‘You could prejudice the legal process.’
‘Bugger that,’ Ben said. ‘I’m on a roll. I’m not stopping for anything. Are you going to question the witnesses? I need it all on film.’
And now Cole waded in. ‘You can get stuffed. You’re not filming us.’
‘However,’ Chesterton added in an inspired moment, ‘we need a copy of every frame you’ve shot up to now. It could be crucial evidence.’
‘No way,’ Milne said.
‘No? Obstructing the police is an offence under section 66 of the Police Act, punishable with six months’ imprisonment. We need that film by noon tomorrow.’
Cole eyed his assistant with surprise. There was more to the young man than he’d supposed.
Ben looked at his watch. ‘You’ve buggered my schedule.’
Amy returned with a tray bearing Ben’s breakfast: a large mug of coffee, orange juice, toast, marmalade, and a plate stacked high with bacon, egg, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes fried bread.
‘I don’t have time for this,’ the TV man said. ‘I’ve just been given a whole new heap of work.’
For a moment Amy stood holding the tray, at a loss.
But Cole said, ‘Leave it with us, Miss Walpole. It mustn’t go to waste. Are you off the coffee as well, Mr Milne?’
Feeling better after their fortuitous breakfast, the two detectives went upstairs to look at the Bridge, the function room adjacent to the owner’s living quarters. Presumably all the private consultations had taken place here the previous day. Dusty pictures of sailing ships crowded the walls. A dusty glass cabinet was filled with a collection of razor shells, conches, scallops, and clams. Lines of small dusty flags were suspended from the ceiling like Christmas decorations. At the far end, a huge desk that could have doubled as a poop deck was filled with as many bottles as the bar downstairs, but most were empty. There were some unwashed glasses as well. Beneath them, acting as coasters, were numerous sealed letters, some heavily stained.
‘From his energy supplier,’ Chesterton said, picking several up and leafing through them. ‘Gas, the bank, a brewery. Most of these look like unopened bills.’
Cole was sitting behind the desk in the Admiral’s padded armchair under a ship’s figurehead of a topless blonde woman. ‘It just confirms the obvious. He’d given up. He was desperate.’
‘There’s no computer up here, and no printer. There isn’t even a filing system.’
‘An old-fashioned phone,’ Cole said, lifting an upturned waste-paper basket to show what was underneath. He opened the desk drawer and saw that it contained one item: a corkscrew. ‘Even his bottle-opener is out of the ark.’
‘Makes you wonder if Miss Walpole had a point about him being technophobic,’ Chesterton said.
‘Techno what?’
‘Unable to use a computer.’
‘We’ve only got her word for that,’ Cole said with irritation. ‘She told us herself his stories grew in the telling. The man was living a lie, pretending he’d spent his whole life at sea. Bloody fantasist, if you ask me. All this seaside tat around us – the stuffed swordfish and the old lamps and the ships in bottles – is just props. Anyone can pick them up in local junkshops and furnish a pub with them. In reality, I reckon he was a failed businessman or a bloody civil servant, perfectly capable of printing that suicide note. You may be sure there’s a computer somewhere in this pub.’
‘I spotted one downstairs, in the little office behind the bar,’ Chesterton said. ‘They’d need it to bill the overnight guests.’
‘There you are, then.’
‘But I was impressed by Miss Walpole. She’s worked with the guy for three years, and she doesn’t buy the suicide theory.’
‘It’s more than a theory, sunshine,’ Cole said. ‘It’s what happened. And you’d better stop being impressed with that bimbo. I saw the way she was batting her eyelashes at you. She’s the sort who picks up DCs and drops them from a great height. I’ll show you how to deal with a woman like that. Watch me when we go downstairs.’
‘Should we look at his living quarters first?’
‘If you like, but I don’t expect to find much.’
Up a small flight of stairs they found a sitting room filled with more maritime objects (or seaside tat), as well as a sofa and armchairs. A bookcase was lined with dog-eared paperbacks by C .S. Forester and Patrick O’Brian. Beyond that was the bedroom and a small en suite.
‘Take a look in the medicine cabinet,’ Cole said.
‘What am I looking for?’
‘Dangerous drugs, barbiturates, sleeping tablets, anything he could overdose on.’
After a few minutes of searching, Chesterton said. ‘Nothing at all like that.’
‘Proves my point,’ Cole said at once.
‘How?’
‘Obvious. He must have swallowed the bleeding lot.’
They returned downstairs to the bar, where the sole occupant was a woman at breakfast wearing a white bathrobe and slippers and with her hair in a plastic shower cap. She stared at them in horror. ‘Oh my God, don’t look at me. I’m undressed, not made up, not for viewing. I thought it was safe to eat my scrambled egg while my hair was drying. Go away, whoever you are.’
‘It’s a public bar, ma’am,’ Cole informed her.
‘Residents only at this hour.’
‘Do you live here, then?’
‘A paying guest. Go away. Vamoose. Shoo.’
‘We’re on an investigation.’
‘You’re not the…?’
‘We are, following up the tragic event of last night.’
‘Oh my God! Then if you won’t leave, I will. Don’t you dare try and stop me.’
With that, she got up, dashed across the room and upstairs, leaving a slipper on the lowest step.
‘There’s your chance, Prince Charming,’ Cole said with an evil grin. ‘Why don’t you go up and see if it fits?’
Chesterton rolled his eyes and said nothing.
In a moment Amy Walpole returned. ‘Didn’t Ianthe finish her breakfast either? You two won’t be popular with Meriel, our cook.’
‘Is that who she was – Ianthe?’ Cole asked. ‘Ianthe who?’
‘Berkeley. Another guest. Publishing person.’
‘Were she and the TV man sharing a room?’
She frowned. ‘Not unless…’ Then she reddened. ‘Is that what she told you?’
Cole shook his head. ‘Deduction. First the man appears from upstairs, looking like the cat who found the cream, then the woman in a state of disarray.’
‘That’s observation, not deduction, and they had very good reasons for looking like that, unconnected with each other. Anyway, all the guest rooms are on the same landing.’
‘I’m broad-minded,’ Cole said. ‘The only thing that interests me is that they were both here yesterday, when the Admiral was still alive. We’ll need to question them about his state of mind.’
‘I keep telling you he was in excellent spirits.’
‘Yes, eighteen-year-old malt. There are some empties on his desk. Did he take anything to help him sleep?’
‘He