Cold Coffin (23 page)

He nodded his head slowly. “As you probably know, Lady Kimberley and I have been close friends for many years, both professionally and personally. Some three or four years ago she confided in me that she feared she was losing her voice. The thought was terrifying to her, as it would be to any great singer. I, too, had suspected a lack of certainty in her approach to the higher notes, and I knew that her professional reputation was in jeopardy. If she continued to sing the demanding operatic roles for which she was famous, there was a danger that the vocal weakness would soon be spotted by the critics and
aficionados. I
arranged for her to see a throat specialist, but sadly he could suggest no remedy. A second leading specialist was of the same opinion. The voice is a very delicate instrument, Chief Inspector. It is subject not only to the afflictions of human tissue, but to all kinds of emotional stresses. My advice to Vanessa, in view of what she faced, was that she should retire from the professional stage while still at the peak of her success. A happy solution lay at hand. Noah Kimberley had been beseeching her to marry him for years. She finally accepted him, and—”

Kate interrupted. “I’d like to be clear on this point. Was Sir Noah aware of Dame Vanessa’s anxieties about her failing voice? Or was he kept in the dark?”

“She ... we both, felt it better that Noah should not be told.” Lord Balmayne’s expression was defensive. “It was a good marriage.”

Good marriage or not, it was a strange situation when a lover of long standing urged his beloved into marriage with another man. The faintest hint of challenge was in Kate’s voice as she asked, “There was no question, then, that you might marry her yourself?”

Lord Balmayne looked surprised. Affronted. Then he allowed his shoulders to relax as he made a shrugging gesture with his long-fingered hands.

“You are well informed, I see. The answer to that, I suppose, is that I am not a man for whom the state of matrimony holds any attractions. I would regard it as an intolerable intrusion into my freedom. Which is not to say I have anything but the highest affection and regard for the lady in question.”

Kate considered a moment, then plunged in, “May I be totally frank, sir?”

He gave her a pale smile. “I doubt you’ll be anything else, with or without my permission.”

“After Dame Vanessa’s marriage, did your former relationship with her continue?”

His lips tightened. “We remained close friends, certainly, but I am an honourable man, Chief Inspector, despite what you may be thinking. Once Vanessa became the wife of Noah Kimberley, for whom I have always had the warmest regard, there was never anything intimate between us.”

“And now that Sir Noah is dead?”

He looked shocked. “I am sure the thought has not occurred to Vanessa, any more than it has to me.”

But had, Kate wondered, he been shocked enough? She’d made a pretty outrageous suggestion, yet he remained in almost perfect control of himself.

“Perhaps, sir, we could go back to the matter of Lady Kimberley’s throat infection on the evening of the gala.”

He took a measure of time before he responded. Then he spoke slowly, calculating his words.

“Since Vanessa’s retirement from the stage, she has performed on a number of occasions, mostly at charitable events which I myself organized. Each time she has been somewhat nervous, but her professionalism always conquered her fears. Whenever she performed she was invariably acclaimed with great enthusiasm, which naturally Vanessa found very heartwarming. She is an artist who has always been much loved by the public, you know. However, before this last gala her anxiety was worse than on any previous occasion.”

“This was before she set out for London?”

“Indeed, yes. Several days beforehand. That was why she persuaded Noah not to accompany her. She couldn’t bear the thought of making a spectacle of herself in his presence.”

“What reason did she give her husband?”

“Something vague, I imagine. Obviously, Noah wasn’t happy about it. She admitted that to me.”

“I see. Please continue, Lord Balmayne.”

“During the afternoon rehearsal at the theatre she was in an acute state of nerves. There was little real singing expected of her in the run-through and her near-panic passed unnoticed—at least, I trust so. But later, when we went back to my house for her to rest and have some tea, it became obvious to me that she could not possibly appear that evening without risk of a complete breakdown. It was I who suggested the pretence of a throat infection to explain her non-appearance. There, now you have it, the whole unhappy story.”

A story that matched what Richard had told her about Vanessa Logan’s failing voice. Kate found it a plausible explanation for the oddities and inconsistencies in the various statements made to the police, which had caused her to suspect that something was being concealed. But it still didn’t put these two in the clear; by Lord Balmayne’s own admission they had conspired to deceive her husband in the past. Might they not have conspired against him again? On that fateful evening they could have left Lord Balmayne’s house in London and driven to the Cotswolds and killed Noah Kimberley. Their alibi for that night was dependent on the word of a manservant who had worked for Lord Balmayne for many years, and was perhaps ready and willing to lie for his master.

The time might come, she thought, when additional pressure would need to be applied to Jefferies to see if he would break.

The Chief Inspector’s briefing to Boulter had been succinct. She’d told him what she wanted him to do, but not how to go about it. This was a challenge which called for a pint of real ale and a lasagne and chips at the Half Moon to set his thought processes going. Well stoked, the sergeant made a phone call then drove to the Croptech premises. At the laboratory building he told a white-coated porter who was wheeling a trolley loaded with plastic containers of some kind of fluid that he’d like to speak to Mr. Barlow.

When Roger Barlow appeared a minute later there was a surly expression on his good-looking face. “What do you want this time?”

“Just a few words, Mr. Barlow. Er ... could we go somewhere private?”

“Sure thing, we’ll go along to my personal private office.”

Boulter let the sarcasm pass without comment. “How about taking a little stroll outside?” he suggested.

With a shrug, Barlow led the way back along the corridor. On the gravelled driveway the two men started pacing side by side.

“Chief Inspector Maddox,” Boulter began, “is unhappy about the lack of corroboration of your movements on the two evenings when first Sir Noah Kimberley and then Dr. Trent were murdered.”

“I’ve told you where I was those evenings. What more d’you expect?”

“You could rack your brains to think of something more positive to give us.”

“I’ve already racked my brains,” he muttered.

“Sometimes it’s a help to reassemble events step by step. Suppose for starters we go through that Wednesday evening from the time you returned from Oxford and arrived at the Cricketers’ Arms in Boscombe. Did you go up to the bar first?”

Barlow pondered a moment. “No, we didn’t. They have waitress service there in the evenings. We found a place to sit, and ordered drinks.”

“What was it you had to drink?”

“A pint of bitter. And Sandra had a glass of white wine.”

“Where were you sitting?”

Again a pause for thought. “At one of the tables by those windows that overlook the village green.”

“You had something to eat, too, didn’t you?”

“Yes, that’s right. Spaghetti bolognese.”

“Did you tip the waitress?”

Barlow gave him a blank stare. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“She might remember you through that and be able to confirm your story. For instance, she’d have you down as a right mean bastard if you hadn’t given her a tip.”

“Well, I did. I remember now. Fifty pee, I gave her.”

The sergeant smiled at him. “There you are, you’re beginning to remember. The grub’s not bad at the Cricketers’, is it? In fact, it’s a pretty decent pub all round. A good atmosphere to take a girl to. Mind you, though, it must’ve been pretty rowdy when that drunk climbed over the bar and started throwing bottles. At the busiest time of the evening, too ... just before ten o’clock. It took three of our chaps to subdue him.”

Barlow came to an abrupt halt in his walking. Then, recollecting himself, he started pacing on once more.

“To tell the truth, Sandra and I were ... well, not really bothering about what was happening around us.”

“Understandable! But you’d never have missed a fracas like that, not from where you were sitting.”

“Oh yes, well, we did notice there was something going on. A bit of a fight. But we kept well out of it.”

“A
fight?
At the Cricketers’ on Wednesday evening? Nothing the police heard about. There was no trouble reported at all.”

“But you just said—”

Now it was Boulter who halted, a grim expression on his face. “Oh no I didn’t, Mr. Barlow. The fight I was talking about took place on Saturday. Wednesday at the Cricketers’ was dead quiet, as per usual. To make quite sure of that, I phoned and checked with the landlord before I came to see you this afternoon.”

Barlow went white. “You tricked me into saying that.”

“I said nothing about a fight on
Wednesday.
And if you’d really been at the Cricketers’ Arms that evening, you’d have told me that nothing of the kind occurred.”

Barlow was looking terrified. “What happens now?”

“It’s time for you to give us the straight truth, Barlow. And the police station is the right place for that.” The surge of excitement he felt was nothing new to Boulter. A promising lead always had the same heady effect. But this was the biggest thing ever in his career. He’d unmasked a double murderer.

But his hopes were soon to be dashed. What Roger Barlow told him in one of the interview rooms, after being cautioned, had the ring of truth. What was more, the new alibi he gave was easily verifiable.

* * * *

When Boulter reported back to his DCI, he was in a subdued mood. He felt almost apologetic that he wasn’t able to present her with anything of positive value to the murder enquiry.

“It looks as if Barlow and his girlfriend are in the clear, guv. They spent last Wednesday evening, of all things, flying round the Bay of Biscay in Concorde.”

“What?”
Kate shrugged her shoulders impatiently. “Why the hell didn’t they say so before?”

Boulter came over to her desk and sat down. “The thing is, those two have been acting like a couple of naughty kids and were terrified they’d be found out. It’s all to do with Roger getting cheated by Croptech, as he maintains. A spot of sweet revenge. They’ve been having a high old time, eating out at fancy restaurants, booking the best seats at pop concerts and so on, and charging it all up to the firm. Sandra fiddled Kimberley’s weekly expense account, which the old boy always signed without so much as a glance, then she drew it from McEvoy and deducted the extras before passing the proper amount over to her boss. They could only do it, of course, because of Kimberley’s insistence on always dealing in cash. It was Sandra mentioning that which gave Barlow the idea in the first place.”

“I’m surprised that Sandra thought it was worth risking her job for.”

“She’s totally besotted with the guy, I reckon, and she was probably scared stiff that he’d ditch her if she didn’t go along with whatever he suggested.”

Kate nodded thoughtfully. “That fits. How about the Concorde trip, though? Last Wednesday they knew that Kimberley was missing, so how did they expect to get their money back?”

“The Concorde flight was already paid for, booked in advance. Apparently Sandra spread the cost over several weeks so it wouldn’t bump up any one expense account too much.”

Kate pondered. On the one hand she ought to be feeling glad that the field of suspicion was narrowed. She could concentrate that much more on those people who remained on her list. But—and she’d experienced this irrational feeling before—the elimination of a suspect (in this case a pair of suspects) seemed to reduce her chance of ever solving the case.

“Get someone to verify the Concorde story, Tim. I haven’t much doubt that it’s true, but we must have confirmation.”

The sergeant looked hurt. “That’s already been put in hand, guv.”

“Sorry, Tim, I must learn to trust you more.” She grinned at him. “Not that I shall ever initial your expense chits without a second glance. I’m not gullible, like Noah Kimberley.”

“I’ve never met a DCI who was, guv. In that respect you’re no better than all the rest.”

In that respect! Nice one, Sergeant. You pack a subtle line of flattery.

* * * *

The post-mortem on Sir Noah Kimberley had produced an item of information that pinpointed the time of death with an exactness that succeeded Kate’s best hopes.

“The examination of the stomach contents,” she told her troops during another general briefing on Wednesday morning, “revealed that he’d eaten a fairly substantial meal not more than two hours before he was killed. Furthermore, the actual constituents of the meal have been identified, and they match precisely with the food he ate at his home on the Friday evening he disappeared ... steak and kidney pie followed by black currants. We’ve rechecked that with his housekeeper. We know what time he had dinner that evening. He finished the meal at about nine and went out shortly afterward. So we can be sure that he died within, say, one and a half hours after leaving home.” She glanced at a DC who showed signs of wanting to speak. “Yes, Doug?”

“I understood from the reports, ma’am, that the housekeeper said it was the deceased’s favourite meal. Isn’t it possible that he was still alive on a subsequent day, and repeated the same meal at some restaurant?”

“Good point. But the post-mortem finding was too exact for that to be a real possibility. Mrs. Byworth, the housekeeper, gave us a very detailed account of what she served, which vegetables etc. and the ingredients matched exactly. So we know when Sir Noah Kimberley died, but not where, because the body was obviously moved to the Tillingtons’ residence. As to
when
it was moved, the evidence indicates that it was placed in the freezer not long after the actual killing. There was no onset of
rigor mortis
before freezing, and no sign of decomposition. So now let’s consider what we have on the killer, and the person or persons who moved the body. Likely to be one and the same, but not necessarily so. A woman is involved, because a woman was seen driving the dead man’s car in this area soon after midnight ... and she seems to have driven it to Cardiff via the Severn Bridge and left it at the airport there. After that, we have no trace of her. Sir Noah is known to have received a phone call just before he left the house that evening, which may have been why he went out. It’s a top priority to discover who that caller was. If anyone has any suggestions, they’ll be welcome. You all know, to your cost, that we’re in the process of checking through a long list we’ve built up of all Sir Noah’s contacts we can track down, both business and personal.”