Ice Blue (14 page)

The foyer, painted tomato red, was lit by a
black chandelier. The walls were accented with what Kate guessed
were framed squares of 1970’s-era kitchen wallpaper – the orange
and brown geometric patterns she recalled from childhood. The
housekeeper, attired in jeans and a jumper instead of a uniform,
led them across a frankly fake zebra rug – it looked like someone
skinned a gigantic plush toy – and into a golden salon so gaudy and
opulent, Kate gasped.

Black-lacquered panels and towering
Empire-style mirrors dominated the long, rectangular room. The
ceiling, decorated with a mural of pinkish clouds against a dreamy
blue sky, was enclosed by gilded molding. Black taper candles
accented the traditional crystal chandelier. And the fresh flowers
scattered throughout the room – peonies here, yellow roses there, a
spray of something wild and weedy in the corner – were contained in
simple plastic vases that might have come from Oxfam.

“Please make yourselves comfortable, Lord
Hetheridge, Miss Wakefield,” the housekeeper said in a bored tone,
indicating a chaise lounge upholstered in lime green silk. “Lady
Margaret will be down shortly.”

Kate perched on one end of the chaise lounge,
a pink pillow nestled against her side. “I don’t suppose Lady
Margaret is a drag queen?”

“No. But her favorite nephew runs a very
successful design studio. He specializes in the flamboyant. Lady
Margaret periodically allows him to redecorate her homes and offer
them as showplaces.” As he spoke, Hetheridge seated himself on a
mahogany chair. Then an elderly woman appeared in the doorway, and
he sprang to his feet again.

“Tony!” The woman crossed to Hetheridge,
embraced him, and held him out at arms-length. “Don’t you look
handsome! There’s something different about you.”

“Not that I know of,” he said, turning to
indicate Kate. Unsure if she should stand or remain seated, Kate
stood up as Hetheridge said, “Lady Margaret Knolls, may I present
Detective Sergeant Kate Wakefield, the newest member of my
team.”

“Now this
is
different,” Lady Margaret said, smile fading. Like Hetheridge, her
eyes were an icy blue. They evaluated Kate with the precision of an
x-ray machine, penetrating to the bone.

Lady Margaret, between seventy-five and
eighty-five, was short and stocky, with none of the brittle frailty
associated with old age. Her lumpy shape was somewhat concealed by
her monochromatic linen ensemble – capri-length slacks and an
oversized shirt that fluttered as she moved. Her white hair was so
short and layered, it would look the same in almost any conditions:
fresh out of bed, post-hat, or hurricane winds.

She was still studying Kate, her thin lips
pressed together. If Lady Margaret’s features had ever been
pleasing, they had settled into an androgynous mix: bulbous nose,
wrinkled cheeks, and cold, clear eyes.

“A woman. How progressive of you, Tony. And
surprising. I always took you for a hopeless sexist.”

“Haven’t turned in my membership card yet. I
brought DS Wakefield along to discuss the social standing of the
suspects in the Malcolm Comfrey murder case.”

“In other words, he comes to me for gossip.
And I do my best not to disappoint,” Lady Margaret told Kate.
“Where is DS Bhar? Have I finally succeeded in frightening him into
an alternate career path?”

“Not at all,” Hetheridge said. “He was very
disappointed when I chose DS Wakefield instead of him.”

“I’ll bet,” Lady Margaret said, eyes still on
Kate’s face. “Your colleague DS Bhar and I got off on the wrong
foot on our first meeting. I made some remarks he interpreted as
offensive. He’s been struggling to gain the upper hand with me ever
since.” She gave a small, dangerous smile. “Perhaps one day. Do you
have any sensitive areas, DS Wakefield? Any topics I should
avoid?”

“If I did, I’d never be fool enough to tell
you about them,” Kate said.

“Very wise. Let’s sit. Hetty will bring in
tea momentarily.”

Hetheridge returned to the mahogany chair.
Kate sank back on the chaise lounge while Lady Margaret pulled a
gilded, pink-upholstered chair across the floor. She positioned it
on the low occasional table across from Kate.

“I still don’t know what to make of this
salon. I feel a bit like Barbara Cartland amid all this pink and
gold. My nephew, Edmund, assured me the room would provoke a
reaction. And it does.” Lady Margaret glanced around, pressing her
lips together as if she saw the Emperor’s nakedness, but found his
bare bits too unappetizing to comment upon. Lifting the hem of her
oversized linen shirt, she draped it across the bulge of her
stomach and thighs, crossing her ankles and turning to show herself
at the best possible angle.

“I once had a figure to rival yours,” Lady
Margaret told Kate. “Bosoms and backsides were all the rage then,
thank God. Now with this Posh Spice creature running amok, the
style is less like a woman’s shape and more like a stick insect.”
She looked at Hetheridge. “I assume you’d like to know what your
old amour, Madge Comfrey, has been up to since you so caddishly
left her at the emotional altar?”

Hetheridge flicked his tie into place and
lifted his chin slightly – gestures Kate now recognized as signs he
was fully engaged in a conversation, no matter how neutral he
appeared.

“That would be very helpful. Some of it is a
matter of public record, of course. Madge married Malcolm Comfrey
just two months after we called off our engagement. There was talk
at the time that I’d caught her cheating with Comfrey, but it
wasn’t true. I never met the man – or if I ever did, it was in
passing at some event or another, and I failed to register who he
was.”

“Madge was pilloried for her whirlwind
romance with Comfrey,” Lady Margaret said. “Mind you, she did well
to marry him, financially speaking. She was quite the up-and-comer
when she nabbed you, Tony. Considering she came from a third-rate
family and had no real connections of her own, landing a baron was
a coup. When you rejected her – and yes, I know you never meant for
the decision to be publicly recognized as yours rather than hers,
but these juicy details always get out – Madge was ruined for the
titled marriage market. Since you had finally gotten on track to do
your duty to the family name,” Margaret continued, smiling at
Hetheridge, “by choosing an appropriate wife of acceptable stock in
her childbearing years, it was widely assumed, in the best
misogynistic tradition, that you dropped Madge after discovering
something unsavory about her.”

Turning to Kate, Lady Margaret went on, “You
must understand, my dear Kate – may I call you Kate? – that Tony’s
choice of a dirty, embarrassing career in the Met, of all things,
humiliated his parents and made him a laughingstock. Something gave
him the courage of his convictions to buck his social set and
choose a highly eccentric path. So when he announced his engagement
to Madge, there was a general feeling that blood and breeding had
prevailed at last.”

“And what did you think,” Hetheridge asked,
“when I planned to marry Madge?”

“I thought you’d taken leave of your senses,”
Lady Margaret said.

“Why?” Kate asked.

“Because Madge was, and is, a gold-digger.
She wanted Tony for his money and title alone. Her low connections
and reputation for sleeping around, I could overlook. Her latching
onto my dear friend as the quickest means to a privileged life, I
could never condone. Oh, here’s tea. Thank you, Hetty.”

Nodding, the Jamaican housekeeper placed the
silver tray on the low table and withdrew. Lady Margaret picked up
the teapot – also silver but of sleek modern design – and poured
tea into three cups.

“Try the lemon ones,” she advised Kate,
indicating a three-tiered server crammed with biscuits and tea
cakes. “At any rate, I consider myself a good judge of character,
and I can’t imagine Madge murdering her husband over something as
pedestrian as a reasonably discreet affair.”

“You mean between Madge and Charlie
Fringate?” Kate asked.

“No.” Using silver tongs, Lady Margaret
extracted one sugar cube from the bowl and dropped it into her tea.
“You know, I wondered about them,” she continued, smiling at Kate.
“But you’re the first person I’ve heard suggest such a thing. So if
Madge and Charlie are having an affair, it’s better than discreet.
It’s clandestine.”

“Then what affair did you refer to?”
Hetheridge asked.

“Why, Malcolm Comfrey and Ginny Rowland, of
course,” Lady Margaret said.

“That’s interesting,” Hetheridge said,
glancing at Kate. “Jules Comfrey seemed convinced Ginny Rowland
despised her father.”

“Ah, well, love and hate, and the
ever-shifting line in between.” Lady Margaret sipped her tea. “I
understand Malcolm and Ginny were once powerfully attracted to one
another. But such things wane. After a year or so, Malcolm lost
interest, and Ginny found Burt Rowland. Burt always struck me as a
bit of a dullard, not to mention a cold fish, but who knows what
goes on behind closed doors? Never figured Burt for the sort to
marry a, how shall I put it – career girl?”

Hetheridge leaned forward, taking Lady
Margaret’s meaning at one. Kate, too, made the leap.

“Ginny Rowland was on the game?”

“Just the phrase I was looking for,” Lady
Margaret said, delighted. “You sound like my nephew Frederick. He
watches a great many crime dramas.”

Kate glanced at Hetheridge. “I’m assuming
neither Malcolm Comfrey nor Burt Rowland were the sort of blokes to
pick up girl off a curb. Did Ginny Rowland work out of her own
flat, or was she part of some posh escort service?”

Lady Margaret beamed at her. “I wish I knew.
Fascinating to learn of such things. And mind you, I’m not
suggesting Ginny Rowland broke any laws. Frederick has assured me
that prostitutes who operate from home are quite legal.”

“One girl, working alone in her own space, is
an entrepreneur,” Hetheridge agreed. “Two girls or more makes it a
brothel, and thus illegal. We’ll certainly look into Ginny
Rowland’s background.”

“Why, Tony. I had no idea you were so
involved in the enforcement of morals and good behavior.”

“I’m not. That sort of thing falls to other
units. But on the night Malcolm Comfrey was murdered, didn’t Jules
claim her father treated Ginny Rowland like a cheap whore?”
Hetheridge asked Kate.

Kate reached for her bag, searching for her
smart phone and the wealth of notes it contained, and then stopped,
smiling at him. “You’re right. I’m sure that phrase is in my notes.
Quite a memory you have there.”

“For an old man,” Hetheridge said.

“Hah,” Lady Margaret burst out. She did not
look amused.

“Ginny Rowland seems to have propelled
herself right up the social ladder,” Kate said. “Protecting a
secret that would make her and her husband social pariahs is as
good a motive for murder as any.”

Hetheridge nodded. “You and DS Bhar may find
tomorrow morning’s interview quite fruitful. I don’t suppose you
have any more surprises for us, Margaret? Any nuggets about Jules
Comfrey? Or her fiancée Kevin Whitley, whom we currently have in
custody for breaking into the Comfrey house on the night of the
murder?”

“Jules Comfrey?” Lady Margaret dismissed her
with a flick of a hand. “Tedious girl. Verging on the non-entity. I
despise this generation who enters adulthood with no idea of who
they are, or what they want to be, and flail around for the next
ten years like a fish in a blender. If I’d been given access to the
possibilities the modern nineteen-year-old female takes for
granted, I would have lived a remarkable life indeed. As for her
fiancée, I never met him. But I imagine he has a great deal of
explaining to do. Can’t you confront him with fingerprints, or DNA,
or something like that?”

“It’s in the works,” Hetheridge said.
“Forensic Services is overburdened at present, but we may have a
complete report by tomorrow, or the next day.”

“More than one house on fire, eh, Tony?” Lady
Margaret said. “I wonder you haven’t moved up to Commander by
now.”

“Veteran of the public schools though I am,”
Hetheridge said, “there’s only so much institutionalized buggery
even I will submit to. Chief Superintendent is as far as I will
likely ever rise.”

“Commander would be more fitting for a man of
your talents,” Lady Margaret said. “Less dangerous. That incident
where you were nearly killed on that miscreant’s doorstep comes to
mind.”

Startled, Hetheridge shot Lady Margaret a
cool, repressive glance. She gazed back at him, eyes sparkling with
strange mischief.

“I heard about that before I was even
assigned to the Chief,” Kate said. “Legend has it he never
flinched. Could have repelled the bullet with his stiff upper lip.
And didn’t miss even a day’s work after the experience.”

Still more surprised, Hetheridge was grateful
for his lifelong tendency to assume a poker face when ambushed.
Instead of coloring or stammering, he said, “Ancient history.”
Taking a sip of his now-cold tea, he replaced the cup on its saucer
and smoothed his tie back into place. “We’re grateful for your
time, Margaret. Now I believe we must return to work.”

“Indeed.” Lady Margaret held his gaze, that
mischievous glint still in her eyes. She was communicating
something to him, something he was too thick or self-absorbed to
receive. Then, with a half-audible sigh, Margaret turned back to
Kate with a smile.

“I wish I could be a fly on the wall when you
interview Ginny and Burt tomorrow. Burt comes from a family with
pretensions that would make the royal family look common. And Ginny
long ago shed any signs of her entrepreneurial past. Don’t wear
anything like you have on now, my dear, or they’ll eat you
alive.”

Kate glanced at the suit she wore – a
gray-pinstriped number, pink shot through the weave, and black lace
accents. Hetheridge remembered it from her first day in his office.
He was no judge of women’s fashions, but he recognized bargain
fabric and substandard tailoring when he saw it. Kate’s choice to
accessorize the suit with sheer black hosiery and shiny black pumps
– fuck-me pumps, as Superintendent Jackson and others around the
Yard called them – changed the suit’s original message, which was
“shop girl on a budget.” The new message, as Mrs. Snell put it, was
“tart subpoenaed to court.”