Model Murder

by Nancy Buckingham

  Wednesday was press day for the Marlingford Gazette, which meant that each Wednesday afternoon Richard prowled anxiously between his editorial office and the machine room where the ancient Crabtree clanked painfully, as if each revolution would be its very last. It was Richard’s constant fear that one of these weeks there’d be a major breakdown before the print run was complete, and (so his foreman printer complained) he fussed like an old mother hen until the last copy was safely off the press at approximately six p.m.

  Nevertheless, she couldn’t indefinitely postpone her talk with Richard. Now that she needed to widen the investigation by delving deeper into the victim’s life, he was an obvious person to interview. Yet Kate was dreading the thought of discussing Corinne Saxon with Richard. She dreaded his hostile reaction when she raised the subject.

  Don’t be so bloody gutless, Kate Maddox!

  Reaching for the phone, she punched out Richard’s home number. No answer. Just on the off-chance, even though it was Sunday, she tried the Gazette’s number. Nothing. Shrugging, she gave her attention to the new batch of routine reports, but her mind was made up now. Half an hour later she tried Richard again. And later still, yet again.

  When Kate finally arrived home, the first thing she did was to try him once more. Talking to Richard had suddenly become imperative. Her last attempt to reach him was just after midnight.

  Kate awoke at six-thirty on Monday morning with a thick head, like a hangover she hadn’t earned. The sky in the east was an ominous red and the air coming in through the open window felt clammy. Maybe a jog would revive her, she thought, and get her brain thinking straight.

  She dragged herself out of bed, pulled on a tracksuit and slipped out into the silent morning. By the time she returned twenty minutes later, the threatened rain had begun and she was soaked to the skin.

  The phone started ringing just as Kate stepped under the shower. Sod’s Law! Dripping wet, she went to the nearest extension which was in the bedroom. Before she reached it the ringing stopped. Damn and blast! If she returned to the shower, whoever it was would probably call again. Resignedly, she rubbed herself dry and got dressed.

  A slice of whole-wheat toast and Oxford marmalade. No butter. Plus a mug of strong black clear-the-brain-cells coffee. She’d taken her first bite of toast when the phone rang again. Okay, Mr. Sod, I get the message.

  Today’s going to be a real bitch, Kate!

  Picking up the phone, she mumbled her number through a mouthful of half-chewed toast. An irate voice exploded in her ear. Richard.

  “Kate! Where the hell have you been all this time? I’ve been trying to get you since just after seven.”

  “What the hell business is it of yours where I’ve been?”

  “I tried the Incident Room at Streatfield Park, and you weren’t there.”

  “So I wasn’t there. And I wasn’t here.”

  “Cut it out, Kate, this is serious. Felix is in a really bad way.”

  Alarm clutched at her throat. “What do you mean, Richard? What’s happened?”

  “A full-scale abdominal crisis, peritonitis, that’s what’s happened. Those bloody gallstones of hers. She’s in the operating theatre now.”

  “Oh, my God! Where, Richard? At the Peace Memorial? I’ll get there right away.”

  Twenty-five minutes later Kate hurried in through the hospital’s automatic glass doors. As she crossed to the information desk, Richard came forward to meet her.

  “What’s the latest news?” she gasped.

  “Nothing new. She’s not yet out of theatre.”

  They sat down on two orange plastic chairs in the waiting area, and Kate demanded, “How come you’re here? When was she admitted? Why wasn’t I informed? Sooner, I mean.”

  “Because Felix wouldn’t allow you to be told. I wanted to phone you when she was brought in last night, but she insisted that you’d got too much on your plate just now.”

  Typical! Kate should have felt grateful for this consideration. Instead, she felt resentful that her aunt had turned to Richard instead of to her.

  “Tell me about it,” she snapped. “How was it you came to be involved?”

  “Because I took the trouble to find out how she was. On Saturday lunchtime I saw Felix in the Wagon, and ...”

  “Yes, she told me.”

  “You mean you actually talked to her,” he said, with an accusing glare, “and you didn’t register how sick she was?”

  That cut deep. She should have guessed something was wrong when Felix sounded so maudlin and unlike her usual self on Saturday night. Instead, she’d put it down to one or two whiskies too many. She’d been too bloody preoccupied with the job to spare enough attention to her elderly aunt.

  “Felix did sound a little ... strange on the phone,” she admitted repentantly. “But I didn’t realise there was anything really wrong. She said nothing to me about feeling ill.”

  “You know damn well that she’s had this bloody gall-bladder trouble for years. Her doctor’s kept on and on to her about having it seen to.”

  “I thought she had things under control—as long as she watched her diet.” But Kate remembered, guiltily, the acute attack her aunt had suffered while she’d been temporarily living with Felix after her promotion and transfer to the Cotswold Division. The nausea and vomiting, the obvious pain. Felix had tried her best to minimise it, of course, and afterwards, after she’d been to see her doctor, Kate had too easily accepted Felix’s assurance that the problem had been solved.

  “Did she ring you, Richard, to ask for your help?”

  “No. I called round last night to see how she was. God, it’s lucky I did. I felt a bit concerned about her after seeing the state she was in on Saturday. So as soon as I got back from spending the day with those friends of mine in Bath, I thought I’d give her a ring. There was no reply, and that worried me. I couldn’t believe she’d feel up to going out for the evening. Anyway, I decided I might as well drive round to Stonebank Cottage to check she was okay. She didn’t answer the doorbell, but there was a light on in the living room. When I peered in through the window I saw Felix lying on the floor, doubled up in pain. I broke in and called an ambulance. I would have called you, of course, except that she begged me not to.”

  “I wish to God you had.” Kate felt sick with guilt. Pelting through her mind were all the things that Felix had done for her after her mother’s premature death ... the consoling, the supportiveness, the wise advice through all the crises of growing up. And the very first time, in any important way, she might have repaid some of her outsize debt to her aunt, she hadn’t been there. The job stood in the way. That was why Felix hadn’t allowed her to be contacted ... the bloody job.

  “If anything happens to her,” she said, “I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”

  Richard’s voice gentled. “Nothing’s going to happen to her. She’ll be okay.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Felix is a tough old biddy. She’ll come through this all right.”

  They went on waiting. Somewhere along the line, Kate remembered that she ought to have called in to report where she could be contacted. She found a phone and explained to Sergeant Boulter what had happened.

  “That’s tough luck, guv. I do hope Miss Moore will be okay. She’s a really nice lady.”

  “I didn’t realise you knew her, Tim.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose she registered my name, but I met her on the job five or six years ago, when I was a DC.”

  “Oh?”

  “Some kids had been on the rampage and smashed the panes in her greenhouse, and I was sent to see her about it. She invited me in and we chatted and she fed me tea and cakes. We never did catch those kids.” Boulter chuckled. “I always had a feeling she knew who they were all along and wouldn’t let on.”

  “Sounds like my aunt.” Kate pulled her mind to the case. “Anything new, Tim?”

  “Not a lot. Arliss’s alibi has been checked out, as far as being at the
airport is concerned. The girl at the information desk remembered him. But he could still have done it—just—if he’d already been in the vicinity of Streatfield Park at around the time Corinne Saxon set out.”

  “Well, ring me here at the hospital if anything urgent comes up. It looks as if I’ll be hanging around for a while yet.”

  Kate returned to sit with Richard, and she was glad he insisted on waiting with her. They didn’t speak much, but she found his presence comforting. After what seemed an endless stretch of time, a doctor came to inform Kate that surgery had been satisfactorily completed.

  “You can see your aunt when she comes round. But only for a few minutes. She’ll be pretty woozy.”

  Felix appeared to be asleep, but at the sound of Kate’s voice her eyelids fluttered upwards.

  “So you’re here, girl. How did you know?”

  “Richard called me—eventually.”

  “He shouldn’t have,” Felix said, frowning. “I told him not to bother you. I shall be all right, Kate, don’t worry. There’s nothing you can do by being here. You’ve got far more important things to attend to.”

  “Oh, bugger that! They’ll have to do without me for a while.”

  “Silly girl.”

  “And you are a silly old woman,” said Kate, bending to touch her lips affectionately to the pale, weathered cheek. “Don’t you dare scare the hell out of me like that again, d’you hear? It’s all right, nurse, I’m just leaving. I’ll be back to see you this afternoon, Felix.”

  Outside, Richard walked her to her car. “They told me no other visitors till tomorrow,” he said, “so I’ll come round to see her then.”

  “I’ve got to talk to you, Richard.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Officially, concerning Corinne Saxon.”

  “Are you cautioning me?” He gave a taut, bitter smile.

  Kate made an exasperated face. “We badly need information about Corinne’s earlier life, before she turned up at Streatfield Park.”

  “You want me to attend for an official grilling? With the doughty Sergeant Boulter wielding his tape-recorder?”

  “It doesn’t need to be formal. You say where.”

  Richard didn’t reply while Kate unlocked the door of her car and stood waiting to get in. At last, he said, “I’ll be home this evening from six o’clock onwards. Drop by any time it suits you.”

  Chapter Nine

  Bad news from the forensic laboratory. After only a single day’s immersion in the filthy water of the gravel pit, Corinne Saxon’s diary was virtually indecipherable. The lab people would continue to apply every known technique to try and unlock its secrets. But the prognosis was gloomy.

  There was one tiny bit of good news, though. Some figures written on the flyleaf in a different hand from Corinne’s and with a different type of pen could partially be made out. Six digits, three of which were clear, one could be a five or a six, one a two or a seven. The final figure was unreadable. From the first two digits it was recognizable as a local telephone number.

  “Get someone to work out the possible permutations, Tim, then ask Telecom to provide a list of all the subscribers matching that list of numbers.”

  For lunch Kate had a meal on a tray in her office, provided by the kitchens of Streatfield Park. A small, delicious avocado and watercress salad, a portion of game pie (how right you were, Tim) and a dish of late raspberries with cream. Plus a pot of coffee that was light years away from the muck served in the canteen at DHQ.

  Refreshed, she felt ready for the result of the numbers game. There was quite a list of possible variations. All but two, though, appeared to be totally unconnected with Corinne Saxon. They’d have to be checked out, of course, but that job had a fairly low priority. Of the two numbers that remained, one was that of a market gardener who regularly supplied organically grown produce for the hotel. Kate had often bought saladings from the roadside stall by his smallholding, and considered him a very unlikely candidate for an intimate relationship with Corinne Saxon. The other possibility looked more promising, being the residential phone number of the architect who’d worked on the conversion of Streatfield Park. Adrian Berger.

  On Kate’s office wall were the photographs Richard had sent her, taken by the Gazette’s photographer at the launch party. One showed Berger in a group. As she recalled him, he’d been a pleasant, affable man. Good-looking, too. Nearing fifty, he was of medium height, with a small bristly moustache, tanned skin and bright sky-blue eyes that darted around alertly. Not surprisingly, he’d been on quite a high that day, what with the congratulations being showered on him and the champagne flowing like water. Standing beside him, his wife looked coolly supercilious, as if accepting the homage to her husband as no more than her due. Kate remembered overhearing her explaining to someone that it had been her father’s money and influence that had started Adrian Berger in his successful architect’s practice.

  Thoughtfully, she buzzed for the action report on the original interview with Berger. DC Cowan who’d gone to see him on the Saturday had reported that he’d appeared very upset indeed about Corinne Saxon’s death, especially at the fact that she’d been brutally raped first (as it had then been believed). Questioned on his whereabouts at the time of the killing, he’d at first taken offence, then given the name of a junior partner at his firm. The two men had spent the entire afternoon at a cottage near Larkhill, which they were modernizing for a client.

  Kate picked up the phone. “Is Nick Cowan around?” she asked.

  “Yes, he is, ma’am.”

  “Send him in, will you?”

  DC Cowan had chalked up several years’ experience in the CID. A six-footer and a natty dresser, he was a man who fancied himself popular with women. There’d been one occasion when Kate had had to slap him down hard; since which time he’d been wise enough never to step out of line with her. His manner now as he entered her office was cautious, with an undertow of resentment.

  “Something wrong ... ma’am?”

  “Not that I know of,” Kate said equably, waving him into a chair. “I just wanted a word with you about this chap Adrian Berger, the architect. Is there anything you can add to your report, Nick? Any impressions about the man?”

  “A bit of a wimp, I thought,” he said contemptuously. “He seemed really shaken-up by the Saxon woman’s death. He must have realised it made him look pretty feeble, and he apologised for it.”

  “Apologised?”

  “Muttered something to the effect that as they’d been working together such a lot, it’d come as a terrible shock to him. Almost in tears, the man was. And the fact that she was raped ... well, he just couldn’t seem to believe it. As if that sort of thing doesn’t happen. Christ, some of these middle-class bods seem to live in another world from the rest of us. You’d think he’d never picked up a newspaper in the past ten years.”

  “Hmm!” Work at this, Kate! It’s worth spending time on. “His alibi about being with a partner of his that afternoon at a cottage they were converting ... were you entirely happy with it?”

  Cowan’s shrug rejected the implied criticism he read into her question. “I don’t see why not. The partner—what was his name, Pascoe —confirmed everything Berger had told me. The cottage used to belong to an old girl who died a few months back, and Berger negotiated to buy the place for his brother-in-law who’d been wanting to find a house in the country for when he retires next year. It needs a lot of work doing, enlarging and so on, and Berger’s firm is handling that. Apparently the whole roofline has got to be rebuilt, and that other guy, Pascoe, is a whizz at roof design. The two of them were there all Wednesday afternoon.”

  “So you were quite satisfied? No doubts at all?”

  Cowan frowned. “No ... not really.”

  “Come on, Nick, out with it.”

  “Pascoe seemed a mite jumpy, that’s all. He’s fairly young, mid-twenties, and I put it down to nerves. I also checked with their office and got confirmation that bot
h men were out all that afternoon. It seems that Pascoe had told the staff he’d be at the cottage, in case he was wanted.”

  “Where he’d be? Not they?”

  “Berger hadn’t said where he was going, just that he’d be out. But that was quite normal. He doesn’t always tell them where he’ll be.”

  Kate mused. “The fact that you double-checked with their office at that early stage of the investigation suggests to me that you had a few reservations about their story.”

  “It was just to do a thorough job. Is that wrong?”

  She nodded at him. “Okay, Nick. Tell the switchboard to get Berger on the phone for me, will you? Or if he’s out, to ask his office have him ring me ASAP.”

  Within a couple of minutes Adrian Berger was put through to her. He sounded like a busy man disturbed at a very difficult moment. Impatient ... yet worried.

  “There’s a small matter concerning the death of Miss Saxon that you might be able to help us clear up, Mr. Berger. I wonder, would it be possible for you to come and see me right away? At the Incident Room in the squash courts at Streatfield Park.”

  His tone was resentful. “I’ve already made a statement to one of your officers, Chief Inspector. I don’t think there’s anything I’ll be able to add to it.”

  “I won’t keep you long.”

  “Well, I suppose ...”

  “Let’s say in half an hour, shall we?”

  He murmured something Kate didn’t catch, to a colleague or secretary, presumably, then said with a point-making sigh, “Very well, in half an hour.”

  He arrived ten minutes late. When he was shown into her office, Kate remembered him vividly. He was a man with a powerful aura; but the affability was lacking today. The darting eyes were looking everywhere, except directly at her. At Kate’s invitation, he sat down in an abrupt movement and crossed his legs.

  “How is it you imagine I can help you, Chief Inspector?”

  “For reasons I won’t bother you with, Mr. Berger, a diary belonging to Miss Saxon was found immersed in water. As a result, the paper has been virtually reduced to pulp and the writing cannot be deciphered. But we have been able to make out part of a telephone number written on the flyleaf, and this could possibly be your residential number.”