The Art of Murder (Harriet Quigley Mystery)

by Nicola Slade

  He opened the door. ‘You’re holding a piece of evidence that might be vital and until it’s handed over to the police, which we’ll do tomorrow, you could be in danger.’

  *

  Harriet put down her book, averting her eyes from the chair she had obediently shoved in front of her door. That has to go down as one of the least fun evenings ever; it’s a wonder nobody complained about raging indigestion brought on by stress. Still, she shivered, the night’s relatively young, time for it to catch up with us all.

  Sam was right, she was exhausted; she imagined they all were and she hoped that Fiona was still asleep. Fiona … ‘I gave her a couple of aspirins,’ she recalled. ‘Where did I get them from?’ The answer hit her: it was in a bottle by her bed. Fiona had aspirins with her, here at Tadema Lodge.

  Despite Sam’s speculation she refused to believe that Fiona, a friend for more than 20 years, could do … could even contemplate doing something so foul as to …

  She put down the book she was trying to read, though not a word had sunk in, and went to the window. It was a horrible, disgusting idea but Sam had put it into words and Sam was a rational, intelligent man. Why would anyone do such a thing? Had someone intended wilful harm? Because that had been the result. She hugged herself picturing Linzi’s horrific bruising and bleeding after the river incident, and the frightening amount of blood that had disfigured the pool in the garden.

  Was it a coincidence that some of the people in this house loathed the woman who had now died? She pressed her hands to her head. As Sam had said, coincidences happen, so … An art group based in a small village on the outskirts of a small, ancient city, and a successful artist who lived not far away; nothing sinister in that. They had interests and location in common and Linzi, once the mask slipped, was an unlikeable woman.

  Harriet was tempted to leave the curtains open but the morning sun would stream in and wake her too early. Leaning on the sill she gazed out at the golden globe of the harvest moon that hung low enough to be plucked from the midnight sky. There was no sound apart from a distant murmur from the city beyond and the little rustlings that betrayed the presence of small animals, voles or a hedgehog perhaps. From farther down the street the lingering smoke of a bonfire drifted into the garden and mingled with something nearer at hand. The air just beyond the window was warm and scented with honeysuckle. The heady perfume made her close her eyes and she relaxed in the quiet loveliness – until the day’s events came back to her with a vengeance.

  What a perfectly dreadful thing to happen. For a few moments she stood at the window until something, a sound, a movement, made her freeze. A dark figure moved slowly down the side path from the potting shed near the back fence. Someone was dragging something heavy.

  She stifled a gasp and tried to slow the frantic beating of her heart as the shadow resolved itself into Hughie Paget who was dragging a large stone pot filled with something green and shrubby, to block off the entrance to the pond. As she watched he straightened up with a hand in the small of his back.

  Silently she drew the curtains and made her way back to bed, treading heavily as she did so. Hughie must have been cleaning out the pond and had tactfully left it until all the guests were in bed. What a vile job to be thrust on him; she hoped his nerves were up to the challenge.

  Her book no longer held any attraction and she leaned back against the pillows, forcing herself to look at the situation calmly. One thing in particular had been on her mind since she and Sam parted company. Sam had wondered why on earth Linzi had failed to spot that she was knocking back aspirin tablets instead of her nerve-calming remedy. ‘She must have noticed the embossing on the pill,’ he had argued.

  But would she have done? Linzi needed reading glasses; she sent Madeleine to fetch them on Friday evening, along with her pashmina. And she wore them for painting her tiny pictures. One small white pill looked much like another if you couldn’t see the writing and if you hadn’t happened to touch the slightly raised lettering. Harriet cast her mind back to the packing she had done: all Linzi’s belongings tucked away into the suitcase, clothes, toiletries, paperwork concerning the art group, all of it, but no glasses.

  There was something else missing: her phone. Harriet sat up with a jerk. Linzi had been umbilically attached to her pricey-looking mobile and there was no sign of it in her room. Harriet had emptied all the drawers and the wardrobe, as well as sifting through Linzi’s belongings. The phone was not in Linzi’s room. She cast her mind back to the scene by the goldfish pool. The paramedics had loosened the sopping, blood-stained clothing and Harriet was prepared to swear there was nowhere that a phone could have been concealed. She had also been an observer when Fiona went through Linzi’s handbag looking for her driving licence. No phone in there either, so where on earth had it got to? Maybe Fiona would know.

  Sunday morning

  By half-past eight Harriet felt she had done a full morning’s work. She had slept surprisingly well after her midnight ruminations and a knock on Sam’s door found him up and about, relieved to see her safe. She shared her thoughts on Linzi’s reading glasses and mobile – or lack of them – but they came to no conclusion.

  ‘We need to talk to Fiona as soon as this is over,’ Sam was grave. ‘I’m not standing by any longer and if she won’t tell the police about Linzi’s alleged stalker, I will. I don’t give a damn about looking a fool.’

  He sounded belligerent but she nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said wearily. ‘It can’t go on any longer but let’s get the morning over first.

  ‘I won’t talk to Fiona yet,’ she added. ‘She’s got enough on her plate, but we’ll tackle her the moment she’s free.’ She went slowly along the attic landing to see how Fiona fared.

  ‘I ought to feel dreadful,’ Fiona said frankly as she pulled on her shoes. ‘I don’t though, I slept like a log. I suppose that’s because you dosed me. Now, I don’t know … it sounds horrible but I can only feel relief.’ She made a face and ran a comb through her silvery-grey curls. ‘Did you say you can’t find her reading glasses? You won’t!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Harriet was perplexed. ‘I saw her wearing them.’

  ‘Sorry, I should make that clearer,’ Fiona told her. ‘The case was in the pocket of the jacket she’d left in the garden room.’

  ‘Oh,’ Harriet felt deflated. ‘That’s cleared up that little mystery.’

  Fiona wasn’t listening. ‘Better face them. Are you coming to hold my hand?’

  ‘Before we go, Fiona,’ Harriet made up her mind, ‘I’ve packed all Linzi’s things into her suitcase ready for – well, I’m not sure what, to be honest. If you don’t want to take it I’ll hang on to it for the moment.’ Fiona looked blank and Harriet went on: ‘There’s something the police ought to know …’ She filled Fiona in on the pack of Warfarin she had found, as well as the rogue aspirin.

  ‘Warfarin?’ Fiona was puzzled. ‘I wonder …’ she frowned, ‘… this fall that she had in Italy, the one that meant she had to stay on for a couple of months … I wonder if that might have been a slight stroke.’

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ Harriet didn’t know. ‘You said she’s not looked well since, but why would anyone take aspirin as well?’

  Fiona made a face. ‘You didn’t know her, Harriet, but I can easily picture her overriding the entire medical profession. If she decided the prescription wasn’t acting quickly enough she was quite capable of topping it up. Stupid, I know, but not unbelievable; she always had to be in control. Anyway,’ she opened the door, ‘breakfast time.’

  *

  ‘Hughie’s pulled out all the stops this morning, hasn’t he?’ Sam was cheer-leading with Tim as aider and abettor. ‘This is a splendid breakfast.’

  ‘Certainly is,’ Tim sat beside him, with a plate piled high. ‘I love a Full English myself, I think I’ll try to do one now and then, at least when Jamie comes to stay. I want to impress him so much that he’ll agree to live with me.’

  ‘Jamie?’ Harriet
saw Seren’s stricken face. It was clear what she was thinking.

  ‘My son,’ Tim told her, as he cut into a slice of perfectly fried black pudding and eyed it lustfully. ‘He’s living with his mother at the moment but he’s mad on animals – sheep, horses, animal husbandry – so next year he’ll go to Sparsholt, the agricultural college, which is almost next door to Locksley, of course. He’ll live with me provided I find a house by then,’ he added.

  ‘I … I didn’t realise you had a son.’ Seren managed to sound casual in spite of her surprise and – yes, relief. Did the silly girl really think he was talking about a boyfriend, Harriet wondered.

  Seren added: ‘Does he … do they live near here?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Tim smiled at her. ‘He lives with his mum and stepfather, near Alton.’ He speared another piece of black pudding and added ‘My ex-wife is very high-powered and runs her own business. I was far too slow and unambitious for her and she wanted me to join a big legal practice instead of mouldering away, as she put it, in the family firm. She realised I’d never change so we split and she found another go-getter. It’s water under the bridge now. We all get on fine …’

  Harriet was distracted by a sudden thought. ‘Damn, I forgot to remind Fiona to phone the police about the Warfarin and that rogue aspirin in Linzi’s room.’ She glanced across the table. Fiona was looking grey round the gills despite claiming a good night’s sleep. It could wait.

  She felt someone’s eyes on her. Sam, of course. He too slid a sideways look at Fiona, raised an eyebrow and shook his head slightly.

  ‘Not now,’ he murmured, and Harriet nodded. There was a jaded air hanging over the breakfast table, not surprisingly, but also an undeniable lightening of the atmosphere. There was shock, certainly, but mingled with it was a measure of relief and a hint of excitement. Why not? She was philosophical about human nature. A death at such close quarters was something to talk about after the initial distress.

  Reaching for another slice of toast she took a look at Jess Tyndall, clad today in yet another tunic, this one a plain, workaday navy worn over jeans. Jess was definitely looking more chipper as well she might. If Bill Tyndall really had been up to no good regarding planning permission near the cathedral, Linzi’s death would give him time to clean up his act before anyone else looked into it. For a moment she wondered about that but she dismissed it. Don’t start, she told herself firmly.

  Across the table from her, Bonnie Mercer was picking at a croissant. She looked pale and drawn and Harriet felt a pang of sympathy. She had her own moments of nausea as she recalled the sight of Linzi’s crumpled body and the blood that had spread across the goldfish pond.

  ‘I hope you’re feeling a bit better this morning, Bonnie?’ She spoke quietly, with an encouraging smile as the other woman looked up. ‘We’re all still shell-shocked but I think it’s right to carry on, don’t you? It should help to settle us a bit.’

  ‘Yes … yes, I suppose you’re right,’ Bonnie gulped and closed her eyes for a moment. ‘I didn’t sleep well, I don’t suppose any of us did. I keep on seeing—’

  ‘I know.’ Harriet thought it better not to let Bonnie get on to the thorny topic and summoned the voice of authority. ‘I wonder what Donald has in store for us this morning? I’m so impressed by his teaching and the way he’s capturing our interest. Even Sam and I, with no artistic ability at all, are finding it fascinating.’

  ‘There,’ she thought smugly, watching Bonnie react to the brisk tone, ‘works every time.

  *

  ‘One thing that makes it all confusing is that Linzi had so many different names,’ Harriet complained to Sam as they stood, irresolute, outside the glazed door to the garden room, watching Donald set out an odd-looking assortment of objects.

  ‘What? Oh yes, I see what you mean. According to Seren she started off as Elin Williams; then she married her sugar daddy and became Elin Parry; and lastly she was Linzi Bray. Wonder what she was called before that? She said the second husband was Martin. Martin what, I wonder?’

  ‘Martin Bowles.’ Eve Paget was standing in the back hall, staring at them. ‘It’s no secret. Come into my office for a minute. I can’t stay long though.’

  ‘It’s really none of our business,’ Sam ventured and she gave him a wry look.

  ‘No, it isn’t, is it? Not that it seems to inhibit either of you from poking your noses in.’

  Harriet’s eyes flashed, as much, she admitted, with guilt as resentment, and Eve sighed.

  ‘I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry. Of course you’re curious, we all are. She was a monster and I should never have let her bully me about this weekend. All it’s done has been to bring disaster on us. What kind of publicity do you think there’ll be when it all comes out? “House of Death: Guest at upmarket B&B found dead in goldfish pond”. You can see the headlines already. Nobody will come here, we’re dead in the water before we even start.’ She clapped a hand to her mouth: ‘Oh God, sorry. Hardly the most tactful thing to say.’

  ‘I don’t think it’ll come to that.’ Harriet tamped down her concerns and thought about it. ‘There’ll be an inquest and that’ll be reported, of course, but I think you need to play it cannily. Yes, of course, a sad accident, but life must go on, that kind of attitude. Who was it who said never apologise, never explain? Dignified regret combined with a bit of judicious plugging of the business, that’s what you need to aim for. I’m certain you can carry it off admirably.’

  Eve’s face relaxed into a reluctant smile. ‘Thanks, Harriet, you’re right of course. If you do as you said and give us a glowing write-up on all the review sites, and perhaps the others could be persuaded too, we’ll weather the storm.’

  ‘Of course you will,’ Harriet nodded. ‘And now, as you’ve so correctly diagnosed, we’re hugely curious about what’s been going on, so maybe you’d tell us what you know about Linzi’s second husband. And why on earth you let her bully you into anything?’

  ‘You don’t give up, do you?’ Eve looked resigned but she was smiling.’Oh well … Martin Bowles and Hughie worked for the same firm of City brokers. They weren’t close friends but they did work together on various projects. Martin was held to have a magic touch and made a lot of money for the company and for himself, but the inevitable happened. He overreached himself and Hughie was involved, though only peripherally. Martin ended up in jail and Hughie was made redundant with a decent package, though only after he went for Martin and the Managing Director in the office when the racket was uncovered and he realised he’d been duped.’

  She shut her eyes for a moment, then reverted with an effort to her brisk professionalism. ‘Hughie went berserk. He picked up a swivel chair – he’s so big and he’s very strong, of course. He walloped Martin right across the room and knocked him unconscious, and he was going for the boss when he tripped over his own briefcase and broke his shoulder. As I said, it was all hushed up.’ She glared at them. ‘And don’t you go thinking it’s a joke – using a chair as a weapon. Martin Bowles was in a neck brace for months and the company did a deal with him to keep it quiet. It was put out that he’d slipped on the stairs and they dropped some of the charges.

  ‘Hughie was taken off to hospital straight away with a complete nervous breakdown so the company agreed a pay-off – no stain on his character as the saying goes, and no mention of the assault, provided he agreed to leave at once and keep his mouth shut.’ She glanced at the cousins standing there intent on her story. ‘Just because I’ve told you two,’ she said firmly, ‘doesn’t mean this is for publication. When Hughie recovered I brought him down to Hampshire where we looked after the old ladies and then sorted out the house so we could start this business.’

  ‘How did Hughie feel when Linzi turned up on Friday?’ Sam wondered.

  ‘Good God,’ Eve looked aghast. ‘You don’t imagine he knew who she was, do you? Martin was always cagey about his work and he never took his wife to company things, probably didn’t want her ferreting around to find
out how much he earned, which she would have done. We’d never seen her, either of us, but I met her at a charity do a couple of months ago.’ She shuffled some papers and explained. ‘I’ve been schmoozing most of the local associations for ages – meet the right people, get known, that kind of thing – and somehow, God only knows, she recognised me, or perhaps it was the name. Then she had the brass neck to use it to persuade me to give her a good deal for the art group, saying how bad it would look for the business if it all came out.’ She bit her lip. ‘I don’t know what good it did her, apart from getting in with the Locksley people. I was polite and professional and agreed this time, but I’d have found an excuse if she’d tried it on again.’

  ‘So she wasn’t worried about having her ex-husband’s name turn up in the local media?’ Harriet was frowning and she answered her own question. ‘No, I suppose she wouldn’t care. She would just have played the pathetic wronged wife and begged for sympathy. It would have worked too.’

  ‘Now, you’ll have to excuse me.’ Eve gave them a measuring look. ‘You ought to be in the garden room by now.’ For a moment her composure wavered. ‘You can understand why I couldn’t let Hughie know who she was. He’s fine now, happy with the gardening and the cooking and looking forward to expanding the business, but he’s still fragile. I can’t risk anything upsetting his emotional balance.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Harriet waited till Eve was out of earshot before commenting. ‘I’m not so sure Hughie had never seen Linzi. I certainly spotted him staring fixedly at her once or twice, with a very puzzled expression on his face as though she was familiar but he couldn’t place her.’

  ‘In spite of what Eve thinks, he could have seen her at some company thing,’ Sam shrugged. ‘Or who knows? Martin Bowles could have kept a photo of his wife on his desk.’ He put out a hand to open the door of the garden room. ‘Are you suggesting Hughie suddenly had a moment of recognition and despoiled his perfect garden with a mess of stones on the steps by the pond, hoping to catch exactly the right person?’