A Matter of Trust

by Maxine Barry

  Looking for earrings in a pig’s eye.

  But where did she fit in? Try as he might, he just couldn’t picture her as a killer. And if he was right in his belief that the motive for the killing of the old man lay in Sir Vivian’s belief that someone at that party was a cheat and an academic fraud, then it left this woman right out of it.

  Nevertheless, he made a mental note to check out if any scandal hung over this young lady’s head. Academic or otherwise.

  ‘May I go now?’ Nesta asked politely. She fidgeted beside the desk, looking more and more miserable with every moment that passed.

  ‘Did you find them?’ Lisle asked softly.

  For a second, Nesta thought he meant her father’s papers. She went white. Then she realised he was talking about the mythical earrings. Get a grip Nesta, she warned herself grimly. This man is running circles around you!

  She shook her head. ‘No. I must have lost them somewhere else.’

  ‘Why are you looking for them here?’ Lisle pounced, so softly, and with such finesse, that she didn’t even see the trap.

  ‘What?’ she asked blankly.

  ‘Why were you looking for them here?’ he repeated relentlessly. ‘You must have thought you could have lost them here, which means you must have been here before. So you’ve been to both Sir Vivian’s house and his office here in College. Yes?’

  Nesta flushed. Oh damn.

  Lisle smiled in triumph. Didn’t see that coming, did you, he mused grimly. ‘Perhaps you’d better tell me why Sir Vivian brought you to this office? Was he getting worried that meeting you at his home was a little too public? Was it easier to sneak you into his office here in College? Where students would turn a grinning blind eye, and all his old colleagues would simply think what a dog he was?’ He was taunting her ruthlessly, both because he felt his own, personal savage need to, and also because he wanted to see if he could goad her into betraying her secrets.

  Nesta opened her mouth then closed it again helplessly.

  What could she say? She’d neatly dug herself a nice little hole to fall into, and he’d so kindly given her a push. Bless him.

  ‘These earrings,’ Lisle said, pushing away from the door once more and walking towards her. ‘Were they really your mother’s? Or did Sir Vivian buy them for you. Expensive were they?’ He watched her closely as he moved towards her.

  Nesta began to back away. Lisle saw her confusion. A flush of resentment that crossed her face, and became a hint of pain. And suddenly, Lisle knew. This woman had no more been Sir Vivian’s mistress than he was the Sultan of Brunei. Lady June had been right about her husband all along. He was not the philandering kind.

  ‘Exactly what did you want from the old man, Nesta?’ he asked quietly and much more gently now.

  And because he caught her so unexpectedly on the raw, Nesta flinched. She had gone to that lovely old man demanding his help. She had hurt and upset him with her claims. She had made his last few days on earth miserable.

  ‘If only I’d known he was going to die,’ she mumbled . . . she’d never have done it. She’d have gone to someone else. Dr Callum Fielding perhaps. In her research on who was who at Oxford, Dr Fielding had been her second choice of possible helper. He was almost as well respected as Sir Vivian. He was younger, a member of a college that had nothing to do with either her father or the woman who had stolen his work, so he would be more inclined to be impartial. But she hadn’t gone to him. She’d gone to an old man who’d loved Oxford, and had made him agree to hurt it. All for her.

  A big fat tear slid down her cheek. She felt so guilty she could have screamed. She looked up at the tough-looking man who was standing so close to her again. She shook her head.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing that you’d be remotely interested in.’

  She had no idea, then, of how wrong she was.

  She felt his finger under her chin, lifting her head.

  Lisle caught his breath. Her lovely emerald eyes were swimming in tears. The arrows of red hair, leading his gaze to her mouth, brushed the tops of his knuckles. He felt a tenderness he’d never known before flood into his mind. His heart. ‘Oh, Nesta,’ he said softly.

  And lowered his head to kiss her.

  Her lips were sweet, and tasting slightly of the salt from her tears. With a small murmured cry, she pushed against him, raising her arms to loop over his neck, turning into his warm embrace.

  His tongue met hers. Duelled, caressed, promised . . .

  Nesta felt her nipples harden into tight buds and was sure he must feel them pressing against his chest.

  Lisle did. He dragged his mouth away. ‘We can’t,’ he said thickly.

  Nesta sighed. ‘I know,’ she agreed.

  And they kissed again. And again. And again . . .

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sergeant Jim Neill walked into the incident room and slumped wearily down into a chair. He watched his superior’s face as he listened to the speaker on the other end of the telephone. He had that long-suffering look of all good cops, when dealing with petty bureaucracy.

  But Jim, who knew his boss well, also detected a certain look of, what—happiness—in his eyes? Had something broken on the case?

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ Lisle said flatly. His voice held that curiously neutral tone he used whenever speaking to one of the really big cheeses. Jim grinned.

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ Lisle said again.

  Jim looked around the room. It bore the usual signs of any major incident room—a curious mixture of make do, and top-notch administrative work. In his time, he’d seen incident rooms set up in mills, theatres, church halls, even, once, in a sewerage plant. The idea was to stay as close to the scene of the crime as you could, space permitting. It was also a lot cheaper.

  This room was a real prize, as far as such rooms went. Big, well ventilated and heated, and with adequate lighting. The room was lined with corkboards that bore information on all the latest results. Pictures from the crime lab, reports on alibi times, messages, little dots of yellow reminder paper, and many, many other bits and pieces. One desk was piled high with phones. Over in the corner, a WPC was hunched over a computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard. Uniformed men came and went, eating and drinking on the run, the room buzzing to the low-voiced backdrop of mumbled conversations. No doubt about it, this was a big operation. Jim was a bit surprised someone higher up the ladder hadn’t stepped in before now.

  Then he thought of all the possible ramifications of the case. Whoever was in charge would take a serious dent in their career prospects if they didn’t solve it. And then there was the ever-present possibility of standing on some high up’s toes. No, Jim grinned to himself, on second thoughts, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising they’d left Lisle to run with the ball. Those who were opposed to him, (and in the upper echelons there were a few old-fashioned coppers who still were) were no doubt hoping he’d fall flat on his face. Whilst those who were in his camp had obviously decided that this was just the sort of high-profile case that could earn him his Chief Insepctorship.

  If he could just pull it off.

  Jim felt his shoulders tense. They were well into the third day, and still no break. They still hadn’t found the murder weapon. And although there was a sniff of a possible motive it was going to be very hard proving it. And apart from Dr Callum Fielding, they had no outstanding suspect.

  Whichever way you looked at it, it was not looking good, and the pressure was on.

  Lisle sighed, said a final ‘Yes, Sir,’ and hung up.

  Jim glanced at him sympathetically. ‘Fire from on high?’

  Lisle grunted noncommittally. He was not the kind of man who passed his problems on to those working under him.

  ‘Let’s recap. Autopsy clear cut but of no particular use. Forensics?’

  Jim handed over a large folder. ‘You’ve already read all the relevant bits. The trouble is, the killer didn’t get anywhere near the victim. You can fire a bolt from almost as far away as a gun,
apparently. So there’s no fibres from clothes, no fingerprints of course. Nothing.’

  Lisle sighed. Wasn’t that the truth? In a hand-to-hand situation, a criminal left all sorts of goodies for them to find. Hair follicles, with DNA nicely packaged at the end for testing. Blood, saliva, bite marks, you name it. But the area around Sir Vivian had been as barren as a desert.

  ‘On the other hand,’ Jim said with a more up-beat note, ‘we’ve finally finished collating our interviews with the party goers for that night.’

  ‘At last!’

  Jim grimaced. ‘It’s not so easy to track down, interview and compare over a hundred witnesses and their statements.’

  ‘I know. I know, quit griping,’ Lisle said with a grin. ‘Just give me the relevant bits. Who do we have who could have done it?’

  * * *

  ‘Naismith. Rosemary. A very popular lady by all accounts. She was absent for about half an hour during the party after the sit-down Dinner. But, from what my various sources tell me, she’s more likely to have been snogging some erstwhile suitor in one of the broom cupboards than anything else. She’s a notorious flirt, and a bit of a man eater.’

  His sergeant went on to list about ten others, including an Emeritus Professor of Classics, a local businessman who had deep pockets and an ambitious son, a timid and rather well-known poet, and a local GP. All were pillars of the community, and none, naturally, harboured a secret criminal history.

  Lisle grimaced. ‘A rather motley bunch, aren’t they? What kind of dirt have you managed to dig up any of the other prizewinning wannabes? If we’re right, and Sir Vivian had found a skeleton in someone’s cupboard, we should be able to rattle its bones a bit.’

  Jim sighed. ‘Nothing doing. Dr Ngabe is extremely well-respected. Several people have mentioned how hard-working she is. That’s something of a rarity around here, I’m coming to think. Same goes for the others. The American contender is agitating to go back to the States, by the way. Apparently she has a long-standing commitment to lecture at Harvard and she’s not happy. If you ask me, she’s got a man over there—I can’t see all this angst having to do with missing a few dates in the lecture halls.’

  ‘Cynic,’ Lisle grunted. ‘And Naismith? She’s in the frame—she have any interesting little quirks we should know about?’

  ‘Nothing academic so far. She seems to be a pretty bog-standard sort of Don. No, all her juicy bits and pieces seem love-related. She’s had some very strange partners over the years. Including somebody our friends over in CID were interested in.’

  ‘Oh?’ Lisle leaned forward.

  Jim grinned and tossed his superior the file. Lisle read it with interest, but with no great hope. Apparently, some years ago, Dr Rosemary Naismith had had a live-in love affair with a Middle-East freedom fighter. No doubt he had terrorist connections, and had eventually been deported. Interesting, but hardly relevant. Sir Vivian had definitely hinted at some scholarship scandal before he’d been killed. He doubted the old man would have regarded anyone’s love life as any of his business, no matter how risqué it might be. He sighed and tossed it to one side.

  ‘What have we got on the victim?’

  ‘Nothing. Semi-retired, no financial mess, can’t even find an ex-mistress. No bad debts, nothing that smells even slighty off. Another paragon of virtue with not an enemy in the world.’

  ‘My, my, we’re just rolling along, aren’t we?’ Lisle said grimly. ‘No murder weapon, no forensics, no witnesses, not much motive. Anything I missed?’

  Jim paled slightly. ‘Don’t worry, sir. We’ll get there. Something will break.’

  Lisle wasn’t so sure. He got up and grabbed his coat. ‘Get those damned computers working. Hook up to the internet. See if you can get a line on that damned compound bow the experts reckon must have been used. He or she might have bought it online. And check the archery clubs or any internet games that have archery as a main theme. Perhaps our killer is a computer freak and we can track him down that way.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And re-interview Ollenback, Ngabe and Naismith. I want to know where they were during the time Sir Vivian died. Don’t let up on them. Drag them down to the station if they look like playing it cute. And I want their statements in black and white and witnessed. Rattle a few cages. See if someone breaks.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And get me an appointment with our Lord St John James.’

  ‘Right.’

  Lisle was at the door now.

  ‘Where’ll you be?’ Jim yelled above the hub-hub.

  ‘I’ll be back by six,’ Lisle yelled back, unhelpfully.

  He got into the car and drove towards Holywell. All the way over he told himself he was only following up a lead. As he parked and locked the car he told himself that, when you got to a dead end, you smashed a way through. As he mounted the steps and knocked at her door he reminded himself it was time he got some straight answers.

  But when she opened the door, and looked at him with those big green eyes, he knew damned well he’d just spent fifteen minutes lying to himself.

  It did not put him in a good mood.

  ‘I want to speak to you, Miss Aldernay,’ he said grimly, pushing open the door and forcing her to take a step back.

  Nesta felt her heart leap. She swallowed hastily, and shut the door carefully behind him. Ever since first setting eyes on this man, she’d known, somehow, that she’d encountered, for the first time in her life, something inevitable. Something beyond her control, maybe even beyond psychological explanation. Something primal, and instinctive and utterly desirable.

  She was very conscious of the quietness of the house. All the other tenants were at work, and at this hour, even her landlady was out shopping. ‘Inspector Jarvis,’ she managed to say drolly. ‘How nice. Do come in.’

  ‘None of that!’ Lisle snapped, walking to the middle of the room, ramming his hands into his pockets, and turning to face her. ‘Ever since we met, you’ve lied to me, distracted me, given me half-truths, and generally been a right royal pain in my neck. Now, I want some straight answers. Got it?’ he thrust his chin out aggressively.

  Nesta moved slowly over to the sofa. Her knees were weak, and her heart was pumping so much adrenaline through her body she needed to sit down. He looked so angry, and was all but pulsating with masculine energy. All her life, she’d played it according to the rules. Study. Go to college. Get her degree. Map out her career. Men had always been placed in a similar neat little box. Except this one. This one made his own space in her life, whether she wanted him there or not.

  He watched her move to the sofa. She moved like a cat, he thought. All graceful indolence. She was wearing one of those deceptively simple ‘granny-type’ dresses. All demure tiny blue and red flowers, against a creamy backdrop. Simple shoulder straps. Almost no cut to it at all, just a straight swathe of material that fell modestly to just below her knees. Nothing about it should have been alluring or provocative, but it was, damn it. It was!

  Her hair, he saw, had just been newly washed. It gleamed and glowed like it had a fiery life all of its own. As she moved, the demure dress hinted at the roundness of her breasts, moved across her hips, clung, briefly, to the movements of her legs. And then she folded herself down onto the sofa. Her eyes, somehow, had become greener. Softer.

  ‘I’ve tracked down the men and women on that Dinner date list you gave me,’ Lisle began grimly, but with that curious note of happiness that Jim Neill had spotted earlier. ‘They confirm that you were at the Trout that night.’

  ‘Were you surprised?’ she asked mockingly. Now why, she thought, had she said that? Even she could hear the taunting and deliberately provocative tone in her voice. Where the hell had it come from? What did she think she was doing? Playing with this man was like poking a tiger with a stick.

  Utter madness!

  Except, some part of her did seem to know what she was doing. Some private, female, allbut ignored part of her that was now coming into it
s own. It was unusual. The psychologist in her couldn’t help but be fascinated by her own behaviour. But she also knew, deep down, that it was dangerous. Taunting this man was so dangerous.

  Lisle dragged in a ragged breath. ‘Don’t play games with me, Miss Aldernay,’ he warned through gritted teeth. ‘I’m just not in the mood for it.’ His voice had the warning growl of a wolf in it.

  Nesta felt herself flush. But it was not the heat of shame that was making her pale skin glow. It was something else altogether.

  He was wearing a long black raincoat, and underneath, she could clearly see his rumpled white shirt and black trousers. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week. There was a dark shadow of growth on his chin. His hair was tousled, untamed, like the look in his eyes.

  All her life, she’d been used to so-called, civilised men. Fellow students, like herself, who could talk for hours and hours about the most convoluted and dull academic point. She’d always thought they were her ‘type’, those intellectual men of her own age. Men with their careers to forge, idealistic, liberated, careful men. People who thought just like herself.

  Now, looking at this furious policeman, she wondered what the hell she’d been thinking of. Not one of her erstwhile suitors back at Durham had a tenth of this man’s character. Not one of them knew what life was really about. This man, she knew instinctively, could teach her more in a day than she’d learned in a year in the classroom.

  She swallowed hard. Tried to control her body. Tried to remember what love could do to you. And suddenly realised that she couldn’t even bring to mind the face of the man she’d thought she’d once loved. Couldn’t even remember his name . . .

  What was happening to her? She shouldn’t be this far gone. Not so soon. She didn’t even know this man. Didn’t even know if he was married, had children. Didn’t know his background, or his ambitions, or . . . She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. She swallowed hard. She tried to get her breathing under control.