15.

Back in the staff kitchen in the basement, Agatha wriggled free from Alice’s arms, as she firmly closed the door to the staircase behind her. Alice was about to reprimand her naughty scamp of a dog, but Agatha was intent on running towards Jinx who was now chatting with Jacques outside the little office.

‘Hey baby,’ Jinx said in her usual silly voice, scooping up Agatha and striding towards Alice, her free arm outstretched. ‘Oh, Alice,’ she said, her heavily made-up eyes huge with concern. She was wearing a long leopard print fake-fur coat over a shiny pink fitted mini dress and a pair of animal print shoes with statement platforms. ‘I came as soon as I could. Couldn’t find a cab for love nor money. Let me tell you, these shoes are not designed for the snow,’ she said, setting Agatha down, before hugging Alice tightly. She smelt of booze and perfume, but she was here and that was all that mattered.

‘I’m glad you made it,’ Alice said.

Jinx put her hands on Alice’s shoulders and stared down into her face, her expression full of concern. Somehow facing a crisis was always easier when Jinx was by her side.

‘You OK?’

‘Just about. Although that one …’ Alice said, pointing down to Agatha crossly.

‘What happened? Where did she go?’ Jacques asked.

‘She ran straight to the crime scene upstairs. I don’t think Detective Rigby was too pleased.’

‘So, it is an actual crime scene?’ Jinx asked. ‘As in a crime has been committed?’

‘Poor Enya is just … lying there and …’ Alice’s throat tightened. ‘It’s so awful. It’s not the same when you actually know the person. The side of her head is all …’ Alice waved her hand around her own head and shuddered at Jinx and Jacques who crowded around sympathetically.

‘So, they don’t think she fell? What do they think happened?’ Jacques asked.

‘It’s hard to see how she could do that much damage by simply toppling over. It looked to me like she’d been hit with something.’

‘Hit?’ Jinx asked. ‘As in murdered?’

Alice nodded, remembering the sight of Enya.

‘Poor Enya,’ Jacques said, tutting and shaking his head. ‘She was so sweet, you know. And so kind to Laura.’

‘Oh yes, that’s the daughter?’ Jinx checked.

‘They were close. I could see that,’ Jacques said. ‘Laura thought the world of her.’

‘Where are the family now?’ Alice asked.

‘They’re all upstairs. The guests were questioned, but they’ve gone home.’

‘Someone must know something,’ Alice said. Because what if Enya had been murdered? Maybe by a guest at the party? And the police had just let them go?

‘I should imagine the Messents are in shock,’ Jinx said. ‘What a terrible end to a party.’

Alice frowned at her. Surely Camille and Alex Messent’s feelings about their party was a somewhat secondary point. Alice thought about them, somewhere in this house, having been questioned. She wondered briefly if it would be very inappropriate to seek them out. With her personal connection to Enya, she wanted to introduce herself and to offer her condolences. But putting herself into the forefront ofthe situation might be unwise, seeing that she’d already made a very bad first impression with Detective Rigby.

Or rather Agatha had.

It was another half an hour before Detective Rigby arrived in the kitchen and Jinx had to grab Agatha to stop her greeting him like a long-lost friend.

They all waited as he stood at the door by the little office and introduced himself and thanked everyone for their patience. Jacques fetched him a chair and Alice offered him a cup of tea.

‘I know it’s not my house, but you look as if you could do with one,’ she said, trying to sound friendly, but something about him made her feel all flustered. Probably the fact that she’d made such a numpty of herself upstairs.

‘There’s teas over there,’ Jacques said, waving his hand at a corner cupboard.

It was such a modern kitchen that Alice felt self-conscious as she tried to work out how to actually open the cupboard door.

‘Just push it,’ Jacques called over.

‘Real good,’ Jinx giggled, before remembering herself and pulling a serious face, and mumbling, ‘Sorry,’ to Detective Rigby.

‘And again,’ Jacques called, seeing Alice still hadn’t got it open.

But even though she now finally did, she found herselfblushing even harder. What must Detective Rigby think of her? She looked like she couldn’t even make a cup of tea.

‘What would you prefer, Detective Rigby?’ she called, trying to get a grip, pleased to see that at least there was a decent array of teas here to choose from.

‘Earl Grey, if they have it. Milk, two sugars.’

Alice smiled, opening the Earl Grey tin, thinking this would have been her choice too if she’d been asked. She found a modern teapot and filled it with water straight from the boiling water tap next to the sink. She’d never get used to such a modern contraption and tried to imagine owning such a thing herself. She liked her old-fashioned kettle with its comforting whistle much better.

When she came back to the table, Detective Rigby was already making notes.

‘You’re quite sure it was a quarter to nine, when she came down?’ he asked Jacques.

‘Oui, I had a plan for the canapés, you see,’ Jacques said, reaching into the back pocket of his chef’s trousers and unfolding a sheet of A4 covered in scribbled words. ‘The timings were quite specific and, see here, I’d just finished preparing the last of the mini wagyu beefs. I remember Enya saying that they looked delicious, and I said I’d try to save her one for later. Then I went for a quick cigarette out there.’ He nodded towards the back door, then glanced guiltily at Alice. So much for him only having one cigarette a night. ‘I don’t remember seeing her after that …’

‘That’s very helpful. Thank you,’ Detective Rigby said, nodding politely to Alice as she poured his tea.

‘Is that too strong?’ she asked.

‘No, it looks perfect. Anything warm and wet is appreciated. It’s been a very long night already. And it’s only going to get longer.’

‘I can imagine,’ Alice said, passing him the sugar bowl. ‘I must say how awfully sorry I am about earlier. Agatha can be quite the little tyke.’

‘Agatha? Odd name for a dog,’ said the detective.

‘After Agatha Christie,’ Jinx said in a loud aside, and Detective Rigby gave a long and weary nod again.

‘So, um, regarding Enya,’ he said. ‘I gather it’s a new placement?’

Alice explained about Enya’s interview and Madame Messent’s call and how Enya had been a perfect candidate for the job, but all the while she felt a blush rising. She’d taken Enya’s word for it that she had the necessary skills for the placement at the Messents’. Alice had been so won over by her, she’d skimped on the usual checks, hadn’t made her fill out the questionnaire she usually did, and she and Jinx both knew it.

‘These were her referees,’ she said, pulling up Enya’s CV on her phone. ‘I spoke to two women. One at The Dorchester and one in Klosters. They couldn’t have spoken more highly of her.’

‘What about her family?’

‘In Switzerland,’ Alice said. ‘I think. She said her father was German and her mother French.’

‘Do you have a number for them? Someone should inform the next of kin.’

Alice scanned the CV, then looked at Jinx, stumped.

‘She gave The Dorchester as her last address,’ Jinx said. ‘I don’t think I … we, er … ever took an emergency contact, did we?’

‘I see,’ Detective Rigby said, in a way that made Alice feel rather judged. It hadn’t occurred to her to get a more permanent address for her, although it should have done, of course. ‘And what was your impression of her?’ Rigby said.

‘We liked her.’ Alice glanced at Jinx, wanting her to back her up.

‘She was so well presented,’ Jinx said. ‘Smart and respectful. I hate to think she was actually murdered.’ The way she said it, it was a wonder she didn’t press the back of her hand to her forehead and swoon.

Detective Rigby looked up sharply at Alice. Then Alice sent the exact same look Jinx’s way. Because Jinx really had just made it sound as if Alice had been gossiping about the crime scene – which of course, she had. But Jinx now drunkenly blabbing about it in front of the detective made Alice look even more of a busybody than she had done upstairs.

‘Well, hold on there. It’s far too early to know anything for sure …’

‘It’s just I was telling them about the study, you see,’ Alice said, deciding it was better to speak her own mind than let Jinx am-dram translate it for her. ‘About the drawers and the money on the floor. I thought that perhaps Enya might have … you know … disturbed a burglar.’

‘Yes. Maybe she heard something?’ Jacques said.

‘That would figure,’ Alice said. ‘If she had, she would have almost certainly gone to check it out. She was that type of person. Thorough.’

‘Miss Beeton, it seems you’re intent on doing my job for me,’ Detective Rigby said, with a sigh.

At least he didn’t actually seem offended by the fact.

‘But how would they have escaped? The burglar, I mean?’ Jacques asked, ‘with all the people downstairs …’

‘The window was open,’ Alice said. ‘And there’s a fire escape outside.’

‘So whoever did it, hot-footed it after whacking poor old Enya over the head …’ Jinx slurred morosely, miming donking herself with a hammer.

‘Is that what you think happened, Detective?’ Alice asked brazenly.

‘I couldn’t say. The pathologist will give me their report in due course.’

‘But that would make sense, wouldn’t it?’ Alice persisted. ‘I mean, she could have just tripped and hit her head on the fireplace, or even have been thrown by someone to the floor. Given her injuries, it does seem much more likely that she was hit with something. Something heavy and yay-big—’ she made a circle with both hands ‘—I’d say, judging by that wound …’

Rigby’s eyes narrowed, but he neither denied nor confirmed this.

‘And where exactly did you say you were this evening, Miss Beeton? At the time of the … death.’

‘Me?’ Alice asked alarmed. ‘I didn’t say, but now that you ask, I was at home having supper with Barney. My friend. We were playing Scrabble. You can call him if you like.’

‘And you, Miss …?’ Detective Rigby asked, writing some notes and then turning his attention to Jinx, who now described her haphazard evening of drinking in a bar, followed by a house party. Alice noticed the detective giving up on writing notes.

‘So now that it’s established that neither of us were involved, I do wonder, Detective, whether you’ve found a weapon yet?’ Alice asked, taking a sip of her tea.

‘If it’s here, my officers will find it,’ Rigby let slip.

Ah, so they were already looking for whatever she might have been hit with.

Right on cue, two more officers swept downstairs and into the kitchen.

‘We should leave them to get on with their job,’ Rigby said. ‘I think that’s all, so I’ll let you good people get home for some sleep.’

More than a little disappointed that they couldn’t stay here chatting for longer — after all, she felt, she was just warming up – Alice took the tea things over to the counter to wash up, as Detective Rigby spoke to his colleagues.

She caught herself whistling in the low-lit kitchen. Inappropriate, of course, considering the deeply grim circumstances, but talking to Detective Rigby just now really had given her a bit of a buzz.

Jinx lurched over, leaning drunkenly against her, yawning that she’d called an Uber and could drop Alice home.

‘I was just wondering,’ Alice said to the detective as she shrugged on her coat and pulled on her hat. ‘What you thought about the timing of it all?’

Detective Rigby’s hazel eyes narrowed again as he checked his pad. ‘Like I said, we think she died at around five past nine – during the speech.’

‘No, I mean the whole coincidence …’

‘What coincidence?’

‘That whatever was going on up in that study was going on at the exact same time that everyone else in the house was fully occupied …’

‘Go on …’ he said. There was something else in his eyes now. He wasn’t just indulging her. It seemed he genuinely wanted to know what she was thinking.

‘Isn’t it much more likely that whoever else was up there knew about the party and already had the information about the timings and when the best time might be to strike?’

Detective Rigby’s eyes narrowed and then he pulled out his phone.

‘Would you mind if I took your number again, Miss Beeton?’ he asked.

‘Of course.’ She watched him tap it into his phone.

‘And here’s my card,’ he said, reaching into his jacket pocket. ‘In case you think of anything else.’

As she took it, she noticed that he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and there was an awkward moment as she wondered whether it was protocol to shake his hand, but decided against it. She’d never read about detectives or policemen shaking hands or touching very much at all for that matter. She picked up Agatha’s lead and, as the detective watched her walk towards the back door, she could have sworn that Agatha, the naughty little minx, gave him a flirty backwards glance.