R Raichev - Murder at the Villa Byzantine

‘I hate arriving first,’ Antonia whispered.

‘I thought it was being ushered into a crowded room you didn’t like… I have actually seen her before. She drives about in a cerise-coloured two-seater. She always wears a scarf round her head and dark glasses, even when it is far from sunny. The Garbo touch. Her nose is a perfect shape. She is the diva divina type. She seems in a febrile state – is she always like that?’

‘I believe she gave you the glad eye.’

‘I am sure you imagined it.’

‘I didn’t imagine it.’

‘You are notorious for your writer’s imagination. The roses were a hit. She adores purple roses. I believe she meant it. I promise to try not to say anything remotely funny,’ said Payne firmly. ‘We don’t want another Bee Ardleigh kind of situation, do we?’

‘She seems worried someone might not turn up, it’s the way she keeps glancing at her watch.’

‘I bet it’s her newly acquired toy-boy who’s causing her anxiety-’

‘Keep your voice down.’ Antonia cast a nervous glance at the door. ‘Terrible manners, standing around whispering!’

‘Golly, she was Joan of Arc – look at those photos!’ Payne pointed to the wall. ‘I’d say that photo was taken about thirty-five years ago. Theatrical make-up is a great giveaway. I must say she’s holding the sword most expertly – like a real pro. And there she is with a cocktail shaker, looking adventurous in taffeta – what play would that be?’

‘Some drawing-room comedy. William Douglas-Home?’

‘It could be an Agatha Christie… Spider’s Web? I wonder if she was Clarissa… D’you think she’d make a good murderess?’

‘Do you mean on stage or in real life? I can’t imagine her having the patience to plot and premeditate… Clarissa didn’t murder anyone, did she?’

‘No. She only told a lot of lies and tried to conceal a dead body. If Melisande Chevret did commit a murder,’ Payne said, ‘it would be in a fit of extravagant passion, which she would later regret-’

‘Shush – she’s coming.’

‘You’ll never believe this, but my sister has decided to put in an appearance. That in itself should be a cause for celebration.’ Melisande Chevret brought her hands together. ‘This morning she threatened she would lock herself in her room.’

‘I didn’t threaten anything of the sort.’ Melisande’s sister smiled.

‘You refused to come down to breakfast, darling.’

‘I didn’t “refuse”. I was extremely busy. I simply had to finish that book-’

‘I’d go blind or mad if I read as much as my sister, but Win is so terribly disciplined. My sister lives in organized rigour. I am the complete opposite. The light in this house is awful. So sorry, I’m forgetting my manners – Antonia and Hugh Payne – my sister Winifred.’ Melisande Chevret turned on Payne a gaze of embarrassing brilliance – the kind that ‘projected’ across footlights, he thought.

‘How do you do?’ Winifred extended her hand. ‘I don’t think your house has a name, has it?’

‘No, only a humble number,’ said Payne.

‘I hate houses with names,’ Melisande said.

‘I believe you have a cat?’ Winifred said.

‘Yes. His name is Dupin,’ said Antonia. ‘Do you like cats?’

‘I used to like cats. I have mixed feelings about cats.’

‘This must be the worst-lit room I have ever been in. I believe we all look like drowned people floating at the bottom of a lake.’ Melisande sighed. ‘For some reason nothing seems right tonight – or is it just me?’

‘I have heard about you of course, Antonia, but I’m afraid I haven’t read any of your books,’ Winifred said. ‘I read all the time, but rarely for pleasure these days.’

‘You aren’t by any chance a publisher’s reader? A small independent publisher?’ Payne suggested.

‘Yes… How did you know?’

‘I told you Hugh was frightfully good, didn’t I? I said he was bound to astound us all. Well, I was right!’ Melisande grimaced enigmatically at Payne. She laid her hand on his arm. ‘Do not be alarmed. I do not dabble in the dark arts. I tend to hear things, that’s all. I believe “Hugh” means “bright in mind and in spirit”, correct? I used to have a boyfriend called Hugh, that’s how I know.’

‘Would it amuse you to know that in Pig Latin “Hugh Payne” is “Ughhay Aynepay”?’ Payne avoided Antonia’s eye.

‘This is one of the funniest things I have ever heard in my life!’ Melisande laughed and clapped her hands.

‘I used to enjoy my job. I try to like the books I read, I really do, but slush piles are depressing things,’ Winifred said. ‘I’m afraid bad writing leaves me completely demoralized.’

‘I have never regarded acting as a “job”,’ Melisande said. ‘Actors are the opposite of people!’

‘I read a review of one of your books, Antonia. It was in the Telegraph, I think. The plot was described as “flowing with the fluid precision of the Changing of the Guard”.’

‘That was a bit silly,’ Antonia said quickly.

Winifred smiled. ‘The whole book was “cunningly conceived, satisfyingly shaped and enormously entertaining”. I’ll certainly get some of your books now that I have met you.’

‘You needn’t bother, really.’ Remarks like that always threw Antonia into an agony of embarrassment. At the same time she decided Winifred would be more interesting to talk to than her sister.

‘I love detective stories. Always have, since I was a girl. Nobody seems to take any care over plotting any longer, do they? Most modern crime writers seem obsessed with – issues. Commendable but tedious.’

‘I love stories that deal with the destruction of innocence and the corrupting effects of great wealth.’ Melisande spoke in a serio-comic voice.

She can’t bear not occupying the centre-stage, Payne thought.

‘Who is your publisher?’ Winifred asked.

Antonia told her.

‘I understand they don’t pay large advances.’

‘They don’t.’

‘I am no longer interested in money,’ Melisande said. ‘I intend to spend the next thirty years of my life educating my emotions. One doesn’t need money for that. If everything else fails, I’ll go into a nunnery.’ She glanced at her watch.

Does she ever mean anything she says? Antonia wondered.

Although their features were not dissimilar, one wouldn’t have been able to tell at once that Winifred and Melisande were sisters. With her demure chignon, virginal bosom and restrained, somewhat wistful manner, sensible dress and shoes, Winifred Willard might have stepped out of the pages of an Anita Brookner novel. Melisande, on the other hand, was highly strung, restlessly temperamental, brittle and ‘young’. Her eyes were a curious yellow-brown colour. She had good cheekbones, but clearly that was not enough – her face was heavily made up, her hair had been dyed copper; it was short and swept back boldly. She wore a little black dress, an Etruscan-style necklace and high heels.

More guests were expected to arrive at any moment, though not an awful lot, Melisande said. No other neighbours, no. She didn’t really care for the people who lived on either side of Kinderhook, she had to admit. They had made overtures, they seemed good, decent people, one saw them in their landscaped gardens at all times, building rockeries or hunting for moles, even in the foulest weather, but they were not her sort of people. No, no luminaries from the theatre world either – she was sorry if Hugh and Antonia were disappointed – it would be an intimate gathering – her fiance, her agent and a playwright friend, whose one-woman show Tallulah Melisande had performed a couple of years back, to spectacular acclaim.