Crimson Jade

by George B Mair

  He paused, and a faraway look came into his eyes as he relived his last night in Europe. Helena’s mother had married a second time, but he had been well received. There had been a Son et Lumière at the Schloss, and beer with sausages afterwards in a keller. But he had become nostalgic for his fiancée and told stories about Brazil, life in Amazonia and the tragedy of Pedro Bosca’s suicide. The night had ended with everyone joining hands and singing Ein Mal Zum Rhein and in the morning he had flown back for his wedding a few weeks later.

  An air-letter had arrived from Germany just when he was preparing to leave for the honeymoon, and Brandt’s voice became so soft that Grant had to strain in order to catch his words. ‘Do you know, it told me that Helena Mauriac’s mother was my own Rosa Brandt and that she hadn’t been killed in Dresden after all. And it gave her reasons for believing that Cyp was Petra’s father.’ He paused. ‘It isn’t every man who finds two stepsisters and his own mother on his wedding day. Or discovers that one of the stepsisters is his bride. It seems that my mother hadn’t known whether or not to tell me when she first suspected who I was but waited until a few phone calls and letters to South America confirmed her suspicions. And then, of course, it was too late.’

  The man smiled self-consciously. ‘Petra had made a fool of me because she knew very well that the Bosca widow had been her own mother. And she also knew that Pedro Bosca was my father. In fact she admitted it whenever I asked. However, we didn’t share the same blood and our marriage was still technically legal but she had built up a fantasy which made her believe that I was her stepbrother. When I told her what I had discovered she just laughed and said that she had always wanted to marry her stepbrother. She said that incest was a good idea and wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to explain that there was no incest involved at all.

  ‘She’s mad, David. Mad! She actually wanted incest. She even told me that if she hadn’t known I was her stepbrother she wouldn’t have married me. She said the idea of incest gave her a thrill. She said it would be the kick of a lifetime to sleep with a brother. She said it would be better than sleeping with her father, which is what she had been doing off and on since she was fourteen. She even told me that Cyp hadn’t agreed to her marrying me until they had had one final orgy of three months together, during which they had gone right back to the beginning and relived the old days. It seems she had seen pictures of Cyp throwing knives at Indians and that they had also hooked her imagination, so they both went into the deep outback somewhere along the Rio Madeira and got kicks out of killing Indians again. But not only killing. They did all the other things as well!’

  Grant looked for the first time across the room to the man and woman on his right. Petra refused to catch his eye, but she was sweating, with pain he guessed, and her teeth were biting against her lips, while Cyp hung limp like a man who was preparing for death. ‘A bad story, Mikel,’ he said at last, ‘but not the end, surely?’

  Brandt stared moodily at his cigar. ‘Not the end. I wasn’t having a woman who wanted to believe that she was in bed with her brother, so I told her she could do what she liked so long as she didn’t cause a scandal, and that was that.’

  He looked towards Sureen. ‘One bit of me still wanted Petra, though pride or something kept me away. However, Sureen Socosani was her closest friend but wasn’t married at that time and I got a crazy notion that I could feel nearer to Petra if I seduced her. So she’s been my mistress on and off for nearly eight years. Of course, she married that fool who became President! But Presidents in her country don’t last long and one day she’ll be a widow. Meanwhile I trust nobody and since I’ve got to protect myself I sometimes bug Sureen’s rooms and did so this visit when she was having drinks with Petra.’

  Brandt’s voice became very petted. ‘I had told Sureen all she needed to know when our affair began, and the thing that hurts is that when my wife told her that I was a man’s man Sureen believed her. Thought I was A.C. D.C.! Maybe she came down tonight to ask me about it, but I think Cyp and my wife meant to kill me, and that they only used her to distract my attention.’ His eyes filled with tears. ‘I had begun to love Sureen. She was a good mistress and good company. But I can’t have a woman who believes lies about me. Though I never meant Lanza to hurt her, because what good would that have done me? Don’t you understand? I wanted to hurt her myself. That was going to be my big revenge, but that fool of a peon had to knock her out.’ He rolled Lanza’s body over with his foot and jeered. ‘Poor Lanza! I wonder what you’re saying to Nat down in hell. Maybe how glad you both are that you went quick. Because, David, none of you people are going to go quick. None at all.’ He glanced towards Juan who was still standing, but smoking an evil-smelling black cigarette. ‘Are they, Juan?’

  The man smiled and Brandt repeated it in Spanish. ‘You see,’ he continued, ‘both Juan and I are very good with knives, and we’re going to use you all as target practice. Just like my wife and her father did with the Indians. Though I might perhaps let Sureen out first. She was good to me until this happened and I’ll see that she doesn’t suffer too much. Just enough to teach her that she shouldn’t have believed all these lies my wife told.’

  He nodded towards Juan and the man eased out his knife while Grant held his breath as he balanced the blade along his fingers, then poised on his toes and streaked into action. The blade buried itself in the wood beside Sureen’s neck and Brandt examined it carefully. ‘Three millimetres away from skin, David. In this game we try not to touch skin until the very end. The real skill is to throw the blade into wood but as close to skin as possible. If one of us draws blood, even a drop of blood, the game is over and the other, as winner, has the next throw. If he kills with one strike he collects twenty pesos, and if he loses he hands over fifty. Not too much money, you see, because Juan isn’t rich, but just enough to make it slightly interesting. So we’ll see if I can better a good first effort.’

  He marked the spot on the board where the knife had entered, patted Sureen lightly on the cheek, crossed the room and then tensed himself. He held the knife by the hilt, with the blade along his forearm and smiled. ‘Wish Sureen luck, David. She’ll need it.’

  9

  ‘Helena had beginner’s luck’

  ‘Mikel!’ Petra Brandt’s voice cracked through the room with an authority which made her husband pause in surprise. ‘Put down that knife and listen.’

  Grant saw Cyp’s lips twitch into the faintest suggestion of a smile while Brandt stared at her stupidly as though he couldn’t understand what had happened. But she had caught his attention and was staring at him with the penetrating steadiness of an expert hypnotist. ‘Put away the knife, Mikel,’ she repeated, ‘and then take me down from this thing.’

  He half raised his hand, still hesitating, while Juan, standing behind him, gazed round the room, confused and suspicious, but trained only to obey orders from one person. And unwilling to accept even the risk of speaking! It was almost possible to read his thoughts as he stared at the bodies of his friends still crumpled on the floor and then glanced doubtfully towards the man who had killed them. Juan was going to play it cool: at least for the time being!

  ‘Look at me, Mikel.’ The woman was using a mixture of simple commands and repetitive phrases which seemed to confuse him and his face suffused with anger as he fought against her influence.

  At one stage his fingers again clenched over the hilt of his knife, and he was raising his arm to a throwing position when the woman’s voice rapped out with the snap she might have used towards a disobedient dog. ‘Drop it, Mikel. Drop it at once. At once, Mikel. Drop … that … knife. Now.’

  Cyp’s face had again frozen into impassivity and even Grant saw that the woman was becoming desperate, but he forced himself to weigh the pros and cons and felt a brief thrill of satisfaction as he realised that once again his brain was subconsciously computerising all those factors which would decide whether or not it could be better for everyone if Brandt was hypnotised by his wife and for
ced into releasing her.

  But, if so, what would Juan the gunman do? Would he stand by and see his master release the woman who had been sentenced to death?

  And if Petra was released what would she do about Krystelle? Or about himself? Or even with Sureen?

  Was Brandt that mysterious fifth man?

  Brandt had been told about his real father in 1950 or earlier, and his mother had been Pedro Bosca’s mistress. Wasn’t it possible that the uncle might have visited Amazonia way back in early days to see what could be discovered about the man who had got rid of a pregnant mistress? And if so wasn’t it possible that the uncle could have learned a good deal about Cyp Moreiro’s earlier life? Wasn’t it also possible that her uncle could even have traced the son Ramon and learned more from him?

  Hadn’t Ramon taken those photographs so many years earlier of Cyp killing the Indians?

  In which case wasn’t it possible that the uncle might have ‘acquired’ them from Ramon and hit upon the idea of tormenting Cyp? The first photographs of Indian killings had reached him about 1942 and wasn’t that about the time that the uncle might have been expected to discover some facts about Bosca or his death or decide to frighten the man who had brought it about?

  Grant felt himself begin to unwind. The whole set-up was still complicated, but instinct told him that he would be just a fraction safer dealing with Petra and Cyp than with a man who was almost certainly psychotic.

  He watched Brandt move like an automaton towards his wife and begin to untie the knots which anchored her wrists. She was no longer speaking, but watching Juan who was still standing, impassive, as though awaiting instructions. It was an even bet how he would react and Grant again decided to take a chance. His Spanish was good enough to cope, and he knew that he only needed to win two or three minutes. But he also knew that he would have to take him completely by surprise. ‘What is the time, Juan?’ he said quietly.

  The man glanced at him in astonishment, hesitated and then looked at his watch. ‘Nine o’clock, señor.’

  ‘One hour until dinner!’ Grant smiled with a self-pity which puzzled the gunman. ‘I wish your master wouldn’t start these games so early,’ he said. ‘I made a bet that I could hang like this for three hours. But I was wrong. And, Juan! Did he tell you that Lanza and Nat belonged to the secret police? That’s really why he shot them, you know. But he likes doing things his own way, and when he decides to work up a scene like this I always play along with him. You know how he behaves when he gets angry.’

  Standing where he was, Juan could see only his master’s back, and since he spoke only Spanish he had been completely out of touch, but Petra’s hands were now both free and Brandt working on the rope fixing her right ankle when Juan first realised that things were going completely wrong. A desperate look broke his mask-like expression and he was fumbling for his gun when Petra, moving her right arm with the controlled poise of an athlete, reached for the knife still embedded near Sureen. She seemed to pull it out and throw almost in the same movement and beat Juan with a second to spare. Her knife buried itself to the hilt at the root of his neck and he dropped his gun, his hands groping around the handle as he struggled to draw it out.

  Mikel Brandt untied the last of his wife’s knots without seeming to realise what had happened as she slithered six or eight inches to the ground, her wrists and ankles seared crimson by the ropes.

  She stretched herself, took a dozen deep breaths and walked slowly across the room to where Mikel had left his gun on the side table. Her eyes were sparking with excitement, but Grant guessed that she would forget nothing, and since she had earned the right to play things her own way he was going to let her have the first word.

  She pulled out the knife from Juan’s neck, smiled as he began to die and cut the ropes round Cyp’s hands and feet. He too was now smiling broadly, but the girl contented herself with helping him to a chair. Grant guessed that both would be stiff and suffering the agony which can follow relief from a cramp-making position while they opened and closed their fingers, flexed their limbs and rubbed the crimson weals. Petra’s last order to Brandt had been loaded with contempt. ‘Sit there and don’t move.’

  For Grant the incredible thing was that the man had done just that. And that he continued to sit, motionless, until Petra at last ordered him to stand up. Order after order followed in sequence, reminding Grant of stories which claimed that a hypnotised person would never carry out an instruction which was against their interests or normal instincts. Yet Brandt co-operated all the way while his wife tied him to the rings with nylon which had earlier been used for herself. And her control was so complete that she didn’t even ask Cyp for help until the final stages, when her husband’s hands had been tied at maximal stretch and his left ankle fixed. Only then did she wait until Cyp had taken part of Brandt’s weight and lifted him from the floor. A minute later Cyp poured two long cold drinks from the fridge while Petra stood in front of her husband, a knife in her right hand and the glass in her left. ‘Waken up, Mikel Brandt,’ she said. ‘Back to normal. Be your own master.’

  He stared at her stupidly and a glow of slow recognition flickered across his eyes as he eased his wrists and flexed the muscles of his legs. He was still fully dressed, except for socks which Petra had torn off at the last moment, but he showed signs of stress only when his feet suddenly began to contort inside their bonds until the skin was bleeding.

  ‘To you, Mikel,’ said Petra and lifted her glass. ‘Cheers.’

  Her husband stared at her and then began to laugh. Tears again streamed down his cheeks and his head lolled stupidity from side to side until he suddenly stopped and tried to collect his wits. ‘What happened?’ he said at last. ‘What are you going to do?’

  Petra turned towards Grant for the first time. Neither she nor Cyp had made any attempt to cover themselves and she moved with a dignity which was unusual in a naked woman walking without shoes. ‘I expect you’re asking the same question, David?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not me. I’m just thinking you’re taking a long time to cut me down. How about some action? This board isn’t funny.’

  ‘David! David Grant!’ Petra was genuinely amused. ‘You surprise me. Don’t you understand that after all Mikel has said it simply isn’t possible? You know too much. And anyhow we’ve got to frame you for a mass killing. I must explain away three bodies in this room to date. Plus Roca who is now dead and stored elsewhere. But soon I’m also going to have to explain away Mikel who will shortly be dead, and Sureen Socosani who also knows too much. So one whole terrible tragedy is going to be tied up with you, the strong-arm man from the backwoods of international security who died saving an ambassador and his sister from four madmen who must have had a political grudge, because they also killed the wife of an important president.’

  She opened a humidor and lit a cigar. ‘Cyp will recommend his government to give you a posthumous decoration, and unless Whitehall or some place orders to the contrary you’ll be buried in one of Rio’s most important parks. A street will probably be called after you in each of our country’s largest cities, and, in fact, David, it looks like you’re going to be famous. The Anglo-American spy who gave his life so that others would live! And you’re going to owe it all to us.’

  ‘And Krystelle?’ asked Grant.

  Petra glanced indifferently towards the girl who was now sagging limply against the board. ‘She goes with the rest of you.’

  It was impossible to gauge how either Petra or her father would react to anything and it was an open bet whether he would talk himself into sudden death or strike a chord of interest which would win more time. ‘So it was you Mauriac had in mind when she said that even a mamba could be killed with one blow.’

  The girl became thoughtful. ‘You know, David, I’d forgotten that. I wonder what she meant.’

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ said Grant gently, trying to feel his way through a maze of lies and suspicions. ‘Helena Mauriac hates you on two counts. You’ve m
ade everybody out here believe that she owes her successes to your having persuaded the Colon to launch her, when the fact that she would have played the Colon anyhow. So that’s hate-cause number one, and the second is more subtle, because if you hadn’t been responsible for Mikel visiting Mauriac’s family she would never have discovered her mother’s past, or that she had a stepbrother. She was pretty upset. I gather, because she loves her own mother just as much as you say you love Cyp, and she was horrified when her mother told her the truth about the past. Mauriac learned a lot about her mother after Mikel’s visit! And the old lady wouldn’t have said anything if she hadn’t been so upset herself. She couldn’t get used to the idea of being reunited so unexpectedly with her own illegitimate son, and one bit of her was frightened that her daughter, the famous opera singer, would be ashamed of her. So she contacted people and things added up.’

  Grant knew that he would never have been allowed to say so much if Petra hadn’t been scared at what might yet be said, and he realised that the picture he had painted could all have happened. ‘When she remembered how Bosca had died and was almost completely certain that his wife had had an affair with Cyp and that you were the result she began to hate you. And she gave her daughter at least some of her own hate. But Mauriac was still willing to use you. After all,’ said Grant, as the woman flushed to the roots of her neck, ‘you had been using her in a sort of way, getting yourself some reflected glory socially and posing as a patronne of the arts. So Helena figured it wasn’t unreasonable to get some of her own back by playing on your vanity and getting dividends out of your local social graft. All clear?’