R Raichev - The hunt for Sonya Dufrette

‘Her father loved her.’

‘A little bit too well, perhaps? No, don’t ask me what I mean – please – too tedious for words! A bee in Lena’s bonnet, that’s all. I shouldn’t have mentioned it at all. Lolita love. Still, to be fair to her, Lena had to put up with an awful lot. Not only married to a madman, but with an idiot child. Small wonder she became so fat and took to drink… Do you know? Every now and then I’d remember the sunny girl with skin as smooth and pale as pearls, the radiant smile and lithe limbs, and I’d feel warm – here.’ Lady Mortlock touched her shrivelled bosom. ‘Lena, you see, was the love of my life. My one folly. My only taste of the forbidden fruit. Lena made me happy in a way I’d never been happy before – or since.’

‘Didn’t Sir Michael suspect anything?’

‘About my vicio nifando? No. Nothing at all. Poor Michael. He who trained spies for a living wasn’t particularly perceptive in his private life. I took good care not to be discovered of course. Oh I hated the secrecy, the subterfuge, the pretence, but it was necessary. Duty and discipline, that was my motto. It wouldn’t have done for anyone to know. Remember that I was an extremely successful professional woman. It was under my headship that Ashcroft became a byword for academic excellence at a time when many other supposedly good schools were reeling under the pressures of post-war inflation and social change. There was Michael’s career to consider too. Dear me. It was so difficult. I remember reading Radclyffe Hall and feeling absolutely terrified. Are you familiar with The Well of Loneliness?’

‘I know what it’s about, but I haven’t read it.’

‘You needn’t sound so defensive… Look at this. You might as well.’ Lady Mortlock took a folded sheet of paper from inside the book on her lap and handed it over to Antonia. ‘Read it. Read it aloud.’

Antonia obeyed. The paper was yellow and brittle with age. ‘Dear Mine, my darling Mine -’

‘Hermione – Mione – Mine. It’s the name Lena had for me. I loved it when she said it. Go on, go on, don’t stop. Why did you stop?’

‘I do love you and want you and want to spend my life with you – more than anything in the world, and by this, I mean anything.’ Antonia looked up. ‘It’s unsigned.’

‘Lena wrote it. I let Bea think it’s one of Michael’s love letters. Well, Michael never wrote me any love letters. Michael was never interested in me in that way. Mercifully, he turned out to be what is known as “under-sexed”. I wouldn’t have survived the marriage otherwise!’ She cackled. ‘We did our own things. Sometimes, at weekends, he disappeared completely. He went bird-watching. Anyhow. Lena kept writing notes like that, reckless creature. She loved me too. I think she was sincere. At one point she did want us to move in together, but of course that was out of the question. It was the fifties. I could never have contemplated setting up house with another woman and leading the life of a social outcast. Never. Besides, it wouldn’t have worked. I loved Lena but I also saw how she would deteriorate with age. The seeds were already there… By the way, it was she who seduced me, not the other way round. She was extremely knowledgeable about that sort of thing. You see, before I met her, she had been with both men and women. I was thirty-seven. Nothing like it had ever happened to me before. As a matter of fact, I rather despised women of that ilk. I remember when we went to see that play -’

‘Not The Reluctant Debutante?’

‘No. Of course not. Whatever gave you the idea? It was an underground play called The Monocled Countess. It had been inspired by Wedekind’s Lulu. The main protagonist was this tortured gentlewoman. A pathetic, tragic-comic sort of creature who sits at a rather louche cabaret and drowns her frustrated lusts in absinthe as she ogles the naked girlies who prance around her. We see her sitting at a table, on her own, with a carefully poised, long cigarette holder, a monocle and a mannish bob. That is how the play opens. After her heart is broken by a heartless little minx, she starts visiting Sapphic brothels. All of that was considered extremely risque at the time. I don’t suppose anyone would bat an eyelid nowadays?’

‘No.’

‘The performance took place in a cellar of sorts. Lena screamed with laughter throughout – she thought it all hilarious. I on the other hand could hardly contain my tears. Well, that was when I saw how different we were. The first cracks, as they say, had started appearing. Lena then introduced me to these two other women who lived together. Philippa and Diane. Philippa was the vanilla one; she had immaculately curled golden hair, tippety-tappety shoes, little white gloves and a skirt you could twirl yourself to death in. Diane was remarkably butch. Stocky, with a crew-cut, extremely baggy trousers and a striped blazer, with a sharkskin waistcoat underneath. She smoked untipped cigarettes and took snuff, I think. She took a wild fancy to me. She claimed I looked like the central figure in Jean Dupas’s picture Les Perruches. You know the tall, dark woman with the Roman nose who’s holding two rose bouquets?’

Antonia frowned. ‘She is surrounded by nudes, isn’t she?’

‘Indeed she is – while she herself is wearing a long black, rather puritanical-looking dress. I thought it quite flattering, actually. Philippa on the other hand tried to teach me polari, the dyke argot. It’s all very different now, isn’t it? I mean women do whatever they please. They are already vicars and they hope to become bishops, and they have male strippers at their hen parties. As you can see, I’ve been keeping up with the Zeitgeist. Well, Antonia, it was good seeing you. Would you like to go now? I am very tired.’

Antonia looked at her in desperation. ‘The day before Sonya disappeared you told me that Miss Haywood’s mother was very ill, in hospital,’ she said. ‘That was a lie. What was the purpose of it?’

‘Miss Haywood’s mother? What are you talking about?’

Antonia persisted. ‘It happened the day before Sonya disappeared -’

Suddenly Lady Mortlock gave a nod. ‘Oh yes. Yes. As a matter of fact I do remember our conversation. I did tell you that Miss Haywood’s mother was rushed to hospital. That’s correct.’

Antonia wondered if Lady Mortlock had started playing some game with her. She leant forward. ‘She wasn’t. That was a lie.’

Lady Mortlock shrugged. ‘Well, my dear Antonia, if it was, I had no idea. That was what I was told by Lena.’

‘I don’t believe you. I think the lie originated with you,’ Antonia suggested boldly. I have nothing to lose, she thought.

There was a moment’s pause. Lady Mortlock sat staring at her. ‘Are you by any chance thinking what I believe you are thinking? That I killed Sonya on account of her mental deficiency, because of my obsession with eugenics? That I ordered her to be drowned in the river, like some unwanted kitten? That perhaps I paid someone to do it?’

‘Well, did you?’

‘I can’t believe we are having this conversation. That’s the kind of thing that happens in detective stories of the more far-fetched kind. This is rather entertaining actually. Perhaps Guedalla was right when he said that detective stories are the normal recreation of noble minds. I am glad you didn’t leave when I told you to. I do feel better. Let’s see. I never left the drawing room that morning, not for a moment. Plenty of witnesses, including you. Consequently, it couldn’t have been me in person. Now then, could I have done it by proxy? Could I have commissioned one of my gardeners? Or perhaps that Major?’ She cackled. ‘What was his name? Eagle? Some such name. He was the only one without an alibi that morning – and he detested Lawrence.’