Last to Leave

by Clare Curzon

  ‘Why should I be? I’m not an electronics technician.’ It was an attempt at scorn, but a little lame.

  ‘Then you may not realize fully how they scan date and journey on a ticket. We have recovered the return train ticket issued yesterday to Mrs Dellar, who, I’m happy to say is recovering in hospital and due to give my colleagues a statement explaining her serious injuries. Also, we shall be asking these technicians you despise to search the electronic system for the recording of her ticket number, to check if she was admitted to the platform for her return journey. Meanwhile your car is being microscopically examined for traces of Mrs Dellar’s presence.’

  He watched the blood leach from under the tan of the woman’s face. Then he nodded to Beaumont to caution her.

  When she had been passed to the custody sergeant, ‘I never knew that about those ticket scanners,’ Beaumont said, impressed.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘That they record the numbers of every ticket that goes through.’

  ‘I wonder if they do.’ Yeadings smiled beatifically. ‘I’m as ignorant of how they work as Dr Paige herself. Actually I never claimed that they do record. Only that a search is being made to find out if her ticket number was recorded. But, like you, Dr Paige seems to have assumed I meant something more.

  ‘You can check that out when you run the tape through. An occasional spot of bluff doesn’t come amiss. If you’re careful.’

  Kate Dellar felt she had made a new friend in Roger Beale. The little man had shed his official dignity and shown a human side. While she saw to shaking the wok of frying peppers and assorted vegetables he applied himself to carving the cold roast chicken. They were having their meal in the kitchen, for convenience and because sunlight was pouring in while the dining-room would be darker.

  When the doorbell rang Kate clucked, darted a glance at the kitchen clock and said, ‘That’ll be the egg delivery man. He’s early today. Would you much mind seeing to it? His money’s on the hall table.’

  Beale ran his fingers under the tap, wiped them on the tea towel tucked into the waistband of his trousers and went to do her bidding. He opened the door to a pair of large policemen and a leggy young girl with shaggy blonde hair.

  It took him a second to recognize her from the photograph on Stone’s desk. ‘Yes?’ he said politely.

  The girl pushed past him and he was left to hear out the explanation. The police were from Heathrow with instructions to deliver her to her mother at this address. She had arrived on a flight from Croatia with a temporary passport from the British Embassy in Zagreb. It seemed she was a bit of a VIP.

  24

  ‘Better come in then.’

  The policemen followed Beale into the kitchen where the two women were clasped in each other’s arms, and the wok giving out blue smoke.

  ‘Jess, whatever have you been up to? And your hair!’ Kate managed to get out through tears of happiness. ‘Oh, never mind. We can go into all this later.’

  ‘Mrs Kate Dellar?’ one of the policemen asked solemnly.

  ‘Yes, I’m Jessica’s mother.’

  ‘I’ll vouch for that,’ Beale offered, removing the wok with one hand and firmly offering them the door. ‘Thank you for escorting Miss Dellar home.’

  When he came back from seeing them out, the girl swung round on him, took in the tea towel apron and demanded, ‘Who’s this, Ma?’

  Kate told her.

  ‘Beale? Oh no, he isn’t! Roger Beale’s an absolute hulk. I should know. He’s the one who carted me away.’

  ‘But I’m the real one,’ he said. ‘The other would have been Jack Mortimer, Mr Stone’s wife’s man. He’d have used my name because you’d heard of it. And they’re looking for him on a count of murder.’

  That shocked the girl. ‘Who?’ she demanded, appalled. At Heathrow she’d been questioned unmercifully, but no one had explained what had happened in her absence.

  So Beale sketched a summary to bring her up to date. ‘The fire would have been started after you were removed to Mortimer’s van. It was young Nicholas that Mortimer killed, and you almost came down to catch him at it. Then he set the house alight to dispose of the body. Eddie had to struggle to get out and he seemed to be the last. But then we discovered you were missing. Imagine what your mother went through after they found a body in the ashes.’

  For a moment Jessica was speechless. She turned back to Kate and hugged her close. ‘Oh, Ma! I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Will you tell me something?’ Beale asked as they finally settled to their lunch. ‘A week or more ago, what were you up to in Eddie’s kitchen?’

  She held his eyes a moment. ‘There was a security camera? It picked me up then? I had something I wanted to leave for Eddie.’

  ‘A fruit cake,’ Kate said dryly. ‘DS Rosemary Zyczynski has it in custody. What is so special about it?’

  Jessica hesitated, but in the face of all that had happened, did this one detail have to be suppressed?

  ‘Charles had just got back from Russia,’ she said. ‘He brought me a present. A bag of uncut stones, mostly rubies, I think. I’d nowhere to keep them on the boat and I didn’t want to use my bank.’

  She looked uncomfortable. ‘I wasn’t sure, you see, that they were legit.’

  Beale grunted. ‘You’d no need to worry. Since the Soviet Union broke up they’re using all sorts of currency. This would have been payment for services rendered. And it doesn’t have Russian Mafia implications. The authorities will have approved, Customs duty duly registered.’

  Jessica gave a long sigh. Then, ‘So is Charles still in America?’ she demanded. ‘And what exactly are you doing here in Ma’s kitchen?’

  Kate took it on herself to explain. ‘In your – er, absence, Charles has been most supportive,’ she said. ‘He and Mr Beale – Roger – have been kindness itself. Right now Charles is in Venice settling matters there and …’

  ‘You’ve met him? Do you like him?’ The words tumbled out of themselves.

  ‘I like him,’ Kate said, eyeing her daughter evenly. She drew a deep breath. ‘What’s more, I approve. He is just what you need.’

  Marion Paige had held her hand up for the deaths of Sir Matthew and his daughter. She elected to make a voluntary confession.

  ‘I had nothing against Madeleine,’ she allowed, ‘but she was rather a pointless person.’ There was no regret there, simply cold comment. She seemed careless of her own future.

  ‘The arson, though: that was nothing to do with me. I suppose it suggested something when an unknown man was found murdered at the house. It seemed that if I was going to set the account right it was a good time then to fudge the issue. The Doom of the House of Dellar, as Kate saw it.’

  ‘You gained admission to the family through Robert,’ Yeadings supposed.

  ‘He was easily flattered. Gus Railton introduced us. We’d been lovers for some time.’

  ‘He didn’t object to your getting engaged to Robert?’

  ‘Why should he? He’d married for money himself. He saw it as much the same: the little woman, however independent-minded, craves security in later life. There was no reason that, married to Robert, I shouldn’t continue with him as before. Better cover, in fact.’

  Beaumont, wooden-faced, said, ‘You haven’t mentioned Michael Dellar. He was the first of them to be killed.’

  ‘Michael? I met him through my work. Archaeologists often use me as a consultant. Michael, a historian, would sometimes turn up at a dig. I liked him. He was the only good one of the bunch, a true scholar, but sexy too.’

  She gave a twisted smile. ‘To be honest – and now that you know the worst I’ve done, why not confess this as well? – I more than liked him. I found him very attractive. Not that he seemed aware of it. And when one day his daughter turned up …’

  ‘She guessed how you felt?’

  ‘She warned me off. A very determined young woman, that Jessica. Kate has no idea what it is that I have against her.’ She sounded wryly amuse
d.

  ‘I might have made a stand and pushed my chances with him, but fate decided otherwise. He was mugged and killed one night on his way to Temple Underground. What an abominable waste! He was a lovely man.’

  Beaumont leaned forward as if to put a further question, but Yeadings moved a finger and he held back. ‘You used Michael Dellar to get to your mother,’ the superintendent accused her.

  The woman’s distant gaze returned to his face. ‘On my birth certificate I was Marion Gilmour, father unknown. My mother was Claudia – not a common name. Even before I decided to track her down, every time I came across the name something used to stir inside me. A vicious little asp rearing to do what it was created for.’ Her laugh was harsh.

  ‘I don’t remember what brought it up, but Michael happened to mention a sister-in-law called Claudia. Of course I assumed she’d be of much the same age as him. Then I saw a press photo of her husband, the poet. He was as old as Methuselah. So I wondered. Maybe this Claudia was the right age to be my mother. Just a shot in the dark.

  ‘It isn’t difficult to check these things if you know where to go. And Bingo! I’d found her. Claudia Dellar, née Gilmour. But I still didn’t know who her lover had been before she got married all those years ago. There had been an interval of eighteen months between my birth and her taking to the orange blossom.’ Her lips twisted bitterly.

  ‘So, with that much information, you followed up her disrupted career in chambers with Matthew Dellar. Was it Randolph Metcalfe who spilled the office gossip?’

  ‘Ah. You tapped into him too, Superintendent? Yes, he was very forthcoming. A neat little arrangement between the brothers, wasn’t it? And everything so well covered up in advance, so that anyone in the know would assume she had aborted the baby. I was disposed of. Passed to monsters!’

  Her voice rasped with fury. ‘Nothing, but nothing, is bad enough for someone who did that to me! She should have suffered all the fear and pain that I did.’

  It was all sorted and they were holding a mild celebration in Yeadings’ office. A fax had just come through that Jack Mortimer had been apprehended at a bank in Rotterdam, picking up the second half of Giulia’s pay-off in the name of Joseph Ryan. An escort was being sent to bring him home the next morning.

  ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday!’ Z wailed. ‘The Saturday. And I meant to buy a new dress for the wedding!’

  ‘You still have time,’ Yeadings told her. ‘Why don’t I send you off now on police business and see you in church tomorrow?’

  ‘Thanks, Boss,’ she said, rising and placing her coffee mug on his office windowsill. ‘What police business?’

  ‘We require another pack of that Italian espresso. And better sign the card for Angus and Paula before you go. Right; paperwork you other two. Off with you.’

  He watched them dismiss, wondering how long he could put off announcing what the brass upstairs had planned for when Angus Mott finally gave up in Kosovo. It seemed a pity to dampen their present enthusiasm. Strings had been pulled to ensure Angus would return, promoted to DCI. It left the rank of inspector, in dispute between Beaumont and Rosemary Zyczynski, yet to be filled.

  The trouble was, Yeadings regretted, the Olympian gods at Kidlington HQ had spoken. The price of retaining Angus Mott in his specialized team was to have Walter Salmon continue as DI.

  You win some, he told himself. You lose some.

  Rosemary Zyczynski dropped the sealed packet of Italian espresso coffee into the carrier bag with her new natural shantung suit for the wedding. She had one other purchase to make: a basket of fruit for an invalid.

  She found Eddie Dellar in an open ward. He was still weak, but cheerfully optimistic. His mother and sister had just left after a visit.

  ‘I’ve been downgraded from a private room,’ he said. ‘That’s progress. Six of us in this section. This time I’m going to make sure. It’s last in, first to leave.’

  CLARE CURZON began writing in the 1960s and has published about forty novels under a variety of pseudonyms. She studied French and Psychology at King’s College, London, and much of her work is concerned with the dynamics within closely-knit communities. A grandmother to seven, in her free time she aslso enjoys painting. Last to Leave is the eleventh book in the series set in the Thames Valley area.

  LAST TO LEAVE. Copyright @ 2004 by Clare Curzon. All rights reserved. . No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

  An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  eISBN 9781466822665

  First eBook Edition : June 2012

  ISBN 0-312-31876-6

  EAN 978-0-312-31876-5

  First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby Limited

  First U.S. Edition: December 2005