Death by Marzipan

by John Burke

  ‘I object to that,’ snapped Caroline. ‘It’s grotesque.’

  Lesley was beginning to share Rutherford’s scepticism about the two murders being related. The girl might have killed Pringle after he had let her down and filled her with loathing; but, whatever the pressures, surely she wouldn’t have killed her own mother?

  Or were there dark, perverse motives that she and Rutherford hadn’t even guessed at yet?

  Just for once she was impatient for Rutherford to appear on the scene, preferably with some conclusive evidence about Veitch or some of his associates.

  At random she said: ‘Miss Dacre, did you never visit your mother when she was staying in Leith?’

  ‘No. I’ve told you, I —’

  ‘And not on the day she was killed?’

  Caroline said: ‘It would save time if you let me tell you one thing: Ishbel was back with me at the time of the murders.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘Both of them. I’m prepared to swear to that, if necessary.’

  ‘But Miss Crombie, didn’t you tell us earlier that you were in the studio at the relevant times? How could you provide Miss Dacre with an alibi for those same times?’

  ‘You’re trying to trap us. Let me make it clear: I can vouch for all Ishbel’s movements. She couldn’t have had anything to do with either of those murders.’

  ‘Caro, please,’ Ishbel begged. ‘Don’t stick your neck out for me. Of course you weren’t with me.’

  ‘Hush, love. Not another word.’

  ‘I was on my own. I won’t have you getting into trouble by shielding me like that. You were in the studio both times. But’ — she blazed suddenly at Lesley — ‘I still didn’t kill Simon. Or my mother.’

  There was the sound of voices in the corridor outside. Before the WPC could get to the door, Gregory Dacre came in with a young woman whose olive complexion blended into the shadows of the uncertain light, but was still discernibly beautiful.

  ‘Well, we made it,’ said Greg cheerfully. ‘Flying foliage to the right of ’em, flying foliage to the left of ’em, but we got here.’ He went towards his daughter and kissed her. Lesley saw the girl flinch and instinctively draw back; but then she smiled briefly, and touched his arm just as briefly.

  ‘Mr Dacre, I’d rather you didn’t interrupt us at this juncture. If perhaps you and your friend —’

  ‘Kate Hadleigh,’ said Greg. ‘I think you ought to include her in your enquiries. She was with me at that London meeting with the cabal. She can confirm the goings-on there, and add a few comments of her own.’

  There was to be no peace. A tap at the door, and in came Mrs Dunbar, ignoring everyone in the room but Caroline. ‘Would ye be wanting tea, or coffee, Miss Caroline?’

  ‘You’ve got something working?’ Greg marvelled.

  ‘The Aga is getting along very nicely. Miss Caroline?’

  Without waiting to consult Lesley, Caroline nodded. ‘A wonderful idea, Mrs Dunbar.’

  *

  Greg led Kate to two of the original library armchairs which had been pushed back against the shelving. In spite of the appalling weather, after last night with Kate he felt optimistic about things — about everything.

  ‘How are we getting on?’ he asked the DI heartily, as one skilled researcher to another.

  ‘Mr Dacre, when we’ve finished our coffee break —’

  ‘If I were writing a novel,’ he said, ‘I know how I’d resolve this plot.’

  ‘But you’re not a novelist,’ said Lesley tartly. ‘You’re a hack assembler of random facts.’

  Kate bristled. Before she could rush to his defence, Greg waved a tolerant hand. ‘Thanks a lot. But all right, I suppose there’s not a lot of difference, really.’ He was in no mood to be deterred. ‘Now, the most plausible storyline is that Miss Crombie here was the one who killed Simon Pringle …’ A silly, tempting echo buzzed into the back of his mind: Miss Crombie, in the kitchen, with the length of rope … He fought it off. ‘Killed Simon Pringle,’ he said, ‘because he was chatting her up and she simply had to silence him before it became too disgusting.’

  Ishbel screamed at him. ‘Daddy, you can’t …’

  Greg shook his head sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry, love, but it really is a plausible hypothesis.’

  Silently he apologised to the late Hector Crombie. He felt so at home here in Baldonald House, as if Hector were at his side encouraging him, though regretting what he had to say about Caroline. He would have liked to ghost Hector’s memoirs — draw out of him, from depths he himself might be unaware of, the whole story of his ancestors and every development and redevelopment of the house itself over the centuries.

  No need for ghosting, maybe. Hector himself would haunt these corridors without any need of outside help.

  Greg waited for the old man to steer him in the right direction, even if it hurt to do so. There would be no flinching. Hector had been the real top layer. Brigid and all the rest of them could never be anything but the Marzipan Layer.

  As Ishbel spluttered another protest, Caroline said: ‘Your father’s almost as weird as your late mother.’

  ‘And where on earth is the evidence for all these hypotheses?’ asked Lesley.

  ‘Solid physical evidence, none. Not so far. But I do have a sort of … well …’

  Kate managed to make a contribution this time. ‘Empathy. Especially with the workings of his late wife’s mind.’

  ‘The murders had nothing to do with Brigid’s scheme, unless maybe Simon was working with Brigid in spite of everything, and that was another reason for Caroline to hate his guts. Maybe somehow he was involved in the original recce — and when he’d disappeared, the gang wondered what had happened. But somehow I don’t see it that way. I do think the robbery has to be pinned on Brigid, and it’s got nothing to do with the killings. We don’t know exactly what she intended to do with the stuff she’d stashed away in the vault — whether that was purely temporary and she would shift it when the hubbub had died down, or whether in the end she’d torch it and destroy the evidence of forgeries. But one thing we can be sure of: Brigid didn’t murder Simon.’

  ‘We can?’ said Lesley ironically.

  ‘Whatever her intentions, Simon’s death mucked them up. I mean, with police swarming all over the place because of the murder, that could have meant a whole re-think of her plans. She’d be the last person to want a corpse on the scene while she went about her little games.’

  Caroline said: ‘As a novelist, Mr Dacre, you’d never make the bestseller list. The remainder counter, maybe. And with all these witnesses to your defamatory remarks, I’m wondering if I could sue you for slander.’

  Kate leaned across the arm of her chair. ‘Greg,’ she muttered, ‘do remember that you’re neither Morse nor Wexford. Leave it to the professionals.’

  Mrs Dunbar came in with a tray of cups and saucers, followed by Drew with another one bearing a large coffee percolator, milk jug, and sugar bowl. There was something about their stately progress that silenced everyone else in the room, watching each move as in some hypnotic arcane ritual.

  The effect was spoilt by the arrival of DCI Rutherford, hard on their heels.

  ‘Another cup and saucer, Drew.’ Mrs Dunbar bobbed a curtsy to Caroline, and scurried out.

  *

  Rutherford was panting as if he had run the whole way.

  ‘Right, inspector. How far have we got?’

  Lesley summed up briefly. Before she could finish, he had interrupted, his gaze fixed hard on Caroline Crombie while he was talking about other things.

  ‘We may have to forget Veitch, unfortunately. It seems his visit to those security cowboys was straightforward enough. Wanting to set up a surveillance operation on one of his office complexes. Doesn’t trust anybody. And yet he’s proposing to hire two of the most untrustworthy operators in the business.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m still keeping him under surveillance. May still have a chance of turning over a few stones. But now, Miss Crom
bie.’

  She returned his gaze stonily.

  ‘Inspector Gunn, didn’t you tell me a few minutes ago that Miss Crombie’s attempt to provide an alibi for Miss Dacre had fallen flat because she wasn’t with her, but in the studio?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But at the relevant times — both dates — she wasn’t. In the first one she had supposedly gone out on an appraisal for some nature programme. Left to her own devices. No need for a minder. A trusted executive in her particular field.’

  ‘Marzipan Layer,’ murmured Greg Dacre.

  ‘At the time of the second murder’ — Rutherford might almost have been punching Caroline one blow after another rather than talking to her — ‘you were in the studio early in the day, but not in the afternoon. The programme that day when Lady Crombie was murdered didn’t all go out live. Your section had been recorded and edited two days earlier.’

  Ishbel began a quiet whimpering as if trying to clear a frog in her throat. Caroline made no sound and no move.

  ‘So I’d be no good as a novelist?’ Greg reached to tap Kate’s shoulder. ‘I was right all along. Look, the way I see it —’

  ‘Mr Dacre, haven’t we had enough of your —’

  ‘Miss Crombie.’ Greg felt his own voice going down a sinister half octave. ‘You murdered Simon because he was making a pass at you. He was finished with Ishbel, and thought he could get round you. I don’t know what he was doing snooping about in the grounds here, but you must have bumped into him and —’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ bellowed Rutherford. ‘Who let this man in here?’

  Lesley said: ‘The awful thing is, it makes sense. Miss Crombie?’

  There was no stopping Greg Dacre — or Poirot, or Miss Marple, or whoever it was at this instant. ‘And later, you had the key to Brigid’s flat. Your father must have had a key. You were making most of the real arrangements after his death … and found the key among his belongings. Carried it around until you knew when Brigid would be in Edinburgh. And went along to wait for her.’

  ‘Why should I want to do that?’

  ‘Because she had killed your father.’

  ‘My father died of a heart attack.’

  ‘Because of what he overheard.’

  Rutherford belched a protest. ‘Look here, Mr Dacre, if you’ll just leave us to do our job —’

  Greg went on firing words directly at Caroline, more lethal even than Rutherford’s. ‘Virtually killed your father,’ he insisted. ‘Because through the laird’s lug he overheard what Brigid was trying on with me. And the things she said about him. Were you there with him the whole time, or —’

  ‘I came in just as it was finishing.’ Caroline was livid with a rage of memory. She stabbed convulsively at her hair in some attempt to calm herself down before it was too late.

  ‘And he had a stroke, and you weren’t ever going to forgive Brigid.’

  ‘She was a bitch. And now we know she was a fraud. Sold off father’s treasures when it suited her, and replaced some with fakes. And even that wasn’t enough: she faked a robbery of the fakes when there was a chance of her being shown up. Just to make money. And more money.’

  ‘So she had to be killed?’ said Lesley Gunn wonderingly.

  ‘No.’ But there was no conviction in it.

  Rutherford turned to Ishbel. ‘So you don’t have any alibis after all?’

  ‘No. But it wasn’t me. And I don’t believe it was Caro.’

  But every twitch in her face showed that she did now believe it.

  Cunningly Rutherford concentrated on her. Lesley realised what he was up to. You had to admire his tactics, even while you were hating him for his ruthlessness.

  ‘You had as good a reason as anyone to kill Simon Pringle. And your mother, who might have stood in the way of your inheritance from Lord Crombie. Come to think of it’ — Rutherford was positively beaming — ‘you both had the same reason. The inheritance. Working together to dispose of Lady Crombie before she had time to start a legal battle.’

  ‘You really are contemptible,’ said Caroline. ‘And incompetent.’

  No, thought Lesley sadly. Contemptible, yes, but not incompetent. He would lean on Ishbel, the more vulnerable of the two, until Caroline cracked. Because Caroline, strong as she might be with her ruthless strangler’s grip, was enfeebled by a hopeless, all-devouring love. She would not let Ishbel carry any of the blame.

  ‘All right,’ Greg Dacre shouted at the DCI. ‘If you think it’s my daughter, why don’t you charge her? And then we’ll have the pleasure of suing you for wrongful arrest.’

  ‘You’ve been reading the wrong sort of books.’ And Rutherford added with calculated offensiveness: ‘As well as writing them.’

  Caroline cracked.

  ‘Let’s be done with this. There’s a time when you get too tired to go on struggling.’

  ‘Caro, you can’t —’

  ‘Like putting a pheasant out of its misery,’ said Greg.

  ‘Like the pheasant, yes,’ Caroline confirmed with a weary smile. ‘Kinder to put an end to it quickly.’

  Rutherford gave Lesley a peremptory nod. She cleared her throat and intoned: ‘Caroline Crombie, I am arresting you on a charge of murdering Simon Pringle and Brigid, Lady Crombie.’

  ‘No, no, no.’ Ishbel was whimpering, rocking convulsively to and fro. Her father lurched awkwardly across the room to put his arms round her. She shook him off and went on rocking.

  ‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  Ishbel flung herself into Caroline’s arms.

  Now that the charge had been read, Rutherford relaxed into a mellow and almost sociable mood. ‘Miss Crombie, we can understand why you hated your stepmother so much that you had to kill her. But just as a matter of interest, what about Pringle? Hatred because he had taken over Ishbel Dacre, and then cheated on her — was that enough to justify strangling him?’

  Over Ishbel’s heaving shoulder, Caroline looked at Greg Dacre. ‘I must apologise for my remarks about your creative abilities, Mr Dacre. You were getting uncannily close to the truth. Only it was even more disgusting.’

  Rutherford looked none too pleased at the idea of Caroline sharing information with the rest of them. ‘If you’d prefer to save the details until we can record them under proper conditions, Miss Crombie —’

  ‘I think Mr Dacre, with his connections with both Brigid and Ishbel, is entitled to a few facts. Also, my father enjoyed his company.’ That was the clincher. ‘I knew that father and Brigid were away in Edinburgh that week, so while I was in the neighbourhood I … well, I just dropped in. I meant to wander round the house while Brigid wasn’t in it, pretending it was all the way it used to be.’ She took a deep breath, for the moment as tremulous as Ishbel. ‘I drove in by the side gate, the way I usually do from that direction. And parked near the burn and walked up the slope to a spot I’d always loved as a child. And there was Simon, slinking down from the boundary wall. My favourite spot contaminated.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ objected Lesley. ‘We never found his car, abandoned by the roadside, or anything. How could he just show up like that?’

  ‘He hadn’t got a car any more,’ said Ishbel in little more than a whisper.

  ‘There’s one bus a day goes along the upper road,’ said Caroline. ‘He must have come on that. And there he was, the same old Simon, saying that he was dropping in — dropping in on Brigid. No hard feelings, they were a civilised modern couple, weren’t they? And there were things they had to discuss. Same old Simon,’ she repeated: ‘same old sly, smirking know-all.’

  ‘And what was this discussion going to be about?’

  ‘I ought to have waited.’ Caroline sounded genuinely apologetic. ‘Looking back, I’d guess he might have got on to the planned burglary through some of his shady friends. He was here to black
mail Brigid, maybe offering her a deal where he got a cut of the proceeds. I wouldn’t put it past him to have suggested coming in on the actual robbery. If I’d waited, he’d have leaked a lot more. He couldn’t help himself. Had to show himself as the great manipulator.’

  ‘But you didn’t give him time.’

  ‘I told him that, whatever he was up to, Brigid was in Edinburgh. That bit he didn’t know. He was very peeved. But he wasn’t going to go away empty-handed. He started daubing his irresistible charm all over me.’

  ‘Making a pass?’

  As Ishbel nodded dismal recognition of the likelihood of this, Caroline’s lips tightened almost to invisibility. ‘Told me he’d always fancied me, but never dreamt of coming near me while he was still married to Brigid. And then of course he’d made a terrible mistake, been a gullible fool, falling for anyone as …’

  It trailed away. ‘Go on,’ said Ishbel. ‘Something about me? Go on, say it.’

  Caroline’s lips parted, then tightened again. ‘No. It was despicable. And then, would you believe, he said that we would really make a wonderful pair. He guaranteed to give me a child. Keep on until my father got the grandson he craved. The old man would soon come round. It was nauseating. And the swine had obviously talked himself into believing it was possible.’

  ‘And that was when —’

  ‘Yes, that was when. I couldn’t help myself. I got my hands round his throat, and I enjoyed every moment of it. I strangled him, and then held his head under the water of the burn, just to make sure. Though afterwards I hated the thought that I’d polluted the burn.’

  ‘You left no fingerprints that we could trace.’

  ‘I was wearing my driving gloves.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Ripped to shreds, somewhere in the Forth just below Queensferry.’

  ‘And the ones you were wearing when you killed Lady Crombie?’

  ‘Likewise. But you won’t need them. I’ll give you all the supplementary details you need. I’m not ashamed of what I did.’ Her poise wavered for only a moment as she held her arms out towards Ishbel. ‘But I’m sorry, my darling. For us. So sorry.’