Quick and the Dead

by Susan Moody

  ‘I don’t suppose you knew the boy.’

  ‘Not at all. No reason why I should. Young, as I said. Dark hair, dark eyes. Thin, nervy-looking lad. Very intense. If I had to give him a nationality, I’d have said Spanish, or Italian.’

  ‘And was he reciprocating?’

  ‘Enthusiastically. Not to put too fine a point on it, the two of them might just as well have been in bed together for all the notice they took of the other customers.’

  ‘So in the end, you didn’t get in contact with her.’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ He gave another of his funeral-director sighs. ‘But now I wish I had. We know not the hour nor the day, isn’t that true? But if I’d had any inkling of her own death coming while she was still so relatively young, I would certainly have done so.’

  ‘And no idea at all who the young man was?’

  ‘At one point, I think I heard her call him Danny Boy. But I could have been mistaken. Or it might have been some sort of private joke … maybe that dark colouring of his was Irish, not Mediterranean. Who knows?’ He lifted his shoulders and dropped them again. ‘If you take the long-term view, what does it matter?’

  ‘Nonetheless, as you said, strange behaviour for a widow.’

  ‘I took the trouble to investigate a bit further – I have a few business contacts over in the States – and discovered she had quite a reputation on the social scene. Even while her husband was still alive. I believe that once she moved to New York, she went back to art school to study some more. I imagine that’s where she did the research for her book.’

  ‘I wonder who the young man was, and how we can find out.’

  ‘I understood from my enquiries that she was always involved with one or other of her fellow students – the male ones, that is.’ He spread his hands and made a rueful sort of face. ‘At least she changed her name, so it didn’t besmirch my company.’

  Besmirch … nice word.

  He got to his feet. ‘Thank you for telling me what happened, Miss Quick. I hope they find the culprit soon, and we can all get back to our everyday lives.’

  I watched from the window as he emerged from the front door of my building. There was a smart black Daimler car outside, with two young men in black suits standing in front of it, hands folded across their crotches in the way that undertakers – and footballers – do.

  When they had climbed into the car and progressed in stately fashion across the parking area and out of sight, I did something I should have done much earlier. Looked up Dexter Morrison, now deceased, on the internet. Dexter had been very rich, wealthier even than the Lamonts, thanks to an adhesive developed by his father and perfected by himself. This adhesive was strong enough to temporarily weld together the damaged components of cars, bicycles, ships and other vehicles, even underwater, enabling them to be safely used until they could be brought in for repair without disrupting their usefulness. In time, Morrison’s adhesive was superseded by other products, but by then Dexter and his brother had not only amassed enormous fortunes, they’d also diversified into other fields, from confectionery to a revolutionary hospital bed. Dexter had been married twice before he met Amy Lardner (as she was calling herself) at a fund-raising dinner in London in aid of limbless war heroes, a charity of which he was the patron, but that marriage had lasted until his death at the age of ninety-two.

  Which should have left Amy absolutely rolling in it. But no. The Will, which left her a substantial fortune, had been contested upside, downside and sideways by Dexter’s daughters, despite the fact that they too had been left mind-bogglingly huge inheritances. Reading between the lines, it seemed that they were more interested in preventing Amy from benefitting from their father’s money than in gaining more for themselves. There was wild speculation in the gossip columns and celebrity trash-mags. Faux-sober articles about her behaviour. Accusations of sexual shenanigans. Lovers and would-be lovers jumping on the bandwagon to give sordid tales of their encounters with her.

  There were many pictures of Dexter prior to his death attending black-tie dinners, accompanied by his glamorous wife in a variety of sumptuous dresses and jewellery. He featured in long articles about his charity work and was known for his generous contributions to other charities than his own. And always, be it dinners, congresses, speeches, there was Amy at his side.

  The article mentioned a scandal which had overtaken the couple when one of Amy’s fellow students committed suicide. There were accusations that Amy had been responsible for the young man’s death, but other students attested that the boy in question, Marco Daniel Vendamo, had been ‘a bit of a weirdo’ and a ‘nervy sort of kid’. ‘Very intense,’ one girl said. Was this the ‘Danny boy’ that Terry had mentioned?

  I scrolled down through more photographs. Something caught my attention and I scrolled back until I found what it was. A group photo of the great and the good of New York at some charity function. There was Dexter, there was Amy beside him, glamorously begowned and bejewelled. There were milk-white shirt-fronts and solemn black ties. And there, at the back and to the side, unmistakably, were Bob and Mercy Lamont. He had a lot more hair, then. And hers was longer than now, blacker, piled up on top of her head. She looked impossibly elegant. Her face was fuller than it had been last time we met.

  So the Lamonts and the Dexter Morrisons were friends. Or at the very least, moved in the same social circles. That had to be significant. I needed to think about what it could mean.

  I got my car out and started to drive to my parents’ house. It was raining, lightly at first, then more heavily, turning into sleet and then heavy snow, so dense that my wipers could hardly cope. I peered through the windscreen into a swirling world of white flakes and dark skies. Perhaps I ought to have turned back, but I didn’t want my parents to hear about Helena’s death from anyone else. The snow lit up the darkness, catching further light from street lamps and houses where the curtains weren’t drawn.

  There were lights on in the house when I finally pulled up in their drive. Cosy glows from the kitchen and the sitting room. An upstairs bedroom illuminated. Smoke from the wood-burning stove being madly tossed about by the wind.

  I ran to the front door, opened it, shouted out. No answer. I went into the kitchen and found Mary sitting at the table, reading The New Yorker, which must have been in the accumulated mail waiting for their return. There was a glass of white wine in one hand.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Have a good time?’

  ‘Very good, thank you.’

  ‘Do a lot of sightseeing?’

  ‘At our age, it’s more about revisiting old favourites than searching out new places.’ She took off her glasses. ‘Did you come over while we were gone?’

  I was – thank God – too old to be intimidated by her disapproval. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why, when I expressly told you not to?’

  ‘Precisely because you told me not to.’ I got myself a glass and poured some of her wine into it. ‘You have never, in all our shared years, either told me when you were going on holiday, nor that I was not to visit the house in your absence. Naturally, being of an enquiring turn of mind, I immediately drove over to see what was going on.’

  ‘And what did you find?’

  ‘Th-that you had a g-guest staying.’ I picked up my glass and drank it down. ‘Helena, in point of fact. Why didn’t you tell me? You knew how worried about her I was.’

  ‘For the very good reason that she begged us not to tell anyone. Not even you. As she will confirm for you as soon as she comes back.’

  My parents didn’t know!

  The enormity of what had happened to Helena suddenly welled up inside me like a tsunami of grief. I started to weep in a way I had not been able to since she died.

  ‘My dear child …’ Mary said. She stood up. ‘What on earth is it?’

  I went and stood next to her. Buried my head against her shoulder and sobbed. Longed with all my heart for an apple-pie-and-cookies mom, however temporarily. And like a necessary miracl
e, felt her arms come round me and hold me tight. The last time she had hugged me was when I lost my child. ‘It’s Helena.’

  ‘What’s Helena?’ Her body braced itself for bad news.

  ‘She … she’s dead, Mary.’ I explained the circumstances, gave her such details as I knew, said I had identified the body. ‘I really …’ I choked slightly. ‘… don’t know if I’m going to be able to go on without her.’

  Instant briskness. ‘Of course you are.’ She sat down again, reached for a pad of paper and a pen. ‘And you say they found her in the river?’

  ‘Just a mile up the towpath from here. The police are trying to say it was an accident or suicide.’

  ‘That is complete nonsense.’

  ‘So I told them.’

  ‘Not only did Helena hate water, she also hated the cold.’

  ‘And any form of exercise.’

  ‘There is absolutely no way on earth she would have gone out in the cold to walk for a mile and then throw herself in the river.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Mary refilled both our glasses. ‘This is sad news for all of us,’ she said. ‘She was originally your friend, I know, but Edred and I were so fond of her.’ She looked over at the door of the kitchen. ‘Your father is going to be most distressed.’

  Strong words from a woman who rarely showed emotion. As always, the two of them seemed almost disengaged. I wondered if they knew that Helena was a murder suspect, though I doubted it would change their opinion of her.

  ‘As am I,’ she continued.

  ‘You’ll have to tell the police that she was here,’ I said. How long might it take before they got around to seeing my parents? The connection between them and Helena was not immediately obvious.

  ‘I know.’ She rested her head on her hand. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘A DI called Alan Garside is in charge. You might want to emphasize Helena’s hatred of cold, exercise and water.’

  ‘Yes.’ Mary looked out of the window. ‘It’s snowing hard. You’d better stay the night.’

  NINETEEN

  ‘Fliss,’ I said, when DI Fairlight answered her phone. ‘What was Helena Drummond wearing when she was found?’

  ‘Uh … you do realize that this is Garside’s call, not mine, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Luckily some sixth sense warned me that you would be doing your stray dog act, hanging round for more scraps, which is why I’ve got a copy of the case file right here in front me. So what do you want to know this time?’

  ‘What Helena was wearing when they found her.’

  ‘Um … let me see.’ Papers rustled. Fliss sniffed lightly. I waited. ‘Ah, here we are. She was wearing a navy corduroy skirt, two under-vests, one green, one black, a pair of purple tights, a leather coat, green ankle boots, a big red scarf round her neck. Golly,’ she sniffed again, ‘talk about a riot of colour!’

  ‘Sounds fairly restrained for Helena. And she always hated the cold.’ I tried to laugh, picturing my friend, alive and vital, but other drowned faces I had seen over the years kept getting in the way.

  ‘Plus, of course, that ethnic bag and—’

  ‘Whoa,’ I said. ‘Back up a minute. You said a leather coat?’

  ‘That’s right. Dark brown, with big flap pockets. New and very expensive, according to this list.’

  ‘But she hasn’t got one,’ I objected.

  ‘Maybe she tried a spot of retail therapy and bought one. Or was given one by an admirer.’

  ‘No. She would never buy anything new. Except for shoes. She went to charity shops. It was an ideological thing as much as a financial one. And I very much doubt that she was seeing someone who could afford to give her a leather coat, even if she would have accepted it. And when I went into her house and found Amy Morrison, I can assure you there was no leather coat hanging in the hall.’

  ‘Maybe she’d hung it in her wardrobe, seeing as it was new and all. Or maybe she wore it when she went out with her friends the evening before.’

  ‘Hanging in wardrobes wasn’t Helena at all. But we can easily check with the folk she went to the concert with.’

  ‘Be that as it may, that’s what she was wearing when they fished her out of the water. With the pockets full of stones, big ones. And more of them in that woolly bag thing, as I told you.’

  ‘What did she actually die of?’

  ‘Not sure. But not drowning. According to the ME, she was dead when she went into the water.’

  ‘Though you were obviously meant to think that she had gone in willingly, after filling her pockets with stones. So what did kill her?’

  ‘A massive blow to the side of the head, made by one of the bigger stones. They found it in her bag, still with blood on it.’

  ‘So unless they think she stood on the bank, decked herself on the head with a stone and managed to put the weapon back into her bag before falling dead into the water, presumably they’ve ruled out suicide.’ A slip-up by this very competent murderer, I thought. Who had gone to the trouble of bringing a coat with him and filling the pockets with stones. Especially in buying a new and expensive one, not realizing it was the sort of thing Helena would never have bought.

  ‘They’ve also ruled out accident,’ said Fliss.

  ‘So they recognize that despite the stones, it’s officially murder?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Anything else I might find interesting?’

  ‘Well … no prints, obviously. The ground was iron hard. But apparently there’s some slightly mushy kind of grass and mud at the edge of the towpath, the remains of a dried-up puddle where the ground is sheltered by a small area of trees and undergrowth.’

  ‘I know the place.’

  ‘They found traces of tyre marks. Or a trace, at any rate.’

  ‘You couldn’t get a car along there.’

  ‘Sorry … traces of a bike tyre.’

  ‘What sort of bike?’

  ‘A motorbike, fairly new and top-of-the-range, according to our experts.’

  Ding! Likewise dong! Motorbikes went together with Laurence Turnbull the way maggots went with a corpse. And a neighbour of Helena’s had mentioned a motorbike being revved outside her house the night Amy was murdered. On the other hand … I could understand why he might have wanted to kill Amy (I was sure there would be a connection between the two, via art college), but what possible beef could he have had against Helena? Unless she was behind him leaving art school without completing his diploma and he had been thirsting for revenge ever since.

  ‘What about the first murder? Amy Morrison’s.’

  ‘So far, almost nothing. The usual crop of out-of-town sightings, the usual nutters claiming they saw her being eaten by aliens or abducted by their son-in-law in Newcastle.’

  ‘If she was eaten or abducted, how do they explain her body being discovered in Helena’s house?’

  ‘They don’t. Logical explanation isn’t part of the brief. You know that.’

  I terminated the call, then pressed in the numbers for Paul Sandbrook, owner of the antiques shop in the town. This time he answered himself. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Quick here,’ I said. ‘Alex Quick.’

  ‘Remind me.’

  ‘We spoke a few days ag—’

  ‘I remember, Drummond & Quick. Of course. And now poor Helena …’ His voice tailed away.

  ‘Last time we spoke, you mentioned some former student of hers who was eating in the same restaurant as you and your party.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Who came over to speak to Helena.’

  ‘Yes. Helena tried to give her the brush-off but the woman refused to take the hint. Just kept swaying about and giggling. She must have been either drunk or high.’

  ‘Did Helena say who it was?’

  ‘No. In fact she was uncharacte‌ristically tight-lipped about her.’

  ‘Could you describe her?’

  ‘I’ve already done so, to the police. The real police,’ he
added pointedly.

  Undeterred, I said, ‘I would really appreciate it.’

  ‘Blonde ringlets. Early forties. Quite good-looking.’

  ‘Clothes?’

  ‘A black dress, lacy round the hem. A bit too much bosom on display. Heels.’

  ‘Any jewellery?’

  ‘A necklace made of interlocked gold rings. Diamonds on her fingers. No earrings.’

  Amy Morrison, without a doubt. ‘Was she dining alone?’

  ‘No idea. I couldn’t actually see her when she was sitting at her table. But I shouldn’t think so, would you?’ He paused a moment. ‘On second thoughts, when she went back to her own table, maybe there was someone. I couldn’t see clearly and he could have been at another table.’

  ‘Can you give me any details, supposing he was with her?’

  ‘Younger than she was. Bright hair. That’s all that registered.’

  I waited but he didn’t say anything more. In the end, I said, ‘One last question, if you don’t mind: was Helen wearing a coat that night?’

  ‘She’d be pretty silly not to, wouldn’t she? In those sub-arctic temperatures.’

  ‘Is that a yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do you have any recollection of the coat she had on?’

  ‘It was one of those weird garments Helena used to wear. Quilted. Red. Knobbly, in some way. A Chinese-style ideogram on the back.’

  ‘But nothing leather?’

  ‘Leather? Definitely not.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Sandbrook. You’ve been most helpful.’

  He grunted and cut off the call.

  I knew the coat he was referring to, a thickly padded long jacket from somewhere like Outer Mongolia. Knobbly, as he said, with knots of cloth hanging from it, wild buttons. Helena had found it on some stall at Brick Lane market.

  So, I thought. Amy was in Canterbury on the night she was murdered. Obviously. Was it just chance that took her to the same restaurant as Helena and her friends? And chance or no chance, what led her to Helena’s house? And since Helena spent the night at Peter Preston’s house, she wouldn’t have been able to let Amy in. And given that her portfolio still lay on the back seat of her old car, it looked as if she had never set off for the meeting with Clifford Nichols.