He was surprised to find that Isobel Goddard hadn't taken off for her parents’ home again, but was seated behind her desk in reception. At their entrance her head jerked apprehensively upwards. And even when Llewellyn moved closer so her short sighted eyes could recognize him, the apprehension lingered. As Isobel squinted in Rafferty's direction, his heart started up such a wild beating he thought it might leap out of his chest. He had taken the precaution of remaining near the door, out of her field of vision and he felt a hot, sweaty relief, when, without a flicker of recognition, her attention returned to Llewellyn.
‘Not you again?’ she asked.
‘I'm afraid so, Miss Goddard,’ Llewellyn replied. ‘I've brought Inspector Rafferty with me this time. He wanted to ask you some questions.’
Isobel pouted and spared Rafferty a myopic glance. ‘It's taken him long enough. I suppose you expect me to repeat my statement yet again? How many more times must I-?’
‘As often as necessary,’ Rafferty told her in a deliberately deepened voice that brought a narrowing of Llewellyn's gaze. ‘Surely I don't have to remind you that two young women have been murdered? I would have thought you would be only too anxious to help us catch the person responsible.’ He paused, wary of saying more, in case something in his voice betrayed him. But when another pout was her only response, he was emboldened to continue. ‘I have some questions about Estelle Meredith. Can you tell me how long she had been on your books?’
Isobel shrugged. ‘Several months. She dated practically every halfway decent male we can offer.’
Her tone indicated her resentment of the fact. Rafferty got the impression that Isobel regarded the more affluent male clients as her private fiefdom and resented the competition; but given what he had already heard about her, this didn't come as a surprise. ‘But,’ he began, before he stopped abruptly as he realized he had been about to reveal that Estelle had said she had only joined the agency the previous week and had had few dates. Of course, as Nigel, he knew that, but as the investigating policeman, he couldn't know. For God's sake, Rafferty, he rebuked himself, try to remember. If Isobel Goddard was to be believed, Estelle hadn't been entirely honest with him. But then she was in good company…
‘But?’ Isobel repeated. ‘But what?’
Rafferty, tired of being pulled up every time he uttered a one-word objection, managed to come up with a plausible one. ‘But I understood from the statements that very few of the other members admit to going out with her.’
‘They would, wouldn't they, given that she's been murdered? But it's true enough, because most of the ones who did are no longer on our books. Not that I'm suggesting that Estelle Meredith scared them off.’ She frowned and added, ‘though she did flirt outrageously. She seemed to be out to prove something.’
‘Like what?’
Isobel shrugged. ‘That she was attractive to men, I suppose. I got the impression with Estelle that she wasn't nearly as confident as she made out.’
‘Like much of the rest of humanity.’ Rafferty paused. ‘There was one other matter I wanted to ask you about. I understand you were concerned you might have been the murderer's intended victim. I wondered if there was a particular reason why you should think so.’
Isobel became defensive. ‘No, not really. It was just a feeling I had, that's all. You know, that feeling that someone's walked over your grave?’
It was a feeling Rafferty had lately become familiar with. ‘So you've no particular reason to think you might have been the intended target?’
‘I told you, no.’ Isobel's hands formed into white-knuckled fists where they rested on the desk and as though conscious of their capacity for betrayal, she lowered them to her lap, out of sight. ‘I just became scared, as anyone would.’
Rafferty could think of no more questions he could safely ask Isobel that didn't risk him revealing something else he wasn't supposed to know. Instead, he asked if Simon Farnell or Caroline Durward were in.
Isobel nodded. ‘Simon is. But Caroline's working at home today.’ She made no attempt to use the intercom to alert Simon Farnell to their presence, instead, she got up from behind her desk with something approaching alacrity and made for the hallway where the private offices were situated. Her, ‘I'll tell Simon you want to see him,’ floated behind her as she vanished from sight.
While they waited, Llewellyn picked up one of the magazines from a table, began to flick through it and was soon immersed.
Rafferty was glad Llewellyn was occupied. It gave him some thinking time. Again it struck him that he and the killer might not be the only ones with guilty secrets. Isobel's defensive manner, her alacrity in pushing them and their questions on to Simon Farnell indicated she, too, might have something to hide.
Only now did he recall that on the night of the first party, Isobel had followed Jenny Warburton from the Cranstons’ drawing room. Was it merely coincidence? Or had she followed Jenny deliberately?
By the time he had managed to push his way through the throng she had been halfway across the hallway. Had Isobel veered in the direction of the Ladies only when she became aware of his presence behind her? He couldn't be sure; as the case progressed, the more hazy his memory became and badgering it only made it hazier. He put it down to stress. But at least, early in the case, he had retained sufficient of his Nigel persona recollections to prime Llewellyn with appropriate questions. The statements revealed that another guest had also noticed Isobel's exit immediately after Jenny. Questioned about it, Isobel had said she had wanted to get away from a bore and repair her make-up, which Rafferty acknowledged was plausible. From his fading recollections of Bliss's party gossip, it fitted her character. If she hadn't been following Jenny, she might well have spotted a better prospect over the bore's shoulder and been intent on doing some running repairs to her make-up made necessary by the steamy weather.
Another vague impression swam into his memory – that on his return from saying goodbye to Jenny the door to the Ladies had been ajar. Isobel could have listened to their conversation, heard him return and enter the Gents’ and realized that Jenny had set off to the car park alone. She could have followed only a few seconds behind, collecting previously hidden weapons and protective clothing on the way and taken Jenny by surprise with the first blow.
But what possible motive could the girl have? Admittedly, she seemed to regard the more wealthy of the male clientele as her private harem. In addition, according to Bliss, Isobel carried a wealth of family expectation on her back. But surely, the family pressure, even with the ruthless Elizabethan forebear providing an example of how to deal with love rivals, would be insufficient to prompt her to remove the competition permanently?
Even to Rafferty, who was often given to flights of fancy, such a possibility seemed far-fetched. Apart from anything else, it was doubtful if Isobel had the brains to get away with murder. Not that such a lack would necessarily stop her trying. Rafferty paused, mid-thought. Was Isobel really as dim and shallow as she appeared or was it a protective façade? What had the statement that Llewellyn had taken from her parents’ garrulous neighbour said about her? That it was sad how she had changed. That was it. That she used to be such a bright little thing, nose always in a book. ‘Now, she's just man mad. Her life's an endless round of partying. Where has the child gone, I wonder, who used to watch the stars with me on clear summer nights and ask such intelligent questions?’
Where indeed? Rafferty thought. Had Isobel been hiding the light of her intelligence under a bushel of coquetry because she believed men still feared intelligent women? Or was the concealment done for more sinister reasons?
Isobel had presented herself as being too dim to get away with murder. She had even returned to her parents’ home, leaving the impression behind that she was scared she might be the killer's real target. But if she wasn't so dim after all, her flight home could have been an attempt to cover her tracks.
He was beginning to wonder why it was taking Isobel so long to inform Simon Farnell of their presence in reception, when Farnell came out and ushered them into his office and Rafferty had to put any further speculation aside.
‘What can I do for you, inspector?’ Farnell asked after Llewellyn had made the introductions and they had all sat down around his desk.
‘I just wanted to ask a few more questions, sir. I was surprised to see Miss Goddard back in the office. You told my officers she believed she might have been the murderer's intended target. Strange she should have returned at all, especially to work at the very agency which has had two members killed.’
Simon Farnell smiled. ‘Unfathomable are the ways of women, Inspector. Or so I've always found. But then I've never thought Isobel terribly bright. I imagine her mother convinced her she was being stupid, put some back-bone and much-need sense into her and persuaded her back to work.’
Baulked of a satisfactory explanation from Isobel, Rafferty persisted. ‘Have you any idea why Miss Goddard should think she might have been the intended target? Had she been threatened in some way?’
‘If she had, she didn't mention it to me. But Isobel's a bit of a drama queen, Inspector. If attention isn't revolving round her she's prone to do or say something outrageous to encourage it.’ Farnell shrugged. ‘I wouldn't take anything Isobel says too seriously. As you yourself said – she's back. So how worried could she have been? And as I told her, if someone did want to kill her, they would have to be singularly inept to make a botch of it not once but twice.
‘Besides, even Isobel's capable of concluding that she's unlikely to find a rich husband while she's buried at home in the country, especially as her family no longer has the money to entertain.’
Rafferty leaned back in his chair and tried for nonchalance. Lancelot Bliss had said something similar. ‘You surprise me. You'd never think it to look at Miss Goddard.’ He straightened his off-the-peg and increasingly shabby brown jacket and remarked self-deprecatingly, ‘Of course I'm just a male plod and pretty ignorant about such things, as the female members of my family frequently tell me, but Miss Goddard's suit looked suspiciously like a designer one to me.’
From the corner of his eye Rafferty caught another startled glance from the designer-suited Llewellyn, who well knew the extent of his inspector's ignorance in matters sartorial. He shrugged aside Llewellyn's reaction, keen to officially learn as much about the party guests as ‘Nigel’ had so as to lessen the risk of revealing prior knowledge. And as Simon Farnell appeared to be as avid a gossip as Lancelot Bliss, this was a prime opportunity.
Farnell smiled. ‘You've a good eye, inspector. Isobel's suit is designer. But it's true the family hasn't a bean.’ He told them this with a certain relish. ‘Rumour has it that some foolish speculative venture did for them financially just before Isobel entered her teens. They've been on their uppers ever since. Every penny they have is put on Isobel's back. I gather she's meant to be the human sacrifice that placates the gods and puts everything right.’
‘Human sacrifice?’ Rafferty echoed.
‘Isobel's supposed to sacrifice herself on some rich man's altar, snare herself said husband and so restore the family fortunes.’
‘I thought stuff like that went out with the Victorians.’
Farnell laughed. ‘Don't you believe it, Inspector. Persuading a nubile daughter to sacrifice herself for the sake of the family is still pretty rife, at least amongst the upper elements of society. Hasn't the aristocracy a reputation for ruthlessness in pursuit of their desires? Not that Isobel's unwilling, far from it. That's the trouble. For all that she's from a real ‘true blue’ background, Isobel's vamp routine's been borrowed from the Mae West school of seduction. It gives the agency a bad image as I've several times complained to Caroline. Of course, as far as the agency's concerned, the sacrifice of the not-so-nubile daughters can be lucrative. We get a lot of business from fathers of plain, middle-class girls past the first flush egged-on by mothers who want grand-children before it's too late. We have a side-line in makeovers and have an arrangement with a first-class plastic surgeon who's also joint owner in a beauty salon, so we're able to quickly arrange for a bit of plastic surgery, boob jobs, laser eye treatment, botox, etc. After all that, mummy and daddy have a real chance of wedding bells and babies.
‘Demeaning for the girls to realize that even their parents believe they have no hope of hooking a worthy man without such measures. I feel sorry for them sometimes.’
So did Rafferty. And to think he hadn't even clipped his nasal hair before climbing into his ill-fitting borrowed suit and entering the agency dating ring. ‘And you say that Isobel's willing to do whatever's necessary?’
‘Why wouldn't she be? Isobel would like a return to the good life as much as the rest of her family. She's already had a boob job – you might have noticed she has plenty to put in the shop window. I gather she's speedily amassing funds to have her short sight corrected. She's paying for the operations herself, too. God knows where she gets the money as her salary's not large.’
Rafferty was beginning to have one or two ideas about that.
‘You won't know this, of course, having just met the girl’ – was that another hint of criticism? Rafferty wondered, aware he was becoming sensitive to such sly rebukes – ‘but she's not only dim and not very efficient, she's also lazy and indiscreet – not the best secretary/receptionist from the agency's point of view, which is something else I've been at pains to make clear to Caroline.’