A Darker God Read online

  He looked at her, not with accusation but with sympathy.

  She nodded dumbly. “Two, you say?”

  “The other was Queen Clytemnestra.”

  Chapter 11

  For a moment Letty was silenced, then: “Great heavens! So she was! I believe you’re right! Thetis Templeton. Yes, she did break down before it was clear …” she breathed, remembering. “Oh, gosh! No wonder the poor girl looked shell-shocked!”

  She squirmed in embarrassment and tried to withdraw her arm, disturbed by the contact, but the policeman held fast. “Look here—if you’re trying to take my pulse rate, Inspector, I have to tell you—you’re missing the spot by a mile. If this is some newfangled way of checking my level of agitation, I’ll tell you straight—it’s high! I’m agitated all right! I’m devastated and furious.”

  “You mistake me, Miss Talbot. Just offering a little comfort in your uncomfortable circumstances.” He did not release her.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m not going to try to effect an escape. You can relax.”

  She waited in vain for him to pursue his fanciful accusations. He’d made his play; now he was leaving an expanse of silence into which he expected her to leap. With what? A confession? An accusation? Letty was mystified. She remained stonily staring ahead.

  Dissatisfied with her response, he changed tack. “I’m sorry. It must be a double shock for you. To find your lover not only is dead but has been unfaithful? Though perhaps a girl expects no less from a man who has, by his very relationship with her, demonstrated his capacity for infidelity?”

  The gently enquiring smile that softened the austere features, the purr in the musical voice, made the scything rudeness even more intolerable. Letty drew in a sharp breath. “Very well, Mr. Policeman. Against my better judgement, I’ll allow you to sting me into a response to your impertinent question. Did you hear me? I said, ‘I’ll allow.’ Be quite clear that I know what you’re up to! Andrew was my lover off and on for some years until a year ago last spring. When … when …”

  “When your affections were transferred elsewhere?” he supplied.

  “When I went abroad to dig in the pursuit of my career, Inspector.” She was pleased with the calm hauteur of her squashing response. She’d learned squashing from Maud, and though she found very few targets for the skill, here was an intrusive and perfectly objectionable policeman testing her goodwill to the very limit. “If this interview is intended to reveal the character of the victim to you—and in a bad light—as I must suppose it is, you should understand, Montacute, that Andrew was not a wicked seducer of young girls. No, no! He had affairs but in all the cases of which I am aware, he was approached, invited into it even, by the girl or woman in question. And he chose carefully. The vulnerable, the naïve, the overprotected, were never in danger. He was a very attractive man. Hard for other men, I think, to appreciate this quality but every woman he met was aware of it … the kindness, the interest, the sparkle, the roguishness.”

  Feeling her lips begin to tremble, she bit them together hard before she could go on.

  “And when things moved on …?” the inspector prompted.

  “As they do … he distanced himself with lightheartedness and friendship. I know of none of his amours that has ever turned sour. His conquests stay on as friends. Perfectly understandable in this day and age when there are available the means of avoiding the potentially disastrous consequences of extramarital affairs,” she said, flaunting her worldly knowledge deliberately to shock him. “Andrew was a lively and energetic man with a great sense of fun. And he had an unfulfilling marriage.”

  “Seems to me I’ve heard that line before, miss. At many a murder scene.”

  She turned the iciest of eyes on him. “He was my friend, my lover, my mentor. I owe him more than I can say. If anyone threatens his reputation—whatever the scoundrel’s position—he will answer to me. And, equally, if someone is guilty of doing my friend to death, I’ll strain every sinew to find out his—or her—identity. I had understood that you too, Inspector, were his friend?”

  “An investigating officer is allowed no friendships,” he replied curtly. “But what loyalty the man commands, even in death! Must I expect a posse of avenging lady friends getting in my way? Tell me, Miss Talbot, how well do you know Clytemnestra? Um … Miss Templeton? You met in London?”

  Letty looked at him suspiciously. “I don’t know her. We had never met each other before this tragedy. I speak only for myself when I say that, if I uncover someone’s guilt, then he’d better take cover.”

  “Ah! Is this the moment where I confiscate your Luger?”

  Enjoying her astonishment, he grinned and added: “Your reputation goes before you. A quick temper and a quicker trigger finger is what I’ve heard. Do you wonder I take your right hand into custody when I’m about to say something provoking? You have searched the ladies, but who searches the searcher?”

  She froze, expecting at any moment to have to struggle for her privacy, but he chuckled and went on in a businesslike way: “Now, one or two small mysteries I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me clear up before we pack it in for the night … Will you come backstage with me for a moment? Don’t worry—I keep a strong electric torch in my murder bag and we’re chaperoned by half a dozen policemen.”

  He led her over the orchestra and beyond into the deep shadows of the skena. Lining himself up with the double doors of the palace of Mycaenae, still lying fully open, ready for the last act, he lit his way to a solid oak table standing in one of the tents and pointed his torch beam at it. In the blue glare, the appearance of the mess on the tabletop threatened to turn Letty’s stomach. She was reminded, sickeningly, of the livid thorn-punctured flesh of Christ in an altar painting she’d failed to admire.

  “Were we expecting this?” Montacute asked. “I’m sure there’s an entirely convincing explanation for it and I think I can probably work it out from my brief acquaintance with the performance, but I’d like you to confirm my mad idea. The knife? The disgusting mound of flesh? What sort of butchery’s been going on here?”

  “It’s exactly what it looks like,” Letty answered. “It’s flesh. A side of pork, to be precise. Bristles and all. The texture most resembling human, according to Geoffrey, who by all accounts is very knowledgeable on the subject.”

  The inspector waited for further elucidation, a hint of amused disbelief in his eye. Letty found she was irritated by his conscious use of silences and raised eyebrows to encourage his subjects to speak. Ah, well, if he wanted information, he ought to be given what he wanted … after all, the man was doing his job and working towards the same end as herself. She could not explain her resentment of his attitude other than as a tetchy reaction to his not-well-concealed suspicion of her own motives and her involvement with the dead man.

  “Geoffrey got it from the butcher’s at the far end of Ermou Street. He’s ordered another one for the first night, Zoë tells me. Now, what is to be done about the superfluous carcase, I wonder?” she rattled on. “I must say, from where I was sitting it was completely convincing to hear him do it. When he came off as Agamemnon, he made straight for this point—carefully placed for the best sound effect—and stabbed away at the pork, howling and screaming in time with the blows. Like a madman. Still, I suppose you’d have to work yourself up to a pitch of dementia, wouldn’t you, or you’d just fall about laughing. And there’s the knife he used. Are you going to take it away?”

  “Yes. We’ll study it. Not that we’re looking at the murder weapon here.”

  Montacute picked up the knife carefully in a gloved hand. “A serious, functional blade. You could certainly kill someone with this. Look at the profile. This is a sort of gladius … a short stabbing sword the Roman army used. Two-edged and two inches wide. Perfect for reenacting the murder of Agamemnon, but Merriman’s wound looked to me to be much slimmer. Though, I have to say, delivered in the legionary’s manner—one short stab in the area of the breastbone by som
eone with a knowledge of anatomy, pull out and on to the next target. Neat. Quick. No nonsense.”

  “The weapon was more like a dagger? An inch wide, would you say?” Letty tried to recall the hideous image.

  “About that. Though some stab wounds are wider than the blade if the killer’s waggled it about on withdrawing it. On the other hand, some wounds seem to shrink a bit after they’ve been inflicted, as the flesh—Well, no matter. Not the stuff for a lady’s ears. Let’s just say—I’ve seen similar wounds caused by the blade of a bayonet. I’ll get someone to carry this away.” The inspector threw back his head and called out: “Harry! Over here!”

  The keen-looking young British officer she’d noticed earlier looked up, left his fellows, and, with a nod for Letty, stood waiting for instructions. “Sergeant Perkins, Scotland Yard. My aide,” announced Montacute grandly. “And, Harry—this is my new assistant, freshly recruited this evening: Miss Talbot. You’re to be nice to her. I want you to arrange to have the stuff you see on the table conveyed to the laboratory for testing. Fingerprints, blood, whatever you can get. And then resume the search of the skena, will you?”

  “Can they distinguish animal blood from human?” Letty wanted to know.

  It was Harry who replied. “Oh, yes, miss. A doddle. They can even tell you the type of human blood as well. Four different kinds they can identify to date.” He began to busy himself noting down the contents of the tabletop.

  “One, Two, Three, and Four, they call them, imaginatively,” Montacute added. “And tell me—after Geoffrey had tormented the pork to his satisfaction, what did he do then?”

  “What he was supposed to do was get himself into the costume of Aegisthus with the help of Zoë and Sarah backstage and then come on again. It’s all there in my notes. Zoë reports he was late arriving this evening. But Maud and I heard him make a startled exclamation of some sort—we thought he’d stubbed his toe on the bathtub.”

  “Or taken a critical look at the contents?” suggested the inspector.

  “Good Lord! It … it … hadn’t occurred to me.” Letty stammered in her confusion. “The dummy! I mean … enough on my mind … but the dummy’s missing as well. Someone took it out of the tub where I left it …”

  She started forward towards the space where the tub had stood before the performance. The area was marked out by a hastily assembled square of tape held down at its corners by stones, and she took care not to alarm the inspector by approaching too close.

  “Someone put Andrew in there, then covered his upper body with muslin. There was a lot left over—on that roll over there.” Letty pointed to a shelf on the wall of the hut a few feet away. “Plenty left ready for tomorrow’s performance. And, of course, everyone walked around him thinking it was my mannequin … thinking what a spectacular job I’d done …”

  “The killer took the time to pour the blood from the flask all over him, so no one would have got too close,” Montacute suggested. “The sticky mess was quite repulsive.” He pointed to the taped area. “So I’m assuming the scuffmarks in the dribbles of blood spilled around the tub were made by the feet of whoever killed him.”

  By a huge effort of will, Letty looked straight ahead and not down at her own feet, a betraying movement which she was sure the inspector was waiting for. She replied lightly: “Then you’ve left it a bit late for a baring of soles, Inspector. You should have had the chorus line up at once for a foot inspection. They’ve dispersed. There won’t be a trace left after a few strides through the dusty streets of Athens.”

  She decided she didn’t quite like his narrow smile and the slight mocking tilt of the head as he acknowledged her reprimand.

  “But, to return to our dummy, Miss Talbot—no one’s been reported walking down Dionysus Avenue with a life-sized doll over his shoulder oozing gore. So it must be concealed hereabouts.” He looked around, seeing nothing but a labyrinthine straggle of shadowed masonry. “We’ll just have to wait for first light before we can do any more searching. There must be a hundred hidey-holes around here. What are we looking at?”

  “Five tents, three semipermanent wooden huts, piles of masonry and rubble, an open trench or two. It’s not so much a theatre as an open-cast mine! An abandoned dig.”

  “Recently abandoned?”

  “I don’t believe so. There was excavation done some seventy years ago but the work was never finished. Dr. Dorpfeld, the German excavator, took an interest but it’s been neglected for a long time. Andrew thought that by staging the play here, he’d rouse some enthusiasm, attract some cash, and be in a position to fund a new and more skilled attempt to reveal the original structure. He used his own money to put the area in some sort of temporary order …” Letty waved a hand at the orchestra floor. “The pavings were reinstated, smoothed, and repaired. Not perfect, but at least no one fell over and broke an ankle at rehearsal. The front few ranks of seating are just about useable. A number of the carved chairs for dignitaries are, as you see, still ready for business on the first row.”

  “Ah, yes, dignitaries … You were aware that a very eminent person—persons, perhaps—was due to be in the audience for the first performance?”

  “I’m sure the authorities are more familiar with the guest list than I am, Inspector,” she replied evasively. “And I’m sure any dignitaries would be offered one of the rugged marble seats reserved in ancient times for the priests. One of those fronting the orchestra, with the best view in the house. But anyone coming to the performance can find somewhere to settle down in the amphitheatre. It’s all part of the fun. Bring a picnic basket and some cushions. People don’t mind roughing it—it adds to the fun.”

  “Mmm … not sure my officers will see the fun even if I send them out with a hamper from Harrods.”

  “I have to tell you I’m not keen, Inspector, on the notion of a small army of gendarmes fossicking about in the theatre.

  We’re looking at a many-layered construction dating from pre–Lycourgan times through Classical to Roman. Untrained and undirected diggers could do untold damage to an evolving and complex site.”

  She heard her crisp rebuke die away because he deliberately left her words hanging while he considered them. Then his teeth gleamed briefly in the torchlight as he grinned at her. “Lord! For a moment I could have sworn Lady Merriman had joined us,” he teased. “Well, know that I share your concern, miss—as a classicist and as one who has grown deeply fond of this city. My father may have passed on to me a Norman Viking ancestry, but I don’t believe I’ve inherited their deplorable ways with cultural artefacts. The Director of the British School is a valued friend and I shall, naturally, seek his advice and take it.”

  She acknowledged his set-down with a cool smile.

  “Sir! In here!” The eager but muffled voice of Harry Perkins came from the interior of one of the wooden huts, the largest one close by the centre stage entrance.

  “Merriman’s office?” Montacute confirmed with Letty.

  They entered to find Perkins had lit an oil lamp, revealing a bleak space having all the atmosphere of a general’s campaign HQ on the move. The furniture, such as it was—table and chair—was of the folding variety. On the table a neat pile of books and one or two sketches, a carafe of water, and two glasses, both used.

  Montacute pointed to the glasses. “He had company. Harry—would you …?”

  “Sir! We’ll decant the contents into separate containers, bag and box the lot, and lift the prints,” said the officer, clearly with the intention of impressing Letty.

  “Seems to have been a working area and not a convivial space,” Montacute remarked.

  “No room to hold parties in here,” said Letty. “No space for the traditional back-slapping after the performance.”

  “But a party had been planned,” Montacute reminded her. “To take place after the first night’s performance. You were invited, I take it, Miss Talbot?”

  “Oh, yes. I was looking forward to meeting … um … well, I expect you know who wa
s to be guest of honour? We aren’t supposed to speak of it. They were planning to have champagne and canapés out on the orchestra by candlelight, right under the nose of the God of the Theatre. The statue of Dionysus. Andrew was planning on lifting a glass to him. And making a witty speech, no doubt.”

  “But he did have a surprise guest in here,” said Harry Perkins, and he went to stand beside a curtain which he swished back with the air of a music hall conjuror to reveal a wardrobe in which a few men’s clothes were suspended. Perkins tugged these aside; suntanned, red-stained limbs and green eyes gleamed in the inspector’s torchlight.

  “He didn’t go far!” said Perkins.

  Montacute handed his light to Letty and went first to examine the light linen jacket and trousers hanging in the wardrobe.

  “That’s what Andrew was wearing when he arrived,” Letty confirmed.

  “And here’s his unmentionables, in a pile on the floor,” Perkins pointed out.

  Montacute picked up a bloodstained shirt and looked at it closely. “Bag these, will you, Harry? Do you see this? Stab wound clear through the front of the shirt. So—someone came in here, killed Merriman, and instead of just legging it, went to the trouble of peeling his clothes off and putting him in the bathtub? Well, that was just standing conveniently to hand by the door—but why take the risk of being spotted manhandling a body?”

  “It’s personal, vindictive … wouldn’t you say? His killer hated him enough to put him on display. Poor Andrew was the coup de théâtre in his own play. Lit by a blaze of limelight, centre stage. A bloodied carcase.” Letty shuddered.

  “As Agamemnon? The character of the man—could that be significant, do you think?” suggested Montacute.

  “Aw! It could be entirely practical, sir, miss,” offered Harry, and she noticed that Montacute encouraged him to go on with a swift nod.