Cold Coffin

by Nancy Buckingham

  McEvoy took a while to answer. “If Sir Noah ever regarded that as a possibility, I’m sure he has long abandoned the idea.”

  Kate leaned back in her chair. “That’s all for now, Mr. McEvoy. I may need to have a further talk with you tomorrow.”

  Now that he was free to leave, he seemed oddly reluctant. “Er ... if Sir Noah doesn’t return soon, Chief Inspector ...” He dithered to a halt, and Kate prompted him. “What is it you want to say?”

  He gestured around in a vague sort of way. “I’ve been wondering. Suppose Sir Noah doesn’t ever come back, what will become of Croptech? He’s been away before, of course, on holiday, but he’s always left me my instructions. But now, with Dr. Trent gone too, I don’t quite know what I should do. Do you think the firm might be sold?”

  “Would Croptech readily find a buyer, Mr. McEvoy?”

  “Well, I imagine so. Not at its true value, though, not without Sir Noah at the helm.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Aidan Kimberley will step in and run things here,” Kate suggested, watching his face.

  McEvoy shook his head from side to side, looking dismayed and at a loss. Clearly he was a man who liked routine, and any kind of change disturbed him.

  Boulter said as the door closed behind him, “He obviously hated Trent’s guts. Could he be our chummy, guv?”

  “He certainly took fright when I asked him about last night.” Kate was thoughtful as she glanced down at her list. “Let’s have Dr. Miller in now, and see what we make of her.”

  Chapter Four

  Cheryl Miller made quite an impression the moment she walked into the room. A professional woman of Kate’s age and Kate’s height—but there the resemblance ended. Cheryl Miller positively exuded sexuality. Richard Gower had commented that she was the sort of woman whom once seen was never forgotten. She had dramatic green eyes, full sensual lips, and a voluptuous figure that was clearly evident even beneath her starched laboratory coat. Her mass of hair, a subtle shade of auburn (an expensive tint job?), was drawn back into a tortoiseshell clip. Kate guessed that a single practised flip would send it tumbling sexily about her shoulders. Boulter, on his feet in a flash, seemed to be steaming slightly.

  Cheryl Miller spared the sergeant one direct glance, then totally ignored him. Her green eyes, sparking with hostility, were fixed challengingly on Kate as she dropped into the chair provided and crossed her legs ... long, shapely legs that terminated in a pair of high-heeled black court shoes.

  “About bloody time, too. At least you’re a woman,” she added with grudging approval. “That makes a pleasant change.”

  Amused, Kate asked, “This isn’t the first time you’ve been interrogated by the police?”

  The green eyes narrowed in anger. “I just meant it makes a change to see a woman in any position of authority. Not that you’ll climb much higher, I hope you realize. Detective Chief Inspector is about as far as they’ll ever let a woman get, the bastards.”

  “You seem to have a low opinion of men, Dr. Miller.”

  “Oh, they have their limited uses. Though even in bed they seem to imagine they’re God’s gift to us women. You must have found that.”

  “Since you’ve been kept waiting,” said Kate dryly, “perhaps we’d better get on with the business in hand.”

  She let Boulter handle the routine details and his voice sounded definitely husky. Cheryl Miller’s arrogance could be forgiven, Kate thought, if this was the instant effect she had on a man.

  Kate took over with a foursquare question. “Who might have wanted Gavin Trent out of the way, do you think?”

  “Me, for one.”

  Smothering her surprise at this blunt answer, Kate asked mildly, “Because you resented his having been appointed to the job you wanted?”

  “Aha! Someone’s been talking, I perceive. Yes, I resented Gavin, damn right I did. Wouldn’t you resent a man who was less qualified than you getting promoted over your head?”

  “Did you kill him, Dr. Miller?” It could have been a woman who’d held Trent beneath the water till he drowned. It wasn’t so much strength that had been needed, but cool cunning and ruthless determination. And Cheryl Miller was probably capable of both.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” she snapped. “Of course I didn’t kill him.”

  “Maybe you know who did? Or can guess?”

  Kate received a hard stare. “I’m beginning to wonder about you, if this is the best line of approach you can think of.”

  “Please answer the Chief Inspector’s question,” intervened Boulter automatically.

  “It’s all right, Sergeant,” said Kate. “Dr. Miller has already answered me, in her own way. But we’ll need to have an account of your movements at the relevant times, Dr. Miller, just so you can be formally eliminated.”

  “What are the relevant times?”

  “From when Dr. Trent left the laboratory on Wednesday evening until say 3 A.M.,” Boulter told her.

  Cheryl Miller considered unhurriedly, then announced in a casual tone, “In that case, you’ll have to formally retain me on your list of suspects. Actually, I knocked off yesterday about half-past four—much to dear Gavin’s annoyance. He was always so puritanical about sticking to proper hours, but I wanted to catch a boutique in Marlingford to pick up a skirt I’d bought which they were altering for me.”

  Boulter noted the name of the shop and the times she’d have got there and left.

  “And after that?” asked Kate.

  “After that, nothing. I had a drink and a bar snack at the Dolphin, then I drove home and stayed home, curled up with a good book.” Home, they had already established, being one of the flats in the converted Old Rectory at Lower Aston.

  “Do you live alone, Dr. Miller?”

  “Yes, I do. From choice. How about you? Do you live alone?”

  Kate ignored that. “Did you have any visitors during the evening? Any phone calls?”

  A hesitation, slight but definite. “No, I didn’t, as it happens.”

  Kate wondered about that hesitation. Was she shielding some man ... and if so, why? Or did she just hate having to admit that she’d been left to her own devices for the space of an entire evening?

  “Tell me, Dr. Miller, was your resentment of Dr. Trent purely from a professional point of view? Or did you dislike him on a personal level?”

  The green eyes half closed in speculation. “Tell me, Chief Inspector, what would your attitude be towards a senior officer, a superintendent say, who you knew bloody well was less competent than yourself, but who’d been given the job that should have been yours solely because he was male? Wouldn’t it make you hate his guts on a personal level?”

  Kate wished that Boulter hadn’t been present, ears twitching. “I hardly think this is relevant, Dr. Miller.”

  “Oh, yes it is, totally relevant. And you know it.”

  No, let it pass, Kate. This wasn’t the moment for trotting out her grudges against the male hierarchy.

  “What did other people in the lab think of Trent?” she enquired.

  “You’d better ask them that.”

  “I intend to. Right now, I’m asking you.”

  Cheryl Miller shrugged. “He treated Roger like a snotty-nosed kid. Well, he isn’t much more, I suppose, but he does have quite a good degree which deserves a modicum of respect.”

  “Roger Barlow? He’s Sandra English’s boyfriend, I believe?”

  “For the moment. Though what a good-looking stud like him sees in someone so insipid, I can’t imagine.”

  Stud? Was that said on the basis of personal experience? Cheryl Miller would probably consider anything male as a challenge, to be captured, used, then cast off. Had she ever tried it on with Trent?

  “Was there a woman in Dr. Trent’s life?”

  “You’ve got to be joking.”

  Kate raised one eyebrow. “Are you saying there was a man? Or men?”

  “The mind boggles.”

  “Let me understand you, Dr. Miller. Are you
suggesting that Dr. Trent lived a celibate life?”

  She looked amused. “It’s an intriguing question, I must say. There’s a certain mutuality demanded by sex, isn’t there, and I can’t see dear Gavin sharing a bloody thing with anyone.”

  Kate nodded and jotted down a note. “Thank you, Dr. Miller. I won’t keep you any longer just now.”

  For the first time Cheryl Miller looked slightly thrown. “You haven’t said a word about old Kimberley.”

  “Do you have something to tell me about him?”

  “No, I was hoping you could tell me. I just want to know what the hell’s going on. It’s been chaos here these past few days with the boss missing, and now ... God knows what’s going to happen if he doesn’t turn up soon.”

  “Believe me, Dr. Miller, I’m just as keen as you are to know what has happened to Sir Noah. So if anything occurs to you that might possibly throw some light on his disappearance, you can include it in the statement we’ll be requiring from you tomorrow. That’s all for now.”

  Boulter sucked in a breath as the door closed. “Christ, what a woman!”

  “She’d eat you for breakfast,” Kate observed dryly.

  He rolled his eyes. “But what a way to die.”

  “Cool it, Cuthbert. Let’s have the next one in.”

  Roger Barlow, ranking number three in the laboratory, was a tall, well-built chap who only just missed being very good-looking by having a slightly overlong nose. He had the bloom of healthy youth and the arrogance of a young male about to conquer the world.

  “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Barlow,” said Kate. “Please sit down.”

  As he did so, he smiled deep into her eyes. Just to show how totally at ease he was. A cover, Kate realized, for considerable unease. What did Roger Barlow have to fear from her? What might he be hoping to keep hidden? She sat waiting quietly while Sergeant Boulter handled the preliminary formal questions, then she winged in with an uppercut designed to shake him.

  “I understand that you heartily disliked Dr. Trent?”

  Barlow stared at her, his jaw slackening. “Why should you say that?”

  “Are you denying that it’s true?”

  He looked down fixedly at his hands, and began picking at the quick of one finger. “Well ... nobody liked him that much. Nobody. He had a way of always acting superior, and sneering at people all the time.”

  “At you in particular?”

  Barlow flickered his eyes up to meet hers again, and Kate tried to read the look that lurked in them. Guilt? Anger? Or just plain fear at being treated like a suspect? He seemed about to say something, something explanatory, then changed his mind and resumed the keen study of his hands.

  “No, not really,” he muttered.

  “When did you last see Dr. Trent?”

  “Packing up time yesterday. Five o’clock.”

  “You left the lab before he did?”

  “As it happens, yes.” He glared defiance. “Any reason why I shouldn’t?”

  “And you’re sure you didn’t see him again after that?”

  “I already told you.”

  “Someone, Mr. Barlow, someone who didn’t like Dr. Trent, did see him last night. Someone called at his cottage, perhaps taking a bottle of whisky designed to look like a placatory gesture—after a quarrel, it could be. That someone then managed to persuade Dr. Trent to accompany him into the nearby woods, and there pushed him into the pond to drown. Could it have been you, I wonder?”

  She watched every trace of colour bleach from his face. “It wasn’t me. No way. I had nothing to do with his death, nothing at all. I wasn’t anywhere near Trent’s cottage last night.”

  “Then all you need to do is to prove it by telling me where you were.”

  “I was with my girlfriend.”

  “That’s ...” Kate glanced down at her pad as if for the name. A display of formality could often be unnerving to an interviewee. “... Sandra English?”

  “That’s right. Sandra and I ... we spent the whole evening together. I picked her up outside the office block after work and we drove over to Oxford.”

  “Oxford? Any special reason?”

  “That was where I went to university. Nuffield College. I promised to show Sandra around sometime, and it was a fine evening.”

  “Did you meet anyone you knew?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “So you looked around your old college. What then?”

  “I suggested going to a pub for something to eat.”

  “Which pub?” asked Boulter.

  “The Cricketers’ Arms at Boscombe.” This was a large and popular hostelry, invariably packed with customers on a summer evening. “We had spaghetti bolognese.”

  “You’re known there, are you?”

  “Not exactly. We’ve been there once or twice before.”

  “What time did you arrive?”

  He shrugged. “About nine, I suppose.”

  “Did you speak to anyone? Would any of the bar staff remember your being there? The waitress?”

  “They were all pretty busy.”

  “Did you see any friends while you were there?”

  He shook his head. “No, we didn’t.”

  “So what it boils down to is that you and Sandra can only vouch for each other. What time did you leave the pub?”

  Another shrug. “Closing time. Eleven o’clock.”

  “What did you do after that?”

  Barlow gave her a defiant glare. “D’you want me to spell it out? She and I were ... together, right up until late. Then I dropped Sandra off at her home.”

  “Where exactly were you together until late?” she enquired dryly.

  “Over by Ampney-on-the-Water. There are places there where you can pull off the road.”

  “And just how late was it that you left Sandra at her home?”

  “It must have been a few minutes before one-thirty. I got to my digs just after then.”

  “Can anyone confirm that?”

  “You can ask my landlady if you want to. She was watching some late show on television in her bedroom, and I called out goodnight as I passed her door.”

  “Then you went to bed yourself and stayed there?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hmm! I’d like to talk a bit more about Dr. Trent. His personal life. What friends did he have?”

  “Why ask me? I had nothing to do with him except just for work.”

  “But surely ... the odd overheard remark, a telephone call he made or received while you were around.”

  Barlow shook his head. “He didn’t seem to have any friends.”

  “Oh, come now,” said Kate, and added sententiously, “No man is an island.”

  “Well, Trent was—as near as anyone could be.”

  “Did he never socialize at all? Never have a drink with anyone?”

  A shrug. “I can’t say. I saw him in the local now and then ... not to talk to, I mean, I always took care to avoid him. I think Gavin wanted to be accepted as one of the regulars, but he always put everyone’s back up. He bragged about how he belonged to Mensa, and he just couldn’t stop acting as if he had a superior brain to the rest of us.”

  “How about women?” asked Kate.

  “He never talked about anyone.” A smirk. “My guess is that he had to pay for it.”

  He’d deliberately spoken crudely, Kate guessed, to get a reaction from her. But she just asked mildly, “Have you any evidence to back up that guess?”

  He shrugged a no.

  “That will be all, then, Mr. Barlow. We’ll require a written statement from you, but tomorrow will do for that.”

  As the door closed behind him, Kate instructed Boulter, “Go and fetch Sandra English in here, before Barlow has a chance to square their stories about last night. Quickly, Tim.”

  When the secretary arrived, she looked scared. Kate smiled pleasantly to put her at her ease. Off guard.

  “There’s something I should have asked w
hen I spoke to you earlier, Miss English. Could you please tell me about your movements yesterday evening. I’m asking everybody, just for the record.”

  Sandra, unlike most people faced with such a demand, was ready and eager to answer. “I went out with Roger ... Roger Barlow.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Well, at five o’clock when we finished work, Roger drove me to Oxford. I’d asked him to show me his old college. Then afterwards we came back to a pub at Boscombe for supper. We had spaghetti bolognese.”

  “What did you each have to drink?” Kate tossed in.

  “Er ... I had a glass of white wine.”

  “And Roger?”

  “He had bitter. A pint of bitter—I think.”

  “Did either of you have another drink?”

  That had thrown her. She swallowed hard, then said, “I ... I can’t really remember. I think we had the same again.”

  “And after you left the pub? What did you do then?”

  “Well ... we drove on a bit, then we stopped and ... and chatted.”

  “I get the picture,” said Kate dryly. “How long did you ... chat?”

  Colour flooded to her face. “I don’t really know. It was well past midnight when I got home. After one, I think.”

  “You’re very fond of Roger, aren’t you?”

  She met Kate’s eyes proudly. “Yes, I love him.”

  “Well, thank you, Miss English. That will be all for now.”

  To Boulter, when they were alone, Kate said vexedly, “We were too late, weren’t we? The story tripped off her tongue, just as Roger had agreed it with her. Except for the drinks they had, they’d forgotten to fix that, so she had to improvise. Those two have something to hide about last night, but whether it was murder remains to be seen.”

  It was getting late. Kate decided that she would interview only the laboratory assistants who had worked most closely with Gavin Trent. The remainder would be seen by other detectives on her team. There were two women involved. The first, Rachel Pye, a bubbly dark-haired girl of about twenty, was agog with the drama of it all. The disappearance of the head of the firm, then a murder, and now a police investigation with her as an important witness! However, she had nothing useful to tell Kate.