Death in Disguise

by Caroline Graham

  After the first violent jolt of disbelief, inevitable when something yearned for over a long period of time seemingly drops into the hand, Guy had been overwhelmed with excitement. Although the communication was not in Sylvie’s handwriting (was not, in fact, from her at all), it was about her and, even better, contained an invitation. Guy made to touch the letter which had come to hold almost talismanic powers for him. It was not where he expected it to be. He tried other pockets, slapping and pulling at his clothes in an excess of panic before remembering that since putting it away he had changed his suit. No matter. He knew the address and every line of the contents by heart.

  Dear Mr & Mrs Gamelin, Your daughter has been staying with us for some time now. We will be celebrating her birthday on August the seventeenth and would be happy if you could both be present. Perhaps arriving around seven-thirty? We eat at eight. With kindest regards, Ian Craigie.

  Guy had lain awake all the previous night, excited and intrigued, turning over each phrase and intimation in the brief note, extracting solace where he could. The ‘us’ consoled him greatly. For a start it didn’t sound as if Craigie was the marvellous man for whom Sylvie had left London. The word implied plurality to the extent of at least a wife, perhaps even a family. And there was something a bit formal and middle-aged about ‘your daughter’.

  Naturally Guy had not mentioned the invitation to Felicity. Her dislike of Sylvie, the relief she had not troubled to conceal when the child left home, her indifference to her daughter’s welfare—she never even mentioned Sylvie’s name—made it unthinkable that she should accompany him. Guy decided to say that she was ill. That seemed simplest. And who would be any the wiser?

  Danton Morel was one of the best-kept secrets in London. No one who employed him ever told a living soul, so jealously did they guard the advantages his ministrations gave. In spite of this whenever the rich and glamorous, famous and infamous were gathered together in celebration’s name, there would most likely be present, taking the collective breath away, at least one example of Danton’s sorcery.

  His card described him with becoming modesty as Coiffeur et Visagiste but the dazzling transformations that his art contrived far exceeded the simple ‘making over’ techniques shown in magazines or on television. Danton magicked up not only dramatically transfigured flesh, but also an apparently dramatically transfigured personality too.

  As well as these fairy-godfather abilities, Danton was blessed with the most mellifluous cream-and-brandy voice. And when not speaking, the quality of his silence was warmly, encouragingly, receptive. Consequently people felt compelled to tell him things. All sorts of things. Danton would listen, smile, nod and continue on his designing way.

  He had started out twenty years ago as a mask-maker and puppeteer and would often ironically reflect that he was still in the same line of business, although his devotees would have been mortified had they known he thought so. His private life was one of extreme simplicity. He lived vicariously, nourished by information received from muddled emotional outpourings, confessions and confidences, and by the descriptions of sybaritic events so much larger than life that his heart would glow with envious excitement. Because he never gossiped everyone assumed he was discreet and in that one respect he was. But he wrote everything down and was now in the tenth year of keeping the diaries that he hoped would make him disreputably wealthy. He was helping himself to some fresh bay leaves when Felicity opened the door. She looked wild. Her hair was standing on end as if she had been tugging at it, and he could have been a stranger so blank was her stare.

  Once upstairs she began pacing about, lamenting; long expensively tanned legs flicked in and out of her housecoat like deep-brown scissors. She had thrust the letter into his hand the moment he entered the house. Danton, having read it, sat down and waited.

  ‘The deceit of it Danton…the deceit… My own daughter! As if I wouldn’t want to see her…’

  Felicity gasped out the words. Her shoulders twitched and she kept brushing at her arms as if being attacked by a swarm of insects. She said again: ‘My own daughter!’ in a loud accusatory voice as if Danton were somehow at fault. She had awaited his arrival in a positive torment of emotions. Amazement at the very fact of the invitation, fury that she had not been informed and a growing queasy awareness that, having discovered the envelope, she would now be compelled to make some sort of decision regarding its contents. Coming and going in this boiling mess was a needle-sharp surprise at the letter’s compulsive power. She had been quite sure that her love for her daughter was long since dead. She had ground it into oblivion herself, devalued it over the years until now it was a tawdry thing of no account.

  Sylvie had never wanted her mother. As a baby she would struggle and strain away when Felicity tried to cuddle or even hold her. Toddling, she would direct her steps towards her nanny, the au pair, or even casual visitors to the house. She would go to anyone—or so it seemed to Felicity—but the person who loved her best. Later, when it became plain that Sylvie not only didn’t love her mother, but also refused even to like her, Felicity began the slow pulverisation of her own affection. This had caused her great pain for she had already guessed at the arid landscape that her marriage would prove to be and had seen the child as an antidotal source of comfort and joy. Now, so many years later, how could she let hope in? She would not dare.

  ‘It’s some sort of practical joke I suppose.’

  ‘Why do you say that Mrs G?’

  Danton was always being asked by his clients to use their Christian names and he always declined. In Felicity’s case the diminution of her surname was as far as he was prepared to go. She disliked it intensely, thinking it made her sound like a Cockney char in some rubbishy play but would not have risked offending him by saying so.

  ‘We haven’t seen or heard of her for five years.’

  ‘Didn’t you say once she comes into some money when she’s twenty-one? Perhaps he’s a solicitor and you both have to sign something.’

  ‘We don’t. It’s perfectly straightforward. All tied up by my parents when she was small. Anyway—we’re asked for dinner.’

  ‘Is it a lot? The inheritance.’

  ‘Five hundred.’

  Danton mentally added the missing noughts and shivered with envy. Felicity stopped pacing and sank on to an over-stuffed footstool, wrapping icy satin tight around her knees. She said: ‘I shall go,’ and felt the enormity of it. As if she had leapt into an abyss.

  ‘Naturally,’ said Danton. ‘The point is, what will you go as?’

  Felicity looked mystified, then startled. The truth was she had summoned Danton automatically, simply out of need for his assiduously attentive ear, thinking no further than that.

  ‘You can’t just stroll along Mrs G.’

  ‘Can’t I?’ The fact of having made the decision seemed to Felicity more than enough to be going on with. What she would wear, how she would look had simply not entered her mind. And yet now that the matter had been raised she could see how important it was. Already her mind, nervous and vulnerable, had cast whoever else might be present at the dinner in antagonistic roles. And if her expectations were correct she would need to be not just simply covered, but armoured against a formidable collection of adversaries. On the other hand…

  ‘Nothing extreme, Danton.’

  ‘Surely you can trust me on that score.’

  She had offended him. Hastily Felicity apologised. Danton got up.

  ‘Well—better get on. Clothed and in your right mind don’t they say?’

  A cruel slip, if deliberate, which of course it couldn’t have been. You didn’t charge your clients a hundred pounds an hour for your services and then insult them. Felicity followed him on to the landing and into her evening room. She would have liked another drink but was fearful of appearing sluttish. Danton never drank alcohol and nothing containing caffeine. Sometimes a little spring water might pass the lips. His teeth and the whites of his soft brown eyes dazzled by their purity. />
  Felicity’s wardrobe was contained within three rooms. One for night, one for day and one for other things which were not so easily categorised: cruise wear; bikinis and cover-ups; barely used sports equipment. Tennis racquets, skis, golf clubs. (She had taken up golf and got bored with it in a single morning.) The wall facing the door in each case was mirrored and metal rods had been suspended about four feet from the ceiling to hold the clothes.

  Danton and Felicity wandered along these rails pushing and pulling at the padded hangers, instigating rustles of taffeta and silk, and soft, soundless collisions of velvet. Under a dozen recessed ‘daylight’ bulbs they took out and scrutinised Muir and Miyake, Lagerfeld and Bellville Sassoon. Chanel and St Laurent. Creations were unhooked, discussed, dismissed. A tangerine flamenco dress: full frilled dancing skirt, no back, hardly any front. ‘I shouldn’t. It can get nippy after eight o’clock.’ Narrow black velvet with a little train and white band around the neck. ‘You’re her mother not her father confessor.’ Beige wild-silk chemise stiff with seed pearls and golden thread. ‘Costively dull.’ Raspberry georgette and feathers. ‘Too Fred and Ginger.’

  And so it went on until having covered the territory and started to double back, Felicity remembered the Karelia. She went away, returning with a bulky swathe of white cotton inside a see-through cover. ‘It was for a first night at the Garden.’ She tugged at the poppers and Danton held the bottom of the bag preparing to pull. ‘The people I go with,’ continued Felicity, ‘always have a box, but this time for some reason we were in the dress circle. There’s no way I could have got along a row of seats so it’s never been worn.’ Felicity kicked the wrapper aside. ‘It was Pavarotti.’

  ‘You must wear this.’

  ‘Oh. You don’t think it’s a bit—’

  ‘We’re talking celebration-dinner in a country manor. Everyone’s bound to dress up. What else is there for them to do poor beasts, down there in the sticks?’

  Actually Danton thought the dress was ‘a bit’ if not quite a lot, but it was also sensationally inspirational. Just looking at it made his fingers twitch. A dream number made to float down a Busby Berkeley staircase between ranks of adoring, top-hatted males.

  Layers and layers of transparent chiffon in every possible shade of grey, from the merest wisp of smoke to deepest anthracite foaming over petticoats the colour of tarnished silver. The satin bodice and tight pointed sleeves were smothered with loops of ribbon, each anchored into place by a single dark pearl.

  ‘Put it on.’

  Without embarrassment Felicity took off her robe.

  ‘Do me up… Well—what do you think?’

  ‘Oh my…’ He stepped back, bursting with anticipation. ‘What time will you have to leave?’

  ‘I suppose…end-of-day traffic, half six.’

  ‘Will you be having lunch?’

  ‘I couldn’t swallow a thing.’

  ‘Right. Then we’d better get started.’

  Chapter Three

  Shortly after lunch, Suhami and Christopher went out to move Calypso. This had to be done at fairly frequent intervals for she nibbled at speed and with ferocious heartiness.

  How Calypso loved the grass! Weed killers were forbidden so it was rich in cinquefoil and burnet and succulent dandelion. She did not feel she had quite exhausted her present territory when Christopher prised up her steel peg, and he had to wind extra links of chain around his forearm to tug her elsewhere.

  Calypso’s assessment of her handler’s muscularity was spot on and she was inclined to bolt if she thought it a bit on the skimpy side. Only the other day she had shot off at a fair old lick down the drive, out of the gates and into the High Street where she’d been found ten minutes later standing patiently in a queue at the fish shop.

  ‘You’re a very foolish girl,’ May had scolded, walking her back. ‘You dont even like fish.’

  ‘Do you want to hang on or drive in?’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Suhami, seizing the studded collar.

  ‘Watch out for yew berries, then.’

  Christopher hammered while Calypso butted the air and kicked up her back legs in a fit of rage. But, once tethered, she quickly simmered down and began to munch, just occasionally lifting her head to give the world one of her enigmatic stares.

  Christopher said: ‘We have to do some talking Suze. Isn’t that right?’

  She turned from him. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I love you.’ He stepped in front of her again, caught the shadow on her face. ‘Well…nice to be wanted.’

  ‘I do want you—I do. It’s just…’

  When she didn’t continue, Christopher put his arm through hers and moved towards the giant cedar. ‘Let’s sit down and I’ll—’

  ‘Not there.’ Suhami held back.

  ‘OK.’ Looking puzzled, he turned and they began to walk towards the pond.

  ‘I know it’s silly…and they’ll long ago have disappeared but Jim’s ashes were scattered there. I can’t help seeing it as some sort of grave.’

  ‘Arno told me about that. Must have been very upsetting.’

  ‘It was at the time. And yet—it’s a bit sad really—how quickly one forgets.’

  ‘I suppose that’s usually the case. Unless the person was very close.’

  ‘He was such a nice man. Quiet and devout. When he’d finished his chores he’d just go to his room and read or meditate. He didn’t really fit into our sort of commune at all. Sometimes I used to think he’d be happier in a monastery.’

  ‘Wasn’t he a secret drinker though? I thought someone said—’

  ‘Oh no. He didn’t drink at all. That’s what made it so peculiar. As a matter of fact—’

  ‘Hullo-o-o.’ A call from the terrace. May was waving, already walking towards them.

  She came with a comforted heart. Almost as comforted in fact as if her troubles were already over. For Kwan Yin had come up trumps after all. And the solution, once proffered, was so strikingly obvious that May could have kicked herself for being so blind. The person to talk to was, of course, Christopher. He had not joined the Windhorse till some time after Jim’s death and so could not possibly have been involved. But although May was relieved, this did not mean she was not concerned as to what his response might be. For instance he might suggest going to the police and May knew, if such were to be the case, that she would feel as guilty as if the decision had been her own.

  She hoped to find him by himself but it was Suhami who waved back, calling: ‘Did you want something, May?’ May gestured vaguely in an attempt to suggest that, even had that been the case, by now she’d quite forgotten what it was. The gesture was an awkward one for May was hopeless at pretending, being by nature as guileless as a kitten.

  ‘It’s you I really wanted, Christopher.’

  ‘So now you’ve got me.’

  ‘Yes…um…well… We’re doing the honey at the weekend and the steriliser’s on the fritz.’ May closed her eyes as she spoke and gabbled the words. The lie still sat awkwardly in her mouth like an ill-fitting tooth.

  ‘Working fine last time we used it.’ All three were now strolling back towards the house. ‘Mind you—that was a bit ago.’

  As they entered, May was still wondering how to prise the young couple apart. Various unimaginative ploys occurred to her, but she knew she would present them with such transparent lack of conviction that they were more likely to make Suhami suspicious than get her out of the way.

  ‘I’ll do it after tea.’

  ‘Do what?’ May stared blankly at Christopher.

  ‘What you asked me to do all of ten seconds ago, May. Have a look at the steriliser—after tea—OK?’

  ‘Of course!’ cried May. ‘Tea! Suhami—I shall need to take my ginseng and I’ve left them on my bedside table. Would you be a dear girl—save my legs…’

  As Suhami sped off, May seized her companion’s arm and pulled him further into the hall until they were standing directly beneath the lantern. Then she whisp
ered: ‘Christopher—I have to talk to you.’

  Christopher looked huntedly around and whispered: ‘I zink zey know our plans.’

  ‘Be serious.’

  Christopher laughed. ‘Sorry. If you like I’ll look at the sterilizer now and we can talk in the kitchen.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with the steriliser. I couldn’t think of anything else on the spur of the moment. I had to see you alone. I’ve been so worried. There’s something going on here…something wrong. And I’m sure it’s to do with Jim’s—’ She broke off and looked up at the gallery. It appeared to be empty. ‘What was that?’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything.’ He followed her gaze.

  ‘A click. As if a door was closing.’

  ‘Perhaps it was. What is all this May?’

  ‘Better talk outside.’

  Christopher allowed himself to be dragged down a corridor towards the kitchen. ‘This is all a bit MI5. You’re not recruiting by any chance?’ They had arrived at the back entrance to the house, a glassed-in door leading to the terrace. ‘I’m not swallowing any microfilm, May,’ Christopher continued. ‘Not even for you.’

  They stepped outside and Christopher turned to pull the door. May was standing a couple of paces ahead of him on old uneven flagstones seamed with yellow stonecrop. Moving to join her, he became aware of a heavy rumbling noise. Thunder? A skywards glance showed no sign of darkness. Then there was a bump and a big, black rounded object appeared teetering on the guttering. Christopher yelled and pushed. May shot forward, tripped over the hem of her robe and went hurtling into a flower border. Christopher jumped back into the opening. The object fell between them, smashing a flagstone. A web quickly ran out from the breaking point; chippings of stone flew.