Dying For a Cruise (14 page)

But again the cook shook her head. ‘I don’t think that was it, no. Oh, it added a little piquancy, I suppose. But what he really wanted was a cat’s paw.’ And when Rycroft looked blank, added succinctly, ‘Divorce.’

Rycroft stared at her. ‘You think he wanted to divorce his wife?’

Jenny nodded. ‘I do.’

‘Why?’

The cook thought of Jasmine’s hot and hungry look that first morning, when she’d spotted Brian O’Keefe’s half-naked torso, and shrugged.

‘I imagine it had something to do with a man. Mrs Olney is very attractive, as you’ve probably already observed, and she is twenty years or so younger than her husband.’

Rycroft grunted. ‘So that’s the Leighs and Mrs Olney. Anyone else who might want our chap here dead?’

Jenny sighed. ‘I’m afraid so. Mr Olney and Lucas Finch had a terrible argument yesterday afternoon.’

‘How terrible?’

‘Mr Finch had Gabriel Olney by the throat. Quite literally, I mean. I had to insist that Lucas put him down. Mr Olney was turning a quite unbecoming shade of purple,’ she said, in massive understatement.

Rycroft swore roundly. As an effort at profanity, it was well beneath the parrot’s expertise, but the high squeaky voice with which he made his delivery might well have caught the bird’s attention, had he been present.

‘Anyone else?’

‘I think you’d better talk to Captain Lester about that,’ Jenny said at last. ‘I don’t know any of the details, but yesterday evening Mr Finch announced that he’d sold the
Stillwater Swan
to….’ She nodded down at the corpse, her eyes once again lingering in a puzzled frown on the cleanly drying body at her feet.

‘Sold the boat? What, this boat?’ Rycroft asked doubtfully, and obviously not grasping the significance at all.

Jenny sighed. As a general rule, she would never knowingly drop anybody in the cacky-cart, but when it was murder, you had no choice but to be a tattle-tale.

‘Lucas loves this boat like … well … like Dorothy Leigh loves her husband – with a blind kind of devotion. And I have no doubt whatsoever that he was somehow coerced into parting with it.’

Rycroft considered this for some time. ‘So. Our victim was blackmailing Lucas?’ he mused at last.

‘I can’t say that for sure, of course, but there was definitely some sort of paperwork involved in the argument yesterday. I saw Mr Olney put some papers away in his pocket,’ the Junoesque cook agreed.

‘Right.’ If he was feeling a bit battered by the relentless information being poured down on his head, Rycroft showed no sign. ‘So that’s—’ he counted them off ‘—four people who wanted our chap dead?’

Again, the cook heaved a massive sigh. ‘Both the captain and engineer work full-time for Lucas Finch. Both live in cottages in his grounds. Gabriel Olney was a do-it-yourself kind of man. He wanted the
Swan
to himself. I believe, although I don’t actually know,’ she said, determined to be scrupulously fair, ‘that last night Olney told Tobias and O’Keefe that their services would no longer be required.’

Rycroft sighed. Heavily. ‘So they lose their jobs and their homes as well in one fell swoop.’

Jenny shrugged. ‘Lucas might have been prepared to let them stay on at the cottages, but I’m sure he would have charged them rent.’

Rycroft finally hunkered down on his knees and looked at the dead man glumly. ‘Not very popular, were you, chum?’ he murmured. ‘Is there anybody you didn’t tick off?’

Jenny also took the opportunity to stoop down beside the body, her nose twitching.

She carefully shut her lips most firmly and then took several long breaths up her finely quivering nostrils. She had a cook’s delicate nose, one that was used to picking up the faintest nuances of aroma.

Rycroft watched her in amazement and fascination for a moment, and then hastily – very hastily – followed suit. Rather belatedly he remembered her fearsome reputation and felt a moment of panic. Had he missed something? It would be just too damned humiliating to have the case solved by a modern-day Miss Marple!

One moment of panic spread into more moments of panic, however, as his nose picked up nothing. No scent at all. So what the hell was she getting at?

‘What can you smell, Inspector?’ Jenny asked at last, that puzzled frown once more back on her face.

Rycroft made a very agitated movement with his hands and abruptly stood up. ‘Nothing,’ he snapped, aggrieved. ‘I smell nothing at all.’

Slowly, the cook rose to her own towering height, unknowingly adding to the inspector’s ire.

‘No,’ she finally said. ‘I can’t either,’ she added thoughtfully, making the policeman yearn to yank out great clumps of his hair by the roots.

Mercifully for him, there was a sudden knock on the door and Sergeant Graves entered. He’d been gone such a short time, the cook surmised that the police must have rigged up some sort of transport system to and from the boat site. Probably some sort of scrambling-style motorbike or a quad bike. Something, at any rate, that was easy and safe to use over farming terrain.

She wondered what the farmer thought about having the police cross-countrying across his fields. Probably not a lot, she mused with a wry twist of her lips.

‘We’ve got an old van outside, sir, to take the body,’ Graves said respectfully.

Jenny discreetly left. Rycroft watched her go, his face gloomy.

‘Everything we heard about her was spot on, you know, Graves,’ he said despondently. ‘She’s already onto something, but I’m damned if I know what it is. She’s got David Leigh pegged as the forger of the suicide note, and I’m not willing to bet so much as a penny that she’ll be proved wrong. And she’s got the rundown on every blasted person on the boat.’

Briefly, Rycroft filled his sergeant in on Miss Starling’s view of the suspects.

Graves whistled between his teeth. ‘Still, it does make our job much easier, doesn’t it?’ he finally said. ‘I mean, she’s not known for hogging the limelight, is she?’

Rycroft reluctantly admitted that she wasn’t. As far as the public was concerned, all the murders that she’d helped solve before had been put down to the credit of the various police officers involved. There was
that
to be said for her.

‘But,’ Rycroft said grimly, ‘I want us to get there first. Have David Leigh checked out thoroughly – he had some reason (other than the victim making lovey-dovey with his wife) to hate Olney, and I want to know what it is. Also, find out what you can about the widow’s socializing habits. There’s a man lurking about somewhere, I’d bet my last month’s wages. And I want Olney’s room turned inside out. He had some papers on him that had Lucas Finch grabbing him by the gullet. I want to know exactly what they are. And have a background check run on our Mr Finch. I’ve got an idea I’ve run across that name before somewhere. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if our cockney chum hasn’t got form of some kind.’

Sergeant Graves nodded as he made copious notes, and left with the two sombre-suited men who had come to remove the body.

Rycroft watched Gabriel Olney being loaded onto the stretcher but still couldn’t, for the life of him, see exactly what it was about the body that had so intrigued the cook.

Once the galley was cleared, Jenny proceeded to prepare dinner. It was no longer going to be such a lavish feast. For a start, it wouldn’t have been appropriate. Secondly, it was getting too late in the evening, and the guests and the two policemen would need something in a hurry. And thirdly, with more people to cater for, she couldn’t afford to be so lavish with the food.

She knew how these investigations could drag on. She could see them all still being on board the boat tomorrow night as well.

She put the finishing touches to a huge steak and kidney pudding and stepped outside, on the lookout for Lucas, to announce that dinner was ready.

But only Rycroft, Graves (who had returned after setting his superior’s orders in motion) and the two forensics men sat around the main salon. The others, perhaps not surprisingly, had taken themselves off to less harrowing, calmer parts of the
Swan
’s interior.

She wondered if somebody had sent for a doctor, just to check over Dorothy Leigh. A woman in her condition had to take care of herself and her unborn baby.

‘We’ve gone over everything, sir,’ the chief forensics man was saying. ‘Apart from the wet planking on the port deck, there’s nothing else amiss.

‘In the rear engineering sections, there’s only the usual equipment you might expect. An axe for the wood, with a large plastic sheet covering the woodpile. It’s totally dry. There’s a loading trolley, a half-full coal-room and plenty of oily rags. The equipment box for odds and ends is at the rear starboard deck. Again, it contains nothing more than you’d expect. Ropes, the same kind as the one used on the deceased, a block and tackle, boxes of nails, spare gauges … I’ve written it all down.’ He handed the detective the list.

Rycroft scanned it without much enthusiasm. ‘And the boat itself? Any irregularities or instances of cut corners that could be offences?’

But the man was already shaking his head. ‘Not that I know of, sir. Of course, this isn’t my field. But there’s a ship’s horn and a bell at the forward end. There are four life-rings, two on each side, both located at front and rear. Firmly fastened and fully inflated. The one on the rear starboard side, just above the equipment box, is on an especially large bracket. I imagine it was once used to hold something much heavier. And there’s a small lifeboat, situated at the rear, enough to seat ten people at a pinch. No, I’d say that the ship’s well run and as safe as houses.’

Rycroft nodded gloomily. ‘I expected as much. But best to make sure. Well, that’s it then. And you’re sure there are no papers in Olney’s room?’

The forensics man shook his head.

So they’d gone missing, Jenny mused. Interesting, that.

‘And you’ve found nothing suspicious around the scene of the crime itself?’ Rycroft pressed.

But it seemed that there wasn’t. Lucas Finch’s fingerprints were on the railing top, but then so were practically everyone else’s. More importantly – and revealingly – there were no fingerprints at all around the bottom of the railing, where the rope had been tied.

‘Humph. The killer obviously wore gloves,’ Rycroft sighed. ‘And, presumably, threw them away afterwards.’

By now, Jenny knew, all the rooms on the boat had been thoroughly searched, and nobody had brought a pair of gloves with them. In high summer, it was not so surprising, she thought. But surely, if somebody
had
brought gloves with them, it would mean the killing was premeditated.

Somehow, Jenny Starling had the feeling that the killing of Gabriel Olney had been anything but. Still, you didn’t need gloves in order not to leave fingerprints, she quickly surmised. Any piece of cloth wrapped around the hands would do. But she didn’t think it would be very politic to point that out to Inspector Rycroft right now. He was already looking considerably miffed that the killer was not in any apparent hurry to make his life easier for him.

‘Dinner is ready, Inspector,’ she said quietly, making the man jump and look around at her suspiciously. He wondered fleetingly how much she’d heard, then shrugged. The forensic report had hardly been important.

But, in fact, Jenny had found it fascinating. And very illuminating.

‘Right. Well, go and find the others, will you, Miss Starling? We might as well all eat a decent meal together like civilized human beings. Even though one of them isn’t.’

Jenny blinked at that rather unexpected statement, but followed the departing forensics team out onto the deck. This policeman certainly liked to do things differently all right. And she rather suspected he had the reputation as being a bit of a maverick, back at the old cop shop. She wondered if he was popular with his superiors, and somehow doubted it.

On the riverbank, the cook noticed two constables helping Brian O’Keefe set up the tents. She wondered where Rycroft and Graves would be spending the night.

She only knew that neither of them would be sleeping in
her
bunk. Nobody was going to filch her digs from her. No damned way!

She was just about to call out that dinner was served, and ask O’Keefe if he knew where everyone was, when she heard the sound of a motorbike.

She watched another young constable dismount and practically leap onto the boat. She wisely took a quick step back as he rushed past and then followed him in, wondering what all the excitement was about.

‘Sir, Constable Wright, sir.’ The young, red-faced bobby faced his superior with brightly gleaming eyes. He didn’t look any older than eighteen, Jenny thought with a smile. No doubt he’d never had a murder case before, and this was the height of excitement for him.

‘Slow down, Constable,’ Rycroft ordered prosaically. ‘You have news?’

‘We do, sir. We’ve spent the afternoon walking the riverside route the boat had taken, searching for witnesses who might have seen anything,’ he began, getting it all out on one shaky breath.

‘My idea, sir,’ Graves put in quietly. Obviously he was used to working on his own initiative, and was encouraged to do so, for Rycroft merely nodded.

‘Well, sir, we’ve found a chap – a fisherman – who says he saw the
Swan
going by, and noticed some man climbing down from the top balcony of the boat onto the bottom deck.’ The youngster paused, looking as pleased as punch to be able to deliver his next bit of news. ‘And he swears the figure was climbing down from the top at the rear end of the boat, sir. That would make it the victim’s room!’

F
OR A MOMENT
Inspector Rycroft merely stared at the triumphant-faced constable, his funnily ugly face splendidly inscrutable. You could almost hear his brain working, so obviously was he mulling the information around. Then he grunted.

‘This fisherman,’ he began. ‘I hope you checked that he had the proper licences and permits?’

The constable’s jaw dropped. Whatever he’d expected, it most certainly hadn’t been that. Come to that, it wasn’t the first thing that had leapt to Jenny Starling’s mind either. But then, she wasn’t as pedantic as the inspector.

‘Well, no, sir. I mean, sir, it slipped my mind, sir,’ he mumbled. ‘I thought you should have his information urgently, sir,’ he rallied. For it had suddenly occurred to the youth that there was a distinct possibility that his superior officer was having a little joke at his expense. Jenny wasn’t so sure.

Whether he was a secret leg-puller or not, Rycroft merely grunted again at this explanation. But behind the somewhat laconic facade, Jenny could sense that his astute mind was still rapidly working away at this new information and what it could mean.

She herself was feeling just a bit distracted. The mere possibility that Rycroft might have a sense of humour was enough to boggle the cook’s mind.

‘You have this witness at the station?’ Rycroft asked, to which the constable nodded so energetically his helmet nearly fell off.

‘He’s made a full statement?’

The constable very ceremoniously withdrew a sheet of paper. Rycroft read it, his eyebrow going up.

When he spoke, however, it was to Tobias Lester. ‘I take it that there is only one man on board who fits the description of a male, between the ages of twenty to thirty, with thick black hair, and dressed in white work trousers and a white shirt?’

Tobias met the policeman’s eyes for a scant second, and then looked swiftly away again. He looked, Jenny thought, almost angry. ‘You know the answer to that as well as I do, Inspector,’ he finally said, somewhat grimly. ‘Brian O’Keefe is the only young and black-haired man aboard this boat.’

As he spoke he looked at David Leigh. But David, although brown haired, wore neither white trousers nor white shirt. Only an engineer traditionally wore white.

Rycroft nodded. He too had noticed the captain’s reaction, but was less surprised by it than Jenny. As a man who had charge of subordinates himself, he knew how easy it was to feel protective of them.

The crew and guests of the
Stillwater Swan
had gathered in the main salon/dining room ostensibly for dinner, but the inspector knew that it was really curiosity that had gathered them together so rapidly. From their various positions on the boat they must have heard the motorcycle and looked out to see the excited entrance of the constable. One and all, they’d come down quickly and congregated to see what all the fuss was about, and had been richly rewarded for their efforts.

Only Jenny, alone among them, looked not so much relieved as thoughtful by this latest news.

Nobody liked to have the charge of murder hanging over their heads, and if it had to be somebody, then everyone was secretly relieved that it should be Brian O’Keefe. Brian O’Keefe, after all, was the outsider. The hired help. Brian O’Keefe, it had to be said, was not one of
them
.

The inspector looked once again at Tobias who, to give him credit, was looking exceedingly unhappy, and said quietly, ‘I take it that the engineer is in the boiler room?’

The captain nodded reluctantly.

Sergeant Graves led the way to the door, then, as an afterthought, turned to wave one meaty paw at the assembly, silently indicating that he would like them to remain seated. This time, the policeman didn’t want an audience.

Jenny, though, had other ideas, and nodded at Francis. ‘The dinner is prepared and ready in the galley, Mr Grey,’ she said briskly, then turned on her heel and firmly followed the two officers out onto the deck.

Francis Grey thinned his lips at being spoken to like a servant by what he deemed to be nothing more than another servant, then glanced at his employer to see if he too had noticed the outrage. But Lucas, who had his own views on the enigmatic cook – which didn’t include getting on her bad side! – merely shrugged and said quietly, ‘Well, I for one, am hungry,’ and, like the good host that he was, ushered his guests to the table.

Francis took the hint with apparent magnanimity and quickly disappeared into the galley.

Out on the deck Jenny softly called Rycroft’s name. Since he was by now at the rear deck he had to pause and wait for her to catch up. The sun was just setting, casting a lovely red-orange glow over the river. The solid bulk of the sergeant cast a great shadow over the tiny man, but he appeared not to notice it.

‘Can I ask at what time this witness saw Mr O’Keefe climbing down onto the lower deck?’ she asked, as soon as she’d drawn level with them.

Rycroft quickly consulted the witness statement again, his eyes narrowing. He looked as if he might like to let rip with a curse, but refrained himself with an effort. Unfortunately, this self-restraint made his face quiver and his eyes bulge. To Jenny’s somewhat alarmed eye, he looked a bit like a frog made out of blancmange that she’d once created for a child’s birthday party.

Which gave her an excellent idea to recreate the design, this time as a birthday cake. The dons at the college where she worked often called upon her to bake a cake for their offspring.

‘It says here it was about a quarter past two,’ Rycroft admitted grimly, snapping the cook’s attention back to the matter in hand.

She sighed deeply. ‘I see.’

Graves’ great bulk shuddered, just once, as he too understood the full import of the timing. If the murder hadn’t been committed until between 4 and 4.15, then….

‘What the blazes was he up to?’ Sergeant Graves muttered more to himself than to anyone else.

‘I shouldn’t attach too much importance to this business, Inspector Rycroft, if I were you,’ Jenny said quietly. She was always reluctant to offer advice, mainly because people so seldom had the good sense to take heed of sound advice when it was offered. She did so now only because she was sure that Rycroft was the sort of man who could get very nasty if he was seen to be publicly embarrassed.

‘Oh?’ Rycroft said icily.

Jenny smiled. ‘I think you’ll find that O’Keefe was searching for the papers that Gabriel Olney was brandishing about yesterday afternoon, during the fight he had with Lucas. I think that he and probably the captain, got their heads together sometime yesterday evening and mapped out a plan of action.’

Rycroft thought for a second or so and, intrigued in spite of himself, said somewhat less coolly, ‘Carry on.’

‘I think they thought that if they could destroy whatever Olney was using to blackmail Mr Finch, then the plan to sell the
Swan
would fall through, and their jobs and homes would be safe.’

‘But surely Olney would have made copies?’ Graves pointed out with reasonable logic.

Jenny shrugged. ‘I imagine that occurred to them too. But it was worth a chance. After all, it wouldn’t be hard. During dinner, O’Keefe was always absent, so nobody would remark on it. He could take a good long hour to meticulously search the Olneys’ room. If he found the papers, well, all to the good. If it turned out that Olney could produce duplicates when the time came to hand over the deeds to the boat, well, what had they lost? I should think that to men of action like O’Keefe and Captain Lester, they would consider it a chance well worth taking. And better by far than attempting to do nothing about it at all.’

Rycroft slowly stroked his chin. ‘So you don’t think it has anything to do with the murder itself?’

But on that, Jenny was too wily to be drawn. She merely shrugged and said that, at the moment, she couldn’t see how it could have.

Rycroft reluctantly agreed, but nevertheless proceeded to march straight into the boiler room like an invading fury.

Jenny, who’d never taken a really good look around inside the engine room before, took the opportunity to follow them in and have a good nose.

The room was more or less divided into two, with the wood and coal in one section of the room and the actual boiler and engine in the other. O’Keefe, who’d been sat on top of a fairly respectable woodpile, slowly stood up. His feet rustled a crumpled sheet of thick plastic that he’d cast aside and which now lay on the floor.

‘Yeah?’ he asked, not quite surly, not quite polite.

‘We would like to know what you were doing in Gabriel Olney’s room at two o’clock this afternoon,’ Rycroft said, not quite surly, not quite polite.

O’Keefe gave him a long, slow, measuring look. No doubt he was wondering what the policeman actually knew, and how much he had merely guessed.

Rycroft smiled. It was quite a nasty smile. ‘You were seen, O’Keefe,’ he said shortly. ‘So let’s not have any fun and games, hmm?’

Brian ran a dirty hand through his dark hair, then shrugged. ‘Oh. Right. Well, then, I suppose I’d better tell yer. I was looking for them papers of Olney’s.’

If he thought anyone would be surprised by his answer, he was thoroughly disappointed. Rycroft merely gave a what-did-I-tell-you-about-this-damned-cook look to his sergeant, and Graves gave a there’s-more-to-you-than-meets-the-eye look at Jenny Starling, and O’Keefe was left to wonder, in some frustration, just what it was that was going on.

‘Did you find them?’ Rycroft got on with it brusquely.

Reluctantly O’Keefe nodded.

Rycroft held out his hand.

O’Keefe stared at it for a moment, then shrugged, then smiled. It was a roguish smile. No doubt, Jenny thought with a wry twist of her lips, Jasmine would have found it very appealing, if she’d been present.

O’Keefe shook his head. ‘I ain’t got ’em on me. I hid ’em upstairs, in the lav.’

‘Go and get them,’ Rycroft ordered shortly.

O’Keefe nodded and moved forward. Just when he’d got to the door, Jenny, whose mind had wandered a little, suddenly snapped to, and said curiously, ‘Is this the wood we saw you bring on board yesterday?’ She nodded at the woodpile on which he’d been sitting.

The engineer, somewhat surprised by the cook’s presence, not to mention the copper’s tolerance of her, looked at her suspiciously. ‘What’s it to you then?’

‘Just answer her,’ Rycroft snapped, although he too wondered why the infuriatingly useful woman wanted to know. He also wondered just where she could possibly be headed with the seemingly irrelevant question.

‘Yeah, it is,’ O’Keefe said slowly.

‘Is it dry?’

‘Yeah, it is.’

Jenny nodded. ‘So why did you cover it with plastic?’

Rycroft, who’d been becoming impatient with the cook’s continued questions, suddenly began to look alert.

O’Keefe, too, stared at her. ‘I didn’t,’ he said at last. ‘I found it on the wood this afternoon. I was the one that took it off – it can make the wood sweat, see, in this kind of heat. Which is the last thing I need.’

‘What time this afternoon?’ Rycroft cut in, not because he thought the answer important, and not because he could see any significance in it. He just wanted to get the question in before the cook could.

But Brian shrugged. ‘I dunno. After lunch sometime. Before we started off. Just gone three, summat like that.’ He shrugged in obvious indifference. Or was he just faking it?

Jenny felt her heartbeat quicken. So, she was right! But knowing how a murder was done was not the same thing as knowing who had done it.

Rycroft, sensing that the cook was now way ahead of him, as usual, snarled at O’Keefe to get going, then stared at the woodpile and the sheet of innocuous plastic. But try as he might, he couldn’t see what wood, plastic and the engineer had to do with anything.

Jenny, rather wisely, chose that moment to excuse herself and check that her fruit tarts weren’t burning.

Rycroft made no move to stop her. Only when they were safely alone did he turn to Graves, one eyebrow lifted.

‘Well?’

But Graves couldn’t see what the cook had been getting at either. It left both men feeling rather frustrated, not to mention nervous. So far, no policeman had out-thought the cook. Both of them were anxious to be the first, and thus restore honour to the Oxfordshire constabulary. But they were beginning to lose their previous self-confidence.

Which went part of the way, at least, to explaining why they were so hard on Lucas Finch when they returned to the dining room some ten minutes later.

By then, the soup had been mostly consumed, and Jenny put two servings of the main course into the oven to keep hot, for the policemen to enjoy later. When they stepped back into the dining room, she was just emerging from the galley with a large, shortcrust pasty tart, filled with apricots, raspberries, blackcurrants and plums, in an apricot-brandy jelly. This she put onto the side table to come to room temperature, which is when it should be served to be at its best, and noticed the pinched and disapproving look on Rycroft’s face. Graves, she noticed, for once
did
look grave.

The parrot on Lucas’s shoulder dipped its head from side to side. ‘What’s up with you, shortarse?’ it asked, rather loudly.

Rycroft went beetroot.

Lucas, for once, could have throttled the bird. ‘Don’t mind him, Inspector,’ he said hastily. ‘It’s what I’m always saying to him. First thing in the morning, I open up his cage – he always sleeps in one at night – give him a raisin and say, “What’s up with you, shortarse?”’ He trailed off miserably as he became aware that his explanations and apologies were falling on deaf ears.

Rycroft, with the manner of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, took a fairly thick wad of papers from out of his suit breast pocket and said grimly, ‘Do you recognize these, Mr Finch?’

It was immediately apparent, to Jenny at least, that Jasmine Olney certainly recognized them. She watched them pass across the table, from policeman to her host, her eyes widening.

She’d seen her husband reading them several times over the past week. If only she’d known that they were so important! Her look of vexation made Jenny wonder what else Jasmine Olney might have overlooked.