Destroying Angel (28 page)

Something made Susan linger in the kitchen. A pleasant but faint smell was just discernible, and she immediately recognised it as the scent of the powder she had used to dry Paulette after her bath.

She rushed through to where Berner and Gage were still talking. ‘They were here!’ she exclaimed. ‘And not so long ago!’

‘Just a minute please,’ Gage snapped impatiently. ‘We’ve important matters to discuss here.’

Susan hopped agitatedly from one foot to the other. ‘But Paulette was here, I know she was!’

‘I asked you to be quiet!’ Gage turned on her again.

She looked from him to Berner, who gave her a sheepish shrug of apology and then returned his attention to his boss.

‘I don’t believe you two!’ she shrieked, and then dashed out of the house to Berner’s car, knowing he had left the keys in the ignition.

‘I am genuinely sorry to have to do this Paulette,’ Annabella de Vergy said as her trussed victim struggled on the floor. ‘You really are rather sweet, but you must understand that I simply can’t have people running around the country who know as much as you do.’

Paulette’s head throbbed abominably, and she couldn’t speak. She was bound and gagged on the floor with the same handcuffs and belt as she had used on Susan.

Annabella sat down, placed her leather bag on the coffee-table, and took a bottle of over-strength vodka from it. She was wearing a pair of pretty gloves, the significance of which were all too ominous.

‘Don’t worry, my dear, it won’t hurt too much,’ she continued. ‘I imagine you’ll just go quietly to sleep in a drunken stupor. It’s quite appropriate, I suppose, that you and your friend Susan should die in a particularly mucky sex accident. These things happen for real, you know. I don’t suppose the police will look too closely, especially when they discover what you and Susan got up to together.’

Paulette squirmed in terror as Annabella produced a large syringe from her bag.

‘Of course, with Sowerby it had to be food,’ de Vergy said, as casual as ever despite her murderous intentions. ‘Mark you, he was an annoying little man and deserved to die in pain. He was always pestering me with pompous little love poems and absurd protestations about how pure his feelings for me were. I tried to get rid of him gently, but he wouldn’t take the hint, so he had to go. You were right about me picking up the Destroying Angel in Choray. Christian Charrier showed me where it grows in a wood he owns. Now there’s a man worth sleeping with, although not my personal taste. I bet he liked you, though. Did you let him get you over his barrel? Yes, I would imagine you did.’

Annabella had filled the syringe with vodka, leaving the bottle nearly half-empty. ‘I’m sorry, my dear Paulette, but I have to do this…’

Susan left the car still running in the middle of the street and ran up the stairs to her flat. She fumbled with the key in the lock, burst into the living room, and stopped dead. Paulette was lying on the floor, bound and helpless. Annabella de Vergy stood over her, an enormous syringe in one gloved hand. A half-empty bottle of vodka stood on the coffee-table.

‘Ah, so you’ve come back,’ she said. ‘Excellent… it will look so much more convincing if you are dealt with at the same time. You won’t escape, Susan, so you may as well make it easy for yourself and submit. I promise it won’t hurt.’

Annabella de Vergy stepped forward, tall, lithe and commanding. She reached out as Susan edged back, and then she doubled up with shock and agony etched on her face as Susan’s fist sunk into her solar plexus. Her head snapped back and she crumpled as Susan’s second sweeping blow caught her on the chin. Never allowing her opponent a second to recover, Susan twisted, snatched up the vodka bottle, and drove it down as hard as she could on the vile woman’s head.

Annabella de Vergy slumped to the floor, unconscious. Susan turned to Paulette, breathing heavily, and then turned back at the sound of footsteps running up the stairs. Berner and Gage burst into the room. Susan dropped the shattered vodka bottle and managed a weak smile as they stared open-mouthed at the incredible scene before them.