The Death of Corinne (6 page)

Who
was
Maître Maginot? Eleanor’s eyelids flickered – closed. For some reason she felt exhausted. She hadn’t yet managed to recover from the jet lag, and now she was on a train, which had never happened before – she
hated
trains – but she wouldn’t have had it any other way. She wouldn’t have wanted to be like the sage who said,
Re
imperfecte mortuus sum
. Eleanor frowned, suddenly struck by a thought. I died with my purpose unachieved? How
could
he have said it if he was dead? Was he speaking from the nether world perhaps?

It would be no good going to the French embassy in London and asking to see Corinne Coreille, but Chalfont Park would be a different thing. An isolated manor house . . . perfect. If she could get there first and see how the land lay . . . She felt an odd thrill, at the thought of the isolated house. She remembered the tales her uncle, the General, had told her about his experiences in the Korean war, and an image promptly grew in her mind.

Eleanor saw herself in combat gear, a grenade in her hand, a slim army knife held between her teeth, her face smeared in mud, her body close to the ground as she crawled towards the house . . . She’d need to find out where exactly Chalfont Parva was situated. Some small village, by the sound of it, in the county of Shropshire . . . A map. She would need to get a map . . . She would arrive at Waterloo. Then a cab. No, not another train, thank you very much – a cab. She hated trains. Money was no object –

Eleanor could hear the raindrops tapping on the window-pane, like so many fingers telling her something in Morse . . . Why, it
was
Morse! As it happened, Eleanor knew the Morse alphabet. She inclined her head towards the window and listened . . . Sounded like a message of some sort. The . . . third . . . of . . . April? That was the date of Corinne Coreille’s arrival at Chalfont Park – of course!

The third of April. Do not forget. The third of April. Do not
forget. The third of
–

Who was sending the coded message? Was it . . . Griff?

6

Murder on Safari

‘Good lord,’ Major Payne said, remembering. ‘Corinne’s parents died some horrid death, didn’t they?’

Lady Grylls agreed that indeed it had been horrid. It wasn’t the kind of end one would have wished to one’s bitterest enemies. Too horrid for words.

‘What happened?’ Antonia asked again.

Lady Grylls started lighting another cigarette. Her hand shook a little and her face became mottled. Well, Ruse and
le falcon
had been killed in Africa . . . Killed, yes . . . Killed
and
mutilated. They had gone to Kenya on a safari. That had been surprising since neither of them was a great traveller, Ruse always said she was no good in the heat, and it wasn’t as though Africa was famous for its casinos, was it? Lady Grylls would have understood it, if they’d gone to Las Vegas or some such place . . . Thank God they hadn’t taken Corinne with them. They had ignored the warnings about the notorious criminal gang operating in the area where they had chosen to stay. In their second or third week they had left the hotel in a hired jeep.

‘They were never seen alive again. There was a search and their bodies were found, or rather what was left of them. It seems wild beasts had devoured most of them. They had been terribly mangled, unrecognizable, or so they said . . . Don’t let’s talk about it.’

There was a pause.
Neither of them was a great traveller . . .
Ruse always said she was no good in the heat
. . . Curious, Antonia thought. Or am I being ridiculously fanciful? Why do I always notice things like that? ‘Who identified them?’ she asked.

‘Who identified them? Goodness, my dear – you don’t think –’ Lady Grylls shook her head. ‘They were identified by Madame Coreille.
Le falcon
’s mother. She flew over to Kenya. She was a tough old bird, one of the leading psychoanalysts in France at the time, but what she saw shook her up. She told me about it later. She decided to have the mortal remains buried there, in Kenya. I do hope it was a bullet or a knife that killed them first.’ Lady Grylls paused. ‘The news found its way into the British press. I believe I collected every scrap of information there was about the case.’

Antonia asked, ‘Have you kept your scrapbooks?’

Lady Grylls pushed her glasses up her nose and said she was not sure. ‘I may have thrown them away. I burnt an awful lot of stuff over Christmas. Had a big bonfire made . . . So much rubbish everywhere . . . Or they are lying somewhere, gathering dust. I don’t know. At the bottom of some trunk most likely. By the way, Hughie – that stool Peverel wants so much – it’s not a real Pugin, is it?’

‘They used to be in the library,’ Payne said.

‘I
mustn
’
t
drop ash in the saucer – why doesn’t someone tell me off? Provost hates it when I do. Where’s the damned ashtray?’ Lady Grylls peered round in an abstracted manner.

She seemed reluctant to divulge the true whereabouts of her scrapbooks. Emphatically vague, Antonia decided – and she wondered as to the reason.

Payne said, ‘Corinne was badly affected by her parents’ death, wasn’t she?’

‘She was . . . terribly affected. Poor thing. She was twelve when it happened. They tried to keep her in the dark but it slipped out somehow. She’d gone to live with her grandmother. Madame Coreille came into a lot of money about that time and she opened her own clinic. I don’t think
she
gambled. Some kind of inheritance. Rory was of the opinion that the bloody Frenchwoman would only succeed in messing the gel up completely.’

’How bad was the trauma?’ Antonia asked – though what she really wanted to know was the exact provenance of Madame Coreille’s good fortune.

‘Bad enough . . . Corinne read the story of her parents’ death in some ghastly gossip rag –
Ici Paris
, I think. A magazine. Isn’t it odd that the French have no tabloid papers, only gossip magazines?
Eaten Alive
. Some such ghastly headline. The shock was so severe that Corinne lost her power of speech. She stopped eating – became extremely withdrawn. That went on for some time. Corinne didn’t seem to respond to
any
kind of treatment. Madame Coreille had tried analysis – she was at her wits’ end. Then, one day, something very strange happened. Can you –’

‘Corinne started singing?’

‘You are a dangerous woman, Antonia – nothing ever escapes you! Yes.
Corinne started singing
. Madame Coreille thought at first it was somebody on the wireless. She imagined it was Piaf or somebody. You see, Corinne had
never
sung before. She’d never shown any particular interest in music either. It was an extraordinary voice. Pure and light – like a bell.
Puissant
, I think was the word Madame Coreille used. She phoned me that same evening. A couple of days later I flew to Paris. I knew what she meant the moment Corinne opened her mouth. It was quite extraordinary.’

‘I believe I’ve heard the story before,’ Payne said. ‘You thought she sang like an angel. It made you blub.’

‘Don’t scoff, Hughie. You sound like Peverel when you do. Corinne did sing like an angel. And I did blub. Yes. It was a very special kind of voice . . . The more she sang the more her health improved. Madame Coreille hired a private music tutor for her, who was astounded and predicted that before long Corinne would have
toute la France
at her feet. Well, it happened seven years later. I was in Paris, sitting in the TV studio, next to Madame Coreille, watching Corinne appear on
Jeu de la Chance
.’

‘What game of chance is that?’ Antonia asked.

‘The show that discovers and promotes new singing talent. I think they still have it. I am sure you are familiar with the kind of thing?
Fame Academy
–
Pop Idol
. Don’t you watch them?’ Lady Grylls breathed incredulously as Antonia’s face remained blank.

’My wife’s viewing habits are uncompromisingly intellectual,’ Payne said. ‘She rarely watches the box and when she does, it’s only carefully selected programmes.’

‘Really? How very interesting. My dear Antonia, you don’t know what you’ve been missing. I wonder if it’s to do with you –’ Lady Grylls broke off. ‘What they have on
Pop Idol
is a lot of singularly talentless young people wearing extraordinary clothes, posturing and squawking in the most incredible manner. When they lose, they start crying. Such fun!’

Antonia found herself puzzling over what her aunt by marriage had been going to say.
I wonder if it
’
s to do with
you
– What? Being middle class?

‘Of course Corinne was a completely different kettle of fish. There was a collective gasp the moment she opened her mouth,’ Lady Grylls went on. ‘She sang two little-known Piaf songs. “La Fille de Joie” and “L’Homme Qui . . .” something or other. The man who – no, can’t remember.’

‘
Qui m
’
aime
?’ Payne suggested. ‘
Qui m
’
assassine
?’

‘Don’t be silly, Hughie. Anyhow. That launched her singing career. She was an instant hit. Never looked back. The whole of France voted for her.
She got every single vote
. They said General de Gaulle was one of the callers. Mr Lark took the next plane from America. He had watched the show on TV. He offered his services, was accepted and took control of Corinne’s career. He made sure Corinne was showered with offers. Olympia – Carnegie Hall. The rest, as they say, is history.’

There was a pause. ‘Was there ever a man in her life?’ Antonia asked.

‘No. I don’t think so. I don’t think she’s ever had a romance.’ Lady Grylls sighed. ‘Poor gel.’

‘No boyfriends?’

‘No. Nothing serious at any rate. She was too busy singing.’

‘Mr Lark. I seem to remember a rumour,’ Payne said. ‘Wasn’t there something between them?’

‘I may be wrong,’ Lady Grylls said, ‘but I don’t think she’s ever had an intimate relationship with a man. No, no girlfriends either. Out of the question. One simply doesn’t think of Corinne in those terms. Isn’t that extraordinary?’

‘Oh, but you are wrong. A lot of people
do
think of Corinne in those terms,’ a man’s voice said. ‘You’d be amazed.’

7

Sleep and His Brother

Eleanor didn’t know how much time had passed. She was sure she hadn’t been asleep, not quite, only floating in some self-induced trance-like daze.

She had been thinking of that golden September day twelve years previously, when Griff and she had taken a leisurely drive up the coast from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. It had been extremely hot to start with but then, just south of Ventura, there came that magical instant when the air cooled and the ocean appeared without warning in a blaze of reflected sunlight, a sudden flash of infinite sky and dazzling cobalt blue, waves breaking on reefs like lace on a glass table. The beauty had been so great, so overpowering, it rendered them speechless. It had felt like receiving an unexpected draught of some clarifying narcotic. ‘If only we could stay here for ever,’ Griff had said.

Eleanor felt confused and disoriented. Her heart was beating like a drum. For a couple of moments she had no idea where she was. Was this a train? She never travelled by train – never! She’d always had a beautiful chauffeur-driven car at her disposal – her 1954 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith Six Light Saloon. Trains made her feel ill. She needed to get out – she felt a panic attack approaching – where was the emergency button? Gasping, she half rose from her seat.

‘Would you like more tea, madame?’ The waiter had come up to her. She saw him look at the heap on the table as though he disapproved, then back at her.

‘I don’t want anything, thank you very much,’ Eleanor managed to say.

‘Is there anything wrong?’

‘No – nothing wrong!’ Eleanor snapped. She felt annoyed, which was a good sign for it meant that she had recovered. She resumed her seat. The waiter lingered and stared . . . Arrogant puppy! Sleek raven-black hair. Beetle brows. Melodramatically flaring nostrils. Buffed up through regular workouts. Very male, impossibly macho – oh so full of himself!

‘Not long until we arrive at Waterloo,’ the waiter said.

’Have you heard of Corinne Coreille?’ Eleanor asked on an impulse, making it sound like an insult.

‘
Who?
’ He appeared startled. He was no more than twenty-eight or nine.

‘Corinne Coreille.’

‘Oh. She was a singer, no?
Very
old?’

‘She is not very old,’ Eleanor bristled.

‘No? She is dead?’

‘She is not dead. She is in England.’

‘In England? I thought she was dead.’

Eleanor watched him swagger down the aisle. Why couldn’t she have had a son like him? Somebody who thought Corinne Coreille was dead and shrugged his shoulders with eloquent indifference when told she wasn’t.

Then the thought came into her head again.
Without
Corinne Coreille
’
s lachrymose French songs Griff wouldn
’
t have
killed himself
. Eleanor was now convinced of it. Corinne Coreille’s voice had been the catalyst. Yes. It had – tipped the balance. Corinne Coreille’s songs were bad for sensitive, vulnerable boys of Griff’s kind.

Eleanor’s research had revealed that Corinne Coreille sang the French version of ‘The Little White Cloud That Cried’, which, she had gathered, was what was known as a ‘gay anthem’; it was played regularly at Le Chevalier d’Eon.

She held out her hand before her in an eloquent gesture. ‘You must stop at once. Wasn’t it enough that you killed my only son? This is a matter of life and death, can you not see that?’

She broke off. She had had the sudden sensation of being whirled round in one of those revolving wheels at the circus. She felt giddy, nauseous, completely powerless . . . What she experienced next was a terrifying fragmentation – a total dissolution of her identity. Who
am
I? Eleanor moaned. She longed for peace, for deep, dreamless sleep – for oblivion – for death even . . . Sleep and Death. They were brothers, weren’t they, according to the ancient Greek proverb?

My emotional repertoire is not up to tragedy, Eleanor had once wittily said at a party in New York – to Gore Vidal, as it happened. But it was true – she was not equipped for dealing with tragedy . . . Pull yourself up, girl, she murmured. Perhaps she could take a sedative? She picked up a bottle of pills and capsules and unscrewed the top. Now which was which? Were the orange capsules sedatives and the blue ones stimulants, or was it the other way round? What were the
yellow
ones for? It was
so
unlike her to forget! She took one of each. Three capsules in total. Then, on an impulse, she took a fourth – a yellow one. The same colour as her gloves. She closed her eyes.

Eleanor used to enjoy sleeping. The ancient god Sleep – whom she always saw as a gracious host resplendent in Byzantine robes and a crown – used to conduct her into what she privately thought of as her true dimension, in which she became a vivid player, weightless and sometimes skittish, embroiled in obscure adventures, some risky, some very odd indeed, most of them delightful, which puzzled her only when she woke up – but since Griff’s death, sleep had become something of a burden. She regularly had nightmares, from which she woke screaming, sweating and gasping for breath, with skin-crawling recollections of being pursued, buried alive, mutilated or infected with hideous diseases.

The dream she had had the night before had not been as terrible as that, but it had been harrowing enough. After a long journey, having walked down endless dark corridors, stumbled through a swamp, in which something had swirled and hissed, and inched her way across a narrow bridge slung high above a dark abyss, she had at long last managed to confront Corinne Coreille. She had felt angry – furious. She had spoken in a choked voice –
My boy, what
did you do to my boy?

She was clutching a knife in her hand, the army knife that had been between her teeth earlier on, its blade flash-ing in the bright light, blinding her. She had worked herself into an unbridled frenzy and kept thrusting the knife forward in the direction of Corinne’s face. In response Corinne only gave a sad smile and held out her hand gently, in an imploring manner, palm upward, as though saying adieu to a parting lover.
You crazy bitch
. Infuriated, Eleanor slashed at Corinne’s neck several times, but the odd thing was . . . there was no blood. Not a drop of it. And the knife met with no resistance at all!

Sinking into sleep once more, Eleanor heard a voice whisper in her ear.

She is a false creation. She is just a name and a voice. She does
not exist.