“Mr. Beauclerk-Fisk was not unaware of all of this. It preyed on his mind, the sinking profits, and the effect it would have on our long-planned merger. What it could have to do with his murder, I couldn’t say.”
And couldn’t care less-was he expected to believe that? Ruthven’s death meant more for her to cope with, and that was all? On the other hand, his death created some job security for her, however temporary, so that was all to the good-someone, after all, had to pick up the slack left by his demise. The rest of her speech could be translated as: People with lives outside their jobs are out.
It’s making matters worse, but stockholders have to be deluded into believing that it helps. If we don’t have an act, we can at least wear a costume.
“What about Mr. Beauclerk-Fisk’s personal life, outside the office? Any problems there?”
To his utter astonishment, she blushed violently at that. Not a soft, pink, maidenly blush, but a blotch of red that spread like sunrise from her throat, engulfing her face.
My, my, he thought. All that could be hoped for by way of a reaction.
“Now that, I really wouldn’t know.” She riffled the folders at her elbow, not willing to meet his eyes. She checked her watch, as she probably did a hundred times a day, and began twisting the cap of a pen. He was definitely putting a crimp in her composure; her redundancy speech might not go as smoothly as it should, despite all the rehearsals. Good.
“He was, of course, married.”
“I know that,” she snapped.
“Happily, would you say?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Inspector. What do you imagine? That he and I sat around swapping love stories? It was a business. We operated on a businesslike level. I’ve no idea what his personal life was like, apart from what I read in the papers. Like everyone else.”
That there was more going on than a business-like relationship, he already knew. That she had harbored hopes of something more permanent than their clandestine relationship, judging by her reaction, he no longer doubted. Was it possible there actually had been more, on Ruthven’s side as well-or had he only led her to believe so? Had she removed her glasses one night as they pored together over the spreadsheets and, seeing her sharp little eyes, had he suddenly been overcome by unquenchable passion? Had he realized then that of all the people in the world, he had most in common with Manda Croom?
No, it was absurd. And perhaps therein lay the problem. She must have enough self-awareness to know it was absurd, hopeless, that she would never receive more from Ruthven than a pat on the head for being so convenient-such a good assistant in every way. His wife’s income from a trust established by her father, St. Just had learned, was small by Beauclerk-Fisk standards, but reliable; no doubt Ruthven had come to count on it during the downswings. But it appeared such practicalities hadn’t stopped Manda’s daydreams.
Yet another feature of his job St. Just disliked, he reflected now, was reading other people’s love letters, which he had occasion to do with astonishing frequency. They were-with a few exceptions, when they were chilling-so boringly, predictably the same.
Manda’s letters, once the I.T. expert had broken Ruthven’s laptop code so the police could read them at their leisure, proved to be simply painful to read. Manda wrote like a woman pleading for her life. Ruthven, it seemed, was her life. The earlier letters were either coy or beseeching, desperate, numbingly repetitive. So much so, St. Just imagined Ruthven had not bothered to read them after the first half dozen or so and clearly had not bothered to reply. The later ones were manipulative, calculated, and at times threatening, implying rather than stating that she had a tale to tell his wife, if she chose. The most recent had reached an agonizing pitch: a screed of vituperation, followed by abject, abasing apology.
St. Just didn’t want to admit to her he had read every word, but he didn’t see another way to cut quickly through the line she was feeding him.
“Miss Croom,” he began.
“Ms.”
“Ms. You were having an affair with Ruthven Beauclerk-Fisk.”
She pulled off her glasses, the better not to see him.
“Whoever told you that?” The attempt at indignant outrage was one of the poorer efforts St. Just felt he had ever witnessed.
“Er. Certain letters-e-mails-you sent him have come to our attention.”
She froze for a long moment, no doubt sorting out the possible responses. But at last her shoulders slumped, as if a puppet master had cut the strings tying her to the controller.
“You had no right,” she murmured. She fumbled her glasses back in place but wouldn’t look him in the eye; her gaze focused on nothing as she, no doubt, recalled certain choice words and phrases that she’d sent over the Internet for all the world, and the police, to see.
He trotted out the stock phrase:
“In a murder investigation, you will find we have quite a few rights. We obtained his wife’s permission to search his belongings, in any event.”
“Lillian? You didn’t-”
“There was no need for her to see them, no. This, Miss-Ms.- Croom, is, again, a murder investigation. We’re not interested in spreading gossip or stirring up trouble to no purpose. We’re interested in the truth. Your e-mails to the murdered man…”
“Yes, I can imagine what you thought after reading them. So I’m the prime suspect, now, am I?”
“You need to be eliminated as a suspect, it would be more accurate to say.”
“By all means, let’s be accurate. ‘Where were you on the night of the sixth?’-is that it?”
“Yes. I enjoy speaking in clichés wherever possible. So, Ms. Croom, where were you?”
“I’ll need to speak with my solicitor,” she said, all business again.
“Why? Does he know where you were?”
“Inspector…”
“Detective Chief Inspector St. Just.”
“All right, DCI St. Just, my solicitor is Reginald Carr-Galbraith, Esq. And I am certain he would advise me to arrange a time at our mutual convenience for me to talk with you in his presence.”
“You’re not under arrest, Ms. Croom.”
“But I am a suspect, Inspector, by your own admission.”
By my own admission? Just who was being questioned here?
Still, he felt he’d learned what he came to know. She had no real alibi, or she’d have come out with it. The blameless telly-watching alibi was his guess. And despite everything, he believed that was even quite possibly true. Possibly.
“Tomorrow morning, eight AM, Cambridgeshire Constabulary, then,” he said, handing her his card.
“Eight AM? You must be mad. There’s no way we can arrive that early. And I have a meeting with-”
He shrugged.
“Then face a charge of refusing to cooperate with the police, Ms. Croom,” he said rising. “It’s all the same to me. Eight AM sharp.”
But it was an appointment he was destined not to keep.
15. DEAD END
BY SIX PM, MRS. Romano was concerned. By seven, she knew something was wrong. As the clock edged closer to eight, she knew something was very, terribly wrong.
At five she had followed long-established custom and surged her leisurely way to the door of Sir Adrian’s study, bearing a tray with a silver tea service and a Waterford decanter of whiskey. She knocked. No response. Knocked again. This time there was a bark. At least, a bark is what it sounded like. On reflection, she realized the bark was human: Sir Adrian, demanding to know what she wanted.
What she wanted? What she wanted? Every evening at five the ritual was the same: tea with a drop of whiskey for Sir Adrian, against doctor’s orders-Sir Adrian followed no one’s orders-and a half-hour or so of conversation, usually on banal topics like the weather, Watter’s lack of progress on the garden, or the wide-ranging folly of elected public officials. Only rarely did the conversation veer to the personal; that was not Mrs. Romano’s style, nor Sir Adrian’s. But these chats were Sir Adrian’s reward to
himself for another day of isolation at his desk, a decompression period before his solitary dinner, or before cocktails in the drawing room with visitors, as tonight.
“Your tea, Sir Adrian,” she said. The “of course” was silent.
“Not now!” came the bark.
A crease formed in the otherwise flawless skin between her arched, black eyebrows. This was strange. This, in distant and recent memory, was unprecedented.
Then she realized what must be happening, remembering what had changed in recent days in her small world of Waverley Court, even apart from this unspeakable murder. Had she not been holding the tray, she would have smacked her hand against her forehead: Stupida! Of course. Sir Adrian was married. He was, in fact, on his honeymoon, in a manner of speaking, but, unlike the usual run of newlyweds, thoroughly enjoying himself by staying close to home to torment his family. Violet must be in there with him. Lady Beauclerk-Fisk, she corrected herself-she must get used to that. And they were-oh, God, it didn’t bear thinking about. But that’s what they were up to.
Put out with Sir Adrian, and somewhat embarrassed, she turned and made her thoughtful way back to the kitchen.
As usual, Watters was there, his tea and a plate of homemade biscotti before him. He was dipping a slice carefully in his tea before gnawing on it with new, ill-fitting dentures, courtesy of the National Health Service. Something about the look of abstracted concentration on his face made her think of Paulo. When he had been at the teething stage, she used to offer him the same treat, sometimes with a drop of brandy mixed in the tea and milk so he would sleep. Paulo had never been an easy child.
“Well, you won’t believe it,” she said and, borrowing a phrase she had learned from Paulo, added, “They’re ‘at it.’” She set down the tray with more force than was strictly necessary. She hadn’t meant to say anything, but she was so used to Watters’ hanging about, it was exactly like talking to the walls.
“At what? Who? They all fighting again?”
“Sir Adrian and the new wife. They are at it like rabbits. In the study. Good heavens, he might have warned me.”
“You don’t mean it.” Watters was all ears. “I never thought, at their age… Well, well…” He chewed his biscotti slowly as he pondered this geriatric exploit. “She’s a dark horse,” he finished.
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Romano. “I am surprised. Well, I mean that I am surprised that I am surprised. They are just newly married.”
“Aye, but we none of us thought it were a love match, like.”
Mrs. Romano, who rather thought it was, at least on one side, kept her own counsel. The jury, she felt, was very much still out on that subject.
Mrs. Romano held no illusions about her relationship with Sir Adrian, which was a little more than that of employer and employee, and a little less than a friendship. He needed her; she felt sorry for him and was grateful to him. She also did not approve of him. She thought him childish. But then, she thought all men childish.
Still, she was thrown off by the event, and what it might portend for her. What realignment of her position in the household was taking place-had already taken place. And like any female displaced by another, she did not like it. She did not like what was clearly happening, at all. Sir Adrian, when he was at home, had never missed their evening hour.
First a body in her cellar, and now this.
In some vague attempt to realign the order of her firmament, she sat with Watters and, as he gnawed his biscotti like a bone, distractedly drank two or three cups of Sir Adrian’s tea, adding a dash of his whiskey for good measure. After awhile, she set about finishing the dinner preparations, going through the motions perhaps a little more woozily than before.
It was seven the next time she looked, and now she really did not know what to do. Watters had left for his cottage in the village some fifteen minutes before, and Paulo had appeared, ready for his stint serving at table. The adenoidal Martha arrived, late, just after Paulo.
Most of the meal Mrs. Romano had prepared ahead of time- she was pleased with the afternoon’s culinary experiment, which included thickening the chicken gravy with carrot she’d puréed in her new Cuisinart-so she considered sharing another glass of whiskey with Paulo. She hesitated to share with him her news; she suspected he wouldn’t have believed her. He was still at the age where sex between partners over fifty he thought of as an impossibility, if he thought about it at all, like the conception of the Minotaur.
She decided she had better forego the whiskey; it wouldn’t do to have Paulo breathing fumes over the dinner party. She set about making the salad dressing, whisking olive oil, mustard, and vinegar together, creating rather more of a mess than usual. After awhile, she sent Paulo out to the drawing room to report on how things were progressing. He came back.
“They’re all there, except for Sir Adrian,” he told his mother.
Again, unprecedented. Then she realized what he was actually saying.
“His wife is there?”
Paulo nodded, not much interested, busy with getting the dishes ready for their journey to the hot plate-in actuality, a large black cabinet that resembled a bank vault-in the serving room. The distance of the dining room from the kitchen, separated from the family area by a long, winding corridor designed to keep cooking smells from traveling into the main part of the house, necessitated this holding stage to keep the food from cooling by the time it reached its final destination. It made meal preparation difficult on the best of days, and this day Martha was even less help than usual, nervously dropping knives and serving spoons that then had to be rewashed.
“Oh, give over, do,” snapped Paulo at last. “Let me do it; it will save time.”
Martha took this display of bad temper as a sign of Paulo’s gentlemanly and helpful nature. Tittering, pleased-for in her mind Paulo resembled the swashbuckling heroes, cross-eyed with lust, depicted on the covers of the romance novels she read, and he featured in more than a few of her daydreams-she sank into a chair by the wooden work table. For the first time, she noticed Mrs. Romano’s abstracted look.
“What’s wrong then, Mrs. R.?”
By way of answer, Mrs. Romano said to Paulo:
“You’re sure he’s not there?”
“It’s not like you can miss him, is it? I told you, he’s not there. The rest are. That Albert came in last, as usual. But they’re all there.”
“Something is wrong,” she said. “When have you ever known him to be a minute late for the cocktails? I should go…”
But the memory of her earlier rebuff at Sir Adrian’s door stilled her. She couldn’t risk it. Still, according to what Paulo said, Violet wasn’t with him. Perhaps he was changing for dinner-yes, that must be it. He was just thrown off schedule by the novelty of the evening tryst with his bride.
But by quarter to eight, when Paulo reported back with Sir Adrian’s continued non-appearance, she could no longer contain herself. Her dinner would be ruined, for one thing. And if this was the way things were going to be with her Ladyship in charge, Mrs. Romano felt she was going to have a few words to say on that subject with her employer.
She stood up.
“I’ll go see what’s the matter,” she said, in the manner of a gladiator stepping into the Coliseum. Unscheduled visits to Sir Adrian’s study, even by Mrs. Romano, were another item in the “unheard of ” column. He would bellow, he would rage. She didn’t care. Her chicken was going to be overdone.
Again she made her way down the long connecting corridors into the family area. She would one day attribute her long life to the exercise afforded by the floor plan of Waverley Court.
She stopped outside the massive double doors of the study. She knocked. Louder. Nothing. He must be upstairs. But just in case… Because she didn’t believe he was upstairs dressing. She believed he was behind these doors-every instinct told her this was so-and not answering. Something wrong, wrong, wrong; the word reverberated as she slowly turned the handle and peered through the opening.
But sticking out from Sir Adrian’s back, impossible to ignore, was a long, black, ornately carved object. It took Mrs. Romano’s brain, cushioned as it was by shock and whiskey, full seconds to register this as a handle attached to a knife, the handle dark against a large, spreading stain on his back that could only be blood.
She threw the door open wide, inching into the room. No, she thought, not a knife. Bigger. Spada. No, no, no: sword. Her brain scrambled for purchase in two languages as she processed what she was seeing, as if finding the words for what she saw would make it all come right. Sir Adrian, he was pretending? Si, it was one of his jokes. She inched closer. No, not, pretending: Dead! Dead! Morta! Dio mio! Dagger!
Mrs. Romano staggered a few more steps toward the body, her hands pressed tightly against her mouth. Then she dropped her hands and screamed. She screamed until she fell, unconscious, to the floor.
***
They came running, a jostling stampede from the direction of the drawing room, led by George, Albert bringing up the rear. Just inside the door they stopped as one, like a panicked herd brought up short by an electric fence.
They nearly trampled Mrs. Romano before they noticed her crumpled form on the carpet.
George spoke first, but Sarah’s screams had already begun to provide background music to his words.
Death of a Cozy Writer Page 15
