Three Little Maids (15 page)

‘We are already aware that she worked part
-time for a couple of days in a local pub. And that she had a boyfriend, Cliff Jones. Is that correct?’

The girls exchanged covert glances. Kent thought he was right. They are not sure whether to spill the beans or cover up to protect their friend. Well if they could persuade these two to talk they might be worth listening to, and it seemed Turner thought so too.

Ilse brought out a packet of cigarette paper and some tobacco. She wanted to roll her own. She was feeling uncomfortable. Kent felt sorry for her. ‘May I, bitte?’ He nodded. She rolled a cigarette expertly and offered it to Marie who shook her head.

Turner felt instinctively in his jacket pocket. He hadn’t got a peppermint lump on him. He ought to have checked before coming out. Perhaps Carole was right. He should try a patch.

‘Come on now,’ Kent said. ‘Don’t be afraid to speak out girls. If you know anything at all that we should know, let’s be having it. If you cover up something because you don’t like talking about Yvette’s private life, you could be helping the man who killed your friend. She was the victim of an especially brutal murder. As was Maureen Carey. I cannot go into the full details, and I’m sure you don’t want to hear them.’

Marie drew in her breath sharply. Ilse choked and spluttered on her aromatic smelling cigarette then took a large gulp of her fizzy drink and heaved again. Marie patted her gently on the back. Kent waited patiently till she’d fully recovered.

‘Miss Weisbaum, Miss Vallette? What can you tell us? There was someone else she was involved with that you knew about, perhaps? Other than Mr. Jones. You can speak now in complete confidence. It won’t go any further than this table. Right, Turner?’

‘Yes, guv.’

Marie looked at Ilse. She nodded and stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. ‘If it can help she was seeing an older man. Much older than Yvette. It would be thirty years or more…’

‘And can you tell me his name?’

Again the slight hesitancy. ‘Difficult it is to explain. He is a well revered man in the town. You must know of him, Inspector.’

‘Well known?’ Turner intervened.

‘He is in the public eye a great deal?’

‘Yes, indeed. I think so very much. He is the Mayor. M
’sieur Berkley.’

‘Phew!’ Turner looked at Kent whose face was kept well under control. Perhaps he had been expecting something like this. Hence their problem in speaking out. It was like trying to get winkles out of their shells. Still they didn’t wish to speak ill of the dead. Which was commendable. Would Yvette have behaved the same if put in their position? Kent wondered.

‘Mr. Berkley, you say. And how do I know if you are telling the truth? Did she tell you this?’

Marie shrugged. ‘Mais oui! She knew we’d seen them together. She laughed about it.’

‘So how did they come to meet? Do you know that too?’

‘M
’sieur Berkley, he comes to present some prizes here and she was one of the students who were given special awards for first year work. Yvette, she came onto him from the start. And we saw him pick her up in his car one day. It was a red Porsche. A beautiful car. And she didn’t deny it, did she, Ilse?’ Her friend shook her head. ‘You spoke about it. She seemed quite proud of what she’d done. She was like how you would say collecting wigs?’

‘Scalps
- you mean, miss,’ Turner said with a chuckle.

‘Yes that is right. And money he gave her too. Lots of it. And presents. Perfume and some lovely lingerie. She showed it to us. He owns the big store in town. He is wealthy, is he not, Inspector?’

‘Yes he is.’ And a bloody fool by the sound of it, Kent thought. ‘And how long would you say she had known him, girls?’

‘Since January.’

‘ No. Later than that, Ilse. February it must be.’

‘And how did Cliff Jones take this? Any idea? Did he know about Berkley? Did she mention this at all?’

‘Cliff, he is mad. She tells us this. Like she was pleased. Crazy at first. But she sees him too. Often. We think she was stringing them both along. Or - Cliff was helping her to take money from that stupid old man.’

Kent nodded. Turner’s sandy eyebrows were raised. He was more than likely thinking the same thing. With Berkley in the running there was the chapel connection again. Was Berkley really under pressure from Yvette to pay or be shown up
for what he was; a middle aged married man who lusted after a young girl?

‘So you would say then that she was meeting Mr. Berkley often?’

‘Yes, she was.’

‘He took her out for long drives in his car.’ Ilse intervened. ‘And sometimes he met her when she wasn’t working in the pub at night.’

‘And do you know where they used to meet? Did he have a key to her place, do you know?’

‘Yes he did. I asked Yvette one day whether she let him come to her room.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘She told me she gave him a key.’

‘She encouraged him then.’

‘Oh yes. But she was afraid that Cliff might come on them meeting there. So she met him sometimes at the chapel.’

‘At the chapel? That’s not a usual place to take a girlfriend, is it?’

‘No. But, there is the meeting room over the chapel. M
’sieur Berkley, he has a key to it. He’s on the chapel committee.’

‘Cozy, wouldn’t you say, Turner?’

‘Yes, guv.’

‘That is why Yvette used to laugh about it. His wife wouldn’t find out about them, Yvette said. She’d never dream of looking in the chapel for her husband. If she was to suspect him of being unfaithful. I thought it was bad to use a holy place for such things. And I told her so.’

‘Thank you for your help, young ladies,’ he said standing up. ‘We may have to call on you both again.’

Yvette and Maureen. Obviously neither of them suffered any qualms about frolicking in the chapel. They were two of a kind it seemed. If Susan Flitch was speaking the truth about her friend, they were both familiar with the meeting room, Kent thought as the students left the canteen.

‘It looks like our Mr. Berkley is well in the frame, Turner. I wonder if young Maureen had a go at tempting him?’

‘More than likely. But I shouldn’t think he would. She was the daughter of his friend. And under age only fifteen, guv. He’d be risking a great deal than messing about with Yvette.’

‘But he was already stupid enough to get mixed up with Yvette. So I think we shall have to have a chat with his Worship, the Mayor. And as soon as possible.’

28

‘I’m Cliff Jones. And I want to see Berkley.’ Cliff Jones glowered at the young blonde secretary seated behind the desk in Berkley’s Head office. ‘Now!’

‘Mr. Berkley’s busy. He has a business conference at eleven. What was it you want to see him about? Is it business, sir? You can’t go in.’ She stood up to block his way in a vain attempt to stop him from going in.

‘It’s my business. And I don’t care what he’s bloody doing. He’ll have to speak to me.’

The young man pushed the startled girl to one side. And bursting through the inner door like steam out of a geyser, he made his entrance into Tom Berkley’s office. And closed the door in the secretary’s frightened face.

Tom Berkley stood up, surprise mixed with bewilderment, changed quickly to anger on his face. ‘What the hell do you mean by barging in like this? I’ll have you forcibly removed if you don’t leave straight away.’

His answer came swiftly with Jones’s hard fist in his face. Blood spurting from his nose splashed down his pale blue silk shirt.

‘You tell me now, man, what you did to my girl? My Yvette! And don’t tell me it wasn’t you that she had a date with on Saturday night. You’re not going to get away with it you-you bastard. I’m reporting you to the police today.’

Jones stood shaking his fist over Berkley who collapsed back down into the leather chair behind the desk.

There was a knock on the door and it opened again. ‘Mr. Berkley!’ His secretary cried out when she saw the bloody mess his face was in. His nose resembling a squashed tomato. ‘Shall-shall I call the police. sir?’

‘Yes you do that, miss. Straight away. Your boss killed my
girlfriend!’

Tom Berkley was mopping his face with a handkerchief in a vain attempt to stem the blood flow which was still giving him trouble. ‘No Penny,’ he mumbled. ‘Take no notice. Just hold the fort outside. Tell Mr. Martin and the others, I’m
sorry, I cannot possibly see anyone today. Tell him - tell him I’m indisposed. I’m going home. And you’d better clear out Jones before I put the police on to you. Do as I say please, Penny.’

‘Yes, Mr. Berkley.’ The door shut behind her again.

‘Now hear this, you lout.’ Tom Berkley glared at Jones. ‘I never saw Yvette on Saturday night. I suppose you were behind the demands she made on me for money. Bleeding me dry. She threatened to show the letters I wrote to her, to my wife. But you’d know all about, wouldn’t you?’

‘Well, if you want me to keep quiet you’d better fork out the dosh to me. Only I’m going to make it ten instead of the five grand she asked for
- Your precious daughter Debbie is getting spliced soon, isn’t she? And she wouldn’t like her in-laws to know what her naughty Daddy has been up to. Now would she? And I have films to prove it. Very spicy stuff, it is too.’

Tom Berkley pulled himself together stood up against his desk and glared back at his inquisitor as he mopped his bloodied handkerchief against his nose. ‘You can go to hell! You’ll get no more money from me!’

‘What about the police? What will they make of you going out with a kid younger than your own daughter? Eh, Mister Berkley? There’s a motive if ever there was one to kill Yvette. You wanted to get her out of your life. So you did, permanently. Once you’d slept with her. An innocent kid still going to college. You couldn’t afford to let her blab it all to your family, could you, Mister Mayor,’ he sneered.

Berkley steadied himself and leant over his desk to face Jones. He was calmer now. ‘You were working in cahoots with Yvette to con me. The pair of you. And she was no innocent if she was involved with you. You must have put her on to me from the start.’

‘Well you’ll never know that now, will you?’

There was a knock on the door. The secretary put her worried face round the door. ‘Mr. Berkley. Inspector Kent is here. He would like to speak to you.’

The two men looked at one another. ‘You’d better clear out, Jones. I shall report you for bodily assault to the Inspector if you try it on again.’

‘You won’t get away with it that easy, Berkley.’ Jones clenched his fists again.

‘Get out!’

Kent eased his spare frame around the door. There was a look of amusement twitching his mouth as he said, ‘Good morning, gentlemen. Am I interrupting anything? A sparring match for instance? Mr. Jones seems to have scored first blood I see.’

‘Mr. Jones is just leaving, Inspector.’

‘Jones, I would advise you not to leave town. I would like to speak to you further. Down at the station.’

The door closed behind the disgruntled chef. Tom Berkley offered the policeman a chair. ‘And how can I help you, Inspector?’

He’d managed to pull himself together quite creditably, Kent thought. ‘I would like you to tell me just how well you knew Yvette Marceau, sir.’

‘Yvette, the girl who was the last victim?’ Tom Berkley leaned back in his chair. ‘Let me see now. I knew her from the pub. The Nag’s Head. She was a part-time barmaid, wasn’t she? She was an attractive girl. I was terribly shocked to hear about her murder.’ He shook his head and was forced to stem the flow of blood again with tissues that his secretary brought in. ‘I still can’t believe it, Inspector. It doesn’t seem possible that this could happen here.’

‘According to gossip you knew her much better than that, Mr. Berkley. You met her first of all in your position as Mayor at the College. And got to know her more intimately later on
PE.’

‘That is not so, Inspector.’ His voice became heated. ‘You really should get your facts right before you say these things.’

‘I think I have got my facts correct, sir. Two of her student friends were willing to speak about your relationship with Yvette.’

Tom Berkley glared at Kent over the wad of blood stained tissues. ‘They were jealous. You can’t believe them. And Jones talks rubbish. You can’t believe anything he says. He wants to cause trouble for me. He wants money.’

Kent nodded. ‘That much is true. I gathered from what I overheard just now with your office connection left on, that they had been blackmailing you. The pair of them. In fact they had quite a good thing going, didn’t they?’

‘If you know that much. Why didn’t you arrest Jones?’

‘It was you that Yvette’s school friends mentioned when we made our enquiries at the College. So like Jones said you had a motive for ridding yourself of the girl especially as you have a daughter getting married soon. Into an influential county family by all accounts.’

Temporally lost for words Tom Berkley nodded. ‘But I don’t think he’ll trouble you further, sir. Blackmail leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. And gets short thrift in the courts.’