by Joyce Cato
Naturally, after that, everybody rushed outside to the port deck, where the second forensics man waited. He was stood, more or less, in the exact same spot that Lucas had been standing in, just a short while before.
Jenny saw again the same wet planking as everyone – the Leighs, Jasmine, the captain, Lucas and Brian – jostled around her. What she hadn’t noticed before was the piece of rope that was tied from the bottom of the railings, and that disappeared over the side to dangle in the river below.
As Rycroft walked carefully around the wet decking, the forensics man pulled up on the rope.
And revealed at the other end, sopping wet and dripping river water, was Gabriel Olney’s missing boot.
NINE
FOR A WHILE Inspector Rycroft simply stared at the boot, a totally unreadable expression on his remarkable face. He had not, of course, missed the fact that Gabriel Olney’s corpse had been minus one of its boots, but until now he hadn’t really come to any significant conclusion to account for its absence. Murder victims, in his experience, were apt to struggle, and in a struggle, all kinds of things could go astray, including items of clothing. Now, though, the salutary sight brought an obvious inference with it, and one that made his blood run cold.
He leaned over the rail and glanced down into the river below. The rope was thick and sturdy, and ropes, he imagined, were probably plentiful in the storeroom of a boat such as the Stillwater Swan. So, no mystery as to where the murderer might have acquired the murder weapon then. For now there could be no doubt that it was murder they were dealing with.
He examined the knot closely and hopefully, but it looked simple enough. Not a complicated, nautical knot certainly. Which meant that if Tobias Lester was in any way involved, then he’d been clever enough – and cool-headed enough – to remember to tie a knot that any other landlubber might have used.
He glanced down the side of the boat once more, his brow furrowed in thought. The river surface was nearly two feet from the bottom of the railing, where the rope had been securely tied.
So if someone had knocked out Olney, tied the rope round his foot and then hefted him over the side to watch him drown, it would have taken a person of considerable strength to pull him back up again. The victim was not particularly fat, it was true, but still, he was an adult, well-nourished male. And would have been – literally – a dead weight.
He certainly couldn’t see any of the ladies involved being capable of such physical manoeuvrings. Except for Jenny Starling, perhaps. She looked big enough to throw anybody around. But then again, a generously curvaceous hourglass figure didn’t necessarily mean that she had superior upper-arm strength or muscles like Jean-Claude Van Damme.
And in any case, he thought with an inner wince, Jenny Starling, as everyone on the local force knew only too well, had a reputation for solving murders. Not for committing them.
Worse luck.
Rycroft would have been delighted to be the copper to rid the force of the pesky presence of the successful but strictly amateur sleuth but no matter how tempting the thought, Rycroft just couldn’t see the phlegmatic cook suddenly turning into a deranged killer.
No, he had to be looking for a man.
He nodded to the forensics team, knowing without having to tell them that they’d give the rope, boot and the rest of the boat a meticulous going-over, and turned to observe the faces of the others.
Lucas Finch was staring at the rope as if it were a snake. The parrot, perhaps out of instinctive or simply because of avian loyalty, suddenly snuggled closer to Lucas’s neck and suddenly began to croak/croon a very swing-time rendition of ‘Stranger On the Shore’.
It made everybody feel, for some reason, abruptly uncomfortable.
The handsome young couple, the Leighs, were furthest away, and he noticed them begin to back off, the pretty blonde whispering something into her husband’s ear. The pair then rapidly disappeared back into the games room. Brian O’Keefe looked implacable. If he recognized the rope specifically, he gave no indication of it. But he shot the skipper a quick, thoughtful look that was more puzzled than anything else.
Jasmine was still staring at her husband’s boot as if spellbound.
‘I’ll have to ask you all to assemble in the salon and give me an account of your individual movements for this afternoon,’ Rycroft began crisply, ushering them backwards like a farmer’s wife shooing a flock of recalcitrant chickens.
Jenny led the way, selecting a large, black leather armchair for herself. She knew full well just how time-consuming these things could be. You might just as well make yourself comfortable as not.
Sergeant Graves brought out his notebook yet again.
Rycroft fixed Jenny with a gimlet eye. ‘Right, Miss Starling, we’ll begin with you, shall we?’ he asked, somewhat maliciously.
Jenny inclined her head. ‘I prepared lunch for one o’clock as usual. It started a little late, as Francis didn’t come to the galley to start serving until about a quarter past. Mr Olney ate, I believe, the same dishes as everyone else.’
Sergeant Graves’ lips twitched. She certainly wanted to make it clear that there was nothing suspect about her food.
‘After I’d cleared away the dishes, I decided to take a long walk. It was hot in the galley, it was our last day out, and I wanted to stretch my legs.’
Sergeant Graves, for one, didn’t doubt it. A woman the size of the cook would no doubt find the tiny galley something of a trial.
‘I returned about three o’clock and informed the captain. I started preparing the vegetables and various other edible items for the dinner this evening. I did not, at that point, go to the cupboard,’ she added quickly, seeing that Rycroft was about to ask just that.
‘At about a quarter past four, I went out for some air on the starboard deck, and found Dorothy and David Leigh already out there. Mrs Leigh looked unwell, so I returned to the galley to make her some weak tea and some toast. I then took it out to her. I took a short turn around the boat, going on down the deck, through the back corridor, out onto the rear deck and, lastly, along the port deck. Mr Finch was stood on the port deck, alone. I noticed at that point that the planking next to him was wet. I then returned to the galley. I had been gone only five minutes or so. When I returned, I opened the cupboard door to get some pickled vegetables and discovered the body.’
Lucas had stirred a little angrily at her mention of himself and the wet planking, and then sighed wearily. It was no good blaming the cook for merely stating facts. The rozzers, he knew, would ferret about asking questions and no doubt unearthing all sorts of unsavoury titbits about himself and his guests before all this was over.
‘Thank you, Miss Starling,’ Rycroft said. ‘Very succinct,’ he added a touch dryly. ‘Mr Finch?’
Lucas stuck out his long, spindly legs and closed his eyes for a moment. He seemed to have aged somewhat in the past few hours.
‘Let’s see. We all had lunch together. And yes, Gabby did eat the same as the rest of us. It was all very tasty.’ He bowed to the cook.
Sergeant Graves’ lips twitched again.
Jenny – who noticed everything – thought somewhat inconsequentially that the sergeant’s personality did not match his name very well. He seemed to be brimming over with repressed good humour.
‘After lunch, we all sort of moped around for a few minutes, then Dorothy – Dorothy Leigh, that is – proposed a game of darts. Er … let’s see. The captain had come in at that point to say that the cook hadn’t yet returned, so I dragged him in on the game. David Leigh and myself played Gabby and Tobias. Or was it the other way round? Buggered if I can remember now.’
‘What time was this?’ Rycroft asked quickly.
‘About twoish? Somewhere round then. Mrs Olney said she couldn’t play, and Dorothy said she didn’t mind just watching. So we played for … I don’t know, twenty minutes. Maybe less. Then Dorothy became rather ill, and her husband took her upstairs. After that, the match was abandoned, of course, a
nd we all dispersed. I think Gabby went out there—’ He pointed ‘—onto the starboard deck. I don’t know how long he stayed out there, of course, or where he went afterwards. I myself went out onto the rear deck to snooze for an hour or so. Then I sort of wandered around the boat for a bit. I’d only just stepped onto the port deck a few seconds before I spotted Miss Starling. I too noticed that the deck was wet, but I assumed Brian had been taking on some river water.’
‘What time was this?’ Rycroft asked again.
But Lucas wasn’t so sure. He thought it was sometime after four.
‘Then I took a turn round the end of the boat, checked that everything was OK and all that. Then I noticed the boat was slowing and turning into the bank and wondered why. It wasn’t a scheduled stop, and nobody had come to tell me about it. I was just going to the bridge to find out what was going on, and as I came into the salon, I found the cook sitting in the chair by the galley door. She told me what had happened. Then we arranged for you lot to come and….’ He shrugged. ‘That was that.’
‘So the last time you saw Mr Olney alive was at about half past two, when the darts match broke up?’
Lucas nodded.
‘Captain Lester?’ Rycroft glanced at the captain.
‘I had lunch, as usual, on a tray in the bridge. The cook brings it to me, or I go into the galley for it. I think I went to the galley to collect it today. We were due to sail at two, but I knew the cook had gone for a walk, and hadn’t reported back, so I went to tell Lucas we’d be delayed. Then we played darts, as he said, until poor little Dorothy got so sick. Then I went back to the wheelhouse.’ He paused and took a breath, obviously considering his words carefully. Once again there was that air of calm competence about him. ‘Sometime near … three o’clock, I should think it was, Miss Starling reported back and I took the Swan out. I was in the bridge until Miss Starling came in, about half past four, to tell me we had to stop and get the police. And that’s about all I can tell you.’
Sergeant Graves licked the end of his pencil and turned another page. So far, everybody seemed to be singing from the same hymn sheet, he thought sourly. If anybody knew anything, nobody seemed in any hurry to speak up.
It was all very prosaic, but even as the laborious process of establishing everybody’s alibis went on, Jenny knew, arrangements were probably being made to collect Gabriel Olney’s body. And back at the local station, she was also sure that a veritable army of policemen were busily checking into the backgrounds of all those concerned.
The murder of a man of Gabriel Olney’s status would almost certainly be given top priority. She wondered what the diligent sergeants and constables would unearth about all of them. And any skeletons in the cupboard, she warned her fellow shipmates silently, had better get ready to be thoroughly rattled.
‘Mrs Olney, I know that this is a hard time for you, but if you could just tell me what happened this afternoon?’ Rycroft asked, a little less curtly, of the dark-haired woman.
Jasmine Olney took a deep breath. She’d seemed to be genuinely bewildered throughout the whole experience, but now she could clearly be seen to pull herself together somewhat.
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you much there, Inspector,’ she said, her voice composed but a little husky. ‘Like the others, I had lunch, then followed them into the games room. I can’t play darts, so I read a magazine for a while and then, while the game was still going on, I left to take a nap in my room. Mrs Leigh – she’s very sweet – asked me if I was all right, or wanted an aspirin, but I said no. I wasn’t ill, just sleepy. I took a nap for … oh, I don’t know, about an hour or so. When I came back down it must have been about ten past three or thereabouts. I met the Leighs on the upstairs landing and we all came down together. I thought I’d get some sun, so I took a chair on the port deck and sunbathed. I stayed there until you policemen came. Oh, no, wait a moment, I think the engineer passed me about an hour or so before that. And that’s all I know.’
Jenny kept her mouth firmly shut. No doubt either she or the police would find out sooner or later just what all that fuss had been about between Brian O’Keefe and the newly created widow. Although it wasn’t hard to guess. Some serious flirting had been going on, and somebody had probably overstepped the mark, or misjudged the mood. On the whole, she thought it was far more likely to be the more volatile Jasmine at fault than the cocky engineer.
‘You didn’t see your husband at all in that time?’ Rycroft asked, his voice openly surprised now.
Jasmine started. ‘Well … er … no, actually I didn’t. I assumed he was reading out on the rear or starboard deck. He is a very avid reader … was a very avid reader, I suppose I should say,’ she corrected herself, her voice beginning to wobble just slightly. She reached for a tissue and leaned back in her chair, her pretty dark eyes filling with tears.
Rycroft coughed uncomfortably, and muttered squeakily, ‘Er, yes, quite so, madam.’
He looked up then, and saw, for the first time, that the Leighs were not present. Had not, in fact, been present since the group had returned from inspecting the dripping boot.
‘Sergeant, I think you’d better go upstairs and ask the Leighs to come down,’ he snapped, his voice dripping disapproval. ‘I don’t remember giving them permission to leave.’
‘Mrs Leigh is pregnant, Inspector,’ Jenny explained helpfully. ‘I think she’s been suffering from morning sickness rather badly this trip, poor thing. A shock like this probably made her feel even more ill, and I imagine her husband insisted that she lie down.’
Rycroft, unbelievably, blushed beetroot. ‘Oh? Yes, well … er … We’ll still have to take a statement from them. And this Francis fellow. Where the hell is he?’
As the sergeant left to fetch the Leighs, Lucas shifted himself from the chair. ‘I think you’ll find he’s in the small room off the galley. That’s usually where he skulks off to, if he wants some time alone. I’ll go get him,’ he offered helpfully.
Jenny opened her mouth to say what a damn cheek it was for Francis to use her bedroom in such a way, then subsided. To be fair, she could hardly call it ‘her’ bedroom. All it contained was her still largely unpacked suitcase.
Francis, in due course, reappeared with Lucas, but could add nothing to the proceedings. He’d served lunch, and apologized for being late about it. After lunch, he’d made sure drinks were served, then took himself off to the small bedroom for a bit of a lie down. He had, he confessed shamefacedly, fallen asleep and hadn’t awakened until right this minute. He apologized profusely to Lucas, who looked more amused than anything else.
At this point, the sergeant led the way back down the stairs and into the salon, with a somewhat chastened husband and wife close on his heels.
Dorothy Leigh did indeed look pale. She was wearing one of those very fluffy, long-haired jumpers in a pretty pink shade, and a long, warm-looking caramel-coloured skirt. On a hot day such as this one, it was clear she must be suffering from shock to feel so cold. She sat down in the chair that Inspector Rycroft hastily pulled out for her, rubbing her hands together for warmth, and her husband pulled up his own chair, deliberately close to her. He took her hand in his and met the inspector’s gaze clearly.
‘Now, Mr Leigh. You’re a solicitor, I believe?’
David nodded.
‘Then you’ll understand why we need a full statement from both yourself and your wife as to your movements this afternoon?’ Rycroft pressed.
Again, David nodded. And started first. He spoke in a sure, confident, not-quite-but-almost-challenging tone of voice, as if he dared the police to disbelieve what he was about to say.
‘We all had lunch, then went into the games room. Dorothy asked if anybody was interested in a game of darts. We played for a while, then I noticed that Dorothy looked ill. My wife is expecting our first child, Inspector, so I hope that you will be rather considerate of her?’
Rycroft assured him hastily that, most likely, apart from getting her statement, Mrs Leigh
need not be bothered any further.
‘Right. Well, I noticed she was ill, and took her upstairs. I left her in the bathroom. She insisted I leave. She wasn’t well, you understand, and didn’t want to be … er … disturbed.’
Rycroft assured him hastily, and with more blushes, that it was all very understandable.
‘I went on into our room to work on some paperwork that I’d brought along with me. I know it was unusual, and probably rude, to bring work on board, but it was a last will and testament that simply had to be done and handed in on Monday, and I knew Lucas wouldn’t mind.’
Lucas, at this point, waved a hand in a vague sign of agreement. ‘Business is business,’ he muttered magnanimously.
‘I worked on the will for about … oh, three quarters of an hour or so. I was worried about Dotty, so I went out to check on her, but she was just coming back out of the bathroom at that point. I think Mrs Olney came out of her own room just then, and we all came downstairs together. Dotty and I went to sit out on the starboard deck. It’s quieter out there – all the games and things are played on the port side. And I thought Dotty could do with some peace and quiet. We sat there for something like an hour, I suppose it was, just watching the countryside go by, then the cook appeared and asked Dotty if she’d like some tea and toast. It was very kind of her. She brought it out, then left. We noticed the boat was docking, but thought it might be because of something technical – you know, the engine going wrong or something.’ He shrugged vaguely.
Sergeant Graves’ lips twitched. It was obvious to him that the young solicitor was hardly mechanically minded. Probably the sort, Graves thought mildly, to send his car to the mechanic to have a flat tyre changed.
‘Anyway, we stayed on the deck until we heard strange voices. It was you and your men. And that’s all I know.’
‘Hmm. And you didn’t see Mr Olney after the darts match broke up?’
