The Complete Kate Benedict Cozy British Mysteries

by Carrie Bedford

  Pacing around the empty space, I tried to imagine what had happened here in the early hours of Sunday morning. The kitchen would have been empty apart from the killer and Duncan. Maybe they quarreled, and Duncan turned away. The killer grabbed a knife from the block on the counter and thrust it into Duncan’s back. Either dead or seriously injured, Duncan was dragged into the meat locker, and the door slammed closed. What then? The killer would have cleaned up any blood and wiped the surfaces clean of fingerprints. And disposed of the murder weapon somehow.

  I opened the oven and checked on the progress of the pie. Personally, I would have eaten it there and then, but I knew it wouldn’t yet meet Mrs. Dunsmore’s high standards.

  In spite of my misgivings about revisiting the crime scene, I walked over and grasped the handle of the meat locker. The door weighed heavy in my hands and took some effort to open. Inside, the hooks hung empty, and the shelves, once laden with cuts of meat and fish, were bare. The interior had obviously been cleaned out, either by the police or Pierre. I stared at the place where I’d seen Duncan lying, spread-eagled on the stone floor. Recreating the scene in my head, I recalled that he’d been wearing tan trousers and a blue shirt. No jacket or sweater, I realized, which made me wonder if he hadn’t intended to leave the house. It was raining hard at one in the morning, a precursor to the storm that had blown in later. What about Duncan’s prearranged tryst with Fiona? Had he stood her up deliberately? Or had he planned to meet her but something had happened to delay him? Fiona had given up at one-thirty, she said. The medical examiner said time of death was between two and three a.m. What had Duncan been doing until then? I gazed at the floor. A thought poked at my brain, trying to get my attention. I willed myself to focus.

  Duncan didn’t have any shoes on, I remembered now. Only dark brown socks. Which certainly suggested he hadn’t planned to go outside. I couldn’t imagine him padding over wet gravel in his socked feet to reach Fiona’s car. If that were the case, why had he come down to the kitchen at all? Maybe he’d come to forage for leftovers? Find another bottle of champagne? The more I thought about it, the more confused I felt. He didn’t seem like the type to wander around in his socks, and he’d gone to the trouble of changing his clothes, which seemed to imply that he had meant to meet up with Fiona. What had happened to change his mind?

  I stepped out and pushed the heavy door closed. The shoes were bothering me. A quick check of the oven assured me I had time to clarify something. I took off, up the kitchen stairs, across the hall and through the picture gallery to the tower. I pushed open Duncan’s door and stepped inside. It was as neat and tidy as the last time I visited. Mrs. Dunsmore had told me the police had conducted an extensive examination but there was no sign of their activity now. I opened the wardrobe. On the floor, as I remembered from my earlier search, were two pairs of shoes: his black dress shoes and a pair of oxblood loafers. No suede Guccis. I reached inside the wardrobe, but found nothing, and continued my search under the bed, in the bathroom and under the chest of drawers. No sign of the shoes. That was odd. If he wasn’t wearing them, then where were they?

  Aware of my responsibilities for dinner that evening, I rushed back down to the kitchen. The tantalizing fragrance of melting cheese filled the room as I peeked in the oven. It was looking good, but still not quite done.

  I eyed the phone that hung on the wall and pulled my mobile from my pocket. No service down here of course, but I found Lucy’s mobile phone number in my contacts list. I pressed the buttons on the wall phone and heard ringing.

  “Lucy Cantrell,” she answered.

  “It’s Kate. Just wondering how you’re doing,” I said. “There’s still no news on the funeral, I’m afraid.”

  “Has the inspector arrested anyone yet?”

  “Actually, yes. Pierre, you know, the chef.”

  “Pierre, huh? I wondered about him. Sly sort of chap. But why would he want to kill Duncan?”

  “I have no idea.” I paused. “Lucy, did you already know Remy Delacroix? Before he came to the castle?”

  “Remy? No, but I remember talking to him one afternoon. He gave me his business card. He was a bit pushy, trying to interest me in a piece of jewelry or some such thing. He runs an antique shop.”

  “Right.”

  “Is that why you called?” she asked. “I’m walking home from work.”

  At Lucy’s end, I heard a faint background hum of traffic and someone else talking as they passed on the street. For a second, I wished I were there in London, surrounded by people and noise and activity, not here in this rambling and isolated castle.

  “No, but I have a question. Did Duncan have two pairs of loafers with him? One tan suede. I think they were Gucci. And the others were that oxblood color?”

  “Shoes? Good Lord. I don’t remember. I wasn’t the curator of Duncan’s wardrobe as far as I know. Is it important?”

  “I don’t know. But Duncan wasn’t wearing any shoes when he died. I think there’s a pair missing.”

  “That seems odd. Not like Duncan. He was always… so tidy. He…” Lucy gave a little sob and then went quiet.

  “I’m sorry, Lucy. Don’t worry about it. It’s probably nothing.”

  “Okay. Listen, I have to go. About to get on the Tube. Keep me updated on what’s happening there, won’t you?”

  The line went dead. I hung up the phone and leaned against a cabinet, thinking, and then I dialed Inspector McMahon’s mobile. He answered at once.

  “It’s Kate Benedict,” I said. In response, I got silence.

  “Has Pierre confessed to anything?” I asked. “Any news on Remy?”

  “Not yet. Rest assured we’ll tell you the minute we get more information.”

  “There’s something else. I wanted to confirm with you that Duncan wasn’t wearing any shoes when you saw him in the meat locker? He only had on socks?”

  Greeted by another long silence, I thought I’d lost him. “Inspector?”

  “Sorry, my signal keeps dropping out,” he said. “You were talking about shoes? I’ll need to check my notes but I think you’re right. Why do you ask?”

  “First of all, why would he be dressed, but not have his shoes on?”

  “Maybe he wanted to tiptoe around without being heard,” McMahon said. “He didn’t have his car keys on him, so I guess he wasn’t planning to go out anywhere.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “Fiona was waiting for him in her car, don’t forget. He wouldn’t have needed his keys.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Plus, one pair of shoes is missing. Tan loafers. I checked his room and can’t find them. So, where are they?”

  “Tan loafers? I can’t imagine how you’d notice a detail like that. I’m not even sure which shoes I’ve got on today. Hang on. Ah, black lace-ups. But then I always wear black lace-ups.”

  I smiled at McMahon’s stab at humor. “I don’t have a shoe fetish or anything weird,” I said. “It’s just that I noticed he was wearing them when he arrived on Thursday night, because they were so, you know, sort of ostentatious. Gucci, very expensive. And you have to be a certain kind of person to wear that sort of thing. Anyway, I thought I’d mention it. It might be relevant.”

  “It’s appreciated, Kate,” he said. “Look after yourself. I’ll be in touch soon.”

  31

  “McMahon has released Pierre. He should be home soon,” Fergus said, coming back to the table after taking McMahon’s phone call. We’d finished dinner and had eaten every scrap of the cottage pie. For the first time in three days, I didn’t feel hungry. It wasn’t that I was feeling any less anxious, but hunger had to overcome all other states of being at some point.

  “I’d like to have a word with Pierre myself,” Fergus continued. “Although McMahon took a statement, he isn’t willing to share it with us yet. But I can’t see any reason not to ask our own questions.” He took a sip of the wine we’d opened. “I’ve had just about enough of all the secrets and cloak-and-dagger s
tuff.”

  When the doorbell rang, Fergus met the chef at the front door and ushered him into the dining room.

  Pierre’s eyes widened when he saw the empty plates. “You cooked your own dinner?”

  “Yes, Kate and Mrs. Dunsmore did, and it was delicious,” Josh told him.

  The Frenchman pursed his lips in disapproval. His youthful good looks were frayed at the edges, I thought. The skin around his mouth was drawn tight, and his eyes were dull. I supposed that spending a few hours in police custody would do that.

  “Come in.” Fergus spoke in a firm tone that made it clear this was no social invitation. “Take a seat and tell us everything that happened. Bring us all up to date.”

  Pierre was nervous. He clasped and unclasped his hands, crossed his legs and then uncrossed them again. “I told the inspector everything.”

  Fergus waved his hand in the air. “Yes, of course you did, but we’d also like to hear it from you.”

  “I did not kill anyone.”

  “Then who did kill Nick and Duncan?”

  Pierre blinked rapidly. “I don’t know anything.”

  “What about Remy?” I was impatient to get him talking. “You said he was leaving for his hiking trip, but it appears that he was still in the village yesterday, and that he’s suspected of messing with the Land Rover in order to cause an accident. Were you aware of his real plans?”

  “He never told me the truth, not from the first day.”

  “And when was that?”

  “Four or five months ago, when he persuaded me to come to Scotland.”

  I did my best to hide my surprise, but Fergus had shot forward in his chair and was glaring at him. “What do you mean, he persuaded you?”

  Pierre sighed. “I already told the police all this. But I will explain again. Remy wanted me to work here, so I could look for something for him.”

  “A book and a Fabergé egg,” I said.

  He frowned. “He wanted me to find a book. The egg, he had already sold. Six months ago.”

  “No, a different egg. Not the one he sold. But he asked you to look for just a book?”

  “As I said. But I did not find the book. So Remy came this weekend to check up on me, to hurry things along, he said.”

  “How do you know Remy?” I asked.

  “We were friends in Paris, ever since we were kids.” Pierre shrugged. “We did different things. My career was successful, his not so much. But we remained in touch.”

  “Why wasn’t he successful?”

  “In my opinion, Remy is lazy. He inherited an antiques business from his father and he ran it badly. He declined to learn what was necessary in order to be good at it. And then he sold that Fabergé egg for a very small fraction of what it was worth. He was careless.”

  So, it was Remy who had sold the Romanov egg described in Lucy’s press clipping. I’d wondered about that and was glad to have it confirmed. A good start, but that one detail was like a single drop in a raging waterfall of misinformation and confusion. There was still so much I didn’t understand. What had made Remy believe the codex was in Britain, on this Scottish estate?

  “Try this.” Fergus poured a glass of wine for Pierre. “You look as though you could do with a drink.”

  Pierre smiled and took a sip. “A St. Emilion Grand Cru. Very good,” he commented.

  “So back to Remy,” I said. “Why did he send you here? And why did you come?”

  “Before I say anything, I want to emphasize that I have committed no crime. That is why Inspector McMahon released me.”

  “We understand,” Fergus said. “We’re merely trying to understand what’s been going on here.”

  Pierre sipped his wine and set the glass down carefully. “Remy told me the codex was worth millions and he would share the proceeds with me. If I had that sort of money, I would open my own restaurant, which is my dream. As to why here?” He gave an exaggerated shrug. “When news of the egg sale leaked out, someone went to his shop, enquiring about a book. They told Remy that the egg had once belonged to a Russian who also owned a valuable codex. Remy turned his shop inside out, but there was no sign of it. Then, he told me, he found a billet?” He frowned.

  “A ticket? I asked. He shook his head.

  “A receipt?”

  “Yes, a receipt showing that his grandfather bought the egg and some jewelry from an Englishman in 1940. Then the war came and the shop closed for several years. His grandfather reopened it and ran it for some time until passing it on to his son, who then left it to Remy about three years ago.” Pierre’s nose wrinkled. “The place was a mess. Shelves loaded with junk, old cabinets full of paper. Remy had no idea what he owned or how much it was worth.”

  Given that Pierre had just declared his true opinion of his old friend, it surprised me that he’d gone along with this scheme. But I supposed the money was a big motivator.

  “What led Remy to believe the codex would be in this castle, of all places?”

  Pierre picked at a piece of lint on his trousers. “Remy never told me the name of the visitor who explained the connection between the Fabergé egg and the old book. But that person must have provided enough information for him to follow the lead to the English dealer. You’d have to ask Remy.”

  “We would, if we knew where he was.” Fergus slitted his eyes at Pierre. “You really don’t know?”

  “I swear, I don’t. He lied to me. He said he was taking a bus to Oban to start his hiking trip. That’s the last time I saw him.”

  “Remy doesn’t look like the hiking type,” Josh said. “You can’t have believed that’s really what he planned to do?”

  Pierre shrugged again. I wanted to go over and put my hands on his shoulders to keep them in place.

  “So, did Remy kill Duncan?” Fergus moved his upper body closer to the Frenchman, like a lion moving in for the kill.

  “Why would he? He had never heard of Duncan before he arrived at the castle.”

  That might be true, I reflected, but it didn’t mean their paths hadn’t crossed at some point over the weekend.

  “Did Remy know Lucy Cantrell?” I asked.

  “Lucy? The blonde woman? No, I think not. Her name was not mentioned at any time.” He finished his wine and stood. “May I leave now? I have cooperated with the police. I have answered your questions. And now I am tired and wish to sleep.”

  “You searched for the codex for four months and didn’t find it?” I said. “How hard did you try?”

  Pierre looked indignant. “I hunted through the whole house, or most of it anyway. The book is not here, of that I am sure.”

  “Good to hear you were so thorough,” Fergus said drily.

  Finally, the chef showed a brief sign of contrition. He lowered his eyes. “I am sorry for lying to you.” He looked up. “But you must admit my dinners were a success, no?”

  “They were, but you won’t be doing them anymore.” Fergus leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  “You’re letting me go?”

  “What did you expect? You’ve been snooping around my house and digging through my things. You may be a great chef, but your actions have left a bitter taste in my mouth. We’re done here.”

  “You might think we are. But this is not the end of it.” Pierre stood and stalked out of the room.

  “Was that a threat?” I asked. “We should advise McMahon to keep an eye on him.”

  “We can do that, but I’ll be happy never to see Pierre again.” Fergus glared at the doorway as though daring the Frenchman to return.

  I didn’t blame him. Learning that Pierre had been planted in the castle specifically to search for the codex had really ticked me off, too.

  After a long silence, Josh spoke. “Shall we carry on looking for the Russian novels?”

  “I’m not sure I see the point, to be honest,” Fergus said. “I’ve had more than enough of old books for one night. Besides, our gallant Frenchman searched for the elusive codex for four months with no suc
cess, which makes me wonder if it really exists.”

  Trying to not let Fergus’s doubts dent my optimism, I stood up and collected the dinner plates. At least I would save Mrs. Dunsmore a trek up from the kitchen. As I gathered up the silverware, Josh got to his feet and began pacing between the table and the window, back and forth several times. Arbroath seemed to find that interesting and lifted his shaggy head to track Josh’s movements, thumping his tail against the floor in time with Josh’s footsteps.

  “What are you doing, laddie?” Fergus asked.

  “If it weren’t dark, I’d go for a run.” Josh paused briefly in his perambulations. He cricked his neck from side to side. “I hate to complain, but I’m not used to going so long without exercise. I brought my running gear with me but haven’t had much chance to use it.”

  “What a load of tosh,” his uncle said. “Are you scared of the dark? Go out and run up and down the driveway. It’s two hundred meters long, more or less.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I offered. I’d been feeling the same way, cooped up and out of shape.

  “What if Remy’s out there?” Josh asked. “I mean, I don’t care for myself, but we don’t want to give him another chance to have a bash at Kate.”

  “Take Arbroath. And I’ll call Lachlan in and he can sit with me, so you don’t worry about my being alone in the house.”

  Josh grinned. “Okay. You coming, Kate?”

  Fifteen minutes later, dressed in sweats and running shoes, we stepped outside with Arbroath loping along beside us. The rain had diminished to a light drizzle, and it felt good to be out in the cool night air. The crescent moon peeked between scudding clouds, lining their outer edges with silver and throwing just enough light for us to see the path. Arbroath was excited, running ahead and then back to us as though encouraging us to run faster.

  After twenty or so laps, I was out of breath and turned towards the house. The building loomed ahead, its lit windows throwing polygons of light onto the ground below. On the west side, the crenellated ramparts of the tower were silhouetted against a moon-lit cloud. To the left, the east wing appeared as a solid black rectangle. From the outside, in the dark, it looked intact with no hint that the interior lay in ruins.