‘Do you still blame her for it?’
‘I never blamed her. She didn’t know what she was doing.’
‘What about her and Aiden?’
‘What about them?’
‘When we last talked, I got the sense that you didn’t like him very much.’
‘I’ve got nothing against him personally. I just don’t think he pulls his weight, that’s all.’
‘Do you think your sister loved him?’
‘I suppose so. I don’t know. We never talked about things like that.’
I had deliberately used the past tense and Lisa hadn’t contradicted me. She too had decided that Cecily was no longer alive.
‘What about you and Stefan?’ I asked.
‘What about us?’
‘Tell me why you really fired him.’
It took her a few moments to make up her mind. Then she came out with it. ‘I had sex with him a few times because – why not? He was good-looking and he was single and he didn’t hold back, let me tell you! He was also a criminal with absolutely nothing going for him and if it hadn’t been for me, he’d have been out on the street. So maybe you could say he was just returning a favour.
‘But I never coerced him and if you’re suggesting that I fired him because he wouldn’t come into my bed any more, then you can get the hell out of the hotel and I don’t care if you know who killed Frank Parris or not. Stefan Codrescu did what I told him to. That was part of the fun of it. I only had to snap my fingers and he’d come running. But unfortunately, whatever you may say, he was the one stealing money – not Natasha – and that was why I couldn’t keep him here. The hotel mattered more to me.’
She stood up, the chair legs scraping against the floor.
‘You’ve got today and tomorrow morning, Susan. Then I don’t want to see you again.’ She couldn’t resist one last parting shot. ‘Checkout is at twelve.’
Eloise Radmani
I wasn’t sorry that Lisa Treherne had more or less fired me. I wanted to get back to Andreas and if I did have to leave England without solving anything, she had given me an excuse. I needed to talk to him. Were we still together? That was the question that most troubled me – certainly more than the small matter of who had killed Frank Parris eight years before.
I had less than forty-eight hours before my forced exodus from Branlow Hall. How was I to use them?
Before Lisa had arrived at my table along with her anger and her evident sexual frustration, I had been writing a list of leads I might follow and once I was on my own I took out my notebook and looked at them again. I had a lot to do and very little time.
My first priority was to visit Stefan Codrescu at HMP Wayland. There was obviously a great deal he could tell me, starting with his memories of the night of the murder, his real relationship with Lisa, everything he had seen and heard, who had access to his room and, crucially, why he had confessed. But it might be weeks or even months before he replied to my letter and I simply couldn’t wait that long.
Then there was Leo, the rent boy who had ‘known’ both Frank Parris and Alan Conway – I use that word in the biblical sense. If he was dead, as Alan’s dedication suggested, then how had he died? And why had the book been dedicated to him in the first place? It was clear that he hadn’t been Frank’s life partner, just one of many, available at a price.
I needed to go back to Martin and Joanne Williams, who remained the only couple with a straightforward motive for the murder. I had thought them both remarkably creepy when I met them, but I now realised that they had told me an obvious lie. I should have spotted it when I spoke to them. It was Aiden who had actually given me the information that incriminated them and Lawrence had repeated it in his long email. Martin had come to Branlow Hall on the day of Frank’s death. He had told me that without knowing he had done so.
I still hadn’t spoken to George Saunders, the head teacher who had originally been allocated room 12 in the Moonflower Wing, nor to Eloise Radmani, Roxana’s nanny and, perhaps, Aiden’s acolyte. I also wanted to track down Alan’s wife, Melissa. She had been living right next to the hotel when the murder took place. She could have strolled in at any time of the night without being seen.
And finally there was Wilcox, the name that Sajid Khan had accidentally mentioned to me when I saw him in Framlingham. I had managed to track him down and although he had nothing to do with the case, he was still a priority. I intended to deal with him that same afternoon.
I finished my breakfast and headed back to my room. But as I came out of the entrance hall, I noticed Eloise Radmani walking through the reception area with a basket of linen. Evidently, she was using the hotel laundry as an annex to Branlow Cottage. She saw me and turned away in the hope of getting out before I could stop her, but I wasn’t going to let her escape. I hurried after her and caught her at the back door.
I quickly reminded myself of what I knew. Eloise came from Marseille. She had arrived at Branlow Hall in 2009, a couple of months after Roxana was born and a full nine months after the death of Frank Parris. Before that, she had been a student in London where she had met her husband, who had subsequently died of AIDS. The first time we met, she had looked at me as if I were the devil. She was still far from welcoming, dressed in a muddy blue T-shirt under a loose-fitting jacket, adding a vague splash of colour to her palette of black and grey.
‘Good morning,’ I said, trying to be friendly.
‘Hello.’ She scowled.
‘I’m Susan. We met briefly outside the cottage. I wasn’t able to explain to you why I’m here.’
‘Mr MacNeil has told me.’ She said ‘mister’ and not ‘monsieur’ but her French accent was still on the edge of parody. ‘You are trying to help find Cecily.’
‘That’s right. Is there any news? I was in London yesterday . . .’
She shook her head. ‘There is still nothing.’
‘It must be awful for you.’
She relaxed a little but her eyes were still wary. ‘It is very difficult. Cecily was kind to me. She made me part of the family. And it is particularly hard for Roxana. All the time she is sad. She doesn’t understand what is happening.’
‘You’ve been with the family for a while.’
‘Yes.’
‘When did you last see Cecily?’
‘Why are you asking me these questions?’
‘Lawrence and Pauline have asked me to find out what happened. I’ve talked to everyone. You don’t mind, do you?’ I was challenging her deliberately, wondering what it was she had to hide.
She understood. Briefly, she shook her head. ‘Of course I don’t mind answering your questions but there is nothing I can tell you . . .’
‘So when did you last see Cecily?’
‘It was on the day that she died. Just after lunchtime. I had to take Roxana to the doctor in Woodbridge. She was not well. She had . . . you know . . . something with the stomach. Cecily told me she was going to take the dog for a walk. We spoke briefly in the kitchen of the house and that was the last time I saw her.’
‘You took the evening off.’
‘Yes. Inga from the hotel looked after Roxana.’
‘Where did you go?’
There was that flash of anger which I recognised from our first meeting. ‘What business is it for you?’
‘I’m just trying to piece things together.’
‘I went to the cinema in Aldeburgh.’
‘What did you see?’
‘What does it matter? A French film! How dare you ask these questions? Who do you think you are?’
I waited for her to calm down. She wanted to continue on her way but I stood my ground. ‘What are you afraid of, Eloise?’ I asked.
She blinked at me and I was astonished to see that suddenly she was close to tears. ‘I am afraid that Cecily is dead. I am afraid that the little girl has lost her mother. I am afraid Mr MacNeil will be left on his own. And you! You come here and you pretend that this is all a policier – a detective nove
l. You know nothing of this family and you know nothing of me and of my struggles.’
‘You lost your husband.’
If she hadn’t been holding the laundry basket, she might have hit me. I saw her fists tighten on the plastic handles. ‘Lucien was studying to be an architect,’ she said. Her voice was husky now. ‘He would have been a great architect. He had ideas – you would not believe! And do you know how hard I worked to support him? I washed dishes. I cleaned offices. I was the receptionist for an advertising agency and then I went to Harrods and I sold men’s clothes. I did it all for him and then he was killed by your precious NHS who gave him the wrong blood and when he died they gave me no compensation. Nothing. He was everything to me and they killed him.’
‘I’m sorry.’
I noticed two guests coming down the stairs on their way out for the day. I wondered what they would have thought if they had overheard our conversation. It wasn’t the sort of thing you would have expected in a country hotel.
‘Why does nobody leave me alone?’ Eloise went on. ‘First the police, then you! Aiden had nothing to do with the death of his wife. I tell you that from my heart. He is a good man and Roxana adores him.’
‘What do you think happened to Cecily?’
‘I don’t know! I think maybe nothing happened to her. I think maybe she had an accident and now she is dead and you should go away and leave us alone.’
She swung the basket round and hurried out through the door. This time I didn’t try to stop her. In her anger and her sense of martyrdom she had told me something which perhaps she hadn’t intended. I decided to check it out.
I went straight back up to my room and found the number of Knightsbridge Knannies, the agency that Aiden had mentioned. He had used it to find Eloise in the first place. I rang it, pretending to be a mother who was considering her for a job. The woman at the other end of the line was surprised.
‘I didn’t realise that Ms Radmani had left her current employ,’ she told me.
Does anyone still use the word ‘employ’ as a noun? But I suppose it was that sort of agency.
‘She’s still with the MacNeils,’ I assured her. ‘But I’m afraid she’s been having difficulties which have made her reconsider her position. You may have heard that Mrs MacNeil disappeared . . .’
‘Oh yes. Of course.’ That mollified her.
‘I’ve interviewed her and I think she’s wonderful but I just wanted to check one small detail on her resumé. Miss Radmani told me she had worked in an advertising agency and as it happens my husband works in advertising so I was just wondering which one it was.’
There was a pause and I heard the click of a computer keyboard as she found the information. ‘It was McCann Erickson,’ she said.
‘Thank you very much.’
‘If you speak to Ms Radmani again you might ask her to contact us. And if it doesn’t work out with her I’m sure we can help you find a suitable candidate.’
‘Thank you. I’ll be in touch.’
I hung up and went over to my desk to open my computer, searching for the newspaper cuttings that I had looked at in London. The screen seemed to take an age to boot up but finally there it was in front of me, just as I had thought. It was from Campaign, the advertising magazine.
Sundowner, the Sydney-based advertising agency set up by former McCann Erickson supremo Frank Parris, has gone out of business. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission – the country’s official financial watchdog – confirmed that after just three years the agency has ceased to trade.
Frank Parris had worked at McCann Erickson. Eloise Radmani had been a receptionist there. The two of them must have known each other. And now she was here. Atticus Pünd had often said that there were no coincidences when you were investigating a crime. ‘Everything in life has a pattern and a coincidence is simply the moment when that pattern becomes briefly visible.’
I wondered if he was right.
Back to Westleton
I left the hotel and drove back to Heath House, the family home that had been left to Frank Parris and his sister, Joanne Williams. This time there was nobody working outside so I rang the front doorbell and waited until it was opened. Martin Williams stood facing me, dressed in the same blue overalls as last time. He was holding a hammer, which was an unpleasant reminder of why I was here and indeed why I had come to Suffolk in the first place – but then he was obviously the sort of man who enjoyed doing odd jobs around the house when he wasn’t on the phone selling art insurance.
‘Susan!’ He seemed neither pleased nor displeased to see me. Or perhaps, in a strange way, he was both. ‘I didn’t expect to see you again.’
I wondered if he knew what his wife had said to me when I left.
‘I’m very sorry to have to trouble you again, Martin. But I’m leaving England soon and a couple of things have turned up. If I could talk to you, it won’t take more than five or ten minutes.’
‘Do come in,’ he said, adding cheerfully, ‘I don’t think Joanne will be too happy to see you, though.’
‘Yes. She made that very clear.’
‘It’s nothing personal, Susan. It’s just that she and Frank weren’t particularly close and she’d much rather forget the whole thing.’
‘Wouldn’t we all?’ I muttered but I don’t think he heard.
He led me into the kitchen where Joanne was working, mixing something in a bowl. She turned and the half-smile on her face instantly faded when she saw who it was. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. This time there wasn’t even a pretence of politeness – and certainly no offer of tea, peppermint or otherwise.
‘It’s very simple.’ I sat down as if to claim my place in the house. I also hoped it would make it a little more difficult for them to throw me out. ‘The last time I was here, you told me two things that weren’t true.’ I had plunged straight into it. The way Joanne was looking at me, I knew I had to get this over with as quickly as possible. ‘First of all, you said that Frank Parris wanted you to invest in a new agency, but since then I’ve learned that actually he had come to claim his half of the house – your house. He was going to force you to sell.’
‘That’s none of your business!’ Joanne was brandishing the wooden spoon like a weapon and I was glad I hadn’t arrived when she was cutting meat. ‘You have absolutely no right to be here and we don’t need to talk to you. If you don’t leave my house, I’ll call the police.’
‘I’m working with the police now,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to tell them what I know?’
‘I don’t care who you’re working with. Get out of here.’
‘Hold on a minute, Jo.’ Martin was equable in a way that was almost sinister. ‘Who gave you that information?’ he asked me. ‘I think we have a right to know.’
Obviously, I couldn’t tell them the truth. I had no particular fondness for Sajid Khan but nor did I want to get him into trouble. ‘I’ve been talking to one of the estate agents in Framlingham,’ I explained. ‘Frank wanted to know the likely value of the house and he told them he had a property that was coming onto the market. He also told them why.’
Even as I was making all this up, I thought it sounded unlikely. But Martin chose to believe me and didn’t seem at all put out. ‘I wonder what it is, exactly, you’re suggesting, Susan?’
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. ‘Why did you lie to me?’ I asked.
‘Well, first of all because it was none of your business. Joanne’s right about that. And although I’d say it’s quite rude of you to suggest otherwise, what we told you wasn’t actually so very far away from the truth. Frank wanted the money to start a new company and he looked on us as investors. Neither of us was particularly happy about it. We both love Heath House. Joanne’s lived here all her life. But we spoke to our solicitor and there was nothing we could do so we resigned ourselves.’ He shrugged. ‘And then, of course, Frank died.’
‘We had nothing to do with it,’ Joanne added, unnecessarily. Her wor
ds only made it more likely that they had.
‘You said there were two things,’ Martin said.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Joanne stared at her husband with exasperation.
‘We have nothing to hide. If Susan has questions she wants to put to us, I think it’s only right and proper that we should answer them.’ He smiled at me. ‘So?’
‘You told me that Frank Parris had complained about the wedding at Branlow Hall. His view had been obstructed by a marquee.’
‘I think I remember that.’
‘Well, that doesn’t quite work. He came to see you early on Friday morning. The marquee wasn’t delivered until Friday lunchtime.’ This was the information that both Aiden MacNeil and Lawrence Treherne had given me. Somehow it had lingered in my consciousness, almost like a flaw in an early first draft. Now I waited for a reply. ‘I wonder how you explain that,’ I said.
Martin Williams was unfazed. ‘I’m not sure that I do.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Frank must have made a mistake.’
‘He couldn’t have had his view obstructed by something that wasn’t there.’
‘Then maybe he lied to us.’
‘Or maybe you went to the hotel later that evening and saw the marquee yourself,’ I suggested.
‘But why would I have gone to the hotel, Susan? And why wouldn’t I have told you if I had?’
‘This is ridiculous!’ Joanne insisted. ‘We shouldn’t be talking to this woman . . .’
‘Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that I killed my brother-in-law because I didn’t want to have to sell the house,’ Martin continued. He looked at me and there was something in his eyes that I had never seen before. It was a sort of menace that quite unnerved me. What made it all the more shocking was that we were sitting in this pleasant country kitchen with its Aga and its hanging pots and pans and vases of dried flowers. It was all so ordinary and Martin was completely relaxed in his shabby work clothes. And yet he was staring me out, challenging me. I glanced at Joanne and I knew that she had seen it too. She was afraid for me.
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