The Hunt for Sonya Dufrette (24 page)

The heat.

Where
was
the oak? Antonia stood looking round. Was it to the left or the right? Well, directions didn’t really matter - the tree was so big, it could easily be seen from anywhere in the garden. Only now she couldn’t see it. Not at all. How peculiar ... She started walking again, followed the path to the left. There was the statue of Pan covered in green moss and the disused pond filled with murky rain water. There was the rustic seat too, where Sir Michael had liked to sit. But the seat used to be
under
the oak! She saw the oak in her mind’s eye: dark and lifeless and melancholy, with brittle sharp branches, like a skeletal hand reaching into the sky. The oak should be - out there.

But it wasn’t. Not any longer. Taking a few steps, Antonia stood blinking. She gasped as her eyes fell on the stump. It resembled the crater of a mini volcano. The oak was gone. It had been cut - removed - disposed of. The area had been carefully cleaned. There was not a single branch or bough littering the ground. How was that possible? When did it happen? Hadn’t Mrs Ralston-Scott been talking about the oak only three hours ago - she had sought advice on national radio. To cut or not to cut, she had said.

Then Antonia saw what had happened. The programme had been a repeat. The radio recording must have been made the week before. Mrs Ralston-Scott hadn’t wasted time. She had called the tree surgeon soon after her appearance on
Gardeners’ Question Time,
probably the very next day, and requested the removal of the offensive oak. Enough, she must have thought, was enough.

Antonia knelt beside the dun-coloured stump. The tree, she could see now, had been entirely hollow inside. The cement base was still there, but it had been broken up, smashed into several pieces. She ran her hand across one - burrowed her fingers in the cracks. There was nothing there. Nothing at all. Not a single trace of a small skeleton. No child had ever been immured in the hollow. That, she realized, had been her wild imagination at work again. Of all the preposterous propositions!

She felt the blood rushing into her face. She bit her lip. She didn’t know whether to laugh or weep.
Watch out for the ring,
Miss Pettigrew had whispered in her ear, but Miss Pettigrew had proved a bad counsellor.

Never trust an imaginary friend, Antonia thought as she rose to her feet.

24

The Hour of the Wolf

But then who was that man - the man she had observed in the club library - and what had it all meant? An expression of shock had been on his brick-red face all right. She didn’t think she had been wrong about that. He had been listening to the radio, to
Gardeners’ Question Time,
to Mrs Ralston-Scott’s voice talking about the proposed sawing down of the ancient oak ... Though had he?

Antonia sat down on the rustic seat, shut her eyes and replayed in her mind the scene she had observed, slowly, very carefully. The man had been reading the paper and she had seen him drop it as though in sudden agitation. It had been a racing paper. She had assumed that he had received a shock because of something he had heard on the radio, but what if it was something he had read in the racing paper that had caused him to look as though he were going to have a heart attack?
The racing results ...
Yes. He was a betting man. A lethal gambler. He had put a lot of money on the wrong horse and lost. That would account for it. He had lost a fortune, that’s why he had looked staggered - so terribly upset. Her imagination had done the rest.

The man hadn’t been Major Nagle. It would have been too extraordinary, too fantastic, too serendipitous a coincidence if it had been him. It had been someone else. Another military type. Somebody who had had no intention of coming to Twiston, who had no idea where Twiston was. A stranger. She had been a fool. A crazy overheated fool. She couldn’t have misread the situation more completely. Her theory of the body in the hollow, like the uniform of George V in the portrait in the committee room, had seemed so perfect and clear from a distance, but on close inspection it proved to be no more than a fuzzy and meaningless blur. She had acted precipitously. She had ignored reason and allowed her imagination to lead her on a trail of false clues - and there she was now, in her summer frock, sunburnt, hot and grimy, at Twiston.

Full circle, Antonia thought. Things had come full circle. It had all started at Twiston, with a tragedy, followed by a mystery, and it was ending at Twiston with a loose end. That was life, sadly. Only in detective stories were problems resolved neatly on the last page.

She sighed and shook her head. She had been a fool. It would be embarrassing to tell anyone about it, even Hugh! She couldn’t blame the heat completely and exclusively - she had to take some responsibility for it herself ... At least there had been no murder and chances were that Sonya was still alive, leading a happy life with Mrs Vorodin somewhere abroad, near a cobalt-blue sea and golden beaches, under cloudless skies ...

What now? She had no money on her. How could she get back to London? She couldn’t go on depending on the kindness of cab drivers! What a ridiculous situation. Perhaps she could ring David and ask him to come and collect her in his car? Yes. But she didn’t have any change for a phone call; she didn’t even know where the nearest telephone booth was ... She did possess a mobile phone but hardly ever used it. She always managed to leave it at home. She had no option but to go up to the house and ask Mrs Ralston-Scott for permission to use the telephone. Rising, Antonia began to walk slowly towards the house.

What explanation for her presence on the grounds of Twiston should she give? Should she tell Mrs Ralston-Scott who she was and remind her of their conversation on the telephone the week before? Perhaps she could say that she was staying at a place not far from Twiston and that she had come to the house to relive memories? No - that wouldn’t explain why she needed to make an urgent phone call to her son in London -

Suddenly she stopped. She had come out into a clearing. It was a smallish lawn with a sundial in its centre, surrounded by statuary of the classical kind. It was a secluded spot and she had no recollection of having been in this part of the garden before. It was at the middle of the lawn, at what lay there beside the sundial that she stood staring. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The scene had a theatrical, surreal, rather hallucinatory quality about it. Well, she had come thinking of a body, looking for a body, and she seemed to have found it. Only — only it was the wrong body.

This was not the tiny body of a child but that of a grossly fat woman ...

Antonia felt her legs moving once more. Then she stopped again.

The woman was dressed in a long white dress. She lay on her back, spread-eagled, arms flung out. Her face was bluish in colour, like a discarded rubber mask. Blubber lips. Swollen, sagging flesh - blotched, like a toad’s — obscene! Folds of double chin. The light brown eyes were wide open and glazed. Her hair very long, grey and straggly. She brought to mind some grotesque middle-aged Ophelia —

And she was not alone. It was only then, with a start, that Antonia noticed the man who stood beside the woman’s body, looking down at it. He was very still. She should have noticed him first, but she hadn’t — she had taken him for one of the statues! Her attention had been on the dead body on the ground alone.

The man had an air of detached consideration about him. He was elderly and his great height, mane of silver hair and fastidious expression lent him a patrician distinction.

Then Antonia received her third jolt. The man, she realized, was Lawrence Dufrette and in his hand he was holding a gun.

It was the antique, freakishly small, mother-of-pearl-encrusted Derringer.

Several moments passed. Antonia continued staring, hypnotized, horrified, taking in more details. Her eyes were on the red stain on the woman’s temple where blood had oozed and dripped on the white dress, which she imagined was actually a nightgown of some sort. She then noticed the dark bruise on the woman’s forehead.

Lawrence Dufrette turned round slowly and looked at her. ‘Antonia? What are you doing here?’ He sounded tired. ‘I told you to leave it all to me, didn’t I? Why don’t you listen?’ Seeing her eyes fixed on the gun, he gave a smile, the wolfish smile she knew. ‘It is real, you know. It is loaded.’ There was blood on his hand, she noticed - also on his chin.

The woman’s blood ... Who
was
she?

Antonia said nothing. She seemed to have lost the ability to speak. Dufrette was wearing a sand-coloured safari suit. He was thinner than the last time she had seen him, that’s why he had struck her as taller. There was a glint in his eye she didn’t like. ‘What’s the matter? The cat got your tongue?’ He was looking not at her, but down at his gun.

She said, ‘Major Payne will be here at any moment.’ Would that deter him? For the first time she felt very frightened.

This seemed to amuse him for he laughed. ‘Ah, your sidekick. Or is it the other way round? Who’s the Watson?’ He laughed again, more shrilly. The whinny - it sent goose-bumps down her back. ‘I always found these husband-and-wife duos such flavourless confections, rather annoying, actually, with their constant clever talk, jocular sparrings and synthetic passions. Nick and Norah Charles ... Mr and Mrs Paul Temple. Are you familiar with the Temples? Each adventure starts with a mystery of sorts, but it is invariably lost in the action that follows. Someone tries to eliminate them - the car Mrs Temple is in explodes - Paul Temple is shot at - they never die of course, but then that’s third-rate fiction for you. Now, if I were to pull the trigger I wouldn’t miss, I assure you. I have every right to defend myself. You have been stalking me.’

Antonia put up her hand. ‘No, that’s not true -’

‘This, I explained to you, was a private matter. A very private matter. What right have you got to poke your nose into it? I did ask you to stop snooping. I asked you very politely, I remember. I
did
ask you.’ His voice rose. The hysterical note was unmistakable. She saw him raise the gun —

Talk. Distract him. Don’t panic. Don’t stop. She said, ‘I am sorry. I didn’t know you were here. I had absolutely no idea. I came chasing after someone.’ She discovered she was still clutching the blazer button she had found beside the Edwardian game larder. ‘I thought I saw Major Nagle. In the club library. I thought he was on his way here, so I followed him. Do you remember Major Nagle?’

‘Nagle?’ Dufrette lowered the gun a little. He scowled. ‘Of course I remember Nagle. What about him?’

‘I thought I saw him at the club -’

‘What are you talking about? You couldn’t have. Nagle’s gone. He’s disappeared completely. Abroad, I expect. Lying low in some obscure location. A guesthouse in Gstaad — a
pension
in Pons?’ Dufrette giggled. ‘Small surprise. His name was mud after I had finished with him. I met several fellows who said they’d been trying to get on to his spoor but failed. No one knows where he is. I’d have been the first to hear if he was back. I have my spies, you know.’

‘I thought it was he who killed Sonya.’

Dufrette lowered the gun further. He stared at her. ‘You thought Nagle killed Sonya? You are a fool, Antonia. A greater fool than I imagined.’ He paused. ‘Sonya, if you must know, is alive, though she seems to be far from well. Actually, I am dreadfully worried about her. I don’t quite know what to do.’ He was still holding the gun in his right hand, but he pushed his left hand inside his jacket and produced a folded sheet of paper. Pale mauve with gilded edges. She recognized it at once. He frowned down at it thoughtfully.

‘The letter,’ she said. ‘Veronica Vorodin’s letter.’

‘Yes, the letter. How uncommonly perspicacious of you.’

‘Did you have it translated?’

‘As a matter of fact I did. This morning. I wanted it done sooner but the fellow was away. It’s somebody I was at school with. He read Russian at Cambridge. Was Burgess’s
facile princeps
catamite for a while, though that’s neither here nor there. Name of Rose. You wouldn’t know him.’

‘What’s in the letter?’

‘Ah, wouldn’t you like to know!’ Dufrette put the letter back into his pocket. His eyes flashed angrily and he waved the gun. ‘You
love
asking questions, don’t you? Who do you think you are? Oedipus come to consult the Oracle? What’s in the letter indeed! Well, none of your bloody business. This is a very private matter. Can’t you get it into your thick head? Can’t you
understand?’
He raised his voice once again. ‘What kind of an impertinent nosy parker are you?’

‘I — I am sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I am afraid I’ve been obsessed with the mystery of Sonya’s disappearance ...’

She saw him examine the gun and wondered whether he would use it on her. He might - he was mad.

In something of a panic, not knowing what else to say, she blurted out, ‘Why did you kill her?’

She immediately wished she hadn‘t, but the question, rather than send him into a renewed paroxysm of fury, seemed only to puzzle him. ’Kill — who?‘ His eyes strayed down to the body on the ground.
’Her?
You think I killed her? Well, I didn’t.‘

‘Who is she?’

Dufrette said, ‘My good woman, I haven’t got the slightest idea. I was taking a short cut, you see. I was on my way to the house. Didn’t look where I was going. Plenty on my mind, I must admit.’ Suddenly he sounded extremely amiable. ‘I stumbled on her, literally. Nearly fell over. Saw she was dead at once. She hadn’t been dead long, mind. I checked. She was still warm. I turned her over. That’s when I got blood on my hand, I expect.’ He took out his handkerchief and wiped his fingers. ‘You thought I shot her?’

Antonia pointed to the wound on the woman’s temple. ‘How — how did she get that?’

‘That’s not a shot wound,’ he said.

It dawned on her then that, incredible as it might appear, he was telling the truth after all. If he had fired his gun, she would have heard it, she reflected. She had been in the garden for at least fifteen minutes. The gun had no silencer. She would certainly have heard a shot. She felt herself relaxing a bit. ‘Why did you bring your gun?’