A Testament to Murder

by Vivian Conroy

  “She suggested she could take me out, away from this dreary dim room, show me some sights, let the sun warm my skin.”

  “If that is what you want, I can take you out.”

  “You can’t drive, Dodo. You’ve never been a risk taker. Besides, cars cost money, right? And you’re also frugal. I know you well.”

  Malcolm’s gaze fixated her like it had when she still worked for him and he would find a typo in a letter. He could see right through her into the cause of the mistake. Distraction as the phone had rung on another desk and she had listened in on the conversation. Or Malcolm’s first wife had stopped by and Theodora had gazed longingly at the stole around her neck, not because she wanted a stole but because Malcolm’s hands had put it there.

  Malcolm said softly, “Are you willing to take a risk now, Dodo? You could become the sole heir to all I own. After all, you deserve it more than all the others. You worked so hard for it. All those years in the firm. So close and yet so far away.”

  Theodora’s eyes burned with tears of shame that he knew her secret and even referred to it like it was something… to laugh about?

  Malcolm continued, “You could be it. But you could also not be it. That will depend on whether you are willing to take risk. Wager.”

  Theodora had no idea what he meant, but knowing him, it would be something cruel only he could devise. She should never have come here.

  Yet she knew she could never have stayed away. She had always protected Malcolm. She had always done what was best for him. She’d keep doing that, no matter what the price.

  She said through gritted teeth, “I’d do anything to keep your fortune away from that American gold-digger.”

  “Anything?” Malcolm clicked his tongue. “That’s a tall claim, Dodo.”

  “I mean it.” He had no idea what she was capable of. “I’ll prove it to you. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  “I’ll have a chance to see exactly what you are willing to do. Very soon.”

  “Why the riddles?” She reached out to him, pleading with her eyes. “Can’t you tell me what you’re planning? I used to know all of your secrets.”

  Malcolm’s eyes flashed. “Don’t remind me of that. Or I might regret having invited you.”

  Theodora froze. She should not have referred to the secrets. It was presumptuous. And even dangerous. There wasn’t just Malcolm to consider, but also Howard, his former friend and business partner who had the firm now. Howard, who was also on his way over. Malcolm had not told her of course, but the butler had. Because Jenkins knew, like Theodora herself knew, that Howard would come for one reason only. And Howard should not succeed.

  She wrung her hands, feigning the despair that came easy to her as she was really anxious enough about the outcome. “No, please, don’t send me away. Let me stay. I’ll do whatever you ask.”

  Malcolm’s eyes fluttered shut. With the green veins on his temples he suddenly looked like a very breakable old man. His ragged breathing wheezed in the silent room. The shadows in the corners were so dark, like death was already waiting there, ready to pounce at the man on the bed as soon as he was least aware of danger.

  Theodora fixated the shadows and told them in her mind to stay away. To not draw near this man who belonged to her and her alone.

  She wanted to kneel beside Malcolm’s bed and beg him not to leave her. Not to leave her alone, not even if he left her with all of his money.

  But she knew it wouldn’t help any. Malcolm had said he was dying. Malcolm had said that his time left with them was short. It wasn’t possible to bargain with death as it drew near and reached out its icy hand to wipe everything away. Everything that had been and could have been. What she had dreamt of and hoped for was long past.

  Death was inevitable. The outcome of death, however, was not.

  If Malcolm wanted her to have all of his money, she’d have to ensure that his last will was executed.

  Any way she saw how.

  Chapter Two

  “I still don’t see why we had to come,” Howard Jones said, crammed into the back of the taxi which was whisking him, his wife, Cecily, and their sixteen-year-old son, Kenneth, up the hill to the Villa Calypso. He narrowed his eyes against the bright sunshine that seemed to make everything glitter and shine.

  The heat was like a barber’s damp towel wrapped around his head until he suffocated. Sweat beaded Howard’s forehead, his upper lip, his neck, between his shoulder blades but it gave no coolness. The drops just rolled down his skin with an irritating nervous prickle that rippled across his entire body.

  Crisp and cool, like she wasn’t hot at all, Cecily had taken a mirror from her purse and was applying more lipstick to her full lips. She took her time pouting and practising a smile that Howard had once found enticing but now, rather predatory. For years Cecily had claimed she was so happy to be done with Malcolm and she’d never ever accept a penny from him, not even if he offered her his entire fortune, and here they were, racing to his bedside to see if there was something in it.

  After all, what else could drive Cecily to go see her ex-husband now that he had written to say he was dying? It couldn’t be for sentimental reasons. Unless Cecily’s repeated assertions she hated Malcolm had been lies.

  Howard’s every muscle tensed as he approached the topic he usually shied away from like the plague. But right now, it lured him like a mirage in the desert a man dying of thirst. He needed to know, for certain, if Cecily still cared for Malcolm. He needed to see with his own eyes how their reunion would turn out. If everything he had believed in for all those years they had been married, was a lie.

  His gut shrank, thinking that it could be, not just for his own sake, but also for Kenneth, who was staring ahead towards their destination, his young face tight with resistance. The boy had wanted to stay in Provence, among the rolling lavender fields, and not even the mention of lots of water, of swimming and boating, had been able to drag him out of his anger about the forced change of scenery.

  Cecily had whispered to him that it was the girl, Marie, that Kenneth wanted to see, the daughter of the caretaker at their cottage, and that it was a good thing they were leaving for a while so that Marie could return her attentions to the village boys who were much better suited to her anyway. “Kenneth is at an impressionable age,” she had said in a rare moment of genuine motherly concern. “He mustn’t associate with the wrong people.”

  The wrong people?

  Howard swallowed hard against the ice filling his stomach. What was he doing, bringing his son into the company of a man who was cold, manipulative, and no doubt up to something with this sudden invitation to his house? He wanted to tell the driver to turn the cab around and take them back to the station. But his mouth was too dry to speak. This was like a bad dream after a heavy late-night meal where he sat in a car heading for the edge of an abyss and he wanted to stop it, but he couldn’t. All he could do was watch with wide-open eyes while he raced ever closer to certain death.

  Cecily shut the etui holding her mirror in a snap and put it back in her purse, running a loving finger over the leather. The bill still sat unpaid on Howard’s desk. By the time he got round to paying it, he bet that the purse would be gathering dust in her closet already while new purchases graced her arms or neck or feet.

  Malcolm had warned him at the time. “You’re falling over yourself to take her off my hands now, Howard, but one day you’ll be sorry. She’s expensive. Maybe more expensive than you can afford?”

  Howard shivered again in the heat. He reached up a hand to wipe his clammy forehead. He should not have come, or at least he should have insisted Kenneth stayed behind in Provence. His son should not become a victim of the games Malcolm played.

  The taxi halted, and the driver got out and rounded it to open the door for Cecily. He didn’t rush to the other side to assist Howard, but took his time watching her as she unfolded from the back of his vehicle: first one gracious long leg, then the other, then her entire tal
l athletic body, kept in shape by tennis and swimming. Although she hadn’t done any modelling in years, she was still on top of her game, posing for a moment, with her feet planted apart, her head up to look at the house, her mouth slightly open in what in other women might look rather silly but which was for her a trademark expression of child-like wonder that seemed to draw men like moths.

  Kenneth scrambled out after her, all long limbs. The book he had been carrying to read on the way fell into the gravel, but he didn’t seem to notice. He pinched his mother’s arm nodding at the house. “What will be my room? Are there horses here? Can I ride? Or does Uncle Malcolm own a boat? I want to go out on the water.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Howard said, having opened his own door to get out of the sweltering heat of the car. It wasn’t much better outside. The wind wasn’t cool and pleasant, but like a desert wind upon his face, rubbing it with sandpaper. His skin burned as if he had a fever. He seemed to detect some motion at an upstairs window and wondered if Malcolm was watching the arrival of his ex-wife, his ex-business partner and the son that he had never had. People who still had life ahead of them, while Malcolm’s days were being cut short soon.

  Howard could easily imagine how his former business partner would feel. Cheated and ready to spoil everything for everyone. Ready to ensure that once he died, the others would die with him. Somehow.

  Cecily said, “Don’t be such a spoilsport, Howard. Of course Kenneth can go out and do whatever he likes. We’re on holiday. Come on, dear.”

  With the latter words she put her arm through Kenneth’s and ushered him to the house. “Let’s go and say hello to Malcolm.”

  * * *

  Inside the house, Cecily Brix Jones halted a moment to breathe the atmosphere that was typical for any place where Malcolm lived. Tension, electricity. An undercurrent, dragging at your feet, threatening to topple you and suck you under.

  Something both tiring and fascinating. You never knew what he would come up with next. It could hand you all of your dreams. It could become your greatest nightmare.

  Once upon a time she had been relieved to escape from him. Now she was returning to him, willingly. Unable to resist the lure of his personality. The challenge of battling with him. The idea she might win this time.

  Have it all.

  Her heart pounded under her chest bone as she led her son up the stairs following the butler who had received them. Jenkins was already serving Malcolm when she was married to him. Now, however, she pretended she barely remembered him. She didn’t want to think of that time at all. Friends of hers managed to stay friends with their exes. Today she could show Malcolm she could be friends with him. No matter what he had done to her, how he had treated her when they were together.

  Yes, this visit would be closure. The ending to a chapter of her life she had never fully dealt with.

  The butler showed them into a room where the curtains were drawn to keep the sun out. The dim light made everything look smaller. Even the heavy oak beams above seemed to press down on them. Cecily left the door open so some fresh air could get into the room and drive out the stale scent of soap and something sickeningly sweet.

  Oddly a bottle of wine was left on the floor beside the bed. Kenneth picked it up at once and said, “Are you a secret drinker now, Uncle? I can’t blame you. Your life must be so boring lying in bed all day. I might come in and read to you once in a while. If you like books.”

  “So you like books,” Malcolm said as he studied Kenneth with his sharp eyes. “You must have a talk with my nephew Hugh. He is writing a book.”

  “Still?” Cecily asked quickly. “How many pages is this magnum opus going to be?”

  “I see you also read to your mother, Kenneth,” Malcolm said. “She has picked up some new words.”

  Cecily felt fire rush through her chest. Malcolm had always liked to taunt her with some oblique reference to a Latin poem or a Greek tragedy she didn’t know. He had always wanted to demonstrate his superior mind. But he was really a very dumb man. She had been betraying him with Howard for months and he hadn’t noticed anything. He had been too caught up in his business affairs.

  She said to Kenneth, “You go see where your room is. The butler can show you. I want to talk to Uncle Malcolm.”

  Kenneth was perplexed, but at her urging nod in the direction of the door he did leave the room.

  Straightening up, Cecily spat to Malcolm, “You need not humiliate me in front of my son. Yes, I know you think I was only pretty and I didn’t have a brain when you married me. But you were wrong. You were wrong then and you’re certainly wrong now. I’ve changed. I’m not the same person anymore.”

  “Charity lunches with the wives of politicians,” Malcolm said with his eyes closed. “Visits to orphanages to support the weakest in society. You put your pretty face to good use, darling. But then you always knew how.”

  For a moment her heart stopped beating, and her anxious mind whispered to her, He knew about you and Howard, he knew all along.

  Then her heartbeat thundered along, and she scoffed to herself, Of course he didn’t know. He believes I ran to Howard the night he hit me. He even blamed himself for hitting me. He has always taken the blame for the divorce. Like he should.

  Malcolm continued, “And inside you haven’t changed one thing. You’re still shallow, self-consumed and utterly addicted to beautiful things. Hush, don’t deny it. I know the truth and I’m not reproaching you. In fact…”

  His eyes flashed open and fixated her with a strange feverish glow. “I want you to have my entire fortune.”

  Cecily was thunderstruck. “What?” she managed to stammer. Her fingers closed tightly round her wedding ring, pressing the gold into her flesh.

  “I want you to have my entire fortune. My money, my assets, to live off. I’m sure Howard cannot give you half of what I could when you were still married to me.”

  “Howard did very well for himself after you divided the business.” Cecily felt obliged to defend her husband.

  Malcolm laughed softly. “Howard walked out on the business. The division was never a mutual decision. It was his choice, and he forced it upon me. But let’s not split hairs. I’m willing to make you my sole heir. That is, if you’d like some extra money to spend.”

  Cecily’s mouth was dry, thinking of what she might buy if she had access to what Malcolm owned. She could get a new tiara for every ball she attended. She could buy a castle in Provence, and redo the gardens with a real architect by her side, who could take his inspiration from Versailles. She could take Kenneth away from that flirty little girl who had come closer to him than they had realized. He was at a dangerous age now, and she had to protect him.

  “There’s just one little thing…” Malcolm said in a creaking voice.

  He sounded so old, so worn, so broken. What mysterious illness had sapped his strength and turned him into this shell of himself?

  Malcolm whispered, “You might have to kill for it.”

  Cecily leaned over closer, certain she had misheard him. “Excuse me?”

  Malcolm’s eyes were bright in his sunken features as he stared into her confused face and repeated the words she hadn’t wanted to hear the first time around. “If you want to get all that I own, you might have to kill for it.”

  * * *

  Howard stood in the corridor, trying to control his shaking hands. He wanted to rush into the sickroom and grab Malcolm and squeeze the last bit of life out of the old bastard with his bare hands just so he’d stop talking to Cecily as if he still owned her.

  Malcolm knew so well how greedy she was, how he could play into her need for ever new things. Who did he think he was just offering her things, while Cecily had a husband who could afford everything her heart desired?

  The corridor turned around him, widening and getting smaller again, sucking air out of him, then pressing upon his chest like he was choking. The blood pounded in his ears in a deafening rush, and he leaned against the wall to
stay upright.

  Count to ten. Calm down.

  Howard took a deep breath and held it for a few moments. His hands still clenched as if he was squeezing the life out of someone. With intense pleasure.

  But he had to get himself together. He wasn’t about to let Malcolm see his emotional turmoil. Give him an advantage that way. Once upon a time Howard had been able to take away everything that Malcolm had: his wife, his business.

  Now all he had to do was hold on to it.

  Ensure Malcolm didn’t succeed in driving a wedge between Cecily and him.

  He could do it.

  Just breathe.

  As he was about to enter the sickroom, a voice called for him. A figure stood further down the corridor, gesturing at him. As he walked up to it, he recognized the posture, flinching under the memory of that grey November morning. The person calling for him was a murderer. But he had never turned the killer in.

  Because he had not been sure.

  And because he was a coward.

  * * *

  Kenneth stood in the living room, looking around him, at the pink velvet sofa, the porcelain figurines on the mantelpiece, the delicate cherry-wood cabinet. Things his mother would adore, but that hardly fitted the image of the man Kenneth had thought his uncle Malcolm to be. Of course Malcolm wasn’t his real uncle, but he was told to call him that, and Kenneth saw no reason to argue over such a minor point. The journey to the Riviera had been quite exciting and the position of the villa offered opportunity, especially for boat trips, but the gloomy, hushed atmosphere in the sickroom lingered around him like cigar smoke.

  Kenneth had never been around anyone who was sickly, let alone close to death. Standing here, listening to the ticking of several clocks on the mantelpiece, the cabinet, the wall, he suddenly became conscious of the unavoidable reality that those clocks were ticking down to a deadline. That with every second they ticked away life became shorter and the grand finale drew near. The curtain was about to close on Uncle Malcolm, and they were gathered here as an audience to his death.