St. Just was the first one down to breakfast. He'd had a restless night, rehearsing in his mind the interviews and searches of the previous long day. The large brandy that he'd brought to his room, thinking it might act as a sleeping pill, had instead left him wide awake with a raging thirst at three a.m. The cast of suspects passed before him like characters in a play, taking their bows. Which of them hated or feared Kimberlee enough to kill her?
He kept circling back to the apparently unrelated image of Magretta's travel desk. In his mind's eye, she sat before it like Queen Victoria, deep in her red boxes of state papers.
When sleep did arrive it was fleet and unknowing, a sudden drop of consciousness, like a heavy stone plummeting through a black lake. He awoke in the pale light of dawn and resettled himself under the luxurious goose-down quilt, willing his mind to quiet, trying to organize his impressions. Nothing would connect. His usual ability to find the logic in chaos seemed to have deserted him. At last giving up, he rose and began to gear himself to listen to the usual recital of lies, denials, and half-truths that seemed to be a standard part of any police interrogation.
As the other castle inmates came down to their breakfasts in the Orangery, they smiled at him nervously and sat as far away as possible without actually sitting outside in the cold. Certainly no one attempted to join him at his table. He hardly expected that they would. No one is ever quite comfortable being around the police, especially when a murder investigation is on the day's agenda. When he peeked out from behind his newspaper, he saw them huddled together, whispering quietly, and sending many a furtive glance in his direction. No question about it, he was now from the dark side. No matter their state of guilt or innocence, this policeman in their midst could mean nothing but trouble.
From Portia, he expected frost. Instead, she gave him a friendly, rather shy wave as she came in. If she was aware that this show of friendliness might brand her as either a suspect or a snitch among the others, she didn't show it.
All to the good, he felt, if they thought she was a suspect. It might help keep her out of danger.
Today she had twisted her still-damp hair into a low chignon; she wore a pale yellow sweater and brown tweed slacks. Small boots of a supple brown leather peeked out from the hems. He didn't think she could look any lovelier in a ball gown. She leaned over toward him and said, "I have got to tell you something. Something I sort of… forgot." As she spoke, renewed murmurs of speculation rose from the room.
He held up a hand to forestall her.
"Interviews will take place throughout the day." He made sure his voice carried, so as to disabuse anyone of the notion she was busy turning one of them in.
Then, lowering his voice: "Not here. They're hanging on every word. Anyway, can I make it any clearer? There can be no impression you are helping us in any extraordinary way."
"But I am." It was not a question.
He sighed.
"If you know anything you have to tell me. Just… not now."
She hesitated. "You see, the thing is, I'm not sure-"
"Later today," he interrupted. Really, he thought, he had to treat her the way he'd treat any other suspect. If only it weren't for those dark blue eyes… If only her skin didn't put him in mind of white rose petals…
"You'll have your turn," he said, again trying to put some iron in his voice.
Noticing they did indeed have the galvanized attention of the rest of the room, he stood and, improvising, addressed them all.
"I was just saying to Ms. De'Ath that in the interest of expedience, some of you might like to write down your whereabouts from the time of the dinner Saturday night until you went to bed, and/or until you heard the alarm raised. Since you all are writers, this seems the most natural outlet for your, ah-" he nearly said imaginations, "-talents."
He did a quick survey of the room.
"Where are Tom Brackett and his wife? And Lord Easterbrook?" he asked.
They all looked at each other. There was a collective shrug.
"Not down yet," offered Magretta.
"Very well," said St. Just. "Inspector Moor or I will want all of you to be available for interviews. I would appreciate it if you would stay within the castle-either in your room or in one of the main sitting rooms-so we don't have to hunt for you. Please pass this information along."
Magretta, predictably, was first to protest.
"We've already been interviewed."
"Merely a preliminary engagement. This investigation is only just beginning."
He left to pre-empt further argument. The chatter level rose to a hectoring roar at his back.
But moments later: "Inspector!"
He was halfway down the hallway. He turned.
"Don't worry," said Portia. She offered him a small, disarming smile. "I won't do anything foolish-not to the point where I'd need police protection, at any rate."
"I would be first to volunteer if you did."
She seemed to ignore that. Quite right, he thought. Prat.
"It's just that they do seem to think I've an inside track with you. It started yesterday. There's a lot of morbid curiosity about the condition of… the body, for example. Anyway, for today, I'll either be in my room or at the spa-keeping my ears open, that's all-if you need me. Let me know how I can help. Oh-and what I wanted to tell you: Winston insists he saw Kimberlee on the stairs, just after the lights went out-that would be about a quarter to eleven. I thought I saw something, too. I guess I decided it was Kimberlee because Winston thought it was. But neither of us is sure now. It was all a bit… hazy."
And she lit off toward the stairs. She had an attractive back-lean and supple.
How she can help. Where to begin
IN THE LIBRARY
Upstairs, DCI Moor and Sergeant Kittle had already reported for duty. A tech crew, having finished with the bottle dungeon-into which they had been lowered by cable as if from a rescue helicopter-was working on Kimberlee's room, which seemed to float above a low silver cloud of magnetic fingerprint powder. St. Just, stifling the urge to sneeze, asked one of the technicians dusting for prints if he could take a copy of Kimberlee's book from her dresser.
The taciturn-looking man glanced over to the photographer, who nodded.
"Sure, done with that."
Moor said to St. Just, "Let me show you the incident room they've set up."
He led the way down several twisting, dark corridors that seemed to lead nowhere but eventually deposited them in a room tucked into another of the small turrets of the castle. Computers, fax machines, and phone lines sprouted on the antique tables and dressers.
"We're going through the suspects' rooms again in case we missed anything yesterday," Moor said. "Or in case, their guard down now that they think the search is over, they've left something of interest overnight. So, who's on your list today for a cozy chat?"
St. Just, who had been skimming some of yesterday's preliminary reports, looked over to his colleague. Moor didn't quite seem to have tamed the cowlicks that sprouted from the top of his head, and the handlebars of his white mustaches drooped asymmetrically, like a plane banking after takeoff. Probably he'd lost the latest skirmish for the bathroom in the Moor household.
"Anything of interest in here?" St. Just indicated the stack of reports.
"Not really. They're all singing from the same hymn sheet," said Moor.
"'I Wandered in the Shades of Night?'"
"'Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,' more like. They're all as innocent as newborn lambs, to hear them tell it," said Moor. "Either surrounded by Archbishop-caliber witnesses or tucked up sound asleep while bloody mayhem broke out elsewhere in the castle."
St. Just murmured, not expecting to be overheard, "An omerta?"
"What's that?"
"Oh, nothing. Just… seeing as how they're crime writers, maybe there's some unwritten code that prohibits them cooperating with police."
"Ah. Well, Cambridge, we now know the time of death was no earlier than nine-thirty. Our pathologist won't be pinned down yet to an official time range, but from the stomach contents and so on, he says the body had been there 'maybe' two hours when it was found at midnight. Samples taken from the body and underneath her nails show nothing so far-no samples from her attacker."
"She was seen alive just after nine," said St. Just. "By several people, I should think-including me. And Winston Chatley, according to Portia De'Ath, thinks -but is uncertain now-that he saw Kimberlee just after the lights went out. That was around ten forty-five. I wish these examiners weren't always quite so elastic about the time of death."
"I'm just the messenger," said Moor.
"Anything on her mobile?"
"Nothing of interest. We're going through her list of contacts, of course. And she'd received a message from someone named Desmond at ten the night she died-just wishing her good luck at the conference."
St. Just pulled at his chin in a gesture of frustration. "As I've said, someone really determined could circle around through the woods or even paddle downriver, swim across the moat, and slip in somehow, but what are the chances? You'll need to eliminate that possibility, obviously. But I think we're dealing with one of the castle guests. Which means we're almost certainly dealing with someone connected with the conference. Possibly a mystery writer. Bugger it."
"How so?"
"Just what we need is some clever-dick crime writer, or someone steeped in crime novels, trying to outwit the police. Even if and when we catch him or her, the red herrings may be so numerous we'll never be able to explain the case properly to a jury."
Moor mused on this a moment and said:
"It could work to our advantage, though, don't you think?"
"How so?" asked St. Just in his turn.
"If some kind of revenge or envy or spite is the motive, we just look for the writer with the biggest ego."
St. Just bared his teeth in a bleak smile.
"You really don't know this lot yet, do you? They're all quite, quite taken with themselves, in one way or the other." He thought of clear-eyed Portia, long-necked Portia, Portia of the silken skin. He amended: "Nearly all."
Moor grunted. "I'm sure you're right. I'd put nothing past them. Any of them. One oddity, I guess you could call it. They found a well-thumbed paperback copy of Persuasion in Kimberlee's purse. Stuffed way at the bottom of her purse. Hidden, like."
"Hmm. Not exactly a book on nuclear physics, but not quite what I'd expect, either, would you? Well, well. Together with the Cambridge degree, and what her agent has told us, I'd say we're starting to see a pattern. What you saw with Kimberlee was not necessarily what you got."
St. Just paused, then answered Moor's original question:
"What do you say we have our cozy chat with Easterbrook? He's the catalyst-the reason for all of them being here. So let's start unpicking the thread at the beginning."
There was some ado when it came to actually locating Lord Easterbrook, as it turned out. He was not in his room, reported Sergeant Kittle.
"He wasn't at breakfast, either," said St. Just. "I assumed he was having food sent up."
"He's probably walking the grounds," said Moor. "I'll send a uniform to fetch him."
Waiting for Easterbrook to appear, St. Just began flipping again through Kimberlee's book. It was the literary equivalent of the type of girl movie to which he could never be dragged. Why did women think men were so complicated, he wondered?
Moor's "uniform" came back into the room.
"He's in the library," he reported. "He said he'd be straight up once he finished his coffee."
"Bollocks to that," said Moor. "You go tell that toffee-nosed-"
"Never mind, Moor." St. Just put down the book, which, with its pink cover, seemed to glow like an object undergoing radioactive decay. He was used to the aristocracy trying this on. "I'll go and have a look for the panjandrum of publishing. Do you want to come with me?"
It was a somewhat-chastened Julius Easterbrook who could be found talking with the three policemen half an hour later, Moor having explained to him at great length that murder took priority over coffee. Sergeant Kittle sat quietly in a nearby corner with his policeman's notebook. A wood fire crackled in the fireplace, dispelling the morning chill of the room.
"Poor Kimberlee," said Easterbrook. He stood before the hearth, wringing his age-mottled hands. "She didn't deserve this."
Clearly, the man was worried, thought St. Just. The patrician sheen of Saturday night had given way to a somewhat seedy and unkempt air, like a stately home in need of renovation. He looked in any event to St. Just the sort of man more at home in a showerproof jacket and green wellies, dog at his side, than in a dinner jacket.
St. Just invited the older man to sit in one of the leather chairs. He imagined at least part of Easterbrook's worry was over how to replace a best-selling author. Or did the anxiety run deeper? His standard expression of mourning had a sincere ring.
"When did you last see her alive?" asked St. Just.
"I didn't see her at all after the dinner," Easterbrook replied, his voice an aristocratic honk. What made elderly aristocrats talk like that, wondered St. Just. Some kind of old-school cricket injury?
"I went to my room-correspondence to catch up on, you know," continued Easterbrook. "Then, of course, the lights went out."
"And where were you-" began Moor.
"When the lights went out?" Easterbrook's voice made it clear he expected the police to take his version of events without question. He was civil but icily so. "Wasn't there a rather dreadful American movie by that name? I think I've just answered that question, Inspector. I was writing a letter. The lights went out, so I stopped writing a letter. I said, 'Bother' and went straight to bed."
"I see," said St. Just. He glanced over at Kittle, who was idly drawing what looked like a hangman's noose in his notebook.
"What exactly happened to her, do you know yet?" asked the publisher.
St. Just shook his head.
"Early days yet."
"I hope you don't mean that literally. We can't all be kept here indefinitely while you try to sort this out. Oh, dear," he said, and began to wring his hands again, emitting well-bred little brays of concern. "I do hope our PR department can make the best of this."
"I somehow doubt it."
"You've not met my PR department. But even without them there is bound to be a spike in sales of Kimberlee's book. Not to mention, avid interest in the next book."
"I wonder if they could be induced to stay off the topic of exactly how and where she was found," said Moor. "Your PR department, I mean."
"Whatever for?" Lord Easterbrook looked genuinely puzzled.
"It's morbid?" suggested Moor. "Ghoulish? In poor taste?"
"Oh. Yes, quite. Quite. But later, surely…" said Easterbrook. It was no doubt the same tone of voice he used to wheedle an invitation to a shooting party at Sandringham. He drew back his mouth in a propitiatory smile, revealing a suspiciously even row of large teeth.
St. Just decided it was time to steer him to a new topic.
"Her agent Ninette Thomson tells us Kimberlee's book needed a bit of cleanup when she first saw it, but that it was a remarkably fresh piece of work. Would you agree with that assessment?"
"Good Lord, man. You don't think I read the thing all the way through, do you? Merciful heavens, no. No. (Honk.) All it took was one look at Kimberlee, and a synopsis from the agent, for me to know we had a winning package. We happened to have a stable of rather predictable writers at the time-writing to formula, riding the coattails of past successes. Still do, in fact. Then here was Kimberlee-glamorous, born talking into a microphone, completely savvy about the business. Most of them have stars in their eyes these days, you know-the young authors, especially. Hope springing eternal. Don't want to hear it's a business, and a hard business. Kimberlee understood. I didn't have to teach her a thing."
"What can you tell me about her background?" asked St. Just. "Something beyond the little biography on her book jacket."
Lord Easterbrook, having produced a linen handkerchief the size of a small tablecloth, blew into it thunderously before fussily folding and replacing it in his pocket. Eventually he replied, "Not much. It's difficult to say. I met her two years ago, and even though I've dealt with her frequently since then… it's difficult to describe. She was businesslike, as I say, but she often cloaked that in a little-me silliness that was wholly deceptive-something she'd begun doing more and more in recent days, by the way. But, for example, her agent had negotiated with us a perfectly reasonable contract-if I may say so, an exceptional contract-for what was effectively an untested author. Kimberlee Kalder came to my office herself to demand a larger advance."
"Which she got?"
"Not right away. That's just not on, you know-we deal with the agents, not the authors. But, next, she threatened to walk."
"Confidence bordering on arrogance, then?"
"Quite. Not even stealing across the border, but marching brazenly across. Normally I would say don't let the door slam on your way out. But one of the editors talked me into keeping her. And frankly, it didn't take a lot of persuasion. I sensed she would be the injection of life-and cash-the business needed. I've been batting on rather a sticky wicket, you see. Publishing in these days is not for the faint of heart. The whole thing is positively going to hell on a sled."
"So, Kimberlee's silly-me act-"
"Wholly an act. And as I say, she became more silly in recent months. Superficial. Always talking about hair extensions and things. I guess she figured out that it helped sell books. I only know it was an act because generally, if we weren't in public, she'd revert to the real Kimberlee. Her vocabulary would go up several levels, for example, and every other sentence wouldn't be peppered with 'like' or 'radical.' My sense was that she was finding it harder to do, though-to lose the act."
"So, where the real person began and ended it was hard to say?" asked St. Just.
"Quite."
"And no one guessed?"
"No one cared enough to guess, I would imagine. No one among the reading public. And as far as Kimberlee was concerned, her performance sold books. She probably saw the whole thing as a lark. You know, I say…" Lord Easterbrook, who had been studying St. Just closely, now peered at him over the tops of his glasses. "Wasn't there a St. Just who married Bloreheather some years ago?"
"My sister," said St. Just.
Easterbrook raised his eyebrows, digesting the news. No doubt he was wondering how Lord Bloreheather liked having a black sheep of a policeman in the family. St. Just spared a fleeting thought for his elder sister, sitting in her handsome stone mansion sheltered by beeches and oaks, no doubt awaiting the late-March start of the London season. She would get on like a house on fire with Easterbrook.
"Is it possible…" St. Just paused to find the words for a rather far-fetched theory that was beginning to crystallize in his mind. "Is it possible this attack on Kimberlee was actually an attack on the publishing house? On you, indirectly?"
Easterbrook seemed to take his meaning immediately. He nodded. "I've considered that. Sometimes, umbrage is taken by various people with whom one comes in contact. One is, after all, in the business of criticizing the contents of another's brain. Which can be just as frightening as it sounds. This is why I have assistants, you know, to read through what we call the slush pile. So, yes, I suppose some disgruntled writer could seek to bring the house down by killing Kimberlee, its chief moneymaker. Far-fetched, but then, you should see some of the manuscripts we receive. As I say, the contents of people's brains. Terrifying."
"Does anyone in particular come to mind?"
"Unfortunately, no. I could have my office send you some of the choicer letters we've received. We do save some of them, in a file labeled Broadmoor." Easterbrook paused, considering. When he spoke, his own mind had taken a new tack.
"I say, I wonder just how far along Kimberlee was on the new book. She was a bit cagey with me about that. Perhaps we could pretend she left behind a completed manuscript? That is to say, really completed, the way Christie wrote the concluding novel to her Miss Marple series far in advance."
"And have someone ghostwrite the rest, you mean? I suppose you could," said St. Just with a shrug. The honesty or otherwise of the plan was not for him to say. "But, Lord Easterbrook, I would tread carefully if I were you. Murder has a way of forcing out the truth, on matters great and small."