By normal standards, the suite occupied by Yves Labrosse would have to be described as luxurious. At Streatfield Park it rated merely run-of-the-mill. A spacious sitting room, with a bedroom plus adjoining bathroom through an archway, nice decor, nice furnishings, nice pictures on the walls. While Dr. Meddowes made his on-scene examination and the SOC team were busy, Kate and Boulter absorbed what could be seen without touching anything and possibly destroying evidence.
The dead man lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. Blood had oozed from an ugly wound at the back of his head, matting his dark hair. He was dressed in the immaculate way Kate had always seen him—a beautifully tailored grey wool suit, with pristine white shirt and grey silk tie. There was something different about his attire, though, which she couldn’t pin down for the moment.
Labrosse had been struck from behind, it would appear, while seated at a small rosewood writing table. The murder weapon was there on the carpet, a silver-gilt candlestick with a heavy octagonal base. Presumably it had been snatched by the killer from one end of the mantelpiece, since its identical partner stood at the other end. Nothing else in the suite appeared to have been disturbed. A thin smear of blood covered the length of the candlestick, and Kate surmised that when the weapon came to be examined they’d find it had been wiped clean of fingerprints. With what? No sign of any bloodstained cloth.
By all the laws of logic, the second murder had to be linked with the first. Two entirely unconnected killings of top personnel at Streatfield Park was beyond credibility.
So where the hell, Kate thought despondently, had all her brilliant intuition and deduction got her? Maybe, after all, Adrian Berger had finally told her the truth. Maybe his false alibi had been given, just as he claimed, for chivalrous reasons, in order to protect a lady’s reputation (and also, of course, to protect himself and his firm from the wrathful vengeance of his well-connected wife). Maybe Adrian Berger was entirely innocent so far as Corinne Saxon’s murder was concerned.
Stuff that, Kate.
Except—and what a bloody big except it was—Berger couldn’t also have killed Yves Labrosse. And why not? Because he’d been at DHQ when it happened, being questioned by her. Labrosse was seen alive at approximately ten o’clock, and discovered dead at seven minutes past eleven. Seldom could the time of death in an unwitnessed murder be pinpointed with such accuracy. The medical opinion on the matter of timing was superfluous, but Kate didn’t tell Dr. Meddowes that. The pompous little man was in a jovial mood, savouring the grandness of his new role as regional pathologist. Having pronounced Labrosse dead, killed less than an hour previously by a blow on the head from a blunt instrument, he was inclined to linger and relish Kate’s difficulties.
“Two murders to solve now, dear lady. You’re not finding the responsibility of it all too onerous for you, I trust?”
“I’m coping, thank you,” she said sweetly. “How about you, Dr. Meddowes?”
“Me?” He looked mystified.
“I was wondering how you felt you were measuring up to your higher status, Doctor. You’ve not got in above your head, I trust?”
Kate regarded his huffily departing back with satisfaction. “Right, Tim, you know the drill. I’m going to have a word with Admiral Fortescue. Shan’t be long.”
“The drill” consisted of opening up a whole new murder enquiry. Re-interviewing everyone they’d already questioned, in relation to the second killing. Reconsidering everything the police had so far uncovered, to see how it could be interpreted now that Labrosse too was dead. Just when she’d fondly been thinking there was light at the end of the tunnel.
Kate knocked at the door of the admiral’s suite, and was confronted by a darkly doubtful Larkin.
“Admiral Fortescue is very upset,” he told her in his north-country brogue. “He’s not well enough to see you now.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I must talk to him right away.”
The manservant nodded sullenly. “I’ll go and tell him that.” He withdrew into the room, leaving the door just ajar. Kate heard a low murmur of voices, then the admiral called in a quavery voice, “Please come in, Chief Inspector.”
He was seated in his usual armchair, looking paler and altogether frailer than she had ever seen him. Which wasn’t really surprising, with his managers falling like ninepins. He might even be wondering if he too were in danger.
At his invitation, Kate seated herself. Larkin hovered in the background, as if standing guard over his master, and he didn’t get dismissed. Perhaps the admiral felt in need of moral support from his long-time steward.
“The death of Mr. Labrosse has complicated matters, sir, just when I felt I was nearing a solution to Miss Saxon’s murder.”
“Yes, yes, it’s a terrible thing. But does this mean, Chief Inspector, that you thought you had identified Corinne’s killer?”
“Things seemed to be moving in that direction,” Kate said, without enlarging. “But now I have to consider whether the two killings were perpetrated by one and the same person. So I am faced with having to re-question everyone who had any kind of connection with both victims.”
“The same person, you think?” Admiral Fortescue considered for a moment, then nodded his head. “Yes, I suppose that would be a logical assumption.”
“At the same time, of course, I have to keep every possibility in mind. Have you yourself any thoughts as to who might have had a motive for killing Mr. Labrosse?”
“None, Chief Inspector. None whatever.”
“Are you quite sure?” He’d seemed to dismiss her question too readily. “Please think very carefully.”
Choosing his words now, the old man said slowly, “I don’t think one could say that Labrosse was universally popular among the staff. He was, perhaps, a little over-abrupt in giving instructions. But that would hardly constitute a motive for killing him, would it?”
“Has he ever had to dismiss any employee, who might since have harboured a grudge against him? Perhaps against Miss Saxon, too.”
“Oh, no, there’s been no such incident, I’m thankful to say. The staff engaged by both him and Miss Saxon have all proved to be satisfactory, and they all appear to be happy working here. As far as one can judge.”
“So you can’t think that any of the staff would have a reason to want to kill either of the victims?”
“Absolutely not.” The admiral glanced round at the surly figure who stood hovering behind his chair. “Have you any thoughts on the matter, Larkin?”
“Me, sir? Can’t say I have, sir.”
Kate left it there. She had already established in connection with Corinne’s death that it would be possible—not easy, but possible— for an outsider to enter the hotel and move around without being challenged. Another possibility was that one of the guests might have had a motive for killing Labrosse, and perhaps Corinne, too. She made a mental note to pay particular attention to the guests whose stay had spanned both deaths.
“I shall now have to ask you both,” she went on, “to account for your movements for the period during which Mr. Labrosse met his death. That is, between ten o’clock and eleven-seven.”
“I was here, of course,” Admiral Fortescue said sharply. “I don’t usually leave my rooms until lunchtime, and not always then.”
“And how about you, Mr. Larkin?”
“I was here, too. With the admiral. Where else d’you think I’d be?”
“So you can each vouch for the other?”
“That’s right,” said Larkin.
“Do you agree with that, sir? You can confirm that Mr. Larkin was here, too?”
The admiral frowned, as though unable to grasp the reason for her insistence. Then he nodded in irritation, “As Larkin says, yes ... yes, indeed.”
Sid Larkin stepped forward. “Now look here, miss, you can see the master isn’t well. You shouldn’t be bothering him like this.”
“This is a murder enquiry,” Kate replied with a quelling glare. “I shall ask whatever questions I consider necessary at this time.” She turned back to the admiral. “What are your intentions regarding the hotel, sir?”
“My intentions?” He gave her a lost, bewildered look. “I ... I really don’t know what is to be done. This has been such a shock, coming on top of Corinne’s death. I haven’t had an opportunity to consider the matter.” He shook his head regretfully. “I cannot see that I have any choice but to close the hotel—for the time being, at any rate. The guests will have to be asked to leave. Indeed, a number of them will probably wish to do so now.”
“Couldn’t the hotel tick over for a while? At least for a few days? I’m very anxious that you shouldn’t take a hasty decision to close, sir. There will have to be further questioning of the staff and the guests, and it would be more convenient to have as many as possible still on the premises.”
“I see. Well, I suppose ...” He seemed in something of a daze, all his former air of authority gone. Kate could well understand that the continuance of the hotel must seem of little importance to him in the present circumstances. “I’ll talk to the chef and the housekeeper, Chief Inspector, and see what arrangements can be made to keep going.”
“Thank you.”
Back at her office in the Incident Room, Kate instructed Boulter, “Get someone to go through the hotel’s files and let me see all correspondence relating to Labrosse ... letters about his appointment to the job here and so on. Has anything useful emerged from the search of his rooms?”
“No. He doesn’t seem to have had any outside contacts.”
“Get the desk in his office searched, too. There might be something there.”
The phone rang, and it was Richard.
“Listen,” she said before he could say anything, “I’m up to my eyeballs right now. There’s been a second murder.”
“My God! Who?”
“The manager here, Yves Labrosse.”
“Labrosse? That’s very interesting. I’d better come and see you now, Kate.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? I won’t have a minute to spare, not for days. Possibly even weeks.” Her voice had grown shrill—from despair. Because there was nothing she’d like more at this moment than to be with Richard.
“Okay, keep your wig on, Kate, I’ve just come across something that might be significant. Even more so now that Labrosse is dead. I’ll come over right away, okay?”
Within fifteen minutes Richard was ushered into her office. His limp seemed very noticeable as he came forward and dropped into the spare chair.
“Bloody leg,” he grumbled. “Means there’s more rain on the way.”
“Can’t you take something for the pain?” Kate asked sympathetically.
“Already have done,” he said with a grimace. “Now then, here’s my little offering.”
From an envelope he’d been carrying, he shook out a couple of photographs and a cutting from a newspaper. Curious, Kate reached for them. The photos, just snapshots, depicted a much younger Corinne Saxon. In one she was in a small group that included Richard (looking devastatingly suntanned and attractive) at an open-air cafe. The second was a beach snap with just one other girl. Caught sunbathing on the sand, they were laughing up into the camera. Kate unfolded the newspaper cutting that was yellow with age. It showed the same two girls, in the same situation, but this time in a more studied, seductive pose.
Richard said, “I know you felt a bit let down when I couldn’t fill you in more about Corinne in the early days. So I did a search through masses of junk at home that any sane man would have chucked out yonks ago and dug out this stuff. The pictures were taken in Greece, when I ... knew Corinne.”
“In the biblical sense.” Stop it, Kate.
“That newspaper pic, have you noted the legend beneath it?”
She hadn’t. It read: Fun in the Grecian sun. An off-duty shot of model girls Corinne Saxon and Mitzi Labrosse enjoying the beach.
Kate looked up swiftly. “Labrosse? Mitzi Labrosse? Is she the one you mentioned as being Corinne’s friend?”
“That’s the one.”
“So what’s the connection with Yves Labrosse? I take it Mitzi wasn’t married then? Labrosse was her maiden name?”
“I shouldn’t imagine she was married.”
The phone on her desk rang. It was Boulter, “Thought you’d like to know, guv, that there’s nothing whatever on file regarding Labrosse’s appointment to the job here.”
“Nothing? No contract? No exchange of letters?”
“Not a blind thing. It must have all been arranged verbally—or the evidence destroyed.”
“Did you ask the secretary about it, Deidre Lancing?”
“Yep. All she knows is that Miss Saxon spoke of someone coming soon as assistant manager, and the following week Labrosse arrived.”
“Strange! Tim, something very interesting has cropped up. Come in as soon as Mr. Gower leaves, will you?”
Kate put down the phone and looked across at Richard. “Didn’t you tell me that Mitzi was French? Not Swiss?”
He shrugged. “She could’ve been Franco-Swiss. I just remember her and Corinne prattling away in rapid French every now and then.”
“Did Corinne seem to know Mitzi from the past ... from her childhood years in France? You told me, I remember, that the family lived in the Lyons area up until her parents were killed and Corinne came to her aunt in England at around the age of six or seven.”
“It’s possible,” he said thoughtfully. “Certainly she and Mitzi were pretty close ... as close as someone like Corinne would ever be likely to get with another female. Come to think of it, there did seem more to it than the normal sort of friendship between two girls in the same line of work.”
Kate pressed him further, but nothing else emerged. “Okay, Richard, thanks. Get back to me, will you, if anything more occurs to you that I could use.”
“Will do.” He rose to his feet, awkwardly and painfully. “When do I see you, Kate?”
“I wish to God I knew.”
“You have to sleep somewhere tonight,” he reminded her dryly. “At my place you’d have an excellent selection of dictionaries and reference books on hand.”
“Get outa here, Gower.”
Boulter came in the instant Richard had left. Kate filled him in with what she’d learned.
“We’ve got to discover more about the Saxon/Labrosse connection, Tim. Get all the manpower we can spare at work on that aspect. Try to track down this Mitzi Labrosse ... she’s probably married by now. Talk to the various model agencies to see what information can be got out of them. And get on to the French and Swiss police to dig out what they can for us about the Labrosse family. If necessary, go over there yourself. I can’t really spare you, but ...” She gave the sergeant a warning glare. “If it’s absolutely necessary.”
It was what Tim Boulter really liked, she knew ... being handed an assignment to work on himself rather than dogsbodying for her. He departed looking mighty chuffed. Kate sighed in anticipation of the fresh avalanche that was about to hit her ... the mass of reports flowing from the re-interviews, of which all but point one per cent would be totally irrelevant. Her job was to spot the little nuggets of gold among the dross.
The receptionist and the secretary, she mused, had probably known Yves Labrosse better than anyone else on the staff. Kate decided it would be useful to talk to both these women herself. She sent for June Elsted first, and while waiting for her to arrive she took the chance to eat a sandwich the ever-thoughtful Frank Massey had sent in for her.
The receptionist came in looking pale and upset, and not a little scared. Smiling, Kate tried to put her at ease.
“Sit down, June. This is a very nasty business, and I know you’ll want to do everything you can to help me. First, I’d like to get things clearer about what happened this morning. You did see Mr. Labrosse earlier on, I take it?”
A nervous dip of the head. “Yes. He did his usual tour around once breakfast was under way, checking that everything was in order. He stopped at the desk and we talked over one or two small problems, then he went through to his office. I didn’t see or hear anything more of him until about ten o’clock, when he came out and walked across to the lift. I suppose he must have been on his way up to his room, where he ...” She choked back a little sob.
“Did he speak to you at that time?”
“No, he just nodded as he went past. Smiled, actually. It struck me that he was looking rather pleased about something. As if he’d just had some good news.”
“Oh? Have you any idea what it might have been?”
“None at all. It can’t have been about the bookings, because we’ve had several cancellations since Miss Saxon was killed, and some of the guests have cut short their stay.”
“Was it normal for him to go up to his room at that time of day?”
An emphatic shake of the head. “Not at that time, no. Sometimes just before lunch he would go upstairs ... like when we had that very hot spell a couple of weeks ago and he wanted to change his clothes. Mr. Labrosse was always fussy about his appearance—he liked to look immaculate at all times, and of course it gave such a good impression to the guests. Anyway, apart from something like that, he usually spent the whole morning in his office, or in the kitchens, or around the reception rooms somewhere.” She gazed at Kate forlornly. “I don’t know how the hotel can keep going without Miss Saxon or him.” Not unnaturally, June was thinking about her job.
“Hopefully,” Kate said, “Admiral Fortescue will find someone else to take charge. Meantime, the best thing is for everyone to keep on doing their respective jobs as well as possible in the circumstances. Tell me, June, what did the staff in general think about Mr. Labrosse? Was he well-liked, would you say?”
The receptionist was immediately wary. “He wasn’t what you’d call popular. With him everything had to be just so. I suppose that’s fair enough, in a smart hotel like this. But he was always sort of aloof from the rest of us. Never the least bit friendly.”
Changing tack, Kate said, “You know Mr. Berger, the architect, I suppose?”
“Yes, he’s here a lot ... not so much now, of course, since most of the work has been done.”
“Always on business? Or socially sometimes?”
“Oh, on business.”
“Could there have been anything more than a purely professional relationship between him and Miss Saxon?”
“Well ... I didn’t think so.”
“Did he ever visit Miss Saxon in her private apartment?”
“Never, as far as I know. I think it would have been talked about if he had.”
That figured. Berger would have been anxious to avoid any gossip over an affair with Corinne—and thence the probability of messy repercussions. That much was certain, from the arguments he’d used to persuade Vincent Pascoe into giving him a false alibi for the afternoon Corinne Saxon was killed. So where had he and Corinne met for their trysts? Another hotel? The Cotswolds wasn’t exactly the sort of area where you could book a hotel room for a few daytime hours. And in this locality there’d be a big risk of their being recognised.
“Might the two of them have met away from Streatfield Park sometimes, do you think? Did anyone ever mention seeing them together, perhaps? Think hard, please.”
“Well ... oh no, it can’t have been anything.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I did once see them together away from here. It was one evening about six weeks ago, a few days before the hotel was opened. My boyfriend was driving me to visit his married sister who lives at Larkhill. Just before we reached the village, we werepassing an old cottage and I saw Miss Saxon and Mr. Berger coming out of the front door. Both their cars were parked in the driveway round at the side.”
“Did they realise you’d seen them?”
“Oh, yes. You see, I gave them a wave ... automatically, without really thinking. Next morning Miss Saxon explained to me that Mr. Berger was having the cottage modernised for a relative of his, and he’d asked her to give him some advice on the decor.”
One of those little nuggets of gold, Kate. Why the heck hadn’t this emerged earlier? Still, she had it now. After getting June to establish the date and time of this encounter as accurately as possible, Kate let her go. Sergeant Boulter was fully occupied with the French connection, so she called in Inspector Massey and explained the latest development to him.
“I want to organise a house-to-house in the area around Yew Tree Cottage in Larkhill. Will you set it up for me, Frank? I’m looking for corroborative evidence that Berger and Corinne Saxon used that cottage for their rendezvous. As things stand, Berger could still insist that Corinne was telling June Elsted nothing but the truth about going there with him to give advice about the decor. But if those two went to the cottage on a number of occasions, someone in the local community must surely have seen them.”
* * * *
Yves Labrosse’s secretary, Deidre Lancing, seemed even more upset about his death than the receptionist was. It was clear she’d applied fresh make-up before coming over to the Incident Room to see Kate, but she hadn’t been able to conceal the fact that she’d been weeping. Her eyes were reddened and puffy, and the droopy-lensed glasses gave her a ludicrous appearance.
“I want you to tell me about this morning, Mrs. Lancing.” Kate began. “Everything you can remember. Were you already in the office when Mr. Labrosse made his first appearance of the day?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I start at nine, and he came in just before nine-thirty.”
“What did he say?”
“Just ... just good morning, as usual. He glanced through the mail, and took a few letters that would need his attention into his own office. I heard him on the phone once or twice—I don’t know who to—then after a while he brought out a tape for me to type up for him. Answers to the letters and so on.”
“Just routine correspondence, was it?”
“Yes.”
“All the same, I’d like to read those letters in case they contain anything I ought to know about. Now, the phone calls he made ... you said you didn’t know who they were to. But wouldn’t he have asked you to get them for him?”
She shook her head. “Mr. Labrosse always preferred to dial himself. And internal calls you dial and receive direct.”
“So he might have been talking to someone in the hotel?”
“Yes, he could have.”
“When he came out of the office the final time, did he say anything to you?”
Deidre Lancing lifted her spectacles delicately. “Just that he wouldn’t be away long, if anyone wanted him.”
“But he didn’t say where he was going?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Was that unusual? Did he normally keep you informed where he’d be?”
“Well, yes. Normally. In case he was wanted.”
“What was his demeanour?”
“How do you mean, his demeanour?”
“His mood, then. Did he seem pleased, or angry, or regretful ... what?”
“Quite pleased, I suppose. He was sort of smiling to himself.”
“And that was the last you saw of Mr. Labrosse?”
Her eyes pooled with tears, and she bowed her head. “Yes.”
Kate asked the same question she’d already put to June Elsted. “Was Mr. Labrosse popular among the staff here?”
She raised her head again, surprised and to a degree hostile. “He was the manager. Most of them don’t understand that someone in his position has to insist on proper discipline. Make what might seem like harsh decisions sometimes.”
“So a number of the staff resented his authority?”
“I suppose you could put it like that.”
“Did he make any real enemies among them?”
“No.” she protested. “Just ... well, you always get grumblers, don’t you?”
“Anyone in particular?”
The woman shook her head quickly.
“Was there any special incident that caused an upset among the staff?”
Again a negative response, and Kate knew there was no point in pressing this line of questioning at the moment. She said smoothly, “I’d like you to think about it, Mrs. Lancing, and maybe you’ll remember something that could be significant. Meanwhile, what was your personal opinion of Mr. Labrosse?”
“Well ...” She was instantly on her guard, like a woman who knew it would be only too easy to betray her feelings. She fancied Labrosse, Kate. That explained the depth of her distress.
“He was wonderful at his job. I ... I admired him for that, of course. He could easily have run the hotel single-handed, without Miss Saxon, but I doubt if she could have done half as well without him.”
Kate decided to rub in salt to see what it produced. You couldn’t always be nice in this job!
“Was there a woman in his life, Mrs. Lancing?”
“No.” She was wounded. “Nothing like that.”
“Come now, Mr. Labrosse was a good-looking man, in the prime of life. It’s only natural to suppose that he must have been having a sexual relationship.”
“Well, you’re wrong.” Acid resentment now. “He wasn’t the sort of man who spent his time chasing after women.”
Which statement—quite unintentionally, Kate felt sure—provided her with a new line of thought. She made her approach cautiously.
“He must surely have had some friends,” she said in a casual tone. “Was he friendly with any of the men on the staff? Or any man who wasn’t on the staff, come to that?”
“Not exactly friendly.” Sullen, but quite unsuspecting.
“What do you mean by ‘not exactly’?”
Deidre Lancing shrugged. “It wasn’t what you could call friendly, but it always annoyed me the way that man Larkin used to barge in to see Mr. Labrosse whenever he pleased, and never got put in his place. I suppose it was because he’s the admiral’s personal steward and wasn’t under Mr. Labrosse’s supervision.”
Labrosse and Larkin? Smooth and rough. Well, it happened, and propinquity accounted for a lot. This certainly explained a few things. Kate had no wish to alert the secretary to the direction of her thinking. She thanked Mrs. Lancing pleasantly for her help, and the woman departed.
Alone, Kate pondered her next move. She recalled that Admiral Fortescue hadn’t given a prompt reply when she’d asked if he could vouch for Larkin’s presence in his private quarters during the period in which Labrosse was killed. He and his surly manservant probably didn’t spend much of their time together in the same room, so had the admiral merely been assuming Larkin’s presence elsewhere in the suite? It was scarcely conceivable that he would knowingly cover up for the man.
Straightaway, she went across to the hotel to talk to the admiral again. As before, Larkin admitted her and stood hovering, making no move to leave the room. But this time Kate dismissed him.
“I wish to speak to Admiral Fortescue alone.”
He departed sullenly. Kate waited until the door had closed behind him, then said, “When I asked you earlier, sir, you confirmed that Larkin had been here in your private quarters during the period in which Mr. Labrosse had been killed.”
“I did, Chief Inspector.”
“Presumably he wasn’t in this room the whole time, so how can you be sure that he didn’t leave the suite for a while?”
The admiral regarded her with dismay. “Surely you don’t suspect Larkin of ... of ...”
“I’m just trying to clarify a point, sir. Kindly give me your answer to the question.”
He shook his head in sorrowful resignation. “Larkin was in and out of this room. Part of the time I was taking my morning bath, and he knows I always require him to be within call then, in case ... well, in case I should get into difficulty. And for the rest, I could hear him moving about next door, vacuuming and so forth. Larkin was here, Chief Inspector. He was definitely here. So please put out of your mind completely any suspicion you may be harbouring about him.”
“I see. Would you ring for Larkin, please sir?”
The manservant answered the bell at once, and Kate said, “I want to see you in my office over at the squash courts, Mr. Larkin. In ten minutes.”
“What for, miss?” he demanded truculently.
“I’ll explain when you get there.”
The admiral looked at her unhappily. “Chief Inspector, please. I really must protest.”
“I have a few more questions to put to Mr. Larkin,” she told him, “and the Incident Room is the best place. I won’t keep him any longer than necessary.”
Ten minutes later, when Larkin was shown into her office, he looked badly shaken. He sat awkwardly in the chair facing her across the desk, while his stubby fingers nervously smoothed down the few wispy hairs across his balding head. Kate guessed that he’d topped up from the whisky bottle for courage.
She began, “Did you know Mr. Labrosse before he came to work at Streatfield Park?”
“No, I didn’t. Why should I have done?”
“Yet in the short time he was here, you two became very close. How did that arise?”
He glared at her. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kate let out an audible sigh. “Please don’t let’s waste time fencing with each other. You and Labrosse had a sexual relationship, right?”
Larkin looked as if he were about to deny it, and for an instant Kate feared she might have read the signs all wrong. But then with a shrug of his hefty shoulders, he said gruffly, “That’s not a crime, is it?”
“No, it isn’t a crime. And I’m not trying to make any kind of moral judgment. It’s facts I’m interested in. Just facts.”
“Can’t see it matters to you, one way or t’other.”
“Of course it matters. Yves Labrosse has been murdered, and I’m looking for someone with a motive. Did you two quarrel?”
Kate sat back in her chair, giving him time to consider his position. It took a full minute. His voice, when it came, was harsh and cracked.
“I never killed Yves. Why the Christ should I want to kill him? Okay, him and me got together, I’m not saying different. Right from when he first arrived ... we sort of clicked. But to try and make out I had a motive for killing Yves, that’s crazy.”
“Are you saying that you and he never quarrelled?”
“Not what you could call quarrelled. We had the odd ... well, difference of opinion. Who doesn’t?”
“What sort of things were these differences of opinion about?”
Hesitation. “Yves was a cut above me, and he bloody didn’t let me forget it. He’d proper bawl me out sometimes for what he called not remembering my place.”
“You can’t have liked that much.”
Sid Larkin said with a flash of spirit, “When you’re just a bloody nobody, you have to get used to it.”
This wasn’t getting anywhere. Kate switched tactics. From preliminary reports she knew that a mass of fingerprints had been found in Labrosse’s room ... a number of them the victim’s own, the remainder as yet unidentified. But the murder weapon itself, the silver-gilt candlestick, had been very carefully wiped clean of all prints, just as she’d suspected.
“I shall require you to give us your fingerprints,” she said, “for comparison with prints found in Labrosse’s room.”
For a moment or two Larkin looked startled. Then he gave an offhand shrug.
“Well, my prints would be there, wouldn’t they? I’m not denying that I’ve often been in his room.”
She tried a bluff. “Suppose we find they match with prints on the murder weapon?”
Larkin snorted. “I don’t even know what the murder weapon was.”
“Don’t you? Very well, I’ll tell you. It was a candlestick. One of a pair from the mantelpiece.”
“Well, then, it couldn’t have my prints on it, because I’ve never touched those things.”
Damn, it hadn’t worked! There was nothing solid enough to hold him on. She needed above all to break the alibi that he’d been with the admiral when Labrosse was killed.
“Very well, Mr. Larkin, that’ll be all for now. I’ll be wanting to see you again, though.”
He rose to his feet, his face and balding skull flushed red with anger.
“I never killed Yves,” he spat. “And you’ve no cause to treat me like this. It’d be nice and easy for you to nail me, wouldn’t it? Oh, yes, all wrapped up nice and quick, case solved, and never mind the poor sod you get sent down for something he didn’t do.”
* * * *
Kate managed to get to the hospital that evening for a quick visit. Thankfully, she found her aunt was continuing to make good progress. She was away from the Incident Room less than an hour all told, but when she arrived back Frank Massey warned her that Superintendent Joliffe had turned up and was waiting in her office.
Had taken possession of her office, more like. She found Jolly’s large frame overflowing the chair behind her desk with his long legs, crossed at the ankles, projecting through the knee-hole. On his face was an expression of held-in impatience. Kate guessed that he’d hurriedly adopted this pose on hearing her voice outside the door.
“So here you are at last, Mrs. Maddox.”
“I just popped out to visit my aunt in hospital, sir.” Why the hell did she let him put her on the defensive? “Surely you were informed, when you arrived?”
“Yes, yes. I trust the good lady is making satisfactory progress?”
“Thank you, sir. She is.”
“The same cannot be said for you, alas. Rather than solve one murder, Chief Inspector, you have landed us with a second one. The ACC is most put out.”
“I’m sorry about that, sir. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
But humour of any kind was wasted on Jolly Joliffe. She proceeded to outline the facts about Labrosse’s death, his relationship with Larkin, and the information she had gathered from Richard Gower.
“Hmm. This friend of yours, Gower, is quite a mine of information, isn’t he?”
For the simple reason that he had once been Corinne Saxon’s lover. Skate over it, Kate. “I certainly have reason to be grateful to him in this case.”
“No doubt. I trust, Mrs. Maddox, that you don’t allow your gratitude to lead you into making him some sort of quid pro quo.”
“Perhaps you’d explain that remark, sir.”
The superintendent seemed unaware of the dangerous note in her voice. Or just ignored it. “The man is a journalist, after all, albeit only the editor of the local rag. It behooves all of us in the Force to be constantly on the alert to avoid revealing more than we properly should to the media.”
“I very much resent the implication that I might do that,” Kate said heatedly. “If a male officer of my rank had a friend who was a journalist, would you consider it necessary to issue such an elementary warning to him?”
Jolly stared at her in amazement, and his thoughts were transparent to Kate. You just never know where the devil you are with a woman. They’re liable to fly off the handle at the most trivial things.
He reduced the tension with a diplomatic little laugh. “Good heavens, you mustn’t take everything so personally, you know. Now, how about that Berger fellow? From your earlier reports it seemed you had him earmarked as the Saxon woman’s killer.”
“It may still turn out that he is, sir, but the Labrosse murder has thrown everything back into the melting pot.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” he said impatiently, then lumbered to his feet. “You’re tying up a high proportion of our manpower resources on this investigation, Chief Inspector. So for God’s sake bring me some answers soon. Very soon.”
Kate remained at her desk until nearly eleven that night. But she had to wait until next morning for a breakthrough that promised to carry her forward.