She was delirious again.
Was the mixture of Parisian scent and Turkish tobacco in her mouth going to make her throw up? If that happened, she would choke on her own vomit and die a slow horrible death. Maybe that was the intention?
No, that was not the intention. Ingrid knew she was going to die a violent death, but she believed there was a purpose as to why she had been kept alive so far. There was a good reason why she hadn’t been killed outright in the garden at Ospreys, the way the priest had been, why the first blow hadn’t been followed by a second, lethal one.
The priest had struggled – that had been his undoing. There had been a spurt of blood – then another. The priest had thrashed about and then had lain on the floor twitching. Yes, she had seen the priest perish. She had stood outside the french windows and watched, fascinated, hypnotized by the sight of the blood…
It was only moments later that she had made her presence known. Hello. The shocked look on his face – those foolish bulging eyes, that gaping mouth, those cheeks the colour of ripe tomatoes! It had made her laugh. He had been dragging the priest like a sack of potatoes across the terrace towards the stone steps that led to the garden.
She had started speaking. The things she had said! She had let all her frustration, all her resentment, all her bitterness, all her hatred spill out, but she had also, in a strange kind of way, enjoyed herself. Oh yes. She smiled at the memory. She had felt extremely powerful and in complete control. The torrent of words unleashed from between her lips had been frightening.
She had let rip.
Do you think you will be allowed to get away with this? Your interloping days are over. You are finished. You’ll spend the rest of your days in jail. You will end up as some big boy’s bitch. I will see to it. They may even kill you. You’ll never be allowed to touch your beloved again. I’ll see to it. But it was when she had started with the more specific taunts – Bee’s got a rat-ing system, you know – she rates all her lovers – if you only knew what she said about you, how she laughed when she said you lacked that significant It in the boudoir department, you wouldn’t want to live! – that the blow had fallen.
Suddenly the lid opened and Ingrid was blinded by light -
An electric torch had been flashed into her face. She moaned – it burnt her eyes. She felt the tape being removed from her mouth, roughly and painfully peeled off, the handkerchief pulled out. Air! She coughed and gasped. Bright spots swam before her eyes. Then, in negative black and white, she saw something familiar. Wasn’t that the holly tree in front of Millbrook, the house she and Beatrice had shared for thirty years? Of course it was. The holly reached up to her bedroom window – why, she had trimmed it only last week!
Then she saw where she was. In the boot of a car – not in a coffin. She opened her mouth wide – not to scream but to breathe. She filled her lungs with air. Had help come? Earlier on she had been praying to Mighty God Rook -
No. Ingrid couldn’t make out the features of the face looking down at her, but she knew very well who it was. It was – him. I will have you for assault and illegal constraint, she wanted to shout but the next moment she smelled bitter almonds. She tried to bite the hateful fingers that were pushing the lump of cyanide into her mouth – how she would have liked to crunch them off! – but failed. She snarled – she felt her chin being pushed upwards. She heard her teeth click. She felt the cyanide gliding down her tongue, like a boat down a sluggish river, sinking deep into her throat. She gasped again – choked – gurgled -
Then, in the couple of seconds she had to live, Ingrid saw why she had been kept alive so far and brought to Millbrook House. It was one of those instant flashes of intuition.
The plan was that her death be made to look like suicide. It was her cyanide, she knew. The cyanide she kept in a phial in her room. Her cupboard had been raided. Suicide – wasn’t that what loopy people like her did when they reached the end of the line? The police were meant to assume that it was she who had killed the priest – that he had tried to protect Ralph, that they had had a fight – and she had stabbed him. No doubt they would discover the fruit knife in her pocket – it would be suitably smeared in the priest’s blood. They would assume she had panicked and bolted – that she had been hiding. She would be found stretched out on her bed beside her daughter’s photos -
One last gasp – one last convulsion – and she was still.
27
Esquire of the Body
Ingrid’s face was fiercely distorted. One eye, large and staring, moved slightly to the left as if it had become unmoored. The other remained fixed on her killer.
Ingrid’s body was dragged through the front door of the house and up the stairs, to the room which she had once occupied. There were a lot of photographs in silver frames on the bedside table. Several showed the two dogs Ingrid had once loved but had eventually had put down – these had black ribbons across the left corner. The majority of the photos were of similar-looking little girls. About six or seven years old – smiling faces – dimpled chins – blonde curls. That was what her daughter would have been like, Ingrid had felt certain. Six photographs showed the same girl in a playground; that had been her best Claire; Ingrid had found her after hours of searching, and taken photos of her without the mother noticing. She had seriously considered abducting the girl and bringing her up as her own – but there had been too many people around.
The body was laid on the bed. The hands and the feet were unbound. An open phial which contained traces of cyanide was placed between the fingers of her right hand. For a moment the killer hesitated – she was right-handed, wasn’t she? The blonde wig was still on Ingrid’s head but it was a rag now, covered in congealed mud; blades of grass and dead leaves stuck out of it. Ingrid’s face was badly bruised – it was black and blue and no longer looked anything like Beatrice’s, he was pleased to note. The nose seemed broken, one of the eyes terribly swollen. The lips too. Well, the police would assume that Ingrid Delmar had sustained her injuries in her fight with the priest. The fruit knife, covered in the priest’s blood, would be discovered in her pocket.
He stood looking round the room. Sea-green walls, very faded, bordered with a pattern of roses on a black back-ground. On the dressing table, beside a bowl of dead flowers, so black it was impossible to say what they had been when fresh, lay a book. He picked it up and held it in his gloved hand. George Trevelyan. On Reincarnation and Other Psychic Matters. He leafed through it. A sort of erudite madness, from what he could see. The book was covered in dust, like the rest of the dressing table. What was it Ingrid had wanted to believe? That her unborn daughter might have come back as some other little girl? He wiped his gloves with his handkerchief.
A musty smell hung on the air. Heaven knew when the room had been cleaned and aired last… Was there any-thing else he needed to do? He had already disposed of the knitting needle. The police would never find it… Earlier on he had managed to burn his bloodied clothes as well as the shirt and jumper he had taken from Ralph Renshawe’s wardrobe. He had done it in the back yard. He had made sure the clothes had been reduced to ashes, then scattered the ashes over the river… He remembered Ralph’s eyes following him as he had walked across the room. Ralph – his former rival in love! Of course Ralph had had no idea as to who he was. Ralph had nodded and mouthed his thanks. Not a word had passed between them. At one point both of them had looked at the clock. They had had the same thought in mind, the same purpose – that nothing should interfere with the signing of the will.
He had dropped Robin Renshawe’s card in the garden; he had found it in the priest’s wallet. The more false leads the police had to follow, the more hares to chase after, the better. Though of course, inevitably, it was all going to culminate here, in this room. That was how it had to be. He didn’t turn off the light. Casting one final glance at Ingrid’s body, he left the room.