Murder Among Us (24 page)

"Wouldn't tell what, Margery? Is this something we should have known all along?"

"No, not all along because I didn't know it all along. I only knew it the other day! Look, Mr. Markby, when we were looking over the books—I didn't understand it, honestly, not then. Because I didn't know about the

other thing then. But since then I've been thinking . . . Ellen was—was doing something she shouldn't, wasn't she?" She fixed him with apprehensive eyes.

"Possibly. We don't know. Someone is currently looking them over who knows more about that sort of thing than I do. There does appear to be unexplained money paid into the bank through the business. There may be a simple explanation."

He felt he could almost hear the wheels going round in her head. When she didn't reply he prompted, "What is it you want to tell me, Margery? You'll feel much better when you have."

"I suppose so. You see, it's like I said. Ellen trusted me. That's why she left everything, not just Needles, but all her affairs, papers, that sort of thing, to me. She thought I'd be discreet. And so when the bank gave me her safe deposit box and I opened it, I really wouldn't have told anyone what it contained if—if this hadn't happened." She gestured at the room with her free hand, the other still rummaging in her purse.

"But this means that he knows about it, that I've probably got it because he couldn't find it here."

"Who is he and what is the thing he wants, Margery?" Markby asked with suppressed impatience.

"You won't be angry? I didn't mean to cause any trouble. I thought it wasn't necessary—that it wouldn't hurt to keep it—to protect Ellen's reputation. It's—I've got it here."

She withdrew not the expected bunch of tissues, but a stiff folded sheet of paper from her bag and handed it over with a shaking hand.

Markby took it and unfolded it. She watched his face, holding her breath. He refolded the paper and put it in his pocket.

"Okay, Margery, now listen to me. You've done the right thing in handing this to us. You are quite safe and no one is going to hurt you. But you are an important witness so I think perhaps you shouldn't go back to your rented room. Apart from anything else, I think you'll

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feel more at ease if you stay somewhere else. Have you a friend you could go to for a few days?"

She shook her head and he tried again, "How about someone from your church?"

"I don't want them to know! I don't want them asking me questions!" She was becoming agitated again.

"All right, all right!" he soothed her. "Then this is what we'll do. I'll take you to a hotel, we'll try The Crossed Keys. We'll book you a room and you stay put in it. A woman police officer will go to your own place and pack a few things for you, an overnight bag. You can have your meals sent up to your room and we'll keep in touch. You will be quite safe. We'll explain to The Crossed Keys that no one is to be given any information about you or allowed to go up to your room. This is all just a precaution because I don't think he'll harm you. But he is probably frightened himself and he might come and ask you for this—" Markby held up the folded sheet of paper. "Or he might just try and find out if you do have it."

"Aren't you going to arrest him?" cried Margery desperately.

"Well, we may. But not just yet. Evidence is a funny old thing, Margery, and unless we find his fingerprints here we can't even prove he was the one who broke in."

"But that—"

"Now leave it all to us. All right?"

An hour later Margery was safely established in The Crossed Keys and Wpc Jones dispatched to get a coherent statement out of her and to then go to Margery's rented room and pack a bag for her. Markby and Pearce sat in Markby's office. Markby took the sheet of paper Ellen had given him out of his pocket and put it on his desk.

"Give you three guesses, Pearce."

"Haven't a clue!" said Pearce, painfully and obviously eaten up with a burning desire to know.

"Come on. Official bit of paper. I've had one of these

in my time and you haven't yet. You will. Come on, what do most of us do sooner or later? Give you a clue. What are the three occasions which get most of us into church in our lives even if we never ever set foot in there otherwise?"

"Baptised and buried," said Pearce. He paused. "Married?"

4 'Married, Pearce." Markby held up the paper. "A marriage certificate, twenty-one years old. An Australian marriage certificate showing the legal conjoining of Ellen Marie Novak and "

He turned the sheet, holding it open and held up for Pearce to read.

"Cripes," said Pearce. "Denis Fulton!"

Eighteen

There was nothing so blatantly commercial and workaday as a reception counter at Springwood Hall. Instead a tall, slightly horsy female with ash blonde hair expertly cut in a shoulder-length bob, and turned out with understated elegance in Country Casuals, presided over the entrance lobby at a probably genuine antique walnut table. As Markby entered she rose to her feet and glided across the beautiful new carpet towards him with a welcoming smile and sharply assessing gaze.

"I'd like to see Mr. Denis Fulton," said Markby. "Chief Inspector Markby."

But she had recognised him now. The sharp look had gone and she had relaxed, her smile less professionally mechanical. She also looked less horsy and really very attractive. Markby realised he was doing his own summing up and mentally ticked himself off. As for policemen of any sort requesting to see a guest, she was well-trained. She didn't bat an eyelid. It might be the most normal thing in the world.

However, just to put the record straight, Markby added with a smile, "We're acquainted. It's not official visit."

"Of course," she said as if such a vulgar thought had never crossed her mind.

He wondered if she was shrewd enough to realise his disavowal was, in its way, a he. Not completely so. For the time being he wanted to keep this informal and off the record. Denis was far more likely to cooperate in that way and Denis, after all, as far as anyone knew, hadn't done anything criminal.

210 Ann Granger

Except a trifling matter of bigamy.

Markby thought about Leah Fulton. This was a very tricky situation. "Is Mrs. Fulton in?" he asked casually.

"Mr. Fulton went across to the swimming pool, sir, about fifteen minutes ago. I haven't seen Mrs. Fulton. Would you like me to ring up?" She stretched out a hand to a phone on the walnut table.

"No, no!" he said hastily. "It's Mr. Fulton I wanted to see."

"Do you know the way to the swimming pool, sir?" She was all hovering solicitude.

"Yes, yes. I'll find him. Thanks."

The interior of the building housing the swimming pool suggested a Kew Gardens greenhouse in the middle of which someone had chosen to sink a large rectangular lake. The temperature was tropical. All around the edge of the pool stood tubbed palms and banks of potted flowers lending an exotic jungle touch and spreading heady perfumes which disguised, though not completely, the faint odour of chlorine. Music, faint and pervasive, filtered through some unseen system. It was relaying the Birdcatcher's aria from the first act of The Magic Flute and the piece seemed entirely appropriate.

The pool itself was lined with turquoise tiles and clever subsurface lighting was designed to turn the swimmers into golden-limbed naiads disporting themselves in translucent Elysian waters. As it shimmered and rippled, distorting the square lines of the tiles on the bottom, the pool threw strange reflections on to the ceiling. Markby found this ethereal, topsy-turvy world strangely disorientating.

However its only occupant was distinctly unethereal: Denis, swimming slowly and determinedly up and down its length in the way of a man taking exercise because it was good for him and not because he was enjoying it particularly.

"Denis?" called Markby, dropping on to his heels at

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the top end of the surrounding tile border of the pool. His voice echoed cavernously in the empty chamber.

Denis splashed and briefly disappeared. He popped up again, red-faced and spitting water, and began to trawl back towards Markby. When he reached him he turned on his back and floated, paddling his hands and staring round-eyed up at his visitor in sea-otter fashion.

"Hullo, Alan!" he said unhappily.

"Glad of a word if you've got a moment. Is Leah about?"

"No—no, she's resting. I'll come out. Give me a minute."

Denis doggy-paddled over to the steps and hauled himself out. He shook his plump body like a spaniel and padded off towards the changing rooms leaving a trail of wet footprints. Gazing after him, Markby judged there was no way Denis would try to make a run for it. He found himself a white-painted wooden recliner comfortably lined with thick turquoise blue cushions and settled down. He wished he had time for a swim.

Denis came back wearing a towelling bathrobe. His hair, ruffled by brisk rubbing, stood up on end. He took the chair next to Markby's and gave him a nervous smile.

"Know what I've come about?" asked Markby gen-tly.

"No!" Denis jerked at the tie-belt of his bathrobe almost cutting himself in half. "Well, yes, I suppose I do!"

"You were wasting your time. It wasn't there and as a matter of fact, we have it."

Denis's face was a picture of misery. He said, "Will you tell Leah?"

"If she doesn't know, Denis, I think now is the time for you to tell her. I take it there was no divorce?"

Denis shook his head. "The tabloids will get hold of it. It'll be the end of Leah. The scandal... All her friends knowing. I'll have made her look a fool. For

God's sake, Alan, does it have to get out?"

"That rather depends on how much it has to do with Ellen's death."

"Nothing!" Denis shouted and his voice echoed round the pool area like a yodeller's across a mountain pass. "I didn't kill her, I swear!"

"Well, if it has nothing to do with it, then I'm not bothered but you will have to tell Leah and arrange a quiet remarriage. After all, you are free now. You're a widower."

Denis's face crumpled. "What makes you think Leah will agree to a remarriage? She'll leave me. She'll probably sue me. She'll hate my guts for doing this to her. I didn't mean it."

"Want to tell me about it?"

The sound system was relaying a Lehar waltz, Gold and Silver. Denis threw himself back despondently on his recliner and began to speak, staring up at the patterns of light thrown across the ceiling by the softly surging water in the pool.

"It was years ago, more than twenty. I was in Australia researching a book. You see, a lot of people were starting to take holidays over there, visiting relatives and so on, about that time. I persuaded my publisher that a guide to eating out in the major Australian cities and a bit of other general guide-book stuff thrown in would be a good idea. They said go and do it, so I did.

"I wanted to cover the widest possible range of restaurants from the most pretentious to the humblest. I included ethnic restaurants and offbeat ones. I even took in a couple of 'barbies.' And I included, naturally, a chapter on vegetarian dining out. That's where I met Ellen. In a vegetarian diner."

Denis sighed. He shifted in his recliner and folded his arms as if he were cold although the temperature in here could well have been turned down a degree or two in Markby's judgement. He took off his own jacket and hung it on the back of his chair while he waited for Denis to go on.

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"It was one of those stupid things," said Denis suddenly. "She was a good looker, you know. Even later in these last years. But then she was a stunner. She was a dancer of sorts. Well, between you and me, she was a stripper."

"Was she?" exclaimed Markby.

"Oh yes, but I didn't realise that. She made it sound quite, you know, upmarket, at least corps de ballet stuff. I suppose a fellow quicker on the uptake than I was would have sussed out the situation straight away. But I've—I've never been a ladies' man, far from it! I'm not good around women. I say the wrong things or nothing at all. I'm not good-looking. I'm not charming. I'm a bit of a lost cause. But Ellen seemed to like me. It was, as they say, a whirlwind romance. We got married after one week's acquaintance. You can call me an idiot if you like."

He paused. Markby said in a curiously flat voice, "No, you weren't the first man to fall head over heels in love at first sight."

"I don't know if it was love. I was flattered. It was lonely, eating on my own in all those restaurants, going back to empty hotel rooms to write up my notes. Actually we were both of us mistaken. It was a failure from the word go. Poor Ellen, she thought she was getting a wealthy English author. But although I've earned a fair bit over the years, I admit, I was never able to keep hold of any of it. Add to the absence of money the fact that she actually liked quite a different sort of bloke to me, all muscles and suntan, playing he-man sports. They breed 'em like that out there," said Denis enviously.

Markby let his gaze roam across the pool and between the palm trees, out through the floor-length windows and across the lawns to Springwood Hall.

"We couldn't even eat out together," said Denis sadly, "because she wouldn't eat meat. She found it offensive. For her sake I tried the vegeburgers but they sent me scurrying to the lavatory, something to do with

the make-up of my innards, I suppose. It was worse than a mistake, it was a ludicrous farce. We both realised it and we parted company. I came back to England and she, as I believed, stayed in Australia. By the way, I was told they make burgers out of kangaroos but I never had the courage to check that out."

"Neither of you suggested a divorce to set the record straight?"

"No, well, to tell you the truth, I don't think either of us felt married, if you see what I mean. It lasted a few weeks, that's all. A sort of failed experiment, not a marriage. Anyhow, time went by. I put her out of my mind. It was an embarrassing memory but it was over and done. I met Leah. Again things moved fast and I found we were all set to get married before I'd had a chance to tell her about Ellen. And then I couldn't. I used to wake up at night cold with sweat and shaking at the thought of what I was about to do. Bigamy. I knew I ought to tell her. I ought to get in touch with Ellen and arrange a quick divorce. But there wasn't time. Leah and I were married and I thought, well, who's to know the truth? Ellen has probably forgotten me, probably got an Australian divorce by now and married someone else! She was on the other side of the world. We'd never be in contact again. But I was wrong."