Grenville was about to release the first drop of liquid into my water when I raised my hand and placed it on top of the glass.
“Although I would love to try it, I’m afraid I’ve just remembered the prescription that Dr. Trenkel gave me, and I’m afraid that the two might conflict with each other.”
“But it’s only plant essences—they can’t do you much harm,” he said.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t risk it,” I said. “But as I’m still feeling a little weak, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind if—”
“You’d like to stay here for the night?”
“Exactly. You read my mind, Mr. Grenville.”
“I was about to suggest the same thing,” he said, squeezing the contents of the pipette back into the vial. “We’d be delighted, wouldn’t we, Violet?”
“Yes, Father,” said the girl, straightening her dress as she eased herself up from the floor.
“Here, let me take that from you, my dear,” said Grenville. “I’ll go and dispose of this glass. We wouldn’t want it hanging around. As we know, it can be quite dangerous.” He gave me a knowing look as he picked up the dustpan and left the room.
There was a moment’s silence before Violet stepped towards me and whispered, “Come to my room around two o’clock. It’s the third door on the right down from yours.”
27
Violet and Grenville showed me to my quarters, a modest room painted white containing a single bed, a small desk and chair, and a table with a bowl, a pitcher of water, and a couple of glasses.
Grenville said that in the morning, after breakfast, he would be keen to try some more experiments, this time with a pendulum and the I Ching. He also wanted to show me his collection of Guanche figures and artifacts. Helen Hart, he added, was a huge fan of Guanche sculpture; it was, he said, her ambition to move her work towards a greater state of primitivism. We parted on this and retired for the night.
In the room I washed my face, then sat on the bed and waited for the house to go to sleep. As I did so, I ran through the strange events of the night: the odd dynamic between Grenville and his daughter; his eagerness to give me some of that tincture, which he said would help cure my digestive ills; and the strange feeling I had that Grenville could read my thoughts. What was he planning? I opened my handbag and looked at my collection of poisons. Of course the deadly vials would provide no protection if Grenville got to me first. All it would take would be one drop of something fatal, perhaps in my morning tea or coffee, and my life would be snuffed out. He would know that there were certain poisons that would be quite difficult, sometimes impossible, to trace in the body. He could tell the police that I had been complaining of stomach cramps before I had gone to bed and that I must have died in my sleep. No doubt Violet would serve as witness. I would be buried, as was the custom here, within a couple of days, and in years to come, no one would come and visit my grave on this island in the sea off Africa, many miles from England.
But I was not ready to be defeated by Grenville. After I thought that both he and Violet had gone to bed, I quietly opened the door and, with the candle that lay on my bedside table, stepped out of the room and along the corridor towards the study. In the dim light the ghouls and demons in the woodcuts on the wall looked even more sinister. Steadying myself, I made my way over to Grenville’s desk and took up one of the sheets of paper lying on the surface. Using the candle to illuminate its contents, I realized that the words meant nothing to me. This was not a language I had ever seen before. Was it written in some kind of code, or were these words just so obscure that I had never encountered them?
If Grenville had murdered Winniatt, then he must be the one responsible for the removal of the missing journal. Of course he could have already burnt it, but it was still worth searching the house for any other clues. I started to work my way through the drawers of the desk, finding ink bottles, some containing ink the color of blood, unusual-looking seals, receipts and papers relating to the house, and some travel documents, before I came across a set of notebooks. Each of the books was written in Grenville’s flowing, theatrical hand. As I scanned quickly over the words, I could see they described in detail a range of rituals, rites, and magic spells. A great deal of it was impossible to understand, as it was written in a highly technical form, but certain words and phrases jumped out at me: dark power; the evil within; the love of Satan; succubi; Golden Dawn; the unspoken, secret act; the delicious corruption of an innocent; the book of the dead; and most significant of all, a section devoted to how to drain a body of blood. I thought of Douglas Greene’s body in that cave, his corpse leached of its lifeblood, his skin painted red. Surely there was enough evidence here for Inspector Núñez to investigate Grenville? There were letters from occultists in Paris, London, Egypt, and Greece, some relating to the future establishment of a kind of commune on the island.
There were other notebooks devoted to poisons, which related the symptoms, signs, and antidotes to a range of toxic substances: aconitine, cyanide, eserine, hemlock, horned rye, monkshood, mushrooms, nux vomica, pilocarpine. The last chemical, sometimes used for the treatment of glaucoma, pricked my interest, as I knew that while it could be a poison itself, it could also be used as an antidote to combat the effects of atropine, the toxin contained in henbane that I thought may have been given to Howard Winniatt.
I passed quickly over sections that dealt with what seemed like Grenville’s extended sexual imaginings. I did not want to dwell on the thought of him involved in illicit acts. The very idea turned my stomach. As I handled the notebooks and read these entries, I felt evil emanating off the page, a force that seemed to leak through the membrane of my skin. I took a few deep breaths and tried to imagine all that was good in the world. My mother, my daughter, Carlo, my dog, Peter. I thought of Torquay and the lovely view out to Thatcher Rock. I imagined the feel of the seawater on my skin. The image of water brought back the sight of that young woman standing on the deck of the Gelria. Why couldn’t I stop thinking of Gina Trevelyan? That was a case of suicide, pure and simple. She had had a history of mental disturbance. She had discovered that her husband was in love with another woman, someone she knew. That was more than enough to explain her sudden, dramatic death. And yet there was something not quite right about it, something I couldn’t put my finger on. I felt certain of one thing, however: her death had nothing to do with Grenville, and so, at least for tonight, I would have to put it out of my mind. However, I was determined not to forget Gina Trevelyan.
Listening out for signs of Grenville, I made my way from the study downstairs to the library. As I walked, my candle cast a series of long, strangely shaped shadows. How odd that Grenville knew that quote from A Shadow Passes. Even odder that he should know Phillpotts himself.
I moved the candle along the spines of the books, some of which had curious titles: The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage; the Alexandria Codex; the Book of Soyga; Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, and so on. I took one down from the shelf at random, an illustrated Arabian manuscript called the Kitab al-Bulhan, or Book of Surprises. I let the book fall open at a page that showed a creature that was half man, half devil; a pair of horns sprouted from its head and two fangs protruded from the corners of its mouth. I turned the page to see another grotesque hybrid, three animalistic heads on top of a black man’s body. The illustrations were beautifully done, finely drawn and expertly colored, but the contents unsettled me to such an extent that I was forced to close the book and place it back on the shelf.
I pushed my fingers between and behind the spines, looking for Winniatt’s missing journal, but nothing was to be found. I checked the fireplace for traces of burnt paper. Although there were some charred fragments in the grate, on closer examination these turned out to be from a local Canarian newspaper. From there I walked over to Grenville’s display of Guanche figures. In the candlelight, the small, primitive sculptures looked like totems of evil. Grenville had arranged his collection like objects in a museum:
on labels beneath each of the figures he had scrawled the name of the artifact and where it had been found. The first one that caught my eye was one of Tibecena, similar to the one Davison had found in the cave overlooking Martiánez beach. Next to this stood a small representation of Guayota, the malign spirit that lived in Mount Teide. What had Davison told me? That according to local legend, Guayota had kidnapped the sun in the form of Magec, which he shut up inside Teide, plunging the world into darkness. The human race prayed to Achamán—the father god and creator—who rescued Magec and then punished Guayota by imprisoning him inside the volcano. Greene had believed that Grenville wanted to free Guayota from the mountain so as to usher in a new world order of evil.
Of course this was nothing more than farfetched, superstitious nonsense—I doubted such a thing could ever happen—but nevertheless Grenville’s deluded beliefs could still result in yet more pain, misery, and violence.
Just then I heard a clock strike two. It was time to go and speak to Violet. Using my candle to guide me, I made my way up the stairs to the first floor. As I turned to walk down the corridor, I felt the soft breath of a night breeze on my face and my candle went out. It was then, immersed in the darkness, that I heard a strange, muffled noise coming from the other side of Violet’s door. What on earth was happening inside there? I felt my way back to my room for the matches that lay on a table by the window. I recalled the moment in the cave where I had encountered that spectral figure, when my hands had been shaking so much that the matches had fallen through my fingers. The same fear returned now. As I searched for the box, my hands felt the outlines of various items on the table—a glass paperweight, another candleholder, a book—before I came across the matches. The first one I tried to light burnt my finger, forcing me to drop it on the floor. The next one broke, sending a minute splinter of wood into my thumb. The third match illuminated a spot of blood beginning to bloom from my skin. I quickly relit the candle and made my way out of the room and back down the corridor. I stopped outside Violet’s room, a sickness rising from my stomach. A part of me did not want to see what was on the other side of the door. Perhaps it would be for the best if I left Grenville’s house and never returned. Did I really want to know the full extent of the evils of Mal País? But then I recalled Violet’s haunted look and her request that I come to her room at two o’clock. There was something she wanted me to know, something she wanted me to see.
I placed my ear to the wood and heard a series of bestial grunts and asthmatic pants. I gently eased the door open and in the dim light at first could not take in what I saw. A candle from the bedside table cast a warm glow over a grotesque, terrible sight, something truly against nature. On the bed were two intertwined forms—Grenville, his naked, hairy back rising and falling over his pale-skinned daughter. My instinct was to run across the room and claw the monster off, but in that instant I met Violet’s eyes, eyes full of tears, anger, and hatred. As I took one step towards her, she shook her head, warning me off. She did not want me to do anything, at least not at that moment. She had been unable to tell me the truth about her father because she knew the words were too terrible to say. And so she had led me here to her room for me to see for myself.
I stepped out of the room, closing the door quietly behind me. As I entered my own room, the sound of Grenville’s heavy breathing stayed in my head, the memory of that vile act seared on my brain. Mal País was rotten to its very core, the evil emanating from the malignant personality of Grenville, a man who corrupted everything around him, even his own daughter.
What did Violet expect me to do? Did she want me to go to the police? Did she hope that this would lead to an investigation of his other crimes? Was she using me as a conduit through which to speak to Inspector Núñez? The shame that came with the act was all too real, and I could imagine how hard it would be for her to talk about, especially to Núñez, a man who had shown feelings for her. I presumed she had never told Edmund Ffosse of the perverted attentions of her father; he would be the last person she would have wanted to find out. The next day I would have to make sure I could get Violet alone so I could ask her some of these questions.
The discovery also made me examine the comments made by Grenville about Phillpotts and his daughter Adelaide. Surely he wasn’t suggesting something untoward in that relationship, too? Phillpotts was such a decent, honorable man. Was there nothing that this monster did not want to besmirch with his unholy filth? What else was he capable of?
Although the door to my bedroom had a lock, I couldn’t find a key. And so I moved the chair from behind the desk to in front of the door. If he chose to come into my room, I knew it would not stop him, but at least the sound of its being moved would give me a little notice. What I would then do I had no idea.
The more I thought about Grenville, the angrier I became. As I sat there on my bed, in the light of a flickering candle, I had to do everything in my power to restrain myself from going back into Violet’s room. I was afraid of what I might do. Although I lay down, I could not sleep. Instead, when I closed my eyes, I thought of my poisons and imagined Grenville suffering a long and excruciatingly painful death.
28
The night passed without any further incident. Grenville made no attempt to come into my room, but that hardly mattered, as the memory of what I had seen poisoned the air. I did not sleep, or if I did, it was for short spells only, brief lapses in consciousness haunted by terrible visions of Grenville and his daughter.
At half past eight I heard a knock at the door.
“Mrs. Christie? Agatha?” The voice was weak, barely there. “It’s me, Violet.”
I stood up from my bed, walked across the room, and removed the chair from its position. I opened the door to see Violet’s weary face. Misery and pain seemed to ooze out of every pore, and as she looked at me, her eyes started to fill with tears.
“You poor thing,” I said, reaching out to her. “Come in here quickly, and we can talk about last night.”
Violet took a step back and removed my hand from her arm. “Last night? What on earth can you mean?”
“About what I saw in your room. With your father.”
“I’m sorry, but I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”
The statement took my voice away. I opened my mouth to repeat myself, but the words would not form themselves on my lips.
“I was just asking to see whether you felt any better this morning,” she said.
“Yes, I’m perfectly well, thank you.”
“Because last night you were very ill indeed. Don’t you remember?”
I felt my brows creasing with bewilderment and disbelief. “But that was all a pretense. You know it was. We talked about it before I went into the lavatory. You told me to come to your room at two o’clock, which I did. And that’s where I saw you, w-with your father.”
“I’m afraid you must have been suffering the effects of your illness. Your food poisoning. Father says sometimes one can have funny dreams.”
“But, Violet, this was no dream. I saw you with him. With your father. In bed.”
“I don’t know what on earth you are suggesting,” she said as she turned to go. “I enjoyed the most restful sleep, as did Father. He told me so this morning.” She looked back at me with a concerned air. “Perhaps you’ll feel better after some breakfast. If not, we may have to call the doctor to take a look at you.”
“Violet, stop this now,” I said, feeling the anger begin to fire my cheeks. “You know what you said. You know what I saw. I can understand that it’s hard for you to accept, but it’s something that I promise I will help you with. We can tell the inspector together. You can trust me to be with you through all of this.”
“I don’t know what is the problem, but it does seem as though the balance of your mind has been affected. Father told me that he’d read in the newspapers about your having some kind of breakdown back in England. Perhaps you’re still suffering from an imbalance of mind.” Violet’s voi
ce was gentle, like that of a nurse trying to soothe a fevered patient. She reached out and placed a soft hand on my forehead to see whether I was running a temperature. “You must rest now. Please go back to bed and I’ll ask Father to call Dr. Trenkel.”
With this, she gave me a hard push, slamming the door and locking it from the outside. I turned the handle, but the door would not open. I banged on the wood with some force.
“Violet! Violet! Let me out. I must talk to you. I know what’s going on here. It’s dangerous if you continue to live here. Your father is . . .”
I felt my voice fade away with each retreating footstep. Again I banged on the door with a fury. But there was no response. I walked over to the window, which was covered by rejas, a crisscross of bars, and which looked out towards Grenville’s poison garden. I considered shouting out the window, but nobody other than Violet and Grenville would hear me. I unzipped my handbag and searched through it for anything that might help open the door, but there was nothing. I took some comfort in the note I had left for Carlo telling her of my whereabouts. If I had not turned up at the hotel by teatime she would start to get concerned; she might possibly tell Inspector Núñez.
What on earth had happened overnight to change Violet’s mind? Had she told her father about what I had seen? If so, he could have threatened her with violence—or even worse things. I doubted that she intended to send for Dr. Trenkel. But what did Grenville have planned for me? Surely he wasn’t considering harming me in any way? He would know that he could never get away with it. A death on his premises could not be so easily explained. Or perhaps he was so sick in the brain that he no longer cared about what happened to him? Was this going to be his final crime? The one where he allowed himself to express his evil mind in all his ghoulish glory? I thought back over the last two murders. A body, partly mummified, in a cave, the corpse drained of blood. Another man dead of head injuries, his eye spiked with a bird-of-paradise flower. What would he do with me? Poison me and then do something to my body? Show me off in some grotesque way or sacrifice me to a heathen god of his imagining?
A Different Kind of Evil Page 17
