The Killing of Olga Klimt

by R. T. Raichev

  Charlie frowned. ‘That would never have worked … I thought she had got over me … I keep telling you … Actually, I heard she’s started seeing someone else … Came as a relief … ’

  ‘It’s horrible – we are sitting and talking about her while she is lying in the cupboard, dead!’ Olga cried.

  ‘Well, it’s time we called the police.’ Payne produced his mobile phone.

  ‘No, wait.’ Olga rose abruptly. She went up to where Antonia sat and took her hands. ‘It will be all right, won’t it? I am very frightened. The police won’t think it was me that killed Joan, will they? I mean they may think I have a reason to want her dead – because of Charlie? They won’t think she came here to see me and that we quarrelled and then I got angry and stabbed her, will they?’

  ‘I can’t say what the police will think, but you don’t stab people in the back when you are quarrelling with them. Don’t worry.’ Antonia tried to be reassuring. ‘We also seem to be forgetting that there is already someone who has confessed to the murder. Fenella Frayle did, didn’t she? All Charlie will have to do is tell his story. Wait a minute,’ she told Payne. ‘Don’t ring yet.’

  ‘Will they believe me though? That’s what worries me,’ Charlie said. ‘I mean, it will be my word against hers, won’t it? OK, there is the call she made to the clinic and they will probably be able to trace it to Miss Frayle’s mobile phone, if she used her mobile phone, that is, though she may not have. In the end it will be only my word that she told me she had killed Olga. I don’t think they’ll believe me. The whole thing is too fantastic! Do you see? It’s too idiotic for words.’

  ‘I do see,’ Antonia said. ‘It is fantastic.’

  ‘All Miss Frayle will need to do is deny it. Somehow,’ Charlie went on gloomily, ‘I don’t see her admitting to the police she killed a perfect stranger to oblige me – do you? She is a highly respectable figure. She invites immediate trust. She doesn’t look like a nut at all. She sounds frightfully composed and rational. You wouldn’t say she looked like a nut, would you?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t.’ Antonia gave a little smile. ‘Though my grandson seemed to have some reservations about her. I wonder if that means he’ll grow up to be a fine judge of character.’

  ‘Unless they traced the knife to her in some way, there would be absolutely no proof that it was a case of mistaken identity, that she killed Joan thinking it was Olga!’

  There was a pause. Antonia came to a decision. She slowly got to her feet. ‘I think we should go and see Miss Frayle, Hugh. She lives at a place called Jevanny Lodge. She lives above her school.’

  ‘She calls it her “snuggery”,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Actually it would be best if I went alone. You stay here and wait for the police.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Payne asked.

  ‘Yes. I’ll go in the car, if you don’t mind. I think it would be better if I saw her before the police did. She knows me. It would be well, kinder. She’ll be more inclined to open the door to me at this time of night. I am after all little Eddy Rushton’s grandmother. Besides she’s read two of my novels.’

  Charlie stared at her. ‘Good God. Do you write detective stories?’ Suddenly he grinned. ‘Well, that explains it!’

  Payne cocked an eyebrow. ‘You think you have a chance of getting her to confess?’

  ‘I don’t know. I will try my best.’ Antonia shrugged. ‘Wait about ten minutes before you call the police, will you? I want to talk to her without being interrupted.’

  ‘Very well, my love. Do be careful,’ Payne said.

  22

  JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS

  Antonia drove in the direction of the Sylvie & Bruno Nursery School as fast as she could. ‘Hell for leather,’ she murmured. (Did anyone ever use the expression nowadays?)

  She found herself trying to imagine the experts in violent death arriving at Philomel Cottage. She hated police procedurals, so she was vague about it. There would be a team consisting of a detective inspector, a police sergeant, a police surgeon, a photographer or two, a print man, whom she envisaged as having small delicate hands, several plain-clothes men who would no doubt subject every room in the house to a methodical search. They would be carrying with them their peculiar paraphernalia and specific skills.

  She could see them very clearly now, hard-faced, bleary-eyed men and, possibly, a woman or two, standing around, looking as though they would rather be somewhere else …

  Antonia had forced herself to read a couple of police procedurals and found them tedious, but she understood they had a following. Well, chacun à son goût …

  She imagined Hugh sitting patiently on the sofa, smoking his pipe, his legs crossed, giving every appearance of being unperturbed, waiting for his turn to be interviewed.

  ‘Major Payne? You say you have nothing to do with any of this? Then what the hell are you doing here?’

  No, they wouldn’t say ‘hell’; they would be politer. But they wouldn’t allow Hugh to smoke his pipe inside the house, would they? They might even confiscate it if he refused to put it out! Poor Hugh. Would the inspector take Charlie’s story of the exchanged murders seriously? Actually she had no idea. Poor Charlie.

  The scene of the crime would be taped off. Every scrap of paper, threads of fabric, shreds of wood, pieces of plastic, hairs from the kitten, bits from Olga’s make-up, the detritus of everyday living would be rescued and examined to see whether it could add to the picture of how Joan Selwyn had died and at whose hands …

  In her detective novels Antonia (writing as ‘Antonia Darcy’) never attempted to mystify her readers with the mechanical, the technical, the ballistic, nor, for that matter, with the forensic. Some thought it a weakness, but Antonia didn’t care. She hated doing research – she feared she wouldn’t get it right because she found the process so boring. Procedural verisimilitude simply had no place in her kind of plot.

  Antonia was famous – some said notorious – for allotting the police only a tangential part in her novels. Actually, in one or two of her books the police did not appear at all. The investigation was invariably conducted by a pair of gifted amateurs. Gifted amateurs might be an anachronism, but hers were carefully camouflaged by mobile phones, references to Google, Twitter and Facebook and lashings of self-deprecating wit. (Were Charlie and Olga on Facebook? They were the right age for it.)

  Antonia pulled her thoughts back to the murder at Philomel Cottage. There were some questions that needed to be answered. Who was the person that had phoned Olga and told her to go to Doctor Bishop’s clinic? Why had that phone call been made in the first place?

  Joan Selwyn must have arrived at Philomel Cottage soon after Olga left. What had Joan Selwyn been hoping to achieve? She had had a front-door key in her pocket and she seemed to have been stabbed in the back as she was about to enter the house. Miss Frayle must have followed her … Well, yes … Miss Frayle was the killer … Miss Frayle had believed Joan to be Olga, so she killed her …

  Antonia wondered whether they were not dealing with two murderers, both intent on the same target. How did that work out? Enter First Murderer, former girlfriend Joan Selwyn. Joan had only pretended to be over Charlie whereas in point of fact she was still hankering after him. The fact that she had dyed her hair blonde could be interpreted as pointing in that direction. Unrequited passion, as Hugh had put it once, was the devil.

  Antonia tried to envisage the scene. Joan has acquired a key and she is in the process of unlocking the front door with it, her intention being to hide somewhere inside the house and wait for Olga. But just then the Second Murderer arrives. Fenella Frayle is carrying a knife in her pocket. It’s getting dark and she sees a blonde girl standing in the doorway with her back to her. She is convinced that it is Olga and she goes up to her and stabs her in the back – which introduces the joint elements of dark irony and poetic justice into the proceedings.

  But Joan had no weapon of any kind on her. They had checked her pockets. No gun, no knife, no blunt inst
rument. Could she have intended to strangle Olga? Or had she hoped to use something from inside the house? The poker? There had been no gloves on her hands or in her pockets either. Had she planned to do it with her bare hands then? It was possible, people did do illogical things, especially if they were in the grip of a powerful emotion, but Antonia was not convinced …

  There it was. Jevanny Lodge. The Sylvie & Bruno Nursery School. That was where it had all started. There were enough street lights, so the place did not look as sinister as it might have done. Only one window on the first floor was lit. Miss Frayle’s snuggery? So she was in.

  Antonia pushed open the little gate and walked up to the front door. Suddenly she shivered, though the evening was not particularly cold. Someone walking on my grave, Antonia thought. She remembered Hugh had urged her to be careful …

  She rang the front-door bell.

  23

  CHARLIE’S ANGEL

  As there was no answer, she rang the bell again. She stood and waited. Nothing. She glanced up at the lit window. No shadowy silhouettes. No movement. The curtains were drawn across the window.

  Antonia reached out for the knocker. She heard the ‘bang-bang-bang’ reverberate inside the house. Then she did it again. Someone was passing in the street and, with the corner of her eye, she saw them pause. Possessed by a spirit of recklessness, Antonia drew back a little, away from the door, and called out, ‘Miss Frayle? Miss Frayle? Are you there? Are you all right?’

  Miss Frayle wouldn’t want a rumpus, Antonia reflected. Not at a moment like this.

  ‘Miss Frayle! Will you open up, please?’ Antonia called out in a louder voice. She then picked up a pebble and threw it at the window. She heard a tinkling sound as it hit the pane.

  Nothing. A thought crossed her mind. Fenella Frayle might have killed herself. Some murderers committed suicide. Fenella Frayle was not a hardened criminal; rather she was someone who had had a moment of madness …

  ‘Miss Frayle?’ Antonia shouted again. ‘I am going to call an ambulance!’

  She felt extremely self-conscious since she hated raising her voice, but she realised she was doing this for her own personal safety as well. Fenella Frayle was less likely to attempt killing her if there had been a rumpus outside her front door. Passers-by might remember the woman bawling outside the Sylvie & Bruno Nursery School shortly after ten in the evening …

  The next moment she saw a light come on in the coloured-glass panel of the front door.

  Antonia could hardly recognise the woman who stood in the doorway.

  ‘Miss Frayle?’

  ‘It is very late. The nursery is closed.’ Fenella Frayle made a peculiar gesture with her hand, at once pitifully defensive and peremptory. ‘Please, come tomorrow. Some time after nine o’clock would be best. We are closed now.’ She was slurring. Antonia smelled brandy. Oh dear.

  ‘It is me, Antonia Darcy. Eddy Rushton’s grandmother.’

  ‘I am sorry but the nursery is closed. All the children have been taken home. I am sure they are all safely in bed. I don’t think I can do anything for you now.’

  ‘I would like to talk to you,’ Antonia persisted. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘I am afraid that would be impossible. This is a most inconvenient time.’

  ‘It’s very important. I must talk to you.’

  ‘What is it about?’

  ‘May I come in?’

  ‘No. What is it about?’ It looked as though Miss Frayle was about to shut the door. She had a dazed and disoriented air about her.

  ‘It is about Olga Klimt. It’s about the killing of Olga Klimt,’ Antonia said boldly. Sometimes, though not always, shock tactics worked.

  ‘I don’t know anyone called Olga. I am not familiar with anyone of that name. Please go away.’

  Antonia cast a glance at her watch. ‘The police will be here very soon. I may be able to help you.’

  ‘The police? Are the police … coming?’

  ‘Yes!’

  There was a pause.

  ‘How can you help me? No one can help me.’ Fenella Frayle suddenly sounded breathless. She stood peering at Antonia. ‘You are Miss Darcy. You write detective novels. You write about murders.’

  ‘That is correct. But that has nothing to do with why I am here,’ Antonia said quickly.

  ‘Detective-story writers are not at all nice-minded. They always think the worst of everyone they meet, don’t they? They are ghouls. You are here for “copy”, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, that’s not the reason I came. I want to help you.’ Antonia knew that if she had been asked exactly how she proposed to do that, she wouldn’t have been able to provide a satisfactory answer.

  ‘I think it is too late for help. But come in. You might as well come in,’ Fenella Frayle said.

  She led the way into her snuggery and slumped heavily on the sofa, making it creak. She didn’t ask Antonia to sit down and Antonia didn’t. It was better to remain standing, actually, in case Miss Frayle suddenly lunged at her and tried to stab her. (Perhaps there was a knife hidden behind one of the sofa cushions? Sharp Blades and Soft Fabrics. That could be an interesting title for a novel.)

  Fenella Frayle’s stoutish body was encased in a black, baggy trouser suit. Her hair had been pulled back into a tight bun. She looked like some grotesque version of a Charlie’s Angel. Her face, once so pleasantly firm and apple-cheeked, was mottled and puffy and it sagged a little – the left cheek more than the right one. From a certain angle her face gave the impression of being lopsided – she might have had a facelift that had gone badly wrong. Her eyelids were actually quite swollen, they might have been injected with some mysterious serum. The whole effect was very disconcerting.

  Antonia glanced at the brandy bottle and empty glass on the coffee table in front of the sofa. There was no time to waste.

  ‘The body at Philomel Cottage is not that of Olga Klimt. You made a mistake. You killed the wrong girl.’

  Miss Frayle frowned. ‘You were here when he came, weren’t you? I mean the biscuit heir. I should never have allowed him to be brought in. Never. Then none of this would have happened. But that was the humane thing to do. One is frequently punished for one’s kindness, have you noticed? I was good to him and how did he repay me?’ She tapped her forehead. ‘By playing with my mind. He was very clever about it. Very clever. I wouldn’t have thought it of a pretty boy like him, but there you are. Pretty boys are usually silly. But he was clever.’

  Antonia nodded. ‘Yes. You were in a vulnerable state and he took advantage of it. We know it was Charles Eresby who came up with the idea of exchanging murders.’

  ‘That is correct. I am glad you believe me. I wouldn’t have dreamt of asking him to kill my aunt. I am famous for my self-control, you know. For my rationality.’ She gave a mirthless guffaw. ‘But he said he would kill my aunt for me. He promised. Spoilt rich boy! I do yours, you do mine.’ Fenella frowned. ‘Are you telling me he’s made a confession?’

  ‘He did make a confession, yes, sort of. His line is that he wasn’t himself at the time. He was upset, besides he’d drunk too much of your sherry.’

  ‘So my sherry is to blame, is it?’

  ‘He said he never thought you would act on the suggestion. He never meant you to.’

  ‘He never meant me to? But he asked me to kill Olga Klimt! He was most specific. He said it would be foolproof. No one would think of linking us when it was all over and so on. It’s been used before, hasn’t it? The strangers-on-a-train scenario.’

  ‘It has been used, yes.’

  ‘He said he wanted Olga dead. I don’t understand. What do the police make of it?’

  ‘The police haven’t questioned him yet, but they will, soon. In fact, I believe they may be questioning him at this very moment.’ Antonia glanced at her watch.

  ‘You don’t look the kind of person who would volunteer to do jobs for the police,’ Fenella said slowly. ‘I can’t believe it was they who sent you here. They wouldn’
t do anything like that, would they?’

  ‘No. I am here entirely on my own initiative.’

  ‘And you believe you know exactly what I did?’

  ‘You phoned Charles Eresby and told him that you’d killed Olga. Then you reminded him that he should do his part of the deal. You expected him to kill your aunt. Aunt Clo-Clo.’

  ‘Aunt Clo-Clo.’ Fenella echoed. ‘You know about Aunt Clo-Clo? You seem to know too much.’ She reached for the brandy bottle, seemed to change her mind and didn’t pick it up. ‘But you can’t possibly know what I have had to put up with.’

  ‘I can imagine – if what you wrote was anything to go by,’ Antonia said in apologetic tones. ‘You wrote that Aunt Clo-Clo should die – you wrote it several times.’

  ‘How – how do you know that? You can’t possibly know that.’ Fenella shook her head. ‘Well, I was pushed to the limit. I didn’t know what I was doing, really. My aunt’s a monster. I am facing ruin. You see, they are going to take this place from me. My life’s work. I haven’t been sleeping well. I catch myself doing odd things, like the scribbling you mention.’

  ‘A doctor might have been able to help you.’

  ‘You think I need help? You are right, I damned well need help. My nerves are all to hell. Look at me, just look at me! Normally I never dress like this – never. Look at the way I’ve done my hair!’ She sniffed. ‘But I was pushed to the limit. I had a phone call from Aunt Clo-Clo earlier today. She said some truly appalling things to me. More appalling than usual. So I thought to myself, enough is enough. Aunt Clo-Clo is a noxious weed in need of uprooting. Let’s go and do it. Let’s get cracking!’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Well, I got up, put on this suit – I have never worn it before though I have had it for ages. I got into my car and I drove to Fulham. I knew the address. Philomel Cottage. I found it in Charles Eresby’s wallet.’