Dead and Gone Page 4

  If only we knew that, thought Thanet, we’d probably be more than halfway to a solution. ‘What about Rachel and Mr Agon? What did they do when you all left the terrace?’

  ‘Sorry, no idea. They were still there when we came in and they didn’t follow us into the kitchen, that’s all I know. I should think Rachel went up to her room to change and Agon went to the pool house.’

  ‘How long have they been engaged?’

  Mintar screwed up his mouth and sucked in his cheeks as though he had just bitten into a lemon and glanced at his watch. ‘Approximately, let me see, twelve hours, or thereabouts.’

  ‘They got engaged last night?’

  ‘Yes. And no, Inspector, I can’t pretend to be pleased. However, we had learned from bitter experience that it is expedient to be diplomatic in these matters, so I pretended to be delighted and said we’d crack a bottle of champagne.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You didn’t mention this before.’

  ‘No, well, I suppose I was trying to expunge it from my mind. It’s all I need at the moment, to know that Rachel is serious about that . . . that shyster.’

  ‘How did your wife feel about the engagement?’

  ‘I never had a chance to discuss it with her, but I’m certain she would have been as upset as I was. She certainly didn’t approve of the relationship.’

  ‘This “bitter experience” . . .’

  ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It is irrelevant to the matter in hand.’

  Thanet sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Mintar, but I can’t agree. With all the work you have done at the criminal bar you must be aware that in circumstances like this anything and everything to do with your family is bound to come under the spotlight.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Mintar leaned forward and put his head in his hands. ‘This is unbearable.’

  Thanet said nothing and after a few moments Mintar looked up. ‘Yes, I do appreciate that that is so but I don’t suppose for a moment you’ve ever been in this position yourself or indeed have ever been suspected of having committed a crime, so I don’t think you can begin to understand just how intolerable it is. Not only to lose your wife but your privacy as well and, on top of all that, to know that inevitably you are bound to be a suspect.’ He held up a hand. ‘No, don’t try to deny it. I’m absolutely certain that Ginny’s death couldn’t have been an accident, there’s no point in pretending that it was, and we both know how often, in cases of domestic murder, it’s the nearest and dearest who are guilty. There have been all too many well-publicised cases over the last year or two to ram this fact home to us.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to deny it, sir. You’re right, of course. But you really are absolutely certain it couldn’t have been an accident? Your wife never had any dizzy spells, for instance?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge, no. And I’m sure I would have known, if she had. You can check with Howard Squires, of course. And in any case, the wall around the well is too high for someone of Ginny’s height to topple over without extra momentum being applied, to shift the fulcrum.’ He closed his eyes for a moment. The image his words conjured up must have been painful indeed. He cleared his throat before going on. ‘So I really do think that you can rule out the possibility of it having been an accident. And I’m a hundred per cent certain it couldn’t have been suicide. So, incredible as it may seem, that leaves us with only one alternative, doesn’t it? And needless to say, I’ve spent the last few hours racking my brains as to who could possibly have wished to harm her.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I’ve got absolutely nowhere. I really cannot imagine why anybody should want to . . .’ Mintar’s voice cracked and he stopped, took a deep breath. ‘No, I’m afraid it’s going to be up to you to find that out, Inspector. But believe me, I shall give you every ounce of assistance possible. That is why I have tried to be frank and honest with you – in my feelings towards Agon, for instance. I don’t want you to think that I am trying to conceal anything. I have absolutely nothing to hide.’

  ‘Thank you. It would make our job so much easier if everyone had the same attitude. But to return to what we were saying, I imagine you were referring to your other daughter’s elopement.’

  Mintar’s eyes opened wide. ‘My God, you don’t waste much time, do you. How on earth did you find out about that?’

  ‘It was Rachel, last night. She was so upset, and kept on saying her mother’s disappearance was “Caro all over again.” So I asked your mother what she meant.’

  ‘I see.’ Mintar sighed. ‘Well, I don’t think it’s in the least relevant but if I must . . .’ He stood up and, still carrying the cat, walked across to the window and looked out. ‘There’s not much to tell, really. Four years ago our elder daughter, Caroline, then just eighteen, fell in love with the gardener.’ He gave a bitter little laugh. ‘Very D.H. Lawrence, I’m afraid. It happens, I suppose. Her mother and I were none too pleased, as you can imagine, and tried to put a stop to it – a disastrous mistake, as it turned out. They eloped and we have never seen her since.’

  ‘But you’ve been in touch?’

  ‘No.’ Mintar swung around to face them. ‘And we have no idea where she is. So you can see why we were treading warily over this business with Rachel and Agon.’

  ‘You did try to find out where she is?’

  ‘Of course. And got absolutely nowhere. She left a note, you see, stating her intentions very clearly, so of course the police weren’t very interested. Oh, they went through the motions, just to shut us up, but they got nowhere. Swain – that was his name – had never committed an offence of any kind so they couldn’t trace him through the national database, and he apparently wasn’t living on benefit, so far as they could find out, so that was that. And the Salvation Army didn’t get anywhere either.’

  ‘Really?’ Thanet was surprised. The Salvation Army had an excellent record in tracing missing persons and would never give up until every possible line of inquiry had been exhausted.

  ‘No. So there was absolutely nothing we could do about it, except hope that one day Caro would relent, and get in touch. Ginny never got over it.’

  ‘Did the young man’s family live locally?’

  Another cynical little laugh. ‘Oh yes. His mother lives in a cottage in the woods and has the reputation of being the local witch, so you can see why we didn’t exactly consider him a desirable suitor for our daughter. She was as unhelpful as she could possibly be when we were trying to get in touch with Caro, still claims she doesn’t have the faintest idea where they are and in fact seems to blame Caro for the whole thing. Says she turned her son’s head.’

  ‘He’s her only child?’

  Mintar nodded.

  ‘So your present gardener . . . ?’

  ‘Digby came as Swain’s replacement.’

  ‘I see. Well, thank you for explaining, sir. Just one or two further points . . . Your mother lives in the annexe, I gather. Has she been there long?’

  ‘Yes, for many years – ever since I got married, in fact.’ For the first time Mintar’s expression lightened and he gave a slight smile. ‘Oh, I know what you must have been thinking – that she’s an unlikely candidate for a “granny annexe”. And you’d be right, of course, she is. She’s more than capable of running an independent establishment of her own and lives here purely for her own convenience. Perhaps I’d better explain that she’s a botanist or, perhaps more accurately, an artist who is also a qualified botanist. She’s always going off on far-flung expeditions and it suits her to be able to come and go as she pleases without having to worry about security and so on. We’ve lived in this house since I was in my early teens and when my father died we stayed on, although it was really too big for us. Mother found it rather a burden, I think, and she was relieved when I got married and Ginny and I took it over. We converted that little wing of outbuildings into a flat for her.’ Again, the faint smile. ‘I think Mother regards it more as a mini Dower House than a granny
annexe. The arrangement has worked out well.’

  ‘Did she and your wife get on?’

  Mintar’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You’re surely not suggesting my mother had anything to do with what happened to Ginny?’

  ‘I was merely inquiring. It can be a difficult situation, I believe.’

  ‘We don’t exactly live in each other’s pockets. And besides, as I said, Mother is away for long periods of time. They got on perfectly well, thank you.’

  The door swung open.

  ‘Daddy?’

  Rachel stood in the doorway, swaying slightly. She had obviously just awoken from the sedative Dr Squires had given her last night: her eyelids drooped, her hair was tousled and she was wearing a very short white sleepshirt and an ankle-length deep blue silk kimono embroidered with huge white waterlilies. She steadied herself with one hand against the door jamb and said, ‘Why is there a fire engine outside?’ She noticed Thanet and Lineham and her expression changed, became more alert. ‘Have you found her?’

  She obviously hadn’t looked out of any of the windows overlooking the courtyard, thought Thanet.

  Mintar put the cat down, hurried across the room and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Rachel.’ He cast an agonised glance at Thanet. How am I going to tell her?

  Time for a tactful withdrawal. Thanet did not envy Mintar the next few minutes. He stood up. ‘We’ll leave you now, sir. If you could just direct us to your wife’s room?’

  Mintar’s expression changed to – what? Thanet wondered. Something unexpected, certainly. Embarrassment, perhaps? Swiftly followed by resignation. ‘Up the stairs, first on the right.’ He turned to his daughter. ‘Come along, darling. Let’s get you back to your room.’

  Still somewhat dazed, Rachel allowed herself to be shepherded up ahead of them. The two policemen tactfully waited for the door of Rachel’s room to close before Lineham opened the door to her mother’s bedroom. Then without warning he stopped dead on the threshold, so abruptly that Thanet bumped into him. ‘Mike! Watch what you’re doing. What are you playing at?’

  But Lineham wasn’t listening. He whistled softly. ‘Just look at this, sir!’ he said.

  FOUR

  ‘No-o-o-o!’

  Thanet and Lineham froze as along the corridor floated a wail of despair. Mintar must have broken the news of her mother’s death to Rachel.

  ‘Poor kid,’ muttered Thanet. Then, irritably, giving Lineham a little push, ‘Move over then. I can’t see a thing with you standing there like the rock of Gibraltar.’

  Lineham moved aside and Thanet saw the reason for the sergeant’s surprise – and also for Mintar’s embarrassed reaction downstairs. The thought of having his wife’s idiosyncracies exposed to the gaze of strangers would no doubt have made him squirm. For although the four-poster bed with its graceful hangings, the toning curtains and soft-pile carpet all proclaimed that this was the master bedroom, the room was dominated by a curious phenomenon. Piled up all around the walls right up to the ceiling, two and three deep in places, were cardboard boxes.

  ‘Odd that none of the men commented on this last night,’ said Lineham. ‘What on earth do you suppose she keeps in them?’ He crossed to the nearest pile, pulled out a box and peered at the lid. ‘It says “T-SHIRTS, WHITE”. ’ He opened it.

  It was indeed filled with white T-shirts, mostly still in their polythene bags, all obviously unworn. Lineham picked some up, read the labels. ‘Alexon, Jaeger, Ralph Lauren, Mondi . . . This lot must have cost a small fortune. Whatever did she want with them all?’

  Thanet was opening another box labelled ‘SWEATERS, PINK’. This too was stuffed with top-quality garments in cashmere, lambswool, angora, all made by famous brand names.

  They glanced at the labels on some of the other boxes: socks, pants, waist slips, full-length slips, nightdresses, pyjamas, cardigans, tennis shorts and tops, swimsuits, all in every colour of the spectrum. Then there were the accessories – belts, scarves, shoes, handbags, and gloves. The fitted wardrobe which took up one entire wall of the room was crammed so full of dresses, suits, skirts and trousers that it must have been difficult to put anything in or take anything out.

  ‘No one woman could get through wearing this little lot in a lifetime,’ said Lineham. ‘There’s only one explanation, isn’t there? She was a shopaholic. I saw a documentary.’

  ‘I agree, Mike.’ Thanet put out a finger to touch the folds of a silk dress. ‘And I wonder why. There must have been something seriously wrong.’

  ‘I’ll say. Doesn’t look as though her husband slept in here, does it?’

  And it was true that although there were two sets of pillows in the bed and two bedside tables, there was no sign of a masculine presence in the room.

  ‘There’s probably a dressing room through there.’ Thanet nodded at a closed door. ‘Quite common in certain sections of society, I believe.’

  Lineham grunted. ‘Not exactly the royal family, this.’ Still, he went to check. ‘But you’re right. All very snug.’

  Thanet had a look: another fitted wardrobe, single bed, trouser press, chest of drawers with silver-backed hairbrushes, bedside table with lamp and alarm clock. He turned back to the main bedroom. ‘Anyway, it would take far too long for us to go through all these boxes. We’ll put some of the team on to it and just take a quick glance around for now.’

  But the search revealed nothing else of any interest apart from a small worn album of photographs in the drawer of one of the bedside tables. Thanet looked through it. The snapshots were all of a girl, from babyhood to teenage years, mostly alone but sometimes with another child who was recognisably Rachel. Caroline, presumably. Mintar had said that his wife had never got over losing her. Thanet had a sudden, vivid vision of Ginny Mintar sitting up alone in the luxurious four-poster bed surrounded by all this evidence of an unquenchable thirst for fulfilment, obsessively turning over the pages of the album and mourning her lost daughter. Could there be a connection?

  ‘I wonder why Mr Mintar never hired a private detective to find Caroline,’ said Lineham, tuning in, as he so often did, to Thanet’s thoughts.

  ‘I wondered that, too. But there was something odd about his attitude to the whole business of Caroline’s elopement, didn’t you think?’

  ‘In what way, sir?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I could understand him not wanting to talk about it, but I just had the feeling he wasn’t being frank with us, despite his protestations to the contrary.’ Thanet replaced the album and shut the drawer.

  ‘You’re not suggesting anything sinister, are you, sir?’

  ‘Oh no, I shouldn’t think so for a minute. Though it might be worth just checking, to see what action the police did take.’

  ‘To change the subject, it did occur to me . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know what you were saying about the work in the kitchen being left half done last night? And what Mr Mintar said about his wife asking him to remind her to finish the watering later? Well, I did notice that the sink is in front of the window, and that there’s a clear view of the well from there. What if she was rinsing the dishes and happened to look out, remembered she hadn’t done it? She’d have been busy all evening, serving supper. This might have been her first opportunity – her last, perhaps, if they were all going swimming.’

  ‘Good point, Mike. So she thought she’d better see to it then and there, while she remembered. Then what?’

  ‘Then she must have met someone.’

  They stared at each other in silence, envisaging the scene. Thanet could see it all: Ginny Mintar hurrying across the courtyard to the well in the gathering dusk, the light from the kitchen spilling out behind her and a shadowy figure coming to meet her, or following her, perhaps . . . ‘But who, I wonder?’ He turned and made briskly for the door. ‘Come on, Mike, we really haven’t the faintest idea of what everyone was doing at the time. We’ve only got Mintar’s assumptions to go on at the moment. We’ll talk to Rachel later, when she�
��s had a chance to calm down. Let’s see if we can find Miss Simons and her boyfriend.’

  They ran them to earth in the kitchen, seated at the big pine table. Jane was hunched over a mug of coffee, both hands clasped around it as though despite the heat of the day she was attempting to draw comfort from its warmth. There was a box of tissues on the table in front of her. Prime was sitting beside her, a protective arm around her shoulders. They both looked up as the two policemen entered. Jane had obviously been crying. Her eyes were bloodshot, the skin around them puffy and her mascara was badly smudged.

  Not having seen Virginia Mintar until this morning, Thanet was surprised now to realise that there was a resemblance between the two sisters. It was as if Ginny’s features had been blown up and distorted slightly so that whereas she had been beautiful, Jane had been aptly named. Not for the first time Thanet was struck by the infinite variations of the human face. Two eyes, a nose and a mouth, and apart from identical twins no two sets of features are exactly alike. A fractional adjustment here, a tiny shift of emphasis there and the result is completely different. No wonder portrait painters find it so difficult to achieve a satisfactory likeness, he thought.

  Now, looking at Jane Simons, he wondered how it must have felt, having a younger sister so much more beautiful than she. Had it made her determined to shine in other ways, academically, perhaps? She had done very well for herself as far as her career was concerned, according to Mintar. Thanet suspected too that it had made her work hard to maximise her assets. Even this morning she had taken trouble with her make-up and although her cotton dress and matching jacket in a tawny mixture of black, browns and creams looked simple enough, Joan had long since taught him that such simplicity frequently carried a high price tag. Still, he felt sorry for these two. Apart from the considerable personal loss to Jane, it must be pretty dispiriting to set off for a lighthearted summer weekend in the country and find yourself caught up in what looked like a murder inquiry. ‘May we sit down?’

  She nodded.

  Prime had sat back a little, but left his arm resting lightly on her shoulders.