Murder Among Us (6 page)

"Chief Inspector Markby?" Meredith stared at him. "How do you mean, leaving?"

"I mean, getting promotion and shoved upstairs, you know."

"No, not a word!" Meredith tried to digest the idea. "Is this certain?"

"I don't know for sure, none of us does! He hasn't said a word to anyone. Don't tell him I was asking, will you? It's just that a rumour's been going round. I mean, we all think he's earned his promotion, but we'll all be sorry to see him go from Bamford."

"Go from Bamford?" This was so incredible a notion that even Meredith's fertile imagination had difficulty absorbing it. "Alan—not in Bamford?"

"People move about," said Pearce argumentatively. "I would have thought you'd know that, in your line of work."

"Well, yes, I certainly do. But he hasn't said anything of the sort to me and in any case—" She paused. "Maybe it's only a rumour."

"Perhaps." Pearce eyed her doubtfully. "I thought he would have told you, you being friendly with him, as it were. I didn't mean to put my foot in it!" he added with a wry grimace.

"No, of course not."

The brief discussion was over but it left Meredith thinking furiously and feeling a niggle of annoyance. Perhaps it wasn't true, only a rumour. On the other hand, there was no smoke without fire according to the old saying. In any large organisation word of change, promotions and the like, tended to precede official an-

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nouncement. If it were true, Alan might have mentioned it. They were close enough, surely?

She looked across the room. "I'll go and ask him myself if I can go upstairs. It won't take a second or two."

Meredith retraced her steps to where she'd last spotted Alan and found him surrounded by a small but agitated crowd consisting of Eric Schuhmacher, two police officers (male), one police officer (female, Wpc Jones) and a man she recognised vaguely as being the one who had raced vainly to cut off the streaker at the outset. She couldn't see Zoe Foster there and supposed that the girl had been isolated somewhere to be dealt with separately. Meredith, remembering Zoe's pale frightened face, felt a pang of sympathy.

As for the streaker, now identified as Hope Mapple, her limelight had been abruptly switched to another and more sinister subject. Silenced yet still able to display in her manner a trace of her former bold defiance, Ms. Mapple had been reunited with her clothes and whisked away in a police car to make her statement at the station.

It took a minute or two to catch Markby's eye and engage in a pantomime indicating she was freezing to death and could she go upstairs to get her coat. He nodded and signalled across the room to Pearce.

However, before Meredith could gain the staircase she was intercepted by Denis Fulton. He looked dreadful, grey-faced and sweating. Really, she thought, quite ill.

"I say," he said hurriedly, "all that charade-type miming you were doing over there, I take it you're going upstairs for some warm clothing?"

"Yes, my coat."

"You couldn't nip along to our room, number fourteen, and fetch down Leah's stole? She's upset and feeling cold and it would mean interrupting that fellow Markby again..."

"Certainly," Meredith said. She glanced across the room. Leah was sitting alone on a chair staring fixedly

into space, her face quite expressionless. Meredith would not have said that she gave any sign of being more upset than Denis. On the other hand, Denis presumably knew how to interpret his wife's mood.

"I don't want/' said Denis again in a hoarse undertone, "to interrupt him, Markby."

"He's very understanding," she heard herself say in defence of Alan whom Denis seemed to view as some kind of ogre. "But yes, he is rather busy."

"Don't want to talk to him!" said Denis, now showing a tendency to develop an alarming twitch at the corner of his left eye. "Have to talk to him, one of them, soon. But what for? We don't know anything about it!" His voice rose on a querulous note. "I don't see why we have to be kept hanging around here. We're not suspects, for pity's sake! Why couldn't Eric keep an eye on his blasted cellar? He's got no business letting bodies be found in it. It's Eric's hotel! I can understand why the plods want to talk to him! Why have we got to be grilled?"

"Routine, I suppose. I'll get the coats."

Upstairs the hotel was empty and her footsteps echoed muffled on the new carpeting. She found her coat and went along to room fourteen to find the stole. In the Fultons' room the subtle scent of expensive perfume lingered on the air. Leah's make-up items were on the dressing table and the dress she had worn earlier in the day was on a hanger hooked over the open bathroom door. Meredith, who had employed the same trick to remove creases by means of bathroom steam on many occasions, smiled. All the same, it was embarrassing to ferret about in someone else's room. Although there was no one on this floor but herself, she still felt that someone, a staff member or a police officer, might come in and ask what she was doing. She grabbed the stole and hurried back downstairs.

During her absence someone had organised cups of tea which were being served by an immaculate and admirably unflustered waiter from a trolley, incongruous

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in the circumstances. Eric clearly meant to look after his guests, no matter what. Meredith took the stole to where Leah sat and bent over her.

"Your husband asked me to bring this down for you."

Leah Fulton looked up and smiled. It was such a radiantly beautiful smile that Meredith experienced quite a feeling of shock. The same perfume as had left its traces in the bedroom made its discreet presence known and Leah's pose seemed perfect, not a hair out of place, no obvious sign of being upset. It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast between her manner and that of her agitated spouse and no one could have looked more unsuited to be on the scene of a murder. Years on the social treadmill, however, might explain her composure. Society hostesses and humble consular staff alike have to be able to cope with anything.

"Thank you!" Pearly-pink varnished nails closed on the stole. "Denis is very thoughtful. And it's so kind of you to bother."

"No trouble. It seemed easier than asking permission to leave the room twice."

"I shall have to ask permission to leave the room in a minute," said Leah unexpectedly. "I need to go to the loo." She pulled the stole round her shoulders with a sudden irritable movement and Meredith began to suspect that beneath the serene exterior Leah was very distressed, after all. Denis was right. "I suppose," Leah said drily, "that if and when we go, that woman police officer will accompany us. It's degrading."

"I suppose she will," Meredith looked at Wpc Jones. "Not much fun for her, either."

"Yes, well, we're not camels!" Leah wriggled. "And the last thing I need is to be plied with wretched cups of tea!"

This last was a response to the arrival of the waiter. Meredith took two cups of tea from him nevertheless and put them on the pristine damask cloth of the nearest

table. "You ought to drink something hot. It's good for shock."

"A brandy would be better but I suppose we wouldn't be allowed that!" Leah sighed and added in a resigned voice, "Denis didn't want to come today but he felt he owed it to Eric. I should have been firm and called it off. After all, there are plenty of food writers. Eric could have got someone else."

"Why didn't Denis want to come?" Meredith asked curiously. "I would have thought he'd have been keen to see the new restaurant."

"Well, to begin with, Denis said the restaurant couldn't be judged by a gala evening. What's needed is for someone to turn up on an ordinary evening and see how 7 the food and service is then."

That seemed a fair point and reason enough, but Leah went on after a pause. "And Denis has been under a lot of strain recently. He's got a new computer, word processor I suppose you call the thing. He can't get the hang of it. And then there's ..."

She fell silent. Meredith picked up her cup and sipped at the tea, grateful for the warming brew. Over the rim she could see that Denis had now been cornered by Paul who was no doubt talking shop. She supposed that was Paul's way of coping with any upset, but it made him appear unfavourably thick-skinned. Denis did not appear to think this was the time or the place either. He was answering in irritable monosyllables, fidgeting about, in turn shooting glances towards his wife, Meredith and the policemen.

"We haven't been married very long," Leah went on. "Less than a year. Are you married or cohabiting or anything? Sorry, I've forgotten your name."

"Meredith. No. I'm a singleton in every way." She wrenched her gaze from the two professional cookery experts.

"I thought you were with the police chap—the one who's taken charge?"

"Yes—he's a friend."

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1 'Bit of luck, his being on the spot, I suppose. Or not, depending how you view it. I don't suppose he's feeling very chipper about it."

Meredith looked across at Markby. He was looking distinctly harassed and was engaged in some argument with the man she didn't know. The one who had tried to head off the streaker.

Leah had picked up her cup but put it down again with a rapid movement which splashed the tea into the saucer. "Look," she said, leaning forward urgently. "You'll think I've got a frightful nerve, but I'd like to ask you something. It's personal."

"Fire away. I suppose I can always refuse to answer," said Meredith, wondering what on earth was coming and if it was anything to do with Alan.

"You said you're a singleton. Have you ever been married or lived with anyone?"

"No, not really. I'm in the Foreign Service. I'm posted in London these days, but I've spent a lot of time travelling about on my own. I've got used to it."

"That's it!" Leah said eagerly. "You've got used to it! That's how Denis was till he met me. Used to being on his own. I've been married before. The first time I married I was only eighteen and I married from my parents' home. I've never lived alone, you see. When my first marriage broke up, I remarried almost at once. When Marcus died, I met Denis quite soon after. I suppose it was quite indecent, in a way, marrying Denis so soon after Marcus passed on. But I wasn't being heartless. I loved Marcus and was very happy with him. But I wasn't used to being alone. I've never had a career. I—I need someone there. I need to be married. And I do love Denis." She paused. "I have to have someone to love, you see."

"Have you got any children?" Meredith put the question cautiously. As she had noticed before, shock acted on some people as too much alcohol did on others: it made them talkative, unburdening their troubled minds

of personal problems with an often embarrassing degree of intimate detail to complete strangers.

"Yes, a daughter. But she's like all youngsters now, very independent with her own flat, own friends, own life . . . We really have nothing in common. We get along all right—but don't see too much of each other." Leah sighed. "It's difficult for poor Denis, trying to adjust to having me around. Have you and that police boyfriend of yours ever contemplated moving in together? He seems a nice man. Good looking, too/'

Meredith smiled apologetically. "It wouldn't work!" she said more bleakly than she'd meant to. "I suppose, referring back to what you were saying, I'm used to being on my own. Alan was married once. It didn't work out and it's left him wary. I think he'd—well, he'd like it if we were together on some permanent basis. But I'm not good at sharing my life with anyone else all the time. It sounds selfish but I don't think I'm selfish. I think I'm realistic. I think whatever relationship Alan and I have, it will last longer if we're not under one another's feet. I might be wrong, of course."

Confidences had a way of inspiring other confidences, she thought wryly. Why was she telling her all this 0

"Is he ever jealous?" Leah asked.

Meredith thought that one over. "I've never really— well, he might be. He's never said anything. Not that he's got any reason to be jealous. I haven't got another lover hidden away in London."

"They never do say anything," Leah muttered. "That's the trouble. They brood. They build things up in their imagination. Then when you ask them outright, they deny it. You can always tell because they start to act shifty. I mean, I might not know much in general but I do know something about men! It's the devil's own job trying to get them to talk about what they really feel. They thmk it isn't macho, or something. Men. frankly, can be extremely difficult!"

There was a disturbance. Alan Markby had come into

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the middle of the room. Everyone fell silent and looked at him expectantly.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm sure you'll all agree with me that this is a most unfortunate occurrence. We have the names and addresses of everyone here and, if anyone would now like to leave, you are free to do so. I'm afraid the activities of the police both inside and outside the building mean that the dinner has had to be cancelled. Mr. Schuhmacher asks me to make his apologies and I apologise on behalf of the police. It can't be helped!"

Markby's voice rose on the last phrase to drown the groan from the hungry crowd in the dining room.

"There are two other hotels in Bamford and several pubs which do food in the immediate area so if you'd all be so good, perhaps I could ask you to make your own arrangements. We're all sorry for the inconvenience!"

Markby's brisk words met with mutinous silence.

"I shall go back to London at once!" said Merle in a loud voice.

"Find ourselves a pub meal!" Leah gave a short laugh. "And all of us dressed to kill!" She broke off and pulled a face. "Oh dear, wrong expression in the circumstances!"

"Miss Foster?" Markby asked courteously.

The girl was huddled in an armchair in the hotel lounge. She looked ill, her face grey and twitching, unshed tears glistening in her eyes. His question may or may not have registered with her.

1 'I'm Chief Inspector Markby,'' he introduced himself as he took a seat by her. "I doubt I'll be in charge of this case but as I'm on the spot and until someone else is put in charge, I'm co-ordinating the early work. Do you understand?"