The Death of Corinne Page 5

  Antonia looked at her. ‘They . . . died together? What happened?’

  5

  Cat and Mouse

  Eleanor Merchant put away the letters. She had suddenly lost interest. She had a copy of the International Herald Tribune on her lap now, but wasn’t reading it. She had finished her tarte au citron and her tea. She couldn’t say she had enjoyed her tea, but then she couldn’t say she hadn’t enjoyed it either. Food no longer interested her. Citron – chocolat – as a matter of fact it was all the same to her. She went through the motions, though. She knew she had to eat in order to be able to go on, that was all. To go on, so that she could carry out what she had come all this way for. Her mission.

  All the way to Europe. From Boston to Paris and now from Paris to London. By plane, cab and, on one dreadful occasion, the Métro. She hated trains. A long journey – a torture, really. Well, travel was derived from the word ‘travail’, which did mean ‘painful effort’ – it came from the Latin trepalium, a three-pronged instrument of torture! (Eleanor had taken full advantage of her superior education. She had thrived in the rarefied atmosphere of tricky conjunctives and ablative absolutes.)

  She was glad she had left Paris. She had found Paris extremely disappointing. Nothing like the lush and colourful romantic image projected by films and photographs. (An American in Paris – the famous dance scene beside the Seine!) The great Eiffel Tower was little more than a rusting monstrosity. The celebrated haute cuisine had given her indigestion. Then there was the incredible rudeness and arrogance of some Parisians. Parisians seemed to hate Americans.

  That tune they were playing on the intercom at the moment . . . ‘Paris Is For Lovers’ . . . The kind of song Corinne Coreille would sing; perhaps she did sing it. Songs and travel agents made Paris sound like some sort of geographical Viagra. The aphrodisiac city. The city of love. The city for love. Love of course meant . . . sex. Eleanor’s lips pursed squeamishly – she had never liked sex much . . . Griff had been to Paris several times, each time with a different inamorato, or so she had gathered. (Griff, for some reason, had objected to her use of the word ‘inamorato’.) Including the one about whom she had made that disparaging remark. Owen.

  Eleanor had had dinner with Griff and Owen once, at New York’s Algonquin hotel and famed watering hole. Griff had worn claret-coloured lipstick . . . She hadn’t cared much for Owen, in fact not at all. Too aggressively butch, too ‘jock’ for words. She could remember little about their conversation, apart from it being puerile, suggestive and incredibly silly.

  ‘I love Jesus,’ Owen had said. ‘No, I love Jesus more than you,’ Griff had said. ‘You are not worthy of kissing Jesus’ feet,’ Owen had said. ‘I would like to kiss Jesus’ feet,’ Griff had said. ‘As a matter of fact,’ Owen had said rather complacently, ‘I kissed Jesus the other day.’

  Jesus, it turned out, was actually the name of a Brazilian boy they were both in love with.

  They had then talked about their intention of joining a sect known as Lykaion, whose members seemed to believe in ‘unleashing erotic energy’ and achieving unparalleled pleasure through pain and violence – self-mutilation came into it – some such pernicious nonsense. At one point Owen had smilingly started to twist Griff’s little finger – slowly, backwards. Eleanor had feared it might snap and had nearly shouted to him to stop, but Griff seemed to enjoy the experience. Griff had made a little moaning sound and tilted back his head. Eleanor had always considered herself a woman of the world and yet she had felt shocked and sickened by the spectacle. That kind of thing, she had reflected, has little to do with love. Griff and Owen had been very drunk by then. They had started arguing about the ingredients that went into the making of a drink called kyon. They seemed entirely oblivious of her presence.

  Griff had mentioned a Paris club called Le Chevalier d’Eon situated on the Rue des Anglais. It was one of his haunts. He had boasted of meeting an English composer there, someone who had been so taken with him that he had made him the central character of his next, so far unperformed, opera. Buenas Dias, Bello Diablo. Eleanor had found the libretto as she had been sorting through Griff’s possessions, among the silk dressing gowns, Chervet ties, the Max Factor make-up, Maria Callas CDs, Pierre and Gille posters, black-and-white photos of the improbably named Lya de Putti. (A silent movie actress of the demented diva type, as she had discovered.)

  Eleanor had gone to take a look at Le Chevalier d’Eon on her first evening in Paris; it had been a pilgrimage of sorts. She had discovered the place swarming with gendarmes. It had looked like a raid. She had stood not far from the club’s garish façade, listening to some of the conversations. There had been a partouze – an all-male orgy. Well, it was that sort of place.

  She glanced out of the train window once more. The contrast couldn’t have been greater. Green meadows, cows and sheep, neat farmhouses, red post boxes, a pub called the Severed Head, overcast skies, a steady drizzle . . . A pastoral picture. Not cheerful exactly, but it had a reassuring effect on her. ‘England, England,’ Eleanor sang out. ‘Green and pleasant land!’

  People’s eyes fixed on her curiously as they passed her table. Even when silent, she attracted attention. Her face was over-made-up. Her lipstick was the brightest of cyclamen and every couple of minutes she reapplied it to her lips. There were lipstick smudges on her nose and chin. She was wearing a beige picture hat in the mid-1930s fashion, set at a slant to cover one side of her face. Her wispy hair showed from underneath the hat. She had had her hair dyed strawberry blonde the day before, at the hairdresser’s at her hotel. She was wearing a pair of egg-yolk yellow gloves. She had a white fur stole draped round her shoulders. It was rather grubby after the fall she had had outside the Gare du Nord. Eleanor had suddenly felt light-headed. Those pills, she supposed.

  (Le Chevalier d’Eon, she now remembered reading somewhere, was a historical figure – an eighteenth-century French nobleman who sometimes wore a dress and a cap as a challenge to ‘traditional gender roles’. He had given the name to the condition known as ‘eonism’.)

  The table in front of her was covered with a great number of objects, the whole contents of her handbag, in fact. There were the letters, her lipstick, her passport, receipts from her hotel, wads and wads of dollar banknotes held together by rubber bands, two handkerchiefs, her psychic journal, two unlabelled jars full of various multi-coloured pills and capsules, a paperback of Henry James’s ghost stories, her purse containing euros as well as silver dollars and a book of travellers’ cheques.

  She had been looking for something, she couldn’t say what. It had been a frantic search and it had gone on for some ten minutes, but in the end she had given up. The surge of manic energy having subsided, Eleanor was overcome by fatigue. She was filled with sadness and apathy. Leaning back in her seat, she closed her eyes and thought of her mission.

  She was going to England to meet Corinne Coreille. Corinne Coreille didn’t know it, not yet. Eleanor felt it imperative that the two of them should meet. Corinne Coreille provided the last existing link with Griff. The link of death. Eleanor thought again of those last terrible moments when the dark red plumes of blood had started spiralling from Griff’s open wrists and spreading about the pale blue bath water like so many clouds of crimson smoke . . . She wanted to see with her own eyes what kind of a person Corinne Coreille was. This woman who had exercised such power over her son! There was no one else whom she could talk to about Griff. No one who would understand.

  None of his boyfriends had been in touch – not one of them had come to the funeral. Certainly not Owen . . . It was the wrong crowd that had turned up. People she hardly knew. Sanctimonious fools, prurient ghouls – some dubious-looking middle-aged men with moustaches – the English composer, tall, majestic, almost Lear-like with his snow-white beard and locks, weeping extravagantly – he had left a china wreath with a black ribbon that said, Buenas Noches, Bello Diablo – some distant cousin of Eleanor’s, a woman in a purple hat with a veil, shouting, ‘Why
cremation? What’s wrong with a funeral? Now you’ll never know where he’s going!’ It had all been too much . . . Small wonder Eleanor had had a nervous breakdown!

  It might be said that Corinne Coreille had sung Griff to death . . . A lethal lullaby . . . Will it ever cloy? This odd diversity of misery and joy . . . Eleanor found herself humming under her breath and checked herself. Had there been one particular boy? Somebody who had broken Griff’s heart? (More so than any of his predecessors, that was.) Was that why Griff did it? Or had Griff simply decided that he had had enough, that an existence like his was simply not worth living? Had he chosen that particular song as some ironic final statement, as his high camp coda, a silly requiem emblematic of the pursuits of a silly misspent life? I am feeling young again and quite insane – all because – Or did his death have anything to do with the Lykaion sect and its teachings?

  A pampered pansy playboy. That was what her niece had called Griff. Eleanor dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘I have had a tragic life,’ she said. ‘I have remained unfulfilled as a woman and as a mother.’ She found herself thinking back to the day Griff was born. Lyndon – her wayward husband – had not been there. Of course not. Other husbands sat beside their wives’ beds in the maternity ward and held and caressed their hands – but not Lyndon. Lyndon had never been there for her. It had been an incredibly difficult birth. Eleanor had been in labour for forty-eight hours and she had become convinced that Griff didn’t really want to be born. She wondered now whether Griff had struck some sort of a deal, so that he wouldn’t have to stay long on this earth.

  But perhaps Griff hadn’t meant to kill himself? That haunting invidious voice might have induced a particularly hopeless mood in him . . . Eleanor wondered what Corinne Coreille would have to say in her defence.

  She opened her eyes. ‘Chalfont Park, Chalfont Parva, Shropshire, England,’ she said aloud. She was going to Chalfont Park. Some grand house, by the sound of it, what in England they called a manor house. It shouldn’t be too hard to find. Did it belong to Corinne? Or was Corinne going there on a visit? A thought struck her. Could Corinne be running away from her? That suggested not only guilty conscience but fear of retribution! Well, she won’t be able to run away from me, Eleanor thought, and she nodded to herself grimly.

  The widow Saverini, she thought. I am the widow Saverini.

  It had been quite incredible, the way she had obtained the Chalfont Park address.

  She had arrived in Paris, intent on tracking down Corinne Coreille. Of course Corinne Coreille wasn’t listed in the phone book. Eleanor hadn’t expected her to be, really, but an idea had already formed itself in her mind. Sitting in her overheated room at the overpriced Hotel Constantinople, she reached out for the telephone and called Corinne’s record company, Fabiola, whose number was in the book. Substituting her genteel English accent for a brasher American one – not that it would have mattered either way – she asked to speak to somebody in the publicity department. A young man – he had sounded like a young man, extremely pleasant as well as flustered, clearly inexperienced – answered and yes, he spoke English. (Most French people operating in the excessive and reality-detached world of le showbiz did.) In the most casual manner imaginable Eleanor had introduced herself as Tricia Swindon, an American chat-show hostess, and had asked for Corinne Coreille’s contact number. For good measure, she had been chewing gum. She had made herself sound ingenuous to the point of naivety – wasn’t that how the French imagined Americans to be?

  She had explained that it was a matter of great urgency. She needed to speak to Corinne Coreille in person. She had her own TV show in the USA and she wanted to invite Corinne to appear on it. Corinne Coreille had a great following in the USA. Americans still remembered Corinne Coreille’s concerts at Carnegie Hall in 1974 and 1982. People still talked about her duets with Danny Kaye and Dean Martin. Ah – ‘Amore’! She had babbled on.

  She had expected to be referred to Corinne’s agent or somebody, and she couldn’t believe her ears when the young man started dictating Corinne’s home phone number to her. Just like that. Eleanor had been flabber-gasted – she had suspected some kind of chicanery, some trick, or indeed a trap . . . Could the police be monitoring her movements? Had she been given the number of the Sûreté perhaps?

  After some hesitation, Eleanor had rung the number and almost at once a woman’s voice had answered. A maid of some sort, speaking in a very loud voice and with an accent that wasn’t French . . . Tipsy, by the sound of it . . . Yes, I speak Ee-nglish. Yes, this is Mademoiselle Coreille’s residence. You want to speak to Mademoiselle Coreille? Oh, but she is away, madame! Mademoisellle Coreille and Maître Maginot, they leave together for the airport. They leave for England. A contact address? Mademoiselle Coreille, she stays at French embassy in London tonight and tomorrow, then she arrives at Chalfont Park on the evening of 3rd April. Chalfont Park, that is correct. Eet eez a big house in England . . . Chalfont Park, Chalfont Parva, Shropshire, England. That is correct. And there was a phone number also, yes.

  The phone number followed.

  There must be something wrong, surely? It was a trick – must be! Or perhaps not. Oversights did happen. Deliberate misunderstandings, too. Eleanor had suffered at the hands of unreliable – as well as of vengeful – maids, so she knew how it could be. Maids with a grudge were the devil . . . Yes, the maid might have done just the opposite to what she had been instructed.

  Who was Maître Maginot? Eleanor’s eyelids flickered – closed. For some reason she felt exhausted. She hadn’t yet managed to recover from the jet lag, and now she was on a train, which had never happened before – she hated trains – but she wouldn’t have had it any other way. She wouldn’t have wanted to be like the sage who said, Re imperfecte mortuus sum. Eleanor frowned, suddenly struck by a thought. I died with my purpose unachieved? How could he have said it if he was dead? Was he speaking from the nether world perhaps?

  It would be no good going to the French embassy in London and asking to see Corinne Coreille, but Chalfont Park would be a different thing. An isolated manor house . . . perfect. If she could get there first and see how the land lay . . . She felt an odd thrill, at the thought of the isolated house. She remembered the tales her uncle, the General, had told her about his experiences in the Korean war, and an image promptly grew in her mind.

  Eleanor saw herself in combat gear, a grenade in her hand, a slim army knife held between her teeth, her face smeared in mud, her body close to the ground as she crawled towards the house . . . She’d need to find out where exactly Chalfont Parva was situated. Some small village, by the sound of it, in the county of Shropshire . . . A map. She would need to get a map . . . She would arrive at Waterloo. Then a cab. No, not another train, thank you very much – a cab. She hated trains. Money was no object –

  Eleanor could hear the raindrops tapping on the window-pane, like so many fingers telling her something in Morse . . . Why, it was Morse! As it happened, Eleanor knew the Morse alphabet. She inclined her head towards the window and listened . . . Sounded like a message of some sort. The . . . third . . . of . . . April? That was the date of Corinne Coreille’s arrival at Chalfont Park – of course!

  The third of April. Do not forget. The third of April. Do not forget. The third of –

  Who was sending the coded message? Was it . . . Griff?

  6

  Murder on Safari

  ‘Good lord,’ Major Payne said, remembering. ‘Corinne’s parents died some horrid death, didn’t they?’

  Lady Grylls agreed that indeed it had been horrid. It wasn’t the kind of end one would have wished to one’s bitterest enemies. Too horrid for words.

  ‘What happened?’ Antonia asked again.

  Lady Grylls started lighting another cigarette. Her hand shook a little and her face became mottled. Well, Ruse and le falcon had been killed in Africa . . . Killed, yes . . . Killed and mutilated. They had gone to Kenya on a safari. That had been surprising since neither of them
was a great traveller, Ruse always said she was no good in the heat, and it wasn’t as though Africa was famous for its casinos, was it? Lady Grylls would have understood it, if they’d gone to Las Vegas or some such place . . . Thank God they hadn’t taken Corinne with them. They had ignored the warnings about the notorious criminal gang operating in the area where they had chosen to stay. In their second or third week they had left the hotel in a hired jeep.

  ‘They were never seen alive again. There was a search and their bodies were found, or rather what was left of them. It seems wild beasts had devoured most of them. They had been terribly mangled, unrecognizable, or so they said . . . Don’t let’s talk about it.’

  There was a pause. Neither of them was a great traveller . . . Ruse always said she was no good in the heat . . . Curious, Antonia thought. Or am I being ridiculously fanciful? Why do I always notice things like that? ‘Who identified them?’ she asked.

  ‘Who identified them? Goodness, my dear – you don’t think –’ Lady Grylls shook her head. ‘They were identified by Madame Coreille. Le falcon’s mother. She flew over to Kenya. She was a tough old bird, one of the leading psychoanalysts in France at the time, but what she saw shook her up. She told me about it later. She decided to have the mortal remains buried there, in Kenya. I do hope it was a bullet or a knife that killed them first.’ Lady Grylls paused. ‘The news found its way into the British press. I believe I collected every scrap of information there was about the case.’

  Antonia asked, ‘Have you kept your scrapbooks?’

  Lady Grylls pushed her glasses up her nose and said she was not sure. ‘I may have thrown them away. I burnt an awful lot of stuff over Christmas. Had a big bonfire made . . . So much rubbish everywhere . . . Or they are lying somewhere, gathering dust. I don’t know. At the bottom of some trunk most likely. By the way, Hughie – that stool Peverel wants so much – it’s not a real Pugin, is it?’