R Raichev - The hunt for Sonya Dufrette

‘Yes, yes. Stop showing off. You seem to be quite different, Payne. Generals are pompous asses, the colonel’s a bore – but majors, majors I abhor,’ Dufrette recited gleefully. ‘Either rogues, bumbling fools or cads – or downright crooks.’

‘In fiction, certainly.’

‘No, not only in fiction. There’s Diana’s awful love rat… And the one who fathered the fat duchess – he has a penchant for massage parlours, hasn’t he? I personally knew a Major Yeats Brown, who was an occultist and a numerologist. He drank himself to death. He favoured the kind of Cyprus brandy that could take the shell off an egg. Then of course there was Nagle who as good as killed his wife. He was a sadist.’ Dufrette turned to Antonia. ‘Do you remember friend Nagle?’

She said she did. Once more she saw the stock-still figure at the window, looking down at her and Sonya.

Dufrette’s eyes remained on her. ‘What exactly brought you to the Elsnor?’

‘We wanted to talk to Lena… I hope this won’t cause you too much distress, but we have reason to believe that Sonya did not just wander down to the river and drown that day.’

‘You have been – investigating?’ Dufrette looked from Antonia to Payne.

‘Well, we’ve been visiting people – asking questions.’

‘And have you reached any conclusions?’

‘Yes.’ Antonia took a deep breath. ‘We have. There is still a lot we don’t know, but – we don’t think Sonya drowned. She never went anywhere near the river that day. Her nanny was paid to leave her unattended. Your – Sonya’s mother too was paid a large sum of money.’

‘Go on.’ Antonia saw Dufrette’s eyes narrow.

‘We believe that there was some sort of conspiracy involving more than one person. We believe it might have been the Mortlocks. Well, Sonya was – taken. We have no idea for what reason. If she was murdered…’ Antonia paused but Dufrette’s expression didn’t change. ‘… we think her body is somewhere other than the river. The day was chosen carefully – the royal wedding would have made sure there were not many people around. Sonya was allowed to leave the house -’

‘Lena,’ Dufrette said harshly. ‘That bitch… Michael actually liked her. I don’t think he or Hermione had anything to do with it, though.’

‘Well, we believe Lena cooperated fully with whoever it was. We believe she was paid a lot of money. The plan was to make it look as though Sonya had drowned. A false trail was laid – Sonya’s daisy chain and bracelet beside the path – her doll in the river… Lena gave herself away. She as good as admitted her part in the plot. She never actually said the Mortlocks were behind it, but that was the impression we got.’

‘Interesting,’ Dufrette said thoughtfully. ‘A lot of money, did you say? Well, that would explain Lena’s sudden shopping sprees. Of course. Of course. The things she bought – all the extravagant, exorbitantly priced useless objets! Manolo Blahnik shoes and alligator skin pumps – the most ridiculous-looking Ascot-y hats – bottles of Louis Roederer Brut Premier – jars of expensive face creams… I knew she didn’t have that kind of money, so I wondered whether she might have been shoplifting, but then she bought herself the latest BMW. Well, she might have taken a rich lover. Not as unlikely as you might think. Some men’s tastes incline towards the – shall we say, the recherche if not the downright bizarre?’

‘When did her spending sprees start?’ Major Payne asked.

‘A fortnight after Sonya drowned… We were leading separate lives, so I wasn’t really interested, but I did ask her where she got the money. She said it had come from Russia. Some rigmarole concerning property that had belonged to her family before the Revolution. Dachas – land – and so on. It had all been nationalized when the Communists took over but now it was all being returned to her family, of which she was the only surviving member… I knew that couldn’t be right. The Communists still ruled in Russia – it was still the Soviet Union – Brezhnev hadn’t died yet. Anyway, I didn’t care. Soon after I moved out… No, I don’t think the Mortlocks had anything to do with it. For one thing, they weren’t rich. Extremely well-off, yes, but I don’t think they had that kind of money -’

‘Who’s Vivian?’ Antonia asked suddenly. ‘Lena referred to someone called Vivian. She said that Vivian had been rather mean – that she had loved living at the Dorchester but been “downgraded”. She mentioned Vivian to Lady Mortlock too and again she complained of his meanness and ingratitude… Could that be the person who took Sonya?’

‘Vivian?’ Dufrette’s expression changed. ‘No, not Vivian,’ he said slowly, running his tongue across his lips.

‘Well, it might have been a woman – Vivienne,’ Major Payne pointed out.

‘Do you know this person?’ Antonia asked Dufrette.

He remained silent. He produced a pair of reading glasses and put them on his nose. ‘The letter. Let’s take a look at the letter first.’ Dufrette’s pale blue eyes, above the half moons, fixed on Major Payne. ‘I saw you take a letter from the counter, Payne. It was the moment before Lena’s hideous heavings started. Unless my eyes deceived me, it was a sheet of thick writing paper, pale mauve in colour, with gold edges? I believe I’ve seen that paper before. Two letters written on that same paper arrived for Lena in the days after Sonya drowned… D’you mind showing me the letter, Payne?‘

Major Payne remained unperturbed. ‘It occurred to me it might be important,’ he said with an easy smile. Pushing his hand inside his jacket, he produced the letter. ‘I couldn’t read it because it is in Russian. Nazdarovye. That’s the only Russian word I know. I am not familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet.’ He unfolded the sheet and laid it down on the table. ‘Thick paper, pale mauve with gold edges – you are absolutely correct, Dufrette. I meant to ask someone to translate it – someone who knows Russian.’

Dufrette touched the letter with his long pale forefinger.

‘Do you know Russian?’ Payne asked.

‘No. I meant to learn it when I married Lena, but never got round to it. It wasn’t necessary, really. When she was a child Lena had an English nanny, and then of course she was sent to a school in England.’

‘Ashcroft,’ Antonia said.

‘Yes. That was Hermione’s school. One of the best in the land, though you wouldn’t have believed it if you judged it by Lena.’

Did he know about Lena and Lady Mortlock? Antonia wondered but decided not to say anything. Why cloud the issue? She looked down at the letter. ‘No address. 17th March 2001. That’s four months ago.’

‘You believe it’s a letter from someone who also wrote to Lena twenty years ago?’ Major Payne addressed Dufrette. ‘Do you know who?’

‘No… Not at the time.’

‘Weren’t you ever curious to discover who was writing to your wife? Didn’t you ever ask her?’

‘I was never curious.’

‘There’s no name at the bottom – only initials,’ Antonia went on. ‘B.B.’

Major Payne picked up the letter, sniffed at it, then held it up to the light. He’s doing his Sherlock Holmes trick, Antonia thought. ‘Ink the colour of burnt sugar… A loping scrawl – it suggests a no-nonsense personality… Very expensive… Water sign. Maison de la Roche, Paris… So B.B. might be living in France -’

‘No, not B.B. In Russian that’s V.V. B in Cyrillic is actually V in the Roman alphabet,’ Dufrette explained, turning towards Antonia. ‘Don’t you see? She said V.V. – not Vivian.’

‘V.V.? Well, she spoke rather indistinctly. She was slurring a lot. Lady Mortlock too thought it was Vivian. So Lena was referring to the person by their initials.’