Just Desserts (16 page)

He grinned, seeing an opportunity to lighten the atmosphere. ‘That's a rather grandiose title for a plant which at present has four full-time workers. But yes, Pat and I had always had an understanding that at a certain stage I would become a partner in the enterprise. I would put all the energy I had into the place in its early days, knock it into some sort of going concern, give it a future. My reward for taking a lower wage in the early stages was to be a partnership.' He did not dare to look at her. He fixed his eyes on the vase of chrysanthemums in the fireplace and said, ‘A few days before his death, we had agreed that the time to implement these plans had arrived. That the place was now sufficiently developed for the idea of a partnership to be feasible.'

There was a long pause. He wondered as it stretched if he had overplayed his hand. But her words when they came were like music to him. ‘I think that's feasible. I said I hadn't Pat's knowledge of the detail of Camellia Park and how it works. But I do know how hard you've worked and how highly Pat rated you. I think it's in my interests as well as yours to keep you around. And the best way to do that is to give you a role in the place which goes beyond mere wages. I've no objection in principle to your notion of a partnership. In fact, I welcome the idea.'

How cool and businesslike she was, for a woman widowed less than a week ago. He could envisage working well with her, in the months to come. He said, ‘I can't buy myself in, I'm afraid. But I'm not looking for an equal partnership, or anything approaching it. I'll go on working for the same wage as before. It's just that I'd like to have a real stake in the future of Camellia Park, and a share of the profits in due course, when the situation warrants it.'

She said, ‘This isn't the time to talk detail, Chris. Let's just accept the idea in principle, and get the accountants to look at the books. We can do our hard negotiating about the detail in due course.'

She leaned across and gave him a refill of whisky. Chris noticed for the first time that his own glass was empty and hers still three-quarters full; he must have been even more nervous than he'd realized. He said, ‘Thank you. I hadn't thought it would be so difficult for me to talk about these things. I think I found it easier undertaking special assignments in the Army than this.'

Liza Nayland didn't know exactly what he'd done in the Army; he'd never mentioned it before, and now didn't seem the time to follow it up. She said, ‘Pat used to say things like that, when things got complicated. But I don't suppose he meant it.'

‘I don't suppose he did. They're a long way behind us now, those Army days.' Chris stood up and offered his hand. It seemed the right thing to do, a clinching of a satisfactory business deal. He drove out of the wide drive of the big house with a cheerful wave to the woman who stood upon the step, scarcely daring to believe what he had achieved from the encounter.

His elation lasted until late in the afternoon, when he received the news that the CID wanted to speak to him again about the murder of Patrick Nayland.

John Lambert held the unofficial conference with DI Rushton and DS Hook as much to clarify his own thinking as in the hope of any fresh information or insights. He felt confused about what he had anticipated would be a straightforward case. He didn't want to call the whole of the murder team in and thus suspend the work of investigation, but three heads were definitely better than one when you wanted to elucidate the position.

He began by narrowing the field. ‘There were sixteen people in the restaurant at the time when Nayland was killed. Does any one of us think that any of the spouses or partners who were attending the meal at Soutters ranks as a probable for this?'

Hook, who had seen most of the people involved said, ‘There is just the one spouse I would except from that. Mrs Nayland. She and her daughter, Michelle, are certainly in the frame. Apart from them, I think only the four people who work at the golf course are serious suspects.'

Lambert looked at Rushton, who nodded and said, ‘All the others have been formally interviewed, as have Fred and Paula Soutter, the owners of the restaurant, and the skivvy who was helping Fred Soutter in the kitchen that night. None of them has given us any reason to think they stuck that knife into Nayland. Unfortunately, none of them seems to have seen anything helpful, either.'

Hook said gloomily, ‘It doesn't help that at that stage of the evening most people had drunk quite a lot. They weren't at their most observant and their recollections are not completely reliable.'

Lambert nodded. ‘I'm more concerned that those recollections seem highly selective. We should have learned more from them than we have about the victim. If they're not actually lying, then some of them at least are withholding things from us. And if they're reticent about the victim, it makes me think they're not being completely honest about the other suspects, either.'

Rushton said, ‘So far, we've learned more about the victim from other sources than from the people who lived with him and worked with him. We've turned up that conviction for Indecent Assault. And the only interesting thing his ex-wife up in Derbyshire said about Patrick Nayland is that he couldn't keep his hands off the women around him. I don't suppose for a moment that the leopard has changed his spots.'

Policemen are not puritans: they see far too much of the seamier side of life for that. But Chris Rushton's lips pursed in distaste as he spoke of the dead man's lechery; the distaste, perhaps, of a man whose own marriage had failed and who did not find it easy to open up new relationships with women.

Lambert suppressed the unworthy thought that he wished there were more criminals with DI Rushton's puritan ethic; men who stepped out of their trousers at every opportunity invariably complicated murder investigations. The old saw was that sex or money lay somewhere behind every serious crime; in his experience, sex was much the more complex of the two. You knew where you were with money, you could measure it in figures, judge whether these were sums which people might think it worth killing for. You couldn't get inside a man's head to measure the effect upon him of a glimpse of thigh or a fierce sexual coupling.

Hook said, ‘The date of the conviction for Indecent Assault was well before his second marriage. It's possible Liza Nayland isn't aware of it, even now. It's the kind of thing most men would want to hide, if they could.'

‘And it may be that people are holding back because of not wishing to speak ill of the dead. All the same, I'm sure some of them at least must know more about Nayland than they've been prepared to tell us. Chris Pearson, for instance, has worked with him as his right-hand man since the idea of a golf course was first mooted.'

Hook looked down at his notes. ‘Pearson actually told us that he knew Nayland “as well as any man outside his family”. But he didn't tell us anything about that family; it's odd that he should claim to know nothing at all about that, and everything there was to know about the business side of things.'

Rushton said, ‘I'm still waiting for the full details of Pearson's Army career. We know that he was decorated in the Falklands and that he spent the bulk of his service with the Royal Artillery. But apparently he transferred for the last few years of his Army service, and Army records so far haven't come up with any details.'

Lambert said, ‘We'll have further words with Mr Pearson, when we get a fuller picture. He struck me as the coolest of all the people we've seen, the one who had come to terms immediately with this death, who in interview gave us exactly what he intended to give and no more.'

There was silence. The other two men in the room were thinking how neatly that description fitted the murderer in a case like this, but conscious also that Lambert would not welcome speculation, would insist on assembling facts. With that in mind, Rushton went for the statistically most likely candidate. ‘What about the widow? Even if Nayland had concealed a court case from many years ago, she can hardly have been unaware of his eye for the ladies.'

It was a curiously old-fashioned phrase from much the youngest man in the room. Lambert said, ‘Nayland might have turned over a new leaf, of course, with a second and happier marriage. It's been known.' No one contradicted him. But no one endorsed that view either. There was too much experience of human nature in the room for that.

Hook said, ‘Liza Nayland certainly gave the impression in our interview that it was a happy marriage and that she had no problems of that sort. Either he'd changed his ways, or she was unaware of any transgressions.'

‘Or she knew about them and wasn't letting on that she knew to you,' said Rushton with a cynical smile. He wasn't letting go of a prime suspect that easily.

Lambert said, ‘If she did know of a woman or women her husband had recently been involved with, then she lied to us about it. She told us specifically that she knew he wasn't having any affairs.'

‘They say the wife is always the last to know,' said Rushton stubbornly.

Lambert nodded slowly. ‘And that could be true in this case. Liza Nayland seemed confident that her husband had no sexual liaisons. But such ignorance is convenient for her: it removes her most obvious motive for murder, because she couldn't then have killed in a fit of sexual jealousy.'

Rushton said, ‘She's still the one who's gained most from this death. In a monetary sense, I mean. I know you'll say that women can get divorced and do very well out of it nowadays, but this way she gets the lot.'

Lambert wondered just how much Chris Rushton himself had left after his divorce. The Inspector was living in a tiny, aseptic flat now, with limited access to the small daughter he had doted upon in the years of her infancy. He said, ‘What did you think of Mrs Nayland, Bert?'

‘I think she was genuinely grieving for his death. That doesn't mean she didn't kill him, of course. Many murderers are immediately upset by what they've done. I'm not sure whether she was concealing things about her husband or not. But I'm sure she wasn't telling us the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I thought she was very cagey about the relationship between her daughter and Patrick Nayland.'

‘Nothing unnatural in that. Not many families care to air their differences in public. She admitted the two didn't get on at first, but she said they were happy enough together at the time of this death.'

Hook checked his notebook again. ‘She said, “Michelle had realized that my happiness was bound up with Patrick, and had accepted the situation.” It's hardly a glowing testimonial. And she instanced that they'd had a happy meal together, only a few days before the man's death. If you have to pick out a particular meal where things went well, it strikes me that it was the exception rather than the rule.'

Lambert sighed. ‘We can put rather more pressure on Liza Nayland, now that we're a little further away from the murder and we know a little more about her husband. What about her daughter?'

‘An intelligent and attractive young woman. Just the type that young, divorced detective inspectors should be pursuing.' Hook kept his face impeccably straight as he looked down at his notebook.

Rushton felt that he was blushing, despite the fact that he should have been well used to shafts from this duo by now. ‘She's much too young for me.'

‘Eight years or so? Probably needs an experienced man like you to keep her out of mischief, Chris.'

‘And she may be a murderess. I think we should stick to the point.'

Lambert controlled the wish to smile and nodded earnestly. ‘Attractive young women have been known to stick knives into people before now. What struck me is that her recall of what went on at Soutters last Wednesday night was very precise – until it came to the moments that might be of use to us. Then she became as vague as the rest of them; that makes me wonder if it was a convenient vagueness.'

Hook said, ‘She was very definite in insisting that she was Nayland's stepdaughter, not his daughter, despite adopting his name. She said, “I gave Patrick a hard time, at first, and I'm sure he thought I was a right little cow.” But she claimed they were getting on “perfectly well” by the time of his death. But she was back at work within thirty-six hours of the man's death and she wasn't grief-stricken: she said, “I'm not going to simulate a misery I don't feel.” She thought Nayland must have been killed by someone he'd offended in his business dealings.'

Lambert nodded. ‘Which would conveniently strike Michelle and her mother off the list of suspects, of course. There's a surprise! But we need to see the delightful Miss Nayland again, to press her harder about one or two things. There's some discrepancy in the times when she was at the scene of the murder, as well as this query about her relationship with the dead man.'

‘We'll put a good word in for you, when we see her, Chris,' said Hook. ‘Tell her you're sound in mind and body – well, body, anyway.'

‘What have you turned up among the employees?' said Rushton grimly, his eyes firmly fixed on his computer screen.

Lambert smiled. ‘Pearson we've already discussed. Joanne Moss, the Catering Manager at Camellia Park, is the woman who discovered the body. The others agree that they went down there and found her in near-hysterics with the corpse. No one has said anything yet to clear her of the murder, but equally no one has even suggested the idea that Joanne Moss killed him.'

Rushton said, ‘When I spoke to her on Wednesday night, Joanne Moss was still too upset to be coherent. How was she when you spoke to her on Friday night? Did you find her account of how she came to be down in the basement with a dead man in her arms convincing?'

‘As far as it went, yes. She says she was in the ladies' loo for three or four minutes. It's probable but not certain that the door of the Gents was slightly open when she went down there, without her noticing it. In which case, Nayland might have been lying dead during the time she was in there and even perhaps for some time before that. She noticed that the door was slightly ajar and then saw his foot there as she came out of the Ladies. The configuration of the doors means that you are indeed much more likely to notice a gap in the doorway of the Gents on your way out of the Ladies than on your way in there.'