Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [91]
But an hour later they had found nothing suggesting violence of any kind. He had apparently fought with Minnie, and cut her throat and her abdomen, without getting even a spot of blood on his shirtsleeves. There was no ash in the fireplace to indicate anything destroyed.
“He must have stripped before he went into her room,” Narraway said when they were alone in the corridor again, tired and defeated. “Which seems singularly premeditated—and sane.”
“Or it isn’t him,” Pitt argued.
Narraway chewed his lip. “This is still very ugly,” he said almost under his breath. “Whatever the result, we’re going to have to treat it as madness, and have whoever it is put away quietly.” His voice was suddenly passionate and afraid. “But so help me God, Pitt, we have to have the right man. Apart from the injustice of it, we can’t afford to leave the real one free.”
ELSA’S FIRST REACTION had been one of horror and pity at the waste of life. She sat on her bed, rigid with misery. She knew she had not ever truly liked Minnie. The relationship had been uneasy from the outset. Elsa had replaced Minnie’s dead mother, at least socially, if not in Cahoon’s affections. Not that he ever mentioned his first wife, and certainly he never made comparisons, or spoke of her with grief. She should have found that strange, but at the time she had been so fascinated by his power and the weight of his emotion, she had been flattered that he wanted her at all. And he had, then. But how quickly he had grown tired!
Minnie had seen that, and understood it. The coldness between Elsa and Minnie had become one of mutual contempt on one level, a degree of tolerance on another. It was a situation from which neither could escape. For survival, it was best to make as little trouble as possible.
And then there was Julius. Elsa was no longer sure about anyone else’s emotions. This ghastly week had shaken every certainty she had. Looking at them all around the dinner table yesterday evening she had realized she had very little idea what any of them truly cared about, loved or hated, longed for, wept over. Olga’s isolation and self-disgust were simple, at least on the surface. But why did she not fight back? Had victory become pointless to attempt? Was her pallor and weariness disillusion rather than defeat?
Simnel’s infatuation with Minnie was not hard to understand. She had had fire and passion, laughter compared with Olga’s misery. But were any of these attributes anything more than patterns on the surface? Was Minnie’s fire only appetite? And Olga’s chill only a result of the pain of rejection freezing her? She had barely even mentioned her children, as if she had no more heart to fight with the weapons she had.
Liliane was obviously terrified that Hamilton would drink too much and let slip some awful secret, either his own or someone else’s. Was it about the murder of the other woman in Africa, so much like the ones here? She protected him as if he had been one of her children rather than her husband.
And Julius. That was the blow that left her numb. She could not accept that he had murdered Minnie, destroyed all that fierce will, that hunger and greed for life, whatever the cost. Minnie had been selfish, even cruel, but she had been as bright as a fire. To have snuffed her out seemed almost a crime against nature.
Elsa felt a searing pity for Cahoon. He had looked bruised to the heart when he had told her how Minnie had died, as if he had lost part of himself. She wanted to reach out to his agony but it was closed hard and tight inside him, and he turned away from her. Moments later he had actually left the room and she had stood alone, bewildered, bruised by rejection, and desperately sad.
She did not want to speak to anyone else, and yet to remain sitting in her room alone seemed even worse. She stood up and walked over to the window. She stared out at the heavy, summer trees,