To Die For

by Janet Neel

  ‘Forensic?’ McLeish asked, still watching the street.

  ‘Aye. You know what they’re like, want to be home with their tea before it gets dark.’

  ‘There,’ McLeish said, quietly, and Davidson came and stood beside him, both men just far enough from the glass not to be visible to someone glancing up at the window.

  ‘Aye. Now there’s a face I’ve not seen for a bit. Will we go down?’

  ‘You go. I must see Doc.’

  Davidson nodded and left at a run while McLeish turned round.

  ‘Miss Delves? I’m afraid we’ve been called away. May we come back tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ll be here.’ She looked both young and smitten, like Francesca, when things were going wrong, and he stopped on his way.

  ‘Don’t do anything tonight. About whatever it is.’

  She blinked at him, roused from her preoccupation. ‘No. I need to go home for a bit, anyway. And I need to think. Do come tomorrow.’

  ‘We’ll be as unwelcome any time? I hear what you say.’ He left her tired but just smiling and he plunged down the stairs to find what Doc Smith had done for them.

  8

  ‘Frannie?’

  ‘Tristram m’man. Where are you?’ Francesca, sitting at her own kitchen table struggling, crossly, with the in-tray, welcomed the diversion.

  ‘At the flat. Brother Jeremy just arrived.’

  ‘How?’

  Jeremy, Tristram’s twin, was working in Hong Kong for Price Waterhouse, and his siblings had begun to resign themselves to never seeing him in England again.

  ‘Well, darling, on an aeroplane. So I’ve got him a ticket for tonight – he kindly seemed to feel it was worth it even to see me perform for thirty seconds at a time, and I’m buying him dinner afterwards with some mates at the Café de la Paix. Both of us want you. And John of course.’

  ‘Oh, Tris, I’m not sure we can come. John’s in charge of the murder there. Darling, do wake up. Body in freezer? Oh, you don’t mind that. Oh well. No, look, I’ll talk to John, but we can’t both come, anyway. Susannah’s out. But I’ll definitely get to the show, so get a ticket for me.’

  Michael Owens drove up the long drive and parked the BMW in front of the main door of the flat-fronted Georgian house. He was smiling to himself and had been since he turned off the main road.

  ‘So here it is.’ He leant across and kissed Judith. She returned his kiss, attention distracted by the sound of an engine.

  ‘Oh, it’s a man mowing the lawn.’

  ‘Yes.’ Michael agreed. ‘It’d better be. Costs the earth. I need to find a regular gardener – you know, someone who comes for a couple of days a week. I want to do some replanning before the winter.’

  Judith got out of the car, the better to confront the house. It was a formidable Georgian building, originally a rectory, with additions at the side, so that there were now – in estate agents parlance – six bedroom suites, a nursery suite and a garage with service flat above, which was the only part of the house currently occupied. She took a deep breath; she had not been quite expecting the sheer size and solidity of the building. Set in a small park, it had its own very definite atmosphere; it would not have surprised her at all to find the housekeeper, butler and full supporting cast arranged on the semicircular steps. In practice the reception committee was limited to a middle-aged woman who greeted her with open curiosity, and showed every sign of being prepared to take her round the house herself, until dissuaded by Michael.

  She looked round the hall, in the echoing silence that greeted the departure of Mrs Stevens. The house was clean, shabby and lifeless. On a little table by the door lay a pile of envelopes which looked like the incoming post at Café de la Paix. Like much of the Café’s correspondence indeed, this lot would consist of bills sent in by the army of people deployed in keeping the house clean, the furniture polished and curtains hung at the windows. Michael was tearing open envelopes, increasingly tight-lipped. He caught her eye.

  ‘You know what they say, that the first hour in any weekend house is spent in paying bills. And unblocking the sink.’

  ‘Can we have coffee before you show me the rest? I’ll unblock the sink if we have to.’

  The sink, like the rest of the vast kitchen, was a bit shabby but clean and not blocked. She ran water into the kettle, looking round her with a restaurateur’s eye. Planning a kitchen held no terrors for her; the rules of what had to go where in relation to what were inexorable. She had been well taught and had designed the kitchens at both the Caffs, making a few alterations only to suit Tony Gallagher who had an unalterable objection to electric ovens of any sort. There was plenty of space and no problems that the expenditure of about £20,000 would not solve.

  ‘Wonderful space for having people to dinner, I thought.’

  That was the problem, she realised. She had been a good cook once. But for her, now, meals came out of a big restaurant kitchen, plated ready for her approval, or indeed cooked specially for her if there was nothing on the menu she wanted. The tiny kitchen in her own flat contained everything she was likely to want in terms of cooking equipment and space, now and for ever. But Michael disliked it and his own cramped kitchen with equal fervour, openly hankering for a large farmhouse kitchen with built-in mother as Selina had once maliciously observed. His own mother had remarried after his father left, dragging him round three countries and a series of houses. Mrs Trent, as she now was, lived in a small flat within sight of Harrods, with a tiny kitchen from which nothing more demanding than tea, toast and the occasional boiled egg ever emerged.

  She made them both coffee, fighting down panic. ‘Can we go and look at the rest?’

  ‘Oh absolutely. It’s all a bit like this, though, I warn you. The people who owned it had been here for yonks and hadn’t spent any money on it. It’s always touch and go whether the electricity works. I just haven’t had time, and not really the inclination either. This is a house to live in.’ He put his arm round her as he opened the heavy oak door to reveal a huge, shabby, cold drawing-room with long windows on to an overgrown terrace and a magnificent view beyond it.

  ‘Wonderful room,’ he said, contentedly, arm resting on her shoulders. ‘I love it. Needs everything doing. There’s a dining-room of course – through there.’

  There was, and it would easily have housed twenty people. The study – the other side of the dining-room – would have made a fair-sized classroom, and was lined with books, every one of which was in need of a bookbinder’s attention. She sat on the enormous heavy, lumpy chair which wobbled unstably as she moved. There was a full-time job here for a small army of carpenters, masons and decorators, all of whom would need direction. Combining this role – if indeed she was being asked to – with running the two Caffs looked impossible. It was an awkward journey from the West End, although, she realised, not very difficult for the City; the trains were direct into Waterloo from this part of Hampshire and the journey to Bank undemanding thereafter. She looked out of the window, over the substantial partner’s desk, the leather stained and wrinkled, in need of careful replacement by some craftsman who, experience suggested, would need not merely paying but coaxing to fix it. Beyond the desk, framing the wonderful view, hung curtains, faded to a dirty pale red and shredding where they hung. She saw, not the view, but the immaculate mirrored surfaces and glistening brass of the Caff and the half-dozen waiters, who spent the first hour of the day dusting, to keep it like that.

  ‘Darling?’

  ‘Sorry, what did you say?’

  ‘I didn’t. I thought I’d wait till I got your attention. You do like it, don’t you?’ He was sounding desperately anxious, and her throat muscles seemed to have become paralysed.

  He got up, abruptly, and came round her side of the desk, and she looked up at him. ‘Come here.’

  She pushed her chair back and walked into his arms, feeling, gratefully, the heavy muscle in his shoulders and upper arms and the flat stomach as his hands moved down in the small
of her back, pulling her to him. She remembered suddenly the first time, the time he had bent to kiss her goodnight, gently, on the lips. She had responded and he had put both arms round her and kissed her in earnest. She had helped him undo the buttons of her dress so he could get at her breasts and had herself, more confident than she had ever been with anyone else, undone his trousers for him. They had ended in bed joyfully, where she had had a better time than she had believed was possible. And from that day she was hooked, she thought, her breath coming short as he felt for the nipple on her right breast.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  The first time, she thought, as they both tore off their clothes, he had taken off her clothes and she had been almost sick with excitement and pleasure as he pulled down her knickers, kissing her stomach. But this, now, was pretty good too and he made her come, watching her face, before he came in. She was unbelievably lucky, she reminded herself afterwards, arranging herself so she could lie comfortably beside him, touching at every part.

  ‘You know I want to marry you.’

  ‘Oh, darling Michael.’ She started to cry and he kissed her.

  ‘Was that a yes?’

  ‘Oh darling.’ She was feeling sick, she realised, incredulous. Here she was in bed with the man of her dreams, who wanted to marry her, and she was terrified.

  ‘What is it? Come on, let’s sit up, I’ll get you a cup of tea. There’s a kettle somewhere and milk, Mrs Stevens puts it out when I come down, because it’s a day’s march to the kitchen. We’d need a little one up on this floor, I think, just for drinks and tea.’

  She sat up, drinking tea, and felt her courage return. ‘Were we – I mean, was the plan that we would be here at weekends?’

  ‘Well, we could certainly do that for a bit.’

  ‘Until what?’

  ‘Well, until the Caffs are sold.’ He reached over and stroked her bottom. ‘I know you don’t want to sell, but darling, that’s what it’s going to come to. You – we, that is – overspent on the second Caff, well, we should have seen that, and it’s taken longer to wash its face than you thought. And the mothership isn’t making quite the same money it used to, is it? So we would need, at the least, to refinance. Only Richard, who owns not far short of fifty per cent with Selina’s share, can’t afford to do any of that. Nor can Tony. So, honestly, we don’t have that much choice.’

  Judith felt her breathing contract. ‘Other people manage. We could borrow more.’

  ‘Yes, but where would that leave Richard? He’s bust, he needs the cash.’

  ‘Well, he could find another shareholder, who would buy his shares. Like you for instance.’

  He took his hand off her bottom and she moved towards him, but he rolled over. ‘I’m going to get up. I need a pee.’

  She lay, angry with herself for disrupting the moment, but when he came back, wrapped in a towel, he was looking tired, not angry, and sat on the bed facing her.

  ‘Judith. Let’s go through it again. Not a lot of people want shares in a private company. You know Richard and I did it because it was tax-efficient and it wouldn’t be the same for someone buying now. Look, if both Caffs were doing really well we could put the company on the stock market. Just. Then Richard could sell enough of his shares to keep back the wolves for a bit, but …’

  She sat up, propping pillows behind her and pulled the sheet over her breasts. ‘But the Caffs aren’t doing that well at the moment. So, why can Brian Rubin do it – by buying us out?’

  ‘Because he’s putting them together with the nine he’s got. It’s a bigger group. And he thinks he’s cleverer than us; he thinks he can make more money on the sites.’

  ‘And people believe him.’

  ‘Perfectly respectable brokers behind him, they’re happy with it.’

  Judith looked at him, silenced and mutinous, feeling about eight years old.

  ‘In any case, darling, if we want children – and I do, and I assume you do – we’d better get on with it. I mean, you’re thirty-four. Of course I could afford to buy Richard out, but … well, I can’t see how you – how we – are going to do all this if you’re stuck in that bloody place six days a week.’

  I did not know he disliked it that much, she thought. ‘Michael, when you put up the money – for the Caff – what did you think was going to happen?’

  ‘Oh, well. I put it up as a punt, because, well, I’d known Richard for ever, and I liked the site and it was a Business Expansion Scheme, so that was sixty per cent of my cash back straightaway, from the taxman. And Selina was very keen. I thought she’d bring in the punters. And I thought – and I was right, wasn’t I? – that you’d put in the work. I didn’t know you very well then, but I could see that much.’

  ‘So what’s different now?’

  ‘Well, you’re not just Selina’s friend who does all the work. We’re going to get married, I hope. And I want you to have time for me and our life, and you won’t if you go on. And we’ve got a good offer so you’ll get a fair return for all your work.’

  For sense and logic it could not be faulted, she thought, hopelessly. But the Caffs were hers, her creation. Without her the whole enterprise would not be there, hundreds of people every night would not be sitting down being well fed and made welcome.

  ‘I’d … well, not exactly been happy, but I’d accepted that the Caffs would belong to someone else,’ she said hesitantly. ‘But now, I can’t seem to manage to. I mean, if Selina had changed her mind back again, then I’d have been disappointed, but I’d have agreed. I think. But she was murdered, Michael, and that changes everything. I feel I’d be letting her down.’

  His mouth was set in a thin straight line as it did when he was upset. ‘For Christ’s sake. She let you down, I mean, you did all the real work.’

  Judith acknowledged wearily a direct hit. Selina had tended to appear and do sterling work in greeting and chatting for about half the hours of any shift when she was on duty, rather than arriving fifteen minutes before the shift started and leaving half an hour after it stopped, as Judith did.

  ‘And her murder needn’t have had anything to do with the Caffs at all.’ Michael could see he had an advantage.

  They looked at each other properly, Judith felt, for the first time since she had seen Selina’s dead bloodstained face in its black plastic frame. She rubbed her eyes to dispel the vision, and Michael took her hand.

  ‘I’ve been telling myself it was a prowler,’ she said, wearily. ‘Someone who walked in off the street and hid and waited. We had one in the early days, you remember? He got in when a kitchen hand left the back door open to get some air and we found him in the morning. Couldn’t get out and had settled down to cook and eat most of Chef’s carefully reduced stock which was waiting for the next day and four steaks out of the chillers. So I thought it had happened again, only this time … this time …’

  Michael gathered her into his arms as she wept. ‘I’d just like you right out of it,’ he said, holding her. ‘It’s a bloody awful thing to say, but Selina – getting killed like that … it’s very revealing. It’s reminded me that it’s a rough business, the people who work there are rough. Straight off the streets, some of them.’

  ‘Only the wash-ups,’ she protested, tears drying. ‘And they come from the hostel, and as you know one of them turned out to be a terrific sous chef, who was just down on his luck.’

  ‘You aren’t listening to me, are you? Please, Judith, have some sense.’ He drew in a long breath. ‘At least have some consideration for Richard.’

  She thought, drearily, of Richard Marsh-Hayden. He had not seen Selina, wreathed in plastic in the freezer, but he had gone to the morgue, and presumably had seen her before … well, before she could be laid flat in a position of decent repose.

  ‘He won’t want to have anything to do with the Caffs,’ she acknowledged.

  ‘That’s true but it’s not what I mean. The police always assume the husband did it. Because ni
nety per cent of the time it is someone in the family. If it’s murder.’ He was looking longingly out of the window into the sunlit garden. ‘I don’t want to talk about all this. Could we, possibly, manage to have a nice day, and go round the garden?’

  Matthew Sutherland fought his way to the surface; the duvet had somehow got wound round him and he could momentarily not find his way out. He untied the Gordian knot by rolling out of the low bed, duvet and all, groping for the alarm, then realising it was a telephone he could hear.

  ‘Didn’t wake you, did I? Tony Gallagher.’

  ‘Christ. Yes, you did. What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly eleven thirty. Sorry, but the service starts soon and I needed to get you.’

  ‘You’re at the Caff?’ Matt was slowly finding his way.

  ‘That’s where the service is, yes. I’m on double shift because we’re fucking short again. You got someone with you?’

  ‘No such luck.’ Matthew had managed to unwind the duvet and get himself on to the edge of the bed, sitting up, both eyes open. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Fucking busies.’

  ‘They’re with you?’ Matt was instantly awake.

  ‘Nah. But they’re bugging me.’

  ‘Harassing you?’ He listened to an exasperated indrawn breath. ‘Want me to come over?’

  ‘Thanks, mate. See, it’s not exactly harassment but I can’t afford the grief, they’re digging about where it’s better not, know what I mean?’

  Matt, thoroughly baffled, understood the question to be rhetorical. Nobody, including possibly Gallagher himself, could have known what he meant but it would wait. And after an evening drinking with some of his peer group in the criminal law fraternity he needed the time he had to get breakfast down and get himself showered and shaved and the washing done and a couple of shirts ironed. Somewhere between toast and his fourth cup of coffee, in the cluttered, grubby kitchen/dining-room, he understood abruptly that his student days were over. He was a working solicitor, decently if not generously paid, and he had clients who needed him at weekends as well as all hours during the week. He put the cup down, collected laboriously all his dirty clothes, towels and sheets, and shoved a load into the ancient, slow, temperamental washing-machine he had acquired with the flat. He looked at it doubtfully as it laboured into action, disentangled all his shirts from the remaining pile and went out in search of a laundry, an electrical showroom and someone to come in and clean the flat.