The Scent of Death--A Sukey Reyholds British police procedural (7 page)

About a dozen of the party had settled down in the lounge to await Romeo's arrival. Most of them – including the nervous Mrs Dacre – were elderly. Several who had heard him before were telling the rest what a treat they had in store. Millie had placed her employer's chair at the front and taken a seat beside her. When the team of detectives entered, Millie was adjusting the rug wrapped round Charlotte's knees, only to have her hands brushed aside with the curt instruction, ‘Oh do stop fussing, woman!' Sukey noticed that Millie's expression registered a blend of embarrassment and resignation, and sensed that there was little love lost between the two.

Very shortly Romeo entered, to an enthusiastic round of applause. He sang half a dozen songs, including arias from well known operas, and ended with ‘Come Back to Sorrento', accompanying himself on a guitar. Each number was followed by more applause and when he announced the end of his programme there were several requests for encores, which he smilingly refused, excusing himself by saying, ‘The old voice-box 'as 'ad enough,' and noisily clearing his throat by way of an illustration. He sat down and chatted with his audience; shortly afterwards the rest of the party returned from their various excursions and tea and cakes were served. Romeo accepted a cup of tea and a generous slice of cake before quietly slipping out of the door, leaving the group to compare notes on their afternoon's activities. Having waited on Charlotte, Millie sat down to consume her own tea, but there was no conversation between them nor did Charlotte show any inclination to talk to anyone else.

‘Perhaps this is as good a time as any to have a chat to those two,' said Vicky. ‘And you and Tim,' she added, turning to Mike, ‘might as well tick a few more names off your list.'

‘Right, Sarge,' said Mike. ‘The consensus so far is that no one was particularly close to Rainbird, but by and large people found him pleasant enough and they certainly respected his knowledge of music. In fact, several of the ladies spoke quite warmly about him; when it came to his arguments with Bowen they were on his side rather than Bowen's. They all noticed that he didn't wait for coffee after dinner on Friday. There was one person who said she thought it might have been a little before eight when he went out, but she couldn't be sure.'

‘It seems it was only the people sitting near him who heard him say anything about going out for air,' said Tim. ‘We've made a note against their names in our reports. And we've also asked everyone to let us take a DNA sample – no one's refused, although the Harlands had a grouse at missing ten minutes of music to answer a lot of pointless questions.'

Charlotte's hostile stare made it quite clear that she did not welcome the interruption. ‘You'd better go take your tea somewhere else,' she snapped at Millie, who obediently stood up and moved away. ‘I suppose you'll want to talk to her as well,' she went on with a note of disparagement in her voice. ‘Not that she'll be of much help – she never sees further than the end of her nose. Sit down,' she added imperiously, indicating the chairs on either side of her. ‘Right, what do you want to know? I didn't push him in,' she added. ‘You can take it from me that I don't sit in this wretched chair for fun – I lost the use of both my legs in a car accident and all I can do is hobble a couple of paces to my bed or the toilet.'

‘We can assure you that you are not a suspect, Miss Lang,' said Vicky, ‘and in any case we have no reason at the moment to think there was anything suspicious about Mr Rainbird's death. What we should like to know is whether there was anything that struck you as in any way unusual from Friday dinner time until you heard the news.'

‘We have often noticed,' said Sukey, ‘that people like yourself who are … immobilized, shall we say? … tend to compensate by being particularly interested in what is going on around them and may notice things that more active people tend to overlook.'

This hint that Charlotte's powers of observation might be superior to that of those without her disability seemed to appeal to her vanity, and she very nearly smiled. ‘Well, people often say to me, “Charlotte you don't miss much, do you?”, and I think that's probably right,' she said. ‘Now, you want to know if I noticed anything unusual about Friday evening. Well, Mr Rainbird joined our party at about the normal time for check-in, room allocation and so on. We were given a copy of the programme and we read through it while we were having our customary message of welcome from Mr Freeman, accompanied by cups of tea and biscuits. Mr Rainbird sat in a corner and didn't say much; that's the first thing I noticed. He's usually got plenty to say for himself, like that awful Mr Bowen; in fact the two of them sometimes have a quite lively – almost heated you might say – exchange of opinions, although I never noticed any outright hostility between them. In my opinion Mr Rainbird's knowledge was superior to that of Mr Bowen, but in any case I make a point of keeping my own counsel and avoiding the pair of them. I think Mr Freeman found them somewhat tedious, but of course he can't choose his clients and he's hardly likely to kill them, is he? As it happens, I've noticed numbers dropping slightly, but of course a lot depends on what the programme is and what else people are doing, and now he's retired I expect he finds whatever he makes out of these events a useful addition to his income.'

‘I'm sure you're right,' agreed Vicky. ‘Now, we understand that Mr Rainbird didn't appear to have many friends. Is that your impression of him?'

‘Generally, yes, although most people respected him because he obviously knew a great deal about music – almost as much as Mr Freeman and as I said probably more than Bowen. The Pearsons often sat with him and they appeared to be on quite friendly terms. There was something about him that certain women seemed to find attractive; I think Julie Pearson was one of them and I know she always supported him when Bowen challenged him. Trixie Day was another, and so was Millie – but of course she'll simper at any man who says a word to her, even Bowen. Julie's not here this time, but I don't know why. Is she ill, do you know?'

‘She's not ill, but her sister who usually looks after their children has flu,' Sukey explained.

‘That must have been disappointing for both of them.'

‘We're sure it was. Now, about yesterday evening, would you say Mr Rainbird was unusually quiet from the very beginning?'

‘Oh yes, definitely so. The people who were sitting close to him tried several times to engage him in conversation, but he made only short, non-committal replies and they soon gave up. It was plain to see that he had something on his mind.'

‘Did you notice him looking at any one individual during the meal?'

‘On the contrary, he kept his head down for the whole time, and when the waiter announced that coffee was being served he hastily got to his feet and spoke for the first time, saying he didn't want coffee and was going out for air.'

‘What time was this?'

‘I didn't look at my watch, but coffee is usually served in the lounge at eight o'clock so it was probably a few minutes to.'

‘Did you go to the lounge for coffee?' asked Sukey.

‘Yes, of course. Millie took me; the others were already there and we stayed until it was time to go to the Orchard Room.'

‘Did anyone besides Mr Rainbird leave before the evening programme started?'

Charlotte thought for a moment. ‘I remember Mr Bowen saying he had to fetch something from his car and he'd have his coffee when he got back. Mr Freeman didn't join us until later, after he'd been to check on his equipment, but that's what he usually does.'

‘Did you happen to notice what time Mr Freeman and Mr Bowen returned to have their coffee?'

Charlotte shook her head; Sukey thought she appeared slightly embarrassed, as if she had been guilty of a lapse. ‘I'm afraid not. Various people came to have a chat with me and …'

‘We don't expect you to have eyes everywhere,' said Sukey with a smile. ‘As it is, you've really been very helpful.'

‘I do hope so. It's a dreadful thing to have happened and whatever Mr Rainbird has done it's hard to think anyone would want to kill him.'

‘You believe he was murdered, then?'

‘Of course I do. It's obvious he was going to meet someone and was worried about it, possibly even afraid of that person. Find out what was troubling him and you'll find your murderer.'

‘Well, thank you very much, Miss Lang,' said Vicky. ‘Now we'll have a word with Millie.'

They found Millie sitting a few feet away. She was chatting to Hugh Pearson and appeared more relaxed than they had seen her previously. When they approached, Pearson stood up and said, ‘I think the sleuths want to talk to you, Millie, so I'll leave you. I've so enjoyed our chat.'

‘So have I,' said Millie. ‘I do hope your sister in law soon recovers.'

‘Thank you,' he said with a smile. Her manner became more tense as she turned to Vicky and Sukey and said, ‘I don't think I can help you; I didn't do anything.'

‘Don't worry, we aren't suggesting you or anyone else did anything wrong,' said Sukey. ‘We'd just like to know if you noticed anything unusual from Friday evening, before Mr Rainbird's body was found, until now.'

‘Well, of course, everyone was very shocked when we were told what happened to him, and we were all very surprised when the police were called. Do you think he fell in by accident?'

‘We don't yet know how he came to be in the water,' said Vicky. ‘Had you spoken to him at all from the time he arrived until he went outside after dinner?'

‘No, but he never talks to me anyway – not that I particularly want him to. I didn't see him talking to anyone else, but I wasn't paying attention. I heard people say he went outside but I didn't see him go and I don't know why he went.'

‘Well, thank you, Millie,' said Sukey. ‘We apologize for interrupting your chat with Mr Pearson.'

‘Oh yes, I always enjoy talking to him!' Millie suddenly became animated and her colour rose slightly. ‘He's a really nice gentleman – he misses having his wife with him. I miss her too – we have quite a lot in common – although I don't usually have much time for chatting.' She cast a meaningful glance across the room to where Charlotte, showing signs of impatience, was waiting for her. ‘Miss Lang wants me; will that be all?' She scuttled across the room without waiting for a reply.

‘From what we've learned so far, which doesn't add up to much,' said Sukey, ‘it seems pretty certain that if Rainbird fell into the water as the result of an attack, it wasn't a premeditated killing.'

‘So as we figured out earlier,' Vicky replied, ‘he said something to the person he met which must have been a serious enough threat to make it essential to put him out of the way.'

‘Hang on a minute,' said Sukey, ‘I've just remembered what it was that I noticed about Romeo. I think he was lying when he told the rat pack that he only arrived a short time ago – couple of hours or so I thought he said – before they started asking him questions and that was why he couldn't tell them anything. Let's get back to his van and see what he's got to say about that.'

Through the gathering darkness they hurried along to the lay-by where Romeo's van had been parked, but it was empty.

‘H
e must have driven off as soon as he left the hotel,' said Vicky. ‘Anyway, what did you want to question him about?'

‘Remember he said that when the paparazzi started questioning him about the goner who'd been fished out of the water he'd only been here a couple of hours, so he couldn't tell them anything.'

‘That's right. What about it?'

‘I've been thinking. We arrived here last night some time after nine o'clock. Rainbird's body was still lying on the grass; the paramedics were standing around and the doctor was examining him. We walked towards them for a short distance and waited; we were careful because we'd been warned the grass was wet and slippery, but by then it had stopped raining. Presumably it had stopped by eight o'clock or Rainbird wouldn't have gone out just for a breath of air.'

‘But we're pretty sure now that he'd arranged to meet someone,' Vicky pointed out, ‘so he'd probably have gone anyway – but I don't see what difference it makes.'

‘We know it had been raining most of the day, but it had stopped by the time we got there and it hasn't rained since. We saw Romeo before lunch today and if he was telling the truth about his time of arrival the ground under his van should have been dry – but I suddenly remembered that it was wet. I must have noticed while we were chatting, but didn't think anything of it at the time.'

‘I see what you're driving at,' said Vicky. ‘That means he was here some time before it stopped raining, or at least while the ground was still wet. So, is it possible that it was Romeo that Rainbird had arranged to meet? Or did he happen to see Rainbird in the water with the attacker standing there with some sort of weapon in his hand, let him know he'd been spotted and decided to try a little blackmail?'

‘It's a thought, isn't it?' said Sukey. ‘Perhaps the attacker wasn't willing to play ball and reacted aggressively, so Romeo decided to leave here as soon as he'd given his performance and collected his money from Freeman. I noticed Freeman handing him something that looked like an envelope when he joined the others for tea after they came back from their afternoon excursion. They shook hands and exchanged a few words and then he left.'

‘You reckon he felt threatened but didn't want to let Freeman down?'

‘He struck me as being a decent type and he might have felt under an obligation. Besides, he probably needed the money anyway.' They thought for a moment. Then Sukey said, ‘So what should we do now?'