She drove slowly up Portland Place and brought the car round the Devonshire Street turn to the Mews. Antonia got out and ran into the house. Rose pulled out the key of the car and followed.
Antonia’s voice hailed her excitedly from the sitting room where they had left the body. ‘He’s starting to loosen up. I think we can move him tonight.’
Rose thought, what’s the point? She remained in the kitchen, sparing herself another sight of the corpse.
Antonia appeared again, radiant with her discovery. Her dead husband might have been a bread-mix from the way she talked about him. ‘I’ll put some heat in there and he’ll be ready in no time.’
Rose looked round for something else to occupy her. The cat had walked in and wanted feeding, so she opened the fridge. Some uncooked meat was in there on a plate. ‘Is it safe to feed this to Raffles?’
‘What do you mean — safe?’
‘Free from poison.’
‘For crying out loud, you halfwit. There was never any poison.’
‘No poison?’
‘Only the chloroform.’
‘For Hector?’
‘No — for you, stupid.’ The barb sprang from Antonia’s tongue and she immediately tried to cover it with words. ‘The point is, you can feed the bloody cat with perfect safety. I’ve got to find an electric fire.’ She quit the room.
Rose stood rigid. Now she knew. Hector’s murder had been an afterthought, one of Antonia’s devil-may-care decisions after the murder attempt failed. The whole charade of Antonia going away and Hector requiring cooked meals had been dreamed up to bring Rose herself to the house to be chloroformed and killed.
Why?
How could she have so antagonized Antonia? The worst she was guilty of was an innocent meal out with Hector.
What did Antonia hope to gain by it?
She thought back to Barry’s death. That had been casual and coldblooded. Barry had been insufferable, but not to Antonia. She had no grudge against him, yet she had calmly offered to kill him. And kept her promise.
Antonia didn’t need a bloodlust or a brainstorm. She murdered with detachment. Yet not without reason. Surely not without reason.
She must have killed Barry because it put Rose under an obligation to her. Something was wanted in return.
The opportunity to steal the death certificate from the registrar? Not just that.
Rose clenched her fists.
My identity.
I assumed all along that she wanted me to square the account by killing Hector, possibly without knowing what I was doing. I was wrong. If she’d wanted Hector dead she’d have done it herself. She didn’t need me for that. But if she killed me she could write her own name on the death certificate and ‘die’. She’d have my handbag with all my papers and my house keys. She’d become Rose Bell and she’d be free to go to America with Vic and marry him.
And Hector, could he have known about this? Was it possible that he’d gone along with it? Did he know of the plan that evening in Reggiori’s?
Rose thought back to what she had heard about the drowning of Hector’s first wife. He’d connived at that. Why shouldn’t he have also connived at another murder?
The cat mewed.
She took the meat from the fridge and looked for a knife with a good, sharp edge.
29
Just what are you doing with that knife?’
Antonia stood in the doorway, her right hand gripping the door frame.
Rose looked up. She’d taken it from a drawer containing wooden spoons, tin openers, meat skewers and a selection of knives and cleavers. This had been the obvious one to choose, a long bone-handled carver with a blade that may once have been uniformly wide. Years of sharpening had honed it to a point.
‘What I said I would do — cutting up meat for the cat.’
‘It shouldn’t be used for that.’
‘Why not? It’s wonderfully sharp.’
‘It’s the carver.’
‘I’ve finished now.’ Calmly Rose picked up the chopping board and used the knife to push the pieces off into the cat’s dish. ‘That should keep him quiet.’ She took the knife to the sink and ran some water over it. She reached for a teacloth and wiped the blade, taking care not to touch the edge, turning it over appreciatively. ‘An old knife like this is certainly worth looking after.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Rose gave a shrug. ‘I wouldn’t mind betting it’s sharper than anything else you’ve got.’
For a moment Antonia had looked alarmed. Now she seemed to accept that she’d misinterpreted what she’d seen. She put her hand to her hair and twined one blonde strand around her forefinger and twitched her mouth into an odd, speculative smile. ‘There’s a hacksaw in the garage.’
Rose frowned. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘I should have thought it was obvious.’
‘Well, it isn’t to me. What are you suggesting?’
‘He’d be easier to bury in pieces.’
Rose dropped the knife in the drawer and slammed it shut.
Antonia carried on in a persuasive voice as if she were suggesting how to pass a diverting evening. ‘We could wrap the bits in newspaper and bury them in different places.’
‘That’s vile. How could you possible do it?’
‘The two of us, ducky.’
Rose’s stomach heaved. ‘You must be mad even to think of such a horrible thing.’
She got a cold stare. ‘Think of something better, then.’ Getting no answer, Antonia added, ‘Sweetie, we’ve got a dead man to dispose of. You’d better face up to reality.’
The words hit Rose hard. The thought of butchering any human corpse, let alone Hector’s, was too nauseous to contemplate. Yet she was barren of suggestions.
As if to underline the inactivity, Antonia fetched some playing cards from one of the other rooms and started a game of patience on the kitchen table.
‘Understand what I said, Rose? You kept your lily white hands clean when I got rid of Barry, but you’re as tainted as I am because you asked me to do it. I don’t know what goes on inside that mind of yours, but you can’t go on looking the other way. Face it, you’re a killer, just as I am. If you want to go on living, stop playing Snow White and get some blood on your hands.’
The phone rang.
Their eyes met. Antonia stood up. ‘It’ll be Vic.’
‘Don’t answer it.’
‘I can talk to Vic.’
‘You don’t know who it is.’
The bell pealed out its insistent notes.
‘For pity’s sake, it’s only a telephone.’ Antonia ran across the hall.
‘You’re asking for trouble.’
Furious, Rose followed her into the room and stood not a yard away.
‘Yes?... Speaking, yes.’ Antonia switched the receiver to her other ear and turned her back on Rose. Her voice was guarded. This certainly wasn’t Vic. ‘Really? He left here as usual... No, not yet, but that’s nothing unusual. He works all hours, as you know... I see... No, he didn’t — but then I didn’t enquire. I’m his wife, darling, not his nursemaid. Perhaps he spent the day at that exhibition... Closed? I didn’t know that... Well, did he go to Paris, do you think? He had lunch with some Frenchman the other day... God, no, I’d be the last to know... Listen, my dear, it’s not the end of the world. Surely the place can survive for a couple of days without him? I’ll get him to ring you if he gets in touch. There’s nothing more I can do.’ She slammed down the phone. ‘Bloody woman.’
‘His secretary?’