Having finished his calls, St. Just headed downstairs, in search of a life-restoring cup of tea. He needed to learn what forensics had come up with, but first, according to his stomach, he needed some sustenance.
He used the back stairs of the castle, which led directly past the spa. Coming out of the main spa door, wrapped in one of the ubiquitous hotel robes, and with a towel over one arm, was Portia, her face painted with what looked like blue plaster of Paris.
They both leapt back, emitting small yips of surprise.
"Good God. Are the Picts invading?" he asked her.
From between stiffened lips, she muttered, "It's a facial, of course." She wiped off some of the mask with the towel before spearing him with her characteristically direct gaze.
"Most of the women are taking advantage of the 'lull' to visit the spa," she told him. "Even Edith Brackett managed to escape Tom's clutches for a bit. You should see her-she's starting to look fabulous. Anyway, I've been in there all day, being steamed like an oyster-I was just nipping up to my room for a book, hoping not to run into anyone." She gave him an ironic scowl. Only Portia, he felt, could retain her composure with a face covered in blue goo. It was the kind of instinctive poise that could not be taught or learned. She would look dignified in a clown's suit.
"Anyway," she went on, "I've been buffed and polished and sprayed to within an inch of my life"-and here she lowered her voice- "eavesdropping all the while. I'll tell you all about it later. It's hard to talk with my face glued like this. But you should know this before I forget: Kimberlee lost her key at some point. I saw her rootling around in her purse after the dinner, and she said something like, 'Drat, I'll have to get another one from reception.' I assume she meant key."
"Yes, one of Moor's men learned she'd asked for a replacement key," he said. He stood quietly a moment, weighing how the missing key could fit in. It might be important, but he wasn't sure just how.
"Well," he said, "at least you have the perfect disguise for undercover work." He looked her up and down, and smiled. "Your own mother wouldn't recognize you."
"Ha. Ha. You can thank me when I've helped you solve this case. We exercise zee leetle gray cells, non?"
" Non. I would much prefer you went back to your room and stayed there. Don't let anyone in who isn't a policeman, either. Don't you have a novel you're supposed to be writing?"
"With all of this going on? Are you joking? If this isn't the perfect excuse for procrastination, I don't know what is." She turned to go. "See you later."
He gently took hold of her arm.
"Is there any point in warning you to be careful?" he hissed quietly.
She shook her head.
"None. You know as well as I do-they'll say things to me they'd never say to you. Most of them admit to a dislike of the victim. An active dislike, in fact."
"A festering dislike, if you prefer. It gets us no closer."
"Count your blessings that I'm around," said Portia. "It's you who should be careful. Remember, these people lie for a living: They write novels."
She smiled, a somewhat stiff and lopsided but endearing smile because of the hardening mask, like a dentist's victim before the Novocain has worn off.
"Keep in mind," she said, here holding up a forefinger as if lecturing a roomful of pillocky undergraduates, "that writers are determined, motivated, often highly organized-belying the notion of the scatterbrained creative artist. One has to be organized to withstand the long haul of a novel. They're also driven, persevering, resilient, and-mostly-able to withstand a lot of setbacks, criticism, and rejection. Apart from the criticism and rejection part, I can't think of a better definition for a methodical killer, can you?"
The admonishing hand fell to her side. She added quietly, her words slowing, her face struggling against the mask to crease with a frown of concentration. "I realize now I've been writing of murder as if it were an academic exercise, all this time. But now I'm faced with the real horror of it." The fathomless eyes pinned his gaze. "They say people read crime novels because of a human need to see the world set right after any kind of disturbance. What happened to Kimberlee was a desecration. The world has to be righted."
"Not your job…" he began.
"It's everybody's job, in a way-if only from a practical standpoint. We're trapped here with a murderer. A sense of self-preservation demands that the killer be caught. And soon."
She turned from him and glided away down the corridor. He continued to watch her disappear up the stairs, thinking how different their time together here might have been. If only.
Tea had been set out in the sitting room in a serve-yourself fashion, attracting several of the castle's inhabitants.
As Portia had indicated, most of the ladies were missing, presumably being roasted or pummeled in the spa. Jay Fforde sat apart from the rest, draped across the window seat, a book open on his lap. Winston Chatley and Julius Easterbrook held down opposite ends of the silk-covered sofa. Annabelle Pace sat slumped in one of the plush chairs. The room was bathed in an ocher light from the table lamps. They might have been posing, carefree guests, for a castle brochure.
Annabelle looked up from the Tatler magazine she'd been flipping through in an aimless way, as if she'd read the issue several times already. Today she wore a loose smock and trousers the color of London smog. She looked less as if she had dressed herself than as if someone had thrown clothes at her until they stuck. She had made an unwise attempt to enliven this subfusc costume with a polyester scarf of a malignant shade of yellow, the effect of which was to further deplete her bloodless, sallow complexion.
The papers were spread out everywhere on the tables that dotted the room. Much like a gentleman's club, Dalmorton provided its guests with all the popular and serious daily newspapers, from the tabloid red tops like the Mirror to the broadsheet Telegraph. St. Just winced at one of the headlines: "Chick Lit Author: Victim of Fowl Play?" Another shouted, "Chick Author Slaughtered." He thought of the editorial meetings that had resulted in that headline, where no doubt "Fricasseed" had also been given serious consideration.
He considered, not for the first time, that Winston was right: There was something dramatic, something theatrical about the way Kimberlee was killed. After all, there were a thousand places to kill her in the castle. Why kill her and then throw her into a bottle dungeon? Why? He wasn't sure the papers had gotten hold of that bit of information yet, but when they did… It was as if the dark arts of public relations that Kimberlee practiced during her short life had lived on after her in death.
"So, Inspector," said Annabelle, throwing the magazine onto the low table before her. She leaned back, heaving her heavy, maternal bosom, and said, "How's the investigation going? We can't all stop here much longer."
"Indeed," said Easterbrook. One foot crossed over his knee, he impatiently jiggled one polished shoe. St. Just was reminded that in his youth, Easterbrook would probably have been most at home scaling the north face of the Eiger or hunting tigers on safari. Imposed inaction would quickly wear him thin. "You've had plenty of time, man. Don't tell me you can't resolve this."
Annabelle said, "As for me, I was with either Mrs. Elksworthy or your friend Portia the whole time. Just ask them. So you see, there's no earthly reason to detain me here longer."
"The police will be cross-checking everyone's statements," said St. Just, hoping against hope that her casually tossed phrase, "your friend," was not making him blush to the roots of his hair. He'd fondly hoped he'd kept his interest in Portia rather well hidden.
He sat in one of the chairs across from the sofa, addressing Easterbrook.
"It's not like one of the mysteries you publish, you know, where everything is neatly wrapped up in the course of a few hours, or pages."
"I've been interviewed by a veritable platoon of your Scottish colleagues," said Easterbrook peevishly. "And by you, as well. I repeat, I don't see what earthly use there is keeping those of us who have been thoroughly interviewed hanging about, wasting our valuable time. I've been on to my solicitor, of course. Annabelle is quite right. You can't hold us here indefinitely."
St. Just thought, You're right. Not without evidence, which I shall have.
He said nothing. Let Easterbrook get his solicitor up here, then. The wait would buy the investigation some time, anyway-time he felt they might sorely need.
"Once all the interviews are complete, we may need to cross-check what we've learned," St. Just repeated equably, but his tone left no room for argument. Easterbrook, seeming to weigh the odds against winning the toss, subsided into a grumbling acquiescence.
Annabelle dipped her head once more into her magazine, ignoring them. She looked strangely disheveled, even given her usual standard. The glasses on top of her head acted as a headband, pinning back her hair, which otherwise fell in stringy waves to her shoulders. Of all the women at the castle, thought St. Just, she might have benefited most from a bit of spa pampering. Instead, Portia was busy gilding the lily, while Annabelle…
Easterbrook, who had been looking on darkly over his reading glasses as if to emphasize nothing thus far in the proceedings met with his favor, spluttered again into life. "All these questions about where we were, and when. How can we possibly know? Do you have any idea the amount of drinking that went on last night?"
Jay Fforde, who seemed to have adopted a Lord Peter Wimsey demeanor for the occasion, looked over and said, "Quite."
"There were far too many of us for any one to really be accounted for," continued Easterbrook. Winston nodded agreement.
"Quite," said Jay again. "Everyone came and went."
"I didn't," said Annabelle flatly, from behind the magazine. "Like I said, I was with Mrs. E-oh, and then I was trapped by that ghastly little creep B. A. King for simply hours. He'll tell you."
"You'll have a chance to tell me yourself later on," said St. Just.
St. Just, carrying a mug of strong black tea, found the Inspector and Sergeant Kittle in Kimberlee's room.
"The press are onto us," he informed them.
"I know," said Inspector Moor. He leaned over and switched on a television set in the corner of the room. An excited young BBC announcer, clearly struggling to wipe the ecstatic smile off her face, was offering a breathless recap of Kimberlee's short career as Kimberlee herself smiled in frozen perpetuity from the upper left corner of the screen. As the policemen watched, the screen faded to black, to be replaced by an aerial shot of Dalmorton Castle. Moor leaned over again and switched off. "We've got guarded barriers keeping their vehicles out. Keeping the photographers themselves from skulking around the grounds on foot is going to be more difficult. That's stock footage they've got from somewhere but it's probably just a matter of time before we have helicopters whirring overhead." The torque of his Scottish accent managed to find at least four extra "r's" in "whirring."
St. Just nodded. "So, what's the status?"
"We've only got the preliminary results from the body," Moor replied, "But I don't think there will be any big surprises. She was struck a blow to the head which almost certainly would have killed her eventually, but being thrown into the dungeon killed her first."
"Any sign of a weapon?"
Moor shook his head.
"It could have been anything, really. But there was nothing kept down there that would serve as a handy weapon-fire extinguisher or suchlike. Whoever it was, brought the thing with him. Or her. And carried it away with them."
"Premeditated, then," said St. Just.
"Almost certainly. Especially given that she must have been keeping some kind of pre-arranged rendezvous-it's unlikely she just took it into her head to pop into the dungeon that time of night."
"And the lights went out, don't forget. In which case…"
"Where's the candle?" Moor finished for him. "It helps us pinpoint the time a bit more, doesn't it?"
"Unless the murderer had the wit to take the candle away with him or her."
"Hmm," grunted Moor. "Anyway, the way we see it is, someone hid beneath the spiral stairs leading down to the dungeon room. There's just enough space. It was dark, or darkish. The person leapt out. Struck her from behind. Tipped her over into the dungeon proper. The element of surprise had to have helped, which is why a female assailant is every bit as likely as a male-she was a wee thing, so leveraging her over the rail wouldn't be all that difficult."
"Still, it's hard to picture Mrs. Elksworthy, for example, in that kind of weight-lifting role. What have you got over there?" He indicated an evidence bag.
"It's the contents of Kimberlee's purse."
St. Just walked over and picked it up. Lipstick, compact, all the usual. "This is from the purse we found here in her room?"
"Yes."
"There's no key in here."
Moor took the evidence bag and held it to the light.
"So there isn't. Which means-"
"I'm not sure I know what it means. Someone stole her key?"
"I don't understand," said Moor. "We know she got a replacement key from reception. She told them she'd lost hers."
"It only makes sense if… Hmm. Let me chew on this a bit. What else do you have?"
"Lots," said Moor, waving a few faxed pages in St. Just's direction. "First, that snarky little Quentin character-the reporter with the hair-he used to work at the same newspaper as Kimberlee, a few years back."
"At the same time?"
Moor nodded. "Something he didn't think to mention when my men talked with him."
"I can certainly correct the oversight later today, if you like," said St. Just. "What else? I don't suppose her watch stopped when she fell, or anything helpful like that, pinpointing the time?"
"Doesn't appear so. But that's not the big news," said Moor. "I've saved that for last." The man grinned from ear to ear. "The big news is-wait for it-our Kimberlee was pregnant."