“David’s bunch own this place,” she said. “Wouldn’t you just know it?”
“There is, I agree, a sort of logic in the connection between a restaurant and a dog food factory. One cannot help being put in mind of Sweeney Todd and the pie shop.”
Julia laughed but shook her head. “Pure coincidence, I’m afraid. Cultox have got their greedy hands on so many things that nobody knows who’s running what or where.” She waved a hand. “All this...I mean, what genius of an accountant thought that hard-headed, civilised country people who love their bellies would fall for this sort of rubbish?”
Mr Rothermere made no reply. He sat on, looking patiently benevolent and flicking the occasional crumb from his own, presumably well loved, belly.
Julia, too, lapsed into silence. She bowed her head. Mr Rothermere watched her fingering absently a button on the front of her dress. When she spoke at last, it was quietly and with only a hint of difficulty that the last glass or two of wine had induced.
“David is a real twenty-four carat Cultox-brand pig. All I want is to hear him squeal while he has his bank account cut. I’d say throat, but he’s got no nerves in that.”
Mr Rothermere nodded. He rose from the table and stepped to the back of Julia’s chair, ready to draw it out for her.
“We shall have to see,” he said, “just what we can devise along those lines.” He patted, then squeezed, her shoulder. “I have high hopes, I really have.”
Chapter Six
Mr Rothermere’s “chambers” proved to be a chalet in the Oxby Moor Motel, a mile west of Flaxborough. It held a large double divan, a combined chest of drawers and bureau, and a table with a telephone. Closet doors of simulated mahogany were set in one pale blue wall. On the wall facing the divan was a television set; it looked an integral part of the permanent structure. Through an open door Julia glimpsed lemon tiling, the edge of a wash basin, and some chromium plating. She sat on the divan, leaning back on one elbow, and watched Rothermere fussily make disposition of hat, umbrella and briefcase. The Times he seemed to have left behind in the car. He closed the bathroom door after bringing out a basketwork chair. This he carried to the bureau and sat down.
From one of the drawers he took a notebook, a newspaper cutting and a camera. Julia wondered about Madeira, but it seemed that more urgent matters were to be disposed of first.
Mr Rothermere ran a thumb along his moustache, stroked his cheeks twice, made a sort of will-reading rumble in his throat, and began:
“We were never in doubt that we should use the classic ploy of the vanished wife in this case. Circumstances are unusually favourable. Your husband’s factory has precisely the sort of machinery and disposal plant that would make your disappearance convincing. Add to the annoyance of being placed in peril of a murder charge the catastrophe of public suspicion of adulteration of pet food and you can imagine how ready your husband will be to come to terms.”
Julia had sat upright and clasped one knee. She now leaned further forward. She stared, frowning.
“You really mean all this, don’t you. You’re serious about it.”
Surprise, pain, reproach flitted in turn across his face. “My dear Julia!” The centre of the little pink mouth suddenly tightened in a mischievous smirk. “I am nothing if not an honourable man. I am contracted to help you. Had you doubted it?”
She had turned her gaze elsewhere, thinking, not listening. A finger was raised. She touched her lip, smiled. “You asked, didn’t you, on which night it would be convenient to be done away with...”
“Fatuously put. I’m sorry.”
“No, no. Please don’t be. This really could be a lovely idea.”
“Actually, before you...”
“Hey, do you think they’ll keep him in a cell all night?” Julia was hugging her knees, eyes sparkling. “God, he’d hate that. And if they get a search warrant they’ll find his precious collection of girlie magazines. Hey, I’d love to see a couple of Flaxborough bobbies trying to puzzle out that dreadful rubber thing he sent away to Liverpool for.”
Mr Rothermere raised his hand. “My dear, you will have leisure shortly in which to picture Mr Harton’s discomfiture. We have in mind for you an exceedingly pleasant little retreat on the Norfolk coast. What are your feelings about that?”
She shrugged, her head a little on one side, but made no reply.
“This I promise you: the food there is...” He joined middle finger and thumb to signify indescribable excellence, and kissed the air.
How continental, thought Julia. She said: “All right, suppose I disappear. What next?”
“Nothing for a while. Two, perhaps three days. Your husband will be uneasy, but I think he will not do anything. This lapse will look bad later, if and when the police begin making inquiries. At the end of three days, we shall make a preliminary approach. He will be told that if he does not agree to a reasonable divorce settlement at the figure my organisation suggests—twenty thousand pounds—your anxious friends and relatives will report your sudden and unexplained absence to the authorities.”
“To which, knowing David, I suspect he will say: go ahead and sod your eyes and much good may it do you. He does tend to be truculent when asked for money.”
“Ah, but our inquiries show that he is also shrewd in assessing odds. If I may say so, Julia, you have lived with him at too close quarters to have seen anything but rapaciousness and arrogance. He knows the score, this fellow; we don’t have to worry about that.”
“So?”
“So he will see certain possibilities and he will not like them. He will agree to pay.”
She remained a while in thought. Then she said: “One thing I’d rather like to know. Why is he supposed to have murdered me? You must grant even David the intelligence to see that the police won’t take a motiveless killing very seriously.”
Mr Rothermere smiled. “You do yourself less than justice, Julia. Jealousy—what else? The discovery that so beautiful a woman has a secret lover would drive any husband to homicide, I assure you.”
“There’s one small snag, darling. A secret lover is just what I don’t happen to have. Or are you volunteering?”
“You really are sweet.” He glanced at his watch. “And it’s true that I don’t have another engagement until five-thirty. Let us, however, first have regard to the—how shall I say?—the practicalities of the problem.”
Seeing him get up from his chair, Julia pulled straight her skirt but remained on the divan. She eyed him with something of provocative speculation.
Mr Rothermere did not look at her. He went into the bathroom and returned with a tubular metal stand, about six feet high when he extended it fully. To this he clamped the camera. He placed the stand between the window and the divan and spent a few moments adjusting the camera mounting. He peered through the viewfinder, squinted round it at Julia and altered a couple of lens settings. Every movement he made had a balletic nicety that contrasted oddly with the shortness and plumpness of his legs, which Julia’s position enabled her to notice for the first time.