I am in a state of shock, she thought. I need a fix. I can’t go on without a fix. No, it wouldn’t do for her to faint. Not now.
‘It was drugs, yes. Roderick was part of several trade missions and advisory organizations that are suspected of being a cover for smuggling drugs from the Caribbean,’ she explained. ‘A couple of local gangs were after him as well, either for queering their pitch or for not “fulfilling his duties”. There were several very good reasons for him to want to fake his death.’
‘I do think you should call the police, Clarissa. The sooner the better. Or I could do it, if you like?’
‘No! It would be madness. What shall I say to the police? I don’t want to sleep with my husband, please despatch a rescue squad? Then the whole thing would be out in the open. He’s bound to tell them that I was his accomplice, that I aided and abetted him. He wouldn’t have been able to do any of it without me!’
‘He is a monster!’
‘He reminded me we were meant to be “one flesh”, that ours was an “indissoluble union”. He says he has the legal right to demand a thousand little intimacies from me, including the ultimate, and it is a wife’s duty to honour and obey her husband. We have been married in name only, it’s been bothering him an awful lot, but now he intends to change the status quo. Oh, you should have heard him. He stood ranting outside my door.’
‘So he never… you never…?’
‘No. It never happened. The marriage was never consummated.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I am sure.’ Suddenly Clarissa laughed.
‘Thank God,’ Hortense said. ‘Thank God.’
‘There were – difficulties. All I can say is that it suited me. I couldn’t stand him. I should never have married him. Well, he let me have lovers. I don’t want to talk about it. Sorry. All too sordid for words. After he killed Quin, he promised he would disappear.’
‘You are sure it was he who killed that man?’
‘Well, yes! He planned the whole thing. The codicil makes that abundantly clear. He said I’d have a lot of money and then I could do whatever I pleased, but here he is now, back at Remnant, suddenly keen on uniting his flesh with mine!’
‘Where are you at the moment?’
‘In the smallest of the four Chinese rooms. There are fifty-eight rooms at Remnant,’ Clarissa said wearily. ‘I thought I might have killed him, but he seems to have recovered. He was knocking on the door a minute ago, asking me to be kind. He is mad… He said I’d split his forehead and that he was bleeding, but he has forgiven me.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In his bathroom, I imagine. He said he would have a bath. Perhaps he will drown in it. Or is that too much to hope? He said he wanted to be clean for me. He is mad,’ Clarissa repeated. ‘Oh God. What an impossible situation. He is supposed to be dead – and he is a murderer!’
‘You must leave Remnant at once!’
‘I can’t. He said I would regret it if I did leave. He means it. He said he’d send a letter to the police. Apparently he’s written an account of my involvement in the drug trade on Grenadin.’
‘Were you involved in the drug trade on Grenadin?’
‘In a way. All right. I didn’t do it for the money. There was a man I was in love with. Stanley – that’s Dr McLean – and I were lovers.’ Clarissa sighed. ‘Stanley was involved in drug peddling and he managed to get me interested. He persuaded me to invest capital in his venture. I wanted to help him. I was quite smitten with him… Are you sure you want to hear this?’
‘Yes. Do go on.’
‘That was before Syl came on the scene. Roderick was also involved with drugs, but, as it happened, with a rival gang. It sounds absurd, I know, but that’s the way it was. I thought Roderick didn’t know about me and Dr McLean but he does. He’s got papers and a tape.’
‘What tape?’
‘An audiotape. It seems he recorded one of our conversations on tape… It’s a damnably compromising kind of conversation. I said things I shouldn’t have said and so did Stanley. I am afraid we weren’t very careful.’
‘What did you say?’
‘We refer to various people and organizations, all of which can be checked. Roderick said he could have me sent to jail for some considerable time… He would love to punish me, but if I did my wifely duties by him, he wouldn’t. He’s blackmailing me… I don’t know what to do, Aunt Hortense. I really don’t. I am trapped – literally – trapped.’
Hurry, hurry, Hortense told herself. My daughter needs me!
She locked her front door. Her hand shook a little.
I must save her from the monster. I hope I am not too late.
Payne was driving. Antonia had a map spread across her knees.
A minute passed, then another…
He spoke, ‘I hate it when my ideas overlap, but-’
‘What ideas?’
‘For some reason I can’t get Louise Hunter’s account of that last supper at La Sorcière out of my head. I keep thinking about Lord Remnant’s story. About the deflowered debs and all those stolen pieces of jewellery.’
‘What a coincidence,’ said Antonia. ‘I’ve been thinking about that too. Are we by any chance interested in one particular piece of jewellery?’
‘We are.’ Payne cast her a sidelong glance. ‘I believe Clarissa was wearing the bracelet during Gonzago. For a moment or two the camera lingered on it. OK. Let’s be absolutely sure about it. Perhaps you could ring your friend, the hungry Hunter, and check with her?’
‘I was just about to suggest it.’
‘Yet another instance of the near-telepathic link that exists between us.’
‘How tediously weird that makes us sound.’
‘No, not tediously weird – fascinating. You know exactly what question to put to Mrs Hunter?’
‘I will ask her to describe the bracelet Clarissa wore at dinner at La Sorcière on the fatal night.’
She produced her mobile phone.
‘Mrs Hunter? This is Antonia Rushton speaking…’
A moment later she put away her phone and said, ‘Louise remembers the bracelet vividly. It had a particularly distinctive design, a coiled serpent made of black pearls. She said Lord Remnant shuddered theatrically as he pointed to it.’
Roderick, Lord Remnant, was enjoying what he thought of as his ‘second coming’.
He was having a bath. It was an old-fashioned bath made of enamelled cast iron and painted an azure kind of blue, its rounded corners supported on black claw and ball feet that stood on chequered black and white marble slabs. The bath had big brass taps with porcelain insets that said ‘Hot’ and ‘Cold’.
A minute or so earlier he had turned the taps on in the hope that the thundering water would drown the sounds of what he imagined was Clarissa sobbing. He liked the idea of her sobbing. It excited him. Suffering intrigued him immeasurably – though not while he was having a bath. There was a time and place for everything.
He sat with water up to his chest, delighting in the fragrance of aromatic oils and therapeutic salts. A haze of steam was hovering above his head, like a halo. He was sipping from a tall glass full of hock and seltzer. He gazed at the picture on the wall that showed a mermaid lying on a fishmonger’s slab, a resigned expression on her greenish face. He imagined the mermaid looked a bit like Clarissa…
Balnea, vina, Venus – how did it go on? Ages since he’d learnt Latin. Baths, wine and sex may wreck us up, but they – um – make life worth living?
Lord Remnant’s forehead was bandaged, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He hummed a little tune under his breath, ‘Said the don to his inamorata, won’t you let me past your garter?’