4.Little Victim (13 page)

‘We don’t know yet if she is really dead.’

‘Actually I would be interested in reading all the letters. We may get a better picture of Ria.’ Payne stuffed the bundle into his pocket.

‘If a British citizen were to die in Goa, the British High Commission would be notified first, correct? Then the High Commission would contact the relatives in England,’ Antonia said thoughtfully. ‘But what happens if a British citizen disappears and no one realizes they have? We’ve got no evidence Ria’s dead, so that consideration may be a bit premature –’ She broke off. ‘What are you doing?’

Payne was kneeling beside the four-poster. He appeared to be examining one of its four legs. ‘Did you say premature? I wouldn’t say premature, no.’

‘What do you mean?’

He rose slowly to his feet. He was holding something between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Prepare for a shock.’ He showed her his finding.

‘White hairs?’ Antonia squinted. ‘They look the same as the ones on the hook!’

‘They
are
the same. They were stuck to the very base of the leg – where it had pressed into the carpet.’

‘There is no carpet. The floor is bare.’

‘The carpet’s been removed. They
needed
the carpet.’

Payne stood looking at Antonia. ‘Don’t you see?’ ‘Oh, my God. Is that how they . . .’ Payne went into a silent pantomime. He pretended to be rolling up a carpet. He slung it across his right shoulder, then, staggering under its imaginary weight, lumbered in the direction of the bedroom door. Straightening up, he spoke: ‘My guess is there were two of them. As they started crossing the hall, one end of the carpet pushed against the mirror, causing it to fall and smash on the floor. One of them trod on the petits fours which Camillo had dropped on the floor earlier on. I imagine they were acting on Songhera’s orders.’

‘Yes. He told them to go and collect the body. They placed the body on the carpet and rolled her up in it . . . So Roman did kill her!’

‘Did they take her to the croc farm, I wonder?’

A vision rose before Antonia’s eyes. Something they had seen earlier in the afternoon – at Coconut Grove – in the hall – two men in overalls being waved by the turbaned concierge towards the swinging doors. The men had shouted in an agitated manner. They had been carrying two carpets –

One of the carpets had been Persian –
the other white and
with a deep pile.

The Persian carpet was clearly a decoy. To distract attention from the white one.

‘No, not to the croc farm. They took the body to Coconut Grove,’ Antonia said. ‘Remember the men with the carpets?’

Payne stared at her. ‘Men with carpets? By Jove, yes! Songhera’s goons!’

‘That’s what Roman must have told them to do. She is there now, Hugh. At Coconut Grove.
She is there now
.’

‘Yes. Unless we’re making complete fools of ourselves and she’s having the time of her life with a new boyfriend somewhere. No, I don’t think we are. She isn’t having the time of her life.’ Payne’s expression was grim. ‘She’s inside the deep freeze. Next to the ice cream and the caviar. They wouldn’t be taking risks in this hot weather.’

19

Indo-Chine

‘One ignores the ancient and dangerous power of carnal love at one’s peril. Think the
Oresteia
. Think
Othello.
Think
Carmen.
The betrayed lover’s psyche must be a terrible place.’ Major Payne shook his head. ‘One finds nothing there but wild primitive irrationality, blind misery and obsessive craziness. Songhera chose to walk down an ancient and well-trodden path. He’s not the first and, sadly, he won’t be the last. Rage – violence – grief – overpowering sense of loss – howling emptiness. The sequence is always the same, depressingly predictable.’

‘He did howl. That’s what Julian Knight said.’

‘Sex has laid waste to empires and launched a thousand ships.’ Payne frowned. ‘Didn’t Elizabethan slang make “die” a synonym of climax? The power that founds dynasties is a strong voodoo.’

They had walked to the end of the road and were standing there looking out for taxis.

‘Roman must have got wise as to Ria’s affair with Camillo,’ Antonia murmured.

‘Or with somebody else. She seems to have been that sort of girl. You saw those outfits.’

A taxi appeared and Payne held up his hand.

‘203 Vindia Street,’ he told the driver. ‘We might as well go the whole hog and see if we can find Knight.’

‘Do you think we shall?’

‘No. What’s the time?’

‘Half past eight. We’ll be late for the fireworks.’

‘The fireworks can go to hell,’ said Payne. ‘I have no idea what we’ll do if we get saddled with two dead bodies. No idea at all. Apart from deriving the subliminal satisfaction that comes with being proven right.’

203 Vindia Street was a dingy building whose landlord, an elderly Chinese called Tang, spoke good English but seemed distracted. Tang held a long clay pipe in his hand and kept his thumb inside its bowl. He had run out of tobacco, he informed them, and there was no tobacco at the local shop or indeed at any other shop. Life in Kilhar was not easy. Tang shook his head. He would have to wait for a whole week now till he could have a smoke. No, he hadn’t seen Mr Knight since early morning. He had seen Mr Knight in the street outside the house – Tang hitched up his right shoulder and gave a fair imitation of Julian Knight’s gliding walk. It had been some time after eight o’clock. Mr Knight had been muttering to himself. He had appeared greatly preoccupied and hadn’t responded to Tang’s ‘good morning’.

No, Mr Knight hadn’t come back at any point of the day. Tang had sat with his friend, Mr Pereira, in the shop opposite the house, so he wouldn’t have missed Mr Knight. Tang was absolutely sure of his facts. How was he going to manage without any tobacco? He was quite addicted to tobacco. What was that? Tang cupped his ear. The lady and the gentleman wanted to look round Mr Knight’s flat? Tang seemed very much surprised by the request. Why should they want to do that?

‘I am Julian’s cousin,’ Payne explained briskly. ‘I just wanted to see how Julian lives. Is that so unusual?’

Cousin? From England? Tang pushed his forefinger into the pipe’s empty bowl and frowned. Yes, it was unusual. Mr Knight had never been visited by members of his family before.
Never
. Only strangers visited him. And no one so far had asked to be shown Mr Knight’s flat. Tang didn’t know. Mr Knight might not like it.

‘You come with us,’ Payne said. ‘You unlock the flat door and stand by. You watch us like the proverbial hawk. My wife and I just want to take a dekko. We won’t be a minute. Incidentally, would you like to try my baccy?’ He produced his tobacco pouch with a casual gesture. ‘It’s frightfully good.’

‘You have tobacco?’ Tang blinked.

‘Three Nuns. Would you like to try it?
’
Payne unzipped the pouch and proffered it to Tang.

‘You smoke pipe?’

‘I most certainly do.’

‘Three nuns? English tobacco?’ Tang took a pinchful, sniffed at it, nodded and beamed. ‘Smells good. Very good. I can have a smoke now?’

They watched Tang stuff his pipe. Payne handed him a Bryant & May box of matches. He gave Antonia a covert wink. For some reason she was put in mind of the First World War. British soldiers handing over cigarettes to enemy Hun ones on Christmas Day, during a temporary truce.

There was a pause. They awaited Tang’s verdict. ‘Good tobacco.’ Tang nodded again between puffs and smiled. ‘Very good tobacco. English nuns smoke a pipe, yes?’

‘At some convents I imagine they do, though they risk the Mother Superior’s birch,’ Payne said gravely. ‘I’ve got another packet in my suitcase. Sealed for freshness,’ he added in casual tones.

The Chinaman looked at him. ‘You have more English tobacco? The same three nuns?’

‘The very same.’ Would Mr Tang accept the tobacco, Payne went on, as a friendly gift from one pipe smoker to another? He would be happy to deliver the packet in person the following morning. He held the firm belief, Major Payne said, that pipe smokers the world over, irrespective of creed or political persuasion, should support each other. * * * Julian Knight’s flat was the tiniest of bedsits. The interior was dark and drab, the predominant colour a kind of grubby beige. A musty smell hung on the hot, motionless air. The mess, Antonia thought as she stood looking round, was incredible, shocking. How could anyone live like that? Everywhere there were empty bottles. Wine, vodka, rum, whisky, gin, schnapps, orange peel liqueur, something called Kingfisher. Wine glasses, tumblers, sherry glasses and cups, some of them covered in mould, stood on every surface. A cockroach was trying desperately to climb out of a globular brandy glass. Antonia’s face twisted squeamishly. Tins. Tattered cricket almanacs. A broken oil lamp. More bottles. A Carpenters LP:
This Masquerade
. A statuette of the Virgin and Child. A great number of cheap paperbacks. Antonia picked one up, holding it gingerly between her thumb and forefinger.
Amorous Nurses
. She opened it at random.
Dr Hamilton was gorgeous and efficient, a surgical
whizz and the most handsome man she’d ever seen.

Antonia glanced at the rest of the books. She would have expected a former policeman to read real-life crime or unsolved mysteries, if not detective stories, but all the paperbacks, astonishingly, proved to be American hospital romances.
The Tenderness of Doctors
. Not parodies, were they?
He Healed Her Heart.
No. They all seemed to be in dead earnest. One cover showed an intestinal-looking tree festooned with hospital equipment. If I carried this book round, everybody would be asking me what it was about, Antonia thought. One must be really desperate to read stuff like that.

Payne drew her attention to a photograph in a frame – a wedding group. The date was written out under it: May 1982. A broadly smiling bride and a bashful-looking groom. Was that Julian Knight? Antonia peered. Impossible to tell. She imagined she detected a resemblance in the curve of the mouth, but of course she couldn’t swear to it. The fresh-faced young man in the morning coat and the topper couldn’t have looked more different from the sweating twitching creature in the grubby panama and dark glasses who had buttonholed her in the folly. Old Zebra Face. Why had Hugh called him that? Because of the white stripe on his forehead? Julian Knight had been a bad colour. Mottled complexion. He had kept mopping his face. With a little shudder Antonia recalled the stained tissue Julian Knight had dropped inside the folly . . .

Payne had walked across to a small rickety writing table and opened a drawer. Antonia smiled at Tang who was standing in the doorway, smoking in an absorbed manner. ‘So hot, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘Very good tobacco.’ Tang nodded. ‘Madam smoke?’

‘No, I don’t. What’s that?’ She raised her hand towards a thick blackish smudge on the ceiling, which was almost four feet in length and immediately above the narrow bed in the corner.

‘Smoke stain. Opium. No, not Mr Knight. Mr Knight no smoke. My cousin. My cousin live in flat before Mr Knight. My cousin philosopher. What is Infinity? My cousin always ask. Always. Can you explain Infinity? Can you reach Infinity? My cousin want to know. Madam know?’

‘Infinity? Goodness.’ Antonia frowned. ‘Um. They draw it as an 8 that was so tired, it simply had to lie down and take a nap, don’t they? It’s where parallel lines meet, or so they say – isn’t it? What a strange sight
that
would be,’ she murmured thoughtfully.

‘If we ever were to reach Infinity,’ Payne said, ‘all the numbers would be abolished, but then it must mean that Time will be abolished as well and no one will ever use the expression “in years to come” and there’ll be no need for Multiplication Tables, nor for Addition, Subtraction or Division either, and there’ll be no breakfasts, dinners or teas, and – ‘

‘And nobody will grow old but stay the same age?’

‘Which will be fine if you are thirty-something but not so fine if you are eighty-something.’

‘Wife finish husband sentence,’ Tang said approvingly. ‘My wife never finish my sentence. My wife difficult and stupid woman, but she cook well. Madam like flat?’

‘It’s comfortable enough, but it looks a bit mournful,’ said Antonia diplomatically. ‘Not a single bright colour!’

Tang pointed to his eyes. ‘Blind. Attention. Madam not to move. Mouse.’ He now pointed towards Antonia’s feet. With a little cry she drew back. She watched in horror as Tang, without taking the pipe out of his mouth, grabbed a roll of newspapers and killed the mouse with a crisp sickening thwack.

Tang laughed. ‘Madam like mice?’

‘No!’ It took Antonia a moment to recover her poise. ‘What did you mean, “blind”?’

‘Mr Knight blind. See no colour. Mr Knight tell me, Mr Tang, beauty of world lost on me!’

‘Oh, you mean
colour-
blind? Really?’ With the corner of her eye Antonia thought she saw Hugh take something out of the desk drawer and put it into in his pocket.

‘Yes. Blind. See no colour. Madam have children?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many?’

‘I have a son.’

‘I have fifteen son.’

‘Thanks so much for letting us see Knight’s flat.’ Major Payne joined them. ‘Cosy little place. Could do with lick of paint and a spot of spring cleaning, though.’

‘You bring more tobacco tomorrow morning, yes?’

‘Absolutely, my dear fellow. Either in person or I’ll employ the services of one of our tame Turks. Incidentally, Mr Tang, which of Knight’s shoulders is higher, the right or the left?’

‘Right,’ Tang answered promptly.

‘You sure it’s the right?’

‘Yes. Right. You call your cousin by second name?’ Tang gave a sly smile.

‘Sometimes I do. We are not terribly close,’ Payne explained, unperturbed.

Soon after they went down the staircase, which creaked ominously, and out into the street.

‘An observant old bird,’ declared Payne. ‘Am I right in thinking Monsignor Knox ruled against Chinamen? I mean in his famous Decalogue. No self-respecting detective story writer should include sinister Chinamen among the suspects and so on?’

‘Tang is not a suspect.’

‘How do you know? I had the distinct impression he was seething with sinister intentions.’

‘He killed a mouse most adroitly,’ Antonia said in a thoughtful voice.

‘There you are. Tang is a merciless killer. Monsignor Knox meant the Fu Manchu type of course,’ Payne went on ruminatively. ‘Tall, lean and feline, with a brow as wide as Shakespeare’s and a face like Satan’s, close-shaven skull and long magnetic eyes of the true cat green and embodying the cruel cunning of the entire Easten race.’

‘You shouldn’t be saying things like that. What did you take from the desk?’

‘Nothing much. A photo of Ria and her papa. Would be useful to know what she looked like. Want to see it?’ Payne’s hand went to his trouser pocket.

Antonia stood examining the photograph. ‘How can you be sure it’s Ria and her father?’

‘It says so at the bottom – ML and OL.’

‘So it does. Marigold Leighton. OL? Oh. Old Leighton . . . Marigold looks bold and beautiful – wasn’t that the title of that dreadful American soap opera your aunt raves about?’

‘Ah.
The Bold and the Beautiful
. Aunt Nellie has seen thirty-eight episodes – and it is far from over, apparently. Ria’s got oodles of SA,’ Payne murmured. ‘Oodles and oodles and oodles of SA. Don’t look so disapproving. Old Leighton gives me the jitters. Something nightmarish about him.’