Moonflower Murders Read online

  She approached the table like a boxer climbing into the ring and even before she spoke I knew we weren’t going to get along. ‘So you’re Susan Ryeland,’ she said. She sat down without any ceremony. ‘I’m Lisa Treherne.’

  ‘It’s nice to meet you,’ I said.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Do you want a drink, dear?’ Lawrence asked, a little nervously.

  ‘I already told the waiter.’ She looked me straight in the eye. ‘Was it your idea to send Alan Conway here?’

  ‘I didn’t know anything about it,’ I told her. ‘I knew he was writing the book but I never saw his work until it was finished and I had no idea he had come to this hotel until your father came to see me in Crete.’

  I was trying to work out if Lisa was in the book. There is one character in Atticus Pünd Takes the Case who has a scar: a beautiful Hollywood actress called Melissa James. Yes. That would have amused Alan, to take this unattractive woman and turn her into the opposite of herself.

  Lisa didn’t seem to have heard what I’d said. ‘Well, if something has happened to Cess because of what was in that book, I hope you’ll be pleased with yourself.’

  ‘I really don’t think that’s fair—’ Lawrence began.

  But I could stand up for myself. ‘Where do you think your sister is?’ I asked.

  I wondered if Lisa was going to accept that she was dead, destroying any hopes that her father might still have. I could see that for a moment she was tempted, but she couldn’t go that far. ‘I don’t know. When she first went missing, I assumed that she and Ade had had a fight.’

  Cess and Ade. The pet names weren’t exactly affectionate. They were more a way of saving time.

  ‘Did they argue often?’

  ‘Yes—’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Lawrence cut in.

  ‘Come on, Dad. I know you like to think of them as the perfect couple. Aiden as the perfect husband, perfect father! But if you ask me, he only ever married Cess because she gave him an easy ride. Golden smile. Blue eyes. But no one ever asks what’s going on behind them.’

  ‘What exactly are you saying, Lisa?’ I asked. I was surprised she should be so upfront with her feelings.

  A second waiter came over with a double whisky on a silver tray. She took it without thanking him.

  ‘I just get fed up with Ade swanning around the hotel as if he runs it. That’s all. Especially when I’m the one doing all the heavy lifting.’

  ‘Lisa does the books,’ Lawrence explained.

  ‘I do the accounts. Contracts. Insurance, HR and stock control.’ She drank half the whisky in one go. ‘He schmoozes with the guests.’

  ‘Do you think he killed Frank Parris?’ I asked.

  Lisa stared at me. I had been deliberately provocative but actually my question was completely logical. If Cecily had been killed, then it was because she knew something about the earlier murder. It followed that whoever killed Frank Parris must have killed her.

  ‘No,’ she said, finishing the whisky.

  ‘Why not?’

  She looked at me with pity. ‘Because it was Stefan! He admitted it. He’s in jail.’

  A few other guests had begun to drift into the room. It was a quarter to seven, still very light outside. Lawrence picked up one of the menus that had been left on the table. ‘Shall we order?’ he asked.

  I was hungry but I didn’t want to interrupt Lisa. I waited for her to continue.

  ‘Hiring Stefan Codrescu was a mistake and we should have fired him right at the start. I said so at the time, although nobody listened to me. He wasn’t just a criminal himself. He’d grown up with criminals. We gave him an opportunity and he just sneered at us. He was only here five months, for heaven’s sake, but he was ripping us off almost from the moment he walked in.’

  ‘We don’t know that,’ Lawrence said.

  ‘We do know that, Daddy. I know that.’ She turned to me. ‘He’d only been here for a few weeks before I started noticing anomalies. I wouldn’t imagine you have any idea what it’s like, running a hotel, Susan . . .’

  I could have put her right on that one but I let it pass.

  ‘It’s like a machine with a thousand moving parts and the trouble is that if a few of them go missing, nobody notices. The machine doesn’t stop. Wine and whisky. Champagne. Fillet steaks. Petty cash. Guests’ property: jewellery, watches, designer sunglasses. Linen and towels. Antique furniture. Putting a thief in here is like giving a drug addict the keys to his local Boots.’

  ‘When Stefan came here, he’d never been accused of theft,’ Lawrence reminded her. But he didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘What are you talking about, Daddy? He had been sent to prison for burglary and assault.’

  ‘It’s not the same . . .’

  ‘You wouldn’t listen to me. You never do.’ Lisa dismissed him and focused her energies on me. ‘I knew something was wrong. Somebody was stealing from us. But whenever I mentioned Stefan’s name, everyone ganged up on me.’

  ‘You liked him to start with. You spent lots of time with him.’

  ‘I tried to like him because that was what you all wanted. But the only reason I stayed close to him – and I’ve told you this enough times – was to see what he was up to. And I was right, wasn’t I! What happened in room twelve was horrible, but it showed that I’d been right all along.’

  ‘How much money was actually stolen from Frank Parris’s room?’ I asked.

  ‘A hundred and fifty pounds,’ Lawrence said.

  ‘And you really believe that Stefan would murder someone, hammer them to death, for such a small amount?’

  ‘I’m sure Stefan didn’t mean to kill anyone. He sneaked into the room in the middle of the night, thinking he could help himself to whatever and get away with it. But the poor man woke up and challenged him and Stefan lashed out on the spur of the moment.’ Lisa sniffed at me. ‘It all came out in the trial.’

  It didn’t make any sense to me. If Stefan hadn’t intended to kill Frank Parris, why had he been carrying a hammer? And why go into the room while the occupant was there? But I didn’t say anything. There are some people you just never want to argue with, and Lisa was certainly one of them.

  She called the waiter over and ordered another drink. I took the opportunity to order my food. Just a salad and another glass of wine. Lawrence went for a steak.

  ‘Can you tell me what happened on the night of the murder?’ I asked and even as I uttered the words I felt slightly ridiculous. They sounded so old-fashioned, so clichéd. If I’d seen them in a novel, I’d have edited them out.

  Lawrence took me through it. ‘We had thirty friends and relatives staying over the weekend, but as I told you, the hotel was still open to the public and we had paying guests too. Every room was full.

  ‘Frank Parris had checked in two days before the wedding, on the Thursday. He was staying three nights. I remember him because he was quite difficult from the start. He was tired and he was jet-lagged and he didn’t like his room so he insisted that we move him.’

  ‘Which room was he in?’

  ‘We’d given him room sixteen. It’s in the Moonflower Wing, where you are.’

  I had passed room 16 on the way to my suite. It was on the other side of the fire door, where the swirly carpet began.

  ‘He preferred the old part of the hotel,’ Lawrence went on. ‘Fortunately, we were able to move things around so he got what he wanted. That’s very much Aiden’s job, incidentally, to keep people happy. And he’s very good at it.’

  ‘The person Frank Parris changed with didn’t complain?’

  ‘As I recall, he was a retired headmaster, travelling on his own. I don’t think he ever knew.’

  ‘Do you remember his name?’

  ‘The headmaster? No. But I can easily find out for you if you like.’

  ‘That would be helpful. Thank you.’

  ‘We had the wedding on the Saturday and we did warn the guests that there would be a certain amount of d
isruption. For example, we closed the spa early on the Friday evening so that we could give all the staff a drink, outside beside the swimming pool. We wanted them to feel part of the celebration even if they weren’t actually coming to the wedding itself. The staff drinks started at eight thirty and finished at ten o’clock.’

  ‘Was Stefan invited?’

  ‘Yes. He was there. So were Aiden and Cecily. Pauline and myself. Lisa . . .’

  Lisa’s plus one, or rather his absence, hung in the air.

  ‘It was a very warm evening. In fact, you may remember that there was quite a heatwave that summer.’

  ‘It was a horrible, hot, sticky night,’ Lisa said. ‘I couldn’t wait to get home.’

  ‘Lisa doesn’t live on the estate,’ Lawrence said, adding, ‘although she could. The grounds extend to almost three hundred acres.’

  ‘Aiden and Cecily have my old place,’ Lisa muttered, sourly.

  ‘Branlow Cottage,’ I said.

  ‘I moved into Woodbridge, which suits me very well. I left the drinks a long time before ten o’clock. I drove home and went to bed.’

  ‘I’m going to leave Derek to tell you the rest,’ Lawrence said. ‘He’s the night manager and he arrived at about the same time. He wasn’t at the party.’

  ‘He wasn’t invited?’

  ‘Of course he was invited but Derek doesn’t like to socialise. You’ll understand when you meet him. He was actually behind reception when the murder took place.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘According to the police, Parris was killed around twelve thirty on Friday night.’

  ‘Were you here, Lawrence?’

  ‘No. Pauline and I bought a house in Southwold when we stopped running the hotel. We went home for the night.’

  ‘But we were all there for the wedding the next day,’ Lisa said. ‘It was such a lovely day . . . until, of course, there was a murder. Poor Aiden! I’m sure it wasn’t what he was buying into.’

  ‘Really, Lisa, that’s too much,’ Lawrence protested.

  ‘All I’m saying is that Cess was his meal ticket. What was he doing before he met her? Nothing! He was an estate agent.’

  ‘He was doing very well. And he was a great help to us here at the hotel, whatever you may say,’ Lawrence tut-tutted. ‘Anyway, I think it’s hardly appropriate to talk in this way, given how worried we all are about Cecily.’

  ‘I’m worried about her too!’ Lisa exclaimed and to my surprise I saw tears start in her eyes and I knew she was telling the truth. The waiter had arrived with her second whisky and she snatched it off the tray. ‘Of course I’m worried about her. She’s my sister! And if something’s happened to her – that’s too horrible to think about.’

  She gazed into her drink. The three of us sat in silence.

  ‘What do you remember about the wedding?’ I asked.

  ‘It was a wedding like any other. We have weddings here all the time. They’re our bread and butter.’ She took a breath. ‘The service was in the rose garden. I was the maid of honour. We had the registrar from Ipswich, then lunch in a marquee on the main lawn. I was sitting next to Aiden’s mother who had come down from Glasgow.’

  ‘Was his father there?’

  ‘His father died when Aiden was quite young. Cancer. He has a sister but she wasn’t invited. Actually, there was hardly anyone on his side of the family. Mrs MacNeil was quite sweet, a bit of an old lady, very Scottish. I was thinking how boring the whole thing was when I heard screaming coming from somewhere outside the tent and a few minutes later Helen came in, looking like she’d just seen a ghost.’

  ‘Helen?’

  ‘She was head of housekeeping. It turned out that one of the maids had just gone into room twelve and had found Frank Parris with his skull smashed in and bits of brain all over the sheets.’ Lisa was almost gloating. Despite what she had said earlier, she couldn’t help herself from being amused by the total destruction of her sister’s big day. Looking at her, I wondered if she wasn’t a little bit unhinged.

  ‘The maid was called Natasha,’ Lawrence cut in. ‘She’d gone in to clean the room and she discovered the body.’

  Lisa downed her whisky in one. ‘I don’t know what you hope to find, Susan. Stefan admitted to the crime and now he’s got what he deserves. It’ll be ten years before they even think of letting him out again and serves him right. As for Cess, she’ll turn up when it suits her. She likes being the centre of attention. She’s probably just playing the drama queen.’

  She got unsteadily to her feet and I realised she must have been drinking before she arrived and that the two double whiskies had supplemented many others. ‘I’ll leave the two of you together,’ she said.

  ‘Lisa, you should eat.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’ She leaned towards me. ‘You’re responsible for Cecily,’ she snarled. ‘You published the fucking book. You find her.’

  Lawrence watched her as she wove her way across the dining room. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Lisa works very hard. She’s actually responsible for the entire running of the hotel. But she can get a bit tired.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem to like her sister very much.’

  ‘You shouldn’t take any notice of that. Lisa just likes to show off.’ He was trying to convince me but he didn’t even sound very convinced himself. ‘It started when they were very young,’ he admitted. ‘There was always a lot of rivalry between them.’

  ‘How did she get that scar?’

  ‘Ah, I thought you might ask about that.’ He was reluctant to tell me. I waited. ‘I’m afraid that was Cecily. It was a complete accident, but . . .’ He let out a breath. ‘Lisa was twelve and Cecily was ten and they had an argument. Cecily threw a kitchen knife at her. She really didn’t mean it to hit her sister. It was just a stupid, childish thing to do when she lost her temper, but the blade absolutely sliced into Lisa and . . . well, you’ve seen the result. Cecily was terribly upset.’

  ‘What were they arguing about?’

  ‘Does it really matter? Boys, probably. They were always jealous of each other’s boyfriends. I mean, that’s quite common with young girls. Cecily was always the better-looking of the two and if she met someone it would infuriate Lisa. That’s why she’s taken against Aiden, incidentally. What she said about him – it’s just jealousy. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with him, really. He and I have always got along.’

  He picked up his wine glass.

  ‘Girls will be girls!’

  He said it as a toast but I didn’t join in. Girls might be girls, but not, I thought, borderline psychotics. Lisa had been disfigured by Cecily. She had a serious grudge against Aiden. And that grudge, all tied up with some sort of sexual jealousy, might have extended to Stefan Codrescu too.

  Serious or murderous?

  Which?

  The Night Manager

  I didn’t eat very much dinner. I was stung by what Lisa had said to me and wondered if it was true: I had never unleashed Alan Conway on Branlow Hall but it was undoubtedly true that I had profited by what he had done. Like it or not, I was partly to blame.

  After coffee, Lawrence took me out through the kitchen and I noticed the service staircase and the lift leading up to the second floor. We emerged round the back of the hotel and, looking across the courtyard, I saw the driveway that led to Branlow Cottage. There were lights on behind some of the windows. The black Range Rover was still parked outside.

  ‘It’s been absolute hell for Aiden,’ Lawrence said. ‘The moment he reported Cecily missing, he turned himself into the main suspect. It’s always the husband in cases like this. But I can’t bring myself to believe that he would do anything to hurt my daughter. I’ve seen them together. I know what they mean to each other.’

  ‘They only have one child?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. I was a little sad about that. But it was a difficult birth and I think Cecily just didn’t want to go through it all again. Anyway, she was so busy running the hotel.’

>   ‘You said that Roxana is seven.’ I’d already done the maths. ‘When is her birthday?’

  Lawrence knew what I was getting at. ‘Cecily was already expecting her when she got married – but that wasn’t the reason for it. Young people these days don’t feel under pressure . . . not like we did. Aiden’s devoted to his daughter. Right now, she’s the only thing keeping him sane.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll mind talking to me?’ It was something that had been worrying me. I was here because I’d been asked to read a book which might or might not be connected to a murder that had taken place eight years before. That was one thing. Interrogating a grieving husband about his missing wife was quite another.

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be glad to talk to you. I can ask him if you like.’

  ‘I’d be grateful. Thank you.’

  As we talked, we passed the swimming pool, which was contained in an oversized conservatory that might have been modelled on Brighton Pavilion. It stood next to a handsome building, a miniature replica of the main house. This had once been a granary store but had been converted into a spa. It was closing for the night and a good-looking young man came out of the side door, dressed in a tracksuit and carrying a sports bag. He noticed us and waved.

  ‘That’s Marcus,’ Lawrence told me. ‘He runs the spa – but he only joined us a couple of years ago.’

  ‘Who was running it when Frank Parris was killed?’

  ‘An Australian. His name was Lionel Corby. But he left soon after. We actually lost quite a few staff, as you might expect.’

  ‘Do you know where he is now?’

  ‘He may have gone back to Australia. I’ve got his last phone number if that’s any help.’

  He had come from Australia. So had Frank Parris. It was a connection of sorts. ‘Yes. That might be useful,’ I said.

  We reached the stable block, which had been converted into living quarters for staff: there were five small apartments, studio flats next to each other, each with a door and a single window facing the hotel. A general maintenance room stood at the far end. Lawrence pointed. ‘That was where Stefan kept his toolbox, including the hammer that he used for the crime.’