He made for the door. He was walking so fast, he slithered on the polished parquet floor and nearly fell. Major Payne looked as though he was going to follow him but thought better of it.
He glanced back at Antonia. ‘What shocking secret?’
She told him.
Antonia told the police as well. She had been contemplating testing out her theory, but decided this was not the time for games.
She was unsure of the inspector’s reaction, but she needn’t have worried. Inspector Davidson listened to her carefully, making notes. He then asked her what she did and his expression did not change when she told him she wrote detective stories. He was certainly interested in her ‘theory’. He asked her to explain her reasons. He agreed it was something of a long shot. There was hardly any ‘concrete evidence’.
‘He might give himself away when he realizes I am aware of what has been going on,’ Antonia said.
There was a pause, then the inspector said, ‘Very well, Miss Darcy. We won’t do anything till you hear from him. If you hear from him. You still believe he will contact you?’
‘I think he will. He’d want to know what my next move would be…’
‘Is there anything you’d like us to do?’
‘You can make inquiries at the Corrida Hotel in Earls Court… Then there’s the car,’ Antonia said thoughtfully. ‘You’d better check the car. There is a second car, are you aware? I think that’s the one that’s been used… There may be blood – DNA-’
34
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
So the cat’s out of the bag. Antonia Darcy knows, Julia Henderson thought. She pulled her sable coat round her for she suddenly found she was shivering.
Walking out of the Corrida Hotel in Earls Court, she got into her car and started the engine.
No. Antonia Darcy couldn’t possibly know, not for sure. Antonia Darcy suspected. Was it possible that she had seen them in a compromising situation – holding hands, cuddling, kissing? Had they ever been that careless?
Julia knew exactly what must have happened. Antonia Darcy had heard her speaking on the phone when she came to her flat – she’d come to snoop of course, Julia saw that now. Antonia Darcy had noted down the mention of the Corrida Hotel There was something else Antonia Darcy knew, Julia couldn’t say exactly what, but she felt sure it must link up with the Corrida Hotel in some way. Yes. Antonia Darcy had laid a trap and was now biding her time. Antonia clearly believed there would be a – well, a reaction.
Clever woman. Knew how to use her brains. Had nerve. Julia admired people who had nerve. She had to admit she had rather liked Antonia Darcy. Her sort of woman. She’d enjoyed talking to her. Having a gossip about Stella. But perhaps she had told her more than she should have…
Antonia Darcy was a detective story writer, so she was probably more interested in the intricacies and perversities of human behaviour than in seeing justice done. She might also be keen on verifying whether traps worked in real life…
Would Antonia Darcy turn out to be one of those public-spirited bores? Julia couldn’t stand public-spirited bores. She herself had no moral scruples. She thought of the couple of occasions on which she had done things that counted as criminal offences – such as forging her brother’s signature on his cheques. James had never got wise to it.
It had been easy. Child’s play. All Julia had to do was get hold of one of his cheque books, then practise signing James’ name on a sheet of paper. That had been fun. Well, poor old James never so much as glanced at his bank statements and he seemed to trust her implicitly. She would do it again, if she had to! Julia nodded to herself. She needed money. She always needed money, alas.
Julia had already managed to pinch Stella’s letters and diaries – the grandmother’s letters and diaries – she’d found them tucked away at the bottom of Stella’s suitcase. She intended to try and strike some sort of bargain with Tancred Vane. It might be tricky. Oh well, that could wait.
Julia’s thoughts turned back to her brother. Antonia Darcy would never be able to prove a thing – unless poor old James got flustered, lost his nerve and gave himself away…
Must talk to him, warn him. Would it be any good? Was it too late? Why didn’t he answer his mobile phone?
Where was he?
‘It’s the biographer guy and your sister.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They did it. They are the killers. They are in it together.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘At first I thought it was one of the witches. Melisande or Winifred. Everything was pointing first to one, then to the other witch, but soon I started putting two and two together. Suddenly I knew.’
‘Knew what?’
‘That they were in it together of course, James. Your sister and the biographer guy.’
Moon blew a giant bubble with her chewing gum. The television set was on, but she had muted it – they were showing Lethal Weapon 4, a film she quite liked, though she had already seen it four times and knew it by heart, so she was not interested.
‘I saw the pattern. I deduced that it had been them all along. I didn’t immediately know why they had to kill my mother. I worked that out later on. I am smarter than Mrs Fletcher, I keep telling you. Actually, I’m not at all surprised your sister Julia is the killer.’
‘You aren’t serious, are you?’
‘I am serious. Julia, dear Julia is peculiar. You don’t know your sister at all well, do you, James? You think you do, but you are wrong. You don’t. You are too busy making money. You know the stock market, but you don’t know your sister.’
‘You should go to school. School is better than tutors. I’ll get you into a good school. The very best,’ he went on, though he found it very difficult at the moment to conjure up a picture of a future that made sense, let alone one that was happy.
‘I don’t want to go to school. I don’t need to go to school. I know everything I need to know.’
Morland had missed most of what Moon had told him earlier on. He had been too preoccupied with his own thoughts to pay close attention.
‘Julia is the biographer guy’s secret girlfriend,’ she went on. ‘I guess Julia contacted him as soon as Mother started going to that weird place with the weird name. Pizza-at-nine.’
‘You mean the Villa Byzantine?’
She laughed. ‘Mother kept saying how rich the biographer guy was, how educated, how cultured, how delicate, all that shit.’
‘Language, Moon,’ he said absently.
‘She chattered about him all the time and about his house and how strange and baroque everything was. The biographer guy has a collection of Chinamen and an owl doorstop in his study, can you imagine? All extremely baroque and cultured. Mother showed Julia the pictures she’d taken on her mobile. Of Sacred Crane and his baroque house.’
‘His name is Tancred Vane.’
‘No, it’s Sacred Crane,’ she said firmly. ‘Julia’s curiosity was, as they say in books, piqued. She said to herself, I must have this man. You look as though you don’t believe me.’ Moon heaved a sigh. ‘You need to trust me more, James.’
‘I trust you.’
‘You need to trust me more.’
I shouldn’t have smoked that awful thing, Morland thought. His head was spinning. He was finding it hard to focus. He was feeling a little sick. It didn’t seem to have any effect on her. She said she smoked spliffs quite often. She liked the feeling it gave her. The feeling of power – she felt she could do – anything.
‘Now listen very carefully. This is important. Julia decides on a plan of action. She contacts the Sacred guy. She tells him some incredible tale and gets him interested.’
‘What incredible tale?’
‘How the fuck d’you expect me to know? I wasn’t sitting inside her head taking notes, was I? Something about those diaries and letters. All that shit. Perhaps she said she could make him photocopies of the diaries and give them to him for free.’