‘My name is DS Sullivan,’ said Guy, showing his police badge. ‘Come with me quietly, if you don’t mind.’ Ronan didn’t struggle but continued to swear copiously, pausing only to ask who had grassed him up.
‘It wasn’t one of your clients. The best thing you can do is walk along and answer some questions about an investigation I’m working on. I’d like to do this discreetly. If you help me, I’m prepared to overlook your proposed misdemeanour with Miss Margoyles.’ No need to say yet that if he booked Ronan for murder, the drug deal would be a minor charge. On the other hand, he had no right to take him into a station for questioning. This was going to have to be carefully managed.
‘At least let me have a fag.’
They stopped while Ronan pulled out a cigarette with his free hand, then a lighter.
‘Go on, then,’ he said after he’d exhaled the first puff. He had all the insouciance of a man who was accustomed to being stopped by the police, and just as familiar with being let go. ‘What is it you’re after?’
‘Do you know Clara Fischer?’
Ronan pushed his hat back off his forehead and jammed the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. ‘Thought you was going to ask for some of my goods. That’s how it usually goes with you lot.’ He gave a sigh. ‘Been a while since I heard that name. American, I think. She was a bit of a naughty one, you could tell. What she gone and done, then?’
‘She’s dead.’
Ronan didn’t look too moved by this piece of news. ‘Oh, blimey. Well, like I said, it’s been some time. You got what you wanted now? I’ve got places to be.’ He jiggled his arm, attached to the cuff that Guy had secured on them both.
‘Not yet. Do you know Shaun and Kate Mulloney?’
Ronan shuffled his feet at this and threw his cigarette on to the pavement. ‘Yes, I knew them. They were trouble. Always calling me up in the middle of the night, wanting more stuff.’
‘Did you see them in Paris?’
Ronan gave a loud guffaw. ‘What? Nah. I ain’t even ever left London. Born and bred here, no interest in going anywhere else.’
‘Nor Venice?’ Guy had a feeling this was slipping away from him.
‘No, told yer. Never gone foreign. I don’t have one of those passport things. My dad went to France in the war and it did him in. Why would I want to go there?’
‘Where were you on the ninth of February, 1929?’
‘Now, look. If you’re going to ask me these sort of things, I think you’re supposed to take me down the station and I can call my solicitor.’
‘Have you got a solicitor, Ronan?’
He stuck his chin out. ‘Might do.’
Mary spoke up, in her normal voice now. ‘Quite likely you don’t, though, isn’t it? I think you should help DS Sullivan here.’
‘Tell me that date again.’
Guy repeated it.
‘Amazingly enough, I do know where I was,’ said Ronan. ‘I’d had a nasty accident, nothing I need to go into with you now, but the consequence was that I was in hospital, laid up with a broken leg and a few smashed-up ribs. I was in for three weeks. Cost a small fortune it did. Anyway, you can check with them, the Queen Mary’s in Lewisham.’
Guy’s heart fell all the way to his boots. He’d check but it looked as if Ronan had an ironclad alibi. He wasn’t a pleasant character but he wasn’t a murderer either. Still, there was one thing Guy could still do.
‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of possession of drugs with intent to supply.’
This time, Ronan’s choice of expletive was enough for Mary to blush.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
As Diana and Bryan had been busy with various engagements for a few days, it had taken longer than planned to arrange for Guy to come to Buckingham Street to interview them. He had met Louisa beforehand briefly, and brought her up to the date on the most recent developments – or rather, he’d said grimly, non-developments. It had been a disappointing time.
Inside, Diana was at her desk and Bryan was, unusually, also in the morning room, reading a book of poetry on the sofa. Louisa heard him reading a few lines of Blake out loud, something about a foe outstretched beneath a tree, to which Diana was saying, ‘Bryan, darling, that’s lovely but I really am trying to write this letter,’ just as Louisa came in.
‘Good morning, Mr Guinness,’ she said. ‘Ma’am. I do apologize but DS Sullivan is here. On police business. Is it possible he could have a few minutes of your time?’
Diana slammed her pen down. ‘Oh, really! What is it now?’
Bryan was calmer. ‘If he needs to ask us something, I think we had better let him. Yes, Louisa, show him in.’
Guy entered, looking too tall for the delicate furniture of the room, the wrinkles of his suit showing too clearly. Diana and Bryan, both so slender, seemed like china dolls beside him. ‘Good morning, Mr and Mrs Guinness. I’m sorry for this, I’ll keep it brief.’
‘Good,’ said Diana, though she wasn’t completely unfriendly.
‘It’s a simple question I need to ask, though it’s about something that happened a while ago. When Mr Mulloney died in Paris, I believe he came to your house after dinner hours before he passed away. Did he eat anything there? Anything that nobody else ate?’
‘What on earth are you asking about that for?’ said Diana.
Bryan, who had stood up to greet Guy, put both his hands in his trousers pockets and closed his eyes, as if to call up the images of that night. ‘I have to admit we’d all had quite a bit to drink. It’s not completely clear in one’s mind.’ He opened his eyes again. ‘But why are you asking this? I thought it was established quite quickly that he died of his ghastly sesame allergy.’
‘Yes, sir, I know that was what the doctor’s certificate stated. I just can’t help thinking that it’s rather strange. He surely wouldn’t have ordered anything that had sesame in it at the restaurant you dined in.’
Bryan screwed his eyes up again and rocked on his heels. ‘No, he didn’t. We all ate steak and frites, except for Mrs Mulloney who had some sort of fish thing, I think. And no pudding, I remember, because we had gone rather overboard on the cocktails. It takes away one’s appetite.’
‘Kate’s dish contained sesame,’ said Diana. ‘That’s what everyone thought at the time.’
‘I see. Even so, was there anything back at the house that he could have eaten that might have caused the reaction?’ Guy had taken out his notebook.
‘I went to bed,’ said Diana. ‘I don’t know what you all got up to after that.’
‘We had some more drinks, listened to some music,’ said Bryan.
‘Please, sir. I’m sorry to press the question. But could you think carefully. Was there anything else eaten?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so. The cook would have gone home.’
‘The cook had gone home,’ confirmed Louisa. ‘I was in the kitchen after Mrs Guinness had gone to bed, and I was alone.’
‘So, no … ’ said Bryan. He looked into the fire briefly. ‘Oh – yes, I do remember something. I mean to say, we really were rather tipsy. But I think Mr Mulloney was complaining at some point about being hungry, how he hadn’t eaten enough of the frites and Mrs Mulloney was chiding him, saying he was always on the prowl for food. Then he spotted a box of chocolates, I don’t know where they came from. I hadn’t had any of them. I think he more or less scoffed the lot. Perhaps Kate had one too. It can’t have been those, can it?’
‘I believe Mr Meyer brought them,’ said Diana. ‘Anyway, they don’t contain sesame, do they? I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr Sullivan. It seems we can’t help.’ She gestured towards the door. ‘We mustn’t keep you from what I am sure is pressing police business. Good day.’
‘Thank you, Mr Guinness, Mrs Guinness,’ said Guy bowing his head slightly as he left.
As Louisa said goodbye to Guy moments later, she abruptly recalled that Diana was right: Luke had brought the chocolates. Not only that, she had sampled one of them when she’d gone to retrieve Diana’s book whi
le they were out at La Coupole. She remembered hoping the sweetness would settle her stomach after the horrid fishpaste sandwiches. Knowing that Diana wouldn’t eat them, she was fairly sure no one would notice one missing from the box. In short, she and Shaun had eaten the same thing, and she had been sick all night, too.
Later on, a kitchen maid knocked on Louisa’s door to say that Mrs Guinness wished to see her. She hastened down the corridors but she was given something of a dressing-down. ‘Where have you been? It’s almost seven o’clock, I’ve had an exhausting day and we have a dinner here tonight. There’s so much to do.’
Louisa apologized and prayed that the dress Diana wanted to wear was one that was already clean and ironed. Thankfully, it was. A long, emerald-green chiffon number that floated in diaphanous layers, worn with a diamond necklace that almost shone light on to Diana’s lily-white neck. By the time she went downstairs to greet her guests, she was in a better mood and Louisa tried not to wonder too much quite what the long list of things to do could have consisted of other than checking Nanny Higgs had put the boys to bed, Mrs Dudley (a new cook, as Mrs Mack was installed in Biddesden) had cooked everything, the maid had set out the drinks and Louisa had helped her dress and do her hair. Having cleared up the bedroom and readied it for Diana’s return later, Louisa went down the stairs quietly. She would normally avoid going past the drawing room but she was hoping Luke was one of the guests this evening, and that she might just catch his eye.
The house was warm and the noise of the guests chatting could be heard before Louisa reached the ground floor. There was no music on the gramophone player tonight, Diana having instructed that the atmosphere was to be more sombre than usual, given the recent funeral. Louisa hovered at the edge of the doorway and saw that the room was full, with people both sitting and standing, almost all with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Most of the women were dressed in black or dark colours, the men in evening dress though some had dandyish touches – a colourful handkerchief in the top pocket or purple socks. There were familiar faces, the usual set who prayed at the altar of Diana, recognisable as much to anyone who read the diary columns as to Louisa. Dora Carrington was there, too, with her heavy fringe, no make-up, looking utterly bereft, not talking to anyone, not drinking her drink. Then Luke stood up from somewhere in the middle of the room – he had probably been sitting on the footstool – and saw Louisa. He came over and she tried to arrange her face to look normal and wasn’t at all sure she’d succeeded.
‘Hi,’ he said. He swayed very slightly. ‘How are you?’
Louisa decided to bite the bullet. ‘Can you escape for a minute?’
Luke swigged his martini. ‘I say, how mysterious. Of course, old thing.’ He was only just on the right side of not slurring.
Louisa led them both into the morning room, which was always empty when Diana wasn’t in there writing her letters after breakfast. Luke sat down but Louisa did not. She fiddled awkwardly with the objets on Diana’s desk, as if she had gone in there to straighten things out. She couldn’t think how to start.
‘Come on then, what have you brought me in here for? Be quick about it. I’m not far off finishing my drink.’
‘Are you really friends with them?’ Louisa said, nodding her head in the direction of the drawing room.
Luke looked confused. ‘What sort of question is that?’
‘I mean – do you like them?’
He stopped and also looked in the same direction, as if he’d be able to see through the walls and remember who was there and what he thought of them. ‘Haven’t we discussed this before? You know it’s complicated. I’m not one of them, am I? But yes, I enjoy being in their company. I like it when I get asked to dinner. It’s more than I ever thought was possible when I was a hack, writing them up for my sordid little column.’ He gave a laugh as if he’d made a joke, but Louisa knew it was a hollow one.
‘And Mr and Mrs Mulloney. What did you think of them?’
Luke’s head jerked back. ‘I barely knew them. They seemed glamorous and attractive. It’s ghastly, everything that’s happened.’
‘That night, in Paris, when Mr Mulloney died. Do you think it was the sesame allergy?’ Louisa was pretty certain she wouldn’t win any prizes for her interview technique but impatience was getting the better of her.
‘That was the conclusion, wasn’t it? Louisa, this is a strange time to have this conversation. It happened such a long time ago and now we’re here for poor Mr Strachey … ’
‘I know,’ said Louisa. ‘I’m sorry, I should have thought about the funeral. It’s only because I met up with Guy today and he told me that he is looking into it. Mr Mulloney’s death, I mean.’
‘Why?’
Louisa had to tread carefully here. She couldn’t let Luke know everything they were thinking. Not yet.
‘I think because it turned out Clara was given an overdose, it’s making him look at everything again. It’s nothing more than a policeman’s mind at work.’ She tried to give a lighthearted chuckle. ‘We were trying to think if there was anything that Mr Mulloney might have eaten that could have caused his death.’
‘Such as sesame, at the restaurant?’ Luke’s tone was distinctly sarcastic.
‘But it seems unlikely, given his serious allergy, that Mr Mulloney would have ordered anything with sesame in it. What about the drinks once you were back at the house? Can you remember if he ate anything that was in the drawing room that night? Something that nobody else had? Mr Guinness mentioned a box of chocolates but he didn’t know where they came from.’
Louisa held her breath. Would he admit to bringing the chocolates?
Luke gulped down the last of his drink. ‘Of course it’s not the bloody chocolates, I brought them. I don’t know what the hell is going on here, Louisa. But I think you’re on dangerous ground. Kate confessed, didn’t she? I don’t see what good can come of raking this all up again. I even wrote it up for the paper – it got me my promotion, if you remember. The last thing I want is to have to tell my editor that the story was something else altogether. Better to leave this alone, don’t you think?’
Louisa said nothing. She couldn’t. In that moment she realized she had got it wrong: those chocolates had never been intended for Shaun Mulloney. When Luke had arrived at the house, he said the chocolates were a present for Diana. He wasn’t to know she was going to put them to one side and not eat them. If Shaun Mulloney ate them, it had been by mistake. If the chocolates killed him they had to have been poisoned, as no box of chocolates contained sesame. What if he had died but he hadn’t been the target? And she knew what Luke thought of Diana Guinness. He didn’t like her. Could it be that he hated her?
And Luke had stolen Kate’s diary.
‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘Sorry, forget I said anything.’ She left the room before Luke could see the fear on her face.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The following day, Louisa offered to run some errands for Diana and so was able, in between the post office and the dressmakers, to dash to the Knightsbridge police station and ask for DS Sullivan. Guy came out quite quickly and Louisa explained that she didn’t have much time, there was one thing she wanted to talk to him about.
‘What is it?’ He looked rather sweetly dishevelled. His clothes were clean but she suspected his jacket had been rather hastily put on in order to come out meet her. His glasses needed a decent polish.
‘I spoke to Luke Meyer last night.’
‘Yes.’ He looked neither pleased nor displeased at this news.
‘He was at the house, you see. It seemed like a good moment.’ She waited for him to say something but he didn’t. Nervously, she carried on. ‘The thing is, I remembered that I had taken one of the chocolates while everyone was out at the dinner and then I was sick all night. What if it wasn’t the fishpaste sandwiches but the chocolate? I only had one and was sick, Shaun ate the rest of them and was dead.’
Guy rubbed his nose. ‘Poisoned chocola
tes, is that what you mean?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Where did the chocolates come from?’
This was the question she didn’t want to answer but she had to. ‘Luke Meyer. He brought them, remember.’
Guy couldn’t hide the surprise. ‘Your friend, the journalist? But why would he want to kill Shaun Mulloney?’
‘That’s just it,’ said Louisa. ‘I also realized we are looking at it the wrong way. If it was the chocolates, they were meant for Mrs Guinness, not Mr Mulloney.’
‘In other words, we’re not looking for motivation to kill Mr Mulloney but Mrs Guinness,’ said Guy. ‘Golly, Louisa. I think you’ve done something here. That removes Mrs Mulloney’s motivation to kill her husband at the very least.’
Louisa wanted to jump with the high drama of it. She hardly dared speak in case it came out as a mouse’s squeak. ‘What do we do now?’
Guy glanced back at the office. ‘I’m not busy now. I think I should come back to the house with you. I assume Mrs Guinness is at home?’
‘Yes, she is. So is Mr Guinness.’ This bit, Louisa didn’t like. She knew they would not enjoy the discussion but having got started, she didn’t feel that either of them could stop.
Louisa followed Guy out of the room and into the hallway. ‘I know how it looks but I can’t believe that Luke would have deliberately poisoned those chocolates,’ she said.
‘Why? Because he’s your friend?’
‘No. Well, yes. I don’t know, Guy.’
‘Did he have a reason to want to kill Mrs Guinness?’
Louisa sighed. ‘I don’t know, I don’t think so. Why would he have tried then and not again?’
‘Supposing he did try again, and failed, and we don’t know about it.’
Louisa walked towards the front door, where she would let Guy out. ‘There was a weekend, about a year ago I think, which Diana spent with Lytton Strachey where she was very sick and everyone thought Dora Carrington had tried to poison her. Perhaps Luke was there then?’
[Mitford Murders 03] - The Mitford Scandal Page 22
