The way Marion died had felt… what? Bizarre, certainly. Eccentric? That wasn’t quite it. Rather elaborate and clever, with its references to her studies. Too much so. Like a student prank. It reminded Kathy of those student pranks at school on April Fools’ Day, the bucket of water balanced over the door, the boot polish on the door handle, the collapsing chair. Elaborately staged, spectacular in their effects and at their best-or worst-cruelly matched to their intended victim.
She simply couldn’t imagine any of those men doing it that way. The diagram on her wall was all wrong, she realised. She had been so influenced by Marion’s, with its brooding male at the centre. Perhaps it wasn’t like that at all.
A final image came into Kathy’s mind, of Emily sitting sobbing on the leather sofa, as pale and racked as the two victims, whose symptoms she almost seemed to mimic. Da Silva wasn’t the only one who’d been at the British Library when Tina died. Emily had been there too. thirty
S uzanne also spent a disturbed night. Angela’s story about Dougie had unsettled her more than she’d been prepared to admit to herself. He had been her first great love, a dazzling figure against whose memory later boys had been measured and invariably found wanting. Even much later, when she matured and married, the summer in Notting Hill remained a lost Eden in her mind, to be nurtured and occasionally savoured in secret. Angela’s story had thrown all that into a new, grotesque perspective, and one that, if it were remotely true, resonated horribly with the case David was working on. She shuddered to think of the ramifications if she told him; but suppose Angela, who obviously hadn’t heard of the connection between Marion Summers and the Warrenders, did eventually pick it up, and decide to tell her story to the police? Where would Suzanne be then? One way or another, she didn’t see how she could keep it to herself without some kind of reassurance that the story was nonsense. She couldn’t approach Dougie, that was unthinkable, but in the end she decided that there was perhaps just one person who might put her mind to rest. And so, that Wednesday evening while Brock and Kathy were charging Tony da Silva with Marion’s murder, Suzanne had phoned the house in Notting Hill and asked to speak to Lady Joan Warrender.
Joan remembered her straight away. She was polite, but naturally puzzled at being approached like this, especially after Sophie had told them all about how angry she’d got with DCI Brock.
‘But how exactly can I help you?’
‘I wondered if I could meet you briefly in the next day or two, perhaps over a cup of tea, Lady Warrender.’
‘Oh, I really don’t think that would be a good idea. Things have been said, you know, people upset. Sophie is very touchy about it. This is a very tense time for us all.’
‘Of course, I do understand.’ The old woman sounded so stern, and Suzanne tried in vain to think of some way to mollify her. It had been a bad idea approaching her like this.
‘Perhaps if you gave me some idea of what it’s about?’
‘Well, I happened to meet another old friend recently, Angela Crick, who used to live next door to you, remember?’
‘Yes?’ Joan sounded bemused.
Suzanne ploughed on. ‘She told me a story that your nephew Jack had told her, all those years ago, about something that happened in India when you were living there, to do with Dougie.’
‘In India? About Dougie? Good Lord, what sort of story?’
‘Well, it wasn’t very nice, and I’m sure it was completely untrue, but I thought it might be a good thing if I could talk it over with you, and get to the bottom of it, so that I could get back to Angela and put her right. I didn’t like the idea of her repeating it to anyone else.’
Suzanne heard a little gasp from the other end, and imagined the old woman sinking onto the chair in the hall beside the telephone, trying to gather her wits.
‘I’m sorry, Lady Warrender. I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’m sure I can take care of it myself.’
‘But… no, if it concerns Dougie… Have you spoken to him?’
‘I thought it best to speak to you first.’
‘Yes, you’re probably right. Oh dear. Very well, let’s meet. Not here at the house, and not in a cafe either-I can’t hear anything in places like that any more. Meet me at the churchyard of St John’s, just up the hill from us. I often walk up there for a little exercise. Tomorrow? Shall we say eleven?’
•
First thing that morning Kathy checked the passenger lists of both airline and private flights between London, Nice and Bastia for the months of February, March and April-something, she told herself, she should have done weeks ago. She established that Douglas and Sophie Warrender alone had travelled out on the tenth of March, returning on the sixth of April.
Impatient as she was to follow this up, she couldn’t get out of a scheduled team meeting, and sat through it barely concentrating on the briefing about a new computer system. When it was finally over she picked up the phone and dialled the number of the Warrenders’ house. Sophie’s secretary Rhonda answered.
‘I’m afraid Sophie’s out this morning, Inspector, working in the library.’
‘Ah. Is Emily with her?’
‘No, she’s at home. Do you want to speak to her?’
‘No need to disturb her. Actually it would be better if I spoke to her in person. I’ll come over right away.’
Bren tried to intercept her on her way out, but she put him off. She would have found it hard to explain the sense of urgency she felt. Rather than wait for a car from the pool, she caught a passing cab, and made good time to Lansdowne Gardens.
‘That was quick.’ Rhonda opened the front door to let Kathy in, then hesitated. ‘After you rang off I wondered if this was wise.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Emily’s really not very well at the moment, in fact she’s still in bed, and Sophie’s very protective. She probably wouldn’t approve of you interviewing Emily with neither her nor Lady Joan here in the house.’
‘Well, let’s ask Emily, shall we? She is eighteen, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, and I’m sure it would be all right, but…’
Kathy sensed something equivocal in Rhonda’s voice, as if she didn’t want to be accused of wrongdoing, but at the same time wanted to help.
‘Were you here at all during the month Sophie was away, Rhonda?’
‘Yes, I came in each day and kept an eye on the decorators and reported on progress to Sophie from time to time.’
‘Was Emily here?’
‘Yes, she and Lady Joan didn’t want to go to Corsica, so they stayed here, more or less camping in their rooms in the middle of all the mess. Emily was helping Marion with her research most days, and Joan got out in the garden when she could. Look, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you wait in the office, and I’ll tell Emily you’re here?’
‘Fair enough.’
Kathy walked down the short corridor to the room at the end where Rhonda and Sophie worked. The tall sash windows filled it with light, and the shelves of books gave it the appearance more of an elegant library than an office. She was examining the books on Sophie’s desk when Rhonda returned.
‘We’re considering Alice Kipling for the next book, after Janey Morris is done with,’ she said. ‘Rudyard’s wife, one of the MacDonald sisters. Her sister Georgiana was married to the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones and got very chummy with William Morris, commiserating over the fact that both their spouses were unfaithful.’
‘All these Victorians seem to be interconnected,’ Kathy said.
Rhonda laughed. ‘Too right, you need a bloody good database to sort them all out.’
‘Lovely room to work in.’
‘Yes. Have you been up to the belvedere yet?’ She nodded to the spiral staircase in the corner.
‘No. Is it interesting?’