Murder Is a Must

by Marty Wingate

  Zeno appeared to be taking the blame for Clara’s rash action, but she had taken the blame herself. Why were they both so eager to take responsibility? And was it so important in the long run? It was, after all, not a bad idea.

  “Hayley. Hayley. Hayley.”

  Across the road stood Dom, wool coat buttoned up to his chin and knit cap pulled down to rest on the frames of his glasses. He held his arms straight at his side, his hands flapping slightly.

  “Hello, Dom!” I called, and crossed the road. Zeno trailed after me.

  “Zeno, this is Dom Kilpatrick. We worked together at the Jane Austen Centre.”

  “This isn’t my day,” Dom said. “I shouldn’t be here on Tuesday at twelve. Wednesday at eleven o’clock and Thursday at three o’clock I come to the Fashion Museum at the Assembly Rooms. I run a virus check. But I had to come today because there’s been a crash on one of their systems. This isn’t my day.”

  “Well, good to see you no matter the reason,” I said. “Zeno is our exhibition manager.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Dom,” Zeno said, and stuck out his hand. Dom looked at it, but made no reciprocal offer. Zeno didn’t seem to take offense, and said, “Well, Ms. Burke, I do want to get back to work on the entry display. I’ll just nip into the café here and take Ms. Powell back a coffee as promised. I’ll see you . . .”

  “At six. Yes.”

  “Heigh-ho.”

  Dom and I watched Zeno continue into the Assembly Rooms, and then Dom said, “He worked with Oona.”

  “No, actually he—well, yes, but not here.”

  “I saw him,” Dom said. “I saw him going into the Charlotte.”

  16

  I carried out a quick translation of what Dom had said and reinterpreted it to suit the prevailing truth.

  “You saw Zeno go into the Charlotte yesterday? Because that’s when he started work.”

  “Yesterday was Monday. I don’t come to the Assembly Rooms on Monday. Wednesday and—”

  “Yes, Wednesdays and Thursdays are your days.” I inhaled deeply and steeled myself. “What day did you see him?”

  “Wednesday.”

  Wednesday was the day before Oona was murdered.

  “Dom, this is extremely important. I need a detailed description of what you saw on Wednesday. All right?”

  “There’s a crash on one of the systems,” Dom said. “I shouldn’t be here on Tuesday. Wednesday is my day.” He took off toward the Assembly Rooms.

  “Dom, hang on.” I chased after him. “I really need to know about this. Listen, how long will you be?”

  Dom checked his watch, pressing the stem to light the dial even though it was broad daylight. “Thirty minutes.”

  “I’ll buy you a coffee when you’re finished—how’s that?”

  “It’s Tuesday,” he said, but then added, “I have a coffee and a Penguin.”

  “And a Penguin. Please—I’ll meet you in the café after you sort out the computer problem.”

  We parted in the entry, Dom to the Fashion Museum offices, and me to the café, where Zeno was coming out with two coffees.

  “Oh, Ms. Burke, I didn’t realize. Should I have got yours as well?”

  I skirted him as if he were radioactive, running into the menu stand as I did. “No, no—I’ve some work to do before I need to be at . . . and thought I might as well do it here. I’ll see you . . . later.” I backed into the café. Only when the swing door closed did I breathe a sigh of relief.

  Ring the police, a voice inside my head told me. Ring and tell them what? No, better to wait and get the facts and present them in a calm and sane manner. So, I made myself as comfortable as possible in the café while I waited for Dom. I ordered a fruit scone and a cappuccino, took a table at the back, and stared at the door. Thirty minutes was an eternity, but at last he appeared, wearing his coat and knit cap as if he might be ready to leave. I leapt up.

  “Here! Now, have a seat and I’ll get your order. Won’t take two ticks.”

  “I drink filter coffee,” he said as I dashed up to the counter.

  “Yes, I remember.”

  Only after his coffee had been sorted—two sugars, no milk—and he’d unwrapped but not taken a bite of the chocolate-covered biscuit could I get a word out of him about what he’d seen.

  “Wednesday, I leave the Centre at ten fifty and walk up to the Circus and then turn the corner onto Bennett Street. There was a crowd waiting for the tour bus, and I had to walk into the road to get round them. I saw him—Zeno Berryfield—coming down and walking into the door on the side. I remember that door.”

  He would. We were in and out of the Charlotte that way during both the planning and execution of the exhibition for the Jane Austen Centre.

  “Was he alone?”

  “Yes.” Dom glanced at the Penguin.

  “Did he seem in a hurry or upset or happy or in a mood of any sort?”

  Dom only stared at me. I should’ve known better—emotions were not easy for him to track.

  “No, never mind. Thanks, Dom, I appreciate your help. Give Margo my regards.” I’d taken two steps, but turned back and said, “Remember we ran into you last Thursday? That was the day Oona died. Did you see Zeno go into the Charlotte on Thursday?”

  Dom had taken half the chocolate biscuit in one bite and stopped chewing, his mouth full. He paused and then shook his head.

  * * *

  * * *

  DS Hopgood, please, Sergeant Owen. This is extremely important.”

  “Right-o, Ms. Burke,” the desk sergeant said, and looked down at his computer screen.

  “Or DC Pye?”

  “Doesn’t look as if you can have either of them at the moment—they’re out on a call.”

  I sucked in my breath. “Is it about the Oona Atherton enquiry? No—never mind.” I’d seen the look in his eye, and I knew I wouldn’t get an answer. “Do you know when they’ll return?”

  “Why don’t I send DC Pye a text, and we’ll leave it with them? I’m sure they’ll be in touch when they can.”

  “Thank you. I think I’ll wait.”

  I paced, sat down for a few seconds, and paced again. I composed a single-word text to Val:—Developments—but deleted it immediately. What good would that do when I knew so little? Also, I remembered he would be collecting our speaker for the literary salon and taking her out to lunch. Retired detective chief superintendent Margaret Raines, author of police procedurals, would address us on the Metropolitan Police in fact and fiction. That evening’s lecture had almost slipped right out of my head. Again. I needed to pay more attention to my job, and I would do so as soon as this bit of business had been sorted.

  Zeno had lied. That was the only conclusion to be drawn from this, because Dom did not lie—he didn’t have it in him. Zeno lied about seeing Oona in Bath, which means he could be lying about so much more. We may have him. The murderer. I shivered.

  “Ms. Burke?”

  I gave a little yelp and swung round to see Sergeant Hopgood at the front desk, his eyebrows sky-high.

  “Steady on,” he said.

  “You were out,” I said.

  “‘Were’ being the operative word, Ms. Burke,” he said. “Come through.”

  I followed on his heels through the door and down the corridor.

  “Did Constable Pye tell you about Zeno?” I asked. “That he and Oona had been married? Have you found out where he was on Thursday? What did he tell you? Because I know more now. I know something that may shift your entire enquiry and—”

  Hopgood stopped at Interview #1 and I nearly ran into him.

  “Why don’t we discuss your concerns in here?”

  He nodded me in and I took a chair, dropped my bag, and sat on my hands in hopes it would keep me grounded.

  “Now,” Hopgood said. “Zeno Berryfie
ld, ex-husband of Oona Atherton. He is also an exhibition manager by profession and is now seeing to your own event. You hired him. Yes?”

  “Yes. Zeno told me he had not seen Oona since coming to Bath. Did he tell Kenny—Constable Pye—the same thing?”

  DC Pye entered at that moment, and the sergeant repeated my question.

  “They’d had no contact,” the constable replied, “and Berryfield said he was sorry about that. ‘Devastated’ was the word he used. He’s . . . er . . .”

  “Yes, he certainly is,” I said. “And he’s also a liar. I’ve got an eyewitness who says Zeno was seen going into the Charlotte last Wednesday at eleven o’clock in the morning.” It didn’t escape my notice that my statement made it sound as if I were in a detective story myself. I hoped I got the words right.

  The two men glanced at each other, and then began to pick apart what I had said. Witness? Time? Reliability? They asked for Dom’s contact details.

  “So,” I said, “let me just say I know Dom Kilpatrick. He’s highly intelligent, unable to lie, and a really great fellow. But he can be a bit fragile.”

  “Will he need an advocate?” Hopgood asked. “Someone to be with him?”

  “Certainly not. He isn’t—wait, yes, he will need someone. Me. I think it would put him at ease if I were here. Shall I ring him?”

  “We’ll let you know, Ms. Burke,” Hopgood said. “First, let us confirm Mr. Berryfield’s alibi for Thursday. We’ll get to Mr. Kilpatrick after that.”

  “Where did Zeno say he was?” And why hadn’t I asked Zeno that question before coming here?

  The detective sergeant nodded to his DC, who replied, “Up to Bristol by train, where he spent the day.”

  “Are you certain?” I asked.

  “It’s a difficult thing to lie about,” Hopgood said. “There’s CCTV everywhere. But we will certainly do our due diligence and make sure we can locate Mr. Berryfield at both Bath Spa and Bristol Temple Meads stations when he says he was there. Pye, get a uniform on it.”

  “I would do, boss, but we’ve only got Evans working on CCTV, and he’s out sick.”

  “Blast,” Hopgood said. “Well, Ms. Burke, we’ll get to this as soon as we can. In the meantime, mind how you go.”

  What was that supposed to mean—that I was in danger, or I was to keep my nose out of police business?

  “Of course, Sergeant. Always.”

  I left before I could blurt out that I’d be spending the evening with Zeno. There would be loads of other people around. It wasn’t as if I planned to confront him about his alibi for Thursday. Given the chance, of course, I would ask him about seeing Oona the day before the murder, which I saw as entirely within my remit as curator of the First Edition library.

  Outdoors, I hurried down the pavement. Gone three o’clock, and I fought with myself about my next move. I should go back to the Charlotte and find out what Zeno had got up to and if I needed to rescue Clara from one of his “I once staged an exhibition in which I—” lectures, but a text arrived from Val.

  Lunching at the Gainsborough. Join us for coffee?

  He’d taken the literary salon lecturer to the Gainsborough? We hadn’t budgeted for that—was it what a retired detective chief superintendent expected?

  I walked into the restaurant ten minutes later to find it mostly empty apart from a cluster of people standing around a table in the corner. A woman’s voice rose and flowed toward me—one of those rich, throaty voices that sounded as if it had been steeped for a great many years in a single malt. The cluster parted when I arrived at the table.

  She must’ve commanded quite a presence during her years at the Met—not tall, but stout with short gray hair brushed back off her face. Now well known as an author of police procedurals, she had garnered a fair-sized fan base including the Gainsborough’s chef, several dishwashers, and three servers, who now waited to get an autograph from our speaker.

  Val rose and began to introduce me, but he got no further than “Margaret, this is Hayley,” when she rose and took over.

  “Margaret Raines,” she said, pumping my hand. “Delighted to be in your lovely city. You’ll have coffee?”

  “Oh, coffee, yes, but I wouldn’t want to take up—”

  “You might as well sit down,” Val said, as if he’d already given in on any afternoon agenda.

  “Have you had your lunch?” Margaret boomed. “We’ll take a round of sandwiches here, along with coffee.”

  The restaurant staff nodded and scurried off to their work. I heard one young woman say, “I have all her books—wish I’d known to bring one for her to autograph.”

  Those sandwiches went down a treat, and the entertainment was top-notch. Margaret embodied a combination of beloved nanny and steely policewoman. As she told her stories, I tried to imagine myself one of her suspects. No, wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.

  “Who stands to gain?” she asked in the middle of discussing the anatomy of a crime. I should’ve been taking notes, but instead I reached for another triangle of sandwich. “That isn’t always so obvious. For some people, the thing most desired is not to be flaunted, but hidden away and cherished. Remember that,” she said, shaking a forefinger at us. “Or the crime could’ve been committed for status. But then, of course”—she shrugged—“there are those criminals who cannot even give a reason for their violence. What then?”

  * * *

  * * *

  Nearly half past five, my hands had begun to shake, and it had nothing to do with the three cups of coffee I’d drunk. Nerves. For the last hour, I’d been worrying about the time, and Val had caught on. Margaret, lost in gripping stories, took no notice of anything, including my and Val’s feeble attempts to wind up the afternoon so that the evening could begin. We exchanged looks, attempted interjections of “Well” or “Now,” and rearranged the empty coffee cups and plates. Nothing worked. The board would arrive at Middlebank at six for sherry with not only our speaker, but also our new exhibition manager, Zeno. I had responsibilities. If I could get to my phone without being noticed, I could call Val. The ringing of a mobile would be just the thing to break up the session.

  Suddenly Margaret shot out of her chair and said, “My goodness, the afternoon got away from us—how did that happen? I’d say we’d better leg it, shall we?”

  We shifted into top gear. I settled the bill as Val and our lecturer hurried out to his car. They had an intermediary stop before arriving at Middlebank—Margaret had only just remembered she needed to collect copies of her books from a cousin’s house in Twerton. I couldn’t take that detour; I needed to go directly back. I had no worries about the sherry hour or the wine service at the lecture—I had left those details to Mrs. Woolgar and the two young women servers we hired from Pauline—but I needed to smarten myself up. I could make it back in twenty minutes, couldn’t I? I left the Gainsborough just as Val stowed Margaret in his passenger’s seat. He took my hand and said, “You all right?”

  It all came rushing back to me—the meeting at the Charlotte. Zeno, Naomi, and Clara trying to out-Oona each other. Learning that Zeno had lied. Spending yet another afternoon at the police station.

  “No,” I said. “Yes. But I have so many things to tell you, it’ll have to wait. See you soon.” I gave him a smile that I hoped looked reassuring and a peck on the cheek.

  I trotted the first stretch, making it only as far as Marks & Spencer before I slowed to a fast walk, the thickening crowds on the pavement doing their best to get in my way. Wheezing by the time I hiked up to Middlebank’s door, I greeted Mrs. Woolgar with a nod and pointed upstairs. “Change,” I mouthed, and then pulled myself up two flights and into my flat, where I collapsed on the bed with my feet dangling off the end. I heard a thunk as one of my shoes dropped to the floor.

  17

  Although I had been a hairsbreadth away from falling asleep, I still made it to th
e library by ten past six wearing my literary salon geranium-pink dress with ruched waist. For this evening, I’d accompanied it with a floral scarf—as if no one would be the wiser to my wearing the same dress three weeks in a row—brushed out my ponytail, and put on fresh lipstick. I felt a world better and more than ready for that sherry.

  The board members hadn’t waited—when I walked into the library, Adele was circulating among them, pouring refills. Even Val and Margaret had arrived before I did. No one gave me a second look. Mrs. Woolgar had taken charge of Margaret, giving her a tour of the collection, and Zeno had cornered Jane Arbuthnot in an animated, albeit one-sided, conversation. Mrs. Audrey Moon and Mrs. Sylvia Moon had taken Clara under their wing, and when he saw me, Val excused himself from Maureen Frost and handed me a brimming glass. I took a sip and then a deep breath.

  “Good evening, everyone,” I said. “You may’ve already had an opportunity to greet our lecturer for the evening, but let me officially introduced her.” Once that formality had been taken care of, I continued to the next order of business. “And now, about our exhibition.” I turned to Zeno, who obediently came to my side, looking as fresh as ever in his teal suit.

  “There is no need to go into detail about the circumstances, because I’m sure you are quite aware of what’s happened. But as sad as we are about Oona, I think we all realize that for the sake of the Society, we need to push on with the exhibition about Lady Fowling. To that end, we’re delighted to welcome Zeno Berryfield as manager.”

  Who was the liar now? I smiled as I said the words, but behind them doubts crowded in about Zeno’s whereabouts the previous week and the tales he’d been telling.

  But I had to push that aside to concentrate on the evening. After a smattering of applause, we ended the presalon hour, and small conversations broke out. I knocked back the rest of my sherry and headed for the entry to greet guests.