‘She might indeed. May I have some more coffee? Thank you… Of course there’s always the chance that we are making complete asses of ourselves,’ Payne went on, taking a sip of coffee. ‘We might be imagining this whole phantasmagoric imbroglio. Ingrid might turn out to be a fanatical cinephile – she might have been going to the cinema. Or she might have a boyfriend, with whom she holds passionate trysts.’
‘Dressed up as Beatrice?’
‘Well, Beatrice is the more attractive of the two, so Ingrid might be trying to emulate her -’ Payne broke off. ‘No, I don’t really believe that.’
‘You thought Beatrice attractive, didn’t you?’ Antonia said. ‘Good lord. Not in the least. I didn’t do or say anything to suggest I did, did I?’
‘You kept trying to be funny!’
‘My dearest love! I was only breaking the ice.’
‘I don’t think there was much ice to break.’
‘Did I say many funny things?’
‘Personally, I didn’t think so,’ said Antonia, ‘but Bee clearly regarded you as the wag and wit of the party.’
He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t help it if the silly creature rolled round in hysterical merriment at every absurdity I uttered.’
‘She fancied you wildly. She made that abundantly clear. I don’t think her husband liked it.’
‘Golly. I do need to be careful. She’s a nightmare.’ Payne started the car. ‘Though of course not as great a nightmare as Ingrid.’
It took them much longer than they thought to locate Ospreys.
They lost their way twice and had to stop at two pubs to ask for directions. ‘It’s outside Coulston,’ a woman with a pleasant round face, glasses and hair as flat as Cromwell’s told them in mellifluous tones. She was nursing a gin and tonic but now she produced a local map and pointed. ‘Coulston is a small village – the house isn’t marked but it’s here, I think.’ The woman’s husband, a man with an unruly beard, disagreed vehemently. ‘No, no, Kate – Ospreys is here – on the other side.’ He stabbed his forefinger at a spot on the map. They were clearly visitors, strangers to these parts.
One of the locals, a very old woman in a woollen hat embroidered with dancing harlequins, had been sipping what looked like brandy and barley water and examining the advertisements section in the local paper through a magnifying glass, but she looked up when Antonia mentioned Ospreys.
‘Ospreys, eh? That house has a bad name… Some millionaire from Florida’s dying there now, but it’s never been a happy place. Never. The secret house of death they used to call it. Someone got killed there many years ago -’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. A couple. That was why it remained empty for so long. Most people don’t fancy houses like that. Attract weirdos, places like that. An American actress bought it – Moira Montano. Don’t think anyone remembers her.’ The old woman took a sip of her drink.
‘Moira Montano? The name does ring a bell,’ Payne said. ‘All those cheap horror films in the ’50s?’
‘That’s right. She made oceans of money, heaven knows how, the film were so bad, but that’s what they said. She had a pink conservatory added to the house. She bought masses of exotic plants but then she died suddenly. Then Sir Marcus bought it – Sir Marcus Laud, that is – for his new bride. He married this very young girl, you see, but she ran away after about a month, so it was the death of love, I suppose.’ The old woman sniffed. ‘Sir Marcus was heart-broken and he sold the house. One of my nieces was the housekeeper at Ospreys at the time, that’s how I know. Then the American gentleman bought Ospreys and he brought a fat foreign woman with him.’
‘Is his name Ralph Renshawe?’ Antonia asked.
‘Don’t know, dearie. He’s no longer for this world, that’s all I’ve been told. A priest visits him. Also a blonde in a mink coat,’ the old woman continued. ‘Regular as clock-work. People keep seeing her, walking from the bus stop towards the house, talking to herself, laughing and waving her hands in the air.’
‘Do they know who she is?’ Payne said casually.
‘The American gentleman’s old flame, somebody said. Some flame!’
‘See how easily poor Bee could land in the soup if some-thing were to happen to Renshawe?’ Payne said as they left the pub a couple of minutes later.
‘That’s why poor Bee should go to the police and tell them the whole story before it’s too late,’ Antonia pointed out.
It had got colder and they walked quickly towards their car.
Twenty minutes later they reached their destination. The village of Coulston seemed to consist of only one street. Although it was only a quarter to nine, not a single living soul was in sight and they didn’t see lights in any of the windows either. A phantom village? Antonia experienced a mixture of anxiety and desolation. Then, suddenly, they found themselves outside a pair of cast-iron gates with Ospreys written across them. The gates were gaping open. They drove through what looked like a park or a small for-est, along a driveway that was unevenly covered in old gravel, potholed and obviously little used.
‘We can’t just barge in on a total stranger,’ Antonia said in a sudden panic.
‘Of course we can. In matters of life and death, social niceties cease to have the slightest importance. In the eighteenth century it was considered terribly impolite if a traveller came across a gentleman’s seat and ignored it.’
‘Do you mean you just drove up to the big house and announced yourself and an upper servant led you to the library and gave you a glass of Madeira and cake?’
‘Absolutely. And, at a pinch, they could provide you with a room for the night, complete with a stack of the Illustrated London News and a tin of some superior F amp;M munchies on the bedside table – all the customary adjuncts of civilized slumber.’
‘Have you ever seen anyone actually reading the Illustrated London News? I haven’t,’ said Antonia. ‘Not even at the Military Club. Isn’t that interesting?’
‘You are right. Now that you’ve mentioned it, I don’t think I have even seen it sold anywhere. It’s one of those strange publications that are mentioned a lot in books -’ Payne broke off. ‘Good lord. Not Victorian Gothic.’
Ospreys loomed before them in sharp, ink-black silhouette, all turrets and spikes against the dark sky. The lancet windows of armorial stained glass were unlit and the house looked rather eerie in the pale moonlight.
Surely, Antonia reflected, they wouldn’t turn off all the lights when somebody was as gravely ill as Ralph Renshawe, would they? It wasn’t that late either. Had there been a power cut? But, if that were the case, they would use candles or some of the brass-and-wrought-iron gasoliers one associated with this kind of place. Wouldn’t a house like Ospreys have its own electricity generator?
Antonia got out of the car first and Payne followed, leaving the headlights on. Antonia gave an involuntary shudder at the sight of their distorted shadows dancing across the avenue. There was not a breath of wind. Intense, uncanny quiet. The house was white with hoar frost. They caught a glimpse of frozen fairylike trees on either side of the drive, their skeletal branches pointing upwards.
‘A haunt of ancient peace,’ Payne whispered.
‘There are always legends hanging about these old houses,’ said Antonia as though to give herself courage. ‘They are not difficult to invent and cost nothing.’
Pipe in mouth, Major Payne walked up to the front door and pressed the bell button.
Antonia stood behind him They seemed to be passing through what appeared to be the early stages of a cliche-ridden horror film. (The kind Moira Montano had made?) A time-eaten and grotesque mansion with a dark history, long deserted through superstitious fears, tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate part of Oxfordshire. Gaping gates and gloomy gables. A creepy creaking noise, which was probably caused by the frozen trees, but might prove to be something much more sinister… Would the front door turn out to have been left unlocked?
She didn’t hear the bell ring and no one answered the door. Major Payne pushed the bell button again.