”

“Theo gave that roar,” said Stewart. “You know the one I mean?”

Gunning nodded.

“And he went on and on…like he does when he's roused. Only this was…” He exchanged glances with Dickie.

“Excessive. Unnatural. Terrifying,” Dickie supplied. “And then George shouted back at him. And that's when we
really
got the wind up! I mean—George never answers back, does he? We couldn't make out what they were saying—well, kinder not to listen…family business probably…Not meant for our ears.”

Letty sighed with irritation. “Couldn't you have just barged in on some pretext? Or were you waiting for the blood to start flowing under the door?” she said and was ignored.

“And then the noises started,” said Stewart. “Sounded like furniture being thrown about. Screams and yells. It calmed down for a bit but just as we were about to breathe again it started up once more. Can you do something, William, before they kill each other? Eleni's not here.
She'd
have settled them straight away. Nobody knows where she is.”

“She's stayed in town,” said Letty. “With her sister. I'll go in.”

She started for the library and had reached the door and flung it open, Gunning at her heels, when George burst from the room and pushed past them, unseeing. He was bleeding from a scalp wound, his face an unrecognisable mask. Pale and shaking, he shouldered his way along the corridor, cannoning blindly off the walls. Dickie and Stewart flattened themselves to the sides to allow him space to crash by. Letty shuddered as she sensed a rush of poisoned air following in the young man's wake.

She shook off Gunning's restraining hand and entered the room at his shoulder. The elegant room she'd known was wrecked. The lectern and the tome it had supported had been thrown to the floor. The copy of
The Palace of Minos at Knossos
was lying open, broken at the spine, one of its pages ominously stained with blood. A whole bookcase had been wrenched from the wall and its volumes littered the carpet. The cabinet of curiosities was lying on its side, the glass panels in splinters. Its precious contents had spilled out onto the floor, like a child's discarded toys. And in the centre of the wreckage the lowering dark figure of Theodore, seeking a victim. Letty almost gagged on the thick odour of anger and hate.

“Get out! All of you! How dare you barge in here?” It was more alarming to realise that he was not out of his mind with rage but acquiring a modicum of composure and reacting rationally, if aggressively. Letty saw that his face was glinting with tears dripping unregarded down his cheeks.

“Delighted to oblige, old man,” said Gunning affably. “Just thought you could do with a little help in here. Bit of a rumpus, what?”

“I'll get you a cup of tea, Theo. I've never seen a man more in need of a cup of tea,” said Letty easily. “And perhaps a ginger-nut with that? I shall have to do it myself, I think—you've scared the living daylights out of the maid, and she's run home to her mother. Now, tell me: Earl Grey or Ceylon?”

Theo looked at her in astonishment and dashed a hand awkwardly over his face.

“But first things first—here,” she said, holding out a handkerchief. Gunning's own, he recognised. “Let me posh you up a bit.” She advanced on Theo and, murmuring comforting nannyish sounds, began to dab at his face. With a howl that went through them like a band saw, Theodore lost what little control he had left. He grabbed hold of Letty and bent his head to her shoulder, weeping uncontrollably.

By the time they had managed between them to move Theo along to the drawing room, he had calmed sufficiently to launch into a tirade against his son.

“The traitor! He was in Paris over Christmas! You heard him say so,” he shouted accusingly at Letty. “Denies it all! Well, wouldn't he, the liar? She spoiled him! All that cash—going to a good cause—huh! I shall have his accounts scrutinised. I'll get my man onto it at once. And the sports car! What an indulgence! And now we know what she was paying him for! Bloody gigolo! I've disowned him. He's no longer my son and you're the first to hear it. I'm going straight back into that courtroom and I'm going to tell the coroner all! The world will know I've been harbouring a strumpet and a snake in my bosom for goodness only knows how long!”

“No, you're not, Theo.” Gunning's tone was one Letty had not heard him use before. He was not expecting to be disobeyed. “You're going to stay right here, take a few pink gins aboard, and calm down. We'll go back and make your excuses. Everyone will sympathise and no one will be surprised. You did your stuff this morning. And I'll find out what George has done with himself. I ought to go after him.”

“Listen! Do you hear?
That's
what George is doing with himself!”

The Bugatti engine roared below in the street as the car emerged from the old coach house and turned into the avenue heading for the centre of town.

“What else would we expect? Running away as usual! Leaving someone else to clear up his bloody mess! Where does he think he's going? I hope he drives off the pier and straight into the jaws of Hades!”

* * *

The coroner raised an eyebrow at the absence of two of the witnesses but made no further comment. A roll call revealed that Eleni also had apparently decided to miss the afternoon session. Showing a shrewd anticipation of the squall in the Russell household and taking evasive action, Letty thought. Finally, Perakis launched into a swift and accurate summary of the autopsy and sat back, sighing.

“I think, ladies and gentlemen, this report makes all clear. It was difficult to ascribe the death of a well-placed and happy young woman to suicide. Mrs. Russell had everything to live for, as they say in these cases. Sadly, her condition, the unaccounted-for and clandestine pregnancy, a child engendered by an unknown man, we must guess, somewhere in France in the month of December last, gives us an entirely understandable motive for taking her own life. She could no longer endure the shame she was about to bring on herself, her husband, and her family. In spite of her attempts to tinker with the progress of the pregnancy, she must have been aware that it was about to become evident at any moment, and this knowledge it was that sparked her suicide attempt.

“Her successful attempt. Successful because the tools of the grim task were immediately to hand: the rope—from her husband's own gown…” He paused and sighed again. “Symbolic perhaps of the lady's remorse. The beam—of her bridal chamber. A classical echo. The knot—a skill learned, her husband tells me, as a child, sailing on the lakes of her homeland. The note she left, the speech of Phaedra, sums up her feelings of shame for her illicit love and tells us clearly why she chose not to go on living.

“A sad case. A deeply sad loss. But I have to bring in the verdict of suicide.” He scanned the court, assessing the effect of his decision. “It is the custom on these occasions to reach for a well-worn formula: The victim took her own life ‘while the balance of her mind was disturbed.’ Frequently used as a comforting anodyne for the family. On this occasion I will not be entering such a phrase in my findings.

“I believe Mrs. Russell to have been fully in control of her emotions. And, though her action was, by the lights of her own religion, sinful, it was prompted by a clear desire to divert the opprobrium which her conduct must inevitably have brought down on her family and to atone for her shameful behaviour and loss of honour.” He shook his head. Then he murmured, “A sinner, undoubtedly, but a sinner who seized on the one way left to her to clutch her sin to herself, by this means preventing the poison from spreading to those close about her.”

The elegant figure of Inspector Mariani stood in wait for Laetitia on the steps of the courthouse. He greeted her and then neatly separated her from the accompanying Gunning, leading her away from the dispersing crowd.

“Miss Talbot,” he said when he judged that they would not be overheard. “A grudging and ill-deserved tribute we've just been treated to, if you don't mind my saying so? I would have said:
Now boast thee, Death, in thy possession lies a lass unparalleled.’
Are you engaged for the next hour or so, or may I beg your services?”

“My services, Inspector? Why, yes. I was just going to return to the Villa Europa. Mr. Russell isn't feeling well…there may be things I can do…”

“Perfect.” He smiled, offering his arm. “We'll go together. I think you guess, mademoiselle, that the verdict of suicide is not one that satisfies me any more than I suspect it satisfies you. I would like you to come to Mrs. Russell's room with me. I am quite sure that that is where the answer lies. And I think you can help me find it. Would you mind?”

T
he right mudguard of the Bugatti hit the wall of the city gate and clanged to the road, causing tumult in the ranks of the mule train coming through in the shadows on the other side.

George accelerated away from the scene, unaware of the uproar, dashing the streaming blood from his eyes, seeing nothing but the road ahead. He shook his head to clear the dizzy confusion but the motion loosened a pain and sent it knifing across his forehead.

He honked his horn to scatter the crowd of beggars gathering in anticipation at the welcome sound of his engine and shot past them, their astonished faces on either side of the car an irrelevant blur.

Clear of the city, he pressed his foot to the floor. The car surged forward. Only speed mattered to George. Speed intoxicated. Speed saved and purified. It separated him from the pain and ugliness, the deception behind him. His mind was no longer befuddled; it was thinking with absolute clarity. It was poised somewhere above his body, all-seeing, as in a nightmare, whipping him on and shrieking a warning.

It had caught sight of the Furies behind him, awake after all these years and giving chase. Hunting him down. The Eumenides, the so-called Kindly Ones. Ha! Savage avengers, ruthlessly dealing out death to sinners who broke the natural familial laws. Monsters born of the blood of the castrated Uranus. No wonder they scented a victim. They were in pursuit and closing fast, demanding just retribution. George pictured them: Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, three women, grotesquely tall and black-clad. Their snake-hair writhed; red eyes blazed, exultant, in white faces as they swooped the last few yards, leather bat wings creaking.

He blinked hard and blinked again, his lashes sticky with blood, focussed on the next bend, and skidded around it, reaching at last the precipitous coast road. There was only one place of safety left to him. It lay ahead. Not far now. To hell with his father! He'd do what he should have done years ago. The right thing. If he could outrun the Furies.

He rounded one more bend and yelled in horror. They'd out-flanked him! A trio of black-clad women stood in the middle of the road. They turned with the dreadful precision of slow motion, white-faced masks of tragedy confronting him, and he thrust up a forearm to fend them off.

At the last second before impact, he instinctively wrenched on the wheel. The Bugatti, screaming in outrage, ploughed across the yards of rough ground beyond. It charged, nose first, down the side of the cliff, somersaulting three times before crashing into the sea below.