The Killing of Olga Klimt Read online

  PRAISE FOR R.T. RAICHEV

  ‘Fascinating … recalls the best from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.’

  Lady Antonia Fraser

  ‘I have read all of Raichev’s books. They are very clever. I really am a fan.’

  R.L. Stine

  ‘Most original and intriguing … An England of club and country house, with a delicious shot of bitters!’

  Emma Tennant

  ‘Raichev clearly has a great deal of fun writing the Antonia and Major Payne series, giving these modern stories almost an Edwardian feel, and we’re rewarded with finely drawn characters, clever murder mysteries, and dialogue that sparkles. Best recommended to fans of golden age authors (Christie, Sayers, et al.) who can tolerate a little modernity!’

  Booklist

  ‘A most intriguing yarn of mystery, imagination, observation and splendidly old-fashioned sleuthery which skilfully probes the surface smoothness of clubland and country house. I couldn’t put it down.’

  Hugh Massingberd

  ‘Deftly mixes dark humour and psychological suspense, its genteel surface masking delicious deviancy.’

  Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

  ‘Greed, jealousy, rampant emotions and a killer lurk in the wings of this tale that mixes Henry James’ psychological insight with Agatha Christie’s whodunnit plotting skills … a diabolically clever story line.’

  Library Journal (Starred Review)

  ‘An ominous feel, reminiscent of Hitchcock.’

  Mystery Morgue

  ‘Recommended for any mystery fan who likes surprises.’

  New Mystery Reader Magazine

  ‘Murder is fun again! Each chapter parcels out just a bit more of the story, just enough, drawing open the curtain to reveal the picture behind … A mystery that harkens back to the thirties and forties, but pays respect to modernity … Definitely a keeper.’

  Suspense Magazine

  ‘Intricate and inventive … very witty dialogue and a cast of gloriously eccentric characters.’

  Francis Wyndham

  ‘Stylish … deft use of literary allusion and well-drawn characterisation.’

  Publishers Weekly

  ‘The kind of old-school mysteries that fans of Christie and Sayers love … but this will be pleasing to more than traditionalists, because it adds a P.D. Jamesian subtlety to the comfortable formula. Antonia Darcy is a terrific sleuth and Raichev is a very clever writer, indeed.’

  Booklist

  ‘Liberal doses of imagination, experimentation, intelligence and sprinklings of irony, satire and fun … the riveting attention of a game of Cluedo.’

  The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books

  ‘A whodunnit with more twists than a snake in a basket!’

  Robert Barnard, CWA Diamond Dagger Winner

  ‘Superbly plotted … Raichev delivers this classic with the perfect panache one expects from an author who wrote his doctoral dissertation on English crime fiction … Excellent series!’

  Toronto Globe & Mail

  ‘A dazzling tour de force, as ingeniously plotted as anything Agatha Christie ever wrote but wittier and more sophisticated.’

  The Denver Post on The Death of Corinne: An Antonia Darcy and Major Payne Investigation

  ‘Clever … Raichev’s series has attitude, like a mash-up of Evelyn Waugh, P.G. Wodehouse and P.D. James …’

  Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Murder at the Villa Byzantine: An Antonia Darcy and Major Payne Investigation

  ‘With plenty of unexpected twists and a good ending, The Murder of Gonzago is pure fun!’

  www.gumshoereview.com on Murder of Gonzago: An Antonia Darcy and Major Payne Investigation

  ‘A grand whodunnit in the great tradition of English crime writing.’

  www.crimesquad.com on The Riddle of Sphinx Island: An Antonia Darcy and Major Payne Mystery

  ‘Another baffling case … A risky romp in pursuit of the truth … Raichev’s page-turner captures the tart elegance of classic cozies but adds an appealing modern edge.’

  Kirkus Review

  To Nick Hay, aficionado, friend and critic extraordinaire.

  Also for Chitra, master of the mot juste!

  ‘Well, there will be a Victim, of course. And Clues. And Suspects. All rather conventional – you know, the Vamp and the Blackmailer and the Young Lovers and the Sinister Butler and so on …’

  Agatha Christie, Dead Man’s Folly

  CONTENTS

  Praise

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1 Vertigo

  2 The Children’s Hour

  3 The Kindness of Strangers

  4 The Enigma of the Evil Valet

  5 True Love

  6 An Unquiet Mind

  7 The Conversation

  8 The Affair of the Luminous Blonde

  9 True Lies

  10 The Night of the Hunter

  11 Heads You Lose

  12 Du Côté de chez Collingwood

  13 The Perfect Murder (1)

  14 The Perfect Murder (2)

  15 ‘Philomel Cottage’

  16 Call on the Dead

  17 The Unnatural Order of Things

  18 To Wake the Dead

  19 The House of Fear

  20 Whose Body?

  21 The Anatomy of Murder

  22 Journey into Darkness

  23 Charlie’s Angel

  24 Under Suspicion

  25 The Rule of Two

  26 Dangerous Knowledge

  27 Cabal (1)

  28 The Private Wound

  29 Cabal (2)

  30 Something Happened

  31 A Talent to Annoy

  32 L’Heure Maliciose

  33 Eyes Wide Open

  34 Terror by Night

  35 The Final Solution

  About The Author

  Also in the Antonia Darcy and Major Payne Mystery Series

  Copyright

  1

  VERTIGO

  If I can’t have her, no one else will.

  I imagine this is one of the thoughts passing through Mr Eresby’s mind at this very moment. Mr Eresby, you see, is in the grip of considerable mental turmoil – what I believe alienists term ‘unrelieved anguish’. Mr Eresby’s hands are clenched into fists. He keeps shaking his head. His shoulders are hunched forward. His movement can only be described as ‘jerky’.

  I am walking some distance behind him. I have been following Mr Eresby for the past – let me see – ten, no, twelve, minutes.

  Left, right, left, right. Though all I am presented with is the back of Mr Eresby’s head, I am sure his expression is still dazed, the corners of his mouth pulled down, his complexion exceedingly pale, his eyes ‘unseeing’. They say exercise has a beneficial effect on the nervous system, but, in my opinion, it is too soon for any tangible changes for the better to have started manifesting themselves.

  The situation is incomprehensible and, frankly, quite absurd. Mr Eresby (‘Charlie’ to his intimates) is young, rich and handsome and he can have any girl he wants; yet it is Olga Klimt on whom he has set his heart. No other girl will do. He says he can’t live without her. He says, rather extravagantly, that he’d rather die. I read somewhere that emotional problems of such extreme nature invariably go back to one’s childhood and have something to do with one’s relations with one’s parents. I wonder if that is true.

  Mr Eresby’s papa, of Eresby’s Biscuits fame and fortune, has been dead twenty-two years, so Mr Eresby has no recollection of him, though his mama is still very much with us. She is a very interesting woman, ‘unconventional’, perhaps is the best word to describe her, and she cares deeply for Mr Eresby, even if she tends to treat him as th
ough he were a boy of ten. Maybe that’s the problem? Perhaps at this point I should mention that relations between me and the former Mrs Eresby – Lady Collingwood, as she now is – are excellent. Lady Collingwood regards me in a most favourable light. Indeed she thinks, if I may be excused the cliché, the world of me. She is convinced that I am an exceptional, if not unique, human being. Well, she is right. I am unique.

  It is thanks to Lady Collingwood that I obtained my position with Mr Eresby. Lady Collingwood telephones me once a week and we have a ‘chat’. She listens carefully to what I have to say. My opinions matter to her. It pains me that Lord Collingwood does not seem to share the high regard in which his wife holds me. Apparently Lord Collingwood has expressed concern about the influence I exercise over her and on two occasions at least has referred to me, somewhat fancifully, as playing Rasputin to Lady Collingwood’s Russian Empress. He has also said I am ‘the sort of fellow who should be tarred and feathered or, failing that, flung over a precipice’.

  I would have preferred to have had my specialness confirmed, not deprecated, and having pondered the matter, I have reached the conclusion that Lord Collingwood should be punished. Not at the moment, since I have so many other things on my mind, but at some point in the not too distant future. I am not the kind of person who takes slights and slurs lightly. I do not forget easily either. Tarred and feathered indeed!

  Left, right, left, right. My young master needs a haircut. I make a mental note to remind him. His hair is getting too long at the back.

  I am sure Mr Eresby knows I am following him but he hasn’t yet acknowledged my presence. I dab at my forehead with my handkerchief. I loosen my tie a quarter of an inch. It is the sixth of September, but it could have been the height of summer. London is ‘blowsy’ with heat.

  I see Mr Eresby nod to himself. I observe his fists tighten. He seems to have come to some decision. What decision exactly? To end it all? To kill himself? No, to kill Olga, and then kill himself? This may sound ludicrously melodramatic, but isn’t that what forlorn lovers do?

  (Attempting to read Mr Eresby’s mind is something of a hobby of mine, what bobsleighing, collecting Victorian pornography, borzoi-breeding or rearranging the furniture is for some.)

  Sloane Square is now behind us. We are walking along the kind of well-bred street my master sometimes professes to despise. Symons Street. We pass by a delicatessen that looks like a mini Fortnum & Mason’s, a post office with two traditional pillar boxes of gleaming red outside, an exclusive florist’s, a small bookshop catering for esoteric tastes. My eye catches some of the titles of books displayed in the window: Carnivorous Butterflies, The Androgynous Virgin, Combating Loneliness via Commercial Transactions.

  A chair in the Lowenstein antique-shop window claims my attention. It is upholstered in smooth black velvet; it has high-stepping legs and a noble straight back; it stands alone in arrogant elegance. For a second I halt. It would be perfect for my room, I think.

  Left, right, left, right. My master moves like a clockwork toy soldier. I don’t believe he has any definite destination in mind, but he seems determined to keep walking. The heat is becoming quite unbearable. When will this purposeless wandering cease?

  Bedaux must be pleased about what happened, Charlie thought. Bedaux didn’t like Olga. Bedaux had never said so, but Charlie had seen him look at her contemptuously. But what did it matter what Bedaux thought? Blast Bedaux. Bedaux could go to blazes.

  I can’t live without her, he thought. I love her. I have never loved anyone before. She is the first and she will be the last. I’ll never love again. I can’t imagine not seeing her, not hearing her voice, not holding her in my arms. I can’t imagine not kissing her. I can’t imagine anyone else kissing her. I’ll go mad if I see her kissing someone else. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill her. I’ll kill myself.

  The night before Charlie had had a dream. It was after nightfall and he was in some small town which looked Germanic. Looking up he had seen two moons in the sky. A clock moon above a solemn black courthouse and the real moon that was slowly rising in vanilla whiteness from the dark east. He had woken up feeling happy. Never for a moment had it occurred to him that this would turn out to be the most dreadful day of his life.

  I am sorry, Charlie, but I am thinking and I decide that we don’t see each other any more. No, I can’t tell you why not. I am sorry. Please, do not call me ever again. I don’t want to see you. I am sorry. It is difficult, I know, but it is all over. I am going. You won’t find me at Philomel Cottage. Don’t start looking for me, because you’ll never find me. It is all over.

  That was what Olga had said to him on the phone. She hadn’t given a word of explanation. She hadn’t offered him any reason. Just when he thought nothing could possibly go wrong between them! It had been a shock. He had felt sick. He had felt faint. He had rung back at once, he had kept calling her, but she never answered.

  There was somebody else, there must be. That was the obvious reason. The thought had always been there, if he had to be honest, at the back of his mind, the fear. Olga had mentioned a former boyfriend once, someone in Lithuania. Perhaps the former boyfriend had reappeared. The former boyfriend had come to England. Yes. That was it. That’s what must have happened. The former boyfriend had claimed Olga back. Perhaps the former boyfriend was a better lover than he would ever be?

  How sordid it all was. Good riddance to bad rubbish. He was a fool to care. She wasn’t worth it.

  I hate her, Charles whispered. I detest her. I despise her. Wayward and feckless, fickle beyond belief. Lying whore. Mercenary slut. I hate her.

  No, that was not true – he loved her. He felt his eyes filling with tears. He would die if he couldn’t have her …

  Bedaux had already suggested that they go away as soon as possible, so that Mr Eresby could forget. Bedaux meant abroad. Bedaux always imagined he had all the answers. Go where exactly, Bedaux? To the Continent, sir. Bedaux had suggested Carlsbad. Bedaux seemed to have a thing about old-world European spas of the statelier kind. Bedaux was particularly keen on Carlsbad, for some reason. But that was ridiculous. No one went to Carlsbad these days, did they?

  He hated Bedaux. It was thanks to Bedaux that he had met Olga. It was all Bedaux’s fault. Bedaux was a duplicitous bastard, well apart from being an anachronism and a bloody fake. Bedaux was his own invention. The gentleman’s personal gentleman was an inane absurdity, an idealised nostalgic concept, nothing but a carefully cultivated phantasm. Charlie couldn’t stand the look and sound of him, his carefully brushed hair, his blank crash-dummy face, his voice, which was of the silkily sinister variety and brought to mind a viper slithering through velvet. Bedaux had such an annoying way of saying ‘sir’ – he pronounced it ‘sah’– another deliberate affectation.

  Earlier on, at the house, after Olga’s call which had caused Charlie to collapse on the sofa in the large gold-painted barrel-vaulted drawing room, Bedaux had stood gazing at him with a clinical unsympathetic eye, with more than a hint of ironic detachment. Charlie had had the sense of being coldly appraised. He might have been a specimen on a dissecting table. He had started to light a cigarette, to calm his nerves, only the match had jumped from between his shaking fingers and fallen among the sofa cushions. He had made no attempt to retrieve it. He remembered his thoughts. An all-consuming conflagration would be a most welcome development. It would be marvellous if I went up in flames. But then he had heard Bedaux clear his throat.

  ‘Do not be alarmed, sir. I have been able to locate the fugitive ember. There will be no fiery consequences.’

  That Bedaux should have chosen to act the stage butler at a moment like that! Perhaps he should sack him? Yes, why not? A bloody marvellous idea. Mummy wouldn’t like it but Charlie really didn’t care. If Mummy was so frightfully keen on Bedaux, she could offer him employment herself, couldn’t she? Mummy could make Bedaux her butler or something. Mummy had been complaining about not having a butler. No, old Collingwood wouldn’t allow it. Old Colli
ngwood disapproved of Bedaux. He had warned Charlie against Bedaux. His stepfather was an interfering old fool, but he might be right this time …

  A sound came from behind. It was Bedaux clearing his throat. Bedaux was reminding him of his presence, in case the young master decided he might need him after all.

  Charlie blinked. He had seen the word ‘nursery’ in front of him. There was a sign on his left, saying ‘SYLVIE & BRUNO NURSERY SCHOOL’. How funny. He seemed to know who Sylvie and Bruno were. Of course he knew. Lewis Carroll. Why, at one time he had known ‘The Mad Gardener’s Song’ by heart! Absolute ages ago, but he believed he could still recite it!

  Charlie stood gazing at the building. It was made of fine red brick. There was a picture window and framed in it he saw a woman. She was sitting at an important-looking desk and she was talking to someone. She was wearing a perfectly tailored suit amd exuded great authority and confidence. She looked stolid. Not a type he admired. Who was she? The head nanny – if there was such a thing? Supernanny. Charlie had watched a TV programme of that name, all about a super nanny who helped ineffectual parents cope with their difficult ultra-feral offspring.

  For some reason Charlie couldn’t tear his eyes from the picture window.

  ‘A fact so dread,’ he faintly said, ‘extinguishes all hope.’

  It was the Mad Gardener in Sylvie and Bruno who said that. Extinguish all hope, eh? Charlie laughed. He couldn’t help himself. He hadn’t meant to. He was feeling rather wobbly, actually. A touch of vertigo. More than a touch. Unwise to laugh. It was so terribly hot. Hot and stuffy.

  Who was the super nanny talking to? There was someone in the room with her.

  Suddenly a little boy appeared at the window. He stood there, looking at Charlie.

  Charlie tried waving at the boy but his hand refused to obey him. He frowned. He knew that something was about to happen. Something momentous –