Death at a Country Mansion Page 2

  Daisy raced up the extensive driveway to Brompton Court, her tires crunching and skidding on the gravel. The private lane wound through acres of beautifully landscaped gardens, tended to by the ever-diligent Pepe, and opened into a gravel car park in front of the house. The midmorning sun shone directly onto the stone Palladian mansion, bathing it in a soft, golden hue. Usually, Daisy paused to admire the shimmering façade which never ceased to take her breath away, but today she was distracted by the flashing lights of the ambulance and several police cars outside.

  Floria was deep in conversation with a tall, broad-shouldered man holding a notepad. A plainclothed detective, no doubt. Daisy was surprised by his casual attire: dark-blue jeans and a beige T-shirt straining across the shoulders as if complaining about the detective’s bulk. He really needed a bigger size. It was a far cry from the formal suit and tie her grandfather used to wear when he was in the CID, but then, that was twenty years ago, and it was the weekend. His expression was serious, bordering on annoyed, as if he didn’t appreciate being called out on a beautiful Sunday morning at the beginning of summer. He glanced up as Daisy approached.

  Floria threw herself into her friend’s arms. “Oh, Daisy. Can you believe it? Mother’s dead.”

  Daisy hugged her, worried by how tightly Floria clung to her. After she’d disentangled herself, she stretched out an arm toward the officer. “Hello, I’m Daisy Thorne.”

  The detective gave a curt nod and returned the handshake. It was firm and brief. A no-nonsense handshake like his demeanor. “DI Paul McGuinness, Surrey CID. Are you related to Miss Levanté?”

  “No, I’m her best friend.”

  He glanced from one to the other, frown lines on his brow. He was sizing them up. Most people did when they went out together. Similar in looks, they both had pale blond hair and blue eyes, but while Daisy was tall and lanky, Floria was of average height and curvy. She’d made an excellent Marilyn Monroe at last year’s Hollywood-themed ball. Daisy had gone as Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, complete with yellow jumpsuit.

  Daisy shot him a coquettish smile, but it didn’t have the desired effect. It seemed the gruff detective was immune to her charms or deliberately ignoring them. He returned an icy stare. “I’m sorry, Miss Thorne, but this is an active crime scene and you can’t be here.”

  Floria gripped her friend’s hand. Daisy gave it a reassuring squeeze. There was no way she was leaving. Floria needed her as never before, and it would take more than the detective’s arctic stare and terse words to intimidate her.

  “I’m needed for moral support, Detective Inspector,” said Daisy firmly. “Can’t you see Floria is distraught?”

  Her friend’s lip quivered obligingly. “I don’t have anyone else to call. My father lives in France and I have no siblings. Please, let her stay?”

  The detective inspector stared at them for a moment, then obviously decided to let it slide. He changed tack, turning his attention back to the investigation. “Where is Dame Serena Levanté’s husband?”

  Daisy pursed her lips. “Collin? I don’t know. Isn’t he here?”

  Floria welled up. “I haven’t seen him. Every time I close my eyes I see Mother lying at the foot of the stairs.” She turned to Daisy. “Oh, Daisy, it was too terrible. I saw her body . . . lying there . . . staring up at the ceiling.... Her eyes were still open.” A shudder ran through her voluptuous frame.

  Daisy reached out and hugged her again, holding her close while DI McGuinness made a note in his little black book. “We’ll have to trace him. Do you have his mobile phone number?”

  Floria sniffed. “It’s in my phone.”

  When she didn’t move, the detective prodded, “Would you mind getting it for me?”

  Daisy stepped back as Floria pulled out the device from her back pocket and looked up the number. DI McGuinness scribbled it onto a page, which he tore off, then he beckoned to a young sergeant standing nearby, who immediately came over. He had large, square shoulders and a flat, earnest face. Daisy guessed ex-military.

  “Buckley, I need you to trace Collin Harrison, Dame Levanté’s husband.” He handed the sergeant the slip of paper. “Do it now.”

  It wouldn’t hurt for him to say ‘please’ occasionally, Daisy thought.

  “Yes, sir.” The sergeant pulled out his phone and walked away from the group to make a call.

  Just then, Violeta, the Levantés’ elderly housekeeper, shuffled over. Daisy was shocked by how pale the Italian woman looked. Reaching out, the housekeeper clutched Floria and Daisy’s hands in both of hers. She was trembling, the vibrations flowing through her worn fingers into Daisy’s. “I find her this morning. Oh, dio mio! Is too terrible. I can’t believe she gone.” In her distress, her English had faltered.

  “You’re shaking, Violeta.” Daisy was concerned. It was clear the woman was suffering from shock. Her eyes were wide and had a wild, unfocused look in them like she wanted desperately to unsee something but couldn’t. “Let’s get you inside.”

  She put an arm around the housekeeper. The detective opened his mouth, but before he could get a word out, Daisy interjected, “We’ll be in the kitchen if you need us. Everyone’s nerves are shattered. I think a strong cup of tea is in order.”

  DI McGuinness, knowing when he was defeated, closed his mouth. Daisy shepherded everyone around the side of the house to the kitchen entrance, so they wouldn’t have to walk through the main hall, where forensic technicians were processing the crime scene. She put on the kettle and brought out Violeta’s favorite tea set, the one with little lemons painted on the cups and saucers. The housekeeper had once told them she’d bought it on the island of Capri and it reminded her of her native Italy.

  Once seated around the rustic kitchen table, cups of sweet tea in front of them, Daisy asked gently, “Tell us what happened, Violeta?”

  The Italian woman raised her eyes to the heavens and shook her head. She seemed somewhat calmer now, thanks to the tea, the initial shock having worn off.

  “I popped in to get my statins, which I keep in the kitchen cupboard so I don’t forget to take them. Sunday’s my day off, so I not normally here. Anyway, I took one and was about to leave when I think the house is very quiet. There’s usually some music playing.” She glanced at Floria, “You know what she’s like, loud opera all hours of the day and night. So, I go to check, and that’s when I find her lying at the bottom of the stairs, all bent and buckled like a rag doll.” The housekeeper closed her eyes as if in prayer. “I never forget the look on her face. Her eyes were open, but she looked terrified, like she seen a ghost.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “It looked like she fell. I found an empty whiskey bottle on the upstairs landing.” She bit her lip and frowned. “She was fully dressed too, in the same clothes as yesterday. She did not go to bed.”

  Probably passed out fully clothed, Daisy surmised. Floria had told her that Dame Serena’s drinking had become so bad of late that the famous opera singer hardly ever left the house.

  Floria clutched the hand of the woman who’d practically raised her. “It’s okay, Violeta. The drink was bound to get her eventually, although I must admit, I didn’t see this coming. I thought she’d end up in a rehab center or wrap her Mercedes around a tree, not topple headfirst over the balustrade of her own home.”

  “It’s hard to take in.” Daisy turned to her friend, thinking she looked rather pale. “You can stay with me for a couple of days, Floria, if you like, just until the shock wears off.”

  Relief flashed across Floria’s face. “Thanks, that would be great. I don’t want to be alone right now. Not after this. Mother and I were never close, as you know, but seeing her like that, so lifeless . . . ” She let her sentence hang.

  “It’s been a terrible shock for everyone,” Daisy murmured. From what Floria had let slip over the years, parenting hadn’t been Serena’s strong point. Floria had been raised by an endless troupe of nannies and au pairs, until she’d been old enough to be s
hipped off to boarding school, and even then, it hadn’t been weekly boarding but full-time boarding, with Floria only allowed home for the holidays. From what Daisy could make out, most of those holidays were spent either with friends or Violeta and Pepe, who lived in the gatehouse on the property. Why the woman had ever had a child, she couldn’t fathom.

  “I wonder where Collin is?” Floria wrapped her hands around her teacup. In light of what had transpired, Serena’s fourth husband was conspicuously absent.

  “He gone,” whispered Violeta.

  Both Daisy and Floria stared at her in surprise.

  “What do you mean, gone?” Floria carefully put down her cup. “Like gone for the day, or gone permanently?”

  “What do you know, Violeta?” asked Daisy slowly.

  Violeta shrugged in a way only Italians can. “He left her to run away with his lover. I think he finally had enough.”

  “His lover? You mean Collin was having an affair?” Floria frowned.

  It was the first Daisy had heard of it too. Collin had kept that one awfully quiet.

  “With whom?” demanded Floria.

  The housekeeper shook her head, like she didn’t know where to start.

  “Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Daisy suggested in a calm voice. “What happened yesterday?”

  Violeta leaned against the hard wooden back of the chair as if trying to absorb some support from it. She closed her eyes briefly, gathering her thoughts. “Serena had gone to meet her solicitor, your nice friend, Mr. Edwards, but she’d come home early. I wasn’t expecting her till much later. She’d been drinking. I could see it in her face. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes had that strange look in them.” She glanced at Floria, who knew that look well. She’d been the brunt of it many times over the years. Unfortunately, so did Daisy. “Glazed and unfocused” would have been a better way of describing it.

  Violeta continued. “Collin was upstairs packing. He asked me to iron some shirts to take away with him. I think he wanted to leave before she got home.” She shrugged again. “But his plan didn’t work. Serena came home and asked him where he was going.” Her eyelids fluttered and her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “And he told her he was leaving her. That he wanted a divorce.”

  “A divorce?” gasped Floria.

  “Sh . . . let her finish,” said Daisy, sensing Violeta had more to say. She didn’t want to interrupt the housekeeper’s train of thought.

  “Serena screamed at him. I never heard anything like it. It was like she went crazy.” She shook her head at the memory. “She demanded to know who he was sleeping with. He told her it was air hostess, someone he meet on a trip to France. He said they were going to the Bahamas, to the house there, and that it is over between them.”

  Violeta wrung her hands. “I’ve never seen madam so upset. She sat on landing and cried for hours. I was so worried about her.”

  Floria took a deep breath. “So, Collin finally worked up the courage to leave her? I didn’t think he had the balls. She always ran roughshod over him and he never complained. I suspected it was because he didn’t want to rock the boat—well, more so than it was rocking already. But obviously, he’d had enough.”

  “Everyone has their limits,” mused Daisy. “Although I can’t say I’m surprised. She practically threw herself at that Russian composer, Vladimir Someone, at the garden party last month. She was all over him on the dance floor. It was positively debauched, and the guy must have been half her age. Don’t you remember? Collin had a fit. I thought then that it was the last straw.”

  “Vladimir Kustov.” Floria knew most of her mother’s musician friends. “I suppose it was inevitable. Mother’s behavior has been out of control this last year, what with the drinking and the tantrums and the sordid affairs. I don’t know how Collin put up with it for so long, to be honest. He deserved a medal.”

  “She was out of her mind with grief,” Violeta added. “I don’t think she believe he’d leave her. I took her up some tea, but she threw it against the wall and screamed at me to get out. We were going to my daughter’s for supper, so I left her alone. If only I’d stayed . . . ” She hung her head, the guilt evident on her wrinkled face.

  Daisy squeezed Violeta’s hand. “It’s not your fault. You weren’t to know she’d fall over the balustrade.”

  At that moment, DI McGuinness flung open the kitchen door, which ricocheted off the wall with a resounding bang, giving them all a fright. He’d obviously never heard of knocking either.

  “Sorry to interrupt.” He took a giant step into the room and glanced around the table. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” Daisy noticed the faintest hint of an Irish lilt to his otherwise gravelly voice.

  “Go ahead, Inspector. Would you like some tea?” She gestured to a vacant seat opposite her.

  “No, thank you.” He pulled out the chair and sat down. His long legs collided with hers under the table, but he didn’t appear to notice, so she discreetly shifted hers to one side. All eyes were on him as they waited for him to speak.

  He hesitated, as if suddenly unsure how to proceed.

  It’s bad, thought Daisy, sensing this was out of character for the tough detective. He didn’t strike her as the emotional type.

  He cleared his throat, then his direct gaze settled on Floria. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Miss Levanté, but it appears your mother was murdered.”

  “What?” barked Floria, knocking over her teacup which, thankfully, was almost empty. Remnants of tea spilled out onto the saucer and table, but no one made a move to stop it.

  “Dio mio!” Violeta crossed herself.

  “How do you know she was murdered?” Daisy leaned forward over her cup. The forensic team must have found something.

  DI McGuinness met her gaze. “There is evidence of blunt force trauma to the head.”

  “You mean someone hit her?” Daisy felt the need to clarify.

  “That appears to be the case. It’ll be confirmed during the postmortem, of course, but that’s what it looks like.”

  “Who would want to kill Mother?” Floria whispered, uncomprehending. The color that had been seeping back into her face had vanished and she clutched the tabletop like she was afraid if she let go she’d topple off her chair.

  Collin for one, thought Daisy, although she didn’t say as much.

  “Is that why she fell?” asked Floria.

  “Or was she pushed?” Daisy couldn’t help herself. She’d always had a flair for the dramatic. Put it down to too many detective novels.

  The inspector glared at her and muttered, “We don’t know that for sure yet. Forensics is still working on it.”

  Yes! Daisy thought triumphantly. Serena had been pushed over the balustrade. The detective’s expression said it all.

  “I don’t believe this.” Floria let go of the table and dropped her head into her hands. “I feel like I’m living in a nightmare.”

  Daisy rubbed her back.

  DI McGuinness cleared his throat. It didn’t help to allay the gravelliness. I’m afraid I have to ask you all where you were last night.”

  “Are we suspects now?” Floria’s eyes were as wide as the hand-painted saucers under the teacups.

  Daisy smiled reassuringly. “It’s just procedure, honey. The inspector wants to rule us out.”

  “Oh.”

  At his questioning look, she added, “My grandfather was a detective, a Detective Chief Inspector, actually. I spent a lot of time with him growing up.” Her folks wouldn’t win any parenting awards either.

  “I’ll start,” mumbled Floria. “Last night, I was at a restaurant with my boyfriend, James—or rather exboyfriend now. He dumped me. Prick.”

  DI McGuinness looked startled.

  Daisy jumped up. “Oh, sweetie. Why didn’t you say?”

  “I was going to call you this morning, then all of this happened . . . .” Her voice petered out.

  Daisy put her hands on her shoulders, “I’m so
sorry. What happened?”

  “He called me a bimbo.” She sniffed. “Said I was a PR disaster. It was the picture of me in the Jacuzzi that did it. Someone leaked a copy to The Star. His bosses told him to get rid of me or he’d lose his job.”

  “Bastard,” huffed Daisy. “He should have defended you, not given in to them. He’s a gutless coward.” She paused. “Besides, that was a great party.”

  Floria turned her tearstained face up toward her. “I know, right? And there were loads of us in the Jacuzzi. It wasn’t just me.”

  Daisy was furious. “He’s an idiot. You’re better off without him.”

  Violeta nodded in silent agreement. Daisy knew the housekeeper had never approved of Floria’s posh, politicking boyfriend either.

  DI McGuinness was at a loss for words. The expression on his face was quite comical, and Daisy would have laughed if it wasn’t for the seriousness of the situation. He clearly hadn’t anticipated the turn in conversation.

  “Erm, could you give me the name of the restaurant?”

  “Posticino’s in South Kensington.”

  He wrote it down.

  “It’s very good if you like Italian food,” Daisy pointed out. “I recommend the veal limone.”

  Floria sniffed. “It is excellent.”

  McGuinness didn’t reply. The menu was of no consequence to him. Instead, he turned to the housekeeper. “Where were you, Mrs. Bonello?”

  “Who, me?” She looked shocked to be asked. The help was usually invisible, at least in Serena’s household. “I was at my daughter’s house. We—that’s my husband and I—go every Saturday after work. We babysit so they can go out. Sunday’s our day off, you see.”

  “But you didn’t stay over last night?”

  “No, her little one come down with fever, so my daughter thought it best if we didn’t stay. Besides, as I tell the girls, I’d forgotten my statins here. That’s why I popped in this morning, to get them.” She nodded toward the cupboard above the kettle.

  “Pepe is the groundskeeper here,” explained Floria. “They’ve both been with us for over twenty years. I’ve known Violeta since I was ten. There is no way they are involved in this.”