The Death of Corinne Read online

  Had Miss Darcy heard any other noises? Footsteps – raised voices – commotion of any kind – the roar of a car engine perhaps? No?

  ‘I didn’t hear a thing,’ Antonia said. How interesting that Maginot should have been shot at a close range, she thought. A picture rose before her eyes, of the two women locked in a mortal combat, lurching about against the backdrop of all those decaying plants, the gun between them . . . No, no – of course not – that wasn’t how it had happened . . . The gun – where did the gun come from?

  ‘I don’t suppose you can help having ideas?’ Inspector Lyttleton said with a smile.

  Antonia admitted she couldn’t. There was a pause, then he changed tack. Why hadn’t they called the police earlier? Why a private detective and not the police? Antonia explained that that had been Maître Maginot’s idea. Maître Maginot had done it out of consideration for Corinne Coreille and her career – she had been afraid of adverse publicity. Adverse publicity, he muttered. So, in a way, Maître Maginot had brought it upon herself. He shook his head.

  No one, Antonia emphasized, had imagined that Eleanor Merchant would be able to find Corinne’s whereabouts. He agreed – that was one of the most amazing aspects of the whole affair. He scrunched up his face.

  However had Eleanor Merchant managed to get hold of Lady Grylls’s address?

  27

  The Killing Doll

  How indeed?

  That was a question – one of the questions – that had been bothering Antonia. How could Eleanor Merchant have known where to find Corinne Coreille, given Maître Maginot’s obsession with secrecy and security – considering how carefully she had orchestrated operation ‘Safe Haven’? Maître Maginot had explained that the reason for not taking any ‘entourage’ with them was to avoid attracting any attention at any stage of their journey.

  No, Antonia had no idea where Corinne Coreille had disappeared or when she could have left the house. The oddity and reclusiveness of the French singer were touched upon, together with her memorable haunting voice. Surprisingly, it turned out Inspector Lyttleton was familiar with Corinne Coreille. He remembered the occasion well. He had seen her on TV in the early ’70s – the Ed Sullivan show – Corinne Coreille had sung in duet with Eartha Kitt – the two of them had been kitted out as comic vamps – feather boas and fishnet stockings – they had sat on top of a grand piano. ‘All white. The piano, the roses, the snow . . . It was a Christmas special. The pianist smoked a cigarette. They let people smoke on the box in those days. C’est si bon,’ Lyttleton hummed and wriggled his shoulders lightly. ‘Variety. I’ve always been fond of variety,’ he said.

  Had Corinne Coreille perhaps panicked and run off in the early hours of the morning? That at once suggested that somehow she knew what had taken place in the greenhouse. What was Miss Darcy’s view? Antonia shrugged. It was possible. She felt reluctant to swap theories with him. Could Corinne have heard a noise from outside, gone to investigate and found the bodies? Possible again, Antonia said, though she thought it highly unlikely. Corinne would never have left the house in the dark, all by herself. If she had heard a suspicious noise, a cry, say, she would have sought Jonson out, the man they had hired to protect her. But Jonson had been asleep in his room, or so he claimed. He had heard nothing . . . Had Jonson told the truth? Such a likeable young man, but – Antonia reminded herself – one thing one should never do in a case of murder was to warm to likeable young men.

  There was also the question of transport. It had been a cold and wet night. Corinne couldn’t simply have walked out of the house, carrying her bags. The house was on the outskirts of the village. There was a cab service in the village, but the police had already ascertained that no cab had been called from Chalfont Park at any point in the night or in the early hours of the morning. A search, Antonia understood, was under way.

  Where was Corinne? She seemed to have vanished into thin air. Without a trace. The way the inspector said it, the way he paused and frowned and shook his head, suggested that he thought Corinne Coreille too might be dead. Suddenly, he asked Antonia if she knew anything about the doll that had been found on the stairs. Where had it come from? She stared at him. She knew nothing about a doll – what doll?

  He produced a see-through plastic bag from his briefcase and handed it to her across the desk. The doll was inside the bag. ‘Don’t take it out,’ he warned her.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Antonia said.

  There were two large hatpins sticking out of the top of the doll’s head, two more had been run through its eyes, another two through its ears. A pin that was larger than the others stuck out of the doll’s mouth. Antonia shuddered. A voodoo doll? The next moment she realized with a start that it was a Corinne doll. Peverel had told them about it – and of course Eleanor Merchant had written about it in her first letter. The doll was about five inches long and it was instantly recognizable as Corinne. There was the fringe, the demure expression, the blue dress, the red bow. The eyes looked somewhat ‘Japanese’. Well, the doll had been made in Japan, to coincide with Corinne’s Osaka comeback concert.

  The inspector had read Eleanor Merchant’s description of how she had set about sticking pins into a Corinne doll, turning it into a ‘pincushion’ and feeling ‘better’ as a result. Eleanor had asked Corinne whether ‘it hurt’.

  It looked as though Eleanor Merchant had brought the doll with her, all the way from America. But Eleanor had died in the greenhouse. How had the Corinne doll landed on the main staircase at Chalfont? That was where Provost had stumbled on it in the morning . . . Could Eleanor Merchant have sneaked into the house at some point? It was Antonia who asked the question. Well, no door or window had been forced . . . Eleanor could have been let into the house by somebody, Antonia imagined. She might have had an accomplice.

  The inspector said guardedly that they were not looking for anyone else. Of course the search for Corinne Coreille would continue.

  Soon after the interview was over and Inspector Lyttle-ton left. Antonia had kept to the known, plain facts. She had made no mention of any of the fancy trimmings. Peverel’s involvement with Corinne over thirty years previously, the fact that Corinne Coreille had given birth to his child, the idea that Maginot was in fact Ruse, Corinne’s mother, the strong suspicion that had now become a certainty that Jonson knew more than he had told . . . Did any of these have any bearing on the two deaths? Antonia was set on continuing with her own inquiry . . . She hadn’t mentioned the kitten either, though the kitten was very much on her mind.

  The kitten in the photograph . . .

  She didn’t leave the study at once. She sat at Lord Grylls’s desk, in the revolving leather chair the inspector had occupied. She ran her hand across the desk surface . . . She liked the feel of the desk. It was the kind of desk she could write a novel on. She always wrote by hand first. She was funny about desks. Some desks simply didn’t feel right. There were desks that repelled her – stalled her creativity. Hadn’t Muriel Spark had a similar thing about pencils? Lady Grylls had asked her what she wanted for a wedding present – Antonia wondered whether she could ask for the desk?

  Idly she reached out for one of Lord Grylls’s stamp albums and started leafing through it. A series of French stamps showing the face of Marianne in red, in white and in blue, drew her attention. Corinne’s face had been used as a model for Marianne in the ’70s. Once more she saw Corinne’s face, the way it had been in the photograph she had taken out of Jonson’s case – youthfully smooth –

  But it wouldn’t have remained smooth if she had been stroking a kitten . . . Antonia nodded slowly . . . She had known all along there was something wrong about the photograph Jonson had brought with him to Chalfont Park. The kitten shouldn’t have been there. Her subconscious had registered the fact – but she had been distracted by the photograph of Peverel on Corinne’s dressing table.

  Jonson of course knew. He hadn’t wanted them to see the photograph because he feared they might be able to deduce
the truth.

  28

  A Case of Identity

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon.

  Major Payne and Antonia were in the library. They were standing by the window, watching as the police cars started leaving. The day had clouded over and once more it promised rain – but it had got milder. Payne opened the window a crack, to let in some fresh air. They heard what they believed to be a nightingale, but there was no final chug-chug-chug, so they decided it was a blackbird.

  ‘The Victorians maintained that a death without a deathbed was a horrid thing,’ Payne murmured.

  ‘Unless it took place on the field of battle – or in the missionary field.’

  ‘How does one die in the missionary field?’

  ‘Man-eating tigers – mosquito bites – snake bites.’

  ‘Cannibals?’

  ‘The police have gone,’ Antonia observed.

  There was a pause. ‘Well, that’s that, my love,’ Payne said. ‘An open-and-shut case if ever there was one. Eleanor Merchant’s fingerprints on the gun. Cuttings from the International Herald Tribune in Eleanor’s bag. Aunt Nellie’s address and telephone number in Eleanor’s address book . . . She made a hash of it at the end when she lost her nerve and killed the wrong person. She must have been getting frustrated and desperate. She must have reached the state known as panic depression . . . What Arthur Machen, I believe, called “horror of the soul” . . . The police thought she must have spent at least one whole day in a confined space. She had had very little food and drink. She was cold. All that would have made her highly strung, jittery and trigger-happy. The police are perfectly satisfied.’

  ‘They are, aren’t they?’ Antonia said.

  He cocked an eyebrow. ‘You are not?’

  ‘The address and the phone number. How did she manage to get them so easily? Then there’s the gun. How did Eleanor manage to obtain a gun? There was a knife in her bag. She might have been preparing to stab Corinne. She couldn’t have brought a gun with her on the plane from the United States. She couldn’t have got the gun in France and then boarded the Eurostar either. Not with the kind of security there is at the moment . . . OK. She might have bought the gun on the black market, after her arrival in London, but I am far from convinced.’

  ‘What other solution is there?’ Payne started filling his pipe. ‘Could Corinne have done the double shooting? It might have been her way of overthrowing the Maginot regime . . . Corinne’s plan might have been to make the Merchant look like the guilty party – but she lost her nerve and fled . . . Corinne might be much more devious and cunning than she appeared. Perhaps it was she who led the Merchant on, making sure she got Aunt Nellie’s address and phone number and so on?’

  ‘Well, somebody did lead Eleanor Merchant on,’ Antonia said.

  ‘Who? You don’t think it’s Jonson, do you? Maginot? No, can’t be Maginot – doesn’t make sense. Incidentally, what about our theory that Maginot is in fact Ruse? Where does it fit in precisely?’

  ‘It doesn’t fit anywhere.’

  Payne had struck a match and was about to put it to his pipe. He looked at his wife across the tiny flame. ‘It doesn’t?’

  ‘It doesn’t. We were wrong. Maître Maginot isn’t Ruse.’

  ‘What do you mean? We noticed the resemblance! Maginot is Corinne’s mother – it was confirmed by Jonson – remember the way he stood and stared?’

  ‘Only for a minute – his expression changed as soon as you said your aunt and Ruse had been debs together in pre-war London. He was right when he told us that we’d got the wrong end of the stick altogether.’

  ‘Maginot can’t be Ruse because . . . Corinne isn’t Corinne? No, that’s not it.’ Payne rubbed his forehead. ‘Impossible. I don’t know why I said it –’

  ‘It isn’t impossible. Far from it.’

  There was a pause. ‘Corinne isn’t . . . Corinne?’ Payne repeated.

  ‘No. In that photograph – the photograph I found in Jonson’s case – Corinne is seen stroking a kitten – but she couldn’t have – it would have made her feel very ill – might even have killed her. Corinne suffered from an acute allergy to cats.’

  Payne stared at her. ‘She came out in red blotches after sniffing a cat, Aunt Nellie said. Golly . . . Yes. The woman in the photo clearly had no problems with cats. Clever of you to notice. How did you –’

  ‘There was a magazine on the table in the greenhouse – Vogue – it had the picture of a model holding a cat on the cover,’ Antonia explained. ‘Nicholas is allergic to plants – he kept sneezing. The two things suddenly clicked in my mind.’

  ‘Jonson said nothing about a kitten. He mentioned a kipper – I did think it damned odd . . . Jonson knows the truth, doesn’t he?’ Major Payne said quietly.

  ‘He does. For some reason he is protecting that woman . . . He is either being paid hush money – or else he is in love with her.’

  ‘In love with la fausse Corinne . . . How jolly complicated. An impostor, eh? A woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Corinne in her prime . . . Last night she wore lashings of slap, did you notice?’

  ‘Yes – for the wrong reason. It was the thick pancake variety – what ageing actresses put on to conceal deep wrinkles and other ravages of time, so that they can play the ingénue without provoking screams of derisive laughter. But her jaw-line is that of a young woman,’ Antonia pointed out. ‘She is youthfully slim. Her whole bearing is that of a young woman. Well, she is a young woman. I do believe that.’

  ‘What you mean, my love, is that we’ve been witnessing the oddest of double bluffs.’ Payne stroked his jaw with a thoughtful forefinger. ‘Or is it triple? A young woman . . . pretending to be an ageing diva . . . who is doing her utmost to look young . . . Those creepy flesh-coloured gloves . . . The true reason again is not to conceal the fact that she has wrinkles but that she hasn’t got any. The same purpose, one imagines, is served by her high-necked dresses and those enormous bows?’

  ‘Correct. She doesn’t want it to be seen that her throat is in fact smooth and unlined . . . As for the wig, I think she wears it not because she is bald or in any way deformed, but because her hair’s a different colour and too short, and it would have been too much trouble if she’d had to grow it long, style it, keep colouring it and so on.’

  ‘But – I say – look here, old thing. This young woman’s features are very similar if not the same as Corinne Coreille’s. More importantly, her voice is the same as Corinne Coreille’s. You heard her sing last night. It would be madness to assume that there’s a young woman who is Corinne Coreille’s absolute double, or rather, younger version. Unless – ‘ Major Payne broke off, the idea at last dawning on him, as Antonia had hoped it would. ‘Good lord. She isn’t Corinne’s daughter, is she?’

  ‘She is. What you called the old DNA provides the only feasible explanation. Remember that Corinne did have a child,’ Antonia said. ‘By Peverel.’

  ‘But she lost the baby! That’s what my sister told me.’

  ‘A story to that effect was put around, no doubt. That was the version of events they presented to poor Peverel. For good measure, it was even suggested that Corinne couldn’t have any more children. I see Mr Lark’s hand in it, don’t you? It was done with the sole purpose of putting Peverel off, of severing all links between him and Corinne. Peverel must have been seen as a threat to Corinne’s career. Corinne could never be allowed the distraction of a boyfriend or a husband. Corinne’s daughter was given away for adoption – or placed in the care of somebody they trusted . . . Some relative? Wasn’t there an aunt, on her father’s side, who was a Mother Superior at a convent outside Lourdes?’

  ‘There was.’ Major Payne puffed thoughtfully at his pipe, his eyes following the swirls of smoke as they rose towards the ceiling. ‘The girl grows up looking the spitting image of her famous mother . . . She has also inherited her mother’s amazing voice. She can sing like her. Exactly like her . . . Corinne’s daughter is now – what – thirty-two
– thirty-three years old?’

  ‘Yes. She gave herself away last night – remember what your aunt told us?’

  ‘I do remember. It all makes perfect sense now. Aunt Nellie asked her if she remembered her mamma, by which she meant Ruse, and she received an extremely curious reply. Corinne’s daughter knows nothing about Ruse, who is her grandmother and who died in Kenya well before she was born. (We made fools of ourselves over that one, didn’t we?) She said she remembered her mother’s voice – then she referred to “Love Story”. Her earliest memory of a song, she called it. The first song she really liked. That made no sense at all. It had nothing to do with Ruse, who couldn’t sing for toffee, so Aunt Nellie was taken aback. Corinne’s daughter was talking about her mother, the real Corinne. Then she realized she had blundered and said that of course that was the song she sang in French. “His-toire d’Amour”.’

  ‘Whereas it was the real Corinne Coreille who sang it . . . Yes. Corinne’s daughter must have heard the song on the radio, or on television. Somebody – her great aunt – perhaps drew her attention to the fact. Listen – that’s your mamma singing.’ Antonia paused. ‘“Love Story”. The song – as well as the film – was extremely popular throughout the ’70s . . . Corinne’s daughter was born in 1970 or 1971. She must have been three or four when she heard the song for the first time. Her earliest memory, she said.’

  Payne had been gazing thoughtfully into the bowl of his pipe. ‘A daughter passing herself off as her famous mother . . . She even goes and gives a concert in Japan, to great acclaim and not a whiff of suspicion . . . Well, my love, as Sherlock Holmes puts it, life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.’ He looked up. ‘Wait – the resemblance between Maginot and Corinne! It was there all right. Their eyes. The way they tilted their heads. I know we didn’t imagine it.’