Death by Marzipan

by John Burke

  ‘Oh, but yes, you are,’ said Greg.

  Blake tried to keep up the heat, but had a hiccup which rather spoiled the effect. ‘You’ll be hearing from us. Don’t think you won’t.’

  The other two closed in on either side, and steered him out into the street.

  Greg said: ‘Now, Miss Vaughan-Smith.’

  ‘Oh, no, please. After all that, you can’t start on me. I’ve had enough.’

  It was deplorably enjoyable to see her cowering, twitching, thinking up excuses but losing the thread of them halfway through.

  ‘I think you’re safe now, Penny.’ He had never thought to hear himself use that name, and she didn’t even blink a reproof. ‘But don’t talk a load of tosh to the Press ever again, right?’

  ‘Mr Dacre, I was only trying to set up —’

  ‘I advise you to keep a low profile from now on. If you think that little gang of would-be thugs was frightening, wait until you encounter Brigid Weir in top form.’

  Outside, as they walked arm-in-arm towards Hammersmith Broadway in hope of finding a cab or, more mundanely, going back to Kate’s place by Tube, Kate said: ‘All right, calm down.’

  ‘Huh?’

  There was a buzzing in his ears, a sizzling flow of adrenaline.

  ‘Come back and lie down,’ she said. ‘For goodness’ sake, cool off. You’ve been overdoing it. I could have sworn that was Robert Mitchum in there.’

  ‘Oh. I thought of myself rather as Humphrey Bogart.’

  ‘Miscasting. But they must have seen you were bluffing.’

  ‘What do you mean, bluffing? That one I landed in Blake’s gut wasn’t bluffing, was it?’

  ‘Knight errant,’ she said. ‘I loved it. Robert Mitchum plus Errol Flynn plus —’

  ‘They were the ones who were bluffing. Pathetic.’

  ‘I still think you ought to lie down. All that exertion, for one in a sedentary occupation — asking for trouble. You know how to let yourself in, while I go off and make some money to pay the rent.’

  ‘I’m in a mood to lie down. But not to calm down.’ He ran his fingers along her arm.

  ‘A change is as good as a rest. But when I get back, don’t pretend to be Clark Gable.’

  ‘I’m told he had bad breath. And unlike him, I do give a damn.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For you,’ he said; and found, to his own alarm, that he meant it.

  9

  Reporters flocked in through the open gates. ‘Any statement, detective inspector?’

  ‘When there’s anything definite to announce, a statement will be issued. Now, if you’ll just let me get on —’

  ‘I thought paintings and porcelain pisspots were more your line than murder.’

  The Chief Super had already insinuated a similar opinion, making what he obviously regarded as the poor best of a bad job. ‘You’ll have to run the show for a while. I’m sending you two WPCs to hover over the telephones and collate info. You can get phones and a VDU link-up?’

  ‘I’ll see to it, sir.’

  ‘Cope until we can get a qualified SIO to you. Right now we’re badly stretched. Detective Superintendent Tranter, DCI Rutherford and the Serious Crime Squad are tied up with those multiple killings at Eyemouth.’

  ‘I can cope, sir.’

  ‘And you’ll have to make your own decisions about an incident room. Can’t spare a mobile room at the moment. One’s needed at Eyemouth, and the other’s got a bug in its keyboards.’

  ‘I can cope, sir,’ Lesley repeated.

  ‘Yes, well … it’ll be interesting,’ said the Chief Super silkily. ‘See how you do shape up, eh? Until we can sort things out and add a bit of muscle, let’s see how you hold the fort.’

  Hold the fort, thought Lesley. Hold the castle. Hold the bloody stately home. Until they send in the Marines.

  She knew what the old fox had meant by seeing how she shaped up. She was in line for promotion. Here was a nice test of her capabilities. Let’s see how DI Gunn copes with this one!

  There was only one possible place to set up an incident room. It had to be near the scene of the crime, linked by compatible computer technology with HQ and between different Forces where necessary. If this case and that of the burglary showed signs of spreading south of the Border, there would certainly be an overlap with English constabularies. A lot depended on the skill of the indexer at HQ cross-referencing information into categories and sub-categories, and reporting back when some significant tie-in was spotted and could be retrieved.

  The Baldonald House library, converted by Brigid Crombie to an office fitted with faxes and a VDU, already had two telephones and could accommodate another. The Chief Super might be none too happy about establishing an incident room on the actual premises, among people who might have to be regarded as suspects. And Brigid Crombie might be expected to jib.

  She did. ‘Where am I going to work? How do you imagine we’re going to be able to get on with my book?’

  Lesley supposed she ought not to be surprised. The woman had shown little emotion over the loss of her husband’s family treasures. She was equally unmoved by the death of another of her husbands.

  But where else was there to operate from? All the facilities were here, and the scene of the crime was near to hand. The library simply had to become the incident room. If Lady Crombie was determined to argue, Lesley was prepared to appeal to Lord Crombie. She found there was no need for this. Brigid Crombie looked resentful, but she knew this was the only logical place. Having, as a matter of principle, made her resentment clear, she raised no further objections.

  An uneven pentagon of phosphorescent tape had been strung between posts around the corpse. As the police surgeon completed his examination and drew back, the photographer ducked under the tape, leaving plenty of space between himself and the corpse so that his feet would not smudge any significant marks. After a brief consultation with the surgeon, two SOCOs in crackling white suits drew on surgical gloves and bent over the body.

  Lesley waited for their report.

  How had Simon Pringle been killed? And where? Time of death?

  When the forensic team had straightened up for a breather, they could announce three things with confidence, confirming the surgeon’s first diagnosis.

  ‘He was strangled. By someone wearing gloves. But not here.’

  Detective Sergeant Cameron, a lean young man with greasy black hair pulled back into the beginnings of a ponytail, set off upstream with a constable dog-handler, checking every inch of the banks.

  Twenty minutes after setting out, they summoned DI Gunn.

  Grass had been crushed beside the burn where the body had been forced down in the lee of a blackthorn, or had simply dropped after being strangled. The heavy rain which followed made it difficult to decide which, at this stage. Electrostatic and adhesive lifters would have to be used to recover foot and hand prints, and what might be fibres and human hair. Nobody, as Lesley had told Mrs Dunbar about the thefts from the house, could pass through any area without leaving some traces of their passage.

  The corpse might have lain half-concealed by the bush, in the lee of the bank, for some time if the waters of the burn had not risen and dislodged it, not so much washing it along as pushing and bumping it along in fits and starts. The damage done as it was torn by rocks and overhanging brambles would make conclusions about the death even more difficult.

  ‘Time of death?’ asked Lesley.

  The police surgeon sounded fairly confident. ‘Three to four days ago. I’ll confirm after we’ve done the PM.’

  Simon Pringle was removed to the mortuary in Selkirk.

  Three to four days ago? Within that range, it was necessary to go through the routine of establishing the whereabouts of possible witnesses and relations at that time.

  *

  There could be no question of who came first on the list of interviews. What had Pringle been doing in the grounds of Baldonald House; and what relationship still existed betwee
n him and his ex-wife?

  ‘None whatsoever,’ said Brigid categorically.

  ‘You weren’t expecting a visit from him?’

  ‘I was not.’

  ‘Can you give me some idea of the part he played in your life? In the past, and recently. Anything which might be relevant to his death.’

  ‘His murder,’ Brigid Crombie corrected her.

  They were sitting facing each other in her cosy sitting-room to which a tape recorder and some of Brigid’s personal files had been moved. In the library, WPCs were settling in at the phones and video links.

  Brigid glanced at the machine. ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea to make a recording as we go along?’

  ‘We usually do that only when we’re making a specific charge against somebody, and then it’s done formally at the station. Which hardly fits you, Lady Crombie.’

  ‘I was thinking of my book. Since Simon will have to feature in it somewhere, it’ll save time if we tape the whole story right now. Then I won’t have to go over it all again with Gregory.’

  Cool bitch, thought Lesley. Cool … no: icy cold.

  The story of her marriage to Gregory Dacre and the part played by Simon Pringle came out with impersonal detachment, like bored gossip about acquaintances only half-remembered from the distant past.

  ‘It was one of those silly youthful marriages. We were both far too young. And Gregory was no great shakes as a breadwinner. I stood better prospects of employment than Gregory did. I tried to make the best of it, but it was hard going.’

  ‘And Simon Pringle?’ Lesley tried to steer her quickly on to the essential matter of the murdered man. ‘Where did he fit into all this?’

  Brigid’s lips twisted faintly. ‘He was Gregory’s closest friend.’

  ‘Friend?’

  ‘Yes. A pretty peculiar one, as it turned out. Old school pals, both mad keen on cycling. Though not by the time I got to know him.’

  ‘Your husband — your first husband, that is — introduced Pringle to you?’

  ‘Stupid thing to do. He didn’t have a clue. I knew right away that Simon was a shit. Got more fun out of double-crossing a friend than facing up to a rival.’

  ‘But you went along with the double-cross?’

  Brigid eyed her for a moment as if to object to this line of questioning. Then she shrugged. ‘He was a smooth talker. Knew how to get under a woman’s skin. A great …’ She weighed the word carefully before coming out with it: ‘A great sniggerer. Knew what sort of prattle people liked to hear. Especially women. How to denigrate their husbands or lovers, and encourage them to confide in him and share the sniggers. Knowing just the moment when his victim would be ripe for him to crawl into her bed.’

  ‘So he helped to break up your first marriage.’

  ‘Made the break-up inevitable.’

  ‘And marriage to him just as inevitable?’

  ‘I was making real headway in my work. Things really began to fall into shape once Gregory was out of the way.’ She was assessing memories as she might have assessed the CVs of candidates for a top job. ‘And Simon was always good at persuading you that his own ambitions ran parallel with your own.’

  In the same month that she became Mrs Pringle, she learned of a boardroom battle in an Anglo-Scottish Information Systems group. She knew who was likely to win, and ‘impartially’ recommended Simon as an independent troubleshooter, known as a Strategy Consultant, making sure that he was on the side of the winner.

  Lesley wondered if a grudging admiration for Simon still lingered. Anyone who could be as sly and self-centred as she had painted him must appeal to her. Ambitions running parallel to one’s own, she had said.

  ‘But in the end that marriage broke up, too,’ she prompted.

  ‘He couldn’t help himself.’ It was contemptuous rather than pitying. ‘He couldn’t keep his hands off other women. He thought it was funny, gradually letting me know about it. I soon showed him it wasn’t funny.’

  However bitter some of her memories of Simon Pringle might be, she was beginning to look back on this stretch of them with some relish. She told how she had thrown him out, and planted a company doctor in his firm with instructions not just what to look for but what to find. A clear case was established that Simon had learned all that was advantageous from his present employer, and was proposing to use it in a new combination with a major rival. Brigid personally apologised to the company for having shoved him on to them in the first place, and promised to find them a worthier replacement. ‘Without my usual finder’s fee, for once,’ she smiled at Lesley. ‘I did it for sheer pleasure. And made sure Simon got no chance of replacing anybody else, anywhere else.’

  She had summed it all up in a matter of minutes. Now she sounded tough and dismissive about the whole episode, but Lesley was beginning to suspect that even with a cynical, knowledgeable woman like this there were hidden weaknesses. By her own admission she had been ready to fall for a smooth tongue, for a man who knew how to play on her prejudices and above all on her vanity. Lesley was left with a nasty taste in her mouth. She wondered how this woman could allow herself to record all these details in that half exultant, half sardonic tone of voice, in the knowledge that her first ex-husband and literary ghost would have to listen to every word on the tape recorder and relive a humiliating past. Was the recording in fact aimed maliciously at Gregory Dacre rather than at the solving of a mystery?

  She began to feel sorry for Greg Dacre.

  And for Hector Crombie.

  And for anyone else who might have suffered at this harridan’s hands. ‘You talked about other women,’ she ventured. ‘Anyone in particular? Anyone who took over from you, as it were — and might be involved in his death?’

  ‘Nobody,’ said Brigid flatly. ‘Once I’d washed my hands of him, that was it.’

  ‘Look, do you suppose Pringle could have been involved in the robbery? Maybe wanting to get his own back. Did he ever visit here and have a chance of wandering around and sizing the place up?’

  ‘When I first met Hector, I was still married to Simon. We did visit here, together.’

  ‘How did that come about?’

  ‘In his work, Simon had met Hector’s daughter Caroline. At the television studios. Tried to wangle some free publicity out of the company, and wheedled his way in here a couple of times. I wouldn’t have put it past him to fancy his chances with Caroline and see what was doing there. But I came along with him.’

  ‘And in the end you stayed on.’

  ‘You could put it that way.’

  Harking back to her promising idea, Lesley said: ‘So he might plausibly have had a finger in the robbery. Until maybe his accomplices caught him out, bungling it, or somehow cheating on them?’

  ‘Wouldn’t put it past him,’ said Brigid. ‘Especially the bungling and the cheating.’ She glanced at the plastic window of the recorder, as if to make sure that the spools were turning and clearly putting that particular bit on the record.

  Lesley tossed out another notion. ‘Would either your first husband or Lord Crombie be jealous of the second one?’

  ‘Hector wouldn’t dream of lowering himself to cheap emotion of that kind.’

  ‘Not even if he found, or suspected, that Pringle was implicated in robbing his family home of its treasures?’

  ‘Hector,’ said Lady Crombie decisively, ‘will happily shoot any winged or four-legged creature that dares to move across the heavens or the landscape. He wouldn’t deign to shoot or stab or strangle someone like Simon. Horsewhip him, maybe — and then rely on one of his magistrate cronies to get him off any charge of GBH. But not this. Not Hector’s scene, I do assure you.’

  ‘And your first husband? Gregory Dacre. Could he have hated your second one enough?’

  ‘Oh, Gregory hated him all right. Nothing like the treachery of a dear old pal to brew up hatred. But I can’t see him as a killer.’

  ‘He’s played a lot of different characters in his time,’ Lesley pointed out.
‘Sunk himself into a lot of different personalities.’

  ‘Mm. A talent I never suspected. If it is a talent, and not just escapism. Maybe I underestimated him,’ said Lady Crombie with a hint of what in any other woman might have been wistfulness.

  ‘But you were both in Edinburgh that whole week? You’re sure of that? He didn’t take time off at any point — even half a day?’

  ‘No. I kept his nose to the grindstone.’

  ‘But you did spend some time at that exhibition, and he wasn’t with you there.’

  ‘A couple of hours, that was all. And he’d got work to show for it when I got back to the flat. Anyway, haven’t you established that the murder took place some days before the robbery? During the week we were working in Edinburgh,’ she emphasised.

  ‘You can’t think of any reason why Pringle should have come here in your absence?’

  ‘Not unless you’re right about him being mixed up in the robbery. Coming here on a recce, or something.’

  ‘That’s only a vague idea.’

  And I could do with a much better one, a more solid one, thought Lesley. She would have to question members of the staff all over again. Though if they hadn’t got a clue about the robbery, they could hardly be expected to have noticed anything connected with a murder.

  *

  Mr McKechnie, shown a photograph, thought he remembered seeing Simon Pringle among a batch of visitors not long ago. No, he didn’t remember seeing him visiting the house as a guest. But somehow he had a feeling of having seen that face somewhere, though he couldn’t swear to it.

  Had Simon really been in with the thieves — casing the joint for them? — or hoping to creep back and get round Brigid in some kind of deal: begging forgiveness, or pleading for help in finding another job, any kind of job?

  Where had Greg Dacre been at the time of the killing? Lady Crombie had placed them both in Edinburgh; but there were questions to be asked when he got back from London. Once you could lure witnesses to contradict one another, you opened up the useful possibility of transforming witnesses into suspects.

  As she went back to the house, Lesley heard voices raised on the half landing. Caroline and her father were standing in the doorway of his snug.