An Invisible Murder

by Joyce Cato

  He left before she could protest, and returned a few minutes later with a tea tray. In the meantime she’d looked around, noting the few but lovely paintings on the walls, and had become the recipient of a large tabby cat’s extravagant affections.

  ‘Oh, that’s Jemima. I hope you don’t mind,’ he said, looking down at his cat, which was now firmly curled up on the cook’s amply padded lap.

  ‘No, I quite like cats,’ Jenny said truthfully, giving the feline a stroke that went from nose-tip to tail-tip, and was rewarded by a loud, extremely satisfied, purr.

  ‘Oh good. Some people don’t, you know. Ava wasn’t particularly fond of cats.’

  Jenny sat up just a little straighter. This was what she was after. Information. Any kind of information. Background. Personality. Anything at all that might help her cast a light on Ava. ‘No? Well, some people don’t. Didn’t she like them as a little girl?’

  Anthony Grover shook his head on a smile. ‘No, not even then. I lived in Bicester for a long time, practically next door to the Simmonses. That’s how we got to know each other,’ he explained, settling down into his own chair with some difficulty and an obvious wince. ‘Her mother died when she was very young, and her father, well, he worked a lot. Since she went to the local school where I taught, and since she so loved anything to do with art, she got into the habit of coming around to my house, to look at my art books mostly. Sometimes I even took her into Oxford, to the museums. She loved it. She was such a studious little girl.’

  ‘Did she go to university there?’ Jenny prompted, although she already knew the answer.

  Anthony shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. Not that she wouldn’t have been capable, mind you. But her father didn’t approve of expensive education for women. He has very strange ideas.’

  Jenny didn’t miss the grimness in his voice. She waited until he’d poured out the tea and accepted her own cup. ‘From what I’ve heard of Mr Simmons, he’s not a very likeable man,’ she offered tentatively.

  Anthony Grover smiled at her. ‘You needn’t fence with me, Miss Starling. I may look ancient, but I’m not going to fall apart at the first hint of plain speaking. Basil Simmons, to put it bluntly, is a bastard. Dishonest, cold, ambitious and money-grabbing. He’s a social climber of the most odious kind, and a hypocrite to boot. And Ava, of course, was far too intelligent not to have seen it all for herself. Which was why, of course, she left home at the first opportunity.’

  ‘So Avonsleigh was not her first job?’

  ‘Good heavens no, although she was so very happy to be appointed there. Its main reputation is for its paintings, of course,’ he added, as if this explained everything. ‘When she first arrived, she wrote such long letters to me about touring the castle and practically haunting the corridors in every spare moment she had. She said you never knew what you were going to find next. You went into a perfectly ordinary, barely used room, and there was an El Greco. Or went into the library and got practically assaulted by Gainsboroughs. And then….’

  He paused, and took a slow sip of tea. ‘And then her letters became less…. I don’t know. Less full of life. Less cheerful. I could tell something was wrong. She didn’t seem to be getting on with the other staff. I had the impression…I don’t know. Not that she was being threatened, or anything like that,’ he added hastily, ‘but that she was not happy about something. She wrote once asking me how I would go about approaching a lord with some bad news. Or how I would ask a lady an awkward question. I got the impression that she wanted to tell them something unsavoury about one of the staff. That there was one who was being more than just unfriendly; but that’s only my opinion,’ he added hastily, his wavering voice firming for just a moment. ‘She never actually came right out and said anything of the kind in her letters, you must understand,’ he gabbled, anxious lest he had given the wrong impression. ‘I’d have told the police at once if she had. Besides, a nice young constable came around the other day and asked if Inspector Bishop might see them – her letters, I mean. They still have them, as far as I know.’

  Jenny took a sip of tea, frowning. This didn’t sound good. No, not good at all.

  ‘So you weren’t surprised when she wrote and asked you to visit her there? At the castle, I mean?’

  ‘Not really.’ Anthony sighed. ‘I suppose she’d got into the habit of coming to me in times of trouble.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘But when I got there, it was already too late,’ he added miserably. ‘Lady Avonsleigh though, was very kind about it. I’m sure she was very kind to Ava, too. She led me on a tour of the room they were in. She said Ava used to love looking at all the paintings, so she must have taken an interest in her, mustn’t she?’

  Jenny smiled at him gently and nodded. ‘Yes, indeed.’ The first time she herself had seen Ava Simmons, she’d been on the staircase, looking at a painting. ‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully. Then, more cheerfully, ‘Yes, her ladyship is a very kind woman. Did you like the paintings you saw? Perhaps you’d like to come again? I’m sure Lady Vee wouldn’t mind if I gave you a tour of the place. They often do have art experts in, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I’d love to,’ Anthony said, then his old face creased into a worried frown. ‘But I think you’d better ask them first. It might, well, I wouldn’t like to embarrass them.’

  ‘But why would you do that?’ Jenny asked, surprised.

  ‘Oh, well, you know,’ Anthony said, beginning to look distinctly unhappy now. ‘It’s just that, when I was looking at one of the paintings her ladyship was showing me, I couldn’t help but notice that one of them was a copy.’

  ‘A copy?’ Jenny echoed blankly.

  ‘Oh yes, it’s not uncommon,’ Anthony said quickly, anxious to explain. ‘In most of the great families, there were times when one of the sons would gamble away too much money, or made wild speculations on the stock market or something like that. They made a habit of that sort of thing in days gone past. Some sons of noble families all but bankrupted their families at the gaming tables in London. And when that happened, the families would be forced to sell off some assets: silver, paintings, land, that sort of thing. And, in the case of heirlooms and such, they’d have a copy made, so nobody would know. Oh, it’s quite common, even amongst royalty,’ he continued, falling into teacher mode without even noticing.

  Jenny could see that Anthony Grover had been a very good teacher indeed. His voice was alive with enthusiasm. He could make even dry-as-dust history sound interesting.

  ‘All the great houses have histories riddled with naughty sons,’ he assured her gleefully. ‘The Avonsleighs are no exception, I expect. But, of course, it might embarrass them to have an art buff like myself call in unexpectedly, like the other morning, and well, catch them out so to speak. And I certainly wouldn’t want to give that impression, you know,’ he added, his old eyes twinkling. ‘That I’d caught them out, I mean. It doesn’t do to probe too closely into the finances of noble old English castles, you know.’

  Jenny hastily agreed that indeed it didn’t. Any skeletons their nibs might have, she maintained, should stay firmly locked in the family cupboards. ‘But I’ll ask her ladyship and arrange for a tour nonetheless,’ she added, glad to see the old man’s face light up. ‘And you can think of nothing else Ava said? Did she ever telephone you?’

  ‘No. She much preferred to write. She said in this computer age of emails and whatnot, that proper letter-writing was becoming a lost art. She was old-fashioned in many respects,’ Anthony said, his voice sad and full of pain.

  Jenny nodded with a small sigh. She didn’t know what else to say. Or ask. She thanked him warmly, rose, and left the old man with his grief.

  On her way back, she drove mechanically, lost in thought. If Bishop had found anything even remotely suspicious in Ava’s letters to her old mentor, he’d have been on to it by now. So Ava had not made it known which member of staff was giving her so much trouble. But by now, Jenny Starling had a good idea.

  A
nd even if she was no closer to solving how the murder was done, she now believed that she had a good base from which to start. But she’d have to be careful. Very careful. As she’d told Lady Vee only yesterday, the killer was clever.

  Clever enough to commit an invisible murder, in fact.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The moment Jenny woke up the next morning, she knew she’d heard something important. Not just from Anthony Grover, but from someone else. What was it?

  For a long while she lay in bed, trying to remember, without success. Unable to return to sleep, it was barely dawn when she took her bath, but the hot steam did nothing to loosen her mental processes. She’d heard something vital, she just knew it, but it hovered on the fringe of her mind, like a tantalizing butterfly that refused to be netted.

  As she dried her hair and dressed, she firmly, if reluctantly, put the matter to one side. There was no point in worrying away at it. She knew from past experience that her subconscious would carry on with the job for her, mulling it over until the answer popped back into her mind like a nicely done piece of toast.

  In the meantime, she had work to do.

  At some point she would have to have a word with the Avonsleighs. If what she suspected was true, well, it would not be pleasant. There would be a scandal. A fine reputation would take a severe knocking.

  Of course, there was always the possibility that she might be wrong. She had not, as yet, any clue at all as to how the killer had done the killing. The invisible murder of Ava Simmons still made no sense at all. And everyone had a reasonable alibi.

  The killer included.

  But, as she set about making breakfast, she knew she was not wrong. A visit to Basil Simmons today was a must. It would tidy things up in her mind. If only she could remember what it was that she’d heard!

  Whenever she was uptight, Jenny cooked.

  That morning, their nibs were presented with a citrus fruit cocktail, freshly made and pleasantly chilled, then kippers, still sizzling, followed by a home-made museli they’d never heard of, or tasted, before, but which Meecham informed them cleared the palate of the fish for the next course. The full English breakfast followed.

  In the breakfast room, Lady Vee leaned back, the final mouthful gone, and said, ‘I wonder what’s up?’

  Her husband, puffing over his last dishful, but determined not to leave a single tomato left unturned, looked up. ‘What do you mean?’

  She smiled at him warmly. ‘You are such a duffer, George,’ she said fondly. He smiled. The smile, however, quickly vanished when his wife continued in a quiet, worried, but calm voice, ‘I think, you know, that we might hear from Miss Starling today. About the murder.’

  ‘Oh?’

  His wife contemplated the delicious feast they’d just eaten, and sighed. ‘And I don’t think it’s going to be good news, George.’

  After forty-one years of marriage his lordship was, by now, quite rightly convinced of his wife’s infallibility, and his spirits sank. ‘I was going to go and see Ava’s father today,’ he murmured, and his wife shook her head.

  ‘I would leave it a day or two, dear,’ she advised, sagely. ‘Just in case.’

  Jenny had never set foot in an art gallery before, mainly because art was most definitely her mother’s arena, and she knew better than to even so much as dabble a toe in it.

  When she wasn’t saving the trees, whales, or whatever else needed saving, Jenny’s mother was painting; and painting anything at all that took her fancy. Her daughter’s long-suffering van, council walls, park benches – once, even a neighbour’s poodle – using body paint of a peculiarly fetching shade of lilac. (The dog’s owner still wasn’t speaking to her.)

  Consequently, as she drove into Bicester, Jenny firmly thrust aside worrying thoughts about her ignorance of art, and wondered instead if Basil Simmons was going to live up to his seedy reputation. But the fact that he hadn’t yet set foot in the castle told its own story, surely? When your daughter is murdered, you’d think most men would at least want to talk to the people involved. Did he simply not care? Or was he playing a crafty game of his own?

  She parked behind a Tesco’s, straightened her shoulders, and walked into the town centre.

  The Giselle Gallery was not hard to find. It occupied a central spot in Sheep Street, the ancient central spine of the town. The tower of St Edbergs – or was it Eckberts? Jenny was unsure – dominated the skyline, and the gallery came a close second. It was an old building, with an imposing façade of well-maintained masonry. It looked important. A simple brass plaque off to one side of the door bore the one word Giselle in italic script.

  To one side of the gallery was a hardware shop, to the other a newsagents. The mundane next to the magnificent looked incongruous, but only served to make the gallery look even more like the grande dame that it undoubtedly was. Jenny took a deep breath and walked in, not knowing what to expect.

  She’d worked for a very successful modern sculptor once, in a very run-down area of London that he’d seemed inordinately proud of, perhaps because he was the son of a lord. He’d worn his hair long, a beard even longer, and had an unfortunate habit of forgetting to get dressed in the morning, often leaping out of bed naked and starting work immediately.

  She had not stayed long.

  The nakedness itself didn’t bother her much; after all, if he could be brave enough to solder metal with an acetylene torch, sparks flying, whilst stark naked, who was she to be a killjoy? But when she found him using her custard to paint a metal sunflower, and had asked her to make up some gravy so that he could make it look drooped and nearly over – some allegory for something or other – she’d very quickly packed her bags and left.

  People who didn’t eat merely worried her. People who used food for something other than the purposes of eating, were, in her opinion, quite simply off their trolley.

  But this gallery bore no resemblance to anything Jenny could recall from her brief, unhappy stay in Clapton.

  She walked into a high-ceilinged room with enormous windows that let in floods of light. The walls were painted a slightly off-white colour that soothed, rather than dazzled the eye. As she looked around, she was surprised to see how spaciously the drawings and paintings were laid out. She’d expected them to cram the walls. On tall pedestals, stood arrangements of orange tiger lilies. In one corner, a small, dark wooden desk housed a telephone, an old-fashioned pen and ink set, a pile of creamy stationery, and a young man of extremely dapper appearance.

  Sergeant Myers would instantly have recognized a soulmate, Jenny thought with some amusement, as he rose and walked or, more accurately, glided towards her. His suit was navy blue, the stripes immaculately thin. His shoes, black, gleamed. His tie, a deep red, glowed like a ruby. His only piece of jewellery was a watch. ‘Good morning, madam. May I help you, or are you merely browsing?’

  Jenny smiled. ‘Browsing. For the moment,’ she added. Faced with such a paragon as this, she was not quite sure how to ask to see the owner. She was sure a blunt “Is Mr Simmons in?” would not go down well. She was, she realized somewhat belatedly, in ‘appointment only’ territory. And she didn’t have one.

  ‘Ah, yes, it’s such a pleasure isn’t it,’ the young man continued, ‘to feast your eyes on works of art? As you can see, here at the Giselle we like to give every piece enough room to breathe. There is none of that vulgar showmanship that’s unfortunately become so popular in London nowadays. Mr Simmons is most insistent on it.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Jenny murmured, fighting back a desire to panic. ‘His daughter felt much the same way. We were great friends, you see,’ Jenny continued, not a blush in sight, ‘and she taught me an awful lot about art.’

  The young man’s face clouded most theatrically. ‘Ah, yes, poor Miss Simmons. You er, know what happened?’ he probed delicately.

  His eyes were running over her almost feverishly. What height! What curvaceous, amply-proportioned form! And those eyes! He could see her in a Rubens pai
nting, a simple white swathe of material draped over her magnificently naked form. He could mentally recreate the blend of skin-tone the great master would use. And her profile…. His rapturous thoughts broke off as the woman turned to him and speared him with those same beautiful eyes. In them was an expression that caused his face to flood with colour.

  Jenny watched him, wondering what on earth had made him stare at her like that. He was very nearly drooling. ‘Yes, I did know. As a matter of fact, I was wondering if I shouldn’t call on Mr Simmons and offer my condolences,’ she replied stiffly.

  ‘Oh. Ah, yes,’ the young man said, recovering a more normal skin tone. ‘Well, I’m not sure that….’ His eyes flickered past hers and Jenny was turning sharply before he could even begin to stop her.

  Through the large window, looking sideways down the building’s façade, she could see a small side door open. It was a door that obviously led exclusively to the upper floors, perhaps even to Basil Simmons’s private rooms, for she knew he lived over the gallery. But it was not the layout of the building that concerned her, so much as the figure walking down the steps. A figure she knew very well indeed.

  Elsie Bingham paused on the bottom step to unbutton a rather ancient-looking coat that Jenny had never seen before – her Sunday best, probably. Dark blue, with large gold buttons that, even from this distance, looked tarnished and chipping, it had a little white ball of some kind of fur, probably rabbit, pinned to the lapel. But it was not Elsie’s attempt at sartorial splendour that caught her attention the most, it was the look on her face.

  It was a look Jenny Starling would never forget. It was triumphant. Gloating. Savage. Happy.

  For the first time in her life, perhaps, Elsie Bingham looked positively happy. Jenny watched her set off up the street, her step for once light and jaunty. Oh Elsie, Jenny thought pityingly. Oh Elsie, what have you done?

  ‘I can see he must be free now,’ Jenny pointed out with ruthless logic, even as she was wondering what on earth her kitchen maid had been up to.