The Riverboat Mystery (Jenny Starling #3)(60)

Rycroft sighed, fighting back the urge to scream. Loudly. ‘We’ve already established that nobody had an alibi for every moment of that afternoon, Miss Starling. I think we can agree that anyone could have done it.’

Sergeant Graves shifted uneasily in his chair. ‘What exactly are you getting at, Miss Starling? Are you saying that Mr Olney wasn’t drowned on the port deck?’

Jenny shook her head, more in sorrow than in denial. ‘I’m just pointing out how impossibly risky the whole thing must have been, if the evidence is to be believed,’ she explained patiently. ‘And haven’t you asked yourself why Gabriel Olney was put in my cupboard? If the killer did heave him over the side, tied by one foot to a rope to ensure that he drowned, why didn’t the killer then simply undo the rope and let Gabriel’s corpse float down the river? In due course, he’d be noted as missing, we’d quickly set up a hue and cry, and his body would be found somewhere on the Thames. The police would conclude, with no bumps or signs of violence on the body, that he’d simply fallen overboard and drowned. Even if you did suspect foul play,’ she cut in quickly, as Rycroft opened his mouth to hotly deny that they’d come to such a conclusion so quickly, ‘what proof would you have? You might suspect that there was something rotten going on, but you’d be more likely to drop it and label it an accident after a diligent investigation, if Olney had been found floating face down by some innocent bystander walking their dog. But by putting the corpse in my cupboard, it was like advertising the fact that it was murder. Why?’

Rycroft was beginning to get a headache. ‘Do you know why?’ he asked hopefully.

But Jenny shook her head. ‘It seems to make no sense. But then so many things about this case don’t make sense. Haven’t you noticed how . . . messy things are?’ she demanded, beginning to sound thoroughly exasperated herself now. ‘Hasn’t it struck you how muddled up everything is? Brian O’Keefe searches the Olneys’ room, but somebody sends a note to Mrs Olney that sends her upstairs, and so she almost catches Brian out, forcing him to flee down the balcony. David Leigh forges a suicide note, but the killer goes out of his way to make sure everyone knows it was murder. Everyone seems to be falling over everyone else’s feet.’

‘Coincidence?’ Graves murmured. ‘Or something else?’

‘If it’s something else,’ Jenny said gloomily, ‘then a whole lot of them are in on it together. But it’s too messy for that. Too uncoordinated. If it was a conspiracy, you could expect them to make a better job of it. As it is, it’s been like a comedy of errors from start to finish. And yet the murder itself must have been very clever. The rope, the boot, the plastic sheet . . . the incredible timing. You just can’t put it all down to luck on the killer’s part.’

Rycroft got briskly to his feet. ‘Sergeant, I want you to go to the village and speak to the medical examiner. Tell him I want a toxicology test run on Olney immediately. Wait around and keep chivvying them if you have to, but make sure they get on with it, and then bring the results back with you. At least we can clear up the question of whether or not he was drugged.’

Graves nodded and left.

When he was gone, Rycroft looked at the cook thoughtfully. ‘I think you’ll find, you know,’ he said slowly, ‘that Olney was drugged. If, as you say, he wasn’t knocked on the head, then how did the killer get him to meekly agree to having a rope tied around his leg? Not to mention allow himself to be tossed overboard without so much as raising a shout?’ Rycroft shook his ugly head. ‘No. If somebody was trying to drown me, I’d scream blue bloody murder.’

Jenny nodded. It was a good point.

‘But nobody heard anything,’ Rycroft continued. Really, it was amazing how talking things through with the big, handsome woman helped him to see things more clearly. ‘And on a boat this size, surely somebody, somewhere, would hear a man cry out? No, Olney must have been drugged.’

But Jenny didn’t think so. Jenny, in fact, was pretty sure she knew exactly how Olney had died, and it was not in the way the killer wanted them to think.

But that still didn’t get her any further forward in finding out who the killer was.

She only knew that the killer was clever. That the killer had been desperate.

That the killer had either been very lucky or very confident. And that thought, for some reason, made the cook feel deeply unhappy.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jenny put back the last bag of mixed vegetables into the cooler and checked off her list of ingredients. It wasn’t anywhere near as long as she’d have liked it to be, but she could still do enough with it to be able to hold her head up high, come the next mealtime. She sighed, put down the pen and pad of paper, and stepped out of the galley.

Luckily, the others must have decided to stay on and lunch at the pub in Carswell Marsh, so she’d only had to prepare lunch for herself and Inspector Rycroft, which would help eke out the meagre rations. Sergeant Graves had not yet returned. It was still only 2:30, however, and she expected him back in time for dinner.

She wondered if he’d think to bring more supplies with him, but doubted it. Men tended to think good food appeared out of thin air. Unless they lived alone, of course, in which case most of them seemed to think it came from a pizza box.

She found Rycroft on the rear deck, staring gloomily at the paddle wheels.