Read Online Hardcastle's Traitors by Graham Ison - Free Book Online Page B

door was opened by an attractive woman, probably in her early thirties. To Hardcastle’s surprise, she was wearing a Japanese silk kimono and satin slippers. Her long jet-black hair tumbled around her shoulders and she displayed not the slightest embarrassment at being in a state of comparative undress.
    â€˜Mrs Powell?’ asked the DDI, certain that a housemaid would not be dressed with such casual elegance as the woman now facing him.
    â€˜Yes, I’m Annabel Powell.’ The woman gazed enquiringly at the two detectives. ‘Who are you?’
    â€˜Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle of the Whitehall Division, madam, and this here’s Detective Sergeant Marriott.’
    â€˜Oh my God!’ Mrs Powell put a hand to her mouth. ‘Is it about Valentine?’
    â€˜Valentine, madam?’ queried Hardcastle, pretending innocence.
    â€˜Colonel Powell, my husband. Has he been killed?’
    â€˜Not to my knowledge,’ said Hardcastle, somewhat piqued at being obliged to carry on a conversation on the doorstep. ‘It’s certainly not what I’ve come about.’
    As if sensing Hardcastle’s irritation at her discourtesy, Mrs Powell hurriedly invited the two detectives into the house and led them into the drawing room. Waiting until she had settled herself in an armchair, Hardcastle and Marriott sat down on a sofa facing her.
    â€˜What have you come here for if it’s not about my husband?’ Perfectly relaxed, the woman focused her deep brown eyes on Hardcastle.
    â€˜I understand that a Captain Haydn Villiers spent the night with you on New Year’s Eve, Mrs Powell.’
    Marriott was astounded by the bluntness of his DDI’s assertion, and that he had made it without having the slightest evidence that that was indeed the case.
    â€˜
What?
’ Annabel Powell shot forward in her chair, the cool reserve that had possessed her thus far vanishing in an instant. ‘Is that what the damned fellow told you, Inspector?’ Clearly outraged, she almost spat the words.
    â€˜So you do know him,’ said Hardcastle, allowing the colonel’s wife to draw, what to her, must have seemed the only logical conclusion: that Villiers had offered up her name as an alibi.
    â€˜Yes, I do know him. He’s in my husband’s brigade, but he certainly did not spend the night with me. It’s a monstrous thing for him to have said.’ Mrs Powell quickly recovered her equanimity, and spoke in matter-of-fact tones. ‘My husband is a regular officer commanding a brigade of the Royal Field Artillery in France, somewhere near Neuve Chapelle, I believe. He’s often critical of the quality of young men who are being commissioned today. In fact, he describes them as “oiks”, whatever that may mean, and it would seem that Haydn Villiers is one of them. But, despite that, I found him to be a very personable young man, even if he has turned out to be a bounder.’
    â€˜Would I be right in assuming that Captain Villiers is one of your husband’s battery commanders, Mrs Powell?’ There was a good reason why Marriott had made it his business to learn about the way in which the British Army was structured. His DDI possessed but a sparse knowledge of it, and displayed no interest in furthering that knowledge, even though being involved often with military matters. Marriott, however, was doubtful that Colonel Powell commanded a brigade; as far as he knew that would be a brigadier general’s command.
    â€˜That’s correct. However, what has any of this to do with the police?’
    Hardcastle explained in some detail about the Vauxhall Bridge Road murder, stressing the fact that Haydn Villiers’s father’s car was most likely to have been used in its execution. And that it had taken place on New Year’s Eve.
    â€˜Captain Villiers has been known to drive the car in the past, Mrs Powell, but he claimed that he had nothing