Birthdays Can Be Murder (17 page)

Both policemen perked up. ‘Evidence of what?’

‘Bribery and corruption,’ Tom said starkly. ‘I don’t suppose you know much about the textile business, Inspector?’ he asked, and Mollineaux had no trouble admitting that he didn’t.

‘Before Justin took over, Greers was a respectable firm, but not one of the top ones, and it wasn’t making anywhere near enough money to suit Justin. Then, all of a sudden, we began landing prestigious orders. A new fancy hotel in London. A marquis of somewhere or other wanting the baronial pile refitted out. One or two huge foreign orders that had been rumoured to be heading towards top manufacturers, that kind of thing. Suddenly they were being landed by Greers.’

As the policemen continued to look blank, Tom Banks sighed angrily. ‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Young Justin had to be giving out backhanders to somebody. He also had to have spies in the other camps to know exactly what offers were being tendered, and so undercut them. And where so much dodgy business was going on, there must have been records. Justin couldn’t have kept it all in his head. The scandal if it had all come out! It was too much. I just couldn’t stand by and do nothing.’

Tom began to look a little abashed now, and his next confession explained the uneasy look. ‘I kept the paper knife, after I couldn’t find any evidence in the library, in case I came across a strong box in his bedroom. I thought I might be able to jemmy the lock.’

‘I see,’ Mollineaux said, straight-faced. ‘And did you find any evidence in his bedroom, sir?’

‘No. He must have kept it somewhere else. But not in his office – I’d searched that before leaving the company. Nobody could ever accuse Justin of being stupid, Inspector. He had his father well and truly bamboozled. If Mark had ever found out what he was up to …’ Banks trailed off, suddenly looking like a very sad, old man. ‘We worked for years together to make that firm a success. But the merchandise we’re running off now is just miles and miles of cheap and nasty stuff.’ He shuddered visibly. ‘Oh, it’s profitable all right. It makes the money. Mass market, and all of that. But our reputation as makers of fine carpets and blankets and materials is all but destroyed. And yet we’re still pinching a lot of the prestigious contracts away from the top dogs. Although that’ll all stop now that Mark’s back in control, of course. I only hope he doesn’t find out what his son was doing. That’s what I’m hoping for now. It’s bad enough as it is, with Justin being murdered I mean.’

He stopped abruptly, as if only now realizing that the man he’d been vilifying as a crook and a vandal had been summarily poisoned to death. Again he shook his head. ‘But I didn’t kill Justin Greer,’ he said simply. ‘I’m not a murderer.’

Mollineaux rather believed him. He was really rather a pathetic figure. ‘Well, I don’t see why Mark Greer should get to hear of your midnight escapades,’ Mollineaux said, seeing the relief flood across Banks’ grey and haggard face. ‘No doubt he has enough to cope with as it is. You may be pleased to hear that his daughter has just returned from hospital.’

He watched the man closely, but Banks showed little reaction at all to the news of Alicia’s return, except to give a brief smile of relief. ‘Well, thank you, Mr Banks, that’s all for the moment. You don’t have any immediate plans to leave town, do you?’

Banks agreed that he hadn’t, and showed them out. He shut the front door with a weary feeling of relief, and returned to the sitting room, prepared for a grilling by Fran. But his wife was nowhere in sight. He went through the open French windows and saw her on the lawn. Better get it over with, he supposed.

As he approached, he saw that she was wearing protective rubber gloves, and was making up a solution of something or other in a large bucket. As her husband walked towards her, Fran Banks poured a carefully measured dose of paraquat into the water.

Jenny heard the overhead bell tinkle and looked up. She was in Meg’s Tea Room, a tiny little establishment she’d discovered tucked away overlooking the village green. No doubt it was only open during the tourist season.

The tiny converted cottage had no more than four little tables crammed onto a meagre floor space, but they were covered with pretty red and white check tablecloths, and each housed a vase of freshly cut flowers. From the kitchen, where Jenny had instantly pointed her nose, came the smell of freshly baking scones and on the counter stood a large, china teapot. The teapot and the smell had induced her to stay.

She’d enjoyed the excellent tea and well-cooked scone in solitary splendour, and now she looked up at the sound of the bell, not particularly pleased to have company. Then she saw Margie Harding, looking dead on her feet in the doorway, and quickly changed her mind.

‘Hello, Mrs Harding,’ Jenny said pleasantly, and saw the woman’s eyes widen as she recognized her. She began to make a U-turn, no doubt anxious to escape, when Meg emerged from the kitchen. She appeared to be eighty, if she was a day, but she bustled like a spring lamb, and there was steel in her slender frame.

‘Hello, Margie. You look like you could do with a good cup of tea, my girl,’ Meg said, more as an order than an observation, and disappeared back into the kitchen to start a new brew.

Surrendering to the inevitable, Margie came fully into the room, glanced at Jenny, who smiled sympathetically back, and shrugged her thin shoulders. She joined the Junoesque cook at her table, slumping down with a complete lack of energy.

‘Those policemen can be very thorough,’ Jenny accurately assessed the reason for her inertia. ‘If they asked me one question about the cooking I did for that damned party, they asked me a thousand. Honestly,’ she grumbled chattily, ‘how many times can you reassure a policeman that you always washed your hands after handling meat?’

Margie, for what seemed like the first time in years, felt her lips twitch. ‘You think you had it bad,’ she said wearily.

‘Yes. Well, you were rather suspicious, worming your way into the party like that. I daresay the police thought it all very interesting,’ Jenny pointed out reasonably, making it clear, straightaway, that she knew what she knew, and wasn’t going to beat about the bush.

Margie gave her a startled look, then, seeing nothing but sympathy in the surprisingly beautiful blue eyes of the woman sat opposite, shrugged wearily. ‘I needed to see him. I had to see him. It’s as simple as that.’

Jenny sipped her tea. ‘I know. But I don’t suppose the police thought it was so simple.’

‘No. They didn’t.’

‘And it was really bad luck that you should be the one to serve the champagne for the toast.’

Margie flushed angrily. ‘You can say that again. I wish Will had served it. Or Martin. Anyone but me!’

‘But you couldn’t resist having a closer look at Alicia, I expect. Up close, I mean, hmm?’ Jenny prompted softly, and Margie bit her lip and looked away.

After a moment, she looked back again. ‘She didn’t even recognize me,’ she said, not denying the cook’s totally accurate guess, and her voice was low with remembered disbelief. ‘All the times we met in the village before she and Keith, well, you know, but for all those times we bumped into each other, it just goes to show she didn’t even notice me. I was just another frumpy housewife to her – another little nobody. Not the beautiful lady of the manor. Oh no.’

Jenny ignored the understandable bitterness. It was only to be expected. ‘But Keith must surely have seen you. Why didn’t he stop you, or at the very least, take the tray off you?’ she asked.

‘Why should he?’ Margie asked, genuinely puzzled. ‘He didn’t know the wine was poisoned.
I
didn’t know it was poisoned. Though I’m not surprised someone other than me wanted to kill her,’ Margie carried on, her voice dripping with spite now. ‘You should have seen her that night. Issuing orders like Napoleon, she was. Do this, do that. Put that there. No, not there,
there
. I don’t know why she got that party co-ordinator in. She was always interfering. Everything had to be exactly right. The cake had to be brought in on the stroke of midnight, not a minute later. The wine had to be opened for such and such a length of time before serving. It had to be the right temperature. She was an absolute bitch about it all,’ Margie said, her hands curling into tight fists as she talked. ‘I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the head wine waiter hadn’t done it, because she gave him hell. She gave us all hell, treating us like slaves rather than caterers. Even the head waiter said he’d never known a hostess so fussy. She hovered over all of us all night, like the wicked witch of the west.’

She seemed to run out of bile at last, and Meg chose that moment to come out with more tea. If she was surprised to see her two customers sitting together she didn’t show it. She simply set down another pot of tea on the table, glanced at Margie’s pale and shaking frame, and muttered something about soda bread doing the trick, and headed back to the kitchen.

‘You shouldn’t let hate sap you of all your energy, you know,’ Jenny cautioned her at last. ‘You never know when you may need it. Energy, that is, not hate.’

Margie, who’d obviously not taken on board a word of the good advice, absently stirred the spoon around her cup. At last, she looked up, her face pale and tight and oddly defiant. She met the cook’s level-eyed gaze without flinching. ‘I was sorry when her brother died, you know,’ Margie said quietly. ‘Not because I liked him – I didn’t. But because he died and not her.’

Jenny nodded, not at all shocked by the other woman’s statement. ‘Yes,’ she said enigmatically. ‘I know.’

M
OLLINEAUX HAD JUST
stepped into the hall with Tom Banks’s words still rumbling around in his brain. They already knew that rumours had been circulating about Justin Greer’s fast business practices, but there was a big difference between aggressive business tactics and
illegal
business tactics. Had Justin been knee-deep in bribery and corruption? And if so, could it be that there was a motive for his murder that they hadn’t even thought of yet? A purely business-related motive? The thought worried him.

Who was most mixed up in the company business? Who would want Justin’s illegal activities stopped at all costs? Who had the most to lose if Greer Textiles became embroiled in a legal scandal? Tom Banks was retired and in any case had only been an employee. That left the boy’s father.

‘Inspector? Sir?’ The urgent voice of one of the young constables who manned the incident room interrupted his rather unsavoury line of thought. He looked up, a half-annoyed frown on his face. ‘Telephone, sir. The lab boys,’ the constable said quickly, sensing his superior’s displeasure.

Mollineaux hurried forward, Mollern not far behind. The inspector headed straight for the desk, sitting down as he reached for the telephone. A few seconds later he was glad that he had, for the lab boy’s news came as a distinct, if not to say nasty, shock. Mollern saw his face go slack in surprise.

‘What?’ Mollineaux croaked, then quickly cleared his throat. In a more normal tone of voice, he asked, ‘Are you sure?’ Mollern waited as the silence stretched out, and could feel his nerves doing the same. ‘Are you sure you have all the corks?’ Mollineaux asked next, and waited, tapping a finger absently against the base of the telephone as he listened. ‘I see. Yes, I’m sure you are. All right. Thanks,’ he added, not particularly sincerely, and hung up. He looked at his sergeant morosely. ‘Well, that blows it. Damned if it doesn’t.’

‘Sir?’

Mollineaux leaned back in his chair and sighed heavily. ‘This case is going to drive me insane,’ he said wearily. ‘Or to an early retirement, at any rate,’ he added more moderately. ‘That was the lab. They’ve checked all the corks under their microscopes, and guess what? Not one of them has a puncture hole of any sort.’

Mollern’s jaw dropped. ‘What? Not one of them? Then they must have missed one. A cork, I mean. There was a hell of a mess here that night. Empty bottles and party rubbish everywhere.’

Mollineaux shook his head. ‘No, they checked. The number of the empties and full bottles tallied exactly with what was ordered for the party, and they definitely have all the corks accounted for. Besides which, the chief techno just gave me a lecture on cork markings. Apparently each cork was marked with a star or another symbol, denoting excellence. The best champers, of course, was kept for the toast. And not one of them had a puncture mark.’

Mollern sighed. ‘And we thought we were lucky that the waiters all had those popper things that get the corks out without the need for a corkscrew.’

Mollineaux sighed. ‘That was Mark Greer’s idea. He was worried that using a corkscrew might lead to bits of cork falling into the wine.’ Mollineaux heaved a massive sigh. ‘So what does it actually mean? Did our killer bring a spare cork to the party and pocket the punctured one?’

Mollern perked up instantly. ‘Well, he must have done, sir, mustn’t he? Otherwise why the needle? Our man really is a crafty one. You have to give him that. He thinks of everything.’

‘Yes,’ Mollineaux agreed heavily. ‘And he’s also lucky. He was damned lucky about that paraquat being so potent, or had he carefully planned it that way?’

‘Sir?’ Mollern asked, lost.

Mollineaux glanced at him, then made a vague gesture with his hand. ‘Sorry, you weren’t there when I got the facts from the science boys. Apparently paraquat burns the mouth when drunk, which was why it was put into cold champagne. But even more clever than that, it would normally take weeks for paraquat to kill somebody, according to the lab boys. But it seems that the poison used was extracted right from the bottom of an old bottle, where the sediment was most concentrated. Oh, the boffin came out with long, chemical phraseology for it, but with the upshot being that the paraquat that killed Justin was mutated stuff that killed almost immediately. And I was just wondering. Was it important for the killer that Justin died
quickly
or was it just that the killer happened to pick an old bottle, and using the needle meant that the dregs of the bottle were siphoned up by pure chance? See what I mean?’

Mollern did, but like his superior, had no answer to give. This new development also meant that the paraquat had now definitely come from the Greer greenhouse, and not from Arbie Goulder’s nurseries.

Mollineaux rubbed his eyes and sighed. ‘I don’t like all this,’ he finally said plaintively. ‘Syringes and mysterious corks. We’ve got suspects coming out of our ears, not to mention Watkins. It’s all just too much. I get the feeling that we’ve been manoeuvred, somehow, Mollern. Toyed with almost. And I don’t like it. And I especially don’t like Watkins.’

Both policemen fell silent as they savoured the possible delights of incarcerating, at last, the notorious Trevor Watkins.

‘That’s if he actually did it,’ Mollineaux added gloomily. ‘As it stands, I still haven’t the foggiest idea what went on that night.’ That thought seemed to trigger another, for he glanced quickly at his watch. ‘Have you seen Miss Starling around?’ he asked, hoping his voice sounded neutral.

Mollern shook his head. ‘Not since this morning. She was off to the village, I think.’ And he looked at his superior with sympathy.

Jenny was at that very moment walking the last few steps up the tree-lined avenue and pausing for breath under the last shady lime tree. She looked at the house with disfavour. And The Beeches seemed such a nice pleasant place that first morning she had come here.

Automatically, she turned and headed for her sanctuary, the herb garden. Although Martha had banned her from the kitchen, stating fiercely that they would all be poisoned by one of her shepherd’s pies, she could still, at least, walk among the basil and thyme and go over old recipes in her head. Which was always a soothing pastime. But she never, of course, actually made it. She was just passing the roses when a shadow moved and the rustle of parted bushes caused her to spin. Hackles rose up all the way along her spine.

She turned to face not the expected Trevor Watkins but Keith Harding instead. For a moment she simply looked at him, waiting. She was ready to scream, if absolutely necessary, and even use her impressive build to good effect as a last resort. She’d taken a self-defence course a few years ago, the instructor taking one white-faced look at her before putting on extra padding. And it had definitely come in handy from time to time.

But Keith Harding didn’t look hysterical. In fact, he looked a little nervous. ‘Hello, Miss Starling. I was hoping to catch up with you.’

Jenny relaxed slightly, and smiled politely. ‘Oh?’

‘Yes. I wanted to say sorry for what I said earlier. I mean, when I brought Alicia home I was, well, I didn’t want her to come back here at all, to be perfectly honest, and I was feeling upset. I wanted her to stay at the hospital, where she’d be safe.’

Jenny nodded. ‘I’m sure you did,’ she said blandly, but something in her voice made his chin rise, and all appeasement seemed to leave him. For a long while they continued to look at each other like a pair of wary cats. Eventually, Keith let himself relax a little.

‘Inspector Mollineaux put us straight. About that last time, I mean – you being mixed up in murder and all that. I know now that you had nothing at all to do with your employer getting killed, and, well, I want to say sorry for …’ He trailed off and shrugged helplessly.

‘Threatening me?’ Jenny suggested mildly.

‘Yes.’

‘Apology accepted.’

Keith blinked, surprised at her easy acceptance, then rubbed his sweating hands on his trousers. He was dressed in simple black slacks and a white, V-necked pullover. Alicia’s choice, she was sure. He was beginning to look as if he belonged in his environment, and she could almost see his past, working-class life slipping away from him. Soon he would wear tennis whites and learn to play. Probably well, too, for he was athletically built. It all seemed so pathetic somehow.

‘I saw Margie this morning,’ she said bluntly, giving him no warning. ‘In the tea shop actually,’ she continued casually, and saw him wince.

‘How is she?’

‘Fine.’ She positioned herself so that the sun was behind her and she could see his eyes clearly, before she next spoke. ‘The police gave her a hard time.’

He tensed, then nodded. ‘I daresay. She was the one who served the champagne toast.’

‘Not exactly,’ Jenny corrected him. ‘She carried the tray. The wine waiter poured the actual drinks.’

‘Oh. Yes, of course.’

He really is handsome, Jenny thought, utterly unbiased. She could quite see why Alicia would fall so hard for him. For, unlike many others around here, Jenny didn’t for one instant doubt Alicia’s sincere passion for her garage mechanic.

‘You didn’t …’ Keith hesitated, then took a deep breath. ‘You didn’t happen to see the kids too, did you? Were they with her? Did they look all right?’

Jenny thought back to the two old biddies in the village shop, no doubt busily knitting their cardigans for the village ‘unfortunates’ and forcing Margie to accept their charity. She felt her heart harden. ‘No,’ she said abruptly. ‘She was quite alone.’

Keith looked her straight in the eye. ‘You think I’m a right bastard, don’t you, Miss Starling?’ he said bleakly. ‘But I love my children. I still, in a way, love my wife. I never wanted any of them to get hurt.’

Probably all very true, Jenny silently agreed. ‘But they have been,’ she said simply, and had the satisfaction of forcing him to drop his eyes. He hung his head to stare at his shoes. New shoes, Jenny noticed. Alicia wouldn’t want his old dirty pair muddying the carpets in The Beeches.

His dark hair fell forward across his face, putting his eyes into shadow. ‘I know,’ he mumbled at last, ‘but there’s nothing I can do about it.’

Keith lifted his head at last and his face once again was absolutely resolute and Jenny sighed. People, and poets in particular, tended to think of love as noble, self-sacrificing and all-important. They often forgot how destructive it could also be.

‘Anyway, I just wanted to say sorry,’ he reiterated, no doubt anxious now to be away from her disapproving and uncomfortable presence. Like many before him, Keith was beginning to suspect that this strange, large-but-sexy and deeply enigmatic woman saw a whole lot more than you wanted her to. ‘But I meant what I said, about protecting Alicia,’ he warned her, and Jenny shrugged.

‘I’m sure you do. And I rather suspect Inspector Mollineaux hopes you’ll keep a special eye on our unwanted guest, Trevor Watkins.’

Keith’s lips twisted. ‘That creep I keep seeing around? Who is he, anyway? Mr Greer won’t talk about him.’

‘I’m not surprised. He owns nightclubs, casinos and, er, does various other things. Definitely crooked, is our Mr Watkins. Poor Sergeant Mollern practically drools whenever he’s near. He can’t wait to slip on the cuffs.’

Keith’s handsome dark brows drew themselves together into a frown. ‘But why does Mollineaux want him here? What was he doing at the party anyway?’

‘Oh, I’m pretty sure Justin invited him. To play a prank on his sister.’

Keith’s eyes darkened. ‘What kind of prank?’

Jenny shrugged a masterfully nonchalant shrug. ‘Oh, I daresay he just thought it was funny. With Alicia owing him so much money in gambling debts. I suppose …’

‘Gambling debts?’ Keith said, his voice and face totally stunned. ‘Don’t talk daft! Alicia doesn’t gamble!’ He began to look both exasperated and angry. ‘Why do people always think the worst of her? Alicia has brains, you know, as well as beauty. She’s too damned sensible to do anything so stupid as gamble. Oh, what’s the use in talking to you,’ Keith finally snapped. ‘Everybody wants to the think the worst of her. They’re just damned jealous, that’s all it is.’

And with that, he turned and ploughed back through the rose bushes, oblivious to the thorns snagging his lovely white V-necked jumper.

Jenny watched him go with troubled eyes. Because, thinking about it now, she really rather believed him. Alicia
was
too smart to gamble. Gambling was a mug’s game, and Alicia liked her high life too much to risk just chucking it away on a toss of the dice. In which case, Justin had got it all wrong about his sister.

So where did that leave her? And, more importantly, where did it leave Trevor Watkins?

‘There she is sir,’ Mollern said, nodding in the direction of a garden seat that was nestled in a large hedge of box. Mollineaux nodded and set off across the lawn, wondering vaguely how old the box hedge must be. Centuries, he was sure. Didn’t box grow really slowly?

Jenny, who had headed for the seat, shade and solitude in order to cogitate on Keith Harding’s angry but probably accurate assessment of his love life, glanced up as the policemen drew level with her. Without waiting to be asked, she shifted herself along a bit, allowing them to sit, one either side of her.

‘Good’ – Mollineaux checked his watch, saw that it was five past twelve, and finished – ‘afternoon, Miss Starling. Did you enjoy your walk?’

‘Yes, thank you. I went to the village and saw Margie Harding.’

Mollineaux nodded. Yet another promising suspect with a strong motive. He sighed. ‘Did she have any fresh light to shed on the murder?’ he asked, without much hope. He was beginning to think that the Greer case was going to be left on the ‘unsolved’ pile. Which was never good for a copper’s chance of promotion.

Jenny said nothing. She was barely listening. She was sure, in fact she was absolutely
convinced
, that someone, at some time in the past, had said something vitally important, and she just couldn’t for the life of her think what it was. No doubt it had been mentioned in passing by someone, and had seemed unimportant at the time. But she had the tantalizing feeling that it held the clue that would bring the whole intriguing puzzle into one sharply focused picture at last. But what was it? Who had said it? When?