02 The Case of the Hidden Flame

by Alison Golden

  “Tell me about the Pilkingtons,” he said, reading the name from Sergeant Harding’s list of those to be interviewed. “It says here that they knew Sylvia.”

  “Oh yes,” Mrs. Taylor said at once. She was proving to be quite the store of gossip, which made her an ideal source of information in a case like this. “They’ve been friends for a long time. I could be wrong,” she said cautiously, “but I believe Mr. Pilkington was under Dr.Norquist for some time.”

  Janice Harding’s artless, barely constrained guffaw caused a rapid re-phrasing from Mrs. Taylor. “I mean, he was her patient,” she clarified, red-faced. “Cancer, I think.” She swatted at Janice’s uniformed arm in chuckling rebuke.

  Graham paid the bawdy comedy no mind and pressed on. “I’d like to speak with them both. Are they here at the moment?”

  The Pilkingtons were an affluent, sophisticated couple, Graham could see at once. Their room was as neat as Sylvia’s had been, but their belongings spoke of class; a hand-made pashmina scarf, a Gucci purse, and Mr. Pilkington stood in an immaculate Savile Row suit.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Pilkington, I’m sorry to disturb you. But I’m sure you’ve heard…” The couple waved Graham and Sergeant Harding into the room. They took a corner armchair and the desk’s leather-bound seat.

  The gaunt, long-faced Pilkington said nothing, seemingly content to let his wife do the talking. “Sylvia was our doctor, back in London,” Mrs. Pilkington offered. She sat on the edge of the bed, her Gucci bag clasped tightly, as though one of these new arrivals might try to make off with it. “She cured Nigel’s cancer. Amazing doctor,” she said, rather gushingly, as one might describe a new hairdresser whom you simply had to try.

  “Were you aware,” Harding asked, “that she was here on Jersey? You know, before you arrived here?”

  Anne Pilkington was shaking her head, but before she could speak, it was Nigel’s voice they heard, low and sad. “I was. Dr.Norquist is the reason I encouraged Anne to move here for the summer. I’ve been seeing her, you see.”

  Mrs. Pilkington twisted suddenly to face her husband. “Nigel? Why didn’t you… I mean… How could you…”

  Entirely unwilling to bear witness to an impromptu domestic hissy-fit, Graham interrupted. “When, Mr. Pilkington?”

  “The first time was about six weeks ago,” he said, a little more confident now, as though the presence of police officers might protect him from his wife’s sudden and growing anger. “I met her in the village,” he smiled thinly, before catching Anne’s furious expression and wilting slightly.

  “And you spent some time together?” Sergeant Harding asked delicately. Her tone carried no insinuation, Graham was relieved to hear, but this did nothing to calm Mrs. Pilkington, whose assumptions of infidelity were as plain as the lettering on her Gucci bag.

  “We caught up, as old friends do,” he explained, his face innocent. Graham wondered quite why his wife had rushed to assumptions and anger, and concluded that, as in most long marriages, there were undercurrents that others could never know. Secrets that might never see the light of day, lest the delicate house of cards come crashing down. “I saw her on… what would it be,” he searched his memory, “the end of last week. We had coffee in the village.”

  “You said you were going to the post office to send a card to Margaret after her dog died!” Anne Pilkington exclaimed in a furious roar. Graham judged her reaction commensurate with her husband having confessed to killing the dog himself during a deranged Satanic ritual, rather than anything as benign as having coffee with his old doctor. “Why?” she demanded, tears starting to fall.

  As the couple confronted each other in a stony, accusatory silence, Sergeant Harding caught Graham’s eye and mouthed, “What the heck?”

  Graham shrugged with genuine confusion. These older couples, he mused to himself. His parents were the same. Forty-one years of marriage, and they could still get each other riled up over the simplest thing.

  But this exchange between the long-married couple threatened to derail their interview and might limit how much they learned about Sylvia’s comings and goings, and the people they knew. Graham stepped in.

  “Mrs. Pilkington, we’re trying to build a picture of Sylvia’s habits and relationships. At the moment, her only romance seems to have been with Colonel Graves, and they were close to becoming engaged.” He hoped this news might assuage Anne Pilkington’s coursing anger.

  “Seems to have been?” she demanded, almost shrieking at the detective.

  “Anne, listen,” Nigel said in the plaintive tone of a man entirely disinterested in a protracted argument with a hysterical wife. “I needed her advice. It’s… Well, I should have told you months ago, but…”

  Anne’s expression changed as quickly as a cloud covers the sun. “Nigel? What is it, darling? Tell me.”

  Nigel glanced awkwardly at the two officers, and Graham was halfway to standing before Nigel spoke again. “I was thinking of suicide. The cancer. It’s back. And it’s bad.”

  Jesus. Graham watched the two embrace and console one another for a truly awkward minute before it was clear they would learn nothing more until the couple gathered themselves.

  “We’ll be going,” Harding said gently. “Thank you for your time, and… We’re sorry for your troubles. Both of you.”

  Graham nodded in comradely approval, and they took their leave, closing the door very quietly behind them. “Conclusions, Sergeant Harding?” Graham asked as they headed down the hallway toward the stairs.

  “Don’t marry a crazy, suspicious person,” she said.

  “Very droll. Do you think Mrs. Pilkington was genuine? I mean,” he said, pulling Harding aside at the top of the stairs, “was she learning of the renewed acquaintance between Sylvia and her husband for the first time?”

  Harding shrugged. “It sounded pretty convincing to me, sir. If that was acting, it deserved an Oscar. Why do you ask?”

  Graham’s notebook was out once more. “Because if she already had her suspicions and murdered Sylvia to bring an end to her husband’s affair…” He left the rest unspoken and made a string of notes in his distinctive, cursive handwriting, a legacy of strict schooling and a passion for neatness.

  His pen only stopped when they spotted Marcella down the hallway.

  “Whose room is this?” Graham asked her. The diminutive woman, as young as twenty, Graham guessed, was picking up a lunch tray from in front of the door.

  “Alice,” she said at first, but then corrected herself. “Miss Swift.” Marcella was visibly uncomfortable to be suddenly questioned by the police. “I bring her lunch every day,” she said, her Portuguese accent drawing out the vowel sound until the word was closer to ‘launch’. “Is a problem?”

  “No, no,” Graham assured her. “Carry on as normal.”

  Marcella seemed grateful to be excused but more due to the challenges of communicating, Graham concluded, than any nefarious involvement in the day’s events. He knocked on the door with three swift taps.

  “Marcella?” came a voice from inside.

  “No, it’s the Jersey Police, Miss Swift. May we have a word?” Sergeant Harding said. She assumed that they might receive a warmer reception if Alice Swift heard a female voice at her door.

  “The police?” she asked, blinking, as she opened the door. Then her tone softened, and her face fell. “Oh, I suppose you’re here about that poor woman?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” Graham told her.

  “Terrible thing. Come in,” Alice said, beckoning the pair inside. Her room was rather more austere than the Pilkington’s, though, Graham mused to himself, so is Harrods. It was dominated by a wooden contraption which he took a moment to identify.

  “You’re a weaver,” Graham finally said, admiring the work. “How wonderful. Is it a hobby or your profession?”

  Alice returned to the wooden stool by her loom but turned to face the two officers. “A little of both, I’d say,” Alice replied. Approaching forty, she was far
from unattractive, Graham couldn’t help noticing, but there was something stand-offish about her character which made him slightly suspicious. “I’m planning on opening my own shop in London.”

  “Wonderful!” Graham said again. Inwardly, he wondered at the economic sense of such a venture, but when someone is driven by a will to accomplish something…

  “Have you found out anything more about Sylv-, I mean, the victim?” This question was to Sergeant Harding, who had stepped back to allow Graham to work his magic. It was one of the advantages of his natural charm, she was beginning to assume, that female witnesses might be more forthcoming.

  “Well, the investigation has just begun,” Harding told her. “We’re just getting started interviewing people here at the Inn.”

  Alice brushed hair out of her eyes and regarded the detective. “Surely you can’t believe that one of the guests did this,” she said.

  Something clicked in Graham’s mind. “Did what?” he asked.

  “I mean…” Alice began. “She was only in her fifties, wasn’t she? Couldn’t have been natural causes, though you never know, people do simply drop dead sometimes for no good reason.”

  Graham was glancing around the room, taking in the spools of material, the neatly lined-up pots of dye and paint on the mantle, the smaller threads carefully wrapped around templates the size of business cards and stored in a basket, ordered by hue.

  He thought back to Tomlinson’s comment on the beach. “Actually, that’s hardly ever what happens,” he said, almost to himself. Alice watched him become distant for a few moments, curious as to how the man’s mind was working. Then, Graham remembered the lunch tray.

  “Can I ask what you’ve eaten today, Miss Swift?”

  Taken aback and squinting at the detective, Alice answered, “Well, I hardly think that has anything to do with it.”

  “Answer the question, if you would, Miss Swift.” Harding’s gentle nudge was sufficient.

  “Coconut chicken and rice,” she said. “The chef has been adding some light, Asian-themed lunches to the menu. It was very nice. Not too spicy.”

  Even before she’d finished her description, Graham was focusing on the tapestry which was in a half-completed state on Alice’s loom. The bright azure blue of the ocean caught his eye first, then two racing sailboats, neck and neck, their sails billowing. On the shore beyond, onlookers waved cheerily under a sky dotted with wispy clouds.

  “This really is terrific,” he said.

  Alice shone with pride. “It’s going to be a wedding gift. Son of a friend. He’s marrying a landlubber from Sevenoaks but swears he’ll make a sailor of her.”

  “Very imaginative,” Graham continued appreciatively, drawing a raised eyebrow from Harding. Utilizing one’s charm to encourage a reluctant witness was one thing, but this was far closer to simple flirting. She felt a stab of jealousy. Alice was clearly smart and creative, probably well-traveled too, and what man would fail to be impressed by those gorgeous, carefree curls, and the way her flowing, hippy-dippy dress was stretched tight across her chest like a canvas on a frame, or indeed, the threads on her loom…

  “Sergeant, I think we’re done here,” Graham told her. “Thank you for your time, Miss Swift.”

  The artist stood and shook Graham’s hand, settling for a cute wave to Sergeant Harding. Janice faked a smile and tried to set aside the grumpy thoughts. Try working for a living, sweetheart, rather than making pretty pictures of boats. A shop in London… Give me a break.

  Outside, Graham caught her moping expression. “A suspect?” he asked.

  It wasn’t what Harding had expected. “Why should she be?” They descended the stairs together. “She barely seemed to know Sylvia, and I can’t see a motive there. Unless Sylvia insulted one of her stitch-pictures.”

  “Tapestries,” Graham corrected her. “And she’s got real talent.”

  They reached the lobby and Graham asked for the latest news from Barnwell. “A pair of them, by all accounts,” Harding grumbled, sotto voce.

  CHAPTER 3

  A DAPPER, ALMOST cheerful Dr. Tomlinson strode into the police station’s reception area, slid a manila folder onto the desk in front of Constable Barnwell, and tapped it twice with his finger. “Tell your new boss,” the elderly pathologist said proudly, “that he owes me dinner at the Bangkok Palace.”

  The toxicology screen had been returned in record time, partly at DI Graham’s own urging, but mostly because Tomlinson was genuinely curious to know the truth. Murders were not exactly a dime a dozen on Jersey. In his whole time as pathologist here, he’d dealt with only five, and that record went back to the early 1980s. There had been suicides, of course, some of which had initially raised suspicions of foul play, but the evidence had quickly confirmed otherwise. In most cases, Tomlinson was forced to submit the sad, dreary ruling that another ambitious stockbroker had bitten off more than he could chew and decided to end his days in the harbor or in a luxury apartment in the company of a bottle of scotch and some pills. It was a lot more CSI-Jersey than CSI-New Jersey, all in all.

  “Okay, then. Let’s have it.” Graham waved Tomlinson to a seat in his office, and the older man closed the door. The DI had returned to the station from the White House Inn to review what they’d discovered so far. He was enjoying the day’s second pot of tea, its enervating and slightly floral scents lending a welcome elegance to his bare and as-yet unimpressive office.

  “Asphyxia,” Tomlinson enunciated. “It’s the only thing I’m certain of at the moment.”

  Graham turned the report to face him and scanned its conclusions. “Before she was buried in the sand, or after?”

  “Before,” Tomlinson confirmed. “No signs of sand in her airways. You’d have expected that,” he explained, “even if she were unconscious when buried.”

  Unlike most police officers, or even members of the general public, Graham was aware that asphyxia was a mode of dying, not a cause. “So, what killed her?”

  Tomlinson retrieved the report and took a seat, wincing as his old knees bent. “Well, it’s relatively simple. It’s all in the weight of the lungs, you see.”

  “Lungs?” Graham asked, reaching for his notebook.

  “Heavy lungs indicate that the victim’s heart went on beating for a time – perhaps as long as twenty minutes – after respiration ceased.”

  This was news to Graham. “That long?”

  “Surprising, isn’t it? How determinedly the human spirit clings to life, even when all hope is gone and brain functions are damned near ceased. But, Sylvia’s lungs were no heavier than yours or mine, as we sit here.”

  Graham did the math. “So, her heart stopped at about the same time that she stopped breathing.”

  “Or even before,” Tomlinson added.

  “But why?”

  “That’s where you have me,” the pathologist confessed. “Right now, I don’t have a reason. Something caused her heart to stop, but otherwise it was perfectly healthy.”

  “So what do you think happened?” Graham asked, curious to learn if the older, more experienced man had a theory.

  “My view hasn’t changed from when I saw her on the beach. I’d bet my last penny and all the others, that Sylvia’s death was no natural event. Like I said then, people rarely just keel over. Besides, if she quietly died of natural causes in her hotel room, who in God’s name would find the body and then drag it down some stairs to bury it in the sand?”

  “So, it’s murder,” Graham breathed. “You’re certain?”

  “As Christmas. Dinner is on you, Detective Inspector.”

  Graham nodded. He really wasn’t sure if Tomlinson’s findings were good news or bad. Part of him had been willing Sylvia Norquist’s untimely demise to be the result of an odd manifestation of natural causes. The idea that there was a murderer lurking in the White House Inn was unsettling, especially given the paucity of apparent motives. At least, so far.

  “What’s your best guess at present?” he asked, delibe
rately pressing Tomlinson.

  “A poison,” he said at once. “Something which causes the body to shut down, the heart and respiration to stop. But I can’t be sure. Could we ask the local doctors if they’ve prescribed anything which might cause an overdose? The kind of thing which wouldn’t show up on a toxicology screen?”

  “It’s a long shot,” Graham countered. “Most of that stuff is tied up in patient confidentiality. It could be weeks before we got a warrant to search any doctor’s records, even if we could identify the prescribing physician. And there must be dozens, even somewhere as small as Jersey.”

  “There are twenty-nine,” Tomlinson replied crisply. “I know most of them. I could put the word around, you know, see if anything comes up.”

  “Like what?” Graham asked, returning the folder.

  “Oh, you know, a ‘special request’ by a patient who presents themselves in the doctor’s office but without the appropriate symptoms, or one who seems to be faking it. They don’t just hand out potentially fatal doses of prescription medication like candy, you know.” Tomlinson returned the folder to his leather medic’s satchel and crossed his legs.

  “So, I’m assuming there was nothing untoward in Sylvia’s lunch?” Graham asked.

  “That fish,” Tomlinson confirmed with a flourish, “had not even a passing acquaintance with toxic substances. The food at the White House Inn isn’t exactly cordon bleu, but it needn’t be cordoned off, either.” Both men allowed themselves a quick chuckle at this dark humor.

  “Now, what about her hip pain?” Graham asked.

  Tomlinson frowned now. “Severe. Very painful.One look at her hip joints told me there’s no way she would voluntarily have navigated a long, stone staircase unless there was George Clooney at the other end.”