Village Affairs

by Cassandra Chan

  “No, of course not,” said Towser.

  “Good day, then. No doubt we will be speaking again in the next few days.”

  Carmichael smiled again and turned back to his car.

  Towser stared after him, still clutching his shoes.

  “There we are then,” said Carmichael with a satisfied smile as he got back into the car. “That’s got the wind up him good and proper, that has.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Gibbons, letting in the clutch while his superior busied himself with his safety belt. “I hope it stirs something up,” he added.

  “Well, you never can tell, lad,” said Carmichael, settling into his seat and fishing for a cigar. “It was an opportunity, and worth taking in my opinion. Towser panicking because he believes we think he’s guilty of two murders may do nothing more than add to the village gossip mill. But sometimes, when people think the police have their minds made up, they get careless, or at least less wary.”

  “Then you don’t think there’s any chance left that Towser is guilty?” asked Gibbons.

  Carmichael’s eyes narrowed as he brought out his lighter. “He certainly could have done it,” he said. “He’s had every opportunity to get at that Seconal, but we’ve never found a motive for him to want Bingham dead, much less Joan Bonnar. No, as far as she’s concerned, it’s the crowd up at the old farmhouse who may have motive.”

  Gibbons was silent for a moment. “The problem,” he said, “is that we know Bingham’s death was a suspicious one because we know the body was moved afterward. But Joan Bonnar’s death may well have been accidental—if it weren’t for her connection with Bingham, we’d probably not be looking into it at all.”

  Carmichael frowned and then sighed. “Too true, lad,” he said. “It’s only my instincts that say something is badly amiss. And I could be wrong—heaven knows it’s happened before—but on the other hand, I don’t like to ignore a hunch.” He put down his window with a thoughtful look on his face, and bent his head to light his cigar. In between puffs, he added, “I want at least to know if Joan Bonnar had given her children or their dragon of a nanny cause to want her dead recently—if she had changed her will, or anything like that.”

  “I’d like to know, too,” admitted Gibbons. “But it doesn’t do to forget that the Bensons and Mrs. Potts all have alibis for Bingham’s death.”

  “Ah, well,” said Carmichael, flicking his lighter shut with a click, and settling back in his seat. “Martha Potts’s alibi isn’t a very good one, and we never looked too closely at the Bensons’, not knowing at the time that their mother was engaged to a murder victim. We mustn’t let a little thing like an alibi trouble us, Gibbons.”

  His sergeant laughed and Carmichael grinned at him as he blew out a stream of smoke.

  “We’ll see where we’re at once we’ve spoken to all these people today,” he added more practically. “Has the superintendent got that search warrant in hand yet?”

  “He said he’d have it by this afternoon,” said Gibbons. “I’ve arranged for a team of scene-of-the-crime officers to be ready.”

  “Good, good. If everything’s ready when we arrive, you can go with the SOCKOs and oversee the search, and I’ll keep your appointment with Miss Bonnar’s agent.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Gibbons, and, turning onto the A40, put his foot down on the accelerator.

  Bethancourt, returning from the Benson farm, stopped in the village at the tobacconist’s. As he emerged from the shop, his attention was caught by a white Rolls-Royce proceeding apace down the High Street. It slowed as it came abreast of him, and then swerved abruptly over to the curb, narrowly missing the right front bumper of his Jaguar.

  “Hullo,” he said, somewhat startled.

  Eve Bingham leaned across the passenger seat and he obligingly stepped to the window.

  “I’ve decided to stay on here until after the Bonnar inquest,” she announced.

  “That’s good,” he said, nonetheless rather surprised. She looked tired, he thought. Her face was pale and beneath the dark blue eyes there were circles. More than tired, he decided, she looked unhappy, as if she had lost the strength to battle further with life.

  “It’s Wednesday,” he said impulsively. “Choir practice night, you know. Why don’t you come ’round with me tonight and listen to it?”

  She smiled grimly and shook her head. “And have the whole village staring at me, wondering if I’m a murderer? You’re a brave man, Phillip, but I don’t think I’m up to it.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “They’ll all be busy singing. You don’t have to come to the pub afterward, you know, if you don’t want to. And we’ll be sitting at the back, so that I can smuggle the dog in.”

  She bit her lip, hesitating. “Very well,” she said abruptly. “I’ll meet you at the church at—what time?”

  “Seven o’clock,” he answered, smiling at her. “You’ll see, Eve. It will do you good to get out.”

  She laughed mirthlessly. “Christ,” she said. “My first big night out since I got here and I’m going to the village church to listen to hymns. Would anyone have believed it? If this gets back to Paris, I’m finished.”

  “Your reputation is safe with me,” Bethancourt promised. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  She nodded and eased the Rolls back into the street.

  Bethancourt gazed after her for a moment, pulling a cigarette from the fresh packet he had bought and tapping it absently on the back of his hand. Then he shook his head.

  “I’m probably a fool,” he said, and bent to shield his lighter flame from the breeze.

  CHAPTER 16

  Joan Bonnar’s solicitor was a hearty, rotund man whom Carmichael found tediously self-important. Mark Smith, Esq., did his best to give the impression that his famous client could barely make a dinner reservation without consulting him. After several minutes of persistent questioning, however, Carmichael elicited the information that in fact Mark Smith, Esq., had not spoken to Miss Bonnar since she had signed the contracts for her current play back at the beginning of June. Certainly she had never spoken to him about changing her will.

  But, thought Carmichael, at the beginning of June, she had only known Charles Bingham for a month or so and would hardly have been thinking of marriage. He tried to come at the problem from a different angle.

  “But if she had thought, for some reason, of altering her bequests,” he said, “would you have expected her to be in touch at once? I mean, was she generally efficient about such things? Or was she more apt to put a thing off until the last moment?”

  Smith gave a smug little smile. “Artistic people are often a bit lax about their business affairs, Chief Inspector.” He said this as though it were an original thought, and one that would probably surprise Carmichael. The detective suppressed a sigh and kept a neutral expression on his face. “However,” Smith continued, “Joan was better than many of her peers. If she had made up her mind to change her will, I should have expected to hear from her within a week or two. In fact, it would really be more likely that she would have rung me to get my advice about the changes before she made up her mind.”

  Carmichael ignored that last sentence; it was all of a piece with how Smith wanted his relationship with Joan Bonnar to be seen, and Carmichael doubted very much that it was true.

  “What about if she contemplated marrying again?” he asked. “She’d have to update her will then?”

  “There would, of course, have to be a new will in that case,” answered Smith. “The marriage would nullify the old one. But the provisions in it wouldn’t necessarily change. Joan didn’t alter her bequests when she married Daniel Mitchum, although of course there was a prenuptial agreement then.”

  “And when she married Eugene Sinclair?” asked Carmichael.

  Smith waved a hand, as if Joan’s two marriages to Sinclair were of no importance. “I was not acting for Joan at that time,” he said. “Her affairs were in the hands of our then-senior partner, who has since retired. I expect
I could find out, if you wished.”

  “Yes, that might be helpful,” said Carmichael thoughtfully. “I’d also like to know if there were prenuptial agreements on those occasions and, if so, how they differed from the last one.”

  Smith made a note. “I’ll have my junior research it and ring you,” he said.

  “Thank you very much,” said Carmichael, reflecting that, if the man was annoying, he was also being quite helpful in his way. “I think that only leaves the terms of the will itself. Could you outline the basics for me?”

  “Certainly, certainly,” said Smith. “It’s not a difficult document at all. There are several bequests to the charities she favored, as well as provisions for both Martha Potts and Mary Calthorp to receive their salaries until their deaths, even after their retirements. But the bulk of the estate—and we are talking quite a sizeable amount here, Chief Inspector—goes to her children, as you would expect.”

  Carmichael nodded. He had indeed expected it, but it did nothing to help make a case against the Bensons, or anyone else for that matter.

  Suppressing yet another sigh, he thanked the solicitor one more time and rose to take his leave.

  Once outside the office, he switched his mobile back on, and it obliged him by ringing almost as soon as he had returned it to his pocket.

  “There you are, sir,” came Gibbons’s voice. His sergeant sounded almost cheerful. “How was the solicitor?”

  “All negative,” growled Carmichael. “Although he was helpful enough, I must say. Did you find out anything from the agent?”

  “No,” admitted Gibbons. “She’s quite overcome, and is certain Joan would never have committed suicide. But what I rang to say, sir, is that the search warrant’s come through. I’m on my way to meet the SOCKOs at the town house now.”

  “Excellent,” said Carmichael, trying to sound enthusiastic, although in truth he expected little if anything would come of the search. “I’ll leave that to you, Gibbons, and go on with the interviews myself. Ring me if you find anything.”

  “Certainly, sir,” said Gibbons.

  Carmichael rang off, sighed, and hailed a taxi to take him to Dame Sarah’s flat.

  Marla rang when she returned from Paris that afternoon, the more eager to tell Bethancourt what she had discovered about Eve and her father as it tended to exonerate Eve. Nevertheless, there was an odd undertone to the conversation that Bethancourt could not quite define; it was almost as if Marla were angry with him. But that could hardly be possible; they had not seen each other in three days and had parted before that on the best of terms.

  “I did my best,” said Marla, “but there wasn’t a lot to find out, really. It seems that while her father was in town, Eve dropped out of all the doings to spend time with him. There was an evening at the theater, but aside from that only Catherine met him.”

  “Catherine?”

  “Yes, Catherine DeLorre—the wine heiress. She went to dinner with Eve and her father one night. I could tell she wasn’t sure what to make of Charlie, but she said quite definitely that Eve was very proud of her father. Hung on his every word, and kept touching him as if she couldn’t believe he was real. ‘Affectionate,’ Catherine said.”

  “So apparently they were getting on like a house on fire.”

  “They were that night, at any rate. God only knows how they spent the rest of the time. Still, it does tend to show that she was fond of him rather than the reverse, don’t you think?”

  “I do. That’s brilliant, Marla. You’ve been a great help.”

  “And,” she continued, “what with all the rest of the hoopla, I really think Eve’s out of it.”

  “It does look like it,” admitted Bethancourt. “You’ve heard about Joan Bonnar, then?”

  “Of course I heard,” said Marla impatiently. “The BBC’s new motto is ‘All Joan Bonnar, all the time.’ I’m sick to death of Joan Bonnar.”

  “Oh,” said Bethancourt, a little nonplussed. “Well,” he said, rallying, “did you want to come back here? Eve’s staying on until after the Bonnar inquest—”

  “I don’t think so,” she interrupted him. “In fact, I had rather thought you would be back here by now.”

  Bethancourt hastily ransacked his memory, but he could think of nothing he had said which might have given her this impression.

  “But, love,” he said, “you knew things might not be finished here.”

  “I can’t really see what more there is to do out there,” she said. “And there is Drew’s party tomorrow night.”

  Bethancourt was silent a moment. He had entirely forgotten the party and knew he could not admit it. Moreover, he could, on the instant, think of no possible way of telling her he did not intend going that would not result in a terrific blowup.

  “But that’s tomorrow night,” he said, rather desperately.

  Marla’s tone warmed immediately. “Then you are coming back?”

  “Of course,” said Bethancourt. There was really nothing else he could think of to say. It was obvious to him that, having convinced herself Eve was not a murderer, Marla’s interest in the case had evaporated. “I’ll drive down in the morning,” he continued, thinking he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, “and we can have lunch and go to that costume exhibit at the V and A.”

  “That would be lovely,” she purred, instantly appeased. “We could come back afterward and have champagne at my flat. Before we dressed for the party, you know.”

  He knew what she meant by that and felt a pang of regret that he wouldn’t be there.

  “I’d love that,” he said. “Look, darling, I promised to take Clarence to choir practice, so I had better go now. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  “Lovely,” she said. “Until tomorrow.”

  Bethancourt rang off and tried not to think about the fireworks he would have to face in the morning when he rang her to say he wasn’t coming.

  “Dear God, but this is a mess.”

  Gibbons swiveled around and found Carmichael surveying the SOCKOs as they took Joan Bonnar’s town house apart, piece by piece.

  “Sir?” he asked. “I didn’t realize you’d arrived.”

  “Yes, I’m here,” growled Carmichael, glaring at a perfectly innocent technician who was dusting the television for prints. “All Joan Bonnar’s friends and acquaintances agree that she would never have killed herself. She might, they admit, in the stress of the moment, have taken too many pills while she was drunk.” He snorted. “I’ve spent all day finding that out, Gibbons, and somehow I don’t think it was worth it.”

  Gibbons hid a sigh; he didn’t think it was worth it, either.

  “As if,” continued Carmichael, “I ever thought the bloody woman had topped herself to start with.”

  “Nor that it was accidental?” asked Gibbons, though he fancied he knew the answer.

  Carmichael snorted. “I was willing,” he said, “to believe that Bingham’s death was accidental, however difficult it was to account for how he had ingested those tablets without meaning to, but I’m damned if I’ll swallow two accidents in the same case. Don’t tell me you think it’s possible, Gibbons.”

  “No, sir,” agreed Gibbons. “There are too many little pieces that don’t fit.”

  “And no evidence of what really happened,” grumbled Carmichael. “And none, I’ll be bound, to be found here,” he added, glaring at the room.

  “We’re very nearly done here, sir,” Gibbons said, trying to sound cheerful. “I’ve been going over her diary. She’s made notations of some of her dates with Bingham, using his initials, but that doesn’t tell us much.”

  “It tells us she wasn’t lying when she said she was his girlfriend,” said Carmichael sarcastically.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Gibbons in as neutral a voice as he could manage.

  “Take no notice of me, lad,” said Carmichael, heaving a deep sigh. “I’m in a foul mood. I don’t mind dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s, but I do hate a pure waste of time. And
I’m much mistaken if we’re going to net anything here. The answer is in Chipping Chedding, though I’m damned if I can find a way to prove it.” He shook his head, as if trying to rid himself of his mood. “What I need,” he said, “is a quiet night at home with Mrs. Carmichael. Let’s have an evening off, Gibbons—it’ll do us both a world of good, and we can drive back to the Cotswolds first thing in the morning.”

  Gibbons did not think his empty flat would do much for his state of mind, but he agreed respectfully nonetheless, and added, “I can finish up here, sir, if you’d like to get on. As you say, we aren’t likely to find much.”

  “That’s uncommonly good of you, lad,” said Carmichael. “I appreciate it.”

  Gibbons grinned at him. “It’s all to my good to let Mrs. Carmichael put you in a better mood,” he said, and elicited a laugh.

  “She’ll have her hands full tonight,” said Carmichael ruefully. “Right, then. I’ll take the car and pick you up at nine.”

  Gibbons nodded and watched his superior wend his way back out, the thought of an evening spent with his wife already easing the tense lines of his shoulders.

  Gibbons himself turned back to Joan Bonnar’s diary with a sigh, feeling unaccountably depressed.

  Cerberus was sniffing leisurely at the porch while his master leaned against the doorjamb, smoking. From the stone walls of the church came the muted sound of singing, accompanied by the faint bellows of the organ. Bethancourt threw down his cigarette and trod on it carefully. He held his watch up to catch the faint light from a lancet window. Seven fifteen. He would wait a few more minutes.

  In another moment, the Rolls-Royce, gleaming whitely in the dark, came up and rolled to a stop on the verge. Bethancourt watched as the headlamps and motor died, and then stepped forward as Eve emerged.

  “Good evening,” he said. “I’m glad you came.”

  “I’m not sure I am,” she replied. “But you’re right—I needed to get out.”