The Death of Corinne Page 21

  ‘Why didn’t you tell her to get out and go off with you?’ Lady Grylls asked.

  ‘I did. She said she’d think about it. She – she – needed time. She still felt some kind of obligation. She said she didn’t want to let her mother down. She had enjoyed the singing part of the arrangement and that she owed to her mother. We – we made tentative plans. Then – then something happened. A bolt out of the blue.’

  Antonia said, ‘The death threats?’

  ‘Eleanor Merchant’s letters, followed by the death threats, yes.’ Jonson paused. ‘Monique was very upset. She contacted me at once – she threw all caution to the winds – she emailed me – phoned. But,’ Jonson went on, ‘something good seemed to come of it. I received a phone call from Paris, from Maître Maginot. She said she wanted to employ my services once more urgently – as Corinne’s bodyguard and protector. It was going to be another commission. She sounded extremely pleasant and friendly and I did believe that she knew nothing about me and Monique. She said they’d be coming to England, to a place called Chalfont Park. She wanted me to join them. I couldn’t believe my luck. I was going to see Monique! That was all I could think about, that was all that seemed to matter. I was delighted – delirious.’

  ‘You were not worried about the death threats?’

  ‘No. Not really. I couldn’t see how Eleanor Merchant would possibly be able to find this place,’ Jonson said. ‘I thought it a virtual impossibility –’

  ‘Eleanor Merchant was meant to come here,’ Antonia interrupted. ‘She was given the Chalfont address and phone number.’ She looked at Jonson. ‘It was all part of the plan.’

  ‘Sorry, old thing, but I’ve got to ask my aunt a very important question.’ Major Payne leant towards Lady Grylls. ‘Aunt Nellie, did you hear exactly what Maître Maginot – I mean Corinne – said to her maid when she phoned her?’

  Lady Grylls blinked behind her glasses. ‘What Maginot said to her maid? I have absolutely no idea.’

  ‘I am sure you have. Your French is perfect.’

  ‘You aren’t suggesting I eavesdropped?’

  ‘You know you always do, darling, especially if you are curious about the person.’

  ‘It’s important,’ Antonia said. ‘Extremely important.’

  ‘Oh nonsense. It wasn’t in the least important.’ Lady Grylls stared. ‘Goodness, Antonia, you can’t possibly know what Hugh means, can you?’

  ‘I can – I was about to ask you the very same question.’

  ‘You were? Goodness. One of those telepathic thingies, eh? All right. Let me see . . . Maginot spoke in French. I had shown her to her room and I was back in the corridor. The door was ajar. I didn’t mean to listen, you understand, but I couldn’t help overhearing. It was something exceedingly trivial. Maginot said, Imelda, c’est toi? Then she asked whether there had been any phone calls for them. Then she said, When was that? And you gave her both? Good girl. Words to that effect. She said it all in French of course. She seemed jolly pleased with Imelda’s answers . . . Oh yes, she also said she would cover Imelda in gold, or words to that effect, which I took to be a jocular exaggeration. Well, that was it.’

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ Payne said. ‘You’ve just solved the conundrum for us.’

  ‘What conundrum?’

  Antonia said, ‘Thanks to you we now know the identity not only of the killer but of the intended victim as well.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Lady Grylls frowned. ‘There’s no mystery over the victims’ identities. We know it was Maginot and the Merchant who got shot in my greenhouse. Or are you saying Maginot and the Merchant weren’t Maginot and the Merchant?’

  Antonia turned slowly towards Jonson. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’

  He bowed his head. ‘Yes, it was me.’

  ‘What do you mean, it was you, Andrew?’ Lady Grylls boomed, her voice like the thunder of waters from a subterranean cave. ‘You aren’t confessing to being a double murderer after all, are you?’

  Jonson said, ‘No. I am not the murderer. I was . . . the intended victim. It was I who was meant to die in the greenhouse last night.’

  33

  Appointment with Death

  There was a silence. All eyes were on him.

  ‘You’d better explain,’ Lady Grylls said.

  ‘The phone call, which came last night, while we were having coffee –’ Jonson’s voice sounded very hoarse. ‘Maître Maginot – Corinne Coreille – went to speak to the woman who had introduced herself as Tricia Swindon. Corinne suspected at once that it was Eleanor Merchant, so after the woman rang off, she dialled 1471 and obtained the number from which the call had been made. It was a mobile phone number. She wrote it down and later, after you’d all gone to bed, she asked me to ring it.’

  ‘She asked you to phone the Merchant?’ Payne said.

  ‘Yes. Corinne Coreille had a brainwave. She thought she could trick Eleanor into revealing her whereabouts. She knew I was a good mimic, so she asked me to put on an American accent, muffle my voice and pretend to be Eleanor’s dead son. Griff . . . She got the idea from one of Eleanor’s letters. Eleanor had written that she expected her dead son to appear to her.’

  ‘Of all the diabolical wheezes!’

  Jonson passed his hand over his face. ‘I am not proud of what I did, but the trick worked. Eleanor did fall for it and revealed her whereabouts. She seemed to have no doubt I was Griff. She asked me where I was – was I in the greenhouse? Corinne Coreille was standing beside me, listening.’

  ‘That was how she knew where to find Eleanor,’ Antonia said.

  ‘Yes . . . I said I would go but she said no, she wanted to apprehend Eleanor herself. She asked me to make sure all of you were in your rooms. She didn’t want people milling around the house. She told me to keep my mobile switched on – she’d give me a ring on her mobile when it was all over, or if she needed help. She was going to the greenhouse by herself. I thought that unwise – dangerous – utter lunacy in fact. I decided she’d had too much wine. Her eyes were extremely bright and she kept referring to the “capture”. She gave the impression she regarded it as some kind of adventure. The only weapon she seemed to have was the niblick –’

  ‘You didn’t know she had a gun?’ Antonia interrupted. ‘She didn’t show it to you?’

  ‘No. I had no idea.’ Jonson swallowed. ‘I went on arguing with her for some time. I insisted that it was my job – my duty – wasn’t that why she’d hired my services? She gave me a look of such malevolence, it froze me. She spoke to me very slowly – like to an idiot child. You needn’t be concerned on my account. I shall be fine. I can cope. After that I – I did as asked. I had a word with Provost – told him not to leave the house. I checked on each one of you. Then I went to my room. I sat and waited . . . I didn’t wait long. Her call came about midnight.’

  There was a pause. Payne said, ‘She didn’t tell you she’d shot Eleanor, did she?’

  ‘No. She said Eleanor was there all right – she’d got her trapped in the greenhouse. She did need my help – she said she didn’t think Eleanor Merchant was armed, but she couldn’t tell for certain – would I go to the greenhouse, at once?’ Jonson looked round at their eager faces. ‘I immediately suggested I call the police but she said, On no account. Again, she sounded angry. She told me not to breathe a word to anyone. She didn’t want any fuss. She wished this done as quietly and efficiently as possible. We’d call the police after we’d done the job. She asked me to get some rope – to tie Eleanor up. She seemed to be – she seemed to be enjoying herself.’ He paused. ‘I found some rope in one of the kitchen drawers, then I slipped out of the house. I had my torch with me, but turned it off. I started walking across the lawn. It was a very clear night. I saw the greenhouse door was open . . . It was very quiet . . . There wasn’t a sound . . .’

  ‘There was a full moon,’ Lady Grylls said.

  ‘Yes. It was so bright, it felt like day. I then stopped. My eyes were fixed on the greenhouse
. I tried to make out what was inside. At first I couldn’t see a thing. Suddenly I caught sight of a tiny flash, bobbing up and down – like a firefly.’

  ‘The silver brooch on her beret . . . It must have caught the moonlight,’ Antonia said.

  ‘It was a Cartier,’ Lady Grylls said.

  ‘Yes. The brooch gave her away. I suddenly saw her, standing very still, her shoulders hunched forward – extremely tense-looking – furtive. She didn’t move – she was waiting – that’s what it looked like. Nothing else stirred inside the greenhouse . . . I too stood very still. I didn’t dare breathe. I had no idea whether she had seen me or not. A minute passed, then another. The more I waited the less I liked it . . . I had come to Chalfont unarmed. Stupid of me, but I never thought of bringing a gun. It just goes to show you how seriously I was taking the Eleanor Merchant menace.’ Jonson shook his head. ‘I went on looking at Corinne Coreille. I was afraid to blink. Then I realized she was holding something in her hand.’

  ‘The gun?’

  ‘Yes. It gave me quite a shock when I saw that she had a gun. She was holding it aloft. For a moment I imagined that she was stalking Eleanor Merchant, but the thought then came to me that Eleanor Merchant either wasn’t there or else she was already dead . . . She hadn’t said a word about having a gun . . . I then remembered the look she had given me earlier on. The sheer malevolence of it – the scorn – the hatred! I started remembering other things . . . What Monique had told me about her mother’s egomania and ruthlessness – about her obsession with her career – her determination to live her life through her daughter – her extreme disapproval of anything that distracted Monique from following the path she had mapped out for her – her suspiciousness and paranoia. I also remembered the two nuns.’ Jonson swallowed. ‘About the way they’d died. Monique had told me about it.’

  ‘What two nuns?’ Lady Grylls said. ‘Goodness. Do nuns too come into the story?’

  ‘Sister Felicia and Sister Fortunata. They brought Monique up,’ Peverel explained. ‘They died in a car crash. They died together. There was something wrong with the brakes of their Citroën, apparently.’ He looked at Jonson. ‘You don’t think . . .?’

  Jonson shrugged. ‘I don’t know . . . I really don’t, but I wouldn’t put anything past her. Corinne might have paid someone to do it, or she might have done it herself. I may be wrong – still, it’s rather curious that the only two people who could have recognized Monique in the guise of Corinne died a month before her comeback concert.’

  ‘They weren’t the only two. What about the doctors and nurses who operated on her face and made a hash of it?’ Antonia pointed out. ‘They too would have known that the woman making her comeback as Corinne Coreille must be an impostor.’

  ‘No, they wouldn’t. Corinne Coreille had registered under a different name at the clinic. You’d be amazed at the number of crazy people who have plastic surgery to make themselves look like somebody famous. There are agencies specializing in celebrity impersonators all over the world. There is even a clinic in Thailand, apparently, that promises to give you the face of your favourite celebrity. Well, the deception wouldn’t have lasted for very long,’ Jonson went on with a tight little smile. ‘Sooner or later Corinne Coreille’s whole carefully constructed edifice would have collapsed like the proverbial house of cards. Someone would have realized that either Maginot was Corinne – or that Corinne was not Corinne. Something would have gone wrong. It wasn’t a question of if but of when. Monique would have slipped up. In fact she did slip up last night, didn’t she? She told me about it. She got confused and talked about her mother singing “Love Story” . . .’

  ‘She did,’ Lady Grylls said with a sigh. ‘She did. Poor gel.’

  ‘A rumour would have got around. People would have become curious. They’d have started asking questions.’ Jonson paused. ‘Corinne Coreille, however, seemed to believe the scheme she’d devised was entirely foolproof. She told Monique she saw no reason why the impersonation shouldn’t continue indefinitely – for another thirty years at least. Monique was terrified when she heard that.’

  ‘As misshapen inside as she was on the outside,’ Payne murmured. ‘Monstrously delusional.’

  ‘Do get on with the story, Andrew,’ Lady Grylls prompted. ‘You were standing outside the greenhouse and . . .?’

  Jonson frowned. ‘I went on wondering . . . What if Corinne Coreille had managed to read the emails Monique and I had been exchanging? She could have got hold of Monique’s password. What if she knew that I was aware of the double impersonation? What if she knew that Monique and I were in love – that Monique was terribly unhappy – that I had been urging her to run away and come to me? What if she knew everything?’ Jonson looked round the table. ‘What would she do?’

  ‘Goodness me, this is all terribly exciting.’ Lady Grylls lit a cigarette. ‘I can’t bear the suspense!’

  ‘I knew then with absolute certainty that it was for me Corinne Coreille was waiting inside the greenhouse. She wanted me dead. She intended to shoot me. She had called me to Chalfont in order to kill me. She had several extremely good reasons for desiring my urgent removal. I knew too much! Why, I was putting her whole enterprise in danger! I wanted to kick myself for not thinking about it earlier.’

  There was a pause. ‘You were to die in the execution of your duties,’ Antonia said slowly. ‘Corinne intended to make it look like an open-and-shut case. She had thought the whole thing through down to the smallest detail. I do believe it was she who sent the death threats in the first place – and she put Herald Tribune cuttings inside Eleanor Merchant’s bag after she killed her . . . She meant it to look as though you’d been shot by the demented avenging mother – who then committed suicide.’

  ‘Corinne wouldn’t have shot him on the lawn, would she?’ Payne frowned.

  ‘No. It had to be done inside the greenhouse to suggest that Eleanor did it in her panic and confusion, after he had discovered her hiding place . . . Corinne chose Chalfont Park because she believed it would be easier to put her plan into operation in England. The house is isolated. Her godmother had always complained there weren’t enough servants. Besides, her godmother had bad eyesight, so she wouldn’t have recognized her in Maginot in the first place.’

  ‘Her godmother wouldn’t have recognized her even if there’d been nothing wrong with her bloody eyes!’ Lady Grylls cried and she shook her head. ‘She’d become a monster! I can’t believe it – I really can’t! It’s just hit me – I mean, little Corinne! The beauty turning into a beast –’ Lady Grylls broke off. ‘She instructed her maid – Imelda – to give my address to Eleanor Merchant, didn’t she? She must have bribed her . . . You said she kept giving her presents?’

  ‘She did . . . What if things hadn’t gone according to plan?’ Jonson turned to Antonia. ‘What if Eleanor Merchant had failed to take the bait?’

  ‘Well, that was a chance Corinne was prepared to take.’ Antonia smiled. ‘It seems she had inherited her parents’ gambling streak.’

  ‘Would she still have tried to kill me?’

  ‘I believe she would. You were too dangerous. It wasn’t only that you knew too much – you’d been giving Monique ideas – you were about to take Monique away from her!’ Antonia paused. ‘Well, I think she’d have laid a false trail suggesting that Eleanor was behind your murder. She’d have made it look as though Eleanor had been here, killed you and fled. But she knew from Imelda that Eleanor had swallowed the bait, so everything was going to plan.’

  Payne put up his forefinger. ‘The Corinne doll. It was found on the stairs inside the house. Maître Maginot – Corinne – must have accidentally dropped it there last night. It must have slipped out of her pocket. She knew all about it from Eleanor’s first letter. She must have intended to plant the doll somewhere near your body – in the event that, say, Eleanor had managed to skedaddle.’

  ‘Tell us what happened next, Andrew,’ Lady Grylls said.

  ‘What happened next w
as that I too had a brainwave. I took my mobile out of my pocket. I’d decided to call the police, but then I thought of Monique – of the complications . . . So,’ Jonson went on, ‘I rang Corinne’s number instead. I heard her phone ring inside the greenhouse. I was watching her. I saw her start up. She clearly didn’t want to answer the phone, but she was afraid the ringing might be heard by someone in the house. I saw her lower the gun as she tried to get her mobile out of her pocket. That was the moment I had been waiting for. I ran – I sprinted into the greenhouse and turned my torch on. I flashed it into her face. It blinded her. She cried out, raised her hand. She pointed the gun at me as best as she could, but I managed to get hold of her hand and twisted it upwards – away from me.’

  ‘Bravo!’ Lady Grylls applauded, her hand going up to her bosom. ‘What a relief!’

  ‘I heard the gun go pop, like the sound a toy gun makes, and I felt Corinne’s body go limp. I heard a gurgling noise . . . She slumped down to the ground. I knelt beside her – lit her face with the torch.’ Jonson swallowed. ‘There was a bullet hole in her throat – black blood bubbling out of it.’

  His eyes strayed down to his hands. ‘I never wanted to kill her,’ he said. ‘All I meant was to disarm her – to talk to her – to try to – I don’t know . . . I was angry with her – because of the way she’d been treating Monique – because of what she’d been subjecting her to . . . Perhaps – perhaps I did intend to kill her?’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Lady Grylls boomed.

  ‘I could have run back to the house – she wouldn’t have shot through the glass . . . I could have roused everybody – I could have exposed her – told you what had happened, but I didn’t – I didn’t want to run away. It was between me and her – I wanted to have it out with her – bring things to a head.’ Jonson ran his hand over his face. ‘I am not sure what exactly went through my head. I honestly can’t say. It all feels like a dream now. I twisted her hand, but it was she who pulled the trigger . . . I then discovered Eleanor’s body behind the palms . . . I had an idea . . . I removed the gun from Corinne’s hand, wiped it clean of her finger-prints and placed it in Eleanor’s hand. I made it look as though Eleanor had killed Maginot and then herself. It was much – neater that way.’