The Herring in the Library (12 page)

‘So, Clive,’ said Ethelred, ‘thank you for coming back. It means I can talk to pretty much everyone today.’

‘I wanted to check how Annabelle was anyway,’ said Clive Brent.

Today, he was dressed in jeans and a red polo shirt with short sleeves. The first thing that struck me, sitting demurely in the background as Ethelred fired off the questions,
was his strange resemblance to John O’Brian. OK, one was the hired help and the other a high-powered banker, but they both had the same sort of rugged, muscled charm. The bare arms were
powerful. The eyes in both cases were blue – steely blue in this case.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Ethelred, in reverential tones. ‘We need to rally round. Annabelle’s being terribly brave, of course, but it’s hit her very
hard.’

‘You’ve spoken to most of the others – John O’Brian and the rest?’

‘Yes, I’ve spoken to John O’Brian and the McIntoshes and Gerald Smith.’

‘What did O’Brian have to say?’

‘He was helpful,’ said Ethelred.

Brent shrugged. ‘He’s always hanging around this place. I don’t think he has a home to go to.’

‘He works here,’ said Ethelred, ‘and Annabelle asked him to come in today.’

Clive Brent nodded briefly at these self-evident facts and looked at his watch. ‘OK, well, perhaps you could ask me whatever you need to ask me?’

‘Very well. You’ve known Robert and Annabelle some time?’

‘Yes. I’ve been a colleague of Robert’s since – oh, since way back. He was already working for the bank when I joined. For a while he was in Germany and
I was in London, then he was in London and I was in Singapore, but we kept meeting up-the way you do. Towards the end we worked very closely together.’

‘He was your line manager.’

‘If you want to put it like that. He always said to regard him as a chum rather than as a boss.’

‘But he was the boss nevertheless?’

‘Obviously.’ Brent glanced at his watch again. It was a smart watch.

‘And you left the bank together?’ asked Ethelred.

‘Obviously.’

‘Obviously?’

‘I’d assumed he’d told you, though there isn’t much to tell. The bank was pushing us to make the biggest profits we could. As long as the money came in,
frankly nobody seemed to care much what risks we took.That’s how things were in those days. When we came unstuck on that gamble on the Singapore dollar, it shouldn’t have surprised
them. We’d have made it up the following year, but they were pleased to discover they had grounds for sacking us. It was a stitch-up, but it had all become very public and everyone was trying
to save their own skin. The chairman and directors were good at that.’

‘Still, Robert stood by you? Took the blame?’

Brent laughed. ‘Is that what he told you?’

‘He didn’t really tell me anything.’

‘My dear chum Robert wriggled and squirmed and tried to dump one hundred per cent of the blame on me. Only when it was clear that that wouldn’t wash and that he was
going to get sacked anyway did he do the noble thing, including making a token request that I should keep my job. Of course, I didn’t keep it.’

‘He was trying to find you another job?’

‘So he said. It was a bit vague. Now he’s gone, I don’t even know which bank he’d been talking to on my behalf. It was only to please Annabelle
anyway.’

‘To please Annabelle?’

‘I mean, in the sense that she reckoned I’d been badly treated. She was very . . . well, supportive.’

Ethelred nodded thoughtfully, but seemed less pleased than he might have been by Annabelle’s thoughtfulness.

‘You were the first to arrive yesterday evening?’

‘Yes, Robert wanted to talk about these contacts of his. In the end we talked a lot about golf and the weather. Finally he patted me on the knee and told me that he hoped
to hear something soon about a job. Then Annabelle pitched up and said the other guests were here. Complete waste of time.’

‘And you were with the other guests the whole time until after Robert was found dead?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The whole time.’

‘No, you weren’t,’ I said.

They both turned to look at me.

‘We met in the corridor, Clive,’ I said. ‘You were on your own.’

‘Oh, yes, that’s right,’ said Brent. ‘I was taking a squint at a painting – it looked like a Constable – and then realized that the others
had gone on. I was only away from them for a couple of minutes.’

‘A couple of minutes?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Brent indignantly. ‘A couple of minutes at the most.’

‘And you saw nothing untoward before Robert’s death – no sign of any intruders, for example?’ asked Ethelred.

Brent’s eyes narrowed a shade. For a moment I thought he was going to pass on that one. He took a breath. ‘I thought I saw somebody in the garden,’ he
said.

‘One of the guests?’

‘No,’ said Brent. ‘Somebody wearing a navy blue pinstriped suit.’

‘That must have seemed very odd,’ said Ethelred, frowning and flicking back through his shopping list.

‘Odd? Yes, I suppose it was.’

‘Did you tell anyone?’

‘I didn’t think it was important,’ said Brent. ‘I just caught a glimpse of him. I can’t even be sure . . .’

‘Old, young?’

‘Youngish,’ said Brent slowly. ‘Yes, perhaps thirty.’

‘How tall?’

‘Quite tall.’

‘As tall as I am?’

‘Possibly a bit shorter than you are. Say five ten, five eleven?’

‘What colour hair?’

‘I didn’t really see,’ said Brent.

‘Didn’t see his hair?’

‘No.’

‘Wearing a hat then, maybe?’ asked Ethelred.

Brent thought about this for a while.

‘A hat?’

‘You weren’t sure about his hair. Neither was O’Brian.’

‘Really? What did he say?’

‘Just that he’d seen somebody similar.’

‘With a hat?’

Ethelred said nothing.

‘Yes, a hat,’ said Brent, at last. ‘I’m pretty sure he had a hat.’

‘What sort?’ asked Ethelred. ‘Panama? Trilby? Cap? Beanie?’

‘Perhaps a beanie?’ Brent said cautiously. He didn’t sound at all sure.

‘A blue pinstriped suit and a beanie?’ I interjected. ‘That must have looked pretty weird on a summer’s evening in the middle of the country.’

‘Yes,’ said Brent. ‘That was . . . that was what made me suspicious.’

‘But you didn’t tell anyone?’ asked Ethelred.

‘No. I’ve told nobody except you.’

‘Not even the police?’

‘I didn’t remember him until this morning.’

‘How did you see him? Were you out in the garden?’ asked Ethelred, his pen now scribbling away.

‘No,’ said Brent quickly, trying to read the notes upside down. ‘I saw him through a window.’

‘And where was he when you saw him?’

‘In the rhododendrons,’ said Brent. ‘He was smoking.’

‘You are certain of that?’

‘Absolutely. I saw him flick the butt onto the ground.’ He thought for a moment and then added: ‘Filter-tip.’

‘Well, we can get him for littering, if nothing else,’ I said.

Neither of the men found this amusing.

‘You’ll need to tell the police all this,’ said Ethelred.

Brent sighed. ‘Do you think so?’

‘Of course.’

‘I don’t see that this intruder can have any relevance. I’m not even sure why Annabelle . . .’

‘Not sure why Annabelle what?’ asked Ethelred.

‘. . . Why she wants you to question us all.’

‘She just wants to be sure the police missed nothing.’

Brent shrugged. ‘I can’t see this is necessary.’

‘She doesn’t like to think it was suicide . . . that Robert was that unhappy . . . he’d just remarried, after all.’

Brent made a face. ‘Why does Annabelle think everything is about her? I’m guessing Robert was a pretty sick man?’

‘But with months to live-months he could have shared with her,’ said Ethelred, who was clearly under the delusion sharing time with Annabelle was in some way
desirable.

‘It was a sham of a marriage,’ said Brent with some vehemence.

‘I don’t think Annabelle saw it that way,’ said Ethelred.

Brent laughed. ‘No?’

‘No,’ said Ethelred firmly. ‘She loved him.’

‘How many people have you questioned this morning?’

Ethelred listed the names.

‘And that is still your view?’ asked Clive Brent.

‘It’s the one thing that I am certain of,’ said Ethelred.

‘It looks as though Annabelle made a good choice of detectives then,’ said Brent. Anything else?’ he added, looking round the room.

‘I’ve got all I need for the moment,’ said Ethelred. ‘Thanks.’

‘Well, that was interesting,’ I said.

‘Interesting?’

‘Seeing how many lies could be packed into forty-five minutes,’ I said.

Ethelred looked at his notes. ‘Such as?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘let’s begin with this intruder. O’Brian says that the light was bad and that he scarcely got a glimpse of him – in fact,
come to think of it, they both said that. Anyway, in spite of it being almost dark, O’Brian is certain that the man was wearing a blue suit with a red pinstripe – whereas I could see
the red stripe in the material only when it was close up and in good light. Brent confirms the blue pinstripe suit but is vague about most other things, except that the guy was wearing a beanie – something O’Brian would surely have spotted and commented on? And why is O’Brian so sure that the man in the blue suit wasn’t a guest? He was out in the garden and says he
didn’t pay much attention to people arriving. How does he
know
all the male guests were in dinner jackets? Brent says he told nobody about the man in the suit, but O’Brian
clearly knew Brent had also seen him. Oh, and both can spot that a cigarette has a filter tip at some distance in fading light.’

‘Anything else?’

‘There’s something else I can’t quite put my finger on, but I think that both were lying all the way through.’

‘Clive Brent was certainly wrong about Annabelle,’ said Ethelred. ‘She was devoted to Robert – and he to her.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’re the one who’s been married. But if that was connubial devotion, I think I might just stay single.’

Unless John O’Brian was available, of course. He was a liar, but he was a hot liar. And possibly stupid enough to commit murder for that special lady in his life.

Eleven

Elsie had wandered off, leaving me alone in the conservatory. Like Elsie, I felt there was something a little queer about the last two interviews that I couldn’t quite
put my finger on. Nothing to worry about – just something that wasn’t quite right. I was therefore rereading my notes when Jane Smith appeared. She was still wearing her evening dress
and looked tired.

‘I thought you wanted to talk to us all,’ she said. She sounded defiant and slightly pathetic at the same time, almost like a child justly fearing some punishment but building
themselves up to a self-righteous denial.

‘Gerald came and saw me earlier,’ I said. ‘I think he didn’t want to disturb you.’

‘He should have brought me along. You said you wanted to speak to all of us.’

I hadn’t really made a public pronouncement on the subject, so Annabelle or one of the guests must have told her that.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’ I said.

She sank into the chair opposite me and moodily toyed with an imaginary speck of dirt on her sleeve.

‘Does Gerald think I have nothing to say in my own right?’ she demanded.

That seemed likely on the face of it. He was that type.

‘Do you have anything to add to what he told me?’ I asked.

‘How should
I
know? I don’t even know what he
said.’

For a moment I thought she was going to stamp her little foot, but she chose this point to burst into tears. I stood by nervously as I usually do under these circumstances. I half held my hand
out to her but then, on further consideration, withdrew it. ‘I’m sure . . .’ I began. I fumbled in my pocket as a preliminary to offering her a handkerchief that was almost
certainly not there. Still, it gave me something to do – something that wouldn’t make things worse. Not making it worse is often as much as you can hope for.

‘Why,’ I said cautiously, ‘don’t I just tell you what Gerald said?’ I looked at her and decided that I hadn’t put my foot in it yet.

Breathing a quick sigh of relief, I got her to sit down and gave her a quick summary of what I had written in my notebook.

‘That isn’t all,’ she said, the sobs slowly subsiding and the initial defiance reasserting itself. ‘That isn’t everything he told you. It
can’t
be.’

I checked my notes again. ‘It’s pretty much all.’

‘What did Gerald say about Robert and me?’

‘Just that you had worked for him.’

‘Nothing more?’

‘Is there anything more?’

She looked at me, trying to read my expression.

‘Oh, not really,’ she said eventually. ‘But didn’t he say that I was more than Robert’s secretary?’

I wondered for a moment whether she meant some higher position in the bank – or perhaps that she had some glorified title such as Senior Executive Assistant – but then I realized
. . .

‘Yes, we had a relationship,’ she said, looking away. ‘That’s what they call it, isn’t it? A relationship. Before Gerald came on the scene, of course, or Annabelle
for that matter. We . . . we slept together. It all lasted about a year. In a way it was rather sordid, but in a way it was rather wonderful – do you know what I mean? Then that
silicon-enhanced bitch Annabelle came along . . . somebody told me last night that the two of them had met in a lap-dancing club, which wouldn’t surprise me . . . and, well, the rest is
history, as they say.’

‘And Gerald knows about you and Robert?’

She looked at me again and gave me a brief smile. ‘Yes. I told him soon after we started going out together.’

‘But it all happened before you had even met Gerald?’

‘Before we started going out properly, yes.’

I pulled a face, but it didn’t sound that bad. Some husbands and wives have a bit of a thing about their spouse’s ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, but Gerald hadn’t mentioned any
of this to me. I caught no hint of jealousy. If it was all some time ago, it didn’t seem very relevant to anything. Perhaps it still meant something to Jane though?