“I hope the kiss was worth it,” Helen remarked with cynicism. “But I agree: Tom shouldn’t have been abusing his power with an intern half his age.”
Rex thought the incident gave an interesting insight into both Lydia and her husband’s characters. “Do you know who the intern is?” he asked Cheryl.
“I don’t even know her name. But I think Lydia said she left the firm.”
“And what do you make of that other vision of Madame Mathilde’s, to do with a redhead?” he enquired. “Do you lend any credence to Natalie being involved in the murders?”
Cheryl shook her blond curls, and then shrugged, as though revising her opinion. “It’s possible, I suppose. She was there, after all. She might have seized the opportunity and put antifreeze in their drinks. I’d spoken to Lydia on the phone earlier that evening. I remember her speech was slurred, and it sounded like she dropped the phone. I thought she might be drinking more than usual. I heard Tom say something in the background and Lydia telling him to shut up.”
Rex recalled slurring of speech was a symptom of antifreeze poisoning. “Are you sure it was Tom?”
“I’m sure of it. It sounded like he was making a joke. He has—had—a quite distinctive voice, sort of plummy.”
“Plummy?”
“Deep and resonant,” Helen assisted Cheryl, who was frowning as though concentrating to find the right words to describe it. “Like a radio announcer’s voice. Is that what you mean, Cheryl?”
The young woman nodded. “It would be hard to mistake.”
“Did you hear anything after that?” Rex asked.
“No. I said, ‘Lydia? Lydia?’ but the phone went dead.”
“Would you describe her as an habitual drinker?”
Cheryl considered the question. “A moderate drinker. She got tipsy and giggly when she drank, but I never saw her intoxicated to the point of being out of control.”
Rex reflected for a moment. “Natalie might have joined Lydia and Tom for a drink while the children were asleep on the sofa and administered the antifreeze. What did they usually have?”
“Lydia liked white wine. Tom sometimes had whisky.”
“The antifreeze I’ve seen is fluorescent green, which would have been a bit obvious if mixed with white wine. Ethylene glycol, the main component of antifreeze, takes a while to have an effect. Perhaps Natalie arrived earlier than she stated to police and did not find them dead like she said.”
“Lydia and I spoke on the phone at around six,” Cheryl told him. “They had just arrived back from their family day out. Lydia would’ve mentioned if Natalie was there. She said she was due to arrive at eight to collect Devin.”
“Amazing the bairns slept through the whole thing.”
“Lydia told me they’d taken Hannah and Devin to visit Chatsworth House, you know, where they filmed Pride and Prejudice, and the kids were worn out.”
“I’m not surprised,” Rex remarked. The stately home was palatial and the grounds stretched across acres. He and Helen had spent an afternoon there last May. The rhododendrons by the formal lake had been gorgeous, the grey stone balustrades and sweeping terraces an ideal setting for a Regency romance.
“And Tom, who was feeling under the weather, had to sit some of it out,” Cheryl continued. “Lydia said she drove them home. But the parents all got on really well. I don’t see why Natalie would have wanted Tom and Lydia dead.”
“Perhaps she wanted sole custody of Devin.” Helen, who had been listening to the conversation without interrupting until that point, stretched back on the sofa and yawned.
Cheryl shook her head in the negative. “I think it suited her to have Devin spend alternate weekends with his dad. It gave her and Matt a chance to take off for short breaks.”
Rex recalled Natalie’s second husband was a dentist. Was it time for a check-up? he wondered. If Natalie wouldn’t speak to Helen, perhaps he could speak to Dr. Purvis. His hand automatically reached for his jaw, where he’d had a filling replaced a year ago. He could still hear the whine of the drill. The dentist’s chair would not be his first choice of venue to conduct an informal interview, but needs must.
“Why are you looking so pained?” Helen asked with concern.
“I was thinking of paying Dr. Purvis a visit and seeing if he could throw light on the subject under discussion. I’m due for a cleaning.”
“Is that so?” Helen said with an amused smile. “However, you may be spared the ordeal. Jill went yesterday. She’s coming over in the morning to fill us in.”
“That’s the sort of filling I like,” Rex joked. “I’m relieved I won’t have to personally resort to drastic measures to extract information.”
“Very funny. But I haven’t spoken to Jill yet, so I don’t know what she was able to find out. She said she gets on well with him, so I doubt he’d mind her showing some friendly interest in the case.”
“So, Jill is on this case too?” Cheryl asked in surprise.
“It sort of snowballed,” Rex explained.
“Why don’t you stay over,” Helen invited, “instead of driving home tonight, and have Sunday brunch with the three of us? I can make up the bed in the spare room.”
“That’s really kind, but Tabs will be waiting for me. That’s Hannah’s cat I adopted. And I really do have to work tomorrow. We’re preparing for a national acupuncturists’ convention on Monday at the Clover Hotel. It’s quite a big do. I’m sorry I suggested the séance now. I hope you make more headway with Jill than with Madame Mathilde.”
“I’m only sorry it distressed you, lass. Time may yet tell if the fragmented images make any sense. Perhaps you could go through the diary again and see if anything pops out after this evening’s developments?” Not that there had been much in the way of developments beyond a couple of moving objects, Rex recalled. “Or, if you prefer, perhaps you’d care to entrust me with reading it. You know…an objective pair of eyes?”
Cheryl shook her blond curls and pursed her mouth. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she said. “And you’ve been very good to me, retaining Madame Mathilde’s services, and everything. But I just don’t think Lydia would have wanted a stranger reading her journal. I will go through it again,” she promised, “and let you know of anything.” She got up and hugged him and Helen goodbye.
“Rex, dear, I hope the coffee isn’t going to keep you awake,” Helen said when Cheryl had left.
“If it doesn’t, my thoughts probably will.”
“I’m sure I’ll have nightmares. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed anything as bizarre as what happened in Tom’s study. I didn’t want to say so in front of Cheryl, but now I think I might actually believe in ghosts and evil spirits.”
“Aye, it was an experience, all right, and not one I’d like repeated,” Rex agreed wholeheartedly. Talk about things that go bump in the night.
Chapter 13
Rex’s thoughts kept him wakeful for an hour that night. Madame Mathilde’s visions had given him food for thought. And would Cheryl find anything of significance in her second reading of the journal? Would Jill’s visit to the dentist have yielded new information?
When Helen’s neighbour arrived promptly at ten-thirty the next morning bearing a prickly cactus in a small, hand-painted earthenware pot, the kitchen table was set for breakfast and the food and coffee ready to be served.
Helen thanked Jill for the gift and placed it on the window sill. “There,” she said with a pleased smile. “It certainly cheers up the view on this dreary morning.” She turned to her friend. “So how did you get on at the dentist?”
Jill bared her teeth. “Whiter, smoother, and no cavities to report.”
“And…,” Helen prompted, serving the eggs, bacon, black pudding, and tomato on the three plates lined up on the counter.
“And,” Jill said, “I did get some information out of Dr. Purvis. As much as I could, anyway, with a saliva tube stuck in my mouth. He’s quite gabby, fortunately,” she addressed Rex, “and
once he got talking he didn’t stop even with his mask on. So I just lay back in the dentist’s chair and made sympathetic and encouraging noises.”
Rex brought the rack of toast to the table and poured out the coffee. “Rather you than me. I was going to make an appointment to see him myself.”
Jill laughed. “You’d actually go to such lengths?”
“We didn’t have any luck with Natalie,” Helen said, distributing the plates on the table and sitting down opposite her friend. “She was reluctant to talk to me.”
“Well, I started by asking after her and, according to her husband, she’s taking Tom’s death really hard. Finding him dead in his study and then Lydia unconscious upstairs has haunted her. She’s on sedatives, apparently. They took a trip to Portugal, which helped a little, but Dr. Purvis said she’s still very nervy, and Devin is moping about the house. They told him his dad died from food poisoning, because they don’t think he’s old enough to fully understand the concept of murder, which Dr. Purvis is convinced is what happened. He said one accidental death was believable; two was suspicious.”
“Unless one of the children gave Tom and Lydia antifreeze thinking it was juice.” Helen said, putting forward Daniel Gladstone’s theory. She passed Jill the butter dish.
“I don’t think Devin would confuse a container of antifreeze with juice,” Jill countered. “Not saying he couldn’t have stood on something and reached up to get it, but I think he’d have known better than to give it to someone to drink. Tom was quite strict with his kids from what I saw. Perhaps more so with Devin. Hannah was definitely a daddy’s girl. You could see how proud he was of her. Anyway, it’s a tragic business, whichever way you look at it. But Dr. Purvis didn’t or wouldn’t elaborate on his suspicions.”
Rex smiled at Jill. “Still, it sounds like you managed to learn quite a bit under your constrained circumstances.”
“Like I said, he’s is a jolly sort of chap, good at putting people at their ease. A couple of casual questions from me and away he went. And perhaps he’s not overly concerned his wife’s ex is out of the picture.”
“I only met him once,” Helen remarked. “I thought he was a nice man and quite attractive, though not as striking as Tom.”
“Given the choice, I’d take Matt Purvis over Tom for a husband any day of the week,” claimed the single Jill. “A much safer bet. But I’d have a fling with Tom first,” she added with a grin.
“Ladies, ladies,” Rex admonished in jest, shaking his head.
The three of them concentrated on their breakfast for a few moments, until Jill exclaimed, “Oh, I almost forgot about your séance last night. How did that go?”
Rex and Helen glanced at each other. “Unnerving,” Helen blurted at the same time as Rex said, “strange.”
Jill dabbed at her mouth with the blue linen napkin. “Well?” she prodded.
Rex let Helen describe the events of the previous evening, which she did matter-of-factly, though her voice revealed a tremor when it came to Tom’s part in the proceedings. Jill listened with her mouth open in disbelief.
“It must have been a set-up,” she said when Helen had finished her account. “There wasn’t thunder last night, was there?” she asked, puzzled. “Nothing that could have shaken the house and caused the golf bag and book to topple over?”
“It wasn’t just that,” Helen told her. “I actually felt goose bumps. And then the candles went out all at once.”
Jill continued to look doubtful. “Coming from anyone but you, Helen, I wouldn’t believe it. But, remember, it’s a draughty old house. Or could this Madame Mathilde be a fraud?”
“She seemed genuine enough,” Helen replied. “I scoured the Internet this morning. Mostly glowing testimonials and debts of gratitude from people she had put in touch with their dearly departed. And it seems she has a good reputation with the Paris police, who go to her for assistance on occasion.”
“The episode last night appeared to unsettle her,” Rex added. “I think she may have seen more than she let on.”
“Why wouldn’t she reveal everything?” Jill asked with scepticism.
“She seemed confused by what she had witnessed. It’s as though she were caught off guard.”
“Hm,” was all Jill said in response to his explanation.
“There was a lot of turbulence in that house last night,” Helen insisted as she got up from the table to clear the large plates. “Madame Mathilde mumbled something about restless spirits being trapped within the walls. And that vision of the redhead… Natalie had the means and opportunity to poison her ex-husband and Lydia.”
“I don’t know,” Jill said carefully. “One other thing Dr. Purvis said, now that I think about it, was that upon finding the bodies, his wife immediately called nine-nine-nine and then him. He arrived seconds before the police and got the kids out of the house before they realized what had happened. Devin was very excited when he saw the emergency vehicles and asked a lot of questions, as eight year-olds do. The police questioned him, but he hadn’t seen or been aware of anything unusual. They’d had pizza and tutti-frutti ice cream when they got back from Chatsworth, he said, and then he and Hannah had a bath and watched a Harry Potter film while waiting for his mum to collect him. He’d fallen asleep before the end, and so had Hannah.”
“Just as well,” Helen remarked with a sad sigh, sitting back down at table. “But if it wasn’t Natalie, who else could have arrived beforehand and poisoned the parents?”
“Unfortunately, no one in the cul-de-sac was paying attention to cars passing by,” Jill said pensively. “People close their curtains early this time of year, and we don’t have a resident nosy neighbour that I’m aware of. So the nanny, Uncle Rob, Daniel, Lydia’s mum, or just about anybody could have visited Tom and Lydia, and since they were often at the house, it would be natural to find their fingerprints there.”
“Daniel told me everyone closest to Tom and Lydia had solid alibis,” Rex countered, “which, presumably, the detectives on the case verified. Still, alibis have been known to have holes in them, and people lie to the police all the time to protect those they love or feel threatened by. Is Uncle Rob married?”
“I think he was,” Helen replied. “He still wears a wedding ring. I believe he’s widowed.”
Jill nodded. “For many years now. Don’t know the details.”
“He didn’t feature in Madame Mathilde’s visions,” Helen said.
“Indeed.” Rex buttered a second helping of toast. “And why murder his mistress and nephew who, by all accounts, were assets to his firm? Plus, it seems the family already knew about his affair with Lydia, so killing her off to silence her makes no sense.” He shook his head in puzzlement. “Cheryl never explained why she suspects him. I’ll have to ask her.”
Helen served the three of them more coffee. “Perhaps she doesn’t like him. I always thought he was a bit smarmy, myself.”
“Smarmy?” Rex asked, amused.
“He wears quite a bit of jewellery,” Jill said. “And a fake tan.”
“Are we getting anywhere?” Helen asked Rex in mild frustration.
“Maybe. I’m going to seek out my next witness.”
“And who might that be?”
“Young Tracy.” She had been on his list since the previous weekend, but he’d not had time to locate her.
Both women nodded in approval. “I saw an ad in the local paper,” Jill informed him. “A trained nanny called Tracy is looking for babysitting jobs. I’m sure it’s her.”
“Thank you,” Rex said. “I’ll contact her on that number.”
“I wonder if she’ll have any luck finding a new position until the case is solved,” Jill added. “If I were a parent I’d be hesitant to employ her.”
“I know you and Helen regard Tracy as a prime suspect because you think she may have set her sights on Tom…”
“And because she probably knew about Lydia’s affair with Rob and saw her chance. Plus she was at the house a lot.”
“Was Tom having an affair with her, though? According to Lydia’s diary, he had someone on the side, someone who wore expensive perfume, but was it Tracy?” While Rex acknowledged Jill’s logic, it seemed everyone had a different and potentially plausible theory. Which one would prove correct was what he needed to find out while he still had the time to dedicate to this perplexing case.
Chapter 14
After brunch, Rex sought out Tracy’s number in the local paper and gave her a call. When he explained he was interested in speaking to her about the case, she said with obvious reluctance she would be at the park watching over two of her neighbour’s boys if he wanted to meet her there. Seizing the opportunity, he left Helen and Jill talking in the kitchen and, taking his fiancée’s car, followed the directions Tracy had given him to where she lived. It took twenty minutes to get there, during which time he considered what he was going to say.
The most alluring aspect of Cedar Grove, a new development of identical modest homes, was its centrally located park and children’s playground, where he found whom he assumed to be Tracy supervising her charges as they wheeled around on a hexagonal metal roundabout. Adjacent stood a row of swings, and off to the side a see-saw and climbing frame, all in primary colours and occupied by a dozen rowdy pre-teens.
A couple of women sat chatting on a bench by the railings, while a man tossed a rubber ball to a spotted dog of indeterminate breed. Amid the barks, chatter, and squeals and shrieks from the playground, Rex approached the young blonde wrapped in a camel duffle coat and gave her his card, which she studied with a furrowed brow. She had sounded nervous on the phone, perhaps unable to summon up the courage to refuse him a meeting. Now it appeared she regretted her indecision and was thinking of a way to rebuff him.
“I really can’t tell you anything,” she blurted. “I’m sorry you came all this way.”
PRELUDE TO MURDER: A Rex Graves Mystery Page 6