Murder Takes a Turn

by Eric Brown

  Langham looked from Mallory to Royce as the young man smiled, shifted position and crossed his legs easily. ‘Wherever did you hear that?’ he asked.

  ‘So you didn’t?’

  ‘We had an occasional drink in the Fisherman’s in the village,’ Royce said. ‘Perhaps the locals saw us once or twice, and a rumour spread. But no’ – the young man shook his head – ‘Annabelle Connaught is not my type.’

  Mallory nodded. ‘And your relationship with Denbigh Connaught?’

  ‘I would describe it as impersonal and businesslike, sir. Mr Connaught, despite his brilliance as a novelist, was not an easy person to like. He could be … prickly, let’s say.’

  ‘As his business manager, were you aware of his holding any animosity towards anyone?’

  Royce thought about it. ‘There were one or two critics he would gladly have poisoned, I think, and a couple of fellow novelists he disliked intensely. But he had little to do with these people; he rarely ventured up to London.’

  ‘And as for what other people felt about Connaught – did he make any enemies in the area?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m aware. He wasn’t that sociable, to be honest. Some people describe him as a recluse, but I wouldn’t go that far.’

  ‘And so the fact that someone saw fit to brutally murder him?’

  ‘It’s shocking, is all I can say. And quite mystifying.’

  ‘Did he mention to you why he had invited the guests down for this weekend?’

  ‘He didn’t.’

  ‘He wrote the letters of invitation himself, or was he in the habit of dictating them to you?’

  ‘He wrote them himself,’ Royce said. ‘I am … or rather I was … his business manager, not his secretary.’

  ‘Did he post the letters himself?’

  ‘No, he gave them to me to post, along with his other correspondence.’

  ‘So you knew the identities of his guests?’

  ‘That’s right. In one or two instances, I had to track down their current addresses.’

  Mallory looked across at Greaves, then at Langham. ‘Any further questions, gentlemen?’

  Langham removed his pipe. ‘I was wondering at the state of Denbigh Connaught’s finances,’ he said. ‘As his business manager, I take it that you had access to these details?’

  Royce looked guarded. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And was Connaught a rich man, would you say?’

  The young man hesitated. ‘He was not as well-off as I’d assumed, on first taking the post. His later books had not sold as well as his earlier ones. Still, he wasn’t exactly a pauper.’

  ‘Do you know what he was worth?’

  Royce rocked his head back and forth. ‘Aside from the house, he had perhaps thirty thousand pounds in the bank. He didn’t bother about stocks and shares, or bonds.’

  Langham nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Very well,’ Mallory said. ‘That’ll be all for now.’

  Royce rose from the armchair, nodded to the detectives and, with a lingering look at Langham, made his way from the room.

  ‘Slippery customer,’ Greaves said. ‘Can’t say I took to him.’

  ‘I come across his type all the time,’ Mallory said. ‘Come up from Oxbridge and think they own the world, swan into posts at the BBC or the Foreign Office and regard everyone with a proper job as menials.’

  ‘He manages to avoid being arrogant by a whisker,’ Langham said, ‘but can’t stop himself from being superior.’

  ‘Can’t see why Annabelle took a shine to him,’ Mallory said, frowning. ‘But why would Royce lie about their relationship?’

  Langham pulled out his pipe and began stuffing it. ‘Pride,’ he said. ‘He’s not the type to admit he had an affair and that she ended it.’

  Mallory looked at his notebook. ‘I’ll have Charles Elder in next.’ He looked across at Langham. ‘I won’t bother to question Maria.’

  ‘I’ll vouch for her,’ Langham said.

  Greaves slipped from the rooms and returned with Charles Elder. The interview was over in five minutes. Charles had left his room at around three thirty on Sunday afternoon and had glimpsed Wilson Royce through the French windows of the drawing room, where Colonel Haxby had been snoozing in an armchair. On a short stroll along the drive, he’d passed a minute or two in conversation with Pandora Jade.

  He had last seen Denbigh Connaught at school forty years ago, when they had parted on bad terms – something of an understatement, Langham thought – although he said he’d borne Connaught no ill-will. ‘I would have been the last person to wish him dead. You see, he wanted my agency to represent his literary interests.’

  When Charles left the room, Langham said, ‘And I’ll vouch for Charles, too. He hasn’t a violent bone in his body.’

  ‘But he’s bloody huge,’ Greaves said. ‘He could easily have overcome Connaught.’

  The vision that this conjured in Langham’s mind’s eye was laughable. ‘Believe me, Greaves, Charles didn’t do it.’

  Mallory said, ‘Right, we’re almost done. We’ll have Pandora Jade in next, and I’ll finish off with Monty Connaught and Annabelle.’

  Greaves left the room, and Langham drew on his pipe and said, ‘Something’s just occurred to me, Jeff.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Lady Cee mentioned that Connaught wanted to give her some paintings from his collection. After what Ralph’s uncovered in London, it’d be worth going through the collection with Annabelle to see if she thinks there’s anything missing.’

  ‘In case Royce decided to help himself?’

  ‘He’d be a damned fool to bite the hand that feeds, but you never know.’

  Mallory nodded. ‘I’ll have a word with Annabelle about the paintings.’

  The door opened and Pandora Jade strode into the room.

  TWENTY-TWO

  She’s an odd-looking woman, Langham thought as she settled herself in the armchair. With her white-powdered face, crimson lips and jet-black coal-scuttle hairstyle, she looked as if she were about to take the stage in a pre-war Berlin cabaret. In contrast to the artifice of her make-up, she wore a pair of baggy green corduroy trousers and a man’s white shirt splattered with paint.

  She glanced across at Langham as she lit a cigarette. ‘I had you down as a copper at our very first meeting,’ she said.

  ‘Donald is a private investigator, working with me on the case,’ Mallory said.

  ‘Is that so?’ she said, regarding Langham. ‘Kept schtum about that, eh?’

  Mallory interrupted. ‘Now, it would seem that in common with some of Denbigh Connaught’s other guests, he invited you down here so that he might apologize. Also, I understand that you didn’t see eye to eye with Connaught.’

  Pandora exhaled a plume of smoke and eyed Mallory narrowly through the rising cloud. ‘About a fortnight ago I received the first of his letters stating his desire to apologize, yes. And to be perfectly blunt, I despised the man.’

  ‘Would you care to tell me why, Miss Jade?’

  ‘Would you mind if I told you it was none of your business?’

  ‘But the murder of Denbigh Connaught,’ Mallory said, ‘is my business.’

  ‘I assure you that his letters, my presence here and what might have passed between us in the past are of no relevance to Connaught’s death.’

  ‘I think you should let me be the judge of that.’

  Pandora drew on her cigarette. An American phrase popped into Langham’s head, which perfectly described the woman: she was a tough cookie.

  ‘Now,’ Mallory said, ‘why did Connaught wish to apologize to you?’

  ‘By that, Inspector, do you mean what crisis of conscience brought about his desire to atone, or what was the root cause of his remorse?’

  ‘I think you know very well what I mean,’ Mallory said shortly. ‘What did he do to you, whenever it was, to prompt his apology now?’

  Pandora sighed. ‘I met Connaught thirty years ago, in the mid-twenties.
I was young, stupid and impressionable. Connaught had just published his first novel to great acclaim. He attended the same West End parties and soirées as I did, knew the same arty set. He was handsome, feted and rich. I was just twenty, and considered one of the up and coming artists on the London scene. It was inevitable that our paths should cross.’

  ‘Don’t tell me – you fell for him?’

  Something smouldered in Pandora’s gaze. ‘No, Inspector – Connaught fell for me. Head over heels. I think part of the attraction was that he knew that I could take men or leave them. I think he saw me as a challenge. He wasn’t my first male lover, but he was certainly my last. At twenty-five, he was even more vain and selfish than he was in later years, judging by his more recent interviews.’

  ‘That begs the question,’ Mallory said, ‘what did you see in him?’

  Pandora considered the end of her cigarette, then replied, ‘He was physically attractive, well-off, and he bought me drinks. At that time of my life I was … sybaritic, you might say. One of the bright young things Huxley wrote about. A fling with a handsome young novelist was de rigueur for a girl of my age.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘What do you think, Inspector? The inevitable.’ She stopped, looked across at the bar and said, ‘I’d like a drink. G and T, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘I’m conducting an interview—’ Mallory began.

  ‘You were interviewing the colonel, too, and, according to the old boy, you plied him with booze. I find that telling my life story makes me thirsty.’

  Mallory nodded to Greaves, and the younger man crossed to the bar and poured a gin and tonic.

  Pandora smiled to herself while Mallory scribbled in his notebook. Greaves passed her the drink.

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘The “inevitable”,’ Mallory reminded her.

  ‘Ah, yes, the inevitable. I fell pregnant.’ She took a drink and went on, ‘I had no interest in keeping the kid, and told Connaught as much. He went off the handle. He said that it was his child, and he wouldn’t allow me to go through with its … “murder”.’ She gestured with her cigarette. ‘I told him that he had no choice in the matter as I’d already made arrangements.’ She stopped, and even now, thirty years later, Langham could see her bitterness at the recollection.

  ‘So he blackmailed me. My father was high up in the Stock Exchange, a pillar of the community. Connaught not only threatened to inform him that I was pregnant and seeking an illegal abortion, but said that he’d spill the beans about my “indiscretions” with women. I was close to my father, and I knew that the scandal would hurt him terribly. I was too petrified to call Connaught’s bluff, and agreed to have the child, a girl.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘Annabelle.’

  Langham stopped writing and looked up, startled. ‘Annabelle?’

  Pandora smiled across at him. ‘That’s right, Langham.’

  He wrote in his note book: Annabelle Connaught – Pandora’s daughter!

  He was about to ask if Annabelle knew that Pandora was her mother, but Mallory went on, ‘You obviously didn’t keep the baby and bring her up yourself – but why not?’

  ‘Perish the thought. By this time Connaught had moved on and was involved with another woman. To my surprise, and disbelief, he claimed he was serious about her, and intended to marry the poor girl. It was arranged that Annabelle should go to Connaught and be raised by him and his new bride.’

  ‘And you gave up your child without a qualm?’ Langham asked.

  Pandora smiled and fanned smoke away from her face. ‘Call me cold,’ she said, ‘but I felt not the slightest stirrings of any maternal instinct. I could hardly wait to see the back of the kid and start my life again.’

  ‘According to Annabelle Connaught,’ Langham said, ‘her mother died when she was very young.’

  ‘Well, Connaught’s wife died a year after Annabelle was born, so I suppose it was a lie of convenience on his part.’

  Mallory wrote something in his notebook. ‘So Annabelle has no idea that you’re her mother?’

  Pandora smiled. ‘And I fully intend to keep it that way, gentlemen. I had no maternal feelings for my daughter back then, and I certainly have none now.’

  ‘You don’t think you owe it to Annabelle?’ Mallory asked.

  ‘What, to waltz up to her out of the blue and announce myself as her long-lost mother?’ She laughed without any mirth. ‘She has her own life, and I have mine. I certainly don’t want any messy emotional complications at my age.’

  Langham looked at the woman, attempting to discern any likeness between the artist and Annabelle. Pandora’s face was ill-defined, plump and oval, whereas Annabelle’s was long and graceful: the only similarity was in the eyes, and the way both women narrowed their gazes when regarding a speaker.

  Mallory said, ‘So Connaught’s apology …’

  ‘He wanted to atone for how he treated me thirty years ago, apologize for his blackmail threat.’

  ‘What did he say to you on the Saturday afternoon when you met in his study?’

  She smiled. ‘He reminisced. Went on at length about those “heady, carefree days”. He also said that he’d been a shallow, egotistical fool. I didn’t disagree. He blamed his behaviour on his youth, and said that he deeply regretted the threats he made. He claimed that he felt, back then, that he couldn’t allow any creation of his to be destroyed – he was so caught up in his own ego that the thought of having his child aborted was tantamount to having one of his books destroyed. At least, that’s what he said.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘I just smiled and said that, yes, he had been a vain and insufferable egomaniac.’

  ‘You mentioned that he wanted to atone. In what way?’

  ‘He wished to make me a gift of ten thousand pounds, Inspector.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I was incredulous. My instinct was to tell him to keep his money.’ She shook her head. ‘But I managed to restrain my indignity. I’ve scrimped and saved for long enough; I felt I deserved a little luck. He said he’d arrange the transfer of funds through his solicitor.’ She smiled. ‘And then he went and got himself murdered before he could make good his promise. So, you see,’ she said, looking from Mallory to Greaves, and then to Langham, ‘my presence here and what happened all those years ago can have no bearing on Connaught’s murder. Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to kill the man before I received the blood money?’

  ‘That depends,’ Mallory said, smiling equably at the woman, ‘if your claim of poverty is all it seems to be, and if you valued the need for revenge more than the receipt of ten thousand pounds.’

  Pandora tipped back her head and laughed. ‘If I’d hated him that much, Inspector, then I would have exacted my revenge years ago, not left it until now.’

  Mallory jotted something in his notebook. ‘On Sunday afternoon you were painting on the side lawn from just after lunch until approximately five o’clock.’

  ‘Approximately. I’m hardly aware of the time while I work.’

  ‘And in that time you saw no one approach Connaught’s study, either one of the guests or a stranger?’

  ‘Young Royce was buzzing back and forth, and I spoke briefly with Mr Elder and saw Lady Cee in the drive. But I noticed no one go near Connaught’s study.’

  Mallory finished his notetaking. ‘Well … that’s been very instructive, Miss Jade. I’ve no doubt that we’ll wish to see you again, but for the time being you’re free to go.’

  Pandora Jade finished her drink, placed the empty glass on a side table, and left the room without another word.

  ‘Well,’ Mallory said when the three men were alone again, ‘I didn’t see that coming. Who would have thought that she’s Annabelle’s mother?’

  ‘What they call a bolt from the blue,’ Langham said. ‘But I can’t say I’m surprised that she’s being so hard-nosed about her relationship – or lack of – with Annabelle.’

  Mal
lory consulted his notebook. ‘Right, Greaves, could you go and fetch Monty Connaught? And then I think another drink will be in order.’

  When Greaves had left the room, Mallory stretched his arms above his head. ‘By Christ,’ he said, ‘what a situation. Denbigh Connaught sounds like a bastard of the first water.’

  Langham smiled and knocked out his pipe in an ashtray. ‘An egotist who treated people appallingly, and yet could write so insightfully about the human condition.’

  ‘I wonder how many people he hurt over the years – other than those present – and whether it was an outsider who did for him?’

  ‘We’re looking for someone with the strength of a stevedore and an abiding grudge,’ Langham said. ‘I doubt we’ve spoken to the murderer today.’

  ‘The thing is, Don, how did a notional stranger enter the grounds without being seen by Pandora, who was on the side lawn all day, or by anyone else who was in or around the house?’

  Langham was staring through the window as the tall, limping figure of Colonel Haxby crossed the lawn and disappeared behind the boxwood hedge. It occurred to him that the old soldier was about to reprise his suicidal shenanigans of Saturday morning – but then the colonel emerged from the far end of the hedge and headed towards the walled garden.

  He laughed suddenly. ‘Bloody hell, Jeff.’

  Mallory looked up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Why didn’t I think of it before? What if the killer approached Connaught’s study from the other side – from the steps in the cliff leading down to the jetty?’

  Mallory nodded. ‘There’s a path at the foot of the cliff that leads all the way around the headland to the village. I’ll have Greaves check if anyone was seen on the path yesterday afternoon.’

  The door opened and both men looked up as Monty Connaught walked in, followed by Greaves.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Monty Connaught nodded to Langham and Mallory and lowered his big, powerful frame into the armchair, resting his right hand on his lap. Nipped between the thumb and forefinger was an unlighted cigarillo. He lifted it. ‘Would you mind terribly if I …?’