Murder Your Darlings

by Mark McCrum

  ‘But as I understand it from his daughter, and also now from him, Framley Place, Framley Grange was a property owned by Poppy. Inherited from her father.’

  ‘That’s right, yes.’

  Maybe, Ms Moretti elaborated, Duncan loved the house but not his wife any more. If he divorced her he would lose it. Maybe there was even another woman involved. It was possible, Francis agreed; although he had to say that Duncan had appeared to get on fine with his wife, when she was alive.

  ‘If he was planning to kill her,’ Moretti said, ‘he would hardly allow himself to be arguing with her, would he? In front of the other guests.’

  ‘This is true,’ Francis agreed; he didn’t share what Fiona had told him about them not getting on well recently. That was for her to tell them, if she wanted to.

  There were more suspects and theories to be considered. Francis gave his honest input to each, though none of them convinced him or, he realized, them. By the time they let him go, twenty minutes later, he had a strong suspicion that the police were as much in the dark as he was. Unless, that is, they had decided to construct an elaborate double bluff. Moretti handed him her card, with an invitation to call her if anything occurred to him or anything else interesting came to light.

  ‘So you’re not letting them go any time soon?’ he asked, as he took leave of them.

  ‘This woman was poisoned,’ Moretti replied bluntly. ‘They are all suspects in a clear case of murder. All I can hope is that this pressure cooker will make one of them crack.’

  NINE

  Sunday 30 September

  The scream that rang through the villa the following morning was louder and more sustained than the one that Belle had claimed as a nightmare four mornings before. Francis knew immediately that something terrible had happened. He threw down the remaining pages of Zoe’s memoir, sprang from his chair and ran down the corridor. The last door on the left was swinging open. Botticelli. Sasha’s room. It was one of the best in the villa, with two tall windows looking down over the valley.

  Sasha lay central on the king-sized bed, her fuchsia scarf beside her. But she was no longer going to leap in with a quirky intervention or remark. Nor was she going to surprise them with a searching character analysis, nor cartwheel across the bedroom or do a handstand by the writing table. Though her mane of frizzy hair was just the same, her big brown eyes stared lifelessly up at the ceiling, bloodshot and no longer beautiful. The golden-brown skin of her neck was marked with a smudged, encircling line of red, no stronger than a pale blush. All around were scattered those pinky-orange mushrooms she had found in the woods, some whole, some broken in two, some with bite-sized pieces taken out of them, as if she had sampled them and these were not the harmless Caesar’s mushroom she had thought, the ovolo buono, but the deadly lookalike, the ovolo malefico, aka the Death Cap.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ said Francis.

  It must have been Stephanie who had screamed. The look she gave him now was one of blank horror. At her side, still holding her hand, was Gerry; silent and appalled.

  ‘Sasha,’ muttered Stephanie, shaking her head backwards and forwards, bewildered. ‘I just knocked on her door. I was going to ask her if she wanted to organize some sort of exercise class.’

  ‘We must phone the police,’ said Gerry.

  Outside, on the windowsill, a bird chirruped incongruously.

  The scream had brought others to the door. Tony, Roz, Zoe.

  ‘Oh my God!’ said Zoe.

  ‘What’s going on?’ It was Liam, striding in past the others. ‘Mary, Mother of God, what is this?’ As everyone else stayed where they stood, he walked over to the bed. ‘It’s like a stage set,’ he said. ‘She hasn’t touched these mushrooms, has she?’ He looked round. He was right. That was the word for it. Staged. If she had eaten a poisonous mushroom, it wouldn’t have acted that quickly. Or cleanly. Francis needed to do his research, but he was fairly sure there would have been gastro-intestinal disorder first. You didn’t just eat a toadstool and die, like the victim of some bad fairy in a children’s story – or cyanide for that matter. ‘What is this?’ Liam went on, bending towards her neck. ‘Looks more like strangulation.’

  ‘No!’ Francis heard himself cry. ‘Don’t touch her. We need to be very careful here. We need to back out, all of us, and leave this situation exactly as it is. The police need to see this, absolutely as it is.’

  ‘You’re right, Francis,’ Tony said. ‘This is a crime scene. We must all go. Now.’

  Liam turned. For a moment Francis thought, from the lost expression on his face, that he was about to put up an objection, be difficult in some eccentric way. But: ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘We must go. R – I – feckin P, Sasha.’ He looked round at the others, and it was almost a look of accusation. ‘What is goin’ on?’

  He shook his head, turned and walked out between them.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Zoe.

  ‘Right,’ said Gerry, sighing deeply. ‘I’ll phone the emergency services. And then I’ll let everyone else know what’s happened. I think for the time being this room should be locked. Don’t you, Francis?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘We never use keys here,’ said Stephanie, in a thin voice. She looked like a ghost.

  ‘And then I think we should all meet downstairs,’ Gerry said. ‘By the coffee machine. In, shall we say, forty minutes. Ten thirty, more or less.’

  They all backed out, murmuring ‘yes’ and ‘OK’ as they went. Francis was relieved that Gerry had taken charge. Somebody had to.

  There wasn’t a lot to say, as they sat round the oblong marble table, quietly sipping the coffees they had lined up to make, picking at the two plates of almond biscotti the kitchen staff had thoughtfully put out for them. An ironic choice of snack, given the means of death for at least one of the victims. But what about the other? They had all seen Sasha the night before, at supper, when they had chewed over the more detailed police interviews they had all been subjected to, until someone – Liam perhaps – had suggested they change the feckin’ subject and an altogether jokier mood had set in. Sasha had been a part of that. She had her kooky side but was nothing if not fun.

  Now it was hardly possible to believe that she lay upstairs, dead – strangled, it definitely looked like to Francis. Though why would a murderer who had poisoned one victim strangle another? And, unless surprised, why would a murderer leave what looked like the weapon, the fuchsia scarf, right next to their victim? He, Stephanie, Gerry, Liam, Tony, Roz and Zoe had seen the dreadful scene. The others – Diana, Duncan, Fiona, and the art crowd, Belle, Mel and Angela – had not. Nor had the villa staff, who were now going about their business without their usual smiles. Eyes down, they had good reason to believe they were cooking for a murderer.

  There was no escaping this thought for any of them as they talked over this latest shock. This was it. Unless some crazed villager or vagrant from the forest with a hatred for literary and artistic-minded Brits had sneaked in and done these two killings, it was one of them, seated round this very table. None of these elegantly turned-out people present looked guilty of two murders, but then again, looked at in a different way, they all did. A self-consciousness that nobody was talking about had undeniably crept in, Francis thought. They were all looking at each other surreptitiously and thinking: could it be him, could it be her? And if so, why?

  ‘We find ourselves in a very strange situation,’ Gerry said, cutting into the nervous mutterings around the table. ‘One that is unprecedented in my experience—’

  ‘I’m sure in all of our experience,’ Zoe interrupted; her hands, Francis noticed, were fidgeting madly.

  ‘But here we are,’ Gerry continued. ‘In a few minutes the police will be back again, and they will have their procedures. But we, somehow, are going to have to sit this out.’ He looked slowly round the group. ‘Until this morning, there was a part of me that didn’t quite believe what the police were telling me, that poor Poppy had been murder
ed. Part of me was thinking that we were suddenly going to be told that Poppy had indeed just been the victim of a horrid accident and you were all free to go, and Stephanie and I were free to reclaim our lovely home as the safe space it has always been, in all the years we’ve lived here. But now—’

  Even as he spoke, there was a familiar screeching of brakes and the cops were upon them: an owl car containing Moretti, Ceccarelli, Sabatini and Ricci. Hardly had they crunched to a halt on the gravel than an unmarked van sped in behind them. This disgorged the team of three forensics, the Polizia Scientifica, who emerged one by one in their white spaceman suits.

  Gerry abandoned his little speech to go and greet the police and the procuratore. Not one of the officers looked in to acknowledge the guests gathered in the side room, they all headed straight upstairs with Gerry to view the corpse. Stephanie followed, murmuring an apology as she went. The green Fiat came racing down the slope.

  ‘The necroscopo,’ said Liam, who was standing by the window. ‘Running a little late, I’d say.’ It was the same doctor as before, with the same ginger-haired assistant and the same neat black case. They slammed their tinny car doors in virtual unison, marched over the gravel and through the front door. Two minutes later, as if not to be outdone, an ambulanza arrived – MISERICORDIA PERUGIA – with two new emergency personnel, albeit in the same lurid orange outfits.

  ‘Here we all are,’ said Liam. ‘Two down, eleven to go.’ He was counting round the room on his fingers as he spoke. ‘Thirteen if you count Gerry and Stephanie. Unlucky thirteen.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Liam!’ said Zoe. ‘You take things too far sometimes.’

  ‘I was just stating a fact.’

  ‘Fifteen if you count Fabio and Benedetta,’ said Mel.

  ‘More if you include the rest of the cooks and waitresses,’ said Belle.

  ‘I hardly think any of those women in the kitchen is responsible,’ said Diana. ‘Or nice handsome Fabio, for that matter.’

  ‘Is he nice?’ said Mel. ‘He always looks a bit spooky to me. Hangdog, if you know what I mean. Never says anything to anyone.’

  ‘Why should he?’ Diana replied. ‘He does his job, is perfectly polite if you speak to him properly. I certainly don’t find him “spooky”. Honestly. Anyway, he’s off for the weekend.

  ‘But he lives in the village,’ said Belle.

  ‘I’m not sure this is very constructive talk,’ said Duncan, after a moment.

  There was silence; they all respected the widowed ambassador.

  ‘What will happen to her?’ said Belle eventually.

  ‘Sasha?’ said Roz.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Francis?’ Roz asked, looking in his direction.

  ‘I imagine her next of kin will be informed. Perhaps, like Fiona did for Poppy, they will fly out here to come and take her home. Or at least to sort out the arrangements to bury her here.’

  ‘May I ask,’ said Diana, ‘what’s happened to poor Poppy? Did they ever explain why they needed an autopsy?’

  Francis looked over at Duncan and Fiona. This wasn’t his call.

  ‘They did,’ said Fiona.

  ‘And?’ Diana persisted.

  Fiona looked round at her father, who shrugged; they might as well know now, his silent features seemed to say.

  ‘They reckon she was poisoned,’ Fiona said, which brought a series of theatrical gasps from around the table.

  ‘Christ!’ cried Zoe.

  ‘Poisoned,’ asked Diana, quite matter-of-factly. ‘What with?’

  ‘Cyanide,’ said Fiona.

  ‘That doesn’t exactly grow on trees,’ said Zoe.

  ‘Or in the woods either,’ added Liam.

  Having enjoyed his black joke, was the Irishman, Francis wondered, now about to point out the starkly obvious: that it was almost certainly someone around this very table who had sourced and brought with them this innocent-looking white powder, which can be fatal in amounts as tiny as five per cent of a teaspoonful and causes death within a few minutes?

  But at that moment the shocked silence was broken by the whoop of a siren and the sound of a departing vehicle.

  Liam was immediately up by the window. ‘Misericordia Perugia,’ he said. ‘Off already. And without a body.’

  Before anyone could comment on the significance of this there was a knock on the kitchen door.

  ‘Come in,’ Fiona called.

  The young policeman appeared round the corner. He nodded in Francis’s direction.

  ‘Mr Meadowes. Commissario Moretti would like for you to come upstairs, sir, if you please.’

  Francis was relieved to go. The atmosphere in the side room was one of a weird awkwardness. Somebody was putting on a fine show of normality. Nobody was above suspicion. He followed the young policeman out and into the gloomy hallway where three white-suited Polizia Scientifica sat waiting on chairs. Then on up the familiar, well-worn stone stairs. In the room called Botticelli, sunlight now streamed through the windows on to the bed where Sasha still lay, looking almost as if she had passed out after one of her wilder cartwheels. The necroscopo was right beside her, his hand stretched out to the pulse at her wrist; his pretty assistant was next to him; on the left, the three policemen stood awkwardly beside the procuratore. Gerry and Stephanie were over by the window.

  ‘Thank you for joining us, Mr Meadowes,’ said Moretti.

  ‘Not a problem.’

  ‘This is a very sad circumstance.’

  ‘It certainly is.’

  ‘So young … and beautiful … and full of life.’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘No,’ said the doctor, laying Sasha’s golden-brown arm back down on the white sheets of the bed. ‘Niente.’ He looked over at Francis. ‘Non mi aspettavo nulla di diverso.’

  ‘Not that he expected anything different,’ Moretti translated. ‘Is it fair to say,’ she went on, looking over at Francis, ‘that we are now definitely looking at a murderer from among one of the guests downstairs in the kitchen?’

  Stephanie was looking at Francis too, as if he might suddenly be able to put things right, come up with some theory that ruled out her beloved course members. But there wasn’t one.

  ‘Who knows?’ he replied. ‘But it doesn’t look like an outside job, does it?’ Moretti turned to the procuratore, glossing this in Italian. Then she went on: ‘We really don’t want a situation where this murderer, whoever they are, is bumping off any more of your residential course members, do we?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Gerry.

  ‘Now we must leave Dottore Rosati to his examination,’ Moretti said. ‘And after that, the Scientifica are waiting. Meanwhile, I’m afraid we must talk to the guests again. Not for long, since we spoke to them in detail yesterday, but just to see if they have any updated information. Francis, would you be able to join us in the library? Perhaps your presence there will make them happier to open up.’

  So Francis, for the first time in his life, found himself sitting in on a police interview. Besides Commissario Moretti and Prosecutor Sabatini, there was dashing Inspector Lorenzo Ricci and nearly handsome Vice Questore Ceccarelli. It was almost odd, the way Moretti was so keen to elicit Francis’s help. In the two previous investigations he’d been involved with his problem had been the opposite. Now, as he sat watching his housemates troop in one by one and sit down in the comfortable brown leather armchair that Moretti had placed between her and the other officers, he wondered whether the commissario had misjudged the situation, whether his presence was inhibiting. After all, Francis was one of the gang.

  Moretti’s technique was nothing if not direct.

  ‘So,’ she asked Diana, when the few questions about what she’d been doing this morning, whether she’d heard the scream, how she had reacted, were over. ‘Do you have any idea who might be responsible for this double murder?’

  Diana looked across at Francis.

  ‘That’s what you think it is, do you?’ she said. ‘Double murder.’
/>
  ‘Yes, Signora.’

  Diana nodded. ‘I do have a couple of suspicions, but I’m not sure …’

  ‘You’re not sure?’ Moretti echoed.

  ‘Whether I should say.’ She nodded at Francis. ‘Nothing personal, but you are staying here with us, Francis.’ She turned back to Moretti. ‘When you’ve gone back to Perugia we do all have to live together. I have no idea what people repeat in private, especially when they’ve had a few drinks.’

  ‘Diana,’ said Francis. ‘Honestly, I am the soul of discretion.’

  ‘La discrezione in persona,’ Francis heard Moretti murmur to the others. A look of concern passed over the features of the young ispettore – Ricci.

  ‘So you say,’ the Scotswoman replied.

  ‘I can leave, if you prefer,’ Francis said.

  Diana regarded him thoughtfully. ‘I’ll trust you,’ she said. ‘But don’t let me down.’ She looked over at the others. ‘Now I do have the very greatest of personal respect for Sir Duncan,’ she said. ‘He’s such a considerate and gentle man, just the sort of man I’d go for myself, if I were a bit younger. But one has to say, he does love his garden.’

  ‘His garden at, er … Framley Place?’ said Moretti, looking down at her notes.

  ‘Framley Grange, yes. He gave us a lecture about it on Monday. It’s quite beautiful. And you have to think, if he wasn’t getting on too well with Poppy, which he wasn’t—’

  ‘Wasn’t he?’ asked Moretti.

  ‘I thought not. Didn’t you, Francis?’

  Had Fiona been speaking to her, he wondered, or had she noticed something he hadn’t? ‘I thought they were fine,’ he replied, ‘from what I saw.’

  ‘I disagree,’ Diana said firmly. ‘So imagine he was thinking that he didn’t want to stay with Poppy, that he wanted to go for some sort of separation or maybe even divorce, then he would also have been thinking that he would lose all that, the house and the garden, because as we know it belongs to her. And I speak as one who once owned a beautiful house and garden myself, which I had to very reluctantly say goodbye to when my divorce came through.’