Payne wondered what he knew about beheadings. The Queen of Hearts in Alice – Salome kissing the head of John the Baptist – Islamic terrorists – Charles I – the Lord High Executioner in The Mikado – Polanski’s Macbeth – Marie Antoinette. Wasn’t there a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh called Off With His Head? About a beheading during some kind of rural dance? He seemed to remember a mildly comic German folklorist character called Mrs Bunz. Actually, Ngaio Marsh’s victims often came to gruesome ends…
Major Payne hated violent crime stories. Antonia’s never were. He had never been able to understand the great following bloodthirsty authors enjoyed. Patricia Cornwell – Mo Hayder – Val McDermid – all women, as it happened – but, he believed, it was the creepy Thomas Harris and his cannibal chronicles that had started the trend…
‘No signs of struggle, the inspector said. Nothing broken. None of Tancred Vane’s objets seemed to be missing either,’ Morland was saying. ‘They asked him to check.’
Royal biographers, Payne reflected, tended to be a rum lot. And hadn’t Tancred Vane wanted to buy Stella’s precious letters and diaries for fifty pounds? Moon had referred to Tancred Vane as ‘weird’ and a ‘crook’…
The obvious suspect of course was Moon. Moon had said that she liked beheadings. Moon had displayed an unhealthy obsession with blood. Moon had also boasted that if she were to commit a crime, she would never be caught…
‘What was the murder weapon exactly?’ Payne asked. ‘Sword of some kind?’
‘A samurai sword. Twelfth-century, I think. It was lying on the floor by the body. It had been hanging on the wall beside the fireplace. One of Vane’s most treasured possessions, apparently. A single chrysanthemum in a vase on a table had also been decapitated – as well as one of the curtain tassels.’
‘Really? How curious… One possible explanation is that the killer decided to test the sword’s sharpness before delivering the lethal blow,’ Payne mused aloud.
Had the killer played with the sword perhaps? Swoosh-swoosh. Again, the kind of thing a maladjusted demi-adult would do.
‘What’s Tancred Vane like?’
Morland frowned. ‘Youngish… mid-thirties, I imagine. I found him perfectly civil, though he was in a bad state. Shaking like a leaf… Extremely spruce… Wore a bow-tie… Described himself as a “scattergun collector, but one of the utmost discrimination”. Chinamen are his passion.’
‘Chinamen?’
‘Porcelain figurines. He collects them. Has a cabinet full of them in his library. All an inch high. Smooth, luminous, smiling – something inhuman and sinister about them. I found myself puzzling whether the ferocious pleasure in their expressions was really the oriental artist’s idea of unqualified good humour, or whether the Chinese were not, after all, rather a cruel breed.’
Payne wondered whether what he had just heard revealed something about Tancred Vane – or about Morland. Morland, judging by this latest observation, wasn’t such an uncomplicated chap after all… Ferocious pleasures, eh?
‘Vane produced some brandy. Good high-quality stuff. I needed it,’ Morland went on. ‘We sat in the library. He was white as a sheet. Kept tugging at his bow-tie. A bit hysterical. Insisted on showing me the owl he’d bought that morning.’
‘A real live owl?’
‘No, no, not a live one. A Victorian doorstop fashioned like an owl – wrought iron – he’d got it at some antique shop, he said. Rather a comic face. He said it reminded him of Miss Hope, that’s why he bought it. He kept saying mad things like that. He said he was terribly worried about Miss Hope. He kept looking at the clock. He said he expected Miss Hope to turn up at any moment.’
‘Who is Miss Hope?’
‘No idea. Never occurred to me to ask.’
‘Did she turn up?’
‘No. Not while I was there. She might have done later on.’
‘How did the police know where to contact you?’ Major Payne asked after a pause.
‘They checked the numbers on Stella’s mobile. The inspector asked if I was a friend of Mrs Stella Markoff. I thought at first Stella might have got lost – or that she’d had her handbag stolen or something. I explained that Stella and I were engaged to be married… The inspector then said that there’d been an accident… They sent a car to pick me up-’
‘Where is the Villa Byzantine exactly?’
‘St John’s Wood.’
‘My only remaining aunt lives in St John’s Wood. Bought a house there quite recently.’
Morland took another gulp of whisky. ‘I’ve been trying to remember something Tancred Vane said. I don’t think it matters one little bit, but for some reason I can’t get it out of my head. Oh yes. He had the idea that Miss Hope had recognized Stella.’
‘Stella had met Miss Hope before?’
‘That’s the impression Vane had. Or was it the other way round? No, can’t remember. Sorry, Payne, hate to waste your time. None of this could possibly be of the slightest importance. Don’t know why it keeps nagging at me. Hope I’m not going mad.’
‘Could Miss Hope have had something to do with Stella’s death?’
‘No, of course not. Ridiculous. Sorry I mentioned it. It – it all feels like a dream now. Poor Stella was killed by some maniac, wouldn’t you say? She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or it might have been someone who’d been trying to burgle Vane’s house – and she intervened. That strikes me as the likeliest explanation.’
‘How did Stella come to be inside the Villa Byzantine?’
Morland sat very still, gazing into his glass. ‘All the police said was that she’d had an accident, that she’d been hurt. They didn’t tell me she was dead, Payne. They didn’t. Then – then they took me into the room and showed me the head. Just like that. Damned insensitive… Sorry, Payne, what was it you said?’
‘How did Stella come to be inside the Villa Byzantine?’
‘How? No idea. No idea at all. Some misunderstanding. At first I assumed she’d had a call from the biographer fellow. Tancred Vane always made his appointments with her by phone. Only this time he didn’t. He said he couldn’t possibly have wanted to see Stella this morning since he needed to go to the British Library rather urgently. He’d mentioned it to her-’
‘She knew he wouldn’t be in?’
‘That’s what he said. He left his house at about ten thirty. He had made arrangements for an interview with Miss Hope at three o’clock in the afternoon. He came back home about two thirty. He said he found the front door unlocked-’
‘Is he certain he’d locked it before leaving?’
‘No. He couldn’t swear to it. He admitted to being the absent-minded professor type. When he discovered Stella’s body lying in the drawing room, he got the shock of his life. Had to sit down. He then called the police. He referred to the police as “the Law” – I thought it odd – not many people say “the Law”, do they?’
‘I imagine not. Only as a joke, perhaps. The Law. That much-invoked abstraction,’ Payne murmured. ‘Where was Stella’s daughter while all of this was happening? At which point does she come into the picture?’
‘Moon was arrested on the underground. At Baker Street station, I believe. She’d been travelling without a ticket and apparently she was jolly rude when they challenged her. She refused to say who she was and had no papers on her. She was taken to the local police station where they found she answered the description which I’d given the police.’
‘You said she was their number one suspect. What grounds do the police have for suspecting Moon of her mother’s murder?’
‘When the police asked her if she knew where her mother was, she said her mother was dead. She later explained she only said it so they would leave her alone. She had no idea her mother was really dead.’
‘I see. That all?’
‘Not quite. A handkerchief was found lying beside Stella’s body. It was drenched in blood. The police believe that it is Stella’s blood. They haven’t had the blood analysed yet. The handkerchief has the initials MM embroidered on it.’ Morland shook his head. ‘They believe Moon dropped it there after she killed Stella. MM. Moon Markoff.’