by Faith Martin
Then she paused as the policeman’s eyes almost bugged out, realised what she’d just said, and, with a sinking heart, concluded that so far nobody had had the chance to tell him the true circumstances surrounding the incident. ‘Oh hell, I’d better start from the beginning,’ she put in quickly.
‘Yes, I rather think you’d better,’ the inspector said grimly. ‘What on earth do you mean, you all came to watch her drown? Was it a spectator sport or something?’ he added viciously. Already he had the nasty suspicion that he wasn’t going to like what she had to tell him, and he could feel a growing sense of grievance taking up residence in his stomach.
When he’d got the call to come out all he’d been told was that a woman had drowned in a village pond, and had been pulled out by a member of the public. Naturally, given that it was such a nice sunny Sunday afternoon, he’d expected to find that someone walking their mutt had noticed the floating body and called it in. And he’d assumed that the small crowd that he and his sergeant had found on arrival had simply been the usual collection of ghoulish onlookers that tended to gather around any tragic incident.
Nine times out of ten, that — or something similar — was what happened in cases such as this. But clearly this episode was going to be an exception to the rule, and Franklyn didn’t like those. In his experience, exceptions to the rule had a habit of causing him a major headache.
And so Jenny spent the next ten minutes bringing him up to speed, trying to be as accurate and as inclusive as she could with her information, and filling him in on everything that had happened since her arrival at the Spindlewood Inn. In detail, she explained what the Regency Extravaganza weekend had entailed, along with a description of the am-dram performances, and the people she had met thus far.
She gave him a brief outline of all that she had learned about her employers, the Americans, the Oxford don, the Welshman and the actors. And, of course, Rachel Norman and her rather lackadaisical attitude to the men in her life.
Jenny wasn’t really surprised to note that the policeman’s already glum face became gradually gloomier and gloomier with every word she said.
When she’d finished, Franklyn sighed heavily. ‘So this woman, Rachel Norman,’ he swept a hand towards the body, ‘is an actress. Come to think of it, I did wonder why she was in that get-up. Now it makes more sense — she was doing the final scene where her character drowns herself?’
‘Yes.’
‘And everyone watched her walk into the pond,’ he persisted, wanting to be sure he now had a clear and comprehensive picture of what had occurred during the last hour or so.
‘Yes.’
‘And then this other woman, this American who’s so scared of spiders, started screaming?’
‘Yes.’
‘And everyone fussed over her for a while.’
‘Yes.’
Franklyn, who was scribbling frantically in his notebook, looked up. ‘Can you say for how long this went on? That you were all so distracted, I mean, and not looking at what was happening in the pond anymore?’
Jenny took a long, slow breath. She understood at once, of course, how important that question was. And so she was very careful about giving her answer. She needed to get this right.
‘Well, it’s rather hard to say,’ she began apologetically. ‘When something’s happening in real time, and it’s something shocking and unexpected, time often seems to pass faster than you think, doesn’t it?’
Franklyn thought about this for a moment or two, and rather cautiously nodded agreement. ‘Yes. And conversely, when you’re bored, time seems to drag. OK, let’s try and break it down a bit, and see if we can’t arrive at something that has a chance of being accurate. Someone screams. You all turn and look. That must have been instinctive and instantaneous. You all see this woman dancing about, panic-stricken. Say . . . ten seconds? You watch her husband try and comfort her, you figure out what the problem is. There’s been a spider on her. Say, another twenty to thirty seconds. She falls to the ground. Everyone’s concerned and gathers around. Say, another ten to twenty seconds. Her husband takes charge and gets her to her feet and they move off. So, perhaps no more than a minute has passed?’
Jenny sighed. ‘When you say it like that, it seems too short a time frame,’ she eventually said. ‘I think it was probably a bit longer than that.’
‘Five minutes?’ the policeman offered tentatively.
‘Oh no,’ Jenny said at once. ‘I don’t think it was as long as all that. Maybe two to three minutes? Four at the most — but I’d have said less. Three minutes, give or take, is the best I can do. Sorry,’ she shrugged, feeling a bit of a fool. So much for her past experiences of murder leading her to being a so-called expert witness!
Franklyn heaved a sigh at this, but nodded. He was used to witnesses being all over the place, but her account had sounded reasonable enough.
‘So after these Americans left — I presume they went back to this inn you’re all staying at?’ he put in sharply.
‘The Spindlewood Inn, yes. It’s situated on one side of the main village square,’ Jenny said. ‘At least, I imagine that’s where they went.’ Then she frowned. Was she, once again, in danger of giving misleading testimony? After all, she didn’t know for sure that that was where they’d gone. She was simply assuming it. For all she knew, right now Min and Silas Buckey might be high-tailing it in a taxi for Heathrow airport. ‘But I can’t think that they’d have gone anywhere else, Inspector. I’m sure I remember Min saying that she needed a stiff drink, so it seems likely that’s where they’d go. They’d hardly have gone anywhere else — they were both still dressed in their costumes, you see.’
Franklyn sighed. ‘But most of the crowd were dressed normally,’ he said, glancing up at the spectators. Although there were one or two people still dressed like something from a BBC drama, for the most part the crowd were dressed in light summer casuals.
‘Yes. Only those participating in the Regency Extravaganza came in costume. Most of these people,’ Jenny nodded around her, ‘were onlookers that we sort of picked up on the way.’
Franklyn nodded, still scribbling her answers down in his notebook in what, to Jenny, looked like very neat and competent shorthand.
Mentally, he made a note that he needed to speak to these Buckey people as soon as possible. Because one thing at least, in this whole mess of a tale, was now becoming clear. If anything untoward had happened to Rachel Norman in that pond, then it was a mighty big coincidence that the American woman had created such a distraction just when it must have been needed the most.
‘Did you get the feeling that this Buckey woman was faking it?’ he asked her sharply.
Jenny instantly followed his logic, and sighed. So, it was starting again. Just as she’d known it would.
Always before, whenever she got mixed up in murder, she’d felt this similar burden of responsibility eventually weighing her down. Where every word she said was fraught with danger. What if she said something that brought an innocent person under suspicion? What if she forgot about a vital little piece of evidence, or misinterpreted something that let a guilty person walk free?
Already she could begin to feel the whole wearying cycle starting up again, and told herself to buck up. If Rachel’s death had been deliberately planned, then she owed it to the dead girl to do all she could to help the police solve the case.
‘OK, let me think,’ she said reluctantly, casting her mind back to the first time that she’d heard the scream. It had sounded high-pitched and panic-stricken and it had raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
And when she’d first seen Min, her face had been contorted in fear and panic; her eyes were huge, her mouth gaped open, and she had been as white as milk. There had been nothing pretty or, in her opinion, fake, about the performance. But then, what did she really know about Min? For all she knew, she could have been an actress, just like Rachel, before meeting and marrying her rich husband.
‘Let’s just say
if she was faking it then she was a far better actress than Rachel,’ Jenny finally said, feeling that she’d given as honest an answer as was possible.
The policeman, who’d been watching her intently, grunted slightly. He knew himself to be as good a judge of character as anyone else, and he rather thought — despite her reputation as being a pain in the constabulary’s arse — that Jenny Starling was a very clever, and honest, person.
Which had the effect of making him feel a little more kindly towards her. Perhaps he really should stop seeing her as another stumbling block to be overcome, and more of an asset.
‘OK,’ he said mildly, filing away her answer and moving on. ‘So they go off and you all remember that you’d been watching this actress and her big suicide scene, and all turn back to look at her and see how the scene’s progressing?’ he prompted.
And for a moment, Franklyn hesitated, his own words echoing oddly in his head. Her big suicide scene.
He hadn’t seriously been considering suicide up until now. But what if the woman had decided to commit suicide for real? For all they knew at this point, Rachel Norman might have had all sorts of problems in her life that would soon come to light. Love troubles. Debts maybe. She might even have had a terminal illness. And she was an actress, when all was said and done, with a thespian’s sense of the dramatic. Dying for real in front of her audience might have appealed — especially if she wasn’t quite right in the head, and wanted to go out in spectacular style.
But then, it had to be hard to actually make yourself drown, surely? He found himself frowning. Surely the instinct to gulp for air, even if you wanted to die, would prove to be all but . . . Damn it, no, that wouldn’t work either. The reason Dr Pryce was so antsy was because he didn’t think she had drowned.
‘That’s right,’ Jenny Starling was saying now, dragging him back to the facts. ‘And we noticed that she didn’t seem to be moving. So we all started clapping and applauding, and expected her to get up and take a bow. But she didn’t. She just kept right on floating there.’ Jenny paused and sighed pensively. ‘I think right there and then, we all realised at more or less the same moment that something was seriously wrong.’
‘OK, slow down a bit,’ Franklyn adjured her patiently. ‘When you all turned from Min Buckey and looked at the pond, did you notice anything odd or out of place?’
Jenny blinked. ‘Can you be a bit more specific, Inspector?’ she asked cautiously.
Franklyn grunted, less patiently now, but obliged. ‘Did anyone’s behaviour strike you as odd, for instance?’
‘No.’
‘Did you think anyone was closer to the edge of the water than they should have been?’
‘No.’
‘Did you notice if anyone had wet clothes?’
‘No.’
The inspector sighed. It had been a long shot — and he was becoming confident that if this woman had noticed anything helpful, she’d already have said so. Still, he had to ask.
‘OK. So, it’s at this point that the Welsh fellah jumps in and pulls her out?’ he queried, casting a quick wave in Ion Dryfuss’s direction. ‘And you’re sure, when he went in the water, that he wasn’t already wet?’
‘Yes. I’m sure I’d have noticed if he was already wet,’ Jenny said confidently.
‘Now, let’s just make sure I’ve got this right. The chap that pulled her out, according to you, first met her when she went on holiday earlier this year, and followed her back here? And he’s sweet on her you think?’
‘Ye-es,’ Jenny said, a little less certainly now. ‘But that’s just the impression I got, picking things up here and there. I might have it all wrong. You should really ask him about all that.’
Franklyn, for the first time, smiled a genuine smile. ‘Thanks for the tip,’ he said dryly. ‘I might just do that in a bit.’
Jenny flushed faintly. ‘Sorry, Inspector. Not trying to teach my grandma how to suck eggs or anything,’ she apologised. ‘I just don’t want to be responsible for misleading you or saying something that later turns out to have a different explanation. You must bear in mind that I’ve only known all these people a matter of thirty-six hours or so. You can’t really rely on me to get everything right. I can only tell you my version of events.’
The inspector felt oddly chastised and quickly shook his head. ‘Yes, I understand that. And I’m grateful for your input. Really. You’re being very helpful.’
Jenny shrugged off the compliment. ‘Is there anything else I can tell you?’
There was plenty, and the inspector was keen to get to it. ‘How long did it take him to get her to the shore?’
‘Oh, seconds only. As you can see, it’s not a very big expanse of water, is it?’
‘And he managed to get her out and onto the grass on his own?’
‘Oh no. I think several of the men who were on the edge of the bank reached down to help him pull her up once he’d got her to the edge — and sorry, before you ask, no, I don’t think I can point them out,’ Jenny said. Her head was beginning to feel as if it was full of cotton wool. That was another thing she was beginning to remember from her last close call with murder. Just how exhausting it all was. And realising just how much you failed to notice about what was actually going on around you.
It always left her feeling so inadequate!
‘But I’m sure that, whoever they were, they’d have told your police officers about it by now,’ she added.
Franklyn nodded. No doubt she was right — it was human nature to want to get kudos for playing the hero, no matter how humble the heroics had been.
‘And this is when the woman who knew CPR took over.’ Franklyn already had her name noted down, and would have to talk to her later.
‘Yes. But it was clear that Rachel wasn’t responding,’ Jenny said quietly.
Franklyn glanced at her thoughtfully. ‘From what you’ve told me, you didn’t really like Miss Norman, did you?’ he said. His voice was level, making it less of an accusation, and more like an offer to expand on a statement.
Jenny shrugged. ‘Sorry. But I can’t say as I thought she was a particularly likeable person. I know no one likes to speak ill of the dead . . . It seems so sneaky and unfair, doesn’t it, when they can’t defend themselves. But . . .’ And again, she shrugged.
‘I understand. But it’s vital we know as much about her as possible,’ the inspector insisted. ‘And I trust your judgement.’
Jenny nodded. ‘OK. I think she was ferociously ambitious. She seemed determined to make it to the big time as an actress. She was taking lessons, getting professionally photographed, courting the press . . . Generally, doing everything she could to get ahead. And ambitious people can be short-sighted and tactless.’
‘So we’ll probably find that she wasn’t very popular with her fellow am-dram performers,’ Franklyn put in wryly.
‘Probably not. I’ve already told you that she enjoyed the company of men,’ Jenny put in dryly. ‘And she also seemed to like money.’
‘Can you expand on that?’
Jenny shrugged. ‘She always seemed to wear designer-label clothes, and expensive perfume and make-up. And she was probably on the lookout for a rich sugar daddy, if the play she made for Silas Buckey was anything to go by.’
Franklyn visibly brightened at this. The rich Americans again. Yes, he was definitely looking forward to speaking to them. ‘Do you think they were sleeping together? The rich American guy and Rachel?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘I really doubt it. It always seemed to me that Silas was rather fond of his wife.’
But then, she could be wrong. That was another thing Jenny had learned from her past experiences with murder. Anyone could be wrong about anything.
‘All right. Well, I think that’s it for the moment. But I’ll probably want to talk to you again at some point.’
Jenny nodded glumly and without surprise. She fully expected to be answering questions for days to come. ‘Fine,’ she said wearily.
‘It’s all a bit of a mess isn’t it?’ he said sympathetically.
Jenny looked him squarely in the face. ‘But surely Rachel must have had a heart attack or something, mustn’t she?’ she proffered hopefully. ‘Nothing else really makes any sense, does it?’
But if she was hoping that Inspector Franklyn would confirm her hopes or negate her doubts, she was doomed to be disappointed. For he merely gave a distinctly non-committal grunt and left her, heading purposefully towards Ion.
She saw the man from the Welsh valleys glance up at his arrival, then go instantly back to staring down at his feet.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jenny, not quite sure whether or not she’d been officially dismissed, and therefore now free to return to the inn, glanced around uncertainly.
During her long interview with the inspector, more police reinforcements had arrived, and she noticed that all the remaining spectators were busily giving their details to the uniformed officers, along with, she supposed, a brief description of what they’d all seen and heard. She noticed that many of them were also transferring photographs and videos that they’d made of the event from their mobile phones, onto the police officers’ own devices. And she could only hope that they revealed something vital, because at that moment she hadn’t got anything even remotely approaching a clue as to what could have happened that had resulted in Rachel Norman being killed.
A blue-and-white police tape cordon was in the process of being set up to keep people from trespassing around the circumference of the pond, and several other police officers were on their hands and knees doing a minute and painstaking search of the grass and bank surrounding it.
But most distressing of all, Rachel Norman’s body was just being slipped discreetly and chillingly into a black body bag, in readiness to be taken away to the waiting coroner’s mortuary van that had now taken the place of the unnecessary ambulance.
Hastily averting her gaze from this macabre scene, Jenny became distracted by a movement off to her left. And, turning her head, she saw a woman on the far side of the pond, near to the path that led to the little jetty that went out to the middle of the water. She seemed to be staring across at the scene, as if looking for something. Or, perhaps, someone.