Murder in Hampstead by Sabina Manea (read this if txt) 📕

pleased that he had broken her composure, until it occurred to him that the rendition might be well rehearsed.

‘I don’t mean to speak ill of my former employer, but…’ She searched for the appropriate words. ‘The place was run shambolically. It prided itself on its liberal ethos. All it meant in practice was that discipline was impossible to enforce. In simple terms, Inspector, the girls were spoilt brats and there was nothing I could do about it.’ The self-righteousness she affected suited her. It was a valid reason for her not to have stayed on.

‘And you didn’t look for another teaching job?’

‘I fancied a career change.’

Carliss consulted the notes from the preliminary interview that he had conscientiously stapled in his notebook.

‘You left your post at St Wenna’s two years ago, and you started your job with the Professor eighteen months ago. What did you do for the six months in between?’

‘Temping.’

‘Temping?’

‘Yes, temping. Working occasional office jobs here and there.’

He knew what temping meant but couldn’t understand why anyone would want to do it. He had been in the police force since he left school.

‘Isn’t that a touch entry-level for a highly qualified teacher?’ He had read her CV – privately educated, English at Oxford. She had been at St Wenna’s since she finished her teaching qualifications and had swiftly risen to head of department. He also remembered Lucia’s remark, but allowed himself to think he had been first to articulate it.

Emilia sat back into the sofa, crossed her legs, and stroked her smooth ponytail. She was undeniably the mistress of the anodyne rented flat.

‘I enjoyed it. It afforded the kind of freedom that traditional employment can’t offer. I have no partner, dependants or mortgage to account to, so I can do as I like.’ There was a light but unmistakable note of defiance in her tone.

‘Do you live alone, Miss Poole? Any family?’

He thought he caught a fleeting cloud pass across her serene face, but, if it ever existed, it was gone in a fraction of a second. ‘My flatmate is an ICU nurse. She’s hardly ever here and when she is, she’s generally asleep. As for family, my parents died four years ago. Car accident. I’m an only child. To my knowledge, I don’t have any other relatives that are alive.’

Although he was keen to dig deeper into her background, Carliss didn’t feel it was directly relevant to the investigation, and thus appropriate, to continue with this particular line of questioning.

‘I’m sorry to hear about your parents. I’d like to move on to the day of the party. Can you give me a brief account of your whereabouts?’

‘I arrived at Beatrice Hall around nine in the morning, as I usually do. I was there all day. Apart from stretching our legs and eating a sandwich lunch in the garden, the Professor and I were in the library. She was writing a new chapter and I was reading an older draft. At three-thirty or so, the Professor went to her room to change. I went down to the kitchen to help Mrs Byrne prepare the food and drink, and we took it out onto the terrace.’

‘Did you know the Professor had a recognizable champagne coupe that was different from the other glasses set out for the guests?’

‘Of course. Everyone did. She always used that coupe. It had been a gift from her mother.’

Carliss was hoping to shock her into revealing something of note, though he had no idea what. ‘Did you know there was a tin of rat poison kept under the kitchen sink?’

Emilia looked genuinely surprised.

‘No, I had no idea. I’ve never looked under the sink.’ Her compelling eyes widened in horror. ‘Is that what killed her? Rat poison?’

‘I’m not in position to say just yet. So, you went downstairs around three-thirty, set up for the party, and then what?’

It took Emilia a few moments to shake off the unpleasant recollection of the Professor’s death. ‘Sorry, yes. The guests started to arrive shortly before four. The Walkers were the first, I believe, if you don’t count Adam, who appeared not long after we brought out the food and drink. Dr Glover arrived at four on the dot. I remember because I thought to myself how wonderfully punctual he always is. I was mingling, eating, drinking – I didn’t leave the terrace – until… until the incident.’ She couldn’t bring herself to describe it more specifically.

Carliss noted that Emilia had omitted to mention Lucia’s arrival. As the decorator herself would have said, tradespeople were generally forgotten about.

‘You’ve been very helpful, Miss Poole, much appreciated. Just one last question, if I may. Did you notice anything out of place, anyone acting strangely during the party, or beforehand?’

After the bland responses from Adam Corcoran and Mrs Byrne, Carliss had in all honesty not expected this to be the killer question. Emilia furrowed her shapely eyebrows, deep in thought.

‘Now you mention it, there was something.’

‘Go on.’

‘It’s probably nothing, which is why it slipped my mind completely.’ She was being both helpful and apologetic.

‘Don’t worry. It often takes some time after the event to recall snippets of information that we’ve filed away as unimportant. It’s how the human brain works.’

‘This wasn’t on the day of the party. It was about a week before, though I can’t be sure of the precise date. It was shortly after nine in the morning, as I’d just arrived. The Professor and I had settled in the library as usual when the doorbell rang. Shortly after, Mrs Byrne came in to say that John Walker was there to see her. The Professor went downstairs. The door was left open, and I heard what sounded like a heated discussion, albeit with lowered voices. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I’m fairly certain it wasn’t friendly.