A Banquet of Consequences

by Elizabeth George

  That was the question, all right. He knew the answer before she even finished speaking. For Caroline had been bent on pleasing him once and he her. That had gone by the wayside, and although they’d carried on for a time with each other on a weekly and then a monthly basis for a few years, mostly their focus had been on the boys. And between the boys mostly they’d concentrated their efforts on Will.

  “It’s Will. I’m so worried about Will” became passion’s death knell. These things happen, was what Alastair had told himself. Doesn’t mean the end of love.

  But with Sharon things were different. Just thinking of her could get him going. And, miracle of miracles, Caroline had come round with regard to Sharon. While she’d earlier demanded that he “sack the pathetic grey-faced little cow,” she’d decided soon after that Sharon’s importance to the business could not be discounted. She’d admitted “having let things go, having let myself go, Alastair, and no wonder you don’t want me any longer,” and had determined to alter the state of their relationship, a state that had—she declared—driven him into the arms of another woman. Three times she’d come to him during his period of rest from the bakery, and she’d slipped into his bed and offered herself to him, reaching down to arouse him, lifting one of her huge bosoms to his lips and caressing them with her nipple.

  Nothing, though. Not only could he not perform, he didn’t want to perform. It felt like a sin against Sharon. Caroline wept. She declared that it was her body that no longer aroused him. It was the weight she’d gained from the food she’d eaten to comfort herself after her son’s suicide, it was the strength of her need for him—for Alastair—which made her less appealing because there was no chase to it and he was a man who liked to pursue. Pursuit and capture and she’s done this for you, hasn’t she? So he’d comforted her and he’d said, “Caro, don’t worry so,” when he wanted to say “She’s not like you, she makes me her world,” only it wasn’t quite that, was it? It was just that she was Sharon.

  Now, he grabbed up his towel and wrapped it round his waist, and in the same movement he swept the empty hair-dye box into the rubbish. Caroline said to him, “The police have rung, Alastair, the police, and I don’t know what to think except . . .” She tapped her fist against her teeth in that way she had when she was trying to calm herself.

  He said, “What’s happened?”

  “They want to speak with me. The London police. It’s someone from Scotland Yard. A woman. She’s rung and said she’s coming to speak with me about Clare’s death. Do they think I did something to her?”

  Alastair reached for his glasses, which were on the top of the toilet cistern, and he said again, “What’s happened, then, luv?”

  She said, “I just told you—”

  “Right. But I mean, d’they suspect you of something?”

  “Of course they do. Why else would they phone? Why would they be on their way at all? She said she’d be here in late afternoon to speak with me and if I want to have a solicitor present . . . Alastair, she talked to me like . . . It’s as if I was a criminal. Do they think I harmed Clare? Why would I do that?”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “You must stay with me. I can’t be on my own today. Especially in front of the police. I can’t have them looking at me and thinking whatever they’re going to think. They’ve decided I must be guilty of something or why else would they be coming from London when the only thing—”

  “’Course I’ll stay,” he cut in. There was, really, nothing else he could do. “But I expect they’re just sorting through everything related to Clare and Cambridge and as you were there—”

  “Oh God, I packed her bag. Clare’s bag. She hadn’t the time, so I packed her bag for Cambridge. Do I have to tell them that? Do they need to know that? I can’t tell them that. I won’t. God knows what they’ll think.”

  “If they ask, you tell the truth, Caro. That’s always the best way. But don’t worry so.”

  “How can I help it? With Clare dead and Will dead and my life spinning out of control and . . .”

  “Hush, now.” He put his arms round her. “You let me get dressed and we’ll have ourselves a cuppa ’fore they get here.”

  Her voice altered, a softness coming into it. “How you always calm me. Thank you, darling.” She lifted her face to his and she kissed him, adding, “I’ve been terrible for such a long time. It was down to Will. His troubles, everything that ate at him and made his life such a trial, and you were always there for me. You know what you mean to me, don’t you?”

  “Aye,” he said and his heart felt heavy. “That I do.”

  She kissed him again, in the old way. She felt for him in the old way as well. But again and completely unlike the old way, his body didn’t respond. He hung there flaccid and knowing this would set her off, he took a step away and gazed at her and made his expression as loving as he could.

  He said, “Better now?”

  “Always better with you.”

  “So let me get dressed and I’ll make us some tea.”

  She nodded and turned to go. Then she said at the doorway, “They asked me . . . Alastair, the woman who rang? She asked me about Rory Statham. When was the last time I saw Rory, she wanted to know. Why would she ask me that?” She drew her eyebrows together thoughtfully and then said, “That day in her office when Clare and I went in to sign all those copies of her book . . . that was the same day we went to Cambridge. And then Clare died that night. Could Rory have . . . Could she have done something? Messed Clare about in some way?”

  Alastair shrugged and gave her what he hoped was a fond look. “It’ll sort itself out, pet. These things always do.”

  SHAFTESBURY

  DORSET

  They were slowed considerably by the rain, which had not let up since early morning. When Barbara and Winston Nkata finally arrived in Shaftesbury in his Prius, it was just after six in the evening, and the wind had come up in athletic gusts so fierce that the rain was lashing the town horizontally.

  Caroline Goldacre lived outside of town, at the base of a hill where the landscape altered from narrow streets lined with grey or whitewashed limestone buildings to a valley in which the yellow and umber of autumn trees interrupted a placid panorama of rolling emerald hills. In these the occasional set of farm buildings scattered into the distance, where slopes offered woodlands and outcroppings of stone.

  Caroline Goldacre’s home had at one time been part of one of the farms. It was situated in a horseshoe of buildings similar to it, a large stone house just off the road with a waist-high boxwood hedge in front and a driveway leading past an artful sign that read MacKerron Baked Goods. The bakery appeared to be purpose built. It sat opposite the house on one arm of the horseshoe, and between the two buildings a fanciful sunken garden offered a limestone terrace, a fire pit, outdoor seating, a bubbling fountain, and colourful plantings in both urns and pots as well as borders that mixed exotic-looking grasses of varying heights with hydrangeas, holly, and heather.

  The area for cars was to one side of the bakery, and here Nkata parked near a window that looked into a room with enormous cast-iron ovens and spotless working surfaces of stainless steel. Barbara and he got out into the rain, and they bent against a wind that fairly fought to keep them away from the house. On their way, they passed another rain-streaked window. A quick look inside showed them a storeroom of sacks, containers, and boxes. Beyond this, they could see mixers the size of old Volkswagens and baking sheets as big as camp beds. It appeared to be a place where everything was made by hand.

  Barbara led the way to the house, which took them past the bakery and through the garden. Closer to it, the building appeared to be cob faced in stone. It was freshly whitewashed with a grey slate roof where moss filigreed between the tiles. An oak door was set into a porch from whose peaked roof rainwater was falling in great sheets. Nkata did the honours at the door. A bell rang somewhere
deep within the place.

  Caroline Goldacre opened the door, but she wasn’t alone. The unattractive bloke from the pictures on Rory Statham’s smartphone stood just behind her, and he put one hand on her shoulder as Barbara dug out her warrant card and simultaneously Caroline Goldacre said to her, “You,” in the sort of tone that implies recognition. She added, “From the book signing. The tee-shirt,” to which Barbara replied, “For my sins.” She introduced Winston, and Caroline Goldacre did the same for the man who stood behind her. This was Alastair MacKerron, they were told, Caroline’s husband. He was giving Nkata the eye, his expression asking who the bloody hell would’ve wanted to get into a knife fight with this bloke—let alone with a cop—and Barbara didn’t shed light on the facial scar having come from the black man’s misspent youth.

  Caroline led them from the stone-floored entry into a sitting room to the right of the front door. Barbara took the place in and thought that if half of its contents were carted off by the dustmen, it would still be packed with so much clobber that sudden movements without overturning a table or breaking one of the two billion Toby jugs would probably still be well nigh impossible.

  Alastair cleared his throat roughly. He offered them tea. Barbara demurred, but Winston indicated that a cuppa might be the very thing, with thanks. Alastair hastened off to see to this while Barbara took in the rest of the room. Along with everything else, it contained a plethora of photographs of, presumably, Caroline Goldacre’s deceased son along with another young man who had to be his brother. They were featured in various stages of childhood to manhood. She picked up one as Caroline said, “Those are my two boys. Charlie and Will,” and she added oddly, as if wishing them to know how things stood familially, “Alastair’s not their father, although he’s been more of a father to them than their real father ever was.”

  “Passed on, has he?” Nkata asked.

  “No. Francis is very much alive. Francis Goldacre. He’s a surgeon. In London.”

  “What sort?” Barbara asked idly as she studied the picture. One of the two young men was somewhat odd looking. He wore the long hair of the Beatles’ generation, and his full cupid lips would have been potentially luscious on a female but served to make him appear pouty and difficult to please.

  “Plastic,” Caroline Goldacre said. “Ladies’ facelifts mostly. Breast enhancements. So much money to be made in the industry of youth and beauty is what he used to say.” After a pause, she added, “It’s unfortunate that he never wanted to use his talents on our Will.”

  Barbara set the photo down and glanced at Nkata to see if he had clocked the strangeness of that remark. Caroline Goldacre seemed to read the glance that passed between them because she went on to explain that Will had been afflicted with a birth defect, a misshapen and nearly missing ear that Francis Goldacre had refused to put right. “His boys were never his priority,” she concluded.

  Alastair returned. He carried a tray with a mug, a spoon, and two packets of sugar. “Milk’s gone off,” he said to Nkata. “Sorry. We’ve not been to the shops.”

  Caroline still hadn’t asked them to sit, but Barbara decided not to stand on ceremony. She sought the only chair that bore fewer than three decorative pillows, and into it she plopped. There was little for it but for Alastair and Caroline to do the same. Nkata remained standing, although he moved to the fireplace and set his tea mug on the mantel.

  “Can you tell me about Cambridge, Mrs. Goldacre?” Barbara switched on a lamp with a “D’you mind? Bit dark in here, is all.”

  “What about Cambridge?” Caroline had taken a spot on the love seat that faced the fireplace. Alastair sat with her. She lifted his hand and linked her hand to it.

  “What you were doing there and why you were with Clare Abbott. Let’s start with that.”

  “I’d rather hoped you might tell me why you’re here.”

  “Procedure,” Barbara said with a dismissive wave. “Dot the t’s and cross the i’s.”

  Caroline did not smile. “How did Clare die? The only thing I know is from the papers afterwards. They said her heart . . .”

  “A seizure that happened when her heart misfired,” Barbara said. “Then a second autopsy carried things a bit further. So the heart thing and the seizure bit? They were . . . how do I put this? . . . well, caused.”

  “What’s that mean?” It was Alastair who spoke.

  Barbara ignored the questions and repeated her own. As to Cambridge and why Mrs. Goldacre was there . . . ?

  Caroline told her briefly about a debate and a book signing. She added a radio broadcast and a lecture meant for the following day. She included an editorial comment about Clare Abbott’s tendency to humiliate people in public forums and indicated that this was what she’d done to the woman priest with whom she’d debated. No one could rein Clare in when she got going, Caroline added. One tried to advise her, one tried to suggest that less sarcasm might make the medicine go down more easily, but Clare tended to go her own way.

  “What was your position in her life?” Barbara said. “Sort of a dogsbody, were you?”

  Alastair seemed to find it necessary to intervene at this. “Far sight more ’n that. Clare wouldn’t’ve known night from day if Caroline wasn’t there to switch on the lamps.”

  “It’s all right, darling,” Caroline said. And then to Barbara she went on to explain that she and Clare had met at the Women’s League in Shaftesbury when Clare had come to speak shortly after moving to the town. They’d struck up a conversation, it had come out that Clare needed a cleaner, and Caroline was up for the job as she quite liked the woman and reckoned mere housework could lead to something far more suited to her talents. The cleaning quickly extended to the cooking and the weekly shop as well. At that point, Caroline had offered to sort out Clare’s home as organising was not one of Clare’s . . . well, let’s say it wasn’t one of her specialities, Caroline explained.

  “She’d never got round to it when she bought her house, so I sorted out her kitchen, pantry, linen cupboard . . . that sort of thing. Clare asked could I do the same for her office, and things went on from there. We got on quite well, she asked me to stay on, and over time I took on more responsibility. I was happy to do it although she could be rather prickly at moments.”

  “Got a bit prickly in Cambridge, I hear,” Barbara said.

  Caroline cocked her head, a puzzled expression on her face. “What d’you mean?”

  “You two had a row the night she died. What was that about?”

  Caroline stirred on the love seat. She loosened her hand from Alastair’s. “Who told you that?” she asked, not unreasonably. “It’s Rory, isn’t it? You may as well know that Rory very much dislikes me. She always has done. She wanted Clare to give me the sack. She thinks I don’t know that, but there’re scores of things I know that she’s unaware of and that’s just one of them. Clare and I didn’t argue.”

  “Bloke at the hotel overheard you.” Nkata took a sip of tea. He sounded casual enough, just a comment in passing.

  Barbara added, “Seems he was collecting your room service trolley and you two were going at it.”

  “Really? I certainly don’t remember . . .” Caroline drew her eyebrows together. They were drawn-on-her-face eyebrows, but nicely done in perfect arches. After a moment of reflection she said, “Ah. I expect it was about my wages. We had words about that. For all her success, Clare was tight with her money. I put it down to how she grew up. On a sheep farm in the Shetlands, this was. So when it came to paying me . . . ?” She shrugged. “Even in her will and despite my having worked for her for two years . . . Well, it’s water under the bridge. I wasn’t happy about it, but there you have it. There wasn’t much I could do about it, after all.”

  “In’eresting, that.” Nkata flipped back a few pages and read out the words that Lynley had reported to them from his interviews in Cambridge with the hotel’s employees. “‘We’re
finished, you an’ I.’ An’ then, ‘Not with what I know about you. We’ll never be finished.’ Doesn’t sound like wages to me, innit.”

  “I don’t recall having said that. Or Clare having said it either. Neither one of us would have had a reason.”

  “Did you know the terms of her will?” Barbara asked.

  “See here,” Alastair MacKerron said hotly. “What sort ’f question—”

  “Alastair, it’s fine,” Caroline said.

  Barbara added, “She’d have needed a witness to it. Was that you?”

  “I was always signing this or that for her,” Caroline said. “But truthfully? I didn’t know Clare even had a will till Rory started waving it about directly after the funeral, telling me to clear out of the house as it was now hers.”

  “How well d’you know her?” Nkata asked.

  “Rory? Not well. Mostly, I know about her.” Caroline was silent for a moment as if waiting for either Barbara or Nkata to take the bait. When neither of them did, she went on. “She’s Clare’s editor. She’s also a lesbian. Not that I have the least problem with that, but the point is that she was in love with Clare. She tried to hide it but who can hide that sort of thing successfully? Clare, by the way, was heterosexual. ‘Nonpractising heterosexual’ was how she put it. Not the case, of course, but that’s hardly important.”

  “Which part?” Nkata took more tea, always managing to imply that his questions were casual.

  “What?” Caroline said.

  “‘Not the case,’” Nkata quoted. “Which part? The hetero or the nonpractising?”

  “The latter. Clare had her lovers, but I doubt she told Rory about them. I daresay she didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”