A Different Kind of Evil

by Andrew Wilson

  “I lost Blue Teddy, Mummy, I couldn’t find him anywhere. It was horrible.”

  “How upsetting for you, darling. But it was only a dream,” I said, stroking her hair.

  “I know. Thank goodness. I should so hate to lose him. What on earth would he do without me?” She paused and looked at me as if she had seen me for the first time. “What kind of dreams do you have, Mummy? Do they make you sad?”

  “Sometimes,” I said, remembering some of the horrific visions that had recently interrupted my sleep, often culminating in my sitting up in bed in a cold sweat. “But then I always tell myself not to be so silly, as it’s all make-believe.”

  “Dreams are such funny things, aren’t they?”

  “Indeed they are,” I said, smiling. “Oh, look, here’s Carlo.”

  “Good morning,” said Carlo. “I woke up because I felt the ship slow down. Did you feel it, too? In fact—”

  She broke off to walk over to the spray-streaked porthole. “I’m sure the ship has stopped. Yes. Look, we aren’t moving. And it’s terrible weather, too.”

  I knelt down and kissed Rosalind. “Darling, why don’t you go and see if Blue Teddy is all right? I’ll come and dress you in a moment.”

  As I closed the connecting door, I told Carlo of the events of the morning.

  “How awful,” she said. “And how awful too that you had to stand by and watch it all. Are you sure you don’t need to rest? You know what the doctors said.”

  “No, if I lie down, I’ll most likely start to feel seasick again. That’s why I got up early, to have a breath of fresh air.”

  Carlo looked pensive and serious before she said, “She must have been driven to despair.”

  “I suppose she must, yes.”

  “And it seems as though this other woman, Miss Hart, was having an affair with the poor lady’s husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “A familiar story.”

  “Indeed,” I said, glancing at my watch. “In fact, I’m due to talk to Miss Hart now.”

  “Have we met him on board—the husband? What did you say his name was?”

  “Guy Trevelyan. No, I don’t believe we have.”

  “Perhaps he was with that rather fast set we saw across the dining room last night. The ones making all that noise after dinner.”

  I thought back to the previous night. As an ear-splitting guffaw had cracked the air, I remembered looking askance at the group of young people in such high spirits at the far corner of the first-class dining room. Did they really have to be quite so loud? Perhaps it had been sourness or middle age or my own particular circumstances—whatever the reason, I am sure I have not laughed like that in years—but I had cast a rather disapproving stare across the room, and in the process I had met the amused eyes of a handsome dark-haired man sitting next to an elegant blonde, who I now knew to be Helen Hart.

  When I opened the door to the library, Helen Hart was standing by the far shelves, her back to me.

  “I must say they’ve got a rather poor show of books. Not that I would read any if they had a better selection. Have you seen them?”

  “No, I’m afraid—”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t hear you come in,” she said. “I was talking to Mr. Trevelyan.”

  A tall, rugged-looking man stood up from one of the green leather armchairs. As he walked towards me, I noticed that the mischievous glint in his eyes that I had seen last night had been extinguished; now his demeanor was serious and melancholic.

  “Guy, this is Mrs. Christie, the lady I told you about,” said Helen. “She tried to help with—”

  “I’m so grateful for everything you did this morning, I really am,” he said. “Such a dreadful business.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” I said to Mr. Trevelyan. “Have you spoken to Mr. McMaster?”

  “Yes, he came to my cabin a little while ago. I’m afraid there is no sign, no sign whatsoever,” he said. “The captain is going to hold the ship here for the next few hours to make sure, but I think that’s more out of respect than anything else.” His handsome features, so dazzling at dinner the night before, looked a little worn around the edges, and shadows had appeared beneath his eyes. “Poor Gina. If only—”

  “You can’t continue to blame yourself, Guy,” said Helen. “Yes, I know, well, we hardly behaved like saints, but Gina was always a bit unbalanced, wasn’t she?”

  “What do you mean?” I said gently.

  “Please let’s not go into all of that now, Helen,” said Guy. “All I know is that I feel we’ve driven the poor woman to her death.” His dark eyes filled with tears and he bit his knuckle to prevent himself from breaking down.

  “Darling, you know that’s not entirely accurate,” said Helen, placing a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. As she did so, I noticed her large, strong-looking hands. Her short nails were not painted, and around the cuticles lay a dark substance that looked like ingrained dirt.

  I realized then how I knew her name: I had seen an exhibition of her sculpture—strange, primitive figures, fragmented naked torsos, and the like—at a gallery in London. I recalled being quite shocked by some of the imagery—it was certainly powerful stuff—but one could not deny that Miss Hart had the ability to tap into the deepest parts of the human psyche. I also remembered feeling more than a little jealous of her talents. At one point I had had the very stupid idea of becoming a sculptress myself. I had even taken some lessons before being forced to admit that I was a hopeless case.

  “I’m a great admirer of your work, Miss Hart,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Really?” she said, her blue eyes shining.

  “Yes, I saw your exhibition at the Pan Gallery early last year. I can’t say I understood it all, but I certainly believe you have an extraordinary ability to capture the essence of things.”

  “Well, isn’t that lovely of you to say so. Isn’t that wonderful, Guy?” she said. “I recognize your name, but I’m afraid I haven’t read any of your novels. Reading is not my forte. I can see things—forms, colors, and suchlike—but I must be allergic to the written word. You must think me terribly stupid.”

  “Not at all, Miss Hart,” I said. “In fact, it’s always something of a relief to talk to people who haven’t read my books.”

  “I know, why don’t you join us for dinner tonight,” said Miss Hart. “And by the way, please call me Helen.”

  “Yes, of course,” Trevelyan said flatly. Helen looked at him sternly. “Yes, please do,” he said, more brightly and with greater enthusiasm. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Christie. I still can’t quite believe it—that Gina is dead.”

  “I know, a sudden loss is bad enough, but a death of this nature something quite different,” I said. “I’m sure she would not have suffered,” I added, not quite believing it myself. “It would all have been over in an instant.”

  “I suppose that is one thing we should be grateful for,” said Trevelyan. “But I just can’t understand it. The last thing I knew she had bolted from our house in Brook Street. She didn’t leave a note or anything. I thought she would spend the night with one of her Mayfair girlfriends and the next day she would return. It’s a pattern I had seen on many occasions. Our marriage was far from a smooth one, you see.”

  “And you say she was—well, she had a rather temperamental nature?”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” said Helen.

  “Please, Helen, you don’t know the strain that Gina was under.”

  Helen looked down, duly admonished, and let Trevelyan continue. “Yes, it’s true that Gina had a nervous disposition. She’d seem quite normal for a while, weeks at a time, and then for no apparent reason, she would fall prey to an awful kind of mania. She would be up all night dancing or talking or walking the streets. She said she had the most extraordinary energy, creative energy. She once told me she had written a novel in the course of one night, but when I picked up the notebook I found it to be full of gibberish, nothing more tha
n a few nonsensical phrases and obscenities. And then, with the same kind of suddenness, she would take to her bed, crying for no reason, threatening to harm herself, to do herself in. It was terrible, truly terrible to witness.”

  “And when, may I ask, did your wife disappear?”

  “It was on New Year’s Day. We’d had quite a party at the London house. Too much drink, too much . . . of everything. Perhaps Gina had seen something at the party or suspected something. But the next thing I knew, she’d gone. I contacted the police, of course, and they issued a statement to the press—there were posters, searches, the lot. But nothing.”

  “She didn’t know about you and Miss Hart?”

  “I don’t know. Helen wanted me to tell her, but it never seemed the right time. Either Gina was in one of her periods of high-spirited ecstasy or she was in the grip of a terrible depression. There was never anything in between.”

  Helen Hart sighed, an expression that spoke of a dozen unsaid sentences, a hundred suppressed wishes.

  “There’s no point sighing, Helen,” said Guy, his voice rising. “What was I supposed to do? Tell my wife we’d been having an affair? Did you really want me to drive her to her death?” His eyes stretched wide with anger and his voice cracked with fury. He strode purposefully across the library, opened the door, and turned back. “Is that what you wanted? Well, you’ve got your wish at last. I hope it makes you happy.”

  With that he slammed the door and left us standing there, staring at the elaborate patterns in the Turkish rug beneath our feet.

  “As you can see, Mrs. Christie, Guy has been left in a state of shock,” said Helen, the china-white skin on her neck now a mass of red blotches.

  “Grief does affect people in all sorts of different ways,” I said, trying to smooth over the acute embarrassment felt, no doubt, by both of us.

  “Oh, please don’t feel sorry for me,” she hissed. “In fact, I’m pleased the bitch is dead.”

  The statement—both the words and the way it was expressed—so shocked me that I was unable to utter a single word.

  “I know it’s a truly awful thing to say, but I am. She’s out of our life for good now.”

  2

  In preparation for the storm, the doors to the decks were temporarily locked. We were a floating island, cut off from the world, with a dead body left at sea.

  The majority of the passengers retired to their cabins, and in the course of the morning, a steward knocked on my door and handed me a note from Guy Trevelyan thanking me for my kindness. He suggested that because of the bad weather, we postpone our dinner that night—in addition to the queasiness he was suffering, he doubted whether he could face the pitying stares of his fellow diners. Instead, he invited me to a small dinner in one of the private dining rooms the following evening. He would get together a few interesting passengers, and he hoped that by accepting the invitation, I would go some way to forgive his abruptness. I sent back a brief letter of acceptance and then lay on my bed, knowing that I would not sleep.

  I kept thinking of Gina Trevelyan and the graceful way she had stepped off the ship to her death. I knew from what I had read in the newspapers that the girl was a very rich young lady indeed, an heiress to a huge fortune built up by her late father, a manufacturer of fertilizer. I had not heard of her recent disappearance, as I had rather given up on the news of late. The doctors had advised against it, in case one of the rags printed something relating to my own disappearance the previous year.

  I supposed Gina must have witnessed or heard something about her husband’s affair at the New Year’s Eve party in Brook Street. Perhaps she had continued to follow him and his mistress, watching them steal into restaurants, hotel rooms, even her own home. She must have learnt that they had booked passage on the Gelria to Tenerife and had decided to sneak on board as a stowaway. But had something occurred on the ship that forced her to take her own life? Had Helen, who did not make much effort to hide her antipathy towards Gina, discovered her and told her in no uncertain terms that she wished her dead? Or had Gina simply wanted to stage a final exit that she hoped would bring about the collapse of the relationship between her husband and Helen? There were some who, I knew, accused me of doing the same thing, orchestrating my own disappearance so as to cause a public scandal that would then lead to the separation of Archie and Miss Neele. Of course I would have to live with these slurs and lies, knowing that I would never be able to reveal the truth about how Dr. Kurs had tried to use me to commit a perfect murder.

  I could not dwell on the pain of last year. To do so would only generate more hurt and sorrow. Too much time to think was, I knew, not always a good thing. That was another of the reasons that I had agreed to Davison’s scheme to join him in the Secret Intelligence Service. Perhaps now, while everyone was closeted in their cabins, would be a good time to seek him out. Lying down was only making my seasickness worse; surely it would be better to be up on one’s feet, doing something. Carlo and Rosalind had retired back to their beds—there was not a sound coming from their cabin—and so I quietly closed the door and made my way down the corridors. I looked around me—nobody was in sight—and knocked gently on Davison’s door.

  “Oh, hello, Mrs. Christie,” said Davison, running a hand through his ruffled blond hair.

  “Am I disturbing you? Sorry, if you’d rather . . .”

  “No, please do come in,” he said, opening the door to let me pass. He also checked the corridor to make sure my entrance had not been seen.

  “I couldn’t lie on my bed a moment longer. I was feeling dizzier and dizzier and the room kept spinning around. How are you feeling?”

  “Not too bad, but I must admit I have just taken a brandy. Would you care for one?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Of course, I should have remembered that you take no alcohol. And I don’t suppose you fancy your favorite drink? Milk and cream?” he said, smiling.

  The thought of it turned my stomach.

  “Please don’t, Davison. If I could just sit down.”

  Davison’s suite was larger and more luxurious than my own. In addition to a bedroom, it had a sitting room and a larger porthole, next to which were two armchairs. On a small table was a decanter of brandy and a siphon of soda water.

  “Now, what’s all this I hear about a suicide?” asked Davison, handing me a glass of the water.

  “It was just too awful,” I said as I started to relate the events of the morning.

  “And you saw all of this happen?” Davison asked.

  “Well, most of it,” I said, sipping the water. “The strangest thing was the complete lack of fear on the part of Gina Trevelyan. As she lifted her hands from the railings she looked like a dancer stepping onto the stage. It hadn’t had been so horrific, I could almost describe her death as beautiful.”

  “That does sound peculiar,” said Davison, his eyes darkening. Was he thinking about the way Una Crowe had died? Her death had been anything but beautiful. “And I take it there was no sign of the body?”

  “According to Mr. Trevelyan, the crew did their utmost to find her, but of course in this weather they couldn’t risk launching a lifeboat.”

  “No, very wise,” he said as he looked out the window to see the waves, seemingly as tall as buildings, crashing onto the side of the ship. “My steward said it’s going to clear up by the end of the day, but one would never think so. Funny, when he told me that they were locking the doors to the deck, I did think how an ocean liner would be the perfect setting for one of your books. A closed community, a gruesome murder, a number of suspects—all of whom have dark and deadly secrets.”

  “The idea had crossed my mind,” I said, casting him a half-smile. “You should try your hand at writing it yourself. You’d probably have more luck with it than me at the moment. I’ve got the blasted Blue Train novel to finish.”

  “Maybe you’ll find some inspiration in Tenerife.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve r
ead your notes about our business there, but there are a few things I’d like to go over.”

  “Very well.”

  “So you say Douglas Greene had been found in a cave, his body in the early stages of mummification?”

  “Yes, that’s right, poor chap,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “He was one of the brightest young men: ex-Cambridge, athletic, fluent in Spanish—in fact he could speak half a dozen languages. Awful thing to happen. I had to go down to Devon to break the news to his parents. Mother, the county type, tough as old boots, took it in her stride, but his father suffered a complete nervous collapse afterwards. Of course I kept the most gruesome details from them.”

  “And what was he doing out in Tenerife? Obviously not there for his health.”

  “He was sent because we had reason to suspect that there was someone on the island with Bolshevik links.”

  “How long had he been in the cave for?”

  “Difficult to say precisely, but about five months. He’d been reported missing by the Spanish woman who cooked and cleaned for him. I think people assumed he must have moved on to another island.”

  “Do we know how he died?”

  “The doctor who examined the body could not say for certain, but it looked like he had been struck by a blunt instrument to the back of the head.”

  “I see. And who discovered the body?”

  “Professor Max Wilbor. He’s an archaeologist and anthropologist who specializes in the forgotten culture of the Guanches, the people who lived in the Canaries from around 1000 BC. He was snuffling about one of the caves near the coast, looking for bones and suchlike, when he came across Greene.”

  “And Wilbor is still there? In Tenerife?”

  “Yes, as far as we know. As you may have gathered, there is not much of a police force on the island, nothing like we have in England. In fact, the whole setup is very basic. Charming, but quite primitive.”