They now all turned their heads and looked at Koning, who was leaning against the wall. He hitched a brow and said, “Excuse me? I am only here to see to the will.” He held up the envelope in his hand. “I’m not an heir, not an interested party. I didn’t know these people before I came here.”
“Ah, Mr Koning, but that is a lie. You did know them. All of them. For you set this all up. This whole little summer gathering, the will and the murders. Malcolm committed them, but by your guidance. You wanted Theodora Cummings and Hugh Bryce-Rutherford dead. And then Malcolm hung for them. Because you hated them and you always wanted to get even with them. Don’t you, Mr Kaiser? Koning is just an assumed name. Your real name is Kaiser. You’re the son of an Austrian ballerina, Elisabeth Kaiser. And the son of Malcolm Bryce-Rutherford, who had a brief affair with Elisabeth when she performed in London. You are the real child we were looking for in this affair. Not Kenneth Jones and not Anna Cane. You. But you never showed your face as such. You never wanted money from the father who had never acknowledged you. You only wanted revenge. For your dead mother. And for the humiliation of the past.”
It was so silent that even the breath Malcolm sucked in could be heard. He stared in disbelief at the man who stood there so casually still, not at all disturbed by what he’d heard.
Jasper said, “Theodora took care of Malcolm’s problems as she called it. She received you when you came to see him. All those years ago when you were not bitter yet. Or perhaps less than you are today. She told you to leave; she laughed at you. She told you Malcolm’s wife was pregnant and that baby would be his heir. She told you about Hugh who also wanted the money and… She sent you off with a flea in your ear. You were mad. You were bent on revenge. You dressed up like her, stole a car and killed Malcolm’s wife. You knew a witness had seen you and you waited for Theodora to be arrested and prosecuted. But she never was. You planned a new revenge. You wanted all of them to pay now. You dreamt about bringing Malcolm and all of his family members, the business partner, secretary, the old cast, into painful situations where they would grow to distrust and hate each other, perhaps even drive each other to death. You wanted to be there to witness it all. You set it up patiently. You followed Hugh during his wild episode in the States. His drinking was bound to get him into trouble and when it did, with Leo Mason’s death, you got Patty informed about the killer of her brother. The person who wrote her a letter to explain what had really happened that stormy night suggested the idea of her marrying the culprit and then making him pay, literally, for what he had done. Yes, you got her to marry him. They came here. Howard and Cecily, Kenneth, the ticking time bomb with them. Nurse Cane cleverly put in place. And Malcolm himself, convinced by you that Theodora and Hugh had plotted to kill his first wife and his beloved unborn child.”
Jasper focused on Malcolm. “If you think back, you will see it wasn’t your own idea at all. You let Koning’s idea of a will game lead you on. You believed you thought up the game because you’re a cruel and manipulative man by nature, but in reality it was all presented to you ready-made. You just had to act. And you did. I’m sorry, Malcolm, but you just did what somebody else wanted you to do. You committed two murders just to satisfy the need for revenge of a man who would never even have told you he is your son.”
Malcolm stared at Koning. “Why?” he whispered. “All I ever wanted was a child. You should have told me the truth. I would have…”
“Given me some money? As if I needed that!” Koning hissed at him. “You killed my mother by getting her pregnant and refusing to assist her when she couldn’t dance. Losing you meant little to her but losing her career meant everything. After I was born she could never get back to her old level. It haunted her and ultimately destroyed her. You destroyed her and with her death ruined my life. I had to fight my way up from the orphanage, through bitter poverty. When I came to London to ask for some kind of help, perhaps a place in your firm, your secretary shooed me away like a rabid dog. She laughed at me, made fun of me. Of my mother as well.”
“But I never knew that. Theodora acted like she was entitled and…”
“She’s paid for that now,” Koning said. “I’m glad you killed her. I know nothing could have hurt her more than the moment when she realized that you, the man she loved, was about to kill her. That it was you who pushed the cold steel into her heart. I bet she died both cursing you and muttering that she loved you. She was insane like that.”
Jasper stared at the man’s face and wondered if Koning himself experienced that same emotion. Hating his father and at the same time not being able to just turn his back on the past and make something out of his life. It went too far to claim that he loved Malcolm in his own way, but one could say that he had never fully separated himself from the need for a father figure, and that in the end this lack of an independent life had driven him to commit these terrible deeds.
Outside he heard a car. Two even. He said with a tight feeling in his stomach, “The police are here to take you away, Malcolm. And you, Koning. You pretended to be someone you were not. You tampered with paperwork. You will have to answer for that at least. The rest we will have to look at. I said it before and I will say it again. I think you are morally guilty of the murders committed here and I will try my utmost to get you convicted for them as well. As an accessory.”
Koning didn’t say anything. He looked cool and unconcerned when the French policemen put on the cuffs and took him away.
Malcolm sat in his chair with his head in his hands, unable to grasp what had just been revealed to him. The policemen had to drag him to his feet between them to cuff him and bring him to the waiting car outside.
Jasper promised them to come along in his own car and help with the paperwork for the charges.
Kenneth asked if Red could stay with him for the time being. “We can play fetch on the beach.”
When Jasper said this was fine, boy and dog ran from the room. Howard smiled in relief, and Cecily reached out and took his hand.
A happy family they might never become – their past was too chequered for that, and the distrust created by these events would take time to evaporate – but Jasper had good hopes that they might be a little better to each other now that they had come close to losing everything.
He turned to Patty and smiled at her. She smiled back. He gestured to her to follow him a moment.
* * *
Patty was curious what the inspector might want as he was about to leave and do his duty to get that horrible old man who had lured them here to kill them off convicted. Just for some insane idea about revenge.
And to think she had been alone in the study with that lawyer who was the mastermind behind it all! So close to someone who intended to have two people killed.
He had made a remark then about loss never getting any easier. It had echoed her own sentiments, as the thunder had growled outside like it had the night Leo had died in her arms.
Koning’s mother, her brother, what was the difference? You loved and lost and you couldn’t stand the loss. You needed to get back at the one who was responsible.
Outside Jasper said to her, “You’re free to go now, Mrs Bryce-Rutherford. But I think you would do well to remember this: life rarely gives one a second chance to get away with murder.”
Patty widened her eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“Someone saw you cutting those brake lines. On Hugh’s car? You couldn’t know then that he was to die anyway because Malcolm would hit him over the head. After Hugh died, you took the car out yourself, first chance you got, and ran it into the pillar so the cut brake lines couldn’t accidentally hurt anybody else. I do see you are not completely cold-hearted.”
Patty’s heart beat so fast she was sure he could hear it. “Why didn’t you mention that when you were discussing the case inside?”
“Because it will be hard to prove. And Hugh died at Malcolm’s hands, not yours. I do understand that after your brother died… well, let us say you came very
close to committing a crime, but you escaped the consequences. Let it be a lesson to you. Marry someone you love this time and be happy.”
Patty still couldn’t believe her luck. “You’re not charging me or anything?” she asked in a breathless voice, just to make sure.
“With what?” Jasper tilted his head. “I have my killer and I proved to him that he should never have hired me for the job. That’s all the satisfaction I need.”
He looked up at the house, the pale pink front with the gorgeously blossoming bougainvillea. “I suppose it will be sold now soon. Malcolm won’t get free again and he has no one near and dear who wants to live here. In fact, I’m quite sure you all have very bad memories of this place. I think that regardless of what the will says and to how much each of you will be entitled when Malcolm dies by hanging, you’d prefer money over this house.”
“I think you’re right,” Patty said with a shiver.
Jasper smiled. “Good. Then I’ll buy it for a fair price. I always liked this view much better.”
He nodded at her, got into his car and drove off, to follow the police cars with the two arrested men to the station.
Patty stared after him with a deep frown of thought. He had told them before that he had wanted this villa, but Malcolm had beaten him to it. He had to buy the less spectacular Villa Hydrangea nearby. Then he had befriended Malcolm and Malcolm had asked him to investigate this case…
Now the villa he had always wanted would be his anyway, as Malcolm would die because of the case Jasper had unravelled.
Patty’s breathing grew shallow for a moment. Could it be…?
No. That was too far-fetched.
That the Villa Calypso would now fall into Jasper’s hands anyway, was just coincidence.
Luck. Circumstance.
Or whatever else you’d want to call it.
But as she stepped back into the house’s shadowy hallway, she wasn’t so sure there even was such a thing as circumstance or luck. She of all people should know better.
Acknowledgements
As always, I’m grateful to all agents, editors and authors who share online about the writing and publishing process. Special thanks to my fabulous editor Laura McCallen, for her immediate enthusiasm for this book and the character of Jasper, to the entire talented Canelo crew, for their hard work on this new series and to designer Edward Bettison for the evocative cover.
This series, more than any other I’ve written so far, shows my love of Agatha Christie and the deep joy I derive from reading her stories ever since I discovered her work as a teen. I hope Jasper’s adventures also bring joy to you, reader, and provide a few hours of pure sleuthing fun.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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United Kingdom
Copyright © Vivian Conroy, 2019
The moral right of Vivian Conroy to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788633642
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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