Village Affairs Read online

  “I almost think she didn’t, sir,” said Gibbons. “Not unless Watkinson is as good an actor as his client. I’ve never seen a man so unconcerned about a police investigation into his movements.”

  “Far more worried about our interest in Miss Bonnar, eh?”

  “Oh, yes. Much more worried, sir.”

  Indeed, as Watkinson had begun to realize, with mounting horror, that Joan Bonnar was a major suspect in the death of Charles Bingham, he had frequently broken off his litany of his own actions to interject a denial that she could have had anything to do with it. This reached a pinnacle in his last statement, in which he tried to amend his earlier testimony that he had left the house at about 9:45, by claiming that in fact he might have stayed later; he really couldn’t be sure of the time. Gibbons paid no attention to this at all.

  “Of course,” Gibbons continued, “he hasn’t an alibi after he left Miss Bonnar that night, so I could be wrong. And he says he returned to her house at about half ten the next morning, in time to meet the magazine interviewer, who was due at eleven. He said Miss Bonnar’s agent—I forget her name—was already there when he arrived.”

  “Emily Redston,” supplied Carmichael, consulting his notes. “That tallies with what Miss Bonnar told me. Her agent arrived at about nine, and Watkinson left her a bit before ten the night before, after which she rang Bingham, got no answer, and went to bed.”

  “Did you find out who else knew about her and Bingham?” asked Gibbons.

  “Yes, but there weren’t many,” answered Carmichael. “Just the housekeeper at the house in town, one of Bingham’s archaeologist friends and his wife, and Dame Sarah Kelling.”

  “Well, that figures,” said Gibbons. “At least, one always hears Joan Bonnar and Sarah Kelling are the best of friends. Only doesn’t it strike you as odd, sir, that if Miss Bonnar and Bingham planned to be married, they were still keeping their relationship a secret from nearly everyone?”

  Carmichael shrugged. “I asked about that,” he said. “Miss Bonnar said that they were waiting until after Bingham had told his daughter. It seems he wanted to do it in person, but somehow hadn’t yet arranged to go to Paris. Miss Bonnar claimed to have urged him, in their last conversation, to get on with it, and warned him it would only be matter of time before the media got hold of the news and Eve found out that way. He apparently agreed to ring Eve this week and make arrangements to see her.”

  “I suppose that does make sense,” said Gibbons. “That he would want to tell Eve first, I mean. And we all know how easy it is to put things off.”

  Carmichael nodded and they fell silent for a space as the miles sped away beneath them.

  “I think,” said Carmichael in a little bit, “I’ll have Mathers get a warrant and find out if any chemists in Sealingham’s neighborhood have been filling prescriptions for Seconal lately.”

  Gibbons was surprised. “But surely the Seconal came from Miss Bonnar?” he asked.

  “Well, it never does to make assumptions,” said Carmichael slowly. “And to tell the truth, I’m a bit troubled by one thing: Miss Bonnar denied that it was in any way possible that she might have left some of her sleeping tablets in Bingham’s cottage. If she murdered him and left the tablets there to account for the drug being in his system, you’d expect her to at least leave the door open on that. But she was as positive about it today as she was when we first asked her.”

  “I see, sir,” said Gibbons thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought of that. In fact, I had been thinking Bingham’s death might still have been an accident.”

  “So was I,” agreed Carmichael ruefully. “Once we knew Joan Bonnar was his girlfriend, and that she had Seconal in her possession, it all looked so obvious. She arrives home, finds her fiancé dead and panics about the publicity—or Watkinson panics for her. Anyway, they move the body to try to keep her name out of it. The natural thing would be for her to assume Bingham had died of a heart attack, but it was possible she realized he had taken the Seconal. In the first case, the tablets we found in his cottage would have been some she had left there herself for her own use; in the second, they would have been planted there in case an autopsy was performed. But either way, Miss Bonnar would have to admit to the possibility that she had at some time left her tablets there.”

  Gibbons absorbed this in silence for several moments. “She might,” he said finally, “have killed him deliberately and left the tablets to lend verisimilitude to the idea that his death was accidental and occurred at his home. But now that theory’s been exploded, she’s decided it’s best to deny having left any tablets there, thinking that will tend to exonerate her. Which,” he added, “it does.”

  Carmichael sighed. “I’d thought of that,” he admitted. “Still, it never does to be too sure. It would be an enormous coincidence to find another prescription for Seconal in this case, but, well, such things have been known to happen. Look at poor Cratchett and the Banks case.”

  “Oh, yes—that was pretty awful.”

  “And I’ve no intention of letting it happen to me,” said Carmichael firmly. “As yet, we have no evidence that Bingham was ever in London that Sunday. You had better go along today and do a house-to-house of the square, see if anyone can put Bingham or his car there on the Sunday. You can interview the housekeeper, too. I’ll get on to that archaeologist—he’s in Egypt now, so it will have to be by phone—and speak to Sarah Kelling, see if their description of the relationship tallies with what the Bensons and Martha Potts told us. And I’ll speak to the cast and crew at Miss Bonnar’s current production—they will probably have noticed any recent change in her mood. And then we can all spend the evening looking at traffic photos and CCTV footage to see if we can place Bingham’s car in town.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Gibbons resignedly. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen the traffic photos coming.

  Carmichael paused and then heaved a deep sigh. “Frankly, Gibbons,” he said, “at this moment, I think Joan Bonnar murdered her fiancé. But I don’t think we’ll ever prove it.”

  As the last light of the sun faded from the October sky, Gibbons made his way across Wardour Square toward Joan Bonnar’s London home. It had taken most of the day to complete the house-to-house, despite the fact that one side of the square was undergoing renovations and therefore had no one in residence at the time. The renovations also provided a wealth of extra parking, making it far more likely that Bingham—if he had indeed visited his fiancée—would have found space to leave his car in the square.

  This had initially heartened Gibbons, and he had started the house-to-house in high hopes that one of Joan Bonnar’s neighbors might have seen the old Morris. But although many of those he interviewed had recognized his description of the car, no one could remember if they had seen it last Sunday. With reluctance, he admitted to himself that this was not surprising, considering it would have been dark by the time Bingham reached Wardour Square.

  The closest Gibbons had come to witnesses were the two teenage daughters who lived on the corner of the square nearest the renovations. At about seven o’clock that Sunday, they had gone out to a film, and they had seen an old, battered car parked a little ways down the block. Unfortunately, they could not identify the make of the car; Gibbons received the impression that they would be unable to distinguish between a Ford and a Rolls-Royce. They thought the car they had seen was a dark blue. Asked if it mightn’t have been green, they agreed that it could have been. It was dark, they explained. If the car had still been there when they returned home, they hadn’t noticed it.

  As far as solid evidence went, the day had been a complete washout, and he did not expect much from the upcoming interview with Joan Bonnar’s housekeeper.

  Mary Calthorp did not live-in, but she kept regular hours at the house, and had perforce been taken into the actress’s confidence regarding Bingham. Like Martha Potts and the Bensons, she had believed them to be a happy couple.

  “They were comfortable together,” she said. “It wasn
’t a grand passion—personally, I think as one grows older, one loses the capacity for that—but they suited each other.”

  Her phrasing struck Gibbons.

  “Suited each other?” he asked. “They were from very different worlds.”

  “Yes,” admitted Mary, “but that was just why they got on together so well. I’ve been with Miss Bonnar a number of years, and she lives the kind of life you would expect: all up in the clouds, if you take my meaning. What she’s wanted for some time is someone who could give her ties to reality, and Mr. Bingham did that. And at the same time, he was a very intelligent gentleman, who could grasp what her world was all about.” Mary smiled. “And of course he was very clever, very amusing. He had a wonderfully active mind for a man his age; he kept Miss Bonnar amused.”

  From her expression, Gibbons gathered Miss Bonnar had not been the only one to find Bingham entertaining.

  “That’s very well put,” he said. “But you haven’t said what you think she did for him.”

  Mary tilted her head to one side. “I didn’t know him well,” she said, considering. “But if I had to guess, I would have thought she gave him a place here, in England, I mean. You said they were from two different worlds, but he’d left his behind, you see. He needed to make a life here for himself, and Miss Bonnar provided that.”

  “But what if he had decided he didn’t want to live in her world?” asked Gibbons.

  Mary shook her head. “I saw no sign of that,” she said firmly.

  All in all, it did not sound to Gibbons like the kind of situation someone—even a histrionic actress—would murder for. He sighed as he thanked Mary Calthorp and took his leave. She could tell him nothing more; she had not been present that Sunday evening and could say only that she had found nothing out of order when she had arrived at work on the Monday morning.

  Gibbons paused once he had left the house, pulling out his mobile and checking for messages. He had kept in touch with Carmichael all day, but there was another message from the chief inspector waiting for him. Gibbons pressed the speed dial as he made his way out of the square.

  “There you are, lad,” said Carmichael. “Have you done yet?”

  “Just finished, sir,” Gibbons answered. “The housekeeper said much the same as your archaeologist.”

  “It’s only to be expected,” said Carmichael. “I’ve finally got in touch with Dame Sarah, and she’s waiting at her house now. If you’ve finished, I thought you might like to come with me. It’s not every day we get to interview someone famous.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Gibbons, much pleased. “I would like to come. As you say, I won’t likely get the chance to meet her again.”

  “Good, good,” said Carmichael. “You can meet me there, then, and we’ll go in together. That would be best, I think.”

  It was Dame Sarah herself who admitted them to the flat she kept as a pied-à-terre, having, as she told them, got rid of her London house some years ago when she and her husband began to spend the bulk of their time in Buckinghamshire.

  “It was always wanting something doing to it,” she said with a laugh, as she led them down the hall to the sitting room. “The town house, I mean. It got to be quite tedious, always having to drive in to speak to roofers, or masons, or plumbers. So we sold it and got this nice little flat, which does us very well. Here we are. Greg, this is Chief Inspector Carmichael and Sergeant Gibbons. My husband, Greg Evanston.”

  Sarah Kelling and Joan Bonnar had begun their careers within a few years of each other, both stunning the theater world with their ingénue performances and rocketing thereafter into the top ranks of their profession, but unlike her friend, Sarah’s personal life had not kept pace with the tempestuousness of her acting. She had married early, just after her stunning success at eighteen as Juliet, divorced quietly three years later, and married again at about thirty, this time to a doctor. They had raised two children together and, by all reports, got on famously, despite the strains and separations occasioned by Sarah’s career.

  She sat beside him now on the couch, leaving the armchairs for the detectives. Dame Sarah had never been as beautiful as Joan Bonnar, but her elfin face with its over-large pale green eyes was mesmerizing, even now, when she was nearing sixty. She cocked her head, like an alert bird, and regarded them curiously, while her husband sat at his ease, emitting the assured air of the medical professional.

  “You’ve come to ask about Joan, of course,” said Dame Sarah.

  “Yes, ma’am,” answered Carmichael, settling himself into his chair and glancing around. The room was well-proportioned and money had been spent on its furnishings, but it was comfortable rather than ornate, and there was nothing in it to suggest that one of its occupants was a renowned actress.

  Carmichael cleared his throat and returned his attention to his hosts. “I assume you’ve spoken to Miss Bonnar since she received the sad news?” he asked.

  Dame Sarah nodded. “Yes, several times, by phone. I offered to come to the funeral this morning, but she said better not, it would be too much jam for the press as it was, and there was Charlie’s daughter to consider after all.”

  “Of course,” said Carmichael. “I understand you had only recently learned of her relationship with Charles Bingham?”

  “Oh, I knew quite some time ago,” said Sarah. “One could hardly miss the difference in her, could one?”

  She looked at her husband, who nodded. “At least, you couldn’t,” he said. “I don’t know if I would have noticed myself.”

  Sarah smiled. “Even you remarked on how even-tempered she’d been of late,” she said.

  “Well, yes, but I didn’t twig the reason.”

  “So when did she tell you?” asked Carmichael.

  “Oh, sometime at the beginning of last summer. I asked, actually, because I knew there was someone. Mind, we never let on to Charlie that we’d known for so long; it was understood that we wouldn’t.”

  “Ah,” said Carmichael. “And why was that?”

  Dame Sarah frowned while Evanston smiled broadly.

  “Because,” he said, “it is very difficult to explain to ordinary people that their friends may not be as trustworthy as yours. We went through that bit ourselves, didn’t we, Sarah?”

  Sarah sighed. “Oh, yes.” She turned her eyes back on Carmichael. “It sounds dreadful,” she said, “but it’s quite true. You never know how people will deal with fame until they do it. Naturally Joan felt quite confident in telling Greg and me, because we’d kept her secrets in the past, just as she had ours.”

  “I see,” said Carmichael, nodding. “So, although you knew about the relationship, you didn’t actually meet Mr. Bingham until recently?”

  “That’s right. It was about a month ago, I think. They came to our house in Bucks for dinner, and it was a great success. We both quite liked Charlie, didn’t we, dear?”

  “Oh, yes.” Evanston nodded. “He was a very amusing chap—we were both very sorry when we heard the news, for our own sake as well as Joan’s. We’d been looking forward to seeing him again.”

  “And how would you describe their relationship?” asked Carmichael.

  “To tell the truth,” said Sarah confidingly, “I was desperately hoping we would like Charlie once we did meet him, because he was so clearly good for Joan. Quite soon after she began seeing him, she seemed to settle down into a placid sort of serenity, if you know what I mean. Very unlike Joan, it was, but just what she needed. I think she’d been very lonely ever since Gene died.”

  “She was hardly placid or serene while Gene was alive,” protested Evanston.

  “Oh, no,” agreed Sarah. “They loved each other quite madly, but they weren’t at all good for each other. But he did leave an enormous hole in her life when he went.”

  Carmichael exchanged a brief glance with Gibbons before asking, “So would you say that she and Mr. Bingham were quietly happy together?”

  Sarah nodded at once. “Yes, that describes it very well,”
she said, and Evanston concurred.

  It was the same thing they had heard from all their other witnesses, and Carmichael sighed a little as he proceeded with his questioning. As a situation for murder, it was not very promising.

  Evanston and Dame Sarah had little more light to shed; they had only met Bingham that once, though there had been plans for him and Joan to come out to Bucks over Sunday and Monday next. They had both been in America last week, and so had missed the news of Bingham’s death, only hearing of it when they returned on Saturday.

  Dame Sarah volunteered that she had spoken to Joan just before leaving for the States; her friend had complained about not having the time to see Bingham last week, but had been looking forward to their plans together over this weekend, and to their trip to Bucking-hamshire next week. Sarah had noticed nothing amiss.

  “And so say all of us,” muttered Carmichael as he and Gibbons left. “I told you, didn’t I, that’s just what all the theater people said, once I managed to track them down this afternoon? That Miss Bonnar had been very cheery and pleasant all through their rehearsals as well as after the production went up, and no one had noticed any change in her over the last few weeks or days.”

  “Well,” said Gibbons, “she is an actress, after all, sir. Perhaps she was just putting up a good front.”

  Carmichael merely snorted.

  “Here,” he said, “I can’t stand the thought of those traffic photos without a good meal inside me. Let’s splurge, shall we, Gibbons? My treat—there’s a very nice little restaurant ’round over this way, if I remember rightly.”

  Gibbons, no more eager for the traffic photos than his superior, agreed with enthusiasm.

  Richard Tothill was back in his old cassock and brown tweed jacket. With his wife he stood at the edge of the graveyard, surveying the wreckage. They had seen a drained, exhausted Eve Bingham off once the last guests had left, and had then set to clearing away the leftover cakes and biscuits and doing the washing up. Now they stood ready to tidy up the churchyard.