Village Affairs (22 page)

“Oh, it must have been about eight thirty. Ned here came back with me and brought up an Indian take-away.”

“And what time did you leave Miss Bonnar’s flat?”

“Somewhere between half nine and ten,” Watkinson said.

Carmichael was rapidly figuring times in his head. If Bingham had driven straight on to London after having his tire mended, he should have arrived there at about six or shortly thereafter.

“Suppose, Miss Bonnar,” he asked, “that Mr. Bingham did arrive while you were out. Do you know where he might have gone to wait? Did he have any friends in London?”

“He knew an archaeologist at the university,” she answered. “Max Dearfield is his name, I think. But, really, I should have expected him to let himself into the house to wait. He had a key.”

“You found no sign that he had been there?”

She shook her head. “No. Of course, I wasn’t looking for anything, but if he had been there, he would have left a note to let me know he was in town. As I said, I wasn’t expecting him.”

“Yes, that would be common sense,” said Carmichael. “Let me ask you about something else. Had you met Mr. Bingham’s daughter, Eve?”

“No.” Tears appeared in her eyes again, but she blinked them away with an effort. “No, I hadn’t.”

“Do you know if he had informed her of your engagement?”

“I don’t believe so. I asked him once, and he said there would be time enough later. We were really being very cautious that no word should leak out.”

“Understandably,” said Carmichael, who remembered the circus that had surrounded her first marriage to Eugene Sinclair. “Did Mr. Bingham ever talk to you about taking up his old job with Mr. Sealingham’s company?”

“He mentioned it, I think,” she said vaguely.

“Did you receive the impression that he really meant to do it?”

“I don’t know.” She made an impatient gesture. “Charlie was full of schemes. He just said once that after we were married, if I took another role, he could always go up to Andrew’s place and tinker for a bit if he felt dull. I suppose he meant it. I don’t really know.”

“I see,” said Carmichael. “Then there’s just one last question, Miss Bonnar. Have you a prescription for sleeping tablets?”

“Why, yes,” she replied, surprised.

“Did Mr. Bingham ever borrow one from you?”

“Heavens, no. Charlie never had the least problem sleeping.” The import of the question suddenly struck her, and her eyes widened. “Chief Inspector, had he taken something?”

“Yes,” replied Carmichael. “Taken, or was given. We found some sleeping tablets loose in his medicine cupboard. Did you ever leave any there? Or might he have borrowed some of yours without asking first?”

“Absolutely not,” she said flatly. “I might have had the bottle in my purse when I stayed at the cottage, but I certainly never left any there. And if he had wanted some for any reason, he would have asked me.”

Carmichael nodded slowly; he had been expecting a different answer, but adjusted smoothly nonetheless. “Might we have one of your tablets for analysis? It may have been something else altogether that he took.”

“Of course,” she said, rising. “I have an extra bottle that I keep here at the farmhouse—you can have that. I’ll just go up and get it.”

She obviously welcomed the opportunity to leave the room, but for all that, she returned quickly. She handed a small bottle to Carmichael, saying, “I’m afraid there only seem to be a couple left—I must have used more than I remembered.”

Carmichael thanked her and, after glancing at the label, passed the bottle to Gibbons, whose heart took a leap when he saw it. It was Seconal.

“This is a rather old-fashioned medication,” said Carmichael. “Is there some reason you take it, rather than one of the newer drugs?”

She shrugged. “I got the prescription years ago,” she answered. “I’ve never used it every night or anything like that, just occasionally when I’m too wrought-up to sleep. My doctor has mentioned other sleeping medications, but this has always worked for me. I didn’t want to change.”

Carmichael nodded. “I see. And how do you take the pills?”

She stared at him as if he had gone mad. “I swallow them down with some water,” she answered.

“I only ask,” said Carmichael, smiling, “because some people have trouble swallowing tablets, and you might have needed to mix them up in something.”

“Oh. No, I’ve never had difficulty that way.”

“Well,” said Carmichael, “I think that’s all for the moment, then.” He rose. “Thank you for your help, Miss Bonnar. We may have additional questions later, but we’ll be off now.”

He shook hands all round, collected Gibbons, and retreated.

“Well, said Watkinson brightly when the door had closed behind the policemen, “that’s over.”

“Thank God,” she said. “I need a drink. A good, stiff one.”

“All right,” he said, moving to fetch it for her. “But don’t forget there’s still one hurdle to go, Joan.”

“One hurdle? Oh, you mean the media.”

“After that you can relax and drink all you want.”

She grimaced. “Not if I don’t want to be hungover at the funeral tomorrow,” she said. “God, how I wish we could keep the press away from that. It’s going to be bad enough as it is, with Eve there and never having met me.”

Watkinson handed her a neat scotch. “It won’t be so bad,” he said reassuringly. “All you have to do is give her your condolences and wait through the ceremony. I’ll have a car waiting to nip you away at the earliest opportunity. And you’re bearing up beautifully, Joan. This will be easy as pie compared to some of the other things you’ve had to go through.”

“You mean Gene,” she said dully. She had gulped down half the whisky and seemed calmer. “That was different, Ned. He was … well, I’ve had one great love in my life and I’m old enough now to know that kind of thing only happens once. But Charlie had never really got over his first wife, so we were in the same boat. We thought we could be … comfortable together. I expect,” she added bitterly, “that was foolish. Joan Bonnar is not a comfortable sort of person to be.”

“You’ve had some rotten breaks, that’s all,” insisted Watkinson. He patted her arm and rose. “I had best go tell the reporters you’ll speak to them in, say, an hour. I do think it’s best to get it all over with at once, unless you really want to wait until later.”

“No,” she answered. “No, you’re right, let’s get it over with. You can come and tell me what I ought and ought not to say while I’m repairing my make-up. But, Ned,” she added sharply, “I will not see them here.”

“No, of course not,” he said. “I’ll make arrangements for somewhere in the village. We’ll drive down. You just sit for a minute and collect yourself, and I’ll be right back.”

She nodded and he left her, sipping scotch and staring out the window.

Carmichael paused in the hallway, his eyebrows drawn together in a thoughtful frown. “On the face of it,” he said, “it’s difficult to see how Bingham could have taken the stuff by accident. But she could have murdered him deliberately, Gibbons.”

“How do you figure that, sir?” asked Gibbons. “She was being interviewed at seven o’clock when he died.”

“But she didn’t need to be there,” answered Carmichael. “She could have arranged to meet him at the townhouse after her interview, making certain she’s late coming back. And in the meanwhile, she leaves out something he’ll be sure to eat or drink while he’s waiting for her, thoroughly lacing it with Seconal.”

“But she couldn’t be sure where she would find the body, sir,” said Gibbons, like Carmichael keeping his voice low lest they be overheard. “What about Watkinson?”

“She said he brought up the food, lad. He probably stopped off for it while she went on to the house. It would give her enough time to drag the body into the bedroom, if it wasn’t there already.” Carmichael considered. “If Watkinson left her at half nine, she might just have made it here before Mrs. Eberhart saw the light in Bingham’s cottage at eleven thirty.” He frowned. “But then how would she get back? I can’t see her coming over here, to three people who clearly don’t like her, even if two of them are family.”

“But we already know they’d lie for her,” pointed out Gibbons. “They already have, when I asked about Bingham’s girlfriend. And, remember, sir, only the twins were here. Mrs. Potts was at her sister’s.”

“That’s true,” said Carmichael. “Well, if she did come to them, they could have driven her back that night. Or she might have taken the train, if she were disguised. We’ll have to find out when she was first seen on Monday—you can get that from the press agent. And we’ll have to check out the parking situation around her flat.”

Gibbons had been thinking. “There’s no reason to think Watkinson is out of it,” he said. “I don’t mean for the actual murder, but what do you think a press agent’s first reaction would be on encountering a dead body in his famous client’s house?”

A slow smile spread over Carmichael’s face. “To cover it up,” he answered.

“Exactly, sir. She might even have counted on that. If he believed Bingham had had a heart attack, he might well have been willing to help her move the body and thus leave her name out of it. And he could have driven her back.”

“That does leave us with those bicycle tracks, though,” said Carmichael. “They wouldn’t have needed the bike. On the other hand, we’ve never been sure the bicycle was connected with the murder.”

“No, sir.” Gibbons hesitated. “But do you think she did do it, sir?” he asked.

Carmichael gave him a wry smile. “I don’t know,” he answered. “It’s the devil, having to deal with a professional actress. Well, we’d best finish up here. Mrs. Potts is probably in the kitchen—you look for her, and I’ll find the twins. We need to find out whether or not they knew where Bingham was going on Sunday.”

The kitchen was a large one with a blue-and-cream tiled floor and a good deal of highly polished copper hanging from the ceiling. A long butchers-block table ran down the middle of the room and Mrs. Potts was seated at it on a stool, looking over the paper and drinking a cup of coffee. She looked up as Gibbons came in and said, “I expect you’ve seen her then?”

There was no mistaking who she meant.

“Yes,” answered Gibbons. “I’ve just come to put one or two questions to you.”

She nodded, her long face somber. “Well,” she said, “I’m sorry we couldn’t tell you before, but there it is: she would have taken our heads off. Would you like a coffee?”

Gibbons said he would and seated himself on a second stool while she fetched it.

Mrs. Potts had left Chipping Chedding on Sunday before Bingham and so had no knowledge of his departure or plans. But she admitted that, had she known, she would have assumed he was going to visit Miss Bonnar. She paused and then added, “We all liked Charlie. There was a bit of constraint after he took up with Miss Bonnar—well, there was bound to be. The twins don’t think much of anybody who would marry their mother and you can’t blame them. Still, we all felt that if she had to get married again, Charlie was a good sort.”

“But it must have been difficult, having her down here so much more often than usual?” suggested Gibbons, accurately picking up on what she had left unsaid.

“Difficult isn’t the word for it,” she said grimly. “And the very idea that she’d move back here after they were married! I nearly had a fit and Julie almost fainted away. It may be her house, but it’s been our home—the twins have always lived here, ever since they were babies. I confronted Charlie about that,” she added, “and he was decent, I must say. Said as how he’d work something out.”

“That was good of him.”

“Yes. As I said, he was a good sort.” She shrugged.

“So really,” pursued Gibbons, “you had no objections to the marriage beyond that?”

“No. Why should I? It’s no business of mine who she marries.”

“But they seemed happy together?”

“Oh, yes. They were very affectionate and all that. Not,” she added hastily, “that they were all over each other. They were a bit past that, it wouldn’t have been seemly.” She made a face. “Not that I think it’s seemly at any time of life. We had all that with Mr. Sinclair—she couldn’t take her eyes off him and he was the same. Tiresome, I call it. But it wasn’t like that with Charlie.”

“No rows?”

“None that I knew about. They were happy together in a quiet sort of way.”

Gibbons paused and sipped his coffee, thinking. “Is the household here completely dependent on Miss Bonnar financially?” he asked.

Mrs. Potts didn’t like the question, he could tell, but she answered gruffly, “More or less. The twins have what their father left them, but that’s not much. Miss Bonnar pays my salary and gives them an allowance. It’s generous, I’ll give her that.”

“Neither of the Bensons work then?”

She might have been a tigress whose cubs he was attacking.

“They do a lot of work in the parish,” she said huffily. “And Julie takes care of the horses herself—up every morning at dawn, she is. You can’t call that nothing. They certainly don’t sit about on their backsides—I didn’t bring them up that way.”

“Of course not,” said Gibbons soothingly. “I was only wondering if they could have moved elsewhere if they’d had the inclination, or whether they were tied to jobs here.”

She was placated, although there was still a dangerous glint in her eye. “They could move,” she said. “But why should they want to? Or have to? Even if Miss Bonnar had moved in with Charlie, she wouldn’t have stayed. She never does.”

Gibbons hesitated. “She’s impulsive, you mean?”

“That’s right. She may have had some idea of living the quiet life down here with Charlie, but she’d have been bored soon enough. Not with Charlie, I don’t mean, but with the reality of life in a small village. She’d have been off after a couple of months of it.”

“So then it wouldn’t have surprised you to hear that she’d had a change of heart and called the wedding off ?” asked Gibbons.

Mrs. Potts looked taken aback. “Certainly it would have,” she contradicted. “I’ve just finished telling you they were happy together. She can be impulsive, but that’s not to say she always is. I don’t think she agreed to marry Charlie on impulse. It wasn’t a whirlwind romance kind of thing at all.”