R Raichev - Assassins at Ospreys

When they returned home, they sat down to tea and crumpets before a blazing fire. The curtains were drawn across the windows and all the table lamps in the sitting room were on. The Rockingham teapot gleamed.

‘How about a game of Scrabble? And a brandy, I think.’ Major Payne crossed to the sideboard while Antonia took out the Scrabble.

‘No brandy for me, thank you.’ Antonia opened the Scrabble board and shook the green bag of letters.

‘This time,’ he said, ‘I intend to beat you.’

‘I intend to beat you. No Shakespearean words,’ she reminded him.

It was a quarter to six and they had been playing for twenty minutes when the telephone rang.

‘Damn,’ Payne said. ‘Just when -’

‘I will get it.’ Antonia rose.

Major Payne listened with half an ear to her part of the conversation while trying to think of a good word that could be formed with a P, a Q, an O, an I, an A, a G. and an N. He took a sip of brandy. Pin. Pig. Gin. Nip. Gap. He wouldn’t get much, dammit. Such rotten letters. Nog? Pan? Peanuts! Nap? Pang? He pulled at his lower lip. Well, he could have ‘quoin’, he supposed – but he would have to pinch Antonia’s U first. Could he replace it with his P? No – she was bound to notice, she always did. Antonia, like all professional wordsmiths, took Scrabble too seriously. Earlier on they had argued over the meaning of ‘zori’. He thought it meant a skunk-like beast out of Africa while Antonia insisted it was a Japanese straw sandal. The dictionary would have provided a solution, but he had no any idea where the damned thing had gone.

He saw Antonia put down the receiver. There was a puzzled expression on her face. ‘How very odd,’ she said. ‘Do you remember me telling you about that woman in the wheelchair I met last June? In Hay-on-Wye?’

‘I do remember. I had some clever name for her. What was it? Snow White?’

‘Goldilocks. That was her on the phone. Her name is Beatrice Ardleigh.’

Major Payne leant back in his chair. ‘Some rigmarole about whether or not to answer a letter from an old flame of hers? She is on the horns of a dilemma? She needs your advice desperately?’ He welcomed the interruption – he had been losing badly and he was not a particularly gracious loser.

‘She doesn’t need my advice “desperately”. And if the man is an old flame of hers, she didn’t say. It was all rather garbled. She received the letter last month. It was from somebody she used to know a very long time ago. The letter came to her as a shock – um – because of something the man had done to her. Something like that. She’d never expected to hear from him. She’d thought he was dead. She said she didn’t know what to do.’

Payne cocked an eyebrow. ‘And you do? Or would, as soon as you’d read the letter?’

‘Well, she believes I am endowed with perfect knowledge and understanding of human nature. She credits me with one of those laser-sharp criminologist minds – as well as with Ariadne’s penchant for unravelling.’ Antonia gave a little smile.

‘My dear sweet GIRL. If I didn’t know you better, I might have imagined that you were finding this kind of attention flattering.’

‘I am not the least bit flattered. Actually I suspect Beatrice is using this letter as a pretext to get me to visit her – as a kind of bait. She’s been trying to get me to visit her, I’ve told you. She’s probably making the situation sound much more intriguing and mysterious than it is. I think she is bored and lonely. In many ways she is rather irritating. She lives in Wallingford. She said you could come too.’

‘Jolly kind of her. Writers do attract nutcases.’ Payne shook his head. ‘I can’t believe you let her have your phone number.’

‘She gave me tea. It would have been impossibly rude to refuse.’

‘You could have given her a wrong number.’

‘She wore a JacqueS Azagury dress,’ Antonia murmured reminiscently. ‘I would love a dress like that.’

Payne’s eyes had strayed towards the Scrabble board. ‘I don’t suppose you realize that “funeral” is also “real fun”? All you do is rearrange the letters – thus.’

‘What were these things called? Not anagrams?’

‘Antigrams.’

‘United – untied?’

‘Yes… Man’s laughter – manslaughter.’

‘Beatrice said it was a very peculiar letter and that it might give me an idea for a novel,’ Antonia went on. ‘She made it sound like some special treat. It was a perfectly extraordinary, frightfully delicate kind of situation and she was baffled. Honestly, my dear, it’s like the start of one of your fiendish puzzles.’

‘Golly, does she talk like that?’

‘She does. This man – the author of the letter – I think she called him Ralph – Rafe – was at death’s door – his departure from this world was imminent – his last wish was to see her. It was like something out of a book. Quite extraordinary.’ Antonia paused. ‘She was about to tell me more, but then – then a very curious thing happened. She suddenly changed tack. Someone came into the room. I am sure I heard a door open somewhere in the background. Beatrice gave a little gasp – then started talking fast – in a much louder voice. You know, when someone starts putting on an act?’

‘Go on.’

‘She laughed and said, “Actually, my dear, it is all a dreary muddle. I don’t know the man from Adam. I have no idea what he is on about. I think it’s some lunatic.” Or it was all a mistake – he was taking her for someone else – wouldn’t that be tiresome?’

Major Payne frowned. ‘You think she changed her story because of whoever entered the room?’

‘Yes… For some reason Beatrice didn’t want the person who entered the room to know about the exact contents of the letter she had received.’

‘It must have been the girlfriend, don’t you think?’ Payne stroked his jaw with a forefinger. ‘The masterful Matron with the Medusa gaze? She who transfixed you like a butterfly on a board?’

‘She didn’t take to me, true, but I don’t think she was Bee’s girlfriend. I think Bee likes men. Bee kept shooting coy glances at the men while we were having tea. All the presentable-looking men seemed to be with their wives, but that didn’t deter Bee. She kept giving little smiles and lowering her eyelashes. I daresay her attentions were reciprocated.’

‘Some men actually find the idea of a woman in a wheel-chair tremendously exciting – a positive thrill.’

‘Don’t be disgusting, Hugh.’

‘It’s all to do with control, or so I have read. The idea that the woman is entirely at their mercy.’

‘It was probably Ingrid who entered the room, yes… They live by themselves. That was what I was given to understand. At least they did back in June. They are so different. I’ve been trying to imagine what it is like, the two of them living together.’

‘The opposite of sugar and spice? Something – not very nice? Creepy clotted claustrophobia? Perhaps there is no such person as “Ingrid”. Perhaps the “Ingrid” you met was Bee’s husband in drag?’ Major Payne mused, arrang-ing idly the word ‘drag’ with Scrabble letters. ‘Some couples are into role-playing, you know. The purpose would be – in the vulgar parlance – to spice up a casserole that might have become too bland. I bet Ingrid was suspiciously tall, hulking and blue-jawed and smoked cheroots?’

‘She was nothing of the sort. Nobody smokes cheroots nowadays.’

‘A chap at the Military Club does.’

‘Ingrid was dressed in sombre black – black suit and black gloves. There was an air of tragedy hanging about her.’

‘She might have been in mourning for her youth.’ Payne yawned. ‘Like the woman in Chekhov. Some contretemps took place when you went to have tea with them, I think you said?’