‘I don’t believe my brother-in-law was meant to die on camera. It was obvious that it just — happened. Clarissa seemed to want the camera switched off at once. She looked extremely agitated. What do you think, Hugh? You are very quiet.’
‘The doctor couldn’t have poured poison into Lord Remnant’s ear since the glass was empty,’ said Payne. ‘There was nothing in it. He only pretended to be pouring.’
‘How can you be sure the glass was empty?’ Lady Grylls said.
‘Well, he was holding it upside down.’
‘Upside down? Are you sure, Hughie? I never noticed!’
‘I didn’t notice either,’ Felicity Remnant admitted.
‘It’s the kind of thing I tend to notice. You see, I am one of those obsessively observant people. I seem to possess what is known as “sensitivity to visual impressions”.’ Payne spoke in apologetic tones. ‘Let’s play that bit again, shall we? I’ll show you. Lady Remnant, would you be so good as to rewind? There it is — stop. Look. Look.’
There was a pause.
‘Goodness, yes. How extraordinary,’ Lady Grylls said. ‘You are perfectly right, Hughie. Yes. It happens very fast. He’s holding the glass upside down and then he realizes it looks silly and turns it over quickly and handles it properly! The glass is empty, that’s as plain as the nose on your face … Does that mean Roderick wasn’t killed after all?’
‘If he was killed, it was done in some other way.’
Felicity said, ‘The anonymously sent videotape showing the precise moment of my brother-in-law’s death suggests that there was something wrong about it, wouldn’t you say?’
Payne nodded. ‘Yes. I believe it does. Though it isn’t immediately clear from watching it how Lord Remnant died. The tape was sent to Lord Remnant’s brother, the present Earl Remnant … The sender is most likely to be one of the people who was there when Lord Remnant died. Some poor soul tormented by a guilty conscience or — or someone intent on stirring up miching mallecho.’
‘I’d be grateful if you spoke plain English, Hughie.’
‘Mischief, darling. Trouble. Miching mallecho is the phrase Hamlet uses … Did the tape sender mean to plant a suspicion or suggest a line of inquiry? Does the recording perhaps contain something which we should have seen but didn’t?’
‘I thought we saw everything there was to be seen,’ said Lady Grylls.
‘The bit where Lord Remnant dies — I’d like to see it again. If Lady Remnant doesn’t mind. It may be my imagination, but-’ He broke off.
‘You saw something? What is it? Out with it!’ Lady Grylls cried.
‘I want to see that bit again … If I am right,’ said Payne, ‘you will see it too.’
** See The Hunt for Sonya Dufrette.
10
The phone rang and Clarissa’s heart jumped inside her. She wanted to answer it because she thought it might be Syl, whom she loved with a love that was passionate, single-minded and overpowering, but she also feared it might be the call she dreaded. When she eventually did pick up the receiver, she discovered it was somebody from the Sunday Telegraph.
A journalist. A man. He said they wanted to do a feature on Remnant Castle — would Lady Remnant be good enough to show them around and give them an interview? The feature would appear in the Telegraph magazine. It was a friendly enough voice.
Clarissa said no, impossible, out of the question; her husband had been dead only ten days, they must know that, surely? Couldn’t they be more sensitive? Her husband’s ashes were still warm in the urn, she was terribly upset, she was ill, she had been sleeping badly, everything was at sixes and sevens, she was receiving no one, couldn’t they leave her alone?
‘Perhaps you could call again when my brother-in-law takes over. You may find him more welcoming. He may even suggest writing the piece himself!’ She slammed down the receiver.
Her brother-in-law had hinted he might sell the place. She was not at all surprised. That was what she had always wanted to do herself. Gerard needed the money for some crackpot idea of his. Another futile writing venture, she imagined.
The day was cold and grey. She felt oppressed by the mists that invariably rose around Remnant. She felt cut off, isolated. The central heating wasn’t working properly and there was no one who could do anything about it. She had got rid of the servants — she had followed the instructions to the letter. No servants and no visitors.
Her eyelids fluttered — closed.
She dozed off.
She had a dream.
They were back at La Sorciere and her husband lay on the chaise longue and he was bleeding profusely from a wound in the back of his head. There was blood everywhere, on the floor, on the walls, even on the ceiling, the whole room glistened with it. Then the french windows burst open and someone dressed in white and wearing the Bottom head sauntered in, calling out breezily, ‘Anyone for tennis?’ A man. Only instead of a tennis racquet, he held a gun — and his voice was very much like her husband’s voice-
She woke up.
She rose to her feet. She felt sick. She couldn’t bear sitting another moment in the barn-like drawing room with its crimson-clad walls, hung in 1895 and now faded to a shade of raspberry fool, huge crystal chandeliers that brought to mind inverted fountains, Ming vases, Remnant portraits painted by the likes of Gainsborough, Reynolds, de Lazlo, Sargent and Lucian Freud.
Mr Quin. She was expecting a call from Mr Quin. Mr Quin had her in his power. She needed to obey Mr Quin’s orders. She shut her eyes. I pray and hope I die before I go mad, she thought.
It was only midday, but it was getting darker by the minute. Twilight at noon. How she hated England! She longed to go back to the Caribbean. That morning she had woken up filled with the depressing foreknowledge that it would be another day of unmitigated misery …
She intended to turn on every single chandelier and she was going to light all the candles. Her instructions hadn’t included having to keep Remnant sunk in gloom. Thank God for small mercies. She laughed shrilly and at once felt the ache in her throat that preceded tears.
As she walked across the drawing room and opened the door she tried to divide her thoughts into manageable portions and make sense of the events of the last ten days.
She might have been the abbess of a nunnery heading for a private audience with the Pope. Her face was free of make-up and her short fair hair was entirely concealed by a black chiffon scarf; her black dress was loose and long, though her slender ankles were clad in black silk and she wore vaguely erotic black high-heeled shoes.
She was also wearing enormous round black sunglasses, which was odd of her, she knew, one didn’t wear sunglasses indoors, especially not in England, but they dramatized her lightly bronzed face, which was an effect she rather liked. But her carefully cultivated Grenadin tan had started to fade and she needed to do something about it. The moment I stop caring how I look will be the absolute unconditional end, she thought. She paused to light a cigarette and dropped the match on the floor.
Not so long ago there had been an insolent air of authority about Clarissa, of confidence, of arrogance even, also of carelessness and insouciance; she had managed to display the negligent drop-dead chic with which a mannequin swishes down a catwalk.
No more. She was aware that she was walking rather stiffly, stagily, self-consciously; she might have had a bit part in some amateur production. She almost expected the director to shout and halt her and order her to start again, to walk away and do it again, properly …
Catching sight of her reflection in one of the murky mottled mirrors made her shudder. She took off her dark glasses. The Bride of Frankenstein, she mouthed. She had lost a lot of weight. She looked preternaturally ethereal; thinner than ever before! Beneath the fading tan she was as pale as an ivory opium pipe. Well, she had hardly eaten a thing for heaven knew how long. She had been subsisting on the odd bowl of soup and cups of strong Arabica roast, which, she suspected, accounted for the panic attacks she had been having.