R Raichev - Assassins at Ospreys

Colville hadn’t slept at all well the night before, he was feeling like a boiled owl, so now his eyelids drooped and he nodded off. At once he dreamt that Bee had entered the room and sat beside him on the sofa. She looked different somehow. She had a tiara studded with diamonds on her golden head and wore elbow-length gloves. She looked like a royal princess. Her manner was formal and distant to start with but then she gave him a rather suggestive look and put her head downwards towards him, as if expecting him to kiss her on the ear. He could smell her scent. (Ce Soir Je T’Aime.) They hadn’t exchanged a word and there was a great tension between them, which he recognized as sexual in nature. Her head went lower. He said, ‘I am sorry, ma’am, but I can’t hear very well what you are saying.’ At this she replied: ‘That’s because I’m wearing a kilt.’ She was in fact wearing a rather glamorous silvery evening dress with a deep decolletage – Colville woke up with a start. His heart was beating wildly. The sofa beside him was empty. His nerves were pulled taut as marionette strings, his mood one of wretched despair.

He heard the stairs creak.

Was Bee back? No – it was Ingrid, coming down. Ingrid – he’d completely forgotten about Ingrid. As though he hadn’t enough worries! What should be done about Ingrid? He had a friend who was a policeman, a Scotland Yard inspector, no less, and Colville had a good mind to contact him and explain the situation. Arthur would listen to him. He looked at the telephone. He sighed. It would cause Bee great distress if he did call Arthur – especially if Arthur decided to take action. (What action? Ingrid hadn’t actually committed any criminal act as such. Arthur would probably suggest he contact a psychiatrist.) Bee seemed to think that ‘things would be all right’, that ‘it would blow over’ – that Ingrid would ‘come to her senses’. Bee could be so naive!

The stairs creaked again. Ingrid was in the hall now.

‘Honestly,’ he heard her murmur to herself, sounding exactly like Beatrice. She’d got her verbal tricks to perfection!

Colville felt nauseous.

He heard the front door open and close. He rose from the sofa. Catching his reflection in the mirror above the fireplace, he winced: his grey hair stood on end, his cheeks were the colour of cranberry sauce, his eyes were round, his expression wild – he had a shell-shocked air about him – as if he had stepped out of an explosion! And he looked ridiculous, hugging that cushion. Why should Bee want to stay with him? He couldn’t think of one good reason.

He ran to the window and stood beside it, concealed behind the curtain. My God, he thought, and again – My God. If he didn’t know Beatrice had already left the house, if he hadn’t his own eyes as witnesses, he’d have sworn it was Beatrice he was seeing. It was the same as the other day. No – worse!

Look and be afraid. He stared at Ingrid – the way Rikki-Tikki-Tavi had at the oscillating body of the black cobra with the glinting red eyes and the spread hood.

There she was in all her splendiferous splendour! Wearing one of Beatrice’s old suits with padded shoulders and the initials BA embroidered in gold on one of the chest pockets. She had gloves on. Her face glowed – her eyes were dark with mascara – had she used Beatrice’s make-up? And what was that she was wearing round her neck? Anger and dismay surged through him. Not the Taj Mahal necklace? Bee’s Taj Mahal necklace – it had been his engagement present to Bee! How dared this unspeakable creature take it! She’d been in Bee’s room, dipping her dirty paws inside Bee’s jewel case!

There was a beatific smile on Ingrid’s face – she was walking slowly – she appeared to be humming a little tune to herself – and somehow that was much more frightening than an expression of malevolent determination might have been. Ingrid was walking in the direction of the bus stop. There was a spring in her step.

Something had to be done about it. This obscene charade had to stop. (The Taj Mahal necklace – she had no right!) Colville held desperately on to his wits as a man holds on to his hat while crossing a desolate moor in a whirlwind.

He needed to convince Arthur how serious the situation really was.

Ingrid consulted her watch and saw it was 9.10. There was a bus in five minutes. Well, she’d be at Ospreys by 9.35 at the latest. She had thought the whole thing through very carefully. She had managed to pinch Bee’s mobile earlier in the morning – it had been lying on the hall table. She was going to phone the nurse and get her out of the way – say that somebody was lying on the ground outside the park gates, bleeding, in need of urgent attention – some-thing on those lines. (When afterwards the police checked the incoming calls on the Ospreys phone, Bee’s number would come up.) She’d then walk briskly round the house and enter Ralph’s room through the french windows. They were bound to have been left open in this weather but she’d pick up a stone and smash them if they weren’t. She’d have finished by 9.45. She wasn’t going to stand on ceremony. The priest wasn’t coming until ten o’clock, that was what he had said on the phone. She liked the challenge. Who’d get to Ralph first? Nothing like a challenge to set the adrenalin going. Suspense followed by thrills. It was like one of Antonia Darcy’s ridiculous plots. Life imitating art? Well, hardly art -

Had she got the knife? Now where -?

Ingrid halted and her gloved fingers started rummaging frantically inside her bag.

Colville discovered he was still holding the Polaroid cam-era. On an impulse he raised it to his eyes and snapped – an instant photograph came out… Ingrid seemed to be looking for something in her bag. He pressed the button again and another photograph started emerging. He rehearsed what he was going to tell Arthur.

This woman has lived with my wife for thirty years… She has started dressing up as my wife… She makes herself look exactly like her… She wears a blonde wig… She puts on my wife’s jewels… She’s completely off her rocker… She hates me. She hates my wife too… She is jealous. She disapproves of our marriage… She is extremely dangerous -.

It sounded feeble and absurd, put like that, the ram-blings of an idiot, but how else could he describe the situation? And wouldn’t Arthur get the wrong idea about Bee? What sort of person shares a house with a mad-woman for thirty years? The question of the exact nature of Bee’s relationship with Ingrid was bound to come up… He had wondered himself… Had they been -? Bee had told him not to be silly – but she had also admitted she preferred Ingrid’s massage techniques to his!

Well, he would need to explain about the accident and about Ralph Renshawe. He must calm down first – pull himself together – rehearse very carefully what he was going to say – make a few notes perhaps? No, there was no time for notes -.

He looked down at the two photos and smiled grimly. He had proof now. As clear as daylight. The date: 26.11.05 – and the time: 09.12 a.m. This would show Arthur that he wasn’t getting into a flap over nothing! Still, even if Arthur took his story seriously and did do something about it, how long would it take before the police got cracking? They were notoriously slack these days, or so he had often heard. Something had to be done… There was no time to waste. Ingrid was clearly on her way to Ospreys. That was where she had been going all this time – dressed up as Beatrice. He blinked – had that been the gleam of a blade? He felt the blood draining from his face. Merciful heavens. Did she have a knife in her bag? They should be able to arrest her for that, surely?

The next moment Ingrid’s intentions became clear to him.