The Young Widow

by Cassandra Chan

  This positive attitude lasted him out to the car, but rapidly vanished as he swung the Jaguar onto the main drive and glanced uneasily toward the front of the house, half-afraid the Rover would still be there. But it was gone and he heaved a sigh of relief, lighting a cigarette and blowing out the smoke in a great stream as he sped toward London.

  Gibbons had been up half the night in an agony of self-doubt, an emotion which hitherto had been completely unknown to him. By morning, however, he had calmed himself. He could no longer deny that he had feelings for Annette, but he could deny their depth, and he had reasoned his way to a truce with himself, not realizing how uneasy a truce it was. It was only natural that he should feel for her, so lonely in her grief, wrongly accused of her husband’s murder and already convicted in the court of public opinion, striving so valiantly to bear it all. Circumstances had combined last night to cause him to overreact, but there was no reason to fear it would happen a second time. The thing to do was to put it firmly out of his mind and concentrate on solving the case. Once that was done, he would be free to explore exactly what Annette had come to mean to him.

  And yet the look in her eyes when she had asked if he believed her a murderer continued to haunt him. He found himself dwelling on it when he did not mean to, and wishing he had found some way to reassure her.

  The ringing of the telephone interrupted his thoughts. In his turmoil, he had completely forgotten Bethancourt’s promise to ring him with the results of the night’s investigations, and he was almost surprised to hear his friend’s voice.

  “You’re up early,” he said.

  “I wanted to catch you before you left,” said Bethancourt. “I found out more than I ever expected last night.”

  “About Paul Berowne?” asked Gibbons, rather taken aback.

  “Yes. Mind, there’s no proof of anything, but it does give him a solid motive.”

  As Gibbons listened to his friend’s recital, the last of his introspection vanished and he grew increasingly excited.

  “Good work, Phillip,” he said. “I have to confess, I never really thought your date with Kitty would lead to anything, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

  “What will you do now?” asked Bethancourt.

  “That’s up to Carmichael. I’ll ring him at once—he’s going to be furious that no one told us about this before now.”

  “Well, it was several years ago,” said Bethancourt. “I don’t suppose anyone realized it would be important. Especially since no one knew he was having another affair.”

  “One could look at it like that,” said Gibbons, who clearly did not. “In any case, I imagine the first thing to do will be to find the woman Berowne had the affair with.”

  “Carmichael won’t pull Paul Berowne in for questioning at once, then?”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” answered Gibbons, “but, as I say, I’ll have to check.”

  “Well, let me know what happens,” said Bethancourt.

  “Of course I will. I’ll ring you when I know what the program is. And thank you, Phillip—you’ve done very well for us.”

  Gibbons rang off and dialed Carmichael’s home number, but found that the chief inspector had already left for the Yard. It was an old habit of Carmichael’s, when a case wasn’t going well, to get to the office early. Gibbons hastily swallowed the last of his coffee and left for New Scotland Yard.

  Carmichael had spent his Sunday investigating Maddie Wellman. He had spoken to the headmistress at the school where she had once taught and had interviewed her friends and her bank manager. He had failed to uncover a motive, and it still seemed to him that if Maddie was going to murder anyone, it would have been Annette Berowne rather than her husband.

  He was deeply unhappy with the case and saw fewer possibilities of solving it every day. It was frustrating Gibbons as well; just look at the way the lad had jumped to the conclusion that Annette Berowne must be innocent because it wouldn’t have taken her twenty minutes to poison the coffee. Obviously Gibbons was as anxious as his superior to make any headway at all, since normally he would never take such a leap of faith in a case. Carmichael hadn’t liked to disillusion him about how little progress this represented and had received his sergeant’s news neutrally.

  Well, he told himself, at least he had done what he could to eliminate the peripheral characters and it now seemed very unlikely that any of the Berowne employees had committed the murder. That still left them with four solid suspects: Annette Berowne, still chief among them by virtue of her status as spouse and main legatee; her stepson Paul, who had been at odds with his father and who stood to gain complete control of Berowne Biscuits upon his father’s death; his wife, Marion, a less likely suspect since she and Geoffrey had been on good terms, but still a legatee; and Maddie Wellman, who had deeply resented Geoffrey’s remarriage and who was now set up for life without having to bend to her brother-in-law’s will.

  He was just contemplating the impossibility of ever arresting any of these people when Gibbons burst into his office, his blue eyes alight.

  “I’ve got something, sir,” he said eagerly. “Or, rather Phillip Bethancourt has.”

  Carmichael was surprised. “Bethancourt?”

  “Yes, sir. He took Kitty Whitcomb to the local pub last night to ask questions about Paul Berowne.”

  Carmichael frowned. “I thought you had looked into the pub, Sergeant,” he said.

  “I did, sir. I spoke to the barmaid and to a group of regulars, but they all reported that Paul Berowne, although he came in often, always kept to himself at a corner table in the back.” Gibbons grinned. “I should have gone with Kitty, sir, but I have to admit it never occurred to me. And it wasn’t just the pub. Kitty had been speaking to her aunt, who was the cook at the Berownes before her, and dredged up some old gossip.”

  “Let’s have it then.” Gibbons’s enthusiasm was infectious, but Carmichael remained cautious. By the end of Gibbons’s tale, however, he was feeling more optimistic. It was nothing like proof, but it did give Berowne a far more solid motive than the one he had been assigned before.

  “Surrey CID should have told us this,” said Carmichael, disgruntled. “They must have known. And they might have winkled out for themselves that Berowne was having an affair. It was happening on their patch, after all, and they’d know best how to get it out of the locals.”

  “They mightn’t have known all the details, sir,” said Gibbons. “If they didn’t know it was Geoffrey who put an end to his son’s affair, it wouldn’t seem very pertinent. I’m sure Geoffrey would have put the best face on all of it. He probably told people Paul changed his mind about the divorce when he realized Marion was pregnant.”

  “And they were so concerned with Annette Berowne, I expect they never investigated anyone else very seriously,” admitted Carmichael. “Still, I’m going to have words with them about it. In the meantime, I’ll want to talk to Mira Fellows myself. And I’ll look in on the old cook while I’m down there, although she’s hardly likely to tell me more—or even as much—as she told her niece. You get on to finding this Amy or Ann, Gibbons, but be discreet about it. I don’t want Paul Berowne put on the alert. Whatever you do, don’t ring up Berowne Biscuits for the information.”

  “No, sir. No need in any case. Kitty said she was acting for a firm Berowne Biscuits acquired about five years ago. It should be simple enough to find out which company that was and who represented them in the negotiations.”

  Carmichael paused to beam at his sergeant. He had had many men under him in the past who would have had to have that line of inquiry spelled out for them, and he was pleased to have his high opinion of Gibbons confirmed.

  “That’s good thinking, lad,” he said. “I’m off now—ring me on the mobile when you’ve got something.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Gibbons.

  “And, Gibbons—thank Bethancourt for me when you speak to him.”

  “I will, sir.”

  It did not take long for Gibbons to
look through the public records of mergers and acquisitions and find the occasion, five years ago, when Berowne Biscuits had acquired Taylor’s Toffees. It was, he hastily ascertained, the only acquisition Berowne had made that year, and he went on to search out the solicitor’s firm that had acted for Taylor’s during the negotiations. This took a little more work, but eventually he tracked it down and then it was a simple matter to obtain a list of the firm’s employees. There were several women, but only one whose name corresponded to Janet Whitcomb’s memory: Amy Sullivan.

  He rang up the firm and was connected to Miss Sullivan after only a slight delay. He identified himself and asked, “Were you the solicitor acting for Taylor’s Toffees when they were acquired by Berowne Biscuits about five years ago?”

  There was a pause before she answered. “That’s right,” she said at last. “But if you’re looking for any information about the acquisition, you would have to go through Mr. Steiner.”

  “I’m not actually interested in the acquisition itself,” answered Gibbons. “I’m looking for the woman who dated Paul Berowne at that time. Was that you, Miss Sullivan?”

  From her reaction, the source of his interest was not a surprise to her.

  “Yes,” she said at once, in a low voice. “That was me.”

  “Then I need to speak with you, Miss Sullivan,” said Gibbons. “Will you be in your office for the next half-hour or so?”

  “Oh!” she said, flustered. “No, that wouldn’t be—I mean, I’d rather come to you. I could take an early lunch, if noon would do?”

  Gibbons glanced at the clock; it was 11:15. “That would be fine,” he answered. “I’m at New Scotland Yard; just ask for Detective Sergeant Gibbons at the desk.”

  From her quick acceptance of his interest in her personal life, Gibbons assumed Amy Sullivan had read about the Berowne murder in the papers. When she arrived, he was expecting a flood of questions about Paul Berowne’s present status as a possible murderer and was prepared to parry them. But in the event, she seemed determined to avoid the topic altogether.

  “Look here,” she said, setting down her briefcase and sliding into the chair Gibbons held for her, “I want you to know I didn’t realize Paul Berowne was married when it all started.”

  Gibbons took his own seat and considered her. Marion Berowne struck him as being far more attractive than Amy Sullivan, although Miss Sullivan was unquestionably better turned out in a very smart suit. Her face lacked the elegance of Marion’s bone structure and beneath the well-tailored clothing her figure was less well-proportioned.

  “I mean,” she went on, “Paul and I were working together quite closely for a time and he was always available to have a drink after we were done or to get some dinner—never a mention of having to get home to his wife. Naturally, I assumed he was single.”

  “So you’re saying he deceived you,” said Gibbons.

  “No, no.” She had flyaway hair and now she pushed distractedly at her bangs. “I can’t say that. It just never occurred to him that I didn’t know. He was very apologetic when it came out, but of course by then it was too late.”

  “You were already in love with him.”

  She sighed. “Yes.”

  Gibbons eyed her. He found it interesting that even five years later, she was still determined not to be viewed as a home wrecker. But her guilty feelings were not why they were here.

  “At some point,” he said, “Mr. Berowne must have suggested he get a divorce so you could marry.”

  “That’s right.” She nodded.

  “But, in fact, he didn’t.”

  “Well, no, but it isn’t what it sounds like. He meant to. He really did.”

  “Then what happened?”

  She related the same story he had already heard: how Marion Berowne had objected and how Geoffrey had attempted to bring his son to heel.

  “So Paul left Berowne’s and moved in with me,” she explained. “He didn’t file for divorce right away because we both agreed that he should get a new job first.” She sighed heavily. “Only he couldn’t seem to find one.”

  Paul Berowne had energetically pursued job opportunities at first. He had never thought it would be a problem and his first port of call had been to the presidents of companies with whom he had dealt in his capacity as vice president of Berowne Biscuits. They had all been very tactful, but they had also been well aware of who the guiding genius at Berowne’s really was and one by one they had politely declined to offer Paul the kind of position he was looking for. Paul had apparently believed it was fear of his father that motivated them and had gone boldly off to new pastures.

  But the only jobs he found were in middle management, which marked a considerable descent from the giddy heights he was used to. At first he had rejected such jobs with disdain until, bit by bit, he began to realize it was the best he could do, that his former position with Berowne Biscuits had not reflected his own worth at all, but only his father’s desires. And the knowledge changed him.

  “When I first met him,” said Amy reflectively, “he was full of confidence, a man in charge of a leading company, and very sure of himself. He wasn’t perfect, and he was, for example, deeply distressed by the failure of his marriage, but that didn’t really alter his view of himself and his world. Only it turned out it was his father’s world and when Paul left it, he also left behind who he was.”

  “So he went back.”

  “Not exactly.” She hesitated, avoiding his eye, and then said reluctantly, “I guess I sent him back.”

  “Really?” The interest in Gibbons’s voice was keen. “You broke up with him?”

  “I—yes, I don’t suppose there’s any other way to put it. But it’s not what it sounds like.”

  Gibbons reflected that nothing was what it sounded like with Miss Sullivan.

  “It was a bit awkward from the start,” she explained, “having him move in with me. The flat I had then was small and it was hard to find room for his things and, well, we seemed to get in each other’s way a lot. I think he felt it more than I did; he’d never lived in a place where he didn’t have his own bathroom and dressing room and study and God knows what all else. In the beginning we didn’t worry about it since we planned to move to a bigger place as soon as Paul got a new job—we even had our eye on a flat in Mayfair for a while. But after the first couple of months, well, it became clear that the situation was going to be less temporary than we’d thought.”

  “But that can’t have been the end of it,” said Gibbons. “I don’t believe you threw him out just because the flat was a bit crowded.”

  “No, of course not.” She was indignant at the suggestion. “I did try to be sympathetic and supportive, but he began closing me out. In the end, he wasn’t even looking for another job and he didn’t want to discuss it. He started drinking a good deal and then there were rows.” She gestured. “He just wasn’t the same man I’d fallen in love with. In fact, no one could be more different. He was creeping round the flat almost as if he were afraid of me and we hardly ever made love anymore. I finally told him I didn’t think it was working out.”

  “And how did he take it?”

  “Very quietly, actually. I was surprised. He said he’d been thinking the same thing, only he hadn’t had the courage to say anything. I went to a girlfriend’s that night and the next afternoon he rang and said he’d spoken to his wife and he’d be moving back with her as soon as he was packed up.” She spread her hands. “I never spoke to him again.”

  Carmichael had finished with Mira Fellows and Janet Whitcomb, neither of whom had added anything to the information Gibbons had brought in that morning. Nevertheless, Carmichael did not consider the time wasted. He had nailed down a few points and made absolutely certain that Paul Berowne had left Mira in plenty of time to return to the estate and poison his father.

  That finished, Carmichael had returned to Hurtwood Hall and now stood in the garden, eyeing the tulip beds. These were planted around the edge of the terrace and t
he gardener, McAllister, had been working here on the morning of the murder. Carmichael was bothered by the fact that he could not place Paul Berowne anywhere near the study at the appropriate time. Berowne had spoken to McAllister here, but that had been earlier, long before Geoffrey Berowne had been served his coffee. But there was a gap between the time Paul Berowne had left Mira and the time he had arrived back at the garage to check on his car. McAllister said he had seen Mrs. Berowne leave the house which, if she was innocent, had been just after eleven. If that were the case, and Paul Berowne had arrived after her departure, how could McAllister not have seen him?

  The most obvious explanation was that McAllister had moved round to the other end of the terrace. The side door could still be seen from here, but only if one made an effort. Carmichael knelt down in the damp grass and fixed his attention on the flower bed. No, from this angle, one probably wouldn’t notice someone emerging from the house.

  Carmichael went in search of the gardener, whom he finally found in the kitchen garden, tending the early lettuces. He did not look pleased to see the detective.

  “I just need a bit of clarification,” said Carmichael genially. “You said Mr. Paul Berowne spoke to you that morning while you were working in the tulip beds. Just where in the tulip beds would that have been?”

  McAllister did not look up. “By the fountain.”

  “The fountain?” echoed Carmichael, puzzled. He had seen no fountain in the area.

  McAllister nodded curtly.