great integrity – not the least bit fanciful either!’
‘Sorry, but I can’t allow this. You’ve got it all wrong. In the first place, there was no murder.’ Lena was clearly making a monumental effort to appear calm. ‘You don’t know the story. A little girl did drown in the river, true, but that was an accident, not murder. That was an accident, a fucking accident. Sonya – the little girl – drowned. She fell into the river -’
‘Oh, you know about it?’ Antonia breathed. ‘You weren’t by any chance there when it happened?’
Lena considered the point and seemed to come to a decision. ‘As a matter of fact I was there. It was all most upsetting. I was staying at the house. I – um – I knew the girl’s parents. We were fellow guests. Actually, I was great friends with the mother.’
‘What was she like?’ Payne asked slyly. He put a match to his pipe.
‘Oh, wonderful woman. Big-hearted. Giving. She’d had a very hard life. She’d never known true love, not for long. Only one man had ever loved her – and one woman. They had both worshipped her.’ Lena dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her gown. ‘Oh, she was a sweet-tempered, sensitive creature. One of the very best. The same, alas, can’t be said about the father, but I mustn’t gossip. Hate gossip. What I mean is, I know perfectly well what I am talking about.’
‘Remarkable,’ Payne said.
‘Do tell us more!’ Antonia gushed.
‘There is nothing to tell. Why are people such ghouls? Sonya – I mean the little girl – fell into the river and drowned, that’s all there is to it. She was young for her age. Backward. Terribly difficult, taking care of a child like that. I couldn’t – I mean the mother couldn’t call her time her own! They found her doll floating on the river, but of the girl there was no sign. Her body was never recovered, see? It was an accident. So next time you see your friend Sandys, kindly inform him that he’s got the wrong end of the stick altogether. Tell him to be very careful. It’s actually a crime spreading malicious rumours. If he’s not careful, your friend Sandys may find himself in court.’
‘Dear lady!’ Major Payne protested. ‘I assure you -’
‘You too.’ Lena shook her forefinger at him. Her mountainous bosom rose and fell. She picked up her glass and, not bothering with the straw, downed the rest of the vermouth. ‘You too may land in real hot water if you go about telling people Sonya was killed. Murder indeed! Nonsense. Your friend Sandys needs to have his head examined if he’s seeing ghosts. Anyone who is seeing ghosts needs to have their head examined.’ She licked her lips. ‘It’s all wrong anyhow. Sonya couldn’t have been coming from the direction of the river for the simple reason that…’
‘Yes?’ Antonia leaned forward.
‘Nothing,’ Lena said. ‘Nothing at all. She couldn’t have, that’s all. There are no ghosts anyhow… I need a drinkie. Mamma needs a drinkie. Badly.’
She had started wheezing like an ancient concertina. Her face under the make-up had become suffused. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her mouth, fish-like, kept opening and shutting. All of a sudden she looked dangerously on the verge of collapse.
‘Are you all right?’ Antonia said. ‘Perhaps some water -’
‘No, not water. A proper drinkie. Mamma needs a brandy.’
‘Shall I pour you one?’ In the most casual manner imaginable, Major Payne walked round the bar and stood beside Lena. ‘Brandy, did you say?’
‘Yes. Brandy, my friend. That’s the best gut-rot there is. Armagnac, that’s lovely. Lovely smooth taste. Oh, Mamma’s so thirsty. Mamma loves it when someone else does the pouring… That’s how things used to be at my father’s house. We were served by hussars. Bowing and clicking their heels. Not a single crease in their uniforms. Such style, such poise. Everything as it should be. Ah, glorious days. Thank you, kind sir.’ She almost snatched the glass from Major Payne’s hand and started drinking. Her hand shook and some brandy got spilled. She made several gasping noises. She drank the whole of the brandy, to the last drop, as though it had been water. ‘More,’ she ordered imperiously. ‘More. Another brandy – quick! Mamma’s still unwell. Mamma needs her medicine.’
Payne picked up the bottle.
Antonia looked horrified. ‘Hugh, you mustn’t – it’d kill her,’ she whispered.
He shook his head and mouthed, It won’t.
‘I used to live at the Dorchester, you know, but I was downgraded,’ Lena said presently. Her glass, her second, was empty and she was holding it up. Payne obliged her. ‘Vivian’s so – so mean. After everything I did,’ she slurred. ‘I don’t like my room here at all, but I was told I’d been given enough. I was told I was greedy… Prosit… Mamma feels better now. Not good – Mamma will never feel good, not as long as she’s in this world, but Mamma feels better.’ She took a sip. ‘What were we talking about? Oh yes, that Twiston business. Well, it proved to be most unsettling, more than I ever imagined. Lawrence became quite impossible. Lawrence, you see, is the kind of man who would perpetrate evil for the betterment of evil,’ she said, sounding oddly like the headmaster of his old school, Payne thought.
Lena smacked her lips. ‘He kept blaming me. Said it had been my fault. If he knew what I had done – really done – ah, if he only knew! – he would have killed me. He’d have strangled me. Cut me into little pieces. I have no doubt about it.’
‘What did you do?’ Antonia asked boldly.
‘In a way that was my revenge – taking away from him the one thing he adored. But let me tell you first what he did. I mean, when it was all over. You know Lawrence, of course? He kept kissing Sonya’s toys – kissing her photo – her little shoes. He blubbed all over that giraffe. Disgusting. I never liked the way he kissed her, you see. That was before – before she left us. The way he crooned that song to her. If you love me, Dilly, Dilly, I will love you. Gives me the creeps, just remembering.’ Lena’s speech was becoming slushier. ‘Like someone serenading their lover! My poor kotik. That’s why I did it. Whatever else anyone may say… Sans reproche, c’est moi.‘
‘What was it you did exactly?’ Payne asked.
Lena took another sip of brandy and smacked her lips. ‘Well,’ she said conversationally, ‘I’m sure there’d be those who’d say what an absolutely foul thing for a mother to do, but I acted out of the best motives. You don’t think I should have said no to the money, do you?’
‘No, of course not. The money must have been jolly useful,’ Payne said.
‘It was. Only it ran out. Don’t you just hate it, when money runs out?’
‘Great bore. I know the feeling too well.’ Payne sighed.
This was surreal, Antonia thought.
Lena slurred on. ‘Did you say you’d been staying at Twiston?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hermione and Michael no longer live there.’ Lena took another sip of brandy. ‘No… Poor Michael’s dead anyway… They couldn’t have been talking… Nobody could have…’
‘Who’s “they”?’
Lena started shaking her head. ‘No, no, no. Out of the question
… Out of the fucking question… They knew they’d be sent to the clink if they did talk about it… They are no fools… I mean she – she is no fool.’ Lena reached out and tapped the letter that lay before her. ‘He is dead. Well out of it.’
‘Were the Mortlocks behind it?’ Antonia asked. She saw Payne frowning down at the letter, which, she was sure, he could now read without any difficulty.
‘The Mortlocks… Hermione was discreet… Always very discreet
… He was a passionate man. No one would have thought it.’ Lena shook her head. ‘Hermione feared scandal more than the Devil. I never feared the Devil myself – never! Do you realize? I actually lived with him.’
They had to strain to make out what she was saying now, the slurring had become so bad. Her eyes were almost entirely out of focus. She couldn’t last much longer, Payne knew. Besides he had heard someone enter the bar.
He asked, ‘Why did you say Sonya’s ghost couldn’t have been coming from the direction of the river?’ Antonia saw him reach out towards the letter.
“Strordinary question. Because -‘ Lena put up her forefinger -’she was never in the river in the first place. That’s why.‘
‘Where is she? Where’s the body?’
Antonia was to think later that had Lena answered the question, their quest would have been over, there and
