R Raichev - Assassins at Ospreys

‘I think so. Let’s follow the buzzing trail.’

Above them the rooks screamed and flapped their wings. The silly things appeared to be in quite a state. Antonia stopped for a moment and gazed up. As the three of them drew nearer to the well, the ferocious buzzing increased… The cloud moved slightly to one side but didn’t disperse entirely – not even when Greg waved his arms at it.

Antonia gasped as a fresh swarm of flies burst out of the well the moment they stood beside it. Furious at the disruption of their unspeakable feast, she thought. For a moment she feared she might disgrace herself and be sick.

‘This wouldn’t have happened if the weather had been cooler,’ said Payne.

‘Some animal must have fallen into the well, I guess.’

‘Animal… I imagine you’ve seen a great many terrible things in the veldt?’

Greg looked at him with a frown. ‘You don’t think it’s something else, do you, sir?’

‘As a matter of fact, old boy, I do think it’s something else.’

Greg leant over the edge of the well and looked inside. He kept brushing away at the flies with his right hand. ‘There’s something inside. I can see it -’

‘What is it?’

‘Something black, ma’am. No, white – round – covered in flies!’ The next moment Greg swore. ‘What the devil’s that?’

He had drawn back as though he’d been stung by some-thing. ‘It’s – it’s a face, sir! A human face! I swear. There’s a face down there – somebody inside – looking up! I saw the eyes – the mouth too, gaping open. I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman but they are dead – covered in flies – must be dead!’

Unholy Dying

She had been deceiving him. She had been carrying on outrageously behind his back. She’d been having an affair. She had set all discretion at defiance and thrown every caution to the winds – She had had her lover in the house.

Dazed and dismayed, Colville stood in the middle of the sitting room, staring down at the tobacco pouch in his hand. He was overcome with violent giddiness and feared he might collapse. Earlier on he had managed to persuade himself that he was wrong, that he had been imagining it all, that there was an innocent explanation for things. He was a fool! Well, here was the proof now – the absolute, irrefutable proof of Bee’s perfidy.

An arch betrayer of true love. That had been said about Marie Antoinette but the description fitted Bee perfectly. Bee was like one of those shiny apples which you bite into, only to spit out the brown rotten flesh. A Jezebel of a woman. Nothing but a two-faced whore.

He had already phoned Alessandro’s, Bee’s hair-dresser’s in Oxford. No, they hadn’t had a power cut. They never had power cuts. The woman who answered Colville’s call had sounded extremely surprised. Was the gentleman by any chance from the Health and Safety department? Colville put down the receiver. No. Of course there had been no power cut. He had always known that was a lie. He had then rung Tiddly Dolls, the absurdly named restaurant, and asked the manageress – a Mrs Derwent-Delahaye – if a golden-haired woman with green eyes had had lunch there two days before in the company of a military-looking man. He would have liked to say that Mrs Derwent-Delahaye sounded like a tiddly doll herself, but she had spoken with the intimidating gravitas of some superior schoolmarm.

What an extraordinary query, Mrs Derwent-Delahaye had said repressively; she feared that it would be difficult and time-wasting to ascertain whether a couple of that description had had lunch at her establishment – besides, it wasn’t within their practice to divulge information regarding their patrons – unless there was a serious reason for it? ‘She stole your menu!’ Colville shouted into the phone before slamming it down. He had been shaking. Knowing full well that he had made a fool of himself, he sat with his face buried in his hands.

The pouch was made of fine black leather, was zip-operated and had the initials H.P. on it. Hugh Payne. Major Payne. Antonia Darcy’s husband. Colville had found it on the small table beside one of the armchairs. He had been right. He had suspected Payne from the very start. He had been right.

The sitting room reeked of Payne’s tobacco. Payne had been smoking his pipe. Payne had made himself at home, clearly. Payne had had drinks with Bee. His glass was on the little table beside his pouch. Colville picked it up and sniffed at it. Whisky. Bee had drunk brandy; her glass was smeared with her dark-rose lipstick. No third glass – there had been only the two of them. Antonia Darcy, he was sure, had no idea. Of course not. So much for the famous intuition of women. So much for crime writers’ much vaunted powers of observation! He gave a mirthless laugh, but tears were already rolling down his face. Bee must have called Payne as soon as he, Colville, had left the house. Perhaps Bee had initiated the row with that aim in view? It was Payne she had been to see the other day when she said she’d been to the hairdresser’s!

There were CDs strewn around on the floor. ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. ‘Moonlight Becomes You’. ‘Unforgettable’. ‘Fools Rush In’. These, as it happened, were some of his favourite songs. He picked them up and replaced them automatically on the shelf. Things seemed to have got… passionate… rough… Perhaps that was how Bee liked things. He swallowed. Yes. Payne had pushed Bee against the shelves and started kissing her throat -

Falling down on all fours, Colville started examining the carpet. Crumpled – closer to the door than it had been before – the fringe disarranged. One didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that Bee and Payne had been dancing. Yes. Smooching. Pressed together, shamelessly close. Colville saw them very clearly in his mind’s eye. Payne’s arms around Bee’s body, Bee’s golden head on Payne’s shoulder, her fingers linked behind his neck… Whispering in each other’s ears – laughing… People often danced as a prelude to greater intimacies.

Colville swallowed. He was remembering how Bee managed to get rid of her clothes – it was a trick she had – she did a sort of shrug and everything slithered to the ground – it was as though skirt, blouse and pants were all a bit of a piece. What a revelation that had been. It had left him breathless. It had happened on the first day of their honeymoon in Java. He recalled the double bed with the silk sheets – the green window shutters – the hot tropical afternoon pulsing outside

… It all felt like a dream now…

Colville felt sure Payne was a marvellous dancer. Payne had carried Bee along with sinuous and effortless grace. Colville could hear Bee’s laughter, her exclamations of delight, her gasps as she clung to her lover. She might even have wept, the way women did when they were in the throes of ecstasy.

He gripped the back of a chair. Everything was crumbling round him. His mind felt as though it was going to explode. His greatest fear was that he might be going mad. Become like Ingrid -

An hour earlier he had given himself a fatuous injunction: Nil desperandum. Well, he had convinced himself that all would be well after he had discussed matters with Bee. He had returned intent on reconciliation. He had been going to say sorry. He had meant to ask for forgiveness. Fall to his knees, if necessary. He’d have done anything for her smile – for her touch – for the lightest of her kisses – anything!

He was a fool. No fool like an old fool. So Ingrid had been right when she said all those ghastly, those truly shocking things about Bee when he had first moved into the house. Ingrid had regaled him with lurid tales of Bee seducing strangers, of trying to persuade Ingrid to procure for her – even while she had still been wheelchair-bound and then after her recovery – and of how, on two occasions, Ingrid had succumbed. Ingrid called Bee a ‘voracious bird’. She claimed that Bee had even had an affair with her doctor, Dr Aylard, who must be at least sixty… Colville had been convinced Ingrid was trying to poison his mind against Bee.