02 Blue Murder (22 page)

“
Now?” He frowned. “What if
Detective Bhar wants to question me, too?”

“
I’m only here to interview
Ms. Paquette,” Bhar said, putting on his most reassuring smile.
Jeremy looked unconvinced.

“
But Pheebs, I have a better
memory than you,” Jeremy said. “What if you forget something? Or
say something wrong?”

She raised her eyebrows.

“
Fine. Where’s your bag?”
the young man sighed.

“
Downstairs. There should be
enough cash in the inner pocket. If not, take my bank
card.”

As soon as Jeremy had gone, Phoebe visibly
relaxed. “Don’t be shy. Have a seat in the rocking chair.”

Bhar did so, expecting Phoebe to sink onto
the pouf near the crib. But she remained on her feet, pacing.

“
Don’t get me wrong,” she
said, circling the room in a slow waddle. “Jeremy is a sweetheart.
The best friend a girl could ever want. But he can be a bit—clingy.
The minute I told him you were coming by, he refused to go home. I
knew if I didn’t invent an errand, we’d never be able to speak
privately.”

“
Is that important? For
Jeremy not to hear us?” Bhar strove to look and sound
neutral.

Phoebe blew out her breath. “He doesn’t like
to hear me talk about Trevor. The father of my baby, in case you’re
not one of the sharper detectives.” She patted her stomach again.
“Trevor and I used to date. I got pregnant and decided to keep the
baby. He buggered off. Before long, he was dating Emmeline.
Needless to say, that didn’t exactly endear Trev to me.”

“
Emmeline claims you hated
him.”

Phoebe shrugged.

“
Did
you hate Trevor Parsons?” Bhar’s
notebook was out, pen ready. Sometimes he regretted the necessity
of taking notes—for many witnesses, the sight of a notebook had a
chilling effect—but unlike Hetheridge, he wasn’t willing to gamble
on memory alone. Nor would he dash off cryptic LOL-speak emails to
himself, as Kate did. Bhar’s notes were always
perfect.

“
I’m not sure I’ve ever
really felt that. Hate, I mean.” Drifting over to the window,
Phoebe parted the curtains and stared into the street. “I was in
love with Trevor for a while. That’s the part Jeremy just can’t
get. Trev and I were great together, it was really special. Then I
got pregnant and Trevor wanted to pretend like he never laid a
finger on me.”

“
That would be sufficient to
make most women hate him.”

“
But I understood why he
panicked. Trev wasn’t ready to be a dad. He expected to go into a
pro athletics career and didn’t want a wife and kiddie holding him
down. I knew all that, and I chose to have the baby,
anyway.”

“
Was Trevor prepared to
support the child?”

Phoebe hugged her stomach protectively. “I
think so. He knew if I took him to court, I’d win. And he was
already sick of Em. He told me so just two weeks ago. We met in a
caff for lunch and he said he was ready to give her a push if
things didn’t get better.”

Bhar copied that into his notebook. “Under
the circumstances, I’m surprised Emmeline invited you to her
Halloween party.”

“
Yes. Well.” Turning away
from the window, Phoebe went to the empty white crib, picking up a
stuffed teddy and fussing with its paws. “Emmeline invited Jeremy
and Jeremy invited me. I accepted just for another chance to see
Trev. See if he’d made a decision about leaving Em. We slipped away
for a little. Had a beer together …” She stopped, giving Bhar a
mischievous look. “Don’t tell Jeremy. He’s a complete Nazi when it
comes to me and my healthy pregnancy.”

“
How did it go?”

“
He tried to stall me,” she
sighed. “I got angry. Told him he couldn’t keep hiding his head in
the sand. Or between Emmeline’s legs.” Phoebe tossed the teddy back
into the crib. It landed face down.

Bhar pretended to jot down far more than he
actually did, working to buy himself time. Once the silence finally
made Phoebe restless—when she began to toy with the settings on the
Fisher Price baby monitor—he asked, “What about cocaine? Was it
just a party favor? Or the real reason for the party?”

“
The reason.” Phoebe’s voice
was flat. “I don’t do coke anymore. Haven’t since I found out. But
most of the guests were higher than kites.”

“
Emmeline Wardle seemed
reasonable when I interviewed her,” Bhar continued. “But the night
of the murders she screamed herself hoarse, then got herself
arrested. Her piss test is still pending, but I’ll have it soon
enough. She was coked out, wasn’t she?”

“
Emmeline Wardle can be
tolerable. Emmy White Lines is a crazy, out-of-control cow.”
Phoebe’s nails-on-chalkboard laugh followed. “Especially when her
partner in crime isn’t around.”

“
Partner in crime? Do you
mean Kyla Sloane?”

“
Who else?” At last Phoebe
sank onto the pouf, shoulders sagging. “Kyla and Emmeline have been
besties since nursery school. Sad to watch them throw it all away
for a man. But we females are always mucking up the works running
after the boys, aren’t we? Kyla walked in on me and Trev alone
together. He had his arms around me, so of course, she didn’t wait
for an explanation. She went straight to Emmeline.” Phoebe snorted.
“And Emmeline didn’t believe her. She accused Kyla of wanting Trev
for herself.”

“
Did she?”

“
Not that I could ever see,”
Phoebe shrugged. “But Emmeline went nuts. Next thing I knew, they
were rowing about Sir Duncan and Kyla’s obsession …”

“
Wait,” Paul cut across
Phoebe. It was poor practice to talk over an interviewee, but he
couldn’t help himself. “You don’t mean Kyla Sloane was having an
affair with Emmeline’s neighbor? With Sir Duncan
Godington?”

Phoebe emitted that laugh again, off-key and
more cringe-inducing than ever. “Of course not! Why would you think
that?”

Bhar cast about for a reasonable answer. The
truth was, he didn’t know why he’d said that. Only that Tessa
Chilcott had been on his mind a great deal of late. “My colleague
saw them together recently. At a society gala.”

“
You mean Izzie Bartlow’s
party?” Phoebe rolled her eyes. “London society is one big
incestuous circle. We all talk to each other. It doesn’t mean a
thing—certainly doesn’t mean we’re dating. But remember Tessa
Chilcott? The woman who went mad for Sir Duncan?” Phoebe leaned
forward confidentially. “Kyla is Tessa’s half-sister.”

Chapter Eighteen

“
H
ow do you—are you sure?” Bhar fought
not to look as surprised as he felt. “I never—Tessa—” He stopped,
taking a deep breath. “Ms. Paquette, I was involved in the Sir
Raleigh Godington murder case. I’ve met Tessa Chilcott. I don’t
recall her having a younger sister.”

“
I don’t think they were
close. Kyla isn’t even the one who told me. Em told me during one
of her coke binges. She was furious with Kyla over something silly
and decided to spill Kyla’s big secret.”

“
And you never told
anyone?”

Phoebe shrugged. “I wasn’t sure I could
believe it. But after Kyla caught me with Trevor, I decided to find
Em and do some damage control. I found them upstairs, hissing in a
full-on catfight. Em said Kyla was in love with Trev. Kyla said it
wasn’t true. Em said Kyla was as crazy as her sister. Kyla was so
furious, she chucked that heirloom vase …” Phoebe smiled. “Em went
wild. Half of all that screaming she did was over the vase, not
Trev. And Kyla ran into the back garden. Probably to ring Sir
Duncan, since I imagine Tessa isn’t licensed to drive again yet
…”

“
What?” Bhar was certain
he’d misheard Phoebe. “What do you mean, Tessa isn’t licensed to
drive? She’s been committed into residential care.”

“
Well, then, the doctors
must be permitting her home visits, eh? Kyla told Em she didn’t
need her, which is bollocks. Kyla’s always been under Em’s
protection at uni. No one tried to take the mickey by teasing her
too much because Em wouldn’t have stood for it. And Em said, and I
quote, ‘Go home to your nutter sister. You’re worse than she ever
was.’” Phoebe smiled. “I think Kyla’s charmed life in our hallowed
halls has finally come to an end. One sec. Need some lippie
stuff.”

Going to the white-lacquered high boy,
Phoebe withdrew a key chain from the top drawer. Attached to the
key chain’s main ring was a shiny silver ball. Seating herself back
on the pouf, Phoebe unscrewed the ball into separate halves,
revealing a pot of lip balm inside.

“
Sorry. Dry lips. Acne
spots. Stretch marks. Who knew being pregnant sucks the life out of
you like an alien parasite?” Dipping a finger in the pot, Phoebe
coated her mouth with clear gloss before screwing the silver halves
together again.

“
I’ve seen one of those
somewhere,” Bhar said, mind still on Tessa. The idea of her making
home visits was too much for him to process. And did she really
have a half-sister? Or was it just a rumor borne of Kyla’s uncanny
resemblance to Sir Duncan’s most famous alleged
accomplice?

“
Lots of girls at school
have them. Some of the boys, too. Clive French had one, now that I
think of it, clipped to his backpack.”

“
Speaking of Clive … one
challenge in the French-Parsons case is determining a motive that
fits both victims. Emmeline told Clive French was selling
schoolwork—papers, quiz answers, things like that. She says he
might have crashed her party to collect on unpaid debts. Did you
ever witness that sort of behavior from him?”

“
Once or twice.” Phoebe
rattled her keys, shifting them from hand to hand. “Listen. You
might as well know the truth. I bought a chemistry paper from Clive
last month. But I didn’t owe him any money, I was all paid up.
Buying a school paper—that isn’t the sort of thing Scotland Yard
actually arrests pregnant women for, is it?”

“
Of course not. The only
thing I care about is the identity of the killer. Or killers,” Bhar
amended. “Apart from the row Emmeline and Kyla had over
Trevor—apart from the thrown vase—did you witness any other violent
behavior? Any potentially explosive interactions?”

“
Well. I
did hear Trev call Em a cow and Kyla a slag. Kyla screamed that she
hated everyone. Em said what she said about Tessa and
bang
went the vase,
smashed into a million pieces. Emmy said she was going to kill Kyla
over the vase, but I think we can chalk that up to—well, chalk
dust.” Phoebe pantomimed sniffing an imaginary line. “Someone told
Jeremy they saw a stranger outside. Jeremy told me he’d go have a
look. Later—the next day—he told me he checked the front and back,
and no one was there.”

“
What time was this? When
Jeremy checked the premises outside the townhouse, I
mean?”

“
You’ll have to ask Jeremy,”
Phoebe said. “Once Trev died and Emmy started screaming, everything
went a bit cuckoo, you know? Besides, I think the intruder story
was just a silly rumor. The kind of thing people spread around
Halloween.”

Bhar regarded his notes for a moment, purely
to give himself a moment. In truth, what he saw on the page
registered nothing.

“
So,” he began at last.
“Plenty of people seem to have disliked Clive French. As far as
Trevor Parsons goes, at least three people disliked him—you,
Emmeline and Kyla. Is there anyone else who might have wished
Trevor ill?”

“
I don’t think so. I mean,
I’m sure Trev was in debt to Emmy for party favors. And heaven
knows she needs the money, but Trev would have paid her eventually.
Brought in new buyers, too, since he was always surrounded by
wannabes. Em’s strong—anyone who’s ever seen her compete in
gymnastics knows that, she’s almost as strong as Kyla. But strength
aside, assuming Em had the guts to murder a man with an axe—two
men—I can’t believe she’d kill a good customer. Not now,
anyway.”

“
A customer?” Bhar blinked.
“As in …” He started to ask, “Sex?” but that seemed too far-fetched
to say aloud. “And what do you mean, ‘heaven knows she needs the
money’? The Wardles are rolling in it. I’ve seen their main
home.”

“
What do you mean you’ve
seen it? It’s gone,” Phoebe said. “All the Wardles have left is the
townhouse, and it’s next on the block. Their old manor in Belgravia
was bulldozed months ago to make room for something
modern.”

“
Right. Hang on. Let’s start
from the top.” Bhar putting his pen and notebook aside. “Why does
Emmeline Wardle need money? Her father’s a frozen foods baron. They
live in a big white mansion in Holland Park.”

Phoebe emitted her loud cackle. “Oh! I
thought since you were the police, you knew everything. About all
of us. Hah! Allow me to assist with your inquiries. As far as Em’s
dear old dad goes, he’s losing his shirt. Global recession, you
know. Word is, he’ll liquidate what little he has left and move to
the States. Try to start over with frozen chicken.”

Arkansas
, Bhar thought, remembering
his phone conversation with Kate and the question he’d neglected to
ask. He was hazy on U.S. geography, but wasn’t Arkansas mostly
farmland?

“
And the Wardles’ house in
Holland Park? Are they losing it?”

“
It’s not theirs. If you
mean Euro Disney, as we call it, that house belongs to one of Mrs.
Wardle’s friends. I’m sure she thought it would make an
intimidating setting for sweet little Emmy’s interview.” Phoebe
raised her eyebrows. “Were you impressed?”