Assassins at Ospreys

Book 3: Country House Crime Mystery Series

by R.T. Raichev

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries; Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

When one of mystery writer Antonia Darcy's admiring readers, Bee Ardleigh, becomes over friendly, Antonia finds it just a bit of a bore. But when she and husband Major Hugh Payne are persuaded to visit Bee at Millbrook House, they begin to suspect it's something more sinister. Is the lovely Bee, newly wed, really an invalid? Where does her female live-in companion go on her frequent outings? Why would the mortally ill master of nearby Ospreys estate decide to change his will and leave his vast fortune to Beatrice? Hugh and Antonia become embroiled in a gruesome death in their perilous pursuit of the truth. Praise for R.T. Raichev 'Fascinating and surreal.' Lady Antonia Fraser 'All so ingenious.' Emma Tennant 'Clever and complex.' Francis Wyndham 'Splendidly old-fashioned sleuthery ... skilfully probes the surface smoothness of country houses ...couldn't put it down.' Hugh Massingberd 'This auspicious first in a new mystery series from Raichev ... Agatha Christie fans will find much to like in this traditional whodunit.' Publishers Weekly 'The kind of old-school English 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 Christie formula. Antonia Darcy is a terrific sleuth, and Raichev is a very clever writer, indeed.' Booklist

Release date: October 11, 2011

Publisher: C & R Crime

Print pages: 256

Sample

1 The Maids

The two women sat at the very end of the first row, quite close to the platform, and Antonia couldn’t say precisely which one she had noticed first. She convinced herself that it had been the one with hair like burnished gold because she was the only member of the audience who was in a wheelchair. The woman wore an extremely smart-looking cream and blue silk dress, a diamond necklace and clips, too elegant for such a minor literary event, really, and she clutched Antonia’s latest book in her hands. A bunch of red roses lay across her lap. But it might have been the other, the dark one – on account of the fact that, as far as Antonia could see, she was the only person in the auditorium wearing black gloves. It was a very warm day in early June, the air conditioning in the hall wasn’t working properly, and to wear any kind of gloves, no matter how fine the material, was to draw attention and invite speculation as to the reason. (Didn’t sartorial quirks sometimes hint at deeper eccentricities of character?)

‘Goldilocks and Cerberus’ was how Antonia’s husband dubbed them when she described them to him later, though by the time they paid their first visit to Millbrook House, the two nicknames had been largely forgotten.

The annual literary festival was taking place at Hay-on-Wye. Antonia was on a panel of crime writers who were addressing a small audience of about sixty. For the past twenty minutes they had been talking about various aspects of their trade. Antonia’s eyes kept straying towards the two women.

They were probably in their forties, but the Goldilocks’ vivacious expression, round doll-like eyes and smooth radiant face made her appear much younger. The Cerberus’ hair was closely cropped and she wore a severely cut black suit. She had an air of seniority about her. Her complexion was wax-like and she had a curiously blank stare. Her gloved hands were busy, adjusting and readjusting the blanket across Goldilocks’ knees. She touched Goldilocks’ bare arm with the back of her hand as though to convince herself that her friend was not running a temperature, or was not too hot. She pulled a thermos flask out of her bag and motioned Goldilocks to have a drink. These attentions were accepted as though Goldilocks were used to them, but every now and then she gave the distinct impression she could do without them. Goldilocks’ gaze did not leave the platform and it seemed to be fixed on Antonia. When their eyes eventually met, Goldilocks smiled and nodded and twiddled the fingers of her right hand in greeting. The red roses, Antonia suspected – and in a way rather dreaded – were for her. Goldilocks was clearly an aficionado.

The crime writers discussed subjects such as whether or not they could spot potential criminals, the ethics of employing real life murders as ‘copy’, what happened when good women fell in with crooked men (‘How about vice versa?’ a male member of the audience cried, raising a laugh), murder and class, whether all the strategies of deception had been exhausted, the question of implausible motives, the legacy of Agatha Christie (the ‘Curse of Christie’, the youngest member of the panel, a floppy-haired, truculent-looking Scot, called it), and what exactly constituted ‘cheating’ in detective stories – did readers really care?


It was all very entertaining and light-hearted. A good time seemed to be had by all. At one point the audience were invited to ask questions. The event culminated in a signing session when fans had the opportunity to meet their favourite author.

‘What lovely roses … Thank you very much,’ Antonia said.

‘Your latest book. I would be very happy if you inscribed it for me,’ Goldilocks breathed. ‘I am looking for-ward to reading it terribly … My name is Beatrice. Beatrice Ardleigh.’ Her voice was high, girlish, slightly clipped.

There had been about twelve people waiting for Antonia. Beatrice Ardleigh had appeared last. She had been wheeled up to her table by the taciturn Cerberus, whose name, it turned out, was Ingrid. Beatrice went on to describe Antonia’s previous book as ‘sublime’. The plot had been ‘devilishly clever’, ‘darkly comical’ and ‘stupefyingly ingenious’, the clueing ‘superb’. She had never guessed the murderer. Besides – she adored it when characters dis-played such high levels of literacy and erudition.


‘Thank you very much,’ Antonia said again. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She always felt extremely foolish in the face of extravagant compliments.

‘Ingrid says it’s all a trick – that it can all be done with a dictionary of quotations,’ Beatrice continued. ‘Surely that’s not how you do it? Ingrid hates it when characters swap lines of poetry “like in a game of ping-pong”, but I think it’s such fun … Do you like poetry?’


‘I do.’ Antonia picked up her pen. ‘Shall I write – “To Beatrice”?’

‘“To Bee” … Please. That’s what my best friends call me.’ Antonia wrote obligingly on the flyleaf, To Bee – With my very best wishes. Antonia Darcy.


‘Would you cross out your name and write it in your own hand? The way writers do it? Thank you. It means so much to me.’


‘Thank you very much,’ Antonia said for the third time, with an air of finality, she hoped. She went on smiling but leant back in her chair. She was encouraged to see Ingrid’s grip on the wheelchair handles tighten, but Beatrice Ardleigh said, ‘A moment, darling … Ingrid doesn’t care much for detective stories, I am afraid.’

‘Well, some people don’t.’ Antonia managed a light-hearted shrug.

‘Not the tricksy whodunit type, no,’ Ingrid said. She smiled only with her lips – her eyes remained expressionless, Antonia noticed. ‘All that insufferably cosy amateurish atmosphere of “let’s sit down and puzzle it out”. Denouements that hinge on seemingly irrelevant details placed in Chapter 1.’

‘Darling!’ Beatrice protested. ‘That’s part of the fun! It’s called fair play.’

‘I am sorry, but tricksy whodunits irritate me to screaming point.’ That means she doesn’t like my books, Antonia thought. She saw Beatrice mouth at her, Pay no attention.

‘Same as church music and Dickens’ novels, which I used to love,’ Ingrid went on. ‘I used to have a dog named Pip.’ Both women were terribly well spoken, though Ingrid’s voice was deep and gravelly. They brought to mind Cheltenham Ladies’ College, or even Benenden. There was something almost parodically Pathe-like about their diction. Were they actresses? Speech therapists? Bridge hostesses? (Did bridge hostesses still exist?)


‘Not every crime has a punishment, every mystery a solution and every story an ending,’ Ingrid declared some-what inconsequentially.

‘Ingrid prefers excursions into the – how shall I put it? The darker reaches of the human psyche. Don’t you, my sweet?’ Beatrice said. ‘It’s affected the way she looks at things. Honestly. For example, she says – shall I tell Miss Darcy?’

‘Tell her what?’ Ingrid said absently. Her attention seemed to be distracted by a woman and a little girl and her eyes followed them as they walked across the hall towards the exit.

‘Ingrid says I sometimes do things which I have no recollection of having done. She suggests I have fugues.’

‘I never said you had fugues.’ Ingrid was still looking in the direction of the exit.

‘All right. I did do something.’ Beatrice heaved a histrionic sigh. ‘But it happened only once and that was so silly.’ ‘I like Patricia Highsmith,’ Ingrid said suddenly. ‘Now there’s a highly original writer who never allowed her books to become calcified by cliché.’


‘Some of them are very good,’ Antonia agreed. ‘Not the later ones though.’

‘As a matter of fact I particularly like the later ones.’


That she was saying this only to be awkward, Antonia had no doubt. How could anyone like ponderous, plotless confections like Found in the Street? Calcified by cliché. That was not a bad phrase. Mysteries without a solution, stories without an end. Was Ingrid a mighty metaphysician, obsessively searching for meaning, solace and peace in the wake of some dreadful personal tragedy? Did she write poetry of the more obscure kind? Conventions shield us from the shivering void – Really, Antonia thought, the silly ideas that come into my head.


Beatrice was speaking. ‘Patricia Highsmith always wrote about psychotic aesthetes and alternative lives, didn’t she? About people assuming different identities and doing all sorts of truly appalling things to other people, like – like smashing their skulls with ashtrays and forcing lethal doses of sleeping pills down their throats and – and holding their heads under water?’

‘There is much more to Patricia Highsmith than that, Bee,’ Ingrid said. ‘And when you say “psychotic aesthetes”, you mean Ripley, right? Well, he is the only one.’ ‘I am sure he isn’t the only one,’ Beatrice said stubbornly.


How intensely tedious this was becoming. Antonia stole a glance at her watch.

‘One must be very unhappy to want to be somebody else, don’t you think?’ Beatrice appealed to Antonia.

‘Well, yes – I suppose so.’

‘Or very disturbed.’ Ingrid gave a short laugh. She put her hand on Beatrice’s shoulder.

‘There are people apparently who suffer from a multiple personality disorder without being aware of it! Isn’t that fascinating? I have tried to imagine what it must be like –’

‘Shall we go, Bee?’

The way Ingrid kept saying ‘Bee’ – somehow it ceased to be a woman’s nickname or a diminutive; it didn’t bring to mind the insect either, rather it became an incantation – a sorceress’s formula. At once Antonia castigated herself for her fanciful thoughts. The lack of air, she decided. She wanted to leave the hall, stretch her legs, have tea, phone Hugh. She glanced towards her bag. She hadn’t left her mobile at home again, had she?

‘Now don’t laugh at me, but I thought about writing a story about someone who is in fact two people – I am sure it’s been done hundreds of times! Dear me. The way I go on. We have lived in such isolation, Miss Darcy – we have become a bit peculiar. A little – cracked?’ Beatrice Ardleigh laughed, a tinkling girlish laugh, as though to indicate this was not to be taken too seriously. ‘I realize it each time we go out and meet people. I do hope you aren’t finding us too objectionable? We have the silliest and pettiest of spats sometimes. I bet people think us quite mad!’


Antonia gave another polite smile. She was wondering what to do. Shouldn’t she simply rise, apologize and say she had an important engagement? ‘Where do you live?’ she heard herself ask instead.

‘Oxfordshire. Wallingford. It’s a pleasant enough place but quite dreary. It’s our first visit to Hay-on-Wye and I am loving every moment of it. I find the smell of new books intoxicating!’ Beatrice shut and opened her eyes in a show of ecstasy. Her bosom rose and fell. The finest perfumes of Arabia might have been paraded for her inspection. Everything about her was heightened, exaggerated – dress, words, gestures. ‘Is that Kinky Friedman? Over there – look!’ She pointed excitedly. ‘The tall man with the drooping moustache and the desert boots? Or is it one of the Village People? I heard they were here – they have written a joint memoir, haven’t they?’


‘I am afraid I have no idea,’ Antonia said.

‘Apparently –’ Beatrice went on in a loud whisper, choking with silent laughter, ‘Apparently, Kinky Friedman thought Hay-on-Wye a sandwich, when he first heard about it! I’ve read two of his books. Not my cup of tea at all, but I read all the time. I would read anything. I suppose I am what you’d call “chronically literary” – the kind of person who, when the rhododendrons are in bloom, will amble round Kew Gardens reading the labels on the trees!’ Suddenly she became serious. ‘Reading is my life. I used to feel quite apocalyptic about things, human existence in general, but books saved my life. My sanity. If I didn’t read, I might have turned into a monster. Honestly.’


For some reason Ingrid looked extremely tense now, very much on edge – just as a cat is supposed to be minutes before a devastating earthquake, Antonia thought. Was Ingrid afraid that Beatrice was saying too much – giving away too much? Beatrice was voluble in a way that suggested a degree of instability. Was her interest in multiple personality disorder of any significance? The two women seemed totally incompatible in terms of sociability, but then Beatrice hinted at things one shouldn’t really be talking about in front of total strangers.

Aloud Antonia said, ‘Yes. Reading is the most wonderful of panaceas.’

Did people think of their favourite authors as of close friends? Antonia admired a number of writers but, if she ever were to meet them, she wouldn’t dream of talking to them about, say, her failed first marriage and how she nearly suffered a nervous breakdown as a result, or how she left her librarian job at the Military Club to do full-time writing, or about her second husband selling his Sussex farm and moving in with her in Hampstead. Certainly not on first meeting them!

‘There’s a speculative glint in your eye.’ Beatrice leant forward. ‘Shall I tell you what I think? I think you are going to put us in your next book.’

‘I never do that kind of thing,’ Antonia said with a smile, not entirely truthfully, because, somewhere at the back of her mind, she had already been considering the two women from a writer’s point of view, as potential characters.

Beatrice, she had decided, looked like some rich man’s wife, spoilt, affected, annoyingly child-like, and yes, a little cracked, the result no doubt of long years spent in a wheelchair, but there was no evidence of a Mr Ardleigh – none of her rings was a wedding one. Ingrid too was peculiar, even a bit creepy, with her garb of woe, black gloves that brought to mind Victorian undertakers, and mother-hen solicitousness, yet, it was not taken separately, but collectively, as an ensemble piece, in relation to one another, that the two women became really interesting. They appealed to her sense of anomaly. They stimulated her Gothic imagination. (For some time Antonia had wanted to write a detective story with Gothic overtones.) Some kind of strange symbiosis seemed to have been at work. Les bonnes, or the maids – as Antonia whimsically dubbed them in her mind – couldn’t have been more different, yet there was an odd likeness between them – it was something subtle, elusive, indefinable – blink and it was gone. That was what happened when two people had lived together a long time. Antonia had observed the phenomenon with husbands and wives.


What was the nature of their relationship? Ingrid was more than a mere carer, of that Antonia was certain, but she didn’t think they were a ‘couple’, not in the Sapphic sense of the word. Somehow one could always tell if people were lovers. Ingrid was treating Beatrice as though she were her daughter – her little girl. Yes. That was where the oddity came from. The glances Ingrid cast upon Beatrice were a blend of intense devotion and concern. She had kept her hand on Beatrice’s shoulder. It was a possessive kind of gesture, but it also looked like a restraining one.

Antonia indulged in some lurid hypotheses. The two women shared a dark secret. They had committed murder together – in the manner perhaps of Genet’s Les Bonnes? They had killed Beatrice’s rich old aunt or rich old uncle. (That would explain Bee’s fascination with murder mysteries.) Could Bee’s paralysis be hysterical in origin? Guilt-induced? No – she had broken her back in an accident that had occurred as they had been trying to escape justice. It was Ingrid who had been driving. They had changed their identities – were leading alternative lives. Or it might be something completely different. Ageing actresses living in isolation – ancient rivalries rearing up their ugly heads – no, not another Baby Jane plot! She could do better than that, surely. Maybe there was a man at the back of it somewhere, for whose affections they fought – their family doctor perhaps – or the boy who did their garden?


‘It’s getting terribly late, Bee,’ Antonia heard Ingrid say.

‘Late for what, darling? I am not at all tempted to go outside. It’s hot and horrid and utter ghastly drears out-side,’ Beatrice said petulantly. ‘You don’t want me to get sunstroke, do you?’

‘I’ve got your hat here.’

‘I hate that hat! It makes me look middle-aged.’

‘We haven’t seen all the bookshops,’ Ingrid said patiently. ‘That’s one reason we came, isn’t it? To see the bookshops.’

‘I am fed up with bookshops. Our house looks like a bookshop full of tiresome old tomes. It’s much more fun here, talking to Miss Darcy. I’ve thought of something.’ Suddenly Beatrice reached out for Antonia’s hand and held it tight. ‘You must say yes. Promise you will say yes.’


‘Yes to what?’ Antonia glanced round nervously to see if there were any witnesses to this spectacle. Her eyes met the gleeful gaze of one of her fellow crime writers, the floppy-haired Scot, whose edgy hard-drinking characters she had never been able to take to her heart.

‘Would you allow us to give you tea? It would give me such great pleasure,’ Beatrice Ardleigh said. ‘Honestly. We’ll have a proper conversation. There are hundreds of questions I want to ask you.’


‘Isn’t it going to be too much for you? Won’t you – get tired?’

‘Oh, rubbish. I am not as bad as you probably think. Watch –’ To Antonia’s utter astonishment, Beatrice rose to her feet, stepped away from the wheelchair and held up her hands. ‘Voilà. I couldn’t walk for quite a bit, but I am fine now. I allow myself to be perambulated about in this horrid chair only because Ingrid fusses so. She thinks I might stumble and collapse and die, don’t you, my sweet?’


‘It used to amuse you,’ Ingrid said.

‘I suppose it did – everybody so kind and solicitous – elderly gentlemen offering their services – special public lavatories and so on – but no more. It’s a bore.’ Beatrice resumed her seat. ‘Please, say yes, Miss Darcy. Do let’s have tea together.’

Ingrid’s face looked like thunder. Ingrid was clearly not wild about the idea of entertaining to tea a detective story writer of dubious merit, but Beatrice had already started saying that they had discovered a wonderful old-world tea-place, just round the corner, where they served the best cream teas imaginable.


In the end Antonia accepted. Les bonnes exercised a morbid fascination over her. She was curious about them. If somebody had told her at that point that by agreeing to have tea with Beatrice Ardleigh and Ingrid Delmar, she was setting in motion a chain of events that would end in her husband’s bringing about a man’s death. . .