Murder Is a Must

by Marty Wingate

  Flambeaux watched in abject horror as the murderer’s chest heaved, his wheezing breath akin to the ear-piercing whistle of the steam locomotive that bravely made its way down the lines at daybreak every morning in June delivering its treasure of fresh strawberries from the fields of Kent to the kitchens of the Ritz in London.

  The cat yawned and that set me off. I changed venue one more time—up another floor to my flat, where the two of us stretched out on the sofa.

  * * *

  * * *

  After my nap, my clothes felt as if I had them on backward, and I reminded myself never to fall asleep in a skirt, jacket, and tights. I changed into denims and a jumper, and with a cup of tea in hand, I texted Val. He had a short break before his next class and rang me immediately. As he ate a sandwich, I told him everything I’d forgotten to say the evening before and then caught him up on the day’s activities. I ended by whingeing about Lady Fowling, her so-called secret code, and what Oona could possibly have made of it.

  “What did she write before and after?” he asked me.

  “Oona?”

  “Lady Fowling. Sometimes it isn’t just the code itself, but how it’s set up in the story.”

  “I’ll have to look at the original notebook for that. How did you get to be so smart?” I asked.

  “Years of practice, my love.”

  I smiled into the phone, forgetting about detectives and codes for a delicious moment.

  “We could take a look at it together tomorrow afternoon,” Val added. Tomorrow afternoon, my flat, a bottle of wine. “Before our next speaker arrives,” he added.

  “Oh, yes, Tuesday. Literary salon.” I sighed. “How about coffee in the morning?”

  We ended our conversation on a wistful note, after which I phoned the watercolorist whose name I’d copied from the wrapped painting left at the Charlotte for later pickup.

  Early on, Naomi had told me the watercolor exhibition did not have a manager, but instead had been run by committee, creating a headache for her. It was always good to get another point of view on a matter. After all, the Society had hired the Charlotte for its upcoming exhibition, and we should be aware of any difficulties on either side of the relationship. It was a perfectly good excuse for ringing the artist.

  If, in our conversation, I learned details of Naomi’s whereabouts the afternoon of Oona’s murder, all the better. Yes, this was a police matter, and I felt certain DC Pye had followed up on the information I’d given him about Naomi and Zeno, but I held out little hope that either he or Sergeant Hopgood would tell me what they’d learned. Didn’t I have a right to know?

  When the artist answered his phone, I identified myself in great detail and then asked a few general questions about mounting an exhibition at the Charlotte. It didn’t take much to segue into discussing Naomi.

  “She tended to hover a bit,” he said. “I don’t think she trusted us.”

  “So, you’re saying she was there with you all afternoon—the day of the murder? She mentioned some disaster that she needed to deal with. What was the problem?”

  “That’s a bit much, that is—I wouldn’t call it a disaster. Easel malfunction. Someone tripped over it, and then fell onto it and broke one of the legs. Snapped it in two. The easel, not the person.”

  “Dreadful. Was the painting damaged?”

  “Corner of the frame cracked, but it was mendable. So, I asked Naomi if she had some sort of stand we could use temporarily. Anything to get her out of the middle of things. She said she might have an easel in storage. She was gone for more than an hour.”

  “What time was that?”

  “What does that matter?”

  Don’t push, Hayley. “It’s only that I thought she might’ve become involved talking with the police when they arrived, and that kept her away.” That couldn’t be true—didn’t I remember that the police couldn’t find her that afternoon?

  “No,” he said. “This was before the police arrived. She’d gone off to have a poke round storage, but by the time she finally returned, she came in the main entrance. Said she’d nipped out for a coffee. Cheeky of her, as she left the artist standing there acting as his own easel for all that time.”

  “You told the police this, of course,” I said, as a way of excusing my nosing in. “About Naomi.”

  “The police didn’t ask about Naomi, did they?”

  * * *

  * * *

  Adele stood at the end of the bar in the Minerva when I arrived, cleaning off laminated menus with Dettol and a towel while chatting with Pauline.

  “Oh, look, you’ve got a new job,” I said. “Hiya, Pauline, how are things?”

  “Good! Yeah, good.” She nodded toward Adele. “Did she tell you we’re moving in together?”

  “I might’ve heard the rumor,” I replied. “I’ve some empty cartons if you need them.”

  “We’re not taking your collection of wine corks,” Adele said, shaking a finger at Pauline.

  Pauline laughed. “But I wanted to make a lampshade with them.”

  The pub door opened and Clara walked in. She dressed halfway down for the evening, still keeping her Oona bun in place for that professional look. After introductions all round, we ordered food and drink and settled in the corner for a good long while.

  Even the arrival of food didn’t stop the stories from flying—Adele knew not only a lot about Lady Fowling, but also about the other board members. “Jane Arbuthnot refuses to talk about it to this day,” Adele said, “even though we have photographic proof. Now you won’t say anything to her about this, will you?” she asked Clara, who shook her head, her eyes wide as an owl.

  I came up with a story or two of my own—about Adele and how we’d first met seven years earlier when, instead of her long mane of curly red hair, she had a shaved and well-tattooed head. “Still under there, isn’t it?”

  Adele parted her hair and revealed a streak of green on her scalp. “It’s a Celtic knot design,” she explained.

  “Stuart Moyle has a stack of books on his neck,” I said, suddenly reminded of Bulldog’s tattoo.

  “He’s the collector?” Adele asked.

  “Yes. Clara, do you remember meeting him last week at the salon?”

  She nodded. “He told me about a first-edition Anthony Berkeley he found at an Oxfam shop for two pounds.”

  “He’s the one. Listen, I don’t suppose you recall seeing him around the Charlotte . . . while Oona was still alive?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t. What sort of a collector is he—does he have his own bookshop?”

  “No, I believe he’s the sort that doesn’t like to share.”

  “He can’t be the only one who wants Georgiana’s first edition found, can he?” Adele asked.

  Couldn’t I leave the subject of murder alone for one night?

  “Adele, tell Clara about the time you and Lady Fowling went to Greenway and it was so muddy walking that steep bank, you slipped and sprained your ankle and her ladyship had to go the rest of the way alone to find help, and the two of you ended up having tea in Agatha Christie’s actual library.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Leaving the Minerva that night, I walked Clara as far as the Pulteney Bridge. “Are you all right in the flat?” I asked. “I don’t believe the police have anywhere to send Oona’s things, but it doesn’t seem right for you to have them there.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind. I’ve just left everything as it was.”

  “Are you still sleeping on the camp bed?” I asked.

  “It’s quite comfortable.”

  It was as if this one-bedroom, short-term flat had become a shrine to Oona. “I tell you what, why don’t I stop in one day and bring a few cartons, and we’ll pack up whatever Oona left behind? Then we’ll ask DC Pye for his advice.”

  “That would be
lovely, Hayley, thanks so much.” My eyes pricked with tears at the gratitude in her voice. Poor girl. Young woman.

  I set my sights on Middlebank and my bed. It was dark, but general foot traffic made it so that you were never really alone. Still, one should always be aware of one’s surroundings, and so I surveyed the pavement and doorways and, against a streetlight, saw the silhouette of a hulking fellow wearing a shapeless hat. Hadn’t I seen him when we’d come out of the Minerva? Now he ducked into the doorway of the Old Green Tree. I paused to stare into the gloom, heard the pub door open and close and a few people spill out onto the road. On his own pub crawl, evidently.

  * * *

  * * *

  I began my Tuesday morning by making an unorganized but necessary list of assorted tasks for the exhibition—staffing, coatracks, name tags, removal services. The latter because, although I would bar the front door before I let anyone take Lady Fowling’s portrait out of Middlebank, I was not averse to shifting a few pieces of furniture over to give the exhibition a certain ambience. Her ladyship’s desk, for example. Yes, that’s what I needed to do—take stock of the furniture in the cellar. I jotted this down.

  The next twenty minutes I spent fussing over a text to Bess.

  Hi, Hayley Burke here. That sounded as if I were soliciting funds for a charity, but she didn’t have my number, so how else would she know? I’d love to get together for coffee next time you’re near Bath. Or—how about lunch? Let me know—anytime is good.

  Friendly, unpresuming. Pushy? Would she feel cornered? I sent it before I could second-guess myself to death, and then sent the same to Becky, just in case they compared notes.

  I lit the fire in my office and set the kettle to boil just before Val arrived with a pink box. He’d stopped at the Bertinet.

  “Coffee?” I asked Mrs. Woolgar, who had come out to the entry. “Val and I are going to examine Lady Fowling’s notebooks looking for clues about Murder Must Advertise. You’re welcome to join us. He’s brought along pastries.”

  “No, thank you, Ms. Burke, I’m afraid I must attend to other things. I do wish you luck.” She retreated into the sanctum of her office and closed the door.

  Mrs. Woolgar had taken her own look at the notebooks that morning, but had handed them back to me almost straightaway. “Her ladyship’s mind was an intricate machine always seeking challenges that were beyond me. She once became enthralled with Morse code and decided we should both learn it, and so installed those tapping machines between our offices. How she could interpret a string of beeping noises as letters, I could never understand.”

  I couldn’t help thinking the secretary might be a wee bit annoyed that Lady Fowling hadn’t outright told her about the book and where it was—but if it had been put away decades earlier, perhaps even her ladyship had forgotten all about it.

  “Right. We’ll be in my office if you need me.”

  * * *

  * * *

  We dispatched the coffee and croissants first. I brushed flakes of pastry off my desk and carried the tray to the kitchenette. When I returned, we took the notebooks and photocopies of the notebooks and began our study.

  “Listen to this,” Val said.

  “‘The housekeeper crept up to the desk with a bottle of oil preservative in one hand and a worn flannel in the other. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure she was alone, she turned out the oil onto her cloth and drew nearer and nearer until . . . “Stop!” Flambeaux called out. “Never use oil on wood furniture! Instead, rub in a good paste wax and you’ll preserve your pieces for generations to come.” Val looked up. “Not many writers would put their main character into a tale of household cleaning.’”

  “Remember the story she made out of a grocery list,” I said.

  “She should’ve lent him out for adverts. ‘Flambeaux recommends Brixon’s Brooms for Cleaning Up Clues.’”

  “François says, ‘Always lay the table with Norfolk silver—it’s burglarproof!’”

  An enjoyable hour later, we had learned nothing new.

  “I have class,” Val said as he stood and stretched. “Not much use, was I? But do you get the feeling the answer is right under our feet?”

  “You mean, under our noses.”

  As we gathered up pages, Val held up one sheet and asked, “Is this you trying to work out the code?”

  I glanced at my own shorthand. “No, it’s only a list of bits and bobs for the exhibition.”

  “So,” Val said, “I’m collecting the speaker at one. Do you want to meet us for lunch later?”

  The title of that evening’s literary salon—“Were Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins the Same Person?”—did not exactly pique my interest. We’d booked the speaker because he’d had a string of successful books taking two contemporary historical figures and making the same claim. Also, he was a theatrical producer and Maureen Frost had recommended him, so my hands were clean.

  “No, I’d better not commit. But won’t Maureen be there? You can let them natter on about the theater. I’ll need to spend the afternoon with my lot at the Charlotte.”

  * * *

  * * *

  My lot were about to break for lunch.

  “Oh, Ms. Burke, I daresay we expected you earlier,” Zeno said, in an effort to make me feel the slacker. “Shall we stay? I could reschedule my lunch appointment, and Ms. Powell could—”

  “I don’t need to go, Hayley,” Clara said. “I’ll stay.”

  Zeno dropped his satchel. “As will I.”

  “No, both of you go to lunch.” I waved them off. “I’ll see you back here in an hour.”

  I didn’t need lunch yet and so wandered down to look in on the first day of the Druids show. Perhaps two dozen people milled about—not a bad midday attendance for early February. The exhibition manager himself leaned on the ticket table at the entrance, chatting with the woman selling.

  “Hello, Tommy,” I said.

  “Hayley.” He opened his arms wide. “We’ve launched! It’s like giving birth, isn’t it?”

  “Of a sort,” I replied graciously. “So, Tommy, if you’ve got just a second, I wanted to ask you again about Zeno and Naomi. You mentioned to me that they’d worked together on that . . . er . . . oasthouse exhibition. Did they not get along?”

  “I wouldn’t say it was quite that,” he replied. “They’re both ambitious, so perhaps there was a bit of competition. You know how it is; you want to work with your peers, and yet you need to be just that little bit better than they are to get on to something bigger. I’m sure that’s all it was.”

  A pipe band sprang to life playing “Scotland the Brave,” and Tommy began his pat-down, coming up with the correct mobile on only the second try. He stepped away, and although I could not hear exactly how he answered, it didn’t sound like “Timeless Productions.” Also, he seemed to have overlaid his London accent with a Scottish lilt. A different phone, a different . . . A thought snagged in my mind.

  Tommy King-Barnes had three phones. Some people couldn’t keep up with even one—look at Clara, she had lost hers. Bulldog had said he’d lost his, but that wasn’t true. According to Arthur Fish, Stuart Moyle had more than one phone, a different one for each of his various pursuits. Why did Tommy have three phones?

  He had his back to me, and so I crept closer and pulled my own mobile out, scrolled through recent calls, and tapped one. As he ended his conversation, Enya began singing about Middle Earth. He reached in a pocket, pulled out one of his other mobiles, and answered in a breathy, high-pitched almost whisper that I heard not only in the room, but also through my phone.

  “Exhib, Ltd.”

  “Hello, Tommy,” I said. “Gotcha.”

  22

  Tommy spun round and stood with his mouth agape and his mobile to his ear as he realized I had discovered the ruse. He was not only Zeno’s reference from Timeless Productions, but
also from two other exhibition companies with different names and each with its own particular voice.

  I steeled myself for denials, bluster, fake outrage. Instead, Tommy burst out laughing.

  “This is a joke?” I shouted at him, and someone peered round a Druid mannequin.

  “No, not a joke,” Tommy said, sobering up in an instant. “Come this way.”

  I followed him down the corridor but made sure to keep my back to the wall and have a good view of both the exhibition area and my closest exit.

  “That’s quite a scam you’ve got going!” I whispered furiously.

  “Not a scam and not a joke.” He pulled all three phones out of his pockets and placed them on his open palms. “I have three different exhibition management businesses, and each one caters to its own demographic.”

  It took me only a second to see the gaping holes in this explanation.

  “You could have twenty companies, I wouldn’t care. What I care about is that Zeno lied to me. Again,” I muttered. “He offered three references but in fact they are all one—you.”

  “But from quite unrelated events,” Tommy said.

  “What does that matter?”

  “Entirely different skill sets were required of each production.”

  “Then, why not say that from the beginning?” I demanded.

  “That was not my secret to tell.”

  “Ah, yes—you see, even you think it was a secret.”

  “What I said about Zeno was true. Perhaps I should’ve let you know that I owned each of those businesses, but I didn’t.” He tipped all three phones into one hand and placed the other one over his heart. “Mea culpa.”

  And this from a Druid.

  * * *

  * * *

  I could see no point in arguing with Tommy. No, I should save my fury and aim it elsewhere. I went to lie in wait for Zeno.