‘No, thank you… Sonya looked much older than twenty-seven.’
‘She aged prematurely. When she was seventeen she already looked about thirty. She changed out of all recognition. The docile affectionate kotik – the sweet doll-like little girl with the gentle smile – was no more. She couldn’t have disappeared more completely if she had been carried away by the river that day.’ Veronica resumed her seat on the sofa. ‘She turned into a monster. Grossly fat, pugnacious, violent. Sometimes we had to tie her up. Put her in a straitjacket of sorts. We had no choice. Lena didn’t believe me when I told her how bad it was.’
Veronica glanced at the letter which Antonia had left on the small table beside her chair. ‘Lena didn’t let you have the letter, just like that, did she? I expect she sold it to you?’
‘No. We stole it,’ Antonia said.
‘We? Oh. So somebody knows that you are here?’
‘Yes.’ Antonia didn’t elaborate. She knew it was absurd of her, but she felt safer now that she had suggested a ‘partner’ might be waiting to hear about her findings. There was something about Veronica – the mixture of the familiar and unfamiliar – the two persons in one – that made Antonia uncomfortable. She had to admit that she also felt a bit afraid.
She went on quickly, ‘You wrote to Lena that Sonya’s condition had deteriorated, that she was very ill, that she was not fit to be seen by anyone. You wrote that you found it unbearable, watching Sonya’s misery.’ She saw Veronica shut and open her eyes. ‘I don’t suppose Lena wanted to come to Twiston out of any maternal urges?’
‘No. What she was after was lucre – filthy lucre – more and more of it. For her I was the goose that lays the golden eggs. I had to take a firm line in the end. I made it absolutely clear that “no more” meant precisely that. We exchanged several letters. She kept phoning too, but Laura managed to deal with her very efficiently. She never thought of coming in person. Too lazy, I suppose. Or never sober enough. She did try to blackmail me in a half- hearted kind of way. She said she’d tell the police, but I knew it was just talk. Well, she wasn’t the only one -’ Veronica broke off. ‘Lena wouldn’t have dared go to the police. That would have meant giving herself away. Her involvement in the affair was after all fairly central. She’d have had to admit that she sold her daughter. How ugly that sounds.’
Antonia frowned. ‘What do you mean, she wasn’t the only one?’
‘Sorry?’ Veronica looked vague.
‘Did someone else try to blackmail you?’
There was a pause, then Veronica said, ‘All right. You know so much already, it won’t make the slightest difference. Yes. Someone else did try to blackmail us. You see, we were seen that morning -’
‘By Major Nagle?’ The real Nagle, Antonia thought.
‘Clever of you. Yes. That dreadful man saw us from his window, apparently. He said he saw me pick up Sonya and carry her towards the gates. We weren’t aware of it. He kept quiet about it for a long time. Nineteen years. That was his revenge on Lawrence, from what he let drop. He’d been gloating over Lawrence’s loss for the whole of nineteen years. He could have told the police at once but he didn’t. Dreadful man. He turned up on my doorstep in person last year. It was soon after we had moved into Twiston.’
‘How did he know you were at Twiston?’
‘The internet. Some stupid website. There were several of them, actually. I wasn’t aware of their existence then. That’s been dealt with now, though I wish – I do wish – I’ d done it sooner! It would have saved… a certain amount of trouble.’ Veronica’s eyes narrowed and she looked towards the fireplace. ‘Nagle knew all about me. He knew about Anatole’s death, that it was I who had bought Twiston. Some local enthusiast who was mad about Twiston’s history had set up a website devoted to it. Meddlesome fool. We caught him on the grounds once, trespassing. Set the dogs on him, but he did manage to take a couple of snapshots of me in the garden, which he added to the Twiston website. “Mrs Ralston-Scott, the new chatelaine.” That kind of nonsense.’
‘Nagle saw the photo?’
‘Yes. He recognized me.’ Aware of Antonia’s eyes on her, Veronica gave a wry smile. ‘I looked different then. More like what you remember, I suppose. I was still clinging to my youth. Well, I’ve been taught a lesson. Nagle, it turned out, had been looking up every possible source of information, trying to find my whereabouts. He had already put two and two together. He said he remembered how I used to gush about Twiston. He already had an idea he might find me here.’ She paused. ‘He needed money – badly. A lot of money. Now, as blackmailers went, he was the real thing. He was a menace – he presented a genuine threat.’
‘Did you pay him off?’ Antonia asked.
‘I did. Yes.’ Veronica spoke in a toneless voice.
‘Won’t he bother you again?’
‘I don’t think so. Sonya’s dead now. There would be no point.’ Veronica paused. ‘You should have seen him that day, respectability personified, with his navy-blue blazer and bowler hat and polished boots… I was extremely polite. I even gave him a drink. No, he won’t come again. Nagle qua menace is – what was that silly phrase Sir Michael used to quote? A spent egg?’ She laughed. It was a musical kind of laugh. ‘Is that Wodehouse? No, Major Nagle won’t come a second time… Are you sure Lawrence won’t decide to pay me another visit?’
‘He won’t. He admitted he wouldn’t have been able to cope with Sonya as well as you. He is a very strange man… He lost Sonya twice, it suddenly occurred to him. Once twenty years ago, the second earlier today. He didn’t recognize her at once, you see, and it gave him a shock when he did.’
‘Yes. Terribly sad. Lawrence did love her. I know.’ Veronica took a sip of whisky. ‘Of course you realize that she wasn’t his daughter?’
Antonia stared at her. ‘Sonya wasn’t his daughter?’
‘No. She had brown eyes. Both Lawrence and Lena have blue eyes. Blue-eyed people can’t produce a brown- eyed child, though a brown-eyed father and a blue-eyed mother can. I remember reading about it after we took Sonya. Anatole and I too have blue eyes. I was worried that someone might notice. Of course no one did. People don’t usually – unless they are scientists or something.’
‘Sir Michael,’ Antonia whispered. ‘Was Sir Michael Sonya’s father?’
‘As a matter of fact he was. Lena and he had an affair. It went on for some years, apparently. Lena told me about it. Michael was mad about her, she said. Lawrence had no idea – neither did Hermione for that matter. Lena believes Lawrence is sterile, though he was always too proud to go and have a test.’
There was a pause. ‘How did Sonya die?’ asked Antonia.
‘She…’ Veronica’s eyes narrowed again. ‘She emptied a bottle of pills into her mouth. She thought they were mints. We had no idea – until it was too late. I found the empty bottle. It happened between the nurses’ shifts. She had been in bed, pretending to be asleep. That was why we had relaxed our vigil. Sonya was cunning… She then managed to run out of the house. We had no idea where she’d gone. We kept looking for her. She knew she had done something very wrong, you see. We couldn’t find her. When we did, it was too late. She had swallowed some pretty powerful sleeping stuff. Zolpicone. Apparently she collapsed where you found her… Lawrence had already appeared on the scene… Then there was you.’
Another pause.
‘What are you going to do now?’ Antonia asked.
‘I believe the ambulance has already been called. They’ll be here any moment. Do we need to inform the police as well?’ Veronica opened her eyes wide. Deep circles of red burned on her cheeks and suddenly she looked young and beautiful again. ‘I mean, it was, after all, only a tragic accident?’
‘I think you’ll have to call the police, yes.’
‘Oh dear… Poor Sonya. It was an awful thing to happen, but it’s better for her to go that way, don’t you think? It wasn’t much of a life. It would have broken my heart to see her being led away in a straitjacket… That must be the ambulance.’ Veronica Vorodin looked up as a car was heard drawing up outside. ‘I do hope you stay on a bit longer, Mrs Rushton. May I call you Antonia? You must call me Veronica
… Actually, I’d like to ask you to do something for me… Do you mind? We have very little time…’
27
The Asprey’s Cigarette Case
