Village Affairs (33 page)

“Yes,” said Bethancourt frankly, “I do. But I’m not out to prove anything that isn’t true. I could be wrong and what you’ve just told me proves nothing. Whatever her usual habits, she might still have gone for a walk that night. I gather you do think I’m wrong?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed again. “I want you to be wrong. It’s the twins, you see. They’ve had to suffer so much from her notoriety. It isn’t easy, you know, being the child of someone famous. I don’t want there to be another scandal over her death. But,” and she straightened up on her stool, “if she was murdered, well, of course there’s no help for it.”

Bethancourt was still unsure how far she would go to spare her darling twins another uproar. He mulled it over as he returned to the car, pausing to light a cigarette and then looking up when he heard a horse approaching.

“Hello.” Julie Benson waved from the back of a gray gelding.

“Hello,” said Bethancourt. “It’s my old friend Smoke, isn’t it?” He came around the side of the Jaguar to pat the horse’s neck while Julie swung down.

“Yes,” she said, “it is. I was just bringing him in when I saw the car. I rather thought it was yours. Anything up?”

“No, not really,” he replied. “Just a question for Mrs. Potts.” He smiled at her. “I suppose I might ask you as well, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Not at all. What is it?”

“Did your mother often take walks to sort things out? You said yesterday she wasn’t a great walker.”

“Nor was she.” Julie frowned for a moment and began thoughtfully pulling off her gloves. “Mother did take walks, of course,” she said. “It would be silly to have a place like this and never go out in it. But, to tell you the truth, I can’t recollect what sort of mood she was in when she took them. I suppose, when she did go off by herself, I was just glad to have her out of the way. Mother can be—could be—very draining on a person.”

“Yes, I can see that,” said Bethancourt sympathetically. He hesitated, but the conversation did not seem to be distressing her. “What about after Mr. Sinclair died?”

Julie wrinkled her nose. “Oh, she was in fine form then. Mostly she kept to her room while the rest of us crept around the house like mice, trying not to disturb her.” She paused. “I do remember one night,” she said slowly. “I had woken up and gone to the loo, and as I passed my bedroom window, I thought I saw a light in the garden. I thought it was one of those reporters, but when I looked out, I found it was Mother, just sitting on the bench and smoking. I must have seen the flame when she lit her cigarette.” She looked up at him doubtfully. “That’s not the same as walking all the way to the lake, of course. The bench is quite close to the house.”

“But it does show that she sometimes went out on a night when she was troubled,” said Bethancourt. “Was this very late?”

Julie shrugged. “I don’t know. I had been asleep, so it was after eleven or so, but I couldn’t tell you now how long after it was.”

“No, of course not,” said Bethancourt. “Well, thanks very much. That’s very helpful. I’d better push along now.”

He turned to open the back door of the car for Cerberus.

“It was nice seeing you again,” she said, backing the horse a few paces. “I wanted to say, Smoke here is just fine after yesterday. You really are a very good rider.”

“Thank you. Praise from Sir Hubert …”

He smiled back at her as he got into the car.

She blushed a little and hesitated. “Er …”

“Yes?” he asked.

“I was wondering … it’s silly, really.”

“What’s silly?”

“Well, I was wondering how long you’d known that model.”

He was surprised. “Marla? I’ve been seeing her for almost a year now. Why?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said hurriedly, staring down at her boots. “I was just wondering, that’s all. Are you still staying with Astley-Cooper?”

“That’s right,” said Bethancourt.

“Well, I’ll see you about then,” she said, turning the horse toward the barn.

Bethancourt started the engine, looking after her and frowning a little. She could not possibly imagine that a man whose taste ran to fashion models would ever be interested in her. But to a man of his experience, there was also no mistaking the look in her eyes. He sighed as he guided the car down the drive.

Derek Towser had awakened later than his wont. The sky was clearing as he made himself coffee, but he elected not to go out. He didn’t think he could concentrate.

He took his coffee into the studio and stood contemplating the painting on the easel. He had thought to put some finishing touches on it today, but he didn’t even pick up a brush. He knew he wasn’t really seeing the painting. He wandered back to the kitchen.

Scotland Yard was as good as their word. When he heard the knock on the door, he knew that was what he had been waiting for, though he hadn’t admitted it to himself. His heart was beating absurdly fast as he went to let the police in.

Detective Chief Inspector Carmichael was alone on the doorstep.

“Good morning, sir,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve brought your shoes.”

“Thank you, Chief Inspector,” said Towser, taking charge of the package the detective held out. “I hardly expected them back so soon.”

Carmichael smiled. “Oh, the lab’s very quick these days,” he said. “They’ve made the casts and done all the comparisons. I thought you might like to know how we did with them.”

Towser swallowed. “Yes,” he managed, “yes, I would.”

Carmichael was still smiling. “It was your footprint, without a doubt.”

“Ah.” It was what he had been dreading, and he wasn’t sure how to react. “My footprint.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Carmichael. “Thank you very much for lending us the shoes, sir. You have helped the police with their inquiry.”

He turned to go.

“Wait,” said Towser desperately. “Wait a moment, Chief Inspector.”

Carmichael turned back, one bushy eyebrow raised in question.

“What happens now?”

“Nothing, for the moment.”

“Nothing?” Towser was astounded.

“Nothing,” replied Carmichael firmly. “Mr. Towser, it is not illegal in this country to take an evening walk by a lake which adjoins the property you are renting.”

“No, of course not,” said Towser.

“Good day, then. No doubt we will be speaking again in the next few days.”

Carmichael smiled again and turned back to his car.

Towser stared after him, still clutching his shoes.

“There we are then,” said Carmichael with a satisfied smile as he got back into the car. “That’s got the wind up him good and proper, that has.”

“Yes, sir,” said Gibbons, letting in the clutch while his superior busied himself with his safety belt. “I hope it stirs something up,” he added.

“Well, you never can tell, lad,” said Carmichael, settling into his seat and fishing for a cigar. “It was an opportunity, and worth taking in my opinion. Towser panicking because he believes we think he’s guilty of two murders may do nothing more than add to the village gossip mill. But sometimes, when people think the police have their minds made up, they get careless, or at least less wary.”

“Then you don’t think there’s any chance left that Towser
is
guilty?” asked Gibbons.

Carmichael’s eyes narrowed as he brought out his lighter. “He certainly
could
have done it,” he said. “He’s had every opportunity to get at that Seconal, but we’ve never found a motive for him to want Bingham dead, much less Joan Bonnar. No, as far as she’s concerned, it’s the crowd up at the old farmhouse who may have motive.”

Gibbons was silent for a moment. “The problem,” he said, “is that we know Bingham’s death was a suspicious one because we know the body was moved afterward. But Joan Bonnar’s death may well have been accidental—if it weren’t for her connection with Bingham, we’d probably not be looking into it at all.”

Carmichael frowned and then sighed. “Too true, lad,” he said. “It’s only my instincts that say something is badly amiss. And I could be wrong—heaven knows it’s happened before—but on the other hand, I don’t like to ignore a hunch.” He put down his window with a thoughtful look on his face, and bent his head to light his cigar. In between puffs, he added, “I want at least to know if Joan Bonnar had given her children or their dragon of a nanny cause to want her dead recently—if she had changed her will, or anything like that.”

“I’d like to know, too,” admitted Gibbons. “But it doesn’t do to forget that the Bensons and Mrs. Potts all have alibis for Bingham’s death.”

“Ah, well,” said Carmichael, flicking his lighter shut with a click, and settling back in his seat. “Martha Potts’s alibi isn’t a very good one, and we never looked too closely at the Bensons’, not knowing at the time that their mother was engaged to a murder victim. We mustn’t let a little thing like an alibi trouble us, Gibbons.”

His sergeant laughed and Carmichael grinned at him as he blew out a stream of smoke.

“We’ll see where we’re at once we’ve spoken to all these people today,” he added more practically. “Has the superintendent got that search warrant in hand yet?”

“He said he’d have it by this afternoon,” said Gibbons. “I’ve arranged for a team of scene-of-the-crime officers to be ready.”

“Good, good. If everything’s ready when we arrive, you can go with the SOCKOs and oversee the search, and I’ll keep your appointment with Miss Bonnar’s agent.”

“Yes, sir,” said Gibbons, and, turning onto the A40, put his foot down on the accelerator.

Bethancourt, returning from the Benson farm, stopped in the village at the tobacconist’s. As he emerged from the shop, his attention was caught by a white Rolls-Royce proceeding apace down the High Street. It slowed as it came abreast of him, and then swerved abruptly over to the curb, narrowly missing the right front bumper of his Jaguar.

“Hullo,” he said, somewhat startled.

Eve Bingham leaned across the passenger seat and he obligingly stepped to the window.

“I’ve decided to stay on here until after the Bonnar inquest,” she announced.

“That’s good,” he said, nonetheless rather surprised. She looked tired, he thought. Her face was pale and beneath the dark blue eyes there were circles. More than tired, he decided, she looked unhappy, as if she had lost the strength to battle further with life.

“It’s Wednesday,” he said impulsively. “Choir practice night, you know. Why don’t you come ’round with me tonight and listen to it?”

She smiled grimly and shook her head. “And have the whole village staring at me, wondering if I’m a murderer? You’re a brave man, Phillip, but I don’t think I’m up to it.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “They’ll all be busy singing. You don’t have to come to the pub afterward, you know, if you don’t want to. And we’ll be sitting at the back, so that I can smuggle the dog in.”

She bit her lip, hesitating. “Very well,” she said abruptly. “I’ll meet you at the church at—what time?”

“Seven o’clock,” he answered, smiling at her. “You’ll see, Eve. It will do you good to get out.”

She laughed mirthlessly. “Christ,” she said. “My first big night out since I got here and I’m going to the village church to listen to hymns. Would anyone have believed it? If this gets back to Paris, I’m finished.”

“Your reputation is safe with me,” Bethancourt promised. “I’ll see you tonight.”

She nodded and eased the Rolls back into the street.

Bethancourt gazed after her for a moment, pulling a cigarette from the fresh packet he had bought and tapping it absently on the back of his hand. Then he shook his head.

“I’m probably a fool,” he said, and bent to shield his lighter flame from the breeze.

CHAPTER
16

J
oan Bonnar’s solicitor was a hearty, rotund man whom Carmichael found tediously self-important. Mark Smith, Esq., did his best to give the impression that his famous client could barely make a dinner reservation without consulting him. After several minutes of persistent questioning, however, Carmichael elicited the information that in fact Mark Smith, Esq., had not spoken to Miss Bonnar since she had signed the contracts for her current play back at the beginning of June. Certainly she had never spoken to him about changing her will.

But, thought Carmichael, at the beginning of June, she had only known Charles Bingham for a month or so and would hardly have been thinking of marriage. He tried to come at the problem from a different angle.

“But if she had thought, for some reason, of altering her bequests,” he said, “would you have expected her to be in touch at once? I mean, was she generally efficient about such things? Or was she more apt to put a thing off until the last moment?”

Smith gave a smug little smile. “Artistic people are often a bit lax about their business affairs, Chief Inspector.” He said this as though it were an original thought, and one that would probably surprise Carmichael. The detective suppressed a sigh and kept a neutral expression on his face. “However,” Smith continued, “Joan was better than many of her peers. If she had made up her mind to change her will, I should have expected to hear from her within a week or two. In fact, it would really be more likely that she would have rung me to get my advice about the changes before she made up her mind.”

Carmichael ignored that last sentence; it was all of a piece with how Smith wanted his relationship with Joan Bonnar to be seen, and Carmichael doubted very much that it was true.

“What about if she contemplated marrying again?” he asked. “She’d have to update her will then?”

“There would, of course, have to be a new will in that case,” answered Smith. “The marriage would nullify the old one. But the provisions in it wouldn’t necessarily change. Joan didn’t alter her bequests when she married Daniel Mitchum, although of course there was a prenuptial agreement then.”

“And when she married Eugene Sinclair?” asked Carmichael.

Smith waved a hand, as if Joan’s two marriages to Sinclair were of no importance. “I was not acting for Joan at that time,” he said. “Her affairs were in the hands of our then-senior partner, who has since retired. I expect I could find out, if you wished.”