R Raichev - The Death of Corinne

‘No, m’lady.’

‘Have you forgiven Shirley? I mean for leaving you and all that?’

‘I don’t know, m’lady… I don’t think so.’

‘You must forgive her. I must try to forgive Peverel too. But we must forgive ourselves first… Have you ever taken dope, Provost?’

‘Once or twice, m’lady. In my younger days.’

‘I too snorted cocaine once or twice – at a London night-club called Ludovigo’s. Many years ago. I never became a dope fiend, mind – nothing like that boy of yours.’

‘No, m’lady.’

‘I was with a Frenchman. He made me do it. I didn’t really like it, but I was potty about him -’ Lady Grylls broke off. ‘I don’t know what the matter with me is this morning. I am in a bloody peculiar mood. Impending disasters – whatever gave me the idea of impending disasters? I suppose it’s age… Age, with his stealing steps – it claws you closely in his clutch.’

‘I don’t think Age has “clawed you in his clutch”, m’lady – not yet. If I may say so.’

‘You may say so. Sweet of you… Bobo Markham says I don’t look a day older than fifty-eight, which of course is complete nonsense… See where they are, will you, Provost? I mean Corinne and that terrible woman. Scour the garden. When you find them, check if they need anything, apart from croissants and coffee, that is. You’ve got the kippers for Corinne, haven’t you? She seems to like kippers. Tell them I’ll see them at brekkers.’

For some reason Lady Grylls’s vague stirrings of anxiety intensified. It would be most peculiar if her two visitors had really gone out so early in the morning, she thought, all by themselves, considering the preposterous safety checks Maginot had insisted on the night before! Unless Andrew was with them? It would make more sense if Andrew was accompanying them. She called Provost back and asked him, but his answer failed to reassure her: Mr Jonson was in his room, shaving. Mr Jonson had no idea where Miss Coreille and the old Frenchwoman were.

‘No idea, eh?’ Something isn’t right, Lady Grylls thought.

That was an understatement. Things were very wrong indeed. When Provost, after a fruitless search of the garden, eventually noticed that the door of the greenhouse was gaping open and went in, he found a dead body lying there.

She had been bleeding profusely from a wound in the throat. There was so much blood, it made him sick.

That and the shock.

Bodies

At several minutes after eight o’clock Antonia came down to breakfast, alone. (Hugh wanted to sleep in.) Apart from Nicholas, the dining room was empty. The boy was placing covered dishes on the sideboard. She wished him a good morning and received the usual indistinct reply. Nicholas looked as though he had had very little sleep the night before, though his hair was as spiky as ever. A long way from the powdered be-wigged footmen of yesteryear, Antonia reflected, amused.

She helped herself to scrambled eggs. She thought she could smell kippers. She frowned. Kippers were in some way important, though at the moment she couldn’t think how… The coffee was excellent. It was a wonderful morning: beautifully still, crisp and cold, the slanting sun-beams shining in streaks like the haloes of saints. An hour earlier she had stood at her bedroom window, watching the mist rise from the valley beyond the garden. The mist had gathered, rolled, crept up the field and within several minutes had gently lapped the house. Nothing had stirred. There had been a stillness. An absolute silence, in fact.

Later Antonia was to reflect that the weather had been like the dresses of Hitchcock’s heroines: dramatic and tempestuous in the neutral scenes, quiet and understated in the action sequences.

Suddenly she heard the front door bang, then the sound of running feet and Provost staggered in. He looked dreadfully pale and wild-eyed. He gestured towards the window, his mouth opening and closing.

Eventually he managed to speak. ‘She’s there – something terrible – in the greenhouse. Please, come with me – she is dead -’

‘Oh my God – Corinne?’ Antonia rose at once. No, that’s impossible, she thought.

As they crossed the hall, Provost muttered, ‘Police – ambulance – we must – she is dead – so much blood!’ He led the way out. Antonia and Nicholas followed. Unless she had imagined it, Nicholas had perked up as soon as the word ‘blood’ had been uttered. They moved rapidly across the broad swathe of lawn, through the wet grass that badly needed mowing, in the direction of the greenhouse.

They walked past a tiny ornamental pond with goldfish and rushes. The hedgerows had all burst into green. Her nostrils twitched at the strong earth smell, a smell of freshness of spring and flowers. A time of hope and reawakening… Pigeons were cooing somewhere. A couple of blackbirds flew up, flapping their wings, startled by a branch snapping. She didn’t quite know whether she was treading on air or land. Her hands were clenched in fists… Her thoughts were chaotic and inconsequential… There had been a grim and rather surreal inevitability about it all… Jonson had failed in his duty of protecting Corinne Coreille’s life… This kind of thing simply didn’t happen… It was a scene from her next novel… For some reason Provost had made it all up… Provost was the killer… No, the butler was never the killer… Why was she wearing such a smart twin-set and pearls?… Any moment now she would hear the director shout, ‘Cut!’… That photograph… The photograph she had found in Jonson’s case… It showed Corinne sitting in front of her dressing table, making her face up… Well, there was something about that scene that was wrong…

No kipper, she thought. That was it. Jonson had said there was a kipper on a plate on the dressing table – but there wasn’t. He had made that up. He had blushed. He had been about to say something different – and she knew very well what, since she had spotted it.

The greenhouse was Gothic in structure and it had clearly seen better days. Once no doubt it had been the kind of place where Cecily and Gwendolen might have reclined among the greenery, sipped pale China tea and bantered, but no more. It had a bleak and disused air about it… Now it had become a house of death… The windows were blood-red with the rays of the early morning sun…

They went in.

The body lay very close by the greenhouse door and they nearly fell over it. Provost gave a warning cry. Nicholas whistled. Though Antonia had been prepared for it – though she had seen a dead body before – she started shaking as soon as her eyes fell on it.

‘But that’s Maitre Maginot,’ she whispered. She felt rather nauseous but she also experienced sudden relief.

‘Yes, yes,’ Provost said. ‘The old Frenchwoman. That’s her. Oh my God.’

‘She’s been shot,’ Nicholas said, pointing a forefinger at Maitre Maginot’s neck. He sounded gleeful, excited. ‘At close range. At very close range. I can tell. I’ve seen pictures of dead bodies on the internet. There’s a website. Violentdeath. com,’ he rambled.

‘You shouldn’t be looking at such pictures, Nicholas,’ Antonia reprimanded him. Her voice sounded high, absurdly schoolmistressy. Displacement activity, she thought. We are in a state of shock.

‘Why not?’ Nicholas challenged her. Then he sneezed. ‘I am allergic to plants,’ he mumbled.

‘What plants?’ Antonia felt the urge to laugh. I mustn’t get hysterical, she thought.

‘Don’t know which ones – it always happens when I come in here.’

Maitre Maginot lay sprawled on her back, the black beret still incongruously on her head. The terrible deformed face under the beret was the colour of tallow, which, Antonia reflected, was also the colour of tripe. It might have been one of Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors wax effigies lying there… They drank tripe soup in France, didn’t they? The moment she thought that, Antonia feared she might disgrace herself and be sick. Maitre Maginot’s face was frozen in a ferocious grimace: her eyes were bulging. Her lips were parted – her teeth bared -