In Love And Murder, page 12
Ffion wondered if this was the elusive member of parliament that Bridget was trying to track down. It sounded like he was enjoying himself. She noted down his words, and resumed listening at double speed. There were still hours left to listen to.
Sometimes Gina returned to the kitchen to collect more drinks or food. It was quieter away from the main party and Ffion was able to hear the snatched conversations between the three waitresses more clearly.
Have you seen that guy in the jester mask? (Ffion recognised Miranda’s voice.) What a jerk! He keeps grabbing my bum.
They think they can get away with anything, like no one knows who they are behind those masks.
You should complain to Brittany, they’re only supposed to get off with the escorts.
Brittany doesn’t care about that, just as long as the guests stay happy. (Ffion’s ears pricked up with interest at that.)
That plague doctor’s giving me the creeps. He stares at me every time I walk past.
You’ll never guess who’s here. (This was clearly Gina’s voice.)
Who? Someone famous?
Dr Frost.
Who?
You know, the German lecturer at college.
Oh, him. (Disinterested.) What’s he doing here?
Brisk footsteps were picked up on the recording and then Ffion heard the voice of Brittany sounding cross and bossy.
Come on, hurry up. What are you all doing in here? There should only be one of you in the kitchen at a time. You need to keep the guests supplied with food and drink.
So, thought Ffion, with some satisfaction, the personal assistant’s own mask was beginning to slip. She wasn’t quite as nice as she pretended to be.
From the change in background noise, Ffion knew that Gina had moved back into the main room. The murmur of multiple conversations was growing louder as the guests imbibed more alcohol and began to relax. For a long while, Ffion could make out nothing of any significance, then she hit pause again, and replayed another section.
There was a clink of glasses, and then Gina whispered something indistinct to one of the guests. A man’s voice – it was recognisably Dr Frost’s – replied, ‘What was that?’ His voice was muffled, as if he had a mouthful of food.
‘I said, you should leave,’ said Gina emphatically. ‘You don’t belong here.’
There was no reply, and after a minute Ffion surmised that Gina had returned to the kitchen. The clink of glasses and cutlery being loaded into a dishwasher temporarily drowned out all other sounds.
Ffion paused the recording again and made a note of the time at which this exchange had occurred – at approximately ten thirty.
Then she resumed her double-speed listening.
For the next hour or so, the party became increasingly raucous, and conversations grew even more difficult to decipher. If Gina had been hoping to use this recording as the basis for a newspaper article, she would have been disappointed with the results. So far Ffion had written less than a page of notes.
After a few more trips to fetch fresh supplies, Gina found herself in the kitchen once again with Miranda and Poppy, despite Brittany’s instructions.
I think that if I get the chance (Gina was saying) I might stay over.
What for?
None of your business. And don’t worry, if I get caught, that’s my problem.
Gina, if you get caught, it will become our problem too. We don’t want to lose our jobs.
Well, I’ll make sure I don’t get caught, then. But don’t come looking for me when it’s time to go. It will just draw attention to me.
This was presumably the argument that Miranda and Poppy had described. Ffion noted the time. It was about twenty minutes before midnight.
The party continued, becoming ever noisier. Then Gina must have run into someone in a side room, because the background noise noticeably lessened. Once again, Ffion resumed normal listening speed and wrote down what she could hear.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Gina.
The response to her question was inaudible, but Ffion assumed that she was once again speaking to Dr Frost.
‘You shouldn’t be here!’
Now Gina sounded cross. She was evidently annoyed that Frost hadn’t heeded her earlier warning to leave. Whatever the German lecturer said in reply was lost, but Gina quickly returned to the crowded hall, where those guests who had not yet retired upstairs were now making even more noise than before. After a few minutes Gina must have gone back to the kitchen, where she was accosted by Miss Brittany Bossy-Boots Grainger. ‘Give me that tray and take a bottle of champagne and two glasses upstairs to Apollo. He’s in the room at the end of the corridor on the right. Hurry now, he won’t want to be kept waiting.’
Ffion wondered which of the guests had had the hubris to name themselves after the Greek god of the sun whilst she listened to Gina’s footsteps ascending the wooden stairs. When Gina reached the upstairs landing her steps were deadened by a carpet. It was much quieter up here away from the party and Ffion imagined Gina glad of a few minutes’ respite. She’d been on her feet for hours. Ffion heard the clink of crystal as if Gina was setting the champagne and glasses down, and then a knock on a door, presumably Apollo’s.
Suddenly Gina let out a cry. It was soon muffled as if someone had put a hand over her mouth. There were sounds of a struggle: inarticulate grunts and the drag of feet over the carpet. A door opened and closed. Was it the one Gina had just knocked on – Apollo’s door? Or another one? It was impossible to say. More gasping breaths. A thud. Some indistinct movements.
The audio continued, but now there was only silence.
11
Bridget listened with the rest of the team as Ffion replayed the key snippets of Gina’s audio recording. It was shocking to hear the actual murder taking place. After a morning dealing with the raw grief of Gina’s bereaved parents, and an afternoon struggling to extract information from Nick Damon and his lawyer, this grim reminder of why they were all working so hard on a Sunday did little to raise Bridget’s spirits. With nothing but an insipid coffee from the dispensing machine to energise her, her buoyant start to the day felt like an age ago.
‘So, do we think that this man, Apollo, is Gina’s murderer?’ she asked.
‘It’s possible,’ said Ffion. ‘Gina was taking a bottle of champagne up to his room. We heard her knock on his door, and then she was attacked.’
‘So if we can find out who Apollo was, we have our killer,’ said Ryan.
‘Except,’ Jake pointed out, ‘that Gina’s body was discovered in Frost’s room. And that’s not the room at the end of the corridor.’
‘So, did Gina go to the wrong room? Or was she attacked while she was at Apollo’s door?’ Bridget rubbed her temples with her fingertips. So many questions. And each new piece of information just seemed to raise more. She needed to start pinning down some hard facts. ‘Who is this Apollo, anyway? Why didn’t people use their real names?’
‘It was all part of the game,’ said Jake. ‘Like the masks. Concealed identities.’
Bridget had long since lost patience with masks and concealed identities. ‘We need to find out what alias all the guests used. Especially this Apollo character. Jake, speak to Mr Damon’s PA first thing tomorrow and find out who they all were.’
‘Um… yes, ma’am.’
Bridget sensed some reluctance on his part. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’ she asked.
‘No, ma’am. Of course not.’ But his ears were glowing a tell-tale pink, and Ffion was glaring at him with obvious displeasure.
Bridget sensed invisible undercurrents in this exchange, but had no appetite to delve into the matter this evening. ‘Right now, I want to get hold of this MP, Hugh Avery-Blanchard. It’s high time he gave an interview and provided us with a DNA sample. We’ve spoken to everyone else who was at the party. He’s been giving me the slip for far too long.’
‘It’s Sunday evening, ma’am,’ pointed out Jake.
‘Well, he should have thought about that earlier,’ snapped Bridget irritably. ‘I’m going to call him now.’
She had given Mr Avery-Blanchard a fair chance to get in touch with her, but leaving a message with his secretary had yielded no results. It was time to give him a call on his direct line. She looked up his mobile number on the police database, and dialled. The phone rang three times before an imperious voice answered.
‘Avery-Blanchard here. Who am I speaking to?’
‘Good evening, Mr Avery-Blanchard. This is DI Bridget Hart from Thames Valley Police.’
The MP exploded in rage. ‘Bloody hell! Are you the woman Cynthia mentioned? You can’t just call me on my private line, you know.’
Bridget held the phone away from her ear until the outburst was over. ‘You didn’t return my message from yesterday,’ she said calmly.
‘I’ll return messages when I damn well choose!’ bellowed Avery-Blanchard. He paused for breath. ‘I’ve been very busy. Do you think I have nothing better to do just because it’s a Sunday? There are far more demands on my time than most people imagine.’
Bridget thought it best not to mention the fact that police officers often had to work at the weekend too, as she was doing right now.
‘Sir, I’m investigating a murder and I need to speak to you as a matter of urgency about a party you attended on Friday evening at the home of Mr Nick Damon. Would you be willing to come to the police station to give a statement?’
‘Are you mad!’ shouted Avery-Blanchard. ‘What if someone sees me?’
‘Then can I come and see you at home?’
‘Certainly not!’ He was practically spitting down the receiver.
‘Then where would be convenient?’
The MP was breathing hard like a man on his way to an early heart attack. ‘Look, if you must see me, I’ll get Cynthia to open up the constituency office. You can meet me there.’
‘This evening?’
‘If we must.’
‘I’d appreciate that very much, sir.’
‘Meet me there in half an hour. And don’t call me on this number again.’
The line went dead.
Bridget looked up at Jake, who was eyeing her with an expression of amusement. ‘Jake, I think I’ll take you with me, if you don’t mind.’
‘That sounds wise, ma’am. Just in case he causes you any bother.’
‘What about the rest of us?’ asked Ryan.
‘It’s too late to do anything more this evening,’ said Bridget. ‘I suggest you go home and get some rest. I need everyone in bright and early tomorrow.’
*
Hugh Avery-Blanchard’s constituency office was located in the town of Witney, a drive of around half an hour from Kidlington. At this time on a Sunday evening, traffic was light, and Bridget made good progress in her Mini.
‘So, what do we know about this Hugh Avery-Blanchard?’ Jake asked, as they sped along the dark country roads, his long legs folded double in the Mini’s constricted interior. Next time, Bridget really ought to suggest they take his car.
‘Apart from the fact that he has a filthy temper, and is terrified of any kind of bad publicity?’ she asked.
‘And that he has a completely ridiculous name.’
Bridget chuckled. Hugh Avery-Blanchard’s predecessors had owned land in Oxfordshire since the Norman conquest, and the family could apparently trace their ancestry back to 1066. In feudal times, Bridget’s forebears had probably worked as serfs on his ancestors’ estate. And people like Hugh Avery-Blanchard never forgot that.
‘Why don’t you look him up?’ she suggested.
‘Good idea.’ Jake pulled his phone from his pocket. His typing wasn’t quite as rapid as Ffion’s, but it was still a lot more proficient than Bridget’s own.
‘Here we go. He’s forty-five years old, married with two children, educated at a minor public school. He’s been the Member of Parliament for Witney since the last election, and he’s currently a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Doesn’t tell us a great deal.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Bridget. ‘As I understand it, a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State is just about the lowest rung of government minister, but from the way he talks, you’d think he was next in line to be Prime Minister, which suggests he has a greatly inflated opinion of his own importance. Anything else?’
Jake did some scrolling. ‘Well, he sounds like your typical rural MP, with strong views on family values, as well as an interest in field sports. He seems to enjoy killing animals and telling other people what to do. But this is interesting. He appears to be tangled up in some controversial building project that’s planned for one of the local villages.’
‘What sort of controversy?’
Jake read on for a moment. ‘It’s the usual stuff. NIMBYs trying to stop a housing development of one and two bedroom apartments and three bedroom starter homes because they think it will destroy the green belt and reduce the value of their own properties.’
Bridget knew that Jake was struggling to get onto the housing ladder and had little sympathy for the kind of people who blocked new developments. In fact, it wasn’t long before they were driving through the village in question. A large banner strung up between two trees invited them in hand-painted red letters to ‘Save Our Village. Save Our Greenbelt.’ Bridget wondered just how far the middle-class residents of this quiet corner of rural England would be prepared to go. Would they lie down in front of bulldozers? Somehow she doubted it.
A thought occurred to her. ‘Does it say who the developer is?’
Jake did some more scrolling. ‘Damon Developments. Hang on, Damon Developments is one of the companies owned by Nick Damon.’
‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ said Bridget.
They soon arrived in Witney High Street with its assortment of eighteenth-century buildings housing an array of small, independent retailers including a butcher’s, a hairdresser’s, numerous estate agents, family-run restaurants and an exclusive home-furnishing store. Bridget grabbed a parking space between two oversized SUVs, and she and Jake walked the short distance to the constituency office.
The door of the Georgian building was opened by a woman introducing herself as Mrs Cynthia Duckworth. From her overbearing voice, Bridget immediately recognised her as the phone dragon she’d spoken to the previous day. She was older than Bridget had imagined, probably in her mid-sixties, but Bridget hadn’t been wrong about the pearls that adorned Cynthia’s ample bosom, which was firmly encased in a checked jacket with large brass buttons. She was taller than Bridget by some six inches and held herself very upright.
‘Mr Avery-Blanchard is an extremely busy man,’ she said in lieu of welcome. ‘You’re lucky that he’s agreed to make time for you.’
Bridget bristled at the implication that a murder enquiry was less important than whatever a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State normally got up to on a weekend, but she kept her tongue. It was quite apparent that access to the MP was closely guarded by this woman, whose voice betrayed a note of fondness whenever she mentioned his name.
Cynthia knocked briskly on a panelled door and opened it without waiting for a response. ‘The police are here to see you, sir.’
‘Thank you, Cynthia,’ said Avery-Blanchard brusquely.
‘Would you like me to bring tea or coffee?’ asked Cynthia.
‘No. I don’t think this meeting is going to take very long. I need to get home to prepare for the week ahead. I’ll be back in the House of Commons for an important debate tomorrow,’ he added, as if Bridget had no idea how a politician might spend his working week.
‘Very good, sir,’ said Cynthia, withdrawing and closing the door behind her. Bridget wondered if she was the sort to listen at the keyhole.
‘Now, what is this about?’ demanded Avery-Blanchard from behind his desk. He was a tall, broad man, whose hair was receding rapidly. Though only in his mid-forties, he looked considerably older. His flabby face was flushed an unhealthy claret, and his nose was riddled with a spider’s web of broken capillaries. His generous eyebrows ascended and swooped as he spoke.
It didn’t appear that Bridget was to be offered a seat, but she didn’t mind that. It wasn’t often that she had the chance to look down on witnesses while interviewing them. She stood in front of the desk, with Jake at her side.
‘I understand,’ she began, ‘that you attended a party on Friday evening at the home of Mr Nick Damon.’
Avery-Blanchard’s eyebrows immediately knotted together in indignation. ‘And what evidence do you have to support that claim?’
Bridget hadn’t anticipated a direct challenge to what seemed like an uncontroversial opening statement. ‘Your name appears on the guest list, and several witnesses reported seeing you there.’
‘Hmm, well, I shan’t deny it,’ conceded Avery-Blanchard with bad grace. ‘What of it?’
‘At that party, a woman was murdered. Her name was Gina Hartman.’
‘Never heard of her,’ declared Avery-Blanchard. ‘What are you implying?’
‘I’m not implying anything,’ said Bridget levelly. ‘I am simply interviewing you as a potential witness.’
‘A witness? Not a suspect?’
It was a peculiar response, and Bridget wanted to say, not at this stage, but she knew she had to avoid antagonising this prickly individual. ‘As a witness,’ she repeated. ‘We’re interviewing all the party guests.’
‘I see.’ Her reassurance seemed to have dialled the politician’s temper down a notch. ‘What is it you want to know?’
‘Perhaps you could tell me how you came to be at the party in the first place? What is your connection to Mr Damon?’
Avery-Blanchard’s brows rushed to the offensive again. ‘What business is that of the police? Mr Damon is one of my constituents, and a major employer in this region. He’s exactly the kind of man that I ought to be associating with, don’t you think?’
