by Kate Adams
‘Is this what you do? Steal when you’re travelling the country for food festivals and events?’
‘No!’ He sounded horrified, then quietly continued, ‘Or it wasn’t. And it wasn’t me. I know about it, but I’m not involved.’
Kyle looked and sounded like he was pleading with me, and I immediately believed him.
‘Ben needed money and Guy caught him stealing from a stately home last summer. He threatened to tell the police, but then Ben offered him a cut of any money he got for the item in order to keep him quiet. Guy’s all about the money, whatever we’re doing, so he said yes and encouraged Ben to steal again. In fact, he started to plan it for him. After that, he made sure that Ben never stole from anywhere we were actually working, only before or after the event so that there was no link.’
‘And you knew about it? Why didn’t you go to the police?’
Kyle didn’t respond and that gave me the few precious moments I needed to fit in another piece of the jigsaw.
‘You didn’t go to the police because if they investigated, they would likely discover your sham coffee business.’ His eyes shot up to meet mine and I nodded. ‘I’ve been to your offices, I know what you’re doing: flogging Northern Bean Company coffee as your own and saving yourself all the production costs. I assume that was just a little project to increase your profits, and then it became the perfect cover for stealing artefacts as you travelled for events. Combine the two businesses and the overall profit must be huge.’
Kyle nodded. ‘It was so easy. Most of these places have little or no security. Occasionally Guy and Ben would get something of little value, but sometimes they hit the jackpot. Ben was always up for it – he took any chance he could to make some extra money. I managed the coffee side of things to provide the cover and Guy was often down in London, working with Chester to sell whatever Ben managed to steal.’
‘Why were you arguing with Guy the other day? It looked pretty nasty.’
‘Things changed when Guy started taking orders off people.’ I didn’t know what he meant and I looked questioningly at him. ‘Chester had a couple of clients who were looking for something in particular – an object or painting they knew the owner would never sell – so Chester would arrange a way to get hold of it for them.’
‘And that “way” was Ben?’ Kyle nodded again. ‘The St Ives Bowl, did Malcolm put in a request for that?’
‘Yeah, he was at university with the Duke, along with Chester. I reckon he had a chip on his shoulder. He’d made a lot of money, but it was new money. The way he used to talk about their university days made me think he was jealous.’
‘And he took something that meant a lot to the Duke to get back at him.’ I finished the story off for Kyle. ‘So that’s what you were fighting over – this was all getting far too serious for you. They’d gone from opportunist thefts to stealing to order and you weren’t keen?’ Kyle nodded once more. ‘And Ben? Did he have a change of heart, threaten to tell the police?’
‘Oh hell no, Ben was well up for it. If anything, he didn’t think we were doing enough.’
‘So why was he killed?’
Kyle shook his head and looked genuinely confused. ‘I don’t know. Really, I have no idea. Everything was going well. I was here at the pub with Guy the night of the reception and we got a text off Ben to say that he had the bowl and it had all been really easy. As planned, it was stashed in one of the sacks of coffee beans in the van. We figured no one would check there. We’d get it out once the festival was up and running and there were thousands of people to serve as a distraction, and no one would have a clue.’
‘What about Guy?’
‘What about him? Ben was making him money, so he wouldn’t want him gone. And anyway, he was with Malcolm when Ben was killed. I met up with him just before Ben’s body was found.’
Despite Kyle’s certainty, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
‘Where’s Guy now?’
‘Heading back to London. He and Chester had put a couple of jobs on hold until Ben’s murder all blew over, but he says he can’t wait anymore. Plus I’m not sure Guy wants to get his hands dirty. He was happy leaving that to Ben, so he won’t be taking any more orders for a while.’
I drained my glass of coke. ‘Are you going to tell the police or am I?’
‘What?’
‘You can hand yourself in, tell them everything you know and there’s a chance they’ll look favourably on you. Or you could do a runner and make the whole thing worse.’
I knew he was going to call them; he really didn’t seem like the fugitive type. Plus if he was telling the truth, then his involvement wasn’t worth being on the run for. I stood up and thanked him for the drink.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
‘I think I know what happened, but there’s something I need to check out first. I’ve been barking up the wrong well-manicured tree.’
I sat in the car park at Charleton House and called Joe.
‘Sophie, I’m here with your friend, Chester. It appears you’ve been ignoring my advice.’
‘Uh?’
‘Well, despite me telling you to keep your nose out, you’re clearly still digging for information, so you may as well tell me what else you’ve got.’ He’d made various comments about the need for me to let him do his job, but he’d never taken me aside and torn strips off me, so I figured he couldn’t be that annoyed. Plus if what Mark had said about Joe having a thing for me was true, he was unlikely to. I didn’t want him to have a thing for me and was trying to forget about it, but on the other hand, if it saved me from a telling off, it might have its uses.
I started to fill him in. ‘You’re going to have Kyle Rushton contacting you, or at least you should. He said he was going to call.’
‘He beat you to it. I had a call on the way here, and he’s at the station waiting to talk to me. I presume you know what it’s about?’
‘I do. You’re going to have the thefts all wrapped up by the end of the day. The one thing I’m not so sure about is Ben’s murder. I think I know who did it, but you’re going to need the help of your Parisian colleagues.’
‘I’ve already put a call in to them,’ he responded.
‘And Chester? Have you got anything useful from him?’
‘He claims to know nothing about the contents of the parcel, that he was just doing someone a favour and shipping it out. He says he has no idea what it is or where it’s from.’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘Of course not. Right now I have a couple of officers going through the other parcels and we’ve already found the painting from Berwick Hall.’
‘And Malcolm?’
‘Our Parisian friends will be on their way to apprehend him. Hopefully Chester won’t find a way to give him a heads up, so he won’t be expecting the knock on his door that’s about to come.’
‘OK, well, make sure they ask him exactly when Guy was with him. I’m not convinced that either he or Guy have been entirely honest about that morning. I think Guy in particular has a lot of explaining to do.’
‘Sure thing, boss. Anything else while I’m at it, or can I go and get on with my job?’ Oddly, that question wasn’t laden with sarcasm, which slightly threw me off.
‘Err, no, I don’t think there’s any more to tell.’
I could hear voices in the background and someone shouting for Joe. ‘I have to go. That’s DS Harnby, and if she knows I’m talking to you, she’ll kill me. Give me two minutes, I’ll call you back.’ He hung up.
I’d quite liked Malcolm, he was pleasant company and had seemed harmless enough. But now it seemed he had quite an intense green streak running through him. On the plus side, the Duke would be getting his bowl back. I would be curious to see if it went back on display or if he decided to keep it out of sight; I wouldn’t blame him if he did. It seemed his trusting nature had left him a little burnt.
I wasn’t going to wait for Joe to call; there was an important conversation
I needed to have. I’d got something very badly wrong and I needed to fix it.
I started to walk towards the gardeners’ yard.
I found Elliot Forrester in one of the greenhouses. He was tidying up small pots and I was relieved to see that there weren’t any sharp objects immediately visible.
He turned as I walked in. ‘Oh for crying out loud.’ He leant against one of the workbenches that ran along both sides of the narrow building and dropped his head as though he was gathering his energy. ‘What do you want?’
I wasn’t quite as worried about this conversation as I had been last time we’d spoken, as my motive was very different this time.
‘I want you to be honest with me.’
‘About what? It’s none of your business. If you think I’m a killer, just say so, but you’d have a hard time proving it…’
‘Because you didn’t kill Ben,’ I interrupted. That caught him off guard and he was silent long enough for me to say what I needed to get out. ‘I don’t believe you did it, but there’s enough evidence to make people think you did. If you tell the truth it will be easier for everyone else to believe you too.’
‘This isn’t anyone’s business.’
‘But you’ve made it people’s business by having a go at Ben in public. You’ve put the idea out there. Elliot, you must know you have a reputation for having a bit of a temper. It makes people wonder whether you could go further – or at least, it did after some of us saw you with Ben last week.’
He grunted in response, but I took it as some sort of acquiescence.
‘It’s private,’ he said quietly. ‘Private, that’s all.’
Now I had a second man in front of me who appeared defeated. Elliot was such a big, muscular man that it seemed even more incongruous than it had with Kyle. He clearly had the strength to do some real harm – throw me over his shoulder and bury my body, but with his slouched shoulders and downcast eyes, he looked as if someone had found a nozzle and let the air out of him.
He looked up at me. ‘I hated him, but I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted him to clear off and leave us alone. I told him to time and time again, but he was always sending money. Lots of it. I’m a damned good father, I can provide for my family. I didn’t need his help, but he wouldn’t stop. It was embarrassing.’
I spoke softly; I didn’t want to antagonise him. ‘He’s Isabella’s father?’
‘I’m her father,’ he spat back. ‘I’ve raised her, provided for her. I’m the one that she calls Dad, not him.’
‘But he’s her biological father?’
He stared hard at the floor, then slowly nodded. ‘But that’s all. He promised me he’d stay away, they both promised me they’d have nothing more to do with each other, and Carla and I would raise Isabella as our own. But he kept sending money; he told us he’d set up a savings account to send her to college. The idiot was getting into more and more debt doing it. It was as though he was trying to prove a point, make up for sleeping with Carla by throwing money at Isabella, but he was making it worse.
‘Look, I’m not happy he’s dead. I’m not heartless. I guess he loved his daughter, but I didn’t want him round here. It turned out I had already shared Carla with him, I didn’t want to share my daughter with him as well.’
‘And then he arrived at the food festival. That must have been hard.’
‘I couldn’t believe it, I was furious. That was why I had a go at him. I know it was stupid, but you’ve no idea how hard it is. I’m not an idiot; I know a lot of people round here know about him and Carla and what they did, and I have to live with that every day that I come into work. But he was just rubbing my face in it. I lost it. It was stupid.’
‘And the next morning? I know there was a period of time when Robin left you alone. There was time for you to go and kill him.’
‘I know that now, but I don’t know what I can do about it. I just stayed in the Rock Garden, working; I never left, I swear.’
For the first time, Elliot looked as if he needed something from me. He had a temper, but I felt sorry for him. Imagine knowing that everyone around you was aware of your private life and were all just playing along. There was a child-sized elephant in the room every day of his life. I knew that the last thing he wanted was pity, but that was what I felt.
‘I believe you.’
His whole body relaxed and he lifted his face up to the roof. With his eyes closed, he asked, ‘What do I need to do?’
‘Nothing, Elliot, not right now. I think that while we’ve been talking, a few things have been sorting themselves out. I need to make a phone call. The police might still want to talk to you, confirm a few things, but if what I’m thinking is right, then you don’t need to worry.’
He didn’t respond. His eyes met mine again and I smiled. There was nothing left to say, so I turned and walked out of the greenhouse. I needed to get out into the fresh air; I’d spent a week believing that an innocent man had killed someone and I felt dreadful.
I took a long route through the gardens. There was no sign of the festival and its little white tents. All the cables had been packed away, the gravel raked over so there was no evidence of the cars and trucks that had removed all the stallholders and their goods from the site. The ducks were happily doing laps around the pond and the flowerbeds once again took pride of place. There was no indication that thousands of people had been enjoying pork pies or fudge, cider or freshly made lemonade right here just a few days ago.
There was also no sign that someone had been murdered here less than a week ago, twenty feet from where I was standing.
After giving myself time to take a few deep breaths, I walked back to the Library Café. I felt like I’d been neglecting my team over the last couple of days, and the least I could do was help them clear up and close for the day. I reached the entrance to the café and pushed the door open.
‘Sophie?’ I jumped, my hand flew to my chest and I stopped breathing for a moment. I felt like I’d returned to the first day of the festival when Guy had surprised me, spilling my coffee. At least this time I didn’t have hot liquid in my hand.
‘What the hell…’
Chelsea was standing immediately behind the door, chewing hard on a piece of gum and apparently waiting for me. She went bright red.
‘Sorry, I thought you’d seen me.’
‘Chelsea, what have I told you before?’
‘Eh?’
‘Chewing gum, Chelsea, get rid of it.’
She looked around and grabbed a napkin off a table, spitting the offending lump into it. ‘You had a phone call. Bruce Keen, and he sounded desperate to talk to you. I told him you’d call him back.’
I took the slip of paper that Chelsea passed to me, Bruce’s number scrawled on it, and put it in my pocket. He could wait until tomorrow morning. Right now, clearing dirty plates and wiping down tables seemed like the most normal thing I could possibly do, and I needed some normality back in my life.
Chapter 17
For the first time in weeks, there were grey clouds overhead and, if I’m honest, I was overjoyed. Like anyone else, I spend the British winter longing for spring to arrive, and then I start pining for summer to come, and with it the chance to leave the house without a coat (not without picking it up and putting it down a dozen times first, of course). But after the recent weeks of high temperatures, I was happy for some respite. My office was still unbearable – the thick old walls of Charleton House did a great job of holding in the heat, but at least it was now possible to sit in almost any seat in the cafés and not stick to the furniture.
I had decided that it was time for a change and so, at nine-thirty in the morning, before the visitors arrived on what promised to be a busy Saturday, Joe and Mark joined me for coffee in the Garden Café.
‘I’m not sure whether I should be flattered or deeply suspicious,’ Mark commented as he eyed me over the miniature glass flower vase and perfectly laid-out silver cutlery. ‘I haven’t been invited out anywhere
with tablecloths since… ooh, since Bill was still trying to woo me, which was fifteen years ago.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I’m going to have words with him, he needs to step up his game. I’m quite a catch and he shouldn’t forget it. I deserve a few more classy restaurants in my life.’
I sniggered, but straightened my face out as much as I could when he caught me. The glare that followed could have shattered the glass vase, if it hadn’t been combined with Mark sticking his tongue out.
Joe was back in his motorcycle leathers and they creaked as he made himself comfortable. A server in a crisp white shirt with the Ravensbury ducal coronet embroidered on the pocket made his way over. He was carrying a tray with a large French press and three china cups. The cups were beautifully decorated with views of the estate. The server smiled at me as he placed one with a scene that included a herd of deer on it in front of me; it seemed my love of the beasts was becoming well known. Appallingly, I didn’t know his name; I would have to change that and let his supervisor know I was impressed at the rather classy example of sucking up to the boss. I was also going to remind his supervisor that he should have been wearing a name badge: one hand giveth, the other taketh away, or something like that.
As Mark poured our coffees, I pulled out a notebook. I’d spent the previous night pulling together all my thoughts, trying to see if I could fill some of the gaps before Joe did, but as he had a couple of suspects in custody and the Paris gendarmerie had, I presumed, Malcolm in a cell on the other side of the Channel, I was sure to be less well-informed than he.
Joe turned to me. ‘As you insist on getting involved, no matter what I say, you go first. I’ll tell you if you stray off the path.’
‘And don’t miss anything out,’ Mark added. ‘I know you two have already spoken to one another, but I’m just as important a member of the three musketeers.’
I looked at Joe, who subtly raised his hands in a ‘no idea’ way. I decided not to comment.
‘OK, so there are three things going on here. In the background there are the thefts from numerous historic houses around the country, all of which are open to the public. There’s Ben’s murder, and then there’s the shady business dealings of Silver Bullet Coffee.’