Alice was up at six, having been awake most of the night fretting about how exactly the day was going to play out. She’d already checked in with Jinx who assured her that everything at Hawthorn was proceeding according to plan. Alex Messent’s security team had checked the house the day before to their satisfaction.
Blessedly, they hadn’t found any of Gerda’s cameras. They had already been installed but hadn’t yet been activated so hadn’t shown up on the sweep. Nor had they found Gerda herself, her two operatives and Barney, who were now ensconced in the attic. But who knew how close they really were to getting found out? Alice felt almost physically sick with nerves.
As soon as Camille left for her appointment at Tiffany’s, Alice checked that she still had the spare keys to Thérèse’s apartment that she’d taken from the file in the drawer. They were safely nestled next to her phone in the white crossbody bag Jinx had given her, which Alice had decided was just the ticket for the day ahead.
Thérèse had told her yesterday that she’d be heading off first thing, so she should be long gone by now, which gave Alice time to have a quick look around her apartment, before she needed to get to Hawthorn herself. She was determined to sniff out some proof. Proof that Thérèse was Enya’s killer. Proof that would mean Alice would get Agatha back.
Fortunately, the skies had cleared and Alice managed to hail a cab on the street. Ten minutes later, it dropped her outside Park View, Thérèse’s smart apartment block. Using the fob on the keys, Alice clicked herself into the building and took the lift to the third floor. She walked along the corridor and knocked on the door of flat number 19, seeing the peephole beneath the numbers.
‘Hello? Thérèse?’ she called, thinking she could always claim she’d come here to ask her something about the event if Thérèse was home. But there was a resounding silence. Thank goodness.
Alice let herself in, sighing with relief that there didn’t seem to be an alarm. Inside, it was dark and, as she walked into the sitting room, she could see that the blinds were still closed. She could smell stale food, and as she turned on a lamp, she saw that in front of the stylish black leather sofas, there was a glass table and on it were the remains of a Chinese takeaway — two foil tins and a set of chopsticks. Noodles spilled over out of the containers and there was a glass with an inch of red wine in the bottom.
Alice frowned. Surely Thérèse had eaten at dinner last night? Hadn’t she told Alice she didn’t want a dessert because she was full? It didn’t seem likely that she’d come home after the long day she’d had and binged on takeaway. In fact, she’d never have binged on a takeaway at all. Because of her seafood allergy. Alice remembered Laura saying as much.
So maybe she’d had a guest staying who’d eaten here in her absence? What if Alex Messent had been here? But surely Thérèse wouldn’t have wanted him eating takeaway near her either?
Then on the table, Alice saw Thérèse’s phone. She’d never seen Thérèse without her phone practically surgically attached to her hand. What on earth was it doing here if Thérèse was at Hawthorn?
Alice twisted her lips, something snagging on the edge of her hearing – a trickle of running water. She moved towards the bathroom and leant against the closed door. The noise was coming from inside. Maybe Thérèse really was still here?
But when she listened, she could hear no other signs of anyone in there. Just that steady, trickling noise. ‘Thérèse?’ she called, knocking on the door, trying to get her excuse for being here straight. ‘Thérèse?’ she tried again, turning the handle now.
Something on the other side of the door was blocking it, stopping her from opening it. Alice pushed hard, finally getting some movement, and stuck her head in through the small gap.
But as she looked down, she yelped, feeling nausea bloom.
Thérèse was lying on the floor of the bathroom, foam around her mouth. Her eyes were wide open and bloodshot, her hand splayed out, an electric toothbrush next to it.
The noise … it was the sound of the washbasin tap still running. Alice squeezed into the little bathroom and turned the tap off, then stared down.
‘Oh, dear God,’ she said, covering her mouth and slumping back against the sink.
Because Thérèse Clement was undeniably dead.
Back in the living room, Alice paced back and forth, gripping the spinner on her necklace in her hand. She needed help, she realised. And fast. Her hands were shaking as she fumbled with the zip of her bag and took out her phone.
‘Detective Rigby,’ she said, her voice trembling when he answered after three rings. ‘It’s me.’
‘Miss Beeton?’ Detective Rigby asked and she felt her knees weaken with relief at the sound of his voice.
‘Could you come?’ she asked.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’m in a spot of bother …’ She glanced towards the bathroom door. ‘And I need your help rather urgently. Very urgently, in fact.’ ‘Where?’
She told him the address and something in her tone must have persuaded him because he said softly, ‘Hang tight. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Give me ten minutes.’
She rang off without saying goodbye and then texted Tiffany at the salon. Camille Messent would be expecting Alice back at the house soon to travel with her to Hawthorn Hall.
I will pay you double anything Camille Messent pays you, but please detain her as long as possible. And don’t say anything at all about this message. Or anything at all.
Alice called Jinx, but she couldn’t get through. She started pacing again, her hands on her head as she desperately tried to make sense of what had happened.
Thérèse was dead. Dead. But how? By accident? Because, unlike the only other dead body Alice had ever seen – Enya’s bloodstained corpse – there’d been no signs of a violent ending or even a struggle here.
But what if it hadn’t been an accident? What if she somehow had been murdered, like Enya? Because this all just felt like way too much of a coincidence for Alice. This woman who she’d suspected of being involved in a murder and multi-million-pound art smuggling, suddenly ending up dead on the very day of the sale …
Alice nearly jumped out of her skin when the door buzzer sounded. She looked through the spyhole and, to her immense relief, saw Detective Rigby’s face, his bushy eyebrows and keen hazel eyes staring right back at her.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked, as she opened the door. ‘Is this where you live?’
‘No, no,’ Alice said, pulling him inside Therese’s flat.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Worse. It’s worse than that.’
He looked concerned as she stared at him. She’d never been so thankful to see a familiar face in all her life, but at the same time the enormity of this moment struck her.
‘What’s going on, Alice?’ he asked.
‘It’s really rather an awful lot to explain,’ she admitted. ‘But I didn’t know who else to call.’
‘You said you wanted help and so …’
He walked past her, into the living room. Staring down at the remains of the Chinese takeaway, he reached out to take a prawn cracker.
‘Don’t touch that,’ Alice said, remembering how he’d told her not to touch the doorframe of Alex Messent’s study on New Year’s Eve. ‘This is a crime scene.’
‘A what?’
‘Or possibly. I don’t really know.’
He was staring at her even harder now. ‘What kind of crime?’
‘A murder.’
‘A what?’ he chuckled, but then his smile faded when he saw her face.
Alice pointed to the bathroom. ‘Thérèse. Thérèse Clement.’
‘The Messents’ secretary?’ he checked.
‘Yes, this is her apartment, you see.’
In two large strides Rigby was at the bathroom door and stared in. ‘Oh, Alice … Alice Beeton,’ he said, glaring back at her over his shoulder. ‘What have you got yourself tangled up in now?’
A minute later, Detective Rigby stood up from where he’d been peering closely at Thérèse on the floor.
‘We’ll need a pathologist and the SOCOs in … again,’ he said. ‘But my guess is anaphylaxis.’
Alice stared blankly at him.
‘An extreme allergic reaction.’
‘To what?’
Rigby shrugged. ‘Probably that Chinese.’
‘But that’s just it. She’d never have eaten it,’ Alice said. ‘She had a severe seafood allergy and she was always extremely careful about it. In fact, she’d never have allowed that in her flat.’
‘You certainly seem to know an awful lot about her,’ Rigby said.
Alice said nothing. What could she say?
‘But you think someone else was here?’ Rigby said, glancing over at the takeaway again.
‘Yes …’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t know.’ Alice’s mind was racing. ‘Maybe … maybe whoever it was wanted it to look like she’d died of anaphylactic shock …’
‘Because she already had died, you mean?’
‘Meaning we’re potentially not just looking at one murder now, but two,’ Alice said. ‘And with both victims being staff from the same household.’
‘That’s a pretty strong theory, Miss Beeton. May I ask if you’ve got any proof for it? Or even a suspect? Or a motive?’
Again, she said nothing. Because once she did speak, once she said the very first word, the whole damned story about what she’d been up to … every single word of that would come tumbling out.
‘Only from my point of view, you see,’ he said, and this time there wasn’t anything friendly about him at all, ‘you’re acting just a wee bit suspicious yourself. What with being here alone with her dead body, in a flat I suspect you have no right to be in at all, after having gone against my explicit instructions not to have anything to do with the Messents …’
‘But—’
He held up his hand. ‘Hold on.’ He pressed a number on his phone. ‘Rodge, it’s me,’ he said into the phone. ‘I’m going to need backup.’
He looked away from Alice as he gave the details, then turned back to face her.
‘So, Miss Beeton. I really think you’d better start explaining why you’re here, and before anyone else arrives, because believe me, I’m all ears.’
‘If … if I tell you everything, will you not speak until I’ve finished? Please? Because if you hear everything … everything … I promise you. I think you’ll understand,’ she said.
He nodded grimly. ‘We’ll see about that.’
And so, desperate for him to see things from her point of view and hardly pausing for breath, Alice explained everything – about who Gerda and Enya really were. About how Alice had been posing as the Messents’ housekeeper but was in a whole lot deeper than she’d ever anticipated and how a potential auction of the stolen Rembrandt was taking place at Hawthorn Hall this afternoon.
‘Fuck a duck. ’Scuse my French,’ he said, exhaling incredulously and running his hand back through his hair, as she finished. ‘I really have heard everything now …’
‘If I … if I don’t go through with this … with everything that’s going on down there at my brother’s home today … then goodness only knows what will happen — to me, and the Rembrandt, and poor, sweet Agatha, of course.’
Rigby let out a soft groan, rubbing his eyes. His skin had gone so red he looked like he might pop.
‘But, I really do think we might be able to solve the mystery behind both of these deaths by the end of the day.’
‘You’ve given me motive,’ he said. ‘And several suspects. He flipped through his notepad. You mentioned that chef, Jacques, Laura, the daughter, Alex Messent himself and that fella Laars, but without any proof—’
‘Ah, but I do have that too. Or at least I think I might,’ Alice said. ‘At least as far as Enya’s murder is concerned.’
Scrambling in her bag, she pulled out the object she’d found in the hopper outside Alex Messent’s study. As she shoved it into the detective’s hands, and he looked inside, she explained how and where she’d found it.
‘And, look, it’s already wrapped in plastic – a glove, I think. So there might even be some blood or fingerprints or even DNA on it. I’ve been very careful not to touch it,’ Alice said.
The detective stared at it for a long time, then made a little grunt and Alice felt hope bloom in her chest. Finally, he was taking her seriously.
‘Now, really,’ she said, checking her watch. ‘I do have to go, Detective. To meet Camille Messent.’
Rigby laughed now, incredulously. ‘But … but I can’t let you go.’
‘You have to,’ Alice said. ‘And as soon as you’ve finished here, you’re going to have to come to Hawthorn Hall. I’ll send you the location on my phone. When you drive in, bear round to the left and drive to the outbuildings. The reception there is terrible, so you’ll just have to trust me. But I’ll send word as soon as we need you.’
‘Oh, you will, will you?’ He was now staring at her openmouthed. ‘Do you realise just how crazy you sound?’ Detective Rigby asked.
‘Yes, but I assure you, Detective, I’m quite sane, so I’m telling you … no, I’m begging you to trust me,’ she said. ‘Call your person upstairs. Tell them about Gerda being Interpol if you don’t believe me. They know all about this.’
He bit his lip and nodded. ‘OK. Excuse me.’ He walked away from her then to the kitchen and closed the door. ‘Don’t you dare leave. Because ifyou do I’ll have every police car in London tracking you down.’
She waited, straining to hear his conversation, her foot tapping, feeling the slow minutes tick by. God only knew if Tiffany had managed to detain Camille long enough for Alice to get back to the house. And then she saw Thérese’s phone on the table. And even though she knew this was a crime scene, she quickly slipped it into her bag. At this rate, she might be a lot faster at gathering evidence than the police.
The door opened and Detective Rigby stood staring at her. For a moment, she thought he was going to say that she still couldn’t leave, but something softened, something that reminded her – quite forcibly – of the way he’d looked back at her that night she’d gone to Annabelle’s.
‘Alice,’ he said, ‘I don’t know how the hell you’ve got yourself mixed up in this, but …’. He swept out his hand in a gesture that told her she could leave.
‘Thank you,’ she said, physically slumping with relief.
‘And for God’s sake, try and be careful.’ She nodded, heading quickly for the door as the sound of wailing sirens rose in the distance.