R Raichev - The hunt for Sonya Dufrette

‘I thought it was he who killed Sonya.’

Dufrette lowered the gun further. He stared at her. ‘You thought Nagle killed Sonya? You are a fool, Antonia. A greater fool than I imagined.’ He paused. ‘Sonya, if you must know, is alive, though she seems to be far from well. Actually, I am dreadfully worried about her. I don’t quite know what to do.’ He was still holding the gun in his right hand, but he pushed his left hand inside his jacket and produced a folded sheet of paper. Pale mauve with gilded edges. She recognized it at once. He frowned down at it thoughtfully.

‘The letter,’ she said. ‘Veronica Vorodin’s letter.’

‘Yes, the letter. How uncommonly perspicacious of you.’

‘Did you have it translated?’

‘As a matter of fact I did. This morning. I wanted it done sooner but the fellow was away. It’s somebody I was at school with. He read Russian at Cambridge. Was Burgess’s facile princeps catamite for a while, though that’s neither here nor there. Name of Rose. You wouldn’t know him.’

‘What’s in the letter?’

‘Ah, wouldn’t you like to know!’ Dufrette put the letter back into his pocket. His eyes flashed angrily and he waved the gun. ‘You love asking questions, don’t you? Who do you think you are? Oedipus come to consult the Oracle? What’s in the letter indeed! Well, none of your bloody business. This is a very private matter. Can’t you get it into your thick head? Can’t you understand?’ He raised his voice once again. ‘What kind of an impertinent nosy parker are you?’

‘I – I am sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I am afraid I’ve been obsessed with the mystery of Sonya’s disappearance…’

She saw him examine the gun and wondered whether he would use it on her. He might – he was mad.

In something of a panic, not knowing what else to say, she blurted out, ‘Why did you kill her?’

She immediately wished she hadn‘t, but the question, rather than send him into a renewed paroxysm of fury, seemed only to puzzle him. ’Kill – who?‘ His eyes strayed down to the body on the ground. ’Her? You think I killed her? Well, I didn’t.‘

‘Who is she?’

Dufrette said, ‘My good woman, I haven’t got the slightest idea. I was taking a short cut, you see. I was on my way to the house. Didn’t look where I was going. Plenty on my mind, I must admit.’ Suddenly he sounded extremely amiable. ‘I stumbled on her, literally. Nearly fell over. Saw she was dead at once. She hadn’t been dead long, mind. I checked. She was still warm. I turned her over. That’s when I got blood on my hand, I expect.’ He took out his handkerchief and wiped his fingers. ‘You thought I shot her?’

Antonia pointed to the wound on the woman’s temple. ‘How – how did she get that?’

‘That’s not a shot wound,’ he said.

It dawned on her then that, incredible as it might appear, he was telling the truth after all. If he had fired his gun, she would have heard it, she reflected. She had been in the garden for at least fifteen minutes. The gun had no silencer. She would certainly have heard a shot. She felt herself relaxing a bit. ‘Why did you bring your gun?’

‘What a silly question. I always have my gun with me, didn’t you know? Your next question no doubt will be, why I am holding my gun in my hand?’ She nodded. ‘Well, I took my gun out of my pocket as soon as I saw the body. I imagined that I might be next, you see.’

‘Next?’

‘Yes, next. I thought there was someone with a gun lurking in the shrubbery. I thought I heard them. For a fraction of a second I too thought she had been shot… This is a dangerous place… People with guilty secrets, you know… I was wrong of course. I saw it the moment I turned her over… She hasn’t been shot.’

Antonia had crossed to the body and was standing beside it. ‘All that blood… How did she die?’

Dufrette’s eyebrows went up. ‘Can’t you see? And you call yourself a detective! A child of five would be able to tell you how she died. No, a child of three,’ he added improbably. Antonia didn’t mind his unsubtle sarcasm. He had put the gun back into his pocket and that was what mattered. He went on, ‘Let the lesson start. Observe that sundial closely. Notice anything unusual?’

It was only then she saw that the sundial was stained red and glistening in the sun. Blood. She nodded. ‘That,’ he went on, ‘is where the wretched creature fell and hit her head. She landed on her temple. I don’t know whether that was what killed her though… That’s a nasty bruise. Wonder what caused it.’ He pointed his long pale forefinger towards the woman’s forehead. ‘She seems to have been accident-prone. There’s a cut above the left eye. That’s not so fresh. It’s been treated. It’s been stitched up. Must have been really bad

…’

‘She is bruised all over,’ Antonia whispered. ‘Her arms and legs. Look. Bruises – lesions… Her thighs too. Her wrists. My God. She seems to have been kept bound. Some of the bruises are quite old!’

‘Indeed. How curious. So you are not entirely devoid of observational skills.’

‘Has she – has she been tortured?’

‘Tortured? She does appear to have been kept bound, as you say, but actually some of the bruises on her arms are injection marks. She is covered in injection marks.’

Antonia gasped. ‘Yes… She must have been given innumerable injections.’

‘Innumerable’s the word,’ he agreed. He then looked up and pointed. ‘She must have come through there. See how the shrubbery’s been disturbed? That thicket over there. There are scratches on her face and arms – and legs. I imagine she barged through, not looking where she was going, as though she was being pursued by furies,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘That’s where the house is. She came from the house, that much is clear.’

‘Was she – was she trying to run away?’

‘That’s a possibility… Why is she so pale? It’s the kind of pallor that results when someone’s been incarcerated. Evidently she’s been kept indoors – ’ He broke off as the sound of twigs snapping was heard.

‘What was that? Someone’s been there all this time!’ Antonia cried, pulling at Dufrette’s sleeve. ‘Somebody’s been watching us – eavesdropping.’

But Lawrence Dufrette failed to react. He was standing very still, staring before him. He had a stunned look on his face – as though he had suddenly had a startling revelation. Several moments passed. He then bowed his head – it was a gesture of resignation, of accepting defeat, Antonia reflected. Disconcertingly, his lips quivered and tears started rolling down his pale cheeks.

‘What – what’s the matter?’ Antonia said.

There was another pause. He dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief. Shaking his head, he said, ‘I don’t think I’d have been up to it. I can see they did their best. I wouldn’t have been able to cope with any of it. I am terribly squeamish. If truth be told, I am an egoist. The effort, should I have made it, would have exacerbated my temper. I would have started hating her and that, inevitably, would have led to me hating myself.’ He was talking to himself rather than to her. ‘I had no idea things were so bad. If I had had any notion, I wouldn’t have come.’ Pulling out the letter from his pocket, he handed it to Antonia.

‘You might as well read it. The English translation follows the Russian text. Rose writes a beautiful hand,’ said this unpredictable man. ‘It might be worth your while to go to the house and tell them that she is here, though I expect they know it already. There’d be no point in me going… I am sure they’d have a perfectly satisfactory explanation for the police.’

‘The police?’ Antonia echoed.