G Malliet - Death and the Lit Chick

"Look here, that's uncalled f-"

"But by your own admission, Magretta, you did throw the computer out of Kimberlee's window. It would just fit through the medieval arrow slit, wouldn't it? It's almost as if the stonemasons had planned for future technology. You had found Kimberlee dead when you went to the bottle dungeon, wandering about, maybe a little drunk. You stole Kimberlee's purse, with her key, from the crime scene. This was, of course, how you knew you had the free run of her room. Kimberlee was dead."

All heads turned to Magretta.

"What?" she said. "I had my reasons. He knows."

"Perhaps what you really wanted, Ms. Sincock, was to end the reign of Kimberlee and her pink handbags. Did you imagine killing her would put an end to the chick lit trend?"

"That's preposterous. Of course not."

"Yes," said St. Just. "I do tend to agree. Be all that as it may, B. A. King told the truth about the splash he heard. But he got the wrong angle on the blackmail, didn't he? Winston wasn't the blackmailer. According to Annabelle, that was Tom Brackett, a much more likely scenario. He was holding Easterbrook's feet to the fire so he could get expensive publicity and more promotion for his 'spy' books."

This earned Easterbrook a few reproachful stares, and a few wistful ones as well: Why didn't I think of doing that?

"Of all the nonsense…" began Tom. But he stopped on seeing the look on Easterbrook's face.

"You can find yourself a new publisher now this has all spilled open," Easterbrook told him. "That little game is over."

St. Just continued, "King did get a couple of things right. You see, it's so hard to tell when you're dealing with someone who deals in half-remembered gossip and innuendo. He also claimed to have seen Magretta skulking about when she claimed she was asleep or in communion with her Muse."

"I don't skulk," said Magretta. "I told you what I was doing. I helped your investigation, remember?"

"After first sabotaging it almost beyond repair, yes. Thanks so much. But let me come to the point. Someone here at the castle is not what they say they are.

"And that someone would be you, Desmond, the 'devoted husband.'"

There was a long pause. The others exchanged puzzled glances, then settled their eyes on Desmond. He kept his gaze stolidly fixed on St. Just.

"Tell me something, Desmond," said St. Just. "Satisfy my curiosity, let's say. Have you ever set foot inside the priest's hole?"

"What? No. No, never. What priest's hole?" he asked, in a voice loud and hoarse. He might have been shouting against a sudden influx of noise.

St. Just smiled in satisfaction. It was all he could have hoped for.

"Then why did forensics find strands of short dark hair in there? You're the only one we've got who would have any earthly reason to hang about the priest's hole that night. The rest of them had rooms.

"We can easily test hair for DNA, too, you know," he added.

The room fell into a hushed silence, the muted ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece the only sound. But St. Just thought he could almost hear the two minds that most concerned him communing telepathically across the room.

"Let me tell you how this happened," said St. Just. "You, Desmond, killed your wife, Kimberlee. It had to be done before she got around to filing divorce papers. My conversations with both her agent and her publisher elicited a portrait of Kimberlee as a steely woman of business-the type of person who could annihilate you in a divorce action. So the question, of course, is why she would want a divorce. Did she find out you'd been unfaithful? Or did she just want out herself? I gather she did have rather a short attention span for relationships. Either way, you couldn't have her suing you for divorce, quietly or otherwise. You'd become accustomed to the lifestyle her money provided… far more money than you'd ever made in your lifetime."

He looked at the man, closely watching his eyes, eyes that glanced nervously about the room, as if deliberately avoiding… a certain person. "You didn't arrive after the murder. You've been here all along. You hid in the priest's hole, and you returned there after you killed Kimberlee.

"But you left the castle the next morning, after Kimberlee's body was found. You changed clothes somewhere at a safe distance from the castle, and then you returned much later in your business suit to talk with the police, wearing your distraught-husband face."

"But," said Portia. "There were people crawling all over the place by then, and police guarding the only entrance. There's no way he could just walk out."

"Ah, you've come to the heart of the matter, Portia. I'll get to that in a minute," St. Just replied. "No, there was no way, Desmond, you could walk in or out as you pleased. You'd need help from an accomplice. An accomplice here in the castle.

"Let's trace it back, shall we? The drawbridge went up just before dinner and stayed up until Donna released Rachel Twalley and some of the other guests. She closed it behind them. The drawbridge opens only from the inside, and it makes a tremendous racket. We'd all have heard someone letting you in. You had to have come in before dinner, when it stood open.

"But here's a curious, related thing. We checked all the hotel's files going back years, and only one name appeared. And it wasn't yours, Desmond. Now, no one could just wander in and start looking about for the priest's hole. A stranger asking the staff about it would be sure to be remembered. No. It took someone who had been here, someone who knew the layout, someone to make sure the entrance to the priest's hole hadn't been sealed or obstructed at some point.

"It also needed someone to help you escape the next day, someone to act as lookout, someone to give you the all-clear signal.

"And that someone was… your lover, Annabelle Pace."

At this, the silence was broken by a collective gasp of disbelief.

"I told you," said Magretta.

"You did no such thing," said St. Just.

"You're mad," Annabelle said stoutly. "I'll not stay to listen to this."

At a nod from Moor, Sergeant Kittle lightly stepped over to block the door.

"I think you will. So, we have Desmond hiding in the priest's hole, and maybe taking a little nap there after the murder. Murdering one's wife is so fatiguing, is it not, Desmond? But… why not just plan to kill her and leave? Why? Because the drawbridge would be heard. You might also be seen fleeing across the grounds.

"At first I thought the original plan was that you would wait, hiding, until everyone was asleep and then slip out, risking the noise. Maybe stay in a hotel in Edinburgh that night under an assumed name. But now I don't think so. I think the plan all along was to sabotage the drawbridge-literally, throw a spanner in the works-so the castle would be sealed all night, providing you an airtight alibi, so to speak. There would be no way a 'stranger' could enter unheard. The storm and power outage allowed you to skip that little sabotage step. That part, I am sure, was to have been Annabelle's role. She was free to walk about, after all; you were not.

"You-you only had to sit tight in your hidey hole until the time was ripe. You were Annabelle's alibi. She didn't make a move that night without being seen by someone. She couldn't have done the killing, and she did not. By the way, where's your mobile, Desmond?"

"I left it at home by mistake, I was that upset," he said. His face was flushed. A thin, bright sheen of perspiration had appeared on his forehead.

"No," said St. Just. "Not a mistake. Your own alibi was that mobile message you supposedly sent to Kimberlee's phone from London.

"Only you didn't really send that message, did you? At least, not directly. You knew the police could tell from where the call was made. So you left your mobile at home in London. The simple thing would have been to bribe an accomplice to send the message from London for you, but that was a risk in itself. I think you-clever, technical genius you-programmed the mobile for a delayed send of a friendly message you'd written to Kimberlee. And then you headed for Scotland. Her mobile shows the message was sent at ten the night she died. Almost the exact minute you were killing her-the time you had planned in advance to kill her.