The Ashford Affair (41 page)

“Yes,” Clemmie said warily. “I had heard something to that effect.”

Paul leaned back in his chair, narrowly missing conking his head on a studio picture of his theoretical offspring. “As your team leader, I wanted to speak to you personally before the memo went out.”

“Thank you?” said Clemmie.

Paul settled the football on the desk, leaning both hands on it. “I want you to know that everyone on the committee spoke very highly of the work that you’ve done here.”

Since it felt redundant to say thank you again, Clemmie just nodded. Please, just get this done, she thought, please say congratulations and let me leave. No more torture. No more plastic football.

“But there were some concerns voiced. About your commitment”—Paul looked meaningfully at her—“and your judgment.”

What? Clemmie nearly lost her grip on her yellow legal pad. She grabbed at it just before it slid off her lap. She could feel the sweat beginning under her armpits, prickling against the nylon of her Banana Republic blouse.

“In the end, the committee decided that it just wasn’t a chance we could take. It was a tough decision,” he added. “We do want you to know that.”

Tough? Clemmie’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. Tough? She’d spent twenty hours a day, seven days a week, in this building. She’d blown off her family, her friends. She had no idea what was on television because she hadn’t watched it since law school. She hadn’t read a book since—well, did they still make them out of parchment? She’d missed her own goddaughter’s christening because of a fire drill that turned out to be a false alarm. She’d broken off her fucking engagement for the firm. He had to be kidding.

“You aren’t serious.”

Paul did his best to look concerned and understanding. “We all think very highly of your abilities as an associate, Clementine—but what makes a good associate isn’t necessarily what makes a good partner. There are certain qualities we look for in a CPM partner.”

“Qualities like yours?” Clemmie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t.

Sarcasm wasn’t Paul’s strong suit. “Precisely,” he said, looking pleased.

So, basically, if she’d been a raging asshole with no managerial skills, she’d be fine?

“This isn’t happening,” she muttered.

She was asleep, she was hallucinating, she was—she didn’t know, but this couldn’t be real. She had busted her butt for so long, never put a foot out of line, always put the firm first …

“Naturally,” said Paul, “we hope you’ll consider staying on as a senior associate. Everyone admires your output and we’d love to keep you here at the firm if we can. It’s not your work product anyone has issues with,” he said kindly, “just your judgment.”

“Thanks.” She was going to be ill. She felt like throwing up, if there’d been anything in her stomach to go. All she’d had this morning was half a cup of cold coffee, the dregs of her cut-price coffee machine.

“If you do decide to go elsewhere, we hope you’ll think fondly of CPM. I know several of our clients would be happy to have you on board their in-house teams—”

She couldn’t take this. Seven years. Seven years she had given up so she could be told she didn’t have the right
qualities
? Paul’s voice went on and on, in-house work, client relationships, giving work back to CPM, blah, blah, blah. As if she were meant to be grateful. Grateful for what? For kissing his ass for two years? For never taking a holiday off? For spending her birthday doing twenty-two hours of doc review and sleeping the remaining two under her desk next to the frayed bits of lettuce from the previous night’s salad? Yeah, right, sure.

Clutching the carved arm of the chair, Clemmie heaved herself upright. The yellow legal pad slid off her lap, onto the faux Aubusson rug that covered the industrial green carpet. It didn’t make a sound. Neither did she.

“Clementine?” Paul broke off in confusion.

Her legs felt wobbly. She took a deep breath and straightened her spine. She didn’t have to do this anymore. Screw Paul. Screw CPM.

“Clementine!”

Clemmie ignored him. She did what she should have done years ago. She turned around and walked out.

Kenya, 1927

“When was the last time you saw Mrs. Desborough?”

“On Wednesday night. I don’t recall the time.” Addie sat with her legs crossed at the ankles, her hands folded in her lap, perched on the edge of a narrow metal chair in a tent that had been turned into a temporary headquarters for the superintendent of the Chania CID.

It was Budgie who had radioed to the police when the initial search for Bea proved fruitless.
We don’t have the manpower,
he had said when Raoul demanded to know why. Frederick had been silent, staring at that scarf, that ominously stained scarf. As for Val Vaughn, goodness only knew what he thought. He had stalked off to the makeshift landing strip, taking his plane out, for the aerial view, he said, although Addie didn’t imagine one could spot a woman as one could a herd of elephants. There was a distinct difference in scale.

Perhaps, she thought, it helped him to be doing something, anything. The sitting about was maddening. Addie didn’t know whether to be terrified or furious. Terrified for Bea’s safety, out in the bush alone, furious at her putting herself into this position in the first place. It would be just like Bea to storm out, planning to teach them all a lesson by staying away until they were good and worried—she’d done something similar when she and Addie were young, seeking revenge on Nanny for some minor slight. She’d sauntered back after dark, having had a perfectly pleasant time taking tea with the head gamekeeper while the nursery was turned upside down and all of them were sent to bed without supper.

As for the scarf, Addie had lost a good year of her life over that until she’d remembered that breaking noise, something smashing. Bea had probably cut her hand on that broken whatever it was and wrapped her hand in her scarf until it stopped bleeding. It all made perfect sense, and any moment now Bea should come strolling back in with a nonchalant, Miss me?

Only she hadn’t.

The superintendent had appeared on Thursday, bringing with him a complement of
askari
s, native police officers. They had fanned out over the surrounding area, searching. For all their combined efforts, there had been no sign of Bea. Instead, all they had of Bea was a pitifully small pile of objects gathered on a rickety table on the side of the room, labeled like exhibits in a museum. Item: one diamond clip, worn by Mrs. Frederick Desborough on the shoulder of her gown. Item: one chiffon scarf, stained. Item: one blue silk evening slipper.

Like the scarf, there were stains on the shoe, ugly, dark stains. It had been found about five yards away from the shoe, on an incline down towards a narrow stream, as though Bea, fleeing, had lost first her scarf and then her shoe. An
askari
had found the brooch glittering on the ground not far away.

The shoe bothered Addie. It nagged at the back of her memory. She could have sworn that Bea was wearing green that night, not blue. Addie hadn’t seen her in blue since that horrible party at Ashford where Val Vaughn had brought up a safari and started them all on the path to this fiasco. Bea was always so careful with her attire; she would never wear blue slippers with a green frock. That was the sort of thing Addie might do absentmindedly, but never Bea. She was too particular about her appearance.

But had it been a green dress that last night? Addie had thought so, but it had been dark, the light uncertain. She’d had other things on her mind. Her attention had been for Frederick, silent and brooding, not for Bea, blithely playing Val and Raoul against each other, one on each side, while Budgie slid further and further into his traditional evening stupor. Bea’s shoes might have been crimson for all Addie would have noticed.

A pale blue crepe de chine didn’t look all that different from green chiffon in the candlelight.

“Can you tell me roughly when that might have been?” asked the superintendent. He had a flat, strange accent. Canadian, he had told her when he first called her in for a statement, three days before. Since then, his expression had become more harried, the lines between his nose had deepened, and his questions had become markedly more pointed.

“We didn’t take much note of the time,” Addie said, “not out here. It felt late, but with the early sunset it’s so very hard to tell. It might have been any time between nine and midnight. I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”

“That’s all right.” The superintendent made a note with his pencil.

Addie was beginning to hate those notes. She had been in and out of this tent for days now, for seemingly random inquiries, scratch, scratch, scratching with that abominable pencil in that absurd little notebook. In the meantime, Bea was still out there somewhere, lost, confused, possibly hurt.…

“No,” said Addie forcefully, startling the superintendent into snapping his pencil point, “it’s
not
all right. What are you doing to find my cousin?”

The superintendent looked up, surprised. “Miss Gillecote—”

“She’s been missing for four days now. That’s four days in which she might have been found. We have no idea where she is, and as far as I can tell we aren’t any closer to having any idea. She might have hit her head. She might be wandering, confused.”

Addie could picture her, thin, dirty, scratched by thorns, wandering in the bush, drinking from streams, disoriented and alone.

Fear made Addie imperious. She stood, leaning both hands on the superintendant’s makeshift desk. “Instead of being out there, looking for her, you’re sitting in here, asking the same questions over and over. Frankly, I just don’t see how this is any use at all.” The superintendent opened his mouth to speak, but Addie swept on. “I fully appreciate the need for a full and complete record, but shouldn’t you attend to the ministerial duties
after
you’ve found my cousin?”

The superintendent put down his pencil. “Miss Gillecote—” He broke off, massaging the muscles of his right hand with his left. “At this point, the odds of recovering your cousin are … slim. If she were to be found, we would have found her.”

In the complete silence of the tent, Addie could hear the monotonous drone of a fly. Outside a bird chirped. A drop of sweat worked its way slowly down her spine, under the band of her brassiere. She could feel the itch of the stitching on the straps against her skin.

The idea that Bea wasn’t to be found, that Bea might be … gone. It was unthinkable. Nine lives, Val Vaughn had said.

Yes, but how many had she used up?

Addie sat bolt upright in her chair. “That makes no sense at all,” she said with a sniff worthy of Aunt Vera. “If my cousin were … were dead, shouldn’t we have recovered a body?”

The superintendent looked at her with something very like pity. “Not necessarily. In fact, it would be highly unlikely. The animals—”

“Take care of their own.” Addie’s voice came out strangely high-pitched. The superintendent looked at her strangely. Addie shook her head. “Sorry. Just something someone said.”

“Whoever it was, he was right. The animals make short work of bodies out here.” Something in her face must have caught him. He set down his pencil and said apologetically, “I am sorry, Miss Gillecote. I had thought you knew.”

Addie shook her head wordlessly. He was wrong; he had to be. Not Bea, Bea who was always so full of life, so resourceful.

So careless.

“What was your cousin’s relationship like with her husband?”

The use of the past tense stung her. Her head snapped up. “What has that to do with anything?”

The superintendent tapped the blunt end of his pencil against the table. “We need to examine every aspect of the situation.” Leaning back in his chair, he subjected her to a long, assessing stare. “We can’t rule out the possibility of foul play.”

“Foul play?” echoed Addie. “You mean— Murder?” She could hardly bring herself to say it. It was too absurd.

The superintendent neither confirmed nor denied it. “We would be remiss if we did not examine every possibility.”

Then what about the possibility that Bea was still alive? Addie couldn’t, though. She could see the pity in his eyes and resented it. He’d dismiss her as hysterical. He’d already made up his mind. Bea had been murdered.

Murder. It was something that happened to other people, in penny thrillers or in newsreels, not real people, not people one knew. It was all a horrible, horrible mistake. It had to be.

Tight-lipped, she said, “I see.” She sat back down, taking care rearranging her skirt, smoothing it down so that it didn’t bunch up beneath her.

The superintendent shuffled a pile of papers. “I know this is difficult, Miss Gillecote—”

Difficult? No. Difficult was a jigger under one’s toenail or a broken belt on the coffee dryer. That was difficult.

“—but the evidence all points to the possibility of … unpleasantness. We have a missing woman and we have a scarf and a shoe, both with blood on them. You seem like a sensible woman, Miss Gillecote. If you had come into this from the outside, what conclusions would you draw?”

She knew he was deliberately manipulating her, attempting to play her with that patronizing nod to her common sense, but the question ate at her all the same. From the outside, it all looked rather damning, and even more damning if one factored in the bits he didn’t know about: Raoul’s jealous outbursts, Vaughn’s odd behavior. Frederick.

She could hear his voice that last night, the strange expression on his face as she left him by the fire. The sound of raised voices and glass shattering.

“Did your cousin have anyone who might wish to harm her?”

The question cut too close to Addie’s own train of thought for comfort. “Everyone loved Bea.” Except when they didn’t. “She was always much in demand.”

The superintendent’s eyes narrowed. He said deliberately, “Monsieur de Fontaine tells us that Mrs. Desborough planned to run away with him. He said they were planning their departure that night.”

“That’s nonsense!” Addie’s surprise was unfeigned. “It can’t be. She would have—”