Murder of Gonzago

He was at Remnant.

She saw her bedroom door open. She had locked it, but he clearly had a key. She should have barricaded herself in. Why did all the good ideas come when it was too late?

He removed his homburg with a flourish.

‘Peter Quin at your service, m’lady,’ he said with a courtly bow. ‘I don’t think I woke you up, did I? My dear Clarissa, you look ravissante. It is with such a delectable sight that the Devil must have tempted Our Saviour. I have lived in the grip of a deep obsessive frustration,’ he went on. ‘You are the only one who can bring me out of it. I have been thinking about you an awful lot, you know.’

Clarissa had pulled the sheets up to her chin. She was so terrified, she could hardly move.

‘Aren’t you glad to see me?’

‘I need to dress,’ she managed to say. ‘It is very early.’

‘It is the right time, my dear. I know this on the highest authority. You don’t need to dress. Au contraire.’

‘I need to dress. Would you leave the room for a bit?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Please.’

‘Your cheek is white, but I have every intention of changing that lily to a rose.’

‘No — please-’

‘Arise battalions and conquer,’ he hummed. He took a step towards her.

‘Don’t — please-’

‘Don’t — please,’ he mimicked. He laughed. ‘Too many pleases please me not.’ He felt exhilarated. He might have been given a shot of helium. The next moment he became serious. ‘We’ve got unfinished business, Clarissa. You couldn’t have forgotten? Women usually remember things like that.’

‘What are you talking about? You’re mad.’

He pouted. ‘I do hope this will not turn into another mortification of vain regrets.’

‘Go away!’

‘I feel it my duty to make up for the lack of post-nuptial euphoria. There was a problem then, but there’s no problem now. The problem’s been resolved. I’ve been taking something. Pretty powerful stuff, my dear.’ He licked his lips. ‘Take off those stupid clothes. Come on, be a good girl. I want you to do it with a slow, twisting movement. I want to see them in a tangle on the floor — there.’ He pointed.

‘No!’

‘You are being discourteous to an inconceivable degree. Or are you afraid that, like a dewdrop, you might disintegrate at the slightest touch?’

‘Get out of my room!’

‘When you were with the good doctor, you were not in the least inhibited. Thou hast committed fornication — but that was in another country.’

‘Go away!’

‘I have seen you, you know. The two of you together. I had a camera installed in your boudoir. I have watched the two of you — together. You had no idea? I can’t help thinking Freud got it all wrong somehow,’ he went on thoughtfully. ‘Those all-too-respectable bourgeois women of Vienna who lay on his couch and spouted tales of being seduced or raped by their fathers-’

‘Don’t come near me!’

‘The presumptuous fellow told them they were fantasizing, expressing their suppressed desires, but what proof was there they were fantasies? What if the women were telling the truth? I can’t quite tell what put fathers and daughters in my mind. Was it the disparity in our respective ages?’

‘Get out! Leave me alone!’

He took another step towards the bed. ‘I have the right to expect a submission of sorts. In fact, I would insist on it. I know I am old enough to be your father, my dear, but I also happen to be your husband.’

‘My God, what’s that on your shoulders?’ Clarissa gasped.

‘D’you mean my wings? Don’t you like them? Real feathers, you know.’ Lord Remnant hitched up his shoulders and the black wings opened and closed.

Clarissa screamed.

31

The Double

It was later that same morning.

‘This is actually very funny,’ Antonia said. ‘He is so awful. He is too good to be true. He is a monster. He is not quite real.’

‘It’s outrageously funny,’ Payne agreed. ‘Why is bad behaviour so compulsively watchable?’

They had been sitting in front of their TV set, watching The Grenadier of Grenadin, the documentary about the twelfth Earl Remnant. The film-makers had been following Lord Remnant as he strutted about his island paradise and bragged of the terrible things he had done and the even more terrible things he intended to do.

Equal parts high comedy and shock theatre, Payne thought. The documentary showed Lord Remnant as an expert at stirring up old animosities and taking a perverse delight in the creation of new ones.

‘He may be one man’s argument for reviving the guillotine,’ Antonia murmured. She took a sip of coffee. ‘Extremely entertaining.’

‘The late Lord Remnant manages to convey the most disturbing impression that he has truly lost his marbles. Though of course he is neither “the late” nor is he Lord Remnant. That makes the whole thing even more fascinating,’ Major Payne said. ‘Don’t you think?’

The credits were rolling.

‘I thought I saw something — pause, would you? Rewind a bit,’ Antonia said. ‘That’s it. Look! Dedicated to Peter Quin, for saving my life. Well, that clinches it.’

‘It does indeed. It confirms the connection between them.’ Payne turned off the video. ‘That was his little joke. Lord Remnant didn’t initially want to make the documentary, that’s what Felicity told us. Then he suddenly changed his mind. Well, he changed his mind when he saw a way of appearing and yet not appearing. He likes teasing people, remember?’

‘He thought he was being terribly clever,’ Antonia said. ‘He asked for the film to be dedicated to the actor who impersonated him.’

‘The note signed Q, which I found in the secret drawer, makes it clear they had reached an agreement.’ Payne waved his hand in the direction of the Damascus chest, which now graced their drawing room.

‘What was it Peter Quin wrote exactly?’

‘I accept. All I need to do is shave off my whiskers and go bald … My guess is that Remnant saw Quin’s photo somewhere, while idly surfing the net, or perhaps he happened to watch one of Quin’s films. He was struck by the resemblance between them.’

‘That’s when he had his brainwave?’

‘Yes. He managed to get in touch with Quin and probably sent him photos of himself. He asked if Quin would “do” him.’

‘What was it you said about Quin’s antecedents? Swedish and English?’

‘Scottish, Norwegian and German. But he could “do” any nationality. He spoke five languages. He was a character actor who travelled the world, working on international film and television projects.’

‘The man of the hundred faces and hundred and one voices,’ Antonia murmured.

‘That’s the name of his site, yes.’ Payne picked up the internet downloads. ‘His last and, as it turned out, fatal role was that of our friend, the lunatic laird, but before that he was a Russian revolutionary, one of Hitler’s henchmen, a Mexican matador, a Paris pimp, a Puerto Rican politician and so on.’