Design for Murder Read Free Page A

“Can you think of anything that has occurred recently, anything at all, that might help throw light on Oliver Medway’s death?”
    I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
    “Was he behaving in any way out of character? Did he ap pear to be worried or anxious lately? Had he been involved in any quarrels or disputes?”
    I didn’t quite know what to say. Oliver had carried a chip on his shoulder for being denied what he regarded as his birthright. He thought that by now his father should have al lowed him a major share in managing the estate, and he bit terly resented the fact that Sir Robert, despite his ill health, still insisted on absolute autonomy. But a reasonably satis factory modus vivendi seemed to have been found. At least their relationship wasn’t actively hostile.
    There were Oliver’s complicated involvements with women, of course. Mrs. Cynthia Fairford was the latest, but as far as I knew they were still at the stage of sweetness and light. The commission we’d recently landed for redoing the drawing room of her home was largely an excuse for Oliver to make frequent and protracted calls at the Old Rectory. When I’d pointed this out to him, he’d grinned back unashamedly. “Nice for me, good for business.” There was a lot about Oliver that I disapproved of, but he never gave his clients short change. Although he’d had no formal training in interior design, he’d had a flare for it. And in the fifteen months I’d been working with him I’d learnt an enormous amount.
    I answered Neil’s question decisively. “No, I can’t think of anything significant. Oliver has been acting much the same as always. He was in a perfectly cheerful mood when I last saw him.”
    “Which was when?”
    “Yesterday evening, about six-thirty. I was staying a bit late—working on an estimate—but Oliver had a date and he went through to the flat to get ready.”
    “Do you know who his date was with?”
    “No, he didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. Oliver went out al most every evening.”
    Neil’s grey eyes flickered. “With you, sometimes?”
    “Yes, as a matter of fact,” I said, letting him see how much I resented his tone. “Once in a while Oliver would take me out to dinner.”
    “How often is once in a while?”
    I shrugged. “Maybe every couple of months.”
    “You didn’t go out with him more often?”
    “No. Well, not in the evenings.”
    “When else, then?” he persisted.
    “We often went to see clients together, of course,” I said irritably. “Apart from that, I used to ride with Oliver.”
    “Ride with him?”
    “Horses. Sir Robert still keeps a few in the stables here, and they have to be exercised. So Oliver and I often used to go out for an hour or so when we’d finished work for the day.”
    “And afterwards?”
    “Afterwards,” I said coldly, “I would go home, and Oliver would go out wherever it was he was going that evening.”
    For several moments Neil remained silent while he brought his shorthand notes up to date. When he next spoke it was on a new tack, and his tone was so chillingly formal that it shook me.
    “Now, Miss Yorke, I want you to tell me exactly what happened this morning. How you came to discover Oliver Medway’s body.”
    Miss Yorke? Okay, so Neil Grant and I had never been re ally close friends, but in the days before I’d gone off to art school in London to study design I’d often met up with him at discos, in coffee bars, at the Gilchester Lido in the summer, and cosy pubs on a winter evening.
    “I spent most of the morning in Cheltenham,” I began, controlling my annoyance. “On business. I went there straight from home.”
    “You still live at your aunt’s place in the village?” he asked.
    “That’s right, Honeysuckle Cottage in Millpond Lane. Aunt Verity left it to me when she died eighteen months ago.”
    Neil nodded.
    “I had arranged to join Oliver at the studio at about eleven- thirty. But I was behind schedule and didn’t