Feted to Die: An Inspector Constable Murder Mystery (20 page)

Amelia Cook was seated at the table, a large rich fruit cake in front of her, with one inviting slice cut from it and waiting on a doily-covered tea-plate next to it. As appetising as it looked, no-one was tempted to sample it, even though it was the last cake Amelia would ever bake. The cake-knife, gleaming stainless steel with an antler handle, protruded from the side of her neck where it had been driven down into her chest.

Dave Copper was already on the phone as Andy Constable stepped forward to take a closer look at the body. Ignoring the murmured words in the background – ‘another one’, ‘bit late for an ambulance’, ‘get SOCO back here’ – the inspector beckoned Collins forward. “Come and take a look at this, lad.”

“Do I really have to, sir?”

Constable smiled grimly. “First body, is it?”

Collins nodded.

“Then you absolutely do have to, son. This is why we do our job, and the more you know, and the sooner you know it, the better you get. Just remember not to touch her – we’d better leave all that to the doctor. So, what do you see?”

“Well, she’s been stabbed, sir. Sorry, sir – that sounds stupid.”

“It’s not stupid at all, Collins. It might be obvious, but if I told you the number of cases where people have got things wrong by overlooking the obvious, you’d be amazed. So come on – what can you tell?”

As the young P.C. wrinkled his forehead in concentration, Dave Copper moved forward but the inspector waved him back, mouthing ‘Give him a chance’. “She’s just sat there,” said Collins, “so she can’t have been expecting it. I mean, if she’d been having a row with somebody, she’d have been up and about, or facing them. It looks as if whoever did this was behind her.”

“Good thinking, Collins. And so …?”

“So …” Collins spoke slowly as the thoughts formed in his mind. “So she must have known whoever it was, and trusted them. I mean, if you’re worried about someone, you don’t let them prowl about behind you with a knife in their hand, do you?”

“You don’t. So, a friend, then?”

“But that could mean anybody, sir. And why would they do it? Everybody in the village liked Amelia – I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word about her.”

“Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about everybody in the village,” remarked Constable drily. “I’m assuming we only have to worry about the people in this house. Providing that the kitchen back door’s still locked, Copper,” he said, as a sudden thought struck him.

“Yes sir. Solid as a rock, and the key’s still here in the lock.”

“So just our six, then. Copper, you’d better go through to the drawing room and make sure that they’re all still there. If somebody’s done a runner, we might have a bit of a clue as to who’s done this. In any event, tell them they’re going to have to sit tight for a while longer.”

“Shall I tell them what’s happened, sir?”

“Best not for the moment,” replied Constable. “Just tell them there’s been a development – a bit of a complication. You never know, it might make whoever was responsible a bit jumpier, and when people get jumpy they make mistakes.”

As the door closed behind the sergeant, Andy Constable turned back to Collins. “So then, lad, what else have we got?”

“I’ve been thinking, sir,” said Collins. “The cake and the knife, sir. I reckon I know what must have happened. Someone’s come in here, sir, and they’ve been talking to Amelia, and she’s cut them a bit of cake – no, she offered them some cake, so they’ve cut themselves a slice, and then, while they’ve still got the knife in their hand, they’ve gone round behind her and stabbed her.”

“Spur of the moment?”

“I think it must have been, sir. If you’re going to come in here intending to kill someone, you’re sort of going to come prepared, aren’t you? Not just grab a handy cake-knife. But I still don’t see why.”

“Think it through, Collins. Why do people kill people? Come on, you’ve covered this sort of stuff in your training.”

“Well, there’s all the obvious things, sir, like domestic violence or robberies that go wrong.”

“Which is obviously not the case here.”

“So what, then, sir?”

“Threat, Collins. People kill people because they’re a threat to them.”

“But sir,” objected Collins, “how could Amelia be a threat to somebody? She was just a nice old lady – she wouldn’t have hurt a fly. All right, she was a bit of a gossip, but that’s not going to be a reason to kill someone, is it?”

Inspector Constable smiled grimly. “You know, Collins, that’s exactly where you’re wrong. Threats aren’t always physical, you know. Very often it’s what somebody knows about you that is the threat – to your position, to your career, to your family. And that’s just the sort of threat that’s pushed our murderer over the edge.”

“Murderer, sir? Singular? So you reckon whoever did this is the one that killed Horace Cope?”

“I think the chances of having two separate murderers in the same house on the same afternoon is stretching coincidence a bit too far, Collins,” replied the inspector. “Look at the similarities. The attack came from behind. So somebody the victim knew and had no reason to fear. Somebody who probably didn’t set out to kill, but grabbed the opportunity with what was to hand. You had it right when you said whoever it was had been talking to Amelia. Or rather,
she
was talking to them. She said something which proved that she knew the reason why Horace Cope had been killed. And so she got herself killed into the bargain. She may not even have realised exactly what it was she knew, or why it was dangerous.” He shook his head in frustration. “Poor silly woman.”

“But how do you find out what it was that she knew, sir?” asked Collins.

“Oh, she’s already told us, Collins. I’m sure of that. The only trouble is, she’s told us too much.”

“How do you mean, sir?”

“Sergeant Copper and I have been talking to our suspects while you were taking the vicar back to the village. We’ve had them all in the library, one by one, and we’ve winkled out a few things which they weren’t too eager to tell us about first off.” Constable snorted. “You will learn in this job, Collins, if you haven’t learnt it already, that the world is full of people who are stupid enough to think that you’re stupid, so they think they can get away with not telling you the truth. Anyway, it turns out that pretty much all of that lot next door had had some sort of trouble with Horace Cope which Amelia Cook had overheard or seen or been told about. We’d had a very long chat with her earlier on, and it came as a bit of a surprise to a few people as to what we knew. Put a few cracks into a few people’s stories. So every one of them left the library with some reason not to be too pleased with Miss Cook.”

“And the murderer was afraid that what Amelia knew would lead you to them, sir? Is that it?”

“That’s exactly it, Collins. One of them has come in here after leaving us, and they’ve ended up making sure that Miss Cook didn’t tell us any more than she already had. And then it looks as if they’ve calmly gone back in to join the others in the drawing room.”

The door to the passage opened, and Dave Copper put his head into the kitchen. “SOCO are on their way back, sir. They reckon they shouldn’t be long.”

Inspector Constable took a deep breath. “Right, then – we’ll let them get on with it. Not that I expect they’ll tell us much we haven’t already figured out. Collins, you’d better stay here until they arrive and bring them in here. Come on, Copper – back to the library.” He led the way into the hall.

As the two detectives sank back into the leather sofas flanking the library fireplace, Andy Constable gave a deep sigh.

“I’m depressed, Copper.”

“Any particular reason, sir? That is, apart from the fact that we’ve got two dead bodies?”

Constable smiled ruefully. “You’re right, Copper – that does tend to put a bit of a damper on things. No, I mean that I get demoralised when a group of people who seem so pleasant on the surface turn out to have a whole bunch of skeletons in the cupboard. I’m sure everybody was nicer when I was a kid.”

“Doesn’t it sort of come with the territory, sir? I mean, haven’t you got used to that by now? After all, it’s what we deal with, every day.”

“You’re right of course, sergeant, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.” He gave a slight shake as if to pull himself together. “So, let’s think. First things first. We need to figure out which of our suspects had the strongest motive for wishing Horace Cope out of the way.”

“He had something on all of them, by the looks of it, sir, so that’s not going to be easy,” remarked Copper.

“True, but it’s all tied up with the various things he had – the documents and so on.”

“And the book, sir, and the stuff on his computer – remember the photo file I couldn’t open, and that email.”

“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten any of that. I should like to have taken a look at those photos, just to confirm what I’m already thinking, but I’ve got a pretty strong idea what we’d find. Remember that newspaper clipping. I think we can make a good guess as to who ‘L’ is.”

“And the email?” persisted Copper.

“Well, it’s fairly obvious what was going on there,” responded the inspector. “The only question there is whether Seymour Cummings knew what was going on or not. He seemed surprised when we mentioned it, so either he didn’t have a clue about it, or else he’s a pretty good actor. But then what led him to have that row which Amelia overheard? What else had Horace Cope done that we maybe don’t know about? Either way, Mr. Cummings isn’t out of it by any means.”

Dave Copper frowned. “I still don’t see what the point of that letter is, sir – you know, the one from the Family Records Office. All that does is mention two more people, and we haven’t got a clue who they are.”

“Not strictly true, Copper,” said Constable. “You don’t get all that many people called Biding, so it’s a reasonable assumption that Rex Biding is related to Laura Biding. But I don’t know – father? Brother?”

“Can’t be brother, sir,” interrupted Copper. “She told us she was an only child.”

“So far as she knows. Maybe not. But if it is her brother, what’s happened to him? But all right, then, let’s say father. So at some point, this Rex Biding was married to Alexandra Thyme, whoever she may be, so that means … what? Is Laura Biding their daughter and not Lady Lawdown’s? Is that what they’re trying to hide? Or was Rex Biding married to someone else before he met Lady Lawdown, so is Laura illegitimate? You wouldn’t necessarily want the world to know that either.”

“I wish I could have got into that safe for you, sir,” said Copper ruefully. “I bet that certificate’s in there, and it might have told us. Mind you, I do have a few contacts who could get into a safe like that in a couple of minutes, but I don’t suppose the higher-ups would be too keen on their methods.”

Andy Constable held up a hand, smiling. “If you don’t mind, Copper, we’ll just stick to procedures on this one. I think we’d better leave some of your more disreputable underworld friends out of the picture. Anyway, the point is, there’s some family secret there.”

“And the book, sir? You know, the new Carrie Otter. Actually, I wouldn’t mind having a read of that, if we don’t need it for anything. I can’t really see why we should.”

“And your reasoning would be …?”

“Well, he was a book critic, wasn’t he, sir?” said Copper. “So he had a book to review. And Helen Highwater told us she got it for him.”

“Ah, but if you remember, Amelia Cook said that he turned down her offer to do so. So which of them is right?”

“Could be both, sir,” pointed out Copper. “He changed his mind, so she got him the book because she was still trying to get round him so that he would give her a good review.”

“You know, Copper, the way you and the rest of the world seem addicted to Carrie Otter, I can’t see that one review either way is going to make a lot of difference to the lady.”

Dave Copper thought for a moment. “So then there’s Robin Allday’s letter. I don’t see how he could be any deeper in it than he already is. Mind you, I suppose it all depends on what Horace Cope had already told them about what he’d been up to.”

“That, Copper,” remarked Andy Constable, “is to assume that Horace Cope was the one who had made the allegations to the Law Society. We can’t be absolutely certain that it was.”

“No, sir, but it’s a reasonable assumption, isn’t it?” said Copper. “We know from what Gideon Porter overheard that Horace Cope at least thought he knew that Robin had been up to some dodgy practices, and we know from the email to Seymour Cummings’ editor that Horace wasn’t above shoving people in the sh … er … mire, if it meant he could get his own way. But we still don’t know how much Horace had told them, so maybe Robin thought he could stop the whole story getting out if he could put Horace out of the way in time. But what’s he doing bringing that letter up here?”

Andy Constable leaned forward in thought. “I think he brought it here to show to Laura Biding,” he said slowly, “in the hope that she’d be able to help him somehow. It’s obvious that Robin’s got a soft spot for her, even if she may not know it, and she’s evidently involved in this business about the London flat, so maybe he thought he could get her to wheedle her way around Horace Cope so that he’d change his mind about putting Robin in it. So they figured out something together. And the letter got dumped in the bin here because they weren’t thinking straight in the panic of the moment. Or else …” A thought seemed to strike him. “Or else he showed it to Laura, she realised that Horace was an even nastier piece of work than she already knew, and she killed Horace because he was a threat to Robin, for whom she had a soft spot.” He held his head in his hands. “You know, Copper, all these motives are likely to drive me mad. I shouldn’t be surprised if we end up finding that everybody killed him.”