Common Murder (16 page)

Before Deborah could reply, their avocados appeared. Deborah tried her food suspiciously, then her face lit up. “Hey this is really good,” she exclaimed.

When Meg returned to clear their plates and serve the champagne, Lindsay made her move.

“That was terrific, Meg. Listen, we'd like to have a word with Ros. Not right now, obviously, but when she's through in the kitchen. Do you think that'll be okay?”

Meg looked surprised. “I suppose so. But . . . what's it all about, Lindsay? Oh, wait a minute . . . You're a reporter, aren't you?” Her voice had developed a hostile edge. “It's about her father, isn't it?”

“It's not what you think,” Deborah protested. “She's not some cheap hack out to do a hatchet job on you and Ros. You know her, for God's sake, she's one of us.”

“So what
is
it all about then?” The anger in her voice transmitted itself to nearby tables, where a few faces looked up and studied them curiously.

Deborah took a deep breath. “I'm their number one suspect. I've already had one night in the police cells and I don't fancy another. Lindsay's trying her damnedest to get me off the hook and that means discovering the real killer. I'd have thought you and Ros would be interested in finding out who killed her father.”

“Him? The only reason I'd want to know who killed him is so that
I could shake them by the hand. Look, I'm not too impressed with what you've got to say for yourselves, but I will go ask Ros if she'll talk to you.” She marched off and returned a few minutes later with their main courses, which she placed meticulously before them without a word.

They ate in virtual silence, their enjoyment dulled. Meg silently removed their plates and took their order for biscuits, cheese, and coffee.

By half past ten and the third cup of coffee, Lindsay was beginning to despair of any further communication from the kitchen. The tension had dried up conversation between her and Deborah. The evening she'd been looking forward to had somehow become awkward and difficult. Then, a tall, broad woman emerged from the kitchen and exchanged a few words with Meg, who nodded in their direction. The woman crossed the room toward them. She was bulky, but she looked strong and sturdy rather than flabby. Her hair was short and curly, her face pink from the heat of the kitchen. Like her brother, Ros Crabtree strongly resembled their father. She wore a pair of chef's trousers and a navy blue polo shirt. In her hand was a brandy bowl with a large slug of spirit sobbing up the sides of the glass.

She pulled a chair up and said without preamble, “So this is the sleuth. The famous Cordelia Brown's girlfriend. Accompanied, unless I am mistaken, by the brutal peace woman who goes around beating up helpless men.” She smiled generously. “Enjoy your dinner?”

“As always,” Lindsay answered, stung by being defined as an adjunct to Cordelia.

“But tonight you came for more than three courses and a bottle of country wine.”

“We hoped you would help us,” Deborah stated baldly. “Lindsay's trying to clear my name. I'm afraid that if there isn't an arrest soon, I'll be charged, just so they can be seen to be achieving something.”

“We also thought you would have an interest in seeing your father's killer arrested,” Lindsay added.

Ros laughed. “Look, I have no feelings about my father one way or the other. I neither loved him nor hated him but I'm sorry about the way he died. I was glad to be out of his house but frankly, the notion of getting some atavistic revenge on the person who killed him leaves me unmoved. You're wasting your time here.”

Lindsay shrugged. “So if it matters that little to you, why not talk to me, answer my questions? It could make a lot of difference to Debs.”

“I can't think of anything I could tell you that would be of the slightest use. But I suppose I owe something to the woman who cost my father his precious dignity and a broken nose. Oh, the hell with it, ask what you want. If I feel like answering, I will.” She swallowed a generous mouthful of brandy, seemingly relaxed.

“I'll ask the obvious question first. Where were you on Sunday night between ten p.m. and midnight?” Lindsay asked.

“Oh dear, oh dear, we have been reading all the snobbery with violence detective novels, haven't we?” The mockery in Ros's voice was still good-natured, but it was obvious that the veneer was wearing thin. “I was here on Sunday night. We have a flat above the restaurant. I think I was reading till about eleven. Then I went to bed and I was woken up just after midnight when my mother phoned to tell me about my father's death.”

“I suppose Meg can back you up?”

“As it happens, no. Meg was on her way back from Southampton. She'd been visiting her parents. She didn't get home till about half past midnight. So I don't have much of an alibi, do I? No one phoned till mother, I phoned no one. You'll just have to take my word for it.” She grinned broadly.

“I'm surprised you didn't go down to Brownlow as soon as you heard the news. I mean, with your mother to comfort and all that . . .?” Lindsay sounded offhand.

“Acting nonchalant cuts no ice with me, darling. I can spot the heavy questions without you signposting them. Why didn't I dash off home to Mummy? For one thing, I have a business to run. On Mondays, I go to the market and see what's looking good. On that basis I plan the special dishes for the week. We also do all the bookkeeping and paperwork on Mondays. I simply couldn't just vanish for the day. It'll be hard enough fitting the funeral in. That's not as callous as it sounds. My father cared about this business too. But more importantly than all of that, I'm not at all sure I'd be the person to comfort my mother.”

“Why's that?”

“Because I'm not the weepy, sentimental sort. I'm far too bloody brisk to be much of a shoulder to cry on. I'm afraid I'd be more inclined to tell her to pull herself together than to provide tea and sympathy.”

“So it's nothing to do with her attitudes to you being a lesbian? Oh, but of course, they didn't know, did they? Or so Carlton Stanhope reckons. Mind you, I always figure that parents know a lot more than they let on,” said Lindsay, her eyes on a distant corner of the room.

“You've talked to Carl?” Suddenly Ros had become guarded.

“He sends his best wishes. He's seeing Alexandra Phillips these days, you know,” Lindsay replied.

“How nice for him. She used to be a lovely girl when I knew her. I hope she treats him better than I did. Poor Carl,” she said ruefully. “But to go back to what he said to you. He was right, as far as he was aware. They really didn't know. I'd kept it well under wraps. Let me explain the history. After I'd decided my career lay in the catering trade, my father was always keen that I should set up in business on my own when I'd done the training and got the experience. Meg and I did a proper business plan based on the costings for this place and I presented it to him as a good investment. He lent me twenty thousand pounds at a nominal rate of interest so we could get the project off the ground. He'd never have done that much if he'd even suspected. I suppose my cover was never blown because I'd spent so much time studying and working away from home, and when I was home, there were always old friends like Carl around to provide protective coloring. It was really funny when we launched Rubyfruits—we had to have two opening nights. One with lots of straight friends that we could invite the parents to and another with the real clientele.”

Lindsay lit a cigarette. “It sounds like you had a lot to be grateful to him for?”

Ros shrugged. “In some ways. But we were never really close. He was always at arm's length, somehow. With all of us. As if his real life happened somewhere else. The office; I suppose. Or one of his causes.” The edge of bitterness in her voice was apparent even to Ros herself. She softened her tone and added, “But I guess I owe this place to him. I'm sorry he's dead.”

“Then he didn't carry out his threat to take his money back?”
Lindsay's casual words dropped into a sudden well of silence. Ros's face wouldn't have looked out of place on Easter Island.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” she declared. “No idea at all.”

“I'm told that he'd recently become disillusioned with you, that he was minded to take his money out of this business as a token of his disappointment. You really should tell me about it in case I go away with the wrong idea. And you not having much of an alibi. My news editor would like that story a lot.”

Ros stared hard at Lindsay. “Well, well,” she muttered bitterly, “So much for lesbian solidarity. You're not the pushover I took you for, are you? Fancy me thinking that anyone who tagged along on Cordelia's coat-tails could be toothless. All right. Since you obviously know enough to make a bloody nuisance of yourself, I'd better tell you the rest.

“Ten days ago I had a phone call from my father. He informed me that he was instructing his bankers to recover the twenty thousand he'd loaned me. He refused to say why, or even to say anything else. So I rang my mother to see if she knew what the hell was going on. And she wouldn't say either.

“So I jumped on the bike and bombed down to the old homestead where I squeezed out of Mamma what it was all about. To cut a long story short, it was all down to my perfectly bloody little brother. You know he's got this business in computer software? Well, he had to start it on a shoestring, against my father's advice. Father wanted different things for Simon, and that was the end of the story as far as he was concerned. He wouldn't even listen when one of Simon's teachers came to see him and told us that Simon was the best computer programmer he'd ever encountered. Apparently, he was hacking into other people's systems by the time he was in the third form. Anyway, Simon got off the ground somehow and he's at the stage now where it's make or break, expand or fold, and he needs an injection of cash. God knows where he got the money to get this far, but he was determined that the next chunk of capital should come from Father, on the basis that he'd lent me money for the business and it was only right that he should do the same for Simon.

“Dad refused absolutely. He said I'd proved myself, which Simon
still had to do before he could come chasing around for hard-earned handouts. Mum said they were going at it hammer and tongs then Simon blew a fuse and said something along the lines of how appalling it was that Father was prepared to finance a pair of lesbians running a restaurant for queens and he wouldn't finance his only son in a legitimate business. Mum says there was a ghastly silence then Simon walked out. Father apparently wouldn't say a thing, just went off in the car. She thinks he came up here to see for himself. And the next day—bombshell.”

“I thought it must have been something like that,” Lindsay said. “So I suppose that put you right in the cart.”

“Until the death of my father, that's what you're getting at, isn't it? Not quite that easy, I'm afraid. You see, we've been doing better than we projected. It knocked some of our personal plans on the head, like new furniture for the flat, but we've simply transferred to a bank loan. We can just afford the extra interest. Any money from my father's will, unless he's cut me out of that too, will be an absolute godsend, there's no getting away from that. But we could have managed without it. I had no need to kill him. Now, you've got what you came for. Is there anything else before I get you the bill?”

“Just one thing. Any idea why your father was carrying a gun?”

“Carrying a gun? I knew nothing about that. No one said anything to me about a gun!”

“The police are trying to keep it fairly quiet. A point two two revolver.”

“I can't begin to think why he had his gun with him. He used to be a member of a small-arms shooting club at Middle Walberley. But he hadn't been for . . . oh God, it must be eight years. He gave it up because he didn't have time enough for practicing and he could never bear to do anything unless he did it to perfection. I didn't even know he'd kept his gun. I can't believe he had enemies—I mean, not the sort you'd have to arm yourself against. Wow, that really is weird.” For the first time, she looked upset. “Somebody must have really got to him. That's horrible.” She swallowed the remains of her brandy and got to her feet. “I'll get Meg to bring your bill.” She vanished through the swing door at the back of the restaurant followed by Meg, whose eyes had never left them during the interview.

Lindsay rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. Deborah reached out and took her hand. Before they could speak, Meg re-emerged from the kitchen and strode over to them. By now, they were the center of attention for the few diners remaining. “Have this meal on me,” Meg said angrily. “Just so long as you don't come back here again. Now go. I mean it, Lindsay. Just get out!”

The head office of Mallard and Martin, Estate Agents, Auctioneers and Valuers, was at the far end of the main street in Fordham. The retail developers who have turned every British high street into undistinguished and indistinguishable shopping malls had not yet penetrated that far down the street, and the double-fronted office looked old-fashioned enough to appeal to the most conservative in the district. Lindsay, dressed to match the office in her new outfit, studied the properties in the window with curiosity. She noticed several houses in the vicinity of Brownlow Common were up for sale. But their prices didn't seem to be significantly lower than comparable houses in other areas. She pushed open the door and as she entered, a sleek young woman in a fashionably sharp suit rose and came over to the high wooden counter.