Barbara Cleverly (38 page)

‘Is Alice dead?’

‘That part of George’s story is based on the truth. She rode off into the night, miles from anywhere and has never resurfaced. Edgar rated her chances of survival pretty low. And the chances of finding a body in that bit of country are slim.’

‘Why on earth did she ride off?’

‘Because I’d just arrested her for fraud and as an accessory to the murders of Lionel Conyers and Feodor Korsovsky but mainly because she’d just put a bullet between the eyes of Rheza Khan.’

‘Now why would she want to do that? Good Lord! Rogue of the worst kind, I’m sure, but that seems a bit extreme. Especially when she had you and Edgar standing by, fingers on the trigger.’

‘It was very personal. She trusted him all the way and he betrayed her. She had no idea he was using her as a front for his gun-running. It was the one thing Alice couldn’t stand. All her life, she told me, she’d been used and betrayed by the men she loved. But I think her worst betrayal, the one she never got over, was Korsovsky’s.’

And slowly at first but with growing eloquence as the details of Alice’s story came back to mind, Joe filled in the details as far as he understood them of Alice/Isobel’s early life and the part Madame Flora had played in it. He explained the impersonation at the root of everything and how deception and murder had flowed from it. He went over everything again from the devastating experience of sitting alongside Korsovsky when he had been shot at Tara Devi to the disappearance of Alice and ending with George’s meticulous sanitizing of the story for public consumption.

Maisie’s eyes widened in astonishment as his story unfolded. ‘That’s the most extraordinary story I’ve ever heard! Definitely calling for another drink.’ She called a passing steward. ‘You’re telling me that Saintly Alice is a fraud and she’s pulled the wool over everybody’s eyes for three years?’

‘Yes, beyond any doubt and she has admitted it. Rheza Khan to a limited extent, Troop and Flora were the only ones in Simla – or the world – who knew the truth.’

‘What? Not even Reggie? Her husband!’ Maisie gave a throaty gurgle. ‘I can see a few difficulties there!’

Joe smiled. ‘I know what you mean! And how interested I would be to have heard Alice’s bedtime stories!’

‘I had no idea! And I thought I knew everyone’s secrets in Simla! But hang on a minute, Joe

’ Maisie bit her lip and narrowed her eyes in concentration finally saying slowly, ‘Look, I know you’re the detective and as smart as a new rupee, so I feel a bit daft even suggesting this but – it doesn’t add up! There’s one or two things you’ve just said that strike me as a bit odd.’

She looked at him speculatively. ‘And perhaps that’s what you intended? You’re not happy about it, are you, Joe? The murders, I mean? Alice obviously didn’t do either of the killings herself but was she guilty of ordering Rheza Khan to kill both those men?’

‘She was and she wasn’t,’ said Joe.

‘What’s that supposed to mean? Come on, Joe! You can do better than that!’

‘I’m afraid that it means justice has not yet been done. It means that I got only half of it right. It means that there’s a killer still on the loose.’

Joe paused for a long time, looking along the deck at the passengers enjoying the sunshine. He said at last, ‘Let you into a secret, Maisie. The killer is right here with us on this boat.’

Ť ^ ť

To her credit, Maisie did not look round.

‘Maisie, I want you to go over this with me. Tell me if you think I’m reading too much into it, making an already mystifying situation even more complex than it really is.’

‘All right – just so long as you only expect me to call on my common sense. I can’t involve any higher authority so don’t think of it! Can’t be done – not on a personal level. It would be like asking the name of the next Derby winner.’ Maisie paused and looked searchingly at him. ‘Are you – are we – in danger, Joe?’ she asked.

‘I’m not sure. We could be. This is rather a wild scene! There are no guarantees.’

‘I think you’d better explain.’

Joe began slowly, ‘It goes right back to the two killings. The modus operandi as we call it in the trade.’

Maisie nodded. ‘You don’t have to spell every word. I’m not illiterate. Merl’s brother (horrible man!) was a sniper in the war. Bored the pants off us talking about his experiences and I must say there’s not a lot I can still remember about what he had to say but there are one or two things in your account he would have picked up on and argued about till he was blue in the face. You said Lionel was hit in the head – one shot? – and Korsovsky was hit in the chest – two shots? Well there you are!’

‘Maisie, you’re amazing!’ said Joe with feeling. ‘It’s a foul trade. Merl’s brother would have said – and I would have agreed with him – that snipers always choose the same target area. I’m not talking about a snap shot across No Man’s Land – some fool putting his head above the parapet – but a serious, long-range, carefully planned killing. That’s what we’re talking about. We came to recognize snipers from their technique; even gave them nicknames. And the area they choose is the chest. Much bigger target, you see, less chance of getting it wrong. And if they have time they make sure they’ve pulled it off by firing two rounds. The killing of Korsovsky was cool, controlled and done by the book. I think it was done by a completely different person from the first killing. Lionel was killed by one shot. To the head. I inspected the scene of the ambush with Charlie Carter and I can tell you it was a pretty amazing piece of shooting! I’m a good shot but I wouldn’t have risked a single head shot. Not at that range.’

‘And you say the guns were different?’

‘Yes. I think Merl’s brother would have had a comment to make on that too.’

‘Killings were only a year apart – he’d have used the same rifle. Merl’s brother went through the whole war with the same gun. God! – he knew the sensitive parts of that bloody gun better than any woman’s. Still he did sleep with it for four years.’

‘So what I’m saying is that the first murder was done by Rheza Khan. It’s his style. A first-rate shot, arrogant sod! A hard target – the head – and only one shot necessary. We know he was five feet ten or thereabouts – a couple of inches shorter than me I would guess – and that he smoked Black Cat cigarettes. His motive was strong. I don’t think he did it with Alice’s knowledge though, let alone her approval. I’ll swear she was genuinely surprised when Troop and I brought it to light in her presence. I’ll go further – I’d have sworn she genuinely put down both killings to her blackmailer, whoever that was.’

Joe paused for a moment, his thoughts on the last few minutes he had spent with Alice, his nostrils seared with cordite, his ears singing from the gunshot echoing in that small stone room and, above all, he remembered her saying over her shoulder before she jumped: ‘I never asked Rheza to kill anyone for me, Joe.’ He remembered her almost proud insistence on the fact that she had never lied to him. He had set this aside in the face of the one enormous outrageous lie of her impersonation. But suppose she had been telling him the literal truth all along?

He spoke aloud her farewell sentence, changing the emphasis. ‘I never asked Rheza to kill anyone for me, Joe,’ became, ‘I never asked Rheza to kill anyone for me, Joe.’

‘But did you ask someone else to kill for you, Alice?’ Joe asked.

‘Listen, Maisie! How does this sound? Lionel gets killed without Alice’s knowledge by Rheza for the reasons we know. Now, a year later, Korsovsky is expected in Simla. Alice wants him dead.’

‘To protect her identity? Couldn’t she just have done a bunk with her ill-gotten gains? She had plenty of warning – the theatre had booked him back in November. All she had to do to avoid being recognized was stay in bloody Bombay in April. Doesn’t wash, Joe.’

‘That wasn’t the reason she asked for his head on a plate. No. There was a darker reason. Revenge. She hated him with all the fury of a woman who had truly loved him and been rejected, deserted. I know she was capable of this. I’ve seen her kill a man for the same reason. The moment she discovered Rheza had cheated and betrayed her he was lost. I watched her face as she shot him. I even pleaded with her not to do it. She didn’t hear me. She was set to kill: concentrated and unswerving. And she smiled while she shot him.’

Joe shuddered. ‘And then she turned her gun on me. I’ll never know why she didn’t kill me.’ He described the last few charged minutes before Alice escaped.

Maisie snorted. ‘There’s two reasons and neither of them is that she was overwhelmed by your masculine allure! You were a good insurance policy, Joe! There was no point in upsetting Sir George by gunning down his guest and agent and she left you feeling flattered — aren’t I right? – that she’d kindly not pulled the trigger. Just in case you ever met again your last memory of her would be that she had – I can’t say saved your life – but had failed to take it. You owe her one, Joe. She knows that. You know that.’

‘And the second reason?’

‘Drama. Playacting. Showtime. Takes one to know one! That’s what Alice or Isobel or whoever she is has really been doing all the time. If you’ve got it right she spent five or six years whoring her way through France and, by God, you learn to put on a performance on that kind of stage!’ Her face clouded for a moment. ‘I’ve known one or two tarts who could have played Drury Lane if they’d had the vowels. And this one had. I always thought there was more to Alice Sharpe than the virtuous veneer. God! Think about it, Joe! That sugar-icing, touch-me-not respectability underpinned by a tart’s skills in handling men – it’s an unbeatable combination!’

‘It certainly had all the men in Simla twisted round her little finger.’

‘And she made the most of it! Playing a part – that’s what this woman is all about. I bet she doesn’t know who she really is, she’s been through so many changes of mask!’

Joe remembered his first sight of Alice, in the spotlight, tears streaming down her face for a lost lover, he remembered her body pressed shivering against him, her breath warm against his cheek as she whispered that his life was in danger and melodramatically gave him her gun. He saw her framed in the embrasure at the Red Fort before she leapt towards freedom. ‘Playacting all the way,’ he said sadly. ‘You’re right, Maisie.’

‘Still – acting’s one thing, killing’s

well, that’s a bit real-life, like. This Korsovsky – it was such a long time ago. 1914, that’s eight years. I was deserted in the war and if I ever set eyes on the bugger again I’d shake his hand and thank him for the forethought! Would any woman still want to kill a deserting lover – even the love of her life – after all that time?’

‘Alice would. In fact, I’ll go further,’ said Joe feeling his way through his argument. ‘We know from Korsovsky’s papers that he was due to appear in the Roman theatres of Provence shortly after the Beaune rail crash. Was it a coincidence that Isobel Newton was travelling to the south of France at that very time? This was the first time he’d returned to the place where they met since his desertion. The first chance she’d had to get close to him again and, perhaps, even to kill him. The rail crash intervened and she had other things on her mind but, waking or sleeping, I don’t think the overpowering need to be avenged ever left her.’

‘And you’re saying that she asked – or blackmailed – she could have blackmailed, Joe – somebody in Simla to gun him down? Some feller who happened to be the same size as the first assassin was known to be and who smoked the same cigarettes – everybody had heard, on the quiet of course, a description of the chap they were looking for first time round.’

‘She would have had to find someone the right size, yes. That would have been tricky to fake – but the cigarettes?’ Joe smiled. ‘That was a fake! I think she sent a non-smoker! A non-smoker armed with a pack of the same Black Cats. The killer puffed unenthusiastically at a couple of fags and stubbed them out. We worked out from the timing of Korsovsky’s arrival in the Governor’s car that there hadn’t been time to smoke more than two cigarettes and that would account for one of them being put out hastily and half smoked. But not both! Those stubs were left there for us to find as were the spent rounds and the deeper than necessary scrapes where boots and elbows had rested. So the bumbling police would assume that the maniac sniper had struck again. And then Alice spreads the rumour that it’s a deliberate political provocation – quite a credible theory in the present climate.’

‘But who, Joe? Who shot Korsovsky? You know, don’t you? Are you going to tell me?’

‘No.’ Joe smiled irritatingly. ‘Are you ready for Act 3 of this performance? I think it’s time for the killer to speak.’

Ť ^

The jazz quartet had pressed on with its rehearsal, gathering strength and gathering an audience. All deck chairs within earshot of the ballroom were now occupied and white-jacketed stewards slipped to and fro at speed delivering long iced drinks in bright colours, the green of menthe, the fiery orange of grenadine and the yellow of citron. The group broke into a fast-paced ‘Broadway Rose’.

‘Maisie,’ said Joe, ‘look at those two nuns over there. Tell me what you see.’

Maisie looked. ‘Stupid cows,’ she said, ‘sweating it out under all those layers of cloth! And why do nuns always wear glasses? Does becoming a nun do your eyes in or do you have to be short-sighted in the first place before they’ll take you on? At least those two have had the sense to order drinks. One of them, the big one, is drinking fizzy mineral water by the looks of it and the little one is drinking something her Mother Superior would never approve of, I should guess! What is that pink drink anyway?’

‘Looks like a Campari-soda to me. Distinctly intoxicating,’ said Joe.

‘Should we tell her? Perhaps the waiter got her order mixed up and she’s too inexperienced to realize! Can’t be doing with a legless nun aboard!’

‘It’s all right. That one can take her liquor!’

‘Tell you something else, Joe,’ Maisie added, her voice suddenly bright with excitement and suspicion. ‘Just look at her right foot!’

‘Her foot? What do you mean – her foot?’