hardly music. Teenagers could be violent and indeed often were violent. He remembered the sense of danger he’d had the moment he’d clapped eyes on Stella’s daughter…
Well, Stella’s daughter seemed indicated – she was the most obvious suspect – but there were questions that needed answering.
Not so long ago Payne had bumped into the Prime Minister at a private gathering in Notting Hill and been told to expect an OBE – for elevating the powers of rational thinking to the point where they became positively shamanistic. The PM had spoken off the cuff and he hadn’t been entirely serious of course. (He and Payne had gone to the same school and, as it happened, they could both trace their ancestry back to William IV, so the waggishness had most certainly not been de trop.) Payne knew that if he did get an OBE, it would be principally in recognition of his intelligence work in Afghanistan in the eighties.
Reaching out for the tobacco jar, Payne started filling his pipe. Questions, yes. How did Stella enter the Villa Byzantine? Had the front door been left unlocked, perhaps? Had she been instructed to go in and wait? Could Tancred Vane have set a trap for her? Was the monogrammed blood-soaked handkerchief so conveniently left on the scene of the crime a bona fide clue or a plant? As a device – if this had been a detective story – it would have been considered awfully passe.
He struck a match and held it to his pipe. A samurai sword was the kind of weapon Stella’s daughter would have chosen. The girl was loopy. She seemed to identify with some highly dangerous comic strip character, who went about under the sobriquet of Wild Thing. Moon liked beheadings, she had said so herself. She clearly despised her mother. At Melisande’s party she had done her best to make Stella look a fool… Though, of course, so had Melisande…
What if the handkerchief was part of somebody’s plan? Perhaps the intention was to incriminate Moon and use her as a scapegoat? Well, in that case, Payne reflected, we are looking for somebody with no particular knowledge or understanding of young people. Someone elderly and hopelessly old-fashioned? The kind of person who didn’t see that a rough teenage girl would be unlikely to have an elegant silk handkerchief in her possession. A woman rather than a man – yes – a woman – an unmarried woman of a certain age? An elderly spinster…
That was an ingenious theory, actually. The culprit was an unmarried elderly lady who was behind the times and had no idea at all what Moon was like, only knew her initials. One could buy initialled handkerchiefs – or have them specially made. Had the murder of Stella Markoff been carefully premeditated, then?
But did such an unmarried elderly lady exist?
It couldn’t be the mysterious Miss Hope – could it?
Payne smiled at the idea.
8
Hide My Eyes
It was the following day.
Tancred Vane sat at the desk in his study, writing.
When a monarchy is gone, there is a sudden emptiness, an eerie silence – as the crowned head rests on the sandy ground of the executioner’s pit – or on a Cote d’Azur beach.
The Cote d’Azur had at one time been the favoured exile destination of deposed kings. Well, he reflected, modern readers seemed to like it when royalty were treated with irreverent flippancy.
His phone rang.
‘Tancred?’
‘Oh, Miss Hope – Catherine! At last! Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick!’
‘Have you? My dear boy!’
‘Why didn’t you come yesterday? What happened?’
‘I am so sorry. Something cropped up. I got a phone call from my niece – no, you don’t want to know! Too tedious for words!’
‘I tried phoning you – several times!’
‘Didn’t charge the damned object – mislaid the – what do you call that thing? The charger. Goodness. Mobile phones indeed. Whatever next? I am afraid I am hopelessly old-fashioned. I am quite the wrong age for that sort of nonsense. Lamentably behind the times! So sorry. The truth of the matter is I have been extremely preoccupied.’
‘Why – what happened?’
‘My niece – no, you don’t want to know! A calamity! Young people nowadays! I must admit I find young people impossible to understand. A closed book, as they say. Nothing compared to your calamity, of course.’
‘I suppose you saw the newspapers?’
‘I did. It’s on page three of The Times. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Murder at the Villa Byzantine. Are you all right?’
‘I am fine. I am fine now. I didn’t sleep too well last night. I lay awake till five in the morning…’
‘Yes? Go on, go on. I want every single detail!’
‘I couldn’t stop thinking about the murder. Then – then a great weight of numbness began to pull me down. I believe I fell asleep because I had a dream – a terrible dream! It all seemed so real. I saw her – Madame Markoff – Stella – pale and haggard-looking, her hand stretched out before her in an imploring gesture – no – accusingly!’
‘Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair… Sorry, Tancred – most tasteless – couldn’t resist it!’
‘She was stiff and immobile – her eyes were wide open, glazed and staring. Suddenly I realized she was not real. She was made of wax. It gave me such a jolt that I woke up. I felt awful, really ill. My heart was pounding-’
‘My poor boy!’
‘I read somewhere that – that dreams are misleading because they make life seem real. That’s a paradox I don’t understand but for some reason I felt chilled thinking about it. Does it make sense?’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ she said robustly. ‘Paradox – bah! You must take your temperature. I don’t suppose you slept in your house?’
‘No. I was with a friend… I came back about an hour ago.’
He expected her to ask which friend he meant exactly, she seemed to take an interest in everything he did, but all she said was, ‘I am glad. A friend in need is a friend indeed. What are you doing now?’
‘Writing. Working on the biography.’
‘That’s the spirit! Work is the best remedy for a troubled mind. Work and more work and then more work! That was the splendidly Puritan ethic of my dear late father. The police have gone now, of course? Did they leave a mess behind?’
‘I don’t think they bothered to wipe their shoes,’ he said in a rueful voice.
‘Pigs! Who do they imagine they are? The Pope? I think you should complain,’ Miss Hope said firmly. ‘Don’t let them get away with it. They didn’t break anything, did they? None of the Chinamen? I’ve been worried about the Chinamen.’
‘No, nothing’s broken. The Chinamen are intact.’
‘I am so glad. Rivers of blood everywhere?’
‘No. It wasn’t too bad, actually. Still, it was pretty horrible. I never thought – I never imagined I’d come back and find-’
‘No, of course not! You poor thing! You have had the curtains changed, of course? All that magnificent brocade!’
‘How did you know there was blood on the curtains?’
‘Mere guesswork. I am notorious for my morbid imagination. Sometimes I see things – my Scottish ancestry, you know. But I shouldn’t keep nattering away at a time like this. I do believe you need a little rest? How about a nap?’
‘Actually – Miss Hope – I was wondering whether you-’
‘Catherine,’ she reminded him. ‘Catherine. We agreed, didn’t we? You promised! You gave me your word of
