She was sitting so still, letting her coffee grow cold. I was dawdling by a burger stand, the hot, greasy odour of old frying fat in my nostrils, keeping both of them in sight.
‘Want anything?’ the woman behind the counter asked. She was tossing sizzling onions, turning burgers, rolling sausages with easy familiarity.
I shook my head. ‘Haven’t made up my mind, thank you.’
Nothing was happening. My legs were turning to stone. Any moment now my tear ducts would freeze over. I really wanted to go home. But I couldn’t move. This was what I was being paid for.
‘Coming on the bumper cars with me, Jordan?’ It was DI James beside me. I hadn’t seen him coming. He was also staring across the road as if trying to work out who was holding my attention. He was in casual dark clothes, face pinched with cold, eyes glittering with frost.
‘No way, I’ve sampled your driving.’
‘I’ll keep to the speed limit.’
‘Go find some other sucker.’
I don’t know what makes me say these things. I would have followed him to the moon, trod burning coals, climbed Mount Everest in bare feet. I tried to soften my words with a smile but it was a long time coming.
‘I’ll let you drive,’ he offered.
It was probably the second or third nicest thing he’d ever said to me. How I treasured these morsels of normal human behaviour between us. But I was working, had to stay anchored, earning my crust. How could I tell him without telling him?
In that moment of inattention, Sonia Spiller disappeared. The bench seat was empty. She had gone. So had the man at the bus stop. Together, separately or whatever, but they had both gone. I’d blown it again.
I turned to James, failure in my eyes. There was no reason to refuse him now. He was daring me to take him on, though a bumper car was hardly gladiatorial.
‘Still wanna go on the cars?’ I drawled, hoping he’d changed his mind. ‘I’ll drive.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m not paying,’ I shivered.
‘Did I say anything about you paying? I always treat a lady.’
We walked back to the bumper cars, not touching, with the steady, even stride of coppers. They had set up early and were already doing a good trade. We climbed into a dingy blue bumper car. There was hardly room for two tall people. We sat knee to knee, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, material rasping.
‘Strap yourself in,’ he said.
‘I know the rules,’ I said, gritting my teeth. Dilemma: did I drive carefully, soberly, avoiding all collisions, impress him with skilled manoeuvring and steering? Or should I drive hell for leather and bump the guts out of him?
Five minutes of hell later it was a long five minutes — and we slowed down to a stop as the power was cut off. I was still clutching the steering wheel as if I’d just won the German Grand Prix. James had a fixed grin on his face, but I could see from his brow that I had generated some heat. He climbed out stiffly.
‘Thank you, Jordan. That was an extraordinary experience. I’m trying to find the right word. Electrifying. We’ll hire you to drive when we want some witness scared witless in the back of a patrol car.’
‘Gee, you said all that without moving your lips.’
I felt exhilarated and smug. I’d shown him I could drive.
Even the attendant looked shaken. He wouldn’t let me on again in a hurry.
*
The exhilaration had worn off by the time I got back to my bedsits. I’d behaved like a scabby teenager with a turnip for a head. No excuses. Grow up, Jordan. No wonder James never took my work seriously.
I comforted myself with some burning hot home-made watercress and Stilton soup and French bread. Très bien. Je suis une belle cook. I wrote up my notes for the day and realised that I had barely stopped working. Lunch had been less then a memory. I’d existed on air since that coffee with Mavis. Then I remembered that I hadn’t told DI James about my conversation with Mavis.
And Sonia Spiller in the Italian cafe, all alone. What could that tell me? I threw on my anorak, grabbed scarf and WI pattern gloves and flew out. They wouldn’t have shut yet, not with all the funfair crowd still strolling about, gasping for coffee and hot chocolate.
The cafe was packed to the walls. I could hardly find anyone to talk to. Perhaps I would come here while Maeve’s Cafe was closed. They sold twenty different kinds of ice cream. Hardly staple diet.
‘Sure, I remember the lady,’ said the dark-haired young owner between serving and taking money. ‘She sit there for a long time. I ask her if she is ill. And suddenly she runs out, forgetting her bag.’
‘Forgetting her bag?’ I remembered the heavy holdall and the way she kept changing hands. Excitement gripped me. ‘Have you still got it?’
This was a forlorn hope but sometimes my luck changed.
‘No, the lady come back for it, only moments ago. You have just missed her.’
I thanked the young man, promised to come back for an ice cream, amaretto flavour. An ice cream in this weather? Serious malfunction.
‘Ver’ nice,’ he promised.
I hurried out, scanning the crowds with laser eyes, hopping and skipping through the clusters of people like someone with urgent business to attend to. Then I saw her. She was going on the pier. No one goes on the pier at this time of night. It was ridiculous. I tried to catch her up, remembering the look in her eyes. She was walking fast, the bag now clutched in her arms.
But no. Sonia Spillcr was not going to throw herself off the pier. Instead she threw the bag over the end of the pier, using the strength of desperation to send it as far as possible. I heard it splash into the dark sea. She turned away and went landwards, using the other side of the pier, so she did not pass me.
I leaned over the rail, looking down into the murky depths, but the bag had sunk or already drifted out of sight. There was no way I could retrieve it. It might be washed up on some shore with the next tide, or be taken by the current halfway to Brighton.
I wandered back. We’d never know what was in that bag or why Sonia had to get rid of it. Training weights? For one crazy, horrific moment, I thought it might be Jasper.
Hell’s Revenge was revolving at full speed, lights flashing, heavy metal rock pounding the air. It was a large spinning disc with a dozen four-seater capsules bolted round the edges. These capsules spun loosely and erratically in the opposite direction to the base disc. The youngsters were screaming, hair flying, legs and arms waving. Red devils leered from the hoarding.
The ride was over, slowing down and coming back to earth, disjoined legs and hair settling. One capsule held a single male occupant. He looked awkward as if he had slipped although there was a protective bar and brace which held customers in place.
A skinny orange-haired young man in a duffle coat sauntered around, approaching each capsule as it reached ground level, opening the safety catches of the bars and turfing people out.
Suddenly he stopped and ran back to the woman in the cashier’s booth. She followed him to the last capsule, annoyance written all over her worn face.
Then she began screaming, a rough primeval sound. It pierced the cold night air. People stopped, alarmed. I moved towards Hell’s Revenge, dreading what I might find, knowing what I had already suspected. The flashing lights brought the scene into sharp focus. Beams strobed his face.
The man in the capsule was dead. He wasn’t going to get out and stroll to the nearest burger stand for a quarter pounder. He’d been spun to death.
And I knew who it was. My heart nearly came into my throat. His handsome features were distorted, hair ruffled, head lolling from a broken neck. It was Oliver Guilbert, my present employer, now no longer my employer.
He was the man I’d seen earlier in the doorway. The man who had seemed very much at home with Sonia Spiller at number eight Luton Road.
Eight
The shock rooted me to the spot. Part of my brain told me to move. It would not do to be found on a crime scene again. Being s
een (or loitering, as DI James so uncharitably put it) near the Fenwick fire had caused me enough trouble. And I had found the poor dead nun myself. No, Lacey, this was retreat time, and fast.
I shut down my face and turned away. There was enough commotion going on without another gawping sightseer in the crowd. More gasps and screaming above the pounding rock music. People running about. Other fair folk converging, mobiles at the ready.
Oliver Guilbert. That fit and good-looking young man and I had liked him so much. I could barely believe it. He was just not the funfair type. Those smart suits, expensive shirts and ties. That car. It didn’t go with riding Hell’s Revenge.
Leroy Anderson came into mind and I hoped she was not emotionally involved with Oliver. A third death in a year might be too much for her. The death of her sister, Waz, and her employer, Adrian Fenwick, had come as successive blows and had been hard enough.
I could contact her but I did not want to be associated with more bad news. She’d find out soon enough. News in Latching travelled faster than light.
It wasn’t easy to sleep that night with uneasy dreams. Next morning I decided to phone the leisure centre. I unlocked my shop, hoping the routine of opening up would calm my equilibrium. I wrote out a hasty notice: LATE NIGHT SHOPPING SOON and hung it in the window. It might attract a few customers. Some Christmas. Then I remembered I had an invitation to Brenda Hamilton’s party for members of the Latching Bowling Club next Friday. Perhaps I could go catch a few minutes of festive joy. It might cheer me up.
I looked up the number for the leisure centre and keyed the digits.
‘Latching Leisure Centre. This is Tracy. Can I help you?’
‘Hello, Tracy,’ I said brightly. ‘I’m sure you can. I want to give a friend of mine a year’s subscription to the leisure centre for a Christmas present. Lovely idea, isn’t it? He plays such a lot of squash. But I thought I’d better check first to see if he’s already got a year’s subscription.’ Every word hurt. I should be using the past tense.
‘What’s your friend’s name?’
‘Oliver Guilbert.’
‘One moment please. I’ll look it up for you.’
‘Thank you.’
I heard the silence of computer keying. Tracy coughed and spluttered.
‘Yes, Mr Guilbert is already a member but his subscription runs out at the end of the year.’
‘So I could give him a new one?’
‘Sure.’ She coughed again. ‘Shall I send you a form?’
‘That's not necessary. I’ll call in for one. You’ve got a nasty cold.’
‘Yes. I can’t get rid of it. I’ve had it a week. I’d go to the doctor but it’s always such a long wait.’
‘There’s a lot of it about. Hot lemon and honey with a generous dash of whisky,’ I suggested. ‘Knock it on the head.’
Tracy giggled. ‘That’d knock me on the head all right.’
So Oliver Guilbert was also a member at the leisure centre. I wanted to run the film I’d taken of Sonia playing squash. Perhaps he’d been calling at number eight to arrange a match. Highly unlikely. And he’d not said a word about knowing Sonia Spiller at our first meeting. He’d given no indication that she was anything more than a customer, a customer suing for a hundred and fifty thousand.
Phew. It was a lot of money said like that. Nasty suspicions floated round my head. I do have this suspicious mind. On a piece of paper I made two lists. They were headed: Reasons for Paying Out and Reasons for Not Paying Out. I knew what I meant.
Reasons for Paying Out
1. Keep SS quiet.
2. Good name of store.
3. Maybe store gets back half as cut.
4. Or OG gets half as cut.
5. If OG gets more than half (blackmail).
6. Has OG pressing debts?
Insurance scams were not unknown. Get the insurance payout and then share it among themselves. Pay for a few nice holidays.
Reasons for Not Paying Out
1. Claim proved untrue.
2. Store going bankrupt.
3. No insurance cover.
My pen hovered over the last line. I was getting a headache. No insurance cover. Supposing the Guilberts did not have any valid up-to-date insurance? What if Oliver, for the last few years, had been using the insurance money for something else, say, his posh car, his suits, his subscription at the leisure centre?
How could I find out? But why should I bother? It wasn’t my case anymore. I might not even get paid for these few long, boring days of surveillance.
I’d lost out again. No case, no money. Only a couple of writs to deliver. It was unlikely I’d get anything new before now and Christmas. I might as well turn shopkeeper.
There might be some domestics after Christmas. It was the season for family rows. More couples split up over Christmas than at any other time of the year. Perhaps it was the way she made the gravy.
The shop door opened and someone came in. I slipped out of my office. Shoplifters were rare in my neck of the woods, but there was a chronic shortage of cash.
It was a schoolboy, about fourteen years old, grubby, dishevelled, rumpled socks, tie undone, shoelaces trailing, Harry Potter shape. I checked his zipper.
‘I want a present for my Mum for Christmas,’ he said, coming straight to the point. ‘Your shop’s called First Class Junk. My Mum always says she wants everything first class.’
‘A discerning lady. But this is not first class new. It’s what it says, junk or second-hand, occasionally antique.’
He had freckles and clear hazel eyes. The eyes reminded me of Oliver Guilbert and my heart contracted. I wished I had not started suspecting the man of anything devious. And he wasn’t even cold yet.
‘Antick will do. My Mum likes old things. She likes my Dad,’ he grinned.
This was obviously a family joke so I smiled and laughed, tried to think what I had that might be pocket-money size. My £6 label could easily come off.
I had an early Edwardian evening bag stored out the back, waiting for its turn in the window. It was beautifully embroidered and decorated with bugle beads and pearls with a silk lining. The clasp was tortoiseshell. I had thought I might use it myself if DI James ever asked me out to something special. It was well worth six pounds, but I felt the boy’s mother might like it.
‘How about this evening bag?’ I said, going to fetch it and removing the price label with a swift flick as I returned.
The boy looked at it. ‘OK. How much?’
‘Two pounds,’ I said.
‘I’ll have that. Can you gift wrap for me in Christmas paper?’
‘I’m sorry. I’m right out of Christmas paper.’ What a nerve. Kids these days expect everything done for them.
The boy was looking at a tray of old military cap badges that I’d put in the window that morning. I’d found them at the bottom of a box of junk I’d bought at a house clearance sale. Sad. The collection of badges had once been somebody’s pride and joy. I had no idea of their value but put six pounds on each until I had time to check them out with a book from the library.
‘I’ll have the Liverpool Regiment Badge, the Officer’s Cap Badge, the Rifle Brigade, and the Cameronians Glengarry Badge,’ the boy said.
I shook my head ruefully. ‘They arc very expensive,’ I said. ‘Way beyond your means. They’re six pounds each.’
‘I can add up,’ he said. He dug into his pocket and brought out a handful of crushed notes. He sorted out five dirty five pound notes and put them on the counter. ‘Twenty-four pounds for the badges, two pounds for the bag. Twenty-six in all. Right? Make it twenty-five the lot.’
‘Twenty-six,’ I said faintly, breaking out into a sweat. He dug out a pound coin and put it on the counter with a surly glance. Served me right. You can’t go by appearances. Probably ran three paper rounds. I’d get my money’s worth out of him somehow. ‘Have you been to the funfair on the front?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Been on Hell’s Revenge?’<
br />
‘Yeah. Tame stuff.’
‘Didn’t look tame to me. Pretty scary. Could you fall out of a seat?’
‘Nargh. You’ve got shoulder straps and a bar in front of you. No way could you fall out.’
‘Does it jerk your head around?’
‘Nargh.’ He was getting tired of the third degree and was edging to the door. ‘Kids’ stuff.’
He was gone. How he managed to walk without tripping over those trailing laces, I’d no idea. I gathered up the money slowly. I’d practically given him the Edwardian bag. I hoped his mother appreciated it.
No one else was coming now. I didn’t feel well so I shut up the shop and drove home. The car responded instantly. She had a nice little engine, nothing noisy or aggressive. I knew vaguely where Brenda Hamilton lived on Sea Avenue, one of the big houses passed the roundabout where Latching went up-market into West Latching.
I needed a hot bath to soak the smell of death out of me. I was stung by the thought of Oliver dying so young. I did not want to die yet. There was too much to do. And how could I leave my dearest James? Some other woman would get him. Though I suppose, in death, he would be always mine. I would be at his side every moment of the day (and night), protecting him.
My legs were aching, and my arms and my head. This was weird. The bath made me feel hotter than ever. Out of curiosity, I took my temperature. The thermometer was the digital kind so it couldn’t make mistakes. My temperature was 102. I’d got the ’flu.
The acute symptoms took a couple of days to work through my system. Every few hours I crawled out of a tumbled, smelly bed for jugs of lemonade. My asthma didn’t like the influenza virus and had a few arguments with it. My cough hacked.
The depression was bad, linked with Oliver’s death no doubt. Nothing cheered me up. I couldn’t even listen to smooth jazz. In time I staggered back to the world, weakened and several pounds lighter.
The phone rang as I washed. It had that feeble Joshua kind of ring. Sweet, apologetic, on the make.
Spin and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 3) Page 7
