by Roger Keevil
“Well, it's just the blood around the wound, sir,” said Copper. “It looks as if somebody has tried to wash it away.”
“If they have, it's nothing to do with us,” stated Mortice firmly. “So if there's nothing else ...” He pulled the sheet back up to the body's chin.
“We'll be on our way,” said Constable, swiftly picking up his cue. He lingered for a moment, his eyes fixed on the calm features of Angelique Delaroche, oddly serene and still beautiful in their waxy pallor. “'Thou wast not born for death',” he murmured absently.
“Keats, guv, by any chance?” asked Dave Copper softly, alongside him.
“Keats,” confirmed Constable. He shook himself slightly and turned back to the doctor. “'Cover her face'.” He sighed. “Come along, sergeant – we have a murderer to catch. And in case you're wondering – Webster.” He led the way swiftly from the room.
*
Andy Constable still seemed subdued as the detectives resumed their seats in the car.
“So what next, guv?” asked Dave Copper tentatively, starting the engine.
“Onwards and upwards, I suppose,” replied the inspector. “We obviously know more than we did ten minutes ago, even if we're not sure what it is. So let us see what other nuggets of information we can mine in the hope that they will all coalesce into something helpful. Remind me, who's on our list?”
“There's the cleaner at the restaurant, guv,” suggested Copper. “She should be there by now. Should we head over there?” At his superior's nod, he let in the clutch.
At the 'Palais de Glace', the front door was opened by a nervous-looking Carey Agnew.
“Mr. Agnew,” Constable greeted him. “I'm surprised to find you here today.”
“What else can I do, inspector?” asked Carey. “Nobody knows what is happening, and somebody has to answer the phone and get in touch with our customers to let them know we aren't open tonight, but then they ask why not, and when we shall be open again, and I really don't know what to say.”
“I hope we shall have some answers for you before too long,” Constable reassured him. “And in fact I've come to have a word with one of your colleagues – your cleaner, I believe.”
“Oh, yes,” said Carey. “She's waiting for you over there.” He pointed to a shadowy corner. “I'll … er … I'll carry on then, in Miss Dela... in the office.” He sidled away towards the bar, as the detectives made for the table where their target sat waiting. They saw a dumpy woman bundled up in a tweed coat, her frizzy red perm crowned with a shapeless knitted hat, a string bag clutched in her hand.
“This is the lady I told you about, sir,” said Copper.
“Of course.” Constable gave his most charming smile, the one he usually selected to put ladies of a certain age at their ease. “I'm Detective Inspector Constable, madam – I'm the officer in charge of this investigation. I think you've already met my young colleague here, Sergeant Copper, who will be taking a few notes for me.” Copper hastily produced his notebook and made ready to comply. “And you are …?”
“Violet Leader, dear.” The woman seemed in no way intimidated by the forces of law and order ranged before her. “But you can call me Vi if you like – everyone does.”
“So, you're Vi Leader, and I'm given to understand that you're responsible for the cleaning.”
“That's right, dear.”
“Well, I hope you don't mind, but I have to ask you some questions about this very unpleasant murder, Mrs. Leader.”
“Miss!”
“Sorry – Miss Leader.”
“Don't worry about it, dear. But I know this nice young man of yours will want to get everything right in that little book of his. And do call me Vi, otherwise I shall think I've done something wrong.”
“Er … very well – Vi it is.” Constable found himself slightly disconcerted by Vi's approach to the interview, as Copper sought, almost completely successfully, to conceal a smirk. “Now, about the events of Friday ...”
“You ask me anything you want, dear,” said Vi comfortably. “I'm here practically twenty-four hours a day, so if I didn't see it, it probably didn't happen.”
“Well, that's very helpful, Miss … Vi. But twenty-four hours a day sounds rather excessive.” A thought struck him. “You don't live on the premises, do you?”
“Course not, dear.” Vi smiled at the thought. “Far too posh around here for me. I live up on the estate. But I've got the two jobs, see – I come in in the mornings to do the cleaning, plus a bit of tidying up after lunch, and then I'm back in the evening three nights a week to do the washing-up.”
Constable raised his eyebrows appreciatively. “Sounds quite a task. And you do all that on your own?”
“No,” scoffed Vi. “Well, not the washing up, anyway. The cleaning's all mine, because between you and me, I wouldn't trust anybody else to make a proper job of it, and some girls these days, they don't know what a bit of spit and polish is, but as for the washing-up, normally I've got young Michael with me in the evenings. He's a student, so he's doing it to earn a bit of extra money, except that on Friday he didn't turn up, so I had to do the whole evening on my own. And let me tell you, I shall be having a few words with that young man the next time I see him. Whenever that may be,” she added.
“Whenever that may be,” echoed Constable, “considering the uncertainties of the situation. So, just to give me a clearer picture of the running of the restaurant, what would your daily routine be normally?”
“I usually start about nine in the morning in the kitchen,” explained Vi. “You see, the chefs clean their own worktops and equipment, because Oleg is very particular about the hygiene regulations.” She leaned forward confidentially. “Apparently, one place he used to be, they had the Rat Man in once – I know they're supposed to be called the Health Inspector or some such, but everyone calls them the Rat Man – and he found so many things wrong, he closed the whole place down for a month. Lego said he's not having anything like that happening to him, what with his precious Pirelli Diamond thing. So he and Pepe do their stuff, and I have to do the floors and the tiles and the cookers. Then I start out in the dining room around ten when Lego comes in.”
“Sorry,” interrupted Constable. “Lego?”
“Oh, that's just what I call him,” chuckled Vi. “Just my bit of a joke because of the name, see – Oleg Lamb, Lego Lamb! And I never bother with the rest of it, but he never uses it anyway. Now on Friday, I got a bit held up in the kitchen because of a mucky oven, but as it happened it didn't really matter because he had his usual Friday meeting with Miss Delaroche about menus.”
“I think we've already heard about that, haven't we, sergeant?” asked Constable.
“That's right, sir,” confirmed Copper. “Mr. Key mentioned it.”
“Not that I usually pay much attention,” continued Vi, “even if I'm around at the time, which I wasn't. So when I'd finished in the kitchen, I went off out to do the dining room, and then everyone seemed to disappear off somewhere, because I had to open the front door to Miss Peel. That must have been about eleven.”
“Ah, so you were responsible for admitting Candida Peel to the premises during the morning?”
“Nothing wrong with that, is there, dear?” said Vi, a touch defensively. “And it's not as if I left her on her own or anything. She said it was something to do with coming for a meal. Anyway, just then, that Toby Rockard came in through the back, so I left her with him.” She giggled at the memory. “I think she quite fancies him, from the way she was going on. I thought to myself, 'Whoops! You'd better watch yourself there, dear'. But then I went through to the office to tell Miss Delaroche that she was here.”
“Anything else that springs to mind about the events of the morning that you think we ought to know?”
Vi considered. “Not really, dear. Apart from the fact that everybody kept disappearing. Oh, I do remember, I did have to go searching for the reservations book for Miss Ladyman. I found it eventually – it had slipped down
the side of a chair where Carey must have been sitting checking through the bookings, but it took me ages, and Miss Ladyman was hanging on the phone in the bar all the time. That's where it normally lives, by the extension there, because usually Carey or Alan or myself is somewhere within earshot if it rings with someone wanting to book a table, and you can never be sure Miss D is going to be around her office.”
“So why did Miss Ladyman need the book? And how come she was in the restaurant?”
“Oh, no particular reason that I know of, dear. She quite often pops in to say hello if she's passing. But she said it was to book a table for Mrs. Eagle.”
“I see,” mused Constable. “So, we've got you cleaning the restaurant in the morning. What about the afternoon?”
“I came back about a quarter to three,” said Vi. “I didn't actually see anyone then, but when I came in through the back door, I did hear Miss Delaroche having a go at Carey about something when I came past her office. Poor man, it sounded as if she'd been going on at him for quite a while, but I don't like to eavesdrop, and I had things to get on with, so I never found out what that was about. I thought to myself, I dare say if it's important, somebody will tell me, because you can't really keep secrets in a place like this. Anyway, I wasn't here too long because we weren't that busy on Friday lunchtime – we never seem to be, these days – so I was quite quick giving the dining room the once-over for the evening.”
“How about the washing up?” enquired the inspector.
“Oh no, dear,” replied Vi. “Like I said, there's never very much at lunchtimes, so that gets left in my little wash-up, and I do it first thing when I get in for the evening.”
“And how about the evening part of your job?” asked Constable, with a quick glance at Copper to make sure that the sergeant's frantic scribbling was keeping up with the narrative.
“I got back at half past seven to wash up. No point in coming in any earlier, dear – I'd only get in the chefs' way when they're running about, and they just pile the stuff in my wash-up, and I get on with it as soon as I arrive. It's not too bad – in fact, it's quite cosy in there.”
“Rather claustrophobic, I would have thought,” said Constable, recalling the cramped area alongside the door from the kitchen to the rear corridor.
“Ah, well that's just where you're wrong, dear,” said Vi. “I've got a window in there above my sinks which overlooks the back passage, so I usually see anyone who goes past – that is, unless I'm loading the glass machine or clearing the food waste bin out.”
“So does this mean that anyone in that corridor can see through into the kitchen? I know some restaurants like to do that.”
“Ah. No. Now that's where it was quite clever, you see, and it was all Alan's idea. He does have them sometimes, you know, for all that he's a funny old stick. He thought of putting one-way glass in there, and having a frame around it in the passage, so that I can see out, but from the other side, it just looks like a mirror. And you should see what some people get up to,” chortled Vi. “Women tarting up their hair when they come out of the loos and pulling faces to try and make themselves look more attractive - so they think. And some of the men are just as bad. Disgusting habits, some men have got.”
“Yes, well, we won't go into that,” interrupted Constable, eager to forestall any further irrelevant detail. “What I'm rather more interested in is whether there was much in the way of to-ing and fro-ing during the course of Friday evening.”
Vi laughed at the recollection. “Oh, it was like Piccadilly Circus out there that night. Mind you, I don't keep a list of everyone who goes to the loo, you know. And most of the customers I've never seen before, so I wouldn't know who was who.”
“That's not really what concerns me,” said Constable. “It's rather more the members of staff, plus one or two of the guests who were in. Mrs. Eagle and Miss Ladyman, for example, and of course Miss Peel.”
“Now I do remember her,” said Vi eagerly. “Yes, I saw her come by and go into Miss Delaroche's office at about ten to ten, but she was only there a minute or two, and she came out looking pretty grim. I thought to myself, 'Hello, there goes someone who doesn't look as if they've had a very good time. We'd better brace ourselves if she gives old Lego a bad write-up'. She went off back towards the restaurant.”
“And how about anyone else?”
“Toby,” announced Vi. “He was out there a couple of minutes after that. I glanced up, and there he was. I thought, 'What's he up to, just hanging about out there?'. Good-looking boy and all that usually, although he's not as good-looking as he thinks he is, if you want my opinion, but you wouldn't have said so if you could have seen the expression on his face. He and that Miss Peel made a right pair. Anyway, I got on with my pans, and I'm almost sure he went out of the back door towards the flat. He always rushes everywhere.”
Constable seized on the slight uncertainly in Vi's voice. “Now what makes you think that Mr. Rockard left the restaurant at that point?”
“Because that back door always makes such a racket,” explained the cleaner. “If you don't close it just so, it makes a hell of a crash. Many's the time old Lego's had me jumping out of my skin when he's come through like a whirlwind. Now Pepe, he's different – he always tries to close it properly, like he did when he and Edna went home. But the door went again about ten minutes after that, but I don't know who that was, because I was juggling with a full tray of glasses out of the machine, so I never saw.”
“You're certain about the time?”
“As certain as I can be, dear,” replied Vi. “I'm not one of those who's always watching the clock every five minutes. But it was just after Carey came into the kitchen and told Oleg that Miss Ladyman and Mrs. Eagle had left, thank goodness.”
“Why would he have said 'thank goodness'?” wondered Constable.
“Search me, dear. Old friends of Miss D?” hazarded Vi. “And she was with them at the table for some of the time that evening, so he said. And that Miss Ladyman is one of the owners too, so I suppose he thinks he has to dance around them. Anyway, he said to Oleg, should he tell Miss D what had been going on, although he'd rather avoid her if he could, and Oleg said 'Not after this afternoon. Leave it – I'll sort it.' And I'm not one to be nosy, but you like to know what's going on around you, don't you, but before I got a chance to ask him what that was all about – you know, subtle-like – he'd disappeared. And the next thing that happened was Carey saying that he'd better take Miss D her coffee, and five minutes after that, all hell broke loose.”
“Got all that, Copper?” Constable turned to his assistant.
“Pretty much, sir,” replied the sergeant. “All I've got to do is dovetail everything with all my other notes, plus what I know from then on.” He did not look enthralled at the prospect.
“Is that it, then, dear?” enquired Vi. “Only if you've finished with me, I could do with getting on. I'm meeting my sister down at the Monday market to pick up some fresh veg,” - she brandished her string bag in corroboration - “only I don't usually get the chance to go this early on account of normally I'm in here working, and by the time I get there, all the best stuff's gone, so I thought I'd take the opportunity, seeing as how I can't do anything in here today with all this going on. Oh well, you know what they say – every cloud, and so on.” She broke off and laughed. “Here, that's quite funny, isn't it?” She was rewarded with blank looks. “Oh well.” A thought occurred to her as she got to her feet. “I don't suppose you know what's going to happen with the restaurant, do you, dear? Only my sister and I need to know where we stand.”
“Your sister?” Constable was puzzled.
“Yes, dear. My sister Edna – she works here as well.”
Light dawned for Copper. “Edna the waitress! Of course! She was the one who served me on Friday, sir – Edna Cloud. I mentioned her, but she was gone before … well, before anything happened.”
“Yes, she went off early,” said Vi a touch grumpily, “so I never got my lift home
.”
“I hadn't realised you and she were related,” said Copper.
“Oh yes,” replied Vi. “That's the thing about this place – it's a proper family concern.”
*
As Vi bustled purposefully towards the back door, Copper's mobile rang.
“Yes?”
“This is Glenda Neare from Griffin Lyon. I have Miss Hancart for Inspector Constable,” came the voice at the other end.
“Miss …? Oh, right. Hold on a second.” Copper held out the phone towards the inspector. “It's Mrs. Eagle's office again, sir,” he mouthed. “Wants to talk to you.”
“The lady seems very persistent,” replied Constable in similar fashion, taking the phone. “Obviously there is something important afoot. Yes?” He continued aloud. “Oh, hello, Mrs. Eagle … yes, I'm sorry I wasn't able to get back to you sooner, but we have been rather preoccupied … ah, now that is good news, because I'm getting questions which I can't answer … and how long do you imagine this appointment is going to take you? … in that case, do you suppose you would be able to be here at the restaurant in ...” He consulted his watch. “... about an hour? … Good. That will give me time to make sure that all the relevant people are here. If you'll contact Miss Ladyman? … Good. I shall see you later.” He handed the phone back to Copper.
“What was that all about, guv?”
“Progress of a sort, sergeant. The lady has been rooting around among the relevant papers, and she's got some information from the will and so on about what happens to the restaurant in the event of Angelique Delaroche's death. Apparently she's got an appointment with a client now, which is why she called in the hope of catching us before she got tied up with that. But she's going to come over here afterwards.”
“Which is why you wanted her to get Miss Ladyman in on the meeting,” surmised Copper.
“Of course. She's part owner – all this affects her as well as the staff. So … just let me think for a moment.” A slow smile lit up the inspector's face. “What a very convenient thing it would be if Candida Peel were able to be here in her reporting capacity. Why don't you call her and offer her the interview with me that she was wanting – just don't let on that there will be anybody else here.”
