The Bee's Kiss Read online

  ‘She paused at the door to her suite and kept looking back at the lift. Waiting. Expecting someone to follow her, I thought. Well, by that time I’d lost all enthusiasm for topping her anyway. Never had thought through how I would do it and seeing her suddenly again like that, on her high horse, well . . . she was a big, strong woman, Commander! You’d have needed to take a crowbar to her to make any impression. And if my attempt was about to be witnessed by some drunken sot she’d managed to lure up from the ballroom . . . well . . . I thought, “Blow this for a game of soldiers!” She went in and shut the door and I grabbed my trolley and meandered off down the corridor, feeling silly. I hung about a bit, just out of curiosity. I wouldn’t have minded casting an eye over her date for the evening!’

  ‘And while you were lurking along the corridor, did you hear any sound from the Dame’s suite?’

  Audrey thought carefully. ‘Not a sound. No one came up. No one went down. Nothing.’ She laughed. ‘I’d love to be able to say I saw So-and-So or What’s-His-Name nipping in but my memory’s a total blank on that one. But give me time to think, will you? There may be details that didn’t register as important at the time that come back to me now I know what you’re looking for. Tell me, Commander – how did she die?’

  ‘A poker. Not a crowbar but a solid Ritz poker,’ said Joe. ‘About five blows to the skull.’

  ‘Did she suffer? Oh, daft question! Of course she must have suffered.’ Audrey’s eyes were glazed with tears and she fumbled in her sleeve for a handkerchief.

  ‘She defended herself bravely. I think she died more in rage than in pain,’ said Joe.

  Audrey nodded. ‘Sounds like Bea.’

  ‘Perhaps a good moment to establish something of the nature of the Dame’s relationships,’ said Joe. ‘I’m sure there must be much you can tell us about whom she was close to and so on.’

  Audrey looked from one to the other uncertainly. ‘Look, it’s a bit delicate. Her love life was chaotic as I’m sure you’ve guessed and there are . . . um . . . certain . . . things . . . you really ought to know about her if you’re to get a clear picture of her. But, I say, I don’t really think I could . . .’ She faltered, blushed and then came to a decision. ‘Would you mind very much if I talked to the lady policeman? Miss Westhorpe, did you say? I feel I could talk more easily to a woman. Would you mind, miss?’

  ‘I think that would be a good idea,’ said Westhorpe helpfully. ‘Sir – there’s a door to the garden and I notice a particularly fine example of a Dutch garden out there. If you and the sergeant would like to take a stroll while I talk to Miss Blount, I think everyone’s sensibilities would be served.’

  Amused and intrigued, Joe nodded his acceptance of the scheme. He got to his feet and handed Audrey a card. ‘This is where you may contact me, Miss Blount. At any time. Should you recall something of relevance to the enquiry.’ He nodded to Armitage and they walked together through the french window into the garden.

  ‘Perhaps Sir Nevil knows what he’s doing,’ said Armitage. ‘I begin to see some real advantages in employing these women. Save our blushes, like you said, sir. Wonder what on earth she’s telling her? Er . . . is there any guarantee that the constable will understand what she’s hearing?’

  ‘I hardly know the constable but I think I can guarantee that if anything she is told is unclear she will insist on a clarification,’ said Joe. ‘Let’s go and admire those tulips in the sunken garden. Then if we follow the flower walk and take a turn around the monticule over there I’d guess by then they should have finished.’

  ‘Unless the Dame’s catalogue of excesses is longer than we have any suspicions of,’ said Armitage, raising a salacious eyebrow.

  ‘Perhaps Audrey thinks she’s auditioning for the part of Leporello? Reciting a list of Donna Bea’s indiscretions?’

  ‘Perhaps, sir. Not really fond of the opera, myself,’ sniffed Armitage. ‘All that murder and mayhem . . . get enough of that on the job, I’d say. Give me a good musical any day. Now what you ought to go and see is that Lady Be Good. Opened last week at the Empire. Usual silly story but the dancing’s good. Fred and Adèle Astaire.’ He started to hum ‘Fascinating Rhythm’ under his breath, turning back repeatedly to look over his shoulder. Strung up, Joe thought. Bill had never been happy with inactivity.

  Joe noticed that his sergeant’s attention was continually drifting back from the soldierly ranks of bright tulips to the two pretty heads, one fair, one dark, leaning close together, side by side on the sofa. They strolled on and had discovered the Japanese water garden, the thatched summer house on stilts over a pond and the sunken rose garden before the watchful Armitage announced, ‘There she is, sir. That’s the constable waving to us at the window.’

  The fifteen minutes’ tête-à-tête had quenched Westhorpe. Pale and thoughtful, she made no attempt to relay her conversation. ‘I’ve rung for Reid to take us on to our next interview. Orlando lives over there in the oldest part of the house, the west wing. Here comes Reid now . . . Later, sir! Later!’

  Reid emerged into the sunshine, head on one side, smiling slightly. ‘If you would come this way, gentlemen. Miss. We can cross the lawn and enter Mr Orlando’s quarters at the rear.’

  Before they could start off, a small figure detached itself from the woodwork of the open verandah which linked the new wing with the central part of the house and stood firmly blocking their way.

  ‘Thank you, Reid. You may dismiss. I shall conduct our guests to the west wing.’

  ‘Certainly, Miss Dorcas,’ said Reid gravely. ‘That is very considerate. Will there be anything further?’

  The girl gave him a dazzling smile. ‘Well, if you could sneak some of that fruit cake along for later, that would be good. We’ve got nothing to offer these people otherwise.’ She looked up at Joe and added, confidingly, ‘Mel can’t cook. Well, apart from stews. She’s quite good at stews.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do, Miss Dorcas.’ Reid bowed his head and left them with their new guide.

  Joe looked with surprise and concern at the child. In appearance she was little different from any of the waifs you saw by the roadside playing hopscotch in the dust. Her feet were bare and dirty, her ragged dress trailed about somewhere between her knees and ankles and her thin shoulders were concealed under a much-darned brown woolly cardigan. But her face, Joe thought, was quite exceptional. It was thin and brown but lit by the intelligence of two large dark eyes. Joe knew he had seen something very similar and quite recently. She turned her head to look at Armitage and Westhorpe with the intensity of a child examining exotic creatures at the zoo and he had it. Her profile, neat nose and almond eye framed by an abundance of glossy black hair, could have inspired a painter of ancient Crete. Armitage and Westhorpe shuffled their feet uncomfortably and looked back for assistance from the retreating Reid but Joe held the child’s gaze. ‘It’s very thoughtful of you to undertake escort duties,’ he said lightly but formally, ‘and we look forward to meeting your brothers and sisters.’

  ‘You’ve already seen my brother, Peter,’ she said.

  ‘Ah. Actaeon, I believe.’

  ‘No, actually, you got that wrong. Diana never shot Actaeon, you know. She threw a bucket of water over him when she caught him sneaking a look at her in the bath and he turned into a stag.’

  ‘Yes, of course, you’re right. And the poor fellow was chased and torn to pieces by his own hounds.’

  ‘He died calling out their names,’ said Dorcas with relish. ‘Imagine what that must be like! To know your friends are ripping your flesh to bits and you shout out their names . . . “Stop – it’s me! Theron! Tigris! Don’t you know me?” And they don’t know him and they tear his throat out and eat his liver!’

  ‘Er . . . sir?’ said Armitage uncertainly.

  ‘Ah, yes, much as I’d like to wander with Dorcas through the murkier groves of mythology we have work to do. I’m Commander Joe Sandilands. Here’s my card.’

  She looked at it carefully and p
ushed it up the sleeve of her cardigan.

  ‘I expect you know why we’re here? This is my detective sergeant, Bill Armitage.’

  ‘He’s very handsome,’ said Dorcas seriously.

  ‘I was sure you would think so. He’s also very clever. And this is Constable Mathilda Westhorpe.’

  ‘Is she your mistress?’

  ‘No. She’s my constable. We work together.’

  ‘Orlando has mistresses and they work together but he’s never married any of them. What do you think of that?’

  ‘Speaking as a man who is himself unmarried, I can only say, “Sensible chap.” He’ll probably do the right thing when he’s made his selection,’ said Joe, rapidly losing the thread of the conversation. ‘And now, miss, if you wouldn’t mind taking us to him . . .?’

  ‘Right. This way. Granny keeps us confined to the oldest part of the house, you’ll find. Not that I mind all that much because it’s the most interesting part. In fact, I shall go on living over there even when Orlando plucks up courage enough to claim what is legally his and takes over the whole house.’

  Joe stopped and waved a hand at the building. ‘You mean all this is . . .?’

  ‘Oh yes. Orlando’s father left it to him. When he died ten years ago. Grandmother ought to have moved out to the Dower House down by the river over there – or anywhere else she wanted to go – she’s very rich, you know. She could live wherever she wanted. But she won’t give it up. And my father won’t make her – he’s rather a weed where Granny’s concerned. Most people are. I know she was trying to leave it to Aunt Bea along with all her money when she dies. It’s in her will. I’ve seen it.’ She hesitated and then said without a trace of guilt, ‘Better, I think, if you don’t tell Granny I’ve seen it. She’d have a fit! She left it on her desk while she spoke to the lawyer on the telephone in the hall and I went in and read it. Orlando is to get nothing. What do you think of that?’

  ‘I don’t have opinions on everything,’ said Joe, annoyed. ‘I’m here to listen and ask questions and find out what everyone else is thinking.’

  ‘Men! Why are they all so devious?’ commented Dorcas.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘So your father’s a weed, then, is he, miss?’ said Armitage, taking up a position alongside the child. ‘Not a very polite thing to say?’

  ‘It’s his own description . . . Bill . . . And it’s true. Orlando’s very gentle and easy-going, sunny-natured, hates to offend anyone, charming. Makes you sick. I hope you’re not going to be rude to him . . . give him the third degree or anything like that . . . because I won’t allow it!’

  ‘We can be pretty charming ourselves, miss. Thumbscrews are a bit old hat these days, you know.’

  ‘That’s good. I just thought I should warn you.’

  ‘Now let me understand this,’ said Armitage cheerfully, ‘you’re fourteen, right? So born in 1912, two years before the war broke out. And according to Grandmama, Orlando spent the war years in Switzerland. Did you go with him?’

  ‘No, Bill. He left me and my oldest brother, who was just a baby, here with Granny. Our mothers – we didn’t have the same one – went away. We don’t remember them.’

  ‘Sounds like a bleak situation?’

  ‘It could have been if we hadn’t had Grandnanny Tilling. She had been Aunt Bea and Orlando’s nanny when they were little and she came back from the village to look after us. She stayed on when my father got back from Switzerland and didn’t leave until she retired again last year. She wasn’t just a nanny – she had been a governess once and she taught us to read and write and all that.’

  ‘And do you go to school in the village?’ Armitage wanted to know.

  ‘Oh, no. We tried to go once but the other children fired lumps of turnip at us with catapults. Peter got into a fight with a gang of village boys and broke his arm. Grandnanny Tilling came to the school and made a complaint but they went on calling us “gippos” and “conshies”.’

  ‘Little monkeys! Need their hides tanning!’ said Armitage, glowing with sympathy.

  ‘Oh, we didn’t mind. We could read better than the teachers anyway. They were as glad to get rid of us as we were to leave,’ said Dorcas philosophically. ‘I’ve got all the education I need – well, most of it – from the books in the library. At least Granny lets me use it whenever I like. She never goes in there. Are you married, Bill?’

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ thought Joe. ‘Here we go! Is there no limit to the sergeant’s powers of attraction?’

  ‘No, miss. Never found anyone who could pass the test.’

  ‘Pass the test?’ Dorcas chortled. ‘Sounds like the start of a fairy story! What does your intended have to do? Answer a riddle? Run a hundred yards faster than you? Break out of a set of handcuffs in ten seconds?’

  ‘I don’t set the tests, miss! A policeman’s wife must be able to prove to the police authorities that she is of good character. She has to provide three testimonials from reputable members of society to that effect.’

  ‘How perfectly dreadful! Would you seriously like to marry someone that proper, Bill? I think you would lead a very dull life!’

  ‘Policemen are supposed to lead dull lives.’

  ‘I don’t think the Commander has led a dull life,’ said Dorcas with a swift sideways look at Joe. ‘How did he come by that dramatic scar on his face? Was he raked by a lion’s claw, snatching some poor dusky maiden from the jaws of death?’

  ‘No. It was a tiger, miss,’ lied Armitage. ‘Though I believe the maiden was dusky.’

  They had arrived at the part of the house which Joe had identified as the core of the building, the original Surrey farmhouse. As they stood by the back door, Dorcas confirmed this. ‘Jacobean,’ she said. ‘It’s very homely, you’ll see, and it suits the way we live. It would never do for Granny though.’ She grinned. ‘Too many spiders! Too much dust! She sends maids in once a week to “do the mucking out” as she calls it but she never comes here herself.’

  They followed her through the generous oak door into a room which must once have been the hall of the farmhouse. Ancient beams mellowed to a rich brown held up the low ceiling and Armitage cast a wary eye on the height, judging that he would, by a fraction of an inch, be able to walk unbowed through the room. A stone floor was scattered with brightly coloured pegged rugs, a hand-painted dresser held a collection of blue china, a gouty old sofa was covered with drapes of, Joe guessed, Provençal origin. The room appeared to serve several functions, one of them dining room. A long table and benches occupied half the room and stood within a ladle’s reach of the pot sitting on a trivet over a slow-burning fire in the hearth.

  Joe looked into the pot and sniffed. He reached for a spoon sitting by the pot and moved the glutinous brown contents around a little. ‘Just caught it! Is no one watching this?’ he asked, looking around the empty room.

  ‘It’s a stew. It watches itself,’ said Dorcas defensively. ‘Mel calls it a “daube”.’

  Joe took a fork from the table and poked at one of the unrecognizable lumps that his stirrings had brought to the surface. ‘Well, whatever it is, it’s ready. Any longer and it’ll be reduced to a stringy mush or stick to the bottom and burn. You’ve got two choices: you can take it off now and reheat it for supper or you can add about half a pint more liquid, stir it and keep a closer eye on it.’ He sniffed again. ‘Have you got any herbs?’

  ‘In the garden. How do you know about stews?’

  Joe grinned. ‘When I was your age, I spent the summers out on the hill with my father, shooting things for the pot. I can tell you exactly how long it takes to cook a haunch of venison, a saddle of rabbit or even a hedgehog. Believe me – you can overdo it.’

  Westhorpe cleared her throat and looked at her watch.

  Joe took a folded kitchen cloth and lowered the pot to an iron stand in the hearth. ‘Well, that’ll have to do for culinary conversation. Tell me, child, where is everyone?’

  ‘They were here half an hour ago, expecting to s
ee you. You talk so much, you’re overrunning. I expect they’ve gone out into the garden. Father’s finishing a painting. It’s how he earns his living. Mostly portraits but some landscapes too.’

  Armitage looked around the lines of paintings hanging higgledy-piggledy in every available space on the walls. Most of them were dangling on strings from nails hammered into the beams. All were modern. Cubism, Joe noted, seemed to have broken out.

  ‘Any of this lot by your pa, miss?’ Armitage asked in a tone of studied lack of interest. Joe smiled. He knew that tone. Armitage would welcome another reason to despise Orlando and being the originator of any one of these modernist pieces would do.

  ‘Oh, no. Orlando doesn’t display his own work. He picked up most of these when we went to France. We took the caravan and went all the way down to the south coast. To Martigues and Toulon and Cassis. He met lots of other painters down there. They’re all very friendly and jolly. Some are skint like us but some have begun to do well and actually make some money. Orlando swapped some pictures. Others he bought when he could raise the cash. That one’s mine,’ she said, pointing to what Joe thought was probably the best of the display which were, on the whole, rather too free and modern for his taste. ‘It was a present from the artist.’

  He looked more closely. A small girl in a white dress was standing on a Mediterranean beach, dark hair springing against a vivid blue sky, clutching a large shell and looking with intense enquiry at the painter. It didn’t take Joe long to recognize the subject as Dorcas but he was puzzled as to the identity of the painter and walked over to peer at the scrawled signature. P. Ruiz Picasso.

  ‘Pablo did it,’ supplied Dorcas. ‘Pablo Picasso. Orlando thinks he’s rather good. Do you like it?’