‘DO I SODDINGLOOKOK?’ Trembling with the effort of bottling it all back up again. Hissing out sizzling breaths. ‘Theinternal phone lineshave been working all the sodding time! It’s justoutsideyou can’t call. You can chat room-to-room toyour nasty little heart’s content.’ A deep breath. ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!’
‘Why are you...?’ His mouth fell open as his brain finally caught up. ‘“Like they’ve been rehearsing their statements.”’
PC McKinnon’s eyes widened – always last to the thinky party. ‘Maybe Agatha Christie was right after all? All them people, working together...’
Like the dates, sultanas, and raisins in the wedding cake. Only instead of sticky gooey deliciousness, they were working on a murder.
Sergeant Moore shook his head. ‘I hate to rain on your Miss Marple Appreciation Society parade, but Albert Nairn killed—’
‘What if it wasn’tjusthim? What if he had help?’ Roberta slumped against the wall and stared at the ceiling for a bit.
Well, there was nothing else for it, was there?
‘All right.’ She marched back to the coffee table, snatched another bit of cake from the plate and jammed it in her gob. Spraying dark brown angry crumbs. ‘If it’s Agatha Christie they want, it’s Agatha Christie they’ll bloody well get!’
PC McKinnon bustled out into the lobby, rubbing his hands and nodding. ‘That’s everyone.’
Roberta stuck her head around the door and peered into the library.
The room wasn’t exactlyfull, full, but it was getting there. Forty-nine people milled about as Sergeant Moore shepherded them all down to one end. Thirty-seven guests and twelve members of hotel staff, all looking a lot less pyjama-and-nightdressy than they had last time they were gathered together for roll-call at three o’clock that morning.
A low background murmur oozed out of the gathering: It’s such a terrible shock. Isn’t it a shame about poor old Sir Reginald? Who would have thought it? The gamekeeper! Isn’t Lady Bradbury-Scott holding up well. It’s Adriana and Douglas I feel sorry for – a murder and a suicide, at theirwedding, I mean to say...
None of them seemed to notice that all the curtains were drawn, shutting out the thin grey light.
Her Ladyship had pride of place on a large leather sofa, brought in from one of the other rooms specially for the occasion. A middle-aged fat man sat on her left, both hands clasped in front of his tweed three-piece suit, Adriana on her right. There wasn’t any room for Douglas Moore on the sofa, so he stood behind his new wife – one hand on her shoulder, still posing for that photoshoot.
Lord Fitzroy-Galbraith perched himself in an armchair, pulled up next to the sofa, arms resting on the silver handle of a walking stick. Imperious and every inch the patriarch.
Gathered together like that, the five of them looked like something out ofGrimmer Homes and Tories. Or a really nasty episode ofGame of Thrones. Which probably amounted to much the same thing, only with less full-frontal nudity and more backstabbing.
Weird Wee Janey had clearly been in again, because a tray of tea and cake was set on the coffee table in front of the VIPs.
Even Susan was there, standing off to one side, by the Barbara Cartlands. Shuffling her feet, all on her own, abandoned by work colleagues and – God forbid – friends.
Sergeant Moore glanced towards the door and Roberta gave him the nod.
‘ALL RIGHT, EVERYONE!’ Raising his arms and voice till they settled into an uneasy silence.
She turned to PC McKinnon, barely whispering so none of the other buggers could overhear. ‘You got it?’
The wee spud looked a bawhair off wetting himself with excitement as he pointed at the switches just inside the door. But at least he kept it quiet: ‘Soon as you get to the dramatic bit, I kill the lights.’
‘Good boy.’ Surely evenhecouldn’t cock that up?
Roberta dipped into her pocket and produced the wee jar of hand cream she’d pilfered from Susan’s make-up bag fifteen minutes ago. Glass, about the size of a hockey puck, with an unpronounceable name and bum-clenching price tag.
She turned it over in her fingers.
This was going to work. Of course it was.
Always worked for Miss Marple...
Come on then.
Roberta marched into the library, and every face in the room turned to watch her.
She stopped beside Sergeant Moore, hands in her pockets, a wee bit slouchy, in contrast to his parade-rest pose. Maybe a wee bit more Columbo than Miss Marple, then. But asexyColumbo, so that was OK.
