Dick Francis: Hot Money

"He could have detested Moira."

"Absolutely," I said, "but why should he want to kill Malcolm, whom he liked? I saw his face when he found Malcolm was alive that morning after the bomb, and he was genuinely glad."

"Everyone wants it to be Arthur Bellbrook," she said obstinately. "He found her body."

"If the police thought he'd done it, they wouldn't have been so suspicious of Malcolm."

"You've got an answer for everything," she complained.

I had myself for a while wished it to be Arthur. After all, there had been the affair of the prize vegetables (but he'd sounded philosophical about them, and would anyone kill for so little?) and he'd been in the army and might know about explosives. But he stood to lose rather than gain from Malcolm's death, and it was beyond believing that he would trace Malcolm to Cambridge, follow him to Newmarket Sales and try to run him down. That was the work of obsession. Arthur placidly digging potatoes; Arthur enjoying the temporary fame; Arthur looking after the dogs. Arthur had been the personification of stolid, sensible balance.

Besides, whoever had tried to run Malcolm down at Newmarket had guessed Malcolm would leave the sales with me and would come to the car-park, and at that point Arthur would have had no reason to think so. He didn't know me. Hadn't met me until he came into the house with his shot-gun, thinking I was a burglar. I'd had to exclude Arthur, although with regret.

Joyce said, "Darling, how do you expect to succeed where the police have failed?"

"The police can't do what we can do."

"What do you mean? What can we do?"

I told her. Malcolm's mouth opened and there was a long silence from Joyce.

"Let me get this straight," she said eventually. "You want me to telephone to everyone in the family…"

"Everyone," I said emphatically. "If a husband answers, tell him, then ask to speak to the wife, and tell her too. And vice versa."

"Yes," she said. "I'm to say you're in Australia, both of you. Right?"

"Yes."

"I'm to gush. Dreadful word, where did you learn it? I'm to let all this drip out as if it were of absolutely no importance but something I've just thought of? Darling, you can't mean I have to ring up Alicia?"

"Especially Alicia. Tell her I told you she has a boyfriend. That should stir her up nicely."

"Darling, you don't mean it!"

"Ask her. And… er… do you know if the police are still guarding Quantum?"

"They told Donald that if he wanted constant guards, he'd have to get his own now. No one in the family wants to spend the money, so the police just have it on their occasional surveillance list, apparently."

"And has anything else much happened in the family since we've been away?"

"No, nothing new. Thomas left Berenice, did you know that?"

"Yes… Is he still with Lucy?"

"Yes, darling, I think so. Do you want me to tell him too?"

"You might as well."

"I'm to think of something to phone them about and gossip a bit, and then I'm to say that I don't really care who killed Moira, but I don't think the police were thorough. Is that right? They never thought of looking for her notepad, the one she used to keep in the kitchen, in one of the drawers of those dazzling white cabinets. When anyone telephoned when she was in the kitchen, which was a lot of the time, she doodled their names with stars and things round it and wrote notes like 'Donald, Sunday, noon' when people were coming to visit. I'm to say the police could never have found it but I've just remembered it, and I wonder if it's still there. I'm thinking of telling the police about it after the weekend. Is that right?"

"That's right," I said.

"And I'm to say, what if she wrote down the name of her murderer?"

"Yes," I said.

"Darling, why do you think her murderer telephoned? To make an appointment to kill her? You don't mean that, do you?"

"To make an appointment to see her, yes. To kill her, I don't know."

"But why, darling? Why do you think the killer telephoned?"

"Because Malcolm told me she didn't like people just dropping in," I said. "She preferred people to telephone first. And because Moira's greenhouse can't be seen from the road, the drive, or from any windows of Quantum. Malcolm made her put it where it was well out of sight on that patch of lawn surrounded by shrubs, because he didn't like it. If anyone had come to see Moira unannounced that evening, they'd have found the house empty. If they'd telephoned first, she'd have said to come round to the greenhouse, that's where she'd be."

"I suppose that's logical, darling. The police always did say she knew her killer, but I didn't want to believe it unless it was Arthur Bellbrook. He knew her. He fits all round, darling."

"If Arthur had killed her, why would he go back later and find her body?"

"Darling, are you sure it wasn't Arthur Bellbrook?"

"Positive."

"Oh dear. All right then, darling. You want me to start those phone calls tomorrow but definitely not before ten o'clock, and to go on all day until I've reached everyone? You do realise, I hope, that I'm playing in a sort of exhibition bridge game tomorrow evening?"

"Just keep plugging along."

"What if they're out, or away?"

"Same thing. If nothing happens and we get no results, I'll phone you on Monday evening."

"Darling, let me go to Quantum with you."

"No, definitely not." I was alarmed. "Joyce, promise me you'll stay in Surrey. Promise!"

"Darling, don't be so vehement. All right, I promise." She paused. "Was that old bugger in good nick when you last saw him?"

"In excellent nick," I said.

"Can't help being fond of him, darling, but don't bloody tell him I said so. Can't go back, of course. But well, darling, if there's one thing I regret in my life it's getting that frightful man West to catch him with Alicia. If I'd had any bloody sense, darling, I'd have turned a blind eye and let him have his bit on the side. But there it is, I was too young to know any better."

She said goodbye cheerfully, however, promising to do all the phone calls in the morning, and I put the receiver down slowly. "Did you hear any of that last bit?" I asked Malcolm.

"Not a lot. Something about if she'd had any sense, she wouldn't have done something or other."

"Wouldn't have divorced you," I said.

He stared incredulously. "She insisted on it."

"Twenty-seven years later, she's changed her mind."

He laughed. "Poor old Joyce." He spent no more thought on it. "Moira didn't doodle on notepads that I know of."

"I dare say she didn't. But if you were a murderer, would you bet on it?"

He imagined it briefly. "I'd be very worried to hear from Joyce. I would think long and hard about going to Quantum to search for the notepad before she told the police."

"And would you go? Or would you think, if the police didn't find it when Moira was first murdered, then it isn't there? Or if it is there, there's nothing incriminating on it?"

"I don't know if I would risk it. I think I would go. If it turned out to be a silly trap of Joyce's, I could say I'd just come to see how the house was doing." He looked at me questioningly. "Are we both going down there?"

"Yes, but not until morning. I'm jet-lagged. Don't know about you. I need a good sleep."

He nodded. "Same for me.

"And that shopping you were doing?" he eyed the several Fortnum amp; Mason carrier bags with tall parcels inside. "Essential supplies?"

"Everything I could think of. We'll go down by train and…"

He waved his cigar in a negative gesture. "Car and chauffeur." He fished out his diary with the phone numbers. "What time here?"

Accordingly, we went in the morning in great comfort and approached Quantum circumspectly from the far side, not past the eyes of the village.