Model Murder (20 page)

“Kind of you, Sergeant.”

“Actually, it was a stroke of luck getting the dope on this kid. My contact got on to the village gendarme in connection with the Labrosse name, and it turned out he knew all about Corinne Saxon’s baby. It’s the sort of little backwater where you can’t do a pee without the local gendarme knowing.”

“Get on with it, Tim.”

“It seems that Corinne first got friendly with Mitzi Labrosse when they were just kids. Corinne’s parents lived in the city—Lyons—but they had a weekend place in this village. As we already knew, when the parents were killed, Corinne’s aunt brought her to England and raised her here. But the two girls always kept in touch, and when Corinne got into modelling she persuaded Mitzi to have a go herself. She never hit the big time, though, not the way Corinne did.”

“Where’s Mitzi now? Is it known?”

“Sure. She’s back living in the same district. Married with three kids. It was from her the gendarme filled in the details he didn’t already know.”

“And?”

“One day, when they were on a modelling assignment somewhere, Corinne confided to Mitzi that she was in the club. In a real state she was about it, half out of her wits. She was frantic with the thought of how being lumbered with a kid would mess up her life, but even more scared of having an abortion. Not from moral scruples, I don’t mean. Just plain scared to death.” He grimaced. “Funny, that, for a tough cookie like her.”

“Not funny at all. Abortion is never the easy option for a woman you men think it is.”

Boulter grunted. “Anyway, Mitzi came up with a brilliant solution to the problem. It happened that she had an older married sister back home who was having problems in the production department. When Corinne’s pregnancy began to show, she went to stay with this couple —name of Chivac—and after the kid was born she left it with them.”

“They adopted the boy?”

“Nothing so formal. They just kept him. That sort of thing happens in rural communities. Even around here. You’d be surprised.”

“Not a lot surprises me these days,” said Kate dryly. “Did Corinne keep in touch with her son?”

“Off and on. She sometimes remembered to send him presents for his birthday or at Christmas, and she’d occasionally visit if she happened to be in striking distance of that part of the world. But more often a whole year would go by without sight or sound of her. She was quite fond of the kid, it seems, when she remembered him. She went over from England specially, to be at his funeral.”

“Did you discover who’d fathered the boy?”

“Unknown. Mitzi swore to the gendarme that Corinne never let on, even to her. Told him she couldn’t make a guess.”

Kate dwelt on all that for a moment, then asked, “Where does Yves Labrosse fit into all this?”

“He was Mitzi’s cousin. His branch of the family lived just across the border in Switzerland. They used to exchange visits quite often, apparently, so that’s how he and Corinne got to know one another.”

“You’re not suggesting, are you, that Labrosse might have fathered the child. I rather doubt it, he was gay.”

“Oh? You’ve already discovered that, have you?” The look of disappointment on Boulter’s face was comical. He’d been looking forward to bringing out this tidbit.

“It was the hotel secretary who put me onto it. Not that she realised what she was saying. Then later, Larkin confirmed it.”

“Larkin?”

“Yes. He and Labrosse were making it together.”

“Blow me! Talk about chalk and cheese.”

“Attraction of opposites.”

“Does that mean it was Larkin who did him in, guv?”

“Could be. Could very well be. But we’re a long way off bringing a charge yet, Tim. Tell me what else you’ve found out about Labrosse.”

“What you don’t already know, you mean,” he said sourly.

“Now, now, Tim.”

Boulter hefted his shoulders. “The guy was a crook. His history is this. He got a job straight from school as a kitchen boy in a local hotel. Within three years he’d been picked out as management potential and was made a trainee. The guy was a natural, by all accounts, and before he was thirty he was the assistant manager at a big five-star hotel in Geneva. But then, crash-bang-wallop. He was caught fiddling the wages. That old trick of having ghost employees on the payroll. And once they started delving they found he’d been up to all kinds of thievery. No probation for Yves, he landed a hefty stretch. He came out about three years ago, and without references nobody in the hotel trade would look at him. It’s not quite clear how he made a living after that, but he didn’t come up against the law again except for a couple of minor traffic offences.”

Kate mused. “I wonder how it came about that Corinne Saxon offered him the job here? I guess she wasn’t squeaky clean herself, but why employ a known crook as her assistant?”

“I’ve been wondering about that, guv. As far as I could trace, the last time those two met up was at the boy’s funeral. Very close, the Labrosse family, even though Yves was their black sheep. It could be that Corinne saw him as a way of getting some top-class management at Streatfield Park, since she didn’t really know the business herself.”

“She was taking a big risk, though. If it ever came out about Labrosse’s past, or if he went back to playing his old tricks, she’d have trouble explaining why she’d given him the job in the first place.”

“Maybe,” Boulter suggested, “they were in it together. They might have seen the chance of really milking Streatfield Park between them.”

Kate regarded her sergeant gloomily. “It’s all maybe, maybe. Not a solid bit of evidence in sight.” But she didn’t want to be ungenerous, so she added, “Not that you haven’t done very well, Tim, gathering all this over the phone. As it turns out, you could easily have justified a trip across the Channel for a couple of days.”

“Now she tells me.”

Frank Massey stuck his head round the door. “Got a little something for you, Kate. No prints worth a damn on those banknotes. But the typing of the name and address on the envelope looked pretty ropey to me, so I shot it over to Norman Riley at HQ to have a look at. Norman’s a whizz kid when it comes to typewriters, he’s got quite a museum of old ones at home. He’s just rung me back. He reckons it’s point one per cent short of a certainty that the typewriter used was a Remington model that went out of production over fifty years ago. Can’t be many of them still around. So all we’ve got to do is find it.”

“My God!” Kate exclaimed. “We got lucky after all.”

“How’s that?”

“Tim, do you recall seeing an ancient Remington during the last few days?”

“Can’t say I do, guv.” Then he did a double-take, and snapped his fingers triumphantly. “At the Kenways’ place. On the desk in their upstairs room.”

“Right.” Kate’s mind went into fast forward, replaying all the evidence so far gathered. “I never suspected any contact between Kenway and Labrosse. He must be quaking in his shoes right now, knowing that the money he mailed will have found its way into our hands, and wondering if there’s any way we can trace it back to him.”

“D’you think he might scarper?” asked Massey.

“We’d better not give him the chance. Tim, get over to Ashecombe-in-the-Vale right away and fetch him in. And bring along that typewriter, too.”

* * * *

Paul Kenway, when he arrived half-an-hour later, looked like a man who’d suddenly realised his length of rope had run out.

“Sit down, please,” Kate said briskly. “Sergeant, will you caution Mr. Kenway and explain his rights to him.”

“I don’t understand,” Kenway protested weakly. “Why am I here? What’s this all about?”

“You’re here because I need to question you concerning the death of Yves Labrosse.”

“But that’s ridiculous. His death has nothing to do with me.”

“No? Then perhaps you will explain to me why you sent him a substantial sum of money. Two thousand three hundred and fifty pounds, to be exact.”

“I ... I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mr. Kenway,” Kate said wearily, “didn’t you wonder why the sergeant wanted to bring your typewriter in for forensic examination?”

He shrugged, but made no reply.

“At this very moment we are having an expert comparison made between your machine and the typing on the envelope addressed to Yves Labrosse that arrived at Streatfield Park this morning. I haven’t the slightest doubt they will match. So why persist in pretending?”

Kenway’s shoulders drooped and his whole body seemed to sag. Yet he still didn’t give up completely.

“Why shouldn’t I send money to Labrosse? I’m an antiques dealer and I sold something for him. That was the proceeds.”

Kate regarded him sorrowfully. “Which you passed over to him in
cash?
A large sum like that. Come on, Mr. Kenway, don’t waste my time.”

“He ... he wanted to put the money down on a new car, and he said it would be simpler for him to get cash than having to bother with cheques.”

“A good try, but when people ask to be paid large amounts in cash it’s almost certainly because there’s something shady about the deal. And you must have known it.”

“What I did, I did in good faith. You can’t pin anything on me for that.”

Kate said impatiently, “This is a murder I’m investigating. A double murder. You were once married to Corinne Saxon, and you had a motive for wanting her dead. It is now known that you had a connection with Yves Labrosse, who has also been brutally killed. So you can rest assured that I am going to get at the truth about this money you sent to him. It’s up to you. Do I get answers the easy way or the hard way?”

Kenway stared at her, looking cornered. When he spoke the words came out in short, sharp bursts.

“You can’t believe I had anything to do with Yves Labrosse’s death. Good God, I’m not that sort of man. I couldn’t kill anybody. Why should I want to kill Yves?” The light of inspiration came into his eyes as he thought of a reasoning that would save him. “I wouldn’t have sent him that money yesterday, would I, if I’d killed him?”

“I agree. Nor would you have sent it if you were
planning
to kill him. Which leads me to suppose that the murder was unpremeditated.” Kate stepped up the pressure. “The way I see it is this. After posting the money, you decided to come and see Labrosse for some reason. The two of you quarrelled, and you struck him a heavy blow which killed him. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

Kenway was shaking his head violently. “No, listen, I didn’t post that money until after Labrosse was dead. Everyone’s saying he was killed sometime between ten and eleven yesterday morning. Well, it must have been twenty minutes
past
eleven that I put that packet of money in the post box. I used the one in the village, just a few yards from home. We had several things for posting and I slipped out with them. My wife will tell you. It certainly couldn’t have been earlier than twenty past eleven. When I heard on the radio later about Labrosse being killed, I wished to God that I’d never sent him the money, but there was no way I could get it out of the mail, was there?”

“Did anyone see you at the post box?”

He scowled. “There was nobody around at the time.”

“Too bad! Sorry, but that line of defence isn’t going to help you at all. We’ve checked with the post office and they say there are any number of boxes in the neighbourhood which have collections time-stamped noon. And since the previous collection at many of them is early morning, eight-thirty, there’s no means of proving at what time that package of yours was actually posted.” Her glance sharpened. “I presume you’ve been hoping and praying that we wouldn’t be able to trace the money back to you?”

He gave a jerky little nod.

“Right. So now you can tell me all about it.”

Kenway closed his eyes against the unkindness of fate. He spoke in a monotone. “It was about a month ago that I first met Yves Labrosse. I didn’t know him from Adam, but he approached me with a business proposition.”

“This was at Corinne Saxon’s instigation?”

“Oh, no. She had nothing to do with it. But Labrosse knew that I’d once been married to Corinne, and he also seemed to know that there was ... well, bad blood between us. She wouldn’t have told him, I’m sure, but I think he must have overheard us talking on the phone that time I rang Corinne asking to see her.”

Kate nodded. “And Labrosse decided to capitalize on what he knew by inviting you to join him in a crooked deal? Which means, presumably, that Corinne was the one to be done down. What was the plan?”

Kenway made a gesture of surrender with his two hands. “Labrosse told me that locked away in the attics at Streatfield Park was a whole mass of stuff—furniture, paintings,
objets d’art
—that weren’t suitable for using in the hotel. Admiral Fortescue wouldn’t sell any of it because it was all family heirlooms, but Labrosse said he doubted if the old boy really knew what was up there. It would probably be years before anyone got around to realising anything was missing. And they still wouldn’t know
when
it had disappeared. The risk was virtually nil, he said.”

“So you agreed to find a market for some of these stored items?”

“I didn’t see why not. After all, it was Corinne’s fault that I was in such a mess financially. If she hadn’t been such a greedy bitch ... if she hadn’t insisted on my paying her that four hundred each month even though she didn’t need the money, then Liz and I would have been okay. This seemed a good way of evening up the balance.”

“But at Admiral Fortescue’s expense,” Kate pointed out. “Not your ex-wife’s.”

“I know. But those two ... well, they were sort of partners in the hotel project, weren’t they? In the circumstances it seemed fair enough. And it wasn’t as if the admiral or his family were going to miss a few odd items. As I said, they’d probably never even realise that the stuff was gone.”

“That, Mr. Kenway, is as tortured a rationale as I’ve ever heard in my entire police career. However, I’m not for the moment concerned with the sale of stolen antiques except insofar as it affects the murder of Yves Labrosse. And possibly the murder of Corinne Saxon, too. If, as you insist, you weren’t responsible for those killings, then you’d better come up with a watertight alibi, or you’ll be in deep trouble. This time, it won’t be good enough to have your wife telling us you were at home with her.”