A Line to Kill

‘I’ve made some tea,’ Judith Matheson said. Of course she had. She was the sort of woman who would always make tea no matter what the crisis. Lose your leg in a hideous industrial accident and she’d be there with a nice cup of Earl Grey.

The Mathesons followed us into the kitchen, then left us together: Hawthorne and me and our two witnesses.

‘So what’s going on?’ Marc demanded. ‘Has someone died?’

‘Charles le Mesurier has been killed,’ Hawthorne told him.

I could see all sorts of things going through Marc’s head as he digested the news. ‘Well, I’ll be …! You’re not serious?’

‘Are you saying he’s been murdered?’ Kathryn cut in. She was sitting next to her employer and out of the two of them she seemed the more relaxed. Perhaps she had got out of bed earlier, but she looked showered and refreshed, her hair neatly combed, dressed in a tracksuit, her eyes quite calm behind the oversized glasses.

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

‘Well, I’ll go to the foot of the stairs!’ Now that he’d been given a bit of time to consider what had happened, Marc Bellamy couldn’t hide a smirk. ‘How did they do it?’

‘He was stabbed.’

‘Serves the bugger right. I shouldn’t say it. But he was a nasty piece of work … all that sneering and sniping. No-one’s going to miss him now that he’s gone.’

Kathryn looked at him in surprise – not because of what he had said but because he had said it at all. ‘Why are we here?’ she asked. ‘You can’t think I had anything to do with this. I never even met him until I came here.’ Another thought occurred to her. ‘And if you don’t mind my asking, what exactly has it got to do with you anyway? You’re just here as part of the festival, the same as us.’

‘You don’t need to talk to me if you don’t want to, Ms Harris,’ Hawthorne replied, gently menacing. ‘I’m just trying to work out where everyone was and at what time and it seems to me that you and Mr Bellamy here are best placed to tell me that. You were looking after the guests. It was part of your job to keep an eye on them.’

‘I don’t mind talking to you,’ Marc exclaimed. ‘I haven’t got anything to hide. I was working all evening. I was mainly in the kitchen. Left about ten fifteen.’ He stared. ‘Don’t tell me it was a kitchen knife! He had a nice set of Sabatier. Did someone shove one of those into his neck?’

‘Who said anything about his neck?’ Hawthorne said.

Marc faltered. ‘Just a figure of speech.’

Hawthorne turned his attention to the assistant. ‘How long have you worked for Mr Bellamy?’ he asked.

‘Kathryn only joined me six months ago.’ Marc had decided to answer for her. ‘My last assistant – Jo – went on to Saturday Kitchen.’ His little eyes brightened. ‘She was poached!’ It was a joke he had made many times before but this time it fell flat and he knew it. ‘I was about to advertise but Jo recommended Kathryn. I interviewed her and we got on like the proverbial burning bungalow, so I hired her on the spot.’

‘I spent two years working for a party planner when I came out of uni,’ Kathryn explained. ‘Jo and I were roomies and I was always jealous of her. I thought Marc’s recipes were the best. When she told me she was leaving, I asked her to put in a word for me and she did.’

Hawthorne glanced across at Bellamy. ‘You were at school with Charles le Mesurier.’

‘Westland College. Yes. That’s right.’

‘How did you get on?’

Marc might have been reticent while le Mesurier was alive, but he wasn’t afraid now and he let loose. ‘We didn’t bloody get on. Nobody did. He was a bully and an arsehole and everybody hated him. I spent my whole time there avoiding him.’

‘He said that you left the school early.’

‘I did and he was part of the reason.’ It wasn’t particularly warm in the kitchen, but he was sweating. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. ‘I was born and brought up in Halifax. But my dad was in the navy and he got a posting to the south coast. That’s how I ended up in a bloody boarding school. I didn’t like it there from day one. I was never happy.’

‘Why did he call you Tea Leaf?’

‘Because I drank a lot of tea! Why do you think? We all had stupid names for each other. We used to call him Flash after the character in those books. Flashman. He hadn’t changed much, growing up, I can tell you that!’

‘Did he bully you?’

‘Oh, come on!’ Marc Bellamy sneered. ‘What are you trying to say, Mr Hawthorne? That I stuck a knife in him because he bullied me at school? No. I just told you. I avoided him like the bubonic and he never came near me.’

‘So why did you agree to come to Alderney? You must have known he’d be here.’

‘I had no idea.’ Marc folded the handkerchief away. He scowled at his assistant. ‘That was her fault.’

‘Actually, that’s not really fair,’ Kathryn said. ‘I told Marc about the invitation and it seemed like a good idea because we weren’t filming and the festival was happening just after his new book came out. I didn’t know anything about Charles le Mesurier and by the time I found out it was too late.’