‘Surely not?’ Major Payne said.
‘I am afraid so. Yes. He doesn’t want me to know, he doesn’t want to upset me, but I’ve looked through his papers. Oh, he is too good, too decent, too unassuming, too gentlemanly.’ Beatrice looked at Payne and lowered her eyes, as though to suggest that she considered him to be of that vanishing breed too.
‘What exactly is the problem?’ Antonia asked.
‘Well, unscrupulous common people think of Len as a soft touch and they take advantage of him. Everybody has been taking advantage of him – his solicitors, his account-ant, the estate agents – the exorbitant bills they send him! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Quite ridiculous, really. Inflating the already bursting coffers of the legal profession! All right. Len is not terribly enterprising – it’s simply not in his blood. The Colvilles are of the untitled aristoc-racy, you see. I know one shouldn’t say things like that but on the other hand, why not?’
‘They are all in the Landed Gentry,’ murmured Payne.
‘They are. A fine old yeoman stock. Once the backbone of the empire. The Colvilles go back to the sixteenth century – Henry VIII employed a Colville as his Esquire of the Body. Once upon a time they were frightfully rich and influential, but they have fallen on bad times – one of Len’s cousins is being investigated for tax evasion – an aunt of his is in rehab – she is eighty-seven. Terribly depressing.’
‘Tempora mutantur. Or should one say – Sic transit gloria mundi?’ Payne said, putting his forefinger to his cheek – like Rodin’s Le Penseur, Antonia thought. Or rather Le Poseur – if ever there was a statue of Major Hugh Payne, that was the inscription it should bear.
She said, ‘So Ralph Renshawe’s money will come in quite handy, I suppose?’
‘Oh yes, Antonia. Dear me – yes! It will be the kiss of life Len needs – we need. The fairy godfather solution. I will let the poor darling have every penny he needs… Would you like another drink, Hugh?’
‘No, thank you. Back to your secret assignation,’ Payne went on. ‘I assume Ingrid didn’t turn up?’
‘She didn’t. I sat at a table and waited and drank I don’t know how many cups of coffee, but she didn’t come… What time did I get to Oxford? Well, at about ten to ten. I drove there in my car. We have two – Len drives a Peugeot. I found the cafe easily enough and I sat there until twenty past eleven. There was some perfectly dreadful man who sat at a nearby table. He made advances – offered to buy me a drink. He was quite insistent.’
‘Did you accept?’ Payne asked.
‘Of course not. Hugh!’ Beatrice giggled. ‘Oh, the whole thing was so dreary! I don’t really blame that man. I mean I was suspect – woman on her own, all made up and wearing a hat – he must have taken me for a tart, but then thank God Cressie de Villeneuve turned up – a dear, dear old chum of mine I hadn’t seen for ages, so we went and had lunch together -’ Beatrice broke off. ‘What was the meaning of that phone call? Have you any ideas? I mean – where is Ingrid?’
There was a pause. Payne asked, ‘Is Colville sure he saw her?’
‘Positive. Ingrid was dressed up as me, wig and all. He saw her as she left the house and started walking in the direction of the bus stop – it’s further down the road. The number 19 takes you to Coulston and it stops practically outside Ospreys… Len was standing by the window – Oh I’ll show you!’ Beatrice rose to her feet.
‘He snapped her.’ ‘Snapped her?’ Antonia echoed.
‘I mean, took a photo of her – with the Polaroid.’ Beatrice pointed to the camera lying on the small desk beside the window. ‘He thought of it on the spur of the moment. He had a brainwave. He decided it would be a good idea to show Arthur – his Scotland Yard friend – what Ingrid got up to, in case Arthur didn’t believe him.’
‘Did he show the photo to the police?’ Payne asked.
‘He certainly did. They took it away with them, but there’s a second photograph. Len took two photos.’ Beatrice opened the top desk drawer and took out a photo-graph. ‘It’s got the date – and the exact time. 26th November, 9.12 a. m… Look… Frightful, isn’t it?’ For a moment it looked as though Beatrice was going to sit on the arm of Payne’s chair. ‘Poor Ingrid. She does look like me on a bad day. She’s put on weight.’
‘She’s wearing a jacket with your monogram on the breast pocket,’ Antonia observed.
‘Oh, that suit,’ Beatrice said dismissively. ‘So ’80s. Look at the horrible padded shoulders. To think that was all the rage, remember, Antonia? Power dressing! Always made me look enormous. I’ve only worn it once or twice. She’s welcome to it.’
Payne said thoughtfully, ‘So that was the last time she was ever seen… She asked you to go to Oxford while she – she went to Ospreys… We are assuming she went to Ospreys…’
‘Why ask me to go to Oxford when she had no intention of going there herself?’ Beatrice leant forward. ‘Why send me on a wild-goose chase? Why ask me to wear dark glasses and a hat and insist I continue wearing them in the cafe? Why ask me to put on different lipstick? I did every-thing – to humour her. It made me look a bit like Joan Collins, but I followed her instructions to the letter. In case she came along, saw I didn’t look the way she expected and left. Ingrid can be wildly temperamental.’
‘She asked you to wear a hat and dark glasses at the cafe – and different lipstick?’ Antonia was frowning. ‘While she herself was dressed up as you… Ostentatiously so – with your initials emblazoned in gold on her chest, for the whole world to see…’
‘I still don’t understand -’ Suddenly Beatrice gasped. ‘No – I do. I do understand. Oh my God. Oh my God. I see it now. Antonia, you don’t think she went to Ospreys to kill Ralph – and she wanted to make it look as though I had done it?’
‘That’s the likeliest explanation.’
‘She must really hate me. Oh, how she must hate me,’ Beatrice whispered. ‘Well of course, it all makes perfect sense now. The ingenuity of it! She didn’t want me to have an alibi for the time she was at Ospreys. She didn’t want me to be recognized by anyone who saw me at the cafe. I was to be her scapegoat. Oh my God. And she warned me not to tell Len where I was going! It all fits in. Oh, why does she hate me so much? Why?’
‘Your marriage,’ Antonia said. ‘Your part in her daughter’s death. What she sees as your part in her daughter’s death.’
‘So you do believe she heard me – the other night? As I was telling you about it? When she came in?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. All right. Let’s be rational about it,’ Beatrice said. ‘Ingrid was last seen going to Ospreys. Let’s assume she was going to Ospreys. Did she disappear before she got to the house – or could it have been after?’
‘That,’ Major Payne said, ‘is the million dollar question. Before – or after?’
‘Well, she didn’t kill Ralph, that’s for certain. We’d have known by now if she had. The police phoned Ospreys from here, as it happened – a nurse answered – a male nurse, apparently – everything seemed to be fine. I mean Ralph is alive.’
Payne cleared his throat. ‘Renshawe was going to change his will in your favour on the morning of the 26th – correct?’
Beatrice stared at him out of guileless doll-like eyes and spoke breathlessly. ‘Yes. Yes. He said he’d instructed his solicitor to go to Ospreys at eleven in the morning, but I have absolutely no idea whether their meeting took place or not.’
She spoke as though she had forgotten all about it – or as though it couldn’t matter less. Antonia felt sure her indifference was feigned.
‘Len was dismissive about the whole thing. He thinks it was just the ramblings of a mortally ill man,’ Beatrice went on. ‘But Ingrid couldn’t have known about the will, could she? I am terribly befuddled now. If Ingrid did go to Ospreys, it was to kill Ralph as an act of revenge and make me take the rap for it… It couldn’t possibly have had any-thing to do with the will, could it?’