A Fatal Winter (26 page)

“That’s as may well be,” said Jocasta. Her mind seemed to have calcified on this subject. “What she did
before
she met him she’s not talking about, I’m sure.”

“Did your father’s remarriage cause a rift between him and you?” Max asked her.

She spent a moment ensuring the flounce in her petticoats was just so before she answered. “We were quite close, really. Well, early on. The years do pass so swiftly, don’t they? ‘Sunrise, sunset.’” To the astonishment of her audience, she hummed a few bars of the tune. “But you’ve got quite the wrong idea,” she finally went on. “We were
close
, I tell you. As
only
family can be. So
difficult
to explain to one who isn’t family.”

Her voice fluted across the Aubusson at Max, who said, “I quite understand.”

She blinked, her eyes like shades pulled quickly down. Max could read no more of her, get no sense of what she really felt. Perhaps Jocasta wasn’t such a hopeless actress after all.

“Now, as I say, it’s Gwynyth you should be talking with. You know why she’s here of course.”

Cotton looked at her hopefully.

“Money! The very motive I was accused of harboring just now.” Sitting up straight, she seemed to be slipping into another role: Max was reminded of an old-time star like Barbara Stanwyck, on horseback, facing down an irate posse. Fire and ice, backbone of steel. Jocasta all but flicked an imaginary whip and said, “She ran through the money he settled on her six years ago so now she wanted more. They quarreled, and—”

“You heard them quarreling?” Cotton quickly interjected.

“No, as it happens, but it stands to reason that is what happened.”

“If we could stick to the facts here…” said Cotton.

“That’s what I’m doing. Suddenly she’s back, and plagued by this newfound concern for her children, is she? No, Inspector, it’s money for herself she’s after. The twins are an excuse.”

“Hmm.”

“Oh, she’s quite lovely, in her way, Gwynyth. I understand she made quite a splash in the City for a while.” She examined one be-ringed hand, as if to say there were splashes, and then there were splashes. “That blond hair, rather weird, I always thought. That type doesn’t age well. She looks like a German airline stewardess. Simon calls the twins Hänsel und Gretel.”

“I think they prefer to be called flight attendants these days,” Cotton said mildly.

“Whatever. Oscar got a raw deal there. Oh, she looks nice enough, but she’s thick as two planks. When she turned up with twins … oh, my. My father was livid.”

“Why?”

“Well, I gather that was part of their agreement. That there would be no children. Then she became pregnant two minutes after they exchanged vows—
or
before. He barely tolerates those kids, and I think that’s why—apart from their general snottiness, that is.”

“I see,” said Max. “He feels he was tricked into fatherhood. That really is too bad for the children.”

“Don’t feel too sorry for any of them. They were
all
trying to use my father. Randolph, for example: He’s traded off the family connections for decades as a photographer. He’s quite a good photographer, so I’m told,” she added grudgingly. “I wouldn’t know. He started out specializing in photos of dogs and horses of the gentry. Then he moved up—or down, depending on how you view things—to photographing owners
with
the dogs, et cetera.”

“Were you close to his brother or his sister, Lea?” asked Cotton.

“Lester? Close to Lester? Of course not. Lea was another matter.”

“You were friends?”

“She worshipped me. You know, I don’t know what it is about me.” One hand fluttered to her throat as she took a moment to bask in the warm glow of her immense self-regard. Adjusting an outsized pinky ring, she said, “Yes, Lea adored me.”

The last person Max had met with this particular kind of blind spot was now serving time behind bars for GBH—Grievous Bodily Harm. Still, her self-love only made Jocasta ridiculous, not necessarily a murderess.

“I do miss her so.” Jocasta now drew one hand across her forehead in a mournful gesture.

“To lose her so young must have been difficult for everyone,” said Max. “And to lose her husband, as well.”

Jocasta looked at him for a moment, incredulous, but then the gracious smile (Celine Damascus,
The Seething Serpent
) inched its way into place, the red lips like curtains slowly parting to reveal the gleaming white teeth.

“No one missed him,” she said. “Frightful man.”

“I did hear,” said Max, “he was unkind to Lamorna.”

“He was unkind to
me
,” said Jocasta. “In Lamorna’s case his reaction was understandable. Lamorna was trouble from when she was a baby. Wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t eat.”

Cotton referred to his notes. “Lea adopted her from St. Petersburg, is that right?”

“That is correct.”

She rose from her chair and danced across the room.

“I had a few questions about the plane crash that took the lives of her parents,” said Cotton. “There was no suspicion of foul play at the time, was there?”

Jocasta had stopped in front of a gilded mirror near the fireplace. She had been told by cinematographers the right side of her face offered her best profile, and she struggled always to be backlit from this flattering angle. The light coming into the room was cooperating, casting a halo behind her head.

“Hmm?” Jocasta, lost in blissful contemplation of her image in the mirror, had only just realized the last question was directed at her.

“I wonder, Mrs. Jones, if I could have your full attention for just a moment?” said Cotton patiently.

“Certainly.”

Cotton repeated the question. Surprised, she actually tore her eyes away from the mirror and turned to face him.

“Foul play? Oh, surely not. Not that I ever heard.”

“We’ll have our colleagues in North America look through the old files. Just in case.”

This sent her into a complete dither of protestations, and the interview looked set to end in a shambles. She dug out a hankie from somewhere within the bodice of her dress and dabbing at her eyes began to wail. “Poor, dear Lea! Will she never rest in peace?”

To distract her, Max thought to ask about one of her films, which, by a most unlikely happenstance, he had both seen and remembered. He didn’t remember it for the right reasons, perhaps, but remember it he did.

Soon Jocasta, having wiped away nonexistent tears, began to gush about her career, a glossy tale of her meteoric rise to stardom.

“Of course I also starred in the sequel,
Blue Noon
. The reviewers were
most
kind.”

At their blank expressions, she drew back, astonished. “Don’t tell me you’ve not seen it?”

Cotton and Max both shook their heads, the picture of polite regret.

“Oh, the limited film distribution in the United Kingdom has been the
plague
of my career. To think of the millions who have been deprived of the chance to see me in my best roles, all because of the wanton, willful laziness of my producers.”

She abandoned the mirror and sat again, crossing her legs in an obvious and provocative way in Max’s direction. The legs, and fine legs they were, looked like a cancan dancer’s emerging from the foamy skirts.

Sergeant Essex’s mouth tightened. It wasn’t right, flirting like that with a man of the cloth. Especially
this
man of the cloth. Essex reserved a special place in her heart for Max, who had given her dying grandfather a measure of peace as he passed out of this world and into the next. This woman had no idea what she was messing with. Essex turned a page in her notebook with more energy and racket than was strictly necessary and, snapping it into place with the elastic, glared across the room at the bosomy actress. Any more plastic surgery and this Jocasta Jones wouldn’t be able to bat those heavy false eyelashes at Father Max.

Jocasta warbled on in answer to a question from Max about the family’s history, having to be corrected on some point of fact at least twice, which improvements she completely ignored. Finally, with a shrill cry reminiscent of a vulture spying a small woodland creature, she clapped her hands together and said, “Well, if there’s nothing further, I have
stacks
of scripts I’ve brought with me to read. Ron Howard is awaiting my decision on whether I’ll appear in one of his projects, but I’ve been
so
busy.”

And she began to swan her way out. Cotton, who could think of no further questions for the moment to detain her, thanked her. As if she’d just thought of something, she turned at the door and said, “I should ask Lamorna where she was at the time of the crime. There is something … rather odd … about that girl.”

“One more question from me if you wouldn’t mind,” said Max.

“Yes?” That “yes” had a hollow ring that belied the expression of patient cheer she’d pasted onto her face.

“Your arrival here came just before your father fell ill, did it not?”

“Ye-e-ess? Surely you’re not suggesting…? I mean, really.” The look of helpful merriment began to slip. “The cook needs to be more careful,” she said. “I had a touch of tummy myself after we first arrived. I was up half the night with it. I shall leave you now, even though my own life is at risk now and no one seems concerned about
that
.”

She swept out of the room in an eddy of churning crinoline so wide she could barely clear the door. As it was, part of her hem caught in the door’s closing, and Cotton was forced to become engaged in the momentary struggle to free her.

“As you know,” said Cotton once she’d safely gone, “I have rather a complicated relationship with theatrical people. So you tell me what you thought of that performance.”

Max knew Cotton’s mother had been a hippie rock star who dragged her son to “gigs”—an upbringing guaranteed to produce the kind of child who craves routine and order and does things like join the police force as a form of rebellion. Max thought that flamboyant history explained as well some of Cotton’s energy, and the touch of dandyism in his love of clothing and costume.

“I thought it was a performance,” said Max. “In part.”

“But which part?”

Max shrugged. “Most of it. I’m not sure how much control she has over that. It seems to be the habit of a lifetime.”

“I thought so, too,” put in Essex.

“I know nothing about the profession,” said Max, “but it does seem to attract the insecure, and then feed their insecurities until they grow to monstrous proportions.”

“Do you think so? I rather always thought the job attracted large egos—egos large and tough enough to withstand the occasional bruising by fans and critics.”

“Maybe it attracts both types, or a combination of both,” said Max. “People who fluctuate between arrogance and insecurity.”

“But here we’re looking for someone with daring, don’t you think? And brains.” This from Essex. “I’m not sure she qualifies.”

Max, nodding, said, “Her role-playing seemed nearly delusional to me.”

Cotton said, “Or is she just such a good actor—are they all called actors now? Anyway, is she so good at her profession we’re being tricked into thinking she’s delusional?”

“I think you’re overthinking this, Chief. I really do,” said Sergeant Essex. “She’s thick as two planks, is all. And so much for family values. She seemed determined to drop a few of her nearest and dearest in it, didn’t she?”

Max picked up the paper with the drawing of the family tree again. He mused over it a moment and said, “Oscar and Leticia were born within minutes of each other, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Just like Alec and Amanda? With the male in each instance being the elder? If only slightly?”

“Yes. I don’t see how that gets us any further ahead, do you?”

“No. It’s not important. Twins, as we all know, run in families.”

CHAPTER 17

Picture This

Cilla Petrie strode into the room with a litheness that spoke of having inherited either an excellent set of genes or a lifetime gym membership. She had long, narrow feet and legs and a light tread that suggested a creature of the Serengeti.

She sat gracefully in the leather chair Cotton indicated, having scissored her way across the room like a ballerina, every movement as sure as if choreographed.

In a long dark-gray sweater—or was it a short gray dress?—over ankle-length, black leggings paired with flat patent leather shoes, Cilla looked not just artistic but frightfully artistic, a creature of the demimondaine. Cotton had noticed it was an appearance she cultivated by wearing dark clothing, usually a variant on a polo-neck sweater and very tight jeans. She was whippet thin. Her hair fell expensively about her face in long, precision-cut locks, and she wore a necklace, quite beautiful, of shiny glass and polished stone. The brown, black, and gray colors complemented her deep brown eyes and her lustrous dark hair with its glinting threads of silver.

Not conventionally beautiful, Max decided, watching her closely, but a memorable and distinctive woman. So this was Randolph’s assistant—the stylist he used for his photographic portraits.

Cilla now crossed the long legs. She kept the toes of both legs pointed, a posture as unnatural as it must have been uncomfortable. The reason for the artful posture seemed to be to draw attention to the perfection of her long, narrow calves.

Duly noted, thought both Max and Cotton.

“Now, Miss Petrie, you say you are here as Randolph’s assistant?” Cotton began the interview.

A rustling of paper came from the far corner as Sergeant Essex prepared a new page in her notebook. Cilla glanced over, noticing her for the first time. She gave her a tentative smile. Cilla, like most people seeing that their words will be written down, was slightly taken aback.

“Please call me Cilla. Yes. We were just passing through, actually, on our way to an assignment in Cornwall. I believe Randolph planned to return here, and I was going to travel on to London to stay with family for Christmas.”

“So you weren’t one of the castle’s Christmas visitors.”