Deadly Stuff
Page 22
‘So I imagine he was rather brutal,’ Jenny nodded. ‘Yes, he would be.’
Again Trevor took over. ‘According to Pippa, he said he didn’t even remember her mother, and couldn’t care tuppence if she was his flesh and blood or not. He just dismissed her out of hand, and had even started to manhandle her out of the room. That’s when she lost it, according to her. She just grabbed the nearest thing to her and stabbed him in the neck. She was almost blind with hurt and rage by this point, to hear her tell it. Being rejected by him and made to feel so insignificant and unworthy was the last straw. I don’t think, between you and me, that once the shrinks have finished their reports, that it won’t come down to manslaughter, and with diminished responsibility at that.’
Jenny sighed but made no comment. ‘And you found blood-stains on her shoes, like I thought you would, right?’ she added, almost as an afterthought.
Peter Trent smiled. ‘Yes, we did. It was clever of you to pick up on that, Miss Starling. You were quite right, she had already got rid of the bloodstained clothes she was wearing just after the murder, but she couldn’t throw out her shoes, it seems.’
‘No, I thought not,’ Jenny said. Then seeing the two men look at her oddly, she shrugged. ‘She was always dressed so well, it was clear that clothes and fashion meant everything to her. She’d be in a different outfit every time I saw her. That’s why I didn’t think much of it at the time, when she wore one outfit to breakfast, but another the next time I saw her – which was just after finding Maurice’s body. Also, I was still in a bit of shock and not really paying that much attention,’ she apologized. ‘As it was, I just thought that she’d changed outfits. But when I heard her giving her statement to you later, and she didn’t mention going back to her room to change, I realized what it could mean. But I still had no motive for her, so …’ She shrugged.
‘But you noticed she was always wearing the same shoes,’ Trevor prodded.
‘That’s right. She might bring herself to get rid of the other clothes, but those Jimmy Choo shoes were easily the most expensive thing in her entire wardrobe, I’d guess, and certainly the most high status. When I saw her still wearing them, I knew that she must have just washed them thoroughly instead of dumping them. No doubt she thought she’d got all the evidence off them. But with modern forensics being like they are, I knew a lab would find traces of Maurice’s blood on them.’
‘As they did, in the stitches in the seams,’ Trevor confirmed. ‘It’s what eventually got her to confess. And once she started, she couldn’t stop. Like you said, she’s not the most stable of people. Maurice couldn’t have realized how much he was playing with fire when he refused to take her seriously, as he did.’
‘Maurice had other things on his mind at the time,’ Jenny reminded him darkly.
For a moment, all three were silent as they thought about this, and then Trevor stirred himself. ‘Well, we have to be off,’ he said, and held out his hand somewhat awkwardly. ‘Miss Starling, it’s been a pleasure,’ he said.
If he was being somewhat just a shade untruthful, she didn’t hold it against him, for she smiled back and shook his hand heartily.
She watched the policemen depart, then turned and spotted her cherry-red van parked in the shady corner of the quad. Remembering that James had left a present for her inside, she walked towards it and looked through the open window.
Sitting on the passenger seat was a bright green chameleon.
‘Norman?’ Jenny said, exasperated.
Quickly she reached for her mobile phone to call James Raye, and ask him to come back for his niece’s pet before he could travel too far down the road, then paused.
What if it wasn’t Norman? After all, James was a taxidermist. Suppose her present was the gift of a stuffed lizard?
She’d rather have had flowers,. Most definitely, she’d rather have had chocolates. But he was a man, and she knew enough never to trust a man’s giftgiving sensibilities.
Cautiously, she squatted down a bit and surveyed the lizard more closely.
Was it Norman?
It was certainly the same size, colour and, to her untrained eye at least, the same species as Norman. But did that mean it was Norman? She squinted, trying to see if the creature was breathing, but she couldn’t tell. Neither one of its eyes had moved. But then, chameleons were known for staying statue-still for long periods of time, weren’t they?
She supposed she could give it a gentle poke, but then, if she were a lizard, she wouldn’t be any too happy to be prodded about by a big ape.
Jenny cast an increasingly desperate look around the interior of her van. Perhaps James had left a nicely wrapped gift in the glove box. A piece of jewellery maybe?
This could be just another example of Norman, the great escape artist, at work. But if it wasn’t, just what the hell was she supposed to do with a stuffed lizard?
Jenny Starling once more peered down uncertainly at the reptile.
‘Norman?’ she said hopefully.
By the Same Author
Birthdays Can Be Murder
A Fatal Fall of Snow
Dying for a Cruise
An Invisible Murder
Copyright
© Joyce Cato 2014
First published in Great Britain 2014
ISBN 978 0 7198 1521 8 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1522 5 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1523 2 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1320 7 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Joyce Cato to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988