Death by Sheer Torture (16 page)

Still, I have to admit that as I strode resolutely back towards the Georgian wing, I was in a moderately filthy mood. And it wasn’t improved by my coming upon Mordred in the main hall: quite apart from the business with Chris, I was irritated by the mere look of him: he had no business to go around with that air of oh-so-appetizing agelessness, like an academic Cliff Richard.

He said: ‘Hello, Perry. Bloodhounds still hot on the scent, are they?’

I just snapped: ‘I want to talk to you later.’

He looked hurt and injured, like a favourite courtier spurned by the Sun King.

I steamed ahead, the battleship
Resolute
preparing for an engagement, and rang the doorbell to the Georgian wing. Kate was all over me, of course, and beside herself
with the unaccustomed pleasure of being hostess. She was wearing one of her inevitable suits (I remember her confiding to me that as fashions changed she took the hems up two inches, or let them down two inches), and over it a magnificent flowered apron. She looked the very embodiment of
Kirche, Küche, Kinder.
She marched me into the sitting-room—normally decorated, thank God, without tributes to the heroes of the Third Reich, though I noticed gaps on the walls caused, no doubt, by Lawrence’s depredations—and she sat me down in a capacious, comfortable armchair. All the time she fussed over me in her gruff way, like an Old English Sheepdog penning up a prize ram.

‘Won’t be a sec,’ she bellowed, darting off to the kitchen. ‘It’s nearly ready. I love risotto, don’t you? You can put absolutely everything in!’

Well, I suppose that is the theory. I had an awful feeling that even the most exuberant of Italian housewives would still exercise a modicum of discretion that was beyond my Aunt Kate. I sat there, helpless, a lamb to the gastronomic slaughter.

Kate poked her head round the door.

‘Dandelion or parsnip?’

‘I beg your —’

‘Wine, you chump! I’ve got the parsnip chilled.’

‘Oh,’ I said, being fiendishly cunning. ‘The parsnip, then.’

She bore in the wine, in superb nineteenth-century goblets. She bore in a great tureen and served out the risotto with a liberal hand, ignoring my gestures to stop.

I received my plate, and tried not to look too closely. The rice was soggy with overcooking, but it was in any case a minor component. The major part consisted, if my eyes did not deceive me, of scraps of beef, bits of turnip and beetroot, hacked up sardines and diced tinned peaches. And some squares of what could very easily be
dog food. I shut my eyes and thought of England.

‘Lawrence sent the gardeners today,’ announced Aunt Kate. She had seized a fork in her large paw and now began shovelling in with gusto, as once she must have gobbled camp food in the Bavarian mountains, while Czechoslovakia bled. ‘After my pictures.’

‘Did they take any?’

‘Took two. When they came back for more, I’d got my Mauser out of the Collection. Scared ’em silly, and they took to their heels. Wasn’t loaded, but they weren’t game to risk it. World’s gone soft!’

‘Uncle Lawrence certainly seems to be concerned about his property.’

‘Got a fit of the meanies,’ said Aunt Kate complacently. ‘Happens when you get old.’

‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘I never remember him being miserly when I was young.’

Aunt Kate shook her head vigorously. ‘Wasn’t. Didn’t care about money. Above it. Paid out oodles to that second wife of his. Pete’s mother. What do they call it? Alimony.’

‘Why did he do that?’

‘Keep her quiet. He was having an affair with a Marchioness or somebody. Paid out so she wouldn’t be named as co-respondent, so he said.’

‘Doesn’t sound like a Trethowan. I’d have expected him to revel in the publicity.’

‘Yes, you would, wouldn’t you? We are a bit blatant, aren’t we, Perry?’

‘The tiniest bit, now and then.’

‘Anyway, he didn’t have to shell out for long, because she died.’

‘Had he paid alimony to his first wife too?’

‘Oh, no. They were never divorced. She was a Catholic. She died before the war some time.’

‘Didn’t have much luck with his wives, Uncle Lawrence.’

‘They didn’t have much luck with
him
,’ said Aunt Kate emphatically. ‘Always sniffing round someone or other. Wouldn’t think it, to look at him now!’

‘How bad is Uncle Lawrence? In health, I mean.’

‘Has his off days, as you saw. He’d had three days like that when you saw him. Sleeps here with me, these days. Think he puts it on a bit, sometimes. Like a child. Wants attention. Likes to be fussed. Knows more about what’s going on than he lets on to. Still, I play along with him. Not like Syb and Leo —’

‘Oh?’

‘They’re crazy, the way they provoke him. Provoked, in one case. Ought to think of the future. He’ll pop off if he has another of those strokes. Then where will we be? Awful swine, that Peter. Wouldn’t think twice about throwing us all out into the snow. You enjoying this? It’s scrumptious, isn’t it?’

I was masticating thoughtfully a forkful that seemed to include a bony bit of kipper and a lump of marshmallow. I washed it down with a great gulp of parsnip wine and said: ‘This wine’s awfully good.’

‘I’ll fill you up,’ said Aunt Kate, and trotted off to the kitchen, while I transferred a judicious amount of the nauseating goo to my little forensic bag, and stuffed it into my trouser pocket.

‘What did you mean,’ I asked, as she settled herself down again and resumed her enthusiastic fork-lift job on her plateful, ‘about Father provoking Uncle Lawrence? Did they have any big rows?’

‘Not out in the open. Too cunning for that. Of course, your father sniped. He couldn’t help that, you know, Perry. He was a sniper by nature. But they kept the row under cover.’

‘What makes you think they had one?’

‘Because,’ said Aunt Kate triumphantly, ‘he took him walking!’

‘What?’

‘They went walking together—a long tour round the grounds. Well, Leo walking, Lawrence being wheeled. Can you imagine your father wheeling that chair? He
never
did it. Not his style at all. But he had to do it, because it was the only way they could be alone. So they could row.’

It made sense. ‘Did it happen often?’

‘Just once since the stroke. About ten days ago. I’d’ve trailed them if I’d known. I used to be a marvellous tracker! Put on weight a bit since, but I bet the twigs wouldn’t crack under me!’

‘You’ve no idea what it could be about?’

‘Not a notion. Chrissy, perhaps?’ She looked at me in a sideways way to see if I knew, and was disappointed when she saw I did.

‘I see you’ve noticed, Aunt Kate.’

‘’Course I’ve noticed. Got eyes. Saw it start. Saw what they were up to. Glances across the table. Footsy. Trotting off to the summerhouse.’

‘Did you discuss it with anyone?’

‘’Course I didn’t. Kept it to m’self. Silly gel, though. Got no pride.’

‘It’s going to be difficult for her, though, Aunt Kate. She may need a bit of support.’

‘I’ll support her. Can’t blame a girl for going off the rails once in a while. Drive you a bit potty, looking after a little squirt like Leo all day long. I know. I did it for my father. And he was
nice.’

‘Cristobel says it was our mother who charged her to look after Father. I don’t see how it could be . . .’

‘’Course it was. Cristobel got this letter thing.’

‘Ah! She did, then.’

‘That’s right. You know, sent by the lawyers, marked “to be opened when she is twenty-one” or something like that. Bit soppy of Virginia, I thought. Old-fashioned.
But then she was. Anyway, your mother—God rest her soul, because she was a
good
woman, Perry, I don’t mean to speak against her—said she should regard her father as a sacred charge. I couldn’t see Leo as the Ark of the Covenant m’self, but you know Chrissy. Went around for days after she got it, telling everybody about it.’

‘Was there anything else in it?’

‘Lot of guff. Embarrassing. About a mother’s love. You know. People shouldn’t write stuff like that. When you’re gone, you’re gone. Nobody gives a damn what you say. Look at Franco!’

‘It’s odd she should write a letter like that to Cristobel, but not one to me.’

‘Post Office’s gone all to pot these days,’ said Kate, who seemed a bit distracted. ‘I say, more wine?’

Blessedly she bore my glass to the kitchen, and I had recourse again to my bag, at the same time managing to extract from my mouth something that seemed to be nutty fudge. Look, I won’t tell you anything more about that damned risotto. I don’t want to be accused of writing gastronomic pornography.

I wasn’t willing to let the subject of the letter drop, so when Kate came back waving another bumper of parsnip wine (the only good thing about which was that it did not taste of parsnip), I said: ‘I wonder if my mother did send me a letter. And I wonder what happened to it.’

‘’Spect Leo destroyed it,’ said Kate cheerfully. ‘Lawyers probably sent it here. I can just see him. Probably read it over, smiled his nasty little smile, tore it up and put it in the fire. Bet that’s what he did.’

Yes, I could see him too. Except for that little note in his drawer. I said: ‘But if he were to hide it . . .’

‘Plenty of room to hide it,’ said Kate, in the understatement of the year. ‘But I think he’d destroy it, unless it contained something important. He hated you, you know, Perry!’

‘Yes, I think he did,’ I agreed. ‘I wondered at one point whether Cristobel wasn’t exaggerating, but I think it must have been true. All because I called him a mediocrity!’

‘That’s the one thing none of them will admit!’ said Kate. ‘Got to be plumped up the whole time. Like cushions. Calling him a mediocrity was worse than hitting him. He hated you, I tell you. He certainly wouldn’t have put a postage stamp on a letter from your mother to you.’

‘Yes, I see that. Nevertheless, I do think he kept it. If only I knew where. Or, for that matter, why.’

‘’Course, he was a secretive little man,’ said Kate. ‘If he thought he could use it . . . Against you, for instance. Silly old Sybilla says he wasn’t secretive because he was always boasting about those torture games he played. But he was. He liked gloating over things—having knowledge, enjoying the thought of what he knew. Crackers, if you ask me. Dangerous.’

‘So it seems. Still, if it was something that concerned me, that was surely no reason for killing him. Do you think he was the one to pinch the pictures, Aunt Kate?’

‘Leo? No. Not the type. No gloaty fun in that. Too risky, too.’

‘Who do you think it was?’

‘I think old Lawrence popped them himself. Stashed the money away somewhere the Inland Revenue won’t find it. For the Squealies. Or else it was Peter, and Lawrence is covering up for him. Or McWatters.’

‘That’s three,’ I pointed out. ‘Which do you really think took them?’

‘McWatters knows Iti,’ said Kate. ‘Bit suspicious, what? Ever heard of a butler who knew Iti before? Must be an art buff, or something.’

‘How did you know that he knows Italian, by the way, Aunt? Is he open about it? Did you all know?’

‘Don’t suppose the rest knew. Not interested, except in keeping him. I get around the house a bit. Trailing.
Heard him talking one evening to Mrs Mac. Maria-Luisa had been shouting insults at us over dinner. Does that periodically. Comes from the gutter. Scum.
Untermensch.
Anyway, old McWatters heard ’em all, and was translating them to his missus. Singed my hair, I can tell you!’

‘So you’d pick McWatters—getting in with the household and progressively robbing it of pictures?’

‘Makes sense. Rather have that than one of the family.’

I sighed. That was no argument. Aunt Kate was not the logical thinker of the family. I put down my fork with every appearance of regret, leaving a little mountain of food as if I thought it the polite thing to do, and stood up.

‘Well, I’d better be getting back to work, Aunt Kate,’ I said.

Unluckily her eyes were on the level with my waist, and she peered disapprovingly at the bulge in my trousers.

‘Shouldn’t stuff things in your pockets like that, Perry,’ she said. ‘You young people don’t know how to treat good clothes!’

‘Er, is there anything else, Aunt Kate?’ I said hurriedly, ‘anything else you would like to tell me?’

She was still chomping away, unwilling to miss a mouthful, but she became pensive and finally she said: ‘Don’t know if you realize how much we hated Leo. Well, we did. We didn’t have rows with him, but we all hated him. He got to our weak points and he twisted the knife in. We’re all failures in a way, him most of all. But he made us all feel it. He made us squirm.’

‘He certainly made me squirm.’

‘You were just a boy. It’s different when you’re old. Worse. He was a man who would have hated to be loved. Because he couldn’t love. Think of your poor mother. He despised her. Ignored her. Even you children. He hadn’t an ounce of feeling for you. And you were a lovely little boy, Perry! Golly, you were nice!’

I blushed purple.

‘But he hated you by the end, and he’d have done anything to spite you. He tolerated Chris because she looked after him, but he despised her too, and he’d have made her life hell when he found out about the baby. He was a
horrible
little twerp, Perry! You can’t expect any of us to feel sorry he’s gone.’

‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘Even Chris, I don’t think —’

‘Oh, Chris, underneath, doesn’t care. And she’ll have the baby now. It’ll be better for her, you know, when she has that to look after.’

‘I know. But I wish she could have been married. Chris is the sort that ought to get married. And it’ll be much worse with him in the same house. That I do feel bitter about. Of course I know things aren’t easy for him either. Without a proper job, and no outlets . . .’

Aunt Kate let out a great whoop of laughter. ‘No outlets!’

‘Well, I don’t imagine Morrie has a wildly exciting sex life, stuck here in Harpenden —’

‘Oh Perry, you are a chump! It’s not Morrie, it’s Pete!’

CHAPTER 13

IN WHICH I HAVE AN IDEA

Chump was as good a word as any for it. I had been the most complete and utter chump. I had remembered Cristobel’s expressions of sympathy for Morrie and jumped obediently to the wrong conclusion. I would have done better to ask myself whose name Cristobel
didn’t
mention once during the course of that first interview: Peter’s. And what really got me as I strode through the house and up to my bedroom was that when I had talked
to her a couple of hours before she had known I had fixed on Morrie as the father, and she’d let me go on thinking it. Worse, I had the feeling that she’d been playing with me, like an angler with a big and not very bright fish, ever since I arrived. We had been too dismissive of Cristobel’s intellect. She clearly had depths of animal cunning I had never hitherto plumbed.