The Dead Girl's Shoes

by Arney, Angela

  Harold sighed. ‘No. It will never be convenient, Janet. But show him in anyway.’

  *

  Maguire followed Janet into the office when she fetched him. It didn’t look much like an office to Maguire. It was a sumptuous room, the kind of room, thought Maguire, where people would go for a pre-prandial cocktail, not to dictate letters, not that anyone ever dictated letters these days. Everything was put straight on to a computer. He noticed a laptop lying closed on the table; it was about the only thing that made reference to the fact that the room was an office.

  The large windows overlooked green lawns, which sloped down to a small lake with a fountain in the middle. This part of the garden was not open to the public, and was immaculate. It was raining now, but that didn’t detract from the tranquil beauty of the scene from the windows. It made Maguire wish he had an office with such a view, instead of the one he had which looked out on to an extractor fan from the building opposite.

  As Harold Villiers was already sitting, but didn’t invite him to do the same, Maguire sat himself down without invitation. He wondered whether this would annoy his host, but it seemed that he hadn’t even noticed, as he didn’t look up from the papers he had in front of him.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to disturb you the moment you have arrived back home, but I’m sure that you will understand that the murder of a young girl is an urgent matter.’

  ‘Of course.’ As he spoke, he leaned back in his chair, which was an old-fashioned smokers chair with polished wooden rounded arms.

  Maguire took in the splendour of the antique chair and also noted that the man before him looked absolutely haggard. ‘I understand that you’ve been to China on business,’ he said.

  There was a long silence. So long, that Maguire began to think he was not going to get a reply at all. Then Harold Villiers spoke. ‘Can I ask for your discretion Chief Inspector,’ he said eventually, in a low voice.

  ‘I shall do my best, of course. However, if it is something that directly relates to the case in question, then I cannot guarantee that it will remain confidential. I hope you understand.’

  Harold Villiers nodded. ‘It has to do with my absence, but not with the murder,’ he said slowly. ‘The truth is that I have not been in China, I have been somewhere else with a friend.’

  ‘I shall need the name of the friend,’ Maguire said, getting out his recorder. ‘And I shall need to confirm it.’

  ‘Madam Cecile Dubois.’

  ‘A woman,’ thought Maguire, but made no comment. ‘And the address?’

  ‘Aubais, 120 Chemin du Loquirec. It’s near Montpellier, France.’

  Maguire noted it, and waited in silence.

  The man before him looked increasingly anxious. ‘Yes,’ he said eventually, ‘that’s where I was. I find it very peaceful. The countryside is wild and beautiful and not crowded like here. Not like the south of England.’

  One could hardly call the scene outside the window crowded thought Maguire, but made no comment. He wanted dates and times. Was Harold Villiers away at the time of the murder?

  ‘We shall need to verify the dates,’ he said. ‘And possibly speak to Madam Dubois.’

  ‘She doesn’t speak English,’ said Harold quickly.

  ‘Not a problem,’ replied Maguire equally quickly. ‘Is Madame Dubois a business associate?

  There was another long silence, and then to Maguire’s surprise the answer was, ‘Yes. Avon Hall buys its wine from her, it’s used for the functions we hold here sometimes. She has eight hectares in Aubais and makes an exclusive and very good red wine. She is a good business woman and a very old friend of the Villiers family.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have done your business transactions while remaining in England.’

  The man before him looked uncomfortable. ‘Things are difficult,’ he said. ‘I owe her and others in France a lot of money. I need help to deal with the French bank I use. French banks are very tricky about debt. Credite Agricole is an old fashioned bank, but a word from a well-known family works wonders. And there is another problem. My wife thinks I’m having an affair with Cecile, and…’

  ‘Are you?’ interrupted Maguire.

  The man before him shook his head firmly. ‘No, but it’s useless telling Amelia I’m not, that’s why I didn’t mention that I was flying off to France the night of the perfume launch.’

  Maguire left Harold Villiers in the office at Avon Hall. He had a telephone number for Madame Dubois, and the name of the red wine that was bought for Avon Hall’s functions. He even had a bottle of the wine, from the Mas d’ Aubais. But no confirmation of the dates and times of travel. He did not believe Harold when he said he couldn’t remember exactly. He promised to look it up in his accounts and let him know later that day. Again Maguire was unconvinced. But no matter, he thought, he’d get Millie Jones on to that. She was back now from her holidays and a whizz on finding things on the internet. Maguire sometimes thought she could find out what the Queen had for breakfast if she set her mind to it. Millie always said everything was on the net somewhere, if you knew where to look, and Adam was more than happy to let her do the looking.

  Yes, he’d be talking to Mr Villiers again, as well as Madame Dubois, once he’d found a French translator.

  *

  In Salisbury, Steve and Kevin toiled up the steep stairs to the tiny flat in the roof of the house, occupied by the post grad students, Alistair and Edward. The contrast to the downstairs couldn’t have been greater. The kitchen was tiny, but clean and neat, everything on the shelves was labelled, ‘a bit like a laboratory,’ muttered Kevin to Steve.

  Alistair was busy making ham and lettuce wraps on a sparkling white plastic table. ‘We don’t like the hospital food,’ he explained.

  Edward was loading up the slow cooker, which was standing on the far side of the kitchen. ‘A casserole for tonight,’ he said. ‘Coq au vin.’

  ‘You two seem to be very domesticated and well organized,’ said Steve, looking around. He sniffed. ‘And the coq au vin smells delicious.’

  Alistair grinned. ‘Yes, a bit different from downstairs, eh? We’re always expecting there to be an outbreak of Ebola down there.’

  ‘But what do you want with us?’ asked Edward. ‘I must warn you that we don’t have much time; we’re due back in the lab at 1.30. Got some slides to take out of the fridge. Can’t be late, the experiment is timed to the second.’

  Steve knew Kevin, with his inquisitive nature, was dying to ask questions about the slides and their work, and forestalled him by cutting in quickly. ‘We need to ask a few questions about your whereabouts, over the last four or five days and also if you know anything of the movements of the students downstairs.’

  Alistair folded the wraps carefully in cling film, put them in a plastic box and then sat down. ‘We’ve either been here, at the hospital or the lab all the time, because we’ve got ongoing experiments which we can’t leave for long.’

  ‘So you haven’t been to Avinton, or Avon Hall.’

  ‘Never. We both keep meaning to go and see the big house, as Tom calls it. But so far we haven’t had time.’

  ‘You know, of course, that Jemima Villiers has been murdered.’

  ‘There was a moment’s silence, and then Edward said, ‘Yes. We know.’ There was another silence. ‘Have you interviewed all the family?’

  ‘Not all of them. But between us and our boss, DCI Maguire, we will eventually interview everyone. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, no particular reason,’ said Edward. ‘But if you are interviewing us, then you should talk to all of them as well. I do like things to be done properly.’

  ‘You sound like our boss,’ said Steve with a grin. ‘But you can be sure he will leave no stone unturned.’

  After twenty more minutes of careful questioning, Steve and Kevin were no wiser than when they had started. It seemed that Alistair and Edward were only interested in microscopic things growing in their petri dishes and not in the neighbours living below the
m.

  ‘Funny that they were so insistent that we should talk to all the family,’ said Kevin as they made their way back to the station at Stibbington.

  ‘I think they are hiding something,’ said Steve.

  Kevin disagreed. ‘No, I think they are a couple of scientists, only interested in looking down microscopes and poring over computer charts. Although they wanted to make sure we didn’t suspect them of anything.’

  ‘Which is precisely why I do,’ said Steve. ‘You’re too trusting.’

  On their return to the station, they gave Maguire their summarised account; he glanced at it briefly. Steve felt annoyed. Maguire was not paying it the attention he thought it deserved. Where had he read somewhere, from mundane information sometimes comes gems of wisdom? He felt like quoting it, but thought better of it. Maguire didn’t seem in a particularly good mood, and he’d probably got the quote wrong anyway.

  Adam Maguire threw the notebook back across the desktop. ‘Add it to the other stuff we’ve got on the computer. It doesn’t seem to tie up with anything else at the moment, but we need to keep it up there. Then, Kevin, you can get on to this.’ He waved the piece of paper Lizzie had given him with the names of the temporary staff on it. ‘Follow up all these people, where they live, what they do, how friendly or otherwise are they with the Villiers family, and most importantly, what time did they arrive at the Country House Hotel, and what time did they leave, and where did they go when they left, and who can corroborate their story?’

  Kevin picked the list up and scanned it. ‘I went to school with half of these,’ he said. ‘Surely you don’t think any of them could be our murderer.’

  ‘That’s it. I don’t think,’ said Maguire. ‘I always find that only confuses the issue. What I want you to do, is to find out the truth. Not make assumptions.’ To Steve he said, ‘you can come with me. The SOCO boys have turned up something interesting in the woods I gather. We’ll go down and take a look. Then when they’ve finished there, I’m sending them to look over Jemima’s room, and we’ll probably go with them unless something else turns up.’

  ‘I had a quick look round like you said,’ said Kevin. ‘And it’s all sealed off as you wanted, nothing has been touched, and the door is locked now with the keys kept here. SOCO have sent over Peter Fisher, their latest recruit, to stand guard until someone gets there. ’

  Steve looked at his watch. ‘It’s way past lunchtime and I’m hungry,’ he said. ‘OK with you if I nip down to the canteen and get a sandwich to bring with me?’

  ‘Yes, and get one for me, too, while you’re there. But please don’t buy yourself a tuna one, they stink the car out with a fishy smell.’ Maguire knew Steve had a penchant for tuna mayonnaise sandwiches; said they were slimming.

  ‘OK,’ replied Steve, who had been intending to buy a tuna mayonnaise because that was his favourite. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Egg and Cress,’ said Maguire.

  On his way down to the canteen with Kevin in tow, Steve grumbled, ‘I can’t have tuna because of the smell, but he can order egg and cress with stinks the car out with a sulphurous smell just as badly.’

  Kevin grinned.

  Back in the office, Maguire picked up the keys to Jemima’s room, and started off towards his car.

  *

  Monday morning at Honeywell Health Centre was the usual hectic scene. The weather was still wild and stormy and the early morning clinical meeting was the same. Lizzie had a theory that the weather affected everyone’s mood, and today, she thought, it had certainly affected Dick Jamieson. She was five minutes late to the meeting, and had missed most of it; she tried to slide in without being noticed. But it was not to be, Dick spied her the moment she stepped into the back of the room.

  ‘She’s your patient, Lizzie,’ he shouted across to her, bad temperedly. ‘I don’t know why the police should be bothering me about her.’

  ‘Because you are the senior partner,’ said Maddy Osman sternly. She was now the Practice Nurse Consultant, and felt that she was on a par with Dick Jamieson, and could say what she liked. Not an opinion shared by Dick, although that didn’t deter Maddy. ‘The police think you make all the decisions,’ she continued. Because that’s the way they do it in the police, isn’t it Lizzie? The chief always makes the decisions, that’s how your friend Adam Maguire does it, doesn’t he?’

  Everyone turned and looked at Lizzie, and Stephen Walters gave an artificial cough, hiding, Lizzie thought, a snort of laughter. She felt her face flushing. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ she said crossly.

  ‘It’s Gladys Armitage shop lifting again,’ mumbled Dick, but lowering his voice this time. ‘However, this time her husband is refusing to pay. Apparently, she lifted two whole trout from the Avon Weir Fisheries stall at the Saturday market, and the river keeper, Spud Murphy, is pressing charges. The police have her in custody, because she denies it, even though they found them down the front of her jumper. They weren’t frozen either, so she had a bloody bosom.’ Everyone in the room laughed, and Dick glowered. ‘She is being very difficult,’ he said, ‘so they’ve come to me. They want me to section her.’

  ‘Of course you can’t section the woman,’ said Lizzie briskly. ‘She’s not mad, and she’s not a danger to anyone. She’s just old and maybe a bit eccentric. But that’s all.’

  ‘You try telling that to Spud Murphy. He says he doesn’t mind the odd packet of fishcakes being nicked, but two trout is another matter.’

  Lizzie looked at her watch. ‘Look, Dick, I’ve got an enormous list to get through, so I’m not going to waste time here. I’ll ring the police now and tell them to release her to go home, and I’ll speak to them and Spud Murphy, who is also my patient as it happens, this afternoon and sort it out.’

  ‘You have a lot of faith in your ability to sort things out,’ said Dick, still grumpy.

  ‘Yes, I have,’ said Lizzie, opening the door. She paused, and looked back into the room. ‘Common sense is all it takes.’ The door slammed behind her.

  ‘One day Lizzie will come a cropper,’ said Stephen Walters. ‘She’ll meet her match eventually.’

  Once in her consulting room Lizzie rang the police station. She was intending to lean on Adam Maguire and get him to sort it out for her, but Adam was not there. However, she spoke to Frank Usher, who was the duty sergeant, an elderly man near to retirement. Lizzie knew and trusted him.

  ‘Maguire has gone out to Avon Hall,’ he told her. ‘And Spud Murphy has gone home, with his two trout, which he should have left as an exhibit, but there you go, he would have it, and Mrs Armitage has been collected by her long suffering husband. I discharged her on the grounds that she’s a harmless old duck.’

  ‘Thank heavens, Frank, someone has some common sense. Would you please tell all of them, that I’ll talk to them this afternoon,’ said Lizzie. ‘And I shall probably need to talk to the arresting officer as well.’

  ‘That’ll be young Mark Turpin, commonly known as Dick,’ said Frank, ‘He’s a bit too keen. Nobody else would have arrested her and put her in the cells.’

  ‘Definitely too keen, if you ask me,’ said Lizzie, and pressed the buzzer for the first patient to come in.

  The first patient was a young mother with a chest infection, and not a malingerer. Lizzie felt calmer doing the job she loved, helping people who needed help. She sent her patient off with some badly needed antibiotics. At least, she thought, I’ve been helpful to my first patient.

  Her morning sped by, and for a change most of that particular morning’s patients actually needed her assistance. An epidemic of chesty coughs brought people to seek her out, probably due to the changeable weather, thought Lizzie, after sending the fifth wheezing patient on his way. One moment it was warm enough for barbeques, the next moment a chill east wind made it seem as if winter had returned. When she’d lived in London, Lizzie realized, she’d never been particularly aware of the wind and weather, but down at Stibbington on the coast, the wind made its pre
sence felt, particularly when it blew from the north-east causing everyone to shiver. The last patient safely dispatched, she looked at the time and then decided what to do. As she’d promised to sort out the trout problem that made a visit to Spud Murphy a priority. He had to be persuaded to drop the charges, and then a visit to the Armitages could follow. But first she needed sustenance herself, and as there was not enough time to go back to Silver Cottage to make a sandwich, a visit to Antonio’s was called for.

  Dashing down Stibbington High Street, she made for Antonio’s delicatessen. His panini’s were always freshly made and delicious when toasted. A parking space a few yards from the delicatessen enabled Lizzie to squeeze her car into it, and she hurried into the shop. There was already one customer waiting, and the smell of a freshly toasted Panini filled the shop.

  ‘Ah, Dr Browne, Buon Giorno.’ Antonio always greeted his customers in Italian, although most of them couldn’t speak a word of the language. He served the waiting customer, and she paid and left. Antonio nodded his head towards the departing figure. ‘That girl very, very sad,’ he said. ‘She a friend of Jemima. They was the best friends.’ Lizzie waited while he cut the cheese and ham for her panini. ‘Danny Bailey is writing big story for the Stibbington Times this week,’ he said, slicing a generous amount of pecorino cheese. ‘He tell me that he tell the secret of that family.’

  ‘And what is that?’ asked Lizzie.

  Antonio shrugged expressively. ‘I know nothing. Only gossip what I hear.’

  Lizzie took her panini and paid for it. ‘I think Danny Bailey should be careful,’ she said, ‘and I haven’t got time to listen to gossip.’

  She left Antonio alone in his shop, disappointed that he’d been unable to pass on the hot gossip.

  Chapter 10

  The smell of hardboiled egg permeated the car as he knew it would, so as well as feeling hungry Steve felt annoyed. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Maguire ate his sandwich with evident enjoyment. This annoyed him even more, but glancing in the rear view mirror, he forgot about the sandwich. He could see Lizzie Browne coming up behind them, maybe on her way to Avon Hall, same as us, he thought. But no sooner than he’d thought that, than she turned off and took the narrow lane that led down to the Avon Weir Fisheries. He told Maguire, ‘That was Dr Browne, going towards the fisheries. Wonder why she’s going there.’