“I think so.”
“All right. Mrs. Briggs, if you don’t mind waiting too, we’re interviewing everyone this evening.”
“Oh, that’s fine. I couldn’t possibly sleep with all this going on. That poor girl. And the poor family. They so value their privacy. Now, I suppose, this will be all over the news.”
I thought it was very likely. Pamela had always wanted to be famous and connected with men of wealth and power. She’d done it, but not in the way she’d planned.
Very soon Violet and William came back into the kitchen. Violet joined our little knitting circle. William cleaned the already clean kitchen. He polished the sink again. Mrs. Briggs told him it looked perfectly fine and she’d be back in the morning, but he said he needed something to do with his hands.
“William, this isn’t your fault,” I told him.
“Of course it is. I hired that girl. I didn’t even know who she was. I only offered her the job because she said she’d waitressed before and she was a friend of yours.”
Oh, great, now I was feeling guilty.
Violet got up and walked over to William. She put a hand on his arm. “Lucy’s right, you know. None of this is your fault. There was something odd about that Pamela. If you ask me, she wasn’t here to serve food. Did you see those shoes? I’ve been longing for a pair of those since I saw them in a magazine. They’re Louboutin. A thousand quid. And those diamonds in her ears, they were worth a few bob.”
“So you’re telling me a rich woman who didn’t need the money came to work as a waitress.”
“Well, maybe she needed the money. Maybe she spent every cent she had on those shoes. I wouldn’t blame her; I’ve contemplated doing that myself. But she looked…” I could see Violet searching for the right word. Finally she came up with, “…well cared for. Her skin had that smoothness that you get from regular facials and the best cosmetics. Her hair was done by a top salon. I don’t know, rich women just have a certain look to them.”
She turned to me. “Don’t they, Lucy?”
I nodded. I knew exactly what she meant.
William seemed to contemplate that. “She did certainly have a different look to her than you and Lucy.”
I immediately felt like a poor urchin sitting in the corner. I glanced down at my shoes. They were made for comfort, not style.
“It still doesn’t make me feel better. What a dreadful thing.”
Violet ushered him over to where we were sitting and forced him to sit down. “I think you need something stronger than tea. What about a glass of that nice port?”
He nodded. “Good idea. It’s not like we’ll be serving port and cheese after all.”
Chapter 8
When Ian called me into the dining room, it was nearly an hour later. He and the sergeant were both there. He was asking the questions, and the sergeant was mainly taking notes. “Thanks for waiting, Lucy.”
“Of course.”
We’d completely cleaned the kitchen, but the dining room was still as it had been. I supposed even if we’d wanted to clear it, the police would have stopped us.
He got me to sit at the head of the table, where Hugo had begun the evening.
“I’m just going to ask you to tell me everything, being as exact as possible about the timing.”
I nodded. I’d expected this. I could see as well as he could that finding this killer depended on being accurate about who’d been where and when.
I said, “Pamela and Violet and I came in the van with William. We arrived about six-fifteen.”
“Take me back. I’ve heard that you were the one who suggested Pamela for the job.”
When were people going to stop making that assumption? I shook my head quite violently. “No. It was completely coincidental that she happened to be in my shop when William arrived and offered me the job. She was dropping hints, trying to be invited along, and William, believing that we were close childhood friends, obliged her.”
Ian looked at me steadily, but there was a slight twinkle in his eye. “And you weren’t childhood friends?”
“Far from it.” And then I had to tell him the somewhat embarrassing story of how Pamela had stolen my boyfriend. I emphasized that this was back in high school and ten years ago, hoping he wouldn’t guess that the humiliation still smarted a bit.
And just in case he had any ideas, I said, “And by the way, I didn’t kill Pamela. It hurt a bit at the time, but he wasn’t much of a loss.”
“Let’s move on then. You arrived at six-fifteen, and then tell me as accurately as you can what happened then.”
I took a deep breath. “We were obviously getting the food ready to be taken into the dining room. When I walked in, Rafe Crosyer and Hugo Percival Brown were in the lounge, and they were having a cocktail with two other men I didn’t know. One of them was Lochlan Balfour. I never met the fourth.”
“Sir Henry Peele.”
“By seven-thirty, everyone was in the dining room and we served champagne and appetizers. And by everyone, I mean twelve people. There were the four older members of the Gargoyle Club, and the eight younger members.”
Ian nodded. Obviously, he’d already heard this, probably twelve times, but I’d been around him enough to get the idea that a lot of police work was listening to the same story over and over and waiting for that one variation. Or the one person who remembered something no one else had. But in this case, I didn’t think I had anything to offer.
“Did there seem to be any animosity in the room?”
It was such an odd question, I was taken aback. I’d been busy trying to think of times and schedules in my head. “Oh. I don’t know. I was quite busy. Maybe there was a little coolness between father and son? But no doubt it was extremely
