The Murder Of Gonzago

‘For God’s sake, Clarissa, pull yourself together… What was that about Stephan?’ Sylvester-Sale held the receiver closer to his ear. ‘No, he needs to stay there,’ he said firmly.

‘He is dreadfully unhappy. He hates the food. He hardly eats anything. He wants to know when he can come home. He keeps asking, “When can I come home, Mummy?” He sounds desperate. When will they release him? When will he be able to come home?’

‘I don’t know. It all depends how well he responds to treatment. They know what they are doing, I assure you. Sans Souci is one of the best places, if not the best.’

‘Sans Souci costs squillions. It’s incredibly expensive. Incredibly. For a loony bin.’

‘Sans Souci is not a loony bin.’

‘It’s more expensive than the Taj Mahal… More expensive than the Empire State Building… More expensive than Windsor Castle… And so much more expensive than the Kremlin.’ She giggled.

‘I hope you haven’t been drinking, Clarissa.’

‘I am having a little drinkie.’

‘You are a bad girl,’ he said wearily. ‘You promised you were not going to touch the stuff.’

‘I am in pain – in deep searing pain. I miss you terribly, Syl. I can’t live without you. If you leave me, I’ll kill myself. I am going to take an overdose.’

‘The Sans Souci staff are extremely efficient. The best specialists in the land,’ he said. ‘The rooms are airy and tastefully decorated. They have a cordon bleu chef-’

‘Life without you is not worth living.’

‘They know exactly what should be done for Stephan. Stephan will be all right, so there is absolutely no call for you to worry.’

‘What if he talks about what happened? You know he lacks any instinct for self-preservation. What if he tells everybody about it? He can’t be trusted to control his tongue… I mean the murder, Syl. What else could I possibly mean? What if he starts saying it was he who killed his stepfather?’

‘No one will take it seriously.’ Sylvester-Sale spoke reassuringly. ‘They are used to the wildest talk at these places… Sorry? Who’s accusing you? What bloody nonsense is that? You have had – an anonymous letter?’

He is going to leave her. He told me so last night. Clarissa never meant anything to him. He was bored, that was the only reason he started the affair. Also because he hated her husband. It was a form of revenge. He admitted he had made a mistake. It is me he loves. He told me I made his life worth living.

Clarissa is cunning like a fox, seductive like a she-cat and cold like a snake. She is obsessed with Syl. How she kept staring at him! She seems to have thrown all caution to the winds. That old boy at the funeral, Sir Gyles Napier, said Clarissa had been the sweetest girl when he first met her twenty years ago. Innocence personified. Sugar and spice and all things nice. Is that possible?

What’s that in my pocket? God, why do I keep carrying it about? No one saw me pick it up… The Remnant coat of arms and his initials are on it… Couldn’t be more damning!

He’s always been nice to me. Exceptionally nice. Always so kind and encouraging.

If I had been a different sort of person, I could have started blackmailing him…

What was he doing standing on the terrace outside the french windows at the time of the murder? What was he doing in Grenadin?

5

Travels With My Aunt

Lady Grylls and Major Payne were on their way to the Fenwicks’ house in Belgrave Square, where they were expected by Felicity Fenwick, or Lady Remnant, as she had now become.

‘I hate driving in London,’ Payne murmured.

‘Isn’t the mayor any good? I understand he is in fact a Turk – or was it an amateur cyclist? Some of my sources are far from reliable, mind. He is both? How extraordinary. What do mayors do? I am sure we could do without mayors. What are mayors for?’

‘I really have no idea, darling.’

‘Places like London practically run themselves, don’t they? Which is as it should be, given the high prices of everything. In my humble opinion, Hughie, mayors are surplus to requirements.’

‘You may be right, darling. But you were telling me about the Remnants – about the strange etymology of their family name?’

‘It was originally de Ruminant – de Revenant, according to some sources, which doesn’t seem terribly likely but it is interesting, nevertheless, given that dead and buried male Remnants have a trick of coming back and causing mischief.’

‘Coming back as revenants?’

‘Yes. Dead male Remnants frequently fail to find peace and they tend to return in the shape of malignant ghosts. There’s a legend about it. That’s why they had Roderick cremated, I suspect, though of course they’d never admit it, to prevent him from walking out of his grave. They clearly didn’t want to be left with a tenantless grave,’ Lady Grylls concluded.

‘Something whispers to me that the late Lord Remnant wasn’t a terribly nice man.’

‘He wasn’t at all nice. The Grenadier of Grenadin made that abundantly clear. He was far from popular with those poor locals. He had an awful lot of people evicted, you see, and he had their houses demolished. His explanation to the camera was that he was averse to sharing. He said he couldn’t help his overdeveloped sense of privacy.’

‘I wouldn’t call that a particularly satisfactory explanation.’

‘Neither would I. Roderick boasted of building a golf course and an English bar. That cost him a pretty penny, he pointed out. But the locals failed to appreciate his efforts and they bombarded him with death threats, though he insisted he didn’t let that bother him one little bit. The camera showed him shrugging and yawning in an exaggeratedly unconcerned manner.’

‘Death threats, eh?’ Payne gave his aunt a sidelong glance. ‘What did Lord Remnant die of exactly?’

‘Heart attack or stroke or something. You don’t suppose one should suspect anything more sinister, do you? Tenantless Graves. That would make a good title for one of Antonia’s novels, you know.’

‘I don’t think Antonia’s ever written a novel to match a title.’

‘Would I be right in saying the appeal of Antonia’s books lies not in appeasing the reader’s appetite for sensation or emotion but in satisfying curiosity?’

‘You would be. Jolly well put, darling.’

‘What’s Antonia up to these days?’

‘Not much. Writing as usual. Or thinking about it. Or talking about it.’

‘You don’t mind?’

‘No, not at all. It’s all great fun. She’s giving one of her rare interviews to some magazine this morning.’ Payne glanced at his watch. ‘In about an hour or so. Poor Antonia. She hates giving interviews.’

‘Poor Antonia. I am not sure I’d ever want to be a writer. I am being urged to write my memoirs, did I say? I was told I belonged to a vanishing breed and that whatever I wrote would sell like hot cakes… I rather doubt that… Do you think I could write about Corinne Coreille? [1] After all, the whole extraordinary episode took place at Chalfont.’

‘I don’t see why not. But you were telling me about the Remnants.’

‘The Remnants, yes. There’s a website devoted to the Remnant family, Provost tells me. Last night Provost got on the computer and ferreted out an awful lot of the most fascinating facts. No more fervent aficionado of the aristocracy than he exists among London’s millions.’ Lady Grylls shook her head. ‘Did you know you could get both Debrett’s and the Landed Gentry “online”? All at the click of a