Chapter 39
The kitchen felt very different from when Lara had visited it in Lady Porter’s day.
It was a large room, but it now felt crowded.
Was this, Lara thought, because she was so acutely conscious of each and every person who was gathered around?
She glanced towards Sarah and Kate who were standing beside Mrs M at the Aga chatting and she experienced a wave of reassurance.
Abby was positioned just behind Lara’s left shoulder and she suddenly thought of the film The Devil Wears Prada when Anne Hathaway’s character discreetly fed vital information into her boss, Meryl Streep’s ear.
Not that she felt like anyone’s boss. More like Abby’s puppet.
Tonight, she knew she would be her voice piece, and she had only the vaguest notion of what she was going to say to the assembled guests.
For a moment, she wished none of this had happened and she was curled up on the sofa with Abby watching The Devil Wears Prada.
With her love of clothes, she was certain Abby would enjoy it.
Tonight, she was wearing a gown of pale blue crepe tied at the waist with a cord of gold tassels.
Lara gave herself a mental shake. There was no turning back, no cosily watching films with Abby.
For without Lady Porter’s murder there would be no Abby.
Lara busied herself pouring drinks and started to hand these around.
Joe smiled as she handed him a glass and raised enquiring eyebrows at her, before going to join Mrs M, Sarah and Kate.
The room was now divided: Kate, Sarah, Mrs M and Joe together in a group by the Aga, Sarah helping Mrs M unload sausage rolls and cheese straws from baking trays, the Porters standing close together by the kitchen table, heads bent together, Richard talking to Pinky in an urgent whisper.
Richard looked angry and flushed and Lara noticed a sheen of sweat on his upper lip as she handed him and Pinky drinks. Pinky refused to meet Lara’s eye.
‘You would hardly credit that this was the same woman who availed herself of the hospitality of your spare room,’ Abby commented, moving in step with Lara like her shadow. Abby noticed that Pinky was also studiously avoiding another person’s eye.
The final person in the room was Julian Armstrong, looking to Abby’s mind more like the notorious Major Norton than ever.
There was a nod towards military in the design of his tie and his back was ramrod straight.
Currently, his back was all that he offered the room as he stared out of the French window into the darkness of the garden beyond.
However, the very set of his shoulders clearly communicated his anger and frustration.
‘How on earth did you get Julian here?’ Lara asked Mrs M quietly, as she handed round the rest of the drinks.
Mrs M scoffed, ‘That wasn’t hard. Always on the make is Mr Armstrong. I just told him that the Porters were thinking of selling and that I might be too.’
Earlier they had all witnessed the spectacle of Julian sidling up to the Honourable Richard with silky overtures and offers of ‘personal attention’.
Richard had boggled at him and barked, ‘What are you on about? Of course we’re not selling.
And we’ve had quite enough of your “personal attention”. Thank you!’
Pinky had turned a scarlet face away from both men.
Mrs M continued, ‘I knew Mr Armstrong wouldn’t pass up the chance to be first in on a sale opportunity.’
Something made Abby pause. ‘Ask Mrs M if she really is thinking of selling?’
Lara did so.
Mrs M gave her a long look. ‘I think you could say that Julian might find himself closing the stable door—’ She was interrupted by a ring at the front door.
‘I’ll get that,’ Kate offered.
Before Lara could ask Mrs M about her cryptic comment, Julian turned and spoke, ‘Well, as charming as no doubt all of this is, I can’t hang around here.’
‘You will stay exactly where you are.’
Everyone turned and stared at Mrs M. No one had ever heard her use this tone of voice before.
It brooked no argument. For an instant, Lara wondered if Maggie Linton had picked up a piece of wood with a nail in it by sheer chance, or whether she had placed the weapon ready to hand.
She also found that the voice reminded her in an indefinable way of Lady Porter.
‘That’s all very well…’ It was Richard Porter who for some reason was ranging himself on Julian Armstrong’s side.
Mrs M cut him off at the knees. She cast him a look of contempt.
‘How you could call yourself her son, I wonder at you. I really do. We’re here to talk about her Ladyship.
And that is what we’re going to do. Whatever,’ she drew her shoulders back, ‘whatever the outcome is. It can’t be hidden anymore. It is now a police matter.’
Lara looked around at the stunned faces and she knew they were all thinking about the police swoop on Honeybourne Antiques the previous day.
It was at this point that the door to the hall opened, and Kate stepped back into the room. She was followed by a second person, their form hidden for a moment by the doorframe. A moment later, a distinctive figure stepped into the kitchen. Dr Patil gazed around at them uncertainly.
His appearance was met with total silence. Nobody seemed to know what to say. Nobody that is, except Abby, who instructed Lara to pull up a chair for their guest. ‘The poor man has been through enough after all.’
However, Mrs M got there before her, placing a seat at the head of the kitchen table. ‘Mo, sit yourself here and I’ll get you a drink. Glad you could make it.’ Lara’s ears pricked up at the use of ‘Mo’ – so Mrs M was a close friend of the doctor.
Mrs M then turned to Lara, ‘I know the doctor wasn’t on your list, Lara, but I don’t for one moment believe this man here,’ she nodded at the doctor, ‘would have done anything to harm her. And he has as much right as anyone to understand how she died.’
The room that had been so silent a few minutes earlier was now filled with voices. Lara could make out Sarah’s voice exclaiming, ‘So, it was Honeybourne then?’ And Richard bellowing, ‘It was suicide I tell you. What are you on about, woman?’
This did not stop Lara hearing Abby whispering into her ear, ‘I would direct your attention to the doctor, Lara.’
Dr Patil was sitting as if turned to stone, his face stricken.
Abby loudly and abruptly clapped her hands making Lara (but nobody else) jump. ‘The time has come, Lara. May I ask that you invite the assembly to be seated.’
Lara did as she was told, helped by Sarah and Kate, who had been warned beforehand that they might be needed to get the guests seated.
Julian was the last one standing – or rather, edging to the door.
Kate blocked his passage and said one word: ‘Sit!’ He did as he was told, stumbling over his feet in his haste to get away from her.
‘Now,’ Abby breathed. ‘When I speak Lara, you are to speak.’
Lara could feel her heart hammering against her ribs, but she was prepared for this and ready to follow where her Kindred Spirit led her.
And that is how for next hour Lara McGregor and Abigail Rossmore (deceased) became as one. Lara’s voice was a heartbeat behind Abby’s cool, calm intonation but Lara felt Abigail’s presence supporting her at her shoulder as if she were a living, breathing woman of flesh and blood.
‘Dr Patil, would you mind telling everyone why Jason Honeybourne was arrested yesterday?’
Dr Patil looked around at them all. The Porters, Joe and Mrs M were sat further down the kitchen table from him, Julian was perched on the edge of an armchair by the French windows and Kate and Sarah occupied the stools by the kitchen island.
Lara (and Abby) were standing to the side of the kitchen island facing them all.
‘I believe that the police are charging Jason with numerous counts of theft, fraud and of obtaining money under false pretences.’
‘Not murder?’ Kate blurted.
Before Dr Patil could answer, Richard Porter boomed, ‘I knew he was up to no good! And the money that was missing. I knew he had something to do with it.’
‘Up to no good!’ Mrs M shot at him. ‘And who was it who was so greedy that he didn’t want people to receive the small bits and pieces that her Ladyship had left them?
’ She nodded significantly towards Dr Patil and Lara.
‘You were the one who invited him in! And you wonder that Jason Honeybourne helped himself to a bit more? I knew he was ferreting around, but I could never catch him at it. You think I wanted to stay here all this time, or that I would have done that for you?’ She glared at Richard Porter.
‘I did it for her. I would have done anything for her. I didn’t want her belongings carted off by the likes of him. ’
‘That is a completely false accusation. How dare y—’
‘Oh, do shut up, Richard.’ It was the first time Pinky Porter had spoken.
Richard Porter’s words trailed away.
‘So how were you involved?’ Sarah asked Dr Patil, and her quiet reasonable question brought calm to the room.
Dr Patil turned gratefully towards her. ‘I had suspected Jason Honeybourne for some time. Even before Elizabeth died I worried she might be selling too much. I wondered at first if she might need money…’
Lara thought fleetingly of blackmail and she also remembered the gaps in the artwork around Gillmore House.
‘…but whatever was going on I became worried that he might be taking advantage of her.’
‘I’d like to see that!’ Julian Armstrong muttered, with the air of one who had come off worse from encounters with her Ladyship.
Joe smothered a laugh, and Lara looked at him in surprise.
‘Sorry,’ he murmured.
Sarah was leaning forward on her stool, looking intently at the doctor. ‘You thought she wasn’t always herself, didn’t you?’
He held her gaze and nodded.
‘Her drinking?’