Model Murder (13 page)

“Ah, Chief Inspector, you athked me to let you know if I thought of anything.”

“And you have?”

“I’m not thertain it will help you, but ... well, on the one occathion I wath with Corinne in her private apartment at the hotel, there wath a phone call. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but  ... well, it wath annoying.”

“In what way annoying?”

Blushes don’t usually travel well along telephone lines, but this one came over loud and clear. “We were, if you ... er, understand me ...”

“Quite so. Carry on, please, Mr. Arliss.”

“Corinne took the call in the other room ... the thitting room, tho I didn’t hear every word. Not that I was really lithening.”

“Do you know who the caller was?”

“No, I don’t, but it was clearly a man. The githt of the converthation theemed to be that thhe wath telling him not to keep pethtering her. Thhe thounded quite irritated.”

There’s meat here, Kate, so keep digging.
Never mind that Arliss was clearly lying in pretending that he’d only just remembered this phone call. No man could have “forgotten” an interruption like that at such a deflatory moment. Alternatively, Arliss might be inventing the phone call (though she didn’t think so). In which case,
why?

“Did you get any hint of who it could have been?” she asked. “Did Miss Saxon use his name at any point?”

“Well, I’m not thertain. It wath only the one time thhe thaid it, and ...”

“What name was this?” Kate broke in urgently.

“The point ith ... I can only tell you what it
thounded
like. Corinne wath in the other room, don’t forget.”

“The name, Mr. Arliss.”

“It wath Ram. But I might have got it wrong, of courthe.”

“She called him Ram? R-A-M?”

“Well ... yeth.”

“Just the once? And no other name of any kind was mentioned? Perhaps the name of a place?”

“No, jutht that one name ith what I heard.”

“Tell me what you can remember about Miss Saxon’s side of the conversation.

“Thhe began talking quietly, tho I couldn’t really hear. Thhe thounded annoyed more than anything. Exathperated. But then thhe thuddenly exploded at him.”

“Exactly what was it she said?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. Ath I recall, it went thumthing like thith. ‘Get the hell out of my hair, will you? Can’t you get the methage, Ram, it’th over? Finite. So bloody well thop bothering me.’ Then thhe thlammed the phone down.”

“What comment did she make when she came back to join you?”

“Thhe was laughing, but I had a feeling thhe didn’t really find it funny.” Arliss swallowed audibly. “Then thhe thaid to me,‘Don’t you get to be a bloody bore, Andy, when I give you your marching orderth.’”

“Andy? Why did she call you Andy when your name is James?”

“Oh? The fact ith, my thecond name is Andrew.”

“I see. Tell me, Mr. Arliss, do you have the slightest idea who she might have been speaking to? Can you make a guess?”

“I’m afraid not. I’ve no idea who it wath.”

“Very well. If anything further does occur to you, please get in touch with me at once. Meantime, I think you’ll like to know that this morning I have received a report from Yorkshire. The police there are entirely satisfied that your wife was in Scarborough at the relevant times.”

He made a grunting sound. “Dawn mentioned on the phone lath night that they’d been round to question her. Thhe was very puzzled, naturally, but I managed to convinth her that it wath only a matter of routine polith enquirieth.”

A handy phrase, that, routine police enquiries. Kate hung up and called Boulter in.

“We’ve very possibly got our man, Tim, except that we don’t know who the hell he is.” She relayed her conversation with Arliss.

“Ram?” the sergeant repeated thoughtfully. “Convey anything to you, guv?”

“It’s an abbreviation, I suppose.”

“Ramsbottom?” he suggested. “How many Ramsbottoms have we got on our suspect list?”

“Listen, have a run-through on the computer to see what name-links it comes up with. Of course, it could well be that he’s not a local man. This Ram guy could easily be someone from her past, not a recently ditched lover. We’ve simply got to get more information about Corinne Saxon’s background before she turned up at Streatfield Park.”

“We’re trying every lead we can think of, guv.”

“Well, try harder. I think I’ll slip across to the hotel and have another word with Admiral Fortescue. I’ve always had the feeling that he hasn’t come totally clean with us. It’s just possible he knows something that would point us to the identity of our Mr. Ram.”

* * * *

“The coppers have found out what happened to her car,” announced Larkin breathlessly, spotting Labrosse coming out of the hotel library. “Someone bloody nicked it.”

The Swiss stopped in his tracks, and stared. “How do you know this, Sid?”

“That Maddox woman was telling the admiral. Heard her, I did. She said it was nicked by a bloke working for one of those organised car-theft set-ups. He just happened to spot it parked in that lane and grabbed his chance. She reckons the car will have been whipped out of the country by now.”

Labrosse began chuckling.
“Mon Dieu!
We never thought of that explanation. Very convenient, too, except for the worry it’s caused us wondering where on earth it had gone. Did the police inspector have anything else to say?”

“She was going on about them following up all kinds of leads, but it sounded like a proper load of flannel. Oh yes ... she asked the old boy if the name Ram meant anything to him. Which it didn’t.”

“Ram? That means nothing to me, either.”

“Nor me.”

Labrosse chuckled again. “Let us hope it keeps the police guessing for a nice long time.”

“Yves, don’t you think we should ...”

“Relax! We have nothing to fear. And how many times must I tell you not to call me Yves? One of these days someone will overhear you. You’re just the admiral’s steward, and I’m the manager of this hotel. Mr. Labrosse to you. Remember that in future, Larkin, and keep your place.”

He strode off along the empty corridor. Larkin watched his departing back with troubled eyes. Bitter eyes.

* * * *

Towards the end of Sunday afternoon Kate sat in her makeshift office with a cup of tea that had just been brought to her. Being a changing room, the window here was of frosted glass, but she’d opened the top ventilator. Through the narrow slit she had a view of the clock on the stable tower. Its gilt hands glinting in the sunlight said four fifty-two. Which made it three minutes slow, she saw, glancing down at her wristwatch.

Earlier, there had been a flurry of excitement when the computer had thrown up two names that might possibly have been abbreviated to Ram. Both proved to be dead ends. Herbert
Ram
sden was a local vicar, on file because he’d been invited to the hotel’s launch party, Not only was he a pillar of the community, but discreet enquiries had established that he’d spent the afternoon of Corinne Saxon’s death conducting a funeral service, afterwards adjourning to the home of the deceased for baked meats with the family. Then there’d been Hi
ram
G. Ledbetter, from Milwaukee, a guest with his wife at Streatfield Park for a few days just after the hotel opened. The Milwaukee police department came up speedily with the information that on the day of the murder Hiram G. had been right there at his home in town, resting up a broken ankle sustained on the golf course.

So what now? Kate took a sip of tea every now and then. The thought she’d held at bay all day had begun to gnaw at her brain. She still needed to talk to Richard Gower, because he had known the murder victim. Had at one time been intimate with her.

Kate didn’t suspect Richard, of course she didn’t; she never had done. Even so, it had come as a relief when the time limits of Corinne’s death were established, to realise that Richard had an excellent alibi.

Wednesday was press day for the Marlingford
Gazette,
which meant that each Wednesday afternoon Richard prowled anxiously between his editorial office and the machine room where the ancient Crabtree clanked painfully, as if each revolution would be its very last. It was Richard’s constant fear that one of these weeks there’d be a major breakdown before the print run was complete, and (so his foreman printer complained) he fussed like an old mother hen until the last copy was safely off the press at approximately six p.m.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t indefinitely postpone her talk with Richard. Now that she needed to widen the investigation by delving deeper into the victim’s life, he was an obvious person to interview. Yet Kate was dreading the thought of discussing Corinne Saxon with Richard. She dreaded his hostile reaction when she raised the subject.

Don’t
be so bloody gutless, Kate Maddox!

Reaching for the phone, she punched out Richard’s home number. No answer. Just on the off-chance, even though it was Sunday, she tried the
Gazette’s
number. Nothing. Shrugging, she gave her attention to the new batch of routine reports, but her mind was made up now. Half an hour later she tried Richard again. And later still, yet again.

When Kate finally arrived home, the first thing she did was to try him once more. Talking to Richard had suddenly become imperative. Her last attempt to reach him was just after midnight.

Kate awoke at six-thirty on Monday morning with a thick head, like a hangover she hadn’t earned. The sky in the east was an ominous red and the air coming in through the open window felt clammy. Maybe a jog would revive her, she thought, and get her brain thinking straight.

She dragged herself out of bed, pulled on a tracksuit and slipped out into the silent morning. By the time she returned twenty minutes later, the threatened rain had begun and she was soaked to the skin.

The phone started ringing just as Kate stepped under the shower. Sod’s Law! Dripping wet, she went to the nearest extension which was in the bedroom. Before she reached it the ringing stopped. Damn and blast! If she returned to the shower, whoever it was would probably call again. Resignedly, she rubbed herself dry and got dressed.

A slice of whole-wheat toast and Oxford marmalade. No butter. Plus a mug of strong black clear-the-brain-cells coffee. She’d taken her first bite of toast when the phone rang again. Okay, Mr. Sod, I get the message.

Today’s going to be a real bitch, Kate!

Picking up the phone, she mumbled her number through a mouthful of half-chewed toast. An irate voice exploded in her ear. Richard.

“Kate! Where the hell have you
been
all this time? I’ve been trying to get you since just after seven.”

“What the hell business is it of yours where I’ve been?”

“I tried the Incident Room at Streatfield Park, and you weren’t there.”

“So I wasn’t there. And I wasn’t here.”

“Cut it out, Kate, this is serious. Felix is in a really bad way.”

Alarm clutched at her throat. “What do you mean, Richard? What’s happened?”

“A full-scale abdominal crisis, peritonitis, that’s what’s happened. Those bloody gallstones of hers. She’s in the operating theatre now.”

“Oh, my God! Where, Richard? At the Peace Memorial? I’ll get there right away.”

Twenty-five minutes later Kate hurried in through the hospital’s automatic glass doors. As she crossed to the information desk, Richard came forward to meet her.

“What’s the latest news?” she gasped.

“Nothing new. She’s not yet out of theatre.”

They sat down on two orange plastic chairs in the waiting area, and Kate demanded, “How come you’re here? When was she admitted? Why wasn’t I informed? Sooner, I mean.”

“Because Felix wouldn’t allow you to be told. I wanted to phone you when she was brought in last night, but she insisted that you’d got too much on your plate just now.”

Typical!
Kate should have felt grateful for this consideration. Instead, she felt resentful that her aunt had turned to Richard instead of to her.

“Tell me about it,” she snapped. “How was it you came to be involved?”

“Because I took the trouble to find out how she was. On Saturday lunchtime I saw Felix in the Wagon, and ...”

“Yes, she told me.”

“You mean you actually talked to her,” he said, with an accusing glare, “and you didn’t register how sick she was?”

That cut deep. She should have guessed something was wrong when Felix sounded so maudlin and unlike her usual self on Saturday night. Instead, she’d put it down to one or two whiskies too many. She’d been too bloody preoccupied with the job to spare enough attention to her elderly aunt.

“Felix did sound a little ... strange on the phone,” she admitted repentantly. “But I didn’t realise there was anything really wrong. She said nothing to me about feeling ill.”

“You know damn well that she’s had this bloody gall-bladder trouble for years. Her doctor’s kept on and on to her about having it seen to.”

“I thought she had things under control—as long as she watched her diet.” But Kate remembered, guiltily, the acute attack her aunt had suffered while she’d been temporarily living with Felix after her promotion and transfer to the Cotswold Division. The nausea and vomiting, the obvious pain. Felix had tried her best to minimise it, of course, and afterwards, after she’d been to see her doctor, Kate had too easily accepted Felix’s assurance that the problem had been solved.

“Did she ring you, Richard, to ask for your help?”

“No. I called round last night to see how she was. God, it’s lucky I did. I felt a bit concerned about her after seeing the state she was in on Saturday. So as soon as I got back from spending the day with those friends of mine in Bath, I thought I’d give her a ring. There was no reply, and that worried me. I couldn’t believe she’d feel up to going out for the evening. Anyway, I decided I might as well drive round to Stonebank Cottage to check she was okay. She didn’t answer the doorbell, but there was a light on in the living room. When I peered in through the window I saw Felix lying on the floor, doubled up in pain. I broke in and called an ambulance. I would have called you, of course, except that she begged me not to.”