Design for Murder

by Nancy Buckingham

  I also made a note of Mrs. Cynthia Fairford at Dodford Old Rectory. Her new drawing room was still only a preliminary design on paper, but considering the lady’s special relationship with Oliver it seemed to me that some tactful handling was called for.

  I heard the sound of a car entering the courtyard, then there were footsteps on the stairs. It was Neil Grant.

  “Hallo, Tracy. I dropped in at Honeysuckle Cottage just now and your cleaning woman told me that I’d find you here.”

  “Tracy?” I queried, “Whatever happened to Miss Yorke?”

  “Police business has to be conducted with a certain formality. You ought to appreciate that.”

  “And isn’t this police business now?”

  “Well, yes. But I wanted to have an off-the-record chat with you about the general set-up here, to give me a better all-round picture.”

  I shrugged, and gestured him to one of the comfortable red leather chairs. “What is it you want to know?”

  “You went straight to see Baxter after leaving here yesterday.”

  “Are you asking me or telling me?” I said coldly.

  “What I want to know, Tracy, is why?”

  “Is it a crime?” I demanded. “I just wanted to talk to Tim.”

  “What about? Were you comparing notes?”

  “Would that be so surprising, after all those questions you threw at us?”

  Neil looked exasperated. “Surely you can see that I’ve got to ask questions. It’s the only way I can eliminate people from suspicion.”

  “And are Tim and I now eliminated?”

  He didn’t answer that. Instead he shot off in a new direction. “Tracy, how the devil did you come to be associated with a man like Oliver Medway?”

  I didn’t care for what he’d said, and I particularly didn’t like the implication behind it.

  “You may be interested to know,” I told him frostily, “that working alongside Oliver Medway was an enormously valuable experience. He was one of the most talented men I’ve ever met... almost a genius.”

  “He was lots of other, less admirable things, too,” Neil retorted.

  “Such as?”

  “For a start, he was pathologically promiscuous. People say that he couldn’t keep his hands off any attractive woman who happened to cross his path.”

  “So?”

  “So, it could be relevant to his murder.” Neil eased a finger round the leather strap of his wristwatch, and glowered at me. “Don’t try and tell me that he never made a pass at you, Tracy. I wouldn’t believe you.”

  “Then I won’t.”

  “Does that mean he did?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, ” I exploded. “As you said, Oliver couldn’t keep his hands off women. The first day I joined him he was trying it on with me.”

  “And?”

  I held back an impulse to scream out confirmation of what he obviously believed. Wasn’t his big luxurious bed handy, only two rooms along from the studio?

  I said in a furious voice, “It was always strictly business between Oliver and me. I insisted on that. I couldn’t possibly have worked with him otherwise.”

  “I see.” It was as if the tempo suddenly changed, Neil once again becoming the brisk police inspector. “I want you to make a list of every contact of Oliver Medway’s you can think of.”

  “Business contacts, you mean?”

  “And personal. I gather that the two were closely interlinked. Did he keep a diary? We didn’t find anything.”

  “I can’t imagine Oliver keeping a diary,” I said. “Except the one over there by the phone for appointments.”

  “We’ve looked through that already. There seems nothing much to interest us.” Neil glanced around as if for inspiration. “Well, I’ll leave you to get on with that list, while I have another look round the flat.”

  He disappeared through the communicating door and I set about noting down names and addresses. To aid my memory, I looked up the correspondence files and account books. All the while I could hear the sound of doors opening and closing next door. When after a good half hour Neil came back, he started to give the studio a thorough inspection too, checking through the titles on the bookshelves, then sitting at Oliver’s desk and going through the drawers.

  “I thought all that would have been done yesterday,” I said, finding the silence between us a bit creepy.

  “It was,” said Neil, “and very thoroughly. But whenever possible I like to have a quiet, uninterrupted browse without an audience.”

  “Does that mean you’d like me to make myself scarce?”

  “Oh, I wasn’t including you, Tracy.” He gave me a rueful grin, which suddenly made him more human. “When you’ve gained a certain reputation for being an astute detective, it’s important to maintain the image—especially when your Chief Superintendent has entrusted you with a murder investigation. In the presence of other policemen I have to be seen sizing up situations in an instant. Making shrewd assessments and judgments. It wouldn’t do at all for anyone to see Neil Grant lost for a lead.”

  “And you’re lost in this case?”

  Neil let his glance rest on me until I felt uncomfortable.

  “Put it this way, Tracy ... there are too many leads, too many possibilities. Nothing stands out as obvious.”

  “From your line of questioning yesterday,” I said dryly, “I was under the impression that you thought it all very obvious.”

  He shook his head and sighed. “Like most people, you’ve got altogether the wrong idea of police work. Too much television, I suppose. Brilliant leaps of deduction hardly ever come into it. We have to rely on painstakingly collecting and sifting facts and opinions. Fitting them together and trying to discern a pattern.”

  “Like a jigsaw puzzle,” I suggested, unoriginally.

  “Exactly. And up to now I’ve scarcely got more than two or three pieces slotted together.”

  “So you don’t really believe that it was Tim Baxter?” I asked.

  “Do you?” he shot back at me.

  “Of course not.”

  “You seem very positive.”

  “I just know it wasn’t Tim,” I said stubbornly, trying to convince myself as much as him.

  Neil settled himself more comfortably in Oliver’s chair, stretching out his legs.

  “Tell me about Baxter. He went off to horticultural college or whatever, I think, about the same time I joined the police. I’d heard that he lost both his parents, but that he’d returned to the neighbourhood. How did he come to start a vineyard here?”

  “The way I understand it, Tim first got hooked on the idea while he was on holiday in France, as a student. Then when he came home after college, he spotted that piece of south-facing land on the slopes of the Pudding Basin, and realised that it was an ideal spot for grape cultivation. It seems that Sir Robert didn’t object when Tim approached him, but Tim needed his help in financing the scheme, too. You see, there would be no crops while the vines established themselves— three years, I think it takes. Anyhow, he managed to talk Sir Robert into letting him have a go. Unluckily, though, Tim’s first vintage was a terrible flop because of bad weather, but this past year things have picked up, and it now looks as if the vineyard will pay off.”

  “Where did you get all this information? From Baxter himself?”

  “No. I told you, I don’t know him all that well. It’s just common knowledge that I’ve picked up from various people —including Oliver, I suppose.”

  “I see. What was Medway’s attitude towards Baxter and the vineyard?”

  “He wasn’t very happy about it, actually,” I said, minimising Oliver’s many scathing comments.

  I might have guessed that Neil would jump in on that.

  “Shouldn’t Medway have been pleased, once he saw that the gamble was going to pay off? If the vineyard is doing well and the Haslop Hall estate has a stake in the profits, he must surely have benefitted?”

  “Not really, because his father kept
him on a very tight rein.” I thought it necessary to add, “Oliver wasn’t very good with money—it tended to run through his fingers.” This could have competed for the understatement of the year.

  “But the success of the vineyard would still have been to his advantage,” Neil persisted, “I mean, when he eventually took over the estate himself.”

  “Yes, but that might not have been for ages. Sir Robert is only about sixty. I know he’s got a bad heart, but he’s not the sort of man to give in to ill-health.”

  “One would rather expect,” said Neil, slowly and thoughtfully, “that in a landed family like this, the son would be involved in the estate’s management. Wasn’t Oliver Medway interested?”

  “Oliver was brought in for a time after he finished at university some years ago, but I gather that he and his father were constantly at loggerheads.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Sir Robert arranged for him to join his stockbroker’s firm in London. But that didn’t work out either, and Oliver drifted from one job to another, coming home in between times. Meanwhile, Sir Robert’s second wife died, and he married for the third tune.”

  “That’s the present Lady Medway?”

  “Yes. She wanted changes made at the Hall, and Oliver came up with some brilliant ideas. Everyone realised suddenly that he’d got a real flair for interior design. So that was how the studio got started.”

  Neil got up from the desk and strolled to the window, standing there with his fingertips resting on the sill, staring out.

  “There’s another son, isn’t there?”

  “A stepson, actually,” I said, “but Sebastian has also been legally adopted. You see, he was only about three years old when his mother became Sir Robert’s second wife. Sebastian is much younger than Oliver, of course. He’s still up at Oxford.”

  “I presume that he will inherit now, when the time comes?”

  “I imagine so.”

  “What’s he like? I’ve not met him yet.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve only met Sebastian a couple of times, so I don’t really know him. But he struck me as being very different from Oliver.”

  Neil turned round to face me. “In what way?”

  I pondered. I hadn’t liked Sebastian Medway one bit. He was reported to be very clever, and good at just about everything he tried. A shade too good to be true, it seemed to me, and I thought of him as a sanctimonious young prig. Or was I just accepting Oliver’s assessment of his stepbrother?

  “He’s ... a more serious type,” I said warily.

  “More dependable?”

  I shrugged. “If you like.”

  “Do you think,” said Neil, “that all along it might have been Sir Robert’s intention to leave control of the estate to this adopted son, in view of the fact that he thought Oliver was incapable of running it properly?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t believe that.”

  “Why not? There’s no entail involved, is there?”

  “No, but the Haslop Hall estate has passed from father to son for at least five generations, so it would be unthinkable for him to will it away from Oliver. That was always Oliver’s trump card. He knew that he would triumph in the end.” I sighed. “Only of course he hasn’t now. Oliver and his father were quite fond of each other in a curious sort of way.”

  Neil glanced at his wristwatch. “I seem to remember that they do a good lunch at the Trout Inn. Care to join me?”

  I groped for an excuse. “I haven’t finished this list you asked me for.”

  “That can wait till this afternoon. You’ve got to eat.” When I still hesitated, he said, “Come on, Tracy, I don’t bite.”

  Me lunching with the detective inspector from Gilchester gave a surprise to the regulars at the Trout. It was obvious that they were all busy speculating about us. Neil grinned, understanding my discomfort.

  “You get used to it, Tracy, in this job of mine.” “I suppose you do.”

  “Tell me about your job. How do you come to be in that line? You always were artistic, I know.”

  “I have my aunt to thank for giving me a push in the right direction,” I said. “She was a sculptor, you remember.”

  Neil grinned. “She was a formidable lady. Once a crowd of us called round for you to go swimming, and while you were getting ready she showed us her workshop. I was terribly impressed, but scared to open my mouth in case I revealed my abysmal ignorance of things artistic. I had a feeling that she didn’t suffer fools gladly.”

  “Aunt Verity was an absolute darling, really,” I said. “It must have been a dreadful bind for her, when my parents were killed and she found herself landed with her little niece. But there was no one else to do it—my mother was an only child. Aunt Verity responded nobly, if somewhat eccentrically. Conventions meant nothing to her, she just went her own way and other people had to like it or lump it.”

  The waitress brought the menu. But the choice at the Trout Inn was obvious ... trout from the river that bordered its garden. Gently fried in butter, a la meuniere.

  “So,” prompted Neil when she’d gone off with our order, “your aunt encouraged you.”

  “She packed me off to art school in London. And then she urged me to find a job there—even though, as I realised later, her health was failing and she needed me at home. Aunt Verity was a self-sacrificing person, though never in an ostentatious way. She didn’t like being thanked.”

  “What brought you back eventually?”

  “She was dying,” I said simply. “We both knew there was no hope, even though it wasn’t diagnosed as leukaemia immediately. She was furious with me, actually. She called it recklessly squandering my career. But I felt I owed it to her.”

  Neil stroked one eyebrow in what seemed to be a characteristic gesture.

  “So you stayed and cared for your aunt. But after her death, you didn’t want to return to London?”

  “I planned to, as a matter of fact. The studio I’d worked for was willing to have me back. But then Sir Robert approached me with the suggestion that I join Oliver in a design business right here in Steeple Haslop.”

  Neil looked surprised. “It was Sir Robert who approached you?”

  “Yes. The idea was first put into his head by Ralph Ebborn —you know, his agent. Having seen Oliver’s flare for interior design, Sir Robert thought that at last this was something he might make a go of. But it was obvious that Oliver would need an assistant with the necessary training.”

  “And Ralph Ebborn, how does he tie in with you?”

  “His wife had been a friend of my aunt’s for years. Grace Ebborn was one of the Murchisons—do you know them?”

  “Murchison?” Neil creased his forehead. “The name’s familiar, but...”

  “They’re an old local family with a pedigree as long as your arm. Not much money these days, but highly respected. After Grace’s parents died she was left with just about enough to live on without getting a job, and she involved herself in all kinds of volunteer work ... you know, raising money for charity, and being on committees. She must have been nearly forty, and seemed all set for spinsterhood, when to everyone’s surprise she married Ralph Ebborn, who’d come to Steeple Haslop just a few months before to be Sir Robert’s agent. Actually,” I corrected, “Ralph came as the assistant agent, but his predecessor died of a coronary and Ralph was asked to take over.”

  “So Ebborn is not a local man? I’d somehow imagined that he was.”

  “Ralph has been here for fifteen years now,” I explained. “I happen to know that precisely because I was a bridesmaid at their wedding, and I was eleven at the time. Goodness knows why I was asked, except that I was available. Grace wanted a proper wedding, with lots of confetti and four little bridesmaids in pink, and Murchison relatives were a bit thin on the ground.”

  “A very pretty little bridesmaid you must have made, too,” grinned Neil, and let his eyes linger on me.

  Our trout arrived, smelling delicious, garnished with tiny butter
ed new potatoes. My one thin slice of toast for breakfast seemed like a forgotten memory. The waitress asked if we’d like a window open, and from outside, where the lawn had just been cut, drifted the warm scent of new-mown grass. Murder seemed a thousand miles away.

  Dissecting his trout, Neil reminded me, “You were explaining how Ebborn suggested you should be offered a job with Oliver Medway.”

  “Oh yes. Well, it was just at the time that Aunt Verity died. She’d left me Honeysuckle Cottage, but I simply didn’t see how I could keep it because I had to get back to London to pick up my career again. Then the idea struck the Ebborns that I might be just the person Sir Robert was looking for as Oliver’s assistant. I’ll always be grateful to them. It meant that I was able to stay on at Honeysuckle Cottage after all. And besides, I welcomed the challenge the job presented.”

  “But now,” Neil went on, picking a small bone from his fork, “everything has collapsed for you. What will you do, Tracy?”

  “I don’t know,” I said gloomily. “I shall have to stay on for a while to clear things up, and then ... heaven only knows. I haven’t been able to think much about the future yet.”

  Neil speared a potato. “Will you go back to London?”

  “I expect so.”

  “And sell the cottage?”

  “I hate the thought of it,” I said with a sigh.

  Neil gave me an ego-boosting smile. “Perhaps you’ll find some way of staying on, Tracy. I certainly hope so.”

  At least, I told myself, there was something to weigh against the awfulness of the past twenty-four hours. All of a sudden two very personable men both seemed anxious for me to stick around.

  So why wasn’t I feeling more cheerful?

  Chapter 4

  We had driven to the Trout Inn in Neil’s car, and he took it for granted that he’d deliver me back to the Coach House. But I refused, making the glorious afternoon my excuse.