by Joyce Cato
As he passed the French windows that led to the games room, Jenny clearly saw, through the open inner door, Jasmine Olney suddenly rear up from her position on a deckchair and grab Brian’s arm. What she might have been about to say to him, however, was never uttered as Lucas and Tobias chose that moment to step out of the wheelhouse.
‘Ah, Brian, secure the boat then come into the salon will you?’ Tobias ordered, making Jenny blink a little in surprise, for he had assumed command with an ease and natural affinity that halfway stunned her. And yet she knew that it shouldn’t have done: Lester was a very competent man. Very competent indeed – hadn’t she herself instinctively gone to him when times had got tough? Somehow, she seemed to have forgotten that. He was such a modestly unassuming man, he made it very easy to forget how very capable he must be. It must be a trait that could come in very handy.
Had Gabriel Olney, too, forgotten that?
Jenny shook her head, telling herself it was useless to speculate. Besides, the police would be here soon. It would be up to them to find out who’d killed the ex-soldier.
Jasmine, perhaps sensing that now was not the time to pick a fight with the engineer, subsided reluctantly back onto her deckchair. Lucas paused, looked at her, seemed about to say something, then shook his head.
The two men quickly joined Jenny, Tobias Lester efficiently checking the map. He glanced at his watch, did his mental arithmetic, and put his finger firmly on one point.
‘I’d say we are here, give or take half a mile or so. That makes the nearest village Carswell Marsh, which is about three miles south of here. It’s all cross-fields so Brian should make good time.’
‘Good time for what?’ Brian asked, catching the last sentence as he came in. He nodded at Tobias. ‘I’ve got her well secured. What’s going on?’
‘Gabriel Olney’s dead. You have to go and get the rozzers.’ It was Lucas who answered, but Brian O’Keefe stared at Tobias Lester for a long, hard time. Then he finally nodded. ‘Right,’ he agreed curtly.
Jenny had the strong feeling that, whatever his immediate thoughts, Brian O’Keefe would never utter them now.
‘Once you’ve phoned them,’ Jenny spoke up, her voice quite steady and firm now, ‘you’ll have to wait for them and then lead them back here to the boat. Especially if there’s no road for them to follow.’
Brian glanced at her curiously, saw her strange seating arrangement for the first time, and cast a curious look at the closed galley door. Then he checked the map for himself, saw where he had to go, and shook his head. ‘There are no roads near here indicated on the map.’
‘Right, then you’d best set off fairish, like,’ Lucas said, and rubbed his nose. ‘Think you can find the village all right?’
Brian O’Keefe smiled wryly. ‘I can smell a pub from five miles away. I’ll find the nearest one to me, no trouble.’
The three of them watched him go in silence. He was young, fit and set off across the fields like a hare.
Lucas slowly swivelled his eyes through the open door of the games room and out towards the port deck. His eyes moved quickly away again from the beautiful dark-haired woman sat sunning herself, and moved apprehensively to those of his captain.
‘Someone should tell Jasmine,’ he said heavily.
Tobias looked appalled. ‘Not me.’
As one, both men turned towards Jenny.
Jenny said, very firmly, ‘I’m not leaving this room.’
Lucas opened his mouth to say something, then glanced at the door behind her. As if sensing the tension in the air, the parrot on his shoulder bobbed his head up and down uneasily.
‘He’s in there then, is he?’ Lucas finally asked. Rather pointlessly, she thought. Jenny nodded. ‘And you don’t want anyone going in there?’ Lucas carried on the theme, his suspicious, thoughtful tone of voice making Tobias suddenly jerk his head towards the cook, a questioning look on his face.
‘You said he was dead,’ Tobias said, almost accusingly. ‘You didn’t say how.’ He chose his words with an odd kind of care, almost as if he was afraid of the answer.
‘I’m not sure how he died,’ Jenny said, quite truthfully. ‘And it’s useless to speculate. We’ll just have to sit quietly until the police come. And I think it will be a good idea to tell Mrs Olney nothing, for the moment. Unless she asks, of course.’
Naturally, both men agreed, and sincerely hoped that she wouldn’t.
The police arrived in a surprisingly short time. Brian must have run all the way to the village, and the nearest police station must have been close by, for barely an hour had passed when O’Keefe returned to the Stillwater Swan with what looked like a herd of constables and plain clothes detectives.
Jasmine, who’d never left her seat in the sun, looked up with every apparent evidence of bewilderment as strange men began to file into the main salon, and she took off her sunglasses to follow their progress inside with her eyes.
Jenny slowly rose from her chair, trying to sort the men out. The tall, stoop-shouldered man with glasses and carrying a black bag was the easiest man to allot, since this had to be the police surgeon or medical examiner. Two other, rather cherubic-faced men carried what looked like briefcases. From past experience, she knew that these had to be the forensics experts. But they were both looking at the oddest little man Jenny Starling had ever seen. (And in her time, she’d seen very odd-looking men indeed.)
He couldn’t have been more than five feet in height, for a start, which made her wonder how many powerful people he must have known in the police department to allow him to get around the minimum height restriction rules. Or did they even still exist?
But it was not just his height (or rather lack thereof) that made her goggle at him. He was, without doubt, quite simply the most ugly individual Jenny had ever seen. His eyes were tiny, button black and set deep in his face. His chin was non-existent, his mouth a rather lipless gash. But it was the turned-up nature of his nose, which the cook suddenly saw as he turned and looked directly at her, that made him look most like a human variety of a pug dog. It was so squashed up it looked almost comical. And the nostrils … yes, they were almost pointing upwards.
If he ever got caught out in the rain he’d surely drown, Jenny thought inconsequentially, and suddenly became aware of the hysteria behind that thought. Not to mention the unintentional unkindness. She mentally apologized, stepped to one side, and pointed into the galley. ‘He’s in there,’ she said quietly, and the small man gave her a single, sharp glance, nodded and led the way briskly inside.
The surgeon was close on his heels. The two forensics men, and the final man of the group, a big, solid, blond individual who was presumably a sergeant, stayed by the door, awaiting orders.
Jasmine said, rather loudly, ‘What on earth is going on?’
‘If you please, madam,’ the sergeant said in a deep, pleasant bass. ‘Take a seat. We’ll know more shortly.’
Hearing sudden and unexpected voices, David and Dorothy Leigh at last appeared in the doorway leading from the starboard deck and stared at the strangers in disbelief.
Inside, Inspector Neil Rycroft, he of the pug face, stared at the dead man on the floor and watched the police surgeon give his usual thorough but of necessity brief examination.
‘Dead no more than four hours, no less than one. No outward signs of violence. No cuts, bumps, contusions or entry marks that I can see. No signs of strangulation.’
‘He’s wet,’ Rycroft said. His voice was high-pitched, almost child like in tone, but curiously expressionless. He didn’t seem to be accusing the surgeon of missing the obvious, nor did he seem to be coming to any conclusions himself. That voice had misled many a criminal – and many a criminal’s solicitor – into thinking that Neil Rycroft was a bit of a simpleton.
Which he most definitely wasn’t.
The surgeon obviously knew Rycroft’s ways well, for he merely responded, just as impassively, with a single ‘yes’.
‘Drowning would see
m to be the obvious cause of death,’ Rycroft added thoughtfully.
The surgeon grunted and stood up. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve completed an autopsy. We’re a bit stacked up at the moment though. A lot of those train-crash victims from Richester way have been sent down to our labs. It’ll be a few days before I can give you any details.’
Rycroft sighed. ‘Right. But you think he drowned?’
The surgeon turned the corpse over, did some rather disgusting-type medical things and then nodded.
‘I’d say, unofficially, there was little doubt of it,’ the surgeon said, then added cautiously, ‘but don’t quote me just yet. And certainly don’t put anything down on paper until I can confirm it.’
The inspector nodded, showed the surgeon out, and beckoned his forensic boys in. He shut the door carefully behind them, then stood looking at the group scattered throughout the main salon.
‘Who discovered the body?’ Rycroft asked, looking automatically at Tobias Lester.
It was odd, Jenny thought, just a shade miffed, how men of authority seemed to naturally seek out another of their kind.
Tobias nodded at Jenny. ‘Our cook did.’
The inspector and his sergeant glanced at the large, calm woman, their eyes assessing. She looked like an avenging goddess from some long-forgotten mythology – six feet tall, voluptuous and rather beautiful, in an odd way.
The parrot, which had returned to his perch on her shoulder, gave them pause, but not for long. No doubt, in the course of their professional life, they came across all sorts.
‘You found him like that?’ Rycroft jerked his head towards the galley.
Jenny shook her head. ‘No.’
Rycroft stiffened. It was a rather absurd gesture in one so small and ugly, confronting one of Jenny Starling’s girth and six-feet-tall frame. ‘You really shouldn’t interfere with a body, you know,’ he said crisply, disapproval now rife in his high voice.
‘I do know, as a matter of fact,’ Jenny shot back just as crisply. ‘When I went into the galley at about half past four, everything was perfectly in order. It was only when I opened the door to the cupboard that Mr Olney fell out. I left him where he lay. I touched nothing, immediately put a chair in front of the door, left to tell the captain to dock the boat and send someone for the police, then sat in the chair in front of the door until you came. Nobody went in or came out of the galley, unless they did so during the brief minute I left to inform the captain what had happened.’
She stated the facts in a calm, unassertive manner, but she noticed both policemen’s eyes sharpen on her in sudden, avid interest. She could almost read their minds.
Very calm. Very cool. Very correct. All very praiseworthy but totally unnatural. We’ll have to keep our eye on this one.
Jenny had seen that look before in a policeman’s eye. Alas, all too often. She was dreading the time when they finally got around to taking down names and details. For her name had to be mud in the vast majority of police stations in and around Oxfordshire and the home counties.
‘I see. Very commendable,’ Inspector Rycroft said dryly. ‘Since you seem to have such a good grasp of events, perhaps you could give Sergeant Graves here a list of all the people on board? I’d also like a run-down of the ship’s itinerary.’
Tobias winced at the term ‘ship’.
Lucas stirred, thinking that he, as host, should be the one to do the talking, then suddenly remembered that these were rozzers – and Lucas Finch and rozzers had never mixed – and just as quickly subsided again, more than happy to leave the dirty work to the cook.
Jenny glanced at the sergeant who was waiting, pencil in hand, hovering over his ever-ready notebook.
Jenny knew all about policemen’s notebooks too.
‘The mur—the dead man is Mr Gabriel Olney,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure where he lives but I’m sure that Mrs Olney, Mrs Jasmine Olney, will be able to tell you,’ she began, getting off to a thoroughly disastrous start.
First of all, she’d almost said ‘the murdered man’ when, in reality, she really had no reason to believe it was murder. But she’d have bet her last penny that the inspector hadn’t missed the tell-tale slip. And secondly (and much worse) she’d boldly stated the fact that it was Gabriel Olney who was dead when his widow, who was standing not more than ten yards away, had not been given a shred of warning.
It just went to show, Jenny thought sourly, that practice hardly made perfect.
Jasmine abruptly sat down, and blinked.
At this point, Rycroft and Sergeant Graves glanced at her curiously. Rycroft said, reasonably softly, ‘Mrs Olney? You had no idea of your husband’s death?’
Jasmine shook her head. Then she blinked again. She seemed to be unable to find a thing to say. Eventually she licked her dry lips and said, somewhat unsteadily, ‘No one told me.’
‘We thought it best not to,’ Jenny said quickly, but inside she could have kicked herself for her thoughtlessness.
But then again, a suspicious little voice would insist on piping up in the back of her mind, Jasmine might have known all along about her husband – if she was the one who’d put him in her cupboard in the first place.
Rycroft glanced back to the cook, obviously puzzled. He thought that either the cook was the most cold-hearted woman he’d ever met, or the shrewdest.
He would soon learn which.
‘Carry on, please,’ he said, his disconcertingly high-pitched voice once again as bland as milk.
‘There’s Dorothy and David Leigh.’ She nodded to the young couple, who were still standing transfixed in the doorway to the starboard deck. ‘They live in the village of Buscot, the same as Mr Lucas Finch, the owner of the boat.’ She hesitated over the word ‘owner’, not sure of her ground. Had Gabriel Olney already legally bought the Stillwater Swan?
If he noticed her sudden stumble, Rycroft didn’t mention it.
‘Go on.’
‘There’s the engineer….’
‘We know all about Mr O’Keefe, madam,’ the sergeant said helpfully, and Jenny nodded. Of course, they’d have questioned him thoroughly on the way here.
Again Rycroft wondered at the statuesque cook’s apparent understanding of the way the police mind worked. He began to feel distinctly uneasy. There was something about her that looked familiar, now that he thought about it. Not that he’d ever met her before – Rycroft had an excellent memory, and someone as noticeable as the cook would have stuck in his mind like a rose thorn.
Nevertheless….
‘Who else is on board?’ he prompted crisply.
‘Captain Tobias Lester.’ She nodded at the captain. ‘He lives in a cottage on Mr Finch’s estate at Buscot. And then there’s Francis … er Grey,’ she said, for the briefest of moments having forgotten his surname. It was not, perhaps, surprising. Francis had a way of making himself seem almost non-existent.
Which reminded her. Just where was Francis?
‘Mr Grey is Mr Finch’s manservant. The Leighs and Olneys are Mr Finch’s guests. I was hired to cook for the weekend. We set off from Buscot yesterday morning about … ten o’clock?’ She glanced questioningly at the captain, who nodded.
At that point, Tobias took over, very competently giving the police the Stillwater Swan’s timetable and docking points over the past two days. When he’d finished, Rycroft nodded, turned back to the cook and said smoothly, ‘You’ve left yourself out, madam.’
Jenny sighed. ‘My name,’ she said heavily, ‘is Miss Jenny Starling.’
And waited for it.
She didn’t have to wait long.
Opposite her, Sergeant Graves started to write it down, and mumbled automatically, ‘Do you have any other Christian names, please,’ before his head shot up comically. ‘Did you say Starling?’
Jenny, who considered her parents to have gone rather mad in the first names department, saddling her with two other totally unusable ones, was glad not to have to say what the rest of them were in front of
witnesses.
‘Yes. Starling,’ she repeated heavily.
Rycroft was staring at her, his face falling into a look of utter dismay. It was most unfortunate. Folds of skin suddenly seemed to mould themselves into the semblance of a chow, and a rather sick-looking chow at that.
‘Sir, we’ve finished.’ The two forensic experts chose that moment to emerge from the galley. Rycroft glanced at them, eyebrows raised. They shook their heads. ‘Plenty of fingerprints – probably all legitimate. We’ll have to take samples from everyone present. Nothing much else – or rather, too much of everything else to be of use, I’m afraid. It’s a storage cupboard after all. It’ll take days to identify and sort out all the trace elements in there. But we’ve all the photographs we need.’
Which meant, Jenny thought, no obvious murder weapon, no traces yet or fibres. Someone, she thought grimly, had been very clever. Very clever indeed.
And that someone was on this boat now.
Rycroft sighed. ‘Take a thorough look over the rest of the boat, will you?’ he said curtly, and resumed his scowling contemplation of the cook.
Tobias and Lucas cast first the policemen, then the cook, curious looks. ‘Is something wrong?’ Lucas asked, rather absurdly, given the circumstances.
But both policemen ignored him. They were both staring at the cook as if at a rather unusual specimen in a zoo.
‘So you’re Jenny Starling,’ Rycroft said, his voice flat and yet very much aggrieved.
‘Yes,’ she agreed flatly. ‘I’m Miss Starling.’
‘And you’re at it again,’ Rycroft sighed. ‘In my patch, this time.’
‘I’ve not been at anything again,’ Jenny denied hotly. ‘All I do is mind my own business and cook good food. If people around me will go around kill—’ She abruptly bit off her angry words as Jasmine Olney suddenly raised her dark head and looked at her speculatively.
What Rycroft might have said to that they never knew, for at that moment one of the forensics boys came running in, his cherubic face flushed with excitement. ‘Sir! Sir, come and see this.’
