Three Little Maids(42)

‘Now hear this, you lout.’ Tom Berkley glared at Jones. ‘I never saw Yvette on Saturday night. I suppose you were behind the demands she made on me for money. Bleeding me dry. She threatened to show the letters I wrote to her, to my wife. But you’d know all about, wouldn’t you?’

‘Well, if you want me to keep quiet you’d better fork out the dosh to me. Only I’m going to make it ten instead of the five grand she asked for - Your precious daughter Debbie is getting spliced soon, isn’t she? And she wouldn’t like her in-laws to know what her naughty Daddy has been up to. Now would she? And I have films to prove it. Very spicy stuff, it is too.’

Tom Berkley pulled himself together stood up against his desk and glared back at his inquisitor as he mopped his bloodied handkerchief against his nose. ‘You can go to hell! You’ll get no more money from me!’

‘What about the police? What will they make of you going out with a kid younger than your own daughter? Eh, Mister Berkley? There’s a motive if ever there was one to kill Yvette. You wanted to get her out of your life. So you did, permanently. Once you’d slept with her. An innocent kid still going to college. You couldn’t afford to let her blab it all to your family, could you, Mister Mayor,’ he sneered.

Berkley steadied himself and leant over his desk to face Jones. He was calmer now. ‘You were working in cahoots with Yvette to con me. The pair of you. And she was no innocent if she was involved with you. You must have put her on to me from the start.’

‘Well you’ll never know that now, will you?’

There was a knock on the door. The secretary put her worried face round the door. ‘Mr. Berkley. Inspector Kent is here. He would like to speak to you.’

The two men looked at one another. ‘You’d better clear out, Jones. I shall report you for bodily assault to the Inspector if you try it on again.’

‘You won’t get away with it that easy, Berkley.’ Jones clenched his fists again.

‘Get out!’

Kent eased his spare frame around the door. There was a look of amusement twitching his mouth as he said, ‘Good morning, gentlemen. Am I interrupting anything? A sparring match for instance? Mr. Jones seems to have scored first blood I see.’

‘Mr. Jones is just leaving, Inspector.’

‘Jones, I would advise you not to leave town. I would like to speak to you further. Down at the station.’

The door closed behind the disgruntled chef. Tom Berkley offered the policeman a chair. ‘And how can I help you, Inspector?’

He’d managed to pull himself together quite creditably, Kent thought. ‘I would like you to tell me just how well you knew Yvette Marceau, sir.’

‘Yvette, the girl who was the last victim?’ Tom Berkley leaned back in his chair. ‘Let me see now. I knew her from the pub. The Nag’s Head. She was a part-time barmaid, wasn’t she? She was an attractive girl. I was terribly shocked to hear about her murder.’ He shook his head and was forced to stem the flow of blood again with tissues that his secretary brought in. ‘I still can’t believe it, Inspector. It doesn’t seem possible that this could happen here.’

‘According to gossip you knew her much better than that, Mr. Berkley. You met her first of all in your position as Mayor at the College. And got to know her more intimately later on PE.’

‘That is not so, Inspector.’ His voice became heated. ‘You really should get your facts right before you say these things.’

‘I think I have got my facts correct, sir. Two of her student friends were willing to speak about your relationship with Yvette.’

Tom Berkley glared at Kent over the wad of blood stained tissues. ‘They were jealous. You can’t believe them. And Jones talks rubbish. You can’t believe anything he says. He wants to cause trouble for me. He wants money.’

Kent nodded. ‘That much is true. I gathered from what I overheard just now with your office connection left on, that they had been blackmailing you. The pair of them. In fact they had quite a good thing going, didn’t they?’

‘If you know that much. Why didn’t you arrest Jones?’

‘It was you that Yvette’s school friends mentioned when we made our enquiries at the College. So like Jones said you had a motive for ridding yourself of the girl especially as you have a daughter getting married soon. Into an influential county family by all accounts.’

Temporally lost for words Tom Berkley nodded. ‘But I don’t think he’ll trouble you further, sir. Blackmail leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. And gets short thrift in the courts.’