R Raichev - The Death of Corinne

I had a dream last night. I was walking down a labyrinthine yellow road – hints of Oz? – under crepuscular light. Orchids, roses and other exotic flowers whose names I didn’t know, grew on either side of the road, Triffid-sized, as tall as trees! I had no idea where I was going but I was aware of a sense of anticipation. Then suddenly, at the end of the road, standing on a raised circular platform and revolving like the ballerina on an old-fashioned music box, I saw Corinne. She was singing. It was a song called ‘Vous Qui Passez Sans Me Voir’. (Is there such a song?)

As I went closer, she started vanishing. She took off her hair first, which was just a wig, then peeled off her face, which was a mask, then her hands, the way one removes gloves. Underneath there was nothing. Nothing at all. She never for a moment stopped singing. Eventually her dress fell to the platform and she disappeared completely. It was like H.G. Wells’s invisible man. The platform went on turning round and her disembodied voice went on singing. I felt as though I had witnessed some conjuring trick.

I continue to feel uneasy about Jonson – or Andrew, as Aunt Nellie insists on us calling him. Last night he declared the house and the grounds ‘clean’. The more I get to know him, the more I like him. And yet, I don’t think that he’s told us the whole truth about Corinne Coreille. There is something wrong there. What is it he knows? He couldn’t be the killer, could he? No, of course not. He might have been able to arrange for the death threats to be sent to Corinne in Paris, but how could he possibly have known about Eleanor Merchant and her letters? Well, he could have seen Eleanor’s Saverini website. But zuhy should he want to kill Corinne?

All right – they might have had an affair after she employed his services last year. He might have fallen madly in love with her and become very upset and angry when she broke up the affair. No, that’s nonsense – Corinne wouldn’t be asking him to do another job for her if their parting had been in any way acrimonious, would she?

NB. I need to learn to curb my imagination. This is NOT a detective story.

The rain outside continued pouring down and the wind could be heard wailing in the chimney. The dining-room windows creaked and rattled. (Double glazing was one of the things the late Lord Grylls had considered ‘vulgar’.) All the lights were on and every now and then they flickered. The house, Lady Grylls said, needed rewiring. ‘When I asked Rory to have it done, he told me I knew as much about such matters as your average Masai warrior. He said soda-water siphons knew more about rewiring than I did… D’you know what Rory liked doing best?’ Lady Grylls looked round the table. ’Getting up at the crack of dawn, putting on an old shooting jacket and pottering out to the woods at the back to “investigate” the habits of badgers. Before the badgers he was engrossed in some drama involving a colony of bats. He wrote endless letters to The Times about his “findings”.’

So much for my lavishly lovely spring, Antonia thought as the windows rattled again. The picture that was emerging of the Gryllses’ marriage was not particularly attractive either. Soda-water siphons! Antonia suddenly felt rather depressed. I am glad Lady Grylls had an affair with a Frenchman, she thought defiantly, to boost her spirits.

It was nine o’clock and they were sitting around the polished Queen Anne table, having breakfast. Two kinds of eggs, scrambled and boiled, somewhat overdone rashers of bacon, glue-like porridge, which proved amazingly tasty, Oxford marmalade, toast, tea and coffee. She couldn’t afford kedgeree or devilled kidneys or any such nonsense people staying in country houses seemed to expect, Lady Grylls had declared. Still, the butter pats were pressed with the Grylls baronial coronet, Antonia noticed. Peverel, they were informed by Provost, had left very early in the morning in his car.

‘It’s a filthy day but these are glad tidings.’ Lady Grylls cast an affectionate glance at Jonson who was standing by the sideboard, plate in hand. She seemed to be crediting him as the main contributor to her nephew’s departure. She lit a cigarette, then picked up her cup and took a sip of coffee. ‘You are not eating much, Antonia. You aren’t on a diet, are you?’

‘No… I don’t think I should be on a diet, should I?’

‘By no means – but Hugh might have been giving you ideas. Men are funny about that sort of thing. Elizabeth was thin.’ Lady Grylls lowered her voice. ‘Too thin, I always thought.’ Elizabeth was the name of the first Mrs Payne.

‘I didn’t like it.’ Payne spoke from behind The Times. ‘I told her but she wouldn’t listen.’

Antonia felt absurdly gratified.

Provost had left the dining-room door open and the telephone was heard ringing in the hall. That was the third time since they had started breakfast. Jonson looked up. Lady Grylls leant back in her chair and said, ‘I bet it’s our friend, the anonymous caller, again.’ Payne pulled at his lower lip and shot Antonia a glance. Eventually Provost entered the dining room. He looked across at his mistress, his brows slightly raised.

‘The anonymous caller?’ Lady Grylls said.

‘Yes, m’lady.’

‘He means business, clearly. Whatever his business is. Again – not a word – just breathing?’

‘Yes, m’lady.’

‘Breathing! Wrong time of the day. I mean that’s the kind of call one normally receives late at night, not during breakfast.’ She guffawed.

‘The call lasted four and a half seconds exactly. I timed it. I said hello several times and asked who it was, but the person rang off. The same as earlier on.’

‘Man or woman, d’you think?’

‘Couldn’t say, m’lady… Woman, I think.’

‘Really? How interesting. How could you tell?’

‘I don’t know, m’lady.’

‘Breathing like a woman… Breathing like a man… Do women breathe differently from men? Oh well. Never mind. The world’s full of crackpots,’ Lady Grylls declared cheerfully and poured herself more coffee. ‘I loved that puzzle you told us last night, Hughie. About the dead man in the middle of the field with the square package beside him. I don’t suppose you know any more like that?’

‘Oh, no – no more puzzles, please,’ Antonia said.

‘As a matter of fact I do.’ Payne pushed The Times to one side. ‘Did I tell you the one about the woman kissing a stranger?’

‘No – but I rather like the sound of it.’

‘Very well. A woman is walking in the street. Suddenly she rushes towards a man and gives him a long kiss on the lips that attracts everybody’s attention. She has no idea who the man is. Why should she want to kiss him?’

‘And I suppose he is not madly attractive? No. Well, she knows her husband’s following her and she wants to make him jealous? That’s what I would have done, if Rory had been the least bit jealous, which he wasn’t.’ Lady Grylls paused wistfully. ‘That’s not the correct answer, is it?’

‘No. The man’s had a fit and is lying on the ground. She gives him the kiss of life.’

Lady Grylls looked enchanted. ‘A fit! Oh, you are so frightfully clever! A fit!’

A tinkling crash on the terrace betokened the fall of yet another tile from the roof. There was a pause. Major Payne said, ‘Could that have been the Merchant? I mean the person who keeps phoning.’

‘Don’t call her the Merchant, Hugh… How could she possibly know this number?’ Antonia looked at Jonson.

He shook his head. ‘She couldn’t. Maitre Maginot said nobody knew it, apart from her and Corinne. She couldn’t know the address either.’

‘Ah, but you are forgetting that people of a lunatic cast of mind like the Merchant are terribly cunning,’ Lady Grylls said. ‘Method in their madness and all that… Does anyone want more toast?’