‘Let us get back to the incident with Charles Sutherland.’
‘It was late in the evening. I was drunk, too many vodkas and whiskies, maybe a couple of beers as well. Sutherland was equally drunk. Father was upstairs asleep. He doesn’t have a lot of time for entertainment people. He finds most of them vacuous and self-obsessed, which they are ‒ my mother being the prime example.’
‘Your father came to the party?’
‘He played the perfect host. He ensured everyone had a drink and was fed. He spent about three hours at the party, and by then a few had left, a few were drunk and asleep in a chair, and some others were sniffing cocaine.’
‘Which were you?’
‘I was drunk, but not drugged. I’ve tried drugs, the less harmful variety, and they make me psychotic. Alcohol suffices for me.’
‘Charles Sutherland.’
‘I’m at the back of the house. It’s a big house, as you’ve seen. I’m sitting there drinking steadily. He comes in on his own. He’s clearly high on drugs, and I’m definitely drunk. He sees beauty in me, and I see a handsome man in him.’
‘It’s just the two of you?’
‘The beautiful woman. The handsome man. That’s what alcohol and recreational drugs do to you – make you see something that is not there.’
‘I think you are playing down your appearance,’ Isaac said. He had to admit that beautiful was not a description he would use, but she had some character in her face. Her manner with people was her main disadvantage.
‘You don’t need to be kind. Let me continue.’
‘Okay.’
‘We start fooling around, groping each other.’
‘I thought you said his advances were unwelcome.’
‘I was not entirely truthful. Anyway, soon after, I’ve got my skirt up around my arse, and he’s on top of me going for dear life.’
‘Sexual intercourse?’
‘That’s sounds clinical. It was just a drunken fuck.’
‘So why the hatred?’
‘As I’m climaxing and he’s struggling to come, in walks my mother. It appears that the party has come to a conclusion and she, and one other, are the only ones left. Except for Charles Sutherland and yours truly.’
‘What did you mother say?’
‘Nothing. She wasn’t interested in me, only the man she had brought in to fuck.’
‘Sutherland’s reaction?’
‘He jumped up, left me dangling without concluding his part.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He failed to ejaculate, shoot his load. Clear enough?’
‘Clear enough.’
‘And what did you think of your mother with another man?’
‘Not much. She was always playing around with one man or another, but in my father’s house, with him upstairs asleep… I was angry.’
‘There’s a scene with your mother, but what’s this got to do with Sutherland.’
‘He takes her side. Calls me an old tart, and said if he hadn’t been drunk, he wouldn’t have touched me with a barge pole. It’s not the first time a man has said that to me. I was livid, making a scene, a lot of noise as well, I suppose. Anyway, my father comes down, sees what’s going on, and takes me out of the room and puts me to bed with a cup of cocoa and a hot water bottle.’
‘Charles Sutherland?’
‘He left soon after.’
‘And your mother?’
‘Ten minutes later, the front door slammed shut, and she came upstairs as if nothing had happened.’
‘Why ten minutes later, if Sutherland had already left?’
‘She still needed fucking.’
‘Who was the man?’
‘Richard Williams.’
Isaac realised that here, in this one embittered woman, was the motive for two murders: the murder of Marjorie Frobisher, if she was indeed dead, and the murder of Charles Sutherland.
Chapter 21
Wendy had not announced the previous day when checking in at the hotel that she was a police officer. Experience had taught her that people become secretive and guarded once an ID badge is flashed in front of them. Even the innocent start to clam up, check what they say and how they say it. She needed the receptionist free and willing to talk. She was not a difficult woman to recognise as all the staff appeared to be young – in their twenties and thirties – except for her.
Felicity Pearson, in her late forties, maybe early fifties; her photo courtesy of a board in the hotel foyer showing ‘Employee of the month’. She had already been interviewed by the police; she would not necessarily welcome a second time.
Wendy decided the best approach was to engage in idle chatter when the reception was quiet. She waited her time. It came around eleven o’clock in the morning, when those who were checking out had, and those checking in were waiting until two in the afternoon.
‘I was thinking of taking a walk in the hills,’ Wendy said.
‘That’s a good idea. It’s best to take a coat. It can get cold up there at times, even snow in the winter, but not today,’ the receptionist replied.
‘I don’t want to be gone for too long.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘They’re repeating the episode where Billy Blythe dies.’ Wendy thought it a good enough way to direct the questioning towards the missing woman.
‘She was in here, you know.’
‘Who was?’ Wendy, sounding suitably vague, replied.
‘His sister.’
‘You watch the programme?’ Wendy said. A fellow devotee, ideal, she thought.
‘I never miss it.’
‘Nor do I. It’s a shame about his sister,’ Wendy said.
‘I just said before. She was in here.’
‘Edith Blythe?’
‘Yes, his sister.’
‘That must have been exciting. What was she like?’
‘She didn’t say much. She didn’t like it when I recognised her.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I’ve no idea. She left soon after. I think it was because of me.’
Wendy noticed that Felicity Pearson was ignoring other people standing at the reception. ‘You’d better deal with them first.’ She did not want the receptionist getting in trouble, and
