Monday
As usual on a Monday, Robert was up at four boasting that he
would get through the day without yawning. Cleo assured him that she would get
up early enough to take Mrs Riddle to Middlethumpton station before going to HQ
to discuss the latest event. Robert cursed the day when he had encouraged Cleo
to solve mysteries – it could instead be said that he cursed the day Cleo had
started working regularly with Gary.
Gary phoned soon after.
“What time are you coming, Cleo?”
“Didn’t you get my text, Gary?”
“I haven’t looked.”
“I’ll be at HQ by ten or thereabouts. Is that OK? I need to
talk to Dorothy first and get Mrs Riddle to the station.”
“OK. See you then,” said Gary. “Romano’s later?”
“Is that a suggestion or an invitation?”
“Let’s call it a suggestive invitation.”
“Compris.”
***
Dorothy was amazed at
what Cleo told her.
“I can’t believe it. Jessie really is the last straw. Do you
believe that business about the poison, Cleo?”
“Knowing Jessie, I should think it was a spontaneous
confession,” said Cleo. “The girl is not particularly articulate, but she knows
what happened and is as cunning as a fox.”
“Why didn’t she say earlier that the poison was meant for
Mrs Baines? After all, the woman is still alive and you can’t be accused of
putting poison in a coffee cup for someone if the contents thereof are then
drunk by the wrong person, can you? The cups weren’t labelled. Isn’t it
possible that Mrs Oldfield did not want to drink too much coffee that morning,
but decided not to waste the coffee Mrs Baines had not drunk?”
“I think Gary would still say it was attempted murder.”
“But a good lawyer would make mincemeat of that,” said
Dorothy.
“Not only that,” said Cleo. ”Jessie has not told us what she
did with the arsenic she stole from the potting shed. We have to assume that
she had started to poison Mrs Oldfield in dribs and drabs with that.”
“Can I recap for a moment, Cleo? Put me right if I go
wrong.”
“Go ahead,” said Cleo.
“Jessie must have thought she had been giving Mrs Oldfield
arsenic, but it was only flour because Mrs Baines had taken the poison and
replaced it with something looking the same.”
“Yes, except that the flour could have been arsenic after
all. Forensics only found tiny traces of flour and they could have been from
floury hands.”
But whatever version we take, Jessie had murder on her mind
all the time. She admitted it.”
“Jessie definitely used arsenic powder for the coffee that
morning. She had decided that it was time to end the drama with Mrs Oldfield
and presumably claim her job. She put poison into what she assumed was Mrs
Oldfield’s cup and probably watched her drink it. But there were two cups of poisoned
coffee that morning. Mrs Baines had put arsenic in the second one,” said Cleo.
“It really is a nasty story, isn’t it?” said Dorothy.
“It’s also possible that Mrs Baines always provided Mrs
Oldfield with two cups of coffee and Jessie was a target, Dorothy. We’ve never
considered whether Jessie was part of the morning coffee routine. WE should
have asked her at the time. It seems to me as if all three of those females had
a motive to kill one or other of them, but Mrs Baines had no criminal energy.
The other two had plenty..”
“How can we find out if that was the case?” said Dorothy.” The
fact is that Mrs Oldfield drank both cups of coffee and swallowed two lots of
poison,” said Dorothy. “We can’t even rule out that both cups were laced with
two lots of arsenic.”
“OK. Let’s assume that Mrs Baines did not want her coffee.
She knew that Mrs Oldfield would drink it so as not to waste it. Jessie would
not drink the coffee if she had added poison to both cups.”
“Mrs Baines may have encouraged Jessie to drink the second
cup and Jessie said no because she knew it was poisoned,” said Dorothy.
“So Jessie is guilty, isn’t she?”
“Eventually, the police decided that only Mrs Baines was sane
enough to be found guilty,” said Cleo. “In the wake of the cook’s death, Mrs
Baines, who knew exactly how to measure the arsenic so that no foul play would
be suspected, realized that the dose of arsenic was too high when the cook fell
into a coma very soon after,” said Cleo.
“But she can’t have known why,” said Dorothy.
“Exactly. The only other person who could have added poison
to her coffee was Jessie since Mrs Oldfield would hardly have poisoned herself.
So Jessie put arsenic into both cups because she really wanted to rid herself
of both her superiors.”
“And in the end, Mrs Oldfield swallowed four times the
amount she would have needed to make her feel unwell,” said Dorothy.
“Mrs Baines may have realized that,” said Cleo, “but as far
as she was concerned, Jessie was getting only what she deserved when she was
arrested on suspicion and she, Baines, had had a lucky escape on both counts.”
“So Jessie was probably not sure who would drink the coffee
and be poisoned as long as she herself didn’t,” said Dorothy. “Nice work for a
gormless girl.”
“Not so gormless! We can assume that Jessie had not used up
all her arsenic supply when she helped herself to more. She simply topped up
her supply with the flour Mrs Baines had put in when she stole weed-killer out
of the packet,” said Cleo. “Let’s assume that Mrs Baines had a supply from
previous battles with ants and Jessie put flour on top of the genuine
weed-killer. Jessie must have hatched out the plan to poison the cook later
after finding out that the weed-killer was lethal, and started to give her rival small doses in her coffee.”
“Or she might even have disposed of the flour thinking she
was getting rid of the poison,” said Dorothy. “But would she have kept the
packet?”
“It was only a container she could use again if she needed
to, not the original packet.”
“All we really know is that Jessie had definitely been
giving Mrs Oldfield poison, Cleo, because she said so. Baines was hiding her
own motive behind that of Jessie, but in the meantime Mrs Oldfield was getting
a double dose of arsenic every day. No wonder she was ill.”
“It’s getting too
complicated again, Dorothy.”
“The fact is that Jessie wanted to be rid of Mrs Oldfield,
but disliked Baines, too. She might have thought Baines was preventing her from
having a better career, so she had a motive for killing Baines,” said Dorothy.
“Baines got a prison sentence despite making Jessie a
scapegoat,” said Cleo.
“Wasn’t her sentence for cooking the books for a decade?”
“Sure. Mrs Riddle and I both think that Jessie has Asperger’s
syndrome. That would at least explain some of her behaviour. Asperger’s is a
form of autism, not madness.”
“Strange that the doctors did not diagnose that,” said
Dorothy.
“I don’t think there was a medical report. Jessie confessed,
everything seemed logical and the police had captured a mad woman and a
housekeeper they only get for theft.
Amen.”
“Jessie is odd, isn’t she?”
“But not mad, Dorothy. Prisons house many felons who have
Asperger’s. It’s a frightening thought, but even in cases of violence, the
state of mind of the criminal is not necessarily brought into the discussion
unless the suspect behaves oddly. If the person did something wrong, he is
punished for it.”
“Jessie could have killed her mother inadvertently then,
while the balance of her mind was disturbed.”
“Yes. Asperger’s sufferers often do violent things they did
not plan.”
“That doesn’t quite fit in with arsenic poisoning, though,
does it?” said Dorothy.
“No. But remember that Mrs Baines was not mad, but evil,
since she had a master plan and used Jessie to carry it out. Jessie believed
she was helping Mrs Oldfield by giving her pick-me-ups, didn’t she?”
“And that, despite wanting her job. It doesn’t fit, does it?”
said Dorothy.
“We don’t know how long Jessie had been that ambitious,
Dorothy.”
“What if Mrs Baines also has Asperger’s, Cleo?”
“I doubt if she has anything but a nasty mind, Dorothy. She
seemed normal to me whereas Jessie is definitely a bit weird.”
“Gary suspects Jessie of being a ‘normal’ killer, doesn’t
he?” said Dorothy.
“He could not understand how she could be both promiscuous
and inhibited.”
“And she can’t judge what affect she was having on people, can
she?”
“Lack of emotional empathy with others is one of the
features of Asperger’s, Dorothy.”
“She had a sort of romance with Tom Crowe, so she must have
some kind of emotional feeling.”
“We only have her word on that and the words of her mother,
who was anything but a role model,” said Cleo. “Maybe Jessie was copying what
she had read in those society glossies she had been given by those students at
the school. Maybe she knew something was not quite right with her and was
imitating what she decided was normal.”
“It’s all very complicated, Cleo.”
“But there are tests she can have to see if she is autistic
in any way, and I’m going to insist that she gets them.”
“Which will probably lead to re-opening the case against
her, won’t it?”
“Gary may not like it, but that’s going to happen because
I’m going to insist on it, Dorothy. More coffee? I’ll have to get moving soon.”
***
“Moving on quickly, there are at least two suspects in the
Marble case,” said Dorothy. “What about Mrs Coppins and the pond? How many
could have committed that murder? I can think of three.”
“I’ll send Mrs Riddle to the station in a taxi, Dorothy. Our
discussion is more important. I’ll get Gary here instead of going to HQ.”
Cleo ordered a taxi to the Marble villa for 8: 45 saying
that the charges would fall to the Hartley Agency, then rang Mrs Riddle to say
that something urgent had cropped up and a prepaid taxi would take her to the
station. They could talk later. Could she leave a note for the milkman asking
him to call next morning for his money?
Then she rang Gary and asked him to come to the cottage. She
had been discussing things with Dorothy and they could make more headway over
second breakfast. He was amenable and actually quite glad not to have to talk
to Jessie that morning. It was still not even 8 a.m.. Cleo was refreshed from
the hasty discussion about Jessie and could not wait to see Gary again.
***
But the discussion about Jessie had arisen through her
current behaviour, and that needed to be interpreted correctly now.
“We first need to find out if Jessie could have killed her
mother from the aspect of logistics,” said Cleo. “What did she do after she
left that prison? She can’t have had any money, so did she hitch-hike back to
Upper Grumpsfield?”
“We can ask her,” said Dorothy.
“You can, Dorothy. I think you are the right person to get
her to talk without fear.”
“Will Gary agree?”
“Agree, Dorothy? He’ll be thankful!”
***
As Cleo expected, Gary was thankful that Dorothy was willing
to question Jessie and she wanted to do it that day. Gary thought that it would
do Jessie Coppins good to have time to think about the anxiety she had caused
Mrs Riddle.
“But she might not have even thought about that,” said
Dorothy. “I don’t think Jessie was overly interested in anyone except herself.”
Cleo ordained that Jessie would have to remain at HQ until
she had been tested for Asperger’s syndrome. The girl was not mad, but insisted
that she did not want to have mad people around her. Cleo was making the
Asperger’s test a condition of further involvement in the case. Gary agreed,
though that might partly have been because of his constant desire to be with
Cleo. He reflected that Cleo and Dorothy referred to Jessie as a girl although
she was in her twenties and was, in Gary’s view, anything but girlish. In fact,
every confrontation with her included blatant sexual provocation from her.
“I’d be grateful if you could get her out of my hair,
Ladies,” he moaned.
“You poor guy,” said Cleo. “But you are safe here, Sweetheart.”
“Safe as houses,” agreed Dorothy with a knowing look.
***
Gary was an attractive guy, but he hated being the object of
uninvited attempts to seduce him, especially if the females were not very
attractive. In contrast, his admiration for Cleo was boundless. She was
voluptuous and beautiful, but she kept her interest in him firmly neutral
except for when they had exchanged coded dialogue or indulged their mutual
passion in private meetings. Gary was sure that Cleo wanted him as much as he
wanted her and loved him as much as he loved her. Once again he found himself
asking why she insisted on staying with Robert.
***
“You look tired, Gary,” Cleo said as Gary flopped down on
the sofa and took his shoes off. “Curl up for ten minutes.”
“I think I will,” said Gary. “We can postpone arrangements
for an hour or two.”
Cleo walked over to the sofa and tucked Gary in under the
tartan plaid that accompanied every snooze, after which she planted a kiss on
his forehead and announced that she would wake him in ten minutes with fresh
latté.
“Too little sleep,” yawned Gary, “thinking about that blasted
Jessie and the trouble she caused by doing a bunk from that institution. It’s
not normal behaviour.”
“The girl isn’t normal, Gary, and she really can’t be sent
anywhere else until she has undergone thorough those psychiatric tests.”
“If we did that with everyone, they’d all turn out to have a
reason for not being convicted or put in the clapper.”
“That’s not the point, though, and I thought you wanted to
sleep.”
“A lie-down will do the trick.”
Cleo sat on the arm of the sofa and stroked Gary’s arm.
Dorothy looked on for a moment and then went to make the coffee.
“Well, what is the point, Cleo? I can’t say I’ve noticed one
yet.”
“The point is that Jessie is not an average thinking individual.”
“Average enough to be convicted of murder, even if she was subsequently
sent to a mental institution.”
“If she is so troubled about the Oldfield conviction that
she tricked the institution into making it possible for her to abscond,
something can’t be right about that conviction, and if we don’t do something she
will be accused again! I’m not sure I could deal with the despair of being
blamed like that. I don’t believe she had anything to do with her mother’s
death, and we need a full confession from that housekeeper at the school so
that Jessie can be cleared.”
“What is the point of all that fuss? She’s sitting out a
life sentence. We can use that for the murder of her mother, if she did it.”
“Now you really are on a different planet. I don’t think you’ve
listened to my argument I’m not wasting any more breath. Why don’t you just
shut up and snooze for a few minutes?”
“I will if you don’t stop stroking my arm,” said Gary.
“I’ll just help Dorothy to get the coffee,” said Cleo.
Gary dropped off to
sleep.
***
A few minutes later Gary was refreshed. After splashing
water on his face, he sat at the dining table and breakfasted on buttered
bagels and coffee.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“Don’t mention it,” said Dorothy. “I was about to say that Mrs
Baines manipulated Jessie at the school and Jessie had no choice but to do what
she was told. The girl did not know that the stuff she was giving to Mrs
Oldfield that had been supplied by Mrs Baines was arsenic.”
“Don’t go on defending the woman,” said Gary. “She was poisoning
that cook too.”
“She didn’t know that, either Gary,” said Dorothy.
“You know want Ladies? We talked the tail off a donkey on
that case. The jury found her guilty on the judge’s advice. The case is closed
now.”
“It isn’t,” said Cleo. ”In the light of what the girl might
have done now, we have to take it into account, Gary. We can’t rule out that
Mrs Baines had told Jessie that the stuff she gave to the ants was vitamins
they could carry away.”
“Isn’t all this boiling cabbages twice?” said Gary.
“There’s no proof that she was deliberately poisoning Mrs
Oldfield even if she said she was. What Jessie says and does are two entirely
separate items.”
“But she must have known what the weed-killer was for. She
used it on the ants and we know what happened to them,” said Gary.
“She was giving Mrs Oldfield wellness pills and the woman
was not well,” said Dorothy. “Let’s face it: The whole Jessie case was a mess.”
“So answer this: Why did Jessie meddle with arsenic in the
first place, if not to kill Mrs Oldfield, whom she saw as a rival?” said Gary.
“The arsenic was obtained to get rid of the ants,” said
Cleo. “I think it was highly dangerous to have arsenic in such a high
concentration for sale, but garden centres probably have their own rules.
Everyone knows that and gardening fluids and powders are not for human or
animal consumption. The packets carry an unmistakeable warning.”
“Mrs Baines gave Jessie pills to give to Mrs Oldfield,” said
Dorothy. “I think that Mrs Baines had helped herself to the arsenic in the shed
and replaced it with flour so that no one would notice. She then dissolved the
genuine arsenic powder and injected the liquid into the pills.”
“How do you know that?” said Gary.
“We don’t know, but that’s what could have happened,” said
Dorothy.” It’s on the cards that Tom Crowe, the gardener, if you remember, saw that
the arsenic had been replaced, but could not think why and like many others in
a puzzling situation, did not raise the alarm because he wanted a quiet life.”
“You’re not suggesting that Tom Crowe was killed because he
knew something about all that? It would make the conviction of Joe Coppins for
murder also unjust.”
“You said it.”
“But I did not mean it, Dorothy. That case was solved. We
are chewing cabbages twice again and wasting precious time we need for
discussing the Marble case and Mrs Coppins’ death,” said Gary.
“I think Joe Coppins took the rap for Jessie in the Crowe
case,” said Cleo.
“How noble of him,” Gary sneered. “She’s not even his
daughter.”
“She is legally and Jessie Coppins was never in the dock for
murdering Tom Crowe.”
“Wait a minute, Cleo. Mrs Oldfield was stabbed in the back
before she was found but after death and Jessie’s father did it. Tom Crowe was also
stabbed to death. That does not sound like a woman’s work.”
“What is women’s work?”
“I’m beginning to ask myself that.”
“The evidence against Coppins was circumstantial. Doesn’t
that bother you, Gary?” said Cleo.
“Not a bit and everything you are saying about the current
cases is also pure guesswork, Cleo.”
“Crime detection includes guesswork and hunches,.” Said
Dorothy.
“Only on a theoretical level,” said Gary. “I can’t go round
arresting people on theoretical grounds.”
“But theorizing is all we can do until we have proof, Gary.”
“And how are we to get that? You can’t prove what people
think, so you’re leaving Tom Crowe’s killing out of all this, I take it,
although it puts Jessie’s whole current situation in a new light,” said Gary.
“Jessie had a motive. Crowe was carrying on with her own mother.”
“I agree that there are contradictions, but you are right.
It is now a cold case, so we can get back to it later,” said Cleo.
“Like the school case, if I may say so,” said Gary. “I’ll
have to get back to HQ now, Ladies. Thanks for the coffee and snooze. I feel
better now.”
“We haven’t discussed everything,” said Dorothy.
“No time,” said Gary.
“We’ll come in to talk to Jessie, Gary.”
“When?”
About two?”
“I’ll confirm that”
“OK.”
***
Dorothy was sure that the brainstorming had been useless.
Jessie seemed to have taken centre stage, but had she committed any crimes? The girl was eccentric and unpredictable. Dorothy
was looking forward to talking to Jessie again. She wondered what else Gary and
Cleo were going to get up to. Dorothy had her suspicions, but she would be
expected to go shopping after the questioning, and her sense of diplomacy would
force her to leave. Now there was a
serious speculation about the time before the interview.
***
“I’ll get the bus into Middlethumpton, if you don’t mind,”
said Dorothy.
“You can drive I with me, Dorothy.”
“Won’t you want to have lunch with Gary?”
“I suppose I could, if you are sure.”
“I have things to do, Cleo, and I need time to think quietly
about Jessie.”
“OK.”
“I’ll get the bus into town at one fifteen. That should be
in plenty of time .”
“OK. See you there.”
***
Gary and Cleo drove separately to HQ. Nigel had gone for an
early lunch, Gary’s embrace left little to the imagination.
“Dorothy knows about us, Gary. She has started managing us,
that’s why she did not want to drive in with me.”
“Did she say so?”
“She didn’t need to.
“Then let’s not waste time. With Dorothy’s blessing
everything is possible,” said Gary.
“Not here and now, Gary.”
“Why not? I’ll lock the office door and order food from
Romano for one o’clock. We can’t live on love and fresh air,” said Gary.
***
Gary managed to unlock the office door three minutes before
Romano arrived in person bearing a thermal box of goodies.
Cleo was anxious to get back to the brainstorming. Gary was
bemused by the talent Cleo had for forgetting their wonderful time together and
getting back to business.
“Dorothy and I do not think we should rule out that Mrs
Baines knew what Jessie had in mind and wanted to make sure that she was not
herself poisoned. In that case she would have told Jessie that she was already
taking the wellness potion as well and it was doing her good.”
“What a pair of witches!” said Gary.
“Are you referring to them or us?”
“If the cap fits… Jessie is possibly gullible enough to have
really believed that she was giving the cook a wellness potion recommended by
Mrs Baines,” said Gary.
“Sure. Although she had heard the two women quarrelling, she
thought they were friends again. I can’t remember when she said that, but she
did.”
“To quote the Bard, it’s a tangled web, Cleo.”
“It sure is. On that fateful
day, Jessie put genuine poison in the coffee-cups.”
“Before we move on to pleasanter subjects, I’m still puzzled
as to why Jessie was out to poison Mrs Baines as well,” said Gary.
“If Mrs Baines had threatened her with exposure for giving
the cook poison, it would be a reason to kill her, wouldn’t it? Either that or
she thought she might as well get rid of both women and have a clear run to
that cook job. Remember that we are only looking at it from her point of view
and even if she does not have the Asperger syndrome, she is acting as
egoistically as many who have some kind of mental aberration. Mrs Baines gave
the jobs to people. There was a risk that she would overlook Jessie’s application
and go for someone who was qualified.”
“You’ve convinced me,” said Gary. “Now all we need to do is
prove it all, except that that old case is not up for review.”
“It’s about to be.”
“How are you going to argue in Jessie’s favour, given that
she really had originally intended to poison Mrs Oldfield?”
“I just want justice, Gary, even if Jessie is stupid and
sullen. She didn’t know the wellness stuff Mrs Baines had given her was arsenic
and she had not firstly been poisoning the cook with arsenic, but only putting
it down for the ants. She was in too weak a position at that school to refuse
to do what Mrs Baines told her. Jessie was in a menial job she thought she was
too good for, but hoping to be promoted. And don’t forget the bullying and
humiliation she suffered from those two women on the one side and her mother on
the other.”
***
Cleo was persuasive. Even if Gary had found loopholes in
that reasoning, there was nothing to stop him getting permission to interview
Mrs Baines, and nothing to stop Cleo accompanying him.
***
“Back to the present, Gary. If you want to get Jessie on the
charge of murdering her mother, you’ll have to prove she’s capable of it. After
all, she did threaten to kill her mother and I stopped her attacking her with a
knife taken from the school. I’m sure she was acting then on the spur of the
moment. The motive she had then was strong, but you would have to prove it was
still valid.”
“OK. When we’ve talked to Jessie this afternoon will talk to
Mrs Baines. I’ll phone and say need to talk to her.”
“Will they let you see her at such short notice?”
“I’ll tell them it’s urgent.”
“Without revealing why?”
“I don’t suppose they are interested.”
“But Mrs Baines might have heard of Asperger’s. I learnt at
the clinic that only a small percentage of Asperger sufferers are potentially violent,
but many of them are unpredictable,” said Gary.
“According to Dorothy’s information, lots of prison inmates
have Asperger’s syndrome.”
“Where did she get that information, Cleo?”
“Prowling the internet, I expect. American shrinks. To
change the subject, Gary …”
“Yes?”
“I know you are not really emotionally mixed up, but I am.”
“I know the cure for that, Cleo.”
“I can’t leave him. He needs me.”
“I need you more, Cleo.”
“I could say the same, Gary.”
***
“After talking to Jessie, I collect must collect Marble’s
address book and look into Marble’s laptop. I expect the password is written
down somewhere, if he even had one.”
“Don’t remove evidence, Cleo.”
“I won’t be. I’ll be using a client’s equipment where necessary.
You’d have to prove otherwise, Gary. There are times when being a private detective
is convenient. Anyway, I’m surprised the laptop has not already been removed.”
“Forensics checked for fingerprints, I expect,” said Gary.
“If Harry had seen the laptop, he’d have stolen it, I’m sure.”
“That is definitely guesswork, Gary. You don’t know if Harry
went anywhere near the villa on that day.”
“No, but he could have, couldn’t he?”
“I’ll assume that I can take a look at the laptop, though things
in daily use do not usually land at the back of dark cupboards.. I think Dr
Marble was probably happier using pen and paper, so I’m not expecting to
discover anything significant.”
***
“On second thoughts, I’ll skip Jessie,” said Cleo.
“I’ll manage and
Nigel will be back to take notes. He gets on well with characters like Jessie. Let
me know what you find at the villa. I’d meet you there later, but Roger’s expecting
me for one of his pick-you-brain conferences.”
“Phone me about the interview,” said Cleo. “and find Harry
Marble!”
***
Cleo went to her car and within minutes was phoning Gary.
“We will need another conference.”
“Not a siesta?”
“Be serious, Gary. I forgot to ask you if you’d read the
forensic report on the villa. I have and it supports nearly all our theories so
far, doesn’t it?”
“Theories, Cleo. Theories! Drive carefully.”
***
At the villa, Cleo drew almost a blank. The laptop was in
the cupboard. The ID was the factory default. She could find nothing new on it to
support any of the theories concerning Dr Marble’s death. Rather disgruntled at
the waste of time, she drew back the heavy velvet drapes to let the sun in. What
a pleasant room it was, even if the carpet still had a white chalk-mark on it
showing where Dr Marble had lain. Cleo shuddered. It reminded her of her own
carpet after Laura Finch had been rolled onto it out of the foil blanket in
which the dead woman had been transported.
“I could live here”, she thought, despite the current
macabre condition of that carpet. Musing on the possibility of a houseful of
kids and a house to rear them in, Cleo counted a a dozen fruit trees. A
gardener had even put some pears into bottles, and all the kids could have
their own rooms when she and Gary had made some.
Her next instinct was to ring the guy she wanted to live
with and was finding it so hard to decide on.
“Gary? Find out if we can buy the Marble villa.”
“We don’t even live together, Cleo.”
“I’m thinking of the future, Sweetheart.”
“Do you mean that we have one?”
“Sure. Get that villa and I’ll get rid of Robert.”
“Don’t do anything foolish, Cleo.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“I’m not sure if I can enter into that kind of a bargain,” said
Gary.
“Then I’ll buy it.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Wait and see.”
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