A Scone To Die For (Oxford Tearoom Mysteries ~ Book 1) (12 page)

“That’s not been my experience at all,” Devlin said dryly. “In my experience, the public love getting involved and are very keen to help with a murder enquiry. If anything, we usually have more hassle sorting through all the ‘helpful’ tips and phone calls we receive, full of unnecessary information. It tends to only be those with something to hide who don’t want to speak to the police.”

“Well, I have nothing to hide…” blustered Hughes.

“Good.”

There was a tense silence. I couldn’t see into the room but I didn’t need to be in there to guess that Devlin was probably giving Hughes one of his famous steely-eyed looks.

“Your face is very swollen, Professor. Have you been in a fight?”

“No, I’ve got an allergy. I’m very sensitive to pet hairs and my neighbours just got a new puppy. They brought it over to show me on Saturday—it licked my face and I just started puffing up.”

“I see. Isn’t it a coincidence that this happened on Saturday—the same day that your friend, Washington, was murdered?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at. I’m telling you, this swelling is due to an allergy. I can’t go near pet hairs. I have to take prescription anti-histamines to control the reaction.”

“And have you taken any this time?”

“I took some on Saturday night, once I realised… but it takes time for the symptoms to subside. Sometimes as much as forty-eight hours.”

“Hmm… Well, Professor Hughes, that will be all for now. I may have some more questions to ask you but, for now, thank you for your time. Here’s my card… If there’s anything else you think of…”

There was a rustle from inside the room, the sound of people standing up, the floorboards creaking as weight shifted. Then footsteps approached the door, faster than we expected.

Mabel jerked back from the door. “He’s coming out!”

I stumbled backwards in panic. There was no time to run down the staircase—Devlin would be sure to see us in the stairwell. We looked wildly around for a hiding place. This was the top landing in the tower and there was only one other door up here. Mabel ran across and flung it open. It was a broom cupboard, filled with cleaning equipment.

“Quick! In here!” she hissed at the other Old Biddies. They piled in, wedging themselves between the mops and brooms. I was amazed at how quickly four old ladies could squeeze themselves into such a tiny space, lavender handbags and all. The only problem was, it left no room for me.

“Sorry, Gemma, age before beauty,” said Mabel ruthlessly and she yanked the door shut in my face.

I stared at the closed door in disbelief.
What? They’re leaving me out here to deal with Devlin alone? I’m going to kill them, senior age or not!

Whirling, I considered my options. I could hear the rumble of voices coming from Hughes’s room—it looked like they had stopped to talk again just inside the door. It bought me a few more seconds reprieve. I glanced around. The only other thing I could see on the landing was a narrow Gothic window. I ran over and pulled the casement open. Instead of the sheer drop I’d expected, it led out onto a circular battlement which enclosed the tower. If I could climb out, I could crouch beneath the level of the parapet and hide from view until Devlin had gone down the stairs.

It was ludicrous and humiliating but not unsafe. I hooked a leg over the windowsill and started to push myself out through the narrow gap. It wasn’t as easy as I’d thought. I was sitting astride the windowsill, half in, half out, trying to suck my stomach in—when I heard the dreaded voice.

“Gemma?”

Oh bugger.
I froze, then slowly turned my head.

Devlin stood on the landing, looking at me in bewilderment. “What on earth are you doing?”

I thought of Mabel’s trick and tried to act like climbing out of Oxford college windows was a perfectly normal mid-week activity for me. I gave a little trill of laughter. It was scary how much I sounded like my mother. “Ah, Devlin, ha-ha… Fancy seeing you here!”

It didn’t seem to work. He came towards me, frowning. “What are you doing?”

“Um…” I wracked my brain for some excuse to explain my window-straddling position. I came up with nothing. “I… um… I was looking for my… pashmina! Yes, I’ve lost my pashmina, you see—and I thought I might have left it here when I came to High Table last Saturday night.”

“And your pashmina managed to get by itself all the way up to the parapet outside Professor Hughes’s room?” Devlin raised a sardonic eyebrow.

I flushed. “Yes… well… Funny how things end up in the strangest places.”

“And I suppose you didn’t know that I was interviewing Professor Hughes?”

“Oh, were you?” I opened my eyes wide, the picture of innocence. “What a funny coincidence!”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Devlin said. “And I suppose it’s also a funny coincidence that the door to his room was slightly open—when I knew I had definitely shut it firmly behind me when I arrived?”

“Oh… you know how draughty it can get in these old Oxford buildings…” I gave him a bright smile. “Probably the door didn’t latch properly when you shut it and the wind pushed it open again.”

“And naturally you didn’t happen to overhear any part of my conversation with Professor Hughes…”

“Well… um… you know, the landing being so small… I did maybe overhear a bit of the conversation… not that I was really listening, of course…”

“Of course not,” said Devlin blandly.

A muffled sneeze sounded next to us. Devlin turned sharply towards the broom cupboard. We could hear the sounds of shuffling coming from inside, accompanied by whispers of:

“Move over!”

“I can’t! You move over!”

“There’s no room!”

“It’s your stupid handbag, Glenda! I told you not to buy that style.”

“It’s not my handbag, it’s your bottom! You need to lose some weight, Florence.”

“Rubbish!”

“Shh—they’ll hear us!”

Devlin muttered under his breath, then stepped over and pulled the cupboard door open. It revealed four little old ladies clutching each other.

“Eeek!”

“Inspector O’Connor! What a surprise!” Mabel let go of the others and stepped out, recovering spectacularly.

Devlin gave a deep sigh. “Yes, another one. I don’t think I can cope with any more surprises tonight. I suppose you were searching for Gemma’s pashmina in the broom cupboard?”

Mabel darted a look at me. “Why, yes… of course! How clever of you to guess that! But of course, that’s why you’re such a brilliant detective… ha ha...”

They filed out, brushing themselves off and patting their helmet hair.

“Mrs Cooke…” Devlin sounded like he was making a huge effort to stay calm. “I appreciate your attempts to help the police but, as I have said before, I must ask you to leave the investigation to the professionals. You don’t know what you are doing and you may get yourself—” he glanced at the others, “—and your friends hurt.”

Maybe it was his tone or the hard look in his blue eyes, but for once, Mabel seemed to decide that it was better to hold her tongue and they shuffled, looking suitably chastened, back down the stairs. Devlin escorted us all back to the gate, and stood with his arms folded, watching as the Old Biddies trundled off together down the cobbled lane. I turned away to get my bicycle from the bike shed beside the Porters Lodge, but as I began to wheel it out of the college gates, Devlin came up to me and put a hand on my arm.

“Gemma, before you run off… fancy a drink?”

I looked at him in surprise. What was this? A social invitation? Or an excuse for further police interrogation? I hesitated, then gave a nod. “Okay.”

He walked with me out of the college and down the lane. As we approached the corner of Broad Street, he jerked his head towards the King’s Arms. “How about the K.A.?”

I hesitated again, then straightened my shoulders. If Devlin could go back to an old haunt without a flicker of feeling, then I could match his cool detachment. “Yes, fine.”

I chained my bicycle to a post outside the building that housed the oldest pub in Oxford, then we went in. I caught my breath as I stepped over the threshold. It was as if I had stepped back in time. The long, wood-panelled bar was still there, with the lettered signs along the top casing advertising “Young’s Stout” and “Addlestones Premium Cloudy Cider”; the dark, cosy rooms were filled with what looked like the same vintage leather sofas and sturdy wood chairs that I had once lounged on as a student; the familiar black-and-white photos, and old prints of Oxford hung on the walls. How many times had I stepped in here, just like this, with Devlin at my side, his hand on my elbow?

I shook off the memories and walked into the pub, deliberately taking a seat in the middle of the room, away from the cosy, intimate corners.

“What shall I get you—a shandy?”

I felt a silly rush of pleasure at him remembering my usual drink. “Yes, thanks.”

He went off to the bar and I had ample time to compose myself by the time he came back with two glasses. I was also ready with some questions about the case, to save myself having to make awkward small talk.

“So… does Professor Hughes have an alibi for Saturday morning?”

Devlin took a swallow of his pint and regarded me sardonically. “Has Mabel Cooke assigned you the task of pumping me for information?”

I grinned, relaxing slightly. “No, this is just my own nosiness.”

He matched my grin with a boyish one of his own, looking suddenly a lot younger and making my heart give an unsteady flop.

“Yes, I had my sergeant check Hughes’s alibi this morning—before I questioned him. The prof says he was in college, marking some essays in his room, and that seems to bear out. My sergeant spoke to a student, Tom Rawlings, who heard Hughes in his room, arguing with someone on the phone, at the time when Washington would have been murdered.”

“So he’s in the clear?” I said in disappointment.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that. Hughes is definitely hiding something. But as far as his alibi goes, it certainly seems to check out.” Devlin motioned to his phone. “I rang my sergeant before I left Hughes’s room and asked him to check the story about the pet allergy and the anti-histamines.”

“For what it’s worth, Hughes’s face did look slightly swollen when I saw him at dinner at High Table on Saturday night,” I offered.

Devlin nodded. “I didn’t think it looked like the kind of swelling you get from a fight injury—but of course, it never hurts to check. I’m not really expecting anything, though. If it had been Mike Bailey with a swollen face, that would have been a different story.”

“Is he still your strongest suspect?”

“Yes.”

“And…” I hesitated. “What about Justine?”

“What about her?” Devlin said, taking another mouthful of his ale.

“Did you check what Mabel said—about her meeting Washington on Friday night in Oxford?”

“Yes.” Devlin paused as if debating what to tell me, then he said, “Justine confessed that she did meet Washington. She hadn’t wanted to mention it before because she knew that spouses were always one of the key suspects in a murder case, particularly when a spouse stands to gain by the victim’s death.”

I raised my eyebrows enquiringly.

“As his wife and without a will stating otherwise, Justine is the beneficiary of Washington’s entire estate.”

“Wow.” I sat back in my chair. “That’s enough motive for most people.”

Devlin said nothing. I looked at him sharply.

“There’s something else, isn’t there? Another good reason for Justine to want Washington dead?”

Devlin inclined his head reluctantly. “She said that the reason she saw Washington on Friday night was because he requested a meeting. He wanted a divorce. They were separated, but Justine had always balked at an actual divorce and Washington didn’t seem to mind before. They’ve been living apart for the last couple of years, although he still supported her with a regular allowance.”

A very generous allowance
, I thought to myself, remembering Justine’s designer clothes and expensive hair and make-up.
I’ll bet she wasn’t happy to hear that Washington wanted a divorce.

“I suppose those payments would have stopped once they were divorced?” I said.

“Yes. They had some kind of pre-nup agreement which stated that Justine wouldn’t get any alimony payments unless they had children. They didn’t. But it seemed that Washington was quite happy to keep the status quo until recently. We got some information back from Interpol,” said Devlin. “It seems that Washington had a new girlfriend back in the States and she was putting pressure on him to get a divorce. Sounds like she was angling for his ring on her own finger.”

“So Justine would have been left high and dry,” I said. “Whereas now, instead, with Washington dead, she’s a very rich widow.”

Devlin drained his pint and sat back. “Yes. But at the end of the day, she has an alibi for Saturday morning. However much she might have wanted to kill Washington, the fact is, she couldn’t have done it because she was somewhere else when the murder was committed.” He shook his head. “In any case, I don’t think it’s her.”

“How do you know?”

He shrugged. “Instinct. A hunch. Whatever you want to call it.”

Lust
, I thought sourly. I wondered if Devlin would have been so quick to insist that Justine was innocent if she didn’t look like Jessica Rabbit come to life.

“Speaking of alibis…” Devlin said. “I thought you’d like to know that my sergeant managed to get hold of Ethel Webb at last and she confirms that she saw Fletcher leaving his house at 8:45 a.m.—which was after the murder was committed. So he’s in the clear.”

“Ohhh… he’ll be so pleased to hear that,” I said, smiling. “I’ll tell him first thing tomorrow morning. It’s been weighing on him, you know, especially with his cat going missing too.”

“His cat?” Devlin raised an eyebrow

“Don’t sneer,” I said quickly. “His cat means a lot to him. Fletcher’s very shy and he… he doesn’t relate to people very well.”

“I’m not sneering,” said Devlin. “In fact, I’ve seen first-hand some cases where people are more upset to lose their pet than their spouse. And I’ve met many people who prefer the company of animals to humans. I have to say, though, I’ve always been more of a dog person, myself.”

“Yeah, me too,” I agreed. “In fact, until I met Muesli, I wouldn’t have ever said I like cats… but… well, she sort of worms her way into your heart,” I said with a laugh. “She’s naughty and infuriating and mouthy and contrary… and generally drives me mad… but I can’t help but like her.”

“Sounds like someone I know.”

I looked at him quickly but he had glanced away and was scanning the room, observing the other punters.

“So… you’re still pegging Mike Bailey for the murder?” I said after an awkward pause. “It just seems so crude and simple—that Washington was killed as the result of some drunken brawl. It feels like it ought to be more complicated than that!”