G Malliet - Death and the Lit Chick

"An evening bag," offered Portia.

"Right. An evening bag. She may just have left it in her room. She's still wearing her jewelry…"

Portia again spoke up. "You can forget robbery as a motive. I never saw her with jewelry of any value. What she had on tonight-still has on-is costume jewelry, enameled. Of a good quality, but not real jewelry. That's a nice watch she has on, though, and she's still wearing it."

DCI Moor, who only just now seemed to wonder how this civilian had injected herself so thoroughly into his case, turned deliberately to St. Just to ask his next question:

"Did she generally carry anything else worth stealing? Large sums of money?"

"I wouldn't know," said St. Just. "I have to agree with Ms. De'Ath here. It doesn't look to me as if she had anything on her worth stealing, apart from the watch. And wearing that dress, it's unlikely in the extreme she could have anything hidden on her person."

DCI Moor scratched at the slight growth of white stubble on his chin. "The storm is going to help us," he said at last.

"How so?"

"The road was near to impassible earlier tonight. It was really chucking it down, and for ages. No one came here by car, I'd wager. We barely made it through ourselves."

"You are thinking one of the staff, or one of the guests in the hotel…?"

Moor nodded. "And you agree?"

"Someone could have come in on foot through the woods, over the grounds… but it's doubtful," said St. Just. "For one thing, there's too big a chance of being seen-nearly all the rooms have a prospect. They'd be soaking, besides."

Moor nodded.

"We're lucky in other ways. Sometimes we have the haar this time of year, working to the advantage of the villains. Making them harder to spot, you see."

At St. Just's questioning look, he explained:

"It's a fog-dense as foam, it is-that comes in from the North Sea. You could hide your granny inside the haar and she'd not be found for days. Who is here besides the crime writers?"

"The staff, mainly," said St. Just. "Lord Easterbrook took over the place for the writers, exclusively. He also invited a couple of writers' agents, and a publicist."

"How many people are we talking about?" asked Moor.

"The Easterbrook party? About ten or eleven of them."

St. Just turned to Portia for confirmation.

"And someone brought Quentin Swope, the reporter," she said. "He got stuck here by the storm, I guess-by the drawbridge's not working. I saw him sitting with the group watching the telly just before we lost the lights. Oh, and Rachel Twalley, from the conference-she left earlier, with a contingent of Edinburgh nobs. Donna Doone, the hotel's event coordinator, closed the drawbridge behind them. Lucky escape for Rachel, that."

"How well do you know these people?" asked Moor of St. Just.

"I've known them for just a few days, during the conference."

"And you?" Moor asked Portia. "How well, for example, did you know this Kimberlee? Can someone spell that for me, by the way?"

Portia complied, adding, "I knew her hardly at all. She was on the train with me from London. Friendly… to a point. But she slept most of the way, so there was little time for confidences. Actually, I didn't gather the impression Kimberlee was given to confidences. As to the rest of them: We've all more or less bumped into each other before on the circuit-seen each other at conferences and things."

"But not Kimberlee?"

She shrugged.

"Kimberlee was what you call an overnight sensation. I don't know how well the others knew her. Kimberlee and I share, or shared, an agent-Ninette Thomson-who may know her fairly well. At least she may have known her for some time-not quite the same thing, is it?"

Portia added that they were all scheduled to leave tomorrow.

"Today, rather. Sunday," she said.

"No," said Moor.

St. Just also shook his head. "No one goes anywhere for the foreseeable future."

Moor turned to St. Just, indicating the stairs.

"Come along, Cambridge. You may as well lend a hand so long as you're here."

St. Just hesitated. "I have virtually no authority here. You know that."

"Of course. None, really."

This last came out as "noon rally" to Portia's ears. She looked mystified for a moment, then St. Just saw the penny drop, and smiled. He had a sudden nostalgic turn for "Agnes the Cook"-an ancient, ribald Scottish lady in a nursing home in Cornwall who had been a key witness in a case of his the year before.

"But then," Moor went on, "the suspects won't know that until it's too late. I say what goes on in my patch and I say you're helping us with inquiries-I'll square it with your Super, never fear. And you being a Sasannach is something I'm willing to overlook. Have to make allowances sometimes, you know."

This last was said with a smile to take the edge off-barely. St. Just knew it wasn't worth arguing that he was hardly a Saxon. He lived in England and that was enough as far as Moor was concerned.

St. Just suddenly did not fancy any lag's chances up against Ian Moor. There was more going on behind that jolly Father Christmas-mustachioed facade than met the eye.

For that reason, he didn't bother to ask why Moor didn't first have him, St. Just, checked out for rogue-cop tendencies: He felt certain the Scottish detective was already planning to do just that.

By now they had reached the top of the bottle dungeon stairs and entered the hallway. They could see across the lobby and through to the drawbridge where, in time-honored fashion, three workmen were standing around chatting, presumably "supervising" the work of the one doing the actual work, a man displaying an impressive buttock cleavage at the top of his jeans. Repairs on the drawbridge mechanism were apparently continuing.

One of the hotel's maids appeared near the reception area, handily carrying a tray that had to be half her body weight. Apparently the beleaguered guests were to be provided tea to calm their nerves. She-St. Just recalled her name as Florie-seemed to register the same workman's phenomenon; as she passed down the hallway, St. Just heard her fume, "Lazy sods. Three women would have had that fixed already-but for this we bring in reinforcements." She strode toward the drawbridge as if to drop off this opinion on her way.

Moor turned to St. Just.

"Who knows? With your help, maybe we'll all get to go home just that wee bit sooner."

"All except for the murderer," said St. Just.

"Yes." Again, the twinkle that was nearly a wink. Moor did seem to be a man who enjoyed his work. "Except for the murderer."

The investigation began with a search of Kimberlee Kalder's room, Inspector Moor first having directed his team to collect statements from everyone in the castle, staff and guests alike. But St. Just also heard him say the guests were the real focus, and he couldn't but agree with that strategy. With sexual assault to all appearances ruled out, along with robbery, it was hard to see how the staff were involved, barring a complete lunatic having gotten past the hotel's human resources department.

"Tell them they are not to go back to their rooms until we give them permission to do so," Moor concluded his instructions. Donna Doone was dispatched from her current occupation of fluttering anxiously about the lobby to find the best place to interview witnesses. Eventually they settled on two of the hotel's small meeting rooms on the second floor, the St. Andrew and the round-walled Sir Walter Scott.

Donna having provided them a passkey, the three men-DCI St. Just, DCI Moor, and Sergeant Kittle-entered Kimberlee's room, knowing they couldn't do much before SOCO arrived but take a visual survey.

St. Just thought he would have known it was Kimberlee's room without having to be told. Clothes were strewn everywhere, in a lacy black and hot pink explosion that looked, somehow, viral against the red tartan decor. Not just a blouse or two draped over a chair, either-it was as if the entire contents of a woman's boutique had been tipped into the room. Many items still wore their price tags. He took a peek at one, being careful of prints, and winced at the triple-digit cost.