Model Murder (7 page)

“Yes?” Even the tone of voice was lacklustre.

“We’d like to talk to Mr. Kenway, please.”

“What about?”

“It’s a private matter.”

“I’m his wife.”

Kate introduced herself and Boulter. “I need to speak to your husband, Mrs. Kenway. Is he here?”

“No, he’s just popped down to the village for a minute. What is this about?”

Most of the national papers had reported the murder, and the local radio station had gone to town on it. If Mrs. Kenway had caught the news bulletins this morning she must surely have guessed why the police had come calling. But the questioning look on her face gave nothing away.

There was the sound of another car drawing up outside. Kate turned to see the driver get out and start walking hurriedly towards the door. He carried a folded newspaper. Entering quickly, he stopped in his tracks at seeing her and Boulter there.

His wife said hastily, as if to stifle anything revealing he might blurt out, “They’re from the police, Paul.”

He immediately paled, the blood draining from his face. He was a thin man standing around five-foot-ten, and Kate put his age at forty-five rather than the fifty-five he looked. Deep creases tramlined his forehead beneath a rather obvious toupee. He’d been good-looking once, and probably well-off financially, too—it was difficult to imagine Corinne Saxon marrying any man who wasn’t. But now he had an aura of failure, of lost hope. Scrutinising his features, Kate could see no firmness anywhere; not in chin, nor mouth, nor nose, nor eyes. Right now, his eyes held a look of fear.

“We’d like a word with you, Mr. Kenway,” she said. “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Maddox, South Midlands Police, and this is Detective Sergeant Boulter.”

He didn’t speak, but just stared at her. His wife said again, aggressively, “What’s this about?”

Kate nodded at the newspaper he held. “I take it, Mr. Kenway, that you’ve seen about Miss Corinne Saxon?”

Denial trembled on his lips, but what was the use? He nodded his head with a little jerk. “I’ve just this minute read about it.” To his wife, he explained, “Corinne is dead, Liz. Her body was found in the woods at East Dean yesterday. She’d been strangled. Raped and strangled, it says.”

“Oh, my God! But ... who on earth ...?”

“We know that it must have happened on Wednesday afternoon,” Kate told them. “We shall therefore be interviewing every man who had any known connection with Miss Saxon, to ascertain his whereabouts at the time. So would you please tell me, Mr. Kenway, where
you
were on Wednesday afternoon. Between two-fifteen and six o’clock.”

Both the Kenways seemed to sag under the impact of Kate’s challenge. She was content to wait, watching them closely. Finally, it was the wife who gave an answer.

“Paul was here, with me.”

“For the whole of that time?”

 “Well ... we closed at five-thirty—just after—and went upstairs. We live on the premises.”

“Is that correct, Mr. Kenway?”

If his wife was telling the truth, why was he looking at her with that glazed expression? It was as if he couldn’t understand why she should have provided him with an alibi that would get him off the hook.

“The chief inspector asked if what Mrs. Kenway says is correct,” Boulter prodded him.

“Of course it is ... of course. My wife and I were here, just as she says.”

“The entire afternoon?” Kate persisted.

“Yes.”

“Who apart from Mrs. Kenway could confirm that you were here?”

He took a measurable time to react, then shook his head slowly. “I can’t think of anyone.”

“Presumably you had some customers that afternoon? If you can give us one or two names, we could check with them.”

Another shake of the head.

“Any phone calls?”

“I don’t remember any.”

“Mrs. Kenway?”

“The people who came in on Wednesday,” she said, “were only chance callers. Tourists, just looking. I didn’t know any of them, and nobody bought anything. So you’ll just have to take our word for it.” She had pulled herself together now and there was defiance in her tone.

“When was the last time you saw Miss Saxon?” asked Kate, addressing Kenway.

The question seemed to catch him as a fresh assault. He was totally floored, and his wife answered for him.

“It was about a month ago. She came here.”

“Liz!” It emerged as a shocked reproach.

“She’s bound to find out, Paul. Very likely she knew already, and that’s why she’s here.”

“It sounds,” said Kate, allowing her mistaken thought to stand uncorrected, “as if you don’t like the idea of my knowing about it. Why’s that, I wonder?”

Kenway seemed incapable of contributing to this dialogue. After an uneasy pause, his wife shrugged her broad shoulders in a throwaway gesture.

 “Just that it wasn’t a particularly pleasant occasion.”

“Oh?”

“Well, you wouldn’t expect it to be, would you? I mean, us two women meeting for the first time.”

“The first time, eh? How did that come about?”

“It had nothing to do with her getting killed, so I don’t see what business it is of yours.”

“Everything to do with Corinne Saxon is my business now,” Kate said calmly. “This is a murder enquiry, Mrs. Kenway. I want to know the circumstances of that meeting.”

The woman glanced at her husband in helpless apology, then said, “Paul got in touch with her. It was the first time they’d been in touch for years. We’d read in the papers about her managing that fancy hotel so we knew she must be doing all right for herself these days. I thought ... Paul and I thought that it was about time we were let off what he had to pay her each month under the divorce settlement.”

Kate recalled Corinne’s bank statements and made a stab. “That four hundred pounds a month?”

“It can’t have meant much to her,” Liz said in a falsely casual tone that didn’t conceal a deep-felt bitterness. “Yet to us, saving that amount would have made the world of difference. Paul’s had a lot of bad luck since the agreement was made.”

“What sort of bad luck?”

“Well ... he and another man had set up in business together, dealing in personal computers and stuff like that. At around the time he and Corinne got married, the firm was doing very well. Then Paul discovered that his partner was making deals behind his back and couldn’t be trusted. He agreed to let Paul buy him out, but that meant Paul had to borrow a terrific lot of money. With a huge debt like that the business was no longer making a profit and things were getting difficult. I reckon that Corinne saw the writing on the wall. She made life sheer hell for Paul, and in the end he was thankful to divorce her, even though it meant agreeing to that unfair settlement. Paul and I met soon afterwards, and when I got left this house by an aunt of mine we hit on the idea of running an antiques business from home. Only ... somehow it’s never worked out. People don’t seem to have the money to spend these days.” Her hands slipped to her stomach, holding the bulge protectively. “Now that I’m pregnant, it’s going to be tougher than ever for us.”

 Born losers, the pair of them!

“But Corinne refused to agree to the monthly payments being stopped?”

“There was nothing really unpleasant when she came. No quarrel or anything.” Kenway had finally kicked himself into the conversation. Like his wife, he was patently trying to play down the episode. “I just phoned Corinne at Streatfield Park one day and told her I’d like to see her to discuss something. She said okay, and that she’d drop in here when she was over this way. Which she did. Liz and I explained the situation to her, but we couldn’t make Corinne see things our way. She took the line that a legal agreement was binding and she wasn’t willing to release me from it. So that was that.”

“You felt angry about her attitude, no doubt?”

“Disappointed, naturally, but ...”

“No, Mr. Kenway, the chief inspector said angry,” Boulter intervened, coming the hard man. “Angry enough, perhaps, to decide to see her again on your own?”

He gazed from one to the other of them, a hunted look in his eyes. “You surely aren’t suggesting that I ...”

Kate decided to terminate the interview. It would do no harm to leave him to sweat.

“I shall require you to make a formal statement. And you too, Mrs. Kenway. At a police station. Someone will be in touch with you to arrange it. That will be all for now.”

Husband and wife stood in silence as the police car drove off. In the deep hush, Liz’s voice was low and determinedly challenging.

“Well, Paul?”

He gave her an unconvincing smile. “Well what, darling?”

“Oh, please, don’t pretend with me. I had to cover for you about last Wednesday, and I want to know why the hell it was necessary.”

“Not
necessary,”
he insisted, “just helpful. When you told them that I’d been here with you, it seemed a much better idea than just having to say I was driving around looking at antiques, and being unable to prove exactly where I was. So I went along with what you’d said.”

“For God’s sake, Paul, do you think I’m stupid? Do you really believe I was taken in by your story about looking around the antique shops that afternoon? I knew all along you were lying to me. I always know if you’re lying.” Her voice trembled. “But now I want the truth —however bad it is.”

His eyes avoided hers. “You surely don’t think that I had anything to do with Corinne’s death?”

“How am I supposed to know what to think?” she said on a sob. “You’ve been so odd just lately, so mysterious and evasive.”

“Sweetheart, you’re imagining things.”

His wife looked up at him, her strained face crumpling in her distress. “Oh, Paul, why can’t you tell me the truth? Why can’t you trust me?”

“Please, Liz, don’t ask me any more questions. Not now. Give me time to think. Get my mind sorted out. Believe me, there are things it’s best for you not to know. One day, perhaps ... but not now.”

The bell above the shop door pinged, and in came a forties-something couple. Their smiles were bright with the apology of people who are only intending to browse, not to buy.

“Good morning,” the man said. “Er ... do you mind if we look around?”

Liz Kenway took a quick, controlling breath. “Not at all. Please go ahead.” To Paul, she muttered, “You can’t make me forget about this. I’m determined to know the truth. I’ve got to know.”

* * * *

On Kate’s instructions Boulter drove her first to Divisional Headquarters. He parked the car in the DCI’s personal space in the forecourt.

“Be back here in half an hour, Tim.”

“Great,” he said. “That’ll just give me time for a quick snack.”

In her own office Kate made a couple of calls to tender apologies about tasks she was having to postpone. Then she set forth for the superintendent’s room.

Knocking and hearing his brusque “Enter!” she walked in and found Jolly Joliffe on his feet studying a wall chart. Seeing who it was, he promptly stepped to his desk and plonked himself down in his chair. This, Kate surmised, was an attempt to make a point. He’d learned to be wary of her, seeming bewildered by this strange new creature, a
female
detective chief inspector. Kate had endeavoured (with only limited success) to show that she expected the treatment owed to her rank, not the treatment a well-brought-up man of his generation imagined was due to the weaker sex. The strain of acting towards her contrary to his instincts resulted in Jolly switching unpredictably between favouring her with tea served in delicate Royal Worcester china, and addressing her more abrasively than he might have done a male chief inspector.

“Good morning, sir,” Kate said in her brightest voice.

“Aren’t you somewhat tardy, Mrs. Maddox, in coming to report to me?”

“I’ve been at Ashecombe-in-the-Vale interviewing the dead woman’s ex-husband,” she explained mildly, as she sat down.

He aha-ed, a wintry smile lighting his lugubrious face. “So that’s the answer, is it? Ex with a grudge! Have you brought him in with you?”

“The case is far too wide open for that, sir.”

“Hmph! What else do you have, then?”

Kate related what little else there was as yet. “I’m very much hoping we’ll get a lead on that missing car soon. That would be a big help. And of course I’m waiting to hear about the post-mortem, and the forensic findings. Hopefully they’ll give us something more positive to work on.”

“It’s facts I want to see brought to light in a murder enquiry, not a lot of half-arsed hopes and maybes. Solid, indisputable facts. Something we can really get our teeth into.”

“Absolutely,” she agreed, having a job not to giggle.

He regarded her with vexed suspicion, scratching the side of his long nose with one finger. Kate returned his gaze with serene optimism. After a few moments of this eyeball contact, the superintendent waved a dismissive hand.

“Very well, Mrs. Maddox, off you go and get on with the job. And bring me a result with all possible speed, eh?”

Humour the old bugger, Kate.

“I will, sir. You can rely on me for that.”

* * * *

By the time Kate and Boulter arrived back at Streatfield Park the Incident Room was fully operational. Both uniformed and plain clothes officers plus a few civilian personnel manned the desks and computer terminals. Kate knew that before long information would be avalanching in, all needing to be analysed, stored, and painstakingly cross-indexed.

“A couple of interesting items have emerged from this morning’s interviews,” Inspector Massey told her. “I’ve put them on top of the pile on your desk.”

 “Right. I’d like to have a briefing of the squad this afternoon, Frank, Four o’clock, okay?”

In her office, Kate scanned the paragraphs highlighted by Frank Massey on the two top reports. The first concerned some guests, an American couple named Rubinstein. These were the people, she remembered, whom Corinne had accompanied to Bath (and probably the elegant couple she herself had noticed when she’d arrived at the hotel yesterday afternoon to break the news of the murder). Mr. and Mrs. Rubinstein had visited Paris before coming to England, and while chatting with Corinne they’d told her how much they’d enjoyed the city. Corinne said she knew Paris well, and added that she was off there on Wednesday for a few days. Then she’d laughed, and said that as a matter of fact it was a little secret, so she’d rather they didn’t mention it to anyone else. Which neither of the Rubinsteins had done, until questioned by the police.