A Talent For Murder Page 8

  ‘It’s mighty queer though, isn’t it? What with the fur coat and that driving licence. You don’t think there’s foul play involved, sir?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised, but keep that to yourself for now, son.’

  ‘Right you are, sir,’ said the lad, his eyes brightening at the knowledge that he had been made privy to a piece of secret information. ‘Do you know who did it?’

  ‘It’s too early to say,’ said Kenward, thwacking a bramble. ‘Now keep your eyes on the ground and move down towards that slope on the left.’ It was best not to say too much at this stage. ‘And not a word to anyone, mind.’

  Kenward concentrated on the job in hand, examining fallen branches, badger and fox holes, and expanses of damp grass. He was proud of his reputation as a thorough and meticulous detective. What was it one of his lads had said about him? That he had a very sharp, penetrating gaze? How that had made Naomi laugh. He had worked his way up the Surrey force, but he would never describe himself as an ambitious man as each promotion had happened naturally. There was something unbecoming about ambition, he had always thought. And look at the number of crimes people committed because the silly fools wanted more – a more attractive husband or wife, the spoils of an inheritance, a grander house, or the means to buy jewels or dinners in fancy restaurants.

  One only had to look at the Christie case. He would not be at all surprised to find that the Colonel was as base as they come. For all his airs and graces, Colonel Christie, thought Kenward, was nothing more than an animal, a beast unable to control his desires. He had wanted to ditch his rather plain wife for a younger, sexier version. Perhaps Mrs Christie had found out about his plan, refused to give him a divorce, at which point the Colonel had lost his temper and, in a fit of anger, murdered her. Kenward bashed the ground again with his stick and swore to himself that he would get to the bottom of this case if it were the last thing he did. That stuck-up Colonel would not get the better of him. If he did discover evidence of foul play, Kenward would not rest until he had witnessed the hangman placing a noose around the man’s head and listened as the Colonel’s neck snapped. The sound, he thought, would be a most satisfying one.

  Chapter Eleven

  The two friends had enjoyed a long and delicious lunch at the Savoy before retiring to John Davison’s flat in the Albany. John took Una’s coat from her and asked if she would care for another drink. As he began to pour out a small brandy for the pretty, blonde-haired young woman he noticed a fresh pile of papers that his secretary had left for him. As he flicked through them, checking to see if there was anything of an urgent nature, his eye fixed on a familiar name.

  ‘Good God,’ said Davison under his breath. ‘Sorry, Una, frightfully rude of me. It’s just—’

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong?’ She jumped up from the sofa and walked across the drawing room to stand by his side.

  ‘It’s Mrs Christie – you remember her?’ he said, passing the brandy to her.

  ‘Yes, of course. What is it?’

  ‘It looks like she’s gone missing.’

  ‘What do you mean? Let me see.’

  She took hold of a piece of paper, an official report from the Home Office sent to Davison. ‘It does seem very odd,’ said Una. ‘I wonder what is behind it all? Husband trouble, most likely.’

  ‘Perhaps. But that day we met her she did behave quite oddly, I thought. It was obvious there was something wrong.’

  ‘Is that why you went to talk to her on the steps?’

  ‘Yes, I got the feeling that she thought that she might be in danger. She never said as much, of course, but she had a frightened look about her.’

  ‘So you slipped her one of your cards?’

  ‘You don’t miss a trick, do you? Just a spot of business, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, come on now, Davison. You can tell me. You know I won’t say anything.’

  ‘I don’t know anything of the kind. I know how your mind works. Actually, I’m not entirely sure I do.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, I know you have a first-class brain, but some of the conclusions you come to seem to defy logic, and yet—’

  ‘They are often right?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but yes, you do seem to have a knack for hitting things spot on. If it wasn’t for your fondness for gossip, I might have recommended you for a position.’

  ‘That is very sweet of you, Davison. But you know I couldn’t bear to be cooped up all day in a stuffy office. All those bureaucrats would drive me mad. It was hard enough dealing with some of Daddy’s colleagues. Gosh, those Foreign Office dinners. Do you remember them?’

  Davison laughed, but then realised that Una had tears in her eyes. It had only been, what, eighteen months since she had lost her father, a man she adored beyond measure. Davison had often worried that Una would never find a man clever or witty or handsome enough to compete with the colossal figure of Sir Eyre Crowe. Davison knew that Una was extremely fond of him, but he also knew that he would never be right for her.

  ‘Yes, I do, but I think you were always a little too young to enjoy them properly,’ he said. He could see that Una’s face had frozen, as if her father’s ghost had suddenly enveloped and paralysed her. It would be better to try and change the subject. ‘But, yes, this is all very odd about the disappearance of Mrs Christie. I wonder what really went on. I will have to put some feelers out.’

  ‘Well, I think you may need some help. I wouldn’t have thought the stuffed shirts would be much use investigating that. What do they know of the intricacies and mysteries of the female heart?’

  ‘You may have a point there, Una, but apart from a few secretaries we have precious few people who could help. Miss Richardson is over in Berlin and then we have another lady in Turkey and, yes, one in the Balkans. So I’m afraid the stuffed shirts, as you call them, will just have to do their best.’

  ‘I know, Davison,’ she said, her eyes as bright as crushed diamonds. ‘Why don’t I help?’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Don’t sound so appalled. You said yourself I have a talent for this sort of thing. You know how much I wanted to be a journalist, until Daddy forced me to put it aside. Out of respect for him I had to agree . . . ’ Her voice started to break. ‘I could simply make a few discreet enquiries for you, see what I could find out. It might be such fun. Just what I need after the horrors of the last couple of years.’

  Anything he could do to try to cheer Una up would be looked upon most favourably by her mother, Clema, a woman who had very close ties with his boss. But on second thoughts it would be inappropriate to let Una, whom he had met through her father and had known since she was a girl, get mixed up with his work. There were certain things that would have to be kept from her.

  ‘No, I’m afraid it’s a no-go,’ he said. He watched her face drop and the old unhappiness begin to possess her once more. ‘But I know, why don’t you try and follow the case for one of the newspapers?’

  ‘Do you think I could?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. You are naturally curious and you do have a talent for wheedling things out of people.’

  ‘How thrilling! I can see my name on the front page now.’

  ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Of course, you know you will have to keep certain things to yourself – you don’t want any of your society friends to know what you are up to and tip off the papers before you get your scoop. No gossiping over tea with your sisters. And absolutely no indiscreet whispers while your head is lying on the pillow.’

  ‘You beast!’ she said, laughing. ‘I could take you to the highest court in the land for suggesting such a thing. Seriously, Davison, do you think you could give me any help to get me started?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said, suddenly heartened that he had done something to take her mind off her father’s death. ‘I’ll see what I can do. But you must promise me not to go off on any of your wild goose chases.�
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  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Do you have a file on her?’

  Davison tried not to look startled.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t pretend I don’t know about your files. Daddy used to bring them home all the time. So do you?’

  He nodded his head. ‘But there is nothing in it at all incriminating, I can assure you. Hartford commissioned it after I told him that I had met her. Standard procedure in the circumstances, considering the possibility that she might one day work for us. She seems completely above board, apart from her eccentric brother, who returned from the war with a few battle scars, not quite right in the head by all accounts.’

  ‘Well, we all have our crosses to bear, don’t we?’ she said. ‘And remind me again of the name of the novel that you and Hartford think so highly of?’

  ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.’

  ‘And is it really as clever as all that?’

  ‘Oh yes, most terribly. I won’t spoil it for you, but you simply must read it.’ He got up and walked over to his bookshelf. ‘Here – see what you think.’

  Una opened the book and read out the dedication: ‘ “To Punkie, who likes an orthodox detective story, murder, inquest, and suspicion falling on everyone in turn!” ’

  ‘How funny. Who’s Punkie?’

  ‘A nickname for her sister, Margaret.’

  ‘And who is this – how do you pronounce it – this Poirot?’ asked Una as she flicked through the book.

  ‘Oh, a most peculiar, but intriguing detective. Belgian. Works by the power of his little grey cells. An unusual character. In fact, a most unusual writer. Although Mrs Christie may present herself as a normal wife and mother, nothing out of the ordinary, dig under the surface and I guarantee you will find someone much darker and altogether more interesting.’

  Chapter Twelve

  I was awake before I heard the knock on the door. A moment later Rosie, the pretty little chambermaid, entered with the breakfast tray. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her and so I pretended to be asleep, only stirring when I heard the click of the door shutting behind her. I poured myself a cup of tea and retired back to bed with the Daily Mail. I turned the pages idly until I got to page 9. The sight of my name in print made me feel ill, but I felt compelled to read the report even though they had got my age wrong by a year. Apparently, my car had been found at around eight o’clock on the Saturday morning. ‘It is believed that it was allowed deliberately to run down from Newlands Corner with its brakes off,’ it said.

  The police had been looking for traces of me all weekend and they had dredged the Silent Pool for my body. There was even a quote from Archie who told the readers of the newspaper that I was a ‘nervous case’ and it was most likely that I had suffered some form of nervous breakdown. I wondered if he really believed that. And what on earth had he told dear Rosalind? There was also a bad photograph of me. Although it did not look anything like me, I would still have to keep a low profile.

  I threw the newspaper across the bed and began to dress quickly. I had decided that I would walk down to reception and ask the manager to call the police. I would bring this farce to a close. Kurs had no power over me. He was nothing but a megalomaniac with a warped mind. I wouldn’t let him control me. I rushed to the door, but just before I opened it I caught a glance of myself in the looking glass. What a fright! Like a madwoman. Who would believe me? What happened if I was carted off to the asylum and locked away? Kurs could deny everything. But I had the letters. I seized my handbag containing all of Kurs’s instructions. Yes, all I had to do was to show the police the evidence and the whole sordid story would come out. But what if Kurs had the audacity to follow through with his plans? If he so much as touched a hair on Rosalind’s head I knew that I would not be answerable for my actions. I would be prepared to hang to protect my daughter. But would I be too late? Could Kurs really do those unutterable things to my dear, innocent child? And what of his associate? That degenerate? Did he really exist? How on earth could I ever be sure?

  I had to calm down and think clearly. I forced myself to drink another cup of tea and have a crust of a roll with butter and jam. I took out my notebook and read through the sequence of events since Wednesday when Kurs had first appeared in my life. Surely there was another way? I had always rather doubted my intelligence, but recently people had praised me for my methodical mind and what they said was a certain ruthlessness with which I could manipulate a reader. That Davison man had even tried to recruit me to be some sort of secret agent or spy. Quite absurd. But was there a way in which I could try to outwit Kurs? Even if there was, I doubted that I would have the courage to do so.

  He had told me to regard myself as a different person, a character. What if I applied his advice to Kurs himself? What if I began to think of Kurs not as a twisted, deeply dangerous individual but as someone I had created in my imagination? I tried to think of some of the villains in my books. There was the enigmatic Mr Brown in The Secret Adversary and Dr James Sheppard in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, but surely there was no one I had invented who was quite as base as Dr Patrick Kurs? I jotted down some more possibilities, in a similar way I might begin to plot out a novel, feeling slightly unnerved that I was one of the protagonists in the drama.

  After bathing and dressing I left the hotel and spent the morning in town. I bought some necessities for my toilet, a couple of notebooks and a selection of pencils, and then just as I was passing the W.H. Smith Library in Parliament Street, I felt a few drops of rain on my face. The sky was dark and ominous and I had left the hotel without an umbrella. I darted inside just as the shower intensified.

  I took my time to enjoy the library and its bounty. If only I could spend the next few days reading at leisure, what a delicious prospect that would be. Yet it was impossible. Nevertheless, I went through the motion of selecting some books as if I were a normal, respectable lady with a little too much time on her hands.

  As I did so I stole glances at the people around me. What was the mousy librarian with the half-moon spectacles hiding? As she stamped the books of the old lady in the smart tweeds was she thinking of a child she had borne out of wedlock and given away? And what of the elderly lady herself, so very prim and proper, with her soft skin and apple cheeks – could she be slowly poisoning her invalid husband, slipping a few grains of arsenic into his tea each day to bring about an early death? I imagined her sense of moral superiority, her assertion that she was on the side of righteousness, her belief that she was justified in putting her husband out of his misery, that he was going to a better place. And who was I to say that she was wrong? Each of us had our secrets. Some of them were small, insubstantial things: no one knew, for instance, of my nickname for Mr and Mrs de Silva – Mr and Mrs Silver Plate, a name I had given the couple because I suspected my Sunningdale neighbours to be more than a little insincere. Archie did not even know of that.

  Then there were the bigger, fatter, juicier secrets, secrets that had the power to ruin lives. For instance, how long had Archie been seeing Miss Neele without my knowledge? Had he been carrying on with her while making love to me? Had there been other women besides her? The thought sickened me. I tried to think of the last time we had shared a bed. Months ago now, almost a year. No doubt I was to blame. It was true I had neglected him after my mother’s death. I had thought that lovemaking would be disrespectful to my mother’s memory; not only that, but I had felt as frozen as the wilds of Siberia. Those kind of feelings – that dizziness, that lightness in my head and in my body, that need – had dried up. I blushed when I thought of the number of times Archie had touched me on the back of the neck or pressed his fingers to my shoulder, often a precursor of intimacy, only for me to turn my head and walk away from him. If only I had shown him a little more tenderness perhaps none of this would have happened. If we had continued to enjoy a full and happy married life, then perhaps Archie would have remained faithful, he would have had no need to seek out other women, younger, more attractive wo
men like Miss Neele. She, in turn, would not have run to her doctor for advice and Kurs would not have come up with his wretched plan. Was it all my fault?

  By the time I emerged from the library the rain seemed to have stopped, although the sky was still dark. But as I walked down Parliament Street the heavens suddenly opened once more. The rain was even fiercer this time and in a matter of minutes I felt sodden to the skin. I ran and took shelter underneath an awning of Louis cope. I was in desperate need of some new clothes, but did I really want to offer up my poor and neglected self to the harsh light of a looking glass? Yet the task could be avoided no longer. Brushing the drops of water from me I entered the shop. When I saw a young, elegant woman wearing a plaid V-neck sweater – I really could not understand this fad for sportswear – and then another beautiful creature parading around in a rose-coloured chenille-crêpe dress I turned and started to make my way towards the door again. I felt old and frumpy next to these dazzling girls. But then, just as I was about leave, I thought of Miss Neele in her navy-blue blouson dress that tied around the hips into a beguiling front bow. I imagined Archie’s hands touching her, reaching out to place his fingers on her, lifting the hem of her dress a little higher so he could feel her stockings underneath. Tears of frustration, jealousy and rage pricked my eyes. That woman! How had she seduced him? What wiles had she used to lure him to her bed?

  ‘Excuse me, madam. Can I help you?’

  I turned to see a woman around my age with kind brown eyes and prematurely greying hair.

  ‘Terrible weather, isn’t it?’ she continued. ‘And I can see you’ve stepped out without an umbrella. If that’s what you would like I can—’

  ‘That’s very kind,’ I said, cutting her off. ‘But in fact I’m going to need more than just an umbrella. I’ve just arrived from South Africa, and it seems my luggage has gone astray.’

  ‘Of course, madam. If you would follow me.’

  She led me towards a section of the shop devoted to ladies’ fashion and told a stern-faced, skeletally thin woman of my need of a whole new wardrobe. When she heard this, the shop assistant’s face softened and she immediately began to fuss about me, taking my measurements and asking my thoughts on everything from pleated skirts to jabot blouses.