G Malliet - Death of a Cozy Writer

“I wonder if they organize redundancies in the afterlife? That would be Ruthven’s idea of heaven, I imagine,” said George. “Frankly, I prefer to think of him as dead and gone, Sarah. If you would mind not prattling on right now I’d be grateful.”

“He hasn’t yet passed; I feel that strongly,” she said. “The chains that bound him to earth were too strong. He has issues.”

Albert fought to suppress a smile, in spite of the appalling situation in which they found themselves. Sarah must have gleaned the “issues” word from her reading of self-help books, which always seemed to be American in origin, the British not having yet gotten around to writing Keeping a Stiff Upper Lip on Your Inner Child.

“Whatever,” said George, patiently, for him. “Sarah, please, I beg of you. My head is throbbing.”

“I know just the thing for headache,” said Sarah. “You make a paste of ground cloves and almonds and then apply it to your forehead.”

“Really? And you walk around all day like that, do you?” said George. “I think plain aspirin would be fine.”

Albert was starting to marvel at George’s self-control. Normally, that kind of remark from Sarah would have rated at least a sneer. He suddenly realized that for the first time in memory, he himself was without a hangover and not in need of aspirin. It was disconcerting, like walking from a dark room into daylight, and he wasn’t sure whether he liked it.

Natasha rose.

“I’ll go and fetch some for you.”

They made sure she was gone before they resumed speaking.

“I suppose I should offer belated congratulations,” said Albert. “She seems an extraordinary woman.”

“Like you would know. What do you think happens to the will now? With Ruthven gone?”

Albert shrugged. The question didn’t surprise him, considering the source. “Father will have to write another. Nothing’s changed, has it, really? He’ll just start to play the old shell game again, only with fewer peas.”

“Except my slice of the pie just got bigger, didn’t it?” said George.

“Did it? Well, if you want to pursue food metaphors, it’s not as if the pie were ever evenly divided. And we still don’t know what provisions he’s made for Herself.”

“Violet, you mean. Yes, of course. Still…”

But Albert was no more in the mood for speculation about money and inheritance than George was prepared to discuss Natasha and the impending, suspiciously convenient, birth.

“You do realize, George, don’t you, that Ruthven was murdered. Here, in this house. Possibly by one of us here, in this house?”

He couldn’t quite bring himself to say, “in this room,” but that was certainly what had him preoccupied.

“One of us? Don’t be silly. An intruder-”

“An intruder wouldn’t be much of an improvement on the situation, would he? What if this intruder comes back?”

“Do you really think so, Albert?” said Sarah. “That he might come back?” She shivered, rubbing her hands before the fire. “It’s awful, isn’t it? Poor Ruthven. He must have been terrified.”

“I refuse to feel sorry for him,” said George. “When did he ever feel sorry for me?”

Albert felt the “for me” was rather typical. Ruthven had been dreadful to all of them.

Sarah might have been thinking along similar lines.

“It’s not always all about you, George.”

George seemed honestly baffled by this comment.

“Who else would it be about?”

Sarah sighed.

“Really, George. I must say, your self-absorption is quite… complete at times.”

“Self-absorption? That’s a nice way of putting it,” said Albert. In a portentous voice, he said: “Send not to ask for whom the world turns: It turns for thee, George.”

“And just look who’s talking.”

“Not now,” said Sarah. “I won’t be able to stand it if we all start fighting now. If ever there were a time to close ranks-”

She was interrupted by the arrival of law and order, in the person of Sergeant Fear. Having been listening outside the door in an attitude reminiscent of Paulo the night before, Fear had been trying to decide which of them sounded sufficiently strung out to be ripe for questioning. None of them sounded serene. But if Fear understood the situation correctly, this George person was now the eldest and next in line for the throne, his brother having conveniently been painted out of the picture.

One thing St. Just had drilled into him was first to ask, “Who profits?” Judging from the look of George (once he had settled on which of the two men he was-there was not much choice between the handsome blonde one and the handsome dark-blonde one), they might be able to wrap this one up by lunchtime.

Snotty little upper-class twit, was Sergeant Fear’s summing up-the kind he used to revel in pulling over for speeding before he’d been elevated to the detective ranks. Not that he didn’t still enjoy doing that from time to time, but he had less time in his schedule for it now. Priorities.

“Mr. George Beauclerk-Fisk,” he said, with elaborate, and deceptive, politeness. “If you would be so kind, DCI St. Just of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary would like a word.”

George looked as though he might like to claim a prior engagement, but could think of none. Languidly, he unfolded himself from the sofa and followed Fear out of the room.

Albert leaned over to say something to Sarah, but just then his eye caught a movement in the doorway. No sooner had Fear left his listening post than he had been replaced by a young constable, who stood fidgeting there uncertainly, trying and failing to become invisible. Clearly he had his marching orders: Keep an eye on this lot.

St. Just found George, as he slouched into the conservatory in his male-model way, no more inspiring than Sergeant Fear had done. As much as he tried to quell the natural tendency, St. Just’s own experience was that fleeting first impressions-positive or negative-were often perfectly correct. While outwardly George was the image of the hip young man about town beloved of sports car manufacturers, St. Just was more strongly reminded of the lads he’d had to pull in for questioning when he first joined the force. That haunted look around the eyes meant drugs, in those cases, nearly always. Drugs in this case, also?

He motioned George to the cheetah-patterned chair opposite and quickly ran through the preliminaries-name, address, occupation. The beginning of an investigation seldom allowed time for in-depth questioning, although St. Just had a feeling George would have a lot more to contribute as the inquiry progressed. For the moment, St. Just was simply flying without instruments, using visual cues as his guide. Frequently, it was not what people told him that was of value-so often people took forever to get to the kernel of what they knew-but how they behaved during the telling. At times, he found just asking questions to which he knew the answers perfectly well to be a useful technique.

“Now, Mr. Beauclerk-Fisk: What was your relationship with your brother?”

“Quite civil,” George replied evenly. “Of course, we saw little of each other, which helped.”

“No sibling rivalry to speak of?”

“Not beyond the usual.” George began to study his manicure with riveted interest.

“Ruthven was the eldest?”

“Yes. I was second eldest, followed by Albert and Sarah. We came along at quite regular intervals; in fact, we all have nearly the same birthday, in April. We concluded from this that the mating season for my father was every August, when my parents took their annual holiday in Torquay. They never seemed to get along the rest of the year. These were all in the line of miracle births, Inspector.”