Asking For The Moon

'I thought as host you'd have saved me for last, Inspector,' said Boris Kingsley in a hurt voice.

'Why? Aren't you ready for me?' asked Pascoe.

Kingsley laughed.

'On the contrary, I'm perfectly rehearsed. What do I know about the letter and phone calls? Nothing at all. What do I know about Kate's disappearance? Ditto. Do I think John might have mur dered her? No. Do I think anyone else here tonight might have murdered her? Improbable but not impossible. Who am I not one hundred per cent sure about? Mind your own business.'

He sat back looking vastly pleased with himself.

'Why were you left on the shelf, Mr Kingsley?' asked Pascoe as if the man hadn't spoken.

'What do you mean?'

'The Wearton Six. Rawlinson gets his Stella, Swithenbank gets his Kate. Symmetry requires that you end up with Ursula, Mrs Davenport. But she opts for an outsider.'

'Hardly an outsider,' protested Kingsley. 'Peter spent most of his hols here. And he's Ursula's cousin. We knew him almost as well as each other.'

'Almost,' said Pascoe. 'Still, you did end up unattached.'

'What the devil's this got to do with anything?' demanded Boris. ,

'I don't know,' said Pascoe. 'Probably nothing. But if, say, you didn't get married because all your life you'd nursed a passionate but unrequited love for Kate Lightfoot, it might mean much.'

'Who's been talking to you? Has someone been saying something? Who was it? Geoff?' He sounded genuinely angry.

'No,' said Pascoe. 'That wasn't one of the things Mr Rawlinson told me. Where were you a year ago tonight, Mr Kingsley?'

The anger subsided and Kingsley shook his head like a boxer who has walked into a sucker punch and now means to take more care.

'I can't be sure. I'd need more notice of that question.'

'I'd have thought by now everyone here had notice of it,' remarked Pascoe drily. 'It was the weekend Mr Rawlinson fell off the church tower. Remember?'

'Of course. Yes. Dreadful business. I remember wondering…'

'What?'

'Mustn't even hint these things, of course, but Geoff had been behaving rather oddly for some time before. You know, very moody. Self-absorbed.'

He paused invitingly. Pascoe made a note. He distrusted invitations.

'You mean he may have been upset because his affair with Kate was coming to some kind of climax, so when they met on the Friday evening he killed her, hid the body and then tried to commit suicide in a fit of remorse?' he asked with mild interest.

It was a long time since he'd seen a man splutter, but Kingsley spluttered now.

'Please. No! Don't say such things!'

'All right,' said Pascoe indifferently. 'What about you? What were you doing that night?'

'I've no idea. I didn't hear about it till next day, so I wasn't directly involved. Probably sitting in front of the television at home.'

'Alone?'

'If that was what I was doing, yes. Surely people who have the alternative of human conversation never watch television, do they, Inspector? It's a kind of mental masturbation, essentially a solitary pursuit.'

He had stopped spluttering. Pascoe yawned widely.

'Where do you think Kate Swithenbank is now?' he asked through the yawn.

Boris rolled his eyes upward and slapped the arm of his chair.

'I do wish you'd stop trying to confuse me with these changes of direction,' he said. 'They're irritating without being effective. Unless, of course, your aim is merely to irritate.'

'Do you think she's dead?'

'I've no idea. How should I know?'

'I didn't say know. I said think. Only one person could really know. Except her brother, of course.'

'Why him?' said Kingsley sharply.

'Hadn't you heard? He's seen her ghost.'

Kingsley laughed merrily.

'What a cretin!'

'Why do you dislike him, Mr Kingsley?'

'Who says I dislike him?'

'He says. It hardly seems worth denying. I mean, is there anyone who can really be said to like him? I'm just interested in reasons. Irrational Dr Fell prejudice? Aesthetic repugnance? Or perhaps, like Mrs Rawlinson, you think he cheated your father?'

The reaction was astonishing.

'What the hell do you mean?' demanded Kingsley, his face suddenly twisting in porcine ferocity. 'What've they been saying to you? Come on, Inspector, spit it out. You'd do well to remember this is my house and you'd be wise to watch what you say!'

There seemed to be something contradictory in this simultaneous demand for frankness and caution but Pascoe, who had been completely innocent of subtle intent, was not long in finding a hypothesis to resolve the contradiction.

'Come on, Mr Kingsley,' he said with the weary certainty of one who knows exactly what he is doing. 'I'm a policeman, remember? That means I've a job to do. It also means that I know all about discretion. In any case, there can't be any question of charges, not now. Not either way.'

He held his breath and hoped he was making sense. Kings-ley's features gradually resumed a more normal colour and expression.

'You're right,' he said. 'I'm sorry. It's just that it makes me angry, even thinking about it.'

'How long have you known?' enquired Pascoe, still feeling his way.

'I never liked the man,' said Kingsley, 'but it wasn't till after Father died. I was going through his papers. The figures told the story. Then there was a diary… well, God, he was wrong, of course. But to suffer like that all those years!'

'This was how Lightfoot bought his smallholding?' pursued Pascoe.

'That's it. And how he's compensated for its inefficient running ever since! You wouldn't think he needs money to look at the man! But he's got expensive habits – drinking, women, too. God, he'd need to pay well to get any half decent woman near him!'

Ignoring the curious scale of values this suggested, Pascoe went the whole hog and said, 'So Arthur Lightfoot steadily blackmailed your father ever since he discovered he'd been interfering with an under-age girl, to wit, his sister Kate.'

Kingsley nodded. It seemed to be some relief to the man to hear someone else say it openly.

'I went to see him, of course, when I realized. I didn't know what I was going to do, but it was going to be bloody extreme!'

'And.'

'And he said nothing. Admitted nothing. Denied nothing.

He just sat there cleaning that blasted shotgun of his. I ran out of words! There was nothing to do. I couldn't get him through the law – there was some evidence, but nothing certain enough, and besides even though he was dead, my father had paid for peace and quiet and a good name.'

'So what did you do?'

'Do, Inspector? Do? I did nothing.'

Kingsley was now back in full control.

'I hope one night I may catch him poaching on the bit of land that remains to me. Or that he might catch food poisoning from his own disgusting cooking. Yes, I can only sit and pray for some happy accident.'

'Like his cottage burning down, for instance?'

'Yes, that was a real tonic when I heard about it. A pity our fire service is so efficient.'

'He didn't come to see you afterwards?'

Kingsley regarded him shrewdly.

'Now why on earth should he do that? You're not suggesting I had anything to do with the fire, Inspector?'

'Of course not,' smiled Pascoe. 'But he'd need money for repairs. He doesn't sound as if he'd carry much insurance.'

'You may be right,' said Kingsley indifferently. 'He certainly wouldn't get it here. I only wish he'd had the cheek to try!'

'And now we come to the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,' said Pascoe.

'And what's that?'

'Did Kate Swithenbank have any idea what her brother was up to all those years?'

There was a long silence.

'And if she did, what then, Inspector?'