If you don’t stop that noise I’m going to find a way to silence you.
Edina had been right; it had been Cornelius who’d posted the note in her letterbox. Kate studied the copy carefully. She wondered if the print was different because perhaps he’d practised a few times to get the font right.
It didn’t, of course, necessarily make him the killer, but he was rapidly heading to the top of The List again. And it made it imperative that she searched this flat very thoroughly.
The kitchen was relatively tidy with nothing suspicious residing amongst the cutlery and crockery. Cornelius had a lot of tins in his cupboard and very little in his fridge other than some milk and a half-eaten loaf. He did like a drink though; Kate found two bottles of Scotch and three of gin, plus several packs of tonics and sodas.
The bathroom was very untidy, with discarded damp towels strewn across the floor, shaving things balanced on the handbasin, shampoo and bath-oil bottles teetering precariously on the edge of the bath. The cabinet only contained some expensive aftershave, mouthwash and several packets of Alka-Seltzer – probably to counteract his consumption of the Scotch and gin.
The bedroom was, in contrast, almost minimalist. Cornelius had a king-size bed with a black satin cover. There were no other adornments: no cushions on the bed or rugs on the highly polished floor. There was a dressing-table with a couple of small drawers containing scissors, nail clippers, odd tissues and the like – all very mundane. He had an extensive wardrobe with a great many smart suits, tuxedos and smoking jackets. Why? Where did he go? She went through the pockets and checked inside his shoes which, she reckoned, would make an ideal hiding place for a phone. Then she burrowed among his silk boxer shorts, neatly folded socks, expensive ties and monogrammed handkerchiefs, but found no phone or anything whatsoever that could be used to inject poison into Edina’s meal.
Sighing with frustration and not a little disappointed, Kate was almost out the door before she glanced back and remembered she had to draw the curtains across again. Then she headed downstairs to check on the Pratts’ possessions.
Inside Flat 3 she had never seen so many packets of cakes and biscuits, a freezer full of oven chips, ice cream, desserts. You could almost gain half a stone just looking at this stuff. Kate headed straight for the bathroom cupboard.
‘Beachcomber Blonde’ proclaimed the packet of home-dye, alongside the leg-waxing kit, the eyelash dye and a set of false nails. Was any of this woman real? And was all this beautification just for Ollie? Or competing with Edina perhaps? There were syringes but they were pen syringes, which Kate knew could not be used for anything other than insulin. Well, that would appear to rule out any possibilities there.
Both the lounge and the bedroom were messy: cheap magazines scattered everywhere, one cat sitting on the coffee table alongside a packet of shortbread, another on the windowsill washing its face. The bedside cabinets yielded only pills, packets of peppermints and tissues.
Kate replaced everything carefully. She looked out at the two pots on their patio, both crammed with straggling end-of-summer geraniums and well-established weeds. No one had been digging in there for months. So much for Ollie’s theory that Gloria liked gardening, so perhaps she really did help Stan so she could get her hands on the weedkiller! Poor Ollie!
The Potter twins’ flat was next.
She tiptoed across the hall and let herself in. Not a sound anywhere. The silence was a little eerie.
The twins had left their lounge very tidy with cushions plumped up and a neat pile of Woman’s Weekly magazines on the coffee table. The drawers in their sideboard yielded lace doilies, tablecloths, napkins and napkin rings, and bundles of photographs. Two identical little girls in knitted bathing-suits on a pebbly beach somewhere, both brandishing buckets and spades. More and more photos of the two of them; this one, side by side, in gymslips and wrinkly stockings, probably lisle. Another one in their liberty bodices and navy school knickers, a hankie peeping coquettishly out of a pocket. Kate wished she had time to study them all in detail in this forties time warp.
The kitchen was predictable and Kate found nothing untoward. The twins favoured doing their own cooking with a cupboard full of all manner of flour, baking soda, rice, split peas, lentils, not many tins and no sign whatsoever of any instant meals, Fernfield Farm or otherwise.
The bathroom shelves were full of talcum powders, Steradent and boxes of pills. Anything sinister could only be in the bedroom, which was pink. There were twin beds with frilled white covers tidily in place. The bedside cabinets contained some Mills & Boon paperbacks and more pills, countless pills, for anything and everything: headaches, sore throats, coughs, indigestions, constipation and diarrhoea, to name but a few. These ladies were taking no chances. No digoxin, though, and no syringes. The wardrobes contained sensible coats and tweed skirts, the drawers (all with lavender sachets) filled with neatly folded blouses and jumpers. There was a drawer containing knickers and vests, and more lavender sachets. A photograph of a stern-looking lady with tight lips and a tight perm dominated the top of one of the bedside cabinets. It had to be Mother. No sign of Father, though. No sign of a pink phone or anything else.
Kate glanced at her watch. Three o’clock. Time to move on to Hetty’s flat, not that she expected to find much there. This really was a wild goose chase.
Hetty’s flat was equally predictable except that her reading matter was more sophisticated. She had lots of classics on her shelves, plus Tolstoy, Joyce and, glory of glories, Hilary Mantel! Lying on her coffee table was a neatly folded copy of the Guardian. Who would have thought it! Kate had been convinced Hetty was a Telegraph reader. You
