“You’ve no right to be putting Miss Annabel through this after what she’s gone through already,” she said. “The poor man is dead. Let him be. What good can come of asking questions over and over?”
“The truth, I hope,” Hughes said. “Now, if he killed himself deliberately, for example …”
Mrs. Roberts gave a brittle laugh. “Kill himself—that man? I’ve never seen a person who thought more of himself. Never passed a mirror without stopping to check how he looked. Vain as a peacock. No, if he was going to kill himself, he’d want to be found lying somewhere special, looking lovely.”
Evan nodded to himself. Mrs. Roberts was nobody’s fool.
“You’ve been here long, Mrs. Roberts?” Hughes asked.
“Since Lady Annabel was born. I was only a housemaid at the time, of course, but I rose to housekeeper and I’ve stayed with her ever since—even though I never imagined I’d be running this kind of establishment. Sir Ambrose would be turning in his grave if he could see them cavorting on his lawns. Heathens! Devil worshippers, that’s what they are.”
“So why didn’t you leave?”
“Leave Miss Annabel to him? I should think not. She might look hard on the outside, but she’s as soft as marshmallow. He had her wrapped around his little finger, you know.”
“So you didn’t like Mr. Wunderlich?”
“I did not, sir. I couldn’t stand the man. Quite wrong for Miss Annabel, he was. Not that she had much success in picking men after her first husband. Colonel Hollister was a proper gentleman. The rest have been ragtag and bobtail, if you’ll pardon the expression, sir.”
“So his death is a relief to you?”
“I wouldn’t wish anybody dead, sir. That’s not Christian, is it? But if you want my real feelings, yes, I’m glad he’s gone. Now maybe things can get back to normal again, and she can marry someone suitable.”
“Like Mr. Cresswell?” Evan couldn’t resist asking.
“At least he has her best interests at heart,” Mrs. Roberts said. “He wouldn’t be turning the place into a fun fair.”
“That will be all for now, Mrs. Roberts,” Hughes said. “Would you please ask Michael Hollister to come in?”
“Very good, sir. And may I bring you in a tray of tea or coffee?”
“Thank you. Most appreciated.”
She gave a curt bow before she closed the door behind her.
Hughes turned to Evan. “What made you ask that question about Cresswell?” he demanded.
“I’m sorry, sir. I shouldn’t have interrupted you. I just wanted to prove to myself that Cresswell was sweet on Lady Annabel.”
“Good lord. What made you think that?”
“Just a feeling. Why else would he stay on here? And she asked for him when she found out the news about Randy’s body.”
“Ah. Did she? So that gives Cresswell a real motive for wanting Wunderlich out of the way. And Mrs. Roberts too—she was frank enough, wasn’t she? Clearly loathed the man. I’m afraid Annabel was sadly deluding herself when she said that Wunderlich had no enemies. It’s fairly obvious that—” He broke off as there was a tap at the door.
Michael Hollister poked his head around the door, then came in reluctantly, blinking owlishly behind his glasses.
“Ah, come in. You must be Michael.” Hughes waved him to the chair. “Take a seat. Now, if you don’t mind, we’re trying to fill in the background on Randy Wunderlich.”
“S-something’s happened, hasn’t it?” Michael asked. “You’ve d-discovered something or you wouldn’t be back here. Did he kill himself or did somebody do it for him?”
Again that interesting mixture of shyness and arrogance. He was stuttering more than usual, Evan noted, but that could be a shy person’s response to facing D.C.I. Hughes.
“We are only at the beginning of our investigation. Just asking a few questions. Now, I understand that you are Lady Annabel’s son. Is that correct?”
“Although she has often denied it, that is correct, yes.”
“Why would she want to deny it, Michael?”
“B-b-because I make her look old, of course. How can she be thirty when she has a twenty-year-old son?”
Hughes smiled. “I also understand that you grew up with your father, not your mother.”
“That was because she ran out on us when I was very small.”
“And yet you are with her now.”
“We met up again when I left school. By that time I could understand why she had run out on my father. She liked life—not being stuck in some grim old fortress and only shooting and fishing for entertainment.”
“I also understand that you were at university until recently.”
“Until last Michaelmas Term actually.”
“So you haven’t completed your degree?”
