R.T. Raichev - Murder of Gonzago

She was overdressed. She looked like a Christmas tree. She should have put on something more restrained — her Liberty smock in pale lavender would have been perfect.

‘You seem thinner. You must eat,’ he said. ‘You will make yourself ill if you don’t.’

‘How nice of you to care about my health.’

‘I am a doctor.’

‘Of course you are, darling. I keep forgetting. Yours is the most humanitarian profession in the world.’

She had ordered sole Waleska. Sylvester-Sale had plumped for chargrilled quail breast and celeriac remoulade, with lots of French fries. Nothing wrong with his appetite, as far as she could see. He was being so annoyingly aloof. No one would have thought they were lovers, looking at them. White wine for her, red for him.

‘Apparently,’ he said, ‘one should never refer to red wine as “red wine” but as “wine”. Rose, on the other hand, should be called “pink wine”.’

‘Is that so? What about white wine?’

‘White wine can be called “white wine”.’

‘How fascinating.’

‘The place is practically empty,’ he said.

It was the kind of polite conversation a stranger would make.

‘It is, isn’t it?’

‘Dining out is on the decline. The credit crunch has gnawed its way to the giddiest summits of high society.’

‘My brother-in-law intends to write a book entitled The Romance of Restaurants . We met at Mr Saunders’s office earlier on,’ Clarissa explained. ‘I told him I was having dinner at the Cafe Regal.’

‘You didn’t tell him you were having dinner with me, did you?’

‘No. Don’t worry, darling. Your secret is safe with me. Gerard said the Cafe Regal was going to feature prominently in his book. He is going to devote a whole chapter to it.’ Clarissa glanced round. ‘I wonder how many of the diners tonight are Freemasons. It seems the Cafe Regal is a haunt of Freemasons.’

‘Really? They say Freemasons rule the world.’ He didn’t look particularly interested.

‘Apparently there is a gilded room on the second floor. Gerard claims to have seen it. That’s where they hold their hush-hush meetings and cook up various conspiracies. They masquerade as a culinary club of cheerful gourmets. They call themselves Les Bons Freres .’

‘How many books has old Fenwick written?’

‘I don’t know. He’s never been able to get anything published, I don’t think. Well, now he’s got Roderick’s money, things may change. He seemed terribly excited about it.’

‘Don’t tell me he’s contemplating vanity publishing?’

‘I believe he is.’

‘Waste of money.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Yes. Utter waste of money.’

What an uninspiring conversation we are having, Clarissa thought. For the last five minutes she had been trying to will her lover to reach out and lay his hand over hers …

‘Gerard is very keen on founding what he calls a small but exclusive press,’ she said. ‘He did try to get Roderick interested. He kept asking Roderick for funds. Roderick never said no; he strung Gerard along. He enjoyed teasing his brother. Poor Gerard kept writing to him — phoning him — kept leaving messages. I don’t think Roderick ever answered his calls.’

Sylvester-Sale raised the wine glass to his lips. ‘Actually he rang him the day before he died.’

‘Roderick rang Gerard? Are you sure?’

‘Yes. On his mobile.’

‘How terribly peculiar.’

‘We were on the terrace. Your late husband, Basil and I. Your late husband said, I am going to ring my brother now. He then said some truly awful things into the phone. It was terribly embarrassing for us, listening to his side of the conversation. Your late husband was showing off. He kept winking at us. He enjoyed having an audience.’

‘My late husband was the worst exhibitionist who ever lived.’

‘That night at dinner — the night he died. I still can’t believe the things he said.’ Sylvester-Sale shook his head. ‘About the glorious sixties and his escapades — that story about the debs and their jewels! What a cad! Poor you.’ He reached out and put his hand over hers. At long last!

‘It was horrid.’ She shut her eyes. ‘ Horrid . In front of everybody! To be told that-’ She broke off. ‘I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. I felt debased. I didn’t know where to look. I truly wished him dead at that moment.’

‘Well, your wish was granted. He died an hour and a half later.’ Sylvester-Sale removed his hand.

‘Syl, there is something I … What if I told you …’

‘If you told me what?’

‘Nothing. Nothing!’ If only I were sure he loved me, I would tell him the truth, she thought. ‘What exactly did Roderick say to Gerard on the phone?’

‘Some horribly personal things. Um. About Gerard’s singular lack of talent and enterprise. He referred to some incident in their childhood. He also asked Gerard to come and murder him.’

‘Murder him?’

‘Yes!’

‘What did he say exactly?’

Sylvester-Sale cleared his throat. ‘ Of course, dear boy, most of my earthly riches will be all yours to keep one day, no question about it, but you may have to wait some time — I may live to be a hundred, you know. Unless you kill me? ’

She laughed. ‘How spooky! You sound exactly like him!’

‘ That would be a solution, yes, most definitely a solution. Why don’t you come over, dear boy? Hop on the next plane and pay us a visit, now why don’t you? Have it out with me? Challenge me to a duel! Show that you are a real Remnant? Well, you know where to find me .’

The hands were round her throat now and the ghastly grinning face was very close to hers. She had seen the hands first and, even before the face revealed itself to her, she knew it was Lord Remnant’s.

The coffin stood beside her bed, parallel to it. It was a white coffin and it gleamed in the dull glow of the moon, which gave her bedroom an unearthly appearance. She had seen the lid sliding open, slowly and without a sound. Then the hands showed, lit by the moon-

Well, he knew how to do it. He had been reading about it; she had seen the ancient book on resurrecting the dead on his desk.

Lord Remnant had come back from the grave.

No, he hadn’t. He couldn’t have. He had never been inside a grave. He had been cremated. His ashes were in an urn somewhere at Remnant.

She had recognized the hands. That was how she had known at once it was him. There was the nasty red weal between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, where Stephan had stabbed him.

But-

Louise Hunter woke up with a gasp. Her heart was racing.

A dream. It was only a dream, thank God. She had had a bad dream. It was very early in the morning, pitch dark, raindrops drumming against the window panes, wind whining in the chimney -

She got out of bed, making it creak horribly. She put on her dressing gown and then wrapped a blanket round her shoulders. Her teeth were chattering. She felt disoriented. Her ankles were swollen. We are no sooner aloft than we begin to feel gravity’s inevitable pull . It occurred to her that she was much cleverer than anyone ever realized.

She stood beside the window. She thought she could just about distinguish the stunted trees writhing and struggling as if in agony.

Suddenly she knew what it was that had been bothering her all this time.

It had come back to her.

There hadn’t been a weal on his hand when he died.

Gerard Fenwick, who had also woken up early, sat at his desk, writing in his diary.

A journey into the unknown, that’s what a novel should be. There is pleasure to be derived from following a novelist on a voyage of exploration, one in which the style reflects uncertainties, a novel written as if it were in answer to the question, ‘How do I know what I think till I see what I’ve said?’