A Fatal Winter (24 page)

Cotton removed his jacket and, with the precision of a couturier laying out a bride’s dress, draped it over the back of a Queen Anne side chair. He added, “It’s all so Queen Mary-ish, but not a lot has changed, has it, really?”

Max allowed that perhaps it had not. “Give me a little background on Lester before he gets here, will you?”

Cotton opened another file on his mobile. “Lester and his wife Felberta née Oliver are from Australia, where he dabbled in this and invested in that and she entertained the local notables. Although I gather we must use the term ‘notables’ loosely, as well as the word ‘entertained.’ Neither of them seems to be widely respected. Tolerated would be a better word.”

He put down the mobile and leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head.

“By the way, the original spelling of his name is Leicester, as in ‘the city of.’ He realized that was a bit uppity for Australia, not to mention hard to spell, so now he goes by the more matey-sounding ‘Lester’.”

“You say he dabbled in investments?” asked Max, putting aside the book he’d idly picked up from the stack on the table beside him. His shifted his weight, in truth finding sitting for so long more tedious than the occasional twinge coming from his ankle.

“Yes. In what, exactly, we don’t know—someone over there’s getting details for us but initial indications are that they’re not doing well financially, Lester and his wife. She is so little loved her nickname is Fester—oh, I see you know that already. A few dodgy deals Lester was involved in went south. A dinosaur theme park, for one. He trades on his Footrustle connection to get invited places, to get introduced to the right people. You know the sort of thing.” Max pursed his lips thoughtfully and nodded. “Seems to have done all right out of it, although perhaps not as all right as he’d hoped,” Cotton went on. “As I say, someone official in the land down under is looking into it for us.”

There was a rustle at the door, a sound as of a mild skirmish, and Lester walked his high-shouldered way into the library, arms swinging loosely at his sides. He was followed by a quietly simmering Sergeant Essex.

“How often are you going to talk to us?” Lester seemed curious to know rather than annoyed, but there was an overlay of irritation in his tone. “Your sergeant here doesn’t seem to have any idea.”

“We do appreciate your cooperation,” said Cotton smoothly. Some of Randolph’s slippery suaveness seemed to have rubbed off on the detective. “I believe you’ve met Father Tudor here? Yes, good. Now, one issue we didn’t go into before is how you came to be at the castle for the holidays.”

Lester might have been waiting for this moment. He dove into his jacket pocket.

“My uncle sent me an invitation. Here it is.”

He handed Cotton a page containing a printed-out e-mail. The return address was [email protected].

It read simply, “It has been too long since I’ve seen you and Festus. I miss you. Please come to Chedrow for Christmas. [signed] Your uncle.”

“He meant Felberta, my wife,” Lester clarified.

Max considered the brief message. Oscar would have had the technical proficiency to send an e-mail—it wasn’t brain surgery, after all. The real question was, why did he? Was the simple explanation the best one—he was really just an old man wanting company?

“Was it usual for him to communicate with you this way?”

Lester nodded his head. “Unheard of.”

“Did he confide in you about why—what his thinking was?”

“Oscar was a secretive old bas—I mean, Oscar was secretive. However, he told me, on the QT, you know, that he had wanted us here to see what kind of people we were.”

Cotton, privately wondering when was the last time he had heard anyone speak of something being on the QT, asked merely, “Did he give any indication why? What he had in mind?”

“No, he was being evasive about the whys and wherefores, but I could read between the lines all right. Oscar was getting ready to meet his maker. You don’t just leave your money to a bunch of people you’ve rarely met, do you?”

“And I don’t suppose you’d telegraph the fact that the people in question were being auditioned, in a way. Given the once-over to assess their suitability.”

“Precisely,” said Lester. Oozing earnestness and goodwill from every pore, Lester leaned forward to say, “He loved to spy on people, you know. Gather information. Catch them at their worst. It’s how he earned his crust on Fleet Street.”

“So, how do you think everyone measured up, in his eyes?”

Lester smiled another of his would-be ingratiating smiles. “Some better than others, to be sure.”

Lester reminded Max of the type of politician who keeps getting returned to high office, despite the best, most determined efforts of the populace to vote him out. As with such men, there was the whiff about him of failure, but perhaps not quite enough failure for the common good.

“You got along with him well, did you, sir?” This from Sergeant Essex.

Lester clearly considered the merits in lying, and decided there was too much evidence to refute any protestations of abiding familial love.

“One got tired of being blown up all the time,” he finally said. “He didn’t seem to approve of anyone, and it got worse the older he got. Very judgmental, was my uncle.
And
with a touch of paranoia.”

“You quarreled with him, did you, sir?”

“Not openly. I avoided him as much as possible, if you want the truth.”

“It’s why we’re here, sir,” said Cotton. “To get the truth.”

Max twinkled appreciatively at the new, improved, debonair detective. It was like having Lord Peter Wimsey lead the interrogation.

“And Lady Baynard,” Cotton continued. “Was she happy with Lord Footrustle’s arrangements for the holidays? Would she have had any hand in the invitations going out?”

Lester let out a sudden, loud guffaw, the sort of sound made by a large zoo animal. He seemed to realize he sounded somewhat lunatic, for he quickly apologized for the outburst. “It’s just that the very idea of Leticia’s inviting us is impossible. It just wouldn’t happen. She wouldn’t actively turn us away at the door if we showed up but it would be a close thing. Well, she might make an exception in Jocasta’s case but after all, Jocasta was—is—Oscar’s own flesh and blood.”

“There was some estrangement there, was there?” asked Cotton. “Between Jocasta and her father?”

“Yes. No one was invited to her wedding to Simon out in Las Vegas, just to give you some idea of the state of affairs. Essentially, they eloped. Simon is much too much younger than Jocasta, if you follow, a fact we only gradually became aware of and a fact I rather think she wanted to hide. Simon is totally in Jocasta’s shadow. Or, if you ask me—and I take it you are asking me—he was totally in it for the money and connections, while they lasted, since it’s so easy to make her believe her charm and beauty have anything to do with his interest in her. She’s extremely high maintenance—if you haven’t gathered that yet you will.
And
she’s a bit of a hypochondriac.”

“That seems to be a family trait,” put in Max.

Momentarily forgetting his role as eager provider of useful information, Lester gave Max a bellicose look that didn’t hold much gratitude for the observation.

“Yes, well, I didn’t inherit the gene but Jocasta did. If you told her swallowing live bait prevents wrinkles or would help her to lose weight, she’d do it without hesitation.”

“You got along well with your mother, did you, sir?” This from DCI Cotton, looking up from behind his desk. He’d been looking at some document or other on his laptop but now he closed the lid. “There was no sense that she favored your brother over you, anything like that?”

Lester ran his tongue slowly across his upper lip, clearly thinking hard. “Wa-a-l-l,” he said a last. “No. Not really.” He gave Cotton and Max a momentary glance each, then gazed with intense fascination at the faded Aubusson rug, which hardly merited such scrutiny. When Cotton pressed the issue, Lester’s roving eyes, which he finally raised to meet his interrogator’s, seemed clouded over.

“Not that it has any relevance to the matter at hand,” he grudgingly conceded. “But the firstborn is often the favorite. It’s just the way of the world.” His resigned acceptance was belied by the flush the topic had brought to his face, and would have been more convincing if he had not been practically dancing with impatience in his chair.

Max privately thought the way of the world was that the youngest was often the favorite, but he said nothing. Lester, for all his occasional puppyish enthusiasm, was too conflicted a personality to be anyone’s favorite.

“I’ve had a word with Wintermute, the family solicitor,” said Cotton.

Max sensed an abrupt buildup of tension in the already tense figure.

“Oh, yes?” said Lester, with elaborate casualness. “Sound man, Wintermute.”

“He says you called him yesterday morning.”

“Yes.” Definitely an increase in tension now.

“Your mother and uncle had only just been found dead.” He let the unspoken question hang in the air.

“What of it? What if I did call Wintermute? This is neither the time nor the place to discuss it.”

“It’s a murder investigation,” said Cotton. “I’ll decide the time and the place.”

“I rather think this is a private family matter,” said Lester.

Cotton’s patience was thinning in the face of the man’s imbecilic intransigence. Gone, Max noticed, watching from the sidelines, was the sophisticated urbanity he had come to appreciate, this new aristo tool in Cotton’s arsenal of weapons. One could almost see the policeman taking off the gloves. He blew past Lester’s stonewalling and said coldly, “In a murder investigation, nothing is private. Wintermute found your questions premature, to say the least. Now, what did you find to talk about within hours of your mother’s demise?”

Lester, head bowed, muttered something into his chest.

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to repeat that.”

Lester lifted his head defiantly. “I said, I wanted to know the terms of her will.”

“And what were the terms?”

Sulkily: “She left everything to my brother and myself. Naturally. She even left a few quid to Lamorna. Now, there was a surprise.” Lester turned in Sergeant Essex’s direction. “Are you getting this down or should I speak more slowly?”

Essex bristled, already on alert for the next bit of condescension. She wouldn’t have long to wait.

“That tallies with what Wintermute told me,” said Cotton.

“Then why bother asking me?” said Lester.

“When did you arrive at Chedrow Castle?” Sergeant Essex asked, out of annoyance asserting herself into the conversation.

“I’ll be glad to answer questions so long as they’re coming from DCI Cotton,” said Lester.

Big mistake, Lester
, thought Max.

“The very question I was going to ask,” said Cotton to the man he was privately starting to think of as “that pompous nitwit,” but reverting to his dulcet, gentlemen’s club tones. “How long have you and your wife been here?” As an afterthought, he added, “Sir.”

“We arrived at the end of November or beginning of December. I couldn’t tell you the exact date.” Lester expanded his small, scrawny frame into the sofa.

“Quite an extended visit, then.”

“We had a lot of catching up to do. And a flight to and from Australia is not lightly undertaken.”

Cotton noticed a look of puzzled discontent on Max’s face. He felt he was becoming familiar with that look. Max was the embodiment of the maxim “Look before you leap.” Any doubts had to be allayed in Max’s mind before he would accept what to anyone else was the obvious conclusion. It made him a brilliant priest—sympathetic and thoughtful, not prone to quick or harsh judgments. It made him an even better investigator, in Cotton’s view.

“What about the terms of Lord Footrustle’s will?” Max said at last.

Lester, even when seated, seemed to be in motion. Max detected the merest shuffling of his feet, as if he couldn’t wait to be away, for it was clearly an unwelcome question. This energy of the highly strung he had in common with DCI Cotton, if not much more.

“You’ll have to get the details from Wintermute,” said Lester, now with affected patience. “I only had any business asking about my mother’s will, I felt, so I couldn’t help you.” The postscript “even if I wanted to” was plain but left unsaid.

*   *   *

The door had closed behind Lester Baynard with a resounding gothic thud. Sergeant Essex, not expecting to be overheard over the sound by the two men remaining in the room, muttered, “What a load of balls.”

Cotton gave her a warning look. She lifted her shoulders in silent apology. But she didn’t look sorry.

“His statements would carry more weight if he struck me as someone who had ever actually pulled his own weight,” she said. “A complete drain on society, that one.”

Cotton, well acquainted with Essex’s class consciousness, stood and began moving in a graceful swooping motion, back and forth across the room, thinking.

“So, what do we know about Lord Footrustle?” Cotton asked at last. “According to everyone we’ve spoken with, including Lester just now, he was a secretive man. He’d made much of his fortune in Fleet Street ventures possibly
because
he knew everyone’s secrets and I guess could keep a few of his own. There’s a squint in his bedroom he used to—”

“I’m sorry, sir. A what?” This from Essex.

“A squint. A little opening in a stone wall. There were two of them, in fact. One faced the outside; one overlooked the Great Hall. He liked to spy, to keep an eye on things and people. According to the butler, he spent an inordinate amount of his time, especially once he was retired, doing just that.”

“So you think he may have been killed for what he saw,” said Max. “That he saw something he shouldn’t have.”

“I’m saying it’s a possibility, and a likely one. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes. I’d say it’s a distinct possibility.”

“I suppose we can’t avoid talking with Jocasta Jones much longer,” said Cotton. “And I rather think the perspective of Oscar’s eldest daughter might be useful.”

He went to pull up some information on his mobile and was frustrated in the attempt. He walked over to confer with Essex on some fine point of using the device.