‘What?’ says Harbinder. Natalka is obviously trying to string the story out but Harbinder is in a tolerant mood.
‘They are all written to her. Mrs Smith.’
‘Written by her?’
‘No.’ Natalka clicks her fingers, trying to come up with the word. ‘They are written to her. To Mrs Smith, without whom . . . et cetera, et cetera.’
‘Dedicated to her?’
‘Yes! Dedicated to her. All these murder books are dedicated to her. Isn’t that strange?’
‘I suppose so. Are they written by different people?’
‘Yes, lots of different people. But lots by Dex Challoner. He’s famous. I googled him.’
Harbinder has heard of Dex Challoner. He’s a local author and his books are piled high at every bookshop in the country. They seem to feature a private investigator called Tod France who doesn’t look like any PI Harbinder has ever met.
‘And they’re all dedicated to this Mrs Smith?’
‘Some are. Some just mention her in the back pages, you know.’
‘The acknowledgements?’
‘Yes. Thanks to Mum and Dad. Thanks to my publishers. And thanks to Mrs Smith.’
‘I wonder why.’
‘I know why,’ says Natalka, with the air of one putting down a winning hand. ‘Mrs Smith is a murder consultant. I found this. It was on the table next to her chair. The chair she died in,’ she adds, with what seems like unnecessary relish.
Natalka puts a small white card in front of Harbinder. Sure enough, in small Gothic print it says, Mrs M. Smith. Murder Consultant.
‘Murder consultant?’ says Harbinder. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Natalka. ‘But it’s suspicious, isn’t it? A woman dies and then it turns out that she’s a murder consultant.’
‘We need to find out what it means before we decide if it’s suspicious,’ says Harbinder. ‘And why does it say M. Smith? I thought you said her name was Peggy.’
‘Peggy is sometimes short for Margaret,’ says Natalka. ‘English names are odd like that.’
‘I am English,’ says Harbinder. She’s not going to let Natalka assume otherwise, just because she’s not white.
‘I’m Ukrainian,’ says Natalka. ‘We have lots of strange names too.’
Harbinder thinks of Ukraine and a series of ominous images scrolls through her head: Chernobyl, the Crimea, Ukrainian airline crash. She wonders whether Natalka will prove similarly bad news.
‘How did Peggy Smith die?’ she says.
‘Heart attack,’ says Natalka. ‘That’s what the doctor said. I was the one who found her. She was just sitting in her chair by the window.’
‘So no sign of anything suspicious?’
‘I didn’t think so at the time. Nor did my boss. But now I’m wondering. I mean, how do you know what’s suspicious and what isn’t?’
‘That’s a good question,’ says Harbinder.
She thinks about this conversation on the drive home. On the face of it, a ninety-year-old woman dying in her chair does not seem particularly suspicious. But maybe the mysterious Natalka (mysteriously attractive Natalka) is right. Maybe they should look below the surface of things. It does seem odd that an elderly lady should be mentioned in so many books. And ‘murder consultant’ does have a very sinister ring to it. Harbinder tells her phone to ring Clare. She’s still old enough to get a buzz out of hands-free stuff. Her nieces and nephews take it all for granted.
‘Hi, Harbinder.’ Clare’s voice – confident, slightly impatient – fills the car. ‘What’s up?’
‘Have you ever had a book dedicated to you?’
‘What?’
‘You read a lot. You teach creative writing. Has anyone ever dedicated a book to you? For Clare, without whom this book would have been finished in half the time.’
Clare laughs. ‘No, I’ve never had a book dedicated to me.’
‘Not even Henry’s?’ Clare’s boyfriend is a Cambridge academic.
‘I might get a mention in the acknowledgements of the new one, I suppose.’
‘Would you think it was odd if someone, quite an ordinary person, had lots of books dedicated to them and was mentioned in lots of acknowledgements?’
‘Unless they were a copy editor, yes.’
‘What does a copy editor do?’
‘Are you thinking of going into publishing? A copy editor checks a manuscript for mistakes, names changing, timelines going wrong, that sort of thing. Then a proofreader checks it again. Except they don’t seem to use proofreaders as much as they used to.’
Could Peggy Smith have been a proofreader? It’s possible, she supposes. It sounds like the sort of job a retired person might do. But the card hadn’t said ‘proofreader’. It had said ‘murder consultant’.
‘What’s all this about?’ says Clare. ‘Are you going to come over? I’ve made pasta. There’s loads left.’
‘Sounds tempting,’ says Harbinder, ‘but I should be getting home. See you soon. Love to Georgie and Herbert.’
It’s nearly ten o’clock by the time that Harbinder parks in the underground garage near her parents’ house. She still thinks of it like that although she lives there too. Sometimes she says to herself, in suitably shocked tones: ‘Harbinder Kaur was thirty-six years old, unmarried, and still lived with her parents.’ If she read that in a book, she’d lose all sympathy with the character. Mind you, Harbinder doesn’t read that sort of book. But, apart from a brief period when she’d shared a flat with other police cadets, she has lived in the flat above the shop all her life. In some ways, it suits her very well. Harbinder actually enjoys her parents’ company and it’s nice having someone to cook for you and generally look after you. But there are other drawbacks. Her parents don’t know she’s gay, for one thing.
She hopes that the house is quiet. The shop shuts at nine-thirty, her mother will probably be dozing in front of the TV, having left Harbinder something delicious warming in the oven. Her father will be getting outraged about the evening news and Starsky, their dozy German shepherd, will be nagging for his last walk. But, as she climbs the stairs, she can hear voices talking in Punjabi. Oh no, her parents must have friends round. How did two such sociable people produce a daughter who prefers Panda Pop to humanity?
‘Here she is,’ says Harbinder’s mother, Bibi, as if Harbinder is the final act in a variety show. ‘Here’s Harbinder at last.’
The two women at the table look as if they were expecting a more exciting special guest. Harbinder recognises them vaguely from one of her infrequent visits to the gurdwara.
‘How are you, Harbinder?’ says one of them. Amrit? Amarit? ‘Still with the police?’
No, Harbinder wants to say, I’m carrying these handcuffs for a bet. ‘Yes,’ she says, in English. ‘I’m still with the police.’
‘Harbinder’s a detective sergeant,’ says Harbinder’s father, Deepak. ‘She works very hard.’ Deepak is standing in the doorway with Starsky and looks a bit as if he wants his kitchen back.
‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ says the other woman. Honestly, what is it with old people? Why do they feel that they can ask questions like this?
‘I’m waiting for Mr Right,’ says Harbinder, between gritted teeth.
‘How old are you now?’ says Amrit beadily. ‘Thirty-eight? Thirty-nine?’
‘I’m forty-six,’ says Harbinder, adding ten years to her real age. ‘I look good on it, don’t I?’
‘She’s only thirtyish,’ says Bibi hastily. ‘Are you hungry, Harbi? I’ve kept some food for you.’
Harbinder would love to storm upstairs and go straight to bed but she is very hungry and her mother has cooked butter chicken. Harbinder sits down at the table.
‘Shall I drive you home?’ Deepak suggests to his visitors, who are both staring at Harbinder, as
if expecting her to do a magic trick.
The women get to their feet, rather reluctantly. Suddenly, Harbinder realises that she can make use of the old crones.
‘Do either of you know Seaview Court?’ she asks.
‘Oh yes,’ says Amrit. ‘The place on the seafront. Baljeet Singh lived there. Until he died.’
‘And there was another lady there who lived to be a hundred,’ says her friend. ‘She got a telegram from the Queen.’
All the old aunties love the Queen. They think she’s very Indian.
‘It’s sheltered accommodation, isn’t it?’ says Harbinder.
‘Yes, but the warden doesn’t live in. They just say that to make you pay more.’
‘So it isn’t very secure?’
‘Oh no,’ says the other woman. ‘There’s a passcode but people are going in and out all the time. Carers, you know. Anyone could get in. I’d never let my mother live somewhere like that.’
Her mother? How old must this woman be?
‘Why do you want to know?’ says Deepak, gathering up his car keys.
‘No reason really,’ says Harbinder. She goes back to her buttered chicken and, thank goodness, the two guests take the hint and leave. Harbinder doesn’t know why her dad is giving them a lift. Surely they could both fly home on their broomsticks.
Chapter 3
Benedict: mindful cappuccino
Benedict Cole smiles as he tries to froth milk mindfully. I’m really very lucky, he tells himself. I have my own café on the seafront, I meet different people every day, my view is uninterrupted sea and sky. And it’s satisfying to make drinks that people enjoy. He makes his own brownies and biscuits too. He’s really very blessed.
‘Are you going to be all day with that cappuccino, mate?’
Benedict keeps smiling but it’s hard to love people sometimes, especially when they’re wearing a striped shirt with the collar turned up and a flat cap, despite being under seventy-five. This man is actually nearer his own age, thirty-two, and, despite the ‘mate’, the voice is jarringly posh.
‘Nearly done,’ says Benedict.
‘I haven’t got all day,’ says Striped Shirt, though it’s hard to see what could be so urgent, in Shoreham on a Wednesday morning. And, actually, striped shirts are rare in Shoreham, it’s much more working class and less pretentious than Brighton. Maybe Stripy Shirt is an estate agent selling seafront apartments to people who haven’t registered this fact yet.
Benedict puts the cappuccino on the ledge. It’s a mindful work of art, creamy but still strong, a delicate leaf etched into the foam.
‘Would you like a brownie with that?’ he asks.
‘No thanks,’ says Striped Shirt. He waves a card. ‘Contactless?’
Benedict proffers the machine but, inside, he thinks that ‘contactless’ sums up his life nowadays; or sums up society, if he wants to keep his gloom on a loftier plane. In the monastery physical contact had not been encouraged (for obvious reasons) but even during silent times there had been more actual communication than Benedict sometimes encounters in a week in the Outside World. And then there was the mass, the bread and wine, the body and the blood. Catholicism is very corporeal, when you come to think of it, which Benedict does, rather too often.
‘Penny for them?’
Benedict brightens immediately because here is one of his favourite customers, someone not contactless, someone with whom you can have a proper conversation. Edwin really is over seventy-five but he’d never dream of wearing a flat cap. He wears a panama in the summer and a trilby in the winter, and sometimes, on really cold days, a deerstalker with furry earflaps.
‘Edwin!’ says Benedict. ‘Great to see you. I missed you yesterday.’
He doesn’t like to make his customers feel guilty if they miss a day but he really does notice if one of his regulars isn’t there. He worries about it in case something is amiss.
‘Actually,’ says Edwin, taking off his hat (a mid-season fedora today). ‘I’ve had some bad news.’
‘Oh no,’ says Benedict. He sees that Edwin really does look upset, his eyes are bloodshot and his hands shaking. Has a family member died? Does Edwin even have any family left?
‘It’s Peggy,’ says Edwin. ‘She’s dead.’
There’s always a lull around now and, with no customers in sight, Benedict and Edwin sit at the picnic table beside the Coffee Shack. The beach is almost empty too, miles of speckled shingle interspersed with clumps of sea kale. It’s September and the children have just gone back to school, which is a shame, because the sea looks perfect for swimming, blue-green topped with tiny waves. It’s had the summer’s heat on it too.
Benedict makes Edwin eat a brownie, ‘good for shock’, and for a moment they sit in silence. Benedict is comfortable with silence – the monastery again – but he’s anxious to know what happened.
‘How did she die?’
‘It was very sudden. Her heart, they said. I saw Natalka yesterday. She was sorting out Peggy’s books.’
‘She did love her books. Dear Peggy.’
‘She did. I’ll miss our booky chats. I’ll miss everything about her, really. She was the only good thing about that place.’
Edwin also lives in Seaview Court. It’s pleasant enough and it does, as the name suggests, have a spectacular sea view, but Edwin, who moved from an elegant Regency terrace in Brighton, loathes the place. Peggy had liked it though. ‘Where would you get a view like that?’ she often said. ‘Not the Hamptons, not Amalfi, not even Lake Baikal.’ Peggy often came up with these obscure places. How did she know them? It’s too late to ask her now.
‘When’s her funeral?’ asks Benedict. He’ll go, of course. He’s been going to a few funerals recently. They are usually held on Fridays in his parish church and Benedict goes along if he thinks that, otherwise, there won’t be enough mourners. His friend Francis, Father Francis now, says it’s in danger of becoming his hobby.
‘Natalka didn’t know. I don’t think Peggy had any faith. I hope it won’t be at that horrid crematorium.’ Edwin is a Catholic, another thing he and Benedict have in common.
‘Did Peggy have any family?’
‘One son: Nigel. They weren’t close. Peggy once described him to me as a kulak. I had to look it up. It’s Russian. Means a prosperous peasant, class enemies who sided with the land owners. Typical Peggy.’
Benedict knows about death. I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord. He knows the service from his seminary days, and from his recent bout of funeral-attending. But he thinks that Edwin, at eighty, must know death better than he does. The Grim Reaper is, if not around the corner, then definitely making calls in the area.
‘You were a good friend to Peggy,’ says Benedict.
‘Thank you,’ says Edwin, sounding rather tearful. ‘I hope so. She was certainly a good friend to me. You don’t make new friends at my age.’
‘It’s difficult at any age,’ says Benedict.
Benedict grew up in Arundel, a scenic market town on the River Arun, complete with castle and cathedral. The youngest of three children, he attended a private Catholic school where he was usually known as ‘Hugo’s brother’. The only truly memorable thing that he ever did was to announce, aged eighteen, that he wanted to become a priest. His parents, who were Catholic in the stubborn way some old recusant English families are, sticking to their faith all through the Reformation, never expected any of their children to take it this far. They clearly found it embarrassing and rather self-indulgent, in the same way that you don’t expect your gymnastics-loving daughter to join a circus. ‘I thought only Irish people became priests,’ his mother said once. But the truth is that even the Irish don’t become priests any more. Benedict’s private Catholic school had used to turn out two or three a year but he had been the first for almost a decade. Even his teachers found it embarrassing. And then to beco
me a monk! It wasn’t even as if he was a hard-working parish priest, living in the community and trundling about giving communion to the housebound. ‘What are you going to do all day?’ His mother again. ‘Lock yourself away and chant?’
But Benedict had loved the chanting and he’d loved the monastery too. If he tells people that he used to be a monk – and it’s not something that comes up in conversation that often – he knows that they assume he left because he lost his faith. In fact, his faith is as alive and as terrifying as ever. He left because he fell out of love with God and realised that he wanted ordinary, mortal love. In fact, he wanted to get married. It’s funny, the seminary went on so much about denying the sins of the flesh, of sacrificing the chance of marriage and having children; they gave the impression that, in the Outside World, these joys were just there for the taking. It never occurred to Benedict that he would find himself, after two years, living alone in a bedsit, having not had a date, or even anything approaching one, since he’d left St Bede’s. ‘Go online,’ his sister tells him but it’s not meant to be like that. You’re meant to meet someone while you’re walking by the sea, or taking your books back to the library. A gorgeous woman, perhaps slightly quirky, a bit dishevelled, will turn up at the Shack and they’ll have a cute conversation about vanilla latte and, before long, they’ll be going to art films at the cinema and laughing as they run along the beach in the rain. He doesn’t want to give up his dream of Quirky Girl even though he’s never seen anyone remotely like her in Shoreham. The only young woman he knows is Natalka.
Natalka appears at midday, still wearing her blue overalls, which she manages to make look almost stylish. Benedict knows Natalka quite well, they see each other most days, and he would definitely call her a friend but, at the same time, he doesn’t know much about her. She’s from Ukraine, she went to university in Bournemouth and she works as a carer. He imagines himself saying this to his mother, who often asks if he’s met ‘someone’. His mother would roll her eyes at the ‘carer’; she wants him to meet a lawyer or an accountant, or a primary school teacher, which she would consider a very suitable job for a woman. Benedict doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with being a carer – the monastery had been all about the corporeal acts of mercy, after all – but he does think it’s a strange career choice for Natalka. Lots of carers choose the work because the hours are supposedly flexible and because they have young children or elderly parents to look after but, as far as he knows, Natalka has no family ties. ‘With her looks,’ Edwin had said once, ‘she could be an actress or a model.’ Benedict had thought this depressingly sexist but, deep down, he had agreed.
The Postscript Murders Page 2
