by Faith Martin
‘He thinks you might be a killer, I imagine. He doesn’t have a great supply of backbone, does Neville.’
Jenny turned abruptly to the shadows, her eyes narrowing. She deliberately said nothing. After a long war of wills, Basil Simmons finally moved, coming out into the light and revealing himself to be a man of average build and height, with normally greying hair, normally ageing skin, and a thin, cruel mouth. His eyes were heavy-lidded and slit. They revealed nothing at all.
But Jenny instantly understood that this man could smile. This man could charm. This man could radiate warmth with as much ease as he was now radiating arctic coldness.
‘Mr Simmons,’ she said. Then, more softly, ‘Yes.’
Something flashed in his eyes. He’d been recognized, his soul analysed and charted, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one little bit. He moved briskly to a chair in front of a desk and sat down. He indicated the chair in front of him.
‘Please sit down, Miss Starling. What can I do for you?’
‘Well, you might start by telling me what your daughter was doing here,’ she said, not at all fooled, or cowed, by his attempt to dominate the room.
For possibly the first time in his life, Basil Simmons looked surprised. Then his eyes went flat. ‘My daughter is dead, Miss Starling, as you must know if you do, indeed, work at the castle.’
‘I wasn’t referring to Ava,’ Jenny said quietly.
Basil glared at her. ‘My private life is none of your business.’
‘It is when murder has been committed, Mr Simmons,’ she shot back. ‘According to the police, Elsie had a legitimate motive.’ She used the word ‘legitimate’ deliberately, and was rewarded by a sharply indrawn breath.
‘I do believe, Miss Starling,’ he said quietly, ‘that you’re poisonous.’
‘Only when I have to be, Mr Simmons,’ she said softly. And smiled.
Basil Simmons stared at her in total surprise. She didn’t look like a cobra. She looked plump and harmless and also unexpectedly, but definitely, beautiful. But a cobra she was. And for the first time in his life, he didn’t feel so much like a mongoose as a fat, juicy rat.
‘What do you want?’ he asked abruptly. He wanted this woman out of his house. Out of his gallery. Out of this room. He was sweating now. He didn’t like being in the vicinity of someone that he couldn’t manipulate, swindle or intimidate.
‘Did you murder your daughter, Ava?’ Jenny asked quietly.
‘No,’ Basil Simmons said shortly.
He didn’t, the cook noted with interest, sound surprised by the question.
‘Do you care that she’s dead?’
‘Not much. She left home years ago. I haven’t seen her since.’
‘Have you ever been to Avonsleigh?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever sent one of your, er, representatives, on any of the tours of the Avonsleigh art collection?’
Basil Simmons hesitated. ‘I have, yes.’
‘For what purpose?’
‘Curiosity.’
Jenny said nothing for a moment.
Basil shifted restlessly. ‘That’s the truth,’ he said, with just a hint of panic in his voice now. He had, in fact, been telling her nothing but the truth. He knew instinctively that that was the only way to get rid of her. His palms began to itch.
Jenny continued to look at him thoughtfully. She, too, believed him to be telling her the truth. His answers were much what she expected. But that was not what she had come for.
‘Do you want to see the killer of your daughter caught, Mr Simmons?’ she finally asked, her tone of voice as mild as milk.
It was Basil Simmons’s turn to stare. He licked his lips, which felt as dry as the Sahara. ‘I, well, yes. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. She was my daughter. Do you understand?’
Jenny did. Perfectly. Ava had been unloved and almost certainly unwanted, since she’d been born female and therefore not the all-important son. But she was his property. She had come from his loins. He probably felt miffed that someone had snuffed her out without so much as his permission or say-so. But it was enough for her purposes. She nodded and rose. ‘If I call and ask you to come to Avonsleigh, will you come, and do exactly what I say?’
At first he felt only a flood of relief that she was going. Then her words penetrated. ‘Will it be dangerous?’ he asked quickly.
Jenny’s lips twisted grimly. ‘No, Mr Simmons. At least, not dangerous for you.’
Basil Simmons shuddered, quite visibly. ‘All right,’ he agreed, his voice barely a whisper. ‘All right.’
Jenny nodded and left.
Outside, she took a deep breath of cool, clean air. ‘What an awful, ugly man,’ she said out loud, but luckily no one was within hearing distance. Then she added, sadly, ‘Poor Ava.’ She was still shaking her head as she turned and headed back to the car park.
From his poky window, Basil Simmons watched her go. His sweating frame felt cold now. He quickly began to convince himself that he had not really been afraid, that he had always been in control of the situation, but he knew, even then, that when the call came, as he knew it would, he would go to Avonsleigh. And that he would do what she asked of him.
* * *
Jenny watched Elsie all day long.
The kitchen maid did everything but hum. She smiled at Henry when she found the tortoise in a sack of carrots. She discovered her battered old handbag was missing, but only said it would probably turn up, making even Janice, not the most observant of girls, look at her in some surprise. She even smiled at Malcolm when he sloppily washed out some paint jars in the sink, leaving them to drain on the sideboard and leak pale blue, mint-green and sickly yellow stains onto the steelwork.
Dinner came and went. Jenny’s bacon clanger with leeks was a rousing success, as was her pineapple rice pudding.
With infinite patience, Jenny waited until they all began to file out of her kitchen. Janice had a date with a new boyfriend at the Jolly Farmer. Malcolm dodged Roberta and fled to his room. Roberta sulked, then went to her own. Meecham and Gayle went to see to their respective charges, Meecham to lay out his lordship’s smoking jacket and slippers, Gayle to see to her ladyship’s nightly ablutions.
Elsie was halfway into her coat before Jenny finally managed to catch her alone.
‘Elsie, can I have a word please?’ she asked gently but firmly, and the kitchen maid froze. She recognized the tone at once, and her eyes rounded. Fear came into them.
‘It was my morning off, you know,’ she said quickly. ‘And I prepped them leeks as soon as I got back.’
‘I know. It has nothing to do with your work, Elsie.’
Some of the fear left. Elsie continued getting into her coat, but walked reluctantly towards the cook as she did so. ‘Yes?’
‘Elsie, I went to see Mr Simmons today.’
Elsie went white. ‘Oh. Ah. Well, to offer your condolences, like, I expect.’
‘Not quite,’ the cook said wryly, but let it pass. ‘I saw you leaving. I was wondering, to be frank, what had taken you to the Giselle.’
Elsie’s face took on a stubborn look. ‘Just offering me respects, that’s all,’ Elsie said. ‘I thought someone should do it.’
Jenny recognized the glint in her eye at once, and knew what it meant. Elsie would stick to her story come what may. Unimaginative, downtrodden people, she knew, could be very stubborn indeed when the need arose.
She sighed wearily. ‘I see. Well, goodnight, Elsie,’ she said. There was no point in saying anything else now. To pursue it would only make the kitchen maid even more truculent.
A look of relief flashed across Elsie’s pinched face before she turned and left. Jenny watched her go, her eyes troubled, for Elsie simply did not have the right weaponry to go up against a man like her father.
She was going to come a cropper if she didn’t watch out.
* * *
Meecham knocked on the door timidly. His employers had retired to a small but cosy
room that adjoined their huge bedroom. They often had a nightcap there before bed. Lady Vee was already dressed in a voluminous nightdress and dressing gown; his lordship was in his smoking jacket and slippers.
It was nearly midnight.
‘I’m very sorry to disturb you’ — Meecham half-bowed to each in turn — ‘but Miss Starling begs an audience. I did tell her it was very late, but . . .’ He let the sentence finish itself, and missed the speaking look that passed between husband and wife.
‘It’s quite all right, Meecham,’ Avonsleigh reassured his upset manservant. ‘Lady Vee and I are quite happy to receive Miss Starling whenever she chooses.’
Meecham hid his look of surprise and withdrew. A moment later, Jenny walked in. ‘I apologize for the lateness of the hour,’ she began, but Lady Vee rose with a pooh-poohing wave of her hand and reached for the sherry bottle.
‘A nightcap, Miss Starling?’
Jenny rarely drank — well, rarely enough — and she looked at the glass of dark brown liquid a little apprehensively. Then she remembered what she was here to say, and nodded. ‘Yes please, your ladyship.’
Again a look passed between husband and wife. Both had already ascertained that their new cook didn’t so much as make even the odd little foray into the cooking sherry. Their old cook had been apt to make a lot of dishes that required brandy in them. And rum. And cider. So this show of unexpected tippling from someone of Jenny’s ilk only confirmed her ladyship’s earlier fears.
Jenny took a small sip, wrinkled her lips in distaste, and caught Lady Vee indicating a chair. She sat down and then quickly shot up again. She sighed, removed Henry from the padded stool and, not quite knowing what to do with him, sat down and left the reptile to crawl about on her lap.
She took another sip of sherry, then a deep breath.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you a rather, well, impertinent question, my lord,’ she said, looking at George. ‘I hope you won’t think it too appalling, but I simply must know the answer.’
She paused, giving him time to make the usual splutterings.
George, however, decided to forgo the usual splutterings and merely glanced at his wife questioningly.
Lady Vee sighed. ‘You know who did it, don’t you?’ she said flatly.
Jenny nodded. ‘Yes, m’lady,’ she said simply. ‘I think I do.’
‘And it’s bad, isn’t it?’ Lady Vee said, her booming voice falling to something very near a whisper.
Jenny frowned. ‘It’s going to be embarrassing,’ she said, groping for the right words. ‘I’m afraid there’ll be a bit of a scandal.’
‘A scandal that will be bad for one of us?’ Avonsleigh asked, his voice firm and steady.
He’d always, Lady Vee thought fondly and gratefully, been a very good husband to have in a crisis. She reached out for his hand, and grasped it tightly. He’d been her rock in the aftermath of the death of their firstborn son and his wife. He’d been a pillar of strength then, and he was being one now. She squeezed his hand tightly, and felt it being squeezed back.
The cook didn’t miss this telling gesture, and she swallowed a sudden lump in her throat.
‘It’ll be bad for Avonsleigh, yes,’ Jenny confirmed, careful with her choice of words. ‘But I have to remind you, it’s all theory at the moment. I still don’t see how the actual murder was done, and until I figure that out, I don’t have a chance of proving anything.’
She looked each of them squarely in the eye.
Lady Vee nodded. ‘I think,’ she said quietly, ‘you’d better tell us all you know. Or rather, all that you suspect. And then ask your question.’
So Jenny told them all she knew. And then she asked her question.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Inspector Bishop pulled up at the castle, stepping on the brakes so hard that gravel spurted from beneath the car wheels. It had not yet been a week since he’d received that first call saying that there’d been a murder up at the castle, but it felt like a lifetime.
Now, though, he felt as happy as he’d ever been since the whole mess started, for things were moving at last. If the inhabitants of the castle had not seen him around very much recently, they would soon find out why.
‘Meecham first, sir, or the girl Janice?’ Myers prompted.
‘Oh, we might as well start with the butler, I think,’ Bishop said, unfolding his frame from the car and taking a deep breath of the morning air. ‘Any word from our friend, Miss Starling?’ he asked drolly, and Sergeant Myers shook his head.
‘Not a peep, sir.’
Bishop caught an undercurrent in his sergeant’s voice and glanced across at him. His own lips twisted. ‘I know. Ominous, isn’t it? But for once, we have the upper hand. So let’s go and shake the tree and see what apples fall out,’ he said cheerfully.
Meecham showed no signs of strain when he answered the summons to the secondary door. By now, he was used to policemen tramping in and out of the place whenever they pleased. Two constables were always wandering about somewhere, their faces changing with every eight-hour shift. ‘Good morning, sir. Sergeant,’ he greeted them mildly.
‘Meecham. Is your daughter around? I’d like a word with you both. In the kitchen, I think,’ Bishop said briskly, in such a no-nonsense manner that even Myers felt himself wince.
Meecham’s lips tightened, but he showed them into the cavernous kitchen and left to fetch his daughter. By the sink, Jenny was peeling onions. ‘Good morning, Inspector, Sergeant,’ she said cordially, nodding to each of them.
Bishop, seeing that they were alone for the moment, walked over quickly. ‘What’s all this I hear about you visiting Basil Simmons yesterday?’ he asked peremptorily, and was forced to cool his heels while Jenny rinsed the onions under the tap and retrieved a rather formidable knife from a drawer before answering.
Instinctively, Inspector Bishop took a step back.
‘I thought it might prove to be fruitful,’ Jenny said, and began slicing with such speed and dexterity that Bishop watched, fascinated. After only a few moments, however, his eyes began to water painfully, and giving her a sharp look, he sensibly retreated.
‘And did it?’ he persevered, once he was sitting at a safe distance from the sink.
‘I think so, yes.’
Meecham chose that moment to return, saving the cook from a further grilling. But, Bishop vowed silently, he’d get back to her on that. It had sounded rather interesting.
‘Ah, Mr Meecham. Gayle. Please sit down,’ he said, so jovially that Jenny momentarily stopped chopping.
‘Perhaps you’d care to tell us all about your cousin, Louise,’ Bishop said softly, and had the satisfaction of watching Meecham pale quite spectacularly. ‘You know, Mr Meecham. The one who works as a secretary at the Lady Beade School?’
Jenny sighed loudly. Bishop ignored her. Meecham and Gayle continued to stare at him mutely. They looked, Bishop thought grimly, like a pair of rabbits caught in car headlights.
‘You see, we found a letter in Miss Simmons’s room offering her a job at the school. But the school said they made no such offer. When my sergeant took the letter to them, they were rather puzzled. The letterhead, you see, was genuine.’
Jenny sighed again, even more loudly. She’d suspected that they’d had the letterhead printed up somewhere, and not that they’d convinced a relative to steal a sheet of genuine paper. Silly beggars. She only hoped Bishop wasn’t going to be bloody-minded about it. He was just in the right mood to get the cousin fired from her position, if rubbed the wrong way.
Meecham coughed. ‘I see you’ve found us out, Inspector,’ he said, seeing at once that it was useless denying it. ‘But you mustn’t blame Louise. We told her it was for a practical joke.’
‘That’s right,’ Gayle said quickly. ‘Louise would have been very upset if she’d known what we had in mind.’
‘Which was, Miss Meecham?’ Bishop asked silkily. Jenny began chopping furiously. The sound ricocheted around the room, ma
king Myers give her a nasty sideways glance.
‘To get Ava out of the castle, Inspector,’ Gayle said, her voice calm and level.
‘Because of the painting her father swindled you out of? Oh yes, I know all about that, too,’ Bishop said smugly.
Gayle cast an accusatory look at Jenny’s back. ‘I see. Well then, you know it all,’ she said flatly.
‘Which means, Inspector,’ Meecham began, a little too eagerly, ‘we’re not likely to have killed Ava, when we already had a plan underway to get her out of the castle.’
‘Perhaps,’ Bishop conceded. ‘On the other hand, a very clever person might think that a nice red herring like that would be just the job to throw suspicion off himself or herself. Don’t you think so?’ he asked craftily, and Gayle actually gasped, for the first time ever, as far as Jenny knew, losing her composure.
‘You mean you think that we might have written the fake letter and then killed Ava, knowing that you’d find the letter and believe . . . ?’ Gayle’s voice trailed off helplessly.
‘Just what you wanted us to think? That you’d have no reason to kill her, since you were already in the process of turfing her out?’ Bishop finished for her. ‘It’s very feasible, don’t you think, Miss Meecham? You must admit, it does have a certain something.’
Gayle’s eyes darkened. It was a phenomenon Bishop had only seen once or twice before, and it had always sent the hairs on the nape of his neck standing to rigid attention. ‘That’s insane, Inspector,’ she said, her voice as dark as her face.
‘Or very clever, Miss Meecham,’ Bishop corrected, his voice now like honey. ‘And I happen to think you’re a very clever person. Perhaps, even, the cleverest person here.’
Jenny couldn’t help but admire both his thinking and his perspicacity. Of them all, Gayle did have the best brains. Apart from herself, of course. She reached for a pile of chicken breasts and began to remove the skin, going over Bishop’s theory in her mind. It was a good one. Meecham and Gayle did have a perverse kind of alibi with that silly letter of theirs. Yes, Bishop was no fool.
‘Is that all, Inspector?’ Gayle asked evenly, and watched a flash of fury pass over his face. She smiled. ‘We admit we faked the letter from the school. We admit we wanted Ava Simmons out of the castle. We don’t admit that we killed her, because we didn’t. Now, is there anything else?’ she repeated, her eyes all but glowing a challenge because she knew the inspector was powerless. Without clues. Without proof.