Village Affairs (24 page)

Gibbons decided that there was no need to tell her that her father had planned to be married without letting her know.

“I believe so,” he answered. “They had been seeing each other for about six months.”

She looked up at him, surprised. “Oh,” she said. Then she bit her lip. “I expect I’ll meet her tomorrow then. I don’t know how I feel about that. Was that where he was going on Sunday, then? To see her?”

“We don’t know yet,” said Gibbons. “It may have been.”

“Then she wasn’t expecting him?”

“Miss Bingham, I understand this news must come as a shock, but I really can’t discuss the case with you,” said Gibbons.

She met his eyes. “Can you tell me if you think she killed him?”

Gibbons spread his hands. “I simply don’t know,” he said. “We’ll be looking into that, certainly, but at the moment she is no more a suspect than anyone else.”

“Than me, you mean,” said Eve bitterly.

“Anyone without an alibi is a suspect at present, Miss,” said Gibbons evenly.

“Yes, of course,” she said, recovering herself. “I suppose it was silly of me to bother you. I just thought …”

“Yes?”

“I thought you might have a feeling about it,” she said.

“Even if I did,” said Gibbons, trying to be patient, “you must see that it would be wrong of me to communicate it to you, to either prejudice you against Miss Bonnar or to give you confidence in her innocence. How would you feel if afterward I turned out to be wrong?”

“Then you do think you know?”

Gibbons sighed. There was just no reasoning with some people. “No, Miss Bingham,” he said firmly, “I don’t. After we’ve done some more investigating, I may have, but at the moment I honestly don’t know. I’m very sorry I can’t help you.”

She nodded acceptance and rose. “Thank you anyway for seeing me,” she said. “I expect I’m just on edge about the funeral tomorrow.”

“That’s perfectly understandable,” said Gibbons, throwing his coat over his arm and holding the door for her. “I’ll see you out.”

He ushered her through the station and into the cool evening air. They paused on the steps, she to light a cigarette, he to look for Bethancourt’s gray Jaguar.

“There you are,” came Bethancourt’s voice, and Gibbons turned to see his friend coming up the walk, Cerberus pacing sedately at his side. “Hullo, Eve. How are you holding up?”

She smiled and held out a hand to the dog. “As well as can be expected, I suppose,” she answered. “I’m rather dreading the funeral tomorrow.”

“A pity, that,” said Bethancourt sympathetically. “After all, they say funerals are supposed to be for the comfort of those left behind.”

“This one,” said Eve dryly, “looks to be more for the comfort of the media.”

“Do your best to thwart them,” said Bethancourt. “Wear a veil.”

She almost laughed. “It would serve them right if I did. Will you be coming?”

“Certainly,” said Bethancourt. “Marla sends her regrets, but she already had a shoot scheduled in Paris and couldn’t get out of it.”

Eve waved this away. “She’s already been kind enough. I’ll see you there, then. Good night.”

She walked down the steps toward her car, and they watched her go.

“I’m parked ’round the corner,” said Bethancourt, starting off in the opposite direction. “We had better hurry if we want to catch them before they stop serving. Cerberus, heel.”

The pub was a very old one, sitting in lonely splendor on the Cheltenham road. A large room off the bar was a modern addition and had been set up as a proper dining room. It was almost deserted at this hour. Bethancourt and Gibbons arrived just before the kitchen closed and long after most of the day’s specials were sold out. They ordered steaks and pints of bitter instead and then Bethancourt lit a cigarette and leaned back while Gibbons, with half an eye on the kitchen door, demolished the rolls in the breadbasket and told him what they had learned from Joan Bonnar.

“So she could have done it,” said Bethancourt reflectively.

“The sleeping tablets rather point to her.”

“Yes,” said Bethancourt, “but it’s very circumstantial, especially now that we know there was an unattended bottle of them at the farmhouse. Almost anyone could have got hold of the pills while they were visiting the Bensons. Or it might be someone else’s prescription altogether—although it’s not a common medication.”

“You just like to complicate things,” said Gibbons. “It’s barely possible that someone else connected to the case had access to Seconal, but it’s extremely unlikely.”

“True.” Bethancourt smoked for a moment in silence, his hazel eyes thoughtful. “What bothers me, though, is that there’s still no motive. To me, that means there’s something we haven’t discovered.”

“We haven’t begun to investigate Miss Bonnar,” Gibbons reminded him. “Perhaps something will turn up there.”

“Perhaps, but you must admit nothing springs readily to mind.”

“Besides,” said Gibbons, “motive’s the last thing to consider. Means and opportunity first—that’s the rule.”

“Which Joan Bonnar had,” said Bethancourt. “Only everyone claims she and Bingham were very happy together, and even if they’d had a row, she’d hardly murder him just to keep him from telling the tabloids about their affair.”

“There may have been something else,” said Gibbons, sneaking another look toward the kitchen. He had finished the rolls.

“Bingham,” continued Bethancourt, “might have been going to see his daughter or his business partner rather than Joan. Neither of them, so far as we know, have access to Seconal, though one can make a case for them both having motives. On the other hand, someone from the village had access to the tablets, but no motive we can come up with, and no reason to meet Bingham in London.”

“Why stick to London?” said Gibbons sarcastically, while he signaled for another pint. “We’ve never succeeded in tracing his car—he might have gone anywhere.”

“He told Peg Eberhart he was off to London.”

“Yes, just as he always did when he was going to see Joan Bonnar. Now that we know that, there’s no reason to suppose otherwise.”

A gleam had appeared in Bethancourt’s eye. “You’re right there,” he said. “If in fact he wasn’t going to meet her, then he must have had a reason for lying to Peg Eberhart.”

“Oh, very well, have it your way,” said Gibbons. “He wasn’t meeting Joan, he was meeting Leandra Tothill, with whom he’d also been having an affair. But Leandra has gotten the wind up, and is afraid he’ll tell someone. So she pinches the Seconal at the farmhouse and feeds it to Bingham mixed up in some whisky. He dies, and she drives him back to his cottage, arranges him in the sitting room, and then rides home on her bicycle which she has earlier stashed behind the hedge. There you are—motive and opportunity together.”

“That’s really very fine, Jack,” said Bethancourt admiringly. “I’d never thought of Mrs. Tothill.”

“She’s a very unlikely suspect,” said Gibbons. “Oh, look, here comes the food.”

Gibbons applied himself industriously to his steak and mushrooms and parsley new potatoes, listening with only half an ear as Bethancourt returned to their discussion.

“In any case, all I’m saying is that it’s difficult to think of a motive for Joan Bonnar,” said Bethancourt. “Unless,” he added, struck by a thought, “she had somehow lost all her money and had already secretly married Bingham.”

Gibbons snorted to show his opinion of this theory.

“True,” said Bethancourt sadly. “It doesn’t work at all.”

He ate a piece of beef and was silent for several moments while Gibbons demolished his potatoes and most of the rest of his steak. Bethancourt, eating in a more leisurely manner, suddenly paused with his fork in midair.

“You said the press agent was with her that night?”

Gibbons nodded. “Watkinson is his name.”

“Perhaps …” Bethancourt chewed ruminatively for a moment. “Perhaps it was an accident after all. Listen to this, Jack. Bingham doesn’t know about the Sunday interview and on impulse he decides to spend the evening with her. He arrives at her townhouse, finds her still out, and settles down to wait. Only he’s got a headache and mistakes the sleeping tablets for aspirin. Anyway, he takes them by accident and dies. Joan comes in with Watkinson and finds him. She assumes it’s a heart attack—anyone would—and explains the situation to Watkinson, who sees no reason she should be stuck with the bad publicity that is sure to result. It’s the kind of thing a press agent would think of. He moves the body back to Chipping Chedding, possibly with her help. But when there’s a murder investigation, they decide they’d better come clean about the affair after all, since the police will be bound to find out sooner or later. Only they don’t want to confess to moving the body because they know that will result in a criminal charge.”

Gibbons, having finished his meal, was willing to consider this. “It’s possible,” he said slowly. “There’s only the one point about how and why Bingham took the tablets.”

“Oh, no,” groaned Bethancourt. “I’d forgotten the damn tablets in Bingham’s cottage. A theory’s no good unless it accounts for that.”

“Unless Joan realized he had taken the tablets.”

But Bethancourt was shaking his head. “In that case, she would have said she’d lent him some. And anyway, how would she know? If you have a boyfriend with a bad heart and you come home to find him dead, you assume it’s a heart attack. You don’t go rifling through your medicine cabinet to see if any of your pills are missing.”

“Put like that,” said Gibbons, “I have to agree.”

Bethancourt had gone back to his supper. “I forgot to ask,” he said. “What did Eve want this evening?”

He glanced up at his friend, but Gibbons showed no sensitivity about the subject, and Bethancourt breathed a sigh of relief.

“She only wanted to ask about Joan Bonnar,” answered Gibbons. He raised a hand for the waiter. “I wonder what they’ve got left for pudding,” he said.

He had a choice between bread pudding and chocolate cake, and opted for the pudding. Bethancourt ordered coffee and then leaned back and lit an after-dinner cigarette, exhaling with a sigh of deep comfort and satisfaction.

“Are you going to the funeral tomorrow?” he asked.

“No,” answered Gibbons. “I was surprised to hear you were. Or was that just an impulsive effort to cheer Eve up?”

Bethancourt grinned. “I’m not that nice,” he said. “No, Astley-Cooper is panting to go, and I said I’d accompany him. Besides, I haven’t seen Joan Bonnar yet.”

Gibbons raised a brow. “I don’t see what you expect to find out from her in the middle of a funeral.”

“Nothing,” said Bethancourt. “I just want to see how she behaves.”

“If you can see anything at all,” said Gibbons. “That funeral’s going to be a three-ring circus.”

Bethancourt waved this away. “It will be an event,” he said. “I imagine everyone in Chipping Chedding will turn out for it.”

“No doubt,” said Gibbons with a shrug and turned his attention to his dessert, which was just arriving.

CHAPTER
12

G
ibbons’s prediction of a circus was not far wrong. Bethancourt reflected on it as he stood beside Astley-Cooper the next morning. The church was packed. People who would ordinarily never have come to Charlie Bingham’s funeral had come because he was murdered. Others who would not have turned out for a mere murder had come because Joan Bonnar would be there. The media was represented in full, and there were large numbers of people who simply could not be gotten into the church and were milling about outside, waiting for the coffin to make its final journey to the grave. Some of the younger people had even climbed the trees at the churchyard’s edge to ensure themselves a better view, and every man jack of the local police had been enlisted to try to control the crowds and deal with the parking and traffic problems.

The vicar had abandoned his tweed jacket and threadbare worn cassock for the appropriate vestments and appeared perfectly calm, going about the service as if it were any ordinary funeral. In the front pew, Leandra Tothill stood beside Eve Bingham, her dark gray coat making a poor showing alongside Eve’s elegant black Chanel suit. The strain was showing badly in Eve’s face and in the tense way she held herself; Leandra’s concerned eyes frequently strayed to her. Eve, however, gazed fixedly ahead at the vicar and the coffin. He stood behind.

On her other side stood a large, pleasant-faced man in a dark gray suit, whom Bethancourt had identified as Andrew Sealingham. Beside him was a small, vivacious-looking woman who was obviously his wife. Christopher Macklin was not present.

The pallbearers occupied the other front pew; Bethancourt knew only two of them. Steve Eberhart, the vet, was the tallest of them and looked solemn but at ease. In contrast, James Benson’s face was strained and nervous, the result, no doubt, of being without the support of either his sister or Martha Potts.

They were not far off, however. In the pew behind the pallbearers, Julie Benson and Mrs. Potts flanked Joan Bonnar. She had dressed carefully in a matching dress and coat of dark navy wool. On the collar of the coat was a small diamond-and-sapphire brooch; Bethancourt wondered if Bingham had given it to her. She was rigidly in control of herself, although her eyes were suspiciously bright at times. Mrs. Potts, on the other hand, let a few tears fall unashamedly; she wore a black outfit of ancient vintage. Julie had solved the whole problem of funeral wear by donning a dark brown coat and keeping it well-buttoned up. Her only emotion was mild distaste whenever her mother reached out for her.

There was no sign of Derek Towser, but Peg Eberhart stood on Bethancourt’s other side. Her eyes were also full of tears, although the majority of her attention was taken up with keeping the baby in her arms quiet. Bethancourt, who had a young nephew, assisted as best he could by fishing various distractions out of Peg’s capacious black patent leather purse, which was apparently standing in for the usual nappy bag.

Eventually, the vicar stopped speaking and the pallbearers moved forward. At the back of the church there was an indecorous commotion as some of the onlookers tried to get out first in order to have a good place at the graveside. The vicar raised his voice and put a firm stop to that, stating in no uncertain terms that the funeral procession would go first, followed by the orderly emptying of the pews. The ushers moved up to support this view, and Eve shot the vicar a grateful look.