Chapter 14 #2
Bet a blacklight would make the sticky carpet shine like a radioactive Jackson Pollock.
‘Detective Inspector? Hello?’
She blinked and there was Sergeant Moore, waving at her as if he’d been at it a while.
He grimaced. ‘You still with us?’
Roberta pushed herself off the wall she’d been leaning against – because there was no way she was touching any of the furniture – and nodded. ‘Right, keep up the good work, Mr . . .?’
‘Hastings.’ At least his voice had broken, that was something.
‘Mr Hastings, right.’ She followed Moore out of the room, stopping on the threshold to look back inside. Made eye contact with the spotty youth. ‘Try to stop before you go blind, eh?’ Then closed the door before he could do anything more than blush.
Roberta slouched along beside Sergeant Moore, not even bothering to cover her yawn. ‘Well that was a waste of time.’
He rubbed his hands together, sounding pleased with himself. ‘At least we’re halfway through now. Twenty-three down, twenty-three to go.’
‘Food.’
‘We could probably knock a couple more off the list and—’
‘Food! Food! Food! Food!’
He looked at her, sideways and troubled. ‘Are you like this on every murder inquiry?’
Down the stairs at the end of the corridor.
‘Murder inquiries are nothing like this. No one runs a Major Investigation Team with only three people, especially if one of them’s an idiot who doesn’t know wellington boots are a good idea when it’s raining.
You assemble a dirty-big squad full of experts and you delegate the living bejesus out of everything.
Control it all from the centre of your web.
’ She pushed out through the door at the bottom of the stairs and into the lobby again.
‘And that includes sending someone out for bacon butties, cups of tea, and anything else that takes your fancy.’ Marching across the tartan carpet towards the dining room.
‘What you don’t do is struggle on all day with an empty stomach, personally interviewing three-dozen stuck-up buggers, when you could be squirrelled away in a posh hotel room playing Hide-the-Nutella with your wife! ’
The dining room was laid out for a full service: all the tables set with white cloths, napkins, silverware, and more glasses than anyone could possibly need during the course of one meal.
Roberta marched past the lot of them and banged into the kitchen. ‘Well?’
Gérard turned a dimpled smile on her, his rosy cheeks all round and sweaty in the steamy kitchen as he struck a pose: feet together, back straight, one finger pointing at the ceiling tiles.
‘Ze great Gérard de Larosière ’as done eet again!
I geeve to you ze culinary masterpiece.’ He turned to make a sweeping gesture towards an array of pots, pans, and dishes.
‘Wash your ’ands and prepare for ze experience of a lifetime. Alléz vite!’
‘All right.’ She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘But this better be worth it, or I’m coming back in here and stuffing you like a Christmas turkey. With your own head.’
The view from the dining room was probably quite impressive, when it wasn’t dinging down at nine o’clock on a Saturday night.
The rain rendered everything in depressing shades of greeny-grey, and even though the sun wasn’t supposed to set for another hour and a bit, it was already getting dark out there. Well, even darker.
Susan polished off the last of her soup and smiled across the table. ‘Wasn’t that lovely?’ She was all done up in a nice floral frock, with heels and a matching bag. Unlike Roberta, in her ‘ASK ME ABOUT MY RADICAL LESBIAN FEMINIST AGENDA’ T-shirt and tumbled jeans.
Could probably fit fifty people in here, but the room was deserted except for the two of them, dining by candlelight. A nice bottle of Chenin Blanc chilling in an ice bucket at the side of the table.
‘A toast!’ Susan raised her glass. ‘To romantic getaways.’
Roberta clinked glasses with her, then had a glug of lovely cold wine. ‘Aye, romantic for you, maybe. Some of us’ve been interrogating Tory tosspots and getting soaked all day.’ But she kept a smile on her face as she spoke, so technically it didn’t count as a whinge.
‘Well, I think it’s lovely.’ Susan reached across the table and took Roberta’s hand, looking up at her through her eyelashes. ‘Maybe after this we should—’
The door to the kitchen thumped open and in barged the wee weird ginger woman, pushing a hostess-trolley kind of thing.
‘All done?’ Cheery smile and cheery voice – no doubt still in a heightened erogenous state after that flash of Old Faithful.
She gathered up their empty bowls. ‘How was your velouté de navet, with a parmesan tuile and smoked truffle-oil emulsion?’
‘You’re no’ fooling anyone. Neep soup’s neep soup, no matter how you dress it up.’
‘Robbie!’ Susan turned a beam in the woman’s direction. ‘It was lovely, Janey, thank you. Who knew turnips could be so scrumptious?’
‘Excellent.’ Wee Weird Janey clinked their empty bowls down on top of the trolley and came back with two plates, placing one in front of each of them with a theatrical flourish.
‘Here we have venison carpaccio avec mousse de navet et sorbet aux racines.’ Kissing her fingertips as a grand finale.
‘Enjoy.’ She backed away from the table, taking her trolley and her weirdness through to the kitchen again.
Susan speared a wafer-thin slice of dark purple meat and popped it into her mouth. Chewing with her eyes closed. ‘Delicious!’
Roberta pushed the cold-looking lump of orange stuff about her plate. Whatever it was, it looked extremely dodgy. ‘How well do you know the rest of the guests?’
‘Well, Mortimer’s the firm’s senior partner, so he’s all right, and you’ve met Agatha.
Adriana’s a good assistant – very thorough when she gets her teeth into something.
’ A shrug made Susan’s cleavage do very naughty things.
‘The rest are a mixture of clients and strangers. I’d know them to talk to, but that’s it. ’
Quick look left and right to make sure no one had sneaked into the dining room when they weren’t looking. ‘What about Sir Reginald Wibbly-Whatnot?’
‘Robbie! The poor man’s dead.’
‘Aye, aye, boo hoo, stop the clocks and cover the budgie, etcetera. What about his shady dealings? Your firm involved in any of that?’
Susan went in for another slice of venison. ‘Well, Mortimer mostly deals with Sir Reginald’s business affairs and I’m sure they’re not in the least bit shady, thank you very much.’
OK, nothing else for it, Roberta was going to have to try the slippery orange whatever-it-was.
It slithered away from her fork, but she finally managed to dig out a chunk and stuck it in her gob.
Strangely cold and sweet and earthy, all at the same time.
‘What makes you think they’re no’ shady?
There’s sod-all . . .’ Why did the whatever-it-was taste familiar, but wrong at the same time? ‘Is this carrot ice cream?’
‘Sorbet aux racines. Eat up.’
Roberta stared at the closed kitchen door. ‘What kind of sick weirdo makes carrot ice cream?’
‘And for your information: I know Sir Reginald’s business dealings aren’t “dodgy”, because our firm wouldn’t be handling them if they were. Beresford, Ackroyd, and Edgware is very highly respected in corporate law circles.’
She shook her head. ‘Carrot ice cream.’ Then tried a wee bit more. Actually, it wasn’t so bad once you got used to the idea.
Susan scooted her chair forward, dropping her voice to a whisper.
‘If you ask me, it’s Lord Fitzroy-Galbraith you should be looking at.
I hear he wanted to develop a planned village on the estate – high-end villas and holiday homes.
You’d make a killing from the London get-away-for-the-weekend set. ’
‘This turnip mousse is OK too.’
Maybe Gérard de Larosière wasn’t as daft as he looked?
Susan’s eyes widened. ‘I hear Sir Reginald had the deciding vote on the planning authority. What if he said no, and Lord Fitzroy-Galbraith killed him?’
Roberta sat back and smiled at her. ‘Aye, all right, Miss Marple. You leave the detecting to the professionals or I’ll have to ask you to assist me with my inquiries.’ Topping that one off with an extremely dirty wink, sending Susan into blushing giggles.
Susan stood and leaned across the table for a kiss. ‘You’ll never take me alive, copper.’
Roberta levered herself out of her seat and was just about to join her when the kitchen door banged open and Weird Janey poked her head into the dining room again.
‘Who’s ready for their main course?’
Some people’s timing was utter bollocks.
Roberta kissed Susan on the forehead – just a wee peck, not enough to wake her – and slipped from the room.
The corridor outside ‘LAPHROAIG’ was dark as a lawyer’s soul. Not Susan’s soul, obviously: she was the exception that proved the rule. But the rest of them could fester in the gloomy heat of Satan’s bumhole for all eternity and it still wouldn’t be long enough.
‘Let there be light.’ But when she flicked the switch in the hallway, nothing happened. So, just to be on the safe side, Roberta clicked it up and down a half dozen more times.
Still nothing.
OK . . .
She pulled out her mobile and called up the torch app. Swinging the thin cold beam across the corridor, where it glittered back from the long-dead eyes of stuffed animals. OK, that was more than a little unnerving.
Turning her back on them, she followed the phone’s torchlight to the end of the corridor, freezing just inside the doors. Listening.
Voices, muffled in the darkness, wafted through from the other side. Low and conspiratorial.
Roberta put her hand on the door and pushed through into the gloom beyond.