Village Affairs (12 page)

“Ann was down visiting Clara, one of our daughters. She’s due to have her baby any day now. Clara, I mean, not Annie.” He laughed.

Carmichael congratulated him on this forthcoming event, thanked him for his help, and departed.

He paused as he settled himself in the car, and pulled out his mobile phone. As expected, Gibbons had left a message while Carmichael had been speaking to Sealingham, and he punched in the sergeant’s number as he started the car.

“How are you coming, lad?” he asked when Gibbons answered. “Finished with those interviews?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Gibbons. “It’s all much as we thought, except for one surprise. Eve Bingham was in London on Sunday night.”

“What?”

“She had come over for a party on Saturday and didn’t fly back ’til Monday. She spent Sunday night alone in her hotel room.”

“My God, Gibbons.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m on my way back,” said Carmichael. “We’ll go over everything then.”

“Right you are, sir,” said Gibbons cheerfully.

Swearing, Carmichael rang off and started out with all possible speed for the motorway.

“Hold on,” he said to himself, slacking his speed about a mile farther on. “What are you dashing about for, old man? Gibbons is a bright lad, and not one to get carried away. You should have faith in him to do his job. And,” he added practically, “if I stop for lunch, I won’t be descending on the poor lad all hungry and out of sorts.”

There was, he remembered, a likely looking pub not too much farther on. He set out toward it at a moderate pace.

Gibbons returned to the police station to make some phone calls. It had been arranged that he could use Constable Stikes’s office, which turned out to be little more than a cubbyhole furnished with a desk, complete with a phone and a computer, and two uncomfortable chairs. The window overlooked the car park.

Constable Stikes was out when they arrived, though the sergeant at the desk said she was expected back shortly.

“She’s probably out detecting,” said Gibbons gloomily, seating himself at the desk. “She’s not a detective, but she seems quite taken with helping us out.”

“Surely that’s all to the good,” said Bethancourt, shifting one of the hard, upright chairs so that he could sit with his feet propped up on the windowsill. Cerberus followed him, sitting and gazing out the window. “I mean, she knows everyone in the village.”

“Yes, but she’s overzealous if you ask me,” said Gibbons, taking out his notebook and opening it on the desk.

“It’s no good ringing St. Martin’s Lane,” he grumbled. “They’ll never tell me over the phone whether Eve Bingham stayed there or not. I wonder if Carmichael will send me back—he seems determined to leave no stone unturned, although if you ask me it’s all make-work until we find Bingham’s girlfriend.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Bethancourt, lighting a cigarette and exhaling slowly. “Doesn’t it strike you that a case which appeared quite straightforward and hardly seemed to be a case at all is now getting more complicated with every fact we learn?”

Gibbons shrugged. “The simplest explanation is usually the right one,” he reminded Bethancourt. “And if there’s reason to keep a six-month affair quiet, there’s probably a reason to kill to keep it so.”

“There is that,” agreed Bethancourt. “And yet, there is the money. When very rich men die, the money is so often the reason, and that’s simple enough.”

“True,” sighed Gibbons. “And now that we know the heiress was in London on the night in question … well, I probably will have to go back and visit the hotel.”

“If that’s a hint that I should drive you, you can forget it,” responded Bethancourt uncharitably. “Marla would have a fit. Oh, no, half a tic—I forgot.”

“You forgot what?”

“She’s got to go back tomorrow—she’s flying out to Paris for another shoot. That’s all right then. You can come with us, and I’ll drive you back afterward.”

“I don’t know that Carmichael will send me yet,” said Gibbons evasively. He had no desire to make a third with Bethancourt and Marla. The addition, he was certain, would not be welcome to her. “I’d better try the doctor again,” he said, pulling the phone toward him. “I couldn’t get him yesterday, or this morning.”

“I thought you spoke to Dr. Cross.”

“Not him,” replied Gibbons, dialing. “This is the cardiologist Bingham saw in London, a Dr. Preston Loomis.”

This time, he succeeded in actually speaking to the eminent doctor, who confirmed that Bingham had been a patient of his at one time and went on to refuse any further information, when in fact Gibbons had only been about to ask when the doctor would be available for an interview.

“You could be anybody,” he said cheerfully, “anybody at all. You come ’round tomorrow with proper identification and I’ll be happy to tell you all all about it. By then I may even remember it. Only,” he added, “if it’s going to take any time, you’d better come late, around five. Otherwise you’ll put my appointments out, and I’ll have patients howling at me all afternoon.”

Gibbons promised that he or another policeman would be there tomorrow at five and rang off.

Bethancourt had abandoned his chair to perch on the windowsill and flick his cigarette ash out of the open casement. He had opened a small, leather-bound book and was smiling down at it.

“Marla’s going to be in Paris for four days,” he said.

“You keep her itinerary in your diary?” asked Gibbons.

“Yes. I started noting down when she would be gone last spring, after the charity ball debacle.”

“What charity ball debacle?” said Gibbons.

“Oh, you remember.” Bethancourt waved a hand. “I had taken tickets for the ball, only to find that Marla was spending that weekend working in Greece. Tickets to charity balls are expensive, so rather than waste them, I took my friend Claire. It was all perfectly innocent, but when Marla came back and found out about it, she was furious.”

As far as Gibbons was concerned, Bethancourt and Marla were always having one row or another, and he had never bothered to keep track of them.

“Oh, yes,” he said vaguely.

“In any case,” continued Bethancourt, “I thought Marla, as she’s going to be in Paris, might as well dig up what she can about Eve Bingham while she’s there. Particularly anything about the visit Charlie paid her last year on his way home.”

Gibbons stared at him incredulously. “And why would Marla do that?” he demanded. “She loathes murder investigations.”

“Yes, but she’s taken an interest in this one because of Eve,” replied Bethancourt. “I think the idea that she might actually be acquainted with a murderer has been very unsettling for her. If I take the right tone, I’m sure I can get her to do it.”

Gibbons shrugged. “Well, you needn’t bother,” he said. “The girlfriend is still our most likely suspect in any case. And Carmichael’s already spoken to the Surete about Bingham’s visit to his daughter.”

“Not the same thing at all,” said Bethancourt. “Nobody gossips to officers from the Surete. Whereas Marla might find out all sorts of interesting things. If you’re wrong about the girlfriend and Eve did kill her father, then her relationship with him must be at the core of this case.”

“
If
she killed him,” said Gibbons, returning his attention to his list. “I suppose anything that sheds light on how she felt about him might give us a line to follow, but it won’t prove anything one way or another.”

“You can’t solve a puzzle without all of the pieces,” said Bethancourt, undeterred. He took a last puff of his cigarette and tossed the butt out the window. “Truly, I think we’ve become far too fixated on this mysterious woman. When you stop and think about it, nearly anyone might have killed him.”

“Not anyone,” protested Gibbons. “By all accounts, Bingham was well-liked in the community.”

Bethancourt waved away this detail. “What about other family members?” he asked. “Were there any?”

“Bingham had a sister,” said Gibbons, crossing out an item on his list, “but she’s dead. There’s a nephew in Lincoln.”

“It would also be interesting to know who Eve Bingham left her fortune to.”

“On the chance we’ve got a serial killer on our hands?” asked Gibbons sarcastically. “Anyway, most of the money and investments are Eve’s already.”

“But our killer might not realize that,” said Bethancourt. “And it doesn’t have to be a serial killer—he could be planning to marry her.”

“Marla might know if Eve is planning to get married,” said Gibbons, retuning his attention to his notebook.

“She might at that,” said Bethancourt. “Or at least she might find out while she’s in Paris.”

They were interrupted by the entrance of Constable Stikes, who smiled broadly when she saw them.

“There you are, sir,” she said. “I’ve found that garage you wanted.”

“Garage?” asked Gibbons.

“Yes, sir. Where Mr. Bingham got his tire repaired. The chief inspector mentioned it this morning.”

“Oh, yes,” said Gibbons, who had clearly had no idea she intended following up on this lead. “Well, that’s good work, Constable. You’ll have to write up a report for the case file, but you can just give me the gist now.”

“Of course, sir,” said the constable, leaning comfortably against the doorjamb. “It’s a place out on the A40. Mike Nelson is the chap’s name. He’s closed Sundays, but his house is close by the garage, and Bingham pulled in before teatime on Sunday. Three thirty is as close as Nelson can come to the time, though I would put it a bit earlier if Bingham drove straight there.”

Gibbons raised an eyebrow. “Even allowing time for him to discover the puncture, pull over, and have a look himself ?”

“Yes, sir,” said the constable, straightening just a little. “Not much earlier, mind you.”

Gibbons nodded and waved a hand. “Go on then.”

“Right, sir. There was a nail in the right front tire, and Nelson helped Bingham get it off and they patched it up together. There wasn’t a spare. Nelson says he never saw Bingham before that, at least not that he can remember, but he was impressed with how he knew what to do. Bingham apologized for getting him out on a Sunday, and said he could fix it himself, if Nelson would just let him have the use of his tools, but Nelson’s a careful bloke and stuck with him. Says it took them close on an hour from the time Bingham pulled in to when he left, maybe a bit less.”

“That ties up beautifully,” said Gibbons. “The scene-of-the-crime men found a few nails scattered in the road just at Bingham’s cottage. He could easily have picked it up there. I don’t suppose Nelson kept the nail?”

“No, sir.”

“It might explain the bicycle, too,” put in Bethancourt. “You know, the marks they found by the hedge. Someone could have picked up a nail in their bicycle tire, stashed the machine in the hedge, and gone on, picking the bike up again on their way back.”

“That’s true,” said Gibbons thoughtfully. “We’ve been assuming that it was the murderer’s—that he drove Bingham’s car back and used the bicycle to get away. But you could certainly be right, and it might have nothing to do with the murder at all.” He paused a moment and then retuned his attention to the constable. “You say Nelson’s place is on the A40? That would mean Bingham was heading toward London, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. That’s the way most people take.”

“Well, thank you very much, Constable. I’ll let the chief inspector know as soon as I hear from him, and—” He broke off at the sound of the telephone. “That’s probably him now.”

Stikes nodded and, with considerable tact, wandered out again. She was clearly enjoying this departure from her daily routine, and Bethancourt was betting that she had stopped just outside the door, out of sight, but not out of earshot.

“Gibbons here … oh, Marla, hello.” He raised inquiring eyebrows at Bethancourt, who jumped to his feet at the sound of his girlfriend’s name and began to make hasty denial gestures, pointing repeatedly to the door. “No, I’m afraid he’s left already,” said Gibbons smoothly.

“I’ll ring you later about tomorrow,” hissed Bethancourt, edging toward the door.

“He said he was going back to the manor,” said Gibbons into the phone. “He left a few minutes ago.”

He nodded and waved at his friend as Bethancourt, calling his dog to heel, disappeared.

CHAPTER
7

T
hursday nights in Chipping Chedding were reserved for the meetings of the Women’s Institute. This meant that on Thursday night Astley-Cooper was forced to cook his own dinner, since both his cook, Mrs. Cummins, and his housekeeper, Mrs. Leggett, were stalwart members of the WI. Not that Astley-Cooper minded. Mrs. Cummins was an excellent cook, but confined herself to good, basic English food, while Astley-Cooper had occasional cravings for more exotic fare, a taste he had developed during his misspent youth in London. Thursdays, therefore, were his night for experimenting.

Tonight, in honor of his guests, he was experimenting with Beef Tenderloin en Chemise Strabougeoise, as his cookbook termed it, although, as he confided to his guests, he rather thought it was beef Wellington himself. Bethancourt, a fine cook in his own right, thought it was ambitious. Marla, eyeing the ingredients suspiciously, thought with resignation that one meal, however large, was hardly likely to spoil her figure. Marla’s own cooking seldom advanced beyond scrambled eggs, but she had, in deference to the do-it-yourself atmosphere prevailing in the kitchen, tied a towel around her waist to protect her jade-green satin lounge suit.

Bethancourt poured out some of the fine wine he had purchased to augment this repast, while casting a dubious eye on Astley-Cooper’s ministrations to the filet of beef with a brandy-soaked tea towel.

“Here you are, my love,” he said, handing Marla her glass. “Uh, I’ll just put yours over here, out of the way, Clarence,” he added.

“Right!” said Astley-Cooper, cheerfully brandishing a large knife. “Thank you, Phillip. Now then, I’ll just slice this lovely filet into six equal parts.”

“You’re cutting it up?” Bethancourt was alarmed.

“No, no; you don’t slice all the way through,” said Astley-Cooper confidently and obscurely. “Perhaps you and Marla wouldn’t mind just spreading a little foie gras on that ham over there.”