Common Murder

10

Lindsay drove down the motorway at a speed that would have seemed tame in a modern high-performance car. In the soft-top sports car it was terrifying. Deborah was relieved that Lindsay’s lecture on the current state of play was absorbing enough to occupy her brain. “So you see,” Lindsay complained, “Alexandra has opened a completely new vista of possibilities. But the more I find out, the less I know. I don’t think I’m really cut out for this sort of thing. I can’t seem to make sense of any of it.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, Lin,” Deborah said with a smile. “Just be logical about it. We now know there were a fair few people less than fond of Rupert. Let’s run through them. Think out loud.”

“Okay,” Lindsay replied. “One: his son Simon. For reasons unknown, he was in bad odour. It sounds like more than his assertion of the right to independence by opening up his computer firm. But how much more, we don’t know. Yet.

“Two: his daughter Ros. For some unspecified reason, Rupert was seriously considering disinvestment. Now that may or may not be an effective weapon in the war against apartheid, but it sure as hell must be a serious threat to a small restaurant just finding its feet. Hopefully tonight will answer our questions about Ros. But the middle classes being what they are, five will get you ten that Daddy’s disenchantment with daughter was deviance of the dykey variety.

“Three: Emma Crabtree. Our Rupert marched off on Saturday to think about his future. What we don’t know is whether he told Emma about Alexandra; whether he’d decided he wanted a divorce and whether that prospect would have delighted or dismayed a woman who isn’t the most obviously grieving widow I’ve ever encountered. A lot of questions there.

“Four: Alexandra. She’s scared of his temper, she’s afraid that he’s not going to let her go without a very unpleasant fight. And she’s had enough of him, she wants Stanhope. Personally, I’m disinclined to suspect her, though she seems to have no alibi. She did genuinely seem too taken aback by the gun to be a real candidate.” She paused to gather her thoughts.

“Go on,” Deborah prompted.

“Five: Carlton Stanhope. Alexandra undoubtedly told him of Crabtree’s reaction. He may have figured that making an enemy of as powerful a bastard as Crabtree was not a good move and that murder might even have been preferable. Or it may have been that he felt the one sure way of keeping Alexandra was to get rid of the opposition. Depends how badly he wants Alexandra. I have to say that the bias I feel in her favour operates in the opposite direction as far as he’s concerned. I took a real dislike to him, and he’s got no alibi either.

“And finally, our two prize beauties from RABD. Mallard might have thought, knowing what a fair man Crabtree was, that his peculations would die with his chairman. And Warminster sounds dotty enough to opt for violence as a means of securing his takeover of RABD. What do you think, Debs?”

Deborah thought for a moment. “You realise you haven’t established opportunity for any of them?”

“That is a bit of a problem. I know the police have been pursuing their own enquiries. Maybe I can persuade Rigano that it’s in the best interests of his investigation to swap that info for what I’ve got. Such as it is. Mind you, by the time I’ve flammed it up a bit, maybe he’ll buy it as a fair exchange.”

“You also left me off the list of suspects. I should be on it.”

Lindsay laughed. “Even though you didn’t do it?”

“You don’t know that because of facts. You only know it because of history and because we’re lovers again. Don’t discount the theory that I might have seduced you in order to allay your suspicions and get you on the side of my defense. So I should be on that list till you prove I didn’t do it.”

Lindsay looked horrified. “You wouldn’t!”

“I might have. If I were a different person.”

“Okay,” Lindsay conceded with a smile. “But I don’t reckon that you had put Rupert Crabtree into such a state of fear that he was carrying a gun to protect himself. He must have been armed because he feared a murderous attack.”

“Or because he intended to kill the person he was meeting.”

Lindsay threw a quick glance at Deborah, caught off guard by this flash of bright logic. She forced herself to examine Deborah’s fresh insight.

Eventually, she countered it, tentatively at first and then more assuredly as she reached the end of the motorway and followed the route to Camden Town. “You see,” she concluded, “he didn’t need to kill you. He was going to get all the revenge he needed in court.”

Deborah pondered, then blew Lindsay’s hypothesis into smithereens as they approached Rubyfruits. “Not necessarily,” she said thoughtfully. “Everyone says he was a fair man. He also had a degree of respect for the law, being a solicitor. Now, supposing in the aftermath of the shock of the accident, he genuinely thought I had attacked him, and on the basis of that genuine belief he gave the statement to the police that triggered the whole thing off. In the interim, however, as time has passed, his recollection has become clearer, and he’s realized that he actually tripped over the dog’s lead, and I had nothing to do with it. Now, what are his options? He either withdraws his evidence and becomes a laughing-stock as well as exposing himself to all sorts of reprisals from a libel suit-”

“Slander,” Lindsay interrupted absently.

“Okay, okay, slander suit, to being accused of wasting police time, all thanks to me. Or he perjures himself, probably an equally unthinkable option for a man like him. His self-esteem is so wounded by this dilemma that he becomes unhinged and decides to kill me in such a way that he can claim self-defense. So he starts carrying the gun, biding his time till he gets me alone. Think on that one, Lin. Now, we’re here. Let’s go eat.” And so saying, she jumped out of the car.

Lindsay caught up with her on the cobbled road outside the restaurant which occupied the ground floor of a narrow, three storey brick building in a dimly lit side street near the trendy Camden Lock complex of boutiques, restaurants and market stalls. It stood between a typesetting company and a warehouse. A red Ford Fiesta turned into the street, and they both stepped back to avoid it as it cruised past the restaurant. Lindsay grabbed Deborah’s arm. “As a theory, it’s brilliant,” she blurted out. “But in human terms, it stinks. You didn’t do it, Debs.”

Deborah smiled broadly and said, “Just testing.” She pushed open the door and moved quickly into the restaurant to avoid Lindsay’s grasp. They were greeted by a young woman with short blonde hair cut in a spiky crest.

“Hello Lindsay,” she said cheerfully. “I kept you a nice table over in the corner.”

“Thanks Meg.” They followed her, Lindsay saying, “This is Debs, Meg. She’s an old friend of mine.”

“Hi Debs. Nice to meet you. Okay. Here’s the menu, wine list. Today’s specials are on the blackboard, okay?” And she was gone, moving swiftly from table to table, clearing and chatting all the way to the swing doors leading into the kitchen.

Deborah looked around, taking in the stripped pine, the moss green walls and ceiling, and the high photographs ranging predictably from Virginia Woolf to Virginia Wade. She noticed that the cutlery and crockery on each table was different and appeared to have come from junk shops and flea markets. The background music was Rickie Lee Jones turned low. The other tables were also occupied by women. “I can just see you and Cordelia here,” Deborah commented. “Very designer dyke.”

“Cut the crap and choose your grub,” Lindsay ordered.

“Get you,” muttered Deborah. They studied the menus and settled for Avocado Rubyfruits. (Slices of ripe avocado interleaved with slices of succulent Sharon fruit, garnished with watercress, bathed in a raspberry vinaigrette) followed by Butter Beanfeast. (Butter beans braised with organically grown onions, green peppers and chives, smothered in a rich cheese sauce, topped with a gratinee of stoneground wholemeal breadcrumbs and traditional farm cheddar cheese) with choose-your-own salads from a wide range of the homely and the exotic colorfully displayed on a long narrow table at the rear of the room. To drink, Lindsay selected a bottle of gooseberry champagne.

“My God,” Deborah exploded quietly when Meg departed with the order, “I hadn’t realized how far pretentiousness had penetrated the world of healthy eating. This is so over the top, Lin. Are there really enough right-on vegetarian women around to make this place a going concern?”

“Don’t be too ready to slag it off. The food is actually terrific. Just relax and enjoy it,” Lindsay pleaded.

Deborah shook her head in affectionate acceptance and sat back in her chair. “Now tell me,” she demanded, “since you hang out so much in this bijou dinette, how come you don’t have the same intimate relationship with Ros Crabtree that you have with Meg?”

“It’s very simple. Meg runs around serving at table. Meg answers the phone when you book. Meg stands and natters over your coffee. Ros, on the other hand, must be grafting away in the kitchen five nights a week. She’s too busy cooking to socialize, even with people she knows. And by the end of the evening, I’d guess she’s too exhausted to be bothered making polite social chit-chat with the customers. It’s hard work cooking for vegetarians. There’s so much more preparation in Butter Beanfeast than in Steak au Poivre.”

Before Deborah could reply, their avocados appeared. Deborah tried her food suspiciously, then her face lit up. “Hey, this is really good,” she exclaimed.

When Meg returned to clear their plates and serve the champagne, Lindsay made her move.

“That was terrific, Meg. Listen, we’d like to have a word with Ros. Not right now, obviously, but when she’s through in the kitchen. Do you think that’ll be okay?”

Meg looked surprised. “I suppose so. But… what’s it all about, Lindsay? Oh, wait a minute… you’re a reporter, aren’t you?” Her voice had developed a hostile edge. “It’s about her father, isn’t it?”

“It’s not what you think,” Deborah protested. “She’s not some cheap hack out to do a hatchet job on you and Ros. You know her, for God’s sake, she’s one of us.”

“So what is it all about then?” The anger in her voice transmitted itself to nearby tables, where a few faces looked up and studied them curiously.

Deborah took a deep breath. “I’m their number one suspect. I’ve already had one night in the police cells, and I don’t fancy another. Lindsay’s trying her damnedest to get me off the hook and that means discovering the real killer. I’d have thought you and Ros would be interested in finding out who killed her father.”

“Him? The only reason I’d want to know who killed him is so that I could shake them by the hand. Look, I’m not too impressed with what you’ve got to say for yourselves, but I will go ask Ros if she’ll talk to you.” She marched off and returned a few minutes later with their main courses, which she placed meticulously before them without a word.

They ate in virtual silence, their enjoyment dulled. Meg silently removed their plates and took their order for biscuits, cheese, and coffee.

By half past ten and the third cup of coffee, Lindsay was beginning to despair of any further communication from the kitchen. The tension had dried up conversation between her and Deborah. The evening she’d been looking forward to had somehow become awkward and difficult. Then, a tall, broad woman emerged from the kitchen and exchanged a few words with Meg, who nodded in their direction. The woman crossed the room towards them. She was bulky, but she looked strong and sturdy rather than flabby. Her hair was short and curly, her face pink from the heat of the kitchen. Like her brother, Ros Crabtree strongly resembled their father. She wore a pair of chef’s trousers and a navy blue polo shirt. In her hand was a brandy bowl with a large slug of spirit sobbing up the sides of the glass.

She pulled a chair up and said without preamble, “So this is the sleuth. The famous Cordelia Brown’s girlfriend. Accompanied, unless I am mistaken, by the brutal peace woman who goes around beating up helpless men.” She smiled generously. “Enjoy your dinner?”

“As always,” Lindsay answered, stung by being defined as an adjunct to Cordelia.

“But tonight you came for more than three courses and a bottle of country wine.”

“We hoped you would help us,” Deborah stated baldly. “Lindsay’s trying to clear my name. I’m afraid that if there isn’t an arrest soon, I’ll be charged, just so they can be seen to be achieving something.”

“We also thought you would have an interest in seeing your father’s killer arrested,” Lindsay added.

Ros laughed. “Look, I have no feelings about my father one way or the other. I neither loved him nor hated him, but I’m sorry about the way he died. I was glad to be out of his house but frankly, the notion of getting some atavistic revenge on the person who killed him leaves me unmoved. You’re wasting your time here.”

Lindsay shrugged, “So if it matters that little to you, why not talk to me, answer my questions? It could make a lot of difference to Debs.”

“I can’t think of anything I could tell you that would be of the slightest use. But I suppose I owe something to the woman who cost my father his precious dignity and a broken nose. Oh, the hell with it, ask what you want. If I feel like answering, I will.” She swallowed a generous mouthful of brandy, seemingly relaxed.

“I’ll ask the obvious question first. Where were you on Sunday night between ten p.m. and midnight?” Lindsay asked.

“Oh dear, oh dear, we have been reading all the snobbery with violence detective novels, haven’t we?” The mockery in Ros’s voice was still good-natured, but it was obvious that the veneer was wearing thin. “I was here on Sunday night. We have a flat above the restaurant. I think I was reading till about eleven. Then I went to bed, and I was woken up just after midnight when my mother phoned to tell me about my father’s death.”

“I suppose Meg can back you up?”

“As it happens, no. Meg was on her way back from Southampton. She’d been visiting her parents. She didn’t get home till about half past midnight. So I don’t have much of an alibi, do I? No one phoned till mother. I phoned no one. You’ll just have to take my word for it.” She grinned broadly.

“I’m surprised you didn’t go down to Brownlow as soon as you heard the news. I mean, with your mother to comfort and all that…?” Lindsay sounded off-hand.

“Acting nonchalant cuts no ice with me, darling. I can spot the heavy questions without you signposting them. Why didn’t I dash off home to Mummy? For one thing, I have a business to run. On Mondays, I go to the market and see what’s looking good. On that basis, I plan the special dishes for the week. We also do all the book-keeping and paperwork on Mondays. I simply couldn’t just vanish for the day. It’ll be hard enough fitting the funeral in. That’s not as callous as it sounds. My father cared about this business too. But more importantly than all of that, I’m not at all sure I’d be the person to comfort my mother.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m not the weepy, sentimental sort. I’m far too bloody brisk to be much of a shoulder to cry on. I’m afraid I’d be more inclined to tell her to pull herself together than to provide tea and sympathy.”

“So, it’s nothing to do with her attitudes to you being a lesbian? Oh, but of course, they didn’t know, did they? Or so Carlton Stanhope reckons. Mind you, I always figure that parents know a lot more than they let on,” said Lindsay, her eyes on a distant corner of the room.

“You’ve talked to Carl?” Suddenly Ros had become guarded.

“He sends his best wishes. He’s seeing Alexandra Phillips these days, you know,” Lindsay replied.

“How nice for him. She used to be a lovely girl when I knew her. I hope she treats him better than I did. Poor Carl,” she said ruefully. “But to go back to what he said to you. He was right, as far as he was aware. They really didn’t know. I’d kept it well under wraps. Let me explain the history. After I’d decided my career lay in the catering trade, my father was always keen that I should set up in business on my own when I’d done the training and got the experience. Meg and I did a proper business plan based on the costings for this place, and I presented it to him as a good investment. He lent me twenty thousand pounds at a nominal rate of interest so we could get the project off the ground. He’d never have done that much if he’d even suspected. I suppose my cover was never blown because I’d spent so much time studying and working away from home, and when I was home, there were always old friends like Carl around to provide protective coloring. It was really funny when we launched Rubyfruits-we had to have two opening nights. One with lots of straight friends that we could invite the parents to and another with the real clientele.”

Lindsay lit a cigarette. “It sounds like you had a lot to be grateful to him for?”

Ros shrugged. “In some ways. But we were never really close. He was always at arms’ length, somehow. With all of us. As if his real life happened somewhere else. The office, I suppose. Or one of his causes.” The edge of bitterness in her voice was apparent even to Ros herself. She softened her tone and added, “But I guess I owe this place to him. I’m sorry he’s dead.”

“Then he didn’t carry out his threat to take his money back?” Lindsay’s casual words dropped into a sudden well of silence. Ros’s face wouldn’t have looked out of place on Easter Island.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she declared. “No idea at all.”

“I’m told that he’d recently become disillusioned with you, that he was minded to take his money out of this business as a token of his disappointment. You really should tell me about it in case I go away with the wrong idea. And you not having much of an alibi. My news editor would like that story a lot.”

Ros stared hard at Lindsay. “Well, well,” she muttered bitterly. “So much for lesbian solidarity. You’re not the pushover I took you for, are you? Fancy me thinking that anyone who tagged along on Cordelia’s coat-tails could be toothless. All right. Since you obviously know enough to make a bloody nuisance of yourself, I’d better tell you the rest.

“Ten days ago I had a phone call from my father. He informed me that he was instructing his bankers to recover the twenty thousand he’d loaned me. He refused to say why, or even to say anything else. So I rang my mother to see if she knew what the hell was going on. And she wouldn’t say either.

“So I jumped on the bike and bombed down to the old homestead where I squeezed out of Mamma what it was all about. To cut a long story short, it was all down to my perfectly bloody little brother. You know he’s got this business in computer software? Well, he had to start it on a shoestring, against my father’s advice. Father wanted different things for Simon, and that was the end of the story as far as he was concerned. He wouldn’t even listen when one of Simon’s teachers came to see him and told us that Simon was the best computer programmer he’d ever encountered. Apparently, he was hacking into other people’s systems by the time he was in the third form. Anyway, Simon got off the ground somehow and he’s at the stage now where it’s make or break, expand or fold, and he needs an injection of cash. God knows where he got the money to get this far, but he was determined that the next chunk of capital should come from Father, on the basis that he’d lent me money for the business, and it was only right that he should do the same for Simon.

“Dad refused absolutely. He said I’d proved myself, which Simon still had to do before he could come chasing around for hard-earned handouts. Mum said they were going at it hammer and tongs, then Simon blew a fuse and said something along the lines of how appalling it was that Father was prepared to finance a pair of lesbians running a restaurant for queers, and he wouldn’t finance his only son in a legitimate business. Mum says there was a ghastly silence, then Simon walked out. Father apparently wouldn’t say a thing, just went off in the car. She thinks he came up here to see for himself. And the next day-bombshell.”

“I thought it must have been something like that,” Lindsay said. “So I suppose that put you right in the cart.”

“Until the death of my father, that’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it? Not quite that easy, I’m afraid. You see, we’ve been doing better than we projected. It knocked some of our personal plans on the head, like new furniture for the flat, but we’ve simply transferred to a bank loan. We can just afford the extra interest. Any money from my father’s will, unless he’s cut me out of that too, will be an absolute godsend, there’s no getting away from that. But we could have managed without it. I had no need to kill him. Now, you’ve got what you came for. Is there anything else before I get you the bill?”

“Just one thing. Any idea why your father was carrying a gun?”

“Carrying a gun? I knew nothing about that. No one said anything to me about a gun!”

“The police are trying to keep it fairly quiet. A point two two revolver.”

“I can’t begin to think why he had his gun with him. He used to be a member of a small-arms shooting club at Middle Walberley. But he hadn’t been for… oh God, it must be eight years. He gave it up because he didn’t have time enough for practising, and he could never bear to do anything unless he did it to perfection. I didn’t even know he’d kept his gun. I can’t believe he had enemies-I mean, not the sort you’d have to arm yourself against. Wow, that really is weird.” For the first time, she looked upset. “Somebody must have really got to him. That’s horrible.” She swallowed the remains of her brandy and got to her feet. “I’ll get Meg to bring your bill.” She vanished through the swing door at the back of the restaurant followed by Meg, whose eyes had never left them during the interview.

Lindsay rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. Deborah reached out and took her hand. Before they could speak, Meg re-emerged from the kitchen and strode over to them. By now, they were the centre of attention for the few diners remaining. “Have this meal on me,” Meg said angrily. “Just so long as you don’t come back here again. Now go. I mean it, Lindsay. Just get out!”