Model Murder (2 page)

Now Corinne Saxon was dead. And Richard had to be told. Sighing, Kate climbed out of the car and pulled open the door of the phone booth. Fishing in her purse for a coin, she inserted it and punched out the
Gazette’s
number.

“I thought you were supposed to be in Bristol today,” he said, when she got through to him.

“Richard, listen ... something’s happened.”

“What is it?” His voice held concern. “Are you okay, Kate?”

“It’s not me.”

“Felix?”

“No, not Felix. I had to call off the birthday outing and come back. There’s been a death, and I wanted to tell you myself before the news reached you from another source.”

“A death? Someone I know, you mean?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Corinne Saxon.”

“Corinne? Oh, no!”

“It’s true, Richard.” She paused, swallowed. “I ... I’m sorry.”

He seemed badly thrown, unable to collect himself. “You mean ... an accident in her car? Poor Corinne, she always did drive much too fast. But Kate ... I don’t get it. How come you’re involved? What’s it got to do with the CID?”

“It wasn’t an accident. She was murdered. Her body was found just a couple of hours ago in the woods near East Dean. She’d obviously been raped, then strangled. I’m really sorry, Richard, but you had to know.”

There were long seconds of silence from Richard, while Kate wondered what exactly this news meant to him. It was a shock, of course, a fearful shock. Any man with normally decent feelings would be shocked and distressed to learn of the death in such horrific circumstances of any woman with whom he’d once been intimate. But did Corinne Saxon’s death mean more than just that to Richard? Without Corinne in his life, now that he’d met her again, did he face an aching void?
Stop it, Kate.

She ended the stretching silence. “I’m on my way to Streatfield Park now. To break the news, of course, but also to pick up whatever information I can about her to get this investigation off the ground.”

Richard gave a baffled grunt. “Information about Corinne? How will that help? You said she’d been raped and strangled in the woods.”

“Listen, this conversation is strictly off the record. Understood?”

“I’m not looking for a scoop for the paper, Kate.” His voice was laced with reproach.

“You’ll be getting a press release for the
Gazette
in due course. The point is, however much this case might look like an assault by a total stranger, it’s a statistical fact that a rapist is far more likely to be somebody who’s known to his victim. So I have to enquire into every aspect of Corinne Saxon’s life.”

“What you’re saying is that every man she’s ever known is now under suspicion?”

“Got to be.”

“Which includes me.” God, he was bitter.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” But there was no protest she could make that would erase the implication of what she’d said. And Richard was suggesting nothing worse than the truth. Inevitably, his name would have to go down on her list of potential suspects. How cruelly ironic. They had originally met because Richard Gower had been a prime suspect in a previous murder investigation, when his car was stolen from outside his flat and used in a deliberate hit-and-run killing. After Kate had finally cleared him of suspicion (to her infinite relief) their friendship had blossomed. Only last night—as so often nowadays— they had been close in their togetherness. But now, suddenly, their entire relationship seemed in jeopardy. Yet she knew, knew with utter conviction, that Richard was not involved in this murder. Any more than he’d been involved that other time.

“There’s something you can very likely help me with,” she rushed on, vainly trying to break through the barrier that was all at once between them. “Corinne’s next of kin will have to be informed. Who would that be?”

“I haven’t the least idea.”

“But surely ... didn’t she ever talk to you about her family?”

“Not a lot, that I recall. It was ages ago that I knew her.”

“For heaven’s sake, you must be able to tell me something about her.”

“Well, she was born in France, her mother was French. The Lyons area, I think. That’s right, because her father was somehow involved in the silk business over there. But Corinne told me that both her parents had died when she was quite small. About six or seven, I believe.”

“Did she have any brothers or sisters?”

“No, she was the only child, I do remember her saying that. Then after she was orphaned, her father’s sister took over and brought her up in this country. The aunt was unmarried and very strait-laced, and Corinne never really got on with her. That was in this neck of the woods, as it happens, in Cheltenham.”

“An aunt? I suppose you don’t know exactly where in Cheltenham?”

“No, I don’t. And it wouldn’t do you any good, because she’s dead now, too. I happened to ask Corinne recently, while we were chatting, if her aunt was still around. She told me the old girl had pegged out shortly before she got married.”

“Hold on. Are you saying that Corinne Saxon was married?”

“And divorced. It was since the time I knew her, of course, and I only came to learn about it quite by chance.”

“Oh? How was that?”

“If you must know,” he said resentfully, “I was recently going through some back files of the
Gazette,
searching for something or other, when I stumbled across a news item about the opening of an antique shop at a village somewhere near Marlingford. What caught my eye was a passing mention that the owner had once been married to Corinne Saxon, the well-known model. It went on to say that he and his partner in the new venture planned to marry in the autumn. This was a few years ago, before I took over the
Gazette.
I commented about it to Corinne, but she just laughed and said the marriage had been a total disaster. The man was a wimp.”

“D’you recall his name?”

Richard gave a noisy sigh. “I suppose I could look it up for you. Shall I send you a photocopy of the paragraph?”

“Yes, do that, soon as you can. Now I’d better get going.”

“You’ll be very tied up on this, I expect. There’ll be no chance of seeing you for the next few days?”

Was he looking for an out? A good excuse not to spend time with her? Kate said woodenly, “I want to see you, Richard. I’ll need to talk to you some more about Corinne, anyway. It might well be that you can come up with some useful information.”

Again, Kate was horribly conscious of the barrier between them. How could she convince Richard that she was just doing her job? That she herself didn’t entertain the smallest doubt about him, no matter what the crime statistics might say about rapists being known to their victims.

All the same, once the time of the killing had been pinpointed, she’d need to establish an alibi for Richard Cower. Otherwise, she’d be shot at by her superintendent (and rightly so) for leaving such an obvious gap in her investigation.

Richard was saying in a withdrawn tone, “I don’t imagine there’s anything more I can tell you about Corinne. It was years ago I knew her, and I’ve not seen all that much of her just lately.”

But exactly
how
much was not all that much?

“I’ll call you,” Kate finished quickly. “I must go now.”

Richard had provided her with information that could be useful. In a murder investigation,
any
information about the victim could prove to be significant. What he’d just told her would have to go into the records, to be mulled over by everyone on the squad. Filed. Cross-indexed. Computerized. Okay, okay, but no way was she going to include the juicy little tidbit that the senior investigating officer’s boyfriend had once been the lover of the murdered woman. That fact had no bearing on the case.

None at all.

The gilt-lettered sign at the entrance gates simply stated
Streatfield Park,
with nothing to indicate that this was a hotel. The driveway ran pencil-straight for three hundred yards, an avenue of clipped yews standing blackly green against the blueness of the afternoon sky.

At the drive’s end the mansion stood in landscaped grounds of sweeping lawns and terraces. It was a noble pile of beautiful tawny-grey Cotswold stone, surmounted by a baroque-style balustrade decorated with Grecian urns. What Kate was seeing was the remodelled version of a more ancient house, undertaken by an eighteenth-century Fortescue. On three stories, finely proportioned sash windows stretched in perfect symmetry from the central pedimented entrance. The Orangery was a later, one-story addition on the left.

Kate drew up on the expanse of smooth gravel, her Montego looking decidedly meagre beside the opulence of the cars that were casually parked around—a large white Mercedes, a couple of shining Rollers, a Porsche and a chrome-yellow Jaguar. She mounted the half-dozen shallow steps just behind an elegant American couple with Ivy League voices. Inside, they turned left to where, through wide glass doors, Kate glimpsed other guests lounging in deep sofas taking afternoon tea.

The reception desk was discreetly tucked away through a canopied archway off the Great Hall. It was staffed by a slimly attractive young woman with a small elfin face and masses of blond hair piled in a loose coil on top of her head.

“Good afternoon, madam. How may I help you?”

Kate introduced herself. “I wish to see Admiral Fortescue, please.”

“I’m sorry, Chief Inspector, but that will not be possible at the moment.”

“He’s not here?”

“The admiral is resting, as he does every afternoon. He must not be disturbed until four o’clock. That is when he takes his tea.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “In another twenty-five minutes.”

“I’m afraid this is one time he has to be disturbed. Kindly have him informed that I am here, and need to speak to him without delay.”

A moment’s hesitation, then the young woman capitulated. A few words were murmured into the phone. After a brief wait, a man in a grey cotton jacket approached Kate. He was fiftyish, thickly built and swarthy. Merely a few wispy hairs sprouted from the top of his domed head but the brows above the unsmiling grey eyes were thick and straggly, and the sagging jowls were stained with dark blue growth. Not, she would have thought, quite the image for a staff member at a luxury hotel. He spoke in a gruff voice with a strong north-country accent.

“Come with me,” he said, less than civilly. “I’ll take you to the admiral’s quarters.”

Kate walked with him along a wide corridor flanked by Chinoiserie lacquer cabinets.

“May I have your name, please? And what is your position in the hotel?”

His scowling sideways glance demanded what damned business it was of hers.

“Larkin’s the name,” he grunted. “Sid Larkin. I’m Admiral Fortescue’s personal steward.”

“I see. Have you been with him long?”

“I should say so. I was with him back in the navy.” Which explained his walk, the rolling gait associated with sailors. Accentuated, perhaps, by the effect of the whisky Kate could smell on his breath.

They had reached a pair of doors, walnut embellished with carving. Larkin threw open one leaf, and jerked his head.

“Wait in there, and I’ll go and tell his nibs you’re here.” He hesitated a moment before leaving her, and Kate guessed he was speculating about what her presence here meant, but didn’t dare to enquire.

She entered a large sitting room that was comfortably furnished with a mixture of modern and antique pieces. Tall French windows overlooked a manicured lawn at the rear of the house with a long view to distant hills. She turned as a door on her right opened to admit Admiral Fortescue. He came forward leaning on an ebony cane, his other hand buttoning the jacket of his dark grey suit, as if he’d just slipped it on. As a younger man, Kate judged, he would have been quite dramatically handsome. He had piercingly blue eyes, accustomed no doubt to looking at far horizons. His face was very lined now, his hair and trim naval beard were iron grey. Five weeks ago when Kate had been introduced to Admiral Fortescue he was still not fully recovered from major heart surgery. He looked little better now, she thought.

“Chief Inspector, please forgive me if I’ve kept you waiting. I understand that your business is urgent.”

“It is, sir. I’m sorry it was necessary to disturb you, but I’m afraid that I’m the bearer of most unhappy news.”

The habit of cool command had not deserted him. His eyes regarded her with anxiety, but stoically. The only outward sign of nervousness was the clenching of his knuckles over the knob of his cane.

“Something has happened to my son? My grandchildren?”

“No, it’s not your family. This concerns Miss Corinne Saxon. I regret to inform you that she is dead.”

“Corinne ... dead? That is dreadful. Er ... some kind of accident, I take it?”

“No, sir, not an accident. Her body was found earlier this afternoon in the woods at East Dean, hardly a mile from here. She had been strangled.” Kate withheld any mention of rape at this stage.

The admiral looked startled, stunned, then puzzlement crept into his weathered face. “There must be some mistake. Corinne set off on Wednesday afternoon for a few days’ leave. This woman you found cannot be she.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but it is. I have met Miss Saxon, and you may take it from me that the body found is definitely hers.”

He took moments to accept and believe this, then his whole frame sagged and he sank down into an armchair. He looked pale, quite ill, but he retained the good manners to gesture to Kate to be seated also.

Before doing so, she asked, “May I get you a little brandy, sir?”

“Thank you, if you would be so kind.”

Near the drinks cabinet, on a Dutch marquetry table set to one side of the French windows, was a collection of cups and trophies. Interspersed with these were framed photographs featuring a younger Douglas Fortescue, snapped in sporting gear and looking in great shape. For a past athlete, his present poor health would be hard to bear.

He took the brandy from Kate and sipped it gratefully.

“Who ... who could have done such a terrible thing? Corinne was strangled, you say. Shocking!”