So that was going to be their line. Blank stares and blunt denials. The Lady Vanishes.
‘She couldn’t have come from anywhere else,’ Antonia said. ‘She is wearing a nightdress. Her arms and legs are covered in injection marks.’
‘I must call the police,’ the secretary went on, though she made no movement. ‘Oh!’ She seemed to have suddenly been visited by an idea. ‘Needle marks, did you say? I wonder if she’s one of the patients at the psychiatric hospital. There is a psychiatric hospital a couple of miles from here. She – this woman – may have run away – must have!’ The secretary spoke with a sense of shocked discovery. ‘I can easily get their number and ask.’
Had they come to an arrangement with somebody from the psychiatric hospital? One of the doctors? Somebody high-up? Well, everybody had a price, or so they said. How much did a death certificate cost? Was it more expensive than, say, a fake passport? Or was all this being said only to put her off the scent?
Seized by a sense of outrage, Antonia said, ‘Could I speak to Mrs Ralston-Scott?’
‘I am afraid Mrs Ralston-Scott isn’t here. She has gone abroad until the work on the house is completed. I don’t know when exactly she is coming back. Next month, I imagine – or the month after.’ The secretary continued standing by the doorway. Her hands were clasped before her, her head tilted slightly to one side. Was there anyone there, pulling the strings, providing instructions, prompting?
Antonia decided to change tack. She held up the letter. ‘I believe this belongs to her.’ She had raised her voice for the benefit of whoever might be hiding behind the door, listening.
The secretary blinked. ‘Oh?’
‘It’s a letter Mrs Vorodin wrote to Mrs Dufrette.’
There was a pause, then the secretary said in a voice that was only slightly changed, ‘I am sure you are mistaken, but I will see that Mrs Ralston-Scott gets the letter, if you really think it is hers. Just leave it with me.’
‘Would you also tell Mrs Vorodin – I mean Mrs Ralston-Scott – that Sonya’s father has no intention of pursuing the matter further? Lawrence Dufrette came to Twiston, looking for Sonya, but now that she is dead, he sees no point in bothering Mrs Vorodin.’ Antonia paused. ‘He sends a message. He said that he appreciates what Mrs Vorodin has done for Sonya. He realizes that he wouldn’t have been able to cope with Sonya’s deteriorating condition as effectively as Mrs Vorodin has been able to do. Would you tell her that?’
The secretary gave a little strained smile. ‘I will certainly convey your message to Mrs Ralston-Scott, though I am sorry to say I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Who is Mrs Vorodin?’
‘All right, Laura, that will do.’ A musical voice was heard and a woman came out from behind the door, as Antonia had felt sure she would. ‘Thank you very much. You may go now. Would you see that everything is done – properly?’
‘Yes, certainly, Mrs Ralston-Scott.’ The secretary disappeared.
Antonia rose from her seat. ‘Mrs Vorodin. You didn’t really think I’d just go away, did you?’
‘Mrs Rushton? That was your name, wasn’t it?’ Veronica Vorodin advanced upon Antonia with an extended hand, seemingly unruffled. ‘We did speak on the phone the other day, didn’t we? I am sorry but I didn’t recognize you from the window. It has been a long time. It is too late for tea. May I offer you a drink?’
26
Another Self
The archetypal squire’s lady – to the manor born – the country gentlewoman par excellence. And she had chosen the perfect name to match the part: Mrs Ralston-Scott. What was her first name now? Had she changed it to something like Charlotte or Celia? Well, it wasn’t such a difficult character part to play. She had been an actress and a superb mimic, as Dufrette had said, so she could do it easily. Who was it who had said, ‘If you are assuming another identity, you will never keep it unless you convince yourself that you are it?’ Well, Veronica Vorodin had become ‘it’.
She wore a bluish-grey blouse, a single string of pearls around her neck, a long black skirt and black court shoes. Her iron-grey hair was short and windswept in an uncompromising manner and she seemed to have made no concession to any current fashions. How old was she? At the time of their last meeting she had been thirty-eight, Antonia remembered, which made her fifty-eight. Twenty years ago she had struck Antonia as much younger, barely out of her teens, but now she had decided to look her age. Her face was weather-beaten and she wore next to no make-up. She had perfect cheekbones and was still what could be described as a ‘handsome woman’, though one had to look very hard to recognize in her the glamorous bronzed creature with the Gucci glasses, to whom Antonia had chatted in the garden about children in general and Sonya in particular.
She sat on the sofa facing Antonia. She had poured herself a whisky in a cut-crystal glass. Antonia had plumped for home-made lemonade with lots of ice.
At first sight Veronica seemed perfectly composed but it was clear that she had been crying. The lavender eyes were red and every now and then she pressed a handkerchief against her lips.
After she had listened to Antonia, she nodded and said, ‘I see you know everything. You’ve been extremely clever. You are absolutely right in every detail. I did buy Twiston because I’d always wanted to live here. It was love at first sight. But there’s more to it. I hope you will understand. I rather liked the idea of there being a symmetry about it.’
‘Symmetry?’
‘Yes. You see, Twiston had been made an unhappy place after we took Sonya, so I wanted to bring her back to it, to make it happy again. I meant to repair the balance. Foolish of me. I could be incredibly sentimental sometimes – fatalistic too. It’s my Russian blood, I suppose. I do get these irrational fancies. You strike me as a terribly logical and sensible person, so I don’t suppose you have much patience with the sort of thing I mean?’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Antonia murmured.
‘Really? Well, that does make me feel better. But you want to hear about Sonya and the missing twenty years, don’t you? What happened after we… bought her from Lena? Well, to start with, everything was wonderful. I mean, as wonderful as could be, given the state of Sonya’s mental health. Sonya didn’t seem to notice that she had a new set of parents. She became genuinely attached to us and allowed us to love her. That was the really important thing. She was happy, in her own way. I’d like to think that she was happier than before. Well, she didn’t seem to need much, poor thing. We showered her with gifts, of course. We went to live on Simi. Have you heard of Simi?’
‘Is it a paradise island?’ Antonia gave a little smile.
‘You might call it that. It is one of the least known and prettiest of Greek islands off the Turkish coast. The kindest people live there. We did an awful lot of yachting. Sonya loved the sea. Eventually we moved to America. Until she was twelve, she was perfectly manageable, but things started getting difficult when she entered puberty. At first, it was generally assumed that she was autistic, but it soon became clear that she was a lot more than that. She started displaying other symptoms, some, I must say, rather disturbing. She became psychotic. We kept taking her to doctors – once she was seen by seven different doctors in one month, but no one could help.’
Antonia asked what exactly had been wrong with Sonya.
‘Head… brain… nervous system… glands… She had several “syndromes”. Long Latin names. Something called “paranoid psychosis”. A thyroid disorder known as Hashimoto’s – it presents itself in a dizzying variety of ways. Oh, practically everything was wrong with her!’ Veronica cried. ‘One moment she was sweet and angelic, the next she would start writhing and screaming and kicking and biting. When she became depressed, she would hardly be able to breathe and then, suddenly, she would be possessed by this manic energy and start running about, punching things. It was dreadful. She developed headaches. Sometimes they were so bad, she passed out. We kept giving her stronger and stronger pills – painkillers, sedatives, anti-depressants, stimulants. Then she was prescribed injections. In fact, over the last couple of years she’s had both pills and injections. Oh dear. I do sound exasperated, don’t I?’