A Fatal Winter (25 page)

Max, content to leave the digital future to people like Cotton who seemed to have more of an affinity, turned again to the books stacked on the table at his side while Cotton scrolled away on his little machine.

“No!” said Sergeant Essex. “Not that button. That’s the del—”

“Where did it go?” said Cotton. “Where in hell did it go? It just disappeared!”

Essex sighed. It seemed she and Cotton had been round this block before. “Let me have a look, sir. I should be able to recover it.”

Max, flipping through the pages of the books, many of them recent publications, felt it was hard to say who might have been responsible for their purchase. There were potted royal biographies, fleshed out with unsubstantiated scraps of scandal. There was a copy of
Royal Nursery Tales
by some royal nanny of the distant past, and a copy of
The Life and Loves of Prince Albert
. Somewhat surprisingly, he found a thin biography of the Middletons, hurriedly produced once the royal engagement had been announced, called
Life of the Party Pieces
. Max suspected that might have been a guilty pleasure of Lady Baynard’s. He recalled her comments in the train about commoners and felt there might have been a morbid fascination at work, along the lines of, “First Gwynyth, now
this
.” Something to chew over at dinner with her similarly minded friends.

In another stack beside a bowl of fruit there were some history books and a sprinkling of Evelyn Waugh, but nothing that otherwise caught his eye as germane to the case. Lord Footrustle or someone seemed to like paperback thrillers with historic or religious overtones, however doubtful the research on which the books had been based. The Knights Templar, so far as Max was aware, had never journeyed to Vancouver.

They—both Cotton and Essex—had quite forgotten Max was there, and he in his turn gave every appearance (quite deceptive) of having tuned out the conversation in favor of perusing the titles on the spines of the leather-bound books ranged on a shelf beside him. They forgot him, so much so that when he spoke, they both jumped and Sergeant Essex’s biro went flying. Max retrieved it for her from behind a potted plant.

“Sorry,” he said. He held a copy of Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
in his hands, by the look of it an original edition. “I was just wondering about the business of the food poisoning, if poisoning it were. How would you go about introducing poison into Oscar’s diet, if you were so inclined?”

“The whole subject is tricky,” said Cotton. He leaned back in what could be mistaken for a relaxed pose, but in Cotton might be a prelude to a sprint for the door. “We don’t know if we’re talking about salmonella or what, and we can’t say for sure when he was exposed to the poison, or even if he was. It could have taken hours or even days before he complained of illness. Toxic mushrooms are just one possibility. His age was a factor, making him more vulnerable to rapid onset. But the event was far enough in the past there was no trace of whatever it was left, since he survived the poisoning attempt—if attempt it was.”

“Hmm,” said Max. “But I find it suggestive, don’t you? I would call it an attempt to pin the blame on the cook. Then with both Oscar and Leticia found by the butler … well.”

They talked awhile about the attempts on Oscar’s life, including the attempt Amanda had told Max about.

The three sat for some moments, taking this in. Finally, Sergeant Essex said, “Shall I go and find the next one?”

“Stay here and find that file for me,” said Cotton. “I’ll send one of the constables to locate Jocasta. And to organize some coffee. Be right back.”

Essex watched Cotton don his jacket, shoot his immaculate cuffs, and stride out of the room, up the stairs to the Great Hall.

“I don’t know how he affords it on a policeman’s salary,” Essex said to Max.

“Have you seen his flat?”

“Of course not! Why would I have seen his flat?”

“I just meant, there’s no money wasted there, so I guess it all goes for clothing. I had to pick him up one day when his car was in the shop. You’d need to invent a new word for ‘Spartan’ to describe the place. It’s positively Zen.”

Max had just found a large, photocopied Footrustle family tree tucked into the pages of
Brideshead Revisited
. He unfolded the paper, spreading it out on his lap. It was a beautifully rendered tree, drawn in pen and ink, going back approximately four centuries, and updated within the past few decades.

Max, seeing it laid out before him, was struck by the fact of the—what was it? The lack of
cohesiveness
of this present-day family. When looked at clinically in a “cold” diagram, the nearness of the relations was evident. Why so little family feeling, then? Was there just something wrong with the Footrustles, and the Baynards? Something amounting almost to a genetic disorder?

The family tree hinted here and there at consanguinity—a dangerous intermarrying of persons too closely related. A practice that could lead to birth defects, and to illnesses both physical and mental.

It was a practice that led quite frequently to madness.

CHAPTER 16

A Star Is Born

Cotton stood, his backside to the fire, reading from a sheaf of notes.

“Jocasta and the twins Alec and Amanda inherited quite a few pounds from Oscar—nicely judged to be enough to keep them quiet, but not what they would have seen otherwise. The solicitor seems to have known what he was doing. The lion’s share went to Oscar’s sister: to Leticia, Lady Baynard.”

He peered at Max over the top of the pages.

“I’ve asked the solicitor, Wintermute, to drop by sometime today,” Cotton said. “I’m hoping you get a chance to talk with him.”

Max’s mind was elsewhere. He took a sip of the fragrant coffee, which had been delivered and poured out by Milo, and replacing his cup carefully on the saucer said, “You would think Jocasta and Randolph would have something in common, apart from being cousins. She’s spent her career in front of the camera, and he behind it.”

“Or it would guarantee hostilities between them. Those jobs require differing personalities. Who can say? In any event, there is no shortage of suspects, within the castle walls or without. Oscar has been called the Voldemort of Fleet Street by both friends and enemies. He was apparently ruthless in all his business dealings.”

“What do you know about the knife used to kill him?”

“Only that it came from the kitchen—a long, thick blade, a sort of all-purpose butcher knife.”

“All-purpose, indeed,” said Max, sadly shaking his head. “Including the purpose of butchering a man.”

“My team found it in the garden, in one of the topiaries—a heart-shaped topiary,” Cotton told him.

“A clue, perhaps hinting at unrequited love, or a broken heart?” wondered Max aloud. “Or a blind? Or simply the most expedient way to lose the most incriminating item? A quick nip out to the garden on the pretext of an invigorating stroll, and a quick thrust of the knife in among the tightly packed branches.”

“Hmm. Something like that. The team didn’t find it until late yesterday afternoon, just as they were getting ready to pack it in because of darkness.”

Cotton turned back to the pages he’d been riffling through, now propelling his lean, restless frame toward a seat near Max. “So, we have Lady Jocasta Jones née Footrustle, by Oscar’s first wife Beatrice Briar. Then, completing the family tree on that branch, there are the twins (and they seem almost universally to be called The Twyns) who are Alec, Viscount Edenstartel, and his sister Lady Amanda. Jocasta is of course their much older half sister.”

“I met her briefly at breakfast.”

“Did you now? Once met, never forgotten, I’d say. Let’s get her in here.”

Jocasta’s entrance was very different from her cousin Randolph’s. Where he had entered with loping, forceful strides, taking control of the room, Jocasta possessed the room in quite another way. Preceded by a waft of perfume strong enough to substitute as tear gas for the police force of a chic nation-state, Jocasta twirled her way into the library, petticoats swirling about her knees, her manner fluttery, winsome, and coy. Ignoring Sergeant Essex, she aimed her charm like a beacon at the two men.

She had changed her clothing since breakfast, and now wore a retro little number in silk brocade with a cinched waist and full pleated skirt that recalled Elizabeth Taylor during her Michael Wilding years. Max was to learn she changed frequently throughout the day, although there was little reason for it. Perhaps it was how she staved off boredom. As likely, it was a hangover from her acting days.

“Thank
God
you finally got around to talking with me,” she said, perching on the edge of a seat. “I’ve been on pins and needles, waiting.”

“Thank you for talking with us,” said Cotton. “This must be a difficult time.”

“You’ve no idea,” she said. “It’s been a nightmare—literally.” And she began to tell him of the dreams and premonitions of disaster she’d had, ever since coming to the castle (“The most terrifying of scenes—outside of my own films, of course.”). Max, from his chair across the room, thought he was used to this kind of premonition thing from Awena Owen, and he was certainly getting used to hearing it from the inhabitants of Chedrow Castle. Vague insights.
Feelings
. Coming from Awena, these insights were often, well, insightful, although he put that down to her remarkable empathy, intuition, and observational skills. This woman before him seemed merely nervy. A bundle of nerves, in fact.

And weren’t premonitions always easiest to claim once calamity had already struck?

Max said, “I would imagine it is strange for you being back at the castle, after so many years.”

Again she said, “You’ve no idea!” But this time she smiled, and there was subtle shading to her voice, a sauciness of tone out of place in the interview. As she breezed on, Max concluded she was trying on various roles, or perhaps reliving old stage and film triumphs.

“What can you tell us about the night before your father’s body was found?”

“We—my husband and I—played cards in the drawing room. What Leticia called a withdrawing room, a term that hasn’t been used since approximately the 1700s. She was like that, Leticia. Anyway, we were in the drawing room, living room, or whatever you wish to call it until quite late that night. We tried to interest some of the others in a game of bridge but found no takers, so we played gin rummy instead. After we went to bed—which was before midnight as I recall—who knows what happened? The butler found Oscar. You’ll have to get the details from him.”

“What a good idea. We hadn’t thought of that,” said Cotton. The irony was lost on Jocasta, who had found a flaw in her bloodred manicure. “Did you hear anything, see anything unusual at all?”

“I think I heard a noise outside that morning,” she told her thumbnail. “An owl, perhaps.” She looked up. “The jet lag has had me awake at all hours, you see.”

“Try to think, please,” said Cotton. “Could it have been a human voice?”

Obligingly, propping her chin in one hand and staring skyward, she appeared to give the idea every fair consideration, although as Essex remarked later she might have been wondering where she’d mislaid her mascara wand. “No,” she said at last. “No, I can’t really be certain.”

“Was there anything that night, anything at all that struck you as out of the ordinary? A quarrel overheard, perhaps?”

Again the pose of thoughtfulness.

“No-o-o.”

“We feel, you see,” put in Max, “that with your special training in the subtleties of nuance and gesture, you could be a valuable witness to any undercurrents of tension or hostility in the household.”

Jocasta preened visibly. “Do you really? Why, yes, it is the attention to gesture that most critics mention in connection with my work. Oh, I still get letters! Indeed, a constant outpouring, expressing the fervent wish that I reprise some of my more famous roles.”

“Ah, yes. Well—” began Cotton.

“Of course, it has been some time since my last appearance in film, which does tend to whet the audience’s appetite.”

“I see. Now, if we could return to the subject of your father’s murder.” Cotton felt he was being a bit brutal by using the word but he wasn’t sure there was any other way to capture her attention, as her mind seemed to spin in a continual orbit around her past triumphs.

“My father’s—oh, yes. Of course,” Jocasta cooed. “What was it you wished to know?” She flashed a brilliant smile at first one man, then the other. It was a smile that assumed it was melting the hearts of all who beheld it—a smile much rehearsed and perfected during endless reviewings and rewindings of her appearances, however brief, in film. Clearly flirtatiousness was her default mode. That it was a complete disconnect to the grave topic under discussion was lost on no one but Jocasta herself.

But suddenly, there was a switch in tone. It was like watching someone play with an on/off switch, thought Max.

“Family secrets,” Jocasta said darkly. “Every family has them.” She gave out a diabolical screech that might have been laughter. “But I shall share my secrets with you, shall I?” Max began to wonder if she was quite sane. He stole a glance at the page that held the family tree, now lying facedown on the table next to him.

“Good,” said Cotton. “Now, we can’t escape the fact your father was a wealthy man.”

“Certainly he was.”

“Were you—how shall I put this—were you and your husband in any financial difficulty?”

Again the screech. “Why would you say that?” she demanded. “I have made a vast fortune from my cinematic and stage appearances. I don’t need money. And I certainly wouldn’t … do as you suggest … to get my hands on it if I did. If you want to talk about who needed money, let’s talk about Gwynyth Lavener, shall we?”

“Your father’s ex-wife.”

“That’s right.” Jocasta’s narrow lips disappeared into a thin, sour, red line. “Gwynyth tells everyone she was a performance artist when she met Oscar. A performance artist! That’s a nice word for stripper.”

“Actually,” said Cotton, “we were given to understand she was performing on board a cruise ship when she met your father. Singing and dancing. That sort of thing. They don’t usually offer strip shows on any cruise line I’ve ever heard of.”