Soon after, they reached Ospreys.
Ingrid came to, slowly. She tried to rise and a sharp pain pierced her head – she had banged it against some hard surface. The left side of her face was numb. She felt con-fused and disoriented. She could smell petrol and oil. She wondered if she had been in an accident. Or was it a dream? Was she dreaming about the accident? She some-times did, though not recently . . . Where was she?
Her hands – something had happened to her hands. She couldn’t feel her hands! Had they gone? No – her hands were behind her back – tied – they had gone numb, that’s why she didn’t feel them.
How dark it was. She seemed to be in a box of some kind. For some reason she thought of a closet or a small wardrobe. No, she was horizontal, not vertical. A coffin, she thought. I am in a coffin. Not only bound but gagged. She could hardly breathe because there was a rag of some sort in her mouth and some kind of sticky tape across the lower part of her face. The rag – was it a handkerchief? – reeked of something, a smell she knew well. She could only breathe through her nose, just about.
Her head hurt badly, where the blow had fallen. She believed she had bled from the side of her head. She could smell blood. She could taste it too. Her lip had burst. Well, she was no stranger to blood. Years ago she had used to cut her arms and thighs. The sight of blood had excited her. She hadn’t minded the pain one little bit. Each time she made a cut, she wanted to see how deep she could go . . .
Ingrid’s legs were numb too. She tried stretching them and failed. She tried wriggling her toes but couldn’t do that either. She had lost all feeling. Pinpricks sparkled faintly through her calves . . . She was bound and gagged. She was incarcerated. She was at her enemy’s mercy –
Her enemy. Who was her enemy? If only she could think more clearly . . .
Minutes passed . . . Hours . . . Ingrid had no idea how many. She must have passed out and then come to. She made an effort to remember what exactly had happened. She tried to trace the exact sequence of events that had led her being placed inside this . . . coffin? Was she really in a coffin? Had she been buried alive? Apremature burial, like in Poe . . . Well, she remembered being dragged across the garden – someone pulling her by the shoulders . . . .She also remembered the knife glistening in the sun . . . That had been earlier on.
Ingrid had got on a bus – then – then she had arrived at Ospreys. She had walked up the drive. There had been rooks again, circling above her head, shrieking. Yes. She remembered the rooks. She had known at once there was something wrong. The rooks were her friends and they had been trying to warn her. She had started running . . .
She had arrived late, not at the time she intended. And the reason? Something had distracted her. She had seen a little girl on the bus – for a moment she had thought this was her daughter, her little Claire, but of course that was impossible. If her daughter had lived, Ingrid reasoned, she would have been thirty now. Ingrid had stood gazing at the girl, listening to her prattle to her little brother. She had wanted to reach out and stroke her fair curls – pinch her cheek. She wanted to pick her up and give her a kiss – She had missed her stop, that was it! She’d had to walk back. That was why she had had to run . . . Yes . . . Across the garden . . . How the rooks had screeched and flapped their wings! Catching sight of the well, she made a wish. Please, Mighty God Rook, let me be the first to get to Ralph.
She had opened her bag and taken out the knife. She had wondered whether the priest would be there already. Her thoughts came back to her. I’ll be damned if I let him kill Ralph. With a soft pillow? An easy death? Oh no. That is not the death Ralph deserves. She had heard the priest talk about using a pillow into his mobile the day before – she had been concealed among the rose bushes in that overgrown garden.
The priest had been talking to Ralph’s nephew. What was the nephew’s name? Robin? Yes. Ralph didn’t trust Robin – well, with good reason! How funny that there should have been a second plot to kill Ralph – the kind of thing Antonia Darcy might have dreamt up. Assassins at Ospreys – some such ridiculous title.
So she had been right about the priest. She knew that he was a dodgy one the moment she laid eyes on him, though a less likely hired killer one could not possibly imagine. Who would get to Ralph first? She had liked the challenge. She’d relished the adrenalin rush. She had been convinced she’d beat the podgy padre to it, oh yes, she had no doubt.
As Ingrid came round the corner of the terrace, however, she heard the priest’s voice coming from inside Ralph’s room. Father Lillie-Lysander was speaking in conversational tones. Did you say your solicitor was coming at eleven? You are definitely leaving all your money to Miss Ardleigh? No change of heart? She realized at once the french windows of Ralph’s room were open. Exactly as she’d anticipated them to be on a warm day like that. The priest had beaten her to it! Well, no – not quite. Not yet. Ralph was still alive. There was time. She had halted and now she looked down at the knife in her hand. The blade caught the sun and for a moment she had been dazzled. She remembered her thoughts: Now I will have to kill the priest as well.
She had started walking across the terrace but the next moment had stopped short.
She had stood and stared.
She hadn’t been able to believe her eyes –
23
Lord of the Flies
‘Good afternoon,’ Beatrice said with her most winning smile, removing her dark glasses and revealing her bright green eyes. ‘I’d like to see Ralph – Mr Renshawe , that is. I’ve been to see him several times before. Would you tell him that it is Beatrice? My name is Beatrice Ardleigh. He knows me very well, yes.’
She was a born liar. Despite herself, Antonia found her-self admiring Beatrice’s chutzpah. What poise – what sangfroid – what confidence! Bee hadn’t batted an eyelid. Or was that unfair? Well, she was Beatrice Ardleigh – but she had never been to Ospreys before.
They had had to knock hard – the doorbell still didn’t work. The young man who had opened the door wore spotless white overalls. He was fair-haired and had a pleasant face. He was the gentle giant type and spoke with a South African accent. He had I Love Cape tattooed on his muscular right forearm. Antonia saw Beatrice shoot him an appreciative look. He was smiling broadly. A male nurse? Antonia had expected a woman. Ralph had mentioned a woman called Wilkes, Beatrice told them.
‘Sure, madam. Come in . . . Your friends too. That’s fine. I am new here, but I’m sure it’s all right for friends of Mr Renshawe to visit him. My name is Greg. Mr Renshawe hasn’t been too bad, to tell you the truth. His appetite seems to be returning. He actually asked me to make him crème caramel!’ Greg held open the door for Payne and Antonia. ‘That was what he used to love eating best when he was a boy . . . He also asked me to bring him a feather fan that had belonged to a lady friend of his!’
They walked into a gloomy hall where it felt distinctly cooler than outside. Major Payne looked round. Empty, but for two Pugin chairs and a rusty armour that seemed to have been made to accommodate a colossus. William and Adelaide gothick wallpaper. Was it faux? No – it looked authentic. He ran his hand across the wall – felt authentic too. The great staircase was made of black wrought iron and had red mahogany balustrades. Glancing up he saw angel faces with sly heavy-lidded eyes and outspread wings that seemed to have sprouted from the back of their heads hanging suspended from the hammer-beam vault above. They brought to mind monstrous bats poised for flight – or attack more likely, by the look of it, which was not something one would have expected from angels – something jolly unsettling about them – he felt they couldn’t be trusted. Surely that was not the way angels were supposed to affect one?
‘I will try to get as much out of him as possible,’ Payne heard Beatrice whisper.
‘This way, madam.’ Greg pointed to a door. ‘Oh, you know it – you’ve been here before.’
They watched Beatrice trip across the hall – as though she had done it hundreds of times – as though the place belonged to he
r! As she opened the door, they heard a thin voice pipe up, ‘Bee, my dear – is that you? How lovely to see you!’
The situation was curious, to say the least – well, surreal. Would Ralph see it was not the same one? Antonia wondered. And would it make any difference to his decision to leave his money to her if he did?
‘Would you like a drink? There’s orange juice and iced tea.’
‘Good idea. Thank you.’ Payne said and they followed Greg down a long corridor into the kitchen.
The kitchen was a large cavernous room with a round oak table in the middle. All the windows were open. ‘You wouldn’t think it was November, would you? All these flies and bluebottles! They keep coming in.’ Greg waved his hand.
‘It’s hot. They’ve crept out of their hibernation pad.’ Major Payne produced his pipe. He started patting his pockets.
‘If you smoke, they’ll probably go,’ Greg said. He went up to the fridge and took out a jug full of orange juice. It was very fresh. He had squeezed it himself some quarter of an hour earlier. The old man – he meant Mr Renshawe – loved orange juice. Mr Renshawe ate next to nothing, but he loved his orange juice.
‘You said there’s been an improvement?’
‘Well, yes, ma’am. I was told Mr Renshawe had been pretty bad, expected to die any minute, but he didn’t strike me as a dying man when I saw him. And he’s been even better today.’
‘You made him a crème caramel,’ Payne murmured.
‘That’s excellent news,’ Antonia said.
‘It is, ma’am. I don’t like it when my patients die.’ Greg poured juice into two tall glasses. He looked across at Payne. ‘Aren’t you going to light your pipe, sir? The nasty creatures are sure to fly out, if you do, I reckon.’
‘Sorry. Can’t find my tobacco pouch. Bloody nuisance. Don’t know what’s become of it. So you are new?’
‘Yes, sir. I arrived last night. Here you are, ma’am. Sir.’ Greg handed them the glasses. ‘The agency supplied me with instructions. I met Mr Saunders. He was here, waiting for me. Mr Saunders is Mr Renshawe’s solicitor.’
Antonia asked what happened to the woman who used to work for Ralph. Did Greg know where she went?
‘Nurse Wilkes? Oh, she left, ma’am. It was very sudden. She got a lot of money, Mr Saunders let drop. I think she won the lottery or Premium Bonds or something. Going to get married on one of those ocean liners, apparently. Lucky girl!’
‘Lucky in love as well as at cards or indeed the lottery. Doesn’t happen often.’ Payne shot a glance at Antonia and saw her give a meaningful nod. Jolly timely, he thought. A double disappearance and the nurse suddenly exits the stage. Unusual coincidences were always interesting. Still, one mustn’t jump to conclusions. ‘I suppose that’s her knitting over there?’ He pointed to a side table with the stem of his pipe.
‘I don’t know, sir, but it must be hers, yes. It was there when I arrived.’ Greg laughed. ‘ Seems she no longer wants to knit!’
‘She can’t anyhow – not with one needle.’ Payne had strolled over to the side table and picked up the knitting. He stroked his jaw with a thoughtful forefinger. ‘Where’s the other needle, do you know?’
Greg shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘Haven’t seen it anywhere. Lost, I guess.’
‘Did Nurse Wilkes leave other things unfinished or undone? Tasks for you to complete?’ Payne went on in casual tones.
‘Well, not that much – the place was spick-and-span.’ Greg stood with his arms folded before him. ‘I am talking about the ground floor. I don’t know what the situation is upstairs. It’s a big house. So I haven’t had to do much. Apart from those bloody sheets.’
‘I’d have hated to arrive at a place and start cleaning. This is delicious.’ Antonia took another sip of orange juice.
Greg frowned. ‘I did try to wash them but they were completely ruined, so in the end I threw them away.’
Payne cocked an eyebrow. ‘When you said “bloody”, did you mean it as an impolite term of exasperation – or did you mean the sheets were covered in blood?’
‘Covered in blood, sir. There seems to have been some sort of an accident. With Nurse Wilkes or the old man. There were bed sheets and three pillowcases and a pair of pyjamas – Mr Renshawe’s pyjamas, they had his mono-gram on the breast pocket – all bloodstained. Actually I don’t think Mr Renshawe cut himself or anything like that. I’d have noticed but there wasn’t a scratch on him, so it must have been Nurse Wilkes.’
‘Could she have bled over Renshawe and his bed?’ Payne murmured.
‘That’s what I wondered, sir. Nurse Wilkes had put the bloodied things into the washing machine and seemed to have forgotten about them. It was useless trying to wash them. So, as I said, I put them in a bin-liner and threw them away.’
‘Did you ask Mr Renshawe what happened?’
‘I did, sir. He said he had no idea what I was talking about. He seemed annoyed. He told me to dispose of the sheets at once. He seemed pleased when I told him I’d already done so.’
‘How very interesting,’ Payne said thoughtfully. ‘Um. Changing the subject, do you know whether Nurse Wilkes used to do any knitting in Renshawe’s room?’
Patterns, Antonia thought. He is as bad as me – trying to fit seemingly random details into a recognizable logical pattern.
‘It’s funny you should ask that, sir.’ Greg smiled. ‘The first time Mr Renshawe saw me, he asked whether I could knit. Said he’d got used to needles clicking in the back-ground. He found the sound soothing. I said I couldn’t. He said that perhaps I should take up knitting. I don’t know whether he was joking or not. He seemed serious, but then I don’t know Mr Renshawe well. He does say funny things – fancy him asking me to bring him that feather fan!’
‘Very funny, yes,’ Payne said.
Some men knitted as therapy, Antonia said. Knitting was proven to have a calming effect on people recovering from nervous breakdowns. Hadn’t the Duke of Windsor been fond of knitting? Or did she mean embroidery?
‘So Nurse Wilkes did knit in Renshawe’s room.’ Major Payne felt the point of the knitting needle with a fore-finger. ‘Ouch! This is sharp. It isn’t the smell of blood that’s attracting the bluebottles, is it?’
‘Oh. You are probably right, sir. The bin-liners are still outside. There is a collection tomorrow. There were a lot of bluebottles in the garden this morning. They seem to be coming from the direction of –’
‘Did you mention the bloodied sheets to the police, Greg?’ Antonia asked.
He blinked. ‘Sorry, ma’am?’
‘The police were here, weren’t they? Earlier today?’
The young man gaped slightly, revealing perfect teeth. ‘How . . . how did you know? Two policemen did come earlier on. Yes. About an hour ago. Very polite gentlemen. Nothing like South African police. They wanted to know if I knew anything about the Catholic priest who used to visit Mr Renshawe. The priest seems to have disappeared. I told them I didn’t know anything. I told them I was new.’
‘Did they want to know anything else?’
‘They asked whether Miss Beatrice Ardleigh had been to see Mr Renshawe. I said no one has been to the house, not while I’ve been here . . . Oh, was that the lady who came with you? Your friend?’ Greg looked towards the door.
‘Yes. The very same.’ Payne nodded. Only it wasn’t. How terribly confusing. One kept forgetting. The police had meant Ingrid Delmar, dressed up as Beatrice Ardleigh. The police knew the whole story now.
‘The police also asked for Nurse Wilkes’ address, but I said I didn’t know it,’ Greg went on. ‘I am afraid they didn’t find me very helpful. Then they wanted to speak to Mr Renshawe and they let me stay in the room, but they didn’t get anything out of him either. Mr Renshawe wasn’t himself. Mr Renshawe kept talking about angels and demons and that there was a constant battle in the heavens. Then he started talking about spirals.’ Greg laughed. ‘I saw them exchange looks and shake their heads. They couldn’t get any sense out of him
, which was funny because Mr Renshawe recovered the moment they left!’
‘Did he now?’ Payne murmured. He had started walking slowly towards one of the open windows.
‘Yes! That’s when he asked me to make him the crème caramel, sir.’
‘How terribly interesting. Did the police search the premises?’ Payne could hear a buzzing sound – bluebottles?
‘Search the premises?’ Greg looked startled. ‘Oh no, sir. They were very polite, very pleasant. Real gentlemen. They only asked if anyone else lived at Ospreys and I said, no one. Apart from Mr Renshawe and me, that is. I did tell them that Mr Renshawe was a very sick gentleman, but they could see that for themselves. Then they left.’
‘So you didn’t mention the bloodied sheets to them?’ Antonia said.
‘Well, no, I didn’t think it was important. Do you think it is, madam?’
It was Payne who answered – he was now standing by the window, looking out. ‘I think so. Yes . . . Extremely important.’ He spoke absently. ‘Lots of bluebottles out-side, you are perfectly right. Where are Ralph Renshawe’s windows? I can’t work it out . . . That monstrosity over there must be Moira Montano’s pink conservatory?’ He pointed.
‘Whose conservatory, sir?’
‘Moira Montano. She was a B-movie actress. Well before your time. I imagine she made films with titles like Stains of Scarlet and The Reek of Dread . . . Are the bin-liners some-where on this side?’
‘Oh no, sir. On the other side.’ Greg waved his hand towards the door that led to the garden.
‘That’s odd then because the buzzing’s definitely coming from somewhere this side . . . Are those Renshawe’s french windows?’ Payne pointed again.
‘Yes, sir. Those are Mr Renshawe’s windows.’ Greg had joined Payne beside the kitchen window.
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