Least of Evils (15 page)

‘And did you solve the mystery, after you were married?'

Greta looked at him steadily for a moment, aware that each of them, in sizing the other up, was anxious not to give ground. ‘That is a private matter, Mr Peach. I do not think you should be asking about it.' She glanced sideways for support, but Janey Johnson was apparently very interested in the carpet at her feet.

‘I apologize for the intrusion – apologize that it should be necessary. But I have already indicated that I do not think this was suicide. In that event, the nature of your relationship with your husband has to be important. You have said that at least one of the man's attractions was a certain mystery. I am asking how much more you learned about the man and the way he lived his life after you married him.'

Greta glanced again at Janey Johnson, caught the tiniest of nods from the younger woman. She spoke slowly, wanting to be aware of the implications of every word she used. ‘I grew to know the man rather better. I knew his likes and dislikes. I knew what pleased him and what made him angry.' She stared hard at the Detective Chief Inspector, daring him to ask if this was a sexual reference, but Peach said nothing. ‘I knew nothing of the ways he made his money or the ways he conducted his business.'

For the first time, Peach arched those expressive black eyebrows, implying disbelief, without the direct insult of words. ‘Nothing?'

‘Nothing, Mr Peach. I learned very quickly that Oliver liked it that way. It took me a little longer to realize that I also preferred to preserve my ignorance.'

This time he allowed her to see his smile. ‘That is what many women would have done, in the same circumstances. I know that this will seem crass and perhaps even cruel, coming so soon after your husband's death. But I feel I should tell you that he was under police investigation on several fronts. He was suspected of some very serious crimes.'

She wavered a little, as was surely appropriate. But she knew the line she had to take and it gave her confidence that she had agreed it with Martin Price. ‘I am sorry to hear that. To be perfectly honest, it does not surprise me. I did not like some of the people he associated with. I did not like some of the people who came here. But I knew nothing of his business affairs or the way he went about them.'

She saw no movement between the men, but it was Clyde Northcott who now said in a soft, deep voice, ‘Wasn't that a little ostrich-like, Mrs Ketley? Even a little cowardly, when you were married to the man?'

She flashed Northcott a look of sudden, naked hostility which told them she would make a formidable opponent. But it was banished from those classically beautiful features as swiftly as it had arrived. When she spoke she was perfectly controlled, choosing her words as fastidiously as previously. ‘Not cowardly. My word would be realistic, Detective Sergeant. I don't know if you are married: I suspect not. But if one wishes a marriage or a long-term relationship to endure, one learns to accept certain – certain limitations. I learned quickly that one of these limitations for me involved keeping my nose out of my husband's working life. We struck a bargain, if you like. Oliver never grudged me money. He accepted that I would spend what I thought necessary on this place and on my own pleasures.' She looked round appreciatively for a moment at the huge, luxuriously fitted room. ‘In return, I accepted that I wouldn't question either his businesses or his methods. You may call that cowardice, if you like. I call it realism.'

Northcott looked at her steadily for a moment, then made a note on his page without further comment. It irritated Greta that she could not see the notes he was making, could not see how far he was accepting what she said and how far noting it as an area for further exploration. It was Peach who said, ‘Let us accept that you knew little or nothing of the way the money arrived. But you've told us that you learned much more about the man during your marriage, as one would expect. How close would you say you were?'

She allowed herself a wan smile. ‘Shouldn't you say, “on a scale of one to ten”, as the medical people do? Of course I got to know him better, to know his likes and dislikes, just as he learned more about me. I knew what clothes he liked me to wear. I knew the jewellery he preferred. I learned what pleased him in bed and what—'

She was suddenly in tears, dabbing her face with a tissue she must have clutched in her hand throughout, shaking her head violently from side to side, trying but failing to produce words of apology.

Janey Johnson sprang to her side, grasping the hand without the tissue between both of hers. She glared at them resentfully. ‘That is surely enough for today, DCI Peach. More than enough!'

‘I agree. I am sorry again that we had to intrude today, Mrs Ketley.' He stood and moved a step towards the door, as did Clyde Northcott. Then he turned. ‘One final question, on a simple matter of fact. When did you last see Mr Ketley?'

Greta held up a hand as Janey moved to protect her. She wanted this fact established as much as they did. ‘At around seven o'clock last night. We ate early because he said he had to go out.'

The food was good in the Thai restaurant. It was in one of the older streets of central Brunton. Thirty years ago, it had been a restaurant serving British food, with the menu fashionably printed in French, as it tried to go upmarket. Thirty years before that, it had been the town's finest cake-shop, with a small café upstairs, where middle-class ladies in fashionable hats discussed the ways of the post-war world and this newfangled welfare state.

Chung Lee knew none of this. He chose the darkest corner he could and ordered just a starter and a coffee. He picked at his food, for he had already eaten all he wanted in the small staff dining room beside the kitchen at Thorley Grange. Chung felt conspicuous sitting on his own at the small square table with its white linen and shiny cutlery. He relaxed visibly when a man no taller than him and with a similar Asian skin came into the restaurant, looked around, and responded to his urgent signalling.

Fam Chinh was perfectly at home here. He knew the proprietor and had suggested it as a meeting place. He now ordered a full meal and proceeded to enjoy it unhurriedly. Chung Lee made desultory conversation as he watched his companion eat, wanting all the time to snatch a look at his watch. He didn't know Chinh well. But then he didn't know anyone in Brunton well. That was the difficulty about being a natural loner in a strange country.

He'd worked alongside Chinh whilst he was broadening his experience of restaurant work, immediately before he had been appointed at the Grange. He'd found him an affable, easy-going man and a good partner to work with. They'd both started by stacking crockery and working the big old washing-up machine, both graduated to more demanding kitchen tasks as they had proved themselves reliable to the Indian proprietor. They'd looked out for each other, covering up each other's small mistakes and occasional late arrivals for work.

That was as far as it went. They'd been friends and they'd liked each other, but they had seen very little of each other outside work. Chung had taken Fam's telephone number and the friendship might have developed if they'd had longer together. But then Chung Lee had gone for the job at Thorley Grange. They had not seen each other since then. Fam Chinh had been surprised that morning when Chung Lee had rung him at home and asked if they could meet.

Now Chung watched his friend with mounting impatience as he worked his way towards the end of his meal. Lee's confidence was ebbing as he realized how little he really knew of this man. He remembered that Fam was married, that he cherished his wife enough to go straight home to her after work, as not all of the English men seemed to do. But he could not remember if he had any children, could not make the connections which would establish that they were real friends and that friendship carried obligations.

Just when it was no longer needed, as Fam Chinh finished his meal and wiped his lips appreciatively upon his paper napkin, Lee found a topic of conversation which engaged them both. He talked about the old times in Vietnam, about the tensions with Laos and Cambodia in which they had both been involved, as children growing up near the borders. Usually he spoke little about his early days, finding it best to pretend that he had been in Britain longer than he had. Now the conversation became animated, as Chinh lapsed into a series of comic anecdotes about his boyhood and sought to find if they had joint acquaintances.

Eventually, Chung Lee looked openly at his watch and sounded not Vietnamese but very British as he said, ‘Is that the time? I shall have to go soon.'

‘It's been good to see you. We must arrange to do this again,' said Fam Chinh. He was still rather puzzled by this meeting, pleasant as it now seemed, because he had never really expected to see Chung again.

‘There was something I wanted you to do for me,' said Chung. He had blurted it out suddenly in the end, not led up to it craftily, as the English would have done. But he wasn't English, was he?

Fam, though his English was not as good as Chung's, was a little more Anglicized in his ways. He smiled and said, ‘I'll do whatever I can for you. But I don't see much I can do. You have moved up in the world and I'm still where I was.'

Chung wondered if that was meant to be cutting, if the man really felt he had moved up in the world. Had he been disloyal, in leaving him behind working for the Indian? Perhaps he should not have pitched the attractions of work at Thorley Grange so strongly when he was struggling for something to talk about whilst the man ate his meal. It was too late to worry about that now. He wanted to introduce what he wanted casually, so as to make it seem less of a favour. But he hadn't the skills to do that.

He looked again at his watch and said, ‘I really must go. Things at the Grange are in turmoil today, as you can probably imagine.'

‘Turmoil?' Chinh spoke as if dealing with a strange new word, as perhaps he was. ‘Why is that?'

Chung realized with a sinking heart that like many foreigners far from home, Fam paid little attention to local news. ‘Did you not hear about the death?'

Fam Chinh looked blank for a moment. Then, to Chung's relief, understanding flooded into the olive features. ‘Someone from the Grange was killed, yes? In suspect way?'

‘Suspicious circumstances, yes; that is what the police say. And it was the man who owns the place – owned the place, I suppose I should now say. So there is much confusion and we wonder what will happen to all of us. That is why I have to get back.'

‘Yes. Yes, I understand. I must not delay you.'

‘But there is something I have to ask you.'

‘What is that?'

Chung thought he saw shutters closing on his friend's face. He said desperately. ‘It is not much, really. I need you to say that I was with you last night.' Then as doubt flooded into the face across the table, he said desperately, ‘We could say we were here, if you like.'

Chinh spoke English adequately for his needs, though he was not as fluent as Chung Lee. Under pressure, his control of the language always deteriorated. ‘Why you need this? Why you need me to say you with me?' His eyes widened in horror. ‘You kill this man? You kill your new boss?'

Chung managed to laugh, to show the man by relaxing his body how ridiculous that notion was. In the crisis, he was much better than he had been in the preceding hour. ‘No, of course not! I scarcely got near enough to Mr Ketley even to speak to him.' He chuckled again at the absurdity of the notion of himself as killer, then said, ‘But the staff talk to each other up there, and it does sound to me from what I've heard around the kitchen and the rest of the house as if someone killed the boss. I'm foreign, like you, and we know what it's like, don't we? We always seem to be the first suspects, when anything goes wrong.'

To his immense relief, Fam Chinh nodded. There'd been an incident last week when money went missing and he'd been sure everyone was looking at him suspiciously. He'd been very relieved when the money was found. He said, ‘You not really involved in this?'

‘No, of course I'm not. But I haven't been up there very long and everyone else there seems to be British. I just want to be able to say I was with someone when this happened, that's all. A sort of safety blanket for me.'

‘A safety blanket.' Chinh weighed this strange phrase he had never heard before and took a decision. ‘All right. We were here, weren't we? We had a full meal and were here for the whole evening.'

‘That's right! We were!' Lee wrung the man's hand warmly in his relief, almost as though they were both British. ‘I'll do the same for you some day, Fam! Though it's only a precaution, you understand? I'm entirely innocent. I had nothing to do with this.'

‘Of course you are! Of course you didn't!'

Chung Lee carried his elation out with him into the street. It survived the cold there and lasted until he was back in his room at Thorley Grange. It was only after two hours there that he wondered how resolute Fam Chinh would prove if put under police pressure.

TWELVE

A
s Senior Investigating Officer, DCI Peach gathered his team on Monday morning to bring people up to date before releasing them to their allotted tasks for the day.

Winter darkness is a great aid to those who wish to conceal their actions, but Bentleys are more often noticed than run-of-the-mill cars. Two people had seen the vehicle driving out of Brunton to the suburb where it had been located on Saturday night. A resident of the area had actually noticed the big car after it had parked, but had assumed that it was empty, whilst the owner was merely visiting one of the nearby houses. It had been a late-night dog-walker who had actually examined the car and discovered the body.

‘We shall have the PM report and the first findings from forensics later today, but you can assume this is murder. An efficient murder, as far as the SOCO officer and I could determine at the scene of the crime, so don't expect anything startling or helpful is going to be handed to you on a plate by forensics. This one will stand or fall by our efforts.'