‘That’s also very kind of you.’
For the first time that morning, there was a twinkle in the librarian’s eye as she said, ‘I think I’ve been spending too much time in the crime section. I’m afraid I’m a sucker for those Golden Age books in which the baffled PC Plods have rings run round them by brilliant amateurs.’
‘Does this mean you’re giving me carte blanche to ask as many questions as I wish?’
‘Mm.’ Di pointed down to the few remaining books on the top shelf of her trolley. ‘Not too many. When I’ve finished this lot, I must go and once again engage with the public.’
‘Fine. Just a few quick questions then. Jude got the impression that the remains of the broken bottle in the staff room had been cleaned up by your junior?’
‘Vix, yes.’
‘Do you know how she did it?’
‘I asked her that. She told me she got some kitchen roll and picked up the larger bits of glass with that over her fingers, so that she didn’t cut herself. She put those in the pedal bin by the sink. She swept up the smaller shards with a dustpan and brush, and put them in the bin too. Then she mopped up the wine and remaining tiny bits of glass and washed the mop out under the tap over the sink.’
‘The dustpan, mop and what-have-you … where were they kept?’
‘There’s a broom cupboard just next to the staff toilets. When she’d finished, Vix put everything back in there.’
‘And was the pedal bin emptied subsequently?’
‘It would normally have been. That’s part of the cleaners’ duties. They come in at nine, but only two days a week. Their next day would have been Thursday, but of course with the library being closed …’
‘So the police have presumably got the remains of the wine bottle?’
‘They’ll be pretty inefficient if they haven’t. No sign of the pedal bin contents this morning. Nor, come to that, of the dustpan and mop from the broom cupboard. Which is another inconvenience.’
‘Taken away for forensic analysis?’
‘Assume so. That’s what happens in all the television police shows, doesn’t it? So they can be examined by some guest star playing a scientist way out on the extreme edge of the Asperger’s spectrum.’
Carole grinned. Behind her quiet exterior, Di Thompson was a sharp and highly intelligent woman.
‘So soon the police will have proof that it was walnut extract in the wine bottle that killed Burton St Clair?’
The librarian shrugged. ‘That would seem to be the logical conclusion. But, as I said before, I doubt if that’s data they’re likely to share with us.’
She looked down at her watch, but before she had time to say anything, Carole got her oar in. ‘Steve Chasen …’
‘Yes?’
‘According to Jude, he was badmouthing Burton St Clair after his talk.’
‘True enough.’
‘And he would have had a chance to put something in the wine bottle?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t watching his movements all evening.’
‘But he could have deliberately ensured that the wine bottle got smashed?’
‘I suppose he could.’ The librarian sounded reluctant to accept the suggestion. ‘I’m sorry. I know Steve’s a pain, and on more than one occasion I’ve had to ban him from the library, but there is something about him I respect.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, I know he gets pretty unmanageable when he’s been drinking, but he’s completely self-taught. He’s one of those people who’s got all of his education from the public library.’
‘An autodidact?’
‘Yes, the exact word. And not one that’s heard very often these days. Nor do we get a lot of people in the library these days, educating themselves. Most now seem to learn stuff from YouTube videos. So, though I can’t condone a lot of Steve’s behaviour, I do think he’s one of those people for whom the library service was set up and, I fear, one of a dying breed.’
‘Admirable,’ said Carole crisply. ‘But, of course, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that he’s also a murderer.’
‘No, I’ll concede that.’
‘And what about your junior – Vix Winter, is it?’
Di Thompson’s face tightened up. It seemed that her junior was not the most co-operative of colleagues. ‘What, do I think she’s a possible murderer? I can’t see it. Planning something like that would be too much like hard work.’
‘Ah. Would you have a contact number for her?’
Di provided it. ‘But I wouldn’t try her today. Remember she’s ill.’ The last word was loaded with a wealth of cynicism.
‘Thanks, anyway. Ooh, one other thing …’
A weary ‘Mm?’
‘I’ve been trying to contact other people who were here for Burton St Clair’s talk. Jude mentioned some tall American woman, who was something of an expert on crime fiction?
‘Nessa Perks. Possibly Professor Nessa Perks. Don’t know what her proper title is, but she’s involved in the English Department at the University of Clincham. She helped out on a few sessions for the library’s Writers’ Group.’
‘Oh yes, Oliver Parsons mentioned that.’
‘Mm. He used to come along for a while. Mind you, we don’t run it any more.’
‘Funding?’
‘Partly. More lack of interest from the good people of Fethering. Same problem that’s scuppered a good few other initiatives I’ve set up to prove the relevance of this library in the twenty-first century. Book group’s still running, but the rest of them …’
With an air of finality, Di Thompson moved the last book from her trolley’s top shelf to a lower one. ‘There. I must—’
‘Just one more question.’
‘Yes.’ There was now a put-upon edge to the librarian’s voice.
‘Jude said that when Burton St Clair put his arm round you, you flinched.’
‘I don’t deny it.’
‘Any particular reason? Or just general dislike of men you don’t know well putting their arms around you?’
‘Well, there was more of a reason with Burton St Clair. The bastard had just come on to me in the staff room.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, pushing me against the wall, one hand on my breasts, the other up my skirt. I had to fight him off.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not the first time it’s happened with an author. A lot of them seem to have some feeling of entitlement when it comes to groping librarians. And groping members of their publishers’ publicity departments, come to that. One of the clichés of publishing life, I believe – authors having it off with publicity girls.’
‘Oh? Then, if he came on to you, you did have a strong reason to dislike Burton St Clair?’
‘Yes,’ said Di, with a sardonic look at Carole. ‘What I didn’t have, though, was time between his groping me and my getting him a glass of wine, to research the fact that he had a walnut allergy, to source some chopped walnuts, and to infiltrate them into the bottle of red wine in the staff room.’
‘I can see that,’ said Carole, feeling a little put down.
‘Now I’m afraid I have—’ A cacophony of infantile screaming had suddenly broken out in the children’s section. The two twenty year olds in paper-plate masks were faffing around, clearly not up to resolving the situation. Carole saw two toddlers locked in a boxer’s clinch, bawling and pulling each other’s hair out. Worse than that, the two toddlers’ dads were also squaring up to each other.
‘I must go and sort things out,’ said the librarian.
FIFTEEN
Vix Winter seemed surprisingly ready to talk to Carole. About anything. When told it was about Burton St Clair’s death, she was even more enthusiastic. And no, she hadn’t had any face-to-face conversations with the police yet, just a call in which she’d been asked to confirm that she had left the library in Di Thompson’s car on the Tuesday night. She’d been questioned briefly about cleaning up the staff room when the bottle of wine had been broken, then told that the police would probably be contacting her again at a later date. But, since then, she hadn’t heard anything more from them. She sounded disappointed, and Carole wondered whether that’s why she’d agreed so readily to talk to her.