Wicked Beauty

by Susan Lewis

  Robert’s eyes returned to the sea of faces. An intrinsically shy man, he wasn’t finding it easy to confront so many cameras and microphones, but his grave, dignified expression showed nothing of how anxious he was feeling – or perturbed to find himself thinking about Stacey Greene at such a wholly inappropriate moment, for the call earlier had unnerved him to a degree that even this crowd couldn’t.

  Leaning towards the microphones, he clutched his notes in his hand and spoke softly, but clearly, his tone conveying how deeply he was feeling the loss of his brother-in-law. ‘I know,’ he began, ‘that you will all understand what an extremely difficult time this is for my family, my sister-in-law especially. I’m afraid that right now we don’t know much more than you, so there’s nothing I can tell you, except that Rachel, as you might expect, is still trying to deal with the terrible shock this has been for her. The police are doing everything they can to find Katherine Sumner, and we would ask if anyone out there has any information that might help in the investigation, that they either contact Chief Inspector Bartle at the Yard, or their local police.’ He glanced down at his notes. ‘I would also ask those of you in the media to do everything possible to respect Rachel’s privacy in the difficult time ahead. As you know, she, more than most, appreciates the pressures you will be under to get as much information as you can, but please be patient, and try to understand what a very great loss her husband’s death has been.’ He looked up. ‘Thank you,’ he said, awkwardly, then, not sure what to do next, he turned to Bartle.

  ‘Robert!’ someone shouted. ‘Will you answer some questions?’

  Dismayed, he turned back to the microphones. He could feel himself perspiring, despite the coolness of the late spring day, and wished Anna was with him, for she was so much better at this sort of thing. ‘If I can,’ he responded.

  A tidal wave of demands swept forward from the crowd.

  ‘No, I’m afraid I’ve no idea where Katherine Sumner might be,’ he said to one. ‘No, Rachel hasn’t either. Yes, Katherine is American, but I don’t think her nationality has any bearing … Yes, this was to be her last campaign. No, I don’t know what she was intending to do next. The Prime Minister spoke to Rachel this morning. He expressed his sadness and regrets at the loss of a friend. It’s too early to be talking about by-elections, but of course there will be one. Rachel and Tim have been married for four years, together for five. Yes, Rachel did leave the celebrations early last night. She was extremely tired after having very little sleep these past few weeks.’ The pregnancy was to stay under wraps for the moment, so he made no mention of it.

  ‘Has Mrs Hendon been cleared from inquiries?’ a woman near the back shouted.

  Shocked, Robert tried to find the source as a terrible hush fell over the crowd. The idea that Rachel Hendon might have done it was unthinkable, but someone had to ask.

  Robert dabbed his neck with a handkerchief, and wondered how Rachel, who was watching this inside, was feeling right now. ‘Naturally, Rachel is doing everything she can to assist the police with their inquiries,’ he said. ‘As for any suggestion that she might in some way have been involved … Frankly I find the question so abhorrent I’d rather treat it as though it hadn’t been asked.’

  Bartle stepped forward. ‘Mrs Hendon is not a suspect at this time,’ he told them.

  ‘Is anyone, besides Katherine Sumner?’

  ‘Not at this time,’ Bartle answered.

  ‘Is there any truth in the rumours that Tim Hendon and Katherine Sumner were having an affair?’

  ‘We still don’t know the answer to that,’ the inspector responded. ‘Yes,’ he said in answer to another question, ‘Mr Hendon’s offices have been sealed off and documents have already been taken. It’s normal procedure.’

  ‘Is it true that the Anti-Terrorist Branch are involved in the investigation?’

  ‘Mr Hendon’s position makes that a normal procedure,’ Bartle replied blandly.

  ‘Robert, can you tell us anything about your brother-in-law’s recent showdown with the Prime Minister?’

  Robert looked startled. ‘I think that’s already a matter of public record,’ he responded. ‘As we all know, Tim could be outspoken on issues that he feels are being neglected … But I want to say, I want to say,’ he shouted over a sudden surge of noise, ‘that he often clashed with his colleagues …’

  ‘Was he going to rejoin the Cabinet?’ someone cut in, loudly.

  ‘I’d say it was likely,’ Robert answered.

  ‘He was being tipped as deputy leader.’

  Since it wasn’t a question, Robert didn’t respond.

  ‘How long had he known Katherine Sumner?’

  ‘I believe since the beginning of the election campaign.’ Robert turned to Bartle. He’d had enough. He wanted out of here now.

  Bartle stepped forward again. ‘OK,’ he said, leaning in to the mikes. ‘We can give you no more at this time. For those of you who are going to insist on camping out here, please have some consideration for the neighbours who have nothing to do with this and would like to get on with their lives.’

  A new voice called out from the sidelines. ‘Is it true you’re investigating the possibility that someone else might have been in the flat at the time of the murder?’

  Bartle ran a finger under his collar. ‘We’re not ruling it out,’ he answered. ‘But so far there’s been no evidence to suggest it.’

  ‘Are there any signs of a forced entry, or a struggle?’

  ‘None so far,’ Bartle replied.

  ‘Robert, do you have any idea why anyone would want to kill him?’

  Robert’s face was bleak. ‘None at all,’ he replied.

  ‘What do you say to all the conspiracy theories that are bounding around?’

  ‘I’m not aware of them.’

  Bartle put a hand on his shoulder, and they turned back to the front door.

  ‘Robert, my condolences to Rachel,’ someone called out.

  ‘Hear, hear,’ several voices echoed.

  ‘If you’re listening, we’re here for you, Rach,’ a woman shouted.

  ‘Anything we can do, babe,’ said a reporter from her old news team.

  Inside the house Rachel was sitting with Anna in the bedroom, watching the broadcast, fresh tears starting in her eyes as her old colleagues expressed their support.

  ‘This is when you find out who your friends are,’ Anna murmured, squeezing her hand. Tears were shining in her own eyes, which were so like Rachel’s that were it down to that feature alone it would be almost impossible to tell them apart. But Anna’s lips lacked some of the fullness of Rachel’s, and her shoulder-length hair was a much lighter brown. She was also taller than Rachel, and heavier, rather more like their mother in fact.

  Looking down at their hands, Rachel’s voice caught on a sob as she said, ‘He handled them well.’

  ‘He’s better in these situations than he realizes,’ Anna responded.

  Rachel’s smile was tremulous as she thought of how loyal and supportive Anna was, not only to her husband, but by nature, and how strong she was too. Tim had had enormous respect for her, and a lot of affection too, which was why he’d gone out of his way to bring about their reunion after the rift had gone on much longer than it ever should have. In truth, it was what both sisters had wanted almost since it had happened, but each of them had had too much pride to be the first to back down. It was so like Tim to know how to go about setting things right. ‘I know I’ve told you this before,’ Rachel said, ‘but I’m sorry for all the terrible things I said when we …’

  ‘Sssh,’ Anna soothed. ‘It’s over, forgotten. And anyway, you were right. I am overbearing, and I do worry and fuss too much. And what’s more I know I can’t ever replace Mum, the way I was trying to …’

  ‘You only did it because you care,’ Rachel said, her voice strangled by emotion. ‘I always knew that.’ She looked into Anna’s face. ‘You’re so like her,’ she said, as more tears fell. ‘Oh Anna, I’m going
to miss him so much,’ she said, her face crumpling. ‘I don’t know if I can stand it.’

  ‘It’s all right. We’re just going to take it a day at a time,’ Anna assured her. ‘I’ll be here whenever you need me.’

  ‘But you have to think about the film. And the girls …’

  ‘I’ve got a very good nanny, and the shoot can happen whether I’m there or not.’

  ‘But Robert …’

  ‘Ssh, Robert can cope. You just think about you and the baby, and I’ll take care of everything else.’

  They looked up as Robert came into the room.

  ‘Thank you,’ Rachel said, reaching for his hands. ‘I couldn’t have faced it.’

  Pulling her into his arms he held her close and rocked her as she cried. ‘The police are still downstairs,’ he said, stroking her back. ‘Poor Lucy’s tearing her hair out.’ His eyes met Anna’s. ‘There are so many damned rumours,’ he said, almost angrily.

  ‘There are bound to be,’ she answered.

  Rachel stepped back, and blew her nose. ‘I wonder if it’s true that I’m not a suspect,’ she said, reaching for another Kleenex.

  ‘Oh Rach, no one thinks you did it,’ Anna protested.

  Rachel’s eyes were still bright with tears as she said, ‘I don’t have an alibi.’

  ‘But what reason would you have?’

  ‘The oldest one in the book: he was having an affair.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  Rachel looked at her. ‘Everyone else obviously thinks so.’

  ‘But you just told Haynes … You don’t believe it.’ Anna was shaking her head. ‘You don’t know anything for certain.’

  ‘Except that he’s dead.’

  Anna inhaled deeply, and immediately Rachel was sorry. It was one thing to try bludgeoning herself with reality, but Anna didn’t need it.

  ‘Are the phones never going to stop?’ Robert complained, responding to the incessant ringing coming from elsewhere in the house.

  ‘BT are setting me up with a new number that I can give to family and close friends,’ Rachel said, then realizing she wouldn’t be giving it to Tim, she felt herself buckling inside and buried her face in her hands again.

  Anna’s arms went round her, and the three of them sat quietly in an embrace as the sheer awfulness of everything stole over them again.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Rachel said eventually, her voice clogged with tears. ‘I feel I should be doing something …’

  ‘There are a lot of arrangements to make,’ Robert said. ‘We need to find out from someone where he is, and when they’re likely to release the body.’

  ‘We’ll take care of all that though,’ Anna assured her, stepping in quickly to try to lessen the impact of referring to Tim as a body.

  Rachel nodded, but her mind seemed to be elsewhere.

  Someone knocked quietly on the door and DCI Bartle put his bald head round. ‘I’m leaving a couple of officers outside,’ he told them. ‘Some of the reporters have gone, but there’re still quite a lot out there. We don’t expect any kind of trouble.’

  ‘It might be a good idea to take you over to our house,’ Robert said to Rachel.

  Her eyes went down. ‘I can’t leave here,’ she said. ‘This is our home.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay with you,’ Anna told her. ‘Cecily can manage the kids, and I won’t be far if they need me.’

  Bartle cleared his throat. ‘There’s a Nigel Bingham outside,’ he said, ‘asking if you’ll see him.’

  ‘Oh yes, tell him to come in,’ Rachel said. Then to Anna and Robert, ‘We should go downstairs now.’

  A few minutes later she was wrapped in Nigel Bingham’s arms, feeling the strength of his embrace almost crushing her. He was a producer with the news programme she’d left four years ago, and the man with whom she’d shared three years of her life until she’d met Tim. She loved him like a brother now, so it was only right that he should be here.

  ‘He was a good man, Rach,’ he told her gruffly, his taut, unshaven face showing how deeply he felt the loss too. ‘One of the best. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You don’t know how much that means right now.’

  Keeping an arm around her he reached out to shake hands with Robert, then to include Anna in the embrace. They’d known each other for a long time, and though it had been hard for Nigel when Rachel had fallen for Tim, they’d all managed to remain friends. ‘We’re going to get to the bottom of this,’ he said fiercely. ‘Because something’s not right about it, that’s for sure.’

  Robert and Anna both looked at Rachel.

  ‘I’m glad you think that too,’ she responded, a faint trace of colour staining her cheeks. ‘I was afraid I might just be in some kind of denial.’

  He was shaking his head. ‘You heard the questions they were asking outside,’ he said. ‘No one’s buying the rejected mistress thing – not yet, anyway.’ With his arm still around her he led her to the sofa. ‘So who’s questioned you so far?’ he asked.

  ‘Two men from “Special Ops”,’ she answered, drawing quote marks round the words.

  ‘Do you know which division?’

  ‘Westminster. Their names are Haynes and Flynn.’

  ‘OK, I’ll get them checked out. Have the regular police interviewed you yet?’

  She shook her head. ‘I think I’m an exclusive for the big boys.’

  ‘Makes sense. So what have you told them? Anything?’

  ‘Not really. It was all too much, after they told me …’ Her breath caught. ‘I went to pieces. They’re coming back tomorrow. Everyone keeps insisting I’m not a suspect, but I know they’re not ruling it out. After the Ashby case they’d be fools to.’

  Nigel glanced at the others. ‘You remember that case?’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ Robert answered. ‘A couple of years ago. Colin Ashby, the Downing Street press secretary. His wife killed his mistress, then managed to get Ashby arrested for it, and no one ever even suspected her because they were so busy trying to cover up their own rotten crimes. If it hadn’t been so tragic, it’d have been farcical.’

  ‘Well, just because a wife was guilty once, doesn’t make it the case now,’ Anna protested. ‘And besides, it’s not the mistress who’s dead, if that’s what she was, which I don’t happen to believe …’

  ‘Do you have any idea where Katherine might be?’ Nigel said to Rachel. ‘Or why she might have done it?’

  ‘None at all,’ she answered. ‘Apparently her passport’s gone, so she might not even be in the country any more.’

  ‘Where would she be likely to go? Back to the States?’

  ‘I don’t know. As far as I was aware she’d left America for good and was about to start a new life in Europe. She never said where, but I got the impression it would be France or Spain.’

  ‘Do you know any of her friends here in Europe?’

  ‘She never mentioned any. The only connection I knew about was with Franz Koehler.’

  ‘The Swiss guy?’

  She nodded. ‘But the relationship was over. He was only mentioned in her profile as someone in her past.’

  ‘Did Tim know him?’

  ‘Not personally. At least I don’t think so. He’d know of him though, he couldn’t not, considering who Koehler is.’

  ‘Who is he?’ Anna asked.

  Nigel turned to look at her. ‘He’s the head of the Phraxos Group,’ he answered. ‘A Zurich based private equity firm that’s probably one of the richest companies in the world. It specializes in defence industry investment, which is why Tim would certainly know of the man, even if he didn’t know him personally.’ To Rachel he said, ‘Who put you in touch with Katherine in the first place?’

  ‘No one,’ she answered. ‘I just read in one of the US papers that she was giving up politics and coming to Europe, so I contacted her through the British Embassy in Washington and asked if she’d be interested in running one last campaig
n.’

  Nigel’s eyes narrowed as he thought. ‘I hear there’s no sign of a break-in at the flat,’ he said, ‘or of a struggle, which obviously doesn’t rule out someone else being there, someone who might have been an accomplice of some kind, or who could have had a key and let him or herself in.’ He was shaking his head, unsure where to go with that yet. ‘The most important question,’ he declared, ‘is why anyone, whether it was Katherine Sumner, or someone else, would want Tim dead?’

  Rachel’s heart turned over. ‘I wish to God I knew,’ she said, ‘but something was going on before he died … I don’t know what, but I saw them arguing, just yesterday, and for several weeks now he’s been receiving phone calls on the mobile phone that I thought only I had the number to. They were from a man with an accented voice. He’d never give his name, but on the occasions Tim wasn’t available he’d ask for Katherine.’

  Nigel’s eyes were wide. ‘Obviously you asked Tim who it was?’ he said.

  ‘Of course, but he just said that it was nothing to worry about, he’d tell me about it later.’

  ‘But he never did.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘What kind of accent was it?’ Nigel asked.

  ‘I don’t know. It wasn’t that strong, and from the little he ever said to me he sounded fluent in English.’

  ‘Have you told the police any of this?’

  ‘No. I needed time to think, because if he was involved in something …’ She took a breath. ‘I just don’t feel I can trust anyone right now. Even the PM, when he called earlier, seemed a bit too keen to keep it “domestic”.’

  ‘You think he might know something?’

  ‘He might, who knows. He’s probably just looking out for his own skin, though. He and Tim were pretty close, despite their occasional clashes, so if there was something … shady going on, if it ever comes out, his enemies are going to have a field day. It could even cost him the leadership, so make no mistake the race will already be on to find out what really happened. What scares me the most is how things can be twisted, or covered up, or manipulated to create as much political gain as any of them might need to get the results they want, and to hell with Tim and his reputation. So if it suits them better to keep this as a purely domestic affair, they’ll do it, regardless of truth. Or, if there does turn out to be some other kind of scandal, and they can’t keep it under wraps, they’ll just work it to make him the fall guy in order to protect themselves.’