Death of a Cozy Writer: A St. Just Mystery (16 page)

“No. No children. Most unfortunate.” But she did not look particularly regretful; she might have been talking about her rose garden doing poorly that year. “Ruthven couldn’t—”

Instinctively, St. Just held up a hand to forestall any too-intimate revelations.

“That’s quite all right, Mrs.—”

“Oh! Oh, I didn’t mean that,” she said. “No, no, I mean he was quite
capable
.” She gave a strained little laugh, as if to assure the Inspector that her husband was quite as good as anyone else’s, thank you very much. “Good heavens. No, no, everything quite all right in that department. It’s just that he couldn’t abide children.”

“I see. You had been married—how long?”

“Oh, twenty years or so.”

St. Just reminded himself again that the reaction to the sudden death of one’s nearest and dearest can take many forms. Her demeanor was just odd, since indifference was not generally one of those reactions.

“Can you think of anyone who would want to harm your husband?”

“No one.” Now she began straightening what he supposed was her engagement ring, which rode high atop a plain wedding band— the diamond, the size of a small almond, had not surprisingly shifted heavily on her finger like a capsized boat. “Well everyone, I suppose, really. But no one
really
.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone who did business with him, I mean. Ruthven was a brilliant businessman. Well, everyone’s heard of him—everyone who reads the financial news.” She seemed to pause here to consider whether he and Sergeant Fear were the types to peruse the daily financial news, looking for stock tips. Uncertainly, she went on, “He and I sometimes appear together in the society pages, as well.
Used
to appear, I suppose I must say now.” As it occurred to her these two stalwart policemen were even more unlikely to scan the Royal Doulton ads, she said, “Well, in any event, when one is enormously successful, one tends to make, well, enemies. Among the small-minded or jealous.”

“Disgruntled employees? Wronged partners? Unhappy stockholders? That sort of thing?”

“Yes. Quite. In fact, I remember there was one man—oh, wait, he committed suicide, that’s right.” Metaphorically snapping her fingers at the memory lapse regarding this unfortunate, she went on, “But you do see what I mean. There are the weak and there are the strong. I’ve always felt the weak to be far the more dangerous, when aroused. Don’t you agree?”

Marie Antoinette couldn’t have said it better, thought St. Just.

“It’s a possible theory, of course. But the fact is there is no sign of a break-in from outside. The man—or woman—who murdered”— and he used the brutal world here calculatedly, looking for a reaction, but still there was no one at home—“who murdered your husband almost certainly came from within the house.”

This made her sit back in her chair, nearly upsetting her cup of coffee from its saucer. Her hand shook as she set the drink on a rattan side table.

“One of us? Here?” She looked around her, as if an axe-wielding in-law might jump out from behind the curtains at any minute. “But that’s quite impossible. There’s been some mistake.”

“I don’t think so. Now,”—and here Sergeant Fear took his cue, opening his black policeman’s notebook to a fresh page, smartly snapping back the used pages with the attached black elastic— “about last night. How did you spend the evening?”

“How did I?”

“You. You and your husband. The family. Whatever you can tell me may be of help.”

“Oh. Well. We had dinner together
en famille
, you know, except for this young friend George brought with him. Natasha. From outside. He brought her in from outside.”

St. Just hid a smile. Apparently, having found the outsider in their midst, she was preparing to hand her over, hog-tied, to the police at the first opportunity.

“And how did this dinner go? Was it pleasant? Tense?”

“Oh, I suppose you’d say rather tense. You see, it was at the dinner Sir Adrian broke his news about his wedding.”

“You had none of you known about it before?”

She shook her head. “Hard to believe, I know, but the fact of his remarriage came as a total shock to us all. We only knew when we arrived here he was engaged to be married, not actually married. He’d even sent an invitation to his former wife, Chloe. An extraordinary show of spite, even for him.”

Just then, an electronic noise erupted from behind St. Just. He turned to see Fear scrambling to retrieve his mobile from his inner pocket. Incredulously, St. Just recognized the tune as the first notes of “Jingle Bells.”

“Sorry, Sir.” Fear blushed, punching madly at the buttons of the machine. “Emma.”

With a sigh, St. Just turned back to Lillian.

“How was the news about Sir Adrian’s wedding received, exactly— other than being a source of shock?”

“We were, well, surprised, Detective Chief Inspector. In his fifties, Sir Adrian had had the typical midlife crisis. Undesirable types of women friends, very young women—you know the kind of thing I mean. We had survived all of that somehow. Violet came as a surprise. Not a welcome surprise exactly, but—oh, I’m saying this so badly …”

“But it could have been worse?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding gratefully. “That’s it exactly, Detective Chief Inspector. It could have been far worse, I suppose.”

Sergeant Fear noted that she used St. Just’s full title at every opportunity. Probably a question of status; she seemed the type to like titles.

“Did your husband express any particular worries? Apart from this wedding news?”

“Not really. Except … my husband was not in excellent health, but I wouldn’t call that a great worry. He’d had surgery recently for his heart, but the doctors assured him he’d live to see 100 if he took proper care. He took the warning frightfully seriously. Oat bran and vitamins. Started going to the gym again, that sort of thing. Quite tiresome, really, arranging the menus around oat bran. And now, it’s all for nothing.” She sighed. “Anyway, Sir Adrian came to see him in hospital. Quite nice of him, really, given that his own health is poor.”

“The visit was out of character?”

She considered.

“Rather. But Ruthven is—was—his favorite. Really, Sir Adrian seemed quite agitated, until he’d talked with the doctors himself.”

“I see. Well, just to prepare you: We’ll have a team looking through your husband’s things, and taking some of his belongings away for analysis, I would imagine. Did he happen to travel with a computer?”

She nodded, already appearing to lose interest in the conversation.

“It would be best if you made arrangements to stay in another part of the house for now. We will need you to remain nearby in case there are further questions that arise.”

This didn’t please her. The green eyes narrowed beneath the penciled brows.

“That’s quite out of the question. I have obligations in London.”

Involving menu arrangements, no doubt, thought St. Just.

“You’re to go nowhere without my permission, Mrs. Beauclerk-Fisk. I hope I am making my position clear.”

“Well, I don’t know … and I suppose now there’s the funeral to think of, too.”

Either the woman was innocent or completely stupid. He found himself inclined toward the latter view.

“The remains won’t be released for some time. I am requiring that you stay available to us. We are likely to have additional questions once I’ve had the chance to speak with the rest of the family. Good day to you.”

She wasn’t used to being dismissed, either.

More gently, he added, “Again, I am sorry for your loss.”

He would have sworn she was going to ask, “What loss?”

Once she had carried herself off, he turned to Sergeant Fear.

“Make sure the I.T. people have a go at downloading the contents of the victim’s computer, and right away. When you get back, we’ll have a look at the rest of the family. By the way, what was that infernal noise just now?”

“Emma got hold of my mobile and reprogrammed the ring, Sir. I can’t figure out how to change it back.”

Emma was Fear’s four-year-old.

“She’s jealous of the new one on the way,” Fear went on, again madly pushing buttons, which seemed only to stir the instrument to new musical heights. “Says she ‘don’t want no stinkin’ sibling.’”

“Then get the I.T. department to look at it, too, for God’s sake. Now, hop to it. We’ve got to make damn sure, Sergeant, they’re not all out there trading alibis.”

MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

_______________________

“HE HAS NOT DIED.
He is, at this moment, struggling to slip the bounds into another state of being.”

Sarah, George, Albert and Natasha had all gathered by unspoken agreement in the library, where Sarah sat stoking the fire to dangerous reaches as she expounded her theories on Ruthven’s whereabouts.

Paulo had been the one to bring them the news, waking them from their beds—and not without a certain satisfaction at seeing them all up and about at his own usual hour.

“I wonder if they organize redundancies in the afterlife? That would be Ruthven’s idea of heaven, I imagine,” said George. “Frankly, I prefer to think of him as dead and gone, Sarah. If you would mind not prattling on right now I’d be grateful.”

“He hasn’t yet passed; I feel that strongly,” she said. “The chains that bound him to earth were too strong. He has issues.”

Albert fought to suppress a smile, in spite of the appalling situation in which they found themselves. Sarah must have gleaned the “issues” word from her reading of self-help books, which always seemed to be American in origin, the British not having yet gotten around to writing
Keeping a Stiff Upper Lip on Your Inner
Child.

“Whatever,” said George, patiently, for him. “Sarah, please, I beg of you. My head is throbbing.”

“I know just the thing for headache,” said Sarah. “You make a paste of ground cloves and almonds and then apply it to your forehead.”

“Really? And you walk around all day like that, do you?” said George. “I think plain aspirin would be fine.”

Albert was starting to marvel at George’s self-control. Normally, that kind of remark from Sarah would have rated at least a sneer. He suddenly realized that for the first time in memory, he himself was without a hangover and not in need of aspirin. It was disconcerting, like walking from a dark room into daylight, and he wasn’t sure whether he liked it.

Natasha rose.

“I’ll go and fetch some for you.”

They made sure she was gone before they resumed speaking.

“I suppose I should offer belated congratulations,” said Albert. “She seems an extraordinary woman.”

“Like you would know. What do you think happens to the will now? With Ruthven gone?”

Albert shrugged. The question didn’t surprise him, considering the source. “Father will have to write another. Nothing’s changed, has it, really? He’ll just start to play the old shell game again, only with fewer peas.”

“Except my slice of the pie just got bigger, didn’t it?” said George.

“Did it? Well, if you want to pursue food metaphors, it’s not as if the pie were ever evenly divided. And we still don’t know what provisions he’s made for Herself.”

“Violet, you mean. Yes, of course. Still …”

But Albert was no more in the mood for speculation about money and inheritance than George was prepared to discuss Natasha and the impending, suspiciously convenient, birth.

“You do realize, George, don’t you, that Ruthven was murdered. Here, in this house. Possibly by one of us here, in this house?”

He couldn’t quite bring himself to say, “in this room,” but that was certainly what had him preoccupied.

“One of us? Don’t be silly. An intruder—”

“An intruder wouldn’t be much of an improvement on the situation, would he? What if this intruder comes back?”

“Do you really think so, Albert?” said Sarah. “That he might come back?” She shivered, rubbing her hands before the fire. “It’s awful, isn’t it? Poor Ruthven. He must have been terrified.”

“I refuse to feel sorry for him,” said George. “When did he ever feel sorry for me?”

Albert felt the “for me” was rather typical. Ruthven had been dreadful to all of them.

Sarah might have been thinking along similar lines.

“It’s not always all about you, George.”

George seemed honestly baffled by this comment.

“Who else would it be about?”

Sarah sighed.

“Really, George. I must say, your self-absorption is quite … complete at times.”

“Self-absorption? That’s a nice way of putting it,” said Albert. In a portentous voice, he said: “Send not to ask for whom the world turns: It turns for thee, George.”

“And just look who’s talking.”

“Not now,” said Sarah. “I won’t be able to stand it if we all start fighting now. If ever there were a time to close ranks—”

She was interrupted by the arrival of law and order, in the person of Sergeant Fear. Having been listening outside the door in an attitude reminiscent of Paulo the night before, Fear had been trying to decide which of them sounded sufficiently strung out to be ripe for questioning. None of them sounded serene. But if Fear understood the situation correctly, this George person was now the eldest and next in line for the throne, his brother having conveniently been painted out of the picture.

One thing St. Just had drilled into him was first to ask, “Who profits?” Judging from the look of George (once he had settled on which of the two men he was—there was not much choice between the handsome blonde one and the handsome dark-blonde one), they might be able to wrap this one up by lunchtime.

Snotty little upper-class twit, was Sergeant Fear’s summing up—the kind he used to revel in pulling over for speeding before he’d been elevated to the detective ranks. Not that he didn’t still enjoy doing that from time to time, but he had less time in his schedule for it now. Priorities.

“Mr. George Beauclerk-Fisk,” he said, with elaborate, and deceptive, politeness. “If you would be so kind, DCI St. Just of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary would like a word.”

George looked as though he might like to claim a prior engagement, but could think of none. Languidly, he unfolded himself from the sofa and followed Fear out of the room.