Cook was oblivious to these nuances of behaviour. “Was it usual for your daughter to go into town on her own?”
“Not so usual for it to be the norm, inspector,” replied Eliza, daring Cook to question her suitability as a parent.
“How old was she?”
“Sixteen when… it happened.”
“Isn’t that a little young to be letting a girl go to town alone?” stated Cook.
“I didn’t think so,” replied Eliza, her voice carrying a knife with it.
Rathe’s voice was like velvet by comparison, covering the blade of her tone with a mellow softness. “When your husband went to pick her up, she wasn’t there?”
“They’d arranged to meet at Waterloo. He waited, waited, waited. She was never late. She… ”
Her eyes hardened at the memory and Rathe wondered again at her self-control. He would have expected tears at this point, but Eliza’s command of her self-control was so impressive that she betrayed no sign of impending tears. Rathe wondered whether it would be a different version of Eliza Graham who appeared once they had left her home. He half-imagined furious sobs once the door had been closed on their backs, but he could not feel certain that they would fall.
“My husband insisted that we wait a few more hours before contacting the police, in case she turned up,” Eliza said. “Teenage girls can be waylaid by meeting friends and getting carried away, he said. They can lose track of time. No doubt that’s true. But, even then, I knew it was a false hope. I think I lasted an hour, a little longer, before I called the police.”
Cook had been writing furiously in his notebook. Now, with the mother’s summary of the events complete, he forced the conversation back into the present. “Was there any particular reason you approached RPG Investigations, Mrs Graham?”
“Not especially. They seemed capable and efficient.”
“Did you speak to many agencies, or was RPG the first one you tried?”
“I did a brief internet search and made a choice,” she replied, growing impatient. “Look, what is this about? Is there some news about Lyndsey or not?”
Cook stood up and placed his hands behind his back. “I’m afraid we have no news about your daughter, Mrs Graham, but we do have something to say which you need to hear. Yesterday afternoon, Roger Gilchrist of RPG Investigations was found dead in his office.”
Rathe watched her reaction. Her cold eyes grew harder, widening in outrage, but her composure remained in place. She heaved her shoulders in an effort to retain her control of her emotions. The news had come as a shock, Rathe was sure about that, but he was impressed by the woman’s refusal to display anything which they might take as a weakness or a lack of control.
“An accident?” she managed to say.
“He was murdered,” said Cook. He saw no reason to decorate the truth with tact.
Eliza Graham put a hand to her mouth, as though she might be able to protect herself from the embarrassment of screaming if she forced the shock back down her throat. She walked out of the room, past Rathe, and into the conservatory. She banged on the glass and gestured for the man in the garden to come inside. By the time she was back with them, the urge to give a voice to her shock had subsided and her hand was back by her side.
“I want Elliott to hear all this,” she explained.
Rathe was watching the man march down the gravel pathway of the garden. Elliott Graham walked into the living room from the conservatory, slapping his newspaper against his thigh with an impatient rhythm, irritated that his morning solitude had been disturbed. He went to stand beside his wife, but his eyes had narrowed in suspicion as they fixed themselves on Rathe and Cook. He was a tall man, lean without appearing emaciated, his thin lips drawn down in a perpetual sneer of arrogance. Those suspicious eyes peered down the long nose which protruded from the thin face and the entire expression cast by those features was one of scornful superiority. His hair was grey, swept back from the intelligent forehead, but there were still traces of the soft golden colour which it must once have been. Rathe supposed he must have once been a handsome man, but he doubted Elliott Graham had ever been a truly likeable one.
“Who’s this?” he asked, the words clipped and precise.
Eliza Graham pointed to them in turn. “Inspector Cook and Mr Rathe.”
Graham took a step towards Cook, leaning over him. “Police? About Lyndsey?”
Cook was the shorter man by some margin but he retained eye contact with Graham and Rathe felt that there could be no doubt amongst any of them that Cook was neither impressed nor intimidated by the man’s posture.
“No, sir.” Cook remained motionless, offering no more than a direct response to the question. “And, if you don’t mind, I came to speak to your wife.”
Graham sniffed and turned on his heel. “You’ll speak to me too. Anything you want to say to her, you can say to me.”
“Thank you, sir,” smiled Cook. “But I’ll decide that, if it’s all the same.”
He walked towards the couple and stood between them, purposefully, his hands in his pockets. Rathe resisted the temptation to smile at Cook’s dismissal of Elliott Graham. Standing with his back to the arrogance, showing his easy control of the situation by keeping his hands in his pockets, Cook made it clear that Graham’s presence in the room was of no concern to him or his enquiry.
“Did Gilchrist give you any idea of what he’d found out about Lyndsey?” he asked.
“Gilchrist?” interrupted Elliott Graham. “The private detective? What’s happened to him?”
“He’s dead, Elliott,” said Eliza. “They say he’s been murdered.”
This time, Rathe watched Elliott Graham’s reaction to the news. He showed no sadness because of it, but Rathe hardly expected him to. He suspected that Graham would have seen Roger Gilchrist less as a man and more as a business concern. The man’s murder would seem to Graham to be a failed commodity rather than a loss of life. It did not surprise Rathe, therefore, to see him simply lower his eyes to the floor and give a minor, almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders.
“Tragedy,” he declared, without any suggestion of genuine empathy.
Unlike Rathe, Cook had given Elliott Graham no consideration at all and he had reserved his attention for the man’s wife. “Did Gilchrist tell you whether he’d found anything out?”
She shook her head. “Nothing specific. He just said he had a number of lines of enquiry to follow.”
Rathe stepped forward. “Did Gilchrist ever mention the name Kirsty Villiers to you at all, Mrs Graham?”
Elliott Graham held out a hand. “Excuse me, but who exactly are you? Are you a policeman too?”
Rathe held the man’s eyes with his own. “No, Mr Graham. I’m not a policeman.”
“Then I think you had better leave, don’t you?”
Cook moved between them. “Even if you think that, Mr Graham, I don’t. So he stays.”
Graham’s lips pursed in irritation. “Hardly an appropriate arrangement. Give me one good reason why I should answer his questions.”
“Firstly, he didn’t ask you the question, he asked your wife,” growled Cook. “Secondly, if you only want to answer questions put by an official detective, I’ll just get Mr Rathe to tell me what he wants to know and then I’ll ask it. But that means we’ll be here twice as long as necessary, so I suggest you let us do what we need to and get on with it. How does that sound to you, Mr Graham?”
Eliza raised her hands to her temples. “For pity’s sake, let’s just get on with this and get them out of here, Elliott. Please.”
Graham waved a hand in Rathe’s direction. It might have been a disgusted dismissal of the situation or a consent to Rathe’s continued involvement in the proceedings. Graham walked into the conservatory and sat down, far enough away to express his dislike of matters, but close enough that he was able to listen to their developments.
Rathe looked back to Eliza. “Do the names Kirsty or Alice Villiers mean anything to you?”<
br />
“I’ve never heard either name before.”
Rathe walked into the conservatory. “Have you ever heard those names, Mr Graham?”
The older man shook his head. “Never.”
Rathe frowned, scratching his chin in thought. “Gilchrist didn’t mention either of those names to you?”
The woman shook her head, but it was her husband who spoke. “We’ve just said so, haven’t we?”
Rathe did not dignify the outburst with a reply. He walked slowly around the room, pulling his bottom lip as his dark eyes narrowed in thought. Cook watched him move, knowing that something had sparked a train of thought inside Rathe’s brain. Rathe walked towards framed prints of coastal landscapes, eyeing them carefully as though they were the works of one of the master painters, but Cook knew that Rathe’s attention was far away from the room and its adornments. Rathe moved across to a small table upon which stood a chess set, set ready for a game, the figures carved representations of the court of Henry VIII. Rathe picked up the King and studied it intently.
“Who is the chess player?” he asked.
“My husband,” Eliza replied. “I’ve never been able to play the game.”
“Could Lyndsey?”
Graham had walked back into the living room. “I tried to teach her many times. She showed promise, but she wouldn’t persevere with it. Lost interest too rapidly.”
“It was the same with the piano,” confessed Eliza, unable to keep the regret out of her voice.
“Gave up on things too easily,” declared Elliott Graham.
“You pushed her too hard.” Eliza intended it to be taken as an accusation, and it was, but she had said it so calmly that for Elliott to make a scene as a result would have made him look foolish.
Rathe replaced the King and placed his hands in his pockets. “I’ve always enjoyed a good game of chess.”
Eliza Graham was not listening, her interest in chess being so negligible as to be non-existent. Instead, she was looking at Cook, who became aware of her scrutiny and straightened his spine to confront it.
“Is Mr Gilchrist’s death something to do with my daughter’s disappearance?” she asked.
Cook shook his head. “I can’t say, Mrs Graham. Not at this point.”
“But it seems likely, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not prepared to speculate about anything until I have more facts.” Cook made it sound like a rehearsed line, delivered with ease but authority.
Eliza considered him for a moment, before clasping her hands together and raising her head in an assumed exhibition of proud dignity. “Well, will you tell me whether you think Lyndsey is alive or not?”
Cook had not been prepared for it to be asked so soon, or so directly, and it was clear that the question had embarrassed him. There had been no official curtain of rhetoric to hide behind.
“I can’t say,” was the vague reply he gave.
“I’m only asking for an opinion.”
It was Rathe who came to the rescue. “Inspector Cook is investigating murder, Mrs Graham. It would be inappropriate for him to have a personal opinion without evidence to support it. And I think it is unfair to ask it.”
Elliott Graham gave a sneering laugh. “In other words, if nothing useful can be said, it’s pointless saying anything else at all.”
It had sounded to Rathe like a dismissal and he, for one, was happy to take it as such. The room had suddenly become oppressive and he felt the need for air. He was not sure what it was which was stifling him the most: Eliza’s rejection of her natural feelings, Elliott’s supercilious contempt for Cook and him, or his own frustrating inability to grasp that single important fact which he was convinced had come to light.
* * *
“I don’t think either of us expected to see you again, Anthony,” said Sonia Villiers. “We were sorry about you and Alice.”
“Yes, so was I,” he said, lowering his head. “But I understand why she felt she had to… ”
Sonia looked at him with those same eyes which had struck him so powerfully in her elder daughter. In the time which had passed since he had last seen Alice’s parents, he had forgotten how similar she and Sonia had been. They shared those same feline features, the gap in the teeth, and the blonde hair, so that at times he felt sure he could know for certain what Alice would have matured into if she had been permitted to continue to live. Sonia was still an attractive woman and, in her younger years, she would have been especially beautiful. Rathe was sure that when Terence Villiers first saw Sonia, he would have had the same lurch of emotion and the same clutch of desire around his heart that Rathe had felt when he had met Alice for the first time. Now, Sonia laid a hand on Rathe’s, but only for a moment, her gentle kindness towards him seeming to pass through him with her touch, her gaze, and her smile.
“We always felt that she should have stood by you when things went badly for you,” she said. “I think you have a right to feel betrayed by her.”
Rathe shook his head. “I don’t think the way I was back then gave me any right to her support. I was selfish, vain, and proud. Not qualities which should be rewarded.”
Sonia studied his face. “You look like a different man, Anthony.”
“I think I am.”
“A much sadder man.”
He did not answer that. Instead, he lowered his head and studied his clasped fingers which lay in his lap.
Terence Villiers walked into the room with the tray of coffee. Like his wife, he had changed little. He had retained his keen, blue stare and genial expression, but age had creased the skin around the amiable eyes and the gently smiling lips. His once dark hair had turned white but it had retained its luxuriance and it showed no signs of deserting him. A pair of gold rimmed spectacles now hung from his neck and there was a selection of pens in the pocket of the shirt sleeved shirt he wore. The collection of crosswords and puzzle books which Rathe had seen stacked on the coffee table in the centre of the living room had determined the purpose of the pens. Terence had always been a keen exponent of puzzles, believing as deeply as any faith that a sharp mind meant a healthy life. Judging by the man’s appearance, Rathe found it hard to argue.
“A long time since we sat here having coffee together,” he said. “I only brought milk for two, Anthony. I trust you still take yours black.”
Rathe accepted the cup with a smile. “Yes, Terence, thank you.”
Alice’s father handed his wife her cup but he did not take one for himself. Instead, he placed his hands in his pockets and looked down at Rathe. “As I recall, you were never one to beat around the bush.”
“Terence… ” cautioned Sonia, detecting Rathe’s abrupt embarrassment.
“He wasn’t,” insisted Terence. “I admired him for it. I hope I still can. You’re here after all this time for a reason, Anthony, and I hope you’re not going to wait an age to tell us what it is.”
Rathe hadn’t known of Terence Villiers’s admiration for his plain speaking and he was surprised to find how much the admission of it meant to him. Realising that it deserved respect, he placed his cup down and rose from his chair, moving to stand alongside the man who in another life might have been his father-in-law.
“You’re right, Terence, and I won’t insult either of you by pretending otherwise,” he said. “Nor can I say that I am here socially, although I wish I could say I was.”
Terence looked across at his wife for an instant. “I think we can assume that you’re here for a more serious reason than coffee.”
Rathe bowed his head. “The truth is that I asked to come here in place of somebody else. I felt it might have been better for someone you know – at least, someone you once knew – to explain things.”
Sonia had leaned forward on the settee, her instincts now arching their backs in readiness. “Anthony, what is it?”
“You’re here in place of whom?” demanded Terence.
Rathe met his gaze. “The police. They will want to come here anyway but, for now,
they’ve let me do it in their place.”
“The police... ?” stammered Sonia. Then, once the idea had occurred to her, she placed her hands to her cheeks. “Not about Kirsty? After all these years… Terence?”
But her husband’s mind was working quicker than hers, the crosswords and Sudoku proving their worth. “Not Kirsty. Anthony wouldn’t be here for her. Oh, God… ”
Sonia was on her feet now, attempting to keep her balance as her world shifted out of control beneath her. “Alice? This is about Alice?”
Rathe had clenched his fists unwittingly and his jaw had clamped shut against both the pain he felt and the crueller pain he was causing. He should not have come, he knew that now. He should have left it to Cook with his dispassionate and official sense of detachment, instead of coming here, carrying with him those reminders of broken engagements and troubled times, to shatter their world completely with his news of death.
“I’m afraid it is about Alice,” he whispered, struggling to retain control of his voice. “I’m so sorry. She… she’s… ”
“Dead,” declared Terence Villiers. “Alice is dead.”
What followed was confusion. Rathe would later recall Sonia rushing into her husband’s arms, her voice making a noise which was barely human and which seemed to come from some place so deep her body seemed incapable of producing it. Terence remained firm, his grip on his wife as tight as he could manage, as though he was refusing to allow another of his family to be torn away from him by circumstance. How long the wailing lasted, Rathe could not say, but he knew that his presence there now was an intrusion. He mumbled a further apology, unable to prevent his own tears from falling, and in the days to come he would remember muttering something about being in the garden. As he attempted to walk away to give them privacy, he was surprised to find his movement blocked by a firm grip on his forearm. Terence Villiers had hold of him with one hand whilst the other arm remained wrapped around his wife. He grasped Rathe’s arm with the same firmness of grip with which he held his wife, and when he shook his head at Rathe, his eyes pleaded with the younger man to stay, as though his presence were vital to keeping some stability in the chaos.
When Anthony Rathe Investigates Page 19
