R Raichev - The hunt for Sonya Dufrette

On the other hand, why not? He was a powerfully built man. He might have a tool box in the boot of his car. A hammer. He would need a big hammer, or something equally heavy. Could he do it with a spanner? He would need an axe first and foremost! What about the noise? He couldn’t start hacking at the oak or hammering away without being heard. There were dogs at the house – Mrs Ralston-Scott’s spaniels. Could he pretend to be a tree surgeon? Could he get away with it? Well, Mrs Ralston-Scott couldn’t have left London yet – she was probably still in the radio studio. That was probably his chance – tell whoever was at the house, the secretary Laura or any servants, that he had been hired to saw down the tree. But he didn’t look like a tree surgeon!

It was evident to her that Major Nagle was acting on a wild impulse. Well, he was a desperate man. He hadn’t been able to give the matter any coherent thought. He had looked apoplectic. He knew he was facing exposure – trial – social ruin – years in prison… Perhaps he would park his car outside the gates and sit inside and wait until dark? Would that help though? The noise would be much more conspicuous at night.

Antonia glanced at her watch. Three o‘clock. They were stopping at traffic lights. In her mind she went back to the fatal day. So what happened after Nagle immured Sonya inside the tree? Well, he went up to the house and returned to his room. He hadn’t been seen. Soon after, the Vorodins arrived, as arranged. Maybe he watched them from his window, which overlooked that part of the garden. The Vorodins didn’t see Sonya but assumed she would appear at any moment. They found her doll, daisy chain and bracelet and laid the false trail to the river, suggesting she had drowned. Unwittingly they had helped Nagle! They had drawn attention away from the tree and focused it on the river. Antonia imagined Nagle nodding approvingly from behind the window curtain. Then the Vorodins waited a bit longer, but still Sonya did not appear. Eventually they went away, afraid that they might be seen. They were, after all, supposed to be on a plane bound for the USA. They must have suspected there was something wrong. Then of course they saw the news on the TV or read about Sonya’s disappearance and presumed drowning in the papers. What did they feel? Shock – regret – great sadness – guilt – remorse? That they were good and decent people Antonia had no doubt. They must have let Lena and the nanny keep the money…

So They had no children in Anatole Vorodin’s obituary meant precisely that. The Vorodins had never had any children, natural or adopted.

What about Veronica’s letter to Lena then? Well, it might have nothing to do with Sonya. They might have simply kept in touch, the way cousins did -

‘I lost him,’ she heard the driver say. ‘Your husband. I don’t know where he went.’

‘Never mind, drive to Richmond,’ Antonia said. He would be there. Perhaps he had gone to buy a hammer – or an axe. She was certain he would wind up at Twiston.

They arrived at Richmond some minutes before five o‘clock. Antonia was amazed at herself for remembering the way to Twiston so well after twenty years. She told the driver to stop outside the wrought-iron gates. She realized then that she didn’t have any money on her. She had left her handbag in the library. She felt the merciless sun rays upon her and was aware of the rivulets of sweat coursing down her face. She didn’t even have a handkerchief to wipe her face!

‘I am sorry. Please, come to the club tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘I’ll pay you then.’

She must have presented a pathetic sight for the driver did not make a scene. He looked at her, shook his head and handed her a bundle of tissues. He then started the engine. Antonia stood watching the phantom of her distorted reflection receding in the curve of the dark glass, and as the cab disappeared in the distance, she dabbed at her brow and cheeks. Her nostrils caught a faint tang of wood smoke. She walked up to the gates and found them locked, but there was a smaller door further down the wall, which was open.

She went in.

The Edwardian Game Larder

Crunch-crunch, went the gravel under her feet, astonish ingly loud, as she walked along the avenue in the ever-scorching sun. She hoped she wouldn’t encounter any of Mrs Ralston-Scott’s gardeners or dogs.

A sound that conveys ownership and ease. The words of Sir Michael Mortlock came back to her incongruously. Sir Michael, it occurred to her, had been the sanest person at Twiston on that fatal day, also the nicest. He hadn’t contributed to any of the gossip-mongering. He had tried to pour oil on troubled waters. He had done his best to keep everybody happy. She thought she could smell his cigar – Partagas, that was the Cuban brand he had smoked. (The silly things one remembered!) She expected to see him sitting on the rustic seat under the oak, clad in a light flannel suit and sporting a straw boater with a pink ribbon, engrossed in Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male, which he must be reading for the tenth time. He would look up from the book at her approach, rise to his feet and take off his hat with old-fashioned courtesy, his pink wrinkled face creasing into a smile, his faded brown eyes twinkling. ‘Ah, Antonia. It was so much better in those days, when you knew who your enemy was, don’t you think?’ She then remembered that Sir Michael was long gone, dead – had been dead for nearly twenty years.

She recalled reading Sir Michael’s obituary in The Times. It had come to her as a great surprise that he had been a Freemason as well as a member of various other esoteric-sounding societies. No one would have associated him with that sort of thing. Sir Michael had always struck her as the most down-to-earth of men, unaffected, placid, amiable and more than a little vague – not at all the kind that would go in for dressing up in strange robes and executing equally strange handshakes with his fellow Masons.

Hugh had suggested that Sir Michael might have been a member of some kind of Herrenvolk cult. Impossible – ridiculous. What next? A member of the Babylonian brotherhood? There had been a chapter in Dufrette’s book entitled ‘Knights of the Dark Sun’. The Dark Knights practised the sacrifice of children and virgins, or so Dufrette had claimed. Sir Michael had been seen outside Twiston with his hands covered in blood. He had been holding a knife. Well, he had been cutting the liver out of a young boar. No – that was a dream Lady Mortlock had had. But didn’t dreams reflect reality in a distorted kind of way?

Antonia rubbed her temples. Could one discipline one’s thoughts? Although the proximity of the river and the trees in the garden made the atmosphere here less sultry, she continued to feel rather light-headed. Every now and then luminous spots that were dark around the edges flashed before her eyes.

Sir Michael was the only person who had been nice to Lena… He had liked Lena, Dufrette had said. Sir Michael had had a penchant for large ladies… He had kept inviting the Dufrettes to Twiston despite his wife’s disapproval of them… Antonia saw him once more, this time beside the river, putting an arm around Lena… No one else had tried to comfort Lena… Sir Michael had disappeared at weekends – Lady Mortlock said so… He had said he was going bird-watching…

Crunch-crunch. Antonia’s progress was slow, deliberately so. She had to be careful… An adagio prelude to a furious overture? She hoped not. She walked with her head bowed, straining her ears for the sounds of a hammer striking against cement, though she knew that would be unlikely. Other noises kept coming to her ears: rustling of leaves, whispering, distant footfalls, dogs’ muffled barking, the splashing of the river, even the sweet old- fashioned sounds of ‘Lavender’s Blue’! She couldn’t be sure about any of them. For one thing the river couldn’t be heard from here. On a quiet day like this, there wasn’t likely to be a single ripple on it. She was imagining things. If she didn’t get a grip on herself, she’d be seeing Sonya’s ghost coming from the direction of the river next! The thought sent a slight shiver down her spine.