Just Desserts (23 page)

Joanne Moss had laid out the pies, the bacon and the various forms of bread her clients preferred. She was as meticulous and neat and well prepared as ever. ‘It's mostly fast food, I know,' she said apologetically, ‘but it's what they want and enjoy. There won't be many of them, in weather like this, but they like something hot, and they don't want to wait too long for it!' Her nervous little laugh said that she knew they were not here to discuss the culinary merits of her offerings.

Joanne knew they must know a lot more now than when they had talked to her on Friday night. They'd talked to all the others now, some of them more than once. They must have found out a lot more about Patrick. Things she hadn't wanted them to find out, probably. She steeled herself for that, telling herself that this was no more than she had expected, all along.

The next half hour could well be the most important of her life. She told herself not to be melodramatic, but she could not rid herself of that idea. Well, she was up to it, anyway. She hadn't killed Pat, had she? Cling on to that idea, Joanne, and go for it.

The Chief Superintendent seemed in no hurry to start. He studied her without embarrassment, even when they were all sitting down, as if estimating her state of mind, her preparedness for this interview. Perhaps that was part of his technique. Joanne determined to play it cool, to stay as calm as this man heavy with experience seemed to be, as he looked so hard into her face.

‘Tell us again about your discovery of the body.'

It was like a blow to her face, the way Lambert went straight in without the slightest attempt at preliminaries. Joanne swallowed hard, forced herself to take her time over this. The question couldn't harm her: she held on to that thought as she said slowly, ‘There was a lot of noise going on in the restaurant as I went down to the basement. I met Michelle Nayland coming back up the stairs, but no one else came down to the Ladies during the three or four minutes whilst I was in there. I don't know whether anyone was in the Gents at that time, murdering Patrick.'

She looked up at that point, into impassive, attentive faces. ‘I noticed the door of the gents' cloakroom was slightly open as I emerged from the Ladies and saw Patrick's foot through the gap. The door was probably already open when I came down the stairs, but if it was I didn't notice it. I found the body, saw the big pool of blood around it. The next thing I remember is Chris Pearson slapping me to stop me screaming.'

It was delivered as if she had memorized it, as if she was anxious to get through it without making a mistake, without contradicting any detail she had given them before. It sounded a little odd, like a careful childish recitation in this nightmarish framework, but there was nothing unnatural in that. Anyone who had discovered a corpse in this gory context would have been over the scene many times, running the events through like a loop on a videotape.

Lambert said, ‘It is almost five days since we last spoke to you. Have you recalled anything else about that night which now seems to you significant?'

‘No.' The denial came a little too quickly, but she had more things to think about than timing.

‘And you're sure you didn't see anyone else but Michelle Nayland, from the moment you left the restaurant until you discovered the body?'

It was an opportunity to divert suspicion from herself, to bring others into the equation; even to help Michelle, perhaps. Put someone in the frame: that was what the police called it, wasn't it? But there was no need for that, if you weren't guilty. Stick to what you'd said all along: anything else would only arouse suspicion. ‘I can't be certain that Michelle was the only one. What I said is that she's the only person I can
recall
seeing; I had no idea at the time that it was going to be important. And of course I had no idea who was in the gents' cloakroom when I went down there, or who might have gone in there whilst I was in the Ladies.'

Lambert nodded slowly, seeming to digest things, to check them against the sum of his knowledge, without once taking his grey eyes off her face. It was most unnerving. Eventually he said quietly, ‘Is there anything you would wish to add to what you told us on Friday night, Mrs Moss?'

‘No. I've just told you all I—'

‘About your relationship with the deceased, for instance?'

‘No.' It was coming, then. She told herself that she had always known it must, that she must let them make the running, if she was not to give away more than they already knew.

‘What is your salary for the work you do here?' He looked round the neat kitchen with its stainless-steel implements, its industrial microwave, its fast food ready for the modest lunchtime demands, as if minimizing the work she did.

Joanne found herself saying, ‘My salary is my own business. It is no concern of anyone, except myself and the person who chooses to pay it to me.'

‘In a normal situation, yes. In a murder inquiry, emphatically no.'

She had known this must come out. She went through the ritual of resistance. ‘I'm paid a generous salary. I'm good at what I do.'

‘No doubt. Good enough to warrant more money than anyone else on the staff? Five thousand more than Mr Pearson, who runs the whole enterprise?'

‘Perhaps not. But I support myself, Chief Superintendent Lambert. It was not my decision to raise my earnings. You cannot blame me for taking whatever salary was offered to me.'

‘Patrick Nayland seems to have been a shrewd businessman, well aware of the rates necessary to recruit efficient staff. Can you account for the fact that you are paid twice as much as any other member of staff?'

‘No. It wasn't my decision. I admit I was surprised to get such a rise in salary when I became full-time, but—'

‘You were having an affair with Patrick Nayland, weren't you, Mrs Moss?'

‘That's my business.' She snapped it out primly, trying to buy herself time to think. She hadn't expected it to come out like this, to hear Lambert's blunt, almost contemptuous challenge ringing in her ears as she tried to marshal her resistance.

‘And our business too, Mrs Moss. You must see that, in the circumstances.'

She shook her head dumbly, unable to discover the words for further defiance.

‘And the fact that you chose to conceal this relationship, when specifically asked to declare any such allegiances at our first meeting, is now of great interest to us.'

They had declared the affair as fact now, when she had never admitted to it. They must be very sure of their ground. ‘Who told you about this?'

‘You would not expect us to reveal that.' A grim smile. Triumph, she thought. But not complacency. They hadn't got her for the murder of Patrick, only for having an affair with him. She said defiantly, ‘There's no law against it. I'm a free woman.'

Lambert did not point out that Patrick Nayland had not been a free man. He wasn't getting into that. He said patiently, ‘We're investigating a murder. It could be said that you've obstructed the police in the course of their enquiries. I'm not particularly interested in pursuing that line, at the moment. I'm interested in the reasons why you chose to conceal information which may have a vital bearing on this death.'

‘It doesn't. And it's natural I shouldn't want my affairs blazoned all over the newspapers, with a grieving widow and her daughter around.' That had come out spontaneously, and Joanne thought it sounded better than the stuff she had carefully prepared.

Lambert ignored her. ‘How long ago did this affair start?'

‘It's been serious for two years.' That was precise enough. She could be even more exact if she wanted to be, but that would show how deeply the passion had bitten.

‘Did Mrs Nayland know about it?'

‘No one knew, as far as we were aware.' Except Alan Fitch: she made that reservation to herself, but saw no reason to tell them of it. ‘I'm not proud of taking away a woman's husband.'

Except that you hadn't taken him away, had you? thought Lambert. There was a saying that the wife always won out in the end, if she wanted to. And the cool, well-organized Liza Nayland was still very much around.

Lambert said, ‘Other people did know, Mrs Moss. They always do, if an affair lasts very long, however discreet you think your behaviour is. In the light of that, I ask you again: how sure are you that Mrs Nayland was completely ignorant of the situation?'

‘She didn't know. Pat was sure of that.'

‘Because if she did know, it would make her a candidate for this murder, wouldn't it?'

He was watching her closely, studying her reaction, she supposed. She was amazed to find that she was quite enjoying the situation. ‘It would, wouldn't it? I hadn't thought of that. If Pat had—'

‘So how sure are you that Mrs Nayland didn't know about the situation?'

She took her time, as if digesting a new idea. She raised a ringless hand to move the strand of dark hair which had strayed towards her eye. ‘Pat said he was sure she didn't know. I've hardly met the woman, for reasons which I trust are obvious. All I can say is that she's never been in to confront me.'

‘This looks very like a crime where passion was involved. Where a man was killed in an impulsive fit of rage or jealousy.'

She was conscious of Lambert studying her closely, even of the possibility that he might be setting a trap for her. But they didn't do that, did they, these people? Not when they were facing someone who was completely innocent? Joanne had again that strange, unexpected feeling of excitement, of playing a game for high stakes which was still a game. ‘Yes, I can see that. If you stick a knife repeatedly into someone, it's likely to be on impulse rather than pre-planned, isn't it? And of course there's—' She stopped abruptly, her hand flying in horror to her mouth, as if to still the indiscretion on her lips.

‘There's what, Mrs Moss?'

Her voice was low now, scarcely more than a whisper. ‘Not what, Superintendent. Who. I was thinking of what I've already told you. That the only person I saw immediately before I found Pat's body was Michelle Nayland.'

‘And a daughter who feels that her mother has been wronged might well have killed on her behalf? It's a possibility we have considered, Mrs Moss. Until we know for certain what has happened, we have to consider every scenario.' He was calmness personified. She wished he would take his eyes off her face, if only for a moment. He did not even seem to need to blink.

‘Who told you that I was Pat's mistress?' She wanted to know that; wanted to know who, under pressure like this, had known about her and blown the gaff to these two. Somehow, she knew that it would have been to these two, not to one of the lesser lights in the team who had been taking statements from all and sundry around the place. Had someone been trying to implicate her, to plant the suggestion that the mistress might have killed, if she wasn't having things her own way?

Not many people cared for that old-fashioned noun ‘mistress' nowadays. Lambert smiled at her, looking as hard as ever into her face, trying to work out exactly what was going on behind the smooth brow beneath that glossy dark hair. ‘You wouldn't expect me to reveal our sources of information. Have you decided yet who you think killed Patrick Nayland?'

It was one of his sudden switches, endeavouring to catch her off guard, to lead her into some indiscretion. She wasn't going to be caught out like that. She said boldly, ‘No. But I don't have to pretend I'm indifferent any longer, do I? I was in love with Pat. I want you to get the bastard who killed him, and put him away for a long time. If I get there first, he'll wish he'd been arrested, I can tell you!' Her voice rose in a sudden fury on the last sentence.

Lambert did not rise to the suggestion, did not even warn her against taking the law into her own hands. He said dryly, ‘So the sudden rise in your salary no doubt dates from the time when you established a serious relationship with Mr Nayland.'

Another of his switches, away from the emotion of her feelings about Pat's death to the area she thought he'd finished with. She said limply, ‘My salary was sharply increased when this job warranted a full-time Catering Manager. But I suppose that was about the time when I became Pat's mistress, yes.'

‘A salary which was comfortably higher than that earned by the General Manager of the whole enterprise,' he reminded her again.

Damn the man, she thought. He made it sound like prostitution, as if she were being paid for her services in places other than this neat, well-equipped kitchen. But probably he was trying to rile her: people revealed much more of themselves when they were annoyed. She made herself smile as she said, ‘I can't help it if Pat wanted to pay me more. All right, I recognize that he was paying well above the rate for the job, but he wanted to do it. He said we were going to be married eventually, so the money was staying in the family firm, really!'

‘You were planning marriage?'

He had raised his eyebrows as if that surprised him, the insulting sod. But the important thing was not to let him rattle you. ‘It was on the agenda, yes. I was leaving it to Pat to decide when was the right moment for it to happen.'

He looked at her quizzically at that, as if he had not known women in her situation to be as patient as that. But he couldn't know what had passed between them in the privacy of her flat, could not know the softly spoken discussions they had had in bed after sex, could he? Never would know now, with Pat dead. And in this matter at least, no one else could stick their oar in. He could know only what she chose to tell him. She said, ‘I didn't wish to hurt Liza Nayland or her daughter any more than was strictly necessary. I've been through a divorce myself, don't forget.'

Lambert nodded two or three times, pausing as if to evaluate what she had said. Then he said quietly, ‘So you were and are quite convinced that Mr Nayland was serious in his intentions towards you.'