R Raichev - Assassins at Ospreys

Had Ralph perhaps made a pass at her? Saunders remembered the luscious Madame Niratpattanasai and the trouble they had had ejecting her from the house. It had taken four uniformed policemen. How she had screamed! Wilkes was a completely different physical type, still Ralph’s Catholicism might extend to his tastes in women… He mustn’t be flippant… No, no – out of the question – a man in his condition! So long as Wilkes was happy, he didn’t need to worry his head about what might have happened.

‘We need to have that doorbell repaired,’ he murmured and soon after he left.

‘What’s the matter with you today?’ Linda nudged her. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Nurse Wilkes said.

‘Don’t give me that. You look like something horrible has happened. As though – I don’t know. You are not your-self. What’s up? Has Ralph been giving you aggro?’

‘No. No. I’m knackered. The heat, I suppose…’

The Mortification of Moriarty

At four in the afternoon Robin Renshawe drove to Athlone Place. He rang the bell twice and waited several moments before pushing his hand into his pocket. He didn’t really expect Lily to be lurking inside.

The lock was a rather ordinary one and it took him exactly thirty-five seconds to pick it with the special piece of wire he had brought with him. He let himself into the flat. He shut the door behind him and stood beside an ornate hall lamp, which dangled from the arm of a marble caryatid. Nobody had seen him, not even the concierge. He had managed to slip by his desk in the hall. The concierge was some ancient duffer, a hearing aid sticking out of his left ear, and he been engrossed in a book. If all crimes were to be made that easy!

Robin hadn’t taken off his gloves. They were tan-coloured and made of the finest thin leather and fitted his hands like another skin. He pulled all the curtains across the windows and turned on a table lamp. He stood looking round Lily’s sitting room. Everything in pristine order, rather like in a museum. What an absurd setting Lily had created for himself. A cross between the Brompton Oratory, the Savoy and the Athenaeum – with more than a hint of a fin de siecle bordello! An Aubusson carpet. A Turkish cabinet. Two palms in Japanese-style porcelain pots. Intricately carved bookshelves. Two marble busts of unidentifiable ancient sages -or were they Roman emperors? A divan upholstered in red velvet – candelabras – two gruesome religious paintings on the walls, also some framed Max Beerbohm caricatures, authentic, he bet – silk and satin cushions – a polished Sheraton bureau – Robin looked at the books that lay on the bureau. Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe. De Quincey’s Opium Eater and Murder as a Fine Art. No surprises there. The Leopold and Loeb Case Revisited. How curious. Robin opened the book – turned a page. Had Lily seen a parallel between himself and Robin and those two? They were nothing like them. Leopold and Loeb had killed one of their fellow students solely for aesthetic kicks. Besides, they had had an affair – and Robin couldn’t imagine any-thing more ghastly than having an affair with Lily, not even for a bet.

He opened a drawer, then another, examining their con-tents. A photo of a very old woman, strabismic, wearing small round glasses. Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies’ last appearance in ‘The Master Blackmailer’. What freakish tastes Lily had, Robin had forgotten.

More photos. Aportly man with a bald head and the lips of a highly disciplined voluptuary. Lily’s papa, the prosperous banker – there was a resemblance. Another photo, of a rather forbidding woman with a Roman nose. Mrs Lillie-Lysander, nee Lushington. Lily’s mamma. She was wearing an elaborate hat, which suggested a wedding or a garden party. Robin remembered meeting them once – they had come to Antlers in a Daimler. They had been extremely formal with Lily – a handshake and a pat on the shoulder – no kisses – Lily’s mother hadn’t even taken off her gloves. She had known exactly how many sons of Catholic Dukes there were at the school at the moment.

Papers. Bills… Bills… Bills… Lily must have been desperate… Loans from three banks. Catalogues from sales – Christie’s – Sotheby’s. A gilt-edged card with the Midas club address and phone number. He had several of those himself. A book: Unbreakable Systems. Lily seemed to have taken roulette rather seriously. Another book: Satan’s Seraglio. Had Lily been planning selling his soul to Satan or had he already done so? A mahogany humidor filled with cigars. Expensive tastes. A Masonic tie-pin. Nothing of a remotely personal nature. No suspicious-looking brown envelopes.

Robin found himself thinking back to the scandal of Father Canteloupe – everybody had been talking about it – it had happened in their second year at school – there had been rumours that the school might be closed down. Father Canteloupe had committed suicide the same day the police had raided his study and discovered hundreds of what the press called ‘disturbing images’. Father Canteloupe had been found hanging in the cricket pavilion – as though the cricket pavilion hadn’t seen enough horrors already.

No, no dirty pictures of any kind. Robin had been hoping for something esoteric – something recherche. How terribly disappointing. I don’t believe that he ever experienced what one might call a stirring in the undergrowth for anyone – man, woman or child. That was what Nico, the least screwed-up of the five doomed Llewellyn Davies brothers and the last to die, had said about his ‘Uncle Jim’ Barrie. Lily, Robin imagined, was very much in the same category. Yes, Lily seemed to be one of those astonishing asexuals who went through life without any of the destructive passions known to man. Apart from gambling, that was.

It was for anything that could connect him, Robin, with Lily that he was looking. Well, there was a school group photo. There he was – had his hair really been that long? Well, that had been in 1979. Apart from the hair, he had changed little, he thought. He had the same dashingly chiselled cheekbones. Where was Lily? The overfed cherub on his right? Good lord. Yes. They weren’t standing side by side, Lily and he – there were no names written on the photograph. Still, Robin put it into his pocket – better play it safe…

He picked up a booklet bound in maroon leather. It looked familiar somehow. The Mortification of Moriarty. As he read the title, his heart missed a beat. Of course. It was the one-act play he and Lily had written together, though they had never got to perform it. Robin was going to play Moriarty – Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis. What was it all about? Robin leafed through it. He had forgotten. Something about Moriarty falling victim to one of his own cunning schemes? Pulling strings – getting people to commit all sorts of crimes for him, but not realizing – what? For the life of him Robin couldn’t recall the twist. Holmes didn’t appear at all, but it was all rather clever and had this terribly ironic denouement -

Putting the play into his pocket, Robin opened the last drawer.

No, nothing. Nothing at all.

Had he given Lily any of his joke cards? Robin Renshawe, Gentleman of Leisure. Robin’s address and phone number were printed on it. Where was the card? Lily had placed it inside his wallet – it all came back to Robin now… Well, Robin had instructed Eric not only to rough Lily up but to remove every scrap of paper from his pockets as well. He had also asked him to dispose of Lily’s mobile, which would have a record of all the calls Robin had made to him. The idea was that there should be nothing to connect Lily with Robin. Then, even if Lily became difficult and unpleasant and, say, attempted to blackmail him in some way, he would not be able to prove that he had been acting under Robin’s edict…