Death and the Chaste Apprentice by Robert Barnard Page B

she’d got it over. And if she talked it through with him, perhaps the memory of poor Des lying there with the dagger between his shoulder blades would become less horribly vivid.
    So talk she did, with Iain Dundy keeping her, at the start, on fairly neutral background topics.
    â€œWhen did we come to Britain? Let’s see, it was the time of the miners’ strike—not the last one, the one before that. Seventy-four, was it? I remember because there was no electricity most of the time, and lots of the industries were shut down, and the shops, and I wanted to go home after I’d been here a couple of days, I can tell you.”
    â€œHome?”
    â€œNew South Wales. Des was manager of a very nice hotel in Dubbo. I wish we’d never left. People don’t go sticking knives into each other in Dubbo.”
    Dundy let pass this romanticization of her past. “Why did you leave?” he asked.
    â€œJust chance, really. There was this English hotelier stayed with us, got pally with Des—everyone got on well with Des—and offered us a job. Des thought if we didn’t go then, we never would, though it wouldn’t have broken my heart if we never had. This was back in—oh, seventy-three, it must have been. So eventually we came over, and Des became bar manager of this big hotel in Bournemouth. Then it was manager of the Excelsior in Carlisle, then here. All of them hotels in the Beaumont chain. Des was very pleased to get Ketterick. It’s what he called a prestige hotel in the group, and it gave him a bit of a stake in this festival that’s going on now.”
    â€œYou weren’t so pleased?”
    Win Capper shrugged. “Drinkers are pretty much alike wherever you are, that’s what I say. And the people who go on about what a lovely hotel it is don’t think of the amount of walking that’s involved!”
    â€œBut what about your husband? Had he enjoyed his time since you both came here?”
    â€œOh, yes. Happy as a lamb with two tails. All this airy-fairy arty stuff was meat and drink to him. But of course Des was a very well read man.”
    â€œAnd he got on well with people?”
    â€œOh, yes! Des was always good chums with people right from the word go.”
    â€œWhy was that?”
    â€œWell, he never put on airs. He was always chatty and always had an appropriate word for everybody. As I say, he knew an awful lot. He had an inquiring mind.”
    Iain Dundy wondered whether an inquiring mind was really likely to make a hotel manager popular. Des Capper was dead, after all. Perhaps he had pursued his inquiries in foolish or dangerous directions. He said: “You mean he was interested in everyone?”
    â€œWell, I meant more that he knew what everybody was interested in, so he was on their wavelength and could talk with them. Like about acting and singing with this lot now. He could give them tips, little bits of advice. And I think he was very useful on the festival committee. He’d really wised himself up on the play they’re doing, and he was starting to read up about this opera with the silly title. He said he had to be clued up, so he could discuss with the people staying here. He was very thorough, was Des. And a walking encyclopedia sometimes!”
    More like a barroom philosopher, Dundy guessed, and a know-all to boot. Des sounded quite unbearable.
    â€œSo what exactly happened tonight?” he asked.
    â€œOh, Lord . . . I wish I could forget it. . . . We opened at six, but just for members of the audience, because we don’t open to members of the public until after the play’s over. We were quite busy. I was behind the bar, and Des was going around talking to people in the Shakespeare, as he usually did. I had to call him over to help me, and I told him we wouldn’t be able to cope at interval time without him. He said he’d come. Then of course the audience started drifting