Murder At The Villa Byzantine Part 5

'Who is Miss Hope?'

'No idea. Never occurred to me to ask.'

'Did she turn up?'

'No. Not while I was there. She might have done later on.'

'How did the police know where to contact you?' Major Payne asked after a pause.

'They checked the numbers on Stella's mobile. The inspector asked if I was a friend of Mrs Stella Markoff. I thought at first Stella might have got lost or that she'd had her handbag stolen or something. I explained that Stella and I were engaged to be married ... The inspector then said that there'd been an accident ... They sent a car to pick me up-'

'Where is the Villa Byzantine exactly?'

'St John's Wood.'

'My only remaining aunt lives in St John's Wood. Bought a house there quite recently.'

Morland took another gulp of whisky. 'I've been trying to remember something Tancred Vane said. I don't think it matters one little bit, but for some reason I can't get it out of my head. Oh yes. He had the idea that Miss Hope had recognized Stella.'

'Stella had met Miss Hope before?'

'That's the impression Vane had. Or was it the other way round? No, can't remember. Sorry, Payne, hate to waste your time. None of this could possibly be of the slightest importance. Don't know why it keeps nagging at me. Hope I'm not going mad.'

'Could Miss Hope have had something to do with Stella's death?'

'No, of course not. Ridiculous. Sorry I mentioned it. It it all feels like a dream now. Poor Stella was killed by some maniac, wouldn't you say? She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or it might have been someone who'd been trying to burgle Vane's house and she intervened. That strikes me as the likeliest explanation.'

'How did Stella come to be inside the Villa Byzantine?'

Morland sat very still, gazing into his gla.s.s. 'All the police said was that she'd had an accident, that she'd been hurt. They didn't tell me she was dead, Payne. They didn't. Then then they took me into the room and showed me the head. Just like that. d.a.m.ned insensitive ... Sorry, Payne, what was it you said?'

'How did Stella come to be inside the Villa Byzantine?'

'How? No idea. No idea at all. Some misunderstanding. At first I a.s.sumed she'd had a call from the biographer fellow. Tancred Vane always made his appointments with her by phone. Only this time he didn't. He said he couldn't possibly have wanted to see Stella this morning since he needed to go to the British Library rather urgently. He'd mentioned it to her-'

'She knew he wouldn't be in?'

'That's what he said. He left his house at about ten thirty. He had made arrangements for an interview with Miss Hope at three o'clock in the afternoon. He came back home about two thirty. He said he found the front door unlocked-'

'Is he certain he'd locked it before leaving?'

'No. He couldn't swear to it. He admitted to being the absent-minded professor type. When he discovered Stella's body lying in the drawing room, he got the shock of his life. Had to sit down. He then called the police. He referred to the police as "the Law" I thought it odd not many people say "the Law", do they?'

'I imagine not. Only as a joke, perhaps. The Law. That much-invoked abstraction,' Payne murmured. 'Where was Stella's daughter while all of this was happening? At which point does she come into the picture?'

'Moon was arrested on the underground. At Baker Street station, I believe. She'd been travelling without a ticket and apparently she was jolly rude when they challenged her. She refused to say who she was and had no papers on her. She was taken to the local police station where they found she answered the description which I'd given the police.'

'You said she was their number one suspect. What grounds do the police have for suspecting Moon of her mother's murder?'

'When the police asked her if she knew where her mother was, she said her mother was dead. She later explained she only said it so they would leave her alone. She had no idea her mother was really dead.'

'I see. That all?'

'Not quite. A handkerchief was found lying beside Stella's body. It was drenched in blood. The police believe that it is Stella's blood. They haven't had the blood a.n.a.lysed yet. The handkerchief has the initials MM embroidered on it.' Morland shook his head. 'They believe Moon dropped it there after she killed Stella. MM. Moon Markoff.'

'Is it her handkerchief?'

'Of course it isn't. Moon has never been to the Villa Byzantine. She has no idea where the Villa Byzantine is!'

'You can't be certain of that.'

'It's just one of those idiotic coincidences that the initials on the blood-drenched handkerchief should be the same as Moon's. You must see that. I can't say I like Moon, but I believe in being fair. I've never seen Moon use a handkerchief, Payne. She hates handkerchiefs.'

Payne gave a little smile. 'She thinks handkerchiefs are "uncool"?'

'She thinks handkerchiefs are "dumb". She only uses tissues.' Morland spoke impatiently. 'She likes things rough. You saw her. Can you imagine her holding a silk handkerchief to her nose?'

'Did you actually see the handkerchief, Morland?'

'I did. The inspector showed it to me. It's their Exhibit A. It's made of silk. Very fine silk. Gossamer thin. Impossibly "ladylike". Moon would never use a hankie like that. Not her style, Payne.'

'Was there any blood on her clothes when the police arrested her?'

'No. Of course the police took her clothes away. They propose to run tests.'

'She wasn't wearing the blood-bespattered shinel?'

'As it happens, she wasn't.'

'She may have got rid of her bloodied clothes and then bought new ones,' Payne said thoughtfully.

'They were the same clothes I bought her last week. Bomber jacket, jeans, sports top, trainers. She had been pestering her mother, saying all her clothes were rubbish. She said she needed new clothes. Poor Stella asked me if I would take Moon shopping, which I did. I took her to Oxford Street. Shop called Top Girl, some such name.'

'Back to this morning did you actually see Stella leave your flat?'

'No. I saw her at breakfast, briefly, then had to rush off. Had an important board meeting to attend. Stella seemed all right. A bit quiet, perhaps. She said she had a headache. She was never at her best in the morning, but then who is? I never saw Moon.'

'How did Moon spend her morning? Did she say?'

'She said she left soon after her mother. At about eleven. She said she got on the tube and went to Tottenham Court Road. She wanted to look at the CDs at Virgin Megastores. Something like that.'

'She might have followed her mother instead ... All the way to the Villa Byzantine ...'

'If she'd wanted to kill her mother, she'd have done it in a different way. That's what she said. Not with a samurai sword and most certainly not at the Villa Byzantine. She said she wasn't a fool. Nor was she a psycho.'

'I never thought she was a fool,' Payne said.

There was a pause. Morland glanced at his watch. 'Well, at least I'll know I've done my best. Thank you very much for listening to me, Payne. Awfully decent of you.'

'Try to get some sleep tonight.'

'Perhaps perhaps you could look into the matter? If that's the right way of putting it?' Morland rose to his feet. 'You said you had an aunt in St John's Wood, didn't you? Sorry. That's neither here nor there.'

'I might look into it,' said Payne cautiously, 'though I can't promise anything.'

'I must admit I don't have much faith in the Law. Nothing but a bunch of bureaucrats. Somebody did behead Stella and it wasn't Moon,' Morland said firmly. 'I do hope you have a crack at finding the true culprit.'

After Morland had gone, Major Payne produced his pipe.

The true culprit, eh? He had to admit he enjoyed being flummoxed by intricate riddles, though perhaps this one wouldn't prove so terribly intricate.

The idea of a teenage girl committing matricide, while indubitably shocking, was not unique. Teenagers delighted in delinquent demeanour. Teenagers enjoyed perpetrating outrages. They had their ears pierced and studs inserted into their tongues. They made no attempt to control their emotions. They tended to bear grudges. They 'experimented' with things, namely s.e.x and drugs. They listened to the most appalling music imaginable 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 b.u.mped 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 pa.s.se.

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.

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 d.a.m.ned 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.'