The Death of Marco Styles

by J. J. Campbell

  ‘But she’s a snob and a social climber?’

  ‘More of a social clinger, a remnant of an upper class that barely exists anymore, royalty excepted. She’s tough, though. My father once said they used to call her the Mantis, for her habit of using men to gain the contacts she needed and then moving on.’

  ‘But she married Marco and stuck with him?’

  ‘It would have been a wise choice at the time, seventy-four or seventy-five, I believe, and no doubt she felt it was time to pick a winner and settle down, or perhaps time had mellowed her, although it certainly hasn’t diluted her determination to see her daughters marry well.’

  ‘To yourself, for instance? But you’re unemployed.’

  De Lacy winced slightly, allowing his reaction to be seen.

  ‘I’m unemployed only in the sense that I don’t have a job. From Irene’s point of view, I’m ideal: single, with a comfortable private income, from an old family …’

  ‘And why don’t you work? Surely a career …’

  ‘I have no need, and if I did I would be depriving some more deserving soul of their salary and career. I also prefer to devote my time to my hobbies, and I admit I have occasionally benefitted from investments in art, fine wine, that sort of thing. But returning to the death of the unfortunate Marco, it seems we have a classic case, with a victim and a selection of suspects, any one of who could be the murderer. So …’

  ‘I have a case, Mr de Lacy,’ she interrupted him, ‘although I’ve now handed it over to CID and only have responsibility for security. Still, I see what you mean.’

  ‘Can we not discuss the situation if it were an abstract problem?’ he suggested. ‘After all, is it not my duty to pass one any relevant information I might come across to the police? People will talk to me far more openly than they would to you, after all, while you can be assured of my complete discretion.’

  An expression of doubt crossed her face and she glanced over her shoulder once more before she answered him.

  ‘OK, I’ll trust you, but you’d better not have murdered him, or bang goes my career.’

  She had allowed herself a smile as she spoke and de Lacy responded in kind.

  ‘My innocence will be established in due course,’ de Lacy assured her. ‘But as you’re off duty, perhaps I can buy you a drink?’

  ‘Asking you questions is one thing,’ she told him, ‘drinking with you is another, so no, but thank you all the same.’

  ‘As you please. So then, given that the murderer must somehow have tainted an individual glass of port with the poison, the suspects must be limited to those who were in the house at the time. That includes myself, Adam Carradine, and the five remaining members of the Styles family. Then there’s the butler, cook, and two maids.’

  ‘All hired for the evening from an agency in Solsbury,’ Sergeant McIntyre put in, ‘so they can safely be eliminated.’

  ‘I disagree,’ de Lacy answered. ‘They are merely less likely to be responsible, but all had the opportunity, if not the motive. You see, the old Sherlock Holmes maxim, that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth, is quite wrong, or at best simplistic. In practise, once you have eliminated the impossible what remains will be a range of possibilities. These possibilities can then be ranked in order of decreasing probability and tested, one by one. Eventually you will have your answer.’

  De Lacy had hoped she would be impressed by what was one of his favourite pieces of logic, but she merely nodded and carried on.

  ‘Fair enough, but I’m sure you’ll agree that there must be a motive, and a pretty strong one at that, also that we’re dealing with a carefully planned and executed crime.’

  ‘Certainly,’ he agreed. ‘So, shall we consider the holy trinity; means, motive, and opportunity?’

  Again she simply nodded before speaking again.

  ‘The means we know: this neurotoxin was introduced into a glass of port, or more likely, introduced into the glass before it was filled, but one thing does strike me as odd. Why were only the men drinking the port?’

  ‘That’s hardly odd,’ de Lacy responded. ‘Old-fashioned, certainly, eccentric even, but our grandparents would have considered it normal for the ladies to retire after the dessert and leave the men to take port.’

  ‘For your grandparents, maybe,’ she told him. ‘Not mine. Grandpa McIntyre was a Lanarkshire miner and my mother’s father was in the army. And both my parents were in the police. In fact my father made Assistant Chief Constable, which …’

  She trailed off as if embarrassed. De Lacy, guessing at the difficulties she must have faced as the pretty daughter of a senior officer, quickly moved the conversation back to the case in hand.

  ‘I agree with you about the glass. The port was standing in a decanter on the sideboard throughout the meal. Once the ladies had left the room the butler placed it on the table beside Marco. Marco poured a glass for himself, then passed the decanter to the left, to me. I in turn poured myself a glass and passed the decanter to Adam Carradine. Apparently he doesn’t drink much, and he not only didn’t take any port, but failed to pass the decanter on, so that Clive Styles was obliged to reach for it himself. Marco made his remark about the port being bitter a moment later, after I had taken a sip, so I have to say that I am profoundly grateful that the port itself wasn’t poisoned.’

  ‘Do you think Adam Carradine’s behaviour is suspicious?’ Sergeant McIntyre asked.

  ‘Quite the reverse,’ de Lacy stated. ‘He took a glass of Chablis with the fish course and made it last the entire meal, which implies that he drinks very little and doesn’t understand the etiquette of the English dinner table, but that hardly makes him a murderer.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘and if he’d known the glass was poisoned he’d presumably have poured himself some port in order not to look suspicious?’

  ‘Exactly, but the important question would seem to be: who had access to the glasses? Unfortunately, the answer is that everybody did. The table was laid by the maids under the supervision of Irene Styles, and was fully set while the party gathered on the terrace with the maids serving Champagne and the cook busy in the kitchen. The butler was seeing to something elsewhere in the house. Any one of us could have gone into the dining room and tampered with Marco’s glass. In fact, I went in myself, to check on the wines, but at the same time as one of the maids. There is also a remote possibility that an outsider might have come in through the French windows, which were open.’

  ‘We need more facts,’ she answered, now openly enthusiastic, only to go quiet as Inspector Morden entered the bar.

  The inspector was with another man, equally tall but lean and lank, with shaggy grey hair and a day’s stubble on his face, features that sat oddly with casual but plainly expensive clothes and a ring set with a single diamond cut in the shape of a guitar pick.

  ‘Now that,’ de Lacy said, ‘is Richie Vine, who played lead guitar in Marco Lawless and must have come down for the funeral, but I’m interested to see him talking to Inspector Morden.’

  III

  ‘So what do you make of all this?’ de Lacy asked as he selected a black tee to go with the bright orange golf ball he’d been given by Adam Carradine.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Adam admitted. ‘Who’d want to murder Marco Styles?’

  De Lacy ducked down to push the tee into the ground and balance the ball on top of it while Adam Carradine continued to talk.

  ‘I can’t believe it would be Irene. She may be an old dragon, and I suppose he’s become a bit of an embarrassment when it comes to her social aspirations, but if she wanted to move on why not just get a divorce? I can’t see Clive doing it either. They’ve always got on well, and as for the girls, ridiculous. Frankly, I think it’s all a ghastly mistake.’

  ‘The police seem to think he was poisoned,’ de Lacy said as he addressed himself to the ball.

  Adam didn’t answer, watching as de Lacy completed his drive, sending
the ball high and far into a clump of pines well to the right of the fairway.

  ‘Sliced it,’ Adam commented, ‘bad luck. No, we’ll find something’s been contaminated. The drugs and booze caught up with him, that’s all. Did you know he used to go on stage with a bottle of whisky? Apparently he’d send a roadie out to buy the best malt he could get hold of, then drink the lot. It’s a miracle he lasted into his sixties.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ de Lacy admitted.

  They started down the fairway, to where Adam’s ball lay neatly positioned for an approach shot. The copse of pine into which de Lacy’s own ball had vanished was some way ahead, allowing him at least some satisfaction, but he had no real interest in winning the game. His purpose in suggesting it was to talk to Adam Carradine, who ranked low on his list of suspects but was a close friend of Clive Styles, whom he reckoned the second most probable candidate after Irene. Not that either of them seemed likely murderers, as it was hard to see how either could gain sufficiently from the death of Marco to make up for the risk.

  Adam Carradine took his shot, sending the ball skipping across the turf to stop at the very edge of the green. They started towards the clump of pines, where the bright orange speck of de Lacy’s ball was clearly visible on the carpet of brown needles.

  ‘If Marco was murdered, it will be for money,’ Adam remarked. ‘Insurance, probably. Between you and me, they’re quite badly in debt.’

  ‘Oh?’ de Lacy asked. ‘I assumed they were comfortably off. The house …’

  ‘The house is a white elephant,’ Adam interrupted. ‘OK, it’s worth a couple of million, but it costs the earth to keep up, and what with Irene and the three girls spending like it’s going out of fashion, well, you can imagine. I think Irene’s hoping I’ll marry Louise and support the lot of them.’

  ‘You get on well with Louise, don’t you?’

  ‘Louise is lovely, but I don’t want a trophy wife, and I definitely don’t want to end up having to support my mother-in-law, especially if it was Irene Styles. No, I’ll marry, eventually, but it will be to a woman who can pull her weight in the world.’

  ‘I take your point. I think Irene has me earmarked for Elaine.’

  ‘Great choice, if you want to run a stable. I mean, does she really need three horses?’

  ‘So she says. The old pony from when she was little and a choice of hunters.’

  Adam laughed, then went quiet as de Lacy took his stance in front of the golf ball. He could barely see the green between the broad pine trunks and chose an easier angle for fear of hitting one and having the ball bounce back into a yet worse position. A click as the head of the club met the ball and it shot clear of the trees, to bounce once and roll across the fairway to the rough grass at the far side.

  ‘Too much power, not enough control,’ Adam remarked. ‘Of course, now that Marco’s gone Irene will have the house and the income from the royalties, maybe a nice fat insurance payout too, which ought to take the pressure off her a bit. What do these people think they’re doing, walking right across the green? Isn’t that the inspector who was at Elthorne?’

  ‘Yes,’ de Lacy answered as he turned to see the imposing bulk of Inspector Morden approaching from the direction of the car park with another, younger man beside him. ‘I imagine he wants to talk to one of us, probably me.’

  IV

  The recorder clicked into life and Inspector Morden

  turned towards it as he spoke.

  ‘Interview with Charles de Lacy commences at 11.15. Present are Detective Inspector Morden and Detective Constable Pymm. Mr de Lacy …’

  De Lacy glanced around the interview room as the inspector continued with the formal caution. A panel of what appeared to be one-way glass suggested that there might be onlookers but otherwise there was only the table and four chairs, while the neutral grey of the walls added to the Spartan feel. He gave a polite nod to the glass, then turned back to the two policemen to decline the offer of a solicitor. Inspector Morden put his first question.

  ‘Mr de Lacy, you have a degree in biochemistry?’

  ‘Zoology,’ de Lacy stated, ‘although we did do a module of biochemistry in the first year.’

  ‘But you have a degree-level knowledge of the subject?’

  ‘Hardly that, but better than A-Level, shall we say.’

  ‘Can you tell me what this is?’

  The Inspector had pushed a piece of paper forward, apparently a print out of an email with some details blacked out in heavy pen but with a molecular diagram at the centre.

  ‘It appears to be the structural formula for some complex organic chemical,’ de Lacy said, ‘and at a guess I’d say it’s the neurotoxin that killed Marco Styles.’

  ‘And how did you know that Marco Styles was killed by a neurotoxin?’ Inspector Morden demanded.

  ‘Simple deduction,’ de Lacy replied. ‘The way he died suggested neurotoxin poisoning; tetrodotoxin, I thought. I suggested as much to Sergeant McIntyre when I gave her the port glass. You now present me with the structural formula of a chemical similar to that of tetrodotoxin, although more complicated, and so it is highly likely to be the neurotoxin in question. That’s hardly an intricate deduction.’

  ‘Maybe not, but it’s a very interesting one, isn’t it, Mr de Lacy? You admit you know about these things and Marco Styles is dead as a result of swallowing one. Not only that, but you were seated next to him at the dinner, weren’t you?’

  ‘No. I was seated next to Elaine Styles, who was to her father’s left. I was only next to Marco after the ladies had left the room. Besides, how do you suppose I’d get access to what is clearly an advanced and synthetic neurotoxin?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mr de Lacy, but I aim to find out. How do you know it’s synthetic?’

  ‘Because the email came from Vulcan Pharmaceuticals. If you’re going to black things out, Inspector, it’s probably better not to follow the outline of a company logo so precisely. Vulcan specialise in synthetics for the cosmetic industry, so my guess is that it is intended to stiffen up the muscles, but in minute doses of course, rather like Botox. I’d also guess it’s still in the experimental stage, otherwise I’d probably have read about it in one of the journals, while your forensics people might even have got it the first time around. However, I am absolutely certain that Vulcan don’t give out samples of their secret creations, especially anything so comprehensively lethal. I’ve certainly never had any.’

  The inspector’s face showed irritation, but only for a moment before he carried on.

  ‘I don’t believe you, de Lacy. It’s all rather convenient, isn’t it? However you got hold of the stuff, probably through some old college friend, I think you poisoned that glass and then drew Sergeant McIntyre’s attention to it in order to make yourself seem innocent.’

  De Lacy shrugged.

  ‘You chain of logic has a superficial plausibility,’ he admitted, ‘but no more than that. Why would I want to poison Marco Styles?’

  ‘Revenge.’

  ‘Revenge? I hardly knew the man.’

  ‘Your father was at school with Marco Styles, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you say they were friends?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The fact is, Mr de Lacy, that your father was bullied by Marco Styles.’

  ‘Bullied?’ de Lacy responded in surprise. ‘My father was Marco’s personal fag for a while, but I don’t believe that involved anything particularly unpleasant. They became friends through a shared love of music.’

  ‘Marco Styles used to beat your father with a cane,’ Morden stated.

  ‘Possibly,’ de Lacy admitted, ‘but that sort of thing was perfectly normal at a British public school in the sixties. Surely you’re not suggesting that that constitutes a motive for me to murder Marco Styles?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mr de Lacy, does it?’ Morden answered.

  ‘No,’ de Lacy responded.

  ‘So you say,’ Morden went on. ‘These
are the facts, Mr de Lacy. You were the only person at that dinner party with any understanding whatsoever of neurotoxins. You deliberately drew the attention of a police officer to the glass in which the poison had been placed. You have a motive, revenge on behalf of your father.’

  ‘Circumstantial evidence at best,’ de Lacy told him, ‘and hardly compelling.’

  ‘Compelling enough,’ Morden told him, ‘and we also know that you went back into the house while the other guests were drinking Champagne on the terrace. I suspect you went into the dining room.’

  ‘I did,’ de Lacy admitted. ‘I wanted to see what we were being served with dinner, the wines that is, and to check that the butler was handling them properly. The staff were hired from an agency, you know, and I wasn’t at all sure of his expertise, although apparently he’d worked for them before. He wasn’t there, as it happens, but if you want to check up on that you can ask one of the maids, who came in at the same time as me to fetch another bottle of Champagne; rather a pretty girl, red-haired.’

  ‘We’ve already spoken to the maid, Mr de Lacy, and she states that you left the dining room after she did. She says you were reading the labels on the wine bottles, which looks to me like an excuse to hang around until you were on your own.’

  ‘Not at all. I was merely admiring the selection of wines Irene and Marco had chosen for us. As you know, we started with Champagne, followed by an excellent Chablis, 1er Cru Vaillons with the Dover soul, then …’

  ‘I’m not interested in your gross over-indulgence, Mr de Lacy.’

  ‘No?’ de Lacy answered, now beginning to enjoy himself. ‘It might be relevant, you never know. What was it Sherlock Holmes used to say about omitting no details, however small?’