The Silver Castle by Nancy Buckingham Page A

know all there is to know, and somebody has got to tell me.”
    “I’d have thought you knew enough now ... everything that matters.”
    “But why does it all have to be shrouded in mystery? There’s no point trying to shield me. From the little I’ve been told it could have been a pure accident, but if the verdict was suicide there must have been some evidence for it.”
    Raimund expelled a long breath. “If only you would leave things alone. It’s no use torturing yourself about something that is over and done with.”
    I shook my head, shook away the tears that were filling my eyes.
    “It’s pointless saying that, Raimund, because I know too much now to leave things alone. I’ve got to know the rest—the whole truth—however painful it is. However ugly.”
    He was silent for so long that I thought he’d withdrawn into his own brooding thoughts once more. Then quite suddenly he said, “Just ahead there is a place where you can pull off the road. If you’re so determined to know everything, then for your sake I think it had better come from me.”
    Taken by surprise at his sudden capitulation, I braked too hard and skidded on the wet road. I corrected the skid but parked badly, and had to manoeuvre back and forth to get the car’s tail safely off the highway. Raimund didn’t comment on my clumsiness, and when I cut the engine and switched off the headlights, he still didn’t speak.
    “You can’t draw back now,” I said.
    “I was wondering where to begin. You see, Gail, nobody had the slightest suspicion that there was anything going on between your father and Valencienne. Not that it was altogether surprising. Neither of them was a saint.”
    “But she was married,” I protested. “How could she have an affair? I mean, why should she want to?”
    “Aren’t you being just a bit naive?” Raimund’s shrug was in his voice. “Anyway, it wasn’t much of a marriage. Anton was wedded to his work, and Valencienne had too much time on her hands and enjoyed playing around.”
    Gripped by a sudden feeling of nausea I wound the window down for some fresh air. A car went by in a rush of sound, and I watched its taillights diminish to red pinpoints which flickered and finally vanished.
    “Did Anton realise that his wife was that sort of woman?” I asked. “Didn’t he object?”
    “My brother was never one to confide in me ... or anyone else for that matter. But I suppose he must have minded. Even if a man doesn’t love his wife any more, he is bound to feel humiliated when she has casual affairs.”
    “It couldn’t have been a casual affair with my father. If she agreed to suicide, she must have been in love with him.”
    “Valencienne didn’t love anyone ... except herself. That’s why we find it so difficult to accept the idea of a suicide pact.”
    “You’re saying that my father must have murdered her—that is what it amounts to,” I said faintly. “But there was no evidence for believing that, was there?”
    My hands lay in my lap, the fingers twisting and untwisting nervously. Raimund reached out suddenly and covered them with one of his.
    “All I can do,” he said, “is to give you the facts as far as they are known. Then you will have to make your own judgement. It happened in a boat, Gail, our motor launch. It seems that Benedict and Valencienne took it out on the lake that evening, around about eight o’clock as near as can be calculated. And then he put a spike through the hull, and the boat gradually sank.”
    “But... but you said my father killed her first, and then himself.”
    “No, you said that. What I’m saying is that he made sure she died with him.”
    I stared at Raimund’s dark profile. “You mean he held her down until they drowned?”
    “They were lovers, Gail.”
    I was slow to grasp his meaning, fleeing from it because the man concerned had been my father. Raimund added gently, “Their two bodies were found in the cabin when the boat was raised from the